The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

On the other hand, the very names which I have just mentioned, especially those of Ghanata, Sonrhaï and Melle, with which Barth has made us acquainted, suffice to prove that the most strongly characterized Negro, the typical Negro, has the power of raising himself to a considerably advanced social condition. It has been said, that, without being a savage, he has remained a barbarian, as was the case with our German or Gaulish ancestors. This view is not a just one; the Negro has risen much higher. The annals of Amed Baba show that in the Middle Ages the basin of the Niger contained empires very little inferior in many respects to European kingdoms of the same epoch.

As to the Yellow races, it will be sufficient to remember that the whole of the Aryan race was plunged in barbarism at the time when China was acquainted with the calendar, had determined the form of the earth, and recognised the flattening of the poles, had woven materials in silk, and possessed a coinage.

XI. Ought we to conclude from these and from many analogous facts which I cannot quote, that there exists a perfect equality between human races, that they all possess the same aptitudes, and can all rise, in every respect, to the same degree of intellectual development? Not so, for this would be a departure from the truth, and an evident exaggeration. Here, again, we must return to the comparison of man with animals. Does it follow that, because all the races of dogs belong to one and the same species, they all have the same aptitudes? Will a hunter choose indifferently a setter, or a blood-hound to use as a pointer or in the chase? Will he consider the street-cur as of equal value with either of these pure-breeds? Clearly not. Now we must never forget that, while superior to animals and different to them in many respects, man is equally subject to all the general laws of animal nature. The law of heredity is one of those from which he cannot escape, and it is this law which, under the influence of the conditions of life, fashions races and makes them what they are.

When centuries have passed over a group of men, when from generation to generation, and under the influence of certain physical, intellectual and moral conditions, the whole being has contracted a certain habit, we cannot form any definite idea as to what length of time and what fresh circumstances would be necessary to efface this impression and form the race anew. In any case, it can only rise by undergoing modifications, and this fact alone produces a new or a derived race.

The result of all the conditions by which races have been formed has been to establish between them a present inequality which it is impossible to deny. Such, however, is the exaggeration into which negrophiles by profession have fallen, when they maintain that the Negro in former ages, and in his present condition, is the equal of the White. A single fact will be a sufficient answer to them.

The discoveries of Barth have placed beyond a shadow of doubt the existence of a political history among the Negroes, which had previously been a matter of doubt. But this very fact alone only serves to place in still stronger relief the absence of that intellectual history which is demonstrated by a general progressive movement, by literary, architectural and artistic monuments. The Negro race, left to itself, has produced nothing of this kind. An attempt has been made, in order to disguise this too manifest inferiority, to refer to the Negro race those peoples of black colour, who can only be said to be connected with it by crosses in which the superior blood predominates.

XII. Must we therefore pass to the opposite extreme, and admit that there are races radically incapable of elevating themselves above the social condition in which their ancestors have lived? This question has often been proposed, and has been answered in two different ways.

The attempt has been made, by means of a certain number of facts taken from America and Oceania, as well as from Africa, to show that certain human populations were irrevocably destined to a savage condition. The upholders of this opinion have chiefly quoted as examples the indigenous inhabitants of North America and Australia. Yet whoever will consider the matter from an unprejudiced point of view, will see at once, sometimes in the very facts brought forward by those who depreciate them, a clear proof that, placed in favourable conditions, these races would be able to raise themselves far above the condition in which we have found them, and would, in some respects at least, very quickly reach our level.

As far as the Red-Skins and the allied groups are concerned all doubt has been dissipated by the great work of Schoolcraft, and several reports since published.