414 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., r, 1899
keeps up with a machine geared so high that the subject work- man loses one stroke in six.
Another expression of coordination is found in that pro- gressive vigor and viability vaguely connoted by the term con- st it ut ion. The practitioner among different races knows that while the primitive man may suffer less than his civilized brother from a slight wound or illness, he possesses little recuperative power and dies of injuries or disorders from which the Caucasian would easily recover ; comparison of the longevity tables of Pom- peii, of Europe early in the century, and of modern actuaries, shows a progressive increase of nearly a decade in the average expectation of life ; and the same story is told in more common- place yet infinitely more emphatic terms by the steady increase in population of the world, an increase wrought chiefly by the two higher races and the two higher culture-grades — especially the Caucasian race, and (during recent decades) the budded en- lightenment of Britain and full-blown enlightenment of America.
In brief, the witnesses of somatic development from race to race, from antiquity to modernity, and from generation to gen- eration are many and in the main consistent ; the skull has risen from the simian type, the skeleton has become more upright and better adjusted to brain-led activities, the muscles have gained and are still gaining in efficiency if not in absolute strength, the faculty for work (or normal exercise of function) is multiplied, the constitution is improved in vigor, life has grown longer and easier, and perfected man is overspreading the world. There are indeed isolated experiences suggesting human degradation, and these are flaunted by those prophets of evil whose lamentations are always loudest and longest continued ; but when all available experiences and records of experience are brought together fairly, only a single general trend can be traced — the trend toward better physique and greater strength. The forecast for the future based on the sum of human experience is bright ; for the current of human progress wells upward as the river flows down
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