The position of the Veddahs is, to some extent, an exception; and
it is interesting to find that the latest German students of that
curious people think that they have been classed too low by
earlier investigators.
We cannot run over all the peoples of the earth in this way, but
will briefly glance at the lower races of the various continents.
A branch of the second phase of developing humanity, the negroid
stock, spread eastward over the Asiatic islands and Australia,
and westward into Africa. The extreme wing of this army, the
Australian blacks, too clearly illustrates the principle to need
further reference. It has retained for ages the culture of the
middle Palaeolithic. The negritos who penetrated to the
Philippines are another extreme instance of isolation. The
Melanesians of the islands of the Indian and Pacific Ocean are
less low, because those islands have been slowly crossed by a
much higher race, the Polynesians. The Maoris of New Zealand, the
Tongans, Hawaians, etc., are people of our own (Caucasic) stock,
probably diverging to the south-east while our branch of the
stock pressed westward. This not only explains the higher
condition of the Maoris, etc.
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