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dividuals belonging to the Negro type who have attained to a very con- 
siderable degree of superiority over other portions of the same race, while 
there are others who, on the contrary, have sunk very low. The same remark 
may be applied to the other races. The difficulty to my mind is that, from 
whatever point of view we regard them, whether as improving or the reverse, 
these varieties are always clearly and distinctly marked, and have been able 
to preserve these characteristics, and this distinctiveness, through so many 
successive generations. When we go into our museums and see what is 
depicted on the ancient monuments and sarcophagi of Egypt, we find that 
the same type of the negro and the same types of other peoples were in 
existence thousands of years ago, as those which are met with at the present 
day. (Hear, hear.) I have no doubt myself, and I think that the evidence 
from all sources proves, with sufficient clearness, that all these varieties have 
descended from one pair ;* but the difficulty is how this marked variation 
has taken place, and why it is that, having taken place, it should continue 
with so much constancy, spread as the different varieties are all over the 
world, and preserving throughout so much uniformity in variety. This 
uniform variety of distinctive Types has been scarcely touched upon 
in this paper. Of course the writer could not, within the limits assigned 
him, have gone into all the details connected with the numerous subjects 
he has touched upon, but in hearing him mention the variety of forms in 
which the human race is found, I had rather hoped to have heard something 
with regard to these fixed lines of division — this definite and persistently 
maintained subdivision of the human species, which enables us to see this 
or that type prevailing uniformly, age after age, in various countries. 
Throughout the different varieties, and in every case where we find either 
higher excellence, or positive degradation, there is in each type the same 
uniformity, constant and unchanged. More accurate and extended observa- 
tion has found other types besides those which I have already mentioned. 
Through many generations, many thousands of years, these types have con- 
tinued ; and so far as we can look back, — so far as the evidence of monuments 
goes,— we find no trace of the variation becoming less marked ; on the 
contrary, it is as much marked on the very oldest monuments of Egypt as it 
is in the present day. Now, although I wish it to be understood that I am 
not in the least doubting the fact of our common derivation from a single 
pair, I cannot help seeing that this is an argument, so far as it goes, 
in favour of there having been a separate origin, in the same way as we 
use the argument against the Darwinian theory, that we cannot see 
any traces of change from the giraffe to the cow. I think the fact I have 
pointed out requires a good deal of consideration. One thing to which 
it points, is the great antiquity of man. It seems to me that when 
we look at the length of time during which no variation has taken 
place in the several types of humanity, the evidence thus furnished does 
* This ^conclusion is also Professor Huxley’s. [Ed.] 
