xvi RACE A VAGUE TERM 243 



implying that the different individuals composing the human 

 species can be parcelled out into certain definite groups, each 

 with its well-marked and permanent limits separating it 

 from all others, has no scientific foundation ; but that, in 

 reality, these individuals are aggregated into a number of 

 groups of very different value in a zoological sense, with 

 characters more or less strongly marked and permanent, 

 and often passing insensibly into one another. The great 

 groups are split up into minor subdivisions, and filling up 

 the gaps between them are intermediate or intercalary forms, 

 derived either from the survival of individuals retaining the 

 generalised or ancestral characters of a race from which two 

 branches have separated and taken opposite lines of modifica- 

 tion, or from the reunion of members of such branches in 

 recent times. If we could follow those authors who can 

 classify mankind into such divisions as trunks, branches, 

 races, and sub-races, each having its definite and equivalent 

 meaning, our work would appear to be greatly simplified, 

 although perhaps we should not be so near the truth we are 

 seeking. But being not yet in a position to define what 

 amount of modification is necessary to constitute distinction 

 of race, I am compelled to use the word vaguely for any 

 considerable group of men who resemble each other in certain 

 common characters transmitted from generation to generation. 

 In approaching the question of the classification of the 

 races of man from k physical point of view, we must bestow 

 great care upon the characters upon which we rely in 

 distinguishing one group from another. It is well known in 

 zoology that the modifications of a single organ or system 

 may be of great value, or may be quite useless, according as 

 such modifications are correlated with others in different 

 organs or systems, or are mere isolated examples of variation 

 in the economy of the animal without structural changes else- 

 where. The older ornithologists associated in one order all 

 the birds with webbed feet, and the order thus constituted, 

 Natatores or Palmipedes, which received the great sanction of 

 Cuvier, still stands in many zoological compilations. Kecent 

 investigations into the anatomy of birds have shown that the 

 species thus associated together show no other sign of natural 



