V. Proportion of the body and of the limbs. In all the races of our domestic animals, the relative development of the different parts of the body, the proportions, have a characteristic value, which is equal and frequently superior to that of height. No one would think of separating the greyhound from the harrier. It ought to be exactly the same with man. With the animal, races are formed by a selection more or less open, and undertaken for a fixed purpose. The proportions of the different parts of the body thus acquire a fixity, which cannot be found in human races on account of the absence of selection.
This variability is found even in the simplest relations, and in those which might be considered fundamental. Such is the relation of the height of the head to the total height. Gerdy, who has taken up this question in a special manner, has found that the height of Frenchmen is rarely beyond 7½ heads, most frequently a little more than 8 heads, and sometimes 9. The artistic ideal is no more fixed than the reality, in spite of the mathematical rules laid down, from Vitruvius to Liharzik and Silberman. The table drawn up by Audran shows the variation from 719/48 heads (the Egyptian Termes) to 743/48 (the Farnese Hercules). The difference between these two extremes is exactly half a head. Painters have taken still more liberty. Raphael has only given a height of 6 heads to some of his figures, and Michael Angelo has given them 8 or more.
The Pythian Apollo (742/48 heads), the Laocoon (727/48), are nevertheless chefs-d’œuvre, and we rightly bestow an equal amount of admiration upon the two Italian masters. The reason is just the same as with the rest of organised beings: man’s organism is not subject to absolute laws, nor to a rigorously fixed development.
Doubtless there have been noticed among some human races differences of proportion generally sufficiently marked to serve as characters. But it just as often happens that with some individuals the order of these differences is inverted. It is another example of intercrossing.
Thus the African Negro has generally the upper limb, from the shoulder to the wrist, relatively longer than the European White, and we shall return to this point further on. Nevertheless, from the measures of Quételet, it follows that a Negro, well known in the studios, where he acted as a model, had much shorter arms than the soldiers, and than a Belgian model, who were taken as terms of comparison.
Moreover, the numbers found by Quételet place the individuals, upon whom his observations were made, in the following order:—1st, mean of ten Belgian soldiers; 2nd, an Ojibbeway chief; 3rd, a Belgian model, and a Zulu Kaffir; 4th, an Amaponda Kaffir; 5th, the Negro model; 6th, three young Ojibbeways; 7th, Cantfield, the Hercules of the United States. Here intercrossing again appears in a well marked manner, and it is in the White race that the Brussels savant has found the two extremes.
In the general characteristic of negro races, we often find quoted the slight development and the relatively high position of the calf of the leg. I have no definite information upon the latter of these characters. As for the former, it has been represented to be too general. Two Blacks, the Amaponda Kaffir, and the Negro model in the tables of Quételet, present the maximum 0m·410 (16·14 inches), and the minimum 0m·328 (12·92 inches) of development of this part. They are separated from each other by the Belgians, the Ojibbeways, and Cantfield.
Finally, the means taken for the different parts of the body will doubtless give results useful for the distinction of races. But still, account will have to be taken of many of the conditions. All hunting peoples, including the Australians, according to travellers who have been among them, could furnish models for the sculptor, and are generally remarkable for the symmetry and beauty of their proportions. In this respect civilized populations, especially those of our great towns, present a deplorable inferiority. Is our fundamental type degraded in this respect? Certainly not. But civilization itself, by the facilities of existence which it procures, by the vices which it induces, by the weakly individuals which it preserves, introduces into the race the elements of degradation. Here again appears, in all its fulness, the influence of the conditions of life.
VI. Colouring. With all anthropologists I recognise the high value of the colour of the skin as a character. Nevertheless, its importance must not be exaggerated. We now know that it does not result from the existence or disappearance of special layers. Black or white, the skin always comprises a white dermis, penetrated by many capillaries, and an epidermis, more or less transparent and colourless. Between the two is placed the mucous layer, of which the pigment alone in reality varies in quantity and colour according to the race.