Racial Overlap pings 209 



lation into races or subspecies, we have essentially the same 

 problem as that of defining numerous species of the same 

 genus. This, as we have seen, involves either the drawing 

 of perfectly arbitrary lines of separation, or the frank as- 

 sumption that the several types are related in the sense of 

 having common ancestors from which they diverged in the 

 course of their descent. 



The classification of races most widely accepted is that 

 of Blumenbach, who at the end of the Eighteenth Century 

 divided man into five groups: the Caucasian, the Mongolian, 

 the Indian, the Ethiopian and the Malay. This classification 

 on the basis of color has the advantage of convenience and 

 fairly ready recognition. A simplified form of this classifica- 

 tion which has been used by anthropologists establishes only 

 three major groups: the white, the black, and the yellow- 

 brown, which includes red. 



Another attempt to divide mankind into recognizable 

 races is based on characteristics of the hair: the straight- 

 haired, the wavy-haired and the woolly-haired. The physique 

 has also been a very useful means of classifying people, and 

 three basic types have been recognized: the medium physique 

 or Mesomorph, the underdeveloped or Hypomorph, and the 

 overdeveloped or Hypermorph. These distinctions are not 

 primarily of size but take into consideration the proportions 

 of the trunk and the limbs, the head, the nose, the ears, and 

 so on, or the degree to which the features are specialized or 

 well defined. It also cuts across the other classifications, so 

 that the three main types of body build may be found among 

 the various color races. 



Racial Overlappings 



It is commonly assumed that whichever outstanding 

 trait we may use as a basis for defining a race, several impor- 

 tant characteristics are associated with it. People are not 

 merely white or black, not merely straight-haired or curly- 

 haired. At the same time the correlation between the various 



