The Color Line: A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn

by William Benjamin Smith

So much, then, for the historical argument. As already brought forward in our Chapter Two, it is shaken by the scruples presented even as an oak is shaken by a zephyr.

Let us now pass to the anatomical argument (p. 308). "There is no doubt that great differences exist in the physical characteristics of the races of man." But these cannot, of themselves, decide the question of superiority. While skin, hair, lips, and nose "distinguish the African negro clearly," yet Americans (aboriginal) have occasionally skin, lips, nose, but not hair, mistakable "for those of a negro." In general, variations in any race over-lap variations in another, showing that "existing differences are not fundamental" (whatever that may mean). It is held that the varying proportions of the body may be rather cultural than racial, like the differences between wild and domesticated animals (Fritsch). "The differences which cannot be explained by functional causes are few in number and they are not of such a character as to stamp one race as lower than the other." Conceded. But notice here the logical process. Whatever can be explained functionally "must" be explained functionally; a functional cause that is possible is held to be ipso facto certain; racial causes are antecedently so extremely improbable as to be admissible only under extreme compulsion. Now this is altogether vicious. The case is just the reverse. It is the functional causes that are pressed into service, that remain mere possibilities. Even at the utmost they refuse to explain all the differences. Some "few" are admitted to be racial. But, as some are certainly racial, then all or at least most may be racial, the invocation of supposed functional causes becomes unnecessary, and the cultural explanation improbable. We may apply the razor of Occam: Entia non multiplicanda sunt præter necessitatem.

We pass now to theromorphisms among the lower races (p. 310). For example, in man the temporal and frontal bones are separated by the sphenoid and parietal, but in the ape the temporal encroaches on the second pair and meets the frontal. This simian formation is found occasionally among all races, but "more frequently among primitive people." However, it is thought "probably" due to "malnutrition in early infancy," and to be no indication of closer kinship to the ape.

There follow (p. 310) some half dozen other variations, long thought to be characteristic, that "occur all over the world,"—"but the degree of variability is not everywhere the same." "Presumably such variations" "have not yet" "become stable," but are "still in process of evolution." "It might seem," then, that the races in which they "are more stable" are "more highly organized." It is said that "this would refer, however, only to such features as are not caused by the influence of environment." Moreover, "it may be that the greater variability of certain races, in regard to these phenomena, is not an expression of a lower degree of development of the whole group, but of the presence of a great number of members of a family which possessed the peculiar character".

It is needless to contest or criticise such ingenious maybes. It is enough to note, once again, the logic. It is not denied that prima facie all these phenomena suggest and indicate lower development; it is merely sought to avert the indication by devising an hypothesis to account for each fact some other way. In place of the one supposition of lower development, there is put a whole series of independent suppositions. In order to avail for the purpose, all of these must hit true at the same time; if each were as likely as not, having a probability of one-half, the chance that five such shall hit true simultaneously is only the fifth power of one-half—that is, one thirty-second. This rapid diminution of the chance of all being correct is wholly overlooked in such argumentation.

Regard is now turned (p. 311) upon the cranial features: "While the consideration of the characters treated heretofore has not given any conclusive evidence of the superiority of certain races, the study of the form and size of the head seems to promise better results."

Note here the word "conclusive"; clearly, it is admitted that these characters furnish some evidence of the "superiority" claimed, but denied that it is "conclusive." But who ever held that such evidence was "conclusive"? There is no single variety of evidence in the case that is or can be "conclusive." The evidence is cumulative its conclusiveness is found in its mass, in the concurrence of all its disconnected indications. This is the decisive aspect of the whole matter, and of this there is betrayed no consciousness.

Relatively "to the skull, the face of the negro is larger than that of the American, whose face is, in turn, larger than that of the white. The lower portion of the face assumes larger dimensions. The alveolar arch is pushed forward and thus gains an appearance which reminds us of the higher apes. There is no denying that this feature is a most constant character of the black races and that it represents a type slightly nearer the animal than the European type. The same may be said of the broadness and flatness of the nose of the negro and of the Mongol; but here again we must call to mind that prognathism and low, broad noses are not entirely absent among the white races [neither are idiots and all sorts of reversions to older types], although the more strongly developed forms which are found among the negroes do not occur. The variations belonging to both races overlap. We find here at least a few indications which tend to show that the white race differs more from the higher apes than [does] the negro. But does this anatomical difference prove that their mental capacity is lower than that of the white? The probability that this may be the case is suggested by the anatomical facts, but they by themselves are no proof that this is the case."

True; but they are not "by themselves." They are in goodly company with a long series of facts already mentioned, with a still longer series immediately to come, and with a wholly overwhelming confirmative history of ten thousand years. It is idle, then, to say "they by themselves are no proof." The question is, Are they, in their own anatomical and historical connection, any proof? It is impossible not to answer, Yes. They are the very strongest proof.

Promising "to revert to this subject later on," the savant passes over (p. 312) to the important matter of arrested development. Among such phenomena may be noted that the noses of children are more alike than those of adults. The Mongol nose changes less during adolescence than the White. According to Quatrefages, the Negro basin differs less from fœtal forms and resembles more the ape form than that of other races. All of which points to relative lowness of developmental type. "On the other hand, the face of the negro child is less prognathous than that of the adult. In this case we find that the more energetic development tends to produce a type which is apparently lower than that of the white. We may even go a step farther and say that the ontogenetic development of the higher apes and of man is such that the young forms are more alike than the old ones. While in man the face develops moderately only, it grows considerably among the apes. The earlier arrest in this case is, therefore, an indication of higher type. Thus it will be seen that it is not the earlier arrest alone which determines the place of a race, but the direction of this development." Hence he refuses to draw a conclusion against the Mongol, but says nothing more of the Negro. The argument of Dr. Boas, at this point, seems strangely vague and irresolute. It seems hardly possible to join direct issue. But this fact appears noteworthy: The ape face grows more than the human; also the Negro face grows decidedly more than the White—at least relatively to the head, since the adult is more prognathous than the child; this "more energetic development" relates, then, the Negro to the ape more nearly than the White man.