Note 770 — Chapter XII · —Continents And Their Peninsulas

The effort of the old ethnology, as represented by Blumenbach, to make a five-fold division of the races in agreement with the five continents was a mistake. To distinguish between the continents is one thing and to distinguish between the races is another. Neither bio-geography nor anthropo-geography can adopt the continents as geographical provinces, although floras, faunas and races the world over give evidence of partial or temporary restriction to a certain continent, whence they have overflowed to other lands. A ground-plan for the geographical classification of races is to be found, as Tylor says, in the fact that they are not found scattered indiscriminately over the earth's surface, but that certain races belong to certain regions, in whose peculiar environment they have developed their type, and whence they have spread to other lands, undergoing modifications from race intermixture and successive changes of environment on the way.770