uestion may open our eyes to truth of great
practical importance.

It would seem to be a fact that the offspring of a cross between
different races of the same species is as a rule more vigorous than
that of either pure race. Human history seems to show the same
result. The English race is a mixture of Celts, Anglo-Saxons, Danes,
and Normans, with a sprinkling of other races. And a new fusion of a
great number of most diverse strains is rapidly going on in the
newly populated portions of America and in Australia. The mixture
contains thus far almost purely occidental races. It will in future
almost certainly contain oriental also. For the races of India,
Japan, and even China, are no farther from us to-day than the
ancestors of many of our occidental fellow-citizens were a century
ago. Racial prejudices, however strong, weaken rapidly through
intercourse and better acquaintance. One of the grandest and least
perceived results of missionary work is the preparation for this
great fusion.

Many races will undoubtedly go down before the advance of
civilization and have no share in the future. Progress seems to be
limited to the inhabitants of temperate zones; and even here the
weaker may be crowded out before the stronger rather than absorbed
by them. But many whom we now despise may have a larger inheritance
in the future than we. God is clearly showing us that we should not
count any man, much less any nation, common or unclean. And the laws
of evolution give us a firm confidence that no good attained by any
race or civilization will fail to be preserved in the future.

The forms which seem to us at any one time the highest are as a rule
not the ancestors of the race of the future. These highest forms are
too much specialized, and thus fitted to a narrow range of space,
time, and general conditions; when these change they pass away.
Specialization is doubly dangerous when it follows a wrong line. But
whenever it is carried far enough to lead to a one-sided
development, it narrows the possibility of future advance; for it
neglects or crowds out or prevents the development of other powers
essential to life. The mollusk neglected nerve and muscle. But the
scholar may, and often does, cultivate the brain at the expense of
the rest of the body until he and his descendants suffer, and the
family becomes extinct.

The young men of the nobility of wealth, birth, and fashion usually
marry heiresses, if they can. But only in