Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 3, September 1852

by Various

Before touching upon the question of the common nature and origin of the human race, a necessary preliminary to the question of their diffusion, it may be requisite to state the sense of certain terms of common occurrence in natural history, as species, genus, and varieties. A race of animals, or plants, which constantly transmit from one generation to another the same peculiar organization, constitute what is technically called a species; and two races are held to be specifically distinct, where a marked difference or organization exists, which is unvaryingly transmitted. A species, therefore, includes those animals and plants which may be presumed to have sprung from the same parent stock. “We unite,” says De Candolle, “under the designation of a species, all those individuals who mutually bear to each other so close a resemblance as to allow of our supposing that they may have proceeded originally from a single being, or a single pair.” The term genus has a more comprehensive signification. It is applied to a group of animals or plants, the several tribes of which seem constructed after a common general model, each being distinguished from the rest by a peculiarity of organization, for which we cannot account but by supposing them to have proceeded from originally different individuals. Animals of the horse kind, which includes the ass and the zebra, furnish an example of genus. They display the phenomena of general resemblance, but with such marked differences, which are regularly transmitted, that we cannot suppose them the common offspring of the same individuals, but to have descended from originally different pairs. Animals of the feline race, as the cat and the tiger, and of the bovine kind, as the ox, buffalo, and bison, are similar instances of genera. A genus, therefore, embraces several species. But within the limits of a species varieties occur, or deviations from the type exhibited by the parent stock, which are due to external causes, climate, soil, food, and other agencies, which have an obvious and marked effect upon animal and vegetable forms, however little their operation is understood. Some of these varieties are transient, but others become fixed and permanent in the race, and are so optically striking, as in several cases to suggest the idea of a specific difference, where the species is identical. Now, the question to be considered in relation to man is, whether the diversities which he exhibits in different parts of the globe are compatible with his race coming under the denomination of a species, having a common ancestry; or whether it forms a genus including several tribes, having a general resemblance, but so characteristically different as to lead the philosophical investigator to the verdict, that the diverging streams of humanity have originated independent of each other, and have not proceeded from the same fountain head.

In prosecuting this inquiry, one method to be adopted is to review the principal external differences observable among mankind, as to complexion, structure, and stature; and examine, whether analogous diversities appear among the lower animals within the limits of the same species. If it is ascertained that corresponding phenomena to the human variations occur in the case of animals belonging to an identical species, the chief objection is obviated to the unity and common origin of the human kind.

1. The most obvious distinction displayed by mankind is that of color, in relation to the skin, hair, and eyes, which, with few exceptions, are well known to have a certain correspondence, intimating their dependence on a common cause. Thus light-colored hair is very generally in alliance with light blue or gray eyes; but a relation of the complexion of the skin to the hue of the hair is still more invariable. Persons of light hair have a fair and transparent skin, which assumes a ruddy tint by exposure to the light and heat of the sun, while the complexion of black-haired individuals is of a darker cast, and acquires a bronze shade in proportion to the intensity of the solar influence admitted to it. The dark-haired women of Syria and Barbary are indeed frequently very white; but this is owing to the careful avoidance of exposure to the effect of climate, which Prichard calls a being “bleached by artificial protection from light, or at least from the solar rays.” He discriminates three principal varieties of mankind, taking the color of the hair as the leading character, which he styles the melanic, the xanthous, and the leucous. The melanic or black variety, includes all individuals or races who have black or very dark hair; the xanthous or fair class embraces those who have either brown, auburn, yellow, flaxen, or red hair; and the leucous or white variety comprises those who are commonly called albinos, whose hair is either pure white or cream-colored.

The great majority of the human race belong to the melanic or black-haired variety, with a corresponding hue of the skin. This hue varies from the deepest black to a copper and olive color, and to a much lighter shade. The Senegal Negroes are jet black, and the natives of Malabar, with other nations of India, are nearly so. In some races, the black combines with red, and in others with yellow, as in the instance of the copper and olive colored tribes of America, Africa, and Asia; and the same indigenous population furnishes examples of great discrepancy as to the character of the tint. “The great difference of color,” says Bishop Heber, of the Hindoos, “between different natives struck me much. Of the crowd by whom we were surrounded, some were black as Negroes, others merely copper-colored, and others little darker than the Tunisines, whom I have seen at Liverpool. It is not merely the differences of exposure, since this variety of tint is visible in the fishermen who are naked all alike. Nor does it depend on caste, since very high caste Brahmins are sometimes black, while Pariahs are comparatively fair. It seems, therefore, to be an accidental difference, like that of light and dark complexions in Europe; though where so much of the body is exposed to sight, it becomes more striking here than in our own country. Two observations,” he elsewhere observes, “struck me forcibly; first, that the deep bronze is more naturally agreeable to the human eye than the fair skins of Europe, since we are not displeased with it even in the first instance, while it is well-known that to them a fair complexion gives the idea of ill health, and of that sort of deformity which, in our eyes, belongs to an albino.” The same class includes the swarthy Spaniards, and the inhabitants of southern Europe in general, who have dark hair, with the melanic complexion only strongly dilute, which characterizes the olive, copper-colored, and negro nations. In the xanthous or light-haired variety, who have commonly gray or azure-blue eyes, combined with a fair complexion, which acquires a ruddy instead of a bronze tinge on exposure to heat, some whole tribes in the temperately cold regions of Europe and Asia are included. Red or yellow hair and blue eyes peculiarly characterized the old Gothic races according to the testimony of Tacitus, and are prevalent among their descendants at present. But examples of the xanthous variety present themselves in every dark-haired race, and we gather from Homer, that it was not uncommon among the Greeks of his time to find a melanic family. “The Jews, like the Arabs,” says Prichard, “are generally a black-haired race; but I have seen many Jews with light hair and beards, and blue eyes; and in some parts of Germany, the Jews are remarkable for red, bushy beards. Many of the Russians are light-haired, though the mass of the Slavonian race is of the melanous variety. The Laplanders are generally of a dark complexion, but the Finns, Mordouines, and Votiaks, who are allied to them in race, are xanthous. Many of the northern Tungusians, or Mantschu Tartars, are of the xanthous variety, though the majority of this nation are black-haired.” Even among the more swarthy races of the melanic class, as the Negroes of Senegal, examples of fair-haired individuals, with the corresponding complexions, occur; and the native stock of Egypt supplies similar instances, as appears from the light brown hair of some of the mummies. The leucous or white variety includes no entire race of people; but occasionally albinos, with perfectly white hair and skin, and red or pink eyes, appear in all countries—among the xanthous tribes of Europe, the copper-colored nations of America, and the pure blacks of Africa. The phrase, white Negroes, though a literal contradiction, exactly expresses the physical fact—a white individual of a black stock. In some instances, pure white and black children have mingled in the same family, the offspring of black parents.

The cause of the introduction of these varieties of color among the inferior animals of the same species, which have become permanent, is involved in great obscurity; but we have good reason to suppose that differences of climate, situation, food, and habits, are some of the influential agencies in their production, chiefly perhaps the former, which appears to operate to a considerable extent in the various coloring of the human race. Both the plants and animals of hot regions display the deepest colors with which we are acquainted, while lighter shades are characteristic of those that are situated in cold countries. Within the tropics, the birds, beasts, flowers, and even fishes have the respective hues of their feathers, hairs, petals, and scales uniformly very deeply tinctured; while, as we recede from the equator, the color of the animal races progressively becomes of a lighter cast, till, approaching the poles, white is their common livery. The same remark is true very generally of the complexion of mankind. The black, dark-brown, and copper colors prevail in equatorial districts; the lighter olive is distinctive of the nations immediately north of the tropic of Cancer; and still lighter shades become more universal in the higher latitudes. The Abyssinians are much less dark than the Negro races, for though their geographical climate is the same, their physical climate is very different, the high, table-land of the country placing them in a lower temperature. Shut up within the walls of their seraglios, and secluded from the sun, the Asiatic and African women are frequently as white as the Europeans; while, in our own country, exposure to the sun is well-known to produce a deeper complexion, and artificial protection from its influence is adopted to preserve a fair and unfreckled skin. The larvæ of many insects deposited in dark situations are white, and acquire a brownish hue upon being confined under glasses that admit the influence of the solar rays. Facts of this kind indicate the powerful operation of diverse climates in the various coloring of the human skin, and are sufficient to show, that the different complexions of mankind are mere varieties of species, introduced and made permanent by the continued action of local causes.

2. The next most obvious and important of the human differences involves variety of structure, especially in the shape of the skull. Taking this as the basis of a classification, Professor Blumenbach proposed a division of mankind into five grand classes—the Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopic, American, and Malay, which has been very generally adopted. The principal descriptive particulars of each, as given by that distinguished naturalist, are the following:

In the Caucasian race, the head is of the most symmetrical shape, almost round; the forehead of moderate extent; the cheek-bones rather narrow, without any projection; the face straight and oval, with the features tolerably distinct; the nose narrow, and slightly arched; the mouth small, with the lips a little turned out, especially the lower one; and the chin full and rounded. This is the most elegant variety of the human form, and the most perfect examples of it are found in the regions of Western Asia, bordering on Europe, which skirt the southern foot of the vast chain of the Caucasus, from whence the class derives its name, and which is near what is supposed to be the parent spot of the human race. Here are the Circassians and Georgians, the most exquisite models of female beauty. But the Caucasian class includes nations very dissimilar apart from the form of the head. Its members are of all complexions, from the Hindoos and Arabs, some of whom are as black as the Negroes, to the Danes, Swedes, and Norsemen, who are fair, with flaxen hair and light blue eyes. The class comprises the ancient and modern inhabitants of Europe, except the Laplanders and Finns. It comprises also the ancient and modern inhabitants of Western Asia, as far as the Oby, the Belurtagh, and the Ganges—such as the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Sarmatians, Scythians, Parthians, Jews, Arabs and Syrians, the Turks and Tartars proper, the tribes of Caucasus, the Armenians, Affghans, and Hindoos. It includes likewise the Africans who live on the shores of the Mediterranean, and throughout the Sahara, the Egyptians and Copts, the Abyssinians, and the Guanches, or ancient inhabitants of the Canary Islands, with those Europeans who have colonized America and other parts of the world. The color of the Caucasian class seems mainly to depend on climate, on the degree of solar heat to which there is exposure, for they are all born with light complexions, and become dark only as they grow up, and are more freely acted on by the sun. Their hue is found to deepen by a regular gradation from the farthest north, where the members of this class are very fair, through the olive-colored inhabitants of Southern Europe, and the swarthy Moors of Northern Africa, till the gradation ends with the deep black natives of the African and Arabian deserts, and of inter-tropical India. The lighter shades of color, however, prevail among the Caucasians, and hence they are correctly styled the white race, though some of them are jet black. Their hair is variously melanic and xanthous, always long, and never woolly like that of the Negroes.

In the Mongolian class, that of the brown man of Gmelin, the head, instead of being round, is almost square; the face is broad and flat, with the parts imperfectly distinguished; the arches of the eye-brows are scarcely to be perceived. The complexion is generally olive, sometimes very slight, and approaching to yellow; but none of this class are known to be fair. The eyes are small and black; the hair, dark and strong, but seldom curled, or in great abundance; and there is little or no beard. This division embraces the tribes that occupy the central, east, north, and south-east parts of Asia; the people of China and Japan, of Thibet, Bootan, and Indo-China, the Finns and Laplanders of Northern Europe, and the Esquimaux on the shores of the Arctic ocean. Climate influences the color of many of this class, those parts of the body protected from the sun being much lighter than those that are uncovered. Dr. Abeel mentions, that when he saw the Chinese boatmen throw off their clothes, for the purpose of entering the water to push along the boats, they appeared, when quite naked, as if dressed in light-colored trowsers.