Constituent Elements.
But here arises the more important question, by what right are so many and such diverse peoples grouped together and ticketed "Caucasians"? Are they to be really taken as objectively one, or are they merely artificial groupings, arbitrarily arranged abstractions? Certainly this Caucasic division consists apparently of the most heterogeneous elements, more so than perhaps any other. Hence it seems to require a strong mental effort to sweep into a single category, however elastic, so many different peoples—Europeans, North Africans, West Asiatics, Iranians and others all the way to the Indo-Gangetic plains and uplands, whose complexion presents every shade of colour, except yellow, from white to the deepest brown or even black.
But they are grouped together in a single division, because of certain common characteristics, and because, as pointed out by Ehrenreich, who himself emphasises these objections, their substantial uniformity speaks to the eye that sees below the surface. At the first glance, except perhaps in a few extreme cases for which it would be futile to create independent categories, we recognise a common racial stamp in the facial expression, the structure of the hair, partly also the bodily proportions, in all of which points they agree more with each other than with the other main divisions. Even in the case of certain black or very dark races, such as the Beja, Somali, and a few other Eastern Hamites, we are reminded instinctively more of Europeans or Berbers than of negroes, thanks to their more regular features and brighter expression. "Those who will accept nothing unless it can be measured, weighed, and numbered, may think perhaps that according to modern notions this appeal to the outward expression is unscientific. Nevertheless nobody can deny the evidence of the obvious physical differences between Caucasians, African Negroes, Mongols, Australians and so on. After all, physical anthropology itself dates only from the moment when we became conscious of these differences, even before we were able to give them exact expression by measurements. It was precisely the general picture that spoke powerfully and directly to the eye[1004]." The argument need not here be pursued farther, as it will receive abundant illustration in the details to follow.
Past and Present Range.
Since the discovery of the New and the Austral Worlds, the Caucasic division as represented by the chief European nations has received an enormous expansion. Here of course it is necessary to distinguish between political and ethnical conquests, as, for instance, those of India, held by military tenure, and of Australia by actual settlement. Politically the whole world has become Caucasic with the exception of half-a-dozen states such as China, Turkey, Japan, Siam, Marocco, still enjoying a real or fictitious autonomy. But, from the ethnical standpoint, those regions in which the Caucasic peoples can establish themselves and perpetuate their race as colonists are alone to be regarded as fresh accessions to the original and later (historical) Caucasic domains. Such fresh accessions are however of vast extent, including the greater part of Siberia and adjoining regions, where Slav branches of the Aryan-speaking peoples are now founding permanent new homes; the whole of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, which have become the inheritance of the Caucasic inhabitants of the British Isles; large tracts in South Africa, already occupied by settlers chiefly from Holland and Great Britain; lastly the New World, where most of the northern continent is settled by full-blood Europeans, mainly British, French and German, while in the rest (Central and South America) the Caucasic immigrants (chiefly from the Iberian peninsula) have formed new ethnical groups by fusion with the aborigines. These new accessions, all acquired within the last 400 years, may be roughly estimated at about 28 million square miles, which with some 12 millions held throughout the historic period (Africa north of Sudan, most of Europe, South-West and parts of Central and South Asia, Indonesia) gives an extent of 40 million square miles to the present Caucasic domain, either actually occupied or in process of settlement. As the whole of the dry land scarcely exceeds 52 millions, this leaves not more than about 12 millions for the now reduced domains of all the other divisions, and even of this a great part (e.g. Tibetan table-land, Gobi, tundras, Greenland) is barely or not at all inhabitable. This, it may be incidentally remarked, is perhaps the best reply to those who have in late years given expression to gloomy forebodings regarding the ultimate fate of the Caucasic races. The "yellow scare" may be dismissed with the reflection that the Caucasian populations, who have inherited or acquired nearly four-fifths of the earth's surface besides the absolute dominion of the high seas, is not destined to be submerged by any conceivable combination of all the other elements, still less by the Mongol alone[1005].
Caucasic Cradle—North Africa.
Where have we to seek the primeval home of this most vigorous and dominant branch of the human family? Since no direct evidence can be cited, the answer necessarily takes the form of a hypothesis, and must rely mainly on the indirect evidence supplied by our vague knowledge of geographical conditions in pleistocene times, on past and present zoological distributions, with here and there, the assistance of a hint gleaned from archaeological discoveries. We may deal first with the arguments brought forward in favour of Africa north of Sudan. Here were found in quaternary times all the physical elements which zoologists demand for great specialisations—ample space, a favourable climate and abundance of food, besides continuous land connection at two or three points across the Mediterranean, by which the pliocene and early pleistocene faunas moved freely between the two continents.
The "Quaternary Sahara."
Many of the speculations on the subject failed to convince, largely because the writers took, so to say, the ground from under their own feet, by submerging most of the land under a vast "Quaternary Sahara Sea," which had no existence, and which, moreover, reduced the whole of North Africa to a Mauretanian island, a mere "appendix of Europe," as it is in one place expressly called. Then this inconvenient inland basin was got rid of, not by an outflow—being on the same level as the Atlantic, of which it was, in fact figured as an inlet—but by "evaporation," which process is however somehow confined to this inlet, and does not affect either the Mediterranean or the Atlantic itself. Nor is it explained how the oceanic waters were prevented from rushing in according "as the Sahara sea evaporated to become a desert." The attempt to evolve a "Eurafrican race" in such an impossible area necessarily broke down, other endless perplexities being involved in the initial geological misconception.
Not only was the Sahara dry land in pleistocene times, but it stood then at a considerably higher altitude than at present, although its mean elevation is still estimated by Chavanne at 1500 feet above sea-level. "Quaternary deposits cover wide areas, and were at one time supposed to be of marine origin. It was even held that the great sand dunes must have been formed under the sea; but at this date it is scarcely necessary to discuss such a view. The advocates of a Quaternary Sahara Sea argued chiefly from the discovery of marine shells at several points in the middle of the Sahara. But Tournouër has shown that to call in the aid of a great ocean in order to explain the presence of one or two shells is a needless expenditure of energy[1006]."