Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IY. NATURE OF VARIATIONS IN ANIMAL AND YMETABLE RACES ; APPLICATION TO MAN. I, The meaning of the question stated above is now intelligible. We have to discover whether the human groups, which we know to be distinguished by characters which are often very marked, are fractions of a single unit, branches of the same tree, or so many units of different value, so many trees of various nature. Historical documents are absolutely incapable of solving this problem. On the other hand, man being the subject of the problem, it is evident that the solution must be sought elsewhere. Where then must we turn in order to obtain a definite answer to this question which concerns us so closely ? Clearly to naturalists and to naturalists alone. The Species and the Race have, for more than two centuries, been the subject of their studies; they have amassed observations, multiplied experiments. They have, in their studies, been guided by a scientific spirit alone, and from being placed beyond the reach of controversy, have preserved all their freedom of judgment. The results thus acquired, deserve the greatest confidence, and supply reliable data for the application of our anthropological method. Anyone really desirous of forming an opinion upon the unity or multiplicity of the human species, should therefore discover what are the facts and phenomena which characterise race and species in plants and animals ; then turn to man and compare the facts and phenomena there presented with those which botanists and zoologists have observed inthe other kingdoms. If the facts and phenomena which distinguish the human groups are those which, in other organised and living beings differentiate species, he will then legitimately infer the multiplicity of human species ; if, however, these p...