Long before the doctrine of evolution was understood and adopted, students of the human races had been deeply impressed by their natural resemblances. As early as 1672 Bernier divided human beings according to certain of these fundamental similarities into four groups; namely, the white European, the black African, the yellow Asiatic, and the Laplander. Linnæus, in the eighteenth century, included Homo sapiens in his list of species, recognizing four subspecies in the European, Asiatic, African, and Indian of America. Blumenbach in 1775 added the Malay, thus giving the five types that most of us learned in our school days. But the different varieties of men recognized by these observers were believed to be created in their modern forms and with their present-day characteristics; the common character of skin color exhibited by any group of peoples of a single continent was to them only a convenient label for purposes of description and classification. It was not until years later that fundamental resemblances were recognized as indicating an actual blood relationship of the races displaying them, and therefore of evolution. Since the doctrine of human descent and of the divergence of human races in later evolution has been accepted, those who have attempted to work out fully the complete ancestry of different peoples have found that no single character can be taken by itself, while the various criteria themselves differ in reliability; the color of the skin is not so sure a guide as the character of the hair and skull, wherefore the classifications of recent times, notably those of Huxley and Haeckel, have been based largely upon the latter. The latest systems have been more rigidly scientific and more in accord with the most modern conceptions of organic relationships in general, as evidenced by the thoroughgoing methods of Duckworth in his recent treatise on human classification.
It now remains to present the salient facts regarding the genetic relationships of typical human races, although it is obviously impossible to go into all of the details of the subject. But these are not essential for the main purpose, which is to show that the evolutionary explanation is the only one that is reasonable and self-consistent. Opinions are sometimes widely at variance regarding countless minor points, but no anthropologist of to-day can be anything but an evolutionist, because the main principles upon which the specialists agree fall directly into line with those established elsewhere in zoölogy. It seems best to state these principles without reverting to controversial matters which find their place in the monographs of the experts. Any comprehensive account such as that of Keane, even if it may not give the final word, will be entirely sufficient to demonstrate how fruitful are the methods of evolution when they are employed for the study of human races, and indeed how impossible it is to discuss human histories without finding conclusive evidences of their evolutionary nature.
The facts that are available indicate that the first members of our species evolved in an equatorial continent which is now submerged, and which occupied a position between the present continents of Asia and Africa. From this center hordes of primitive men migrated to distant centers where they differentiated into three primary and distinct groups. The first of these was gradually resolved into the darker-skinned peoples most of whom now live in the continent of Africa, although many dwell also in the islands of the western Pacific Ocean. The second branch divided almost immediately to produce, on the one hand, the Indians of the new world and, on the other, the yellow-skinned inhabitants of Asia and other places. The third branch developed as such in the neighborhood of the Mediterranean Sea, and produced the series of so-called Caucasian peoples, which are by far the most familiar to us and to which most of us belong. But so early did the second branch divide that there are virtually four main divisions of the human species that are to be examined in serial order.
It is best to begin with our own division, because its greater familiarity makes it easier to become acquainted with the methods and results of anthropology, on the basis of facts that we already know. Three subordinate types exist, located primarily in northern, central, and southern Europe respectively, but many other races dwell elsewhere that are assignable to one or another of these subdivisions. In northeastern Europe we find people such as the Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, and north Germans, that average five feet eight inches in height. They have the long, wavy, and soft hair which is a general characteristic of the whole Caucasian group, although its light flaxen color is distinctive. The blue eye and florid complexion accompany the light color of the hair. The skull is of the longer type, the jaws and forehead are straight and square, the nose is large and long without a distinct arch, and the teeth are relatively small. It is not so well known that the Scandinavian type is so closely copied by many people of Asia, such as the western Persians, Afghans, and certain of the Hindus, living in a continent that we are inclined to assign to the Mongol only. In the possession of these characters the Northern Europeans and other races specified display evidences of their common ancestry and evolution quite as conclusively as in the case of the cats discussed in an earlier chapter where the meaning of essential likeness was first demonstrated.
A broad zone may be drawn from Wales, across Europe and Asia, and even to the eastern islands of the South Seas, in which we find peoples that are obviously of Caucasian descent, but they differ from the members of the first group in some details of structure. On the average they are about five feet five or six inches in height, the hair is dark and wavy, but it is not the pencil-like structure of the Mongol. The complexion is pale, the skull is rounder, and the eyes are usually brown in color. These peoples agree also in their volatile temperament and vivacious manner and are thus markedly different from the more stolid northerners. To this minor branch of the Caucasian stock belong the Welsh, most of the French, South Germans and Swiss, Russians and Poles, Armenians, eastern Persians, and finally some of the inhabitants of Polynesia. The last, it is true, form a well-marked group of darker-skinned and taller races, but in spite of the admixture of these and other unusual features, we can still discern the bodily characters that supplement their traditions, telling of an Asian origin, in demonstrating their common ancestry with round-headed Persians and middle Europeans. Below the zone of middle Europe and Asia is another broad region inhabited by the "Mediterranean" type of Caucasian. The Spaniard, Italian, Greek, and Arab are sufficiently familiar to illustrate the distinctive qualities of this subdivision. These people have the smaller stature, dark hair, dark eyes, and paler skin of the middle Europeans, but the skull is of the long instead of the rounded type. A well-marked subordinate group is formed by the so-called Semitic peoples, such as the Arabs and their Hebrew relatives. The Berbers and other North African races possess a darker skin probably because of the admixture of Ethiopian stock, and they, too, are so well characterized that they form a clearly marked outlying group as the so-called Hamites. Passing over into Asia we find relatives of the Mediterranean man in the Dravidas and Todas of India, possibly in the degenerate Veddahs of Ceylon, and finally in the Ainus or "hairy men" of some of the Japanese islands. The last-named people certainly possess some Mongolian features, but these seem to have been added to a more fundamental form of body that is distinctly Caucasian.
All of the races we have mentioned, together with their relatives, may be compared to the leaves borne upon three branches that take their origin from a single limb of the widespread human part of the tree. They cannot be classified in any mode on the basis of their primary and secondary resemblances without employing the treelike plan of arrangement, which to the man of science is a sure indication of their evolutionary relationships.
* * * * *
The people of the second or Mongolian group agree in certain well-marked characteristics in such a way as to be well separated from the other divisions of mankind; these characteristics we may speak of as constituting a second "theme," of which the various peoples of the group are so many variations. To visualize them we need only to recall the appearance of the Chinaman, perhaps the most familiar example of the entire series. Here the hair is coarse and black, and straight because of its round transverse section; the mustache and beard of the Caucasians are seldom found except in later life; the skin is a fleshy yellow in color; the skull is round, indeed, it is one of the roundest that we know; the jaws are not so straight as in the Caucasian, for the angle at the point of the chin is about sixty-eight degrees. The cheek bones project laterally, with greater or less prominence; the nose is very small, tilted up slightly at the end, and is usually hollowed instead of arched. The eyes are small and black in color, set somewhat obliquely, and the upper lid is drawn down over the eye at its inner corner so as to make the obliquity still more marked. The teeth are larger than those of the Caucasian. Finally, the Mongol is below the average of all men as regards height, being usually about five feet four inches tall.
The original Mongolians probably developed the characteristic features we have just noted in a Central Asiatic region, and then almost immediately they divided into two great groups. Each of these evolved along certain lines of its own, one sweeping northward to develop into what are now called the Northern Mongols, the other working its way eastward and southward to produce the peoples of China proper, Indo-China, and many parts of Malaysia. Considering first the peoples of the Northern Mongolian division, we find in the typical Manchurian what is perhaps the nearest among modern people to the original race. Spreading northward and westward from the middle Asiatic plains, this great wave has produced the nomadic tribes of Siberia, like the Chukchi, the Buryats, and the Yukaghir. The present inhabitants of Turkestan connect those forms which have remained near the original home with the races of Mongolian origin that live farther to the westward, like the Turks of Asia. But the Mongolian tide originally swept much farther to the west, although it was driven back later by conquering Caucasian peoples; and it has left behind such remnants as the Finlander and the Laplander, the Bulgar, and the Magyar. It is evident that these western branches of the Mongol stock are not at all pure in their racial characteristics, for they clearly show the effects of a mixture with alien European peoples. To assign them to the Northern Mongol division means only that their dominant characteristics are mainly those of Mongolian nature. We have referred the Russians to the middle Caucasian division even though the Slav or Tartar infusion is very great, but it does not dominate over the Caucasian peculiarities as it does in the case of the peoples we have mentioned. As regards the remaining types we must add to this brief list the Koreans and the Japanese, the former being far purer in Mongolian nature than the latter people, which has apparently been affected by a Malay influence from the south.
Turning now to the southern Mongol, we find that from their cradle in the Tibetan plateau they too have spread widely, and their descendants have also come to differ in certain respects as they have established themselves in other lands. Most of the present people of Tibet belong to this section; the Gurkhas of Hindustan, the people of Burma proper, of Annam, and Cochin China are close relatives of one another and of the more characteristic Mongolians of China proper who make up the vast bulk of the population. From this stock we may also derive the Malays of Sumatra and Java, of Borneo and Celebes, and the Tagals and Bisayans of the Philippine Islands. Even the Hovars and other tribes of Madagascar may be referred to this division, for although in them the skin has become somewhat darker, we may still discern the characteristics which indicate their common ancestry with the Oceanic Mongols.