May io, 1900] 



NATURE 



27 



Dr. Ward eviscerates. In truth, mechanism inverted is 

 spiritualistic monism. The naturalism not yet fully for- 

 mulated, which has allied itself provisionally and in no 

 way illegitimately with neutral agnosticism, is happily 

 neither materialism nor idealism. H. W. B. 



^-HE EVOLUTION OF EUROPEAN PEOPLES. 

 The Races of Europe : a Sociological Study. By William 

 Z. Ripley, Ph.D. Pp. 624 ; and bibliography, pp. 

 160. 222 portrait types ; 86 maps and diagrams, 

 and other illustrations. (London : Kegan Paul, 

 Trench, Triibner and Co., Ltd., 1900.) 



IT has been reserved for an American anthropologist 

 to give us the first comprehensive work on the races 

 of Europe, a subject which is as fascinating as it is 

 important. 



The first two chapters of this comprehensive work deal 

 with general questions, among others the problem of 

 environment versus race in determining ethnic characters 

 is touched upon, and the error of confusing community 

 of language with identity of race is pointed out ; nation- 

 ality may often follow linguistic boundaries, but race 

 bears no necessary relation to them. 



As the main arguments in the book are derived from a 

 consideration of three main sets of comparative data— the 

 head-form, hair- and eye-colour, and stature— it was 

 necessary to discuss their value, and in doing so the 

 author has passed in brief review various races of man in 

 all parts of the world. As the shape of the head, that is 

 the length-breadth, or cephalic index, is not liable to be 

 affected by environment as pigmentation appears to be, 

 and stature certainly is, it takes the first rank as a 

 criterion of race, the colour of the hair and eyes comes 

 second, while stature is relegated to the third rank. 



Dr. Ripley states as a proposition that is "fairly sus- 

 ceptible of proof" : 



" The European races, as a whole, show signs of a 

 secondary or derived origin ; certain characteristics, 

 especially the texture of the hair, lead us to class them 

 as intermediate between the extreme primary types of 

 the Asiatic and the negro races respectively." 



Surely the wavy-haired group of mankind has as much 

 a claim to be considered primitive as are the frizzly- or 

 the straight-haired groups. That certain characters are 

 intermediate does not imply that a mixture has taken 

 place. In some respects each of these three main groups 

 of mankind is nearer to, and in others further from, the 

 higher apes than the other two groups ; the wavy 

 character of the hair of the Europeans, for example, is 

 probably an ancestral feature that has been retained by 

 them and the other Cymotrichi. 



The earliest and lowest strata of population in Europe 

 were extremely long-headed, and the author regards the 

 living Mediterranean race as most nearly representative of 

 them. He considers it highly probable that the Teutonic 

 race of Northern Europe is merely a variety of the 

 primitive long-headed type of the Stone Age ; both its 

 distinctive blondness and its remarkable stature having 

 been acquired in the relative isolation of Scandinavia, 

 through the modifying influence of environment and arti- 

 ficial selection. It is certain that, after the partial occu- 

 pation of Western Europe by a dolichocephalic type in 

 NO. 1593, VOL. 62] 



the Stone Age, an invasion by a broad-headed race of 

 decidedly Asiatic affinities took place. This intrusive 

 element is represented to-day by the Alpine type of 

 Central Europe. 



It is the play of these three groups, Teutonic or Nordic, 

 Alpine and Mediterranean, upon one another, together 

 with the effect of environment, the potency of which 

 varies locally, occasional isolation and sexual selection, 

 which has resulted in the complexity of the ethnology of 

 modern Europe, 



Dr. Ripley deals with the various countries of Europe, 

 and endeavours to unravel the anthropological history 

 of each. It is a humiliating fact how often political or 

 religious bias has crept into ethnological arguments ; but 

 our author approaches the subject with an unprejudiced 

 mind, and looks at the problem from a broad point of 

 view. 



The most remarkable trait of the population of the 

 British Isles is the uniformity of its head-form ; the pre- 

 vailing type is that of the long and narrow cranium, 

 accompanied by an oval rather than broad or round 

 face. The length-breadth indices all lie between 77 and 

 79, with the possible exception of the middle and western 

 parts of Scotland, where they fall to 76, This index 

 alone proves little in the present instance, and recourse 

 must be made to other characters, such as hair-colour 

 and stature. 



These distinctly prove a dual element in the popula- 

 tion, one of which is the persistent Neolithic stock, a 

 branch of the Mediterranean race ; the other is the 

 northern race, composed of Saxon, Danish and Nor- 

 wegian elements. Immigrants belonging to the Alpine 

 race, not pure, but as a mixed people, overran all 

 England and part of Scotland, bringing with them 

 bronze implements, the art of pottery-making, and other 

 cultural advantages ; but their physical influence was 

 transitory, for at the opening of the historic period the 

 earlier types had considerably absorbed the new-comers, 

 and the Teutonic invasion completed their submergence. 

 Dr. Ripley, however, is scarcely correct in stating that 

 the Alpine immigrant type never reached Ireland, as 

 traces of them have been recorded {cf. Proc. Roy. Irish 

 Acad. (3), iv. 1898, p. 570). The distribution of stature 

 bears out a distinction between the Goidels and the 

 Brythons ; but the high stature found in South-west 

 Scotland is anomalous, and requires further study. 



It is impossible to deal with all the controversial 

 problems in the book, but an author can generally be 

 gauged by his treatment of critical cases, and of these 

 it is no exaggeration to say that Dr. Ripley always takes 

 a sane position. The origin of the Etruscans is a case 

 in point. The different views of various authors are 

 briefly stated, but the author inclines to Sergi's theory 

 that the Etruscans were really compounded of two 

 ethnic elements, one from the north bringing the Hall- 

 statt civilisation of the Danube Valley ; the other Medi- 

 terranean, both by race and culture. The sudden out- 

 burst of a notable civilisation being the result of the 

 meeting of these two streams of human life, the author 

 appears to have overlooked the probability of a similar 

 history for early Greece. 



A whole chapter is given to a discussion of the Basques, 

 and Collignon's deductions are adopted. The French 



