THE RACES OF MAN, 203 



Although the existing races of man differ in many re- 

 spects as in color, hair, shape of skull, proportions of the 

 body, etc., yet if their whole structure be taken into con- 

 sideration they are found to resemble each other closely in 

 a multitude of points. Many of these are of so unimpor- 

 tant or of so singular a nature that it is extremely improb- 

 able that they should have been independently acquired by 

 aboriginally distinct species or races. The same remark 

 holds good with equal or greater force with respect to the 

 numerous points of mental similarity between the most 

 distinct races of man. The American aborigines, Negroes 

 and Europeans are as different from each other in mind as 

 any three races that can be named; yet I was incessantly 

 struck while living with the Fuegians on board the 

 " Beagle '' with the many little traits of character showing 

 how similar their minds were to ours; and so it was with 

 a full-blooded negro with whom I happened once to be 

 intimate. 



He who will read Mr. Tylor's and Sir J. Lubbock^s in- 

 teresting works* can hardly fail to be deeply impressed 

 with the close similarity between the men of all races in 

 tastes, dispositions and habits. This is shown by the pleas- 

 ure which they all take in dancing, rude music, painting, 

 tattooing and otherwise decorating themselves ; in their 

 mutual comprehension of gesture-language, by the same 

 expression in their features, and by the same inarticulate 

 cries, when excited by the same emotions. This similarity, 

 or rather identity, is striking, when contrasted with the 

 different expressions and cries made by distinct species of 

 monkeys. There is good evidence that the art of shooting 

 with bows and arrows had not been handed down from any 

 common progenitor of mankind, yet as Westropp and 

 Nilsson have remarked,! the stone arrow-heads, brought 

 from the most distant parts of the world, and manufactured 

 at the most remote periods, are almost identical; and this 

 fact can only be accounted for by the various races having 

 similar inventive or mental powers. The same observation 



*Tylors " Early History of Mankind," 1865; with respect to ges- 

 ture-language, see p. 54. Lubbock's ' Prehistoric Times," 2d edit,, 

 1869. 



f " On Analogous Forms of Implements," in " Memoirs of Anthro- 

 polog. Soc," by H. M. Westropp. "The Primitive Inhabitants of 

 Scandinavia," Eng. translat., edited by Sir J. Lubbock, 1868, p. 104. 



