Des limites mises par la nature au perfectionnement des facultés humaines.

CHAP. 2: > Of the limits placed by nature on the perfection of human faculties.

In speaking of the perfection of man, I have concerned myself only with the greater or lesser power that each of our organs has to fulfill the functions for which nature has destined them; thus, the individual whose faculties have received the most development or perfection is not he whose organs have received such a form or whose complexion has such a color; it is he in whom each of the parts is constituted for the advantage of the whole, he who has received, in each of his faculties, the means to be as useful to himself and to his fellows as his own nature allows.

But is this not to consider the perfection of man in an incomplete manner? Do not the form of the features, the color of the complexion, the nature of the hair have a kind of perfection independent of the aptitude of our organs to fulfill this or that function? Does not an individual of the swarthy or Malay species approach closer to the perfection of which human nature is susceptible, than an individual of the black or Ethiopian species? Is not an individual of the copper-colored or American species more perfected than an individual who belongs to the Mongolian or olive-colored species? Finally, is not an individual of the Caucasian species more perfected than an individual of the copper-colored species? If these questions were given to a tribunal to resolve, it is probable that the solution would depend less on the nature of things considered in themselves, than on the species to which the judges belonged.It has been observed that, in general, each people attaches particular ideas of beauty to the features that distinguish it from others: for it, perfection consists in the very exaggeration of these features. The natives of the island of Van Diemen have a complexion almost as black as that of the negroes; in their eyes, an essential part of beauty is to be completely black, and to approach this kind of perfection, they daub themselves with charcoal [4]. The Hottentots of the Cape of Good Hope also have a very dark complexion; they augment, with paint, this kind of perfection. They have, moreover, a very broad and flat nose, and a very small one; and, according to Kolbe’s report, they increase this characteristic of their beauty by pressing in the nose of their newborn children with a thumb [5]. One of the characteristic features of the American species is its copper color: for it, beauty is to be red; thus, the peoples of this species exaggerate their natural color with paint: among them, one speaks of the misery of a man who has nothing with which to paint himself red, as we speak of a man who has no linen to cover himself [6]. Another characteristic feature of the peoples of this species is to have sparse hair: beauty is to have none at all, and consequently they pluck their hair with such care that it was long believed they had no beard [7]. There are among them tribes that have a singularly flattened forehead; beauty is to have a flattened head, and to give their children this kind of perfection, the parents, from birth, press their foreheads between two planks [8]. One of the particular features of the Caucasian or European species is the whiteness of its complexion, and a rosy tint spread over the cheeks; this is one of the characteristics of beauty; when certain persons lack this feature, they supplement it by means analogous to those put into use by the negroes of Van Diemen's land, and by the copper-colored people of America. The Greeks, far from having a flattened head like certain American peoples, had, on the contrary, a very open facial angle: for them the most perfect being was he who was distinguished by such a characteristic; this is what is observed in the statues of Jupiter and Apollo that they have transmitted to us [9]. An analogous observation has been made on the peoples and statues of Egypt: it is enough to cast one’s eyes on these statues and to compare them to the Greek statues, to be convinced that the ideas of beauty or perfection were not the same in the two countries [10]. Finally, travelers have observed that the peoples of the Mongolian race, who inhabit the eastern coasts of Asia, naturally have remarkably small feet and hands [11]; and this could perhaps explain to us the pains the Chinese take to reduce the feet of their women to the smallest possible volume [12].

There exist, doubtless, in several cases, some relations between the external forms of our organs and the aptitude they have to fulfill the functions for which they are destined. It is not impossible that the ideas peoples have of beauty were born of a certain kind of perfection, of some real quality. Intelligence can manifest itself by the form of certain external organs, strength or skill by the form of certain others, youth and health by other signs. But the same forms or the same signs may not indicate the same moral or physical qualities, in all individuals or in all species [13]. The complexion that in an individual of the Caucasian species is the sign of health, is not so in an individual of the African species, and consequently, what is a beauty for the one cannot be so for the other. It does not, moreover, enter into the plan of this work to seek what are the relations that exist between the form of our organs and their aptitude to fulfill certain functions; this is research that belongs to another kind of knowledge; it is enough for me to have determined what I mean here by the word perfection.

We have seen, in the preceding chapter, that, although we do not have the means to determine the point of perfection to which human nature can arrive, one cannot doubt that this perfection has its limits. Some philosophers have appeared to believe the contrary, however; but this belief has been founded only on hypotheses: the facts, far from justifying it, demonstrate on the contrary how little foundation it has. The obstacles that men find to their perfection are of two kinds: some are found in the very nature of man; others in the things by which man is surrounded. It is a question here only of the former.

The progress of the arts and sciences has sheltered civilized peoples from certain diseases, and has given them the means to cure themselves of some others; the average term of human life has thus been prolonged. But, however immense these advances may have been, no one has yet discovered the means to increase the duration of life by a few years, when it is not attacked by any accident or by any kind of disease. The best-constituted men do not, in our day, reach a more advanced age than that which equally well-constituted men reached in times of the most profound ignorance. Old age arrives in our time at exactly the same age at which it arrived three thousand years ago; and if one could have any confidence in fabulous traditions, one would be led to believe that it is at present more precocious than it was of old.

It does not appear, either, that men have carried the development of muscular forces beyond what they were in the most remote centuries. We see, by what remains to us from the most ancient times, that men formerly had the same dimensions they have today. What poets and historians tell us of ancient times could even make us believe that our physical forces are below what those of some peoples were then. The change that has taken place in the machines or weapons proper to war, joined to the abandonment of gymnastic exercises, would be more than sufficient to account for the difference.

Finally, no fact establishes that the organs of sight, hearing, or smell now have more fineness or extent than they had of old. The duration of childhood and old age, the pains that are the consequence of growth or destruction, are today what they have been in all times. We need, to feed or clothe ourselves, about the same quantity of food and clothing that our ancestors needed. We are no more insensitive to pain or more sensitive to pleasure than were the men of Homer’s time. In a word, if one were to judge man only by his physical and material organs, one would believe that he is today what he has always been; perhaps one would even be disposed to believe that he has degenerated in some respects. The system that would present each of our faculties as susceptible to a limitless perfection, far from being supported by the facts, would thus be belied by experience. What has been perfected in us is the art of making use of our physical or intellectual organs, the art of increasing their power by new machines or methods; the art of foreseeing the results of our actions, and of consequently regulating our affections in a manner more advantageous to ourselves and to our fellows. The part of ourselves least susceptible to perfection is that which consists in a force that is in some way material. The parts most susceptible to being perfected are our moral and intellectual faculties, the aptitude of some of our organs to execute certain operations.

But are all individuals, placed in a similar position, susceptible to the same kind of perfection, do all encounter in their own nature the same obstacles? A philosopher has resolved these questions affirmatively. Helvétius claimed that all men were susceptible, if not of the same physical development, at least of the same intellectual and moral perfection. This system, supported with much wit, is not, however, founded on experience, and consequently we must consider it as being founded on nothing. It is quite evident that men are not at all equal in their physical organs; and that one could not give to those who are born weak and poorly constituted, the same agility, the same skill, the same strength as to those who are born with a strong and vigorous constitution. It is very difficult to find in organized nature two perfectly similar beings; and how to conceive of a perfect resemblance in all the individuals of the species whose organization is the most complicated? Men differing from one another in their physical organization, one could not prove that they are all susceptible to the same intellectual and moral perfection, before having proved that the physical organs are without influence on the moral and intellectual faculties, a proposition so belied by experience, that one may doubt whether it deserves to be refuted. Thus, in asking if all men are susceptible to the same development, it is not of a difference from individual to individual that I mean to speak; it is of a difference of species or of variety.

This question of the development of which the diverse species or varieties of men are susceptible is linked to a question that is, for the human race, of the highest importance, that of the influence of places and climates on all human faculties. A great number of naturalists and philosophers have considered climate as the productive cause of the species that have been observed in the human race. Several have thought that all the species or varieties of men were not susceptible to an equal development. They have believed that some had over the others a great superiority of physical organization, and that this superiority permitted them to carry further the perfection of their intellectual and moral faculties. This opinion has not been adopted only by philosophers; it has been so by theologians as well. From the first years of the conquest of America, the Spanish priests were divided on the question of knowing whether individuals of the copper-colored species were endowed with enough intelligence to be admitted to participate in the mysteries of the Catholic religion. A great number of them considered the Indians as belonging to an inferior species whose intellectual faculties were not susceptible to development, and the decision of the court of Rome was not sufficient to make them change their opinion. Others have passed the same judgment on individuals of the Ethiopian species and of the Malay species; this judgment has even served them to justify the slavery of the former. The question of varieties or species is thus linked to that of slavery, at the same time as to that which is relative to the influence of climates.

Of all the questions relative to the perfection of the social order, there are perhaps none more important than those that relate to the different orders of aristocracy. It is questions of this nature that have agitated the world, from the most remote times to our own; however, in all these quarrels, the diverse classes of the population belonged to the same species of men. But, since the Europeans established themselves in America, in the south of Asia, in some of the islands of the great Ocean, and in the south and west of Africa, we see appear a kind of aristocracy of which we had no idea, the aristocracy of species. This new combination will considerably influence the existence of the American republics, and, in this respect, it deserves all our attention.