The so-called historical times, that is the times of the Chinese, Egyptians and Assyrians, which appear to us extremely remote, are from the point of view of evolution very near to us. These ancient peoples, at any rate those who were our direct ancestors, or who were closely related to them, are thus, in the language of evolution, which takes no count of time or of the number of generations, our very near relations. The generations which separate them from us and the few hundred generations between them and those of their direct ancestors, who were at the same time ours, represent a limited period from the point of view of the ethnological history of mankind. On the other hand, if we examine the savage peoples of America, Asia, Africa and Australia, which have been specially studied since the discovery of America and some of which are actually living, and compare them with ourselves and with our ancestors of four thousand years ago, we find that they differ infinitely more from us than we differ from our ancestors, as their ethnographical and historical remains are sufficient to prove. Among the savage peoples we find races such as the pigmies of _Stanley_ (Akkaas), the Weddas of Ceylon, even Australians and negroes, whose whole bodily structure differs profoundly from our European race and its varieties. The profoundness and constancy of these differences clearly show that the relationship of such races to ours must be very remote. We are concerned here with veritable races or sub-species, or at least with very constant and accentuated varieties. It is true that it is difficult to unravel the almost inextricable confusion of human races; but we may be certain that the savage races and varieties remote from ours, and even certain less-remote races such as the Mongols and Malays, are, phylogenetically speaking, infinitely less related to us than the ancient Assyrians. This indicates that the ancestors which were common to us and these races must probably be looked for several thousands of generations back, even when their descendants are still living on other continents at the present day.