Although the skull of the Chimpanzee has distinct superciliary ridges, yet the high bony crests of the calvarium of the male Gorilla are wanting, and the whole coronal region of the skull is more rounded and far less rugged.

The canine teeth of the male Chimpanzee are relatively much smaller than in the Gorilla and Orang. The upper molars are characterised by the third one being smaller than either of the other two, as well as by the presence of an indistinct cingulum on their inner surfaces. The upper premolars differ from those of the other genera of the family by the shortness of their antero-posterior diameter, and also by the larger size of their external as compared with their internal cusps; while the outer border of these teeth is placed internally to that of the upper molars. In all these respects the teeth of the Chimpanzee make a decided approximation to the human type.

Many young individuals of the Chimpanzee have been brought to Europe, but they appear to succumb sooner or later to the effects of an unsuitable climate. All these examples show that the disposition of this Ape is gentle, lively, and intelligent, and in all respects markedly opposite to that of the Orang. In a wild state these Apes are essentially forest-dwellers, and are more arboreal in their habits than the Gorilla. They live either in families, or in small parties of several families. Frequently at least they construct a kind of nest in the trees as a sleeping-place; the male being said to sleep on a forked branch below the level of this nest. In walking the Chimpanzee usually supports himself on the backs of his closed fingers, and either on the soles of the feet or on the closed toes.

From a distributional point of view the discovery of a fossil Ape in the Pliocene of the Punjab, apparently closely allied to the Chimpanzee, is of great interest. This determination rests upon the evidence of an imperfect palate originally described under the name of Palæopithecus, but subsequently referred to the present genus. The teeth of this jaw present all the essential characters of those of the Chimpanzee, but the two series of cheek-teeth have a slight anterior convergence, the premolars are shorter in the antero-posterior direction than is usually the case in that species, and the outer incisor is relatively narrower than in the latter. In these features the extinct A. sivalensis makes a nearer approximation to the human type than is the case with its living congeners.

Dryopithecus.[698]—The extinct Dryopithecus of the Middle Miocene of France is represented by a single species of the approximate size of the Chimpanzee, and appears to be the most generalised member of the family. According to the recent observations of Professor Gaudry,[699] while it resembles the Gorilla in that the two series of lower cheek-teeth diverge anteriorly and the penultimate premolar is larger than the last of that series, it differs in having a much longer and narrower mandibular symphysis, and thus indicates a transition to the Cercopithecidæ. A gradual transition in the form of the mandible may, indeed, be traced from Dryopithecus, through Gorilla, to Anthropopithecus; the latter having a short and wide symphysis, with the two series of cheek-teeth slightly converging anteriorly, and the penultimate premolar being not larger than the last. In all these specialised characters the jaw of the Chimpanzee approximates to that of Man, in which the symphysis is still further shortened and widened, and the anterior convergence of the cheek-teeth so much increased as to produce a horse-shoe-like form in the whole dental series.

Family Hominidæ.

In the Systema Naturæ of Linnæus Man was separated only generically from the Apes, but in the next great work which exercised a widespread influence over the progress of zoological science, the Règne Animal of Cuvier, he forms a distinct order under the name of Bimana, the Monkeys and Lemurs being associated together as Quadrumana. This has been the prevailing arrangement in the zoological systems of the present century, though in the classification of Owen his position is still farther removed from that of the Monkeys, as in it the genus Homo forms one of the four primary divisions or subclasses of the Mammalia, called Archencephala, the Quadrumana being united with the Carnivora, Ungulata, and others in another division called Gyrencephala. On the other hand, the tendency of most modern systematists, for reasons which have been fully stated by Professor Huxley,[700] is to revert towards the Linnæan position.

Considering solely the facts of Man’s bodily structure, it can be clearly demonstrated that the points in which he differs from the Ape most nearly resembling him are not of greater importance than those by which that Ape differs from other universally acknowledged members of the group; and therefore, in any natural system, if Man is to be made a subject of zoological classification upon the same principles as those applied elsewhere, he must be included in the order which comprises the Monkeys. We say upon the same principles as are applied elsewhere, since zoological classification has never taken into consideration the psychological characteristics which distinguish the subjects of its investigations, but only their tangible and physical structure, otherwise endless confusion would result, at all events with our very imperfect knowledge of animal psychology. The essential attributes which distinguish Man, and give him a perfectly isolated position among living creatures, are not to be found in his bodily structure, and should therefore either be left entirely out of consideration, or have such weight given to them as would remove him completely out of the region of zoological classification. To profess to classify Man as if he were one of the animals (as in all points of the structure and functions of his organs he undoubtedly is), to place him in the class Mammalia, and then to allow other considerations to influence the judgment as to the particular position he should occupy in the class, is most illogical.

Man, therefore, considered from a zoological point of view, must be included in the order Primates, even if the Lemurs be removed from it, since his structural affinities with the Monkeys are far closer than are those of the so-called “Half-Apes.” We may, without treading upon debatable ground, go farther, and say that the differences between Man and the Anthropoid Apes are really not so marked as those which separate the latter from the American Monkeys. This being admitted, perhaps the best exposition relating to the present condition of the order will be to regard Man as representing a fifth family of the Anthropoidea, which should be known as the Hominidæ. In thus ranking Man as one of the five principal families or sections of the suborder it should, however, be observed that this course does not in the least degree imply that such families are precisely equivalent to one another, or that the intervals by which they are separated are of equal importance; all that we commit ourselves to being that they are five perfectly distinct groups, all branches from a common stem, and in the present state of nature not united by any intermediate types.

The distinctions between the Hominidæ and Simiidæ are chiefly relative, being greater size of brain and of brain-case as compared with the facial portion of the skull, smaller development of the canine teeth of the males, complete adaptation of the structure of the vertebral column to the vertical position, greater length of the lower as compared with the upper extremities, and greater length of the hallux or great toe, with almost complete absence of the power of bringing it in opposition to the other four toes. The last feature together with the small size of the canine teeth are perhaps the most marked and easily defined distinctions that can be drawn between the two groups.

Man is universally admitted to form a single genus, Homo of Linnæus, but a question of considerable importance in treating of him from a zoological point of view, and one which has been a subject of much controversy, is whether all men should be considered as belonging to a single or to several species. This question is perhaps of less importance now than formerly, when those who maintained a plurality of species associated with the hypothesis plurality of origin. One of the strongest arguments against the view that the various races of Man represent more than one species is that none of those who have maintained it have been able to agree as to how many distinct specific modifications can be defined, almost every number from three to twenty or more having been advocated by different authors. If the distinguishing characters of the so-called species had been so marked, there could not be such a remarkable diversity of opinion upon them. Again, the two facts—(1) that, however different the extremes of any two races may be in appearance (and it must be admitted that, as advocated by many polygenists, the differences are greater than many which are considered specific among other animals), every intermediate gradation can be found through which the one passes into the other, and (2) that all races are fertile inter se—are quite conclusive in favour of considering Man as representing a single species in the ordinary sense in which the word is now used, and of treating of all his various modifications as varieties or races.

The great problem at the root of all zoology, the discovery of a natural classification which shall be an expression of our knowledge of the real relationship or consanguinity of different forms, is also applicable to the study of the races of Man. When we can satisfactorily prove that any two of the known groups of mankind are descended from the same common stock, a point is gained. The more such points we have acquired the more nearly shall we be able to picture to ourselves, not only the present, but also the past distribution of the races of Man upon the earth, and the mode and order in which they have been derived from one another. But the difficulties in the way of applying zoological principles to the classification of Man are vastly greater than in the case of most animals. When groups of animals become so far differentiated from each other as to represent separate species, they remain isolated; they may break up into further subdivisions—in fact, it is only by further subdivision that new species can be formed; but it is of the very essence of species, as now universally understood by naturalists, that they cannot recombine, and so give rise to new forms. With the varieties of Man it is otherwise. They have never so far separated as to answer to the physiological definition of species. All races, as said above, are fertile with one another, though perhaps in different degrees. Hence new varieties have constantly been formed, not only by the segmentation of portions of one of the old stocks, but also by various combinations of those already established.

Without entering into the difficult question of the method of Man’s first appearance upon the world, we must assume for it vast antiquity,—at all events as measured by any historical standard. Of this there is now ample proof. During the long time Man existed in a savage state—a time compared to which the dawn of our historical period is as yesterday—he was influenced by the operation of those natural laws which have produced the variations seen in other regions of organic nature. The first Men may very probably have been all alike; but when spread over the face of the earth and subjected to all kinds of diverse external conditions,—climate, food, competition with members of their own species or with wild animals,—racial differences began slowly to be developed through the potency of various kinds of selection acting upon the slight variations which appeared in individuals in obedience to the tendency planted in all living things. These differences manifested themselves externally in the colour of the skin, the colour, quality, and distribution of the hair, the form of the head and features, and the proportions of the limbs, as well as in the general stature.

Geographical position must have been one of the main elements in determining the formation and permanence of races. Groups of Men isolated from their fellows for long periods, such as those living on small islands, to which their ancestors may have been accidentally drifted, would naturally, in course of time, develop a new type of features, of skull, of complexion, or hair. A slight set in one direction in any of these characters would constantly tend to intensify itself, and so new races would be formed. In the same way different intellectual or moral qualities would be gradually developed or transmitted in different groups of Men. The longer a race thus formed remained isolated the more strongly impressed and the more permanent would its characteristics become, and less liable to be changed or lost when the surrounding circumstances were altered or under a moderate amount of intermixture from other races—the more “true,” in fact, would it be. On the other hand, on large continental tracts, where no mountain ranges or other natural barriers form obstacles to free intercourse between tribe and tribe, there would always be a tendency towards uniformity, from the amalgamation of races brought into close relation by war or by commerce. Smaller or feebler races would be destroyed or absorbed by others impelled by superabundant population or other causes to spread beyond their original limits; or sometimes the conquering race would itself disappear by absorption into the conquered.

Thus for untold ages the history of Man has presented a shifting kaleidoscopic scene: new races gradually becoming differentiated out of the old elements, and, after dwelling a while upon the earth, becoming either suddenly annihilated or gradually merged into new combinations; a constant destruction and reconstruction; a constant tendency to separation and differentiation, and a tendency to combine again into a common uniformity—the two tendencies acting against and modifying each other. The history of these processes in former times, except in so far as they may be inferred from the present state of things, is a difficult study, owing to the scarcity of evidence. If we had any approach to a complete palæontological record, the history of Man could be reconstructed; but nothing of the kind is forthcoming. Evidence of the anatomical characters of Man as he lived on the earth during the time when the most striking racial characteristics were being developed, during the long ante-historic period in which the Negro, the Mongolian, and the Caucasian were being gradually fashioned into their respective types, is entirely wanting, or if any exists it is at present safely buried in the earth, perhaps to be revealed at some unexpected time and in some unforeseen manner. Even the materials from which a history of the modifications of the human species as known to our generation must be constructed are rapidly passing away, since the age in which we live is an age in which, in a far greater degree than any previous one, the destruction of races, both by annihilation and absorption, is going on. Owing to the rapid extension of maritime discovery and commerce, changes such as have never been witnessed before are now taking place in the ethnology of the world—changes especially affecting the island populations among which, more than elsewhere, the solution of many of those problems may be looked for. The subject is, however, attracting the attention of observers of all countries to a greater degree than it ever has before, and such progress has been made in perfecting the methods of investigation of racial characteristics that we are beginning to learn what lines of research are profitable and what are barren, so that we may hope the time is not far distant when we may get some clear insight into the knowledge of the natural classification and relationships of the races of Man.

The following is a brief summary of the principal results which appear to have been attained up to the present time by the study of this somewhat difficult subject.[701]

The most ordinary observation is sufficient to demonstrate the fact that certain groups of men are strongly marked from others by definite characters common to all members of the group, and transmitted regularly to their descendants by the laws of inheritance. Thus the Chinaman and the Negro, the native of Patagonia and the Andaman Islander, are as structurally distinct from each other as are many of the so-called species of any natural group of animals. Indeed, it may be said with truth that their differences are even greater than those which mark the groups called genera by many naturalists of the present day. Nevertheless the difficulty of parcelling out all the individuals composing the human species into certain definite groups, and of saying of each man that he belongs to one or other of such groups, is insuperable. No such classification has ever been, or, indeed, can ever be obtained. There is not one of the most characteristic and most extreme forms, like those just named, from which transitions cannot be traced by almost imperceptible gradations to any of the other equally characteristic and equally extreme forms. Indeed, a large proportion of mankind is made up, not of extreme or typical, but of more or less generalised or intermediate forms, the relative numbers of which are continually increasing, as the long-existing isolation of nations and races breaks down under the ever-extending intercommunication characteristic of the period in which we live.

The difficulties of framing a natural classification of Man, or one really representing the relationship of the various minor groups to each other, are well exemplified by a study of the numerous attempts which have been made from the time of Linnæus and Blumenbach onwards. Even in the first step of establishing certain primary groups of equivalent rank there has been no accord. Thus four primitive types were sketched out by Linnæus—the European, Asiatic, African, and American. These were expanded into five by Blumenbach by the addition of the Malay,[702] and reduced by Cuvier to three by the suppression of the last two. Many later writers have largely increased the number of these so-called primary divisions, but the conclusion, so often arrived at by various anthropologists, and so often abandoned for some more complex system, that the primitive man, whatever he may have been, has in the course of ages divaricated into three extreme types, represented by the Caucasian of Europe, the Mongolian of Asia, and the Ethiopian of Africa, and that all existing individuals of the species can be ranged around these types, or somewhere or other between them, seems, on the whole, to give the clearest view of the facts of the case. Large numbers are doubtless the descendants of direct crosses in varying proportions between well-established extreme forms; for, notwithstanding opposite views formerly held by some authors on this subject, there is now abundant evidence of the wholesale production of new races in this way. Others may be the descendants of the primitive stock before the strongly marked existing distinctions had taken place, and therefore present, though from a different cause from the last, equally generalised characters. In these cases it can only be by most carefully examining and balancing all characters, however minute, and finding out in what direction the preponderance lies, that a place can be assigned to them. It cannot be too often insisted on that the various groups of mankind, owing to their probable unity of origin, the great variability of individuals, and the possibility of all degrees of intermixture of races at remote or recent periods of the history of the species, have so much in common that it is extremely difficult to find distinctive characters capable of strict definition by which they may be differentiated. It is more by the preponderance of certain characters in a large number of members of a group, than by the exclusive or even constant possession of these characters in each of its members, that the group as a whole must be characterised.

Bearing these principles in mind, we may endeavour to formulate, as far as they have as yet been worked out, the distinctive features of the typical members of each of the three great divisions, and then show into what subordinate groups each of them seems to be divided.

We begin with the Ethiopian, Negroid, or Melanian, or “black” type. It is characterised by a dark, often nearly black, complexion; black hair, of a kind called “frizzly” or, incorrectly, “woolly,” i.e. each hair is closely rolled up on itself, a condition always associated with a more or less flattened or elliptical transverse section; a moderate or scanty development of beard, an almost invariably dolichocephalic skull; small and moderately retreating jugal bones (mesopic face); a very broad and flat nose, platyrhine in the skeleton; moderate or low orbits; prominent eyes; thick, everted lips; prognathous jaws; large teeth (macrodont); a narrow pelvis (index in the male 90 to 100); a long forearm (humero-radial index 80); and certain other proportions of the body and limbs which are being gradually worked out, and reduced to numerical expression as material for so doing accumulates.

The most characteristic examples of the second great type, the Mongolian or Xanthous, or “yellow,” have a yellow or brownish complexion; black coarse straight hair, without any tendency to curl, and nearly round in section; on all other parts of the surface except the scalp scanty and late in appearing; a skull of variable form, mostly mesocephalic (though extremes both of dolichocephalism and brachycephalism are found in certain groups of this type); a broad and flat face, with prominent, anteriorly-projecting jugal bones (platyopic face); nose small, mesorhine or leptorhine; orbits high and round, with very little development of glabella or supraciliary ridges; eyes sunken, and with the aperture between the lids narrow; in the most typical members of the group with a vertical fold of skin over the inner canthus, and with the outer angle slightly elevated; jaws mesognathous; teeth of moderate size (mesodont). The proportions of the limbs and form of the pelvis have yet to be worked out, the results at present obtained showing great diversity among different individuals of what appear to be well-marked races of the group, but this is perhaps due to the insufficient number of individuals as yet examined with accuracy.

The last type, which, for want of a better name, we must still call by the misleading one that has the priority, Caucasian, or “white,” has usually a light-complexioned skin (although in some, in so far aberrant cases, it is as dark as in the Negroes); hair fair or black, soft, straight, or wavy, in section intermediate between the flattened and cylindrical form; beard fully developed; form of cranium variable, mostly mesocephalic; jugal bones retreating; face narrow and projecting in the middle line (pro-opic); orbits moderate; nose narrow and prominent (leptorhine); jaws orthognathous; teeth small (microdont); pelvis broad (pelvic index of male 80); forearm short, relatively to humerus (humero-radial index 74).

In endeavouring to subdivide into minor groups the numerous and variously-modified individuals which cluster around one or other of these great types—a process quite necessary for many practical or descriptive purposes—the distinctions afforded by the study of physical characters are often so slight that it becomes necessary to take other considerations into account, among which geographical distribution and language hold an important place.

I. The Ethiopian or Negroid races may be primarily arranged as follows:—

A. African or Typical Negroes.—Inhabitants of all the central portion of the African continent, from the Atlantic on the west to the Indian Ocean on the east, greatly mixed all along their northern frontier with Hamitic and Semitic Melanochroi, a mixture which, taking place in various proportions and under varied conditions, has given rise to many of the numerous races and tribes inhabiting the Sudan.

A branch of the African Negroes are the Bantu—distinguished chiefly, if not entirely, by the structure of their language. Physically indistinguishable from the other negroes with whom they come in contact in the Equatorial regions of Africa, the Southern Bantu, or Kaffirs, as they are generally called, show a marked modification of type, being lighter in colour, having a larger cranial capacity, less marked prognathism, and smaller teeth. Some of these changes are probably due to crossing with other races.

B. The Negrillos—diminutive sub-brachycephalic tribes, inhabiting the dense forests of Central and Western Equatorial Africa—represent a distinct section of the Negro race. They form the only exceptions to the general dolichocephaly of the African branch of the Negroid division, and when found in a pure state are the smallest of all known human races, averaging scarcely more than 4 feet in height. The colour of their skin is yellowish rather than black.

C. The Bushmen (Bosjesmen, men of the woods, of the Dutch colonists of South Africa) constitute a very distinct modification of the Negro type. The hair shows the extreme of the frizzly character; being shorter and less abundant than that of the ordinary Negro, it has the appearance of growing in separate tufts, which coil up together into rounded balls compared to “peppercorns.” In their yellow complexion, wide cheek-bones, and peculiar form of the eyes they so much resemble some of the Mongolian races that anthropologists have been inclined to trace affinities to or admixture with them, although the character of the hair makes such a supposition almost inadmissible. The width of the cheek-bones and the narrowness of the forehead and chin give a lozenge shape to the front view of the face. The forehead is prominent and straight; the nose extremely flat and broad, more so than in any other race; the lips prominent and thick, although the jaws are less prognathous than in the true Negro races. The cranium has many special characters by which it can be easily distinguished from that of any other race. The average height of the males is about 4 feet 8 inches. There is every reason to believe that the Bushmen represent the earliest race of which we have any knowledge inhabiting the southern part of the African continent, but that long before the advent of Europeans upon the scene they had been invaded from the north by Negro tribes, who, being superior in size, strength, and civilisation, had taken possession of the greater part of their territories, and, mingling freely with the aborigines, had produced the mixed race called Hottentots, who retained the culture and settled pastoral habits of the Negroes, with many of the physical features of the Bushmen. These in their turn, encroached upon by the Kaffirs from the north and by Europeans from the south, are now greatly diminished, and threatened with the same fate which will surely soon befall the scanty remnant of the early inhabitants who still retain their primitive type.

D. Oceanic Negroes or Melanesians.—These include the Papuans of New Guinea and the majority of the inhabitants of the islands of the Western Pacific, and form also a substratum of the population, greatly mixed with other races, of regions extending far beyond the present centre of their area of distribution.

They are represented, in what may be called a hypertypical form, by the extremely dolichocephalic Kai Colos, or mountaineers of the interior of the Fiji Islands, although the coast population of the same group has lost the distinctive characters by crossing. In many parts of New Guinea and the great chain of islands extending eastwards and southwards ending with New Caledonia they are found in a more or less pure condition, especially in the interior and more inaccessible portions of the islands, almost each of which shows special modifications of the type recognisable in details of structure. Taken altogether, their chief physical distinction from the African Negroes lies in the fact that the glabella and supraorbital ridges are generally well developed in the males, whereas in Africans this region is usually smooth and flat. The nose also, especially in the northern part of their geographical range, New Guinea, and the neighbouring islands, is narrower (often mesorhine) and prominent. The cranium is generally higher and narrower. It is, however, possible to find African and Melanesian skulls quite alike in essential characters.

The now extinct inhabitants of Tasmania were probably pure, but aberrant, members of the Melanesian group, which had undergone a modification from the original type, not by mixture with other races, but in consequence of long isolation, during which special characters had been gradually developed. Lying completely out of the track of all civilisation and commerce, even of the most primitive kind, they were little liable to be subject to the influence of any other race; and there is in fact nothing among their characters which could be accounted for in the way above suggested, as they were intensely, even exaggeratedly, Negroid in the form of nose, projection of mouth, and size of teeth, typically so in character of hair, and aberrant chiefly in the width of the skull in the parietal region. A cross with any of the Polynesian or Malay races sufficiently strong to produce this would, in all probability, have also left some traces on other parts of their organisation.

On the other hand, in many parts of the Melanesian region there are distinct evidences of large admixture with Negrito, Malay, and Polynesian elements in varying proportions, producing numerous physical modifications. In many of the inhabitants of the great island of New Guinea itself and of the islands lying around it this mixture can be traced. In the people of Micronesia in the north and New Zealand in the south, although the Melanesian element is present, it is completely overlaid by the Polynesian, but there are probably few, if any, of the islands of the Pacific in which it does not form some factor in the composite character of the natives.

The inhabitants of the continent of Australia have long been a puzzle to ethnologists. Of Negroid complexion, features, and skeletal characters, yet without the characteristic frizzly hair, their position has been one of great difficulty to determine. They have, in fact, been a stumbling-block in the way of every system proposed. The solution, supported by many considerations too lengthy to enter into here, appears to lie in the supposition that they are not a distinct race at all, that is, not a homogeneous group formed by the gradual modification of one of the primitive stocks, but rather a cross between two already-formed branches of these stocks. According to this view, Australia was originally peopled with frizzly-haired Melanesians, such as those who still do, or did before the European invasion, dwell in the smaller islands which surround the north, east, and southern portions of the continent, but that a strong infusion of some other race, probably a low form of Caucasian Melanochroi, such as that which still inhabits the interior of the southern parts of India, has spread throughout the land from the north-west, and produced a modification of the physical characters, especially of the hair. This influence did not extend across Bass’s Straits into Tasmania, where, as just said, the Melanesian element remained in its purity. It is more strongly marked in the northern and central parts of Australia than on many portions of the southern and western coasts, where the lowness of type and more curly hair, sometimes closely approaching to frizzly, show a stronger retention of the Melanesian element. If the evidence should prove sufficiently strong to establish this view of the origin of the Australian natives, it will no longer be correct to speak of a primitive Australian, or even Australoid, race or type, or look for traces of the former existence of such a race anywhere out of their own land. Absolute proof of the origin of any race is, however, very difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and there is nothing to exclude the possibility of the Australians being mainly the direct descendants of a very primitive human type, from which the frizzly-haired Negroes may be an offset. This character of hair is probably a specialisation, for it seems very unlikely that it was the attribute of the common ancestors of the human race.

E. The fourth branch of the Negroid race consists of the diminutive round-headed people called Negritos, still found in a pure or unmixed state in the Andaman Islands, and forming a substratum of the population, though now greatly mixed with invading races, especially Malays, in the Philippines, and many of the islands of the Indo-Malayan Archipelago, and of some parts of the southern portion of the mainland of Asia. They also contribute to the varied population of New Guinea, where they appear to merge into the taller, longer-headed, and longer-nosed Melanesians proper. They show in a very marked manner some of the most striking anatomical peculiarities of the Negro race, such as the frizzly hair, the proportions of the limbs, especially the humero-radial index, and the form of the pelvis; but they differ in many cranial and facial characters, both from the African Negroes on the one hand, and the typical Oceanic Negroes, or Melanesians, on the other, and thus form a very distinct and well-characterised group. Wherever they are still found they are obviously holding their own with difficulty, if not actually disappearing, and there is much about their condition of civilisation and the situations in which they occur to induce us to look upon them, as in the case of the Negrillos of Central and the Bushmen of South Africa, as the remains of a population which occupied the land before the incoming of the present dominant races.

II. The principal groups that can be arranged round the Mongolian type are as follows:—

A. The Eskimo appear to be a branch of the typical North Asiatic Mongols, who in their wanderings northwards and eastwards across the American continent, where they have been isolated almost as perfectly as an island population would be, hemmed in on one side by the eternal Polar ice, and on the other by hostile tribes of American Indians, with which they rarely, if ever, mingled, have gradually developed characters, most of which are strongly-expressed modifications of those seen in their allies who still remain on the western side of Behring Strait. It has also been shown that these special characteristics gradually increase from west to east, and are seen in their greatest perfection in the inhabitants of Greenland, at all events in those where no crossing with the Danes has taken place. A typical Eskimo skull presents a combination of characters by which it can be at once distinguished from that of any other of the groups of mankind. Such scanty remains as have yet been discovered of the earliest inhabitants of Europe do not present any structural affinities to this type, and there is therefore no justification for the supposition that they belonged to the same race, although it is not unlikely that similar external conditions may have led them to adopt similar modes of life.

B. The typical Mongolian races constitute the present population of Northern and Central Asia. They are not very distinctly, but still conveniently for descriptive purposes, divided into a Northern and a Southern group.

a. The members of the former, Mongolo-Altaic or Sibiric group, are united by the affinities of their language. These people, from the cradle of their race in the great plateau of Central Asia, have at various times poured out their hordes upon the lands lying to the west, and thence penetrated almost to the heart of Europe. The Lapps, Finns, the Magyars, and the Turks are each the descendants of one of these waves of incursion, but they have for so many generations intermingled with the peoples through whom they have passed in their migrations, or whom they have found in the countries in which they have ultimately settled, that their original physical characters have been completely modified. Even the Lapps, that diminutive tribe of nomads inhabiting the most northern parts of Europe, supposed to be of Mongolian descent, show so little of the special attributes of that branch that it is difficult to assign them a place in it in a classification based upon physical characters. The Japanese are said by their language to be allied rather to the Northern than to the following branch of the Mongolian stock.

b. The southern Mongolian or Sinitic group, divided from the former chiefly by language and habits of life, includes the greater part of the population of China, Tibet, Burma, and Siam.

C. The next great division of Mongoloid people is the Malay, forming the bulk of the population of the Indo-Malayan Archipelago and (mixed with the Negro) of Madagascar, subtypical it is true, but to which an easy transition can be traced from the most characteristic members of the type.

D. The brown Polynesians, Malayo-Polynesians, Mahoris, Sawaioris, or Kanakas, as they have been variously called, seen in their greatest purity in the Samoan, Tongan, and Eastern Polynesian Islands, are still more modified, and possess less of the characteristic Mongolian features; but yet it is difficult to place them anywhere else in the system. The large infusion of the Melanesian element throughout the Pacific must never be forgotten in accounting for the characters of the people now inhabiting the islands—an element in many respects so diametrically opposite to the Mongolian that it would materially alter the characters, especially of the hair and beard, which has been with many authors a stumbling-block to the affiliation of the Polynesian with the Mongolian stock. This mixture is physically a fine one, and in some proportions produces a combination, as seen, for instance, in the Maories of New Zealand, which in all definable characters approaches quite as near, or nearer, to the Caucasian type than to either of the stocks from which it may be presumably derived. This resemblance has led some ethnologists to infer a real extension of the Caucasian element at some very early period into the Pacific Islands, and to look upon their inhabitants as the product of a mingling of all the three great types of men. Though this is a very plausible theory, it rests on little actual proof, since the combination of Mongolo-Malayan and Melanesian characters in different degrees, together with the local variations certain to arise in communities so isolated from each other and exposed to such varied conditions as the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands, would probably account for all the modifications observed among them.

E. The native population (before the changes wrought by the European conquest) of the great continent of America, excluding the Eskimo, present, considering the vast extent of the country they inhabit and the great differences of climate and other surrounding conditions, a remarkable similarity of essential characters with much diversity of detail.

The construction of the numerous American languages, of which as many as twelve hundred have been distinguished, is said to point to unity of origin, as, though widely different in many respects, they are all, or nearly all, constructed on the same general grammatical principle—that called polysynthesis—which differs from that of the languages of any of the Old World nations. The mental characteristics of all the American tribes have much that is in common, and the very different stages of culture to which they had attained at the time of the conquest, as that of the Incas and Aztecs and the hunting or fishing tribes of the north and south, which have been quoted as evidence of diversities of race, were not greater than those between different nations of Europe, as Gauls and Germans on the one hand, and Greeks and Romans on the other, in the time of Julius Cæsar. Yet all these were Aryans, and in treating the Americans as one race it is not intended to imply that they are more closely allied than the different Aryan peoples of Europe and Asia. The best argument that can be used for the unity of the American race—using the word in a broad sense—is the great difficulty of forming any natural divisions in it founded upon physical characters. Thus there is no difference throughout the whole continent in the important character of the hair, this being always straight and lank, long and abundant on the scalp, but sparse elsewhere. The colour of the skin, notwithstanding the enormous differences of climate under which many members of the group exist, varies but little. It is true that in the features and cranium certain special modifications prevail in different districts, but the same forms reappear at widely separated parts of the continent. Thus skulls almost undistinguishable from one another may be met with from Vancouver’s Island, from Peru, and from Patagonia.

Naturalists who have admitted but three primary types of the human species have always found a difficulty with the Americans, hesitating between placing them with the Mongolian or so-called “yellow” races, or elevating them to the rank of a primary group. Cuvier, indeed, does not seem to have been able to settle this point to his own satisfaction, and leaves it an open question. Although the large majority of Americans have in the special form of the nasal bones, leading to the characteristic high bridge of the nose of the living face, in the well-developed superciliary ridge and retreating forehead, characters which distinguish them from the typical Asiatic Mongol, yet in many other respects they resemble them so closely that, while still admitting the difficulties of the case, we are inclined to include them as aberrant members of the Mongolian type.[703] It is, however, quite open to any one adopting the Negro, Mongolian, and Caucasian groups as primary divisions to place the Americans apart as a fourth.

Now that the high antiquity of man in America—perhaps as high as that which he has in Europe—has been discovered, the puzzling problem, from which part of the Old World the people of America have sprung, has lost its significance. It is, indeed, quite as likely that the people of Asia may have been derived from America as the reverse. However this may be, the population of America, except at the extreme north, was, before the time of Columbus, practically isolated from the rest of the world. Such visits as those of the early Norsemen to the coasts of Greenland, Labrador, and Nova Scotia, or the occasional accidental stranding of a canoe containing survivors of a voyage across the Pacific or the Atlantic, can have had little appreciable effect upon the characteristics of the people. It is difficult, therefore, to look upon the anomalous and special characters of the American people as the effects of crossing, as was suggested in the case of the Australians—a consideration which gives more weight to the view of treating them as a distinct primary division.

III. The Caucasian, Eurafrican, or white division, includes the two groups called by Professor Huxley Xanthochroi and Melanochroi, which, though differing in colour of eyes and hair, agree so closely in all other anatomical characters, so far, at all events, as has at present been demonstrated, that it seems preferable to consider them both as modifications of one great type than as primary divisions of the species. Whatever their origin may have been, they are now intimately blended, though in different proportions, throughout the whole of the region of the earth they inhabit; and it is to the rapid extension of both branches of this race that the great changes now taking place in the ethnology of the world are mainly due.

A. The Xanthochroi, or blonde type, with fair hair, eyes, and complexion, chiefly inhabit Northern Europe (Scandinavia, Scotland, and North Germany), but, although much mixed with the next group, they also extend as far as Northern Africa and Afghanistan. Their mixture with Mongoloid people has given rise to the Lapps, Finns, and some of the tribes of Northern Siberia.

B. Melanochroi, with black hair and eyes, and skin of almost all shades from white to black. They comprise the great majority of the inhabitants of Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and South-West Asia, and consist mainly of the Aryan, Semitic, and Hamitic families. The Dravidians of India, the Veddahs of Ceylon, and probably the Ainos of Japan, and the Maoutze of China, also belong to this race, which may have contributed something to the mixed character of some tribes of Indo-China and the Polynesian Islands, and, as before said, have given at least the characters of the hair to the otherwise Negroid inhabitants of Australia. In Southern India they are largely mixed with a Negrito element, and in Africa, where their habitat becomes coterminous with that of the Negroes, numerous cross-races have sprung up between them all along the frontier line. The ancient Egyptians were nearly pure Melanochroi, though often showing in their features traces of their frequent intermarriages with their Ethiopian neighbours to the south. The Copts and fellahs of modern Egypt are their little-changed descendants.

In offering this scheme of classification of the varieties of the human species, it is not suggested that it is one universally accepted by anthropologists, or that it is likely to be final. Whatever care be bestowed upon the arrangement of already acquired details, or whatever judgment be shown in their due subordination one to another, the acquisition of new knowledge may at any time call for a complete or partial rearrangement of the system. The difficulties which encompass the subject have, indeed, been already indicated, and will be found abundantly illustrated in the writings of those authors who have specially devoted themselves to its elucidation.