Darwinism stated by Darwin himself / Characteristic passages from the writings of Charles Darwin

by Charles Darwin

CIVILIZED OUT OF EXISTENCE.

Descent of Man,
page 183.

When Tasmania was first colonized the natives were roughly estimated by some at seven thousand and by others at twenty thousand. Their number was soon greatly reduced, chiefly by fighting with the English and with each other. After the famous hunt by all the colonists, when the remaining natives delivered themselves up to the government, they consisted only of one hundred and twenty individuals, who were in 1832 transported to Flinders Island. This island, situated between Tasmania and Australia, is forty miles long, and from twelve to eighteen miles broad: it seems healthy, and the natives were well treated. Nevertheless, they suffered greatly in health. In 1834 they consisted (Bonwick, p. 250) of forty-seven adult males, forty-eight adult females, and sixteen children, or in all of one hundred and eleven souls. In 1835 only one hundred were left. As they continued rapidly to decrease, and as they themselves thought that they should not perish so quickly elsewhere, they were removed in 1847 to Oyster Cove in the southern part of Tasmania. They then consisted (December 20, 1847) of fourteen men, twenty-two women, and ten children. But the change of site did no good. Disease and death still pursued them, and in 1864 one man (who died in 1869) and three elderly women alone survived. The infertility of the women is even a more remarkable fact than the liability of all to ill-health and death. At the time when only nine women were left at Oyster Cove, they told Mr. Bonwick (p. 386), that only two had ever borne children: and these two had together produced only three children!

With respect to the cause of this extraordinary state of things, Dr. Story remarks that death followed the attempts to civilize the natives. “If left to themselves to roam as they were wont and undisturbed, they would have reared more children, and there would have been less mortality.” Another careful observer of the natives, Mr. Davis, remarks: “The births have been few and the deaths numerous. This may have been in a great measure owing to their change of living and food; but more so to their banishment from the mainland of Van Diemen’s Land, and consequent depression of spirits” (Bonwick, pp. 388, 390).

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Page 191.

Although the gradual decrease and ultimate extinction of the races of man is a highly complex problem, depending on many causes which differ in different places and at different times, it is the same problem as that presented by the extinction of one of the higher animals—of the fossil horse, for instance, which disappeared from South America, soon afterward to be replaced, within the same districts, by countless troops of the Spanish horse. The New-Zealander seems conscious of this parallelism, for he compares his future fate with that of the native rat, now almost exterminated by the European rat. Though the difficulty is great to our imagination, and really great, if we wish to ascertain the precise causes and their manner of action, it ought not to be so to our reason, as long as we keep steadily in mind that the increase of each species and each race is constantly checked in various ways; so that, if any new check, even a slight one, be superadded, the race will surely decrease in number; and decreasing numbers will sooner or later lead to extinction; the end, in most cases, being promptly determined by the inroads of conquering tribes.

XI.
SEXUAL SELECTION AS AN AGENCY TO ACCOUNT FOR THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE RACES OF MAN.

Descent of Man,
page 198.

We have thus far been baffled in all our attempts to account for the differences between the races of man; but there remains one important agency, namely, sexual selection, which appears to have acted powerfully on man, as on many other animals. I do not intend to assert that sexual selection will account for all the differences between the races. An unexplained residuum is left, about which we can only say, in our ignorance, that as individuals are continually born with, for instance, heads a little rounder or narrower, and with noses a little longer or shorter, such slight differences might become fixed and uniform, if the unknown agencies which induced them were to act in a more constant manner, aided by long-continued intercrossing. Such variations come under the provisional class, alluded to in our second chapter, which for the want of a better term are often called spontaneous. Nor do I pretend that the effects of sexual selection can be indicated with scientific precision; but it can be shown that it would be an inexplicable fact if man had not been modified by this agency, which appears to have acted powerfully on innumerable animals. It can further be shown that the differences between the races of man, as in color, hairiness, form of features, etc., are of a kind which might have been expected to come under the influence of sexual selection.