THE DESCENT OR ORIGIN OF MAN 235 



represent each other respectively in North America and 

 Europe, should be ranked as species or geographical races; 

 and the like holds true of the productions of many islands 

 situated at some little distance from the nearest continent. 



Those naturalists, on the other hand, who admit the 

 principle of evolution, and this is now admitted by the ma- 

 jority of rising men, will feel no do.ubt that all the races 

 of man are descended from a single primitive stock ; whether 

 or not they may think fit to designate the races as distinct 

 species, for the sake of expressing their amount of differ- 

 ence." With our domestic animals the question whether 

 the various races have arisen from one or more species is 

 somewhat different. Although it may be admitted that all 

 the races, as well as all the natural species within the same 

 genus, have sprung from the same primitive stock, yet it is 

 a fit subject for discussion, whether all the domestic races of 

 the dog, for instance, have acquired their present amount 

 of difference since some one species was first domesticated 

 by man; or whether they owe some of their characters to 

 inheritance from distinct species, which had already been 

 differentiated in a state of nature. With man no such ques- 

 tion can arise, for he cannot be said to have been domesti- 

 cated at any particular period. 



During an early stage in the divergence of the races of 

 man from a common stock, the differences between the races 

 and their number must have been small; consequently, as 

 far as their distinguishing characters are concerned, they 

 then had less claim to rank as distinct species than the ex- 

 isting so-called races. Nevertheless, so arbitrary is the term 

 of species, that such early races would perhaps have been 

 ranked by some naturalists as distinct species, if their dif- 

 ferences, although extremely slight, had been more constant 

 than they are at present, and had not graduated into each 

 other. 



It is however possible, though far from probable, that 



" See Prof. Huxley to this effect in the "Fortnightly Review," 1865, 

 p. 315, 



