Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/583

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 565

and reproducing the same forms and attributes, and it explains the permanence of types, individual as well as social ; for example, the modern Egyptians or Fellahs, who still resemble those of six thousand years ago ; the permanence of the Jew type, and, from the sociological point of view, the persistence of the monarchical organization in France in spite of the super- ficial republican alterations.

In regard to the influence of environment, if it should seem to us relatively insignificant today, it is probably in part because we are little able to measure the effects, except over a long period, and also because it was most active at certain geological and climatic epochs when man was less able to escape from it. We see, however, the American type reconstituting itself in the United States, and in America generally, without crossing. These ancient and modern variations, in conformity to the envi- ronment, find their support in heredity, and, the same conditions continuing to exist, time serves only to accentuate them.

The frontiers which have been established between the different races and varieties of the human species may therefore be explained in a natural fashion on the same principle as the differences of form and habit which from the beginning have more and more differentiated the human species from its primi- tive ancestors, and from the environments in which the latter were confined.

The race may therefore be defined in general in the following manner : Any variety of the human species presenting charac- teristics sufficiently distinct to be classed as a special type more or less different from the specific type, without however losing the fundamental attributes, and perfecting itself through heredity. It is necessary to make the reservation that this static definition is naturally relative. The race is therefore unstable, because, like the species, its character is alike living and mobile. The race may cease to constitute a race.

The human races ought to be considered as secondary forma- tions derived from a primitive homogeneous type. The formation of varieties and races has been the most appropriate natural and technical process in the adaptation of the species to the several environments. Human unity and universality have