PART I.
The Primary Varieties of the Human Species.
- I. MONGOLIDÆ.
- II. ATLANTIDÆ.
- III. IAPETIDÆ.
The questions connected with the Natural History of the Human Species are so thoroughly questions of descent, affiliation, or pedigree, that I have no hesitation in putting the names of the primary divisions in the form of Greek patronymics; the supposed ancestor (or eponymus) being, of course, no real individual, but an ethnological fiction.
To have used, instead, the words stock, race, tribe, or even the more scientific terms—order, class, sub-order, preceded by an adjective, and to have spoken of the Mongolian stock, race, tribe or order, &c., would, apparently, have been the correcter method. It is not, however, so convenient. Every word of the sort in question is either required for the expression of the minor divisions, or is objectionable on other grounds.
I am also aware that this use of the forms in -idæ to express the divisions of a species, rather than those of an order, is at variance with the nomenclature of the zoologists. Still, the terms are less embarrassed with inconveniences than any I have hit upon.
I. Mongolidæ.—Face broad and flat from either the development of the zygomata, or that of the parietal bones; often from the depression of the nasal bones. Frontal profile retiring, or depressed, rarely approaching the perpendicular. Maxillary profile, moderately prognathic or projecting, rarely orthognathic. Eyes often oblique. Skin rarely a true white; rarely a jet black. Irides generally dark. Hair straight, and lank, and black; rarely light-coloured; sometimes curly, rarely woolly.
Languages.—Aptotic, and agglutinate; rarely with a truly amalgamate inflection.