‘Chap. VII. 
THE RACES OF MAN. 
229 
ending doubts whether many closely-allied mammals, 
birds, insects, and plants, which represent each other in 
North America and Europe, should be ranked species 
or geographical races ; and so it is with 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 
greater number of rising men, will feel no doubt that 
all the races of man are descended from a single primi- 
tive stock ; whether or not they think fit to designate 
them as distinct species, for the sake of expressing their 
amount of difference . 20 With our domestic animals the 
question whether the various races have arisen from 
one or more species is different. Although all such 
races, as well as all the natural species within the same 
genus, have undoubtedly sprung from the same primi- 
tive stock, yet it is a fit subject for discussion, whether, 
for instance, all the domestic races of the dog have 
acquired their present differences since some one species 
was first domesticated and bred by man ; or whether they 
owe some of their characters to inheritance from distinct 
species, which had already been modified in a state of 
nature. With mankind no such question can arise, for 
he cannot be said to have been domesticated at any 
particular period. 
When the races of man diverged at an extremely 
remote epoch from their common progenitor, they will 
have differed but little from each other, and been few 
in number ; consequently they will then, as far as their 
distinguishing characters are concerned, have had less 
claim to rank as distinct species, than the existing so- 
L ’° See Prof. Huxley to this effect in the 4 Fortnightly Review,’ 1865, 
p. 275. 
