their effects? How is it
that countless generations must pass away before purely climatic causes,
potent as they are, begin to manifest themselves in physical changes in
the races of men exposed to them?

Fournier, physiologist, as I have said, by the education of the schools,
but by the broader education of his travels sociologist and ethnologist,
devoted himself again to science, and framed this hypothesis: _Climatic
influences, acting upon man, bring about physical changes exceedingly
slowly, because they are resisted by an inveterate habit of
assimilation. This habit pertains either to the blood or the tissues,
possibly to both, probably to the blood alone_.

To establish an hypothesis experiment is necessary. Physiology is a
science of experiment. Hence the frequent uncertainty of its results,
since no two observers conduct an experiment in exactly the same
manner--certainly no two ever institute it under precisely the same
conditions. Nevertheless, let us not decry science. Out of much
searching after truth comes the finding of truth--after long groping in
darkness one comes upon a ray of light.

An experiment was necessary. To the ingenious mind of Fournier an
elaborate one occurred. If he could perform it, not only would his
hypothesis be established and confirmed beyond all cavil, but a, field
of scientific research also be opened such as was yet undreamed of.
However, for this experiment subjects were needed. Brutes, beasts of the
field? Not so: that were easy to achieve. Human beings, two living,
healthy men, one white, one black, were the requirements. Impossible!
The experiment could never be performed: its requirements were
unattainable. O tempora! O mores! Alas, for the degeneracy of the age!
In the days of the Roman emperors men were fed, literally fed, to wild
beasts in the arena--Gauls, Scythians, Nubians, even Roman freedmen when
barbarians were scarce. This to amuse the populace alone. Frightful
waste of life! In India, a thousand lives thrown away in a day under the
wheels of Juggernaut; in Europe, tens of thousands to gratify the
imperious wills of grasping monarchs; in America, hundreds to sate the
greed of railroad corporations. And now not two men to be had for an
experiment of untold value to science, that would scarcely endanger life
in one of them, and in the other would necessitate only the merest
scratch! To what are we coming? No one complains that tattooed heads are
going out of fashi