Every time that a dominant characteristic encounters a recessive one (R with a or Y with g), it overpowers and hides it: consequently the results of the different combinations are quite definitely limited as determining forms of different individuals. In fact, the results of the sixteen combinations are as follows:

That is to say, the only forms which occur are the following:

R Y, R g
a Y, a g

whose relative probability of occurrence is:

Now, as a result of actual experiment, the forms obtained show the following relative percentage:

The correspondence between these figures is close enough to warrant the acceptance of Mendel's hypothesis as the true interpretation of the phenomena that are shown to take place within the sexual cells; the germinal cells of the hybrid contain potentialities belonging to one or the other only of the parents, and not to both; one-half of the cells contain one of these potentialities, and the other half the other potentiality.

But in the phenomena of hybridism, we have seen the results of another fact which determines Mendel's third law; the Law of the Independence of Characteristics.

That is, that while the original progenitors had angular seed and green cotyledons, and round seed and yellow cotyledons, certain hybrid plants inherited the round seed of the one and the green colour of the other; or the angular seed of the one and the yellow colour of the other. In the same way, it may happen, for example, that the colour of one plant may combine with the height of another, etc. That is, that each separate characteristic of the progenitor is independent and may combine with the characteristics of the other progenitor—even to the point of separating the colour from the form, as in the case cited.

What we find in hybrids, then, is not a separation into two types of generative cells, considered as united and complex entities; but every separate germ cell may break up into as many different potentialities as there are separate characteristics in the individual; and that, too, not only as regards the separate minute parts of the individual body, but, within the same organ, as regards the shape, colour, character of the surface, etc.

Such phenomena of Mendelism cannot as yet be generalised; yet it has already been established by a host of experiments that a great number of characteristics obey the laws of Mendel, such, for example, as the character of the hair or plumage; the gradations of colour, the abundance or absence of hair; physical malformations, such as cerebral hernia in poultry; the character of locomotion, as in the jumping mice: and even normal physiological attributes connected with the epoch of maturity in certain plants.

But the manner in which the dominant character asserts itself is not always uniform. There are times when a fusion of antagonistic characters takes place. Thus, for example, when two varieties of the mirabilis jalapa are crossed, one having red flowers and the other white, a fusion of the colours takes place in the first generation, and all the plants have pink flowers. In the second generation we get, for every plant with red flowers, two with pink flowers and one with white. That is, the law of disjunction has again asserted itself, but the individual hybrids merge their antagonistic attributes, which remain, nevertheless (as their differentiation proves), separate one from the other in the sexual cells.

Another phenomenon observed in individual hybrids is the intermingling of characteristics. For instance, there are cases where the flowers of a hybrid produced by a plant with red flowers and another with white are variegated with red and white stripes.

Accordingly, the transmission of antagonistic attributes through the individual may be divided into three different methods:

In the first case, the character of one of the parents is transmitted intact; in the second, the formation of a new characteristic results, constituting a form more or less nearly midway between those from which it comes and whose fusion it represents; in the third case (which is very rare and seems to obey Mendel's laws in quite an uncertain way), the result is a mosaic of the fundamental attributes.

Of special interest to us are the two first methods of hereditary transmission of characteristics. Even before Mendel's discoveries, anthropologists had observed that in the intermixture of races certain human attributes remained distinct while others merged. In the first case they called the individuals hybrids, and in the second case they called them metics. Take, for example, the colour of the skin when black and white merge in the so-called mulatto.

Other characteristics, instead of merging, intermingle, as for instance those that are internal or related to the skeleton, and those that are external or related to the soft tissues and the skin. It may happen, for example, that where one race has an elongated head and black hair and another has a round head and blond hair, the result of their union will be hybrids with elongated heads and blond hair or vice versa. Similarly, if one of the parents is tall of stature and fair complexioned, and the other of short stature with a dark skin, these characteristics may be interchanged in the hybrids. A very common occurrence, as regards the colour of the hair, is the fusion of blond and brunette into chestnut; while parents with chestnut hair may have either fair-haired or dark-haired children. In his book entitled Human Races and Varieties, Sergi says in regard to hybridism: "It is impossible to ignore human hybridism, which, for that matter, has been demonstrated under various forms by all the anthropologists; America, in itself alone, offers us a true example of experimental anthropology in regard to this phenomenon. Already the result of investigations shows that human hybridism is multiform among all the peoples of the earth; but what is best known of all is the exchange of external characteristics and their intermingling with the internal; that is, the combination of external characteristics of one type with internal characteristics of another type. It is easy, for instance, to find cases in which a certain colour of skin and hair, with the special qualities proper to them, are found combined with peculiarities of the skeleton that do not rightfully belong to types of that particular colouring, and vice versa; and this same phenomenon may be observed regarding certain separate attributes, and not all of them—such as the stature, or the face with its outer covering of soft tissues, or the shape of the skull alone.

"If we observe our European populations, that call themselves a white-skinned race, but whose whiteness has many different gradations, we are convinced of the great intermixture of characters, and, what is more, a varied mixture resulting in a great variety of individual types, consisting of characters differing widely from one another. It requires a very accurate and very minute analysis to distinguish the different elements that are found in the composition of ethnic characters in individuals and peoples. Undoubtedly these intermixtures and combinations of character differ in their constituent elements and in the number of such elements in the different nations, according to whether we study those of the south, or the centre, or the north of Europe; and this results from different degrees of association with mongrel races.

"But a more important fact, and one that seems to have escaped the attention of anthropologists, is the absence of fusion of internal and external characteristics in the product of such intermixture. We find only a positional relationship between the different ethnic elements, a syncretism or superposition of characteristics, and a consequent readiness to disunite and form other unions. This phenomenon has already been demonstrated in America, on a mass of evidence; but it is apparent also in Europe, among the peoples that are seemingly most homogeneous, if by careful observation we separate the characteristics that constitute the ethnic types; and not only the types, but the individuals belonging to the different peoples."

And in the following passage, Sergi expresses himself still more clearly:

"From my many observations, it follows, further, that human hybridism, or meticism, as others choose to call it, is a syncretism of distinct characteristics of great variety, and that these do not modify the skeletal structure or the internal characteristics, excepting by way of individual variation; it may happen that separate parts of the skeleton itself acquire characteristics peculiar to themselves. The stature, the chest formation, the proportion of the limbs, may all be in perfect correlation and be united with external characteristics of diverse forms, as for instance with different forms of cranium, or the cranium may be associated with different facial forms, and conversely. Furthermore, the forms adapted separately and in part in hybrid composition remain unvaried in their typical formation. The face retains its typical characteristics in spite of its union with different forms of cranium; and similarly the cranium preserves its architectural structure when combined with different types of face. The stature maintains its proportions in spite of combinations with diverse cranial and facial types, and in spite of varied colours of skin and hair."

The foregoing page, that I have borrowed from this masterly investigator, is most eloquent testimony that, in regard to the phenomena of hybridism, man also comes within the scope of Mendel's laws. There is something wonderful in the power of observation and intuition shown by Sergi, who, running counter to the convictions of the majority of anthropologists, arrived through these conclusions at a truth the key to which was destined to be discovered later on through studies, very far removed from anthropology, such as were pursued by the botanists Mendel and De Vries. While Mendel was led by his experiments to the discovery of the laws based upon his ingenious hypothesis, Sergi was drawn simply by observation to conclusions that to-day are confirmed by experience. And from difficult observations of single characteristics taken separately, Sergi demonstrated, in his ingenious studies, their persistence through innumerable generations; while, through the identification of separate characteristics, he achieved that brilliant analysis of the races which revealed to his anthropological insight that the European varieties of man originated among the peoples of Africa and Asia. Unquestionably, the laws of Mendel confirm what hitherto were considered, in the scientific world of Europe, simply as the individual hypotheses of Sergi, but which American anthropologists recognise and welcome as a scientific truth, brilliantly observed and expounded by the Italian anthropologist.

Thus, through single characteristics, through particularities, we may read the origins of races; and recognise which are the constant characteristics and which the transitory ones.

Accordingly, let us keep these principles in mind, as we proceed further in our investigation of the phenomena of heredity.

Mendel's laws, however much they may be discredited or illuminated by further experience, serve in the meanwhile to give an absolutely new conception of the individual and to shed light upon many obscure problems relating to heredity.

The individual is the product of a combination of germ potentialities, which, in the case of hybrids (and consequently always in the case of man, who is the product of racial intermixture), meet in accordance with the mathematical laws of probability. One might almost conceive of a formula, or, better yet, a calculation, in accordance with which the individual resulting from any given germs might be predetermined; if it were not for the fact that the calculations would become infinitely complicated through the multiplication of characteristics. With only ten pairs of characteristics it is already possible to form upward of 1024 kinds of germinal cells and these give rise to 1,000,000 different combinations.

Furthermore, through the law of dominant characteristics, the combinations of germs would produce in the descendants 1000 varieties distinguishable by their external appearance, and 60,000 differing only internally, that is, in their germinal cells.

There remains, however, one general principle: the individual contains not only his personal attributes, but also other attributes which belonged to his ancestors, and which are latent in him, and may reappear in his descendants. Consequently, if the individual is a hybrid, he must be interpreted not only through himself alone, but through the history of his family; and the characteristics which he may transmit are not those of his own body, but those of his origin.

The individual body is nothing more than a "temporary expression" of those germinal characteristics which have united to give it consistency; but the complex transmission of characteristics rests wholly with the germinal cells. The problem of heredity is transferred from the individual and from the series of individuals, who are simple and transitory products of combinations, to the sexual cells and their potentialities. And this is unquestionably an absolutely new scientific concept, and a revolutionary one as well, capable of drawing in its wake a lengthy evolution of thought. Since the germinal potentialities determine the single characteristics, they may be considered as the atoms of the biologist. "The field of investigation," says Bateson, "does not appear to differ greatly from that which was opened to the students of chemistry at the beginning of the discovery that chemical combinations are governed by definite laws.... In the same way that the chemist studies the properties of every chemical substance, the characteristics of organisms ought to be studied, and their composition determined." (First Report, p. 159.)

This brings us to two widely diverse facts that demand consideration: first, the subdivision of antagonistic characteristics in the germinal cells that form, so to speak, the atomic and chaotic substratum of characteristics—characteristics that combine according to the mathematical laws of probability; and, secondly, the dominance of characteristics, or else their fusion, which, independently of anything that may happen in the germinal cells, serves to determine and define the individual.

What sort of characteristics are the dominant ones?

According to the latest researches of Mendelism, the dominant characteristics are those acquired latest in the course of evolution, in other words, the youngest, or, if you prefer, the most highly evolved. Accordingly, in hybrids, the most perfected characteristics and forms are the ones that triumph in the end.

This is quite a new principle. Hitherto it was held that the pure species or race was the most perfect; and the hybrid or bastard was under a cloud of contempt. And, as a matter of fact, the first crossings of different races may result in some combinations lacking in harmony, and calculated to sanction the old-time conception of the æsthetic inferiority of the bastard.

But it is necessary to leave time for new generations and further crossings, in order that all of the more highly evolved characteristics may unite and end by triumphing in reciprocal harmony. This the followers of Mendel cannot yet give us, because it would require decades or centuries, according to the species, to produce experimentally such æsthetic forms of hybridism.

But in the human race we have an experiment already accomplished, which actually shows us the æsthetic triumph achieved in the region where the races have for the greatest length of time been crossed and recrossed, through the agency of the most ancient civilisation: the Europeans surpass in physical beauty the people of any other continent; and the Neo-Latin races, the most ancient hybrids of all, seem to be nearing the attainment of the greatest æsthetic perfection. In fact, when I was engaged in compiling an anthropological study of the population of Latium, in accordance with Sergi's principles, and was making a most minute examination of all the different characteristics and their prevalence, as a possible basis for a delineation of the fundamental racial types, I found that complete beauty is never granted to any one race, but distributed among different races: "as a result of my labours, I find perfect artistic proportion as to certain facial features, in a race having inferior hands and feet; and, vice versa, I find facial irregularities in the race having the smallest extremities, and the most artistically proportioned hands. What we now consider as standards of human beauty, and delight in bringing together artificially in a single figure in a work of art, are found in nature scattered and distributed among different races." (See Physical Characteristics of Young Women of Latium, p. 69.)

Upon the combination of all the different points of beauty in a single individual depend Quétélet's biological theories of the medial man (l'homme moyen), lately revived and extensively developed by Viola. The new importance acquired by the reconstruction of the medial man is due precisely to the fact that the new method of reconstructing him is by bringing together all the single characteristics taken separately and worked out mathematically according to the laws of individual variations that behave precisely like those of probability. (See Biometry and the Theory of the Medial Man.)

Viola considers, in its relation to the physiological laws of health, the combination in a single individual of the maximum number of average characteristics, which at the same time are the characteristics numerically prevalent in individuals (dominant characteristics?). The man who accumulates the greater number of average characteristics, escapes diseases and predisposition to disease; he is consequently sounder and more robust and handsomer. De Giovanni, on the contrary, through an ingenious conceit, bestows the name of morphological combination upon the union in a single individual, of parts that are mutually inharmonic and incapable of performing their normal functions together, in consequence of which such an individual's morphological personality is predisposed to special maladies.

Accordingly the meeting and union of germinative potentialities may be either more or less propitious; as for instance the result sometimes produced by the combination of a platyopic (broad) face and an aquiline and extremely leptorrhine (narrow) nose; in other words, combinations that are discordant from the æsthetic standpoint, but harmless as regards health; or again, there may be a lack of harmony between the internal organs, incompatible with a healthy constitution. There may even exist malformations due to the meeting of forms that clash violently; each of which parts may be quite normal, when considered by itself, but cannot adapt itself to the other parts with which it is united.

It is as though the dominant characteristic in respect to an organ had been overpowered by another, which ought on the contrary, in this special case, to have been recessive.

It is precisely on this question of the dominance of characteristics that the researches of the Mendelists are at present being expended. It has been observed in the course of experiments that there exist certain special correlations between potentialities, in consequence of which certain characteristics must always go together; as, for example, when two characteristics, having once been united, must continue to recur together, although they each exist separately. These laws, which are not yet clearly determined, may serve to explain the final harmony of the sum total of individual attributes.

But in general the dominance of characteristics is not absolute, but subject to many causes of variation, associated with environment. Thus, for example, just as a change in nutrition of a young plant will result in a different height, it is also possible in the mechanics of reproduction that the original relations of germs may be altered by external causes, and the dominant characteristics be made recessive.[6] Many deviations are attributable to the influences that act upon the germinative cells of hybrids, after the latter have already been determined in their potentiality; thus for example when certain germinal cells are less resistant during maturation; or again when combinations between potentialities are difficult to achieve. That is to say, there may exist certain phenomena associated with environment, thanks to which Mendel's natural laws concerning the dominance of characteristics may become inverted.

Another fact of great significance is this: that, in the course of extensive experimental plantings, for the purpose of verifying the laws of Mendel, a widespread sickliness and mortality occurred among cryptograms, at the expense of the plants of recessive character; which would go to prove that a lower power of resistance accompanies the appearance of recessive characteristics. The dominant characteristics accordingly are not only the most highly evolved, but they also possess a greater power of resistance. So that, to-day, the dominance of the strong tends through the workings of the phenomena of Mendelism, to do away, little by little, in the course of generations, with characteristics that are weak or antiquated. This has an important bearing upon human pathology, because it opens the way to hope for a possible regeneration in families branded with hereditary disease.

The germinal potentialities that contain beauty and strength seem predestined to that predominance which will achieve the triumph of life in the individual. To learn the laws of the union, in one individual and definitive unity, of the infinite dominant and recessive potentialities that must encounter one another in the mysterious labyrinth in which life is prepared—therein lies the greatest problem of the present day.

It is that which should constitute our guiding purpose.

Form and Types of Stature

A few years ago, when anthropology first began to be studied, the skull was taken as the point of departure; because in the analytical study of the human body it represents the principal part. Indeed, the same thing was done by Lombroso, when he applied anthropology to the practice of psychiatry and later to the study of criminals. It is a matter of fact that degenerative stigmata of the gravest significance are to be found associated with the skull; and this he could not fail to take into account, because of its bearings upon criminal anthropology.

But to-day anthropology is reaching out into vaster fields of science and striving to develop in diverse directions, such as those of physiology and pathology; and revolting from the collection of degenerative details, it undertakes to study normal man in regard to his external form as related to his functional capacity, or else the man of abnormal constitution, who in his outward form reveals certain predispositions to illness; and starting on these lines, it proposes to investigate principally the metamorphoses of growth, through the successive periods of life.

From this new point of view, it is not any single malformation, but the individual as a whole in the exercise of his functions, who assumes first importance. The study of the cranium (formerly so important as to be the basis of a special science, craniology), becomes only one detail of the whole. As a matter of fact, the brain, which is what gives the cranium its importance, is not only the immediate organ of intelligence, but it is also the psychomotor organ; and as such exercises control over all the striped muscles, and is morphologically associated with the development and the functional powers of the whole body.

It follows that, the larger the body, the bigger brain it needs to control it, independently of the question of intelligence. Therefore the first point of departure should be eminently synthetic, and should include the morphological personality considered as a whole.

One of the properties of living bodies is that of attaining a determinate development, whose limits, both in regard to the quantity of its mass and the harmony of its form, are defined by that biological final cause which is implanted in the race and transmitted by heredity. Consequently every living creature has determinate limits: and these constitute a fundamental biological property.

The causality of such limits has not yet been determined by scientific research; nevertheless it is a phenomenon over which we must pause to meditate. If the philosopher pauses to contemplate the immensity of the ocean from the sea shore, marvelling that the interminable and impetuous movement of the waves should have such exact and definite limits that it cannot overpass by so much as a metre the extreme high-water line upon the beach, we may similarly pause to meditate upon the material limits that life assumes in its infinitely varied manifestations.

From the microbe to the mammal, from the lichen to the palm, all living creatures have inherited these limits, which permit the zoologist and the botanist to assign to each a measure as one of its descriptive attributes.

This is the first attribute which we must take into consideration in the study of anthropology: namely, the mass of the body, and together with the mass, its morphological entirety. The Italian vocabulary lacks any one word which quite expresses this idea, [and in this respect English is scarcely more fortunate[7]]. The stature which represents to us the most synthetic measure of the body in its entirety (a measure determined by the vertical linear distance between the level on which the individual's feet are placed, up to the top of his head as he stands erect), does not represent the entire body in the sense above indicated. It may rather be considered as a linear index of this entirety. The French language, on the contrary, possesses the word taille, which may be rendered in Italian by the word taglia [and in English by the word form[8]], provided that we understand it to signify the conception of the whole morphological personality.

No single measurement can express the form; the weight of the body, indeed, may give us a conception of the mass but not of the shape; and the latter, if it needs to be determined in all its limits, requires a series of measurements, mutually related, and signifying the reciprocal connection and harmony of the parts with the whole; in other words, a law. We may establish the following measurements as adapted to determine the form, in other words, as fundamental laws: the total stature, the sitting stature, the total spread of the arms, the circumference of the thorax, and the weight. Of these measures, the two of chief importance are the stature and the weight, because they express the linear index and the volumetric measure of the entire body. The other measurements, on the contrary, analyse this entirety in a sweeping way: thus, the sitting stature, in its relation to the total stature, indicates the reciprocal proportions between the bust and the lower limbs; the perimeter of the chest records the transverse and volumetric development of the bust; and the total spread of the arms denotes a detail that is highly characteristic in the case of man: the development of the upper limbs, which, while they correspond to organs of locomotion in the lower animals, assume in the case of man higher functions, as organs of labour and of mimic speech.

Such measurements constitute a law, because they are in constant mutual relationship, when the normal human organism has reached complete development. The stature, in fact, is equal to the total spread of the arms; the circumference of the thorax is equal to one-half the stature, and the sitting stature is slightly greater than the perimeter of the chest. As regards the weight, it cannot be in direct proportion to any linear measure; nevertheless, an empirical correspondence in figures has been noted that may be recorded solely for the purpose of aiding the memory: the normal adult man usually weighs as many kilograms as there are centimetres in his stature, over and above one metre (for instance, a man whose height is 1.60 metres will weigh 60 kilograms, etc.).

To make these laws easier to understand, we may resort to signs and formulæ. Thus, if we denote the stature by St, the total spread of the arms by Ts, the circumference of the thorax by Ct, the essential or sitting stature by Ss, and the weight by W, we may set down the following formulæ, which will result in practice in more or less obvious approximations:

St = Ts; Ct = St/2; Ct = Ss

And for the weight, the following wholly empirical formula:

W = Kg(St-1 m.).

Stature.—Among all the measurements relating to the form, the principal one is the stature. It has certain characteristics that are essentially human. What we understand by stature is the height of a living animal, when standing on its feet. Let us compare the stature of one of the higher mammals, a dog for instance, with that of man. The stature of the dog is determined essentially by the length of its legs, while the spinal column is supported in a horizontal position by the legs themselves. Such is the attitude of all the higher mammals, including the greater number of monkeys, notwithstanding that these latter are steadily tending to raise their spinal column in an oblique direction, in proportion to the lengthening of their forelimbs, which serve them as a support in walking—a form of locomotion half way between that of quadrupeds and of man. Man alone has permanently acquired an erect position, that renders the bust ( = sum of head and trunk) vertical, and leaves the upper limbs definitely free from any duty connected with locomotion, thus attaining the full measure of the human stature, which is the sum of the bust and the lower limbs. Thus, we may assert that one fundamental difference between man and animals consists in this: that in animals the spinal column does not enter into the computation of stature; while in man, on the contrary, it is included in its entirety. Consequently, in man the stature assumes a characteristic and fundamental importance, because part of it (that part relating to the bust) represents, as a linear index, all the organs of vegetative life and of life in its external relations.

If we examine the human skeleton in an erect position (Fig. 9), it shows us the varying importance of the different parts of its structure, according as they are destined to protect, or simply to sustain. At the top is the skull, an enclosed bony cavity; and this arrangement indicates that it is designed to contain and protect an organ of the highest importance. By means of the occipital foramen, this cavity communicates with the vertebral canal, also rigorously closed, that is formed by the successive juxtaposition of the vertebræ. Such protective formation is in accord with the high physiological significance and the delicate structure of the organs of the central nervous system, which represent the supreme control over physiological life and over the psychic activities of life in its external relations. Below the skull, the structure of the skeleton is profoundly altered; in fact, the framework of the thorax is a sort of bony cage open at the bottom; still, the external arrangement of the bones renders them highly protective to the organs they enclose, namely, the lungs and the heart—physiological centres, whose perpetual motion seems to symbolise the rhythm and consequently the continuity of life.

Continuing to descend, we come to a sort of hollow basin, the pelvis, which seems merely to contain, rather than protect, the abdominal organs: the intestines, kidneys, etc. Such a structure seems to be in accord with the minor physiological importance of these organs, whose function (digestion) is periodic and may be temporarily suspended, in defiance of physiological stimuli, without suspension of life. In the lower part of the skeleton, on the contrary, the arrangement between the soft and bony tissues is inverted: the long bones of the limbs constitute the inner part; and they are covered over with thick, striped muscles, organs of mechanical movement for the purpose of locomotion. Here the function of the skeleton is exclusively that of support, and in its mechanism it represents a series of levers.

Accordingly, the structure of the skeleton also shows us how the stature is composed of parts that differ profoundly in their physiological significance; life as a complete whole, the living man, is contained within the bust, which holds the organs of the individual, vegetative life; those of life in relation to its environment, and those of life in relation to the race, namely, the organs of reproduction.

Deprived of arms and legs, man could still live; the limbs are nothing more than appendages at the service of the bust, in all animals; they serve to transport the bust, that is, the part which constitutes the real living animal, which without the limbs would be as motionless as a vegetable, unable to go in pursuit of nourishment or to exercise sexual selection.

The embryos of different animals, of a dog, a bat, a rabbit and of man (as may be seen in Fig. 11) show that the fundamental part of the body is the spinal column, which limits and includes the whole animal in the process of formation.

If we next examine the embryonic development of man, as shown in Fig. 13, we may easily see how the limbs develop, at first as almost insignificant appendages of the trunk, remaining hidden within the curve of the spinal column; and even in an advanced stage of development (15th week), they still remain quite accessory parts in their relation to the whole.

Having established these very obvious principles, we may ask ourselves: of two men of equal stature, which is physiologically the more efficient? Evidently, that one of the two who has the shorter legs.

In other words, it is of fundamental importance to determine the reciprocal relation, in the stature, between the bust and the lower limbs, that is, between the height of the bust and the total height of the body.

The height of the bust was called by Collignon the essential stature, a name that indicates the biological significance of this measurement. It may, however, also be called the sitting stature, from the method of taking the measure, which equals the vertical distance from the level on which the individual is seated to the top of his head. The other is the total stature.

Accordingly, in anthropology we may define the physiological efficiency of a man by the relation existing between his two statures, the total and the essential. If we reduce the total stature (which for the sake of brevity we will call simply the stature) to a scale of 100, we find that the essential stature very slightly exceeds 50, oscillating between 53-54; yet it may fall to 47 and even lower, or it may rise above 56. In such cases we have individuals of profoundly diverse types, whose diversity is essentially connected with the proportional differences between the several parts of their stature.

Hence, we may distinguish the type of stature; understanding by this, not a measure, but a ratio between measures, expressed by a number; that is, "the type of stature is the name given to the ratio between the essential stature and the total stature reduced to a scale of 100." The number resulting from this ratio, since it indicates the ratio itself, is called the index of stature (See "Technical Lessons: on the Manner of Obtaining and Calculating the Indexes"). Manouvrier has distinguished the type with short limbs and preponderant trunk, by the name of brachyscelous; and those of the opposite type, that is, with long legs, by the name of macroscelous; reserving the term mesatiscelous to designate the intermediate type.

These types differ not only in the reciprocal relation between the two statures, but in all the recognised laws of the form. The brachyscelous type has a circumference of chest in excess of half the stature, because the trunk is more greatly developed in all its dimensions; and the total weight of the body exceeds the normal proportion in relation to the stature. The contrary holds true of the macroscelous type; their trunk, being shorter, is also narrower, and the circumference of the chest can never equal one-half the stature, while the total weight of the body is below the normal.

Canons of Form

Passing next to a consideration of the total spread of the arms, since there is an evident correspondence between the upper and lower limbs, it follows that in the brachyscelous type the total spread is less than the stature, while in the macroscelous it surpasses it to a greater or less degree, according to the grade of type; the two types consequently differ in the level reached by the wrist, when the arms are allowed to hang along the sides of the body.

This is a very interesting fact to establish, since at one time it was held that excessive length of arm was an atavistic feature, in other words, an anthropoid reminder. To-day, since the old interpretation of the direct descent from species to species has been abandoned in the light of modern theories of biological evolution, we can no longer speak of atavistic revivals. It is true that the anthropoid apes, as may be seen in Fig. 13, have extremely long forelimbs, and that man is characterised by the shortness of his arms, free to perform work and obedient instruments of his brain. But if it happens that certain individual men have excessively long arms, even if they should coincide with an inferior capacity for work and social adaptation, such a simple coincidence must not be interpreted by the laws of cause and effect. The modern theories of evolution tend to admit between the anthropoid apes and man, only a common origin from lower animals not yet fixed in a determined species. So that in phylogenesis men are not considered as the children or grandchildren of apes, but rather their brothers or cousins of a more or less distant degree; and their resemblance must be attributed to a parallel evolution.

Consequently, it is not possible to speak of direct transmission of characters.

Therefore, we must interpret an excessive length of arm, or an excessive shortness, after the same fashion, namely, in its relation to the type of stature, or to the established canons of the form—in other words, as a detail of individual human types.

Let us sum up the three canons in the following table:

From these measurements are derived certain types of individuality which we may now describe in detail.

The brachyscelous type has an excess of bust, consequently a preponderance of vegetative life; the great development of the abdominal organs tends to make a person of this type a hearty eater, a man addicted to all the pleasures of the table; his big heart, abundantly irrigating the body, keeps his complexion constantly highly coloured, if not plethoric. We can almost see this man of big paunch, corpulent, with an ample chest, fat, ruddy, coarse, and jolly; an excess of nutriment and of blood-supply are favourable to the ready accumulation of adipose tissue, and as the body constantly grows heavier it steadily becomes more difficult for the undersized legs to support it; so that inevitably this man will tend to become sedentary, and he will select a well-spread table as his favourite spot for lingering. Whatever elements of the ideal the world contains, will escape the attention of this type of man, who is far more ready to understand and engage in commerce, which leads by a practical way to the solution of the material problems of life.

In the other type, on the contrary, the macroscelous, the organs of vegetative life are insufficient and the central nervous system is defective. Such a man feels, even though unconsciously, that the abdominal organs are incapable of assimilating sufficient nutriment, and that his lungs, unable to take in the needed quantity of oxygen, render his breathing labourious. His small heart is inadequate for circulating the blood through the whole body, which consequently retains an habitual pallor; while the nervous system is in a constant state of excitation. We can almost see this man, so tall and thin that he seems to be walking on stilts, with pallid, hollow cheeks and narrow chest, suffering from lack of appetite and from melancholia; nervous, incapable of steady productive work and prone to dream over empty visions of poetry and art. The man of this type is quite likely to devote his entire life to a platonic love, or to conceive the idea of crowning an ideal love by committing suicide; and so long as he lives he will never succeed in escaping from the anxieties of a life that has been an economic failure.

It is interesting to examine the types of stature from different points of view: such, for example, as the height of stature, the race, the sex, the age, the social conditions, the pathological deviations, etc.

The Types of Stature According to the Height of the Total Stature.—There exists between the bust and the limbs a primary relation of a mechanical nature, already well known, even before Manouvrier directed the attention of anthropologists to the types of stature. When one individual is very tall and another is very short, the consequence of this fact alone is that the taller of the two has much longer limbs as compared with the shorter. This is because, according to the general laws of mechanics, the bust grows less than the limbs and is subject to less variation.

But notwithstanding this general fact, other conditions intervene to determine the comparative relations between the two portions of the stature. Indeed, Manouvrier exhibits, within his own school, specimens of equal stature but of different types; and furthermore, he notes that the inhabitants of Polynesia are of tall stature and have a long bust, while negroes, who are also of tall stature, have a short bust.

Types of Stature According to Race.—Among the characteristics of racial types, present-day anthropology has included the reciprocal proportions between the two statures. This means that the medium type in the different races is not always contained within the same limits of fluctuation in regard to stature: but some races are brachyscelous, others are macroscelous, and still again others are mesatiscelous. The most brachyscelous race is the Mongolian, prevalent in the population of China; the most macroscelous is the Australian type that once peopled Tasmania. Other races, as for example the negroid, while in a measure macroscelous, approach nearer to the mesatiscelous type, characteristic of the population of Europe. Let us examine the psycho-ethnic characters of these various peoples. The Chinese are the founders of the most ancient of all oriental civilisations, and have established themselves in a vast empire, solid and stable in its proportions, as well as in the level of its civilisation. It would seem as though the Chinese people, having accomplished the enormous effort of raising themselves to a determined civic level, were no longer capable of advancement. Individually, they have a singularly developed spirit of discipline, and are the most enduring and faithful workers; it is well known that in America the Chinese Mongolian does not fear the competition of labourers of any other race, because no others can compete with him in parsimony, in simple living, and in unremitting toil.

The Tasmanians constituted a people that was considered as having the lowest grade of civilisation among all the races on earth. Even English domination failed to adapt them to a more advanced environment, and their race was consequently scattered and destroyed.

Accordingly, we find associated with extreme macroscelia (Tasmanians) an incapacity for civic evolution; and with the corresponding extreme of brachyscelia an insuperable limitation to civic progress. Consequently, the triumph of man upon earth cannot bear a direct relation to the volume of the bust, or in other words, we cannot assume that the man most favourably endowed on the physiological side is the one who has the largest proportion of viscera. As a matter of fact, the conquering race, the race which has set no limit to the territory of its empire nor to the progress of its civilisation, is composed of white men, whose type of stature is mesatiscelous, that is to say, representative of harmony between its parts. This conception will serve us in establishing a fundamental principle in morphological biology: namely, that perfectibility revolves around a centre, which represents a perfect equilibrium between the various parts constituting an organism. Hence, in order to determine the deviations of the individual type, we must always start from those central data, which represent, as the case may be, normality or perfection.

Even among the populations of Europe, and within the Italian people themselves, fluctuations occur in the degree of mesatiscelia, approaching to a greater or less degree the eccentric forms of brachyscelia or macroscelia; and such fluctuations are an attribute of race.

We should draw a distinction between a people and a race. The term race refers exclusively to a biological classification, and corresponds to the zoological species. On the other hand, we mean by a people a group of human individuals bound together by political ties. Peoples are always made up of a more or less profound intermixture of races. It is well known that one of the most interesting and difficult problems of ethnology is that of tracing out the original types of races in peoples that represent an intermixture centuries old. Without entering too deeply into this question, which lies outside of our present purpose, it will suffice to point out that in the people of Italy it is possible to trace types of races differing from one another, yet so closely related as to render them apparently so similar that they might almost be regarded as a single race.

Now, in an anthropological study of mine on the young women of Latium, I succeeded in tracing, within the confines of that region, different racial types that show corresponding differences in degrees of mesatiscelia. Thus, for example, in Castelli Romani there exists in an almost pure state a dark-haired race, short of stature, slender, elegantly modelled in figure and in profile, and showing within the limits of mesatiscelia a brachyscelous tendency, in contrast with another race, tall, fair, massive, of coarse build, which within the limits of mesatiscelia shows a macroscelous tendency, and which is found in almost pure groups around the locality of Orte, that is, on the boundaries of Umbria. It is interesting to note the importance of researches in ethnological anthropology conducted in small centres of habitation. If it is still possible to trace out groups even approaching racial purity, they will be found only in localities offering little facility to emigration and to the consequent intermixture of races. The fact that we still find in Castelli Romani types so nearly pure, is due to the isolation of this region, which up to yesterday was still in such primitive and rare communication with the capital as to permit of the survival of brigandage. On the contrary, in localities that have attained a higher civic advancement, and in which the inhabitants are placed in favourable economic and intellectual conditions, the facilities of travel and emigration will very soon effect an alteration in the anthropological characters of the race. Hence it would be impossible, in a cosmopolitan city like Rome, to accomplish any useful studies of the sort that I accomplished in the district of Latium, and which led me to conclude that in the small and slender race of Castelli Romani we may trace the descendants of the ancient conquerors of the world: descendants that belong to one variety of the great Mediterranean race, to whom we owe the historic civilisations of Egypt, Greece and Rome.

It would seem that this race, disembarking on the coast of Latium, must have driven back, among the Apennines, the other race, blond and massive, whose pure-blooded descendants are still found in numerical prevalence at Orte, an ancient mediæval town and a natural fortress from the remotest times, through its fortunate situation on the crown of a rocky height, that easily isolates it from the surrounding country (see the ancient history of the town of Orte).

Accordingly, within the limits of mesatiscelia, it appears that the race which in early times won the victory was the more brachyscelous, i.e., the one which had the larger bust, and consequently the larger brain and vital organs. In other words, within the limits of normality, brachyscelia is a physiologically favourable condition.

Variations of Type of Stature According to Social Conditions.—Independently of race, and from such a radically different point of view as that of the social condition, or adaptation to environment, we may still distinguish brachyscelous and macroscelous types. Brachysceles may readily be met with among the labouring classes, habituated from childhood to hard toil in a standing position, thus interfering with a free development of the long bones of the lower limbs; while the macroscelous type will be found among the aristocratic classes, whose members, spending much time sitting or reclining, give the long bones an opportunity to attain their growth (mechanical theories of stature). Without stopping to discuss the suggested causes of such differentiation in types, we may nevertheless point out that the brachyscelous type is eminently useful to society, constituting, one may say, the principal source of economic production, while the macroscelous and unproductive type settles comfortably down upon the other like a parasite. But the progress of the world is not due to the labouring class, but to the men of intellect, among whom the prevailing type is the medium, harmonic type, with mesatiscelous stature.

Types of Stature in Art.—The existence of these different individual types, which combine a definite relationship of the parts of stature with the complete image of a well-defined individuality, was long ago perceived by the eye, or rather by the delicate intuition of certain eminent artists. These immortalised their several ideals, investing now the one type and now the other with the genius of their art. Thus, for example, Rubens embodies in his Flemish canvases the brachyscelous type, robust and jovial, and usually represents him as a man of mighty appetite revelling in the pleasures of the table.

Botticelli, on the contrary, has idealised the macroscelous type, in frail, diaphanous, almost superhuman forms, that seem, as they approach, to walk, shadow-like, upon the heads of flowers, without bending them beneath their feet and without leaving any trace of their passage. Accordingly, these two great artists have admirably realised, not only the two opposite types of stature, but also the psychic and moral attributes that respectively belong to them. But it was not granted to these artists to achieve the supreme glory of representing perfect human beauty in unsurpassed and classic masterpieces. The art of Greece alone succeeded in embodying in statues which posterity must admire but cannot duplicate, the medial, normal type of the perfect man.

Variations of Stature According to Sex.—It is not always necessary to interpret the type of stature in the same sense. Even from an exclusively biological standpoint, it may lend itself to profoundly different interpretations.

Thus, for example, the type of stature varies normally according to the sex. Woman is more brachyscelous than man; but the degree of brachyscelia corresponds to a larger development of the lumbar segment of the spinal column, which corresponds to the functions of maternity.