Ethnology—its objects—the chief problems connected with it—prospective questions—transfer of populations—Extract from Knox—correlation of certain parts of the body to certain external influences—parts less subject to such influences—retrospective questions—the unity or non-unity of our species—opinions—plurality of species—multiplicity of protoplasts—doctrine of development—Dokkos—Extract—antiquity of our species—its geographical origin—the term race.

In Cuvier—as far as he goes—we find the anthropological view of the subject predominant; and this is what we expect from the nature of the work in which it occurs: the degree in which one genus or species differs from the species or genus next to it being the peculiar consideration of the systematic naturalist. To exhibit our varieties would have required a special monograph.

In Prichard on the contrary ethnology preponderates; of anthropology, in the strict sense of the word, there being but little; and the ethnology is of a broad and comprehensive kind. Description there is, and classification there is; but, besides this, there is a great portion of the work devoted to what may be called Ethnological Dynamics, i.e. the appreciation of the effect of the external conditions of climate, latitude, relative sea-level and the like upon the human body.

Prichard is the great repertory of facts; and read with Whewell’s commentary it gives us the Science in a form sufficiently full for the purposes of detail, and sufficiently systematic for the basis of further generalization. Still it must be read with the commentary already mentioned. If not, it fails in its most intellectual element; and becomes a system of simple records, rather than a series of subtle and peculiar inferences. So read, however, it gives us our facts and classifications in a working form. In other words, the Science has now taken its true place and character.

If more than this be needed—and for the anthropology, it may be thought by some that Cuvier is too brief, and Prichard too exclusively ethnological—the work of Lawrence forms the complement. These, along with Adelung and Klaproth, form the Thesaurus Ethnologicus. But the facts which they supply are like the sword of the Mahometan warrior. Its value depended on the arm that wielded it; and such is the case here. No book has yet been written which can implicitly be taken for much more than its facts. Its inferences and classification must be criticised. Be this, however, as it may, in A.D.1846 Mr.Mill writes, that “concerning the physical nature of man, as an organized being, there has been much controversy, which can only be terminated by the general acknowledgement and employment of stricter rules of induction than are commonly recognized; there is, however, a considerable body of truth which all who have attended to the subject consider to be fully established, nor is there now any radical imperfection in the method observed in this department of science by its most distinguished modern teachers.”

This could not have been written thirty years ago. The department of science would, then, have been indefinite; and the teachers would not have been distinguished.

It may now be as well to say what Ethnology and Anthropology are not. Their relations to history have been considered. ArchÆology illustrates each; yet the moment that it is confounded with either, mischief follows. Psychology, or the Science of the laws of Mind, has the same relation to them as Physiology—mutatis mutandis; i.e. putting Mind in the place of Body.

But nearer than either are its two subordinate studies of Ethology[3], or the Science of Character, by which we determine the kind of character produced in conformity with the laws of Mind, by any set of circumstances, physical as well as moral; and the Science of Society which investigates the action and reaction of associated masses[4] on each other.

Such then is our Science; which the principle of Division of Labour requires to be marked off clearly in order to be worked advantageously. And now we ask the nature of its objects. It has not much to do with the establishment of any laws of remarkable generality; a circumstance which, in the eyes of some, may subtract from its value as a science; the nearest approach to anything of this kind being the general statement implied in the classifications themselves. Its real object is the solution of certain problems—problems which it investigates by its own peculiar method—and problems of sufficient height and depth and length and breadth to satisfy the most ambitious. All these are referable to two heads, and connect themselves with either the past or the future history of our species; its origin or destination.

We see between the Negro and the American a certain amount of difference. Has this always existed? If not, how was it brought about? By what influences? In what time? Quickly or slowly? These questions point backwards, and force upon us the consideration of what has been.

But the next takes us forwards. Great experiments in the transfer of populations from one climate to another have gone on ever since the discovery of America, and are going on now; sometimes westwards as to the New World; sometimes eastwards as to Australia and New Zealand; now from Celtic populations like Ireland; now from Gothic countries like England and Germany; now from Spain and Portugal;—to say nothing of the equally great phÆnomenon of Negro slavery being the real or supposed condition of American prosperity. Will this succeed? Ask this at Philadelphia, or Lima, Sydney, or Auckland, and the answer is pretty sure to be in the affirmative. Ask it of one of our English anatomists. His answer is as follows:—“Let us attend now to the greatest of all experiments ever made in respect of the transfer of a population indigenous to one continent, and attempting by emigration to take possession of another; to cultivate it with their own hands; to colonize it; to persuade the world, in time, that they are the natives of the newly occupied land. Northern America and Australia furnished the fields of this, the greatest of experiments. Already has the horse, the sheep, the ox, become as it were indigenous to these lands. Nature did not place them there at first, yet they seem to thrive and flourish, and multiply exceedingly. Yet, even as regards these domestic animals, we cannot be quite certain. Will they eventually be self-supporting? Will they supplant the llama, the kangaroo, the buffalo, the deer? or in order to effect this, will they require to be constantly renovated from Europe? If this be the contingency, then the acclimatation is not perfect. How is it with man himself? The man planted there by nature, the Red-Indian, differs from all others on the face of the earth; he gives way before the European races, the Saxon and the Celtic; the Celt, Iberian, and the Lusitanian in the south; the Celt and the Saxon in the north.

“Of the tropical regions of the New World, I need not speak; every one knows that none but those whom nature placed there can live there; that no Europeans can colonize a tropical country. But may there not be some doubts of their self-support in milder regions? Take the Northern States themselves. There the Saxon and the Celt seem to thrive beyond all that is recorded in history. But are we quite sure that this is fated to be permanent? Annually from Europe is poured a hundred thousand men and women of the best blood of the Scandinavian, and twice the number of the pure Celt; and so long as this continues, he is sure to thrive. But check it, arrest it suddenly, as in the case of Mexico and Peru; throw the onus of reproduction upon the population, no longer European, but a struggle between the European alien and his adopted father-land. The climate; the forests; the remains of the aborigines not yet extinct; last, not least, that unknown and mysterious degradation of life and energy, which in ancient times seems to have decided the fate of all the Phoenician, Grecian, and Coptic colonies. Cut off from their original stock, they gradually withered and faded, and finally died away. The Phoenician never became acclimatized in Africa, nor in Cornwall, nor in Wales; vestiges of his race, it is true, still remain, but they are mere vestiges. Peru and Mexico are fast retrograding to their primitive condition; may not the Northern States, under similar circumstances, do the same?

“Already the United States man differs in appearance from the European: the ladies early lose their teeth; in both sexes the adipose cellular cushion interposed between the skin and the aponeuroses and muscles disappears, or, at least, loses its adipose portion; the muscles become stringy, and show themselves; the tendons appear on the surface; symptoms of premature decay manifest themselves. Now what do these signs, added to the uncertainty of infant life in the Southern States, and the smallness of their families in the Northern, indicate? Not the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon into the Red-Indian, but warnings that the climate has not been made for him, nor he for the climate.

“See what even a small amount of insulation has done for the French Celt in Lower Canada. Look at the race there! Small men, small horses, small cattle, still smaller carts, ideas smallest of all; he is not even the Celt of modern France! He is the French Celt of the Regency, the thing of LouisXIII. Stationary—absolutely stationary—his numbers, I believe, depend on the occasional admixture of fresh blood from Europe. He has increased to a million since his first settlement in Canada; but much of this has come from Britain, and not from France. Give us the statistics of the original families who keep themselves apart from the fresh blood imported into the province. Let us have the real and solid increase of the original habitans, as they are pleased to call themselves, and then we may calculate on the result.

“Had the colony been left to itself, cut off from Europe, for a century or two, it is my belief that the forest and the buffalo, and the Red-Indian, would have pushed him into the St.Lawrence[5].”

I give no opinion as to the truth of the extract; remarking that, whether right or wrong, it is forcibly and confidently expressed. All that the passage has to do is to illustrate the character of the question. It directs our consideration to what will be.

To work out questions in either of these classes, there must, of course, be some reference to the general operations of climate, food, and other influences;—operations which imply a correlative susceptibility of modification on the part of the human organism.

In a well-constructed machine, the different parts have a definite relation to each. The greater the resistance, the thicker the ropes and chains; and the thicker the ropes and chains, the stronger the pulleys; the stronger the pulleys, the greater the force; and so on throughout. Delicate pulleys with heavy ropes, or light lines with bulky pulleys, would be so much power wasted. The same applies to the skeleton. If the muscle be massive, the bone to which it is attached must be firm; otherwise there is a disproportion of parts. In this respect the organized and animated body agrees with a common machine, the work of human hands. It agrees with, but it also surpasses it. It has an internal power of self-adjustment. No amount of work would convert a thin line into a strong rope, or a light framework into a strong one. If bulk be wanted, it must be given in the first instance. But what is it with the skeleton, the framework to the muscles? It has the power of adapting itself to the stress laid upon it. The food that we live upon is of different degrees of hardness and toughness; and the harder and tougher it is, the more work is there for the muscles of the lower jaw. But, as these work, they grow; for—other things being equal—size is power; and as they grow, other parts must grow also. There are the bones. How they grow is a complex question. Sometimes a smooth surface becomes rough, a fine bone coarse; sometimes a short process becomes lengthened, or a narrow one broadens; sometimes the increase is simple or absolute, and the bone in question changes its character without affecting that of the parts in contact with it. But frequently there is a complication of changes, and the development of one bone takes place at the expense of another; the relations of the different portions of parts of a skeleton being thus altered.

A skeleton, then, may be modified by the action of its own muscles; in other words, wherever there are muscles that are liable to an increase of mass, there are bones similarly susceptible—bones upon which asperities, ridges, or processes may be developed—bones from which asperities, ridges, or processes may disappear, and bones of which the relative proportions may be varied. In order, however, that this must take place, there must be the muscular action which determines it.

Now this applies to the hard parts, or the skeleton; and as it is generally admitted, that if the bony framework of the body can be thus modified by the action of its own muscles, the extreme conditions of heat, light, aliment, moisture, &c., will, À fortiori, affect the soft parts, such as the skin and adipose tissue. Neither have any great difficulties been raised in respect to the varieties of colour in the iris, and of colour and texture, both, in the hair.

But what if we have in certain hard parts a difference without its corresponding tangible modifying cause? What if parts which no muscle acts upon vary? In such a case we have a new class of facts, and a new import given to it. We no longer draw our illustrations from the ropes and pulleys of machines. Adaptation there may be, but it is no longer an adaptation of the simple straightforward kind that we have exhibited. It is an adaptation on the principle which determines the figure-head of a vessel, not one on the principle which decides the rigging. Still there is a principle on both sides; on one, however, there is an evident connection of cause and effect; on the other, the notion of choice, or spontaneity of an idea, is suggested.

In this way, the consideration of a tooth differs from that of the jaw in which it is implanted. No muscles act directly upon it; and all that pressure at its base can do is to affect the direction of its growth. The form of its crown it leaves untouched. How—I am using almost the words of Prof.Owen—can we conceive the development of the great canine of the chimpanzee to be a result of external stimuli, or to have been influenced by muscular actions, when it is calcified before it cuts the gum, or displaces its deciduous predecessor—a structure preordained, a weapon prepared prior to the development of the forces by which it is to be wielded[6]?

This illustrates the difference between the parts manifestly obnoxious to the influence of external conditions and the parts which either do not vary at all, or vary according to unascertained laws.

With the former we look to the conditions of sun, air, habits, or latitude; the latter we interpret, as we best can, by references to other species or to the same in its earlier stages of development.

Thus, the so-called supra-orbital ridge, or the prominence of the lower portion of forehead over the nose and eyes, is more marked in some individuals than in others; and more marked in the African and Australian varieties than our own. This is an ethnological fact.

Again—and this is an anthropological fact—it is but moderately developed in man at all: whilst in the orang-utan it is moderate; and in the chimpanzee enormously and characteristically developed.

Hence it is one of the nine points whereby the Pithecus Wurmbii approaches man more closely than the Troglodytes Gorilla[7], in opposition to the twenty-four whereby the Troglodytes Gorilla comes nearer to us than the Pithecus Wurmbii.

Had this ridge given attachment to muscles, we should have asked what work those muscles did, and how far it varied in different regions, instead of thinking much about either the Pithecus Wurmbii or the Troglodytes Gorilla.

However, it is certain problems which constitute the higher branches of ethnology; and it is to the investigation of these that the department of ethnological dynamics is subservient. Looking backwards we find, first amongst the foremost, the grand questions as to—

• 1. The unity or non-unity of the species.
• 2. Its antiquity.
• 3. Its geographical origin.

The unity or non-unity of the human species has been contemplated under a great multiplicity of aspects; some involving the fact itself, some the meaning of the term species.

• 1. Certain points of structure are constant. This is one reason for making man the only species of genus, and the only genus of his order.
• 2. All mixed breeds are prolific. This is another.
• 3. The evidence of language indicates a common origin; and the simplest form of this is a single pair. This is a third.
• 4. We can predicate a certain number of general propositions concerning the class of beings called Human. This merely separates them from all other classes. It does not determine the nature of the class itself in respect to its members. It may fall in divisions and subdivisions.
• 5. The species may be one; but the number of first pairs may be numerous. This is the doctrine of the multiplicity of protoplasts[8].
• 6. The species may have had no protoplast at all; but may have been developed out of some species anterior to it, and lower in the scale of Nature, this previous species itself having been so evolved. In this case, the protoplast is thrown indefinitely backwards; in other words, the protoplast of one species is the protoplast of many.
• 7. The genus Homo may fall into several species; so that what some call the varieties of a single species are really different species of a single genus.
• 8. The varieties of mankind may be too great to be included in even a genus. There may be two or even more genera to an order.
• 9. Many of the present varieties may represent the intermixtures of species no longer extant in a pure state.
• 10. All known varieties may be referable to a single species; but there may be new species undescribed.
• 11. All existing varieties may be referable to a single species; but certain species may have ceased to exist.

Such are the chief views which are current amongst learned men on this point; though they have not been exhibited in a strictly logical form, inasmuch as differences of opinion as to the meaning of the term species have been given in the same list with differences of opinion as to the fact of our unity or non-unity.

These differences of opinion are not limited to mere matters of inference. The facts on which such inferences rest are by no means unanimously admitted. Some deny the constancy of certain points of structure, and more deny the permanent fecundity of mixed breeds. Again, the evidence of language applies only to known tongues; whilst the fourth view is based upon a logical rather than a zoological view of species.

The doctrine of a multiplicity of protoplasts is common. Many zoologists hold it, and they have of course zoological reasons for doing so. Others hold it upon grounds of a very different description—grounds which rest upon the assumption of a final cause. Man is a social animal. Let the import of this be ever so little exaggerated. The term is a correlative one. The wife is not enough to the husband; the pair requires its pair for society’s sake. Hence, if man be not formed to live alone now, he was not formed alone at first. To be born a member of society, there must be associates. This is the teleological[9]—perhaps it may be called the theological—reason for the multiplicity of protoplasts.

Its non-inductive character subtracts something from its value.

The difficulty of drawing a line as to the magnitude of the original society subtracts more. If we admit a second pair, why not grant a village, a town, a city and its corporation? &c.

Again, this is either a primitive civilization or something very like it. Where are its traces? Nevertheless, if we grant certain assumptions in respect to the history of human civilization, the teleological doctrine of the multiplicity of protoplasts is difficult to refute.

And so is the zoological; provided that we make concessions in the way of language. Let certain pairs have been created with the capacity but not the gift of speech, so that they shall have learned their language of others. Or let all, at first, have been in this predicament, and some have evolved speech earlier than others—a speech eventually extended to all. It is not easy to answer such an argument as this.

The multiplicity of protoplasts is common ground to the zoologist and the human naturalist, although the phÆnomena of speech and society give the latter the larger share. The same applies to the doctrine of development. The fundamental affinity which connects all the forms of human speech is valid against the transcendentalist only when he assumes that each original of a species of Man appeared, as such, with his own proper language. Let him allow this to have been originally dumb, and with only the capacity of learning speech from others, and all arguments in favour of the unity of species drawn from the similarity of language fall to the ground.

The eighth doctrine is little more than an exaggeration of the seventh. The seventh will not be noticed now, simply because the facts which it asserts and denies pervade the whole study of ethnology, and appear and re-appear at every point of our investigations.

All known varieties may be referable to a single species; but there may be other species undescribed.—What are the reasons for believing this? Premising that Dilbo was a slave from whom Dr.Beke collected certain information respecting the countries to the south-west of Abyssinia, I subjoin the following extract:—

“The countries on the west and south-west of Kaffa are, according to Dilbo, Damboro, Bonga, Koolloo, Kootcha, Soofa, Tooffte, and Doko; on the east and south-east are the plains of Woratto, Walamo, and Talda.

“The country of Doko is a month’s journey distant from Kaffa; and it seems that only those merchants who are dealers in slaves go farther than Kaffa. The most common route passes Kaffa in a south-westerly direction, leading to Damboro, afterwards to Kootcha, Koolloo, and then passing the river Erow to Tooffte, where they begin to hunt the slaves in Doko, of which chase I shall give a description as it has been stated to me, and the reader may use his own judgement respecting it.

“Dilbo begins with stating that the people of Doko, both men and women, are said to be no taller than boys nine or ten years old. They never exceed that height, even in the most advanced age. They go quite naked; their principal food are ants, snakes, mice, and other things which commonly are not used as food. They are said to be so skilful in finding out the ants and snakes, that Dilbo could not refrain from praising them greatly on that account. They are so fond of this food, that even when they have become acquainted with better aliment in Enarea and Kaffa, they are nevertheless frequently punished for following their inclination of digging in search of ants and snakes, as soon as they are out of sight of their masters. The skins of snakes are worn by them about their necks as ornaments. They also climb trees with great skill to fetch down the fruits; and in doing this they stretch their hands downwards and their legs upwards. They live in extensive forests of bamboo and other woods, which are so thick that the slave-hunter finds it very difficult to follow them in these retreats. These hunters sometimes discover a great number of the Dokos sitting on the trees, and then they use the artifice of showing them shining things, by which they are enticed to descend, when they are captured without difficulty. As soon as a Doko begins to cry he is killed, from the apprehension that this, as a sign of danger, will cause the others to take to their heels. Even the women climb on the trees, where in a few minutes a great number of them may be captured and sold into slavery.

“The Dokos live mixed together; men and women unite and separate as they please; and this Dilbo considers as the reason why the tribe has not been exterminated, though frequently a single slave-dealer returns home with a thousand of them reduced to slavery. The mother suckles the child only as long as she is unable to find ants and snakes for its food: she abandons it as soon as it can get its food by itself. No rank or order exists among the Dokos. Nobody orders, nobody obeys, nobody defends the country, nobody cares for the welfare of the nation. They make no attempts to secure themselves but by running away. They are as quick as monkeys; and they are very sensible of the misery prepared for them by the slave-hunters, who so frequently encircle their forests and drive them from thence into the open plains like beasts. They put their heads on the ground, and stretch their legs upwards, and cry, in a pitiful manner, ‘Yer! yer!’ Thus they call on the Supreme Being, of whom they have some notion, and are said to exclaim, ‘If you do exist, why do you suffer us to die, who do not ask for food or clothes, and who live on snakes, ants, and mice?’ Dilbo stated that it was no rare thing to find five or six Dokos in such a position and state of mind. Sometimes these people quarrel among themselves, when they eat the fruit of the trees; then the stronger one throws the weaker to the ground, and the latter is thus frequently killed in a miserable way.

“In their country it rains incessantly; at least from May to January, and even later the rain does not cease entirely. The climate is not cold, but very wet. The traveller, in going from Kaffa to Doko, must pass over a high country, and cross several rivers, which fall into the Gochob.

“The language of the Dokos is a kind of murmuring, which is understood by no one but themselves and their hunters. The Dokos evince much sense and skill in managing the affairs of their masters, to whom they are soon much attached; and they render themselves valuable to such a degree, that no native of Kaffa ever sells one of them to be sent out of the country. As Captain Clapperton says of the slaves of Nyffie:—‘The very slaves of this people are in great request, and when once obtained are never again sold out of the country.’ The inhabitants of Enarea and Kaffa sell only those slaves which they have taken in their border-wars with the tribes living near them, but never a Doko. The Doko is also averse to being sold; he prefers death to separating from his master, to whom he has attached himself.

“The access to the country of Doko is very difficult, as the inhabitants of Damboro, Koolloo, and Tooffte are enemies to the traders from Kaffa, though these tribes are dependent on Kaffa, and pay tribute to its sovereigns; for these tribes are intent on preserving for themselves alone the exclusive privilege of hunting the Dokos, and of trading with the slaves thus obtained.

“Dilbo did not know whether the tribes residing south and west of the Dokos persecute this unhappy nation in the same cruel way.

“This is Dilbo’s account of the Dokos, a nation of pigmies, who are found in so degraded a condition of human nature that it is difficult to give implicit credit to his account. The notion of a nation of pigmies in the interior of Africa is very ancient, as Herodotus speaks of them in II.32.”

Now those who believe in the Dokos at all, may fairly believe them to constitute a new species.

Other imperfectly known populations may be put forward in a similar point of view.

All existing varieties may be referable to a single species; but certain species may have ceased to exist.—There is a considerable amount of belief in this respect. We see, in certain countries, which are at present barbarous vestiges of a prior civilization, works, like those of Mexico and Peru for instance, which the existing inhabitants confess to be beyond their powers. Be it so. Is the assumption of a different species with architectural propensities more highly developed, legitimate? The reader will answer this question in his own way. I can only say that such assumptions have been made.

Again—ancient tombs exhibit skeletons which differ from the living individuals of the country. Is a similar assumption here justifiable? It has been made.

The most remarkable phÆnomena of the kind in question are to be found in the history of the Peruvians.

The parts about the Lake Titicaca form the present country of the Aymaras, whose heads are much like those of the other Americans, whose taste for architecture is but slight, and whose knowledge of having descended from a people more architectural than themselves is none.

Nevertheless, there are vast ruins in their district; whilst the heads of those whose remains are therein preserved have skulls with the sutures obliterated, and with remarkable frontal, lateral, and occipital depressions.

Does this denote an extinct species? Individually, I think it does not; because, individually, with many others, I know that certain habits decline, and I also believe that the flattenings of the head are artificial. Nevertheless, if I, ever so little, exaggerated the permanency of habits, or if I identified a habit with an instinct, or if I considered the skulls natural, the chances are that I should recognise the remains of ancient stock—possibly an ancient species—without congeners and without descendants.

The antiquity of the human species.—Our views on this point depend upon our views as to its unity or non-unity; so much so, that unless we assume either one or the other, the question of antiquity is impracticable. And it must also be added that, unless the inquiry is to be excessively complicated, the unity-doctrine must take the form of descent from a single pair.

Assuming this, we take the most extreme specimens of difference, whether it be in the way of physical conformation or mental phÆnomena—of these last, language being the most convenient. After this, we ask the time necessary for bringing about the changes effected; the answer to this resting upon the induction supplied within the historical period; an answer requiring the application of what has already been called Ethnological Dynamics.

On the other hand, we may assume a certain amount of original difference, and investigate the time requisite for effecting the existing amount of similarity.

The first of these methods requires a long, the second a short period; indeed, descent from a single pair implies a geological rather than a historical date.

Furthermore—that uniformity in the average rate of change which the geologist requires, ethnology requires also.

The geographical origin of Man.—Supposing all the varieties of Man to have originated from a single protoplast pair, in what part of the world was that single protoplast pair placed? Or, supposing such protoplast pairs to have been numerous, what were the respective original locations of each? I ask these questions without either giving any answer to them, or exhibiting any method for discovering one. Of the three great problems it is the one which has received the least consideration, and the one concerning which there is the smallest amount of decided opinion. The conventional, provisional, or hypothetical cradle of the human species is, of course, the most central point of the inhabited world; inasmuch as this gives us the greatest amount of distribution with the least amount of migration; but, of course, such a centre is wholly unhistorical.

Race—What is the meaning of this word?

Does it mean variety? If so, why not say variety at once?

Does it mean species? If it do, one of the two phrases is superfluous.

In simple truth it means either or neither, as the case may be; and is convenient or superfluous according to the views of the writer who uses it.

If he believe that groups and classes like the Negro, the Hottentot, the American, the Australian, or the Mongolian, differ from each other as the dog differs from the fox, he talks of species. He has made up his mind.

But, perhaps, he does no such thing. His mind is made up the other way. Members of such classes may be to Europeans, and to each other, just what the cur is to the pug, the pointer to the beagle, &c. They may be varieties.

He uses, then, the terms accordingly; but, in order to do so, he must have made up his mind; and certain classes must represent either one or the other.

But what if he have not done this? If, instead of teaching undoubted facts, he is merely investigating doubtful ones? In this case the term race is convenient. It is convenient for him during his pursuit of an opinion, and during the consequent suspension of his opinion.

Race, then, is the term denoting a species or variety, as the case may be—pendente lite. It is a term which, if it conceals our ignorance, proclaims our openness to conviction.

Of the prospective views of humanity, one has been considered. But there are others of at least equal importance. Two, out of many, may serve as samples.

1. The first is suggested by the following Table; taken from a fuller one in Mr.D.Wilson’s valuable ArchÆology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland. It shows the relative proportions of a series of skulls of very great, with those of a series of moderate antiquity.

The study of this—and it requires to be studied carefully—gives grounds for believing that the capacity of a skull may increase as the social condition improves; from which it follows that the physical organization of the less-favoured stocks may develope itself progressively,—and, pari passu, the mental power that coincides with it. This illustrates the nature of a certain ethnological question. But what if the two classes of skulls belong to different stocks; so that the owners of the one were not the progenitors of the proprietors of the other? Such a view (and it is not unreasonable) illustrates the extent to which it is complicated.

	Longi­tudinal diam­eter.	Parietal diam­eter.	Frontal diam­eter.	Ver­tical diam­eter.	Inter­mastoid arch.	Inter­mastoid arch from upper root of zygo­matic process.	Inter­mastoid lines.	Ditto from upper root of zygo­matic process.	Occip­ito­frontal arch.	Ditto from occipital protu­berance to root of nose.	Hori­zontal periphery.	Relative capacity.
Very old.
1.	7·0	5·4½?	4·9?	4·10	13·11	11·5	3·6½	4·8½	13·9	12·0	20·4	32·2
2.	7·0	4·8	4·4	5·3	13·2	11·0	4·1	4·10	14·0	11·11	19·6	31·9
3.	6·11	5·3	3·11	5·0	...	12·0	...	4·8½	14·4	11·4	19·0	30·11
4.	7·0	4·11	4·4	5·3	13·8	11·4½	4·1	4·10	13·10	11·3	16·7½	28·10½
5.	6·6	4·1?	4·11	4·2?	13·2	11·3	...	4·8?	13·11	12·0	19·0	29·6
6.	7·3	5·4	4·6	5·2	14·3	11·9	4·4	5·0½	14·8	12·3	20·8½	33·1½
7.	7·5	5·2	4·5	5·2	14·3	12·0	3·7	4·10½	14·3	12·3	20·7½	33·2½
8.	7·9	5·6	4·9	...	...	12·3	...	5·6	15·6	...	21·3	...
9.	7·3	5·8	4·3½	4·9	14·0	11·9	3·8½	5·0	14·2	11·9	20·7	32·7
Moderately old.
17.	7·9	5·0	4·10	5·6	14·9	11·11	4·0	5·4	15·5	13·6	21·3	34·6
18.	7·6	5·1	4·6	5·1	14·8	11·3	3·11	5·3	14·6	12·11	20·4	32·11½
19.	7·3	5·3	4·5	5·4½	14·5	12·4	3·11½	4·9	14·9	12·9	20·10	33·5½
20.	7·5	5·6½	5·0½	5·6	14·11½	12·3	4·0	...	14·9	12·6	20·10	33·9
21.	7·3	5·6½	4·4	5·6	14·8	12·0	4·1	5·3	14·5	12·10	20·2	32·11
22.	7·2	5·7	4·5	5·6	14·9	11·10	4·3	5·6	14·4	12·6	20·0	32·8
23.	7·3½	5·7	4·6	5·2	15·0?	12·4?	...	...	14·8	12·6½	19·10½	32·4
24.	7·2	5·5	4·6	...	...	...	...	...	...	12·10	20·7	...
25.	7·8	5·6	4·3½	5·3	14·4	11·8	4·7	5·6	14·6	12·7	20·11	33·10
26.	7·9	5·7	5·3	5·6	15·7	13·3	4·0½	5·4	16·4	14·4	21·11	35·2
27.	7·11	5·5	4·9	...	...	12·0	...	5·1	15·5	13·9	21·6	...

2. The second, like the first, shall be explained by extracts:—

---

a. Mrs. ——, a neighbour of Mr.M’Combie, was twice married, and had issue by both husbands. The children of the first marriage were five in number; by the second, three. One of these three, a daughter, bears an unmistakeable resemblance to her mother’s first husband. What makes the likeness the more discernible is, that there was the most marked difference, in their features and general appearance, between the two husbands.

---

b. A young woman, residing in Edinburgh, and born of white (Scottish) parents, but whose mother some time previous to her marriage had a natural (Mulatto) child, by a negro-servant, in Edinburgh, exhibits distinct traces of the negro. Dr.Simpson, whose patient the young woman at one time was, has had no recent opportunities of satisfying himself as to the precise extent to which the negro character prevails in her features; but he recollects being struck with the resemblance, and noticed particularly that the hair had the qualities characteristic of the negro.

---

c. Mrs. ——, apparently perfectly free from scrofula, married a man who died of phthisis; she had one child by him, which also died of phthisis. She next married a person who was to all appearance equally healthy as herself, and had two children by him, one of which died of phthisis, the other of tubercular mesenteric disease—having, at the same time, scrofulous ulceration of the under extremity.

There are the elements of a theory here; especially if they be taken along with certain phÆnomena, well-known to the breeders of race-horses—the theory being, that the mixture of the distinctive characters of different divisions of mankind may be greater than the intermixture itself. I give no opinion on the data. I merely illustrate an ethnological question—one out of many.

FOOTNOTES

[3] From the Greek word (????) ethos= character.

[4] Called by Comte Sociology, a name half Latin and half Greek, and consequently too barbarous to be used, if its use can be avoided.

[5] Knox, Races of Men, pp.73, 74.

[6] On the Osteology of the Great Chimpanzee. By Professor Owen, in the Philosophical Transactions.

[7] Owen, Philosophical Transactions, Feb.22, 1848.

[8] From protos= first, and plastos= formed.

[9] From the Greek telos= an end.