130 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



My doctrine of the instability of eye colour has recently 

 received remarkable confirmation. Dr. William Wright, in his 

 Hunterian Lectures (III. 7) writes: "The effect of sunlight 

 in darkening the skin is well known. As to eye colour, my 

 friend Mr. J. V. Hodgson, biologist to the Scott Antartic 

 Expedition, informed me that as a result of living under such 

 unusual conditions, the eyes of the members of the expedition 

 became so blue as to occasion remark on their return to New 

 Zealand, and also on their arrival home in this country. Colour 

 therefore, like the cephalic index and stature, is also prone 

 to change, and in itself is not deserving of implicit trust." 

 But though the pigmentation of the eye can be quickly modified 

 in the individual under new conditions, the race would probably 

 have to live under the like conditions for a very long period 

 before such blueness would become a fixed racial trait. 



It will be seen (i) that my views respecting the short-skulled 

 " Alpine race " have been endorsed by eminent craniologists 

 and by the conclusions drawn by the Danish anthropologists 

 from their own anthropometric survey ; (2) that my theory 

 of the pigmentation has likewise been confirmed by the same 

 survey and by the evidence derived from the Antarctic 

 Expedition. Thus, within a short period since it was first 

 propounded, my theory of the origin of the blond Aryans 

 has been corroborated by various kinds of evidence, as well as 

 endorsed by leading anatomists. 



Let us now consider the reasons by which Mr. Houghton 

 attempts " to show that the arguments used rest on foundations 

 of quicksand, and that the inferences do not really arise 

 from the facts adduced." " The fundamental error in his (Prof. 

 Ridgeway's) position consists in an assertion of the essential 

 fluidity of head-form and such-like physical characteristics and 

 in their derivation from climatic and other surroundings, in 

 contrast with an alleged permanence over a given area of the 

 language originally spoken there. He predicates also a similar 

 local permanence of idiosyncrasy, polity, and social and religious 

 ideas. The central and dominant feature of the first portion 

 of his address consists in an ascription to local influences of 

 those physical traits of mankind which have hitherto by all 

 competent investigators been referred to racial causes, that is^ 

 to Heredity." 



Let me at once point out that, while I do ascribe great 



