The
same remark applies to the Welshman or the Scottish Highlander as
members of the British nation.
Whatever really tends to the admixture of nationalities, and the
blending of their attributes and peculiarities in a common union, is a
benefit to the human race. Not by extinguishing types, of which, in
these cases, sufficient examples are sure to remain, but by
softening their extreme forms, and filling up the intervals between
them. The united people, like a crossed breed of animals (but in a
still greater degree, because the influences in operation are moral as
well as physical), inherits the special aptitudes and excellences of
all its progenitors, protected by the admixture from being exaggerated
into the neighbouring vices. But to render this admixture possible,
there must be peculiar conditions. The combinations of circumstances
which occur, and which effect the result, are various.
The nationalities brought together under the same government may
be about equal in numbers and strength, or they may be very unequal.
If unequal, the least numerous of the two may either be the superior
in civilisation, or the inferior. Supposing it to be superior, it
may either, through that superiority, be able to acquire ascendancy
over the other, or it may be overcome by brute strength and reduced to
subjection. This last is a sheer mischief to the human race, and one
which civilised humanity with one accord should rise in arms to
prevent.
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