192 PHYSICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART I. 



as we might expect from the great differences of climate and 

 civilization. 



These views have, in modern times, been opposed by theories 

 which are at present very popular, not so much in consequence 

 of their novelty, as of their apparently logical sequence and 

 their connexion with materialistic views. They are based on 

 the view we have just repudiated, that man as a physical 

 being must, with regard to his body and its changes, be in the 

 same condition as animals, and that it is mere fancy to deny 

 his perfect equality as a physical being, and his subjection to 

 the same laws as animals. Man, they maintain, like animals, 

 undergoes but unimportant changes from the influence of cli- 

 mate: like them, man is only changed by intermixture; 

 and as in the animal kingdom new species arise by hybri- 

 dity (as asserted by some, without the intervention of the 

 Creator), so does it happen by the crossing of various species 

 of men. 



Among the men holding these extreme views may be men- 

 tioned Hamilton Smith. 1 Lawrence 2 had already maintained 

 that the type of human races is perpetuated in all climates, 

 and only changes by intermixture ; to which Smith adds, that 

 each of the chief races is only perpetuated in their original 

 native country, whilst the descendants of other races would 

 there perish without intermixture, but that from such inter- 

 mixture there issue, as among many animals of various species, 

 intermediate types indefinitely prolific, provided there be a 

 continued infusion of fresh blood from either of the parent 

 stocks. He points out the extinct Paltas 3 on the Titicaca lake, 

 with naturally flattened and receding skulls, the remnants 



1 ' ' Natural history of the human species," Edinb., 1848. 



3 " Lectures," p. 448. 



3 The mention of the Paltas, on the Titicaca, by H. Smith, is probably 

 founded in error. Mention is certainly made of a chieftain, in the south, 

 named " Palta," about the time of Valdivias (1550), among the Araucanians 

 (Ovaglie, " Hist, relatione del regno di Cile," p. 187, Roma, 1646) ; but the 

 people called Paltas existed only in the south of the state of Quito, due north 

 of Loja, near Tumebamba. They are mentioned together with the Canares 

 and Chaparras, but nothing is said about their cranial shape, or other pecu- 

 liarities (Cieza de Leon in " Historiad. prim, de Indias," pp. 401 and 409, 1852 ; 

 Gomara, ibid. ; compare, also, Herrera, " Hist, gen.," v, and of later writers ; 

 Velasco, " Hist, del reino de Quito," iii, pp. 2, 15. 



