MIGRATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF MANKIND. HUMAN SPECIES AND HUMAN RACES.
Age of the Human Race.—Causes of its Origin.—The Origin of Human Language.—Monophyletic or Single, Polyphyletic or Multiple Origin of the Human Race.—Derivation of Man from many Pairs.—Classification of the Human Races.—System of Twelve Species of Men.—Woolly-haired Men, or Ulotrichis.—Bushy-haired (Papuans, Hottentots).—Fleecy-haired (Caffres, Negroes).—Straight-haired men, or Lissotrichi.—Stiff-haired (Australians, Malays, Mongols, Arctic, and American Tribes).—Curly-haired (Dravidas, Nubians, Midlanders).—Number of Population.—Primæval Home of Man (South Asia, or Lemuria).—Nature of Primæval Men.—Number of Primæval Languages (Monoglottists and Polyglottists).—Divergence and Migration of the Human Race.—Geographical Distribution of the Human Species.
The rich treasure of knowledge we possess in the comparative anatomy and the history of the development of Vertebrate animals, enables us even now to establish the most important outlines of the human pedigree in the way we have done in the last chapter. One must, however, not expect to be able to survey satisfactorily in every detail the history or phylogeny of the human species which will henceforth form the basis of Anthropology, and of all other sciences. The complete development of this most important science—of which we can only lay the first foundation—must remain reserved for the more accurate and extensive investigations of a future time. This applies also to those more special questions of human phylogeny at which it is desirable before concluding to take a cursory glance, namely, the question of the time and place of the origin of the human race, as also of the different species and races into which it has differentiated.
In the first place, the period of the earth’s history, within which the slow and gradual transmutation of the most man-like apes into the most ape-like men took place, can of course not be determined by years, nor even by centuries. This much can, however, with full assurance be maintained, for reasons given in the last chapter, that Man is derived from Placental animals. Now, as fossil remains of these Placentalia are found only in the tertiary rocks, the human race can at the earliest have developed only within the Tertiary period out of perfected man-like apes. What seems most probable is that this most important process in the history of terrestrial creation occurred towards the end of the Tertiary period, that is in the Pliocene, perhaps even in the Miocene period, but possibly also not until the beginning of the Diluvial period. At all events Man, as such, lived in central Europe as early as the Diluvial period, contemporaneously with many large, long since extinct mammals, especially with the diluvial elephant, or mammoth (Elephas primigenius), the woolly-haired rhinoceros (Rhinoceros tichorrhinus), the giant deer (Cervus euryceros), the cave bear (Ursus spelæus), the cave hyæna (Hyæna spelæa), the cave lion (Felis spelæus), etc. The results brought to light by recent geology and archæology as to these fossil men and their animal contemporaries of the diluvial period, are of the greatest interest. But as a closer examination of them would occupy too much of my limited space, I must confine myself here to setting forth their great general importance, and refer for particulars to the numerous writings which have recently been published on the Primæval History of Man, more especially to the excellent works of Charles Lyell,[(30)] Carl Vogt,[(27)] Friedrich Rolle,[(28)] John Lubbock,[(44)] L. Büchner,[(43)] etc.
The numerous and interesting discoveries presented to us by these extensive investigations of late years on the primæval history of the human race, place the important fact (long since probable for many other reasons) beyond a doubt, that the human race, as such, has existed for more than twenty thousand years. But it is also probable that more than a hundred thousand years, perhaps many hundred thousands of years, have elapsed since its first appearance; and, in contrast to this, it must seem very absurd that our calendars still represent the “Creation of the World, according to Calvisius,” to have taken place 5821 years ago.
Now, whether we reckon the period during which the human race, as such, has existed and diffused itself over the earth, as twenty thousand, a hundred thousand, or many hundred thousands of years, the lapse of time is in any case immensely small in comparison with the inconceivable length of time which was requisite for the gradual development of the long chain of human ancestors. This is evident even from the small thickness of all Diluvial deposits in comparison with the Tertiary, and of these again in comparison with the preceding deposits. (Compare p. [22].) But the infinitely long series of slowly and gradually developing animal forms from the simplest Moneron to the Amphioxus, from this to the Primæval Fish, from the Primæval Fish to the first Mammal, and again, from the latter to Man, also require for their historical development a succession of periods probably comprising many thousands of millions of years. (Compare vol. i. p. [129].)
Those processes of development which led to the origin of the most Ape-like Men out of the most Man-like Apes must be looked for in the two adaptational changes which, above all others, are distinctive of Man, namely, upright walk and articulate speech. These two physiological functions necessarily originated together with two corresponding morphological transmutations, with which they stand in the closest correlation, namely, the differentiation of the two pairs of limbs and the differentiation of the larynx. The important perfecting of these organs and their functions must have necessarily and powerfully reacted upon the differentiation of the brain and the mental activities dependent upon it, and thus have paved the way for the endless career in which Man has since progressively developed, and in which he has far outstripped his animal ancestors. (Gen. Morph. ii. p. 430.)
The first and earliest of these three great processes in the development of the human organism probably was the higher differentiation and the perfecting of the extremities which was effected by the habit of an upright walk. By the fore feet more and more exclusively adopting and retaining the function of grasping and handling, and the hinder feet more and more exclusively the function of standing and walking, there was developed that contrast between the hand and foot which is indeed not exclusively characteristic of man, but which is much more strongly developed in him than in the apes most like men. This differentiation of the fore and hinder extremities was, however, not merely most advantageous for their own development and perfecting, but it was followed at the same time by a whole series of very important changes in other parts of the body. The whole vertebral column, and more especially the girdle of the pelvis and shoulders, as also the muscles belonging to them, thereby experienced those changes which distinguish the human body from that of the most man-like apes. These transmutations were probably accomplished long before the origin of articulate speech; and the human race thus existed for long, with an upright walk and the characteristic human form of body connected with it, before the actual development of human language, which would have completed the second and the more important part of human development. We may therefore distinguish a special (21st) stage in the series of our human ancestors, namely, Speechless Man (Alalus), or Ape-man (Pithecanthropus), whose body was indeed formed exactly like that of Man in all essential characteristics, but who did not as yet possess articulate speech.
The origin of articulate language, and the higher differentiation and perfecting of the larynx connected with it, must be looked upon as only a later, and the most important stage in the process of the development of Man. It was, doubtless, this process which above all others helped to create the deep chasm between man and animal, and which also first caused the most important progress in the mental activity and the perfecting of the brain connected with it. There indeed exists in very many animals a language for communicating sensations, desires, and thoughts, partly a language of gestures, partly a language of feeling or touch, partly a language of cries or sounds, but a real language of words or ideas, a so-called “articulate” language, which by abstraction changes sounds into words, and words into sentences, belongs, as far as we know, exclusively to Man.
The origin of human language must, more than anything else, have had an ennobling and transforming influence upon the mental life of Man, and consequently upon his brain. The higher differentiation and perfecting of the brain and mental life as its highest function developed in direct correlation with its expression by means of speech. Hence, the highest authorities in comparative philology justly see in the development of human speech the most important process which distinguishes Man from his animal ancestors. This has been especially set forth by August Schleicher, in his treatise “On the Importance of Speech for the Natural History of Man.”[(34)] In this relation we see one of the closest connections between comparative zoology and comparative philology; and here the theory of development assigns to the latter the task of following the origin of language step by step. This task, as interesting as it is important, has of late years been successfully undertaken by many inquirers, but more especially by Wilhelm Bleek, who has been occupied for seventeen years in South Africa with the study of the languages of the lowest races of men, and hence has been enabled to solve the question. August Schleicher more especially discusses, in accordance with the theory of selection, how the various forms of speech, like all other organic forms and functions, have developed by the process of natural selection, and have divided into many species and dialects.
I have no space here to follow the process of the formation of language, and must refer in regard to this to the above-mentioned important work of Wilhelm Bleek, “On the Origin of Language.”[(35)] But we have still to mention one of the most important results of comparative philology, which is of the highest importance to the genealogy of the human species, that is, that human language was probably of a multiple, or polyphyletic origin. Human speech, as such, did not develop probably until the genus of Speech-less or Primæval Man, or Ape Man, had separated into several kinds or species. In each of these human species, and perhaps even in the different sub-species and varieties of this species, language developed freely and independently of the others. At least Schleicher, one of the first authorities on the subject, maintains that “even the beginnings of language—in sounds as well as in regard to ideas and views which were reflected in sounds, and further, in regard to their capability of development—must have been different. For it is positively impossible to trace all languages to one and the same primæval language. An impartial investigation rather shows that there are as many primæval languages as there are races.”[(34)] In like manner, Friederich Müller[(41)] and other eminent linguists assume a free and independent origin of the families of languages and their primæval stocks. It is well known, however, that the boundaries of these tribes of languages and their ramifications are by no means always the boundaries of the different human species, or the so-called “races,” distinguished by us on account of their bodily character istics. This, as well as the complicated relations of the mixture of races, and the various forms of hybrids, is the great difficulty lying in the way of tracing the human pedigree in its individual branches, species, races, varieties, etc.
In spite of these great and serious difficulties, we cannot here refrain from taking one more cursory glance at the ramification of the human pedigree, and at the same time considering, from the point of view of the theory of descent, the much discussed question of the monophyletic or polyphyletic origin of the human race, and its species or races. As is well known, two great parties have for a long time been at war with each other upon this question; the monophylists (or monogenists) maintain the unity of origin and the blood relationship of all races of men. The polyphylists (or polygenists), on the other hand, are of opinion that the different races of men are of independent origin. According to our previous genealogical investigations we cannot doubt that, at least in a wide sense, the monophyletic opinion is the right one. For even supposing that the transmutation of Man-like Apes into Men had taken place several times, yet those Apes themselves would again be allied by the one pedigree common to the whole order of Apes. The question therefore would always be merely about a nearer or remoter degree of blood relationship. In a narrower sense, on the other hand, the polyphylist’s opinion would probably be right, inasmuch as the different primæval languages have developed quite independently of one another. Hence, if the origin of an articulate language is considered as the real and principal act of humanification, and the species of the human race are distinguished according to the roots of their language, it might be said that the different races of men had originated, independently of one another, by different branches of primæval, speechless men directly springing from apes, and forming their own primæval language. Still they would of course be connected further up or lower down at their root, and thus all would finally be derived from a common primæval stock.
While we hold the latter of these convictions, and while we for many reasons believe that the different species of speechless primæval men were all derived from a common ape-like human form, we do not of course mean to say that all men are descended from one pair. This latter supposition, which our modern Indo-Germanic culture has taken from the Semitic myth of the Mosaic history of creation, is by no means tenable. The whole of the celebrated dispute, as to whether the human race is descended from a single pair or not, rests upon a completely false way of putting the question. It is just as senseless as the dispute as to whether all sporting dogs or all race-horses are descended from a single pair. We might with equal justice ask whether all Germans or all Englishmen are “descended from a single pair,” etc. A “first human pair,” or “a first man,” has in fact never existed, any more than there ever existed a first pair or a first individual of Englishmen, Germans, race-horses, or sporting dogs. The origin of a new species, of course, always results from an existing species, by a long chain of many different individuals sharing the slow process of transformation. Supposing that we had all the different pairs of Human Apes and Ape-like Men before us—which belong to the true ancestors of the human race—it would even then be quite impossible (without doing so most arbitrarily) to call any one of these pairs of ape-like men “the first pair.” As little can we derive each of the twelve races or species of men, which we shall consider directly, from a “first pair.”
The difficulties met with in classifying the different races or species of men are quite the same as those which we discover in classifying animal and vegetable species. In both cases forms apparently quite different are connected with one another by a chain of intermediate forms of transition. In both cases the dispute as to what is a kind or a species, what a race or a variety, can never be determined. Since Blumenbach’s time, as is well known, it has been thought that mankind may be divided into five races or varieties, namely: (1) the Ethiopian, or black race (African negro); (2) the Malayan, or brown race (Malays, Polynesians, and Australians); (3) the Mongolian, or yellow race (the principal inhabitants of Asia and the Esquimaux of North America); (4) the Americans, or red race (the aborigines of America); and (5) the Caucasian, or white race (Europeans, north Africans, and south-western Asiatics). All of these five races of men, according to the Jewish legend of creation, are said to have been descended from “a single pair”—Adam and Eve,—and in accordance with this are said to be varieties of one kind or species. If, however, we compare them without prejudice, there can be no doubt that the differences of these five races are as great and even greater than the “specific differences” by which zoologists and botanists distinguish recognised “good” animal and vegetable species (“bonæ species”). The excellent palæontologist Quenstedt is right in maintaining that, “if Negroes and Caucasians were snails, zoologists would universally agree that they represented two very excellent species, which could never have originated from one pair by gradual divergence.”
The characteristics by which the races of men are gradually distinguished are partly taken from the formation of the hair, partly from the colour of the skin, and partly from the formation of the skull. In regard to the last character, two extremes are distinguished, namely, long heads and short heads. In long-headed men (Dolichocephali), whose strongest development is found in Negroes and Australians, the skull is extended, narrow, and compressed on the right and left. In short-headed men (Brachycephali), on the other hand, the skull is compressed in an exactly opposite manner, from the front to the back, is short and broad, which is especially striking in the case of the Mongolians. Medium-headed men (Mesocephali), standing between the two extremes, predominate especially among Americans. In every one of these three groups we find men with slanting teeth (Prognathi), whose jaws, like those of the animal snout, strongly project, and whose front teeth therefore slope in front, and men with straight teeth (Orthognathi), whose jaws project but little, and whose front teeth stand perpendicularly. During the last ten years a great deal of time and trouble have been devoted to the careful examination and measurement of the forms of skulls, which have, however, not been rewarded by corresponding results. For within a single species, as for example within the Mediterranean species, the form of the skull may vary so much that both extremes are met with in the same species. Much better starting-points for the classification of of the human species are furnished by the nature of the hair and speech, because they are much more strictly hereditary than the form of the skull.
Comparative philology seems especially to be becoming an authority in this matter. In the latest great work on the races of men, which Friederich Müller has published in his excellent “Ethnography,”[(42)] he justly places language in the fore-ground. Next to it the nature of the hair of the head is of great importance; for although it is in itself of course only a subordinate morphological character, yet it seems to be strictly transmitted within the race. Of the twelve species of men distinguished on the following table (p. [308]), the four lower species are characterised by the woolly nature of the hair of their heads; every hair is flattened like a tape, and thus its section is oval. These four species of woolly-haired men (Ulotrichi) we may reduce into two groups—tuft-haired and fleecy-haired. The hair on the head of tuft-haired men (Lophocomi), Papuans and Hottentots, grows in unequally divided small tufts. The woolly hair of fleecy-haired men (Eriocomi), on the other hand, in Caffres and Negroes, grows equally all over the skin of the head. All Ulotrichi, or woolly-haired men, have slanting teeth and long heads, and the colour of their skin, hair, and eyes is always very dark. All are inhabitants of the Southern Hemisphere; it is only in Africa that they come north of the equator. They are on the whole at a much lower stage of development, and more like apes, than most of the Lissotrichi, or straight-haired men. The Ulotrichi are incapable of a true inner culture and of a higher mental development, even under the favourable conditions of adaptation now offered to them in the United States of North America. No woolly-haired nation has ever had an important “history.”
| SYSTEMATIC SURVEY | |||||||
| Of the 12 Species of Men and their 36 Races. | |||||||
| (Compare Plate [XV].) | |||||||
| Species. | Races. | Home. | Immigrated from the | ||||
| 1. Papuan Homo Papua |
| 1. | Nigritos | Malacca, Philippine Islands | West | |
| 2. | New Guinea men | New Guinea | West | ||||
| 3. | Melanesians | Melanesia | North-west | ||||
| 4. | Tasmanians | Van Diemen’s Land | North-west | ||||
| 2. Hottentot Homo Hottentottus |
| 5. | Hottentots | The Cape | North-east | ||
| 6. | Bushmen | The Cape | North-east | ||||
| |||||||
| 3. Kaffre Homo Cafer |
| 7. | Zulu Kaffres | Eastern South Africa | North | ||
| 8. | Beschuanas | Central South Africa | North-east | ||||
| 9. | Congo Kaffres | Western South Africa | East | ||||
| 4. Negro Homo Niger | |||||||
| 10. | Tibu negroes | Tibu district | South-east | |||
| 11. | Soudan negroes | Soudan | East | ||||
| 12. | Senegambians | Senegambia | East | ||||
| 13. | Nigritians | Nigritia | East | ||||
| |||||||
| 5. Australian H. Australis |
| 14. | North Australians | North Australia | North | ||
| 15. | South Australians | South Australia | North | ||||
| 6. Malay Homo Malayus |
| 16. | Sundanesians | Sunda Archipelago | West | ||
| 17. | Polynesians | Pacific Archipelago | North | ||||
| 18. | Natives of Madagascar | Madagascar | East | ||||
| 7. Mongolian Homo Mongolus |
| 19. | Indo-Chinese | Tibet, China | South | ||
| 20. | Coreo-Japanese | Corea, Japan | South-west | ||||
| 21. | Altaians |
| Central Asia, North Asia | South | |||
| 22. | Uralians | North-western Asia, Northern Europe, Hungary | South-east | ||||
| 8. Arctic Men Homo Arcticus |
| 23. | Hyperboreans | Extreme N.E. of Asia | South-west | ||
| 24. | Esquimau | The extreme north of America | West | ||||
| 9. American Homo Americanus |
| 25. | North Americans | North America | North-west | ||
| 26. | Central Americans | Central America | North | ||||
| 27. | South Americans | South America | North | ||||
| 28. | Patagonians | The extreme south of South America | North | ||||
| |||||||
| 10. Dravidas Homo Dravida |
| 29. | Deccans | Hindostan | East? | ||
| 30. | Singalese | Ceylon | North? | ||||
| 11. Nubian Homo Nuba |
| 31. | Dongolese | Nubia | East | ||
| 32. | Fulatians | Fulu-land (Central Africa) | East | ||||
| 12. Mediterranese Homo Mediterraneus |
| 33. | Caucasians | Caucasus | South-east | ||
| 34. | Basque | Extreme north of Spain | South? | ||||
| 35. | Semites | Arabia, North Africa, etc. | East | ||||
| 36. | Indo-germanic tribes | South-western Asia, Europe, etc. | South-east | ||||
