The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

All analogous interpretations are absolutely arbitrary. In fact, superiority between human groups depends essentially upon intellectual and social development; it passes from one to another. The Chinese and Egyptians were already civilized, when all Europeans were true savages. If the latter had judged our ancestors as we too frequently judge foreign races, they would have found many signs of inferiority in them, commencing with the white skin of which we are so proud, and which they would have been able to regard as betraying an irremediable degeneration.

Is the fundamental superiority of one race really betrayed outwardly by some material sign? We are still in ignorance upon this point. But when we examine it more closely, we are led to think that it is not so. In expressing myself thus, I know that I am separating myself from the opinions which are generally admitted, and am at variance with men whose works I value most highly. But I hope to give decisive proofs in my favour further on.

Differences of every kind nevertheless exist between one human group and another. These must be taken for what they are, for characters of race, for ethnical characters. It is the duty of the anthropologist especially to recognise these differences, to make use of them for defining the groups, then to connect or separate, according to their affinities, the races thus characterised. In other terms, his work is the same as that of the botanist or geologist describing and classifying plants and animals.

Men of an impatient or venturous disposition will perhaps reproach me with making anthropology too descriptive. I shall only make a partial defence against the accusation. Provided that the description embraces the entire being, it enables us to become acquainted with it. If we take our stand on this point of view, we remain on the ground of positive knowledge, and run less risk of losing ourselves in hypotheses.

I still consider it the right and almost the duty of the anthropologist, to investigate the causes which may have given rise to the appearance of the features which characterise races. The study of the actions of the conditions of life sometimes gives valuable indications on this subject. The evolution of the human being from his appearance in the embryonic state to the adult state, especially furnishes facts of great interest. A simple arrest, a slight excess in the evolutive phenomena, are, it appears to me, the causes of the principal differences which separate races, and particularly the two extremes, the Negro and the White.

I know full well that a wish has been felt to go further back. Under the more or less perceptible influence of transmutationist doctrines, terms of comparison in the estimation of these differences have too often been sought for among animals, and especially among apes. Eminent men, without even adopting these doctrines, frequently use the expressions, simian character, animal character. Why forget the embryo or the human fœtus? Why not remember even the infant? Question their history. It furnishes all the elements of a human evolution theory, certainly much more precise and true than the simian theory. This is again a result which will be made clear, I hope, by the facts which I shall have to mention.

But whether or not I may be able to explain the appearance of the features which distinguish races from each other, and whatever origin may be attributed to them, I shall only take the word character in the sense which is given to it in botany and zoology.

III. An animal species is not characterised solely by the peculiarities manifested by its physical organism. No history of bees or ants omits to speak of their instincts, or to show how these differ in different species. With much stronger reason ought we to point out in the history of human races the characteristic points in their intellectual, moral, and religious manifestations. Of course, when approaching this order of facts, the anthropologist ought none the less to remain exclusively a naturalist.

This very simple consideration is sufficient to determine the relative value which ought to be attributed in anthropology to characters of different orders. Here, as in botany and in zoology, the first place ought to be given to the most persistent characters. Now, a man, tribe, or an entire population can in a certain number of years change its social state, its language, religion, etc. They do not on that account modify their external or anatomical physical characters. It is therefore to the latter that the anthropologist will attach most importance, contrary to what the linguist, the philosopher, or the theologian would certainly do.