the concentration of great multitudes in cities and narrow districts. We march rapidly towards a state of society in which a few great capitalists-a vast multitude of dependent labourers— and an idle class living on fixed revenues derived in various ways from the income of the rest-will form the whole population of our non-agricultural districts; perhaps, in the course of time, of the agricultural also. Every fresh discovery of science which tends to facilitate production or communication, tends likewise to this result. This is well known and observed on the continent as well as among ourselves; there is scarcely an Economist of the modern school, who does not think it necessary to lift up his voice against the pernicious effects of the modern system of industry on our social institutions; moralists rail at it, governments (though from different motives) do their utmost to check and disturb it; and yet it is as impossible to prevent it as to stop the growth of cities, or the construction of railroads. Such being the case, it becomes worth our while to make use of the light which statistical investigation throws on the actual condition of man, wherever this system is developing itself with the greatest energy. What traces do we find of that physical and moral degradation which, if the representations of such reasoners be true, ought to follow the spread of the unnatural domination of capital ? France, at least, will furnish no very favourable testimony to their views. It will be seen that in that country, wherever capital is rapidly accumulating, and population increasing along with it, there, intelligence appears to spread; the physical condition of humanity is improved; people are better circumstanced in food and lodging, in stature, strength, and (except in very crowded localities) in length of life. The same enquiry will doubtless show the real evils which do attend on such a state of society; but these are not the worst which can befall humanity; and they are such as the well-directed efforts of the enlightened classes may eventually do much towards removing. Petty crime and pauperism are the two great plagues which appear to spread with the progress of industry; the one may be combated with the assistance of religion and improved education; the other, by a firmer and more definite line of conduct on the part of govern

ments.

But a more general and more important deduction still remains; that national character, that bundle of tendencies and habits which make up the mind of a people, whether of a country or province,—is far more determined by causes which we cannot trace, and far less influenced by those which we can trace, than statistical philosophers readily allow. There is a strength in hereditary vices and virtues which seems proof, at least through

many generations, against the influence which changes of external circumstances may produce. Nothing so easily acquired by man in general as the art of adapting his own natural or acquired tendencies to the necessities of his situation;—nothing so difficult as to get rid of them altogether. The boatman of the American lakes is still a Frenchman to the core; and the lionhunter of the Cape still a Dutchman; notwithstanding the strange difference between their present habits, and those of their European ancestors. Great, no doubt, are the influences of climate, society, and instruction; yet these, as M. Quételet truly observes, disappear in part before more energetic influences;' namely, the hereditary tendencies and faculties of different races of men, in respect of morals, no less than intellect. And the authority of this writer is deserving of more attention, because no one has laboured harder, by trying every possible experiment with cyphers and numbers, by comparing every possible series of moral phenomena;-to extract the quintessence of statistical knowledgeto discover what he himself calls the mean, or average man; the common measure of all qualities discoverable by statistics. And one circumstance, which neither he nor others, in as far as we are aware, have remarked, deserves particular attention from those who study the philosophy of society. It is this: that the peculiarities which mark different races of men (whether physical, such as the supposed celebral conformation of different races, or merely arising from habit and education, such as differences of dialect), have a tendency to grow stronger instead of weaker in periods of peace and orderly habits; by the wearing out of the effect produced by the intermixture of races in periods of change and migration.

Whenever a race has become crossed by the introduction of a fresh family-provided the number of the strangers is less than that of the original inhabitants, and provided that intermarriage takes place freely between the two-it is evident that the effect of the new importation will be most visible in the generations immediately following the intermixture. The first offspring of intermarriages will partake of the characteristics of both races. But a certain number of these, in the next generation, will mingle anew with the original race; and thus produce an offspring having one-fourth only of the blood of the settlers. And thus in every successive generation, the imported blood will become spread as it were over a wider surface in feebler proportions; until, for all perceptible effects, it is fairly worn out, and the original stock predominates altogether.

This is curiously illustrated by Humbold's account of the mixed races in New Spain; where accurate observation of the

proportion of bloods in an individual of impure descent is, or was until lately, a matter of some importance; inasmuch as his civil rights, as well as his position in society, might depend on the result. According to that writer, when the offspring of a black and a white (a mulatto) intermarries with a white, the offspring is termed a quarteroon. The union of a quarteroon and a white produces a quinteroon, having one-eighth of black, and seveneighths of white blood. The child of a quinteroon and a white is regarded as white himself. Thus the impure admixture is obliterated—the blood has run clear in four generations. But this effect is produced much sooner, where the admixture is of the less degrading blood of the Indians. The child of a mestizo and a white (second generation from the admixture) is considered as almost white.*

If, therefore, in a country like Mexico, there were a perfectly free intermixture of colours (which, of course, is far from being the case), it is plain that all the impure races would gradually approximate more and more to the character of the most numerous pure race (the Indian); until all perceptible distinction was lost. And, should no fresh immigration alter the proportion, such will eventually be the result, however great the obstacles which pride of colour may oppose to its consummation; although many centuries must first elapse.

Sufficient account has not been taken of this great law of society-obvious as it is-by writers who have descanted on the variety of races at present existing in Europe. They seem for the most part to assume that these races are becoming more and more intermingled-whereas it is certain, that, except in those rare instances where a supply of foreign blood is kept up by immigration, they are becoming less so. During the long period of stationary habits which has followed the great movements of nations at the fall of the Roman Empire, the streams have been constantly running themselves clear. The effect of the Germanic and Gothic invasions of the West, on the physical constitution of its inhabitants, must have been obliterated long ago-in fact, it could never have been very extensive. The five or six thousand Franks of Clovis-the nation' of 60,000 Burgundians-must soon have amalgamated, notwithstanding their pride of birth, with the millions of provincials among whom they were established. It was not the importation of barbarian blood, but the uncivilizing effect of those invasions, which changed at that pe

*

riod the face of Europe. Nations of conquerors, more numerous than these, are more gradually wasting away by the same inevitable process. The blood of the Moors is wearing out in Spain that of the Sclavonians in North Germany. We have no doubt that the ancient Hellenic type re-appears, after centuries of confusion, in the mountainers and islanders of Modern Greece the people of the plains, it is known, are chiefly of Sclavonian descent. We believe also that Tiber has become purified from the temporary mixture of Orontes. The conquests and slavery of the empire introduced for a time a mingled race into Rome but for many centuries the ancient capital of the world has offered no temptation to immigrants, except in small numbers, to repair the annual waste occasioned by its unhealthy climate; and it is probable, therefore, that the citizens of Rome, at the present day, are more truly the representatives of the ancient Quirites, than her inhabitants in the time of the Antonines.

What is true of kingdoms is equally true of provinces: except in flourishing cities, and on great lines of commercial communication, the populations of every district tend rather to separation than to cohesion; and hence, no doubt, arises that inveteracy of usages, habits, dialects, and character, which superficial observers remark with surprise, in the midst of the apparent uniformity produced by civilisation. Let us apply these doctrines to illustrate the very remarkable difference, in point of mental cultivation and morality, which exists between the northern and southern parts of France;-countries united for centuries by the same laws, language, and religion. M. Quételet, in a curious dissertation on this subject, in a work already cited, divides the races now inhabiting France and the Low Countries into three different groups;-the Germans-to whom he attributes a decided tendency to make free, both with the persons and property of their neighbours-in the North and East; the Pelagian tribes (meaning probably the Aquitanians and Ligurians) along the Mediterranean, among which crimes against persons predominate; the Celts proper, in the centre and west, perhaps the least energetic, but certainly the most moral race

* See on this subject the observations of Guizot, in the first volume of his lectures on French History, p. 297.-One of those truly magnificent passages, in which the student recognises at once the fruit of long study and innumerable observations thrown into one picture, equally just and comprehensive; the history of centuries summed up in a page, with a coup d'œil almost equal to that of Gibbon, and with a greater depth of philosophy.

of the three. This division seems to us not quite historically accurate; but we cite it only as an instance of the application of ethnographical science to the study of the phenomena of modern society; which, we are convinced, must become far more general as those phenomena are more carefully investigated.

A line drawn across the kingdom from Nantes to Mezières (or nearly to the point where the Prussian and Belgian fronters intersect) will have, on the north, the greatest portion of thickly peopled departments of France. It is observable, that the same line marks the northern boundary of the wine-growing division of the kingdom. But in examining its moral and intellectual statistics, we are soon induced to draw this line in a somewhat different direction. That adopted by M. Charles Dupin (which runs from north-west to south-east, having Britanny to the south, and including Burgundy and Franche Comté to the north) seems to divide two nations. 'On serait tenté de croire,' says M. d'Angeville, 'que deux populations sont venues se heurter 'sur la ligne qui joindrait le port de S. Malo à la ville de Ge'nève.' The slightest inspection of his maps will show the truth of the observation. This line will divide the agricultural from the manufacturing and commercial parts of the country with singular exactness (Maps 3, 4). It will have to the northeast almost all the departments in which the stature of the inhabitants exceeds the average-to the south-west, nearly all in which it falls short of it (Map 5): It will separate almost as accurately the better from the worse-fed population (Map 9); the well from the ill-educated (Map 9); the well from the ill-lodged (Map 10). Military service is least popular in the south, and becomes more and more so as we approach the northern and north-eastern frontiers ;-thus verifying, almost to the letter, the ancient remark of Strabo respecting the Gauls:- deì è oi προσβορώτεροι καὶ παρωκεανίται μαχιμώτεροι. Political zeal, as indicated by the proportion of electors who exercise their franchise, will be found strongest to the south of this line ;-religious zeal also, although with some marked exceptions. The unpopularity and inferior efficacy of the laws-indicated by the proportion of acquittals to convictions, the difficulty of levying taxes, and the number of refractory conscripts-are also found to predominate greatly on the same side of the dividing limit.

It appears plainly, from these results, how far in arrear the south of France remains in most of those particulars which constitute external civilisation. Many different causes have been assigned for this phenomenon; and all of them may in some degree have contributed towards it. The south of France, taken generally, has fewer navigable rivers, and less facility of land