"Some explanations are necessary. Examine the designs before you, and you will discover the principal varieties exhibited in the human type. You have there individuals from all parts of the world; you see that they differ considerably in color, some in their hair, others in their size, or in their peculiar features. It behooves us to ascertain if the differences that present themselves in these human groups are those of species, or if they merely indicate the existence of races belonging to the same species.
"In order to reply to this question, you must ascertain the true significance of the words species and race. The result of the discussion depends upon these two words. Unhappily, they are often confounded and badly defined, and we become enveloped in mystery when we wish to consider them more closely. Let us then form a precise idea before entering into otherwise profitless details.
"None of you certainly confound the horse with the ass; though the horse may be no larger than the dogs of Newfoundland, or though the ass should attain the size of an ordinary horse—for example, the large asses of Poitou. You will immediately say they are different species. You will say the same if you place a dog and a wolf side by side.
"We call by the one name of dogs the different types, such as the spaniel, the greyhound, the lap-dog, the Newfoundland, the King Charles; and we are right. However, if we were to judge by the eyes only, and even after more minute observations, there is between the dogs I have named greater differences of color, proportion, and size, than between the horse and the ass. The latter have certainly more similarity between them than the types of dogs I have named.
"If I should place a black and a white water-spaniel side by side, you would call them both spaniels, though of a different color. When we examine vegetables, it is the same thing; a red and a white rose are equally roses; pears that are sold two for a penny, are the same species as those sold at twenty cents each.
"Without any doubt you have arrived at the exact conclusion of the naturalists; like them, you have resolved the questions of species and race, which at first sight seemed, for the reasons I have given, more or less confused.
"These examples fully prove that popular observation and common sense are in many things fully as reliable as the investigations of science. Were such deductions generalized into scientific language, I feel sure there would be found few if any mistakes.
"These investigations prove that animals and vegetables vary within certain limits. The dog remains but a dog, whatever may be his general form, color, or his shape. The pear is but a pear, whatever may be its flavor or the color of its skin. It is from these facts that I am led to believe that variations can be transmitted through generations. The union of two spaniels produces spaniels, the union of two mastiffs produces mastiffs. Thus, in a general manner, the result is, that beings of the same species can cease to resemble each other absolutely; moreover, take exteriorly different characters, without isolating or forming different species; as I have said, the dog remains a dog, whatever may be the modifications he presents. These are precisely the groups formed by individuals which we have spoken of as the remote primitive types of species that have formed distinct secondary groups, which naturalists call races.
"You will understand, then, what is meant in speaking of the races of beeves, horses, etc. We have domesticated but one kind of beeves, which have generated the Breton race, the great beeves of Uri, of such savage aspect, and also the gentle Durhams. We have but one kind of domestic horse, and this has given us the pony, as well as the enormous horses that are seen in the streets of London, commonly used by the brewers; finally, the several races of sheep, goats, etc., belong to one and the same species. I place this assemblage of proof vividly before you to avoid vagueness in your investigations, which would be attended with serious mistakes. I will now cite examples from the vegetable kingdom, which will be as familiar to you as the foregoing.
"Let us take the coffee-tree. Its history is quite interesting. The coffee-tree was originally from Africa. It has from time immemorial been cultivated in Abyssinia, on the borders of the Red Sea. It was not until toward the fifteenth century that the seed migrated from this sea and penetrated into Arabia, where it has been cultivated since that epoch. It is from there in particular that we get the famous Mocha. The use of coffee became common immediately. From the east it was introduced into Europe at a later period, and it was at Marseilles that it was used for the first time in France.