SELECTION ON MAN. 305 



vast accumulation of facts ; both reject those early 

 traditions of mankind which profess to give an ac- 

 count of his origin ; and both declare that they aro 

 seeking fearlessly after truth alone ; yet each will 

 persist in looking only at the portion of truth on 

 his own side of the question, and at the error which 

 is mingled with his opponent's doctrine. It is my 

 wish to show how the two opposing views can be 

 combined, so as to eliminate the error and retain the 

 truth in each, and it is by means of Mr. Darwin's 

 celebrated theory of " Natural Selection " that I hope 

 to do this, and thus to harmonise the conflicting 



' O 



theories of modern anthropologists. 



Let us first see what each party has to say for 

 itself. In favour of the unity of mankind it is argued, 

 that there are no races without transitions to others ; 

 that every race exhibits within itself variations of 

 colour, of hair, of feature, and of form, to such a de- 

 gree as to bridge over, to a large extent, the gap that 

 separates it from other races. It is asserted that no 

 race is homogeneous ; that there is a tendency to vary ; 

 that climate, food, and habits produce, and render 

 permanent, physical peculiarities, which, though slight 

 in the limited periods allowed to our observation, would, 

 in the long ages during which the human race has ex- 

 isted, have sufficed to produce all the differences that 

 now appear. It is further asserted that the advocates 

 of the opposite theory do not agree among themselves ; 

 that some would make three, some five, some fifty or 

 a hundred and fifty species of man ; some would have 



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