THE HUMAN RACE 1685 



wholly occupied by Europeans; English, Spanish, 

 and other people of the Latin race fill the vast Amer- 

 ican hemisphere, and the primitive populations of 

 'the New World have almost entirely disappeared, 

 annihilated by the iron yoke of the conqueror. 



The continent of Asia was peopled little by little 

 by branches of the Aryan race, who came down from 

 the plains of Central Asia, directing their course to- 

 ward India. As to Africa: that continent received 

 its contingent of population through the Isthmus of 

 Suez, the valley of the Nile, and the coasts of Arabia, 

 by the aid of navigation. 



There is therefore nothing to show that humanity 

 had several distinct nuclei. It is clear that man 

 started from one point alone, and that through his 

 power of adapting himself to the most different cli- 

 mates, he has, little by little, covered the whole face 

 of the inhabitable earth. 



There is another problem. Did the white, the yel- 

 low, and the black man exist from the first moment 

 of the appearance of our species upon the globe, or 

 have we to explain the formation of these three 

 fundamental races by the action of climate, by any 

 special form of nourishment, the result of local re- 

 sources; in other words, by the action of the soil? 



Innumerable dissertations have been written with 

 a view of explaining the origin of these three races, 

 and of connecting them with the climate or the soil. 

 But it must be admitted that the problem is hardly 

 capable of solution. The influence which a warm 

 climate exercises upon the color of the skin is a well- 

 known fact, and it is a matter of common observation 



