THE RACES OF MAN. 201 



majority of rising men, will feel no doubt that all the races 

 of man are descended from a single primitive stock ; 

 whether or not they may think fit to designate the races as 

 distinct species, for the sake of expressing their amount of 

 difference.* With our domestic animals the question 

 whether the various races have arisen from one or more 

 species is somewhat different. Although it may be admit- 

 ted that all the races, as well as all the natural species 

 within the same genus, have sprung from the same primi- 

 tive stock, yet it is a fit subject for discussion, whether all 

 the domestic races of the dog, for instance, have acquired 

 their present amount of difference since some one species 

 was first domesticated by man; or whether they owe some 

 of their characters to inheritance from distinct species, 

 which had already been differentiated in a state of nature. 

 With man no such question can arise, for he cannot be said 

 to have been domesticated at any particular period. 



During an early stage in the divergence of the races of 

 man from a common stock, the differences between the 

 races and their number must have been small; consequently 

 as far as their distinguishing characters are concerned, they 

 then had less claim to rank as distinct species than the 

 existing so-called races. Nevertheless, so arbitrary is the 

 term of species, that such early races would perhaps have 

 been ranked by some naturalists as distinct species, if their 

 differences, although extremely slight, had been more con- 

 stant than they are at present, and had not graduated into 

 each other. 



It is, however, possible, though far from probable, that 

 the early progenitors of man might formerly have diverged 

 much in character, until they became more unlike each 

 other than any now existing races; but that subsequently, 

 as suggested by Vogt, \ they converged in character. When 

 man selects the offspring of two distinct species for the 

 same object, he sometimes induces a considerable amount 

 of convergence, as far as general appearance is concerned. 

 This is the case, as shown by Von Nathusius,! with the 



*See Prof. Huxley to this effect in the " Fortnightly Review," 

 1865, p. 275. 



f " Lectures on Man," Eng. translat., 1864, p. 468. 



^"Die Racen des Schweines," 1860, s. 46. " Vorstudien far 

 (Jeschichte. etc., Schweineschadel," 1864, s. 104. With respect to 

 cattle, see M. de Quatrefages, "Unite de I'Espece Humaine," 1861, 

 p. 119. 



