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Analysis Of 'Are Humans One Race Or Many?' By Alfred Russell Wallace

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Alfred Russell Wallace’s “Are Humans One Race or Many?” – Environmentally Shaped Racial Supremacy
Wallace, Alfred. “Are Humans One Race or Many?” Backgrounds and Contexts, edited by Paul B. Armstrong, W.W. Norton and Company INC, 1991, pp. 218 – 224.

Alfred Russell Wallace’s “Are Humans One Race or Many” powerfully asserts that human races differ in superiority due to the unique environments each group resides in. Through real-world examples, Wallace states that an environment’s “physical peculiarities” are the underlying factors behind both the separation of humans from animals and the superiority of certain races over others (Wallace 218).
A critical element of this piece is Wallace’s elaboration on why humans are immune to the effects of natural selection. The example he uses is subtle but powerful. Wallace proclaims that although animals are left for dead by the herd after sustaining an injury, humans do not suffer from this “extreme penalty” (219). This contrast arises from the differing empathy in humans …show more content…

Again, Wallace advocates that European superiority arises from their environment: it is the centuries of surviving in comparably abominable conditions that grant Europeans an intellectual, moral, and physical superiority “in the struggle for existence” with the “savage man” (222).
Derived from Wallace’s comparisons and deductions is this passage’s overarching claim: it is the “advance in mind” that institutes the natural supremacy of certain human races over others (223). Wallace acknowledges that all humans once paralleled each other, and animals alike, in aptitude. However, this was before humans “acquired that wonderfully developed brain” crucial in “keeping us in harmony with the slowly changing universe”

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