178 DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION 



of racial evolution are further continuations of the line 

 leading from ape-like ancestors to the human species as 

 a type. In order to give the proper perspective, it will 

 be well to state at the present juncture, first, that the 

 various kinds of men do not vary from each other in a 

 chance manner so as to show all possible types and 

 varieties, but that they fall into natural groups or 

 families distinguished by certain common character- 

 istics, just as do all other kinds of species of animals; 

 in the second place, it appears that some of the dif- 

 ferences between the races denoted higher on struc- 

 tural accounts and the lowest forms of man are of the 

 same nature as those observed in the review of the 

 various species of primates from the lemurs to man. 



It is best to look at the whole question in a very simple 

 and common-sense way before undertaking an extended 

 examination of the details of human diversity. The 

 most casual survey of the peoples that we know best 

 because of our own individual nearness to them enables 

 us to realize that the races now upon the earth have not 

 existed forever and ever, or even for the age of 6000 

 years as contended by Archbishop Ussher. They have 

 all come into existence as such, and they differ from 

 their known antecedents ; so that at the very outset 

 common-sense leads us to accept evolution as true, if 

 we admit that human races have changed during the 

 course of recent centuries. We know, for example, that 

 the so-called Mexicans of to-day are a people produced 

 by a fusion of Spanish conquerors and Indian aborig- 

 ines ; the Mexican is neither Spaniard nor Indian, though 



