the injurious actinic rays of the sun. The various ways in which the
negro's tropical environment influenced the development of his mind,
particularly of his instincts, cannot be here entered into in detail.
Suffice to say that the African environment of the ancestors of the
present negroes in the United States deeply stamped itself upon the
mental traits and tendencies of the race. For example, the tropical
environment is generally unfavorable to severe bodily labor. Persons who
work hard in the tropics are, in other words, apt to be eliminated by
natural selection. On the other hand, nature furnishes a bountiful
supply of food without much labor. Hence, the tropical environment of
the negro failed to develop in him any instinct to work, but favored the
survival of those naturally shiftless and lazy. Again, the extremely
high death rate in Africa necessitated a correspondingly high birth rate
in order that any race living there might survive; hence, nature fixed
in the negro strong sexual propensities in order to secure such a high
birth rate.

It is not claimed that the shiftlessness and sensuality of the masses of
the American negroes to-day can be wholly attributed to hereditary
influences, but it would be a great mistake to suppose that the African
environment did not have something to do with these two dominant
characteristics of the present American negro. So we might go through
the whole list of the conspicuous traits and tendencies of the American
negro, and in practically every case we would find good reason for
believing that these racial traits and tendencies are at least in part
instinctive, that is, due to the influence of racial heredity.

The question is frequently raised whether the negro is inferior by
nature to the white man or not. It is obvious from what has been said
that the negro may, on the side of his instinctive or hereditary