classification as one of its primary endeavors, turning to aesthetic criteria derived from ancient Greece as the source of measurement" (107). Because of this, people began to associate outward, physical signs of "beauty" (as narrowly defined) with "inner rationality, piety, intelligence, and harmony" (107). This was a century before the time of Darwin as justifications were being made for racial hierarchy and domination. At the same time, the idea of the noble savage was contributing to the idea of the superiority of Europeans over Africans and native Americans. This extended beyond the physical, of course, as an elaborate conception of the mind of the non-European was developed, with that mind being the very opposite of Reason and instead being "atavistic, regressive, barbaric" (108). Theories were created as to how climate might have influenced racial development in different parts of the world. It is ironic that these events were taking place at the same time as the Humanist impulse was emerging:
Thus, at the very moment when a discourse of universal humanism was finding voice in the bourgeois democratic revolutions of the era, colored people and Europeans rendered marginal to civilization (such as Jews and Irish) were being written out of the family of "Man" (108).
We like to think that we have progressed since that time
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