Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/569

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 551

facts continually show us, will be more and more favorable to a general and special adaptation to the ensemble of the planet. The social unity may also be accomplished, not only through the fusion of varieties, but through the co-ordination of their relations. The fact itself that the formation of varieties and races seems rather a result of civilization than its point of depar- ture justifies the supposition that future evolution does not neces- sarily imply the absorption of all of the varieties into a single type any more than it implies the absolute sameness of environ- ments. The unification may be satisfied by being only socio- logical.

In his Life and Correspondence* Darwin, after having acknowl- edged that all of the races of men are nearer neighbors to each other than any ape whatever, and having declared that he is inclined to admit that all of the human races "certainly issued from a single parent," adds :

I admit as probable the hypothesis that the races of men were less diver- gent and less numerous formerly than now, unless, however, some inferior

race, more degraded than the Hottentots, should have become extinct

Agassiz and others believe that the negro and the Caucasian are now distinct species ; this it would be idle to discuss except by way of inquiring whether, when these types were a little less distinct, they merited, according to this particular standard of value, the title of species.

With the help of these observations, we may, with Pritchard and Topinard, distinguish three principal types of the human species, all connected by six or seven varieties presenting mixed and intermediary characteristics :

1. The white type: India, Arabia, Syria, Asia Minor, and Europe.

2. The yellow type : China, Mongolia ; in the south up to the two peninsulas of India, and in the Malays; in the north up to the polar regions.

3. The black type : central and western Africa, and from the eastern side of Africa to Australia.

The intermediary varieties are :

a] The boreal race, between the white and yellow.

J Vol. II, pp. 214 ff. (French translation).