Du développement physique acquis en Asie, en Afrique et en Europe, sous différents degrés de latitud

CHAP. 8: > Of the physical development acquired in Asia, in Africa and in Europe, under different degrees of latitude, by peoples of the Mongolian, Caucasian, and Ethiopian species. — Of the physical causes of this development.

Travelers have made observations on the peoples who inhabit the eastern coast of Asia and the islands near it, similar to those that took place on the western coast and islands of America. The Kamtchadales, who live between the fiftieth and sixtieth degree of northern latitude, and under a climate infinitely more rigorous than are the lands of Europe situated under the same latitude, are small and weakly constituted. In the judgment of La Pérouse, these peoples, like the Lapps and the Samoyeds, are to the human race what their stunted birches and firs are to the trees of more southerly forests [160]. Their neighbors, who live on the coast, between the forty-fifth and fifty-second degree, are like them poorly constituted and small; their average stature is below four feet ten inches; they have a slender body, and a weak and high-pitched voice like that of children [161]. The physician who accompanied La Pérouse’s expedition assures that they are the ugliest and puniest men he has ever seen [162].

The inhabitants of the island of Tchoka or Sakhalin, who are separated from them only by a channel of three or four leagues, who consequently live under the same latitude and who have the same dietary regimen, are generally well-made, of a strong constitution, and of a pleasant physiognomy. The most common stature among them is five feet, and the tallest is five feet four inches; but men of this latter stature are rare. These islanders differ so much from the men who inhabit the neighboring continental coast that La Pérouse doubted whether they belonged to the same species and whether they were of Asiatic origin. It is true, he adds, that the cold of the islands is less rigorous at the same latitude than that of the continent, but this cause alone cannot have produced such a remarkable difference [163].

The Japanese, closer to the south, are in general of an average stature; they are well-made, and have well-formed limbs. They have, however, a less strong constitution than several of the inhabitants of Europe, and one rarely sees among them any who have plumpness.

The Chinese, who inhabit a temperate climate, are of about the same stature as most European peoples. The peoples of the same species as them, who inhabit the cold climates of Asia, are much smaller. It is rare to see among them men whose stature exceeds five feet two inches [164].

The Persians who belong to the same race as the Chinese have, for the most part, a strong resemblance to them. But, in a great number of families, the species has been much improved by their mixture with the Caucasian species, although they live in a hotter climate than the Chinese.

“The blood of Persia,” says Chardin, “is naturally coarse. This is seen in the Guebres, who are the remnant of the ancient Persians. They are ugly, poorly made, heavy, having rough skin and a colored complexion. This is also seen in the provinces closest to India, where the inhabitants are hardly less poorly made than the Guebres, because they intermarry only among themselves. But in the rest of the kingdom, Persian blood has now become very fine, by the mixture of Georgian and Circassian blood, who are assuredly the people of the world where nature forms the most beautiful persons, and a brave and valiant people, as well as lively, gallant, and amorous. Without the mixture of which I have just spoken, the people of quality of Persia would be the ugliest men in the world; for they are originally from those countries, between the Caspian sea and China, which are called Tartary, whose inhabitants, who are the ugliest men of Asia, are short and stout, have eyes and a nose in the Chinese fashion, flat and broad faces, and a complexion, mixed with yellow and black, that is very disagreeable [165].”

This constitution, particular to the Mongolian species and which is observed in the coldest countries as in the hottest, has therefore been modified by the mixture of species; the heat of the climate has not caused the descendants of the Circassian women to degenerate.

The inhabitants of little Bucharia, to the north of the mountains of Little Tibet, are much below the ordinary stature.

“I have closely observed these little Tartars in Persia and in the Indies, in various places and at various times,” says Chardin. “Their stature is commonly four inches shorter than ours, and stouter in proportion; their complexion is red and swarthy; their faces are flat, broad, and square; they have a crushed nose and small eyes [166].”

The men of the same species who live on the banks of the rivers of the Glacial Sea are, in general, of a stature below mediocre; they have a pale and yellow complexion; they lack strength and vigor. A Russian can wrestle advantageously against several of them, although they are of the same age and stature as he [167].

The Arabs do not belong to the Mongolian race. Their physical constitution varies, not according to the greater or lesser heat of the climate, but according to the abundance or scarcity of food, and according to the quantity of labor one must engage in to obtain it. In general, the Bedouins are small, thin, and sunburnt. The common stature is five feet two inches; they have dry legs, tendons without calves, and their stomach is stuck to their back. Those who live on the frontier of cultivated countries are better constituted than those who live in the Desert; and the laborers are better constituted still than those who live on their frontiers. Finally, the sheikhs and their servants, that is to say those who possess the greatest quantity of food, are taller and more fleshy than the common people. The stature of several of them often exceeds five feet six inches. The reason for this, says Volney, must be attributed only to the food which is more abundant for the first class than for the last [168]. Thus, although the Arabs inhabit a much hotter climate than the Chinese and the Persians, they have a taller stature, whenever they do not suffer an habitual deprivation of food.

Are the peoples of Africa not subject to the same law as the peoples of the lands we have already surveyed? Are those who inhabit the southern extremity and the northern extremity of this continent taller and stronger than those who live between the tropics? The Cape of Good Hope, between the thirtieth and thirty-fifth degree of southern latitude, is inhabited by two different peoples, not counting the colonists: by the Hottentots and the Boschmans. According to Kolbe, the latter are only Hottentots whom their crimes have caused to be banished from their tribes, or who have themselves taken voluntary refuge in the mountains, to lead a more independent life there [169]. But more knowledgeable travelers, and especially better observers than he, have seen in the Boschmans a people so distinct from all others that they believed it formed a particular species. These men live only on inaccessible mountains and in the hollows of rocks, and consequently in a colder temperature than that of the plains or valleys inhabited by the Hottentots. Their stature is so small that that of the men rarely exceeds four feet [170]. Their physical constitution is not even in proportion to their stature; it is inferior to it.

“It was not without astonishment,” says Sparrman, “that I saw for the first time a young Boschi in Lange-Kloof; his face, his arms, his legs, and his whole body, were so thin and so emaciated, that I did not doubt at first that it was an epidemic fever that had reduced him to this deplorable state; but in an instant I saw him run with the rapidity of a bird [171].”

The Hottentots, according to Dampier, have a mediocre stature, a slender body, and small limbs [172]. Sparrman did not find them to be, in stature, below most Europeans; but they appeared to him much thinner [173]. The Kabobiquois and the Koraquois, of the same species as the Hottentots, but more advanced toward the equator, are much taller and stronger than they are. The Kabobiquois, another tribe of the same race, are as tall as the Kaffirs; they exceed by a whole head the Hottentots of an average stature [174].

The Kaffirs, who are a few degrees more advanced toward the equator than the Hottentots, have a very great superiority over them. They are of a taller stature, better conformed, and more robust: they are tall, strong, and well proportioned [175]. They are prouder, bolder, and have a more pleasant face. There is a Kaffir woman, says Levaillant, who can pass for very pretty next to a European woman [176]. These peoples are, in the judgment of Barrow, the stock of the Bedouin Arabs [177].

From Mozambique to Melinde, that is to say from the fifteenth degree to the third degree of southern latitude, the eastern coast of Africa is inhabited by the Makouas or Macouanas and by other peoples more numerous and more powerful than the Kaffirs. These peoples are very robust and have athletic forms. They have made themselves terrible to the Portuguese established on the same coast, and have forced them to abandon the countryside [178]. The peoples closest to the equator on this coast are therefore the largest, the best-constituted, and the most energetic [179].

The natives of the Congo, placed under the same latitude, on the western coast, are, in general, handsome men. They are very black; but they have pretty features; their teeth especially are of an admirable beauty [180].

The negroes of Senegal, placed between the tenth and twentieth degree of northern latitude, are strong and well-constituted men. The women there are as well-made as the men, which is very rare among peoples who are not civilized. They have beautiful and soft skin, large black eyes, a small mouth and lips, and all their features are well proportioned. Several of them are extremely beautiful; they have much vivacity, and an easy and pleasant air [181].

Finally, the Ashantees, placed between the fifth and tenth degree of northern latitude, seem to form the most numerous and most energetic nation of these climates. In the wars they have sustained against the English, they have won signal victories, although the English troops had over them the advantage of arms and of tactics. The advantages they have obtained have been so great that many English have complained that their government did not renounce the establishments formed on this coast, although it had at that time no other wars to sustain.

The peoples of the northern coast of Africa, classed among those who belong to the Caucasian species, are neither smaller, nor weaker, nor more inactive than the Sicilians, the Neapolitans, and the Spanish, who are much more advanced toward the north. The degrees of heat that these peoples habitually experience must not be assessed only by the degrees of latitude under which the ones and the others are placed; they must be assessed above all by the position of each country. The easterly and southerly winds arrive in Spain, Sicily, and Italy only after having been cooled by the Mediterranean: whereas they arrive on the northern coasts of Africa only after having been heated by the burning sands of the Desert. Should one not conclude from these circumstances, if the heat of the climate were a cause of weakness and cowardice, that the inhabitants of Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco are the tributaries of the kings of Naples and Sicily?

Travelers and physiologists have observed, among the inhabitants of Egypt, at least three varieties of men: Copts, Indians, and individuals of the Berber race. But none has observed that the heat of the climate has rendered any of these races inferior to what they are under less ardent climates. There, as elsewhere, men are strong or weak, according to whether food is abundant or rare, according to whether they engage in moderate exercise or excessive labors.If we now turn our eyes to Europe, it will be difficult for us to find there nations to which a few degrees more or less of heat have given a better or worse physical constitution. There is no nation, if one excepts the English nation, which, in the first fifteen years of this century, has not seen on its territory numerous armies from almost every country; and nowhere has it been remarked that any one of them had a physical superiority over the others. The elite troops of each people are as fine as the elite troops of neighboring peoples; and the soldiers taken without distinction of height are nearly the same everywhere. In judging the Russian population by its armies, one may believe that the finest class is that from which the officers are taken; but it is remarkable that this is the class on which the influence of the climate is least felt; it is the one that has the means to escape either the rigors of the cold or the excesses of the heat, and which can enjoy at once the advantages procured for it by its own climate, and the productions of the climates of the south. But the classes that are obliged to limit themselves to the productions of their soil, and which are most subject to the direct or indirect action of their climate, far from being superior to the corresponding classes of the other countries of Europe, are on the contrary much inferior to them. There is no comparison to be made between the Russian peasants and the poorest inhabitants of Greece, Spain, or Italy [182].

One can find, doubtless, in some parts of the north of Germany, populations that have a taller stature than certain populations of France, Italy, or Spain; but one would also easily find, among these three latter nations, populations more beautiful than a great number of those that exist in the north of Europe. In several provinces of France, in Normandy and in the plains and mountains of Auvergne, for example, one would find as fine men as in any part of Europe whatsoever. The same can be said of some provinces of Italy and Spain; the first of these two countries especially contains men remarkable for their fine constitution [183].

I have previously observed that Montesquieu had taken from Chardin his system on the effects produced by hot climates. In speaking of the effects produced by cold climates, he has only expressed in a general manner what Caesar and Tacitus have said of the stature and strength of the peoples of Germany. Our soldiers, says Caesar, question the Gauls and the merchants, who tell them "that the Germans are of an enormous stature, of an incredible valor, very hardened to war, and of so fierce an aspect that they had not even been able to bear their gaze, in several combats they had delivered to them" [184]. Caesar says elsewhere that the Germans spend their entire lives in hunting or in warlike exercises [185], and Montesquieu again reduces this fact to a general system as he has reduced the one that precedes it. In northern countries, he says, a healthy and well-constituted machine, but a heavy one, finds its pleasure in everything that can set the spirits in motion: hunting, travel, war [186]. Montesquieu adds wine, but since Caesar the vine has been multiplied.

Admitting that the Germans were a tall and strong people, this fact alone would not suffice to found a system on the stature and strength of all the peoples of the globe, and especially to affirm that the greatness and strength of the body are a consequence of the impression of cold on the organs. Two phenomena can exist simultaneously in the same place, without one being justified in believing that one is the consequence of the other.

From the whole of the preceding facts, must we conclude that the climate produces on the physical constitution of man effects contrary to those that Montesquieu attributes to it? If one were to judge on a first glance and without seeking the connection of effects and causes, such would doubtless be the consequence that would have to be drawn from these facts; for we have seen that, in all parts of the globe, the populations that are closest to the poles are the weakest, the most poorly constituted; that it is in temperate countries that populations of an average strength are found, and between the tropics that are found, in general, the strongest populations, the most robust men. One can find, in the hottest countries and even in temperate countries, weak populations; but at neither of the two extremities of the globe does one find tall and strong men, unless they have the means to escape the rigors of the climate.

In restricting the word climate to the natural sense it has, in taking it to mean the degree of latitude, it can have almost no effect by itself, since it does not always indicate the degree of cold or heat. One can find, in all parts of the world, the cold of Siberia; for that, it is only a matter of reaching a certain degree of elevation. Starting from the foot of the Alps and rising to the summit, one passes successively through all temperatures. In America, numerous peoples enjoy a moderate temperature, although placed between the tropics. Starting from the foot of the mountains and rising to a certain height, one passes from the torrid zone to a glacial zone, under the same degree of latitude. The productions of the soil change as one rises: one finds, under the same latitude, the productions that grow only in burning countries, and those that we find, in our climates, only on the summit of the Alps [187].

It is therefore the effects of heat or cold on the physical constitution of man that must be assessed, and if we consider these effects in their entirety, we will see that they are not such as Montesquieu saw them. Nothing could live in a country entirely deprived of heat; one would find there no vegetation, consequently no animals, nor any food for man. In speaking of cold climates favorable to the human race, Montesquieu therefore meant to speak only of countries where one has alternations of cold and heat, but where the duration of the harsh season exceeds the duration of the fine season: Kamchatka, for example, has nearly nine months of winter and about three months of summer; it is a cold country. A temperate country is one where the time of vegetation is nearly equal in duration to the time during which nature rests; such is a large part of Europe. Finally, a hot country is one where nature has no rest, one where vegetation is in continual labor.

Which then of these three countries is the most favorable to the development of the human race? It is evident that man could not live in the countries we have called cold, if in the fine season he did not form provisions for the winter, and if, when the great colds arrive, he had no artificial means of procuring heat. The Kamtchadales, before the Russians had taught them to build less poor habitations, spent the winter underground and lived there on dried fish. They did not preserve themselves by means of the inclemency of their climate, but by managing to escape it. They formed for themselves underground, if it is permissible to express it thus, a temperate climate. If the provisions they had made by means of fishing were insufficient, they supplemented them by setting traps for animals; but the animals themselves could not be common, since they lacked the means of subsistence.

In temperate countries where peoples have made almost no progress in civilization, as were several regions of America not long ago, the number of the population is always reduced to what the country can nourish during the winter. But here the means of subsistence are less rare and of better quality than in countries that have only three months of vegetation. Man, doubtless, cannot feed on the plants that begin to grow in the spring and that are preserved during the winter, even under the snow; but other animals feed on them, and he himself feeds on animals. The season being less harsh, he is less obliged to keep himself shut in; hunting is less difficult for him. He can, moreover, engage in fishing for a longer time than the inhabitant of cold countries; since the lakes and rivers are frozen for less time, and the ice is easier to break. Finally, during the fine season, the earth can furnish him for a longer time with a greater quantity of plants. This explains to us how, starting from the northern extremity of America and advancing toward the equator as far as Louisiana, one finds men who are always more numerous and better constituted.

A hot country where vegetation is always in activity offers the population all the resources of hunting and fishing, and these resources are the same almost throughout the course of the year. It offers, moreover, vegetable productions that are ceaselessly renewed, and that furnish either to man, or to the animals on which he feeds, food, if not abundant, at least distributed in a less unequal manner during the diverse seasons. The foresight that consists in distributing throughout the course of the year the products of a few months is here less necessary to man: nature herself has taken charge of the distribution. The Caribs or Caraïbes are, it is said, the most improvident of savages: the reason for this is perceptible; it is that the land and the waters on which they live have in some sort dispensed them from foresight. If, to the advantages of a hot and always nearly equal temperature, are joined the advantages of a fertile land, of plants and animals proper for the subsistence of man, of a happy exposure, and of moderate exercise, the human constitution will acquire all the development and all the strength of which it is susceptible: then one will find, as in the middle of the great Ocean, in the center of America and in some parts of Africa, men who will join to the most beautiful forms a colossal stature [188].

But an equal and continual heat is not sufficient to develop the physical constitution of men. If an ardent sun heats only a bare and arid land like the Steppes of Asia and America; if it makes grow there only a few rare and insubstantial plants, grasses that the drought reduces to powder; if everywhere aridity seems to pursue the thirsty traveler, one may still see there some small populations as are seen in the deserts of Arabia; but they will be different populations: the men there will be healthy like the air they breathe, small and lean like the plants on which their camels feed.

Even in our semi-civilized countries, the physical constitution of men varies with the circumstances in which they are placed; it varies with the education they receive, with the kind of cultivation to which they devote themselves, with the exercises to which they addict themselves, with the nature of the air they breathe, with the waters they drink, with the food on which they nourish themselves; the degree of latitude under which they are placed is, in general, the circumstance that influences them the least. Civilization and commerce place, if it is permissible to express it thus, under the same climate all men who enjoy a moderate fortune; all manage to obtain food and drink of the same nature; all know how to proportion their clothing and their dwellings to the degree of cold of the country they inhabit. The temperature in which an inhabitant of Russia lives, in the middle of winter, is perhaps even higher than that in which an inhabitant of France lives in the same season. Men of the South who travel in the North during the winter ordinarily find that the apartments there are much too heated. The inhabitants of hot countries cannot, it is true, escape the action of heat with the same facility that the inhabitants of cold countries can escape the inclemencies of the air; but we have seen, by numerous examples, that heat is far from being contrary to the physical development of men.

We have observed previously that our physical organs are susceptible to two kinds of perfection: that which consists in the goodness of their constitution, and that which consists in the dexterity or skill they have acquired by study and exercise: we have concerned ourselves only with the first in this chapter and in the preceding one. We will concern ourselves with the second in expounding what is the order that intellectual development has followed in the diverse parts of the globe. It is enough for me to have demonstrated here that the peoples of cold countries are not necessarily better constituted than the peoples of hot countries or temperate countries.

But the heat of the climate could have little influence on our physical constitution, and have much on our moral and intellectual faculties. It remains therefore to know whether the opinion formed or adopted by several philosophers in this regard is better founded than the one we have just examined. In submitting this opinion to examination, we will ascertain which are the parts of the globe that have been most favorable to the development of human intelligence, and which are those that have opposed the most obstacles to it. We will then seek to determine what are the causes that, placed outside of human nature, have most contributed either to making nations progress, or to retaining them in barbarism.