This section is from the book "Man: A History Of The Human Body", by Arthur Keith, Sir. Also available from Amazon: Man: A History Of The Human Body.
There are other features of the body we ought to contrast in the European and African—the longer forearm and leg of the latter, the absence of calf and longer heel, the different type of ear, but enough has been said to give some idea of the chief bodily features in which one race of mankind differs from another.
In Eastern Asia we find another distinctive type of modern man. We may take the Chinaman as a representative and place him with the Central European for comparison. They are both short-headed or brachycephalic, but their heads are essentially different in shape. The Mongolian head is really round or ball-shaped. The skin is pigmented— less so than in negro races, but more so than in European. The hair is strong, lank and black. The stature is short—perhaps two inches less than in the European, the shortening being due not to a diminution in length of trunk so much as to a shortening of the legs. In size of brain there is nothing to choose between the two types. The chief difference lies in the face. The cheek bones are prominent, the teeth good, and the jaws strong in the Chinaman, but we note at once that the supraorbital ridges are less developed than in the European. In this the Mongol resembles the negro, but his forehead is wide, not narrow as in the negro. The essential Mongolian feature is the nose—its low sunken bridge over which one eye can almost see its neighbour. With the depression of the nose a peculiar fold of skin—the epicanthic fold— is drawn like a curtain above the inner angle of the eye. The eyes seem set at an oblique angle, a feature which Chinese artists love to emphasize. The Mongolian face, when compared with the European, is remarkably flat and shield-like. The forehead, the prominent cheek bones, the sunken nose and well-developed jaws all take a part in forming this facial plateau.
Thus we find contrasted types of man have been evolved at divergent points or centres of the old world—in Europe, in Africa, in Asia. When we remember that the skulls and limb bones of the inhabitants of Egypt have changed remarkably little during 5,000 years we must conclude that evolution amongst human races does not proceed quickly. One finds the same form of skull among Englishmen of to-day, as occurred in the men who lived in Britain many thousands of years ago. If then, we believe in evolution, it becomes evident that the well marked differences which characterize the races of Europe, Asia, and Africa, must be the result of a very long period of time.
All the factors which have operated to produce characteristic racial features we do not know, but there is one with which every one is familiar. If the reader has had the fortune to be born and bred in the country he will remember perhaps that as a boy he was prepared to defend the claims of his fellow-parishioners against those of neighbouring parishes. In after years when he had left his home and taken up his abode in a strange town or country, he has probably observed that a man of his own county or town has some indefinite claim upon him over another man. He is inclined to trust a member of his own nationality rather than that of another. The feeling or prejudice, which subconsciously influences him, is the backbone of nationality ; it is the moving force which welds together a community. It is that inborn feeling to which the name of race prejudice or race caste has been given. That is the feeling expressed from the politician's or economist's point of view, but it has also a meaning for the biologist. The same mental trait, which we see operating in a village, and which we see binding a scattered people into a nation, is, I think, the innate mental character which binds the animals of one species or of one variety together, and it nourishes and strengthens the community which it binds together, and at the same time sets that community at enmity with every other community which lies outside its borders. In such communities new physical types may be evolved, and we can see how a sense of caste may keep the type pure, and how pride of race may lead to the expansion of territory and the propagation of a racial type.
The sense of caste or race seems to have played a great part in the separation of mankind into the numerous races which are now scattered over the earth. Unless it be present no community or nation could extend its borders without losing its individuality in neighbouring peoples. The Portuguese settlements in Africa and in the far East during the sixteenth century offer us an example in point. So little was their sense of race developed that in a few generations the blood of the original settlers was swamped by the blood of native races. Anglo-Saxons have succeeded as colonists, and not the least element of their success is due to their highly developed sense of race. Cosmopolitanism is a condition in which the prejudices relating to race have been eradicated.
 
Continue to:
human body, brain, human sexuality, muscles, anthropoids, human birth