SELECTION IN MAN. 



QUESTIONS respecting the origin and development 

 of race-types have been among the favourite 

 battle-grounds of anthropologists since anthropology began 

 to be. Some have held that the countless varieties of type 

 in man could be accounted for by the simple admixture of 

 a very few original types, of three for example, a white, a 

 black and a yellow one, others that nothing was needed to 

 produce the widest extremes of variation save the direct 

 influence of what the French call "media" and the 

 Americans environment. With the development and in- 

 creasing prevalence of evolutionary theories, the questions 

 were looked upon from a somewhat different point of view. 

 The same two parties, however, continued to exist, the one 

 assigning supreme importance to innate variability controlled 

 by natural selection, the other to the same variability 

 controlled by environment. In process of time it became 

 obvious that there might be other selective agencies than 

 those commonly understood by the term natural ; and Alfred 

 Wallace himself pointed out that natural selection must 

 have been potent in its working on man in the early stages 

 of civilisation, but that in later stages it ceased to be so, 

 while other agencies came into play. 



Questions dependent on, or arising out of those already 



mentioned are innumerable, and in some instances at least 



are of obvious and immediate practical importance. For 



example : Which are the types of man that are most 



suitable for colonisation or acclimatisation in different parts 



of the world ? and are they recognisable by colour or 



form of head, by kephalic or nasal index, by stature or any 



other visible character? What is the connection or relation, 



if any, between complexion and liability to malarial fever, 



to syphilis, to cancer or leprosy? Are the more fertile 



types or strains of mankind to be known by outward signs ? 



Are new types of man likely to be developed more suitable 



than those now prevailing to the altering conditions of civic 



and industrial life, and if so, through what agencies ? 



