" _Noblesse oblige_: the duke and his
ancestors had been for centuries the chief pillars of the Church
of Scotland, and it was too much to expect that he could break
away from a tenet which forms really its "chief cornerstone."
Acknowledging the insufficiency of Archbishop Whately's
argument, the duke took the ground that the lower, barbarous,
savage, brutal races were the remains of civilized races which,
in the struggle for existence, had been pushed and driven off to
remote and inclement parts of the earth, where the conditions
necessary to a continuance in their early civilization were
absent; that, therefore, the descendants of primeval, civilized
men degenerated and sank in the scale of culture. To use his own
words, the weaker races were "driven by the stronger to the
woods and rocks," so that they became "mere outcasts of the
human race."
In answer to this, while it was conceded, first, that there have
been examples of weaker tribes sinking in the scale of culture
after escaping from the stronger into regions unfavourable to
civilization, and, secondly, that many powerful nations have
declined and decayed, it was shown that the men in the most
remote and unfavourable regions have not always been the lowest
in the scale; that men have been frequently found "among the
woods and rocks" in a higher state of civilization than on the
fertile plains, such examples being cited as Mexico, Peru, and
even Scotland; and that, while there were many examples of
special and local decline, overwhelming masses of facts point to
progress as a rule.
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