DESTINY OF RACES. 317 the progress of time; some even of the New World are now no more to be traced, and some others are rapidly decaying in our own age and generation. The Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Egyptians, and the widely-spread Allophylian tribes of Europe, exist only in the history of antiquity; the Mammoth and the Megatherium have left no trace in the course only of some decades past; while the Mohawk, the Iroquois, the Red Indian, and the Carribbean and the Papuan tribes, are being numbered in our own days with the things that were. The resistance to withstand the strength of civilisation from the North American Indians has no doubt been most protracted, but their ultimate extinction is a matter of certainty, and has most confidently been pronounced by a late observer* of great authority and prescience:- "These are great evils; and it must be added that they appear to be irremediable. I believe that the Indian nations of North America are doomed to perish; and that whenever the European shall be established on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, that race of men will be no more. The Indian had only the two alternatives of war and civilisation; in * M. de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. other words, they must either have destroyed the Europeans, or become their equals....From whichever side we contemplate the destinies of the aborigines of North America, their calamities appear to be irremediable: if they continue barbarous, they are forced to retire; if they attempt to civilise their manners, the contact of a more civilised community subjects them to oppression and destitution." Facts like these naturally suggested reflections and references to a mind like Dr. Arnold's. He had read deeply in history; but as the greatest minds seem capable of achieving the greatest wonders, but yet fail in discerning rightly the trifling and the obvious, he missed the most superficial observation of the origin and the history of the two civilisations that he elaborately meditated upon, and took it into his mind that a new phase of civilisation would necessarily require the element of a new race rising into enlightenment and importance. With this premise in his mind, he stood up to examine the different portions of the globe, to see whether there was any new race discovered, with the element of a stern nationality and the tendency of a rise; but travellers from every quarter brought to him the despairing informa WHERE ARNOLD FAILED. 319 tion that every part of the earth had been searched, and that all the newly found races were pitiably weak, and have the alternative of being in time either totally extinguished or absorbed into the European religion, manners, language, and institutions, without any capacity to originate, naturalise, or improve. There he stopped, and darted upon the theory of Brahminism, that we are living in the latest stage of civilisationin the Kali Yog, if we speak in the language of the Indian Brahmin,—though he with characteristic cunning attempts his makeshift from unworthy despondency, by fixing for his Yog a period of 432,000 years, out of which he calculates only 5,000 years as already elapsed; thus making the commencement of his last age surprisingly approximating with the Mosaic date of creation. If in these 5,000 years three civilisations-the Hindoo, Greek, and modern European-have run their course, surely he does not calculate, though he may profess it to the simpleton world, that with 427,000 years that have yet to elapse, mankind will not have to behold yet mightier changes and higher wonders than in the past three golden ages. Much less, then, should an European doctor despond in his prospects of the future, which the very conception of the progress of the present forbids. We may doubt the nearness of our glorious consummation; but when the tendency of our course has been made clear to us; when the signs of the times have been read and truly interpreted, when progress has been found compatible with age and the human species, when one order has the power to produce another of mightier consequences, and elements amalgamate to give rise to a superior mixture, and when exhaustion has been unerringly discovered to be perfectly incompatible with Nature and her workings; we may then assuredly hope, under conditions as yet wholly recondite, or but partially discerned, for a time when a nobler society shall spring up, and a nobler order of thought adorn, and more perfect achievements distinguish, the advanced age of the world, peopled only by "Cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds And flow of too much happiness.” CHAPTER XII. THE FUTURE OF INDIA AND THE EAST DR. ARNOLD's view of History not wholly desponding.-Guizot's just discernment of History.-The grounds of Dr. Arnold's theory.-His opponents.-Mr. Greg in England, and the Author of "Lectures on Man" in America.-Their advocacy of Negro civilisation.—Their errors not essentially differing from Dr. Arnold.-Exposed on an historical survey. -Twofold tendency of Arabian Civilisation.-Greek, Roman, and Modern European Civilisation Arian in origin.Celts and Teutons of Europe.-Their stream of Emigration from Asia.-Arians never found as a fishing or hunting tribe.-Distinction between Arabian or Mogul progress and that of the Arian nations.-Freedom only enjoyed by the Arians. A glorious page always to be found in the history of the Arian nations.-Capability of degeneracy among the Arians. The superior prerogative of the Arians even in the lowest state of civilisation.-Supposed influence of the climate insufficient to account for the intellectual and moral differences among races.-Influences of Government and religion also insufficient on this score. Individual exceptions always to be found among the Arian tribes and Negro races.-Third ground of our theory.-The origin of all differences amongst the Arians and other races, especially the Negro, to be traced in the unfathomable plan of Providence. -Civilisation has been running Westward during the last three thousand years.-It is now in the extreme West of the |