The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

IX. From the number of observations which have been collected among plants and animals, and of which I can only notice a small number, it is easy to understand the appearance and multiplication of human races, and to account for certain general facts, some of which are closely connected with our history. Let us state at starting that with man, as with animals, varieties have appeared at times which may be classed among hemitery. Individuals, exhibiting from their birth exceptional characters, are none the less healthy, and sometimes have very remarkable power of transmission. Edward Lambert, born in 1717 of perfectly healthy parents, had all his life a kind of carapace more than an inch thick, and irregularly fissured, which gave him the name of the porcupine man. All his children, to the number of six, and his two grandchildren, inherited this strange modification of the skin, although his wife and his daughter-in-law did not show the least trace of it. In the Colburn family, four generations were marked with polydactylism which was derived from the grandmother of the great calculator. At the fourth generation, four children out of eight still had supernumerary fingers, though at each generation normal blood was mixed with the teratological blood.

Evidently, if the descendants of Lambert and Colburn had been treated like those of the first Ancon or Mauchamp sheep, two human races would have been obtained, one characterised by a cutaneous carapace, and the other by the possession of six fingers. But here selection was wanting, and the exceptional blood, from being diluted at each fresh marriage, did not fail to be rapidly exhausted.

X. Man does not subject himself to the selection, which he applies with so much success to animals and plants. In his species, therefore, the extreme variations which are obtained elsewhere are not produced. It is thus easily explained why the limits of variation are not so extensive with man as with domesticated or cultivated races. But if, for some motive or other, he were to apply the process of selection to himself, we should not have to wait long for the result. By marrying the tallest women to the giants of their guard, Frederick William and Frederick II. had created at Potsdam a real race distinguished for its tall stature. In Alsace a Duke de Deux-Ponts, who imitated the Prussian sovereigns, obtained the same result.

There is another cause which contributes powerfully to restrict the limits of variation in man, namely, the power which his intelligence gives him of partly escaping from the effects of the conditions of life. He is always struggling, as much as he is able, against the external influences capable of disturbing the equilibrium which constitutes his well-being. In the tropics, he uses contrivances for avoiding the heat; in the polar circle, he perfects his means of heating; if he emigrates, he carries with him, as far as he can, his manners and customs, and struggles with redoubled care against the new conditions of life. There is nothing strange in finding him successful in neutralising to a certain extent the modifying influences of the external world.

XI. Nevertheless, the conditions of life do not surrender their rights; although diminished, their action is none the less real. This is a fact which can be affirmed by what occurs in our great western colonies. Each great European race is there represented by derived sub-races which vary according to the locality. The islands in the Gulf of Mexico, North and South America, and Australia itself, which has been so recently colonised, have at this time their own peculiar races, some of which are remarkably characterised.

Since I am unable to treat in detail all these facts of transmutation, I will only notice some of the facts which have been established in the United States. We know that the English race was only definitely settled there at the time of the Puritan emigration, about 1620, and from the arrival of Penn in 1681. Two centuries and a half, twelve generations at the most, separate us from this epoch, and nevertheless, the Anglo-American, the Yankee, no longer resembles his ancestors. The fact is so striking that the eminent zoologist, Andrew Murray, when endeavouring to account for the formation of animal races, finds he cannot do better than appeal to the condition of mankind in the United States.

The subject, moreover, is not wanting in precise details, which are vouched for by a number of travellers, by naturalists, and doctors. At the second generation the English Creole in North America, presents, in his features, an alteration which approximates him to the native races. Subsequently the skin dries and loses its rosy colour, the glandular system is reduced to a minimum, the hair darkens and becomes glossy, the neck becomes slender, and the size of the head diminishes. In the face, the temporal fossæ are pronounced, the cheek bones become prominent, the orbital cavities become hollow, and the lower jaw massive. The bones of the extremities are elongated, while their cavity is diminished, so much so, that in France and England gloves are specially made for the United States with exceptionally long fingers. Lastly, in the woman, the pelvis, in its proportions, approaches to that of the man.

Are these changes signs of a degeneration already accomplished, and of an approaching extinction, as Knox asserts? I think a reply to this assertion is hardly necessary. We are sufficiently acquainted with American men and women to know that, although modified, the physical type is not on that account lowered in the scale of races; and the social grandeur of the United States, the marvels they have accomplished, the energy with which they pass through the rudest crises, prove that from every point of view, the Yankee race has retained its rank. It is simply a new race, formed by the American conditions of life, but which remains worthy of its elder sisters in Europe, and will perhaps some day surpass them.

The Negro transported into the same countries has also undergone remarkable changes. His colour has paled, his features have improved, and his physiognomy is altered. “In the space of 150 years,” says M. Elisée Reclus, “they have passed a good fourth of the distance which separates them from the whites, as far as external appearance goes.” Lyell’s opinion is almost the same. Moreover, when visiting two Negro churches, at Savannah, he remarked that the odour so characteristic of the race was scarcely appreciable. A long medical experience at New Orleans has shown Dr. Visinié that the blood of the Negro Creole has lost the excess of plasticity which it possessed in Africa. With MM. Reiset, de Lisboa, etc., with even Nott and Gliddon, let us add that, while the physical type has undergone modification, the intelligence has improved, and we shall have to recognise that in the United States a sub-Negro race has been formed, derived from the imported race.

XII. Thus the European White and the African Negro, when under the influence of new conditions of life, have both undergone modification. Moreover both, according to M. Reclus, whose statements are confirmed by those of M. l’Abbé Brasseur de Bonbourg, approximate to the indigenous races. Both of these authors seem to admit that at the end of a given time, whatever be their origin, all the descendants of Whites or of Negroes who have immigrated to America will become Red-skins.