576 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 
of my investigations upon the history of the people in the Nile Valley,’ I also 
started out to search for evidences of evolution, but gradually came to realise 
that the facts of racial admixture and the blending of cultures were far more 
obtrusive and significant. My intention is rather to investigate the domain of 
anthropology in which unequivocal evolutionary factors have played, and are 
playing, a definite rdle; 1 refer to the study of Man’s genealogy and the forces 
that determined the precise line of development his ancestors pursued and ulti- 
mately fashioned Man himself. 
I suppose it is inevitable in these days that one trained in biological ways of 
thought should approach the problems of anthropology with the idea of evolution 
as his guiding principle; but the conviction must be reached sooner or later, by 
everyone who conscientiously, and with an open mind, seeks to answer most of 
the questions relating to Man’s history and achievements—certainly the chapters 
in that history which come within the scope of the last sixty centuries—that 
evolution yields a surprisingly small contribution to the solution of the difficul- 
ties which present themselves. Most of the factors that call for investigation 
concerning the history of Man and his works are unquestionably the direct effects 
of migrations and the intermingling of races and cultures. 
But I would not have you misunderstand my meaning. The current of evolu- 
tion is running at least as strongly and moving mankind onward no less quickly 
than it did when it brought his ancestors to human rank; it is as potent as ever 
to alter his structure, even though the way in which ‘ selection ’’ has been modified 
has deflected the stream. Those who imagine that the strength and influence of 
evolutionary forces have waned forget the enormous length of time it has taken 
to fashion the human body. It has been amply sufficient for slowly developing 
changes, such as are taking place at present, to have transformed an Ape into 
human form. Environment, however it may act, whether directly or indirectly, 
is still helping to shape the human form, and is affecting the development of 
Man’s customs and achievements at least as powerfully as, if not more so than, 
ever before. The effects of selection—not only what Darwin understood by the 
term ‘sexual’ selection, but also what we have learned to call ‘organic’ and 
‘social’ selection—are certainly emphasised by the heightened powers of dis- 
crimination which the intelligence and the fashions of civilised Man create. We 
have every reason for believing, therefore, that the forces of evolution are still 
operating with undiminished vigour; but all the evidence that I have to bring 
before you goes to show that such forces act as a rule very slowly and impercep- 
tibly, and need vast spans of time for the production of their effects. In studying 
Man’s past history we find no clear evidence, or even suggestion, of any such 
sudden jumps or ‘ mutations’ as students of other branches of biology are calling 
to their aid to solve their difficulties, as a sort of magic carpet to convey them 
across awkward chasms in their evolutionary route. 
The Negro was quite as definitely negroid when we first meet with his sixty- 
centuries-old remains as he is now: the narrow-headed brunette of small stature, 
who has dwelt around the shores of the Mediterranean since the dawn of history, 
was almost, if not quite, as definitely differentiated from the round-headed 
Armenoid of Western Asia at the end of the Stone Age as are their modern 
representatives ; and all the millennia of exposure of their scattered descendants 
to vastly different climates and conditions of life have produced amazingly little 
effect upon their physical characteristics. Further evidence may perhaps lend 
some measure of confirmation to the contention of Professor Boas,? that the 
uprooting of European people and their transference to America leads to an 
immediate effect upon the physical characters of such of their progeny as may 
happen to be born in the new environment; but while not denying the possibility 
that such an influence may be exerted, no anthropologist, however strongly he 
may be inclined to accept evidence in support of such a contention, can seriously 
take Professor Boas’s data or the inferences he draws from them at his valua- 
tion. Professor Boas would have us believe that the forces of environment 
which produce little or no effect upon the growing child (of aliens in New York), 
who happened to be born in Europe immediately before his parents emigrated, 
* The Ancient Egyptians, 1911. 
* “Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants,’ United States 
Government Reports, 1910, 1911. ‘ 
