24 THE HUMAN SPECIES 



complexity of this system, on the whole there is real merit in 

 Miiller's classification of the Middle European races, under 

 which head he includes : 



1. The Basques. 



2. The Caucasian tribes. 



3. The Hamito-Semitic peoples. 



4. The Indo-Germanic race. 



Does Mankind Consist of One or of Several Species ? 



As we have already seen in the mythologies of all nations 

 man has sprung from a single pair of beings, but, be it observed, 

 by the term " man " was understood only the particular nation 

 concerned. On a closer examination, however, we are faced, 

 not only in the legends of wild tribes but also in the Mosaic 

 story of the creation, by the contradictory statement that the 

 descendants of the first human parents have dealings with 

 other beings who must have been created either before or 

 together with themselves. Even Linnaeus professed himself 

 a staunch adherent of the Biblical faith, but since those days 

 scientific research has raised many a weighty argument against 

 that faith. Karl Vogt, 1 for instance, considers it beyond 

 question that the human race has descended from several 

 species originally distinct from each other as are the rest of the 

 mammals; further, that during the countless ages of man's 

 existence, those manifold bastard forms have arisen which we 

 now call intermediate types, varieties or races. 



Haeckel gives the Veddahs as the lowest of the sleek-haired 

 races, and the Akkas as lowest of the curly-haired, and con- 

 siders it probable that still lower down at the common (Plio- 

 cene ?) root the two chief branches of the human family blend 

 into one. These two pigmy forms Haeckel regards as true 

 species of the genus Homo, and vigorously protests against the 

 assumption of a single human species. In this view he is 

 supported by Dames, who asserts that were any animal but Man 

 under discussion the widely differing characters would lead 

 every zoologist to subdivide them into several genera and 

 numerous species. The illustrious Quenstedt expresses himself 



1 Karl Vogt, Zoolog. Briefe. Frankfurt, 1851, vol. ii., p. 553. 



