niMAi\4. OR MAN. 53 



the wild l)Oviiie and striped equine animals, &c. &c. Tlic following are the leading varieties of Man, 

 according to the opinion and arguments of Dr. Prichard. 



" On comparing the principal varieties of form and structure which distinguish the inhabitants of 

 different countries, we find that there arc seven classes of nations which may be separated from each 

 other by strongly marked lines. Among their principal characteristics are peculiar forms of the 

 skull, but these are by no means the only difference which require notice and particular description. 

 These seven principal classes are, first, those nations which in the form of their skulls ami other physi- 

 cal characters resemble Europeans, including many nations in Asia and some in Africa; secondly, races 

 nearly similar in figure, and in the shape of the head, to the Kalmucks, Mongoles, and Chinese. These 

 two first classes of nations will be designated, for reasons to Ijc explained, Iranian and Turanian 

 nations, in preference to Caucasian and Mongolian. * * * flie third class are the native Ame- 

 rican nations, excluding the Esquimaux and some tribes which resemble them more tlian the majority 

 of inhabitants of the New World. The fourth class comprises only the Hottentot and Bushman race. 

 A fifth class are the Negroes ; the sixth, the Papuas, or woolly-haired nations of Polynesia ; the 

 seventh, the Alfourou and Australian races. The nations comprised under these departments of man- 

 kind differ so strikingly from each other, that it would be improper to include any two of them in one 

 section, and there is no other division of the human family that is by physical traits so strongly cha- 

 racterized. There are, indeed, some nations that cannot be considered as faUing entirely within either 

 of these divisions, but they may he looked upon as approximating to one or another of them." * 



The same writer affirms, of the Caucasian race of Cuvier, that " there is no truth in the assertion 

 that tlie traditions of all these nations deduce their origin from Caucasusf," and states, of his Indo- 

 Atlantic, or Iranian nations, that *' complexion does not enter among the characters of this type, since 

 it is of all sliades, from the white and florid colour of the northern Europeans, to the jet-black of 

 many tribes in Lyl)ia, and southwaril of Mount Atlas. In many races, as we shall hereafter prove, 

 the type has degenerated. The ancient Celts appear, for example, to have had by no means the same 

 developeraent of the head as the Greeks, and the Indians display some diiferenees in the configuration 

 of the skull," ^c.J 



It appears to he conclusively proved that barbarism and insufiicient nourishment tend, in a few 

 generations, to deteriorate the physical characters of even the highest races of mankind, by increasing 

 the facial angle, &c.§ ; while the reverse induces proportional improvement. Still there is reason to 

 suspect that the diversities which are thus occasioned are restrained within moderate limits ; and this 

 remarkable fact must be borne in mind (which I heUeve has not been hitherto stated), that while an 

 artificial mode of life would seem to have produced those acknowledged varieties of species which are 

 noticeable among such of the lower animals as have been domesticated, we observe very dissimilar races 

 of human beings among those whose mannner of living is least artificial of any, and which, further- 

 more, in numerous instances, inhabit the same countries, besides being widely diflnsed ; thus proving 

 tliat climate and locality exert less influence than has been imagined. This most difficult subject of 

 inquiry, in fine, is endlessly perplexed, and in several instances rendered quite inextricable, by the 

 occasional blending of two or more diverse races, in every degree of proportion. There are also 

 decisive proofs (afforded by architectural reliques scattered over Siberia and both Americas) .of great 

 nations having been utterly exterminated, whose very names have perished : and if civilized, or coru- 

 paratively civilized, populous nations have thus become so completely sunk in obhvion, that we infer 

 their former existence only as that of some lost tribes of animals can be recalled, how very many 

 hordes of savages, wdio erect no memorials, may have been extirpated, and are forgotten irretrievahlv. 

 Hence the extreme and apparently insuperable dilhculties wdiieli, it is probable, will continue to oppose the 

 definitive solution of the intricate and peculicudy interesthig problem which we have been eonsiderinc] 



• Vi>l. i. -40-7. r Id. '^jD. I- -C2. ? Vide id. vol. ii. .S49 



