The races of man and their distribution / A.C. Haddon.

  • Alfred Cort Haddon
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The races of man and their distribution / A.C. Haddon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/220 (page 1)
    THE RACES OF MAN THE BASIS OF CLASSIFICATION Various methods are employed in the attempt to group together different human communities, but in the endeavour to classify mankind it is essential to keep the consideration of physical characters, culture, and language quite apart from one another, much confusion having arisen in the past from the non-observance of this elementary rule. The problems of racial affinity are purely zoological, thus in considering race, only external and internal physical char¬ acters, or even to some extent physiological characteristics, can be taken into account. This is the method upon which is based the classification adopted in this book. Unfortunately there is still a lack of uniformity in the employment of certain terms, as for example in the use of the word race. The term race is employed in various senses, but usually to connote a group of people who have certain well-marked characters in common. What these characters are, or how many characters are to be taken into account, is usually a matter of individual opinion. If all fair-skinned peoples are grouped under the term of the White Race, this will include long-headed and broad-headed groups. Or the term race may be applied to one of these groups. Race names, such as Nordic or Alpine, are merely convenient abstractions helping us to appreciate broad facts. A race type exists mainly in our own minds. Assuming that by isolation and consequent inbreeding a group of people can acquire a number of similar traits, when such a group mixes with another group that has acquired different traits a population will result of which a certain number will, in the main, possess most of the characters of one parent group, a certain number will possess most of those of the other group, while the greater number of persons will on the whole seem to be intermediate in appearance, not necessarily because the characters themselves are intermediate but because there may be a mingling of characters from both parental groups. Processes of this type, between closely allied и X