The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

In the first place, I might produce numerous quotations of the same nature in opposition to these assertions. I shall only recall the words of Wallace, speaking of the tribes in the midst of which he had lived. “Every individual,” he says, “scrupulously respects the rights of his neighbour, and these rights are but rarely infringed.” Is it possible to admit that this respect does not rest upon something analogous to that which we call morality. I shall, moreover, presently shew that this is really the case.

Again, Lubbock seems to have contradicted himself when pointing out in his book the small amount of real liberty enjoyed by savages. He represents them, correctly, as being the slaves of a multitude of customs, having the importance of laws, which rule all their actions. Now, amongst these customs, there are a great number which are at variance with the most natural passions, such as the instinct of reproduction, the choice of nourishment, etc. An infringement of these laws is followed by a punishment often terrible. Is it not evident that the greater number of them can only be based upon the more or less distinct idea of good and evil?

But the idea in question resembles mathematical formula. The result of the solution of a general equation varies with the data: and according to the latter may sometimes be represented by the sign plus, sometimes by the sign minus. So morality varies in its manifestations by virtue of innumerable circumstances which, again, originate in numerous causes. The same acts are often regarded as good, bad, or indifferent, according to the special organisation, the religion, or the traditions of the society in which they have occurred.

These acts do not, on this account, cease to belong to a faculty essentially human; and, whether of themselves, or from the idea with which they are connected in the different human groups, they furnish the naturalist with characters as true as those belonging to the intelligence.

This is still more certainly the case when institutions are produced by this order of facts and ideas. These sometimes present such a characteristic appearance, that at the first glance they seem to isolate a people or a race, and reflection is necessary to discover the true relations which unite the group by which this peculiarity is presented to other populations and races. The tabou of the Polynesians was long considered by many writers as something absolutely special, whilst in reality we meet with the civil tabou in every European nation, and the Mosaic law throughout is a tabou code based upon religion.

To arrive at the truth in this study we must approach it with perfect impartiality, with all the mental freedom which a zoologist brings to the examination of the physical characters of a mammal or bird. We must avoid judging foreign peoples whether civilized, barbarous, or savage, by our own fixed ideas. If we act differently, we only render ourselves liable to error and injustice. A momentary return to our own case, to the history of our race and our most advanced populations, is often useful in making us appreciate justly the moral characters of tribes and peoples which we are far too fond of representing to ourselves as occupying a position far below our own.

II. By using this precaution, and adhering to general facts, we can scarcely help being struck by the intimate resemblance which moral manifestations establish between all men, both in good and in evil; and, melancholy though the conclusion is, especially perhaps in the latter respect. For example, the infamous debauches of the Polynesian areoïs, the hideous vices of some American populations, have often been insisted upon. But let us not forget the orgies of Greece and Rome, certain haunts in our own great cities, and the terrible revelations which from time to time are made in the police courts of our proudest capitals.

Fundamentally, the White, even when civilized, from the moral point of view is scarcely better than the Negro, and too often, by his conduct in the midst of inferior races, has justified the argument opposed by a Malgache to a missionary, “Your soldiers seduce all our women you come to rob us of our land, pillage the country, and make war against us, and you wish to force your God upon us, saying that He forbids robbery, pillage, and war! Go, you are white upon one side and black upon the other; and if we were to cross the river, it would not be us that the caimans would take.”

Such is the criticism of a savage; the following is that of an European, of M. Rose, giving his opinion of his own countrymen: “The people are simple and confiding when we arrive, perfidious when we leave them. Once sober, brave and honest, we make them drunken, lazy, and finally thieves. After having innoculated them with our vices, we employ these very vices as an argument for their destruction.”

However severe these conclusions may appear, they are unfortunately true, and the history of the relations of Europeans with the populations which they have encountered in America, at the Cape, and in Oceania, justify them only too fully. As for Africa, it seems to me that the two words, trade and slavery, are quite sufficient to prevent a European from boasting too loudly of the morality of his race.