RECENT SCIENTIFIC BOOKS.

Haeckel's History of Creation: a Popular Account of the Development of the Earth and its Inhabitants, according to the Theories of Kant, Laplace, Lamarck, and Darwin. By Professor ERNST HAECKEL. The Translation Revised by E. RAY LANKESTER, M.A., F.R.S. 2 vols. post 8vo, with Coloured Plates and Genealogical Trees of the various Groups of both Plants and Animals, 325.

Contemporary English Psychology: an Analysis of the Views and Opinions of the following Metaphysicians, as expressed in their Writings :-James Mill, Alexander Bain, John Stuart Mill, George H. Lewes, Herbert Spencer, Samuel Bailey. By Professor TH. RIBOT. Second Edition, large post 8vo, gs.

Heredity a Psychological Study of its Phenomena, its Laws, its Causes, and its Consequences. By Professor TH. RIBOT. Large crown 8vo, gs.

Sensation and Intuition. By JAMES SULLY. Demy 8vo,

10s. 6d.

The Physics and Philosophy of the Senses; or, the Mental and the Physical in their Mutual Relation. By R. S. WYLD, F.R.S.E., LL.D. Demy 8vo, Illustrated by several Plates, 165.

The Principles of Mental Physiology, with their Applications to the Training and Discipline of the Mind and the Study of its Morbid Conditions. By W. B. CARPENTER, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. Fourth Edition, demy 8vo, Illustrated, 128.

HENRY S. KING & Co., LONDON.

THE RACES OF MAN

AND THEIR GEOGRAPHICAL

DISTRIBUTION.

FROM THE GERMAN OF

OSCAR PESCHEL.

NEW YORK

HENRY S. KING & Co., LONDON.

✓

PUBLIC LIBRARY!
499799

(The rights Translation and of reproduction are reserve t.)

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

INCLINATION without some form of external pressure is insufficient
to induce an author to publish a handbook, for though complete-
ness is essential, the work is little attractive. Moreover, in such
a subject as ethnology the author finds himself obliged to enter
into matters requiring special study. He can no longer bring
forward his own thoughts, but has only to repeat the dicta of the
recognized authorities, and he never loses the oppressive sensation
of gathering roses in the garden of another. It would never have
occurred to the present author to reconstruct a doctrinal system
of ethnology, had he not in the beginning of 1869 been requested
by the then War Minister, General A. von Roon, to edit a fourth
and revised edition of his " Ethnology as an Introduction to
Political Geography" (Völkerkunde als Propädeutik der politischen
Geographie). The wish of a man whose name is closely con-
nected with the creation of our military system, became a duty to
a German on whom the newly acquired strength of his nation has
imposed obligations of gratitude towards its great originator and
promoter. After a short correspondence it was agreed that the
new work was to be described on the title-page as the joint pro-
duction of Herr von Roon and the present author, and that it
should be previously submitted to the former for approbation.

Last autumn, however, when after nearly five years a portion of the proof was ready, it appeared that, owing to the shattered state of his health, His Excellency Field-marshal Count Roon was for the time unable to examine the contents of the "Ethnology," and that although he intended to do so when convalescent, yet such delay should be prejudicial to the author and the publisher, he urged an immediate publication of the work, but that in this case any mention of his name on the title-page must be omitted. Any longer delay was indeed undesirable, for the rapidity with which writings grow old, owing to the present activity of science, more especially in the province of ethnology, was painfully impressed upon the author while his work was in the press, by the appearance of several new investigations, of which he was unable to make use. Thus in the early chapters the Mohammedan monarchy at Talifu was described as extant and prosperous, whereas, according to the latest intelligence, the Chinese destroyed it in 1872.

The original object of the undertaking, namely, to urge anew the scientific claims of A. von Roon's "Völkerkunde als Propädeutik der politischen Geographie," thus came to naught, much to the regret of the author.