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THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 1896. 



A NEW BOOK ON MAN. 



' Cambridge Geographical 

 (Cambridge : University 



Ethnoloi^y. By A. H. Keane 



Series." Pp. .x-xx + 442 



Press, 1896.) 



A HANDY but comprehensive work on ethnology 



>*- has long been required alike by the student and 



icral reader, and it is with pleasure and interest that 



welcome the appearance of a book which is claimed 



bv the author to be a synthesis and a trustworthy guide. 



Mr. Keane's book is divided into two parts : (i) Funda- 

 mental Ethnical Problems ; and (2) The Primary Ethnical 

 (iroups. After a definition of terms, which is rather unsatis- 

 faitory, as is also the title of the book itself, the author 

 deals with the physical evolution of man, and here as else- 

 where the evolution doctrine is accepted. In this chapter, 

 there is the inevitable phylogenetic tree ; but in this in- 

 stance it is furnished with a bunch of unexplained roots. 

 Whatever truth this scheme may illustrate, we fail to see 

 the conclusion that " from this diagram it is made evident 

 that the ascent of the Hominida^ is in an independent 

 line from some long extinct generalised form," &c. When 

 will people learn that a phylogenetic tree does not prove 

 anything I The treatment of the mental evolution of man 

 in a short chapter is somewhat inadequate for that most 

 important subject. The antiquity of man is dealt with in 

 various chapters ; in the prefatory general considerations, 

 *' CroU's last two glacial epochs " are " accepted in all 

 their fulness," and the author decides in favour of inter- 

 glacial man, who " specialised not less, probably much 

 more, than half-a-million years ago." The chapters on 

 PaliEolithic and Neolithic man are useful summaries, but 

 with several questionable statements. Geographers will 

 scarcely admit that " the explanation," of the attractive- 

 ness of Denmark to Neolithic men, "lies in the physical 

 and biological conditions of a region washed by the warm 

 waters of the Gulf Stream." The argument for the specific 

 unity of man will prove of service to many readers. It 

 is strange that, though the meaning of the terms genus, 

 species, and variety "is clearly defined in a way that 

 gives rise to no misunderstandings," Mr. Keane attributes 

 to Linnasus the erection of " four species " of the group 

 Homo sapiens (p. 164), whereas these were evidently re- 

 garded as varieties of that species by the great Swedish 

 naturalist. On p. 25 we find a paragraph commencing 

 thus: "HOMINID/E. (Linnd's Genus //omo), with no 

 specific divisions, but four primary varieties "—a system 

 of nomenclature that no biologist would recognise. Some- 

 how or other, m spite of his statement that the meaning 

 -of the terms species, &c., is so fixed as to give rise to 

 no misunderstanding, the author does not appreciate the 

 rules for zoological nomenclature ; apparently his view 

 is that the single species of Homo differentiated in early 

 times into four varieties, which he calls Homo yEthiopicus, 

 Homo Mongolicus, Homo Americanus, and Homo Cau- 

 cas/cus, so that we now have four varieties in the genus, 

 but no species. 



In the chapter on the physical criteria of race, Mr. 

 Keane gives an account of the data utilised in classifying 

 the different groups of man, and a selection of the various 

 NO. 1382, VOL. 53] 



systems of classification that have been adopted ; the 

 ingenious system of Deniker deserves a more detailed 

 description than is accorded to it. The remarkable 

 statement on p. 171, that the greater abundance of pig- 

 ment in the skin of the negro " seems due to the stimu- 

 lating action of the solar heat combined with moisture 

 and an excess of vegetable food, yielding more carbon 

 than can be completely assimilated, the character being 

 then fixed by heredity," must not pass unchallenged. It 

 is true that Waitz adduces many examples to show that 

 "hot and damp countries favour the darkening of the 

 skin," and though this may be a factor, there are too many 

 exceptions for it to be a sufficient cause ; evidently this 

 has also struck the author, but the fixation of black carbon 

 through an excess of vegetable food is a theory that is 

 decidedly comical, though it is doubtless offered in good 

 faith. Mr. Keane devotes nearly the whole of the section 

 on the mental criteria of race to a disquisition on the 

 evolution of language. He asserts that monosyllabism 

 is not the first but the last stage in the growth of a 

 language : if this be true, then the German language 

 must be in its infancy. Several of his views on linguistic 

 evolution are, to say the least of it, heterodox, and will 

 probably lead to further discussion. 



The second part, which deals with the main divisions 

 of mankind, is a most useful summary of a vast range of 

 reading, and will prove of great utility to all interested in 

 the subject, although there are many statements which 

 will not approve themselves to every specialist. Mr. 

 Keane argues in favour of the evolution of the pliocene 

 precursor of man in the I ndo- African Continent, which 

 has replaced Sclater's Lemuria. This continent extended 

 from South India to Africa and Madagascar, including 

 the intermediatejslands, and also was in biological rela- 

 tion to the hypothetical Austral Continent, which extended 

 from New Guinea and Tasmania to the islets of St. Paul 

 and Amsterdam. " Thus when the pliocene precursor, 

 wherever evolved, began to spread abroad, he was free to 

 move in all directions over the eastern hemisphere." 



One or two examples will illustrate Mr. Keane's views 

 on certain problems. Besides the Negritoes who ex- 

 tended along Malaysia to New Guinea, there was a 

 primitive population of Melanesian Papuans, who also 

 spread over the whole of Oceania'as far as Hawaii, Easter 

 Island, and New Zealand. These were also the aborigines 

 of Australia, who thence passed over into Tasmania ; 

 Australia also received a contingent of "Caucasian 

 Melanochroi " (i.e. the Dravidian element in Australian 

 ethnology), and also a Malay infusion, " while the Nean- 

 derthal characters persisting here and there would be 

 traceable to the Ur-Einivanderimi^ of the pliocene pre- 

 cursor from the Indo-Austral Continent." 



" The Melanesian language [which Dr. Codrington has 

 shown to be the most primitive existing form of the Malay- 

 Polynesian group] is not indigenous in its present home, 

 but must have been introduced and imposed upon the 

 Papuan natives by some foreign people in remote pre- 

 historic times. This people is none other than the 

 Eastern Polynesians, a branch of the Caucasic division, 

 who possibly in the Neolithic period migrated from the 

 Asiatic mainland to Malaysia and thence eastwards to 

 the remotest islands of the Pacific Ocean." 



Mr, Keane, as we have seen, is not particularly happy 



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