One Race 85 



bursts of fierce retaliatory passion on the other. Our 

 relations, too, with the so-called brown race in our 

 island possessions can hardly be termed cordial. Those 

 of the French with the similar or related race in Mada- 

 gascar do not seem to be much better. Nay, more, 

 this feeling of antagonism is not even confined to the 

 larger divisions of mankind, the so-called white, yellow, 

 black, or brown races. You may see it in the prejudice 

 between the so-called Slav, Latin, Teutonic, and Anglo- 

 Saxon races, absurd as it seems to speak of these varying 

 nationalities as races. You may see it in the wide- 

 spread feeling against the so-called Semitic race. 



One Race 



And yet, as a matter of scientific fact, these racial 

 distinctions would appear to be largely fictitious. 

 In support of this assertion, I invite any one to tell 

 me the exact number of races, so called, which exist in 

 the world to-day. Some naturalists in the past would 

 have answered sixty-three, sixty, twenty-two, sixteen, 

 fifteen, eleven, eight, seven, six, five. To-day some 

 will answer four, three, even two; the number being 

 steadily narrowed as man's knowledge of himself in- 

 creases.* Some will attempt to distinguish them by 

 the color of their skin. Others, deeming this unscien- 

 tific, will attempt to distinguish them by the length or 

 shortness of their skulls; others, by their facial angle. 

 Still others again, rejecting all these methods as un- 

 trustworthy, will attempt to distinguish them by the 

 1 Darwin, Descent of Man, vol. I. p. 218. 



