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 THE SO-CALLED NORTH EUROPEAN 
 RACE OF MANKIND. 
 
 A REVIEW OP AND VIEWS ON THE DEVELOPMENT 
 OF SOME ANTHROPOLOQIGAL QUESTIONS. 
 
 (THE HUXLEY LECTURE FOR 1909) 
 
 PEOFESSOR GUSTAF RETZIUS. 
 
 PUBLISHED Br THE 
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 50, GREAT RUSSELL STREET, LONDON, 
 
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 THE SO-CALLED NORTH EUROPEAN RACE OF MANKIND. 
 
 A REVIEW OF, AND VIEWS ON, THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOME 
 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUESTIONS. 
 
 {The Huxley Lecture for 1909.) 
 
 By Peofessor Gustaf Retzius. 
 
 When I received the flattering invitation from the Council of the iUustrious Royal 
 Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland to give the " Huxley 
 Memorial Lecture " this year in London, I rather hesitated to accept this honour, 
 having of late for some years devoted myself chiefly to researches in the world of 
 the microscope. 
 
 But in recalling to my mind the image of that man in memory of whom these 
 lectures are instituted, and in considering what science owes to him, my desire to 
 accept the invitation overcame finally my hesitation. This decision was last hut 
 not least confirmed by the recollection of the numerous proofs of cordiality and 
 friendship which I had received from that grand scientist on the occasions when 
 I had the pleasure of meeting him, and also in other ways. 
 
 Though that matter was thus settled, there still remained the difficult problem 
 of selecting a subject suitable for the purpose. 
 
 The races of Europe, to which I have principally devoted my anthropological 
 studies, had already been comprehensively dealt with by Dr. Deniker in 1904, in 
 his Huxley Lecture on that subject. I thought next of the enticing task of 
 attempting to give a survey of the finds, both of early and recent date, relating 
 to the ancient so-called Neanderthal race in Europe, which in so many respects are 
 apt to confirm the ingenious conception of Huxley himself regarding the relation 
 between that race of ancient times and those of the present day. However, as the 
 documents dealing with the most recent finds are as yet only published in part, 
 it would not have been suitable to take up that topic for a detailed discussion, 
 tempting though it might be to do so. 
 
 It is doubtless an essential feature of these lectures, that the subject 
 should be chosen in that particular field of anthropological science to which the 
 respective lecturer has devoted his special attention. Consequently, I have decided 
 to choose that branch of the blond long-headed race in Europe which, from ancient 
 times, has had its home in my native country of Sweden, and I propose to deal with 
 it in my lecture to-day, seeing that it is upon that that my own researches in 
 
 331873 
 
27^ c, . .c/r' '^ fjBOf^ssoR GusTAF Retzius. — The So-called 
 
 anthropology have mainly been directed. That race, which has for a long time past 
 been spread over northern, and especially north-western Europe, and which has 
 recently, owing to emigration, begun to form an increasingly large element in the 
 white population of North America and other continents, has not been subjected to 
 thorough investigation until recently, and is therefore, comparatively speaking, 
 little known. 
 
 It was principally the study of the shape of the cranium that led anthropo- 
 logists to pay special attention to and define this race and element, now usually 
 termed the North European race, and so it may be of interest to my audience if 
 I recapitulate here the chief facts in the history of our knowledge regarding that 
 part of the human frame. It is the more desirable for me to do so, as it has 
 become the fashion latterly — not so much among the representatives of the 
 science of anthropology themselves as among outsiders — rather to diminish the 
 importance of that portion of anthropology which is termed cranio] ogy. It is 
 evident that these opponents, some of them hypercritical, others quite uncritical 
 in their judgments, have unreasonably looked for startlingly remarkable results 
 from this method of investigation, and have been ready, on discovering that the 
 solution of the great problems has not been immediately forthcoming, to throw 
 the blame for that on the method itself. That, however, is unjust in the extreme. 
 On the same principle it would be possible to condemn various other branches of 
 scientific research, e.g., meteorology, physiology and several of the branches of 
 medical science, for they too have failed as yet to lead us to the goals we have 
 imagined we were to reach by their aid. The fact is, we imperfect human 
 beings have got to realise that the highest goals are also the most difficult of 
 attainment, and moreover, that nothing whatever is absolutely certain. Do we not 
 repeatedly see that faults and deficiencies are discovered in almost everything that 
 has been once for all, as it was thought, accepted as true and perfectly sure ? To 
 take a case in point, it is not many years ago since we were informed and taught, 
 both at school and elsewhere, that the chemical elements were strictly individual 
 and invariable, whereas now that theory has been proved to be untenable by the 
 epoch-making discoveries of Sir William Ramsay. 
 
 But even if the investigator is not successful in arriving at the final solution 
 of the problem which he is engaged upon, the labour that he expends in his efforts 
 serves to extend the knowledge of the subject continually. In this connection I may 
 perhaps be allowed to quote the apt words of the great natural scientist, Carl 
 Ernst von Baer, written half a century ago, in his well-known " Bemerkungen " 
 upon the desiderata for future investigation in the department of craniology, 
 relative to the suggestions for the classification of the various forms of the cranium, 
 which had been made by a prominent Swedish anatomist of that day : " Mir scheint, 
 dass dieser Impuls Epoche in dem Studium der Verschiedenheiten der Volker- 
 stamme und Volker, somit auch in dem Urtheil iiber die Bedingungen derselben 
 machen kann und hoffentlich auch machen wird. Nicht als ob ich glaubte, dass 
 diese Friichte schon morgen in den Schooss fallen werden, oder auch nur in der 
 
North European Race of Manlcind. 279 
 
 Zeit eines Menschenalters gearndtet werden .... Die wissenschaftliche 
 Forschung fiihrt iins freilich nicht ganz zu den letzten Zielen, die wir allmahlich 
 erkeniien oder wenigstens ersehnen lernen, aber die letzten Ziele mit Bestimmtheit 
 in's geistige Auge gefasst, lassen doch eine Menge Verhaltnisse auffinden und 
 erkennen, zu denen wir nicht gelangen wiirden, wenn wir nicht nach den 
 wissenschaftlichen Zielpunkten zu suchen lernten." 
 
 If now a just and impartial summary be made of the results of research in 
 craniology during the past half-century, it will be found that their total amount is 
 by no means unimportant, even though the actual aim that was sought to be 
 attained has not been reached. It must be remembered that anthropology makes 
 use of a variety of methods and the object in view is to advance knowledge as a 
 whole by a wise combination of them all. Science is, as a rule, most satisfactorily 
 advanced by her devotees applying a new method or a new process for a consider- 
 able time after its discovery, and indeed until it no longer proves efficacious or 
 until it has been superseded by a better one. It is bound to happen that from 
 time to time a pause, as it were, in the general advance will occur, and when that is 
 so, it is apt to call forth expressions of disappointment and of unjust criticism both 
 of the method employed and of the scientist who still adheres to its use. Examples 
 to illustrate the truth of this might be adduced, did time permit, from the domain 
 of more than one of the sciences. 
 
 After these introductory remarks I now go on to give a brief survey of the 
 development of craniological research, and propose, in doing so, to lay particular 
 stress on the early stages, partly because they appear to have been rather left out 
 of sight latterly, and partly because they are of especial importance in regard to the 
 subject with which I am here going to deal, viz., the anthropology of the North 
 European race. 
 
 The first scientist who found a place in the natural system for human beings, 
 was, it will be remembered, Linnaeus, the Swedish naturalist. He was also the 
 first to subdivide human beings into distinct zoological categories. Men, he says, 
 form one species, but among them there are to be found several varieties. He 
 differentiated four, one in each of the continents then known, characterising them 
 principally by the colours of their skins : Americanus rufus, Europaeus albus, 
 Asiaticus luridus, Afer niger. He also gave a category which he named 
 Monstrosus, embracing certain varieties of an abnormal type with which he was 
 not acquainted. The people living in Polynesia were wholly unknown to him. As 
 for the white man, Europfeus, the description he gives of him shows that he was 
 only familiar with that section of Europeans living in the northern parts of the 
 Continent. Linnaeus himself had not extended his foreign travels beyond Northern 
 Germany, Holland, Northern France, and England. Tims, when he defines his 
 Europaeus as: "Albus, Sanguineus, Torosus, Pilis Flavescentibus, Prolixis, Oculis. 
 Caeruleis," the characterisation, especially in the last items does not, generally 
 speaking, suit the population of the whole of Europe, but rather only that of its 
 
 a 2 
 
280 Professor Gustaf Retzius. — The So-called 
 
 northern districts, i.e., the -peoples usually classed as belonging to the Teutonic 
 family ; the Scandinavians and the inhabitants of Holland, England, and the northern 
 parts of Germany and France. Linnseus himself, however, undoubtedly included the 
 peoples of Europe in general under his Europaeus, differentiating them as a whole 
 from the varieties of Homo sapiens to be met with in Asia, Africa, and America. 
 The attempt made recently in some quarters to place the Alpinus of Linnauis side 
 by side with his Europseus, as representing the population of the mountainous 
 regions in Central and Southern Europe,' is palpably due to a misinterpretation of 
 Linnaeus' own statements. His "homines Alpini," it must be observed, are 
 classified in the imagined group " Homo Monstrosus," along with " Monorchides, 
 Macrocephali, Plagiocephali," i.e., forms of a more or less abnormal character, his 
 knowledge of which was probably derived from the works of other writers or from 
 hearsay evidence. If any definite race of man was in his mind when he spoke of 
 " Alpini," it was probably the Laplanders ; at any rate that is the view of those 
 who know the work of Linngeus best, for he had had opportunities of studying 
 the Lapps at close quarters, and describes them in another passage as " parvi, 
 agiles, timidi." As he does not actually state, however, that he meant the 
 Laplanders by his Alpini, it is best not to attempt to identify the two, but to 
 leave the Alpini among the group of " monstrous " or abnormal varieties. It has 
 appeared to me desirable to raise a protest at this early stage of my argument 
 against the deductions and conclusions that have been recently made regarding the 
 " Homo Alpinus " of Linnaeus, for they cannot possibly be correct. Moreover, 
 I have personally investigated all the different editions of Linnaeus' Systema 
 Naturm as well as the hitherto unprinted notes taken by his pupils during his 
 lectures, and have come to the definite conclusion that he only assumed that there 
 is one variety of Homo sapiens in Europe, viz., Europaeus, but that he described 
 that variety in accordance with the observations he had made personally in 
 intercourse with those around him in his native country and in other parts of 
 Northern Europe, and that he placed this variety side by side with those of the 
 other continents : Africa's black variety, Asia's yellow variety, and America's red 
 variety. 
 
 It is a known fact that other writers too, such as Leibniz, Buffon, Kant, 
 John Hunter, etc., have treated the subject of the different varieties of the human 
 race in various ways, but for the most part only in vague and general terms. 
 
 Blumenbach, the German anatomist, was the first to enter upon the 
 investigation of the human race in a serious manner from the standpoint of 
 a natural scientist, and to study its different varieties comprehensively and 
 exhaustively. His subdivision, like that of Linnaeus, was in accordance with the 
 continents and with the colour of the skin and hair. He, however, noted for the 
 first time variations in the shape of the skull and the face. Blumenbach added one 
 more to the four principal varieties into which Linnteus divided Homo sapiens, 
 this fifth variety, which was unknown to Linnaeus, being located in the islands of 
 the Pacific. Blumenbach's names for his five varieties were, we may remember : 
 
North EuroppAin Race of Mankind. 281 
 
 the Caucasian, the Mongohan, the Ethiopian, the American, and the Malayan. 
 The Caucasian embraced all the peoples of Europe except the Finns and the Lapps, 
 but also included the peoples of Western Asia as far as the Eiver Ob, the Caspian 
 Sea, and the Ganges, and also the inhabitants of Northern Africa. This variety 
 was characterised as possessed of white skins, red cheeks, hrown or nut-brown hair, 
 rounded skulls, oval faces, slightly arched and rather slender noses, small moidhs, 
 perpendicular front teeth, and as not having hig lips. 
 
 The only peoples in Europe Blumenbach did not classify in this group, viz., 
 the Finns and Lapps, he placed among the Mongolians. 
 
 Blumenbach published his characterisation of the five varieties of the human 
 race in his well-known work, De generis humani varietate nativa (first edition, 1775, 
 third edition, 1795). It is very clear from several remarks he makes, that he was 
 concerned with the shape of the skull as well as with the colour of the hair and 
 the skin. In his anatomical museum at Gottingen he had a fairly large collection 
 — for that time — of human skulls, containing representatives of even very distant 
 regions of the earth. His fundamental work, Decas collectionis suae craniorum 
 diversarum gentium illustrata (1790-1820) deals with this collection. The work 
 consists really of six decades containing sixty plates in all ; a further five are 
 reported to have been published subsequently in 1828, but I have not had the 
 opportunity of seeing them, and another five appeared posthumousl}', long after his 
 decease, though he had prepared them for publication before he died. It is 
 a recognised fact that Blumenbach took into consideration also the shape of the 
 skull itself, especially its length and breadth, its sincipital aspect — what he 
 calls no7'ma verticalis — and that he distinguished between " the square shape," 
 characteristic of the Mongols, and " the pressed-in from the sides " form, as found 
 in negroes, and that he recognised the round, beautiful, intermediary form, 
 represented by the Caucasians. Eegarding the Malayan skull, on the other hand^ 
 he only remarks that the forehead is narrower, and about the American variety he 
 merely states that the form of the forehead and of the skull have been in most 
 cases artificially altered. However, in later editions of his above-mentioned work, 
 De generis humani varietate nativa, he gives figures of three crania, viz., an 
 ^Ethiopian woman, a Femina Georgiana, and a Tungus woman, and strangely 
 enough the sincipital aspect of the Georgian woman is far more square (with 
 markedly developed parietal tubera) than that of the Tungusian, whose sincipital 
 aspect is more nearly oval-elliptical and very much like that of the negress, though 
 larger in dimensions. In any case it is a fact that Blumenbach has displayed in 
 this figure three crania as seen in what he calls tlie norma verticalis. Yet a 
 study of his principal contribution to craniology, his Decas, shows that he 
 considers, as he states definitely at once in his introduction, that tlie os frontale ct 
 maxillaria are the most important part of the entire cranium, forming as it were 
 the foundation of the rest, and that they vary least, whereas the posterior sections 
 of the cranium are of less importance and vary more. That this was his opinion 
 is indisputably corroborated by the numerous figures in that same work of liis. 
 
282 Professor Gustaf Eetzius. — The So-called 
 
 Among all the figures (I-LX) in the first six decades of the work and among those 
 published posthumously (LXVI-LXX) there is not a single one reproduced in the 
 sincipital aspect, i.e., in his own norma verticalis. (As mentioned above, I have 
 been unable to examine the character of the figures LXI-LXV), One only of the 
 crania is represented full fa,ce (norma frontalis), fourteen in a fairly exact profile 
 or side view {norma lateralis), while all the remaining! forty -Jive are given in a 
 more or less exact half profile, i.e., in none of his normce at all ; none, 
 consequently, in norma occipitalis. It is evident from this how little he himself 
 valued his normce, more especially his norma verticalis. From the figure, and also 
 from the descriptions he gives, one can perceive that Blumenbach concentrated his 
 attention, in his craniological researches, primarily upon the physiognomical 
 elements in the appearance of the cranium and especially of the forehead and 
 the other parts of the face, i.e., upon the typical features of the physiognomy. A 
 confirmation of this may be found in the circumstance that, so far as is known, he 
 never, or practically never, carried out measurements of the crania, either in his 
 investigations or when he was describing the differences of shape in the crania he 
 had collected. The most reliable evidence, however, of Blumenbach's not having 
 grasped and appreciated the real value of the norma verticalis of the crania, and 
 especially the importance of the ratio existing between the length and the breadth 
 of the skull, lies in the fact that he included in one or other of his five varieties 
 peoples whose sincipital aspects, and especially also the indices of length and 
 breadth, are exceedingly different one from another. To take an example : he 
 placed in his Mongolian variety Lapps and Eskimos, races of men that are very 
 divergent as far as the shape of the cranium, especially their length and breadth 
 relation, is concerned. In the Caucasian group, too, he collected a number of peoples 
 whose crania show very marked differences one from another. It is very remarkable, 
 moreover, that he selected the name Caucasian as suitable for the peoples of Europe, 
 with the Caucasus and its round-headed population as the central point. 
 
 It has appeared to me desirable to bring forward these historical data by way 
 of introduction to my account of the anthropology of the European, more especially 
 the North European, race. My intention in so doing is not to depreciate in any 
 way Blumenbach's very real merits, but simply to state the true facts as they have 
 presented themselves to me, as a result of the critical examination of his works that 
 I have undertaken. In other places I have already had occasion to point out these 
 considerations regarding the matter in hand, most recently in the introduction to 
 my work entitled Crania Suecica Antiqua (1899 and 1900), but nevertheless the 
 earlier view, which is palpably false, still seems to be held in certain quarters. It 
 is quite clear that Blumenbach has the merit, as above stated, of being the first to 
 make a serious and extensive study of the form of the crania of the different races 
 of mankind, but he appears to have been fettered by his absolute belief in the 
 uniformity of his five varieties, and he neglected to observe that within them there 
 are assembled races, whose crania-forms are so typically different, that these races 
 cannot be brought together in the system. It seems singular to us that, although 
 
North European Race of Mankind. 283 
 
 he was a thorough naturahst, he should have classed together such widely separated 
 races as Lapps and Eskimos, to confine ourselves to that one striking example 
 already adduced. It would seem that his attention had become closely fixed upon 
 the physiognomical characters of the facial features of the crania, as indeed is 
 plainly apparent from a study of the Decades, his principal work on the crania. 
 If, in pursuing his investigations, he had made use of his normce, and especially his 
 norma verticalis, he might have advanced science more than he really did. 
 Blumenbach has the merit of having introduced into the science of anthropology 
 the study of the form of the skulls — he is the real founder of Craniology. But his 
 work shows a lack of clearly defined lines, of fixed points of starting, and of 
 incentives to fresh investigation. Consequently his work in Craniology could not 
 stimulate other scientists to successful researches, and a considerable time passed 
 without real results in this department of science. Neither Sandifort nor Prichard 
 were able, moreover, to furnish any new suggestions to help towards the solution of 
 this particular question, though the latter rendered great services by his large and 
 comprehensive work on Ethnology, and deserves to be looked upon as one of the 
 pioneers in that field of inquiry. 
 
 In the year of Blumenbach's decease, 1840, Anders Eetzius, the Swedish 
 anatomist, laid before the Academy of Sciences in Stockholm the first draft of his 
 theory regarding the shape of the crania, and in 1842 he lectured on " The Form of 
 the Skulls of the Northern peoples of Europe " to an assembly of Scandinavian 
 natural scientists in Stockholm. That lecture was subsequently translated and 
 published in Holland, France, and Germany. It aroused no little attention in the 
 scientific world, for it brought forward new suggestions and new points of view. 
 
 Up to then it had been usual to regard each of the varieties, into which the 
 human race had been subdivided by Linnseus and Blumenbach, as essentially 
 uniform. Anders Eetzius, however, now showed, as a result of his unprejudiced 
 and accurate investigation of the forms of crania upon which Blumenbach 
 principally founded his theory, that not even the Caucasian variety, established as 
 a unit by Blumenbach, was uniform throughout ; that it indeed, on the contrary, 
 included races of men possessed of very different forms of the skull. He not only 
 proved that the Lapps, Finns, and Eskimos, whom Blumenbach brought together 
 and placed in the Mongolian variety, have crania so widely differing from each 
 other, that they cannot possibly belong to one and the same variety, but also that 
 the proper inhabitants of Scandinavia, i.e., the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians, 
 differ materially in the shape of the cranium from the inhabitants of Eussia, and 
 from the other peoples related to them, i.e., the Slavs. 
 
 The skull of the Scandinavian is narrow and more extended backwards, and 
 when looked at from above is more or less oval in outline ; that of the Slavs on the 
 other hand is broader, shorter, and when seen from above is more or less roimd in 
 outline or squarer. The peoples with the longer shape of the cranium Anders 
 Eetzius called Gentes Dolichocephalae, those with the shorter Gentes Brachycephalae. 
 In arriving at his conclusions he made use of 7neasurements of the crania in various 
 
284 Professor Gustaf Retzius. — IVie So-called 
 
 directions. For the ratio between the measurements of maximum length and 
 maximum breadth of cranium he adopted 1,000 : x. In Swedes the ratio of length 
 to breadth was found to be 1,000 : 773, in Slavs 1,000 : 888, etc. Anders Retzius 
 had thus given the initiative to the iwc^eaj-measurement system, which has since 
 played so important a part in anthropology. 
 
 In the following years, until his death in 1860, there appeared a succession of 
 treatises and reports, in which he placed on record the results of his continued 
 investigations, and in them he made it abundantly evident that the relation between 
 the length and the breadth of the cranium forms one of the most important criteria 
 for race distinctions that those engaged in making a comparative study of the races 
 of mankind can employ. He tried to group the peoples both in and beyond Em-ope 
 by the aid of this relation, but it was not by any means his idea thereby to establish 
 any sort of " system of the races of mankind," as is mistakenly supposed by some. 
 In his works Anders Eetzius spoke of the classification as merely an attempt to 
 arrange the forms of Crania. He was able to show that dolichocephaly and 
 ^ brachycephaly are to be found all the world over, except in Africa ; but he was 
 not able, any more than those who have taken up the question subsequently have 
 \/ proved able, to explain the real purport of the phenomenon or how it has arisen. 
 This difficulty of arriving at the explanation of the ultimate cause of a phenomenon 
 is, as we know, characteristic in fact of all the phenomena we meet with in Nature. 
 Research enables us to reveal their existence, to describe and register them, but it 
 is rare indeed that we are enabled to discover their origin and cause. That is the 
 case, too, with the majority of the other race-characters. We are aware that the 
 negro's skin is black, the Indian's red, the Mongolian's yellow, and the European's 
 more or less white. But has anyone ever been able to demonstrate why the 
 colouring is so varied in the skins of these different races ? The same difficulty 
 arises when an explanation is required of the differences in the colour and character 
 of the hair, the colour of the iris, the stature or length of the body, etc. It is 
 therefore essential for us to rest content with having established the fact, that 
 dolichocephaly and brachycephaly are to be found disseminated throughout 
 Europe, Asia, Polynesia, and America, not, however, merely promiscuously without 
 I rule, but existing as a criterion of race for the different peoples inhabiting those 
 regions of the globe. 
 
 Anders Retzius did not lay down any definite figures by way of limit to mark 
 off dolichocephaly from brachycephaly. He had come across intermediary forms 
 between the two varieties, and he seems to have thought it best to adopt a central 
 point as characteristic for each. Thus, he states that the length of the head of 
 the dolichocephali exceeds the breadth by about one-fourth of the length, i.e., the 
 length stands to the breadth in the ratio of 100 : 75, whereas the ratio for the 
 brachycephali is 100 : 80-87, i.e., the length exceeds the breadth by one-fifth to 
 one-eighth. 
 
 From the account given by Anders Eetzius we may see in general that he 
 did not regard dolichocephaly and brachycephaly as merely a matter of jmeasui-e- 
 
 / 
 
North European Race of ManJdnd. 285 
 
 ment and nothing more, but looked upon them rather as a typological character, 
 a ratio indicative of form, possessing a very close relationship to other criteria of 
 form, which he also described in several of his works. 
 
 That he paid attention in his researches, not only to the shape of the skull 
 itself but also to the parts of the face, is evident from two circumstances, first, 
 that in his classification he registers the greater or less degree with which the 
 jaws project, their orthognathic and prognathic properties ; and, second, that he 
 gives the dimensions of the face (height of face, jugular breadth) both in his series 
 of measurements and in his descriptions of the characters of the face. 
 
 It is not my intention, however, here to enter upon a further discussion of 
 this phase in the history of anthropology. I have only desired to bring forward 
 some of its salient points, seeing that they are of fundamental importance for us 
 in seeking to arrive at a clear idea of the history of the race question, even as 
 regards Europe alone. In accordance with the theory of Linnaeus and Blumen- 
 bach it was generally supposed, as has been stated above, that the white, European, 
 variety of the human race — Blumenbach's Caucasian variety — consisted of a 
 uniform group of people more or less homogeneous among themselves. The idea 
 put forth by Anders Eetzius first directed attention to the existence of con- 
 siderable divergences of race even within the white variety, i.e., among the peoples 
 of Europe itself. The Swedish anatomist and anthropologist demonstrated that 
 the skull of a Swede and that of any other representative of the same stem, the 
 so-called Teutonic stem, differ very widely not only from those of the Lapp and 
 the Finn but also from that of the Kussian and, broadly speaking, from that of a 
 Slav. Anders Eetzius laid strong stress, consequently, upon the fact that 
 languages do not afford any certain guide for determining criteria of race. As 
 early as 1847 he expressed himself as follows in one of the publications that 
 issued from his pen : " The whole of mankind belongs to 07ie species ; the varied 
 types are varieties of several different grades, which, in many localities, have 
 become hybridised one with another. In most countries more than one type of 
 nationality is to be found naturalised ; thus in many countries migrations of people 
 have taken place, small sections of the tribes previously dwelling there still 
 remaining distributed — though sparsely — among the more numerous new-comers. 
 In several countries the people who thus remained adopted the language of the 
 tribe that won its way in amongst them ; that is said to have been the case in 
 North Grermany, where the population, originally Slavs, adopted German as their 
 language in course of time, and by degrees, through acquiring familiarity with 
 German ways and customs, became thoroughly amalgamated with the German 
 nation. Similar conditions have produced the same results in many other regions 
 both in the New and the Old Worlds." 
 
 There is also, he said, to be taken into consideration the influence exercised 
 by minor immigrations of people from other countries, and the fact, too, that 
 countries possessing a higher degree of culture often foster a considerable 
 number of individual differences of form. 
 
286 Pkofessor Gustaf Eetzius. — The So-called 
 
 To establish for certain what is the primary form is, he added, under such 
 circumstances, a matter that necessitates the carrying out of a great number of 
 investigations. So far as is possible, hoth living heings and the skulls of the dead 
 should be made the objects of examination. To be able to pronounce a verdict 
 upon the forms, one requires to have an eye trained in prosecuting natural 
 history research. 
 
 These statements published by Anders Eetzius sixty-two years ago embody 
 both the underlying principles and essential programme of cranio-anthropological 
 research as it is to-day, for they are still recognised as valid and authoritative, 
 and the way in which they are expressed could hardly be abbreviated or otherwise 
 improved. What he asserts respecting the displacement of one language by 
 another, and the conclusions that may be drawn from them regarding the races of 
 men, have gradually become recognised as correct by scientists in general, in spite 
 of the opposition of the linguists. It is evident that whole groups of people of 
 differing nationalities have exchanged their own original languages for those of 
 other peoples, and that, too, even in Europe. Thus, not only have bodies of people 
 originally speaking a Slavonic language, adopted a Teutonic, but also vice 
 versd ; moreover, a number of the bodies of people speaking Slavonic have pre- 
 sumably originally had other languages widely differing from both Slavonic and 
 Teutonic, which, as we know, are related one to the other. 
 
 Owing to these circumstances, which at this late day hardly admit of being 
 cleared up satisfactorily, ethnological research has been rendered exceedingly com- 
 plicated and involved. There are certain signs that point to the probability of 
 the peoples whom Anders Eetzius styled Slavs, and among whom he proved the 
 general prevalence of brachycephaly, having belonged to a race wholly different 
 from those that spoke the Slavonic and Teutonic languages, the remnants of that 
 race having been to a very great extent mingled (hybridised) among the peoples 
 now speaking Slavonic and Teutonic. It has long been recognised as one of the 
 greatest of misfortunes, so far as ethnology is concerned, that nationalities took 
 their names from linguistic and political characteristics, and the inconvenience is 
 far from having been removed as yet. Anthropologists several times have 
 pointed out the state of the case, but as long as the original races cannot, with 
 any degree of certainty, be distinguished one from another with respect to their 
 characters, it is out of the question to bestow upon them such designations, termini 
 technici, as would meet with general acceptation in the scientific world. Not until 
 this is realised may we hope to exchange such terms as Slavonic, Germanic, etc., as 
 distinctive names of the various races, for more exact physico-anthropological terms. 
 
 After Anders Eetzius, in 1842, had in this way established the fact, that the 
 form of the skull of Swedes and of the Germanic peoples cognate with them 
 differed in essential particulars from that of the Eussians and the Slavonic peoples 
 cognate with them, he proceeded, step by step, to show that dolichocephaly and 
 brachycephaly were to be found to a greater or less extent in several other 
 European countries. In an essay published in 1847 he writes : " From what has 
 
North European Race of Mankind. 287 
 
 been said it will be clear that it does not suffice to say that a cranium belonged 
 to a Frenchman, an Englishman, a Russian, etc. France is inhabited by Basques, 
 Grermans (Teutons), Normans, several different Celtic tribes, etc. ; the . state of 
 things in England is approximately the same, and the number of the varied tribes 
 of people in Russia is still larger," In another paper, published in the same year, 
 he reports having been in a position, during a stay in France and England, to 
 obtain some data regarding the shape of the crania of the inhabitants of those 
 countries. He found three varying shapes to be prevalent, viz., a round one in 
 the south of France, and in some localities in Scotland and Ireland a long oval 
 shape, which he regarded as being the Celtic variety, and a shorter oval, which 
 is the Norman and cognate with the German (Teutonic). I do not, however, 
 propose to enter upon a detailed description of his results in this department of 
 his research work, but will content myself with citing one or two passages from his 
 writings published towards the close of his life, more especially the following, 
 which occurs in Job. Mltller's Archiv for the year 1858. 
 
 He says " Bereits vor langerer Zeit, hatte ich Grund anzunehmen, dass die 
 hrachycephalische Form in gewissen Theilen der Schweiz vorhoinme, aber in diesem 
 Sommer (1857) wahrend einer Reise durch Bay em, Wilrtemberg, Baden und die 
 Schweiz bin ich iiberzeugt worden, dass diese Schddelform die vorherrsehende in alien 
 diesen Ldndern ist." 
 
 Another communication, which did not appear until after his death, contains 
 this remarkable passage, in the form of a note relative to the same treatise : — 
 
 " Since the above was published, I have been able to examine a considerable 
 number of crania in Tuscany, Lombardy, Piedmont, the Tyrol and Switzerland, and 
 have come to the conclusion that the races of men prevailing in those countries are 
 black-haired brachycephali. That is also the case with the majority of those 
 living in Bavaria, Baden and Wiirtemberg. In France the Basques have the same 
 shape of cranium. In Saxony and Austria this shape is very general and the 
 population in these countries is probably of Slavonic extraction." 
 
 I desired again to repeat these quotations, for they contain the very germ of 
 one of the most important discoveries made in anthropology during the whole of 
 the last century : the revelation of the prevalence of brachycephaly in the popula- 
 tion of Central Europe, i.e., among a people that has recently been usually named 
 the Alpine race, whose territory to the south abuts on the area inhabited by the 
 long-headed Teutons proper, and which adjoins in the west the habitat of the 
 brachycephalic population of France, and in the east that of Austria and Russia. 
 
 Anders Retzius, the Swedish anatomist and anthropologist, must consequently be 
 credited with having, half a century ago, discovered dolichocephaly to be markedly 
 prevalent among the peoples of Northern Europe, i.e., the Teutons, and brachy- 
 cephaly, on the other hand, to be markedly prevalent among the people living in the 
 whole of Southern Germany (Baden, Wiirtemberg, Bavaria), Switzerland, North 
 Italy, the Tyrol, Austria, Greece, and also France (especially towards the south). 
 These facts are found graphically recorded on the chart, showing the extension of 
 
288 Professor Gustaf Eetzius. — The So-called 
 
 dolichocephaly and hrachycephaly, which he published in 1860, shortly before his 
 death, and which I have reprinted on p. 22 of my work, Crania Suecica Anfiqua. 
 When we are reminded that in the same chart he makes it clear how widely 
 dolichocephaly prevails in Spain and the southern portions of Italy, we shall realise 
 that his treatment of the subject really brought out the essential elements of all 
 that we knoiu at p'esent about this problem. That is to say, the exhaustive and very 
 careful investigations that anthropologists have carried out, since Anders Eetzius' 
 death, have confirmed and corroborated the theories which he enunciated half a 
 century ago. One might remark that it was upon the basis of one single character, 
 viz., the index of length and breadth of cranium, that Anders Eetzius formulated 
 this theory of his. This is on the whole true, for, in his writings, he refers almost 
 solely to the shape of the head, the colour of the skin being mentioned only 
 exceptionally. He alludes to the fairness or blondness of the Swedes, and, in the 
 quotation from the year 1858 just cited, he says that the tribes prevailing in 
 Tuscany, Lombardy, Piedmont, the Tyrol and Switzerland are black-haired brachy- 
 cephali, but otherwise he touches upon neither the colour of the hair and the eyes, 
 nor the stature and other measurements of the body. But the craniological 
 character to which he directed his investigations in particular, viz., the relation 
 of length of head to breadth, has proved, in spite of all efforts made to 
 minimise its value, to be one of the most important factors in anthropological 
 research.^ 
 
 This character was moreover the divining-rod with which he discovered and 
 was enabled to prove that Blumenbach's Caucasian variety is not homogeneous, 
 but includes within itself different races or branches of the same race. This 
 was also acknowledged very soon after Anders Eetzius' death by Alexander Ecker, 
 the distinguished anatomist and anthropologist, in his work entitled Crania yernianicc 
 meridionalis occidentalis, published in 1865, where he says in the introduction : 
 " Die Zeit liegt noch nicht fern hinter uns, in der man die Schadelformen der nur 
 zur sog. Kaukasischen Easse gerechneten Volker fiir nahezu gleich, jedenfalls 
 einer naheren Untersuchang in Bezug auf etwaige Unterschiede nicht fiir werth 
 hielt. Es ist unstreitig das Yerdienst von Beizius, auf die Verschiedenheiten der 
 Schadelform der europaischen Volkstamme aufmerksam gemacht und dieselben 
 durch kurze, allerdings vielleicht zu kurze Bezeichnungen ausgedriickt zu haben. 
 Heutzutage ist das Bestehen solcher Verschiedenheiten und die Wichtigkeit des 
 Studimus derselben sowohl fiir die Ethnographic als die Geschichte unangefochten 
 anerkannt."' 
 
 » The ratio of length of head to breadth is, moreover, as Pfitzner asserts, one of the most 
 constant of the characters, the one that alters least during the period of development as the 
 individual grows older. 
 
 * That Anders Eetzius was guilty at times of making mistakes, largely if not entirely by 
 reason of insufficient or misleading material, we are perfectly willing to admit ; thus, he was 
 evidently mistaken in his verdict upon the shape of the cranium of the so-called Celts ; on the 
 other hand, with reference to the shape of the cranium of the Basques, which he put down as 
 brachycephalic, thereby calling forth a severe reprimand from Broca after his death, it has been 
 
North European Mace of Mankind. 289 
 
 I have dwelt at some length upon these points in the earlier history of physical 
 anthropology, and especially of craniology, because they really contain the essence 
 of the whole development of that branch of science, during the past half-century, 
 regarding the question of the races of Europe, and particularly regarding the 
 question I have selected for my lecture, viz., " The Anthropology of the Northern 
 Kace-branch of Europe." The phase in the history of anthropology here depicted 
 appears, moreover, as above hinted, to have been, comparatively speaking, over- 
 looked and neglected in recent times ; one will too often find in recent literature 
 an account of it devoid of real knowledge, yea, even partial and unjust. 
 
 It would now be interesting to pursue this sketch of the history of the 
 development of our knowledge respecting the physical anthropology of the European 
 peoples in the same manner as above, but the time allotted for this lecture does 
 not permit of that being done. 
 
 Moreover, Professor Eipley in his detailed work. The Races of Europe, and 
 Dr. Deniker in his comprehensive papers (on the " Cephalic Index " and the " Stature 
 of the Body ") as well as in his Huxley Memorial Lecture delivered in 1904, have 
 already depicted the progress made during the last 50 years. I shall, therefore, 
 only seek to bring out a few of the most salient points in very brief outline. 
 
 In that period of anthropological research it is possible to discern certain main 
 currents and epochs : — 
 
 First, Carl Ernst von Baer, the great Eussian natural scientist, after having 
 put on record his appreciation of the impetus that Anders Ketzius had given to this 
 particular branch of research, craniology, devoted himself earnestly to its pursuit. 
 Then the German anatomists, Hermann Welcker, Eudolph Virchow, Alexander 
 Ecker, Julius Kollmann, Johannes Eanke and others, followed his example, and, 
 thanks to their energy, more and more attention was paid to the subject. At about 
 the same time the study was taken up with ever-increasing vigour and enthusiasm 
 in France by Broca, de Quatrefages and Hamy, Topinard, Collignon, Bertillon, 
 Manouvrier, Verneau and others, and also in England by Beddoe, Huxley, Thurnam 
 and Davis, Busk, Cleland, Sir William Turner, Sir William Flower and others. 
 
 The formation of ethnological and anthropological societies also infused fresh 
 life and interest into this line of investigation. 
 
 subsequently shown that Retzius was considerably nearer the true solution than Broca himself. 
 One might, furthermore, criticise his methods, inasmuch as he did not base his conclusions upon 
 measurements of extensive series of crania, nor upon the measurement of large numbers of living 
 persons, though he fully saw and appreciated the desirability of proceeding in that way. 
 
 The further criticism might be brought against him that besides parts and features of tlie 
 body, e.g., colour of hair, eyes, and skin, he only makes use for his investigations of the cranium, 
 and leaves out of account the rest of the skeleton. It should, however, be remembered, that, at the 
 time when he took up this branch of study, he was already somewhat advanced in life, and could 
 only devote such time to it as he could spare from his multitudinous occupations as a teacher of 
 anatomy, physiology, etc., and as head of a large medical college, in addition to other calls and 
 duties. This explains somewhat the limitation to which his activity in anthropology was 
 necessarily subjected. 
 
290 Pbofessok Gustaf Eetzius. — The So-called 
 
 Welcker, Virchow, Broca and Huxley endeavoured in the first place to improve 
 the methods of inquiry in such a way as to render craniological investigation more 
 systematic and accurate, by discovering some more rational way of applying the 
 system of measurements and by determining upon what basis the system itself 
 should rest. Virchow and Huxley endeavoured to fix upon a determinate axis* in 
 the basal section of the cranium from which measurements might be consistently 
 made. Welcker busied himself with trying to bring to light the laws of the 
 formation and structure of the cranium by following out the development of the 
 skull from the age of infancy onwards. Virchow sought to elucidate the differences 
 in shape of various crania from a pathological point of view, more especially such 
 as arise from a premature coalescing of the sutures. Broca, who devoted his 
 energy and inventiveness to anthropology with the utmost zeal and enthusiasm, 
 devised new measuring instruments and tried to solve by their means a whole 
 series of those problems that present themselves to an inquirer in this field of 
 knowledge. Both he and "Welcker, though independently of each other, found it 
 necessary to introduce a definite midway group between the Dolichocephali and 
 he Brachycephali ; Broca named his middle group Mesaticephali (Mesocephali), 
 and Welcker called his Orthocephali, the latter embracing the large series of all 
 those with indices between 72 and 80. They also determined the boundary-lines 
 for the indices, marking off the three classes one from another. Broca, however, 
 went still further, for between each pair of these three (1 and 2, 2 and 3), he set 
 a subordinate class, so that his system was as follows : — 
 
 Dolichocephali with cranial index 75 or below. 
 Subdolichocephali „ „ „ 75-01 to 77-77 
 
 Mesaticephali „ „ „ 77-78 to 80. 
 
 Subbrachycephali „ „ „ 80-01 to 83-33. 
 
 Brachycephali „ „ „ 83*34 and above. 
 
 I have mentioned this in order to show that, owing to their subdividing the 
 index-scale in this way, the theory enunciated by Anders Eetzius regarding the 
 signification of dolichocephali and brachycephali was wholly distorted and 
 misapplied. Those names represented in his conception typical shapes of the 
 cranium subject to expansive limits in each direction, so that all such variations in 
 the shape of the head as are constantly to be observed among various peoples 
 (latitude of variation) might find a place in one or other of the type groups. 
 
 Brofa's minute subdivision reduced the terms to mere arithmetical conceptions 
 with their fixed places on the scale. Thus, there would be no less than three of 
 these subdivisions, Dolichocephali, Subdolichocephali and Mesaticephali, in which 
 the long-headed Swedish people would be classed. Supposing terms for such 
 minutely distinguished subdivision are necessary, other names should have been 
 chosen so as to avoid confusion with the terms already in use in a different sense. 
 As above arranged, they have caused no little misunderstanding in people's minds 
 relative to this subject, and have made the whole study of the question complicated 
 
North European Race of Mankind. 291 
 
 and obscure. Some anthropologists accepted Broca's subdivision, others only 
 adopted his middle group (mesocephaly), while a third rejected that too and 
 declared their adherence to the original two, dolichocephaly and brachycephaly, 
 with the index number 80 as the boundary between them. I myself belong to the 
 last-mentioned section. 
 
 Also, Huxley proposed a further subdivision of the forms of the crania by 
 indices. He, however, retained brachycephaly and dolichocephaly as main divisions, 
 with the index 80 as the boundary-mark between them, but subdivided the former 
 into two, the latter into four sections, an arrangement which commends itself to 
 me as greatly superior to Broca's. Huxley's scheme of subdivision is as follows : — 
 
 Index of 80 or upwards = I. Brachycephaly, round skulls. 
 „ „ 85 „ „ = {a) Brachistocephali. 
 Index below 85, of or above 80 = (6) Eurycephali. 
 
 J, „ 80 = Dolichocephali, long skulls. 
 
 „ „ 80, of or above 77 = (a) Subbrachycephali "1 
 
 „ „ 77, „ „ 74 = (6) Orthocephali > oval skulls 
 
 „ 74, „ „ 71 = (c) Mesocephali J 
 
 „ „ 71, „ „ = (d) Mecistocephali, oblong skulls. 
 
 Welcker pointed out the importance of the ratio of the height of the cranium 
 to its breadth, and drew up a classification of all the forms of the cranium to accord 
 with the index that shows the ratio of height to breadth. He made out five 
 groups, viz., Hypsistenocephali, Hypsibrachycephali, Orthocephali, Platystenocephali, 
 Platybrachycephali. 
 
 As regards the features of the face, Welcker established a third group between 
 prognathi and orthognathi, viz., opistognathi, and tried to determine limits for 
 the three groups. Efforts were also made to find out a normal position, a fixed 
 horizontal line for the cranium. 
 
 The length of the face from the root of the nose to the chin and its breadth 
 under the eyebrows had, as we know, been measured by Anders Eetzius and by his 
 followers ; they had also registered the measurements of the lower jaw. Those 
 measurements were now, however, taken up with much greater eagerness and 
 their indices were calculated. It was on those measurements that Julius Kollmann 
 based his five types: — Leptoprosopic Dolichocephali, Chamaeprosopic Dolichocephali, 
 Chamaeprosopic Mesocephali, Chamaeprosopic Brachycephali and Leptoprosopic 
 Brachycephali. 
 
 It would take me too long to report here upon all the questions and problems 
 that were brought forward, discussed and investigated in the domain of anthropo- 
 logical craniology during the last four decades of the last century. What 
 must, however, be mentioned in this place is that the measuring of crania 
 proceeded on a large scale, and often on the basis of very complicated systems ; 
 the crania measured were partly of people living in recent times, partly of those 
 who died long ago. Kemnants of skeletons from the Stone, Bronze and Iron ages, 
 
292 Professor Gustaf Eetzius. — The So-called 
 
 and also from the early part of the Christian era, had been found in ancient graves 
 and were carefully preserved. Davis and Thurnam in England led the way by 
 publishing their great work, Crania Britannica, in which they proved, among other 
 things, that in the prehistoric graves there were to be found brachycephali and 
 dolichocephali, the latter apparently in the more ancient of the graves. Virchow 
 examined and described the crania discovered in the ancient graves in Denmark ; 
 Ecker those found in Southern Germany, etc. Several interesting results were 
 arrived at, and as a whole the statements of Anders Eetzius respecting the 
 distribution of dolichocephali and brachycephali in modern times were confirmed ; 
 but it appears to be clear from them that the distribution of race elements was in 
 many places different in earlier prehistoric times from what it is now ; thus, for 
 instance, the dolichocephali were much more prevalent in Southern Germany 
 formerly than now. 
 
 But in addition to the investigation of crania on a large scale, other physico- 
 anthropological characters were studied. I may here specially mention the inquiries 
 started regarding the colour of hair, skin and eyes. Concerning this important 
 chapter of anthropology, one of the authorities on the subject. Dr. John Beddoe, 
 gave an excellent report in his Huxley Lecture in 1905, and I therefore beg to 
 refer to that lecture of Dr. Beddoe with the special remark that he is one of the 
 foremost pioneers in this particular line of investigation. It is also a pleasing 
 duty to acknowledge that the grand anthropologist, to whose memory these 
 lectures are devoted, Thomas Huxley himself, was very much interested in this 
 anthropological character and often remarked upon its great significance. It was one 
 of the leading principles on which he founded his division of the races of men, and 
 it will certainly always occupy a prominent place in the system. 
 
 There remains, however, one more criterion of race to be mentioned, stature or 
 length of hody. This has, indeed, for a long time past been a point to which 
 anthropologists have been attentive, and in the tabulated measurements of the 
 recruits for the army they have been provided with material ready to hand for 
 purposes of investigation. It was not, however, until towards the close of last 
 century, when several special inquiries on a large scale were carried out in 
 different European countries, that this character came by its rights and received 
 due attention and notice. 
 
 Thanks to the systematic investigations made by fully competent persons 
 regarding the most important anthropological characters of large army contimjents, 
 the distribution and numerical amount of these several characters have at last 
 been made known for some of the nations of Europe, especially by Dr. Otto 
 Ammon in Baden in 1886-1899 and by Dr. Kid. Livi in 1896-1905. A brief 
 report of the results of all these investigations was given in Dr. Deniker's Huxley 
 Memorial Lecture in 1904. 
 
 There are five principal characters that were made the subject of inquiry : — 
 1. The length and breadth of the head, and consequently the length and 
 breadth index ; 
 
Nm-th European Race of Mankind. 2(93 C^ 
 
 2. The form of the face ; 
 
 3. The stature or length of the body ; 
 
 4. The colour of the hair of the head ; 
 
 5. The colour of the iris. 
 
 In conjunction with a number of more or less exhaustive investigations into 
 certain of these characters for the same and other countries in Europe, such a 
 general knowledge of the race-characters of the European nations has been 
 obtained, that it has been considered possible to draw some general conclusions. 
 Professor Kipley, of Harvard University, and Dr. Deniker, of Paris, have been 
 specially occupied with summarising the general results of investigations in this 
 department. The former gives three separate races called by him : " The Teutonic 
 Eace," " The Alpine Eace," and " The Mediterranean Eace." Of these the first two 
 coincide with Anders Eetzius' Dolichocephalic Germanic Eace and Brachycephalic 
 Central-European (Slavonic and Eheetian) Eace. Dr. Deniker, on the other 
 hand, went further in his subdivision of races ; besides the three named he added 
 some others, but has on different occasions arrived at somewhat different results. 
 Tn his last publication, however, in the Huxley Memorial Lecture of 1904, Dr. 
 Deniker fixed the number of European races at six, viz. — 
 
 1. La Bace hlonde dolichoc^phale^ de trds grande taille {La Race 
 
 nordique), 
 
 2. La Race blonde, sous-brachyc^phale, de petite taille {La Race orientate). 
 
 3. La Race brune, dolichoc^phale, de petite taille {La Race ib^ro-insulaire 
 
 ou mAditerranAenne). 
 
 4. La Race brune, trhs brachyc6phale de petite taille {La Race civenole ou 
 
 occidentale). 
 
 5. La Race brune, sous-dolichoc^phale, de grande taille {La Race Littorale 
 
 ou Atlanto-mMiterran4enne). 
 
 6. La Race brune brachyc6phale de grande taille {La Race Adriatique 
 
 ou Dina7'ique). 
 
 Of these six races, two (Nos. 1 and 3) correspond roughly to the races defined 
 by Eipley and other writers as the Northern and the Mediterranean. Their Alpine 
 race on the other hand appears to be subdivided by Dr. Deniker into three (Nos. 2, 
 4 and 6), while No. 5 would seem to be an offshoot from the Mediterranean race 
 of other writers. It is still very difficult to determine whether Dr. Deniker's last 
 classification has yet reached the truth ; a great deal of critical investigation on a 
 comprehensive scale is still requisite, especially in the countries bordering on the 
 Mediterranean Sea and Eussia before a satisfactory answer can be given. But for 
 anyone who has observed, for instance, the remarkably tall brachycephalic 
 Montenegrins, it cannot — I agree with Dr. Deniker — but be repugnant to class that 
 race with the short-statured Alpine race. As for the European population of Eussia, 
 a still more thorough inquiry is necessary before we are able to know their essential 
 
 b 
 
294 Pkofessor Gustaf Eetzius. — The So-called 
 
 race -characters. The first problem there that presses for solution is whether the 
 dark-haired, short-statured, brachycephalic elements really appertain to the same 
 sub- variety as the Alpine race of Central Europe or not. Until a thorough investi- 
 gation has made matters clearer, it seems to me to be wisest only to admit of the 
 existence of such races as have really been proved, and to leave the classification of 
 the remaining to the future. 
 
 The following may, however, be admitted as surely existing : — 
 
 1. The Northern Eurojpean Dolichocephalic, Blue-eyed Tall Race = Anders Eetzius' 
 Dolichocephalic Germanic type, which has latterly been designated by several writers 
 (Wilser a.o.) Homo Europceus (the term Linnaeus used), and which is now often 
 termed the Northern Kace (La race nordique, Nordische Easse). 
 
 2. The Middle European Brachycephalic, Dark-haired, Dark-eyed, Short- 
 statured Race, probably closely related to the similar population in the eastern 
 portions of Europe (Anders Eetzius' Slavonic and Ehaetian people). This race has 
 been designated recently Homo Alpinus (Linnaeus' term) ; there may be some 
 justification for this term in the fact of a large section of the race being resident in 
 the Alpine regions of Southern and Central Europe. But it should not be forgotten 
 that this race during the lapse of centuries has extended its habitat to a consider- 
 able part of France and even to a large portion of Central and Northern Germany, 
 Linnaeus certainly did not mean this race by his term " Homo Alpinus," a fact 
 already stated above. 
 
 3. 2%e South-European Dolichocephalic, Dark-haired, Dark-eyed, Short-statured 
 Race, called Homo Mediterraneus (Sergi, Eipley, Wilser, and others), which may 
 possibly embrace variations of distinct character in the various Mediterranean 
 countries. 
 
 To name only the first of these three races Europceus, as appears often to be 
 the fashion now-a-days, seems to be very strange, since the other two great races, 
 too, have inhabited Europe from times immemorial, and it is by no means possible 
 of proof that they originated in other Continents and migrated into Europe 
 subsequently. I consider, moreover, that it is an entirely incorrect use of the 
 nomenclature, established once for all for zoology, to call these races "Homo 
 Europseus,""Homo Alpinus," " Homo Mediterraneus," as is so often done in modern 
 anthropological literature. This leads to a confusion of our ideas about species. 
 They can, of course, only be regarded as variations of one and the same species. 
 Homo sapiens, and in reality only as sub- variations of a variety, viz., the so-called 
 white race of men. It is unfortunate that the notions, species, variety, and race, 
 have not been more definitely fixed in value as regards the races of mankind. The 
 majority of anthropologists are probably of the same opinion as Linnaeus, that the 
 living races of mankind at the present day are all to be referred to one species. 
 Homo sapiens Lin., and that their variant representatives are to be regarded as 
 varieties of the species, even though very weighty reasons might be alleged for 
 regarding some of these variations as species themselves ; this question has now lost 
 much of its significance since the triumphs of the theory of descent, but it is of 
 
N(y>'th European Race of Mankind. 295 
 
 importance for the system and for the formation of terms. As regards the popula- 
 tion of our own continent and the problems concerning them, it is of no great 
 significance whether the white man, the European, is put down as a particular 
 species or as a variety. But it is of real importance that its subsections should not 
 be put down as separate species. For my own part, I am at present most inclined 
 to agree with Linnaeus and Blumenbach in regarding the great racial groups of the 
 human species as varieties, though it must be admitted that the Australian, the 
 Negro, and the American differ very widely from the European. There are to be 
 found, however, remarkable transitional (intermediary) forms to bridge the gulf 
 between the peoples of Asia and Europe, and there also exist similar transitional 
 forms uniting the people of Asia with those of America and a portion of Polynesia. 
 But if the term variety is to be preserved for the various large race-groups, we 
 require a suitable term for the sub-sections under Varietas. Here to use the word 
 race would not be the right thing, since the terms race and variety have long been 
 employed as synonyms also for the Varietates of the human species. It seems to me, 
 therefore, to be indicated that these sub-sections of the varieties should be designated 
 as sub-varieties or sub-races (race-branches). This would mean for the population of 
 Europe : Varietas Europaea, with three s^ib-varieties, viz., the North European, the 
 Middle European and the South European, deriving their names from the respective 
 main centres of distribution. Besides those there exist, as we know, two other 
 race-branches among the population of Northern Europe, the Lapps and the Finns, 
 who it is customary to assume to have immigrated from Asia, the proof of this still 
 being far from absolute. 
 
 It has, however, been recently proved with more and more certainty that 
 Europe was formerly the home of another population very different from the race- ' 
 branches above named, the so-called Neanderthal race. The finds of crania and 
 skeletons at Neanderthal, Spy, Gibraltar, Krapina, and more recently at Le 
 Moustier, La Chapelle-aux-Saints and Heidelberg, constitute, even though they are 
 relatively few in number, a striking proof of this prehistoric race having been 
 formerly widely spread throughout our Continent, though probably never very 
 numerous. The question has been mooted, whether descendants of this race may — 
 still be found among the European peoples of the present day, since some of the 
 cranial characters belonging to that race are still occasionally to be met; the 
 opinions on this subject have differed very much indeed. During the last decade 
 Professor G. Schwatbe has succeeded in showing, as the result of ingenious, scientifi- 
 cally exact, and methodical investigations of some of the ancient crania that have 
 been found, what the peculiar and primitive race-characters of this primeval 
 people were, and he has come to the conclusion that the race must be extinct. '' 
 Whether the race ought to be regarded as a particular species or as a variety depends 
 upon whether the races of mankind of low standard, that still are existing, are to be 
 looked upon as species or varieties. According to my opinion, the Neanderthal 
 
 b 2 
 
296 Pkofessor Gustaf Eetzius. — The So-called 
 
 race is a special variety of low standard,^ which Huxley himself compared, as 
 regards characters, with the still living aboriginal population of Australia. We do 
 not, unfortunately, know anything about the colour of the skin of the Neanderthal 
 race nor about the hair on their bodies, etc. ; consequently a closer comparison is 
 out of the question. From a scientific point of view a serious protest must be 
 lodged against a number of fantastic and sensational attempts at reconstructing the 
 external appearance of the Neanderthal race, which have been made with clay and 
 colours by a number of irresponsible artists, intending to arouse interest among the 
 uncritical public, and also against the journalistic efforts of certain writers who 
 wholly lack the training necessary for giving an objective and critical account of 
 the matter. It is by no means proved that the Neanderthal race occupied so very 
 low a position on the scale of development from brute to man, either as regards 
 its outward appearance or its psychical character, as certain fantastic depicters 
 of it have tried to make out. Professor Klaatsch, who was the first to examine 
 closely the other bones of the Neanderthal skeleton and to determine their race- 
 characters, and who, in order to pursue Huxley's idea of the similarity between this 
 race and the present day Australians, made anthropological researches in Australia 
 for three years, has pronounced as his opinion that essential points of similarity are 
 to be found in structure of the cranium and of the skeleton between the Australians 
 and the Neanderthal race, but that they are to be regarded as separate branches of 
 the common stem and that they have arrived at approximately the same stage of 
 development. Professor Klaatsch being convinced that, with regard to the 
 Australians, they do not occupy so low a position in psychical endowment as is 
 generally supposed, standing in fact pretty high in several respects, especially in 
 their faculty of observation and in their general standard of life, he therefore 
 considers, that the same might have been the case with the people of the 
 Neanderthal race. 
 
 I am not going, as I already mentioned in the introductory words of this 
 lecture, to enter further upon a discussion of these highly interesting questions, 
 tempting as it might be to do so. I have only touched upon the subject in order to 
 point out that the Neanderthal race of Europe is not to be regarded as " the missing 
 
 ■ However, not content with having registered a special Homo neanderthalensis or 
 primigenius, the nature of which as a separate species is still rather doubtful, some authors 
 have gone further, for almost every find of palaeolithic skeletons has been designated as a 
 special kind of " Homo," such as " Homo Spyensis," " Homo Krapinensis," and, quite 
 recently, "Homo Mousteriensis." That this is not correct and must be protested 
 against, should be patent to every anthropologist and zoologist, the more so, since all the 
 " Homos " mentioned are reckoned by most authors as belonging to one and the same species or 
 variety. Instead of being termed " Homo," they ought to be called " Individuum Spyense," etc., 
 and these "Individua" ought then all to be referred to one and the same "species" (Homo 
 Tieanderthalensis or primigenius)., or to one and the same " variety." The question of species or 
 variety with reference to them cannot well be solved until new finds have been made, showing how 
 great its variations were. The choice of the name " Homo primigenius " for these remains of 
 skeletons seems somewhat premature, as they probably belonged to a lateral branch of 
 the main stem and were preceded by other forms which would rather have merited that 
 name. 
 
" North European Race of Mankind. 297 
 
 link," for it was considerably more closely connected with the existing races than 
 was once supposed to be the case. 
 
 It is even possible that the races that are now in existence, especially the 
 North European, existed contemporaneously with the Neanderthal race, and 
 displayed the features that are still characteristic of them at the present day. At 
 all events the finds of crania belonging to the Cro-Magnon type point to that 
 particular race having been, in a geological sense, developed in its essentials not 
 so very long after the period to which the Neanderthal skeletons belong. 
 
 The investigations concerning the stages of development of the human species 
 that have been made by Professor Schwalbe primarily, but also by others, as a 
 consequence of the prehistoric finds that have been brought to light in Europe, 
 constitute in themselves one of the most important contributions to anthropology 
 that have been made in recent times. I cannot suppress a note of regret that 
 Professor Huxley did not live long enough to witness this advance in the special 
 branch of science here under discussion, for he had foreseen it and was instrumental 
 in preparing the way for it. Science must continue to proceed, however, cautiously 
 upon her pathway, and be constantly on her guard against premature conclusions. 
 That principle was one that the great Huxley himself observed. In his excellent 
 essay entitled " On Some Fossil Eemains of Man," which appeared in January, 
 1863, he remarks at the close : " In conclusion I may say, that the fossil remains of 
 Man hitherto discovered, do not seem to me to take us appreciably nearer to that 
 lower pithecoid form, by the modification of which he has, probably, become what 
 he is." 
 
 He adds too, in a note, a pronouncement of his own in another place, relative 
 to the Neanderthal race as follows : " Inasmuch as a complete series of gradations 
 can be found, among recent human skulls, between it and the best developed forms, 
 there is no ground for separating its possessor specifically, still less generically, 
 from Homo sapiens." It is interesting to compare with this a statement made by 
 Professor Marcellin Boule in his preliminary account of the new find of a 
 skeleton of the Neanderthal race, the one discovered in 1908 at La Chapelle-aux- 
 Saints. 
 
 " Tout cela nous prouve que les origines humaines sont plus lointaines encore 
 qu'on ne le suppose gen^ralement. Des d^couvertes aussi importantes que celle de 
 La Chapelle-aux- Saints nous apportent, certes, quelques lueurs nouvelles ; mais il 
 faut avouer qu'elles reculent le probleme plutot qu'elles ne le r&olvent. Et c'est 
 tout de meme un pr^cieux r^sultat." 
 
 As yet no genuinely transitional forms between the crania of the Neanderthal 
 race and those of the race branches in Europe at the present day have been 
 discovered in the prehistoric finds ; the finds, however, of those prehistoric human 
 skeletons have been so few in number, that there does not exist anything like 
 enough material for definite conclusions to be drawn concerning them. The trend 
 of opinion, however, as has already been stated, favours the assumption that the 
 real Neanderthal race became extinct long ago, and that it yielded place to its rival. 
 
298 Pkofessor Gustaf 'Retzivs.— The So-called 
 
 the " Cro-Magnon race " and its descendants, and to the other racial elements to be 
 found in Europe now. The relics of the Cro-Magnon race hitherto found, point to 
 our present North European dolichocephalic race branch having descended in 
 direct line from that "race." It is consequently a matter for regret that a 
 greater number of well-preserved crania have not been found to enable us to 
 form a more complete and comprehensive acquaintance with the racial characters 
 of this prehistoric people. 
 
 From the periods immediately succeeding that one, the Neolithic, the Bronze, 
 and especially the Iron age, there have been collected from the graves in France, 
 England, Germany, Kussia, Denmark and Sweden a large number of crania and 
 portions of skeletons. I have already published a survey of the investigations made 
 on the crania found among those collections in the second chapter of my Crania 
 Suecica Antiqua (1900, in German), to which I may beg to refer. 
 
 Here it must sufiice to mention that both dolichocephalic and brachy cephalic 
 crania have been found in most of the countries named, in the graves of the 
 Neolithic period, and that they vary in proportion one to another, though in general 
 dolichocephaly is more preponderating. Thus Salmon discovered that, out of 688 
 crania belonging to the Neolithic period, found in France, no fewer than 397 were 
 dolichocephalic, 145 being mesocephahc (the limiting index-numbers being 77 and 
 80) and only 146 brachycephalic. E. Pittard asserts that in Switzerland two races 
 can be traced, succeeding each other in the Neolithic period : first, a race of short- 
 statured brachycephali, who appear to have come to Western Europe from the 
 north-east and south-east, and seem partly to have superseded the dolichocephali 
 formerly to be found there, and partly to have intermingled with them, thereby 
 producing mixed races ; towards the close of the Neolithic period a fresh immigra- 
 tion appears to have taken place by a dolichocephalic and leptoprosopic race, while 
 at the close of the Bronze age a fresh brachycephalic race appeared on the scene, 
 which had become superior in numbers to the others by the commencement of the 
 Iron age. The researches of His and Eiitimeyer, in 1864, went to confirm the 
 discovery made first by Anders Eetzius and subsequently by von Baer, that at the 
 present day by far the largest proportion (roughly three-fourths) of the population 
 of Switzerland is brachycephalic. 
 
 It has already been remarked, that dolichocephali were found in preponderating 
 numbers in the graves of earlier times in Germany, especially in the so-called 
 " Eeihengraber " ; that was particularly the case in districts (e.g., Bavaria, 
 Wiirtemberg, and Baden) where the population of to-day is chiefly brachycephalic. 
 This would appear to denote that the original Teutonic (Germanic) population of 
 these parts of Germany has been displaced by the brachycephalic race-elements 
 now resident there. Attempts, it is true, were made in certain quarters to explain 
 this alteration in the character of the population by the assumption that the shape 
 of the cranium had actually changed in the same race of people from a dolichoce- 
 phalic type of a low grade of civilisation to a brachycephalic type of a higher grade, 
 but that theory appears now to have been altogether relinquished. 
 
North European Race of Mankind. 299 
 
 As regards Russia, Anatole Bogdanoff" has proved that the whole of Central 
 and Southern Asia was formerly inhabited by a highly dolichocephalic race, which 
 was more homogeneous than those in the European countries, and increasingly 
 so the further back in time it is traced. It was not until a period not very 
 remote from our own, he says, that brachycephaly began to become noticeable and 
 to increase in amount to such an extent, that in our days it has largely superseded 
 the dolichocephalic element. The data from the other countries in Eastern Europe 
 tell the same tale. 
 
 From these finds, therefore, and the considerations to which they give rise, it 
 seems as though we were entitled to conclude that for a long time past a shifting of 
 racial elements has been proceeding on the continent of Europe, the brachycephali 
 having driven out more and more the dolichocephali who were there before them. The 
 latter can scarcely have consisted of any other people than the Teutonic (Germanic), 
 whom it is best to term now the North European race branch. It is also to be 
 taken for granted that the brachycephalic population, which by degrees usurped 
 domiciliary rights in the country, belonged to that dark-haired brachycephalic race 
 branch, the Middle European, which in our times is by far the preponderating one 
 in those countries. Where that brachycephalic people may have emanated from is, 
 as above said, up to the present wholly wrapped in mystery. It has been customary 
 to trace it to Asia and to designate it as Mongoloid, but there are no real proofs of 
 that supposition being correct. It is presumably more likely that its home was 
 some tolerably limited region in Central or South-Eastern Europe, but that by 
 rapid increase in numbers and owing to hardy qualities called forth in it, in 
 accordance with the laws of the Darwinian theory, by the struggle for existence, it 
 gradually spread, without leaving to carry on any real strife, further and further 
 afield over the adjacent tracts of country, supplanting thereby the dolichocephalic 
 (Teutonic) population already indigenous there. Lapouge, the French anthro- 
 pologist, has characterised, as it appears to me in a trenchant manner, the 
 differing psychical qualities of the two contending races in question. I regret that 
 the shortness of the time at my disposal precludes my quoting the whole of what 
 he says ; the gist of it is, however, that the dolichocephalic individual of the North 
 European race has considerable wants and always seeks to satisfy them, that he 
 understands better how to gain riches than to keep them, that it is " easy come 
 and easy go " with him. An adventurer by temperament, he hazards everything. 
 He wages warfare for the sake of it, but not without some thought of his own 
 betterment. His intelligence oscillates between narrowness and brilliance. The 
 whole earth is his fatherland. The brachycephalic individual of the Central 
 European race is, on the other hand, temperate, laborious, and economical. He is 
 not short of courage, but he lacks warlike propensities. He is fond of farming and 
 of the piece of land he has inherited. Though not wanting in cleverness he is 
 seldom possessed of real talent. His aims are not lofty, but he works patiently to 
 attain them. Distrustful by nature, even of progress, he is at bottom conservative ; 
 in religion he leans towards Catholicism, in politics he has only one aspiration : to 
 
300 Professor Gustaf Eetzius. — The So-called 
 
 secure State support. He is alive to the interests of himself and his family, and 
 he seeks to promote them. 
 
 That characterisation is doubtless in all essentials perfectly correct. The 
 merits and demerits of the two race branches are easily recognisable. As regards 
 the North European race branch, the description fits the Scandinavian peoples 
 excellently, both for prehistoric and present times. That is proved by the warlike 
 venturesomeness and the piratical expeditions of the Normans and the Vikings of 
 an earlier day, and also by the armed mercantile journeys of the Swedes and the 
 Varangians to Eussia and Byzantium in the ninth century, when they subjugated 
 nations, founded kingdoms, and became soldiers of fortune for the sake of fighting, 
 plundering, and carrying on trade in slaves.^ 
 
 There are still to be seen a good many traces of that national tempera- 
 ment in the Scandinavian peoples. For my own part, I have for a long time 
 become more and more afraid that that racial element will not be found to be 
 suited for the conditions brought about by the direction in which civilisation is 
 developing. The North European race branch cannot properly adapt itself to the 
 demands made upon it by industrialism. It desires a freer, less constrained life, 
 it lacks the endurance necessary for carrying on a uniform kind of labour, it has 
 not the patience to stand chained to machinery day after day, year in year out, 
 and to work like a machine itself. It requires high wages for a moderate 
 amount of work and short hours, that it may have time to indulge in pleasure and 
 enjoyment. 
 
 The brachycephalic individual of Middle Europe, on the other hand, seems to 
 be far better suited for the demands of industrial life ; he is satisfied with a little, 
 is possessed of patience and endurance even when things are dull and dreary, and 
 his work tiring and little remunerative ; he is not so much addicted to expensive 
 forms of recreation, but lays by money for his family and for old age. We have not 
 as yet any statistics based upon anthropological research into the racial characters 
 of industrial operatives, but, to judge by the information I have received privately, 
 I should be inclined to conclude that wherever the two races are both available, it 
 is the dark-haired, small statured brachycephali who are preponderatingly employed 
 in industrial occupations. That is so especially in America. From Sweden, my 
 own native country, emigrants continue to set sail in large numbers to certain 
 of the North American States and to Canada; they less often take up work, 
 however, in the service of industrialism. That is said to be the case too with 
 emigrants from England, Denmark, and Norway. 
 
 There are two reasons for my stating these facts. First, in order to point out 
 that there may lie in the circumstances to which I have called attention, a very 
 real danger of the North European dolichocephalic race branch not being able to 
 hold its own. Just as it has been ousted during the past thousand years from 
 
 » Of. inter alia Professor R. Weinberg's interesting disquisition on this point, in Polit. 
 Anthropol. Revue, III Jahrg., " Rassen und Herkunf t des russischen Volkes." 
 
North European Race of Mankind,. 301 
 
 Germany and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe by the dark-haired 
 small-statured brachycephali, it will probably have to yield place here too, and 
 be reduced in numbers, perhaps by degrees disappear entirely out of the 
 fatherland of its ancestors and itself, by reason of the ever-increasing might and 
 power of industrialism with which it seems ill-fitted to cope successfully in 
 the long run. The prospect is depressing, it cannot be denied, but the develop- 
 ment of things in the world is not seldom harsh and unmerciful. 
 
 Doctor Roese in his work Beitrage zur europdischen Bassenkunde of the 
 year 1906 seems to have come to similar conclusions : " Leider ist," says he, " der 
 vorwiegend nordische Bestandteil des deutschen Volkes im langsamen Aussterben 
 begriffen. Je rascher die neuzeitige Industrie-Entwicklung fortschreitet, und je 
 langer sie anhalt, um so rascher wird der nordische Bestandteil des deutschen 
 Volkes sich vermindern, — falls nicht rechtzeitig auf Abhilfe gesonnen wird." 
 
 Latterly the attempt has been made, especially by German writers, to prove 
 that the great advances which have been achieved in civilisation, in science, in 
 art, and in literature, that discoveries and inventions, too, chiefly owe their origin 
 to the offspring of the Teutonic race, to blond dolichocephali, not only in Germany 
 itself, but in France, Italy, and Spain (Woltmann and others). Supposing this 
 were true, what would become of the progress of higher civilisation, and of art and 
 science in the future ? 
 
 It has seemed well cursorily to touch upon these matters, because they give 
 an indication of a new point of view as regards the work and aims of anthropology, 
 which has asserted itself in the past few years, especially in Germany, viz., the 
 importance of anthropology politically and socially ; attention has been raised to 
 the question of how far racial characters are hereditary through the ages, and 
 also to the relative merits of the various race-elements, their various degrees of 
 intellectual endowment, etc., as well as to the problem of the extent to which 
 interference on the part of the State or society might be able to improve the races, 
 or at all events prevent their degeneration. 
 
 It is not possible here to give a review of this, in many respects very 
 interesting, movement in the science of anthropology, tending to explain the 
 psychology and the inner characters of the different races and race branches, 
 and to find out methods for their improvement. Through the researches and 
 ideas of Sir Francis Galton and his school in England, and the important 
 investigations and views of Dr. Otto Ammon and his followers — I will especially 
 mention Dr. Roese in Germany and Dr. Lapouge in France — this new movement 
 has been raised and developed. If guided by criticism, it promises good results also 
 for the future. This field of research is indeed most interesting, but is also very 
 dangerous and complicated. 
 
 These are actually important and also very delicate questions with which to deal, 
 and several immature projects have already been ejected concerning them ; certain 
 proposals that have been put forward, however, may be worthy of mature 
 deliberation, as containing a good deal of truth, though immense and perhaps in 
 
302 Professor Gustaf JiETzius.—The So-called 
 
 some degree insurmountable obstacles may prevent their being practically 
 realised, 
 
 I desired to touch upon these modern movements, as they are intimately 
 connected with our European race-questions, particularly with that of the 
 dolichocephalic North European race element and its struggle for existence, i.e., 
 the question of what its chances are of being able to hold its own in the 
 future in the struggle with the dark-haired brachycephalic, Middle European 
 race-element. 
 
 This struggle, which has been going on during a series of centuries, silently for 
 the most part and hardly perceptible, constitutes one of the most wonderful and 
 interesting events in the history of the world and of humanity during the past 
 thousand years. It is to anthropology, and above all craniology, that we owe the 
 possibility of being able to discover its existence. If craniological research and — 
 to cite Kollmann — Anders Eetzius's discovery of dolichocephaly and brachycephaly, 
 among the peoples of Europe, had not effected anything more, they would have 
 accomplished not a little. 
 
 However, to be able to observe accurately the gradual moving of the race- 
 elements, their growth and diminution, in the various countries of Europe, a thorough 
 and extensive anthropological investigation at fixed repeated intervals would be 
 required, of about the same character as those that have been carried out, on a single 
 occasion, in a few countries, e.g., Baden, Italy, and Sweden. Under such circum- 
 stances it is greatly to be regretted that the investigation that Professor Schwalbe 
 planned on a grand scale for the whole of Germany and Austria was not realised, as 
 a thorough and extensive inquiry regarding racial factors in those two large realms 
 would have been extremely desirable. As far as England is concerned, the best 
 anticipations may be entertained, inasmuch as the anthropological investigations in 
 this country are in the hands of a competent and enlightened committee that is 
 perfectly aware of the importance attached to their work, and who may be trusted 
 not to shrink from overcoming whatever trouble, expenses, or other difficulties stand 
 
 in their way. 
 
 « « « « « 
 
 In my own country, Sweden, an anthropological investigation was carried out 
 in 1897 and 1898, with the permission of our Government but at the expense of 
 private persons. The investigation was carried out in the two annual contingents 
 of recruits for our army, and comprised a total of 45,688 young men at the age of 
 21. 700 of these were from one cause or another, left as unsuitable for the inquiry, 
 and there remained about 44,900 who were duly subjected to examination. The 
 whole investigation was organised by myself in conjunction with Professor V. 
 Hultkrantz, and was carried out by a staff of scientists and young physicians who 
 were specially trained for the task. Among the workers Professors Hultkrantz, 
 Carl M. Fiirst, and Ivar Broman ought to be particularly mentioned. 
 
 The vast material collected was subsequently treated and elaborated under 
 the direct guidance of myself, who had executed the inquiry in the provinces of 
 
North European Race of Mankind. 303 
 
 Dalecarlia and Westmanland, and of Professor Fiirst, who had himself chosen 
 the largest part of the inquiries, the provinces of Skane and Blekinge. The work 
 embodying the results of the investigation was published in 1902 under the title of 
 Anthropoloffia Suecica, Beitra^e zur Anthropologie der Schweden. It would carry 
 me too far, however, were I to attempt here to give a survey of the contents of that 
 book, which, moreover, are probably known in outline to all interested in the 
 subject. I will, therefore, confine myself to quoting the final results merely, which 
 are of special significance for a knowledge of the North European race branch. 
 
 The investigation included the following items, in addition to the place of 
 birth of each individual (and of his parents) ; his height, when standing, and when 
 sitting, maximum stretch of arms, maximum length and breadth of head, general 
 shape of the face, colour of eyes and hair. The maximum length of the face (from 
 root of nose to chin) and the bi-jugul breadth were only measured in the provinces of 
 which I had charge (Dalecarlia and Westmanland). In the descriptive matter the 
 measurements were dealt with by me, the colours by Professor Fiirst. 
 
 The following were the principal results : — 
 
 1. The measurements of the length and breadth of the head showed that the 
 mean for all the measurements led to the conclusion that in the whole of Sweden 
 there were 87 per cent, dolichocephali and 13 per cent, brachycephali. This immense 
 preponderance of dolichocephali was not evenly distributed throughout the country; 
 it was still greater in some provinces, but less in others, though all over it was 
 very considerable. The dolichocephali were found to be most numerous in a belt 
 of country stretching right across from west to east in about the latitude of Stock- 
 holm, and also a little north of it. In Dalsland 95 per cent. ; Sodermanland nearly 95 
 per cent. ; Dalecarlia, Harjedalen, Narke, Wastmanland 92 per cent. ; Varmland 91 
 per cent. ; Bohuslan, Oland 90 per cent., etc. ; Stockholm City 88 per cent. To both 
 the north and the south the percentage diminished somewhat. In Skane it was 
 81, in Vasterbotten 80, and in Lapland 76. These figures are easily explained, 
 partly, in the more southern parts, by the immigration in the course of time of 
 strangers of brachycephalic race type, partly by the presence in the more northerly 
 parts of the brachycephalic Laplander population and of a considerable sprinkling 
 of Finns. In no Swedish province, however, did the percentage of brachycephali 
 rise above 20, 21, or 23-67. 
 
 It is thus quite right to call Sweden a domicile of dolichocephali, whereas in 
 Southern Germany, Tyrol and Switzerland, the condition of things is exactly 
 the reverse, the percentage of brachycephali being there approximately as large as 
 that of dolichocephali in Sweden. That result by itself made it clear that the 
 North European (Teutonic) race type is still preserved in Sweden to a very 
 appreciable extent, greater indeed than anywhere else, so far as we know at present, 
 and far more than in Germany, the ancient heritage of the Teutons. 
 
 In Norway, the neighbour of Sweden, no extensive anthropological investigation 
 embracing the whole country has been made, but it is clear from the researches that 
 have been carried on in scattered districts by Arbo and others, that the number of 
 
304 Professor Gustaf Ketzius. — The So-called 
 
 the dolichocephali preponderates considerably, especially in the easterly parts, but 
 that in the south-western part of the country, along the sea-border, a large per- 
 centage of brachycephaly is to be found. No complete inquiry has taken place in 
 Denmark either, but from the investigations made here and there it would seem as 
 though dolichocephaly may be considered as by far more prevalent ; brachycephaly, 
 and mesaticephaly with a high ratio, however, are also to be found and not very 
 sparsely either. 
 
 If now we compare these data for the state of things existing at present with 
 the results yielded by an examination of the crania found in the prehistoric graves, 
 we shall see, that, so far as it is possible to judge from the finds in the graves, there 
 were indeed already in all three Scandinavian countries during the Neolithic 
 period — a Palaeolithic period of the really old type has not been discovered here — 
 both dolichocephali and brachycephali, but the percentage of the latter was remark- 
 ably small. Of the 42 Stone-age crania from various parts of Sweden that are 
 described in my work, Crania Suecica Aniiqua,S9 are of dolichocephalic type (16 of 
 them being mesocephalic) and only 3 brachy cephalic. Out of a total of 51 crania 
 dating from the Iron age, which were discovered in graves in various parts of 
 Sweden (the majority, however, in the island of Gotland), 47 proved to be dolicho- 
 cephalic (15 mesocephalic) and as few as 4 brachycephalic. ^ 
 
 I considered that I was entitled to draw the conclusion, as a result of my 
 investigattonTbf this series of prehistoric crania, that the present population of the 
 country are the descendants in direct line of that prehistoric people, and preserve to 
 all intents^id purposes the same racial elements as they had, even though new 
 elements may have been introduced by immigration. 
 
 Professor H. A. Nielsen's treatise of 1906 on the anthropology of the prehistoric 
 population of Denmark, shows that out of 119 Stone-age crania 83 turned out to be 
 dolichocephalic, i.e., 70 per cent. Nearly half of the 83 were genuine dolichocephali 
 (47 per cent, with an index of 75 or below). Among the Bronze-age crania 
 described by Nielsen one was found to be brachycephalic (index 81) and three more 
 showed a tendency in the same direction (index 79). Out of the 35 crania dating 
 from the Iron age in Denmark only one was brachycephalic (index 81) and two 
 approximately so (index 79) ; of the rest no less than 25 had an index of 75 or 
 below, and were consequently dolichocephali. The whole inquiry goes to show, as 
 Professor Nielsen points out, that the conditions have been practically the same as 
 those prevailing in Sweden and that the types of crania are similar on the whole to 
 the Swedish, though there was a somewhat larger admixture of brachycephali during 
 the Stone and Bronze ages. 
 
 2. The Length of the Body {Stature). — Professor Hultkrantz worked out the 
 average height of 232,367 recruits for the citizen army, all of about 21 years of age, 
 at 1*6951 metres, the mean measurements differing somewhat for the different 
 provinces ; thus, the tallest men were found in the provinces of Gothenburg, 
 Jamtland and Vasternorrland, and in the cities of Stockholm and Gothenburg ; the 
 inhabitants of Gotland, too, are tall of stature, whereas in other parts of Sweden, 
 
North European Race, of Mankind. 305 
 
 such as the central part of the province of Smaland, the stature of the men is less, 
 the average being lowest for the most northern part of the country and for the most 
 southern and the south-eastern districts. 
 
 The figures quoted in AntTiropologia Suecica are in the main confirmatory of the 
 results Professor Hultkrantz obtained, but our tables of figures and his are not 
 quite commensurable.^ Our average came out a little higher than his, viz., 
 170*88 centimetres. The maximum average height we found in "Gotland and in 
 Harjedalen (172-74 and 172*61 respectively); then came Halsingland and Bohuslan 
 172"32 and 172*14) ; then Jamtland, Dalsland, Medelpad, Vastergotland, Stockholm, 
 Sodermanland,Oland,Gastrikland and Angermanland, all exceeding 171 centimetres. 
 In no province but Lapland was the average found to be less than 170 centimetres. 
 These figures give evidence of great uniformity in reference to stature for the 
 country as a whole. 
 
 3. I must leave out here our results concerning length of arm and leg, stretch 
 of arm and form of face, and speak of the colour characters dealt with by Professor 
 Fiirst. To take the colour of the eyes or the iris first, it was shown that there were 
 66*7 per cent, of the total number with distinctly light-coloured eyes (blue or grey), 
 and only 4*5 per cent, with definitely brown eyes ; the rest, 28*8 per cent., had eyes 
 of a mixed colour. With respect to the colour of the hair the following data were 
 obtained ; 73*3 per cent, (i.e., nearly three-fourths of all the 44,900 men examined) were 
 fair-haired (yellow or flaxen) ; 21*6 per cent, had brown hair, 2*3 per cent, red hair, 
 and only 0*8 per cent, black hair. These facts do not leave any doubt possible as 
 to the Swedish nation being the fairest of all, unless the inhabitants of Norway or 
 Denmark might compete with the Swedes for that distinction. The Provinces of 
 Vastergotland, Bohuslan and Halland show the highest, and the northern provinces 
 the lowest average. 
 
 4. The results of the inquiry concerning the comlinations of tke various race 
 
 characters are peculiarly interesting, but time forbids me to enter upon a discussion 
 
 of that here. One point, however, may be given ; the combination of genuine dolicho- 
 
 cephaly (index below 75), tall stature (1*70 metres and upwards), fair eyes and fair hair, 
 
 was still to be found in Sweden in 10*7 per cent, of the examined contingent of the 
 
 population ; for Dalsland the figure was 18*3 per cent. ; for Sodermanland, 16 2 per 
 
 cent. ; for Harjedalen 16 per cent. ; and for Dalecarlia, 14*7 per cent. The purest 
 
 Teutonic race-element was thus to be found evidently in the interior of the country, 
 
 south of its centre-point, the pure type becoming rarer towards the coasts and also 
 
 northwards and southwards. 
 
 • 
 ' That is due partly to the fact that in our investigation those rejected for shortness of 
 
 stature had been already removed, and partly to the figures given by Professor Hultkrantz 
 
 being calculated for the enrolment areas of the regiments instead of for the several provinces ; 
 
 moreover, the numerous cases of men in the regiments not hailing from that particular district 
 
 were included witliout further ado and not discarded as they should have been. Finally, it may 
 
 be remarked that the numbers in our tables are based upon measurements taken by persons 
 
 specially trained for the task, and can therefore claim to be more accurate and exact. On the 
 
 other hand, the contingents treated by Professor Hultkrantz were much lai'ger. 
 
306 Professor Gustaf Eetzius. — The So-called 
 
 From our inquiry the conclusion may be drawn that Sweden is inhabited by 
 
 the purest population of the North European (Germanic or Teutonic) race branch 
 
 to be found remaining in our time. This result has, moreover, served as a support 
 
 for the theory recently enunciated and energetically defended by K. Penka and 
 
 L. Wilser, that proclaims Scandinavia and the region adjacent to the southern part 
 
 of the Baltic as the original home of the Teutons (Germans), in opposition to the 
 
 dogma, so long accepted as incontestable, of their, or rather the Aryans, having 
 
 originated in Asia, the Indo-Germanic theory of the philologists. 
 
 « « » « • 
 
 The anthropological investigations, carried out during the past two decades on 
 large military contingents, have thus, for three countries at least, afforded a 
 knowledge of the race characters of the present inhabitants of those three 
 countries. As each of those inquiries has dealt with one of the three principal 
 European types of race, a thorough acquaintance with all three has been acquired. 
 
 The excellent investigation of the inhabitants of Baden, conducted and 
 reported by Ammon, with the active aid of L. Wilser, has given an excellent 
 insight into the present-day constituent elements of a nation belonging to the 
 Middle European (Alpine), dark-haired, short-statured, brachycephalic race branch. 
 In addition to that quite a number of less elaborate investigations have been made 
 regarding this same type of race, carried out, some earlier, some later, by Ecker, 
 His and Riitimeyer, V. Holder, J. Kollmann, J. Ranke, Blind (for Germany and 
 Switzerland) ; by Weisbach, Toldt, Tappeiner, Zuckerkandl and others (for Austria) ; 
 by Broca, Topinard, CoUignon, Lapouge and others (for France) ; by Houze (for 
 Belgium) ; by Bogdanoff, Kopernicki, Zograf, Weinberg and others (for Russia). 
 
 Livi's magnificent investigation of the population of Italy, the results of which 
 were published in the work entitled Anthropometria Militarc, gives an excellent 
 anthropological survey of the Mediterranean race-element, and also of the distri- 
 bution of the middle European race element in Italy. There are, besides, researches 
 on the same subject by Mcolucci, Mantegazza, Sergi, Ruggiere and others. 
 
 Finally the North European (Germanic), blond, tall and dolichocephalic race 
 element, through the above-mentioned anthropological inquiry in Sweden 
 reported and published in Anthropologia Suecica, by myself and Fiirst, has been 
 extensively examined and described just in that very country of Europe, where it is 
 still to be found existing in the greatest proportion and in the highest purity. This 
 race branch has likewise been studied to a greater or less extent in other countries 
 where it is extensively distributed, for instance in Norway, by Arbo principally, 
 but also by Larsen, A. and H. Daae and others, in Denmark by S. Hansen, Steensby 
 and others, in Holland by L. Bolk, in Belgium by Vanderkindere, Houze and 
 others, and, last but not least, in England by Dr. John Beddoe, to be mentioned in 
 the first place, that Nestor of physical anthropology, who for more than half a 
 century with never flagging zeal and industry, has devoted himself to the solution 
 of the complicated problems that this branch of research presents, and furthermore 
 in that country by Beddoe's followers, Browne, Haddon, Maclean and others. 
 
North European Race oj Mairkiiid. 307 
 
 Of special merit are the summary statements of the knowledge collected by 
 different scientists made by Dr. John Beddoe in his Anthropological History of 
 Europe, Dr. J. Deniker in his extensive Surveys and Reviews (1899 and 1908), and 
 also by Professor W. Z. Ripley of New York, now of Harvard, in his great 
 comprehensive work, The Races of Europe (1900), and this by showing partly what 
 knowledge we have attained and partly what is still missing. 
 
 The results hitherto obtained by these researches should not be reckoned as 
 small when the exceedingly complicated conditions are considered, and when it is 
 remembered that during the lapse of many thousands of years and particularly 
 during the later centuries the different race elements of Europe have been brought 
 into connection with each other and have been intermingled. Under such circum- 
 stances it is rather astonishing that so many important results have been obtained. 
 With the present restless growth of communications and the movement of consider- 
 able parts of the nations it is of great importance that these primary inquiries 
 should be carried on with energy ; very soon it will be altogether too late to 
 obtain information regarding the present and former diffusion of the race elements. 
 
 » Kr Mit * * 
 
 There are however some particular problems that constitute impediments to 
 the advance of anthropological science and require a thorough investigation, before 
 we are allowed to draw quite reliable conclusions about racial conditions. But these 
 problems certainly belong to the most difficult biological questions which await 
 solution. I shall here mention three of them. One of them is the following : 
 " How large may we generally consider the sphere of variability (Variationsbreite) 
 of the typical characters of the different races and race branches ? " For this 
 decides where the limit is to be placed between these races and race branches. 
 In this respect the opinions of authors are rather different. Thus some anthro- 
 pologists consider the Neanderthal type as a particular race, others as a separate 
 species, while others again, as for instance Julius Kollmann recently, regard it as 
 only a variation of the same race, which forms the present European race. 
 
 Another problem difficult of solution is that regarding the laws of heredity 
 of the racial characters of the human races. Some anthropologists believe that the 
 racial characters of the parents are inherited by the children partly in an unmixed 
 or nearly pure form, partly in a mixed condition. Some other authors, for instance 
 Kollmann, are inclined to be of the opinion that the mixed forms now hardly 
 exist, or will soon be vanishing from the chain of the pedigree, so that finally only 
 the purer race-types, or some of them, will survive. There is some reason to 
 believe that the Mendelian law is valid also in respect to the human races. 
 
 A third important problem, difficult to solve, which is in a way con- 
 nected with the last, is this: Are the race characters and, consequently, the 
 races themselves still alterable or already fixed ? Or, in other words, are the 
 human races still obeying the laws of evolution or not ? One would willingly be 
 inclined to accept the former alternative, but certain proofs have not yet been 
 presented. Amongst the anthropologists there are differing opinions about this 
 
308 Peofessor Gustaf Retzius. — The So-called 
 
 question. Thus Professor Kollmann has already long ago held the view that 
 since the Diluvium no change has taken place in the essential characters of the 
 human races, only in the unessential, which are to be found within the limits of 
 the sphere of variation. Other authors hold that alterations since that time not 
 only have taken place but are still going on. Some of them even go so far as to 
 pretend to be able to prove that amongst certain parts of the race branches in 
 Europe, by the influence of culture, the whole length of the body has been augmented 
 during the last century, and that the capacity of the skull has been increased durin» 
 the last thousand years. 
 
 The last two statements being founded upon direct observations, I have con- 
 sidered it desirable to make investigations for controlling these pretended facts. As 
 for the hodily length, I have not only taken into account the measurements of the army 
 recruits during later times, by which an attempt has been made to demonstrate an 
 apparent growth, but such an increase must be illusionary, depending upon an 
 accelerated growth during the period of early manhood in consequence of an 
 improved nutrition, which acceleration probably continues until the maximum 
 size of that race branch is reached. In connection with my work on the skulls of 
 the ancient Swedes {Crania Suecica Antiqua, 1899-1900), I have already under- 
 taken an investigation of the long bones of all the ancient skeletons found in the 
 graves of the Stone, Bronze and Iron ages in Sweden in order to calculate the bodily 
 size of the ancient Swedes with the aid of Manouvrier's tables. But as these 
 tables deal with a race branch other than the North European, I have always 
 been hoping that before publishing the results of my measurements I should be 
 able to control them by another table of measurements regarding this North 
 European race branch. 
 
 Now Professor Hultkrantz has lately informed me that he has recently, 
 without knowing of mj investigation, undertaken measurements of a number of 
 other series of long bones from our Iron and our Middle ages. I therefore placed 
 at his disposal my series of measurements, in order that the greatest possible 
 quantity of material might be assembled. Professor Hultkrantz has this summer 
 accomplished a good deal of the work, and he has been kind enough to place his 
 results at my disposal. I therefore beg here to give a short report of them. He 
 will later complete his researches, and publish a detailed description of the results. 
 
 The long bones at his disposal were found in graves from the Neolithic, the 
 Bronze, the Iron, and the Medimval periods in Sweden. As they were but seldom 
 found in such a position as made it possible to determine whether the different 
 bones (humerus, radius, ulna, femur, tibia, fibula) had belonged to the same 
 individual, it is impossible to tell how many individuals the bones represent. 
 And in several of the series it was impossible with any certainty to distinguish 
 the male from the female bones. Professor Hultkrantz is also of the opinion that 
 the number of the different bones, especially from the Stone and Bronze periods, 
 is still too small for drawing sure conclusions, and he therefore draws tliem only 
 with some reserve. He, however, comes to the conclusion that during the Stone 
 
North European Race of Mankind. 
 
 309 
 
 'period the average size of the body of the men was (if we judge from the femora) 
 1*66 or 1*67 m. During the Bronze and Iron periods it seems to have been 
 about the same, even if the measurements are suggestive of an increase. The 
 bones from the Medimval period (the year 1361), from a great battlefield on the 
 island of Gotland, gave an average size of the body of 1*67 m. The recruits in the 
 years 1887-8 in Sweden, according to Professor Hultkrantz' investigations, had an 
 average length of 1-6903 m., in the years 1897-98 a length of 1'6996 m., and in 
 the years 1907-8 a length of 1-7147 m. 
 
 Professor Hultkrantz comes to the conclusion that he vjill not maintain 
 more than that his inquiry has made it probable, that the mean length of the body 
 during the Stone period in Sweden was less than in our age, and that the difference 
 seems to have been between 4 and 6 cm. Perhaps it has changed during different 
 periods and in different parts of the country. Probably the greatest increase has 
 taken place duriiig the historiccd period. For this fact the relatively great increase 
 from the fourteenth century until our age is suggestive, and particularly the rapid 
 increase during the latest decades. In regard to the last-mentioned increase I 
 may nevertheless point to the suggest io a made above that there now may be 
 more rapid growth during early manhood than was the case in former times, in 
 consequence of better nutrition during recent decades. 
 
 As for the other question regarding the increase of the capacity of the skulls 
 during the last thousand years, it was Broca who in his treatise, " Sur la capacite 
 des cranes Parisiens des diverses epoques " {Bulletins de la Society d'Anthropologie 
 de Paris, tome iii, et plus tard dans les Memoires d' Anthropologic, tome i, p. 348), 
 was the first to raise this question and to publish observations upon it. He had 
 at his disposal three series of skulls : — 
 
 Capacity. 
 
 Series 1. — Skulls of the twelfth century 
 
 115 
 
 1425-98 
 
 Series 2. — Skulls from a buryiug-place, earlier 
 than the eighteenth century. 
 
 117 
 
 1409-31 
 
 Series 3. — Skulls of the nineteenth century ... 
 
 125 
 
 1461-53 
 
 Total 
 
 357 
 
 — 
 
 It would carry me too far to refer more closely to the reasonings of Broca 
 about the burial in these churchyards of the poorer or the higher classes of 
 society, reasons and arguments which do not appear to me very convincing with 
 regard to the conclusions made by him. 
 
310 Professor Gustaf Eetzius. — The So-called 
 
 I shall here confine myself to the observation that for a satisfactory solution 
 of such an important problem a much larger number of skulls is required ; besides 
 this it should have been necessary to be able to settle, at least in some degree, to 
 what branch of the European race the skulls of the three series had belonged ; 
 finally, the sex of the individuals in each one of the series and also their age ought 
 to have been taken into account. 
 
 To draw such important conclusions so positively from the average of the 
 measurements of each of the above mentioned series, as Broca has done, can from 
 a critical standpoint hardly be defended. His principal resolution was : " Je 
 consid^re done comme certain que, toutes choses ^gales d'ailleurs soit par suite de 
 r^ducation, soit par suite de I'her^dit^, le volume du crane est plus considerable 
 dans les classes supdrieures que dans les classes inferieures." 
 
 Topinard, the pupil of Broca, wlio has repeatedly referred to these investiga- 
 tions of the master, became more and more cautious and reserved. In the year 
 1876 (Z'Anthropolof/ie) he declared : " La capacity cranienne parait varier avec 
 I'etat intellectuel. Les cranes des Parisiens du dix-neuvieme siecle sont plus 
 capaces que ceux du douzieme, ceux des sepultures particulieres plus que ceux 
 de la Morgue." In a treatise of the year 1882 {Revue d'Anthropologie, S^r. 2, 5), in 
 which he gives a detailed account of these researches of Broca, he quotes the 
 measurements of the cranial capacity of the master, but I do not here find his con- 
 clusions mentioned ; Topinard, on the contrary, forcibly accentuates the importance 
 of having large series of skulls, of being very particular in separating the male 
 and female skulls, and of leaving out the hydrocephalic and microcephalic 
 skulls. 
 
 In some anthropological works of later date, however, the opposite line, that 
 of incautiousness, has been chosen. I shall quote only one of those works. Dr. 
 Gr. Buschan's Gehirn und Kidtur (Wiesbaden, 1906). After having mentioned the 
 measurements of Broca and Topinard, which show an increase of the cranial 
 capacity of 35*55 ccm. from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century, he adds 
 (R. 2) : " Mit Recht legten beide Beobachter diese ihre Ergebnisse dahin aus, dass 
 die Grossenzunahme des Schadelbinnenraums auf Rechnung der zunehmenden 
 Intelligenz und Kultur zu setzen sei." Buschan further quotes the observation of 
 Emil Schmidt, that the modern Egyptians have lost 44*5 ccm. of the cranial 
 capacity possessed by their ancestors : " Fiir diese nicht minder bemerkenswerte 
 Tatsache lag die gleiche Erklarung wie oben auf der Hand ; nur vice versa." The 
 poor Egyptians have gone backwards in civilisation, and in connection herewith they 
 have lost a portion of their cranial capacity, i.e., of their brain volume. 
 
 Buschan has in his treatise above quoted brought together statements of some 
 other authors regarding these questions. 
 
 He has also himself, using the horizontal circumference of the skull as 
 measurement, made an inquiry concerning the population of the Rheinland 
 (Rheinldndische Bevollcerung) ; from this inquiry he draws the following conclusion : 
 *'Hiernach zu urteilen hatte der Schiidelumfang von der Steinzeit an bis zu 
 
North European Race of Mankind. 311 
 
 Beginn unserer Zeitrechnung zugenommen, ware dann weiter aber bis zum friihen 
 Mittelalter ziiriickgegangen und erst von dann an wiederum angestiegen, allerdings 
 mit einem erneuten geringen Eiickgang im 19. Jalirhundert." 
 
 " Wir haben gesehen," says Buschan, " dass vermehrte Gehirnarbeit ein 
 Wachsfcura dieses Organs zur Folge hat. Es fragt sich nun weiter, ob ein solches 
 durch tJbung an Volumen vermehrtes Gehirn sich vererUn kann ? Wenngleich 
 die Vererbung erworbener Eigenschaften vielfach noch in Abrede gestellt wird, 
 glauhe ich filr meine Person doch an die Mogiichkeit einer solchen tJbertragiing." 
 
 On such facts, as here mentioned, this whole " theory " (or rather dogma) is 
 based. It ought to be superfluous to criticise it in a more detailed manner. In his 
 interesting book, Beitrdge zur Europdischen Rassenkunde, Dr. 0. Eoese has already 
 delivered a good criticism of these views. But they are still often reproduced, 
 especially as based upon the high authority of Broea. 
 
 Every person who is accustomed to draw strict conclusions from real scientific 
 data will find that this theory of Broca's is based on far too slender arguments. So 
 far as I knew his high love of scientific truth, I am inclined to think that Broca, 
 if he had to judge now about the problem of this rapidly increasing capacity of the 
 skulls, would himself hardly insist on maintaining the certainty of that theory. 
 
 Though I am, of course, in no way an adherent of it, I nevertheless thought 
 it interesting to try to furnish some real proofs for my negation, and to make an 
 investigation upon the Swedish skulls from the corresponding period, which are at 
 my disposal. 
 
 In the Anatomical Miiseum of the Caroline Institute at Stockholm 133 Swedish 
 skulls from past ages could be used for this inquiry, which skulls I have measured 
 with the consent of the Director, Professor Erik Muller. And in the Anatomical 
 Museum of the University of Uppsala, with the permission of the Director, Professor 
 J. A. Hammar and of Professor V. Hultkrantz, Mr. Vallentin, the Assistant, has 
 measured several series of skulls (424). 
 
 The Swedish skulls from the past centuries which liave been measured thus 
 amount to the number of 557. I am quite aware that this number is much too 
 small to in any way give reliable results in so complicated a problem as that here 
 discussed. But the number is nevertheless greater than that of Broca. 
 
 During this investigation I have also had the opportunity of convincing 
 myself of the difficulty, even of the impossibility, of solving the problem by measur- 
 ing some hundreds, or even thousands of such skulls collected in some old church- 
 yards, where the mixture of different race elements and different sexes is often very 
 difficult to discriminate, and where it is impossible to learn how far advanced 
 in civilisation and culture the individuals there buried have been. 
 
 It would really be of very little use here to give a detailed jeport of this 
 inquiry. The results of such an investigation depend above all upon an exact 
 distinction of male and female skulls ; but this is a rather difficult task, and not 
 seldom we remain in doubt regarding the sex of the individuals. I shall therefore 
 give only some few figures : — From the Stone period 14 male skulls gave a mean 
 
312 PfiOFESSOR GuSTAF Eetzius. — The So-called 
 
 capacity of 1502 ccm., 4 female skulls a mean capacity of 1276 com. ; from the 
 Bronze period 1 male and 2 female skulls gave respectively 1510 and 1266 ; from 
 the Iron period 17 male and 5 female skulls gave respectively 1503 and 1294 ccm. 
 Trom the older Mediaeval period 15 male and 15 female skulls gave respectively 
 1441 and 1286 ccm. From the later Mediaeval period 30 male and 30 female skulls 
 gave respectively 1476 and 1291 ccm. Fifty other male skulls from three church- 
 yards in difi'erent parts of Sweden gave the mean capacity of 1435 ccm. Forty male 
 skulls from a churchyard (in a real Swedish centre of culture), which was used 
 during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, gave a mean capacity 
 of 1417 ccm., which is less than the average figures from the mediaeval age and 
 still less than those from the Stone, Bronze and Iron periods. Mean figures 
 also of such insignificant value, I got from the other churchyards of the Mediaeval 
 period and of the later centuries. If only some more skulls of a higher capacity 
 instead of a lower had been found, which is often quite dependent upon chance — 
 the mean capacity of the series might have been brought up and risen to a 
 remarkably high standard. Like Dr. Buschan, I think we ought to be very 
 careful in drawing conclusions from average figures — and I have in my former 
 anthropological works, now more than thirty years ago, repeatedly urged caution 
 with regard to them. They may be of value, but they are also dangerous. In this 
 particular case they have indeed been dangerous because first so great an authority 
 as Broca and then after him several other authors have drawn conclusions of great 
 importance from sucli doubtful data. Tliese data and similar conclusions have 
 already been quoted as certain in books written for the general public and for 
 school-children, who accept them as confirmed facts. It is for this reason that I 
 have attacked them here in rather strong terms. 
 
 I also take this opportunity here to warn workers in the field of anthropological 
 research generally against drawing conclusions from uncertain facts and passing 
 them on to the public. We have during the last year witnessed how the newspapers 
 and journals in almost all civilised countries have abused the latest anthropological 
 discoveries in the south of France, and furnished the most fantastic descriptions 
 and illustrations of the palaeolithic human skeletons found there. Professor 
 Klaatsch in his last treatise about them also protests against this profan- 
 ation of science. It is indeed of importance that all lovers of true science should 
 do all they can to resist this thirst of the great public for sensational stories, 
 which bring true science into discredit. The great public, as well as the scientists, 
 ought to be conscious of the great difficulties connected with anthropological science 
 
 and should not draw hasty conclusions. 
 
 ******** 
 
 It is not my intention here to furnish any programme for anthropological 
 research. It would require the time of a whole lecture at least. I shall in closing 
 this address only point out a few things, which are of special importance for the 
 study of the European race. As to the knowledge of the descent of this 
 race and its different branches we must wait with patience for the discovery oi 
 
North European Race of Mankind. : •^, • \ \V :'^^'. 
 
 many more authentic, old, palaeolithic human skeletons and relics. And 
 regarding the investigations of the recent race-elements we ought to continue to 
 collect all the testimonies which are of value for the solving of the problems, i.e., 
 the testimonies in the graves as well as among the living peoples. 
 
 As to the latter I want to repeat the proposal which I have already made here, 
 that in every country there ought to he arranged every 2Zth or 30th year a th<yrough 
 anthropological scientific investigation of the population, as extensive as possible — 
 and above all on the fullgrown men — in order to investigate what changes it has 
 undergone during the preceding period. And then in every country the anthro- 
 pologists also ought to choose some special fields for their investigations and there 
 particularly investigate those portions of the nations whieh possess the purest 
 racial characters. In this respect I myself long ago (in 1873) chose the 
 province of Dalecarlia in Sweden, where I have collected a good deal of material 
 for such a research, and I hope some time to have an opportunity of giving a 
 thorough account of this very interesting portion of the inhabitants of my native 
 country. As proposed in the Preface to the Anthropologia Suecica, such a thorough 
 investigation of the population in the Swedish provinces, and then, especially, also 
 in those where the anthropological differences, above all the dolichocephaly and 
 the brachycephaly, are more numerously represented, ought to be undertaken as 
 soon as possible. 
 
 It is, however, not so easy to find enough trained workers in this field, and 
 the expenses for such investigations and for the publication of them are not incon- 
 siderable. There are therefore several obstacles to overcome. I suppose the same 
 difficulties are to be found in most countries. 
 
 The nations and their Governments do not yet understand the high ideal and 
 social importance of the anthropological investigation of the populations. Their 
 sympathetic and material support is very desirable in this vast and arduous field 
 of scientific research. 
 
 With the lapse of time this work is becoming more and more complicated and 
 difficult to accomplish. In connection with rapidly improving inventions in the 
 domain of communications, population is becoming more and more mobile. If 
 we are to learn to know the real characters and the present distribution of the 
 race elements, it is necessary that the thorough anthropological inquiries above 
 mentioned should be made as soon as possible. It will then be easier in the 
 future to understand that mixture of the peoples, which certainly is going on with 
 constantly increasing rapidity and intensity. 
 
 IRfprintedfrom the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. XXXIX, 
 
 July-Decemher, 1909.] 
 
 Sarrison and Sons, Printers in Ordinarif to Sis Majesty, St. Martin's Lane, London. 
 
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