64 PHYSICAL INVESflGATION. [PART I. 



with those of Negro slaves. 1 The mode of life has also ai 

 important influence on the form of the pelvis. Whilst th< 

 Malay and Japanese women have a comparatively large peb 

 and parturiate with facility ; the Chinese women have often 

 narrow pelvis, which may perhaps be ascribed to their sedentai 

 life, as, even among the neighbouring Japanese and Mala^ 

 ladies of high rank, difficult labours occur. 2 Whether then 

 obtains in Europe a similar difference, as a rule, between th( 

 inhabitants of cities and of the country, might not be an un- 

 interesting subject of inquiry. 



The influence of aliment and mode of life is more strikingh 

 exhibited where, in addition to a difference of habit, there ob- 

 tains a difference of social relations, and a separation of the 

 various classes of the population. By their combined action, 

 they produce among men originally from the same stock, a 

 gradual inequality both in their internal and external characters. 

 To this may be ascribed the striking differences among the 

 Finnish nations, as well as those existing between the castes 

 and ranks in India and Polynesia. We have already spoken of 

 them, but they deserve repetition, since besides aliment and 

 mode of life, social relations combine with them. On one side, 

 there is the nobility in the consciousness of superiority ; in 

 Polynesia, from a belief of their being in direct communication 

 with the gods, the aristocracy are almost worshiped : on the other 

 side, the people are conscious of having been born to servitude, 

 or as is the case with some castes, are reckoned unclean during 

 their whole existence. Similar relations existed in the old 

 Inka Empire. The aristocracy were as in Polynesia, and as the 

 highest caste in India, in possession of all knowledge, which, on 

 their being exterminated by the Spaniards, disappeared with 

 them. Analogous differences between the aristocracy and the 

 common people are found everywhere. Among the Kurds along 

 the Turco-Persian frontier, the traveller easily distinguishes the 

 caste of peaceable agricultural labourers by their nearly Grecian 

 physiognomy, from the higher caste of warriors. 3 The latter 



1 " Bullet, de 1' Acad. des Sc. de Belgique," tome xx. 



2 " Allg. Medic. Centralztg./' No. 6, p. 37, 1853. 



3 Prichard, iv, p. 68. 



