Similar reasoning may be applied to the settled natives of Africa. For thousands of years past they have been in contact on their northern borders with civilized peoples, numerous immigrants have made their way into the country, and a considerable degree of amalgamation has very likely taken place. We cannot, therefore, safely credit them with all the arts and implements they possess nor with all their political and social progress. No doubt much came to them from without, much was taught them from within, and a mixture of blood with superior races may have aided considerably in improving their stock. We are justified, then, in their case as in that of the Pygmies, in believing that their stage of mental and social development is only in part original with them, and is largely due to the influences of education and amalgamation.
The pure negro is not a very numerous element of the population of Africa. He stands in a measure intermediate between the nomad Pygmies of the forest and the desert, and the mixed races who may be called negroid but cannot strictly be called negro. With their foreign blood, most of these have obtained foreign arts and elements of culture, and stand at a distinctly higher physical and mental level than the unamalgamated negro.
For the pure or nearly pure negro we must seek the lowlands of the Guinea coast, the seat of the most pronounced existing negro type. Other localities are in the region of the Gaboon, along the lower Zambesi, and in the Benue and Shari basins. Here we find the true native African, a race strikingly uniform in aspect, and, next to the Pygmies, the lowest in physical characteristics of mankind. The features of structure in which the negro appears to occupy a position intermediate between the white man and the man-ape—lower than the former and approaching the latter—are the following: First, his abnormal length of arm, which averages about two inches longer than that of the Caucasian, and, when in the erect position, sometimes reaches the knee-pan, being little shorter proportionately than that of the chimpanzee. Second, his prognathism, or projection of the jaws—his index of facial angle being about 70, as compared with the Caucasian 82. Third, his weight of brain—average European 45 ounces, negro 35, highest gorilla 20. Fourth, his short, flat, snub nose, deeply depressed at the base, wide and with dilated nostrils at the extremity. Fifth, his thick protruding lips. Sixth, his high and prominent cheek bones. Seventh, his great thickness of cranium, which resists blows that would break the skull of an average European. Eighth, the weakness of his lower limbs, the broad, flat foot and low instep, the projecting heel and somewhat prehensile great toe.
These characteristics the negroes possess in common with the Pygmies and the Negritos. Others of less significance could be named. One important character is that of the cranial sutures, which close much earlier in the negro than in higher races, thus checking the development of the brain while the body is still growing. To this many ascribe the mental inferiority of the negro race. A close observer records, as a result of long observation on the plantations of the southern United States, that "the negro children were sharp, intelligent, and full of vivacity, but on approaching the adult period a gradual change set in. The intellect seemed to become clouded, animation giving place to a sort of lethargy, briskness yielding to indolence." This is very probably the case with the Pygmies, who similarly reach a mental limit beyond which they cannot advance; but this limit is set in the adult period. In other words, the adult Pygmy is on the mental level of the negro child. If the African Pygmy is as short lived as his Eastern congener, he does not survive, as a rule, many years beyond the age of adolescence, and continues in a stage of childhood, mentally considered, until death.
The conclusion to be derived from this interesting fact would appear to be that the negro has made a distinct and important advance mentally beyond the Pygmy, reaching at adolescence the limit of mental evolution which the Pygmy reaches at death. But the negro stops here, or goes little beyond this limit. His cranial sutures close, the growth of the brain is arrested, and the development of his mind comes to an end. In the white the brain continues to expand, and the closing of the sutures takes place later in life. Probably the latter is a result of the former, mental development having overcome the tendency of the sutures to close in early life. It may be further said of the negro that, mentally, he is emotional far more than intellectual, and unmoral rather than immoral, he being apparently incapable of comprehending the moral conceptions of advanced man.
If we seek the Malaysian and Australasian region of the Eastern seas, we find there another branch of the negro race, similarly in contact with, and apparently derived from, a Pygmy stock. This Papuan race of blacks covers a wide island region, but, like the African race, has become greatly modified by mixture with alien peoples, largely of Malay origin. Its purest type is to be found in New Guinea, where it approaches the negro in general character, though with distinctive features of its own.
The Papuan is of medium height; fleshy rather than muscular; color a sooty brown; forehead high, but narrow and retreating; nose sometimes flat and wide at nostrils, but oftener hooked with depressed point; lips thick and projecting; high cheek bones; prognathism general; hair black and frizzly. He is negroid in appearance, and is said to resemble the African of the coast region opposite Aden.
We need not pursue this subject further. It will suffice to offer the general conclusion that the negroid race, while, through its change of habits from the hunting to the agricultural status, it has made an advance both mentally and physically beyond the Pygmy aborigines, does not appear to have advanced greatly in either particular, the negro reaching a mental limit at a low level, and being arrested physically while still possessing marked characteristics of the man-ape.
For the higher development of man, under the stress of a more energetic conflict with the conditions of nature, we must seek the continent of Europe, whose human inhabitants had not only to subdue the wild beasts and teach the earth to bring forth wholesome food in place of useless plants, but also to battle with wintry climates, and overcome the adverse influences of cold, sterility of soil, and other hostile conditions of the northern zones.
One of the chief problems of biology has long been that of the production of new varieties and species of animals as an effect of gradual variation in structure. This is believed to be ordinarily due to changes in the conditions of nature, animals and plants which have made accordant changes in structure being preserved, those which have not changed in accordance with the new conditions perishing. Where the conditions of nature remain uniform, species may persist for long ages unchanged, though even in the latter case changes in structure are apt to occur, since variation in species is not wholly dependent upon external changes. To a considerable extent it is due to causes existing within the organism itself, fortuitous variations being occasionally preserved when not out of harmony with the state of affairs prevailing in the external world. Or variation may occur through the establishment of new relations between the species inhabiting some locality while inanimate nature remains uniform, or through migration into new inanimate or animate surroundings. Variations, in short, may arise under the influence of any change in the general environment which renders necessary adaptive changes in structure. But this adaptation in some cases takes place in the mind, new actions or methods of meeting the contingency being adopted which render physical changes unnecessary. The problem is a highly complicated one, and no doubt many causes have to do with the multiplicity of effects.