208 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part I. 



tribes, are much more like each other in form than would 

 at first be supposed. This is well shown by the French 

 photographs in the Collection Anthropologique du Museum 

 of the men belonging to various races, the greater number 

 of which, as many persons to whom I have shown them 

 have remarked, might pass for Europeans. Nevertheless, 

 these men if seen alive would undoubtedly appear very 

 distinct, so that we are clearly much influenced in our 

 judgment by the mere color of the skin and hair, by 

 slight differences in the features, and by expression. 



There is, however, no doubt that the various races, 

 when carefully compared and measured, differ much from 

 each other — as in the texture of the hair, the relative pro- 

 portions of all parts of the body, 2 the capacity of the 

 lungs, the form and capacity of the skull, and even in 

 the convolutions of the brain. 3 But it would be an endless 

 task to specify the numerous points of structural differ- 

 ence. The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatiza- 

 tion, and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental 

 characteristics are likewise very distinct ; chiefly as it 

 would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intel- 

 lectual, faculties. Every one who has had the opportunity 

 of comparison, must have been struck with the contrast 

 between the taciturn, even morose, aborigines of South 

 America and the light-hearted, talkative negroes. There 

 is a nearly similar contrast between the Malays and the 

 Papuans, 4 who live under the same physical conditions, 



2 A vast number of measurements of Whites, Blacks, and Indians, are 

 given in the ' Investigations in the Military and Anthropolog. Statistics 

 of American Soldiers,' by B. A. Gould, 1869, pp. 298-358 ; on the ca- 

 pacity of the lungs, p. 471. See also the numerous and valuable tables, 

 by Dr. Weisbach, from the observations of Dr. Scherzer and Dr. Schwarz, 

 in the 'Reise der Novara: Anthropolog. Theil,' 1867. 



3 See, for instance, Mr. Marshall's account of the brain of a Bush- 

 woman, in ' Phil. Transact.' 1864, p. 519. 



* Wallace, 'The Malay Archipelago,' vol. ii. 1869, p. 178. 



