The lips are generally black, and we usually find upon the gums, and even upon the palate, a non-continuous coloured membrane, which forms spots of a deep violet colour. Kluegel had concluded too hastily from some particular fact; he had in his mind, very probably, some Negro with lips, gums, and tongue of a fine rose colour, contrasting as much as possible with the black of his skin. We have had occasion ourselves to observe a similar case as regards a native of Soudan, who was also affected with a sort of partial albinoism of the buccal mucous membrane.
In anthropology, as in all science requiring observation, it is the averages which ought to be admitted as evidence; they alone have an absolute value, and can alone lead to positive results. Every isolated phenomenon has its individual value as regards its simple truth, but we are exposed to the greatest errors when we begin to generalise from it.
The osseous system has been most studied.[111] In the osseous system, the head, and particularly the skull. We shall be obliged, later on, to refer to the value of cranioscopic proceedings, and the classifications resting on this base.
The face, as well as the skull, has been the object of attentive inquiry; the smallest differences have been noticed, and almost all have been formed by some one or other into distinct characteristics. We may quote here Bérard’s classification, as resumed and developed by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. He divided the genus homo into four groups:—
1. The orthognathi, or men with a flat face and oval countenance.
2. The eurygnathi, or men with a large face and projecting cheek bones.
3. The prognathi, or men with a protuberant countenance.
4. Lastly, these races, which are both eurygnathi and prognathi, like the Hottentots, the development of whose face offers an example of a manifest step towards the exaggeration of this same development in the anthropomorphous ape in infancy.[112]
It has been endeavoured to establish, by means of averages, an appreciable difference between the pelvis of various races. Weber has considered that the form of the superior division is not the same with all of them. According to him it would be—
- 1. Oval, among Europeans.
- 2. Round, among Americans.
- 3. Square, among the Mongols.
- 4. Cuneiform or oblong, among the Africans.