t of view of evolution very near to us. These ancient peoples,
at any rate those who were our direct ancestors, or who were closely
related to them, are thus, in the language of evolution, which takes
no count of time or of the number of generations, our very near
relations. The generations which separate them from us and the few
hundred generations between them and those of their direct ancestors,
who were at the same time ours, represent a limited period from the
point of view of the ethnological history of mankind.

On the other hand, if we examine the savage peoples of America, Asia,
Africa and Australia, which have been specially studied since the
discovery of America and some of which are actually living, and
compare them with ourselves and with our ancestors of four thousand
years ago, we find that they differ infinitely more from us than we
differ from our ancestors, as their ethnographical and historical
remains are sufficient to prove.

Among the savage peoples we find races such as the pigmies of
_Stanley_ (Akkaas), the Weddas of Ceylon, even Australians and
negroes, whose whole bodily structure differs profoundly from our
European race and its varieties. The profoundness and constancy of
these differences clearly show that the relationship of such races to
ours must be very remote. We are concerned here with veritable races
or sub-species, or at least with very constant and accentuated
varieties. It is true that it is difficult to unravel the almost
inextricable confusion of human races; but we may be certain that the
savage races and varieties remote from ours, and even certain
less-remote races such as the Mongols and Malays, are, phylogenetically
speaking, infinitely less related to us than the ancient Assyrians.
This indicates that the ancestors which were common to us and these
races must probably be looked for several thousands of generations
back, even when their descendants are still living on other continents
at the present day.

It is easy to explain that human races so different could develop
separately in continents and under climates with a very different mode
of life and conditions of development, if we reflect that at these
remote periods men only had very limited modes of transport and lived
in a fashion very little different from that of the anthropoid apes,
so that the ethnological forms were preserved separated from each
other by small distances. This fact can still be observed among th