The Human Race

THE HUMAN RACE.
BY LOUIS FIGUIER.
ILLUSTRATED BY TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY-THREE ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD, AND EIGHT CHROMOLITHOGRAPHS.
NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND CO., BROADWAY. 1872.
LONDON: BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.



THE HUMAN RACE.
Definition of Man—How he differs from other Animals—Origin of Man—In what parts of the Earth did he first appear?—Unity of Mankind, evidence in support—What is understood by species in Natural History—Man forms but one species, with its varieties or kinds—Classification of the Human Race.
What is man? A profound thinker, Cardinal de Bonald, has said: “Man is an intelligence assisted by organs.” We would fain adopt this definition, which brings into relief the true attribute of man, intelligence, were it not defective in drawing no sufficient distinction between man and the brute. It is a fact that animals are intelligent and that their intelligence is assisted by organs. But their intelligence is infinitely inferior to that of man. It does not extend beyond the necessities of attack and defence, the power of seeking food, and a small number of affections or passions, whose very limited scope merely extends to material wants. With man, on the other hand, intelligence is of a high order, although its range is limited, and it is often arrested, powerless and mute, before the problems itself proposes. In bodily formation, man is an animal, he lives in a material envelope, of which the structure is that of the Mammalia; but he far surpasses the animal in the extent of his intellectual faculties. The definition of man must therefore establish this relation which animals bear to ourselves, and indicate, if possible, the degree which separates them. For this reason we shall define man: an organized, intelligent being, endowed with the faculty of abstraction .