Chapter I: Certain Principles of General Biology (2)

The individual body is nothing more than a "temporary expression" of those germinal characteristics which have united to give it consistency; but the complex transmission of characteristics rests wholly with the germinal cells. The problem of heredity is transferred from the individual and from the series of individuals, who are simple and transitory products of combinations, to the sexual cells and their potentialities. And this is unquestionably an absolutely new scientific concept, and a _revolutionary_ one as well, capable of drawing in its wake a lengthy evolution of thought. Since the _germinal potentialities_ determine the single characteristics, they may be considered as the _atoms_ of the biologist. "The field of investigation," says Bateson, "does not appear to differ greatly from that which was opened to the students of chemistry at the beginning of the discovery that chemical combinations are governed by definite laws.... In the same way that the chemist studies the properties of every _chemical substance_, the characteristics of organisms ought to be studied, and their composition determined." (_First Report_, p. 159.)

This brings us to two widely diverse facts that demand consideration: first, the subdivision of antagonistic characteristics in the germinal cells that form, so to speak, the atomic and chaotic substratum of characteristics--characteristics that combine according to the mathematical laws of probability; and, secondly, the _dominance_ of characteristics, or else their fusion, which, independently of anything that may happen in the germinal cells, serves to determine and define the individual.

What sort of characteristics are the dominant ones?

According to the latest researches of Mendelism, the dominant characteristics are those acquired latest in the course of evolution, in other words, the _youngest_, or, if you prefer, the _most highly_ _evolved_. Accordingly, in hybrids, the most perfected characteristics and forms are the ones that triumph in the end.

This is quite a new principle. Hitherto it was held that the _pure_ species or race was the most perfect; and the hybrid or bastard was under a cloud of contempt. And, as a matter of fact, the first crossings of different races may result in some combinations lacking in harmony, and calculated to sanction the old-time conception of the æsthetic inferiority of the bastard.

But it is necessary to leave time for new generations and further crossings, in order that _all of the more highly evolved characteristics_ may unite and end by triumphing in reciprocal harmony. This the followers of Mendel cannot yet give us, because it would require decades or centuries, according to the species, to produce experimentally such æsthetic forms of hybridism.

But in the human race we have an experiment already accomplished, which actually shows us the _æsthetic triumph_ achieved in the region where the races have for the greatest length of time been crossed and recrossed, through the agency of the most ancient civilisation: the Europeans surpass in physical beauty the people of any other continent; and the Neo-Latin races, the most ancient hybrids of all, seem to be nearing the attainment of the greatest æsthetic perfection. In fact, when I was engaged in compiling an anthropological study of the population of Latium, in accordance with Sergi's principles, and was making a most minute examination of all the different characteristics and their prevalence, as a possible basis for a delineation of the fundamental racial types, I found that complete beauty is never granted to any one race, but distributed among different races: "as a result of my labours, I find perfect artistic proportion as to certain facial features, in a race having inferior hands and feet; and, _vice versa_, I find facial irregularities in the race having the smallest extremities, and the most artistically proportioned hands. What we now consider as standards of human beauty, and delight in bringing together artificially in a single figure in a work of art, are found in nature scattered and distributed among different races." (See _Physical Characteristics of Young Women of Latium_, p. 69.)

Upon the combination of all the different points of beauty in a single individual depend Quétélet's biological theories of the medial man (l'homme moyen), lately revived and extensively developed by Viola. The new importance acquired by the reconstruction of the _medial man_ is due precisely to the fact that the new method of reconstructing him is by bringing together all the single characteristics taken separately and worked out mathematically according to the laws of individual variations that behave precisely like those of probability. (See _Biometry and the Theory_ _of the Medial Man_.)

Viola considers, in its relation to the physiological laws of _health_, the combination in a single individual of the maximum number of average characteristics, which at the same time are the characteristics numerically prevalent in individuals (dominant characteristics?). The man who accumulates the greater number of average characteristics, escapes diseases and predisposition to disease; he is consequently sounder and more robust and _handsomer_. De Giovanni, on the contrary, through an ingenious conceit, bestows the name of _morphological combination_ upon the union in a single individual, of parts that are mutually inharmonic and incapable of performing their normal functions together, in consequence of which such an individual's morphological personality is predisposed to special maladies.

Accordingly the meeting and union of germinative potentialities may be either more or less propitious; as for instance the result sometimes produced by the combination of a platyopic (broad) face and an aquiline and extremely leptorrhine (narrow) nose; in other words, combinations that are discordant from the æsthetic standpoint, but harmless as regards health; or again, there may be a lack of harmony between the internal organs, incompatible with a healthy constitution. There may even exist malformations due to the meeting of forms that clash violently; each of which parts may be quite normal, when considered by itself, but cannot adapt itself to the other parts with which it is united.

It is as though the dominant characteristic in respect to an organ had been overpowered by another, which ought on the contrary, in this special case, to have been recessive.

It is precisely on this question of the dominance of characteristics that the researches of the Mendelists are at present being expended. It has been observed in the course of experiments that there exist certain special _correlations between potentialities_, in consequence of which certain characteristics must always go together; as, for example, when two characteristics, having once been united, must continue to recur together, although they each exist separately. These laws, which are not yet clearly determined, may serve to explain the final harmony of the sum total of individual attributes.

But in general the _dominance_ of characteristics is not absolute, but subject to many causes of variation, associated with environment. Thus, for example, just as a change in nutrition of a young plant will result in a different height, it is also possible in the mechanics of reproduction that the original relations of germs may be altered by external causes, and the dominant characteristics be made recessive.[6] Many deviations are attributable to the influences that act upon the germinative cells of hybrids, after the latter have already been determined in their potentiality; thus for example when certain germinal cells are less resistant during maturation; or again when _combinations_ between potentialities are difficult to achieve. That is to say, there may exist certain phenomena associated with environment, thanks to which Mendel's natural laws concerning the dominance of characteristics may become inverted.

Another fact of great significance is this: that, in the course of extensive experimental plantings, for the purpose of verifying the laws of Mendel, a widespread sickliness and mortality occurred among cryptograms, at the expense of the plants of recessive character; which would go to prove that a lower power of resistance accompanies the appearance of recessive characteristics. The dominant characteristics accordingly are not only the most highly evolved, but they also possess a greater power of resistance. So that, to-day, the dominance of the strong tends through the workings of the phenomena of Mendelism, to do away, little by little, in the course of generations, with characteristics that are weak or antiquated. This has an important bearing upon human pathology, because it opens the way to hope for a possible regeneration in families branded with hereditary disease.

The germinal potentialities that contain beauty and strength seem predestined to that predominance which will achieve the triumph of life in the individual. To learn the laws of the union, in one individual and definitive unity, of the infinite dominant and recessive potentialities that must encounter one another in the mysterious labyrinth in which life is prepared--therein lies the greatest problem of the present day.

It is that which should constitute our guiding purpose.

FORM AND TYPES OF STATURE

The Form.--Fundamental Cannons regarding the Form.--Types of
Stature, Macroscelia and Brachyscelia; their physiological
Significance.--Types of Stature in relation to Race, Sex, and
Age.

A few years ago, when anthropology first began to be studied, the skull was taken as the point of departure; because in the analytical study of the human body it represents the principal part. Indeed, the same thing was done by Lombroso, when he applied anthropology to the practice of psychiatry and later to the study of criminals. It is a matter of fact that degenerative stigmata of the gravest significance are to be found associated with the skull; and this he could not fail to take into account, because of its bearings upon criminal anthropology.

But to-day anthropology is reaching out into vaster fields of science and striving to develop in diverse directions, such as those of physiology and pathology; and revolting from the collection of degenerative details, it undertakes to study normal man in regard to his external form as related to his functional capacity, or else the man of abnormal constitution, who in his outward form reveals certain predispositions to illness; and starting on these lines, it proposes to investigate principally the metamorphoses of growth, through the successive periods of life.

From this new point of view, it is not any single malformation, but the individual as a whole in the exercise of his functions, who assumes first importance. The study of the cranium (formerly so important as to be the basis of a special science, craniology), becomes only one detail of the whole. As a matter of fact, the brain, which is what gives the cranium its importance, is not only the immediate organ of intelligence, but it is also the psychomotor organ; and as such exercises control over all the striped muscles, and is morphologically associated with the development and the functional powers of the whole body.

It follows that, the larger the body, the bigger brain it needs to control it, independently of the question of intelligence. Therefore the first point of departure should be eminently synthetic, and should include the morphological personality considered as a whole.

One of the properties of living bodies is that of attaining a determinate development, whose limits, both in regard to the _quantity of its mass_ and the _harmony of its form_, are defined by that biological final cause which is implanted in the race and transmitted by heredity. Consequently every living creature has determinate limits: and these constitute a fundamental _biological_ property.

The causality of such limits has not yet been determined by scientific research; nevertheless it is a phenomenon over which we must pause to meditate. If the philosopher pauses to contemplate the immensity of the ocean from the sea shore, marvelling that the interminable and impetuous movement of the waves should have such exact and definite limits that it cannot overpass by so much as a metre the extreme high-water line upon the beach, we may similarly pause to meditate upon the material limits that life assumes in its infinitely varied manifestations.

From the microbe to the mammal, from the lichen to the palm, all living creatures have inherited these limits, which permit the zoologist and the botanist to assign to each a _measure_ as one of its descriptive attributes.

This is the first attribute which we must take into consideration in the study of anthropology: namely, the _mass_ of the body, and together with the mass, its morphological _entirety_. The Italian vocabulary lacks any one word which quite expresses this idea, [and in this respect English is scarcely more fortunate[7]]. The stature which represents to us the most synthetic measure of the body in its entirety (a measure determined by the vertical linear distance between the level on which the individual's feet are placed, up to the top of his head as he stands erect), does not represent the entire body in the sense above indicated. It may rather be considered as a _linear index_ of this entirety. The French language, on the contrary, possesses the word _taille_, which may be rendered in Italian by the word _taglia_ [and in English by the word _form_[8]], provided that we understand it to signify the conception of the whole _morphological personality_.

No single measurement can express the form; the weight of the body, indeed, may give us a conception of the _mass_ but not of the _shape_; and the latter, if it needs to be determined in all its limits, requires a series of measurements, mutually related, and signifying the reciprocal connection and harmony of the parts with the whole; in other words, a _law_. We may establish the following measurements as adapted to determine the form, in other words, as _fundamental laws_: the _total stature_, the _sitting_ _stature_, the _total spread of the arms_, the _circumference of the thorax_, and the _weight_. Of these measures, the two of chief importance are the stature and the weight, because they express the linear index and the volumetric measure of the entire body. The other measurements, on the contrary, analyse this entirety in a sweeping way: thus, the sitting stature, in its relation to the total stature, indicates the reciprocal proportions between the _bust_ and the _lower limbs_; the perimeter of the chest records the transverse and volumetric development of the bust; and the total spread of the arms denotes a detail that is highly characteristic in the case of man: the development of the upper limbs, which, while they correspond to organs of locomotion in the lower animals, assume in the case of man higher functions, as organs of labour and of _mimic_ speech.

Such measurements constitute a _law_, because they are in constant mutual relationship, when the normal human organism has reached complete development. The stature, in fact, is equal to the total spread of the arms; the circumference of the thorax is equal to one-half the stature, and the sitting stature is slightly greater than the perimeter of the chest. As regards the weight, it cannot be in direct proportion to any linear measure; nevertheless, an empirical correspondence in figures has been noted that may be recorded solely for the purpose of aiding the memory: the normal adult man usually weighs as many kilograms as there are centimetres in his stature, over and above one metre (for instance, a man whose height is 1.60 metres will weigh 60 kilograms, etc.).

To make these laws easier to understand, we may resort to signs and formulæ. Thus, if we denote the stature by _St_, the total spread of the arms by _Ts_, the circumference of the thorax by _Ct_, the essential or sitting stature by _Ss_, and the weight by _W_, we may set down the following formulæ, which will result in practice in more or less obvious approximations:

_St_ = _Ts_; _Ct_ = _St_/2; _Ct_ = _Ss_

And for the weight, the following wholly empirical formula:

_W_ = _Kg_(_St_-1 m.).

_Stature._--Among all the measurements relating to the form, the principal one is the stature. It has certain characteristics that are essentially human. What we understand by stature is the height of a living animal, when standing on its feet. Let us compare the stature of one of the higher mammals, a dog for instance, with that of man. The stature of the dog is determined essentially by the length of its legs, while the spinal column is supported in a horizontal position by the legs themselves. Such is the attitude of all the higher mammals, including the greater number of monkeys, notwithstanding that these latter are steadily tending to raise their spinal column in an oblique direction, in proportion to the lengthening of their forelimbs, which serve them as a support in walking--a form of locomotion half way between that of quadrupeds and of man. Man alone has permanently acquired an erect position, that renders the bust ( = sum of head and trunk) vertical, and leaves the upper limbs definitely free from any duty connected with locomotion, thus attaining the full measure of the human stature, which is the sum of the bust and the lower limbs. Thus, we may assert that one fundamental difference between man and animals consists in this: that in animals the spinal column does not enter into the computation of stature; while in man, on the contrary, it is included in its entirety. Consequently, in man the stature assumes a characteristic and fundamental importance, because part of it (that part relating to the bust) represents, as a linear index, all the organs of vegetative life and of life in its external relations.

If we examine the human skeleton in an erect position (Fig. 9), it shows us the varying importance of the different parts of its structure, according as they are destined to protect, or simply to sustain. At the top is the skull, an enclosed bony cavity; and this arrangement indicates that it is designed to contain and protect an organ of the highest importance. By means of the occipital foramen, this cavity communicates with the vertebral canal, also rigorously closed, that is formed by the successive juxtaposition of the vertebræ. Such protective formation is in accord with the high physiological significance and the delicate structure of the organs of the central nervous system, which represent the supreme control over physiological life and over the psychic activities of life in its external relations. Below the skull, the structure of the skeleton is profoundly altered; in fact, the framework of the thorax is a sort of bony cage open at the bottom; still, the external arrangement of the bones renders them highly protective to the organs they enclose, namely, the lungs and the heart--physiological centres, whose perpetual motion seems to symbolise the rhythm and consequently the continuity of life.

Continuing to descend, we come to a sort of hollow basin, the pelvis, which seems merely to contain, rather than protect, the abdominal organs: the intestines, kidneys, etc. Such a structure seems to be in accord with the minor physiological importance of these organs, whose function (digestion) is periodic and may be temporarily suspended, in defiance of physiological stimuli, without suspension of life. In the lower part of the skeleton, on the contrary, the arrangement between the soft and bony tissues is inverted: the long bones of the limbs constitute the inner part; and they are covered over with thick, striped muscles, organs of mechanical movement for the purpose of locomotion. Here the function of the skeleton is exclusively that of support, and in its mechanism it represents a series of levers.

Accordingly, the structure of the skeleton also shows us how the stature is composed of parts that differ profoundly in their physiological significance; life as a _complete whole_, the _living man_, is contained within the _bust_, which holds the organs of the individual, vegetative life; those of life in relation to its environment, and those of life in relation to the race, namely, the organs of reproduction.

Deprived of arms and legs, man could still live; the limbs are nothing more than appendages at the service of the bust, in all animals; they serve to _transport_ the bust, that is, the part which constitutes the real living animal, which without the limbs would be as motionless as a vegetable, unable to go in pursuit of nourishment or to exercise sexual selection.

The embryos of different animals, of a dog, a bat, a rabbit and of man (as may be seen in Fig. 11) show that the fundamental part of the body is the spinal column, which _limits_ and _includes_ the whole animal in the process of formation.

If we next examine the embryonic development of man, as shown in Fig. 13, we may easily see how the limbs develop, at first as almost insignificant appendages of the trunk, remaining hidden within the curve of the spinal column; and even in an advanced stage of development (15th week), they still remain quite accessory parts in their relation to the whole.

Having established these very obvious principles, we may ask ourselves: of two men of equal stature, which is physiologically the more efficient? Evidently, that one of the two who has the shorter legs.

In other words, it is of fundamental importance to determine the reciprocal relation, in the stature, between the bust and the lower limbs, that is, between the _height of the bust_ and the _total_ _height of the body_.

External surface. Internal section.

(Showing the inner and outer primary layers, and the mouth orifice.)]

Dog. Bat. Rabbit. Man.

(From the work by E. Haeckel: _Anthropogeny_.)]

Four skeletons of anthropoid apes. Man.]

The height of the bust was called by Collignon the _essential_ _stature_, a name that indicates the biological significance of this measurement. It may, however, also be called the sitting stature, from the method of taking the measure, which equals the vertical distance from the level on which the individual is seated to the top of his head. The other is the total stature.

14 days, 3 weeks, 4 weeks, etc. (natural size).]

Accordingly, in anthropology we may define the physiological efficiency of a man by the relation existing between his two statures, the total and the essential. If we reduce the total stature (which for the sake of brevity we will call simply the _stature_) to a scale of 100, we find that the essential stature very slightly exceeds 50, oscillating between 53-54; yet it may fall to 47 and even lower, or it may rise above 56. In such cases we have individuals of profoundly diverse types, whose diversity is essentially connected with the proportional differences between the several parts of their stature.

Hence, we may distinguish the _type of stature_; understanding by this, not a measure, but a _ratio between measures_, expressed by a number; that is, "_the type of stature is the name given to the ratio_ _between the essential stature and the total stature reduced to a scale_ _of 100_." The number resulting from this ratio, since it indicates the ratio itself, is called the _index of stature_ (See "Technical Lessons: on the Manner of Obtaining and Calculating the Indexes"). Manouvrier has distinguished the type with short limbs and preponderant trunk, by the name of _brachyscelous_; and those of the opposite type, that is, with long legs, by the name of _macroscelous_; reserving the term _mesatiscelous_ to designate the intermediate type.

These types differ not only in the reciprocal relation between the two statures, but in all the recognised _laws of the form_. The brachyscelous type has a circumference of chest in excess of half the stature, because the trunk is more greatly developed in all its dimensions; and the total weight of the body exceeds the normal proportion in relation to the stature. The contrary holds true of the macroscelous type; their trunk, being shorter, is also narrower, and the circumference of the chest can never equal one-half the stature, while the total weight of the body is below the normal.

CANONS OF FORM

Passing next to a consideration of the total spread of the arms, since there is an evident correspondence between the upper and lower limbs, it follows that in the brachyscelous type the total spread is less than the stature, while in the macroscelous it surpasses it to a greater or less degree, according to the grade of type; the two types consequently differ in the level reached by the wrist, when the arms are allowed to hang along the sides of the body.

This is a very interesting fact to establish, since at one time it was held that excessive length of arm was an atavistic feature, in other words, an anthropoid reminder. To-day, since the old interpretation of the direct descent from species to species has been abandoned in the light of modern theories of biological evolution, we can no longer speak of _atavistic revivals_. It is true that the anthropoid apes, as may be seen in Fig. 13, have extremely long forelimbs, and that man is characterised by the shortness of his arms, free to perform work and obedient instruments of his brain. But if it happens that certain individual men have excessively long arms, even if they should coincide with an inferior capacity for work and social adaptation, such a simple coincidence must not be interpreted by the laws of cause and effect. The modern theories of evolution tend to admit between the anthropoid apes and man, only a common origin from lower animals not yet fixed in a determined species. So that in phylogenesis men are not considered as the children or grandchildren of apes, but rather their brothers or cousins of a more or less distant degree; and their resemblance must be attributed to a parallel evolution.

Consequently, it is not possible to speak of _direct transmission_ of characters.

Therefore, we must interpret an excessive length of arm, or an excessive shortness, after the same fashion, namely, in its relation to the _type of stature_, or to the established _canons of the form_--in other words, as a detail of individual human types.

Let us sum up the three canons in the following table:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Mesatisceles | Brachysceles | Macrosceles
---------------------------------------------------------------------
St = Ts | St > Ts | St < Ts
| |
Ss = St/2 | Ss > St/2 | Ss < St/2
| |
Ct = St/2 | Ct > St/2 | Ct < St/2
| |
W = K(St-1 m.) | W > K(St-1 m.) | W < K(St-1 m.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

From these measurements are derived certain types of _individuality_ which we may now describe in detail.

The _brachyscelous type_ has an excess of bust, consequently a preponderance of _vegetative life_; the great development of the abdominal organs tends to make a person of this type a _hearty_ _eater_, a man addicted to all the pleasures of the table; his big heart, abundantly irrigating the body, keeps his complexion constantly highly coloured, if not plethoric. We can almost see this man of big paunch, corpulent, with an ample chest, fat, ruddy, coarse, and jolly; an excess of nutriment and of blood-supply are favourable to the ready accumulation of adipose tissue, and as the body constantly grows heavier it steadily becomes more difficult for the undersized legs to support it; so that inevitably this man will tend to become sedentary, and he will select a well-spread table as his favourite spot for lingering. Whatever elements of the _ideal_ the world contains, will escape the attention of this type of man, who is far more ready to understand and engage in _commerce_, which leads by a practical way to the solution of the material problems of life.

In the other _type_, on the contrary, the macroscelous, the organs of vegetative life are insufficient and the central nervous system is defective. Such a man feels, even though unconsciously, that the abdominal organs are incapable of assimilating sufficient nutriment, and that his lungs, unable to take in the needed quantity of oxygen, render his breathing labourious. His small heart is inadequate for circulating the blood through the whole body, which consequently retains an habitual pallor; while the nervous system is in a constant state of excitation. We can almost see this man, so tall and thin that he seems to be walking on stilts, with pallid, hollow cheeks and narrow chest, suffering from lack of appetite and from melancholia; nervous, incapable of steady productive work and prone to dream over empty visions of poetry and art. The man of this type is quite likely to devote his entire life to a platonic love, or to conceive the idea of crowning an ideal love by committing suicide; and so long as he lives he will never succeed in escaping from the anxieties of a life that has been an economic failure.

It is interesting to examine the types of stature from different points of view: such, for example, as the height of stature, the race, the sex, the age, the social conditions, the pathological deviations, etc.

_The Types of Stature According to the Height of the Total Stature._--There exists between the bust and the limbs a primary relation of a _mechanical_ nature, already well known, even before Manouvrier directed the attention of anthropologists to the types of stature. When one individual is very tall and another is very short, the consequence of this fact alone is that the taller of the two has much longer limbs as compared with the shorter. This is because, according to the general laws of mechanics, the bust _grows less_ _than the limbs_ and is _subject to less variation_.

But notwithstanding this general fact, other conditions intervene to determine the comparative relations between the two portions of the stature. Indeed, Manouvrier exhibits, within his own school, specimens of equal stature but of different types; and furthermore, he notes that the inhabitants of Polynesia are of tall stature and have a long bust, while negroes, who are also of tall stature, have a short bust.

_Types of Stature According to Race._--Among the characteristics of racial types, present-day anthropology has included the reciprocal proportions between the two statures. This means that the medium type in the different races is not always contained within the same limits of fluctuation in regard to stature: but some races are brachyscelous, others are macroscelous, and still again others are mesatiscelous. The most brachyscelous race is the Mongolian, prevalent in the population of China; the most macroscelous is the Australian type that once peopled Tasmania. Other races, as for example the negroid, while in a measure macroscelous, approach nearer to the mesatiscelous type, characteristic of the population of Europe. Let us examine the psycho-ethnic characters of these various peoples. The Chinese are the founders of the most ancient of all oriental civilisations, and have established themselves in a vast empire, solid and stable in its proportions, as well as in the level of its civilisation. It would seem as though the Chinese people, having accomplished the enormous effort of raising themselves to a determined civic level, were no longer capable of advancement. Individually, they have a singularly developed spirit of discipline, and are the most enduring and faithful workers; it is well known that in America the Chinese Mongolian does not fear the competition of labourers of any other race, because no others can compete with him in parsimony, in simple living, and in unremitting toil.

The Tasmanians constituted a people that was considered as having the lowest grade of civilisation among all the races on earth. Even English domination failed to adapt them to a more advanced environment, and their race was consequently scattered and destroyed.

Accordingly, we find associated with extreme macroscelia (Tasmanians) an incapacity for civic evolution; and with the corresponding extreme of brachyscelia an insuperable limitation to civic progress. Consequently, the triumph of man upon earth cannot bear a direct relation to the volume of the bust, or in other words, we cannot assume that the man most favourably endowed on the physiological side is the one who has the largest proportion of viscera. As a matter of fact, the conquering race, the race which has set no limit to the territory of its empire nor to the progress of its civilisation, is composed of white men, whose type of stature is mesatiscelous, that is to say, representative of _harmony_ between its parts. This conception will serve us in establishing a fundamental principle in morphological biology: namely, that perfectibility revolves around a centre, which represents a perfect equilibrium between the various parts constituting an organism. Hence, in order to determine the deviations of the individual type, we must always start from those central data, which represent, as the case may be, normality or perfection.

Even among the populations of Europe, and within the Italian people themselves, fluctuations occur in the degree of mesatiscelia, approaching to a greater or less degree the eccentric forms of brachyscelia or macroscelia; and such fluctuations are an attribute of race.

We should draw a distinction between a people and a race. The term race refers exclusively to a biological classification, and corresponds to the _zoological species_. On the other hand, we mean by a people a group of human individuals bound together by political ties. Peoples are always made up of a more or less profound intermixture of races. It is well known that one of the most interesting and difficult problems of ethnology is that of tracing out the original types of races in peoples that represent an intermixture centuries old. Without entering too deeply into this question, which lies outside of our present purpose, it will suffice to point out that in the people of Italy it is possible to trace types of races differing from one another, yet so closely related as to render them apparently so similar that they might almost be regarded as a single race.

Now, in an anthropological study of mine on the young women of Latium, I succeeded in tracing, within the confines of that region, different racial types that show corresponding differences in degrees of mesatiscelia. Thus, for example, in Castelli Romani there exists in an almost pure state a dark-haired race, short of stature, slender, elegantly modelled in figure and in profile, and showing within the limits of mesatiscelia a brachyscelous tendency, in contrast with another race, tall, fair, massive, of coarse build, which within the limits of mesatiscelia shows a macroscelous tendency, and which is found in almost pure groups around the locality of Orte, that is, on the boundaries of Umbria. It is interesting to note the importance of researches in ethnological anthropology conducted in small centres of habitation. If it is still possible to trace out groups even approaching racial purity, they will be found only in localities offering little facility to emigration and to the consequent intermixture of races. The fact that we still find in Castelli Romani types so nearly pure, is due to the isolation of this region, which up to yesterday was still in such primitive and rare communication with the capital as to permit of the survival of brigandage. On the contrary, in localities that have attained a higher civic advancement, and in which the inhabitants are placed in favourable economic and intellectual conditions, the facilities of travel and emigration will very soon effect an alteration in the anthropological characters of the race. Hence it would be impossible, in a cosmopolitan city like Rome, to accomplish any useful studies of the sort that I accomplished in the district of Latium, and which led me to conclude that in the small and slender race of Castelli Romani we may trace the descendants of the ancient conquerors of the world: descendants that belong to one variety of the great Mediterranean race, to whom we owe the historic civilisations of Egypt, Greece and Rome.

It would seem that this race, disembarking on the coast of Latium, must have driven back, among the Apennines, the other race, blond and massive, whose pure-blooded descendants are still found in numerical prevalence at Orte, an ancient mediæval town and a natural fortress from the remotest times, through its fortunate situation on the crown of a rocky height, that easily isolates it from the surrounding country (see the ancient history of the town of Orte).

Accordingly, within the limits of mesatiscelia, it appears that the race which in early times won the victory was the more brachyscelous, _i.e._, the one which had the larger bust, and consequently the larger brain and vital organs. In other words, within the limits of normality, brachyscelia is a physiologically favourable condition.

_Variations of Type of Stature According to Social Conditions._--Independently of race, and from such a radically different point of view as that of the _social condition_, or adaptation to environment, we may still distinguish brachyscelous and macroscelous types. Brachysceles may readily be met with among the labouring classes, habituated from childhood to hard toil in a standing position, thus interfering with a free development of the long bones of the lower limbs; while the macroscelous type will be found among the aristocratic classes, whose members, spending much time sitting or reclining, give the long bones an opportunity to attain their growth (mechanical theories of stature). Without stopping to discuss the suggested causes of such differentiation in types, we may nevertheless point out that the brachyscelous type is eminently useful to society, constituting, one may say, the principal source of economic production, while the macroscelous and unproductive type settles comfortably down upon the other like a parasite. But the progress of the world is not due to the labouring class, but to the men of intellect, among whom the prevailing type is the medium, harmonic type, with mesatiscelous stature.

_Types of Stature in Art._--The existence of these different individual types, which combine a definite relationship of the parts of stature with the complete image of a well-defined individuality, was long ago perceived by the eye, or rather by the delicate intuition of certain eminent artists. These immortalised their several ideals, investing now the one type and now the other with the genius of their art. Thus, for example, Rubens embodies in his Flemish canvases the brachyscelous type, robust and jovial, and usually represents him as a man of mighty appetite revelling in the pleasures of the table.

Botticelli, on the contrary, has idealised the macroscelous type, in frail, diaphanous, almost superhuman forms, that seem, as they approach, to walk, shadow-like, upon the heads of flowers, without bending them beneath their feet and without leaving any trace of their passage. Accordingly, these two great artists have admirably realised, not only the two opposite types of stature, but also the psychic and moral attributes that respectively belong to them. But it was not granted to these artists to achieve the supreme glory of representing perfect human beauty in unsurpassed and classic masterpieces. The art of Greece alone succeeded in embodying in statues which posterity must admire but cannot duplicate, the medial, normal type of the perfect man.

_Variations of Stature According to Sex._--It is not always necessary to interpret the type of stature in the same sense. Even from an exclusively biological standpoint, it may lend itself to profoundly different interpretations.

Thus, for example, the type of stature varies normally according to the sex. Woman is more brachyscelous than man; but the degree of brachyscelia corresponds to a larger development of the lumbar segment of the spinal column, which corresponds to the functions of maternity.

In fact all the various segments of the spinal column show
different proportions in the two sexes.

As we know, the spinal column consists of three parts; the cervical
(corresponding to the neck), the thoracic (corresponding to the
ribs), and the abdominal, including the os sacrum and the coccyx.

Now, Manouvrier, reducing the height of the spinal column to a
scale of 100, expresses the relations of these different parts in
the two sexes as follows:

-------------------------------------------------------
Segments | Men | Women
-------------------------------------------------------
Cervical | 22.1 | 23.9
| |
Thoracic | 58.5 | 55.4
| |
Lumbar | 11.4 | 23.7
| |
Sacro-coccygeal | 7.9 | 6.7
------------------------------------------------------------

In woman the thoracic segment is shorter and the abdominal is
longer than in man; but the total sum in woman is relatively
greater in proportion to the whole stature.

In a case like this we have no right to speak of a morphological or psychosocial superiority of type; nor would a fact of this sort have any weight, for example, in establishing the anthropological superiority of woman. Nevertheless, it may be asserted that, if the day comes when woman, having entered the ranks of social workers, shall prove that she is socially as useful as man, she will still be, in addition, the mother of the species, and for that reason preeminently the greater producer.

Now, it is beyond question that this indisputable superiority is in direct relation with the type of stature. But without insisting unduly on a point like this, we should note the connection between the brachyscelous type and the tendency shown by women to accumulate nutritive substances, adipose tissue; consequently, as compared with man, she is the more corpulent--as are all brachysceles as compared with macrosceles.

_Types of Stature at Different Ages._--Another factor that influences the types of stature is the _age_; or rather, that biological force which we call _growth_.

Growth is not an augmentation of volume, but an alteration in form; it constitutes the _ontogenetic_ evolution, the development of the individual. The child, as it grows, is transformed. If we compare the skeleton of a new-born child with that of an adult, we discover profound differences between the relative proportions of the different parts. The child's head is enormously larger than that of the adult in proportion to its stature; and similarly, the chest measure is notably greater in the child. If we wish to compare the fundamental measurements of the new-born infant with those of the adult, we get the following figures, on a basis of 100 for the total stature:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
| | Adult | Child at birth
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Total stature | Essential stature | 52 | 68
| | |
= 100 | Perimeter of thorax | 50 | 70
| | |
| Height of head | 10 | 20
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Accordingly, the child has to acquire, in the course of its growth, not only the dimensions of the adult, but the harmony of his forms; that is, it must reach not only certain determined limits of dimension, but also a certain type of _beauty_.

Among the fundamental differences between the new-born child and the adult one of the first to be noted is the reciprocal difference of proportion between the two statures. The child is ultra-brachyscelous, that is, he presents a type of exaggerated brachyscelia, calling to mind the form of the human foetus, in which the limbs appear as little appendages of the trunk. In the course of growth, a successive alteration takes place between the reciprocal proportions of the two parts, so that the lower limbs, growing faster than the bust, tend to approach the total length of the latter. Godin has noted that during the years before puberty the lower limbs acquire greater dimensions, as compared with the bust, than are found in the fully developed individual; in other words, at this period a rapid growth takes place in the long bones of the lower limbs, and accordingly at this period of his life the individual passes through a stage of the macroscelous type. Immediately after puberty, there begins, in turn, an increase in the size of the bust, which regains its normal excess over the lower limbs, thus attaining the definite normal type of the adult individual. After the age of 17 years, by which time these metamorphoses have been completed, the individual may increase in stature, but the proportions between the parts will remain unaltered. In Fig. 14 we have a graphic representation of the relative proportions between the height of the bust and the length of limbs at different ages, the total stature being in every case reduced to 100. The upper portion of the lines represents the bust, and the lower portion the limbs, while the transverse line corresponding to the number 50 indicates one-half of the total stature. From such a table, it is easy to see how the bust, enormously in excess of the limbs at birth, gradually loses its preponderance.

It was drawn up from the following figures calculated by me:

TYPES OF STATURE ACCORDING TO AGE IN YEARS

---------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+---
At birth | 1| 2| 3| 4| 5| 6| 7| 8| 9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17
---------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+---
68 |65|63|62|60|59|57|56|55|55|54|53|53|52|52|51|51|52
---------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+---

Godin furnishes the following figures, relating to the type of stature at the period preceding and following puberty:

RATIO OF SITTING STATURE TO TOTAL STATURE REDUCED TO SCALE
OF 100 (GODIN)

-------------------------------------------------------------
Age |13-1/2| 14 |14-1/2| 15 |15-1/2| 16 |16-1/2| 17 |17-1/2
------|------|----|------|----|------|----|------|----|------
Ratio | 52 | 52 | 51 | 51 | 51 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52
-------------------------------------------------------------

Hrdlicka has calculated the index of stature for a thousand white American children and a hundred coloured, of both sexes, and has obtained the following figures, some of which, based upon an adequate number of subjects, (10-13 years) are what were to be expected, while others, owing to the scarcity of subjects (under 6 and above 15 years) are far less satisfactory:

PROPORTION BETWEEN THE SITTING STATURE AND THE TOTAL
STATURE
(AMERICAN CHILDREN)

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Age in| Number of | Males,|Females,| Number of | Males, |Females,
years|subjects of| white | white |subjects of|coloured|coloured
| each age | | | each age | |
------+-----------+-------+--------+-----------+--------+--------
3 | -- | -- | -- | 1 | 60.8 | 59.5
4 | -- | -- | -- | 1 | -- | 58.9
5 | 2 | 57.4 | 57.3 | 3 | 57.3 | 57.9
6 | 15 | 56.6 | 57.4 | 5 | 55.9 | 55.6
7 | 38 | 56.3 | 57.2 | 5 | 54.9 | 55.4
8 | 56 | 55.9 | 56.2 | 13 | 55.1 | 53.3
9 | 62 | 55.2 | 55.9 | 25 | 54.2 | 54.1
10 | 98 | 54.6 | 54.2 | 12 | 54.9 | 53.7
11 | 99 | 54.0 | 55.0 | 12 | 52.8 | 53.8
12 | 93 | 53.5 | 54.1 | 10 | 57.7 | 54.0
13 | 86 | 52.9 | 53.8 | 13 | 52.9 | 51.9
14 | 53 | 52.7 | 54.1 | 7 | 52.3 | 51.8
15 | 20 | 53.1 | 53.7 | 6 | 51.7 | 53.0
16 | 9 | 52.0 | 55.0 | 2 | 53.0 | --
17 | 3 | 52.2 | 54.7 | -- | -- | --
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Which goes to prove (in spite of the inaccuracies due to the numerical scarcity of coloured subjects of any age) that the females are more brachyscelous than the males; and that the blacks are more macroscelous than the whites.

The above table of indices of stature was worked out by Hrdlicka from the following measurements:

SITTING STATURE

---------------------------------------------------
Age in | Males, | Females, | Males, | Females,
years | white | white | coloured | coloured
-------+----------+----------+----------+----------
3 | -- | -- | 476 | 476
4 | -- | -- | -- | 534
5 | 551 | 576 | 597 | 571
6 | 595 | 608 | 616 | 607
7 | 631 | 621 | 630 | 625
8 | 644 | 635 | 659 | 671
9 | 672 | 663 | 679 | 680
10 | 684 | 687 | 697 | 695
11 | 711 | 718 | 718 | 703
12 | 728 | 734 | 797 | 792
13 | 751 | 770 | 737 | 767
14 | 764 | 809 | 787 | 808
15 | 777 | 825 | 753 | 819
16 | 839 | 824 | 795 | --
17 | 864 | 850 | -- | --
---------------------------------------------------

TOTAL STATURE

---------------------------------------------------
Age in | Males, | Females, | Males, | Females,
years | white | white | coloured | coloured
-------+----------+----------+----------+----------
3 | -- | -- | 783 | 839
4 | -- | -- | -- | 906
5 | 961 | 1004 | 1044 | 985
6 | 1051 | 1060 | 1101 | 1091
7 | 1120 | 1086 | 1147 | 1127
8 | 1152 | 1130 | 1196 | 1260
9 | 1212 | 1187 | 1251 | 1257
10 | 1248 | 1267 | 1271 | 1295
11 | 1315 | 1304 | 1360 | 1307
12 | 1362 | 1357 | 1381 | 1467
13 | 1420 | 1431 | 1392 | 1477
14 | 1449 | 1495 | 1505 | 1559
15 | 1462 | 1535 | 1455 | 1545
16 | 1615 | 1498 | 1500 | --
17 | 1654 | -- | -- | --
18 | -- | 1554 | -- | --
---------------------------------------------------

The following chart, prepared by MacDonald, on the growth of the total stature and the sitting stature of male white children, born in America, gives a very clear idea of the rhythm of each of the two statures. The sitting stature increases quite slowly, and its greatest rate of growth is immediately after puberty (from 15 to 17 years) (Fig. 15)

Mac Donald.

FIG. 15.]

Lastly, in order to make this phenomenon still more clear, I have reproduced an illustration given by Stratz, consisting of a series of outlined bodies of children representing the proportions of the body at different stages of growth; and not only the proportions between the bust and the lower limbs, but also between the various component parts of the bust, as for instance the head and trunk. The transverse lines indicate the changes in the principal levels: the head, the mammary glands, and the bust (Fig. 16).

The different types of stature at different ages deserve our most careful consideration, yet not from the point of view already set forth regarding the different types in the fully developed individual. In the present case for instance, we cannot say of a youth of sixteen that, because he is macroscelous he is a weakling as compared with a boy of ten who is brachyscelous; nor that a new-born child represents the maximum physical potentiality, because he is ultra-brachyscelous. Our standards must be completely altered, when we come to consider the various types as stages of transition between two normal forms, representing the evolution from one to the other. At each age we observe not only different proportions between the two fundamental parts of the stature, but physiological characteristics as well, biological signs of predispositions to certain determined maladies, and psychological characteristics differing from one another, and each typical of a particular age. From the purely physical and morphological point of view, for example, a child from its birth up to its second year, the period of maximum brachyscelia and consequent visceral predominance, is essentially a _feeding_ animal. After this begins the development of psychic life, until finally, just before the attainment of full normal proportions, the function of reproduction is established, entailing certain definite characteristics upon the adult man or woman. In accordance with its type of stature, we see that the child from its birth to the end of the first year shows a maximum development of the adipose system together with a preponderance of the digestive organs; while the adolescent, in the period preceding puberty, shows in accordance with his macroscelous type of stature, and reduction in the relative proportion of his visceral organs, a characteristic loss of flesh.

These evolutionary changes in the course of growth having been once established, it remains for us to consider the individual variations. The alterations observed at the various ages, or rather, the notable characteristics of each age, serve as so many fundamental charts of the normal average child; and we may consider each successive type of stature, from the new-born infant to the adult man, in the same light as we do the average type of the mature mesatiscelous type. In the case of the latter, we found that both above and below the medium stature, there were a host of individual types departing more or less widely from it, and tending toward brachyscelia on the one hand and toward macroscelia on the other, thus constituting the oscillations of type in the individual varieties. Similarly, in the case of the medium type of each successive age we may find brachyscelous or macroscelous individuals whose complex personal characteristics may be compared to those already observed in the adult, and may be summed up as follows: that the macroscele is a weakling; and that the brachyscele may be, according to the degree of variation, either a robust individual or an individual that has been arrested in his morphological development, and retained the type of a younger age.