45 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lar types we rise to the notion of general types, which are like- 

 wise only probabilities, going up gradually to historical, prehis- 

 torical, and Quaternary types, and, by inductive constitution, to 

 primitive types. Hence the necessity of a classification of types ; 

 or, to use the current erroneous language, of races. Every an- 

 thropologist has his classification. M. Deniker in his, published 

 in 1889, admitted thirty types ; in the classification of our lectures 

 and our Elements d'anthropologie generate we enumerated nine- 

 teen, without concealing the existence of many gaps. This is all 

 not very favorable to the idea of the unity of the human species. 

 But it must not be forgotten that a number of these types are 

 artificial, provisional, and, as we have said, simple mental views. 

 Whether these were originally one or many types, the results are 

 the same. At present all men are capable of unlimited crossing, 

 and new types are in continual formation. If we would go up to 

 the origin of things, we should have to put away all these sec- 

 ondary products and simplify more and more. We should thus 

 come, in the first stage of our synthesis, to the conception of 

 eight general types, viz. : A fundamental European blonde type, a 

 Mediterraneo-Semitic, a brachycephalic Asiatic, a dolichocephalic 

 Asiatic, an Americo-Polynesian type, a black type with curly 

 hair, a brachycephalic negro, and a dolichocephalic negro type. 

 But perhaps dolichocephaly and brachycephaly are only second- 

 ary differentiations that may be produced in all the types, as large 

 and small stature may be too ; the black man with curly hair may 

 be only a cross. 



Nothing is easier, in fact, than to conceive in the light of anat- 

 omy and physiology that all types of mankind can be reduced to 

 three original types — the Europeo-Semitic, the Asiatico- American, 

 and the negro ; or to two — the white, which is differentiated into 

 those of flat and of sharp faces, and the negro. A further reduc- 

 tion would be hazardous. But if we lost ourselves in the depth 

 of the ages, we might conceive the negro as first born and giving 

 birth in succession to the curly-haired Australian, to one of the 

 brown forms with straight or waving hair, and finally to the 

 blonde European. 



Hence, the monogenistic system, or the doctrine of the unity 

 of type and origin, and the polygenistic system, or the doctrine of 

 plurality of type and origin, are equally tenable. 



But, it may be said, prehistoric skulls and bones should assist 

 us in our task. Only a little ! With the single exception of the 

 Neanderthal skull, which has a type of its own, all the few speci- 

 mens which the prehistoric peoples have left us are obviously only 

 duplicates of existing types, and those of Europeans and Ameri- 

 cans. Of the ancient negro, Africa and Oceania, which were sup- 

 pose 1 to be the promised lands for primitive anthropology, have 



