PROFESSOR RiDGEWAY AND RACIAL ORIGINS 273 



brachycephaly of the Alpine or Celtic race falls to the ground. 

 This theory finds its only support in the head-shape of the 

 local ox. I do not for a moment desire to asperse the virtues 

 of this estimable beast, which, like other four-footed animals, 

 must perforce carry its head up and down hill stuck out in front, 

 but I really cannot accept its existence as proof of an inherent 

 power of mountains to cause brachycephaly in human beings. 

 As well attribute the long-headedness of the Esquimaux to the 

 aurora borealis. Indeed, on this view, how would one account 

 for such dolichocephalic phenomena as, say, the Scottish High- 

 landers (index 76), the Corsicans (index 73), the mountaineers 

 of the Pyrenees (index 77), or those of Kashmir (index 72-4)? 

 Prof. Ridgeway is careful to add that he is far from suggesting 

 that altitude is the only cause of brachycephaly. One is glad, 

 sincerely glad, of this reservation. We can still, it seems, light 

 fires without phlogiston. 



In frequent jeopardy from its failure to harmonise with or 

 account for known facts, the attempt to attribute the racial 

 differences of man to physical surroundings finally suffers 

 shipwreck upon another shore. As Sir Ray Lankester demon- 

 strated so brilliantly three years ago, man is an insurgent 

 against nature. Once proto-man utilised skins as a protection 

 against the inclemency of the weather, once he kindled fire to 

 serve as a shield against cold and wild beasts and fabricated 

 for himself cunning weapons of offence, he withdrew himself 

 definitely and for ever from the operation of the old zoological 

 environment. The process was completed by the cultivation of 

 grains and the fortification of villages. Henceforth mankind 

 could spread, multiply, and migrate, subject only to checks due 

 to inter-tribal collisions and (owing to his migrations) to an 

 enormously increased mortality from the most terrible enemy 

 of all, the pathogenic protozoa. By the inventions specified 

 man had indeed grasped the overlordship of the world, only 

 to find himself subject to new and calamitous agents of selection. 

 But though the development and progress of the human race 

 are still subject to selective checks, these differ radically and in 

 essence from those under which the life of the forest, air, and 

 stream have evolved. To argue from one set of facts to the 

 other involves a logical blunder. 



Having in fancy vanquished and utterly crushed the miserable 

 anthropologists who in their base reliance on facts had attri- 



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