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MONOGENISTS

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 731 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MONOGENISTS , the See also:

term applied to those anthropologists who claim that all mankind is descended from one See also:original stock (µovos single, and l4voc, See also:race), and generally from a single pair; while See also:polygenists *Xis, many) contend that See also:man has had many original ancestors. Of the older school of scientific monogenists J. F. See also:Blumenbach and J. C. See also:Prichard are eminent representatives, as is A. de Quatref ages of the more See also:modern. The See also:great problem of the monogenist theory is to explain by what course of variation races of man so different have sprung from a single stock. In See also:ancient times little difficulty was See also:felt in this, authorities such as See also:Aristotle and See also:Vitruvius seeing in See also:climate and circumstance the natural cause of racial See also:differences, the Ethiopian having been blackened by the tropical See also:sun, &c. Later and closer observations, however, have shown such influences to be, at any See also:rate, far slighter in amount and slower in operation than was supposed. M. de Quatrefages brings forward (Unite de l'espece humaine, See also:Paris, 1861, ch. 13) his strongest arguments for the variability of races under See also:change of climate, &c. (See also:action du milieu), instancing the asserted alteration in complexion, constitution, and See also:character of negroes in See also:America, and Englishmen in America and See also:Australia.

But although the reality of some such modification is not disputed, especially as to stature and constitution, its amount is not enough to countervail the remarkable permanence of type displayed by races ages after they have been transported to climates extremely different from that of their former homes. Moreover, physically different races, such as the See also:

Bushmen and the pure See also:negroid types in See also:Africa, show no signs of approximation under the See also:influence of the same climate; on the other See also:hand, the See also:coast tribes of Tierra del Fuego and See also:forest tribes of tropical See also:Brazil continue to resemble each other, in spite of extreme differences of climate and See also:food. See also:Darwin, than whom no naturalist could be more competent to appraise the variation of a See also:species, is moderate in his estimation of the changes produced on races of man by climate and mode of See also:life within the range of See also:history (Descent of Man, pt. i. chs. 4 and 7). The slightness and slowness of variation in human races having been acknowledged, a great difficulty of the monogenist theory was seen to See also:lie in the shortness of, the See also:chronology with which it was formerly associated. Inasmuch as several well-marked races of mankind, such as the See also:Egyptian, Phoenician and Ethiopian, were much the same three' or four thousand years ago as now, their variation from a single stock in the course of any like See also:period could hardly be accounted for except by a See also:miracle. This difficulty was escaped by the polygenist theory (see Georges Pouchet, See also:Plurality of the Human Race, 1858, 2nd ed., 1864, Introd.). Two modern views have, however, intervened which have tended to restore, though under a new aspect, the See also:doctrine of a single human stock. One has been the recognition of the fact that man has existed during a vast period of See also:time, which has made it easier to assume the continuance of very slow natural variation of races. The other view is that of the See also:evolution or development of species. It does not follow necessarily from a theory of evolution of species that mankind must have descended from a single stock, for the See also:hypothesis of development admits of the See also:argument that several simian species may have culminated in several races of man (See also:Vogt, Lectures on Man, See also:London, 1864, p. 463).

The See also:

general tendency of the development theory, however, is against constituting See also:separate species where the differences are moderate enough to be accounted for as due to variation from a single type. Darwin's summing up of the See also:evidence as to unity of type throughout the races of mankind is as distinctly a monogenist argument as those of Blumenbach, Prichard or Quatrefages: " Although the existing races of man differ in many respects, as in See also:colour, See also:hair, shape of See also:skull, proportions of the See also:body, &c., yet if their whole organization be taken into See also:consideration they are found to resemble each other closely in a multitude of points. Many of these are so unimportant, or of so singular a nature, that it is extremely improbable that they should have been independently acquired by aboriginally distinct species or races. The same remark holds See also:good with equal or greater force with respect to the numerous points of See also:mental similarity between the most distinct races of man. . . Now when naturalists observe a See also:close agreement in numerous small details of habits, tastes and dispositions, between two or more domestic races, or between nearly allied natural forms, they use this fact as an argument that all are descended from a See also:common progenitor who was thus endowed, and, consequently, that all should be classed under the same species. The same argument may be applied with much force to the races of man." (Descent of Man, pt. i. ch. 7.) A See also:suggestion by A. R. See also:Wallace has great importance in the application of the development theory to the origin of the various races of man; it is aimed to meet the See also:main difficulty of the monogenist school, how races which have remained comparatively fixed in type during the See also:long period of history, such as the See also:white man and the See also:negro, should have, in even a far longer .period, passed by variation from a common original. Wallace's view is substantially that the remotely ancient representatives of the human race, being as yet animals too See also:low in mind to have See also:developed those arts of See also:maintenance and social ordinances by which man holds his own against influences from climate and circumstance, were in their then See also:wild See also:state much more plastic than now to See also:external nature; so that " natural selection " and other causes met with but feeble resistance in forming the permanent varieties or races of man, whose complexion and structure still remain fixed in their descendants (Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, p. 319).

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