The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

V. I have just closed the statement of the most general questions raised by the history of the human race.

The principal point to determine is the unity or the multiplicity of the species. There are some anthropologists, even men of high distinction, who regard it as almost an idle question, as merely a question of dogma or of philosophy. Nevertheless, a little reflection is sufficient to make it intelligible, that the science is entirely changed according as it is regarded from a monogenist’s or a polygenist’s point of view. I have already pointed out this fact; and beg permission to return to it in a few words.

After the fundamental question of unity comes that of antiquity. This is put similarly in the two doctrines. But the problem is simple and absolute for the monogenist, but multiple and relative for the polygenist.

The question of the place of origin, which next presents itself, only exists in reality for the believer in the specific unity of human groups. The doctrine of autochthonism, though greatly multiplying the question, reduces it to very simple terms, since it declares that all the populations were born upon the spot whose foreign origin it does not establish, and only admits movements of expansion.

For the polygenist the general question of migrations does not exist. For particular cases autochthonism supplies everything. He who regards the Polynesians as having appeared on the islands of the Pacific has not to seek whence they might have come.

The question of acclimatisation for the polygenist is reduced to a small number of facts almost exclusively modern, human populations being in his eyes naturally formed for living under the conditions of life in which they were born.

The question of the formation of races disappears entirely for the polygenist, since the different species admitted by him have appeared with all the characters which distinguish the different human groups. At most he has to concern himself with the results of some modern crossings which are too evident to be denied.

The question of primitive man does not exist for the polygenist, since he recognizes all his species with the characters which they have had from the commencement.

No one, I think, will dispute the truth of these propositions, which compel the conclusion that anthropology is an entirely different science to the monogenist and the polygenist.