stirps

The great variety of theories commonly received as to the supposed origin of this singular race of men have done little to dispel the obscurity which prevails as to the real stirps of which the Australian race is a branch.

The present population consists of whites, negroes, and yellow-coloured aborigines, who, as speaking a dialect allied to that of Polynesia, seem to belong to the Malay-Polynesian stirps.

These are called “individualizing characteristics,” “notae individuantes,” the familiar scholastic list of them being “forma, figura, locus, tempus, stirps, patria, nomen,” with manifest reference to the individual “man”.

But we have only to suppose a distinct stirps for each of the classes, and that the developments took place along parallel lines, in order to harmonize the facts with the hypothesis.

The idea of a distinct stirps or germ for each great class of animals and plants seems to me to destroy an essential feature of the hypothesis.