Chap. VII. THE RACES OF MAN. 229 



ending donbts whether many closely-allied mammals, 

 birds, insects, and plants, which represent each other in 

 North America and Europe, should be ranked species 

 or geographical races ; and so it is with the productions 

 of many islands situated at some little distance from the 

 nearest continent. 



Those naturalists, on the other hand, who admit the 

 principle of evolution, and this is now admitted by the 

 greater number of rising men, will feel no doubt that 

 all the races of man are descended from a single primi- 

 tive stock ; whether or not they think fit to designate 

 them as distinct species, for the sake of expressing their 

 amount 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 undoubtedly sprung from the same primi- 

 tive 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 some 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 mankind 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 

 remote epoch from their common progenitor, they will 

 have differed but little from each other, and been few 

 in number ; consequently they will then, as far as their 

 distinguishing characters are concerned, have had less 

 claim to rank as distinct species, than the existing so- 



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

 p. 275. 



