“The Esquimaux, the Laplanders, Samoïedes, and Kamschatkans, belong to this department, as well as the Tartar nations—meaning the Mongolians, Tungusians, and nomadic races of Turks. In South Africa, the Hottentots, formerly a nomadic people, who wandered about with herds of cattle over the extensive plains of Kafirland, resembling in their manner of life the Tungusians and the Mongols, have also broadfaced, pyramidal skulls, and in many particulars of their organization resemble the Northern Asiatics. Other tribes in South Africa approximate to the same character, as do many of the native races of the New World.
“The most civilized races, those who live by agriculture and the arts of cultivated life, all the most intellectually improved nations of Europe and Asia, have a shape of the head which differs from both the forms above mentioned. The characteristic form of the skull among these nations may be termed oval or elliptical.
“We shall find hereafter that there are numerous instances of transition from one of these shapes of the head to another, and that these alterations have taken place in nations who have changed their manner of life.”
Blumenbach considered that the most important admeasurement of the skull was derivable from the shape and size of the oval, seen when the skull was viewed from above, looking vertically down upon it. Camper took as the basis of his theory of the gradations of different genera of mammalia, the angle formed by a line drawn from the aperture of the ear to the base of the nose, and a tangent to the forehead and jaw. Considering the increasing size of this angle to be the distinctive mark of intellectual superiority, he viewed a negro as an intermediate animal between an European and an ape. But Mr Owen has shown that the observations of Camper and others, being applied to immature animals, are not worthy of reliance; as the relations of all animals more closely approximate if they be examined in an infant, than in an adult state. The facial angle of the orang, which has been estimated at from 60° to 64°, he finds in the adult animal is only 30°—i. e. 40° short of the smallest facial angle in the human race! We should hence be led to suspect a proportionate difference between the infant and adult mind; but the psychological development of infants is a subject which has been strangely neglected by philosophers. A clever Italian authoress who has written an anonymous work upon education, gives as the reason for the dearth of writing on this subject, that philosophers are not mothers, and that mothers are not philosophers. Be this as it may, few theorems appear to us more promising of interest. The struggle of internal force with external resistance, the feelings manifested in the acquisition of new powers, the impressions made by objects seen for the first time, and first questions asked, form grounds for induction as to the psychology of man, which, thanks to the chartered tyranny of nursery-maids over philosophers, have been grossly neglected.
After going through other points of physical difference in human races, with which, being for the most part matter of anatomical detail, we shall not trouble our readers, Dr Prichard concludes:—
“On surveying the facts which relate to difference in the shape of the body, and the proportions of parts in human races, we may conclude that none of these deviations amount to specific distinction. We may rest this conclusion on two arguments. First, that none of the differences in question exceed the limits of individual variety, or are greater than the diversities found within the circle of one nation or family. Secondly, the varieties of form in human races are by no means so considerable, in many points of view, as the instances of variation which are known to occur in different tribes of animals belonging to the same stock, there being scarcely one domesticated species which does not display much more considerable deviations from the typical character of the tribe.”
The only observation we shall make upon this is, that, as before stated, the test of identity of species being the power of continued reproduction, not the slightest evidence having been ever offered that all the various human races have not inter se this power, but the contrary having been proved in every case within human experience, none of the deviations can amount to specific distinctions.
Having noticed the most remarkable physical distinctions of the human race, we come to its ethnographical divisions—divisions founded partly upon traditional and historical records, and partly upon the internal evidence of similarity of language. The following sketch of hypotheses, as to the original birthplaces of the αυτοχθονες γαιας, although visionary, and in all probability incorrect, forms such an interesting abstract of philosophical speculations and poetical myths, that we cannot refrain from quoting it:—
“The most popular, or generally received distribution of human races in the present day, is that which was recommended by the adoption of Baron Cuvier. It did not entirely originate with that great writer, but was set forth by him in a more decided and complete manner than it had been before his time. This system refers different races of men to certain lofty mountain-chains, as the local seats of their original existence.
“The birthplace, or the primitive station, of the race of men who peopled Europe and Western Asia, is supposed to have been Mount Caucasus. From this conjecture, Europeans and many Asiatic nations, and even some Africans, have received the new designation of Caucasians. The nations of Eastern Asia are imagined, in like manner, to originate in the neighbourhood of Mount Altaï, and they are named after the Mongolians, who inhabit the highest region in that vast chain of hills. The African negroes are derived from the southern face of the chain of Mount Atlas.