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Updated: June 17, 2025
The nature and value of specific characters Application to the races of man Arguments in favour of, and opposed to, ranking the so-called races of man as district species Sub-species Monogenists and polygenists Convergence of character Numerous points of resemblance in body and mind between the most distinct races of man The state of man when he first spread over the earth Each race not descended from a single pair The extinction of races The formation of races The effects of crossing Slight influence of the direct action of the conditions of life Slight or no influence of natural selection Sexual selection.
Wallace, in several valuable papers on the various animals, especially on the Lepidoptera, inhabiting the islands of the great Malayan Archipelago, shows that they may be classed under four heads, namely, as variable forms, as local forms, as geographical races or sub-species, and as true representative species. The first or variable forms vary much within the limits of the same island.
The variety-making force has been at work with such energy perhaps we ought to say, has had so much time for its development that almost every isolated rock within gun-shot of the shores has its peculiar living forms, or those very marked races to which Mr. Lowe, in his excellent description of the fauna, has given the name of "sub-species."
If we suppose the amount of change between each horizontal line in our diagram to be excessively small, these three forms may still be only well-marked varieties; or they may have arrived at the doubtful category of sub-species; but we have only to suppose the steps in the process of modification to be more numerous or greater in amount, to convert these three forms into well-defined species: thus the diagram illustrates the steps by which the small differences distinguishing varieties are increased into the larger differences distinguishing species.
But, besides such differences, all naturalists have admitted the existence of varieties, which they think sufficiently distinct to be worthy of record in systematic works. No one can draw any clear distinction between individual differences and slight varieties; or between more plainly marked varieties and sub-species, and species.
Through the means just specified, aided perhaps by others as yet undiscovered, man has been raised to his present state. But since he attained to the rank of manhood, he has diverged into distinct races, or as they may be more fitly called, sub-species.
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