The Human Race

by Louis Figuier

We mean by species, when applied either to animals or vegetables, the fundamental type, and by variety or race the different beings which result from the influence of climate, of nutriment, and of mixture with individuals of the same species. The species dog gives birth to the varieties or races known under the names of bull-dog, spaniel, mastiff, &c. The species horse gives birth to the races or varieties known under the names of the Arabian, English, Normandy, Corsican, &c. The species turkey produces the varieties known as the wild turkey, the black and the white turkey. In the vegetable kingdom, the cotton plant species produces the American and the Indian cotton; the bramble produces the innumerable varieties which are known to us as rose-trees.

But, the reader will say, how are we to distinguish race from species, and does there exist any practical means of deciding whether the animal under consideration belongs to a species or a race? We reply that such a means does exist, which enables us to speak with certainty in every case. It is of importance that this should be made known in order that every one may test it for himself.

Take the two animals in question, unite them, and if that connexion of the sexes results in the production of another individual, capable of reproduction, this will indicate race or variety. If, however, the union of the two individuals is unproductive, or the offspring is itself barren, this will indicate two individuals of different species.

In spite of observations and experiments made in the course of many thousand years, reproduction has never been procured by mixture of a rabbit with a hare, a wolf with a dog, a sheep with a goat. It is true that hybrids are obtained between the horse and she-ass, and between the ass and the mare, but it is well known that the individuals produced by this mixture, namely, the quadrupeds termed mules, are barren animals, incapable of reproduction with one another.

This rule is not confined to the animal kingdom, but it obtains also among vegetables. You can obtain artificial production from a pear tree by applying, with suitable precautions, the pollen of the flowers of one pear tree to the stamens of those of another. Fruit will be formed, and the seed which that produces will in its turn be productive. But if you attempt to perform the same operation between a pear tree and an apple tree, you will obtain no result whatever. This, again, is the practical method which enables botanists to distinguish varieties from species. The test of artificial fecundation between one plant and another, which it is desired to distinguish as regards their species, serves to solve the difficulties which are met in attempting to determine the position of a plant in botanical classification.

The word species therefore is not a fictitious term, a conventional expression invented by the learned to designate the classifications of living beings. A species is a group arranged by Nature herself. Fruitfulness or barrenness in the products of the mixture are the characteristics which Nature attaches to variety or to species; those groups therefore appear to us as though they had a substantial foundation in the laws which govern living beings, and we do but render in speech what we observe in Nature.

When, moreover, we reflect, we easily understand that if Nature had not instituted species the most complete disorder would have reigned throughout living creation. By intermixture the animal kingdom would have been overrun by mongrels who would have confused every type, thus permitting of no discernment in this crowd of incoherent products. The whole animal kingdom would have been given over to inextricable confusion. In like manner, if plants had been capable of infinite variety through the mixture of different species, brought about by the industry of man, or by the effect of the wind bearing through the air the fertilizing pollen, there would be nought but trouble and disorder among the vegetable population of the globe.

Species therefore has a necessary, providential, and fixed existence. Impossibility of union is the distinctive qualification which nature assigns to this group of living beings. Reproduction is possible only between members of the same species, and the differences produced in their offspring by the soil, nutriment and surrounding circumstances, determine what we call race, or variety.

The principle which we have just enunciated, will in its application to man enable us to decide whether the individuals that people the globe, belong to different species of men, or simply to races or varieties; in other words, whether the human species is unique, and whether the different human types known to us, the white, black, yellow, brown and red-man, belong or not to races of the human species.

The reply to this question will doubtless have been anticipated. If we apply the rule stated above, all men that inhabit the globe belong to one and the same species, since it is a fact that men and women, whatever be their colour, can marry, and their offspring is always reproductive. The Negro and white female by their union produce mulattoes; mulattoes and mulattresses are reproductive, as are also their descendants—marriages between members of the red or brown races are fruitful, and, what is more, the fecundity of the descendants of mongrels is superior to that of men and women of the same colour.