Images of race / edited with an introduction by Michael D. Biddiss.

Date:
1979
Catalogue details

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

Credit: Images of race / edited with an introduction by Michael D. Biddiss. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    200/268 (page 196)
    196 IMAGES OF RACE out how large a number of distinguished men among us have descended from Flemish and French refugees; and M. Alphonse de Candolle, in his Histoire des Sciences et des Savants depuis deux Siècles, shows that the descendants of French refugees in Switz¬ erland have produced an unusually great proportion of scientific men. Though, in part, this result may be ascribed to the original natures of such refugees, who must have had that independence which is a chief factor in originality, yet it is probably in part due to mixture of races. For thinking this, we have evidence which is not open to two interpretations. Prof. Morley draws attention to the fact that, during seven hundred years of our early history, the best genius of England sprang up on the line of country in which Celts and Anglo-Saxons came together. In like manner, Mr. Galton, in his English Men of Science, shows that in recent days these have mostly come from an inland region, running generally from north to south; which we may reasonably presume contains more mixed blood than do the regions east and west of it. Such a result seems probable a priori. Two natures respec¬ tively adapted to slightly unlike sets of social conditions may be expected by their union to produce a nature somewhat more plastic than either—a nature more impressible by the new circumstances of advancing social life, and therefore more likely to originate new ideas and display modified sentiments. The comparative psychol¬ ogy of man may, then, fitly include the mental effects of mixture; and among derivative inquiries we may ask. How far the conquest of race by race has been instrumental in advancing civilization by aiding mixture, as well as in other ways? II.—The second of the three leading divisions named at the outset is less extensive. Still, concerning the relative mental natures of the sexes in each race, questions of much interest and importance may be raised: 1. Degree of Difference between the Sexes.—It is an established fact that, physically considered, the contrast between males and females is not equally great in all types of mankind. The bearded races, for instance, show us a greater unlikeness between the two than do the beardless races. Among South American tribes, men and women have a greater general resemblance in form, etc., than is usual elsewhere. The question, then, suggests itself, Do the