Chap. TIL] " THE RACES OF MAN. 221 



• 



of difference. 20 With our domestic animals the question 

 whether the various races have arisen from one or more 

 species is different. Although all such races, as well as 

 all the natural species within the same genus, have un- 

 doubtedly sprung from the same primitive stock, yet it is 

 a fit subject for discussion, whether, for instance, all the 

 domestic races of the dog have acquired their present 

 differences since soine one species was first domesticated 

 and bred by man; or whether they owe some of their 

 characters to inheritance from distinct species, which had 

 already been modified in a state of nature. With man- 

 kind no such question can arise, for he cannot be said to 

 have been domesticated at any particular period. 



When the races of- man diverged at an extremely re- 

 mote epoch from their common progenitor, they will have 

 differed but little from each other, and been few in num- 

 ber ; consequently they will then, as far as their distin- 

 guishing characters are concerned, have had less claim to 

 rank as distinct species, than the existing so-called races. 

 Nevertheless such early races would perhaps have been 

 ranked by some naturalists as distinct species, so arbitrary 

 is the term, if their differences, although extremely slight, 

 had been more constant than at present, and had not 

 graduated into each other. 



It is, however, possible, though far from probable, 

 that the early progenitors of man might at first have di- 

 verged much in character, until they became more unlike 

 each other than are any existing races ; but that subse- 

 quently, as suggested by Yogt, 21 they converged in char- 

 acter. When man selects for the same object the off- 

 spring of two distinct species, he sometimes induces, as 

 far as general appearance is concerned, a considerable 



80 See Prof. Huxley to this effect in the 'Fortnightly Review/ 1865, 

 p. 275. 



21 ' Lectures on Man,' Eng. translat. 1864, p. 468. 



