6o TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cans this influence simply adds itself to that of inheritance, and 

 does not diminish its strength or importance. Taking a general 

 view of the question, the case becomes very obvious. It will 

 scarcely be disputed that national characteristics manifest them- 

 selves definitely, not only in the temperament, ideas, etc., of the 

 people, but also in their bodily features. We speak of the English 

 type of facial features, the German type, etc., and every one ap- 

 preciates that these terms express real distinctions. Moreover, we 

 know that these types have existed a long time, slightly vari- 

 able, no doubt, but never losing the main lines. It is scarcely 

 necessary to say that this continuance of type rests on heredity. 

 The case is precisely the same as that of the continuance of the 

 family likeness, only the family is larger and the features less 

 distinctive, though, in the long run, they are more faithfully con- 

 served. 



Lying deeper than those characteristics that mark us as mem- 

 bers of a nationality are others that mark us as members of one 

 of the great races of the human family. The term race has differ- 

 ent significations according to its use, whether referring to dis- 

 tinctions chiefly of an anatomical character (though connoting 

 others), as the Caucasian, Mongolian, etc., races, or to distinctions 

 based more directly on differences of lineage, as the Celtic, Teu- 

 tonic, etc., races. For the purpose in hand we use it in the former 

 sense, dividing mankind into the usual five races, Caucasian, ne- 

 gro, Indian, etc. Now, it is obvious that our race characteristics 

 come to us in the same way as our national and family character- 

 istics : we get our white skin and orthognathous skulls by inherit- 

 ance just as truly as our more specific bodily features, only these 

 qualities come to us from ancestors more remote. We need not 

 concern ourselves here how they obtained them, nor whether 

 they were acquired suddenly in a single generation or gradually 

 through many generations. The point to be insisted upon is that, 

 race characteristics once established, they are transmitted by in- 

 heritance through all succeeding generations. Of course, the 

 principle applies not only to merely anatomical features, but to 

 mental traits as well. The peculiarities of mental constitution 

 that make the Caucasian the most progressive race are handed 

 down by inheritance just as truly as the color of the skin and the 

 shape of the skull. 



Still deeper than the race characteristics — more fundamental 

 than they — are those that mark us as members of the human fam- 

 ily itself. Our convoluted brains, our power of verbal speech, 

 certain of our intellectual and our moral faculties, these are the 

 qualities that belong to us in common with all men, and that 

 distinguish us from the highest animals. Whence came these 

 qualities ? It can only be answered that they came from the 



