Humanity is fissile: everywhere it goes, it forms clans, Yoruba and Yanomamo, Mods and Rockers; so powerful is the urge to diverge, even shared ethnicity is optional. No wonder humanity is so hard to define. Taxonomy, designed to resolve such issues, is helpless where it matters most. Every species of animal and plant is uniquely defined as such on the basis of an objective description of its form and habits. All, that is, except one, Homo sapiens. Our entry in the Systema Naturae, devised by Linnaeus, says (more or less) 'reader, know thyself,' thus admitting the impossibility of seeing ourselves as others see us.

LRB 31 October 1996 | PDF Download