Volume 6

The Riverside natural history / edited by John Sterling Kingsley ; articles by C.C. Abbott [and others].

Date:
[1888], ©1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Riverside natural history / edited by John Sterling Kingsley ; articles by C.C. Abbott [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    introduction we will admit at starting the great assistance we have received from the works of Peschel, Topinard, and above all of Tylor, whose method of treatment has been followed to a considerable extent. When mankind began to classify the different varieties of the human race, it was by that most obvious characteristic the color of the skin; and since this method, to a large extent, expresses the true relationships of the different stocks, it has survived with certain changes and modifications until the present day. The ancient Egyptian in his own time clearly recognized the element of color which sejiarated him from the darker Nubian on the one side and the lighter Israelite on the other; and even in the present century ethnologists have divided all mankind into the black, brown, yellow, red, and white races; a classification which is still in many respects very convenient, although in many cases it fails to express the various i-elationships and distinctions of the various stocks, and is not of itself sufficiently exact for the puiposes of modern anthropology, while, on the other hand, it involves many direct contradictions to the knowledge derived from language, history, traditions, and anatomical peculiarities. The task of the anthropologist to-day is far more difficult than it was a century ago. Our knowledge of mankind has vastly inci’eased, and now every fact is submitted to a system of examination, criticism, and interpretation which were absolutely unknown in the days of Buffon, Blumenbach, and Virey, or even in the more modern times of Prichard and Nott and Gliddon. Within thirty years scientific societies have been at loggerheads over the momentous problem whether the Negro belongs to a distinct species from the white race. That which has had more influence than anything else to change the spirit of anthropology and to place the study of mankind upon a firm and philosophical basis, is the theory of evolution. To-day the anthropologist calls to his assistance every possible source of infonnar tion; anatomy, language, history, traditions, myths, customs, habits, intellectual attain- ments, all are to be weighed, criticised, and their import studied before one can arrive at a true classification of the races of mankind, a classification which shall explain all peculiarities of geographical distribution and physical characteristics, and represent the exact relationships and inter-relationships of each and every variety. Although much has been done in this direction within the past forty years, we are still far from our ideal, and whether such a grouping is within the power of the human mind with the materials at its disposal, we cannot at present say. Looking at the distribution of the human species according to the color of the skin, and those other almost equally prominent characters the face and hair, we see that there is an evident eonnection between color and climate; in fact, the ancients used to attribute the color of the Africans to the burning influence of the tropical sun. Tlie home of the black races extends across the Ijot equatorial regions, from the Gold Coast of West Africa to New Guinea and the Fiji Islands. The type of the black race is, perha])s, best shown in the Guinea Negro of Africa, a race typified by a skin so dark-brown as to be popularly called black, a woolly hair, a long and narroAV skull, and stout projecting jaws. From these Negroes of West Africa may be noticed a slnading off toAvard the north and east, possibly the result of mixture Avith the Berbers and Arabs, AAfliile going toAvards the south it Avould seem that the milder climate had someAvhat modified the type; for Avhile Ave can find not the slightest trace of admixture AA'ith any foreign race, the Bushmen of South Africa, though possessing the narroAV skull and frizzy hair of the natiA'es of the Gold Coast, are of a smaller stature, A\diile their skin is a lighter tint of yelloAvish-broAvn. Turning noAV to the blacks of the eastern seas, Ave