It implies, however, also a point of view fundamentally distinct from that of history in the narrow sense of the term. In history we are, on the whole, concerned with events only that have had an influence upon the development of our own civilization; in anthropology the life of every people of the world is equally important. Therefore, in a wider sense, it is impossible to exclude any part of mankind from the considerations of anthropology. The results of studies carried on by the historian and by the sinologist must not be neglected by the anthropologist in his endeavors to investigate the history of mankind and its controlling forces. It will thus be seen that anthropology differs from history, and resembles the natural sciences in its endeavor to disregard the subjective values of historical happenings; that it tries to consider them objectively, simply as a sequence of events, regardless of their influence upon the course of our own civilization.
In the vastness of the outlook over the unwritten history of past ages, the individual is merged entirely in the social unit of which he forms a part, and we see in the dim distance of time and space only the movements of peoples, the emergence of new types of man, the gradual development of new forms of civilization, and a constant repetition of processes of integration and disintegration of peoples and cultures. Prehistoric remains, characteristics of bodily form, traits of language, industrial and economic achievements, peculiar customs and beliefs, are the only evidence that we can use,—evidence that was little regarded by history until the anthropological standpoint began to develop. Thus it happens that although the anthropologist may not be able, owing to the specialization of the methods of inquiry, to investigate problems like those dealing with the modern history of Europe and China, the historian and the sinologist will be able to view their problems from an anthropological standpoint. With the increase of our knowledge of the peoples of the world, specialization must increase, and anthropology will become more and more a method that may be applied by a great number of sciences, rather than a science by itself.
We shall next take up a consideration of the results of the biological and psychological researches carried on by anthropologists. It is somewhat remarkable that these two large branches of investigation have remained quite separate, and that the results of the one throw little light upon the problems of the other. Biological anthropology has concerned itself chiefly with the classification of races, their relations to their predecessors and ultimately to the higher animals; and little progress has been made in the clearing-up of the genealogical relations of distinct types. Diligent search has revealed a number of lower forms which lived during the early quaternary and the late tertiary periods that help a little in bridging the wide gap between man and animal; but we are still entirely in the dark regarding the origin of the fundamental races and of the types of man. Since observations in different geographical areas showed at an early time the differentiation of local types, which it was difficult to define in words, anthropology was the first of the biological sciences to have recourse to metrical methods; and the whole modern development of biometry takes its origin in the application of methods developed by anthropologists, and by means of which fine distinctions between closely related types can be discovered. Originally the metrical methods of anthropologists were used for purely taxonomic ends, for the description of distinct types; and for years chief attention has been paid to the classification of the types of man according to their similarities, and to speculation on their relationships; but, owing to the influence of Francis Galton and his successors, we are gradually outgrowing this condition, and we see that more and more problems relating to the influence of social and geographical environment, of heredity, of race mixture and selection, are made the subject of study. This development has been closely associated with the growth of biometric methods applied to zoology and botany.
One of the important facts that has been recognized by a study of the morphology of the races is that man must be considered as a domesticated animal, and that even those tribes which are industrially the most primitive are somewhat removed from the anatomical conditions characterizing the wild animals. It appears, however, that the degree of domestication has strongly increased with the growing complexity of industrial organization; and most of the races of the present day are anatomically in the same condition as those types of domesticated animals which are highly modified by regular feeding and by disuse of a considerable portion of the muscular system, without, however, having been subjected to any considerable artificial selection. This seems to be one of the causes of the high degree of variability of the races of man.
While it is not yet possible to express definite views in regard to the relationship of the races of man, a few facts stand out boldly. We recognize that the two extreme types of mankind are represented, on the one hand by the Negro race, on the other hand by the Mongoloid race. The former of these includes the races of Africa and many of those inhabiting the large islands surrounding Australia; the other includes the people of eastern Asia and of America. The other strongly divergent types of man can most readily be classed with these two fundamental types, and may perhaps be considered as mutants which developed at an early period. Thus we find affiliated with the Negro race two divergent types, nevertheless apparently closely related to it,—the dwarfish South African, who is perhaps intimately related to the many isolated dwarfish tribes of other parts of Africa and southern Asia; and the Australian. The Mongoloid type, on the other hand, has also a considerable number of affiliated types, which may perhaps represent mutants of this type. Here belong the Malay of southeastern Asia, the Ainu of northern Japan, and perhaps the European. If we base our conception of the division of mankind on this broad outline, it would appear that two large divisions were established at an early geological period,—the race of the Indian Ocean, which represents all the Negroid types; and the race of the Pacific Ocean, which represents the Mongoloid and affiliated types. The enormous increase in the number of Europeans during the last two or three thousand years, and their rapid spread over the surface of the globe, disturb the clearness of this view; but we must remember that the white race represented originally only a very small part of mankind, and occupied only a small portion of the inhabited world.
What relation the two principal types may have had to the predecessor of mankind which is represented by the early quaternary race of Europe is unknown.
The history of the spread of these large races over the continents remains also, to a great extent, obscure. It seems likely, however, that the race of the Pacific Ocean immigrated into America at a very early time, and that after the retreat of the ice-sheet it swept back into northern Asia and re-established itself in the whole northern part of the Old World, which had been uninhabited for long periods. Much of this, however, remains hypothesis, which may be confirmed or disproved by further studies.
While the divergence of the types of man suggests that the tendency to form mutants has been ever-present, it would seem that the varieties which have survived up to the present time have been exceedingly stable, within the limits of their characteristic ranges of variation. The human remains found in Europe, which undoubtedly date back many thousands of years, and the remains of ancient Egypt, both of which may be compared with the types represented in the modern population of those countries, are much like the modern forms, and apparently no change of type has occurred in these districts for thousands of years. The same stability of race types manifests itself in cases of mixture. It would seem that among the human races there is a strong tendency for hybrids to revert to either parental type without forming an intermediate race. Thus we find that in western Asia the low-headed Semitic type and the high-headed Armenian type persist, although an intermingling of these people has been going on for thousands of years.
Nevertheless an influence of environment must be recognized. It may be observed, for instance, in the development of the European after his immigration into America. It may be recognized in the minute but noticeable differences of types in various parts of Europe and in different occupations, in the acceleration of growth of children of well-to-do classes, and in the stunting and retarding effect of mal-nutrition. Whether, however, these effects can be considered as permanent, is a question that is still entirely open.