314 Dr Prichard on the Varieties 



anatomical and physical inquiries, pursued separately, will be 

 liable to error if reference is not occasionally made to the results 

 deduced from philology. Notwithstanding this almost palpable 

 fact, we shall presently perceive that the most popular systems 

 with respect to the history of mankind, and the classifications of 

 nations, are not only built on premises altogether distinct from 

 those which depend on affinity in languages^ but are completely 

 at variance with the most obvious conclusions derivable from 

 this source of information." 



The author, after these general remarks on the application of 

 philology, proceeds to give an account of the attempts which 

 have been made to distinguish and classify the races of men by 

 their physical characters. 



*' Many late writers on the history of mankind, have attempted 

 to distribute the human species into several races, distinguished 

 from each other by peculiarities in the form, structure, and colour 

 of their bodies. Varieties of form have generally been thought 

 to afford a better groundwork for this division than those of com- 

 plexion ; and since it has been known that there exist national 

 diversities in the shape of the skull, this circumstance has been 

 generally selected as furnishing the most permanent distinctions, 

 and those which admit of the most extensive comparison and 

 classification. Several writers, both French and German, have 

 differed from each other as to the number of human races which 

 they constitute ; but the most generally received system is that 

 which has been adopted by Baron Cuvier, though it did not ori- 

 ginate with that celebrated writer. Professor Camper had 

 thrown out the first hint of a triple division of the forms of the 

 skull. He distinguished the facial angles as found by his mea- 

 surement in European, Kalmuc, and African skulls. But a 

 more important view of the diversities of form in the human 

 skull seems also to have originated with Camper ; for we are in- 

 formed by Soemmering, that in his unpublished commentaries. 

 Camper remarked the dijfference in breadth which exists between 

 the three classes of skulls above mentioned, and observed that 

 the skulls of the Kalmucs have the greatest breadth, those of 

 Europeans a middle degree, and that the skulls of African Ne- 

 groes are the narrowest of all, 



'' Nobody ever possessed means of observation and comparison 



