SELECTION ON MAN. 305 
vast accumulation of facts; both reject those early 
traditions of mankind which profess to give an ac- 
count of his origin; and both declare that they are 
seeking fearlessly after truth alone; yet each will 
persist in looking only at the portion of truth on 
his own side of the question, and at the error which 
is mingled with his opponent’s doctrine. It is my 
wish to show how the two opposing views can be 
combined, so as to eliminate the error and retain the 
truth in each, and it is by means of Mr. Darwin’s 
celebrated theory of ‘‘ Natural Selection” that I hope 
to do this, and thus to harmonise the conflicting 
theories of modern anthropologists. 
Let us first see what each party has to say for 
itself. In favour of the unity of mankind it is argued, 
that there are no races without transitions to others; 
that every race exhibits within itself variations of 
colour, of hair, of feature, and of form, to such a de- 
gree as to bridge over, to a large extent, the gap that 
separates it from other races. It is asserted that no 
race is homogeneous; that there is a tendency to vary ; 
that climate, food, and habits produce, and render 
permanent, physical peculiarities, which, though slight 
in the limited periods allowed to our observation, would, 
in the long ages during which the human race has ex- 
isted, have sufficed to produce all the differences that 
now appear. It is further asserted that the advocates 
of the opposite theory do not agree among themselves ; 
that some would make three, some five, some fifty or 
a hundred and fifty species of man; some would have 
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