502 SOMATOLOGY 



forms a single genus, and a single species, is, I believe, no longer 

 questioned. Hence modern classification recognizes varieties or 

 races of a single species. This very fact has constantly been a source 

 of difficulty; for man has never separated so far as to form true 

 species according to the physiological definition. On the other hand, 

 the other members of the animal kingdom have not only differen- 

 tiated into species and thus have often remained isolated, but have 

 further broken up and formed new species. The races of mankind 

 have always been, so far as known, fertile, and new varieties have 

 been formed, not only by the segmentations of one of the old stocks, 

 but by combinations of those already established. There has always 

 been present, therefore, in classifying mankind, the difficulty of 

 drawing boundaries which would be universally acceptable. An- 

 other point which may be assumed as settled is the fact of man's 

 enormous antiquity. This is held to imply that in his very earliest 

 history he rapidly spread over the earth, where, in the various great 

 geographic provinces racial differences slowly developed, and in 

 groups especially isolated peculiarities were developed along special 

 lines or in special directions. Nor is there any longer question of the 

 main great facts of man's ancestry; for with the advances in soma- 

 tology, comparative anatomy, embryology, and paleontology, man's 

 place has become fixed with the belief in the fundamental unity 

 of all organic nature. 



Although Tyson in the seventeenth century anticipated much 

 which was not until long afterward discovered, concerning the com- 

 parative anatomy of man and apes, it remained for Linnaeus, who 

 has been called the father of the descriptive natural sciences, to pro- 

 pose the first scientific scheme of classification of mankind into races, 

 the basis of his classification being geographic. He distinguished 

 the American, the European, the Asiatic, and the African. In this 

 connection it is interesting to observe that, although the extent of 

 somatological observations was at that time very limited, Linnaeus 

 recognized apparently the fact that geographical position, that is, 

 continuity of place, should never be lost sight of in classification. 

 It is also to be noted that in this classification, as indeed with many 

 classifications which follow, the basis was according to the general 

 appearance, including color of the skin, form, and color of the hair 

 and eyes. Closely following Linnaeus was the classification of Blu- 

 menbach, who did for man what Buffon and Linnaeus did for the 

 animal and plant world, in which the basis still remained geograph- 

 ical. The races according to Blumenbach were the Caucasian, Mon- 

 golian, Ethiopian, American, and the Malayan. While Blumenbach's 

 classification is based upon somatological peculiarities as Well as 

 upon a geographic basis, it has the great merit of having stood the 

 test of time better than any other of the earlier schemes of classi- 



