THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 9 



America alone shows us a perfect example of experimental anthro- 

 pology. It is now determined from observations that human 

 hybridism is multiform among all peoples; but what we learn 

 from that example is the exchange of external characteristics and 

 their mixture with those internal, that is, the union of the external 

 characteristics of one ethnic type with the internal characteristics 

 of another type. Thus, one may observe the color of the skin and 

 hair with its special form united to characteristics of skeletons 

 which do not generally belong to types of that color, and vice 

 versa. That may be observed concerning certain characteristics, 

 and not of all ; such as the stature, or the face, with its soft cover- 

 ing, or the form of the cranium only. 



If we study our European populations which are called white, 

 but which have many gradations of whiteness, we may note the 

 great mixture of characteristics, a mixture which is changeable, 

 from which results a great variety of forms of individual types, 

 constituted of characteristics differing from each other. An 

 analysis must be very accurate and very minute to discriminate 

 these dififerent elements which exist in the composition of the 

 ethnic characteristics of individuals and peoples. These mixtures 

 and these combinations of characteristics differ according to the 

 character and number of elements existing in the various nations 

 of the south, the center, or the north of Europe. They arise 

 from different relations with mixed peoples. 



What is most important in this human hybridism, so various 

 and so complex, is the lack of the blending of the external and 

 internal characteristics from which new human varieties may be 

 had. Among the different ethnic elements there exists only a 

 relation of position, called syncretism, or propinquity of charac- 

 teristics, and therefore a facility for forming small groups. Such 

 a phenomenon has already been recognized in America, and it is 

 evident in Europe among peoples who appear little homogeneous, 

 if a careful observation separates the characteristics constituting 

 ethnic types and those of individuals in a mixed population. 



If there were no other cause for such an absence of blending 

 among the characteristics of human hybridism, this cause would 

 exist, that the relations which produce the mixtures are not equal 

 and constant, but are varied and inconstant. If there should be 

 the union of two pure ethnic types only, for several generations, 



