CHAPTER IX.
SYSTEM.
All science leads necessarily to a system; and system signifies here, not the proceeds of observation or a route followed by analysis or synthesis in order to arrive at the knowledge of the truth. System here means, a mode of classifying beings or observed facts, a mode essentially in connection with the science which treats of these beings or of these facts, and often applicable to itself alone.
A perfect system can only be really established à posteriori, after the knowledge has been acquired of all the phenomena which are to be classed. This is absolute. In practice, a system can only be observed à priori, by reference to a certain number of facts which it is destined afterwards to embrace; it is only true that the more facts we acquire, the more chance has a system of being exact, without our ever having the right of proclaiming it to be absolutely good; it may be satisfactory, and remain so for a long time, but one fine day a new fact may prove it to be false. “I am of opinion,” said Étienne Geoffroy, “that a perfect system cannot exist; it is a sort of philosopher’s stone, impossible to be discovered.”[327]
A science being given, it does not at all follow that there already exists a proper method for classifying in a natural series the phenomena which manifest themselves to us in this branch of human knowledge. If we have not yet succeeded in discovering a true anthropological system, if Camper, Prichard, and Morton have been foiled, it is because the science of mankind is still too new.
Even in making an abstract of the difficulties always to be found in determining every animal species, difficulties which are derived from the way in which we understand its evolution,[328] must we be astonished that the human race is not yet divided into distinct groups, when animals, much more easy to class on account of their lesser degree of intellectual and social activity, are not yet classed in a satisfactory manner,[329] when the Geoffroys, Cuvier, and De Blainville have failed in something or other, since this question seems still worthy of examination by the greatest minds of Europe with which the natural sciences are honoured at the present day? The natural history of man is of to-day, and the difficulties are great, because by virtue of his intellect man possesses resistance and special affinity. Living by nations, he lives a double life; his own, and that of the nation—which is a separate thing—into which a neighbouring race or species can enter wholly, adopting the same customs, the same dress, and the same language. There are difficulties which we meet with in anthropology, and which we only meet with there. A species has been known to disappear, for instance, and has left its name to some group entirely different from it, for if the Ethnic name has served at the origin to name the inhabited country, the geographical name has reacted in its turn, and has imposed itself on all the people who have successively occupied the same area. Other difficulties will arise from regions inhabited by distinct species, if these limits are not marked by some physical barrier almost impossible to be passed.
Thus we are far, even at the present day, from agreeing about the bases of a good anthropological classification. Many methods have been tried, but none have as yet succeeded. Some have adopted geographical division. Others, the colour of the skin. Others, the state of the hair. Others (the most numerous class), have stopped at the shape of the head. The skull has chiefly exercised the sagacity of anatomists and anthropologists, and we can say fairly that there is no combination to which it has not been submitted in order to arrive at the distribution of mankind into natural groups. We must remark that all these cranioscopic classifications rest involuntarily upon this datum, that the different kinds of men are unequally endowed with intellect. Starting, then, from this principle, that the volume of the brain is in ratio to intelligence, or that intellect is in ratio to the volume of the brain, people tried to find a simple, rather than an easy, method of taking account of such an irregular solid: and Camper opened the way with his famous angle.
This system was soon followed by others who are less celebrated, having come after him. We may quote, among others, the interior angle of Walther, described by two lines, the one going from the occipital protuberance to the crista galli process, the other from the frontal prominence to the root of the nose. There is also the external angle of Mulders, described by the facial line of Camper, and another line going from the base of the process to the root of the nose. And, lastly, that of Daubenton, described by a line going from the inferior margin of the orbit to the posterior region of the occipital orifice, and by another following the direction of the plane of the same.[330] All these systems are worth as much as Camper’s. All, including Camper’s, are false and worthless, from the mere fact that they pretend to measure a solid by the inclination of two of its boundary-planes one upon the other. After these methods of measurement, and superior to all of them, comes the norma verticalis of Blumenbach; then the measurements of Cuvier, Owen, etc. Here we gain a step; we endeavour to measure a solid by its outline, or by the area of a systematic division or section. Already had Camper, better gifted than his angle would inform us, endeavoured to compare the different diameters of the profile of the skull, as seen in front.[331] As to Cuvier’s division, it is a very happy modification of a former proposed measurement, the incisive-occipital line of Doornick. It is obtained by lowering a vertical line to the plane of the external auditory orifice, and by leading another line from the incisors to the extreme protuberance of the occipital region. The relation of the two determinated divisions in this line by its intersection with the first, will give the statistics of comparison.[332]
Progress has been immense, and yet our systems remain very unsatisfactory; the skull seems to escape every method of measurement. Some time ago a meeting of craniologists took place at Gottingen, and yet the learned assembly was obliged to separate without settling anything.[333] It seems that the old saying of Bernard Palissy about measuring some peculiar skull, will remain true in spite of all our efforts: “I have never known how to obtain a correct measurement.”[334] Another method is that of Morton, to which he has attached his name by the multiplicity of facts which he has drawn, from it, by the justice of the views which he has expressed, after having used it thousands of times; we speak of the direct measurement of the interior capacity of the skull. It is for ever to be regretted that Morton finished his laborious career without having been able to publish the ultimate results of his long researches; but this method (which M. Broca has actively applied), is, however, not quite perfect. If there was merely a difference among the different races in the amount of intellect shown in their works, this measurement would be sufficient to establish a division; but there is more than that; all races have different aptitudes, and here is to be found the fault of Morton’s system, which only takes the whole, which makes no distinction between very different skulls if they have the same volume, like those of the Esquimaux, for instance, and those of Americans. The subject of measurement differs, like intellect, otherwise than merely in dimension, and that which craniology wants is the definition of all these special tendencies of the intellect by as many tangible varieties as possible.[335]