I have quoted at random the various preceding examples, to show how the most extreme types of mankind have contributed to form a certain number of races. Need I insist upon the mixtures which have been accomplished between the secondary types derived from the first? In Europe what population can pretend to purity of blood? The Basques themselves, who apparently ought to be well protected by their country, institutions, and language against the invasion of foreign blood, show upon certain points, in the heart of their mountains, the evident traces of the juxtaposition and fusion of very different races.
As for the other nations ranging from Lapland to the Mediterranean, classical history, although it does not go back a great distance in point of time, is a sufficient proof that crossings are the inevitable result of invasions, wars, and political and social events. Asia presents, as we know, the same spectacle; and, in the heart of Africa, the Jagas, playing the part of the hordes of Gengis-Khan, have mixed together the African tribes from one ocean to the other.
XI. I need scarcely allude here to the general facts which follow from the detailed history of races. Short though it be, this appeal to the reader’s memory will, I hope, give a sufficient motive for the following conclusions.
Conditions of life and heredity have fashioned the first human races, a certain number of which, on account of their isolation, have been able to preserve for an indefinite time this first characteristic.
Perhaps it was during this very distant period that the three great types of the Negro, the Yellow, and the White were characterised.
The migratory and conquering instincts of man have brought about a meeting between these primary races, and consequently a crossing between them.
Since the appearance of mixed races, crossing itself has only acted under the domination of the conditions of life and heredity.
The great movements of nations have only taken place at long intervals, and as it were form so many crises. In the interval between these crises, the races which have been formed by the crossing have had time to settle and become uniform.
The consolidation of the mixed races, the relative uniformity of characters effected by the crossing, have taken place very slowly, in consequence of the absolute want of selection. Consequently every mixed race which has become uniform is also very ancient.
Human instincts have produced the mixture of mixed races, just as they have produced that of the primary races.