Evolution; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy and religion
§ 47. Whether an advance from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous is or
is not displayed in the biological history of the globe, it is clearly
enough displayed in the progress of the latest and most heterogeneous
creature—Man. It is alike true that, during the period in which the
Earth has been peopled, the human organism has grown more heterogeneous
among the civilized divisions of the species; and that the species, as a
whole, has been made more heterogeneous by the multiplication of races
and the differentiation of these races from each other. In proof
of the first of these positions, we may cite the fact that, in the
relative development of the limbs, the civilized man departs more widely
from the general type of the placental mammalia, than do the lower human
races. Though often possessing well-developed body and arms, the Papuan
has extremely small legs: thus reminding us of the quadrumana, in which
there is no great contrast in size between the hind and fore limbs. But
in the European, the greater length and massiveness of the legs has
become very marked—the fore and hind limbs are relatively more
heterogeneous. Again, the greater ratio which the cranial bones bear to
the facial bones, illustrates the same truth. Among the vertebrata in
general, evolution is marked by an increasing heterogeneity in the
vertebral column, and more especially in the segments constituting the
skull: the higher forms being distinguished by the relatively larger
size of the bones which cover the brain, and the relatively smaller size
of those which form the jaws, &c. Now, this characteristic, which is
stronger in Man than in any other creature, is stronger in the European
than in the savage. Moreover, judging from the greater extent and
variety of faculty he exhibits, we may infer that the civilized man has
also a more complex or heterogeneous nervous system than the uncivilized
man; and indeed the fact is in part visible in the increased ratio which
his cerebrum bears to the subjacent ganglia. If further elucidation be
needed, we may find it in every nursery. The infant European has sundry
marked points of resemblance to the lower human races; as in the
flatness of the alæ of the nose, the depression of its bridge, the
divergence and forward opening of the nostrils, the form of the lips,
the absence of a frontal sinus, the width between the eyes, the
smallness of the legs. Now, as the developmental process by which these
traits are turned into those of the adult European, is a continuation of
that change from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous displayed during
the previous evolution of the embryo, which every physiologist will
admit; it follows that the parallel developmental process by which the
like traits of the barbarous races have been turned into those of the
civilized races, has also been a continuation of the change from the
homogeneous to the heterogeneous. The truth of the second
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