mcgee] THE TREND OF HUMAN PROGRESS 447
vidual units of humanity ; during each decade the relative increase in both directions is most rapid among enlightened citizens and decidedly slower among civilization's subjects, while the barbari- ans gain little if any and the savages lose ; during each decade the gain of the higher grades and the loss of the lower may be traced partly to the longer life of the better-cultured, partly to the advance of lower people into the higher grades ; and during each decade average viability and average intelligence, as well as average population, are increased — and when the decades are com- pared, the increase is found to be cumulative, so far as the figures are trustworthy.
So when human experience concerning human blood and human culture is synthesized, and when the sum is analyzed into its simplest elements, a single trend is seen : The blood of the races is blending slowly, yet with steadily increasing rapidity, while the culture of the world is blending still more rapidly than the blood ; the blood-blending may be sometimes injurious, though it is more frequently beneficial, while the culture-blending is rarely followed by deterioration of the better, commonly attended by improvement of the worse ; and human culture is becoming unified, not only through diffusion but through the extinction of the lower grades as their representatives rise into higher grades.
Such seems to be the Trend of Human Progress.
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