'I
 
 Hiiilifffi 
 
 1R0O rt-t ^ r-'' " I 
 
 ^ ^^22 01157 
 
 8291 
 
 •orlpps Institution of oceanography 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Uaiversity of Cilifotnia, San Diego 
 
 Please Note: This item is subject to 
 RECALL after two weeks if requested 
 by another borrower. 
 
 )ATE DUE 
 
 JUN 3 lyyi 
 
 ^ 
 
 MftV 1 1 REC'D 
 
 M AR 2 3 1330 
 
 SI 25 
 
 UCSD Libr.
 
 THE LMERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES. 
 VOLUME XXVII.
 
 INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES. 
 
 NOiy READY'. Ik 121110 and bound in cloth. 
 
 I. FORMS OF WATF.R, In Clouds, Rain, Klvcrs, Ice, nnd Glaciers. I!y 
 Prof. John Tynuall. fLJiO. 
 II. PUVslCS AND 1H)LITU'S; or. Tlioiiclits on tbo Am>lloallon of the 
 Principles o( " Natural Selection " and '• Inheritance" to Political toclcly. 
 IJv Walter Hacjehot. %\.M. 
 
 III. F<>«">l>S. Uy KnWARO SjiiTii, .M. n., I.L. n., K. R. S. t\.'\ 
 
 IV. MINI) AND UUDY. Hv Ai.kxander Hain, I.L. D. >1..'>0. 
 
 V TIIK .-^Tl'DY OK SOClOLOtiV. Uv IIkkiikkt r^i-KSi kr. |1 .'>0. 
 VI. THK NKW CHKMlbTUY. By Prot .Iosiah P. Cooke, Jr., of llnrvanl 
 
 Tniversltv. »-.'."0. 
 VII Tin: CONJ^KRVATION OF ENERGY. By Prof. Bai.fovb Stkwabt. 
 
 LL. D. F. R. S. ♦l..Vt. 
 VIII. ANIMAL LOCO.M(»TU)N; or, Walkinp. Pwimmlnp. nnd Flyinp, with a 
 Dissertation on Aeronautics. By J. B. Pettiuiikw, M. D. Illustruted. 
 tl.7.\ 
 W. RESPONSIBILITY IN MENTAL DISEASE. By II. Maidslev, M. D. 
 
 X. TIIK SCIENCE OF LAW. Bv Prof. Piiei.pos Amos. fl.!."). 
 XI. ANIMAL MECIIANIS.M. A Treatise on Terrestrial and ACrial locomo- 
 tion. BvE. J. Markv. 117 Illustrations. fl.T.V 
 XII. TIIK HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND 
 SCIENCE. Bv John William Dkapkr. M. D.. LL D. $1.7.V 
 
 XIII. THE DOCTRI.NE OF DESCENT. AND DARWINISM. By Pmf. 
 
 (MoAR SniMiDT. of Strashurt; luiversity. $l..'>o. 
 
 XIV. THE CHE.MISTRY t)F LIGHT AND I'HOTOCRAPHY : In its Appli- 
 
 cation to Art, Science, and Industry. By Dr. II. Vogel. 100 Illuslra- 
 tions. $2.iX>. ^ ^, , 
 
 XV. FI'Niil; their Nature, Influence, nnd Uses. Bv M. C. Cookk, LL. D. 
 Editedhv Rev. M. J. Bkrkkley, F. L. S. lO'.t Illustrations. $1..M. 
 XVI THE LIF'E and GROWTH OF LANGCAtiE. By Prof. W. D. 
 WlllTSF.v. of Yale O.llet'C. »l..'Mt. 
 XVII MONEY AND THE MECIIANIS.M OF EXCHANGE. By W. Stanley 
 
 Jf.vons. M. a.. F. R.S. HIJ.V 
 .Will. THK NATL'RE OF LHIHT, with a Ooneral Account of Physical Optics. 
 Bv Dr. Ei-iiENK LoMMEi, Profes.tor In the I'nlversity of Erlan>:en. 68 
 Illustrations nnd a Plato of Spectra In Chn)nio-litlio(.'nililiv. $2.IHI. 
 XIX. ANIMAL PAR.\SITES AND .MESSMATES. By M. Van Rknepes, 
 
 Proles.'or of the I'niversitv of Ixiivaln. N< lllustnitloiis. ♦!. .'><•. 
 XX. O.N FERMENTATIONS. Bv P. SciifTzr.NHF.iKiKi:. Director at the Chem- 
 ical Lahoratorv at the Sorlwinne. 'l^ Iliuslnition.t. ♦L.'nt. 
 XXI. THE FIVE SI'.NSES OF MAN. Bv Jii.hh Bkrnstein, O. O. Professor 
 
 in the Cnivirsltv of Hall-. '.•! Illustrations. ♦1.7.'>. 
 XXILTHE THEORY OF SOCND IN ITS RELATION TO Ml'SIC. By 
 Prof. PiETBo Hlaserna, of the Rovnl rnivcrslty of Rome. Numerous 
 W.Hxlcuts. ♦l..Vt. 
 XXIII. STIDIES IN SPECTRU.M ANALYSIS. By J. Nouman Lotkyeb. 
 
 Illustrations. %i.:*\. 
 X\IV A HISTORY OK THE GROWTH OF THE STE.VM ENGINE. Bv 
 RoiirBT H. TiiiithT..N. A M ,<• E. Prof, .-f Me.hanlcal Enclncerinc In 
 
 the Stevens Ins. of T.rhnoloL'v. Il'.t-.W N.J. HVt Illustrations. ♦•/..'>". 
 
 X,\V. EDfCATION AS A SCIENCfC. I!v Ai.i-.XANi>f:R Rain, LL. D, Prolofsor 
 of I/>i.'l'- In the Cnlversltv of AlMnleen. »I.7.V 
 XXVI MODERN CHRoMATIi S, with Applications to Art nnd !nduptr>-. By 
 (KiliiiN N. Koou, rrorestor of I'hysIca In Columbia College. !:«• i.iljrlnal 
 Hlustratlon*. 
 
 D. APPLETON A CO., PubUtheri, 519 A 551 Broadway, Sew Yoik.
 
 THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTII'IC SEIllES. 
 
 THE 
 
 iiuma:^ species. 
 
 ft^ 
 ^ 
 
 BY 
 
 A. DE QUATREFAGES, 
 
 PBortsiOB or asttibopologv in the museum of natural uistobt, pABm. 
 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 D . A r P L E T O N AN D C' O ^f P A N Y , 
 c\ ' T^ W'J AND 551 BROADWAY. 
 
 r-iT 1879.
 
 CriLT^e 
 
 4-&7G
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 UNITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 
 
 CHAPTKR I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 EMPIRES AND KINT.DOMS OP NATURE. — THE HUMAN KINGDOM. — 
 
 ANTHROPOLOGICAL METHOD 1 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 GENERAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL DOCTRINES ; MONOGENIS.M AND POLY- 
 
 30 
 
 CHAITEII III. 
 
 SPECIES AND RACK IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES .... 35 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 NATURE OK VARIATIONS IN ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE RACES ; 
 
 APPLICATION TO MAN 41 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 EXT1:NT of VARIATIONS IN ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE RACES; 
 
 APPLICATION TO MAN 47
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAUE 
 
 INTERCROSSING AND FCSION OF CHARACTERS IN ANIMAL RACKS ; 
 
 APPLICATION TO MAN oG 
 
 CHAPTEM VII. 
 
 CROSSING OF RACES AND SPECIKS IN THE ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE 
 
 KINGDOMS. — MONGRELS AND HYBRIDS 03 
 
 CHAPTER Vm. 
 
 CROSSING BETWEEN VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL RACES AND SPECIES ; 
 
 MONGRELS AND HYUIUUS ; REALITY OF SPECIES . . . 70 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CROSSING BETWEEN IHMAN GROUPS. — UNITY OF THE HUMAN 
 
 SPECIES 85 
 
 ROOK H. 
 
 OIJIGIN OF TIIK IIUM.VN SPFXIES. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ORIGIN OP SPECIES. — HYruTllESES Ol' TKANSMl TATION.— DARWINIS 1 89 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SI'KCIE.S.— DIKIEHKNT HYPOTHESES . . 104
 
 CoiiUiits. vli 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 ANTIQUITY OF TIIK HUMAN SPKCIKS. 
 CIIAPTEH Xir. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 AQE OP TIU: HUMAN srKJlE.S.— r.:KSKNT OEOLOfilCAL EPOCH . . 1 "JO 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AGE OF THE HUMAN SPECIE-S. — PAST GEOLOGICAL EPOCfld . . 142 
 
 i;u()K IV. 
 
 ORIGINAL LOCAI.ISATION OF TIIK II I'M AX SrECIKS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AGASSIZ'S THEOny.— CENTRES OF CREATION 154 
 
 CHAPTEP. XV. 
 
 PROGRESSIVE LOCALISATION OF ORGANISED BEINGS. — CENTRES OF 
 
 APPEARANCE.— ORIGINAL LOCALISATION OF MAN . . . 1G8 
 
 r.ooK V. 
 
 rr.ori.ixo of the glore. 
 
 — ♦ — 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MIGRATION.S RY LAND. - EXODUS OF THE KALMUCKS FROM THE 
 
 VOLGA 170
 
 viii Co)itc}its. 
 
 CHAPTllli XVI r. 
 
 PAQE 
 
 MI01UTI0N8 BY SEA. — POLYXESIAN MICKATION.S. — MIGKATIONS TO 
 
 XKW ZEALAND 185 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MIGRATIONS BY SUA. — MIGRATIONS IN AMERICA . ... 109 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 
 ACCMMATISATIOX OF TlIK HUMAN SnX'IES. 
 
 — ♦ — 
 
 CIIArTEIl XIX. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF CONniTIONS OF LIFE AND RACK .... 214 
 
 CHArTEll XX. 
 
 COND1TION.S OF ACCLIMATLSATION 224 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 
 1I;1.M1TIVK .MAN.— FOKMATION OF TllF. IIl'.MAN RACES. 
 
 CHAITEll XXI. 
 ruiMiTivi; MAN 239 
 
 CHAITER XXII. 
 
 FOllMATION CF Ml MAN RACES UNDER THE SOLE INII.lKNi K OK 
 
 CONDITIONS OF LIFE AND HEREDITY 241 
 
 ciiAi'Ti:!: xxiii. 
 
 FUHMATUN (<F MIXED lllMAN RACES 2G0 
 
 CIIAITEU XXIV. 
 
 INFLLENCK OF CROSSINU L I'ON MI.XED HUMAN RAl Es . . . 27G
 
 C out oils. ix 
 
 ROOK VIII. 
 
 FOSSIL HUMAN RACES. 
 
 CIIAPTKR XXV. 
 
 vsnr. 
 GENKHAL OUSEKVATIONS 287 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE CAXSTADT RACE 302 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE CnO-MAGNON RACE , .311 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 RACES OF FCRFOOZ 337 
 
 BOOK IX. 
 
 PRESENT HUMAN RACES.— PHYSICAL CHARACTERS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 GKNKRAL onsKllVATIONS.— EXTERNAL CHARACTERS . . . 349 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 ANATOMICAL tllAH.VCTER.S ........ 370 
 
 CHAPTER XXXr. 
 
 rHY.SIOLOOICAL CHARACTER.S JOD 
 
 CHAPTEP. XXXII. 
 
 PATHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS 422
 
 Contents. 
 BOOK X. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 r.\c.B 
 IKTELLECTCAL CEAIIACTERS 431 
 
 CKAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 MORAL CIIAU\CTER3 459 
 
 CUAl'TEU XXXV. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTERS 473
 
 THE HUMAN SPECIES. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 UNITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EMPIRKS AND KINGDOMS OF NATURE. — THE HUMAN 
 KINGDOM. — ANTHROPOLOGICAL METHOD. 
 
 I. The naturalist -vvlio meets -with an object for the first 
 time, instinctively asks the question : — What is this object ? 
 This question leads to another : — With what other objects 
 shall I class it ? To what group, and, in the first place, to 
 what kingdom does it belong ? Is it a mineral, a plant, or 
 an animal ? 
 
 The answer is not always easy. We know that, in what 
 may be called the basis of each Jcingdom, there are ambigu- 
 ous forms, whose nature has long been, and still is, the sub- 
 ject of contention among naturalists. We know that polyps 
 were long regarded as plants, and that nullipores, at first 
 taken for polyps, are now divided between the vegetable and 
 mineral kingdoms ; and, finally, we know that even now, 
 botanists and zoologists dispute over certain diatoms and 
 transfer them from one kingdom to the other. 
 
 Similarly the (juestion has been a.sked : — What is man ? 
 and it has been answered from several points of view. To 
 the naturalist it has but one meaning', and sijrnifics in which 
 kingdom must man be placed ? or Ijctter : is man an animal?
 
 2 The Human Sj)ccics. 
 
 In spite of all the differences Avhich a comparison of man 
 with the mammalia presents, should he be classed with 
 tliem ? This question is similar to that which Peysonnel 
 is said to have asked himself, when, struck by the special 
 phenomena presented by the coral, he asked himself whether 
 the object before him was a vegetable. 
 
 It is evident that, in order to solve the first problem which 
 arises from a study of the natural history of man, we must 
 have a clear idea Avhat are these great groups of beings, 
 which are called kingdoms ; we must give an account of 
 the characters which distinguish and separate them from 
 each other, and then of their true scientific meaning. It 
 will be sufficient for the purpose to explain the well-known 
 laws of Linnaeus, supplementing the theory of the immorUil 
 Swede by some ideas borrowed from Pallas and de Candolle, 
 and by one of the fundamental conceptions which Adamson 
 and A. L. de Jussieu have almost equally contributed to in- 
 troduce into science. 
 
 11, It is impossible for anyone, whether learned or otherwise, 
 not to recognise at once the difference between two kinds of 
 objects very distinct from each other : inanimate bodies and 
 organised beings. Those are the two groups into which 
 Pallas has divided kingdoms under the name of empires. 
 Their distinction is generally easy, and I shall confine my- 
 self to recalling some of the most es.scntial differences. 
 
 Inanimate bodies, when placed under favourable circum- 
 stances, last for an indelinite time, neither taking nor giving 
 anytiiing to the surrounding world ; organised beings, under 
 whatever conditions they are placed, only last for a fixe<l 
 period of time, and, during this existence, undergo every 
 moment losses of substance which they repair by means of 
 materials taken from without. Inanimate bodies, even 
 when they asstime the fixed and definite form of crystals, 
 arc formed indejtendently of all other bodies resembling 
 them ; they have from their conmicncemcnt fixed forms, 
 and increa.se sinij)ly by snj)erposition of new layers. Every 
 organised Ix'ing is connected either directly or indirectly
 
 Empires and Kingdoms of N'alurc. 3 
 
 Avith a similar bcinf,^ in the interior of which it first appeared 
 in the form of a germ, tlien grew and acquired its definite form 
 by intussusception. 
 
 In other words, filiation, nutrition, birth and death, arc so 
 many characteristics of the organised being, of which no 
 trace is found in inanimate bodies. I agree witli Pallas in 
 making inanimate bodies compose tlie Inorganic Empire, 
 and organised beings the Organic Empire. 
 
 I must here make an observation, the importance of wliich 
 will be easily understood. 
 
 Tiie existence of the two groups which have been recog- 
 nised by the good sense of the general public as well as by 
 the science of Pallas, is a fact al)solutely independent of all 
 hypothesis. Whatever explanation we may propose to ac- 
 count for the differential phenomena which distinguish them, 
 these phenomena will not the less exist ; the inanimate body 
 will never be an orifanised being. 
 
 To attempt, under any pretext whatever, to reconcile or 
 confound these two kinds of objects with each other, is to 
 go in direct opposition to all the progress made for more 
 than a century, and especially during the last few years, in 
 physics, chemistry and ph3'siology. It is inexplicable to me 
 that some men, whose merits I otherwise acknowledge, 
 should have recently again compared crystals to the simplest 
 living forms, to the sarcodic organisms, as they were called 
 by Dujardin, who discovered them, and was the first to give 
 a comprehensive theory of them from minute observations. 
 A change of name is useless ; the things remain the same, 
 and protoplasm has the same properties as sarcode. The 
 animals, whose entire substance they seem to form, have not 
 altered their nature ; whether monera or amoeba?, these 
 forms are the antipodes of the crystal from every point of 
 view. 
 
 A crystal, as M. Naudin has well remarked, closely re- 
 semblfs one of those regular piles of .shot which may be seen 
 in every arsenal. It only incre.'ises from the exterior, as the 
 pile is increased when the soldier adds a fresh layer of shot ;
 
 4 The IJiDiian Species. 
 
 its molecules arc just as immovable as the balls of iron. It 
 is exactly the contrary with the organised being, and the 
 simpler its composition the greater the contrast. The small 
 size of the moneron and the ania'ba prevents, it is true, 
 certain observations. I appeal, however, to all those natu- 
 ralists who have studied certain marine sponges in a living 
 state. They must like myself have remarked the strange 
 activity of the mial x'ddYl][)Ool in the semi-sarcodic substance 
 which surrounds their siliceous or horny skeleton ; they will 
 have seen the sea water in which they arc placed move with 
 a rapidity which it never exhibits when in contact with any 
 other animal. 
 
 The reason is that, in the organised being, the repose of 
 the crystal is replaced by an incessant movement ; that, 
 instead of remaining immovable and unalterable, the mole- 
 cules are unceasingly undergoing transformation, changing 
 tlieir composition, producing fresh substances, retaining some 
 and rejecting others. Far from resembling a pile of shot, 
 the organised being may much rather be compared to the 
 combination of a number of physico-chemical apparatus, 
 constantly in action to burn or reduce materials borrowed 
 from without, and ever making use of their own substance 
 for its incessant renewal. 
 
 In other Avords, in the crystal once formed the forces 
 remain in a state of stable equilibrliim, which is only in- 
 terrupted by the influence of exterior causes. Hence the 
 )»ossibility of its indefinite continuance without any change 
 either of its forms or of its properties. In the organised 
 being the C(juilibrium is unstable, or rather, there is no equi- 
 librium ])r(iperly so called. Every moment the organised 
 being ex|)eiids as much furcc liS mailer, and owes its con- 
 tinuance solely to the balance of the <jain and loss. Hence 
 the possibility of a modification nf its jiropertics and fnriii 
 without its ccjLsiug to exist. 
 
 Such art' lln' bare facts which rest upon no hypothesis what- 
 ever; and how can wc, in the jircsence of these facts, com pan' 
 the crystal which grows in a saline solution to the germ which
 
 Empires and Kiiit^doius of Nature. 5 
 
 becomes in succession embryo, foetus, and finally a complete 
 animal ? How can we confuse the inanimate hothj with the 
 oiyajiised being. 
 
 The two groups arc easily separated by the phenomena 
 they exhibit. It is the same Avith the causes of the phe- 
 nomenon. 
 
 Naturalists and physiologists are here divided. Some 
 would have it that the cause, or the causes, are identical, 
 and that conditions, which are almost accidental, alone de- 
 termine the difl'erence in the results by changing their mode 
 of action. In their opinion the formation of a crystal or of 
 a moneron is only a rpiestion of residtant. 
 
 Others consider living beings a.s the result of a cau.sc 
 entirely different from those which act in inanimate bodies, 
 and refer to this cause alone everything which takes place 
 in these beings. 
 
 These two methods appear to me, from the exclusive 
 element in each, to be equally ill-founded. It cannot be 
 denied that phenomena identical with those characteristic 
 of inanimate bodies are found in organised beings, and we 
 have, therefore, no scientific reason to attribute them to 
 different causes. 
 
 But organised beings have also their special phenomena 
 radically distinct from, or even opposed to, the former. Is it 
 possible to refer all of them to one, or to several, identical 
 causes? I think not. For this reason, I admit with a great 
 number of eminent men of every age and country, and, I 
 believe, with the majority of those that respect modern 
 science, that organised beings owe their distinctive charac- 
 teristics to a Special Cause, to a Siyecial Foire, to Life, 
 which in them is a.ssociated with the inorganic forces. Fur 
 this reason I consider it legitimate to call them Living 
 Beings. 
 
 I shall often, however, return to this class of considera- 
 tions, in order to make it quite clear in what sense I take 
 these words. Force, and Life. 
 
 III. The two Empires of Pallas are themselves sub-
 
 6 TJic Human Species. 
 
 divided into Kingdoms, -wliicli arc characterised by special 
 facts and plienonieua, becoming more and more complicated 
 as we ascend the scale of nature. 
 
 And, in the first place, I distinctly admit with de Candolle 
 the existence of a Sidereal Kingdom. To any one who 
 considers, as far as we are able, the little that we know of 
 the universe, the celestial bodies, suns, planets, and comets 
 or satellites only appear as molecules of the great All which 
 fills indefinite Space. One general phenomenon which is 
 uncliangeable, however varied in its forms, is, as it were, the 
 attribute of these bodies. All, whether gaseous or solid, 
 obscure or luminous, hot or cold, move within curves of the 
 same nature, obeying the laws discovered by Kepler. It is 
 now well known that fuved sUirs do not exist. 
 
 In order to explain this phenonunon philosophers have 
 admitted the existence of a force which they have called 
 Gravitation, the effect of which is to precipitate the stars 
 towards one another, as if they mutually attracted each other, 
 whilst obeying the laws of Newton. Now it is well known 
 that the great Englishman himself gave no opinion upon the 
 mode of action of this force, and that he hesitated between 
 the hypothesis of Attraction and that of Tmpuhion. The 
 first should prevail as being more in acconlance with the 
 immediate results of observation ; but the second also has 
 had serious partisans, among wlioin I will only mention 
 M. de Tessan. 
 
 Thus Newton, in spite of all his genius, cannot tell us 
 what wa.s the cause of the movement of the stars ; he was 
 iKjt even able to determine the immediate mode of action of 
 tiiis cause ; and yet there is not a scientific term more 
 universally received than that of Gravitation, there is not a 
 case in which the expression Force is more generally ac- 
 cepted. Tlie reason <»l" this is, that in the presence of 
 general facts and groups of phenomena, it is necessary to 
 make use of terms as simple as possible. AVe must, however, 
 avoid the delusion of thiidiing tliat itamliifj is ecjuivalent to 
 explain in fj.
 
 Empires and Ki)i!^douis of N'ature. 7 
 
 In cases analogous to that of which we have been treating, 
 tlie word Force merely indicates the presence of an Un- 
 Jcnoiun Cause, which gives rise to a group of fixed pfieno- 
 mena. In assigning names to each of the Forces or 
 Unknown Causes to which we consider ourselves able to 
 refer certain groups of phenomena, we facilitate the demon- 
 stration and discussion of the facts. The scientific man 
 knows very well that he cannot go beyond this. 
 
 It is in this sense, and in this sense alone, that I have 
 used above the expressions Force and Life. Astronomers 
 consider gravitation the unknown cause of the movement of 
 the stars; I consider Life as the unknown cause of the 
 phenomena which arc characteristic of organised beings. 
 It may be that both gravitation and Life, as well as the 
 other general forces are merely as x, of which the equation 
 has not yet been discovered. I shall presently return to 
 these considerations. 
 
 Be this as it ijiay, whatever our -real ignorance, whatever 
 the Cause of ^Yhich we are here treating, and though Iin- 
 indalon i\\o\\\i\ one day replace Attraction in our Theories, 
 the facts would still remain the same. The stars would 
 still be distributed through space, and subject to the laws of 
 Newton and Kepler; they would still constitute a perfectly 
 distinct whole, in the part assigned to the bodies which 
 compose it, and in the nature of the relations which unite 
 them. They would still form the Sidereal Kinfjdom. 
 
 This kingdom is then characterised by u general i^he- 
 iwmeiW)}, the Keplerian Movement, which may be attri- 
 buted to a single force, namely that oi gravitation. 
 
 IV. Let us now return to the Earth, the only celestial 
 body which we can study in detail. Modem discoveries, 
 however, judging from the relation of the elements and their 
 mutual action, make it almost certain that the greatest 
 similarity exists between the stars distributed in space, 
 between all those at least which form part of our hcavon.s. 
 
 Let us first establi.sh the fact that upon our globe we 
 again meet with the Koplerian Movement in falling bodies.
 
 8 TJie Human Species. 
 
 Attraction is here represented by Wei[jht. Gravitation re- 
 appears with all its laws, acting upon grains of dust as it 
 acts upon Avorlds. The parts of the whole, of cosmos, as 
 Humboldt would have said, cannot escape from the force 
 which governs the whole. 
 
 But upon the surface of our Earth and in its interior, as 
 far as we have been able to penetrate either by direct 
 observation or scientific induction, we notice the appearance 
 of other movements which are not subject to the laws of 
 Kepler or Newton ; phenomena appear which are entirely 
 new and perfectly distinct from those due to gravitation. 
 They are the physico-chemical phenomena. From their 
 number and their difference in character they were long 
 attributed to the action of distinct forces which were called 
 Electricity, Heat, Magnetism, etc. Modern science, however, 
 by transforming, so to speak, one into the other, has demon- 
 strated their original unity. Physicists refer them all to 
 nothing more than so many manifestations of the undula- 
 tions of ether. The vibration of the latter is then the 
 fundamental phenomenon from which all the others rise. 
 
 But this ether is absolutely hypothetical ; its nature is 
 perfectly unknown ; no one knowing whence it acquires 
 this quantity of movement, which, according to actual 
 theory, should be subject neither to increase nor diminution. 
 Now, in reality, we have here the Unknown cause of all 
 physico-chemical phenomena. For this reason, and also for 
 convenience, we shall give a name to this unknown cause, 
 to ih'iH force, and call it Etlicrodynamy (Etherodynamie). 
 
 But is not Etherodynamy only a particular form, a simple 
 modification, or an eticct of gravitation ? Are not tlicso 
 two forces only different manifestations of a more general 
 force ? Many eminent men are much inclined to admit 
 one or other of these hypotheses. Still, up to the present 
 time, the facts do not seem to me to shew nmch agreement 
 with them. Etherodynamy is displayed even in space and 
 among the stars by variable, locali.sed and temporary jiheno- 
 mena; the action of gravitation is niic, universal and
 
 Empires and Kingdoms of Nature. 9 
 
 constant. Man has always been able to exercise a certain 
 amount of control over tiic former; he can produce at will 
 light and heat ; modern science cannot act ujjon the second. 
 We can neither augment nor diminish, reflect or refract, or 
 polarise weight ; we cannot aiTest its action. Even in the 
 full of bodies the regularity in the acceleration of tlie motion 
 l)roves that the cause of this movement is subject to no 
 alteration. Here then is no iranmnutation of force i\vc\\\x\x 
 to that in a machine worked by electricity or heat. 
 
 But whatever be the progress of science, and though M. 
 de Tessan's theory should be confirmed by experiment, the 
 difference between the phenomena would not be diminished ; 
 the conclusions to be draw^n from the facts in connection 
 with the question we are here discussing would remain the 
 same. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to remark that the physico- 
 chemical phenomena produced by etherodynamy can act 
 upon masses or be exclusively molecular. They are in all 
 cases similar to those which depend upon gravitation, they 
 are subject to invariable laws and are always repeated in 
 a similar manner when produced under similar circum- 
 stances. 
 
 No antagonism, it is true, exists between gravitation and 
 etherodynamy. It is no less true that the action of the 
 first is always disturbed in a peculiar manner by that of the 
 second, and that in some phenomena it seems as if the 
 latter would neutralise the former. This fact is most 
 strikingly shown in some of the commonest experiments in 
 physics. The gold leaves of the electroscope separate, the 
 pith -balls are attracted towards electrified bodies in spite 
 of their weight, and are repelled with a rapidity greater 
 than that which would result merely from their own weight. 
 And yet these bodies have no more ceased to possess weight 
 than those masses of iron raised by the powerful mao-nets of 
 M. Jamin. Etherodynamy in these two ca.ses merely 
 overcame gravitation and either modified or imitated its 
 action.
 
 lo TJic Hunicin Species. 
 
 Those terrestrial bodies wliicli present no other pheno- 
 mena than those which can be referred to either gi-avita- 
 tion or etherod^mamy have, since the time of Linna?us, been 
 termed Inanimate Bodies. Together they constitute the 
 Mineral Kingdom. We see that the existence and the 
 distinction of this gi-oup are perfectly independent of any 
 hypothesis intended to explain the phenomena. 
 
 Two kinds of iihenomena then are characteristic of the 
 mineral kingdom : p/ie?iome?2(Z of the Keplerian movement 
 and 'physico-chemical phenomena, -which may be attri- 
 buted to the action of two forces : gravitation and ethero- 
 dynamy. 
 
 V. The sidereal and mineral kingdoms form the Inorganic 
 Empire. Passing from it we enter the domain of organised 
 and living beings. We have already'seen the essential phe- 
 nomena by which they are distinguished. These phenomena 
 differ essentially from all those which we have observed in 
 inanimate bodies. It seems to me, therefore, necessary to 
 attribute them to a special cause, — to Life. 
 
 I know that in the present day any one making use of 
 this word is readily accused by a great number of physicists 
 and chemists, and by an entire physiological school, of in- 
 troducing into science a vague and almost mysterious expres- 
 sion. There is, however, nothing in it more vague or mys- 
 terious than in the word gravitation. 
 
 It is very true that we do not know what Life is ; but no 
 more do we know ^vhat the force is that set the stars in 
 motion and retains them in their orbits. If astronomers 
 have been right in giving to the force, or iinkmnvn cause, 
 which gives the worlds their mathematical movements, 
 naturalists have a perfect right to designate by a special 
 term that unknown cause which produces filiation, birth 
 and dcatli. 
 
 It will bo ajjparcnt that my idea of Life is not tlic same 
 as it was with many ancient vitalists, that it is no more the 
 arche of van Ibimont than i\\(i vital principh of liarthez. 
 Its function appears to mo very ditTerent to that attributed
 
 Empires and Kingdoms of Nature. 1 1 
 
 to it by most of our piotlocessors.anJ wliich is .still attributed 
 to it by some pliy.siol()<,nsts. 
 
 Far from merely animating the organs, it is closely asso- 
 ciated with the furces of whit-li we have already spoken. Li vino- 
 beings arc heavy, and therefore subject to gravitation ; they 
 are the seat of numerous and various physico-chemical phe- 
 nomena -which arc indispensable to their existence and which 
 must be referred to the action of ctherodynamy. But these 
 phenomena arc here manifested under the influence of 
 n not her force. It is for this reason that the results of these 
 phenomena are often quite ditfereut to those in inanimate 
 bodies, and that living beings have their special products. 
 Life is not antagonistic to the inanimate forces, but it governs 
 and rules their action by its laws. Therefore it makes them 
 produce tissues, organs and individuals instead of crystals ; 
 it organises germs, and maintains through space and time, 
 in spite of the most complex metamorphoses, that luiitij of 
 definite living forms which we call Species. 
 
 If the anti-vitalists would only seriously reflect upon the 
 matter, they would acknowledge that, considered from this 
 point of view, there is nothing more mysterious in living 
 beings than in some of the commonest plienomcna presented 
 by inanimate bodies. The intervention of Life as a modify- 
 ing agent of actions purely etherodynamic may be as easily 
 admitted as that of ctherodynamy itself modifying and over- 
 coming the action of weight. It is just as strange to see a 
 piece of iron attracted and supported by a magnet, as to see 
 carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen combine and dispose 
 themselves so as to form an animal or vegetable cell instead 
 of any imaginable inorganic composition. 
 
 1 have repeatedly, and for many years, maintained the doc- 
 trine which I have sunmied up here. It seems to me confirmed 
 in the highest degree by the researches undertaken fur the 
 elucidation of the problem of which we are treating. The 
 experiences of M. Bernard in particular, relative to the 
 action exercised by anajsthetics upon plants as well as upon 
 animals, makes it impossible for us to doubt for a m.omcnt
 
 12 TIic Unman Species. 
 
 the intervention of an agent distinct from pliy.sioo-cliemical 
 forces in organic beings. In employing the word Life to 
 designate this agent, I only make use of an established 
 expression, ■without pretending to go beyond the information 
 gained from experiment and scientific observation. 
 
 Beings, in which life alone is added to gravitation and 
 etherodynamy constitute tlie Ver/etahle Kingdom. Now 
 there is one general fact displayed by this group, the 
 sisrnificance of which has not, it seems to me, been sufii- 
 ciently understood. With the exception of certain pheno- 
 mena of itnconscious irritability which have long been 
 known in some plants of a superior order, and of facts, pro- 
 bably of the same class, which have been established chiefly 
 with reference to some reproductive organs of plants of an 
 inferior order, every movement wiiich takes place in plants 
 appears to be produced solely by inanimate forces. The 
 transfer of matter in particular, which is necessary for the 
 development and sustenance of every vegetable, belongs to 
 actions of this kind. Can we believe that these forces, as 
 they are known to us from innumerable experiments, could, 
 if left to themselves, have formed an oak, or even raised a 
 mushroom ? Can we believe that they could have organised 
 tlie acorn or the spore, and hidden in those minute bodies 
 the power of reproducing the parent? And yet without 
 them the vegetable cannot exist. But, in my opinion, 
 nothing makes their real subordination more apparent than 
 the importance of their part in the process of execution. 
 They may be compared to workmen raising an edifice under 
 the eye of the architect who has made the plan. 
 
 Are wc then to conclude that life is an intelligent force, 
 conscious of the part it plays, and enjoying the dominion it 
 exercises over the subordinate inanimate forces ? Not at 
 all. Like these forces, it is ruled by general and fixed laws. 
 Nevertheless, we do not find in the application of these laws, 
 and in the results t<j which they lead, the mathematical 
 precision of the laws and phenomena of gravitation and 
 etherodynamy. 'J'lieir mode of action merely seems to oscil-
 
 Empii'cs and Kingdoms of Natitrc. 1 3 
 
 late between limits which remain impassable. This kind of 
 liberty, and the bounds imposed upon it, are conspicuous 
 ill tlio constant diversity of the jiroducts of life, a diversity 
 wliieli contrasts in so striking a manner with the uniformity 
 of tlie products of etherodynamy. Crystals, when similar in 
 composition, and when formed under similar circumstances, 
 resemble each other perfectly ; but we never find two leaves 
 exactly alike upon the same tree. 
 
 The vegetable kingdom is, tlierefore, characterised by three 
 kinds of plicnvmena : the Kephi'icm movement, physico- 
 theviical 2>henomcna, and vital pltenomena, which may be 
 ascribed to the action of three forces : Gravitation, Ethero- 
 ihjnamy, and Life. 
 
 VI. We find repeated among animals all the phenomena 
 which we have noticed amongst plants, and, especially in 
 the highest orders, those movements due to unconscious 
 irritability, of which examples are presented by plants. 
 Some eminent men, Lamarck among the number, have even 
 wished to refer all acts performed by inferior animals to this 
 order of phenomena. But here the author of La Philoso- 
 phie Zoolofjique has fallen into an anatomical error, which has 
 been long since recognised ; and whoever has lived, even for 
 a short time, by the sea-side, or has followed closely the 
 habits and actions of worms and zoophytes will certainly 
 protest against this manner of regarding them. 
 
 Pa.ssing from the plant to the animal, the latter executes 
 movements belonging either to the part or to the whole 
 which arc perfectly independent of the laws of gravitation 
 and etherodynamy. The regulating and determining cause 
 of these movements is evidently within the animal itself. It 
 is the Will. But the Will itself is intimately connected 
 with sensibility and consciousness. To everyone who judges 
 animals by what he finds takes place within himself, personal 
 experiment and observation prove that the animal feels, 
 jmhjcs, and ivills, that is to .say rca.ions, and cun.seciuently 
 is intelliyent. 
 
 This proposition will, I know, be contested by men whose
 
 14 The Human Sj)ca'cs. 
 
 learning I profoundly respect, and objections will be made 
 on all sides. On the one hand the Automatism of Descartes 
 will be revived in some schools, and will now be supported 
 by physiology and the experiments of vivisection. I am far 
 from denying the great interest which is attached to the 
 latter, and to the phenomena of reflex actions. But the 
 conclusions which are drawn from them appear to me singu- 
 larly exaggerated ; Carpenter has rightly opposed them with 
 personal experiment. I will add that the study of animals 
 placed far below, and certainly inferior to, the frog, would 
 doubtless lead to very diftercnt interpretations. Moreover, 
 Huxley himself admits that animals are probably sensible 
 and conscious automata. But if they were merely machines 
 we should be obliged to allow that they performed their 
 functions as 2/ they felt, judged, and willed. 
 
 On the other hand, in the name of philosophy and psycho- 
 logy, I shall be accused of confounding certain intellectual 
 attributes of the human reason with the exclusively sen^«7a'C 
 faculties of animals. I shall presently endeavour to answer 
 this criticism from the standpoint which should never be 
 (quitted by the naturalist, that, namely, of experiment and 
 observation. I shall here confine myself to saying that, in 
 my opinion, the animal is intelligent, and, although a rudi- 
 mentary being, its intelligence is nevertheless of the same 
 nature as that of man. It is, moreover, very unecjually 
 distributed among the animal species ; in this respect there 
 are many intervening stages between the oyster and the 
 
 In atldition to the phenomena which spring from the intelli- 
 gence and reasoning, we find in animals other imjiulses which 
 arise from Instinct, a blind impulse, or at least apparently so, 
 which often is the characteristic of animal species, and with 
 wiiich each iiulividual is endowed. These two orders of facts 
 arc very often confounded, but the confusion can bo explained 
 a.s follows. In the first ])Iaco, instinct has lus its ol)ject the 
 attainment of a determined and fixe<l result, but in the 
 multitude of ways and means necessary to attain this result
 
 Empires and Kingdoms of A^afurc. 1 5 
 
 a portion whicli is often very largo is due to the intelligence. 
 'J'lie distinction is not always easy. It will, moreover, be 
 apparent that I cannot here enter into the details required 
 by the examination of this question, so entirely foreign to 
 that which is before us. 
 
 Ik'sidc's the acts of intelligence and instinct, phenomena 
 have been established among animals which are closely 
 connected with what we call charnder, senilment, or 
 passion. The familiarity of the terms is in itself a proof 
 that upon this point ordinary observation has outstripped 
 scientific examination. 
 
 All these i)henomena are perfectly new and have no 
 analogy with those which we have noticed in the preceding 
 kingdoms. They evidently justify the formation of an 
 equally important group. The animal Jcingdom is thus 
 universally admitted, independently of every theory which 
 attempts to explain its characters. 
 
 Facts radically different cannot be attributed to the same 
 cause. We must admit, then, that the characteristic pheno- 
 mena of the animal depend upon something different to 
 those met with in the vegetable or mineral kingdoms. They 
 are, moreover, united by such intimate relations, that it 
 would be impossible not to attribute them to a single cause. 
 From motives already mentioned we will give a name to 
 this Unhnown Cause, and, making use of an expression 
 already established, though open, I can see, to more than 
 one criticism, we will call it the Animal Mind (I'dme 
 an i male). 
 
 Does the animal mind liberate the beings it animates from 
 the inferior forces ? By no means, for we find them repeated 
 witii all their characteristics. In order to raise the least of 
 its organs, the animal must contend with weight ; it cannot 
 pcrfoi-m the smallest movement without the intervention of 
 ])hysico-chemical phenomena ; it cannot breathe, and, there- 
 fore, cannot live, without constantly consuming some of its 
 constituents. In tlie animal, moreover, just as much as in 
 the plant, the inanimate forces, etherodynamy especially.
 
 i6 The Human Species. 
 
 appear in their double character of constancy and of ubiquity 
 in the accomplishment of phenomena, and of subordination 
 to life, which governs their action in the animal as in the 
 plant. 
 
 Moreover, a large part is reserved for purely vegetative 
 life in animals of the highest order. The entire organism is 
 formed without any intervention of the animal mind. Again, 
 a certain number of organs always escape more or less from 
 the influence of the latter, and seem to be subject to life 
 alone. Now these organs are precisely those upon which 
 nutrition, and consequently the constitution and duration of 
 the whole, depend. Thus life, which reigned supreme in the 
 vegetable kingdom, now in its turn, appears in a subordinate 
 character. We might say that it was essentially entrusted 
 with the organisation and maintenance of the instruments 
 of the animal mind. 
 
 As to the latter, even where its intervention is most 
 questioned, it is only revealed to observation by voluntary 
 movements. Now personal experiment and the faculty of 
 reasoning, arc necessary to enable us to comprehend the 
 nature, and appreciate the signification of these movements. 
 It is only by regarding himself as normal, that man can 
 judge of the animal, a subject to which I shall presently 
 return. 
 
 Phenomena of four Jcinds are then characteristic of the 
 Animal Kingdom : 'phenomena of the Keplerian movement; 
 2>hyiiico-chemical 2^henomena ; vital j^henomena ; and^jAcTio- 
 mena of voluntary movement; attributable to the action 
 of 'four forces: gravitation, cthcroch/namy, life, and the 
 animal mind. 
 
 VII. Athough the preceding statements are so much 
 abridged, I have thought it well to give the condensed 
 results in the following table :
 
 Empires and Kingdoms of N'atnre. ij 
 
 KUPIBES. 
 
 Inorganic 
 (I'allaK). 
 
 Orornnic 
 
 (I'ullas), 
 
 KINGDOMS. 
 
 '^Sidereal . . 
 (lie C'andolle) 
 
 Mineral . . 
 (Linmuus) 
 
 'Vcprtable . 
 (Linn;uus) 
 
 Animal . . 
 (Linniuus) 
 
 PHENOMENA. 
 
 ( Phenomena of the Kep- 
 ( Icrian movement . . 
 
 ! Phenomena of tlic Kcp- 
 lerian movement . . 
 Physico-chemical phe- 
 nomena 
 
 I Phenomena of the Kcp- 
 j lerian movement . . 
 <, Physico-chemical phe- 
 
 I nomcna 
 
 I Vital phenomena . . . 
 Phenomena of the Kep- 
 lerian movement . . 
 Physico-chemical phe- 
 nomena 
 
 Vital phenomena . . 
 
 Phenomena of voluntary 
 
 movemeat . . . . 
 
 CAUSES. 
 
 Gravita'.ion. 
 Gravitation. 
 Etherodynamy, 
 Gravitation. 
 
 Etherodynamy, 
 Life. 
 
 Gravitation. 
 
 Etherodynamy, 
 Life. ^ 
 
 The Animal 
 
 Mind. 
 
 From this table, and the expansions which it siini.s up, rise 
 the following conclusions. 
 
 1. Each kingdom is characterised by a certain number of 
 phenomena, whose existence is independent of all hypothesis 
 and theory. 
 
 2. The phenomena increase in number from the sidereal 
 to the animal kinfjdom. 
 
 3. In passing from one kingdom to another, and proceeding 
 from the simple to the composite, a number of phenomena 
 appear, which are entirely unknown in the inferior kingdoms. 
 
 4. The superior kingdom presents, independently of its 
 special phenomena, the characteristic phenomena of the 
 inferior kingdoms. 
 
 5. Each group of phenomena indicated in the table is 
 connected with a small number of fundamental phenomena, 
 which can, in some cases with certainty, in others with more 
 or less probability, be referred to a single cause. 
 
 G. All these causes are equally unknown to us as regards 
 their nature and mode of action. We know them merely 
 by phenomena. We can, therefore, make no conjecture as
 
 ' 1 8 The Human Species. 
 
 to the relations, more or less close, which may exist between 
 them. 
 
 7. We nevertheless give names to these causes for the 
 sake of convenience, and of facilitating the discussion of tlie 
 facts, 
 
 VIII. We can now return to the problem which gave rise 
 to these expansions, and ask the question : Whether Man 
 should take his place in the animal kingdom 1 a question 
 which evidently leads to another : Is man distinguished from 
 animals by important and characteristic phenomena, abso- 
 lutely unknown in the latter \ For more than forty years I 
 have answered this question in the affirmative, and my con- 
 victions, tested by many controversies, are now stronger 
 than ever. 
 
 But it is neither in the material disposition, nor in the 
 action of his physical organism, that we must look for these 
 phenomena. From this point, of view, man is neither more 
 nor less than an animal. From an anatomical point of view, 
 there is less difference between man and the superior order 
 of apes, than between the latter and the inferior orders. 
 The microscope reveals equally striking resemblances between 
 the elements of the human organism and those of the animal 
 organism ; and chemical analysis leads to the same result. 
 It was easy to foresee that the action of elements and organs 
 would be exactly the same in man and beast, and such was 
 found to be the case. 
 
 Passions, sentiments, and characters, establish between 
 animals and ourselves equally close relations. The animal 
 loves and hates ; we recognise in it irritability and jealousy ; 
 unwearying patience, and immutable confidence. In our 
 domestic species, these differences are more apparent, or 
 perhaps we only notice them more closely. Who has not 
 known dogs whicli have been playful or snappish, affectionate 
 or savage, cowardly or courageous, friendly with everybody, 
 or exclusive in their affections. 
 
 Again, man has true instincts, were it only that of socia- 
 bility. Faculties, however, of this order, which are so fully
 
 The Human Kingdom. 19 
 
 developed in certain animals, in man are evidently very 
 much reduced in comparison with the intelligence. 
 
 The relative development of the latter certainly estab- 
 lishes an enormous difference between man and animal It 
 is not, however, the inteixsity of a phenomenon which 
 gives value to it from our present point of view, but 
 simply its nature. The question is whether human intelli- 
 gence and animal intelligence can be considered as of the 
 same order. 
 
 As a rule philosophers, psychologists, and theologians, have 
 replied in the negative, and naturalists in the affirmative. 
 This opposition can be easily understood. The former make 
 the human mind, considered as an indivisible whole, their 
 principal study, and attribute to it all our faculties. Unable 
 to deny the similarity, external at least, between certain 
 animal and human acts, and yet being anxious to clearly 
 distinguish man from the brute, they have given to the acts 
 different interpretations as they have been performed by one 
 or the other. Naturalists have regarded the phenomena 
 more closely without thinking of anything else, and when 
 they have seen the animal behave in the same manner as 
 they themselves would have done under the given circum- 
 stances, they have concluded that the motives of the action 
 must ])e fundamentally the same. I must ask permission to 
 remain a naturalist, and to recall some facts, and regard 
 them from this point of view. 
 
 The theologians themselves allow that the animal pos- 
 sesses sensation, formation and association of images, im- 
 agination, and passion (R. P. de BonniotJ, They allow 
 that the animal feels the relation of fitness or of unfitness 
 between sensible objects and his own senses ; that it experi- 
 ences sensible attractions and repulsions, and acts perfectly 
 in consequence, and that in this sense the animal reasons 
 and judges (I'Abbe A. Lecomte). Therefore, they add, we 
 cannot doubt but that the animal possesses a principle 
 superior to that of mere matter, and we may even give it 
 the name of mind (R. P. Bonniot). But in spite of all,
 
 20 The HiLinan Species. 
 
 theologians and philosophers maintain that the animal cannot 
 be intelligent, because it has neither innate sense, conscious- 
 ness nor reason. 
 
 Let us leave for a moment the last term, with which the 
 idea of phenomena which we shall presently discuss, is 
 connected in the mind of our opponents. Is it true that 
 animals are wanting in innate sense, and are not conscious of 
 their actions ? Upon what facts of observation does this 
 opinion rest? We each one of us feel that we possess this 
 sense, that we enjoy this faculty. By means of speech we 
 can convey to another the results of our personal experience. 
 But this source of information is wanting when we come to 
 deal with animals. Neither in them nor in ourselves are 
 innate sense and consciousness revealed to the outer world 
 by any special characteristic movement. It is, therefore, 
 only by interpreting these movements, and by judging from 
 ourselves, that we can form an idea of the motives from 
 which the animal acts. 
 
 Proceeding in this manner, it seems to me impossible to 
 refuse to allow animals a certain amount of consciousness of 
 their actions. Doubtless, they do not form such an exact 
 estimate of them, as even an illiterate man can do. But we 
 may be very certain that when a cat is trying to catch 
 sparrows on level ground, and creeps along the hollows, 
 availing herself of every tuft of grass however small, she 
 knows what she is about, just as well as the hunter who 
 glides in a crouching attitude from one bush to another. 
 We may be equally sure that kittens and puppies when they 
 fight, growl and bite without hurting each other, know very 
 well that they are playing and not in earnest. 
 
 I must here beg permission to relate the remembrance of 
 my struggles with a mastiff of pure breed, and which had 
 attained its full size, remaining, however, very young in 
 character. We were very good friends, and often played 
 together. As soon as ever I assumed an attitude of defence 
 before him, he would leap upon me with every appearance 
 of fury, seizing in his mouth the arm which I had used
 
 The Hnman Kiiigdo7n. 21 
 
 as a sliielJ. He might have marked my arm deeply at 
 the first onset, but he never pressed it in a manner that 
 could inflict the slightest pain. I often seized him by his 
 lower jaw with my hand, but he never used his teeth so 
 as to bite me. And yet the next moment the same teeth 
 would indent a piece of wood, I tried to tear away from 
 them. 
 
 This animal evidently knew what it was doing when it 
 feigned the passion precisely o'p'posite to that which it really 
 felt; when, even in the excitement of play, it retained 
 sufficient mastery over its movements to avoid hurting me. 
 In reality it played a part in a comedy, and we cannot act 
 without being conscious of it. 
 
 It is useless for me to insist upon many other facts which 
 I could bring forward, and I refer my reader to the works of 
 those naturalists who have studied the question, especially 
 those of F. Cuvier. But the more I reflect upon it, the 
 more is my conviction confirmed that man and animals 
 think and reason in virtue of a faculty which is common to 
 both, and which is only far more developed in the latter 
 than in the former. 
 
 What I have just said of the intelligence I do not hesitate 
 to say also of language, the highest manifestation of the 
 intelligence. It is true that man alone possesses speech, that 
 is to say the articulate voice. But two classes of animals 
 possess voice. With us it is, again, only a high degree of 
 perfection, nothing radically new. In both cases the sounds, 
 produced by the air which is thrown into vibration by the 
 voluntary movements accorded to the larynx, convey im- 
 pressions and personal thoughts which are understood by 
 individuals of the same species. The mechanism of the 
 production, the object and the result are fundamentally the 
 same. 
 
 It is true that the language of animals is most rudimentary 
 and, in this respect, in harmony with the inferiority of their 
 intelligence. We might say that it was almost entirely 
 composed of interjections. Such as it is, however, this
 
 2 2 The Human Species. 
 
 language is sufficient for the wants of the mammalia and 
 birds who understand it perfectly, while man himself can 
 learn it without very much trouble. The hunter can dis- 
 tinguish the accents of anger, love, pleasure, sorrow, the call 
 and the signal of alarm and makes use of these indications 
 as an unfailing guide, and often imitates these accents and 
 cries in such a manner as to deceive the animal. Of course 
 I exclude from the language of brutes, the song, properly so 
 called, of birds, that of the nightingale for example. It 
 appears to me void of all meaning, as are the notes of a 
 singer, and I do not believe in the interpretation of Dupont 
 de Nemours. 
 
 It is not, therefore, in the plienomena connected with the 
 intelligence that we shall find the basis of a fundamental 
 distinction between man and animals. 
 
 But in man the existence has been proved of fundamental 
 phenomena of which nothing either in living beings or 
 inanimate bodies has hitherto been able to give us any con- 
 ception. 1st. Man has the perception of moral good and 
 evil independently of all physical welfare or suffering. 2nd. 
 Man believes in superior beings who can exercise an in- 
 fluence upon his destiny. 3rd. Man believes in the prolon- 
 gation of his existence after this life. 
 
 The last two phenomena have always been so closely 
 connected that it is natural to refer them to the same 
 faculty, to that namely of Religion. The first depends on 
 , Morality. 
 
 Psychologists attribute religion and morality to the reason, 
 and make the latter an attribute of man. But with the 
 reason they connect the highest phenomena of the intelli- 
 gence. In my opinion, in so doing they confound and refer 
 to a common origin, facts entirely different. Thus since 
 they are unable to recognise either moraUty or religion in 
 animals, Avhich in reality do not possess these two faculties, 
 they are forced to refuse them intelligence also, although the 
 same animals, in my opinion, give decisive proof of their 
 possession of tliis faculty every moment.
 
 The Human Kingdom. 23 
 
 The generality of the phenomena which we are discussing 
 is, I believe, indisputable, especially since the investigation 
 to which it has been subjected by the Society of Anthro- 
 pology in Paris, where the question of the human kingdom 
 has been long and seriously discussed. I cannot here re- 
 produce the discussion, even in an abridged form, but refer 
 my readers either to the summary in my Rapport sur les 
 progres de Vanthroxiologie en France, or to the Bulletins 
 of the Society. I shall, moreover, go into this subject in 
 some detail in the chapters devoted to the moral and reli- 
 gious characters of the human races. 
 
 A host of manifestations of human activity are derived, as 
 so many consequences, from the three facts which I have 
 pointed out. Customs and institutions of every kind are 
 connected with them ; they alone explain some of the great 
 events which change the destiny of nations and the face of 
 the earth. 
 
 For reasons which I have several times pointed out already, 
 we must give a name to the Unknown Cause from which 
 are derived the phenomena of morality and religion. We 
 will call it the Human mind (I'ame humaine). 
 
 I must here repeat the formal declaration which I have 
 often made already. When I employ this term, which is 
 established by custom, it is with the understanding that I 
 strictly confine myself within the limits imposed upon any- 
 one who intends to be exclusively faithful to science, experi- 
 ment and observation. I consider the human principle as 
 the Unknown Cause of exclusively human phenomena. To 
 go beyond that would be to encroach upon the domain of 
 philosophy or theology. To them belongs the solution of 
 the formidable problems raised by the existence of the 
 'something' which makes a man of an organism entirely 
 animal, and I give everyone leave to choose from the pro- 
 posed solutions the one Avhich agi-ees most satisfactorily with 
 the demands of his own feelings and reason. 
 
 But whatever this solution may be, it will in no way affect 
 the phenomena ; those Avhich I have just described will
 
 24 The Human Species. 
 
 neither be diminished nor modified. Now they exist in man 
 alone, and it is impossible to deny their importance. Thus 
 they distinguish man from the animal as much as the 
 phenomena of intelligence distinguish the animal from the 
 plant, and as the phenomena of life distinguish the plant 
 from the mineral. They are, therefore, the attributes of a 
 kingdom, which we will call the Huiiuin Kingdom. 
 
 From this conclusion it will seem that I am at variance 
 with Linnaeus, whose idea I have, however, only developed 
 and stated more precisely. In fact, the immortal author of 
 the Sijstema Naturoi has placed his Eomo sapiens amongst 
 the mammalia in the class of primates, and has made him 
 conorenous with the gibbon. This is because Linnaeus had 
 recourse to the System in order to establish his nomen- 
 clature. To classify man as well as other beings, he has 
 made an arbitrary choice of a certain number of character- 
 istics, and only taken those into consideration which were 
 furnished by the body. 
 
 But the language of Linnaeus is very different, even in his 
 remarks relating to the genus Homo, and still more so in 
 the kind of introduction entitled Imperiiim Naturce. He 
 there almost places man in opposition with all beings, and 
 particularly with animals, and in such terms as necessarily 
 to suggest the idea of a human Jdngclom. 
 
 The reason of this is that here Linnaeus no longer speaks 
 of physical man, but of man as a whole. Now, thanks to 
 the labours of Adanson, Jussieu and Cuvier, naturalists 
 now know that this is the right course to pursue in judging 
 of the relations which exist between beings. The Natural 
 Method no longer allows the choice of such or such a gi'oup of 
 characteristics ; it demands, together with an appreciation of 
 their relative value, a consideration of all. It is on this 
 account that I have been led to admit the existence of this 
 human kingdom, Avhich has been already proposed under 
 several appellations by some eminent men, but to which I 
 believe myself to have given a more precise and rigorous 
 determination.
 
 The Human Kingdom. 
 
 25 
 
 The table given above must then be completed in the fol- 
 lowing manner : — 
 
 Human 
 Kingdom 
 
 PHENOMEXA. 
 
 r Phenomena of the Keplerian movement 
 I Physico-chemical phenomena .... 
 
 <. Vital phenomena 
 
 I Phenomena of voluntary movement . 
 ( Phenomena of morality and religion . 
 
 CAUSES, 
 
 Gravitation 
 Etherodynamy 
 Life 
 
 Animal mind 
 Human mind 
 
 Thus in the human kingdom we find by the side of the 
 phenomena which characterise it all those which we have met 
 with in the inferior kingdoms. We are consequently forced 
 to admit that all the /orcfs and all the unknown causes to 
 which we have attributed these effects are acting in man. 
 From this point of view man deserves the name which has 
 sometimes been given to him of microcosm. 
 
 We have seen that in the vegetable kingdom the in- 
 animate forces perform their functions under the control, so 
 to speak, of Life, which afterwards, in the animal, showed 
 incontestable signs of its subordination to the animal mind 
 Life now appears under similar conditions with regard to the 
 human mind. In the most characteristic human actions, the 
 intelligence almost always plays the most prt)minent part 
 from the executive point of view ; but it is manifestly under 
 the direction of the human mind. All legislation affects to 
 rest upon the one foundation of morality and of justice, 
 which is only a form of it ; the immediate cause of the 
 Crusades, of the spread of the Arabs, and the conquests of 
 Islam, was religious fervour. The true legislator and the 
 great leader are indeed necessarily men of high intelligence, 
 but IS it not clear that in the cases mentioned the intelli- 
 gence has been placed at the service of morality or of 
 religion, and consequently of the Unhioivn Cause to which 
 man owes these faculties ? 
 
 But however preponderating the part claimed by this
 
 26 The Iluuiaji Species. 
 
 cause in acts exclusively liuuKiu may be, it lias nothing to do 
 ■with those phenomena which have their origin in the intel- 
 ligence alone. The learned mathematician who seeks by the 
 aid of the most profound abstractions the solution of some 
 great problem, is completely without the moral or religious 
 sphere into which, on the contrary, the ignorant, simple- 
 minded man enters when he struggles, sutlers, or dies for 
 justice or for his faith. 
 
 IX. It was necessary to recall all the facts and theories 
 which I have just summed up, in order to facilitate the com- 
 prehension and the justification of the method which alone 
 can guide us in anthropological studies. 
 
 The object of anthropology is the study of man as a 
 species. It abandons the matcvial indicidual to phy- 
 siology and medicine; the intellectual and moral indi- 
 vidual to philosophy and theology. It has, therefore, its 
 own special field of study, and on that account alone its 
 special cpiestions, whicii often could not be solved by pro- 
 cesses borrowed from cognate sciences. 
 
 In fact, in some cjuestions, and in some of the most fuuda- 
 niental ones, the difiiculty lies in the interpretation of pheno- 
 mena connected with those which are characteristic of all 
 living beings. For tiie very reason that they are to a certain 
 extent obscure in man, we cannot seek for an explanation of 
 them in man, since he becomes, so to speak, the \mknown 
 cjuantity of the problem. An endeavour to solve the problem 
 by the study of man, who is the object of it, would be equi- 
 valent to a mathematician representing the value of x in 
 terms of j- itself. 
 
 How docs the uiathematician proceed ? He seeks in the 
 data of the problem for a certain number of hnoivii quan- 
 tities equivalent to the niiknown quanlitij, and by means 
 of tiicHC (juantitics he determines the value of r. 
 
 The anthropologist must act in the sanie manner. But 
 where must he seek for the known (piantities which will en- 
 able him to state the eipiation i 
 
 The answer to this question will be fouml in wli.it we have
 
 Anthropological Mel hod. 27 
 
 said above, and in tlic table of kingdoms. Man, altliough he 
 lias liis special and exclusively human phenomena, is above 
 all an organiscil and living being. From thi.s point of 
 view he is the scat of phenomena common to animals and 
 plants ; he is subjected to tlie same laws. In his physical 
 organisation he is nothing more than an animal, somewhat 
 superior in certain respects to the most highly developed 
 species, but inferior in others. From this point of view he 
 presentij organic and physiological phenomena identical with 
 those of animals in general, and of mammalia in particular; 
 and the laws which govern these phenomena are the same 
 in both casc3. 
 
 Now plants and animals have been studied for a much 
 longer period than man, and from an exclusively scientific 
 point of view, without any trace of the prejudice and party 
 feeling which often interferes with the study of man. With- 
 out having penetrated very deeply into all the secrets of vege- 
 table and animal life, science has acquired a certain number 
 of fixed and indisputable results which constitute a founda- 
 tion of positive knowledge, and a safe starting point. It is 
 there that the anthropologist must seek the known quan- 
 tidt's of which he may stand in need. 
 
 Whenever there is any doubt as to the nature or significa- 
 tion of a phenomenon observed in man, the corresponding 
 phenomena must be examined in animals, and even in plants ; 
 they must be compared with what takes place in ourselves, 
 and the results of this comparison accepted as they are exhi- 
 bited. What is recognised as being true for other organised 
 beings cannot but be true for man. 
 
 This method is incontestably scientific. It is similar to 
 that of modern physiologists, who, since they are unable to 
 experiment upon man, experiment upon animals, and form 
 thtir conclusions upon the former from the latter. But the 
 physiologist devotes his attention to the individual only, 
 and, therefore, examines little more than those groups which 
 in their organisation approach most nearly to the being whoso 
 history he wishes to explain. The anthropologist on the con-
 
 28 TJic Ilitman Species. 
 
 trary studies the fqKcies. The questions with wliich he lia,s 
 to deal are niucli more general, so he is forced to direct his 
 attention to phints as well as to animals. 
 
 This method is accompanied by its criterion ; it allows the 
 control of tlie various answers which are often made to one 
 question. The means of estimation are simple and easily 
 applied. 
 
 In anthropology, every solution to l)c sound, that is to 
 say, true, should refer man in everything which is not exclu- 
 sively human to the general recognised laws for other organ- 
 ised and living beings. 
 
 Every solution which makes or tends to make, man an ex- 
 ception, by representing liim as free from those laws which 
 govern other organised and living beings, is unsound and 
 false. 
 
 Again, when we reason and form our conclusions in this 
 manner, we remain faithful to the mathematical method. 
 To be received as true, a solution of a given problem must 
 agree with admitted axioms, with truths previously proved. 
 Every hypothesis which leads to results at variance with 
 these axioms or these truths, is, on that account alone, de- 
 clared false. In anthropology, tlic axiom or the truth which 
 serves as a criterion is the fundamental, physical, and physio- 
 logical identity of man with other living beings, with animals, 
 with mammalia. All hvpotheses at variance with this truth 
 should be rejected. 
 
 Such are the ab.solute rules which have always acted as 
 my guide in anthropological studies. I do not pretend to 
 liave invented them. 1 have scarcely done more than for- 
 mulate what has been more or less explicitly admitted by 
 Linna-us, Huffon, l..amarck, IJlumenbach, Cuvier, the two 
 CJeoffroy St, Hilaire, J. Miiller, IJumboldt, etc. But, on 
 the one hand, my illustri(»us predeces.sors have seldom 
 treated the subject with sufticient precision, and have 
 too often r)mitted t«) give the reasons for their decisions. 
 On the other hand these principles have been, and are 
 daily forgotten by men who, in other respects, enjoy with
 
 Anthropological Method. 29 
 
 justice the title of great authorities. As I shall be com- 
 pelled to (lisjij^'rec with them, I thought it necessary to 
 show clearly the general ideas which serve as a foundation 
 for my own scientific convictions. The reader will thus be 
 able to appreciate and discern the causes of this difference 
 of opinion.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GENERAL ANTHUOPOLOGICAL DOCTRINES; MONOGENISM 
 AND POLYGENISM. 
 
 I. As soon as we have determined the phice which shouhl 
 be assigned to man in the great order of tlie universe, the 
 first question Avhich rises is, whether there is one human 
 species, or several. 
 
 It is well known that this question has caused a division 
 amongst anthropohigists. The Pobjfjcnists regard the diifer- 
 cnces of lieight, features, and colour, which distinguish the 
 inhabitants of different countries of the globe, as funda- 
 mental ; the MonofjenistH consider these ditTcrences merely 
 as the result of accidental conditions, which have modified, 
 in various degrees, a primitive type. The former- hold that 
 there are several human apccka perfectly independent of 
 each other ; the latter that there is hut one species of man 
 which is dividetl into several races, all of which arc derived 
 from a common stock. 
 
 Ifowcver slight may be our familiarity with the language 
 of zoology and botany or their applications, it is evident that 
 the (|iie.stion before us is a ])urely scientific one, and entirely 
 witiiin the }»rovincc of the natural sciences. Unfortunately 
 the di.scussion has by no means been confined to this 
 groun<l. 
 
 A dogma supported by the authority of the Book wliich 
 is liehl in almost e(pial respect l>y (Miristian.s, Jews and 
 Mussulmans, has long referred the origin of all men without 
 opposition to a single father and mother. Nevertheless, the 
 first blow aimed at this ancient belief was founded upon 
 the some book. In Hi'*"' l-i Peyri-re, a Protestant gentle-
 
 I^Tonogcnisin and Polygcnism. 31 
 
 man in CondiT.s army, interpreting to the letter the two 
 narratives of the creation contained in the Bible as well as 
 various particulars in the history of Adam and of the 
 Jewish nation, attempted to prove that the latter alone 
 were descended from Adam and Eve ; that they had been 
 preceded by other men who had been created at the same 
 time as the animals in all parts of the habitable globe ; that 
 tlic descendants of these Freadamites were identical with 
 the Gentiles, who were always so carefully distinguished 
 from the Jews. Thus we see that polygcnism generally 
 reganled as the result of Free Tliowjld was biblical and 
 dogmatic in origin. 
 
 La Peyrt-re attacked the Adamic dogma in the name of 
 the respect due to the text of a sacred Book. The philo- 
 sophers of the eighteenth century spoke in the name of 
 Science and Reason. It is to them that the school of 
 Pulygeuists in reality owe their origin. But it is easy to 
 see that the greater number of them were only guided in 
 their writings by a controversial spirit, their chief aim was 
 the destructiun of a dogma. Unfortunately, the same pre- 
 possession appears in too many works published in our 
 own day. On the other hand certain monogonists arc 
 guilty of seeking in religious doctrines arguments in favour 
 of their theory, and anathematising their adversaries in the 
 name of dogma. 
 
 Social and political prejudices in addition to dogmatic 
 and anti-dogmatic prejudices have helped to make still 
 more okscure a question already very difficult in itself. In 
 the United States in particular the advocates of slavery and 
 its opponents have often fought upon this ground. Further 
 still in LSH Mr. Calhoun, Minister of Foreign AtTairs, when 
 replying to the representations made to him by France and 
 England on the subject of slavery, did not hesitate to 
 defend the institutions of his country by urging the radical 
 differences, which, according to him, separated the Negro 
 from th»! White man. 
 
 Bcsidrs lliosc polygenists who are intlucnced by pre-
 
 32 TJtc Human Species. 
 
 judices almost or entirely unscientific, there are sincere 
 and disinterested men of science >vho believe in the multi- 
 plicity of human origins. Foremost among the latter are 
 medical men, who arc accustomed to the study of the 
 individual and >Yho only possess a slight familiarity with 
 the study of the sjyecies. Then again there are palaeon- 
 tologists, who from the nature of their work are compelled 
 only to take into account morphological resemblances and 
 differences, without even t\irning their attention to facts of 
 reproduction or of Jlliation. Finally, there are entomolo- 
 gists, conchologists, etc., who, exclusively interested in the 
 distinction of innumerable species by purely external charac- 
 ters, are entirely ignorant of physiological phenomena, and 
 iud'^e livinrr beinfrs as thcv would fossils. 
 
 On the other hand, monogcnism reckons among its 
 partisans nearly all tho.se naturalists who have turned their 
 attention to the phenomena of life, and among them some 
 of the most illu.strious. In spite of the difference of their 
 doctrines, liuffon and Linnieus, Cuvier and Lamarck, Blain- 
 ville and the two Geotfroys, Miiller the physiologist and 
 Humboldt agree upon this point. Apart from any influence 
 which the name of the.se great men might exercise, it is 
 clear that I share thfir opinion. I have on diflcrent occa- 
 sions explained the purely scientific reasons for my con- 
 victions. I shall now endeavour to sum them up in as few 
 words as possible. 
 
 II. Let us first establish the importance of the ([uestion. 
 It escapes many minds and I have lieard a doubt expre.s.sed 
 tipon it by men who havo enthusiastically followed anthro- 
 pological studies. It is, however, ca.siiy j)rovod. 
 
 If the human grotjps liave appeared with iill their dis- 
 tinctive characters in the i.solated condition, and in the 
 various localities where geography teaches us to seek 
 thtm ; if we can trace them up to stocks originally distinct, 
 thus constituting so many niwcIhI sjn'rirs, then the study of 
 them is one of the most simple, presenting no more diffi- 
 culty than that of aniiii.il or vegetable species. There
 
 I^fonogcnism and Polygcnism. 33 
 
 would be nothing singular in the diversity of the groups. 
 It would be sufficient to examine and describe them one 
 after the other, merely determining the degree of offiniiu 
 W'tween them. At most we should have to fix their limits 
 ami to discover the influence which groups geographically 
 brought in contact had been able to exercise upon each 
 other. 
 
 If, on the contrary, these groups can be traced to one 
 common primitive stock, if there is hxd one single species of 
 man, the ditferenccs, sometimes so striking, which separate 
 the groups, constitute a problem similar to that of our 
 animal and vegetable races. Further, man is found in all 
 parts of the globe, and we must account for this dispersion ; 
 we must explain how the same species has been able to 
 accommodate itself to such opposite conditions of existence 
 as those to which the inhabitants of the pole and the 
 ecjuator are subject. And lastly, the simple afftniln of 
 naturalists is changed into consanguinity; and the problems 
 ofJiHation are added to those of variation, migration, and 
 acclimatisadvn. 
 
 It is clear that, independently of every religious, philo- 
 sophical, or social consideration, this science will dififer 
 entirely in character as we consider it from a polygcnistic 
 point of view, or according to theories of monogenism. 
 
 III. If the former of these doctrines claims such a large 
 inindxir of adherents, the reason may fur the most part be 
 found in the causes mentioned above. But its seductive 
 simplicity and the facility which it seems to lend to the 
 interpretation of facts also stand for a great deal. Unfor- 
 tunately these advantages are only apparent. Polygenism 
 conceals or denies difficulties ; it does not suppress them. 
 They arc suddenly revealed, like submarine rocks, to anyone 
 who tries, however little, to go to the root of the matter. 
 
 The case is the same with this doctrine as with the Hi/stems 
 of classification formerly employed in botany and zoology 
 which resteil upon a small number of arbitrary data. They 
 Will' uii.lMiilitiiiJy very convenient, but po-sises-sed the serious
 
 34 TJic Human Species. 
 
 fault of being conducive to most erroneous opinions from a 
 destruction of true relations and an imposition of false 
 connections. 
 
 Monogenism acts in the same manner as the Xatiwal 
 Method The zoologist and the botanist are by this method 
 brought face to face with each problem which is put before 
 them under every aspect It often displays the insufficiency 
 of actual knowledge, but it is the only means of destroying 
 illusions, and of preventing a belief in false explanations. 
 
 It is the same with Monogenism. It also brings the 
 anthropologist face to face with reality, forces him to inves- 
 tigate every question, shows him the whole extent of each, 
 and often compels him to confess his inability to solve them. 
 But by this very means it protects him against error, pro- 
 voking him to fresh investigation, and from time to time 
 rewards him with some great progress which remains an 
 acquisition for ever. 
 
 I shall return to these considerations, the truth of which 
 will be better understood when the principal general ques- 
 tions of anthropoh^gy have been reviewed. Henceforward I 
 shall attempt to justify as briefly as possible the preceding 
 criticisms and eulogies.
 
 niAPTEll III. 
 
 SPECIES AND RACE IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES. 
 
 I. The question of the unity or nuiltiplicity of the human 
 species may be stated in the foUowing terms : are the 
 tlitferences which distinguish tlie human groups characteristic 
 of ftpccies or of race ? 
 
 It is evident that the question depends entirely upon the 
 two words species and race. It is then absolutely necessary 
 to determine as accurately as possible the sense of each, and 
 yet there are anthropologists, such as Knox, for instance, who 
 declare that any discussion or investigation in connection 
 with this subject is idle. There are others, like Dr. Nott, 
 who would suppress the race and only establish various 
 categories of species. In order to support their doctrines 
 these authors ignore the work which has been carried on for 
 neai-ly two centuries by the most illustrious naturalists, and 
 tjjc innumerable observations and experiments made by a 
 vast number of eminent men upon plants and animals. 
 
 In fact the theory of species and race has not been formed 
 cl priori, as it has been too often falsely asserted, but has 
 been gradually acquired, and in a strictly scientific manner. 
 
 II. The word Species is one which exists in all languages 
 which possess abstract terms. It represents, therefore, a 
 general common idea. The idea is, in the first place, that of 
 a great outward resemblance', but even in ordinary language 
 that is not all. The idea of jlHation is connected, even in 
 the most uncultivated miud.s, with that of resemblance. No 
 peasant would hesitate to regard the children of the same 
 parents a.H belonging to the same species whatever real or 
 apparent diflerences miglit distinguish them.
 
 36 The Human Species. 
 
 Science lias in reality done nothing more than define the 
 idea of which the public had merely a vague consciousness, 
 and it was not till very lately, and after a very curious 
 oscillation, that she succeeded in doing so. In IGSO, Jean 
 Ray, in his Historia Plantarum, considered that those 
 ])]ants which had a common origin and could be reproduced 
 by seed belonged to the same species, whatever their 
 apparent differences might be. He only took filiation into 
 accotint. Tournefort, on the contrary, who in 1700 was the 
 first to make a clear statement of the question, termed the 
 collection of plants a species which were distinguished by 
 some particular character. He relied only on resemblance. 
 
 Hay and Tournefort have had from time to time a few 
 imitators, who, in their definition of species, have clung to 
 one of the two ideas. But the immen.ie majority of zoolo- 
 gi.sts have been aware of the injpossibility of separating 
 them. To convince ourselves of this fact it is only necessary 
 to read the definitions which they have given. Each one of 
 them, from Buffon and Cuvier to MM. Chevreul and C. Vogt 
 ha.s, so to sj)eak, proposed his own. Now, however they njay 
 differ in other re.'<pects, they all agree in this. The terms of 
 the definitions var}', each endeavours to represent in the best 
 manner ])ossible the complex idea of s])eeies ; some extend 
 it still further, and connect with it the ideas of cycle and 
 variation : but in all the fundamental idea is the same. 
 
 In a ca.se of such difticulty as that of finding a good defini- 
 tion for a combination of ideas, the latest comer always 
 hopes to improve upon liis predecessors. For this reason I 
 have also given my formula: "Species is a collection of 
 individuals more or less resend)ling each other, which may 
 be regarded as having descended from a single primitive pair 
 bv an unlntcnnptcd and natural succession of families." 
 
 In this delinitioii, as also in that of some of my colleagues, 
 among others of M. Clicvreul, the idea of resemblance is 
 made of less importance and suljoidinate to. that of filiation. 
 The fact i.s that there never is an identity of characters 
 between one individual and another. Butting aside the
 
 Species and Race in the Nalitral Sciences. 37 
 
 variatious resulting from age and sex, it is at once evident 
 that all representatives of the same specific type differ in 
 Konie p<jints. Although tliese diflerences are very slight, 
 they constitute individual traits, sluidea as Isidore Geoffroy 
 said, which enable us to distinguish between two of the same 
 species. 
 
 But the ditferences arc not confined within these limits. 
 The sjjecific types are variable, that is to say, every kind of 
 j»hysical character is modified in their derivatives and, under 
 the inlluence of certain conditions, to such an extent as to 
 make it often very ditficult to recognise their unity of origin. 
 This, again, is a fact upon which all naturalists agree. 
 Blainville even, who, defined species as "the individual 
 repeated and continueil through time and space," distinctly 
 recognised this variability ; for the individual is perpetually 
 undergoing modification, and does not retain its similarity 
 during the various stages of life. He admitted, moreover, 
 the existence of distinct races. 
 
 The variability of species has also been the subject of 
 animated discussion among naturalists. The memorable 
 contention which arose upon this subject between Cuvier 
 and Geoffroy is not yet forgotten, a struggle considered by 
 Goethe as more important than the gravest political events. 
 In the present day a school to which many of the most 
 iUustrious names in England, Germany and elsewhere belong, 
 lias taken up, with certain modifications, the ideas of Lamarck 
 and Geoffroy ; it gives support to them from retaining the 
 term variability of species. 
 
 There is a grave confusion of words in this formula. 
 I^nmarck, GeoflVoy, Darwin and his school, consider the 
 species not only as variable but as transmutable. The 
 specific types are not merely modified, they arc replaced by 
 new typt^s. Variation is in their estimation only a phase 
 of the very different phenomena of transmutation. 
 
 I shall discuss these theories presently. I .shall now con- 
 fine myself to the remark that true variability, admitted 
 even by the defenders of dojmatic invariability, by Blain-
 
 38 The Ilunian Species. 
 
 villc, for example, a variability >Yliicli I fully accept, luxs 
 notliinj,^ in cuimuon -svith the iranftmniahility of Lamarck, 
 GeoflVoy and Darwin, Let us briefly determine the limits 
 of this variability. 
 
 IIL When an individual trait is exaggerated and passes 
 a limit always very loosely defined, it constitutes an excep- 
 tional character which clearly distinguishes the individual 
 attccted by it from all those most nearly resembling it. This 
 individual constitutes a Vai^ty. 
 
 The same term must be applied to all those individuals, 
 ■which, like certain plants reproduced by slips, grafts, or 
 shoots, derive their origin from the first exceptional in- 
 dividual, -without having the power of transmitting their 
 distinctive characters by means of normal generation. I 
 borrow fn.m M. Chevreul a curious example of thescmuUipU 
 varieties. In ISO.T or LS05, M. Desccmet discovered in his 
 garden at Saint ])enis, in the midst of a bod of acacias 
 {liobinia p8eiulo-acacia) an individual without thorns which 
 he describes under the epithet sprctabilis. It is to tho 
 multiplicatiun of this individual by the art of tho gardener 
 that all the ihonilesa acacias, now distributed over every 
 part of tho globe, owe their origin. Now these individuals 
 produce seeds, but if the seeds are sown they only yield 
 l/ioiiiy acacias. The acacia f<^pectahiHs h;us remained a 
 Varicti/. 
 
 The latter may tin 11 br (1« liiiLcl as: — "An individual or 
 a number of individuals belonging to the same sexual 
 genenUion, which is distinguished from the other repre- 
 Kentatives of the same species by one or several exceptional 
 characters." 
 
 It will readily be seen how great the nundjer of varieties 
 ill one species may be. There is, in fact, scarcely any either 
 external or internal part of an animal or plant, which cannot 
 1x5 cxaggirated, diminished or modified in a thousand ways, 
 and ejich of these exaggerations, diminutionR or modifications 
 will characterise! a fresh variety, with thf; one condition of its 
 being Kufticieiitly marked.
 
 Species and Race in the Natural Sciences. 39 
 
 IV. When the characters peculiar to a variety become 
 hereditary, that is to say, when they are transmitted from 
 generations to the descendants of the first modified in- 
 dividual, a race i§ formed. For example, if a tliornlcss 
 acacia ever reproduced by seed, trees resembling itself and 
 enjoying the same power, then the Acacia spectabilis would 
 cease to be a simple variety, and would have become a race. 
 
 The race, then, will consist of: — "A number of individuals 
 resembling each other, belonging to one species, having 
 nivived and transmitting, })y means of sexual generation, 
 the characters of a primitive variet}'. 
 
 Thus the Species is the point of departure ; the variety 
 appears amongst the iiuUviJiads of which it is composed, 
 and, when the characters of this variety become hereditary, a 
 vacs is formed. 
 
 Such are the relatiuns which, according to all naturalists 
 " from Cuvier to Lamarck himself," as Isidore Geotfroy said, 
 exist between these three terms. We have here a funda- 
 mental idea which we slundd never lose sight of in the study 
 of the questions with which we arc engaged. From neglect 
 of it men of the highest distinction have failed to understand 
 most significant facts. 
 
 We see that the idea of resemblance, which is much 
 curtailed in the species, reassumes in the race an importance 
 equal to that o( filiation. 
 
 Wc see also that the number of races which spring directly 
 from one species may be ccpial to the number of varieties of 
 the same species, and con.sequently very considerable. But 
 this number has a tendency to increase .still further to an 
 indefinite extent. In fact, each of these j)rimary races is 
 su.sceptible of fresh modificatictns, which may either extend 
 no further than one individual, or become transmis.sible by 
 means of generation. Thus secondary and tertiary varieties 
 i>r racciT come into existence. Our plants and domestic 
 animals furnish innumerable examples of these facts. 
 
 V. By reiuson of races originating in this manner from one 
 nnotlur, and from their iniiltiplicatien, they may assume
 
 40 The Iliinian Species. 
 
 ilitVcroutial cliaractors which become more and more decided. 
 But Ijowever min\erous thry may be, and whatever ditier- 
 ences there may be between tliem, and however far they may 
 seem to be removed from the primitive t}'pe, tliey neverthe- 
 less, still form part of the species from which the primitive 
 races derived their origin. 
 
 On the other hand, every species comprises, independently 
 of the individuals which have preserved their primitive 
 characters, all those which compose the primary, secondary 
 and tertiary, etc., races, derived from the fundamental type. 
 
 In other words the specks is the unit and the races ava 
 the fniciions of this unit. Or again, the species is the 
 trunk of the tree, of which the several series of races repre- 
 sent the jnincipal and lesser branches and the twigs. The 
 general unity and relative independence of the trunk and 
 the branches of the tree represent in an obvious manner the 
 connections existing between the species and its races.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 NATURE OF VARIATIONS IN ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE 
 RACES ; ArPLICATION TO MAN. 
 
 I. The moaning of the question stated above is now intel- 
 lii(il)lo. We have to discover whether the human groups, 
 which we know to be distinguished by characters which are 
 often very marked, arc fractions of a single unit, branches of 
 the same tree, or so many units of different vahie, so many 
 trees of various nature. 
 
 Historical documents are absolutely incapable of solving 
 tliis problem. On the other hand, man being tlic subject 
 of the problem, it is evi<lent that the solution must be sought 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Where then must we turn in order to obtain a definite 
 answer to this question which concerns us so closely ? 
 Clearly to naturalists and to naturalists alone. The Species 
 and tiic Race have, for more than two centuries, been the 
 subject of their studies ; they have amassed observations, 
 multiplied experiments. They have, in their studies, been 
 guided by a scientific spirit alone, and from being placed 
 b«yond the reach of controversy, have preserved all their 
 freedom of judgment. The results thus acquired, deserve 
 the gieatest confiilence, and supply reliable data for the 
 application of our anthropological method. 
 
 Anyone really desirous of ft)rming an opinion upon the 
 unity or multiplicity of the human species, should therefore 
 discover what are the facts and ijhenomena which charac- 
 terise race and species in plants and animals ; then turn to 
 man and compare the facts and phenomena there presented 
 will) those which botanists and zoologists have observed in
 
 42 7 he Human Species. 
 
 the otlicr kingtloms. If tlio facts ami plionomcna wliicli 
 distinguish the human groups are those which, in otlier 
 organised antl living beings differentiate species, he will 
 then legitimately infer the nuiltii)licity of human species ; if, 
 however, these phenonuna and facts arc characteristic of 
 race in the two inferior kingdoms, he must conclude in 
 favour of specific unity. 
 
 It is the pui^suance of tliis course wliich has convinced me 
 of monojrenism, and I am certain the result will be the same 
 with anyone who will follow it. 
 
 II. The idea of species rests, as we have seen, upon the 
 two distinct ideas of resemblance andjiliation. Let us first 
 turn our attention to the former as being the greater 
 stumbling-block of the two. No one would licsitate to 
 consider two individuals resembling each other very closely 
 as belonging to the same species ; if, liowever, they present 
 somewhat marked ditVen-nces, and the necessary information 
 is wanting, we hesitate to give our decision in the negative. 
 The mind readily accepts the latter conclusion when man is 
 the object of diseiission. A continual, though unconscious 
 study, has endowed us with a perception which appreciates, 
 in those around us, the most delicate gradations in features, 
 the colour of the skin, and in the appearance of the hair. 
 Now this delicacy of appreciation ha.s, in the present instance, 
 a .serious incouvenience. It inevitably conduces to the exag- 
 geration of difl'erences existing between ditrerent groups, and 
 by this very means kails us to regard tliem as so many 
 species. 
 
 For this decisiou to have a real \alue, however, it should 
 be shown Wforehand that the variations iKtween on6 human 
 group aii<l another, are greater than tlutse which have been 
 established iK-tween grtmps of animals an<l plants, which arc 
 positively known to be only rarcn of one Hiwcics. 
 
 Now this is not the ca.sc. However slight an attempt we 
 may iiave made to Ix'come ac<|uainted with the nature and 
 the extent of variations, wo shall very soon see that ijj animal 
 and vegetable races tlu-y attain limits, which are never over-
 
 Nature of J 'an'n/ious in Ixaccs. 43 
 
 stepped, and but laivly attained, \ty tlio difTerenccs between 
 litiiuan fjruups. 
 
 III. I sliall not insist at any IcJigth ujion the morpho- 
 logical and anatomical changes of )»lants. It will be sufficient 
 to call to mind how numerous and dilTcrent are those varieties 
 of vegetables, flowei-s, fruit-trees, and ornamental shrubs, the 
 jiiunbor of which is always on the increase. Amongst the 
 latter, the variety, it is true, very rarely attains to the condi- 
 tion of a race, drafting, propagation by layers, etc., make 
 it ixx<vsible to midtiply tliem rapidly and with certaint}'^, as 
 in the ca.se of the thornlcss acacia, and gardeners have always 
 been in the habit of resorting to this method. Nevertheless, 
 even among fruit trees, a few of these varieties have become 
 fi.vcd, and can be reproduced by .seed. The plum, the peach, 
 and the vine, may be rpioted as examples. As to annuals, 
 garden vegitables espcciallv, they can only 1)0 preserved and 
 multiplied by this method. Hero we only find races, and it 
 is well to know how numerous and varied they are. The 
 cabbage alone (lirass-ica olevacca) numbers forty-seven prin- 
 cipal races, each of which is sub-divided into a number of 
 secondary and tertiary races. Now it is quite useless to insist 
 upon the distance which separat<'S the headed cabbage, of 
 which sauerkraut is made, from the turnip-cabbage, of which 
 the root is eaten, and from the cauliflower or the brocoli. 
 
 It is very evident that this cannot be due to the mere 
 alteration of primitive forms. The elements of the organism 
 undergo mollification, and are differently as.sociated and 
 combined according to the race. But these elements them- 
 Kclves often undergo most fundamental disturbance. CerUiin 
 acids are diminished or disappear, and are replaced by sugar, 
 a sweet taste and perfume, which develop and characteri.se 
 ccitain races of vegetables and fruits, and show that the 
 vital lt)rces of these plants have been subjected to very 
 substantial moditications faithfully transmitted from genera- 
 tion to generation. 
 
 The objection will piihaps be ma<le that there is too little 
 rcsemVdance betwien ve^retable and animal orcranisms for the
 
 44 ^/'^' Human Species, 
 
 above comparison of anatomical facts to be really useful. It 
 is different in. physiological phenomena. 
 
 Vital activity in our cultivated plants sometimes presents 
 very remarkable differences in ditVcrent races. In our several 
 races of corn, the raj)idity of development varies from simjjle 
 to triple. In temperate climates barley requires five months 
 to germinate, grow and ripen. In Finland and Lapland it 
 only takes two months to accomplish the .same phases of 
 growth. And, finally, it is well known that in our kitchen 
 and fruit gardens we find races anil varieties, some of which 
 are fa.st and some slow growers. 
 
 The energy of the reproductive organs often varies in a 
 singular manner in different races. We have, for instance, 
 ro.ses which bloom two or three times a year, and straw- 
 bemcs whicli remain in fruit nearly the whole year. There 
 are oranges crammed with j)ips, and others in which they 
 arc almost entirely wanting. J.>astly, in some bananaij and 
 in the currant-grape the seeds have completely disappeared. 
 We see at once that these latter jjroducts of hiiinan industry 
 ordy exist a.s vdr'wtles. 
 
 I\'. In animals we meet with facts whieh correspond 
 i-.xaclly with those which we have just ub.served in j)lants. 
 Further, we find that they experience modifications con- 
 nected with the manifestations of the sovicthhif/ whieh wo 
 have called the Animal Mhul. 
 
 The diversity of races in our domestic species is too well 
 known to make it neccs.sary to insist upon this point. 1 
 hlmll otdy mention that Darwin reckons IjjO distinct races 
 of pigeon.s, and declare s that he is not yet ac(|uainled with 
 all. TlicHc ruccH are, moicover, sufficiently different to 
 render u redivihion into at leitst four distinct ijnicra neces- 
 «ary, if th(;y arc considered a.s so many spccioi. Among 
 inanimaJH anaJogouH facts are noticed, in the ca.sc of the 
 dog. At tl«e Dog Show of 1S(>.'}, the Society of Acclima- 
 tiMition, which hail been very strict in its rules of admission 
 and only received p<!rfectly pure types, collected no fewer 
 than Hcventy races of dogs. The greater number, however,
 
 Nature of Variations in Races. 45 
 
 belonged to Europe, and to France and England in par- 
 ticular; almost all those of Asia, Africa, and America, were 
 absent from tlio collection, so that altogether we are jus- 
 tified in assuming that there are at least as many races of 
 dogs as of pigeons. As to morphological differences we 
 need only mention bull-dogs and greyhounds, beagles and 
 Danish carriage dogs, mastiffs and King Charles's. It is 
 scarcely necessaiy to remark that these external differences 
 suggest the idea of corresponding modifications in the 
 skeleton, in the proportion and form of the muscles. Ana- 
 tuuiical differences are indeed even greater. For cxamjde, 
 the skull of the water-spaniel is proportionately double the 
 .size of that of the bull-dog. 
 
 There arc among animals, as among plants, some races 
 which develop slowly, and otliers which increase in size 
 rapidly. As in plants, fecundity is diminished in some and 
 increased in otliers. When they are too perfect, that '\& to 
 say, when they are too far removed from their natural type, 
 animal races, like vegetable races, only propagate with great 
 difficulty, or even not at all. 
 
 Our ordinary races of sheep only give birth once a year 
 to a single lamb ; the " hong-ti " twice a year to two lambs 
 each time. The wild sow only litters once a year with but 
 si.x or eight young, Init when domesticated litters twice a 
 year with from ten to fifteen. Her fecvnidity is therefore at 
 lejust tripled. In the Indian pig, derived from the "Aperca," 
 it is more than seven times as great. 
 
 In dogs, habits impo.sed by education, transmitted and 
 strengthened by heredity, finally assume the appearance of 
 so many natural instincts by which races are as nicely 
 characterised as by physical peculiarities. This has been 
 established beyond a doubt by the experiments carried on 
 by Knight during more than thirty years. The mention of 
 the beagle and the pointer will be sufficient to recall the 
 c«>ntrast which in many cases exists between these acquired 
 instincts. Considered as the relative development of the 
 intelligence, properly so called, the difference between races
 
 46 TJic Human Species. 
 
 is aiso very marked in many cases. From this point of view 
 we need only compare the fp-eyhound and the spaniel. 
 
 V. If from anhnaU and jylants wc pass to man, we sliall 
 find in him, as in the two inferior kinf,'(h)ms, groups dis- 
 tinguished by anatomical, physiological and psychological 
 differences. In most cases the same organs and the same 
 fimctions jjresent analogous modifications. What reason 
 can be alleged for the idea that, if their nature is considered, 
 these differences and modifications have a greater significa- 
 tion in man, and that they characterise species and not race? 
 Clearly n>ne ; it would be reasoning against the laws of 
 analogy. An argument ba.sed upon the variations presented 
 by the manifestations of moralifi/ and religion, would be 
 a neglect of the fact that these faculties are the attributes 
 of tlie human kingdom, that they are wanting in the other 
 kingdoms, and are not in consequence susceptible of any com- 
 pari.son of this kind. In that which is oxchisivcly luunan, 
 man can only be compared with man. 
 
 In conclusion, the facts of the variations and ditTerenccs 
 existing in man between dilf'ereut (jroups, are of the same 
 nature sm those established between different races of animals 
 and plants. The nature of these phenomeua cannot then bo 
 brought forward as an argument in favour of the theory 
 that these groups are so many species.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 EXTKXT OF VARIATIONS IN ANIMAL AND VF.GETABLE 
 RACES ; ArPLICATION TO MAN. 
 
 I. The (lucstion to wliioli tliis cliaptcr is devoted is one of 
 those which I shall treat most fully in this course. In fact, 
 it has a special importance. Nearly all the polyf^cnistic 
 arguments are included in the following : — " The ditfercnce 
 l«'tween the Negro and the White is too great for them to 
 l»elong to the same species." These types are the two ex- 
 tremes in the human series. Therefore, if it can be shown 
 that between the two extremes, the limits of variation are 
 almost always greater in plants and animals than in man, we 
 shall have undermined the foundation of the whole poly- 
 genistic doctrine. 
 
 Now, even if we leave plants out of the ([uestion, and 
 (here can be little doubt in respect to them ; if we merely 
 compare man and animals, organ f(»r organ, function for 
 function, we shall have no great difficulty in arriving at the 
 conclusion, that this is really the case; so much so that we 
 shall l)o led to a.'jk the (piestion, why the variability is less 
 in man than in animals. The complete demonstration of this 
 general fact would require more extended treatment than I 
 am able to give. I .shall, therefore, confine myself to citing 
 some exam])ks. 
 
 II. The colouring of the skin is one of the most striking 
 characteristics, ami one which is most apparent to the eye. 
 This has given rise to the expressions White, Yellow, and 
 r>lack, which are most improperly used to designate the 
 three fundamental groups of mankind. We will first prove 
 that those names' possess the grave inconvenience of giving
 
 48 The II u man Species. 
 
 rise to itlt-as which are entirely erroneous. Amongst the 
 ^Mdtes there are entire po|)uhitions, whose skin is as bUick 
 as that of the darkest Negro. I shall only quote the 
 Ijishareen and other tribes inhabiting the African coasts of 
 the Red Sea, the black Moors of Senegal, etc. On the other 
 hand, there are yellow Negroes, as the Bosjesmans, who are 
 the colour of light mahogany, or of cafe au lait, as Livingstone 
 tells us. 
 
 It is no less true that colour is by far the most variable 
 characteristic in man, and when we place the coal black 
 Xeijro side by side with the fair ]yiiite with his pinkish 
 complexion, the contrast is striking. But this contrast is 
 repeated in several races of animals, in the dog, for example, 
 whose skin is generally blackish, but white in the white 
 jioodle. It is the same among horses, a fact which was 
 known even to Herodotus, who pronounces white horses with 
 a black .skin as superior to all others. 
 
 The races of our domestic fowls alone present the three 
 extreme cohnirs ob.servcd in man. The French fowl has a 
 white skin ; in the cochin-china it approaches to yellow ; it 
 is black in hlarh folds. Si)metimes they present a peculiarity 
 himilar to that which I mentioned in reference to the horse : 
 a dark skin accompanying a white plumage as in the silk 
 hen of Japan. 
 
 These same black fouls po.sse.ss several interesting pecu- 
 liarities from our present point of view. In Europe, melanism 
 appears from time to time in our poultry-yanl.s, and woidd 
 infallibly spread if the fowls attacked by it were not de- 
 Htroycil. It is perhaps fmin want of this precaution that 
 black fowls have been developed in various j)arts of the 
 j;lt»lK', among others in the Philippines, in Java, in the Cape 
 Vcrd Inlands, and upon the plateau of ISogota, all of which 
 have Im en derived from l^uropeaii stocks. Ah-lanism appears 
 moreovir, in groups of fowls which diO'er niost .stiikingly in 
 other roKpfcth, in the silk h< n as well as in onr ordinary races. 
 
 We we that lilark fnvh are in no sense a distinct specie.% 
 and that the appearance of the IJack colour is merely an
 
 Extent of Variations in Races. 49 
 
 # 
 
 accidental character, which may be produced in races very 
 dissimilar in other respects, and afterwards propagated by 
 heredity. Why then admit that it has been otherwise in man ? 
 
 Again, melanism is more highly developed in fowls than 
 in man. It has long been held as a recognised fact that the 
 skidl of the Negro is more darkly coloured than that of the 
 White. The fact is true. But M. Gubler has proved that 
 the skull of a very dark complexioned White was coloured 
 exactly in the same manner as that of the Negro, and that 
 this peculiarity was sometimes individual, and sometimes 
 hereditiiry in certain families. In fowls also, melanism 
 penetrates to the interior ; but it is not only the meninges 
 which present peculiarities similar to those presented by the 
 black man. With them all the mucous, fibrou.s, and aponeu- 
 rotic mend)rancs, even to the muscular sheaths, pos.se.ss the 
 same colouring. The flesh also a.ssumes a repugnant appear- 
 ance, and it is for this reason that the propagation of black 
 fi)wls is prevented as much as po.ssible. 
 
 The difference in colouring is easily explained. We now 
 know beyond a doubt that the skin of the Negro is exactly 
 the same in composition as that of the White. W^c find the 
 .same layers in both ; the dermis, the mucous layer and the 
 cjiUlemiis present exactly the .'■ame structure. The layers 
 are merely thicker in the Negro. In these two gieat races, 
 the mucous layer, situated between the other two, is the 
 scat of colonr. It is formed of cells which arc of a pale 
 yellow colour in the fair ]Vhite, of a more or less brownish 
 yellow in the dayk White, and of a blackish brown in the 
 Negro. External causes have, moreover, an influence upon 
 the organ and modify the coloured secretion. Simon has 
 shown that freckles are nothing more than spots upon the 
 skin of the White presenting the characteristics of the skin 
 of the Negro, and we know that an unusual exposure to 
 the sun in the men and women of our race, and pregnancy 
 in the liiltev, is sufficient to determine the formation of these 
 spots. 
 
 Whv, then, should it be thought strange that a number of
 
 50 The J/iiiiian S/nrics. 
 
 circumstances, a constant licit, a briglit liglit, &.C., shoiild in- 
 fluence the whole body and perpetuate those moditications 
 which in us are only circumscribed and transitory. In 
 treating of the formation of the human races we shall have, 
 to bring forward facts which will clearly prove that this isj 
 not merely liypothesis. 
 
 Fimdlv, the colour of the skin depends upon a simple 
 secretion which is subject to mollification under a number of 
 circumstances, as is the case with many others. There is, 
 therefore nothing strange in the fact that some human 
 groups, dilTering widely in other resi)ects, should resemble 
 each other in the matter of colour. This is the reason why 
 the Hindoo (.hv/^oO, the Bisharee and the '^loov (Semitic), 
 although belonging to the White race, assume the same, and 
 even a darker hue than the true Negro. It also explains 
 the fact that the colour of the Negro approximates in certain 
 cases, to that of peoples belonging to the white stock who 
 are more or less of a brown colour, or assumes a hue which 
 exactly recalls that of tlie yellow races. 
 
 Thus, in man, as in animals, the aphorism is verified 
 which was formulated by Linnaus in regard to jilaiits : — • 
 in mi inn nic crede colori. 
 
 III. I shall not dwell at any length upon the mcnlifica- 
 tions of the hair and villosities. They are miich more 
 apparent than real in man. Whether fair or black, fine and 
 of a woolly appearance, as in the Negro, or coarse and stitl', 
 an in the yellow and retl races ; whether the transverse 
 Hcclion is circular :ls in the Yellow race, oval, as in the White, 
 or elliptic, a-s in the Negro, tlie hiiir rem<iins liuir. The 
 wtjolly fleece of our .sluep, on tho contrary, is in part of 
 Africa, replaced by a short and smooth hair. In America 
 the Mamc Ih the cjuse with the sheep of the Madeleine when- 
 ever they are left unshorn ; juid on the other hand, in the 
 high plains of th*? An<les, the wild bo.-irs acfpiirt- a kind of 
 coame wool. 
 
 The practice of certain natives of shaving ofT all hair has 
 inoUe hMini- fr:i\ill. r« b.li.ve in the existence of hunian
 
 Application to Man. 
 
 51 
 
 niccs which arc entirely hairless ; the error ha.s however 
 been recognised. All men possess hair in the normal places. 
 Hairless dogs and horses are, liowever, known to exist. In 
 America, where the oxen have a European origin, the hair 
 commences with becoming very fine and few in number 
 with the peloncs, and disappears entirely with the calongos; 
 and if the latter do not increase in numbsr, it is due to 
 their being .systematically destroyed from an idea that they 
 are a degenerate race. 
 
 It is evident that in these several respects the variations 
 are more extensive in animals than in man. 
 
 IV. This fact becomes more evident when it is possible to 
 substitute exact measurements for merely general ideas, and 
 to compare figures. The variations in size present this 
 advantage, and it is interesting to compare from this point 
 of view the extremes of some animal races with the ex- 
 tremes admitted in human groups. 
 
 BPECIEi. 
 
 R.\CE. 
 
 
 DIFFERXCE. 
 
 m. ft. in. 
 ! 1-02.-. 2 4-27 
 
 loiO 1 3-74 
 
 1 104 3 41)4 
 1 
 
 o-7ir> 2 4ir> 
 1 ;'.:, 1 2- 18 
 
 RATIO. 
 
 Dogs (length . . . 
 Babbits (length) 
 Jlorec (height) . . 
 ■^hcep (height) . . 
 
 Small Spaniel . 
 St. licriianl . 
 Xii^ard . . . 
 lUlicr . . . 
 Shetland . . 
 Dray Horse . 
 
 m. ft. in. 
 o:jo.-> 1 
 
 l-;{28 3 4-27 
 0-20 7-87 
 0(50 1 11 ■(i2 
 0-7G 2 5'J2 
 1-80 5 10 85 
 ():J2r> 1 0-7'J 
 1040 .1 4;»4 
 1-37 4 5'.».T 
 1-72 6 611 
 
 0-2 
 0-3 
 0-4 
 0-3 
 0-8 
 
 Man (mean height) . 
 n n 
 
 Rofijesman . . 
 I'atngonian . 
 
 We 8ce that the variation between faces is in the horso 
 twice as great as in man, nearly three times in the sheep 
 and rabbit, and four times as much in the dog. The difter- 
 cnce is perhaps even more striking in the goat and ox, 
 jutlging from the terms of comparison used by .several 
 travellers. 
 
 If, after having studied the various dimensions of the body, 
 we compare the differences in proportion pre.sented on the
 
 52 The Human Species. 
 
 one hand by animals and on the other by human groups, we 
 shall arrive at similar results. Without, however, entering 
 into details it will be sufficient to mention the greyhound 
 and the beagle. 
 
 V. One of the most singular external characters, and one 
 which has often been insisted upon as being necessarily a 
 character of species, is that presented by the Bosjesman 
 women. It is generally known that at the lower extremit}'^ 
 of the loins they develop a fatty mass which sometimes 
 increases to a considerable protuberance, as may be seen in 
 the Hottentot Venus, the model of which is in the Paris 
 Museum. This steatopygia reappears however in certain 
 tribes situated much further north than the Houzouana 
 races, while Livingstone states that certain women of the 
 Boors, incontestably of Dutch origin, had begun to be 
 affected by it. From this fact alone, this exaggerated 
 development of the adipose tissue loses the value which 
 many wished to attach to it. 
 
 If, however, the steatopygia were to exist only among the 
 Houzouanas we could not, on that account, regard it as a 
 character of species, for it has been proved in animals where 
 it is only a character of race. Pallas has proved this fact in 
 certain sheep of Central Asia. In these animals the tail 
 disappears and is reduced to a simple coccyx, to the right 
 and left of which are situated two hemispherical fatty masses 
 weighing from twenty to thirty pounds each. Here, again, 
 the variation is propoitionally greater than in the Bosjesman 
 woman. 
 
 We cannot regard these sheep as a different species, for 
 when the Russians removed the same animals from the 
 country in which they were born, the steatopygia disappeared 
 in a few generations. It is, therefore, merely a character of 
 race Avhich can only be preserved in the place where it 
 was developed, as may bo seen in a number of other cases. 
 
 VI. Jt is evident that the preceding character is just as 
 much internal as external; it is also evident that neitiier the 
 size, nor the proportions of the trunlc and limbs, can vary,
 
 Extent of Variations in Races. 53 
 
 unless the skeleton and the accompanying muscles experience 
 corresponding modifications. Tlie anatomical characters 
 change then with the race in animals, as v/ell as external 
 characters. There are, however, certain facts which relate 
 more directly to anatomy. I will quote a few cases. 
 
 A dog's fore-paw possesses normally five well-formed toes, 
 while the hind-paws have only four with a rudimentary fifth. 
 Tliis latter disappears in some races, mostly of a diminutive 
 size. In certain large races, on the contrary, it is developed, 
 and becomes equal to the other four. There must be then a 
 formation of bone corresponding to tlie tarsus and meta- 
 tarsus. 
 
 Something analogous to the appearance we have just 
 remarked may be observed in the pig, complicated, however, 
 by a fresh phenomenon. Here the normal foot bears two 
 small rudimentary lateral toes, and two medial toes, each 
 with its own hoof. Now in certain races, already known to 
 the ancients, a third medial toe is developed, and the whole 
 is enveloped in a single hoof. Instead of being cloven-footed, 
 which is the normal type of the species^ the race becomes 
 solidungulate. 
 
 Nothing of this kind is ever seen in man. In every race 
 the feet maintain their ordinary composition, in the Bosjesman 
 as in the Patagonian. Some teratological exceptions with 
 a tendency to heredity are nevertheless occasionally displayed, 
 of which we shall speak in another chapter. 
 
 VII. Tlie vertebral column is, so to speak, the fundamental 
 portion of the skeleton, and yet it does not vary the less on 
 that account. I shall not insist upon the ditierences pre- 
 sented by its caudal portion, merely remarking that there 
 are races of dogs, sheep, and goats, in which the tail is so 
 reduced as to be nothing more than a short coccyx. 
 
 The central portions themselves are known to be liable to 
 cliange. Philippi tells us that the oxen of Piacentino had 
 thirteen libs instead of twelve, and, consequently, an extra 
 doi-sal vertebra. In the pig Eyton has observed the dorsal 
 vertebrae vary from thirteen to fifteen, the lumbar from four
 
 54 The Htunan Species. 
 
 to six, the sacral from four to five, and the caudal from 
 thirteen to t\Yenty-thrce, so that the total is forty-four in the 
 African pig and fifty-four in the English pig. 
 
 In man, the presence of one extra vertebra has occasionally 
 been observed. These have ahva3's been isolated cases, 
 except in one Dutch family, quoted by Vrolich. But it docs 
 not approximate to a constant character in any human gi'oup, 
 and if such a group did exist, it is evident that tlie variation 
 would here again be less than in animals, for Avithout even 
 reckoning the tail, it is three times stronger in the latter. 
 
 Of course, I do not take into consideration Avhat has been 
 so often said of men asserted to have tails. AVc now know 
 better how much credit to attach to this statement. But 
 the variations which take place in the caudal region among 
 animals teaches us that even a considerable elongation of 
 the coccyx in a human group, and the multiplication of the 
 vertebra' which compose it, must not bo considered a 'priori 
 as a specific character. 
 
 VIII. It might have been exjiected that the head would 
 have escaped modifications, on account of the importance of 
 the organs which belong t<j it. But such is not the ca.se, and 
 here again the modifications are nmch greater in animals 
 than in man. Bhunonbach remarked long ago that there 
 was more ditVerence between the head of a domestic pig and 
 the wild boar lli.iu between that of the White and the 
 Negio. Theie are no domestic species to which the same 
 reniaik cannot be applied. But J shall only remind the reader 
 of ill"' heads of the biill-ihig, grc-yliound ;ind sp.aniel. 
 
 The extent to which the moditicalions of the head can be 
 cariied is nowiiere more plainly shown than in the nulla cattle 
 of BuenoB Ayres and La Plata. This ox exhibits the modifi- 
 cations of the sjx'cific characters sitnilar to those which tiic 
 bull-dog presents among dogs. All the foiins are shortened 
 and thickened, the head in particular seeming to have ex- 
 perienced a geneial movement of concentration. The inferior 
 maxillary bone, although itself shortened, so far exceeds tiie 
 Kiijurior in length that the animal is nnable to browse the
 
 Application to Ufan. 55 
 
 trees. The cranium is as much deformed as the face; not 
 only are the forms of tlie bones modified, but also their 
 relations, not one of which, according to Professor Owen, 
 has been strictly preserved. Tiiis race, though perfectly 
 established, is not therefore necessarily of less recent origin ; 
 for, as I remarketl- above, all the American oxen are des- 
 cended from European stocks. It is already represented in 
 the New World by two sub-races, one of which, that of 
 Buenos Ayrcs, has preserved the horns, while that of Mexico 
 h;is lost them. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to remark that no liuman gi-oup 
 presents anything at all analogous to this. 
 
 IX. The several facts which I have here enumerated seem 
 to me sufficient to justify the proposition wliich I asserted at 
 the commencement of the chapter, namely: — that the limits of 
 variation are almost always more extensive between certain 
 races of animals than between the most distant human 
 groups. 
 
 Consequently, however great the differences existing be- 
 tween these human groups may be, or may appear to be, to 
 consider them aa sj^ecijic characters is a perfectly arbitrary 
 estimation of their value. It is, to say the least, quite as 
 rational, quite as scientific, to consider these differences only 
 as characters of race, and even on that account to refer all 
 the human groups to a single species. 
 
 The legitimacy of this conclusion is incontestable. Now, 
 I repeat, that this conclusion is sufficient to destroy the very 
 foundation of the polygenistic theory. In reality this theory 
 rests entirely upon iiiovphohxjical considerations. Its parti- 
 sans, struck only by the material dififerences presented by the 
 himian groups, have thought it impossible to account for 
 them, except by the admission of the existence of several 
 species. By showing that facts of this nature can be eqiially 
 well interpreted under the hypothesis of the Unity of the 
 Species, monogenism and polygeuism are, so to speak, placed 
 on an equal footing.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 INTERCROSSING AND FUSION OF CHARACTERS IN ANIMAL 
 RACES; APPLICATION TO MAN. 
 
 Without even quitting tlic ground of moipliology, it will bo 
 easy to prove which theory is most probably the correct one. 
 
 We know that naturalists consider tliat all individuals 
 which pass from one to another by invisible shades belong to 
 the same species, however different the extremes may be. 
 All great museums contain examples of this fact. 
 
 The grounds for this conclusion arc much stronger when 
 there exists an intcrcrosslnff of characters. This inter- 
 crossing exists when a very decided and apparently exclusive 
 character reappears in one or several individuals differing 
 widely in other respects, and undoubtedly bulonging to 
 distinct groups. It is a case of intercrossing again, when 
 the .same character varies in such a mann(>r jus to lead, if 
 considered apart, to the division of a natural group, and to 
 the separation of the fractions into very different group.s. 
 
 Now there is no animal species which presents these 
 e.s.seiitially morphological characters in a higher degree than 
 man. Winn the human groups are studied in some detail, 
 the difliculty dues not consist in finding resemblances, but 
 in clearly defining the tlifference.s. The more carefully they 
 are consiilered, the more they disaj)pear and become oblite- 
 rated. We then understand tiie accounts given by most 
 trustworthy travellers, such jus d'Abbadie, of coutitries where 
 the Negro and the White live side by side. In their 
 extremes these two typ'-s are certainly very di.stinct. But 
 in Abyssinia, for exami>le, where they have long lived 
 iu contact, and intermingled, the Negro is no longer cha-
 
 Lifcirrossing' and Fusion of Characters. 57 
 
 racterisL'd by cither colour, features, or hair, but simply by 
 the exaggerated protruberancc of the lieel. This character in 
 its turn, however, loses its value on the Eastern coast of Africa, 
 where whole Negro tribes liave the heel formed like ours. 
 
 Tills is an example of intercrosslufj, and they could easily 
 be multiplied, I have already observed how closely the 
 Aryan or Dravidian Hindoos, African or Melanesian Negroes 
 and manifestly Semitic populations may resemble each otlier 
 in colour. The following is a still more striking example. 
 Desmoulins regarded the perforation of the olecranon process 
 as one of the most decided chaiacters of his Aiuitro- African 
 species of man. Now this perforation reappears in Egyptian 
 and Guanche mummies, in a large number of European 
 skeletons of the neolithic period, the crania of which more- 
 over, exhibit no other relations with those of the Bosjesmans, 
 and even in some Europeans of the present epoch. 
 
 The intercrossing of characters between human groups 
 becomes still more evident from the comparison of numerical 
 data taken from a number of different groups. I shall con- 
 fine myself for the moment to giving the results arrived at 
 by the study of the stature when the representative 
 numbers are placed in order. We shall presently meet 
 with other examples. 
 
 I here rcpnxluce the table published in the Vojarjc of the 
 Novara, by Dr. Wei.sbach. I have addeil to the figures of 
 the Austrian savant a few data relating especially to the 
 smallest races. I have also given the maxima and minima 
 wht-re T have bi-en able to procure them, so ;vs to make the 
 extent of the variation more appreciable than is possible from 
 the average alone : 
 
 STATURE OF DIFFEIIENT IIU.MAN RACES. 
 
 n<)«jc8mnnfl (miii.) | ™- '[• }^- 
 
 Esquimaux (iiiiii.) j M(H) 3 a-37 
 
 Obongo (youn;:) l-.ICO 4 5.(54 
 
 Bosjesmans (av.) ) 
 
 Minco|)ccs (mill.) j I'.iil* 4 59;i 
 
 Lapps (mill.) i;tst) 4 r.-:».l 
 
 Aiitaa (min.) l-;j'jG 4 G-%
 
 5S 
 
 TJic / III Jill 
 
 Pcraanfrs (min.) 
 MincoiKjcs (av.) . 
 rHisjosinauB (max.) 
 (iiianchcs 
 Si'nianps (hv.) 
 Stmaii(rs (max.) . 
 Mincojwc.s (max.) 
 Ai-tas (av.) . 
 Fiu'ijians (miii.) 
 rapu.ir.s 
 C'liiiiesc (mill.) 
 rata^'onians (min.) 
 Laj.j.s (av.) . 
 Aymaias (min.) . 
 Sclavcs (mill.) 
 Fronch (min.) 
 Javanofio (min.) 
 Ncproes (.') 
 Jiiap.s ) 
 
 Ai'la-s (max.) \ 
 Aymara-s (av.) 
 (icrmans (min.) i 
 'I'arlars of Oiot.solii / 
 Kamska<lales ) 
 
 Malajs of Malat'ca 1 
 Dyaks (min.) / . 
 
 Australian.s (min.) ) 
 New Caledonians (min.) 
 Cochin Chinese (av.) 
 Transpan^ians (av.) 
 Vanikorians 
 'Jimnriann 
 Amlnnnians \ 
 r<nn ians \ 
 lUtlaH I 
 
 Mahiys (av.) ( 
 NicoharianH . . 
 
 Atlstralians (av.) \ 
 yiiii-hna>» / 
 
 KnpliHh (min.) i 
 I'oiihycrH (av.) . 
 I,aii|)H (m:i.x. ) . 
 'I'ahiliaiiH (av.) 
 AiiHtraliaiiH (av.) 
 Toiilrfinn I 
 (in;iraniHi ' 
 I'apunnH of Vait'ioM 
 Minf(p|K;i-K (max.) 
 Kni-vrianM (av.) 
 CaliforninnH 
 MailiircMc 
 • 'ini;!»l'*«! 
 y\n'l'>-r"nivianti 
 Kr»!nrh of Iht 
 (.'hincur (av.) 
 
 ■5/ 
 
 dies. 
 
 ni. 
 
 ft. 
 
 in. 
 
 1120 
 
 4 
 
 7-;io 
 
 ll:!<; 
 
 4 
 
 8-r>3 
 
 111.-. 
 
 4 
 
 8-.s;> 
 
 1147 
 
 4 
 
 cS-I)7 
 
 144.S 
 
 4 
 
 9(K) 
 
 M7;{ 
 
 4 
 
 1I!»'J 
 
 MS(» 
 
 4 
 
 1017 
 
 Ms2 
 
 4 
 
 1(K!.-. 
 
 llss 
 
 4 
 
 l(>.->.s 
 
 MS'.i 
 
 4 
 
 l(>t;2 
 
 1 •.-.!'() 
 
 4 
 
 11 -M 
 
 i-.-,:;o 
 
 5 
 
 0-24 
 
 l-.-.:i2 
 
 5 
 
 o:ji 
 
 1 ■.-.:{7 
 
 r> 
 
 o-.-,i 
 
 1 •.■.!() 
 
 t> 
 
 0(;2 
 
 ]•.■.!:{ 
 
 n 
 
 o-7r> 
 
 i-.vi;» 
 
 c 
 
 oys 
 
 1 •:..-,.-, 
 
 5 
 
 1-22 
 
 i:.i;i 
 
 5 
 
 1-4.-. 
 
 \m:\ 
 
 5 
 
 \o\\ 
 
 l-.-.7() 
 
 1-.-.74 
 
 1-.-.7.-. 
 
 1 •.-.s:{ 
 1 •.-.sc, 
 
 i-.-.:t7 
 inyy 
 
 ir,(K) 
 
 mth I 
 
 1 ^2.-. 
 
 1027 
 I -Clio 
 
 5 ISl 
 
 ly; 
 
 5 2(M> 
 
 r, 2■.^2 
 
 5 2-4(; 
 
 5 2-7y 
 
 5 2-87 
 
 6 2-9.-) 
 
 c 2yy 
 
 1 CIO 
 
 5 
 
 .■i:!.s 
 
 ic.i:! 
 
 -, 
 
 ;t:.o 
 
 II-. II 
 
 r. 
 
 '.\:<\ 
 
 i(;i7 
 
 5 
 
 3G(! 
 
 i(;2o 
 
 5 
 
 3-78 
 
 ii;2i 
 
 G 
 
 ;i-y4 
 
 5 .i-ys 
 
 5 4-0:, 
 
 5 417
 
 lulcrcrossina^ and Fusion of Cliaractcrs. 59 
 
 Nicobftrians ... 
 
 Ik'ljjians (iniii.) . 
 
 Austrian Stlavcs (miii.) 
 
 Austrian Uuumaiiians ) 
 
 Majn-ars \ 
 
 .IcWH .... 
 
 Gravidas (av.) 
 
 Arauoaniaus . . . 
 
 Bavarians .... 
 
 Antisians 
 
 FueKian.s(niax.) ) 
 
 (Ytfs [ 
 
 Dyaks (max.) ) 
 
 Hagis .... 
 
 NeprocB (?) 
 
 French, working claiJHOS (av.) 
 
 Austrian Germans 
 
 Ks<iuimau.\ of Molvillc Is. 
 
 Koumanians (min.) 
 
 Kii»'trians(max.) 
 
 Chiquitos 
 
 HottcntotB 
 
 French of the Nortli 
 
 .Mpcri.in Aralis 
 
 New Caledonians ) 
 
 M0XO8 \ 
 
 rami>cans (av.) . 
 
 Kwiuimaux of Savage Ishmd \ 
 
 Haw.ii'ans f 
 
 New Califomians I 
 
 Malays of SfM>lo ) 
 
 Austrian Sclaves (av.) \ 
 
 ItusHians \ 
 
 Javanese .... 
 
 Germans j 
 
 Negroes > . 
 
 Chamias ) 
 
 French, upjicr classcH (av.) 
 
 Ojihlu'ways (min.) | 
 
 Nufivi's of Madras^ 
 
 Fijians 
 
 Negroes of Sokoto 
 licigiatiH (av.) 
 Knglish (av.) 
 i'ainpas Indians 
 Mari|ni-s:iH Ishin<lerH 
 Ksiiuiniaux of H<x;thia sound 
 ^olnalis .... 
 New Zealanders . 
 I*uclche8 J 
 
 Comma Negroes \ . 
 Tahitians (min.) ) 
 I^tts 1 
 
 ikotuma Islanders ^ . . 
 Courouglis (av.) j 
 
 ni. 
 
 ft. 
 
 in. 
 
 ICSI 
 
 5 
 
 4-21 
 
 I(;:i2 
 
 it 
 
 4-2.-> 
 
 i(;:t4 
 
 
 
 4-33 
 
 icr. 
 
 5 
 
 4-37 
 
 ir.a: 
 
 5 
 
 4-4.-> 
 
 llWO 
 
 5 
 
 4 -.-,7 
 
 ir.4i 
 
 ."i 
 
 4-01 
 
 \i\V.\ 
 
 ."■> 
 
 4-(;s 
 
 lG4o 
 
 5 
 
 4-76 
 
 lG.-;0 
 
 i(;(;3 
 
 IGOj 
 
 ir.70 
 
 1G73 
 
 i(;78 
 i-(;7u 
 
 lf.8() 
 
 1-7(K.I 
 
 1-701 
 
 5 4-90 
 
 lf..-3 
 
 .5 
 
 r,-08 
 
 1 •<)'>.■) 
 
 5 
 
 5-10 
 
 i-(;r,7 
 
 T, 
 
 5-24 
 
 1 •t;.-..s 
 
 5 
 
 r.-27 
 
 ic.-.u 
 
 r, 
 
 r,-n 
 
 ICGO 
 
 5 
 
 5-35 
 
 b 547 
 
 5 5'5G 
 
 5 5'75 
 
 5 5-87 
 
 1-G7G 5 ;V98 
 
 5 C0(; 
 5 CIO 
 
 5 C-U 
 
 1G81 
 
 5 
 
 G18 
 
 i-(;,s2 
 
 5 
 
 G-22 
 
 1 r,s4 
 
 it 
 
 G-31 
 
 1 Cs.-* 
 
 5 
 
 G-34 
 
 1 t;sG 
 
 5 
 
 G:ts 
 
 1-GS7 
 
 5 
 
 G-42 
 
 1 GS8 
 
 5 
 
 G-4G 
 
 1 -GSI) 
 
 5 
 
 C-50 
 
 IG'.iO 
 
 G 
 
 G.-,4 
 
 IC.'.i.-. 
 
 5 
 
 G-73 
 
 C Gy3 
 
 5 G-yG
 
 6o 
 
 TJic Iliiuiau Species. 
 
 III. 
 
 1-7(12 
 
 i-7(>:j 
 
 l-7().-> 
 1-708 
 
 1-711 
 
 l-7S-.( 
 
 1 -ot (( ) 
 
 in. 
 7 -(H) 
 7 04 
 718 
 7-24 
 
 7-48 
 
 Austrian Roumanians . . 
 
 Kabvlcs (av.) 
 
 Caroline Islanders . 
 
 Marianne Islanders 
 
 En?li>h (max.) 
 
 Ewjuiniaux of Kotzebuc Strait | 
 
 Australians (max.) 
 
 I'ottowatomis 
 
 Caraibcs 
 
 Ilarakai'ans 
 
 T.schu\vacks 
 
 I'ataj^onians (av. of U'Oib.) 
 
 Tschcrcassians 
 
 I'atagonians (av. of D'Urv.) 
 
 Sci)oy8 of lk'ni,'al . . 
 
 C'liincsc (max.) . 
 
 Ki'iuallis . . • 
 
 Hawaians . . . i 
 
 New Zealandii-.s 
 
 I'atajjonians (av. Must.) 
 
 Germans (max.) 
 
 Polynesians (av.) . 
 
 rilcairn Islanders 
 
 K>iumanians(max.) 
 
 Ojibljeways (av.) \ 
 
 A^'aces of the I'ampas ( 
 
 New Caknlonians (max.) 
 
 Taliitians (av.) . | 
 
 Maniucsas Islanders ) 
 
 Stc-A-art Islander- 
 
 Kailirs 
 
 Dutch 
 
 Ikrl^ian-s (max.) \ 
 
 8<-lavc8 f 
 
 Aymara-s (max.) {. 
 
 Maniucsas IslanderH (max.) ) 
 
 Taliitians (max.) .... 
 
 Nrw Zealanilers ..... 
 
 Mli.-iya 
 
 ('arail)OH 
 
 (>jiblH;wayH (max.) 
 
 SchifTer Islanderrt .... 
 
 N<!W ZealanihrrH (max.) 
 
 I'ata^cmianH of \.\\v. Ncirlh (max. of I)' 
 
 J'ntai;i»niftnH tif the South (max. .Mu>t< 
 
 SetiifTiT IslatidiTH 
 
 Ton^^atuban Ihlauders 
 
 Wo here see what stranj^o rehitiojis and what a singtihir 
 confuHioti rise from a consiilcratjoii of the stattue. Nmubers 
 given in the same order, repro.si'ntinij the size of the skull, 
 tho cephalic indices, the weigiit of the brain, will j^'ivu the 
 Kanie striking; rcsnlt. • 
 
 1-72,S 
 
 r> 
 
 8o:j 
 
 1-730 
 
 c 
 
 811 
 
 i-7:u 
 
 5 
 
 8-15 
 
 l-7:t2 
 
 r, 
 
 8-19 
 
 i-7:{:{ 
 
 5 
 
 8-2.3 
 
 1-7U 
 
 n 
 
 8-(;g 
 
 i-7:.2 
 
 n 
 
 8-!t7 
 
 1 -7."i.') 
 
 r. 
 
 y-o'.> 
 
 1 -( j( 
 
 • 5 
 
 y-17 
 
 1-770 
 
 G 
 
 9-Gl) 
 
 1-77(1 
 
 r. 
 
 9-92 
 
 1777 
 
 T) 
 
 9-90 
 
 1-780 
 
 5 
 
 1008 
 
 1-7S1 
 
 C 
 
 1012 
 
 l-78d 
 
 5 
 
 10-28 
 
 r7sii 
 
 5 
 
 10-32 
 
 C 10-U 
 
 5 10-80 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 1 -803 
 
 n 1008 
 
 
 i-sir> 
 
 r. 11 -^c. 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 isn 
 
 6 0-lS 
 
 
 l-8fi8 
 
 (•,-.-. 1 
 
 ^ , 
 
 1 -K7.-) 
 
 C. 1 -82 
 
 
 1 -s'.i.-, 
 
 (J 2-r,i 
 
 
 l-'.ioi 
 
 2-90 
 
 Orb.) 
 
 . 1 -'.1 1 .-. 
 
 C. 3-39 
 
 •rs) . 
 
 1 '.IL'I 
 
 r, 3 7.-. 
 
 
 MtwO 
 
 6 3-98
 
 Application to Man. 6r 
 
 We must also observe that there is a great majority of 
 moans in this tabic. Now we sec that tlie discrepancies 
 between these means are less than the discrepancies between 
 the maximum and minimum of a single race, so much so 
 that races widely distinct from each other intervene between 
 them. 
 
 Now let us mentally compare instead of these groups, the 
 individuals of which they are composed. Is it not clear 
 that if they were placed according to height, we should pass 
 from one to the other with scarcely the ditference of a 
 millimetre ; but is it not also clear that the confusion would 
 become much greater than it appears even in the table ? 
 
 I ask anyone who possesses even the smallest knowledge 
 of zoology and zoutechny whether it v.ould be in a collection 
 of species that he would expect to find the most evident 
 affinities destroyed by the application of this method? 
 Would it not be rather in a collection of races that siujilar 
 facts would be met with, as, fur example, in canine races, 
 where the mastiff anel its young, the greyhound of Saintonge 
 and the Italian greyhound, the large and the i^mall carriage 
 dt)g would be separated from each other by a number of other 
 riices if stature alone were taken into account. 
 
 The intercrossing and fusion of characters, so marked 
 between human groups, are inexplicable if we consider these 
 groups as species, unless we admit that the morphological 
 relations between these human tti^ecie^ arc of an entirely 
 jlifferent nature to the relations established between animal 
 species. But this hijpolJte.sls makes an exception of man ; 
 we have, therefore, the right to regard it as false. 
 
 If, on the contrary, we look upon these groups as nothing 
 more than races of a single species, all these facts of inter- 
 crossing and fusion agree with what may be observed in 
 plants and animals and replace man under the dominion of 
 general laws. 
 
 Thus, without quitting morphological considerations, 
 which corres}x»nd to the idea of resemblance contained in 
 the definition of species, we are jii^tifiid in rdiieliuling in
 
 62 The Hum an Species. 
 
 favour of monogonism. To confiiin this conclusion, however, 
 we must turn our attention to other facts which correspond 
 to the idea of Jlliation, and consider the teachings of 
 physiology concerning the phenomena o( yeneration.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CROSSING OF RACES AND SPECIES IN THE ANIMAL AND 
 VEGETABLE KINCDOMS. — MONGRELS AND IIYHRTDS. 
 
 1. Sexl'al unions in plants, as in animals, can take place 
 between individuals of the same species and the same race ; 
 further, between different races of the sam^ species, and, 
 finally, between different species. In the two latter cases 
 we have what is called a cross. This crossing itself is dif- 
 ferently named according to whether it takes place between 
 different races or different species. In the first case it pro- 
 duces a moiifjrel, in the second a hybrid. When the cross 
 unions arc fertile the product of the union of mongrels is 
 called a mongrel, the product of the union of hybrids a 
 hl/hrid. 
 
 If the difference of the relations existing between the race 
 and the species has been properly understood, we ought to 
 be inclined to admit that mongrels and hybrids would not 
 present the same phenomena ; experience and observation 
 ' "iifirm this presentiment. 
 
 We have, therefore, in this crossing a means of judgino- 
 wliether the human groups are only races of a single species, 
 or rather distinct species. For this purpose it will bo 
 sufficient to study the phenomena which, in other organisecl 
 and living beings, accompany the production of mongrel.-? 
 and hybrids, and then to compare with both the phenomena 
 which characterise the crosses effected between human 
 groups. If, in the latter case, the phenomena arc those 
 which characteri.se hybridism, we must conclude that the 
 groups are specifically distinct, and admit the multiplicity 
 of human species. If, however, cro.sses between human 
 4
 
 64 The IIiDuan Species. 
 
 groups, moipliologicall}' different, arc accompanied by plicno- 
 mena peculiar to tlic production of monrfrels, we shall only 
 be justified in considering tbcsc groups as races of one 
 species ; we must take our stand upon the doctrine of the 
 Specific Unity of all mankind. 
 
 The qtiestion before us becomes then entirely a physiological 
 one, and depends simply upon observation and experiment. 
 For its solution we must again turn our attention to plants 
 as well as to animals. It is in the phenomena of reproduc- 
 tion that the two kingdoms show the greatest resemblance. 
 This is not a ca.se of mere analofjij, but almost of identity, 
 and it is not the superior which lowers itself but the inferior 
 which is raised. We might say that, cnnubled by the im- 
 portance of the function, the plant, as far as its reproductive 
 system is concerned, becomes, for the time, animal. 
 
 II. In these kingdoms the unions between races of the 
 same sjyecies, that is to say, the ;:>}-0(?«c/ic)>i of mongrels, 
 may be accomplished without any interventiuu on the part 
 of man, or it may take place under his direction. It is 
 consequently cither natural or artificial. 
 
 Mongrels among plants could only be recognised after the 
 discovery of the distinction of the sexes in 1744'. The honour 
 of this great discovery belongs to Linna-us. He at once 
 comprehended the importance of the subject, and even 
 exaggerated it, as we shall presently see. Linnanis admitted 
 that cross-unions, which iiad been observed for centuries 
 between animals, might be repeateil between i)lants. And he 
 thus explained the appearance of variegated tulips in the 
 midst of borders originally formed of uniformly coloured 
 llowers. Observation and experiment have confirmed the 
 views of the founder of the natural .sciences again and again. 
 .Moreover, it has been ob.served that the crossing may become 
 apparent in all part.s of the plant by a nnxture of cliaractcrs 
 Himiiar to that exhibited by the colouring of the tulips. 
 M. Naudin, among others, who, during one year, watched the 
 development of more than 1200 gourd-s saw the seeds of a 
 single fruit rrproduro all the rnrrs contained in the garden
 
 Crossiiii;- of Races ami Species. 65 
 
 in which liis observations were made, Supcrfetation had 
 taken phice. It is a fact of great importance, as it demon- 
 strates the eijiiality of action enjoyed by the pollen of all 
 these races, which, morphologically, differ so widely from 
 each other. No better example could be given of the faculty 
 of crossing heivxen races. 
 
 The natural and spontaneous production of mongrels 
 among animals presents the same characters. Facilitated by 
 lucomotion it is accomplished every day in our houses, our 
 jHjultry-yards, and our farms. The difficulty does not consist 
 in the accomplishment of the cross but in its prevention, and 
 in the preservation of the purity of the race. The careful 
 observations made by Isidore Geoffrey at the Paris Museum, 
 have shown that with sheep, dogs, pigs, and fowls, mongrels 
 between the most different races were invaiiably fertile. 
 Here again the phenomena of supcrfetation was often 
 proved. Bitches produced, by males of several races 
 successively, young which showed three or four distinct 
 sources. Here the Ciise was the same as with the gourds of 
 M. Naudin. 
 
 We see that man has found no difficulty in breeding 
 mongrels, and tiiat, when he has wished to do so for any 
 purpose whatever, he has been able to regulate it by merely 
 choosing the animal or plant. This kind of \mion ha.s, 
 indeed, been long in daily practice for the amelioration, 
 modification, and diver.'^ification of the living beings upon 
 which human industry is exercised. It is useless to insist 
 iiptm facts which are known to all gardeners and breeders, 
 and I shall confine myself to one remark, the importance 
 of which will be understood later. 
 
 We have already seen that in the endeavour to iterfcct a 
 vegetable or animal race, the physiological e(|uilibrium has 
 sometimes been destroyed at the expense of the reproductive 
 power. In such ca.ses, crossing with another race which is 
 less modified, generally revives the extinguished fertility. 
 For example, the English pigs imported into the mid<lle of 
 France by M. de (Jinostous became sterile after several
 
 66 The I/itifian Spccit's. 
 
 generation.?. Upon cros.sing tlicm with a leaner and less 
 perfect local race, their fertility returned. 
 
 All these facts, and their inevitable conse(iuencc.s, have 
 been admitted by every naturalist who has studied the 
 question. Even Darwin has recognised the truth of them in 
 his valuable work upon the Vanat'toii of Animals and 
 Plants. At that time he confined himself to the conclusion 
 that the crosses between some races of plants are less fertile 
 than between others, a proposition whicii no one would think 
 of denying. He has gone further in the latest editions of 
 his work upon the Origin of Species. Without bringing 
 forward clear facts, the meaning of which would go further 
 than the wise conclusions he had previously admitted, he 
 invokes our relative ignorance of what takes place among 
 wild varieties, and concludes that we must admit that the 
 cros.ses between varieties must always be perfectly fertile. 
 This is one of those appeals to the unknown, one of those 
 arguments where even our ignorance is invoked as a proof, 
 w hich we too often meet with in Darwin, who is often carried 
 ;iw;iy by his convictions, I shall have to return to this point, 
 l)ut I here make the statement as an established fact, on the 
 authority even of Darwin, that all knoivn facts attest the 
 jx'i'fcct fertilHy of mongrels. 
 
 Finally, the formation of crosses between races, or tiie 
 production of mongrels, is spontaneous, and may bo pro- 
 moted by man without the least difticulty ; the results are 
 as certain as those with the union of individuals of tlie same 
 rare ; in certain ca.ses, indeed, fertility is increased or revived 
 under the influence of this crossing. 
 
 Crosses hctwi-en species, or liyhrids, will exhibit facts of an 
 entirely contrary nature 
 
 J II. The formation nf hybrids, as of mongrels, may be 
 either natural or artificial. 
 
 The former is so rare that eminent naturalists have 
 (lotibtcd its reality. There are, however, according to M. 
 Dccaisne, a K«'ore of well proved oxaniplcs among plants. 
 What is this nuiiilur conipareil with the thousands of
 
 Mongrels and Hybrids. 67 
 
 mongrels proJuccJ every clay uiuler our eyes. And yet 
 the niiiterial comlitions of fertility arc identically the same 
 with races a.s with species, anil our botanical gardens, which 
 group luunbers of species side by side, fiicilitate crossing still 
 more. 
 
 Among wild animals living in liberty hybrids are still more 
 rare. It is unknown, for example, among mammalia, accord- 
 ing to Isidore Geolfroy, whose experience has here a double 
 value. The order of birds alone presents some facts of this 
 kind, nearly all of which are in the order of Gallina-. 
 Acconling to Valenciennes, they arc unknown among fishes. 
 In domestication and captivity spontaneous crossing between 
 ilirterent species is a little less rare. 
 
 The intelligent intervention of man has multiplied unions 
 of this kind in a remarkable manner, especially among 
 plants, but without being able to extend their limits. 
 Litinajus thought crossing was possible between species of 
 different families. But in 17G1 Koebreuter showed that 
 he was mistaken. From these investigations, which were 
 carried on for twenty-seven years, and from those of M. 
 Naudin, his worthy rival, it appears that artificial crossing 
 between species of different families never succeeds, and 
 very rarely between species of different genera ; that it is 
 dways very difficult, and demands the most minute pre- 
 cautions to insure success ; that it often fails between species 
 of the same genus closely allied in appeai-ance, and finally, 
 that there are whole families among which hybrids are impos- 
 sible. Amongst the latter figures the family of the cucur- 
 bitaccae, so thoroughly studied by M. Naudin, where the 
 most jxMfcct mongrels were produced spontaneously. We 
 coidd not imagine, evidently, a more complete contrast. 
 
 This contra.st is carried into the minutest details. For 
 example, any flower which has in the least possible degree 
 undergimc the action of pollen of its own species becomes 
 ab.<Nolutcly insensible to the action of pollen of a different 
 >p(cii's. How different to the equality of action disjdayed 
 by the several pollens of most distant races !
 
 68 The Unman Species. 
 
 All experimenters agree further in declaring that even in 
 the unions between species which have been most successful, 
 the fertility is constantly diminished, and often in immense 
 proportions. The head of the Papaver somnifera generally 
 contains 2000 seeds or more. In a hybrid of this species 
 Goertner only found si.x which had been matured ; all the rest 
 were more or less abortive. Here again, what a contrast 
 between the crossing productive of such fertility in M. De 
 Ginestous' English pigs. 
 
 Hybridism in animals presents exactly the same phenomena 
 as in plants. Man has been able, by diverting and deceiving 
 animal instincts, to multiply crosses between species. But 
 he has not been able to extend the very narrow limits at 
 wliich these phenomena cea.se. Not one fertile \mion has 
 taken place between dilferent families ; they arc very rare 
 between genera, and even between species they are far from 
 numerous, a fact the more remarkable as animal hybridation 
 is an ancient institution. The mule was known to the 
 Hebrews before the time of David, and to the Greeks in the 
 age of Homer. T'd'ircs and musmons, products of crossings 
 between the he-goat and the sheep and the ram with the 
 she-goat, received their distinctive names from the Romans. 
 
 The uncertainty of the result is another point of resem- 
 blance between animal and vegetiible hybrid.s. The same 
 experiments executed with the same care anil by equally 
 (liver experimenters have sometimes succeeded and some- 
 times failed without any apparent cause. Buffon and Dau- 
 JHiisun often tried to reproduce titires and nnismons. Tliey 
 sueceeded twice, while Lsidore GeoftVoy has invariably faileil. 
 The formation of crosses between tiic hare and the rabbit, 
 which has fre<(uently been attempted in various parts of the 
 ^^hjbe, apj)ear.s only to have been successful four or five times 
 at the most. The pretended cross between the camel and 
 the <ironiedMry, admitted by IhifTon and (jwoted by Nott, is 
 certainly a fal)le, alter the <letJiils which M. J)e Khanikofll" 
 kindly gave mc, and which I have published elsewhere. Wc 
 may, therefore, <lraw this conclusion fiom known facts, that
 
 JMongrcls and Hybrids. 69 
 
 there are only two species of mammals, the ass and the 
 horse, the crossing of which is almost universally and invari- 
 ably fertile. 
 
 Finally, crossing between specks, or hyhrldalton, is ex- 
 tremely exceptional among plants and animals when left to 
 themselves ; man can only produce them with great difficulty 
 in the two kingdoms, and then only between a very limited 
 number of species ; when he has succeeded, the fertility is 
 almost constantly diminished, and often to a very consider- 
 able extent.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CROSSING BETWEEN VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL RACES AND 
 SPECIES; MONGRELS AND HYBRIDS; REALITY OF SPECIES. 
 
 I. From the very first, in the union of two individuals 
 belonging to different stocks, the race and the species dis- 
 play very distinct and characteristic plienomena. We shall 
 now see this opposition as strongly marked in the product of 
 these unions in Tnongrels and hybrids. 
 
 Several questions are raised by the mixed nature of these 
 btiiigs. I shall confine myself to those which refer to filia- 
 tion, and which have therefore a special interest for us. They 
 may be stated generally as follows : — are mongrel races, that 
 is, those derived from hvo distinct races, and hybrid races, that 
 i? those which are derived from the crossing of hvo species, 
 formed naturally, or can they be obtained artificially ? In 
 other -words, do mongrels and hybrids retain, during an 
 indefinite number of generations, the faculty of reproducing 
 and transmitting to their descendants the mixed character 
 they inherited from the first parents which effected the 
 cross ? 
 
 II. In regard to mongrels there is not a shadow of doubt. 
 Facts which frc<[U('ntly occur, often Avithout our interven- 
 tion, and sometimes in spite of our precautions, prove again 
 and again that the mongrels of tlic first generation are as 
 I'trtile as tlie parents, and transmit cfpial fertility to their 
 (»ffspring. Our gardeners and breeders always take advan- 
 tage of this property of mongrels in order to vary, modify 
 or anK'liorate from their point of view the })lants and 
 animals in which they are interested ; the careful experi- 
 ments of Buffon, of Geoffroy St. Hilaire, father and son, and
 
 Crossing beiivccn Races. 71 
 
 the testimony of Darwin, on this point very significant, 
 prove beyond a doubt that unions between different races 
 remain fertile, whatever morphological differences there may 
 be between them. I shall confine myself to quoting one 
 example from Darwin. The niata will unite indifferently 
 in both senses with the ordinary ox, and the offspring is 
 fertile. 
 
 If several races of a single species are in habitual contact 
 and left to themselves, they will intermix in every degree. 
 This results in bastard offspring, devoid of definite charac- 
 ters, but which, when methodically studied, would lead 
 through insensible shades to the different primitive types. 
 In this manner our street dogs and cats have come into 
 existence, which remain perfectly fertile in spite of innu- 
 merable crossings of every kind. 
 
 With human intervention it is possible, when care is 
 taken, to regulate the crossing between two races, and to 
 obtain a mongrel race. After a few oscillations between 
 the paternal and maternal types it becomes consolidated 
 and settled. But whatever constancy it may have acquired 
 as a Avhole, it almost always happens that some individuals 
 reproduce, to a varying extent, the characters of one of the 
 types originally crossed. 
 
 This phenomenon is designated by the name of Atavism. 
 It sometimes occurs in the midst of a race considered to 
 be perfectly pure, and is the result of a single crossing 
 several generations back. Darwin qtiotes the case of a 
 breeder, Avho having crossed Ids fowls with the Malay race, 
 wished afterwards to free them from the stransfe blood. 
 After spending forty years in the attempt, he is still un- 
 successful, the Malay blood always reappearing in some of 
 his fowls. 
 
 In animals as in plants, univcrsid, free and indefinite 
 fertility, whether between themselves or between all the 
 races of the same species, is one of the characters of 
 mongrels. Atavism attests the physiological bon<l v.hich 
 unites all niontrrels.
 
 72 The Human Species. 
 
 III. Ill liybriils we shall meet witli some very different 
 phenomena. 
 
 Let u.s first, with M. Godron, establish the fact that in 
 the vegetable hybrid the physiological equilibrium is de- 
 stroyed in favour of the organs conducive to the life of the 
 individual, and at the expense of those conducive to the 
 life of the species. The stalk and leaves are always deve- 
 loped in an exaggerated manner relatively to the flowers. 
 'J'he most common animal hybrid, the mule, is an entirely 
 similar case, being invariably stronger, more robust, more 
 hardy than its parents, but sterile. 
 
 This sterility is not absolute, however, among all hybrids 
 of the first generation. It generally affects the male organs 
 in an entirely special manner. Koelreuter, to whom we 
 should always refer when treating of plants, states that the 
 anthers scarcely ever enclose veritable pollen, but merely 
 irregular granulations. It was not quite so unusual to find 
 ovules in good condition in the ovary. Guided by these 
 ol)servations, Koelreuter artificially fertilised hybrid flowers 
 with pollen from the male species, and thus obtained a 
 vegetable qiuidroon. By continuing this process he soon 
 brought back again to the original male type the descen- 
 dants of the first hybrid, Avhich regained all their generative 
 faculties, but at the same time lost all trace of the female 
 type. These experiments have been repeated and varied, 
 but always with the same result. 
 
 In a small number of hybrids of the • first generation 
 the elements which characterise the two sexes remained 
 faj)able of reproduction. Nevertheless the fertility is always 
 iiMinonsely reduced. From liis hybrids of the datura, M. 
 Naudiii only obtained five or six fertile seeds from each 
 jtlant. All the otJiLis had completely failed, or were without 
 an embryo. The capsules them.selves were only half the 
 iiortnal si/.i-. 
 
 If two (jf these first hybrids are united they produce 
 hybrids of the second generation. In most cases, however, 
 tlif latter are citlicr sterile, or present the phciioiiK'non of a
 
 Hybridation — Disordei'cd Variation. 73 
 
 sjwntaneous return to one or the other of the parent types, 
 or to both. M. Naudin crossed the large-leaved primrose 
 with the iwimula offi.cinal'is, and obtained an intermediate 
 hybrid between tlie two species, havingr seven fertile seeds. 
 When these were sown they produced three primroses of 
 the male species, three of the female, and a single hybrid 
 plant which was perfectly barren. 
 
 In some still rarer cases fertility continues during several 
 generations. Then, however, a curious phenomenon is ex- 
 hibited, called by M. Naudin, Avho discovered it, Disordered 
 variation. With the Linaria communis and the Linaria 
 'purpurea he produced a hybrid, the descendants of which 
 he was able to follow through seven generations, in each 
 of which several individuals reverted to the characters 
 either of the original male or female. The others neither 
 resembled the primitive types nor the hybrid resulting 
 from their crossing, nor the plants of which they were the 
 immediate offspring, nor was there any resemblance between 
 the plants themselves. 
 
 Thus the crossing does not produce a race, even in cases 
 where it allows a certain amount of fertility ; it only produces 
 varieties incapable of transmitting their individual characters. 
 In order to establish a series of generations presenting a 
 certivin amount of uniformity, the hybrid must lose some of 
 its mixed characters, and resume the normal livery of the 
 species, as M. Naudin .says ; in other words, it must return 
 to one of the parent types. 
 
 IV. The same facts which we have iust noticed amoiio- 
 plants, occur also among animals. We must observe in tiie 
 first place, that the only two species, the crossing of which 
 displays anything approaching to regular fertility, the horse 
 and the ass, merely produce a hybrid almost entirely devoid 
 of fertility. It is more than 2000 yeare since Herodotus 
 regarded tlie fertility of mules as a prodigy, and Jilmost 1800 
 years since Pliny expressed the same opinion. 
 
 And yet in .some works we read that the fertility of the 
 mule is displayed in the present day ; that it often propa-
 
 74 ^/'^ Iluniaji Species. 
 
 gates in liot countries, especially in Algeria. The true value 
 of these singular assertions \s\\\ be recognised if we recall the 
 effect which was produced in 1S28 upon the whole Mussul- 
 man population of Algeria by the announcement that a mule 
 had conceived near Biskra. The astonishment was general ; 
 the Arabs gave themselves up to long fasts to conciliate the 
 wrath of heaven, thinking the end of the world had come. 
 Fortunately the mule miscarried ; but long afterwards the 
 Arabs still spoke Avith terror of this event. 
 
 If this fact were occasionally repeated in Algeria it would 
 never have produced such an impression upon a people so 
 curious about everything connected with the horse. The 
 impression itself proves that the facts are in our days similar 
 to what they were in the time of Herodotii.s. 
 
 Examples of fertility in the hybrids of the ass and the 
 horse have never been observed except in the female viule. 
 There is not a single known example in the male. AVe 
 meet with something analogous to this in birds, where the 
 sterility of certain hybrids is less absolute. Thus vertebrata 
 arc similarly ati'ected with plants ; and in their case also the 
 inequality between the two sexes can be explained by 
 anatomical and microscopic examination. The male organs 
 are generally but slightly (luveloj)cd, even the essential 
 elements of the fertilising liquid undergo alteration. The 
 female organs and elements, though niodifu'd, are relatively 
 unaffected. 
 
 There are some liybrids among animals, as among plants, 
 which are not subject to the general law. Among birds in 
 particular, a certain numl)er, always however very limited, 
 of more or less fertile hybrids have been obtained. But, 
 with the malrs the faculty of reproduction is constantly 
 weakonc<l, and habitually «lisappears before the usual age; 
 the female lays more rarely, and the eggs are fewer in 
 numb(;r, and very often clritr. This is an exact repetition of 
 what took i)lace in RI. Naudin's datura seeds, which he 
 observed to become abortive or devoid of embryo. 
 
 We must, moreover, exclude from the nuiiibor of fertile
 
 Fcrtilily of Hybrids. 75 
 
 hybrids a certain number of examples quoted by some 
 authors, and which statements are proved by facts, now 
 either better known or better appreciated, to have an erro- 
 neous foundation. Thus Hellenius thought he had crossed 
 tlie Finnish ram with the Sardinian doc, but he had con- 
 foimded the then Uttle known moufflon with the roebuck. 
 He thus obtained a mongrel, which having been crossed for 
 two generations- with the male parent, returned to the type 
 of the latter. We have here evidently only a companion 
 experiment to those of Koclrcuter, which resulted in a re- 
 version of the hybrid to the male type under a similar series 
 of crossings. 
 
 There are, however, some examples among birds and 
 among mammalia of hybrids which have propagated inicr se 
 for several jjenerations, four or five at the most. The cele- 
 ])rated experiment of Buffou upon the crossing of the dog 
 with the w'olf in particular, belongs to this order of facts. 
 It was unfortunately interrupted by the death of the great 
 naturalist at the fourth generation. It is clear that there is 
 nothing here which does not perfectly agree with our ob- 
 servations upon hybrid plants, which, although exceeding this 
 number of generations, have never produced hybrid races. 
 
 Fertility, and the number of succeeding generations is 
 increased, when a superiority is given to one of the crossed 
 species over the other. This fact has been recognised in 
 plants, and we meet with it again in animals. By crossing 
 and rccrossing in a fixed manner the goat and the sheep, 
 hybrids called chabins are obtained which possess three- 
 eighths of the paternal and five-eighths of the maternal 
 blood. These animals produce a fleece much valued in 
 South America, and are the source of real industry. They 
 can be maintained for several generations, but at length all 
 tiic cro.ssings to which they owe their existence must be 
 recommenced, they having returned to the parental types, 
 'like plants,' as M. Gay said. 
 
 This proportion — three-eighths to five-eighths — appears 
 to be very favourable to the maintenance of hybrid races ;
 
 76 The IIiLDian Species. 
 
 it is the proportion which characterises the famous leporidcs, 
 the result of the crossing of the hare and the rabbit. 
 But can these hybrids, of which so much lias been said, 
 maintain themselves Avithout reverting to the parental 
 types ? M. Roux evidently believed it, and it is still asserted 
 by M. Gayot. But the testimony of those who have esta- 
 blished and impugned their assertions leaves scarcely any 
 room for doubt. Isidore Geoffrey, who had at first believed 
 in their fixity, and had spoken of it as a conquest, did not 
 hesitate afterwards to admit the reversion. The fact has 
 been established in the Jardin d'Acclimatation, and M. Roux 
 liimself, upon the assertion of M. Faivre, appears to have 
 abandoned his previous assertions. The ■ observations and 
 experiments made by the Agricultural Society of Paris 
 clearly sliow that the lcj)orides, sent or presented by the 
 Itroeders themselves, had entirely reverted to the rabbit type. 
 L;istly, M. Sanson, discussing the anatomical side of the 
 • [uestion, has arrived at the same conclusions. Moreover, 
 whoever will credit the observations made by M. Naudin 
 upon the Linarias, will easily recognise the reversion and 
 the disordered valuation exhibited by tlie leporides of the 
 Abbe Cugliari, who was the first to ol)tain a fertile crossing 
 between the hare and the raljbit. 
 
 These phenomena appear in an e(|u;dly well marked 
 iiiaiincr in the result of the cro.ss between the silknioth 
 {lioinbi/x cyntlua) and the castor-oil sijkmoth {Boiabijx 
 arrindia), obtained by M. Guerin Mcnevillc. The hybrids 
 of the first g(;nerati()n were alintjst exactly intermediate 
 between the two species, and resembled each other. \\\ the 
 second this uniformity disappeared, in the third the dissinii- 
 l.irity ha<l increased, some of the insects having rejissumed 
 all tlu; characters of the paternal or maternal types. In the 
 seventh generation lliis < injous experiment was destroyed by 
 ifhneinnons. lint, as AI. N'alei*, their intelligent breeder, told 
 nie, ne-arly all the in(»ths had returned to the type of the 
 liombyx arrindia. TIk; resemblance tf) what took place in 
 the ca.sc of M. Naiiilin's liinari.e is here complete.
 
 Hybridation — The Phenomenon of Reversion. 77 
 
 V. The phenomenon of the reversion of tlie descendants 
 of a liybiid to the paternal or maternal type, or disordered 
 variation, has given rise to some interpretations which 
 it will be well to rectify, and has also raised important 
 ([iicstions. 
 
 The attempt has been made to assimilate the latter to the 
 oseiUations presented by mongrels for some generations. 
 But daily experience should suffice to refute tliis opinion. 
 Iheeders are crossing races every day for some purpose or 
 other, and they would never do so if the crossing were to 
 result in the production of a disorder which would exhibit 
 the smallest resemblance to that displayed by the Linarice of 
 M. Naudin, and the silkmoths of Guerin Meneville. They 
 expect, however, a few irregularities more or less marked, in 
 the first generations, but they know that the race will soon 
 settle while the disorder would only increase if the crossing 
 had taken place between species. 
 
 Again, an attempt has been made to consider the facts 
 of atavism and reversion as identical. There is, however, a 
 fundamental difterence between them, for the mongrel which 
 by atavism reassumes the characters of one of its paternal 
 ancestors, for example, still preserves its mixed nature. 
 This is proved by the possibility of its offspring of the first 
 or second generation reproducing, on the contrary, the es- 
 sential traits of its own maternal ancestors. Darwin gives 
 many examples of facts of this nature from the agricultural" 
 history of his country. One of the best to quote is that 
 furnished by the genealdgy of n, family of dogs observed by 
 (Jirou de Buzareingius. These animals were crosses between 
 the setter and spaniel. Now one male, a setter to all ap- 
 pearances, united with a female of pure setter breeil, pro- 
 duced spaniels, which makes it evident that the latter blood 
 was by no means annihilated, and that the return to the 
 setter type was only a])parent 
 
 It is dilTerent in the cases of reversion displayed by hybrids, 
 for one of the two bloods is irrevocably expelled. We are 
 justified in making this assertion in the case of mammalia,
 
 78 TJic Human Species. 
 
 by experience extending as far back as the Roman period, 
 ur at leiist as far as the seventeenth century. Titires and 
 tnusnions have never since those times had offspHug afeded 
 by atavism. A ram and sheep have never been known to 
 produce a kid, nor a male and female goat to produce a lamb. 
 It is the same with plants, according to statements with 
 which M. Naudin has kindly furnished me. 
 
 Far from being similar, the phenomena of atavism and 
 reversion are absolutely different and characteristic, the one 
 of crossing between races, the other of crossing between 
 species. The first proclaims the persistency of the physio- 
 logical connections between all the representatives, more or 
 less modified, of one species ; the second proves the complete 
 rupture of the same connections between the descendants of 
 two species accidentally brought into contact by the promoter 
 of the liybridism. 
 
 VI. In none of the preceding cases has hybridism, no 
 matter in what degree, given rise to a series of individuals 
 descended the one from the other, and preserving the same 
 characters. An exception is, however, known to this general 
 fact. It is unique, and is produced in the vegetable kingdom 
 from the crossing of wheat with yKijilops ovata. 
 
 The hybrid of the first generation from these two species 
 is sometimes produced naturally, and was regarded by 
 Hetpiien as a species. Fabre, who frctpiently met with it in 
 liie fields, considered it to be the commencement of the 
 Iransmutation of the ^Egilops into wheat. Aftenvards a 
 quadroon hybrid, accidentally obtained and eultivated during 
 several years, gave him descendants resembling the beardless 
 'whait of the South. It was the result o( reversion. Fabre, 
 however, who did not rec(»gniso the hybrid, thought it was a 
 transmutation, and flattered liiinscir (hat he had discovered 
 wild wheat in the ./Kgilops. 
 
 M. Godron, on the contrary, unthrstood the nature of the 
 phenomenon, and demonstrated it experimentally. lie 
 (•ros.scd the yEgihjps and the wheat, and obtained the first 
 j.lant of Iletjuien, the /Ejilops tridroldcs of Fabre. He
 
 Characters of Hybrids. 79 
 
 ac^ain crossed this hybrid with the true wheat, and repro- 
 duced the pretended artificial wlieat of the MontpeUier 
 botanist. He gave to it tlie name of j£<jUo2m spelhvfoi^iis. 
 
 It is this latter form, having as we see three-fourths of the 
 true wheat, and a fourth of the iEgilops, that M. Godron has 
 cultivated at Nancy since 1857. The clever naturalist who has 
 produced it, believes that he has not had one case of reversion 
 like those at MontpeUier and those of Fabre. But at the same 
 time he informs us that the most minute and special precau- 
 tions alone can preserve this artificial plant. The ground 
 must be prepared with the greatest care, and each seed 
 placed by hand in the desired position. If put into the 
 ground carelessly, or scattered over the bed, the seeds never 
 germinate. M. Godron considered that the .^gilops spelta3- 
 formis would entirely disappear, perhaps in a single 3'ear, if 
 left to itself. 
 
 Vll. Finally, the characters of hybrids are : infertility, 
 as a general rule, and, iri the exceptions, a very limited 
 fertility ; series suddenly cut short either by infertility, by 
 disordered variation, or by reversion without atavism. 
 
 The iEgilops triticoides alone seems to stand in opposition 
 to all other known facts. This exception is undoubtedly 
 remarkable, but does not in any way impair our general con- 
 clusions. A product of human industry, this hybrid plant 
 only exists by virtue of the same industry, and cannot, from 
 any point of view, bo compared to the succession of mongrel 
 individuals which arc unceasingly propagated without our 
 aiil, and in spite of our precautions, in the midst of our 
 animal and vegetable races. 
 
 "But," say those writers who deny the reality of a distinc- 
 tion iM'twcon species and race, " wiiat man has done nature 
 must be able to do also, for she governs space and time, and 
 is therefore more powerful than man." This form of argu- 
 ment rests upon a confusion of ideas and a strange neglect of 
 the most ordinary facts. 
 
 Most true, nature is more powerful than man in certain 
 cases and for certain ends, but man also has his domain, in
 
 8o TJic Human Species. 
 
 •which lie is much superior to nature. Natural forces act in 
 virtue of blind and necessary laws, the result of which is 
 constant. Now man has ac(iuired the knowk-dge of these 
 laws, he has made use of them to const raiu and master the 
 natural forces oue after another, he now knows how to 
 exafTfjerate some and to weaken others. In this manner he 
 changes their resultants, and obtains products which nature 
 herself could ncjt realise. Give to the latter all the time and 
 .space that you will, she would never be able either to produce 
 or preserve potassium or sodium iu a metallic form ; in spite 
 of the physico-chemical forces, or rather by directing them, 
 man has obtained and preserved these two metals, as he 
 has obtained and preserved the ^gilops triticoides, which is 
 destroyed by the inflexibility of natural forces as soon as it 
 is exposed to their actitni. 
 
 VIII. The infertility, or, if you will, the restricted and 
 rapidly limited fertility between species, and the impossi- 
 bility of natural forces, when left to themselves, produciug 
 scries of intermediary beings between two given specific 
 types, is one of those general facts which we call a law. This 
 fact has an importance in the organic world e(iual to that 
 rightly attributed to attraction in the sidereal world. It is 
 by virtue of the latter that the celestial bodies preserve their 
 resj)ective distances, and complete their orbits in the admir- 
 able order revealed by astronomy. The lav} of the sterility 
 o/«/)eciVs produces the same result, and maintains between 
 Kpeciesand bc-twcen different groups in animals and plants all 
 those relations, which, in the palajontological ages, as well as in 
 our own, form the marvelhjus whole of the Ortjanlc Empire. 
 
 Imagine the suj)pression of the laws which govern attrac- 
 tion in the luMivens, and what chaos would immediately bo 
 the rcHult. Supf)resH upon earth the law of crossing, and the 
 confuKion wouM be immense. It is scarcely po.s.sible to say 
 where it would stop. After a few generations the grou|».s 
 wliich wu call genera, families, orders, and cla.sse.s would 
 most certainly have disappeared, and the branches also 
 wouM rapidly have become afTected. It is clear that only a few
 
 Reality of Species. 8 1 
 
 centuries "would elapse before the animal and vegetable 
 kingdoms fell into the most complete disorder. Now order 
 has existed in both kingdoms since the epoch when organised 
 beings first peopled the solitudes of our globe, and it could 
 only have been established and preserved by virtue of the 
 im])ossibility of a fusion of species with each other through 
 inditVcrently and indefinitely fertile crossings. 
 
 IX. There are some writers, very often entirely unac- 
 quainted with the natural sciences, who, labouring under the 
 most varied prejudices, especially that of exaggerating the 
 transmutation doctrines which I shall presently discuss, have 
 denied the realidj of species ; they aftirm that there are no 
 serious barriers between the groups designated by this term, 
 and have compared it in a more or less formal manner to the 
 groups always somewhat arbitrarily called genera, tribes, 
 families, orders, etc. Though only a brief recapitulation, 
 the preceding facts would be sufiicient to answer them. It 
 is, however, necessary to mention the principal objections 
 which are brought forward against such ideas, and to shew 
 how they may be refuted. 
 
 1st, It is useless to take any notice of the good humoured 
 or malicious banU-r, of the raillery and sarcjism too often 
 made use of by some writers against those who admit the 
 reality of species. It is evident that those who employ such 
 weapons do not address themselves to men of science, but 
 appeal directly to the passions. We cannot sufficiently 
 - X press our regret at seeing men of undoubted merit resort- 
 ing to such means. 
 
 L'nd. At the present time, perhaps more than ever, those 
 who believe in species are reproached with being orthodox : I 
 could never myself understand why there should be this 
 mixture of scientific discussions and do;rmatic and antido^- 
 matic polemics. 
 
 Jird. I shall, moreover, refuse to dispute with those who, 
 njecting on their own authority a whole century of work 
 accompli.shcd by the greatest natumlists, and by a number 
 of men distinguished in botanv and zoolo<;v, declare that it
 
 82 The Hiunan Species. 
 
 is useless to try and discover what species and race are, and 
 laugh at those who take the troul)lc to do so. I say the 
 same to those ^Yho regard species and race as more or less 
 arbitrary groups which may be compared to the genus, 
 family and order. It will be enough to remark that they 
 themselves incessantly employ the word sj^ccies and race, and 
 we must not be surprised if they take one thing for the 
 other, 
 
 4th. After what we have said, discussion is useless with 
 those naturalists who only base the distinction of species 
 upon external characters. They forget all the experiments 
 made from Buffon to the two Geoffreys, from Koelreuter to 
 M. Naudin ; they forget the innumerable observations made 
 in our orchards, gardens and stables. To refuse to abandon 
 morphological considerations, and to neglect the data of 
 physiology and the lessons of filiation, is clearly going 
 further back than Ray and Tourncfort, and all discussion 
 becomes impossible. 
 
 5th. Some of our opponents allow that things are now what 
 we think them to be. " But," say they, " it is po.ssible that at 
 some other time it was different." What answer can be 
 given to those who base their arguments upon possibilities'! 
 Is modern science composed of possibilities ? 
 
 Gth. Naturalists have often been reproached with multiiily- 
 ing the definitions of species. From the variety of terms em- 
 ]>loyed by them in expressing idea.s, it has been inferred that 
 they were not agreed as to the ideas themselves. We may 
 cjusily convince ourselves of their mistake, if we give these 
 definitions a careful reconsideration. We shall see that their 
 .several authors have only endeavoured to express with 
 greater clearness and precision, the double idea rcsidting 
 from the facts of resemblance and filiation. In reality, 
 ilivergencies oidy begin where experiment and observation 
 coa.se. It is this which caused Isidore Geoffroy, however 
 interested he might be in discussions of this nature, to 
 remark — " Such arc Species and Races, not only for one of 
 the schools into which naturalists are divided, but for all."
 
 Reality oj Species. 83 
 
 7tli. It has been asserted that the distinction of species and 
 race rests upon a syllogistic circle ; that naturalists decided 
 a 'priori uj)on calling all those groups incapable of inter- 
 crossing, species, and all those amongst which crossing was 
 possible, races. To appeal to the difference of the phe- 
 nomena presented by the hybrids and mongrels is therefore 
 only solving the question by the question.— This is an 
 historical error. Naturalists came into contact with species, 
 races and varieties, before they gave names to them. It 
 was by experiment and observation that they learnt to 
 distinguish them. Knoxdedfje of facts preceded termin- 
 ology. 
 
 8th. Again, it has been said, that the discussions which are 
 always arising between naturalists as to whether a species 
 should be preserved or regarded as a race, as to the genus, 
 family, order, and sometimes the class in which it should be 
 placed, betray a Avant of precision in general ideas. — Those 
 wiio talk in this manner forget the immense number of 
 species and races accepted and classified without discussion. 
 They shut their eyes to all cases except those in which 
 divergences of opinion occur. If, however, facts of this 
 nature prove anything against a science and its fundamental 
 data, then even mathematical theorems must be considered 
 as wanting in precision, for there are disputes among 
 mathematicians. 
 
 9th. I liave already n.'plied to the arguments drawn from 
 the fertility of certain hybrids by showing to what it is 
 reduced. Writers who insist upon this point invariably 
 forget the lesson taught us by disordered variation and 
 reversion without atavism. I regret being obliged to place 
 among them Darwin, who, in his later writings, has shewn 
 much less reserve than in his earlier publication.s. In the 
 last edition of his book, he ([uotes what I have said of the 
 cross between the Bombyx cynthia and the Bombyx arrindia ; 
 he speaks of the number of generations obtained, but ho 
 forgets to mention that disordered variation appeared in the 
 .second generation, and that reversion to one of the parental
 
 $4 The Ilimian Species. 
 
 t3pe.s -svas almost complete at the tenniuation of the 
 experiment. 
 
 X. Species is then a reality. 
 
 Let us take a group of individuals more or less similar, but 
 always capable of contracting fertile unions, and let us, with 
 ^r. Chevreul, trace it in imagination to its origin. We shall 
 see it divided into families, each of which will have risen 
 either mediately or immediately from one pair of parents. 
 We shall see that the number of these families decrease at 
 each generation, and rising still higher we shall at length 
 find the initial term of a single 2)^'i'initive j^di^'. 
 
 Has this really been the case ? Has each species indeed 
 arisen from one single pair, or have several pairs, resembling 
 each other perfectly both morphologically and physiologically, 
 appeared simultaneously or successively? These, arc quest to )i8 
 of fact which science neither can nor ought to approach, for 
 neither experiment nor observation is able to furnish us with 
 the smallest data requisite for the solution. 
 
 But what science may affirm is that from all appearances 
 each species has had, as point of departure, a single piiniitive 
 pair.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CROSSING BKTWEEN HUMAN GROUPS. — UNITY OF THE 
 HUMAN SPECIES. 
 
 I, We now know what arc species anil race ; the plieno- 
 nioua exhibited by mongrels and hybrids furnish us with 
 an experimental means of distinguishing them. AVe can, 
 therefore, now reply to the question which has necessitated 
 this discussion : Are there one or many human species ? 
 Are the human groups races or species ? 
 
 Unless we pretend that man alone of all organised beings 
 is free from the laws which, in every other case, govern and 
 regulate the laws of reproduction, and consequently, unless 
 we make him a solitary exception precisely in that order of 
 facts which most closely unites all other beings, we shall be 
 forced to admit that he also obeys the laws of crossing. 
 
 Thus, if the human groups represent a more or less con- 
 siderable number of sixxies, we ought to prove in the cro.ss- 
 ings of their species the existence of the characteristic pheno- 
 mena of hybridism. If these groups are only races of a single 
 species, wc ought, in crossings between them, to meet with 
 the phenomena exhibited by mongrels. 
 
 II. It is scarcely necessary to recall what nearly four cen- 
 turies of experience and observation have taught us. It may 
 be recapitulated in a very few words. 
 
 Since (Jolombus conunenced the era of great geographical 
 discoveries, the White, the highest division of mankind, has 
 penetrated to almost every part of the globe. He has every- 
 wiiere met human groups which differed considerably from 
 himself in every kind of character; he has everywhere
 
 86 The Hnvum Species. 
 
 mixed with tliem, and mixed races have everywhere sprung 
 up in his track. 
 
 Further still, thanks to an institution, detestable indeed, 
 but the results of which have been favourable to anthro- 
 pology, the experiment is complete. The White has en- 
 slaved the Negro and taken him away with him to all 
 parts of the globe, and wliere the local races have con- 
 sented to intermix with the enslaved race, in every case 
 they have produced mixed races of this inferior division. 
 In America the Zamho is born side by side with the 
 Mulatto and the Mamaluco. 
 
 This crossing commenced less than four centuries ago, and 
 some time has elapsed since M. d'Omalius estimated that 
 mixed races constituted at least -„'u ^^ the entire population 
 of the globe, and he emphatically declared that he had only 
 taken the half-breeds of extreme races into consideration. 
 
 In South America, where Whites, Blacks and natives 
 have lonji been in contact and have interminfrled more 
 freely, there are whole States in which half-breeds are in 
 the majority, and in which it is extremely difficult to find 
 a native of pure blood. 
 
 Have subterfuges or precautions been necessary to form 
 these unions and to insure the fertility of the offspring? 
 Quite the contrary. The tyranny of the Whites, the crimes 
 of slavery, afford quite sufHcient proof that in this case fer- 
 tility was not dependent upon circumstances, but simply 
 \ipon the physical connections existing between all men 
 from the lowest of the Negi-oes to the first of the Whites. 
 
 Has such facility, such certainty as this been experienced 
 in the ])r(Kluction of chabins and leporides ? 
 
 If anothtT proof were necessary of the facility with which 
 human grouj)s intercross, it n)ight be found in one of those 
 testimonies the value of which is undisputed because they 
 give the result of a daily experience. In l.Sfil, the Cali- 
 fornian IcgiHlature declared that any white person convicted 
 of having cohabited witli or married a Negro, Mulatto, 
 Chinese or Indian, had fi>rfeited all his rights, and became
 
 Unity of tJic I Indian Species. Sj 
 
 subject to all the constitutional incapacities imposed upon 
 men of colour. The local press announced very plainly that 
 the object of this measure was the prevention of the fusion 
 and amalgamation of the races. 
 
 The Californian legislature acted on this occasion like the 
 proprietor of a Hock of pure breed which he is anxious to 
 keep free from all mixture. It was even more severe, 
 ejecting from legal society, not only the offspring of the 
 cross, but also the transgressing parents of the white race. 
 
 Do not our breeders take similar precautions in the case 
 of races only, and not in the case of species ? 
 
 Far from being sterile, unions between human groups 
 apparently the most distinct are sometimes more fertile 
 than those between individuals taken from the same 
 group. " Hottentot women," says Le Vaillant, " with 
 husbands of their own race have three or four children. 
 With Negroes this number is tripled, and it is still further 
 increased with Whites." M. Hombron, during four years 
 which he spent in Brazil, Chili and Peru, studied this 
 phenomenon in r. large number of families. " I am able 
 to state," he says, " that unions of Whites with American 
 women have given the liighest average of births. Next 
 come the Negro and Negress. And thirdly the Negio 
 and the American woman." Unions between Americans 
 themselves gave the lowest average. 
 
 Thu.s, the maximum of fertility is here presented in a case 
 which would constitute a hybridisn> in the opinion of poly- 
 geni.sts ; the minimum is exhibited between individuals of 
 the same group, and it is with the woman belonging to the 
 latter, that, owing to the cross, the maximum is obtained. 
 
 These facts are significant. In no case of crossing be- 
 tween species ha.s fertility been observed to increa.se; on 
 the contrary it is almost always drminished, and often, as 
 we have seen above, in an immense proportion. Crossings 
 l>etween races have alone presented facts analogous to those 
 mentioned i)y Hombron and Le Vaillant. 
 
 III. Thu.s, in every ca.se crossings between human groups 
 5
 
 88 The Human Species. 
 
 exhibit the phenomena ch.aracteristic of mongrels and never 
 those of hybrids. 
 
 Therefore, these human groups, liowever different they 
 may be, or appear to be, are only races of one and the same 
 species and not distinct species. 
 
 Therefore, there is but one hunmn species, taking this 
 term species in the acceptation employed when speaking of 
 animals and plants. 
 
 IV. Anyone who refuses to accept these conclusions must 
 either deny all the facts of which it is the necessary conse- 
 quence, or reject the method employed in the examination 
 and appreciation of these facts. 
 
 But these facts are borrowed entirely either from scientific 
 experiments, made without any discussion or controversy by 
 men of the highest authority, or drawn from the innumerable 
 experiments which are daily practised by agi'iculturalists, 
 horticulturalists, and breeders. It is therefore very difficult 
 to deny them. 
 
 As to the method, it is evident tliat it rests entirely upon 
 the identity of the general laws governing all organised and 
 living beings. Few true men of .science will, I am sure, 
 refuse to admit such a starting point as this. 
 
 Now I wish that candid men, who are free from party- 
 Rpirit or prejudices, would follow me in this view, and study 
 t'oT themselves all these facts, a few of which I have only 
 touched upon, and I am perfectly convinced that they will, 
 with the great men of whom I am only the disciple, — with 
 Linnxus, Kuffon, Lamarck, Cuvicr, Geoffroy, Humboldt and 
 Muller, arrive at the conclusion that (dl men helonfj to the 
 same species, aud that there is but one species of man.
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 ORHJIN OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ORIGIN OF SPRCIHS. — HYPOTHESES OF TRAXSMUTATIOX. — 
 DAinVINlSM. 
 
 I. The unity of the human race raises some general questions, 
 and entails consequences wliich we must now examine. 
 
 The first question which is sug-gcsted to the mind is evi- 
 dently that of ontjin. "Without abandoning the strictly 
 scientific aspect of tiie subject, that is to say, confining 
 ourselves to the results of experiment and observation, can 
 we explain the appearance on our globe of a being which 
 forms a kingdom by itself ? I do not hesitate to reply in 
 the negative. 
 
 Let us admit at starting that we cannot consider sepa- 
 rately the question of the human origin. Whatever may be 
 the- cause or causes which preside over the birth or the 
 • levelopmcnt of the organic kingdom, it is to them that the 
 origin of all organised and living bodies must be traced. 
 The similarity between all the essential phenomena which 
 they exhiltit, the identity of the general laws which govern 
 them, render it impossible to suppose that it can be other- 
 wise. Tiic problem then of tiie origin of mankind becomes 
 identical with that oT all animal and vegetable species. 
 
 11. This problem has been approached very frequently and 
 li\ iiiaiiv methods. But here we can only take into account
 
 90 T/ic Iliiman Species. 
 
 the attempts which have been made in the name of science. 
 Nor can these possess any interest for us nntil the time 
 when it was at least possible to make a clear statement 
 of the question, whicli was impossible as long as no clear 
 definition had been given of organic species. In an historic 
 account of the attempts which have been made to solve the 
 ([uestion, it is useless, therefore, to go further back than Ray 
 and Tournefort. The publication of Maillot in 174;8 is the 
 first attempt which deserves passing attention. 
 
 I do not intend to repeat here the account which I have 
 given elsewhere of the different theories proposed by that 
 talented author, by Butfon, Lamarck, Et. Geoffrey St.-Hilaire, 
 Bory de St.-Vincent, and by Naudin, Gaudry, Wallace, Owen, 
 G abler, Kolliker, Haeckel, Filippi, Vogt, Huxley, and Mme. 
 Royer. They all have this point in common ; they connect 
 the origin of the more highly developed species with trans- 
 mutations undergone by inferior species. But there the 
 resemblance ceases, and their theories frequently differ 
 entirely on all other points. In short, their ideas may be 
 arranged in two principal groups according as their authors 
 favour a vapid or a gradual transmutation. The former 
 admit tiie suddi-ii appearance of a new type produced by a 
 being entirely dilfereiit : according to them the first bird 
 came from the c<fg of a reptile. The latter maintain that 
 the modifications are always gradual, that between one 
 species and another a number of links have ir.tervened 
 which unite the two extremes. They consider that types 
 arc only multiplifd slowly, and by a j)rogressive diffei'en- 
 tiation. 
 
 In reality the first of these two theories ha.s never been 
 stated in stich a manner as to form a real doctrine ; it has 
 never fornu'd a school. 1'he philosojjhers who pnjmoted it 
 confined them.selves mo.jt fre(|uently to pointing out, in a 
 general manner, the poHslbi/ifi/ of the phenomenon, while 
 they attril)Uted it to some accident. At most they invoke 
 in aid of this possibility, some analogies borrowed fVoni the 
 history of (»rdiiiarv individual development, from tiiat of
 
 Hypotheses of Transimitalion. 91 
 
 alternate generation, or of hyper-metamorphosis ; they pro- 
 duce no definite fact in justification of their assertions. 
 
 With tlie exception perhaps of the iiypothesis of M. Naudin, 
 which we shall presently discuss, all these theories which 
 favour a rapid transmutation deserve a still graver reproach, 
 that, namely, of neglecting the great general facts exhibited 
 by the organic kingdom. An explanation of the multiplica- 
 tion and the succession of principal or secondary types l)y 
 some hypothesis is not sufficient. Special account must be 
 taken of the relations which connect these typos, of the 
 order which rules the whole and which has been maintained 
 from remote geological periods through all the revolutions of 
 the globe, and in spite of changes in fauna and tlora. 
 
 Accident, without rule or law, when invoked as the imme- 
 diate cause of special transmutations, is obviousl}' incapable of 
 explaining this important fact ; it gives no explanation what- 
 ever of the generality of fundamental types, and of the direct 
 or lateral affinities which exist between their derivatives. 
 
 It is different with the theories which favour gradual 
 transmutation. They deal with all these important questions, 
 and give a more or less plausible solution of them. They 
 start from a certain number of principles whose consequences 
 more or le.ss explain the whole question and many of its 
 details. In a word, they constitute genuine doctrines and it 
 is but natural that they should have gained a certain number 
 of adherents. 
 
 Unforttmately these theories all have the same radical 
 fault. They agree with a certain number of important facts, 
 connected es.sentially with the morphology of beino^ ; but 
 they arc in direct contradiction with the fundamental phe- 
 nomena of general physiology, which are no less general or 
 fixed than the former. This contradiction is not evidt-nt at 
 first sight. This is the rea.son why these doctrines have 
 influenced not only the public at large, but even men of 
 the highest intellect, whose .sole error con.sists in their 
 having allowed themselves to consider one siile of the 
 question only.
 
 92 The Human Species. 
 
 All these theories liavc been consolidated into the doctrine 
 which rightly bears the name of Darwin. At the hands of 
 this illustrious naturalist, the hypothesis of gradual trans- 
 mutation has assumed a force and appearance of truth 
 which it never possessed before. Doubtless, long before 
 Darwin, Lamarck had formulated his laio of heredity and 
 his hnv of development of organs, to which the E]jglish 
 naturalist has added nothing ; M. Naudin had compared 
 natural selection to artificial selection; Eticnnc Geoftroy 
 8t.-Hilaire had promulgated the principle of the balance of 
 organs; Serres and Agassiz had recognized in embryogenic 
 phenomena the representation of the genesis of beings. But 
 by taking as a starting point the struggle for existence ; by 
 explaining in this manner selection; by fixing the results of 
 heredity ; by replacing the 'pre-cstahliiilced laics of Lamarck 
 by the laws of divergence, continuity, itermanent characters 
 and o{ finite heredity ; by giving by these means an explana- 
 tion of the adaptation of beings to all the conditions of exist- 
 ence, the ccrpaasive jyoicer of some, the localisation of others, 
 the successive modifications of all, under the dominion of the 
 hnvs of compensation, economy and of correlation of 
 increase ; by applying these facts to the past, present and 
 future of animate creation, Darwin has formed a complete 
 and systematic theory, the whole, and often the details, of 
 which it is impo.ssible not to admire. 
 
 I imderstand the fascination exercised by this profound and 
 ingenious concoption, which is supported by immense know- 
 lc«lgi', and eniioblcil by his loyal honesty. I should doubtless 
 have yielded as so many others have done, if I had not long 
 understood that all questions of this kind depend espcrially 
 upon physi«»lf)gy. Ncnv, my attention once arouseil, 1 found 
 no difliculty in recognising the point at which the eminent 
 author <|uits the ground of reality and enters upon that of 
 inadinissibh! hypothesis. 
 
 I have thought it right to pu})lish my criticisms upon the 
 theory of transmutation, and upon Darwinism in particular. 
 I wa.s authorised to do so by the nuinerous atta(;ks which
 
 Hypotheses of Transvintation. 93 
 
 liuve often been made, in no measured terms, against what I 
 consider to be the truth, and against every opponent of the 
 new theory. But while refuting theories I have always 
 respected the authors and done justice to their work. I have 
 ([noted the good as well as the bad, and have always held 
 aloof from the ardent atul lamentable polemics raised by 
 transmutation. 
 
 I have had great ])leasiire, when occasion has offered, in 
 defending the splendid researches made by Darwin in the 
 natural sciences. For this very reason, and at the risk of 
 being considered narrow minded, enslaved to prejudices and 
 unable to leave an old groove, etc., etc., I consider myself 
 entitled to attack Darwinism, if I employ none but the 
 weapons of science. 
 
 III. There are some points in Darwinism which are per- 
 fectly unassailable. We may consider as the most important 
 the 8irn(j(jle for existence, and selection which is the result of 
 it. It is not the first time, certainly, that the former has 
 been established, and the important part it has to play in the 
 general harmony of the Avorld lia.s at least been partly com- 
 ])rehended. I will here only recall to the mind of my readers 
 the fables of La Fontaine. But no one had insisted, as 
 Darwin has done, upon the enormous disproportion which 
 exists between the number of births and the number of 
 living indiviiluals ; no one had investigated, as he has, the 
 general causes of death or of survival which produce the 
 final result. By pointing out the fact that each species tends 
 to increase in number in geometrical progi-cssion, which is 
 proved by the number of offspring to -which a single mother 
 can give birth during the whole course of her life, the English 
 n.ituralist makes it easy to comprehend the intensity of the 
 struggles, direct or indirect, which are undergone by animals 
 and plants against one another and the surrountling world. 
 It is, most certainly, entirely owing to this struggle for 
 existence, that the whole world, in a few years, is not overrun 
 l)y some species, or the rivers and ocean filled in the same 
 manner.
 
 94 The llunian Species. 
 
 It is no less evident to me that the survivors cannot 
 always owe their preservation to a combination of happy 
 chances. Among the immense majority the victory can only 
 be due to certain special advantages, ■which are not enjoyed 
 by those who succumb. The result of this sirucffjle for 
 existence is, then, the destruction of all the inferior indi- 
 viduals, and the preservation of those individuals only which 
 possess some kind of superiority. This is what Darwin calls 
 Natural Selection. 
 
 . I can scarcely understand how these two phenomena can 
 be doubted or even denied. The}' do not constitute a theory, 
 but are facts. Far from being repugnant to tlie mind, they 
 seem inevitable, the consequences follow with a sort of neces- 
 sity and fatality resembling the laws of the inorganic world. 
 
 The term selection- jrivcs rise to criticism, and the hmiruajje 
 of Darwin, at times too figurative, renders plausible the 
 objection of those who have reproached him with attributing 
 to nature the part of an intelligent being. The word clnni- 
 natioii would have been more e.\act. But much of this 
 sliouM have been prevented by tlic explanations given by 
 the aiithor. Besides, it is evident that the struggle for 
 existence entails the elimination of individuals who are 
 le.ss able to sustain it, and that the result exactly resembles 
 that produced by unconscious human selection. Then 
 heredity intervenes among beings wliich are free as well as 
 among tho.se which we bring up in captivity. It preserves 
 and accumulates the progri.ss made by each generation in 
 any direction, and thv liiial residt is the production in the 
 organism of certain iijipnciablc anatomical and phy.siological 
 nioililiciitions. 
 
 'J'Im; words 8Uj)cri<ir and inferior shouUl here oidy be 
 taken as relative to the conditions of existence in which 
 animals and vegetables are placed. ]n other words the indi- 
 vidual which is best adapted to those conditions, will be 
 Hujjerior and will con(|uer in the struggle for existence. For 
 instance, the black rat and the mouse have both to struggle 
 against the brown rat whicji entered France during the last
 
 Ilypolhcscs of Transmutation. 95 
 
 century from the banks of the Volga. The black rat was 
 almost as large and as strong as his adversary, but less 
 ferocious and less prolific. It has been exterminated in spite 
 of refuges which arc inaccessible to its enemy. The mouse, 
 which is much weaker, but at the same time much smaller, 
 can retire into holes which are too small for the brown rat ; 
 it has therefore survived the black rat. 
 
 Is it possible to admit that selection and heredity act 
 etjually upon that indefinable soriiething which is connected 
 with the rudimentary intelligence and instincts of animals ? 
 With. Darwin I unhesitatingly reply in the affirmative. 
 With animals, as with man, all the individuals of the same 
 species have not an equal amount of intelligence and do not 
 invariably possess the same aptitudes ; certain instincts, like 
 certain forms, are capable of modification. Our domestic 
 animals furnish a number of examples of these facts. The 
 wild ancestors of our dogs were certainly not accustomed to 
 point at game. When left to themselves and placed under 
 new conditions of existence, animals sometimes change their 
 manner of life entirely. Beavers, from being disturbed by 
 hunters, have dispersed ; they have now abandoned the con- 
 struction of their lodges and dig out long btirrows in the 
 banks of rivers. The struggle for existence must have been 
 lavourablc to the first discoverers of this new method of 
 escaping from their persecutors, and natural selection, while 
 preserving them and their descendants, ha.s converted a 
 sociable and constructive animal into a solitary and burrow- 
 ing one. 
 
 Up to this point it is evident that I agree in all that 
 harwinlijuj sjiid on the struggle for existence and natural 
 selection. I disagiee with him when he attributes to them 
 the power of modifying organised beings indefinitely in a 
 given direction, so that the direct descendants of one species 
 
 rm another species distinct from the first, 
 
 IV. The fundamental cause of the disagreement arises 
 evidently from the fact that Darwin had forme<l no clear 
 conception of the .sense which he attributed to the word
 
 9^3 The Hitman Species. 
 
 species. I have been unable to find in any of ln.s works a 
 single precise statement on this point. The accusation is 
 more severe from being brought with justice against an 
 author who claims to have discovered the origin of species. 
 
 More frequently Darwin seems to adhere to a purely 
 morphological idea, which is also somewhat vague. He 
 often opposes species and race, which he also calls variety, 
 l)ut without ever stating clearly what he understands by one 
 or the other. He endeavours, moreover, to bring them to- 
 gether as closely as possible, though occasionally recognising 
 some of the points which separate them. " The species," he 
 says in drawing one of his conclusions, " must be treated as 
 an artificial combination which is necessary for convenience." 
 His disciples have followed him faithfully in this direction, 
 and those who use the most exj)licit language on this sub- 
 ject, join their master in declaring that a species is only a 
 kind of conventional group similar to those which are used 
 in cla.s.sification. As for races, they are only species under- 
 g(jing transmutation. Now from what he has already learnt, 
 short though the study has been, the reader knows, I hope, 
 to which view he should adhere, and understands to what 
 confusions such a vague kind of theory must lead. 
 
 In spite of the inevitable uselessness of a discussion of this 
 kind, let us follow our adversaries into this unstable ground, 
 and see whether morphological facts furnish their theory 
 with the least probability. 
 
 Darwin him.sclf, on .several occasions, states that the result 
 of selection is essentially to adapt animals and plants to the 
 coiifliliotis of existence in which they have to live. Upon 
 this point I agree with hini entirely. If, howevm*, harmony 
 is once cstabli.slicd l)ctween orjianised beings and the condi- 
 tions of life, the struggle for existence and selection could 
 oidy result in consulidating it ami coiisciiucnflv their action 
 is preservative. 
 
 If the conditions of life change tliey will again come into 
 jilay in order to establish a new e»milibriuni, and modifica- 
 tions more or less maiked will be the result of their action.
 
 Hypotheses of Transmutation. 97 
 
 I)Ut will these modifications be sufficiently great to give rise 
 to a new species ? The following fact will serve as a reply. 
 
 At the present time there is a stag in Corsica, which from 
 its form has been compared to the badger-hound : its antlers 
 ditVrr from those of European stags. Those who confine 
 themselves to morphological characters, will assuredly con- 
 sider this as a distinct species, and it has often been 
 considered to be so. Now BnlTon preserved a fawn of this 
 pretended species, and placed it in his park ; in four years it 
 became both larger and finer than the French stags which 
 were older and considered finer grown. Moreover, the 
 formal evidence of Herodotus, Aristotle, Polybius and Pliny 
 attest that in their time there were no stags either in Corsica 
 or Africa. Is it not evident that the stag in question had 
 been transported from the continent to the island ; that 
 under the new conditions the species had undergone tempo- 
 rary morphological modification, though it had lost none of 
 its power of resuming its primitive characters, when placed 
 in its primitive conditions of life ? 
 
 Are we, then, to conclude that in time nature could have 
 completed the action, and entirely separated the Corsican stag 
 iVom its original stock ? We may answer in the negative, if 
 any weight is to be attached to experience and observation. 
 
 S])ecies partially subject to the rule of man furnish a 
 number of facts which enable us to compare the power of 
 natural forces, when abandoned to their own action, with that 
 of man in modifying a .'specific type. In all artificial races 
 varieties are infinitely more numerous, 'more varied and 
 more marked than wild races and varieties. Now the result 
 of these transmutations of organisms has only consisted in 
 the formation of races, never in the formation of a nevj 
 !<prcii:s. Darwin himself accepts this conclusion implicitly 
 iu his magnificent work on pigeons; for when speaking of 
 the rttccs of jii'ji'oris he only says tliat the difference of form 
 is such that if they had been found in a wild state, wc should 
 have been com])elled to make at least three or four genera of 
 them. The wild rock pigeon.s, the original stock of all our
 
 98 The I/iniian Species. 
 
 domestic pigeons, only differ, on tlic contrary, in shades of 
 colour. 
 
 The result is always tlie same, whenever we can compare 
 the work of nature with our own. When he has anything to 
 do Avith any vegetable or animal species, tnan always changes 
 its character, sometimes, after a lapse of some years, the 
 change being much greater than that ])roduced by nature 
 since the species first came into existence. The effect of the 
 conditions of life {milieu), of which we will speak presently, 
 the struggle for existence and natural selection understood 
 as I have just described it, the power which man possesses of 
 directing natural forces and changing their resultant, etusily 
 explain this superiority, of action. 
 
 Consequently, without leaving the domain of facts, and 
 only judging from what we know, we can say that mor- 
 phology itself justifies the conclusion that one species lias 
 never produced another by means of derivation. To admit 
 the contrary is to axil in the tinknoioi, and to substitute a 
 jiossihilify for the results of experience. 
 
 Physiology justifies a still stronger assertion. Upon this 
 ground also man is shown to be as powerful a:5 nature, and 
 for the same reasons. With our cultivated plants and 
 domestic animals, it is not only the j)rimitive form which has 
 undergone change, but certain functions also. If we had 
 only enlarged and deformed the wild carrot and the wiKl 
 radish, it would not have become more eatable. To render 
 it agreeable to our taste, the production of certain substances 
 had to be reduceil, and that of others crdargi'il, that is to Say, 
 nutrition and secretion had to be modified. If the functions 
 in wild animal stocks had remained permanent, wc should 
 havf had none of ihose races which are tlislinguished by a 
 dilVcrtMicc in the colour of tlio hair, in the j)ruduction of 
 milk, in aptitude for work, or in the production of meat. .If 
 instinct ilsi-lf had not oboycil the action of man, we should 
 ii<»t have had in the sainc kiiuul. jMiinlcts, Lrnv-honiiijs, 
 tniftle dogs and terriern. 
 
 Nature produces nothing like this. 'i\t .uliiiit lli;it >iiiiihir
 
 Darwinism. 99 
 
 resiilt.s will one day follow from the action of natural forces 
 is to appeal to the unknoivn, to -possihility, and runs 
 counter to all laws of analogy, and all the results furnished 
 by experience and observation. 
 
 Man's superiority over nature is quite as clearly shown in 
 the group of phenomena, which relate to the (question with 
 which we are now dealing. 
 
 We have seen how rare are the cases of natural hybrids 
 among plants themselves; we have also seen that no cases 
 are known among mammalia. Now since man has begun 
 to make experiments in this direction, he has increased the 
 number of hybrids among plants, and among animals also. 
 Moreover, he has succeeded in preserving for more than 
 twenty generations, a hybrid which he has been able to 
 protect from rcvcrsion and disordered variation. But we 
 know the care that was necessary to insure the continuance 
 of ccgllopa spclkcfovmis. If this plant had been left to itself, 
 it would soon have disappeared. 
 
 The single exception which is known confirms therefore 
 the law of sterility among species left to themselves. Now 
 this law is in direct opposition to all the theories, which like 
 Darwinism, tend to confuse species and race. This has been 
 clearly understood by Huxley and has caused him to say, " I 
 adopt the theory of Darwin under the reserve that proof 
 should be given that physiological species can be produced 
 by selective cros-sing." 
 
 This proof has not yet been given, for it is a strange abuse 
 of words to call by the name of species, the series of hybrids 
 whose history I have given above, viz.: the leporides and the 
 rhabiu.H. But even if the proof demanded by Huxley were 
 furnished, it docs not follow that the greatest objection to the 
 darwinian theories would be removed. 
 
 In fact, iu this theory, as in all those which rest upon 
 'jradual inniamuiation the new species derives its origin 
 tV»»m a vara 1 1/, possessing a character which is at first 
 rutlimentary, but which is developed very (jradiotlh/, making 
 some progre*«s in each generation. The result of tlii-^ i> ♦h:!!
 
 ICO TJic Ilunian Species. 
 
 between successive individuals the only difference is that of 
 race. Now, as we have seen, the fertility among races of the 
 same species remains constant, and consc(Hicntly, in the 
 hypothesis of Darwin, as in that of Lamarck, etc, the fertile 
 crossinjTs would in ever}' sense of the word constantly confuse 
 the original and the derived species which was in process of 
 formation. The same cause having produced the same 
 effects since the commencement of the world, the organic 
 world would present the greatest confusion instead of its 
 well-known order. 
 
 Darwin, then, himself and his most enthusiastic adherents 
 must admit that at some given moment these races became 
 suddenly incapable of crossing with their predecessors. 
 Whence then arises the sterility which separates species! 
 When, and at what moment will the physiological hoiid bo 
 broken, which iinites the original species with its modified 
 descendants, even when this mollification is carried as far as 
 the ordinary o.k and the niata? What will be the deter- 
 mining cause of this great fact which obtains through the 
 whole economy of the organic kingdom ? 
 
 In his work upon the Variation of Animals and Plants, 
 Darwin rejjlies: "Since species do not owe their mutual 
 sterility to the accumulative action of natural selection, and 
 a great number of considerations show us that they do not 
 owe it to a creative act, we ought to admit that it has been 
 produced ineiihiitally during their gradual formation, and 
 is connected with some uidvnown UKtdification of their 
 r>rganisation." 
 
 We have seen tliat, in the last editions uf the Uri()in of 
 Species, he refuses to admit that fertility among mongrels is 
 general, taking his stand upon our irjnorance on the subject 
 t»f croK-singH between wild in ricfies {races). 
 
 Thus, in onh-r to admit thi- physiological transniul.ilion of 
 race into species, a fact which is contrary to all positive 
 faeis, ])arwiu and his followers reject the secular results of 
 experience and observation, ami substitute in their place a 
 jMjKsible accident, and tlu' inilmnm.
 
 Danvinism. lOl 
 
 The Djirwinian tlicory relics entirely upon the possibility of 
 tiiis transmutation. We see upon what data the hypothesis 
 of this possibility rests. Now, in a it'uhj libend tipirit, 
 I ask every unprejudiced man, however little he may be 
 conversant with .science, the question, is it upon such founda- 
 tions that a gtMiL'ral theory in physics or chemistry would bo 
 founded ? 
 
 V. Moreover, the argument, of which we have just seen 
 an example, may be found in every page of Darwinian 
 writings. Whether a fundamental question, such as we have 
 just been examining, or a minor problem, as the transmu- 
 tation of the tomtit into the nuthatch, is under discussion, 
 possibiltti/, chance, and ^'t'rwHai coiviction are invariably 
 adduced as convincing reasons. Is modern science estab- 
 lished upon such foundations ? 
 
 Darwin and his discijiles wish thit even our ignorance on 
 the subject of certain phenomena should be considered as in 
 their favour. The question has often been argued on the 
 ground of palieontology, and they have been asked to point 
 out a single instance of those series which ought, according 
 to them, to unite the parent species with its derivatives. 
 They admit their inability; but they reply that the extinct 
 fauna and flora have left very few remains ; that we only 
 know a small part of these ancient archives; that the facts 
 which favour tlnir doctrine are doubtless buried under the 
 waves with sid^mcrged continents, etc. "This manner of 
 treating the question," Darwin concludes, "dimini.slics the 
 dilVicultics considerably, if it does not cause them to dis- 
 ap|K*ar entirely." 
 
 Hut, I again a.sk the qtiestion, in what branch of human 
 knowledge, except these ob.scurc subjects, should we regard 
 problems as solved, for the very roa.son that we possess none 
 of the requisite knowledge for their .solution ? 
 
 I do not intend to reproduce here the entire examination 
 which I have made elsewhere of the transm\itation theories 
 in general, or of Darwinism in particular. The above obser- 
 vations will .suflice, I hope, to show v.hy I could not accept
 
 I02 The Huriian Species. 
 
 even the most seductive of these theories. lu certain points 
 they agree with certain ji^encral facts ami give an explanation 
 of a certain number of phenomena. But all without excep- 
 tion attain this result only by the aid of hypotheses which 
 are in flagrant contradiction with other general facts, quite 
 as fundamental as those which they explain. In particular, 
 all these doctrines are based upon a gradual and progressive 
 derivation, upon the confusion of race and species. Con- 
 sequently they ignore an unquestionable physiological fact ; 
 they are entirely in opposition with another fact, which 
 follows from the first, and is conspicuous from every point 
 of view, the isolation, namely, of .specific groups from the 
 earliest ages of the world, and the maintenance of organic 
 order through all the revolutions of the globe. 
 
 Such are my reasons for refusing my adherence to ])ar\viii's 
 theories. 
 
 VII. The theory of the English naturalist is certainly the 
 mo.st vigorous effort which has been made to trace back the 
 origin of the organic world by processes analogous to those 
 which we have discovered in the genesis of the inorganic 
 world, that is to say, in only having recourse to secondary 
 causes. Ho has failed, as we see, like Lamarck. I'licse 
 eminent men will be succeeded by others who will attempt 
 the solution of the same problem. \s"\\\ they bo more 
 fortunate ? 
 
 No one is less inclined than I am to place any limit upon 
 the extension of Imman knowledge. Yet the exten.sion of our 
 Bcifiitific knowledge, in the widest .sense of the term, is 
 always subordinate to certain conditions. The most attentive 
 examination, even of a liMiiian work, will never teach u.s 
 anything of the jinjce-sucn which have permitted its realisa- 
 tion. 'J'he cUvercst watchniakir, if Ik; lias not followed 
 Ktudies perfectly foreign to his vocatiun, \\\\\ kn<>w nothiii" 
 of the origin of iron, of its transformation into steel, of the 
 rolling and temjuTing (»f a main spring. TIk; minutest study 
 of that metallic ribbon \vlii<li he knows so well, will tell him 
 nothing of its origin, nothing of the process of its fabrication.
 
 Dai"wi7iism. 103 
 
 To know more lie must leave his shop ;uul visit the furnaces, 
 the forjjes, and the rollinir mills. 
 
 In the works of nature it is the same. With nature as 
 well as with ourselves, the phenomena which 'produce, are 
 very clifferent from those which prcsei"ve, and from those 
 displayed in the object produced. 
 
 The most complete anatomical and physiological study of 
 an animal or of a full-grown plant will certainly teach us 
 nothing about the metamorphoses of the microscopic cell 
 from which sprang the dog, the elephant, and man himself. 
 
 Now hitherto we have only directed our attention to 
 species already formed, We can therefore learn nothing 
 more relative to their mode of production. 
 
 But we know that the ^^nJcnov:il cause which has given 
 liirth to extinct and living species has been manifested at 
 ilifferent times and interraittingly upon the surface of the 
 globe. Nothing authorises us to suppose that it is exhausted. 
 Although it appears to have generally acted at times which 
 correspond to great geological movements, it is not impossible 
 that it may be at work on some point of the earth even at 
 this epoch of relatively profound rest. If this is the case, 
 perhaps some happy chance will throw a little light upon the 
 great mystery of organic origins. But until experience and 
 observation have taught us something, all who wish to remain 
 faithful to true science, will accept the existence and succes- 
 sion of species as a primordial fact. He will apply to all 
 what Darwin applies to his single prototype; and, in order 
 to explain what is still inexplicable, he will not sacrifice to 
 hypotheses, however ingenious they may be, the exact and 
 l»ositive knowledge which has been won by nearly two 
 centuries of work.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 OUKMN OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.— DIFFERENT HYPOTHESES. 
 
 I. The preceding chapter might enable me to dispense 
 >vith a discussion of tlie applications which have been made 
 of Darwinism to the history of man. Nevertheless, apart 
 from the curious points in tlie subject itself, some discussion 
 of it will be necessary, for it will not be devoid of instruction. 
 
 Lamarck endeavoured to show how, by means of his theory 
 o/Iuibit, it was possible to conceive the direct transmutation 
 of the chimpanzee into man. The Darwinists also agree in 
 connecting man with the apes. Isevertheless none of thcni 
 ])oint out any of the species at present existing as our imme- 
 diate ancestor; on this point they difler from their illustrious 
 jtredeccssor. It might be supposed that Vogt had determined 
 this point if we take literally some pas-sages of his Legona 
 Hur VJiomiae. But the Genevose savant has clearly ex- 
 pressed his theory in his Mdmo'ire sar Ics Micmcepkah's. 
 lie carries back the point of departure common to the two 
 typos to an anterior ancestor. Darwin, Wallace, Filippi, 
 Lul*bock, Haeckel, etc., connect man still more closely with the 
 apes. 'J'helatter states his conclusions in the following terms: — 
 
 " 'J'he human race is a branch of the catarrhino group ; ho 
 wa.s developed in the old world, and sprang iVoni apcM of 
 this group, which have long been extinct." 
 
 II. Vogt disagrees with his scientific colleagues in an 
 impijrtant point. He admits that dilTerent simian stoc^ks 
 m ly have given ri.sc to different liuman gronjts. The 
 |n»puIations of the old and tlu; new worhl would thus bo 
 d<sccndants (jf the dilVen-nt forms which arc peculiar to the 
 two continents. On this h^'pothesi.s, Australia and Polynesia,
 
 TJicoi'ics of DiiJ'unn and Ilacckcl. 105 
 
 where there never have been apes, must necessarily have been 
 peopled by means of migration. 
 
 The eminent professor of Geneva, moreover, always con- 
 fines himself to a somewhat vague statement of his ideas 
 relative to the genealogies which he thinks fit to attribute to 
 tlie dififeront groups of mankind. 
 
 III. Darwin and Hacckcl have been bolder. The former 
 has publisiied an important work upon the Descent of M<in, 
 and the latter in his U'lstory of the Creation of Onjaniscd 
 licintjs has treated the same subject in detail, and given 
 the genealogical table of our supposed ancestors, st;irting 
 from the most simple known animals. The master and the 
 disciple agree almost invariably, and it is to Haeckcl himself 
 that Darwin refers the reader who is curious to know the 
 human genealogy in detail. Let us glance rapidly at the 
 origin a.ssigned to us by the German naturalist 
 
 llaeckel considers as the first ancestor of all living beings 
 the moncra, which are nothing more than the ariKvbic as 
 understood by Dujardin. From this initial form man has 
 reached the state in which we now find him, by passing 
 through twenty-one typical transitory forms. In the present 
 state of things our nearest neighbours are the anthropomor- 
 phous or taillcxa cahirrh'ine apes, such as the orang, the 
 gorilla, the chimpanzee, etc. All are .sprung from the saniB 
 stock, from the type of the tailed catarrhine apes, the latter 
 are descended from the j^rosimia;, a type which is now repre- 
 sented by the macaucos, the loris, etc. Next come the mar- 
 supials, which form the 17th stage of our evolution ; further 
 examination is useless. 
 
 Although the distance between anthropomorphous apes 
 ind man appears to be but small to Haeckel, he has never- 
 theless thought it neces.sary to admit the existence of an 
 intermediate stiige between ourselves and the most highly 
 developed ape. This purely hypothetical being, of which 
 not the slightest vestige haa been found, is supposed to be 
 detached from the tailless catarrhine apes, and to constitute 
 the 21st sta-^e of tiic modification which ha.'^ led to tho
 
 io6 The Human Species. 
 
 liunian form, Hacckel calls it the ape-man, or the i^/^/iC- 
 coid man. He denies liini the gift of articulate speech as 
 well as the development of the intelligence and self-con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Darwin also admits the existence of this link between man 
 and apes. He says nothing as to his intellectual faculties. 
 On the other hand he traces out his physical portrait, basing 
 his remarks upon a certain number of exceptional peculiarities 
 observed in the human sjjecies, which he regards as so many 
 phenomena of imrt'ml atavism. " The earliest ancestors of 
 man," he says, "were without doubt once covered with hair; 
 buth sexes having beards ; their ears were pointed anil capable 
 of movement ; and their bodies were provided with a tail 
 having the proper muscles. Their limbs and bodies were 
 acted on by many muscles, which now only occasionally 
 reappear in man, but which are still normally present in the 
 quadrumana. The great artery and nerve of the humerus 
 ran through a supracondyluid foramen. At this, or some 
 earlier period, the intestine gave forth a much larger diverti- 
 culum or ca'cum than that now existing. The foot, judging 
 from the condition of the great toe in the fcetus, wivs then 
 prehensile, and our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in 
 their habits, freqtienting some warm forest-clad land ; the 
 nV'iles were provided with canine teeth which served as 
 formidable weapons." 
 
 IV. In attributing a tail to our first direct ancestors 
 Darwin connects him with the type of tailed ratarrhines, and 
 consccpicntly removes him a stage backward in the seale of 
 ev(»lutions. 'I'he English naturalist is not satisfieil to take 
 his stand ui)on the ground of his own doctrines, and, like 
 Hacckel, on this point j)hiccs himsi-If in direct varianro 
 witli one of the fundamental laws which constitute the 
 principal charms of I)arwinisrn, whr)si' force I am far from 
 denying. 
 
 In fact, in tlie theory of J)arwiii, Iraiismutatioiis do not 
 take jdacp, either by chance or in every direction. Tliey 
 arc ruled by certain laws which are due to the organisation
 
 Theories of Da ruin and JIacckcl. 107 
 
 itself. It* ail organism is once modified in a j^'ivcn direction, 
 it can undLT^io secondary or tertiary transmutations, but will 
 still preserve the impress of the original. It is the law of 
 'permanent characterisation which alone permits Darwin 
 to explain the filiation of groups, their characteristics and 
 their numerous relations. It is by virtue of this law that all 
 the descendants of the first mollusc have been molluscs ; all 
 the descendants of the first vertebrate have been vertebrates. 
 It is clear that this constitutes one of the foundations of the 
 doctrine. 
 
 It follows that two beings belonging to two distinct types 
 can be referred to a common ancestor, whose characters were 
 not clearly developed, but the one cannot be the descendant 
 of the other. 
 
 Now man and apes present a very striking contrast in 
 respect to type. Their organs, as I have already remarked, 
 correspond almost exactly term for term ; but these organs 
 are arranged after a very different plan. In man they are so 
 arranged that he is essentially a ivalker, while in apes they 
 necessitate his being a climhev ]\xsi as strongly. 
 
 There is here an anatomical and mechanical distinction 
 which had already been proved, as regards the inferior apes, 
 by the works of Vicq d'Azyr, Lawrence, Serres, etc. The 
 investigations of Diivt-rnoy on the gorilla, of Gratiolet and 
 M. d'Alix upon the chimpanzee, have established the fact 
 that the anthrojjomorphous apes possess the same funda- 
 mental character in every point. Moreover, a glance at the 
 page where Huxley has figured side by side a human skeleton 
 and the skeletons of the most highly developed apes, is a 
 sufficiently convincing proof of the fact. 
 
 The consequence of these facts, from the point of view of 
 the logical application of the law oi jfo-niancnt chamcterisa- 
 /<07i, isthat man cannot be descended from an ancestor who is 
 already characterised as an ape, any more than a catarrhine 
 tailless ape can be descended from a tailed catarrhine. A ualk- 
 iifj animal cannot be descended from a climbinfj one. This 
 was clearly understood by Vogt. In placing man among tho
 
 lo8 TJic IIu))ian Species. 
 
 primates he declares, without hesitation, that the lowest 
 class of apes have passed tiie landmark (the comnion ancestor) 
 from which the ditierent types of this family have originated 
 and diverged. 
 
 We must then place the origin of man beyond the last 
 ape if we wish toatihere to one of the laws most emphatically 
 necessary to the Darwinian theory. We then come to the 
 prosimice of Haeckel, the loris, intlris, etc. But these animals 
 also are climbers; we must go further, therefore, in search of 
 our first direct ancestor. But the genealogy traced by Haeckel 
 brings us from the latter to the imu'supUds. 
 
 From man to the kangaroo the distance is certainly great. 
 Nqjv neither living nor extinct fauna show the intermediate 
 types which ought to serve as landmarks. This difhoulty 
 causes but slight embarrassment to Darwin. We know that 
 he consider the want of information upon similar questions 
 as a proof in his favour. Haeckel doubtless is just as little 
 embarrassed. He admits the existence of an absolutely theo- 
 retical pithecoid man, and it is not the only instance in 
 which he procee<ls in a similar manner in order to complete 
 his genealogical table. Take as an instance his words upon 
 the sozoura (14th stage), an lunphibious animal which is 
 cijually unknown to .science. "The proof of its existence arises 
 from the necessity of an intermediate ty|)e between the 13th 
 and the 14-th stage." 
 
 Thus, since it has been provrd that, aceoriling to Darwin- 
 ism itst'lf, the origin of man must be placed bi-yond the iMh 
 stage, and since it becomes, in consequence necessary to iill 
 up the gap between marsupials and man, will Haeckel admit 
 the existence of four unknon'n ijiffnucdiatc (froups^ instiail 
 of one ? Will he conjplete his gmealogy in this manner ? It 
 is not for me to answer. 
 
 V. Darwin and Haeckel will most certainly think it very 
 strange that a representative of the old school, a man who 
 lielieves in the reality of species, should have the pretension 
 to b<; better acquainted with the application of the laws of 
 Darwinism than them.sclves«, and t<^ point out serious lapses
 
 Theories of Da ruin and Ilacckcl. 109 
 
 in the applications tliey have made. Let us take our stand 
 then on the ground of facts. There we shall at once find 
 proof that this genealogy is wrong throughout, and is founded 
 on a inati'rial anatomical error. 
 
 Both Darwin and Haeckel connect the simian series with 
 a typo which would now be represented by the leviuridai, 
 which the latter designates by the terin prosimicc. The only 
 grounds which Darwin assigns for this opinion are certain 
 characters taken especially from dentition. Haeckel goes 
 back to embryogencsis. 
 
 We know that with the exception of the marsupials 
 (kangaroos, sarrigue), and the monotremata (ornithorhynchus, 
 echidna), all mammals have a placenta, an organ essentially 
 composed of a network of blood-vessels, which unites the 
 mother to the fuetus, and serves for the nutrition of the latter. 
 With the ruminants, the edentata, and the cetacea, the 
 jilacenta is simple and (Hif'usc, that is to say, the tufts of the 
 blood-vessels are developed upon the entire surface of the 
 fcEtal envelope, and arc in direct communication with the 
 iimer surface of the uterus. In the rest of the mammals the 
 jilacenta is <Jouhle ; half being derived from the mother, and 
 lialf from the foetus, or rather its external envelope. A special 
 membrane called the Dccidua covers the interior of the 
 uterus, and unites the placentje. Haeckel, correctly attaching 
 great importance to these anatomical differences, divides 
 mammals into two great groups : the indeciduafa, which 
 have no decidua, and the decidnata, which possess it. 
 
 Among the latter the placenta can surround the mam- 
 malian ovum like a girdle {zonoplacentalia), or form a kind 
 of circular disc more or less developed {dtscoplacentalia). 
 ilan, apes, bats, insectivora, and rodents, present the latter 
 arrangement, and thus form a natural group to which no 
 zoiioplaccutial, and, of course, no indcciduatc mammals can 
 be ailmitted. 
 
 Haeckel, without the least hesitation, adds his prosimicc 
 to the gioups which I have just enumerated, that is to say, 
 he attributes to them a decidua and a discoidal placenta.
 
 no TJic II II in an Species. 
 
 Now the anatomical investigations of MM. Alphonse Milne 
 Edwards and Grandidior upon the animals brought by the 
 latter from Madagasciir place it beyond all doubt that the 
 prosimiaj of Haeckel have no decidua and a diffuse placenta. 
 They are indec'uluuta. Far from any possibility of their 
 being the ancestors of the apes, according to the principle 
 laid down by Haeckel himself, they cannot even be regarded 
 as the ancestors of the zonoplacential mammals, the carnivora 
 for instance, and ought to be connected with the pachyder- 
 mata, the edentata and the cetacea. 
 
 Darwin and Haeckel will, perhaps reply that when they 
 made their genealogies, the embryogenesis of the prosimia} 
 was not known. But why then represent them as one of the 
 intermediate links to which they attach so much importance? 
 Their process is alwa3's the same, considering the unknoica 
 as a proofm favour of their theory. 
 
 VI. The necessity, which I think has been clearly proved, 
 of seeking elsewhere than among the prosimia; for the link 
 which is required between the marsupials and the apes, 
 would not invalidate the relationship between the latter and 
 man. There are, huwever, otiier facts which arc irreconcilable 
 with the theory. 
 
 M. Pruner Bey, resuming the dcscrij)tive and anatomical 
 works which have been carried on till within the hist fuw 
 years, has shown that the comparison of man with the 
 anthropomorphous apes brings to light a fact which is sub- 
 ject to very fc-w exceptions, the existence, namely, of an 
 'inverse order in the development of the principal organs. 
 The researches of Welker upon the sphenoidal angle of 
 Virchow lead to the same conclusion, for in man the angle 
 diminishes from the time of birth, whilst in the ape it is 
 always increasing, so much so that sometimes it is effiiced. 
 ]t is upon the base of the cranium that the Cierman anatomist 
 has remarked this inverse onhr, the importance of which 
 cannot escape notice. 
 
 A similar contrast has been remarked by (jratiolet upon 
 the brain itself. 'J'lie following are his observations upon
 
 Ilacckcrs Theories — Pithecoid Afan. 1 1 1 
 
 this subject. In the ape the temporal sphenoidal convolu- 
 tions, which form tlio mifldlc lobe, make their appearance 
 and are completed before the anterior convolutions whicli 
 form the frontal lobe. In man, on the contrary, the frontal 
 Convolutions are the first to appear, and those of the middle 
 lobe are formed later. 
 
 It is evident, especially after the most fundamental 
 principles of Darwinism, that an orf^aiiiscd being cannot be 
 a descendant of another whose development is in an inverse 
 order to its own. Consequently, in accordance with these 
 principles, man cannot be considered as the descendant of 
 any simian type whatever. 
 
 VII. I have said above that palaeontology has never shown 
 anything which recalls in the slightest degree the hypothetical 
 2>'(thecoid man of Haeckel. A hope was felt that what could 
 not be found among extinct forms might be found among 
 living ones. Vogt has compared the brain of microcephali 
 to that of the anthropomorphous apes, and Haeckel has 
 repre.sented in his genealogical table of idiots, cretins and 
 microcephali as actual representatives of his speechless rnan. 
 These beings, with their small brain and incomplete faculties, 
 are, according to these two naturalists, cases of atavism, and 
 recal the normal state of our most remote direct ancestors. 
 
 Here we have another instance of the curious method of 
 rea,soning familiar to Darwinists. Microcephalism, idiotcy, 
 r\nd cretinism constitute so many tcratological or pathological 
 -tates. Tliey belong, consequently, to the very numerous 
 groups of facts which have long been studied. If some of 
 these facts can be regarded as j'henomena of atavis'in, why 
 hould it be otherwise with the rest? Why attribute to 
 itavism a single character only in crdtins and microcephali, 
 and refer the other to teratology and pathology ? This is 
 evidently an entirely arbitrary kind of treatment, and as 
 nuich opposed as possible to the true scientific method. 
 
 After the works of teratologists, after the experiments of 
 Geoffroy, so ably resumed and completed by M. Dareste, the 
 part played by pathogenic causes, even by external causes, in 
 6
 
 112 The Hitman Species. 
 
 arrested development cannot be denied. Now microcephalism 
 is notliing else than arrested development acting on the 
 cranium and its contents. But this is not an isolated case. 
 Other organs and functions in microcephali suffer in the 
 same manner. They have been proved to be always sterile, 
 and certainly sterility is not a phenomenon which can be 
 referred to atavism. 
 
 Thus among microcephali a teratogenic cause is clearly 
 proved to have acted on part of the organism, viz., the 
 generative organs. What reason can be alleged for attri- 
 buting alterations of the cranium and brain to an entirely 
 different cause ? By virtue of what principle can two facts 
 be separated, which observation has shown to be so inti- 
 mately connected with each other ? Why should the fir.st 
 be appealed to as an argument and nothing said about the 
 second ? Is it not evident that this is an entirely arbitrary 
 kind of procedure, and actuated solely by the requirements 
 (jf tlieory ? 
 
 The general plan of the brain is fundamentally the same in 
 all the mammalia and in man. Upon this point, as upon 
 every otlicr, the resemblance is greatest when the latter is 
 compared with the anthropomorphous apes. AVhen, for some 
 reason or other, his brain is altered and n-duced, as in the 
 njicrocejjhali, is it at all surprising that fresh rescnd)hinccs 
 should arise. The contrary would be unintelligible. 
 
 This is a fact up(»n wliich Vngt has especially insistcil, and 
 lie has described frum this point of view several interesting 
 details wliich render less general some of the results obtained 
 by M. Gratiulet. But it is a rumarkablo fact that these 
 new relations are not establislied with the most higiily de- 
 veloped ujxs, but willi the taikd apes of the new world, 
 with tlif jilntyrrJiliii, which are excluded by llaeckel anil 
 Darwin from the human anc(;stral series. Thus, tiie \hi\- 
 winian theory it«elf protests against the compari.son between 
 the microcephali and our pretended pithecoid ancestors 
 
 'J'h«; relations wiii<.h wt; arc; discussing d<j not, moreover, 
 jeach a similarity wliich would authorise the conclusions of
 
 Vo^i's Theories — Simian Characters. 1 1 3 
 
 the Cenc'vcse savant. The brains of microcephali, thon<;h 
 often less vohiniinous and less convoluted than those of the 
 anthropoid apes, according to Gratiolct, do not become at 
 all similar to them. This proposition is confirmed by the 
 work of ^^ogt. 
 
 The ca.se is the ?ame with the skeleton as with the brain. 
 I will here appeal to an authority, which none of my adver- 
 saries can reject, that, namely, of Huxley. After having 
 l>rotested against the statements of those who declare "that 
 the structural differences between man and apes are small 
 and insignificant," the eminent anatomist adds that "every 
 bone of the gorilla bears a mark by which it can be dis- 
 tinguished from the corresponding human bone, and that, in 
 the present state of creation at least, no intermediary being 
 fills the gap which separates man from the troglodyte." 
 In the general conclusion of his book, Huxley moreover re- 
 cognises the fact that the fossil human remains hitherto dis- 
 covered do not indicate any approach towards the pithecoid 
 form. 
 
 Vni. After the formal declarations of a naturalist, whose 
 harwinian convictions place him beyond all suspicion of 
 partiality, how is it that we continually fiuil the expression 
 airman character employed a propos of the most insignificant 
 modifications of some human type of which no one gives a 
 precise description ? It is, to say the least, an abu.se of 
 words, against which I have often protested. We have ju.st 
 seen that this expression assumes an anatomical fact which 
 docs not exist, and which, con.sequently, constitutes an error. 
 It ha.s, moreover, the inconvenience of being understood 
 literally by the ignorant, and .sometimes of deceiving even 
 • educated men, and of giving rise to a belief in imaginary 
 tlegradations and comparisons. 
 
 In fact, man and the rest of the vertcbrata are con.structed 
 upon the same fundamental plan. Between him and the 
 other members of this group numerous relations exist. 
 Organi.sed beings arc not crystals whoso forms are mathe- 
 matically defined ; with the former the whole of the body
 
 114 ^-^'^ Hum an Species. 
 
 and each part of this whole oscillate between limits whose 
 extent has not yet been fixed, but which is at times con- 
 siderable. By these very oscillations the customary relations 
 are continually modified, not only between man and the 
 apes, but between man and the rest of the vertebrata. If 
 we compare man to any anlinal type whatever, if we apply 
 the same method ttj this cuinparisun, and the same termino- 
 logy, we shall arrive at singular conclusions. I will cpiote a 
 single example. 
 
 The most important fact in connection with the brain is 
 certainly not its aUsolute development. It is the relation of 
 this development to that of the rest of the body. The agree- 
 ment upon this point, when animals arc the subject of discus- 
 sion, is general. It should be the same when the discussion 
 is on man. Undoubtedly upon this gi'ound of relative 
 superiority or inferiority, upon which certain anthropologists 
 so readily take their stand a propos of races or individuals, 
 the relations of which I speak constitute one of the most 
 striking and essential cliaracters. 
 
 I subjoin some of these relations taken from a table of 
 Duvcnioy, and in which the weight of the brain is taken 
 as unit v. 
 
 Man • 
 
 Ki.1.1 Mouse . 1 : :n 
 
 M<ms«! . . . 1 : »;» 
 
 \ Adult . . . 1 : :{0 ,. . i Moh: . . . 1 : :»(> 
 
 (old . . . . 1:3.-; ^•"•'"^'"'■^iDofrs . i:i;i::jor, 
 
 lUue Tit . . 1 : 12 
 
 
 Saimiri ... 1 : 22 ] ( 'aiiary . ..1:11 
 
 . y Sai .... 1:2.-. r.ir.ls . . -CmIo Tit . . 1 : IH 
 
 ■'^''*'' . Ouihiiiii . . . 1 : 2S Spjirniw . . 1:25 
 
 <iil.l".ii . . . . 1 : IS (('liiilliacli . . 1 : 27 
 
 Thu ni.'in in (jinstion is tin,- JOuropean White. Now from 
 tlii« table we sec that fmm infancy to old age the relation 
 of the brain to the rest of the body ki.'cps diminishing. Are 
 we to conclude then from this that the youth is deijraded 
 relatively to tlic infant, and that the adult or the old man 
 has a.ssumed a n'nnUni rhdvartcr f 
 
 We Kcc, moreover, that there ought to bo some under- 
 standing nn to the word simian itself. If the gibbon, which
 
 hitcllectual Development — Wallaces Theories. 1 1 5 
 
 belongs to the type of our supposed ancestors, lias a brain 
 relatively smaller than ours, it is otherwise with the three 
 niembors of the genus ccbus given in the table. The latter 
 are superior to the anthropoid ; the two first show exactly 
 the same relation as the infant and youth ; the third sur- 
 passes the adult man. But all three arc surpassed by the 
 two tits and the canary. 
 
 Consequently, if wc are right in regarding the human 
 lace, or the human individual whose brain is below the 
 mean by several giammes, as tending towards the anthro- 
 poid ape, we ought to consider the race, or the individual 
 whose brain is above the mean as approximating to the 
 cebus, or even the pas.serines or conirostrcs. If the first 
 comparison is admissible, the second is equally so. 
 
 We can then say with the learned anatomist whose autho- 
 rity I have so often appealed to: "The microcephali, how- 
 ever reduced their l)rain may be, are not brutes ; they are 
 merely undeveloped men." Or again, we may say with 
 M. Best, whose testimony cannot be suspected in such a 
 matter, that in their development apes do not resemble 
 man, and, conversely, that the human type when degraded 
 iloes not resemble the ape. 
 
 IX. From the pithecoid man of Darwin and Haeckel, 
 from the speechless man who used his teeth a.s weapons, 
 to the man of our age, the distance is still very great. IIow 
 has it been filk-d up ? lIow has this intelligence been 
 developeil which is able in many ca.ses to hold nature herself 
 ill subjection ? It is Wallace who has especially answered 
 this qiiestion in the name of the theor}' of which he is one 
 of the fotuiders. We shall .see at the same time that he 
 aihuits the imperfection of this theory, when lie discusses the 
 |K'Cidiar attributes of the human .species. 
 
 It is well known that this naturali.st shares with Darwin 
 and M. Naudin, the honour of liaving .sought in natural 
 selection for an explanation of organic origins. But our 
 fellow countryman ha.s confined himself to a sketch tho 
 fundamental character of which he has recently entirely
 
 Ii6 The Ilttnian Species. 
 
 modified. Darwin has embraced the problem as a whoh? 
 and in its details ; he has added to his first work several 
 publications upon subjects very ditferent in appearance, but 
 all of which tend to the same end. He may with justice 
 be considered as the chief of the school. 
 
 Wallace, who almost anticipated Darwin in the publi- 
 cation of ideas which are common to both, recognises him 
 as his master on all occasions. He has di.scussed a small 
 number of points in special memoirs which never cover 
 much <(round. From not attemptincj the solution of all the 
 (jucstions suggested by the theory, he has neither met with 
 so many or such serious difficulties as his eminent rival. 
 This, perhaps, explains the fact that he generally shows 
 liimself more preci.se and logical. He therefore, always 
 possessed considerable authority among the partisans of 
 Darwinism, until ho published his special views on man. 
 
 According to \\ ■.\\\o.Q,(i, mimcdlaic and i>cviomd utility ih 
 the only cau.se which .sets selection in action. This is funda- 
 mentally the theory of Darwin ; but the hitter has allowed 
 himself to be influenced by comparisons or metaphors, which 
 have rai.sed sharp criticisms, which have perhaps deceived 
 hirn, and which he employs more or less to evade his 
 difficulties. We never meet with the same in Wallace, who 
 accepts all the consetniences to which his ab.solutc principle 
 leads him. 
 
 According to Wall.'vce, vtiliii/ (dune is able to account for 
 the manner in which inferior animal forms could have pro- 
 duced apes, and afterwards a being having almost all the 
 physical characters of man as l)o is now. This race live<l 
 in herds scattered throughout the hot regions of the ancient 
 continent. It was not, however, wanting in true sociability ; 
 it possessed the perception of senKation.s, but was incapal)l(j 
 of thought; moral sense and sympathetic feelings were un- 
 known to it. Jt was still only a material outline of the 
 liuman being, yet superior to the tailed man of l>arwin, and 
 t(» the pithecoid man of Haeekel. 
 
 Towards the eaili<r p.-nt of the ti rljary period, adds
 
 Intellectual Development — Wallace s Theories. 1 1 7 
 
 Wallace, an unknoion cause began to accelerate the de- 
 velopment of the intelli^'ence in this anthropoid being. It 
 soon played a preponderating part in the existence of man. 
 The perfection of this facnlty became incomparably more 
 useful than any other organic modification. Henceforward 
 the pcnverfid modifying agent of selection acted necessarily 
 almost entirely in this direction. The physical characters 
 already acquired remained almost unaltered, while the organs 
 of the intelligence and the intelligence itself were perfected 
 more and more in each generation. Animals unaffected by 
 this unloioivii cause which separates us from them, con- 
 tinued to undergo morphological transmutations, so that 
 since the Miocene epoch tlicre has been a great change in 
 the terrestrial fauna. With man only did the form remain 
 the same. We ought not, therefore, to be surprised to find 
 in the Quaternary epoch skulls like those of Denisc and 
 Engis, resembling those of men of the present age. 
 
 The superiority acquired by the intelligence has, moreover, 
 removed our race for ever from the law of the action of 
 rnorpkologlcal transmutations. His intellectual and moral 
 faculties only are from this time subject to the power of 
 selection, which will cause the disappearance of inferior 
 races and their replacement by a new race, the lowest 
 individual of which would be, in our time, a superior man. 
 
 After having read the pages, of which I have just made a 
 summary, we cannot but be surprised to find Wallace declare 
 that natural selection by itself is inculpable of producing 
 from an anthropoid animal, a man such as we find in, the 
 most savage nations known to us. He thus makes the 
 human sjK'cies an exception to the laws, which, according to 
 him, rule all other living beings. There is a double interest 
 in following Darwin's rival in this new path. 
 
 Wallace l>egins by reminding us that natural selection 
 rests entirely upon the principle of immediate utility, re- 
 lative only to the conditions of the struggle maintained at 
 the time by the individuals constituting the species. Darwin 
 in all his works ileclares, on different occasions, this same
 
 Ii8 The II lima fi S/>ccics. 
 
 principle, upon whicli rests, in fact, all his statements upon 
 adaptation, the possibility of retrogressive trans7nutations, etc. 
 
 It results necessarily from this principle, that selection 
 cannot produce variations in any way injurions to any 
 being whatever. Darwin has often declared that a single 
 well-attested case of this kind would destroy liis whole 
 theory. 
 
 But it is evident, adds Wallace, that selection is as incapa- 
 ble of producing a useless variation ; it cannot then develop 
 an organ in proportions which would go beyond its degree of 
 present utility. 
 
 Now Wallace shews very clearly that in tlie savage there 
 are organs whose development is out of all proportion with 
 their presold utility, and even faculties and physical cha- 
 racters which are either useless or injurious, at least to the 
 individual. " But," says he, " if it can be proved that these 
 iiiodiHcations, tliouijh dangerous or useless at the time of 
 their first appearance, have become much more useful, and 
 are now indispensable to the complete development of the 
 intellectual and mural nature of man, we oujjht to believe 
 in tlie existence of aii intelligent action, foreseeing and pro- 
 viding for the future, just as we .'should d«», when we see a 
 breeder set to work to produce a definite imj)n)Vement in 
 any direction in any cultivated i)lant or domestic animal." 
 
 The relative development of the body and the brain, the 
 organ of intelligence, is one of the points upon which our 
 author insists most strongly. The height of the orang, ho 
 Hay.s,. la almost equal to that of man ; the gorilla is much 
 taller and bigger. Nevertheless, if we represent by ten the 
 average volume of the brain in the anthropoid apes, this 
 >ame volume will bo represented by twenly-si.x in savages, 
 and by lliirly-two in civilised men. 'Jlie Knglish naturalist 
 also makcM the remark, that among savages, tlic Es(|uimaii.\, 
 for instance, we find individuals the capacity of whose skull 
 almost reaches the inaxiiiium which is given for the most 
 highly (levelo|)e<l nations. 
 
 Finally, Wallace, relying upon the expi riments and
 
 Intcllcclual Development— Wallace's Theories. 1 1 9 
 
 calculations of Gallon, admits distinctly that though tlio 
 brain of savages is to that of civilised man in the proportion 
 of five to six, the intellectual manifestations are, at the 
 most, that of one to one thousand. The material develop- 
 ment is, then, out of all proportion to the function. A 
 hrain, a little more voluminous than that of the gorilla, 
 would, in the eyes of the eminent traveller, be perfectly 
 .s\ifficiont for the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, of 
 Australia, Tasmania, and Ticrra del Fuego. 
 
 Wallace explains the development of the ideas of justice 
 and benevolence by the advantages which would result from 
 them to the tribe and to each individual. But faculties 
 essentially individual, and without immediate utility to 
 others, are not subject, according to him, to selection. 
 " How," says he, " could the struggle for existence, the 
 victory of the most fitted and natural selection give any 
 aid to the development of mental faculties," such as ideal 
 conceptions of space and time, of eternity and infinity, the 
 artistic feeling, abstract ideas of number and form, without 
 which arithmetic and geometry are impossible ? 
 
 For a much more cogent reason, the development of the 
 moral sense in the savage cannot be accounted for by con- 
 siderations taken from ut'ditu, whether individual or collec- 
 tive. Wallace insists upon this p^int at some length ; he 
 (juotes examples which prove that this feeling exists, in all 
 which is most delicate ami most opposed to utilitarian 
 notions, among the most savage tribes of Central Indiji. We 
 coidd give many examples of this fact ; among others, that 
 the Ked-skins liave the greatest respect for their word of 
 honour, though it should entail torture and death. 
 
 Our author bases numerous arguments upon the physical 
 examination of man. " It is perfectly certain," he says, 
 " that natural .selection could not have produced the present 
 naked Iwdy of man from an ancestor covered with hair, for 
 such a modification, far from being useful, would be injuiious, 
 at least in certain respects;" in civilised man a number 
 of movements are executed bv the hand of which savages
 
 I20 The IluDian Species, 
 
 have not the slightest idea, although no anatomical differ- 
 ence exists in the structure of the superior members ; the 
 larynx of our singers is constructed similarly to that of 
 savages, and, nevertheless, what a contrast between the 
 sounds produced ! 
 
 From all these facts Wallace concludes that the brain, 
 hand, and larynx of savages possess hitent cqytitades, which 
 being temporarily useless cannot be attributed to natural 
 selection. Man, moreover, has not the power of acquiring 
 them himself. Foreign intervention therefore is necessary, 
 for the explanation of their existence. Wallace attributes 
 this intervention to a su2^cvlor intell'njcnce which acted on 
 the human species, just as the latter has acted on the 
 ruck-pigeon to produce from it the pouter or the carrier, 
 and which employed analogous processes. 
 
 In short, natural selection, regulated by the laws of nature 
 only, is sufficient to produce wild species ; artificial or 
 human selection can produce improved races of animals 
 and plants ; a kind of divine selection must have produced 
 the present man, and can alone bring him to the highest 
 pitch of intellectual and moral development. 
 
 In advancing this latter hypothesis, Wallace declares 
 that it no more impairs tho theory of natural selection than 
 the latter is weakened by the fact of artificial selection. 
 Ft;w, I think, will accept this proposition. The chief apology 
 lor Darwinism in the eyes of men of science, its great charm 
 to all its partisans, lies in the pretensions which it puts 
 forward of coini(.'Cting organic origins, those of man as well 
 as those of plant.s, with the single action of second causes ; 
 and to explain tho present state of living beings by physical 
 and physiological laws, just as gi-ology and astri»nomy explain 
 the j)resent state of the material world entirely by tho 
 general laws of matter. In making tho intervention of an 
 intclllffciif tf'ill n(,'ces.sary for the realisation of the human 
 Itcing, Wallace has set himself in opposition to the very 
 ■ •-i.scnce of tho theory. Such is the ojjinion of most Darwin- 
 Hts, who have treated him somewhat as a deseiter.
 
 AI. Naiidins Theories. 1 2 i 
 
 I am not therefore called upon to examine this latter 
 hypothesis of Wallace. I am, however, at liberty to stiitc 
 that most of the facts, which have induced one of the 
 founders of Darwinism to separate from his chief upon so 
 important a point, retain all their value as objections. The 
 mistake of Wallace consists in failing to see that his 
 statements upon the subject of man apply equally to 
 animals, and Claparetle has justly reproached him with a 
 want of logic on this point. He ha.s been less happy in the 
 answers which he has made to his old ally. Doubtles.s, he 
 who regards the question exclusively from a Darwinian 
 point of view, and accepts as true everything which I have 
 endeavoured to shew to be false, will readily find a solution 
 for many of the difficulties raised by Wallace. But his 
 sUitements upon hitent ajitUiules, upon the superior facul- 
 ties of the human niind, and upon the moral sense, are very 
 difficult to refute, Claperede has only alluded to the 
 former. Darwin has attempted to go further ; but his 
 theories and hypotheses upon these important questions do 
 not appear to me to have given much .satisfaction to the 
 most devoted of his followers. I cannot here enter into a 
 •liscu.ssion, which, to have any value, should be carried to 
 some length, and 1 refer the reader to the work upon the 
 Descent of Man, and to my articles in the Journal des 
 Savants, 
 
 X, I Ciinnot clo.se this short account of the origins, which 
 have been attributed to man during late years, without 
 mentioning the new theory which luxs lately been put 
 forward by an eminent botanist, to whose works I have 
 often had to allude. M, Naudin has been one of the most 
 important of Darwin's precursors. Six years before the 
 Engli.sli naturalist, he compared the action exercised by 
 natural forces in the production of species to the methods 
 usc«l by man in obtaining races; he admitted the deriva- 
 tion unA filiation of species; he compared the vegetable 
 kingdom to a tree " where roots, mysteriously hidden in 
 the depths of cosmogcnic time, have produced a limited
 
 122 The Tin man S/^ccics. 
 
 number of brandies successively divided and subdiviiled. 
 The first branches represent the primordial types of the 
 kingdom, the subsequent ramifications the existnig species." 
 We cannot fail to recognise in these words an idea very 
 similar to Darwinism. 
 
 M. Naudin now proposes an evolution theortj -which is 
 very difiercnt. He "entirely excludes the hypothesis of 
 natural selection, unless the sense of the word is changed 
 so as to make it synonymous with sui^ival." He rejects 
 no less strongly the idea of gradual transmutations, which 
 require millions of years to effect the transmutation of a 
 single plant. He insists, on the contrary, upon the sudden- 
 ness with which most of the variations observed in plants 
 havtj been produced, and regards it as a representation of 
 what must have taken place in the successive genesis of 
 living beings. Let us remark in p;vssing, that Darwin, in 
 the last edition of his work recognises the reality of these 
 sudden hajis, which have taken place without transitions 
 between one generation and another, and confesses that he 
 has not taken sullicient account of them in his earlier 
 writings. 
 
 M. Naudin admits the existence of a protoplasma or 
 primordial hiasiema, the origin of which he does not 
 I>retcnd to explain nor its entrance into action. Under 
 the influence of the onjano-idaslic or evolutive force there 
 w(,n; formed 2)^'ofo-or(janism8 of a very simple structure, 
 .is.xuai, and endowed with the power of producing by buds 
 and with a great activity rne.so-or(i<iuif<ws, similar to the 
 lirht, though already tnore comi)licatfd. With each genera- 
 tion forms are multiplied, and become more pronounced, and 
 nature rapidly payses on to the a<lull stale. The beings in 
 (|Uestion were not, however, species. They were not com- 
 plelc beings, but merely a kind of larvfc, whose sole duty 
 w.xs to Hcrvt; as transitions between tiie primitive blastema 
 and the definite forms. l)iKpcrsed in different regions of 
 the globe, they have carried everywhere the germs of future 
 forms which evolution liad to produce from them. From
 
 lif. Naudins Theories. 123 
 
 tho creative cliaracter which distinguished it at first, the 
 evohitive force exhausted by its very action, acquired a 
 j^n'ftcri'ddvc character. Forms are now integrated. They 
 preserve, however, a residue of plasticity ; they vary under 
 the iiithu'iice of certain conditions, and hence results the 
 tnuhitude of forms wliich the same species now presents. 
 
 The proto- and meso-organisms contained in themselves, 
 each according to its position in the order of evohition, tho 
 rudiments of kingdoms, branches, classes, orders, families, 
 and genera. Points where they were fixed, became so many 
 centres of creation. Moreover, they liave not engendered 
 simulUineously all the forms wliich they were capable of 
 producing. There have been considerable intervals between 
 the production of living beings, which explains why groups 
 of the same order have not been contemporaneous. 
 
 Organic types, even those least marked, have not passed 
 into each other. The paths followed by the evolutive force 
 have always been divergent. " Let us picture to ourselves," 
 says M. Naudin, " the meso-organism which has been tiie 
 source of the mammalia ; ever since its appearance, all the 
 mammalian orders, including the human order, were ferment- 
 ing in it. Before their appearance, they were virtually 
 tlistinct, in the sense that the evolutive forces were already 
 distributed, and the method of their effecting, each in its 
 proju^r time, the production of the.se different orders, already 
 detined. This is a similar phenomenon to that of the 
 evolution of organs in a growing embryo, where we see 
 springing from a common and uniform origin, parts at first 
 similar, but which are impelled in a determinate direction 
 each by its own particular /m/mj^." 
 
 M. Naudin, as we see, in order to support his theorv, 
 a})peals to the embryogenic phenomena, to which the 
 Darwinists also look for testimony in favour of their doc- 
 trines. The learned botanist, howi-ver, attaches much more 
 importance to the n)etamori»hoscs which take place subse- 
 quently to the eg^. He recognises ti-ue proto-organiama 
 in the prf)-emlir}o of mo.sses, in the larvrr of insects, and of
 
 I 24 The Iluuian Species. 
 
 many otlicr inferior animals. He lays particular stress upon 
 tlie phenomena of alternate generation, as representing what 
 has already taken place, or better, as representing in part 
 " the ancient and general process of creation." 
 
 According to M. Naudin, man was subject to the common 
 law. and the Mosaic account is at the same time very true 
 and full of instruction. In its first phase, mankind was 
 concealed within a temporary organism, aheady distinct from 
 all others, and incapable of contracting an alliance with any 
 of them. This is Adam, who sprang from a primordial 
 jjla.stema called clay in the Bible. At this epoch, he was, 
 ])roperly speaking, neither male nor female ; the two sexes 
 were not yet ditferentiatcd. " It is from this larval form of 
 mankind, that the evolutive force ctiocted the completion of 
 the species. For the accomplishment of this great phe- 
 nomenon, Adam had to pass through a phase of immobility 
 and uncon.sciousness, very analogous to the nymphal state of 
 animals undergoing metamorphosis." This is the sleep 
 mentioned in the Bible, during which the work of dilTorentia- 
 tion wa.s accompli.^hed, to use the words of M. Naudin, by a 
 process of germination, similar to that of medusa) and 
 .tscidians. Mankind, thus constituted pliysioI(»gically, would 
 n-'tain a sufhcient evolutive forc(; for tin' rapid ])roihu'tion of 
 the various great human races. 
 
 J'assing (jvcr the comparisons tstublished by M. Naudin, I 
 will conline myself to a single (observation upon all these 
 idea-s ; properly speaking, tiny do not form a scientijic 
 I lir (>)•>/. 
 
 When w(; fertilise by artificial means the egg of a frog, we 
 know that wo determine jin entire serids of phenomena, 
 which results in the formation of a germ, then in that of an 
 embryo, which will be cstabli.shed by a succession of meta- 
 morphoses, in that of a tadpole, which will be cjjually subject 
 to metamorphoHi.'s, and in that of a definite animal which will 
 assume all thcj characters of the Hpecie-s. So far as man 
 can maJce a hchuj, we iiuili'c (i fi'Ofj when w(; fertilise an egg. 
 
 If the fir4 cin)yfi, with which M. Naudin immediately
 
 M. Naudins Theories. 
 
 125 
 
 connects his primordial blastema, has made potentially in 
 this blastema all past, present, and future beings, as well 
 as the power of producing them at the proper time, with 
 all their distinctive characters, It has, in reality, created 
 all the.>e beings en imisse. We do not see what kind of 
 action is reserved for second causes; unless it is, perhaps, 
 the power of accelerating or retarding, of obstructing or 
 favouring the appearance of types of different value, when 
 number and relations have been immutably determined 
 beforehand. But M. Naudin has not even mentioned their 
 part in this evolution of the organic world. That science 
 which is only occupied with second causes has, therefore, 
 nothing to say to the theory of M. Naudin. It can neither 
 praise nor criticise it. 
 
 XL To explain the origin of the world in which we live, 
 that of beings surrounding us, and our own, is evidently one 
 of the most general aspirations of the human mind. The 
 most civilised nations, as well as the most savage tribes, have 
 satisfied this want in one way or another. Even Australians, 
 whatever may have been said to the contrary, have their 
 rudimentary cosmogony, which those who have taken some 
 interest in the matter, have made them relate. 
 
 In all cases, man has at first connected his cosmogonic 
 conceptions with his religious belief. Then among the most 
 advanced ancient nations, independent spirits have sought 
 for an explanation of nature in natural j)hcnomena. But 
 from want of precise knowledge, all their liypothetical con- 
 ceptions have no fundamental value. 
 
 With us also, the purely religious cosmogony has lon^- 
 been accepted as an article of faith. What was called 
 science was confounded with dogma, itself rtlying u|)on 
 interpretations of the Bible in harmony with the knowkd-'o 
 "f the time. 
 
 Science, properly so called, is entirely the creation of 
 modern times. The rapiility, the grand»>'ur of its develop. 
 UKMits, fill one of the most magnificent pages of human 
 history. Relying entirely upon experiment and observation,
 
 I 26 TJic Human Species, 
 
 it could not fiiil to contradict certain beliefs, which were 
 drawn from a book written in an entirely different sense to 
 its own, and explained by the aid of data which were incom- 
 plete or false. Between the representatives of the past and 
 those of the new era, the struggle was inevitable. It needed 
 to be sharp, and it was so. It is now keener than ever. 
 
 Circumstances of every kind have destroyed in many 
 minds the old faith of our ancestors. Canied away by the 
 general stream, many in the matter of religious belief, have 
 arrived at ab.solute denial. The need of an explanation of 
 the universe is still felt by these uneasy minds ; and since 
 they have no belief in the Bible, they have turned their 
 attention to science. 
 
 The latter has already given them magnificent answers in 
 a,strouomy and in geology. Before irrefutable facts, the 
 later u])holders of the ancient biblical interpretations have 
 either been obliged to withdraw, or to be silent. No one 
 believes in the immobility of the earth, in creation having 
 taken place in six days of twenty-four hours each, or in the 
 simultaneous appearance of all animals, or all plants. 
 Astronomy has made known to us the genesis of worlds ; 
 geuhtgy has taught us how continents and seas, valleys an<l 
 mountains are formed, thus evolving some of the grandest 
 results due to the action of second causes in the inorganic 
 empire. 
 
 There remains the organic em[)ire, plants, animals, and 
 man himself. Here curiosity is excited, and the want of 
 cxpliination becomes more pressing, but unfortunately ob- 
 servation and experiment are e(|ually at fault. 
 
 Some men, eminent in science and in the richness of their 
 imaginations, hiive thought themselves able to do withoiit it. 
 Ileviving the methods of the Greek philosophers, they have 
 thought it possible to explain living nature and the entire 
 universe, bv conn» cling certain farts with conceptions, which 
 are almost entirely intellectual. Once started in this path, 
 they arc readily elated at their own thoughts. When the 
 jMmitivc knowledge which has been accumulated by the long
 
 Scientific Doctrines and Religions Dogmas. \ 2 7 
 
 continued labours of their illustrious predecessors, has em- 
 barrassed their speculations, they have at once, so to speak, 
 thrown it overboard ; they have pushed to the utmost the 
 more or less logical development of their a prioH, and have 
 nothing but irony and disdain for those who hesitate to 
 follow them. 
 
 These men could not but excite admiration. They spoke 
 in the name of science alone ; by its means they replied 
 to aspirations perfectly justifiable on such a topic ; they 
 produced theories which charmed by their fulness and the 
 apparent precision of their explanations. They were able 
 consequently to influence even those men of science who 
 had not gone to the bottom of things, and much more so the 
 general public, who are always satisfied to believe what they 
 are told. 
 
 The nature of the resistance which they have met with 
 from time to time was calculated to increase the splendour 
 of their triumph. Men as imprudent as ill-judged have 
 attacked them in the name of dogma. Scientific discovery 
 has degenerated into controversy ; both parties have becomo 
 excited, and in the two camps it has been considered neces- 
 sary to deny all the statements of the enemy ; they have 
 vied with each other in violence, and savants, who pretended 
 to speak in the name of free thought, have not shown them- 
 selves the less intolerant. 
 
 I will only remind the one party of the trial of Galileo, 
 and the other of the theories of Voltaire denying the exis- 
 tence of fos.sils. 
 
 Others have resisted the impulse of the time ; they have 
 remained faithful to method, the mother of modern science ; 
 they have carefully preserved their inheritance of solid and 
 precise knowledge, acquired from past centuries. They can- 
 not on that account be accused of acting from routine or be 
 considered a.s retrograding. As warmly as the most anient 
 partisans of the so-called advanced theories, they have 
 } pplauded all the progress, and have received with equal 
 favour new ideas, on the condition of expo.siiig them to
 
 128 TJic Huuian Species. 
 
 experiment and observation. But when tliey meet with 
 questions the solution of wliich is at present impossible, and 
 will perhaps always be so, they liave not hesitated to 
 answer : — we DO NOT KNOW ; — and when they find purely 
 metaphysical theories are being imposed upon them, they 
 have protested in the name of experiment and observation." 
 
 I venture to say that I have always remained faithful to 
 the ranks of this phalanx, to which the future distinctly 
 belongs. For this reason, to those who question me upon 
 the problem of our origin, I do not hesitate to answer in 
 the name of science : — I DO not know. 
 
 I do not on that account anathematise those who consider 
 they ought to act otherwise, nor do I greatly blame their 
 boldness. The study of second causes has enabled man to 
 explain scientifically the present constitution of the in-- 
 organic world ; and it is quite legitimate to attempt to 
 account for the present state of the organic Avorld by causes 
 of the same nature ; perhaps success will one day Crown our 
 t'fTorts, and should they for ever remain unrewarded, as they 
 have hitherto done, they will still possess a certain utility. 
 'I'hese efforts of the imagination provoke new research, make 
 now openings, and thus render a service to real science in 
 the world of facts, as well as in that of ideas. If J)arwin 
 had not been actuated by his preconceptions, he would pro- 
 li.ibly never have {i(conij)lishL(l his excellent work upon the 
 l.>0 races of pigeons, nor developed his theory of the struggle 
 for existence and natural Relcction, which accounts for so 
 many facts. 
 
 Unfortunately, from having forgotten the works of their 
 |)redecc88or8, Darwin and his followera have diawn < rroiieous 
 (•onchisions from tlu-sf pnini.scs. They imnginc thoy have 
 L'ivcn cxplanation.H when they liave given none. 'J'his is 
 uliati have endeavoured to hIiow. 1 have been obliged to 
 M'.sunic the debate ; it is for tlu- inijiartial and unprejudiced 
 reader Uj decide between us.
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 ANTIQUITY OP THE HUMAN SrECTES. 
 
 CnAPTER XII. 
 
 AGE OF THE miMAN SPECIES. — PKESENT GEOLOGICAL EPOCH. 
 
 I. "Without prejudging tlic future, wc have been obliged to 
 acknowledge that the problem of the specific origin of man 
 cannot be solved, or even attempted, Avith the scientific data 
 wliich >vc at present possess. This is not quite so much 
 the case with certain questions w hich arc naturally suggested 
 to tlie mind by the preceding. 
 
 We know that our globe lu\s passed through several geo- 
 logical and pala;ontological epochs ; that living beings have 
 not api)eared simultaneously, and that the present fauna 
 and tlura have been preceded by very ditTerent one^s. It is 
 natural to iusk the (juestion, when njan began to inhabit the 
 earth, and to endeavour to determine the moment of the 
 appearance of this being, so similar to other beings in many 
 respect.*^, so exceptional in his most noble faculties, and 
 .sujKjrior to everything around him. 
 
 This question of time should be stated precisely ; we must 
 understand the sense which may be attributed to it. 
 
 Let us observe, in the first place, that here wc can have no 
 dates properly so called. They only exist in history. Now 
 primitive mankind can have no history in the scientific sense 
 of tiie ■word. ^lost great religions have endeavoured to 
 fill up this gap. But my readers arc already aware that I
 
 130 The Human Species. 
 
 have refused all considerations drawn from such a source, 
 and that I intend to bring forward here none but the results 
 of experiment and observation. I shall then try how far 
 back we can go with the aid of these guides alone, quoting 
 in the first place a few historic dates as terms of comparison. 
 
 II. The Greeks and Romans, with whom classical educa- 
 tion too often terminates, do not take us very far. The 
 former had much more ancient records than the latter, and 
 yet the era of the Olympiads only brings us to the year 770 
 before our era ; according to Hecateus of ^liletus, it was in 
 the ninth or tenth century before our era that the gods ceased 
 to intermarry with mortals, and the Trojan war is regarded 
 approximately as having taken place in the eleventh or twelfth 
 century. Beyond this period, it is evident that we are led 
 by Greece into mere mythology, or rather into those legen- 
 dary times wliL're tnith and fable are confounded. 
 
 The Aryan traditions go further. M. Vivien de Saint 
 Martin, simiming up the works of which he is so good a 
 judge, refers the arrival of the Hindoos on the river of Cabul 
 to about the sixteenth or eighteenth century before our era. 
 These tribes were only an oflfshoot of the great emigration 
 which the Zend Avcsta takes back almost as far as the Bolor. 
 We can, therefore, refer the latter to the twentieth or twenty- 
 eighth century before our era. 
 
 Jewish history, starting with Abraham, goes l)a{k almost 
 to the same period (:i:il)(> years) ; the deluge of Noah, accord- 
 ing to the estimation generally received, to the year 3.S()S. 
 Say about thirty centuries. 
 
 In China, the (!hon-Kiiig places the nigii of Hoang-ti in 
 the year 2(j|)8, and that of Jao in the year 23.>7 before our 
 era. 'I'his would correspond almost to a ci-ntiiry, with tlie, 
 dale of the migration of Abraham. 
 
 Egypt had no Chou-King, but lur iiKPiuimcnts arc the 
 most magnifieent of bocik.s. ('hampollinii Ims taught us how 
 to read them, and we can dt ( iplu r them j)age by page. 
 Now Ijcpsius and I'.un.sen phicc the fifth dynasty about the 
 fortieth century, and according to Mariette 15ey, the li.sts of
 
 A^e of tJic Human Species. 131 
 
 Munetho, upon the subject of which the eminent E^^yptolo- 
 gist makes formal reserves, go back to the year 5004 before 
 our era. We shoukl, tlien, be separated from the earliest 
 liistorical times of Kgypt by an interval of about seventy 
 centuries. If, instead of counting by years, we count by 
 the human life, which we will estimate at about twenty-five 
 years, we find that we are only separated from these times, 
 which constitute the extreme limit of past history, by 280 
 generations. 
 
 These numbers are undoubtedly interesting. They tend 
 to modify some of the impressions which we have received in 
 our childhood ; but they tell us nothing of the antiquity of 
 the human race. At most, in showing us that at this period 
 there existed people in the valley of the Nile sufficiently 
 civilised to possess the art of writing, and to raise monuments 
 worthy of our admiration, they refer the first appearance of 
 man far beyond the limits which they reach themselves. 
 
 III. The Egyptians themselves have, then, a past anterior 
 to all history. With much greater reason is this the case 
 with the Chinese, Hindoos, Greeks, and still more so with 
 nations less well endowed, or accidentally retarded in their 
 evolution. To phinge into this ob.scurity with the hope of 
 finding in it any certain land-marks, and to discover facts of 
 which even legends say nutliing, would thirty years ago have 
 appeared a sen.seless enterprise. It is, nevertheless, the work 
 accomplished by one of the most recent of sciences, Pre- 
 historic Archonolorjy. We should therefore regard the year 
 1847 as a memorable date, when three Danish savants, a 
 geologist, a zoologist, and an archneologist, were charged bv 
 the Society of Northern Antiquaries to carry out the studies 
 which have .served as its foundation. By a study of the 
 Kitchcnmiddens and peat mosses of their country, Forcham- 
 mer, Steenstrup and Worsaar have done for the history of 
 man what De Buch.Elie de Beaumont, and Cuvier have done 
 for the history of the globe. 
 
 The Kitclienmiddens are essentially formed by the accu- 
 mulation of shells strewn on the sea-shore, which .sometimes
 
 13- The Human Species. 
 
 attain considcraLle proportions. With the shells are found 
 the remains of fisli, and bones of hinls and mammalia. Man 
 alone coulil iiave formed this accumuhition, and his presence, 
 moreover, is revealed by the implements, tools, and weapons, 
 wliich he once mislaid, and which are now found among the 
 remains of liis meals. They consist of stone, almost always 
 rudely shaped. In some of these artificial hills, among the 
 traces of a very rudimentary industry, we meet with other 
 stone objects which betray workmansliip of the most remark- 
 able perfection. 
 
 The Kitchenmiddens, tlien, reveal the existence of a 
 population now forgotten, which at first lived in an entirely 
 savage state, but afterwards acquired a certain amount of 
 civili.sation. From a chronological point of view, however, 
 this infurmation is still very imperfect. The mi.xture of 
 implements, sometimes almost withoiit form, and sometimes 
 again showing wonderful workmanship, permits of various 
 interpretations, which have in fact been given. 
 
 It is different with the objects found in the peat-mosses, 
 and e.<;pecially in those which the Danes call nkovmoscs, that 
 xa,, forest mosses. Tiicse formations are found in hollows of 
 irregular form which have been excavated in Quatemary 
 clays, reaching at times a depth of thirty feet or more. The 
 detailed study which Steenstrup especially h;us made of tliom 
 k'd him to diKfinguish among them the central region or 
 jiext-rnoss, and the exterior reijion or forest region. 
 
 Tlie first is formed by the cavity itself. It is the peat- 
 moss properly so called, funned by the layers of peat which 
 till the cavity, and have been deposited subsequently to its 
 formation. A meagre vegetation grew upon the surface, 
 which di\ ides this mass of vcgetabh; di'hris into distinct zones. 
 They are, proceeding downwards : — 1st, certain trees, such 
 jm the birch, alder, and haztl, etc., mixed with heaths; 2Dd, 
 Kinall stunted, but sturdy ]>ine3 {Pinvs sylvestris), which 
 had grown up<ni peat in which mosses of a high organisation, 
 such UH the liypnum, were fotunl ; .'hd, compact, amorphous 
 |u;it, tlif el* iiKiits of NNliich for a long time it was considered
 
 Present Geological Epochs. 133 
 
 impossible to discover, but in wliieli MM. Steenstrup and 
 Natliorst discovered in 187- undoubted remains of five species 
 of plants now confined to the Arctic circle, such as, Salix 
 het'bacea, S. j^ohiris, S. rctkidata, Betula nana, Dryas octo- 
 jtdala ; 4tii, a bed of clay evidently resulting from material 
 washed down by rain from the sides of the hollow, when the 
 latter were still bare. 
 
 The forest region occupies the sides themselves. The 
 trees were there protected from the wind, and extending 
 their roots into a fertile clay they attained a magnificent 
 development. Now we at once meet with a very remarkable 
 fact, the beech tree is not found in the skormoses. At the 
 present day it is the essential constituent of the Danish 
 forests ; it is the national tree, and the most ancient tradi- 
 tions give no suspicion that it has ever been wanting in 
 Denmark. In its place the peat-mos.ses contain at first 
 nothing but oaks {Qaercus robur sessilifolia) which dis- 
 appeared from the country in prehistoric times, and is only 
 found in a few places in Jutland. Then, as we descend 
 deeper into the peat, the oaks give way to pines. In their 
 turn the latter gain the a.scendant, and occupy the lowest 
 [)arts of the peat exclusively. 
 
 Oaks and pines, when they fell frou\ old age, accident, or 
 iiumau agent-y, generally fell towards the interior of the bog. 
 Their interlaced branches supported and consolidated tho 
 peat, which was then in the best condition for preserving, as 
 they fell, any soliil substances which may have been dropped 
 or thrown into the bog. 
 
 Man used to frerpicnt the skovmoses, and it is well known 
 that he cannot live in any place without losing a number of 
 objects, even those upon which he sets most value. He lost 
 in the bogs weapons, tools, and instruments of all kinds, and 
 they all remain where they fell. The skovmoses have thu.s 
 become a kind of chronologically stratified museum, where 
 each generation has left its trace in the contemporanoou.s 
 peat. We have only to explore it layer by layer to obtain 
 many definite ideas about the predecessors of the present
 
 134 The Human Specks. 
 
 Danes, and to find in this j)roliistoric past relative dates or 
 epochs. In this iiianner tlie Scwndinavian savants liave 
 arrived at the idea of tlie Af/cs of Iron, Bronze, and Stone, 
 which are now universally adojjted. I shall not here follow 
 the development which those fundamental ideas liave re- 
 ceived, nor the manner in which tliey have been applied to 
 the Lake dicellings of Switzerland and elsewhere. I shall 
 not insist further upon the different degrees of civilizatit)n 
 betrayed by the use of two metals and of polished or ground 
 stone. I shall confine myself to the remark that in Denmark 
 the Iron age entirely corresponds with that of the beech tree, 
 while the Bronze age corresponds Avith the entire period of 
 the oak, and the close of that to the jtine. Lastly, the pine 
 is the tree of the Stone age. 
 
 The presence of objects formed by human industry proves 
 the presence of man. Thanks to their irrefutable testimony, 
 there is no difficulty in tracing him through the zones of the 
 oak and the pine. The immense number of objects, which have 
 been left by him in the peat period, points to the existence of 
 a somewhat dense population. These objects, on the contrary, 
 become very rare, and at the same time ruder, in the layer 
 of amorphous peat. They were, for some time, even thought 
 to be wanting altogether, till they were finally discovered by 
 Stecnstrup associated with the remains of the reindeer. 
 
 Man, then, was living in Denmark when Arctic plants, 
 such as Iktula nana and Saline jnAaris grew at the bottc^m 
 of tlie skovmo.ses ; he was accompanied by the reindeer, 
 which com[)ktes the resemblance between the past state of 
 that country and the present state of Lapland. Now we 
 know that such a state of things could only have existed in 
 Denmark in the latter part of the Quaternary epoch, when 
 the ice, retreating from the south northwards, would still be 
 far removed from its present limits. We can then affirm 
 that man existecl and lived in Mnrojie at tlie very dawn of 
 tlie j)resent geological epoch. 
 
 This fact is ngain j>r()ved by the discovery of a human 
 station, made by M. Fraas, at Schus,senried in Wurtemberg.
 
 ^o-c of the Iluuian Species. 135 
 
 Here man, ^vhosc pieseuce is attested by worked flints of 
 various forms, by weapons and instruments of bone, by 
 phalanges of reindeer made into whistles, lived with the 
 riindeer, the glutton, and the polar fox, and gathered mosses 
 which are now confined to Northern Europe, such as 
 llijpnum sminentosum, fiuitans, and aduncum. As in 
 l)L'nmark, he seems to have followed the glaciers step by 
 stop, as the melting of the latter opened out new lands to 
 his activity. 
 
 IV. Without claiming such accuracy for the historic dates, 
 or even such an approximation as that derived from the 
 Aryan traditions on the most ancient monuments of Egypt, 
 is it possible to estimate the number of years which have 
 • lapsed since the times we have just been discussing? 
 
 This question luis often attracted the attention of geologists 
 and anthropologists, and several attempts have been matle to 
 s(jlve it. But the results are still far from being satisfactory. 
 They are none the less interesting, and calculated, to a 
 certain extent, to encourage fresh research. The method is 
 good ; it has only been hitherto wanting in sufficiently 
 precise dates, and we may hope that they will be sooner or 
 later forthcoming. 
 
 This method is easily comprehended. Fur example, let us 
 admit that the peat has a regular growth in the skovmo.ses, 
 and suppose, in addition, that a coin, recognised as belongiijg 
 to the twelfth century, ha.s been found at a depth of loO 
 metres (4 9 feet) ; we shall conclude that the layer of peat 
 has only rcfpiired about GOO years for its formation. The 
 age of a bronze hatchet found at greater depth, 8 metres 
 (2(»'24 feet), will be given by the proportion I'^oO : 6 : : 8'" : x. 
 The hatchet would then be ^,'200 years old, and would date 
 from the fourteenth century before our era. 
 
 Many natural phenomena arc available for calculations of 
 this kind. Such are the alluvium of a river, the silting up 
 of a lake, the erosion of a hill or plateau, etc. But in order 
 tiiat the results of these calciilations may have a real value, 
 the phenomenon which serves a.s the basis, and the calcula- 
 7
 
 136 The Iluuian Species. 
 
 tions resulting from the data must satisfy three conditions 
 wliieh liave been very clearly stated by M. Forel. 
 
 1. The phenomenon should be perfectly constant and 
 regular, which is never the case. At least, it ought to be 
 possible to regard its action as giving an annual mean or 
 constant centennial result, by means of compensations which 
 arc produced naturally. 
 
 2. When super-imposed strata are used as a means of 
 estimation, the age of the strata socving as a term of com- 
 parison, ought to be rigorously determined ; the nature of 
 the objects compared should leave no doubt. 
 
 3. We ought to be certain that the objects found in any 
 stratum really belong to it, that they have not been displaced 
 by any reformation or by their mere weight. (Peat.) 
 
 Should even one oidy of these condition* be unfulfilled, 
 the calculation is neces.sarily erroneous. Now, hitherto, wc 
 cannot be absolutely certain that the conditions laid down by 
 M. Forel are satisfied. Nevertheless, I repeat, it is interest- 
 ing to know what results have been obtained by these 
 attempts at prehistoric chronology. 
 
 It would seem, at first sight, that the skovmoscs must be 
 useful for researches of this kind. It is not so. Steenstrup, 
 an excellent judge of these matters, after having cstimatLil 
 at forty centuries tlic time necessary for the formation of the 
 peat accumidated in these bogs, declares that it might be 
 twice, or even four times as much. 
 
 In reality, the uncertainty as to the results obtained from 
 the growth of peat, is very much greater tiian the Danish 
 savant admits. In adding to the data collected by lirandt, 
 those kindly presented to nio by my colleague, M. Besal, I 
 find that for a period of 4 t'l y».ars the mean animal growth 
 ..f prat is ()(>:{2 metre (TiifJ inch). Jhit tliis mean is the 
 result of numbers who.sc extremes are 0005 metre (256 inch) 
 and ()0()(;."i metre (0 20 inrli). That is to say. that the 
 means found by dinVrent observers for the annual growth of 
 peat, vary from one to ten. 
 
 The calculations of ,M.M. (lillieron and 'I'royon, resting upon
 
 Present Geological Epochs. 137 
 
 the deposition of silt, which has caused the retreat of the 
 Lakes of Bienne and Nouchatel, have but little connection 
 with the present subject. Both have sought to determine 
 the age of the Lake dwellings, which belong, probably, to a 
 nuich later period than the one which we arc now endeavour- 
 ing to determine. We may, however, notice the numbers, 
 (5,000 years and 3,300 years, found by these observers. 
 
 The chronological results derived from the littoral accumu- 
 lition of silt, of which I have just spoken, exhibit chances 
 for error which Vogt has rightly pointed out. For some 
 time the results have been thought more worthy of confi- 
 dence which were based upon the researches made by M. 
 Mt)rlot upon the conical accumulation of silt deposited by 
 the Tiniere. This cone, which was cut through by the rail- 
 way for a di.stance of 133'"' (436 feet), and to a depth 
 of 7"7"'* (2.') feet), exhibited in the midst of the mass 
 of gravel three undisturbed soils, the highest of which con- 
 tained Roman instruments and coins ; the second, pottery 
 of the Bronze age ; and tliC third, split bone.s, charcoal, and 
 ditVcrent objects referable to the close of the Stone age. 
 Fixing the commencement of the Roman period in Switzer- 
 land at the first century of our era, and the end of it at the 
 year oGS, and making some corrections which cannot be de- 
 tailed here, M. Morlot has con.sidered himself able to propose 
 the following numbers as approximate dates : — 
 
 Age of layer of Roman jH-riixl . . . 10 to 1.") coiiturios. 
 
 Ape of liiviT of nroii/.c; jMTi(«l . . 29 to 42 eeiituries. 
 
 Ape of layer of Sioiio piriiKl , . . . 47 to 70 centuries. 
 
 Age of whole cone 7 t to 100 centuries. 
 
 These ntimbei-s are not high. The number given by M. 
 .Morlot as the age of the Stone period in Switzerland, leads 
 us back to an antiquity which does not exceed that given 
 by the Eg}-ptian monumonts ; and it is impossible to avoid 
 being struck with the diflcrenccs of civilization exhibited by 
 the two countries. Nevertheless, this fact cannot constitute 
 a reason for doubting the results of the Swi.ss .savant. It is 
 well known that man during the same time has not every-
 
 138 The Hu7)mn Species. 
 
 where equally advanced in civilization, and that the Eskimas 
 are still in tlie Neolithic period. 
 
 But other criticisms have been brought forward against M. 
 Morlot, the result of which is that the numbers furnished by 
 the cone of the Tiniere cannot be accepted a^* giving a real 
 approximation to the date which we are seeking for. 
 
 V. M. Forel, who has taken an active part in this discus- 
 sion, has tried to solve the problem in an indirect way. In- 
 .stead of seeking directly for the age of a prehistoric fact, he 
 lias proposed to have recourse to the rule of false position, 
 which allows the determination either of a maximum which 
 tlio numbers cannot possibly exceed, or a mininuim below 
 which they cannot fall. He has applied this plan, which is 
 JUS correct as it is ingenious, to the Lake of Geneva, 
 
 It is well known that the waters of the Rhone, especially 
 during the floods caused by the melting of the snow, enter 
 the lake in a very turbid condition, and flow on remarkably 
 clear. The mud thus deposited evidently tends to fdl up the 
 lake, and has already silted up a part of the great depression 
 which was fdled by the ice of the Quaternary epoch. M. 
 Forel has first determined the annual volume of the deposit. 
 He has then calculated the volume of the present lake, basing 
 his calculations on the soundings made by La Bechc. Ho 
 luus thus been enabled to calculate the time necessary for the 
 se<liment of the llhone to fill \\\} the entire lake. Then, ad- 
 mitting that the part of the original lake already filled up 
 ha<l a mean depth equal to that of the present lake, ho ha.s 
 eomp.Tred the surface of the alluvial deposits already formed 
 with the surface of the lake itself. The proportion is almost 
 one to three. These dopo.sjts liavc then been formed in a 
 third of the time nccesstuy to fill up the ])resent lake. 
 Now their formation commenced inuneiliately after the re- 
 treat of the glaciers. The date thus obtained is, then, 
 that of the modem geological epoch. 
 
 Such is the method by which AI. Forel arrives at the 
 number of 1 ()(),()()() y<ars. 'J'hi.s is a maximum which is 
 probably much exaggerated. M. Fore I shows this himself
 
 Aj^c of tJic Human Species. 139 
 
 very clearly. He has always taken the lowest numbers 
 for the estimation of the increase of alluvium ; he has con- 
 sidered on the whole year ninety days only as contributing to 
 this increase ; he has only included the Rhone in this estima- 
 tion, and taken no account of other rivers, streams, etc. ; he 
 has not taken into consideration inundations, extraordinary 
 I'alls of ruin, landslips, etc. ; he has Jissumcd the floods of the 
 Rhone have always resembled the present floods, while they 
 must originally have been much more considerable, and have 
 carried away much more material from mountain slopes but 
 recently relieved from their covering of ice; he has said 
 nothing of the gravel and sand which must necessarily be 
 c.irried along the bed of a rapid stream like the Rhone, etc. 
 
 M. Forel's result must therefore undergo serious reduc- 
 tion before it approximates to the truth. Without attempt- 
 ing a precise statement, we can (at least) admit with almost 
 al)solute certainty that the present geological epoch com- 
 menced less than 100,000 years ago. 
 
 On the other liand, M. Arcelin has pought for a solution of 
 the .same problem in the deposits of the Saonc. The present 
 river flows in a channel hollowed out in the alluvium of the 
 Saone of Quaternary times, the banks of which have been 
 raised by the sediment deposited during floods. The two 
 deposits are very easily distinguished. The homogeneity of 
 the modern alluvium indicates, moreover, a remarkably 
 regvdar phenomenon. The banks of the Saone at different 
 points form more or less abrupt hills which constitute so 
 many natural geological sections. The erosions of the river 
 have laid bare objects easily recognised as belonging to 
 the Roman period, the Ihonze age, and the Neolithic ago. 
 These objects are found at a constant height, showing that 
 they arc in situ. The hills of the Saone, then, constitute 
 one of those means of estimating ])rehi>turic chronology, 
 which are .so valuable to us. MM. Arcelin and Do Ferry 
 have attempted fii^st to determine the age of the different 
 layeis. The numbers so obtained show a certain amount 
 of discordance, undoubtedly due to the fact that M. de
 
 140 The Human Species. 
 
 Ferry lias La'^cd liis calculations upon a single section, 
 wliilc those of M. Arcolin represent the mean taken from 
 33 points. The latter has, however, afterwards had re- 
 course to the method of M. Forel, and to the rule of false 
 position. But instead of seeking a maximum, he has en- 
 deavoured to determine a minimum. This calculation 
 gives the following results : — 
 
 Aj^c of Roman layer . 1.500 years I Ajjc of Xenlithic layer . ^.000 years 
 Age i)f IJroiizc layer . . 2.UJ0 years | A^je of Quaternary elay G,7jO ytiiirs 
 
 This represents a very moderate anticiuity, and corresponds 
 almost entirely with the dates of Manetho. But the minimum 
 of M. Arcelin appears to me to Le too low, and the error 
 greater than in the case of the maximum of ^I. Forel. I 
 .shall only point out the most important of the causes which 
 have led to this result. The calculations of the author are 
 based upon the hypothesis of the cijuality of the Hoods, and 
 of the alluvial deposit in the period between the present and 
 the Roman period, and in times previous to that. He thus 
 confounds the epochs when the basin of the Saono was left to 
 Nature alone, with other epochs when the same basin was 
 stri])pod of its forests, cleared and cultivated as it is at pre- 
 sent. Now everyone knows how niueii more powerful the 
 action of atmospheric agents, of rain in particular, are upon 
 cuUivaUd land than u|»on uncidtivuted. The ujiper layers, 
 which served as the basis for the calculations of M. Arcelin, 
 liave necessarily dimiiiished to a considerable cxtrnt the 
 final result, since they miist have been fornud much more 
 ra[)idly than a great part of the lower layers. 
 
 I KJiall say, then, of (li»j mininmm ol M. Aici lin what I 
 hav(! .said of the maximum of M. Forel. It leaves us the 
 eertainty that tlu; present gecjlogical jieriod goes back much 
 further than 7—8000 years. 
 
 VI, AVhat corrections oui^ht the extreme numbers which 
 I have just (juoted to undergo in order to a|)i»roximate to 
 the truth ? It is still impossible to say. But ihe j)ath 
 which shfjuld b(! follow(;d in order to dimini.sh IIm; space
 
 Present Geological Epochs. 141 
 
 wliich separates them is hencefoivth clear. The alkiviuin of 
 the Saoue has always appeared to mo to present couditious 
 of uncertainty which it would be difficult to overcome, and 
 the best means of determining the age of the present period 
 by prehistoric chronology, appears to me to be the Lake of 
 Geneva. 
 
 In order to correct the first results obtained by M. Forel, 
 it would be necessary to take into account all tlie circum- 
 stances pointoil out above, and several others also. It would 
 be especially necessary, at different seasons of the year, in 
 dry and wet weather, to gauge the smallest rivulets and 
 ravines all round the lake, to measure the amount of mud 
 their waters contain, and the amount of gravel and sand they 
 carry down with it. This ta.sk is be^'ond the power of a 
 single man; it would' require the formation of an Association 
 for this end. The problem would be worth the trouble, and 
 the Swiss savants, so justly proud of their beautiful lake, 
 might easily make arrangements to obtain its .solution. 
 
 JSuch as they arc, the works of MM. Arcelin and Ford 
 load to some important conclusions. The total age of our 
 globe, used till lately to be rcstrictcil to a little more than 
 (>,000 years ; the alluvial deposits of the Saone show that the 
 l»resent geological epoch alone surpasses this by several cen- 
 turies. On tlie other hand, imdcr the influence of Darwinian 
 prejudices, men have bcgim to handle time with a strange 
 laxity, and it has been affirmed that millions of years 
 separate us from glacial times. The deposits of silt in the 
 Lake of Geneva show that these times terminated less than 
 lOO.OOO years ago. As M. Furel well say.s, " 'J'his does nof 
 yet constitute historic chronology ; it i.s, nevertheles.s, a little 
 more than simple geological chronology ; " and we see once 
 more experience and observation doing justice to theoretical 
 coufiptii lus.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 AGE OF Tin: HUMAN sri:cii:s. — past geological epochs. 
 
 I. The skovinoscs and the remains at Scliusscnrieil have 
 shown that man existed in Europe at the close of the Glacial 
 Epocli. But did he live through this epoch ? Did he 
 precede it ? Has he, therefore, been contemporary with 
 vegetable and animal species, which have long been con- 
 sidered a-s fossils? We know that we can with certainty 
 reply in the affirmative to these questions. We know 
 also that the proof of this great ftxct, one of the grandest 
 scientific conquests of modern times, dates, so to speak, from 
 yesterday. 
 
 This demonstration rests on proofs which are now so well 
 known that the enumeration of them will be sufficient. It 
 is evident that human bones, buried beneath an undisturbcil 
 layer of soil, prove the existence of man at the time when 
 the layer was formed. It is no less clear that flints worked 
 bv human hands and made into hatchets, knives, etc., bones 
 of animals made into harpoons ami arrow-heads, are so many 
 irrefutable testimonies of the existence of the workcr.s. 
 Lastly, when human bonos are found assotiatctl with bones 
 of animals in the .same undisturbed layers, it is :tg;iin cvidcMit 
 that man and these animal species liavc been (•••iifoin- 
 poraneous. 
 
 Many facts included in these three categoriis were pn.vcd 
 in the earlier years, and during the course of the l.xst century. 
 Since 1700, exr.ivat ions mad«- by the c»rder of Diiku Kbcih.ird 
 Iajxuh do WurtomlM-rg. at ( 'anstadt, n«;ar Stuttg.ird, biou-ht, 
 to light a great n»iml)er of bones of animals, among which was 
 fuun<l a human cranium. The nature of this precious relic
 
 A^e of the //ion tin Species. 143 
 
 w.:is, however, only reco;^iii.sed by Jaeger in 1835. About 
 the same time an EnglLslnnan, Kemp, found in London itself, 
 side by side with the teeth of elephants, a stone hatchet 
 similar to those of S;iint Acheul. Some time after P]sper in 
 Germany, and John Frere in England, discovered more or 
 less analogous facts. But none of them were able to 
 recognise their significance, for geology Avas quite in its 
 infancy, and paUcontology not yet in existence. 
 
 II. It was not till 1823 that Amy Boud gave Cuvicr some 
 human bones which he had found in the loess of the Rhine, 
 near Lahr, in the Duchy of Baden. Bouc regarded these 
 lM)nes as fossils. Cuvier refused to admit this conclusion. 
 He has often been reproached with this, but the reproach is 
 unjust. Cuvier had too often seen pretended fossil men 
 change either into mastodons or salamanders, or even into 
 simple contorted blocks of sandstone, not to be on his guard, 
 and, in presence of a fact hitherto unique, he th(»ught it 
 wiser to admit a disturbance which would have carried into 
 the loess bones of much later date than that of the formation 
 of this layer. 
 
 But Cuvier, whatever may have been said of him, never 
 denied the possibility of the di.scovery of fossil men. lie 
 hius, on the contrary, formally admitted the existence of our 
 species as anterior to the latest revolutions of the globe. 
 " Man," he says, " may have inhabited some country of 
 small extent from which he repeopled the earth after these 
 terrible event.s." We see that the praises and reproaches 
 whicli have been addressed to our great naturalist on ac- 
 count of an opinion which he never held, are c(|ually unde- 
 8erve«l. 
 
 The reserve, perhaps exaggerated, which Cuvier imposeil 
 u|>>n himself, and the confidence which was placed in him, 
 weighctl heavily tipon sci4?nce by impeding the comprehcn- 
 .'^iun of the value of observations made by Tournal (1828- 
 182!)) in L'Aude, by Christol (182!)) in Lo Gard ; by 
 Schmerling (1833) in Belgium; by Joly (1835) in Lozere; 
 by Marcel de Serres (183!)), in L'Aude, and by Lund (1844) in
 
 144 '^^^^ Iliniian Species. 
 
 Brazil. In IS to almost all the savants, properly so called, 
 sliared tlic opinion so well stated by Desnoyers. AVitliout 
 re^jarding the existence of fossil man as impossible, they did 
 not think that the discovery had as yet been made. 
 
 It is to the persevering efforts of a distinguished archieo- 
 logist, Boucher de Perthes, that we owe the proof of a fact 
 so long denied, and now universally admitted. Under the 
 influence of curtain philosophical ideas, little calculated to 
 j)rocure him f(jllowers, he had admitted d j)r'iori the ex- 
 istence of human beings anterior to the present man, from 
 whom they must have differed considerably. He hoped to 
 find either their remains themselves, or the jnoducts of their 
 industry, in the upper alluvial deposits. Watching either 
 himself or thiough his agents the excavation of the gravel 
 pits near Abbeville, he collected there a number of flints, 
 more or less rudely worked, but bearing the unmistakable 
 impress of the hand of man. Some of his publications (1847) 
 brought him visitors, who in their turn carried on the search. 
 Soon after, M. Regcjllot (1855) and M. Gaudry (185G) obtained 
 from the gravel of Saint Aclieul hatchets similar to those of 
 Alibeville, and declared themselves convinced. The English 
 savants, Falconer, Prcstwich, and Lyell, after liaving visited 
 the collection of Boucher do Perthes, did the same, and liad 
 many imitators. 
 
 III. In spite of the discoveries which were midtijilied in 
 cavenis and gravel-pits, even in the neighbourhood of Paris, 
 the same objections were brought against the believers in 
 lussil man which Cuvier had opposed to Amy Bond The 
 juxtapositi(;n ui the renuiins of extinct animals and human 
 boncH, or articles of human workmanship, were attributed to 
 a reforiiidtum effected by water. The high aufliorify of M, 
 de Bramont lent new force to this argument. Jle coujpand 
 the alluvium of the neighbourhood of Alibcvillc to his 
 fi.rrainn den pcntcn, form««l, he said, by storms of an ex- 
 ceptional violence, which oidy happened once in a thousand 
 years, and which heap up together materials derived from 
 different beds. As for the oljects discovered in caverns they
 
 Past Geological Epochs. 145 
 
 inspired still less confidence than the others, on account of 
 tlio c;i.^e with which the bed might be undermined by e(ldics, 
 which would tend to deposit in the heart of a subjacent layer 
 objects derived from the upper layers, without destroying 
 cither the one or the other. 
 
 Many men of high intellect still hesitated, until M. Lartet 
 published his remarkable work upon the grotto of Aurignac 
 (ISOl). Here doubt was impossible. This grotto, or rather 
 rock-shelter, was closed at the time of its discovery by a slab 
 of stone brought from a distance ; M. Lartet discovered, 
 either in the interior or at the entrance, the bones of eight or 
 nine species of animals which are essentially characteristic of 
 quaternary deposits. In his memoir he gives details of all 
 the remains. Some of these animals had evidently been 
 eaten upon the spot, their bones, partly carbonized, still bore 
 the trace of fire, the charcoal and ashes of which were dis- 
 covered ; those of a young tichorhine rhinoceros showed marks 
 made by flint implements, and their .spongy extremities had 
 been gnawed by carnivora ; the species of the latter was 
 shown by his excrement, which wa.s recognized as that of the 
 hyena spelcea. 
 
 The grotto or rock-shelter of Aurignac is excavated in a 
 small mountainous group, a spur of the plateau of Lanemezan, 
 which the Pyrcnean drift has never reached. It is, therefore, 
 free from tbc objections drawn from the intervention of 
 aqueous currents. Thus the facts made known by M. Lartet 
 were generally accepted at once in their fullest signification. 
 These facts show that man lived in the midst of a quater- 
 nary fauna, which he usetl as food, including the rhinoceros, 
 and was fallowed by the hyena of this epoch, who finished 
 tl»e remains of his meals. The coexistence of man wiili 
 these fossil species was proved. 
 
 A few ill-judged attacks were still made by .savants, who 
 did not accept the testimony of these fact.s, among others 
 that of the discovery of a human jaw made by Boucher do 
 Perthes. But tlic discoveries became .so numerous that the 
 last .Tiiiniig them was soon rediui <l i>> silence, ainl h-ul to
 
 146 The Ilimian Species. 
 
 submit to the mentioii of foss!il man without raising the 
 slightest protest. 
 
 IV. It would be too tedious ami, indeed, useless to 
 enumerate here all these discoveries. I will only mention 
 some of the most striking ones associated with the names of 
 Lartet and Christy, his enthusiastic colleague. At Lcs 
 Eyzies, these indefatigable investigators discovered a stalag- 
 mitic layer f(jrmed of a veritable breccia, which contained 
 worked flints, ashes, charcoal, and bones of different (jua- 
 ternary animals. Large slabs of this breccia now figure in 
 many collections. In this same grotto they found a vertebra 
 of a young reindeer pierced by a flint which had broken in 
 the bone, thus causing the death of the animal. Finally, in 
 1SG4, JM. Lartet liad the pleasure of being present at the 
 discovery of a plate of mammoth ivory, upon which a repre- 
 sentation of the animal itself had been carved with a sharp 
 flint by an artist of La Madeleine. In this drawing are found 
 the characteristic traits of the mammoth, as they are known 
 to us from the remains of the animal which are at times 
 f<»iuid preserved, wi(h Us tliick fur inid Ioikj Ii'ur, in the ice 
 of Siberia. 
 
 For man to be able to draw the jiortrait of iiiiy animal 
 species, he must have been conttinpoianetjus with it. Mow 
 proofs of this nature have rajiidly become more numerous 
 and striking. In IWiIi'l^c M. (Jarrigoti found a representation 
 of the cave bear traced on a pebble. M.de Viliraye oxtracted 
 from the grotto of Laugerie Basse a sketch of a fight betwecMi 
 reindeer remarkably well diawu upon a piece of schist. The 
 same animal has l>een discoven-d represented in S(ulj)turc in 
 th(! H.-iiiie rcM-k-shelter, an<l again in tin; rock-shrlter of 
 Montastruc, where M. Peccadeau do I'l-slc found his wcmder- 
 ful dagger-handles. 
 
 1 need not speak here of the weapons, tools, and instru- 
 nientH of every kin<l, from the simple knife to barbed arrow- 
 heads, nn<l harpoons, to laurel-leaf shaped lancc-hea<ls, and 
 daggers loothe<l an«l grooved, which equal the (inest specimens 
 found in Denmark. I will only remark that all these objects
 
 /Ig€ of tJtc Hunian Species. i.}7 
 
 prove the existence of man, and that we now count by the 
 thousand articles made by him during the geological period 
 prt'cetling our own. 
 
 Without being nearly so abundant, the remains of man 
 liimself have been discovered in every part of the quaternary 
 formation. Although several European states have con- 
 tributed towards this mass of discoveries, by far the greater 
 nimiber occurred in France and Belgium. 
 
 I cannot here enter into details, some of which, will be 
 more advantageously discussed in another part of the book. 
 1 will only mention the cave of Cro-Magnon, which was 
 discovered by the railway engineers in 1860, not far from 
 the station of Les Eyzies, and which has given us the type of 
 one of the best characterized fossil races. Nor can 1 pass 
 over in silence the successful and laborious researches made 
 by M. Martin from 18G7 to 1.S73 in the quarries near Paris, 
 the results of which enabled M. Hamy to fix the succession 
 of types in our immediate neigidwurhood. Lastly, I would 
 allude to the investigations of M. Dupont in the valley of 
 the Lesse. Commenced in ISGi, and continued during seven 
 years with an unequalled activity, they have presented to 
 the Museum at Brussels about 80,000 worked Hints, 40,000 
 bones of animals, now all named, the crania of Furfooz, and 
 twenty-one jaws, including the now celebrated ^'air of Xauh'tte. 
 
 It is not only in Europe that the existence of fossil man 
 li;is been proved. Even in 1844! Lund had announced that 
 he had found in certain caverns in Brazil Imman bones 
 ;issf)ciated with remains of extinct animals. He afterwards 
 withdrew his statement, doubtless owing to the distrust with 
 which every announcement of this kind was received. But 
 his ob.servations, which, unfortunately, were never ])u1)!ished 
 in detail, were probably correct. In 18(57 M. W. Blake 
 announced to the Congress of Paris that in the auriferous 
 di'posits of California, and especially near the village of 
 8onora, weapons, instruments, and even stone ornaments 
 were frequently found associated with the bones of the 
 mammoth and the mastodon. Dr. Snell, who lives in this
 
 148 The Hitman Species. 
 
 Icrality, possesses a large and rich collcctiun of tlieni. Dr. 
 Wilson published some facts of the same nature in 18t)5. 
 
 V. It became necessary, in order to prevent our being lost 
 amidst these riches of every description, to distribute them 
 in a methodical manner, and arrange them in order of time. 
 The universal preponderance of weapons, tools, sculpture, 
 drawings, etc., has led archaeologists to propose ditl'erent 
 cliussifications essentially founded upon the ditierence of the 
 types presented by these articles, and upon the material from 
 which they were made. Tlie classification which M. de Mor- 
 lillet has applied to the Museum of St. Germain is of this 
 kind. But such classification.s, though very convenient for 
 the arrangement of a public collection, have the inconve- 
 nience of being rather artificial. The naturalist and tiie 
 anthropologist ought to give the preference to palopontolo- 
 gical or geological data. 
 
 Lartet prefeired the former, lie connected the division 
 of quaternary times with the predominance and extinction of 
 the great mammalia. The cave-bear, which was the first to 
 <lit<appcar, he employed to mark the most ancient period; 
 the mammoth and the tichorhinc rhinoceros, which survived 
 it, characterised the second ; the reindeer and the aurochs 
 have served to mark .the third and fourth. 
 
 This chussification has the inconvenience of being ])urely 
 local, since the disappearance of (piaternary species ilid not 
 take place everywhere at the same time, and was not general. 
 Ill reality the age of the reindeer still continues in Lapland, 
 md that of the aurochs is prolonged, a little artificially it 
 is true, in the forests of Lithuaniiu But Lartet's method 
 connects h 11 man groups with aniinal types; it characterises 
 the Cf)ochs by an event palaontologieally important; it 
 jircHervfH the relation between the Kuccissi(tn of pt riods an<l 
 biological cvent« ; it oflirH, tiiereforc, serious advantages if 
 taken for what it is. 'J'his was very clearly understood by 
 the ( ininent author of the theor)' ; he luus only ajiplied it to 
 I''rancc. 
 
 Since M. Lartet n)ade his sj)len(lid investigations, fresh
 
 Past Geological Epochs. 149 
 
 fa<'ts have come to liglit, and, iis it often Ihajipcns, distinctions, 
 which at firet were apparently most pronounced, have now 
 been partly effaced. Therefore M. Dupont has proposed to 
 reduce to two the four ages of Lartet, whicli is perhaps 
 excessive even for Belgium. M. Hamy, again, has admitted 
 three ages as corresponding to the mean and new river levels 
 of M. Belgrand. This division of quaternary times has the 
 advantage of being connected with geological phenomena ; 
 it at least partly loses the too exclusively local character, and 
 it ought fur this reason to be preferred. 
 
 Let us, nevertheless, consider the subject fur a moment from 
 Lartet-'s point of view, which permits of an interesting com- 
 parison. We have seen in Denmark the succession of three 
 vegetable species ; the beech, the oak, and the pine bring us 
 to the commencement of the present modern epoch. In 
 P' ranee the successive disappearance of four animal species, 
 the cave-bear, mammoth, reindeer, and auroclis, which at 
 first were contemporaneous on our soil, characterises so many 
 epochs which embrace the whole quaternary period. Man 
 hius been contemporaneous with them all ; he made use of 
 their flesh for food, and has left representations of them in 
 sculpture and drawings. 
 
 VI. Can we go further and find traces of man even in 
 tertiary times? Falconer, the celebrated English paUeon- 
 tologist, prematurely lost to science, did not hesitate to 
 reply in the affirmative. But he only exjiected to find 
 tertiary man in India, and M. Desnoyers has di.scovered him 
 ill France. 
 
 It was in 1.S63, in the gravel-pit of Saint-Prest, near 
 L'iiartres, that M. Desnoyers himself found a til)ia of rhino- 
 ceros bearing marks of incisitin antl grooves similar to those 
 which had been .so often noticed in the bones of bears and 
 reindeer eaten by quaternary man. A careful comparison 
 and numerous facts of the same nature, shown in ditVorent 
 collections, authorised him to announce that man might be 
 traced beyond the glacial epoch, and had lived in pliocene 
 times.
 
 150 The IIiDNiin Sjyccics. 
 
 But M. Desnoyers only brought forward proofs ot a single 
 kin<l, and such as are not appreciated at their full value until 
 we are used to them. Thus his work was at first received 
 with a certain amount of distrust, lie was asked to produce, 
 if not pliocene man himself, at least some objects of his 
 industry, and, in particular, the weapons which would enable 
 him to attack, and the knives with which he could cut up 
 the elephant and rhinoceros, or the great deer, whose bones 
 all bear the marks of more or less deep incision which he 
 attributes to man. M. I'Abbd Bourgeois soon replied to 
 these demands, and in the presence of the worked flints 
 which he placed before competent judges, all doubt dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 Unfortunately, the gravel of Saint-Prest is considered by a 
 sufficient number of geologists to belong rather to (quaternary 
 deposits, which are more recent than undoubted tertiary 
 formations. It ought probably to bo placed in the period of 
 transition which separates two distinct epochs. Perhaps it 
 is contemporaneous with the deposit of the Victoria cave in 
 Yorkshire, from which Tiddeinan extracted a human fibida, 
 and which this naturalist regarded as having been formed a 
 little before the great ^dacial cold. In short, the di.scoverics 
 of MM. Desnoyers and Tiddiinan take back the exi.stence of 
 man to the confines of the tertiary period. 
 
 The discoveries in Italy take us still further. On difb-nMit 
 occasions, and since 18U.*}, some Italian savants thought that 
 they had discovered in imdoubted pliocene deposits traces of 
 human industry, and even human Ixtnes. These results 
 were, however, for ditferent reasons successively doubted and 
 rejected by the most competent judges. 
 
 But M. rii|»<Hini has just discovered, in lS7t), clearer proofs 
 of man's exist<ncr in ])lioc('ne times in the clay deposits of 
 Monte Apcrto, near Sienne, and in two other places. The 
 eminent pntf-ssor of Bologna ha.s found in these localities, 
 the age of which is not contested, bones of the bala-notus 
 bearing numerous deep inci-sions, which it seems to me 
 could otdy have been produced by the action of a cutting
 
 Age of tJic Ilinnan Species. 1 5 1 
 
 instnimcnt. In some cases the bone lias been broken off 
 upon one of tlie faces of incision, -wliilst the other is smooth 
 mJ sharply detined. Judging from woodcuts and casts, it is 
 impossible to avoid admitting that the cuts have been made 
 upon fresh bones. These incisions ditTor entirely from those 
 found upon the bones of halitherium found in the miocene 
 falunian strata of Pouance. I have always thought it impos- 
 sible to attribute the latter to man, as decidedly as I think 
 those which we are now discussing ought to be attributed to 
 his agency. The existence of pliocene man in Tuscany is, 
 then, in my opinion, an acquired scientific fact. Neverthe- 
 les.s, I sliould admit that this conclusion is not yet unani- 
 mously accepted, and that it is disputed by W. Magitot, among 
 others, who relies upon his own experience. 
 
 VII. The researches of M. I'Abbe Bourgeois take us still 
 further back. This practised and persevering observer has 
 discovered in the department of Loir-et-Cher, in the Com- 
 mune of Thcnay, Hints, the shape of which he thinks can 
 oidy be attributed to man. Now geologists are unanimous 
 ill considering these deposits as miocene, belonging to the 
 mean tertiary age. 
 
 But the flints of Thenay, generally of small size, arc 
 almost all very roughly shaped, and many palaiontologists 
 and archa'ologists have considered the fractures to be due to 
 nothing more than acciilcntal blows. In 1872, at the Congress 
 of Brussels, the question was submitted to a commission of 
 the most competent men of Germany, England, France, 
 Belgium, and Italy, and the judges disagrocd. Some ac- 
 cepted and some rejected all the flints exhibited by M. I'Abbe 
 Bourgeois. Some considered that a small number only could 
 be attributed to human industry. Others, again, thotight it 
 right to reserve their judgment and to wait for fresh facts. 
 
 I joined the ranks of the latter. But since then fresh 
 specimens discovered by il. I'Abbe Bourgeois have removed 
 my last doubts. A small knife or scraper, among othei*s, 
 which shows a fine regular finish, can, in my opinion, only 
 have been shaped by man. Nevertheless, I do not blame
 
 152 The Human Species. 
 
 those of my colleagues who deny or still doubt. In such a 
 matter there is no very great urgency, and doubtless the 
 existence of miocene man will be j)roved, as tliat of glacial 
 and pliocene man has been — by facts. 
 
 VIII. Thus, man was most certainly in existence during 
 the quaternary epoch and during the transition age to which 
 the gravels of Saint-Prest and the deposits of the Victoria 
 cave belong. He has, in all probability, seen miocene times, 
 and conse<[ucntly the entire pliocene epoch. Are there 
 any reasons for believing that his traces will be found fur- 
 ther back still ? Is the date of his appearance necessarily 
 connected with any epoch ? For an answer to the.se (pies- 
 tiuns I only see a single order of facts to which we can 
 apply. 
 
 We know that, as far as his body is concerned, man is a 
 mammal, anil nothing more. The conditions of existence 
 which are sufficient for these animals ought to have been 
 sullicient for him also ; where they liveil, he coidd live. He 
 may then have been contemporaneous with the earliest 
 mammalia, and go back as far as the secondary period. 
 
 rala'oiitologists of high merit shrink from this proposi- 
 tion. Tiiey do not admit even the po.ssibility of the existence 
 of nian in miocene times. All tiie mammalian fauna of tliis 
 period have, they say, disappeared ; how should man alone 
 have resisted against causes which were sufficiently powerful 
 to cau.se a complete renewal of all the beings with which he 
 was most nearly coiuiected ? 
 
 I roc(»gnise the force of the obj(!ction ; but I also take into 
 .iccount humati intelligence, which they seem to forget. It 
 IS evidently owing to this intelligence that the man of Saint- 
 I'rest, of the Victoria cave, and of Monte Aperto has been 
 .dile to survive two great geoh>gical epochs. He protected 
 hinjHclf against (:«<ld by lire, and so survived till tlu; return 
 of a mon; genial teinperattire. Is it not po.ssible, therefore, 
 to imagine that man of an earlier period should iiave found 
 in his industry the neces,sary rcsoinces for struggling 
 a''ain.st the conditions which the transition from the later
 
 Past Geological Epochs. 153 
 
 secondary times to the earlier tertiary must have imposed 
 upon liim. 
 
 In fact, the most careful judges acknowledge that man has 
 seen the accomplishments of one of the great changes on the 
 surface of the globe. He has lived in one of the geological 
 epochs to which he was but lately thought to be a complete 
 stranger; he has been contemporary with species of mammalia 
 which have not even seen the commencement of the present 
 epoch. There is then nothing impossible in the idea that he 
 should have survived other species of the same clas.s, or have 
 witnessed other geological revolutions, or have appeared 
 upon the globe with the first representatives of the typo to 
 which he belongs by his organisation. 
 
 But this is a question to be proved by facts. Before we 
 can even suppose it to be so, we must wait for information 
 from observation.
 
 LOOK IV. 
 
 OinciXAL LOCALISATION OF THE HUMAN SPKCIES. 
 
 C'lLVrTKR XTV. 
 
 AGASSIZ S TUEORY. — CENTRES OF CREATION. 
 
 L With tlic exception of Australiusia, with wliich Ave arc 
 but very imperfectly acquainted, and of sonic islands and 
 deserts which we need not take into account, all the regions 
 visited by man since the commencement of the era of modern 
 discoveries have proved to be more or less iidiabited. In 
 wandering over the globe of which he to^k possession, the 
 European has met with man everywhere, and quaternary 
 pala'ontology reveals him to us upon the most distant sliores 
 of the two continents. 
 
 Arc all these ditferent populations indigenous ? Is man a 
 native of the countries where he is represented by history, 
 and where travellers have met with him? or ha.s he rather 
 invaded by degrees the surface of the globe, starting from a 
 certain mnwber of points, or from a single one? In other 
 words, h;us man, who is now ci>ni)u>puliltin, originally been 
 more or less localwciU 
 
 These questions hav»; hi m answered alternately in the 
 different senses whieh they ailmit of. Unfortunately these 
 Holutions have too often been influenced by considerations 
 entirely foreign to science. It has been thought necessary 
 to adopt either tin; one or the other in the name of dogma 
 or philosophv, and this (picstion has bciii ronroiindrd with
 
 A^i^assi::s T/icory. 155 
 
 tliat of monogenism and pol^'gcnisiii, witliout seeing that 
 upon this particular point tlie two doctrines must lead 
 anyone who remains faithful to the data of science to the 
 same result. Science has already been shown to be our only 
 possible guide ; let us examine her teaching on this subject. 
 
 II. The doctrine which admits the multiplicity of the 
 geographical origins of man, has been more frequently a.s- 
 SL'rtcd, than sustained by more or less serious arguments. 
 Agassiz is the only naturalist who has developed and defined 
 it, by supporting it with general data. We must, therefore, 
 first examine these data, A very short account will explain 
 the reasons why I must, with regret, oppose one of the men 
 whose learning and character I have always held in the highest 
 estimation. 
 
 There are singular points of resemblance, and no less 
 striking contrasts between Agassiz and the most extravagant 
 disciples of Darwin. The illustrious author of the Essay 
 on Classification is as exclusive a morphologist as the latter; 
 neither in his opinion nor in theirs, does the idea oi filia- 
 tion form any connection with that of species ; he declares, 
 as they do, that the questions of crossing, of constant or 
 limited fertility, have no real interest. We are justified in 
 attributing these opinions, so strange in such an eminent 
 zoologist as Agassiz, to the nature of his early works. It is 
 well known that he commenced his career with his cele- 
 brated researches upon fossil fishes. We have already 
 remarked upon the influence which is almost inevitably 
 exercised by fossils, where form alone has to be considered, 
 where nothing calls attention to the genealogical connection 
 of beings, and where wo meet with neither parents nor 
 otrspring. 
 
 But while Darwinists admit the perpetual i)istahilit}/ of 
 specific forms and their t)'an8mutatioii, the illustrious pro- 
 fessor of Cambridge believes in their absolute immutability. 
 Upon this fundamental point he is in exact opposition to 
 Darwin. In 1840, whilst proclaiming the unity of the 
 human species, he admits that the diversity which it presents
 
 156 The Iliinian Species. 
 
 is the result of original "physical differences. This is really 
 nothing more than a mitigated polygcnism ; and, like every 
 polygcnistic doctrine, compels its author to place man in 
 contradiction to general laws. In 1845, Agassiz himself ac- 
 cepted this consequence in a memoir upon the geographical 
 distribution of animals and man. He attributed the diver- 
 sities of both to the same causes. "But," he adds, "whilst 
 in every zoological province animals are of different species, 
 man, in spite of the diversity of his races, always forms one 
 and the same species." The following year he declared his 
 l)elief in "an indefinite number of primordial races of men 
 created separately." 
 
 Agassiz has collected and developed all his theories in a 
 memoir inserted at the beginning of the great polygcnistic 
 work entitled Types of Mankind. It is clear that Nott and 
 (Jliddon, the authors of this work, were perfectly aware of 
 the real meaning of a doctrine which proclaims the specific 
 unity of man, while at the same time admitting that the 
 human races have been created separately with all tlieir 
 distinctive characters. We, also, must not be deceived, but 
 recognise Agassiz as a true polygenist. 
 
 I shall, therefore, be obliged to make all those objections 
 U) the theory of the eminent naturalist which have already 
 been stated. Moreover, the singular association which lie 
 has endeavoured to establish between the unity of species 
 and the original character isalinn of races, has led him into 
 contradictions and consequences which are peculiar to him, 
 and which it W(juld scarcely be possible to pass by in silence, 
 
 Agassiz, like the greater number of polygenists, gives no 
 intimation of what he means by the word race. Yet he 
 makes use of it inccssantl}' and declares, for example, that 
 ho is ready to show that " the differences existing between 
 human races are of the same nature as those which separate 
 
 f iniilies, genera, and species of apes or other animals " 
 
 "The chimpanzee and the gorilla," he adds, "do not differ 
 from each other more than Mandingoes from the Negroes of 
 Guinea; there is less difference between either of them and
 
 Agassis s Theory. 1 5 7 
 
 the orang, than there is between the Malay or the White 
 and the Negro." 
 
 Must not the logical consequence of such positive language 
 be, that man forms a zoological family comprising several 
 genera and many species, precisely similar to the family of 
 anthropoid apes ? But no ; Agassiz devotes a new paragraph 
 to declaring that this opinion, which he has expressed so 
 clearly, agrees entirely with the theory of unity, and in no 
 way brings human fraternity into question. In one of his 
 first memoirs upon questions of this nature, he declared that 
 man is an exceptional being, and we shall see how far he 
 pushes this unavoidable consequence of his theories. 
 
 In a letter addressed to the same authors, and printed in 
 the Indigenous Races of the Earth, Agassiz returns to the 
 same subject. lie here insists upon considerations which, 
 in his first work, he had merely alluded to, and which we are 
 truly astonished to receive from his pen. In order to show 
 that the same local causes have acted upon man and animals, 
 he draws attention to the resemblance of colour, which, 
 according to him, exists between the complexion of the 
 Malay and the colour of the hair of the Orang ; from the 
 same point of view he compares the Negrittoes and Telingas 
 with the gibbons. 
 
 If it were possible to consider seriously this comparison 
 between the skin of a human group, and the colour of the 
 hair of an animal, we should have no lack of arguments to 
 bring against the author. I shall only remind my readers 
 that black gibbons are found in Sumatra, which is one of 
 those islands where men are considered by Agassiz to 
 resemble the orang in colour. 
 
 Carried away by the heat of controversy with those 
 naturalists who admit the unity of the geographical origin 
 of man, Agassiz goes much further than this. He con- 
 siders the various languages as being of primitive origin as 
 well as all other characters. Men, he asserts, were created 
 by nations, each of which appeared upon the globe with 
 its own language. He draws a comparison between these
 
 158 The Hur,iaii Species. 
 
 languages and the voices of animals; he laughs at philologists 
 for their belief in the discovery of any connection between 
 one language and another. In his opinion, there is just as 
 much relation between one human language and another, 
 as between the growling of different species of bears, the 
 mewing of the cats of the two continents, the quacking of 
 ducks, or the song of thrushes, who all pour forth their gay 
 and harmonious notes, each in its dialect, which is neither 
 inlierited nor derived from another. 
 
 Philologists will most certainly reject the law as laid down 
 by Agassiz. But I must also protest against the comparison 
 admitted by this illustrious naturalist. If I attribute a 
 language to animals, I do not forget how rudimentary it is. 
 I recollect that no animal has ever learnt the lanfjua<je of 
 another. I know too well the distance there is between 
 animal interjections and articulate speech, and I am as well 
 aware as anyone that to use such an instrument, so as to 
 produce from it true languages, cau only be accomplished by 
 the superior intelligence of man. 
 
 Agassiz, when he had arrived at this point, must have 
 felt that he had lost himself, and that, in trying to harmonise 
 the idea of a single human species with that of several races 
 of distinct origin, he was entering an endless labyrinth. His 
 last work betrays the signs of this embarrassment only too 
 clearly. It is probably in the hope of escaping from it that 
 the author has finally even denied the existence of species. 
 After having again rejected the criterion drawn from crossing 
 and degrees of fertility, he adds: "With it disappears in its 
 turn the pretended reality of species as opposed to the mode 
 of existence of genera, families, orders, classes and branches. 
 Reality of existence is, in fact, possessed by individuals alone." 
 Thus, from adhering solely to morphology, from a disregard 
 of the ]jhysical side of the question, from having allowed 
 themselves to be guided by a logic which is only founded 
 upon incomplete data, Agassiz and Darwin have arrived at 
 a similar result. Both have disregarded this great fact, 
 intelligible to common sense, demonstrated by science, and
 
 A^assiz's Theory. 159 
 
 which governs everything in zoology, as it does in botany, 
 the division, namely, of organised beings into elementary and 
 fundamental groups which propagate in space and time. But 
 Darwin, starting from the 2>}ienomena of variations which 
 are presented by these beings, considers f^pecies as only races. 
 Agassiz, entirely preoccupied with the lyhenomcna of fixity, 
 finally considers individuals only as existing in living 
 nature. Both forget that the great Buffon passed suc- 
 cessively to both these extremes only to return again to the 
 doctrine which includes and explains all facts, and which 
 may be summed up in these worJs : distinction of race and 
 species. 
 
 III. In spite of these dogmatic assertions, when it comes 
 to application of any kind whatever, Agassiz, like Lamarck 
 in former times, and Darwin in our own day, is obliged to 
 use the word species in the sense in which it is employed by 
 so many others. In the memoir, from which I have already 
 quoted, animal and vegetable species are constantly being 
 discussed. Their geographical distribution serves as a founda- 
 tion to the theory of human origins. The author admits that 
 they could not have arisen upon one and the same point of 
 the globe ; that the centres of creation were numerous, and 
 that the species diverging from these centres give to the 
 actual flora and fauna all their characteristic features. 
 
 Up to this point Agassiz has only accepted the doctrine of 
 centres of creation, a doctrine entirely French in origin, 
 having been formulated by Desmoulins and developed by 
 ^[. Edwards. 
 
 What is due to Agassiz is the reproduction, in the name 
 of science, of a theory at first proposed by La Peyrere in the 
 name of theology : giving to man the whole world as his 
 original home: the admission that the human races oricjinated 
 in the same places as the gi'oups of animal and vegetable 
 species, and the connection of one of these races with each 
 centre of creation ; the multiplication of the number of 
 human creations to such a degree as to profess that " man 
 was created by nations," endowed from the first with all 
 8
 
 i6o The Hjinian Species. 
 
 their distinctive cliaiactcrs, ami cacli speaking its own 
 special language. 
 
 There is, at first sight, no aLsunlity in the idea itself, 
 nothing at all contradictory to anything Avhich we have as 
 yet met with. We have seen above that physiology leads to 
 the conclusion that " human groups are io all appearance 
 descended from one primitive pair." It goes no further than 
 that. Anyone who confines himself to inferences drawn 
 from this order of facts might, therefore, accept the theory of 
 Agassiz as, it is true, a very gratuitous hypothesis, but con- 
 venient in order to account for the distribution and actual 
 diversity of human types. 
 
 This is no longer the case when we turn to another branch 
 of the natural sciences, zovlugical and botanical geof/raphy. 
 We then can easily prove that the theories of Agassiz tend to 
 make an exception of man, to place him at variance with the 
 general laws of the geographical distribution of all other 
 organised beings, and, consequently, that they are false. 
 
 IV. I fully agree with the views of Agassiz, as far as 
 centres of creation, or rather centres of appearance are 
 concerned. 
 
 All who confine themselves to the data of observation and 
 experiment will see at once that all animal and vegetable 
 species could not have originated upon any one spot of the 
 globe. The former shows us, in various regions, diflerent 
 types and sj)ecies, living naturally in countries which present 
 •almost precisely the same conditions of existence. The latter 
 teaches us that we can transport the greater number of 
 species from one region to anotl'.er, and that they will 
 prosper there, if the conditions of existence are the same ; 
 that, on the contrary, arctic and tropical species cannot, even 
 Ifrnporarily, be submitted to the action of the same conditions; 
 that neither can withstand the action of a temperate climate. 
 It is irnpossil)le witli all these facts to avoid the conclusion 
 tiiat j)lants and animals had several points of appearance. 
 
 But if I accept this doctrine as the only one reconcilable 
 with facts, it is iijjon the coiiditiim of adopting it entirely,
 
 Agassi zs Theory. i6i 
 
 and as developed by studies upon the geographical distribu- 
 tion of all living beings. Now, works of this kind are 
 numerous at the present time. 
 
 For all phanerogamous plants we have the work of M. 
 Ad. de Candolle, which has been a standard work ever since 
 its appearance. 
 
 Animals have not yet had their de Candolle. The great 
 work of M. Alphonse Edwards will partly fill up this gap 
 for the more southern regions of the globe. In the mean- 
 time, important investigations have been made in some of 
 the principal classes. Buffon, by his admirable researches 
 upon the geography of mammals, opened the way, in which 
 he has been followed by the two Geoffroy Saint-Hilaires, 
 Fr. Cuvier, and Andrew Murray ; Dumeril and Bibron have 
 studied reptiles from the same point of view ; Frabricius, 
 Latrcille, Macley, Spcnce, Kirby, and Lacordaire have done 
 the same for insects ; M. Milne Edwards has worked out the 
 distribution of the Crustacea ; I have endeavoured .to do as 
 much for the annelids. Finally, a great number of works 
 bearing upon the lower groups have long been known to 
 science, and Agassiz him.self has largely contributed to in- 
 crease our knowledge in this direction. 
 
 A certain number of. general facts stand out from this 
 mass of research, which we call laws. If the theory of 
 Agassiz is true, it ought to agree with these laws. Now the 
 disagreement is apparent from the outset. 
 
 Let us prove, in the first place, that this theory includes 
 two very distinct ideas : that of the original cosmopolitanism 
 of the human species; and, secondly, that of a geographical 
 connection between the human race and the animal or vege- 
 table groups observed in a common centre. Let us examine 
 the truth and error contained in this last statement. 
 
 Agassiz holds that the influence of the centre of appearance 
 is general and absolute. It extends to all the products of 
 the soil as well as to those of fresh and salt waters. A 
 country is just as much characterised by its plants and 
 animals as by its human beings. In his opinion, an esseu-
 
 1 62 The Human Species. 
 
 tially local force seems to have produced all beings, or at 
 least to have imprinted upon them a common mark. 
 
 This generalisation was inevitable. Any one who wishes 
 to attach a human race to each centre of appearance is com- 
 pelled to localise in each one of them the original cause of 
 all the animal and vegetable forms which are indigenous in 
 it. For all living beings geographical coincidence must bo 
 ab.s()lute. 
 
 Now there is generally no such coincidence. From the 
 waters of a river to the banks which enclose it, the contrast 
 may be striking. This is exactly what was shown by the dis- 
 coveries of Agassiz himself in the ichth3'ology of the Amazon. 
 To anyone who accepts the results published by the illus- 
 trious traveller, it is evident that this fauna may be divided 
 into groups nuich more narrowly confined than those of 
 terrestrial fauna. The same fact may be observed upon 
 the shores of two seas separated by even a very narrow 
 strip of land. The terrestrial fauna and flora are the same 
 throughout the whole extent of the isthmus of Suez, whilst 
 M. Edwards has not found a single species of Crustacea 
 common to both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, and 
 the study of annelids has led me to the same result. 
 
 Moreover, the same region may be the centre of appear- 
 ance for one class of animals, but by no means for another. 
 Australia, for example, is one of the most characteristic 
 centres for mammals, and stands alone from this point of 
 view among the surrounding countries. "With respect to 
 in.sects Australia agrees, on the contrary, with New Zealand, 
 New Caledonia and the neighbouring islands. I have bor- 
 rowed this l.'ust fact from Lacordaire. It has the more value 
 since this entomologist has multipUcd the centres of appear- 
 ance to a much greater extent than Agassiz, and has, there- 
 fore, made their characterisation easier. 
 
 Tiius the coincidence admitted by Agassiz, far from extend- 
 ing to all tiie organised beings of a region, does not even exist 
 in certain cases between the different classes of animals alone. 
 
 V. Agassiz divides the entire surface of the irlobe into nine
 
 A^^assizs Theory. 163 
 
 great regions or kingdoms. I cannot here give in detail tbe 
 numerous criticisms to wliicli the fixed limits and characteri- 
 sation of these centres arc open. I shall confine myself to a 
 few short remarks upon each. 
 
 1. Polynesian Kingdom. We shall see presently that it 
 is impossible to regard Polynesia as a centre of human 
 apix;arance. This region has been entirely peopled by 
 migration from the Indian Archipelago, the history of which 
 has been partly preserved. The first kingdom of Agassiz 
 must be struck out as far as we are concerned ; it is an 
 exclusively animal and vegetable centre. Agassiz, moreover, 
 though he supports it in the text and upon the map, does 
 not assign it a place in the illustrated table, in which he 
 sums up his ideas. 
 
 2. Australian Kingdom. Agassiz includes New Guinea 
 in this kingdom. He thus destroys the homogeneity of the 
 mammalogical fauna. At the same time he unites the 
 several human races of Australia with the Negrittoes and 
 Papuans. This alone destroys all unity of type. 
 
 3. Malay 01' Indian Kingdom. This kingdom com- 
 prises India, the Malay Archipelago, and the Andaman 
 Islands. Now, anterior to the Aryan conquest, Yellows and 
 Blacks lived in India. The latter are still found in a pure 
 state^in the peninsula of Malacca, and in the Andaman Is- 
 lands ; IMalay.sia presents a perfect mixture of most ditferent 
 races, from the White to the Negro. The Malays, properly 
 so-called, are much rather a population levelled by the action 
 of Islamism, than a race in the true sense of the word ; thoy 
 present in a high degree the characters of intercrossing. All 
 these facts protest against the idea of making these regions 
 a centre of iiuman appearance. 
 
 4. Hottentot Fauna. Agassiz abandons the expression 
 kingdom in speaking of the south of Africa, Avithout giving 
 any rea.son for the change. Whatever the cause may be, 
 this is one of the least unfavourable regions for the applica- 
 tion of his theory. Froni a geological or botanical point of 
 view, South Africa constitutes a veritable centre. The
 
 164 The Iliiuian Species. 
 
 Bosjesman and the Hottentot might bo considered as the 
 characteristic human type. But tlie Negroes of Delagoa and 
 the Kaffirs still protest against this partial coincidence. 
 
 5. Afncan Kingdom. This region is considered by 
 Agassiz to comprise the rest of Africa, with the exception of 
 the shores of the Mediterranean, He adds Madagascar and 
 the southern half of the Arabian peninsula. Now, from a 
 mammalogical point of view, Madagascar forms a little centre 
 of itself, whilst the human population is very mixed. The 
 Hovas are very slightly modified Malays, and the languages 
 of the Sacalaves themselves indicate relations with the 
 Malayo-Polynesians. As to the continental portion of the 
 kingdom, it is enough to remark that it includes Negroes, 
 Ab^'ssinians, Arabs, etc. History, as well as the present 
 state of things, protests against the connection made in this 
 case by the author. 
 
 6. European Kinr/dom. TJiis division Agassiz considers 
 as comprising the entire circumference of the Mediterranean, 
 Persia and Beloocliistan. Consequently it embraces very 
 different fauna and flora; it mixes up Aryan, Semitic 
 and Chamitic populations, and takes no account of history. 
 Agassiz himself recognises this fact, and declares that he has 
 only taken into consideration pre-historic times. Since the 
 (Quaternary epoch, however, France alone has siipported 
 tribes Avhich were tall and dolichocephalic, .'tnd others which 
 were short and brach^x-ephalic. Finally, although Agassiz 
 includi-s the Persians with the Europeans, he leaves out the 
 Hindoos who are ethnologically connected with them, and 
 places them in an entirely ditferent kingdom. 
 
 7. Minitjolldii or AsUdlc Klui/doin. IMiis kingdom en- 
 clo.scs all the central portion of Asia, beginning at the 
 JJolor and the Himalayas, and extending as far as Jajjan. 
 'J'Ik! Mongfjl is taken as the human type of this vast extent 
 of country. liut Agassiz forgets the Aryans of the Bolor, 
 tlie wliitt; Jutehis, the Japanese of the same type, the Ainos, 
 etc. He unit(s, therefore, jx-oplc which belong to at least 
 two extreme types of mankind.
 
 Agassi zs Theory. 165 
 
 8. Aw^^^an Klnr/dom. Agassiz makes but one king- 
 dom of the Avhole of America, whilst all zoologists and 
 botanists are agreed in dividing it into at least two great 
 and distinctly characterised centres. He adopts the opinion 
 of Morton, who only admits one human race in America, 
 with the exception of the Esquimaux. Now, since the 
 jiublication of d'Orbigny's Homme Americain, it is no 
 longer possible to believe in this uniformity. The numerous 
 investigations which have been undertaken upon this ques- 
 tion have, moreover, proved still more strongly the multi- 
 plicity of races admitted by this traveller. Again, if the 
 human races of America are compared with those of the old 
 world, "we shall find, with a few exceptions, a very close 
 connection ■with Asia, especially in certain populations of 
 Central America : if we compare the fauna and flora, the 
 connection is, on the contrary, closer in North America. 
 These facts are in direct opposition with the theory of 
 Agassiz. 
 
 9. Arctic Kingdom. This latter kingdom deserves a 
 little more attention than the others. It comprises all the 
 northern regions of the two continents. The southern limit 
 is somewhat arbitrarily fixed by Agassiz at the zone of 
 forests. In no region of the world does man meet with such 
 identical conditions of existence, for all are governed by cold. 
 It would seem, thorefitre, to be better able than any other to 
 justify the author's theory, and yet facts agree but very 
 slightly with it. 
 
 Agassiz characterises this kingdom by the existence of 
 one plant and six species of animals, five mammals and one 
 bird. The plant is tlie Iceland lichen (cenomyce rangiferina). 
 Now, this lichen is so little characteristic of polar re^^ions 
 that it is found in many parts of France, and even in the 
 neighbourhood of Paris at Fontainebleau. M. Decaisne 
 believes that our hares and rabbits live upon it in winter, as 
 the reindeer do in Ija})land. Further, the observations 
 recently made in Greenland by the German Polar Expe- 
 dition, show that in this countrv, whicli, of all countries in
 
 1 66 TJic n inn an Species. 
 
 the Arctic Kingdom, should most readily adapt itself to the 
 conceptions of Agassiz, and which is inhabited by pure- 
 blooded Esquimaux, possesses scarcely one vegetable species 
 which can be said to be peculiar to it, and that a great 
 number of them are found in the Alps, and upon the summits 
 of the Vosf^es. It is a result of the return of heat after the 
 glacial epoch, the species which resisted it having emigrated 
 in altitude as well as in latitude. 
 
 In animal species, the white bear and the walrus are 
 really polar. The same may be said of the Greenland seal 
 considered as a species. But as a type we meet with it 
 everywhere ; as a genus it inhabits all the seas of Europe. 
 The reindeer inhabited France in the Quaternary epoch ; it 
 was living in Germany in Caesar's time ; it descended yearly 
 to the Caspian Sea during the lifetime of Pallas. The true 
 whale used to visit our coast before it was driven away by 
 man. Finally, at this day, the eider duck builds yearly in 
 Denmark, ten to fifteen degrees south of the Polar circle. 
 Thus, in the six species mentioned by Agassiz iis peculiar to 
 liis Arctic Kingdom, three at least belong equally to his 
 European Kingdom. 
 
 A"as.siz was certaiidy more capable than anyone else of 
 nicely characterising the region in question, if it had been 
 possible to do so. He failed, because there is in reality no 
 such thing as a true Arctic fauna. The cause of this lies in 
 the extension of more southern fauna, which become im- 
 poverished as they .advanced northwards, but change their 
 character very slightly. In reality, this kingdom is broken 
 up into indei)endent provinces, or ratiier, is connected with 
 regions situated more to the south, and consequently better 
 divided. 'J'lie Polar region, says Lacordaire, in speaking of 
 in.sects, is eharacterised less by the speciality of its products 
 than by their scarcity. All these facts, again, are the con- 
 sequence (jf the peopling of the Arctic regions after the 
 glacial epoch. 
 
 It would Reem that ni.ui at least might present at the 
 pole the homogeneity suj)posed by tiie theory. It is not so,
 
 Agassizs Theory. 167 
 
 however, wliatever may be the assertions of Agassiz upon 
 this subject. " A pecuhar race of man," he says, "live there, 
 known in America by the name of Esquimaux, elsewhere by 
 that of Lapps, Samoyedes or Tchouktchis. . . The uniformity 
 of their characters throughout the whole extent of the Arctic 
 seas unites them in a striking manner with the fauna with 
 wliich they are so closely connected." 
 
 There are, in these words of Agassiz, grave ethnological 
 and anthropological errors. The uniformity of characters of 
 which he speaks does not exist at all. It will suffice to 
 remind my readers that the Lapps are one of the most 
 brachyccphalic, and the Esquimaux one of the most dolicho- 
 cephalic races with which we are acquainted. In fiict, these 
 two races are so entirely distinct that no anthropologist has 
 ever dreamt of establishing a connection between them. 
 
 As to the Samoyedes and Tchouktchis, they have not 
 always inhabited the icy lands where we now meet with 
 them. The former have still a recollection of havinjr come 
 from the south, and M. de Tchiatchef has discovered the 
 original stock upon the confines of China. The latter settled 
 at Behring's Straits but a short time ago to free- themselves 
 from Russian conquest, against which they had bravely 
 struggled. They subjugated and absorbed the Yukagiros, 
 tiieir predecessors. They ditTcr, moreover, equally from 
 Esquimaux and Lapps. 
 
 Thus, in the Arctic Kingdom, where all the most favour- 
 able conditions for the display of any truth whicii the ideas 
 of Agassiz may possess are brought together, everything 
 protests against these ideas. In spite of his vast knowledge, 
 lie could not characterise it zoologically in a precise manner ; 
 the special fauna which he admits does not exist ; the 
 identity of populations which he proclaimed disappears under 
 the slightest examination. 
 
 Finally, the theory which attaches a human race to every 
 centre of appearance as a local product of that centre, ought 
 to be rejected by anj-one who sets the least value upon the 
 results of observation.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PllOGUESSIVE LOCALISATION OF ORGANISED BEINGS.— CENTRES 
 OF APPEARANCE. — ORIGINAL LOCALISATION OF MAN. 
 
 I. An eminent man may draw incorrect conclusions from 
 the existence of centres of appearance without their existence 
 being any the less real. Unconnected with animal or vege- 
 table centres, the human races might have their own ;"man 
 miMit have come into existence wherever we meet with him. 
 But, before we accept this original cosmopolitanism, we must 
 assure ourselves that it subjects man to general laws. Now 
 we shall see that this hypothesis is, on the contrary, at 
 variance with all general fsicts presented by plants as well as 
 aiiiinals. 
 
 II. Lot us first prove that no animal or vegetable species 
 inhabits, as man does, almost the entire globe. 
 
 The assertion of Ad. de CandoUe could not be more 
 precise as far as plants are concerned. " No phanerogamous 
 l)Iant," he say.<, " is distributed over the entire surface of the 
 earth. There are only eighteen whose area extends to half 
 the globe. No tree or shrub figures among these plants, 
 which are so widely distributed." This latter remark belongs 
 to an order of considerations whicli we shall meet with 
 again. 
 
 Being unable to enter into an oxaiuination of all the; facts 
 which art" otVered by the various classes of the Animal 
 Kingdom frutn this point of view, I shall confine myself to 
 a few details upon bir^ls and mammals. 
 
 We should expect to find tlie former presenting very ex- 
 tensive areas of habitati(jn by reason of their mode of loco- 
 motion. It is, in fact, among them tliat we find some of the
 
 Progressive Localisation of Organised Beings. 169 
 
 species which most deserve the epithet of cosmopolitan. 
 They do not, however, equal man in this respect. 
 
 The stock-dove, the parent stock of our domestic pigeon, 
 extends from the south of Norway to Madeira and Abyssinia, 
 from the Shetland Islands to Borneo and Japan ; but it does 
 not reach as far as either the equator or the polar circle ; and 
 it is wanting both in America and Polynesia. 
 
 The fulvous vulture is found in all the temperate regions 
 of the old world, crosses the equator in Africa and descends 
 as far as the Cape. But we do not meet with it either in our 
 polar regions, in America or in Polynesia. 
 
 The peregrine falcon has perhaps of all animals the widest 
 area. It is found in America, as also in all the warm or 
 temperate regions of the old world. It is supposed to exist 
 in Australia, but we do not meet with it either in Polynesia 
 or in the polar regions. 
 
 Among mammals, whales, on account of their immense 
 powers of locomotion and the continuity of seas, would seem 
 to be adapted to true cosmopolitanism. This, however, is not 
 the case. They are almost all confined within relatively very 
 limited areas, and rarely pass beyond their customary boun- 
 daries. Commodore Maury regarded the equatorial sea as 
 forming an invincible obstacle to their passage from one 
 hemisphere to the other. Two exceptions have, however, 
 been observed to this rule. A rorqual {Mcgajjtera lonrji- 
 tnana) and a SlhahUus latlceps are said to have crossed 
 this barrier, and to have passed from our seas to those of 
 the Cape and of Java. These exceptions might easily be 
 explained by various accidental circumstances. Supposin^i^ 
 however we were to accept them as testifying an exceptional 
 relative cosmopolitanism, we still have the fact that they 
 have never been met with in the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 With the exception of whales, we shall find nothing at all 
 resembling cosmopolitanism. Setting a.side the whole of 
 Oceania, we only find, as common to both the Old and the 
 New World, two or three ruminants, perhaps a bear, a fox 
 and a wolf. All these species are, moreover, more or less
 
 170 The Human Species. 
 
 polar, and arc wanting in the central regions of the two 
 worlds. Finally, there is not one species of cheiroptera or 
 quadrumana which is indigenous both in America and the 
 Old World. 
 
 Beyond those species which man has disseminated by 
 making them follow his migrations, animals and plants 
 evidently occupy their natural area, wherein lies the centre 
 from which they have spread. We see that even after this 
 dispersion none of them have acquired an area of habitation 
 Avhich can be compared to that of man. 
 
 The admission that the human species appeared in every 
 place in which it is found, attributing to it an original cos- 
 mopolitanism, would make it a solitary exception in contra- 
 diction to the facts presented by all other species. An 
 hypothesis which leads to such a conclusion should be 
 rejected as irreconcilable with the results of observation. If 
 man is now to be found everywhere, it is owing to his intel- 
 ligence and industry. 
 
 III. This conclusion is forced even upon polygeuists them- 
 selves ; unless, indeed, they would reject, as inapplicable to 
 man, the laws of zoological and botanical geography. 
 
 In fact, to whatever extent they may have multiplied their 
 human species, they have been obliged, upon even the 
 slightest study of natural history, to unite them into a single 
 genus. Now, all that has just been said of species applies 
 equally to genera. The area of habitation is doubtless in- 
 creased, and, for example, some genera of cetaceans, as 
 dulpliiiis and ronpials, are found in all seas; and amongst 
 terrestrial mammals, some genera of ruminants and carni- 
 vora inhabit, in a greater or less degree, both the Old and 
 the New World. But they are all absent in the greater part 
 (»f Oceania. 
 
 Moreover, tlic; higher the types, tlic fewer is the number of 
 these genera of widely extended areas. Cheiroptera, which 
 are not provided with a nasal niendirane, have some genera 
 common to both the Old and the New World. This is no 
 longer the case in cheiroptera, in which the nose is provided
 
 Progressive Localisation of Organised Beings. 1 7 1 
 
 with a membrane. There is not a single genus among them, 
 any more than among quaJrumana, wliich inhabits both 
 America and the Old World. 
 
 Consequently, polygenists must admit that the species of 
 which their Inimaii genus is composed could not have come 
 into existence in every place where man is now found, unless 
 they wish to make a striking exception of this human 
 genus. 
 
 IV. Should we wish to regard the human races as forming 
 a family composed of several genera, or even as an order 
 comprising several families, the same difficulties would 
 present themselves. 
 
 Setting aside the marsujiials and edentata, to which we 
 shall return, it is true that the great normal orders of terres- 
 trial mammals, the ruminants, rodents, insectivora, and car- 
 nivora are almost as cosmopolitan as man. But this is no 
 longer the case with the cheiroptera, not one of which passes 
 the polar circle. As to the quadrumana, it is well-known 
 that they are wanting in Europe, Avith the exception of the 
 Rock of Gibraltar, in North America and in the greater part 
 of Asia and Oceania. Thus it appears that, even in the 
 extreme hypothesis which I have here indicated, it would 
 not be in the animal types which present the greatest resem- 
 blance to man, but among the carnivora or ruminants that 
 we should be forced to seek for geographical analogies in 
 favour of the pretended cosmopolitanism of the human 
 order. 
 
 V. This limitation of the areas of habitation of animals, 
 which is evidently related to their degree of elevation in the 
 scale of beings, is a general fact which we also meet with in 
 plants. On this point Ad. de Candolle speaks as follows : — 
 " The mean area of species is smaller according as the class 
 to which they belong has a more complete, a more highly 
 developed, or, in other words, a more perfect organisation." 
 
 The i^rogressive localisation of organised beings, increas- 
 ing in degree as they become more perfect, is, then, a general 
 law. Physiology will readily account for this fact.
 
 172 TJie HtLinan Species. 
 
 The perfection of organisms is the result of division of 
 labour, which demands the multiplication of functional ap- 
 paratus. As the anatomical instniments become more 
 numerous and special, the functions do the same. From 
 this cause alone the conditions of harmony between the 
 livins: beinfj and the conditions of life which surround it 
 become more and more definite. Consequently, the animal 
 or the plant only finds its really favourable conditions in a 
 constantly diminishing area. Beyond these limits the con- 
 ditions of life change, the struggle for existence becomes 
 more hazardous, and the spread of the species, genus, family, 
 or even order is arrested. Man alone, armed against the 
 conditions of life by his intelligence and industry, is capable 
 of overcoming conditions of existence which would be an 
 impassable barrier to his material organisation. 
 
 The law of progi-essive localisation is in direct opposition 
 to the doctrine of the original cosmopolitanism of the human 
 species. In putting it aside, polygcnists, properly so called, 
 might draw attention to the diffusion of the genera of 
 dolphins and rorquals ; polygenistic monogenists of the 
 school of Agassiz might argue from the facts mentioned 
 above in connection with the genera of megaptera and 
 sibaldius ; they might both say : The general lav/ of localisa- 
 tion offers two exceptions ; why should not man form a 
 third? 
 
 The analogy, it is clear, is fundamentally wrong. Dolphins, 
 rorquals and sibaldius belong to the lowest order of mam- 
 mals ; man, even if his body alone is considered, belongs 
 incontcstably to the highest order. Unless we make him a 
 .solitary exception, it is to the laws of the superior groups 
 that he should be subject, and not to those of the inferior. 
 
 Thus, we are so far justified in affirming that man could 
 not have been originally cosmopolitan. But Ave can go 
 further. 
 
 VI. Without having come into existence in every place 
 where we now meet with him, man may have had several 
 centres of appearance. Let us examine this latter question.
 
 Progressive Localisation of Organised Beings, i "j'^^ 
 
 The laws of progressive localisation and the characterisation 
 of centres enable us both to put the question and to solve it. 
 
 Let us re-examine from this point of view the animal 
 groups, setting aside all inferior groups and confining our 
 attention to anthropoid apes. In this family, which most 
 closely resembles man in its organisation, there arc degrees 
 also. The law of progressive localisation applies to this 
 limited group equally with the entire kingdom. 
 
 We meet Avith the entire family in Asia, in the peninsula 
 of Malacca, in Assam to 26° N. Lat., in Sumatra, Java, 
 Borneo and in the Philippine Islands ; in Eastern Africa 
 from 10° S. to 15° N. Lat. The gibbon genus, however, 
 which is the lowest, is the only one which occupies the whole 
 of Asia, The orang is confined to Borneo and Sumatra. In 
 Africa the chimpanzee extends almost from the Zaire to 
 Senegal; the gorilla has only been found on the Gaboon, and 
 perhaps in Ashantee. Were he to occupy all the space 
 which is still left blank upon that part of our maps by 
 travellers, his area of habitation would even then be very 
 limited. Thus, the higher the anthropoid type, the more 
 limited the area of habitation. 
 
 If we consider the material organism alone, the human 
 type is incontestably superior to that of the orang or gorilla. 
 He must then have been originally localised just as much 
 as these animal types. It will perhaps be objected that the 
 great apes are gradually disappearing, and that the few 
 survivors do no more than show that they once existed in 
 greater numbers. This would be an entirely gratuitous 
 hypothesis having no foundation in facts, and we shall at 
 least be permitted to reply, that the gorilla and the orang 
 might very well have continued to exist in those places 
 where the chimpanzee and gibbon are still living. Now, what 
 are the areas occupied by the latter compared with the 
 human area ? 
 
 VII. I have, as yet, neglected exceptional types, such as 
 the marsupials, the edentata, the makis, etc. ; I did not wish 
 to argue from aberrant forms ; I confined mvself to demon-
 
 174 The Human Species. 
 
 strating the laim in action in species of a so-called normal 
 organisation. Aberrant types have, however, a very high 
 value, and furnish us with further instruction. 
 
 ' These types almost always characterise either the great 
 centres of appearance, or the secondary centres or geo- 
 graphical regions. Not to mention mammals, I must remind 
 my readers that Australia has its marsupials ; South Aus- 
 tralia, the ornithorynchus ; polar America, the musk-ox ; 
 central America, the edentata ; Africa, the giraffe ; Asia, tlie 
 yak ; the Cape, the gnu ; Madagascar, the makis and aye- 
 aye ; the Gaboon, the gorilla, etc. 
 
 Man, also, is evidently an exceptional or aberrant type 
 among mammals. He, alone, is constructed for a vertical 
 position; he, alone, has true hands and feet; he, alone, 
 exhibits the highest degree of cerebral development, and 
 possesses that superiority of intelligence which makes him 
 master of all around him. 
 
 To allow that the human type, though the most perfect of 
 all types, the exceptional genus in the midst of all others, 
 has come into existence in several centres of appearance 
 without characterishig any, would be to make him a solitary 
 exception. 
 
 However strong may be our polygenistic tendencies, and 
 however many species we may admit, we cannot help ac- 
 knowledging that the original localisation of the human 
 (jeiivM in a single centre of appearance and the characterisa- 
 tion of this centre by him are the logical consequence of all 
 the facts attested by zoological geography. 
 
 "With still greater reason the monogenists will consider the 
 privih'ged species which predominates over all others as one 
 <jf those special types which characterise the centre, or the 
 n'gion in which they have appeared, as the ornithorynchus, 
 the aye-aye, and the gnu characterise South Austraha, 
 Madagascar and the Cape. 
 
 Finally, the laws of zoological geography lead us to consider 
 the human species as unmistakably characteristic of a single 
 centre of appearance. Moreover, they justify us in con-
 
 Centres of Appearance. 1 75 
 
 eluding that this centre cannot have been of greater extent 
 tlian that of the gorilla and the orang. 
 
 VIII. Is it possible to go still further and to endeavour to 
 determine the geographical position of the human centre of 
 appearance ? I cannot here enter into the details of this 
 problem. I shall confine myself to determining its meaning, 
 and to indicating the probable solutions of it from the data 
 of science of the present time. 
 
 I must observe, in the first place, that in considering an 
 animal or vegetable species, even those whose area is most 
 circumscribed, no one thinks of trying to discover the precise 
 spot upon which it may have first appeared. There is 
 always something very vague in such a determination and 
 it is necessarily approximative. It is still more difficult 
 when the species in question is of universal distribution. 
 Within these limits we are justified in at least forming 
 conjectures which, as such, have a certain amount of pro- 
 bability. 
 
 The question presents very different aspects according as 
 we confine ourselves to the present or take into consideration 
 the geological antiquity of man. Nevertheless, the focts are 
 of the same order and seem to indicate two extremes. The 
 truth lies, perhaps, between the two. 
 
 We know that in Asia there is a vast region bounded on 
 the south and south-west by the Himalayas, on the west by 
 the Bolor mountains, on the north-west by the Ala-Tau, on 
 the north by the Altai range and its offshoots, on the cast 
 l)y the Kingkhan, on the south and south-east by the Felina 
 and Kucn-Loun. Judging from the present state of things, 
 this great central region might be regarded as having con- 
 tained the cradle of the human species. 
 
 In fact, the three fundamental types of all the human 
 races are represented in the populations grouped round this 
 region. The black races are the furthest removed from it, 
 but have, nevertheless, marine stations, where we find them 
 cither pure or as mixed races, from the Kioussiou to the 
 Andaman Islands. Upon the continent they have inter-
 
 176 The Human Species. 
 
 mixed with almost every inferior caste and class of the two 
 peninsulas of the Ganges ; they are still found pure in both, 
 ascend as higli as Nepaul, and extend west as far as the 
 Persian Gulf and Lake Zareh, according to Elphinstone. 
 
 The yellow race, either pure or in places mixed with white 
 elements, seems to be the only one which occupies the space 
 in question ; it peoples all the north, east, south-east, and 
 west. In the south it is more mixed, but forms, neverthe- 
 less, an important element in the population. 
 
 The white race, from its allophylian representatives, seems 
 to have disputed the central area itself with the yellow race. 
 In early times, we find the Yu-tchi and tlie Ou-soun to the 
 north of the Hoang-ho ; and in the present day cases of 
 white populations have been observed in Little Thibet and 
 in Eastern Thibet. The Miao-Ts^ occupy the mountain 
 region of China ; the Siaputh are proof against all attack in 
 the gorges of the Bolor. Upon the confines of the area we 
 meet with the Ainos and the Japanese of high caste, the 
 Tinguianes of the Pliillippine Islands ; in the south with the 
 Hindoos. In the south-west and west the white element, 
 either pure or mixed, reigns supreme. 
 
 No other region of the globe presents a similar union of 
 extreme human types distributed round a common centre. 
 This fact, alone is sufficient to suggest to the mind of the 
 naturalist the conjecture which I have expressed above ; but 
 we may appeal to other considerations. 
 
 One of the most important is drawn from philology. The 
 three fundamental forms of human lanfjuase are found in the 
 same countries and under similar relations. In the centre, 
 and south-east of our area, the monosyllabic languages arc 
 represented by those of China, Cochinchina, Siam and Thibet. 
 As agglutinative languages, we find in the north-east and 
 north-west tlic group of Uugro- Japanese, in the south that 
 of the Dravidian and Malay, and in the west the Turkish 
 languages. Lastly, Sanscrit with its derivatives, and the 
 Iranian languages represent in the south and south-west the 
 inflectional lanjruajres.
 
 Original Localisation of Ulan. 177 
 
 It is to the linguistic types gathered round the central 
 region of Asia that all human languages must be referred ; 
 Avhether from their vocabulary or their grammar, some of 
 these Asiatic languages bear a close resemblance to languages 
 spoken in regions often very distant, or separated from the 
 area in question by entirely different languages. We know 
 that several philologists, M. Maury among others, establish 
 an intimate connection between the Dravidian languao-es and 
 Australian idioms, and that M. Picot has discovered numbers 
 of Aryan words in our oldest European languao-es. 
 
 Finally, it is from Asia again that our earliest domesticated 
 animals are derived. Isidore Geoffrey is entirely agreed with 
 Dureau de la Malic upon this point. 
 
 Thus, the present epoch alone considered, everything points 
 to this great central plateau, or rather to this great enclosure. 
 There, we are inclined to say, the first human beings appeared 
 and multiplied till the populations overflowed as from a bowl 
 and spread themselves in human waves in every direction. 
 
 IX Palseontological studies have, however, very recently 
 led to results Avhich are capable of modifying these primary 
 conclusions. MM. Heer and de Saporta have informed us 
 that iu the Tertiary period Siberia and Spitzbergen were 
 covered with plants, indicating a temperate climate. MM. 
 Murchison, Keyserlink, de Verneuil, and d'Archiac tell us 
 that, during the same period, the harven lands of our day 
 supported large herbivorous animals, such as the reindeer, 
 the mammoth, and the tichorhine rhinoceros. All these ani- 
 mals made their appearance at the commencement of the 
 Quaternary period. It seems to me that they did not come 
 alone. 
 
 I have said above that the discoveries of M. I'abbe Bour- 
 geois testify, in my opinion, to the existence of a tertiary 
 man. But everything seems to show that as yet his repre- 
 sentatives were but few in number. The Quaternary popu- 
 lations, on the contrary, were, at least in distribution, quite 
 as numerous as the life of the hunter permitted. Are we 
 justified iu imagining that during the Tertiary period man
 
 178 The H^unan Species. 
 
 lived in polar Asia side by side with those species which I 
 have just mentioned, and that he supported himself by 
 huntincr them as he afterwards did in France % The fall of 
 temperature compelled the animals to migrate southwards ; 
 man must have followed them to find a milder climate, and 
 to be within reach of his customary game. Their simultaneous 
 arrival in our climates and the apparently sudden multiplica- 
 tion of man would thus be easily explained. 
 
 The centre of human appearance might then be carried 
 considerably to the north of the region I have just been 
 discussing. Perhaps prehistoric archajology or palaeontology 
 will some day confirm or confute this conjecture. 
 
 However this may be, no facts have as yet been discovered 
 which authorise us to place the cradle of the human race 
 elsewhere than in Asia. There are none which lead us to 
 seek the origin of man in hot regions either of existing con- 
 tinents, or of one M'hich has disappeared. This view, which 
 has been frequently expressed, rests entirely upon the belief 
 that the climate of the globe was the same at the time of 
 the appearance of man as it is now. Modern science has 
 tauffht us that this is an error. From that time there is 
 nothing against our first ancestors having found favourable 
 conditions of existence in northern Asia, which is indicated 
 by so many facts borrowed from the history of man, and from 
 that of animals and plants.
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 PEOPLING OF THE GLOBE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 MIGRATIONS BY LAND.— EXODUS OF THE KALMUCKS FROM 
 THE VOLGA. 
 
 L At the point which we have now reached, the connec- 
 tion of facts and of their consequences proposes a fresh 
 problem. Physiology has proved that there exists but one 
 species of man, of which the human groups are races. Zoo- 
 logical geography has taught us that this species was origi- 
 nally localised in a relatively very limited space. It*is 
 now met with everywhere, because it has spread by irradia- 
 tion in every direction from this centre. The peopling of the 
 globe by migrations, is the necessary consequence of the 
 preceding facts. 
 
 Polygenists, and the partisans of the autochthony of nations 
 have declared that these migrations are impossible in a certain 
 number of cases, and have brought forward this pretended 
 impossibility as an objection to the doctrine which I uphold. 
 Here, again, I turn to facts for my answer. 
 
 II. I confess that I never understood how any value could 
 be attached to this argument. Migrations are almost uni- 
 versal in history, and in the traditions and legends of the 
 new as well as of the old world. We find them among the 
 uncivilised nations of our time, and among tribes which are 
 still lingering in the lowest stage of savage life. With every
 
 i8o The Hwnan Species. 
 
 increase and extension of knowledge, we learn to appreciate 
 better the wandering instincts of man. Human pateonto- 
 logy and prehistoric archaeology are daily adding their testi- 
 mony to that of the historic sciences. 
 
 To judge from this kind of information alone, it seems 
 more than probable that the entire globe was peopled by 
 means of migrations and colonisations. The primordial and 
 uninterrupted immobility of any human race would be a fact 
 at variance with all analogy. It would, once constituted, 
 doubtless establish, except under exceptional circumstances, 
 a more or less considerable number, generally the great 
 majority of its representatives ; but in the course of ages it 
 could not fail to have cast off swarms. 
 
 HI. The supporters of autochthony lay especial stress upon 
 two orders of considerations, the one drawn from the social 
 condition of nations when still in their infancy and unpro- 
 vided with the means of action which we now possess, the 
 other from the obstacles which a hitherto invincible nature 
 would oppose to their movements. 
 
 The iirst objection evidently rests upon an imperfect ap- 
 preciation of the aptitudes and tendencies developed in man 
 through his different modes of life. The very imperfection 
 of the .social condition, far from arresting the diffusion of the 
 human species, must rather have been favourable to it. 
 Agricultural nations are of necessity settled ; to pastoral 
 nations, less bound to the soil, special conditions are in- 
 dispen.sable. Hunters, on the contrary, by reason of their 
 mode of life, of the necessities which it imposes, and the 
 instincts which it develops, cannot but spread in every sense. 
 A vast space is necessary to their existence ; as soon as the 
 numbers increase, even in a slight degree, they are forced to 
 separate or to destroy each other, as is shown so clearly in 
 the history of the Red Skins. Nations of hunters and shep- 
 herds are then alone fitted for great and distant migrations. 
 Agricultural nations are rather colonists. 
 
 Ancient history itself entirely confirms these theoretical 
 inductions. We know what the invadeis of the Iloiuan world
 
 Migrations by Land. iSi 
 
 wore, the destroyers of the Eastern Enipiie, the Arab con- 
 querors. The case was the same in Mexico. Tlie Chichimeqiii 
 here represent the Goths and Vandals of the Old World. If 
 Asia has so often overrun Europe, if North America has so 
 often sent devastating hordes into more southern regions, it 
 is because in these two countries man was still in a barbarous 
 or savage state. 
 
 IV. Were natural obstacles indeed insurmountable to 
 nations destitute of our perfected means of locomotion ? 
 This question must be considered from two points of view, 
 as the migrations in question are by land or sea. 
 
 The former demands but little attention. The weakness 
 of man, and the strength of the barriers which the accidents 
 of land, vegetation, or fauna might oppose to him, have un- 
 questionably been much exaggerated. Man has always been 
 able to vanquish ferocious animals, the rhinoceros having 
 formed part of his food as early as the Quaternary period. 
 His course has never been arrested by mountains, even when 
 encumbered by everything which could make the passage 
 most difficult. Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants, 
 and Bonaparte with artillery. The progress of the Asiatic 
 hordes was no more stopped by the Palus Meotides than that 
 of Fernand de Soto by the marshes of Florida. Deserts are 
 daily traversed by caravans; and as to rivers, there is not a 
 savage Avho does not know how to cross them upon some 
 raft or other. 
 
 The truth, as is too well proved by the history of travel, is, 
 that man alone stops man. Where the latter did not exist, 
 there was nothing to oppose the progress of tribes or nations 
 advancing slowly and at their own leisure, outstripping or 
 passing each other in turn, establishing secondary centres, 
 from which, after a time, fresh migrations would take place. 
 Even in an inhabited country, a superior invading race would 
 not act otherwise. It was thus that the Aryans conquered 
 India, that the Paouians advanced, who, starting from a 
 centre still unknown, arrived at the Gaboon with a lino of 
 front of about 250 miles.
 
 i82 The Human Species. 
 
 V. I might dwell upon these general considerations, but it 
 Avill be better to recall briefly a fact which, though of recent 
 date, is too generally forgotten, and which shoAvs how an 
 entire population can effect a great migration although 
 they meet with obstacles of every kind over a great tract of 
 country. 
 
 About the year 1616 a horde of Kalmucks, impelled by 
 motives wdth which we are unacquainted, abandoned the 
 confines of China, and crossed Asia in oixler to establish 
 themselves in the Khanate of Kazan, upon either shore of 
 the Volga. They placed themselves under the dominion of 
 Russia, who readily received the new colonists and respected 
 their patriarchal government. In return, the Kalmucks 
 proved themselves faithful subjects, and on several occasions, 
 furnished the Russian army with numerous and valuable 
 detachments of cavalry. This good feeling lasted till the 
 time of the Empress Catherine, when she, having to choose 
 between two aspirants named Oubacha and Zebcck-Dorchi, 
 nominated the former to the government of the horde. The 
 infuriated Zebcck determined, in revenge, to lead his fellow- 
 countiymen back to China. Seconded by the chief Lama, 
 he even persuaded Oubacha himself to join, and the con- 
 spiracy, though it included the entire nation, was conducted 
 with such secrecy that it escaped the interested vigilance of 
 Russia. 
 
 On Jan. oth, 1771, the Kalmucks might have been seen 
 assembling on the left bank of the Volga. Every half hour 
 groups of women, children, and aged numbering from 15,000 
 to 20,000, set out in waggons or upon camels, escorted by a 
 body of cavalry 10,000 strong. A rear-guard of 80,000 picked 
 men covered the retreat of the emigrants. A Russian officer, 
 who was detained a prisoner for part of the journey, and has 
 ])reserved these details for us, estimated the whole assemblage 
 at more than 600,000 souls. 
 
 The Kalmucks felt the necessity for haste, in order to 
 cf-cape the attempts which would assuredly be made by 
 Russia to detain them. In seven days they had accom-
 
 Exod7is of the Kalni7icks from iJie Volga. 183 
 
 plished more than 100 leagues, with the weather dry but 
 cold. Many of the cattle had succumbed, and the want of 
 milk was beginning to be felt, even for the children. On 
 arriving at the banks of the Djem, they met with their first 
 serious disaster ; an entire clan, numbering 9000 horsemen, 
 was massacred by Cossacks. 
 
 At the first intelligence of this flight, however, Catherine 
 had despatched an army with instructions to bring back the 
 fugitives. The latter had to pass, at a distance of eighty 
 leagues from the Djem, a defile which must be taken at any 
 price. They advanced by forced marches. Unfortunatel}' 
 snow set in, and they were obliged to stop for ten days. On 
 arriving at the defile, they found it occupied by Cossacks, 
 who were however routed, defeated, and massacred by 
 Zebeck. 
 
 The defile was passed, but they were forced to redouble 
 their speed, for the Russian army was upon them. They 
 killed and salted all the remaining cattle, and left behind 
 every incapable woman or child, and all their aged or sick. 
 The winter increased in severity, and though they burnt all 
 their saddles and waggons, every encampment was marked 
 by hundreds of frozen corpses. At length the spring came 
 to alleviate their sufferings, and in the beginning of June, 
 they crossed the Torgai, which flows into Lake Aksakal, to 
 the N.N.E. of Lake Aral. In five months the emigrants had 
 accomplished 700 leagues ; they had lost more than 250,000 
 souls, whilst the camels alone remained of all their animals. 
 The Russian officer, Weseloff, who was shortly after set at 
 liberty, wa.s able to regain the Volga with no other guide 
 than that of the trail of corpses left upon the route. 
 
 The unfortunate fugitives had hoped to enjoy a rest after 
 having crossed the Torgai. But the Russian army still 
 followed, and was even reinforced by terrible auxiliarie.s, the 
 Bashkirs and Kirgliises, hereditary enemies of the Kalmucks. 
 This light cavalry was now in advance, and it would be 
 necessary to fight with them while still flying from the 
 Russians. They were also obliged to skirt the desert, where 
 9
 
 184 The Human Species. 
 
 they would have perished from hunger, and to cut their way- 
 through countries where the inhabitants rose in arms to 
 protect their temtories against the famished invaders. 
 Winter had given place to Summer ; the emigrants suffered 
 as much from the heat as they had done from the cold, so 
 that the rate of mortality was unaltered. 
 
 At length, in the month of September, the horde reached 
 the frontiers of China. For many days they had had no 
 water. At the sight of a small lake tliey all rushed forward 
 to quench their thirst ; the confusion was general, when the 
 Bashkirs and Kirghises, who had never for a moment ceased 
 to harass the fugitives, threw themselves upon the infatuated 
 crowd, and would, in all probability, have annihilated them. 
 Fortunately, the Emperor Kien-long was hunting in the 
 neighbourhood, accompanied, as usual, by a small army. 
 Informed of the arrival of the Kalmucks, he had recognised 
 them in the distance. The sound of his artillery restored 
 the courage of those who were allowing themselves to be 
 massacred, and their persecutors suffered a bloody defeat. 
 It should be added that Kien-long distributed amongst 
 those whom he had saved, the lands which are occupied by 
 their descendants at the present time. 
 
 The exodus of the Kalmucks is a sufficient answer to 
 every argument tliat can be advanced on the subject of 
 primitive migration by land. In eight months, in spite of 
 the intense extremes of cold and heat, of incessant attacks 
 from implacable enemies, and in spite of hunger and thirst, 
 this nation had accomplished a distance equal in a straight 
 line to one-eighth of the circumference of the earth. If we 
 take into consideration all the enforced detours, we ought 
 probably to double the amount. With such facts as these, 
 how can we doubt the possibility of still longer expeditions 
 for a tribe advancing peacefully by stages, and having only 
 to contend against the difficulties presented by the soil or 
 wild beasts \
 
 CHAPTER XyiL 
 
 MIGRATIONS BY SEA. — POLYNESIAN MIGRATIONS. — MIGRA- 
 TIONS TO NEW ZEALAND. 
 
 I. The greater number of the defenders of autochthony 
 allow that there is no fundamental impossibility in migration 
 by land, but maintain that it is different in migrations by 
 sea. The peopling of America, and especially that of Poly- 
 nesia, by emigrants from our great continent, is, in their 
 opinion, far more than could possibly be undertaken or 
 accomplished by nations unacquainted with the science of 
 astronomy, and the improved method of navigation. Accord- 
 ing to them, geographical conditions, winds and currents, 
 must oppose an insurmountable obstacle to any enterprise of 
 this nature. 
 
 Starting from Polynesia, let us see how much truth there 
 is in these assertions. This will be taking, so to speak, the 
 bull by the horns, for no other part of the globe seems to 
 justify to such an extent, the opinions of autochthonists. 
 
 II. Polynesia is not quite so isolated as we are accustomed 
 to think. A study of the map alone should be sufficient to 
 justify us in holding that a maritime people, accustomed to 
 the navigation of the Malay Archipelago, might, on some 
 occa.sion, have pushed as far as New Guinea. This fact is 
 now established above all dispute. Beyond Ne^v Guinea, 
 the Archipelago of New Britain and the Salomon Islands 
 would put, so to speak, any fairly adventurous navigators on 
 their way to the Fiji Islands; once arrived at this archipelago, 
 however little they may have been impelled by the spirit of 
 discovery, they must easily have reached Polynesia properly 
 so called. New Zealand to the south, and the Sandwich
 
 1 86 The Hnnian Species. 
 
 Islands to the north, remain, however, beyond the limits of 
 this route, as it is pointed out by geography. 
 
 For bold mariners to be stopped in their advance, winds 
 and currents must have been invariably contrary and irre- 
 sistible. The stronger the belief in the universality and 
 absolute constancy of the trade winds in these regions, the 
 more was this action atiributed to them. But the investi- 
 gations which have been carried on in the interests of 
 science, the writings of Commander Maury, and the charts 
 of Captain Kerhallet, have taught us that the vaiiable 
 winds due to the cloud-ring extend over almost twenty 
 degrees in the maritime area in question. We know, more- 
 over, that every year the monsoon drives back the trade 
 winds and blows beyond the Sandwich and Tahiti Islands, 
 so that instead of the winds being contrary, the}'- are, for 
 many months, very favrourable for ships sailing eastward. 
 
 Considerations drawn from currents lead almost to the 
 same* conclusions. In tlie Pacific, the equatorial current 
 running from east to west forms in reality two great 
 distinct oceanic streams separated by a large counter 
 current flowing in the reverse direction. The latter skirts 
 almost the whole northern portion of the Polynesian area ; 
 it thus, as it were, forms the outlet from the Indian Archi- 
 pelago. There is every indication of its having played 
 some part in the history of the dispersion of races in all 
 parts of Oceania and to the east of the Malay peninsula. 
 
 Finally, we know that there is no absolute regularity in 
 the atmospheric phenomena in the regions of the Pacific, 
 any more than elsewhere. This ocean has in common with 
 utliers its typhoons and its tempests, which suddenly change 
 the direction of the winds and carry sliips before them in 
 spite of currents. Ishmds, both large and small, with 
 which it is besot, must often have been visited by sailors 
 who had thus lost their way, of which we shall presently 
 (juote examples. 
 
 Far from being impossible, the peopling of Polynesia by 
 navigators starting from the Indian Archipelago is relatively
 
 Migrations by Sea. 187 
 
 easij at certain times of the year, provided only that the 
 navigators are courageous and not afraid of losing sight of 
 land. Now Ave know the character of the Malay popula- 
 tions in this respect. 
 
 Aofain, those Avho have taken all these circumstances into 
 consideration, Malte-Brun, Homme, Lesson, Ricnzi, Beechey, 
 Wilkes and others, have not hesitated to regard Polynesia 
 as having been peopled by migrations advancing from west 
 to east. 
 
 HI. Writers, on the contrary, who have only consulted 
 the imperfect knowledge which we till lately possessed of 
 these seas, and the ordinary direction of the winds, have 
 either believed in autochthony or have invented various 
 theories to explain the presence of man in this multitude of 
 islands and remote islets. 
 
 Ellis held that the Polynesians had been conveyed from 
 America to Oceania by winds and currents, but this hypo- 
 thesis has had scarcely any adherents. It is in too direct 
 contradiction with all the physical, philological, and .social 
 characters, which refer the Polynesians to the Malay races 
 as strongly as they separate them from the Americans. 
 
 Dumont d'Urville has proposed a theory which, at first 
 sight, is more satisfactory, and still has a few supporters. 
 In his opinion, Polynesia is the remains of a great continent 
 which was originally connected with Asia. This land sank 
 after some geological revolutions ; the sea covered the 
 plains and hills, the highest summits only being now 
 visible and forming the present archipelago. The Poly- 
 nesians are the descendants of those who survived the 
 catastrophe. 
 
 This hypothesis has the advantage of preserving those 
 relations which were broken by that of Ellis. And, curious 
 to relate, it agrees with the tradition of the deluge as 
 preserved by the Tahitians. They say that the great inun- 
 dation happened without either rain or tempest. It was 
 the sea which rose and covered the whole earth with the 
 exception of a flat rock where one man and a woman took
 
 1 88 The Human Species. 
 
 refuge. We might say that there Avas nothing in this 
 account but a mistake which is easily understood. The 
 sea never rises, but the land may sink, and other people 
 besides the Tahitians have been deceived. 
 
 Nevertheless, we cannot accept the theory of Dumont 
 d'Urville. It is in contradiction to the zoological facts so 
 thoroughly investigated by Darwin and Dana. If some of 
 the atolls of Oceania shew signs of subsidence, a great 
 number of islands offer incontestable proofs of upheaval, 
 and Tahiti itself is one of the latter. 
 
 But the most serious argument which can be brought 
 against d'Urville is derived from the inhabitants themselves. 
 If travellers agree upon one point, it is that from the 
 Sandwich Islands to New Zealand, from the Tonga Islands 
 to Easter Island, all the Polynesians belong to the same 
 race, and speak the same language with mere variations of 
 dialect. 
 
 Now the Polynesian area, the limits of which I have 
 just pointed out, is of greater extent than the whole of 
 A.sia. What would an Asiatic Polynesia be like, if that 
 continent were to sink beneath the waters and leave only 
 the summits of its mountains visible, where some repre-. 
 sentatives of the present inhabitants might take refuge ? 
 Is it not at once evident that each archipelago, and often 
 each island, would have its own race and language ? 
 
 The considerations drawn from the identity of popula- 
 tions and languages in Polynesia are of themselves sufficient 
 to justify the assertion that all the Islanders have a common 
 origin ; and consequently, that, starting from some unknown 
 point, they have, in their advance from archipelago to archi- 
 pelago, peopled by degrees the maritime world in which we 
 find them. 
 
 Horatio Hale, the eminent anthropologist of the scientific 
 expedition of the United States, was the first to approach 
 the problem from a general point of view ; he solved it as 
 far as he was able with the data collected by himself, and 
 sketched the first chait of Polynesian migrations. Fresh
 
 Polynesian Migrations. 189 
 
 facts have been obtained since that time. Sir George Grey 
 has published the liistorical songs of the Maories ; Thomson, 
 Shortiantl, and Hoclistetter have brought to light fresh tradi- 
 tions ; M, Remy published a history of Hawaii arranged by 
 a native. M. Gaussin has carried off the prize in philology 
 by his admirable work upon the Polynesian language ; the 
 Ddpot of the French Marine has received special documents 
 from Tahiti to which General Ribourt, Admiral Lavaud, and 
 Admiral Bruat have added the results of their own re- 
 searches. These unpublished materials have been liberally 
 placed at my disposal, and I have added to them some 
 facts which have been forgotten. I have thus been able to 
 confirm, from a general point of view, the conclusions of 
 Hale, making, however, some important modifications, and 
 to complete, again with some modifications, his chart of 
 migrations. My readers will understand that I cannot here 
 enter into a detailed discussion, and I must beg to refer 
 them to my work upon The Polynesians and their Migra- 
 tions. I shall confine myself to a short summary of the 
 results which, I believe, it demonstrates. 
 
 IV. Both physical and philological characters show that 
 the Polynesians are a branch of those Malay races which 
 are divided into numerous groups by shades of difference, 
 sometimes strongly marked. It is to one of these groups 
 which are least distant from the white type that the nations 
 in question must be referred. 
 
 The starting point of these migrations, which were to 
 extend so far into the east, was Boeroe Island, which is 
 represented in all maps between Celebes and Coram. This 
 conclusion, already proposed with some diffidence by Hale, 
 seems to me to be placed beyond a doubt by all the tradi- 
 tions collected at Tonga by Mariner, with whose work the 
 learned American seems to have been unacquainted. 
 
 On quitting the Malay seas, the emigrants must have 
 followed as nearly as possible the course given above. 
 Repulsed doubtless by the black races which then, as now, 
 occupied New Guinea, they passed Melanesia. Some canoes,
 
 IQO The Hwnan Species. 
 
 however, probably separated from the others, reached the 
 eastern extremity of this great island, and there founded a 
 colony recently discovered by Commander Moresby. It is 
 this colony which has doubtless furnished the several archi- 
 pelagos of Melanesia with at least a part of the Polynesian 
 elements which have been observed by several travellers. 
 We know, however, thanks to the researches of M. de 
 Rochas, that the Polynesian elements of the little archi- 
 pelago of the Loyalty Islands is due to an emigration 
 passing in 1770 from the Willis Islands to New Caledonia. 
 
 The great stream of emigration must have left all 
 ]\Ielanesia to the south, and have separated into three 
 branches. One would arrive at the Samoa Islands, another 
 at the Tonga Islands, and a third at the Fiji Islands. The 
 two first archipelagos were evidently uninhabited, the latter 
 already possessed by a black population. An alliance was 
 at first made, however, between the aborigines and the 
 emigrants, but before long the %mr of races broke out, the 
 Malays were expelled, probably leaving behind them some 
 of their women. In this manner the mixed character of 
 the Fijian population was produced, with which all travellers 
 have been struck. The ejected Malays gained the Tonga 
 Islands. Finding them occupied by fellow-countrymen they 
 attacked and defeated them. Instead of massacring or 
 enslaving them they invented serfdom, an institution which 
 has only been met with in this archipelago. 
 
 Whilst the Malay colonies founded in the Fiji and 
 Tonga Islands were dispersed and desolated by a fratricidal 
 war, those in the Samoan archipelago prospered. The 
 population became denser : the spirit of adventure was not 
 as yet extinguished, fresh emigrations took to the sea, 
 advancing in the direction which had led to tbe first 
 discoveries. At this period the island of Savai played an 
 important part, according to the universal testimony of 
 Polynesian traditions. Its name appears in almost all the 
 archipelagos, scarcely modified by local dialects, in the 
 Sandwich Islands and in New Zealand, in the Marquesa.s
 
 Polynesian Aligratiojis. 191 
 
 Islands as well as in Tahiti, and as far as the Mauaia Islands. 
 Finally, Tupaia, in drawing tJie curious map, which has been 
 preserved by Forster, designates Savai" as the mother of all 
 the others, and represents it as much larger than Tahiti. 
 This is an error, but this very error proves beyond a doubt 
 the importance of this locality from our present point of 
 view. 
 
 With the exception of a single emigration, which passed 
 directly from Tonga to the Marquesas Islands, it is from 
 the Samoan archipelago, and from Savai in particular, that 
 all the great expeditions appear to have started, which 
 formed secondary centres elsewhere. Tahiti and the Manaia 
 Islands are the two principal. The former peopled the 
 north of the Pomotous and part of the Marquesas, which, 
 in turn, sent out colonists to the Sandwich Islands, where, 
 however, they had been preceded by the Tahitians. The 
 latter, in which there were both Tahitians and Samoans, 
 pushed their colonies as far as Rapa, to the Gambler Islands, 
 to the south-east extremity of Polynesia and to New Zealand 
 in the south-west. 
 
 V. We have only isolated and very incomplete accounts of 
 the greater number of these migrations. Though sufficient 
 to remove all doubt as to the fact, they tell us nothing of 
 the circumstances which accompanied or followed them. It 
 is quite otherwise when we come to consider New Zealand. 
 Thanks to the songs collected by Sir George Grey, we possess 
 the detailed history of this colonisation. This exception is 
 doubly fortunate as giving us information upon a number 
 of important points, and precisely in reference to those 
 islands which, from being situated at a great distance from 
 Polynesia, properly so called, f\ivour autochthonic hypotheses 
 more than ail the rest of the area. It seems to me, there- 
 fore, to be advisable to enter into a few details upon the 
 subject. 
 
 It is the inhabitants of Rarotonga, one of the principal 
 islands of Manaia, who had the honour of discovering and 
 colonising New Zealand. An emigration from Tonga may,
 
 192 The Htiman Species. 
 
 however, at some unknown period have possibly joined' 
 them. 
 
 The Christopher Columbus of this little world was a 
 certain Ngahue, who was compelled to fly from his country 
 to escape the persecutions of a queen, who wished to rob 
 him of a jasper stone. It was doubtless chance which led 
 him to New Zealand. He here discovered several pieces of 
 jasper, which probably restored him to the favour of the 
 female chief, for we do not hear that he was molested on 
 his return to Rarotonga. 
 
 During the absence of Ngahue a general war had broken 
 out in his island. The vanquished party followed the advice 
 of the traveller, who persuaded them to go and occupy the 
 recently discovered land with him. Several chiefs joined 
 together and constructed six canoes, the names of which 
 are still preserved. The song translated by Sir George 
 Grey informs us that one of them, the Araiva, was made of 
 a tree which had been felled in Rarotonga, situated on the 
 other side of Hawaiki. This was one of those secondary 
 Sava'is which I have mentioned above, and the place from 
 which the emigrants started. "Once," says one of those 
 songs already quoted, " our ancestors separated ; some were 
 left at Hawaiki, and others came here in canoes." 
 
 The same song describes the accidents of the voyage, the 
 storms which the navigators met with, the care bestowed 
 upon the first culture of the soil, the exploring expeditions 
 undertaken in the new country, and the disagreements 
 which occurred between the different crews. They show that 
 the connection with the mother country continued to exiht 
 for some time, so much so indeed that a young woman 
 accomplished the voyage with only a few companions, and 
 warlike expeditions started sometimes from Hawaiki and 
 sometimes from the colony to avenge some of those outrages 
 which were considered by these races as demanding the life 
 of the offender. 
 
 There is nothing 'astonishing in these passages. The 
 Polynesians knew perfectly well how to direct their course
 
 Polynesian Migrations. 193 
 
 at sea by the stars, and the route from one point to another 
 once observed was inscribed, if we may use the expression, 
 in a song which would never be forgotten. They had a very 
 correct general idea of the whole of their maritime world. 
 The map drawn by Tupaia, which I have reproduced in my 
 book, is equal to those of our savants of the Middle Ages, 
 while it embraces a considerable area. Tupaia had seen for 
 himself several of the islands which he represents. Accord- 
 ing to the calculations of Cook, he must have gone westward 
 to a distance of 1,000 miles. But it was from the sacred 
 songs of his country tliat he acquired his knowledge of the 
 rest of Polynesia, and was able to sketch it with tolerable 
 accuracy. 
 
 As to the canoes in question, they were the same as the 
 pirogues, which are mentioned by all travellers with admira- 
 tion, and are declared by Cook to be very suitable for long 
 voyages. This is a fact which is often established by the 
 very precise details contained in some of the songs translated 
 by Sir George Grey. We see, for example, one of the 
 emigrant chiefs, Ngatoro-i-Rangi, " mount upon the roof of 
 the hut constructed upon the platform which joined the two 
 canoes." We have only to add that the Araiva and other 
 similar vessels generally carried 1-10 warriors, and it will at 
 once appear how devoid of foundation are the assertions of 
 those writers who declare these voyages to have been im- 
 po.ssible for want of suflficient means of transport. 
 
 VI. The various documents which we now possess have 
 not only been of service in proving beyond a doubt the 
 general fact of migrations, and in acquainting us with the cir- 
 cumstances by which some of them were accompanied ; they 
 even enable us to indicate with very tolerable exactness the 
 date of some of the most important. 
 
 Thi.s result is generally obtained by the genealogies of the 
 principal fiimilies. Each forms a kind of litany, which is 
 sung in fixed rhythm, and of which each verse contains the 
 name of a chief and those of his wifie and son. Anyone, 
 therefore, capable of remembering a song of one hundred
 
 194 '^^^^' Human Species. 
 
 verses may easily learn the longest of these genealogies. 
 Confided to memory by the Arejyos or Keepers of the 
 Arcldves, they were preserved with jealous care. Thomson 
 informs us that in New Zealand a serious inquiry was made 
 into these verbal documents, and their authenticity was so 
 well established, that they have an equal value in matters of 
 justice with our deeds. 
 
 Now, in the Marquesas, Gattanewa, the friend of Porter, 
 who was descended from the first colonists of the Tongan 
 portion of the archipelago, had only eighty-eight predecessors. 
 At Hawai, the genealogy of the Tamehameha, according to 
 M. Remy, is contained in seventy-five verses. In 1840, 
 according to Williams, Rarotonga was governed by the twenty- 
 ninth descendant of Karika, the founder of the colony. In the 
 Gambler Islands M. Maigret saw the twenty-seventh reigning 
 chief since the arrival of the first colonists from Rarotonga. 
 
 Hale has shown very clearly that the Hawaian genealogy 
 contains at the outset, like many others in Europe, some 
 fabulous personages. He considered it necessary to remove 
 the first twenty-two verses. Some such correction should 
 very probably be made in that of the Marquesas Islanders. 
 As to those of Rarotonga and the Gambler Islands they are 
 too recent to have been already contaminated by fable. 
 
 Hale, guided by considerations which I cannot here dis- 
 cuss, attributes to each verse of these genealogies the value 
 of a fjeneration, from twenty-five to thirty years. Thomson 
 and M. Rem}--, however, having had time to gather more 
 precise information, regard them as indicating merely reigns. 
 Calculating the mean duration of these reigns from that given 
 by the list of French kings from Clovis to Louis XVII., we 
 obtain as a result 21*13 years. 
 
 According to those data, the arrival of the Tongans iu the 
 Marquesas Islands must have taken place in the year 417 of 
 our era ; that of the Tahitans in about 701 ; Karika must 
 have colonized Rarotonga in 1207, and the Gambicr Islands 
 have been peopled in-1270. 
 
 For New Zealand we have a double source of information,
 
 Polynesian Migrations. 195 
 
 .'ind the results thus obtained agree so well that we cannot 
 doubt their accuracy. The genealogies of the greater number 
 of the Maori chiefs go back as far as those bold pioneers 
 whose history I have related. Thomson, who has examined 
 several, considers that the number of chiefs who have 
 succeeded each other in every family since the colonization, 
 may be estimated at about twenty. Taking the kings of 
 England as a term of comparison, he attributes to the rthjn 
 of each cJdef a duration of 22Vt years. These data took 
 him back to the year 1419. The list of French kings would 
 only give the year 14o7. 
 
 On the other hand, in one of the songs preserved by Sir 
 George Grey, there is an account of the history of the son of 
 Hotunui, one of the colonizing chiefs of New Zealand, and of 
 his immediate descendants. At the fourth generation a 
 daughter was born, "from whom," the legend adds, "are 
 descended in eleven generations all the principal chiefs now 
 living of the tribe of Ngalipaoa." Taking thirty years for 
 each generation, we find that the migration of Hotunui took 
 place 4o0 years before tlie time when Sir George Grey re- 
 ceived the document (about 1850), which carries us back to 
 the year 1400. 
 
 Thus, these Maories, whom autochthonists regard as 
 children of the soil, cannot have hmded in New Zealand 
 earlier than the beginning of the fifteenth century. 
 
 VII. I have hitherto only spoken of more or less voluntary 
 migrations, such as might be induced by a spirit of adventure, 
 civil troubles, or the authority of a priest despatching an 
 excess of population in search of new countries. But in 
 treating of Polynesia, we must, as I have already remarked, 
 take accidents by sea into consideration. Several examples 
 are known. It was in this manner that Toubouai was 
 peopled, which at the close of the last century, within an 
 interval of a few years, received three canoes from different 
 islands, one of which was Tahiti. All three had been carried 
 away by a storm and driven ashore upon this island, which, 
 till then, had been uninhabited.
 
 196 The Httman Species. 
 
 Such, again, is the history of the chief Touwari and his 
 companions, men, women, and children, discovered by Cap- 
 tain Beechey upon Byam- Martin Island, which they had 
 begun to colonize. Tliey had started from Anaa, an island 
 situated two hundred and forty-five miles to the east of 
 Tahiti, to go and pay homage to Pomare, but were surprised 
 at Maiatea by tUe, monsoon, ivhich had come sooner than 
 usual. Driven to the south-east into the midst of the 
 Pomatou Islands, they landed at first on Barrow Island. 
 Finding, however, no means of subsistence, they took to the 
 sea again, and fell in with the island where they were found 
 by the English navigator. 
 
 This example is perfect, since it realises all the circum- 
 stances indicated by the theory. It establishes the existence 
 of regular relations between islands situated at great 
 distances from each other ; it proves one of those occurrences 
 which must more than once have caused these bold naviga- 
 tors to wander from the usual route ; it shows how a 
 remote island was able to receive all the elements of a 
 colony ; it leaves no doubt as to the possibility of dispersion 
 going on in an exactly opposite direction to that of the trade 
 Avinds. We need only add that the passage from Maiatea to 
 Barrow and Byam-Martin Islands is more than five hundred 
 and sixty miles, and we shall understand without any 
 difficulty how Polynesia was peopled by voluntary or 
 accidental colonization. 
 
 VII I. There is one more circumstance which it is impor- 
 tant to observe, and which is completely at variance with all 
 autochthonist hypotheses, that, namely, on approaching the 
 islands where they have been discovered by us, the Polyne- 
 sian found them vuiinhabitcd. 
 
 Tlie songs, for which we are indebted to Sir George Grey, 
 show that in New Zealand the greater number of the first 
 emigrants met with no traces of a previous population. One 
 only, named Manaia, found upon a promontory aborigines 
 of the country. This exception, from the very reason that 
 it is unique, proves that this population could not have
 
 Polynesian Migrations. 197 
 
 been very numerous. It has slightly altered the type of 
 the lowest grades of the Maories, to which it has been 
 confined. The portrait published by Hamilton Smith, and 
 one of the skulls in the possession of the Museum, inform 
 us that these supposed aborigines were Papuans. It is 
 evident that they had reached New Zealand in consequence 
 of some mischance similar to those I have just mentioned, 
 and had not even had time to multiply sufficiently to occupy 
 the entire shores of the North Island. 
 
 The traditions of the Sandwich Islands furnish us with a 
 fact of the same nature. They tell us that the first colonists 
 coming from Tahiti found in these islands cjods and »j)iv'itii, 
 who inhabited the caves and with whom they entered into 
 alliance. It? is evident that Ave have here a troglodyte people, 
 whose importance the legend has been pleased to exaggerate, 
 and whose origin it is not difficult to find. If Kadou, whose 
 history has been preserved by Kotzebue, instead of leaving 
 the Caroline Islands for the Radak Islands, had started from 
 the latter, and if he had made almost the same passage in 
 the same direction, he Avould have landed in the Sandwich 
 Islands. 
 
 The mixture of Polynesian and Micronesian races at once 
 explains the darkness of colour and Avant of purity in the 
 features of the HaAvaians. Perhaps the same cause may 
 account for the difference in features, manners, and industry 
 Avhich is presented by some tribes of the Loav Archipelago. 
 
 Apart from these few and, as Ave see, very feeble exceptions, 
 all the i.slands of Polynesia appear to have been uninhabited 
 when the navigators from Boeroe or their descendants landed. 
 This fact is distinctly proved by traditions in Kingsmill, 
 Rarotonga, MangarcAva, the Toubouai Islands, etc. Purity 
 of race testifies that this AA'as also the case Avith the Tonga, 
 Samoa, and Marquesas Islands. 
 
 IX. Finally, the facts to Avhich I have been obliged to 
 confine myself are entirely opposed to the theories of autoch- 
 thonists, and lead to the foUoAving conclusions : Polynesia, a 
 region Avhich, from its geographical conditions, seems at first
 
 198 The Human Species. 
 
 sight to be isolated from the rest of the Avorld, has been 
 peopled by means of voluntary migrations and accidental dis- 
 persion, passing from west to east, at least as a general rule. 
 The Polynesians, coming from Malaya, and the Isle of 
 Boeroe in particular, first established and settled themselves 
 in the Archipelagos of Samoa and Tonga. Thence they in- 
 vaded by degrees the maritime world open before them; they 
 found, almost without an exception, that all the countries 
 where they landed were uninhabited, and only on two or 
 three occasions met with very small tribes of a more or less 
 black type.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MIGRATIONS BY SEA. — MIGRATIONS IN AMERICA. 
 
 I. The peopling of Polynesia and America is a problem 
 ■which presents, if I may use the expression, inverse condi- 
 tions. There is, in reality, no geographical difficulty in the 
 latter. The proximity of the two continents at Behring Straits, 
 the existence in this channel of the Saint Laurence islands, 
 the largest of which is situated exactly half-way between the 
 two opposite continents, the connection formed between 
 Kamschatka and the peninsula of Alaska by the Aleutian 
 Islands; the maritime habits of all these peoples; the presence 
 of the Tchukchees on the two opposite shores ; the voyages 
 which they undertake from one continent to the other on 
 simple matters of commerce, leave no doubt as to the facility 
 with which the Asiatic races could pass into North America 
 through the Polar Regions, 
 
 More to the south, the current of Tessan, the Jcouro-sivo, 
 or black stream of the Japanese, opens a great route for 
 navigators. This current has frequently cast floating bodies 
 and abandoned junks upon the shores of California. Instances 
 of this fact have been observed in our own time. It is im- 
 possible that they should not also have happened before the 
 period of European discoveries. Asiatic maritime nations 
 must at all times have been carried to America from all those 
 places which are washed by the Black Stream. 
 
 The Equatorial current of the Atlantic opens a similar 
 route leading from Africa to America, and there are some 
 evidences, rare it is true, showing that wrecks have been 
 carried in this direction. It is possible, therefore, that the 
 same may also have happened to man.
 
 200 The Human Species. 
 
 II. We shall not, therefore, be surprised at finding in the New 
 World representatives of races which seem to belong originally 
 to the Old World ; we shall easily understand the multiplicity 
 of American races, which is perhaps still contested bj' some 
 of Morton's followers, but firmly established in the opinion of 
 every unprejudiced person by the testimony of Humboldt and 
 d'Orbigny's classical work on L'Homme Americain. 
 
 Black populations have been found in America in very 
 small numbers only, and as isolated tribes in the midst of 
 very different nations. Such are the Charruas of Brazil, the 
 black Carabees of Saint Vincent in the Gulf of Mexico, the 
 Jamassi of Florida, the dark-complexioned Californians, who 
 are, perhaps, the dark men mentioned in Quiche traditions, 
 and by some old Spanish adventurers. 
 
 Such, again, is the tribe of which Balbao saw some repre- 
 sentatives in his passage of the Isthmus of Darien in 1513. 
 Yet it would seem, from the expressions made use of by 
 Gomara, that these were true Negroes. This type was well 
 known to the Spaniards, and if they had encountered black 
 men with glossy hair, like the Charruas, they would un- 
 doubtedly have been much impressed by it, and would have 
 mentioned the fact. 
 
 The white type is more widely represented in America 
 than the black. Along the whole of the north-west coast, 
 Meares, Marchand, La Perouse, Dixon and Maurelle have 
 observed populations, which, judging from some of their des- 
 criptions, would seem to be of pure white race. Upon the 
 Upper Missouri, the Kiawas, Kaskaias and the Lee Panis 
 possess, we are assured, the attributes of the purest white 
 races, including their fair hair. The Mandans have, from our 
 present point of view, always attracted attention. Captain 
 Graa, again, found in Greenland men speaking Esquimau, 
 but tall, thin, and fair. In South America, Ferdinand 
 Columbus, in his relation of his father's voyages, compares 
 the inhabitants of Guanaani to the Canary Islanders, and 
 describes tlie inhabitants of San Domingo as still more 
 beautiful and fair. In Peru, the Chaiazanis, studied by
 
 Mis^ralions in Amci'ica. 201 
 
 •<b 
 
 M. Angrand, also resemble the Canary Islanders, and differ 
 from, all the surrounding tribes. L'Abbe Brasseur de Bour- 
 bourg imagined himself surrounded by Arabs when all his 
 Indians of llabinal -were around him, for they had, he says, 
 their complexion, features, ^nd beard. Finally, Gomara and 
 Pieri-e Martyr offer a similar testimony, and the latter 
 speaks of the Indians of the Parian Gulf as having fair hair 
 {cajdllis jUivib). 
 
 It is useless to insist upon the anthropological relations 
 between America and Asia. Most travellers have insisted 
 upon this point. I have heard M. de Castelnau say, " When 
 I was surrounded by my Siamese servants, I imagined myself 
 in America;" and M. Vavasseur, assisting at the visit of the 
 Siamese ambassadors, remarked, "But those are my Boto- 
 cudos." I should, however, observe that the skull in the 
 Collection in the Paris Museum indicates less resemblance 
 than the external characters. 
 
 America has, moreover, its distinct races with which the 
 foreign elements have more or less bleiided. She has also 
 had her quaternary man. This is a fact which must not be 
 overlooked, and by which the problem is singularly compli- 
 cated. We shall presently see that geological revolutions do 
 not involve the disappearance of existing human races. There 
 can be no doubt that in America there are descendants of 
 men who were contemporary with the mastodon, just as, in 
 Europe, we find the descendants of those who were contem- 
 poraries of the mammoth. Unfortunately our knowledge of 
 the physical characters of the American fossil man is as yet 
 very slight. 
 
 Ill, It does not, however, seem to me the less probable 
 that the most pronounced ethnological elements, such as 
 White, Yellow, and Black, which we encounter at the present 
 time, have overspread this continent by means of migration. 
 This fact is proved by history in a certain number of cases ; 
 and some very simple considerations seem to me to render 
 others no less probable. 
 
 For example, we only find black men in America in those
 
 202 The Hiivian Species. 
 
 places which are washed by either the Koiiro-sivo, or the Equa- 
 torial Current of the Atlantic or its divisions. A glance at the 
 maps of Captain Kerhallet will at once show us the rarity 
 and the distribution of these tribes. It is evident that the 
 more or less pure black elements have been brought from 
 the Asiatic Archipelagos and from Africa through some 
 accident at sea ; they have there mixed with the local races, 
 and have formed those small isolated groups which are dis- 
 tinguished by their colour from the surrounding tribes. 
 
 The presence of Semitic types in America, certain tradi- 
 tions of Guiana, and the use in this country of a weapon 
 entirely characteristic of the ancient Canary Islanders, can 
 be easily explained in the same manner, and the explanation 
 rests upon positive facts. Twice during the last century, in 
 1731 and 1764, small ships passing from one point of the 
 Canary Islands to another have been driven by storms into 
 the region of the trade winds and equatorial current, and 
 have drifted as far as America. What has happened in our 
 time must often have happened before. We cannot then be 
 surprised at finding upon the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, 
 tribes which are more or less related to the African Whites 
 by their physical characters. 
 
 IV. The geographical position of the continents at once 
 explains why the yellow type has so many representatives in 
 America. Supposing, which seems to be contradicted by 
 some evidences, that the coast-lines have not altered since 
 the latest geological era, the facilities presented by the 
 passage are quite sufficient, and the Asiatic races have 
 profited by them to a considerable extent. America was 
 known to them long before Europeans possessed anything 
 beyond legends on this subject, the meaning of which is still 
 hotly disputed. 
 
 It is to De Guigncs that we owe the discovery of this fact, 
 the importance of which is evident. He revealed to Europe 
 what he had learnt in Cliincse books. Tlicse books speak of 
 a country called Fou-Sang, situated at a distance, to the 
 east of Cliina far boyond the limits of Asia. De Guignes
 
 Migrations in America. 203 
 
 (lid not hesitate to identify it with America. To the proofs 
 drawn from the Chinese books, he added some isolated and 
 hitherto forgotten facts which were borrowed from Europeans, 
 from George Home, Gomara, etc. 
 
 The work of the French Orientalist was received with a 
 very singular, yet accountable repugnance. Apart from the 
 mistrust excited by every unexpected discovery, many people 
 were annoyed to find that Europeans had been preceded by 
 Asiatics in the New World ; it seemed to them to be de- 
 throning Christopher Columbus. A Prussian, who had 
 become a naturalized Frenchman, gave the support of his 
 great learning to all who required no more than the contra- 
 diction of the fact, and it was almost unanimously agreed 
 that De Guignes had deceived himself. More justice is 
 now done to him, and anyone who will study the question 
 in an unprejudiced spirit, cannot but acknowledge that he 
 is right. 
 
 Klaproth held that Fou-Sang was nothing else than 
 Japan. He forgot that the country of which the Chinese 
 writers spoke contained copper, gold and silver, but no 
 iron. This characteristic, which is inapplicable to Japan, 
 agrees, on the contrary, in every respect with America. To 
 support his assertion^ he maintained that the Chinese could 
 neither recognize their direction nor measure distances in 
 their voyages with precision. He forgot that they were 
 acquainted with the compass 2000 years before our era, and 
 that they possessed maps far superior to the vague conjec- 
 tures of the Middle Ages, 
 
 As to the supposed error in distance of which Klaproth 
 speaks, there was no such thing. Paravey informs us that 
 Fou-Sang was placed at a distance of 20,000 Li from China. 
 Now a Li, according to M. Pothier, is equal to 4440 metres 
 (•iSG yards). In following the course of the Kouro-Sivo, 
 these numbers would exactly bring us to California, where 
 the abandoned junks were stranded ; they prove what was 
 indicated by the theory, that this current had been the route 
 for voyages to and from America.
 
 204 The Human Species. 
 
 Paravcy has published a facsimile of a Chinese drawing 
 representing a lama. This at once answers one of the objec- 
 tions of Kiaproth, and carries us considerably to the south 
 of California. Amongst the productions of Fou-Sang the 
 Chinese authors mention the horse, which, as we know, did 
 not exist in America. It is clear that they called by this 
 name the animal which in Peru was used as a beast of 
 burden. This habit of calling by a common name species 
 which are known and new species which resemble them in 
 certain respects, certainly existed elsewhere than in China. 
 This habit led the Conquestadores to call the puma a lion, 
 and the bison a coiv. 
 
 But did the Chinese then extend their voyages as far as 
 Peru ? This can hardly be doubted after the preceding testi- 
 mony, and after that which is contained in the Geograjia 
 del Peru by Paz Soldan. The following is the translation 
 of a passage for which I am indebted to M. Pinart : " The 
 inhabitants of the village of Eten in the province of Lam- 
 baydque, and the department of Libertad, seem to belong 
 to a different race from those of the surrounding countries. 
 They live, and intermarry, only amongst themselves, and 
 speak a language which is perfectly understood by the 
 Chinese, who have been brought to Peru during the last 
 few years." 
 
 The Chinese books studied by De Guigncs and Paravey 
 speak of religious missions, which, towards the close of the 
 fifth century, left the country of Ki-Pin to carry to Fou- 
 Sang the doctrines of Buddha. The researches of M. G. 
 d'Fichthal have fully confirmed these accounts. The strong- 
 est resemblances have been pointed out between the monu- 
 ments and the Buddhist figures of Asia and the same 
 products of American art. The comparison of legends has 
 led the author to the same result. 
 
 Finally, according to an encyclopaidia, from which M. de 
 Risny has translated a passage, the Japanese were acquainted 
 with Fou-Sang, which they called Fou-So, and with the 
 missions which had left the land Ki-Pin for that country.
 
 Migrations in America. 205 
 
 Although its real position must still be doubtful, they show 
 that Fou-So and Japan are two different countries. 
 
 To this formal testimony derived from the Chinese, we 
 must add that of Europeans. The first is Gomara, who 
 witnessed the conquest of Mexico, and was a contemporary 
 of the expedition which followed. He tells us that cora- 
 ])anions of Francesco- Vasquez de Coronado, in sailing up the 
 Western Sea as far as 40° N. lat., met Avith ships laden with 
 merchandise, Avhich, as they were led to understand by the 
 sailors, had been at sea for more than a month. The 
 Spaniards concluded that they had come from Cathay or 
 Sina. 
 
 The primary object of the ships in question was evidently 
 that of commerce. Such pacific relations did not, however, 
 always exist between the native Americans and the strangers 
 jrom the west. This is proved by the testimony of an Indian 
 traveller, preserved by Le Page du Prat. Moncacht-Ape 
 {the pain-killer) was certainly a remarkable man. Impelled 
 by the desire which drove Cosma from Koros to Thibet, the 
 wish to discover the original home of his tribe, he went at 
 first in a north-easterly direction as far as the mouth of the 
 St. Lawrence, returned to Louisiana and started again for 
 the north-west. Having ascended the Missouri to its source, 
 he crossed the Rocky Mountains and reached the Pacific 
 Ocean by descending a river, which he called the beautiful 
 river, and which can be no other than the Oregon. 
 
 There he heard of white, bearded men, provided with arms 
 hurling thunder, who came every year in a great boat to 
 look for wood which they used for dyeing, and carried off the 
 natives to reduce them to a state of slavery. Moncacht-Apd, 
 who was acquainted with the nature of firearms, advised his 
 friends to prepare an ambuscade. The plans which he 
 suggested were a complete success. Several of the aggressors 
 were slain. The Americans at once saw that they were not 
 Europeans. Their clothes were quite different, and their 
 arms more clumsy, while their powder was coarser, and 
 did not carry so far. Everything tended to show they were
 
 2o6 The Htunan Species, 
 
 Japanese, accustomed to make descents upon this coast of 
 America exactly similar to those undertaken by some crews 
 in search of sandal wood in Melanesia, who seize the blacks 
 whenever they have an opportunity, aud give them up to 
 cotton planters under the name of coolies. 
 
 The narrative of Moncacht-Apd was given in the year 
 1725, three or four years before the discovery of the Behring 
 Straits, and more than thirty years before European voyages 
 had acquainted us with the north-west of America. The 
 exact details which he gives as to the general direction of 
 tlie coast, and of its bend at the peninsula of Alaska, are a 
 sure proof of the correctness and truth of this narrative. 
 Thus, however much it may wound European pride, we 
 must acknowledge that Chinese and Japanese Asiatics 
 knew and, in different ways, explored America long before 
 Europeans. 
 
 V. Nevertheless, these civilized nations, whose ships visited 
 America, do not seem to have founded large settlements, 
 which could become the starting point of a new colony. 
 Had it been so, they would have left more traces of their 
 passage in the language. Now, with the exception of tlie 
 small Chinese colony of which I have spoken above, there is 
 scarcely one fact of this nature which can be considered as 
 established. Some Califoruian colonies are mentioned as 
 speaking a Japanese dialect. M. Guillemin Taraire has re- 
 produced this information in reference to a tribe of Santa 
 Barbara ; he adds that the lanouage of some others includes 
 Japanese and Chinese words. Unfortunately the researches 
 of M. Pinart, far from confirming these results, only tend to 
 contradict them ; we can, therefore, only speak with great 
 reserve upon this point. 
 
 It seems to me to have been principally in the north that 
 the great migrations took place, and that they were under- 
 taken by savage nations. The traditions borrowed by I'Abbe 
 Brasseur de Bourbourg from the sacred books of the Quichds, 
 and those of the Dclawurcs which have been preserved by 
 Heckewclder, api)ear to me to offer much information on
 
 Migrations in America. 207 
 
 this point. By comparing tho missionary's narrative with 
 some fixcts of Mexican history anterior to the conquest, I have 
 been enabled to determine approximately the dcite of the 
 arrival of the Red-Skins in the basin of the Missouri. It 
 seems to me that we cannot refer it to an earlier date than 
 the ninth, or at most the eighth, century. 
 
 These traditions bring to light another and no less impor- 
 tant fact : namely, that the Alonquins and Iroquois, after 
 having crossed the valley of the Mississippi, from which they 
 drove the people, whose singular monuments are now the 
 object of study, had no more fighting to do, and found the 
 country uninhabited as far as the coast, and far away to the 
 south. The traditions of some tribes of South America 
 point, though not so plainly, to the same conclusion. Thus, 
 probably in the two halves of the New World, and certainly 
 in the northern portion, those uninhabited lands existed 
 which we have already noticed in Polynesia, and the pre- 
 tended American autocJdhon of Agassiz, Morton, Nott, and 
 Gliddon was, on the contrary, one of the latest arrivals upon 
 this continent. 
 
 These facts of thin populations, and of their low social 
 condition, which was everywhere the case except in those 
 centres where legislators had appeared who were perhaps 
 entirely foreign to the soil, involuntarily lead us to the 
 conclusion that the general peopling of America by the 
 existing races, though it may be traced to an earlier period 
 thaa that of Polynesia, is, nevertheless, much more recent 
 than that of the Old World. 
 
 VI. It is not from Asia alone that America has received its 
 population. They came from Europe also long before the 
 era of gi'eat discoveries; I- am not now alluding either to the 
 story of Atlantis, of which many interpretations are still 
 possible, or to Phoenician and Carthaginian traditions, nor 
 again, to the pretentions of the Basques and Dieppois, 
 although they appear to be supported by facts, which are, to 
 say the least, curious ; nor to Irish and Welsh traditions, 
 though Hund)oldt considers them well worthy of attention. 
 10
 
 2o8 TJie Hiunan Species. 
 
 I shall only speak of the voyages accomplished by the 
 Scandinavians as related by Kafn from Irish sagas, , and 
 which have been lately republished in detail by M. Gravier. 
 
 We are not now dealing with isolated facts belonging to 
 the darkness of those ages which they only occasionally 
 illuminate. It is a detailed history embracing several gene- 
 rations, and sometimes giving circumstantial details which 
 explain, and are confirmed by certain modern discoveries. 
 
 In 877, according to M. Gravier, perhaps as early as 770, 
 according to M. Lacroix, Gunnbjorn discovered Greenland. 
 In 886 Erick the Red doubled Cape Farewell, and built at 
 the head of a fjord his house Brattahilda, the lately dis- 
 covered ruins of which have been compared to those of a 
 town. In 986 Bjarn Meriulfson, when on his way to Green- 
 land, was carried by a storm as far as the shores of New 
 England. In 1000, Leif, the son of Erick the Red, started 
 for the country discovered by Bjarn. Accompanied by 35 
 men, he ran down as far as Rhode Island, where he found 
 the vine, and gave the name of Vln-lcmd to' the country of 
 which he took possession ; he built Lelfahudir, passed the 
 winter there, and noticed that the shortest day began at half- 
 past seven and ended at half-past four. This observation, 
 which agrees with all the other details, places Leifsbudir 
 near the present town of Providence, 41° 24' 10" N. lat. 
 
 Thorwald succeeded his brother Leif. Followed by 30 
 warriors, he reached Vinland and passed the winter at Leifs- 
 budir. In the spring of 1003 he ran down as far as Long 
 Island, explored the neighbourhood, and returned in the 
 autumn to his starting-point. The following summer he 
 turned his steps northwards. Near Cape Alderton, his com- 
 j)anions surprised three boats made of osier, and covered 
 with leather, and slew eight of the men by whom they were 
 manned. The ninth escaped ; he soon returned, however, 
 accompanied by a great number of his fellow-countrymen, 
 who showered upon the Scandinavians a cloud of arrows and 
 then fled. But Thorwald, mortally wounded, was inten-ed 
 in this laml which he had expressed a desire to inhabit. It
 
 AligraiioJis in America. 209 
 
 may possibly have been his tomb which was discovered at 
 the end of the last century in Rainsford Island, near to Hull 
 and Cape Alderton ; a tomb of solid masonry, containing 
 a skeleton, and a sword with an iron hilt, indicating a 
 period anterior to the fifteenth century. 
 
 In 1007 Thorfinn, accompanied by his wife Gudrida, 
 started with three ships carrying 160 men, some women, and 
 cattle. This time the object was to found a colony. They 
 settled not far from Leifsbudir at Mount Hope Bay. The 
 strangers were soon visited by some of the natives, who are 
 easily identified with the Esquimaux from the description 
 given in the Saga. The relations maintained with these 
 SkreUinga were at first pacific. But the following year an 
 act of brutality on the part of a Scandinavian led to war, and 
 Thorfinn, although victorious, did not feel his position to be 
 secure, and resolved to return to his country with his com- 
 panions, his wife, and his son Snorre, the first Scandinavian 
 born in Vinland. 
 
 Before quitting his settlement, the chief was anxious to 
 leave some trace of his presence. Such, at least, is the 
 opinion adopted by Scandinavian savants, and by M. Gravicr, 
 on tlie subject of the famous Dighton Writing Rock. This 
 block of gneiss, situated upon the right bank of Tauton 
 River, and alteraately covered and left bare by the tide, 
 bears a certain mmiber of characters engraved upon it to the 
 depth of eight millimetres (one-third inch). This inscHp- 
 iion, which has given rise to many discussions, has, probably, 
 a double origin. Schoolcraft tells us that an old Indian,. who 
 was familiar Avith American pictography, recognized the 
 hand of his countryman in a certain number of signs which 
 he was able to explain, though at the same time he confessed 
 that others were quite new to him. On the other hand, 
 Magnuscn and his followers have also only been able to 
 interpret some of these same signs. They were, in their 
 opinion, a mixture of runic and cryptographic signs, and 
 of figures referring to the adventures of Thorfinn. They 
 thought they coiild recognize Gudrida with her son Snorre,
 
 2IO The Hiuiian Species. 
 
 and the phonetic portion might, it seemed, be translated in 
 the following manner : — 131 men of the north have 
 
 OCCUPIED THIS COUNTRY — WITH THORFINN. I should add, 
 however, that Mr. Wittlesey does not admit the existence of 
 a single alphabetical inscription in the United States. Yet 
 we must not suppose that the opinion of the American 
 antiquarian at all affects the authenticity of the Sagas which 
 relate the history of Thorfinn. 
 
 I cannot here repeat all the adventures of Thorvard and 
 Freydisa, of Ari Marsou, Bjorn Asbrandson, Gudleif and 
 Hervador . . . . , but I must remark, in reference to 
 the latter, that, through the indications contained in the 
 Skalholt Saga, the American savants have been able to find 
 upon the shores of the Potomac the tomb of a woman who 
 fell by the arrows of the Skrellings in 1051. 
 
 VII. The colonies founded in Greenland by Erick and his 
 successors multiplied rapidly ; both the cast and west coasts 
 were peopled. These two centres bore the names of Osterhygd 
 and Vestcrhyijd. From the documents consulted by M. F. 
 Lacroix, it appears that the former possessed a cathedral, 
 eleven churches, three or four monasteries, two towns called 
 Garda and Alba, and 190 Gaards or Norwegian villages; in the 
 second, there were four churches and 90 or 110 gaards. These 
 figures clearly indicate a considerable population. This is 
 still more strongly proved by the fact, that as early as 1121, 
 an Irishman, Erick-Upsi, was created Bishop of Greenland, 
 and had eighteen successors. Vinland was in the jurisdic- 
 tion of this diocese. The tithes of this country figured 
 among the revenues of the Ciiurch in the fourteenth century, 
 and were paid in kind. 
 
 This prosperity, and the regular relations between Europe, 
 Greenland, and Vinland seem to have lasted till towards the 
 middle of the fourteenth century. About this time the 
 Skrellings attacked Vesterbygd ; the succour sent by the 
 other settlements arrived too late, and the western colony 
 was destroyed. Osterbygd had a much longer existence. 
 In 1418 it still paid to the Holy See as tithes and Peter's
 
 I\Iigrations in Ajucn'ca. 211 
 
 Pence 3G00 pounds of walrus' tusks. At a period anterior 
 to tliis epoch, however, Queen Margaret, sovereign of the 
 Scandinavian dominions, impelled by motives which have 
 been differently interpreted, had interdicted all commerce 
 with the Greenland colonies. Shortly afterwards fleets of 
 pirates, springing from some imknown quarter, came down 
 upon and pillaged them ; the temperature of both land and 
 sea gradually fell ; voyages became more and more difficult, 
 and, at last, ceased altogether. Thus, when in 1721, the 
 Norwegian Pastor, Hans Eggede, led to those frozen lands 
 the first modern colony, he found nothing but ruins, and not 
 a single descendant of Erick and Thorfinn. What had be- 
 come of them ? 
 
 A letter addressed to Pope Nicholas V., quoted by 
 M. Lacroix, throws some liglit upon their fate. It is dated 
 14'48, and informs us that, thirty years previously, some 
 strangers coDiing from the American coasts had pillaged 
 the colony, and massacred or carried into slavery the greater 
 number of the inhabitants of both sexes. A great number 
 had, however, returned to their homes, and asked for help. 
 
 It is hardly possil)lc to avoid referring to the latter, the 
 white population, tall, and with fair hair, which Captain 
 Graa met with on the east coast of Greenland, during his 
 expedition in search of Osterbygd. Notwithstanding their 
 adoption of the Esquimaux language, they certainly did not 
 belong to their race. 
 
 But were all the descendants of the bold navigators who 
 had discovered America content to live, like the Skrellings, 
 l)y the side of ruins which recalled the relative grandeur of 
 their fathers ? This hypothesis appears to me inadmissible. 
 It seems evident to me, that the greater number of the 
 survivors must have emigrated and sought refuge in Vin- 
 land, of the existence of which they were aware. Perhaps 
 they were repulsed by the mixed population of Scandinavians 
 and Esquimaux, who seem very early to have come into 
 existence, and who were, perhaps, the invaders mentioned 
 in the letter quoted by M. Lacroix ; perhaps, again, they
 
 212 TJic Hinimn Species. 
 
 may have encountered ■warlike and inhospitable tribes, like 
 those mentioned in the Saga of Gudleif. But the Nor- 
 Avcgians would then only have pushed on further, till they 
 met with some hospitable shore where they could settle. 
 
 VIII. However this may be, the history of Scandinavian 
 voyages is sufficient to explain the appearance of the white 
 type, even of the fair type, in the midst of American popula- 
 tions. I do not hesitate to refer to this Aryan stock, the 
 white Esquimaux of Charlevoix, the fair-haired men of Pierre 
 Martyr, the fair men spoken of in some Mexican traditions, 
 the White Savage Chief whom the Spaniards met with in 
 their Cibola expedition . . . etc. 
 
 Besides, the discovery and the repeated invasions of the 
 American coasts by the Scandinavians show the estimation 
 in which we ought to hold the pretended impossibility of the 
 peopling of America. Here, we have no longer the double 
 pirogues of the Polynesians, carrying 150 warriors ; it was 
 in loafs manned by thirty or forty men that Leif and 
 Thorwald faced the Greenland seas, reached, and returned 
 from Vinland. In the presence of sucli facts, can we regard 
 our improved method of navigation as indlspensahle to long 
 sea voyages ? 
 
 Modern civilization has placed in our hands an imnionse 
 power of action unknown to our ancestors. It enables us to 
 accomplish works v.hich they would have thought could only 
 be expected from supernatural powers. Science has placed 
 in our hands the majjic rinj::, and we have become so used to 
 employing it for the satisfaction of our smallest wants, that it 
 seems to us impossible to do without it. We too often forget 
 the resources which man possesses in himself, and which form 
 part of his original nature. Thus, wc regard less advanced, 
 less learned races as incapable of accomplishing that which 
 we should not dare to undertake without the aid which we 
 have been able to create for ourselves. 
 
 Wc have just seen how fully the history of the Polynesians 
 and Scandinavians contradicts these fulse ideas, and how they 
 justify the words of Lyell : — "Supposing the human genus
 
 Miirrations in America. 2 1 
 
 v> 
 
 were to disappear entirely, with the exception of a single 
 family, placed either upon the Ocean of the New Continent, 
 iu Australia, or upon some coral island of the Pacific Ocean, 
 we may be sure that its descendants would, in the course of 
 ages, succeed in invading the whole earth, although they 
 n)ight not have attained a higher degree of civilization than 
 the Esquimaux or the South Sea Islanders."
 
 BOOK YI. 
 
 ACCLIMATISATION OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 INFLUENX'E OF CONDITIONS OF LIFE AND RACF:. 
 
 I. The liuiiiaii species, springing originally from a single 
 centre of appearance, is now universally distributed. In 
 their innumerable travels, its representatives have en- 
 countered the widest difference of climate and the most 
 opposite conditions of life, and now inhabit both the polar 
 and equatorial regions. It must, therefore, have possessed 
 tlie necessary aptitudes for accommodating itself to all the 
 natural conditions of existence ; in other words, it must have 
 had the power of becoming acdiinatiscd and naturalised 
 in every })lace where we meet with it. 
 
 The j)ossibility of man living and prospciing in otlier 
 regions than those in which his fathers lived, has been 
 denied in a more or les^ emphatic manner by the greater 
 numbur of j)olygenists. Without going as far as thi.s, cer- 
 tain monogenists have held that a human race, when con- 
 .stituted for given conditions of life, was, so to speak, a. 
 pris(»ncr to them, and could not effect a change without 
 losing his life. Other writers have maintained precisely 
 opposite opinions, and have held that any human group 
 covild at once become acclimatised in any given spot. 
 
 There are exaggerations and errurs in all these extreme 
 doctrinejs.
 
 Influence of Conditions of Life and Race. 215 
 
 II. In spite of the assertions of Knox, Frenchmen can 
 live perfectly well in Corsica, provided only, that they 
 avoid the marshes of the eastern coast, which the islanders 
 themselves cannot inliabit. After the revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes, the fugitives from Provence and Langue- 
 doc founded villages in the valley of the Danube, thus 
 contradicting beforeliand one of the assertions of the Eng- 
 lish doctor, English and French emigrants to the United 
 States, and to Canada, have not degenerated, in spite of 
 the assertions of the same author. Though modified, often 
 in a very striking manner, as we shall presently see, the 
 Yankee squatters and the Canadian hacJcicoodsmcn are 
 certainly not inferior to the first colonists who planted the 
 European standard in the midst of the Red-Skins. 
 
 Knox, and the anthropologists who agree either entirely or 
 partially with him, attribute to emigration alone the main- 
 tenance and growth of the white population in America and 
 elsewhere. In their opinion the European emigrant loses, 
 after several generations, the power of reproduction. If the 
 human current, which sets from Europe towards the Colonies 
 were to be stopped, they maintain that the population would 
 rapidly diminish, and the local races regain the ascendancy, 
 that tlie United States would return to the iW-Skins, and 
 Mexico to the descendants of Montezuma. 
 
 This assertion will easily be answered by a few statistics. 
 They are taken from the history of French races, which, 
 since the treaty of Paris in 1703, have, although in a slight 
 degree, directly contributed to the peopling of Canada. 
 There were in this country : 
 
 In ISl I , . 27i>.OO0 inliabitauts of French origin. 
 In 1S51 . . fi;tr..lU.j „ „ 
 
 In ISGl . . 1,037,770 „ m 
 
 in Ottawa State there were : 
 
 In IS.-)! . . Total population . . . ]r..000 
 
 . French ,, ... S.Chk;) 
 
 In lSt'.3 . . Total population . . . 2.").(H»0 
 
 . French „ ... 1. '-,"<»'>
 
 2 1 6 The II 71 mail Species. 
 
 The history of the Acadians furnishes statistics which are 
 quite as convincing. From the information obtained by M. 
 Rameau, it appears that the entire population was descended 
 from forty-seven families, numbering 400 souls in 1671. In 
 ]7'55 there were 18,000. Dispersed and driven out by the 
 English they Avere reduced to only 8,000. In 1861, the 
 number rose to 95,000 persons. 
 
 If we calculate from the preceding figures the annual in- 
 crease of French populations in America, we shall find the 
 ratio equal or superior to that furnished by the most 
 favoured European populations. This proves that the 
 French race shows no sign of disappearance, even in the 
 country chosen as an example by Knox. 
 
 Without entering into too many details, let us remember 
 that the French have lived and increased in number at 
 Cunstantia, not far from the Cape, since the revocation of 
 the Edict of Nantes ; that this same region has been 
 colonized by the Dutch, whose descendants, the Boers, have 
 migrated, and now form the Transvaal Republic ; that tlicy 
 have been succeeded at tlie Cape by the English, who, by 
 degrees, have overrun the whole country. We must also 
 remember the rapid growth of the Anglo-Australian colonies, 
 etc. ; and, finally, let us not forget those nine families of 
 missionaries visited by M. do Delapelin in Polynesia, which, 
 in all, numbered sixty-nine children, that is to say, a mean 
 of more than seven and a half each, and we shall be forced to 
 acknowledge that the most highly characterised European 
 white can live and increase in number in both hemispheres, 
 at tlie antipodes, and in tiie native countries of the most 
 different races. 
 
 Finthev, the '^reat race to which he liimself belonirs was 
 not originally European. It proljably sprang from the moun- 
 tain district of tlie Boim- and the Ilindoo-koh, where the 
 Mamogis still represent the original stock. In any case, the 
 Z<-nd-Avesta informs us that it issued from a region where 
 liu; suni!i»er lasted but two Mionlhs, a eliniafe wliieli almost 
 corresponds to that of Finland. Step by .step it advanced,
 
 Injlucncc of Conditions of Life and Race. 217 
 
 on the one hand as far as the Gangetic peninsula and Cey- 
 lon, on the other to Iceland and Greenland. Afterwards, 
 when the era of great discoveries had commenced, it dis- 
 tributed its colonies over the whole world, peopling conti- 
 nents, and replacing indigenous races. 
 
 The consideration of these general facts alone, and the 
 result of this perpetual activity, make it impossible to deny 
 to the Aryan race the faculty of acclimatisation, under the 
 most diverse conditions of existence. All the assertions of 
 Knox, and of his more or less avowed disciples, fall before 
 these facts. 
 
 What is true for the Aryan race is equally true for the 
 Negro. The White has transported the Black to almost 
 every part of the globe, and in the most distant places the 
 Black lives side by side with his master. Our experience 
 as to the Yellow Races is still slight, but we can already 
 foresee that the result will be the same. Chinese and 
 Coolies have passed over into America from Asia; we shall 
 perhaps soon see them in Africa and in Europe. 
 
 Certain branches detached from the great ethnical stocks 
 have already offered similar evidences. The Gipsies, Aryans 
 mixed, perhaps, with Dravidians, have overrun the whole of 
 Europe, and are now met with everywhere. As to the Jews, 
 we know that they are really cosmopolitan, and that almost 
 everywhere, in Prussia as in Algeria, their fecundity sur- 
 passes that of the local races. 
 
 III. I do not mean by this that I consider the Aryan, or 
 any races, capable of always becoming at once acclimatised 
 in any given locality. On the contrary, there are regions 
 which are fatal to man, to whatever group he may belon"-, 
 and however well prepared he may seem to be to brave their 
 intiuence. Such is the great estuary of the Gaboon, where the 
 Negro himself cannot live. The general constitution of the 
 inhabitants grows sensibly weaker; the reproductive organs 
 appear to be particularly affected, and the number of women 
 greatly surpas.ses that of the men. We know how dangerous 
 the climate of this country is to the European, and it will be
 
 2 1 8 The Ilunian Species. 
 
 interesting to sec wlietlicr the Paouins will in their tur.-i 
 yield to the deleterious influence of these coasts, which they 
 are gradually approaching. 
 
 We need not, moreover, go so far for examples. Who 
 does not know the reputation of the Maremuia, and the 
 marshes of Corsica ? At one time the swamps of the Dombe, 
 and the mouth of the Charente, in France, were scarcely less 
 dangerous. 
 
 Even where the conditions are much less severe, acclimati- 
 sation almost always demands numerous and melancholy 
 sacrifices, which some anthropologists have done wrong to 
 overlook. The fact is but too natural. A race, which has 
 settled under the influence of certain conditions of existence, 
 cannot effect a change without undergoing modification, and 
 hence sufiferinjr. This fact w^ll be noticed in some detail 
 in the chapter dedicated to the formation of these derived 
 groups from the species. I can here only point out the 
 general law. 
 
 IV. Thus, every colonization of a distant country must be 
 regarded in the first place as a conquest attempted by the 
 immigrating race. Now, whether the battle has to be fought 
 with man or with the conditions of life, the victory is only 
 gained at the cost of human life. We must not, however, 
 exaggerate the extent of inevitable losses, and deny the 
 possibility of acclimatisation. We must put the problem 
 clearly, and seek for experimental data, whence the solution 
 may be naturally deduced. 
 
 Every question of acclimatisation comprises two terms, 
 which are, so to speak, the comfoncnts of the resultant 
 which we are seeking for or studying. These terms arc race 
 and conditions of life. We already know the exact significance 
 of the former of these two words, and we shall presently 
 consider in some detail what we are to understand by the 
 latter. At present we will take it as simply representing all 
 the conditions of existence presented by a given place, and 
 proceed to point out its influence in acclimatisation. 
 
 We have seen that certain conditions of life appear to be
 
 Infljicnce of Condilions of Life and Race. 219 
 
 fatal to all races. In cases of this kind, we should distinguish 
 how much of this insalubrity is due to the regions, and how 
 much is the result of accidental circumstances, sometimes 
 provoked by man himself. The plain of the Dombe in 
 France was once as salubrious as the surrounding country. 
 The exaggerated industry of the marshes transformed it into 
 a pestilential region, where it was quite as fatal for foreign 
 populations to live as it would have been in the swamps of 
 tlie Senegal. Sanitary measures are now tending to restore it 
 to its former condition. It is evident that we cannot reproach 
 the Dombe with the deleterious influence which human 
 intelligence seems to have undertaken to develop. 
 
 Even when the latter does not step in to vitiate the con- 
 ditions of life, we cannot charge a country with opposing 
 unfavourable conditions to an indigenous or foreign race, 
 when these conditions ma}' be attributed to the negligence 
 of the inhabitants, or to some special cause, which human 
 intelligence might modify. Deprived of the care which 
 rendered it healthy and luxuriant, the Campagna of Rome 
 has become a branch of the Pontine Marshes. On the other 
 hand, the environs of E.ochefort have become healthy ; Bouf- 
 farik, once one of the most dangerous spots in Algeria, has 
 become the centre of a flourishing population. It was not, 
 therefore, the general natural conditions which rendered these 
 localities dangerous, especially to strangers, but simply acci- 
 dent. As soon as the cause is removed, acclimatisation 
 becomes not only possible, but easy. 
 
 Considered from this point of view, many countries, which 
 now appear to repel all attempts at immigration, will, perhaps, 
 at some future period, be particularly favourable to the deve- 
 lopment of colonizing races. It is clear that in all cases of 
 this kind we must distinguish between normal and accidcni- 
 allfj vitiated conditions of life. 
 
 I cannot enter into all the details which this distinction 
 would allow, and shall confine myself to quoting a few 
 facts. 
 
 The very progress of civilization sometimes results in the
 
 220 The Ihunan Species. 
 
 vitiation of certain conditions of life. Sucli is the almost 
 inevitable result of the crowding together of human beings 
 in a relatively limited space. This is one of the points most 
 clearly demonstrated in the statistical researches of M. Boudin 
 upon the comparative mortality of the country and of barracks, 
 for example. A comparison of our large towns and rural 
 districts leads to the same result, and points to a special 
 action upon the organs of reproduction. M. Boudin could 
 not find a pure-blooded Parisian whose genealogy could be 
 traced for more than three generations. At Besancon, town 
 families become extinct in less than a centur}'^, and are re- 
 placed by others from the country. London, I have been 
 assured, presents a similar phenomenon. 
 
 Do not ships, in which men live crowded together for 
 months under very unsatisfactory sanitary conditions, deve- 
 lop deleterious principles, to which the crews become accus- 
 tomed by degrees, but which are, nevertheless, capable of 
 producing the most serious affections in the midst of sur- 
 rounding populations, which, till then, had been in a flourishing 
 condition. Have we here one of those phenomena to which, 
 according to Darwin, we must attribute the terrible mortality 
 and increasing sterility of the Polynesian races ? Among the 
 diseases introduced by European sailors, ought Ave not to 
 reckon phthisis, which is said to have become epidemic, as 
 well as hereditary, in those islands ? The probabilities seem 
 to me to be in favour of an answer in the affirmative. Neither 
 land nor sky have changed in these archipelagoes since the 
 time of their discovery, and yet the Polynesian Islanders 
 disappear with a terrible rapidity, whilst their mixed races 
 and even pure-blooded Europeans show a redoubled fertility 
 — a double C(Mitra{lictiou given by facts to autochthonic 
 doctrines. 
 
 It is not always easy to determine, in judging of the more 
 or less deleterious action of given conditions of life, what 
 .should be attributed to normal conditions, and what is the 
 result of accidental vitiating elements. The soil, cold, heat, 
 dryness, or humidity (^f a countiy ar(; not all. 'J'lio ditfcrence
 
 InJIuence of Conditions of Life ajid Race. 221 
 
 presented from the point of view of acclimatisation by tlic 
 two hemispheres is a striking example. 
 
 The hot regions of the southern hemisphere are, as a rule, 
 more accessible to white races than those in similar latitudes 
 in the northern hemisphere. From 30 to 35 degrees of N. 
 lat. Ave find Algeria, and especially the southern part of the 
 United States, which present serious difficulties against our 
 acclimatisation. In the .same latitude of the southern hemi- 
 sphere, lie the southern portion of the Cape and New South 
 Wales, where all European races prosper almost immediately. 
 M. Boudin's calculations give the differences exactly. He 
 has found that the mean mortality of French and English 
 armies was about eleven times greater in our hemisphere 
 •than in the southern hemisphere. 
 
 Stmck by this contrast, M. Boudin endeavoured to discover 
 its cause, and found that it lay in the greater or less fre- 
 quency and gravity of marsh fevers. North of the equator 
 these fevers may be traced in Europe as far as the o9th deg. 
 of latitude. In the south they rarely pass the tropics, and 
 often cease at an even smaller distance. Tahiti, which is only 
 18 deg. from the geographical equator, and almost beneath 
 the thermal equator, is free from them. In the southern 
 hemisphere, the mean annual number of cases of fever in the 
 united Engli.>;h and French colonies was IG in 1000; in the 
 northern hemisphere it was 2249 in 1000. 
 
 Thus, marsh fevers are almost 200 times more frequent to 
 the north than to the south of the equator, although in South 
 America and Australia, for example, vast tracts are covered 
 with standing water under a burning sun. They are, more- 
 over, of a far less serious nature in the southern hemisphere. 
 The immense lagoons of Corrientes only occasion slight fevers. 
 We know how dangerous, on the contrary, are those of the 
 Pontine Marshes, which are situated at a much greater dis- 
 tance from the equator. It would be much more difficult for a 
 European to live in Italy upon the banks of tiic Carigliano, 
 than in America upon those of the Parana, 
 
 In spite of some experiments and ingenious theories, these
 
 2 22 The Human Species. 
 
 differences behvecn localities, apparently presenting almost 
 identical general physical conditions, have not yet been ex- 
 plained. The researches of M. Boudin, however, justify us 
 in regarding these marsh miasmata as very probably the 
 greatest and often the only obstacle to the acclimatisatioii of 
 Europeans in the greater number of those places to which 
 the spirit of enterprise has led them. There is something 
 very encouraging and instructive in this fact. We know by 
 what combination of circumstances these pestilential mias- 
 mata are engendered; we know how it is possible to resist 
 tliem. Man can, then, wherever he may go, fight against 
 nature, and at least somewhat ameliorate the conditions of 
 acclimatisation. It has, until now, been impossible to make 
 a whole country healthy in a short space of time. This was 
 a work which time alone seemed to be able to accomplish, 
 very often at a heavy cost of human life. It seems as if the 
 introduction of the eucalyptus would, in a great measure at 
 least, tend to diminish these sacrifices. 
 
 Should, however, the tree brought from Australia by M. 
 Ramel justify all our hopes, we shall find that some care 
 must still be taken in the choice of station. I shall presently 
 show how, in countries which are apparently most dangerous, 
 there are circumscribed spots where acclimatisation takes 
 place almost immediately. It is clear that new comers ought 
 to look carefully for these favoured localities, and pitch their 
 tents there. The contrary has almost always been, and still 
 is, the case. They allow themselves to be seduced by the 
 beauty and fertility of the alluvial lands situated at the 
 mouth of some river, or upon the shores of some bay calcu- 
 lated to facilitate commerce, without considering their un- 
 healthiness. They settle down and build there, without being 
 disturbed by the losses which overwhelm fresh arrivals ; and 
 thus it is that pestilential flats, like that of Batavia, have 
 l)ecome inhabited. 
 
 V. I cannot here consider in any detail the action of con- 
 ditions of life upon human races, without anticipating con- 
 siderations which will be more appropriate in another chapter.
 
 Injlttcncc of Conditions of Life and Race. 223 
 
 I shall only point out a very general fact, and one of great 
 interest in the problem of acclimatisation. 
 
 We know that the animal and vegetable races of one 
 species, although in reality subject to the same influences, 
 have, nevertheless, their special aptitudes ; and, more espe- 
 cially, some affection which is very general in one will bo 
 very rare in another. The c:ise is precisely similar with 
 human races. 
 
 Marsh fevers act in the same manner upon all men. The 
 Negro suffers and dies from fever on the banks of the Niger, 
 but in a much less degree than the White, Moreover, the 
 two races, when transposed to India, preserve, in this respect, 
 almost the same relations. Compared wuth local races, the 
 Negro still retains the ascendancy ; he is everywhere the 
 last attacked by malarious emanations. Born in a country 
 where he is obliged almost incessantly and universally to 
 breathe them, descended from ancestors, Avho from prehistoric 
 times have lived in this poisoned air, he has become acclima- 
 tised to it more than any other race ; on this account alone, 
 he is able to prosper in places where the White would suffer 
 for a long time. 
 
 On the other hand, the Negro has a delicate chest, and no 
 race is so subject to consumption, Avhilst this malady is much 
 more rarely fatal to the White or to the Malay. 
 
 From the extreme differences presented by the White and 
 the Negro it follows that the general conditions of acclimatisa- 
 tion are reversed in the two races. A moderately Avarm air 
 which is impregnated with malarious emanations is danger- 
 ous to the European. A moderate degree even of damp cold 
 will be fatal to the Negro. 
 
 These few facts are sufficient to show that the conditions 
 of acclimatisation vary with the race ; that the same climate 
 cannot exercise the same kind of action upon different races, 
 and that complete acclimatisation, that is to say, naturalisa- 
 tion, can only follow upon the harmony of these two terms — • 
 race and conditions of life.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 CONDITIONS OF ACCLIMATISATION. 
 
 I, The possibility of establishing the harmony, of which I 
 liavc spoken in the preceding chapter, has been denied. It 
 lias been argued that it must exist beforehand, and that 
 instead of becoming acclimatised, people merely become 
 accustomed to a given place. It will be easy to show from 
 what takes place in animals and plants, that there is, in their 
 case, something more than this, and that the organisation is 
 sometimes modified in its most intimate relations so as to 
 conform to the exigencies of conditions of life, which arc by 
 nature inflexible. 
 
 The chrysanthemum {Pyrcirum sinense), which adorns 
 our gardens, came, as we know, originally from China. In- 
 troduced into France in 1790, it flourished there and pro- 
 duced fruit which it was unable to ripen, so that commerce 
 alone supplied our flower gardens with the necessary seed 
 for more than sixty years. The attempt to rear it in hot- 
 liouses and frames met with very small success. In 1852 a 
 few plants were observed to flower and to fruit sooner than 
 the others; the seeds ripened, and France now produces all 
 the .seed which she requires. A small number of accidentally 
 precocious plants have, therefore, acclimatised this beautiful 
 Ihnver. 
 
 The history of the Egyptian goose (Anser cgupliacus) is 
 still more striking. Brought to France in 1801, by Geolfroy 
 Saint-Hilaire, this species at first laid in December, as in its 
 native country. It reared its brood in the depth of winter, 
 and consequently under very unfavourable circumstances. 
 Several generations were, nevertheless, reared at the Museum.
 
 Conditions of Acclimatisation. 225 
 
 Now in 1844 the Liids laid iu February, the following year 
 ill March, and in 1846 in April, the time at which our common 
 goose lays. Is it not clear that the organisation of the 
 Egyptian goose had accommodated itself to the conditions 
 imposed by our climate? 
 
 This marvellous faculty of living beings is sometimes even 
 inconvenient. French vines when removed to the island of 
 Bourbon yield grapes continually, so that the mixture of 
 clusters in every stage of development and maturity has been 
 a serious obstacle in the manufacture of the wine. Silk- 
 worms have acted in a similar manner ; they have laid their 
 eggs and spun their cocoons with perfect indifference as to 
 the season of the year, and in such an irregular manner as to 
 force breeders to give up rearing them. 
 
 Acclimatisation, that is to say, 'pliys'iolorjical adaptation 
 to new conditions of life, is an incontestable fact. All our 
 domestic races which have been imported into America are 
 prospering there. When the conditions of existence have 
 been almost the same as those of their native country, they 
 have chansfcd but little. When the new conditions have 
 differed too widely from the old ones, local races have been 
 formed ; and thus, though perhaps assisted by human in- 
 dustry, i')\gs v:ith fleece are to be found on the cold plateaux 
 of the Cordilleras, sheei') with hair in the warm valleys of the 
 Madeleine, and hairless cattle in the burning plains of 
 Mariquita. Is it not clear that these pigs, sheep, and oxen, 
 these descendants of our races in temperate climates, have 
 established a harmony between themselves and the conditions 
 of life? 
 
 II. But, as I said before, this harmony is scarcely ever 
 obtained without struggles and sacrifices. In this respect 
 ngain man resembles plants and animals. Let us sec, in 
 tlie first place, what may be learnt on this subject from these 
 beings of inferior organisation. 
 
 It is Avell known that two kinds of wheat are recognised 
 by agriculturalists, one of which is sown in spring and the 
 other in autumn, both, being reaped at abont the same time.
 
 2 26 TJic Hi nil an Species. 
 
 It is evident that the conditions of development are very- 
 different in the two cases. To sow a spring wheat in 
 autumn, was, so to speak, changing the condition of existence, 
 and, consequently, attempting an experiment in acclimatisa- 
 tion. This was done by the celebrated Abbe' Tcssier. A 
 hundred seeds of autumn wheat were sown in spring ; they 
 all came up and produced young plants, which passed 
 through the usual stages of vegetation. Only ten plants, 
 however, formed seeds, which only ripened upon four plants. 
 A hundred seeds of this first crop produced fifty fertile 
 plants. In the third generation the hundred seeds produced 
 corn. The inverse experiment gave similar results. 
 
 The acclimatisation of wheat at Sierra Leone offers still 
 more instructive peculiarities. The first year almost all the 
 seed ran to leaf; the ears were very few, and poorly filled. 
 The seeds of this first crop were sown ; a great number did 
 not come up at all. Those which survived were a little 
 more fertile. Much patience was, however, required, and 
 many generations passed before normal crops were obtained. 
 'AVe see that in Tessicr's experiment all the seeds of wheat 
 and their germs lived, but the grain was wanting, or was 
 more or less abortive. There was, then, a loss of genera- 
 tions. The same thing occurred at Sierra Leone. Moreover, 
 the second time the seed was sown, some of it never came 
 up at all. Here, therefore, the loss of individuals was added 
 to that of generations. 
 
 The history of our poultry which has been imported into 
 America, presents equally significant facts. At Cuzco the 
 broods arc just as large as in Europe. Garcilasso dc la 
 Vi-'ga tells us, however, that in his time the eggs were few, 
 :iri(l the chickens difficult to rear. The species has, since 
 then, become acclimatised. 
 
 When M. Roulin made his observations upon the geese 
 imported into Bogota, it was more than twenty years since 
 they had been first brought to that high plateau, and, even 
 tlien, they had not attained their normal fecundity. They 
 were not, however, far from it, while at first the eggs were
 
 Conditions of Acclimatisation. 227 
 
 very rare. A quarter, at the most, of the eggs were hatched, 
 and half the gosUogs died before the ead of the first month. 
 Thus, on the one hand, the Bogota breeder did not obtani 
 nearly as many eggs as he would have done in Europe, 
 while, on the other hand, at the end of a period scarcely 
 equal to the two-hundredth part of the life of the goose, he 
 obtained from these eggs scarcely one-eighth of what they 
 would have produced in Europe. 
 
 Tlie history of these Bogota geese is most instructive. At 
 the outset we meet with all those circumstances which would 
 seem to justify us in the prediction of a failure. The 
 infertility of the females, as attested by the rarity of the 
 eggs, and that of the males, as shown in the strong propor- 
 tion of addle eggs, point to a serious physiological injury to 
 the organs whose action alone insures the permanence of the 
 species. The enormous mortality among the young birds 
 betrayed a no less serious alteration in the components of 
 individual life. Nevertheless, at the time of M. Roulin's 
 journey, acclimatisation had been almost realised, and must 
 without doubt now be completed. 
 
 More than twenty years were, however, necessary for the 
 organisation of this European bird to establish a harmony 
 between itself and the conditions of existence on the high 
 plateaus of Ainerica. The brcclcrs were consequently forced 
 to submit to many losses, affecting both generations and 
 individuals. 
 
 We see what took place iu the case of the fowls and geese 
 as well as in that of the wheat. Shortly after their emigra- 
 tion the climate killed all those who were unable to conform 
 to the new exigencies. A certain number offered sufficient 
 resistance to live almost as long as they would have done 
 under their natural conditions of existence ; but their 
 weakened organisation was unfitted for generation, or could 
 only produce beings which at once succumbed. Through 
 all these disasters, however, a few privileged organisations 
 conformed, from the first, more or less to the new exigencies. 
 With slight modifications they transmitted their own
 
 2 28 The Human Species. 
 
 acquirements combined with tlie suitable aptitudes to their 
 progeny, who in turn made further advances in the direction 
 opened by their parents ; and from year to year the adapta- 
 tion was more complete, the acclimatisation more nearly 
 realised. 
 
 But it is evident that years here represent generations. 
 It is only from parent to offspring, through heredity and 
 accumulation, that the living being becomes modified, and by 
 degrees harmonises with the conditions of life. When, how- 
 ever, we are no longer studying an animal, plant, or a bird, 
 which has the faculty of yearly reproduction, but species or 
 races of a more tardy reproduction, we must remember that 
 it is necessary to reckon by generations, and not by years. 
 
 III. Such are the data by which we are enabled to judge 
 of the attempts at acclimatisation made by man himself I 
 cannot too often repeat the fact that, in common with or- 
 ganised and living beings, we are subject to all the general 
 laws which govern life and organisation in animals and plants. 
 Our intelligence is unquestionably of assistance to us in our 
 struggles with nature, but, unfortunately, the power which 
 we derive from her is limited, and in no case are we placed 
 at greater disadvantage than in the increasing struggle de- 
 manded by a considerable change in conditions of life. The 
 most ingenious efforts are then unable to free man from 
 vicissitudes more or less analogous to those suffered by the 
 wheat of Sierra Leone, the fowls at Cuzco, and the geese at 
 Bogota. 
 
 Wc must, then, almost always be prepared for sacrifices, 
 the extent and gravity of which will be proportionate to the 
 differences, as regards conditions of existence, between the 
 two countries, and we must almost always expect to lose a 
 certain number of individuals and generations. Everything 
 depends upon judging facts fairly, not exaggerating their im- 
 portance, and seeing huw far they justify a hope of success 
 in spite of appearances. If the losses are merely equal to 
 tiiose I have just mentioned, or, better still, if they are fewer 
 in number, wc may prophesy a favourable result ; and, if the
 
 Conditions of Acclimatisation. 229 
 
 victory is worth the price, we must leave the rest to perse- 
 verance and time. 
 
 IV. Events in Algeria confirm these observations. After 
 tlie conquest it was everywhere, as also in France, a question 
 wliether it would be possible to colonise the country taken 
 from the Turks and Arabs. Dr. Knox declared most em- 
 phatically that such a colonisation was impossible, and that 
 the French would never be able to increase or even live in 
 Africa. It must be confessed that this opinion found many 
 and strong supporters. After the first few years of occupa- 
 tion the generals, as well as the doctors, were almost all of 
 the same opinion. M. Boudin supported, with distressing 
 statistics, the views of his colleagues, Marshal Bugeaud and 
 Generals Duvivier and Cavaignac. 
 
 Relying upon what I know to have taken place with 
 regard to birds, I did not hesitate to attack these discouraging 
 prophecies. Military and civil mortality was in 1815 doubt- 
 less much more considerable in Algeria than in France, and 
 the number of deaths must again have exceeded that of 
 births. But emigration was at that time abundant and 
 continual. Now, if the influx of new arrivals filled the voids 
 caused by the change in conditions of existence, it at the 
 same time augmented the mortality by continually bringing 
 forward recruits to this war against conditions of life. The 
 rate of deaths amongst children was almost double that re- 
 ported by French statistics ; but the proportion of deaths 
 was still much less than that among the first geese at 
 Bogota. Finally, far from having been weakened, the fer- 
 tility of the women had increased ; the sources of life were 
 therefore much less affected in this case than upon the high 
 j)lateaus of America. 
 
 From all these considerations, I felt justified in concluding 
 that the acclimatisation of the French in Algeria was certain 
 of success, and Avould not require twenty generations. My 
 opinion has been corroborated by events much sooner than I 
 expected. The census of 1870 showed in the European 
 population of Algeria an increase of 25,000, due almost
 
 230 The Ihunan Species. 
 
 entirely to the superiority of the number of births over that 
 of deaths. The action of the first generation born in the 
 country began to make itself felt, and from that time the 
 result has been still more striking. In two or three more 
 generations the French Creole will live in Algeria quite as 
 well as his ancestors have lived in France. 
 
 There are, however, distinctions "vvhich must be drawn 
 with regard to the facility of acclimatisation in Algeria, 
 between the different European races, and even between the 
 inhabitants of the north and south of France. The statistics 
 offered by MM. Boudin, Martin, and Foley show clearly that 
 the Spaniards and Maltese stand the Algerian climate in- 
 finitely better than the English, Belgians, or Germans. Now, 
 the inhabitants of the north of France strongly resemble the 
 latter nations in race and habits. In both these respects the 
 inhabitants of southern France are connected, on the con- 
 trary, with the inhabitants of Malta and Spain. We might, 
 tlierefore, without much fear of error, prophesy that the 
 latter had, either for themselves or their descendants, a 
 much greater chance of surviving than the French of Al- 
 satian and Flemish origin. Experience has again fully con- 
 firmed these deductions of theory. 
 
 V. The information which we derive from these facts 
 taking place, so to speak, at our very doors, and among 
 races with which w^e are very closely connected, may, with 
 perfect justice, be applied to conditions of life more widely 
 • lifferent in character, to races which are much more distinct 
 from eacl) other than the French and the Belgians. Never- 
 theless, the conclusion so obtained would have the same 
 value as that drawn from a general formula, the signification 
 of which changes with the data. When the question is one 
 of acclimatisation, tliese data alwaj^s rise from the two ele- 
 ments mentioned above : conditions of race and life. If 
 cither vary, even though it be but slightly and within narrow 
 limits, the result is necessarily altered, and often in a very 
 unexpected manner. Every (juestion of acclimatisation, in 
 leality then, forms a separate problem, which often, again, is
 
 Conditio7is of Acclimatisation. 231 
 
 subdivided into a numbei' of particular cases, each of which 
 demands a special solution. Without leaving- the French 
 colonies, we can quote on this subject another most striking 
 example. 
 
 Anthropologists, as Avell as doctors, have often questioned 
 the po.ssibility of the acclimatisation of Europeans in the 
 archipelagoes of the great Mexican Gulf, which, through 
 yellow fever and the influences by which it is developed, is 
 particularly fatal to him. At first sight, it is true, a number 
 of general facts seem to leave no doubt that the answer 
 should be in the affirmative. Since the discovery of America 
 Europeans have alwaj-s occupied these islands, and the White 
 race, bringing with it the Negro, have everywhere replaced 
 the Caribean race. In answer to this statement, it has 
 been argued that these islands are one of the most favourite 
 parts of the globe for emigration, and that by this means 
 alone a population is maintained, which, if left to itself, 
 would soon disappear. Calculations are opposed to calcula- 
 tions, statistics to statistics, and were we to approach the 
 subject without analysing facts, the question would appear 
 most obscure. 
 
 To solve it in those cases only in which France is inte- 
 rested, we will speak only of Guadeloupe and Martinique. 
 We know that these islands were colonised by the French 
 only 23.3 years ago. Even allowing the very liberal ratio of 
 lour generations to the century, we find that, at the most, 
 ten generations have elapsed in these islands, the climate of 
 which is of all others the most fatal to Europeans. Now, 
 more than twenty generations were necessary to acclimatise 
 the geese at Bogota. The experiment, therefore, is not com- 
 plete. Nevertheless, in presence of the facts of longevity 
 and fecundity attested by M. Simonot, wo do not hesitate to 
 share his opinions. Although the French race may not yet 
 be acclimatised in Martinique and Guadeloupe, we may be 
 certain that it soon will be. 
 
 It is no less true that statistics attest an excess of deaths 
 over births. The information which they furnish has, how- 
 U
 
 232 The Human Species. 
 
 ever, been presented without distinction. Old and new 
 Creoles have been mixed together, as well as the latest 
 emigrants, in a common estimate. Elements, which are 
 fundamentally very different have thus been confounded. 
 For a work of this kind to have any real value, it is 
 absolutely necessary to divide the population into classes 
 determined by the time of emigration, and to estimate the 
 length of time itself by the number of generations. By 
 proceeding in this manner, we shall undoubtedly establish 
 in the mortality of groups striking differences, more or less 
 analogous to those displayed by the generations of plants and 
 animals transported into Africa or America. 
 
 The statistics in question are still further vitiated by a 
 fault, which is completely exposed by M. Walther in his 
 work upon Guadeloupe. He, also, has drawn up tables of 
 mortality ; only, instead of taking the population en masse, 
 he studied each district separately. Very significant dif- 
 ferences then made their appearance. Considered as a whole 
 the population of Guadeloupe offers an annual excess of 04G 
 deaths over births, that is to say, nearly one-half per cent. 
 In presence of these facts, the statisticians whose views I 
 am attacking, would certainly have concluded that the 
 European is not acclimatised in Guadeloupe, and have 
 declared, that, after a certain time, which might easily be 
 calculated, this colonial population would become extinct, 
 if the voids were not incessantly filled by fresh immigrants. 
 
 When, however, we examine the table of mortality taken 
 by districts, we arrive at very different conclusions. These 
 districts number thirty-one. Now, in fifteen the number of 
 births is greater than that of deaths. In the little island of 
 Marie-Cialanto this is the case in two districts out of three. 
 Thus, the terrible calculations of the mean mortality are due 
 entirely to the exaggeration of mortality in certain districts, 
 while the Kiiropcan lias become nfcliniatiscd in the (others. 
 
 Tlie tables (;f mortality drawn up in Algeria by M. Boudin 
 present analogous facts. Out ol' sixty-nine localities, fifty- 
 five have shown, since 18'>7, an excess <if l)irllis over deaths.
 
 Conditions of Acclimatisation. 
 
 jj 
 
 The general result obtained by M. Wultlier may be thus 
 explained. The French race is acclimatised iu Guadeloupe 
 in fifteen localities, but not in the remaining sixteen. Or 
 these two statements, the first should be considered as 
 definitely proved ; the second requires confirmation, for a 
 closer examination of the populations of the most unhealthy 
 tlistricts, and a study of them in classes, is still reqiiired. 
 
 However this may be, every unprejudiced person will 
 acknowledge that we can no longer question the fact of 
 acclimatisation in Guadeloupe as a whole. It should now 
 oidy be a question of acclimatisation at Basse terra, at 
 Polnte-d-Pltre, at Pointe-Noire, etc. 
 
 VI. The French Antilles, as also the greater number of 
 the sister iskuuls, are the scene of valuable experiments upon 
 the aptitude of dififerent human races to stand this excep- 
 tional climate, which is one of the most difficult to overcome. 
 The Negro was carried there by force very shortly after the 
 occupation of the islands by the Whites, and has lived there 
 in a state of slavery till within the last few years. As the 
 condition of the parents was inherited by the children, there 
 is little room for doubt, but that after a "iven time the local 
 multiplication of the Blacks would have sufficed for all the 
 wants of agriculture and industry, if the race had become 
 acclimatised. The incessant activity of the slave trade, 
 seems to show that the number of deaths must have greatly 
 exceeded that of births. There appears to be no doubt as to 
 the truth of the fact for the island of Cuba or for Jamaica, 
 General TuUoch, struck by the mortality of the Negi-oes in the 
 English Antilles, has not hesitated to declare that if the 
 trade were once suppressed, the whole race woidd disappear 
 in these islands before the close of a century. The researches 
 of M. Boudin justify us in regarding this assertion as an 
 exaggeration, at least as regards the French possessions. 
 
 Neither the English nor the French author has, however, 
 taken into consideration a circumstance, the importance of 
 which cannot be denied. I alhule to the conditions imposed 
 upon the Negro by slavery. It is clear that the character
 
 234 The Human Species. 
 
 and conduct of the master played an important part in the 
 probability of the life or death of the slave. "Without feeling 
 himself to be, and 'without being inhuman, the master might 
 demand more labour from him than his nature could support, 
 or violate those instincts, the free play of which is necessary 
 to health. This was certainly the case in Cuba, where it was 
 the general practice to get as much out of the slaves as 
 possible, thus creating the necessity for more frequent re- 
 nesval. We have here, doubtless, one of those causes by 
 which the mortality of a race, better fitted than ours for 
 intertropical climates, is so immoderately increased. Facts 
 seem to justify these conjectures. "Since the abolition of 
 slavery," says M. Elisde Reclus, " the Negro population has 
 been on the increase in the English islands. 
 
 However singular this fact may appear to some anthropo- 
 logists, it is onl}'- a repetition of what took place in Brazil. 
 There again, it was said, that the slave trade alone main- 
 tained a black population, which was destined to diminish 
 and disappear as soon as this enforced immigration should 
 cease. Authentic documents show that the opposite has 
 taken place. The slave trade was abolished long before 
 slavery in this great Empire. For many years the pro- 
 prietors, being unable to purchase fresh slaves, took care of 
 tiiose in their possession, and from that time the Negroes 
 have multiplied. Thus it was that during the period in 
 which tlie missionaries of the Jesuits flourished, that portion 
 of the black race in which they were interested was observed 
 to increase in an extraordinary manner, whilst in the rich 
 haciendas, where it was uncarcd for and overworked, it 
 dwindled away. 
 
 By the side of the Negro Creole, there are now in the 
 French Antilles labourers engaged more or less vohmtarily 
 from the same coasts of Africa, representatives of the Semetic 
 white race from Madeira, Chinese of yellow race, and Indian 
 coolies, who are almost all dravidian, and consequently a cross 
 between the black and the yellow. It will be interesting at 
 some future time, to show what resistance each of these
 
 Conditions of Acclimatisation. 235 
 
 nations has offered to the terrible climate they are con- 
 fioBting. The experiment is, at present, only begun. 
 Nevertheless M. Walther has already obtained some inte- 
 resting data at Guadeloupe. The mean annual mortality of 
 the Creoles is 3-28 per 100 ; that of immigrants, 966 for the 
 Chinese ; 7*68 for Negroes ; 7*12 for Hindoos ; and 580 for the 
 natives of Madeira. Unfortunately, the statistics are doubt- 
 ful, and differ from those which M. Du Hailly has given for 
 Martinique. They must, however, both be recorded as the 
 starting-point for new study. There is, moreover, no cause 
 for despair. It is clear, for example, that the natives of 
 ^ladeira will very quickly become acclimatised in Guade- 
 loupe, as is already the case in Cuba, and the much more 
 serious mortality of the Negro, Chinese, and Hindoo races 
 does not prove the impossibility of their ever inhabiting these 
 islands. 
 
 VII. The conditions of life and the nature of the race are 
 not all in the numerous problems raised by acclimatisation. 
 Man, even individually, brings his special elements to bear 
 upon it. The savage and the modern European are placed, 
 by the mere fact of the social differences which separate 
 them, in conditions often opposite, and not always in favour 
 of the latter. 
 
 Even the marvels of modern industrv, whilst facilitatina 
 immigi-ation into distant lands, make it more dangerous. 
 Railways and steamers have reduced the longest journeys to 
 a mere nothing. Lands, which it took our ancestoi-s cen- 
 turies to people, distances which our own fathers could only 
 travel over in several months, are accomplished by us in a 
 few days. AVe have here, then, yet another to be added 
 to the many difficulties of acclimatisation. It is a common 
 thing in Paris to hear men complain of the effects of a mere 
 journey from Algiers. The rapidity of the transit gives a 
 shock to the organisation, although tending to replace it 
 under its natural conditions of life. The shock is necessarily 
 greater when the journey is made in the other direction, and 
 we go against our physical habits, instead of returning to
 
 236 The Human Species. 
 
 them. And, when after a few daj-s' voyage, instead of 
 Algiers, we land at Rio de Janeiro or the Antilles, the shock 
 must be great indeed. 
 
 Modern civilisation is also answerable to a great extent for 
 the losses involved by every settlement in a climate differing 
 too widely from our own. By reason of the security with 
 which she surrounds the poor as well as the rich, of the at 
 least relative ease which is enjoyed by all classes of society, 
 we are little prepared for the struggle for existence. Without 
 going so far back as primitive man or the Aryans, let us 
 simply call to mind Balbao, Pizarro, Cortez, Soto, Monbars, 
 and their rough companions ; can the present generation offer 
 such a resistance as theirs ? 
 
 It is not, however, by its luxuries only that civilisation 
 renders us unfit tp confront the chances of acclimatisation. 
 It is .also, and principally, by the vices which too often 
 accompany it. W. Bolot, who Avas in charge of a number of 
 men employed for the construction of a pier at Grand 
 Bassam, said to Captain Vallon: "A Sunday will put more 
 of my men in the hospital, than three days of work in the 
 fidl heat of the sun." This was because Sunday was given 
 up to debauchery. 
 
 Here, again, is a fact forming, so to speak, an experiment 
 such as might have been imagined by a physiologist. The 
 Isle of Bourbon passes for one of those disastrous climates to 
 which the European cannot become acclimatised. The tables 
 of mortality which relate to the whole population do, in 
 liict, show that the deaths exceed the births to a formidable 
 extent. This is, however, another of those sweeping resvdts, 
 into which we must inquire if we wish to understand its true 
 meaning. 
 
 The Whites of Bourljon form, in reality, two classes, or 
 rather two races, distinct in their manners and customs. 
 The former includes the population of towns and large 
 settlements, who lead the ordinary life of colonists, and 
 especially avoid agricultural labour, considered by Creoles as 
 derrradinir as well as fatal. The latter includes the Mean
 
 Conditions of Accliniaiisation. 237 
 
 'SVldtes, descendants of the original colonists, ^Yho, too poor 
 to buy slaves, were forced to cultivate the land "with their 
 own hands. 
 
 Now, of these two classes of colonists, it is the former 
 alone which supply the mortality to which attention is so 
 often drawn. The Mean Whites live as their fathers lived ; 
 they inhabit and cultivate the less fertile districts of the 
 island. Far from having deteriorated, their race has im- 
 proved, and the women, in particular, are remarkable for 
 beauty of form and feature. The race maintains itself per- 
 fectly, and seems to be on the increase. Crossing, moreover, 
 lias no influence in the matter, for the Mean White, proud 
 of the purity of blood which constitutes his nobility, will not, 
 at any price, ally himself with the Negro or Coolie. 
 
 Thus at Bourbon, indolence, and the habits which it 
 involves, destroy the rich, and those who try to imitate 
 them, while the poor become acclimatised through sobriety, 
 purity of manners, and a moderate amount of work. From 
 the latter, anthropologists and all the world may learn a 
 lesson of grave importance, at once scientific and moral. 
 
 VIII. Finally, acclimatisation and naturalisation are as 
 universal in history as migration, of which they are the 
 consequence. We see them daily accomplished under our 
 very eyes, and with the most different races, though almost 
 invariably at the price of human life. In many places, they 
 are purchased very cheaply, so much so, that study alone 
 teaches us that new conditions of life in no case entirely lose 
 their rights. In others, specially in countries characterised 
 by an extreme climate, they involve considerable losses. 
 J^ut there is nothing to authorise us to deny the existence of 
 acclimatisation and naturalisation. Everything, on the con- 
 trary, proves that if they are willing to submit to the 
 necessary sacrifices, all human races may live and prosper in 
 almost every climate which is not vitiated by accidental 
 causes. 
 
 IX. In this case, as in many others, the present explains 
 the past, whick also contributes its share of information.
 
 238 TJie Human Species. 
 
 Relying upon our own daily experience, and upon facts 
 borrowed from history, Ave can form a general idea of the 
 manner in which the world has been peopled. 
 
 The history of the Aryan race alone, gives us, so to speak, 
 that of the whole species. We see it starting from the Bolor, 
 and Hindoo Koh, from the Eeriene Voedjo, where the summer 
 only lasted two months, descending into Bokhara, and over- 
 running Persia and Cabul before reaching the basin of the 
 Indus. Eleven stations mark this route followed by the 
 Aryans before reaching the Ganges. We tbere find them 
 again slowly advancing, though all the time sending forth as 
 a vanguard, those j)ioviS lieroes, who slew the Rakchassas, 
 and prepared the way for conquests. The race is now in the 
 tropics in India, in the Polar circle in Greenland, Avhere the 
 Norwegians and Danes have replaced the Sea-Kings ; it 
 spreads over an immense region of more or less temperate 
 climate, and possesses colonies in every part of the world. 
 
 The human species must have made a boginriing like the 
 Aryans. Upon leaving their centre of creation, it was by 
 slow stages, that the primitive colonists, ancestors of all 
 existing races, marched forth to the conquest of the un- 
 inhabited world. They thus accustomed themselves to the 
 different conditions of existence imposed upon them by the 
 north, the south, the cast, or the west, cold or heat, plain or 
 mountain. Diverging in every direction, and meeting with 
 different conditions of life, they gradually establisheil a 
 harmony between themselves and each one pf them. Thus 
 acclimatisation, advancing at the same rate as geographical 
 concniest, was less fatal. The struggle, however, though 
 mitigated indeed by the slowness of the advance, still existed, 
 and many pioneers must have fallen upon the route. But 
 the survivors had oidy nature to face, and, thon^fore, suc- 
 ceeded, and ])eopled the world.
 
 BOOK vn. 
 
 PRDIITIVE .^lAX.— FORMATION OF THE HUMAN 
 RACES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 PlllMITIVE MAX. 
 
 I. The primitive type of the human species must neces- 
 sarily have been effaced, and have disappeared. The enforced 
 migrations, and the actions of cHmate, must of themselves 
 have produced this result. Man has passed through two 
 geological epochs ; perhaps his centre of appearance is no 
 longer in existence; at any rate, the conditions are very 
 different to those prevailing when humanity began its 
 existence. When everything was changing round him, man 
 could not avoid being changed also. Crossing, also, has 
 certainly played its part in this transformation. I shall 
 shortly return to these different points which I only allude 
 to here. 
 
 But, on the other hand, we shall sec that the skull of the 
 most ancient Quaternary race is repeated not only in some 
 Australian tribes, but in Europe, and in men who have 
 played an important part among their fellow-countrymen. 
 The other races of the same epoch, judging from the skull, 
 have many representatives atnongst us. They have, never- 
 theless, passed through one of the two geological revolutions, 
 which separates us from oui* original stock. It is then not 
 impossible that the latter may have transmitted to a certain
 
 240 TJie Unman Species. 
 
 number of men, perhaps scattered in time and space, at least 
 a part of its characters. 
 
 Unfortunately, we do not know where to seek for repro- 
 ductions, bearing more or less resemblance to the primitive 
 type ; and, for want of information it would be impossible to 
 recofjnise them as such, if we were to meet with them. 
 Here, therefore, observation alone can furni.sh no data. But, 
 when it is aided by physiology, some conjectures are pos- 
 sible. 
 
 II. AVe know that among animals atavism often causes 
 the reappearance of ancestral characters, even when a care- 
 ful selection has acted upon hundreds of generations. The 
 silkworms of the Ccvennes which yield white cocoons, and 
 the black sheep of Spain furnish examples. In man, where 
 selection does not exist, such facts would be much more 
 likely to be produced. Some characters of our first ancestors 
 ought to appear in isolated cases or collectively in all human 
 races ; perhaps, there arc some Avhich have been preserved 
 in one or more group.s. Consequently, by searching for 
 them, and classifying tho.se which appear iu a more or less 
 erratic manner among races which are most dissimilar in all 
 other respects, we shall probably be able to form a partial 
 reproduction of the primitive human typo. 
 
 In this respect, it is difficult to avoid attaching a real 
 importance to the prognathism of the upper jaw. This 
 anatomical feature is very pronounced in almost all Negro 
 races : it is also strongly marked in certain Yellow races. 
 It is considerably diminished among Whites : but, nevcrthe- 
 les.s, it appears at times almo.st as strongly marked as in the 
 two other groups: it exi.sted in Q\iaternary man. Kverything 
 seems to indicate that it must have been as strongly 
 developed in our first ancestors. 
 
 Phenomena of atavism acting on tlie colouring are of 
 freqticnt occujTencc among animals. 
 
 They are equally i)revalent iu the human species. This 
 C(->nsideration cau.ses me to attach real importance to the 
 opinion of M. dc Salles, who attributes red hair to the earliest
 
 Primitive Man. 241 
 
 null. In fjict, among all human races, individuals have been 
 noticed whose hair more or less approaches to this tint. 
 
 The experiments of Darwin upon the efifects of crossing 
 l)etween very different races of pigeons led to the same con- 
 clusion. He found that the crossings resulted in the reap- 
 pearance of certain peculiarities of colour in the mongrels, 
 which were peculiar to the original species, and which had 
 disappeared in tiie two parent races. Now in our colonies 
 the offspring of a Mulatto and a White frequently has red 
 hair. In Europe also, M. Hamy has remarked that children 
 are born with red hair, when one of the parents is decidedly 
 dark and the other decidedly fair. In all cases of this nature, 
 we should say that the primitive character reasserts itself, 
 being accidentally acquired by the reciprocal neutralisation 
 of opposed ethnical characters. 
 
 When examined under the microscope, the cutaneous pig- 
 ment which gives the human body its characteristic colour, 
 doubtless shows different tints, but yellow is always present 
 as a colouring element. If we apply to man the laws which 
 Isidore Gcoftroy has deduced from his observations upon 
 animals, we are led to conclude that this colour originally 
 predominated. When the White is crossed with the Negro, 
 the yellow colouring element at once asserts itself and gone- 
 rally appears to predominate. In the colonies the general 
 term of yellows is sometimes given to mulattos. This result 
 is again explained by the experiments of Darwin ; and the 
 conclusion is admissible that the original colour of man more 
 or less approximated to this tint. 
 
 Certain facts which have been observed among Negroes 
 seem also to confirm this conclusion. Among the most 
 strongly characterised peoples belonging to this type, the 
 appearance has been noticed of individuals of a lighter 
 . olour, sometimes almost resembling the Whites in this 
 respect, sometimes tending more or less to yellow, without 
 ]>rcsenting any of the phenomena of tcratological albinij^m. 
 These individual peculiarities of colour may be attributed to 
 atavism. Now amons: no Avhite or vellow race have facts
 
 242 The Human Species. 
 
 becu noticed wliich can be regarded as reciprocal to the 
 preceding. 
 
 Nothing therefore authorises us to regard the Negro race 
 as having preceded the other two ; and, on the contrar}', the" 
 contrast which I have just pointed out leads to the conclusion 
 that the ancestors of the negro were a race of a much lighter 
 colour. 
 
 On the other hand, ■we know that the Aryan race is the 
 latest. The question of priority thus lies between the Semitic, 
 the Allophylian, and the group of yellow races. What I have 
 said above of the fundamental colour being present as an 
 clement in the colour of all races, and the phenomena of 
 cro.ssing, point with some probability in favour of the latter. 
 
 Philology seems to confirm this view. Monosyllabic lan- 
 guages, which imply the first attempts at human speech, only 
 exist among the yellow races. All the Negro races and the 
 Allophylian "Whites speak agglutinative languages, which 
 answer to the second form which man gave to the expression 
 of his thought.s. Aryans and Semites both have inflectional 
 langtingcs. 
 
 riiilulogy then seems to lead to the same conclusion as 
 pliysiology, and even to give an appearance of greater proba- 
 bility to these conjectures, •which I only give for what they 
 are worth. 
 
 III. We know nothing of primitive man ; we acknowledge 
 that, from want of information, it woulil be impossible to 
 recognise him. All that the present state of our knowledge 
 allows us to say is that, according to all appearance he ought 
 to be characterised by a certain amount of prt>gnathism, and 
 have ncitln-r a black skin nor woolly hair. It is also fairly 
 probable that his colour would resemble that of the yellow 
 races, and his hair be more or less red. Finally everything 
 tcnd.s to the conclusion that the language of our earliest 
 aiircstors wiLS a more or less pronounced monosyllabic one. 
 
 These arc only conjectures, and they amount to but little, 
 liut this little is founded upon experiment and observation. 
 
 \\. We can also only form very vague conjectures uj^on
 
 Primilhe Man. 243 
 
 the degree of intellectual development which man exhibited 
 at liis birth and during his first generations. At any rate it 
 is possible to believe that he did not enter upon the scene of 
 tlie world with innate knowledge, and the instinctive indus- 
 tries which belong to animals. Still less did he appear in a 
 fully civilised state "mature in body and mind" as thinks 
 the Comte Eusebe de Salles. All traditions point to a period 
 when human knowledge was very small, when man was 
 ignorant of industries, to our eyes very elementary, and which 
 we see appear in succession. Upon this point the Bible 
 anrrces with classical mvtholosfv. The Hebrews have their 
 Tubal Cain, and the Greeks their Triptolemos. Prehistoric 
 studies confirm this progressive development in Western 
 Europe upon every point. Tertiary industries precede qua- 
 ternary. The whole history of races seems to me to give, at 
 least in part, a representation of that of the Species ; and 
 our thoughts go back almost irresistibly to the time when 
 man found himself face to ftice with creation, armed solely 
 with the aptitudes which were destined to undergo such a 
 marvellous development. 
 
 Thanks to these aptitudes, at a very early period he satis- 
 fied at least the first wants of existence. The miocene man 
 of La Beauce already knew the use of fire and worked flint. 
 However rough and rudimentary his instruments may have 
 been, he had even then an industry, and according to all ap- 
 pearance fed partly upon cooked food. The man of Saint- 
 Prcst, with his small lozenge-shaped arrow-heads, worked only 
 on one side, with his rough liatchets, could undoubtedly attack 
 and kill the great contemporary mammalia. He possessed 
 scrapers which he used to prepare their skins with, and cnd-s, 
 which perhaps served as needles. From this distant period, 
 upon which science has thrown as yet but little light, man 
 reveals his existence by two great facts, and shows his supe- 
 riority to the whole animal creation.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 FORMATION OF HUMAN KACES UNDER THE SOLE INFLU- 
 ENCE OF CONDITIONS OF LIFE AND HEREDITY. 
 
 I. The first mcu who peopled the ceutre of human appear- 
 ance must at first have differed from each other only in indi- 
 vidual features. At their beginning and during an indefinite 
 lapse of time, mankind could only have been homogeneous, 
 as is every animal and vegetable species which is restricted 
 to an area of small extent. 
 
 At the present time, we find mankind composed of nume- 
 rous grou|)s, which have peculiar characters, and constitute 
 so many distinct races. How liave these races originated ? 
 and how have they grown and multiplied? 
 
 To give a definite re[)ly to these qtiestions, by going back 
 from recent effects to first causes, is still impossible, and per- 
 hap.s will always be so. Nevertheless, science may even now 
 a|tpri»ach the general aspects of the problem. We arc well 
 ac<|uainted with the circumstances under which varieties 
 originate and races are fijinud among phmts and animals : 
 we have established in man tiie occuirence of a number of 
 phenomena, which are in this resj)ect identical, or very 
 similar to those exhibited by the two inferior kingdoms. We 
 are therefore clearly authorised to apply inferences drawn 
 from thorn to ourselves, connecting particular with general 
 facts. This study is instructive in many respects. Unfor- 
 tunately, we cannot fully enter upon it here ; we can only 
 select some farts in the history of anin)als to justify our 
 conclusions. 
 
 II. The j»rol)Iiin of the formation of human races pi'escnts 
 two very distinct ca.'-cs. Man at first was subject to the sole
 
 Action of Conditions of Life and Heredity. 245 
 
 iiction of natural modifying agents. Under this itifUicnce 
 jnwe races were formed. When these races came in contact, 
 they were crossed ; this resulted in the formation of mixed 
 races. Witlioiit being antagonistic to tlic natural forces, 
 crossing modifies them by its peculiar piienomena, and some- 
 times masks their manifestations. The two cases, there- 
 fore, require separate examination. We will begin with the 
 first. 
 
 III. Every organic species considered as a whole appears 
 to be subjected to the action of two forces, one of which tends 
 to maintain and the other to modify its characters. To 
 what cause can this double action be referred 1 This is a 
 question put by the greatest thinkers and the most eminent 
 physiologists, from Aristotle and Hippocrates to Burdach and 
 J. Mliller. 
 
 It is not the resemblances existing betsveen the members 
 of the same species, or between the members of one family, 
 which perplex philosophers : all agree in referring them to 
 lirredity. The problem lies rather in the differences. Not 
 only in the considerable differences which are established 
 between races ; but more especially in the shades constituting 
 the individual traits which distinguish father from son, or 
 brother from bnjthcr. This is in n.'ality the fundamental 
 difficulty, and many hyjwthescs have been propo.sed for its 
 solution. Prosper Lucas, after having discussed them sepa- 
 rately, reganled them all as insufficient, and believed that, 
 side by side with heredity, which maintains types, we ought 
 to admit a special force, iniuitcncss {linneite) which diver- 
 sifies them. 
 
 We can, however, account for the double tendency ex- 
 hibited by living beings, without having recourse to a new 
 force. For this purpo.se it is sufficient to push the analysis 
 of phenomena a little further than is customary, and to 
 obtain a clear idea of the part played by the conditions 0/ 
 life {hiilieu) and heredity. As h, general rule an action is 
 attributed to the first, which everywhere and at all times is 
 a modifying one, and to the second a purely conservative
 
 246 The Htinian Species. 
 
 action. Now it may be easily shown that this is not the 
 case ; and that each of these causes acts in an inverse manner 
 according to circumstances. 
 
 IV. By virtue of the laws of heredity, the father and 
 mother tend equally to transmit to their offspring their own 
 character. However similar they may be supposed to be, 
 there are always some differences between them ; and the 
 nature of the new being is necessarily a compromise between 
 two different tendencies. The son cannot, therefore, always 
 resemble his father exactly. In him the characters coonmon 
 to both parents will easily be exaggerated ; the opposite 
 characters will be neutralised ; and the different characters 
 will produce a resultant, as distinct from the two components 
 as green is from yellow and blue. Thus even by virtue of 
 its own tendencies, and in consequence of the enforced co- 
 operation of the sexes, direct and immediate heredity 
 becomes, in some respects, a cause of variation. 
 
 Mediate and indirect heredity, justly compared by Bur- 
 dach to geneagenetic phenomena, as well as atavism, which 
 suddenly reproduces with great exactness the characters of 
 an ancestor, sometimes after hundreds of generations, have 
 certainly considerable influence in the variation of individual 
 traits, and in the differences which distinguish parents from 
 their children. 
 
 Their action, added to that of direct heredity, is sufficient 
 to explain the appearance of certain varieties, without 
 appealing to innateness. 
 
 V. But the hereditary force, although it is manifested from 
 one genei'ation to another, or through several generations, is 
 always influenced by the conditions of life (milieu), and this 
 has evidently greater ferce. 
 
 This term ought to be taken in a much more general sense 
 than is usually the case. Buffon himself only took into 
 account climate, varying quantities of food, and the hardships 
 of servitude, when he was ticating of domestic animals. I 
 understand by the conditions of life something much more 
 complex. They comprehend the sum of all the conditions
 
 Action of Conditions of Life and Heredity . 247 
 
 under whose sway a plant, an animal, or man, is formed and 
 grows as germ, embryo, youth, and adult. To make a selec- 
 tion from these conditions, to admit some and take them into 
 consideration, to reject and exclude the rest, is evidently an 
 entirely arbitrary procedure. The consideration of only a 
 certain period of life, the neglect of the whole intra-ovarian 
 or intra-uterine period, deserves the same reproach. From 
 this point of view, the existence of a being cannot be severed, 
 any more than the conditions of life under whose rule this 
 existence is accomplished. 
 
 A number of cases do away with all doubt as to the action 
 of the conditions of life upon the germ, or upon the embryo, 
 however much it may appear to be protected by the en- 
 velopes of the ovumj or by the tissues of the mother. The two 
 Geotfroy Saint-Hilaire have clearly proved that monstrosity 
 dates from the earliest stages of the formation of the being, 
 and indicates in certain cases the external causes which have 
 produced it. The experiments of M. Dareste have confirmed 
 and enlarged in a singular manner these first conclusions, 
 while giving them greater precision. By mixing madder 
 with the food of a female mammal, Flourens produced a red 
 colour in the bones of the foetus. By placing the eggs of 
 a salmon-trout in waters which only nourished white- 
 trout, Coste noticed the eggs become gradually paler, and 
 produce trout which had lost the characteristic colour of 
 their race. In order to increase the height of our excellent 
 small horses of the " camargue " race, it is sufficient to give 
 the mare during the period of gestation a more plentiful 
 diet than that to which s'he is accustomed in her half- wild 
 state. 
 
 Thus it is established in the clearest manner and by exact 
 experiments that the conditions of life, when acting upon 
 the embryo during the intra-uterine or intra-ovarian part of 
 its existence, are capable of producing either the gravest 
 teratological disorders, or simple and slight deviations. We 
 are, therefore, clearly justified in attributing to the same 
 cause modifications which are placed between these extremes
 
 248 The Human Species. 
 
 according to their importance. To invoke innateness, in order 
 to explain their appearance, is obviously superfluous. We 
 shall connect, therefore, with actions of this kind the appear- 
 ance of the first spineless Acacia of which we have spoken 
 before, of the first Ancon sheep in Massachusetts in 1791, 
 that of the first Mauchamp sheep in France in 1828, etc. 
 
 The Ancon and Mauchamp races are only propagated by 
 human industry. But these sudden deviations from a given 
 type can also extend and multiply their numbers by them- 
 selves. It is well-known that South American oxen are 
 descended from a horned Spanish race. Now, in 1770, a 
 hornless ox Avas produced in Paraguay. In several years, 
 according to d'Azara, this exceptional form had, as it were, 
 invaded several provinces. Nevertheless, the race is far from 
 being in favour, because the absence of horns renders it less 
 liable to be caught by the lasso, so that its destruction was 
 attempted. It was, therefore, evidently proj)agated spon- 
 taneously. 
 
 Whoever has the smallest acquaintance with embryogenesis 
 will have no difficulty in understanding that conditions of 
 life act especially upon organisms in respect to their forma- 
 tion and evolution. However, their influence upon an 
 animal, even when full-grown, is sometimes quite as marked. 
 Our sheep, when transferred to America, generally become 
 acclimatised without undergoing great changes. Their fleece, 
 particularly, is retained. But in the plains of the Meta it is 
 only retained on condition of the sheep being regularly shorn. 
 If they are left to themselves, the wool becomes of a felty 
 nature, is detached in flakes, and is replaced by a short, stiff, 
 and .shining hair. Under the influence of this burnino- 
 climate, the same individual becomes in turn a woolly and a 
 hairy animal. Now, innateness, as Prosper Lucas conceives 
 it, cannot be appealed to in the case of changes undergone 
 by a full-grown animal, whilst the action of conditions of life 
 is here incontestable. 
 
 VI. We have just pointed out how lieredity and conditions 
 of life can give rise to a varlcly. Now, the individual which
 
 Action of Conditions of Life and Ho'edity. 249 
 
 has commenced to deviate from its original type becomes in 
 its turn a 'parent ; it tends to transmit to its offspring the 
 exceptional characters ■svhich distinguish it. The same facts 
 are repeated in its offspring; and, at each generation, the 
 actions of the conditions of life are added to each other. 
 Thus every time heredity transmits the sura of these actions 
 to the following generation. The faintest modification 
 increased from father to son sometimes leads to most marked 
 changes. Our Eui-opean oxen, in the hot plains of Mariquita 
 and Neyba gradually lost their hair, at first became pelones, 
 and would soon have formed an entirely naked race, if the 
 calongos had not been regularly killed. Again, pigs which 
 have become wild in the Paramos have acquired a kind of 
 wool under the action of a continuous, but not excessive cold. 
 The Guinea dog and the Esquimaux dog present an analogous 
 contrast between races of the same species. 
 
 In the preceding examples, and in many others which 
 must be omitted, the actions in question modify organisms 
 in order to place them in harmony with the conditions of 
 life. Now it is intelligible that when the maximum of pos- 
 sible effect has once been attained, they can only fix the 
 result obtained more fully, but can never determine a change 
 in the opposite direction. The heat, which has by degrees 
 deprived calongo cattle of their hair, will never restore 
 it again ; and the cold wliich has made our pigs woolly, 
 Avill never deprive them of wool. Here, then, Ave find con- 
 ditions of life acting as an agent of preservation and 
 stability. 
 
 VII. In the jjrcceding passage allusion has been made to 
 natural forces left to themselves. It is to them that the 
 formation is due of the wild races of all the species whose 
 geographical area is very extended, such as the fox, jackal, 
 lion, etc. 
 
 These races are sometimes so different that they were 
 regarded as distinct species, as long as the intervening geo- 
 graphical and zoological terms were unknown. Frederick 
 Cuvier himself made this mistake in the case of the jackals
 
 250 The Hufuan Species. 
 
 of India and those of the Senegal. Wild races have, however, 
 never been so numerous or so distinct from each other as 
 domesticated races. 
 
 Are we to infer from this that man exercises around him- 
 self and of himself a kind of magnetic action, as some authors 
 seem to admit? Certainly not. In reality, he only acts 
 upon an animal by setting in action, sometimes intentionally, 
 sometimes unintentionally, the two agents which, hitherto, 
 we have met with everywhere, conditions of life and heredity. 
 By the single fact of domestication, by the confinement which 
 is almost always the result of it, he changes entirely the 
 natural conditions of existence. By leading in his train the 
 animals which he has enslaved, he diversifies still more the 
 influences which act upon them. Prompt to seize every 
 means of rendering them most useful, he profits by the 
 smallest modifications which show the least advantage, 
 pushes them to their utmost limits and produces the extreme 
 races, of which our exhibitions of animal races give such 
 curious examples. 
 
 The chief means which man uses for the attainment of 
 these results, which at times seem to border on the marvellous, 
 is selection. Ever since he has possessed domestic animals 
 he has marked out among them individuals which are better 
 adapted than the rest to bis intentions. By some kind of 
 instinct, or unconsciously, as Darwin says, he has chosen 
 them to breed from. By rejecting the types which he 
 considers inferior, and only employing the higher types 
 wherewith to propagate the species, he has directed the 
 action of heredity in a definite direction, and has readily 
 created races. Now, man has acted in this manner since the 
 times spoken of in Genesis and by Chou-King, that is, for 
 thousands of years. Is it then surprising that he should 
 have multiplied around him hereditary forms which are 
 more or less distinct from the primitive types ? 
 
 Progressive selection would doubtless lead to numerous 
 and varied results. Would it allow of the creation of races 
 whose characters almost reach hcmitcry? Tlie answer to
 
 Action of Conditions of Life and Heredity. 251 
 
 tbis question is at least doubtful. But we have not to ask 
 it. Wlien by one of the actions of the conditions of life, 
 Avhose origin remains obscure, an almost teratological animal 
 form is produced, it soon disappears by the mixture of blood 
 from different sources, if unions are left to chance. This is 
 the reason why analogous facts are not observed in feral 
 races. But if this form appears in a domestic animal, if it 
 answers to any want or caprice, selection intervenes, preserves 
 it, and multiplies it. This explains the origin of the Ancon 
 sheep, which were all descended from a single ram of which 
 we have spoken above ; also the means by which M. Graux 
 de Mauchamp has raised his race of sheep with silky fleeces 
 from a single ram. These two examples show how all those 
 peculiar races have been obtained, which in some of their 
 characters seem to clash with the very type from which they 
 were derived. In the canine species the beagle corresponds 
 to the Ancon sheep; the niata cattle, which have appeared in 
 South America since its conquest, correspond to the bull-dog, 
 etc. 
 
 VIII. Races, when once formed under man's influence, are 
 fixed by the same causes which produced them. Their 
 characters, wdiich at first were entirely artificial, become 
 more and more fixed, so much so, that even a very consider- 
 able change in the conditions of existence, never effiices them 
 entirely. The acquired nature is, so to speak, welded to the 
 original nature of the being. 
 
 This is a fact not generally recognised by naturalists and 
 anthropologists who have touched upon these questions. For 
 instance, it has been admitted as proved that domestic races, 
 when they have returned to the feral state, reassume all the 
 original characters of the species. This is a mistake. The 
 fact is, that hoth with animals and plants, escaped races 
 lose a certain number of characters, and frequently the 
 most apparent ones, which they owe to domestication ; they 
 reassume others which they had lost during their period oV 
 servitude, but the former are morefrequently only diminished 
 and masked by the latter. If fruit-trees escaped from our
 
 252 TJie Human Species. 
 
 orchards, if our horses, dogs, cattle, and pigs, when they have 
 become wild, had really reassiimed the original type of the 
 species, they ought to present in every area which they in- 
 habit the marked uniformity characteristic of animals who 
 were never subject to man. This is not the case. They 
 ought in particular to preserve no trace of their acquired 
 characters. Now, the latter are partly persistent. Vans Mons 
 has found apple-trees and pear-trees of Belgium, in a wild 
 state, in the forest of the Ardennes. The prickles had 
 reappeared, the fruit had become small and bitter again, but 
 the principal cultivated varieties were still to be recognised. 
 I have established an analogous fact with regard to cling- 
 stone and free-stone peach-trees in a valley of the Cevennes. 
 Similarly Martin de Moussy has recognised in the troops of 
 doCTs which have become wild in America, all the chief races 
 from which they had been derived, although they reassumcd 
 the general characters of the tan-coloured type. 
 
 IX. From the number of observations which have been 
 collected among plants and animals, and of which I can only 
 notice a small number, it is easy to understand the appear- 
 ance and multiplication of human races, and to account for 
 certain general facts, some of which are closely connected 
 with our history. Let us state at starting that with man, 
 as with animals, varieties have appeared at times which 
 may be classed among hemitery. Individuals, exhibiting 
 from their birth exceptional characters, are none the less 
 healthy, and sometimes have very remarkable power of 
 transmission. Edward Lambert, born in 1717 of perfectly 
 healthy parents, had all his life a kind of carapace more than 
 an inch thick, and irregularly fissured, which gave him the 
 name of tJte jyorcujnne man. All his children, to the number 
 of six, and his two grandchildren, inherited this strange modi- 
 fication of the skin, although his wife and his daughter-in-law 
 did not show the least trace of it. In the Colburn family, 
 four generations were n\arkcd with polydactylism which was 
 derived from the grandmother of the great calculator. At 
 the fourth generation, four children out of eight still had
 
 Action of Conditions of Life and Heredity. 253 
 
 supernumerary fingers, though at each generation normal 
 blood was mixed with the teratological blood. 
 
 Evidently, if the descendants of Lambert and Colburn had 
 been treated like those of the first Ancon or Mauchamp 
 sheep, two human races would have been obtained, one 
 characterised by a cutaneous carapace, and the other by the 
 possession of six fingers. But here selection was wanting, 
 and the exceptional blood, from being diluted at each fresh 
 marriage, did not fail to be rapidly exhausted, 
 
 X. Man does not subject himself to the selection; which 
 he applies with so much success to animals and plants. In 
 his species, therefore, the extreme variations which are 
 obtained elsewhere are not produced. It is thus easily 
 explained why the limits of variation are not so extensive 
 with man as with domesticated or cultivated races. But if, 
 for some motive or other, he were to apply the process of 
 selection to himself, we should not have to wait lonof for 
 the result. By marrying the tallest women to the giants of 
 their guard, Frederick William and Frederick II. had created 
 at Potsdam a real race distinguished for its tall stature. In 
 Alsace a Duke de Deux-Ponts, who imitated the Prussian 
 sovereigns, obtained the same result. 
 
 There is another cause which contributes powerfully to 
 restrict the limits of variation in man, namely, the power 
 which his intelligence gives him of partly escaping from the 
 effects of the conditions of life. He is always struggling, as 
 much as he is able, against the external influences capable of 
 disturbing the equilibrium which constitutes his well-being. 
 In the tropics, he uses contrivances for avoiding the heat ; in 
 the polar circle, he perfects his means of heating ; if he 
 emigrates, he carries with him, as far as he can, his manners 
 and customs, and struggles Avith redoubled care against the 
 new conditions of life. There is nothing strange in findinjj 
 him successful in neutralising to a certain extent the modifying 
 influences of the external world. 
 
 XI. Nevertheless, the conditions of life do not surrender 
 their rights ; although diminished, their action is none the
 
 2 54 The Human Species. 
 
 less real. This is a fact which can be affirmed by what 
 occurs ia our great western colonies. Each great European 
 race is there represented by derived sub-races which vary 
 according to the locality. The islands in the Gulf of Mexico, 
 North and South America, and Australia itself, which has 
 been so recently colonised, have at this time their own 
 peculiar races, some of which are remarkably characterised. 
 
 Since I am unable to treat in detail all these facts of 
 transmutation, I will only notice some of the facts which 
 have been established in the United States. "We know that 
 the English race was only definitely settled there at the time 
 of the Puritan emigration, about 1620, and from the arrival 
 of Penn in 1681. Two centuries and a half, twelve genera- 
 tions at the most, separate us from this epoch, and neverthe- 
 less, the Anglo-American, the Yankee, no longer resembles 
 his ancestors. The fact is so striking that the eminent 
 zoologist, Andrew Murray, when endeavouring to account for 
 the formation of animal races, finds he cannot do better than 
 appeal to the condition of mankind in the United States. 
 
 The subject, moreover, is not wanting in precise details, 
 which are vouched for by a number of travellers, by 
 naturalists, and doctors. At the second generation the 
 English Creole in North America, presents, in his features, 
 an alteration which approximates him to the native races. 
 Subsequently the skin dries and loses its rosy colour, the 
 glandular .system is reduced to a minimum, the hair darkens 
 and becomes glossy, the neck becomes slender, and the size 
 of the head diminishes. In the face, the temporal foss£B are 
 pronounced, the cheek-bones become prominent, the orbital 
 cavities become hollow, and the lower jaw massive. The 
 bones of the extremities are elongated, while their cavity is 
 diminished, so much so, that in France and England gloves 
 are specially made for the United States with exceptionally 
 long fingers. Lastly, in the woman, the pefvis, in its propor- 
 tions, approaches to that of the man. 
 
 Are these changes signs of a degeneration already ac- 
 complished, and of an approaching extinction, as Knox
 
 Action of Conditions of Life and Heredity. 255 
 
 asserts? I think a reply to this assertion is hardly, 
 necessary. We are sufficiently acquainted with American 
 men and women to know that, although modified, the 
 physical type is not on that account lowered in the scale of 
 races; and the social grandeur of the United States, the 
 marvels they have accomplished, the energy with which they 
 pass through the rudest crises, prove that from every point of 
 view, the Yankee race has retained its rank. It is simply 
 a new race, formed by the American conditions of life, but 
 which remains worthy of its elder sisters in Europe, and will 
 perhaps some day surpass them. 
 
 The Negro transported into the same countries has also 
 undergone remarkable changes. His colour has paled, his 
 features have improved, and his physiognomy is altered. " In 
 the space of 150 years," says M. Elis^e Reclus, "they have 
 passed a good fourth of the distance which separates them from 
 the whites, as far as external appearance goes." Lyell's 
 opinion is almost the same. Moreover, when visiting two 
 Negro churches, at Savannah, he remarked that the odour so 
 characteristic of the race was scarcely appreciable. A long 
 medical experience at New Orleans has shown Dr. Visinid 
 that the blood of the Negro Creole has lost the excess of 
 plasticity which it possessed in Africa. With MM. Reiset, 
 de Lisboa, etc., with even Nott and Gliddon, let us add that, 
 while the physical type has undergone modification, the 
 intelligence has improved, and we shall have to recognise 
 that in the United States a svh-Negro race has been formed, 
 derived from the imported race. 
 
 XII. Thus the European White and the African Negro, 
 when under the influence of new conditions of life, have 
 both undergone modification. Moreover both, according to 
 M. Reclus, whose statements are confirmed by those of M. 
 L'abbd Brasseur de Bonbourg, approximate to the indigenous 
 races. Both of these authors seem to admit that at the end 
 of a given time, whatever be their origin, all the descendants 
 of Whites or of Negroes who have immigrated to America will 
 become Red-skins. 
 12
 
 256 The Htiman Species. 
 
 "When two such intelligent observers arrive at an identical 
 and certainly quite unexpected conclusion on such a question, 
 the facts must be very patent. Yet they have forced their 
 meaning, from not having taken sufficient account of the 
 nature of the problem. That the Negro and the White 
 should replace some of their features and characters by some 
 of the features and characters belonging to the indigenous 
 races, is quite natural. When subject to the action of the 
 conditions of life which have formed the local races, they 
 could not help being influenced by it to a certain extent. 
 But they will never on that account be confused with the 
 local races nor with each other, any more than the White 
 transported to Africa would ever become a true Negro, or 
 the European descendants of a Negro would ever become true 
 Whites. 
 
 This impossibility of one race being transformed into 
 another is often brought forward as an objection against 
 Monogenism. It is nevertheless the natural consequence of 
 the phenomena, of which I have endeavoured to give a short 
 account, and is easily explained. Every race is a resultant 
 whose components are, partly the species itself, partly the 
 sum of the modifying agents which have produced the devia- 
 tion from the t^^pe. We cannot separate those two elements, 
 and races which have run wild show us to what extent the 
 fusion can go. Every race which is fixed, when brought 
 under the conditions of life Avhich have formed another, will 
 doubtless approximate to the latter ; but it will partly retain 
 its former impress, as the fruit-trees of Van Mons and the 
 wild dogs of Martin de Moussy have done. 
 
 Such is what would take place even among primary races 
 directly detached from the primitive type, and which have 
 only been subject to tlie action of one fixed condition of life. 
 But with tlie Negro and the White, the question is much 
 more complex. These two extreme types represent the last 
 product of two series of long-continued actions, whose diversity 
 and multiplicity are indicated by the geographical stations 
 themselves, Europe and tropical Africa have given them, if
 
 Actio7i of Conditions of Life and Heredity. 257 
 
 tlie expression may be used, the last touches ; but their out- 
 line was sketched out long before they reached their present 
 habitat. By their transposition, we only submit each of 
 them to a part of the influences which have formed the other, 
 and consequently a complete exchange of characters could 
 never take place. 
 
 XIII. Without denying absolutely the influence of the 
 conditions of life upon man, most polygenists refuse to admit 
 that they have the power of producing new races. To sup- 
 port their statements, they appeal to the persistence of 
 certain types for a considerable lapse of time, and insist most 
 strongly upon certain facts derived from Egypt. On this 
 latter point I readily agi*ee with them. It is quite true that 
 pictures and Egyptian sculptures point to the existence in 
 the valley of the Nile of a type, or rather types, which are 
 remarkably uniform ; and whoever has visited these countries 
 has certainly been struck, as I was, with the great re- 
 semblance of the peoples of the present to those of the past. 
 
 But what reasons are there why the inhabitants of the 
 valley of the Nile should change ? What cause, except inter- 
 crossing, could determine any modification in their physical 
 characters ? In this region, which is exceptional in so many 
 respects, nothing has changed since historic times, neither the 
 earth, the sky, nor the river ; habits, customs, and daily life 
 have remained as they were in the time of the Pharaohs ; 
 the Eg}'ptian even uses implements in our days, which are 
 exactly like those which were used fifty or sixty centuries 
 ago by his ancestors. 
 
 In Egypt, all the conditions of existence, and, consequently, 
 the actions of the conditions of life, are the same in our days 
 as they were in those distant times, the history of which is 
 preserved by the monuments. Far from tending to modify 
 a race which is already fixed, they have only helped to fix it 
 more and more. In the order of ideas which I support, a 
 change in the Egyptian type would be inconceivable. 
 
 The persistence of a type, far from being an objection to 
 the manner in whicli I understand the conditions of life to
 
 258 The Human Species. 
 
 act, viz. : the formation and maintenance of races, is a con- 
 firmation of it. 
 
 XIV. In conclusion ; like all animal and vegetable species, 
 the human species can vary within certain limits; like 
 plants and animals, man has his varieties and races, which 
 have appeared and been formed by the action of the same 
 causes. 
 
 In the human kingdom, as in the two other organic 
 kingdoms, the first causes of variation are, conditions of life 
 and heredity. 
 
 In phenomena of this kind, conditions of life act as the 
 supreme ruler. If they vary, they become modifying agents, 
 if they remain constant, agents of stabilisation. 
 
 In both cases their result is to harmonise organisms with 
 the conditions of their existence. 
 
 Heredity, which is essentially a preserving agent, becomes 
 an ao-ent of variation, when it transmits and accumulates the 
 modifying actions of the conditions of life. 
 
 XV. It is now easy to understand, in the general sense, 
 the formation of human races. 
 
 Man at first doubtless peopled his centre of appearance 
 and the countries immediately adjoining. He then com- 
 menced the immense and varied dispersion which dates 
 from tertiary times and continues to the present day. He 
 has passed through two geological epochs, and is now in his 
 third. He has seen the mammoth and rhinoceros flourishing 
 in Siberia in the midst of a rich fauna ; he has at least seen 
 them driven by the cold into the midst of Europe ; and he 
 has assisted in their extinction. Later on, he has retaken 
 possession of the barren-lands himself; he has pushed his 
 colonies as far as the neighbourhood of the pole, perhaps to 
 the very pole itself, while at the same time he has invaded 
 the forests and deserts of the tropics, reached the extremity 
 of two great continents, and peopled all the archipelagoes. 
 
 For many thousands of years, man has therefore been 
 subject to the action of all the external conditions of life 
 with which we are acquainted, to that of the conditions of life
 
 Action of Conditions of Life and Ilci-edity. 259 
 
 of which we can at the utmost only form an idea. The 
 various kinds of life to which he has been subjected, and the 
 ditferent degrees of civilisation at which he stopped or to 
 which he has reached, have all diversified still more his con- 
 ditions of existence. Was it possible that he should retain 
 everywhere and for all time his original characters ? 
 
 Experience and observation lead to an entirely opposite con- 
 clusion. When we see the Anglo-Saxon of our days, although 
 protected by all the resources of an advanced civilisation, sub- 
 jected to the American conditions of life, and changed into a 
 Yankee, we must admit that at each of his great stages, when 
 man is submitted to new conditions of existence, he has had 
 to harmonise himself with them, and in so doing undergo 
 modification. Each of these principal stations has neces- 
 sarily witnessed the formation of a corresponding race. The 
 original characters, thus successively affected, have become 
 more and more altered, by reason of the length of the 
 journey, and the difference of conditions. When they have 
 reached the end of their journey the grandchildren of the 
 first emigrants would certainly only retain very few of the 
 characters of their ancestors. 
 
 The original human type has probably presented, for an 
 indefinite time, its original characters in the tribes which 
 remained fixed to the centre of appearance for our species. 
 When the glacial epoch began, which, according to all appear- 
 ance, made the earliest country of man uninhabitable, these 
 tribes were forced to emigrate in their turn. Since that time 
 the earth has no longer had autochthones, but has only been 
 peopled by colomst.s. At the same time the modifying 
 action of the conditions of life was felt by these last comers, 
 who themsi'lves were also transformed. 
 
 From this moment, the original type of man has been 
 lost ; the human species was only composed of races, all of 
 which differed more or loss from tlic first model.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 FORMATION OF MIXED HUMAN RACES. 
 
 I. The races whicli had been developed by the sole action 
 of the conditions of life and of heredity, did not remain 
 isolated. The earliest emigrants from the centre of appear- 
 ance certainly did not pass at once to the extremity of the 
 area determined by their first stages. They stopped on 
 the way ; they formed secondary centres, round which fresh 
 emigrations spread. The history of the Lenni Lenapes, as of 
 the Polynesians, proves that this must have been the case. 
 Consequently, in many cases, the races first formed must 
 frequently have come in contact. Then, as the waves of 
 emigration followed each other, the last comers would meet 
 on their way with those wlio preceded them. It Avill further 
 on be proved that facts of this nature have occurred since 
 Quaternary times. 
 
 Whether peaceful or otlierwise, these contacts would 
 result in reciprocal penetrations, and consequently in inter- 
 crossings. 
 
 The founders of anthropology, Buffon, Blumenbach, and 
 even Prichard, have taken very little notice of crossings 
 between human races, and have neglected their importance. 
 It can scarcely be brought as a serious reproach against 
 them. The two former were unacquainted with many of the 
 facts which we possess at present. Prichard was neither a 
 naturalist nor a physiologist. Moreover, nothing forcibly 
 directed their attention towards crossing's which might have 
 occurred in more or less distant times, or among nations still 
 insufficiently known. 
 
 At the present time this indifference is impossible. On
 
 Forination of Mixed HzLinan Races. 261 
 
 the one hand, the better the various nations are known, the 
 greater becomes the number of those which derive their 
 origin from intercrossing; on the other hand, it is impossible 
 not to pay attention to everything which happens to man- 
 kind in consequence of the impulse to expansion and 
 mixture which takes place on every side. From seeing the 
 phenomena which occur in the present times, we are naturally 
 led to investigate those which may have taken place in times 
 past. 
 
 II. Are mixed human races formed now? In the presence 
 of the general facts >vhich I have related in a preceding 
 chapter, this question might appear strange. Nevertheless, 
 the question has been asked, and in a more or less formal 
 manner has been answ^ered in the negative. A few words 
 on the subject are therefore necessary. 
 
 We may consider the era of modern crossings as dating 
 from the discovery of the new world. Nevertheless the 
 mixture of bloods has only taken place on a large scale at a 
 later period, at the utmost after the conquest of the Indies 
 in 1515, that of Mexico in 1520, and that of Peru in 1534. 
 We are not separated from this epoch by more than three 
 centuries and a half. And yet M. d'Omalius, only counting 
 the products of the crossing of the European White with the 
 different coloured races, estimates the number of half-breeds 
 at eighteen millions. The population of the globe being esti- 
 mated as 1200 millions, the product of cross-unions is already 
 represented by about -^Vth. 
 
 We know, moreover, how irregular is the distribution of 
 half-breeds. Immense tracts of country have not been 
 affected. But where the peoples are in intimate contact, 
 the proportion is much greater. In Mexico and South 
 America half-breeds constitute at least one-fifth of the popu- 
 lation. 
 
 But, say Knox and the other anthropologists who more or 
 less explicitly adopt his views, the number of half-breeds is 
 entirely kept up by incessant cross-unions. If abandoned to 
 themselves, and if they no longer had access to the pure
 
 262 The Human Species. 
 
 races, they would rapidly disappear. I will confine myself 
 to quoting a few facts in opposition to these assertions. 
 
 At the Cape, the intercrossing of the Dutch and the 
 Hottentots has resulted iu half-breeds called Basters, who 
 soon became sufficiently numerous to inspire alarm. They 
 were banished beyond the Orange river. Here they settled 
 under the name of Griquas, and they increased ia numbers 
 rapidly. A portion remained behind in the colony, and 
 formed villages, among others that of New Platberg. The 
 Basters intermarried between themselves, and travellers 
 testify to the fertility of these unions. 
 
 Martins has seen the Cafusos, the result of the crossing of 
 escaped Negroes with the Brazilian indigenes. Having re- 
 tired into the woods, where they found a refuge, they have 
 formed a separate race there. 
 
 Admiral Jurien de la Graviere informs us that at Manilla 
 the half-breeds of Spaniards, Chinese, and Tagals, are much 
 more numerous than the original stocks. At Mindanao 
 half-breeds of Spaniards and Tagals form the majority of the 
 inhabitants. "The fusion of races," he adds, "has taken 
 place Avith marvellous facility in this isolated corner of the 
 earth." 
 
 The Marquesas Islands, suffering the fate of the other 
 Polynesian countries, have been depopulated by that mys- 
 terious malady which seems capable of annihilating oceanic 
 populations. M. Jouan informs us that they are repeopled 
 by half-breeds. 
 
 Upon the whole of the littoral zone of South America, 
 according to M. Martin de Monosy, mixed peoples are pros- 
 pering and rapidly on the increase. 
 
 We may close this enumeration by a detailed account of a 
 fact which is well known, and which has all the value of a 
 precise experiment. 
 
 In 1780, in consequence of a mutiny, nine English sailors 
 went and established themselves upon the small island of 
 Pitcairn, in the Pacific Ocean, accompanied by six Tahitian 
 men and fifteen Tahitian women. In consequence of the
 
 Formation of ]\ lived Human Races. 263 
 
 Whites becoming tyrannical, the war of race began. In 
 1793 the population was reduced to four Whites and to ten 
 Tahitian women. Soon war broke out afresh between the 
 four chiefs of the colony, and Adams only was left. But 
 marriages had been fruitful ; the first half-breeds grew up, 
 intermarried, and had numerous children. In 1825, Captain 
 Beechey found sixty-six individuals on Pitcairn Island. To- 
 Avards the end of 1830 the population numbered eighty- 
 seven. • In spite of the deplorable conditions of the outset, 
 the mixed Pitcairn race had then almost doubled in twenty- 
 five years, and almost tripled in thirty-three years. Now 
 England, the most favoured country in Europe in this respect, 
 only doubles its population in forty-nine years. Thus the 
 half-breeds of banished English and Polynesians had on 
 Pitcairn Island about double the number of offspring that 
 piu-e Anglo-Saxons have when placed in their customary 
 conditions of life. 
 
 Thus the white race, when crossed with races most dif- 
 ferent in characters and habit, have given rise to mixed 
 peoples, which have continued to increase since their appear- 
 ance. No reason can be given why this movement of increase 
 should stop or even slacken. 
 
 III. There remains the intercrossing of the White and the 
 Negro. It is with reference to this that some facts have been 
 quoted tending to prove that half-breeds cannot propagate 
 among themselves. Let us examine them rapidly. 
 
 Etwick and Long, in their History of Jamaica, have 
 asserted that Mulattoes cease to be reproductive in that island 
 beyond the third generation. Dr. Yvan has pointed out an 
 analogous fact in Java. Dr. Nott has found that in South 
 Carolina, Mulattoes are endowed with low fertility, that they 
 have a shorter life than other human races, and that they 
 frequently die at an early age. Without going so far, Dr. 
 Simonnot attributes to these half-breeds a sort of ethno- 
 logical neutrality, "which only assures them an ephemeral 
 duration as soon as they are abandoned to themselves.'' 
 
 Nothing is easier tlian to oppose contrary facts to the
 
 264 The Htnnan Species. 
 
 foregoing. I can even invoke the testimony of some of the 
 same authors whom I have just quoted. Nott, after having 
 in a general manner formulated the aphorisms which I have 
 just summed up, admits that they only apply to South Caro- 
 lina, whilst in Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama, the Mulattoes 
 are robust, fruitful, and energetic. I find that Dr. Yvan 
 himself states that his observations only concern Java, and 
 that he had pointed out the fact as exceptional. 
 
 On the other hand, Hombron declares that in our colonies 
 " Negresses and Whites show a moderate fertility ; Mulatto 
 women and Whites are extremely fertile as well as Mulatto 
 men and women." 
 
 " Even in such conditions of life as those of the Gulf of 
 Mexico, the Mulatto," according to M. Rufz, " is well 
 developed, strong, alert, more adapted than the Negro for 
 industrial application, and very productive." According to 
 M. Audain, in the Dominican Republic of St. Domingo, " one- 
 third are Negroes, two-thirds Mulattoes, and an insignificant 
 proportion Whites." For a long time this population has not 
 been fed by any fresh arrivals ; its continuance is entirely due 
 to itself 
 
 More quotations, I think, are useless. When added to the 
 numbers of M. Martin de Moussey, who makes no exception 
 concerning Mulattoes, they are sufficient to demonstrate the 
 following general fact, viz., that the Mulatto is as energetic 
 and as fruitful as other races, at least in a very great majority 
 of those parts of the globe where this mixed population has 
 been formed. 
 
 IV. Nevertheless, I do not deny the facts advanced by 
 Etwick, Long, Nott, Yvan, and Simonnot. I accept them 
 without so much as discussing them. But what do they 
 prove in the presence of the remaining facts which are so 
 numerous and so conclusive ? At the most that the develop- 
 ment of the mulatto race can be favoured, retarded, or 
 hindered by local circumstances. In other terms, that it 
 depends upon the influences exercised by tlie whole of the 
 conditions of life {milieu).
 
 Formation of Mixed Human Races. 265 
 
 We sec, then, in the formation of the mixed races, the 
 reappearance of this element, whose action plays so large a 
 part in the natural history of man, and great attention should 
 be paid to it. 
 
 In the result of the crossing of the Negro and the White 
 in Jamaica, Java, &c., its intervention could be foreseen. The 
 two races are strangers to these countries, which are known 
 to be very destructive to foreign races. The question of 
 crossing is complicated in these cases, by the phenomena 
 and difficulties of acclimatisation. Can we feel surprised 
 that unions contracted under such conditions of existence 
 should only present precarious guarantees for the future ? 
 
 We must here, moreover, take into account an element 
 which is constantly neglected, and whose importance in 
 questions of this nature has always struck me strongly. I 
 mean morality. It therefore forms one of the conditions 
 of life (milieu). Now, if we pay attention to the details, 
 which are not numei'ous, but which are very significant, 
 given by some travellers upon the existence of Europeans 
 in the colonies, in Jamaica in particular ; if we compare these 
 melancholy facts with those furnished by daily observation, 
 an entirely new light will be thrown upon the questions of 
 crossing and acclimatisation. We shall be obliged to 
 recognise that the death of the fathers, and the extinction 
 of the descendants, are often only the consequence of, and 
 the punishment for, the deplorable moral conditions of life, 
 in which they have lived. 
 
 V. But the pJiysical conditions of life have also their 
 peculiar action. The following examjjle may be quoted as 
 a proof 
 
 M. Simonnot has noticed natives of Senegambia, " who 
 combine a perfectly black skin, with all the characteristic 
 forms of the Moor, ev-en at all ages." According to him, these 
 black Moors are a mixed race. If this is the case, it must, at 
 least, be recognised that the white blood predominates con- 
 siderably, since all the forms belong to this type. In order 
 that the colour of the Negro should be persistent, in spite of
 
 266 The Human Species. 
 
 this profound Semitic influence, a local action, that is, an 
 action of the conditions of life, must have neutralised the 
 ordinary laws of the mixture of races, and united the colour 
 of one race with the features and forms of another. 
 
 If this conclusion requires confirmation, the facts quoted 
 by Prosper Lucas will be sufficient. He treats of unions 
 between Negroes and Whites accomplished in Europe. In 
 the same family we find the black blood predominate at 
 first, then lose its influence, and by degrees become effaced 
 almost entirely in the children of the later generations. In 
 one of these observations, the mother belonged to the black 
 race ; so that infidelity was unable to effect any change in 
 the conditions of the experiment. It was then the conditions 
 of life which gradually blanched these half-breeds, who would 
 all have been black upon the borders of Senegal. 
 
 VI. Some anthropologists, although recognising the multi- 
 plicity and fertility of the crossings between human races, 
 only see in this fact a confusion of blood, and complain that 
 nowhere do they find a mixed race of recent origin which is 
 well characterised. Consequently they deny that the crossing 
 can have any influence in the formation of the races with 
 mixed but constant characters which form part of the popu- 
 lation of the globe. 
 
 This objection rests upon a disregard of the phenomena 
 which accompany the formation of animal races by the pro- 
 duction of mongrels. All breeders know well that a deter- 
 minate and settled race cannot at once be produced by 
 crossing. In such a case, the conflict and the compromises, 
 of which I have spoken above, become more marked, for 
 the very reason that we have to blend two natures which are 
 dissimilar in some respects. Immediate and direct heredity 
 alone continually produces phenomena oi fusion or o{ juxta- 
 position, or else causes the appearance of new features, the 
 resultant oi two Ca^evQiit characters. Mediate awiX indirect 
 heredity, as well as atavism, continually intervene and 
 produce numerous irregularities in the succeeding genera^ 
 tions. The more the races differ and are equal in respect to
 
 Formalioii of Mixed Human Races. 267 
 
 hlood, the more marked and persistent are these irregularities. 
 In 1800 the Ancon race still gave irregular products. For 
 more than twenty years M. Malingie has failed in settling 
 his charmois race, so that it might itself serve for fresh 
 crossinijs. 
 
 The clever breeder, whom I have just mentioned, as well 
 as all other breeders, have moreover only attained their end 
 by means of minute car5 in the choice of the animals from 
 which they breed. Now, between human races there can be 
 no question of selection. The unions have always taken 
 place by chance. Moreover, in the immense majority of 
 cases, the continual intervention of individuals of pure race 
 increases, and prolongs the confusion. This a])sence of 
 uniformity, which astonishes polygenists, is easily explained 
 by those who only consider human groups as races. From a 
 general point of view it is very instructive ; if it brings 
 forward diversity of races, it attests specific unity. It is 
 not between species that crossing presents similar phenomena. 
 But nevertheless, through this disorder, there appear in 
 the mixed populations of our colonies, general common 
 characters, which have attracted the attention of travellers, 
 and have been described. 
 
 Moreover, when, in consequence of some circumstance, the 
 products of these crossings are isolated and protected from 
 new mixtures, the race becomes characterised with rapidity. 
 The Cafiisos, Basters, and Griquas, may be quoted as examples. 
 Even the Pitcairn islanders, at the time of Beechey's visit, 
 were beginning t-o become uniform. 
 
 VII. In the crossings between unequal human races, the 
 father almost always belongs to the superior race. In every 
 case, and especially in transient amours, woman refuses to 
 lower herself ; man is less delicate. 
 
 From the point of view of the future of the mixed races, 
 the predominant action of one sex over the product should 
 have then great importance. The question has been put 
 since the origin of societies, as is testified by the laws of 
 Manou ; it has been repeatedly discussed by thinkers and
 
 2 68 The Human Species. 
 
 physiologists. Each sex has had its champions ; and numer- 
 ous facts have been quoted on both sides. Considering every- 
 thing, it appears to me impossible to avoid deciding in favour 
 of equality of action. 
 
 Nevertheless this equality is purely virtual ; it can, in fact, 
 only exist on the condition of an equal generating energy in 
 both parents. As soon as the equilibrium is interrupted, the 
 stronger sex predominates, and the product shows this supe- 
 riority. The experiments of Giron de Buzareingue upon the 
 procreation of the sexes, appeared to me to be most decisive 
 in this respect. 
 
 Now what is true of the whole of the organism is equally 
 true of its different parts, functions, and energies. In the 
 formation of a new being, the action of heredity is divided 
 into as many cases as there ai'e characters to transmit. 
 Both father and mother tend to reproduce themselves in 
 their offspring ; there is, consequently, a struggle between 
 both natures. But the battle, if we may use the expression, 
 results in a number of single combats in which each parent 
 may be in turn victor or vanquished. 
 
 This very simple consideration, which is deduced from a 
 number of facts of detail, explains many results which cause 
 surprise to physiologists, anthropologists, etc. After having 
 attributed a preponderathig action to the mother, Nott 
 declares with surprise, that, in point of intelligence, the 
 Mulatto approaches more to his white father. But is not 
 the intellectual energy of the latter superior to that of the 
 mother ? And is it not natural that it should gain the 
 ascendant in the struggle between the two hereditary 
 powers ? We know how far this victory can go, and how 
 the two natures can, so to speak, divide the product of this 
 crossing between them. Lislet Geoffroy, entirely a Negro 
 physically, though entirely a White in character, intelligence, 
 and aptitudes, is a striking example of it. 
 
 This victory of the superior energies is again shown in 
 anotlicr very remarkable manner, in the crossing of white 
 and black races. The former is, of all races, most sensible
 
 Foiination of Mixed Human Races. 269 
 
 to malarious influences, the latter best able to resist them. 
 On this account it is almost exempt from yellow fever. The 
 Mulatto inherits this double power of resistance. Nott 
 assures us that a proportion of one fourth of black blood is 
 as sure a protection against the yellow fever, as vaccination 
 against the small-pox. 
 
 We may now understand, that, in crossing between different 
 races, the half-breeds possess the characters which, in each 
 of them, predominate over the corresponding characters of 
 the other. If the energies are in equilibrium, there will 
 generally be a compromise. The Negro and the "White 
 ditfer essentially in colour and the texture of the hair ; the 
 colour of the eyes varies almost as much in one as in the 
 other. In the Mulatto, the two first characters almost 
 always betray the double origin of the individual ; the third 
 is uncertain. 
 
 On the contrar}', in half-breeds of the white and the 
 indigenous American, the eyes and hair are almost always 
 derived from the latter. Humboldt has remarked that these 
 two characters are persistent even after several generations, 
 in unilateral crossing towards the White. M. Ferdinand 
 Denis recognised a descendant of the caciques by the eyes. 
 On the other hand, in the same crossings, the colour of the 
 White overcomes that of the American at the second, and 
 sometimes even at the first generation. 
 
 The crossing of the Slav and the Bouriate presents similar 
 facts. The half-breeds invariably have the hair and eyes of 
 the second. 
 
 VIII. " In Brazil," says Martin de Moussy, " mixed races 
 of every origin increase, and form a new population which 
 becomes more indigenous every day, if we may use the 
 expression, and always more similar to the white type, Avhich, 
 accoi ding to what takes place in the whole of South America, 
 will, in the end, absorb all the rest." An analogous fact has 
 been pointed out at Buenos Ayres, in Paraguay, etc. 
 
 Can we then consider this result as a sign of the 
 ascendancv of the white race ? I do not think so. I rather
 
 270 The Hiunait Species. 
 
 consider it as the consequence of the general tendency 
 pointed out above. 
 
 . In the countries which we are discussing, the Negress 
 or Indian woman readily crosses with the White. The female 
 issue of these unions, proud of the blood of her father, would 
 consider herself degraded if wedded to an individual of 
 coloured race, and reserves all her favours for those to whom 
 she approximates by reason of the crossing. The Quadroon 
 reasons and acts in the same manner. In these regions, 
 where colour decides caste, it is always men of whiter race, 
 and especially the pure white, that the women prefer to 
 marry. 
 
 The conseipience of this is, that the crossing, although 
 apparently left to chance, is in reality unilateral, and always 
 directed towards the superior race. It is accomplished 
 under the influence of a real unconscious selection, and 
 the predominance of the white blood is the result of this 
 selection. 
 
 Sooner or later it will also result in the fulfilment of the 
 prediction of Martin de Moussy. The mixed races will in 
 a great measure return to the superior race. But, when 
 brought back to the white type by this circuitous path, and 
 through all these degrees of crossing, they will possess one 
 very great advantage over their European counterpart : they 
 will be acclimatised. 
 
 The reverse phenomena appear, according to Squiers, to 
 be taking place in Peru. Here the mixed population tends 
 to return to the indigenous type. The fact is explained, at 
 least in part, by the relations which, since the commencement 
 of the conquest, were established between the conquerors 
 and the conquered race. 
 
 The former could not affect unlimited contempt for a 
 conquered race who were as civilised as themselves. Their 
 leaders made alliances at an early period with the families 
 of the Incas, and this example was followed. Consequently 
 colour cannot exercise the same influence in Peru as in 
 Brazil or at Buenos Ayres. The numerical predominance of
 
 Formation of Mixed Hitman Races. 271 
 
 the local race and the conditions of life had then a free field, 
 and their double influence is shown in the result pointed out 
 by Squiers. 
 
 IX. Can human crossing, so general in our days, be a 
 new phenomenon in the history of mankind ? Evidently 
 not. In the past as in the present, every contact between 
 two races of any continuance, every immigration, and every 
 conquest has led to the formation of a mixed race. It is 
 one of the inevitable consequences of human instincts and 
 of physiological laws. 
 
 It is quite natural that polygenists should have neglected 
 facts of this nature. In their opinion a population with 
 'mixed characters is a species as much as any other, which is 
 intermediate between two given specific types. But the 
 indifference or the mistake of monogenists is less easily 
 explained. They are evidently ignorant of the phenomena 
 of crossings among plants and animals. When they meet 
 with a race of undecided characters, and which presents more 
 or less distant analogies with two different types, they have 
 generally felt embarrassed, and have put the question on one 
 side, or have at most invoked the action of conditions of life 
 in a vague manner. 
 
 It is quite true that the latter, when effecting a resem- 
 blance between foreign races and the local race, leads to 
 results analogous to those which result from crossing. We 
 have seen an example of it in the United States. Yet 
 crossing has its peculiar phenomena, which are persistent 
 even after several generations. Moreover, to the indica- 
 tions drawn from physical and physiological characters we 
 may add others borrowed from very different orders of 
 facts, and which, in many cases, permit us to draw a con- 
 clusion with remarkable certainty. The mixture of beliefs, 
 customs, and manners often furnishes valuable informa- 
 tion. But the comparison of languages generally throws an 
 unexpected light upon problems apparently most difficult. 
 From time to time legends and history confirm inductions 
 drawn from the orders of facts which I have just pointed
 
 272 The Human Species. 
 
 out, and testify to the correctness of views wliich, at first 
 siglit, might appear conjectural. 
 
 As an example I will quote the Zulu Kaffirs. They are 
 one of the groups of which some polygenists make a distinct 
 species. They are in fact distinguished from other negro 
 races by several characters. But by these characters they 
 are brought nearer to the white type. Moreover, various 
 travellers inform us that they present a great variability of 
 feature. Missionaries who have lived among them add that, 
 in the same family, and under conditions which render all 
 crossing impossible, individuals are met with who have the 
 hair and colour of a Negro, and others whose hair is smooth 
 and whose colour is brown. These facts alone would autho- 
 rise the conclusion that the Zulus are a mixed race. 
 
 Philology confirms this conclusion. Philologists agree 
 in placing the Kaffir languages in the group of Zimbian 
 languages, whose gi-ammar and vocabulary are fundamen- 
 tally negro, but which also include arab, nilotic, and malgach 
 elements. Thus language, as well as physical characters, 
 points to a mixture of blood. 
 
 The chronicle discovered by Captain Guillain justifies 
 these conclusions by giving the history of the arab colonies 
 from Quiloa to Sofala. It relates the wars which were 
 raised for the possession of the gold mines ; it shows the 
 conquerors driving out the conquered, and compelling them 
 to go southwards to seek a new country. It is evident 
 that the latter have crossed Delagoa Bay, where they have 
 left the black race in its state of original inferiority, and 
 have gone further to ally themselves voluntarily or involun- 
 tarily with tribes whose'type has thus risen. 
 
 In fact, far from being a species, the Zulus are a mixed 
 race of Negroes and Arabs, whose formation is so recent that 
 mediate heredity and atavism still betray the double origin, 
 which is also attested by philology, but in which the negro 
 element preserves a very great superiority, 
 
 X. The investigation of mixed populations, the deter- 
 mination of the part played by each of the elements which
 
 Formation of Mixed Human Races. . 273 
 
 have assisted in their formation, belong to the most inte- 
 resting questions of anthropology. This study ought not to 
 stop at populations in which the mixture of characters is 
 evident at first sight. It ought also to bear upon those 
 which are generally regarded as quite pure. We should 
 then find that mixture of races has penetrated where it was 
 scarcely suspected. 
 
 In China and especially in Japan, the white allophylian 
 blood is mixed with the yellow blood in different propor- 
 tions ; the white Semitic blood has penetrated into the 
 heart of Africa; the negro and houzouana types have 
 mutually penetrated each other and produced all the Kaffir 
 populations situated west of the Zulus of Arabian origin ; 
 the Malay races are the result of the amalgamation, in 
 different proportions, of Whites, Yellows, and Blacks; the 
 Malays proper, far from constituting a species, as polygenists 
 consider them, are only one iiopidation, in which, under 
 the influence of Islamism, these various elements have been 
 more completely fused, etc. 
 
 I have quoted at random the various preceding ex- 
 amples, to show how the most extreme types of mankind 
 have contributed to form a certain number of races. Need 
 I insist upon the mixtures which have been accomplished 
 between the secondary types derived from the first ? In 
 Europe what population can pretend to purity of blood ? 
 The Basques themselves, who apparently ought to be well 
 protected by their country, institutions, and language against 
 the invasion of foreign blood, show upon certain points, in 
 the heart of their mountains, the evident traces of the 
 juxtaposition and fusion of very different races. 
 
 As for the other nations ranging from Lapland to the 
 Mediterranean, classical history, although it does not go 
 back a great distance in point of time, is a sufficient proof 
 that crossings are the inevitable result of invasions, wars, 
 and political and social events. Asia presents, as we know, 
 the same spectacle ; and, in the heart of Africa, the Jagas, 
 playing the part of the hordes of Gengis-Khan, have
 
 2 74 The Human Species. 
 
 mixed together the African tribes from one ocean to the 
 other. 
 
 XL I need scarcely allude here to the general facts which 
 follow from the detailed history of races. Short though it 
 be, this appeal to the reader's memory Avill, I hope, give a 
 sufficient motive for the following conclusions. 
 
 Conditions of life and heredity have fashioned the first 
 human races, a certain number of which, on account of their 
 isolation, have been able to preserve for an indefinite time 
 this first characteristic. 
 
 Perhaps it was during this very distant period that the 
 three great types of the Negro, the Yellow, and the White 
 Avere characterised. 
 
 The migratory and conquering instincts of man have 
 brought about a meeting between these primary races, and 
 consequently a crossing between them. 
 
 Since the appearance of mixed races, crossing itself has 
 only acted under the domination of the conditions of life 
 and heredity. 
 
 The great movements of nations have only taken place 
 at long intervals, and as it were form so many crises. In 
 the interval between these crises, the races which have 
 been formed by the crossing have had time to settle and 
 become uniform. 
 
 The consolidation of the mixed races, the relative uni- 
 formity of characters effected by the crossing, have taken 
 place very slowly, in consequence of the absolute want of 
 selection. Consequently every mixed race which has become 
 upiform is also very ancient. 
 
 Human instincts have produced the mixture of mixed 
 races, just as they have produced that of the primary 
 races. 
 
 Every mixed race, when uniform and settled, has been 
 able to play the part of a primary race in fresh crossings- 
 Mankind, in its present state, has thus been formed, certainly 
 for the greatest part, by the successive crossing of a number 
 of races at present undetermined.
 
 Formation of Mixed Human Races. 275 
 
 The most ancient races which we know, the quaternary 
 races, are still represented in our own days, either by 
 populations generally small in number, or by isolated indi- 
 viduals, in whom atavism reproduces the characters of 
 our remote ancestors. This is a fact which will be proved 
 further on.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF CROSSING UPON MIXED HUMAN RACES. 
 
 I. Has the crossing of human races been, or will it be, 
 advantageous or detrimental to the species considered as a 
 whole ? The followers of Morton in America, and of MM. de 
 Gobineau and Perrier in France, have stated that human 
 crossing had, or would have in the future, disastrous conse- 
 quences. Has this opinion an}' foundation ? Let us study 
 the facts. 
 
 M. Gobineau appeals to history, and goes back to the 
 earliest ages of mankind. According to him, three funda- 
 mental races, the blq,ck, the yellow, and the white, were 
 formed originally. The yellow race occupied the whole of 
 America ; the negro race all the southern parts of the old 
 continent as far as the Caspian Sea ; the white race was 
 localised in Central Asia. The two former, degraded from 
 an intellectual and moral as well as from a physical point of 
 view, and unable to elevate themselves unaided above the 
 savage state, only existed as tribes. The third was the only 
 one which united bodily beauty with a warlike spirit, to the 
 faculty of initiative, of organization and progress, which gives 
 rise to societies and to civilization. The day came when the 
 yellow race burst upon Asia, and, avoiding the central region 
 occupied by the whites, went to people the western regions 
 of the old world. Then, this wave, continuing its course, 
 submerged the white race, which, in its turn, began to 
 emigrate ; and by the mixture of its blood with that of the 
 inferior races, produced all the peoples who have succeeded 
 each other upon the earth. At the beginning of this new 
 era, the white blood, being more pure and more abundant,
 
 Injluence of Crossing. 277 
 
 produced superior civilizations. Becoming rarer at each new 
 emigration, it lost its influence, and civilization diminished 
 in every respect. The last effort of this renovating race was 
 the Germanic invasion Avhich destroyed the Roman world. 
 It is now exhausted. The white blood, vitiated by the 
 mixture, has everywhere lost its first efficacy. Mankind for 
 this very reason is in a full decline. The fusion will soon be 
 complete. Every individual will have in his veins one- 
 third of white blood and two-thirds of coloured blood, and 
 we shall then inevitably return to barbarism. Finally, the 
 repeated crossings will have rendered the human species 
 barren ; it will then die out and disappear. 
 
 Such is, in a few words, the theory of M. de Gobineau. 
 Let us accept it with all its hypotheses, including that of 
 the migration from America to Asia, which is contrary to 
 all our knowledge upon this point. Does it follow that 
 the author is consistent? In order to be so, he ought to 
 point out the privileged race, founding by itself one at least 
 of those great societies, one of those civilizations, as M. de 
 Gobineau calls them, recorded by history. Now the author 
 is unable to point out a single example, and is obliged to 
 admit that the exclusively tvhite civilization has existed in 
 Central Asia without leaving any other trace than the 
 tumuli which have for a long time been attributed to 
 Scythians, Tchoudes, etc. But everyone knoAvs the state 
 of the whites, when they left their Asiatic centre. In India 
 they were the Aryans, still a half-pastoral race ; in Europe, 
 the barbarians who destroyed the Roman world. Had either 
 of them a civilization equal to that of the Egyptians or the 
 Greeks ? 
 
 M. de Gobineau enumerates ten civilizations, namely, 
 Assyrian, Indian, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Italian' German,' 
 AUeghanian, Mexican, and Peruvian. All, according to him^ 
 were produced in consequence of the mixture of whites 
 with coloured races. But admitting that such has been 
 the case, is it not evident that this mixture has everywhere 
 given rise to an immense progress. The ruins of Nineveh
 
 27S The II u man Species. 
 
 Tliebes, Athens, Rome, and even tbose of Palanquo, certainly 
 point to p)pulations of a different civilization to that of the 
 people who raised the tumuli in Central Asia. 
 
 In order to draw their logical consequences from the 
 facts which he admits or supposes, M. de Gobineau should 
 regard the formation of half-breeds as the most powerful 
 element of progress. As we have seen he adopts the 
 opposite opinion. He considers that all these civilizations, 
 which were splendid in the case of the Assyrians and 
 Egyptians, have been dwindling away and diminishing, 
 and what remains in our own days, only deserves our 
 scorn. 
 
 Without being blinded by self-conceit, we may protest 
 af'aiust this conclusion. Doubtless \vc no longer raise 
 towers of Babel, nor do we build pyramids. Gigantic 
 Avorks which are useless, or undertaken for the glorification 
 of a single man, do not belong to our time. But when 
 some generally useful work arises, do we recoil before the 
 magnitude of the task ? The time truly has been badly 
 chosen to accuse \is of feebleness. The Suez Canal has 
 ]>cen made on a different scale to the small trench of the 
 Pharaohs, and in tunnelling the Alps for a railway, we 
 have accomplished what antiquity had never dared to 
 dream of. 
 
 It is still true that, taken cu masse, we are less artistic 
 than the Athenians. But without leaving the domain of 
 tlie art.s, there are points in which we surpa.ss them. To 
 judge from the anecdotes which throw light upon the 
 nature of the tak-nt of their greatest artists, painting and 
 music among the (jreeks were not up to the level of 
 Kculptuff. 1 1 \\i- have not our I'hidias, they had not their 
 Ilaphael, th<ir .Micha<l Angolo, tlicir Beethoven, nor their 
 U4)ssini. 
 
 But, when he condemns us to a radical inferiority, M. 
 (ic Gobineau cRpocially forgets the most striking character 
 of modern times. He- «li.sregards the ncicvtijic ihvdopment, 
 whicli is without example or analogy in the past, and which
 
 lujliicnce of Crossing. 279 
 
 f^ivos ail absolutely fresh appearance to our civilization. We 
 who are sprung from races crossed a huiitlrcd times, are at 
 least the equals of our forefathers, but no longer resemble 
 them. Inferior in some respects, we make up for it 
 thoroui^lily in other respects. We manifest human power 
 under different aspects. 
 
 Highly gifted though man may be, he cannot at once 
 reacli all the limits of the field which is open to his activity- 
 For this reason, in time as well as in space, we find by the 
 side of inferior peoples and raceA, other peoples and races 
 which are superior, c(|ual among themselves, but diflfefent. 
 Such is the real information gained by a comparison of the 
 present and past condition of mankind. 
 
 II. M. Perrier is a polygenist and an autochthonist ; he 
 makes use of the expression 'pure race as equivalent to the 
 term upecies. Being a physician, and a learned one, he 
 touches upon anatomical and physiological questions, and 
 upon the limited fertility and sterility of half-breeds, and 
 reproduces some of the opinions which I have already at- 
 taxiked. He pays particular attention to present popula- 
 tions, and endeavours to prove the superiority of those which 
 he regards as pure. He (piotes the Arabd in particular, 
 and praises their ancient and modern civilizations. But on 
 this point I make the same ol>jection to him which I made to 
 M. de Ciobineau. We know very little of the Himyarites and 
 the Adite.s. Caussin de Perceval shows them to have played 
 at different times the part of conquerors ; but they were 
 conquerors who were barbarians, and whose manners were 
 thoroughly savage. When they left their deserts under the 
 impulse of Islamism, did they appear with the marks of civi- 
 lized peoples ? Certainly not. It wa.s only after their con- 
 quests, and in con.sequence of the crossings which they under- 
 went, that we fin<l the great Arabian civilizations rise in 
 .\frica, Asia, and in Spain. Was the civilization, which 
 was developed upon the .spot, and which has been brought 
 to light by Palgrave, equal to that of the Almohades, the 
 Almoravides, or the Abassides ? Evidently not. Here, 
 13
 
 2 So The Human Species. 
 
 again, crossing is fuuml to have given rise to most striking 
 progress. 
 
 M. Perritr lays especial stress upon physical perfection, 
 and particularly upon that of women. Let us accept this 
 criterion. Is purity of blood the sole cause of this beauty ? 
 If this were so, in the same country, the purest populations 
 .should show the fairest women. But in France, for example, 
 the inhabitants of Auvcrgne, secluded among their mountains, 
 are uiuloubtedly of a purer race than the inhabitants of the 
 ])lains in Southern France, where so many different races 
 have come in contact. Well, can the women of Upper 
 Auvergne dispute the prize with the grisette of Aries, 
 Toulouse, or of Alontpellier? Tiiese three feminine types 
 are very distinct ; they clearly pi^nt to a mi.xture of blood. 
 They are not the le.ss remarkable in the matter of beauty, 
 and are undoubtedly su])erior to the women of Auvergne. 
 In Sicily, where all the Mediterranean populations are con- 
 fused together, I have observed analogous facts at Taurmina, 
 Palermo, Trapani, etc. 
 
 As to the possibility of meeting with women remarkable 
 for their personal attractions among mi.veil races, even when 
 the Negro enters as an element in their composition, the re- 
 j)utation of women of colour, mulattoes and quadroons, is a 
 sufticient proof. All travellers bear witness to the charm 
 which they exerci.se upon Europeans. 'J'aylor is most ex- 
 plicit upon this point, and it is at Tristan d'Acunha, a 
 distant island half way between the Caj)e and South 
 America, that he makes his observations. In this i.solateil 
 K|>ot, a mi.xed population of Whites aiid Negroes has settleil. 
 The Knglish traveller speaks us follows : " All wlio are born 
 in the ihlund aVe mulattoe.s, though of a vi-ry slightly pro- 
 nounc(Ml tyjie, anil of very line proportions. Almost all have 
 the European, much more than tlic Negro type. I do not 
 recollect ever having He(;n such splendid heads and figures 
 iw among their young giiLs. And yet I know all the coasts 
 of tlie earth : liali and its Malays, Havana and its Creoles, 
 Tahiti and its nymphs, autl the Tnilc I Slates with their
 
 Iiijliicncc of Crossing. 2S1 
 
 distinguished women." It is evident that we here have a 
 most impartial judgment in favour of muhittoes, and given 
 l»y an experienced judge. 
 
 Thu.s female beauty is met with among certain mixed 
 races, and is wanting among other races which are rightly 
 regarded a.s the purest, the Bosjesmans and the Es(juimaux. 
 The adversaries of human crossings cannot then re<;ard it 
 a.s an argument in their favour. 
 
 III. Although modern crossings only go back three 
 centuries, they have already produced results which make 
 it certain that races remarkable from every point of view 
 may be produced by crossing. The Paulists of Brazil are 
 a striking example of the fact. Tiie province of Saint Paul 
 has been peopled by Portuguese and inhabitants of the 
 Azores from the old world, who have formed alliances with 
 the Gayanazes, a hunting and pacific tribe, and with the 
 Carijos, who are warlike and agricultural. From these 
 unions, which have been regularly contracted, there has 
 sprung a race whose men have always been remarkable 
 for their tine proportions, their physical power, indomit-* 
 able courage, and endurance of fatigue. As for the 
 women, their beauty has given rise to a Brazilian proverb 
 which proves their superiority. This population shows its 
 pre-eminence in every respect. If it was once remarkable 
 for the expeditions of a*l venturers in search of gold or slaves, 
 it was also the first to ]>lant the sugar-cane in lirazil, and to 
 breed immen.se herds of cattle. " In the present day," savs 
 F. Deni.s, " the highest moral development as well as the 
 juost remarkable intellectual movements appear to come 
 irom Saint Paul." 
 
 Such praises paid to a j)opulation which is almost 
 entirely the result of a mixture of races, by a sagacious 
 observer, who luis long lived in Brazil, form a contra.st to 
 the reproaches cast upon American half-breeds by an im- 
 mense majority of travellers. As a general rule they arc 
 J tainted in the blackest colours. Although they are allowed 
 to possess physical bea\ity, and porhai>s also a prompt and
 
 282 The HuDiaii Species. 
 
 ready intelligence, they are said to bo almost entirely without 
 morality. Let us admit that they differ as much from the 
 Pauli.sts in this respect as has been stated : the explanation 
 of the contrast is not difficult to find. 
 
 At Saint Paul, the earliest unions -were from the first 
 regularly contracted, thanks to the intervention of Fathers 
 Nobrega and Anchieta. In consequence of different cir- 
 cumstances, the mamahicos, who -were the result of these 
 marriages, were at once accepted as the equals of the pure 
 Whites. Here the crossing then was accomplished under 
 normal conditions, a fact, perhaps, unique in the history of 
 our colonics. 
 
 In reality, the mixture of races elsewhere owes its origin to 
 the worst passions ; prejudices of blood have caused half- 
 breeds to be regarded as tainted by the vice to which they 
 owed their origin, as outcasts from socieiy, or one might .say, 
 outlaued. Now what branch of the pure white race being 
 bom, growing, and thriving under contempt and oppression, 
 would [)reserve an elevated and moral character ? Moreover, 
 would the white fathers furnish examples capable of 
 influencing for goo<l the children which they had aban- 
 doned ? The contrary is evidently the case. Unrestrained 
 deljauchery on one side, and servile submi.ssion on the other, 
 arc the elements in the production of a half-breed race. 
 What could heredity transmit in the way of moral character 
 to the products of such unions ? 
 
 If anything should surpri.se uk, it is that half-breeds pro- 
 duced under such detestable conditions should already have 
 been able lo raise themselves. Now this has happened, 
 even with the mulattocs, in all ea.ses where prejudices of 
 race hav<! been less deeply rooted, and have yielded to per- 
 Honal merit. In Hra/il, most of the arti.sts and nuisieians arc 
 muluttocH, Hay M.M. Troyer and do Li.sboa. In confirMi.itiun 
 of this testimony. M. liiigos added that tlu; jxditicrd e.ipacity 
 ••md scientifu; instinct arc; HCiire«dy less developed jiniong theui 
 than artistic aptitude. Several are dttctors and medical prac- 
 titionem of the higliest distinction. Lastly, M. 'J'orres Ca'icedo
 
 Injliicncc of Crossing. 283 
 
 pnumcratcd to me among tlic mulattocs of liis country, orators, 
 j>octs, public men, and a vicc-prcsiilcnt of New Cirennda, -Nvho 
 was at the same time a distinguished author. 
 
 If the case is not the same where a social condemnation 
 weighs upon the man of colour, the reason is that the moral 
 and social conditions of life never lose their rights any more 
 than the physical conditions. But the preceding will, I 
 think, be a sut^cient proof that, when placed under normal 
 conditions, the half-breed of the Negro and the European 
 would certainly justify in every place the words of the old 
 traveller Thevcnot : "The mulatto can do all that the white 
 man can do ; liis intelligence is equal to ours." 
 
 IV. Althnugli I pnitest against the doctrines which tend 
 to depreciate mixed races, I am far from pretending that the 
 cro.ssing is at all times and in all places fortunate. Un- 
 doubtedly, if the union has taken place between inferior 
 races, the product will remain at the level of the parents. 
 But these unions are few in number. Even in South 
 America, the Zambo is relatively rare. The Negro appear- 
 ing everywhere in slavery, has been despised by the indi- 
 genous population.s, who, in spite of their dependent condition, 
 have preserved their individual liberty, and have avoided 
 union with the Negro. 
 
 It is the White who, impelled by his restless ardour, has 
 invadetl the world, and is every day multiplying his conquests 
 and colonies. It is he who has .searched out the home of the 
 coloured race.^ and who everywhere mingles his blood with 
 their own. Almost all the half-breed populations recognize 
 him as their father, and this gives ri.se to a double result. 
 I'hese races are at once raised above the maternal race, and 
 the two brought clo.ser together, as if they pos.sessed a 
 common element 
 
 Will this connection extend as far as fusion, as Serres and 
 Maury have admitted ? Will all our present races sooner 
 or later be replaced by a single homogeneous race, every- 
 where endowed with the sanie aptitudes and governed by a 
 (oiiiiiHin eivili/.atioti ? I do not think so; and what has just
 
 2 84 Tlw Ilnniaii Species. 
 
 been said justifies the statement tluvt tliis uiiiforniity is ini- 
 possiljlo. 
 
 Doubtless the mixture of races, favoured ami multiplied 
 by the growing facility of- communication, appears to me to 
 prepare a new era. The races of the future, differing less 
 in blood, and brought together by railways and steamers, 
 will have far more inclinations, Avants, and interests in 
 common. Hence a state of things will rise superior to that 
 with which we are acquainted, although our civilization 
 ought, it seems to mc, to continue growing in spite of present 
 evils and approaching storms. We know how the Greek, 
 Roman, and the modern world were developed in succession ; 
 the modern future will embrace the entire globe. 
 
 But, although this civilization ■will become more general 
 and more widely spread, it will not suppress certain ditfcr- 
 cnces in the conditions of life. As long as there are j)oles and 
 an equator, continents and islands, or mountains and plains, 
 races will exist distinguished by chai-acters of every kind, 
 and superior or inferiur in a ])hysical, intellectual, and moral 
 point of view. In spite of cro.ssings, varieties and inequalities 
 will continue. But as a whole, mankind will be perfected ; 
 it will have grown ; and the civilizations of the future, with- 
 out causing those of the ]»a.st to be forgotten, will outstrip 
 them in some as yet uiikiKtwn (linction, just as ours have 
 outstripped those of our predecessors. 
 
 V. I have just closed the statement of tlir most general 
 (jui.'stions raised by the history (jf the human race. 
 
 The ])rineipal point to determine is the vu\hj ux the 
 inultijAicitt/ of ike Hpccies. There are some anthropologists, 
 even nn'ti of hi;^h distinction, who regard it as almost an idli; 
 fjuestion, a.s nuicly a (juestion of dngma or of ])liilosophy. 
 NcvertheU-HH, a little reHection is sufTuient to make it intel- 
 ligible, that the scicnr*' is entirely changed acronling jus it 
 is ri'ganled from a monn^^ciiist's or a pidygenist's point of 
 view. 1 have already iM)int(ul out this fact ; and beg permis- 
 sion to rctunj to it in a few word.n.
 
 Injhicncc of Crossing. 285 
 
 After tlie fundanK'iital question of unity conies that of 
 <t)itiqn'(ty. This is put similarly in the two doctrines. But 
 the problem is simple and absolute for tlie monogenist, but 
 multiple and relative for the polygenist 
 
 The qiiCHtlon of the j^^'^^ce of or'uj'in, which next presents 
 itself, only exists in reality for the believer in the specific 
 unity of human groups. The doctrine of autochthonisni, 
 though greatly multiplying the question, reduces it to very 
 -imple terms, since it declares that all the populations were 
 born upon the spot whose foreign origin it does not establish, 
 and only admits movements of expansion. 
 
 For the polygenist the general question of migrations 
 does not exist. For particular cases autochthonisni supplies 
 everything. He who regards the Polynesians as having 
 appeared on the islands of the Pacific lias not to seek whence 
 they might have come. 
 
 The question of acclimatisation for the polygenist is 
 reduced to a small number of facts almost exclusively 
 modern, human populations being in his eyes naturally 
 formed for living under the conditions of life in which they 
 were born. 
 
 The question of the formation of races disappears entirely 
 for the polygenist, since the different species admitted by 
 him have api)earcd with all the characters which distinguish 
 the ditVerent human groups. At most lie has to concern 
 himself with the results of some modern crossings which are 
 too evident to be denied. 
 
 The question of primitive man does not exist for the 
 polygenist, since he recognizes all his species with the 
 characters wiiicli they have had from the commencement. 
 
 No one, I think, will dispute the truth of these proposi- 
 tions, which compel the conclusion that anthropology is an 
 entirely ditTerent science to the monogenist and the poly- 
 genist. 
 
 l^olygenism seems to simplify the science in a singular 
 manner ; it will be said that it suppresses its most apparent 
 ditlicultics. In reality it only docs so by veiling or denying
 
 -56 The II Hit tan Species. 
 
 them, and thus conduces to inaccuracy. At the same time 
 it gives rise to others, which, althoui^'h less easily perceived, 
 are nevertheless more important, lor they are essentially of 
 a physiological nature, and cannot be solved l>y the general 
 laws of physiology. 
 
 Monogcnism seems at first to complicate and multiply 
 the problems. In reality it only states them clearly. By 
 that very means, it causes the necessity of long and per- 
 severing studies to be felt, which it rewards from time 
 to time with great discoveries. It has required almost a 
 century and the combined efforts of travellers, geographers, 
 physicians, linguists, and anthropologists to establish the 
 origin of the Polynesians, to follow their migrations, and to 
 determine the date of them. But when this work is once 
 set on the right track, human history is found to be enriched 
 by a magnificent page, which gives another testimony to 
 the intelligent activity of the human race and its conquests 
 over nature.
 
 BOOK YIII. 
 
 FOSSIL HUMAN RACES. 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 GENERAL OUSERVATIONS. 
 
 I. Tertiary man is only known to us from a few faint 
 traces of. his industry. Of tertiary man himself we know 
 nothing. Portions of his skeleton have been discovcrcJ 
 from time to time, it has been thought, in France, Switzer- 
 land, and especially in Italy. Closer study has, however, 
 always forced us to refer to a comparatively mucii later 
 [)eriud these human remains, Avhich, at first sight, were 
 regarded a.s tertiary. 
 
 It is different with (juaiciiiaiy innn. We have much 
 better and more precise information about him than about 
 many existing races. The caves which he inhabited, those in 
 which he binied his dead, and the alluvial deposits formed 
 by rivers, which have borne away his corpses, have preserved 
 numerous bones for our study. As many as forty different 
 places in all, especially in the western portion of Europe, 
 have supplied our museums with as many as forty skulls, 
 more or less intact, and numerous fragments of the cranium 
 and face, which science has been able to utilize, as well as a 
 -rcat nvmiber of the bones of the trunk and limbs, and even 
 some entire skeletons. The most remarkable specimen, freed 
 from the earth which covered it, but still left in its place, was 
 brought from Meutone by M. Riviere and is now to be seen 
 in the Anthropological Gallery of the Paris Museum.
 
 288 The Human Species. 
 
 Sucli is llie accumulation of facts, aht-udy very consider- 
 able, which M. Haniy and I have consulted in arranging the 
 first part of our Crania-Edtnica. The importance of the 
 skull in anthropology is well known. It is of itself sufficient 
 to furnish the principal elements of the distinction of human 
 races. The study and comparison of quaternary skulls 
 enables us, therefore, to form a tolerably definite conception 
 of these ancient populations, of the principal relations and 
 most striking differences which, from this period, have dis- 
 tinguished human groups. The examination of the bones of 
 the trunk and limbs tends, moreover, to confirm the results 
 furnished b}' that of the skull. Thus we feel ourselves 
 justified in expressing the hope that the future, by com- 
 pleting our work in many respects, by modifying it ])erhnps in 
 others, and by filling up gaps in it, will at hast ((Hiliiiii the 
 essential conclusions. 
 
 It is evident that I here speak in M. llaniy's name as 
 well as my own. The truth i.s, that what I am al»out to say 
 on the subject of fo.ssil man is almo.st the summary, not only 
 (»f our book, but of many other general studies and <jf many 
 di.scussions. It belongs, in fact, as much to my coadjutor a.s 
 to myself. 
 
 II. Let us, in the first plac(>, briefly describe the rlini;i(e in 
 whifh the fossil human races lived. 
 
 Till' (|Maternary or glacial period imposed .severe conditions 
 of existence on man. What then existed of Europe was 
 surrounded on all sides by the sea, and was subject to all the 
 conscfjiienccs of an insular climate, that is to say, it wjus very 
 tlamp, and moderately uniform in temperature, but chilKd, 
 to a great extent at least, by the Polar ice which extendecl 
 even into France. The heavy rains, fre(|neiit in ;dl se;isons, 
 took the form of falls of snow upon the high lands, and 
 .supported vast glaciers, the traces of whi<h may still be 
 Heen in all our mountain chains. Immense water-courses 
 hollowed out valleys in some parts, and deposited thick beds 
 of alluvium in others. This vexed and \\atery land supp(»rled 
 a fauna comprising, ]»esidc.s existing .species, others whirh
 
 Fossil Human Races. 289 
 
 liavc partly disappcarc<l, partly emigrated to distant countries. 
 Tims, on tlie one hand, there were the mammoth {eh' plain 
 priinitjrniu.s), the \YOolly rlunoccros (rliinoceros tickorhinufi), 
 the gigantic Irish elk (megaceros hibernicua), the cave bear 
 {ursus spela'us), the cave hyaena (hyccna speloia), the cave 
 tiger ifclis spclaa), the horse {eqiins cahallun) ; on the other 
 hand, ihe reindeer (ccrvus tarandus), the elk (cei'vus alces), 
 the musk ox ((Wihos moschatus), the aurochs {bison europccu.'<}, 
 the hippopotamus {hippojwtdnnis aviphibius), and the lion 
 {/dis U'o siyelcva). 
 
 All these animals lived side by side during the greater 
 part of the quaternary period. They afterwards became by 
 di'grees either extinct or separated. At the commencement 
 of the present period, France, in which at one time they 
 were all to be found, only retains the horse ; and we must 
 admit further, with M. Toussaint, that our beasts of bm-den 
 and draught, arc descended from fossil species, an opinion 
 which is far from universal amongst palaiontologists. We 
 may remark in passing, that the same uncertainty exists 
 upon the subject of the spotted hyocna and the grizzly bear, 
 regarded by some palaeontologists as races referable to the 
 cave species. 
 
 Man was, in Europe, the contemporary of all these species. 
 
 The phenomena which have given to these countries their 
 latest characters, have not always had the same violence, nor 
 have they either commenced or terminated abruptly. They 
 offered periods of repose and of relative activity, till the 
 time when the continents a.s.sumed their definite proportions, 
 when the glaciers were first confined within their present 
 limits. 
 
 The modifications of living beings acconl with these 
 -scillations of the inorganic world. The princijjal animal 
 spicics seem to predominate in turn ; the human races 
 appear in succession, increa.se and decline. 
 
 During the deposition of the loner alluvium (has niveaux) 
 of our valleys, the mammoth, rhinoceros, and gieat carnivora, 
 seem t<< have played the principal part. Man disputed the
 
 290 'Ilic J/iininji S/yccics. 
 
 ground with lliem, ami fed upon tlK-ir flesh. The struggle 
 u'^ainst the conditiuiis of life, and the wild beasts of the 
 ancient world was terrible. Tiie race of these primitive 
 times bears in a high degree the mark of this savage nature. 
 
 During the period in which the Diean inferior alluvium 
 {)noi/enn nivruuj: inferieurs) were formed, the great animal 
 species still inhabited the whole of Europe. The number of 
 their representatives seems, however, to be diminishing; less 
 formidable species begin to multiply, and the horse, in 
 particular, forms, at least in places, large herds, which olTered 
 an abundant source of nourishment to man. The latter was 
 represented especially by a race endowed with remarkable 
 aptitudes. At first, we find it struggling with as much 
 vigour as the preceding one, and imder almost identical 
 conditions; but, by degrees, perfecting all its methods of 
 action, and adapting them to the new conditions introduced 
 by the advance of time. 
 
 A great modification in the fauna corresponds to the 
 deposition of the 'mean tipper alluviuia {moijens niveaux 
 euptrieum). The great carnivora and the mammoth become 
 more and more rare, till at length they disappear altogether ; 
 the horse no longer ])redominates ; the reindeer has taken its 
 place, and wanders in vast herds over lands which are 
 gradually subsiding. Man has profited by these changes. 
 New races, perfectly distinct from the preceiling ones, appear 
 upon our soil. That of the preceding age develoj)s ami 
 attains a certain tlegi-ee of civilization, attested by true works 
 of art. 
 
 At hnglh, the bottom of the ocean risi.s, ami Europe is 
 complete. The polar ice is confined within its present limits, 
 and the instdar climate gives ])larc to a continental on(i, 
 with its e.vtn.'mcs of heat and cold. The glaciers of our 
 mountains gradually contract, and w itiuhaw to higher regions. 
 The animal .sptrics, no longer finding in the samr lati(u<Ie 
 the te«np<;ratijre suitalilc to ihtin, «;migrat(', some to tlm 
 sonih, oth(*rH to the north, (»r to flw? higher niountains. 
 
 Man must necessarily have felt the consrqiMMiO(> of these
 
 Fossil I/iinian Races. 291 
 
 (.'hanges. When the animals which formed tlie basis of his 
 iDViiishmont disappeared, never to return, a part at least of 
 the pi){)uhition must liave followed, and emigrated at the 
 same time. The rising societies were thus shaken to their 
 very foundations, ami whilst some tribes went off in opposite 
 ilirfctious, those which remained behind, experienced a 
 decline of which we may observe the traces in the works 
 which they have bequeathed to us. They were but too 
 easily absorbed by superior races, who brought domestic 
 animals with them, and substituted the pastoral life for that 
 of the hunter. 
 
 III. The man of the quaternary period has left here and 
 there a few of his bones by the side of those animals who 
 were his contemporaries. The human bones in question 
 belong, however, almost exclusively to Europe. The fo.ssil 
 mau of other parts of the world is almost unknown to us. 
 Lund is said to have discovered it in certain caves in Brazil. 
 But unfortunately we have no other details of this discovery 
 than a short note and two drawings of small dimensions, 
 published quite recently by MM. Lacerta and R. Peixoto. 
 Much has been said about the skull discovered by Witney in 
 California. Unfortunately, the description of this spccinu-n 
 h;is not appeared, so that doubts have, on several occasions, 
 been expressed as to the existence of the fossil itself. The 
 recent testimony of M. Pinart h:is removed them, but has, at 
 the same time, created the most serious doubts as to the 
 anticpiity of this specimen, which seems to have been found 
 in disturbed grounds. 
 
 The restriction of the discovery of human fossils to Europe 
 is much to be regretted. We have no authority for regarding 
 Europe as the starting point of the species, nor as the theatre 
 of the formation of the primitive races. We should rather 
 seek them in Asia. It was uj^on the slopes of the llimalay.i, 
 at the b;use of the great central mass, that Falconer ho])ed to 
 find tertiary man. iVssiduous and persevering search can 
 alone verify the prophecies of the eminent j>ala'ontologist. 
 This task might be performed by some of the learned ofticera
 
 292 The Jlianan Species. 
 
 of the English army, by some of the military surgeons sent 
 out by the groat institutions uf LunJon. Let us hope that 
 they will set to work ; that they ^^ill utilize for this end, the 
 leisure they enjoy when on leave in some sanatariurti of the 
 Himalayas or Nilgheries. There is every reason to hope 
 that thoy will "enrich science with important ami magnificent 
 discoveries. 
 
 IV. A few general facts, the interest of which will at once 
 be evident, may already be disentangled from details without 
 leaving European soil. We will first establish the fact, that 
 in quaternary ages, man did not present that uniformity of 
 characters, which a recent origin would lead us to expect. 
 The species is already composed of several races; these races 
 appear successively or simultaneously; they live side by side; 
 and perhaps, as M. Dupont has thought, iho uar ofraccsrwuy 
 be traced as far back as this period. 
 
 The presence of these clearly characterised human groui)s 
 in the quaternary period, is enough to furnish a strong pre- 
 sumption in favour of the previous existence of man. The 
 infiueuce of very di.ssimilar and long-continued action.s, can 
 alone explain the differences wliich .separate the man of the 
 Vezcre in France from that of the Lcsse in ]klgium. 
 
 V. In spite of some opinions which were brought forward 
 at a time when science was less advanced, and when terms 
 of comparison were wanting, we may assert that no fossil 
 skull belongs to the African or Melanesian Negro type. 
 The true Negro did not exist in Europe during the quater- 
 nary ('{toch. 
 
 We <lo not, however, conclude from this lliat th(> type 
 mu8t have come into existence later, and dates Uo\n the 
 present geol(»;;ieal perictd. Fri'sh research, especially in Asia, 
 ami in countries itdiabited by l)laek nations, ojin aloiu- decide 
 thiM |>oint >\ith certainty. Nevcrthelc8.s, up to the present 
 time, the residts of observation have been hut little favour- 
 able to the o])ini(Mi of some nnthrojiologists, who have 
 regarded the Is'egio races as anterif^r to all others. 
 
 VI. In fo.s.Hil, Its well as in modern .skulls, we find between
 
 Cranial Cliaractcrs. 293 
 
 races jiml irulividuals oscilhitions of a more or less strikinfr 
 character. It is, however, an important fact that tlicsc 
 oscillations arc often of less extent in known fossil races 
 than those observed in existing populations. I shall only 
 quote one example. The cephalic index of the most ancient 
 Kuropean race, taken from the Neanderthal man, in which the 
 ciiaracters are exaggerated, is 72 ; that of the La Trucherc 
 skull, which belongs to the latter part of the quaternary 
 period, is 84-32, a difference of 1232. Now, at the present 
 time, the mean cephalic index of the Esquimaux is (JJ)30, 
 that of South Germans 80 20, a difference of IGOO. Thus, 
 between the two extreme races separated by the greater 
 part of the glacial period, the oscillation of the cephalic 
 index is less than between two modern contemporary races. 
 Moreover, the latter range between wider limits, both above 
 and below the mean, than the two fossil races. This fact 
 may perhaps be explained by several considerations, which I 
 cannot enter into here. 
 
 I should, moreover, observe that the Lagoa Santa skull 
 found by Lund, and which has just been described by M^L 
 Lacorta and Peixoto, effaces in a great niea.suro the dif- 
 lirciices which I have just pointed out. According to the 
 Brazilian savants, its cephalic index is G'J'72, descending 
 almost as low as the mean index of the Esquimaux. 
 
 It is interesting to find that this smaller variability of 
 fossil races is established in one of the very characters which 
 has been the principal cause of the comparisons of some of 
 our inferior existing races with apes. Among quaternary 
 skulls there are some which may be considered as presenting 
 the mean degree of orthognathism of the white races them- 
 selves. The Nagy-sap skull, the No. 1 of the Trou du frontal, 
 one of the women of Grcnello, etc., may be (pioted as 
 examples. Others, such as the No. 2 of the Trou du fntntal, 
 another woman of GrcncUe, the old man of Cro-Magnon, 
 >ovcral crania from Solutre, are more or less prognathou.s. 
 There are some which equal, or even exceed, in this respect 
 tli(^ menu of our Nt'jro raris. Ntvi rtlulos llicn- .Tr<' none
 
 294 The I/itiuan Spaics. 
 
 w]iich attain a degree of prognathism equal to that presented 
 \\y certain examples of the inferior Australian types, or of the 
 Kaffir race. 
 
 Another order of facts, Avhich, without possessing the im- 
 portance of the preceding, are still of real value, present 
 similar results. 1 allude to the stature and to its variations. 
 M. Hamy has determined it by the measurement of the 
 femur and humerus. It appears from his investigations 
 that the maximum presented by the Mentune skeleton is 
 185m. (GOGft.), and the minimum, taken from one of the 
 Furfooz skeletons, is 1*50 m. (4'.02 ft.) The difference between 
 these two numbers, 03.5 m. (114 ft.), is far smaller than that 
 which exists between the extremes of the table given above. 
 
 The mean of the numbers found by M. Hamy, 1"7()4 m. 
 (5 889 ft.), places the race of Cro-Magnon very near to the 
 Patagonians of Musters ; but the Furfooz race, with its mean of 
 lo30 m. (oOlI) ft), stands well above the Bosjesmans and Min- 
 ci>pits. It occupies almost the same position as the Lapps. 
 
 O.icillations have taken place in time a.s well as in space. 
 The most ancient race is not the tallest. The skeletons of 
 Neanderthal and Brux give a mean of only 170.) m. 
 (.5.5D.*J ft.). The race of Cro-Magnon, superior in height to 
 all others, is chronologically intermeiliate between them. 
 
 The preceding generalizations rest, it is true, upon a 
 number of observations a.s yet too limited to ])e regarded as 
 conclusive. But they at least confute some assertion.s, and 
 tend to dis.sipate more than one prejudice. 
 
 VII. Dolichocephalic or brachycephalic, large or small, or- 
 thognathous or jjrognathous, rpiaternary man is always man 
 in the fidl acceptance of the word. WluMiever the remain.s 
 have been suflicient to enable us to form an opinion, we 
 have foJind the foot and the hand which characterised our 
 Hpccic«, the v<;rtebral cohnnn has displayed the double c\\\- 
 viiturr to whirh Lawr» nee ascribes such great imj)orlance, 
 and which w.is ni;i<h' by Strres tlic attribute of the human 
 king<lom, as Ik; tinderstcxMl it The more we study the 
 Kiibject, tiic more arc we convinri d that iv( ly bone of the
 
 General Chai'acicrs. 295 
 
 skeleton, from tlic most massive to the smallest, carries with 
 it, in its form and proportions, a ccrtKicatc of origin which it 
 is impossible to mistak<\ 
 
 By reason of its special importance, the skull deserves con- 
 sideration for a moment from this point of view. 
 
 We will first state that all the bones of the modern human 
 skull are to be found in the fossil skull under the same 
 forms, and presenting the same relations. Whether we con- 
 sider them separately or as a whole, they cannot fail to 
 awaken the recollection of what we see around us every day. 
 Even the immense development of the superciliary ridges in 
 the Neanderthal man cannot disguise the entirely human 
 character of this exceptional skidi, which I shall presently 
 discuss more at length. 
 
 In all fossil races we find the essentially human character 
 of the predominance of the cranium over the face. With 
 them, as with us, the bony framework which contains the 
 brain becomes longer, narrower, or shorter, at the same 
 time increasing in size ; it rises or is flattened, but always 
 preserves a capacity comparable to that of the crania of the 
 present day. In the Neanderthal cranium, which has been 
 termed the most brutal known, the cranial capacity, cal- 
 culated by men who, we may be sure, did not wish to 
 exaggerate, was as much as 1220 cubic centimetres (74*42() 
 cub. in.). Even M. Schaat^'hausen considers it a.s equal to 
 that of the Malays, and superior to that of Hindoos of 
 small stature. In the Brazilian skull from Lagoa Santa 
 it is 1388 cubic centimetres (84GG cub. in.). 
 
 We can, therefore, with perfect safety apply to the fo.ssil 
 man, with which we are acquainted, the words of Huxley : 
 " Neither in quaternary ages nor at the present time does 
 .any intermediary being fill the gap which separates man 
 from the Troglodyte. To deny the existence of this gap 
 won hi be as reprehensible jus absurd." 
 
 The eminent naturalist who wrote this sentence did not 
 the less seize every occa.sion which presented itself to point 
 out, in the difl'erent human races, what arc called sim'uni
 
 296 The Iliiimiu Species. 
 
 traits and characters. Is there then in Huxley an un- 
 fortunate contradiction ? Evidently not. It is in his case, 
 as in that of all true naturalists, only an abuse of language, 
 against which I have already protested. Belonging to the 
 white race, which they naturally regard as the normal type, 
 confining their attention to the very substantial anatomical 
 similarities which exist between the man and the ape, they 
 compare constantly and solely the white on the one hand, 
 with the anthropoid ape on the other. They forget that 
 the oscillations of morj^hulof/ical characters, the inevitable 
 result of the formation of the human races, must necessarily 
 sometimes increase and sometimes diminish, in however 
 small a degree, the distance which separates the extreme 
 terms ; they allow themselves to employ these figurative 
 expressions, and I should let them pass without comment 
 were tliey not sonietiim-s undeMstood literally, either volun- 
 tarily or involuntarily. We know that the English 
 naturalist has himself bton obliged to protest strongly 
 against the conclusions whicli have been drawn from his 
 words or writings. 
 
 Huxley allows that the oscillations are never so great as to 
 cause Confusion. The hunuDi character, therefore, does not 
 alter in nature ; it does not become simian. The oscillations 
 to which I allude may sometimes be observed in the same 
 individual and even in the same bone. In the old man of 
 Cro-Magnon, of wliom I shall presently speak at some length, 
 the femur is the broa<lc8t and thickest that M. IBroca has 
 ever measured in man, and we havo found others of still 
 greater size. Now, in the chimpanzee this same bone is 
 broadi-T atid much thinner. Are we therefore justified in 
 saying that the femur of Lcs Eyzies is partly siuiian and 
 partly inorc than huinan? 
 
 Finally, what has nally been proved, is the conclusion of 
 HuxUy which I have just (pioted. IJelievers in pHhecoid 
 man must be content to seek him elsewhere than in the 
 oidy fos.sil races with which wo are ac<iuaintc(l, and to have 
 recour.se to the unknown. There may be some who Avill
 
 Dolkhoccphali and Brachyccphali. 297 
 
 inunnur at this necessity, and protest in the name of itlt'do- 
 xitplnj. Let tliom say what tljey will, we are content with 
 havinjT experience and observation on our side. 
 
 V'lII. If we consider the general formation of the skiiU, 
 all fossil races may be referred to two fundamental types ; 
 the one distinctly dolichocephalic, and the other advancing 
 by degrees from metacephaly to a very strongly marked 
 brachyccphaly. 
 
 Animated discussions were held some years ago to decide 
 which of these two types preceded the other. This question 
 again is connected with a number of general ideas which 
 may be designated as the mongoloid theory. 
 
 At the conclusion of some excavations among ancient 
 tombs and a few dolmens, Serres announced in 1854 that 
 the inhabitants of France reckoned Mongolians amons their 
 ancestors. Some time previous to this, some Scandinavian 
 savants, among others S. Nilson, Ptctzius, Eschricht, etc., had 
 connected with the Lapps, that is to say with the Finnish 
 race, round-headed skeletons which had been discovered in 
 the neolithic tombs and the peat-bogs of Scania. M. Pruncr 
 Bey, combining these earlier notions with the data recently 
 acipiired concerning the antiquity of man, has formulated by 
 degrees a complete theory, remarkable for its simplicity and 
 for the light which it throws upon the whole past history of 
 the jwpulations of France. 
 
 In the opinion of this eminent anthropologist, there still 
 exists at the present time a vast human formation which he 
 ilesignates vunujolo'id, because it appears to him to be con- 
 nected in certain respceta with the Mongol type, properly 
 so called, whilst at the .same time preserving a certain 
 number of characters in which it resembles the white races. 
 This great race, as it is understood by M. Pruner Bey, 
 occupies the greater portion of the north of the oKl continent, 
 and extends even into America. It is, moreover, represented 
 in the centre and south of Europe by several more or le.ss 
 isolated groups, such as the Biuscpie.s. Certain historical 
 populations, such as the Ligurians, have belonged to it.
 
 29S The Human Species. 
 
 There is every indication of its having once occupied the 
 wliole of p]uropo. Now, this race itself is descciKle(i from 
 the primitive quaternary race, as it is known to us through 
 the fossil skulls found by M. Dupont at Furfooz in the valley 
 of the Lesse. The parentnge and fdiation of these races 
 appear to M. Pruner Bey to be attested by tlie general form 
 of the skull and by its proportions, -which in all these races 
 are more or less brachycephalic. 
 
 The opponents of these general views brought forward the 
 existence of the crania found in the Neanderthal in Prussia, 
 in the Engis cave in Belgium, in the tufa beds of La Deniso 
 in Auverirne, in the loess of the Rhino at E;'uisheim in 
 Alsace. All these heads arc dolichocephalic. They were said 
 to bo more ancient than those of Furfooz. But at this time 
 there were doubts of a diflereiit nature with regard to nearly 
 all these bones which might have appeared legitimate, and 
 the theory of M. Pruner Bey gained by this means many 
 strong adherents. When writing in 1875 my liapport sur 
 lea pror/rh de VAntltropoIofjie, I felt obliged to ascribe 
 anteriority to the brachycephalic type, though at the same 
 time making formal reservations, especially in favour of the 
 Eguisheim skull. The di-scovery at Cro-Magnon, in Perigord, 
 which followed soon after, showed how carefully we nuist 
 guard against drawing too hasty conclusions. It was evident, 
 that, in presence of these great dolichocephali, incontcstabl}' 
 anterior to the men of the Lesso, the mongoloid theory must 
 iindergo serious modifications which I did not hesitate to 
 .'irknowledgo. 
 
 Sinc(; then science has been enriched by new discoveries, 
 nnd many jMiints have been cleared up. The old l)cds of the 
 Seine, studied with remarkable intelligence by M. 15elgran<l, 
 have furnished us with a rrhttivc chvonometcr, tlie indica- 
 tion« of which have be( n fidly appreciated by M. Hamy. 
 Tlic work presented by him at the Stockholm Congress 
 leavcH no room for doubt. 'J'ill the present time the dolicho- 
 ocphalic type only ha-s boon foimil in the Irnvrnf. grareh of 
 the jtlain of (Srenelle. It is theref(»re represenl<»l by the
 
 Dolicliocephali and BracJiyccphali. 299 
 
 Cdustidlt race. It reappears in tlio form of the Cro-M<ifjnon 
 race, in the alluvial beds at the level of and below the 
 erratic blocks at a depth of from 3 to 4 m. (10 to 13 ft.). 
 Skulls which approach more or less to the brachycephalic 
 type are only found above this level at a depth of from 
 2 oO m. to 1-40 m. (8 ft. 2 in. to 4 ft. 7 in.). 
 
 The superposition, and consequently tiie succession of 
 types, is here evident. Does this authorise us to consider 
 the dolichocephalic type as having everywhere preceded the 
 l»raehyceph!ilic ? We oui^ht perhaps still to retain some 
 doubts on this point. Some fragments, belonging probably 
 to the latter, have been discovered at Clichy, very little 
 above a cranial vault of the Canstadt race, and the beautiful 
 skull from Nagy-sap in Hungary was obtained from a well 
 characterized loess, the age of which does not however appear 
 to have been determined. 
 
 Perhaps, when fresh facts are forthcoming to dispel the 
 latest doubts, we shall find that the two types appeared at 
 almost the same time upon the lands Avhich were one day to 
 become Europe ; but at present everything argues in favour 
 (jf the anteriority of the dolichocephali. In America the only 
 known fossil skull leads to the same conclusion. 
 
 However this may be, the mongoloid theory can no 
 longer be accepted as absolute. The man of Cro-Magnon 
 and that of Furfooz cannot be placed in the same group, and 
 considered as belonging to the same race. The idea of M. 
 Pruner Bey is, nevertheless, partly true ; and the honour of 
 having connected living with fo.-^sil populations cannot bo 
 denied to this eminent anthropologist. Still, what he has 
 .said of one race must be applied to the rest. The inhabi- 
 tants of Western Europe are connected with the quaternary 
 period, not by a single root, but by six at least, and perhaps 
 iii(»re. 
 
 IX. A methodical distribution of the ditlereut races of a 
 species is never an easy task. The ditliculty is very strongly 
 felt in the study of living Inmian races ; it is still greater in 
 dealin<' with fossil races. Evt u if (lie nial» ri;ds wtie :ls
 
 300 The Human Species. 
 
 abundant as thev arc rare, wo no longer have the perfect 
 individual, and cannot attempt to apply tiie natural iru'thod ; 
 we are forced to be content with a systematic classification: 
 This is wliat M. Hainy and I have been obliged to do ; and 
 without sharing the absolute opinions which were once ad- 
 vanced by Ketzius, we took the general form of the skull as 
 the starting point for our classification. In so doing we 
 have, morever, only imitated palaeontologists in their studies 
 upon fossil animals. 
 
 We have already seen that considerations drawn from this 
 method lead to a division of fossil man into two groups, the 
 one dolichocephalic, and the other brachyccphalic. The Lagoa 
 Santa skull, which must from all appearance be the type of a 
 distinct race, is evidently connected with the former. The 
 accounts of this fossil are, however, at jirosent so incomplete, 
 that I cannot stop to consider it in such a rapid sketch as 
 this. 
 
 In these two fundamental groups differences e.xist side by 
 side with the common character. In the former these differ- 
 ences are very great and strongly marked ; they are generally 
 less 80 in the latter. Thus we have clearly distinguished the 
 two dolichocephalic types, while we have placed in the same 
 chapter, and as it were in a kind of fatiiily, jiart at least of 
 the brachyccphalic races. 
 
 Sevcra.1 objections may be raisetl against this nomencla- 
 ture, of which we are well awari'. We understood perfectly 
 that the skull of La 'J'rucheie is as distinct from those 
 of Furfooz a.s the Neanderthal .skull is from that of Cro- 
 Magnon. On the one hand, however, this .skull is the ex- 
 treme liniit of a graduated series, from which it seemed to 
 UH dinieult to detach it ; on the other, this fossil, at the time 
 when we were writing, was perfectly uni<|ue. Even at the 
 preHent time it has only again been met with in the neolithic 
 period. Thus, in giving it a place in our table, we did not 
 wisii to Hopanitc in an absolute manner an individual ca.so. 
 
 A« to the other types which we have placed in the same 
 chapter, they form a true natural group, each at the same
 
 Dolichoccphali and Brachyccpliali. 301 
 
 time having its special cliaracters, which by careful study we 
 are able to recognise. The races may, therefore, be clearly 
 detined. The tlrenelle race, especially, will always be very 
 distinct from tiie two Furfooz races. Nevertheless, we here 
 no longer meet with decisive characters which strike us at 
 the tirst ghmce, and the ethnical affinities are evidently 
 closer. It will, perhaps, at some future time be possible to 
 trace these three branches to the common source from which 
 they have all sprung. In short, we must represent the 
 present state of our knowledge without interfering with the 
 rights of the future. Our nomenclature satisfies, we believe, 
 lliis condition. 
 
 We admit then two dolichoceijhalic races, those of Canstadt 
 and of Cro-Magnon. The more or less brachycephalic races are 
 fuur in number. Under the title of Furfooz races we have 
 included two races discovered in that famous locality. The 
 Grenelle race and that of La Truchere also take their names 
 from that of the localities where they were found. 
 
 Let us rapidly review all these races.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE CAXSTADT RACE. 
 
 I. The name of this race is that of tlie village near which 
 the fir.st human fossil was foiunl. In 1700, Duke Eborhani 
 Ludwig of Wuitemberg excavated a Roman oppidum in the 
 neighbourhood of Stuttgard. A portion of the cranial vault 
 of a man wa.s discovered in the midst of a number of animal 
 bones. Geology and palieontology were, however, still in 
 their infancy ; and the nature of this precious fragment 
 was unknown till Jaeger, in 1S:{."), recognised its value as an 
 argument in favour of the coexistence of man with the great 
 extinct mammals. After close study, thanks to the kind- 
 ness of M. Fraas, M. Ilamy and I have been able, without 
 any ditHculty, to connect it with the famous Neanderthal 
 hkull. 
 
 II. The latter was discovered in 1S.')7 in a small cavern 
 near Diisseldorf. The .skeleton was perfect. Unfortunately, 
 the workmen who discovered it, broke and dispersed the 
 bones, of which part only were saved by Dr. Fuhlrott When 
 exhibited the same year at the Congrc.ss of Bonn, they became 
 tiio subject of long continued study and di.scussion. M. SchajifT- 
 liausen, although himself sometimes going beyond the truth, 
 took his po.sition from the fust upon the right ground. Some 
 nnatomihts wished, however, to consider this specimen as a 
 special Hjteries, and even a fresh (jenus. It was e.siK'cially 
 considered as int«rmediate between man and apes, and here 
 and there traces may still be found of these oi)inions. 
 
 'J'he only cause of tlu.'su exaggerations is a feature, s( liking 
 it is true, winch is prest?nted by this cranial vault. In the 
 Neanderthal man the frontal sinuses have an exceptional
 
 The Neanderthal Skull. 303 
 
 «lovelopment, and the superciliary riilgcs, almost lost in the 
 niiiKlle of the ghiLella, form a most strange protuberance 
 above the orbit. This conformation has not failcil to be 
 compared to the hony rid<j€S which the anthropomorphous 
 apos possess in the same place. Then, starting from this fact, 
 it has been thought necessary to find in the rest of the cranium 
 characters in harmony with this simian feature. Stress has 
 been laid upon its slight elevation, the lengthened form, the 
 jirojoction of the occipital region, etc. 
 
 With a little partiality, and by only comparing it with 
 motlorn skulls, which are considered as normal, a separate 
 species of being has been made of the Neanderthal man. By 
 degrees, however, other crania equally fossil have been con- 
 nected with this typo. Indeed, in several parts of Europe 
 those characters which were too hastily declared to be uniipie 
 have been observed in dolmens in less ancient burial places, 
 in historical persons, and even in individuals living at the 
 present time. There was, then, no alternative but to con- 
 clude that the Neanderthal man belonged to a formation 
 which was unquestionably human, to a race, certain features 
 t)f which were merely exaggerated in his case. 
 
 This race is none the less remarkable and perfectly cha- 
 racterized. In all individuals of the male sex we find a 
 greater or less development of the superciliary prominences, 
 which were so striking in the Neanderthal man. The low 
 and narrow forehead appears still more receding in conse- 
 quence of this contrast. The cranial vault is much flattened. 
 Tolerably regular in its two anterior thirds, it rises towards 
 the iq)per portion of the occiput, and is prolonged backwards. 
 The entire skull is relatively narrow, and we have already 
 seen that the cephalic index descends a.s low as 72. These 
 bones are al>o remarkable for their thickness, which in 
 the Eguisheim cranium reaches 11 millimetres (0-43 in.). 
 Some of the.se features are modified in the female skull. 
 The superciliary ridges disappear almost entirely. The 
 occipital protuberance, and csixjcially the prominence of its 
 u])per portion, are much less marked. The cephalic index 
 11
 
 304 The Ihivian Species. 
 
 rises one or twu units, Init tiie fhittcning uf the vault and the 
 other charactir.s are j)ersi.stent. 
 
 The !Neanderth.al cranium, and all those which may also 
 be connected with the Canstadt type, are incomplete and 
 without the face. One skull alone, the age of which un- 
 fortunately is not determined with certainty, enables us to fill 
 up this gap. It is that from Forbes Quarry near Gibraltar. 
 In this case the • cranium, and particularly the forehead, 
 exactly coincide with the description given above of the 
 Neanderthal cranium, luuiiense and almost circular orbits, 
 the index of which rises almost to fiSS*^, well agree with the 
 vestiges in the Neanderthal cranium, and hide by their 
 external border the temporal region. Below, the malar 
 bones descend almost vertically ; the nasal bones are promi- 
 nent ; the nasal orifices very broad. The superior maxillary 
 bone is sensibly prognathous, and lastly the dental arch is of 
 a hoi-se-shoe shape narrowing backwards. The whole is rude 
 and massive. A face recently (lisc(»vere<l by M. I'iette in the 
 Courdan grotto, and which will shortly be described by 
 M. llamy, confirms the connection which we have established 
 between the Forbes Quarry skull and the remains of the 
 Canstadt race. Found in the inferior beds of the cave, 
 among flints of the Moustier type, this specimen reproduces 
 with some nKnlifications the characters which we have just 
 described. The inferior maxillary bone recalls that of Arcy. 
 
 If these characters are united to those presented by the 
 celebrated maxillary bone of Nauletto, we must aild that the 
 chin in the Canstadt man is but slightly ])r(jniinent, and that 
 the lower part of the face was sciimtimes more ])eculiar, in 
 thiH rfs|)ect, than the greater nundxr of the skulls of Negroes 
 from (luinea. 'i'he researches of M. llaniy have, however, 
 hhown that the singidar maxillary bone discovered by 
 M. I)ii])ont, wan again only tlu; exaggerated realization of a 
 type wliich i.s met with elsewhere under consider.dile modi- 
 fications. 
 
 In shoit, tiic cranium and face of the Canstadt m.in must, 
 a;j a rule, have prcbcnlcd a strangely savage a.spect.
 
 The Cansladt Race. 305 
 
 The body appears to have harmonised with the liead. The 
 few hones of the limbs, preserved more or less intact, indi- 
 cate a stature of only Im.U.S to lm.72 ("Sft. Gin., to 5ft. 8in.); 
 yet their proportions are athletic. They are very thick 
 relatively to their length, and the protuberances and de- 
 pressions .serving for muscular attachments arc remarkably 
 developed. Moreover, the tibia discovered in a quarry at 
 Clichy by M. Bertrand, presented the flattened form which 
 iia.s been designated i^latijmcraic, and the ribs of the 
 Neanderthal skeleton were sensibly more rounded than is 
 generally the case. 
 
 III. As far as we know at present, the Canstadt race is 
 undoubtedly the most ancient European one. It disputed 
 the ground with the great extinct mammals, with the 
 mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the cave bear, and the cave 
 hyana. It belongs, therefore, to the earliest ages of the 
 quaternary epoch. In the opinion of M. Schaaft'hausen, it 
 may be traced to an earlier period still, and is identical with 
 tertiary man surviving the latest geological revolution. 
 
 The naturalist who has made us so well acquainted with 
 the Neanderthal man, only invokes, in support of his opinion, 
 what he calls the ti/picdl infcriorifij of this man, and of 
 those who arO connected with him. This reason would to 
 many be an insufficient motive for the view which he has 
 taken. But I have observed above, that we are justified in 
 assuming that man fi)lloweil into Europe the great mammals 
 which were driven by the cold into more southern countries. 
 There can, then, be nothing strange in the idea that the 
 race, to which everything points as having been the most 
 ancient upon our soil, should also have been the one to 
 accomplish the migiation. But were the Saint-Prest, the 
 Monte Apcrto, and especially the Tlu'nay men only its 
 jiioneeiN ? The future alone can answer this question either 
 in the affirmative or negative. 
 
 However this may be, the remains of human industry 
 indicate a well-marke*! progress since the earliest ages. 
 Tools and arms became more numerous an<l perfect. Deer's
 
 3o6 TJic 1 fuman Species. 
 
 antlers and bear's jawbones arc worked into weapons and 
 tools ; in addition to scraptMs and bon-rs, the form of which 
 becomes more and inure marked, we tiiul knives, cldsels, and 
 hammers, set in handles : hatcliets of much greater size, 
 sometimes comparatively thin, flat upon one side but 
 retouched upon the other, sometimes thick and rudely cut 
 on both sides, with or without a handle, belong to the 
 mount ie rim and acheuleen types of M. do Mortillet ; they 
 assume definite forms by which we arc able to recognise 
 several modifications characteristic of certain localities ; the 
 arrow is larger and the lance has become a formidable 
 weapon. In the midst of the lowest (juaternary alluvial 
 deposits, we meet with small heapaof cose inopora (jlohidaris, 
 and other small chalk fossils, all pierced either naturally or 
 artiticiallv. The only possilde explanation is to consider 
 these polypi ami shells as having once formed necklaces or 
 bracelets, the thread of which has disajipeared. Thus, the 
 taste for adornment, so largely developed in modern savages, 
 was displayed as early as this period. 
 
 If we compare the industries, still very modest, with those 
 of the present day, we shall be able to form for ourselves an 
 approximate idea of what the race of Canstadt was when it 
 ofcnpied perhaps nearly the whole of Europe. With M. 
 Lartet we .see in the obsidian lances of New Caledonia, the 
 Hint heads of the lower alluvium of the Sommo ; the hatchet 
 of certain Australians reminds us, Jis it diil Sir Chaih-s Lyell, 
 of the Aljbeville hatchet. It is with the latter and with the 
 I'osjesmans, that I should be tempted to connect the Nean- 
 derthal man and his fellows, J^ike them, he seems to have 
 most freipicntly led a wandering life. But few of his 
 dwellings, ur places of meeting, are known to us, such jus 
 the Naul< tie cavern. Nothing seeujs to indicate that he 
 had places of burial such as we find later. Everything tends 
 to show, moreover, that he lived entirely .'is a hunter, and 
 there is nc»thing to justify us in supposing that he was 
 anpuiintcd with ngiiculture, which is carried to sucli a 
 remarkable pitch by certain Melancsian negroes.
 
 The Canstadt Race. 307 
 
 IV. Judging from the geulogical ili.stribution of the rcmiiins 
 wliith have been met with up to the present time, tlie Can- 
 stadt race during the quaternary period principally occupied 
 the basins of the Seine and \\w. Rhine, and extended perhaps 
 as far as Stiingenius in the Buhusliin ; certainly as far as the 
 Olnio in central Italy; as Brux in Bohemia; as the Pyrenees 
 in France, and probably as far as (Jiltraltar. 
 
 This race is not restricted in point of geological time. The 
 attention roused by the strange characters of the Neanderthal 
 cranium w;u< the means of instituting widespread investiga- 
 tions, which have rapidly drawn this specimen from the 
 isolation in which, at first, it seemed to be placed. B. Davis, 
 Bii.sk, Turner, King, Carter Blake, Pruner Bey, Vogt, Huxley 
 and Hamy have been particularly .successful in these inves- 
 tigations, and have brought to light relations which are now 
 generally adopted. 
 
 The result obtained from all these labours is that the Can- 
 stadt type, sometimes remarkably pure, and sometimes again 
 more or less modified by crossings, is found in the dolmens 
 and in the cemeteries of the Gallo-Roman period, in those of 
 the Middle Ages, and in modern tombs from Scandinavia to 
 Spain, from Portugal to Italy, and from Scotland and Ireland 
 to the valley of the Daiudje, in the Crimea at Minsk, and as 
 far as Orenbourg in Ru.ssia. This area of habitation com- 
 prises, we see, the entire space of time which has elapsed 
 from the quaternary |)eriod to the present day, and the whole 
 of Europe. 
 
 The remark luus w ith justice been made l»y M. Hamy, that 
 there probably exist in India, in the midst of populations 
 driven back by the Aryan inviusion, representatives of the 
 Neanderthal type. Nevertheles.s, to find them with any 
 degree of certainty, we must go as far as Australia. Our 
 investigations have on this point confirmed those of Huxley. 
 Among the races t)f this groat island there is one, distri- 
 buted particularly in the province of Victoria, in the neigh- 
 bourh^xxl of Port Western, which icpnuluces in a remarkable 
 manner the characters of the Canstadt race.
 
 3o8 The JIunian Species, 
 
 Filially, the Canstadt race has had representatives in 
 America also. One of the drawings published by MM. 
 Lacerta and Peixoto leaves no room for doubt on this point. 
 It represents almost the whole of the upper part of a cranial 
 vault found in the province of Ceara, the resemblance of 
 which with that of Eguisheim is very striking. Unfortu- 
 nately, the Brazilian naturalists say nothing about the situa- 
 tion of this precious fragment at the moment of its discovery, 
 and we do not know whether the cranium in question is a 
 fossil or whether it belongs to the present epoch. 
 
 V. All these fact.s, which I have been obliged to sum up 
 in a few lines, raise an important problem, and lead to an 
 interesting conclusion. 
 
 Are we, in the first place, justified in connecting etlino- 
 logically the crania of a more or le.ss Neanderthal typo, 
 discovered in the Antipodes as well as in Europe, with the 
 races, the remains of which have been preserved by the 
 quaternary alluvium ? Is not thf reproduction of this typo 
 purely accidental ? Do not the most ancient crania owe 
 their remarkable characters to .some pathological condition, 
 to a simple deviation from the normal development, and 
 particularly to a }»rciM:ilure union of the bones of the 
 cranium ? 
 
 The.sc several opinions liavc been maintaineil, and the 
 latter in particnlur has had adiiircnts. It rests principally 
 upon the condition of the ossified sutures of the Neandiitlial 
 cranium. But these same sutures may be ob.served in the 
 Canstadt cranium. M. Sauvage found in the almost infantine 
 frontal bone of La l)enise all the Ni-anderthal characters, 
 although the medio-frontal suture as yet only existed in 
 part. It is entirely open in the cranium of the young man, 
 di.»*covered in a I'oitou tumulus, de.sciibtcl by M. I'runer 
 Btty, and which it is impo.ssibh; not to connect with the 
 preceding. 
 
 Tims we cannot .'ittiibnte to the pi iin.if ore ossification of 
 the sutures, the form of the crania of the men f)f Canstadt. 
 For a nuicl stronger reason, the cleailv maiked characters
 
 The Canstadt Race. 309 
 
 of tlic forcliead ami face which rciiKiiii cannot support this 
 thuorv, and wc must allow that tlio whole constitutes a true 
 ethiiiciil typo. 
 
 Since wo meet with this type disseminated througli time 
 and spact', always fimdamentally the same, antl sometimes 
 reappeaiinj^ in all its primitive purity, we are forced to 
 choose between the two following interpretations ; wc have 
 here either an ejuniple of tituv'c^m, the importance of which 
 is attested by its generality : or else the reproduction <^f 
 these exceptional forms, in the midst of the most varied 
 lK>puIiitlo)is and under the most different conditions of life, 
 is ilue lo mere chance. 
 
 The laws which govern the formation and maintenance of 
 animal and vegetable races, and from which man cannot 
 escape, do not allow the admission of the latter conclusion. 
 This is why M. Hamy and I have regarded the Canstadt 
 race as one of the elements of modern populationa In 
 I'Airope it has blended with succeeding races, but asserts its 
 past existence by the marks which it imi^resses, even at the 
 present day, upon some rare individuals. In Australia, 
 |)erhaps, it has some direct descendants in the tribes of 
 North Western. 
 
 VI. The epithets hruttd and simian, too often applied to 
 the Neandrrthal cranium, anil to those which resemble it, 
 the conjectures made with regard to the individual to whom 
 they belonged, might lead us to think that a certain moral 
 and intellectual inferiority was naturally connected with this 
 form of cranium. It can ciusily bo shown that this conclusion 
 rests upon a most worthless foundation. 
 
 At the Paris Congress, M. Vogt quoted the examjtle of one 
 of his friends, Dr. Emmayer, whose cranium exactly recalls 
 that of Neanderthal, and who is nevertheless a highly distin- 
 uMiished lunacy doctor, In passing through the Copenhagen 
 Museum, I was struck by the Neanderthal characters 
 presented by one of the crania in the collection ; it proved to 
 be that of Kay Lykkc, a Danish gentleman, who played some 
 part in the political alVairs of the 17th century. M.Godron
 
 3IO Tlic llunian Species. 
 
 has puLlislitHj the diawiiiu: of the .skull of Saint Mansuy, 
 Bishop of Toul in the 4lh century, and this head even 
 exaggerates some of the most striking features of the Nean- 
 derthal cranium. The fmihcad is still more receding, tlie 
 vaidt more depre.s.sed, and the head so long that the cephalic 
 index is GO-il. Lastly the skull of Bruce, the Scotch liero, 
 is also a reproduction of the Canstadt type. 
 
 In presence of these facl.s, we must assuredly acknow- 
 led<'-e that even the individual whose remains were found in 
 the Neanih-rtlial cave was capaLle of possessing all the moral 
 and intellectual qualities compatible with his inferior social 
 condition.
 
 CIlArTKIl XXVII. 
 
 Tilt: CRO-MAGNON RACE. 
 
 I. In the year IS.IS, in tlic valley of the Voz6rc, near to 
 tiic village of Les Eyzics, which had already been rendered 
 famous by the investigations of the elder M. Lartet and 
 Christy, the workmen brought to light in the rock-shelter of 
 Cro-Magnon the bones of three men, a woman and a child, 
 which liave been preserved to science by MM. Berton- 
 Meyron and Dclmarcs. M. Louis Lartet, to whom the study 
 of the deposit had been entrusted, determined their geologi- 
 cal age ; MM. Broca and Pruner Bey described them with 
 all the precision which we should expect from their know- 
 ledge of the subject, and the discussions which arose between 
 these two eminent antliropologists, brought the essential 
 points still more strongly forward. The Cro-Magnon bones 
 thus became classic almost within a day of their discovery ; 
 and M. Hamy and I could not do better than group around 
 them the human remains which resemble them. This has 
 been our reason for choosing the name which we have given 
 to our second dolichocephalic race. 
 
 Like the preceding one, this also has its typical imlividnal 
 who exaggerates in certain respects the characters of the 
 race, and thus presents an extreme term of comparison. 
 The contrast is only the more striking. The only character 
 common to both the Neanderthal man and the old man of 
 Cro-Magnon lies in the proportions of the cranium. The 
 cephalic index, here 73 7(5, differs but very slightly, jus we 
 see at once from what we have already stated. It tle- 
 scends, moreover, as low as 70 O.i in a cranium of the same 
 race found at 8olutre ; it is 70-52 in the famous Engis
 
 3 1 2 The Iliinian Species. 
 
 cranium. It was this elongation from the front backwards 
 which led Schnicrliiig to connect the fossil man which he 
 iiad just discovered with the Ethiojiian ratlier than with the 
 European. Tiiis, at least, partly accounts for the theory 
 Avhich makes the Negro the starting point of our race. 
 M. Haniy, in connecting the Engis cranium with the Cro- 
 Magnon type, has added one more fact to those which are at 
 variance with this doctrine. 
 
 In every other respect the Cro-Magnon head and that of 
 Canstadt are most dissimilar. Instead of a low and retreat- 
 ng forehead above superciliary ridges which remind us of 
 the ape, instead of a flatteneil vaiilt like that of the Nean- 
 derthal skull and its companions, we here find a large fore- 
 head rising above frontal sinuses but slightly marked, and a 
 vault presenting the finest proportions. The frontal bone is 
 remarkably developed from before backward. The fronto- 
 occipital curve is continued with a striking regularity till 
 Avithin a short distance above the lambda. It is there bent 
 so as to form a surface which is prolonged upon the cerebral 
 ]»art of the occipital bone. The cerebral region of the same 
 bone is carried abruptly downward, and presents numerous 
 strong impressions of muscular insertions. 
 
 This skull, so remarkable for its fine jtroportion, is also 
 remarkable for its capacity. According to M. Broca, who 
 could only work under precautions calculati-d to diminish 
 the amount, it is equal to at least l.>!)0 cubic centimetres 
 (IKj'D!) cubic inches). I have already remarked that this 
 ntimbcr is far higher than the mean taken from modern 
 J'ari.-ians ; it is equally so in oompaiisou with the oihcr 
 Eurojiean races. 
 
 Thus, in the savage of (piaternary ages, who liad to light 
 against the mammoth with stone weaj)ons for arm.s, we find 
 all tho.sc craniological characters generally considered as the 
 sign of great int<llrrt«ial development. 
 
 The features of the fare are not less striking than those of 
 the skull, in the heads which M. rmner ^dn^y calls luir- 
 vionic, a face elongated from abi»ve downward corresponds to
 
 The Cro-I\Iagnon Race. 313 
 
 a skull elongated from beliiiul forward. When there is a 
 disagreement between these proportions the head is diju- 
 kaniionic. This latter character is very strongly marked in 
 the old man of Cro-Magnon. The bizygomatic transverse 
 diameter accpiires an extent rare even in harmonic brachy- 
 cephali. In Ids case the facial index descends as low as G3. 
 
 This exaggeration in breadth is present also in all the 
 upiHjr and medial parts of the face. The orbits, almost recti- 
 linear at their extremities, are remarkable for their sli<dit 
 elevation, being on the other hand very long. The orbital 
 index descends lower than M. I3roca hi\s ever known it to be: 
 it is only (»1. 
 
 But this tendency to breadth does not extend to the 
 medial regions or to the inferior portion of the face. The 
 nose, the bones of which are boldly projected forward and 
 constitute a strongly marked protuberance, is narrow ; from 
 its index, 4.jO.0, it places the old man of Cro-Magnon amongst 
 the lepthurhini of M. Broca. The superior maxillary bone is 
 equally narrowed relatively to the face which it terminates, 
 and the alveolar arch is projected outward in such a manner 
 as to produce a very decided prognathism. The inferior 
 maxillary bone is especially remarkable for the breadth of its 
 ascending branches which, according to the investigation of 
 M. Broca, surpass in this respect all other known human 
 jaw-bones. The breadth in (piestion is 41) m.m. (lOo inch). 
 Far from being obliterated and retreating, as in the Canstadt 
 race, the slightly triangular chin projects forwards. 
 
 The cej)halic characters of the ol«l man of Cro-Magnon arc 
 to be found more or less strongly marked iu all the men of 
 the same race. They are generally modified in the women. 
 Thus, even in that sj)ecimen, the head of which, unfortunately 
 incomplete, was discovered not far from that of the old man, 
 wc see the beautiful lines of the skull preserved, and the 
 forehead even rising a little higher still. But the posterior 
 Burface is less pronounced, the dysharmouy is less strong 
 between the skull and the face. The latter is relatively 
 longer, the orbits arc higher, the nose is broader, and the
 
 314 ^/^^' I/lOli^'i S/>i'cic-S. 
 
 .prognatliisiu is inoJiticd. We cannot, however, deny the 
 ethnical rehitiun of the two heads which were fuund together, 
 and which thus constitute definite terms of comparison for 
 the two sexes. 
 
 The Cro-Magnon race was tall. The mean height deduced 
 from the measurements taken by M. Hamy upon a skeleton 
 and the isolated bones of five men is ITS m. (5 feet 10 inches. 
 With the old man of Cro-Magnon it was about 182 m. (5 
 feet 110 inches), and with the Mentone man, whose skeleton 
 was found by M. Riviere entire and hi situ, it was as much 
 iis 1S.5 m. (0 feet ()-8 inches). The Cro-Magnon woman 
 measured IGG m. (5 feet 5 3 inches). These bones and all 
 those which have been connected with them, moreover, give 
 indications of a remarkably strong race. They are thick 
 and solid. In all cases the nuiscvdar impressions are very 
 strongly marked. In the old man of Cro-^NIagnon the fenuirs 
 are also the broadest and thickest that M. Broca has ever 
 measured, as we have already ninarked. The linea aspera 
 is also of an unusual breadth and thi< knr^s aiid \\<i\n^ a si)rt 
 of prutninent column or buttress. 
 
 Finallv, in the Cro-Magnon men, a line opi n funluad, a 
 large, narrow, and acjuiline nose, must have compi'Usated 
 for any strangeness which the face may have ac(]uir(-(l fp-m 
 the probable smallness of the eyes, from very strong mas- 
 setcr.H, and from a slightly lozenge- shaped contour. With 
 tlicse features, the type of which is in no way disagreeable, 
 ami allows of real beauty, this magniticmt race combined 
 a high stature, powerful mu.scles, and an athletic constitu- 
 tion. It seems to liavc been fitted in cviiy way for 
 .struggling against the tlilTiculties and perils of savage life. 
 
 Jl. We have already seen that the Cro-Magnon race was 
 diHCOVcred inun(-<l lately above that of Canstadt in thr a!hi- 
 vial d((»osits of (Innclle. It is therefore very old. and was 
 conteni|)orary with the great mammals, now either extinct 
 or emigrated. M(jro Hociable, doubtless, and more nettled 
 than the preeeding race, it inhabited caverns where it left 
 numerous specimens of its handiwork ; it buried its dead
 
 The Ti'oglodylcs of iJic V&d-re. 3 1 5 
 
 under the shelters where they arc now found. A great 
 nuinher of enjinent investigators have explored these sclent ijic 
 (juai'ries. I cannot enumerate them all here, but there is 
 one name, the omission of which would be unpardonable, 
 that, namely, of Edouard Lartct. It is well known with what 
 persevering intelligence, sometimes alone, sometimes accom- 
 panied by his friend Christy, this man, as modest as he is 
 learned, luis explored these caves, what treasures he has 
 obtained from them, and the prude«ce and sagacity wliich 
 he showed in the interpretation of liis splendid discoveries, 
 and only justice was done to him in awarding him the title 
 of Jouiulcr of human jxdccontolor/i/. 
 
 Thanks to him, and to those who have followed in his 
 >teps, we possess the essential elements of a history of the 
 C'ro-]SIagnon race. Almost without leaving this valley of the 
 Vezere, the name of which stands so high in anthropology, 
 we can, as M. Broca has done, follow it step by step. In 
 fact, from the village of Les Eyzies to the rock-shelter of 
 Moustier, within a distance of from seven to eight miles we 
 meet with no less than eight human settlements, all of which 
 have become more or less celebrated from the different 
 records which they have furnished. They are the Mon.sticr 
 ravem, the Mouaticv shelter, the shelter of La Madeleine, 
 the Cro-M(if/)ion shelter and burial-place, the Ldnrfpric-Htuiie 
 .'helter, the Lnu(jeric-B((^sse shelter, the Cioiye (T Eiifrr caxcru, 
 and the Les Eyzies cavern. 
 
 The most ancient, that of Moustier, is connected by its 
 fauna with the lower alluvium (bas niveaux) of (Jrenelle, and 
 dates at least from the close of the age of the bear ; that of 
 \a Madeleine cannot be placed much before the present 
 t'poch. Between these two extremes are ranged the other 
 six, and altogether they mark out, so to speak, the two last 
 periods of the quat«'rnary ages. Yet to obtain a clear idea of 
 the social and intidlectual development of the race, to learn 
 liow fer it complied with the modifications of the climate, 
 and what progress or what decadence these modifications 
 imposed upon it, wc must consult the evidences which
 
 3i6 llic Iluniaii Species 
 
 it has left in many other locahties, and esiKcially in the 
 caves and shelters of Bruniquel, in the burial-places of 
 Solutre, in the caves of.Gourdan, Duruty, ami of L'Homme- 
 Mort, etc. 
 
 The men wlio fn-iiuentcd the Muu.slicr cavern do not seem 
 to have been much superior to the Canstadt race, witii wluch 
 they were perhaps associated, and -whose industries they 
 closely imitated. Their conditions of existence were almost 
 identical with those of the preceding age. They lived 
 ainon"- the irrcat mammals which served them for food. 
 The horse and the aunjchs were the general objects of their 
 .sport. But they fed upon the mammoth, the bear, and even 
 the lion and the cave liyaMia. To meet .such enemies as 
 the.se they employed a species of spear-head and small huice, 
 smooth upon one side, cut upon the other, and sharp at the 
 edges, constituting umloubtedly a formidable weapon. This 
 special f«Mni characterises the Mou.slirr (t//u' of M. ile Mor- 
 tillet. The hunters (»f this epoch cut their arrows upon the 
 .«amc model, but rarely made use of them ; they seem to 
 have despised birds and small game ; the other iuiplements 
 remained almost the same as in the preceding age. 
 
 At Cro-Magnon, the progress is evident. Our fine old 
 man and his companions had arms and implements of flint, 
 which were more numerous, more varied and less massive. 
 To judge from the remains of their kitchen, they must have 
 ni;ide frcipient use of the bow, to obtain birds and .suiall 
 iii:immal.s, while they still attacked large aniiuais, and 
 especially the horse, with the lance, spcar-lieail, :ni<l i»erh;ips 
 the dagger. 
 
 At Latigerie-llaute, on the Vt^zerc, at Solutre, in the 
 Mj'iconnais, and other contemporary settlements, the cutting 
 of the flints reached a degree of perfection which was truly 
 marvellous. Sometimes undoubtedly old types reappeared 
 side by side with forms niodified by intelligent e.xjjeriencc, 
 and by [»crfected workiuan.ship. Still the predominance of 
 the latter is so nuirkcd, that it tlistinctly characteri.ses this 
 epoch. The points of the lances and javelins are tapered off
 
 Till' Cro-Magnon Race — ludushy. 317 
 
 more or less in the shape of a wahiut, hiurtl, or plantaii) kaf. 
 They arc very pointed, and become perfectly symmetrical. 
 The arrowheads are the object of most particular care. M. de 
 I'erry has very well shown tiiat the i,n'neral form, the weight, 
 the angle, etc., were calculated in such a manner as to be 
 adapted to the different distances of flight, to the necessities of 
 the chase. All these tools, finely cut upon both sides, ])rcsent, 
 moreover, a much more remarkable finish than what we meet 
 with in any of the otlier implements. They were worthy 
 of being taken for one of the terms of compari.son admitted 
 by M. de Mortillet, and constitute his Soladr ifjpr. 
 
 Essentially hunters, and certainly warriors, the men of 
 this period bestowed tlu-ir chief attention upon their arms. 
 They probably felt a certain pride in possessing the finest or 
 the best cut weapons ; but the relative indiflferencc which 
 they betrayed in the matter of other objects, shows us that 
 their chief aim in the finish of their work was to make their 
 weapons more terrible by increasing their power of penetra- 
 tion. Several fragments of bone, discovered in places remote 
 from each other, and belonging to several periods, prove that 
 these weapons of flint, handled by .strong hand.s, left nothing 
 to be desired in this respect. I shall only mention the verte- 
 bra of a reindeer, whieh had been pierced through by a lance 
 or a javelin, and a human tibia, through the head of which an 
 arrow lias passed near to the kneepan. In both ca.ses tho 
 broken flint has remained, testifying to the good quality of 
 the weapon and to the strength with which it was used. 
 
 At the time of the deposition of the upper river gravely 
 and when the i^redominance of the reindeer was most marked, 
 the industry of the men of Cro-Magnon underwent a sudden 
 change. Till then flint, and, in its ab.sence, other hard 
 stones, had furni.shed both the implement and the in.strument 
 formed by the aid of the former. Doubtless from the 
 earliest times, bones and the antlers of the stag or reindeer, 
 had been \ised from time to time ; but they only played au 
 almost insignificant part in the mamifacture of tools or 
 weapons. During the epoch of which we are speaking, they
 
 3i8 The Iluinan Species. 
 
 acquired a giowini:^ importance, and soon furnished almost 
 the only material for weapons. Flint was now only used 
 to make the implements, and these, on the other hand, became 
 more numerous, and fitted for the most varied uses. It was 
 with Hints that the troglodytes of Les Eyzies, of Laugerie- 
 Basse, of La Madeleine, and a great number of other settle- 
 ments, sawed and carved their reindeer antlers to make 
 strong harpoons, which were barbed on one side only. It 
 was with tlint that they pointed needles not much longer 
 than our own, and pierced the eye. In some specimens the 
 latter is so small that the piercing of it remained a problem, 
 till Lartet reproduced it wiih his own hand, using one of the 
 implements which ho had discovered. But the most charac- 
 teristic object of the Magdalen tan type is the arrow-head, 
 regularly barbed on both sides, the teeth of which contain 
 little channels, probably intended as the receptacle of some 
 poi-sonous substance. 
 
 The succession of industries which I have just pointed out 
 is, moreover, by no means invariable. As the investigations 
 and discoveries increase in number, we are more and more 
 impressed by the fact that the several colonies of the race 
 under consideration, yielding to local necessities, or carried 
 away by the accidents of their development, do not present 
 an unintelligible uniformity. The last excavations carried 
 out at Holulre by MM. Arcelin and the Abbe Ducrost, 
 .show arms and instruments of tht> Magdalenian type which 
 are anterior to tho.se of the Solutre type. In this epoch, 
 jis at the present time, there existed i\ certain diver- 
 fiity which e-xplains the coincitlence, in point of time, of 
 <lirt«-ivnt industrial typos among this jxipulatioii of similar 
 origin. 
 
 111. The lighter, mon; trusty, and more Naricd weapons, 
 announce a change in tin; life of our troglodytes. They 
 continue, it is true, to hunt large ganu^ when it comes in 
 their way; a few ran; mannnoths, surviving the climatic 
 nnxlifications which were going on, still h'll under their 
 hnn<l; the horse also oft»ii contributed to their repast. The
 
 The Cro-Maonon Race — Life. 319 
 
 rciiKU'tT, lunvcvor, lar<,'fly pro(loiniii;itcil in tlic d^hris of tlicir 
 kitchen. Mixed with them are dnrnd the remains of small 
 matiunals, such as the hare atul the squirrel. Birds also 
 benan to bo used for food to a considerable extent. From 
 the bones discovered in the single grotto of Gonrdan, so 
 admirably explored by M. Pietto, M. Alph. Edwards has been 
 able to distinguish twenty distinct species. Lastly, the men 
 of the Magdal.nian age fed also upon fish ; but fishing again 
 was to them a kind of hunting. They evidently did not use 
 the hook, and only harpooned the larger species, the salmon 
 in Perigord, and the pike in the ryrcnees, 
 
 Tlie conveyance of the large animals which fell under their 
 hand to their usual dwelling place, would have been too 
 much even for such .stalwart hunters. They cut them up 
 upon the spot, leaving only the skeleton of the trunk. We 
 rarely find in the caves more than the bones of the head and 
 limbs, which, again, are almost always broken. Like all 
 savages, the troglodytes of the Vezcre held the brain an<l 
 marrow in high estimation. The long bones which enclosed 
 the latter have evidently been split in a methodical manner, 
 with a view to preserving the contents. M>[. Lartet and 
 Christy even think that a special implement was employed 
 in eating these delicate morsels. A kind of spatula made 
 from the antler of a reindeer, with a conical, richly carved 
 handle, hollowed and rounded at the extremity, has been 
 regarded by them as a viarww sjwon. 
 
 The large amount of ashes and burnt wood found in the 
 Vezere deposits, leaves no room for doubt that fire wa.s used 
 in the cooking of food. The manner in which it was used 
 is, howevi'r, rather a difficulty. No trace of pottery has been 
 found among these hunters, and there is nothing to show 
 that they were acquainted with the oven of the Polynesian.^. 
 They must, therefore, have gone to work like the Siberians, 
 who, at the close of the hi-st century, had only vessels of 
 li-atluT or (»f Wood, and nevertheless were able to boil 
 the water which they contained by throwing in highly 
 heated fiints.
 
 o20 The Iluiuaii Species. 
 
 We have no rca.son for tliinkiiifj tli;it tlie Cio-M;ii;non man 
 was a cannibal. We find among the debris of liis kitchen, 
 none of those lung bones, broken so as to extract the marrow, 
 which could not but have been mixed with those of the larffc 
 mammals, had human flesh formed even accidentally part 
 of their repast. Nevertheless M. Piette has found at 
 Gourdan several icmaiiis of human skulls, bearing the mark 
 of flint knives, and the trace of blows which seem to have 
 l>roken them. Axes and atlases in great (juantity, jaw-bones 
 broken or whole, accompany these fragments of the cranial 
 vault. These facts may justify the opinion of M. Piette. 
 The Gourdan warriors after having killed an enemy, 
 doubtless brought his head home, scalped it, and perhaps 
 mixed the brain in some kind of pottage, as some of the 
 tribes of the PhilipjtiMe islands do at the pre.sent day. But 
 they did not eat the flesh of the van(iuished, Avho.se decapi- 
 tated corp.ses were probably left on the field of battle. 
 
 IV. Needles, like those which I have mentioned above, 
 would not have been made had there not been somethin<' 
 t<> sew. This fact alone suggests the idea of clothes. The 
 cha.se furnished the raw niaterial. The art of preparing 
 skins must have been carrieil by these tribes as far as it h;is 
 been by the lled-Skin.s, to judge from the nunibcr of scrapers 
 and smoothers which have l»een fo\ind in tlair station.s. 
 The marks left by flint knives at the points where long 
 tendons taken from the lind>s of the reindeer were inserted, 
 show how the thread was j)rociired. The clothes, when 
 sewn, nuist have been ornamented in various ways, as they 
 arc by savages of the present day. Upon the skeleton dis- 
 covered at Laugerie-lia.sse by M. Mas.senat, twenty pierced 
 shells were found placed in pairs upon dilferent parts of the 
 liody, 'J'his WU.S not an instance of either necklace or bracelet, 
 but of ortianjents arranged in an almost symmetrical manner 
 np<»n a garment. The skehton of Mentone, discovtnd by 
 M. lliviere, pri'.sented a similar appearance. 
 
 Thus the taste for adornment, so striking at the jtn sent 
 day in the mo.st savage as also in (ho eivilized nations
 
 The Cro-Manwn Race — Arts. \2\ 
 
 •.:> 
 
 existed in tliu troglodytic tribes of the quaternary opocli. 
 Tliore are, moreover, uiimcrou.s proofs of tliis fact. The 
 fragments of necklaces, bracelets, etc., h.avc been fi)\ind in a 
 great number of stations. In most cases marine shells, 
 sometimes fo.ssil and obtained from the tertiary beds, 
 fornad these ornaments. But the Cro-Magnon man com- 
 bined with the.se the teeth of the large carnivora; he cut 
 also witli the same intention plates of ivory, certain soft or 
 hard stones, and even made beads of clay which were 
 merely dried in the sun. Finally, he tatooed himself, or 
 at least painted his body with the oxides of iron or man- 
 ganese, small stores of which have on several occasions been 
 lound in ditl'erent stations, and which have left their mark 
 upon the bones of some skeletons, for example, upon that of 
 Mentone. 
 
 V. The Cro-Magnon race has up to this point shown 
 scarcely any superiority over the hunting tribes of America, 
 unless perhaps it is in the dexterity which they displayed 
 in tlint cutting. But the artistic instincts which they 
 showed almost from their first appearance, and the point 
 to which they carried drawing and sculpture in the Made- 
 leine age, gives them <|uite an exceptional position amongst 
 those nations wiiose evolution has been arrested at the 
 lowest stage of social life. The relative alleviation of 
 climatic conditions, the diminuti<iu of large and ferocious 
 animals involving the multiplication of useful species and 
 especially that of the reindeer, placed at this epoch the 
 Cro-Magnon man in conditions of welfare unknown to his 
 predecessors, lie profited by it in developing in a most 
 unexpected manner his very superior talents. 
 
 As a general rule the greater number of sculptures repre- 
 senting animals leave, it is true, much to be desired. We 
 can indeed recognise the reindeer represented in high 
 relief; nor would it be difficult to recognise as a mammoth 
 the little carving made from the antler of the reindeer 
 discovered at Montitstruc. Nevertheless, the.^e .specimens 
 would give but a poor idea of Magdalenean art. The ivory
 
 322 The Human Species. 
 
 dajiger handles fuiinil by Vi. Pcccadoau tie I'l^le by the 
 side of tlie mammoth i'ortnnately confirm tliis impression. 
 In botli a reindeer is represented crouching, the legs bent, 
 the head stretched out and the antlers lying along the 
 body so as nut to inconvenience tlie hand which should 
 hold it, 'J'lif attitudes are so natural, and the proportions 
 so exact, that a decorative sculptor of the present day, in 
 treating the same subject, could scarcely do better than 
 copy his antique predecessor. 
 
 Drawing or rather engraving was much more commonly 
 practised than sculpture. It otVcrs also more points of 
 interest. Armed with their point of flint, the quaternary 
 artists engraved in turn the bone and the antlers of the 
 reindeer, ivory frum the mammoth, and stones of different 
 kinds. Sometimes they endeavoured to re])roduce the plants 
 or animals around tlu-m ; at other times they followed their 
 own fancv, and made designs of ornamentation, in which we 
 meet with almost all the juinciplcs reinvented many 
 centuries afterwards. The multiplicity and the variety of 
 this kind of engraving show nnich imagination and a real 
 faculty of invention. 
 
 The faculty of imitation is e(iually striking in drawings 
 representing real objects, animals in particular. They are 
 often very remarkable for firmness of touch, showing a 
 perfect comprehcnsiim of the whole, and reproducing the 
 details with such exactness that we are not only able 
 unerringly to recogni.se the group but even the species 
 represented by the artist. Thus we have found successively 
 tiie ox, the aurochs, the horse, the reindeer, the elk, the 
 Htug, the sleinbock, a cetacean, certain fishes, etc. After 
 thcHC faithful representations, the models of which we know, 
 there is no reason to doubt the exactness with which 
 certain extinct aninuds hav(> been drawn. This viry simple 
 coiiHideratirjn gives great interest to the drawing of the 
 cave bear found by M. (larrigou iqxm a ]»iecc of Mitssat 
 schist, and to those of the mammoth discovered by M. 
 Ijartet in the I'erigord caves. 'I'li.inks lo the Intler and to
 
 The Cro- Milt; lion Race — y/;-/jr. 323 
 
 \vli:it we know from the inaiumotlis preserved in ice in 
 Siberia, an artist of the present day might produce in 
 ahnost exact detail the portrait of this giant of the ancient 
 world, which disappeared so long ago. 
 
 VI. Man figures very rarely in these drawings or sculptures, 
 and the representations of our species which have been met 
 with up to the present time, display a relative inferiority 
 whieli is indee.l most strange. The small ivory statue found 
 l.v M. de A'ibraye at Laugerie-Basse scarcely testifies to 
 even the infancy of the art. It is a woman, whose sox we 
 are able to recognise by a detail doubtless exaggerated, but 
 long, stiff and with very strange protuberances at the lower 
 extremity of the loins. The crouching human form found 
 bv M. TAiibo Landes(|uc in the same locality is still more 
 ill-formed. The drawings of men or women are scarcely 
 better, and the contrast sometimes presented upon the same 
 specimen between them and drawings of animals is most 
 strauf^e. M. I'Abbe Landcsque's reindeer ivomaii is grotesque, 
 whilst the hind legs of the animal, which alone have been 
 preserved, present all the qualities which I have noticed 
 above and which may be observed in the splendid horse's 
 head engraved upon the other side of the bone. In M. 
 Ma-ssenat's auroclts man, the animal has much beauty both 
 in form and movement ; the man is stiff, without proportion 
 or truth. 
 
 This c<nilr;i.st is too great and too constant to be accidental. 
 It must be the result of a cause arising perhaps from some 
 superstitious idea similar to certain modern superstitions. 
 When Catlin had finished his first portrait of the Red-Skin, 
 some of the tribe looked upon him as a dangerous sorcerer, 
 who had robbed the model of part of himself. Perhaps some 
 imilar idea may have ])revcnted the artists of the Vezere 
 tVom studying the human figure, for it always happens that 
 when they attempt to reproduce it their graving tool hesi- 
 tates, and loses all its good qualities. 
 
 These imperfect representations, therefore, tell us nothing 
 of the appearance or proportions of the race. The most we can
 
 3-4 ^/'<' IIuuhDi Species. 
 
 say, it" we accept the interpretations of MM. rAMK'Landesque 
 and Piette, i.s tliat it wasuinaikaldy hairy. But this opinion, 
 which rests chiefly upon tlie drawing of the reindeer woman, 
 seems to me to he contradicted by that of the aurochs man, 
 whose small pointed beard scarcely extends as far as the 
 angle of the jaw-bone. The horizontal liatching \ipon the 
 legs and body cannot, it appears to me, be taken for hairs, 
 because it crosses at right angles the directittu which would 
 have been tjiken by the latter. I should much rather con- 
 sider them as lines of painting, a kind of decoration which 
 we know to have been held in hi<'h estimation amongst 
 these tribes. 
 
 VII. However bad they may be, the drawings which I 
 have just described furnish us, nevertheless, with some facts 
 respecting the mode of life pursued by these hunters. That 
 of i\\c aurochs man inftjrms us that they followed the largest 
 game naked, a.s is often the case with the lied-Skins, their 
 hair rai.sed in a tuft on the top of the hea<l, and armed only 
 with the lance or javelin. The whale man is also naked, 
 and the immense arm which he stretches out as far as the 
 fin of the fish, seems to indicate that he has fought and con- 
 (juercd this monster, which had doubtless run aground in 
 .some shallow. Jjut, IVom this fact alone, it foll<»ws that the 
 quaternary man of IVrigord must .sometimes have left his 
 mountains and travelletl as far im the sea-shore. His con- 
 t<'mj)oiaries in the Pyrenees did the same, a.s is proved by 
 the drawings of seals discovered in the grottoes ot Gourdan 
 and Duruthy. 
 
 Again, thf)sc deposits which are siluatetl at the greatest 
 distance inland have often furnished olyects which can only 
 have been obtained upon the sea-shore. At Cro-Magnon 
 more than three hundred shells of Littonna littorra, an 
 oceanic specicH, have been fotuid. On the other hand the 
 Cifprcua rufa and C. lurlda found upon the Laugerie-Ba-sse 
 Kkclcton, which I have mentioned above, are uiKpiestionably 
 Mediterranean. Sometimes the ujolluscs peculiar to the two 
 regions have been found in the sanu.' place. In the (Ioui<lan
 
 The Cro-Magnon Race — Life. 325 
 
 grotto, ill tlie middle of the central PyrencL'S, M. Pietto 
 found five oceanic species, one Mediterranean, and five 
 common to both seas. The fosail shells of the Perij'ord 
 dep<t.sits were generally liruiight from the fahui of Touraine, 
 those of (Jourdan must have been collected, partly in the 
 IjiUides and in the neighbourhood of Dax, and partly near 
 IVrjdgnan. In this sjinie grotto M. Piette discovered a 
 pumice-stone, which had been used in polishing needles, and 
 which he considered had come from the volcanic region of 
 Airde. 
 
 From these, and some other analogous facts, M, Piette and 
 M. de Mortillet have thought there is sufficient reason to 
 suppose that the tribes of the Vezere had no fixed habitation, 
 but led a nomad life, visiting in turn the shores of the two 
 seas, hunting in the mountains during the summer the game 
 of the season, and passing the winter in a warmer climate. 
 We cannot adopt this hypothesis. The ever-increasing fauna 
 among the cooking lUhvls denotes a population, which, as it 
 multiplied in every way, made more and more use of the 
 resources of the country. These .same heaps furni.shed 
 Lartet with reindeer bones of every age, amongst which were 
 those of young fawn.s. Our great authority concludes from 
 this fact that the tribe was .st;itionary during tiic entire year, 
 and we believe him to be right. The man of Cro-Magnon, 
 \mX Madeleine and Oourdan, must undoubtedly have always 
 been within reach of the reindeer, from which they obtained 
 nourishment, anus ami clothing. But the migrations of this 
 animal, under the influence of a i)ut slightly varying mari- 
 time climate, could not have been very extensive, and the 
 troglodytes of Perigord or the Pyrenees, if they wished 
 to keep within its range, would not have had such expedi- 
 tions to undertake, as those of the lled-Skins in pursuit of 
 the bi.son. 
 
 This serai-stationary life did not exclude travels by land 
 or even by sea. Among the fossil shells found at Laugerie- 
 r>asse, there are .some which could only have come from the 
 isle of Wight, Now, iu the age of the reindeer, there was
 
 326 The JIuuuDi Species. 
 
 no longor land comnuinication between France and Enj^'lanil. 
 As M. Fischer has reniavkeJ, the presence of these shells in 
 a continentiil station proves the existence of naviijation. 
 
 But, can it really have been the man of the Vezere who 
 went to seek these objects of adornment on the other side of 
 the channel ? It is difficult to believe that these mountain 
 tribes could have crossed the sea. It is much more likely 
 that this voyage was accomplished by contemporaries, who, 
 by long residence on the sea coast, had developed navigating 
 instincts. They, doubtless, would bring from the English 
 island those shells regarded as precious jewels, which would 
 then pass in exchange from hand to hand, till at length they 
 reached the valleys of Perigord. Traffic of this kind can 
 alone explain this existence of an oyster-shell from the Red 
 Sea in the Thayngen grotto explored by M. C. Mayer, near 
 to .Schaafthauscii. We know, moreover, that shells of the 
 Pacific Ocean are in our day brought, by a perfectly similar 
 commerce, as far as the tribes of Red-Skins inhabiting the 
 sliorfs of the Atlantic. 
 
 VJII. The history of the Cro-Magnon race, founded upt.u 
 the industrial remains which it has be<]ueathed to us, 
 still presents many questions answered in various ways l)y 
 savants of the most (litVereiit (tpinious. I shall only point 
 them out cursorily. 
 
 \)\<\ the quaternary trilies confine thenisilves to hunling 
 those animal species which are subject to us, and by wliieh 
 lliey were then surrounded. Diil they never domesticate the 
 horse, or the reindeer ? 
 
 M. Toussaint luus answered the first ([Uestion in the aflir- 
 mative, and M. (Jervais the second. The accumulation, often 
 pr(Mligi(»us, of the bones of thi'se animals is thus explained 
 l»y all. At Solutre, a kind of bone hollow, formed almost 
 exclusively of the bones of the horse, surrounds, so to speak, 
 the space occupied Ity liearths and .sepultures. It coinpri.se.s 
 the renutins of at hast forty thousand lK»rses, amongst which 
 wo only occnxionally meet with either foals or old animals. 
 The immense majority were kilhd at the age of froni fom* to
 
 The Cro-Magnon Race — Domestic Animals. 327 
 
 oiglit years. This strange accumulation of remains furnished 
 by one species, and the choice of animals in their prime, are, 
 in the ojiinion of M. Toussaint, inexplicable facts, unless we 
 admit the existence of great herds from which man could 
 draw supplies at will. The arguments brought forward in 
 favour of the domestication of the reindeer are almost of the 
 same nature. M. Piette, however, ailmits that the latter, 
 long hunted in a wild state, was only domesticated towards 
 the close of the quaternar}' period. His opinion rests upon 
 tiie proportion of reintlccr bones which increase in number 
 almost suddenly in the upper layers of the Gourdan grotto. 
 M. Piette also draws attention to certain drawings in which 
 rt'inJeer are represented, having upon the neck the appear- 
 ance of a halter. 
 
 To these arguments, which arc evidently not devoid of 
 value, it has been objected that man may very well have 
 boon able to tame some individuals, without necessarily 
 <lomesticating the species ; that the multiplicati<m and titili- 
 s:iti(»n of certain kinds of game under general and better 
 understood conditions, readily account for the preference 
 accorded to them at certain periods ; and that a practised 
 hunter would, without difficvdty, choose from among the 
 herd the one he wished to kill. All the facts brou'dit 
 
 O 
 
 forward by MM. Gervais, Toussaint, and Piette with regard 
 to France, are thus explained without much difficulty. As 
 to countries situated more to the north, the facts obtained by 
 M. Fraas from the grottoes of Suabia, and Ids philological 
 risearches seem to support the opinions of these .savants. 
 It i.s evident that the problem of the domestication of the 
 h<)rse and the reindeer by quaternary man demands further 
 -hidy, and may assume an entirely local character. 
 
 I should say almost the .same with regard to social organisa- 
 tion. Wi> cannot doubt but that the tribes of La Madeleine 
 and of iJrunitpiel recognised chiefs, and that it was for them 
 tho.se daggei-s of mammoth ivory were carved, of which I 
 have spoken above. They were evidi-ntly state arms. But 
 was this universally the cn.,e ? W;is tlitic, .vm anniiigst
 
 J 
 
 28 The Human Species. 
 
 these tribes, a true hierarchy, every grade of which was 
 marked by certain in.si((nia ? Certain Large portions of rein- 
 deer antlers, presenting a tolerably uniform appearance, 
 diminished in size by hand, and invariably decorated with 
 special care, have, it has been tliought, offered sufficient 
 proof for these facts. In some cases they are whole, in 
 others they are pierced at one extremity with from one to 
 four nnnid holes, which sometimes encroach iipon tlie original 
 drawing. These singular objects are certainly not arms. 
 They have been regarded as comvuindevii batons, an inter- 
 ])retation which api)ears to be plausible. Is it not, however, 
 going rather too far, when the number of holes are regarded 
 as indicating the dignity of the possessor, from which it 
 would follow that these tribes recognised five district grades 
 of chiefs ? 
 
 Had the quaternary man in (juestion any belief in another 
 life? Had he a religion ? 
 
 There can be no doubt as to the answer to the first of 
 these fjucstioiis. '\'\\o care bestowed upon liurial places 
 sliows tliat tlii; hunters of Altiitono, as also those of Sulutrt5 
 and ( 'ru-Magntm, believed in tlie wants of tlieir dead beyond 
 tlie foiiil). ( )ur act|iiaiMtance with the customs of so many 
 s.ivage nations of the ])resent epoch forbids any other inter- 
 pretation of the interment of food, arms, and ornaments with 
 till- b(jdy. 
 
 The dilliculty is ^nati-r in solving the ])roltleni of religion. 
 It is very probable that tiie man of this age had a belii'f 
 Kimihir to thai which we know to I'xist among nations lead- 
 ing abiioht the' same kind of lifi*. \Ve can scarcely help 
 regarding a great number of small objects, j)iereed so as to 
 ('nal)lu them to be worn roun<l the neck, aa amulets, nor 
 doubt that the troglodytes of the Ve/ere or the Pyrenees 
 attributed to them virt\ies analogous to those which are even 
 now axcril^ed to ihem liy many savage tribes. AI. Piette dis- 
 covered «>ne of these amulets consisting of a plate ])ierced in 
 the centre, from which diverging lines took their rise; ho 
 found A Kimilar embh-m repeated three limes upon a com-
 
 Tlw Cro-Magnon Race — Social State. 329 
 
 inanderti hdton. He admits that they arc so many represen- 
 tations of the sun, and I very willin^dy accept this inter- 
 ])r('tation. ]>ut does ho not exceed the limits of k'gitiniate 
 in<h.iction, wlicn he conchides from this fact that the man of 
 (Jourdan worshipped this heavenly body, and invented the 
 aSVoi Guil, afterwards discovered by the Egyptians and Gauls. 
 IX. Finally the race of Cro-Magnon was not wanting iii 
 either beauty or intelligence. Taking its intelligence as a 
 whole, it seems to me to present striking points of resem- 
 blance with the Algonquin race, as represented by the 
 earliest travellers, and more especially by missionaries who 
 have s|>ent much time amongst these Ked-Skins. It had 
 undoubtedly both its good and bad qualities. Scenes of 
 violence took place upon the banks of the Vezbre, as Ls 
 proved by the hatchet-cut in the skull of the Cro-Magnon 
 woman. On the other hand, the burial places of Solutrt^, 
 though containing many indented male and female heads, 
 seem to show that old age received particular attention, and 
 was, therefore, honoured among these tribes. This i"ace 
 believed in another life ; and the contents of tombs up<jn 
 the banks of the Vt^zere and the Somme, seem to prove that 
 •A happy prairie-land was looked forward to here, as upon the 
 banks of the Mississippi. 
 
 The man of Perigord, like the Algompiin, did nut ri.se 
 above the very lowest stage in the scjcial scale ; he remained 
 a hunter, at least till towards the clo.se of that age, during 
 which he appeared among the mountains of France. It is, 
 then, an enor to employ the term cirilhation in speaking of 
 this race. Yet he wjus endowed with an intelligence b«ith 
 pliable and capable of improvement. We have seen that he 
 Mjade progress and changes by himself, a fact, of which no 
 trace is to be observed in his American representiitive, so 
 that, in this re.spect, he was undoubtedly his superior. And 
 hustly, his artistic instincts, and the remarkable productions 
 which he has left, gain for him a special place among the 
 savage races of all times. 
 
 X. During all the first part of tlie reindeer age, the Cro-
 
 330 The I / 21 man S/>(r/i'S. 
 
 Magnon race supported itself in the state, of wliicli I have 
 just been pointing out the principal features. But from 
 the commencement of the second half of the same age, 
 during the deposition of the red diluvium and the upper 
 loess, we observe an unmistakable decline, which becomes 
 more and more striking as we proceed. The working of 
 bone and reindeer antlers diminishes and returns to its 
 former rudeness ; flint cutting, on the contrary, gains in 
 favour, and in some places, as in the grotto discovered at 
 Saint Martin d'Excideuil by M. Parrot, acquires a most 
 remarkable finish. But this very perfection seems to herald 
 the approach of a new age, and to betray the influence of a 
 strange element. 
 
 The fact is, that during this period an ainelit»ration in the 
 general conditions of life was taking place. Europe had at 
 length risen above the waves ; a continental climate wjvs 
 succeeding to the maritime climate ; the weather was more 
 settled ; warm summers followed winters more severe, but 
 less rainy ; the glaciers consr([uently retreated and hecame 
 confined within their |)resent limits; and conse(|Uently again, 
 the fauna became divided. Animals fond of cold, and 
 orgaiii.sed for a mountain life, such a.s the chamois and 
 liouquetin, were content to emigrate i)i<iltitude,iind followed 
 the glaciers in their retreat to our highest mountain summits. 
 The reindeer, in no way adapted for climbing, was forced 
 to emigrate ni latitude and go further north. Its herds 
 became more and more rare, and at length disappeared from 
 our countries, where, even if domesticated, it could not have 
 continueil for long, 'ihe human jxtpulation, who had, doubt- 
 less, for centuries lived upon this animal, and obtained from 
 it their clothing, arms, and implements, nnist have felt the 
 change intensely, losing with the reindeir, what we may call 
 their statT of life. 
 
 What happ<'ned n»)W ? According to MM. ("urtailhac, 
 Forel, and de Mortillet, man disappeared or emigrated with 
 the animal which had be(;omn necessary to him, and the 
 valleys of IV'rigonI, .Muconnais, and the I\renees bewmio
 
 The Cro-Magnon Race— Duration. 331 
 
 tininliu])ito(l. Tlicy lioUl that, after tlie close of tlie reiiidocr 
 aye, tliuro is an immense space, a jjrcat gap, during which 
 t!je fauna was ronewctl, and after which a new race of men 
 suddenly made their appearance, who polished stone instead 
 of cuttin<i it, and surrounded themselves with domestic! 
 animals. 
 
 In spite of the incontestahle authority of the savants 
 whom I have just named, their opinion has, I believe, gained 
 hut very few partisans, and has been hotly contested. It is 
 indeed possildo, and even probable, that a certain number of 
 stations were abandoned during the period in (piestion, and 
 that the inhabitants moved northwards to seek those condi- 
 tions of climate and facilities for the chase to which they had 
 been accustomed. But other tribes remained where they 
 were, yieliling to the new necessities, adopting the arms and 
 customs of the immigrating populations, and becoming amal- 
 gamated with tiiem. I cannot here enter into the geological, 
 zoological and archaeological considerations by which this 
 view is justified. I shall confine myself to mentioning some 
 facts which bel(jng especially to anthropology. 
 
 MM. Louis Lartet and Chapelain Duparc discovered near 
 Sorde, in the department of the Basses- Pyrenees, a shelter 
 in the lower l)ed of which, after methodical excavations, a 
 human skidl and bones were found, together with a necklace 
 of the teeth of the lion and bear. Immediately above, and 
 mi.xed with the latter, was a thick layer of charcoal from 
 which the explorers obtained barbed arrows of the Magda- 
 lenean type, and numerous instruments and implements of 
 the same age. Bones of the hoi-se and ox were mixed with 
 these products of human industry. The reindeer was not 
 wanting among this cooking d('hrift, but this species vas 
 more rare than the others. Lastly, above the charcoal, and 
 partly confoundcil with its upper portion, they discovered a 
 layer which was, so to speak, composed of Imman bones. 
 The learned explorers here obtained several cut Hints similar 
 to the preceding. l)ut they also found a narrow, thin blade, 
 JUS well as a triani,'ular dairger, which, from its form and the
 
 JO- 
 
 The llinuan Species. 
 
 nature of the work, is closely connected with the finest 
 prorhictions of the art of pulisheil stone. 
 
 The upper burial phice contained the remains of more 
 tlian thirty indiviiUials. Tiiese bones liave been taken to 
 the museum, and M. Hamy has not hesitated in referring 
 them to the Cro-Magnon race. I liad only to confirm this 
 opinion, as there could be no possible gi'ound for doubt. Upon 
 the bones of the limbs as well as upon the skidls, all those 
 characters were observed which have become classic since the 
 great works of MM. Broca and Pruner Bey. 
 
 Thus, in this curious grotto at Sorde, we find the super- 
 position of two archceological type's, the cut stone (Pala30- 
 lithic), and the polished stone (Neolithic) ; but there is only 
 one human race, that of Cro-Magnon. Is it not evident that 
 tliis race must have known both the latest times of the rein- 
 deer ago, and the earliest of the present epoch ? 
 
 Whilst accommodating itself to the new conditions of exist- 
 ence, and accepting the industries of strangers more advanced 
 than itself, the little tribe of Sorde seems U) have preserved 
 intact the purity of its blood. This could not, however, bo 
 universally the case, for the invasion must necessarily have 
 occasioned crossing. Here, again, facts fully justify all that 
 is indicated by the theory. 
 
 In the cavern of rilomint'-Mnrt, situati'd upon a high 
 pl.ite.'iu of the Lozero, and .so th(»n>ughly investigated by 
 .MM. Broca and Prunieres, animal bones of the present epoch 
 alone have been found; there were neither reindeer, nor even 
 horse, ox, or stag. Moreover, the head of a lance or javelin 
 had been worked with a fragment of hatcliet in polished stone. 
 We here, then, find ourselves in the presence of a population 
 much posterior to the quaternary period, and very jirobably 
 c<nit<'nij>orary with that wliiiji i.iisi d iiuniciinis (lulnicns in 
 the neighboinh<»od. 
 
 Now, the remnins ol tiiis population ImIimv in a higli 
 degree traces of the. Cro-M.ignon tyjie, modilit-d partly, 
 IKirliaps, by the n<tioM of new conditions of life, but al.so by 
 ethnological changes. The stature is sensibly diminished ;
 
 The Cro-Mas^non Race — Duration. 
 
 jj J 
 
 having tlcscomloJ to a mean of 1G2 m. (5 ft. I3*7 in). The 
 hreadth of the upper part of the face is less striking, and the 
 whole head h;is become almost harmonic. But the dolicho- 
 cephaly remains ; the lines of tlie skull are almost unaltered, 
 the orbits are always elongated, the nasal orifices narrow, the 
 great majority of the bones of the limbs especially have 
 preserved their very characteristic features. The same 
 grooves are observed in the fibula as at Cro-Magnon ; the 
 tibia is platycnemic ; in the femur may be observed that 
 extraordinary prominence of the linea aspera which con- 
 stitutes one of the must curious features of the race; finally, 
 the ulna in every ca.sc possesses the sigmoid cavity, the 
 curve so often pointed out as f<imi(in. But at the same 
 time we observe a feature a.s yet foreign to the pure race of 
 Cro-Magnon. The olecranon depression of the humerus is 
 perforated in a number of specimens in as great a proportion 
 as 2(J, or, periiaps, oo per cent. This feature, which we find 
 in other fossil races, is of itself a sufficient indication of cross- 
 in"', and confirms the inferences which we might have 
 drawn from the diminution in lieight, modifications of the 
 face, etc. 
 
 Similar facts are proved by the two skulls, and the group 
 of bones from Cit'me'nos, near Marseille, which were saved 
 Irom destruction by M. Marion. 
 
 Thus, both upon the Lozere anil in the neighbourhood of 
 Marseille, the Cro-Magnon race appears in the midst of the 
 polished stone period, but with a mixture of characters wiiich 
 indicates the influence of a fresh element. We come upon it 
 in tiie upper Ciiveunes and on the shores of the Mediterranean 
 just at the time when its tribes were beginning to blend 
 with tho.se who had introduced among them the first elements 
 of modern civilizatit)n. We cannot be surprised that tiiese 
 simple Imnters should have been more or less ab.sorbed by a 
 denser population, who possessed donnsticated animals and 
 raised dolmen.s. 
 
 XI. It may, however, be said with etjual, and even with 
 greater truth, of the Cro-Magnon as of the Canstadt race,
 
 334 '^^^<-^ Hiunan Species. 
 
 that it has not disappeared. It may be traced through inter- 
 mediate ages, and met with again in certain populations of 
 the present day. 
 
 In the neohthic tombs phiccd close beside the quaternary 
 burial places at Solutre, the old hunters of the horse are 
 rrprcsL-nted by their descendants, of ■whom the more or less 
 modititd skulls have been discovered. In the sepulchral 
 grottoes of the Marne, .so intelligently and successfully explored 
 by M. J. de Baye, the Cro-Magnon type is found associated 
 with tho.se of four other quaternary races, and with one 
 neolithic race. In Germany, near the Taunus ; in Belgium, 
 in the caverns of Hamoir and at Nivelles ; in the neighbour- 
 hood of Pari.s, in the recent alluvium of Grcnelle ; in the 
 clays of the harbour of Boulogne, human remains dating from 
 the same epoch, and belonging to the same race, have been 
 found. M. Piette discovered a Cro-Magnon skeleton in the 
 Aisnc, whilst excavating a Gauli-sh cemetery of the iron age. 
 At Paris even, the excavations of the Hotel Dieu, those of 
 the Boulevard <le Port Iloyal, etc., have brought to light 
 skulls of the .same race, of probably as late a date as tlu; 
 fifth century, and there are .some more recent still. Mi)dern 
 specimens will most certainly be found. I have myself twice 
 ob.served in women features which could oidy accord with 
 the cranial and facial bones of the race under discu.ssiou. Ju 
 one of them, the dysharmony between the face anil skull 
 wiis at least (piite as striking as in the old man of (jro- 
 Magnon : the eye depre.s.sed beneath the orbital vault had 
 the same heavy appearance ; the nose w;is straight rather 
 than arched, the lips somewhat thick, the ma.xillary buncs 
 strongly developed, the complexion very brown, the hair very 
 dark and growing low on the forehead. A thick-waisted 
 figure, slightly ilevdoped brejists, haiiils and feet relatively 
 Hinall, 8orve<l to form a whoir, which, without being attractive, 
 was in no way repulsive. 
 
 The labours of .M. H.uny h.ive extentlcl ;iii<l enl.irged 
 this field of reHeanh. lie has again met with the tyj>e in 
 question amongst the Zaraus collection of Basipie skulls.
 
 Survivors of tJic Qualcniary Epoch. 335 
 
 collected by MM. Broca an(i Vclasco; he has followed it even 
 into Africa in the megaliihic tombs explored principally 
 by General Faidherbe, and to the Kabyles of the Boni- 
 Masscr and the Djurjura. It is, however, chiefly in the 
 Canary Islands, in the collection of the Barranco-Hundo of 
 IVnt-ritVe, that he has met with skulls, the ethnical relation 
 of which with the oKl man of Cro-Magnon is beyond discus- 
 sion. Un the other hand, some points of comparison, un- 
 fortunately very few in number, have led him to regard the 
 Dalocarlians a.s connectctl with the same stock. 
 
 XII. However strange these results may appear, they arc 
 only a repetition in the human race of what has already been 
 proved in the case of animals. It is now a long time since 
 Lartet showed that at the close of the quaternary age, and as 
 the species peculiar to this age were finally disappearing, 
 the survivors were divided into three groups. Some remained 
 where they were, others migrated to the north, and others 
 again to the south. Perhaps the latter were only persistent 
 in Africa, from whence they had despatched their representa- 
 tives to us, and where we meet with them still, whilst their 
 coloDics, which were at one time in a flourishing condition in 
 France, peri.shed under the influence of the winters of the 
 present period. Finally, as an explanation is given of the 
 ancient fauna, and the cause which brought about their 
 separation, we cannot be surprised to fiml human popula- 
 tions presenting analogous facts. 
 
 During the (luaternary period, the race of Cro-Magnon had 
 its principal European centre of population in the south-west 
 of France. The little basin of the Vezere was, so to speak, 
 its capital ; its colonies spread into Italy, the north of France, 
 the valley of the Meuse, etc., where they encountered other 
 races, to whom our attention will soon be turned. But they 
 themselves were perhaps only a branch of an African popula- 
 tion, which ha»l emigrated to France with the hyana, the 
 lion, the hippopotamus, etc In this case, there is no difti- 
 culty in explaining its existence at the present day in the 
 iM.itli-wi >t i.f Africa, and in islands where it would \ni pro-
 
 OJ 
 
 6 IJic IIii))ian Species. 
 
 tectfil from crossing'. Suine of its tribes, curried ;iway in llio 
 pursuit uf the reindeer, will have preserved, in the Scandina- 
 vian Alps, the tall form, black hair, and brown complexion 
 which disting\iishes Dalecarlians of the neighbouring^ popula- 
 tions ; others, mixing with all the races by which France has 
 been successively invaded, only betray their ancient existence 
 by the phenomena of atavism, which lays upon some indi- 
 viduals the mark of the old hunters of Purigord.
 
 CnAPTKR XXVIII. 
 
 RACES OF FURFOOZ. 
 
 I. In giving the name of a locality justly celebrated in 
 anthropology to this group of races, and in applying it 
 especially to the two first, M. Hamy and I have been 
 chiefly actuated by the desire to honour the long and 
 conscientious labours, which have led to the discovery of 
 quaternary man in Belgium. It is scarcely necessary to 
 remind my readers that it is due, after Schmerling, to M. 
 Dupont, who during seven years, from IHi'yi to 1871, has 
 e.xcavated more than sixty caverns or rock-shelters, from 
 which he has obtained, independently of his human fossils, 
 about forty thousand animal bones and eighty thou.sand 
 stones cut by the hand of man. The race of Grcncllc was 
 discovered by M. Emile ^lartin, in 18()7, in the gravel pits 
 opened in the neighbourhood of Paris, and aftcrwarils 
 characterised by M. Hamy. The race of La Trucldre was 
 found by M. Lcgrand dc Mercey in a bank of the Seille, 
 near to the locidity of which it beai-s the name. 
 
 II. Considered from the point of view of the general 
 form of the skull, these four types arrange themselves in an 
 almost regular manner. The cephalic imlex 7l)'31 places 
 the first Furfooz race among mcsaticephali ; the secontl 
 Furfooz race becomes sub-brachycephalic by its index 81'39; 
 that of Crenelle, whose index rises to 83r)3 in the man, and 
 <S3 08 in the woman, ajiproaches very nearly to brachy- 
 ceplialy properly so called. This is also the ca.se with that 
 of La Truchere, the index of whieh is 8132. 
 
 Let us at once proceed to consider this latter, which, at 
 present represented in quaternary times «)nly by a head, is,
 
 3 38 The Human Species. 
 
 on tliat account alono, far less interesting than its com- 
 panions. The skull and face are here remarkable for a 
 dysharmony as striking as that of the Cro-^Magnon head ; 
 but the contrast is inverse. The skull, in this case, is broad 
 and short, -while the face is long. The face view of the 
 former presents a very marked pentagonal appearance. The 
 bones are all strongly developed in the transverse direction, 
 with the exception of the inferior half of the coronal which 
 slants rapidly inward so as to form a narrow forehead. The 
 whole face is relatively small and narrow. The nose is very 
 large and long ; the massive cheek bones are slightly pro- 
 minent, and the superior maxillary bones are slightly 
 prognathous. 
 
 The two races of Furfooz, like that of Crenelle, have a 
 certain family resemblance, which does not exclude the 
 existence of distinctive characters. Thus, in the mesati- 
 cephalic race of Furfooz the antero-posterior arc of the skull 
 produces above the small but well marked superciliary 
 ridges, a very retreating forehead, and is continued with no 
 further inflexion than a slight depression at the sutures. 
 The face is broad and the index almost the same as that 
 of the race of Cro-Magnon, On account of the shortening 
 of the skull, the head is, however, harmonic, instead of 
 being dyaluiiinonlc as in the troglodytes of Perigord. A 
 slightly concave, but sufficiently prominent nose, Sijuare 
 orbits, slightly marked canine fossa?, and an almost orthog- 
 nathous superior maxillary bone complete this face, the 
 bony framework of which has a somewhat finely cut and 
 delicate appearance. 
 
 In this sub-brachycephalic race of the .same locality, the 
 fonrhead rises in a somewhat perpendicular line to the level 
 of tlie frontal eminences. The arc then becomes suildenly 
 Hattenetl as far as the first third of the parietal ])ones where 
 the curve bcconuH more infhclcd and is coMtinucd with 
 almost unbroken regularity to the foranu-n magnum of tlir 
 occipital. We meet with ahnost (ho sauu^ iinhx in (ho 
 face; but the oibit.> .'nil ihc r:i<c .-iri- l.iiii_'ir, (he r'.-miiic
 
 /Kdtrs of La Tniclurc and of G rend It. 339 
 
 foss.T form (loop iiidLiitations, the supi.ri(jr niaxillaiy bono 
 projects forward, the teeth follow the same direction, and 
 the prognathism is very striking. 
 
 In the race of Grenelle, the very prominent glal)elUi and 
 full superciliary ridges give a slightly oblique direction to 
 the base of the forehead. But the arc soon rises and is 
 r«'gularly developed without either projection or depression. 
 TIk- skull, viewed from the face, appears as well proportioned 
 a-s in pn»fik'. The face harmonises with it. The cheek 
 bones arc well developed and prominent ; the canine fossaa 
 high, but not deep; the orbits approach the Kipiare form; 
 the bones of the nose are concave and sufficiently pro- 
 minent. Finally, the maxillary bone and the teeth are 
 eipially prognathous, but less so than in the preceding nice. 
 
 III. The men of Grenelle, and still more those of Furfooz, 
 were of small stature. The former reached a mean of 
 1 (!2 111. (.)ft. .3"8 in.), but the latter descended to 1'.53 m. 
 (oft. 0*2 in.) This is almost exactly the mean height of 
 the Lapps. Yet this reduced stature would neither exclude 
 the vigour nor the agility necessary to savage populations. 
 The bones of the limbs and trunk arc strong, and the 
 eminences and depressions of tlnir surfac^e indii-atc a very 
 marked muscular development. 
 
 With the exception of this general appearance of strength 
 superior to that which is generally met with, the skeleton 
 f the men of Furfooz and Crenelle strongly resembles that 
 of men of the present day. The tibia in particular assumes 
 the prismatic triangular form which we are accustomed to 
 observe in them. We remark, nevertheless, the appearance 
 of a character which we have as yet only noticed in the 
 cavern of rHomme-Mt)rt, where we considered it to be 
 I sign of crossing. The olecranon depression is often per- 
 forated in the races now umler discu.ssion. In Belgium M. 
 Dupont foun«l this tlisposition to exist in the men of the 
 licssc in the proportion of 30 per cent. M. llamy carries it 
 to is |>cr cent, in the fo.ssil man of Grenelle. and to i<i() i>er 
 cent, only in the French of the present day.
 
 340 * The Iliiinaii Species. 
 
 IV. Tlic races of Fiirfooz, coining after those whose history 
 we have just sketched, must have come in coutact, and some- 
 times have formed connections with them. The clearest 
 demonstration of tliis fact is at Solutre, where, side by side 
 with Cro-Magnon skulls, two heails were found belonging to 
 the race of Grenelle. Intellectual and social development 
 nuist have progressed almost equally among men united into 
 a single tribe. 
 
 Our brachycephali have, however, had their special centres 
 of population where wc can examine them in their home. 
 The researches of M. Dupont have been chiefly devoted to 
 Belgium and the valley of the Lcsse. To give an idea of 
 what the men of Furfooz were, we need do no more than 
 reproduce an abridged account of all that the learned explorer 
 of these caverns lias said upon the subject. 
 
 V. The men of the Lcsse, like those of the Vezere, inhabited 
 caverns. One of their complete stations comprisctl the grotto 
 where they lived, and a funeral grotto. M, Dupont found 
 them almost in juxta-position at Furfooz, wlu'ie the Troxi 
 den yuton.H presented all the characters of a human habita- 
 tion, ami the Trou du Frontal those of a place of sepulture. 
 These two localities alone would have furnished many 
 materials for the history of these ancient populations. Never- 
 theless tht! Trou de Chidcux excels them in this respect. 
 It w.'us long inhabited by man, who left there a considerable 
 accuinulation of that refuse whieh is now turned to such 
 good account by science. 'J'Ik- roof one day fell in; the 
 iiihabitjints cseajied, leaving all that was buried in their 
 dwelling. Thus, when this heaj) t»f rubbish came to be di.s- 
 turbeil by the pick-axe, all was found just as it had been 
 left at the moment of the catastrophe, and it is with good 
 reasfjii that ihr* (Irotfoof (Jhaleux has been called a little 
 fjuat^-niary Pompeii. 
 
 The man of ('halt.iix chiefly employed flint and reindeer 
 horn to sujjply his several wants, 'J'lie former w.'us used for 
 the greater number of his stock of implements ; but he gave 
 himself little trouble in varying or perfecting the form.
 
 Junes of Fur/002. ' 34 1 
 
 Narrow, olon^ated bhulcs cut with a sin^^le blow upon one 
 siile, with two or three upon the opposite face, and what 
 are called knives, seem to be the model from which all the 
 iiiiplenients are worked. Notched upon one q^V^q they 
 l)ecamc saws; rounded and rocut at one extremity they 
 were transformed into scrapers, well adapted for scraping 
 and taking the hair off skins ; tapered and chipped to a 
 point, they furnished h(*illlns, piercers, etc. As fur rein- 
 deer horn, it was divided into pieces from 10 to 15 centi- 
 metres (39 — ')D inches) long, and then shaped so as to 
 serve for lances or javelins. They may possibly have some- 
 times received a point of Hint. But M. Dupont assures us 
 that there are no grounds fur supposing that the bow and 
 arrow were in use among those troglodytes. 
 
 The arras of the tribe of Chaleux, were then much inferior 
 to those of the Vdzerc or of Solutrd. It still, however, hunted 
 large game, and knew also how to obtain the small. Its 
 ancient dwelling-place has furni.shed the remains of numerous 
 horses, several oxen, some reindeer, sixteen foxes, five wild 
 boars, three chamois, tluee aurochs, one brown bear, one 
 Saiga antelope, etc. 
 
 The bones also of the hare, squirrel, water-rat and Nor- 
 wegian rat, have been found here ; the remains of several 
 birds, amongst others those of the ptarmigan ; and remains 
 of fresh water tish. The fauna of the Trou des Nutons is 
 almost identical, but the proportion of species is sometimes 
 inverted. A much smaller number of horses and much 
 • Moatcr number of wild boars have been di.scovcred there. 
 Here again, ns in the stations of the Cro-Magnon race, the 
 larger species are scarcely represented by more than the 
 bones of the head and limbs, all those containing marrow 
 having been cxircfully broken up. 
 
 Like the preceding race, that of Furfooz made use of 
 the skins of slain animals for clothing. This is proved by 
 the bone needles found at Chaleux. But they arc here 
 nuich ruilcr in form than those of La Madeleine and other 
 sin.ilar stations. Short and thick, thev might be taken for
 
 342 The I fit man Species. 
 
 small bodkins were it not for the 030 witli wliieli they are 
 pierced. 
 
 VI. The Bel^nan troglodytes were, from many points of 
 view, far behind those of Perigord and Maconnais. The 
 monuments of their industry are much inferior to all that 
 we have seen amongst their predecessors, and they show no 
 indication of the artistic aptitudes so remarkable in the maw 
 of the Vezere. They surpass him however, in one essential 
 point ; they had invented, or received from elsewhere, the 
 art of manufacturing a rude kind of pottery, of which M. 
 Dupont has found the remains in all the stations which he 
 has explored, and obtained in the Trou du Frontal (vagmenis 
 in sufficient number to restore the vase of which they had 
 once formed part. 
 
 This, and some other facts, which it would take too long 
 to discuss here, have led si»mi' of the most competent sdvants, 
 amongst others MM. Cartailhac and C'azalis de Fondouce, to 
 regard the Trou du Frnutal and the other contemporary 
 stations as belonging to the neolithic stone period, and not 
 to the fpiaternary epoch. 
 
 IJut the character of the fauna discovered in the grottoes 
 of Chaleux and Furfooz makes it impossible in our opinion 
 to accept this oj)inion, which rests chielly upon archieological 
 considerations. To refer the ag(i of polished stone to an 
 epoch when the chamois, botKiuetin, and Saiga antelope lived 
 in lielgium \\ith the Norwegian rat and the ptarmigan, would 
 Ikj making it very tlistant. This question may perhaps call 
 for further study ; but the ju.xtaposition of these species in 
 the neighbourhood of l)inant is, in our O2)inion, a proof that 
 the (piaternary period had not then drawn to a close. 
 
 Vil. 'J'he troglodytes of Belgium i)aintcd the face and 
 perhaps the body, like those of I'erigord. The ornaments 
 in use at Chaleu.x and Furfooz were almost the same as 
 those which we- have found in the south of Franco. We 
 never, however, find an)ong.sL them any object borrowed from 
 marine fauna. This is u curiotis fact, as the man of the 
 T,'— '• j'.i!ni.\ .'il in ^.••irch of his jrirc(^^ as well as of the
 
 Races of Fiirfooz. 343 
 
 roiif,']i niatcriiil for his implements and arms much greater 
 distances than that wliicli separated hira from the sea. 
 
 In fact, the principal ornaments of tlie men of the Lesse 
 were fossil shells. Some, it is true, were ohtained from the 
 Devonian rocks in their vicinity ; hut the greater part came 
 from a considerahle distance, chiefly from Champagne and 
 from Grignon near Versailles. The flints, which our troglo- 
 dytes used in such great numbers, were obtained, not from 
 Hainault or the province of Liege, but almost entirely from 
 Champagne. There are some even which could only have 
 been collected in Touraine, on the banks of the Loire. 
 Judging from the localities of these ditferent objects, we 
 might conclude that the known world of the troglodytes of 
 the Lesse scarcely extended in a northerly direction for 13 
 to 2.J miles, whilst to the south it stretched to a distance of 
 'l:^() to 300 miles. 
 
 There is something very strange in this fact, of which, 
 however, M. Dupont seems to have given what is, at least, a 
 very plausible explanation. He holds that two populations, 
 perhaps two races, Avere placed in juxtaposition in the 
 countries in question during the quaternary period. There 
 nuist have existed between them one of those many instances 
 of, we may say, instinctive hatred similar to that wiiich pre- 
 vails between the Red-Skins and the Esquimaux. Encircled 
 on the north and the east by their enemies, who occupied 
 Hainault, the aborigines of the Lesse could only extend 
 towards the south, and, through the Ardennes, communicate 
 with the basins of the Seine and the Loire. 
 
 But did they themselves undertake the long and difficult 
 journeys, by which alone they could procure the shells which 
 they used for ornaments, and the immense quantity of flint 
 which they worked in their caverns ? We do not hesitate to 
 assert with M. Dupont that nothing is less probable. Every- 
 thing, on the contrar}', proves that they obtained their supplies 
 Ity means of a veritable commerce, organised in a regular 
 manner and upon a large scale ; whether by the existence of 
 populations devoted to this form of industry, of which there
 
 344 TJic TTiiman Species. 
 
 are several examples known to us in the present day ; or by 
 the shells and flints passincj from hand to hand through suc- 
 cessive exchanges, and reaching at length the banks of the 
 Lesse. We cannot explain in any other way the abundance 
 of foreign flints at Chaleux, Furfooz, etc., the prodigality with 
 which they were used, and the evident carelessness displayed 
 in the preservation of tools which had been manufactured 
 from them. 
 
 VI II. In direct opposition to the men of Cro-Magnon, 
 those of Furfooz appear to have been eminently pacific. M. 
 Dupont has not discovered cither in their grottoes or burial- 
 places any warlike arms, and he api)lies to them Ross's re- 
 marks upon the Esquimau.K of Baffin's Bay, who did not 
 undci^stand what was nieant by war. 
 
 In the sepulchral grotto of Le Frontal, where the tribe of 
 Les Nutons buried their dead, a ninnber of objects have been 
 found, as at ( "ro-Magnon, ])roving the existence of a belief in 
 anotiier life. They consisted of a nundier of perforated shells, 
 oiuaments in spar, flat pieces of sandstone traced with sketches, 
 the va.sc which we have mentioned above, and some selected 
 Hint imj)lements. All these objects arc, moreover, of the 
 same nature as those in tiie Trou des Nutons. It is clear 
 that they had been laid in the .sepuUhral vault under the 
 imprcs-sion that they would .serve to supjily the wants of the 
 deceased in tlie new exisU'iice wliicli was opening before 
 them. 
 
 Another fact, upon which .M. hnpont lias with JMsli(je in- 
 flisttid, adds to the probability arising from various considera- 
 tioriK, of our being right in attributing to these (juaternary 
 men a kind of religion more or less analogous to Feti.shism. 
 In tlnr Trou d(; Chaleux, a majnnioth's ulna was j)lace«l l>y 
 the side of a health upon a slab of sandstone. Now the 
 mammoth no longer existed in I'.tlgium at the clo.se of the 
 age of the reinih-rr, ami this bone must have been found in 
 the alluvium of the preceding age. It had donbtless been 
 tliC cau«c of an ciTor which may bo observed even at the; 
 prcHcnt day, and had been looked upnii .is having belonged
 
 Races of Furfooz. 345 
 
 to a giant. Tlic place of lionour wliicli was allotted to it in 
 the dwelling of the troglodytes seems to intimate that it had 
 hecome an ohject of veneration. 
 
 IX. Very few remains of the two races of Furfooz and 
 that of Grenclle, have been discovered in other quaternary 
 dei)osits than those which have just been mentioned. The 
 former are, however, represented in the basins of the Somme 
 and the Aude ; the latter has been met with at two or three 
 ]>uints in the basin of the Seine. We have seen that it 
 existed at Solutre, and the skull of Nagy-Sap in Hungary 
 must probably be referred to it. These facts are sufficient 
 to show that since the glacial epoch the races in question 
 have occupied an extensive area. 
 
 In the neolithic age, we find the mcsaticephali of Furfooz 
 extending from the Var and Herault to Gibraltar ; the sub- 
 l)rachycephali are represented from Verdun to Boulogne-sur- 
 mer, and to Camp-Long from Saint-Cesaire ; they intermingled 
 with the ancient inhabitants of Cabe^o d'Arruda in Portugal 
 
 Tiie brachycephalic race of Clrt-nelle, has, however, left the 
 most distinct traces. It has been di.scovercd in France in 
 several dolmens, and in the Round Barrows in England. In 
 Denmark it constitutes the brachyce]>halic type of Kschricht, 
 Miul in Sweden forms a dozen of the total niunl>er,of the 
 -kulls found in ilolmens by Retzius and his successors. 
 
 Tiie intervention of thest* different races in the formation 
 of existing races is erpially evident. The extict demonstra- 
 tion of the fact i.s, however, often difficult. The crossing 
 whieh took jtlace between groups placed in such elose contact 
 with eaih otiar, more or less confu.sed the ty|K's. Other 
 brachycephalic types, amongst others the Celtic race, such as 
 it h.'Ui been described by M. Rn)ca, came to add to the con- 
 tusion. Neverthele.ss, when visiting the valley of the Ije.s.se, 
 several members of the Congress of prehistoric Anthropology 
 recognised skidls and faces as bearing in the clearest manner, 
 the distinctive marks of the local fos.siI races, and these traces 
 are still more frequent in the rural population which supplies 
 the markets of Antwerp.
 
 346 The I III man Species. 
 
 It is the nice of Grenelle, again, which reappears most 
 pcrsistentiv in living poi'uhitions. Tlic nmnerous Parisian 
 skulls in tlie Paris Museum present several examples of this 
 fact. The type is, liowever, very rarely fpund pure, a fact, 
 ■which is prubahly the result of two causes. On the one 
 hand, the new conditions of existence impo.sed upon the 
 quaternary races by change of climate, must have caused an 
 alteration in some of their characteristics. On the other 
 liand, fresh element.s, differing but slightly from the fossil 
 element, have been blended >vith it. If the skulls of Crenelle 
 are compared, as they have been by M. Hamy, with Lapp 
 skulls, we lind that from the extent of the horizontal arc, 
 from the length of the antero-posterior and transverse 
 diameters, and from the cephalic indices, the former must 
 be placed almost exactly half-way between the two great 
 known orders of Lajip skulls. We observe indeed, certain 
 diffLTcnces between them. For example, the cranial vault 
 is more flattened in the Lapp than in the man of Grenelle ; 
 but, on the whole, the analogies are far greater in nund.er 
 than the differences, 
 
 'J'jje elder lletzius, Sven Nikson, Esehricht, and others, had 
 already recognised, by means of their investigations of the 
 ancient binials of their country, the great extension of an 
 ancient brachycephalic race, which they identified with the true 
 Lapps. M. Schaafhausen, at the la.st Stockholm Congress, 
 brought forward another example in support of this opinion. 
 
 After considering thes(! facts, M. Jlaniy and 1 have been 
 led to admit a Lapp-Uke t'/pe, to which, with the race of 
 (Jrenelle, u great number of ])()pulations scattered through 
 time, and extending over nearly the whole of Europe, may 
 bo referreil. in the Dauphinc Alps partictdarly, this type is 
 represented in an almost pure state. A curious collection of 
 Hkullx in the possession of M. Hotil leaves no room for (louV)t 
 on this point We have then confirmed, while giving it 
 greater precision and tracing it to an earlier period, one of 
 those general viewH, for which anthropology owes so much to 
 the Scandinavian savants.
 
 Lapp-like Type. 347 
 
 X. Tims, the races of Furfooz and that of Crenelle, the 
 last to appear in the quaternary epoch, came in contact 
 diirin*'- the glacial ages with the clulichocoi)halic races which 
 had preceded them. In certain respects they have become 
 amalgamated with them ; in others, they have preserved 
 their autonomy ; and they have shared the same Aite. They 
 
 ilso experienced that change of soil and climate, which we 
 iiavc seen causing such trouble to the rising societies of the 
 ( 'ro-Magnon race ; they also witnessed a gradual change in 
 the conditions of existence; and the results of these changes 
 iiave atlectcd them in the manner which we have already 
 pointed out. 
 
 A certain number of tribes spread northwards, following 
 the reindeer and other animal species which they had been 
 accustomed to regard as necessary to their existence ; they 
 emigrated in latitude. Others from the same motive emi- 
 grated in altitude, accompanying the chamois and bouquetin 
 into the mountain chains, which had been liberated by the 
 melting of glaciers. Others, again, remained stationary. 
 The two first groups were free for a much longer time from 
 • the influence of ethnical mixture. The tribes composing the 
 third soon found themselves in the presence of brachycephalic 
 and dolichocephalic immigrants of the polished stone period, 
 and were easily subjugated and absorbed by them. 
 
 XI. On their arrival in Europe, the men of the polished 
 stone period did not meet only with those races whieh we 
 have been discussing. Tliey came in contact with all the 
 (juaternary races. This is proved by many of the facts 
 already mentioned ; ami is jtroved merely by the magnifi- 
 cent collection of skulls and skeletons collected by M. de 
 IJaye from the sepulchral grottoes of the Marne. With 
 the exception of the Canstadt typo, all tho.se which we 
 have just described seem to have met together in this 
 remarkable locality. Even that of La Truchcre is repre- 
 senteil by a head almost as strongly characterised a.s that of 
 the Se'ille. The foundation of this neolithic population still 
 lieloiiged, however, to a newly arrived type. It i-; scarcely
 
 348 The Human Species. 
 
 necessary to a<^ld that, whether old or recent, all these races 
 have interminixicd, and that the crossing is betrayed some- 
 times by the fusion, and sometimes by tlic juxta-position, of 
 characteristics. 
 
 Either by infiltration or conquest, new races mingled with 
 the preceding, before even the arrival of the Aryans. The 
 latter spread to the western extremities of the continent, 
 leaviijf extensive recrions on the north and the south, where 
 their predecessors continued to exist. Then followed hi.storic 
 invasions. It is from the mixture of all the.se elements 
 brought together by war, and fused by the experiences of 
 peace, tiiat our European societies have been formed. 
 
 XII. Man has been the sole essential agent in the forma- 
 tion of fresh ethnical groupings. From the earliest times of 
 the polished stone perioil, land and climate have remained 
 unaltered in our western world. European man has then 
 been at liberty to obey the laws of his evolution, to found, 
 modify, or destroy his a-ssociations and his societies, to 
 traverse the ages of bronze and iron as well as historic times, 
 without having to battle with those invincible forces, which 
 ])erhaps arrested the development of the hunters. of Cro- ' 
 Magnon. 
 
 In what degree does the anthropological p;ust of the rest 
 of the worhl resemble that of Europe ? Science will some 
 day, un<loubtedly, answer this question, but we could now 
 only form conjectures. It is wi.scr to abstain, content with 
 having deciphered in less than half a century, almost a whole 
 chapter of that prehistoric and iiaheontological history of 
 nia!!, the existence of which was not even suspected by our 
 fathers.
 
 LOOK IX. 
 
 PRESENT HUMAN RACES.— PHYSICAL CHARACTERS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 GENEFIAL OBSERVATIONS. — EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 
 
 I, I CONSIDERED tluit I ouijlit to give a somewhat (k-tailcJ 
 account of our knowledge of fossil human races. The interest 
 and novelty of the subject induced me to do so, and its 
 moderate extent rendered it possible. But I cannot treat 
 the history of present races in the same manner. If I wished 
 to study them singly, I could scarcely devote more than a 
 few lines to each. Even if I grouped them into families, I 
 should only be able to give an incomplete and vague account 
 of them, uidess I went much beyond the limits of this work. 
 
 It seemed to me then preferable to adopt tlie practice of 
 l)otanists and zoologist.s, who always begin with a general 
 account of the nature and s'gniticance of the characters of 
 the group which they wish to discuss. These notions, when 
 atlVcting the whole gioup, arc moreover always necessary. 
 Thev alone allow us to gnisp and comprehend certain geneml 
 results. They become still more indispensiible, when races 
 • lerived from one and the same species are under discus.sion, 
 because they bring forward and render evident the unity of 
 .specific origin of these races, just as much as ilirect proofs. 
 
 II. If we were familiar with primitive man, we should 
 regaril a-s characterising races, everything whieh separates 
 thi-m from this type. From want of this natural term of
 
 350 The Human Species. 
 
 comparison, wc have taken the Eurojyean White as normal, 
 and compared the remaining human groups with him. This 
 leads to a tendency, which must be pointed out at once. 
 
 Influenced by certain habits of thought, and by a self-love 
 of race which is easily explained, many anthropologists have 
 thought that they could interpret the physical ditlercnces 
 which distinguish men from one another, and consider simple 
 characteristic features as marks of inferiority or superiority. 
 Because the European has a short heul, and some Negroes 
 have a long one, they have wished to consider the latter as a 
 mark of degradation. The remarks which were made upon 
 this subject, with so much justice, by Desmoulins with refer- 
 ence to the Bosjesmans were forgotten. Because the greater 
 ntimber of civilizations have risen among dulichoceplialic 
 nations, a head elongated from before backwards has been 
 regarded as a superior form. It was forgDtten that the 
 Negroes and the Esquiinau.x are generally dulichocephali t»f 
 the most pronounceil typo, and that European brachyccphali 
 are in everyca.se the equals of their dolichocephalic brethren. 
 
 AH analogous interpretations are absohitcly arbitrary. In 
 fact, superiority between hiunan groui)s dt^pends es.sentially 
 upon intellectual and social development ; it passes from one 
 to another. The Chinese and Egyptians were already civi- 
 lized, when all P^uropeans were true savages. If the latter 
 had judged our ancestors as we too frequently judge foreign 
 races, they would have found many signs of inferiority in 
 them, commencing with the white skin of which we are so 
 proud, and which they would have been able to regard as 
 betraying an irremediable degeneration. 
 
 Is the fundamental superiority of one race really betrayed 
 outwanlly by some material sign ? We arc still in ignorance 
 up^)n this j)oint. But when we examine it more closely, we 
 are 1(<1 to think that it is not so. In expressing myself thus, 
 I know that I am separating myself from the opinions which 
 un; geiH-rally admitted, and am at variance with men whoso 
 works I value most highly. But 1 hope to give decisive 
 proofs in my favour further on.
 
 General Chai'actcrs. 351 
 
 Differences of every kind nevertheless exist between one 
 lumian group and another. These must be taken for what 
 tlioy art', for cJuiracters of race, for ethnical characters. It is 
 I lie duty of the anthropologist especially to recognise these 
 differences, to make use of them for defining the groups, then 
 to connect or separate, according to their affinities, the races 
 thus characterised. In other terms, his work is the same as 
 that of the botanist or geologist describing and classifying 
 plants and animals. 
 
 Men of an impatient or venturous disposition will perhaps 
 reproach me with making anthropology too descri^jtive. I 
 .shall only make a partial defence against tlie accu.-ation. 
 Provided that the description embraces the entire being, it 
 enables us to become acquainted with it. If we take our stand 
 on this point of view, we remain on the ground of positive 
 knowledge, and run less risk of losing ourselves in liypotheses. 
 
 I still consider it the right and almost the duty of the 
 anthropologist, to investigate the causes which may have 
 given rise to the appearance of the features which characterise 
 races. The study of the actions of the condilions of life 
 sometimes gives valuable indications on this subject. The 
 evolution of the human being from his appearance in the 
 embryonic state to the adult state, especially furnishes facts 
 of great interest. A simple arreat, a slight excess in the 
 evolutive phenomena, are, it appears to me, the causes of the 
 principal differences which separate races, and particularly 
 the two extremes, the Negro and the White. 
 
 I know full well that a wish has been ftlt to go further 
 back. Under the more or less perceptible influence of trans- 
 mutationist doctrines, terms of comparison in the estimation 
 of these ditTeronces have too often been sought for among 
 animals, and especially among apes. Eminent men, without 
 even adopting these doctrines, frequently use the expres- 
 sions, siniinn cJiaracter, animal character. Why forget the 
 embryo or the human fojtus ? Why not remember even the 
 infant ? Question their history. It furnishes all the elements 
 of a human evolution thcoi^, certainly much more precise 
 16
 
 352 The Human Species. 
 
 and true than the simian Iheorj/. This is again a result 
 ■which will bo made clear, I hope, by the facts which I shall 
 have to mention. 
 
 But whether or not I may be able to explain the appear- 
 ance of the features which distinjj^uish races from each other, 
 and whatever origin may be attributed to them, I shall only 
 take the word character in the sense which is given to it in 
 botnny and zoology. 
 
 III. An animal species is not characterised solely by the 
 peculiarities manifested by its physical organism. No history 
 of bees or ants omits to speak of their instincts, or to show 
 how these differ in different species. With much stronger 
 reason ought we to point out in the history of human races 
 the characteristic points in their intellectual, moral, and 
 religious manifestations. Of course, when approaching this 
 order of facts, the anthropologist ought none the less to 
 remain exclusively a naturalist. 
 
 This very simple consideration is sufficient to determine 
 the relative value which ought to be attributed in anthropol- 
 ogy to characters of different orders. Here, as in botany 
 and in zoology, the first place ought to be given to the most 
 persistent characters. Now, a man, tribe, or an entire popu- 
 lation can in a certain number of years change its social 
 state, its language, religion, etc. They do not on that account 
 modify their external or anatomical physical characters. It 
 is therefore to the latter that the anthropologist will attach 
 most importance, contrary to what the linguist, the philo- 
 sopher, or the theologian would certainly do. 
 
 Nevertheless we shall see that, in some very rare cuses, 
 the linguistic characters jjreponderatc^ over the physical 
 characters, in the sense that they fmnish more striking 
 indications on the stibject of certain ethnical affinities. 
 Considered from a jjhysical point of view, man exhiijits 
 characters wliich may be divided into four distinct categories, 
 namely; external characters, anatomical charactei"s, physio- 
 logical characters, and path<jlogical eharactera. 
 
 IV. KXTERNAL CHARACTERS. — llci(jht. All breeders regard
 
 Exicrna I Clia ractcrs — Height. 353 
 
 lieight as characteristic of race among animals. It is also 
 one of the traits which arc most striking in man. This 
 character sometimes shows that it is very evidently de- 
 pendent upon the conditions of existence. Sheltering and 
 feeding somewhat carefully the marcs of La Camargne, has 
 been sufficient to raise the height of this excellent breed of 
 horses. With man, M. Durand (de Gros), confirming an 
 observation already due to Ed. Lartot, has shown that, in 
 the Aveyron, the populations of the limestone cantons are 
 sensibly taller than thoso of the granite or schistose cantons, 
 lie agreed with the statement of Dr. Albespy, that liming 
 lands in the non-calcareous portions of this district has 
 raised the height by two, three or even four centimetres 
 (78, 117, lo7 inch) on the lands where the practice has 
 existed for the longest time. 
 
 But on the other hand, it is indisputable, that races of very 
 (liffercnt height live side by side, without its being possible 
 hitherto to point out the cause of this diversity. The 
 dwarfed Negroes, the Akkas and Obongos, seem to be placed 
 under conditions precisely similar to those under which much 
 taller ueighbuurinfj tribes live. 
 
 I have given above 103 statures of human races. I have 
 insisted with sufficient strength upon the consequences which 
 follow from them ; from the point of view of the gradation 
 and intercrossing of characters. But we can extract from these 
 numbcre .some other results which are not less interesting. 
 
 The general mean given by these numbers will be l"* 63.5 
 (.')ft 4 37 inch). I regard it as a liitle too great, the 
 measures being wrong rather for the short races, than for the 
 tall. Nevertheless it cannot be very far from the truth, and 
 may be accepted provisionally. 
 
 It is .seen from the table that the Roumanians and the 
 Magyars represent, from this point of view, exactly the mean 
 stature. 
 
 The oscillations of the mean statures above and below 
 this general mean, extend in the ca.se of the Patagonians 
 to -f 0"Ho (4o3 inch), and in the case of the Bosjesmans
 
 354 T^^c Human Species. 
 
 to — 0"'26o (1()"43 iucli). The individual oscillations are + 
 0'" 295 (irTl inch) for the inhabitants of Tongatabou, and 
 — 0"-41).3 (1ft 7 49 inch) or — 0'"(j35 (2ft 1 inch) for the 
 Bosjosmans. 
 
 We see from the table that the oscillations below the general 
 mean, are less numerous than those above it. This result 
 may be connected with the fact which I have just pointed out. 
 Nevertheless it appears to me probable that the number of 
 races above the mean stature, is greater than those below 
 it. The difference in number is compensated for by the 
 more than double extent of the oscillations below the mean. 
 
 Between the highest mean observed among the Southern 
 Patagonians, and the lowest mean among the Bosjesmans, we 
 find a difterence of O'"'5o4 (1ft 98 inch). The difference 
 between individuals will be 0'»-930 (:3ft OG inch). But I 
 think that it ought to be reduced to 0'"-790 (2ft 71 inch), 
 adopting as a mean the height 1"''14 (3ft 888 inch) given 
 by Barrow as the height of a Bosjesman woman who had 
 had several children. We are thus certain that we are not 
 taking a case of tcratological dwarfishness as a possible 
 normal state. 
 
 Travellers have not often measured separately the height 
 of men and women. Uniting the facts of this nature which 
 I have been able to collect, we find 0'"141 (.V57 inch) as the 
 mean ditference between the heights of the sexes, and 0973 
 jis the mean ratio, the woman being everywhere shorter than 
 the man. Among the Lapps, according to Capel Brooke and 
 Campbell, the mean difference is as high as 0'"278 (10*94 
 inches) ; in Austria, it is as low as 0""{)37 (1 45 inch) according 
 to Lihar/.ik. 
 
 V. I*ro]H)rtion of the body (f^d of the limhs. In all the 
 races of our domestic animals, the relative tlevcloj)inont of 
 the dilTerent parts of the body, the 2>'''V'c»r/<ojjs, have a 
 char.u-teri.slic value, which is c<|ual and frecjuently superior 
 to that of height. No one would think of separating the 
 greyhound from tho harrier. Jt ought to be exactly tho 
 same with man. \\ iili the animal, races are formed by a
 
 External Characters — Proportions. 355 
 
 selection more or less open, and undertaken for a fixed 
 purpose. The proportions of the ditferent parts of tlie body 
 thus accpiire a fixity, whieh cannot be found in human races 
 on account of the absence of selection. 
 
 This variability is found even in the simplest relations, 
 and in those which migiit be considered fundamental. Such 
 is the relation of the height of the head to the total height. 
 Gerdy, who has taken up this question in a special manner, 
 has found that the height of Frenchmen is rarely beyond 
 7i heads, most frequently a little more than 8 heads, and 
 sometimes 9, The artistic ideal is no more fixed than the 
 reality, in spite of the mathematical rules laid down, from 
 Vitruvius to Liharzik and Silberman. The table drawn up 
 by Audran shows the variation from 7{v heads (the Egyptian 
 Termes) to 7H (the Fiirnese Hercules). The dit^'erence 
 between these two extremes is exactly half a head. Painters 
 have taken still more liberty. Raphael has only given a 
 lieight of G heads to some of his figures, and Micliael Angelo 
 has given them 8 or more. 
 
 The Pythian Apollo {jY\ heads), the Laocoon (7;t)> ^'"^ 
 nevertheless che/n-d'ceuvrc, and we rightly bestow an equal 
 amount of admiration upon the two Italian masters. The 
 reason is just the same as with the rest of organised beings : 
 man's organism is not subject to absolute laws, nor to a rigor- 
 ously fixed development. 
 
 Doubtless there have been noticed among some human 
 races differences of proportion generally sufficiently marked 
 to serve as characters. But it just as often happens that 
 with some individuals the order of these ditferences is in- 
 verted. It is another example of intercrossing. 
 
 Thus the African Negro has generally the upper limb, 
 from the shoulder to the wrist, relatively longer than the 
 I'luropean White, and we shall return to this point further 
 on. Nevertheless, from the measures of Qudtelet, it follows 
 that a Negro, well known in the studio.s, where he acted as a 
 model, had much shorter arras than the soldiers, and than a 
 Belgian model, who were taken as terms of comparison.
 
 35^ The llntnan Species. 
 
 ^lorcovcr, the numbers found by Quetelct place the indi- 
 viduals, upon whom his observations were made, in the follow- 
 ing order : — 1st, mean of ten Belgian soldiers ; 2nd, an 
 Ojibbcway chief; 8rd, a Belgian model, and a Zulu Kaffir; 
 4th, an Amaponda Kaffir ; 5th, the Negi'o model ; 6th, 
 three young Ojibbeways; 7th, Cantfield, the Hercules of 
 the United States. Here intercrossing again appears in a 
 well marked manner, and it is in the White race that the 
 Brussels savant has found the two extremes. 
 
 In the general characteristic of negro races, we often find 
 quoted the slight development and the relatively high posi- 
 tion of the calf of the leg. I have no definite information 
 upon the latter of these characters. As fur the former, it 
 has been represented to be too general. Two Blacks, the 
 Amaponda Kaffir, and the Negro model in the tables of 
 Qudtelet, present the maxinmm 0"'"41() (1G14 inches), and 
 the minimum 0'"328 (12 92 inches) of development of this 
 part. They are separated from each other by the Belgians, 
 the Ojibbeways, and Cantfield. 
 
 Finally, the vieans taken for the different parts of the 
 body will doubtle.ss give results useful for the distinction 
 of race-s. But still, account will have to be taken of many 
 of the conditions. All hunting peoples, including the Aus- 
 tralians, according to travellers who have been among them. 
 Could furnish moilels for the sculptor, and are generally re- 
 niarkalile for the symmetry and beauty of their proportions. 
 In this respect civilized populations, especially those of our 
 great towns, present a deplorable inferiority. Is our funda- 
 mental type degraded in this respect ? Certainly not. But 
 civilization itself, by the facilities of existence which it pro- 
 cures, by the vices which it induces, by the weakly indi- 
 viduals which it preserves, introduces into the race the 
 elements of drgradation. Here again appears, in all its 
 fulness, the inHuenco of the conditions of life. 
 
 VI. Colovr'nuj. With all anlhroj)ologists I recognise the 
 high vahie of the colour of the skin as a character. Never- 
 theless, its importance must not be exaggerated. We now
 
 ILxtcrnal Characters — Colouring. 357 
 
 know that it docs not result from the existence or disappear- 
 ance of special hiycrs. Black or white, the skin always com- 
 prises a white dcnnl^, penetrated by many capillaries, and an 
 i'lndemxis, more or less transparent and colourless. Between 
 the two is ]ilaced the raxicons layer, of which the }>i'jment 
 alone in realitv v.iriis iu quantity and colour according to the 
 race. 
 
 All the colours presented by the luunun skin iiave two 
 common elements, the white of the dermis and the red of 
 the blood. Moreover, each has its own proper element, re- 
 sultinEf from the colourings of the pigment. The rays re- 
 flected from these different tissues combine into a result- 
 ant which produces the different tints and traverses the 
 epidermis. This latter plays the part of roughened glass. 
 The more delicate and the finer it is, the more perceptible 
 is the colour of the subjacent parts. 
 
 This arrangement explains why, among certain coloured 
 races, for example, among the Sandwich Islandei-s, the 
 upper classes, who do not live an exposed life, often ex- 
 hibit the colour in a most pronounced form. Among them 
 sun-hurninf/ ma.sks the colour of the pigment, as it masks 
 with us the colour of the dermis and its vessels. 
 
 From the preceding, we can also understand why the 
 White alone can be said to turn pule or to hlusli. The 
 reason is, that in him the pigment allows the slightest 
 differences in the afflux of blood to the dermis to be per- 
 ceived. With the Negro as with us, the blood has its 
 share in the colouring, the tint of which it deepens or 
 modifies. When the blood is wanting, the Negro turns 
 grey from the blending of the white of the dermis with 
 the black of the pigment. 
 
 It is well known that from the point of view of the colour- 
 ing, human races can be divided into four principal groups : 
 white, yellow, black, and red races. But we must guard 
 against attaching an absolute sense to these expressions. 
 Every grouping of races founded solely on colour would 
 break clo.so relations, and would lead to comparisons which
 
 2,s^ The Htiman Species. 
 
 would evidently be at variance v itli the sum of the remain- 
 ing charactere, Kevertheless, this systematic point of view 
 brings to light some interesting general foots. 
 
 The races of a white colour present sufficient homogeneity. 
 From the sum of their characters, they belong almost ex- 
 clusively to the type which borrows its name from this kind 
 of colouring. It is, moreover, useless to insist upon the 
 differences of tint which the latter exhibit, from the Eng- 
 lish or German woman of the upper classes to the Portu- 
 guese, and especially to the Arab. Nevertheless, in the 
 northern regions and in Central Asia, some populations, 
 the Tchukchees for example, ajipcar to unite witli a white 
 colour certain characters which connect them with the 
 yellow.s. 
 
 In the purest white, the epidermis ca.sily loses its trans- 
 parency as .soon as the colour deepens. The sub-cutaneous 
 veins can tlion only be recognised by their swelling. It is 
 only with individuals who.sc skin is very fine and trans- 
 parent, that the course of the veins is marked b}' the well- 
 known blui.sh colour. Whenever this trait is exhibited by 
 any population whatever, it may with certainty be connected 
 with the white type. For this reason I have not hesitated to 
 place among the Allophylians some of the most savage tribes 
 of the north western shores of North Amc i ica, and the 'JVhuk- 
 chees, of whom I have just spoken. 
 
 The populations with a black skin arc far from being as 
 homogeneous as the preceding. All black men are not 
 Negroes ; there are sonie, who, from the sum of their more 
 important characters, are closely connecttil with the white 
 stock. Such, for example, are the I>icliaris and other 
 negroid populations, on the borders of the Red Sea, whose 
 skin is much blacker than that of some negroes, but whoso 
 hair and cliai actors are perfectly Semitic. 
 
 Among Negroes properly so called, the tints vary, perhaps, 
 much more than with the White. Witlioiit going further 
 than Cairo, individuals niay bo seen, who, without any 
 traces of the mixture of races, arc of » brown colour with
 
 External Charactci's — Colouring. 359 
 
 a considerable mixture of black. The Yulofs are of a bluish 
 black, resembling the wing of a raven, and Livingstone 
 speaks of some tribes on the Zambesi who are the colour 
 of caJ4. au lait. But, perhaps, mixture of races has some 
 action in this extreme modification of the colour. 
 
 Populations with a yellow skin present facts analogous 
 with the preceding, but nut so numerous nor so striking. 
 Perhaps this difference is only due to the difficulty of 
 recojjnisinsr the shades of the fundamental colour. Never- 
 theless, a more or less pronounced yellow colour equally 
 characterises the great Mongolian stock, and the Houzuu- 
 ana or Bosjesman race, which it is impossible to separate 
 from the Negroes. On the other hand, this same tint is 
 so well marked among tlie mulattoes that they are often 
 designated by the name of ijdlows, in distinction to the 
 Blivcks and the Whites. 
 
 Of the four groups into which the colour of human races 
 may be divided, the least characteristic is the red. It has 
 been attempted to make it the attribute of the Americans. 
 This is a mistake. On the one hand, in America the 
 Peruvian, Autisian, Araucanian, and other races are more or 
 less deep brown, the Brazilio-Guaranians of a yellowish 
 colour slightly tinted with red, etc. On the other hand, in 
 Formosa a tribe has been found as red as the Algonquins, 
 and more or less copper tints are met with among (.'orean, 
 African populations, etc. 
 
 Moreover, the red tint appears a^ the sole etTect of the 
 crossing between races, neither of which possess it. Fitzroy 
 informs us that in New Zealand it frcMjuently characterises 
 the half-breeds of English and Maories. This fact also ex- 
 plains why it should be met with among many of the 
 populations mentioned above. With man it is one of 
 those facts which show how intercrossing can give rise to 
 the appearance of new characters. 
 
 Finally we see that the colour of the skin, although 
 furnishing excellent secondary characters, cannot be taken 
 as a starting jxiint in the dassificafion of human races
 
 360 The Hujiian Species. 
 
 )iK>x man, as well as for plants, we ought to recall the 
 aphorism of Linnajus : '^ nimiuiniX ne crede colori" 
 
 The same may be said still more emphatically of the colour 
 of the eyes. Doubtless, the black colour is generally found 
 among coloured races, and sky-blue scarcely exists except 
 among fair populations. The former tint appears even to be 
 constant among the yellows and certain alloj)hylian Whites. 
 But, even among the Negroes, we often meet with brown 
 eyes, and sometimes with grey eyes. 
 
 Just as with the colour of the skin, the colour of the eyes 
 is a resultant due to the combination of the tints reflected by 
 the different layers of the iris, intensified by the colour of 
 the blood and seen through the transparent cornea. Hence 
 arises the difficulty experienced by painters in rendering the 
 general effect. 
 
 VII. The shin and ils principal annexes. The skin, 
 which covers the entire body, is a real covering composed 
 of organs which are anatomically and physiologically dis- 
 tinct. The j)rincipal one is the cutaneous on/an or skin 
 properly so called, to which are annexed the organs 
 jyroductive of villositles, the siulori parous glands, the 
 cutaneous glands, and some others which do not concern 
 us. 
 
 In extreme cases, the surface of the skin is sometimes 
 dry and rough, sometimes supple and like satin. The first 
 variety is generally met with among Arctic races, the 
 second among inhabitants of hot countries, as the Negroes 
 and Polynesians. 
 
 The two facts arc easily exj)lainod by the sole action of 
 the temperature. Cold contracts the tissues, drives the 
 blood towards the interior, or checks its circulation to- 
 wards the surface of the body. It must consequently 
 diminish the functional activity of the skin properly so 
 called, and partially diminish perspiration. Heat, on the 
 contrary, r^-iusrs a fhiw of blood to the surface of the 
 ])ody, and r<;n(krs th(; functions of the skin, and espcciall}' 
 the perspiration, more active. The lattrr. I»y the produc-
 
 External Characters — Skin, Pers/)iration. 36 1 
 
 tion of a constant evaporation on the surface of tlie body, 
 maintains the suppleness of the epidermic layer, and the 
 general freshness whicli causes Negresses to be sought after 
 in harems. 
 
 From this action of heat, and the increased activity of the 
 cutaneous organs which is its consequence, other results 
 follow which explain some of the facts noticed by travellers 
 and anthropologists. 
 
 Pruuer Bey luxs insisted strongly upon the thickness of the 
 cutaneous layers, and especially upon that of the dermis in 
 the Negro. Is not this thickness the natural consequence of 
 the How of nutritive principles brought by the blood, which is 
 incessantly passing to the surface of the body to keep up the 
 perspiration ? 
 
 It has long ago been remarked that the Negioes and 
 other races inhabiting hot countries perspire much less 
 than the inhabitants of temperate climates. This is ac- 
 counted for by the preceding facts. The blood, which is 
 constantly brought to the surface and into the cutaneous 
 organs, docs not flow so copiously in the sudoriparous 
 glands, which are deeply buried beneath the adipose tissue. 
 Between transpiration and perspiration, in consequence 
 of the position of the organs, a real equilibrium should 
 e.xist. 
 
 Probably, one of the difficulties of acclimatisation arises 
 from the fact that the proportional activity of these two 
 functions has to be changed when we pa:ss from a temper- 
 ate to a tropical climate, or vice versa. The researches 
 of Krause show that the body of a European contains 
 more than 2,281,000 sudoriparous glands. Tl;e total 
 volume of all these small organs would amount to about 
 40 cubic inches. A sudden change in functions could not 
 therefore be unimportant. Moreover, the sebaceous glands, 
 which are smaller but more numerous than the sudoriparous, 
 participate in this change, which can only result in a serious 
 shock to the organism. 
 
 The villosities are cither very rare or absolutely wanting
 
 362 The Human Species. 
 
 on the surface of the boily of a Negro, except i.ome parts 
 which in man arc always covered with hair. On the other 
 hand, tlie glandular cutaneous covering is highly developed 
 in his case. 
 
 Both these facts may also be referred to the same cause, 
 and are explained by the balancing of connected organs. 
 The blood, when brought to the surface of the body, aban- 
 dons the hulhs of the hair which are too deeply planted; but, 
 for the same reason it flows into the sebaceous glands, which 
 are situated near the surface. It easily follows that the 
 former suffer atrophy, and the latter experience an excep- 
 tional development. 
 
 This development accounts for the exaggerated odour 
 which is peculiar to the Negro. It is known that a slave- 
 ship may be recognised by this smell. But African popula- 
 tions are not the only ones which are characterised in this 
 manner. Humboldt informs us that the Peruvians distinguish 
 the odour of a native, a white, and of a negro, calling them 
 posco, i^ezunay and gra'io. Amongst oureelves, every individ- 
 ual has his own peculiiir odour, which is easily detected by 
 the deHcatc .sense of smell of the dog. 
 
 V'lll. Villoaiiics, beard, hair. Villosities in man repre- 
 sent the hair of the mammalia; but whilst the latter are 
 always covered, with tlic exception of some special races, 
 • such as rhli'n.i tares, calongo cattle, etc., man is generally 
 only covered to any notable extent upon certain places. In 
 the African Negro, and most of the yolhnv race.s, it only 
 exists upon the normal parts of the body. Nevertheless the 
 practice of epil.'ition, which is common to a great mimber of 
 coloured pojjul.itions, h:us caused the frecpioncy and intensity 
 of this character to be exaggerated. Eckewclder represents 
 Ilcd-Skin warriors, in their leisure monjents, as occupied in 
 tearing out the smrdh-st hairs with ])incc'rs espoci.illy made 
 fur the purpose. 
 
 Wliite races an- j^i mialiy imni: ur lus.s hairy, and this 
 trait has long l>een known to be developed to a very excep- 
 tional degree among the Aiiios. Tlie photographs of Colonel
 
 Extciual Characters — Beard, Hair. 363 
 
 Marsliall show tliat the Todas are their equal in this respect. 
 Ill certain individuals among the latter the villosities form a 
 real fur, especially on the lower limbs. 
 
 Of all the villosities of the human body, those which cover 
 the face and cranium have justly attracted most attention. 
 All races have hair ; but a considerable number in Asia, 
 America, and Africa, have been noticed to be entirely without 
 beards. PalKos, Humboldt, Brasseur de Bourbourg and 
 Pruner Bey, have contradicted these assertions, and shown 
 that the absence of beards is entirely due to careful epila- 
 tion. All human races are more or less provided with a 
 beard. ^Nevertheless great difterences are known, even 
 among races belonging to the same fundamental type. 
 Certain Melanesian Nogioes present a striking contrast in 
 this respect to their African brothers. 
 
 The hair of the head is much more constant in respect to 
 quantity than that of the beard. Nevertheless it appears to 
 be sensibly thicker among some arctic races, who have 
 moreover a more abundant down than races in temperate 
 climates. In this respect there is perfect agreement with 
 the known facts among animals. 
 
 With certain Negro races, the Bosjesmans of South Africa, 
 the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands, the Papuans of 
 Melanesia, and some African tribes, the hair forms upon the 
 head small i.slands, separated by spaces which are perfectly 
 smooth. Hence results the heads of hair en grains de 
 poivre noticed by different travelleiu Amongst most African 
 Negroes, and amongst the Yellows an<l the Whites, the 
 distribution of the hair, on the contrary, is uniform. 
 
 The variation of the colour of the hair is well known. 
 Some general facts may nevertheless be collected from the 
 midst of all these special cases. I have said already tliat we 
 find isolated cases in all races of individuals with hair of a 
 more or less reddi.sh colour. Fair hair has for a long time 
 been regarded as the appanage of a small number of Aryan 
 groups. Nevertheles.s, according to Pruner Bey, we also 
 meet with it sometimes among the Asiatic Semites, and we
 
 364 TJic Human Species. 
 
 know for certain that tlicy are very frequent among the 
 Kabyles. Facts sucli :is Pierre Martyr, P. Kes, James, etc., 
 liave noticed among the Parians, the Lee-Panis, the Kiavas, 
 etc., will no doubt one day be explained by migrations and 
 intercrossings. It seems to me, for instance, almost evident 
 that the Scandinavians must have introduced their fair hair 
 among several tribes of the American shore, and that the 
 facts noticed by Pierre INIartyr are one of the proofs of their 
 extension beyond the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 There is also something characteristic in the fonn of the 
 hair taken as a whole. Everyone knows the falsely called 
 vjoolbj head of the Negro, which is covered with very short 
 and crisp hair. The very long and harsh hair of yellow, 
 American, and other populations, contrasts in a striking 
 manner with the preceding. That of the white races, which 
 is frequently curly, almost takes the mean between these 
 two extremes. 
 
 This general a.spect ordinarily corresponds with the dif- 
 ferences of structure and general form of the hair. Brown 
 has already proved that a horizontal section of the hair 
 varies from an elongated ellipse with the Negro, to a circle 
 with the IledSkin, and that the hair of the Anglo-Saxon is a 
 mean between the two. Pruncr Boy has resumed this study, 
 and (lesciibed the form of a horizontal section of the hair in 
 .several races belonging to the three fundamental types. He 
 ha-s proved that the elongativl ellip.sc characterises Negro 
 races in general, a.s well as the ]it>ttentot-Bosjesman ; that 
 the oval forms belong essentially to Aryan popidations; that 
 more or less regularly circular forms charactori.so yellow, 
 American, and other races, and that in this respect the 
 allophylian white laces (Ba.sque.s) appear to resemble the 
 prfceding. 
 
 Brown and rnincr Bey moreover agree in the statement 
 that a mixture (»f forms is found ujinn iIm' hc.id.s of half- 
 brecdH. Exactly the same often haj»p< ns in the rro.ssing of 
 the merino with races of shoe)) with a coarse wool. 
 
 I have hitherto only sp«)kon of the characters furnished
 
 Extcnial Characters — Cranium, Face. 365 
 
 l)y the beard and the hair when grown freely. But it is 
 well known that the love of adornment, one of the most 
 characteristic instincts of man, endeavours to modify nature 
 in tiiesc two directions. This results in characters, which 
 are doubtless artiHcial, but which have sometimes a real 
 value. This side of the question has often been attacked, 
 and M. E. Cortambert has made it the object of a work, in 
 which he has given a summary of the work of his pre- 
 decessoi*8 in addition to his own. 
 
 IX. Characters of the cranium and of (he face. From 
 the point of view of descriptive anthropology as well as 
 from an anatomical point of view, the head is composed 
 essentially of two regions, the cranium and the face. The 
 former is covered solely by the hairy skin which follows all 
 its contours, and it in reality therefore only presents osteo- 
 logical characters. The general form, proportions, etc., are 
 almost the same in the living man as in the skeleton. I 
 will therefore go into greater detail upon this subject when 
 treating of the latter. Here 1 will only remark that the 
 inequality of the skin and of some subjacent muscular fibres 
 necessitates some corrections in the comparison of measure- 
 ments taken from the living head and from the skull. For 
 example, the presence of the temporal mu.scles increases 
 to a sufficiently sensible extent the transverse maximum 
 diameter. Consequently the ratio of the latter to the 
 anterio-posterior diameter becomes raised. This ratio, which 
 constitutes the crplmllc index, is one of the charactei^s 
 which anthropologists employ most frequently, and it was 
 important to determine the correction to be made in case 
 of comparison. Broca ha.s shown that it is two units when 
 the ratio is expressed in the manner which I shall mention 
 further on. 
 
 The case is dilTerent with the face. Here the super- 
 imposed soft parts play a part of which the importance Ikis 
 been alternately exaggerated or neglected. William Edwards 
 considered that races should be determined, as we judge of 
 individuals, solely by the facial characters. Serrcs, starting
 
 J 
 
 66 The Human Species. 
 
 from the fact that the bony framework determines the 
 general form and the proportion of the face, required that 
 osteological characters only should be taken into account. 
 Both were too exclusive. 
 
 Doubtless the skeleton is important in the most super- 
 ticial characters of the face. But the muscles, the cellular 
 and adipose tissue, and the cartilages are much more deve- 
 loped on the face than upon the cranium ; and from their 
 greater or less extension, from their various relations, differ- 
 ences of feature result which constitute so many characters. 
 Unfortunately it is often very difficult to define the latter. 
 The most detailed descriptions are rarely sufficient, and 
 the most exact measurements are far from giving an idea 
 of certain variations of the human figure. For example, 
 they cannot make the difference intelligible, which is never- 
 theless very sensible to the eye, which distinguishes the 
 nose of a negro of Guinea from that of a Nubian negro. 
 
 The nose is neverthele.s8 one of the features of the face 
 which is best adapted for investigations of this kind. Its 
 len<Tth is determined by the point of attachment of the 
 nasal bones to the frontal bone and the position of the 
 nasal spine ; its breadth at the ])ridgo depends upon the 
 anMc formed by the nasal bones ; its breailth at the bai>e 
 is more or less related to the anterior opening of the nasal 
 fo.ssjE. But the form and development of the cartilages, as 
 well as the thickness of the nostrils upon two very similar 
 skulls, can modify considerably the type itself of this organ ; 
 and the exterior nasal index can give no idea of these 
 variations. The study of Topinard upon this subject, nevcr- 
 theles.s, po.sscsses a real interest ; but from the point of view 
 of the characteri.sation of races, the researches made by 
 Broca upon the nasal osteological inde.x, which we will 
 discuHH further on, has a much more important value. 
 
 The characters drawn from the nose, which arc observed 
 tip(jn tlic living body, are however most important. Thi» 
 firgun is more or less pressed in, broad and flat among 
 almost all Ncotoch. the greater part of the Yellow races.
 
 External Characters — Face. 367 
 
 and certain allopliyliati Whites ; it is on tlu; coutrary 
 narrow and prominent in fair wliito races. These two 
 general types moreover present variations of which drawings 
 only can give any idea. 
 
 I may say the same with reference to the mouth. The 
 thoii'^and differences of form and dimensions which it can 
 exhihit, from the negro of Guinea with his enormous and, 
 as it were tunn-d up lips, to certain aryan or Semitic Whites 
 can neither be measured nor described. We can only point 
 out the general characters when they become very pro- 
 nounced. It may, however, be remarked that the thickness 
 of the lips is very marked among all negroes, in consequence 
 of their projection in front of the ma.xillary bones and the 
 teeth. 
 
 The mouth of the Negro presents another character which 
 seems to me to have been generally neglected, and which 
 has always struck me. It is a kind of clamminess at the 
 outer border of the commissures, and which seerns to 
 prevent the small movements of the corner of the mouth 
 which play such an important part in the physiognomy. 
 The dissections of M. Hamy have explained tiicsc facts. 
 They have shown that in the Negroes the muscles of this 
 region are both more developed and less distinct than in the 
 Whites. 
 
 Indepcnilcntly of tiie colour of the iris, the eye also 
 exhibits differences which constitute so many characters, 
 having at times a real value in the development of the eye- 
 lids, and in the dimensions of the palpebral fissure. Every- 
 one knows Chinese eyes, which slope from below upwards, 
 and from inwards outwards. They have been regarded as 
 peculiar to Yellow races, whether pure or mixed. Neverthe- 
 less these oblique eyes are found pretty frequently in Kuroix», 
 ])rincipally among women, and are united to a fairness and 
 freshness of colour which aie almost exceptional, as well as to 
 features unanimously regarded as most plea.^ing. 
 
 The general form of the coimtenance, ami some other 
 peculiarities drawn from the prominence of the check iwnes,
 
 J 
 
 68 The Iluman Species. 
 
 from the form and prominence or retreat of the chin, etc., 
 favoured some considerations analogous to the preceding. 
 But here again the external characters are wanting in the 
 precision which we shall find in the osteological characters. 
 
 X. Charaders drcnvn from the trunk and limbs. When 
 speaking of proportions I have already pointed out some of 
 these characters ; I will return to them when speaking of tlie 
 skeleton. I will here only make a few remarks, and point 
 out two remarkable features. 
 
 One of the peculiarities, which, in our European eyes, 
 chiefly contribute to bodily beauty, is the width of the 
 chest, of the waist, and of the hips. A body of a uniform 
 breadth we consider ungraceful. It is a feature which is 
 met with among several yellow and American races. The 
 comparison of these dimensions will furnish indices which it 
 is interesting to compare. But we have only taken that of 
 the chest, or more generally its circumference. To judge 
 from the numbers given by various authors, the Negroes 
 of Fernando Po would have the most fully developed chest. 
 With them, its.circujnference wouhl be I).r2 cm. (3748 
 inches). The English would come ne.xt, and the mininumi 
 observed would be among the Todas, whose thorax would 
 only have a circumference of SI'S c.ni. (.32-2 inches). 
 
 The lluttciitot, and especially the Bi>sjesman women, 
 txhibit, in a high degree, two peculiaritie.s, wliich have for 
 a \ox)fr time been considered special to them, but which have 
 l)een met with elsewhere : I mean ntcntojnjr/la and the 
 Jloitentut'a apron (tablier). The fir.st consists of a strange 
 development of the fatty folds in the buttocks, from which 
 results an encjrmous protuberance. The Hottentot V^enus, 
 of wliich a model exists in the Paris Museum, gives a good 
 example of it, but it appears that this character can be still 
 more cxaggerat«d. It is the reproduction in man of a feature 
 noticed by Pallai* u.s characteri.stic of certain races of sheep 
 (»f Central Asia, among which the atrophy of the tail 
 coincides with the appearance of enormous fatty protu- 
 berances.
 
 Sieaiopygia — Tablicr. 369 
 
 Stcatopygia has been noticed among various black and 
 Negroid populations. It was very noticeable in a queen of 
 Poun, figured upon the Egyptian temple built by M. ^Mariette, 
 for the Exhibition of l-SOT. Livingstone assured us that it 
 had begun to manifest itself among certain women of the 
 Boers, who are nevertheless of a quite pure white race. 
 But nowhere is it so pronounced as among the Bosjesman 
 women, and it constitutes one of the most striking cha- 
 racter of the race. 
 
 It is not exactly the .same with " tahlier," resulting from 
 the exaggerated development of the labia minora, which 
 project out of the vulva and hang down in front of the 
 thigh-s. This feature is found more or less developed in a 
 number of races, and has given rise to the practice of circum- 
 cision among women. In Europe there is doubtless scarcely 
 an accoucheur who ha.s not noticed it on some occasion in 
 some perfectly pure "Whites. Nevertheless it seems that 
 among the Bosjesman women it sometimes reaches a de- 
 velopment which is not noticed elsewhere. In the Hot- 
 tentot Venus, of which the Paris Museum possesses a model, 
 the length from the right reaches 55 millimetres (21G 
 inches), and from the left 61 millimetres (24 inches) ; the 
 breadth is 34 millimetres (1-33 inch) from the right, and 
 from the left 32 millimetres (1-2G inch). The thickness, 
 which is uniform, is 15 millimetres (58 inch).
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 ANATOMICAL CIIAIIACTKRS. 
 
 I. Ostcolofj'ical characters. — Without denying the very 
 great value of exteraal characters, I agree with almost all 
 anthropologists, in attaching a greater importance to ana- 
 tomical characters in the inajoritij of cases. Unfortunately, 
 the comparative anatomy of human races has, as yet, made 
 hut little progress. The fact is, that the solid portions, the 
 skeleton alone, have, necessarily, been the subject of serious 
 examination. The study of the perishable portion has 
 scarcely been begun. For this, and several other reasons, I 
 shall dibtingui.sli tliesc two orders of facts, and discuss sepa- 
 rately our knowledge of osteological characters and oi'ganic 
 characters. 
 
 The skeleton, the framework of the bi»dy, ])resents tiie 
 same regions as the latter : we can distinguish the head, the 
 trunk, and the extremities. Each of these regions offers 
 p<culiariti('s more or less connected with the iliversity of 
 human grouj)s. Thu best studied, and fortunately the most 
 important, are furnished by the head. For some years 
 craniidogical C(jllectiuns have been singularly on the in- 
 crease ; and throughout Europe, the study has been entered 
 upon with Cfjual ardour. Craniometrical methods and in- 
 htruments have multij)lied, perhaj)s a little beyttnd the actual 
 need. MM. Vogt and Topinard have made an excellent 
 summary of this ma.ss of research. I can only refer to 
 their publications. I cannot here even reproduce all the 
 results already acquired, and must confine myself to ])ointing 
 out a few of the priniij)al ones.
 
 Osteological Characters — Cephalic Index. 371 
 
 II. Characfers draivn from the cranhnn alone. — From an 
 nnthropological point of view, as well as in an anatomical 
 sense, the skull is divided into two parts, the cranium and 
 the face. Each of these regions has its special indications, 
 while new characters again rise from their reciprocal relations. 
 Lot us briefly review them. 
 
 The general form of the cranium depends, above all, upon 
 the relation existing between the length measured from 
 before backwards, and the breadth taken from one side to 
 the other. The honour of having appreciated the import- 
 ance of this relation belongs to Retzius. He made use of it 
 to establish the distinction between dolichocephalic, or long- 
 headed races, and hrachycephalic, or short-headed races. 
 
 Retzius considered the relations 7 : 9 or 8 : 10 as repre- 
 senting the limit, left by him uncertain, of dolichocephaly 
 and brachycophaly. M. Broca proposed the formation of a 
 third group, which should comprise all crania, the length and 
 breadth of which presented a relation comprised within these 
 limit.s, and anthropologists now admit with him the mesati- 
 ci'phalic races. In expressing these relations by decimals, 
 and in creating the term Jiorizontal cephalic index, now 
 universally adopted, M. Broca lias, moreover, facilitated, to an 
 extraordinary degree, the study of this character, and the 
 ideas to which it may give birth. His .subdivision of the two 
 extreme groups into two has also, in certain cases, been an 
 advantajre. He has himself, however, shown that it is not 
 Avise to go too far in this direction. 
 
 The definitions of dolichocephaly, me.saticephaly, and 
 brachycephaly have, it seems to me, been somewhat arbi- 
 trarv. I draw this conclusi(^n from the following tables, 
 which I borrow from MM. Broca and Pruner Bey. They 
 represent the means discovered by these eminent investiga- 
 toi-s. I have merely substituted the serial order for the 
 jiurely geographical distribution adopted by M. Pruner. 
 Moreover, I have continued the calculation to the second 
 decimal place, thus renderiiig the distinctions more minute, 
 and the general result more striking.
 
 372 
 
 The Hnvian Species. 
 
 INDICES OF HUMAN RACES 
 Races. Indices. 
 
 Americans of the Pampas, of 
 Bopota, etc. 
 
 Americans of Vera Paz . . 
 
 Germans of the south (men) ) 
 
 Germans of the south (women) \ 
 
 Laos 
 
 Annamitcs 
 
 Urachyccphalic Turks 
 
 Hrachycephalic Mahiys 
 
 Javanese 
 
 Borneans 
 
 Brachycephalic Peruvians 
 
 Puelches 
 
 Lapps 
 
 Ancient brachycephalic Euro- 
 peans 
 
 Kalmucks 
 
 Brachycephalic Bretons 
 
 Brachycephalic Katiaks 
 
 Aetas (women) \ 
 
 Ancient Europeans (women) ) 
 
 Malays (women) 
 
 Brachycephalic New Guinoans 
 
 Mexicans 
 
 Brachycephalic Pcnivians 
 (women) 
 
 Indo-Chinese 
 
 Tagals 
 
 Belgians 
 
 Dutch 
 
 Hovas 
 
 Papuans with aquiline nose 
 
 Re<l-SkinB 
 
 Chinese (women) 
 
 Bellovaqucs (men) 
 
 Modern (J recks • 
 
 Kabyles (women) 
 
 Jews (women) 
 
 Kourouj^lis (men and women) 
 
 New Guincans 
 
 Intermediary AmcricanH 
 
 Arancanians (men) 
 
 003 
 
 0-87 
 
 0-86 
 
 0-8.i 
 
 0-8 i 
 
 0S3 
 
 0-82 
 0-81 
 
 OSO 
 
 0-71) 
 
 0-78 
 
 0-77 
 077 
 
 BEY. 
 
 Indie 
 
 . 0- 
 
 AFTER M. PRUNE R 
 
 Races. 
 Chinese (men) 
 Ancient Romans 
 Kabyles (men) 
 Actas (men) 
 Tasmanians (women) 
 Dolichocephalic Celts 
 Scandinavians (men) 
 Dolichocephalic Bretons . 
 Modern Italians (men and"^ 
 women) I 
 
 Arabians | 
 
 Sacalaves (men) 
 New Zealanders 
 Dolichocephalic Kanaks 
 Micronesians 
 Ta-i^manians (men) 
 New Guineans (women) 
 Dolichocephalic Turks 
 Etruscans 
 Phoenicians 
 
 Scandinavians (women) 
 Tahitians 
 
 Americans of Brazil, Peru, etc. 
 Araucanians (women) 
 Neproes (women) 
 Kaffirs 
 
 Semitic Hindoos 
 Ancient Celts (men A: women) 
 Irihh 
 
 Neprocs (men) 
 Sacalaves (women) 
 Australians (women) 
 Brahmans 
 Dravidians 
 Persians 
 
 Bellovaques (women) 
 Bosjesmans 
 Hottentots (women) 
 Hottentots ^mon\ 
 E.sfjuimau.x 
 
 0-7G 
 
 0-7: 
 
 0-7-t 
 
 (o. 
 
 70 
 
 ■.".'.) 
 
 INDKE.S OF IllMAN RACES AITKIt M. Ill:()C.\. 
 
 I(n<<n. 
 TBUK IlltACIIYCKI'llALI. 
 
 AmcricanH (deformed rranin) 
 
 Syrians of r..l.«-l (l.cikh, 
 Bliphtly deformed 
 
 I^I)pH 
 
 Baruria and RwaMa 
 AarcrgnotA of St. Nectairc 
 
 Inilli-cK. 
 
 \ I 03 
 |0U3 
 
 0-85 
 OSt 
 
 Rsccs. 
 Finns 
 Indo-China 
 
 BUB-nn.VCIIYOKI'llAI.I. 
 Alsace and Lorraine 
 European Russia 
 Bretons of thi' Coles du Nord 
 
 (Gaulish cantons) 
 Javanese 
 Turks 
 
 Indices. 
 . 083 
 
 ()-.K2 
 
 QX\
 
 Os/iv/o^ical Cliaractcrs — Ciphalic hidcx. 
 
 J/ 
 
 Hares. Iiulioe 
 
 BUB-IlBACinVKriCALl— row/lM/wr/. 
 Different Mongols ) 
 
 Bn-tons of the L'otcs du Nord / 
 (Breton eantons) ) 
 
 Estonians 
 French Basques 
 
 MESATICEPHAI.I 
 North Americans, un(leforme<r 
 South Americans, undeformed 
 Non- Javanese Malays 
 North French, Bronze age 
 Parisians of Kith cent. 
 Parisians of 12th cent. 
 Parisians of I'Jth cent. 
 Uallo-Uomans 
 Roumanians 
 Mexicans, undeformed 
 
 8CB-DOLICHOCEPHALI. 
 Spanish Basques of Zaraus 
 Gauls of the Iron age 
 Malgachcs \ 
 
 Chinese / 
 
 Copta 
 
 Merovingian French 
 Sclaves of the Danube ' 
 'J'asmanians 
 
 OSl 
 
 OSO 
 
 > 0-79 
 
 0-73 
 
 0-77 
 
 0-70 
 
 Raoes. Imliirea. 
 
 SUB-DOLICHOCEPHALI — C0n<l/iu«/. 
 
 Polynesians 
 
 Ancient Kgyptians 
 
 Guanches 
 
 Cor.sicans of Avapezza of the 
 
 18th cent. } 0- 
 
 Bohemians of Roumania 
 Papuans 
 North French of the polished 
 
 stone age 
 
 TBirE DOLICUOCEPHALI. 
 
 Kabyles 
 
 Arabs 
 
 Nubians of Elephantine 
 
 South French ; Neolithic age 
 
 (cave Homme-Mort) 
 France; Paheolithic age 
 Negroes of West Africa 
 Bengalcse 
 Kaftirs 
 
 Hottentots and Bosjesmans 
 Austi-alians i 
 
 New Caledonians / 
 Esquimaux ) 
 
 0-74 
 
 0-73 
 
 0-72 
 
 0-71 
 
 These tables mutually confirm and complete each other 
 in general result.s. The secondary differences which dis- 
 tinguish them, are doubtless occasioned, on the one hand, by 
 the number of crania employed by the two authors to obtain 
 their means ; on the other, from some diversity in the use of 
 these materials. M. Pruner Bey distinguished the sexes, 
 which are united by M. Broca : the latter has placed iu 
 one group the Hottentots and Bo.«gesman.s, separated by il. 
 Pruner, etc. 
 
 From M. Brocii's table it appeai-s that the mean of all 
 these indices, leaving deformed skulls out of the question, is 
 78. From a numerical point of view this would be that of 
 true mesaticcphaly. The mean group otight, it seems to me, 
 to descend ccjually as it rise.^, and consequently to absorb at 
 least a part of M. Broca's sub-dolichocephali. In fact, upon 
 inspecting the two tables, it appears that the indices above 
 O'T-t and below 71) comprise the greater number of races 
 belonging to the three fundamental types, and taken from all
 
 374 ^/'^ Hunian Species. 
 
 parts of the world. It seems to rae that true mesaticephaly 
 should be comprised within these limits. I do not, however, 
 propose that those wliich have been adopted should be 
 changed. 
 
 These tables give rise to many other observations, of which 
 I sliall only j)oint out the principal. 
 
 M. Pruncr Bey carried his calculations to the third place 
 of decimals; M. Broca to the fourth. I have gone no 
 further than the second, that the eye may be more easily 
 attracted by the series formed by these numbers, so im- 
 portant in the characterization of races. It should be re- 
 membered that the greater number are means taken from a 
 certain number of crania. Were there a suthcient number 
 of subjects for each race, and all the indices taken from each 
 arranged in serial order, the distance from one to the other 
 would undoubtedly be no longer 01, but would be diminished 
 to 0001, or even less. The insensible shades observed in 
 passing from one individual to another would here be as 
 remarkable as in the comparison of stature. 
 
 There is no need to insist at any length upon the inter- 
 cro.ssing, so strikingly betrayed by the two tables. We see 
 thai the same index places side by side the most dissimilar 
 races, the South (jierman with the Annamite, the Breton 
 with the Kalmuck, the Belgian with the Tagal, the Parisian 
 with the Malay, the Italian with the Maori, etc., and that 
 by their .several indices the white races are .scattered through- 
 «/ut almost all the coloured races. I need not return to the 
 consequences which may be drawn from these facts from a 
 niouogcnistic point of view. 
 
 The yellow and black races arc wol so widely separated as 
 the white ; the former arc cither brachyccplialic or mesati- 
 cephalic, tli<' latter all dolichocephalic, with the exception of 
 the Aetjw. 1 have shown that the latter belong to a group 
 of populations extending from the Andaman and Philippine 
 Islundw to Torres Struit in Melanesia, penetrating New 
 <iuinea, and forming a special hrnnch in the midst of the 
 Melanesian Negro pf»pulation.
 
 Ostcologtcal Characters — Cephalic Index. 375 
 
 The case appears to be somewhat similar in Africa. This 
 discovery, entirely contrary to the ideas gent-rally maintained 
 till the present time, is due to M. Hamy. This excellent 
 investigator recognized brachycephaly in six skulls taken 
 from the Paris collections, and obtained from Cape Lopez, or 
 the mouths of the Fernand Vaz. Shortly afterwards, M. 
 Durhaillu having brought from the same districts ninety- 
 three skulls, the measurements of which were made public 
 by Englishmen, M. Hamy calculated the indices, and found 
 that twenty-seven of these crania were brachycephalic or 
 mesaticephalic. There is then every indication that the 
 Negro stock in Africa presents a special 6)'rt>?r/i corresponding 
 to the Negritoes. This result is confirmed by Schweinfurth, 
 who places the Niams-Niams and some neighbouring tribes 
 amongst the brachycephali. 
 
 We see that the horizontal cephalic index cannot serve as 
 a starling point in the classification of human races, as 
 Retzius imagined it might. We also see, however, that all 
 the value which was attributed to it by its author, is pre- 
 served in the characterization of secondary grcjups. 
 
 The extreme means given in M. Pruner Bey's table were 
 found in two American races, the Es(|uimaux and the in- 
 habitants of the Pampas of Bogota, etc. Whatever the 
 ditTerences may be which separate these two races, it is 
 evident that neither of them belong either to the black or 
 the white type. They show the greatest affinity to the 
 yellow type. 
 
 From one extreme mean to the other there is, according to 
 M. Pruner, a difference of 240 between the cephalic indices; 
 according to M. Broca of 14.")52 only. This difference rests 
 chioHy tipon the fact of M. Broca rejecting, as defonncd, skulls 
 which M. Pruner seems to accept without observation. Again, 
 the individual indices present a much wider variation than 
 would, at first sight, be expected. Huxley mentions a Mongol 
 whose cephalic index rises to 0977, and a New Zealander, 
 of unmistakable Melanesian origin, in whom it descends to 
 (;2!^. The difference is, therefore, 0-348. 
 17
 
 376 The Human Species. 
 
 The general relations of length and breadth in the crauimn 
 of human races is apparent from hirth. Novcrtlu'lcss, frum 
 the researches of Gratiolet, it appears that dolichocephaly is 
 due to a relative development of bones, which varies with 
 age. In the infant it is essentially occipital, in the child 
 temporal, aud frontal in the adult man. In the woman the 
 elongation of the cranium depends essentially on the length 
 of the temporal regions ; in this respect, then, the woman 
 remains a child all her life. 
 
 Starting from these primary results, the same observer has 
 compared dolichocephalic Whites with African and Melane- 
 .siau Negroes, lie found that the frontal dolichocephaly of 
 the former was replaced in the two hhuk races by an 
 occipital dolichocephaly, M. Broca has established the same 
 fact in comparing Basciues with Parisians. Thus the dis- 
 tinction proposed by U. Gratiolet furnishes a secondary, 
 character, which may be of use in certain cases, but which 
 falls very short of the importance with which some liavc 
 attempted t<. invest it. They would consider occipital 
 dolichocephaly as a character which widely separates the 
 Negro from the ^Vhite ; the observations of M. Broca show 
 that this is not at all thr casr, and from the observations of 
 M. dratiolet it appears that we iiave here oidy the persistence 
 of an anterior condition common to both. The Negro and 
 the Basque preserve throngliout life the cephalic character of 
 the infant Parisian, tiius forming one of the many examples of 
 that cessation of evolution wliieli, a,s we .see more distinctly 
 every day, plays a considerable part in the characterization 
 of human races. 
 
 The study of the horizontal cephalic iiide.x might lead to 
 many other remarks, i shall only recall the results obtained 
 by M. I)i('tri(i. It appears from his calcidations that, the 
 t«»tal i)opidation of the ^dobe given at 12.SS millions, there 
 arc 1()2(» millions of dolichocephali, and only 2(i2 millions of 
 brachycephali. But the iioilin savant places in the first 
 category the Ciiinesc, who are mesaticephali, and must alone 
 i»e reckoned at 421 millions. All these facts considered, it
 
 OsU'ological Characters — Cranial Mcas7ircmcnts. 2,77 
 
 appears to nie, from the tivbles of MM. Pruner Bey and Broca, 
 anil other thita, received up to the j)resent time, tliat tho 
 niesaticephali are much more numerous than either the 
 hrachycephali or dolichoccphali. If mesaticephaly is taken 
 in the sense jK)inted out above, the latter in their turn 
 predominate over the hrachycephali, owinj? chieHy to Afri- 
 can black populations, which we are daily Icarnin*:^ to esti- 
 mate a-s much more dense than they were formerly thought 
 to be. 
 
 Rotziiis only compared the antero-posterior and transverse 
 maximum diameters. Later investigators have sought the 
 relation between the latter and the height of the cranium. 
 The vertical cephalic index ha-s thus been obtained, the im- 
 ])ortance of which is at once evident. It plays an equally 
 important part in the table of M. Pruner Bey, and gives rise 
 to considerations analogous to those just discussed. I cannot, 
 however, enter into all these details without exceeding the 
 limits of this book. From the same motive I shall not men- 
 tion the other measurements of the cranium, maximum and 
 minimum frontal diameters, tottd circirmference, antero- 
 posterior arc, and others. 
 
 The composition of the cranium can only vary witiiiii voiy 
 narrow limits. Nevertheless, in Negroes, in ancient Egyp- 
 tians, etc., the squamous portion of the temporal bone is 
 sometimes united to the frontal without the partial inter- 
 position of the wings of the sphenoid. This is a remarkable 
 fact, being in direct contratliction to the j>W/tcip/<?« of con- 
 nection.^, so justly regarded by Etienne Geoffroy as one of the 
 most essential principles of comparative anatomy. 
 
 In the prece«ling case, the composition of the cranium is 
 altered by the suppression of a normal suture. This may also 
 be caused by the appearance of an abnormal suture, by which 
 two distinct bones are formed from a single one. Such is the 
 ease when the occipital bone seems to divitle, so as to leave 
 its upper portion free. We then have what has been called 
 the epnctal bone, or Intne of tlie Incas, because Rivers and 
 Tsclauly imagined this conformation to be a cliarartcr pocu-
 
 3/8 The Hjiman Species. 
 
 liar to the race?. M. Jacquait, however, showed that it was 
 merely the result of a cessation in the evolution of the occi- 
 pital bone, of which examples are found in the most different 
 human races. It is to a similar phenomenon that the per- 
 sistence of the niedio-frontal suture is due. This, again, is 
 dfjubtless universal, but much more frequent in the Aryan 
 white race than in coloured races, and especially in the 
 Xcf^roes. 
 
 These facts are connected, moreover, with a group of ob- 
 servations and ideas which Gratiolet has brought forward on 
 several occasions. According to this ingenious observer, the 
 anterior sutures are the first to unite in inferior races, while 
 in superior races the obliteration commences with the pos- 
 terior sutures. Again, the sutures, as a whole, have a ten- 
 dency to disappear rapidly in savage races, while the isola- 
 tion of the bones of the cranium is persistent in civilized 
 races, and particularly in the European White. Thisilisposi- 
 tion allows a continuance of the development of the brain, 
 although it gradually becomes slower. Gratiolet thus ox- 
 plains the continuance of the intellectual ]>ower, so remark- 
 able in men who have constantly exerciseil their intelligence. 
 The statistic researches of Dr. Pomerol, while correcting all 
 that is absolute in tliis theory, seems to confirm it in some 
 respects. 
 
 Since I am unable to review all the eraiiial charaftcrs, I 
 shall pass by those drawn from the pn)miuence of different 
 bones, the occipital indices of Broca, the cephalo-spinal of 
 Mantegazza, etc. I shall only say a few words upon the posi- 
 tiutj of the foramen magnum, and the sphenoidal angle of 
 Welker, but I shall dwell more at leie^th uj»i>ii the cdjKlcUy 
 of the cranium. 
 
 I)'Aubeiiton, in a sju't'ial work, shows that the foramen 
 magnunj is always placed further back in animals than in 
 man. Soemmering remarked that it seemed more so in the 
 Negro than in the White ; and this opinion, which was ap- 
 parently confirmed by some niJ-astnements, was jit once ac- 
 cepted by a number of anthroj>ologists, and regarded by them
 
 Ostcological Characters — Sphaioidal Angle. 379 
 
 as a sxmmn character, but this result was attained by con- 
 sidering the position of the aperture relatively to the entire 
 lenfjth of the skull, including the face. Now it is at once 
 evident that the forwanl development of the latter, by reason 
 of progtiathisin, woiild increase tlie apparent retreat of the 
 fornur. 
 
 The researches of M. Broca upon cranial projections 
 enable ns to state this problem correctly, and to give the 
 solution of it. M. Broca compared GO Europeans with 35 
 Negroes. Representing the total projection by 1000, he 
 found that in the former the anterior projection was 475, 
 and in the latter 498. The anterior border of the foramen 
 magniim is then further removed from the alveolar border in 
 the Negro than in the White, the dit^crence being 23. But 
 this projection includes, with the anterior cranial projection, 
 iho facial j^roject ion, winch is Go in the European and 138 
 in the Negro. If this is deducted from the former, we find 
 that the White stands first in cranial projection alone, and 
 that the difference is 50. 
 
 We k-aru from these calculations that, relatively to the 
 cranium to which it belongs, the foramen magnum is placed 
 more forward in the Negro than in the White, which is by 
 no means the case in apes. These same calculations demon- 
 strate the real difference which here distinguishes the two, 
 that, namely, of the forward prolongation of the face. 
 
 In drawing comparisons between men and apes, the 
 sphenoidal amjle discovered by IX. Virchow, studied by M. 
 Welker, and which, thanks to M. Broca, may be mea.surcd 
 without making a section of the skull, presents sj)tcial 
 interest. It presents an inverse evolution in man, and the 
 Quadrumana during growth. This may be seen from the 
 annexed calculations borrowed from M. Welker : —
 
 APES. 
 
 ^<ajou, at Inrth 
 „ adult 
 
 . HO" 
 . . 174« 
 
 Difference 
 
 . +:tr 
 
 Orang., young . 
 ., a«lnlt . 
 old. 
 
 . . 1. -..-.• 
 
 . 172' 
 . . 174" 
 
 DilTcrcnce 
 
 . +11.° 
 
 3 So The Human Species. 
 
 MAN. 
 
 8 Infants . . . . HT 
 
 10 Children from 10 to ISycars 137° 
 
 30 Adult Germans . . . 134° 
 
 Difference . -7° 
 
 I have already insisted that facts of this nature are irre- 
 concilable with those theories which attribute a more or less 
 pithecoid ancestor to man. 
 
 In di.scussing the cranial cavit\', our special object is to 
 supply the deficiency of information upon the volume and 
 weight of the brain. Now, from this point of view, we may 
 eiusily fall into error. The bony cabinet and its contents are 
 developed, to a certain extent at least, independently. This 
 is very clearly demonstrated ])y a fact which was observed 
 by Gratiolet, and is too frctjuently forgotten. The subject 
 is an infant in whom the cranium presented the normal 
 conformation. The brain was, nevertheless, almost entirely 
 wanting. In well-formed men the sinu.ses and coveriny^s of 
 the brain may very easily be more or less developed accord- 
 ing to the indiviiliial or race, and influence the relative 
 dimensions of the bruin. 
 
 Moreover, the exact measurement of tiir cipacity of the 
 cranium is attended by diflieulties which have not yet been 
 entirely surmountetl. In sj)ite of the; improvements intro- 
 duced by M. liroca in his nu ihod of me:usuring with shot, 
 consecutive mea.surements of the .same cranium by the same 
 ob.server will vary consiiKrably in the result. 
 
 Again, there arc peculiarities to be taken into considera- 
 tion, the iniport.inre of which h.'vs long been neglected. We 
 have known for several years that the stature luis an 
 influence upon the weight of the brain. It cannot be with- 
 out influence upon the e.ivify l)y which the latter is enrlo.sed. 
 M. liioca has shown that sex is of itself a cau.se of variation. 
 In the woman the mean cranial capacity is alwaj's less
 
 Ostcological Cluxracto's— Cranial Capacity. 38 1 
 
 tlwui ill tlio man, and the difference varies between different 
 riu't's. 
 
 Nevertheless, in exaniinini; a sufficient number of skulls, 
 the causes of error may counterbalance each other, and the 
 means may be accepted as giving results sufficiently near 
 the truth. The results obtained by the same observer arc 
 especially favourable for comparison, and from them certain 
 results may be obtained. There is no reason, therefore, why 
 the cranial capacity should not ha considered as a character 
 well worthy of study. But its importance must not be 
 exaggerated. 
 
 M. Broai arrived at the following result, in considering 
 the distinction of extreme races. The cranial capacity of 
 the Australian being represented by 100, that of the African 
 Negro is lllGO, and that of fair European races 124 8. 
 
 I borrow from niv eminent colleague the following table, 
 published by M. Topiuard in his AidhropoloQie. This table 
 
 nACES. 
 
 MEN. 
 
 WOMEN. 
 
 DIKFEBENCE. 
 
 Cavern of Homme Mort. Neo- 
 
 1G16 
 
 1507 
 
 109 
 
 lithic 
 
 
 
 
 Gallo-Brctons .... 
 
 i.->9a 
 
 H2r, 
 
 173 
 
 Auvorpnatfl ..... 
 
 l.V.'H 
 
 144.-. 
 
 153 
 
 Spanish Ha«<iucs 
 
 1.-.74 
 
 i:t.-.(j 
 
 218 
 
 Bas- Bretons . . . . 
 
 l.-.tU 
 
 i:ii;(; 
 
 11(8 
 
 rontcnqK)rary ParisiaiiH . 
 
 l.-,.-,s 
 
 VX.M 
 
 221 
 
 Oiianchr.s 
 
 1.V.7 
 
 i3.-.:i 
 
 204 
 
 CorbiianH. .... 
 
 1.V.2 
 
 i.3r,7 
 
 185 
 
 Ks<iiiiuiaux 
 
 1. -.:{'.» 
 
 1428 
 
 111 
 
 Chincfe ..... 
 
 l.-.is 
 
 1S8.3 
 
 135 
 
 McrovinpianB 
 
 \:m 
 
 1361 
 
 143 
 
 New t^alcdnnians 
 
 \u\o 
 
 13.30 
 
 i:^o 
 
 Noproow of Wtht .\frica . . 
 
 u:u) 
 
 1281 
 
 179 
 
 Tasmanians .... 
 
 \\:,2 
 
 1201 
 
 2:.i 
 
 AuHtralians 
 
 i:U7 
 
 1181 
 
 i.-.r. 
 
 Nubians 
 
 i:{2'j 
 
 12'J3 
 
 31 
 
 gives the mean cranial capacity, in cubic centimetres, for a 
 certain number of races in both sexes. I have merely 
 substituted the scri;d order in the men for the almost
 
 3$ 2 The Human Species. 
 
 geographical division of the author, and calculated the 
 difference between the sexes. 
 
 We here observe liicts of intercrossing similar to those 
 which I have so often pointed out. The Merovingians, a 
 white race of the first order, are placetl between the yellow 
 Chinese and the New Caledonians, Alelanesian Negroes. 
 
 But the chief value of this table is to show into what 
 serious errors an estimation of the intellectual development 
 of a race from its cranial capacity would lead us. By such 
 an estimation, the troglodytes of the cavern of L'Homme- 
 Mort would be superior to all races enumerated in the 
 table, including contemporary Parisians, and the Chinese 
 would corae after the Esquimaux. The French populations 
 occupy, it is true, the upper portion of the table, and the 
 several Ne^ro races arc at the bottom. But here, again, 
 when we find the Nubians following closely upon the 
 Australians, we must confess that there can be no real 
 relation between the dimensions of the cranial capacity and 
 social development. Wc meet, moreover, with similar ques- 
 ti(»ns when we turn our attention to the brain. 
 
 The following table, which I borrow from Morton, is as 
 instructive as the preceding. It includes a greater number 
 of races. Moreover, the American savant has not only 
 given the means, but also the maxima and minima as 
 established by his researches. His measurements arc given 
 in cubic inches. As they are only required for comparison 
 with those of other observers, I have not reduced them to 
 cubic centimetres, I have again confined myself to arranging 
 the means in a descending series, and to calculating the 
 difft:rences between the maxima and minima.
 
 Ostcological Characters — Cranial Capacity. 38^ 
 
 RACES. 
 
 Germans 
 
 Anplo- Americans 
 
 Arabs ...... 
 
 (ircco-Egyptians of the Catacombs 
 
 Irish 
 
 Malays 
 
 Pensians ) 
 
 Armenians . . 
 
 Circawiiins ) 
 
 Iroqnois i 
 
 LenaiK-s f 
 
 Cherokeos r • • • ■ 
 
 yhoshones j 
 
 African Nc|,'roes 
 
 Polynesiaua 
 
 Chinese ) 
 
 Creole Negroes of North America j 
 
 Hindoos \ 
 
 Ancient Egyptians of the Catacombs/ 
 
 Fellalis ) 
 
 Mexicans 
 
 Peruvians ^ 
 
 Australians > 
 
 Hottentots i 
 
 90 
 
 90 
 
 89 
 88 
 87 
 86 
 
 S4 
 
 83 
 
 82 
 
 80 
 79 
 
 105 
 
 lU 
 
 97 
 
 98 
 
 97 
 
 94 
 
 104 
 
 99 
 84 
 91 
 ^•9 
 91 
 96 
 96 
 92 
 101 
 83 
 83 
 
 MIN. 
 
 DIFF. '■ 
 
 91 
 
 14 
 
 70 
 
 44 
 
 82 
 
 15 1 
 
 84 
 
 14 1 
 
 74 
 
 23 
 
 78 
 
 19 
 
 68 
 
 29 
 
 75 
 
 19 
 
 70 
 
 34 
 
 65 
 
 34 
 
 82 
 
 2 
 
 70 
 
 21 
 
 73 
 
 16 
 
 77 
 
 14 
 
 68 
 
 28 
 
 66 
 
 30 
 
 67 
 
 25 
 
 58 
 
 47 
 
 68 
 
 15 
 
 63 
 
 20 
 
 This table, borrowed from one of the most eminent 
 supporters of polygenism, should, I think, oxfitc rcHections 
 in all who })ay any attention to facts. 
 
 Wc find the Chinese placed, by their mean cranial capacity, 
 below the Polyne.'^ians, the African Ncj^roes, and the savage 
 tribes of North America. Is this really the po.sition which 
 their civilization a.ssigns to them ? 
 
 In Morton's table the Creole Negroes of America fall 
 below the African Negroes by the Ics-ser development of the 
 same cavity. Meigs has confirmeil this curious fact in 
 several ways, and has even made the difference still wider ; 
 H()"8 for the former and .S.*V7 for the latter. And yet it is 
 universally acknowledgeil that Negroes born in America arc 
 intellectually superior to their African brothers. Even Nott 
 allows that it is .so. With them, therefore, tlie intelligence 
 increases, \\\\\\\- the niuiial capacity diminishes.
 
 3S4 ^TJic I I It man Species. 
 
 This fact is the more singular since the observations of 
 M. Broca upon Parisian skulls of the thirteenth to the 
 nineteenth century show that the cranial capacity increases 
 with general intellectual progress. The measurements taken 
 by the same ol)server upon individuals belonging to the edu- 
 cated and illiterate classes lead to the same conclusion. 
 
 Still, however, Ave cannot disregard the calculations of 
 Morton and Meigs; and this experience, bearing upon 
 numerous populations of the same race, seems to establish 
 beyond a doubt the fixct, which already clearly results from 
 the comparison of different races, namely, that the develop- 
 ment of the intellectual faculties of man is, to a great extent, 
 independent of the capacity of the cranium ami the volume 
 of the brain. 
 
 I must here confine myself to the statement that the dimi- 
 nution of the cranium is, in North America, one of the 
 chardcters of the Creole Ke<jro race, dciived from the Afri- 
 can Xef/ro race. 
 
 'I'hc intercros.sing of races is again demonstrated in this 
 table by the means. The Hindoos and ancient Egyptians 
 are separated from the othi-r White races of the Negroes, 
 Chinese, Polynesians, and Red-Skins. 
 
 Hut the maxima and minima show still more clearly how 
 far this confusion w<juld be carried, if individuals were 
 compared. Hottentots and Australians, by their maxiiiui of 
 83, wouM stand before (Ji.'rmans and Anglo-Americans, 
 who.sc miiiiniuni is not so high. With much greater reason 
 would they be placeil in the midst of all the other races, 
 wliich, by their means, are placed above them. This is not 
 all. lietween the highest and the lowest nuan. between the 
 English and Hottentots, or Australians, the dilVerenco in 
 cranial capaeity is oidy twenty-ont; cubic int lies. The differ- 
 ence between the m.ixiinum and minimuiu (»f the Chinese is 
 exactly tbo Harne. AjkI it is much greater in nine other 
 races, being more than doiible in theCiermans and Peruvians. 
 
 Do we m(!et wiili lacts like tho.se resulting from the 
 mcasurementH of Morton in the n]y;cics of a single f/enera of
 
 Ostcohgical Characters — Facial Index. 3S5 
 
 plants and animals? Certainly not; and this table is of 
 itself sufficient to prove that the human groups are races, 
 ■Nvhich have little uniformity owing to the absence of selection, 
 and in no sense species. 
 
 III. Characters drmm from f he face alone. — Similar con- 
 clusions to those furnisiied by the examination of the cranium 
 arc suggested by that of the entire face. It may be either 
 broad or long; and in order to distinguish these two forms 
 by special epithets, we may employ the terms curyopsc, Jol't- 
 chopsc {o\}/i9, theatrical ma''<h). 
 
 Since the face is much more irregular in foiTn than the 
 cranium, it gives rise to a far greater number of observations. 
 Each one of its features wouhl deserve our attention, were 
 we writing a detailed work, and the more so, as such close 
 study as this can only Iwast an existence of a few j-ears. 
 Failing space, I shall confine myself to pointing out the 
 nature of the characters, and commenting upon some of the 
 principal results. 
 
 In the living subject the length of the face is estimated 
 from the commencement of the hair to the extremity of the 
 cliin. But measurements of this kind arc difficult to procure 
 when exotic races are in question. Skulls, therefore, liave 
 been examined. In the latter, the inferior maxillary bone 
 is very often wanting, and even the teeth have, in too many 
 cases, fallen out. The inferior limit of the length of the face 
 could therefore be carried no further than the alveolar 
 border of the superior maxillary bone. The point sus-nasal 
 of M. Broca serves as the superior limit. The interval ct)m- 
 prised within these limits is always less than the brca<Ifh 
 measured across the zvgomatic ardies. In multiplying by 
 100 the length of the face and dividing it by the 1)readth, 
 M. Broca has obtained the facial imhw. The following are 
 some examples which I borrow from him \\itli M. Topjnanl : 
 
 EHquimnux . 
 Nrprocs . 
 Gallo-nicfun- 
 Auverpm''* 
 
 7:V4 
 
 c.s-r. 
 
 KcwCftlc<l(>ninn«. . 
 
 . M-2 
 
 I'lirisiiiiis 
 
 . . (■.."> -9 
 
 .Viixtraliniis . . . 
 
 . (■..")•(» 
 
 Tasiii.'iiiiiiMs , , 
 
 Cl'-6
 
 3S6 The Human Species. 
 
 In spite of the small number of these examples, they 
 might lead to remarks similar to those which I have already 
 brought forward ou several occixsions, and which I believe it 
 to be unnecessary to repeat. 
 
 The nose is one of the most striking features of the human 
 face. Its general fortii and dimensions furnish some of the 
 most special external characters in the distinction of races. 
 But the morphological variations of this organ, presenting 
 considerable difficulties, had long been neglected. M. Topin- 
 ard filled this gap, and showed that it is possible, even upon 
 casts, to take mcjisurements suitable for indices. Neverthe- 
 less, it is the skull that, up to the present tinle, has contri- 
 buted the clearest indications. The breadth of the nose taken 
 at the opening of the nasal fossa3 and multiplied by 100, 
 compared with the lengtii from the spine to the naso-frontal 
 articulation, has furnished M. Broca with the terras of the 
 relation expressed by his nasdl iiultj:, the study of which 
 ha-s led him to important results. 
 
 Measurements, taken upon more than 1,200 skulls of all 
 races, have enabled M. Broca to give oO ()0 as the moan nasal 
 index. In the entire number of races this index varies from 
 4233 (Ksquimaux) to o8"38 (Houzouanas). We see that the 
 variation is only IGOo. The individual ditfereiices are much 
 wider, ext<'ndiiig from 72'22 (Houz<Juan;is) to .'LV71 (Rouma- 
 nians), thus giving a maximum variation of .SlJ .'>!. 
 
 The difference between the maximum and minimum in 
 the .same race is also very striking. Wiien it exci-eds ten, 
 .M. Broca Kccms to attribute it almost exclusively to cro.ssing. 
 He lias made an ingenious ai)pUcatiun of this iilea in the 
 history of the cro.ssing of the 1" ranks with the races who pre- 
 ceded tln.uj in France. But we can scarcely allow that this 
 JH always the cjtse when we see the difference rising to 
 21 98 in the Negroes of VW'st Afiica, and to 2.')().1 in the 
 Hottentots and Bosjesmans. It seems to me that this is only 
 the rojM'tili<)n of a fa«"t which we hrive alre.-idy proved with 
 regard to the capacity of crania. 
 
 M. Broca has njade use of his na.sal inde.x to <livide all
 
 Ostcological Characters — Nasal Index. 38 7 
 
 liuman races into three j^roups from tliis point of view. In 
 races of a mean nasal index, or Mesovhuiian, it only varies 
 from 48 to 53. Bi-low these are ranged races with a long 
 narrow nose, or Lrptorhinian ; and above, those with a broad 
 and more or less flat nose, PUityrhutian. 
 
 The groups thus obtained are fairly homogeneous. The 
 Lepturhinians would comprise only Whites, if the Escjuimaux 
 had not most uncxj^ectedly stepped in. The Platyrhinian 
 group is composed exclusively of Negroes, and includes all the 
 races of this type studied by M. Broca, with the exception 
 of the Papuans, who are perhaps a mixed race. The Meso- 
 rhinians embrace all the Yellow races, as well as the Poly- 
 nesians, all the Americans and the Papuans, which I have 
 just mentioned. We also find in this group AUophylian 
 Whites, the Esthonians, and the Finns, who are thus separated 
 from the Aryans and Semites. 
 
 In short, if wo take moans alone into consideration, the 
 nasal index, taken as a basis in the division of races, breaks 
 a much smaller number of natural relations than the cha- 
 racters which we have as yet discussed. Apart from the 
 cxceptiona which I have just alluded to, intercrossing here 
 only appears between races belonging to the same type. But 
 as soon as we take individual variations into accuunt, the 
 mixture, so often observed, reappears. 
 
 M. Broca ha^ studied the na-sal index not only in the adult. 
 l)ut also when in a state of evolution. He found that in an 
 embryo of three months this inilex was 7(j <S0 ; in a |K'rfect 
 fa'tus, G218; in a child of six years, 50-0; in modern 
 Parisians, 46'8l. Thus the index constantly dimini.shes as 
 the botly approaches its definite form. Our author concludes 
 from this fact that the variations ob.served in the same nice 
 may often be referred to an arrest of development, or rather 
 ;in arnst of evolution, and he seems disposed to attach the 
 jjlatyrhinism of Negroes to the sami' cause. He thus adopts 
 the idea of Serres ti|K)n the general character of the Negro, 
 which ideas we shall examine presently. This I regard as a 
 very correct explanation of the origin of one of the distinctive
 
 383 The Human Species, 
 
 features which must dearly distinguishes the bhiok race. It 
 is not, however, to the nasal index alone that this fact is 
 ap])licable, as I have already proved. 
 
 The orh'dal index, also studied by M. Broca, is obtained 
 by multiplying the vertical diameter of the orbit by 100, and 
 dividing the ])roduct by the horizontal diameter. Considered 
 from this point of view, races are divided into three groups, 
 namely, the mecjascmes, whose mean index rises to 89 and 
 higher; the mesosemes, whose index varies from 83 to 89 only; 
 and the microsemes, whose index fall below 83. 
 
 The highest mean index stated by .M. Broca, is found in 
 the Aymuras, in whom it rises to 98 8. But we know that 
 the cranium is artificially deformed by this people, and the 
 practice may in some measure influence the form of the 
 orbit. The maximum in normal skulls wa.s observed in 
 the Polynesians of Hawai, where it was 9o-40. The mini- 
 mum of 77*01 is presented by the Guanchos of Tenoriffe. 
 
 The mean maximum variation is then 18 30. 
 
 But here, as in all other cases, individual variations arc 
 mucii more considerable. AVithout even taking the Aymaras 
 into consideration, whose index sometimes exceeds 109, M. 
 Broca found 10833 in a Cliineso, 105 in a Chinese and an 
 Indian Red-Skin, 100 in two wom(>n of the Alanpicsas Islands, 
 a Ptruvian woman, a Malay, a Mexican, an Indo-Chinese, a 
 woman of ancient Egypt, of Auvergne, and Paris. It is un- 
 neces-sary to insist upon the meaning of these similarities. 
 
 The smallest orbital index known is that of the old man 
 of ( Vo-.Magnon, which we have seen to be (jl3(:. Above the 
 latter, an<l at small distances from each other, may be ranged 
 u Tasmunian, a Merovingian, the Mentone man (of the same 
 race «w that of Cro-Magnon), a Chianchc of Teneriflo, a New 
 Ciledoiiiaii, an Australian, a N»d)ian, a Kaflir, a Spanish 
 B.xscjue, an Auvergnat, and lastly, llie woman of Cro- Magnon, 
 whose index is 712."). 
 
 The maximtim indiviilual vaiiation is then 4(»'87. 
 
 U|X)n examining the table of M. Broca, we find that the 
 white races arc represented iti the three grotips. Tlie Dntc h
 
 Ostcolo(^ical Characters — Orbital Index. 3S9 
 
 of Zriandam fit^uie among the nipgasemcs *l)ctwcc'ii the alnni- 
 gincs of Mexico and those of North-west America. Tlie 
 CJallo-Bretons are placed in the same group, between the 
 ChiHans and the Indo-Chinese. The Whites form the great 
 majority in the group of mososemos, and are much the 
 mo.st numerous in that of the microsomes. One of their 
 races indeed, the natives of TeneritTe, terminates the series, 
 immediately preceded hy the Tivsmanians and Australians. 
 
 Thus, as far as the wiiite race is concerned, the mean 
 orbital index proclaims an intercrossing comparable with all 
 that we have hitherto observed. The case is different with 
 the two other finulamental types. They are distinctly sepa- 
 rated by this character. All the yellow races are mega.seme.s, 
 for in my opinion the Lapps, considered by M. Broca, to 
 l)elong to them, are in reality allophylian Whites. All the 
 ne£To races are niesosemes or microsomes. There is a differ- 
 ence of 4'()3 between the aborigines of Brazil representing 
 the la.st megasemes which have not been deformed, and the 
 Papuans of Touil Island, who have, of all Blacks, the highest 
 orbital index. 
 
 The usual intercrossing would undoubtedly reappear if we 
 took iuilividual variations into consideration. The ililYerence 
 '.ISO which separates the man of Cro-Magnon from tin- woman 
 of the same race is sufficient proof. 
 
 M. Broca has studied the influence of sex and age upon 
 tlie orbiUd index. I cannot follow him into these details, 
 however interesting they may be. I will only remark, that, 
 as in the case of the nasal index, it diminishes with the pro- 
 gress of evolution, and remains in all races greater in the 
 woman than in the man. The latter preserves, then, through- 
 out life, a certain infantile charact(M". 
 
 This observation applies ecjually. to races distinguished for 
 the size of their orbiUil index. The yellow races, including 
 the Chinese, present therefore, if compared with white races, 
 an arred of ivotufion. Yet the Chinese are far suiK'rior to 
 all the microsome or mesoseme black races, antl particularly 
 the Australians and Tasmanians, who are only fi>llowed by
 
 390 The Hiivian Species. 
 
 the inhabitants of Tencriffe in the lowest places of the table. 
 If we take the white as the normal type, we must regard 
 these two j^opulations as presenting an cjre.ss of evolution ; 
 but this excess is still more marked in the Guanches of 
 Tcneriffe, who, in their moile of life, arc considerably superior 
 to the Tasmanians and Australians. 
 
 A general conclusion follows from these facts, namely : that 
 the characters resulting from an arrest or excess of evolution, 
 are not of themselves a sign of superiority or inferiority. 
 
 M. Broca has, with great propriety, compared the orbitid 
 index of apes with that of man. As might easily have been 
 foreseen, the laws of development are the same in the 
 highest groups of apes as in man. The influence of sex and 
 age are as noticeable in the gorilla, the orang, and in the 
 chimpanzee as in our own races. It seems to be less striking 
 in the lower apes. 
 
 The orbital index groups apes, like man, into megasemes, 
 mcsosemes and microseincs. But this character connects 
 the anthropomorphous apes with the lowest types, with the 
 cebida}, and even the lemurida*, which we now, from their 
 embryogeny, connect with the ruminants or edentatJU The 
 genera of simiadae are divided into three groups. M. Broca 
 draws from these facts the very first conclusion that no 
 value, as characterising gradations, ciin be attributed to the 
 orbital index. 
 
 It is well known that in the Negro the entire face, and 
 csj)ecially the lower portion, jjrojects forward. This trait 
 lias been termed jn'OfjiKithism. In the living subject it is 
 i-xaggerated by the thickness of the lij)s. But it is also 
 apparent in the skull, and constitutes one of its most 
 striking characters. .M. Tdpinard has studied it in a special 
 manner, antl by a nu thu<l of his own. He has with justice 
 separated fttcldl ]>r<)fj>ia(liisrii, which end)races the entire 
 fiu*e, from the various ludx'illury and dental 2'ri>;/iiafhim)LH, 
 whicli di.stinctions I proposed some time ago.. The index is 
 here furnished by the relation existing between the height, 
 anil th<- horizontal projection of the ngion under c<»nsidera-
 
 Ostcological Characters — Prognathisiu. 39 1 
 
 tion. But M. Topinard has recently replaced this index by 
 the angle formed by the 'profihi lines with the horizontal 
 plane. This is a happy modiHcation, as it presents a inoro 
 precise idea to the mind. 
 
 The most important of the several prognathisms is that 
 arising from the portion of the maxillary bone situated below 
 the nose, and comprising the alveoli of the incisors and 
 canines. This is the sub-nasal-alveolar jirorjnathism, or the 
 supenor maxUlary prognathism. It is this trait of the 
 Negro which is opposed to the orthogiiathisin of the White. 
 This character suggests remarks similar to those which I 
 have already made so ofteiL It is the evident result of the 
 follijwing summary, which I borrow almost verbatim from 
 M. Topinard's work. 
 
 All races and all individuals are more or less prognathous. 
 As a rule, in European races it is only slight ; it is much 
 more marked in the Yellow and Polynesian races, and more 
 strongly marked still in Negro races. Let us remark, however, 
 that even mean indices place the Tasmanians (7t)''28) above 
 tiie Finns and Esthnniaiis (7o"'53j, and verv noar the 
 Merovingians (75°54). 
 
 The minimum prognathism, or maximum ortliogiiatliism, 
 is found in the (lUanches (SI ''34), and the opposite extreme 
 in the Namaquois and Bosjesmans (oD'SS). The means 
 establish limits between the various sub-divisions of the 
 great fundamental races. Individual variations, however, in 
 this ca~se, as in others, obliterate these distinctions. In all 
 races there are exceptions, Negrot-s in whom prognathism 
 is no more marked than in Whites, and Whites in whom it is 
 very pronounced. M. Topinard regards these exceptional 
 cases as examples of crossing, atavism, or as pathological 
 phenomena. There is certainly some truth in this view, 
 I have long referred the prognathism, sometimes so curiously 
 marked in certain Parisian women, to atavism. But we 
 must also take into consideration these ofci Hat ions of 
 characters, which we everywhere meet with in races not 
 subject to selection with any special aim.
 
 392 The Ihmiaii Species. 
 
 In any case wc cannot consider cessation of development 
 as explaining the existence of a most striking prognathism 
 in certain individuals of incontestably pure white race. In 
 fact, far from diminishing with age, like the preceding 
 characters, it rather increases. Even in the European, the 
 cliild is manifestly more orthognathoiis than the adult. 
 With reganl to Negroes, Pruner Bey observed some time 
 a<T0, and I have myself proved, that the child presents 
 .scarcely any trace of that feature, so characteristic in the 
 parents. It is not till the period of puberty that it appears, 
 and is rapidly developed. The forward projection of the 
 maxillary bone is, therefore, in both races a f:ict of normal 
 evolution, merely more marked in the one than in the other. 
 Far from being the result of a cefisaiion, prognathism betrays 
 an excess of development. 
 
 The absolute theory of Scrres, which wuuUI treat the 
 Ncgio merely a.s a White, subjected to a ce.s.sation of general 
 development, is then here at fault. The truth is, that in the 
 black nice, organic evolution is less advanced than the 
 general type of white race in some respects, and more so in 
 ofhrrs. This is a fact upon which I have long insisted in my 
 lectures at the Mu.seum, and which is conlirme*!, as wc now 
 see, by the more exact work of later years. 
 
 We see, also, that, in order to account for the dilTerences 
 sejiarating the Negro from the White, it is l)y no means 
 ncces-sary to have recourse to ]>henomcna of atavism as 
 exhiliitcd by animals. Simple o.scillations, above or below 
 the mean in the normal evolution of man, an; sufKcient to 
 explain it. I feel myself, tliereforc, still more strongly 
 ju.-.tiru-d in opposing the humtin evolution theory to the 
 HUnian rrolnt'um (liioi'i/. 
 
 Th«! zygojn;itic mchrs, the malar bone, the sujxrior and 
 inferior maxillary bones al.so furnish the anthropologist with 
 Kcvrral more or less essential characters which sometimes 
 ncijuirc, in reference to a given race, a valiir sujMrior to that 
 whi(.li tljoy have elsewher«'. Such is the slight ch'vation of 
 the ivtbdinc luiult in the I/ipps. But I ainnot here enter
 
 Ostcological Characters — Facial Angle. 393 
 
 into these details, nnd refer the reader to special books and 
 memoirs. 
 
 IV. C/i"r>(<'frrs drxroi from the f^ku/l consiJircd. as a 
 whole. When, instead of studying the face or cranium alone, 
 we coiisiilcr them in their reciprocal relation.s, we see new 
 traits appearing, furnishing a numhor of characters, some of 
 which are of real importance. 
 
 Let us, in the first i>lace, remark that there may be either 
 hiinnony or <hjxharmony between these two great regions. 
 The skull is harmonic in the Negro, whose cranium and face 
 are equally long, and in the Mongol, who unites the two 
 contrary characters; it is dysharmonic, as we have seen, in the 
 old man of Cro-Magnon, and in the man of La Truch6re, but 
 for contrary reasons, 
 
 Cuvier endeavoured to find the relation of the skull and 
 the face by making an antero-posterior section of the skull, 
 and directly me:vsuring the surfaces of the section. He found 
 that in the White the face represented about 25 of the 
 skull, 030 in the Yellow, and O-iO in the Black. These 
 results entirely accord with those furnished by the study of 
 prognathism. 
 
 This relative difference of the development of the face led 
 Camper to the conception of his celebrated facial angle. 
 Struck by seeing painters represent Negroes as Whites 
 painted black, he studied the anatomical characters of the 
 skull, and gave, a.s the propor distinction, tin- angle formed 
 by two lines ; the one pas.sing from the auditory canal to 
 the root of the nose, the otlier tangential to the foreheatl 
 and to the na.sal bone, both being represented upon a verti- 
 cal projection of the model. Cam2>er made use of his 
 method to distinguish between the products of Greek ami 
 Roman art. He thus represented a dccrea.sing scale from 
 the Works of art in statuar}' to non-adidt apes. I repro- 
 duce it, not because of its real value, but on account of 
 the importance which has been attributed to it. Tho 
 following are the variations of the facial angle, according to 
 Camper :
 
 394 
 
 7' he 1 1 11 1)1 an Species. 
 
 Greek statues 
 
 ^ 
 
 . uxr 
 
 Yellow race . . . . 
 
 7.V 
 
 Roman statues 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 uri" 
 
 Hlai'k race . . • . . 
 
 70 
 
 White race . 
 
 . 
 
 so" 
 
 Younj; apes (superior type) . 
 
 65 
 
 CiCofTruy Saint-IIihiirc and Cuvicr, M. Jules Cloquet and 
 JjiO(iuaid have adopted different methods in determining the 
 facial anj^le. Morton, Jacquard, and ^f. Broca have invented 
 instruments for measuring it directly. M. Topinard, after 
 having examined the several methods, gives, vith justice, his 
 opinion in favour of that of Cloquet, which places the upper 
 extremity of the angle at the alveolar border. M. Jacquard 
 had chosen the nasal spine, remarking at the same time that 
 the difference l)et\vecn the two angles might be of service in 
 the calculation of prognathism. 
 
 Camper, or rather those who have followed him, wished to 
 consider the size of the facial angle as a sign of superior in- 
 tellectual power. His graduated scale has evidently given 
 ri.se to this false idea. Pathological facts should have 
 sufficed to show how great was the error. The work of 
 Jac(juard ha.s, moreover, established this fact beyond a doubt. 
 Thi.s author has proved a difference of more than 1G° in the 
 educated White of Paris, that is to say, G' more than the 
 distance established by Camper as separating the Negro 
 from the White. Jac«iuard, again, lias proved in the French 
 race the existence of an angle of DO'', an angle which Camper 
 believed to ]>elong only to the iileal representations of the 
 human form. Now this remarkable angular superiority was 
 by no means accompanied by an exceptional intelligence. 
 
 If we pass from the psychological to the anatomical mean- 
 ing I shall have similar remarks to make. There has been 
 much discussion as to the position of the uj»per extremity of 
 the facial line, which, with the horizontal line, forms the 
 angle of Camper. It has been thought desirable to avoid 
 the frontal sinuses, nnd to seek in the facial angle indications 
 relative to tin; dimensions of the encephalon, and not those of 
 (ivy fHiiiirular hoiif. I think, on the contrary, that we must 
 l)C content with the latter, and not go further. It is evident 
 that the dimensions of tiie encephalon are indcpend-'iit of the
 
 Oshvhoical CJiaracicrs— Parietal A)io/c. 395 
 
 position of the frontiil jioint, and tliat it may be more or less 
 cxtciulfd to tlio right, left, or beliind this j)()iut without the 
 facial angle being afl'ectod in any manner whatever. 
 
 The exact determination of the means of the facial angle 
 will still, however, be valuable, like all those which it is 
 ];ossible to calculate upon the human body, provided there 
 is a sufficient distance between these means. But M. 
 Toj)inard has shown that this ditference is not more than 
 three degrees. Withotit altogi.'ther renouncing the ideas of 
 Camper, we see that science now has characters preferable to 
 those which he discovered. 
 
 A more important angle is the anlerlov imridal amjle, 
 formed on both sides of the skull by two lines tangential to 
 the most prominent point of the zygomatic arch, and to the 
 fronto-parietal suture. By taking the most prominent point 
 of the parietal eminences as the second extremity, we obtain 
 the potitevior imrietal aiujle. Prichard applied tlie term pyra- 
 midal skulls to those in which these lines converged. 1 have 
 endeavoured to measure the angle directly with an instru- 
 ment of my own invention, and my first researches have led 
 me to results which I believe to be interesting. The angle 
 is sometimes w ide, sometimes narrow, and may be altogether 
 wanting when the two tangents are parallel. It is, then, 
 sometimes positive, sometimes negative. Tlie latter is the 
 case in the fatus and infants of all races. The negative 
 angle is also met with in adults. This trait appeai-s to have 
 been very striking in Cuvier, judging from a fine portrait of 
 the great naturalist when still young. I have found it to 
 be — 18^ and — 22*^ in two living pci-sons, l)oth remarkable 
 for their intelligence. The positive maximum which I ob- 
 served upon an Esquimaux cranium w;vs -|- 14^ I have em- 
 j)loyed this character in my course of lectures to complete the 
 charactcrizatioD of a great number of races, but have never 
 published any details. 
 
 M. Topinard has just filled this gap in a work which con- 
 firms, and at the same time, completes all my first residt.s. 
 His researches, bearing solely upon skulls, have given him
 
 39^ The Hjunaji Species. 
 
 as limits of indiviclual variations, 5° and + 30°; as limits of 
 the means, + 2°-5 and -f 'iO'S. lie f.)un<l in the New Cale- 
 donians tl)e most pyramidal heads. Finally, he has seen in 
 children from the age of four months to sixteen years, the 
 angle decreasing from — 1^ to 0° and rise to 7". 
 
 Thus the negative parietal angle in the adult is nothing 
 more than a persistent fcetal or infantile character. It is 
 evidently the result of a cessation of dcvcloivnod, or rather, 
 a cessation of evolution. Now, we have just seen that this 
 character may exist in individuals endowed with an intelli- 
 gence above the average, and even in men of genius. A 
 cessation of evolution, the persistent trace of a foetal or 
 infantile condition, is not, therefore, necessarily a character 
 of infcrioritt/ either in individuals or races. 
 
 Two general views of the skull belong to the subject now 
 under examination. Bhimenbach regarded and represented 
 the human skull from al)ove. This is the norma veriicalis, 
 very viduable as permitting the appreciation of the general 
 form of the cranium and some of its relations with the pro- 
 jections of the face. Owen has, so to speak, regarded it from 
 below, and insisted upon the dilferences which the inferi«)r 
 surface otTcrs between man and the highest types of apes. 
 Many characters of detail are brought to light by these two 
 methods which I cannot even mentitju here. 
 
 In this necessarily very incomplete sketch, I have been 
 obliged to pass by in silence a largo number of characters 
 which are often of a very substantial importance. The 
 greater number are (obtained by the methoil of projections 
 so ingeniou.sly perfected by M. Broca, and by mean.s of 
 instrumentH, some of which wore already in existence, such 
 iiH the diigraph, and others invented by various savants, 
 amongst whom we uuist, again, especially mention M. Broca. 
 
 V. Shelclitn of the truuk I have dwelt at some length 
 
 unon the characters drawn from the skolcton of the head ; I 
 
 .... * 
 
 shall be more brief in di.scu.ssing the other regions. Ihey 
 
 furnish characters perhaps ejjually iniportant, but they have 
 
 been much less studied, and the faidt does not altog<'th'r li<'
 
 Ostcological Characters — Trunk. 397 
 
 with anthropologists. It is not easy to procure skulls of the 
 human races, even ■wIk-u wc have to do >vith pujjulations 
 living close to us ; the difficulty of collecting a certain nundier 
 of entire skeletons is far greater. 
 
 The thoracic cage presents some interesting facts siiffi- 
 «'iently well proved. In consecjucnce of the form of the 
 -temum, the greater or less curvature of the ribs, it is 
 generally broad anil flattened in the White, narrow and 
 pronunent in the Negro and the Bosjesman. According to 
 d'Orbigny, it is stil more prominent in certain Americans. 
 An analogous fact has been observed in some populations of 
 Asia Minor. 
 
 The pelvis is the portion of the trunk whieh has been 
 most thoroughly studied, by reason of the application which 
 may be made of these researches to obstetri&s. As a rule, 
 comparisons have been limited to those between the Negro 
 and the White. Vrolick, Weber, MM. Joulin, Pruner Bey, 
 anil, quite recently, M. Verneau, have gone much further. 
 The latter, unfortunately, has not yet published his researjches 
 relatively to the distin(;tion of races. Vrolick insisted upon 
 some peculiarities of the pelvis of the Hottentot Venus, and 
 endeavoured to establish certain relations between lur and 
 the ape. 
 
 Weber found that in each of the races whieh he had 
 studieil, the pelvis presented a predominant form, which, on 
 that account alone, became characteristic. He regartled the 
 inlet as being generally oval and of large transverse diameter 
 in the White ; (juadrilateral and of large transvense dian»eter 
 in the Mongol ; round, and of cipial diameters, in tho 
 American ; cuneiform and of large antero-posterior diameter 
 in Negroes. 
 
 M. Joulin has di.sputed nearly all the propositions of 
 Vrolick arid Weber, and seems unwilling to allow any 
 characteristic value to the pelvis. M. Pruner Bey has shown 
 without difficulty the great exaggeration of this view, ami 
 has determined the characters which distinguish, from this 
 point of view, the White from the Black.
 
 398 The Hit in an Species. 
 
 The work of M, Yerneaii, much more complete than those 
 of his predecessors, but with the anatomical part of which 
 we are at present alone ac(|uaintctl, will uneloubtetlly throw 
 some lii(ht on the (piestions raised by their controversies. 
 At present, moreover, the work of M. Verneaii confirms the 
 assertions of the greater number of his predecessors, as to 
 the reality of the characters of race to be found in the pelvis. 
 AmonfTst these characters, there are some which have 
 been pointed out in the Negro as indications of animalism. 
 Even M. Pruner Bey, departing in this instance from his 
 general practice, employs this expression, though at the same 
 time restricting its meaning by his explanations. It seems 
 to me much more natural to consider it as a trace of a 
 Condition, normal at a certain period, and more or less per- 
 sistent according to the race. 
 
 In fact, the verticality of the ilia, and the increa.se of the 
 antero-posterior diameter of the pelvis in the Negro, have 
 been chiefly insisted upon as recjilling characters which may 
 be observed in mammalia generally, and particularly in apes. 
 But we meet with the same anatomical characteristics 
 strongly ])ronounced even in the fcjotus and children of the 
 White. Tljcy, and especially the latter peculiarity, are per- 
 sistent to the age of seven years or more. Their existence 
 in the Negro is, then, nothing more than relative cessation 
 in the evoluticm of this region of the skeleton. It is, again, a 
 fw.tal or in ft nit He chiractcr.iiiid not a character of ani rnal ism. 
 VI. Skeleton of the limbs.— Whon speaking of fossil races, 
 I pointed out certain mor[)hologic:d characters of the bones 
 of the limbs, and among others, that of the perforation of tho 
 olecranon depression. This character may bo observed in 
 the BoHJesman, the Guanches, ancient Egyptians, and our 
 own races. It seems to make its appearance in Western 
 Europe with the Qiiaternary brachycephalic r;ices. M. 
 UujxMit met with it in the proportion of thirty per cent, 
 among the men of the Lessc ; according to M. ilamy, this 
 proportion is twenty-eight par cent, in the fossil race of 
 (jrenelle and only 466 per cent, in tin present population.
 
 Ostcoloirical Characters — L ivibs. 
 
 399 
 
 I have alivady observed that the uppor linib is a little 
 loni^'iT in the Negro than in the White. The essential cause 
 of this ditforence, is the relative elongation of the fore-arm. 
 M. Broca, after comparing the radius and humeru*; of the 
 two races, gives 7i)-43 for the Negro, and 73-82 for the 
 European. M. Hamy, who had more numerous materials at 
 his disposal, and followed a somewhat different method of 
 measurement, obtained as result T-S-O^ and 7-19. 
 
 This elongation of the radius, relatively greater in the 
 Negro than in the White, is one of the traits to which the 
 expression ttimian character has been most frequently 
 applied, Wc know, in fact, that there is less inc(iuality 
 between the two regions of the arm in the anthropomorphous 
 apos than in man, and that in the orang the length of the 
 radius ecjuals that of the humerus. 
 
 The researches of M. Hamy enable us to consider this 
 peculiarity of the Negro from an entirely human and truer 
 point of view. This anthmpologist has followed the evolution 
 of this limb with a view of obtaining the changes which it 
 involves in the relation under consideration. The following 
 table gives the results of these investiirations : 
 
 Kiiibryo (»f 24 innnths . . 88-8S 
 
 Ktjctus of :i — 4 niontlis . . 84-Oy 
 
 „ „ 4 — '> iiKiiitlis . . 8<>42 
 
 „ „ C — 7 months . . 77'CiS 
 
 M n 8 — y muuilia . . 77J7 
 
 Infants of 1 — lOdnys . 
 
 . 7fi-20 
 
 „ „ 11— 20 (la'vH 
 
 . 74-78 
 
 „ 21— ;{0dny8 . 
 
 . 74 -51 
 
 „ „ 2 montliH . 
 
 . 7.1-03 
 
 „ „ months to 2 yrc. 
 
 . 72-4fi 
 
 „ 5 mouths to l;!i yrs. 7230 
 
 V/e see that in the development of the upper limb in man, 
 there is a constant tenilency to diminish the relation in 
 (pieslion. We see also that the average of the Negro is 
 almost that of a white fuitus of five months. In his case, 
 therefore, the elongation of the railius may be explained 
 (juite naturally by an arrest of evolution, without giving any 
 occasion for comparing him with apes. Under what pretext 
 should we return to the simian theory in connection with 
 this character, after having seen that it is inapplicable in so 
 many othei*s ? 
 
 18
 
 400 
 
 The Htnnan Species. 
 
 The lower member presents similar facts. According to 
 the calculations borrowed by M. Topiuard from M. Broca, the 
 tibia, when compared with tiie femur, gives a relation of 8r33 
 for the Negro, and 71) 72 for the White. 
 
 By adding the figures which express the length of the 
 nidius and humerus, we have the total length of tiie whole 
 arm, with the exception of the hand ; and by acting in the 
 same manner for the femur and tibia, we have that of the 
 lower member, with the exception of the foot. 
 
 The relation of the former to the latter is GvS-27 in tlio 
 Negro, and 61)73 in the White. 
 
 Tiie following is a table of several races, drawn up by 
 M. Topinard from his own researches and those of several 
 other authors : 
 
 
 Relation of the 
 
 Relation of the Relation of the 
 
 Races, 
 
 inf. to the 
 
 Kiiiur tci tlic tiltia to the 
 
 
 hUl). member. 
 
 huiui-rua. femur. 
 
 Annamitcs .... 
 
 r,7r> 
 
 7r,-7 
 
 (17-r. 
 
 TiiKninitiaiiH , . . . 
 
 G8-2 
 
 **:$•.-) 
 
 84 a 
 
 Ai-noH 
 
 Ik)HJcsmanR • • • • 
 
 CS-4 
 
 7r.-2 
 
 7f.S 
 
 Andaman IslandtiH . . . 
 
 7():i 
 
 7'.»!) 
 
 81-X 
 
 AiistralianH .... 
 
 7(t-7 
 
 7."r(; 
 
 7(;i) 
 
 UlucM of rondicbciy . . . 
 
 71-7 
 
 b2'J 
 
 844 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 
 We sec that, by thisdianictcr, tlie Kurttpeau NN'hite is placed 
 between the African Negro and the Andaman Islander. 
 
 1 have already mentioned some remarkable morj)hological 
 modifications, such as the prominence; of the lii»eaasj)era in the 
 femur, the platycnemism of the tibia, etc. 1 need not repeat 
 them, 'i'he clavicle, f(»ot ami hand, also suggest many detiiil.s 
 which I nniHt iia.sH by in silence. I shall only observe that in 
 Abyssinia it is neither by his coloiir n(tr his hair that the true 
 Negro is prov<'d to be characterised, but merely by the rela- 
 tively exaggerated promin(;nce of the heel. But this sign, which 
 ha-s been a.sscrted to Ik) infallil)le, is wanting in certain Negro
 
 Anatomical Characters — Brain. 401 
 
 raois, not only in the Yoloffs, whose inferior member rc- 
 sejnblcs our own, hut also in the Bambaras, who have a. jhit 
 foot. 
 
 VII. C/iarncterfi draivn from the aoft port lo 118 ; nervous 
 tii/sfrni. After liavini^f examined the external fornis of the 
 l>o«lv, and reviewed the skeleton, we must take the oriranic 
 apparatus one by one, and study thera in their turn. Un- 
 fortunately the facts collected are here still more rare, when 
 the observatittns should have been in larm-r numbers in onler 
 U) give a definite value to the results. This study, which 
 lijus been scarcely commenced, has in reality only been 
 brought, till the present time, to bear upon the two most 
 distant terms of the human series : the European White and 
 the African Negro. This alone will justify me in giving a 
 very cui-sory exposition of the results obtained. 
 
 The nervous system, of which Cuvier has said that it is 
 the entire animal, is fortunately the part about which we 
 possess, perhaps, the greatest number of comparative data. 
 In the first place, we meet with a general fact noticed b}' 
 Soemmering, and which is established beyond a tloubt by 
 the splendid preparations of Jacquard, exhibited in the 
 galleries of the Paris Musotiin. Rtlatively to the White, 
 the Negro presents a marke«l predominance of peripheral 
 nervous expansions. The trunks are thicker, and the fibres 
 more numerous, or perhaps merely ca.sier to isolate, and to 
 preserve on account of their volume alone. On the other 
 hand, the cerebral centres, or at lea.st the brain, appiar to be 
 inferior in development 
 
 In fact, in spite of what Blumcnbach and Tiedmann have 
 said on this subject, the brain of the Negro i.s, as a general 
 rule, less voluminous than that of the White. This fact is 
 chielly the resp.lt, it is true, of mea.surements of the capacity 
 of crania. But determinations of the weight confirm this 
 result. 
 
 Seven Negro brains weighed by il. Broca gave a mean 
 of iJilG grin. (4G 42 oz.). Upon uniting the weights of 
 European brains I find, however, a mean of only 12tH gnu.
 
 402 TJi€ IIuDian Species. 
 
 (4402 oz.), tliat is almost exactly the average of the White 
 woman. The average weight of ailult European brains 
 is 1405 MS grm. (4I)oy oz). But in both races, individual 
 oscillations are very considerable. One of the skulls of the 
 Black race examined by M. Broca weighed 1500 grm. 
 (52!)1 oz.) ; Mascagni had one of 15S7 grm. (5594 oz.), and 
 another of only 738 grm. (26 03 oz.). 
 
 The truth is that the European White alone has been 
 seriously examined from the point of view of the estimation 
 of cerebral development by weight. The merit of having 
 furnished the elements of this study belongs incontestably to 
 llud. Wagner. Uniting the far more impttrtant results of his 
 own researches with those of Tiedmann, Sims, Parchappe, 
 Lelut, Hu.schke and Bcrgmann, this savant drew up a table 
 containing tlie weight of J)(i4 brain.s, which had been directly 
 obtiiined after removing the coverings ; he arranged them in 
 order, commencing with the heaviest and finishing with the 
 li'ditest. liut he had not taken circumstances of sex, afje, 
 health, disea.se, etc., into consideration. The results which 
 he obtained were, therefore, subject to alterations and correc- 
 tions. M. Broca ha.s accomplished this ta.sk. He took 347 
 ca.se8 of healthy brains from Wagner's table, and carried out 
 his investigations entirely upon them. 
 
 A certain number of general propositions ri.se fmm all 
 these researches, which may be fornudated in the f<»llowing 
 manner : 
 
 1. Under similar circumstances, in other respects, the 
 wt i;;ht of the brain varies j)roportionately, or almost pro- 
 portionately, to the height. According to Parchappe, the 
 average weight of the brains of two groups of men with an 
 average height i>f 174 mi.'tre (57 feet) and 1 ■(13 metro 
 (5-2 feet), was WVM) grm. (4(;-!H oz.), an.l 1254 grm. 
 (44 23 oz.). In this example the dilTerential relation, G per 
 cent., is exactly the s.ime for the hei;,dit of the body and the 
 weight of the brain. This inlluence of stature enahles us to 
 interpret an<l compnhentl the f.uts l)rouglit forward by 
 Mr. y.jn Ifoid Hunt. From the calculations of this anato-
 
 Anatomical Characters — Brain. 403 
 
 mist it would appear that the avcra^'e wcij^lit of the Imain 
 of Aiiglo-Aincrican soldiers exceeds the averairc Avei'dit of 
 hurnp«-ati hrams a-s detluced from Wagner's tables, by from 
 19 to 1 -J. jjrms. (GT to -49 oz.), or from 1-33 to '99 per cent, 
 liut tlio American anatomist did not take into consideration 
 the ditVerence iu stature, whicli he nevertheless notice^. 
 NoNv, from his calculations, it appears that American soldiers 
 have, in this respect, the advantage over Frencli and English 
 soldiers to an extent of 3 per cent. The increase is, there- 
 fore, only apparent, and, indeed, rather points to a relative 
 diminution. 
 
 '1. Under similar circumstances in other respects, the 
 f.inale brain weighs a little less than the male. M. Broca 
 li;is shown that this is the case at all periods of life. This 
 ditferencc appears to me, however, to arise almost exclusively 
 from that of the stature of the body. Upon taking the 
 woman a.s the term of comparison, and representing her 
 heiglit and the weight of her brain by 100, we find 109 43 
 and 109-34 jx-s (he result for the man. The latter relation is 
 that given by Parchappe. M. Broca found I09G3 ; thus the 
 relative heights are intermediary. 
 
 3. The maximum average of the European is observed be- 
 tween the thirtieth and fortieth years. It is then 1202 crms, 
 (4 4-48 oz.) in the female, and 1410 3(5 grms. (49-74 oz.) in the 
 male, or. in percentages, 100 and 11 1"?. The average for the 
 entire period of maturity, between 30 and .iO, is 140.j88 grms. 
 (49 .')9 oz.) in the male, and liGl-.") grm.s. (44.5 oz.) in the female. 
 
 4. Beyond this maximum the weight of the brain appears 
 to decrease continually, and in a mure or less constant 
 manner. Such, at least, is tlie result arising from calcula- 
 tions bearing upon decennial intervals, which show a con- 
 stantly decreiising average in the male, as well as in the 
 t\ male. There is probably some relation between this dimi- 
 nution and that of the horizontal circumference of the 
 cranium and the development of the frontal sinuses, observed 
 long ago by Camper. 
 
 5. In the European White, a brain, to be capible of per-
 
 404 TJie Human Species. 
 
 forming its functions, must Aveigh at least 975 grms. (34"3i) oz.) 
 in the female, and 1133 grms. (301)0 oz.) in the male. These 
 figures are the result of the discu.ssion upon Wagner's table ; 
 they are, however, too high, to judge from some of Hunt's 
 calculations. In the Bosjesman and Australian, and pro- 
 bably in many other races, the weight of the brain may 
 descend as low as 1)07 grms. (31 99 oz.), without the in- 
 tellectual faculties being destroyed. 
 
 Let us add that this organ may, moreover, fall much below 
 this weight without causing cessation of life, or even the 
 absolute disappearance of the intelligence, as in some micro- 
 cephalL The smallest brains which have ever been weighed 
 are those of Teite, quoted by Wagner, 300 grms. (10"58 oz.), and 
 that of the woman who formed the subject of a memoir by 
 Gore, 28375 grms. (10 oz.). These brains are appreciably 
 inferior in weight to those of the gorilla and orang. 
 
 n. In the European White, the jua.vinium weight of a 
 healthy brain perhaps reaches 2231 grins. (78(j9 oz.) {(^roni- 
 well), or even 2238 grms. (7894 oz.) (Byron). But there is 
 not the certainty we should wish for about these figures. 
 The weight of Cuvier's brain is, however, attested by the 
 post-mortem examination conducted by Professor Bdrard ; 
 it is 1829 f)fi grms. (0843 oz.). Mr. Sandford Htmt cpiotes 
 aiKither at 1842 grm.s. ((I.") 32 oz.). We may regard these 
 figures as indicating the superior limit wliich can be attained 
 by the brain in the White race without the gt-ncral health 
 ajipfaring to be afViM-tcd. 
 
 The fignires obtained by .Mr. Hunt f\n\i\ tin- calcidations 
 given by several authors for 27<'^ brains of I^urojx'au Whites 
 ugrec Hutticirntly will with the aljove. 'J'lu.' average of the 
 former is 1403 gnn.s. (49"55 oz.). I'he nwiximtun is that 
 <|Uot<d above, 1842 grms. (0497 oz.) ; the minimum falls to 
 IM)3 grms. (33*97 (>'/..), which is very remarkable from its 
 lightness, being below that which, in Wagner's table, seems 
 to involve idiotey. The results obtained by Mr. Hunt upon 
 his Black an<l Whit<^ fellow-countrymen, present, as regards 
 comparison, a special interest. The brains of twenty-four
 
 Anatomical Characters — Weight of Brain. 405 
 
 American White soldiers {rave an avcrajje weijilit of 1424 irrms. 
 (432 oz.) in round numbers. Tlic maximum was 1S14 grms. 
 (G3i)S oz.); the miuimuui 1247 grms. (431)8 oz.). The 
 brains of 141 Negroes gave an average of 1331 grms. 
 (4Gi)8 oz.), which is greater than the results of investigations 
 made in Europe. The ma.ximum was 1507 grms. (.5315 oz.); 
 the minimum 1013 grms. (35*73 oz.). 
 
 The observations of Mr. Hunt upon 240 cro.sscs between 
 the W])ite and tlio Negro lead to interesting conclusions 
 The following: is the result : 
 
 grms. OS. 
 
 In crosses having J white blood, the average weight of the brain is 131)0 49-03 
 
 „ 4 „ „ ,. \X.\\. 47(».-, 
 
 „ \ „ „ „ i:ti-j 4r,-.-,2 
 
 „ 4 „ „ „ i:it»8 4G13 
 
 „ h « « „ l-'80 44-7a 
 
 Wc see that tiic weight of the brain diminishes propor- 
 tionately with the white blood. But it is especially curious 
 to observe, that in crosses still po.ssessing a tolerably strong 
 proportion of superior blood, the weight falls below that of 
 pure Negroes. The average was taken from twenty-two 
 individuals, and the difference, 86 grms. (303 oz.), is too 
 great not to be taken into .serious consideration. We should 
 say that this is a phenomenon identical with that presented 
 by colouring. Certain crosses, in whom the bhick blood 
 predominates, are of a darker hue than the original Negro 
 race. 
 
 To exhaust the little that we knt)w of exotic races, I need 
 only to add that in a Hottentot cxamine<l by Wyman the 
 l»rain weighed 1417 grms. (41) 9G oz.). This weight, which 
 is greater than that of the average of Europeans, atlords one 
 more proof of that intercrossing to which I have so often 
 called attention, and which h.os, in this c.use, perhaps a 
 ileeper meaning than eUewhere. 
 
 Since the publication of Gratiolet's admirable work Sur 
 Its plii-i ce're'bmiix de I'homme et des primaicf, the study of 
 cerebral convolutioii^ h;is a-ssumcd considerable im]>ortanco
 
 4o6 The IIiDiian Species. 
 
 in anthropology, although it has been somewhat exaggerated. 
 The investigations of MM. Daroste and Buinargcr show that 
 the dc'V(.'K)iJinent of these conv(jlutions depends to a great 
 extent upon that of the encephalon itself, and the influence 
 exercised by stature at once explains certain facts which had 
 formerly been the cause of some embarrassment. Under 
 conditions similar in other respects, the brain of small rciccs 
 would be less convoluted than that of large races. 
 
 liut, apart from this influence, it appears as a well estab- 
 lished fact, that in savage races the number and complica- 
 tion of the cerebral convolutions are Jess than in intelligent 
 and civilized races. Intellectual culture would seem then to 
 exercise an entirely special action upon the cortical layers, 
 and to favour their development. 
 
 The known extremes at the present day of tlie character 
 in (piestion are ofTcred by the Hottentot Venus and Cuvier. 
 The brain of tlie former is the simplest that hits ever been 
 observed in au intelligent person. It recalls that of an 
 idiot. The brain of Cuvier, which \infortunately has neither 
 been motlelled nor drawn, w:us, as we are told by the 
 eminent anatomists who saw it, distingui.shed by the extra- 
 ordinary complication of the convolutions and the depth of 
 the sulci. Moreover, each convolution was, as it were, 
 doubled by a kind of rounded ridge. In spite of these 
 exceptional ca.ses, no one would stuely dream of placing the 
 great naturalist in any other species than that to which his 
 contemporaries belong. Neither can we consider the simpli- 
 fication of the brain of the Hottentot Venus as a .specific 
 character. 
 
 When comparative observations have sufficiently multi- 
 plied, wc shall douiitless find more or less striking characters 
 in the lelative proportions of certain regions of tlu; brain. 
 For example, if I)r. Nott's observation bo correct, the cere- 
 heUura in tlu; llcd-Skin extends beyond the cerebrum, while 
 the latter, it is well known, extends beyond the cerebellum 
 in the White and Negro. The same organ is lunger in llio 
 Negro and broader in flic White.
 
 Anatomical Characters — Vessels, Glands. 407 
 
 Naturalists, travellers, and anatomists announced lonjr a^^o 
 tliat the brain of the Negro is distinguished from that of the 
 White by its blackish colour. An experiment performed at 
 Paris under the stiperintcndcnce of M. Rayer, upon whieli 
 I have already made some passing remarks, confirms the 
 general fact. I have already observed how M. Gubler, by 
 whom it was prepared, wished to discover if there were no 
 mean terms. He examined the colouring of brains obtained 
 from individuals, all belonging to the White race, but whose 
 complexions were diflFerently coloured, and proved that the 
 internal colourijig wa.s in direct relation with the external. 
 In fair individuals with blue eyes and a pink and white 
 skin, the pigment .seemed to be entirely wanting. In indi- 
 viduals with a brown skin, black hair, and a very dark iris, 
 " nut only the brain enveloped by its membranes assumes a 
 deeper shade, but a layer of black matter, in every way 
 comparable to that of the Negro, covers the protuberance, 
 the pineal gland, and some other points of the nervous 
 centres," 
 
 Thus, internally, as well as externally, the ci>louring of 
 tissues presents that gra<luated series to which I have .so 
 often called attention. This removes, therefore, the abso- 
 lute nature which had been attributed to a peculiarity 
 which had so often been insisteil upon as sej)arating the 
 Negro from the White, to the extent i>f making him a dis- 
 tinct species. 
 
 VIII. Vascular and rci*plratory systems. Considered as 
 a whole, the vascular system of the Black and that of the 
 Wliitc present facts somewhat similar to tho.sc which we 
 have ob.served in the nervous system. According to Pruner 
 Hey, the venous system jiredominates visibly over the 
 arterial in the Black ; and here, again, the admirable pre- 
 l>a rations of Jacquard arc a material proof of the correctness 
 of the <»bservation.s of the .savant I have just quoted. This 
 predominance seems to extend to the right cavities of the 
 heart. 
 
 The lungs are h ss developed in the Negro than in ihe
 
 4o8 The Human Species. _^ 
 
 Wliitc. M. Primer Bey has observed cases in which tlicy 
 seem to be pressed upwards by the abdominal viscera. The 
 characters peculiar to the blood of the Negro, which Avere 
 noticed in a preceding cliapter, will, perhaps, at some future 
 time, be connected with this group of anatomical conditions. 
 We have already seen that tlie cutaneous glandular system 
 is more developed in the Negro than in the White. The in- 
 vestigations of M. Pruner Bey demonstrate that the same fact 
 reappears throughout the whole length of the intestinal canal, 
 the surface of which is everywhere marked by the prominence 
 of secreting organs, especially in the stomach and colon. The 
 large glands wliich are connected with the alimentary canal 
 are also remarkably developed, particidarly the liver. The 
 case is also the same with the siipra-rcnal capsules. All these 
 organs are in a constant state of venous hyperemia. Finally, 
 these intestinal mucous membranes are very thick, and pre- 
 sent the appearance of adipose tissue. Facts of a similar 
 nature will perhaps be observed in the greater number of 
 intertropical races. We already know that in the Javanese 
 the liver is as fully developed as in the Negro.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL CIIAUACTERS. 
 
 I. The special history of human races presents a consider- 
 able uunihor of interesting physiological facts which are 
 sufficiently different and well marked, to serve as dis- 
 tinctive characters. We find in the tropics peoples re- 
 markably abstemious, and living entirely upon vegetables, 
 without their organism being injuriously affected ; in the 
 polar regions there are others who eat fat in quantities 
 which would be rejected by our digestive organs ; there are 
 also some slight variations between the respiration, circula- 
 tion, animal temperature, secretions, etc. of the White man 
 and the Negi'o; the muscular energy and the manner in 
 which it is employed, sometimes vary considerably in different 
 races ; general sensibility, and consequently aptitude for feel- 
 ing pain, are very unequally developed. The same surgical 
 operation will not cause as much pain to a Chinese as to a 
 European. 
 
 But the greater number of these traits arise from pecu- 
 liarities which do not belong to general considerations. Many 
 are the rcsnlt of anterior facts, and are connected with con- 
 ditions of life, habit, etc., sometimes even with beliefs and in- 
 stitutions. Even if we confined ourselves to a mere .sketch, 
 we shouM have to enter into details incompatible with the 
 plan of this book, if wo wi.shcd to di.scu.ss all these ipiestions. 
 I shall, therefore, here confine myself to pointing out some 
 general phenomena to justify the above statement.^. 
 
 II. I will, in the fii-st place, say a few words upon certain 
 facts and ideas which have often been the occi-ion c.f .•mi-
 
 4IO The Human Species. 
 
 mated discussion. I mean the degree of relation adnii.ssible 
 between the development of the intelligence and that of the 
 brain. This question may .seem at first sight to belong al- 
 most entirely to the study of the individual. But, from the 
 manner in which it has been applied to the appreciation of 
 the intellectual power of races, it has acquired a real interest 
 in general anthropology. 
 
 On no occasion, perhaps, has this question been treated 
 more thoroughly and by more competent judges than by the 
 Paris Anthropological Society in the great discussion of 18(»1. 
 Many speakers took part in it, but the two principal cham- 
 pions of the rival doctrines were Gratiolet on the one hand, 
 and M. Broca upon the other. Some of their statements, if 
 taken literally, would lead us to imagine that an iinpa.s.sablc 
 gulf lay between them. If, however, we read them again, 
 after the excitement of the moment has pa.s.sed away, we 
 find, from the summaries which they themselves have drawn 
 up, that such is by no means the case, and that, far from their 
 being divided in principle, it woidd not be diflicult to effect 
 an understanding between them. 
 
 (Jratiolet considers "that power which lies in the biaiu, 
 and whicli can only l)e estimated by its manifislations," fir 
 more important than weight or form. Jlut he is far from 
 absolutely refusing to recognise the influence of cerebral 
 development ; lu; allows that below a certain limit the 
 human brain no longer performs its functions in a normal 
 manner. This limit he places at 1)00 grms. (.'51 7i oz.) in 
 the f(!male, 
 
 M. Jiroca raises the number to I)07 grms. (.'{ID!) o/,.), and 
 julds that, in il;e mah-, tin' limit is lOil) grms. (.'17 o/,.). llo 
 attributes gnat imp<jrtance to the volume of the brain, esti- 
 mat<<l eitlur ilireetly, by weight, or by the capacity of tin; 
 cruniuin. JJut on Hcvcral occasions he protests most strongly 
 .'igainht the intention which might be imputed to him, of 
 winhing to estaldish an absolut*' relation between the <le- 
 velo|iinent of the intelligerico and the volume or weight of 
 the brain. " No well-instructed m.-in," he says, "would ever
 
 Functions and Weight of the Brain. 411 
 
 think of estimating the intelligence by measuring the cn- 
 cephalon." 
 
 The two following tables, borrowed from M. Broca, will 
 suffice to show the truth of these words: 
 
 AVEIIAUK WKIUHT OF THE liltAIX IX MAN. 
 
 From 1 to 10 years . 
 From 1 1 to 20 years 
 From 21 to 30 ywirn . 
 From :tl to 40 years 
 From 41 to TiO years . 
 From 51 to IJO years 
 From (jl and upwards 
 
 prms. 
 
 tlMol.") 
 14r,.V27 
 
 i;{4i-.-.3 
 iii(»:tr, 
 i:;;ti-4i 
 
 KMll'.t 
 
 i:i2(;-2i 
 
 07.. 
 
 (34-7-,). 
 (.'^l-CS). 
 (47-07). 
 (4'.»-74). 
 (4!f07). 
 (47-30). 
 (40-77). 
 
 WEIGHT OF THE r.KAIN IX SOME EJIIXEXT MEN. 
 
 
 
 
 
 WF.IQIIT OP IIRAIX. 
 
 
 NAMK. 
 
 AOK. 
 
 rROFESSIOK. 
 
 pnns. 
 l.s2i»'.M; 
 
 OT. 
 
 1. 
 
 Cuvier . 
 
 . f.3 years . 
 
 • naturalist . 
 
 (04-.-,4). 
 
 2. 
 
 I?yron 
 
 . 30 years . 
 
 . i»oet . . . 
 
 ls()7<)0 
 
 (03-73). 
 
 2?; 
 
 Lejeunc-Diri'-lil('t 
 
 . .'>4 years . 
 
 . mathomatieian . 
 
 ir,2()-00 
 
 (.-301). 
 
 34. 
 
 Fiichs 
 
 . r)2 years . 
 
 . pafholofjist 
 
 14!»'.i(K) 
 
 (.V_'-S7). 
 
 43. 
 
 (iaiiss 
 
 . 7.S years . 
 
 . mathematieian . 
 
 14;t2(H) 
 
 (.-.2-02). 
 
 52. 
 
 Du|)uytren . 
 
 . ns years . 
 
 . surpeon . . 
 
 1430-00 
 
 (5( )•«.-.). 
 
 92. 
 
 Hermann 
 
 • ni years . 
 
 . pliilolopist. 
 
 13.-.S-00 
 
 (47-I)(»). 
 
 l.">8. 
 
 Hausi>maiin 
 
 . 77 years . 
 
 . mineralogist . . 
 
 1220OO 
 
 (43-24). 
 
 The numlxrs jilacod before the name of each person indi- 
 cate the position held by the latter in the list of 31-7 cases of 
 healthy brains taken by M. Broca from the general tabic of 
 Wa^jner. We find that the celebrated minoralogist Hau.ss- 
 niann stands alino.^t half way tlown the list, and that he is 
 separated from his eminent colleagues by a considerable 
 nundier of unknown cxainplo.s. Again, we observe that the 
 weight of his brain is 100 grms. (.*J o oz.) below the average 
 weight of men of his age. On the other liand, in all the 
 other cases the weight of the brain was above the average. 
 
 The exception presented by Jlaussmann, the manner in 
 which all these eminent men arc scattered among their 
 ordinary brethren, should be sufficient to make us reject all 
 exaggerated connection of the magnitude of the intelligence 
 and that of the brain. This result is still more striking if we 
 group these same numbers as Gratiolet has done, calculating
 
 4 1 2 TJic Human Species. 
 
 the mean of the contiguous wciglits. Wo tlius obtain for 
 the first group (Cuvior, Byron) an average weight of 
 181848 grms. (04-14 oz.) ; for the second (Diriclilet, Fuchs, 
 Gauss, Dupuytren) 1487 grms. (52-44 oz.) ; for the third 
 (Hermann, Haussmann) 1292 grms. (45-57 oz.). The hitter 
 is below the average weight of German brains, that is to say, 
 of the fellow-countrymen of the two eminent men in 
 (piostion. 
 
 This remark is important. In the question under discus- 
 sion it will not do to compare separately the celebrities who 
 figure in Wagner's table ; we must connect them with the 
 rest of mankind, with diseased, as well as with other brains. 
 To act otherwise would be to give rise to the idea that we 
 had wished to evade a difficulty by neglecting to turn the 
 attention to the fact that, immediately after the brain of 
 Byron, and long before that of Gauss, stands the brain of a 
 madman. Are, then, genius and madness in sucli close re- 
 lationship ? Are the volume, the weight, and the peculiar 
 cliaracters of Cuvier's brain intleed duo to a hypertrophy 
 which came to a standstill just at the right moment, as 
 Grati<»let thought ? 
 
 ill. However abridged and curtailed this statement of 
 facts may be, it seems to me sufficient to justify us in 
 drawing conclusions ecpially applicable to intlivi«luals and to 
 races. 
 
 We shall ccrtaiidy not be accused of an exaggerated 
 inimaterialism if we estimate the action of the brain as wo 
 estimate the action of a muscle. Now experience and obser- 
 vation daily testify that in the latter volume and form are 
 not everything. Functional energy often more than com- 
 pensates for what is wanting with respect to mass. Many 
 other organic systems would furnish siniilar facts, well-known 
 t«) all d(M:t«)rs and all physiologists. To assert that the case 
 is different with the brain would be, even in the absence of 
 all direct observation, a purely gratuitotis hypothesis, and, in 
 the prcHcncc of Wagner's tables, a contradiction of evidence. 
 With his Kiiiall brain, Haussnian, the correspondent r»f the
 
 Physiological C/uwacivrs — G est alio u. 413 
 
 FriMirh Institute, has evidently surpassed, in t.lic matter of 
 intcHiirenco, almost all his larizc-hcadcd contemporaries. 
 
 liut, on the other hand, beyond a certain stage of decrease, 
 the muscular apparatus becomes incapable of eflfort. We 
 can readily understand that it should be so with the brain 
 also. It is, therefore, most natural to find that, when it has 
 fallen below a certain volume and weight, it gradually passes 
 from weakness to impotence. Even ^I. de Bonald could not 
 consider it strange, that an iufdlljcnce when provided only 
 with imperfect or almost useless organs, should only manifest 
 itself in an incomplete manner. 
 
 Thus, irrespective of all dogmatic or philosophic ideas, we 
 are led to theconclusion that there is a certain relation between 
 the development of the intelligence and the volume and weight 
 »»f the brain. But, at the same time, we must allow that the 
 material element, that which is appreciable to our senses, is 
 not the only one which we must take into account, for 
 behind it lies hidden 0)1 mthioivn qiuintity, an x, at present 
 undetermined and only recognised by its effects. 
 
 IV. Thus from this fact alone it follows that we cannot 
 act with too much caution in forming an estimate of a race 
 from the <limensions of its cranium, and the relative develo|>- 
 ment of the Ixmcs of which it is composed. Gratiolct pro- 
 posed to distinguish frontal, imrietal, and occipital races, 
 characterised l)y the predominance of the anterior, medial 
 and posterior regions of the cranium and the brain. If wo 
 accept the word character as it is tmderstood by naturali.sts, 
 wo shall have no objection to make to these denominations. 
 15ut to go beyond that, to attribute to one or other of these 
 races atiy kind of superiority by virtue of any one or other of 
 these characters, wouKl be mtrc hypothesis. In fact, the 
 Uasques, with their occipital dolichocephaly, are in no wav 
 inferior to the frontal dolichocephali of Paris. 
 
 \. In those phenomena, amongst which, d jiriori, we 
 shouKl be teujpted to look for ethnological characters, wc 
 nnist give the first place to oirjanic evolution at different 
 periods of life. Now, the examination of facts establishes
 
 414 T^^<^ Iliiniaji Species. 
 
 the important fact, that, in thi.s respect, all human races 
 present a remarlvablc uniformity. When some slij^ht dif- 
 ferences are manifested, they show such coincidence with the 
 action of the conditions of life, that it is impossible not to 
 recognise the relation of cause and effect, and this fact alone 
 produced a most significant intercrossing between peoples 
 evidently identical in origin. Thus, the whole mass of 
 physiological phenomena, considered as characters, add one 
 more proof in favour of the monogenistic theory. A few 
 examples will suffice to justify these statements. 
 
 VI. Let us first prove that the duration of gestation is the 
 same in all human races. The importance of this fact will 
 be readily understood. 
 
 It is generally known that the intra-uterine life presents 
 a notable disparity in the same zoological group, and some- 
 times in nearly related species. If men constituted a r/eniis, 
 it woidd be very strange if they were exempt from this law, 
 and that no differences should have been observed, as they 
 certainly wouhl have been, between groups. These differ- 
 ences may indeed exist to a certain extent without rising to 
 a specific character, for they arc observed in our races of 
 domestic animals, where they appear to bear some relation to 
 stature. CJestation lasts sixty-three days in large races of 
 dogs; from fifty-nine to sixty-three in the small. This is the 
 period observed in menageries for the gestation of the jackal, 
 the wild stock of the dt»g. But it rises to something over a 
 hundred days for the wolf, however nearly related it may 
 morphologically be to some canine nu?es. 
 
 The perioil of lactation is very variable as to <luration in 
 diffiTcnt human peoples. Without even going beyond Franco, 
 wc Hhould hav(r no difiiculty in giving examples of such ilif- 
 fcruncus, in which the maximum would almost double the 
 minimum. It is evident that in this case manners, customs, 
 etc., play the most important ]»art, and that the question of 
 nu:e« Hcarcely enters at all. With the Negroes, lactation 
 la.stH, as a general rule, for two years, and the period is quite 
 as long in all oiicnt.d jxipnlalioiis. It l:isl.s i'nv fi\(' \c.iis in
 
 Physiological Characlcrs — Puberty. 415 
 
 CliintO. But as M. Moraclic tells us, the Chinese mother 
 only prolongs it in onler to retard the recommencement of 
 the monthly courses, which, in this fertile race, is rapidly 
 followed by a fresh preijnancy. There is nothing surprising 
 in the jwssibility of such prolonged lactation. It is generally 
 known that the secretion of the milk is supported by its 
 use. Amongst ourselves, according to the evidence of 
 Desorraeaux, one nurse will sonictinies suckle three or four 
 infants in succession. 
 
 VII. The period of suckling is followed by that of child- 
 hood, a condition very distinct from those by which it will in 
 turn be followed. The human being is as yet neither male 
 nor female. The first manifestation of sex is one of tlie 
 most important epochs of life, and it is interesting to ob- 
 serve that the arrival of this epoch varies within very wide 
 limits. 
 
 The female, on account of the phenomena to which she is 
 then subject, and which admit the possibility of direct obser- 
 vation, is, in this case, specially adapted for the researches of 
 the anthropologist Now, taking extreme numbers, obtained 
 by ditferent observers upon several peoples of the globe, we 
 tind that the minimum age at which the female becomes 
 ])ubescent is that of eight to nine years, as observed by 
 Uldtield in the Eboes, and the maximum age, that of eighteen 
 to twenty years, noticed by Rush, among some tribes of 
 North America. Setting aside these exceptional numbers, 
 we find as general extremes, ten to eleven years on the one 
 hand, and fifteen to sixteen on the other. 
 
 The variation we see is great, and we are naturally led to 
 ask if it is at all constant in human groups. The numerous 
 statistics which have been collected upon this subject, seem 
 to justify us in giving an absolutely negative reply to the 
 ([uestion. 
 
 And, in the first place, there is no doubt that here condi- 
 tion8 of life play an important part From the researches of 
 M. Brierre de Boismont, it apjK'ars that, in the same locality, 
 the higher or lower social position, and the conse<pieut
 
 4i6 The Human Specks, 
 
 difference in mode of living, produces an average variation of 
 fourteen months. In Paris, the women of the lower classes 
 are pubescent at fourteen years and ten months, those of the 
 middle class at fourteen years and five months ; those of the 
 upper class at thirteen years and eight months. 
 
 The mode of life is sufficient to produce diflcrences of a 
 very marked character in the age at which the female 
 becomes capable of conception. At Strasbourg, as at Paris, 
 the young country girl is behind those of the town. The 
 ditference is about '6\ months for Strasbourg and 4^ for 
 Paris. In Alsace, as upon the banks of the Seine, the hard- 
 ships of field labour render the functions of the individual 
 life more active at the expense of those connected with the 
 sexual. 
 
 Again, we cannot doul)t the influence which is certainly 
 exercised by temperature. M. Raciborski, adding to his own 
 investigations those of a large number of other medical men, 
 Ijas even thought himself justified in drawing ihe conclusion 
 that the age of puberty is advanced or retarded by a little 
 more than a month for each degree of latitude, according as 
 we calculate from the CMpiator or the pole, with the condititm 
 only that the temperature increases or decreases with the 
 latitude'. 
 
 Tiie aetion of tin- three causes 1 have just mentioned are 
 most evident. Uut, as wo have already remarked, foo<l, 
 temperature, and even motle of life do not alone form comli- 
 floita of life. Many other iidluences Itesides these act upon 
 the organism. The greater or less amount of light, and of 
 actinic rays, cannot be without eftect. 
 
 All tJMsc! iidluences explain how it is that the ag(! of 
 pul)erty varies with the h.dtits in the same race; how women, 
 b«>Ionging to tJM! sanx' l>ranch of the white aryan race, may 
 pre.H<,'nt the extrctnes which I have alluded to above. From 
 among the latter tlie Swedes and Norwegians are pubescent 
 at from }^) to 1(5 years; tln! Knglish at from l.*J to 14; but 
 th«; Knglish Creoh-s of tlamnica at from 10 to 11 years. At 
 Anligoa, Negro and White wnuien, transp(jrte<l into the .same
 
 Physiological Characters — Puberty. 4 1 7 
 
 coimnou conditions of life, no longer present any diflforence 
 in this respect. We sec also bow it is that women belonging 
 to the most different populations and races, Swedes, Dacotas, 
 Corfiotas, Potowatomies, English, and Chinese, become 
 pubescent at the same age. 
 
 Dt>es then race stand for absolutely nothing in the pliy.sio- 
 logical j)henomena under consideration ? 
 
 Some facts seem to authorize us in holding a contrary 
 opinion. The Esquimaux women of Labrador arc as forward 
 iu this respect as the Negresses of our colonies. In the 
 Potowatomies (AlgoiKiuins) and the Dacotas (Sioux) there 
 seems to be an average difference of a year in the a]H)ear- 
 ance of the first phenomena of puberty. Several other 
 observations of the same nature might be quoted from 
 various travellers. There is, however, nothing to astonish 
 us iu these facts. They are only the reproduction in the 
 human species, of what we observe every day in our 
 domestic animals and cultivated jilants, all of which have 
 forward and backward races. 
 
 M. I^agneau studied this question with particular reference 
 to France. He came to the conclusion that the conditions of 
 life are not sufficient to explain the differences which were 
 proved by his investigations, and that the age of puberty, 
 depending upon the rajiidity of the development of the 
 '•rganism, varies slightly with the race. This opinion, which 
 it seems as if we might accept within the limits he himself 
 h;is prescribed, M. Lsigneau states with great reserve. 
 
 These limits are very narrow. They vary from fourteen 
 vears and five days to sixteen years, one month and twenty- 
 four days. The minimum age is presented by the female 
 population of Toulon : the maximum, by that of Strasbourg. 
 15ut between these two localities there is a difference of about 
 three degrees of latitude and five degrees in the mean tem- 
 perature. Toulon enjoys a verj* equable climate ; the 
 climate of Stni.sl)ourg is, on the contrary, €xcexi*\c<i ; at 
 Toulon the climate is sunny, while at Strasl)ourg there is 
 much cloud ; the TovXonaxac lives in the open air, and
 
 4i8 The I lit man S/yaics. 
 
 breathes the stimulating air of the sea, the S( nishoitrgeoise 
 lives in the house and breathes an air which is generally 
 damp ; the former driidis wine, the latter beer. All these 
 contlitions, stimulating on the one hand, and debilitating on 
 the other, must exercise some infltxencc. After taking all 
 these circumstances into consideration, we see that, in France 
 at lea-st, the iiitluence of race scarcely exceeds that exercis(>d 
 by difference in social position upim the population of the 
 same town. 
 
 The researches of 'SI. Lagneau also have reference to the 
 time when, both in the male and in the female, the repro- 
 ductive faculties become extinct. The evidences are here 
 neither so numerous nor so definite. Nevertheless, from the 
 little that we know on this point, the result would seem to 
 point to conclusions similar to those which we have men- 
 tioned above. 
 
 VIII. We might easily be led to think that forwardness 
 or backwardness in organic development, defined by the 
 age at which ])uberty ai)pears, should involve a proportion- 
 ately longer or shorter duration of human life. Precise 
 observations arc far from being so numerous and complete as 
 to solve this important problem with any degree of certainty. 
 The greater number of facts with which we are acquainted, 
 scarcely seem, however, to support the tlieoreticid conclusions 
 admitted by some anthrop(jl(»gists, by Virey among others. 
 Kvervthing seems to indicate, on the contrary, that the limits 
 of life are almost the same for all human races, ^""''^'"^''^ '^''^ 
 they nre placed in conditions of existence, which are relatively 
 equally f;ivf)urable. It is, in fact, evident that thes(» condi- 
 ti«»ns exercise a most marked inlluence upcjn tlur durati<tn of 
 orgnnismH. WIkmi life is in question we do not deny the 
 lut'ntn (tf (hr riniiliflons of life. 
 
 Here, again, appe.-irs the multiple nature of these con- 
 ditions. We find from the statistical researches of Houdin 
 that iti sixty-K<'ven years, from 177(> to ISlJl, the average lifo 
 of man in France wan increased by eleven years. It ha.s, 
 therefore, gained sixty days a year; it li.is aft.iined almost
 
 Physiological Characters — Duration of Life. 419 
 
 the highest limit gained in this respect by European peoples 
 (^M^.") years). The temperature has not changed, nor has 
 there been any amelioration in the climate. But the general 
 conditions of existence are modified and the result appears in 
 these very significant figures. 
 
 Tiie average life of European Whites, the only peoples con- 
 cerning whom we possess sufKciently exact data, oscillates 
 between 28*18 years (Priussia) and 30 S years [Schlemvif/- 
 Jlolateln, Lauenbouiy) ; a difference of more than eleven 
 years. 
 
 The tables of averagt.' duration t»f life, collected by Doudin 
 and borrowed from Hain ami Bernouilli, prove beyond a 
 doubt that, amongst our European peoples at least, mean 
 duration of life depends to a very slight extent, if at all, 
 ujjon the race. The German states present an average of 
 from 2818 yeai-s {Pni^nia) to 3G8 yeai-s {Hanover). 
 
 Temperature, at least when considered alone, seems to 
 exercise hardly any notable influence, Naples stantling almost 
 midway between the preceding numbers (STGo years). 
 
 These facts, obtained from among the best known peoples, 
 justify us in thinking that, olher ihings helnj equal, the 
 iiiration of life must be almost universally the same. It 
 will be understood that all strict comparison is here out of 
 the question, for want of statistical dociunents, properly .so 
 called. Still, a number of facts obtained by various traveller 
 amongst peoples of very difTerent races, and, in some cases, 
 jilacetl under opposite conditions of existence, seem to justify 
 this conclusion. 
 
 All travellers, who have been in a position to judge for 
 themselve-s, have spoken of the Lapps as generally living to a 
 great age; men of from seventy to ninety years are not rare 
 amongst them. 
 
 Upon the evidence of travellers of the highest reputation, 
 it seems that the greater number of American peojdes also 
 reach an advanced age, and often without bearing any 
 externid traces of decrepituile. Howevir rmle and often 
 precarious their mode of life may be, the representatives of
 
 420 The Ihnuaii Species. 
 
 these races are iii no way infirior to Europeans, as regards 
 duration of life. 
 
 Is it different in the case of the Negro, as Virey has 
 thought ? Evorytliing seems to prove the contrary. Even 
 when removed from his native hind, and placed under condi- 
 tions which we have seen to be very unfavourable to him, 
 the Negro lives as long as the European. This result is 
 obtained from the register of slaves consulted by Prichard 
 in the West Indies. This anthropologist has shown, by 
 examples drawn from different sources, that centenarians 
 were far from rare among the individuals of this race 
 scattered through different parts of America. From the 
 dociunents whicii he quotes, it even appears that in the 
 States of Nov/ Jersey, an official census gave a little more 
 than one Nejrro centenarian in the thousand, but only one 
 White centenarian in one hundred and fifty thousand. 
 
 Nevertheless Adanson, Winterbottom, and others, state 
 that the Negro of the Senegal and Guinea age early in life, 
 auil the latter adds that individuals of this race rarely reach 
 an advanced age. Dr. Oldfield, in the great English E.\-pe- 
 dition up the Niger, makes the same remark with reference 
 to the part of the country which skirts the river Nunn, a 
 marshy region, covered with a luxuriant vegetation 8upp<trted 
 by inundation.s. Hut higher up the river, in the country 
 discovered by Nyffe, he met, on the cuntrary, witli a large 
 nuinher of itld men who must have bein upwards of eighty, 
 and visited an old chief, who, he say.s, was 11. 1 years old. 
 
 Th«!re is nothing contradictory in tiiese facts. 'I'Ih y merely 
 show us that the Negro is subject to the law couimon to all 
 other men. It is in vain that he has conformed to conditions 
 of cxiHtcnce, which the White has so mueh difhculty in living 
 tinder; when thes(r conditions are aggravated and exceed a 
 certain limit, he suffirs, ai:d his life is shortened. Tlie native 
 of the banks <tf the Nuim is ])laccd, (XH a Ntgro, under condi- 
 tions of exi.stence siniilnr to those to which, '\u former times, 
 the Whit^H ()( ihv l)omlH' in France were subject, and in both 
 caees the result was the wuno.
 
 Physiological Characlcrs — Duration of L ifc. 4 2 1 
 
 But beyond these exceptional localities, when the condi- 
 tions are equally favourable, the duration of life seems to be 
 the same in the two typical races which are the most widely 
 8ej)aratod of all in the human species. In any case the same 
 extreme limits have been proved fur the Negro and the 
 White.
 
 CHArTER XXXII. 
 
 PATHOLOGICAL CHARACTEIIS. 
 
 I. The patli<>U>^acal, as well as the pliysiolDt^ical, cuiulitiou 
 iu the various human fjroups presents peculiarities which 
 may be considered as characters. Tliese characters are some- 
 times even more clearly defined, becaiisc morbid phenomena 
 are often very strongly marked. This question is one of 
 f^rcat interest ; but to treat it in the detail which it deserves, 
 wordd re(|uire a greater amount of both time and space than 
 can 1)0 given it here. I shall, therefore, c»)ntino myself to 
 recalling a few general facts already known, and to quoting 
 a few examples which will serve to fix the nature ami 
 meaning of pathological facts regarded from an anthropo- 
 logical point of view. 
 
 II. Wc have, as yet, in treating of the conditions of life, 
 scarcely considered more than their mudlj'yhi(j action, while 
 it is universally known th.it they also exert a tUnturhlng 
 action. Actions of this kind are in most cases the funda- 
 mental cause of iliseast'. 
 
 \\'<- are here, therefore, again led to considerations similar 
 to those with which we have so often been brought in 
 contact. We will therefore recall in a few words the general 
 rcBultH of the preceding investigations. 
 
 1. T\\c fuiti/ahiciitnl nature of all men is the same. 
 
 2. 'i'lie formation of di.stinct races has been the sole caiiso 
 of modifications In this fund.-iMKiit.-d nature of all huntaii 
 gn-oups. 
 
 JJ. Tiie several characters and special nptitutles which 
 constitute a kind of acquired nature, have, in each of the
 
 Pathological Characlcrs — Iipidcmics. 423 
 
 t^roups, been developed under the iulluencc of the cuaditions 
 of life. 
 
 It is clear that uheu tiie di.stuibin!,' action, the cause of 
 disease, works upon the fundamcntnl element, the same 
 causes will proihxce fundamcntallu siTnilar effects ; when, on 
 the contrary, this action is exercised upon the acquived and 
 Hiwc'ial element of each race, the same causes will produce 
 different effects. In other words, nn'dy of species and 
 onuUiplicifi/ of racf's involve the liability of all men to 
 common diseases, which will, at most, vary as to accessory 
 phenomena ; but also alloNv the existence of diseases more 
 or less peculiar to certain human ^oups. 
 
 Nevertheless, the great majority of diseases will be common 
 to all men, and merely present modifications in the different 
 groups. For example, one race may be either more liable to 
 or more unsusceptible to certain atlections than another. 
 
 Let me observe in passing, and without insisting upon 
 facts known to all agriculturists and to all breeders, that 
 similar phenomena are presented by the races of vegetable 
 species which have long been under cultivation, and of 
 animal species for centuries subject to domestication. 
 
 The propositions which I liave just brought forward are 
 tlu' natural result of the facts to which I have alrea«lv drawn 
 attt-ntion, and of the principK'S admitted at the conmience- 
 luent of this book. They are in remarkable accordance with 
 the results of experiment and observation. 
 
 III. It becomes more and more t-vidcnt, from inv(\stiga- 
 tions whit;li are daily incrca.sing in number, that all human 
 races are subject to almost every disease. 
 
 The Negro and the ^Vhite have often been contnusteil 
 from a pathological |X)int of view, and it lia.s been stateil 
 that localities in which the latter succumb, are not unhealthy 
 to the former. It is said that marsh fever.*?, dysentery, and 
 abscess ujion the liver, so feared by Europeans, do not attack 
 the inhabitants of the coa.sts of Guinea, and the banks of the 
 Senegal and the Gaboon. These arc exaggerated statements 
 which were reduced to their true value by the observations 
 19
 
 424 The Human Species. 
 
 of Wintcrbottom, Oldfield, and others. More recent works 
 confirm those earlier observations in every respect : " The 
 Negro race," sjiys M. Bcrchon, " sufters from dysentery and 
 abscess on the liver like the white race. . . . The deadly 
 fevers, which, with the two diseases just mentioned, form the 
 pathognomonical trilogy of Senegalese pathology, will first 
 attack Europeans; but the Blacks are by no means exempt 
 from them." 
 
 The last remark is confirmed in a very rcmarkablo manner 
 by the numbers given in the accompanying table, which I 
 borrow from M. Boudin. lie gives a summary of the English 
 official documents n|x>n the annual mortality in the thousand 
 at Sierra Leone from LSiO to I80G. 
 
 DisKAei:s. \,iiiTi:(i. NEonoua. 
 
 Marsh fevers 410-2 2-4 
 
 Kniptivc fevers 00 6'9 
 
 lUscases of the liiiij,'s 4-U G'3 
 
 DiHca.sc8 of the liver i'A) \\ 
 
 (instn)-inte«fin:il iliscaj*efi . . . . . Il'.'l ^>•'^ 
 
 l)i.si-;i.scH of the nervous system . . . . -l^ ]•«» 
 
 Drrij.sy I.J 0:i 
 
 Otlicr diseases IJO (;-2 
 
 Sierra Leone is one of the most unhealthy stations for the 
 AVhite race, while for the Negro it is, on the contrary, one of 
 the places wlu-re the rate of mortality is lowest. 'I'he relation 
 which .shows this difference is indeed most alarming (4.S8() 
 to 301). Yet tliu nosological table is the .same for the two 
 races, ior although in this statement there arc no eruj)tive 
 fevers given for the English .soKliers, we kuiiw very well that 
 the White races are by Jio means exempt from tluMii. 
 
 Other tables drawn uj) by M. JJoudin, with tin; a.ssistance 
 of tlie Haine tlocuments, bring into still stronger relief the 
 fundamental fact now under, consideration. In one of them 
 wt! learn the comparative mortality of the Negro and the 
 JJhuk from marsh fevers in seventeen localities, taken from 
 nearly all parts of the globe, from CJibraltar to (Juiana, and 
 from Jamaica to Ceylon. The nundter of deaths is always 
 conhiderably greater for the Europeans, but th(y almost
 
 Pathological Characters — Epidemics. 425 
 
 ;il\vays rise or fall siiimltaneously, and in tlio satnc place, 
 for the two races, when Imtli arc immigrants. 
 
 It is almost unnecessary to re})eat the remark that all 
 the ffreat ejiiilemics arc common to all races, and that the 
 yellow fever attacks indifferently the White, Yellow, or the 
 J Mack race. The yellow fever is so far from beinj^ special in 
 character, and is so subordinate to the action of the condi- 
 tions of life, that Mexicans from colder regions are a.? liable 
 to it as even Europeans ; and in the islands of the Gulf of 
 Mexico the Creole Whites easily withstand those influences 
 which are so fatal to immigrants. 
 
 IV. Eruptive maladies, and particularly small-pox, seem 
 to have been unknown in America till tiiey were brought by 
 Europeans to that continent. On the other hand, the latter 
 gave them some of the most serious forms of syphilis, which 
 characterised the terrible epidemic of the fifteenth century. 
 In this fatal exchange, the character of the two diseases was 
 remarkably aggiavated in pa.ssing from one race to the other, 
 so that populations attacked by them for the first time would 
 suffer much more than those who had cominunieated the 
 disea.se. In America, whole populations have di.sapj)earcil 
 from eruptive fevei-s, sometimes with terrible rapitlity. The 
 celebrated tribe of the Mandans, when l)lockaded by the 
 Sioux, and unable to escape this scourge, was entirely anni- 
 hilated in a few days, with the exception of a few absent 
 individuals. Catlin. to whom we are indebted for the.se 
 details, and who obtained them from Whites protected by 
 vaccination, adils that tho.se who were attacked by small 
 ]»ox, succumbed in two or thred hours. On the other hand, 
 we know what were the consefpiences in Europe of that 
 infection, which, even at the present day, too often poi.sons 
 the very sources of life. 
 
 Thus, a human race may be unac(|uainted with one, or 
 M»veral diseases, or with certain morbid forms, though at the 
 >ame time but too apt to contract them. Once attacked, it 
 may even develop this di.sea.se, which is new to it, in a moro 
 violent form than any hitherto known.
 
 426 The I III man Species. 
 
 V. Tlierc arc diseases wliicli, thougli ('(iininon to all human 
 races, attack some in prefei'ence to others. The latter then 
 enjoy, compared svitii the former, a relative immunity. This 
 would necessarily result from what we have already scon. 
 Let us add that tiicse differences in the action of the same 
 ]iatho<renistic cause, are evident in cases of epidemics. "When 
 (luadaloupe was attacked by cholera in 18()5 and ISGO, the 
 rate of mortality was 270 per cent, for Chinese, 386 for 
 Hindoos, 4-31 for Whites, 032 for Mulattoes, and 9-44 for 
 Negroes. These figines are the more interesting from the 
 fact that all these races were immigrants. 
 
 It seems sometimes, as if two causes of death maintained 
 a kind of e([uilibriuni and reciprocity between two races. I 
 have already, when speaking of acclimatisation, pointed out 
 the contrast which is presented by the Negro and the White 
 from this point of view. Of all hinnau races the White is 
 mo.st sensitive to marsh fevers, and the Black least so. On 
 the otlicr hand, the Negro race suffers more than any other 
 fr<jm plithi^^is, while the White race may, in this respect, bo 
 almost cla-ssed with other gr(»ups, with the Malays for e.xample. 
 
 Ihit, again, there are immunities more com[)lete than that 
 of the Negro, from marsh affections; and, further, these 
 immunities may be lost, either in the case of an entire group 
 of population, or in that 6f i.solated individuals. I will hero 
 borrow two striking ex'amples from M. Boudin's work. 
 
 KIcphantiasis, that affection by which certain jtarts of tlic 
 b(»dy are sometimes deformed in so strange a manner, is 
 found in the Indies and at Barbadoe.-^. In the latter island, 
 Negroes alone were attackid by this hideous disease till the 
 year l/Ot. One White was, in that year, atVected by it for 
 the firMt time. But tiic disca.sc made way, and in 17G0 it 
 had extended to the c>ro/c ])oitulatinn. W\\'\ics i>f J'JllVojican 
 (>i'l</ia have, a.s yet, escaped. 
 
 The clephantiasiH of India is found in r'eyl<'n. 'I'lure, 
 again, it only ntta<ks natives, cre«»les and indivi<luals of 
 Tiiixcfl blood, llimloos and Kuropeans, strangers in the 
 i.slund, arc exempt fioni it. Seott, ([uoted by M. Bondin,
 
 PatJiological Characters — Relative Ivimitnity. 427 
 
 states tliat onhj one cane of this iliscaso liad been observed 
 in a European White. But this individual hud inhabited 
 the island for thirty years ; acclimatisation hail been carried 
 so far in his case as to causi^ him to luse his cthnohxj'iad 
 immunity. 
 
 On the other hand, we have seen, in speaking of acclimati- 
 sation, that Creoles easily live and prosper in certain localities 
 which are most dangerous to immigrants. They have, 
 therefore, acquired, at the price of sacrifices made by pre- 
 ceding generations, a relative immunity which is not enjoyed 
 by tlic majority of Europeans. 
 
 lu the acquisition of one of these immunities, a race may 
 lose another. In connection with the cholera which I have 
 just mentioned, Creole Wliites and Negroes were attacked 
 to an appreciably greater extent than Whites and Negroes 
 who had recently immigiated, and were consequently not 
 yet acclimatised. Thus, the conditions of life in (Juadaloupe, 
 and those of other Mexican islands, .seem to exercise a 
 double action. On the one hand, it diminishes in a con- 
 siderable degree the aptitude to contract yellow fever; on 
 the other, it renders the human organism a]>preciably more 
 accessible to the influence of cholera. 
 
 VI. Such significant facts as these require no comment 
 It is clear that we have here those rclatlre inimunitif^ 
 which several polygenists wished to consider as specific 
 chnractcrs. Without possessing anything approaching the 
 imp(»rtance which, from this p;nnt of view, is posse.s.st'd by 
 phy.siological phenomena, they equally render evident the 
 fundamentally identical nature of all human group.s. Owing 
 their special element essentially to ((cquircd imtiire, they 
 demonstrate the diflerence of races rather more clearly than 
 physiological phenomena. Both, however, are equally /« ?tc- 
 fional ; and the functions acting necessarily inuler the imme- 
 diate influence of the conditions of life, demonstrate almost 
 in the same degree the preponderating influence of the latter. 
 
 VII. We cjinnot touch upon (piestioiis of ethnological 
 pathology without saying a few words upon the strange and
 
 428 TJic Iluiimn Species. 
 
 fatal influonco which tlie White race seems to exercise upon 
 certain inferior races whose tenitories it has invaded. 
 
 Nowliere is tliis niehinclioly phenomena more striking 
 than in Polynesia. Figures liere speak with touching 
 eloquence. 
 
 In the Sandwiclj Islands Cook calculated the population 
 at 30(),00(). In INOI there were but (iT.ONl-, aheut 'It \iGX 
 cent of the original population. 
 
 In New Zealand Cook found -lOO.OOO Ma..rics. In 1S.)8 
 there were only 50,0 1!) remaining, 14 per cent, of the former 
 population. Depopulation has continued from that time. 
 From 18-").5 to 1S()4 the loss wa.s 22 per cent, for the province 
 of llotorua, the Lakes and ^laketou ; it was li> per cent, in 
 tv:o years, from 1859 to 18G1, in the Chatham Islands. 
 
 In the Marcpiesas Islands, in 1S13, Porter calculated tiiere 
 wefe 1!I,0()() warriors, giving a population of from 70,000 to 
 80,000. In 1858 M. Jouan found 2,500 or .*M>00 warriors 
 and ahout 11,000 inhabitants, a decrea.se of 80 per cent 
 
 From a comparison of the estimates of Cook and Forster, 
 it :ii»p«'ars that the population of Tahiti mu.st have been at 
 least 2-l-0,000. In 1857 the oflieial census only gave 7,212, 
 that is to .say, a little more than 3 per cent of the original 
 population. 
 
 These facts woull be eipialiy strange, were they purely 
 local, lint they arc universal, appearing even in the nu)st 
 isolated i.slan<ls, in the I3a.ss islands, which form the extreme 
 limit of Polynesia on the .south-eiust At the beginning of 
 the century Davie.s counted 2,000 inhabitants; in 1874, 
 Mojrcnhout oidy found .'{00, 15 per cent of the former 
 poptdation. 
 
 Tln5 preceding calculations have all been tiken from 
 ea-stcrn INtlynesia, which, as we know, was the first to attract 
 KuropeauH. A few years ago, liowever, the western archi- 
 pelag<K;8 were in their turn invaded, and the population is 
 aln-ndy Hcnsibly derrcsusing in the islands of Tonga, Vavau, 
 Tongatibou.eU;. The case seems to be the same in th*- Fijis. 
 
 Not only docs tlio rate of mortality increase in this un-
 
 Decline of the Polynesian Races. 429 
 
 fortuiKitc l\ilyiiosiaii r.ict' ; tlu'ie is also a decrease in tlie 
 luinilur of birtlis. The fact has long Inen noticed in a 
 general luainur. 'riit,' following figurt-s give it a strange pre- 
 cisioiL In the Mar(|uesas Archiiti-'lago, at Taio-Hae, M. 
 Jouan saw the popnlation fall in three years from 400 to 
 2oO, during whieh time oidy three or four births were 
 registered. In tin- Sandwich Islands, from among SO wom«'n 
 legitimately married, M. Delapelin fountl that only 39 had 
 chihlrcn. There were only 19 children in the twenty prin- 
 cipal families of chiefs. Finally, in l.SH>, the oOieial statistics 
 • |Uoted by M. lie my, give 4,'):i0 deaths, and only \,\-l'l births. 
 The case is the .same at the other extremity of Polynesia. 
 In New Zealand, .says M. Colenso, marriages are rarely fertile. 
 The seven principal chiefs of Ahuriri are without children, 
 w itli the exception of Te-Hapuku ; but of the four married 
 sons of the latter, three are as yet without a family. Nine 
 out of eleven marriages were here barren. 
 
 Many causes have been proposed in order to explain these 
 melancholy phenomena. Wars, famines, and epidemics have 
 been suggestc«l in turn, but these scourges are only local in 
 their ctfects. Some have mentioned syphilis, but they forget 
 that the mother of CEdid«'e had died of this disease before 
 even Wallis undtrtook his voyage. The blame lias been 
 laid on drunkenmss introduced, it is said, by Europeans ; 
 but before the importation of our spirits the Polynesians 
 were (juite able to inebriate them.selves with their hiva, 
 more terrible even than our brandy. As to ilebauchery, we 
 know to what an extent it was carried by the natives, who 
 had, in that respect, nothing to learn from P]uropoans. 
 
 Can it be that a higher civilizatii»n bears within itself some- 
 thing which is incompatible with the existence of inferior 
 laees? Do the dominion exercised by the stranger, ihe 
 invasion of the land, and the violence done t<.) religion and 
 customs in.spire these men, once so free and proud, with such 
 despair that they refuse to have any posterity ? We may 
 allow some consiileration to these moral causes in the phe- 
 nomena which occur in Tahiti, the Sandwich Islands and
 
 430 The Human Species. 
 
 New Zoalaiul. But how can we apply tliis explanation to 
 those archipelagoes ■where the local race has remained 
 dominant, and where, with its ancient mode of life, it has 
 preserved all the traditions of its ancestors ? Now this was 
 tiic case in the Manjuesas during the time that M. Jouan 
 and P, Mathias were there ; European inhabitants are still 
 rarjj in the Samoan and Tongan Islands. 
 
 Two naval surgeons, MM. Bourgarel and Brulfert, have 
 alone been able to throw some light upon this melancholy 
 j)rublem. The former found that tubercles were invarlahhj 
 present in the lungs of bodies submitted to post-mortem 
 examination. The latter tells us that almost all Polynesians 
 suffer from an obstinate cough, and that in eight cases out 
 of ten tuberculosis follows these bronchial catarrhs. Now 
 phthisis does not appear in the list of diseases drawn up by 
 the old voyagers. Have we, then, imjtorted it into these 
 islands ? Developing in a new region, in a race to whom it 
 was formerly unknown, luis this di.sease assumed a more 
 terrible form, uith examples of which we are acquainted ? 
 Already hereditary in our own ca.se, has it become endemic 
 or cpiilemic in Polynesia ? If it is so, we may .say that it is 
 all over with the Polynesian race. In another half century, 
 or at most a century, it will have disappeared, at leiust as a 
 pure race ; it will have been re])laced by a cro.s.s, which in 
 the Marquesas Islands has already begun to increase the 
 population.
 
 BOOK X. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL CnARACTEUS OF TIIH 11 UMAX 
 SPECIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX HI. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL ClIAUACTKUS. 
 
 I. I\ this ]>u()k I propose to give umlcr a c-oimnnii title a 
 concise exaininatiun ot" the characters iluc to InttUojcnre, 
 luomllty and rdijlon. I shall thus, perhaps, be reproached 
 with having connected too closely phenomena which, else- 
 where, I have attributed to different causes, and consequently 
 with having, apparently at least, contradicted myself. 13ut, on 
 the one hand, after what I have said upon this subject in the 
 first chapter, there can be no dttubt a.s to the manner in 
 which I regard this ([uestion ; and, on the other hand, intel- 
 lectual phenomena acquire such a development in man, that 
 sometimes they almost rise to the dignity of attributes, and 
 therefore deserve to be placed by the side of phenomena 
 which are entirely human. 
 
 II. In the preceding chapters we have reviewed physical 
 man. Rut man is not merely a certain portion of organised 
 and living matter like a plant Besides this there is in man 
 a soiiu'Oi'dhj which fcch, jiuhjcn, reaxonfi, and wUU. This 
 something, the origin and nature of which it is not the duty 
 of the naturalist to discover, is manifested by actions and 
 hy facts. These facts difter in different human races. They 
 may, they ought to be, looked upon as chanictera, equally with
 
 ( 
 
 432 TJic Human Species. 
 
 the actions of our animal.races, such as the pointer, the grey- 
 IujvihI, the terrier or the coUie. 
 
 We .shall see that, although approaching ground generally 
 regarded as belonging by right to philosophy, anthropology 
 does not on that account show any loss respect for the domain 
 i)f the latter. The philosopher is concerned with the distinc- 
 tion to be established between mind and matter, and with 
 the discovery of the mysterious link which unites the physical 
 with the intellectual being; the anthropologist with the in- 
 vestigation of the several manifestations resulting from this 
 connection, and with the recognition of the distinctive charac- 
 teristic marks of the groups which he is studying. The 
 former goes back to causes ; the latter confines himself to 
 effects, and therefore does not exceed the limits of natural 
 science. 
 
 For this very reason, in treating of man, we meet with a 
 difficulty at starting, which has been already pointed out. 
 \Vh( n entering upon the examination of psychological facts, 
 science has scarcely more than details to stu«ly, as in the 
 examination of i)hysiological characters. Here, as elsewhere, 
 the coii<lilioii8 of life i)lay a considerable part. If they 
 exercise an influence upon the manifestations of organic life, 
 they influence to an almost equal extent those actions which 
 interpret the acting and reacting element in us. And not 
 oidy does our intelligence conform to jiresent conditions, but 
 indefinitely, multiplies their influence by accumulating and 
 combining all anterior facts by means of memory, and im- 
 pr).ses ujton itself new conditions fiom which new phenomena 
 inces.santly result. 
 
 The study of intellectual chanicteis must, then-fore, for 
 the most part be carried out by the detailed examination <»f 
 raceH. Nevertheless, we may notice in passing the most 
 general features of some races, if only in order to explain 
 more fidly the tnidi of the .statements which have just been 
 
 Mi.ide. 
 
 III. Lmiguaf/e. " Anintals have voice, man alont- ha.H 
 Kpecch." This truth, proclaimed by Aristotle, is universally
 
 Intellectual Characters — Language. 433 
 
 accepted at the present day. Kvery, one acknowletlgcs that 
 speech is one of the higliest attributes of the human species. 
 Lavfjuafjf^, that is to say, the various forms assumed by 
 speech amours the <litVtrcnt human races and their sub- 
 divisions, liavo, on tliis accojint, a sejiarato it)ip(»rtancc as 
 (lit^errntial characteristic facts. 
 
 Without being a bnguist, the anthropologist can \\v\\ avail 
 himself of the results obtained by philology, and compare 
 tiiem with those obtained by the study of physical cha- 
 racters. When by two such ditU'erent methods we arrive at 
 the same conclusions, we are evidently very probably in the 
 right. 
 
 While giving the detailed history uC the ditVerent races 
 in my course of lectures at the Paris Mtise»mi, I was often 
 ohiiged to extend considerably the comparison whiCh I have 
 just mentioned. I have almost invariably found the most 
 striking resemblance between descriptive philology and 
 anthropology. When, as an exception to this rule, we find 
 a want of resemblance, or, better still, a contrast, sucli as 
 tliat which exists lictwei-n the physical characters and the 
 hmguagc t»f the Bascpies, when compared with the neigh- 
 bouring population, the problem always, as in their ca.se, 
 presents special difticulties, from whattver point of view it is 
 aj>proaehed. 
 
 It it more es|K'cially amongst the mixed races that the 
 .reneral agreement which I have mentioned is exhibited. 
 Lan<'ua<:e often betravs at once the mixture of races, their 
 succession, and the nature of the influence exercised by the 
 ditVerent elements which have assisted in their formation. 
 I will here give a striking example. 
 
 All polygenists have regarde<l the Malays as one of their 
 human ftpecicH ; many monogenists have considered them as 
 one of the principal races. I showed long ago that, in 
 reality, they are only a mixed race in which white, black 
 and yellow elements are a.vsociate<l, and that they arc closely 
 allied to the Polynesians. These facts become more striking 
 every day as we know more of these two families which have
 
 434 The JIuDiaiL Species. 
 
 sprung from a comtnoq stock. And fuiLlur, as wo stiuly 
 more thoroughly the liistory of these countries, we find that 
 the rehitions betwcL-n tlic insuhir ami the continental regions 
 must have been much closer than it was long thought could 
 ever have been the case. Such are the results arrived at by 
 anthropology. 
 
 On the other hand, philologists liave only been able to 
 form one linguistic family from all the Malayan and 
 INjIynesian languages, when considered from a ijraiumatical 
 ]joint of view. As to vocahular>/, the following are the 
 results given by Ritter. 
 
 The Malay language comprises in every 100 words — 
 
 ')() Polynesian words, all answering to a very inferior social 
 condition, only designating arts and objects for which all 
 languages liave names (heaven, earth, moon, mountain, liand, 
 eye, etc.). 
 
 27 Mahayan words, giving evidence of a more advanced 
 civilization, and of the existence of arts already in a state of 
 perfection (kriss). 
 
 IG San.scrit words expres.sing religious ideas and abstract 
 terms (time, cause, wischjm, etc.). 
 
 5 Arabian words relating to mythology, poetry, etc. 
 
 2 Javanese, ])ravi(lian, Persian, Portuguese, Dutch or 
 Englisli words, all relating t(^ commerce. 
 
 We see, therefore, that tiie language of the Malays explains, 
 Ko to speak, under another form, the same facts as their 
 physical characters, 
 
 IV. Although a naturalist, ami tliticlore hal)ilually dis- 
 posed to attribute to the characters drawn from physical 
 man a preponderating importance, 1 cannot allow that this 
 KU[)eriority is absolutely constant. There are some facts 
 wiiich speak too strongly. Had it not been for their special 
 language no imv. would have hesitated to consider the 
 lia.urpics OS belonging to the same family as other Southern 
 lOuropeans, Had their special doliehocophaly been dis-" 
 covered, a.s it h;is been by M. Pn^ca, no one would have 
 thought of making them aUophjlian tvhitca. It is the same
 
 Intellectual Characters — Language. 435 
 
 with the peoples of the Caucasus, wlio were long considered, 
 entirely on account of their physical characters, as the pure 
 stock of White European populations. We must, therefore, 
 ackuowleiL'e that in sonic cases Ian<'uajre has a characteristic 
 importance superior to that of external features and anato- 
 mical facts, or, at least, that it furnishes indications mure 
 readily understood. 
 
 This alternation of value between certain characters will 
 cause no surprise to naturalists who are familiar with the 
 results of modein zoology. They know that it is the same 
 with animal species. In the vcrtebrata the respiratory 
 organs furnish characters of the first order, which are 
 ihnnimint : in annelids, and in secondary types in which 
 this function is less rigorously localized, families, perfectly 
 similar in other respects, have the branchia very highly deve- 
 loped or altogether wanting. In their case the characters 
 drawn from the respiratory organs are evidently secondary 
 and subordinate. If this is the case between dl[lerent 
 species and different groups, we must not be surprised if, 
 with still greater reason, it should bo the same between 
 different races. 
 
 V. In anthropological applications of the science of lan- 
 guage, every one will allow that far more importance must 
 be attributed to grammar than to vocabulary; it is clear that 
 it cannot be otherwise. But have we not in certain cases, 
 despised too much the information which may be derived 
 from the latter ? The results to which Young has arrived from 
 the calculation of probabilities may, it seems to me, be very 
 aptly <pioted here. The object of the illustrious author wjus 
 to discover, how many similar words in two ditVerent lan- 
 guages were ncces.sauj' to authorize us in considering these 
 wonls as having belonged to the same language. Frotn 
 these calculations it appears that the common possession of 
 one word lias no meaning. But the probability of unity of 
 origin is already three to one when there are two words 
 common to both ami more than ten to one when there are 
 three. When the number of words common to both is six,
 
 436 The Human Species. 
 
 the probability is more tlian 1,7<)(), and almost 100,IMH) when 
 there are eight. 
 
 It is, therefore, ahnost certain that (^ight words common to 
 two different languages have originally belonged to the same 
 langu.ige, and when isolated in the midst of a language to 
 which they do not belong must be regarded as haported. 
 These conclusions of the learned Englishman are of extreme 
 importance. They tend to make anthropologists regard the 
 relations between various peoples in a different manner from 
 that to which many anthropjologists have been accustomed, 
 and force us to admit the existence of conununications which 
 we should otherwise be inclined to doubt. 
 
 VI. Whilst fully recognising the undoubteil importance of 
 linguistic characters, we must not trust to them entirely as 
 guitles in the estimation of ethnological relations. A lan- 
 guage may become extinct and be replaced upon the same 
 spot. The mere linguist would then assume the annihilation 
 of a race (»r pcjpulation which was in reality lluurishing. 
 This was tiie ca.se with the Canary Islanders. The descen- 
 dants of the (Juanclu's having all adopted the Spanish 
 language, it was thought that liny no longer existed, till 
 iM. Berthelot showed that in reality they iormed the basis 
 of the population of the whole archipelago. 
 
 \'ll. Moiiogeiiisni and i)ol\<:enisin have fou'dit, and are 
 still fighting upon linguistic as well as upon organogra])hical 
 ground.s. 'J'hus it has very often happi'ued that tlu; .scientific 
 (piestion has been obscined by considerations enlin-ly foreign 
 to science; ami with the less rca-son as the opposed doctrines 
 have really less connection with this subject than has 
 generally bien sujiposed, 
 
 ¥u)U\ a linguistic point of view the problem may be stated 
 in ti)e following terms: — Was there in times past, a single 
 priujitive language, from which all languages, living or dea<l, 
 have Hprung ? Or rather, have languages existed, and d(» 
 languages still exist, which cannot be traced to a roiiuuon 
 origin ? 
 
 We shall at once understand lie- n ply of the polygenistic
 
 Intellect iia I C/ia meters — L a ho nage. 437 
 
 ]>Iiilol()«ri.st. Arguing from tlic ditferenccs by which certain 
 families of hmguages are separated, they declare them to be 
 irreduclhh', and with (-rawfurd, M. Hovolaccjue, and otliors, 
 state their belief " in the original phirality of the races which 
 h;»ve been formed with them." On the other hand, this 
 irreducibility is denied by Max Miillcr, who, without as yet 
 aHirniing the existence of a primitive language, allows us to 
 see that, in his opinion, all ])hiIolt)gical researches are tending 
 to the demonstration of this fact 
 
 Being a complete stranger to studies of this nature, I 
 cannot express an opinion upon special questions. I shall 
 confine myself to the statement of some general facts, and to 
 pointing out the sense in which they seem to me to claim 
 most attention. 
 
 This irreducibility, upon which the polygenistic philologists 
 rely, recalls the argument, which is based upon physical cha- 
 racters, and consists in contrasting the Negro with the White. 
 This argument long possessed a certain appearance of strength, 
 which it has lost as more numerous intervening links were 
 iiiscovered between these two extremes. It seems to me 
 that the general progress of philology is tending to the same 
 result. All linguists now place side by side languages whieh 
 would have been considered irreducible at the begimiing of 
 the century. 
 
 A certain nund>er of languages may remain i.solated with- 
 out this fact affording any evidence against the spirific imity 
 of man. In all philologieal .schools it is acknowh-dged that 
 languages are variable and perishable. Now we do not know 
 all the dead languages, and if some of the links in the chain 
 are wanting it will at once be evident that relations which 
 formerly existed have been lost to us for ever. 
 
 Let anyone, moreover, refer to the observations of Lublxx'k 
 u[Min roots, antl he \vill at once admit that a certain number 
 auKtng them can .scarcely be common to all languages. 
 Those who hold that language is not of divine origin, but a 
 human invention and creiUion, cannot helj) adopting the 
 conclusions of the learned Englishman oji this point. Now.
 
 438 The Ilmnan Species. 
 
 however few llicsc radical ditfercnccs may be, they necessarily 
 involve irreducibility, which cannot, however, on that account 
 bo invoked as an argument against monogenism. 
 
 In support of this conclusion, I am fortunate enough to be 
 able to appeal to the testimony of a judge, both competent 
 and trustworthy. Whitney, in his work upt)n " The Life of 
 Language," lias examined the same question. With Craw- 
 furd and M. Hovelacipie, the American linguist admits that 
 there are linguistic families which cannot be referred to a 
 common origin. He does not, however, stop at the bare 
 fact ; he demonstrates and dij;cusses the causes of it. He 
 then gives, in the following term.s, the general conclusion of 
 this discussion : " The incompetency of the science of philo- 
 logy to decide upon the unity or diversity of human races 
 appears to be completely and irrevocably demonstrated." 
 
 However this may be, the results thus acquired bring to 
 light a fact, the importance of which ought not, it seems to 
 me, to be overlooked. Taking as guide the work of a man 
 who.se competency is above dispute, arranging the tables of 
 the lingui.stic families admitted by M. Maury, and repre- 
 Hcnling by lines the rehitions pointed out by this learned 
 writer, we see that there exists between one language and 
 another an inUrcivsniiif/ of chardcd'rs extremely analogous 
 to that which I have .so often jiointed out in human groups. 
 No one has supported the hypothesis of the multiple origins 
 of langu.'iges mon; resolutely than Agassiz. Ju the nuinoir, 
 which 1 attacked from a geographical point c»f view, ho 
 expressed him.self very clearly upon this point. Siuci' then 
 he has developed the satne idea.s. I have already sn'id that, 
 in his ojiinion, nuuikiud was created by luitums, that each 
 received, with its ])hysical features, its particular language, 
 developed in every direction, and just as characteristic as the 
 voice of an anini.'d species. I feel it necessary to insist upon 
 thi.s fH>int Ihtc, and to (|iiol"- the text itself: "Let anyone 
 follow upon a map," says Agassiz, "the geographical di.s- 
 Iribution of the bear, the felida-, the ruminants, the gal- 
 linacco!, or of any other family: we can prove, willi just as
 
 Intellectual Chai-actcrs — Language. 439 
 
 much evidence as any philological research can fur Innnan 
 languages, that the growling of the bear of Kamschatka is 
 allied to that of the bear of Thibet, of the East Indies, of the 
 Sonda Islands, of Nepaul, Syria, Euroix>, Sil)eria, the Unikd 
 States, the Rocky Mountains, and the Andes. Yet all these 
 bears are consideretl to be distinct species, having in no way 
 inherited voice from each other. Nor have the dilferc-nt 
 liuman races done so. All this is equally true of the crowing 
 of the gallinacea', of the quacking of duck.s, as well as of the 
 song of thrushes, who all pour forth their gay and harmonions 
 notes, each in their own dialect, which is neither inherited nor 
 derived from another, although all sing in thnifih language. 
 Let philologists study these facts, and if they are not abso- 
 lutely blind to the signification of analogies in nature, they 
 w ill themselves come to doubt the po.ssibility of placing any 
 confidence in philological arguments emjjloycd to prove 
 genetic derivation." 
 
 Agassiz is logical, and he exhausts the consecpiences of his 
 theory. But he forgets one important fact which may be 
 opposed to all those who, either fully or jiartially, embrace 
 this order of ideas. 
 
 No animal species has ever changed its voice for that of a 
 species nearly allied to it. An a.ss's colt, reared by a mare 
 and isolated in the midst of horses, never forgets its bray or 
 learns to neigh. While, on the contrary, it is well known, 
 that a White, if placed in earliest infancy in the midst of 
 Chinese or Australians, will only .speak their lan^nia^e. The 
 converse is equally true. 
 
 The rea.son of this is that the aitlmal voice is a funda- 
 mental character, adhering evidently to the nature of the 
 being, susceptible of slight modification, but incapable of di.s- 
 appearing, or of tran.sference as a whole ; it is a s^vrZ/tc 
 cliaractcr. 
 
 Human language is entirely different. It is c.s.sentially 
 variable, and subject to modification from one generation to 
 another; it is subject to transformation; it borrows and 
 loses ; it may be replaced by another ; it is evidently sub-
 
 440 TJie Huvian Species. 
 
 ordinate to the intelligence ami to the conditions of life. 
 We can only, therefore, ve,t,'ard it as a secondary character ; 
 a chavacfo' of race. 
 
 From the linguistic point of view, the specific attribute of 
 man is not the special lavgiuKje which he employs, it is the 
 faculty of articulation, speech, -which has given him the 
 power of creating a primitive language, and to vary it in- 
 finitely by means of his intelligence and will, mure or less 
 influenced by innumerable circumstances. 
 
 Here, again, I am fortunate enough to be able to support 
 opinions, which I have long maintained, by the conclusions 
 of Whitney upon this point. " Now," says this learned 
 linguist, "to pretend, in order to explain the variety of 
 languages, that tlie power of expression has been virtually 
 dillerent in diflerent races, that one language has contained, 
 from its origin and in its primitive materials, a formative 
 principle which is not in others ; tliat the elements employed 
 for a fbrtnal usage were formal by nature, and so on, — all 
 this is pure mythology." 
 
 VIII. General rchttioHs hi'tvmi lain/utir/rn (uid huinan 
 racea. It is generally admitted that human langiiages may 
 be traced to three fundamental groups; the fust, monosyllabic, 
 or isolating languages ; the second, agglutinative, or suffix 
 lanLTuaf^es ; the third, inMectionul languages. Thus, there 
 are three linguistic types, as there are also three physical 
 types. It will not be withotit interest to discover what 
 relations are displayed by the- characters drawn fnun these 
 two orders of considerations, 
 
 'i'he monosvllabic languages represent IIm; most rudi- 
 mentary eondilion of human language, which, mortMtver, has 
 oidy arrived at inflection alter passing thidugh the period (»f 
 agglutination. Considered from this j)oint of view, languages 
 have arrived at perfection by tlegrees, and it is only natural 
 U) inquire if the general degree of elevation of races corre- 
 s|Min(ls with that of the development of language. 
 
 Frctm a comparison of the re,sidt,s of philological and 
 physical stutlics, it is at once evident that this is not the
 
 Intellectual CJiaraclers — Lauouage. 441 
 
 ca.se. Cliiiiesi', the most nioiKisylhibic lanjjfuago, is sfKjken 
 l>y one of the earliest civili/.<-»l nations, belonging funda- 
 mentally to the yellow type. Trihe.s lioMing the lowest 
 place, springing from the Negro type, speak, on the contrary, 
 agglutinative languages, that i.s to 8;iy, have attained the 
 .second .stage. I have already pointed out this fact, and 
 insisted upon the consequences which ari.se from it with 
 reference to the relative antiquity of human groups. 
 
 Nevertheles.s, we must remark that the greater number of 
 Whites speak languages whicli have attained the highest 
 degree of perfection — inflectional languages. Allophylian 
 Whites, alone, are still in the agglutinative stage. 
 
 If, after having read the information which is given by 
 jihilologists upon the distribution of races, we look at the 
 map, we shall again meet with some very interesting 
 general facts. 
 
 Mono.syllabic langiniges are only found in Asia, as it were 
 localized, and only occupy a very limited space. They were 
 at one time even restricted to a kind of island, bounded by 
 the sea on the cast, and on all other sides by agglutinative 
 languages. It is entirily due to the Aryan con«|uest that 
 they have been placed in contact with inflectional lan- 
 guages. 
 
 The latter, now universally distributetl, were for a long 
 time confined to the old continent, of which, moreover, they 
 were far from occujiying the greatest part. Their expansion 
 dates from the great mo<lern di.scoveries. 
 
 L;u»guages of intermediate development, the agglutinative 
 l.mguage.s, occupied before this epoch, liS they still <\k), the 
 larger |)ortion of the surface of the globe. We do not know 
 at what perioil they lost grotind in Eiuope, but we c;in already 
 almost assert jus a fact, that they preilominated there in former 
 times. They probably occupied the whole of this part of the 
 world bifore the Aryan inva-sion or infiltration. I\ ihaps they 
 were spoken by quaternary man. However this may be, be- 
 fore the great and quite recent eniigi^ations of European races, 
 agglutinative languages reigned throughout the greater part
 
 442 The Ihiman Species. 
 
 of Asia, .ilino.st tlic wliulc of Africa, and all America and 
 Oceania. 
 
 In pointing,' out approximately the areas occupied by the 
 three fundamental groups of languages, we find that the 
 agglutinative languages alone occupied but a short time ago 
 about I? of the earth's surface, inflectional languages -J-, and 
 monosyllabic languages yV; or nearly yVir. tVit ^'^"^ iioo- 
 
 Agglutinative languages, again, have the advantage over 
 the others in number. Finally, the number of nations, 
 peoples or tribes, speaking these languages, is also superior 
 to that of the groups which speak monosyllabic or inflectional 
 languages. 
 
 But it is well known how slight a relation there is be- 
 tween the population of a country, and either its extent 
 or the number of human groups by which it is peopled. 
 \\\ order to gain an idea of the importance, or of the jiart 
 played upon the surface of the globe, by one, or by a group 
 of languages, Ave must calculate the nmnber of individuals 
 by whom it is used. Now, in comparing statistical and 
 linguistic data, for which we are indebted to M.M. d'Omalius 
 and Maury, wr find that inflectional languages are spoken 
 by 5*i(),!M)(),()()() human beings ; monosyllabic languagrs 
 by 44{),0()(),0()() ; and agglutinative languages only by 
 •2lf;,r)jO,()()(). 
 
 IX. Wrilhifj. "Writing is, so to speak, to speech what 
 speech is to thought. Nevertheless, by its very nature it 
 furnishes the anthn»p<.logist with but very few precise data. 
 Invented in a very limited numbe-r of plaei'-*, it has been 
 communicated from place to place, and by initiation. lu 
 their pasH.-igo from one nation to another, the graj)hic re- 
 jiresentations of languages arc often sensibly modified, an<l, 
 from this point of vi.-w, they may undoubtedly be of real 
 jissisUmcc to ethnology. J'ut there is no real relation be- 
 tween the several forms whieh they assume, and the human 
 gntups by which they are employed. 
 
 We can hardly connect with writing the various arrange- 
 ments of btorics which were used by the Mexican Neophytes
 
 Intcllcitnal Characters — Wriliufi. 443 
 
 to loe.ill to mcniory tluir prayers, or the purely mneino- 
 tccliuiciil process observed by ditt'ercnt travellers, such as the 
 ^VamXmm of the Red-Skins. But the latter, and especially 
 the Chinese, Thibetiuu and Peruvian r2('/y)o.y, were something,' 
 more than this. Here the colour and the mode of juxta- 
 position of straws, shells, or wood, the knots and the colour 
 of the threads, had a conventional value permitting the cx- 
 pres.sion of ideas, of great and niultii)lc numbers, etc- In 
 Peru it seems that real books were written in this manner. 
 Unfortunately, as M. ^faury remarks, it is now impossible to 
 decipher these singular productions. 
 
 Pictography, even, in a form as rudimentary as that which 
 existed and which still exists among the Red Skins, where 
 Schoolcraft ha.s studie«l it very thoroughly, wa.s probably 
 the universal starting point for writing properly so called. 
 It is well known that pictography bears a strong resem- 
 blance to our rebus, and that it has its monuments, which 
 liave been di.scovered by several travellers in Siberia, North 
 America, the ba.sin of the Orinoco, and even as far as Pata- 
 gonia. 
 
 When synd)olism was introduced into j)ict(>graphy, it would 
 seem that a step had really been made, although grave errors 
 may result from this manner of representing events, when the 
 sense of the symbol is forgotten. The Virginians represented 
 the Europeans, their .ships and arms, by a ichite tiicaii voinit- 
 h^O fi^'^- I'l'cre was here evidently the germ of some legend. 
 This observation alone, enables us to comprehend and inter- 
 pret sotne of the traditions, fabulous in form, but having a 
 foundation of truth, which have been collected witli reference 
 to the pa,st history of certain American tribes. Neverthele.s.s, 
 .synd>olism has the advantage of accustoming the mind to «le- 
 tach itself from the material reproductions of objects. It i.s 
 then an easy matter to pa.ss to the graphic reduction of the 
 symbol, and afterwards to the idioi/nqthir ttltjn. At length, 
 spurred on by the stimulus of necessity, ihc phondie sitjn ia 
 reached. 
 
 Even when the representation of the syllable is attained,
 
 444 ^-^^^ Ihiman Species. 
 
 writing lias made immense progress. It seems as if certain 
 races, in spite of contact witli niorc advanced nations, and 
 though they may have before their eyes examples of alpha- 
 betic writing, can never get beyond this. So at least it is at 
 the present time with the Cherokees in Florida and the Vei 
 on the coast of Africa. Sequoyah and Doala Biikara, in 
 their eiforts to imitate the Yankees and Arabs, only invented 
 spelling-books. And yet the papers printed by the former 
 bore, by the side of the Cherokee te.xt, the English alphabetic 
 translation. 
 
 It is unneces.sary to insist upon the immense superiority of 
 alphabetic writing. This means of fixing speech, at once so 
 simple and so complete, has always presented an appear- 
 ance of the marvellous to those who were unacquainted witli 
 it ; and the ancients, struck with its utility, and not knowing 
 that man had gained the art by slow stages, did not hesitate 
 to regard it as a divine invention. Cicero himself seems 
 inclined to share this opinion. We now know that the honour 
 of this great di.scovery really belongs to the Phuinicians. 
 
 liut the Pha*nieians did not make this discovery at once 
 or by their own efforts. MM. Wuttke and Lenormand have 
 rightly given the honour of having prepared the way for, 
 and of ;dmost achieving the discovery, to the Egyptians. 
 Egyptian writing, with its figurative, idiographic and phonetic 
 signs, displays the whole course traversed by tlie human mind 
 in rising from simple pictography to the ali)habet. Unfor- 
 tunately the Egyptians, fettered by the combineil influences 
 of their j)ast, and by the very ma.ss of ideas and facts rcpre- 
 senti'd in their complicated writing, esjtecially ])erhaps by 
 their religious traditions, could not free themselves from the 
 cumbersome element in their Bystora of writing. A strange 
 jM'ople, fi-ee from these restraints, could alone, as M. Maurv 
 has remarked, take this .step. 
 
 Tlie Phujnician alphabet once discovered spread r.ipidly. 
 At the Ham»' time, however, it necessarily underwent niodiH- 
 rations to suit, sometinurs veritable necessities, sometimes 
 Kiin[)lc convenience or caprico. M, L'li'u iii.iiid admiis five
 
 Intellectual Characters — JVritinj^. 445 
 
 great families of writing, as represontinf( tliis filiation. These 
 are tlie Semitic, CJreeo-Italian, Western or Ilarian, and 
 Northern or Indo-homcritc. The latter, perhaps, owed its 
 origin to the alphal)et of Yemen, which, intrmluced into 
 India about the third or fourth century of our era, has 
 engendered almost all the Oriental alpha])ets. 
 
 Kgypt and PhoBnicia were not the only centres in wliieh 
 the art of writing took its rise. It also came into existence 
 in the Old Worlil in Mesopotamia and China, and in Me.xico 
 in the New World. Hieroglyphic writing, itself arising out 
 of pictography, has been the universal starting-point, but in 
 each case writing has stopped short at diflerent stages. 
 
 Cuneiform writing Ikls not attained the alphabet, and 
 seems to consist of a mi.xturc of idiographic and syllabic 
 signs. In China writing lias remained idiographic. Under 
 the influences, however, of Buddhist mis^iunaries, who made 
 known the Devjinagari alphabet in the extreme East, the 
 Japanese and the Coreans, after having servilely imitated 
 the Chinese, were the first to reach syllabism, the second to 
 attain a veritable alphabet. 
 
 In Mexico, writing consisted of the mixture, still very con- 
 fusetl, of symbolic, idiographic and phonetic signs, the latter 
 representing, in some cases syllables, in others, syiiple letters. 
 The discoveries made by TAbbii Brasseur de Bourl)Ounr seem 
 to indicate that in Yucatan greater progress had been made, 
 and that the Palan<iue inscriptions are really alphabetic. It 
 is much to be regretted that up to the present time the 
 important facts, for which we are imlebted to the aged cure 
 of Rabinal, have not been utiliztnl. The reading of the 
 inscriptions of Central America would have a very difterent 
 interest to the deciphering of a few more Egyptian tablets. 
 However this may be, it is evident that the multij>licity, the 
 variety of alphabets, and even their filiation furnish the 
 anthropologist with characters of great importance, and 
 sju^cially fitted to establish ancient relations between human 
 groups in some cases widely separated. 
 
 X. Social condition. Man is essentially a .social being.
 
 44^ ^-^t' Ili(}ua)i Species. 
 
 '' Were any one to ascend to heaven alone, ami listen alone 
 to the harmony of the spheres, he would not enjoy these 
 marvels," a Greek philosoiihcr has said. Thus we find the 
 human species everywhere collected into more or less 
 numerous societies. In exceptional cases, which may bo gene- 
 rally explained by a violent dispersion, these societies always 
 consist of a more or less considerable number of families, and 
 deserve at least the desigiiati<jn o( j^eoples. 
 
 However limited or numerous peoples, tribes, or nations 
 may be, the existence of three elementary social conditions 
 has long been acci'pted as a fact, each of which is connected 
 with the satisfaction of the first and most imperious of all 
 necessities, that, namely, of nourishment, A certain grada- 
 tion may, moreover, be observed in tliesc condilion.s. Man at 
 first only depended upon daily industry for his subsistence : 
 he hunted either terrestrial or aquatic animals : he became 
 a hunter or a fisiierman. He afterwards brouglit the 
 herbivorous species luider his power, and found an unfailing 
 resource in his flocks : he became a shepherd. Finally lie 
 directed his attention to the earth ; he multiplied and culti- 
 vated certain })lants which he learnt to know by experii-nce ; 
 he became an agriculturist. Jn tlu; latter case his diet 
 would be fundamentally vegetables; in the two former flesh 
 wtndd fi)rm the basis of his food. 
 
 It is clear that these several kinds of existence place man 
 unihr very different conditions of lift', and impose uj)on him 
 <■< rfain necessities, by demanding the development of physical 
 and intellectual faculties which sometimes bear but a very 
 slight resendtlance to each other. ]n this manner certfxin 
 physical and intellectual peculiarities are engeiideied, which, 
 devehjped by exercise and heredity, liiially l)c(Mnie ( haractcrs 
 of races. 
 
 The huntt^r and fisherman present some points of resem- 
 blance in their manner (jf life. Both arc obliged to display 
 in turn, and occswionrdly at the same; moment, according to 
 the animal they are pursuing, a great amount of patience and 
 courage ; they must never be at u loss for a resource. Uoth,
 
 Intellectual Characters — Social Condition. 447 
 
 even whni placetl in the most fuvonrablc circnn)stance.s, pass 
 alternately from extreme activity to almost complete repose. 
 But the fislierman's field of action is on the whole less exten- 
 sive than that of the hunter, and he is not like the latter, 
 forced to exercise all his physical faculties. He will probably 
 never possess the same delicacy of hearing, or the same 
 agility. Moreover, neither of them are ]>laced in conditions 
 favourable to intellectual development properly so called. 
 
 The shepherd is much more independent in certain 
 respects, while at the .same time he is subject to greater 
 regidarity. lie is always sure of his morrow. The daily 
 duties to his charge once fulfilled, he is at liberty to abandon 
 himself to refiection and revery, so that his intellectual 
 faculties have every facility for development. 
 
 This is still more strongly the case with the agriculturist 
 Seed-time and harvest are to him times of inevitable physical 
 activity. Between the two he can rest at leisure, and apply 
 the faculties with which he is endowed to something entirely 
 ditferent. 
 
 The.se three elementary modes of human society involve 
 immediate con.sequences. 
 
 Game, in the true acceptance of the term, is nowhere so 
 abundant as to afford an indefinite amount of nouri.shificnt 
 to popidations, however small, accumulated upon one .spot. 
 A great extent of country is absolutely necessary to the 
 hunter, so that ho can only form very limited communities. 
 As soon as they increase in size they are forced to separate. 
 Fishermen may form larger communities, particularly upon 
 the shore of a productive sea. Even in their case, however, 
 the size of the population is necessarily confined within some- 
 what narrow limits. 
 
 The pa.storal condition allows the formation of more nume- 
 rous societies; but it al.so involves the existence of vast 
 ti"acts entirely given up to grazing. Like the chase, there- 
 fore, though in a less degree, it enforces sul)divisions. 
 
 The culture of the soil permits the development of a 
 population at once dense and continuous. 
 20
 
 44^ The Iluniaii Species. 
 
 The hunter, as a natural consc(iUcncc of his warlike habits, 
 is inevitably a warrior ; war is, in fact, nothing more than a 
 " man-hunt." Any discussion about a hunting-ground may 
 easily result in war, as the subsistence of the hunter is in 
 question. This war would be conducted without mercy, for 
 every pris(»ner would not only be useless, but an incvnnbranoc 
 to the conqueror; another mouth to feed. The hunter would 
 kill him, and however little may be due to passion on the 
 one hand, and pride on the other, he will put him to death 
 with torments endured with heroic firmness. 
 
 The shepherd also will often be involved in armed con- 
 flict, for he must defend his pastures and his flocks. But, in 
 his case, war will be le.ss bitter; the prisoner may be u.seful 
 to him. He can be forced to attend to the flocks, and, in 
 return, be fetl witiiout involving any sacrifice : he can boa 
 slave. 
 
 Were it not for the necessity of mutual destruction, which 
 seems to be innate in man, and which, as y<t, civili/.ati«)n has 
 n(»t been abh? to extirpate, agricultural tribes woiild have no 
 cause to make war upon each other; indeed, it would be 
 much more to their interests to avoid it. All that can be 
 .sai<l, however, is that in their cjvse it becomes by degrees less 
 cruel. Here, again, the ])ri.soner can bo utilized. He is 
 first reduced to slavery. Then it becomes evident that a 
 certain amount of liberty might be profitable to the master, 
 so he pa.sses from the condition (if a slave to that of a serf. 
 
 The three conditions which 1 have just described still exist 
 upon the gl<jbc ; and in each of the three great types of 
 mankind, examples may still be pointed out at the }»res('nt 
 •lay. The ^Vhitc tribes of the north-west coast of America 
 an* fiwherH ; some Arab tribes are still in the pastoral state, 
 through which the Aryans, the progenitors of tiic present 
 Indians, who are ho essentially agricultural, have pas.se<l. 
 Am»»ng the Yellows, the 'J'ungvi.scs of Daouria, are perhaj)s 
 the most perfect type; of a hunting pcoj)lc, as the hordes of 
 C^'ntral Asia arc of a KJicphcrd peoj)le, and the Chinese 
 of an ngricultural peoplr. Finally, among tlie Negroes,
 
 Intellectual C/iaracters — Social Condition. 449 
 
 tlio Tasmanians were exclusively hunters and fisliei-s, the 
 Kaffirs are essentially shej)herds, and the natives of Guinea 
 agriculturalists. 
 
 Thus the fundamental nature of the social c<»ndition is not 
 a character of race. The three j)hysical types present the 
 three social types. 
 
 From this fact alone we might conclude that between the 
 three human types, regarded from the point of view of 
 civilization, there are none of those radical differences whicli 
 have been admitted, d itriori, by some authors. 
 
 This conclusion can only be distinctly shown by a detailed 
 study of the races. I can here merely state it, insisting 
 upon this point that, in spite of the assertions of M. do 
 Gobineau to the contrary, there still exist yih'ites in a dis- 
 tinctly savarje state. We need only read the details given by 
 Cook, La Perouse, Meares, Alarehand, Dixon, Dr. Scouler, 
 and othci-s, upon some Kolushes, and we shall be forced to 
 recognise the.se Jinhcri*, whose women besmear themselves 
 with grease and soot, and wear a girdle, ;vs both trnr WItites 
 and tme savages, who in many respects must rank below 
 the Negro of Ardra or Juida. 
 
 On the other hand, the very names which I have just 
 mentioned, especially those of Ghanata, Sonrhai and Melle, 
 with which Barth has made us acquainted, suflice to prove 
 that the most strongly characterized Negro, the lypual 
 Noijro, has the power of raising himself to a consi«lerabIy 
 advanced social condition. It has been said, that, without 
 being a sarage, he has remained a bavhanan, as was the 
 case with our German or CJaulish ancestors. This view is 
 not a just one ; the Negro has risen nmch higher. The 
 annals of Amcd Baba show that in the Middle Agi\s the 
 btxsin of the Niger contained empires very little inferior in 
 many respects to European kingdoms of the same eiwch. 
 
 As to the Yellow races, it will be sufficient to rcmeml)cr 
 that the whole of the Aryan race was plunged in barbarism 
 at the time when China was acf^uainted with the calendar, 
 liad dctcnnincd the form of the earth, and recognised the
 
 450 The Human Species. 
 
 Hatteniug of the poles, had woven materials in silk, and 
 possessed a coinage. 
 
 XL Ought we to conchide from these and from many 
 analogous facts which I cannot quote, that there exists a 
 perfect equality between human races, that they all possess 
 the same aptitudes, and can all rise, in every respect, to tlie 
 same dogi-ee of intellectual development ? Nut so, for this 
 would be a departure from the truth, and an evident exaggera- 
 tion. Here, again, we must return to the comparison of man 
 with animals. Does it follow that, because all the races of 
 dogs belong to one and the same species, they all have the 
 same aptitudes? "Will a hunter clioose intlitTorently a .setter, 
 or a blood-hound to use as a pointer or in the chase ? Will 
 he consider the street-cur as of equal value with either of 
 these pure-hreeds'f Clearly not. Now we must never for- 
 get that, while superior to animals and diflRn-nt to them in 
 many respects, man is equally subject to all the general laws 
 of animal nature. The law of heredity is one of tho.so from 
 which he caniKtt escape, and it is this law which, under the 
 influence of the conditions of life, fashions races and makes 
 them what they are. 
 
 When centuries have pa-s.sed over a gi'oup of men, when 
 from generation to generation, and under the influence of 
 certain physicid, intellectual and moral conditions, the whole 
 being has contracted a certain habit, we cannot form any 
 definite idea as to what length of time and what fresh cir- 
 cumstances would be necessary to cftace this impression and 
 form the race anew. In any case, it can only rise by imder- 
 going modifications, and this fai-t alone prndn.t's a new or 
 a derived race. 
 
 'J'he result of all the conditidns by which races have been 
 formed has been to cstal)lish between them a 2)rcsc}it in- 
 equality which it is inq)ossiblo to deny. Such, however, is 
 the extiggeration into which iicr/ropkilea by profession have 
 fallen, when they maintain that the Negro in former ages, 
 and in li'm "prcHcnt omdltiun, is the cfjiial of the Whita 
 A sinjile fact will be a suflicient answer to them.
 
 Tntdlcctiial Characters — Savagery. 451 
 
 The iliscoverics of Baith liave placed beyond a shadow of 
 doubt the existence of a jfolitival history among tlie Ne<'roes, 
 which had previously been a matter of doubt. But this very 
 fact alone only serves to place in still stronpfer relief the 
 absence of tliat intellectual history which is demonstrated 
 by a general progressive movement, by literary, architectural 
 and artistic monuments. The Negro race, left to itself, luis 
 produced nothing of this kind. An attempt has been made, 
 in order to disguise this too manifest inferiority, to refer to 
 the Negro race those peoples of black colour, who can only 
 be said to be connected with it by crosses in which the 
 superior blood predominates. 
 
 XII. Must we therefore pass to the opposite e.xtrcme, and 
 admit that there are races radically incapable of elevating 
 them.selves above the social condition in which their ancestors 
 have lived ? This question has often been proposed, and has 
 been answered in two different ways. 
 
 The attempt lias been made, by means of a certain number 
 of facts taken from America and Oceania, as well as from 
 Africa, to show that certain human populations were irre- 
 vocably destined to a savage condition. The upholders of 
 this opinion have chiefly (juoted as e.vamples the indigenous 
 inhabitants of North America and Australia. Yet whoever 
 will consider the matter from an unprejudiced point of view, 
 will see at once, sometimes in the very facts brought forward 
 by those who depreciate them, a clear proof tiiat, pl<iced in 
 favourable conditions, these races would be able to raise 
 thcm.selves far above the condition in which we have found 
 them, and wouhi, in some respects at least, very quickly reach 
 our level. 
 
 As far as tiie Red-Skins and the allied groups are concerned 
 all doubt has l)een di.ssipated by the great work of School- 
 craft, and several rc2)ortn since publisheil. 
 
 There is, at the present day, upon the banks of the Cjittar- 
 ;^ugus, an agricultural and lalwrious p.ipidaii(jn, formed from 
 the remnants of the Iroquoi.s, which has its schools, its 
 printing establishments, and its journal.s. It i,s useless to
 
 452 The Human Species. 
 
 insist upon what the Krcccks, Chcrokees and Choctaws have 
 become. We know that these nations of the South had, of 
 their own accord, started on the higli road of settled civiHza- 
 tion, that they cultivated and exported cotton, and published 
 journals written in their own language, and printed in cha- 
 ractei-s invented by one of their own nation. The govern- 
 ment of Washington drove them from their lands, and 
 transported them to the basin of the Arkansas. They there 
 set themselves to work again, and travellers tell us that some 
 of their farms even rival those of the Yankees. 
 
 But in reply to this the objection will be made that tlie 
 Algoncjuins and the Dacotahs have resisted every attempt 
 which has been made to assimilate them to Whites, and to 
 civilization. This is an error, or rather it is but half the 
 truth, and for this very reason affords important inf<»rmation 
 to those who are inclined to receive it. The AlgoiKjuins 
 {true lial-Hkias), and the Dacotahs (Sioux) separated. Some 
 renijunced their ancient mode of life, and imitated th.it of 
 the Cherokces, others adhered to it ; how vaiiable, then, is 
 this supposed indelible character; how completely subordinate 
 to a thousand insignificant local circumstances ! 
 
 In fact, nothing has taken j)lace with regard iv the Ameri- 
 raii Aborigines which could not also be observed among 
 Whites. Side by h'hU' with the Arab of the towi), dwells the 
 Arab of the desert and the tent. In the same manner the 
 natives of North America, when left to themselves, differed 
 upon certain point.s. In the basin of the Rio del Norte, 
 and beyond it, side by .side with the urban and agrieul- 
 turul inhabiUmts of the puebloH, dwelt n(»mad. and hunting 
 tril>es. TJie latter sometimes pillaged the former, but 
 they dill not the less recogni.se the kinship existing between 
 them. 
 
 What here took pla<-e spontaneously still takes place under 
 the presHurc of the White. Is there anything strange in 
 this? In every ca.se when the half of a nation transforms its 
 Kocial con<lition, we cannot draw <mr conclusion from the 
 backwardness of the other half, and say that it would bo
 
 Intel I I it Hill Cliaractcrs — Saviv^iry. 453 
 
 inc.ap;il»le of doing so as a whole. We might, with c(jtial 
 reason, maintain that a great number of Europeans were 
 incapable of learning to read. 
 
 There remain the Australians. 
 
 I approach this subject very unwillingly. In no part «»f 
 the gh)bo has the White shown himself so merciless to- 
 wards inferior races as in Australia; nowhere hivs he so 
 audaciously cahnnniated those whom he has plundered and 
 exterminated. In his opinion, the Australians are not even 
 men. They are beings " in whom are combined all the worst 
 characters which mankind couhl present, at many of which, 
 monkeys, their congenci-s, would blush." (Butler Earp.) 
 Noble minds have doubtless protested against these terrible 
 words, addressed to convicts who were about to seek their 
 fortunes in Australia ; but what could be exjwcted of them 
 when every evil j)assion was called forth and supported by 
 similar arguments, which, again, rested upon assertions given 
 as scientific? The result of these experiences in Australia 
 and Tasmania is well known ; and those who wish for fuither 
 information have only to consult travellers of every country, 
 Darwin as well as Petit-Tliouars. 
 
 To maintain at the present day that the Australians are 
 what Bory de Saint-Vincent antl the anthropologists of that 
 school endeavoured to prove them to be, is to ileny unques- 
 tionable facts established by tnivellers of every description. 
 This race has no more shown itself to be absolutely savage 
 than any other human race. It organisetl the family and 
 divided the tribe and nation into true danx, the account of 
 which is still extant. The Australians, more advanced upon 
 this point than the Tahitians, understood the division of land 
 amongst themselves, and the fixed limits agreed upon wen- 
 religiously respected, except in time of war. I shall sjieak 
 about their religious and moral chai-actei-s at another time. 
 We have here only to consi«ler their intellectual characters, 
 and I shall oidy add that these .siivages |x>ssesse»l villages of 
 from HOO to KHK) inhabiUmta, that they knew how to hollow 
 out canoes, and made nets for hunting and fishing, which
 
 454 ^-^^^ HtiDian Species. 
 
 -were sometimes 80 feet long and of sufficient strength to 
 resist tlie struggles of a kangaroo. 
 
 It will, however, be objected that all this does not consti- 
 tute a well advanced social condition. Granted ; but are the 
 Australians incapable, as it has so often been said, and as it 
 still is asserted, of raising themselves above this condition ? 
 
 We have only to consult the writings of ])a\vson, who 
 made a kind of farmers out of these savages, those of Salvado, 
 who found them to be both devoted and useful workmen, 
 those of Blosseville, declaring that he thought himself fortu- 
 nate to be able to turn to them when the (jold fever robbed 
 him of European hands, and we shall be convinced of the 
 inaccuracy of the assertions made on the subject of the 
 radical incapacity of the Australians. Finally, if we still 
 retain some feeling of doubt, we need only look back 
 upon those tribes which were settled and civilized by 
 William IJuckley, the deserter, and we shall be forced to 
 allow that the faculty of raising themselves above their past 
 condition exists among the Australians as among other 
 human populations. 
 
 Xlll. There are two causes which tend to had us into 
 error when we arc dealing with the question of the apprecia- 
 tion of the social condition of races. 
 
 The first arises from the manner in which wo regard, as a 
 whole, the population to which we belong. The offspring of 
 instructed and civilized clas-scs, we forget that part of the 
 nation which we left so far behind, which doubtless profits 
 by the work of tiic intelligent clas.scs, but docs not follow 
 tht-m at all, or but very little, in the path of progress. There 
 i.s not a country in Europe where numbers of facts, justifyiii'^ 
 what I have briefly stated here, may not be met with. It 
 Lubbock had taken more notic(> of the fact.s around hitn, In 
 would mo^-i < . It liiijy have modified many conclusiotis in his 
 
 iKXjk. 
 
 The other cause proceeds from our j)ride of race, from the 
 I»r<judiceH of our education, which altogether prevent us from 
 going to the root of the matter, and from recognising extreme
 
 Intellectual C/ia^'actei's — Savage jy. 455 
 
 resemblances, almost identities, if they arc in the least degree 
 obscured by the slightest ditference of forms or words. It 
 was a long time before the resemblance was observed between 
 the organisation of the Maories and that of the ancient 
 Scotch. And yet if we deduct anthropophagy from the one 
 people and from the other all that it has borrowed from the 
 neighbouring nations, we shall be forced to admit that at the 
 perioil when Cook visited the New Zealandei-s, the latter 
 offered strange p» tints of resemblance to the Highlanders of 
 Rob Roy and Mac Ivor. As to the Children of the Mint, 
 akin to the other Scotch clans, were they nnich above the 
 Australian tribes ? 
 
 We must conclude, therefore, that civilization, with im- 
 provements and learning of every kind, is an exceptional 
 fact, even in the midst of a most privileged people, and that 
 upon their own territory they have had, and still have, their 
 savage representatives. We must add that this fact is 
 exhibited in different degrees among yellow and black tribes. 
 Lastly, in reflecting upon our past history, we must avoid 
 denying to other races aptitudes, which remained latent for 
 centuries in our ancestors before they were developed, and 
 which are still in the same condition in too many of our 
 fellow-countrymen, and of our contemiX)rarie.s. 
 
 XIV. In his remarkable work upon OriijiiM of Civilization, 
 Sir John Lubbock admit-s that the " primitive condition of 
 man was a state of (ib-solutc Ixirlntrittm." But he docs not 
 say what he means by this expression. Have there indee«l 
 ever been men living for centuries in the state dcpictoii in 
 Chinese traditions, men acknowletlging no law, ilcstitute of 
 industry, ignorant of the use of fire, abandoning their dead 
 without sepulture, living in trees. . . . ? There is every 
 reason to doubt it, for all establishetl facts protest against 
 this conclusion. 
 
 Whenever it ha-s l)een possible to attain even a slight 
 knowledge of the life of savage tribes, they have been found 
 subject to lau'.s, which, although not written, are still rigor- 
 ously observed. This fact is proclaimed by Lubbock himself.
 
 45^ The I I ID) hi 1 1 Species. 
 
 True, these laws 111.13' often appear to us initjuituus or bar- 
 barous, but sometimes there is, even in their severities 
 towards certain chisses of the jjopuhition, a trace of the most 
 just and praiseworthy seutitnents. We cannot indeed approve 
 of the Aualral'ian code as regards the enactions which make 
 a miserable slave of the woman ; the privileges which it 
 reserves to the chiefs are perhaps excessive ; but how can we 
 help being struck -when we see it grant to age the same 
 advantages as to rank. Respect for old age was a feature in 
 the manners of the Spartans which met with the admiration 
 of the Athenians; we may well recognise its value in the 
 Australians. 
 
 Mention has sometimes been made of races or p(»i)ulations 
 ihvelling in trees, such as the Orang-Kubus, certain Blacks 
 of New Guinea, etc. They have been described as making 
 their liomcs in trees after the manner of monkeys. Earle 
 lias reduced these exaggerations to their tnie value. He has 
 shown that upon certain coasts, lined with a belt of man- 
 groves, it is easier to walk upon the crowded, interlaced 
 branches, than to force a passage along the network of aerial 
 roots plunging into a bed of mud. He saw European sailors 
 several times, with their muskets slung, passing over marshes 
 of this nature in single file, in the same way lus the Indians. 
 We see, therefore, that it is not at all necessary to be abso- 
 lutely savage and marly allied to nwtnkeys to travel in this 
 manner. 
 
 The Tasmanians, as good an example of a nomad people 
 as it would be possibh; to inrntioii, oidy erected temporary 
 shelters, and yet they buiiil th( ir dead, and raised to them 
 mauHohiims of brancliis and hark, which have been de- 
 Hcribed an<l figimd by I'eron. 1 have just remarked that 
 the Australians ha<l their institutions and their industries. 
 Undoubte<lly in T.xsmania anil Australia man is exhibited 
 with the smallest amount of human development. And 
 yet we nowlioro observe that tihsohUe bdrhnrixm wlii( h is 
 .'ipparently admitted by the leariietl Englishnjan. 
 
 However far we go back into our ]>ast history we shall
 
 Intellectual Characters — Industries. 457 
 
 meet with similar facts. The little that we know of tertiary 
 man shews him to be in possession of fire and the art of 
 cutting Hints. He already has his industries, and this fact 
 alone proves that his niudc of lile was diflerent to that of 
 the hrutc. 
 
 It could not be otherwise. Whatever the cause may have 
 been which determined the appearance of man upon the surface 
 of the globe, he has, from the first, always been in po.s.se.ssion 
 of his specific nature. He has had from the out.set his intel- 
 ligence and his aptituilcs which, though at that time in 
 a torpid and slumbering state, were ready to start into life 
 under the spur of necessity. To procure nourishment and to 
 defend himself against the external world, he could only have 
 recourse to them, and the smallest manifestations of these 
 superior faculties have of neces.sity traced from the com- 
 mencement a line of demarcation between him and the brute. 
 
 XV^. The intelligence and the aptitudes of man have mani- 
 fested themselves in a thousand ways, which may be included 
 under the general name of iiulimtries. Pacific or war- 
 like, relating to the individual or to the whole population, 
 tbey very often differ in different races, in different peoples, 
 sometimes almost in diffrrent tribes. The greater numln-r 
 may consequently be consiih-reil ns so many chunu'tem by 
 which the different gioups of the human species may be 
 distinguished. It will, however, at once bo undeii^tootl that 
 (juestions of this nature can only be discussed in a detailed 
 history, and I must here confine myself to stating one of 
 those general facts which, by themselves, are sufficient to 
 separate man from animals. 
 
 The latter have only physicjil wants which they sjttisfy as 
 completely as possible. But, this end once attained, they go 
 no further. The animal, when left to itself, doi's not know, or 
 has scarcely a suspicion, of the superfluous. His wants are, 
 therefore, always the same. 
 
 Man, on the contrary; whether the miml or the ImkIv is in 
 question, is always seeking the supirfluuus, uften at the ex- 
 pense of utility, .sometinies to the iletrinun* "f" •'"• necessary.
 
 458 The I I KIN an Species. 
 
 The result is that his wants increase from day to day. The 
 hixiiry of the evening becomes the indispensable of the 
 infirrow. 
 
 This fact is just ;us true witli regard to the savages as to 
 civiUzed peoples. We must, then, consider it as one of those 
 characters wliich belong to the very nature of beings. - Re- 
 garded systematically from this point of view, man might 
 be defined as an animal requiring the superfiuoiis, with 
 just as much reason as he has been called a reasoning 
 animal. 
 
 Moralists have at all times severely blamed this tendency 
 and condemned those insatiable appetites which are always 
 a.skinf' for more and for what they do not possess. I cannot 
 share this view. Far from blaming in principle that which 
 essentially is but the desire for the better, I cannot but see in 
 it one of the noblest attributes of man. Tliis faculty is, in 
 reality, one of the most important cau.ses of his greatness. 
 When nu'U are once fully satisfied and have no more wants, 
 they will come to a standstill, and j'^'ogrcss, that great and 
 sacred law of mankind, will come to a standstill also. 
 
 In reality, it is the want of the superfluous which has de- 
 V. loped all our industries, which luus engendered the arts and 
 sciences without which many races and nations, and, even 
 among ourselves, whole populations exist perfectly well. We 
 must therefore, with every reservation as to wrong applica- 
 tions, accept it in the first place as a fact, in the second as a 
 ])enf'fit.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 MORAL CHARACTERS. 
 
 1. In spite of all tliat is exceptional and cK'vated in the in- 
 tellectual phenomena displayed by man, they do not, when 
 considered as characters, isolate ns from animals. It is diffe- 
 rent with moral and relij^ous phenomena. The latter, as we 
 have seen, belong essentially to the human kingdom ; they 
 are the attributes of our species. Let us examine them 
 rapidly, and, at the same time, invariably from this point of 
 view. 
 
 Confining our.selves rigorously to the region of facts, and 
 carefully avoiding the territory of philosophy and theology, 
 we may state, without hesitation, that there is no human 
 society or even association in which the idea o( goal and evii 
 is not represented l)y certain acts regarded by the members of 
 that society or association as morally _7oo<Z or momlly 5a^/. 
 Even among robbers ami pirates theft is regarded a,s a mis- 
 deed, sometimes as a crime, and severely punished, while 
 treachery is branded with infamy ; the facts noticed by 
 Wallace among the Kurubars and Santals shew how the 
 consciousness of moral good and truth is antt-rior to e.rjM'i^ 
 litre, and independent of questions o( utilitt/. 
 
 Nevertheless, Sir John Lubbock, in a work with which all 
 my readers are doubtless acquainted, states that the moral 
 sense is wanting in the savage. In support of this opinion 
 he quotes some vague and general assertions l>caring more 
 particularly upon the A\istralians, Tahitian.s Re<l-Skins, etc. 
 The as.sertious of the eminent uatuiili-t Imvi- bo. n so oft* u
 
 460 The Ihiman Species. 
 
 repeated that it will only be necessary for ino to exatniiio 
 them in a few words. 
 
 In tlie first place, I w\vj^\i produce numerous quotations 
 of the same nature in opposition to these assertions. I shall 
 only recall the words of Wallace, speaking of the tribes in 
 the midst of which he had lived. "Every individual," he 
 says, " .scrupulou.sly respects the rights of his neighbour, and 
 these rights are but rarely infringed." Is it possible to admit 
 that this respect does not rest upon something analogous to 
 that which we call morality. I shall, moreover, presently shew 
 that this is really the case. 
 
 Again, Lubbock seems to have contradicted himself when 
 pointing out in his book tlie small amount of real liberty en- 
 joyed by savages. He represents them, correctly, as being 
 the slaves of a nudtitudo of customs, having the importance 
 of laws, which rule all their actions. Now, amongst these 
 customs, there areagreat iniinbcr which are at variance with 
 tlio most natural passions, such as the instinct of reproduc- 
 tion, the choice of nourishment, etc. An infringement of these 
 laws is followed by a punishment often terrible. Is it not evi- 
 dent that the greater number of them can oidy be based upon 
 the more or less distinct idea of good and evil ? 
 
 But the idea in question resembles mathematical formula. 
 The result of the solution of a general equation varies with 
 the data; and according to the latter may .sometimes be re- 
 presented by the sign 7)?as, sometimes l)y the sign minus. 
 So morality varies in its manifestations by virtue of innumer- 
 able circumstances which, again, originate in numerous causes. 
 The Kame acts arc often regarded as good, bad, or iudiflerent, 
 according to the special organisation, the religion, or the tra- 
 ditions of tin; society in which tiny have occurred. 
 
 These acts do not, on this account", ceiu^e to belong to a 
 faridty eH.sentiaIly hinnan ; and, whelhor of themselves, or 
 fri^m the iilea with wlii« h they are connected in the ditferent 
 human groups, they fiirnish the n at u valid\\\\.\\ charade v a -.yn 
 true as those belong^ing to the intelligence. 
 
 This is still more cerUiinly the case when institutions are
 
 Moral Characters— Whites and Negroes. 461 
 
 prudiiccil l»y this order of facts and ideas. These sometimes 
 present such a characteristic appearance, tliat at the first 
 glance they seem to isohite a people or a race, ami rcHection 
 is necessary to discover the true relations which unite the 
 gi-oup by which this peculiarity is presented to other popula- 
 tions and races. The tahoii of the Polynesians was Ion;; con- 
 sidered by many writers a-s something absolutely special, whilst 
 in reality we meet with the civil taboa in every European 
 nation, and the Mosaic law throughout is a tabou code based 
 upon religion. 
 
 To arrive at the truth in this study we must approach it 
 with perfect impartiality, witli all the mental freedom which 
 a zoologist brings to the e.xainination of the phvsical characters 
 of a mammal or bird. We must avoid judging foreign peoples 
 whether civilized, barbarou.s, or .savage, by our own fixed ideas. 
 If we act ditferently, we only render oui-sclves liable to error 
 and injustice. A momentary return to our own case, to the 
 history of our race and our most advanced population.s, is 
 often useful in making us appreciate justly the moral 
 characters of tribes and peoples which we are far too fond of 
 representing to oui-selves as occupying a position far below 
 our own. 
 
 II. By using this precaution, and adhering to general facts, 
 we can scarcely help being struck by the intimate resem- 
 blance which moral manifestations establish between all men, 
 both in good and in evil ; and, melancholy though the con- 
 clusion is, especially perhaps in the latter respect. For 
 e.xample, the infamous debauches of the Polynesian nrcois, 
 the hideous vices of some American populations, have often 
 been insisted u|x>n. But let us not forget the orgies of 
 Ci recce and Home, certain haunts in our own great cities, 
 and the terrible revelations which from time to time are 
 made in the jwlice courts of our proudest capitals. 
 
 Fundamentally, the White, even when civdi/.ed, from the 
 moral point of view is scarcely better than the Negro, and 
 (00 often, by his conduct in the miilst of inferior races, has 
 j>istified the argument opposed by a Malgache to a mis-
 
 462 TJic Human Species. 
 
 sionary, " Your soklicrs seduce all our women . . . you come 
 to rob us of our land, pillage the country, and make war 
 af^ainst us, and you wish to force your God upon us, saying 
 that He forbids robbery, pillage, and war! Go, you are white 
 upon one side and black upon the other ; and if we were to 
 cross the river, it would not be us that the caimans would 
 take," 
 
 Such is the criticism of a savage ; the following is that of 
 an European, of M. Rose, giving his opinion of his own 
 countrymen : "The people are simple and confiding when we 
 arrive, perfidious when Ave leave them. Once sober, brave 
 and honest, we make them drunken, lazy, and finally thieves. 
 After having innoculatcd them with our vices, we employ 
 these very vices as an argument for their destriiction." 
 
 Ifowever severe these conclusions may appear, they are 
 unfortunately true, and the history of the relations of Euro- 
 peans with the populations which they have encountered in 
 America, at the Cape, and in Oceania, justify them only too 
 fully. As for Africa, it seems to me that the two words, 
 trade and slavery, are quite sufficient to prevent a European 
 froni boasting too loudly of the morality of his race. 
 
 It may, however, be objected that these crimes were per- 
 petrated long ago, and will never be repeated, that slavery 
 lias been abolished in our colonies never to re-appcar. The 
 answer is but too simple, and will, I am sure, be confirmed 
 by the reminiscences of more than one of my readers. In 
 every ca.se this allegation otdy applies to the ylr/y^ni White, 
 'i'lie S<:mlt'ic Whites have jjreserved slavery, and the accounts 
 of all travellers, especially those of H.irth, Livingstone, Nach- 
 tigall, and Schweinfurth, show us but too clearly that it is 
 still the trade of Central Africa. Hut is the Aryan White 
 himself free from all blame upon this point ? As an answer 
 to this rpicstion, I shall confine my.self to mentioning some 
 facts, which liajipencd, ho to speak, oidy the other day. 
 However melancholy the narration may be, it will at least 
 serve the [nirposo of proving that the savage chiinciit still 
 exists in the most civilized nations. I have borrowed them
 
 Moral Characters — Coolie Trade. 463 
 
 fruiii A. II. Marklwiin, coininamlcr of the lloaario, >Nliich was 
 sent out by the English government to cruise antong the 
 archipelagoes of Santa Cruz and the New Hebrides, for the 
 purpose of putting a stop to the practices in question. The 
 truth and accuracy of this testimony, which was given in 
 1873, are therefore unfortunately indisputable. 
 
 Forty years ago the sandal-wood trade reached a develuj)- 
 ment which is accounted for by the high value attached to 
 this wood by the Chinese. Speculators fitted out ships, and 
 cut down the forests of the Melanesian Islands. The natives 
 naturally resi.^ted this devastation : they were answered by 
 the rifle. In 1842 the crews of two English vessels landed 
 at Sandwich Island, one of the most lu.\uriant in the archi- 
 pelago of the New Hebrides. The islanders when resisting 
 the destruction of their woods, were set upon by the Whites, 
 who killed twcnty-si.x, and, driving a gieat number into a 
 cave, sutibcated them with smoke till not one remained. 
 
 The atrocities committed by the sandal-wood robbers have 
 been surpassed by those of the pirates, who devoted them- 
 selves to the labour trapw, or labour trade, which arose and 
 increased with the cotton planUitions which the Civil War in 
 the United States multiplied in the English colonics, not 
 only in Australia, but even in the Fiji Islands, and as far as 
 sr)mc of the New HtV)rides. 
 
 The want of hands being felt, the idea struck Captain 
 Towns of having recoui-sc to the indigenous Blacks of the 
 South Sea, oftcring them the inducement of wages. Success 
 crowned the enterprise, and the C;iptain .'<oon had imitatt»rs. 
 The original plan was to engage the islanders for a fixed time, 
 with the understan<ling that they .sh<»uM then Ik> 8<,*nt home. 
 But the considerable gains thus obtained excited cupidity, 
 and alave-ilcalers began to carry oft' Papuans in onler to 
 transpirt them to plantations where vi-ritable slavery awaited 
 them. This trade became so extensive that it acquired a 
 name which was also bestowed upon child-titealintj. It is 
 called kidnapping, an expression which been authori.scd by 
 otficial documents
 
 464 The Human Species. 
 
 All means were legitimate to the kidnaj^jyeys in order to 
 procure their liumau cargo "without cost. I might liere 
 borrow many liorriblc details from Markham, but I will only 
 quote one. A brig had just anchored at some little distance 
 from the coast of Florida, one of the Salomon Islands. A 
 canoe filled with natives coming close alongside was up.set by 
 a manceuvre, apparently accidental. The boats were imme- 
 diately lowered as if to render assistance to the shipwrecked 
 natives. But the spectators on the rocks, or in other canoes 
 saw European sailors seize the wretched men, and with a long 
 knife cut off their heads on the gunwale of the boat. This 
 done, the sailors returned to the brig which inimediately 
 set sail. The heads thus obtained were destined to pay for 
 the engagement of a certain number of labourers. In many 
 of those Melanesiau Islands the victorious warrior decapi- 
 tates and carries off the head of his vanquished enemy, and 
 the re.spcct whicli he gains increases with the number of 
 these trophies in his jwsse.ssion. Now it had bei-n agreed 
 "iKitween certain chiefs and captains of ves.sels, that the latter 
 should procure lieads, and, in exchange, receive a certain 
 number ^A' living individuals, engaged for one or two years. 
 
 It need hardly be said that at the expiration of their 
 engagement the unfortunate Papuans did not regain their 
 liberty. In 1M07, for examj)le, tltere is proof that, of 382 
 islanders who ought to have been sent home, only 7S had 
 Ijeen allowed to go. 
 
 It will easily Ix; understood that llivse ships, laden with 
 unfortunate creatures, carried olV l>y force or by stratagem, 
 were necessarily the theatre of terrible scenes. Here again 
 the commandi-r of the Iii)fiiirii) <|uot<'s many fact.s. I shall 
 only lK>rrow tii(> account of what haj)pened on board tho 
 C'«n7, for the liistory of this slave-ship seems to me to pre- 
 sent a summary of all the atrocities of I:iilnnpptvff. 
 
 The Ctirl (piitted Milhounir in isTl.with the avowed 
 intention of engaging b!ack laboiirrrs. With her, uiidir the 
 title of pa.s.'M?nger, went a certain Dr. tiames I'atriek Murray, 
 who waa interested in tho enterprise, and who seems to have
 
 A [oral Cliaractcrs — Cootie Trade. 465 
 
 ]»layo(l the part of loader, When tlicy arrived at the New 
 Hebrides, the kidnappers seem to have made ineffectual 
 efforts to obtain labourers by legitimate means. They soon 
 had recourse to others. At Pahner Island one of them 
 dressed himself as a missionary, hoping thus to attract the 
 islanders on board, who fortunately discovered the trap. 
 From this moment the slave dealers had recourse to violence 
 alone. Their method was to approach the canoes manned 
 by Papuans, and to destroy or capsize them by throwing into 
 them some of those large bars of iron which are used as 
 ballast. The crews were then ea.sily cai)tured. 
 
 Eighty blacks had been collected in this manner. During 
 the day they were allowed to come on deck, but in the 
 evening they were thrust into the hoUl. During the night 
 of the 12th of Septendjor, the prisoners made some noise. 
 They were silenced by firing a pistol over their heads. 
 During the following night the noise began again, and the 
 same means were employed to stop it. But the blacks had 
 set to work to break up the camjvbeds, and thus armed they 
 attacked the hatchway. The whole crew, sailors and pxs- 
 .st-ngers, then began to fire into the crowd. The firing 
 histed eight hours. It stopped perhaps fur a ftw moments, 
 but began again at the least noise. 
 
 Day broke, and all seemed <iuiit ; the hatchways were 
 opened wide, and those who could were invited lo come up 
 There were jive ; all the rest were either dead or wounded. 
 I'he corpses were hastily thrown into tlie sea, and at the 
 -;ime time six lii'tntj i)nUvidu(iLs who were badly wounded 
 
 Could we find among savages many indutitni's more 
 infamous than kidnapping, many deeds more atrocious 
 than those of which Dr. Murray and his accom])lice8 were 
 -uilty ? 
 
 Let us hasten to do ju.<^tice to the local legislature and the 
 Mngli.'ih Parliament, which promulgated severe laws and ndes 
 for the prevention and punishment of the crimes of kid- 
 napping. Unfortunately, the colonists, more or less interested 
 in procuring labourers at a cheap rate, show theraselvea
 
 466 The Iluvian Species. 
 
 remarkably indulgent towards those whose business it is to 
 provide them with coolies. Some officers of the English 
 navy have learnt this to their cost. Captain Montgomery, 
 commander of the Blanche, had seized, and sent to Sydney, 
 the schooner Challenge as a slave ship. It was proved that 
 on two occasions the Challenge had imprisoned blacks in her 
 hold, who had been fraudulently enticed on to the ship ; 
 that two of them had been taken, under circumstances of 
 violence, to the Fijis ; that the others had only been released, 
 because in their despair they had set to work to make a leak 
 in the side of the vessel with a hatchet ; and, finally, that 
 these wretched creatures were obliged to swim back to their 
 island, from which the Challenge already lay at a distance of 
 about GJ miles. In spite of these grave facts, the Challenge 
 was acquitted. On the other hand. Captain Montgomery 
 was condemned to pay £1)00 sterling damages, and interest 
 to the owners of the ship. 
 
 III. If it is only too easy to detect amongst ourselves the 
 evil deeds of savages, it is, happily, ea-sy to point out among 
 these people, whom we are so ready to accuse and despi.se, 
 the feelings upon which our own .societies are founded, the 
 good which, as a whole, predominates in them, and the 
 virUu's which we most lionour. My readers will, however, 
 understand that I cannot here enter info details incompatible 
 with the nature of this work. We must eonfme ourselves to 
 a rapid glance at the opinions held by men in general upon 
 j/i'opertg, respect of hununi life, and self-respect, and compare 
 what travellers have told us of sonie of the most inferior 
 races with what we know of our own and of ourselves. 
 
 It Las often been said, in spr.iking of certain races and 
 |MopleK, that they have no idea of property. Tho.sc who 
 look a little closer into the matter will see that this is an 
 • •nor. Among trilws of warriors, hunters, or fishers, however 
 liiw a pr)siiion they may hol<l in the scale of humanity, arms 
 an<l tools are looked ujMm a.s jM^rsonal pro)(eify, and the 
 tcHtimony of travellerK, who have taken but little interest in 
 the fjuestion, is very explicit uf)On this point. In the Paris
 
 Moral Characters — Property. 467 
 
 Musemn iIrtc is a boomciaiit( upmi \vliich some sif^ns are 
 roughly carvfd. W. Tlio/At, the (h)nor, was showing it on 
 some occasion to an Australian from the ni'ighhourhood, 
 when tlie hit tor at once (list'ovcreil from the signs to whom 
 it had belonged. But there is ancjtiier form which property 
 assumes among savage or barbarous popuKitions. If it is a 
 question of hind, it will often be found to be under the 
 jurisdiction of the clan, tribe, or nation. The huntiuf/- 
 grounda of the Red-Skins are met with in every place 
 wliere civilization has stopped at tlie level which they 
 represented at the epoch of their discover}'. This species of 
 property exists in New Holland among peoples, supposed by 
 some to be degenerate monkeya, and the right which ndes 
 it is so rigorous that the Australian never enters the 
 |>ro|)erty of a neighbouring tribe without express permission. 
 To act otherwise is equivalent to a declaration of war. 
 Dur common lands, and the annual conflicts which took 
 place formerly, and which, perhaps, still take place, in spite 
 of official settlements, between French and Spanish shep- 
 herds, will give some idea of such a state of things. Among 
 certain Australian tribes, territorial property is still more 
 divided and definite ; every family has its hunting-grounds, 
 which are inherited by the sons to the exclusion of the 
 daughters. 
 
 Among the most savage peoples, when we have been able 
 to gain definite information as to their manners, we find 
 tliat theft is regarded as something wrong, and j>unishetl. 
 Among the Australians, poaching is punished with death. 
 
 But theft is only a crime when it is committed under 
 certain circunistances. When untie r others it is, on the 
 contrary, regarded as meritorious. To rob an enemy of 
 his horses or cattle is a praiseworthy act of cunning. It is 
 no longer theft, but an a«-t of hostility. Now. to the savage 
 the stranger is almost always an enemy. The case is the 
 same with a great many Aryan and Semitic |HH>plea. Wils 
 it not so among the classic nations from which we derive our 
 civilization ?
 
 468 The Human Species. 
 
 Nothing is more common tlian to hoar travellers accuse 
 entire races of an incorrij^nhle propensity for theft. The 
 insular populations of the Simth Sea have, amongst others, 
 Ijeen reproached with it. These people, it is indignantly 
 affirmed, stole even the nails of the ships ! But these nails 
 were iron, and in these islands, which are devoid of metal, 
 a little iron was, with good cause, regarded as a treasure. 
 Now, I ask any of my readers, supposing a ship with 
 Kheaihing and holts of gold, and nails of diamonds and 
 ruhies, were to sail into any European port, would its sheath- 
 ing or its nails be safe ? And would not numbers of people 
 be found ready to reason like the Negroes, who make no 
 scruple of robbing a White ? " You are so rich," they say, 
 when reproached with any misdeed of this kind. 
 
 These same Negioes, however, have a great respect for 
 property among themselves. Theft does not appear to be 
 more frequent with them than it is with us between Europeans, 
 and the thief is punished upon the coast of (luinea pncisely 
 in the same manner as in Europe. 
 
 We oui,dit, perhaps, to refer to the idea of property the 
 manner in which adultery is regarded by some peoples. In 
 countries where the woman may be bought, it is evidently a 
 violation of the rights of the ])ropnetor. Nevertheless, even 
 amongst the most savage tribes, a more elevated feeling, and 
 one which is connected with moral or social ideas, as wc 
 ourselves understand them, may be proved, often in the 
 ch-arest manner. The giavity of the pimishment inclined 
 by the culprit scarcely permits of a doubt that it is so. The 
 Atistralian, iMicorrupted by the vicinity of the White and 
 brandy, never forgives one who liius destroyed the purity of 
 his wife, and kills him on the first occasion. With the 
 Hottentots, death again is the pimishment for adtdtery. It 
 is the custom among the Negroes of the CJold Cojust for the 
 cidprit, as a general rule, to make an arrangement with the 
 injured party, if it is a (piestion of one of the women of the 
 third order, who are merely concubines. liut if it is a ques- 
 tion of the (jrcal v/ife or the Fdinh wife, then death, or at
 
 Jlloral Characters — Jlfodcsly, Honour. 469 
 
 least the ruin of tlio cul))rit, will alone sufTice to avenge the 
 injury. 
 
 Yet Negresses are not Penelope.s. I do not fur a moment 
 think of challenging the unanimous evidence of travellers on 
 this point, and the husbands, as we have just remarked, do 
 not always invoke the rigour of the local code. What may 
 we legitimately infer from this fact ? Merely that the 
 customs and the law of these races are at variance. But is 
 it not often so amongst ourselves. Is adultery practised with 
 impunity only among Negroes ? Do complaisant husbands 
 exist only among Australians ? 
 
 IV. Respect for human life is universal. The murderer is 
 everj'whcre punishcil, liut, amongst ourselves, murder sup- 
 poses certain conditions. In spite of the law, he who kills hi.s 
 adversary in a fair duel is regarded by no one a.s a murderer ; 
 he who kills or causes the death of a great number of enemies 
 in pitched battle is a hero. 
 
 With the savage the formula is still more elastic. As I 
 have just remarked, he regards a stranger in almost every 
 ca.se as au enemy, and to kill him is no crime ; it is often 
 a title of honour. Moreover, among the greater number of 
 savage or barbarous peoples, blood demands l)lood, and for 
 vengeance to be complete, it is not necessary that the true 
 culprit should be overtaken. Every individual of the same 
 family, tril»o, or nation, can, and muMt pay for his crime if 
 occaiiion otYers. When Takouri treaclniviuslij n)a.ssacred 
 Captain Marion du Fresne and his si.\teeu sailors, ho only 
 obeyed the laws of his country, lie had avenged his relative 
 Nagui Noui, triachcnnn<f>/ carried off three years previously 
 by Surville, who wished to puui.>>h the theft of a canoe. In 
 this manner many Europeans have fallen victims to the 
 misdeeds of their countrymen, and certain peoples have 
 actpiired an unmerited reputation for ferocity. 
 
 But let us remember that the Scotch and the Corsicans 
 scarcely acted differently in their vendetta. With them, a.s 
 with the Red-Skin, the Maori, and the Fijian, the bhKxl of 
 every member of the family or clan might atone for the
 
 I 
 
 470 TJic IIui)ia)i Species. 
 
 blood spilt by another. Again, tbat which we now call 
 vilful munhi; was no more considered b}- the European as 
 an act of cowardice or treason than it is by the savage. Let 
 us remember, moreover, that in the Middle Ages, chiefs 
 occupying the highest positions in European society, did not 
 hesitate to act in this manner ; let us remember that the 
 commanders of our ships, when punishing savages for some 
 attack, bombard and burn the first villages that they meet 
 without any scruple, nltliuugh they may be almost sure that 
 many innocent will pay fur the guilty ; and perhaps we shall 
 be less severe. 
 
 As to a want of respect for human life, the white European 
 race cannot reproach the most barbarous. Let us look back 
 upon our own history, and recall some of those wars, those 
 j)agL's written in letters of blood in our own annals. Let us 
 not, above all, forget our conduct towards our inferior 
 brethren ; the depopulation wliich marks every step through 
 tjje world ; the niassacies committeil in cold blood, and often 
 for amusement ; the man-hunts organized after the manner 
 of stag-hunts ; the extermination of entire populations to 
 make room for P^uropean colonies, and we shall be forced to 
 acknowledge that if respect for human life is a moral and 
 universal law, no race lias violated it oftener, or in a more 
 terriiile manner than our own. 
 
 V. Modesty and sense of honour are undoubtedly two of 
 the principal manifestations of self-respect. Neither the one 
 nor the other are wanting among savage peoples. Jiut the 
 former, especially, often shows itself in customs and practices 
 widely opposed to our own, or bearing no resemblance what- 
 ever t(» till in. 'i'his has given rise to many misconceptions, 
 such OH that which, among certain Polynesians, has been 
 consider<'d as a refinement of immodest sensuality, what in 
 their opinion is only an act of <'lementary modesty, 
 
 I might multiply examples of this nature, but for what 
 pui-jKiKc ? Is it not the same in matters of politeness ? We 
 rise and uncover the head l)efore a stranger or a superior ; in 
 a similar clso the Turk remains covered, and the Polynesian
 
 Moral Clui racier s — //o/ioitr. 471 
 
 sits down. Tliouj^^li (Jiffcriiit; so entirely in form, are they 
 not insj)ireil l»y tlie same sentiments? Is not the faculty hy 
 which they are called into play everywhere the same? 
 
 It is the same also with the sense of honour. Here, how- 
 ever, more than in any other case, we meet with conceptions 
 remarkably in accordance with our own. The history of 
 .ravage natioiis abounds with traits of warlike heroi.sm, and 
 nothing is more common than to .see savages prefer torture 
 and death to shame. The Algonquin and the Iroquois 
 thallenge their executioners to invent fresh tortures. The 
 Kaffir chief a.sks as a favour to be thrown to the crocodiles 
 rather than lo.se the feather, which to him represents the 
 epaulette, and serve as a common soldier after having been 
 an officer. The duel of the Australian is more l(»gi(al than 
 ours, and always in earnest. 
 
 That which we call chivalrous generosity in speakin^ of 
 Europeans, is by no means wanting in savages. lu the 
 struggles at Tahiti several officers owed their lives to this 
 feeling. After peace had l>een concluded, Admiral Bruat 
 asked a Tahitian chief, to who.se fire he had l>een expo.sed 
 for an hour while he bathed, why he had not fired: "I should 
 have been dishonoured in the eyes of my people if I had 
 killed such a chief as you, naked, and by surprise," replied 
 the savage. Could the most civilized man have actetl or 
 spoken better ? 
 
 We might <pinto varii>us actions of Red-8kins and 
 Australians, arising from sentiments of the s;ime nature. 
 
 VI. In conclusion, if it is sa«l to Ik? forceil to rec<»gnise 
 mond evil in races and in nations which have carried social 
 civilizjition to the highest degree of jn-rfection, it is consolin<' 
 to acknowledge the tjnod in the most Imckward tribe.s, and 
 to find it there in its most elevated and refined form. The 
 fundamental identity of human nature is nowhere displaved 
 in a more striking manner. 
 
 Does this a.s.sertion lead to the inference that all human 
 -roups are upon the same moral level ? By no mean.s. From 
 this, as from the intellectual point of view, they may hold a 
 
 •n
 
 472 The Human Species. 
 
 liii,^licr or lo^Yer position of the scale, without any of them 
 falling to zero. It is precisely this moral inequality which 
 has for the anthropologist an interest at once scientific and 
 practical. The very development of the faculty, the acts 
 which it inspires, the institutions of which it is the founda- 
 tion, present differences sufficiently great to make it possiljle 
 to discover characters in this order of facts.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CHARACTERS. 
 
 I. If scientific impartiality and calm judgment are neces- 
 sary in the study of moral phenomena, they are much more 
 indispensable when we have to account for facts depending 
 \i|)on religious feeling. Unfortunately tiiis condition is too 
 rarely fulfilled. Passion, with lamentable facility, becomes 
 involved in whatever resembles a religious question. Many 
 other causes, easy to mention, join pjission in leading our 
 judgment astray, and it is not difficult to explain how, under 
 these several influences, it has been possible, honestly to 
 ignore manifestations of religion in the more or less important 
 divisions of mankind. 
 
 The most frequent cause of error to which I feel myself 
 bound to call attention, has its origin in the high opinion 
 whiclj the Euro]>ean has of himself, in the luibitual contempt 
 which is the most striking feature of his relation with other 
 populations, and especially to those which, with greater or 
 less rea.son, he treats as barbarians or savages. For example, 
 a traveller who, as a general rule, speaks the language of 
 the country very luidly, intcrro^ites a few individuals upon 
 the delicate questions of the Diity, future life, etc, and his 
 interlocutoi-s, not luulerstanding him, make a few signs of 
 iloubt or denial, which have no reference to the (pieslions 
 asked. The European in his turn mistakes their meaning. 
 Having, in the first instance, merely regarded them jus beings 
 of the lowest type, incapable of any conception however 
 trifling, he concludes without hesitation that these iK-oplcs 
 have uo idea either of (Jod or of another life ; and his
 
 474 -^f^^ Human Species. 
 
 assertion, soon repeated, is at once accepted as true by readers 
 wlio sliarc his opinions about populations unacquainted with 
 our civilization. The history of travel would furnish us with 
 many examples of this fact. Kaffirs, Hottentots, etc., have 
 often been spoken of as atheists, while we now know that 
 this is l)y no means the ca.se. 
 
 Should the traveller, moreover, speak the language of the 
 country with ease, he is still liable to fall into error. Reli- 
 gious belief forms part of the most hidden depths of our 
 nature ; the savage does not willingly expose his heart to a 
 stranger whom he fears, whose superiority he feels, and 
 whom he has often .seen ready to ignore or ridicule what he 
 has always regarded as most worthy of veneration. The. 
 dithculty which a Parisian experiences in France in under- 
 standing the superstitions of the Basque sailor, or of the 
 Bas-Breton pea.sant, shuuld make him able to appreciate 
 those which he would tiii<l in giving an explanation of similar 
 subjects in connection villi Kaffirs or Australians. Campbell 
 had great trouble in (jbtaining from Alak()um the avowal 
 that the Bosjesman admitted the existence of a male god and 
 of a female god, of a good and evil ])rinciple. He left many 
 other, and much more important di.sccneries to be made by 
 MM. Arbousset and Daumas. Wallis, after a month's inti- 
 macy with the Tahitians, declared that they p.).sse.s.scd no 
 forui of woishijt, whilst it entered, .so to speak, into their most 
 trivial action.s. He liad seen iiolliinL,^ beyond a cemetery in 
 I ho Moral, those venerated temples, of wliicli no woman 
 might evi'ii toiH h the .sacred gmund. 
 
 Tin; lively faith of a missionary is, again, often a cause of 
 error. Whatever tlie (Miristian communion may be to which 
 lie belongs, he generally arrives in the midst of the people 
 \shom ho wi.shes to convert, with a hatn-d of their objects of 
 belief, which arc to him works of the devil. Too often he 
 neither Hceks to account for them, nor even to become 
 acquainted with them ; his sole endiavour is to destif»y them. 
 1 could here mention one of these too zealous apostles, who 
 Hces nothing in the Brahminical religion but the utmost bar-
 
 Rclij^ious Characlcrs. 475 
 
 Karism uiiitcil with tlic utmost ahsiirdity. It is clear tliat 
 the much more rudiuicntary holiof of a Kaffir or of an 
 Australian could not he a rclltjion in the oj)ini()n of such 
 a judge as this. He expresses and puhlishes his ideas, and 
 another name is a<lded to the list of atheist populations. 
 
 Fortunately amongst lay Europeans there are some who, 
 permanently settled in the midst of these populations, 
 become initiated into their customs and manners, .so as to 
 understand them and to fathom mysteries, which would hy 
 others be passed over on account of offensive or curious forms. 
 Among missionaries there are some who, more indulgent, 
 because they are more enlightened, can recognise the reli- 
 gious conception, however feeble it may ])o, or however it 
 may have been transformed. Little by little the light has 
 appeared, and the result has been that Austmlians, Melane- 
 sians, Bosjesmans, irottentnts, Kaftirs, and Bechuniias, have, 
 in their turn, been withdrawn fiom the V\>-t of atheist nations 
 and recognised as religious. 
 
 II. Can the justice of this conelusion be denied ? Can 
 anyone refuse to allow a religion, properly .so calleti, to these 
 peoples, to recognise as true divinities beings who receive a 
 tribute of affection or terror, homage and prayers on the part 
 of populations, who either fear <»r trust in them ? It is po.s- 
 sible. Hero again our European pride seems to me to have 
 often led to false conclusions. Believers or vmlK-lievers, 
 freethinkers or zealous Christians, savants and phihisophcrs 
 have been too much under the influence of the idea of the 
 Deity as conceived by our most cultivattxi cla.s.sos. Often 
 when this idea is even slightly degrailed or modified, they 
 no longer acknowletlge its existence ; when the conclusions 
 drawn from it up)n the origin, nature, and destiny of man or 
 of the universe, differ even slightly from those which they 
 admit themselves, or have been aceuslomed to hear, they 
 refuse them the name of nlitjiou. 
 
 I can only explain in this manner the jmlgment i>as.scd 
 upon a very considerable |>ortion of mankind by a numl>er 
 of savants and eminent thinkers, amongst whom we must
 
 476 The Hiniian Species. 
 
 reckon the illustiious Orientalist Burnouf. In liis opinion 
 Buildliisni is true atheism. In a work ^Yhich has been 
 deservedly successful, M. Bartlieleniy Saint-IIilairc has sup- 
 ported this view with incontestable talent and learning. He 
 has, moreover, placed on an equality with Buddhist beliefs, 
 and perhaps even below them, those which had preceded 
 them among the Mongols, Chinese, and Japanese. Thus, in 
 the opinion of this eminent writer, nearly all the yellow 
 races, much more than the third of mankind, arc atheists. 
 
 But, in formulating this conclusion, the learned author 
 of Buddah chiefly consulted his own reason and concep- 
 tions. "Buddhists," he says, "may without any injustice 
 be regarded as atheists. I do not mean that they profess 
 atheism, that they glory in their incredulity with that 
 boasting of which more than one example might be quoted 
 amongst ourselves ; I only mean that tlie.se nations have 
 not been able to rise in their noblest thoughts to the concep- 
 tion of God." 
 
 In the.se few lines the idea of the book and the CJiuse of 
 the disagreement which separates me from M. Barthclemy 
 Saint-llilaire is clearly evident. The Buddhist.s, who every- 
 where give a place to (jods in their legends, who have every- 
 where rai.sed temples consecrated to these deities, who fear 
 and worship them, who have made prayer an institution, 
 who adjuit the dogma of future life and of remuneration, 
 have not formed that idea of God to which we have all moro 
 or less attained ; they are therefore athei.sts. This is 
 evidently the; prepo.s.sessiou under the inlluence of which 
 this work has been written, which, however, should be read 
 by all who are desirous of gaining correct impressions 
 concerning some of the grave (pieslions so holly disputed at 
 the in-esent day. 
 
 The savant who considerrd Uiiddhism Jis atheism woidd 
 with still greater reason inakr the same estimate of the 
 ancient Udiefs of Japan, ( 'liina. and Mongolia. Neverthe- 
 IcMH, there wa.s in this ca.sc5 also a belief in numerous divinities, 
 always subordinated to one su^jreme, uncreated and creating
 
 Rcii^ious Characters. 477 
 
 Cod. In Japan, we are told by Siebolt, there were counted 
 no less than seven celestial gods, and eight million kaniis, or 
 spirits, of which 4'J2 were superior gods. Tho inferior 
 Kamis, to the number of 2t!4(), were deified men. Jn China, 
 the aim of the reform of Lao-tstu and of Klujung-tsfU was, 
 partly, the destruction of idolatry, and idolatry is not 
 atheism. The populations of northern and central Asia 
 have in almost all cases been accused by travellers especially 
 of superstition, and not of atheism. They also have tlxir 
 idols. The case is similar with all northern populations. 
 Jn the sacred island of Waygatz, near to the straits of the 
 same name, the missionaries burnt, in 1827, 420 images 
 collected upon the promontory of Haye-Salye aloJie. Through- 
 out this vast area, the iidiabitants believed, or still believe, 
 in spirits dwelling in rocks, trees, mountains, or the celestial 
 bodies, and otVered to them an interested homage. 
 
 Still, however, there was an universjil belief iu a iSuprcme 
 God, who had created these very spirits, and was the 
 Preserver of all living things. The Lapps and Samoyedes 
 had, or still have on this point, the same conceptions as the 
 ancient Chinese. I'heir Jubviel, and their Num answer 
 e.xactly to the Cltuvfj-tl of Khoung-tseu himself, while 
 |»opvdar iilioms show that they regard him as the first dis- 
 |>enser of all good. Nuvi tad (may Num grant), and Num 
 iirka {thanks be to Num), are apparently of frequent occtir- 
 rence in the language of the Samoyedes. This Ixdief in a 
 Supreme (Jotl and in secondary spirits, of vast number, but 
 still presenting a kind of hierarchy, is a very ancient one in 
 ( hina, for we find the emperor Chun 222.') yt-ars In^fore our era 
 '•ottering sacrifices to the Supreme Sovereign of Heaven, antl 
 the usual ceremonies to the si.K great spirits, as those tisually 
 otVered to mountains, stream.s, and spirit,s in general." 
 
 Possessing Wliefs of this kind, attested and sanctiomtl 
 by public act.s, can they l)e regarded as atheist,s ? If so, 
 we must at least allow that this is a very tliffi rent atheism 
 from that which has been profe.s.MHl, and is still professed, by 
 certain European .schools of philosophy.
 
 478 The IliDUiiJi Species. 
 
 II r. I nili^lit make similar observations iipDii tlic subject 
 of tlic opinions published by Sir John Lubbock in the two 
 works which have gained for Inm in anthropology a reputa- 
 tion e(iual to that which lie already enjoyed as a naturalist. 
 " It is difficult," he says, " to suppose that savages so rude as 
 not to be able to count tlieir own fingers, sliould liave 
 acquired intellectual conceptions sufficiently advanced to 
 possess a system of belief worthy of the name of religion." 
 
 Leaving on one side what the author here says tabout 
 numeration, which rests, I think, upon a false assumption, do 
 not these words, "worthy of the name of religion," show us 
 that, like M. B. Saint-Hilaire, Sir John Lubbock takes his 
 own conceptions in religious matters as a criterion of those 
 of savajres ? 
 
 \\\ the opinion of Sir John Lubbock, atheism is not "the 
 negation of the existence of a (Jod, but the absence of definite 
 idt'ji-s upon this subject." Here, like M. liarthelemy Saint- 
 Hilaire, the English savant gives to the word dtheism a very 
 different sense to that wliich it has held hitherto. Moreover, 
 he quotes elsewhere without comment seviral jiassages, the 
 sense of which clearly implies a negation of all divinity, and 
 sometimes himself makes use of expressions which seem to 
 [)rove that such is his conviction, at least with regard to 
 certain savages. Thus, the testiniony which Ik; makes use 
 of, and his own wonls, are often employed in the support 
 of the opinion wliiili ditiirs any religion to eertain liimian 
 groups. 
 
 The choice, iMorf()vcr, of the (|Uol;if ions in question .seems 
 to inr liable to u serious <»bjection. Wh'ii the, writers, 
 against whom I am now arguing, havi; to choose between 
 two uvitlenccH, the one attesting, the other denying the exis- 
 tence of n-ligiouH belief in a population, it is always the 
 latt«T whieh they seem to think slioidd l»e aeeeptrd. Mon: 
 often than not, thoy do not evi'U iiniilinii the (onfrary 
 evidences, however de-finite, however authentic tliey may be. 
 
 Now it is evidently much ednirv iiol to mr th.in to ilim-over 
 that which may be in so many ways rendered inap|ircciablo
 
 /\i/i<lio!is C/iaracLrs — ditheism. 479 
 
 to onr eyes. When a traveller sUites that he li.is proveil the 
 existence of religious sentiments in a |x>j)ul!ition, which hy 
 others had been declared to be destitute of tlicni, when he 
 gives precise details upon such a delicate questi<jn, he hn.s 
 unquestionably at least probability in ins favour. I see 
 nothing to authorize this rejection of jiositive ecUlence and 
 unconditional acceptance of nejatlve evidence. This, how- 
 ever, is too often the case. 
 
 I might justify this impuUition by taking, one by i»ne, 
 almost all the examples of so-called atheist populatinns 
 pointed out l)y dilferent authors. I shall nmlini- niv-^ If (.» 
 some of the most striking. 
 
 With reference to the Americans, lloln-rtsun is (|Uuti.il, who 
 states that several tribes have been disci>vered in America 
 possessing no conception of a Sujiremc IJeing and no re- 
 ligious ceremonies. No mention is made of the information, 
 for which we are indel)ted to iJ'Orbiguy, although it is verv 
 precise. The author of I' Homme Avi/ricain deserves thi- 
 neglect the less, since he directly contradicts the opinions 
 lield upon this subject l)y several writers, and by Robertson 
 himself. " Although several authors," he says," have denied 
 all religion to certaiii Americ^ms, it is evident in our opinion 
 that all the nations, even the most barb.-irous, pos.Kes.sed one 
 of .some kind." D'Orbiguy d»'Velops this opinion by giving 
 details of the dognjas accepti'd by all the r;ices of S«»uth 
 America, and he proves in all the belief in anothrr life, as 
 attest«'d by (heir funend ceremonies. Is not this of more 
 in>|Kirtance than tli'- ^inipl'- n.'^r-.tivi- ,i<^i.i iI.,m I...ii..u. .| 
 from a traveller '. 
 
 It may be olij.tU.l lluit I )'( )»bi;;iiy .s|Mtk<' only t»f tlie 
 tribes of Smth America, and that the atheist jH)pulations 
 must be .sought in the northern portion of this continent. 
 The C^iliforniaus have, in fact, ln^en quoted, iij>on the autho- 
 rity of P. Baegert, a.s having n«ither governnunt, religion, 
 idols, temples, nor form of worship. I>ut nothing is said of 
 the facts oUserved by M. <Ie M«)fra.s, which iiin-ctly contradict 
 this as.sertion. The Californian.s, this traveller tells us.
 
 4S0 TJic Ilinuan S/^ixics. 
 
 believe in a superior God. " This God lia.s had neither 
 father nor mother. His origin is entirely unknown ; they 
 believe that He is omnipresent ; that He sees everything, 
 even in the middle of the darkest nights ; that He is in- 
 visible to all eyes ; that He is the Friend of the good, and 
 that He punishes the wicked." The Californians build oval 
 temples, or, perhaps, rather cluqiels, from 10 to 12 ft. in 
 diameter, -which are regarded as asylums, even in case of 
 murder. Clearly, the Californians must be erased from the 
 list of atheist populations, the conception Avhich they have 
 formed of their superior God being, on the contrary, a 
 remarkably elevated one. In this respect these poor .savages 
 greatly sur{)assed the Greeks and Romans. 
 
 The Californians rank amongst those human tribes which 
 are least elevated in the social scale ; but there are some 
 which arc considered to stand far below them, the Miucopies, 
 for example. Some writers, adopting the ideas o( Moiiat, 
 regard them as atheist.s. They make no mention of the 
 evidence of Alajor Michael Symes and Mr. Day. The 
 former relates the information which he received from 
 Captain Stocker, who lived for several years in the midst 
 of these islanders ; the latter relates what he saw. From 
 tlieir combined evidence, it appears that the Mincopies 
 wortihipped the sun as the primal source of all good ; the 
 moon as a secondary power ; the genii of the woods, 
 rivers, and mountains as agents of the tir.st divinities. They 
 believe that a malevolent spirit rai.ses tempc.st.s, and they 
 Kometimes endeavour to j)acify it by songs, sometimes 
 menace it with their arrow.s. These Mincopifs be'lieve in 
 an(»th(r life, and keep a lighted fire under the jtlatform 
 which bears the corp.so of u chief to appea.so his j)Oivcrful 
 eplrit. 
 
 The evidence of Le Vaillaut is accepted with reference to 
 the ub.sencc of all religion in the Hottentots. No notice is 
 taken of the contrary opinion held by Kolbcn, the accuracy 
 and truth of which, though formerly doubted, are now placed 
 above suspicion by the inquiry instituted by Walkenaer.
 
 Rciioious Characters — .UJicisni. 48 1 
 
 Kull>on, moreover, only confirmed the statements of IiIm 
 jnedocessors Saar, Tacliard, and Boeving. He had also the 
 advantage of having studied the aborigines before they were 
 subdued and dispersed by the Europeans. Now KoIIhmi 
 tells us that the Hottentots believed in a God, the creati^r of 
 all existing things, doing no harm to anyone, and living 
 be^'ond the moon. They called Him Gounja Tlrqvim, that 
 is to say, God of Gods. They also recognized an evil divinity, 
 called Touquda. The moon was, in their oj)inion, an inferior 
 gounja. They believed, moreover, in another life, for they were 
 afraid of ghosts, and rendered a sort of adoration to their 
 great men, by dedicating to them a field, a mountain, or a 
 river, to which they made, in pa.ssing, some sign <»f re.sjK'ct. 
 These details, given by the old Prussian travelkr, agree with 
 those which Campbell received from the lips of a Ilott<!ntot 
 chief. 
 
 Burchell, it is stated, could discover no nligiun in (he 
 Bachapine KatHr.s. Nevertheless, and Lubbock allows it 
 himself elsewhere, we find in the writings of this traveller 
 that the Bachapines believed in a malevolent being called 
 Moidiimo, to whom they attribute everything of an un- 
 pleasant nature which happens to them. To defeml them- 
 selves against him they cover them.selves with amulets, ami 
 they hold many tither superstition.s. It is evident that 
 Burchell wjus not ac<|uainte»l with everything which the 
 Bachapines believe«l, either becau.se he ditl n«»t attach great 
 importance to the invest igati«in, or becntise he wa.s preventitl 
 by tlie difficulty which Kulben has mentione<l, and which I 
 have pointed out above. 
 
 Thus the Bachapines believe in a superior, biit evil iK-ing. 
 in a kind of devil. It would be very singtdar if tluy ilid 
 not believe in a njycii's of God. Schwcinfurth believeH ho 
 h;is discovered .something similar amotig the Bongos ; but ho 
 hiuLself insi.sts .several times upon the difficulty of determin- 
 ing exactly what to l)elieve in questions of this kind. Let 
 us admit, h(»wever, that this may be true in the cn.se of thcj*© 
 Negroes as also in th'.it of the Bachapines. We can only
 
 4$ 2 The HuDian Species. 
 
 regard it as an accidental ami local phenomenon, and in no 
 way as a character of race. I shall return later to the 
 N(.'i>-roes ; I will now only add a few words with reference to 
 the Bachapines. 
 
 This popidation is ordy a portion of the Bechuana Kaffir 
 race. Now, thanks to Livingstone, M. Cazalis, and others, 
 we have, upon the suhject of the religions beliefs of these 
 tribes in '^eneral, details which are very niinnte and of incon- 
 tcbtable authenticity. Tiie Basutus have their legends, their 
 cosmogony, and their rudimentary mythology. They admit 
 the existence of a being who dc-sfroys hy thunder, they give 
 to him the name oi Morcua, literally, InlcUifjcnt lie'imj ivko 
 ■18 above, they have, moreover, Molimos, a kind of household 
 gods, to whom they oflcr prayers and sacrifices, and in whose 
 honour they i)uriry thenisclves ; they believe in another life, 
 in another world situated in the centre of the earth, which 
 they call the ahyxs which i^s never fdled. The Bechnanas 
 believe so strongly in ghosts that the fierce ])ingan dare not 
 g(» out in the evening, for fear of meeting the spectre of 
 Chaka, whom lie had assassinated. 
 
 IV. The residt of my investigations is exactly the oppcsito 
 of that It) wiiieh Sir John Lubbock and M. Saint-Ililaire have 
 arrived. Obliged, in my course of instruction, to review all 
 liiinian races, 1 have sought atheism in the lowest as well as 
 in the highest. 1 have nowhere met wilh it, except in 
 individuals, or in more or less limited .schools, such lus those 
 which existed in Kun»pe in the last century, (»r which may 
 Ktill 1m; seen at the jiresent day. 
 
 ("an it be that analogous fact,s have occurred elsewhere, 
 an<l that hoiim; American tribes, some Polynesian or Melane- 
 sian populations, some honles of Bedunins may have entirely 
 lost the conception of the «livinity and another lile i Jt is 
 certainly possible that it may be ho. But side by side with 
 these tribes dwell other tribis, other populations, (>( jn'ccittcly 
 the 8<une race, which still pos.sess a religious faith. Such 
 is indeed the result of the examples <|Uoted by Lubbock. 
 This is tin- great jtoinf. ^Ve nowhere meet with atheism
 
 Rt'/ioioiis CharacitTs—Atluiini. 4S3 
 
 except in an erratic condition. In every phwe, and at all 
 times, the mass of populations have escaped it ; we nowhere 
 find either a great huuian race, or even a division l.ow.v.r 
 unimportant of that race, professing atheism. 
 
 Such is tiic result of an in<niiry which I am |ii.stiJiL(l in 
 calling conscii-ntious, and which cumiiK-nced hefore I itssniiird 
 the anthropological professorship. It is true that in thes.- 
 researches I have proceeded and have formed my conclusions, 
 not as a thinker, a l»eli».ver, or as a philosopher, who are 
 all more or less under the inlluence of an ideal which they 
 accept or oppose, but exclusively (w a naturalist, whose chief 
 aim is to seek for and stntf fact h. 
 
 In the scientific study of religions we nmst avoid acting 
 in the manner of the physiologist, who, having experimented 
 upon the vertebrata alone, refused to recognise the charac- 
 teristic functions of animal life in the lower animals, lx?cause 
 they were in those ciises simpler and more obscure. Here, 
 more perhaps than elsewhere, we shouhl imitate m<Mleni 
 naturalists, who have traa-d the fnndamental functions even 
 in the lowest molluscs and zodjilivt.s win rr .ill special onmni- 
 zation is ofteri w.uifing. 
 
 The ]thysiidogist does not deny the e.xi.steiice of a pheno- 
 menon because it occurs in a j)lace, and by meth«Kls, dilVerent 
 to those to which he is accustome«l. In almost all animals, 
 even to the lowest, rhymitication takes place in the interior 
 of the bocly. In the I'hy.salia the same physioloj^ieal act in 
 jK'rforme*! externally, by the numemus appendages which 
 .serve for both arms and mouth to these singidar zoophytes. 
 In spite of the stningene.s.s of the pnKVss, the function hiw 
 neither tlisappeared, nor change«l its nature in the eyes of 
 the scientitic man. 
 
 The naturalist who studies the hi.story of man, that is to 
 ^ay, the anthropologist, should neither act nor judge otlur- 
 wi.se. Hywever .simple or incomplete, however naive and 
 childish, however absurd it may \k\ a belief shonUi not lose 
 its character in his eyes, if it has uuy connection with that 
 element which is common and e.ssiii(i;il to all nIi'_Mons.
 
 4 84 The Ihivian Species. 
 
 Now, whatever the dogmas and doctrines of the hitter may 
 be, we may accept as a general ft)rinuhi, whicli embraces them 
 all, the two following points : a belief in beings superior to 
 man and capable of exercising a good or evil influence upon 
 his destiny ; and the conviction that the existence of man is 
 not limited to the present life, but that there remains for 
 him a future beyond the grave. 
 
 Every people, every man, believing these two things, is 
 religious, and observation shows more and more clearly every 
 day the universality of this character. 
 
 Like intelligence and morality, religious feeling has, more- 
 over, its several degrees and manifestations. To seek for these 
 manifestations, to determine their nature and intensity in the 
 various human groups, must be the task of the antliropolo- 
 gi.st. In order to be faithful to the moilern method, he must 
 neglect nothing. Sometimes the most rudimentary religion 
 will have for him a greater interest than one which is 
 fully developed, because it expo.ses more clearly the j)rimary 
 religi<jus elements. In their progressive development, in the 
 harmony or discord existing between this development and 
 that of the intelligence or morality, he will find many charac- 
 teristic features suitable for distinguishing races, and some- 
 times their subdivisions. 
 
 V. The point of view taken by the naturalist differs, then, 
 in certain respects, from that which has hitherto been 
 ailopted by the greater number of eminent men, who have 
 cndcavdured to establish the t^cinire of relli/lonH. Even 
 M. liinile L5urnouf, who has so clearly characterised this new 
 Hcicnce, wlio has shown ho admirably in what respects it 
 differs from theology, who has so jtistly insisted upon the 
 necessity of enlarging the area (tf studies of this kind, and of 
 no longer connning oiirKclvcs to the beliefs of ancient and 
 mn<h'rn Eurn|M'aiis, seems to me to liave yielded to the 
 prejudices which lu' opposes. 
 
 In fact, this author divides religions into t/rcat and HinaU, 
 'I'ho former in his opinion are: ( 'hristianity, Judaism. 
 Mahoniedunihrn, lirahinanisni, and iSuddhistn. He turns his
 
 Rciioious Characters — Small Religions. 485 
 
 attention to these only, leaving all others in the baikground. 
 M. Burnouf may, it is true, argue from the relative number 
 of adherents. 
 
 The following are, in fact, from the latest researches of 
 M. Hulnicr, the general religious statistics of the globe. 
 
 {Catholics 200 millions, 
 
 rrotcstants 110 „ 
 
 firt'C'ks SO „ 
 
 Various sects Kt „ 
 
 i I?u<l(lhislH 5<H) „ 
 
 \ iiraliriiiiiists ].",() ,, 
 
 N<in-('hri-iii:ins, ' .Mahitmeilans . . . . J>0 „ 
 
 yjl'i milliuiis. ) Israelites t»4 ., 
 
 Known different religions . . 2^0 ., 
 
 Unknown religions . . . . 10 ,. 
 
 Tot.ll . . 1 :('.»!• i ., 
 
 The same author gives about one thinisand as the numltcr 
 of the religions or sects into wliiih mankind is divided. The 
 majority is un<jut.stio!iably greatly on the side of the small 
 religions, which proscnt, at kiust in certain respects, a variety 
 of conception equal, if not superior, to all that has been 
 observed in the groat. M. Binnouf acts, tlu n-fore, like the 
 ntituralist, who would form liis judgment UjK»n tlic animal 
 kingdom from the vcrtebrata alone, and would neglect nil 
 the rest, that is to say, three-fourths of the fundamental, and 
 a vt-ry considorable number of the socon«lary lypfs. 
 
 Without even mentioning Christianity, the gieut religions 
 of M. Burnouf are doubtless of inteR'st to us in many 
 irspect.s, on acconnt of the relations whith many of them 
 present with the beliefs of almost all KurojK'ans, and al.M) 
 from the historical, .social, and political im|xirtance of the 
 nations by whom they are profe.s.sed. But considerations of 
 this kind are far fr«»m being everything in science. Mam- 
 iiiifers are of much more use to us than worms or zoophytes: 
 \et the zoologi.st takes as much interest in the latter as in 
 I he former; and it becomes more evi<lent every day how 
 useful, and often how necessaiy the study of these simplified
 
 4B6 The Human Specks, 
 
 orgaiiisins is, for tlic better understanding of the more 
 complex organisms of liighcr animals. 
 
 The examination of tlie »mall religions will render an 
 analogous service to the science of the great religions. It 
 will be, perhaps, amongst the former that we shall be forced 
 to seek the origin of those beliefs which now include so 
 many millions of men ; under one form or another, we shall, 
 doubtless, often meet with traces of them side by side wilh, 
 or even in the midst of the most fully devt-lopcd religions, 
 and tliose which arc apparently most widely separated 
 from them. Upon these two points our opinions will 
 nt)t I think clash with those of M. Burnouf and Sir John 
 Lubbock. 
 
 VI. The latter, in his Origins of Civilization, has, in fact, 
 endeavoured to trace the gradual development of religion in 
 the inferior human races. Unfortunately, he seems to me to 
 have, a.s a rule, undervalued the greater number of these 
 conceptions, and to have ignored the remarkably elevated 
 character which many of them exhibit. This alone may 
 have led him to consider religion as projxjrtional to civiliz-i- 
 tion, and developing only with the latter. I cannot share 
 this view; an<l the ilisagreement between Lubbock and 
 inyself is al.H) due in a great measure to the importance 
 which I hav<' attached to certain evidences which si'eni to 
 have escaped the notice of the English savant. A few 
 examples will justify these observations. 
 
 l)f all the iM'opIcs, cxjucerning whose beliels we possess 
 an almost sullicient amount of information, the Australians 
 certainly tak«! the first place. l'j)on this point I a!u entirely 
 aj^ftecd with Sir John Lublxtck. liut 1 cannot hold witli 
 hin«, that thrsi- populations do not Inlieve in a god of any 
 kind ; that they n«\< r ..IV. i privis;; that they have no form 
 «»f worKhip at /ill. 
 
 In Htip|Mirt of hi.-, opinion my eminent, colleague cpioti's 
 Kyre, (.'(dlinH, ami Alact Jillivray ; but he forget.s Cunningham, 
 DawHon, Wilkc.s, Sulvado, antl Stanbridge. In comparing the 
 information obtained by t lust.- travellers in different parts of
 
 J^cltoious Characters — Australians. 48 7 
 
 New lfull;m<l, wo everywhere observe a similar foiindutiun in 
 the beliefs, wliicli well deserve to be termed reln/tinifi. 
 
 The Australians admit a good principle, callt d, according 
 to the locjility, Coyan, Motoijon, P upper inibul, who is s«jme- 
 timos spoken of by them a.s a kind of giant, at others lus a 
 kind of spirit. Coyan is beneficent, and regards the recover)' 
 of lost children as almost his special duty. To obtain his 
 favour, darts are offered to him. If the child is not found, it 
 is supposed that he is angry. In Xew-Nursie, Motogon is 
 the creator. J[e ha«l only to cry : Earth, appear ! Water, 
 appear! and to breatlu? in order to give birth to all things 
 that exist. Without being so precise, the natives of Tvnil 
 Liike ascribe the creation of the sun to Pupi)erinibid, who 
 l>elong«.'d to a chuss of beings resembling men, but who had 
 been transported to heaven before the appearance of the 
 present race. In south-east Australia, Coyan watches over 
 the evil principle, called Potoyan, Wandoiuj, Cienffa, who 
 roams about at night to devour men a.s well a.s children, and 
 against whom they protect them.selves by fire. The moon, 
 again, is, in the opinion of the Australians, a malevolent 
 being, whose evil inHuence is cotmti-racte^l by the sun. 
 Several good and evil geini, lialuuifHilft and WidujuIs, com- 
 plete this rudimentary njythology, which has al.so its fabulous 
 monsters, its great .serpent.s hidden in rleep rivers, etc. The 
 Austndians In-lieve, moreover, in a kind of immortality of the 
 soul, which pa.s.ses successively Irom one bo«ly U) another. 
 But Ix-'fore finding a new alxxle, the spirits of tlio dea<i 
 wander for a certain length of time in the forest."*, and the 
 natives very often affirm that they have b«'en wen or heanl. 
 
 True, the.sc arc not very noble btdiefs. There is, how- 
 ever, here .««omething of a very different nature from wh.it 
 Sir John Lubbock's view of the matter would lead us to 
 expect The idea of creation by the wonl and breath of a 
 ptnverful ln-ing is a noble eoneeption, and apjMafs distinrtly 
 in .several trilns: oblations and prayer have U-en proveil in 
 others. In all we observe the gcnn of that belief in dual- 
 ism, that antigonisiu of Knevoleiit and malevolent super-
 
 4SS The Human Species. 
 
 human powci-s, which is found in tkc greatest religions, and 
 which is the basis even of Christianity. As to the boHef in 
 another Hfe, no one has of hite, 1 believe, denied the possession 
 of it to the Australians. 
 
 In treatinj.,' of the reli,t,non of the Polynesians, Lubbock 
 quotes chieHy Mariner, Williams, and Sir George Grey. 
 These authorities are unexceptional as regards their state- 
 ment upon what they liave discovered. But their silence 
 upon certain points does not justify us in concluding that 
 there are real gaps in those cases. Other travellers have 
 gone much further than they went, known what they were 
 ignorant of, and have imparted the knowledge to us. 
 Moereuhout was the first, I believe, to publish original docu- 
 nH'iits upon the most ancient Tahitian traditions. Others 
 followed ; and, thanks to favourable circumstances, I have 
 been able to profit by these researches. In the work which 
 T pidilished eight years before that of Lubbock, I reviewed 
 and discussed the principal docummts for which we arc 
 indebted to Captain Lavaud, General llibourt, the missionary 
 Orsmond, M. Ciaussin, and others. All these documents, 
 obtaincil from chiefs belonging to the most ancient families 
 and well versed in the traditions of tlieii' ancestors, have the 
 a|»i)earance of incontestable authenticity, and throw an en- 
 tirely fresh light upon the early history of religion, at least 
 in 'rahili. 1 believe I have defined with sufficii'iit clearness 
 what thes(.' religious Ijeliefs were, and established beyond a 
 tloubt that, si(h' by side with notions arising entirely from 
 su|M'rst it inn, the 'I'ahitians li.id attained conceptions reinark- 
 al»le for their purity and elevation. 
 
 Let us first prove that in the island where W'.iliis declined 
 \ui liad not be«Mi able to discover tin; lea«t trace of religious 
 worship, this worship was, on the contrary, mixed iip with 
 the most trivial acts of life. It was even productive of 
 meliiTicholy conHeiiuenceH. Foinndlunn reigned supreme- 
 'J'rusting in his religioiis observances, in the prayers of his 
 priest**, ami in the indulgenee of his gods, the I'ahitian 
 thought himself at liberty to do almost anything. lie
 
 Reii^'ous Characters — Polynesians. 4 89 
 
 coiubiuoci the strongest and most shnpk' f;iitli with nmnncre 
 rt-nuukahh.' for tlioir violence and licentiousness, lint dix'H 
 not all Europe of the Middle Aj;es, and, even at the present 
 time, do not many provinces, which in other respects are by no 
 means behind the age, present jjhenomena of a similar 
 nature. 
 
 Yet the Tahitians believed in another life, in rewards and 
 punishment after death. Their paradise, of which they gave 
 an enticing descri])tion, was reserved for the chiefs, and for 
 those who had made sutficient offerings to the gmls, that is 
 to say, to the priests. Wjus not, and is not this still, the 
 object of pious donatitjns? 
 
 The souls of the remainder, whose life had been regular, 
 went at once into Po, into obscurity, a kind of limfx), where 
 there seems to have been neither pain nor pleasure of a very 
 decided nature. But guilty souls were condemned to under- 
 L'o a certain number of times, a scratching of the fiesh upon 
 every hone. Their sins expiated, they too were admitted 
 into Po. The Tahitians thus admit a kind of purgatorv' and 
 no hell. It shoulil also be observed that the punishment 
 indicted upon the guilty supposes a kind of materiality of 
 the soul, liut is not this also the case with those torment.s 
 which nearly all our Christian popidations still believe to be 
 reserved for the sinner cast into the^^fm*** of hdl. 
 
 We find in the pantheon of the Tahitians a hierarchy 
 etpial to, but much exceeding in number that of the CJn.-eks 
 and Romans. At tlie lowest extremity of the scale we find 
 iMniMuenible Tin*, whose duty it was to preside in every phic«! 
 over the smallest actions, the smallest movements of (hu 
 soul, even to the wishes of da ij and ni'jht. Al)ovc the 
 latter come the OromotoiuiH, who represented the domestic 
 '^ods, the I^ires and Manes of the ancients. The inftriitr 
 .l/t>Krt*, dwelling upon the earth, inhabiting rivers, woods, 
 \alleys, and mountains, answer very fiiirly to the Faims, 
 Sylvans, Dryads. ()rea«ls, &c. Moreover, it is from among 
 the divinities of this chuss that tiie various profi'.«.si«»ns cho«»so 
 their patrons. The singers, chorographers, and doctors had
 
 490 The Human Species. 
 
 four, sailors twelve, and agriculturists thirteen. The gods of 
 the first rauk were Atouas j)fope)'lij so called. They also 
 wore equally numerous. But nine of them, created (priori) 
 directly by Taaroa, before the formation of man, composed, 
 correctly speaking, the divine family. 
 
 Finally, above all those divinities, stood the Supreme God. 
 There can be no doubt as to the conception which the 
 Tahitians formed of the latter. Traditions, collected at dif- 
 ferent times by different persons, and from equally different 
 sources, agree perfectly upon this point. The song received 
 by Moerenhout from the lips of a harepo began thus : " He 
 was ; Taaroa was his name ; he existed in space ; no earth, 
 no heaven, no men." The manuscript of Cleneral Ribourt 
 describes him as to'ivi, having had no parents, and existing 
 from time immemorial. The sacred song translated by 
 M. Goussin begins Avith the following declaration. "Taaroa 
 the gnat onlcrcr, is the origin of the earth. Taaroa is t«)ivi ; 
 he has no father, no posterity." 
 
 The Tahitians regarded this uncreated God, moreover, as 
 alnmst a pure spirit, and he was unthtubtedly so in the esti- 
 mation of the more enlightened islanders. Certain traditions 
 represent him with a hody ; but, says General Ilibourt's 
 manusnipt, this ])o(ly is liiri.sihlr, and fnither it is nierely, 
 " a shell which is frefpiently renewed, and which the God loses, 
 as a bird its feathers." In Moerenhout's song, it is he who 
 changes himself into the universe ; but " the great and 
 KJicred universe is only the shell of Taaroa." In that of M. 
 (latiHsin, Taaroa raises his head out of his covering, which 
 disappears and becfunes the earth. In the magnificent 
 dialogue, also translated by M. Gaussin, and in wliieh 'i'aaroa 
 cnll.H, go to KjK*ak,»ipon all the different parts of the universe, 
 who in turn answer him, it is said : " The so\d of Taaroa 
 rf'Tnained (J<m1." Tufortunately, after the creation was 
 finished, this God seems to have rejussunnd his state of 
 re|)ose, and to ha\e I»ft to the inferior deities the government 
 of this Wf»rld. 
 
 We see here, again, that as far as the first conception is
 
 Rt'lio ious Characters — Red- Skins. 49 1 
 
 concerned, we are far al)i)ve tliu Zens of the Greeks, or the 
 Jupiter of the R(»nKUis. Anil vi-t who wouhl drrain of com- 
 paring the Tahitian civili/jiti<>n witli the civiliaitiun or the 
 intellectual productions of the Greeks ? It is one of the many 
 facts which show the indepen»lence of the phenomena of the 
 intelligence and those of the religious feeling. 
 
 It is not in Tahiti alone that this elevated spiritualism has 
 been observed, though concealed under very different ap|Mar- 
 ances. The rude images, the tovs placed in the invrai have 
 been regarded by almost all travellers as statues of atouas. 
 They are, in reality, nothing more than tafn'maclea hollow 
 within, and destined to receive difft^rent objects, oblatiitns, 
 etc. A priest of the Sandwich Islands told Byron that, wh»n 
 a child, it happened that he eat something which had been 
 deposited in the sacred images. Surpri.><eil and reprimanded 
 by his father, he excu.scd himself by saying that he had 
 found out by various experiments that these g«xls of wtx>d 
 neither saw nor heard. The old priest then siiid to him in a 
 severe tone : " My son, the wo<kJ, it is true, neither sees nor 
 hears ; but the spirit which is above sees and hears all, and 
 punishes wicked actions." ^ 
 
 Do many anidUg ourselves draw suth a clear distinctiuu 
 between the xjtii it and the n'oixl f 
 
 A remarkable feature of the Tahitian religion is, that wu 
 find in it n<» trace of Manichrisnt. They have, in fact, only 
 (fOilx, anil n<t dtviU, It is true that the priest.s .Hjwke in tlu* 
 name of the Atuu.us and that the Honrrem, hatetl and 
 feared in Tahiti ;us t-l.srwhere, ad«lre.s.setl tlu'inselvi-s soh-ly to 
 the Tiis. IJut the latter were nut in any way con-siilennl as 
 antagonistic to the Atouas. Moerenhuut t4.>lls us that their 
 images might })e seen as guardians at the entrance t»f tlie 
 moral and .s;icretl enclosures. 
 
 Although not so clearly tiefined as those of the Tahitian.'*, 
 tiie religious beliefs of the Algonijuin and Mingwe Ue«l- 
 Skins are very su|>eriur in some resjHct.s. Their Urait Spirit, 
 the Michubou of the Algompiins, the AyrtHcour of the 
 Iroquoi.-^, is the Father of all exi.sting things. To him alone
 
 492 * The Human Species. 
 
 true worship is rendered ia smoking tlie sacred calumet 
 towards the four points of the horizon and the zenith. The 
 Creator of all that exists, he is not so disinterested in his 
 work as Tiuiroa. He himself, or his messengers, watch over 
 cliildrcn, and direct the events of the world. Again, it is to 
 iiim, before all others, that the Red-Skin addressed his 
 prayers when he asks, and his thanks when he has gained 
 his demands. I might here multiply examples and quota- 
 tions. I shall confine myself to reproducing in part the song 
 of the Lenapes on the eve of their departure for war, as it 
 has been preserved for us by Heckewelder. It is a national 
 .song, and of itself refutes many strange assertions frequently 
 made with regard to the populations who once occupied the 
 territory of the United States. 
 
 " Oh, poor me — who am just about to depart to fight the 
 enemy — and know not if I shall return — to enjoy the cm- 
 braces of my children and wife." 
 
 " Oh, poor creature — who cannot order his own life — who 
 has no power over his own body — but who tries to do his 
 duty — for the happiness of his nation." 
 
 " Oh, thou Great Spirit above — take pity upon my 
 children — and upon my wife — keep them from sorrowing 
 on my account — giant that I may succeed in my enterpri.so 
 — that I may kill my enemy — and bring back trophies of 
 war." 
 
 "Give me stniigth an<l courage to fight my enemy — grant 
 that I may return and see my cliildrcn again — .see my wife 
 and my relation.s — have pity upon me and preserve my life — 
 and I will oflft-r to tiire a .sjicrificc." 
 
 it is true that, afti.T the Great Spirit, wf liiid (lio IumI- 
 Skins believing in mx imincn.sc number of ManUoun, one of 
 whom, iidiabiting tli<! centre of the earth, is ji l<in<l of tlemon. 
 ]>ut these beings, whether good or evil, although possessing 
 an infiuencc over the destiny of man, have nothing of the 
 divine' character. 1'hcy are nothing more than a kind of 
 genii, fairies, ogre.s, etc., more or less resembling those men- 
 tioned in Oriental tales, an<l all ab.solutcly dependent upon
 
 Re/ioio7ts Characters — Negroes. 493 
 
 the Great Spirit. The latter alone is omnipotent, while the 
 evil spirit is weak and his power is limited. 
 
 The belief iu anutliLr life wius, moreover, universal amonf'st 
 these populations. Their ideas upon the other world, the 
 transmigration of souls, the niultij)lieity of existences were 
 vague enough ; but in several legends, collected either by the 
 first travellers, or in the present century by Schoolcraft, we 
 find, given in the most explicit manner, the doctrine of 
 recompense promised to the good, and the torments which 
 await the wicked. 
 
 The Algonquins and Mingwcs deserve to be regarded as 
 monotheists as much as any other people we ciin mention, 
 much more so than the Arabs before Mahomet. There i.s, 
 moreover, no rea.son to think that these spiritual beliefs were 
 due to the exceptional intelligence of an isolated individual 
 who played the part of prophet after the manner of Mahomet. 
 They have all the characters of a spontaneous manifestation 
 of the instincts of the race itself. Now this fact is the more 
 remarkable, as these Red-Skins, almost exclusively hunters, 
 had scarcely advanccil beyund the lowest .sta-,'rs i)f th.^ social 
 scale. 
 
 The Negroes of thiinca, much superior to the Algontpiins 
 and Mingwes, from a eivili/ed j)oint of view, arc far inferior 
 to them iu religion. Still, to speak only of their fet'iaklmix, 
 would be doing them a great injustice. This is, in realitv, 
 oidy a form of superstition more or less intimately as.sociated 
 with a basis of far nobler beliefs. Here, again, the greater 
 number of observers have stopped at what was immo- 
 <liately prcsente«l to the eye ; other.-*, however, have for- 
 tunately been f'tind A\ho have looked beneath these first 
 appi'aranci's. 
 
 Numerous evidences, too unanimous to admit of doubt, 
 prove that from Cape Verd to Cape Lttpez the inhabitants 
 believe in a Supreme Cod, who has created all existing things. 
 The natives of Dahomey hold that thisCJod is himself subject 
 to a more elevat.d In-ing. who, say these Negnx-s, is perliaps 
 the God of the Whiti s. In ini.^t I i>. > if is true, this supreme
 
 494 ^^^ Ilnuian Species. 
 
 Deity is regarded as governing tlie universe through the 
 agency of his ministers ; but often, also, direct intervention 
 is attributed to him. Petitions, thanks, and prayers, are 
 then addressed to liim, with the formula of some of which we 
 are acquainted. In that which D'Avezac received from the 
 lips of Oche Fecoue, the Yebous request Obba-el-Orum {King 
 of Heaven) to preserve them from illness and death. They 
 add : " Orissa (God) give me prosperity and wisdom." 
 
 We find that almost all the natives of Guinea, besides their 
 f/ood God, had their ertV 82)irif, also very powerful. Oblations 
 are offered to appease him. The Negroes often think that 
 they see or hear him in the night. We know too well, how- 
 ever, that the shores of Guinea are not the only place where 
 such visions have been seen in imagination. 
 
 'J'hen come the inferior gods, very numerou.s, and sometimes 
 arranged in a hierarchy. It is they who are sent into Fetlf<he8 
 to watch over and protect man. The Fetish, acconling to the 
 evidence of devout priests and Negroes, is not the God him- 
 self, but only the abode of the God. 
 
 The natives of Guinea all believe in another life, but have 
 very diflerent ideas upon this subject. In general they 
 regard it as almost similar to the present. Some have a 
 confused idea of nietemp.sychosis, or think they are born again 
 in a child. The Issinois believe in the immortality of the 
 soul, which, on leaving this earth, is born again in another 
 world, situated in the centre of the globe, and viec versd. 
 This is almost the alternating life, ixs conceived by Hyp- 
 polyte Kenau<l, a distinguished artillery oHieir, and one of 
 {\u>m thinkers who have felt the want of ,iii <\|)lanation of 
 the drstiny of man. 
 
 The i(h-a of retribution is ch-ariy defined by many (Jiiinean 
 tribes. In the opinion of many, the wise and the intelli- 
 gent become the messengers of the g(KiH ; the wicked are 
 drowiH'd in passing a certain stream, and die for ever or 
 become demon.s. Others h»)ld that the sotds of tho.se who 
 have led evil lives go to the evil spirit, but can be redeemed 
 by oblations ort'ureil to the gods. Here, then, wu find the
 
 Rc'/i^ioiis Characlcrs — Superstitious. 495 
 
 Negro possessing the idea of ytxir(jator]j and of redemption, 
 together with that of hell. 
 
 VII, I think 1 liave said enough thorougldy to establish a 
 fact independent of all hypothesis, and which seems to me to 
 be of serious importance. It is that we often find ideas of an ex- 
 tremely elevated nature, and res« luhling in a singidar manmr 
 those which distinguish the great relifjioiut, existing in the 
 small, though obscured by other notions of an inferior nature. 
 Again, that we must almost everywhere, probably every- 
 where, distinguish nll[/io)i from superstition. But before 
 we can, in this civse, recognise the gold in the midst of the 
 surrounding dross, time is required, serious stuily, and a min«l 
 entirely free from prejudice. 
 
 I grant that religion and su|>erstition are often, as it were, 
 fused into the creeds of certain nices, so that the priest and 
 the sorcerer are confounded in one person. But this is not 
 always the case ; and, even where the connection forms an 
 apparent confusion, we should unquestionably endeavour to 
 distinguish the two ekinunts. Now this task has lieen too 
 often neglected in dealing with inferior races. Jlrre again, 
 I remark at each step the prejudicial influence of European 
 pride. The most careless writer would certuiidy not connect 
 with Christianity, a.s it is understo<xl at the present day in 
 France, the dismal or ludicrous talcs collected in the country 
 di.striets by Vilhnianiue, Souvestre, and others. He would 
 place them, with all their accompanying practices, in what 
 may be called the ])opiihtr inyt/toloi/i/. Should not also the 
 man of science make a similar di.stinetion, when trying to 
 form a true estimation of the religion, properly so ciilled, of 
 barbarous or savage nations? 
 
 To those who ask how Fetishism came to be implanted in 
 Guinea side by sitle with the conception of a Supnine Being, 
 the creator and governor of all that exist.s ? how noilheni 
 populations coidd nconcilc Shamanism with the belief in 
 that God of whom Ghengis Khan hiu\ fonned such a groat 
 and elevated iilea ? I a.>k again how the strangest sujxi n 
 t ions came to b«' .ici-.-iiiiil \u f.>riM» r fitni- l>v .ill Chii- n 
 23
 
 496 The Human Species. 
 
 sects ? how it is that they still exist amongst us ? True, in 
 our enlightened classes, neither Protestant nor Catholic 
 would enter upon a course of sorcery, of which there were so 
 many instances but two or three centuries ago, and which 
 were so often followed by condemnation and capital punish- 
 ment. In our more remote country districts, however, the 
 belief in sorcery is as strong as it was universal in the Middle 
 Ages. The news]iapers inform us from time to time of 
 action.s, proving that, if left tt» themselves, these populations 
 would willingly burn the unfortunate victims su.spected of 
 \\xi\\u(^ i(Ad fortunes ; protect themselves against ti'/ft7iC)Y//^ 
 the evil eye, etc., these same populations have often had 
 recourse to practices strongly resembling those signalized 
 by travellers as the proof of inferiority in certain races. In 
 reality, tiie amulets of our jieasants are identical with the 
 gnsfjria of the Negroes. 
 
 In all the.se respects and in many dtlit-rs, all Aryan 
 Ciiristians have believed in that which we pruutlly reproach 
 the Negroes and Mongols with believing. All Christian 
 communities have sanctiom'd, and sometimes sanctified, 
 these absurd superstitions. 
 
 The anthropologist, who has to do with science and not 
 with theology, who ha,s to siek the pure element in tljo 
 inferior religions, ought not, on the other Iwrnd, to liesitato 
 in pointing out that singular admixture of alloy in the 
 superior religions, of wliiih I have just qiioteil a familiar 
 (.'xample. 
 
 From this double form of invi'stigalion, a general fact, 
 to which I have often called attention, will, I think, l)e estab- 
 lished in the minds of all, a fact which may be formulated 
 in the following tenns ; great or small, religions are prin- 
 cipally connecti'tl by the most elevatid and the lowest 
 element jKWsciHed by each ; they are principally sc^parated by 
 intermediary forms and conceptions, 
 
 VIII. The following fact hits, in several instances, been 
 remarked, that a religion wlien replaced by another, leaves 
 upon the latter more or Icsa evident traces. Often also, the
 
 Rc/igious Characters. 497 
 
 divinities of tlic former, without entirely tlisapiK'arinjj. will 
 iin(lerjL,n) ji siufjular process of (le;,'rml!ition, and find a place 
 only in the region of j)opular superstition. Which of our 
 readers will not call to mind the articles, at once so charming 
 and so impressive, of M. Heine upon the poor gotls of the 
 Greek and Roman Olympus, passed into legendary characters ? 
 These representatives of classical mythology have, in the 
 he^art of popular beliefs, become jissru-iated with Germanic 
 and Scandinavian divinities; but have not both hid pre- 
 decessors ? 
 
 From Quaternary ages to the pres(^nt time, iii,iii> races 
 have inhabited Europe. None, undoubtedly, have entirely 
 passed away. They have been successively subjugated, 
 and more or less absorbeil. Can the beliefs even of our 
 most remote ancestors be entirely lost ? I think not. Un- 
 doubtedly, a portion has been forgotten, but very probabK- 
 al.so a large part has survived, more or lew modiHeil by the 
 additions of each fresh immigration. In this manner would 
 be formcfl, little by little, that popular mythology which ha.s 
 resisted all ortici.il dKctriiies. and even fnimd a plai'e bv tlnir 
 side. 
 
 What has haj)jieneil in our own ca.sc cannut but have 
 happened elsewhere. Future research will |>crhaps show 
 this to be the cause of the common element of the religiou.H 
 beliefs of peoples, separated by their different degrees of 
 civiliz;iti(»n, as well ;is by geogniiihical position. 
 
 IX. M. Burnouf has remarked that the ttcUnce of rrlitjlon 
 does not as yet e.xist. This is tnio, especially fivm the p«)int 
 of view to which I have just ailled attention. All gemnd 
 classification is, then, premature. Before atti-mpting one, let 
 us wait till we are at lejust fairly acquainted, not only with 
 the great ma.ss of <loctriues Hupp«)rted by profound meta- 
 physics, which have lK«n accepte<l by civilize*! nati»»ns, but 
 also with the simpler, more artle.-vs Iw-liefs which precitled 
 them, some of which are still in existence. Then only shall 
 we be in a position to trace the genemi form and the sub- 
 divisions "f th" - V. ral manifestations of the religious faculty
 
 49^ The JliiDian Species. 
 
 common to all liuinaii bL-iiii,rs. Thcu, also, \vo shall be in a 
 position to follow the tlovelopment of this faculty, and to 
 mark its stajjes, by a process similar to that of the cm- 
 bryijgenist, who stiulios the different phases undergone by 
 the same being before attaining its state of perfection. 
 
 Such as it is however, consisting at present of isolated 
 facts only, or of facts merely collected into groups, the scienci- 
 of religions ha«s already acquired a marked importance in 
 anthropology. It leaves no doubt as to one of the funda- 
 mental characters of the human species ; it furnishes facts of 
 so independent a nature as to serve for the characterization 
 of races ; it reveals relations ; it adds its testimony to that of 
 philology in throwing light upon the filiation of certain races, 
 in attesting the existence of ancient communications between 
 nations long regarded a.s entirely separate. In these various 
 Inspects it should not be neglected by those who wish to 
 consider the natural history of man as a whole. 
 
 nil; I. MX
 
 WORKS OF AUSTIN FLINT, Jr., M. D. 
 
 The Physiology of Man ; designed to represent the 
 Existing State of Physiological Science, as applied to the Functions 
 of the Human Body. Complete in 6 vols., 8vo. (loth, |'J2.«X>; 
 sheep, t;27.00; or, per volume, cloth, $-1.50; sheep, |5.60. 
 
 Vol. I. I.VTRODrcTioN ; The Dlood; CincrLATioN; RE^muTiox. 
 Vol. II. Alime.ntation; Dioestios; Absorttion; LTiirii ami Cutlb. 
 Vol. HI. Secuetion; Exchetion; DvrTLE»« Olasw; Nltbitioj*; Ammal 
 
 Heat; Movements; Voice ano Si-kecu. 
 Vol. IV. The Nervois System. 
 Vol. V. Special Sk.sses; Oenehatiox. 
 Oener^vl Index to toe Work. 
 
 "The work Is free from technicalities and purely profcsRlonal '.frms, and, 
 instead of only bcini; adapted to the a»c of the nicdlral farnlty, will be ftjond of 
 Interest to the jjencral render who dcslro* clrar and coiiclne luforiuallon on the 
 BUhJoct uf IU.1U physical."— -Vrtf York Evenimj Pott. 
 
 The Physiological Effects of Severe and Pro- 
 tracted Muscular £xorciae ; witli Spiii.il UilVniicc lo Us 
 IiifliHiuc upon till- KxTciiim nf Nitrojren. 1 Vv«!., 12ino. Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 A Text-book of Human Physiology ; w« MK'nt-d 
 
 Inr the Use of I'ractitioiH rs and Studint.s of Mi-tliiine. Illiwtralcd 
 by three Lithogrmphic PlaU'S, and three hundred and thirteen Wood- 
 cuts. 1 vol., imperial «vo. Cloth, «'■ '"^^ '» ?. ♦T "" 
 
 On the Source of Muscular Power. Arptitnen!» 
 
 and ConcliHion.'< dr.imi Imm ot....r».itiont ujMin the Human Subject, 
 under Con.litions of Kesl and of Muscular KxcrvUe. 1 vol., I2»a 
 Cloth, 1 1.00. 
 
 D. AITLETON i CO., rr»LiaatM, M» it WI Broadwat. N Y.
 
 HEALTH, 
 
 HOW TO PROMOTE IT. 
 
 By RICHARD McSHERRY. M. D.. 
 
 Professor of Princijilcs nnd I'ra<'tiiT of Medicine, I'ni vi rsity of Maryland ; Member of 
 American Medical Association; President of laltiiiiorti Academy of Medicine. 
 
 Kxiraet from Preface. 
 
 " Ilyj^ienc, public and private, lias become, of late yearp, one of tlie 
 most importutit elements ol modern civilization. It is a subject in wliicli 
 all mankind has an interest, even if it be, as it too ofltcu is, un uiicuu- 
 scioiis interest. 
 
 " The present work is addressed to the pcneral reader, no matter 
 what his pursuit, and the lanjrua^e is such as any physician may u.-e in 
 conversation with an intellifrent patient ; it is therefore as free as such a 
 work can be made from seieiitilio teehniealities. 
 
 " It is oflV-red as a enntriliution to a jrrcat cause, nnd the writer trust.t 
 that it will have some iiiflueiuo in promntiri}; the health, happiness, and 
 welfare of all who may honor it with a earelul perusal. The priiu-iples 
 advocated have bec-n, to a f^reat extent, put in practice in the personal 
 experience of the writer in various parts of the world, and under numy 
 vicisoitudes, and he has found them to be not vague tbeories, but prac- 
 tical truths of the greatest imjiortaiue." 
 
 COIsTXEig-TS. 
 PART I.-ISmonVCTUIiY li'K.UAnh's: 
 Uy;rJcne i!ie n<'ltcr Part of Medicine.— The Four Dlvidionn of Himinii I ife: Tim 
 KirHi (Quarter, or tlio Klrnt Score of Yonri». Tlu- Ykmiil' Man ; llic Youn^ 
 Wuiuau. Tbu .Man ; tbu Wuniau. The Declinlii;; or Old Man. 
 
 PAnr n.-iiYfiiEsicH av some detail. 
 
 Itoce, TempemmetitH, nnd Idio^ynrmpicH. — Inherilnnre.— IlnliU.— ConFtftullon. 
 — Tlie Air we Hrenihi'.— SewiTH nnd (VH(<tiooln.—0/nne,— Malaria.— Animal 
 Kinnnatitnift. — Duvltnli/eil Iloiifo-.Mr. — NVator. — Clotlilui;. - - I'.xerriMe or 
 \Vi>rl<.— Influericr; of Drnipntion nnnn Loiit'cvlty. — Limit to I.nhor.- Tlie 
 Food of .Mnii.-ArrcHHory Fo<m1.- Mnnner of l-jitlni.'.- Tea and Coflee.— Al- 
 cohol.- I'm- nnd AhiiHe -.\rdent Spirlln. WliieH- Mall I.loitorH.- Toharco. 
 — Chewini; and .'^inuklnt; ithuulU bu forbidden In School, lieport uf >tn\ul 
 Kur;;conii. 
 
 One volume, 12nno. Cloth. Price, $1.20. 
 
 1). APrLKTON k CO., PinLtsnEnH, C49 k 5.')] Broadwat, N. Y
 
 HEALTH PRIMl'RS. 
 
 EDITED bV 
 
 J. LANGDON DOWN, M. D.. F. R. C P. 
 HKNRV rOWER, M. B., F. R. C. S. 
 J. MORTIMKK-CRANVII.I.K, M. D. 
 lOHN TWLEDY, K. R. C. S. 
 
 TIIOU(iII it is of the greatest importance iJmt »>ooV« upon hctlih 
 hIiouKI be in the highest dr^rec trustworthy, it i th»t ^n»^l 
 
 of the cheap and jwpiilar kioii are mere crude C' "f ineoni- 
 
 peleiit persons, and are often misleading ami iiijn - iu^iTes^"-*! I>.v 
 
 these'eonsidenitions, several eminent na-diiMl ami sririiiifie nun of Lun- 
 don have eoniliiiied to prepare a series of l!KAt.Tn ruiMKHS of a eliarai-ter 
 that sliall be entiileil to the fuIK-al confidence. They «re to Jk? brief, 
 sin.pie, and elementary in statement, filled with tiubstantial and useful 
 information suitable for the guidance of grown-up people. Knch prireer 
 will be written by a pentleinan specially eompetrnt to tnat hii* cubjcci, 
 While the eritical supeivi.-ion of the books ii iu the hands of a coiumittev 
 who will act as editors. 
 
 A.s these little books are pro<liieed by English authors, they arc 
 naturally based very much upon Knglish experienee, •)ul it ntatlcnt little 
 whence illustrations up»>n such subjects are drawn, because the esi^ntial 
 conditions of avoiding disease an 1 preserving health are to a great degree 
 everywhere the same. 
 
 VOLUMES OF THE SERIES. 
 
 Exercise and Traininfir. villus- The Heart and Ita Funotlona. 
 
 trated.) The Head. 
 
 Alcohol: Its Use and Abuaa. Clothing and Drcas. 
 
 The House and its Surround- ] Wat«r. 
 
 ^"•f"* j The Skin and iU Troubles. 
 
 Premature Death: Its Promo- , p.^^, ^^ p^i„. 
 
 tlon or Prevention. ^ 
 
 Personal Appearances In I Th. Ear and Hcarln.. 
 
 Health and Dl^ieasj. iIUus- j ThB Eye and Vision. 
 
 trated.) Temperature in Health aad 
 
 Baths and Bathinir. Diseas?. 
 
 In stpian- lomo vumi.ii*, rmtli, price, 4u «.- i- 
 
 Fitr m!t h>i <>' <. vlwy roiime mailfti, pott j^tiJ, to uny «4- 
 
 ire*itintlu I'ni' • recripl of pricr. 
 
 D. .\PrLETON & CO., PfWJSMK**.
 
 WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS H. HFXLEY, LL.D., F,R.S. 
 
 I. 
 MAN'S PLACE IN NATUKE. 1 vol., l2ino. Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 II. 
 ON THE OUl(;iN OF SPECIES. 1 vol., 12mo. Cloil., $1.00. 
 
 III. 
 .MOKE (HITK IS.MS ON OARWIN, AND ADMINISTKA- 
 TIVE .MIIILIS.^I. 1 vol., I'Jmo. Limp clotli, 50 ccnls. 
 
 IV. 
 
 A .MAM AL 01 THE ANATOMY OF VEUTEHHATEl) ANI- 
 MALS. Ilhi.stratcd. 1 vol., llimo. Cloth, e'-i-^JO. 
 
 V. 
 A MANIAL OF THE ANATOMY OF INVFKTEUUATED 
 ANIMALS. *i.oO. 
 
 VI. 
 
 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND HFVIEWS. 1 vol., 
 I'Jmo. Cloth, *1.7.">. 
 
 VII. 
 CRITKjrES .\ND ADDHESSF.S. 12;i.o. Cloth. *l.fiO. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 AMI;KI( \N ADDRESSES; with a I.tdiiic < ii the Slinly 
 of Hioioi,'*. Umn. Clotli, ftl.'jr.. 
 
 IX. 
 
 PIIYSKMJRAI'IIY: An Inlrodiirllon Iodic SI inly of Nnt lire. 
 
 U.tl, I1Im-I..,i;..;,. nil I ('..I'il'.l ri.ilrM. I'Jmo. Clolll, ^2..V>. 
 
 \ 
 EFKMFNTS OF IMIYSIOI.OiiY AND IIYIilENE. Hy T. II. 
 
 Ill xi.KY ami W. .1. VoLM.\s.><. 1 vol., rjriio. >]..',•». 
 
 I) .M'I'l.r.TON k fo., PfiiLiHiiEin, M'.» i r<r.l MinAi.wAY, N Y.
 
 INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES. 
 
 AOH' RE A DV. In\ imo and tuyund in cU-tk. 
 
 I. FOUMS OF WATKH. In Qouds Kaln, KItcw, Ico, and GUcUr*. I«r lYot 
 .loii.N Tymdaix. ♦I.'iII. 
 II. rUVSlCS AND ri>LlTIC9: or. TboiiehUi on the Applloallon oftbc PrinH. 
 iili-» of " Natuml Scli-<-tlon " niid - InliiTlUnco*' Xu VuUUral J>ock-t>. Ujr 
 \Vai.tek ll.MiriiiiT. %\.'M. 
 
 III. Fl)t>l>.-». Itv Kdwaiu. M4ITII. M. 1)., I.I,, n . K. R ». fl.T.V 
 
 IV. .MI.M) ANM IJtiDY. Ilv Ai KX JkM.iM IUin. LL. H. |UV». 
 
 V. TIIK M'l'DY (IK SO( |ol.O(iV. liv lli:KiitkT Si-rx< ck. |I M. 
 VI. TIIK NKW ClIKMIsTUY. By I'rOt .Iwjaii 1'. Cwk«, Jr^ of Ilarrmni 
 ^nlv.•r^lt>•. I.M"!. 
 A'll. TIIK IDXVKKVATION' of LNKKGV. By Prof. Baitv-b STKWArr. 
 
 M.. I). KUS. $1 .VI. 
 VIII. ANIMAL L<>0)MurioN; or. Walklne. Pwlinmlnir. »nd n.vlnp. with • I»U- 
 wrtallon on .X.'-ronaiitio.*. Ily .1. H. I'ltiTii.iivw, M. I». lllu»:nt<<d. |I^.V 
 IX. ia>n»N:>IBlLlTY IN MENTAL DIStAM:. By II. Maimuct, M. D. 
 
 ♦ !..>». 
 
 X. TIIK S(MEN'('K OF LAW. Bv Prof Siiri.iH^x Ano«. |1.T.V 
 XI. ANIM.VI. .MK< IIANI-M A 'inaK-. ..n T. m •trl*l and ACriil I o«o«no- 
 
 ti..n. Itv K. .1. Makkv. 117 lllii.tr..il..iiv *1 ::.. 
 XII. TIIK lIlAlouv OK TIIK (oNKLIil HKIWKKN KKI.KilUN AM> 
 sriKNCK. Bv.J.iiiN WiiiuM I>ttAii«, M. I>.. LL l>. fl.oV 
 
 XIII. Tin; Dot riMN'K ok DKMKNr. AND DAU^VINI^'M. By IVot Ok-ak 
 
 .•<<iiMi>»T. of .>;tr.i.«liun: rrilvcr!>ltv. *l..'^t. 
 
 XIV. TIIK CIIKMI.^TKV OK LHillTAND PHOTOGRAPHY: In lu ApH'«* 
 
 tlon to .Vrt, S.lcncis and la.luslrj-. By Ur. II. Vo»iH_ IWJ IUu»u»ii.'i>«. 
 
 ♦ 2.<H). 
 
 XV. FrN<iI; Ih.lr \a* - ' 'I.D. lil- 
 
 lt.-<l bv U.v. M .1 
 XVI. TIIK LIKK AND I D. Wiirr 
 
 M V. i.r Vii!.- <•.'■.■... ♦!..■«'. 
 XVII. MoNKV AND llli: MKCIIWISM OF KXCIIAXGE. By W. .'^T*»utT 
 
 .li:\..N- M \ II: -. ?l 7 ., 
 
 XVIII. Tin: \ »jOf,«k». 
 
 XIX. A if^ 
 
 XX. .■■■ ^ ■■*' 
 
 XXL TIi'k 1 lOJi. O.O.I- 
 
 tie I 
 
 XXII. Tin: iiii.u;V OK .-"tM> iv n~ i:i i \i 1"N to Mt'.«*n- n.i-".' 
 
 I*irri!i Iti \<«eKNA, uf tbo Royal t'nUcr»lly uf Rmuo. NumrrwoA »»■) 
 nil*. • : ■■ '- . . 
 
 XXIIL STI Dl TKl'M ANALY.HIS. By J. Nobmas !»• BTtJL laoa- 
 
 tmi; 
 
 XXIV. A 111- inr nf;<<v,-Tii or rnr «ttmm rvofxK bt 
 
 X\V. I 
 vvvi \ \-t aM livlnMrr. Bjr 
 
 l:,u.:r. !,■■:.•«. 
 
 I). Arri.KTOS * CO.. Pul. mi Droa4w*ti, Kt* Vrrk.
 
 A thou^ht/iil and valuable contribution to the best religious literature 
 oj the day. 
 
 RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 
 
 \ Series of Sunday Lectures on the Relation of Natural and Revealed 
 Rclij^ion, or tiic Truths revealed in Nature and Scrii)ture. 
 
 By JOSEPH LE CONTE, 
 PB0PK3!iOE or cr.ou>t;v and .natlbal uistoky in the univeiwitv or califobma. 
 
 l2nto, cloth. Priu-, $1 50. 
 
 OViyiOJiS OF THE I'liESS. 
 
 •' This work is chiefly remarkahlc as a conscientious enbrt to reconcile 
 the revelations of Science with those of Scripture, and will be very use- 
 ful to teachers of the different Sunday-schools." — Detroit Union. 
 
 "It will be seen, by this resuiuJ of the topics, that Prof. I.e Conte 
 jjrapples with some of the gravest questions wliich a};ilatc the thinking 
 world. He treats of tlicni all with iligniiy and fairness, and in a man- 
 ner so clear, persuasive, and eloquent, as to engage the uiuiividtd at- 
 tention of the reader. We commend the book cordially to the regard 
 of all who are interested in whatever pertains to the discussion of these 
 grave questions, and especially to those who desire to examine closely 
 the strong foundations on which the Christian faith is reared." — Boston 
 "Journal. 
 
 "A reverent student of Nature and religion is llie bcst-nualificd mnn 
 to instruct others in their harmony. The author at first intended his 
 work for a lJi!)le-class, but, as it grew under his liaiuls, it seemed well to 
 give it form in a neat volume. 'J'he lectures .nre fiom a decidedly re- 
 ligious stand point, and as such present a new n.etlicd of treatment." 
 —r/iiladelphia A,i^'e. 
 
 "This volume is made up of Uclures delivered to his pupils, nnd is 
 written with much clearness <jf thought and unusual titaintss of ex- 
 pression, although the author's I!nglish is not always above reproach. 
 It is partly a treatise on natural theology nnd partly a defense of the 
 Mible against the assaults of modern science. In the hitler aspect the 
 author's method is an eminently wise one. He accepts whatever sti- 
 cncc has proved, and he also accepts the <livine origin of the I'.ible. 
 Where the two seem to conflict he prefers to await the recontiliatii n, 
 which is inevitable if both are true, rather than to waste lime nnd words 
 in inventing ingenious an<l doubtful theories to force them into seeming 
 accord. Both a* a theologian and a man of sci«"nce, I'rof. I.e Contc's 
 opinions nrc entitled to resj»ectful attention, and lln-re are few who will 
 not recogni/.c his l>ook as a thoughtful and valuable contribution to the 
 best religious literature of the day." — A'ew )'or/: World. 
 
 D. ArPLKTON & CO., Publishers, 549 & 551 Broadway, N. Y.
 
 New Volume of "The International Scientific Series." 
 
 EDUCATION AS A SClIi.XCI-, 
 
 ALEXANDER BAIN, LL. D.. 
 rRorE!<.Moii OP LDoic I.N TUJS iMVEimiTr nr AUcnDCCX. 
 
 1 vol., llmo. CVo/A, pnVf, tl.T.'i. 
 
 " In the |ircM'iit work I have Burrcycd ihc Teacliini; Art, as lur a.i 
 possUile, from a scientific point of view ; which mean^, among other 
 thinp<, thut the maxims of ordinary experience arc toited and amended 
 hy bringing them under the best ascertained laws of the mind." — From 
 JW/acc. 
 
 " Dr. Huin's rniovalttl enrricnlum i.>; certainly extenf-ive enough, crfn 
 if it omits Grecic and Latin. According to thin, higher e<lucation should 
 embrace — first, eciencc ; second, t!ie humanities, includin); himory and 
 the social science, and some portions of the unireri'al literature ; and, 
 third, English composition and literature." — Stie York Ertninif £r/'rtu. 
 
 " The work should l)ecome a texl-lH>ok for teachers not to bo fo|. 
 lowed servilely or thouu'htle.syly, but used for it-t sup^eiiti\ cuetw." — Hotltm 
 (Jtuetic. 
 
 "Professor IJain i- not a mnue m un- iirm. inn •■pfk U admirable 
 in many respects for teacher, |>arcnl, and pupil." — rKHad<ffJiia y»rlk 
 American. 
 
 "A work of great value to all tearhcrs who »tudy it intclligcnllT." — 
 Boston Adverti$tr. 
 
 " At onco spoculatiro and practical, cntorinjc larftrlT Into th* philoao- 
 phy of teaching, and manfully handling facts." — Philadr'j-^- ■■ "- ■• 
 
 Mil r.Tn\ .V tO . rriiLi!(iirn!<, .'.JO k 551 llaoAnwAV, X. Y.
 
 AprLETo:N"s' Periodicals. 
 
 Appletons' Journal: 
 
 A M«(jazino of General Literature. Subscription, $3.00 per annum ; single copy, 
 *2Ii cc-uta. Tlie volumes begin Januarj' and July of each year. 
 
 The Art Journal : 
 
 An International Gallery of Engravings by Distinguished Artists of Kuroj* ami 
 America. With Illustrated Papers in the various bmnolies of -Vrt. Each vol- 
 ume contains the monthly numbers for one year. Subscription, i'J.OO. 
 
 The Popular Science Monthly: 
 
 Conducted by E. L. and W. J. Yousians. Containing instructive and inter- 
 esting articles and abstracts of articles, original, selected, and illustrated, (W>m 
 the pens of the leadlni; scientillc men of different countries. Bubseriptlou, to 
 begin at any time, ♦5.00 per annum ; single copy, J>0 cents. The volumes begin 
 May and November of each year. 
 
 The North American Review : 
 
 Published Monthly. Containing articles of general public interest, it Is a forum 
 for their fUll and free dlscu.tslon. It is cosmoiiolitan, and true to its aneW-nt 
 motto it is the organ of no sect, or party, or school. Subscription, |5.0tl jn-r 
 animm ; sinale copy, CO cents. 
 
 The New York Medical Journal: 
 
 l-:4llted by Jamk-S n. IIiNTKK, M. D. tSubscrljitlon, (i.OO per niiuuiu; singlo 
 copy, -10 cents. 
 
 roSTAdC PAID. 
 
 AprMSTOxi* Jc»rB««Ai. ond Titr. r<«rfi.An SciKwrit MoTcrni.Y. together. |7.00 jm r 
 annum (full prlio, ♦"<.0<i); and Ni.kth Amkkkan ICr.vu.w. fUM pir annum (full 
 priio, IIIIOO). Tiir I'lifii.Aii Hrir.MJ! Montiii y and N>:w Yokk .Mipkai, .Ini knai., 
 togolhrr. »i,<Hl per annum (full prUe, f'.i.OO); and Nohtm A\I)Iiiian I:i'.viicw, H'i.Ml 
 jMr ontniiii (full prirr. |U.<Ml). Ai-iM.rT<»H' .Ioiunai, nnd Ni:w YmiK MrnicAi. .lorii- 
 JTAI.. togribrr. %)'>:•>> imt annum (full prlr.-, |T(i(i); and N.ikth Amkhhan Kkvikw 
 $I0.7S iHTBnMuiii (full prlro, IliiMi). TiiK I'DiTiAn h< irN< b Mo.ntmi.t nnd Ncimi 
 AMrKK'AM ICkvicw, (••iri'ilnr. t'J im) per annum (full prlrt-. Iio.od). Ai-i-i.rmiNH' .torn- 
 fki. and NoKTii Ayrim »h llrvijw, i../illiir. ♦T.'Ht |mt onnuin (full pric.', Is, (Ml). 
 Nkw Ykmk .\tr.nii ai. .loru>Ai. nnci .S'oiiTU AMKitct.'A.'t itaviKW, together, |h.uu jicr 
 annum (full price, $v.uU). 
 
 V. AI'PLETOS A CO., I'tiUUfurt, MO & 551 DiXMdway, Xcw York.
 
 T]' 
 
 .4^>=^A 
 
 SCiiZNTiPic Series 
 
 '■^^yM 
 
 
 •"'•'• —ryiC*-" tt\f — '■'rm^iL^owwMBf'i