The main conclusion of the work is that the Negro race in America is deteriorating physically and morally in such manner as to point to ulterior extinction, and that this decline is due to "race traits" rather than to conditions and circumstances of life. Not only do we find this conclusion expressly set forth in connection with every chapter, but it is also easily discernible in foot notes and quotations, in the general drift of cited references, and between the lines. In order to give the clearest possible statement of the author's position his own words will be used. "The conditions of life therefore ... would seem to be of less importance than race and heredity."[2] "It is not the _conditions of life_ but in _the race traits and tendencies_ that we find the causes of the excessive mortality."[3] "For the root of the evil lies in the fact of an immense amount of immorality, which is a race trait."[4] "A combination of these traits and tendencies must in the end cause the extinction of the race."[5] "It is not in the conditions of life but in race and heredity that we find the explanation."[6] "The mixture of the African with the white race has been shown to have seriously affected the longevity of the former and left as a heritage to future generations the poison of scrofula, tuberculosis, and most of all, of syphilis."[7] If the reader will keep constantly in mind the key suggested by these quotations, he will peruse the book itself as well as this review with greater ease and facility. CHAPTER I. _Subject._ Population. _Gist._ "For some generations the colored element may continue to make decennial gains, but it is very probable that the next thirty years will be the last to show total gains, and then the decrease will be slow but sure until final disappearance."[8] I have taken this quotation from another work by the same author as it represents more clearly than any other condensed statement the substance of the present chapter. This proposition is a most important one, and therefore its establishment needs to be inquired into with the greatest particularity. If a race does not possess the requisite physical stamina, it is impossible for it to maintain a high degree of moral and intellectual culture or compete with its more vigorous rivals in the race of civilization. "All the elements of society are conserved in its physical basis, the social population."[9] Since the author relies mainly upon the eleventh census for facts to establish his conclusion, and since the accuracy of this census is widely controverted, we may fairly call upon him to prove his document before it can be admitted in evidence.