The human species must have made a beginning like the Aryans. Upon leaving their centre of creation, it was by slow stages, that the primitive colonists, ancestors of all existing races, marched forth to the conquest of the uninhabited world. They thus accustomed themselves to the different conditions of existence imposed upon them by the north, the south, the east, or the west, cold or heat, plain or mountain. Diverging in every direction, and meeting with different conditions of life, they gradually established a harmony between themselves and each one of them. Thus acclimatisation, advancing at the same rate as geographical conquest, was less fatal. The struggle, however, though mitigated indeed by the slowness of the advance, still existed, and many pioneers must have fallen upon the route. But the survivors had only nature to face, and, therefore, succeeded, and peopled the world.
BOOK VII.
PRIMITIVE MAN.—FORMATION OF THE HUMAN RACES.
CHAPTER XXI.
PRIMITIVE MAN.
I. The primitive type of the human species must necessarily have been effaced, and have disappeared. The enforced migrations, and the actions of climate, must of themselves have produced this result. Man has passed through two geological epochs; perhaps his centre of appearance is no longer in existence; at any rate, the conditions are very different to those prevailing when humanity began its existence. When everything was changing round him, man could not avoid being changed also. Crossing, also, has certainly played its part in this transformation. I shall shortly return to these different points which I only allude to here.
But, on the other hand, we shall see that the skull of the most ancient Quaternary race is repeated not only in some Australian tribes, but in Europe, and in men who have played an important part among their fellow-countrymen. The other races of the same epoch, judging from the skull, have many representatives amongst us. They have, nevertheless, passed through one of the two geological revolutions, which separates us from our original stock. It is then not impossible that the latter may have transmitted to a certain number of men, perhaps scattered in time and space, at least a part of its characters.
Unfortunately, we do not know where to seek for reproductions, bearing more or less resemblance to the primitive type; and, for want of information it would be impossible to recognise them as such, if we were to meet with them. Here, therefore, observation alone can furnish no data. But, when it is aided by physiology, some conjectures are possible.
II. We know that among animals atavism often causes the reappearance of ancestral characters, even when a careful selection has acted upon hundreds of generations. The silkworms of the Cévennes which yield white cocoons, and the black sheep of Spain furnish examples. In man, where selection does not exist, such facts would be much more likely to be produced. Some characters of our first ancestors ought to appear in isolated cases or collectively in all human races; perhaps, there are some which have been preserved in one or more groups. Consequently, by searching for them, and classifying those which appear in a more or less erratic manner among races which are most dissimilar in all other respects, we shall probably be able to form a partial reproduction of the primitive human type.
In this respect, it is difficult to avoid attaching a real importance to the prognathism of the upper jaw. This anatomical feature is very pronounced in almost all Negro races: it is also strongly marked in certain Yellow races. It is considerably diminished among Whites: but, nevertheless, it appears at times almost as strongly marked as in the two other groups: it existed in Quaternary man. Everything seems to indicate that it must have been as strongly developed in our first ancestors.