s of centralization,
communication, and culture, call for more brains and mental stamina
than the average of our race possess. We are in crying want for a
greater fund of ability in all stations of life; for neither the
classes of statesmen, philosophers, artisans, nor laborers are up to
the modern complexity of their several professions. An extended
civilization like ours comprises more interests than the ordinary
statesmen or philosophers of our present race are capable of dealing
with, and it exacts more intelligent work than our ordinary artisans
and laborers are capable of performing. Our race is overweighted, and
appears likely to be drudged into degeneracy by demands that exceed
its powers....

When the severity of the struggle for existence is not too great for
the powers of the race, its action is healthy and conservative;
otherwise it is deadly, just as we may see exemplified in the scanty,
wretched vegetation that leads a precarious existence near the summer
snow line of the Alps, and disappears altogether a little higher up.
We want as much backbone as we can get, to bear the racket to which we
are henceforth to be exposed, and as good brains as possible to
contrive machinery, for modern life to work more smoothly than at
present. We can in some degree raise the nature of man to a level with
the new conditions imposed upon his existence; and we can also in some
degree modify the conditions to suit his nature. It is clearly right
that both these powers should be exerted, with the view of bringing
his nature and the conditions of his existence into as close harmony
as possible.

In proportion as the world becomes filled with mankind, the relations
of society necessarily increase in complexity, and the nomadic
disposition found in most barbarians becomes unsuitable to the novel
conditions. There is a most unusual unanimity in respect to the causes
of incapacity of savages for civilization, among writers on those
hunting and migratory nations who are brought into contact with
advancing colonization, and perish, as they invariably do, by the
contact. They tell us that the labor of such men is neither constant
nor steady; that the love of a wandering, independent life prevents
their settling anywhere to work, except for a short time, when urged
by want and encouraged by kind treatment. Meadows says that the
Chinese call the barbarous races on their borders by a phrase which
means "hither and thither," "not fixe