Human variation

“ In the great system of creation that divided races and subdivided them according to mysterious laws, apportioning special qualities to each, the varieties of the human race exhibit certain characters and qualifications which adapt them for specific localities. ”

“ They were the result of the contact of these different peoples with Nature, with the circumstances of their own time, and with those universal experiences which fall to the lot of all men, and which are, in the long run, the prime sources and instruments of human education.
The interpretations of life which each of these races has left us are revelations both of race character and of life itself; they embody the highest thought, the deepest feeling, the most searching experiences, the keenest suffering, the most strenuous activity. ”

“ In the present state of science, we cannot wholly answer these important questions. We know very little about the causes that change human types; and we possess only incomplete information as to the history of races. ”

“ For, when all is said, if there are not, properly speaking, several human races, and if still less so several white races, our species assuredly comprises distinct varieties oftentimes stamped with marked characteristics. ”

“ Undoubtedly the ethnography of later times has at its disposal innumerable data which point to the most remarkable results scarcely conceivable in former times, arising from the uniformity of the human organism—results which appear even in the details of man's mental life. ”

“ We do not discuss the anatomical, physiological, and mental characteristics of man considered as an individual; but we are interested in the diversity of these traits in groups of men found in different geographical areas and in different social classes. It is our task to inquire into the causes that have brought about the observed differentiation, and to investigate the sequence of events that have led to the establishment of the multifarious forms of human life. ”

“ Although the wonderful developments of human history teach that the grosser physical differences of color, hair and bone go but a short way toward explaining the different roles which groups of men have played in Human Progress, yet there are differences–subtle, delicate and elusive, though they may be– which have silently but definitely separated men into groups. ”

“ THE TWO RACES OF MEN The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend. To these two original diversities may be reduced all those impertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, black men, red men. ”

“ What we have said before in regard to the overlapping of variations among different races and types, and the great range of variability in each type, may also be expressed by saying that the differences between different types of man are, on the whole, small as compared to the range of variation in each type. ”

“ I am searching the background of this complex life of mine, my childhood and boyhood, trying to discover just how much I owe to race and how much to my varying environments.
I have written this book for four classes of people. First, for those who like myself wish to discover in these informal, yet, I trust, genuine sketches, material for the study of race psychology.
Second, for those who may like to have their faith in the unity of the human race strengthened, by concrete examples. ”

“ The study of the actions of the conditions of life sometimes gives valuable indications on this subject. The evolution of the human being from his appearance in the embryonic state to the adult state, especially furnishes facts of great interest. A simple arrest, a slight excess in the evolutive phenomena, are, it appears to me, the causes of the principal differences which separate races, and particularly the two extremes, the Negro and the White. ”

“ For the source of any characteristic so widespread and uniform as this adaptation to environment we must go back to the very beginning of the human race. ”

“ In short, we are spectators of this tendency: a fusion or intermixture of characteristics that is tending to establish one single human type, which is no longer an original racial type, but the type of civilisation. It is the unique race, the resultant human race, the product of the fusion of races and the triumph of all the elements of beauty over the disappearance of those ugly forms which were characteristic of primitive races.
Are the dominant forces in the human germinative cells those which bring a contribution of beauty? ”

“ Sameness of language acquired under the same linguistic environment by members of the most diverse human types, sameness of food selected from among the products of nature by people belonging to the same cultural area, similarity of movements required in industrial pursuits, the habits of sedentary or nomadic life, all of which are distributed without any reference to physical type, will illustrate that there is ample evidence showing the lack of relation between social habits and physical type. ”

“ Types Earlier than Races
¶ The student of Human Analysis reads the disposition and nature of every individual with ease regardless of whether that individual be an American, a Frenchman, a Kaffir or a Chinaman, because Human Analysis explains those fundamental traits which run through every race, color and nationality, according to the externals which always go with those traits. ”

“ But all human races and tribal types, known to us either from historical monuments, or who still live to-day in their primitive homes, in spite of climatic and cultural influences, have reproduced their original types in such a way that the anthropologist can tell, at a glance, the different types of humanity, according to their physiological and psychical characteristics. ”

“ Such a continuing life we no doubt have evidence of, and indeed commonly admit to exist, in the Race-life; and as a first approximation it seems natural and obvious to interpret the underlying or subliminal self as being simply the 169 Race-self. ”

“ The racial life of the species to which we happen to belong is a brief episode even in the brief life of the planet. And what we call civilization or culture, though much older than we used to suppose, is a brief episode in the life of our race. ”

“ These sometimes present such a characteristic appearance, that at the first glance they seem to isolate a people or a race, and reflection is necessary to discover the true relations which unite the group by which this peculiarity is presented to other populations and races. ”

“ The variability or diversity of the mental faculties in men of the same race, not to mention the greater differences between the men of distinct races, is so notorious that not a word need here be said. ”

“ Every country has its own variety of physical type, language, manners, and customs. Thus, in order to exhibit a systematic view of all the peoples of the earth, it is necessary to observe a certain order in the study of these varieties, and to define carefully what is meant by such and such a descriptive term, having reference either to the physical type or to the social life of men. ”

“ “I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. ”

“ We feel and know that there are many delicate differences in race psychology, numberless changes that our crude social measurements are not yet able to follow minutely, which explain much of history and social development. ”

“ My main object has been to give the life history of a primitive motive in the development of the race, and to emphasize the dynamic significance of this motive. Later other motives may be dealt with in more detail if it is proved that both in normal and abnormal psychology we may best understand the mental development of the individual through our knowledge of the development of the race. ”

“ Manners and customs which the superficial enquirer might classify among the most peculiar characteristics of individual races, appear on closer observation to be in reality characteristics of a definite stage of civilization in every region of the globe. ”

“ In addition to the endless diversities that result from these varied proportions and combinations, there is a manifest variety in the grades of mind. Some races are much lower in the scale of being every way than others, while the same disparity exists in individuals of the same race. ”

“ The fundamental problem on which all anthropological inquiry must be founded relates to the mental equipment of the various races of man. Are all the races of mankind mentally equally endowed, or do material differences exist? ”

“ Therefore it will be seen how impossible a task it would be to enter at any length into the peculiarities of a race which at different points presents such vastly different characteristics, both in the physical aspect of the country they inhabit and in their manners and customs. ”

“ For everything that our present-day psychologist has to tell us—and here we refer not only to the systematic science but also in the wider sense to the physiognomic knowledge of men—relates to the present condition of the Western soul, and not, as hitherto gratuitously assumed, to “the human soul” at large. ”

“ The fact that the custom was at once adopted by all the races of men, whatever their geographical position and degree of civilization, proves that there must be a reason for it in the physical constitution of man. ”

“ But the great variety of countenance and temperament in Western and Southern Europe is not due merely to actual crossings of the commingling races. Civilisation itself is the parent of variety. The progress of humanity produces physical effects upon the race, which may be classed under two heads, one of these being a general physical improvement, and the other increasing variety. ”

“ Two natures respectively adapted to slightly unlike sets of social conditions may be expected by their union to produce a nature somewhat more plastic than either—a nature more impressible by the new circumstances of advancing social life, and therefore more likely to originate new ideas and display modified sentiments. The comparative psychology of man may, then, fitly include the mental effects of mixture; and among derivative inquiries we may ask. How far the conquest of race by race has been instrumental in advancing civilization by aiding mixture, as well as in other ways? ”

“ Coming from the physical and ethnical considerations, we see the influence of the material elements very perceptible, in the social, moral, and historical manifestations of the various races of the world. ”

“ Certain peculiar modes of acting and reacting on nature and things—modes derived from peculiarities of ancestral experience, natural scenery, social institutions, and other conditions of existence—constitute those different styles of humanity called races or nations. ”

“ For the transformists, as is well known, variety, race, and species are not fixed concepts. “From variety to race, from race to species, there is a continuous insensible passage. Individual modifications, at first slight, give rise to a variety or to a race. ”

“ Bearing in mind these facts relating to types and variability, we are in a position to turn to a consideration of the characteristics of primitive man and of civilized man, and of members of distinct races.
We will first direct our attention to the differences between civilized man and primitive man, both being members of the same race. ”

“ One of these departments is concerned with the evolution of the different races of humanity so that for each great race there is a Head who founds it, differentiates it from all others, and watches over its development. ”

“ Anthropology.—The men who people the earth do not possess exact resemblances, some differing from others in stature, the form of the limbs and the head, the features of the face, the color of the hair and eyes. Other differences are found in language, intelligence, and sentiments. These variations permit us to separate the inhabitants of the earth into several groups which we call races. A race is the aggregate of those men who resemble one another and are distinguished from all others. The common traits of a race—its characteristics—constitute the type of the race. ”

“ The fixity or inconvertibleness of races as we see them, is a weak argument for the eternity of these frail boundaries, since all our historical period is a point to the duration in which nature has wrought. ”

“ The evolution of a race, distinguishing it from the formation of a nation, is a slow process. We recognize a race by certain peculiar traits, and by characteristics which slowly change. They are acquired little by little in an evolution which, historically, it is often difficult to trace. They are due to the environment, to the discipline of life, and to what is technically called education. These work together to make what is called character, race character, and it is this which is transmitted from generation to generation. ”

“ In settling all these controverted points, in distinguishing between original diversity and subsequent variation, in establishing a test and scale for the possibilities and the rate of physical change, the physical ethnologist will need all the assistance which historical investigations of every kind can furnish him ”

“ This difference of civilizations is made intelligible only by that theory which is an explanation also of the physical varieties of races. It is the effect of development through ages, under the influence of different environments. There is more than an analogy between this development of the civilization and the physical characters of a race. ”

“ We have now followed a definite motive in mental development through its rise, its elaboration and its decadence. We therefore have its life history in the race before us; we have been enabled by analogies of other motives and by utilizing the conclusions of various writers, to understand its meaning and [Pg 123] to give its interpretation. It remains to be seen what general conclusions regarding either racial or individual development in this sphere may be drawn. ”

“ But in spite of this appearance of spiritlessness, the race is the root of the social life sphere, just as the cosmic bodies were the soil out of which the organisms grew.
Social life is, first of all, a product of the life of definite races, composed of different folk-tribes, each of which has formed its life course in a typical way, In the course of historical development, the typical views of life of the various races came in conflict with one another. ”