or
control of human organization by the higher organs of this system.
The unity of nature and of its processes is established more and more
surely as the naturalist classifies the facts of structure, development,
fossil history, and evolutionary method. Our own species is not unique; it
takes its high place among other organic forms whose lives are controlled
in every way by the uniform consistent laws of the world.
* * * * *
The physical evolution of human races is the next major division of the
large subject before us. Heretofore the obvious differences displayed by
various races have been disregarded and the species has been treated as a
unit, in order that its evolution from pre-human ancestors might be made
clear. Knowing now how the facts of structure show that the supreme
position of our kind has been attained mainly as the result of the
progressive elaboration of the higher portions of the brain, and not
because new and unique structures have been developed, we are prepared to
turn our attention to the diverse characteristics of human races; and
during this inquiry anatomical matters will still be the only ones to be
reviewed. The intellectual and social characters of numerous races belong
to the category of physiological or functional phenomena, which are to
receive due consideration at a later time. It is the meaning of the facts
of racial diversity for which we are now to look.
For many reasons this subject is more difficult to describe in a concise
outline than those taken up before. It is true that every one is familiar
with different types of human beings, such as the Negro and Japanese and
Chinese, while furthermore the obvious differences between such races as
the Norwegian and Italian are sufficiently marked to strike the attention
of any one who looks about at his fellow-passengers in a crowded street
car. But few indeed have a comprehensive knowledge of the wider range of
racial variation in which these familiar examples find their place.
Anthropology, or the science of mankind, is a large and well-organized
department of knowledge, dealing with the entire array of structural and
physiological characters of all men. One of its subdivisions,
anthropometry, is almost an independent discipline with methods of its
own; it describes the characteristics of human races as these are
determined by statistical methods of a somewhat technical nature. There is
still another s
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