large extent, making a great difference between the situation of
the nobility and the peasants and slaves. Individuals born into a
certain group must live and die within that group. Hence the people
were essentially peaceable, quiet, and not actively progressive. But
we find that the social life, in spite of the prominence of the priest
and the nobility, was not necessarily burdensome. Docile and passive
in nature, they were ready to accept what appeared to them a
well-ordered fate. If food, clothing, and shelter be furnished, and
other desires remain undeveloped, and life made easy, what occasion was
there for them to be moved by nobler aspirations? Without higher
ideals, awakened ambition, and the multiplication of new desires, there
was no hope of progress. The people seemed to possess considerable
nobility of character, and were happy, peaceful, and well disposed
toward one another, even though non-progressive conditions gave
evidence that they had probably reached the terminal bud of progress of
their branch of the human race.

As to what would have been the outcome of this civilization had not the
ruthless hand of the Spaniard destroyed it, is a matter of conjecture.
How interesting it would have been if these people could have remained
unmolested for 400 years as an example of progress or retardation of a
race. Students then could, through observation, have learned a great
lesson concerning the development of the human race. Is it possible
when a branch of the human race has only so much potential power based
upon hereditary development, upon attitude toward life, and upon
influence of environmental conditions, that after working out its
normal existence it grows old and decays and dies, just as even the
sturdy oak has its normal life {190} and decay? At any rate, it seems
that the history of the human race repeats itself over and over again
with thousands of examples of this kind. When races become highly
specialized along certain lines and are unadaptable along other lines,
changes in climate, soil, food supply, or conflict with other races
cause them to perish.

If we admit this to be the universal fate of tribes and races, there is
one condition in which the normal life of the race can be prolonged,
and that is by contact with other races which bring in new elements,
and make new accommodations, not only through biological heredity, but
through social heredity which causes a new lease of life to t