XII.] THE CAUCASIC PEOPLES. 447 



general North European type, as described by Linne and Tacitus'. 

 Hence M. G. de Lapouge, leader of the new French school of 

 anthropologists, returns to Linne's terminology 2 , and substitutes 

 his Homo Europeans for "Aryan" as understood by Penka, that is, 

 the northern of the three divisions into which he divides the 

 present European peoples. 



Referring to these divisions, which he adopts and brilliantly 

 illustrates, Dr W. Z. Ripley remarks that " instead of a single 

 European type, there is indubitable evidence of at least three 

 distinct races, each possessed of a history of its own, and each 

 contributing something to the common product, population as we 

 see it to-day." Then he adds : " If this be established, it does 

 away at one fell swoop with most of the current mouthings about 

 Aryans and pre-Aryans ; and especially with such appellations as 

 the ' Caucasian,' or the ' Indo-Germanic ' race 3 ." 



Aryan, for the reasons stated, is to be deprecated. But 

 Caucasic when properly understood not as the equivalent of 

 " Indo-Germanic," as here apparently suggested, but as the col- 

 lective designation of one of the four main divisions of mankind 

 cannot be dispensed with until a more suitable general term be 

 discovered. It need not interfere in the least with Dr Ripley's 

 three races, or with any number of such sub-varieties, for it covers 

 them all, just as analogous general terms cover any number of 

 genera, species, and varieties in zoology or botany. Those who 

 object to "Caucasic" are apt to forget the vast field that has to 

 be embraced by this single collective term ; a field comprising 

 not peoples of Aryan speech alone, not the tribes of the Caucasus 

 alone, but all these and many more Semites, Hamites, Eastern 

 Polynesians, all of whom belong anthropologically to the same 

 division of mankind. 



1 "Homo EnropceMs: Albus, sanguineus, torosus, pilis flavescentibus, pro- 

 lixis; oculis caeruleis etc." (Sy sterna Natunz}. 



2 "Zoologiste avant tout, je m'en tiens a la terminologie linneenne," giving 

 as his reason that the confusion is thus avoided which arises from the use of 

 national names to designate types often forming a minority in the nation itself 

 (Les Selections Societies, Paris, 1896). 



3 The Racial Geography of Europe, in Popular Science Monthly, June, 1897, 

 p. 192. 



