Race (biology)

“ But the evidence tends more and more to establish crossing as possible between all races, which goes to prove that all the varieties of mankind are zoologically of one species. While this principle seems to rest on firm ground, it must be admitted that our knowledge of the manner and causes of race-variation among mankind is still very imperfect. The great races, black, brown, yellow, white, had already settled into their well-known characters before written record began, so that their formation is hidden far back in the præhistoric period. ”

“ As our discussion must from its nature concern itself with questions of race, let us first examine the criteria by which anthropologists distinguish one race from another. If you ask an anthropologist how he distinguishes an Aryan from a non-Aryan race, he will tell you that he relies on three main tests: (a) the color of the skin, hair and eyes; (b) the shape of the skull and certain other osteological characteristics; and (c) the system of descent through males. ”

“ Do any human races really exist? I see white men, red men, and black men. But, they do not constitute races; they are merely varieties of the same race, of the same species, which form together fruitful unions and intermingle without ceasing. A fortiori, the man of learning knows not several yellow races or several white races. Human beings invent, however, races in pursuance of their vanity, their hatred, or their greed. ”

“ Underlying the theory of race there is a first assumption that there is such a thing as a distinct racial type; that there are definite breeds of men, Aryans and Semites, Celts and Teutons, just as there are definite breeds of dogs and pigeons; that human [173] breeds are evolved by similar selective processes; that those distinct racial types are the main factor in the history of nations ”

“ There is, of course, no doubt that great differences exist in the physical characteristics of the races of man. The 19color of the skin, the form of the hair, and the configuration of lips and nose, distinguish the African clearly from the European. The question to decide is, What relations have these features to the mental aptitude of a race? Two points of view may be brought forward in relation to this question. First, we may claim that a race in which peculiarities are found that are characteristic of lower stages in the animal series will be in all respects of an inferior type. ”

“ Ethnology, as it is understood by some students, has to do with peoples, groups of mankind separated from other groups, linguistically, physically or geographically, but has nothing to do with "race." Race is thought to be purely a zoological question. Others understand ethnology to be the study of races of men, varieties in the zoological sense, and their subdivisions into smaller groups, peoples. ”

“ Not only an antiquarian and philologist, but an anatomist and philosopher, my father brought to bear on all these grave points the various speculations involved in the distinction of races. He showed how race in perfection is produced, up to a certain point, by admixture; how all mixed races have been the most intelligent; how, in proportion as local circumstance and religious faith permitted the early fusion of different tribes, races improved and quickened into the refinements of civilization. ”

“ When all or many of these traits are present, the individual approaches physically the type of the anthropoid apes, and a race presenting many of them is properly called a “lower” race. On the other hand, where they are not present, the race is “higher,” as it maintains in their integrity the special traits of the genus Man, and is true to the type of the species. ”

“ Till now, we have spoken of species as if it were directly superposed upon individuals, as if it resulted from immediate generalisation. This is not the naturalists’ position. Their classification descends from the species to the individual by decreasing generalisations of the race and the variation. Thus the human species comprises several races (white, yellow, etc.) , the white race comprises several variations (English, Arab type, etc.) ”

“ All racial progress, or eugenics, therefore, depends on the creation of a good environment, and the fitting of the race to that environment. Every improvement in the environment should bring about a corresponding biological adaptation. The two factors in evolution must go side by side, if the race is to progress in what the human mind considers the direction of advancement. In this sense, euthenics and eugenics bear the same relation to human progress as a man's two legs do to his locomotion. ”

“ All the arguments that have been brought forward to prove the superiority of the white race over all others can readily be explained by other anthropological considerations. There are differences in form and size of the brains of different races, but the variability within each race is so great that [Pg 15] the small average differences between distinct racial types are almost insignificant as compared to the total range of racial variability ”

“ The anthropologist recognises various elements marking diversity of race in stature, colour, proportion of limbs, conformation of skull, colour and other characteristics of eye and hair. He also notes no less distinctively the diverse intellectual and moral aptitudes. Noticeable as are the diversities of national type in Europe, the range of variation is trifling when compared with the conditions under which the White, Red, and Black races have met and intermingled in the West Indies and in North and South America. ”

“ The race is not, in fact, analogous to the higher organism, which forms a whole separated from all similar wholes, but to an organism of the lower [Pg 129] type, which consists of mutually connected parts spreading independently in dependence upon external conditions, and capable of indefinite extension, not of united growth. We may consider the race, thus, as forming social tissue, rather than constituting an organism. The tissue is built up of men, as the tissue of physiology is said to be built up of cells. ”

“ Racial change, improvement, or deterioration, is brought about, so the biologists say, by what is termed selection, that is, by the death or non-productiveness of certain individuals of a race, whereby the others alone remain. If this remnant is organically superior, the next generation inheriting only from them will be themselves organically superior, and racial improvement will be brought about. ”

“ Should these white, yellow, or black men, to whom we must add, as we shall see later on, those who are brown and red, all of whom differ one from another in the colour of their skin, in height, in their physiognomy, and in their outward appearance, be grouped into different species, or are we to regard them merely as varieties of species—that is to say, races? ”

“ For instance, the physical differences between the Nordics and the Negroes, the Australoids and the Mongols, if found among the lower mammals, would be much more than sufficient to constitute not only separate species, but even subgenera, and they are now so regarded by some anthropologists.
Race is hard to define. It consists in the presence of a collection of hereditary characters common to the great majority of individuals in a given group. ”

“ Measured by these criteria, the European or white race stands at the head of the list, the African or negro at its foot.
The investigations of anthropologists extend much beyond the outlines I have now presented you. All parts of the body have been minutely scanned, measured 49 and weighed, in order to erect a science of the comparative anatomy of the races. Much of value has been discovered; but nothing absolutely characteristic, nothing which enables us to divide more sharply one race from another than the facts I have given you. ”

“ The Races of Mankind in the Historic Period.— Distinctions in bodily characteristics, such as form, color, and features, divide the human species into three chief types or races, known as the Black or Ethiopian Race, the Yellow or Mongolian Race, and the White or Caucasian Race. ”

“ Taking the shape of the skull, the texture of the hair, the pigment of the skin and general structural characters into account, ethnographers have concluded that there are four elementary divisions of mankind, known particularly as the Negro or Black race, the Mongolic or Yellow race, the Caucasic or White race and the American or Red race. ”

“ Physical science is proving more and more the immense importance of Race; the importance of hereditary powers, hereditary organs, hereditary habits, in all organised beings, from the lowest plant to the highest animal. She is proving more and more the omnipresent action of the differences between races ”

“ We anticipate in the doctrine of race something like that law of physiology, that, whatever bone, muscle, or essential organ is found in one healthy individual, the same part or organ may be found in or near the same place in its congener; and we look to find in the son every mental and moral property that existed in the ancestor. In race, it is not the broad shoulders, or litheness, or stature that give advantage, but a symmetry that reaches as far as to the wit. ”

“ It is a fact, as curious as it is interesting; and which, with other corroborating facts; proves the close proximity of the Black man to the order of animals next below the human Race, which is, that each variety of the wild animals has but one color of hair and eyes, peculiar to itself; and the Black man, like the wild animals, has the same uniform color of hair and eyes peculiar to himself ”

“ On the Formation of the Races of Man.—It may be premised that when we find the same race, though broken up into distinct tribes, ranging over a great area, as over America, we may attribute their general resemblance to descent from a common stock. In some cases the crossing of races already, distinct has led to the formation of new races. ”

“ The distribution of races, according to supposed original distinctions of colour and complexion, will be seized upon by polygenists as an argument in their favour; for it will be said that, according to this theory, the distinctions of race in the earliest times must have been as great, or greater, than they are at present. ”

“ Though no one measurement can be used for purposes of race discrimination, yet a series of measurements on a sufficiently large group of subjects, together with observations on the colour of the skin, hair, and eyes, 48the form of various organs—such as the nose and ears—and other comparisons of a similar nature, are invaluable in the study of the races of mankind. It is only in this way that the mixtures of the population can be sorted out, their origins traced, and some idea gained of the racial migrations which have taken place since man first appeared. ”

“ But it should always be remembered that according to the historic evolution of the idea, the word has the double significance of the distinction and isolation of constant races from mixtures, and that of the choice of the best representatives of a race during all the years of its existence. ”

“ The Antiquity of Man Is Shown in Racial Differentiation.—Granted that the life of the human race has originated from a common biological origin and from a common geographical centre, it has taken a very long time for the races to be differentiated into the physical traits they possess to-day, as it has taken a long time for man to spread over the earth. ”

“ With page 313 we pass to the question of the length of time during which certain organs grow, especially the brain. "If we could prove that the brain of certain races ceases to develop at an earlier period than that of others, the inference of the inferiority of race would seem highly probable." Now, this is precisely what many naturalists of the first rank affirm is the case with the Negro. ”

“ In ordinary cases nature has not allowed her race to {11} be contaminated with a cross of another race, and agriculturists know how difficult they find always to prevent this,—effect would be trueness. This character and sterility when crossed, and generally a greater amount of difference, are two main features, which distinguish domestic races from species. ”

“ Confessedly the most important differences of the races of men are those of the skeleton, in all parts of which variations of proportion occur, and are of course more or less communicated to the muscular investments. Of these, as they exist in the pelvis, limbs, etc., I need say nothing; for, manifest though they are, they all fall far within the limits of variation in familiar domestic animals, and also of hereditary malformation or defect of development occurring in the European nations, and only requiring isolation for its perpetuation as a race. ”

“ And not only this, but they take on strongly marked characteristics of the numerous races on earth temporarily too; the materialized entities of the white races differing quite as markedly from those of the yellow or brown races, as do these from the black races; and in speaking to us each one will communicate in the particular language only which is characteristic of his race on earth. ”

“ We have already noted that races which are near one another in physical aspect and structure tend to mix, and that the race produced by their mixture is equal or superior to either of the progenitors. ”

“ The physical capabilities of different races are known to differ widely, but it is not easy to discriminate here between hereditary race-differences and those due to particular food and habit of life. ”