36. Anatomical Evidence on Evolutionary Rank
But first of all it may be well to consider the relatively simple evidence which has to do with the physical form and structure of race types. If one human race should prove definitely nearer to the apes in its anatomy than the other races, there would be reason to believe that it had lagged in evolution. Also there would be some presumption that its arrears were mental as well as physical.
But the facts do not run consistently. One thinks of the Negro as simian. His jaws are prognathous; his forehead recedes; his nose is both broad and low. Further, it is among Caucasians that the antithetical traits occur. In straightness of jaws and forehead, prominence and narrowness of nose, Caucasians in general exceed the Mongoloids. Thus the order as regards these particular traits is: ape, Negroid, Mongoloid, Caucasian. With ourselves at one end and the monkey at the other, the scale somehow seems right. It appeals, and seems significant. Facts of this sort are therefore readily observed, come to be remembered, and rise spontaneously to mind in an argument on race differences.
However, there are numerous items that conflict with this sequence. For instance, one of the most conspicuous differences of man from the apes is his relative hairlessness. Of the three main stocks, however, it is the Caucasian that is the most hairy. Both Mongoloids and Negroids are more smooth-skinned on face and on body.
In hair texture, the straight-haired Mongoloid is nearest the apes, the wavy-haired Caucasian comes next, and the woolly Negroid is the most characteristically human, or at least unsimian.
In the length of head hair, in which man differs notably from the monkeys, the relatively short-haired Negro once more approximates most closely to the ape, but the long-haired Mongoloid surpasses the intermediate Caucasian in degree of departure.
Lip color reverses this order. The apes’ lips are thin and grayish; Mongoloid lips come next; then those of Caucasians; the full, vivid, red lips of the Negro are the most unapelike of all.
It is unnecessary to multiply examples. If one human racial stock falls below others in certain traits, it rises above them in other features, insofar as “below” and “above” may be measurable in terms of degree of resemblance to the apes. The only way in which a decision could be arrived at along this line of consideration would be to count all features to see whether the Negro or the Caucasian or the Mongoloid was the most unapelike in the plurality of cases. It is possible that in such a reckoning the Caucasian would emerge with a lead. But it is even more clear that whichever way the majority fell, it would be a well divided count. If the Negro were more apelike than the Caucasian in all of his features, or in eight out of ten, the fact would be heavily significant. With his simian resemblances aggregating to those of the Caucasian in a ratio of say four to three, the margin would be so close as to lose nearly all its meaning. It is apparently some such ratio as this, or an even more balanced one, that would emerge, so far as we can judge, if it were feasible to take a census of all features.
It should be added that such a method of comparison as this suffers from two drawbacks. First, the most closely related forms now and then diverge sharply in certain particulars; and second, a form which on the whole is highly specialized may yet have remained more primitive, or have reverted to greater primitiveness in a few of its traits, than relatively unevolved races or species.