Chapter IX: System (2)

[46] “The Australians only wear woollen clothing in order to protect the chest; ... no idea of shame has ever led them to hide the natural parts.” Lesson et Garnot, _Annales des Sciences Naturelles_, 1827, vol. x.

[47] The orang observed by J. Grant also showed these signs of desperation; “he poured it (a saucer) angrily out on the floor, whined in a peculiar manner, and threw himself passionately on his back on the ground, striking his breast and paunch with his palms, and giving a kind of reiterated _croak_.”--“Account of the Structure of an Orang-Outang,” _Edinburgh Journal of Science_, vol. ix, p. 11. [The same demonstration of feeling was showed by the orangs in the Zoological Gardens, May 1864.--EDITOR.]

[48] [Tagal, a chief town of Java.--EDITOR.]

[49] _Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences_, vol. ii, p. 582.

[50] _Essai Philosophique sur l’âme des bêtes_, 1728, p. 132.

[51] [_Guenon_, the _Simia nasalis_ of Buffon.--EDITOR.]

[52] Plato, _Leges_, x, 1. See Maury, _Religions_, vol. iii, p. 4, _note_ 2.

[53] After having said that the idea of good and evil (_moralité_) exists among all men, M. de Quatrefages adds, that “the notion of the Divinity and that of another life are also generally diffused” (_Unité de l’Espèce Humaine_, p. 23). We shall demonstrate further on (chap. v) that this statement is incorrect, and how fragile the bases are upon which M. de Quatrefages rests the _fundamental_ characteristics which, according to him, distinguish the human kingdom.

[54] M. Chevreul has already defined the “Beautiful” as “the expression of causes whose influence has most force in moving mankind by appealing to their senses” (_Lettres à M. Villemain sur la Méthode_, 1856, p. 169).

[55] [“Truth lies at the bottom of a well,” is an old saying, but our author does not seem to agree with it. We should be very sorry to think that truth was only to be found in science. This is, doubtless, the opinion of a great many learned men at the present day; but we must candidly own we do not agree with it, and certainly are not able to endorse M. Pouchet’s sentiment. We have ourselves not arrived at the point, and in this we are, doubtless, old-fashioned,--of referring everything to “reason,” as opposed to faith.--EDITOR.]

[56] _Edinburgh Journal of Science_, 1828, vol. ix, p. 10.

[57] _Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences_, vol. iii, p. 29.

[58] We can compare this passage from the naturalist philosopher with the other quotations we made farther back. “Females are extremely curious about this spectacle (the fondness of a “mother” monkey for her young one), and doubtless their attention is caused by discovering therein a true manifestation of the feelings they have themselves experienced as mothers; they are, above all things, astonished to recognise in these ardent attentions the joy and pride of maternity, of which they believed themselves alone to be susceptible.” (É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, _Cours d’Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères_, Paris, 1829, vol. i; Lesson, vi, p. 16).

[59] Proudhon has already laid down as a principle the establishment of a psychology among animals (_De la Justice_, vol. ii, p. 279). Frederick Cuvier has done the same.

[60] Hom. iv _in Acta Apostolorum_. See Rechtenbach, _De Sermone Brutorum_, Erfurt, 1706, p. 1.

[61] Sometimes this restraint is openly avowed; and we see M. Maire, who is also engaged upon the same questions, admit that, without these influences, he would embrace the same ideas that we are endeavouring to bring forward. “Let us frankly avow,” he says, “if we had not continually before our minds the doctrines of a religion which we respect,--if we had not a sincere faith, this intuitive belief which tells us we _must_ make a mistake,--we should dare to write thus. The more the organisation of the animal is perfected, the more the spiritual element produced by the action of the various functions is itself perfected.... There would then be only a hierarchical gradation of one and the same principle. The psychical fluid would be always the same in all individuals. The difference in its manifestations would refer to the difference in the organisations which produce them” (_Société Havraise d’Etudes Diverses_, p. 169, 1855-1856).

[62] [We cannot exactly see why it must necessarily have been offensive to Christianity. There is nothing injurious to religion in the theory of intellectual gradation.--EDITOR.]

[63] Jam vero nobis ostendendum est eam (bestia) habere rationem internam et intus conceptam. Videtur sane a nostra differre, non essentia sed gradu. Uti nonnulli existimant Deorum a nostra discrepare rationem, non differentia essentiali, sed quod illorum magis, nostra minus sit accurata. Et quidem quod ad sensum attinet et reliquam, tum instrumentorum sensus, tum carnis universæ, conformationem attinet, eam eodem nobiscum modo se habere in animalibus, ab omnibus fere conceditur.--Porphyrius, transl. by Holsteinius, _De Abstinentiâ_, 1655, p. 108. Is not unity of composition here conjectured, both for the intellect and the body?

[64] _Disquisitio de Animâ Brutorum_, Bremæ, 1676.

[65] _Logicæ Brutorum_, Hamburg, 1697. This little treatise, in spite of the extreme ideas of its author, is not the less precious. J. Stahl was one of those wells of learning which Germany has so often produced. There is, perhaps, not one passage in the old authors who wrote on this point to which he has not referred in his work.

[66] See, among others, S. Gros, _De Animâ Brutorum_, Wittemberg, 1680; Klemnius, _De Animâ Brutorum_, Vittembergiæ, 1704.

[67] Upon this point, M. de Quatrefages agrees with M. Flourens; but the distinction which he endeavours to establish, being based upon _morality_ and _religion_, seems to us much more restricted and much less clear. Not being able to answer everybody, we have been obliged to attend merely to the opinions of that partisan of the human kingdom who gives to animals the largest portion of it.

[68] Proudhon says, in language which is even more concise and affirmative, “In man, the mind knows itself; whilst elsewhere it seems to us that it does not do so” (_Système des Contradictions économiques_, vol. i, 1850, p. 20).

[69] _Annales du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle_, vol. xvi, p. 58.

[70] Maire, _Société Havraise d’Etudes Diverses_, 1855-1856.

[71] _Unité de l’Espèce Humaine_, 1861, p. 24.

[72] Maire, _Société Havraise d’Etudes Diverses_, 1855-1856. We can make the same comparison with a passage almost similar from Maupertuis, _Essai Philosophique sur l’âme des Bêtes_, 1728, p. 134.

[73] _Essai Philosophique sur l’âme des Bêtes_, 1728, p. 95.

[74] See É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, _Comptes Rendus des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences_, vol. iv, p. 261.

[75] See Flourens, _Histoire des Travaux de Buffon_, 1844, p. 135. Descartes made use of the absence of speech in animals as a strong argument against them.

[76] See Gratiolet, _Bulletins de la Soc. d’Anthropologie de Paris_, 18 April, 1861.

[77] See J. Grimm, _De l’Origine du Langage_, transl., 1859, p. 53.

[78] _Traité de l’Origine du Langage_, Engl. transl., 1827, p. 6.

[79] _De l’Origine du Langage_, transl., 1859.

[80] _De l’Origine du Langage_, 2nd edit., 1858.

[81] It is by tracing, according to custom, effects to their causes, that the Buddhist philosophy arrives at the principles of joint responsibility, which, according to it, unites reason to language, making them mutually flow one from the other. “Name and form have as a cause, _intellect_, and intellect has for a cause, _name_ and _form_.”--See Burnouf, _Le Lotus de la bonne loi_, p. 550. Mercurius Trismegistus, in the Pimander (Pimander, _De sapientiâ et potestate Dei_), says almost the same thing: “Speech is the sister of intellect; intellect is the sister of language.” See Rechtenbach, _De Sermone Brutorum_, 1706, p. 2.

[82] See _De l’Origine du Langage_, transl., 1859.

[83] _De l’Origine du Langage_, 1858, p. 31.

[84] See Jacob Grimm, _De l’Origine du Langage_, transl., 1859, p. 29.

[85] Father Pardies (S. J.), in a work, otherwise of no great value, _Discours de la Connaissance des Bêtes_, 1672, p. 39.

[86] _Recherches sur les mœurs de fourmis indigènes_, Genève, 1810.

[87] We refer our readers for all these questions to the remarkable works of M. Toussenel.

[88] _Essai Philosophique sur l’âme des Bêtes_, 1728, p. 217.

[89] It may be seen, in analysing these two simple facts, that they lead us to admit the existence of a notion of _duty_ among animals, although, perhaps, an obscure one:--they know that they _ought_ to act as they are doing from fear of a whipping, and this is an operation of the mind which no one, we think, will deny to be complex in its nature, and purely intellectual.

[90] Isid. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, _Histoire Naturelle Générale_, vol. iii, 1860, p. 114. M. Roulin has remarked, that there is something analogous in this as regards the cat, which loses, in the savage state, those troublesome mewings which we hear so often during the night from the European race.--_Mémoires du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle_, vol. xvii.

[91] It is because there is a sort of capability for education in the animal, and indeed in the whole of his race, placed under certain circumstances; it is because, on the other hand, we refuse to certain human races the “initiative in progress,” (see Broca, _Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie_, May 24 and June 21, 1860), that we cannot accept the “_class man_” of M. Chevreul, preceding the “_class mammalia_,” and having, as a characteristic, the _capability of perfection in the individual, and in the association of individuals_.--See _Exposé d’un moyen de Définir et de Nommer les Couleurs_, § 185. (_Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences_, vol. xxxiii, 1861.)

[92] See Dr. Gibson, Amer. Assoc. (compare _Ami des Sciences_, 29 August, 1858.)

[93] It would be a curious study, for instance, to find out if certain noises,--certain sounds which have no signification to our ears, do not produce, among some animals, clearly determined impressions, having their first origin in these animals themselves, or in their mutual relations, the education we give them going for nothing in this sort of evidence.

[94] [The Rev. F. W. Robertson (who died some years ago), states some opinions in his published sermons which show he was almost before his time in his ideas concerning animals. He says, in comparing them with mankind, “There is the same external form, the same material in the blood-vessels, in the nerves, and in the muscular system. Nay, more than that, our appetites and instincts are alike, our lower pleasures like their lower pleasures, our lower pain like their lower pain; our life is supported by the same means, and our animal functions are almost indistinguishably the same.” _Sermons_, 3rd series, 1857 (preached in 1850), p. 49. “It is the law of being, that in proportion as you rise from lower to higher life, the parts are more distinctly developed, while yet the unity becomes more entire. You find, for example, in the lowest forms of animal life, one organ performs several functions; one organ being, at the same time, heart, and brain, and blood-vessel. But when you come to man, you find all these various functions existing in different organs, and every organ more distinctly developed; and yet the unity of a man is a higher unity than that of a limpet.” (_Sermons_, p. 57.)--EDITOR.]

[95] _A Treatise on the Records of the Creation_, by J. Bird Sumner, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, 6th edit., 8vo, London, 1850.

[96] Nullum characterem hactenus eruere potui, unde homo a simia internoscatur.--Linnæus, _Fauna Suecica_: præfatio.

[97] Owen, _On the Characters of the Class Mammalia_, p. 20, _note_ (_Journal of Proceedings of Linnean Society_, 1857.)

[98] _Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences_, vol. ii, p. 581.

[99] See the magnificent work, _Sketches of Central Africa_, and the portrait of the chief, Kanéma, in _Barth’s Travels_, vol. iii.

[100] Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, _Hist. Naturelle Générale_, vol. ii, pp. 200-515.

[101] [See Huxley’s _Man’s Place in Nature_, 8vo, London, 1863; and the article thereon in the _Edinburgh Review_, April, 1863.--EDITOR.]

[102] Crawfurd, _On the Negro Race_, etc. (_British Association for the Advancement of Science_, 1852, p. 86.)

[103] See the translation of this veritable _Iliad_, by M. H. Fauche. _Râmâyana_, 1857.

[104] [We are told in the _Voyages de François Pyrard_, vol. ii, p. 331, Paris, 1615, “that in the province of Sierra Leone there is a species (of orang-outang) so strong limbed and so industrious that, when properly trained and fed, they work like servants; that they generally walk on the two hind feet; that they pound any substances in a mortar; that they go and bring water from the river in small pitchers, which they carry, full, on their heads. But when they arrive at the door, if the pitchers are not soon taken off, they allow them to fall; and when they perceive the pitchers overturned and broken they weep and lament.” In the _Voyages de Guat. Shoutten aux Indes Orientales_, we find nearly the same account of the orang: “they are taken with snares, taught to walk on their hind feet, and to use their fore-feet as hands in performing different operations, as rinsing glasses, carrying drink round to the company, turning a spit,” etc.--EDITOR.]

[105] _Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences_, vol. ii. See, also, for the separation of the great toe, the photographs in the _Voyage à la Côte Orientale d’Afrique_, by Captain Guillain.

[106] _Odontography_, London, 1840, p. 452. _Catalogue of the Hunterian Collection_, “Osteology,” vol. ii, p. 800.

[107] [A character which, as the Cuviers and Owen have pointed out, man shares with the fossil _Anoplotherium_ and its allies, from the Paris gypsum.--EDITOR.]

[108] Tiedemann, of Heidelberg, wrote to Knox with reference to the nervous system, that he had great reason to believe that the natives of Australia differed in this matter from Europeans in an extraordinary degree.--Knox, _The Races of Men_, London, 1850, p. 2.

[109] “The physical characteristics which distinguish human races, one from the other, are, perhaps, the _one fact in natural history_ which has always most struck the imagination of mankind.... Historians relate, that when Columbus first returned, Europeans could not take their eyes off the plants and unknown animals which he had brought with him; and above all, the Indians, so different from all the races of men they had ever seen.”--Flourens, _Considérations sur l’enseignement de l’Histoire Naturelle de l’Homme_. (_Annales des Sciences Naturelles_, vol. x, p. 357.) This wonder is renewed every day; and I once knew an intelligent negro who had a very unpleasant remembrance of the French provinces, where he had been the object of a very general and indiscreet curiosity.

[110] The works which followed one another on this subject are due to Reinhold Wagner (1699), B. S. Albin (1737), Barrière (1742), Mitchell (1744), Baeck (1748), Meckel (1753-1757), Le Cat (1756-1765), etc. See G. Pouchet, _Des Colorations de l’Epiderme_, 4to, Paris, 1864.

[111] The analysis of the anatomical differences in the skeleton has been, perhaps, best made by Bérard, in France, and Lawrence in England; I may refer for the details to these two authors. Bérard, _Cours de Physiologie_, 1848, vol. i; Lawrence, _Lectures on Comparative Anatomy_, 9th edition, 1848.

[112] Is. Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire, “Sur la Classification Anthropologique,” _Mém. de la Société d’Anthropologie_, 1861, vol. i, p. 125.

[113] [Compare Joulin, _Anatomie et Physiologie comparé du bassin des Mammifères_, 8vo, Paris, 1864; and _Mémoire sur le bassin considéré dans les Races Humaines_, 8vo, Paris, 1864.--EDITOR.]

[114] The proportion given by Camper is this: the great diameter is to the little,

In the European :: 41 : 27.
In the Negro :: 39 : 27·5.

[115] _Account of the Regular Gradation of Man_, 4to, London, 1799, p. 118.

[116] _Cours de Physiologie_, Paris, 1848, vol. i, p. 394. See, also, on the same question, A. Maury, in the _Athénéum Français_, 1853, No. 47.

[117] [We cannot entirely agree with the author regarding the low stature of the Spaniards. From our own observation we may unreservedly say that, at all events, the inhabitants of the _south_ and _south western_ parts of Spain are a fine race, not at all liable to the charge of being different in height from the Anglo-Saxons.--EDITOR.]

[118] [Although our author rather despises the idea of the legs being bowed by riding, it is tolerably well known in this country that too much riding on horseback, _when young_, and especially on large animals, is very apt to alter the shape of delicate and weakly limbs.--EDITOR.]

[119] “Tribus Mongoles,” translated by S. A. de Grandsagne, in the _Mémoires du Muséum_, vol. xvii.

[120] See Broca, _Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie_, 3rd April, 1862.

[121] See Lawrence, _Lectures on Comparative Anatomy_, London, 1848, p. 410.

[122] Davy, _An Account of the Interior of Ceylon_, 1821, p. 109.

[123] See Daniel Wilson, in the _British Review_, 1851; and in Stephens, the description of the Temple of Uxmal.

[124] See _Bulletins de la Société de Géographie_, 4th series, vol. x, p. 45. It must not be forgotten that these weapons with a small handle may have been used by those valiant heroines, whose praises have so often been sung in the songs of the north.

[125] Presented by A. C. Harris, Esq., 1840.

[126] [Compare the memoir of Professor C. G. Carus, _Ueber die Typisch geurdenen abbildungen menschlichen kopfformen namentlich auf münzen in verschiedenen zeiten und volkern_, published in the _Novorum Actorum Academiæ Cæsareæ Leopoldini-Carolinæ Germanicæ naturæ curiosum_ for 1863, in which the author gives characteristic examples of the ancient types, as deduced from the examination of coins, etc. Compare, also, Nott and Gliddon, _Types of Mankind_.--EDITOR.]

[127] See especially Lepsius, _Denkmaeler von Egypten und Œthiopen_, vol. ii, pl. 133; vol. iii, pl. 116, 117, 118, 136.

[128] Bérard, _Cours de Physiologie_, Paris, 1848, vol. i, p. 394.

[129] See J. H. Hanneman, _Curiosum Scrutinium Nigredinus Posterorum Cham_, in 4to, Kiloni, 1677, § 14.

[130] See Pruner-Bey, _Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie_, 5th March, 1863.

[131] See, upon this point, G. Pouchet, _Des Colorations de l’Epiderme_, 4to, Paris, 1864.

[132] Bory de Saint-Vincent divided mankind into _Leucotriques_ and _Ulotriques_ (see Bérard, _Cours de Physiologie_, 1848, vol. i, p. 394). Prichard refers all these races to the three following types:--1. _Melanocomous_; 2. _Leucous_; 3. _Xanthous_ (see _English Cyclopædia_, art. “Man”).

[133] _Tableau Synoptique des Races Humaines_ (_Mém. de la Société d’Anthropologie_, vol. i, p. 143).

[134] See Pruner-Bey, _De la Chevelure_ (_Mém. de la Soc. d’Anthrop._, vol. ii, p. 1).

[135] See Smith, _The Natural History of the Human Species_, p. 189.

[136] See Earl, quoted by Crawfurd, _On the Negro Race_, etc. (_British Association_, 1852, p. 86.)

[137] Compare Burnouf, _Le Lotus de la bonne loi_, p. 562.

[138] Compare, _idem_, _ibidem_, p. 569.

[139] _Narrative of a Second Voyage_, etc., 1835, p. 427.

[140] [The name given to Persia by its inhabitants.--EDITOR.]

[141] Compare _The Natural History of the Human Species_.

[142] M. de Serres, in his _Lectures on Anthropology_, at the Museum of Natural History.

[143] Ross, _Narrative of a Second Voyage_, etc., p. 446.

[144] This fact is related by Pallas, _Mémoires du Muséum_, vol. xvii, p. 238. A Kalmuc saw a body of men thirty versts off [nearly twenty miles English], while the Russian general could see nothing even with a telescope.

[145] It would be interesting to discover if the fact related by Knox (_The Races of Men_, 1850, p. 271) is true; namely, that the sharpness of sight, which the Bosjesmans possess in a very high degree, is lost immediately on crossing the breed with the whites.

[146] Le Cat, _Traité des Sens_, 1744; Haller, _Elementa Physiologiæ_, vol. v, p. 179; Humboldt, _Relation Personnelle_, vol. iii, p. 229.

[147] See Robin, _Annales des Sciences Naturelles_, 1845; _Zoologie_, vol. iv, p. 380.

[148] _Histoire des Travaux de Buffon_, p. 92.

[149] [“Face to face with the present position of metaphysical thought in England, that anthropology, which can find no higher employment for the human mind than the ascertainment of man’s relations with the baboons, will find no place at all.... We have no real fear that the consequences which may result from the practical application of this law (transmutation) will be prejudicial to religion, morality, or society.... But until the day comes when such a law shall be fully, entirely, and satisfactorily established, we must strenuously protest against the diffusion, even amongst the ‘wider circle of the intelligent public,’ of essays, the object of which is to render ‘Man’s Place in Nature’ closer to that of the brute creation.” C. Carter Blake, _Man and Beast_ (_Anthropological Review_, vol. i, pp. 154, 161).--EDITOR.]

[150] See Sömmering, 1785, p. 42.

[151] _Sketches of Central Africa._

[152] There is a copy of it at the British Museum.

[153] We only know of one painting in which Egyptians themselves are represented in a like position; it is in the British Museum, and is on a tomb. It is a group of persons squatted behind a flock of geese. It is right to remark, however, that the artist may have been rather puzzled about its composition, more complicated than usual, and that the inartistic profiles of his figures, which almost cover one another, greatly diminish the value of the picture with reference to our subject.

[154] _Geographische Nosologie oder die Lehre von den Veränderungen der Krankheiten in den Verschiedenen Gegenden der Erde, in Verbindung mit Physicher Géographie und Naturgeschichte des Menschen_, 8vo, Stuttgart, 1813.

[155] _Traité de Géographie Médicale_, 1857: Introduction, p. 29.

[156] [“The great question of acclimatisation has hitherto been treated lightly enough. ‘A firm resolution not to be conquered by a malady,’ says Malte-Brun, ‘is, in the opinion of most doctors, one of the most efficacious preventives of disease. Our body depends on our intelligence. In every climate the nerves, the muscles, the blood-vessels, in relaxing or in stretching, in dilating or in contracting, soon take the particular state which suits the degree of heat or cold which is borne by the body.’ Thus, according to this celebrated geographer, man has only to exercise his _will_ in order to accommodate his organism to all the difficulties of a new temperature and a new climate.” H. J. C. Beavan, _The Acclimatisation of Man_ (_Social Science Review_, February 21, 1863.)--EDITOR.]

[157] Hirsch, _Handbuch der Historisch-Geographischen Pathologie_, § 10. With the author of this immense compilation we refer our readers (with reference to this relative immunity of Negroes from marsh-fever) to the works of Jobin, Tschudi, M’Cabe, Hunter, Arnold, Cameron, Heymann, Epp, Bartlett, Thomson, Tidyman (_Philad. Journ. of Med. Science_, vol. iii, No. 6), etc.

[158] _Epidemiological Society_, 3rd June, 1861; _Medical Times and Gazette_, 29th June, 1861, No. 574.

[159] [“In spite of ‘previous acclimatisation,’ a Negro regiment was almost entirely destroyed by chest disease at Gibraltar, in 1817, within the short space of fifteen months.” _Acclimatisation of Man_ (_Social Science Review_, February 21, 1863).--EDITOR.]

[160] “Si no acontecía ahorcar al Negro, nunca moría.” Compare Herrera, _Hist. Gener. de los Hechos de los Castellanos_, dec. 2, Book III, chap. xiv.

[161] Bancroft (Essay 273); Blair, _Some Account of the last Yellow Fever Epidemic of British Guiana_, London, 1850; Jackson; Hirsch, _Handbuch der Historisch-Geographischen Pathologie_, § 36.

[162] “It is a well-established fact, that there is something in the Negro constitution which affords him protection against the worst effects of yellow fever, but what it is I am unable to say.”--Fenner. Compare Hirsch, _Handbuch_, § 36.

[163] “The smallest admixture of Negro blood, even though the subject be brought from a more northerly state, seems to be a potent antidote against the morbid poison.”--Nott, _Southern Journal of Medicine_, February, 1847. “The coloured people resisted the epidemic influence better than the whites; and, I believe I may hazard the observation, that their degree in resistance was in proportion to the admixture of white blood.”--Bryant, _American Journal_, April, 1856, p. 301. Compare Hirsch, _Handbuch_, § 36.

[164] See _Mémoires de Médecine et de Chirurgie Militaire_, November and December 1863; _Société d’Anthropologie_, meeting of 19th March, 1864.

[165] M. d’Eichthal, _Lettres sur la Race noire_, 1839, p. 15.

[166] [“The Arabs say that Mohammed, whilst on the road from Medina to Mecca, one day happened to see a widow woman sitting before her house, and asked how she and her three sons were; upon which the troubled woman (for she had concealed one of her sons on seeing Mohammed’s approach, lest he, as is customary when there are three males of a family present, should seize one and make him do porterage), said, ‘Very well; but I’ve only two sons!’ Mohammed, hearing this, said to the woman, reprovingly, ‘Woman, thou liest! thou hast three sons; and for trying to conceal this matter from me, henceforth remember that this is my decree,--that the two boys whom thou hast not concealed shall multiply and prosper, have fair faces, become wealthy, and reign lords over all the earth; but the progeny of your third son shall, in consequence of your having concealed him, produce _seedis_ as black as darkness, who will be sold in the market like cattle, and remain in perpetual servitude to the descendants of the other two.’” This is the Arab theory of the Negro’s origin, mentioned in _What led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile_, by J. H. Speke, p. 341, London, 1864.--EDITOR.]

[167] _Othello_, Act I, Scene 3. [Othello was, however, a _Moor_, not a Negro, and capable of a far higher delicacy of mental perceptions than the veritable “unbleached African.” Perhaps one of the most absurd theatrical errors was committed when the part of Othello was acted by a genuine Negro, Ira Aldridge.--EDITOR.]

[168] Edmond About, _Le Progrès_, 1864, p. 15.

[169] These are Negroes of whom he is speaking.

[170] “_De l’Unité de l’Espèce Humaine_,” _Biblioth. Univ. de Genève_, nouv. ser., vol. liv, p. 145, 1844.

[171] Gliddon, _Types of Mankind_, p. 59. Carus has observed, that among the remarkable Negroes mentioned by Blumenbach, not one of them was distinguished either in politics, literature, or in any high conception of art. Compare Gobineau, _De l’Inégalité des Races Humaines_, vol. i, p. 122, 1853.

[172] See De Maillet, _Telliamed_, 8vo, vol. ii, p. 187, Amsterdam, 1748. For want of those passages of the Korán to which he refers, we give the whole of Maillet’s remark on the subject:--“Mohammed was so struck with the difference between white and black men, that he did not hesitate to say, that God had made the first with _white earth_, and the latter with _black_. He did not imagine that men so different, not only in colour but in figure and inclination, could possibly be of one and the same origin. He observes, in another place, that although there have been prophets of all other nations, there was never one among the blacks; which shows that they have so little mind, that the gift of foresight,--the effect of natural wisdom, which has sometimes been honoured with the name of prophecy,--has never fallen to the lot of any of them.” This passage is, besides, remarkable; because this custom of prophecy seems to be a special attribute of the Semitic race (compare Renan, _Histoire Générale des Langues Sémitiques_, 8vo, p. 8, Paris, 1855), and Mohammed, in making this distinction, declared almost a specific characteristic. In the translation of the “Évangile de l’Enfance,” by G. Brunet (_Evangiles Apocryphes_, 12mo, Paris, 1849), there is this curious document (Jesus had just changed some children into rams in the sight of some women, who asked for their pardon), “The Lord Jesus having answered, that _the children of Israel were, among other nations, like the Ethiopians_; the women said,” etc. This is merely a proof of the contempt which overwhelmed this unhappy race in the east.

[173] _On the Negro’s Place in Nature_ (Dr. Hunt, _Anthropological Society of London_, November 17, 1863).

[174] See the table taken from the _Systema Naturæ_. We know that Linnæus had adopted the geographical classification of human races.

Homo Americanus. { _Pertinæ_, contentus, liber.
{ Regitur consuetudine.
” Europæus. { Levis, argutus, _inventor_.
{ Regitur ritibus.
” Asiaticus. { _Severus_, fastuosus, avarus,
{ _Regitur opinionibus._
” Afer. { Vafer, segnis, negligens,
{ _Regitur arbitrio._

[175] _Des Races Humaines_, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_.

[176] [It is, indeed, worthy of a place in science, though not apparently in the sense which is meant by our author. C. Carter Blake says, and says truly, “In zoology, as in all other methods of human thought, the sincere searcher after truth will reap some solid benefit for his labours if carried on in a fair and honest spirit. What science reveals to us,--and we know of no source of knowledge whence the revelation of the truth, as it is manifested in living nature, can be impugned,--what science teaches us, a simple-minded student will accept, that which the unbiassed evidences of his senses and the manifestations of his own consciousness tell him to be true.” (C. Carter Blake, _On the Doctrine of Final Causes, as illustrated by Zoology_, Hastings Philosophical Society, meeting of January 13, 1864.)--EDITOR.]

[177] [“The natives of Australia,” observes Hasskarl, “are deficient in the idea of a Creator or moral Governor of the world, and all attempts to instruct them terminate in a sudden break up of the conversation. The Bechuanas, one of the most intelligent tribes of the interior of South Africa, have no idea of a Supreme Being; and there is no word to be found in their language for the conception of a Creator.” (_Force and Matter_, by Dr. Louis Büchner, transl. and edited by J. F. Collingwood, F.R.S.L., F.G.S., F.A.S.L.).--EDITOR.]

[178] I translate in this way the word _mythology_, used by Latham; it is the real translation. Every religion is necessarily based on a _fable_, for whoever does not practise it, “Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur.” [This is an assertion which our author has no right to make, and which certainly does not redound to his credit. We must earnestly protest against it. A moment’s consideration, however, will satisfy most men that the translator’s license has here been carried to a most unwarrantable extent.--EDITOR.]

[179] The Reverend Messrs. Schmidt, Parker, etc.

[180] John Leighton.

[181] See Bertillon, _Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie_, March 15, 1860. [See above, p. 66, _note_.--EDITOR.]

[182] I had this fact from the mouth of M. de Lesseps, on his return from a journey to Khartûm.

[183] J. Ross, _Narrative of a Second Voyage_, p. 548, 1835.

[184] Emanuel Zobrega wrote to the Company from Brazil, in 1552:--“The inhabitants acknowledge Saint Thomas, whom they call Zomé (changing the _Th_ into _Z_, according to their dialect); and they have a tradition that he once journeyed through this country.” His letter is fully given by Nieremberg, _Historia Naturæ_, fol., Antuerpiæ, 1635.

[185] “On the Intellectual Character of the Esquimaux” (_Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal_, vol. xxxviii, p. 306, October 1844 to April 1845.)

[186] _L’Immortalité de l’âme chez les Juifs_, transl. by I. Cohen, 12mo, Paris, 1857.

[187] See Brecher, _L’Immortalité de l’âme chez les Juifs_, p. 81.

[188] Josephus, _Antiquities_, xviii, ch. 2, transl. by D. G. Génébrard, Paris, 1639.

[189] Chapter upon the “Nirvâna.”

[190] Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, _Bouddha et sa Religion_, chapter upon the “Nirvâna,” 1862.

[191] Niebuhr quoted, in support of this, the Nalhkis and the Guaranis in the New Californian and Cape Missions. Schlegel (_Essais_, p. 341, Paris, 1841) declares, that most savage nations ought always to remain so by the will of nature.

[192] See _Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences_, meeting of July 20, 1857.

[193] “I maintain,” says Courtet de l’Isle (_Tableau Ethnographique du genre humain_, p. 89, 8vo, Paris, 1849), “that human races are unequal in intellectual power, that they are, consequently, not susceptible of the same degree of development, and that each of them is called upon to fill, in unequal conditions, a mission marked out by Providence.”

[194] Doctor Martius is a curious example of the extravagances to which monogenist ideas may lead. In order to explain the moral character of the Americans, he is obliged to suppose a frightful cataclysm [great inundation] which happened, he cannot say when, and adds, “Is it the profound terror felt by those unhappy people who escaped from this awful calamity which, being transmitted without a diminished intensity to following generations, has troubled their reason, obscured their intelligence, and hardened their heart?” Compare Morel, _Traité des Dégénérescences de l’espèce humaine_, 1857, and _Discours Inaugural à l’Académie de Rouen_, 1857.

[195] D’Orbigny saw the Charruas continue a war against the Spaniards (who decimated them) rather than renounce their much-valued independence. (_Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale_, vol. iv, Introduction p. 4.) [Our author ought not to compare the northern Americans with the southern aborigines, giving to _both_ of them, apparently, the same characteristics. The northerners are whites, and (supposing the Canadians and the north-western settlers are spoken of) worthy of his praise. We put the present _Northern States_ on one side altogether, as the character given by our author cannot possibly apply to them. The Charruas, who are mentioned in the above note, are Indians, inhabiting the banks of the Uruguay in South America, and therefore, whatever may be their courage and love of liberty _as aborigines_, they cannot properly be classed with white inhabitants, who are merely _settlers_.--EDITOR.]

[196] Compare D’Escayrac de Lauture, _Le Désert et le Soudan_; _Mémoire sur le Soudan_, etc. [These people are not so very peculiar in this respect. Even in our own land, there is sometimes a good deal of difficulty in obtaining information about routes; and agricultural labourers especially are much given to scratching their heads and chewing the cud of meditation, ending with an indecision quite delightful to the tired traveller.--EDITOR.]

[197] See _Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica_, pp. 482, 483, 4to, Amstelodami, 1723.

[198] See _Essai Politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne_, Paris, 1811.

[199] _Voyage dans l’Amérique Méridionale._

[200] _Crania Americana_, Introduction.

[201] _Mémoire_ on the preceding work.

[202] [Dr. Hunt, however, does not think that language is such an unfailing test as our author appears to imagine. He considers that language must be utterly discarded as the first principle of anthropological classification, and gives a far higher value to religion and to art, considering language merely as the third element. It is possible to change the language of a race; but apparently impossible to change either their religion or their innate ideas of art. See Hunt on _Anthropological Classification_ (_Brit. Assoc._, 1863), _Anthrop. Rev._, vol. i, p. 383. “On ethnology, Professor Müller says, ‘The science of language and the science of ethnology have both suffered most seriously from being mixed up together. The classification of races and languages should be quite independent of each other. Races may change their languages; and history supplies us with several instances where one race adopted the language of another. Different languages, therefore, may be spoken by one race, or the same language may be spoken by different races; so that any attempt at squaring the classification of races and tongues must necessarily fail.’”(_On the Science of Language_, R. S. Charnock; _Anthrop. Rev._, vol. i, p. 200.)--EDITOR.]

[203] See Chavée, _Les Langues et les Races_, 1862.

[204] _Histoire des Langues Sémitiques_, p. 467, Paris, 1855.

[205] See Prichard, _The Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations_, edited by Latham, 1857.

[206] “The sound of their voice resembles sighing.” “Their language resembles the clucking of a turkey.” Compare White, _Account of the regular gradation of Man_, p. 67, London, 1799. Appleyard, _The Kafir Language_, p. 3, 8vo, King William’s Town, 1850. Morel, _Traité des Dégénérescences de l’espèce humaine_, p. 42, Paris, 1857. “The Kafirs have adopted some of the inflexions in use among their neighbours, but as a simple ornament to their speech, without attributing any special signification to these ‘cluckings.’”--Is. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (_Correspondence_).

[207] Compare Cabanis, _Rapports du Physique et du Moral_, 13th year, vol. ii, p. 201: Knox, _The Races of Men_, p. 82, London, 1850: Morel, _Dégénérescences de l’Espèce Humaine_, Paris, 1857.

[208] See Beddom in _English Cyclopædia_: see, also, Vitruvius, book vi, ch. i.

[209] _Rapports du Physique et du Moral_, 13th year, vol. ii, p. 294.

[210] _Histoire Naturelle Générale_, vol. iii, p. 319, 1860. We do not here quote the facts relative to the Barbary and Corsican stag (_ibidem_, p. 407), since they rest only on the negative assertion of an old author.

[211] “Partout de petits changements, nulle part de grands.” _Hist. Naturelle Générale_, vol. iii, p. 388.

[212] _Recherches sur les Ossements Fossiles_, 4to, vol. i, p. 59, 1831.

[213] _Histoire Naturelle Générale_, vol. iii, p. 389.

[214] “What would be thought of a breeder who took Norman colts or Flemish calves to the high lands of the Alps and the Pyrenees, and then expected to see them reproduce (their training having been finished) all the pure characteristics of the original races?”--Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, _Histoire Naturelle Générale_, vol. iii, p. 307.

[215] See Verneuil, _Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie_, February 2, 1860.--Bonté, _ibidem_, August 6, 1863.

[216] [“A priest who has drunk wine shall migrate into a moth or a fly, feeding on ordure. He who steals the gold of a priest, shall pass a thousand times into the bodies of spiders. If a man shall steal honey, he shall be born a great stinging gnat; if oil, an oil-drinking beetle; if salt, a cicada; if a household utensil, an ichneumon fly” (_Institutes of Menu_, § 353). Thus, apparently with regard to _comparison_, the Hindú considers insects to be the lowest form of animal life, into which _moral_ criminals are to pass after death, according to their doctrine of metempsychosis.--EDITOR.]

[217] [Why will some scientific men persist in separating, so strongly, religion and science, as if _both_ could not be practised? This is what the “master of science” appears to think. Each _student_ of science may well apply the following lines: “It is your duty to go on steadfastly, unwaveringly, _ohne Hast, ohne Rast_, conscious that you interpret, to the best of your finite ability, your conceptions of the truths of science, equally conscious that whatever may be the immediate result of your labours, they must eventually fulfil the aspiration which tends _ad majorem Dei gloriam_.”--C. Carter Blake _On the Doctrine of Final Causes_ (_Hastings Philosophical Society_, meeting of January 13, 1864).--EDITOR.]

[218] Robin, _Mémoire sur la Production du Blastoderme_ (_Journal de Physiologie_, p. 358, 1862).

[219] It is thus that we do not see realised in man that general law which decrees that animal species are large in proportion to the continent which they inhabit; the mean size of the mammalia, in particular, is regularly proportional to the extent of Australia, America, the ancient continent, and the bottom of the ocean.

[220] Compare Mitchell, _An Essay upon the Causes of the Different Colours_, etc. (_Philosophical Transactions_, 1745.)

[221] “Sole colorari homines non dubium, eosque autem ut nigrescant non constat.” Albinus, _De Sede et Causa Coloris Æthiopum_, p. 12. He also says, still speaking of Negroes, that they are coloured, “quod suum parentes colorem in liberos propagant ...; æthiops fœmina si cum mare æthiope rem habuerit, æthiopem, ni quid forte natura ludat, gignit; alba si cum albo, album.”--_Ibidem_, p. 10. It is in some manner the permanence of a declared type.

[222] _Dissertation Physique sur les Différences des Traits du Visage_, p. 17.

[223] See above, p. 85.

[224] Yvan, _De France en Chine_, p. 175, Paris, 1853. [“M. Périer has mentioned, according to Yvan, the beauty of the inhabitants of the island of Réunion, who descend from a few couples only, and yet have known how to preserve their purity of blood” (_An Inquiry into Consanguineous Marriages and Pure Races_, Dr. E. Dally; transl. by H. J. C. Beavan, _Anthrop. Review_, p. 97, 1864).--EDITOR.]

[225] White, _Account of the regular Gradation of Man_, p. 112. Morton, _Crania Americana_, Introduction. Prince de Wied, _Voyage au Brésil_, vol. ii, p. 310. Bory de St. Vincent, _Essai Zoologique sur le genre humain_, vol. ii, p. 20.

[226] Desmoulins, _Histoire Naturelle des races humaines_, p. 162. _Indigenous Races of the Earth_, p. 585.

[227] White, _Account of the regular Gradation of Man_, p. 104.

[228] W. Edwards, _Des Caractères Physiologiques des races humaines_, p. 14. Niebuhr (transl.), _Lectures on Ethnography_, vol. i, p. 374.

[229] John Hunter also thought that man was originally black; he had remarked that domestic animals become white by age. Compare White, _Account of the regular Gradation of Man_, p. 100. Hunter thus confounded men with domestic animals. We have already said what must be thought of this connexion.

[230] Compare Morel, _Dégénérescence de l’espèce humaine_, p. 5, Paris, 1857.

[231] See above, p. 73.

[232] Climateric influences act probably upon wild animals in the same manner; it must be remarked, however, that a captive animal and a man, taken to another country, are not exposed in the same degree to the action of the new medium; conditions are not similarly altered as regards both of them. Sometimes the man, sometimes the animal, will have most chances of resistance; the one being always obliged by his master to submit to an intellectual government, approaching as much as possible his former state; the other, abandoned to himself, and drawn fatally into the new habits which he sees around him.

[233] See, on this point, Boudin, _Géographie Médicale_, vol. ii, p. 15, Paris, 1857. _Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes_, p. 230, 1833. G. Pouchet, _Des Colorations de l’épiderme_, 4to, Paris, 1864.

[234] [Dr. Waitz, in his _Introduction to Anthropology_ (translated and edited by J. F. Collingwood), gives an explanation concerning the colouring matter in the Negro, which is very curious, but with which, however, he does not agree; viz., “that in hot climates the amount of oxygen inspired is insufficient to change the carbon into carbonic acid, and that the unconsumed carbon is deposited in the pigment-cells of the skin.... It is, however, difficult to admit that the browning of the skin in our climate in summer is produced by the same causes as the black colour of the Negro, and that it would only require a greater intensity and a longer duration to become so entirely.” Part. I, sect. i, p. 35.--EDITOR.]

[235] The precociousness of the genital functions is in direct relation with this general fact.

[236] W. Edwards, _Caractères Physiologiques_, etc., p. 14. “The tropics alone produce the combination of infantine grace with the full development of female maturity.” Smith, _Natural History_, etc., p. 190. See, also, Cabanis, _Rapports du Physique et du Moral_, vol. ii; and Davy, _Account of Ceylon_. These two authors in particular have quite appreciated these changes.

[237] Boudin, _Géographie Médicale_, vol. ii, p. 150, 1857.

[238] Meeting of November 7, 1861.

[239] [See above, p. 59, _note_.--EDITOR.]

[240] It would appear from the documents collected by Nott (_Two Lectures on the Natural History of the Caucasian and Negro Races_, Mobile, 1844, compare Boudin, _Géogr. Méd._, vol. ii, p. 144), that as we advance towards the upper part of the Northern States, madness becomes very frequent among the Negroes. It reaches the proportion of one case of insanity among twenty-eight sane persons in Massachusetts and Maine. We hesitate in acknowledging climateric influence, because the number of cases seems to increase relatively to the degree of instruction among the people; not that madness depends on education, but because it finds out a great number of cases of which we should otherwise have been ignorant, as often happens in the east among a less enlightened people.

[241] Compare Boudin, _Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie_, August 1, 1861.

[242] Compare Boudin, _Traité de Géographie Médicale_, 1857, Introduction.

[243] _New York Medical Journal_, p. 399, February 1831 (see Hirsch, _Handbuch der Historisch-geographischen Pathologie_, § 35, p. 1).

[244] _Some Account of the Last Yellow Fever Epidemic of British Guiana_, p. 59, 8vo, London, 1850.

[245] Barton, _Report of the Sanitary Commission of New Orleans for 1853_, p. 248, New Orleans, 1854 (see Hirsch, _Handbuch_, etc., § 35). He brings forward several pieces of evidence in the same question. They seem to us too decisive, in a polygenist point of view, for us not to give the entire list of his quotations: Romay, _Diss. sobre la Fiebre Amarilla_, etc., Habana, 1797: Arnold, _Treatise on the Bilious Remittent Fever_, etc., p. 26, London, 1840: Zimpel, _Jenaische Annalen für Med._, i, p. 68: Dickinson, _Observations on the Inflammatory Endemic incident to Strangers in the West Indies_, etc., p. 13, London, 1819: Ferguson, _Notes and Reflections_, p. 150, London, 1846: Dickson, _Philadelphia Med. and Phys. Journal_, iii, p. 250: Lallemand, _Das Gelbfieber_, etc., p. 121. [Schomburgk, _A Description of British Guiana_, etc., p. 22, London, 1840.--EDITOR.]

[246] Words borrowed from the definition of species by Isidore Geoffroy, _Histoire Naturelle Générale_, vol. ii, p. 437. “The act which appears most natural to living beings who are perfect, and who are not abortive, nor produced by spontaneous generation, is the production of a being like themselves, the animal producing an animal, the plant a plant, so as to participate in the eternal and divine nature as much as they can.”--_De l’âme_, book ii, chap. iv, § 2, transl. by Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire.

[247] Nott and Gliddon, _Indigenous Races of the Earth_, p. 443.

[248] Nott and Gliddon, _Types of Mankind_, p. 373, 1854.

[249] See Boudin, _Géographie Médicale_, Introduction, p. 39.

[250] See Morel, _Traité des Dégénérescences_.

[251] Périer, _Société d’Anthropologie_, meeting of April 21, 1864.

[252] _Des Races Humaines_, 1845.

[253] _Account of the Regular Gradation of Man_, p. 146.

[254] Compare W. Edwards, _Des Caractères Physiologiques_, etc., p. 29.

[255] Individual distinctions can only, then, be based on the alterations of type, in characteristics which are not those of the supposed ideal. It hence results that, if we have lived with a stranger who has all the characteristics of his race well marked, we think that we see him while travelling among his fellow countrymen.

[256] “It is one of the clearest facts in the animal, as well as in the vegetable world; all races generally reproduce and perpetuate themselves without mingling and confounding one with the other.”--Prichard, _Histoire Naturelle de l’Homme_, vol. i., p. 17. Compare Morel, _Dégénérescences de l’espèce humaine_, p. 2.

[257] Third number. Most of the articles in this remarkable production are unsigned.

[258] “No race will amalgamate with another; they die out, or seem slowly to be becoming extinct.” Compare the _Ethnological Journal_, p. 98.

[259] “We arrive at the fundamental conclusion that it is useless for people belonging to varieties of different races, but neighbours, to ally themselves together; part of the new generation will always preserve the primitive type.”--See Courtet de l’Isle, _Tableau Ethnographique_, p. 77.

[260] Latham thinks, however, that he has discovered some vestiges of the Phœnician race in Africa and Cornwall. Compare Knox, _The Races of Men_, 1850.

[261] [Small columns, having neither base nor capital.--EDITOR.]

[262] It is the case with the hippopotamus and the lion.

[263] Thus, at least, Buffon translates “Gothi corpore proceriore, capillis albidis rectis, oculorum indibus cinere--cærulescentibus.”--Linnæus, _Fauna succica_, p. 1.

[264] By virtue of the law which makes us find a family likeness in an individual after it has been absent, or rather hidden, for one or more generations.

[265] “Rutilæ comæ, magni artus.”--Tacitus, _Agricola_, ii, § 11.

[266] “Colorati vultus et torti plerumque crines.”--Idem, _ibidem_.

[267] Idem, _ibidem_.

[268] See Latham, _Celtic Language_, p. 371. J. B. Davis and J. Thurnam, _Crania Britannica_, p. 53. Garnet, in the _Transactions of the Philological Society_. R. Cull and Latham, in the _Edinburgh New Physical Journal_, 1854. Périer, _Fragments Ethnologiques_, Paris, 1857.

[269] J. Philips, see _British Association_, 1849.

[270] The name itself of this district shows, however, the habitation of these parts by the Scandinavians.

[271] Compare W. Edwards, _Des Caractères Physiologiques des Races Humaines_. Paris, 1829.

[272] See Périer, _Fragments Ethnologiques_, Paris, 1857.

[273] _Recherches sur l’Ethnologie de la France_ (_Mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie_, vol. i, p. 1). See, also, the discussion which followed the reading of this paper (_Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie_, meetings of July 21 and August 4, 1859).

[274] We may remark this line is precisely perpendicular to the climateric parallels which divide France.

[275] [The standard in France is, we believe, five feet.--EDITOR.]

[276] _Peru_, 1846.

[277] _Nicaragua: its People_, vol. ii, p. 153, New York, 1852.

[278] _Essai sur l’Inégalité des Races Humaines_, Paris, 1852.

[279] _Rapports du Physique et du Moral_, vol. i, p. 484.

[280] M. Morel, _Traité des Dégénérescences_.

[281] [“All races of mankind intermix, they are fertile, producing cross-breeds, mulattoes, mestizoes, etc., which again are productive. All human races constitute, therefore, on physiological principles, but one species, which is here identical with _genus humanum_.” So thinks Professor Rudolph Wagner, but his arguments are not very satisfactory. He refers varieties of race in a great measure to climatic influence. See _Creation of Man and Substance of the Mind_ (_Anthrop. Rev._, vol. i, p. 229).--EDITOR.]

[282] Compare _Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie_, vol. iii, p. 175.

[283] In applying these principles to family consanguinity, we may say in a general manner, that it will be favourable or not to the offspring according to the state of the parents. If the parents are perfectly healthy, and exempt from all commencing degeneracy, they can only give birth to children at least as healthy as themselves. If one of the two parents is tainted with a commencement of degeneracy, the descendant, in his quality of offspring, will perhaps bear the trace of this degeneracy, but sensibly weakened. If the two parents are separately tainted with a different commencement of degeneracy, one or the other ought to continue it in the child, only in a lesser degree. But if the same degeneracy has already tainted both the parents, the offspring will show it in a greater degree, and will tend towards entire disappearance.

[284] Flourens, _Histoire des Travaux de Buffon_, p. 180.

[285] [_On the Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo_, edited by C. Carter Blake, F.G.S., F.A.S.L.--EDITOR.]

[286] Compare G. Pouchet, _Précis d’Histologie Humaine_, § 5.

[287] “Ac Sylla quidem sodalis noster, fatus nos parva quæstione tanquam instrumento ingentem et gravem de origine mundi quæstionem subruere.” _Quæstionem Convivalium_, book ii, quest. 3; transl., edited by F. Didot, 1841.

[288] Buffon said that (_Suppléments_, vol. iv, p. 335) this method of generation is not only the most frequent and the most general, but the most ancient, that is, the first and most universal one. Plutarch (_Quæst. Conviv._, book ii, quest. 3; transl., edited by F. Didot, 1841) makes the same remark: “Proinde probabile est primum ortum ex terra gignentis perfectione ac robore absolutum fuisse, nihilque indigentem hujusmodi instrumentis, receptaculis et vasis, qualia nunc ob imbecillitatem natura parit atque machinatur parientibus.”

[289] It must not be forgotten, that organic substances are supposed to have been found even in the formation of certain aërolites.

[290] É. Geoffroy, _Comptes Rendus des séances de l’Académie des Sciences_, vol. v, p. 193.

[291] See Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, _Histoire Naturelle Générale_, vol. iii, p. 210.

[292] [We are almost tempted, in all kindness, to refer our author to the following remarks in the _Reliques of Father Prout_, p. 264. “I have been at some pains to acquire a comprehensive notion of the Count de Buffon’s system, and, aided by an old Jesuit, I have succeeded in condensing the voluminous dissertation into a few lines, for the use of those who are dissatisfied with the Mosaic statement:--

1. In the beginning was the sun, from which a splinter was shot off by chance, and that fragment was our globe.

2. And the globe had for its nucleus melted glass, with an envelope of hot water.

3. And it began to twirl round, and became somewhat flattened at the poles.

4. Now, when the water grew cool, insects began to appear, and shell-fish.

5. And from the accumulation of shells, particularly oysters (see vol. i, p. 14, 4to, 2nd ed.), the earth was gradually formed, with ridges of mountains, on the principle of the Monte Testacio at the gate of Rome.

6. But the melted glass kept warm for a long time, and the arctic climate was as hot in those days as the tropics now are,--witness a frozen rhinoceros found in Siberia.” Let the leaven work, although a mere joke to M. Pouchet’s reality.--EDITOR.]

[293] _Histoire Naturelle_, vol. ix, p. 127, 1761. Étienne Geoffroy (_Comptes Rendus_, vol. iii, p. 29) says the same thing “as regards the actual constitution of the globe; each race is a species _sui generis_,--a form or combination of its own in nature.”

[294] The terms of this definition are almost entirely borrowed from Isidore Geoffroy. By ending it with these words, “in the present order of things,” Isidore Geoffroy only defined the existing species, and took away, without any reason, the palæontologic species.

[295] Lamarck, _Discours de l’An XI_, p. 45.

[296] See Flourens, _Examen du livre de M. Darwin sur l’Origine des Espèces_, 18mo, Paris, 1864. We are at least astonished to find the name of the Geoffroys mentioned but once in such a work (p. 45). M. Flourens charges Darwin with only quoting the partisans of his own opinions (p. 40).

[297] [See above, p. 84, _note_.--EDITOR.]

[298] _Sur l’Influence du monde ambiant_, 1831 (_Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences_), vol. xii, p. 81.

[299] Vol. ii, second part, 1859.

[300] _Philosophie Zoologique_, vol. i, p. 221.

[301] _Système des Connaissances Positives_, p. 143, 1820.

[302] _Discours de l’An XI_, p. 45. He says, also, in another place (_Philosophie Zoologique_, vol. i, p. 66), “What we call species, has only a relative constancy in that state, and cannot be as ancient as nature itself.”

[303] Lamarck, _Organisation des Corps Vivants_, p. 53.

[304] For nature “time has no limit, and consequently has it always at its disposal.” Lamarck, _Système des Animaux sans Vertèbres_, p. 13, 1801.