The ferment provoked by the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species profoundly affected, as was natural, the nascent science of Anthropology. At the meeting of the British Association in Nottingham in 1866 Dr. James Hunt read an address before the Anthropological Department to show that “the recent application of Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis of ‘natural selection’ to anthropology by some of Mr. Darwin’s disciples is wholly unwarranted either by logic or by facts.”[[45]] In this address he said that he still believed the deduction he had made three years previously—“that there is as good reason for classifying the negro as a distinct. species from the European as there is for making the ass a distinct species from the zebra; and if, in classification, we take intelligence into consideration, there is a far greater difference between the negro and the European than between the gorilla and chimpanzee.” He insisted that “anthropologists are bound to take the totality of the characteristics of the different types of man into consideration. “It is to be regretted, however,” Dr. Hunt continues, “that there are many writers in Germany who have recently written as though the question of man’s place in nature were settled”; but he is delighted to find that “Professor Carl Vogt is doing all he can to show the fallacy of the unity hypothesis.” He quotes Professor Vogt as saying: “This much is certain, that each of these anthropoid apes has its peculiar characters by which it approaches man.... If, in the different regions of the globe, anthropoid apes may issue from different stocks, we cannot see why these different stocks should be denied further development into the human type, and that only one stock should possess this privilege. The further we go back in history the greater is the contrast between individual types, the more opposed are the characters.”
[45]. Anth. Rev., iv., 320.
The controversies and discussions of this period were not confined to those who had technical knowledge or scientifically trained minds. All sorts of people joined in the fray, mainly because they fancied that the new ideas were subversive of “revealed religion”; but it would serve no useful purpose to recall the false statements and bitter expressions that were bandied about. Some had merely a sentimental objection to the doctrine of evolution; but at the present day most people would subscribe to the declaration of Broca, who wrote: “Quant à moi, je trouve plus de gloire à monter qu’à descendre et si j’admettais l’intervention des impressions sentimentales dans les sciences, je dirais que j’aimerais mieux être un singe perfectionné qu’un Adam dégénéré.”[[46]]
[46]. Mémoires d’Anthropologie, iii., p. 146.
The Negro’s Place in Nature.
Another controversy, which, though mainly political in origin, cleft the ranks of the anthropologists, arose from the slavery question. Clarkson had started his agitation for the abolition of the slave trade about 1782, and during the early years of the nineteenth century many unsuccessful attempts were made to bring the system to an end in America. In 1826 over a hundred anti-slavery societies were in existence, mainly in the middle belt of the States, while the Cotton States were equally unanimous and vehement in opposition. Feeling naturally ran high; riots, murders, lynchings, raids, and general lawlessness characterised the agitation on both sides, and added fuel to the flames which finally dissolved the Union in 1860. At home the question was hotly debated, and popular feeling was excited by the speeches of Clarkson and Wilberforce, and, most of all, by the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). Being mainly a question of race, Anthropology was soon implicated, monogenists and polygenists naturally ranked themselves on opposite sides, and the Ethnological Society became a strong partisan of the philanthropists and abolitionists.
In the midst of the excitement James Hunt, Honorary Fellow of the Ethnological Society and President of the newly formed Anthropological Society, read (1863) his paper on “The Negro’s Place in Nature.”[[47]] In this he carefully examined all the evidence on the subject, physical and psychical, and arrived at the conclusion that “the negro is intellectually inferior to the European, and that the analogies are far more numerous between the ape and negro than between the ape and the European”; moreover, that “the negro becomes more humanised when in his natural subordination to the European than under any other circumstances,” “that the negro race can only be humanised and civilised by Europeans,” and “that European civilisation is not suited to the negro’s requirements or character.” An abstract of the paper was read by Dr. Hunt at the meeting of the British Association at Newcastle, 1863, where the presence of an eloquent coloured speaker enlivened the subsequent discussion.[[48]] A tremendous outcry greeted the publication of this paper, and tightened the tension on the already strained relations between the two societies. Fierce denunciations from Exeter Hall and the “broad-brimmed school of philanthropists” were matched by equally vehement applause from the opposing camp. When Dr. Hunt died, a few years later, the following obituary notice, extracted from a New York paper, appeared in the Anthropological Review,[[49]] under the heading “Death of the Best Man in England”:—
[47]. Mem. Anth., I., p. i.
[48]. Anth. Rev., i., p. 386.
[49]. January, 1870, p. 97.