536 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
have grown degenerate. The negroes, for example, are a tall and robust race. On the contrary, every race that has been exposed to the disease is resistant to it precisely in proportion to the dura- tion and severity of its past sufferings; and this, apparently, is the sole effect that malaria has had on any race. The same is true of every other disease and every other adverse condition to which any race is subjected. Thus Englishmen, who have suffered much from consumption, are more resistant to it than negroes, who have suffered less, and much more resistant than Polynesians, who have had no previous experience of the disease and are exter- minated when it is introduced to their islands. Extreme cold has not rendered degenerate the Eskimos, nor extreme heat the Arabs ; they have merely been rendered, by the survival of the fit, resistant to heat or cold respectively. Many races have been afflicted by alcohol for thousands of years. Some men are natur- ally more susceptible to the charm of alcohol than others. These, because they are more tempted, drink, on the whole, to greater excess, and thus are weeded out to a greater extent. As a conse- quence, every race is temperate precisely in proportion to its past experience of alcohol. Thus west-African savages, who have long possessed unlimited supplies of palm toddy, the Jews, and the inhabitants of the vine countries of the south of Europe are more temperate than north-Europeans, and infinitely more tem- perate than most savages. What is true of alcohol is true also of opium. Thus the natives of India, who have long used the drug, are very temperate; the Chinese, who have used it for two centuries, are less temperate; whereas Burmans, Australians, and Polynesians, who have only lately made its acquaintance, are extremely intemperate. City life, particularly slum life, is injuri- ous to the individual. Each succeeding generation of slum- dwellers presents a very debilitated and puny appearance, and the mortality is immense. But races that have been most sub- jected to the influences of city life the Chinese, for example are in no way degenerate. The Chinese are a particularly fine race of people.
- On the other hand, as is well known, if a race is placed under
conditions highly beneficial to its individuals, so that the elimina-
