THE HUMAN SrECIES. 173 



species overlapped, strove for possession, and were forced to 

 withdraw or to submit to absorption. Periods of repose seem 

 even to be requisite before new influences are efficient; and 

 thus, by degrees, commences that state of amalgamation which 

 the necessities of the case, and the conditions already mentioned, 

 prescribe to generate secondary forms of Man, by combinations, 

 where new habits, new dialects, new articles of food, together 

 with at least change of climate in one of the constituents, had 

 their legitimate sphere of action. It is thus, where the foreign 

 influence of infusion is modified by a change of climate, that 

 mixed races spring up and have a continuous duration beyond 

 the pale of their primitive centres of existence, until the ground 

 is contested by the purer races, when they fall a prey to the 

 victors, are exterminated, absorbed, or perish by a kind of 

 decreasing vitality, or are entirely obliterated.* 



The centres of existence of the three typical forms of Man, 

 are, evidently, the intertropical region of Africa for the 

 woolly-haired, the open elevated regions of north-eastern 

 Asia for the beardless, and the mountain ranges towards the 

 south and west for the bearded Caucasian. But, with regard 

 to the western hemisphere', it may be asserted that it is not a 

 centre of any typical stock, since the primeval Flathcads have 

 already disappeared ; and, though the partial population of the 

 bearded form had been overwhelmed by the Mongolic, it is in 

 turn now fast receding, and the woolly-haired, brought in chiefly 

 by modern navigation, it maybe foreseen, will ultimately secure 

 to itself a vast homogeneous region, without other change in 

 characters than slight intermixture, advancing education, and 

 local circumstances, can effect. 



Although, on debatable ground, a race may be dislodged, 

 evidence of their having had possession of it remains in the 

 population of the more inaccessible mountains and forests ; and 



* Yet this apparent obliteration must ever affect subsequent forms and 

 mental conditions in the victors, which the physiologist ought to bear in 

 mind, where known, or indicate when only suspected. 



15* 



