Henry Edward Crampton - The Doctrine of Evolution

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In the next place, the shape of the cranium is a character of much value.
This is determined as the proportion between the transverse diameter of
the skull above the ears to the long diameter, namely, the line that runs
from the middle of the brow to the most posterior point of the skull. In
the so-called "long-headed" or dolichocephalic races, the proportion is
seventy-five to one hundred, while in those forms that have more rounded
or brachycephalic heads, like the Polynesian and the black pygmy, the
relation is eighty-three to one hundred. The cranial capacity again varies
considerably, from nine hundred cubic centimeters to twenty-two hundred
cubic centimeters. Many striking variations are also found in the
projection of the jaws. A line drawn from the lower end of the nose to the
chin makes a certain angle with the line drawn from the chin to the
posterior end of the lower jaw; if the jaw projects very greatly, this
angle will be much less than when they do not. In most of the Caucasian
peoples, the lines meet at an angle of eighty-nine degrees, or very nearly
a right angle, but in some of the lower races the figure may be only
fifty-one degrees. Additional characters of the teeth and of the palate
are also taken into account, and have proved their utility. Finally, the
nose exhibits a wide range of variation from the small delicate feature of
the Chinaman to the large, well-arched nose of the Indian. It may be
hollowed out at the bridge instead of arched; again, it may be nearly an
equilateral triangle in outline, as in the Veddahs, and the nostrils may
open somewhat forward instead of downward. As many as fifteen distinct
varieties of the human nose have been catalogued by Bertillon.

These are the principal bodily characters which the anthropologist uses to
distinguish races and by their means to determine the more immediate or
remote community of origin of comparable types. Many of these
characteristics, as indeed we may already see, are decidedly important in
connection with the second problem specified above, for in the case of the
flat triangular nose and projecting jaws of a low negroid we may discern
clear resemblances to certain features of the apes.

* * * * *

Long before the doctrine of evolution was understood and adopted, students
of the human races had been deeply impressed by their natural
resemblances. As early as 1672 Bernier divided human beings according to
certain of these fundamental similarities into four groups; namely, the
white European, the black African, the yellow Asiatic, and the Laplander.
Linnaeus, in the eighteenth century, included _Homo sapiens_ in his list of
species, recognizing four subspecies in the European, Asiatic, African,
and Indian of America. Blumenbach in 1775 added the Malay, thus giving the
five types that most of us learned in our school days. But the different
varieties of men recognized by these observers were believed to be created
in their modern forms and with their present-day characteristics; the
common character of skin color exhibited by any group of peoples of a
single continent was to them only a convenient label for purposes of
description and classification. It was not until years later that
fundamental resemblances were recognized as indicating an actual blood
relationship of the races displaying them, and therefore of evolution.
Since the doctrine of human descent and of the divergence of human races
in later evolution has been accepted, those who have attempted to work out
fully the complete ancestry of different peoples have found that no single
character can be taken by itself, while the various criteria themselves
differ in reliability; the color of the skin is not so sure a guide as the
character of the hair and skull, wherefore the classifications of recent
times, notably those of Huxley and Haeckel, have been based largely upon
the latter. The latest systems have been more rigidly scientific and more
in accord with the most modern conceptions of organic relationships in
general, as evidenced by the thoroughgoing methods of Duckworth in his
recent treatise on human classification.

It now remains to present the salient facts regarding the genetic
relationships of typical human races, although it is obviously impossible
to go into all of the details of the subject. But these are not essential
for the main purpose, which is to show that the evolutionary explanation
is the only one that is reasonable and self-consistent. Opinions are
sometimes widely at variance regarding countless minor points, but no
anthropologist of to-day can be anything but an evolutionist, because the
main principles upon which the specialists agree fall directly into line
with those established elsewhere in zooelogy. It seems best to state these
principles without reverting to controversial matters which find their
place in the monographs of the experts. Any comprehensive account such as
that of Keane, even if it may not give the final word, will be entirely
sufficient to demonstrate how fruitful are the methods of evolution when
they are employed for the study of human races, and indeed how impossible
it is to discuss human histories without finding conclusive evidences of
their evolutionary nature.

The facts that are available indicate that the first members of our
species evolved in an equatorial continent which is now submerged, and
which occupied a position between the present continents of Asia and
Africa. From this center hordes of primitive men migrated to distant
centers where they differentiated into three primary and distinct groups.
The first of these was gradually resolved into the darker-skinned peoples
most of whom now live in the continent of Africa, although many dwell also
in the islands of the western Pacific Ocean. The second branch divided
almost immediately to produce, on the one hand, the Indians of the new
world and, on the other, the yellow-skinned inhabitants of Asia and other
places. The third branch developed as such in the neighborhood of the
Mediterranean Sea, and produced the series of so-called Caucasian peoples,
which are by far the most familiar to us and to which most of us belong.
But so early did the second branch divide that there are virtually four
main divisions of the human species that are to be examined in serial
order.

It is best to begin with our own division, because its greater familiarity
makes it easier to become acquainted with the methods and results of
anthropology, on the basis of facts that we already know. Three
subordinate types exist, located primarily in northern, central, and
southern Europe respectively, but many other races dwell elsewhere that
are assignable to one or another of these subdivisions. In northeastern
Europe we find people such as the Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, and north
Germans, that average five feet eight inches in height. They have the
long, wavy, and soft hair which is a general characteristic of the whole
Caucasian group, although its light flaxen color is distinctive. The blue
eye and florid complexion accompany the light color of the hair. The skull
is of the longer type, the jaws and forehead are straight and square, the
nose is large and long without a distinct arch, and the teeth are
relatively small. It is not so well known that the Scandinavian type is so
closely copied by many people of Asia, such as the western Persians,
Afghans, and certain of the Hindus, living in a continent that we are
inclined to assign to the Mongol only. In the possession of these
characters the Northern Europeans and other races specified display
evidences of their common ancestry and evolution quite as conclusively as
in the case of the cats discussed in an earlier chapter where the meaning
of essential likeness was first demonstrated.

A broad zone may be drawn from Wales, across Europe and Asia, and even to
the eastern islands of the South Seas, in which we find peoples that are
obviously of Caucasian descent, but they differ from the members of the
first group in some details of structure. On the average they are about
five feet five or six inches in height, the hair is dark and wavy, but it
is not the pencil-like structure of the Mongol. The complexion is pale,
the skull is rounder, and the eyes are usually brown in color. These
peoples agree also in their volatile temperament and vivacious manner and
are thus markedly different from the more stolid northerners. To this
minor branch of the Caucasian stock belong the Welsh, most of the French,
South Germans and Swiss, Russians and Poles, Armenians, eastern Persians,
and finally some of the inhabitants of Polynesia. The last, it is true,
form a well-marked group of darker-skinned and taller races, but in spite
of the admixture of these and other unusual features, we can still discern
the bodily characters that supplement their traditions, telling of an
Asian origin, in demonstrating their common ancestry with round-headed
Persians and middle Europeans. Below the zone of middle Europe and Asia is
another broad region inhabited by the "Mediterranean" type of Caucasian.
The Spaniard, Italian, Greek, and Arab are sufficiently familiar to
illustrate the distinctive qualities of this subdivision. These people
have the smaller stature, dark hair, dark eyes, and paler skin of the
middle Europeans, but the skull is of the long instead of the rounded
type. A well-marked subordinate group is formed by the so-called Semitic
peoples, such as the Arabs and their Hebrew relatives. The Berbers and
other North African races possess a darker skin probably because of the
admixture of Ethiopian stock, and they, too, are so well characterized
that they form a clearly marked outlying group as the so-called Hamites.
Passing over into Asia we find relatives of the Mediterranean man in the
Dravidas and Todas of India, possibly in the degenerate Veddahs of Ceylon,
and finally in the Ainus or "hairy men" of some of the Japanese islands.
The last-named people certainly possess some Mongolian features, but these
seem to have been added to a more fundamental form of body that is
distinctly Caucasian.

All of the races we have mentioned, together with their relatives, may be
compared to the leaves borne upon three branches that take their origin
from a single limb of the widespread human part of the tree. They cannot
be classified in any mode on the basis of their primary and secondary
resemblances without employing the treelike plan of arrangement, which to
the man of science is a sure indication of their evolutionary
relationships.

* * * * *

The people of the second or Mongolian group agree in certain well-marked
characteristics in such a way as to be well separated from the other
divisions of mankind; these characteristics we may speak of as
constituting a second "theme," of which the various peoples of the group
are so many variations. To visualize them we need only to recall the
appearance of the Chinaman, perhaps the most familiar example of the
entire series. Here the hair is coarse and black, and straight because of
its round transverse section; the mustache and beard of the Caucasians are
seldom found except in later life; the skin is a fleshy yellow in color;
the skull is round, indeed, it is one of the roundest that we know; the
jaws are not so straight as in the Caucasian, for the angle at the point
of the chin is about sixty-eight degrees. The cheek bones project
laterally, with greater or less prominence; the nose is very small, tilted
up slightly at the end, and is usually hollowed instead of arched. The
eyes are small and black in color, set somewhat obliquely, and the upper
lid is drawn down over the eye at its inner corner so as to make the
obliquity still more marked. The teeth are larger than those of the
Caucasian. Finally, the Mongol is below the average of all men as regards
height, being usually about five feet four inches tall.

The original Mongolians probably developed the characteristic features we
have just noted in a Central Asiatic region, and then almost immediately
they divided into two great groups. Each of these evolved along certain
lines of its own, one sweeping northward to develop into what are now
called the Northern Mongols, the other working its way eastward and
southward to produce the peoples of China proper, Indo-China, and many
parts of Malaysia. Considering first the peoples of the Northern Mongolian
division, we find in the typical Manchurian what is perhaps the nearest
among modern people to the original race. Spreading northward and westward
from the middle Asiatic plains, this great wave has produced the nomadic
tribes of Siberia, like the Chukchi, the Buryats, and the Yukaghir. The
present inhabitants of Turkestan connect those forms which have remained
near the original home with the races of Mongolian origin that live
farther to the westward, like the Turks of Asia. But the Mongolian tide
originally swept much farther to the west, although it was driven back
later by conquering Caucasian peoples; and it has left behind such
remnants as the Finlander and the Laplander, the Bulgar, and the Magyar.
It is evident that these western branches of the Mongol stock are not at
all pure in their racial characteristics, for they clearly show the
effects of a mixture with alien European peoples. To assign them to the
Northern Mongol division means only that their dominant characteristics
are mainly those of Mongolian nature. We have referred the Russians to the
middle Caucasian division even though the Slav or Tartar infusion is very
great, but it does not dominate over the Caucasian peculiarities as it
does in the case of the peoples we have mentioned. As regards the
remaining types we must add to this brief list the Koreans and the
Japanese, the former being far purer in Mongolian nature than the latter
people, which has apparently been affected by a Malay influence from the
south.

Turning now to the southern Mongol, we find that from their cradle in the
Tibetan plateau they too have spread widely, and their descendants have
also come to differ in certain respects as they have established
themselves in other lands. Most of the present people of Tibet belong to
this section; the Gurkhas of Hindustan, the people of Burma proper, of
Annam, and Cochin China are close relatives of one another and of the more
characteristic Mongolians of China proper who make up the vast bulk of the
population. From this stock we may also derive the Malays of Sumatra and
Java, of Borneo and Celebes, and the Tagals and Bisayans of the Philippine
Islands. Even the Hovars and other tribes of Madagascar may be referred to
this division, for although in them the skin has become somewhat darker,
we may still discern the characteristics which indicate their common
ancestry with the Oceanic Mongols.

* * * * *

The American Indians taken collectively constitute a group that is well
set off from the rest of mankind by such characters as taller stature,
small, straight, and black eyes, a large nose that is usually bridged or
aquiline, a skull of medium roundness, and the yellow copper color of the
skin. The common origin with the Mongols is demonstrated by the straight
and long, coarse, black hair and by the absence of a beard; the mustache
also is almost always absent.

All of us have seen Indians belonging to the tribes of the plains, which
serve as excellent examples of this grand division. Many have also visited
the homes of the Pueblo Indians, and have learned how uniform is the
physical appearance of the tribes living in various parts of the United
States. Indeed throughout all of North America the basic characteristics
of Indians prove to be strikingly conservative, although in the Eskimo
there are some departures which seem to indicate a closer connection of
these peoples with the Mongols, probably as the result of some more recent
influx from the neighboring and not very distant region of northeastern
Siberia. Extending our survey southward through Central America, the
Aztecs and Mayas are found to possess many of the same characters, though
in some respects they are transitional to the Caribs of the northern edge
of South America and to the Indians of South America. Traveling still
farther southward, we meet the very tall Patagonian, still an Indian in
essential respects, and finally, the Yahgan and Alacaluf of the Fuegian
region, the most degenerate members of the race. The last-mentioned people
are dull and brutish and most degraded in all respects, and stand at the
lowest end of the red Indian series as regards intellectual ability and
cultural attainment.

* * * * *

We now come to the last of the four great divisions of the human species
which includes the races usually spoken of as Africans or Ethiopians. But
these races are by no means restricted to the continent of Africa, for
quite as typical black types are found in far-distant lands such as
Australia and many islands of the Pacific Ocean. The races assigned to
this division group themselves about two subordinate types,--the tall
negro proper and the shorter or dwarf negrito,--and each of these has
representatives both in Africa and in the oceanic territory.

The black slaves of America were all descended from typical negros brought
from the western part of Africa, and they provide us with adequate
illustrations of Ethiopians as a group. In them the stature is above the
average of men in general, specifically about five feet ten inches. The
short jet-black hair is strikingly different from the head covering of the
other great groups of human races; each individual hair is so flat in
cross-section that it curls into a very tight close spiral, and this
brings about a frizzly appearance of the whole head covering. There is
little or no beard, the skin is soft and velvety and of various shades
approaching black in color. The skull is long, the cheek bones are small,
but the most distinctive characteristics of the head are found in the
apelike ridges over the eyes and in the very broad flat nose which
projects only slightly and turns up so that the nostrils open forward to a
marked degree, while in the jaws there is an astonishing divergence from
the Caucasian condition in the great protrusion which causes the angle at
the chin to be about sixty degrees.

The warlike Zulus and other peoples of Southern and Central Africa are
perhaps the most characteristic races in this division. Their relatives
are found to the northward as far as the Sahara desert, along the southern
borders of which they have spread out to the eastward and westward. Fusion
with other races has taken place along this border so that many of these
northern tribes are much lighter than the Zulus in the color of the skin.
But many relatives of the taller African negro are found in other parts of
the world, namely in Australia, and in New Hebrides and New
Caledonia--islands to the north and east of this continent. The Papuan of
New Guinea is a typical negro in all true respects, with strongly marked
Ethiopian characteristics, though there are some differences which are
transitional to the more aberrant natives of Melanesia, which includes
many archipelagos like the Fiji, Bismarck, Marshall, and Solomon islands.
Undoubtedly the most degenerate member of the tall negro division is the
Australian native, the so-called "blackfellow." The bulbous nose and the
well-grown beard mark him off from the typical stock, but his obvious
relationship to this is indicated by the low brain capacity, the prominent
ridges over the eyes, and the heavy projecting jaws.

Taking up the other division of the so-called Ethiopian race, constituting
the Negrito section, we may begin with its Oceanic members. The natives of
the Andaman Islands, the Kalangs and the Sakais of Java and neighboring
regions, and the Aetas of the Philippine Islands agree in a dwarfed
stature of four feet or a little over, in their yellowish brown skin
color, a round head, and woolly reddish-brown hair. They, too, possess
large ridges over the eyes and extremely prominent jaws, and in these
latter characteristics particularly we see evidences of their relationship
to the negro. But perhaps the most characteristic pygmies are found in
Africa. The little Bushmen and Hottentots are low types of the Negrito
stock, and they lead us to the lowest men of all, the Akkas of the West
Congo region. It is difficult for us to realize how utterly degenerate and
apelike these pygmies are. The jaws are disproportionately large as
compared with the cranium or brain-case, and project to a degree which
brings the skull very close to that of the higher apes; while in mental
respects, in the absence of dwellings, and in many other ways they prove
to be the lowest of all mankind,--veritable brutes in form and mode of
life.

* * * * *

Without a full series of photographs before us the foregoing sketch of the
various races of men cannot make us fully acquainted with all the strange
varieties of the human body, but it will suffice to establish two
fundamental results. While all men agree in the possession of certain
features which set them apart from other members of the primate order,
they differ among themselves in such a way as to fall into four
well-marked subdivisions branching out from a common starting-point.
Furthermore, in each of these primary groups the subordinate types arrange
themselves also in the manner of branches arising from a common limb. This
is the relation that we have earlier found to be a universal one
throughout the animal kingdom, and science believes that it indicates
everywhere an evolutionary history--an actual development along different
lines of descent of forms which have a common starting-point and ancestry.

The second principle is perhaps even more significant: when we review the
many races from the Caucasian to the dwarf Negrito, we traverse a downward
path which will bring us inevitably to the higher apes. In our survey of
human races, we have passed from the Caucasian, with the largest brain and
cranium and with straight jaws well underneath the brain-case, to the
pygmy with a relatively small brain, with huge projecting jaws and with
prominent ridges over the eyes; one step more along that path would bring
us to the gorilla or the chimpanzee. The array of lower primates, from the
lemur to the gorilla, gives a series of forms exhibiting a progressive
advance in respect to the size of the brain and cranium, and a gradual
retreat of the jaws to a position underneath the cranium; and one step
further brings us to man. In a word, these two lines join--in fact, they
are directly continuous. There is a far smaller difference between the
lowest man and the highest ape than we have been accustomed to suppose.

Thus in general terms, it can justly be said that process of evolution
which developed the first man from its ape-man progenitor seems to have
continued during subsequent ages. Spreading out in diverging lines of
evolutionary descent no less clearly than they have in geographical
respects, certain races have far surpassed their fellows of a lower order,
which, like the brute pygmy, remain nearer the common structural form from
which all men have sprung.

VI

THE MENTAL EVOLUTION OF MAN

The problems dealing with the make-up of the human mind and with the
evidences of mental evolution bring the student to matters of more vivid
human interest. Mental phenomena are so complex and intricate that it is
well-nigh impossible to analyze their history without a knowledge of the
principles derived from the broad study of evolution as a general
doctrine, where human prejudice is not so large a factor and where his
perspective is less affected by the proximity of the observer to his
facts. For these and other reasons the foregoing treatment of human
evolution has been confined to the purely structural characteristics of
man as a species and of human races as so many varieties of this type.
When the broad comparative methods of biological science are employed for
the elucidation of human anatomical facts, the result in this special
case, like that established through the study of the characteristics of
living things in general, is the proof that evolution gives the most
rational and natural explanation of the observed data. This being true,
the naturalist who turns from purely structural matters to human intellect
and its history, finds well-tried methods of inquiry already available,
and he approaches his further studies with a conviction that evolution,
having proved to be universal so far, in all probability will be found
equally true in the case of psychological phenomena. This expectation is
indeed realized, and the scope of the doctrine is extended over a new
field, when the facts of human psychology are treated as materials for
impersonal comparative study; and this result is not only useful and
valuable in and by itself, but it also provides in the principles of
mental evolution the transition to the field of social relations and
ethical ideas and ideals which are apparently the unique possessions of
men as individuals and as associated groups.

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