CLASSES OF The genus Homo of Linnieus comprised two species. Homo sapiens and Homo mormtrosus, the former including several varieties or races and the latter certain peoples supposed to have been modified by local conditions or habits. 'rho varieties of Homo mtpicns have been much discussed, and many systems of classi fication have been proposed: in the most practical the varieties are denoted and described as ( ) the Caucasian or White race, (2) the Mongolian or Yellow race, (3) the or Brown race, (4) the Amerind or Iled race, and (5) the Afri can or Black race. This arrangement is open to objections of which the most serious grow out of the existence of aberrant or intermediate forms; and to meet these, more elaborate classi fications, including greatly increased numbers of races, have been proposed. (Typical classi fications of races are given in the article ETH NOLOGY.) Another mode of defining and classifying man kind rests on psychic rather than physical char acteristics. Inv it peoples are grouped according to habitual conduct, or, in the last analysis, accord ing to habitual thought as inferred from conduct ; and, while the grouping may rest on any or all of the activities, that commonly employed expresses the social activities. Arranged in this way all
known peoples fall into the classes of (1) sav agery, in which the laws are based on consan guinity traced in the female line; (2) barbarism, or patriarchy, in which the social laws rest on real or assumed consanguinity reckoned in the male line; (3) civilization, in which laws and institutions rest on property right. especially in laud; and (4) enlightenment, in which the laws are based on the right of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This sys tem of classifying mankind is no more free from difficulties than that based on physical char miters: yet it. has the merit of increasing value with the multiplying interactions of peoples as against the diminishing accuracy and utility of the classification by race, and also the special merit of expressing the normal trend of develop m ent. in the human realm.