THE MISMEASURE OF MANancestor of man" (1929, p. 26). "From this point of view, the divi-
sion of mankind into higher and lower races is fully justified [1929,
p. 26]. It is obvious that I am, on the basis of my theory, a con-
vinced believer in the inequality of races" (1926, p. 38). Bolk
reached into his anatomical grab-bag and extracted some traits
indicating a greater departure for black adults from the advanta-
geous proportions of childhood. Led by these new facts to an old
and comfortable conclusion, Bolk proclaimed (1929, p. 25): "The
white race appears to be the most progressive, as being the most
retarded." Bolk, who viewed himself as a "liberal" man, declined to
relegate blacks to permanent ineptitude. He hoped that evolution
would be benevolent to them in the future:
It is possible for all other races to reach the zenith of development now
occupied by the white race. The only thing required is continued progres-
sive action in these races of the biological principle of anthropogenesis
[i.e., neoteny]. In his fetal development the negro passes through a stage
that has already become the final stage for the white man. Well then, when
retardation continues in the negro too, what is still a transitional stage may
for this race also become a final one (1926, pp. 473-474).
Bolk's argument verged on the dishonest for two reasons. First,
he conveniently forgot all the features—like the Grecian nose and
full beard so admired by Cope—that recapitulationists had stoutly
emphasized because they placed whites far from the conditions of
childhood. Secondly, he sidestepped a pressing and embarrassing
issue: Orientals, not whites, are clearly the most neotenous of
human races (Bolk listed the neotenous features of both races
selectively and then proclaimed the differences too close to call; see
Ashley Montagu, 1962, for a fairer assessment). Women, more-
over, are more neotenous than men. I trust that I will not be seen
as vulgar white apologist if I decline to press the superiority of
Oriental women and declare instead that the whole enterprise of
ranking groups by degree of neoteny is fundamentally unjustified.
Just as Anatole France and Walt Whitman could write as well as
Turgenev with brains about half the weight of his, I would be more
than mildly surprised if the small differences in degree of neoteny
among races bear any relationship to mental ability or moral worth.
Nonetheless, old arguments never die. In 1971 the British psy-
chologist and genetic determinist H. J. Eysenck again brought
forth a neotenic argument for black inferiority. Eysenck took three
facts and used neoteny to forge a story from them: 1) black babies