SYSTEM. 147 



before our eyes at every moment ; here a gigantic Circassian, 

 there a smaller sized Copt, with an arched nose; a Nubian, 

 with his " violet ebony" colour, but with a pleasing figure, 

 nose straight and small, thin lips, well arranged teeth ; a Turk, 

 with as white and transparent a skin as a man of the north ; a 

 Negro, with crisped hair, flat nose, prominent cheek-bones, 

 thick lips, large and projecting teeth ; a Fellah, with olive 

 complexion ; a Bedouin, almost as black as a Nubian, but tall, 

 with aquiline nose, thin lips, and kingly bearing. 



We must not seek for a pure population in the streets of 

 Paris, London, Marseilles, Trieste, or Constantinople : we only 

 find in these capitals isolated facts, good specimens, perhaps, 

 of different species, but lost in the multitude of hybrids. We 

 can only study in these places individuals, not species. In 

 those parts alone which we must make centres of observation, 

 can we see the same man indefinitely multiplied among really 

 primitive people, still free from intermixture, or with the least 

 possible taint of the same. Then we must hasten to seize his 

 general characteristics, and take both his physical and moral 

 portrait. 



The physical portrait in particular comprises two series of 

 data, features and colour. As to feature, photography is an 

 unequalled resource, but it belongs to anthropological study to 

 settle its application in a clear manner : we must always choose 

 some individual presenting the usual type of the population in 

 the midst of which he is found, rather than among the chiefs 

 or nobles of the land. We must select this type in the prime 

 of life, when the animal ceconomy has arrived at its perfect 

 development, and has not yet commenced to decay, and still 

 shines in all the splendour of its reproductive force ; this would 

 be, for man, from twenty-two to twenty-seven years of age. 

 For photographic portraits to be of real utility to anthro- 

 pologists, they ought to represent the individual completely 

 full face, or in profile; thus only can they be of use in measure- 

 ments. For it is important not to confound anthropology with 

 ethnology, as is done every day. They are two things entirely 

 different. Dressed-up portraits are the domain of the latter, 

 the natural history of man demands always absolutely nude 



