II COMPLEXION 37 



intermixture for a lonsj time does an intermediate race 

 gradually arise. 



Dark, however, according to my observations, has a pre- 

 ponderance over fair.^ When it is once there it is not easily 

 eradicated from the blood ; it necessarily has this prepond- 

 erance simply on the ground that it is a positive quality as 

 compared with the mere deficiency of pigment in the fair. 

 Darkness of complexion, therefore, among us under the 

 present conditions will always rather increase than diminish 

 in its ratio to fairness. 



The length of time for which the dark and the blonde type 

 can constantly recur separately in the children of light and 

 dark complexioned parents is particularly w^ell shown by 

 several south German villages, like those in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of Tubingen, where a thoroughly dark, almost 

 Eomance, and a purely Germanic race of people appear often 

 enough sharply distinguished in the children of one and the 

 same family — notwithstanding the fact that in these little 

 villages intermixture is continually taking place, for the 

 people usually marry among one another, and seldom outside 

 the village. The dark type will here too gradually become 

 predominant, simply in consequence of the preponderance 

 which it has over the blonde and blue. 



Undoubtedly, in our temperate climate, sexual intermixture 

 has been the essential cause of the extension of darkness of 

 complexion, not the sun. But whether sexual selection gives 

 a preference to darkness is at least doubtful — taste in this 

 matter is very varied. It is possible that the intermixture 



of his journey to the Cameroons of the white child of a Dutch agent and his 

 black wife. I should be very grateful for additional accurate facts. 



^ I first expressed this opinion in 1881 {Variiren, etc.), and am rejoiced to find 

 that M. A. de Candolle in his book, Histoire des sciences et cles savants depicts 

 deux siecles, 'precedee et sicivie d'aiitres etudes stcr des sujets scientifiques, en 

 particxdier sur I'heredite et la selection, published in 1885 (Geneve -Bale, H. 

 Georg), likewise defends the view at p. 81 with regard to the dark colour of the 

 eyes. He promises to discuss the subject more minutely in a later work. 



