Considerations of Race

“Are Humans One Race or Many?” By Alfred Russel Wallace
• Once humans developed intellectual capacities, natural selection ceased to affect their physical characteristics and instead began to modify their mental faculties. This is why human’s physical forms remained stationary for most of their history, whereas their minds have evolved.
• Inhabitants of temperate countries are superior to those of hotter climates. All the great invasions of races have occurred from North to South.
• Humans consist of many races. Humans may have been a homogeneous race at one time; however, it was before they had developed a brain, speech, or ‘moral’ feelings and therefore could not be considered human. By the time humans developed these capacities, they had already spread over the earth and had formed distinct races.

“The Comparative Worth of Different Races” By Francis Galton
• Galton had a sixteen “class” system to rank the intellectual and cognitive abilities of different races. There were 8 classes above the mean (X and G-A) and 8 classes below the mean (a-g and x). Galton believed that the G and X classes of Africans equaled only the E and F classes of Englishmen. This meant that the average intellectual standard of the Africans were two grades below that of Englishmen.
• Galton also believed that the average ability of Englishmen should be raised a grade or two in order to address the growing need of centralization and communication in the developing British Empire