CHAPTER XXXIII.
INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERS.
I. In this book I propose to give under a common title a concise examination of the characters due to intelligence, morality and religion. I shall thus, perhaps, be reproached with having connected too closely phenomena which, elsewhere, I have attributed to different causes, and consequently with having, apparently at least, contradicted myself. But, on the one hand, after what I have said upon this subject in the first chapter, there can be no doubt as to the manner in which I regard this question; and, on the other hand, intellectual phenomena acquire such a development in man, that sometimes they almost rise to the dignity of attributes, and therefore deserve to be placed by the side of phenomena which are entirely human.
II. In the preceding chapters we have reviewed physical man. But man is not merely a certain portion of organised and living matter like a plant. Besides this there is in man a something which feels, judges, reasons, and wills. This something, the origin and nature of which it is not the duty of the naturalist to discover, is manifested by actions and by facts. These facts differ in different human races. They may, they ought to be, looked upon as characters, equally with the actions of our animal races, such as the pointer, the greyhound, the terrier or the collie.
We shall see that, although approaching ground generally regarded as belonging by right to philosophy, anthropology does not on that account show any less respect for the domain of the latter. The philosopher is concerned with the distinction to be established between mind and matter, and with the discovery of the mysterious link which unites the physical with the intellectual being; the anthropologist with the investigation of the several manifestations resulting from this connection, and with the recognition of the distinctive characteristic marks of the groups which he is studying. The former goes back to causes; the latter confines himself to effects, and therefore does not exceed the limits of natural science.
For this very reason, in treating of man, we meet with a difficulty at starting, which has been already pointed out. When entering upon the examination of psychological facts, science has scarcely more than details to study, as in the examination of physiological characters. Here, as elsewhere, the conditions of life play a considerable part. If they exercise an influence upon the manifestations of organic life, they influence to an almost equal extent those actions which interpret the acting and reacting element in us. And not only does our intelligence conform to present conditions, but indefinitely multiplies their influence by accumulating and combining all anterior facts by means of memory, and imposes upon itself new conditions from which new phenomena incessantly result.
The study of intellectual characters must, therefore, for the most part be carried out by the detailed examination of races. Nevertheless, we may notice in passing the most general features of some races, if only in order to explain more fully the truth of the statements which have just been made.
III. Language. “Animals have voice, man alone has speech.” This truth, proclaimed by Aristotle, is universally accepted at the present day. Every one acknowledges that speech is one of the highest attributes of the human species. Languages, that is to say, the various forms assumed by speech among the different human races and their sub-divisions, have, on this account, a separate importance as differential characteristic facts.
Without being a linguist, the anthropologist can well avail himself of the results obtained by philology, and compare them with those obtained by the study of physical characters. When by two such different methods we arrive at the same conclusions, we are evidently very probably in the right.
While giving the detailed history of the different races in my course of lectures at the Paris Museum, I was often obliged to extend considerably the comparison which I have just mentioned. I have almost invariably found the most striking resemblance between descriptive philology and anthropology. When, as an exception to this rule, we find a want of resemblance, or, better still, a contrast, such as that which exists between the physical characters and the language of the Basques, when compared with the neighbouring population, the problem always, as in their case, presents special difficulties, from whatever point of view it is approached.