CHAPTER IV. 



THE ARGUMENTS FROM CLASSIFICATION". 



§ 122. In § 103, we saw that the relations which exist 

 among the species, genera, orders, and classes of organisms, 

 are not interpretable as results of any such causes as have 

 usually been assigned. We will here consider whether they 

 are interpretable as the results of evolution. Let us first con- 

 template some familiar facts. 



The Xorwegians, Swedes, Danes, Germans, Dutch, and 

 Anglo-Saxons, form together a group of Scandinavian races, 

 which are but slightly divergent in their characters. Welsh, 

 Irish, and Highlanders, though they have differences, have 

 not such differences as hide a decided community of nature: 

 they are classed together as Celts. Between the Scandi- 

 navian race as a whole and the Celtic race as a whole, there 

 is a distinction greater than that between the sub-divisions 

 which make up the one or the other. Similarly, the several 

 peoples inhabiting Southern Europe are more nearly allied to 

 one another, than the aggregate they form is allied to the 

 aggregates of Northern peoples. If, again, we compare these 

 European varieties of Man, taken as a group, with that group 

 of Eastern varieties which had a common origin with it, we 

 see a stronger contrast than between the groups of Euro- 

 pean varieties themselves. And once more, ethnologists find 

 differences of still higher importance between the Aryan 

 stock as a whole and the Mongolian stock as a whole, or the 



441 



