98 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 



organic world — has come to be what it is as a 

 result of the incessant hammerings of its surround- 

 ings, the hammerings not only of the present, but 

 of the long-stretching past. By surroundings is 

 meant, of course, the rest of the universe. Those 

 animals belonging to the same stock resemble each 

 other because they have been subjected to the 

 same experiences, the same series of selections. 

 They have lain on the same great anvil, and felt 

 the down-comings of the same sledge. The simi- 

 larities among animal forms in general indicate 

 relationships, just as the similarities among the 

 races of men indicate racial consanguinities. All 

 men belong to the human species because they 

 are all fundamentally alike. But there are differ- 

 ences in the character of the hair, in the colour of 

 the skin, in the conformation of the skull, and in 

 the structure of the language, among the different 

 varieties of the species, indicating striking variety 

 in relationship and origin. An eminent biologist 

 has said that if Negroes and Caucasians were 

 snails they would be classed as entirely distinct 

 species of animals. Whether, as is thought by 

 some, the woolly-haired races are the descendants 

 of the African anthropoids, and the straight- 

 haired varieties are the posterity of the orangs 

 and gibbons, we may never know positively. But 

 we do know that these two great branches of 

 mankind must have different genealogies, extend- 

 ing to a remote antiquity, and that the varieties 

 belonging to each great group sustain to each 

 other the relations of a common kinship. English- 



