244 ANTHROPOLOGY xvi 



affinity, and no evidence of being derived from the same stock. 

 In fact, there is tolerably good proof that the webbing of the 

 feet is a merely adaptive character, developed or lost, present 

 or absent, irrespective of other structural modifications. In 

 the same way, when anthropology was less advanced than it is 

 now, it was thought that the distinction between long and 

 short headed, dolichocephalic and brachycephalic people, pointed 

 out by Eetzius, indicated a primary division of the human 

 species ; but it was afterwards discovered that, although the 

 character was useful otherwise, it was one of only secondary im- 

 portance, as the long-headed as w r ell as the short-headed group 

 both included races otherwise of the strongest dissimilarity. 



In all classifications, the point to be first ascertained is the 

 fundamental plan of construction ; but in cases where the 

 fundamental plan has undergone but little modification, we 

 are obliged to make use of what appear trivial characters, and 

 compensate for their triviality by their number. The more 

 numerous the combinations of specialised characters, by which 

 any species or race differs from its congeners, the more 

 confidence we have in their importance. The separation of 

 what is essential from what is incidental or merely superficial 

 in such characters lies at the root of all the problems of this 

 nature that zoologists are called upon to solve ; and in pro- 

 portion as the difficulties involved in this delicate and often 

 perplexing discrimination are successfully met and overcome 

 will the value of the conclusions be increased. These diffi- 

 culties, so familiar in zoology, are still greater in the case 

 of anthropology. The differences we have to deal with are 

 often very slight ; their significance is at present very little 

 understood. We go on expending time and trouble in 

 heaping up elaborate tables of measurements, and minutely 

 recording every point that is capable of description, with little 

 regard to any conclusions that may be drawn from them. It 

 is certainly time now to endeavour, if possible, to discriminate 

 characters which indicate deep-lying affinity from those that 

 are more transient, variable, or adaptive, and to adjust, as 

 far as may be, the proper importance to be attached to each. 



It is, however, quite to be expected that, in the infancy of 

 all sciences, a vast amount of labour must be expended in 



