108 
THE DESCENT OF MAN. 
Part I. 
The facts and conclusions to be given in this chapter 
relate almost exclusively to the probable means by 
which the transformation of man has been effected, 
as far as his bodily structure is concerned. The fol- 
lowing chapter will be devoted to the development of 
his intellectual and moral faculties. But the present 
discussion likewise bears on the origin of the different 
races or species of mankind, whichever term may be 
preferred. 
It is manifest that man is now subject to much 
variability. No two individuals of the same race are 
quite alike. We may compare millions of faces, and 
each will be distinct. There is an equally great 
amount of diversity in the proportions and dimensions 
of the various parts of the body ; the length of the legs 
being one of the most variable points . 1 Although in 
some quarters of the world an elongated skull, and in 
other quarters a short skull prevails, yet there is great 
diversity of shape even within the limits of the same 
race, as with the aborigines of America and South 
Australia, — the latter a race “ probably as pure and 
“ homogeneous in blood, customs, and language as any 
“ in existence and even with the inhabitants of so 
confined an area as the Sandwich Islands . 2 * An emi- 
nent dentist assures me that there is nearly as much 
diversity in the teeth, as in the features. The chief 
arteries so frequently run in abnormal courses, that it 
has been found useful for surgical purposes to calculate 
1 ‘ Investigations in Military and Anthropolog. Statistics of American 
Soldiers/ by B. A. Gonld, 1869, p. 256. 
2 With respect to the u Cranial forms of the American aborigines,” 
see Dr. Aitken Meigs in 4 Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci/ Philadelphia, May, 
1866. On the Australians, see Huxley, in Lyell’s 4 Antiquity of Man/ 
1868, p. 87. On the Sandwich Islanders, Prof. J. Wyman, ‘ Observa- 
tions on Crania/ Boston, 1868, p. 18. 
