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THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.

VOLUME XXVII.

INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.

NOW READY. In 12mo and bound in cloth.

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 549 & 551 Broadway, New York.

THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES.

THE
HUMAN SPECIES.

BY

A. DE QUATREFAGES,

PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, PARIS.

NEW YORK:

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

549 AND 551 BROADWAY.

1879.

CONTENTS.

THE HUMAN SPECIES.

BOOK I.
UNITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.

CHAPTER I.
EMPIRES AND KINGDOMS OF NATURE.—THE HUMAN KINGDOM.—ANTHROPOLOGICAL METHOD.

I. The naturalist who 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 kingdom, there are ambiguous forms, whose nature has long been, and still is, the subject 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 question has been asked:—What is man? and it has been answered from several points of view. To the naturalist it has but one meaning, and signifies, in which kingdom must man be placed? or better: is man an animal?

In spite of all the differences which a comparison of man with the mammalia presents, should he be classed with them? 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 what 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 Linnæus, supplementing the theory of the immortal 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 introduce into science.

II. 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. These are the two groups into which Pallas has divided kingdoms under the name of empires. Their distinction is generally easy, and I shall confine myself to recalling some of the most essential differences.

Inanimate bodies, when placed under favourable circumstances, last for an indefinite time, neither taking nor giving anything to the surrounding world; organised beings, under whatever conditions they are placed, only last for a fixed 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 assume the fixed and definite form of crystals, are formed independently of all other bodies resembling them; they have from their commencement fixed forms, and increase simply by superposition of new layers. Every organised being is connected either directly or indirectly with a similar being, in the interior of which it first appeared in the form of a germ, then grew and acquired its definite form by intussusception.

In other words, filiation, nutrition, birth and death, are so many characteristics of the organised being, of which no trace is found in inanimate bodies. I agree with Pallas in making inanimate bodies compose the Inorganic Empire, and organised beings the Organic Empire.

I must here make an observation, the importance of which will be easily understood.

The existence of the two groups which have been recognised by the good sense of the general public as well as by the science of Pallas, is a fact absolutely independent of all hypothesis. Whatever explanation we may propose to account for the differential phenomena which distinguish them, these phenomena will not the less exist; the inanimate body will never be an organised 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 physiology. 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 amœbæ, these forms are the antipodes of the crystal from every point of view.

A crystal, as M. Naudin has well remarked, closely resembles one of those regular piles of shot which may be seen in every arsenal. It only increases from the exterior, as the pile is increased when the soldier adds a fresh layer of shot; its molecules are 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 amœba prevents, it is true, certain observations. I appeal, however, to all those naturalists who have studied certain marine sponges in a living state. They must like myself have remarked the strange activity of the vital whirlpool in the semi-sarcodic substance which surrounds their siliceous or horny skeleton; they will have seen the sea water in which they are 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 molecules are unceasingly undergoing transformation, changing their 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 words, in the crystal once formed the forces remain in a state of stable equilibrium, which is only interrupted by the influence of exterior causes. Hence the possibility of its indefinite continuance without any change either of its forms or of its properties. In the organised being the equilibrium is unstable, or rather, there is no equilibrium properly so called. Every moment the organised being expends as much force as matter, and owes its continuance solely to the balance of the gain and loss. Hence the possibility of a modification of its properties and form without its ceasing to exist.

Such are the bare facts which rest upon no hypothesis whatever; and how can we, in the presence of these facts, compare the crystal which grows in a saline solution to the germ which becomes in succession embryo, fœtus, and finally a complete animal? How can we confuse the inanimate body with the organised being.

The two groups are easily separated by the phenomena they exhibit. It is the same with the causes of the phenomenon.

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 determine the difference in the results by changing their mode of action. In their opinion the formation of a crystal or of a moneron is only a question of resultant.

Others consider living beings as the result of a cause 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 characteristics to a Special Cause, to a Special Force, to Life, which in them is associated with the inorganic forces. For this reason I consider it legitimate to call them Living Beings.

I shall often, however, return to this class of considerations, 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-divided into Kingdoms, which are characterised by special facts and phenomena, 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 unchangeable, 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 fixed stars do not exist.

In order to explain this phenomenon 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 Impulsion. The first should prevail as being more in accordance with the immediate results of observation; but the second also has had serious partisans, among whom I will only mention M. de Tessan.

Thus Newton, in spite of all his genius, cannot tell us what was the cause of the movement of the stars; he was not even able to determine the immediate mode of action of this 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 accepted. The reason of 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. We must, however, avoid the delusion of thinking that naming is equivalent to explaining.

In cases analogous to that of which we have been treating, the word Force merely indicates the presence of an Unknown Cause, which gives rise to a group of fixed phenomena. 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 demonstration 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 are 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 may, whatever our real ignorance, whatever the Cause of which we are here treating, and though Impulsion should 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 Kingdom.

This kingdom is then characterised by a general phenomenon, the Keplerian Movement, which may be attributed to a single force, namely that of gravitation.

IV. Let us now return to the Earth, the only celestial body which we can study in detail. Modern 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 heavens.

Let us first establish the fact that upon our globe we again meet with the Keplerian Movement in falling bodies. Attraction is here represented by Weight. Gravitation reappears with all its laws, acting upon grains of dust as it acts upon worlds. 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 demonstrated their original unity. Physicists refer them all to nothing more than so many manifestations of the undulations 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 this force, and call it Etherodynamy (Ethérodynamie).

But is not Etherodynamy only a particular form, a simple modification, or an effect of gravitation? Are not these 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 much agreement with them. Etherodynamy is displayed even in space and among the stars by variable, localised and temporary phenomena; the action of gravitation is one, universal and constant. Man has always been able to exercise a certain amount of control over the former; he can produce at will light and heat; modern science cannot act upon the second. We can neither augment nor diminish, reflect or refract, or polarise weight; we cannot arrest its action. Even in the fall of bodies the regularity in the acceleration of the motion proves that the cause of this movement is subject to no alteration. Here then is no transmutation of force similar 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 drawn 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 circumstances.

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 magnets of M. Jamin. Etherodynamy in these two cases merely overcame gravitation and either modified or imitated its action.

Those terrestrial bodies which present no other phenomena than those which can be referred to either gravitation or etherodynamy have, since the time of Linnæus, been termed Inanimate Bodies. Together they constitute the Mineral Kingdom. We see that the existence and the distinction of this group are perfectly independent of any hypothesis intended to explain the phenomena.

Two kinds of phenomena then are characteristic of the mineral kingdom: phenomena of the Keplerian movement and physico-chemical phenomena, which may be attributed to the action of two forces: gravitation and etherodynamy.

V. The sidereal and mineral kingdoms form the Inorganic Empire. Passing from it we enter the domain of organized and living beings. We have already seen the essential phenomena 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 introducing into science a vague and almost mysterious expression. There is, however, nothing in it more vague or mysterious than in the word gravitation.

It is very true that we do not know what Life is; but no more do we know what 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 unknown 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 death.

It will be apparent that my idea of Life is not the same as it was with many ancient vitalists, that it is no more the arche of van Helmont than the vital principle of Barthez. Its function appears to me very different to that attributed to it by most of our predecessors, and which is still attributed to it by some physiologists.

Far from merely animating the organs, it is closely associated with the forces of which we have already spoken. Living beings are heavy, and therefore subject to gravitation; they are the seat of numerous and various physico-chemical phenomena which are indispensable to their existence and which must be referred to the action of etherodynamy. But these phenomena are here manifested under the influence of another force. It is for this reason that the results of these phenomena are often quite different 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 organizes germs, and maintains through space and time, in spite of the most complex metamorphoses, that unity 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 phenomena presented by inanimate bodies. The intervention of Life as a modifying agent of actions purely etherodynamic may be as easily admitted as that of etherodynamy itself modifying and overcoming 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.

I have repeatedly, and for many years, maintained the doctrine which I have summed up here. It seems to me confirmed in the highest degree by the researches undertaken for the elucidation of the problem of which we are treating. The experiences of M. Bernard in particular, relative to the action exercised by anæsthetics upon plants as well as upon animals, makes it impossible for us to doubt for a moment the intervention of an agent distinct from physico-chemical 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 the Vegetable Kingdom. Now there is one general fact displayed by this group, the significance of which has not, it seems to me, been sufficiently understood. With the exception of certain phenomena of unconscious irritability which have long been known in some plants of a superior order, and of facts, probably of the same class, which have been established chiefly with reference to some reproductive organs of plants of an inferior order, every movement which 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 the 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 we 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 to which they lead, the mathematical precision of the laws and phenomena of gravitation and etherodynamy. Their mode of action merely seems to oscillate between limits which remain impassable. This kind of liberty, and the bounds imposed upon it, are conspicuous in the constant diversity of the products of life, a diversity which contrasts in so striking a manner with the uniformity of the 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, therefore, characterised by three kinds of phenomena: the Keplerian movement, physico-chemical phenomena, and vital phenomena, which may be ascribed to the action of three forces: Gravitation, Etherodynamy, 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 Philosophie Zoologique 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.

Passing from the plant to the animal, the latter executes movements belonging either to the part or to the whole which are 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, judges, and wills, that is to say reasons, and consequently is intelligent.

This proposition will, I know, be contested by men whose 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 singularly 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 different 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 if they felt, judged, and willed.

On the other hand, in the name of philosophy and psychology, I shall be accused of confounding certain intellectual attributes of the human reason with the exclusively sensitive 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 rudimentary being, its intelligence is nevertheless of the same nature as that of man. It is, moreover, very unequally distributed among the animal species; in this respect there are many intervening stages between the oyster and the dog.

In addition to the phenomena which spring from the intelligence and reasoning, we find in animals other impulses which arise from Instinct, a blind impulse, or at least apparently so, which often is the characteristic of animal species, and with which each individual is endowed. These two orders of facts are very often confounded, but the confusion can be explained as follows. In the first place, instinct has as its object the attainment of a determined and fixed result, but in the multitude of ways and means necessary to attain this result a portion which is often very large is due to the intelligence. The 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.

Besides the acts of intelligence and instinct, phenomena have been established among animals which are closely connected with what we call character, sentiment, or passion. The familiarity of the terms is in itself a proof that upon this point ordinary observation has outstripped scientific examination.

All these phenomena 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 kingdom 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 phenomena 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 Unknown 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 (l’âme animale).

Does the animal mind liberate the beings it animates from the inferior forces? By no means, for we find them repeated with all their characteristics. In order to raise the least of its organs, the animal must contend with weight; it cannot perform the smallest movement without the intervention of physico-chemical phenomena; it cannot breathe, and, therefore, cannot live, without constantly consuming some of its constituents. In the animal, moreover, just as much as in the plant, the inanimate forces, etherodynamy especially, 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, are 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 kinds are then characteristic of the Animal Kingdom: phenomena of the Keplerian movement; physico-chemical phenomena; vital phenomena; and phenomena of voluntary movement; attributable to the action of four forces: gravitation, etherodynamy, life, and the animal mind.

VII. Although the preceding statements are so much abridged, I have thought it well to give the condensed results in the following table:

From this table, and the expansions which it sums 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 kingdom.

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.

6. 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 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 the 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? a question which evidently leads to another: Is man distinguished from animals by important and characteristic phenomena, absolutely unknown in the latter? For more than forty years I have answered this question in the affirmative, and my convictions, 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 which 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 sociability. Faculties, however, of this order, which are so fully developed in certain animals, in man are evidently very much reduced in comparison with the intelligence.

The relative development of the latter certainly establishes an enormous difference between man and animal. It is not, however, the intensity of a phenomenon which gives value to it from our present point of view, but simply its nature. The question is whether human intelligence 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 circumstances, they have concluded that the motives of the action must be 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 possesses sensation, formation and association of images, imagination, and passion (R. P. de Bonniot). They allow that the animal feels the relation of fitness or of unfitness between sensible objects and his own senses; that it experiences sensible attractions and repulsions, and acts perfectly in consequence, and that in this sense the animal reasons and judges (l’Abbé 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, theologians and philosophers maintain that the animal cannot be intelligent, because it has neither innate sense, consciousness 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 as a shield. 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 opposite 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 impressions 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 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 distinguish 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 phenomena 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 conception. 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 influence upon his destiny. 3rd. Man believes in the prolongation 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 intelligence. 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 morality or religion in animals, which 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 this faculty every moment.

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 Anthropology in Paris, where the question of the human kingdom has been long and seriously discussed. I cannot here reproduce the discussion, even in an abridged form, but refer my readers either to the summary in my Rapport sur les progrès de l’anthropologie 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 religious 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 (l’âme 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 anyone who intends to be exclusively faithful to science, experiment 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 proposed solutions the one which agrees 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 which I have just described will 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 Human Kingdom.

From this conclusion it will seem that I am at variance with Linnæus, whose idea I have, however, only developed and stated more precisely. In fact, the immortal author of the Systema Naturæ has placed his Homo sapiens amongst the mammalia in the class of primates, and has made him congenous with the gibbon. This is because Linnæus had recourse to the System in order to establish his nomenclature. To classify man as well as other beings, he has made an arbitrary choice of a certain number of characteristics, and only taken those into consideration which were furnished by the body.

But the language of Linnæus is very different, even in his remarks relating to the genus Homo, and still more so in the kind of introduction entitled Imperium Naturæ. 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 kingdom.

The reason of this is that here Linnæus 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 group 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, which 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 table given above must then be completed in the following manner:—

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 forces 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 inanimate 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 prominent 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 intelligence has been placed at the service of morality or of religion, and consequently of the Unknown Cause to which man owes these faculties?

But however preponderating the part claimed by this cause in acts exclusively human may be, it has nothing to do with those phenomena which have their origin in the intelligence 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, suffers, 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 comprehension 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 material individual to physiology and medicine; the intellectual and moral individual to philosophy and theology. It has, therefore, its own special field of study, and on that account alone its special questions, which often could not be solved by processes borrowed from cognate sciences.

In fact, in some questions, and in some of the most fundamental ones, the difficulty lies in the interpretation of phenomena connected with those which are characteristic of all living beings. For the 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 unknown quantity of the problem. An endeavour to solve the problem by the study of man, who is the object of it, would be equivalent to a mathematician representing the value of x in terms of x itself.

How does the mathematician proceed? He seeks in the data of the problem for a certain number of known quantities equivalent to the unknown quantity, and by means of these quantities he determines the value of x.

The anthropologist must act in the same manner. But where must he seek for the known quantities which will enable him to state the equation?

The answer to this question will be found in what we have said above, and in the table of kingdoms. Man, although he has his special and exclusively human phenomena, is above all an organised and living being. From this point of view he is the seat of phenomena common to animals and plants; he is subjected to the 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 presents 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 cases.

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. Without having penetrated very deeply into all the secrets of vegetable and animal life, science has acquired a certain number of fixed and indisputable results which constitute a foundation of positive knowledge, and a safe starting point. It is there that the anthropologist must seek the known quantities of which he may stand in need.

Whenever there is any doubt as to the nature or signification 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 exhibited. 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 their 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 whose history he wishes to explain. The anthropologist on the contrary studies the species. The questions with which he has to deal are much more general, so he is forced to direct his attention to plants as well as to animals.

This method is accompanied by its criterion; it allows the control of the various, answers which are often made to one question. The means of estimation are simple and easily applied.

In anthropology, every solution to be sound, that is to say, true, should refer man in everything which is not exclusively human to the general recognised laws for other organised and living beings.

Every solution which makes or tends to make man an exception, by representing him 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, declared false. In anthropology, the axiom or the truth which serves as a criterion is the fundamental, physical, and physiological identity of man with other living beings, with animals, with mammalia. All hypotheses at variance with this truth should be rejected.

Such are the absolute rules which have always acted as my guide in anthropological studies. I do not pretend to have invented them. I have scarcely done more than formulate what has been more or less explicitly admitted by Linnæus, Buffon, Lamarck, Blumenbach, Cuvier, the two Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, J. Müller, Humboldt, etc. But, on the one hand, my illustrious predecessors have seldom treated the subject with sufficient precision, and have too often omitted to 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 justice the title of great authorities. As I shall be compelled to disagree 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 ANTHROPOLOGICAL DOCTRINES; MONOGENISM AND POLYGENISM.

I. As soon as we have determined the place which should be assigned to man in the great order of the universe, the first question which rises is, whether there is one human species, or several.

It is well known that this question has caused a division amongst anthropologists. The Polygenists regard the differences of height, features, and colour, which distinguish the inhabitants of different countries of the globe, as fundamental; the Monogenists consider these differences merely as the result of accidental conditions, which have modified, in various degrees, a primitive type. The former hold that there are several human species perfectly independent of each other; the latter that there is but one species of man which is divided into several races, all of which are derived from a common stock.

However slight may be our familiarity with the language of zoology and botany or their applications, it is evident that the question before us is a purely scientific one, and entirely within the province of the natural sciences. Unfortunately the discussion has by no means been confined to this ground.

A dogma supported by the authority of the Book which is held in almost equal respect by Christians, 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 same book. In 1655 La Peyrère, a Protestant gentleman in Condé’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 the descendants of these Preadamites were identical with the Gentiles, who were always so carefully distinguished from the Jews. Thus we see that polygenism generally regarded as the result of Free Thought was biblical and dogmatic in origin.

La Peyrère attacked the Adamic dogma in the name of the respect due to the text of a sacred Book. The philosophers of the eighteenth century spoke in the name of Science and Reason. It is to them that the school of Polygenists 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 destruction of a dogma. Unfortunately, the same prepossession appears in too many works published in our own day. On the other hand certain monogenists are 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 obscure 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 1844 Mr. Calhoun, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 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 the White man.

Besides those polygenists who are influenced by prejudices almost or entirely unscientific, there are sincere and disinterested men of science who believe in the multiplicity of human origins. Foremost among the latter are medical men, who are accustomed to the study of the individual and who only possess a slight familiarity with the study of the species. Then again there are palæontologists, who from the nature of their work are compelled only to take into account morphological resemblances and differences, without even turning their attention to facts of reproduction or of filiation. Finally, there are entomologists, conchologists, etc., who, exclusively interested in the distinction of innumerable species by purely external characters, are entirely ignorant of physiological phenomena, and judge living beings as they would fossils.

On the other hand, monogenism reckons among its partisans nearly all those naturalists who have turned their attention to the phenomena of life, and among them some of the most illustrious. In spite of the difference of their doctrines, Buffon and Linnæus, Cuvier and Lamarck, Blainville and the two Geoffroys, Müller the physiologist and Humboldt agree upon this point. Apart from any influence which the name of these great men might exercise, it is clear that I share their opinion. I have on different occasions explained the purely scientific reasons for my convictions. I shall now endeavour to sum them up in as few words as possible.

II. Let us first establish the importance of the question. It escapes many minds and I have heard a doubt expressed upon it by men who have enthusiastically followed anthropological studies. It is, however, easily proved.

If the human groups have appeared with all their distinctive characters in the isolated condition, and in the various localities where geography teaches us to seek them; if we can trace them up to stocks originally distinct, thus constituting so many special species, then the study of them is one of the most simple, presenting no more difficulty than that of animal or vegetable species. There 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 affinity between them. At most we should have to fix their limits and 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 but one single species of man, the differences, 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 equator are subject. And lastly, the simple affinity of naturalists is changed into consanguinity; and the problems of filiation are added to those of variation, migration, and acclimatisation.

It is clear that, independently of every religious, philosophical, or social consideration, this science will differ entirely in character as we consider it from a polygenistic point of view, or according to theories of monogenism.

III. If the former of these doctrines claims such a large number of adherents, the reason may for 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. Unfortunately these advantages are only apparent. Polygenism conceals or denies difficulties; it does not suppress them. They are 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 Systems of classification formerly employed in botany and zoology which rested upon a small number of arbitrary data. They were undoubtedly very convenient, but possessed the serious 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 Natural 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 investigate 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, provoking 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 questions of anthropology have been reviewed. Henceforward I shall attempt to justify as briefly as possible the preceding criticisms and eulogies.

CHAPTER III.
SPECIES AND RACE IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES.

I. The question of the unity or multiplicity of the human species may be stated in the following terms: are the differences which distinguish the human groups characteristic of species 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 nearly two centuries by the most illustrious naturalists, and the 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 à 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 filiation is connected, even in the most uncultivated minds, with that of resemblance. No peasant would hesitate to regard the children of the same parents as belonging to the same species whatever real or apparent differences might distinguish them.

Science has 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 1686, Jean Ray, in his Historia Plantarum, considered that those plants 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 account. 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.

Ray 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 immense majority of zoologists have been aware of the impossibility 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 has, so to speak, proposed his own. Now, however they may differ in other respects, they all agree in this. The terms of the definitions vary, each endeavours to represent in the best manner possible the complex idea of species; 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 case of such difficulty as that of finding a good definition for a combination of ideas, the latest comer always hopes to improve upon his predecessors. For this reason I have also given my formula: “Species is a collection of individuals more or less resembling each other, which may be regarded as having descended from a single primitive pair by an uninterrupted and natural succession of families.”

In this definition, as also in that of some of my colleagues, among others of M. Chevreul, the idea of resemblance is made of less importance and subordinate to that of filiation. The fact is that there never is an identity of characters between one individual and another. Putting aside the variations resulting from age and sex, it is at once evident that all representatives of the same specific type differ in some points. Although these differences are very slight, they constitute individual traits, shades as Isidore Geoffroy said, which enable us to distinguish between two of the same species.

But the differences are not confined within these limits. The specific types are variable, that is to say, every kind of physical character is modified in their derivatives and, under the influence of certain conditions, to such an extent as to make it often very difficult 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 continued 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 illustrious names in England, Germany and elsewhere belong, has 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. Lamarck, Geoffroy, Darwin and his school, consider the species not only as variable but as transmutable. The specific types are not merely modified, they are replaced by new types. Variation is in their estimation only a phase of the very different phenomena of transmutation.

I shall discuss these theories presently. I shall now confine myself to the remark that true variability, admitted even by the defenders of dogmatic invariability, by Blainville, for example, a variability which I fully accept, has nothing in common with the transmutability of Lamarck, Geoffroy and Darwin. Let us briefly determine the limits of this variability.

III. When an individual trait is exaggerated and passes a limit always very loosely defined, it constitutes an exceptional character which clearly distinguishes the individual affected by it from all those most nearly resembling it. This individual constitutes a Variety.

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 individual, without having the power of transmitting their distinctive characters by means of normal generation. I borrow from M. Chevreul a curious example of these multiple varieties. In 1803 or 1805, M. Descemet discovered in his garden at Saint Denis, in the midst of a bed of acacias (Robinia pseudo-acacia) an individual without thorns which he describes under the epithet spectabilis. It is to the multiplication of this individual by the art of the gardener that all the thornless acacias, now distributed over every part of the globe, owe their origin. Now these individuals produce seeds, but if the seeds are sown they only yield thorny acacias. The acacia spectabilis has remained a Variety.

The latter may then be defined as:—“An individual or a number of individuals belonging to the same sexual generation, which is distinguished from the other representatives of the same species by one or several exceptional characters.”

It will readily be seen how great the number of varieties in one species may be. There is, in fact, scarcely any either external or internal part of an animal or plant, which cannot be exaggerated, diminished or modified in a thousand ways, and each of these exaggerations, diminutions or modifications will characterise a fresh variety, with the one condition of its being sufficiently marked.

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 individual, a race is formed. For example, if a thornless 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 received and transmitting, by means of sexual generation, the characters of a primitive variety.”

Thus the Species is the point of departure; the variety appears amongst the individuals of which it is composed, and, when the characters of this variety become hereditary, a race is formed.

Such are the relations which, according to all naturalists, “from Cuvier to Lamarck himself,” as Isidore Geoffroy said, exist between these three terms. We have here a fundamental idea which we should never lose sight of in the study of the questions with which we are 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 of filiation.

We see also that the number of races which spring directly from one species may be equal to the number of varieties of the same species, and consequently very considerable. But this number has a tendency to increase still further to an indefinite extent. In fact, each of these primary races is susceptible of fresh modifications, which may either extend no further than one individual, or become transmissible by means of generation. Thus secondary and tertiary varieties or races come into existence. Our plants and domestic animals furnish innumerable examples of these facts.

V. By reason of races originating in this manner from one another, and from their multiplication, they may assume differential characters which become more and more decided. But however numerous they may be, and whatever differences there may be between them, and however far they may seem to be removed from the primitive type, they nevertheless, 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 species is the unit and the races are the fractions of this unit. Or again, the species is the trunk of the tree, of which the several series of races represent the principal 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; APPLICATION TO MAN.

I. The meaning of the question stated above is now intelligible. We have to discover whether the human groups, which we know to be distinguished by characters which are often very marked, are fractions of a single unit, branches of the same tree, or so many units of different value, so many trees of various nature.

Historical documents are absolutely incapable of solving this problem. On the other hand, man being the subject of the problem, it is evident 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 the 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 beyond the reach of controversy, have preserved all their freedom of judgment. The results thus acquired, deserve the greatest confidence, and supply reliable data for the application of our anthropological method.

Anyone really desirous of forming an opinion upon the unity or multiplicity of the human species, should therefore discover what are the facts and phenomena which characterise race and species in plants and animals; then turn to man and compare the facts and phenomena there presented with those which botanists and zoologists have observed in the other kingdoms. If the facts and phenomena which distinguish the human groups are those which, in other organised and living beings differentiate species, he will then legitimately infer the multiplicity of human species; if, however, these phenomena and facts are characteristic of race in the two inferior kingdoms, he must conclude in favour of specific unity.

It is the pursuance of this course which has convinced me of monogenism, 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 and filiation. Let us first turn our attention to the former as being the greater stumbling-block of the two. No one would hesitate to consider two individuals resembling each other very closely as belonging to the same species; if, however, they present somewhat marked differences, 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 discussion. 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 has, in the present instance, a serious inconvenience. It inevitably conduces to the exaggeration of differences existing between different groups, and by this very means leads us to regard them as so many species.

For this decision to have a real value, however, it should be shown beforehand that the variations between one human group and another, are greater than those which have been established between groups of animals and plants, which are positively known to be only races of one species.

Now this is not the case. However slight an attempt we may have made to become acquainted with the nature and the extent of variations, we shall very soon see that in animal and vegetable races they attain limits, which are never overstepped, and but rarely attained, by the differences between human groups.

III. I shall not insist at any length upon the morphological and anatomical changes of plants. It will be sufficient to call to mind how numerous and different are those varieties of vegetables, flowers, fruit-trees, and ornamental shrubs, the number of which is always on the increase. Amongst the latter, the variety, it is true, very rarely attains to the condition of a race. Grafting, propagation by layers, etc., make it possible to multiply them rapidly and with certainty, as in the case of the thornless 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 fixed, and can be reproduced by seed. The plum, the peach, and the vine, may be quoted as examples. As to annuals, garden vegetables especially, they can only be preserved and multiplied by this method. Here we only find races, and it is well to know how numerous and varied they are. The cabbage alone (Brassica oleracea) numbers forty-seven principal 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 separates 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 modification, and are differently associated and combined according to the race. But these elements themselves often undergo most fundamental disturbance. Certain acids are diminished or disappear, and are replaced by sugar, a sweet taste and perfume, which develop and characterise certain races of vegetables and fruits, and show that the vital forces of these plants have been subjected to very substantial modifications faithfully transmitted from generation to generation.

The objection will perhaps be made that there is too little resemblance between vegetable and animal organisms for the 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 different races. In our several races of corn, the rapidity of development varies from simple 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 and varieties, some of which are fast and some slow growers.

The energy of the reproductive organs often varies in a singular manner in different races. We have, for instance, roses which bloom two or three times a year, and strawberries which remain in fruit nearly the whole year. There are oranges crammed with pips, and others in which they are almost entirely wanting. Lastly, in some bananas and in the currant-grape the seeds have completely disappeared. We see at once that these latter products of human industry only exist as varieties.

IV. In animals we meet with facts which correspond exactly with those which we have just observed in plants. Further, we find that they experience modifications connected with the manifestations of the something which we have called the Animal Mind.

The diversity of races in our domestic species is too well known to make it necessary to insist upon this point. I shall only mention that Darwin reckons 150 distinct races of pigeons, and declares that he is not yet acquainted with all. These races are, moreover, sufficiently different to render a redivision into at least four distinct genera necessary, if they are considered as so many species. Among mammals analogous facts are noticed, in the case of the dog. At the Dog Show of 1863, the Society of Acclimatisation, which had been very strict in its rules of admission and only received perfectly pure types, collected no fewer than seventy races of dogs. The greater number, however, belonged to Europe, and to France and England in particular; almost all those of Asia, Africa, and America, were absent from the collection, so that altogether we are justified 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 grey-hounds, beagles and Danish carriage dogs, mastiffs and King Charles’s. It is scarcely necessary to remark that these external differences suggest the idea of corresponding modifications in the skeleton, in the proportion and form of the muscles. Anatomical differences are indeed even greater. For example, the skull of the water-spaniel is proportionately double the size of that of the bull-dog.

There are among animals, as among plants, some races which develop slowly, and others which increase in size rapidly. As in plants, fecundity is diminished in some and increased in others. When they are too perfect, that is 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 six or eight young, but when domesticated litters twice a year with from ten to fifteen. Her fecundity is therefore at least tripled. In the Indian pig, derived from the “Aperea,” it is more than seven times as great.

In dogs, habits imposed 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 contrast which in many cases exists between these acquired instincts. Considered as the relative development of the intelligence, properly so called, the difference between races is also very marked in many cases. From this point of view we need only compare the greyhound and the spaniel.

V. If from animals and plants we pass to man, we shall find in him, as in the two inferior kingdoms, groups distinguished by anatomical, physiological and psychological differences. In most cases the same organs and the same functions present analogous modifications. What reason can be alleged for the idea that, if their nature is considered, these differences and modifications have a greater signification in man, and that they characterise species and not race? Clearly none; it would be reasoning against the laws of analogy. An argument based upon the variations presented by the manifestations of morality and religion, would be a neglect of the fact that these faculties are the attributes of the human kingdom, that they are wanting in the other kingdoms, and are not in consequence susceptible of any comparison of this kind. In that which is exclusively human, man can only be compared with man.

In conclusion, the facts of the variations and differences existing in man between different groups, are of the same nature as those established between different races of animals and plants. The nature of these phenomena cannot then be brought forward as an argument in favour of the theory that these groups are so many species.

CHAPTER V.
EXTENT OF VARIATIONS IN ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE RACES; APPLICATION TO MAN.

I. The question to which this chapter 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 polygenistic arguments are included in the following:—“The difference between the Negro and the White is too great for them to belong to the same species.” These types are the two extremes 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 polygenistic doctrine.

Now, even if we leave plants out of the question, and there can be little doubt in respect to them; if we merely compare man and animals, organ for 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 be led to ask the question, 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 examples.

II. The colouring of the skin is one of the most striking characteristics, and one which is most apparent to the eye. This has given rise to the expressions White, Yellow, and Black, which are most improperly used to designate the three fundamental groups of mankind. We will first prove that these names possess the grave inconvenience of giving rise to ideas which are entirely erroneous. Amongst the Whites there are entire populations, whose skin is as black as that of the darkest Negro. I shall only quote the Bishareen 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 café 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 Negro side by side with the fair White 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 poodle. 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 colours observed in man. The French fowl has a white skin; in the cochin-china it approaches to yellow; it is black in black fowls. Sometimes they present a peculiarity similar 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 fowls possess several interesting peculiarities from our present point of view. In Europe, melanism appears from time to time in our poultry-yards, and would infallibly spread if the fowls attacked by it were not destroyed. It is perhaps from want of this precaution that black fowls have been developed in various parts of the globe, among others in the Philippines, in Java, in the Cape Verd Islands, and upon the plateau of Bogota, all of which have been derived from European stocks. Melanism appears moreover, in groups of fowls which differ most strikingly in other respects, in the silk hen as well as in our ordinary races.

We see that black fowls are in no sense a distinct species, and that the appearance of the black colour is merely an 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 skull 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 hereditary 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, fibrous, and aponeurotic membranes, even to the muscular sheaths, possess the same colouring. The flesh also assumes a repugnant appearance, and it is for this reason that the propagation of black fowls is prevented as much as possible.

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. We find the same layers in both; the dermis, the mucous layer and the epidermis present exactly the same structure. The layers are merely thicker in the Negro. In these two great races, the mucous layer, situated between the other two, is the seat of colour. It is formed of cells which are of a pale yellow colour in the fair White, of a more or less brownish yellow in the dark 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 latter, is sufficient to determine the formation of these spots.

Why, then, should it be thought strange that a number of circumstances, a constant heat, a bright light, &c., should influence the whole body and perpetuate those modifications 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 is not merely hypothesis.

Finally, the colour of the skin depends upon a simple secretion which is subject to modification under a number of circumstances, as is the case with many others. There is, therefore nothing strange in the fact that some human groups, differing widely in other respects, should resemble each other in the matter of colour. This is the reason why the Hindoo (Aryan), the Bisharee and the Moor (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 the yellow races.

Thus, in man, as in animals, the aphorism is verified which was formulated by Linnæus in regard to plants:—nimium ne crede colori.

III. I shall not dwell at any length upon the modifications of the hair and villosities. They are much more apparent than real in man. Whether fair or black, fine and of a woolly appearance, as in the Negro, or coarse and stiff, as in the yellow and red races; whether the transverse section is circular as in the Yellow race, oval, as in the White, or elliptic, as in the Negro, the hair remains hair. The woolly fleece of our sheep, on the contrary, is in part of Africa, replaced by a short and smooth hair. In America the same is the case with the sheep of the Madeleine whenever they are left unshorn; and on the other hand, in the high plains of the Andes, the wild boars acquire a kind of coarse wool.

The practice of certain natives of shaving off all hair has made some travellers believe in the existence of human races which are entirely hairless; the error has however been recognised. All men possess hair in the normal places. Hairless dogs and horses are, however, 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 pelones, and disappears entirely with the calongos; and if the latter do not increase in number, 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 extremes admitted in human groups.

We see that the variation between races is in the horse twice as great as in man, nearly three times in the sheep and rabbit, and four times as much in the dog. The difference is perhaps even more striking in the goat and ox, judging 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 presented on the 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 extremity 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 proportionally 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 which can only be preserved in the place where it was developed, as may be seen in a number of other cases.

VI. It is evident that the preceding character is just as much internal as external; it is also evident that neither the size, nor the proportions of the trunk and limbs, can vary, unless the skeleton and the accompanying muscles experience corresponding modifications. The anatomical characters change then with the race in animals, as well 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. This 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 the tarsus and metatarsus.

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. The 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 differences presented 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 change. Philippi tells us that the oxen of Piacentino had thirteen ribs instead of twelve, and, consequently, an extra dorsal vertebra. In the pig Eyton has observed the dorsal vertebræ vary from thirteen to fifteen, the lumbar from four to six, the sacral from four to five, and the caudal from thirteen to twenty-three, 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 always been isolated cases, except in one Dutch family, quoted by Vrolich. But it does not approximate to a constant character in any human group, and if such a group did exist, it is evident that the variation would here again be less than in animals, for without even reckoning the tail, it is three times stronger in the latter.

Of course, I do not take into consideration what has been so often said of men asserted to have tails. We 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 vertebræ which compose it, must not be considered à priori as a specific character.

VIII. It might have been expected that the head would have escaped modifications, on account of the importance of the organs which belong to it. But such is not the case, and here again the modifications are much greater in animals than in man. Blumenbach remarked long ago that there was more difference between the head of a domestic pig and the wild boar than between that of the White and the Negro. There are no domestic species to which the same remark cannot be applied. But I shall only remind the reader of the heads of the bull-dog, greyhound and spaniel.

The extent to which the modifications of the head can be carried is nowhere more plainly shown than in the niata cattle of Buenos Ayres and La Plata. This ox exhibits the modifications of the specific characters similar to those which the bull-dog presents among dogs. All the forms are shortened and thickened, the head in particular seeming to have experienced a general movement of concentration. The inferior maxillary bone, although itself shortened, so far exceeds the superior in length that the animal is unable to browse the trees. The cranium is as much deformed as the face; not only are the forms of the bones modified, but also their relations, not one of which, according to Professor Owen, has been strictly preserved. This race, though perfectly established, is not therefore necessarily of less recent origin; for, as I remarked above, all the American oxen are descended from European stocks. It is already represented in the New World by two sub-races, one of which, that of Buenos Ayres, has preserved the horns, while that of Mexico has lost them.

It is scarcely necessary to remark that no human group presents anything at all analogous to this.

IX. The several facts which I have here enumerated seem to me sufficient to justify the proposition which 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 between these human groups may be, or may appear to be, to consider them as specific 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 morphological considerations. Its partisans, struck only by the material differences presented by the human 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 equally well interpreted under the hypothesis of the Unity of the Species, monogenism and polygenism 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 the ground of morphology, it will be easy to prove which theory is most probably the correct one.

We know that naturalists consider that 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 are much stronger when there exists an intercrossing of characters. This intercrossing exists when a very decided and apparently exclusive character reappears in one or several individuals differing widely in other respects, and undoubtedly belonging to distinct groups. It is a case of intercrossing again, when the same character varies in such a manner as to lead, if considered apart, to the division of a natural group, and to the separation of the fractions into very different groups.

Now there is no animal species which presents these essentially morphological characters in a higher degree than man. When the human groups are studied in some detail, the difficulty does not consist in finding resemblances, but in clearly defining the differences. The more carefully they are considered, the more they disappear and become obliterated. We then understand the accounts given by most trustworthy travellers, such as d’Abbadie, of countries where the Negro and the White live side by side. In their extremes these two types are certainly very distinct. But in Abyssinia, for example, where they have long lived in contact, and intermingled, the Negro is no longer characterised by either colour, features, or hair, but simply by the exaggerated protuberance of the heel. This character in its turn, however, loses its value on the Eastern coast of Africa, where whole Negro tribes have the heel formed like ours.

This is an example of intercrossing, 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 other in colour. The following is a still more striking example. Desmoulins regarded the perforation of the olecranon process as one of the most decided characters of his Austro-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 moreover, 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 confine 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 reproduce the table published in the Voyage of the Novara, by Dr. Weisbach. I have added to the figures of the Austrian savant a few data relating especially to the smallest races. I have also given the maxima and minima where I have been able to procure them, so as to make the extent of the variation more appreciable than is possible from the average alone:

STATURE OF DIFFERENT HUMAN RACES.

We here see what strange relations and what a singular confusion rise from a consideration of the stature. Numbers given in the same order, representing the size of the skull, the cephalic indices, the weight of the brain, will give the same striking result.

We must also observe that there is a great majority of means in this table. Now we see that the 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 difference 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 zootechny whether it would 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 similar facts would be met with, as, for example, in canine races, where the mastiff and its young, the greyhound of Saintonge and the Italian greyhound, the large and the small carriage dog would be separated from each other by a number of other races 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 species are of an entirely different nature to the relations established between animal species. But this hypothesis 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 intercrossing 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 correspond to the idea of resemblance contained in the definition of species, we are justified in concluding in favour of monogenism. To confirm this conclusion, however, we must turn our attention to other facts which correspond to the idea of filiation, and consider the teachings of physiology concerning the phenomena of generation.

CHAPTER VII.
CROSSING OF RACES AND SPECIES IN THE ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE KINGDOMS.—MONGRELS AND HYBRIDS.

I. Sexual 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 same species, and, finally, between different species. In the two latter cases we have what is called a cross. This crossing itself is differently named according to whether it takes place between different races or different species. In the first case it produces a mongrel, in the second a hybrid. When the cross-unions are fertile the product of the union of mongrels is called a mongrel, the product of the union of hybrids a hybrid.

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 confirm this presentiment.

We have, therefore, in this crossing a means of judging whether the human groups are only races of a single species, or rather distinct species. For this purpose it will be sufficient to study the phenomena which, in other organised and living beings, accompany the production of mongrels 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 are those which characterise hybridism, we must conclude that the groups are specifically distinct, and admit the multiplicity of human species. If, however, crosses between human groups, morphologically different, are accompanied by phenomena peculiar to the production of mongrels, we shall only be justified in considering these groups as races of one species; we must take our stand upon the doctrine of the Specific Unity of all mankind.

The question 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 reproduction that the two kingdoms show the greatest resemblance. This is not a case of mere analogy, but almost of identity, and it is not the superior which lowers itself but the inferior which is raised. We might say that, ennobled by the importance 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 species, that is to say, the production of mongrels, may be accomplished without any intervention on the part of man, or it may take place under his direction. It is consequently either 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 Linnæus. He at once comprehended the importance of the subject, and even exaggerated it, as we shall presently see. Linnæus admitted that cross-unions, which had been observed for centuries between animals, might be repeated between plants. And he thus explained the appearance of variegated tulips in the midst of borders originally formed of uniformly coloured flowers. Observation and experiment have confirmed the views of the founder of the natural sciences again and again. Moreover, it has been observed that the crossing may become apparent in all parts of the plant by a mixture of characters similar to that exhibited by the colouring of the tulips. M. Naudin, among others, who, during one year, watched the development of more than 1200 gourds, saw the seeds of a single fruit reproduce all the races contained in the garden in which his observations were made. Superfetation had taken place. It is a fact of great importance, as it demonstrates the equality 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 between races.

The natural and spontaneous production of mongrels among animals presents the same characters. Facilitated by locomotion it is accomplished every day in our houses, our poultry-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 Geoffroy at the Paris Museum, have shown that with sheep, dogs, pigs, and fowls, mongrels between the most different races were invariably fertile. Here again the phenomena of superfetation was often proved. Bitches produced, by males of several races successively, young which showed three or four distinct sources. Here the case was the same as with the gourds of M. Naudin.

We see that man has found no difficulty in breeding mongrels, and that, 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 union has, indeed, been long in daily practice for the amelioration, modification, and diversification of the living beings upon which human industry is exercised. It is useless to insist upon 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 perfect a vegetable or animal race, the physiological equilibrium has sometimes been destroyed at the expense of the reproductive power. In such cases, crossing with another race which is less modified, generally revives the extinguished fertility. For example, the English pigs imported into the middle of France by M. de Ginestous became sterile after several generations. Upon crossing them with a leaner and less perfect local race, their fertility returned.

All these facts, and their inevitable consequences, 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 Variation 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 which 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 crosses 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, which we too often meet with in Darwin, who is often carried away by his convictions. I shall have to return to this point, but I here make the statement as an established fact, on the authority even of Darwin, that all known facts attest the perfect fertility of mongrels.

Finally, the formation of crosses between races, or the production of mongrels, is spontaneous, and may be promoted by man without the least difficulty; the results are as certain as those with the union of individuals of the same race; in certain cases, indeed, fertility is increased or revived under the influence of this crossing.

Crosses between species, or hybrids, will exhibit facts of an entirely contrary nature.

III. The formation of hybrids, as of mongrels, may be either natural or artificial.

The former is so rare that eminent naturalists have doubted its reality. There are, however, according to M. Decaisne, a score of well proved examples among plants. What is this number compared with the thousands of mongrels produced every day under our eyes. And yet the material conditions of fertility are identically the same with races as with species, and our botanical gardens, which group numbers of species side by side, facilitate crossing still more.

Among wild animals living in liberty hybrids are still more rare. It is unknown, for example, among mammalia, according to Isidore Geoffroy, 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 Gallinæ. According to Valenciennes, they are unknown among fishes. In domestication and captivity spontaneous crossing between different 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. Linnæus thought crossing was possible between species of different families. But in 1761 Koelreuter 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 always very difficult, and demands the most minute precautions to insure success; that it often fails between species of the same genus closely allied in appearance, and finally, that there are whole families among which hybrids are impossible. Amongst the latter figures the family of the cucurbitaceæ, so thoroughly studied by M. Naudin, where the most perfect mongrels were produced spontaneously. We could not imagine, evidently, a more complete contrast.

This contrast is carried into the minutest details. For example, any flower which has in the least possible degree undergone the action of pollen of its own species becomes absolutely insensible to the action of pollen of a different species. How different to the equality of action displayed by the several pollens of most distant races!