On the Characteristics of Humans

The Human body has supplied comparative physiology with its customary scale, and has suffered considerable misdescription in consequence. We measure a Dwarven femur against a Human femur, record the difference, and presently some inattentive reader supposes that the Human specimen represents nature’s intended dimensions. I have retained the convention in my own tables because a reference must remain reasonably constant if tables are to be useful. My colleagues may therefore consult my measurements without enjoying the further satisfaction of mistaking themselves for the purpose of creation. Human anatomy is one arrangement of sapient life among several, and its familiarity tempts the anatomist to stop studying it.

In stature and mass, Humans occupy a broad intermediate range among the Principal Peoples, though averages conceal much that matters to the engineer and the anatomist. A tall Human may have difficulty with a Dwarven doorway; scarcely any adult Human will find an Aesir chair convenient. Within Humanity, differences of limb proportion, muscular development and bodily fat are sufficiently substantial that I distrust any manufacturer who advertises equipment fitted to “the ordinary man”. When the Westmere railway furnished its signal cabins from the measurements of a single clerk, I required its superintendent to climb into one wearing a winter coat. He emerged with a revised opinion of economy. Human hands permit delicate manipulation and a powerful grasp, but their achievements depend heavily upon practice. I have watched a Gremlin instrument-maker surpass my own manual precision by a margin which I measured, since admiration without particulars would have been of little use to either of us.

Human senses are serviceable in most conditions and have definite limits. In failing light, a Human loses useful discrimination before those peoples whose eyes are adapted to darkness; confidence commonly persists for several minutes after accuracy has departed. Human bone is less dense than Dwarven bone, while the repair of substantial injuries falls short of the regenerative capacities recorded in certain other peoples. Such comparisons require care. Density alone does not tell us the load a whole limb can bear, and the closing of a wound does not establish that the structures beneath it have recovered their function. Human patients are especially liable to declare themselves restored upon being able to resume an occupation, a judgement encouraged by employers and insufficiently resisted by persons who ought to understand anatomy.

The same caution is necessary in discussing endurance. Humans work, travel and maintain households through severe winters; their distribution supplies ample evidence against the fashionable description of them as constitutionally delicate. They nevertheless conserve heat less effectively than the Aesir under comparable exposure. Clothing, food and exertion alter the result so greatly that accounts of naked subjects standing motionless in cold chambers have little authority over the experience of a properly equipped herder. I once attributed the superior progress of an Aesir guide through an upland storm chiefly to his constitution. He informed me that I had fastened my outer coat incorrectly and selected a route which collected the wind. Both observations survived examination. His physiological advantage remained real, but I had been making an unnecessarily generous contribution to it.

There are circumstances in which Human susceptibility provides an early indication of danger. At the Denholt ironworks, Human labourers developed headache and confusion in a gallery where their Dwarven companions continued working without obvious distress. The manager inferred malingering from this discrepancy. I disputed his conclusion and had the affected men brought out, then insisted that the air be examined before they returned. The ventilation proved defective. Human symptoms appeared sooner; this established neither the harmlessness of the atmosphere to Dwarves nor the precise duration for which any worker could safely endure it. I include the incident because comparisons of peoples are frequently corrupted at the point where somebody discovers that an unsupported inference will save him money. A body which gives earlier warning may be at greater immediate risk, and deserves protection rather than a reprimand for supplying inconvenient evidence.

The most consequential Human characteristic in the affairs of nations is probably the speed of generational replacement. An ordinary Human life permits substantial achievement, and death at sixty cannot properly be entered as premature merely because an Elven correspondent regards the deceased as promising. With annual births at approximately twenty-six per thousand inhabitants, Human communities continually admit large numbers of people who must acquire their predecessors’ knowledge; the resulting demand for instruction is immense. An Elven workshop may retain the personal recollection of its founder through changes which, in a Human establishment, require several transfers of authority and a cupboard of increasingly illegible books. Humans can preserve knowledge across those transfers, but preservation requires deliberate effort. I have seen the sole surviving description of an early pumping engine used to level a cabinet.

This turnover probably helps explain why so many Human institutions depend on schools, examinations and written procedures, though wealth and government plainly contribute as well. It also encourages errors in the attribution of temperament. Human impatience is often remarked upon by observers who can postpone an undertaking for forty years without surrendering much of their remaining working life. Conversely, Human writers praise their own enterprise while enjoying the accumulated surveying, craftsmanship and capital of longer-lived neighbours. The proper comparison concerns what people accomplish with the time and resources available to them. No measurements known to me establish a general Human superiority in invention, affection, courage or folly; the last, at least, appears abundantly distributed.

Humanity, then, is a familiar body that manages hard work in a great variety of climates, chiefly with the help of learning and equipment. Its limitations can be tested by experiment, which is more than can be said for its supposed destiny. The claim that Humans furnished the original pattern from which the other peoples were magically altered has yet to produce evidence sufficient to distinguish it from a gratifying story. Resemblance between Humans and Apemen raises legitimate questions of relationship, but resemblance alone cannot settle them, and no common ancestor of the five Principal Peoples has been demonstrated. I do not know their origins. I know rather more about their bones, and I recommend starting with the evidence that will consent to being examined.