354 M. Flourens on the Natural History of Man. 



character, which can make a particular race of it ;" and he 

 adds, that the copper-red complexion is not a sufficient one. He 

 would assuredl}^ have been of a quite contrary opinion, if he 

 had known that the copper-red tint is owing to a special de- 

 terminate apparatus, an apparatus which anatomy detaches 

 and isolates from all the other parts of the skin. 



In considering, I do not say the characters of form, but the 

 characters, the differences of structure, there are then three 

 specifically and primarily distinct races — the white or Cauca- 

 sian race, the Negro or Ethiopian race, and the red or Ameri^ 

 can race. 



Such are the results which I have explained in my lectures 

 of late years in the Museum. It is true that, for want of fa- 

 vourable opportunities, I have not yet been able to extend 

 these researches of structure to the other races, and particu- 

 lai-ly to that which, among all others, appears most important, 

 I mean the yellow or Mongolian. I have hitherto been reduced 

 to characters of the second order, characters of fornix viz. 

 characters taken from the conformation of the cranium and of 

 the face. 



I call these last characters of the second order, and by this 

 are explained the differences which exist among naturalists 

 regarding the determination of the human races, a determina- 

 tion which, in truth, has been hitherto founded only on these 

 characters. M. Blumenbach fixes the number of these races 

 at five — the Caucasian, the Mongolian, the Negro, the Ameri- 

 can, and the Malay. M. Cuvier reduces these five races of 

 Blumenbach to three — the white or Caucasian, the yellow or 

 Mongolian, and the Negi'o or Ethiopian, and nevertheless he 

 confesses, that " neither the Malays nor the Americans can be 

 clearly referred to one or other of these three races." Lastly, 

 a more recent author, the learned M. Pritchard, raises, and 

 always by regulating himself according to the form of the 

 crania, the nuiaber of the human races to seven. The first 

 four are, the Caucasian, the Mongolian, the Negro, and the 

 American (except the Esquimaux, who form a separate tribe) ; 

 the fifth is that of the Hottentots and Boschismans ; the sixth 

 that of the Papuans, or the people with curled hair of Poly- 

 nesia ; and the seventh that of the Alfourous and Australians. 



