1. The white race, as represented by Europeans and their American descendants, thanks to their intelligence and habitual bravery, skill, and the confidence they can place in each other, will sustain the struggle. 2. The negroes also will prevail, on account of their physical vigor, power to resist malaria and to flourish in tropical regions, where the white race rapidly deteriorates. 3. The yellow race, represented principally by the Chinese, will maintain their place, since they have great vigor of stock, a capacity to exist on small resources, and alone seem sufficiently intelligent and robust to struggle in all latitudes with both the other races.
The last man, then, is to be a white man, a negro and a Chinaman. But de Candolle seems to think that the negro may, after all, be the last man of this triumvirate. For the white man, occupying scattered islands in the colder regions, and deprived of fuel, might be exterminated by the more or less periodical invasions of ice from polar regions, while the black man could continue to subsist with little effort on the pulp of tropical melons.
Such is a brief outline of the curious speculations of this eminent savant. Of their value as science or prophecy, of their correspondence with Biblical views of the future of human history, let the reader make his own judgment. The writer simply asks attention to a few obvious suggestions.
1. It is a very significant fact that a man of recognized eminence as a scientist should, in a glance at the probable future of mankind, give so important a place to the despised African. It is a fact that more than justifies all the deep interest of the Christian and the philanthropist in that unfortunate race. Christians are not in any danger of giving undue attention to the claims of the negro upon their prayers and benefactions.
2. The conclusions of science, that the African race is fitted to persist among the latest inhabitants of the earth, are confirmed by the evidence of facts. The census of 1880 produced two genuine surprises. First, the fact that the largest relative increase of population in the United States during the last decade was in the former slave States. Second, that this result was due to the fact that while the increase of the whites of those States was some two per cent. below the average for the whole country, the increase of the blacks was more than three per cent. above that average.