MODERN BIOLOGY 307 



Blwnenhach' s comparative anthropology 

 As the chief service that Blumenbach has rendered to science is generally 

 quoted the fact that he introduced into Germany the study of comparative 

 anatomy — and this at an earlier date than Cuvier introduced it into France. 

 There can be no doubt that the two collaborators in research BufFon and 

 Daubentonhave the prior claim to the introduction of comparative anatomy, 

 but it is certain also that Blumenbach was essentially a comparative anato- 

 mist and that he brought that science up to a high state of development. 

 There is especially one branch of it in which he is a pioneer — namely, an- 

 thropology. Here, it is true, Buffon, with his descriptive and statistical 

 method, and Camper, with his studies of the facial angle, had paved the 

 way, but Blumenbach was the first who systematically worked at the sub- 

 ject, thereby laying the foundations on which all subsequent research has 

 carried on its constructive work. He instituted a collection of skulls, skele- 

 tons, and illustrations of human beings of as many different races as he could 

 procure, and he methodically studied the peculiar characteristics of the ma- 

 terial he thus got together or was able to borrow from other museums. The 

 result was a close comparison of the characteristics, both external and in- 

 ternal, of different human types, and on that basis a division of mankind 

 into races. A similar attempt had indeed been made before, such as Buffon's, 

 for instance, but Blumenbach's was the first that really proved successful, 

 and his five races — Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American, and Ma- 

 layan — have been the foundation on which all subsequent racial divisions 

 have been based, just as his postulate that the races are varieties of one and 

 the same species is also regarded as true, in spite of isolated attempts to 

 create several species. His characteristic descriptions of the cranium, with 

 accompanying illustrations, have certainly been more recently improved 

 upon by Anders Retzius, Virchow, Broca, and others, but Blumenbach's 

 nevertheless form the groundwork on which his successors have built. 



Besides the study of races, Blumenbach paid special attention to the 

 question of determining the characteristics wherein man differs from the 

 other mammals, and particularly from the manlike apes, whose anatomy he 

 closely studied. Like Camper, he strongly maintained that man is funda- 

 mentally unlike the apes; it was he who divided the Linnasan order Primates 

 into two — Bimana for the human and Quadrumana for the apes. And he 

 collected as much anatomical, morphological, and psychological evidence as 

 he could in proof of this. Many of these detailed anatomical characteristics 

 are without doubt correctly observed, whereas others are the result of ana- 

 tomical misconceptions, such as the statement that the apes have four hands, 

 while man has two. This point of view was accepted, however, by the biol- 

 ogists of the succeeding age, and in actual fact Blumenbach was the origi- 

 nator of most of the reasons which eventually were to be adduced against 



