Du développement de quelques facultés particulières, chez les peuples des diverses espèces.

CHAP. 43: > Of the development of some particular faculties, among the peoples of the diverse species.

I have expounded, in the preceding chapters, what are the principal causes that concur to retain a people in barbarism, or to make it make progress; I have shown the diverse circumstances under which all human faculties develop almost at the same time, and the circumstances under which they can develop only in an imperfect manner. I propose to expound now under what influences or by what causes some of these faculties develop in preference to others. I will then expound how this partial development of man, in certain positions, determines the action that nations exercise upon one another, and how this action influences the morals, laws, or institutions of most of them. In making this exposition, I will continue to consider men in their physical constitution, in their intellectual faculties, and in their moral faculties.

The perfection of the physical organs of man can take place in two ways, as has already been seen: it can consist in the good constitution of each of the material parts of which the individual is composed, or else in the power that exercise has given to each of these parts, to fulfill certain functions or to execute certain operations. These two kinds of perfection influence each other more or less; however, it is not rare to see them exist separately. One often sees a man of mediocre constitution who is endowed with great skill, and a man who is endowed with an excellent physical organization know how to make almost no use of his limbs. The facility with which a man executes certain operations does not, therefore, prove that he received, in coming into the world, a better constitution than another who shows himself to be less skilled.

It would be very difficult, perhaps it is even impossible, in the current state of the sciences, to determine all the causes that contribute to giving man a good physical organization. Among those that are known to us, the principal and most immediate are healthy and abundant foods, the satisfaction of our needs in just measure, the moderate exercise of each of our faculties, tranquility of mind or the feeling of security, and moderation in all enjoyments. One must also place among the number of causes that influence the development of our physical faculties, although they do not act in an immediate manner, those that exercise some influence on the quality and on the abundance of subsistence, such as are the nature of the soil, the heat of the atmosphere, and other analogous ones; those that determine the direction or the force of our passions, and especially those that tend to develop or to restrict our intellectual faculties.

Other causes influence the physical constitution of man in an immediate manner: such are the waters, the atmospheric air, and other local circumstances whose effects one sees, but which one cannot, however, always determine in an exact manner. In starting, for example, from the valley that the Rhone traverses before flowing into Lake Geneva, and in ascending into the Alps, one observes that the population changes as one moves away from the lands that the river waters. The men who live in the high places are, in general, taller, stronger, and especially less subject to certain infirmities than those who inhabit the valley, although they have neither better foods, nor a more regular way of life. In the valleys of Tartary, analogous to those of the Alps, one finds peoples who are afflicted with the same infirmities as a part of the inhabitants of Valais, although they do not belong to the same race [451]. One also finds in the south and in the north of America, even in the most fertile parts, diverse regions that oppose the physical development of man [452]. Finally, in Egypt, men of the Caucasian race do not propagate after the second generation, unless they ally themselves with the natives [453]. Causes that tend to the physical development of a people, such as the abundance and good quality of subsistence, can therefore be paralyzed by more powerful causes though less easy to determine. This can serve to explain how, in positions that appear similar, one finds men so different [454].

Physical perfection, which consists in the power that some of our organs have to execute certain operations in preference to others, results above all from study and habit. One knows how to execute well only what one has learned, and one executes with facility and promptness only the operations in which one has long been practiced. It is true that long exercise increases the strength of our organs, and that this strength influences more or less that of the generations that come after us. A man who has since his childhood made a trade of handling the oar, ends up having more strength in his arms than one who has never handled anything but a pen; and one who has long made a trade of being a runner, has more strength in the muscles of his legs than one who has always been sedentary. Both can transmit to their descendants a more robust physical constitution than that which a man who has developed only his intelligence ordinarily transmits to his own. But here, as in the preceding case, causes of physical development can be paralyzed by contrary causes; the effect that exercise produces on our organs can be paralyzed by the lack of food or by any other equally powerful cause.

The perfection of our intellectual faculties, like physical perfection, is understood in two ways: it consists in the good constitution of the understanding, or in the faculty that study has given to the mind to execute certain operations, to follow the chain of a certain order of facts or ideas. It would be difficult to say whether all the causes that concur in the physical development of man, concur in giving him a sound understanding, or whether there are causes that tend to develop certain material parts of the individual, without affecting the other parts, or even while degrading them. But what appears beyond doubt is that there exist several causes that act simultaneously and in the same sense, on the physical organs and on the intellectual faculties. The same causes that, in some of the valleys of the Alps, and in certain parts of Asia and America, deteriorate the physical constitution of man, weaken his intelligence; and, reasoning by analogy, it is permissible to think that several of the causes that tend to give him a good constitution, also contribute to giving him a good understanding. One can also believe and for the same reason, that in general, and when no other cause disturbs the natural order, the understanding of children partakes of that of their parents.Intellectual perfection, which consists in the power to conceive the nature and order of certain facts, to follow the chain of certain ideas, results almost entirely from study and exercise. But does exercise give strength to the intellectual organs as it does to the physical organs? Does the man who dedicates his life to meditation increase the strength and dimensions of his brain, as the one who devotes himself to the execution of certain mechanical operations increases the strength and dimensions of his bones and muscles? Does the former transmit to his posterity, like the latter, a part of the qualities he has acquired, when no foreign cause destroys the influence that results from the fact of generation? To resolve these questions in a satisfactory manner, more numerous and better-followed observations would perhaps be needed than those that have already been made; thus, although analogy leads us to give an affirmative solution, I will limit myself to remarking that, if the strength of the intellectual organs acquired by exercise were transmitted in part by generation, when no accidental obstacle opposes it, the reasonings that have been made to prove the superiority of species would prove at most the influence of a long and slow civilization: in this hypothesis, the superiority of intellectual organization would have to be considered by turns as a result and as a cause [455].

The moral perfection of nations has such intimate relations with the causes that influence their physical and intellectual development that it is impossible to separate them: we will therefore find the causes of the nature, direction, and force of their passions in the very causes that determine their way of life, and that oblige them to exercise some of their faculties, to the detriment of some others.

The question of which state is most proper to favor the physical development of man has long been debated. J.-J. Rousseau and other less celebrated writers believed that the savage state, which they named the state of nature, was the most favorable. Others have thought, on the contrary, that the state of civilization gives man more physical strength than the savage state. Among the latter are counted learned philosophers, and travelers admired for the depth and justness of their observations. On both sides, numerous facts have been cited, and these facts have appeared equally decisive to those who have invoked them. A simple distinction between the strengths that result only from a good primitive organization, and the strengths that are the result of a certain kind of exercises, would have reconciled these apparently contradictory facts.

We have seen previously how the nature and position of the soil, the course and volume of the waters, the temperature of the atmosphere, the division of the seasons, and other analogous circumstances influence the vegetable or animal productions that can serve as food for men. The nature of the productions that the soil can yield being determined, it is a necessity for the men who must make their subsistence from them to develop those of their faculties that can enable them to obtain the greatest possible quantity, and to apply them to their use. Men placed in a location where their principal means of existence must be drawn from fishing are obliged, by the nature of things, to give to each of their faculties the kind of development that the profession of fisherman requires. Those who, by the nature of the places, can exist only by means of the wild animals they catch, are equally obliged, under pain of perishing, to give to their physical and intellectual faculties the kind of development that the trade of hunter requires. It is the same for those whom the nature of their soil condemns to be pastoralists, like the Bedouin Arabs and the peoples who inhabit the central plateau of Asia; these peoples must know how to do all that their position demands of them, or they must perish. Finally, one can say the same thing of all men, in general, whether they be civilized or barbarous: each individual, whatever his position, is obliged to develop some parts of himself in preference to others, and the kind of development he gives them is determined almost always by the circumstances in which he is placed.

If we now examine what are the diverse kinds of superiority that certain individuals or certain peoples possess over other individuals or over other peoples, we will find that these superiorities generally consist in executing what is indispensable to those who possess them, and what would be of little use to those who are deprived of them. Most travelers, upon seeing savage peoples sustain themselves lightly above the waves of the seas or cleave them with rapidity, traverse immense distances with facility, recognize by imperceptible indices the path that game has followed, direct themselves with certainty through boundless forests, perceive their prey at great distances, distinguish the slightest sounds, judge the faintest odors by smell, have not been able to help but admire the extent of their strength and the exquisite finesse of their senses; they have not hesitated to say that civilization enervates physical strength and removes from the senses the greatest part of their finesse. The marvelousness of these phenomena will disappear if we examine what they consist of, what are the causes that produce them, and the effects that result from them.

The sense of sight, among barbarous peoples, is that whose finesse has most surprised travelers. Among those who have visited the Cape of Good Hope, there is none who has not admired, among the natives, the finesse of this sense. Thumberg found them to have a marked superiority over Europeans [456]. Levaillant was seized with astonishment upon seeing the same peoples discern, at first glance, things that he himself could not perceive:

“How subtle a sense,” he says, “is sight in the Hottentot! How he seconds it with a difficult and truly marvelous attention! On dry ground, where, despite its weight, the elephant leaves no trace amidst the dead leaves, scattered and rolled by the wind, the African recognizes the animal’s step; he sees the path it has taken and the one that must be followed to reach it; a green leaf turned over or detached, a bud, the way a small branch is broken, all this and a thousand other circumstances are for him indices that never deceive him. The most expert European hunter would lose all his resources there; I myself could understand nothing of it [457].”

The same traveler says, speaking of the men of a tribe of this race, that sight is sufficient for them to discover underground waters; they lie with their belly against the ground, look into the distance; and, if the space they have surveyed with their eye conceals some spring, they rise and point with their finger to the place where it is. It is enough for them, to discover it, to see that ethereal and subtle exhalation that every current of water lets evaporate outside, when it is not buried at too great a depth [458]. Péron, less an admirer of barbarous peoples than Levaillant, says however, in speaking of a tribe of Hottentots, that they shoot the bow with a rare accuracy, and that they have the organ of sight exercised even beyond what one could believe [459].

Similar observations have been made on the natives of America. The savages of Canada have, according to Weld, a keen and piercing gaze; their sight does not fail them at any age; they know no eye diseases; one never perceives any blemish in them, unless it is the result of some accident [460]. They follow, on the grass or on the leaves, the track of animals and men, as well as civilized peoples could follow it on snow or on wet sand [461]. The Americans of the south appear to surpass even those of the north: according to a Spanish traveler, they have sight twice as 502.long and better than the peoples of Europe [462]. They discover vessels and all sorts of objects at a distance at which it is not possible for us to perceive them [463]. This faculty appears common to all those who are not civilized.

An English traveler made an analogous observation on the peoples of the Malay species.

“The senses of peoples who are not very polished,” he says, “are infinitely better than ours, which are weakened by a thousand accidents. We were especially well convinced of this truth at Tahiti: the natives very often showed us small birds in the thickness of the trees, or ducks at the bottom of the reeds; and none of us could perceive them [464].”

The Bedouin Arabs have likewise appeared to have the sense of sight of a remarkable finesse; they can follow by track a camel that has gone astray, without being deceived by the traces of other camels that have passed by the same path; they know how to discover by sight the depth where waters are hidden; it is enough for them to examine the nature of the soil and the plants it produces [465].

Finally, animals themselves have appeared to lose the finesse of their organs by living with man.

“In most animals, as in man,” says M. de Humboldt, “the finesse of the senses diminishes through a long subjection, through the habits that arise from the stability of dwellings and the progress of cultivation [466].”

The same travelers who have admired the finesse of the sense of sight among uncivilized peoples have also admired, among the same peoples, the finesse of hearing and smell. The Bedouins detest cities because of the bad odors they exhale; they do not understand how people who pride themselves on loving cleanliness can live in the midst of such impure air [467]. The natives of Canada have, according to Weld, a smell of such finesse that they can indicate the approach of a fire long before feeling its heat and perceiving it; they have the sense of hearing endowed with a no less great finesse [468]. They discover, as much by the organ of smell as by that of sight, the vestiges that men have left in their passage, on the shortest grass, on dry and hard earth; they know not only that these traces have been left by men, but also what is the nation to which these men belong [469]. The same peoples who, according to Azara, have sight twice as long as Europeans, also have hearing far superior to ours [470]. Finally Thumberg, who admired the finesse of the Hottentots’ sight, found that these peoples had a smell of a no less admirable finesse [471].

Most savage peoples have, over civilized peoples, another physical advantage; that of traversing, in a short time and without resting, very great distances; this faculty, however, is not developed in all to the same degree. Several of the natives of Canada, when it is a matter of jumping or traversing a small space, are less agile than Europeans: those among them who have measured their strength in this regard with that of the French or the English have always been vanquished; but they have shown an immense superiority whenever it has been a matter of making long marches, or of enduring long fatigues [472]. Some of them, however, run with great speed; in their hunts, they pursue game with extreme ardor and often manage to catch it [473]. These peoples travel, according to Weld, several hundred miles in forests through which no road is traced, without deviating from a straight line, and they arrive at their destination at the very moment they fixed upon departing. They cross great lakes with the same skill, and, although the shore has been hidden from their view for several days, they land, without mistake, at the spot they indicated [474].

Most of the natives of the Cape of Good Hope are equally remarkable for the rapidity and duration of their runs; several of them follow, for entire hours, horses going at a trot or a gallop; even the oldest sometimes cover the space of twenty miles in a duration of three or four hours, and do not appear very fatigued; some run for entire days after the elands they have wounded; they thus manage to tire them and to catch them [475].

Peoples in the savage state show themselves, in general, as skilled at swimming as at running. The natives of Florida swim with extreme speed; the women cross large rivers by swimming, carrying their children in their arms [476]. The Indians who live on the Gulf of Coriaco and especially to the north of the peninsula of Araga, are such skilled swimmers that, if a pirogue laden with coconuts capsizes while steering too close to the wind, straight against the swell, the fisherman who is guiding it rights it and begins to bail out the water, while his son gathers the coconuts by swimming around [477]. The Guaranis show themselves more skilled still: their skill is such that the missionaries imagine that they swim naturally and without having learned, like certain animals. Azara, a witness to the facility with which these peoples sustain themselves on the water, could explain this phenomenon only by supposing that, for an equal volume, their bodies are lighter than those of Europeans. All the natives of America, however, do not have the same skill; several do not dare to venture to cross large rivers by swimming [478].

The Malays spread throughout the islands of the Pacific Ocean are no less skilled, for the most part, in the art of swimming. Those of Easter Island swim so perfectly that, with the heaviest sea, they go two leagues out, and seek for pleasure, upon returning to land, the place where the swell breaks with the most force [479]. The inhabitants of the Marquesas Islands engage in the same exercises in their games; they have such skill and agility that, according to Krusenstern, they can be equaled only by sharks [480]. The inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands are neither less adroit nor less strong; they dive or swim with such velocity that by throwing two coins into the sea at the same time, one toward the bow and the other toward the stern of a vessel, a man, by plunging into the waves, seizes both of them, before they have had time to descend to a depth too great to be reached [481]. We have seen previously that it is also by diving into the sea that the women of the natives of Van Diemen's Land procure subsistence for their children and even for their husbands [482].

It is not only by the long journeys they execute without taking any rest, or by the agility with which they cleave the waves of the seas, that uncivilized peoples manifest their strength; it is also by the burdens they carry or drag. A native of Canada regards it as a game to travel, for several days in a row, ten leagues a day laden with a weight of one hundred and twenty pounds: he walks with his burden for an entire day, without resting a single time [483]. The women, who are accustomed to following their husbands to the hunt, and who are obliged to carry the provisions or the game, are stronger still. Those of Louisiana have such vigor that, according to Hennepin, they make journeys of two hundred leagues with burdens that three Europeans of ordinary strength would have difficulty lifting [484]. We have seen that, according to the testimony of M. de Humboldt, a Carib can row against the current of a river for twelve hours straight, which is assuredly not a sign of weakness.

In the Friendly Islands, the sailors of Cook's crew wanted to measure their strength in pugilism and in wrestling with the natives; but, says this traveler, they were always beaten, if I except a small number of cases where the champions of the country did not use their advantages, for fear of offending us [485]. English sailors, especially those who belong to the royal navy and who are destined for long and perilous navigation, are however chosen from among the most robust men of the country, and they are generally exercised in the art of pugilism. The inhabitants of the Friendly Islands, who vanquished them, are far, on the contrary, from being the strongest of their race; they are much inferior, either to the inhabitants of the Navigator Islands, or to those of some of the Marquesas Islands [486]. La Pérouse judged that, in their physical constitution, they had no superiority over his sailors [487].

If, in several respects, uncivilized men have strengths superior to those of civilized men, they do not need to repair them in as regular a manner to sustain them. A native of Canada, of the north of Asia, or of the Cape of Good Hope, can remain three or four days without food, without being less active and even without his cheerfulness being diminished. When the Canadians have encountered nothing after several days of hunting, and they are reduced to living on snow water, they give themselves over to pleasantries, question one another about their amorous dispositions, and wait patiently for fortune to make them encounter some game [488].However, writers, carried away by the spirit of system, or having observed only a small number of facts without researching their causes, have affirmed, in an absolute manner, that the physical strengths of man, in the savage or barbarous state, are inferior to the physical strengths of man in the state of civilization; they have thus created a system that is exactly the contrary of that of J.-J. Rousseau, but which does not rest on much more solid foundations. Rousseau, upon seeing that, according to the accounts of some travelers, certain savages run with great speed, that others cleave the waves of the seas with extraordinary facility, and that others see certain things, distinguish certain sounds, or sense certain odors that the travelers themselves do not perceive or distinguish, hastened to conclude that civilization enervates physical strength and dulls the senses of sight, hearing, and smell. Other writers, seeing, on the contrary, civilized men execute operations that are inexecutable for savage men, have hastened to draw the conclusion that as peoples become civilized, they increase their physical strengths. We will see, when I have reported the facts that have served as the foundation for this latter system, how on both sides they have fallen into error, for having drawn overly general conclusions from a few particular facts, and especially for not having distinguished the kind of perfection that consists in the good formation of the organs, from that which is the result of a certain kind of exercises.

Lahontan observed that the Canadians, so tireless in running, had however less strength than the French whenever it was a matter of carrying a burden or of lifting it with the help of the arms and loading it onto the back [489]. La Pérouse saw some of his sailors wrestle with the natives of the northwest of America: the weakest among the former always vanquished the strongest among the latter [490]. Rolin, the physician who accompanied La Pérouse on his expedition, says that he did not remark that any savage people had a greater speed in running, nor more perfection in the organs of the senses than the Europeans; if a difference exists in the perfection of these faculties, it is, according to him, to the advantage of policed nations [491]. Finally, Péron conducted experiments on the natives of New Holland, on the inhabitants of Timor, on the sailors of his crew, and on the English colonists; he measured, by means of the dynamometer, the strength of the wrists and loins of the ones and the others, and he found that the most savage were those who had moved the needle of the instrument destined to mark the degrees of strength the least: he concluded from this that the development of physical strength is not always directly proportional to the lack of civilization [492].