20 LECTURE II. 



longer tlie interval between the births of the offspring. The 

 development of life from birth to death depends on many 

 conditions, which, though following a certain law, are still 

 subject to many oscillations. Not merely the body as a 

 whole, but each part individually, every bone and every organ 

 has its own law of development and decay. Sex, climate, 

 dwelling-place, alimentation, and occupation, all have their 

 influences. In proceeding further, other important sources 

 of error arise which increase the difficulties. Let us, for 

 instance, assume that we are investigating the question of 

 human races, and that we confine our researches to the skull ; 

 that we take the Glerman skull as a standard for measurement 

 and comparison, as we have many of these at our disposal. But 

 where is the guarantee that this skull, which eveiy German ana- 

 tomist may declare to be a well formed Grerman skull, belonged to 

 one of pure German blood ? Where is the spot on German soil 

 where there has not been, or at least might not have been, an in- 

 termixture of the most various races ? Have not, from the most 

 remote times, A^siatic and European peoples chosen Germany 

 as their battle-field ; and, as Venus always accompanies Mars, 

 have they not left their traces ia the blood of their descend- 

 ants ? And, independently of these invasions, are there 

 not many districts in Germany where for centuries different 

 tribes dwelt side by side, until both became fused, or the 

 weaker were absorbed in the stronger ? Have we not the most 

 evident proofs that the Germans, of whose habitation in the oak 

 forests our patriotic songs speak, were only the third invaders, 

 who subjected and absorbed two peoples, the previous occu- 

 pants of the German soil ? Do not the Sclavonic historians 

 claim two-thirds of Germany as their inheritance, from which 

 they have been displaced by cunning and violence ? Where, 

 then, in that historical or antediluvian mixture now called 

 Germany, is the spot where we may find the genuine, unmixed, 

 pure German square head — the tete carr^e as the French call it ? 

 Certainly no one can give a definite answer to this question, 

 and every one will admit that the possibility of intermixture in 

 preceding generations cannot be denied. 



As with the Germans, so it is with every people on the 



