Des diverses espèces ou variétés dont se compose le genre humain. — De l’opinion de quelques écrivai

CHAP. 3: > Of the diverse species or varieties of which the human race is composed. — Of the opinion of some writers on this subject.

To determine in an exact manner each of the points in which the diverse species or varieties of men resemble each other, and those in which they differ, it would be necessary to enter into developments that would be foreign to this work, and that would require observations to which I have not devoted myself; for, on these matters, books are a very imperfect source of instruction; the natural history of man is moreover too little advanced to leave us nothing to desire in this regard. When one reads the works that have been written on this subject, one is astonished at the small number of facts that scientists have observed on most of the species among which the human race is divided; and one hesitates to draw general conclusions from them, in the fear of converting into rules, facts that were perhaps only exceptions or oddities of nature. Thus, in this chapter, I have no other object than to expound the general features that, according to some physiologists, characterize each of the principal species that have been observed, and to investigate whether climate has any influence on their production. I will then examine whether the moral and intellectual superiority that has been attributed to some over others is proven by well-established facts, and what are, in morality and in legislation, the consequences that can be drawn from this superiority, supposing that it exists.

Blumenbach, and after him W. Lawrence, have divided the human race into five races or varieties: the Caucasian race, the Mongolian race, the Ethiopian race, the American race, and the Malay race [14].

They include in the Caucasian race the ancient and modern inhabitants of Europe, excepting only the Lapps and the other peoples of the Finnish race; the ancient and modern inhabitants of the west of Asia as far as the river Ob, the Caspian Sea and the Ganges, such as the Assyrians, the Medes and the Chaldeans, the Sarmatians, the Scythians and the Parthians; the Philistines, the Phoenicians, the Jews and all the inhabitants of Syria; the Tatars properly so called; the diverse tribes that occupy the Caucasus, the Georgians, the Circassians, the Mingrelians, the Armenians, the Turks, the Persians, the Arabs, the Afghans, the Hindus of the high castes; the inhabitants of the north of Africa, including not only those who inhabit the north of the great Desert, but also some tribes who live in more southerly regions; the Egyptians, the Abyssinians and the Guanches.

They include in the Mongolian race the numerous tribes, more or less coarse and for the most part nomadic, who occupy the center and the north of Asia, such as the Mongols, the Kalmucks, the Burats, the Manchus or Mandshurs, the Daours, the Tunguses and the Koreans; the Samoyeds, the Koryaks, the Chukchis, the Kamchadales; the Chinese, the Japanese, the inhabitants of Tibet and of Bhutan, those of Tonkin, of Cochinchina, of Ava, of Pegu, of Cambodia, of Laos and of Siam; the Finnish races of the north of Europe, such as the Lapps; and the tribes of the Eskimos, spread throughout northern America, from the Bering Strait to the extremity of Greenland.

All the natives of Africa, with the exception of those who have been included in the Caucasian race, are designated by the name of the Ethiopian race; one also classes under the same denomination the inhabitants of the islands that are to the southwest of the great Ocean, such as the inhabitants of New Holland, of Van Diemen's Island, of New Guinea, of New Britain, of the Solomon Islands, of New Georgia, of the Charlotte Islands, of the New Hebrides, of Tanna, of Mallicollo, of New Caledonia and of the Fiji Islands [15].

The American species includes, according to the same writers, all the natives of America, with the exception of the Eskimos. Travelers believe, however, to have encountered, either in the interior of this continent, or on the northwest coasts, some tribes belonging to different species, as will be seen further on.

Finally, the Malay species includes all the inhabitants of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, from New Zealand to the Sandwich Islands, and from Easter Island to the Malay Peninsula. One must except only the inhabitants of some islands, who have been included in the Ethiopian species: it still appears doubtful, however, that this exception should be admitted.

Each of these species or varieties has general characteristics that distinguish it from the others, and that are perpetuated from generation to generation. Here are what these characteristics are, according to the two physiologists I have just cited:

The characteristics of the Caucasian species are white skin, a rosy complexion or one inclining toward brown; cheeks colored red; hair thick, soft, more or less wavy or curly, black or of various lighter colors; the iris black in individuals of a brown complexion, and blue, gray, or greenish in individuals whose complexion is rosy; the cranium large and the face comparatively small; the superior and anterior regions of the cranium highly developed, and the face perpendicularly below it; the face oval and straight, the features distinct from one another; the forehead developed; the nose narrow and generally somewhat aquiline; the mouth small; the anterior teeth of both jaws, perpendicular; the lips, and particularly the lower lip, turned out a little; the chin full and rounded; the moral sentiments and intellectual faculties very energetic, and susceptible to great development.The individuals of whom this species is composed are designated by the name of Caucasian species or variety, either because it has been supposed that their primitive cradle was in the Caucasus mountains, or because among the peoples who have always inhabited and who still inhabit these mountains, the particular characteristics of the species are more pronounced than among any other people [16].

The peoples of the Mongolian species are characterized by an olive-colored complexion, which in several cases is very light; black eyes; black, straight, strong, and sparse hair; little or no beard; a square head; a small and low forehead; a broad and flat nose; features blending into one another; a small and flattened nose; rounded cheeks, projecting externally; eyelids slightly open and slanted; eyes placed very obliquely; a slightly projected chin; large ears; thick lips; stature, particularly among the northern peoples, inferior to that of Europeans.

The characteristics of the Ethiopian species are black skin and eyes; black and woolly hair; the cranium compressed laterally, and elongated in front; the forehead low, narrow, and depressed backward; the jaws narrow, and projected forward; the front teeth of the upper jaw placed obliquely; a receding chin; prominent eyes; a broad, thick, flattened nose, blending with a large jaw; thick lips, particularly the upper lip; knees often turned inward [17].

The characteristics of the American species are a brown skin of a more or less red tint; black, straight, and strong hair; a sparse beard, generally destroyed by artificial means; a Mongolian cranium and facial appearance; a low forehead; deep-set eyes; a broad face, particularly in the cheek area, but a little less flattened than in individuals of the Mongolian species; the nose and other features more distinct; a large mouth; thick lips [18].

The characteristics of the Malay species are a brown skin, from a light tanned tint like that of the Portuguese and Spanish, to a dark brown approaching black; black, bushy, and more or less curly hair; a somewhat narrow head; large and prominent facial bones; a full and broad nose toward the tip; a large mouth [19].

All the peoples included under each of these species do not have exactly the same characteristics; one could divide each of them into a more or less considerable number of varieties, differing among themselves as much as the first differ from one another. The Caucasian species is the one that would allow for the most considerable division. The great number of varieties observed in it has been attributed to a more flexible, softer, more delicate organization, and to a more ancient civilization. The Ethiopian species, which is the one that seems to diverge most from the Caucasian species, itself includes a great number of very pronounced varieties. There are more differences, for example, between a Boschman, a Kaffir, and an inhabitant of Ethiopia, classed in the same variety, than there are between a given Malay, a given European, and a given Kaffir belonging to different species. The division of the human race into five species or varieties is therefore not free from arbitrariness; and it was perhaps easier to extend the division to fifteen or twenty, than to prove that all the peoples of the world fall into one of the five species previously expounded [20].

It is a question, among physiologists, whether the human race is divided into several species, or whether, on the contrary, it comprises only a single one of which the different peoples that exist on the earth are but varieties. Buffon and Blumenbach thought that the human race comprises only a single species; they believed that the Caucasian race was the stock from which all the others were derived, and that the olive-colored, copper-colored, black, or swarthy men were but degenerated Caucasians.

W. Lawrence investigated whether the diverse species or varieties he recognized should be considered as having existed since the origin of the human race, or as being the results of variations subsequent to the formation of men. He adopted the opinion of Buffon and Blumenbach; and, judging the human race by the facts he believed he had observed in certain species of animals, he attributed to the state of domesticity the diverse varieties into which the human race is divided.

It is recognized, because everyday experience demonstrates it to us, that men of all species or varieties are susceptible to degradation and perfection. But what are the facts by means of which we can establish that such or such a variety is the primitive stock from which all the others are derived? An individual of the Caucasian species imagines that all the others were born from his own; but why would a Malay not believe that he himself belongs to the primitive species? Why would he not consider a negro as a degenerated Malay, and a white man as a perfected Malay, supposing he recognized our superiority over him? Individuals of the Caucasian species may have produced, it is said, individuals of the Ethiopian, African, or Malay variety; but if that could have happened, the contrary could have happened as well; and I do not see on what grounds one would admit one supposition rather than the other. Each species or variety can make, to prove the antiquity of its origin, the same arguments that have been made for the antiquity of the Caucasian variety or species; and there would be as many reasons to give, to prove that the latter is a perfection of one of the former, as to prove that the former are degenerations of the latter. It is true that it has been observed that peoples from the Caucasus spread over very distant lands; but were all the other parts of the world deserted when these migrations began? Who will teach us whether these peoples, who, according to our way of seeing, form the most beautiful species, derive their beauty from their primitive organization, or whether they derive it from a perfection they have acquired in the very places they inhabit? The most beautiful individuals of the Malay species known are those who inhabit the Marquesas Islands; is that enough to suppose that it is in these islands that the species originated?

The kind of pride that is extinguished last in the mind of man, is pride of race; a man can renounce individual pride, family pride, even national pride; but pride of species is not so easily abandoned. It is to this sentiment that our systems on the formation and division of peoples must be attributed. To feel how weak are the foundations on which these systems rest, one has only to make similar systems on genera where pride is disinterested, on genera different from our own. Let one ask, for example, if all bears descend from a common stock; if the black ones are a degeneration of the gray or the white, or if the latter are a perfection of the former; if the gray ones took on such a color because they passed from a cold or hot climate into a temperate one; if the black ones are such because they passed from a temperate climate into a hot one; if the white ones acquired their whiteness because they abandoned hot or temperate climates to live in cold climates; one will feel that these questions, on the primitive state of species, are not questions that the sciences can resolve; because, to give their solution, it would be necessary to know facts of which we as yet have no means of assuring ourselves, and that one cannot supplement the facts we lack with vague conjectures or supposed possibilities [21]. W. Lawrence believes that all existing races are varieties of the Caucasian race; he bases this on the fact that analogous varieties are observed among the animals that man has reduced to a state of domesticity. This manner of reasoning is inconclusive; first, all races of men live in a state of society, and each can consider all the others as varieties of itself with as much reason as the Caucasian race. Second, the animals that man has subjected to his empire are free neither in the choice of their foods, nor in the choice of their dwellings, nor in the choice of the individuals of their species with which they associate. For the analogy to be exact, men would have to be subjected to beings of a genus superior to themselves, and be subjugated as domestic animals are. Third, the varieties observed among these animals result principally, according to Lawrence himself, from the difference of climate, food, and care; and he recognizes that none of these causes produces the same effect on men. Fourth, from the fact that a given genus of animals is susceptible to undergoing a certain variation, one cannot conclude that beings of a completely different genus are susceptible to undergoing a similar modification, and especially that they have undergone it. Even if it were established that things could have happened in such a way, one could not draw the conclusion that they did in fact happen thus, until after having proved that they could not have happened otherwise. Finally, millions of births prove to us the constancy with which species perpetuate themselves and are preserved pure; but we know of no fact from which we can conclude that two individuals of the Caucasian race can engender a negro, or two negroes an individual of the Caucasian race.

The procreation of a white person by two black people, or of a black person by two white people, would already be a very extraordinary phenomenon, and yet this phenomenon would not suffice to produce one or the other of the two varieties; it would require, moreover, another similar individual, but of a different sex. We do not see, in effect, that the union of an individual of the Caucasian species with an individual of the Ethiopian species produces individuals sometimes white and sometimes black, or spotted individuals, as happens among animals. The children born of such a union have a uniform color that is intermediate between the two species. To produce an individual of a pure race, the father and mother must belong to the same race; and this phenomenon would suffice to prove how inconclusive is the analogy drawn from one genus of animals to another [22].

Another reason determined W. Lawrence to think that all species of men are varieties of a primitive species; it is the great number of species that would have to be admitted into science, if one admitted that more than one exists. Each of the varieties would have to be divided, he says, into several others, and their number would be so great that the mind would be overwhelmed by it. I confess that I cannot understand this reasoning: I do not see how the difficulty of classifying a certain order of facts or of accounting for them could be proof of the existence of this or that phenomenon. This difficulty would prove at most the limits of our mind, the imperfection of our methods, the little certainty of our knowledge; but it would prove nothing more. The formation of five primitive species is not a phenomenon less inconceivable than the formation of twenty; the formation of a single one is a mystery as impenetrable as the formation of a hundred. The sciences can give us no knowledge in this regard; for we must not rank either vague conjectures or false analogies among knowledge. From the moment it is impossible for us to know anything about the filiation of peoples, the question of the unity or multiplicity of species is no more than a question of method. The best solution is that which gives the mind the most facility for embracing a certain order of facts; but no classification could explain to us facts that nature has hidden from us.