2*0 METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY IV 



order of things, have long been extinct. Beyond 

 the limits of a fraction of Europe, Paleontology 

 tells us nothing of man or of his works. 



To sum up our knowledge of the ethnological 

 past of man ; so far as the light is bright, it shows 

 him substantially as he is now ; and, when it grows 

 dim, it permits us to see no sign that he was other 

 than he is now. 



It is a general belief that men of different 

 stocks differ as much physiologically as they do 

 morphologically ; but it is very hard to prove, in 

 any particular case, how much of a supposed 

 national characteristic is due to inherent physio- 

 logical peculiarities, and how much to the influence 

 of circumstances. There is much evidence to 

 show, however, that some stocks enjoy a partial or 

 complete immunity from diseases which destroy, 

 or decimate, others. Thus there seems good 

 ground for the belief that Negroes are remarkably 

 exempt from yellow fever; and that, among 

 Europeans, the melanochroic people are less 

 obnoxious to its ravages than the xanthochroic. 

 But many writers, not content with physiological 

 differences of this kind, undertake to prove the 

 existence of others of far greater moment ; and, 

 indeed, to show that certain stocks of mankind 

 exhibit, more or less distinctly, the physiological 

 characters of true species. Unions between these 

 stocks, and still more between the half-breeds 

 arising from their mixture, arc affirmed to be 



