But the different
varieties of men recognized by these observers were believed to be created
in their modern forms and with their present-day characteristics; the
common character of skin color exhibited by any group of peoples of a
single continent was to them only a convenient label for purposes of
description and classification. It was not until years later that
fundamental resemblances were recognized as indicating an actual blood
relationship of the races displaying them, and therefore of evolution.
Since the doctrine of human descent and of the divergence of human races
in later evolution has been accepted, those who have attempted to work out
fully the complete ancestry of different peoples have found that no single
character can be taken by itself, while the various criteria themselves
differ in reliability; the color of the skin is not so sure a guide as the
character of the hair and skull, wherefore the classifications of recent
times, notably those of Huxley and Haeckel, have been based largely upon
the latter. The latest systems have been more rigidly scientific and more
in accord with the most modern conceptions of organic relationships in
general, as evidenced by the thoroughgoing methods of Duckworth in his
recent treatise on human classification.
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