BIMANA, OR MAN. 
53 
the wild bovine and striped equine animals, &c. &c. The 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 are seven classes of nations which may be separated from each 
other by strongly marked lines. Among their principal characteristics are peculiar forms of the 
skuU, 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 and other physi- 
cal characters resemble Europeans, including many nations in Asia and some in Africa; secondly, races 
nearly similar in figm-e, 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 be explained, Iranian and Turanian 
nations, in preference to Caucasian and Mongolian. * * * The third class are the native Arne- 
rican nations, excluding the Esquimaux and some tribes which resemble them more than 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 falling entirely within either 
of these divisions, but they may be 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 the traditions of all these nations deduce their origin from Caucasus f," and states, of his Indo- 
Atlantic, or Iranian nations, that “ complexion does not enter among the characters of this type, since 
it is of aU shades, from the white and florid colour of the northern Europeans, to the jet-black of 
many tribes in Lybia, and southward 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 
developement of the head as the Greeks, and the Indians display some differences in the configuration 
of the skull,” <fec.$ 
It appears to be conclusively proved that barbarism and insufficient 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 believe 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, m numerous instances, inhabit the same countries, besides being widely diffused ; thus proving 
that 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 com- 
paratively civilized, populous nations have thus become so completely sunk in oblivion, that we infer 
their former existence only as that of some lost tribes of animals can be recalled, how very many 
hordes of savages, who erect no memorials, may have been extirpated, and are forgotten irretrievably. 
Hence the extreme and apparently insuperable difficulties which, it is probable, will continue to oppose the 
definitive solution of the intricate and peculiarly interesting problem which we have been considering.] 
Vol. i. 246-7. 
t Id. 259. 
Vide id. vol. ii. 349. 
