I might urge some objection against the first point, for it does not seem to me to be demonstrated, that in a mixture of very unequal proportions, the less numerous race exercises no influence upon the other race. I acknowledge, however, that this influence, if it exists, is sufficiently slight to be set aside.
The second point is much more serious, for if accepted without restriction, we must admit that eugenesic hybridity does not exist in mankind, and that all cross-breeds, whatever their origin, whether they are issued from nearly approaching or distant races, not merely the descendants of whites and negroes, but also of Celts and Kimris, are incapable of engendering a durable posterity. For my part, I believe that such is actually the case with certain mongrel-breeds; I believe that in the genus Homo, there are very unequal degrees of eugenesic hybridity; but after having recognised that eugenesic hybridity does exist between dog and wolf, hare and rabbit, goat and sheep, camel and dromedary, I am permitted to say that it also exists between certain races of men.
Among the facts quoted to prove the sterility of human cross-breeds, some are of great value: and we shall examine them in the sequel; others have been wrongly interpreted, while some are far from being exact. I have already pointed out a cause of error which was not taken into account, and which occurs frequently: it is the change of climate which alone is capable of sterilising a race transplanted into the midst of another race. Before attributing a defect of fecundity to the mixed descendants of an immigrant race, we must see whether in the same country the individuals of this race are more prolific in their direct alliances. It is known, for instance, that the Mamelukes, originating from the region of the Caucasus, have never taken root in Egypt, where, nevertheless, from 1250, the epoch of their advent, until 1811, the period of their extermination, their caste has always formed a notable part of the population. They could only maintain themselves by reinforcements which they annually received from the native country, and though not half a century has elapsed since the great massacre of Cairo, there remains no trace of them on the borders of the Nile. Such being the fact, it was concluded therefrom, that the descendants of the Mamelukes and the Egyptians were hybrids of little or no fecundity. Gliddon has thus interpreted it, and Pouchet has accepted that interpretation.[21] This, however, is not the real cause of the sterility of the Mamelukes in Egypt, and Volney, who, towards the end of the last century, has carefully observed and studied this race, offers the following remarks on them: “Seeing that they have existed in Egypt for centuries, one would be apt to believe that they have reproduced themselves by the ordinary process of breeding; but if their first settlement is a curious fact, their perpetuation is not less so. For five centuries there have been Mamelukes in Egypt, yet not one of them has left a subsisting line: there exists not one family of the second generation, all their children perish in the first or second generation. The Ottomans are nearly in the same condition, and it is observed that they only preserve themselves from the same fate by marrying indigenous females—what the Mamelukes have always disdained. (The wives of the Mamelukes were, like their slaves, imported from Georgia, Mongrelia, etc.) Let it now be explained why well formed men, married to healthy women, cannot naturalise on the borders of the Nile a blood formed at the foot of the Caucasus! We are at the same time reminded that European plants equally refuse to perpetuate their species in that locality.”[22] Despite the precision of this passage, many Mamelukes no doubt took wives and numerous concubines from the indigenous population. It is difficult to believe that it could have been otherwise, and Gliddon had a right to say, that if the offspring of the two races had been prolific, there would inevitably have been produced in Egypt a mixed race. But the fact revealed by Volney, which is perfectly authentic, still maintains its force, namely, that the Mamelukes, by the simple fact of change of country, had lost the power of engendering with the women of their own race, a prolific posterity; hence, nothing proves that the sterility of their offspring depended on the influence of hybridity, but rather on the influence of climate.
It is not our purpose successively to review all particular intermixtures produced in human races, or to determine the degree of the fecundity of the hybrids resulting from it.
To demonstrate that eugenesic hybridity really exists, one instance is sufficient, provided it be conclusive; and to find this example we need not travel beyond our country. The population of France, as we have amply established elsewhere, is descended from several very distinct races, and presents everywhere the character of mixed races. The pure representatives of the primitive races form a very small minority; nevertheless, this hybrid nation, so far from decaying, in accordance with the theory of Mr. Gobineau; far from presenting a decreasing fecundity, according to some other authors, grows every day in intelligence, prosperity, and numbers. Ever since the revolution has broken the last obstacle which opposed themselves to the mixture of races, and despite of the gigantic wars which during twenty-five years mowed down the élite of its male population, France has seen the number of its inhabitants increase by more than one-third; this is not a symptom of decay. Dr. Knox, in his curious essay on the Races of Men (London, 1850), has thought proper to utter, in relation to the French, some hard truths: and also some calumnies, which we shall put to the account of his patriotism. Mr. Knox has accorded to the French nation an increasing physical prosperity, and as this side of the question is the only one which occupies us here, we might dispense with any other testimony. That learned author thought what he said about the French applied exclusively to the Celtic race; he supposed that upon our soil there were nought but pure Celts, and that the other ethnological elements have not in any degree modified the character of the old Gallic race. I have refuted this assertion at some length in my Mémoire sur l’Ethnologie de la France, and Dr. Knox,[23] in praising in his own manner the Celtic race, has not perceived that unconsciously, and contrary to his own system, he wrote the apology of a strongly mixed race. But the partisans of this system will doubtless say that, on the whole, the mixed Kimro-Celtic race, which now inhabits France, does not subsist by itself; that the two parent races, the Celts and the Kimris, one of which predominates in the north-east, the other in the north-west, the south and the centre, persist, almost pure, in their respective regions, and that the mixed race only maintains itself by recruiting themselves incessantly in these vivacious foci. My reply to this is, that the individuals perfectly representing the Celtic or Kimri type are infinitely rarer than the rest, even in the departments where history or observation demonstrates that the influence of one of these races is altogether preponderant. They are especially rare in the districts of the intermediary zone, which I have termed Kimro-Celtic, and where the two chief races have originally become intermixed in nearly equal proportions. Finally, in these latter departments, where the intermixture has been strongest, the population is neither less handsome, nor less robust or prolific than in the others. As regards the vigour of the constitution, I have consulted in the registers for recruiting the special list of exemptions on account of infirmities, that is, for other physical causes than stature. I have found that, other circumstances being equal, there are as many infirm in 1000 conscripts in the purest departments, as in the mixed districts. I cannot here dwell any longer upon this proposition, of which I have given a rigorous demonstration in my Mémoire sur l’Ethnologie de la France.
There remains now the question of fecundity. The causes which determine the increase or the decay of a population are so multifarious, and for the most part so foreign to ethnological influences, that we cannot without committing grave errors, estimate the degree of fecundity of different races, in comparing for each of them, the number of births and deaths. It appears, nevertheless, very probable that all the races are not equally prolific, and the mind easily perceives that there must be between them notable differences. It is, therefore, unnecessary that in order a mixture should be eugenesic the fecundity of the cross-breed should be absolutely equal to that of individuals of pure blood. Had it been demonstrated by strict numbers, that a mixed race, by the simple fact of intermixture breeds less rapidly than the two parent races, and were it demonstrated that it presents a greater number of cases of sporadic sterility, it would by no means result from it that this mixed race is incapable of maintaining itself and increasing by itself. The intermixture would cease to be eugenesic if the fact of sterility became sufficiently general to render the births diminishing with every new generation, so that at length the gaps caused by death could no longer be filled and the race would prove inevitably destined, sooner or later, to become extinct. Thus, even if it were demonstrated that the offspring of an intermixture between Celts and Kimris are somewhat less prolific than the ancestors of the pure races, and that the mixed populations increased less rapidly than the others; the Kimro-Celtic hybridity would not on that account cease to be eugenesic, provided the relative sterility did not descend beneath the degree when the sterility becomes absolute, that is to say, when the fecundity becomes insufficient. But the departments in which history and ethnology prove that the intermixture has been pushed to the extreme point, the population far from having diminished, has increased since the revolution, namely, since the establishment of new territorial divisions, as rapidly as in the rest of France, and it appears to me as certain that the intermixture of Kimris and Celts either between themselves, or with the Romans and Germans, constitute examples of eugenesic hybridity.
We must, however, take care not to imitate the paradoxical reasoning of our adversaries, and because some crossings of certain races are eugenesic, to conclude, à priori, that all the other intermixtures are equally so. The study of hybridity in birds and quadrupeds has taught us that we can never know with certainty, before making the experiment, what will be the result of crossing. Neither must we forget that the ethnological facts which have served us as examples apply to the intermixture of races distinct, no doubt, but nearly related in many respects. The mixture of races more distant from each other, is it equally prolific, and are the descendants eugenesic? This is the question we now intend to examine.