PATHOLOGICAL VARIETIES. 47 



only it is difficult to decide what may be its immediate cause, 

 and if this cause resides in the mother or in the foetus. Is it 

 the pelvis which has been made narrower in the European by 

 some custom in our manners by some habit of education ? or 

 must we admit and it is a serious question that the develop- 

 ment of such an organ as the brain in the fcetus, is subor- 

 dinate to the exercise of the functions of the same organ in 

 the progenitors ? 



With the osseous system we may connect the differences of 

 height which are so apparent. Who does not recognise that 

 in Europe, for instance, the Anglo-Saxons, the Germans, the 

 Norwegians, and the Albanians, are of great stature ; whilst 

 the inhabitants of the south of France, the Irish, the Spaniards,* 

 and the Maltese, represent a shorter variety of the human race. 

 The members show the most marked differences among the 

 various races of mankind, by reason of the law which causes 

 the modifications of organism to become more and more de- 

 cided, and more and more clear from the centre to the peri- 

 phery. Naturalists seek for characteristics of families and 

 individuals in the fingers and in the teeth : it is in the extremes 

 of an individual, in the colour of the hair or the skin, that we 

 generally find the characteristics of species. We shall only 

 quote in this place facts which may be the object of some 

 particular remark. 



It has been said continually that the Tartars have bowed 

 legs, and monogenists have not failed to discover from this 

 fact a new proof of the influences of their mode of life, so 

 necessary in order to maintain their thesis. They discovered 

 at first sight, in this general infirmity, a consequence of the 

 habit of riding on horseback, without considering that the 

 Arabs rode on horseback quite as often, and that, nevertheless, 

 their noble bearing and straightness of limb did not suffer 

 from it in the slightest. In tracing the source of this error, 

 we perceive that it is a singular exaggeration of the facts stated 



* [We cannot entirely agree with the author regarding the low stature of 

 the Spaniards. From our own observation we may unreservedly say that, at 

 all events, the inhabitants of the south and south western parts of Spain are 

 a fine race, not at all liable to the charge of being diiferent in height from 

 the Anglo-Saxons. EDITOR.] 



