Biological analogies in historyRoosevelt, Theodore
Philosophy
Biological analogies in history
Roosevelt, Theodore
History -- Philosophy
of the invaders have dwindled and died out; or, as the blood is mixed
with the ancient blood, has there been a change, part reversion and
part assimilation, to the ancient type in its old surroundings? Do tint
of skin, eyes and hair, shape of skull, and stature, change in the
new environment, so as to be like those of the older people who dwelt
in this environment? Do the intrusive races, without change of blood,
tend under the pressure of their new surroundings to change in type
so as to resemble the ancient people of the land? Or, as the strains
mingled, has the new strain dwindled and vanished, from causes as yet
obscure? Has the blood of the Lombard practically disappeared from
Italy, and of the Visigoth from Spain, or does it still flow in large
populations where the old physical type has once more become dominant?
Here in England, the long-skulled men of the long barrows, the
short-skulled men of the round barrows, have they blended, or has one
or the other type actually died out; or are they merged in some older
race which they seemingly supplanted, or have they adopted the tongue
and civilization of some later race which seemingly destroyed them?
We cannot say. We do not know which of the widely different stocks
now speaking Aryan tongues represents in physical characteristics the
ancient Aryan type, nor where the type originated, nor how or why it
imposed its language on other types, nor how much or how little mixture
of blood accompanied the change of tongue.
The phenomena of national growth and decay, both those which can and
those which cannot be explained, have been peculiarly in evidence
during the four centuries that have gone by since the discovery of
America and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. These have been the
four centuries of by far the most intense and constantly accelerating
rapidity of movement and development that the world has yet seen. The
movement has covered all the fields of human activity. It has witnessed
an altogether unexampled spread of civilized mankind over the world, as
well as an altogether unexampled advance in man’s dominion over nature;
and this together with a literary and artistic activity to be matched
in but one previous epoch. This period of extension and development
has been that of one race, the so-called white race, or, to speak more
accurately, the group of peoples living in Europe, who undoubtedly have
a certain kinship of blood, who profess the Christian religion, and
trace back their culture to Greece and Rome.
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