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that the forms now confined to Asia have ever inhabited the 

 extreme north or south of Europe. Unless, however, the group 

 be a dominant one, its real original home or place of origin is 

 not necessarily indicated by the aggregation of its constituent 

 species, as the true birthplace of a group, if it be no longer a 

 dominant one, may not retain a single representative within its 

 limits, its constituent species having been expelled or overcome 

 by the stronger forms which have arisen and supplanted them — ■ 

 while the geological record is too incomplete and fragmentary 

 to overthrow, by the purely negative evidence it can offer, the 

 conclusions based upon the solid and verifiable facts of graduated 

 perfection of structure and geographical distribution ; and, so 

 far from agreeing with the theory of the eastern origin of the 

 various forms of life, and the reasoning by which it is supported 

 I regard the Central Asian plateau more as a sanctuary where 

 the weaker and less adaptable species still exist which have 

 migrated or been expelled from the regions more immediately 

 adjacent to the active evolutionary centre. 



Central Asia has never produced anything superior to Western 

 Palaearctic life, and there is little or no evidence that a 

 typical continental or extreme climate, as mid-Asia must 

 always have had, ever produced the higher types of life or 

 has done more than modify the species which have migrated 

 thither from Europe. 



It is true that Max Müller and other eminent men beheve, 

 or formerly believed, that the Aryan or White race of mankind 

 originated in the Highlands of Asia, but this hypothesis is now, 

 I understand, quite discredited, and the declaration of Spiegel 

 that the Aryan race arose in Europe, between the 45th and 

 6oth parallels, which, as the region of its highest development, 

 is probably the place where it originated, is now more generally 

 accepted — a belief in which I cordially concur. Although dis- 

 tribution or dispersal has doubtless been influenced by the 

 climatal changes the earth has undergone, these fluctuations 

 being such that at no distant date a colder chmate extended 

 over a large part of the Northern Hemisphere, yet the severity 

 and effect of this epoch would appear to have been somewhat 

 exaggerated, although it was undoubtedly a very cold period 

 and accompanied by the formation of extensive glaciers. 



