6524 Reason and Instinct. 



type, and to the shape of skull found to prevail among utterly savage 

 and uncivilized tribes. And the following remarks from Dr. Carpenter 

 are doubly interesting, as showing how the very change we are speaking 

 of is taking place under our own observation, and even to a degree 

 already rendered permanent. " But not only," says he, " may the 

 pyramidal and prognathous types be elevated towards the elliptical ;" 

 — and we shall notice what he says on this subject presently, — " the 

 elliptical may likewise be degraded towards either of these. Want, 

 Squalor and Ignorance have a special tendency to induce that diminu- 

 tion of the cranial portion of the skull, and that increase of the facial, 

 which characterizes the prognathous type ; as cannot but be observed 

 by any one who takes an accurate and candid survey of the condition 

 of the most degraded part of the population of the great towns of this 

 country, but as is seen to be pre-eminently the case with regard to the 

 lowest class s of fresh immigrants. A certain degree of retrogression 

 to the pyramidal type is also to be noticed among the Nomadic tribes, 

 which are to be found in every civilized community. Among these, as 

 has been remarked by a very acute observer, ' according as they partake 

 more or less of the purely vagabond nature, doing nothing whatsoever 

 for their living, but moving from place to place, preying upon the 

 earnings of the more industrious portion of the community, so will the 

 attributes of the Nomade races be found, more or less marked in them. 

 And they are all more or less distinguished for their high cheek-bones 

 and protruding jaws,' thus showing that kind of mixture of the pyra- 

 midal with the prognathous type, which is to be seen amongst the 

 lowest of the Indian and Malayo-Polynesian races." — Human Phys. 

 p. 1076. 



The converse of this declension from a higher to a lower type is, 

 as already hinted, also to be met with in the human family. Thus, 

 " the Turks at present inhabiting the Persian and Ottoman empires 

 are undoubtedly descended from the same stock with the Nomadic 

 races which are still spread through Central Asia. The former, how- 

 ever, having conquered the countries which they now inhabit eight 

 centuries since, have gradually settled down to the regular habits of 

 the Indo-European race, and have made corresponding advances in 

 civilization ; whilst the latter have continued their wandering mode 

 of life, and can scarcely be said to have made any decided advance 

 during the same interval. Now the long-since civilized Turks have 

 undergone a complete transformation into the likeness of Europeans, 

 whilst their Nomadic relatives retain the pyramidal configuration of the 

 skull in a very marked degree. The great mass of the Turkish people 



