108 THE DESCENT OF MAN. Part I. 



The facts and conclusions to be given in this chapter 

 relate almost exclusively to the probable means by 

 which the transformation of man has been effected, 

 as far as his bodily structure is concerned. The fol- 

 lowing chapter will be devoted to the development of 

 his intellectual and moral faculties. But the present 

 discussion likewise bears on the origin of the different 

 races or species of mankind, whichever term may be 

 preferred. 



It is manifest that man is now subject to much 

 variability. No two individuals of the same race are 

 quite alike. We may compare millions of faces, arid 

 each will be distinct. There is an equally great 

 amount of diversity in the proportions and dimensions 

 of the various parts of the body ; the length of the legs 

 being one of the most variable points. 1 Although in 

 some quarters of the world an elongated skull, and in 

 other quarters a short skull prevails, yet there is great 

 diversity of shape even within the limits of the same 

 race, as with the aborigines of America and South 

 Australia, — the latter a race "probably as pure and 

 " homogeneous in blood, customs, and language as any 

 " in existence " — and even with the inhabitants of so 

 confined an area as the Sandwich. Islands. 2 An emi- 

 nent dentist assures me that there is nearly as much 

 diversity in the teeth, as in the features. The chief 

 arteries so frequently run in abnormal courses, that it 

 has been found useful for surgical purposes to calculate 



1 ' Investigations in Military and Anthropolog. Statistics of American 

 Soldiers,' by B. A. Gould. 1869, p. 256. 



2 With respect to the " Cranial forms of the American aborigines," 

 see Dr. Aitktn Meigs in ' Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci.' Philadelphia, May, 

 1866. On the Australians, see Huxley, in Lyell's ' Anticpiiity of Man,' 

 1863, p. 87. On the Sandwich Islanders, Prof. J. Wyinan, ' Observa- 

 tions on Crania,' Boston, 1868, p. 18. 



