urope to
itself, though it would seem to display minor variations in a way that
suggests that the reign of the mongrel has at length begun. And here
we may close our enumeration of the earliest known branches of our
family tree, since the coming of the broad-heads pertains to the
history of the Bronze Age, and hence falls outside the scope of the
present survey.

Now what is the bearing of these somewhat scanty data on the question of
progress? It is not easy to extract from them more than the general
impression that, as time went on, the breed made persistent headway as
regards both the complexity of its organization and the profusion of its
forms. After all, we must not expect too much from this department of
the subject. For one thing, beyond the limits of North-western Europe
the record is almost blank; and yet we can scarcely hope to discover the
central breeding-place of man in what is, geographically, little more
than a blind alley. In the next place, Physical Anthropology, not only
in respect to human palaeontology, but in general, is as barren of
explanations as it is fertile in detailed observations. The systematic
study of heredity as it bears on the history of the human organism has
hardly begun. Hence, it would not befit one who is no expert in relation
to such matters to anticipate the verdict of a science that needs only
public encouragement in order to come into its own. Suffice it to
suggest here that nature as she presides over organic evolution, that
is, the unfolding of the germinal powers, may be conceived as a kindly
but slow-going and cautious liberator. One by one new powers, hitherto
latent, are set free as an appropriate field of exercise is afforded
them by the environment. At first divergency is rarely tolerated. A
given type is extremely uniform. On the other hand, when divergency is
permitted, it counts for a great deal. The wider variations occur
nearest the beginning, each for a long time breeding true to itself.
Later on, such uncompromising plurality gives way to a more diffused
multiplicity begotten of intermixture. Mongrelization has set in. Not
but what there may spring up many true-breeding varieties among the
mongrels; and these, given suitable conditions, will be allowed to
constitute lesser types possessed of fairly uniform characters. Such at
least is in barest outline the picture presented by the known facts
concerning the physical evolution of man, if one observe it from outsi