198 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



parts of the same continent he would meet with the most 

 complex crosses between Negroes, Indians, and Europeans; 

 and judging from the vegetable kingdom such triple 

 crosses afford the severest test of the mutual fertility of the 

 parent forms. In one island of the Pacific he would find a 

 small population of mingled Polynesian and English blood; 

 and in the Fiji Archipelago a population of Polynesian and 

 Negritos crossed in all degrees. Many analogous cases 

 could be added; for instance, in Africa. Hence the races 

 of man are not sufficiently distinct to inhabit the same 

 country without fusion; and the absence of fusion affords 

 the usual and best test of specific distinctness. 



Our naturalist would likewise be much disturbed as soon 

 as he perceived that the distinctive characters of all the 

 races were highly variable. This fact strikes every one on 

 first beholding the negro slaves in Brazil, who have been 

 imported from all parts of Africa. The same remark holds 

 good with the Polynesians, and with many other races. It 

 may be doubted whether any character can be named 

 which is distinctive of a race and is constant. Savages, 

 even within the limits of the same tribe, are not nearly so 

 uniform in character as has been often asserted. Hotten- 

 tot women offer certain peculiarities, more strongly marked 

 than those occurring in any other race, but these are 

 known not to be of constant occurrence. In the several 

 American tribes, color and hairiness differ considerably; as 

 does color to a certain degree, and the shape of the 

 features greatly, in the negroes of Africa. The shape of 

 the skull varies much in some races;* and so it is with 

 every other character. Now all naturalists have learned by 

 dearly bought experience how rash it is to attempt to define 

 species by the aid of inconstant characters. 



But the most weighty of all the arguments against treat- 

 ing the races of man as distinct species, is that they gradu- 

 ate into each other, independently in many cases, as far as 

 we can judge, of their having intercrossed. Man has been 

 studied more carefully than any other animal, and yet there 

 is the greatest possible diversity among capable judges 

 whether he should be classed as a single species or race, or 



* For instance, with the aborigines of America and Australia. Prof. 

 Huxley says (" Transact. Internat. Congress of Prehist. Arch.," 1868, 

 p. 105) that the skulls of many South Germans and Swiss are " as 

 ehort and as broad as those of the Tartars," etc. 



