128 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



they grew less dark, those of them who settled permanently 

 along the axis of the Alps tending to have shorter skulls, whilst 

 those who had passed north earliest became the tallest and 

 most blond people in the world. On the other hand, I revolted 

 from Dr. Sergi's theory of a " Mediterranean Race " comprising 

 Hamites and Semites as well as those speaking Aryan languages, 

 I pointed out the very weighty evidence that the dark races of 

 Greece, Italy and Spain (the Basques excepted) have always 

 spoken an Aryan tongue, and that Sergi has simply assumed 

 that similarity of physical type means identity of race. I urged 

 that the similarity between the Aryan-speaking populations of 

 Greece, Italy, Spain, parts of France and of the British Isles to 

 the Hamites and Semites, is merely due to convergence of 

 physical types under similar conditions, instancing various 

 analogies from the lower animals. 



As my theme had of necessity to concern itself with questions 

 of race, I examined the criteria by which the anthropologists 

 distinguish one race from another. If you ask an anthropologist 

 how he discriminates an Aryan from a non-Aryan race, he will 

 tell you that he relies on three main tests — the colour of the 

 skin, hair and eyes; the shape of the skull and other osteo- 

 logical characteristics ; and the system of descent through males. 

 Formerly language was included in the tests of race, but when 

 it was pointed out that the negroes of Jamaica speak English, 

 those of Louisiana French, it was thenceforward assumed that 

 one race can embrace the language of another with the greatest 

 ease. Yet it may turn out, after all, that language was too hastily 

 expelled from the criteria of race. On the other hand we may 

 find that too implicit faith has been placed in the three criteria 

 of cranial characteristics, pigmentation, and law of succession. 

 It will be thus seen that I have not substituted language, as a 

 criterion of race, for cranial characteristics, pigmentation, or law 

 of succession. I then examined the value of these three criteria 

 in general use, and I was forced to conclude that osteological 

 differences could not be implicitly relied on and might in some 

 cases be foundations of sand, because it is certain that such 

 variations take place within very short periods, not only in the 

 case of the lower animals, as in the horse family, but in man 

 himself. Pigmentation also is not an infallible criterion, for 

 with the lower animals there is a steady tendency in the same 

 species to change in colour from latitude to latitude, whilst in 



