Man and His Migrations

by R. G. Latham

“————— the spacious West
And all the teeming regions of the South,
Hold not a quarry, to the curious flight
Of Knowledge half so tempting or so fair,
As Man to Man.”

His tract was an Inaugural Dissertation, and I merely mention it because it was written by Hunter, and dedicated to Robertson.

Cuvier, in his Règne Animal, gives at considerable length the anthropological characteristics of Man, and places him as the only species of the genus Homo, the only genus of the order Bimana = two-handed; the apes being Quadrumana = four-handed. This was the great practical recognition of Man in his zoological relations.

In respect to the Ethnology, the classification of Blumenbach was modified—and that by increasing its generality. The absolute primary divisions were reduced to three—the Malay and the American being—not without hesitation—subordinated to the Mongolian. Meanwhile, an additional prominence was given to the group which contained the Australians of Australia, and the Papuans of New Guinea. Instead, however, of being definitely placed, it was left for further investigation.

The abuse of the term Caucasian was encouraged. Blumenbach had merely meant that his favourite specimen had exhibited the best points in the greatest degree. Cuvier speaks of traditions that ascribe the origin of mankind to the mountain-range so-called—traditions of no general diffusion, and of less ethnological value.

The time is now convenient for taking a retrospective view of the subject in certain other of its branches. Colour, hair, skin, bone, stature—all these are points of physical conformation or structure; material and anatomical; points which the callipers or the scalpel investigates. But colour, hair, skin, bone, and stature, are not the only characteristics of man; nor yet the only points wherein the members of his species differ from each other. There is the function as well as the organ; and the parts of our body must be considered in regard to what they do as well as with reference to what they are. This brings in the questions of the phænomena of growth and decay,—the average duration of life,—reproduction, and other allied functions. This, the physiological rather than the purely anatomical part of the subject, requires a short notice of its own. A priori, we are inclined to say that it would be closely united, in the practice of investigation, with what it is so closely allied as a branch of science. Yet such has not been exactly the case. The anatomists were physiologists as well; and when Blumenbach described a skull, he, certainly, thought about the power, or the want of power, of the brain which it contained. But the speculators in physiology were not also anatomists. Such speculators, however, there were. An historian aspires to philosophy. There are some facts which he would account for; others on which he would build a system. Hot climates favour precocity of the sexual functions. They also precipitate the decay of the attractions of youth. Hence, a woman who is a mother at twelve has outgrown her beauty at twenty. From this it follows that mental power and personal attractions become, necessarily, disunited. Hence the tendency on the part of the males to take wives in succession; whereby polygamy is shown to have originated in a law of nature.

I do not ask whether this is true or false. I merely remind the reader that the moment such remarks occur, the natural history of Man has become recognized as an ingredient in the civil.

The chief early writers who expanded the real and supposed facts of the natural history of Man, without being professed ethnologists, were Montesquieu and Herder. By advertising the subject, they promoted it. It is doubtful whether they did more.

We are still within the pale of physical phænomena; and the purely intellectual, mental, or moral characteristics of Man have yet to be considered. What divisions were founded upon the difference between the arts of the Negro and the arts of the Parisian? What upon the contrast between the despotisms of Asia and the constitutions of Europe? What between the cannibalism of New Zealand and the comparatively graminivorous diet of the Hindu? There were not wanting naturalists who even in natural history insisted upon the high value of such characters, immaterial and supra-sensual as they were. The dog and fox, the hare and rabbit were alike in form; different in habits and temper—yet the latter fact had to be recognized. Nay, more, it helped to verify the specific distinctions which the mere differences of form might leave doubtful.