SYSTEM. 135 



found in determining every animal species, difficulties which 

 are derived from the way in which we understand its evolu- 

 tion,* must we be astonished that the human race is not yet 

 divided into distinct groups, when animals, much more easy to 

 class on account of their lesser degree of intellectual and 

 social activity, are not yet classed in a satisfactory manner,* 

 when the Geoffroys, Cuvier, and De Blainville have failed in 

 something or other, since this question seems still worthy of 

 examination by the greatest minds of Europe with which the 

 natural sciences are honoured at the present day ? The natu- 

 ral history of man is of to-day, and the difficulties are great, 

 because by virtue of his intellect man possesses resistance and 

 special affinity. Living by nations, he lives a double life ; his 

 own, and that of the nation which is a separate thing into 

 which a neighbouring race or species can enter wholly, adopt- 

 ing the same customs, the same dress, and the same lan- 

 guage. There are difficulties which we meet with in anthro- 

 pology, and which we only meet with there. A species has 

 been known to disappear, for instance, and has left its name to 

 some group entirely different from it, for if the Ethnic name 

 has served at the origin to name the inhabited country, the 

 geographical name has reacted in its turn, and has imposed 

 itself on all the people who have successively occupied the same 

 area. Other difficulties will arise from regions inhabited by 

 distinct species, if these limits are not marked by some physi- 

 cal barrier almost impossible to be passed. 



Thus we are far, even at the present day, from agreeing 

 about the bases of a good anthropological classification. Many 

 methods have been tried, but none have as yet succeeded. 

 Some have adopted geographical division. Others, the colour 

 of the skin. Others, the state of the hair. Others (the most 

 numerous class), have stopped at the shape of the head. The 

 skull has chiefly exercised the sagacity of anatomists and 

 anthropologists, and we can say fairly that there is no com- 

 bination to which it has not been submitted in order to arrive 



* See above, chap. viii. 



f Compare Owen, On the Characters, Principles of Division, and Primary 

 Groups of the Class Mammalia (Brit. Assoc.for the Advancement of Science, 1857.) 



