we see that the Indo-Germanic family has at pres ent the greatest power on earth. It occupies the highest rank yet attained by human civilization, not only in intellectual respects, but also in physi cal life. Everywhere nature seems to strive after that type of the human form which it has finally attained in the Indo-Germanic peoples, and which is everywhere developed in those places where the continued enjoyment of prosperity has permitted the race to develop itself, as in Polynesia and in some African and some American regions.
The European type is not the original type of mankind, from which the less favorable forms have degenerated; neither is it a type confined to one race and beyond the reach of others: it is rather the last degree of human physical development, which is gained only by gradual cultivation and the favor of all kinds of circumstances. It may be attained by any race which has, in consequence of favorable circumstances, an opportunity to cultivate itself, as is shown by the development of the Mongolian race in Turkey, the Caucasus, and Hungary. The type may be lost by long continued wildness and subversion. The oppressed Irish of some districts are a sad illustration of this fact.
Physical, Lae&dual, and Moral also the Indo-Germanic race at present occupies the highest rank. It shows what humanity can accomplish intellectually and morally. Here we must note the most remarkable lesson taught by anthropology: the entire develop ment of mankind, even to its highest degree, depends immediately on the natural quality of the soil (comp. p. 176). It was the natural condition of the soil which caused the originally homogeneous race to separate and to migrate to regions which influenced it differently.
The human race everywhere exhibits a uniform anatomical foundation, which it owes to its uniform development from lower animal conditions: this anatomical foundation is the nervous system, which is wonderfully developed in man as compared with the lower animals. All human devel opment has resulted from the influence exerted upon it by dissimilar parts of our planet.
The entrance of man, thus constituted, into the world, constructed as it is, determined his physical and intellectual development and his subse quent destiny; and this development and this destiny could not have been otherwise than what they are, for they are the result of a natural necessity.
It was of course immaterial whether this or that horde went here or there: a certain development and a certain fate awaited them. The Indo-Ger man races would have been developed even though the ancestors of the Mongolians or of the Oceanians had migrated into Western Asia and into Europe. In that case these would have become what the ancestors of the Indo-Germans were; and the latter, had they wandered to Northern Asia, would as certainly have become Mongolians.
But still more. As the development of man from a low animal type up to human dignity depends solely on the material influence of physical nature, so we see that at the very creation of the world the necessity for human development, and for human development such as we have it, was established. It may seem exaggeration, but it is perfectly true to say that at the creation of the world all the historic destinies of this small factor, Man, were established in all details and for all futurity. But the follow ing is still more noteworthy: Man has by the aid of nature risen first to physical power, and by this to intellectual might. But this is not his highest end; his intellectual abilities must, and will, conduct him to moral liberty.
These three steps of development—the physical, the intellectual, and the moral—cannot be separated: as the higher always includes the lower, so the lower contains from its beginning the germs of the higher. Moral liberty, which in its growing power will bring blessing to all people, although apparently so distinct from physical nature, results by stern necessity from natural development; and thus we are compelled to ac knowledge a moral law in a world where the final and highest end of natural being is MORALITY.