Polygenism seems to simplify the science in a singular manner; it will be said that it suppresses its most apparent difficulties. In reality it only does so by veiling or denying them, and thus conduces to inaccuracy. At the same time it gives rise to others, which, although less easily perceived, are nevertheless more important, for they are essentially of a physiological nature, and cannot be solved by the general laws of physiology.
Monogenism seems at first to complicate and multiply the problems. In reality it only states them clearly. By that very means, it causes the necessity of long and persevering studies to be felt, which it rewards from time to time with great discoveries. It has required almost a century and the combined efforts of travellers, geographers, physicians, linguists, and anthropologists to establish the origin of the Polynesians, to follow their migrations, and to determine the date of them. But when this work is once set on the right track, human history is found to be enriched by a magnificent page, which gives another testimony to the intelligent activity of the human race and its conquests over nature.
BOOK VIII.
FOSSIL HUMAN RACES.
CHAPTER XXV.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
I. Tertiary man is only known to us from a few faint traces of his industry. Of tertiary man himself we know nothing. Portions of his skeleton have been discovered from time to time, it has been thought, in France, Switzerland, and especially in Italy. Closer study has, however, always forced us to refer to a comparatively much later period these human remains, which, at first sight, were regarded as tertiary.
It is different with quaternary man. We have much better and more precise information about him than about many existing races. The caves which he inhabited, those in which he buried his dead, and the alluvial deposits formed by rivers, which have borne away his corpses, have preserved numerous bones for our study. As many as forty different places in all, especially in the western portion of Europe, have supplied our museums with as many as forty skulls, more or less intact, and numerous fragments of the cranium and face, which science has been able to utilize, as well as a great number of the bones of the trunk and limbs, and even some entire skeletons. The most remarkable specimen, freed from the earth which covered it, but still left in its place, was brought from Mentone by M. Rivière and is now to be seen in the Anthropological Gallery of the Paris Museum.
Such is the accumulation of facts, already very considerable, which M. Hamy and I have consulted in arranging the first part of our Crania-Ethnica. The importance of the skull in anthropology is well known. It is of itself sufficient to furnish the principal elements of the distinction of human races. The study and comparison of quaternary skulls enables us, therefore, to form a tolerably definite conception of these ancient populations, of the principal relations and most striking differences which, from this period, have distinguished human groups. The examination of the bones of the trunk and limbs tends, moreover, to confirm the results furnished by that of the skull. Thus we feel ourselves justified in expressing the hope that the future, by completing our work in many respects, by modifying it perhaps in others, and by filling up gaps in it, will at least confirm the essential conclusions.