The plurality of the human race

by G. Pouchet

FOOTNOTES:

[1] We must here inform the reader, once for all, that we shall use, until we say anything to the contrary, the word “race,” to designate the different natural groups of the human genus (genus Homo). We intend definitely to prove that these groups constitute veritable species. M. de Quatrefages has on this matter reproached us with a confusion, which is accounted for partly by the incorrectness of his quotation. He makes us say, “The plurality of original races, otherwise the plurality of the species, of the genus ‘man’” (Unité de l’Espèce Humaine, 1861, p. 309). It stands as follows in our own text: “The original plurality of races, otherwise the plurality of the species composing the genus ‘man,’” etc. It is evident that the confusion which is found in these words is entirely voluntary.

[2] One day, I was talking with one of the principal officers of Mehemet-Saïd, at Korosko, in Nubia, about the earthquake which was felt in Lower Egypt on the 12th of October, 1856. He asked me the cause of this phenomenon. I attempted an explanation suited to the understanding of a man who was without the slightest knowledge of this part of scientific information. He replied by telling me the history of the cow who throws the earth from one horn to the other, saying, that this was written, and therefore, such a belief ought to suffice him.

[With this opinion may be compared the doctrine of the Muyscas or Chibchas of New Granada, who consider that the earth is supported by Chibchacum, their deity, on pillars of guiacum-wood, and that earthquakes are produced by his shifting the burden from one shoulder to the other.—Editor.]

[3] It is only necessary, in order to be sure of this fact, to glance over the Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, the creation of which is due above all to the indefatigable zeal of a partisan of the doctrines which we defend—to M. P. Broca.

[4] Anthropology is not the only branch in modern science which opens new paths to the human mind: see Michelet, L’Insecte, p. 106; see also Bourdet, Traité d’éducation positive, 1863.

[5] This name has been definitely adopted in France in preference to that of “Unitarians” (Unitaires), used by M. de Gobineau.

[6] “All monogenists,” we said in the first edition of this book. M. de Quatrefages has exclaimed loudly against these words (Unité de l’Espèce Humaine, 1861, p. 299), and in the same passage has shown himself an open enemy to all mingling of religion in the domain of science. We are too glad of this declaration not to recall it in this place. We should be sorry not to be able always to agree in these pages with the masters of science,—with those, indeed, who have been our own. We have been led to touch on several questions already treated of by them, by following another path,—by looking at facts from another point of view; therefore, there are some differences of opinion. Our excuse lies in the universal right of free inquiry; for the rest, we shall always name the persons with whom we think we do not agree. “Not to do so,” as Bayle said, “is in some measure an excess of ceremony prejudicial to the liberty which we ought to enjoy in the republic of letters; it is to introduce therein works of supererogation. It should be always allowable to name those whom we disprove; this is sufficient to prevent a bitter, injurious, or dishonest spirit.”—Dictionnaire Philosophique, art. Pereira, note D.

[7] É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire has not, however, been able to free himself completely from the unhappy influences which we endeavour to oppose. See Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. iv, p. 78.

[8] “It is too evident,” says a modern philosopher, “that in the eyes of science, which, reasoning about discoveries, makes a rule to admit nothing as a theory which cannot be proved by experience, the agreement of faith with reason is a chimera: to speak more exactly, such a problem does not exist. The conditions of science are the observation of facts,—not of facts exceptionally produced, seen by chance, noted by privileged witnesses, and unable to be reproduced at will; but constant facts, placed under one’s hand for observation, and always able to be verified. We must consider that religion can in no way submit to such exigencies, and that the faith which it proclaims must be, in this light, radically inconsistent.”—P. J. Proudhon, De la Justice, vol. ii, p. 309. See also on this subject, L. Fleury, Le Progrès, 1858, No. 4, p. 92. De Jouvencel, Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, May 2, 1861.

[9] See Bertillon, Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, June 18, 1863.

[10] The Natural History of the Human Species, 1848, p. 40.

[11] Kaempfer, Histoire Naturelle, etc., du Japon, Lahaye, 1729, vol. i, p. 75.

[12] Marcel de Serres, De l’Unité de l’Espèce Humaine: Bib. Univ. de Genève, new series, vol. liv, 1844, p. 145.

[13] “The doctrine attributed to Copernicus,” said the declaration made by the Pope, and published by the Holy Office, “that the earth moves round the sun, and that the sun remains motionless in the centre of the world without moving either to the east or to the west, is contrary to Holy Scripture, and consequently, can neither be professed nor defended.”—Biot, La vérité sur le Procès de Galilée, in the Journal des Savants, July 1858, p. 401.

[14] Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, vol. ii, p. 79.

[15] Essai sur les Mœurs: Introd., § 2.

[16] There is an idea of adding to the Linnean Society a new section of Anthropology.—See “Letter from E. W. Brayley,” Medical Times and Gazette, p. 491, May 10, 1862.

[17] Alphonse Karr was the first who proposed to substitute the name of “searcher” (chercheur) for that of “learned man” (savant).—Nouvelles Guêpes, February 1859.

[18] See, for example, Pucheran, Considérations Anatomiques sur les Formes de la tête osseuse.—Paris, 1841 (Thesis).

[19] M. de Serres, in his Lectures on Anthropology, at the Jardin des Plantes.

[20] P. J. Proudhon has said, in another arrangement of facts depending on social science, “Revolution is not atheistical; it does not deny the absolute, it removes it altogether” (De la Justice, vol. ii, p. 301). See, for fuller development of our ideas on this subject, the Progrès of the 20th of May, 1859, article on Science et Religion.

[21] Discours sur le Méthode.

[22] Lettres à M. Villemain sur la Méthode, Paris, 1856, p. 3.

[23] See these ideas categorically explained, vol. ii, p. 281.

[24] M. de Quatrefages admits a sidereal kingdom; and such a thesis seems to us a very difficult one to sustain, after the experiments of Bunsen and Kirchoff on the chemical composition of the stars. M. de Quatrefages admits also a human kingdom; but admitting that animals think, he makes morality and religion characteristics of this kingdom. Unité de l’Espèce Humaine, 1861, p. 30. We shall have occasion to revert again to these two points. See Bert., Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, August 7, 1862.

[25] See Is. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Histoire Naturelle Générale des règnes organiques, vol. ii, p. 252.

[26] Certain essential oils, like those of coffee, tea, or hemp.

[27] Alcoholic liquors.

[28] Narcotics.

[29] “If I am not mistaken,” says M. de Quatrefages, “there is in this result, independently of the scientific consequences which may proceed from it, a something which responds to our most noble aspirations. Man confers upon himself dominion of his own will; he loves to proclaim himself legitimate sovereign of all things on the surface of this globe; and, in fact, no creature will dare to dispute with him an empire which, day by day, extends and increases. Well! is it not satisfactory to behold anthropological characteristics sanction and ennoble this empire by placing by the side of the right, which springs from intellectual superiority, the notion of duty, which arises from morality and religion?” (Unité de l’Espèce Humaine, p. 33.)

[30] Courtet de l’Isle has already made this remark. (Tableau Ethnographique du Genre Humain, 1849, p. 8.)

[31] See the Voyage de l’Isabelle; also Desmoulins, Histoire Naturelle des Races Humaines, 1826, p. 276.

[32] Cirripeds, tortoises, ornithodelphi, and generally speaking, the extreme representatives of the divisions of each natural classification.

[33] Mémoire sur les Tasmaniens, sur les Alfourous, et sur les Australiens, in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 1827, vol. x, p. 155.

[34] Hale, Natives of Australia, etc. See American Journal of Science, second series, vol. i, p. 302, May 1846; extract from the account of C. Wilkes’ Expedition: Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition during the years 1838-1842, vol. vi, “Ethnography and Philology.”

[35] Voyage de l’Astrolabe: Zoologie, vol. i, p. 43.

[36] Even after the assertions of M. de Quatrefages in the Unité des Races Humaines, p. 162, and following, we have not thought ourselves justified in changing our opinions on the subject of the Australians, which have lately been confirmed at the Anthropological Society; a Mr. O’Rourke, an eyewitness, having answered M. de Quatrefages (Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, 21 June, 1860).

[37] J. Ross, Narrative of a Second Voyage, etc., 1835, p. 448.

[38] J. Ross, Narrative of a Second Voyage, p. 490.

[39] See Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Comptes Rendus, vol. v, p. 42. [We should very much like to know at what period our author imagines this to have been the case, and whether he considers that these apes were the “men of the day.”—Editor.]

[40] “Memorandum on an Unknown Forest Race,” etc., Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1855, vol. xxiv, p. 207.

[41] M. Ehrenberg, speaking one day of the unknown centre of Africa, said to us, “that it might not be impossible to find there men so different from us that we ought to make of them, willingly or unwillingly, a special group.” I quote these words in no way with the design of presuming that there is such an order of beings; but in order to show that the father of the naturalists of Europe, the friend of Humboldt, believes in something else than the unity of the human species, because he admits that a generic plurality is possible.

[42] R. Owen, On the Characters of the Class Mammalia, 1857, p. 20, note. The illustrious savant has himself treated on this subject, ex professo, in the catalogue of the collection in the College of Surgeons.

[43] “The orang-outang is capable of a kind of laugh when pleasantly excited,” J. Grant, “Account of the Structure of an Orang-Outang” (Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol. ix, 1828).

[44] Artificial love itself, with all the complexity of ideas which it is supposed must thence arise, is not, as one may think, the debauchery of civilisation; it belongs to animals akin to man as well as to man himself. See Ch. Robin and Béraud, Précis de la Physiologie de l’Homme, vol. ii, p. 384. It is the same with impure connection, or coupling, radically inexplicable by instinct. See Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Histoire Naturelle Générale des Règnes Organiques, vol. iii, p. 142.

[45] Doctor Yvan commanded the Archimedes; he has written an account of his voyage: Voyages et Récits, Brussels, 1853, 2 vols. in 12mo.

[46] “The Australians only wear woollen clothing in order to protect the chest; ... no idea of shame has ever led them to hide the natural parts.” Lesson et Garnot, Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 1827, vol. x.

[47] The orang observed by J. Grant also showed these signs of desperation; “he poured it (a saucer) angrily out on the floor, whined in a peculiar manner, and threw himself passionately on his back on the ground, striking his breast and paunch with his palms, and giving a kind of reiterated croak.”—“Account of the Structure of an Orang-Outang,” Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol. ix, p. 11. [The same demonstration of feeling was showed by the orangs in the Zoological Gardens, May 1864.—Editor.]

[48] [Tagal, a chief town of Java.—Editor.]

[49] Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. ii, p. 582.

[50] Essai Philosophique sur l’âme des bêtes, 1728, p. 132.

[51] [Guenon, the Simia nasalis of Buffon.—Editor.]

[52] Plato, Leges, x, 1. See Maury, Religions, vol. iii, p. 4, note 2.

[53] After having said that the idea of good and evil (moralité) exists among all men, M. de Quatrefages adds, that “the notion of the Divinity and that of another life are also generally diffused” (Unité de l’Espèce Humaine, p. 23). We shall demonstrate further on (chap. v) that this statement is incorrect, and how fragile the bases are upon which M. de Quatrefages rests the fundamental characteristics which, according to him, distinguish the human kingdom.

[54] M. Chevreul has already defined the “Beautiful” as “the expression of causes whose influence has most force in moving mankind by appealing to their senses” (Lettres à M. Villemain sur la Méthode, 1856, p. 169).

[55] [“Truth lies at the bottom of a well,” is an old saying, but our author does not seem to agree with it. We should be very sorry to think that truth was only to be found in science. This is, doubtless, the opinion of a great many learned men at the present day; but we must candidly own we do not agree with it, and certainly are not able to endorse M. Pouchet’s sentiment. We have ourselves not arrived at the point, and in this we are, doubtless, old-fashioned,—of referring everything to “reason,” as opposed to faith.—Editor.]

[56] Edinburgh Journal of Science, 1828, vol. ix, p. 10.

[57] Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. iii, p. 29.

[58] We can compare this passage from the naturalist philosopher with the other quotations we made farther back. “Females are extremely curious about this spectacle (the fondness of a “mother” monkey for her young one), and doubtless their attention is caused by discovering therein a true manifestation of the feelings they have themselves experienced as mothers; they are, above all things, astonished to recognise in these ardent attentions the joy and pride of maternity, of which they believed themselves alone to be susceptible.” (É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Cours d’Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères, Paris, 1829, vol. i; Lesson, vi, p. 16).

[59] Proudhon has already laid down as a principle the establishment of a psychology among animals (De la Justice, vol. ii, p. 279). Frederick Cuvier has done the same.

[60] Hom. iv in Acta Apostolorum. See Rechtenbach, De Sermone Brutorum, Erfurt, 1706, p. 1.

[61] Sometimes this restraint is openly avowed; and we see M. Maire, who is also engaged upon the same questions, admit that, without these influences, he would embrace the same ideas that we are endeavouring to bring forward. “Let us frankly avow,” he says, “if we had not continually before our minds the doctrines of a religion which we respect,—if we had not a sincere faith, this intuitive belief which tells us we must make a mistake,—we should dare to write thus. The more the organisation of the animal is perfected, the more the spiritual element produced by the action of the various functions is itself perfected.... There would then be only a hierarchical gradation of one and the same principle. The psychical fluid would be always the same in all individuals. The difference in its manifestations would refer to the difference in the organisations which produce them” (Société Havraise d’Etudes Diverses, p. 169, 1855-1856).

[62] [We cannot exactly see why it must necessarily have been offensive to Christianity. There is nothing injurious to religion in the theory of intellectual gradation.—Editor.]

[63] Jam vero nobis ostendendum est eam (bestia) habere rationem internam et intus conceptam. Videtur sane a nostra differre, non essentia sed gradu. Uti nonnulli existimant Deorum a nostra discrepare rationem, non differentia essentiali, sed quod illorum magis, nostra minus sit accurata. Et quidem quod ad sensum attinet et reliquam, tum instrumentorum sensus, tum carnis universæ, conformationem attinet, eam eodem nobiscum modo se habere in animalibus, ab omnibus fere conceditur.—Porphyrius, transl. by Holsteinius, De Abstinentiâ, 1655, p. 108. Is not unity of composition here conjectured, both for the intellect and the body?

[64] Disquisitio de Animâ Brutorum, Bremæ, 1676.

[65] Logicæ Brutorum, Hamburg, 1697. This little treatise, in spite of the extreme ideas of its author, is not the less precious. J. Stahl was one of those wells of learning which Germany has so often produced. There is, perhaps, not one passage in the old authors who wrote on this point to which he has not referred in his work.

[66] See, among others, S. Gros, De Animâ Brutorum, Wittemberg, 1680; Klemnius, De Animâ Brutorum, Vittembergiæ, 1704.

[67] Upon this point, M. de Quatrefages agrees with M. Flourens; but the distinction which he endeavours to establish, being based upon morality and religion, seems to us much more restricted and much less clear. Not being able to answer everybody, we have been obliged to attend merely to the opinions of that partisan of the human kingdom who gives to animals the largest portion of it.

[68] Proudhon says, in language which is even more concise and affirmative, “In man, the mind knows itself; whilst elsewhere it seems to us that it does not do so” (Système des Contradictions économiques, vol. i, 1850, p. 20).

[69] Annales du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, vol. xvi, p. 58.

[70] Maire, Société Havraise d’Etudes Diverses, 1855-1856.

[71] Unité de l’Espèce Humaine, 1861, p. 24.

[72] Maire, Société Havraise d’Etudes Diverses, 1855-1856. We can make the same comparison with a passage almost similar from Maupertuis, Essai Philosophique sur l’âme des Bêtes, 1728, p. 134.

[73] Essai Philosophique sur l’âme des Bêtes, 1728, p. 95.

[74] See É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Comptes Rendus des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. iv, p. 261.

[75] See Flourens, Histoire des Travaux de Buffon, 1844, p. 135. Descartes made use of the absence of speech in animals as a strong argument against them.

[76] See Gratiolet, Bulletins de la Soc. d’Anthropologie de Paris, 18 April, 1861.

[77] See J. Grimm, De l’Origine du Langage, transl., 1859, p. 53.

[78] Traité de l’Origine du Langage, Engl. transl., 1827, p. 6.

[79] De l’Origine du Langage, transl., 1859.

[80] De l’Origine du Langage, 2nd edit., 1858.

[81] It is by tracing, according to custom, effects to their causes, that the Buddhist philosophy arrives at the principles of joint responsibility, which, according to it, unites reason to language, making them mutually flow one from the other. “Name and form have as a cause, intellect, and intellect has for a cause, name and form.”—See Burnouf, Le Lotus de la bonne loi, p. 550. Mercurius Trismegistus, in the Pimander (Pimander, De sapientiâ et potestate Dei), says almost the same thing: “Speech is the sister of intellect; intellect is the sister of language.” See Rechtenbach, De Sermone Brutorum, 1706, p. 2.

[82] See De l’Origine du Langage, transl., 1859.

[83] De l’Origine du Langage, 1858, p. 31.

[84] See Jacob Grimm, De l’Origine du Langage, transl., 1859, p. 29.

[85] Father Pardies (S. J.), in a work, otherwise of no great value, Discours de la Connaissance des Bêtes, 1672, p. 39.

[86] Recherches sur les mœurs de fourmis indigènes, Genève, 1810.

[87] We refer our readers for all these questions to the remarkable works of M. Toussenel.

[88] Essai Philosophique sur l’âme des Bêtes, 1728, p. 217.

[89] It may be seen, in analysing these two simple facts, that they lead us to admit the existence of a notion of duty among animals, although, perhaps, an obscure one:—they know that they ought to act as they are doing from fear of a whipping, and this is an operation of the mind which no one, we think, will deny to be complex in its nature, and purely intellectual.

[90] Isid. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Histoire Naturelle Générale, vol. iii, 1860, p. 114. M. Roulin has remarked, that there is something analogous in this as regards the cat, which loses, in the savage state, those troublesome mewings which we hear so often during the night from the European race.—Mémoires du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, vol. xvii.

[91] It is because there is a sort of capability for education in the animal, and indeed in the whole of his race, placed under certain circumstances; it is because, on the other hand, we refuse to certain human races the “initiative in progress,” (see Broca, Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, May 24 and June 21, 1860), that we cannot accept the “class man” of M. Chevreul, preceding the “class mammalia,” and having, as a characteristic, the capability of perfection in the individual, and in the association of individuals.—See Exposé d’un moyen de Définir et de Nommer les Couleurs, § 185. (Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. xxxiii, 1861.)

[92] See Dr. Gibson, Amer. Assoc. (compare Ami des Sciences, 29 August, 1858.)

[93] It would be a curious study, for instance, to find out if certain noises,—certain sounds which have no signification to our ears, do not produce, among some animals, clearly determined impressions, having their first origin in these animals themselves, or in their mutual relations, the education we give them going for nothing in this sort of evidence.

[94] [The Rev. F. W. Robertson (who died some years ago), states some opinions in his published sermons which show he was almost before his time in his ideas concerning animals. He says, in comparing them with mankind, “There is the same external form, the same material in the blood-vessels, in the nerves, and in the muscular system. Nay, more than that, our appetites and instincts are alike, our lower pleasures like their lower pleasures, our lower pain like their lower pain; our life is supported by the same means, and our animal functions are almost indistinguishably the same.” Sermons, 3rd series, 1857 (preached in 1850), p. 49. “It is the law of being, that in proportion as you rise from lower to higher life, the parts are more distinctly developed, while yet the unity becomes more entire. You find, for example, in the lowest forms of animal life, one organ performs several functions; one organ being, at the same time, heart, and brain, and blood-vessel. But when you come to man, you find all these various functions existing in different organs, and every organ more distinctly developed; and yet the unity of a man is a higher unity than that of a limpet.” (Sermons, p. 57.)—Editor.]

[95] A Treatise on the Records of the Creation, by J. Bird Sumner, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, 6th edit., 8vo, London, 1850.

[96] Nullum characterem hactenus eruere potui, unde homo a simia internoscatur.—Linnæus, Fauna Suecica: præfatio.

[97] Owen, On the Characters of the Class Mammalia, p. 20, note (Journal of Proceedings of Linnean Society, 1857.)

[98] Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. ii, p. 581.

[99] See the magnificent work, Sketches of Central Africa, and the portrait of the chief, Kanéma, in Barth’s Travels, vol. iii.

[100] Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Hist. Naturelle Générale, vol. ii, pp. 200-515.

[101] [See Huxley’s Man’s Place in Nature, 8vo, London, 1863; and the article thereon in the Edinburgh Review, April, 1863.—Editor.]

[102] Crawfurd, On the Negro Race, etc. (British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1852, p. 86.)

[103] See the translation of this veritable Iliad, by M. H. Fauche. Râmâyana, 1857.

[104] [We are told in the Voyages de François Pyrard, vol. ii, p. 331, Paris, 1615, “that in the province of Sierra Leone there is a species (of orang-outang) so strong limbed and so industrious that, when properly trained and fed, they work like servants; that they generally walk on the two hind feet; that they pound any substances in a mortar; that they go and bring water from the river in small pitchers, which they carry, full, on their heads. But when they arrive at the door, if the pitchers are not soon taken off, they allow them to fall; and when they perceive the pitchers overturned and broken they weep and lament.” In the Voyages de Guat. Shoutten aux Indes Orientales, we find nearly the same account of the orang: “they are taken with snares, taught to walk on their hind feet, and to use their fore-feet as hands in performing different operations, as rinsing glasses, carrying drink round to the company, turning a spit,” etc.—Editor.]

[105] Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. ii. See, also, for the separation of the great toe, the photographs in the Voyage à la Côte Orientale d’Afrique, by Captain Guillain.

[106] Odontography, London, 1840, p. 452. Catalogue of the Hunterian Collection, “Osteology,” vol. ii, p. 800.

[107] [A character which, as the Cuviers and Owen have pointed out, man shares with the fossil Anoplotherium and its allies, from the Paris gypsum.—Editor.]

[108] Tiedemann, of Heidelberg, wrote to Knox with reference to the nervous system, that he had great reason to believe that the natives of Australia differed in this matter from Europeans in an extraordinary degree.—Knox, The Races of Men, London, 1850, p. 2.

[109] “The physical characteristics which distinguish human races, one from the other, are, perhaps, the one fact in natural history which has always most struck the imagination of mankind.... Historians relate, that when Columbus first returned, Europeans could not take their eyes off the plants and unknown animals which he had brought with him; and above all, the Indians, so different from all the races of men they had ever seen.”—Flourens, Considérations sur l’enseignement de l’Histoire Naturelle de l’Homme. (Annales des Sciences Naturelles, vol. x, p. 357.) This wonder is renewed every day; and I once knew an intelligent negro who had a very unpleasant remembrance of the French provinces, where he had been the object of a very general and indiscreet curiosity.

[110] The works which followed one another on this subject are due to Reinhold Wagner (1699), B. S. Albin (1737), Barrière (1742), Mitchell (1744), Baeck (1748), Meckel (1753-1757), Le Cat (1756-1765), etc. See G. Pouchet, Des Colorations de l’Epiderme, 4to, Paris, 1864.

[111] The analysis of the anatomical differences in the skeleton has been, perhaps, best made by Bérard, in France, and Lawrence in England; I may refer for the details to these two authors. Bérard, Cours de Physiologie, 1848, vol. i; Lawrence, Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, 9th edition, 1848.

[112] Is. Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire, “Sur la Classification Anthropologique,” Mém. de la Société d’Anthropologie, 1861, vol. i, p. 125.

[113] [Compare Joulin, Anatomie et Physiologie comparé du bassin des Mammifères, 8vo, Paris, 1864; and Mémoire sur le bassin considéré dans les Races Humaines, 8vo, Paris, 1864.—Editor.]

[114] The proportion given by Camper is this: the great diameter is to the little,

• In the European :: 41 : 27.
• In the Negro :: 39 : 27·5.

[115] Account of the Regular Gradation of Man, 4to, London, 1799, p. 118.

[116] Cours de Physiologie, Paris, 1848, vol. i, p. 394. See, also, on the same question, A. Maury, in the Athénéum Français, 1853, No. 47.

[117] [We cannot entirely agree with the author regarding the low stature of the Spaniards. From our own observation we may unreservedly say that, at all events, the inhabitants of the south and south western parts of Spain are a fine race, not at all liable to the charge of being different in height from the Anglo-Saxons.—Editor.]

[118] [Although our author rather despises the idea of the legs being bowed by riding, it is tolerably well known in this country that too much riding on horseback, when young, and especially on large animals, is very apt to alter the shape of delicate and weakly limbs.—Editor.]

[119] “Tribus Mongoles,” translated by S. A. de Grandsagne, in the Mémoires du Muséum, vol. xvii.

[120] See Broca, Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, 3rd April, 1862.

[121] See Lawrence, Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, London, 1848, p. 410.

[122] Davy, An Account of the Interior of Ceylon, 1821, p. 109.

[123] See Daniel Wilson, in the British Review, 1851; and in Stephens, the description of the Temple of Uxmal.

[124] See Bulletins de la Société de Géographie, 4th series, vol. x, p. 45. It must not be forgotten that these weapons with a small handle may have been used by those valiant heroines, whose praises have so often been sung in the songs of the north.

[125] Presented by A. C. Harris, Esq., 1840.

[126] [Compare the memoir of Professor C. G. Carus, Ueber die Typisch geurdenen abbildungen menschlichen kopfformen namentlich auf münzen in verschiedenen zeiten und volkern, published in the Novorum Actorum Academiæ Cæsareæ Leopoldini-Carolinæ Germanicæ naturæ curiosum for 1863, in which the author gives characteristic examples of the ancient types, as deduced from the examination of coins, etc. Compare, also, Nott and Gliddon, Types of Mankind.—Editor.]

[127] See especially Lepsius, Denkmaeler von Egypten und Œthiopen, vol. ii, pl. 133; vol. iii, pl. 116, 117, 118, 136.

[128] Bérard, Cours de Physiologie, Paris, 1848, vol. i, p. 394.

[129] See J. H. Hanneman, Curiosum Scrutinium Nigredinus Posterorum Cham, in 4to, Kiloni, 1677, § 14.

[130] See Pruner-Bey, Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, 5th March, 1863.

[131] See, upon this point, G. Pouchet, Des Colorations de l’Epiderme, 4to, Paris, 1864.

[132] Bory de Saint-Vincent divided mankind into Leucotriques and Ulotriques (see Bérard, Cours de Physiologie, 1848, vol. i, p. 394). Prichard refers all these races to the three following types:—1. Melanocomous; 2. Leucous; 3. Xanthous (see English Cyclopædia, art. “Man”).

[133] Tableau Synoptique des Races Humaines (Mém. de la Société d’Anthropologie, vol. i, p. 143).

[134] See Pruner-Bey, De la Chevelure (Mém. de la Soc. d’Anthrop., vol. ii, p. 1).

[135] See Smith, The Natural History of the Human Species, p. 189.

[136] See Earl, quoted by Crawfurd, On the Negro Race, etc. (British Association, 1852, p. 86.)

[137] Compare Burnouf, Le Lotus de la bonne loi, p. 562.

[138] Compare, idem, ibidem, p. 569.

[139] Narrative of a Second Voyage, etc., 1835, p. 427.

[140] [The name given to Persia by its inhabitants.—Editor.]

[141] Compare The Natural History of the Human Species.

[142] M. de Serres, in his Lectures on Anthropology, at the Museum of Natural History.

[143] Ross, Narrative of a Second Voyage, etc., p. 446.

[144] This fact is related by Pallas, Mémoires du Muséum, vol. xvii, p. 238. A Kalmuc saw a body of men thirty versts off [nearly twenty miles English], while the Russian general could see nothing even with a telescope.

[145] It would be interesting to discover if the fact related by Knox (The Races of Men, 1850, p. 271) is true; namely, that the sharpness of sight, which the Bosjesmans possess in a very high degree, is lost immediately on crossing the breed with the whites.

[146] Le Cat, Traité des Sens, 1744; Haller, Elementa Physiologiæ, vol. v, p. 179; Humboldt, Relation Personnelle, vol. iii, p. 229.

[147] See Robin, Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 1845; Zoologie, vol. iv, p. 380.

[148] Histoire des Travaux de Buffon, p. 92.

[149] [“Face to face with the present position of metaphysical thought in England, that anthropology, which can find no higher employment for the human mind than the ascertainment of man’s relations with the baboons, will find no place at all.... We have no real fear that the consequences which may result from the practical application of this law (transmutation) will be prejudicial to religion, morality, or society.... But until the day comes when such a law shall be fully, entirely, and satisfactorily established, we must strenuously protest against the diffusion, even amongst the ‘wider circle of the intelligent public,’ of essays, the object of which is to render ‘Man’s Place in Nature’ closer to that of the brute creation.” C. Carter Blake, Man and Beast (Anthropological Review, vol. i, pp. 154, 161).—Editor.]

[150] See Sömmering, 1785, p. 42.

[151] Sketches of Central Africa.

[152] There is a copy of it at the British Museum.

[153] We only know of one painting in which Egyptians themselves are represented in a like position; it is in the British Museum, and is on a tomb. It is a group of persons squatted behind a flock of geese. It is right to remark, however, that the artist may have been rather puzzled about its composition, more complicated than usual, and that the inartistic profiles of his figures, which almost cover one another, greatly diminish the value of the picture with reference to our subject.

[154] Geographische Nosologie oder die Lehre von den Veränderungen der Krankheiten in den Verschiedenen Gegenden der Erde, in Verbindung mit Physicher Géographie und Naturgeschichte des Menschen, 8vo, Stuttgart, 1813.

[155] Traité de Géographie Médicale, 1857: Introduction, p. 29.

[156] [“The great question of acclimatisation has hitherto been treated lightly enough. ‘A firm resolution not to be conquered by a malady,’ says Malte-Brun, ‘is, in the opinion of most doctors, one of the most efficacious preventives of disease. Our body depends on our intelligence. In every climate the nerves, the muscles, the blood-vessels, in relaxing or in stretching, in dilating or in contracting, soon take the particular state which suits the degree of heat or cold which is borne by the body.’ Thus, according to this celebrated geographer, man has only to exercise his will in order to accommodate his organism to all the difficulties of a new temperature and a new climate.” H. J. C. Beavan, The Acclimatisation of Man (Social Science Review, February 21, 1863.)—Editor.]

[157] Hirsch, Handbuch der Historisch-Geographischen Pathologie, § 10. With the author of this immense compilation we refer our readers (with reference to this relative immunity of Negroes from marsh-fever) to the works of Jobin, Tschudi, M’Cabe, Hunter, Arnold, Cameron, Heymann, Epp, Bartlett, Thomson, Tidyman (Philad. Journ. of Med. Science, vol. iii, No. 6), etc.

[158] Epidemiological Society, 3rd June, 1861; Medical Times and Gazette, 29th June, 1861, No. 574.

[159] [“In spite of ‘previous acclimatisation,’ a Negro regiment was almost entirely destroyed by chest disease at Gibraltar, in 1817, within the short space of fifteen months.” Acclimatisation of Man (Social Science Review, February 21, 1863).—Editor.]

[160] “Si no acontecía ahorcar al Negro, nunca moría.” Compare Herrera, Hist. Gener. de los Hechos de los Castellanos, dec. 2, Book III, chap. xiv.

[161] Bancroft (Essay 273); Blair, Some Account of the last Yellow Fever Epidemic of British Guiana, London, 1850; Jackson; Hirsch, Handbuch der Historisch-Geographischen Pathologie, § 36.

[162] “It is a well-established fact, that there is something in the Negro constitution which affords him protection against the worst effects of yellow fever, but what it is I am unable to say.”—Fenner. Compare Hirsch, Handbuch, § 36.

[163] “The smallest admixture of Negro blood, even though the subject be brought from a more northerly state, seems to be a potent antidote against the morbid poison.”—Nott, Southern Journal of Medicine, February, 1847. “The coloured people resisted the epidemic influence better than the whites; and, I believe I may hazard the observation, that their degree in resistance was in proportion to the admixture of white blood.”—Bryant, American Journal, April, 1856, p. 301. Compare Hirsch, Handbuch, § 36.

[164] See Mémoires de Médecine et de Chirurgie Militaire, November and December 1863; Société d’Anthropologie, meeting of 19th March, 1864.

[165] M. d’Eichthal, Lettres sur la Race noire, 1839, p. 15.

[166] [“The Arabs say that Mohammed, whilst on the road from Medina to Mecca, one day happened to see a widow woman sitting before her house, and asked how she and her three sons were; upon which the troubled woman (for she had concealed one of her sons on seeing Mohammed’s approach, lest he, as is customary when there are three males of a family present, should seize one and make him do porterage), said, ‘Very well; but I’ve only two sons!’ Mohammed, hearing this, said to the woman, reprovingly, ‘Woman, thou liest! thou hast three sons; and for trying to conceal this matter from me, henceforth remember that this is my decree,—that the two boys whom thou hast not concealed shall multiply and prosper, have fair faces, become wealthy, and reign lords over all the earth; but the progeny of your third son shall, in consequence of your having concealed him, produce seedis as black as darkness, who will be sold in the market like cattle, and remain in perpetual servitude to the descendants of the other two.’” This is the Arab theory of the Negro’s origin, mentioned in What led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, by J. H. Speke, p. 341, London, 1864.—Editor.]

[167] Othello, Act I, Scene 3. [Othello was, however, a Moor, not a Negro, and capable of a far higher delicacy of mental perceptions than the veritable “unbleached African.” Perhaps one of the most absurd theatrical errors was committed when the part of Othello was acted by a genuine Negro, Ira Aldridge.—Editor.]

[168] Edmond About, Le Progrès, 1864, p. 15.

[169] These are Negroes of whom he is speaking.

[170] “De l’Unité de l’Espèce Humaine,” Biblioth. Univ. de Genève, nouv. ser., vol. liv, p. 145, 1844.

[171] Gliddon, Types of Mankind, p. 59. Carus has observed, that among the remarkable Negroes mentioned by Blumenbach, not one of them was distinguished either in politics, literature, or in any high conception of art. Compare Gobineau, De l’Inégalité des Races Humaines, vol. i, p. 122, 1853.

[172] See De Maillet, Telliamed, 8vo, vol. ii, p. 187, Amsterdam, 1748. For want of those passages of the Korán to which he refers, we give the whole of Maillet’s remark on the subject:—“Mohammed was so struck with the difference between white and black men, that he did not hesitate to say, that God had made the first with white earth, and the latter with black. He did not imagine that men so different, not only in colour but in figure and inclination, could possibly be of one and the same origin. He observes, in another place, that although there have been prophets of all other nations, there was never one among the blacks; which shows that they have so little mind, that the gift of foresight,—the effect of natural wisdom, which has sometimes been honoured with the name of prophecy,—has never fallen to the lot of any of them.” This passage is, besides, remarkable; because this custom of prophecy seems to be a special attribute of the Semitic race (compare Renan, Histoire Générale des Langues Sémitiques, 8vo, p. 8, Paris, 1855), and Mohammed, in making this distinction, declared almost a specific characteristic. In the translation of the “Évangile de l’Enfance,” by G. Brunet (Evangiles Apocryphes, 12mo, Paris, 1849), there is this curious document (Jesus had just changed some children into rams in the sight of some women, who asked for their pardon), “The Lord Jesus having answered, that the children of Israel were, among other nations, like the Ethiopians; the women said,” etc. This is merely a proof of the contempt which overwhelmed this unhappy race in the east.

[173] On the Negro’s Place in Nature (Dr. Hunt, Anthropological Society of London, November 17, 1863).

[174] See the table taken from the Systema Naturæ. We know that Linnæus had adopted the geographical classification of human races.

Homo Americanus.	{	Pertinæ, contentus, liber.
		Regitur consuetudine.
” Europæus.	{	Levis, argutus, inventor.
		Regitur ritibus.
” Asiaticus.	{	Severus, fastuosus, avarus,
		Regitur opinionibus.
” Afer.	{	Vafer, segnis, negligens,
		Regitur arbitrio.

[175] Des Races Humaines, in the Revue des Deux Mondes.

[176] [It is, indeed, worthy of a place in science, though not apparently in the sense which is meant by our author. C. Carter Blake says, and says truly, “In zoology, as in all other methods of human thought, the sincere searcher after truth will reap some solid benefit for his labours if carried on in a fair and honest spirit. What science reveals to us,—and we know of no source of knowledge whence the revelation of the truth, as it is manifested in living nature, can be impugned,—what science teaches us, a simple-minded student will accept, that which the unbiassed evidences of his senses and the manifestations of his own consciousness tell him to be true.” (C. Carter Blake, On the Doctrine of Final Causes, as illustrated by Zoology, Hastings Philosophical Society, meeting of January 13, 1864.)—Editor.]

[177] [“The natives of Australia,” observes Hasskarl, “are deficient in the idea of a Creator or moral Governor of the world, and all attempts to instruct them terminate in a sudden break up of the conversation. The Bechuanas, one of the most intelligent tribes of the interior of South Africa, have no idea of a Supreme Being; and there is no word to be found in their language for the conception of a Creator.” (Force and Matter, by Dr. Louis Büchner, transl. and edited by J. F. Collingwood, F.R.S.L., F.G.S., F.A.S.L.).—Editor.]

[178] I translate in this way the word mythology, used by Latham; it is the real translation. Every religion is necessarily based on a fable, for whoever does not practise it, “Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur.” [This is an assertion which our author has no right to make, and which certainly does not redound to his credit. We must earnestly protest against it. A moment’s consideration, however, will satisfy most men that the translator’s license has here been carried to a most unwarrantable extent.—Editor.]

[179] The Reverend Messrs. Schmidt, Parker, etc.

[180] John Leighton.

[181] See Bertillon, Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, March 15, 1860. [See above, p. 66, note.—Editor.]

[182] I had this fact from the mouth of M. de Lesseps, on his return from a journey to Khartûm.

[183] J. Ross, Narrative of a Second Voyage, p. 548, 1835.

[184] Emanuel Zobrega wrote to the Company from Brazil, in 1552:—“The inhabitants acknowledge Saint Thomas, whom they call Zomé (changing the Th into Z, according to their dialect); and they have a tradition that he once journeyed through this country.” His letter is fully given by Nieremberg, Historia Naturæ, fol., Antuerpiæ, 1635.

[185] “On the Intellectual Character of the Esquimaux” (Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. xxxviii, p. 306, October 1844 to April 1845.)

[186] L’Immortalité de l’âme chez les Juifs, transl. by I. Cohen, 12mo, Paris, 1857.

[187] See Brecher, L’Immortalité de l’âme chez les Juifs, p. 81.

[188] Josephus, Antiquities, xviii, ch. 2, transl. by D. G. Génébrard, Paris, 1639.

[189] Chapter upon the “Nirvâna.”

[190] Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, Bouddha et sa Religion, chapter upon the “Nirvâna,” 1862.

[191] Niebuhr quoted, in support of this, the Nalhkis and the Guaranis in the New Californian and Cape Missions. Schlegel (Essais, p. 341, Paris, 1841) declares, that most savage nations ought always to remain so by the will of nature.

[192] See Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, meeting of July 20, 1857.

[193] “I maintain,” says Courtet de l’Isle (Tableau Ethnographique du genre humain, p. 89, 8vo, Paris, 1849), “that human races are unequal in intellectual power, that they are, consequently, not susceptible of the same degree of development, and that each of them is called upon to fill, in unequal conditions, a mission marked out by Providence.”

[194] Doctor Martius is a curious example of the extravagances to which monogenist ideas may lead. In order to explain the moral character of the Americans, he is obliged to suppose a frightful cataclysm [great inundation] which happened, he cannot say when, and adds, “Is it the profound terror felt by those unhappy people who escaped from this awful calamity which, being transmitted without a diminished intensity to following generations, has troubled their reason, obscured their intelligence, and hardened their heart?” Compare Morel, Traité des Dégénérescences de l’espèce humaine, 1857, and Discours Inaugural à l’Académie de Rouen, 1857.

[195] D’Orbigny saw the Charruas continue a war against the Spaniards (who decimated them) rather than renounce their much-valued independence. (Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale, vol. iv, Introduction p. 4.) [Our author ought not to compare the northern Americans with the southern aborigines, giving to both of them, apparently, the same characteristics. The northerners are whites, and (supposing the Canadians and the north-western settlers are spoken of) worthy of his praise. We put the present Northern States on one side altogether, as the character given by our author cannot possibly apply to them. The Charruas, who are mentioned in the above note, are Indians, inhabiting the banks of the Uruguay in South America, and therefore, whatever may be their courage and love of liberty as aborigines, they cannot properly be classed with white inhabitants, who are merely settlers.—Editor.]

[196] Compare D’Escayrac de Lauture, Le Désert et le Soudan; Mémoire sur le Soudan, etc. [These people are not so very peculiar in this respect. Even in our own land, there is sometimes a good deal of difficulty in obtaining information about routes; and agricultural labourers especially are much given to scratching their heads and chewing the cud of meditation, ending with an indecision quite delightful to the tired traveller.—Editor.]

[197] See Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, pp. 482, 483, 4to, Amstelodami, 1723.

[198] See Essai Politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne, Paris, 1811.

[199] Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale.

[200] Crania Americana, Introduction.

[201] Mémoire on the preceding work.

[202] [Dr. Hunt, however, does not think that language is such an unfailing test as our author appears to imagine. He considers that language must be utterly discarded as the first principle of anthropological classification, and gives a far higher value to religion and to art, considering language merely as the third element. It is possible to change the language of a race; but apparently impossible to change either their religion or their innate ideas of art. See Hunt on Anthropological Classification (Brit. Assoc., 1863), Anthrop. Rev., vol. i, p. 383. “On ethnology, Professor Müller says, ‘The science of language and the science of ethnology have both suffered most seriously from being mixed up together. The classification of races and languages should be quite independent of each other. Races may change their languages; and history supplies us with several instances where one race adopted the language of another. Different languages, therefore, may be spoken by one race, or the same language may be spoken by different races; so that any attempt at squaring the classification of races and tongues must necessarily fail.’”(On the Science of Language, R. S. Charnock; Anthrop. Rev., vol. i, p. 200.)—Editor.]

[203] See Chavée, Les Langues et les Races, 1862.

[204] Histoire des Langues Sémitiques, p. 467, Paris, 1855.

[205] See Prichard, The Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations, edited by Latham, 1857.

[206] “The sound of their voice resembles sighing.” “Their language resembles the clucking of a turkey.” Compare White, Account of the regular gradation of Man, p. 67, London, 1799. Appleyard, The Kafir Language, p. 3, 8vo, King William’s Town, 1850. Morel, Traité des Dégénérescences de l’espèce humaine, p. 42, Paris, 1857. “The Kafirs have adopted some of the inflexions in use among their neighbours, but as a simple ornament to their speech, without attributing any special signification to these ‘cluckings.’”—Is. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (Correspondence).

[207] Compare Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral, 13th year, vol. ii, p. 201: Knox, The Races of Men, p. 82, London, 1850: Morel, Dégénérescences de l’Espèce Humaine, Paris, 1857.

[208] See Beddom in English Cyclopædia: see, also, Vitruvius, book vi, ch. i.

[209] Rapports du Physique et du Moral, 13th year, vol. ii, p. 294.

[210] Histoire Naturelle Générale, vol. iii, p. 319, 1860. We do not here quote the facts relative to the Barbary and Corsican stag (ibidem, p. 407), since they rest only on the negative assertion of an old author.

[211] “Partout de petits changements, nulle part de grands.” Hist. Naturelle Générale, vol. iii, p. 388.

[212] Recherches sur les Ossements Fossiles, 4to, vol. i, p. 59, 1831.

[213] Histoire Naturelle Générale, vol. iii, p. 389.

[214] “What would be thought of a breeder who took Norman colts or Flemish calves to the high lands of the Alps and the Pyrenees, and then expected to see them reproduce (their training having been finished) all the pure characteristics of the original races?”—Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Histoire Naturelle Générale, vol. iii, p. 307.

[215] See Verneuil, Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, February 2, 1860.—Bonté, ibidem, August 6, 1863.

[216] [“A priest who has drunk wine shall migrate into a moth or a fly, feeding on ordure. He who steals the gold of a priest, shall pass a thousand times into the bodies of spiders. If a man shall steal honey, he shall be born a great stinging gnat; if oil, an oil-drinking beetle; if salt, a cicada; if a household utensil, an ichneumon fly” (Institutes of Menu, § 353). Thus, apparently with regard to comparison, the Hindú considers insects to be the lowest form of animal life, into which moral criminals are to pass after death, according to their doctrine of metempsychosis.—Editor.]

[217] [Why will some scientific men persist in separating, so strongly, religion and science, as if both could not be practised? This is what the “master of science” appears to think. Each student of science may well apply the following lines: “It is your duty to go on steadfastly, unwaveringly, ohne Hast, ohne Rast, conscious that you interpret, to the best of your finite ability, your conceptions of the truths of science, equally conscious that whatever may be the immediate result of your labours, they must eventually fulfil the aspiration which tends ad majorem Dei gloriam.”—C. Carter Blake On the Doctrine of Final Causes (Hastings Philosophical Society, meeting of January 13, 1864).—Editor.]

[218] Robin, Mémoire sur la Production du Blastoderme (Journal de Physiologie, p. 358, 1862).

[219] It is thus that we do not see realised in man that general law which decrees that animal species are large in proportion to the continent which they inhabit; the mean size of the mammalia, in particular, is regularly proportional to the extent of Australia, America, the ancient continent, and the bottom of the ocean.

[220] Compare Mitchell, An Essay upon the Causes of the Different Colours, etc. (Philosophical Transactions, 1745.)

[221] “Sole colorari homines non dubium, eosque autem ut nigrescant non constat.” Albinus, De Sede et Causa Coloris Æthiopum, p. 12. He also says, still speaking of Negroes, that they are coloured, “quod suum parentes colorem in liberos propagant ...; æthiops fœmina si cum mare æthiope rem habuerit, æthiopem, ni quid forte natura ludat, gignit; alba si cum albo, album.”—Ibidem, p. 10. It is in some manner the permanence of a declared type.

[222] Dissertation Physique sur les Différences des Traits du Visage, p. 17.

[223] See above, p. 85.

[224] Yvan, De France en Chine, p. 175, Paris, 1853. [“M. Périer has mentioned, according to Yvan, the beauty of the inhabitants of the island of Réunion, who descend from a few couples only, and yet have known how to preserve their purity of blood” (An Inquiry into Consanguineous Marriages and Pure Races, Dr. E. Dally; transl. by H. J. C. Beavan, Anthrop. Review, p. 97, 1864).—Editor.]

[225] White, Account of the regular Gradation of Man, p. 112. Morton, Crania Americana, Introduction. Prince de Wied, Voyage au Brésil, vol. ii, p. 310. Bory de St. Vincent, Essai Zoologique sur le genre humain, vol. ii, p. 20.

[226] Desmoulins, Histoire Naturelle des races humaines, p. 162. Indigenous Races of the Earth, p. 585.

[227] White, Account of the regular Gradation of Man, p. 104.

[228] W. Edwards, Des Caractères Physiologiques des races humaines, p. 14. Niebuhr (transl.), Lectures on Ethnography, vol. i, p. 374.

[229] John Hunter also thought that man was originally black; he had remarked that domestic animals become white by age. Compare White, Account of the regular Gradation of Man, p. 100. Hunter thus confounded men with domestic animals. We have already said what must be thought of this connexion.

[230] Compare Morel, Dégénérescence de l’espèce humaine, p. 5, Paris, 1857.

[231] See above, p. 73.

[232] Climateric influences act probably upon wild animals in the same manner; it must be remarked, however, that a captive animal and a man, taken to another country, are not exposed in the same degree to the action of the new medium; conditions are not similarly altered as regards both of them. Sometimes the man, sometimes the animal, will have most chances of resistance; the one being always obliged by his master to submit to an intellectual government, approaching as much as possible his former state; the other, abandoned to himself, and drawn fatally into the new habits which he sees around him.

[233] See, on this point, Boudin, Géographie Médicale, vol. ii, p. 15, Paris, 1857. Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes, p. 230, 1833. G. Pouchet, Des Colorations de l’épiderme, 4to, Paris, 1864.

[234] [Dr. Waitz, in his Introduction to Anthropology (translated and edited by J. F. Collingwood), gives an explanation concerning the colouring matter in the Negro, which is very curious, but with which, however, he does not agree; viz., “that in hot climates the amount of oxygen inspired is insufficient to change the carbon into carbonic acid, and that the unconsumed carbon is deposited in the pigment-cells of the skin.... It is, however, difficult to admit that the browning of the skin in our climate in summer is produced by the same causes as the black colour of the Negro, and that it would only require a greater intensity and a longer duration to become so entirely.” Part. I, sect. i, p. 35.—Editor.]

[235] The precociousness of the genital functions is in direct relation with this general fact.

[236] W. Edwards, Caractères Physiologiques, etc., p. 14. “The tropics alone produce the combination of infantine grace with the full development of female maturity.” Smith, Natural History, etc., p. 190. See, also, Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral, vol. ii; and Davy, Account of Ceylon. These two authors in particular have quite appreciated these changes.

[237] Boudin, Géographie Médicale, vol. ii, p. 150, 1857.

[238] Meeting of November 7, 1861.

[239] [See above, p. 59, note.—Editor.]

[240] It would appear from the documents collected by Nott (Two Lectures on the Natural History of the Caucasian and Negro Races, Mobile, 1844, compare Boudin, Géogr. Méd., vol. ii, p. 144), that as we advance towards the upper part of the Northern States, madness becomes very frequent among the Negroes. It reaches the proportion of one case of insanity among twenty-eight sane persons in Massachusetts and Maine. We hesitate in acknowledging climateric influence, because the number of cases seems to increase relatively to the degree of instruction among the people; not that madness depends on education, but because it finds out a great number of cases of which we should otherwise have been ignorant, as often happens in the east among a less enlightened people.

[241] Compare Boudin, Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, August 1, 1861.

[242] Compare Boudin, Traité de Géographie Médicale, 1857, Introduction.

[243] New York Medical Journal, p. 399, February 1831 (see Hirsch, Handbuch der Historisch-geographischen Pathologie, § 35, p. 1).

[244] Some Account of the Last Yellow Fever Epidemic of British Guiana, p. 59, 8vo, London, 1850.

[245] Barton, Report of the Sanitary Commission of New Orleans for 1853, p. 248, New Orleans, 1854 (see Hirsch, Handbuch, etc., § 35). He brings forward several pieces of evidence in the same question. They seem to us too decisive, in a polygenist point of view, for us not to give the entire list of his quotations: Romay, Diss. sobre la Fiebre Amarilla, etc., Habana, 1797: Arnold, Treatise on the Bilious Remittent Fever, etc., p. 26, London, 1840: Zimpel, Jenaische Annalen für Med., i, p. 68: Dickinson, Observations on the Inflammatory Endemic incident to Strangers in the West Indies, etc., p. 13, London, 1819: Ferguson, Notes and Reflections, p. 150, London, 1846: Dickson, Philadelphia Med. and Phys. Journal, iii, p. 250: Lallemand, Das Gelbfieber, etc., p. 121. [Schomburgk, A Description of British Guiana, etc., p. 22, London, 1840.—Editor.]

[246] Words borrowed from the definition of species by Isidore Geoffroy, Histoire Naturelle Générale, vol. ii, p. 437. “The act which appears most natural to living beings who are perfect, and who are not abortive, nor produced by spontaneous generation, is the production of a being like themselves, the animal producing an animal, the plant a plant, so as to participate in the eternal and divine nature as much as they can.”—De l’âme, book ii, chap. iv, § 2, transl. by Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire.

[247] Nott and Gliddon, Indigenous Races of the Earth, p. 443.

[248] Nott and Gliddon, Types of Mankind, p. 373, 1854.

[249] See Boudin, Géographie Médicale, Introduction, p. 39.

[250] See Morel, Traité des Dégénérescences.

[251] Périer, Société d’Anthropologie, meeting of April 21, 1864.

[252] Des Races Humaines, 1845.

[253] Account of the Regular Gradation of Man, p. 146.

[254] Compare W. Edwards, Des Caractères Physiologiques, etc., p. 29.

[255] Individual distinctions can only, then, be based on the alterations of type, in characteristics which are not those of the supposed ideal. It hence results that, if we have lived with a stranger who has all the characteristics of his race well marked, we think that we see him while travelling among his fellow countrymen.

[256] “It is one of the clearest facts in the animal, as well as in the vegetable world; all races generally reproduce and perpetuate themselves without mingling and confounding one with the other.”—Prichard, Histoire Naturelle de l’Homme, vol. i., p. 17. Compare Morel, Dégénérescences de l’espèce humaine, p. 2.

[257] Third number. Most of the articles in this remarkable production are unsigned.

[258] “No race will amalgamate with another; they die out, or seem slowly to be becoming extinct.” Compare the Ethnological Journal, p. 98.

[259] “We arrive at the fundamental conclusion that it is useless for people belonging to varieties of different races, but neighbours, to ally themselves together; part of the new generation will always preserve the primitive type.”—See Courtet de l’Isle, Tableau Ethnographique, p. 77.

[260] Latham thinks, however, that he has discovered some vestiges of the Phœnician race in Africa and Cornwall. Compare Knox, The Races of Men, 1850.

[261] [Small columns, having neither base nor capital.—Editor.]

[262] It is the case with the hippopotamus and the lion.

[263] Thus, at least, Buffon translates “Gothi corpore proceriore, capillis albidis rectis, oculorum indibus cinere—cærulescentibus.”—Linnæus, Fauna succica, p. 1.

[264] By virtue of the law which makes us find a family likeness in an individual after it has been absent, or rather hidden, for one or more generations.

[265] “Rutilæ comæ, magni artus.”—Tacitus, Agricola, ii, § 11.

[266] “Colorati vultus et torti plerumque crines.”—Idem, ibidem.

[267] Idem, ibidem.

[268] See Latham, Celtic Language, p. 371. J. B. Davis and J. Thurnam, Crania Britannica, p. 53. Garnet, in the Transactions of the Philological Society. R. Cull and Latham, in the Edinburgh New Physical Journal, 1854. Périer, Fragments Ethnologiques, Paris, 1857.

[269] J. Philips, see British Association, 1849.

[270] The name itself of this district shows, however, the habitation of these parts by the Scandinavians.

[271] Compare W. Edwards, Des Caractères Physiologiques des Races Humaines. Paris, 1829.

[272] See Périer, Fragments Ethnologiques, Paris, 1857.

[273] Recherches sur l’Ethnologie de la France (Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie, vol. i, p. 1). See, also, the discussion which followed the reading of this paper (Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, meetings of July 21 and August 4, 1859).

[274] We may remark this line is precisely perpendicular to the climateric parallels which divide France.

[275] [The standard in France is, we believe, five feet.—Editor.]

[276] Peru, 1846.

[277] Nicaragua: its People, vol. ii, p. 153, New York, 1852.

[278] Essai sur l’Inégalité des Races Humaines, Paris, 1852.

[279] Rapports du Physique et du Moral, vol. i, p. 484.

[280] M. Morel, Traité des Dégénérescences.

[281] [“All races of mankind intermix, they are fertile, producing cross-breeds, mulattoes, mestizoes, etc., which again are productive. All human races constitute, therefore, on physiological principles, but one species, which is here identical with genus humanum.” So thinks Professor Rudolph Wagner, but his arguments are not very satisfactory. He refers varieties of race in a great measure to climatic influence. See Creation of Man and Substance of the Mind (Anthrop. Rev., vol. i, p. 229).—Editor.]

[282] Compare Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, vol. iii, p. 175.

[283] In applying these principles to family consanguinity, we may say in a general manner, that it will be favourable or not to the offspring according to the state of the parents. If the parents are perfectly healthy, and exempt from all commencing degeneracy, they can only give birth to children at least as healthy as themselves. If one of the two parents is tainted with a commencement of degeneracy, the descendant, in his quality of offspring, will perhaps bear the trace of this degeneracy, but sensibly weakened. If the two parents are separately tainted with a different commencement of degeneracy, one or the other ought to continue it in the child, only in a lesser degree. But if the same degeneracy has already tainted both the parents, the offspring will show it in a greater degree, and will tend towards entire disappearance.

[284] Flourens, Histoire des Travaux de Buffon, p. 180.

[285] [On the Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo, edited by C. Carter Blake, F.G.S., F.A.S.L.—Editor.]

[286] Compare G. Pouchet, Précis d’Histologie Humaine, § 5.

[287] “Ac Sylla quidem sodalis noster, fatus nos parva quæstione tanquam instrumento ingentem et gravem de origine mundi quæstionem subruere.” Quæstionem Convivalium, book ii, quest. 3; transl., edited by F. Didot, 1841.

[288] Buffon said that (Suppléments, vol. iv, p. 335) this method of generation is not only the most frequent and the most general, but the most ancient, that is, the first and most universal one. Plutarch (Quæst. Conviv., book ii, quest. 3; transl., edited by F. Didot, 1841) makes the same remark: “Proinde probabile est primum ortum ex terra gignentis perfectione ac robore absolutum fuisse, nihilque indigentem hujusmodi instrumentis, receptaculis et vasis, qualia nunc ob imbecillitatem natura parit atque machinatur parientibus.”

[289] It must not be forgotten, that organic substances are supposed to have been found even in the formation of certain aërolites.

[290] É. Geoffroy, Comptes Rendus des séances de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. v, p. 193.

[291] See Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Histoire Naturelle Générale, vol. iii, p. 210.

[292] [We are almost tempted, in all kindness, to refer our author to the following remarks in the Reliques of Father Prout, p. 264. “I have been at some pains to acquire a comprehensive notion of the Count de Buffon’s system, and, aided by an old Jesuit, I have succeeded in condensing the voluminous dissertation into a few lines, for the use of those who are dissatisfied with the Mosaic statement:—

1. In the beginning was the sun, from which a splinter was shot off by chance, and that fragment was our globe.

2. And the globe had for its nucleus melted glass, with an envelope of hot water.

3. And it began to twirl round, and became somewhat flattened at the poles.

4. Now, when the water grew cool, insects began to appear, and shell-fish.

5. And from the accumulation of shells, particularly oysters (see vol. i, p. 14, 4to, 2nd ed.), the earth was gradually formed, with ridges of mountains, on the principle of the Monte Testacio at the gate of Rome.

6. But the melted glass kept warm for a long time, and the arctic climate was as hot in those days as the tropics now are,—witness a frozen rhinoceros found in Siberia.” Let the leaven work, although a mere joke to M. Pouchet’s reality.—Editor.]

[293] Histoire Naturelle, vol. ix, p. 127, 1761. Étienne Geoffroy (Comptes Rendus, vol. iii, p. 29) says the same thing “as regards the actual constitution of the globe; each race is a species sui generis,—a form or combination of its own in nature.”

[294] The terms of this definition are almost entirely borrowed from Isidore Geoffroy. By ending it with these words, “in the present order of things,” Isidore Geoffroy only defined the existing species, and took away, without any reason, the palæontologic species.

[295] Lamarck, Discours de l’An XI, p. 45.

[296] See Flourens, Examen du livre de M. Darwin sur l’Origine des Espèces, 18mo, Paris, 1864. We are at least astonished to find the name of the Geoffroys mentioned but once in such a work (p. 45). M. Flourens charges Darwin with only quoting the partisans of his own opinions (p. 40).

[297] [See above, p. 84, note.—Editor.]

[298] Sur l’Influence du monde ambiant, 1831 (Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences), vol. xii, p. 81.

[299] Vol. ii, second part, 1859.

[300] Philosophie Zoologique, vol. i, p. 221.

[301] Système des Connaissances Positives, p. 143, 1820.

[302] Discours de l’An XI, p. 45. He says, also, in another place (Philosophie Zoologique, vol. i, p. 66), “What we call species, has only a relative constancy in that state, and cannot be as ancient as nature itself.”

[303] Lamarck, Organisation des Corps Vivants, p. 53.

[304] For nature “time has no limit, and consequently has it always at its disposal.” Lamarck, Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres, p. 13, 1801.

[305] Darwin On the Origin of Species, p. 518, London, 1861. “I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or less number. Analogy would lead me one step farther, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype.”

[306] Compare Darwin On the Origin of Species, p. 96, 1861.

[307] Histoire Naturelle Générale, vol. ii, p. 421, 1859.

[308] “The observation of species in a state of nature, by revealing to us a multitude of modifications more or less important, cannot show us any serious deviation from the types formed or preserved by the influence of the existing state of things.” Isidore Geoffroy, Vie d’Étienne Geoffroy, p. 349.

[309] See Leibnitz, Protogée, transl. by Bertrand de Saint-Germain, Introduction, p. 61.

[310] Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie, February 22, 1858.

[311] We shall be thanked for publishing here the following extract from a letter addressed to us by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, the 3rd of June, 1860, and which relates to all these questions. “I said, two or three years ago, as I have learnt from M. Lartet (who remembered the expression which I had myself forgotten), that the present movement of science tends to substitute in geology the idea of the evolution of the globe for that of revolutions. M. Lartet has taken up this view, and adheres to it. It is of great importance to me, as regards my works on species, in which we must in this case substitute the notion of evolution for that of revolution; revolutions are here pretended creations, abruptly successive. It is time to have done with these views, which, instead of taking creation as having been once concluded, make at every instant the Deus ex machinâ intervene.”

[312] [“In the neighbourhood of Mount Ætna, or on the sides of that extensive mountain, there are beds of lava covered over with a considerable thickness of earth; and at least another, again, which though known from ancient monuments and historical records to have issued from the volcano at least two thousand years ago, is still almost entirely destitute of soil and vegetation; in one place a pit has been cut through seven different strata of lava; and these have been found separated from each other by almost as many thick beds of rich earth. Now, from the fact that a stratum of lava, two thousand years old, is yet scantily covered with earth, it has been inferred by the ingenious Canon Recupero, who has laboured thirty years on the natural history of Mount Ætna, that the lowest of these strata which have been found divided by so many beds of earth, must have been emitted from the volcanic crater at least fourteen thousand years ago, and consequently, that the age of the earth, whatever it may exceed this term of years, cannot possibly be less.”—Brydone’s Tour through Sicily and Malta (1770). Plato, in his Critias, mentions the island Atlantis as having been buried in the ocean nine thousand years before his own time. In the Universal History, vol. i, (preface,) we are told that the astronomical records of the ancient Chaldeans carry back the origin of society to the remote period of four hundred and seventy-three thousand years. Among comparatively well-known authorities, there is a good deal of difference in the time of the supposed formation of the world. The Hebrew bible makes the creation 3,944 years before the Christian era. The Samaritan bible, 4,305 years; the Septuagint, 5,270 years; Usher, 4,004 years; Josephus, 4,658 years; M. Pezron, 5,872 years. In all these differences, however, there is nothing so striking as in the theories we mention above, of Recupero, the Chaldeans, etc.—Editor.]

[313] [Our author is quite right. Science does teach us what to think of divine power in its outward manifestations. The more we understand nature, the more ready will earnest-minded men be to praise and give glory to the God who made it, who created man and beast with such marvellous and exquisite regularity, and who continues to govern the world and all that is upon it. Perhaps M. Pouchet thinks he himself could have made a better one. It is a pity that a clever mind is so warped by that science which ought to make him more satisfied than ever that God is the creator of the world; and that spontaneous generation, and the never-clearly explained origin of the first matter, about which even M. Pouchet cannot tell us, with all his scepticism, ought to go to pave the “pathway of good intentions.”—Editor.]

[314] [Why not?—Editor.]

[315] Some may be astonished at our applying the word kingdom to the vertebrata. We do so because, in truth, the distance which separates them from other animals seems to us almost as great, and even more decided, than that which separates the invertebrata from plants.

[316] The diagram which Darwin has placed in his book On the Origin of Species, is only a fraction and piece of detail of the general figure which we are endeavouring to place before the mind of the reader.

[317] L’Insecte, p. 128, 1858.

[318] Predominance of the immediate azotic principles, respiration comparable to that of animals, voluntary movements, indivisibility of organism, etc.

[319] [See above, pp. 46, 47.—Editor.]

[320] See On the Origin of Species, chap. iii.

[321] Lions hindered the army of Xerxes in Macedonia. They abounded in the province of Africa in the time of the Roman Emperors. At the present time, however, Gérard was obliged to watch for three hundred nights in order to kill only thirty or forty.

[322] The crocodile, which used to swarm on the Delta, is now only found in Upper Egypt.

[323] The hippopotamus, since the Roman occupation, has successively retired from the mouth of the Nile to the fourth cataract. Some years ago, there existed one, and one only, at the Island of Argo, on this side of New Dongolah. Some hunters killed it, and since then, they have only been found at the Berber level.

[324] [Hamites, a genus of extinct Cephalopods, found in the greensand formation in England.—Editor.]

[325] Comptes Rendus, vol. iv, p. 58. Perhaps the only logical deduction which we can really draw from the greater size of these animals, is the greater extent of the continents which they inhabited. The belief in the gigantic dimensions of the fossil fauna and flora, is also a remains of the marvels which the first inquirers into science involuntarily reported. In examining matters nearer and more impartially, we see that certain zoological groups have been, in fact, formerly represented by larger species than at the present day; but until we arrive at some new discovery, we have the right to think that the other groups of animals, on the contrary, have a class of larger representatives than in former times; like the quadrumana, the cetacea, insects, cephalopods, acephalous mollusks, etc. But this pretended decay is especially false as regards plants; if we find in the ground some large ferns, or enormous grasses, we must subtract a good deal from those so-called antediluvian forests, which many have not hesitated to bring forward in support of their ideas. All the fossil plants that we know are, without exception, extremely wretched in comparison with the gigantic conifers and dicotyledons in the forests of the old and new world.

[326] [If this new handiwork of man, so charmingly arranged by our author, is not more successful than Pandora, as made by Vulcan, we fear the world will not gain much by it. In the olden times, the man who propounded such curious ideas would probably have had a punishment awarded him, something similar to that suffered by Prometheus. Does M. Pouchet, in quoting this personage, entirely forget the rest of the tale, and the consequences of his rashness? We are really sorry, however, to see science perverted to a pet idea, if we may use the expression, and twisted by means of “bad anatomy and worse theology,” as a friend of ours calls it, for the sake of proving facts quite impossible to be solved. M. Pouchet gives us, in spontaneous generation, a first germ with which to start a primordial anatomical element, as he calls it. He starts with this, and argues—in what manner we leave it to our readers to determine—that, from this germ there have, in time, sprung all the animals on the surface of the globe. But he does not tell us how this first germ itself arose. That is put entirely on one side, and taken for granted. We cannot take it for granted however; and until we have it satisfactorily proved that he is right in any part of his idea, we shall go on thinking and believing as we have done before.—Editor.]

[327] See Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Vie d’E. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, p. 287.

[328] See above, chap. viii.

[329] Compare Owen, On the Characters, Principles of Division, and Primary Groups of the Class Mammalia (Journal of Linnean Society, 1857.)

[330] See, for the explanation and discussion of these different systems, Crull, Dissertatio de Cranio, 1810.

[331] Compare Crull, Dissertatio de Cranio, p. 28, 1810.

[332] Compare Crull, Dissertatio de Cranio, p. 52.

[333] Busk and Quekett (Medical Times and Gazette).

[334] One always endeavours to find some former indication or presentiment, although even confused and full of obscurity, beyond the origin of positive science; it is curious to find in the works of the potter physician a sort of germ which, when developed, may have given birth to cranioscopy,—a sort of foresight of the importance which the measurement of the skull would one day acquire. It is in the Recepte Véritable: one of two speakers relates a dream in which he saw the different instruments used in geometry dispute about precedence: he answers them, that man is above them all; they exclaim, that man cannot even use one of them in order to measure any part of his body. [We think it best to give the original here.—Editor.] “Quoy voyant, il me print envie de mesurer la teste d’un homme, pour scauoir directement ses mesures, et me sembla que la sauterelle, la reigle, et le compas me seroient fort propres pour ceste affaire, mais quoy qu’il en soit, ie n’y sceu iamais trouver une mesure asseurée.” Bernard Palissy, Œuvres, p. 93, 12mo, Paris, 1844. Blumenbach says somewhere, “The habit and constant use of my collection of skulls makes me understand every day the impossibility of subjecting a variety of skulls to the rule of any possible angle, the head being susceptible of so many forms, and the parts which compose it being of so many different proportions and directions.” See Morel, Traité des Dégénérescences dans l’espèce humaine, p. 68. M. Aitken Meigs, at the present day, shows no less than twenty-nine different measurements of the skull which must be obtained if we wish to have anything like a satisfactory idea of the same.

[335] See above, chap. iv.

[336] See Indigenous Races of the Earth, p. 320.

[337] See Strope, Description d’une Momie très-ancienne (Recueil Périod. d’Observ. de Médecine, vol. iv, p. 290, Jan. 1756). One may see in reading the account of a very able and judicious narrator how much ancient scientific observations alter with the times, when no care is taken to refer to the original sources.

[338] See Vivien, in the Mémoires de la Société Ethnologique, vol. ii, p. 59.

[339] Portfolio, Philadelphia, 1814.

[340] W. Edwards, Des Caractères Physiologiques des races humaines, p. 45, has especially noticed the great importance of external characteristics; he has only done wrong in excluding the hair, and attending solely to the form of the skull, which never concerns us when we endeavour to picture or recall to our mind the features of a man.

[341] See Michelet, with regard to the paintings in the Sixtine Chapel, Histoire de France, Renaissance.

[342] “Philology is at once the most elevated and the most positive branch of the natural history of the human race.” Chavée, Moïse et les Langues (La Revue). M. Flourens seems to give philological a superior rank to physical characteristics. [See above, p. 77, note.—Editor.]

[343] He believes that by their means we can go back to the most distant geological periods. See Apophthegms (Edinburgh New Philosophical Journ., vol. li.)

[344] Latham thus explains it: “This is because whilst A and B, in the way of stock-blood or pedigree, will give C a true tertium quid, or a near approach to it, and A and B, in the way of language, will only give themselves, i. e., they will give no true tertium quid, nor any very close approach to it.” Celtic Nations, p. 33. We have endeavoured to prove that this true tertium quid—this real mean term, is never produced as far as species.

[345] [“Either language must have been originally revealed from heaven, or it must be the fruits of human industry. The greater part of Jews and Christians, and even some of the wisest Pagans, have embraced the former opinion, which seems to be supported by the authority of Moses, who represents the Supreme Being as teaching our first parents the names of animals. The latter opinion is held by Diodorus Siculus, Lucretius, Horace, and many other Greek and Roman writers, who consider language as one of the arts invented by man. The first men, say they, lived for some time in woods and caves, after the manner of beasts, uttering only confused and indistinct noises, till, associating for mutual assistance, they came by degrees to use articulate sounds mutually agreed upon, for the arbitrary signs or marks of those ideas in the mind of the speaker which he wanted to communicate to the hearer. This opinion sprung from the atomic cosmogony which was framed by Mochus, the Phœnician, and afterwards improved by Democritus and Epicurus; and though it is part of a system in which the first men are represented as having grown out of the earth, like trees and other vegetables, it has been adopted by several modern writers of high rank in the republic of letters, and is certainly in itself worthy of examination.”—Encyclop. Brit., vol. ix, p. 530, 1797.—Editor.]

[346] I do not here mention the opinions of the Swede (see Latham, Celtic Nations, p. 2), who thinks that important changes can be introduced into a language by certain customs of a people, who change, for instance, the lips for the nostrils, and thus substitute nasal for labial consonants. These facts are, perhaps, true in the detail, but they ought not to have much importance, as they do not alter the specific and personal character of the language, which is far from consisting in the relative number of one or two kinds of letters.

[347] Bunsen (Eng. transl.), Niebuhr’s Life and Letters, vol. i, p. 39.

[348] “Languages,” he says, “give but feeble probabilities in Anthropology.” Voyage aux regions Equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, vol. iii, p. 352.

[349] See, in the Mémoires de la Société Ethnologique (July 1843), a letter in which M. Vivien denies a first rank to language as a distinctive characteristic, and gives it to physical type.

[350] See above, p. 32.

[351] “I am led to believe that familiar languages (if this philological barbarism is permitted me) do not resemble one another because they come from the same parent, but because they have been brought up together; Africa especially seems to me to furnish a proof of it, for we must study the history of families of languages, especially in the place where they began to be formed, and I believe that language was formed in Africa. My hypothesis is not applicable to all cases, but to several; thus, the French, Italian, Spanish, etc., come from the Latin, and were born at its death; but many other languages appear to me to take their features one from the other by simple frequentation, by the natives being often in company together, and, as time goes on, these mutual loans make two or several languages, like the branches of the same tree, only, in my idea, the tree does not exist.”—Correspondence, 1857.

[352] See above, p. 78.

[353] [Pali, the ordinary language of daily life in Hindoostan at the time when Sanscrit was used in elevated literature alone.—Editor.]

[354] Des Colorations de l’épiderme, 4to, Paris, 1864.

[355] See The Natural History of Man, 1844.

[356] See Ethnographic Tableau (Indigenous Races of the Earth, London, 1857).

[357] We may quote, as types of genus, two paintings, incomparable in an anthropological point of view, Portrait d’un Nègre; Portrait d’un Oriental, by Herschop (Berlin Museum, Nos. 825 and 827).

[358] M. Flourens, in saying that Buffon collected the accounts of different travellers in order to write his Histoire des Races, adds, “Whatever they have only seen with the eyes of their body, he sees with the eyes of his mind, and by that means alone he sees better than they can; each of them has seen merely some scattered characteristics,—Buffon sees everything; he links together whatever they may have separated, and separates whatever they have confounded.”—Histoire des Idées de Buffon, p. 167.

[359] “Boni viri nullam oportet esse causam præter veritatem.”

[360] [Yes, but the difficulty is to determine if it is true. We cannot receive anything as true merely because a savant says it is so. We must go on enquiring in a proper spirit; but we must not put inquiry after truth in the same category with scepticism,—“that cheerlessness of soul to which certainty respecting anything and everything here on earth seems unattainable.” This is the age for seeking after truth; but in how many different ways do men endeavour to attain to it! We must search the past carefully in all its scientific and natural facts, and as Longfellow beautifully says,—

“Nor deem the irrevocable past,

As wholly wasted, wholly vain,

If, rising on its wrecks, at last

To something nobler we attain.”

This is the true aim of all inquiry.—Editor.]