But, under such conditions, the colour of one's skin becomes more or less of a luxury.

Protective pigment, at any rate now-a-days, counts for little as compared with capacity for social service.

Colour, in short, is rapidly losing its vital function.

Will it therefore tend to disappear?
In the long run, it would seem--perhaps only in the very long run--it will become dissociated from that general fitness to survive under particular climatic conditions of which it was once the innate mark.

Be this as it may, race-prejudice, that is so largely founded on sheer considerations of colour, is bound to decay, if and when the races of darker colour succeed in displaying, on the average, such qualities of mind as will enable them to compete with the whites on equal terms, in a world which is coming more and more to include all climates.
* * * * * Thus we are led on to discuss race in its mental aspect.