Chapter IV: Section III

EXAMPLES TENDING TO PROVE THAT THE INTERMIXTURE OF CERTAIN RACES OF MEN ARE NOT EUGENESIC.

In the first part of this essay we have endeavoured to establish that certain human cross-breeds possess an unlimited fecundity, both in their direct alliances and with either of the parent races, whence we have inferred that eugenesic hybridity really exists in mankind.

We intend now to investigate the results of certain intermixtures more disparate, and review a number of facts tending to the conclusion that all human cross-breeds are not eugenesic.

Let us observe at the outset, how far the phenomena of eugenesic or non-eugenesic hybridity may affect the solution of the great question pending between the Monogenists and the Polygenists.

What in animals in general, characterises the eugenesic hybridity, is the unlimited fecundity of mongrels of the first degree between themselves. It is by no means necessary that the parent species should be as prolific in their crossings as in their direct unions, nor that the mongrels should be as productive as their parents, as large, as strong, and as long-lived, etc. Supposing, for instance, that the she-wolf conceives with more difficulty with the mastiff than with her proper mate; supposing even that this crossing is only efficacious by way of exception; that it succeeds only once out of ten, instead of succeeding constantly as it occurs in animals of the same species; it would be sufficient, if in this tenth case the mongrels are very prolific to pronounce the crossing eugenesic. Supposing also, that the hybrid wolf-dogs of the first degree produced only litters of about two or three, that is to say, only half the number usually produced by she-wolves and bitches, the result would be that this intermediate race would breed less rapidly by half than the pure species; but, provided the productiveness of the mongrels does not descend below the degree necessary for the preservation of the species, and provided it can repair the loss at every generation, the crossing would still be eugenesic, nor would it cease being so, even if the breed were only half as strong as their parents, and only half as long-lived.

When, therefore, a physiologist wishes to demonstrate the existence of that degree of hybridity which we have termed eugenesic, he selects two perfectly recognised distinct species of animals, crosses them, studies their breeds, and if he finds that they are indefinitely prolific, it is sufficient for him to affirm the existence of eugenesic hybridity--that is to say, that the physiological definition of the _species_ is unacceptable. But when a zoologist, in studying two races of animals, the specific determination of which is still contested, endeavours to establish that these two races are merely varieties of the same species, and when in order to weaken the differential anatomical characters pointed out by his adversaries, he invokes the physiological analogy exhibited by intermixture, we have a right to expect more than a partial demonstration. We must first prove that the intermixture of the two races constitutes a case of eugenesic hybridity; for if the cross-breed are not between themselves indefinitely prolific, it is certain that the two races are not of the same species. This first point being established, would not yet lead to any conclusion, since animals of different species may engender eugenesic breeds. He must, therefore, completely analyse all the phenomena of reproduction and prove that they are exactly the same in the parent races and in the hybrid race. It is not merely the sexual analogy but the sexual identity which must be rendered evident; for from his point of view, it is not sufficient that the two races in question should be homogenesic in some degree, they must be entirely homogeneous, and the least genital difference becomes an argument against the proposition he sustains. If the cross-breed, though very prolific, are less so than their parents, or less productive in their crossings than their direct alliances; or, finally, if the investigation of these crossings exhibits any functional inequality, it might become very probable that the two races do not belong to the same species. Such would also be the case if the cross-breed were less strong and vivacious than the individuals of the pure race, or if one of the crossings is more productive than the inverse crossing, as is observed in certain cases of hybridity, which approach more or less of _unilateral hybridity_. The existence of one of these phenomena might prove that the two races are not homogeneous, and might lead us to think that they are not of the same species.

The monogenists, who have based the demonstration of the unity of the human species upon the physiological character of the prolificacy of the cross-breeds, have not taken into account these elements. They have confined themselves to the assertions that all human races can produce cross-breeds, and that all these breeds are prolific. Now, admitting for a moment that these assertions are exact, the conclusion they have drawn from them is still contestable, until they can demonstrate that the study of these cross-breeds reveals no genital inequality between the parent races.

But what becomes of their argumentation, if it be proved that all intermixtures are not eugenistic, that is to say, that certain mongrels are not between themselves indefinitely prolific; that other cross-breeds become sterile in the first generation; and, finally, that certain races are so little homogenesic, that the birth of cross-breeds of the first degree is more or less exceptional? If one of these propositions can be effectually established, the monogenists would have little cause to congratulate themselves for having appealed to physiology. They would, on the contrary, have furnished their adversaries with deadly weapons, and their doctrine would be demolished on the battle field they have themselves chosen.

The facts I intend to exhibit tend to prove that it was a great error to consider all intermixtures of men as eugenesic. Obliged as I am to refer to testimonies which, perhaps, do not always exhibit a desirable precision, some doubts may hover over my conclusion; this much, however, will result from this sketch, that the examination of the laws of hybridity is far from being favourable to the doctrine of monogenists.

We shall study the cross-breeds both in relation to their fecundity and their physical and moral validity; for, from our point of view, it is sufficient to prove that certain cross-breeds are inferior to the parent races, as regards longevity, vigour, health, and intelligence, to render it very probable that the two races are not of the same species.

When a monogenist is called upon to demonstrate that all human intermixtures are eugenesic, the first example which he ordinarily cites is that of the Mulattoes in America, the issue of the union of European colonists and African negresses. This example, which has for a long time been considered as decisive, might not be without a reply; for there exist races differing much more from us than the races of the western coast of Africa; but the question here is, whether it be quite true that all American Mulattoes are eugenesic.

We meet, first, with this fact, namely, the union of the Negro with a white woman is frequently sterile, whilst that of a white man with a negress is perfectly fecund. This might tend to establish between these two races a species of hybridity analogous to that existing between goats and sheep, which we have termed _unilateral hybridity_. Professor Serres, fully alive to the gravity of this fact has given the following explanation: “One of the characters of the Ethiopian race[24] consists in the length of the penis compared with that of the Caucasian race. This dimension coincides with the length of the uterine canal in the Ethiopian female, and both have their cause in the form of the pelvis in the Negro race. There results from this physical disposition, that the union of the Caucasian man with an Ethiopian woman is easy and without any inconvenience for the latter. The case is different in the union of the Ethiopian with a Caucasian woman, who suffers in the act, the neck of the uterus is pressed against the sacrum, so that the act of reproduction is not merely painful, but _frequently non-productive_.”

This explanation, though based upon an anatomical character perfectly correct, is yet far from being satisfactory; but we have quoted it here to show that one of the two most eminent monogenists of our epoch has admitted as a perfectly authentic fact, that the union of Caucasian women with Negroes is very frequently non-productive.

Mr. Theodore Waitz, author of a scientific treatise on Anthropology (the first volume is entirely devoted to the study of general doctrines), has carefully examined the question of the intermixture of races, and endeavoured to reconcile the results of these crossings with the system of monogenists. He was, nevertheless, obliged to admit, from the numerous documents collected, that in many cases the cross-breeds are feebly constituted, Thus, in Senegal the offspring of the Foulahs and the Negroes are handsome and more intelligent than the latter, but there are amongst them many stammerers, blind, hunchbacks, and idiots. The children of Arabs and the women of Darfour are debilitated and little vivacious, and the author adds _that the children of a European woman and a Negro are rarely vigorous_.[25]

It seems thus to result from these various investigations, that the union between the Negro and a white woman is little productive, and that their offspring is neither vigorous nor vivacious. Nevertheless, we admit this conclusion with some reserve, because the avowed unions of Negroes with white women are comparatively rare, and consequently the authors who have spoken of them could only have their inferences upon a few facts. The inverse intermixture between the white man and the negress is, on the contrary, very frequent, and as prolific in the first generation as in the direct alliances between individuals of the same race.

It is equally known that Mulattoes and Mulatresses are very prolific in their recrossings with the parent races. The great number of individuals of every shade, designated by the name Quadroon, Quinterons, Tercerons, Griffes, Marabouts, Cabres, etc., and by the collective name of _mixed blood_, proves it. The hybridity of Whites and Negroes is thus, at least, equal to what we described in animals by the name of _paragenesic hybridity_. The question now arises, whether it be eugenesic, that is to say, whether Mulattoes and Mulatresses of the first degree are indefinitely prolific between themselves.

It would be imprudent to restrict ourselves to superficial observations, though positive observations are with difficulty collected. Mulattoes of the first degree are not a well defined and circumscribed caste, like the whites and negroes of pure blood. Mulatresses prefer to unite themselves with the white or with mestizoes whiter than themselves. Mulattoes are thus frequently obliged to intermix with either pure negresses, or with mulatresses issued from a recrossing with the Negro race. There are, nevertheless, a goodly number of unions between the mestizos of the first degree; but the individuals issued from these unions have no longer the same chances of intermarrying as those of the first generation. The number of individuals of the first degree must, therefore, rapidly decrease from generation to generation, and the result is, that even if these cross-breeds were indefinitely prolific between themselves, we could only, by way of exception, find mulattoes issued in a direct line to the third or fourth generation, from the direct and exclusive union of mestizoes of the first degree.

To give to the question at issue a rigorous solution, it is necessary to study during several generations a population exclusively composed of mulattoes of the _first degree_. This experience can never be obtained. We find, indeed, at Hayti, a population nearly composed of coloured individuals. But these coloured men are mestizos of every shade, and if this hybrid nation were to subsist in perfect prosperity during several generations, the unlimited prolifickness of mestizos of the first degree between themselves would not thereby be demonstrated.

We are, then, in default of a physiological experimentation analogous to what the monogenists require, in attempting to prove that the crossing of two species of animals is or is not eugenesic, reduced to the impressions, or rather appreciation of observers. Most of these appreciations can only be approximatives wanting a fixed basis. It is absolutely unknown what is the relative proportion of mulattoes of the first degree who intermarry between themselves, and such who intermix with other mestizos, or with individuals of a pure race; nor can we know what, in a given population, should be the normal proportion of these mulattos if they were perfectly prolific _between themselves_. It then becomes very difficult to say whether the number of mulattoes issued in a direct line from mestizos of the first degree is equal to the normal proportion, or inferior to it; so that, if they are but little inferior to their parents in regard to fecundity, the fact might pass unobserved. The relative sterility of these breeds would only become evident when it approaches absolute sterility. Between this degree of prolifickness and perfect fecundity there are many intermediate degrees, difficult to recognise, and still more difficult to prove.

The first French observer who has denied the prolifickness of mulattoes is M. Jacquinot, author of the zoological part of the _Voyage to the South Pole and Oceania_. We shall reproduce here some passages from that work. After having spoken of the cross-breeds of animals, M. Jacquinot continues in the following terms:[26]

“It is the same in the human genus. There the species are very approximating, and, according to the principles just laid down, ‘that the more species are approximating the greater the chance of fecundity,’ the mestizos issuing from the intermixture enjoy a certain degree of prolifickness which, however, as in animals, is not absolute. Like the latter, they return to the mother’s species in allying themselves with them; and, independently of their relative fecundity, new individuals are constantly produced by the union of the parent races.

“On observing in our colonies that a population of mulattos is constantly produced and renewed, their fecundity was not doubted; yet it is very limited. On the one hand the mulattos disappear every moment in one or the other of the parent races, and if their unions were constantly between themselves, they would not be long before becoming extinct....

“In a colony, that is to say in an island, or a part of a continent of limited extent peopled by Negroes and white men for some centuries, the greater part of the population should be composed of mulattoes....

“But it is not so, and whatever be the number of mulattoes in the colonies, the predominance of the Negro and Caucasian species is not less certain.... There is, besides, a fact known to persons inhabiting the colonies, that the white women and the negresses are very prolific, which is not the case with the mulatresses.

“We believe to be the first who has pointed out the sterility in human cross-breeds. We have not been able to collect precise and positive observations based on figures; but we think that the figures will be soon forthcoming now that the attention of observers is drawn to the subject.”

The avowal which terminates this passage, much diminishes its importance. M. Jacquinot, not having sojourned long in the various countries he visited, was only able to collect superficial observations in regard to a question which requires long and minute researches. But Mr. Nott, one of the most eminent anthropologists of America, was in a better condition to study this subject.

Living in a country where the Caucasian and Ethiopian races are much mixed, and enabled by his profession as a physician to make his observations on a great number of individuals, he arrived at conclusions similar to those of M. Jacquinot. His first essay on hybridity appeared in 1842. It was but a short paper, which attracted but little notice, and which we have not been able to consult, no copy of it being in the Paris library. M. Jacquinot, whose work appeared in 1846, had certainly no knowledge of this essay, his observations having been made in 1836-40, before M. Nott had published his own. We are not, however, engaged here to discuss the question of priority, we state merely the fact that two distinguished observers studying the same subject, unknown to each other, arrived at the same conclusions relating to the sterility of Mulattoes.

In his essay of 1812, Dr. Nott maintained the following propositions, which we extract from a subsequent publication.[27]

1. That _Mulattoes_ are the shortest lived of any class of the human race.

2. That _Mulattoes_ are intermediate in intelligence between the blacks and the whites.

3. That they are less capable of undergoing fatigue and hardships than either the blacks or whites.

4. That the _Mulatto-women_ are peculiarly delicate, and subject to a variety of chronic diseases. That they are bad breeders, bad nurses, liable to abortions, and that their children generally die young.

5. That when _Mulattoes_ intermarry, they are less prolific than when crossed on the parent stock.

6. That when a _Negro_ man married a white woman, the offspring partook more largely of the Negro type than when the reverse connection had effect.

7. That Mulattoes, like Negroes, although unacclimated, enjoy extraordinary exemption from yellow-fever when brought to Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, or New Orleans.

The propositions, 1, 3, 4, and 5, are the only ones connected with our subject. They confirm, and even enhance, in certain respects, M. Jacquinot’s assertions, yet are they contested, and Dr. Nott himself has found it necessary to restrict their application. He had made his observations in South Carolina where he found the Mulattoes little prolific and short-lived. Having changed his residence, he obtained different results. At Mobile, New Orleans, Pensacola, towns on the Gulf of Mexico, he found among the Mulattoes many instances of manifest longevity and prolificacy, not merely in their crossed but in their direct alliances. What was the cause of this difference? Dr. Nott inquired whether the difference in the results might not depend upon the difference in the ethnological elements in the crossing. All the Europeans who have colonised America did not belong to the same race. The Caucasians, as is well known, are naturally divided in two groups:--the light-haired race, with grey or blue eyes, a white skin; and the brown races, with a deeper complexion and brown or black hair. The first occupy Northern Europe; the second, Southern Europe. There is thus a little less disparity, and a little more affinity between the Europeans of the South and the Negroes, than between the latter and the Northern Europeans, so that when we hear that intermixture succeeds better in the first than in the second case, it should not surprise us. But South Carolina, where the Mulattoes get on so indifferently, has been colonised by the Anglo-Saxons; whilst the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, where the Mulattoes are more prospering, have been colonised by the French (Louisiana) and by the Spaniards (Florida). Such is the explanation offered by Dr. Nott. Still in maintaining his conclusions on the issues of Negro women, and men of the Germanic race, he thinks that they are not applicable to the Mulattoes whose parents belong to a Caucasian race more or less dark in complexion. Analogous differences are often observed in animals in such crossings when they are placed in connections with species more or less approximate. Before, however, accepting Dr. Nott’s explanation, it may be as well to examine whether the fact may not be differently explained.

South Carolina, comprised between 32° and 35° N. lat., is situated beyond the zone where the African Negroes live: New Orleans, Mobile, and Pensacola are situated nearer the tropics, between the 30° and 31°, and we find in Africa, in Northern Sahara, south of Algiers, some tribes of Negroes who have lived in that latitude from time immemorial. Though the climate does not altogether depend on latitude, it may be readily believed that the Negroes become sooner acclimated upon the shores of the Gulf of Mexico than in the more northern regions. But it is known that men transplanted into climates differing much from that in which their race thrives may, by this simple fact, greatly lose their fecundity. It is not always so, but considering that it does happen, we have a right to ask whether the difference pointed out by Dr. Nott between the Mulattoes of South Carolina, and those of the region of the Gulf may not be owing to this cause.

This interpretation is, however, in opposition to two orders of facts. On the one hand, the Negroes and Negresses of South Carolina are perfectly prolific between themselves.[28] The climate of that country has not weakened their generative powers, and there is no reason why, by their alliances with a white race acclimated in that part, there should he produced an offspring less acclimated than their parents. The diminished vitality and fecundity can, therefore, not be attributed to the influence of the media in which they are brought up.

On the other hand, a result similar to that mentioned by Nott, as regards South Carolina, seems to have been obtained in Jamaica under the 18°, corresponding nearly to the latitude of Senegal and Timbuctoo. This island is situated south of Cuba, Hayti, and Porto Rico, where Negroes and Mulattoes thrive, but these islands have been colonised by the French and the Spaniards, whilst Jamaica is an _English_ colony.[29]

The Mulattoes of Jamaica have thus the same ethnologic origin as those of Carolina; and the following remarks from the _History of Jamaica_, by Long, entirely confirm Nott’s opinion.[30]

“The Mulattoes of Jamaica,” says Long, “are generally well proportioned, and the Mulatto women have fine features, and seem to have more of the White than of the Negro in their blood. Some of them have married women of their own colour, but these marriages are generally sterile. They seem in this respect to resemble certain mules, being less capable of producing between themselves than with the Whites or Blacks. Some instances may possibly have occurred, where, upon the intermarriage of two Mulattoes, the woman has borne children, which children have grown to maturity; _but I never heard of such an instance_.

“Those Mulattoes of Jamaica, of which I speak, have married young, have received some education, and are distinguished by their chaste and regular conduct. The observations made regarding them have a great degree of certainty. They do not breed, though there is nothing to indicate that they would not be prolific by intermarrying either with the Blacks or Whites.

“In searching for facts contrary to this opinion, it is requisite to discard the suspicion that the Mulatress has had intercourse with any other man than her Mulatto husband, and there would still remain the question, whether the son of a Mulatto, married to the daughter of two other Mulattoes, is capable of producing and forming a durable race.”

Such a grave fact could not be allowed to pass unchallenged. Professor Waitz, much embarrassed by it, could only oppose to it a passage extracted from a work published in 1845 by Lewis, _On the Negroes in the West Indies_. “Lewis,” says Waitz (_Anthropologie der Naturvölker_), “expressly denies the sterility of the Mulattoes of Jamaica in their marriages between themselves, and observes, that they are as prolific as the Blacks and Whites, but that they are for the most part flabby and weak, and their children have little vitality.”

Long said he knew of no instance where the children of Mulattoes arrived at maturity. To refute this assertion, known instances should have been cited. But Lewis neglects doing so.[31] He says, on the contrary, that the children, from similar marriages, possess little vitality. Though this expression does not necessarily imply the impossibility of arriving at adult age, it tends at least to the conclusion that the children have little chance to reach it; and when we consider that the preceding passage was intended to refute Long’s assertions, it is surprising how little satisfies Professor Waitz. At any rate, it proves that he could find no other positive document in opposition to the fact mentioned by Long.

This is, perhaps, no reason for accepting without reserve the opinions of Dr. Nott. Before giving a definite judgment, we must wait for further numerous, authentic, and scientific observations. Nevertheless, it must be remarked, that the indefinite fecundity of Mulattoes had been admitted as an axiom, which it was thought there was no necessity of disproving. It was sufficient to say there are many Mulattoes, without investigating whether they maintain themselves, or by continuous intermixture with the parent stocks. The first who wished to inquire more closely has, by his observations, been led to results opposed to general opinion. To these observations, presenting apparently the guarantee of authenticity, positive observation should be opposed; and it is requisite that the latter should be specially collected in countries where the _Germanic_ race has intermarried with the Negro race of Western Africa. The investigations which might be made in the French, Spanish, or Portuguese colonies would have no direct application.

The authors, moreover, we have cited, are far from being the only ones who have denied the fecundity of the Mulattoes in the West Indies. Van Amringe and Hamilton Smith assert, that without a reunion with the parent stocks the Mulattoes would soon become extinct. Day says that Mulattoes are rarely prolific between themselves; and Waitz, somewhat shaken by these testimonies, adds in a note, “The sterility of Mulattoes, when it is complete, may be compared with that fact recognised by Wirgman in plants, that the hybrids of intermediate types between the two parent stocks are sterile, whilst those resembling one or the other species are prolific.”[32] From these facts and testimonies there seems to result--1. That the Mulattoes of the Germanic and Ethiopian races possess little prolificacy: 2. That they are inferior in this respect to the Mulattoes born by the intercourse of Negro women and men belonging to the more or less dark complexioned Caucasian races.

Mulattoes of the latter kind exist in large numbers in the greater part of the Antilles, South America, Central America, Mexico, Mauritius, Bourbon, and Senegal. All these countries have been colonised by the French, Spaniards, or Portuguese. The Mulattoes born there are fecund in their intermixture with the parent stock, as the Mulattoes of Germanic origin; they are also prolific between themselves, at least in the first generation. Are they equally prolific in their direct alliances as in their mixed ones? Are their children arriving at maturity as the others? And finally, when these children intermarry, are they and their descendants prolific? These questions are yet unanswered. They can only be solved after a long series of observations collected by men of science; not by travellers who view the populations superficially, but by close observers, and principally by physicians resident in these localities. In the mean while, here is another passage from the work of Prof. Waitz, quoted by him from Seemann.[33] “The Mulattoes of the Negroes and Whites at Panamá are prolific between themselves, but their children are brought up with difficulty; whilst the families of the pure races produce less children, which however arrive at maturity.” The Europeans of Panamá are of Spanish origin. The prolifickness of the Mulattoes of the first degree is clearly indicated in this passage, but doubts may be entertained as to the fecundity of their descendants. The intermixtures of Negroes and Europeans are not the only ones the results of which exhibit defects to the observers. “The Mulattoes,” says M. Boudin,[34] “are very often inferior to the two parent stocks, both in vitality, intelligence, or morality. Thus the Mulattoes of Pondicherry, known by the name of Topas, exhibit a mortality not only more considerable than that of the Indians, but greater than the Europeans, though the latter are considerably shorter lived in India than in Europe. Positive documents on this point have been published in the _Revue Coloniale_. So much as to the vitality.

“In Java, the Mulattoes of the Dutch and Malays are so little intelligent that they could never be employed as functionaries. All Dutch historians are agreed upon this point. This much for their intelligence.

“The Mulattoes of Negroes and Indians, known by the name of _Zambos_ in Peru and Nicaragua, form the worst class of citizens. They compose four-fifths of the prison population. This fact, already mentioned by Tschudi,[35] has recently been confirmed by Squier. So much as regards morality.

“There are, however, certain physical qualities which may be acquired by the intermixture of races. Such are pathological immunities. The Mulattoes of the West Indies are, like the Negroes, exempt from the yellow fever.”

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.

At the extremity of the world, and nearly at the antipodes of Great Britain, the English have been for more than half a century in contact with the Melanesian races, and specially with the Australians and Tasmanians. The relative degree of inferiority between these latter races, which differ sensibly in their physical character, may be open to discussion.[47] It is, however, generally admitted that they are inferior at least to all other races who have come in permanent contact with Europeans. The Hottentot race, which has long been considered to occupy the lowest degree, is evidently superior to them. The Hottentots, though refractory to education, have, at least, shown some degree of improvability, while the Australians seem absolutely incorrigible savages. The English have made the most persevering attempts to instruct them, but without any success. As they could not succeed with the adult population, they tried it with children of a tender age, and educated them with European children in orphan asylums; they have there learned to mumble some prayers, even to read and write; but, with approaching puberty, the young pupils succumbed to their savage instincts, and escaped into the woods to live again with their parents whom they had never known. At one time young Australians were transported to England, and confided to the Moravian brothers, who neglected no cares to improve them. “They have returned as brutish as they were before,” says M. Garnat; “a proprietor of a farm in the interior assured me, that he could never succeed to employ them in the most simple agricultural labour.”[48]

What is known of the Tasmanians scarcely permits us to consider them superior to the Australians. It must, however, be admitted that those unfortunate islanders of Van Diemen’s Land have not been so much attended to as the Australians. The English, so humane and patient as regards the latter, have committed upon the Tasmanian race, and that in the nineteenth century, execrable atrocities a hundred times less excusable than the hitherto unrivalled crimes of which the Spaniards were guilty in the fifteenth century in the Antilles.

These atrocities have terminated in a regular extermination,[49] caused, say the optimists, by the absolute unsociability of the Tasmanians.[50] This is not, in our opinion, a mitigatory circumstance, but from all these facts there results evidently, that, of all human beings, the Tasmanians are, or rather were, with the Australians, nearest to the brutal condition.

The investigation of the results obtained from the intermixture of Anglo-Saxons with these inferior races, may give us an idea what the crossing between the two most disparate branches of the human family may produce.

M. Omalius d’Halloy, President of the Belgian Senate, a venerable scholar, as well known for his geological as for his anthropological works, thus concludes the seventh chapter of his _Treatise on the Races of Man_: “It is remarkable that, though a considerable number of Europeans now inhabit the same countries as the Andamenes, no mention is made of the existence of hybrids resulting front their union.”[51] Under the name of Andamenes, d’Halloy comprises the Australians, Tasmanians, and all the blacks with woolly hair of Melanesia and Malasia.

It may, then, be inferred from this passage, either that the Europeans established in these countries have no connection with the native black women, which appears inadmissible, as we shall presently show, or that the intermixture between the two races is perfectly sterile. This latter assertion is, however, not altogether correct. True it is that the greater part of travellers make no mention whatever of hybrids of Melanesia; it is equally true that they are very rare, but still there exist some. Thus Quoy and Gaymard have seen _one_ hybrid of an European and a Tasmanian woman.[52] Mr. Gliddon, who unfortunately does not cite the source from which he has drawn his information, announces that until the year 1835, when the Tasmanians were exterminated, there were only known, in the whole of Tasmania, two adult Mulattoes.[53] This indicates either that few were born, or that they died at an early age, for the colony, founded in 1803 by a population at first almost _exclusively masculine_, had, in a few years, considerably increased by the arrival of convicts and free settlers, nearly all males. Mr. Jacquinot, after having announced that there were no hybrids in Australia, adds, “In Hobart Town, and in all Tasmania, there are no hybrids either.”[54] No other author has, to our knowledge, mentioned Tasmanian hybrids.

The intermixture of the English with the native women of Australia has not been more productive. “There are scarcely,” says Jacquinot, “any Mulattoes of Australians and English mentioned.” This absence of Mulattoes between two peoples living in contact on the same soil, proves incontestably the difference of species. It may also be noticed that if such cross-breeds really existed, they would be easily recognised.[55] Mr. Lesson, who lived about two months in Sydney and its environs, and who made several excursions among the natives, mentions only one cross-breed, the offspring of a white man and the wife of a chief named Bongari.[56] Cunningham, a great defender of the Australian race--which, by the way, has finished by killing, and it is even said eating him--has written two volumes on New South Wales, in which neither directly nor indirectly is there mention made of more than one single Mulatto, and it happens that this single Mulatto is precisely the same of whom Mr. Lesson speaks.[57] No statistical writer, nor any historian, enumerates cross-breeds among the Australian population. No where, nevertheless, are the classes of society more numerous and more distinct. The officials, the colonists born in Europe, the colonists born in Australia, the convicts, the emancipated, the descendants of convicts, etc.; form as many classes envious of and despising each other, they dispute their respective privileges, and give each other more or less picturesque nick names. There are sterlings, currencies,[58] the legitimate, the illegitimate,[59] the pure Merinos, the convicts, the titled, the untitled, the canaries, the government men, the bushrangers, the emancipists,[60] and some other classes of immigrants or convicts. In this rich vocabulary there is not a single word to designate the Mulattoes. Yet in all countries where races of different colours mix, the language of the locality contains always distinct denominations for Mulattoes of various shades. Nothing of the kind exists in Australia. There is even a class of white men, the _legitimates_, which have also the name of _cross-breeds_.[61] This word everywhere else would designate Mulattoes, in Australia it means European convicts, it being thought impossible that the rare issue of an intermixture between the two races should ever become a part of the population.

It is, however, not merely in New South Wales that we are struck with the paucity of cross-breeds between Europeans and Australians; Mr. McGillivray mentions a similar fact as regards the port of Essingen, an English colony of Northern Australia.[62]

We may, therefore, accept as an authenticated fact, that the cross-breeds between Europeans and native women are very rare in Australia, as they were in Tasmania when the Tasmanian race existed.

This fact is so much in opposition to the general opinion on the intermixture of human races, that before attributing it to physiological causes, we must inquire whether it is not owing to some other causes.

We might be tempted, for instance, to suppose, that there was no intermixture, and that the ugliness and dirty habits of the native women bridled the sexual desire of the Europeans. This has been advanced, not by travellers who have precisely asserted the contrary, but by honest and sensible reasoners, whose refined taste revolted at the aspect of the portraits and busts of the Australian women. It would be a serious fact that a whole race should have such an irresistible repugnance to another, for nature has only inspired with such a feeling of repulsion beings of different species, and man is certainly of all animals the least exclusive. Is there in our seaports a prostitute sufficiently ugly and old to frighten the sailor? Is it not known that the Hottentots, whose ugliness is proverbial, have intermixed with the Europeans of South Africa? We must then set aside such a supposition, which is not founded upon a correct knowledge of human nature. There are, moreover, some documents, which induce us to believe that the Europeans of Australia and Van Diemen’s Land have intermixed with the native women.

According to Malte-Brun the population of the colony of

Sydney amounted in 1821 to 37,068 individuals, thus distributed.[63]

Free settlers, or liberated convicts, men 12,608
” ” ” women 3,422
” ” ” children 7,224
Convicts of both sexes 13,814
------
37,068

Thus there were among the free adults only twenty-seven women for a hundred men, that is to say, that seventy-three men in a hundred were absolutely prevented from marrying.

The relative proportion of convicts of the two sexes is not indicated in the above account, but it is known that originally the male convicts formed the great majority, and that there were ever afterwards far fewer women than men.

In 1825[64] the number of inhabitants amounted to nearly 50,000; but from this period the convicts were mostly sent to Van Diemen’s Land, and the white population of Australia diminished rapidly from not receiving regular reinforcements. In 1836 there were only 36,598 of all classes.

Free men 13,456 }
” women 7,474 } 20,930

Convicts men 14,135 }
” women 1,513 } 15,668
------
36,598

There were thus, among the convicts, only one woman to nine men, and among the free population one woman to two men.[65]

Hence may be explained the small increase of the population during the first periods of the colony and the considerable decrease which corresponds to the period from 1825 to 1830. In 1845, according to Henricq,[66] New South Wales had, since its foundation, already received 90,000 convicts of both sexes, beyond an unknown but considerable number of voluntary emigrants, yet the whole population consisted only of 85,000 individuals. At the same period there were in the free class but three females to five males, and among the convicts one woman to twelve men. In the colony of Hobart Town, in Tasmania, the disproportion was somewhat less, for there were five free females to seven males, and one female convict to twelve men.

It is difficult to believe that the free men deprived of women were all gifted with the virtue of continency. But admitting this for a moment, we cannot entertain the same opinion with regard to the convicts, which are certainly not chosen from the most virtuous classes of Great Britain. It must be noticed that the female convicts are not public women in the colony. The government accords certain advantages to convicts who contract legitimate marriages; this is the first step towards their liberation, and when a vessel arrives with a cargo of females they are readily espoused by the convicts. Nine-tenths, therefore, of the latter are entirely deprived of white women. On the other hand they procure _gins_ (the name of Australian females) with the greatest facility, and though it may not be known that many of them cohabit with the females, it may be easily divined and affirmed. “The women of the people of Port Jackson,” says Lesson, “look out for and excite the white men, and prostitute themselves for _a glass of brandy_.”[67]

After observing that these tribes live chiefly from the produce of the chase, and come to town to exchange their fish for fish-hooks, bread, or rum, Cunningham adds that this trade gives rise to scenes of debauchery, that the prostitution of native females with the whites had assumed considerable proportions, “considering that the Australians lend their women to the convicts for a slice of bread or a pipe of tobacco.”[68] It is useless to cite other testimony after the chief defender of the Australian race has thus expressed himself.

It is thus perfectly certain that numerous alliances have taken place and are taking place between the Europeans and the native women. The inhabitants of the colony, who could not but be aware of it, have had recourse to a singular hypothesis, accepted by Cunningham and recently by Waitz. They have imagined that the Australian husbands, excited by jealousy, killed all the new-born children of mixed blood; and to these hypothetical massacres (of which there is no proof whatever) they attribute the rarity of cross-breeds. In order that this tale should acquire some probability, it is first requisite that all the Australian women should be under the dominion of jealous and ferocious husbands, and that none of the females had the maternal instinct sufficiently developed to save her child from the fury of her husband. Cunningham, in accepting this explanation, forgets that he in the same page relates that the Australians prostitute their _gins_ to the first comer for a pipe of tobacco. Such beings would not feel themselves much dishonoured by the birth of the strange child. But here is an instance proving that the Australians are not altogether devoid of humour; showing, at least, that they have no notion of conjugal honour. Bongarri, of whom we have already spoken, and who in 1825 was the most celebrated chief of the Australian hordes of Port Jackson, treated as his son the offspring of the adulterous intercourse of his _gin_ with a convict of the place. When he was asked how it came to pass that his son had such a fair complexion, he replied jocularly, “that his wife was very fond of white bread and had partaken too much of it.” He invariably returned the same answer to inquirers.[69] If a warrior chief covered with honourable scars[70] attaches such small importance to the fidelity of his wife, and jokes about his dishonour, it is scarcely admissible that the men of his tribe should be more susceptible in this respect. Yet this very chief found it, according to Cunningham,[71] quite natural that, according to the Australian custom, the weakest of two new-born twins should be killed.

This custom has been cited to show that the Australian women attach no importance to the lives of their children, and that, consequently, they would offer no resistance to the massacre of the new-born Mulattoes. A race of beings, where the females do not love their young, would scarcely be a human race. The custom of preserving only one twin, and to sacrifice the other on the day of its birth, seems improbable and inexplicable; but taking into consideration the famishing condition of the Australians, the uncertainty and the insufficiency of their alimentation, the absolute want of social organisation, and the material difficulty attending the bringing up of only one child, it may be imagined that the mother, incapable, perhaps, of suckling one baby, resigns herself to sacrificing one child to save the other. There is, therefore, no absolute parallel between the custom in regard to twins and that of the pretended massacre of cross-breeds. If it be still supposed that the natives of the environs of Sydney, perverted by their intercourse with convicts, and exasperated by their violence, have adopted this revolting habit, we should even then only admit that such a degradation is merely local in its application. Certain abominations spread from place to place, and are transmitted from people to people; but a usage so contrary to natural instinct, does not arise simultaneously, and under the same form in different parts of a country. The Australians, however, of Sydney, have no means of transmitting their customs either to the natives of Tasmania, or of Port Essington in North Australia. Dr. Waitz supposes that even seven hundred miles from Sydney the natives sacrifice all young Mulattoes. This supposition is rather hazardous, specially as the traveller whom he quotes merely says that these Mulattoes do not appear to be capable of development.[72]

We conclude from this perhaps too lengthy discussion, that the murder of the Australian Mulattoes is a vulgar tale. Admitting that such murders occur occasionally, or even that they are frequent, there should even then be many Mulattoes in Australia provided the intermixture be very prolific. We can in the above strange explanation only find a confirmation, and a very strong one too, of the fact we have established, namely, that the cross-breeds are rare in Australia. If this fact had not been perfectly evident, there would not have been any occasion to explain it, and Mr. Cunningham, who has made such strenuous efforts to reinstate the natives, would not have charged them with such a terrible accusation.

We have not exhausted the list of hypotheses advanced, to explain the nearly constant sterility attending the intercourse between Australians and Tasmanians and the English. It has also been said that for the most part the intercourse between the two races was accidental, momentary, and that consequently the native woman has a much greater chance to become pregnant by her savage husband than by her European lovers, and that the rarity of Australian Mulattoes had no other cause. M. de Freycinet seems to have accepted this explanation. “No _permanent_ alliances are formed between the two peoples, though we find here and there some Mulattoes; but these are merely the result of some transitory connections of Europeans with Australian women.”[73]

We would first observe that the number of mongrels is in many countries much more considerable, if the intermixture is effected in the same manner as is notably the case in South Africa. There are cross-breeds in several of the Polynesian Islands, where the Europeans have never permanently settled, but only appeared temporarily. There should, therefore, be a good number of them in the Australian colonies, even if it were true that the Whites have never formed a permanent alliance with the native females. It can, however, not be doubted, that more or less enduring alliances have taken place between the two races, namely, that many Whites have kept for months and years Australian concubines under their roof.[74] This fact positively results from the controversy raised by Count Strzelecki. This celebrated traveller, who has visited America and Oceania, remarked that the native women, after having once lived with the white race, become sterile with the men of their own race, though they may still be capable of becoming pregnant by white men. He asserts that he has collected hundreds of such cases among the Hurons, Seminoles, Araucaños, Polynesians, and Melanesians. He does not attempt to explain this strange phenomenon, which, he observes, is owing to some mysterious law, and which appears to him to be one of the causes of the rapid decay of indigenous populations in regions occupied by Europeans.[75]

Mr. Alex. Harvey says that Professors Goodsir, Maunsel, and Carmichael have, from various sources, ascertained that Count Strzelecki’s assertion is _unquestionable_, and must be considered as the expression of a law of nature.[76]

M. de Strzelecki has not specified that the sterilisation of the native females was the consequence of the procreation of cross-breeds. He merely speaks of sexual relations in general; and it appears to result from the text, that a native woman who has cohabited for some time with a European, becomes sterile in the intercourse with men of her own race, even if she has not produced a child.

It has, however, been assumed that this observer speaks only of such women who have at least once been impregnated by a European, and it is in this form that the question has been examined by physiologists. The question has been asked, how the gestation of a Mulatto’s fœtus could modify the constitution of the mother to render her barren with the men of her own race; and Mr. Alex. Harvey,[77] in developing a theory of Mr. McGillivray, has supposed that the embryo, whilst in utero, subjected the mother, by some sort of inoculation, to organic or dynamic modifications, the elements of which had been transmitted to the embryo by the father, and the mother would then retain the impress permanently. In support of this hypothesis, the author reminds us that certain diseases, such as old and non-contagious syphilis, may be communicated to the mother by the mediation of the fœtus. He further observes that in horses, oxen, sheep, and dogs, a female, impregnated for the first time by a male, may for a long time preserve a certain disposition to produce with another male young resembling the first, a phenomenon well-known to breeders. He finally remarks that a mare, having given birth to a mule, conceives subsequently with greater difficulty from horses than from asses, and he connects these instances with those of the native women who once impregnated by a white man, become by it barren in their connexion with men of their own race without, however, losing the capacity of becoming again pregnant by white men.

I cannot accept this adventurous theory which Dr. Carpenter was nearly ready to adopt, but which he has discarded in a postscript, owing to fresh information which he received while his article went to press.[78] The influence of the first male upon the succeeding progeny has been many times rendered evident by the crossing of animals of the same race, and even of different species.[79] The existence of such a phenomenon in the human species is, at any rate, still doubtful, and the connexion of facts of this kind, with Strzelecki’s assertion, is yet more questionable. We must also observe that Strzelecki, in pointing out the barrenness of savage women who have cohabited with the Whites, does not merely speak of such who have produced Mulattoes, but applies equally to those women who had not given birth to any children; and if Mr. Harvey had taken the exact meaning of the text, he might, perhaps, not have advanced his theory.

The observations of M. de Strzelecki, though made in various regions, have been published in a work on Australia. It was thought that he spoke especially of the native women of New South Wales, and it was more from that country that more information was expected on that subject. Mr. Heywood Thomson, a surgeon of the English navy, took up the question, and sent to the _Edinburgh Monthly Journal_ an article tending to refute Strzelecki’s assertion. This article effectively shows that Strzelecki’s opinion was far too general. The author states, that he had known a colonist of the Macquarie river, who communicated to him the following fact:--One of his convict servants had a child born him by an Australian woman, who subsequently returned to her own tribe, had then a second child by a native man. Mr. Thomson states, that other instances of the kind had occurred in the colony; and he strikes a fatal blow at Mr. Harvey’s theory by adding, that the Australian women who have for a certain time cohabited with the Whites, are not more prolific with them than with the natives. But though Mr. Thomson has endeavoured to prove that the cohabitation with Europeans does not necessarily render Australian women barren with men of their own race, he acknowledges that such a result is very common. He admits it as a fact which cannot be contested,[80] and considers it so certain that he tries to explain it, by attributing it to the following causes:--

1. The European who has cohabited with an Australian woman, sends her away after the lapse of a few years, when she is often not young enough to produce children, as Australian women rarely conceive after the thirtieth year. 2. The cohabitation with a European modifies the constitution of the savage woman, who smokes, and is frequently intoxicated during that time. 3. Having not lost the habits of savage life, she returns to her tribe, where she now has some difficulty to support fatigues and irregularities, which diminishes her fecundity. 4. Finally, when she becomes a mother, and the fatigues of maternity are added to her other troubles, she tries to escape them by infanticide. It is to the united effect of these causes that the author attributes the rarity of children born of Australian native women who have returned to their tribes.

It is very significant when an author, despite of himself, confirms by his theories, facts which he had undertaken to disprove. I will not allude again to the story of infanticide, a hundred times more improbable here, than in cases where the child had been begotten by a European. Though it follows, from Mr. Thomson’s article, that Strzelecki’s assertion was too general, it results at the same time that the assertion was well founded. But this is not the place to search for the explanation of a phenomenon which, despite the efforts of Mr. Harvey, does not touch hybridity. If I have dwelt on the fact, it is because the polemics raised by Strzelecki’s observations have incontestably established that the _cohabitation_ of Whites and native Australian women is very common in Australia; and we do not comprehend under this name the sexual intercourse which is accidental and transitory, such as occurs when the women come to market, but the cohabitation under the same roof, and prolonged during several months, and even years. The scarcity of Australian Mulattoes can thus be attributed neither to the rarity nor to the transitory nature of sexual intercourse; neither can we admit, until we are better informed, that the relative sterility of such crossings is the consequence of some homœogenesic defect between the two races.

In studying the cases preceding those just mentioned, we have put the question whether Mulattoes of the first degree were, between themselves, indefinitely prolific, to answer which we had to analyse a certain number of facts. In the present case the facts fail us, and the question can only be examined theoretically. No traveller or author has spoken of the alliance of Australian Mulattoes between themselves, nor of their recrossing on the parent stock. No writer has informed us whether these Mulattoes are robustious, intelligent, vivacious, or, on the contrary, weak, stupid, and short-lived. One thing appears to me certain, that the number of young Mulattoes who die at an early age, or who are not viable, must be relatively considerable, and this may perhaps have given rise to the accusation of infanticide, which I have already refuted. This defective progeny is also observed in the crossings of certain species of animals but little homœogenesic; and if it be true, as everything tends to establish, that the union of the Whites and the Australian women is but little prolific, we may suppose that Mulattoes sprung from such disparate unions, must enter the category of inferior cross-breeds. Are they very prolific between themselves? This seems not very probable, though we have no experimental knowledge of it. It is even doubtful whether they are very prolific with the Whites, for no one has mentioned the existence of Quadroon Mulattoes, which might be as easily recognised as the Quadroons of the Antilles. However small the number of hybrid women of the first degree may be, these women ought to have produced with the Whites, if they had been very prolific, a progeny which ought to have become numerous in the population of a colony founded above seventy years; for there can be no doubt that there, as everywhere, the woman of colour selects by preference the alliance of men of a superior race.

I am far from advancing these suppositions as demonstrated truths. I have studied and analysed all documents within my reach; but I cannot be responsible for facts not ascertained by myself, and which are too much in opposition to generally received opinions to be admitted without strict investigation. I, therefore, earnestly draw the attention of travellers, and especially of physicians resident in Australia to this subject, the importance of which I have endeavoured to point out. Until we obtain further particulars we can only reason upon the known facts; but these, it must be admitted, are so numerous and so authentic as to constitute if not a rigorous definitive demonstration, at least a strong presumption in favour of the doctrines of polygenists.

From the whole of our researches on the hybridity of the human race we obtain the following results:--

1. That certain intermixtures are perfectly eugenesic.

2. That other intermixtures are in their results notably inferior to those of eugenesic hybridity.

3. That Mulattoes of the first degree, issued from the union of the Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) race with the African Negroes, appear inferior in fecundity and longevity to individuals of the pure races.

4. That it is at least doubtful, whether these Mulattoes, in their alliances between themselves, are capable of indefinitely perpetuating their race, and that they are less prolific in their direct alliances than in their recrossing with the parent stocks, as is observed in paragenesic hybridity.

5. That alliances between the Germanic race (Anglo-Saxon) with the Melanesian races (Australians and Tasmanians) are but little prolific.

6. That the Mulattoes sprung from such intercourse are too rare to have enabled us to obtain exact particulars as to their viability and fecundity.

7. That several degrees of hybridity, which have been observed in the cross-breeds of animals of different species, seem also to occur in the various crossings of men of different races.

8. That the lowest degree of human hybridity in which the homœogenesis is so feeble as to render the fecundity of the first crossing uncertain, is exhibited in the most disparate crossings between one of the most elevated and the two lowest races of humanity.