Des circonstances locales sous lesquelles quelques facultés particulières se développent, chez les p

CHAP. 44: > Of the local circumstances under which some particular faculties develop, among the peoples of the diverse species.

One can ask several questions about the diverse kinds of superiority or inferiority that have been observed between civilized men and those who have not yet emerged from the state of barbarism: do the differences that exist between the ones and the others stem from a difference of species? Are they the result of a better primitive constitution, and is this constitution a necessary consequence of the state of civilization or barbarism? Are they the result of a particular exercise, or, in other words, do barbarous peoples see certain things better than we do because they have learned to look at them, or because their eyes are constituted to see them better?

If the differences that have been observed stemmed from a difference of species, the facts that have been reported would prove nothing in favor of civilization or barbarism, since, in almost all cases, men who belonged to different species have been compared among themselves: men of the Caucasian species have been compared sometimes to individuals of the copper-colored species, sometimes to Malays, and sometimes to men of the African species. The most carefully made observations, such as those of Péron, would be just as inconclusive as the others, since this traveler compared to Europeans only men whom he believed to be of the Ethiopian species and Malays [493]. But we will see presently that it is not possible to believe that the differences of species have produced those that have been observed in the diverse degrees of strength or finesse of our organs. The causes must therefore be sought in a more perfect organization, or in different exercises.

In observing what happens daily around us, we see that men endowed with the most perfect physical organization know how to see, hear, smell, or execute only what they have learned to look at, to listen to, to smell, to do. Let a few pages of writing be presented to a man endowed with the finest sight, but who has never learned to read; let him be asked to determine on the spot the differences that exist between the letters, and to indicate those that have the same resemblance; he will probably answer that he sees almost no difference between them, and that he cannot know where each of them begins and where it ends, or which parts belong to each. Persons who best distinguish the characters belonging to their own language can convince themselves of this truth by casting their eyes upon the characters proper to a language that is foreign to them, upon Hebrew, Greek, or Chinese characters. There is almost no profession where one does not learn to see things that are not seen, at least with the same facility and the same promptness, by persons to whom that profession is foreign: a painter sees, at first glance, in a painting, what the multitude who looks at it could not perceive in it; a skilled mechanic perceives, in an instant, each of the parts of the most complicated machine, while an ignorant person sees only confusion in it, and can understand nothing of it.

One learns to hear in the same way that one learns to see. A man who listens to a discourse pronounced in his own language distinguishes not only each of the words of which the discourse is composed, but each of the syllables of which each word is formed: he can perceive the repetitions of the same sounds and the slightest defects of pronunciation. But he who listens to a language to which he is completely foreign can distinguish neither the syllables, nor the words, nor the phrases; it is impossible for him to perceive whether the person who is speaking repeats himself or not, whether the same sounds return in each phrase, or whether they are different words. The nuances that distinguish the words from one another are often so slight that it is impossible for him to grasp them; for him, it is only a series of sounds that do not seem to differ from one another any more than do the sounds of birds' songs. A man who has long practiced studying music discerns, in an orchestra, not only the sound that each instrument gives, but each of the faults that escape the musicians. He who is a stranger to music is not only incapable of discerning each of the sounds of a concert; for him, it is often only noise. There is no one who cannot have observed that by living habitually in the midst of a great noise, one ends by no longer hearing it, unless one pays attention to it; whereas one distinguishes a lesser noise to which one is not accustomed, or to which one is attentive: a sailor, in the midst of a storm, distinguishes all the commands of his officer; a passenger hears only the noise of the waves.

The sense of smell is subject to the same laws as the others; one distinguishes, by its means, only what one studies; one ends by no longer perceiving the odors by which one is continually struck, and on which one has ceased to focus one's attention. Men who visit the places dedicated to certain manufactures are often affected by odors that seem unbearable to them, while the individuals who are continually struck by them end by no longer perceiving them.

The rapidity and regularity of our movements likewise depend on the habits we have made some of our muscles take, and on the regularity of the exercises to which we have devoted ourselves, much more than on the goodness of our physical organization. A skilled musician moves his fingers with a rapidity and a regularity that could not be given to his own by the man who might have the best-made hand, but who had not devoted himself to the exercise of the same art. A fencing master has, in his movements, a speed, a precision, and a strength that a man who has remained a stranger to the profession of arms cannot have in his, however well-constituted and however strong one may suppose him to be.

Individuals for whom the loss of sight has rendered the finesse of touch necessary end by giving to this latter sense such great perfection that it replaces, in a way, the first. We can see, every day, blind people who, by the sole means of touch, distinguish all the inequalities produced on a deck of cards by the diverse colors that are applied to it. The princes of Persia, whom the suspicious policy of their father or their brother has deprived of the use of their eyes, end by giving to touch a still greater finesse; they carve figures of men, horses, birds, and flowers in wood; they copy all sorts of figures in relief, imitating the model by touch as one would do by sight; they can even judge the quality of a watch's movement [494].

A man accustomed to carrying burdens, by the habit he gives to his muscles, and especially by the art with which he knows how to preserve his equilibrium or maintain his aplomb, has, in this regard, an immense superiority over one who has not contracted the same habits; he can carry a more considerable weight and for a longer duration of time. Finally, he who exercises the muscles of his legs or his arms to execute certain movements, like runners or rowers, can continue the same movements for a longer duration of time than he who has not taken up the same habits. I have sometimes observed young men who were steering boats for their amusement, and who were competing in this exercise with professional boatmen. At first, the former surpassed the latter by the rapidity or by the force of their movements; but their strength was exhausted before that of the boatmen had experienced a perceptible diminution; there were, between the ones and the others, exactly the same differences that have been observed between some Europeans and the natives of Canada, when they have measured themselves in running [495].

To observe the phenomena of which I have just spoken, or to recognize the influence of study and habit on each of our organs, it is therefore not necessary to cross the seas, to go follow the savages in the forests, or to compare the diverse races of men to one another; it is enough to look at what happens in the middle of a city, and sometimes around oneself, without leaving one's house. We are about to see, in effect, that the phenomena that have astonished so many travelers, been the admiration of so many philosophers, and given birth to so many false systems, differ in no way, as to the causes that produce them, from the phenomena of which we are daily witnesses.

Several of the indigenous peoples of the Cape of Good Hope are distinguished, it is said, by the finesse of their senses of sight, hearing, and smell, and by the speed with which they cover great distances. But what are the things that they see or hear better than civilized peoples? They see better the tracks of the wild beasts that serve them as food, or the tracks of those of which they can themselves become the prey; they hear better the noises that can indicate to them the presence of a victim or that of an enemy; they smell better the odors that can give them the same indications. Placed in a country that lacks water, they know how to discern the light vapors that indicate to them underground springs; it is a study of which thirst has made for them a necessity, but to which they would never have devoted themselves if their country had been cut by numerous rivers. Obliged, in order not to perish from hunger, to surprise or to pursue the swiftest animals in running, in an open country, they have become excellent runners; but they would never have learned to run if, confined to a narrow island, they had been able to live only on fish. These peoples therefore know better than we how to see, hear, and smell what they have learned to see, to smell, and to hear during every moment of their lives, and what has never been the object of our occupations: they know well what they have studied well; there is nothing marvelous in that; we are all in the same case.

One must not imagine that, to acquire this kind of perspicacity, it is necessary to possess extraordinary physical qualities, or to undertake studies longer than those to which men who want to learn the most common of trades are obliged to devote themselves. Levaillant, who admired, like so many others, the man of nature, who spoke only with enthusiasm of the finesse of sense that the Creator has given him and that society destroys, ended by acquiring himself that sagacity, that finesse that he admired. He knew, by sure signs, the places where he could find water, and those through which game had passed; and to possess this knowledge he needed only the study and experience of six months [496].

The objects that the natives of the north of America see, hear, or smell better than civilized men are likewise those on which their studies are focused, and which we have almost no interest in observing: they possess the knowledge or the arts without which hunting and fishing would be impossible for them, and without which they could not live. Obliged to traverse immense forests that have no road, and possessing no artificial means of directing themselves, they have had recourse to natural indications; the bark of the trees is whiter and the branches are ordinarily longer and more vigorous on the south side than on the north side; they also have more leaves, and consequently the layers of vegetation are deeper; on the northwest side, the bark is thicker and harder than it is on the other sides: it is to facts, to observations of this order or to others equally simple that the natives owe the faculty of directing themselves without guides, or of recognizing the places through which game or the enemy has passed [497]; but, as they are never exposed to a lack of water, they are as incapable as we are of seeing the light vapors that indicate underground springs to the Hottentots.

Game changing place according to the seasons, and sometimes covering immense distances, the natives of Canada are obliged to follow it, and sometimes spend several days without encountering any. In this exercise, they are forced to constantly observe the disposition of the places, to discern from afar whether the objects that strike their gaze are the animals they are pursuing or the enemies they must avoid. Thus, at the same time that they exercise the organ of sight to discern certain objects, they give to the muscles of their legs all the strength they are capable of acquiring. But, if they give great power to one part of their muscles, they give to the others but little exercise; a savage ordinarily employs his arms only to shoot arrows, or at most to carry his weapons. It is his wife who is charged with carrying or dragging the game; it is she who pitches the tents, who cuts or transports the wood necessary for the preparation of food, or even who works the land, when in fact there exist some beginnings of agriculture [498]. Thus, the same individuals who show themselves superior to civilized peoples when it is a matter of making long runs, are generally inferior to them whenever it is a matter of using their arms. The reason for this is easy to see: each shows himself superior in the part he has exercised.

The qualities that the natives of America possess are so much the result of a certain kind of studies or exercises, that the colonists who have devoted themselves to the same occupations have acquired them and even carried them further than they.

“Today,” says Volney, “that one has, in the United States, innumerable examples of frontier colonists, Irish, Scots, Kentuckians, who have become in a few years men of the woods as skilled and as cunning, more vigorous and more tireless warriors than the red men, one no longer believes in the supposed excellence of the body, the mind, or the way of life of the savage man [499].”The Spanish shepherds of South America have a prompter and more accurate glance than the barbarous peoples of the north. They judge, at first sight, which is the best spot to cross a river that one discovers two leagues away, although they have never seen it before. They arrive, by night and without a compass, at a designated spot, although the country is flat, and there exist neither trees nor roads to guide themselves. They distinguish, at an immense distance, and with an inconceivable rapidity and accuracy, the animals they are accustomed to guarding.

“I had only to say to one of these men,” says Azara, “Here are two hundred horses (and even more) that are mine; take care of them, and you will answer for them. He would look at them for a moment with attention, although they were sometimes grazing at a distance of half a league; that was enough for him to recognize them all, and for not a single one to be lost, although he contented himself with watching them from afar [500].”

These same men who distinguish, at immense distances, the particular signs of each individual composing a numerous herd of horses, have become, through exercise, the most skilled horsemen. They mount, without fear, spirited and untamed horses; they sometimes leap onto wild horses, and know how to master them; they even mount bulls. They are so skilled in this kind of exercise that they sustain, without fatigue, the longest and most rapid rides [501].

A naturalist has attributed to the peoples of the Malay race the same finesse of sense, and particularly of the sense of sight, that others have attributed to the Hottentots and the Americans. Forster believed that the inhabitants of Tahiti had finer sight than the Europeans, and the reason he gives for it is that the former saw, in the foliage of the trees, small birds, and at the bottom of the marshes, ducks that the sailors of Cook's crew could not perceive. It was not necessary to go around the world to make such an observation; if Forster, without leaving England, had sometimes gone hunting with some of his compatriots, he would have been convinced that experienced hunters see very distinctly and from very far away, objects that novice hunters are incapable of perceiving; and this in no way proves that the former are endowed with a better physical organization than the latter.

Several of the islanders of the Pacific Ocean showed themselves superior in wrestling to the English sailors; but these peoples, besides the advantages they have of enjoying an extremely pure air and of living in abundance [502], habitually engage in all the gymnastic exercises that were formerly in use among the Greeks, and particularly in the exercises of wrestling and pugilism [503]; is it any wonder that, in these exercises, they showed superiority over men who were strangers to them, or who at least engage in them only very rarely? When English sailors had to fight men of the same species, who were not equally practiced, and they employed the method customary in their country, they showed, over their adversaries, the same superiority that the latter had shown over them on other occasions [504].

Péron found that the natives of New Holland had, in their wrists and loins, less strength than the French, for moving the needle of the dynamometer; and the description he gives of the physical constitution of these men does not permit one to suppose that they are endowed with a very perfect organization. However, if they themselves had chosen the nature of the experiments, if they had engaged the companions of the French naturalist to have a race in the forests or across marshes, or to go and take shellfish from the bottom of the sea, does one think that the result would have been the same? Would not the strongest men of the crew have been vanquished by the weakest women of that country?

Barbarous peoples show themselves skilled in swimming, for the same reason that others show themselves agile and tireless in running; it is a condition of their existence. But, whether it is a matter of covering a great distance, or of overcoming the resistance of the waves, one does not execute either of these two operations without being endowed with great muscular strength; only, from the fact that certain muscles are endowed with a great power when one has accustomed them to move in a certain way, one must not conclude that others would have an equal power, even if one had not exercised them.

One can believe, with M. de Humboldt, that the animals that man has deprived of liberty and that he has delivered from the care, either of providing for their own subsistence, or of protecting themselves from the dangers with which they would have been surrounded if they had remained free, have less sagacity, in certain respects, than those that have preserved their independence; but one must not imagine that it is because their organization has been weakened or corrupted; it is because they have not learned to discern or to hear the same things. A bird of prey that one has kept in a cage since its birth and to which one restores its liberty long after, will not be as cunning, nor as mistrustful, and will not at first discern as well and at as great a distance, the animals on which it must feed, as the one that hunger and danger will have continually instructed; the reason for it is that experience benefits beasts as well as men, although to a lesser degree [505].

I have said that the supposed finesse of the senses of savages does not stem from a difference of species. Two incontestable facts are the proof of this. The first is that this supposed finesse has been observed among men of all species, at the same degree of civilization. We have seen, among the Bedouin Arabs, nearly the same kinds of superiority as among the Hottentots, the Malays, and the natives of America. The second fact is that the Europeans who have lived among uncivilized peoples belonging to different species have ended up acquiring, and even in a short time, the qualities that had been believed to be proper to these peoples; some have even carried them further than they.

What, moreover, are the causes that could give this finesse to the senses of savage peoples, or that could destroy it, when it exists, as they become civilized? If the spirit of system had not, in this regard as in many others, rendered men blind; if one had only wanted to take the trouble to research the causes of the phenomena whose existence one affirmed, one would have arrived at results opposite to those one believed to have observed; one would have found that the same causes that can diminish the finesse of the senses in the state of civilization, exist with more power in the state of barbarism.

Of all the organs, the easiest to impair is that of sight; it can be injured by a too rapid passage from darkness to light, by the reverberation of the sun when it strikes a ground covered with snow or sand, by the dust carried by the wind, and especially by an atmosphere laden with acidic or saline matter. Now, all these causes act in the state of barbarism as in the state of civilization; but, in the former, they have infinitely more force than in the latter. A Hottentot, in his hut, is surrounded by a less pure atmosphere than that which surrounds us in the interior of our houses; confined with his family in a space of a few feet, receiving air only through a door where he himself can enter only by crawling, enveloped in a thick smoke to protect himself from the cold or from the insects that pursue him, and lying on a ground covered with filth whose exhalations can be smelled from afar, one does not see how the contact of such an atmosphere with the organ of sight could produce the perfection that is supposed of it. The barbarians of Asia and America, as long as they remain in their cabins, do not live in an atmosphere purer or more favorable to the eyes than that in which the Hottentots live. We have seen, in the descriptions I have previously given of the dwellings of the natives of Canada, Kamchatka, New Holland, and of almost all uncivilized countries, that they are no more advanced in this regard one than the other. It is true that the peoples who inhabit these regions spend a considerable part of their time in the open air; but all the inhabitants of our countryside spend a part at least as considerable of theirs there; they have better-aerated, less smoky, and healthier dwellings; and the air one breathes in cultivated countries is at least as pure as that which one breathes in the forests or in the marshy lands of most savage regions.

If, moreover, there exist peoples among whom travelers have observed no defect in the organ of sight, there are others among whom a great number of individuals have been found to have sick or damaged eyes, and these were always the most savage. The natives of the north of New Holland are so far from possessing that finesse of sight that some philosophers have attributed to savages, and that others have attributed to the colored races, that they can barely perceive what is happening around them.

“Their eyelids,” says a traveler speaking of the peoples who inhabit the north of this continent, “are always half-closed, to prevent flies from getting in their eyes: also, they are so bothersome that, whatever one does with one’s fan, one cannot prevent them from getting on the face; and, without the help of both hands, they would enter even into the nostrils, and even into the mouth if the lips were not well closed. From this it comes that, being bothered by these insects since their childhood, they never open their eyes like other peoples: also, they cannot see from afar, unless they raise their head as if they wanted to see something that was below them... These same inhabitants always fled from us; however, we caught several of them; for, as I have already remarked, they have such bad eyes that they saw us only when we were near them [506].”

One can make, on the sense of smell, observations analogous to those I have made on the sense of sight. If anything can increase its finesse, it is the habit of breathing a pure air free of all sorts of exhalations; but we have seen previously that nothing equals the dirtiness of the savages' huts and the bad odor they exhale. The uncleanliness of their clothing and their persons is the same as that of their dwellings; it has revolted all the travelers who have visited them; the stench they spread is such that often one smells them long before seeing them: now, it is difficult to reconcile this dirtiness and this stench with the delicacy of smell that is supposed of them. Men who eat rotten meat and fish, and who live habitually in filth, cannot be very struck by a bad odor when it is slight. They can doubtless perceive more easily than we the odors that are foreign to them, and to which we are accustomed; but also we can perceive more easily than they the odors that they spread, and that we find offensive.

Barbarous peoples, always having enemies to surprise, or constantly fearing being surprised, must be more attentive than we are to all kinds of noises. When the sounds that strike us can awaken neither our fears nor our hopes, and they cause us no immediate pleasure, we no longer pay attention to them, and we even cease to hear them whenever something else strongly excites our attention; but this is not because the sense of hearing has less finesse, it is because we are less attentive; we seize the slightest sound that we expect; it is enough, to be convinced of this, to attend some concert. If, therefore, one abstracts from the interest one has in listening or not listening to certain noises, it will be impossible to find, in the position of a savage, causes that could increase in him the finesse of hearing.

Being unable to discover, in the position of uncivilized peoples, any cause that is proper to immediately increase the finesse of their senses, it would remain to know if there do not exist causes that tend to produce the same effect in an indirect manner; if, for example, it would not be enough to eat raw or rotten meat or fish, to increase the finesse of smell; if one could not increase the finesse of sight, by gorging oneself with food and enduring famine alternately, or by breathing an air laden with mephitic exhalations; if one would not increase the finesse of hearing, by passing frequently from a violent exercise to an absolute idleness. It is up to the admirers of the state of nature and of the systems of Rousseau to resolve these questions.