If this conclusion requires confirmation, the facts quoted by Prosper Lucas will be sufficient. He treats of unions between Negroes and Whites accomplished in Europe. In the same family we find the black blood predominate at first, then lose its influence, and by degrees become effaced almost entirely in the children of the later generations. In one of these observations, the mother belonged to the black race; so that infidelity was unable to effect any change in the conditions of the experiment. It was then the conditions of life which gradually blanched these half-breeds, who would all have been black upon the borders of Senegal.
VI. Some anthropologists, although recognising the multiplicity and fertility of the crossings between human races, only see in this fact a confusion of blood, and complain that nowhere do they find a mixed race of recent origin which is well characterised. Consequently they deny that the crossing can have any influence in the formation of the races with mixed but constant characters which form part of the population of the globe.
This objection rests upon a disregard of the phenomena which accompany the formation of animal races by the production of mongrels. All breeders know well that a determinate and settled race cannot at once be produced by crossing. In such a case, the conflict and the compromises, of which I have spoken above, become more marked, for the very reason that we have to blend two natures which are dissimilar in some respects. Immediate and direct heredity alone continually produces phenomena of fusion or of juxtaposition, or else causes the appearance of new features, the resultant of two different characters. Mediate and indirect heredity, as well as atavism, continually intervene and produce numerous irregularities in the succeeding generations. The more the races differ and are equal in respect to blood, the more marked and persistent are these irregularities. In 1800 the Ancon race still gave irregular products. For more than twenty years M. Malingié has failed in settling his charmois race, so that it might itself serve for fresh crossings.
The clever breeder, whom I have just mentioned, as well as all other breeders, have moreover only attained their end by means of minute care in the choice of the animals from which they breed. Now, between human races there can be no question of selection. The unions have always taken place by chance. Moreover, in the immense majority of cases, the continual intervention of individuals of pure race increases, and prolongs the confusion. This absence of uniformity, which astonishes polygenists, is easily explained by those who only consider human groups as races. From a general point of view it is very instructive; if it brings forward diversity of races, it attests specific unity. It is not between species that crossing presents similar phenomena. But nevertheless, through this disorder, there appear in the mixed populations of our colonies, general common characters, which have attracted the attention of travellers, and have been described.
Moreover, when, in consequence of some circumstance, the products of these crossings are isolated and protected from new mixtures, the race becomes characterised with rapidity. The Cafusos, Basters, and Griquas, may be quoted as examples. Even the Pitcairn islanders, at the time of Beechey’s visit, were beginning to become uniform.
VII. In the crossings between unequal human races, the father almost always belongs to the superior race. In every case, and especially in transient amours, woman refuses to lower herself; man is less delicate.
From the point of view of the future of the mixed races, the predominant action of one sex over the product should have then great importance. The question has been put since the origin of societies, as is testified by the laws of Manou; it has been repeatedly discussed by thinkers and physiologists. Each sex has had its champions; and numerous facts have been quoted on both sides. Considering everything, it appears to me impossible to avoid deciding in favour of equality of action.
Nevertheless this equality is purely virtual; it can, in fact, only exist on the condition of an equal generating energy in both parents. As soon as the equilibrium is interrupted, the stronger sex predominates, and the product shows this superiority. The experiments of Girou de Buzareingue upon the procreation of the sexes, appeared to me to be most decisive in this respect.
Now what is true of the whole of the organism is equally true of its different parts, functions, and energies. In the formation of a new being, the action of heredity is divided into as many cases as there are characters to transmit. Both father and mother tend to reproduce themselves in their offspring; there is, consequently, a struggle between both natures. But the battle, if we may use the expression, results in a number of single combats in which each parent may be in turn victor or vanquished.
This very simple consideration, which is deduced from a number of facts of detail, explains many results which cause surprise to physiologists, anthropologists, etc. After having attributed a preponderating action to the mother, Nott declares with surprise, that, in point of intelligence, the Mulatto approaches more to his white father. But is not the intellectual energy of the latter superior to that of the mother? And is it not natural that it should gain the ascendant in the struggle between the two hereditary powers? We know how far this victory can go, and how the two natures can, so to speak, divide the product of this crossing between them. Lislet Geoffroy, entirely a Negro physically, though entirely a White in character, intelligence, and aptitudes, is a striking example of it.