Chapter XXIII 



THE MINGLING OF RACES 



Charles B. Davenport 



RACES are groups of individuals within a species which 

 differ by one or more well-marked characters. Thus, 

 in the human species, we have the white, negro and 

 Asiatic races; and, in the European group, we distinguish the 

 blue-eyed, blond race of the Northwest; the brunette, 

 long-headed race of the Mediterranean and the short-headed 

 race that extends from the Alpine region eastward. 



Wherever two races come to inhabit the same country 

 they tend to hybridize. The question that arises is what 

 about the children? Do they take after one race or the other 

 or do they show a mixture of the unhke traits of the two races 

 or will the traits blend in them? Will any mental differences 

 in the two races be inherited? Will the hybrids be socially 

 equal, or superior, to the pure races from which they are 

 derived? 



In the last quarter of a century more research has been 

 made on race crossing in animals and plants than ever 

 before. Certain principles have come about through this 

 genetical research and we may well inquire in how far they 

 apply to man. The first genetical principle, which we may 

 test in man, is the principle of dominance. When two crossed 

 races differ in that one possesses a trait that the other lacks, 

 then one of three things may happen. Either the trait may 

 appear in the offspring, in which case it is said to be dominant, 

 or it may disappear in the first hybrid generation, in which 

 case it is said to be recessive, or it may show a blend between 

 the parental conditions, in which case it is beheved to be 

 of a genetically complex nature. Where the inherited trait 

 depends upon a single dominant gene in the second hybrid 

 generation, resulting from a mating of the Fi hybrids, the 

 dominant trait will ordinarily appear in three-quarters of 

 the offspring, the other quarter being of the recessive type. 

 In the case where the trait is not simple but compound, the 



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