Now no such balance can be struck by the unaided acts of the men of the lower race. Without the co-operation of the women of the upper race these men are helpless to scale the high wall, or to make the slightest breach in it. The law, public opinion, the men of the upper race, render such co-operation very difficult, well-nigh impossible, did there exist any disposition on the part of the women of the upper race to give aid and comfort for such a purpose to the men of the lower race. But as a matter of fact, and speaking broadly, there exists no such disposition. The law of sexual selection does not operate under the circumstances to make the men of the lower race sufficiently attractive to the women of the upper race. It is possible that in a state of nature, and under other circumstances, the case might be different. But under present conditions the sexual gravitation of the women of the upper world toward the men of the lower world may be set down as infinitesimally small, practically a negligible quantity. Everything in the state, in society, in deep-rooted racial prejudices, in the vastly inferior social and economic standing of the lower race and the ineffaceable dishonor which attaches to such unions in the public mind, together with the actual peril to life which attends them, all combine to discourage, to destroy almost any inclination in that direction on the part of the women of the upper race.
Now, while this is true, speaking broadly, it is not altogether so. For in scattered individual cases, in spite of the difficulties and dangers, the law of sexual selection has been known to operate between those two worlds. A few women of the upper world, on the right side of the high wall have been drawn to a few men in the lower world, on the wrong side of that wall. By the connivance, or co-operation of such women the men of their choice have climbed into the upper world, climbed into it over the high wall by means that were secret and ways that were dark. As one swallow does not, however, make summer, neither can these scattered instances, few and far between, be cited to establish any general affinity between the women of the upper race and the men of the lower race. On examination they will be seen to be exceptions, which only prove the rule of a want of sexual affinity between them under existing conditions at least. Practically a well-nigh impassable gulf, to change the figure, separates the men of the lower world from the women of the upper one. The men as a class can not bridge that gulf, and the women as a class have no desire to do so. This, then, is the actual situation: the men of the upper world enjoy practically exclusive possession of the women of that world, while the men of the lower world do not enjoy exclusive possession of the women of their world, but share this possession with the men of the upper world.