10 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
produces similar effects upon those subjected to it. That is to say,. 
the Negrito of Malacca and the Philippine Islands may resemble the 
Yoloff and the Bantu of Africa, because his climate and mode of 
life are similar. If this is not the case, it is singular, that, over the 
vast area in which either the Negrito or the Australian must have 
supplanted the other, there should be no evidence of mixture of 
race, no remains of a mixed race evidently sprung from the union of 
the two. You may say to me, that one race exterminated the other. 
I say that in early times it was impossible to conquer and extermi- 
nate a race over a vast area. It is hardly possible now for a very 
civilized to extirpate a very uncivilized race over a large tract of 
country. Much less was it possible then, when all the devilish 
enginery of modern war had not been invented, and the process of 
killing one’s fellow was slow, and very far from sure. 
We shall be still more doubtful of the value of the preceding classi- 
fication as a guide to community of descent, when we notice how the 
shape of the skull, which one would think would be as fixed as the 
colour of the skin or the character of the hair, varies in all but the 
Australioid division. We know that abundance of good food will in- 
crease the size of many of the lower animals, and that by a process 
of artificial selection from among the varieties naturally produced 
we can change almost any character to an indefinite extent. May it 
not possibly be the case that the shape of the skull, and the colour of 
the skin, hair, and eyes and other physical characters may be the 
results of that natural selection which Darwin puts forward as the 
operative cause in originating species. 
A great deal of light would be thrown on the question we have 
just raised, if it could be clearly shown that some physical character 
was either independent of, or dependent on the environment. For 
various reasons the character of colour seems to give greater promise 
of results than any other. We havea greater abundance of informa- 
tion in regard to it than any other, and it seems at any rate at first 
sight to vary according to a law. 
“The colour of the skin” in the different races “varies from the 
very pale reddish brown of the so-called white races, through all shades 
of yellow and red brown to olive and chocolate, which may be so 
dark as to look black.” That of the hair, varies from the flaxen of 
some northern races, to a very deep brown ot bluish black. That of 
the eyes varies from a very light blue through different shades of blue, 
