Inquiries into human faculty and its developmentGalton, Francis
Science
Inquiries into human faculty and its development
Galton, Francis
Ability; Eugenics
The absence of a criterion to distinguish between races and sub-races,
and our ethnological ignorance generally, makes it impossible to
offer more than a very off-hand estimate of the average variety of
races in the different countries of the world. I have, however,
endeavoured to form one, which I give with much hesitation, knowing
how very little it is worth. I registered the usually recognised
races inhabiting each of upwards of twenty countries, and who at the
same time formed at least half per cent of the population. It was, I
am perfectly aware, a very rough proceeding, so rough that for the
United Kingdom I ignored the prehistoric types and accepted only the
three headings of British, Low Dutch, and Norman-French. Again, as
regards India I registered as follows:--Forest tribes (numerous),
Dravidian (three principal divisions), Early Arian, Tartar (numerous,
including Afghans), Arab, and lastly European, on account of their
political importance, notwithstanding the fewness of their numbers.
Proceeding in this off-hand way, and after considering the results,
the broad conclusion to which I arrived was that on the average at
least three different recognised races were to be found in every
moderately-sized district on the earth's surface. The materials were
far too scanty to enable any idea to be formed of the rate of change
in the relative numbers of the constituent races in each country,
and still less to estimate the secular changes of type in those races.
It may be well to take one or two examples of intermixture. Spain
was occupied in the earliest historic times by at least two races,
of whom we know very little; it was afterwards colonised here and
there by Phoenicians in its southern ports, and by Greeks in its
eastern. In the third century B.C. it was invaded by the
Carthaginians, who conquered and held a large part of it, but were
afterwards supplanted by the Romans, who ruled it more or less
completely for 700 years. It was invaded in the fifth century A.D.
by a succession of German tribes, and was finally completely overrun
by the Visigoths, who ruled it for more than 200 years. Then came
the invasion of the Moors, who rapidly conquered the whole of the
Peninsula up to the mountains of Asturias, where the Goths still held
their own, and whence they issued from time to time and ultimately
recovered the country. The present population consists of the
remnants of one or more tribes of ancient Iberians, of the still
more ancient Basques, and of relics of all the invaders who have
just been named. There is, besides, a notable proportion of Gypsies
and not a few Jews.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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