The fecundity of Mulattoes is not touched in this passage, not having been the subject of discussion. The question merely was whether the prevalent opinion, that intermixture of improved races physically, intellectually, and morally, was in accordance with well observed facts. Hence, M. Boudin confined his observations to the limited intelligence exhibited by the Mulattoes issued from the union of the Dutch of Java with the Malay women. But in his Treatise on Medical Geography,[36] he expresses, with regard to the Mulattoes, an opinion that they are not productive beyond the third generation. This fact, announced by Dr. Yvan, which is confirmed by other testimonies, has not been contested. Waitz borrows from Graf Görtz some particulars which are not without interest.
“The Lipplappen,” he says (this is the name of the Mulattoes of Java), “do not breed beyond the third generation. Flabby and weakly, they become developed up to the fifteenth year, when the development is arrested. At the third generation, girls only are born, which are sterile.[37] This phase of sterility is very curious, and deserves well the attention of physiologists.”
It is, however, necessary to inquire whether the sterility of the Lipplappen depends upon intermixture or upon other causes. The climate of the islands of the Sunda straits is very injurious to Europeans. The Dutch do not perpetuate their race at Batavia; and even without intermarrying with the natives they become sometimes sterile at the second generation.[38] The sterility of the natives may, then, be attributed to the climate. These results, moreover prove, from a verbal communication of Dr. Yvan to M. de Quatrefages, that in other Dutch colonies of the Great Indian Archipelago, the Mulattoes are prolific.[39] It is thus not demonstrated that the sterility of the Lipplappen is the result of their hybridity.
M. de Quatrefages, in order to explain the difference of results produced by the intermixture of the Dutch and the Malays at Java, and other Dutch colonies, supposes that this difference is due to the influence of mediums. This is possible; but there are other influences which must be taken into account, namely, the numerical proportion of either of the two races who intermarry. Where the Europeans are few in number, the Mulattoes of the first degree are also very few; those who intermarry between themselves are still less numerous, and the rest ally themselves with the parent stock, chiefly with the indigenous race, which is preponderating. Where, on the contrary, the European population is considerable, the Mulattoes of the first degree are sufficiently numerous to constitute a sort of intermediate caste, which, without altogether escaping a recrossing, contract nearly all their alliances with their equals.[40] In the first case, most individuals of mixed blood approximate more to the indigenous race than to the foreign; that is to say, that the Mulattoes of the second, third degree, etc., are much more numerous than the Mulattoes of the first degree. But in proportion as a recrossing is effected, the influence of hybridity diminishes, and becomes effaced. In the second case, on the contrary, the greater part of the Mulattoes are of the first degree,[41] and, much more than the rest, subject to the influence of hybridity; and if it be true that hybridity causes a diminution of fecundity, it is easily understood that the prolificness must vary according to the relative proportion of the two races. Now, Batavia is the great centre of the population of the India Archipelago; there the Europeans are most numerous; it is chiefly there that the Lipplappen form a distinct class, and it is precisely there that their defective prolificness is found. I do not pretend to say that this interpretation is perfectly correct; I merely advance it as an hypothesis to be verified. Here, however, we have a fact which may enhance its value. I borrow it from the work of Prof. Waitz. It is known that a large number of Chinese are found in the eastern and western isles of the Indian Archipelago. They are relatively less numerous in Java and Sumatra, where their commerce cannot sustain the competition with the Dutch. “The descendants of the Chinese and the Malay women in the eastern islands of the Indian Archipelago,” says Waitz, “soon become extinct; whilst at Java, where the pure Chinese are few in number. The Malay-Chinese Mulattoes amount to 200,000.”[42]
If the defective fecundity of the Lipplappen of Java is due to the deleterious influence of climate, it is very difficult to attribute the great prolificness of the Malay-Chinese to the benignity of the same climate. Moreover, the more eastern islands, where the latter Mulattoes do not thrive, are more unhealthy than Java. There seems, therefore to result, from the facts quoted by Waitz, that the Malay-Chinese thrive where the Chinese are few in number, and that they decay where the Chinese are numerous; that is to say, that the fecundity of the hybrid population augments in proportion as the conditions favourable to a return crossing with the Malay race are present. This amounts to the same thing, namely, that the Mulattoes of the second, third, and fourth degree are more prolific than those of the first, which certainly corresponds with the laws of hybridity among animals. These facts, however, require to be verified and completed before they can serve as a basis to arrive at a definite conclusion.[43]
These examples of the Mulattoes of Malasia, which we accept with reserve, tend to demonstrate that the results of intermixture do not exclusively depend on the degree of proximity of race; for there is certainly a less zoological distance between the Chinese and the Malays, and between the Malays and the Dutch, than between the African Negroes and the South Europeans. Yet the Mulattoes of the French, Portuguese, and Spanish colonies seem gifted with a much greater prolificacy than the Dutch or Chinese Mulattoes of Malasia. It is besides known that in Mexico and South America the union of the indigenous population between the Portuguese or the Spaniards has, in many localities, produced Mulattoes, the race of which seems to perpetuate itself.[44]
In investigating hybridity in animals, we have found that homœogenesis is not always exactly proportional to the degree of proximity of species; we would especially point out that the chabeins, or hybrids of the goat and the sheep, are superior to the mules of the ass and the mare, though there is a greater difference between goats and sheep than between the horse and the ass.[45] It is not less true that in general, though with some exceptions, the results of intermixture are more defective in proportion as the species are more distant from each other. This leads us to study human hybridity in such regions where the most elevated races have come into contact with the most inferior races. What are the two races forming the extremes of the human species? Several English authors express the conviction that the Anglo-Saxon, or rather the Germanic race, to which they belong, is the first race of humanity. M. Alex. Harvey is even pleased to believe that Providence has created it to rule all the rest.[46] Patriotism is a virtue which is entitled to our esteem. We shall, therefore, not attempt diminishing the satisfaction of our allies across the straits, and we shall, at any rate, acknowledge that the race which has produced a Leibnitz and a Newton is inferior to none.