GLANDULAR ORIGIN OF RACES

Evening Star, Issue 20089, 1 February 1929, Page 11

GLANDULAR ORIGIN OF RACES

CIVILISATION AND EVOLUTION SIR A. KEITH'S VIEWS Sir Arthur Keith delivered the Huxley Memorial lecture before the Royal Anthropological Society at Burlington House recently on -The Evolution oi. the Human'Races.’ He reviewed Huxley’s examination of the racial problems ol the British Isles, and used later discoveries to test Huxley’s statement that neither Celt nor Saxon could be regarded as a race in a zoological sense Ho then outlined a conception of race which ho described as more elastic, more evolutionary, than that formulated by Huxley. Sir Arthur Keith said that in the present century light began to dawn on the manner in which new racial types arose. Wo had now convincing evidence that the growth of the body and the differentiation of its racial traits, were controlled, to a greater or less extent, by a material mechanism centred in certain glands—the glands of internal secretion. The glands produced substances—hormones —which had growth-controlling properties. The wonder was that we did not recognise the existence of this mechanism long ago. The eunuch’s body gave us a glimpse into tho depth, power, and complexity of the growth-controlling mechanism which shaped the human frame If wo were to understand tho production of racial types we must first piaster the system of growth control. Our knowledge was only beginning. So far we had been dependent on experiments produced by accident and by disease. Disease had revealed how potent was the action which the small pituitary gland exerted on growth, in the disorder known as acromegaly the pituitary gland was always found to have - undergone an irregular overgrowth. Tts victims had their bodily features so transformed in a year or two that even acquaintances failed to recognise them, In such cases we saw a new physical tjqw being produced under our eyes. In giantism there was clear evidence of a disordered condition _of the pituitary gland, and compression of the pituitary led to dwarfism. But the pituitary was only a part of the bodily machiiwy concerned in racial defferentiation. Tho thyroid gland and tho cortex of the suprarenal gland also exercised an influence on growth.

MONGOLISM. Under jiherrant action of the thyroid gland we found men and women assuming a resemblance to tho Mongoloid type. There was another condition, which occurred in children and was known as Mongolism; its exact cause wo did not yet know, but it had all tho signs of being duo to an unbalanced state of the endocrine or hormone system. The victims of this disorder represented a distinctive physical type, which was recognisable at sight from traits which recalled tho Mongol. A third disorder of growth—known to medical men as achondroplasia, hut which might he called “ hulldogism,” for dogs as well as human beings were subject to it—also reproduced some features of tho Mongolian type. From all these observations we could infer that the typical Mongol was the result of an evolutionary process in which -soiiio factors of the hormone mechanism had assumed a preponderating influence.

They were all agreed that the aboriginal people of Australia had retained more than any other now living tho features of primitive man. Evolutionary change had left the native peoples of Australia but little affected, while it had wrought a transformation in tho three other centres of the world—tho Nordic typo of Europe, the Mongoloid, and tho Negroid. Each main type had a definite area of distribution or homeland. Therefore, some set of circumstances or conditions must have been in operation which induced human beings to cling to that part of the world of_ which they wore native, and to remain in the proximity of people of like origin. For tho evolution of new human types or races we had to postulate a double set of factors —one set physiological in nature, to mould the body ; another set to isolate and preserve the ‘‘cradle” in which tho physiological forces were in operation. TRIBAL AND RACIAL FEELING. It could be presumed that the chief racial types of to-day were evolved under such conditions as thoso that could still he studied among the Australian aborigines. The latter were arranged on a tribal basis, each tribe confined to :i sharply demarcated hunting territory. If a tribe passed its frontier it encroached on tho rights of neighbours, and would have to fight or retreat. Intertribal jealousy or opposition isolated a tribe, but still stronger forces bound it to its native territory. Traces of a former tribal organisation were to bo found in all parts ol the world, and it survived in the tribes of Scotland until a recent date. For unmeasured ages it was universal, The brain of man was evolved under tribal conditions; its faculties, feelings, emotions, and reactions were adapted to serve tho needs of tribal organisation. Incidentally, they served tho cause of evolutionary progress by procuring the effects of isolation or segregation. Physical barriers had also served to isolate races —mountain chains such as the Hi in a layas, extensive tracts of desert such as the Sahara, and wide seas such as tho Atlantic.

Thei'o whs another important isolating factor—that inborn reaction or prejudice known.as race feeling. As Professor Giddings had pointed out, all animals instinctively recognised their kind; they also recognise what was not their kind, and this recognition might be accompanied by a feeling ot intense antipathy. The lecturer regarded race feeling as part of the evolutionary machinery which safeguarded the purity of a race. Human prejudices had usually a biological significance. ft was high time to recognise that any attempt to classify the races of mankind must he founded on an evolutionary basis. Races must be grouped according to their scale of physical differentiation. There were the fully differentiated races (pandriatic). in which every member was recognisable at sight by an expert; they were JOO per cent, races. There were races where we could distinguish about 90 per cent, of its members fmacrodiatic), and so on down the scale till we reached the adiacritic (under 30 per cent.). All were races in a strictly biological sense; all were stages of an evolutionary scale. CRADLE OF CIVILISATION. It was in keeping with all wo knew to regard the Caucasoid East as the cradle of civilisation, and to suppose that from this centre wave after vave spread westwards across Europe, finally breaking on our islands. Tribal territories were broken down, and the ancient tribal organisation employed by Nature in tho evolution of human beings was brought into a state ot dis-

order. Civilisation had everywhere in the Caucasoid area queered Nature’s plan of evolution. Huxley denounced all claims for national separation made on the score of race as mere shams. Since Huxley expressed himself thus, the Great War had swept, over Europe, uncovering primitive traits, and impulses which lay deeply buried in human nature. As a sequel to the war came the demands of small nationalities for separation and independiyice “self-determination ” was the phrase employed to describe tho process; the statesmen who had to consider and satisfy these demanch believed they had to deal with political, not with biological, jV'ohlems. Yet these problems must be considered from a biological ami evolutionary point of view. The small nation movement was due to a recrudescence of the old machinery of racial evolution.

Tlio, diverse racial strains winch had settled iu Britain from time to. time had met each other on a common territory—a circumstance which tended to tlmir final amalgamation. All brought with them the automatic machinery of racial evolution, every group of invaders or settlers had in their bodies a random sample of the physiological machinery concerned in the evolution of racial types; all had in their brains the attributes of mind which made for tribal organisation—a necessary condition for racial evolution. By conscious effort on the part of statesmen, and by the force of circumstances, tribal frontiers had been broken down, and out of tlfe welter had emerged four countries each tho home of a nationality—a potential race. Tho old machinery of evolution had been confused—particularly by industry—but not eradicated. National spirit and patriotism were its modern manifestations. Racial mixtures thwarted Nature’s p!au,_ but she immediately ,-et Out to repair the mischief and to build up a new race by the fusion of the old elements. Nationbuilding was the first slop to racebuilding.

In the later stages of man’s evolution a constant strife bad been going on between reason and inherited instinct. To understand tho nature of the strife was the first step towards its abatement, ' It seemed to him that man’s body and brain were fashioned to serve in the'execution of a great scheme of . progress by evolutionary means; that scheme was being foiled I"- '•’vilisation—man’s greatest discover S’.