48 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XVI, 
particularly because hardly any human race is, or has been for 
thousands of years, of unmixed origin. Race is one of the 
most persistent things in nature, but it is very exceptional for 
rived. He may illustrate some traits of one race and other 
traits of another quite clearly, or his physical characters may 
€,as is more often the case, a regular palimpsest in which 
manner that decipherment is rendered difficult, in many indi- 
viduals impossible. Occasionally one race predominates in the 
features or body of an individual. e have only to look at 
the portraits of Socrates, of Darwin and of Tolstoi to realize 
Fia. 3. 
how racial characters of a primitive stock submerged in age- 
long floods of alien blood may occasionally come to the surface. 
It is probable that few of the ancient Greeks had the rugged 
facial features of Socrates ; certainly few historical Englishmen 
have had those of Darwin, and the fact that we may find the 
physical homologues of Tolstoi’ s face in any large collection of 
photographs of Russian peasants, or even of Japanese Ainus, 
meri pte ee that Tolstoi was born in a community in 
p 
The Greeks, like all but a few isolated races, have under- 
last two thousand 
