The New Orleans crescent., 1869-01-31
SUNDAY MORNING, JANUARY 81, 1859.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND
INCREASE OF THE RACE.

If we suppose human life to be quantita-
tive and persistent force we must necessar-
lily infer that reproduction of the species is
at the expense of the individual And it is
only restating the proposition in a different
form to say that the growth of the individual
IA at the expense of the species. Hence,
upon this theory, personal Immortality in the
same human form is absolutely incompatible
, with procreation of the human race And
as a fact in the vital history of all organic
! beings, there is no generation without degen-
Grafton. The one would seem as necessary to
: the other as repulsion is necessary to propul-
: sion. So, from generation to generation, pos
terity deyour ancestry. So, from age to age,
the old is rejected, apparently, to make room
s for the new, which is invariably convicted,
npon analysis, of being a lying upstart
g and pretender, inasmuch as it is no more
= than the transmutation of the old-the dead
: warmed over, so to speak, and dressed up
Z in strange clothes.
Herbert Spencer takes the theory here indi-
: Gated as the basis of his philosophical dis
QUESTIONS on biology. But attending the
application of the theory there is fundamen-
tai difficulty which he does not attempt to
-solve and which we believe to be invincible
Admit, as an abstract proposition, that life is
"a quantitative force weakened in specific
(. forms in proportion as it is subdivided, yet
we must find some way for absolutely measur-
ing its quantity, and for absolutely defining
:, all the conditions of its manifestation, before
l.. we can assume that accelerated multiplica-
tion of the species must inevitably be attended
by deterioration of the individual There is
no perceptible way of doing either. In all
.mensuration and in all calculation, there must
be a unit to begin with Here we have none.
T. 1t is commonly supposed that the human
race spread over the globe, if not from one,
from not more than four or five primordial
z y'centers. Is it to be supposed that the quanti-
tative vitality of the race was concentrated in
few individuals at these centers, and was
+ subsequently diffused in the population of the
! earth? If SO, our first ancestors must have
4 been mountainous in stature Titans in bodily
strength, and demigods in intellect, and from
that time downward the individual man
; should have constantly diminished in size and
in physical and intellectual powers as the
generic man increased in number. But such
deductions are not supported by what is
historically known of the multiplication and
progress of the race. We must, therefore,
abandon the supposition as untenable, and
must assume, in its place, that the quantita-
tive vitality of the race extended elementally,
beyond the organisms of its original pro-
Dr&, al.
precise limits, under what absolute laws of
organic manifestation and functional activity?
No exact and exhaustive answer has been
given to these questions and none, con-
ceivably, can be given. So, there is no un-
questionable ground ON which to lay down
the conditions governing either the maximum
of development in the individual or the maxi
mum of multiplication in the race.
Yet it is quite true that, as a general rule,
subject to uncertain qualifications, there is
least multiplicity of reproduction where there
is most of individual growth and perfection.
A fox, according to an old fable, once scoffed
at honess for bearing but one whelp
| whereupon the leonine mother complacently
replied: " Only one, but lion" This was a
sufficient and triumphant answer. But it
] would not be safe to infer that where
there is paucity of offspring or re-
tarded or arrested increase of population,
. quality invariably makes up for numerical
deficiency. For we would have to accept,
with such an inference, variety of very
/; absurd and unwelcome conclusions. The
North American Indians are vastly less pro-
lihc than the white population on the same
continent Yet we are not prepared to admit
their qualitative superiority. The negroes of
Central Africa multiply so slowly there in their
aboriginal home, where they have had, for
countless ages, full swing for the develop
ment of the extraordinary capacities for civili-
zation which political orthodoxy ascribes to