In anthropology, every solution to be sound, that is to say, true, should refer man in everything which is not exclusively human to the general recognised laws for other organised and living beings.
Every solution which makes or tends to make man an exception, by representing him as free from those laws which govern other organised and living beings, is unsound and false.
Again, when we reason and form our conclusions in this manner, we remain faithful to the mathematical method. To be received as true, a solution of a given problem must agree with admitted axioms, with truths previously proved. Every hypothesis which leads to results at variance with these axioms or these truths, is, on that account alone, declared false. In anthropology, the axiom or the truth which serves as a criterion is the fundamental, physical, and physiological identity of man with other living beings, with animals, with mammalia. All hypotheses at variance with this truth should be rejected.
Such are the absolute rules which have always acted as my guide in anthropological studies. I do not pretend to have invented them. I have scarcely done more than formulate what has been more or less explicitly admitted by Linnæus, Buffon, Lamarck, Blumenbach, Cuvier, the two Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, J. Müller, Humboldt, etc. But, on the one hand, my illustrious predecessors have seldom treated the subject with sufficient precision, and have too often omitted to give the reasons for their decisions. On the other hand these principles have been, and are daily forgotten by men who, in other respects, enjoy with justice the title of great authorities. As I shall be compelled to disagree with them, I thought it necessary to show clearly the general ideas which serve as a foundation for my own scientific convictions. The reader will thus be able to appreciate and discern the causes of this difference of opinion.
CHAPTER II.
GENERAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL DOCTRINES; MONOGENISM AND POLYGENISM.
I. As soon as we have determined the place which should be assigned to man in the great order of the universe, the first question which rises is, whether there is one human species, or several.
It is well known that this question has caused a division amongst anthropologists. The Polygenists regard the differences of height, features, and colour, which distinguish the inhabitants of different countries of the globe, as fundamental; the Monogenists consider these differences merely as the result of accidental conditions, which have modified, in various degrees, a primitive type. The former hold that there are several human species perfectly independent of each other; the latter that there is but one species of man which is divided into several races, all of which are derived from a common stock.
However slight may be our familiarity with the language of zoology and botany or their applications, it is evident that the question before us is a purely scientific one, and entirely within the province of the natural sciences. Unfortunately the discussion has by no means been confined to this ground.
A dogma supported by the authority of the Book which is held in almost equal respect by Christians, Jews and Mussulmans, has long referred the origin of all men without opposition to a single father and mother. Nevertheless, the first blow aimed at this ancient belief was founded upon the same book. In 1655 La Peyrère, a Protestant gentleman in Condé’s army, interpreting to the letter the two narratives of the creation contained in the Bible as well as various particulars in the history of Adam and of the Jewish nation, attempted to prove that the latter alone were descended from Adam and Eve; that they had been preceded by other men who had been created at the same time as the animals in all parts of the habitable globe; that the descendants of these Preadamites were identical with the Gentiles, who were always so carefully distinguished from the Jews. Thus we see that polygenism generally regarded as the result of Free Thought was biblical and dogmatic in origin.