CHAP, vin THE HUMAN RACES 325 



stage ; and finally by agriculture the cultivation of useful plants, 

 which ethnologists regard as the basis of all civilisation. We 

 have no intention of dwelling upon the gradual development of 

 human civilisation, a task which belongs to the ethnologist and 

 the anthropologist ; we merely propose to give a brief summary of 

 the structural and functional variations of the human organism 

 which have been noted in the different races at present inhabiting 

 the various parts of the world. 



The modern biologist, who is rightly accustomed to regard 

 outward conditions as so many factors \\hich may influence and 

 modify the vital manifestations of organisms, will in theory 

 expect to find that the functions of man, too, will be influenced 

 and modified by his environment. If we further take into 

 consideration that anthropologists of standing consider that the 

 different races are not all descended from one and the same stem, 

 but have arisen from different types which originated inde- 

 pendently of one another in different parts of the world, we shall 

 readily understand that the functions of individuals belonging to 

 different races may be subject to variations due not only to the 

 influence of external factors but also to that of internal, original, 

 and congenital factors, inherent in their organisms. 



The study of the functional variations in the different races 

 will therefore appear not only justifiable but also likely to yield 

 a large harvest of interesting results bearing on the solution of 

 the complex problem of the origin of our civilisation. Un- 

 fortunately nearly everything still remains to be done ; we are 

 well acquainted with the more important data of the physio- 

 logy of our own races, but know little or nothing of those of 

 others. 



As was well observed by Virchow in 1886 when discussing 

 the problem of the acclimatisation of single individuals and 

 of different races the main cause of the success or failure of 

 colonies in which the climate differs from that of the mother 

 country many difficult questions must be considered and 

 answered before we can form a scientific theory of acclimatisation, 

 based upon the study of those variations in physiological processes 

 which are brought about by a change of dwelling-place. Modern 

 scientists incline more and more to the belief that physiology 

 will help us to solve the problems of anthropology and sociology. 

 Zeliony (1912), having proved that the sociology of to-day shows 

 a marked tendency to state and solve its various problems in 

 terms of physiology, asserts that we must in future attach great 

 importance to the methods and problems of pure physiology if 

 we would study social phenomena by the strict method used in 

 the study of natural science. 



The task assigned to this new science, to which he gives the 

 name of social or socio-physiology, is the study of the reflex 



