Chapter III.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES
Next to geographical discovery, perhaps the most stimulating influence on Anthropology has been the succession of controversies in which it has constantly been involved. It has always been regarded as a somewhat anarchical subject, advocating views which might prove dangerous to Church and State; and many are the battles which have raged within and without. Huxley attributed the large audiences which were wont to throng the Anthropological Section of the British Association to the innate bellicose instincts of man, and to the splendid opportunities afforded by Anthropology for indulging those propensities.[[31]]
[31]. Add. Brit. Ass., Dublin, 1878.
The discussions of the earlier centuries were focussed round the question of the origin of man, and from this highly debateable problem arose the two antagonistic groups of the monogenists, or orthodox school, deriving all mankind from a single pair, and the polygenists, who believed in a multiple origin. Before the discoveries of prehistoric archæology had advanced sufficiently to show the futility of such discussion, anthropologists were split up into opposing camps by the question of the fixity of species, and became embroiled in one of the fiercest controversies of modern times—that of evolution. A subordinate subject of contention, implicated in the polygenist doctrines, was the place of the Negro in nature, involving the question of slavery.
Origin of Man.
Among the ancient philosophers the question of the origin of man was answered in various ways; some, like Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, believed that mankind had always existed, because there never could have been a beginning of things, relying on the scholastic argument that no bird could be born without an egg, and no egg without a bird. Epicurus and Lucretius believed in a “fortuitous cause,” a preparation of fat and slimy earth, with a long incubation of water and conjunction of heavenly and planetary bodies. Others, that men and animals “crawled out of the earth by chance,” “like mushrooms or blite.”
With the spread of Christianity the Mosaic cosmogony became generally adopted, and monogenism developed into an article of faith. The Church fulminated against those atheists who admitted doubts on the subject of Adam and Eve, or believed in the existence of antipodal man, or that man had existed for more than the 6,000 years allotted to him by Scripture. If the censure of the Church did not lead to recantation, the heretic was burnt. A seventeenth-century divine, Dr. Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, was even more precise than Archbishop Ussher: he reached the conclusion that “man was created by the Trinity on October 23, 4004 B.C., at nine o’clock in the morning.”[[32]]
[32]. Clodd, Pioneers of Evolution, quoting from White, Warfare of Science with Theology.
The discovery of the New World dealt a severe blow to the authority of the Fathers on matters of science. Antipodal man, whom St. Augustine[[33]] had extinguished as “excessively absurd,” was found to exist, and the Spaniards forthwith excused their barbarities to the American natives on the plea that they were not the descendants of Adam and Eve.
[33]. De Civitate Dei.
Polygenism and Monogenism.
Henceforward the polygenists began to gain ground. Theophrastus Paracelsus (1520) first asserted the plurality of the races of mankind, and explained the Mosaic cosmogony as having been written “theologically—for the weaker brethren.” Vanini (1616) mentions a belief, entertained by atheists, that man was descended from or allied to monkeys. In 1655 Isaac de la Peyrère, a Calvinist scholar of Bordeaux, published in Amsterdam his Præ-Adamitæ, to prove that Adam and Eve were not the first human beings upon the earth; and his work, being prohibited by authority, became immensely popular.
His theory, though unorthodox, was founded on Scripture, and regarded Adam and Eve as merely a special and much later creation; the Gentiles, who peopled the rest of the earth, having been formed from the dust of the earth, together with the beasts of the field, on the sixth day. The inhabitants of the New World, which, being separate from the Old, could not have been peopled with the same race, were of Gentile origin. This theory was bitterly opposed. The Parlement of Paris caused the book to be publicly burned. The Inquisition laid hands on the author, and he was forced to abjure both his Pre-Adamite heresy and his Calvinism. He died in a convent in 1676.
The writings of the Encyclopedists, the freedom of thought claimed by Voltaire and Rousseau, together with the classification of species by Linnæus, emboldened the polygenists. Lord Kames[[34]] was one of the earliest exponents in England, and he soon found many followers. Two separate lines of antagonism may be distinguished in the controversy. In one—the Anglo-French—Prichard, Cuvier, and de Quatrefages represent the monogenists, and Virey and Bory de Saint-Vincent the polygenists; the other, in which America and the slavery question were implicated, polygenists and anti-abolitionists going hand-in-hand, was represented by Nott and Gliddon in America, Knox and Hunt in England, and Broca in France.
[34]. Sketches on the History of Man, 1774.
When materials began to accumulate they were detrimental to the polygenist theory. Especially was this the case with regard to the proof of what Broca termed “eugenesis”—i.e., that all the Hominidæ are, and always have been, fertile with each other. This, which formed a test between species and varieties in Botany and Zoology, was claimed also in Anthropology, and the polygenists had to seek for support elsewhere. They found it in Linguistics; “language as a test of race” bulked large in ethnological controversy, and is not yet entirely extinct.
At first the monogenists claimed language as supporting their views. All languages were to be traced to three sources—Indo-European, Semitic, and Malay; and these, in their turn, were the offspring of a parent tongue, now entirely lost. But it was soon found impossible to reconcile even Aryan and Semitic, and a common parent for all three languages was inconceivable. The linguistic argument then passed over to the polygenists.
Hovelacque stated that “the ascertained impossibility of reducing a multiplicity of linguistic families to a common centre is for us sufficient proof of the original plurality of the races that have been developed with them.” M. Chavée[[35]] went further. “We might,” he says, “put Semitic children and Indo-European children apart, who had been taught by deaf mutes, and we should find that the former would naturally speak a Semitic language, the latter an Aryan language.” F. Müller and others took up this line of argument, holding that distinct stock languages proved the existence of distinct stock races. But, as Professor Keane points out, in his summary of the controversy (1896, chap. vii.), quod nimis probat, nihil probat—what proves too much, proves nothing—and the hundred or more stock languages in America alone, reduced the argument to an absurdity.
[35]. See Topinard, 1878, p. 424.
Monogenists.
Among the monogenists may be included most of the older anthropologists—Linnæus, Buffon, Blumenbach, Camper, Prichard, and Lawrence. Since they held that all mankind was descended from a single pair (the question as to whether this pair were white, black, or red, occasioned a further discussion), they had to account for the subsequent divergence producing the present clearly-recognised varieties; and, in so doing, anticipated the theory of evolution, which was not clearly enunciated until the time of Lamarck.
Linnæus believed in fixity of species, but had doubts about the Biblical account. As a naturalist, he found it difficult to credit the exceptional nature of a country which had supplied the wants of zoological species as opposed to one another as the polar bear and the tropical hippopotamus. Buffon ascribed the variations of man to the influence of climate and diet. Though Prichard and Lawrence both denied the possibility of the transmission of acquired characters, Prichard believed that the transmission of occasional variations might, to some extent, account for the diversities of races.[[36]] Lawrence wrote more clearly: “Racial differences can be explained only by two principles—namely, the occasional production of an offspring with different characters from those of the parents, as a native or congenital variety; and the propagation of such varieties by generation.” He considered that domestication favoured the production of these congenital and transmissible variations, and, anticipating the Eugenic school, deplored the fact that, while so much care and attention was paid to the breeding of domestic animals, the breeding of man was left to the vagaries of his own individual fancy.
[36]. In an essay entitled “A Remarkable Anticipation of Modern Views on Evolution,” Professor E. B. Poulton draws attention to the ideas expressed in the first and second editions of the Researches, by Prichard, “one of the most remarkable and clear-sighted of the predecessors of Darwin and Wallace.... It is an anomaly that such works as the Vestiges should attract attention, while Prichard’s keen insight, sound judgment, and balanced reasoning on many aspects of organic evolution, and especially on the scope of heredity, should remain unknown.” Essays on Evolution, 1908, pp. 192, 175.
Lawrence.
Sir William Lawrence (1783-1867) was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Surgery to the Royal College of Surgeons at the early age of thirty-two. His lectures on “Comparative Anatomy, Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man,” delivered between 1816 and 1818, raised an immediate outcry; and the author (to use his own words) was charged “with the unworthy design of propagating opinions detrimental to society, and of endeavouring to enforce them for the purpose of loosening those restraints in which the welfare of mankind exists.” Lawrence was forced to bow before the storm of abuse, and announce publicly that the volumes had been suppressed, as he was refused copyright. It is interesting to note that these lectures are among those at present recommended for the use of students of Anthropology.
Lawrence was far in advance of his time, and much of his teaching may be said to have anticipated the doctrine of evolution. Unfortunately, the theological protest raised by his lectures—published when he was only thirty-five—resulted in his forsaking Anthropology altogether, and he henceforward devoted himself entirely to anatomy and surgery.
Lord Monboddo.
Another prophet in advance of his times was Lord Monboddo. James Burnett Monboddo (1714-1799) was regarded as one of the most eccentric characters of the eighteenth century, mainly on account of his peculiar views about the origin of society and of language, and his theories as to the relationship of man with the monkeys. He was deeply interested in all the current accounts of “tailed men,” thus justifying Dr. Johnson’s remark that he was “as jealous of his tail as a squirrel.” Later students of his writings are less struck by these eccentricities, which afforded endless jests to the wags of the age, than by his scientific methods of investigation and his acute conclusions. He not only studied man as one of the animals, but he also studied savages with a view to elucidating the origin of civilisation.
Many other pre-Darwinian evolutionists might be mentioned, but Professor Lovejoy’s caution must be noted:—
The premature adoption of a hypothesis is a sin against the scientific spirit; and the chance acceptance by some enthusiast of a truth in which, at the time, he has no sound reason for believing, by no means entitles him to any place of honour in the history of science.[[37]]
[37]. Pop. Sci. Monthly, 1909, p. 499.
The first to enunciate a coherent theory of evolution—that of Transformism or Transmutation—was Lamarck.[[38]]
[38]. De Maillet and Robinet had already outlined part of the Lamarckian doctrine.
Lamarck.
Lamarck (1744-1829) believed that species were not fixed, but that the more complex were developed from pre-existent simpler forms. He attributed the change of species mainly to physical conditions of life, to crossing, and especially to use or disuse of organs, which not only resulted in the modification, growth, or atrophy of some, but, under the stress of necessity, led to the formation of new ones. “La fonction fait l’organe.” He also held that changes produced in the individual as the result of environment were transmitted to the offspring. Organic life was traced back and back to a small number of primordial germs or monads, the offspring of spontaneous generation. Man formed no exception. He was the result of the slow transformation of certain apes.
Lamarck’s views were first published in 1801, and were enlarged in his Philosophie Zoologique, 1809.
Cuvier.
Lamarck’s chief opponent was Cuvier (1769-1832), Professor of Natural History and of Comparative Anatomy in Paris, who, besides being the recognised authority on zoology (his great book, Le Règne Animal, was long the standard work on the subject), was even more renowned as an anatomist. He upheld the theory of Catastrophe, of alternate destructions and regenerations, against the new theories of Transformism and Evolution.
According to this widely accepted belief, the universe was subject to violent terrestrial revolutions, involving the destruction of all existing things and the total annihilation of all living beings belonging to the past epoch.
The theory was by no means new; it was current in the East in the thirteenth century. In a book written by Mohamed Kaswini on the wonders of nature, he tells the following tale:—
In passing one day by a very ancient and extremely populous city, I asked of one of the inhabitants who founded their city. He replied to me: “I know not, and our ancestors knew no more than we do on this point.” Five hundred years afterwards, passing by the same place, I could not perceive a trace of the city. Inquiring of one of the peasants about the place when it was that the city was destroyed, he answered me: “What an odd question you put to me; this country has never been otherwise than as you see it now.” I returned there after another five hundred years, and I found in the place of the country I had seen—a sea. I now asked of the fishermen how long it was since their country became a sea; and he replied that a person like me ought to know that it had always been a sea. I returned again after five hundred years; the sea had disappeared, and it was now dry land. No one knew what had become of the sea, or if such a thing had ever existed. Finally, I returned once more after five hundred years, and I again found a flourishing city. The people told me that the origin of their city was lost in the night of time.[[39]]
[39]. Quoted from R. Knox, Anth. Rev., i., 1863, p. 263.
Cuvier’s position was supported by the evidence brought to France by Napoleon’s scientific expedition to Egypt (1801). Here were seen numbers of mummified animals, probably dating back some three to four thousand years, but showing no appreciable difference from existing types. This was held to demolish the theory of evolution by proving the immutability of species.
Étienne Saint-Hilaire.
Étienne Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844), the zoologist on the Egyptian expedition, interpreted the results differently, and was one of the most brilliant supporters of Lamarck. In 1828 he published his convictions that the same forms have not been perpetuated since the origin of all things, though he did not believe that existing species were undergoing modification. Cuvier returned to the charge, and in 1856 propounded his doctrine of the periodical revolutions of the earth, of the renewal each time of the flora and fauna, and of the incessant and miraculous intervention of a creative Will. And for a time, owing to his position and authority, he held the field.
Robert Chambers.
In 1844 appeared a book which had an enormous influence on the pre-Darwinian history of Evolution. This was an anonymous work entitled Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, the authorship of which was not revealed until the publication of the twelfth edition in 1884. It was the production of Robert Chambers (1802-1871), co-editor with his brother William of Chambers’s Journal, and author of many books on Scotland and a few on science. He traced the action of general laws throughout the universe as a system of growth and development, and held that the various species of animals and plants had been produced in orderly succession from each other by the action of unknown laws and the influence of external conditions. The Vestiges became at once the centre of scientific discussion, denounced by the orthodox, and held “not proven” by most of the men of science of the time. Its supporters were called “Vestigiarian,” a term which implied also “unscientific,” “sentimental,” and “absurd.”
The curious point is that in the Vestiges we find much of what was subsequently called the Darwinian theory already enunciated. According to Wallace, it clearly formulated the conception of evolution through natural laws, and yet it was denounced by those who soon after were to become the champions of Darwinism. This was partly due to the way in which the doctrine was treated and expressed, partly also to the “needless savagery” of Professor Huxley.
Huxley wrote in 1887: “I must have read the Vestiges ... before 1846; but, if I did, the book made very little impression on me.... I confess the book simply irritated me by the prodigious ignorance and thoroughly unscientific habit of mind manifested by the writer.” Professor Lovejoy[[40]] explains the reasons for Huxley’s attitude:—
[40]. Loc. cit.
The truth is that Huxley’s strongly emotional and highly pugnacious nature was held back by certain wholly non-logical influences from accepting an hypothesis for which the evidence was practically as potent for over a decade before he accepted it as it was at the time of his conversion. The book was written in a somewhat exuberant and rhetorical style. With all its religious heterodoxy, it was characterised by a certain pious and edifying tone, and was given to abrupt transitions from scientific reasoning to mystical sentiment. It contained numerous blunders in matters of biological and geological detail; and its author inclined to believe, on the basis of some rather absurd experimental evidence, in the possibility of spontaneous generation. All these things were offensive to the professional standards of an enthusiastic young naturalist, scrupulous about the rigour of the game, intolerant of vagueness and of any mixture of the romantic imagination with scientific inquiry.... He therefore, in 1854, almost outdid the Edinburgh Review in the ferocity of his onslaught upon the layman who had ventured to put forward sweeping generalisations upon biological questions while capable of errors upon particular points which were palpable to every competent specialist.
Huxley refers to this review as “the only review I ever have had qualms of conscience about, on the grounds of needless savagery.” Darwin more mildly described it as “rather hard on the poor author.” Indeed, he confessed to a certain sympathy with the Vestiges; while Wallace, in 1845, expressed a very favourable opinion of the book, describing it as “an ingenious hypothesis, strongly supported by some striking facts and analogies.”
The strongest testimony to the value of Chambers’s work is that of Mr. A. W. Benn, who writes in Modern England, 1908, concerning the Vestiges:—
Hardly any advance has since been made on Chambers’s general arguments, which at the time they appeared would have been accepted as convincing, but for theological truculence and scientific timidity. And Chambers himself only gave unity to thoughts already in wide circulation.... Chambers was not a scientific expert, nor altogether an original thinker; but he had studied scientific literature to better purpose than any professor.... The considerations that now recommend evolution to popular audiences are no other than those urged in the Vestiges.
Herbert Spencer.
The next great name among the pre-Darwinian evolutionists is that of Herbert Spencer. About 1850 he wrote:—
The belief in organic evolution had taken deep root (in my mind), and drawn to itself a large amount of evidence—evidence not derived from numerous special instances, but derived from the general aspects of organic nature and from the necessity of accepting the hypothesis of evolution when the hypothesis of special creation had been rejected. The special creation belief had dropped out of my mind many years before, and I could not remain in a suspended state: acceptance of the only possible alternative was imperative.[[41]]
[41]. Duncan, Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer, 1898, II., 317.
This suspended state, the tätige Skepsis of Goethe, was just what Huxley was enjoying; in his own words, “Reversing the apostolic precept to be all things to all men, I usually defended the tenability of received doctrines, when I had to do with the transmutationists; and stood up for the possibility of transmutation among the orthodox.”
Thus, up to the date of the publication of the Origin of Species, scientific opinion was roughly divided into two opposing camps: on one side were the classic, orthodox, catastrophic, or creationist party, who believed in the fixity of species, and that each species was the result of special miraculous creation; on the other, the evolutionists or transmutationists, who rejected special creation, and held that all species were derived from other species, by some unknown law.
It was the formulation of this unknown law that makes 1859 an epoch in the history of Anthropology.
Charles Darwin.
Darwin’s work may best be summed up in the words of his loyal and self-effacing co-worker, Alfred Russel Wallace:—
Before Darwin’s work appeared the great majority of naturalists, and almost without exception the whole literary and scientific world, held firmly to the belief that species were realities, and had not been derived from other species by any process accessible to us ... [but] by some totally unknown process so far removed from ordinary reproduction that it was usually spoken of as “special creation.”... But now all this is changed. The whole scientific and literary world, even the whole educated public, accepts, as a matter of common knowledge, the origin of species from other allied species by the ordinary process of natural birth. The idea of special creation or any altogether exceptional mode of production is absolutely extinct.... And this vast, this totally unprecedented, change in public opinion has been the result of the work of one man, and was brought about in the short space of twenty years.
Huxley describes the attitude towards the theory in the year following the publication of the Origin of Species: “In the year 1860 there was nothing more volcanic, more shocking, more subversive of everything right and proper, than to put forward the proposition that, as far as physical organisation is concerned, there is less difference between man and the highest apes than there is between the highest apes and the lowest.... That question was not a pleasant one to handle.” But the “horrible paradoxes of one generation became the commonplaces of schoolboys”; and the “startling proposition” of 1860 was, twenty years later, a “fact that no rational man could dispute.”[[42]]
[42]. Add. Brit. Ass., 1878, Dublin.
This question of the difference between man and the apes was embittered by the personal encounter between Huxley and Owen. Professor Owen, in 1857, stated that the hippocampus minor, which characterises the hind lobe in each hemisphere in the human brain, is peculiar to the genus Homo. This Huxley denied;[[43]] and, as neither disputant would acknowledge that he was mistaken, the question became “one of personal veracity.”
[43]. “It is not I who seek to base man’s dignity upon his great toe, or to insinuate that we are lost if an ape has a hippocampus minor.”—Anth. Rev., I., 113.
As a possible explanation of this famous dispute, it is interesting to note the discovery announced by Professor D. J. Cunningham of the absence of this cavity on one side of the brain of an orang-utan, with the suggestion that Owen “may in the first instance have been misled by an abnormal brain of this kind.”[[44]]
[44]. Cunn. Mem., II., R.I.A., p. 128.
The further history of the development, expansion, and curtailment of the Darwinian theory as such lies beyond the scope of this little book. The criticisms of sexual selection and of the origin of the higher mental characters of man by Wallace; the denial of the inheritability of acquired characters by August Weismann and others; the orthogenesis theory of Theodore Eimer, the “mutation” theory of Hugo de Vries and Mendel’s researches—all opened up lively controversies, and the field of science is still clouded with the smoke of their battles.
The ferment provoked by the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species profoundly affected, as was natural, the nascent science of Anthropology. At the meeting of the British Association in Nottingham in 1866 Dr. James Hunt read an address before the Anthropological Department to show that “the recent application of Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis of ‘natural selection’ to anthropology by some of Mr. Darwin’s disciples is wholly unwarranted either by logic or by facts.”[[45]] In this address he said that he still believed the deduction he had made three years previously—“that there is as good reason for classifying the negro as a distinct. species from the European as there is for making the ass a distinct species from the zebra; and if, in classification, we take intelligence into consideration, there is a far greater difference between the negro and the European than between the gorilla and chimpanzee.” He insisted that “anthropologists are bound to take the totality of the characteristics of the different types of man into consideration. “It is to be regretted, however,” Dr. Hunt continues, “that there are many writers in Germany who have recently written as though the question of man’s place in nature were settled”; but he is delighted to find that “Professor Carl Vogt is doing all he can to show the fallacy of the unity hypothesis.” He quotes Professor Vogt as saying: “This much is certain, that each of these anthropoid apes has its peculiar characters by which it approaches man.... If, in the different regions of the globe, anthropoid apes may issue from different stocks, we cannot see why these different stocks should be denied further development into the human type, and that only one stock should possess this privilege. The further we go back in history the greater is the contrast between individual types, the more opposed are the characters.”
[45]. Anth. Rev., iv., 320.
The controversies and discussions of this period were not confined to those who had technical knowledge or scientifically trained minds. All sorts of people joined in the fray, mainly because they fancied that the new ideas were subversive of “revealed religion”; but it would serve no useful purpose to recall the false statements and bitter expressions that were bandied about. Some had merely a sentimental objection to the doctrine of evolution; but at the present day most people would subscribe to the declaration of Broca, who wrote: “Quant à moi, je trouve plus de gloire à monter qu’à descendre et si j’admettais l’intervention des impressions sentimentales dans les sciences, je dirais que j’aimerais mieux être un singe perfectionné qu’un Adam dégénéré.”[[46]]
[46]. Mémoires d’Anthropologie, iii., p. 146.
The Negro’s Place in Nature.
Another controversy, which, though mainly political in origin, cleft the ranks of the anthropologists, arose from the slavery question. Clarkson had started his agitation for the abolition of the slave trade about 1782, and during the early years of the nineteenth century many unsuccessful attempts were made to bring the system to an end in America. In 1826 over a hundred anti-slavery societies were in existence, mainly in the middle belt of the States, while the Cotton States were equally unanimous and vehement in opposition. Feeling naturally ran high; riots, murders, lynchings, raids, and general lawlessness characterised the agitation on both sides, and added fuel to the flames which finally dissolved the Union in 1860. At home the question was hotly debated, and popular feeling was excited by the speeches of Clarkson and Wilberforce, and, most of all, by the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). Being mainly a question of race, Anthropology was soon implicated, monogenists and polygenists naturally ranked themselves on opposite sides, and the Ethnological Society became a strong partisan of the philanthropists and abolitionists.
In the midst of the excitement James Hunt, Honorary Fellow of the Ethnological Society and President of the newly formed Anthropological Society, read (1863) his paper on “The Negro’s Place in Nature.”[[47]] In this he carefully examined all the evidence on the subject, physical and psychical, and arrived at the conclusion that “the negro is intellectually inferior to the European, and that the analogies are far more numerous between the ape and negro than between the ape and the European”; moreover, that “the negro becomes more humanised when in his natural subordination to the European than under any other circumstances,” “that the negro race can only be humanised and civilised by Europeans,” and “that European civilisation is not suited to the negro’s requirements or character.” An abstract of the paper was read by Dr. Hunt at the meeting of the British Association at Newcastle, 1863, where the presence of an eloquent coloured speaker enlivened the subsequent discussion.[[48]] A tremendous outcry greeted the publication of this paper, and tightened the tension on the already strained relations between the two societies. Fierce denunciations from Exeter Hall and the “broad-brimmed school of philanthropists” were matched by equally vehement applause from the opposing camp. When Dr. Hunt died, a few years later, the following obituary notice, extracted from a New York paper, appeared in the Anthropological Review,[[49]] under the heading “Death of the Best Man in England”:—
[47]. Mem. Anth., I., p. i.
[48]. Anth. Rev., i., p. 386.
[49]. January, 1870, p. 97.
We are pained to hear of the death of Dr. James Hunt, beyond doubt the best, or at all events the most useful, man in England, if not, indeed, in Europe. The man that leads all other men in knowledge essential to human well-being, that thus extends the bounds of human happiness, and best illustrates the wisdom and beneficence of the Almighty Creator to His creatures, is, per se and of necessity, the best man of his generation; and such a man was the late Dr. James Hunt of England.... Dr. Hunt, in his own clear knowledge and brave enthusiasm, was doing more for humanity, for the welfare of mankind, and for the glory of God, than all the philosophers, humanitarians, philanthropists, statesmen, and, we may say, bishops and clergy of England together.... His death at the early age of thirty-six is a great loss to England, to Christendom, to all mankind; for, though there are many others labouring in the same great cause, especially in France and Germany, there was no European of this generation so clear and profound in the science of humanity as Dr. Hunt.
A serious discussion of the anatomical and psychological relation of the negro to the European is still to the fore, especially in the United States of North America. But even as late as 1900 a book was published in America with the following title, and we have been informed that it has had a very large sale in the Southern States:—
The Negro a Beast; or, “In the Image of God.” The Reasoner of the Age, the Revelator of the Century! The Bible as it is! The Negro and His Relation to the Human Family! The Negro a beast, but created with articulate speech, and hands, that he may be of service to his master—the White man. The Negro not the Son of Ham, neither can it be proven by the Bible, and the argument of the theologian who would claim such, melts to mist before the thunderous and convincing arguments of this masterful book. By Charles Carroll, who has spent fifteen years of his life and $20,000.00 in its compilation. Published by American Book and Bible House, St. Louis, Mo., 1900.
The publishers are “convinced that when this book is read ... it will be to the minds of the American people like unto the voice of God from the clouds appealing unto Paul on his way to Damascus.”
This preposterous book could appeal only to the ignorant and bigoted, and we mention it merely as an extreme instance of the difficulties against which science has sometimes to contend when dealing with burning social questions.
The latest word on this subject is by Professor F. Boas, who believes that the negro in his physical and mental make-up is not similar to the European. “There is, however, no proof whatever that these differences signify any appreciable degree of inferiority of the negro ... for these racial differences are much less than the range of variation found in either race considered by itself.... The anatomy of the American negro is not well known; and, notwithstanding the oft-repeated assertions regarding the hereditary inferiority of the mulatto, we know hardly anything on the subject.”[[50]] The real problem in America is the mulatto, since “the conditions are such that the persistence of the pure negro type is practically impossible.”
[50]. Franz Boas, “Race Problems in America,” Science, N.S. xxix., p. 848, 1909.