HOW THE RACES WERE PHYSIOLOGICALLY SEPARATED, AND THE DIFFERENT
VARIETIES FORMED BY THEIR INTER-MIXTURE. THEY ARE UNEQUAL IN STRENGTH
AND BEAUTY
The question of cosmic influences is one that ought to be fully cleared
up, as I am confining myself to arguments based on it. The first problem
with which I have to deal is the following:—“How could men, whose common
origin implies a single starting-point, have been exposed to such a
diversity of influences from without?” After the first separation of
races, the groups were already numerous enough to be found under totally
different conditions of climate; how then, considering the immense
difficulties they had to contend against, the vast forests and marshy
plains they had to cross, the sandy or snowy deserts, the rivers, lakes,
and oceans—how, with all these obstacles, did they manage to cover
distances which civilized man to-day, with all his developed power, can
only surmount with great toil and trouble? To answer these objections,
we must try to discover where the human species had its original home.
A very ancient idea, adopted also by some great modern minds, such as
Cuvier, is that the different mountain-systems must have served as the
point of departure for certain races. According to this theory, the
white races, and even certain African varieties whose skull is shaped
like our own, had their first settlement in the Caucasus. The yellow
race came down from the ice-bound heights of the Altai. Again, the
tribes of prognathous negroes built their first huts on the southern
slopes of Mount Atlas, and made this the starting-point of their first
migrations. Thus, the frightful places of the earth, difficult of access
and full of gloomy horror—torrents, caverns, icy mountains, eternal
snows, and impassable abysses—were actually more familiar to primitive
ages than any others; while all the terrors of the unknown lurked, for
our first ancestors, in the uncovered plains, on the banks of the great
rivers, on the coasts of the lakes and seas.
The chief motive urging the ancient philosophers to put forward this
theory, and the moderns to revive it, seems to have been the idea that,
in order to pass successfully through the great physical crises of the
world, mankind must have collected on the mountain heights, where the
floods and inundations could not reach them. This large and general
interpretation of the tradition of Ararat may suit perhaps the later
epochs, when the children of men had covered the face of the earth; but
it is quite inapplicable to the time of relative calm that marked their
first appearance. It is also contrary to all theories as to the unity of
the species. Again, mountains from the remotest times have been the
object of profound terror and religious awe. On them has been set, by
all mythologies, the abode of the gods. It was on the snowy peak of
Olympus, it was on Mount Meru that the Greeks and the Brahmans imagined
their divine synods. It was on the summit of the Caucasus that
Prometheus suffered the mysterious punishment of his still more
mysterious crime. If men had begun by making their home in the remote
heights, it is not likely that their imagination would have caused them
to raise these to the height of heaven itself. We have a scant respect
for what we have seen and known and trodden underfoot. There would have
been no divinities but those of the waters and the plains. Hence I
incline to the opposite belief, that the flat and uncovered regions
witnessed the first steps of man. This is, by the way, the Biblical
notion.[89] After the first settlements were made in these parts, the
difficulties of accounting for migrations are sensibly diminished; for
flat regions are generally cut by rivers and reach down to the sea, and
so there would have been no need to undertake the difficult task of
crossing forests, deserts, and great marshes.
There are two kinds of migrations, the voluntary and the unexpected. The
former are out of the question in very early times. The latter are more
possible, and more probable too, among shiftless and unprepared savages
than among civilised nations. A family huddled together on a drifting
raft, a few unfortunate people surprised by an inrush of the sea,
clinging to trunks of trees, and caught up by the currents—these are
enough to account for a transplantation over long distances. The weaker
man is, the more is he the sport of inorganic forces. The less
experience he has, the more slavishly does he respond to accidents which
he can neither foresee nor avoid. There are striking examples of the
ease with which men can be carried, in spite of themselves, over
considerable distances. Thus, we hear that in 1696 two large canoes from
Ancorso, containing about thirty savages, men and women, were caught in
a storm, and after drifting aimlessly some time, finally arrived at
Samal, one of the Philippine Islands, three hundred leagues from their
starting-point. Again, four natives of Ulea were carried out to sea in a
canoe by a sudden squall. They drifted about for eight months, and
reached at last one of the Radack Islands, at the eastern end of the
Caroline Archipelago, after an involuntary voyage of 550 leagues. These
unfortunate men lived solely on fish, and carefully collected every drop
of rain they could. When rain failed them, they dived into the depths of
the sea and drank the water there, which, they say, is less salt.
Naturally, when they reached Radack, the travellers were in a deplorable
state; but they soon rallied, and were eventually restored to
health.[90]
These two examples are a sufficient witness for the rapid diffusion of
human groups in very different regions, and under the most varied local
conditions. If further proofs were required, we might mention the ease
with which insects, plants, and testaceans are carried all over the
world; it is, of course, unnecessary to show that what happens to such
things may, a fortiori, happen more easily to man.[91] The
land-testaceans are thrown into the sea by the destruction of the
cliffs, and are then carried to distant shores by means of currents.
Zoophytes attach themselves to the shells of molluscs or let their
tentacles float on the surface of the sea, and so are driven along by
the wind to form distant colonies. The very trees of unknown species,
the very sculptured planks, the last of a long line, which were cast up
on the Canaries in the fifteenth century, and by providing a text for
the meditations of Christopher Columbus paved the way for the discovery
of the New World—even these probably carried on their surface the eggs
of insects; and these eggs were hatched, by the heat engendered by new
sap, far from their place of origin and the land where lived the others
of their kind.
Thus there is nothing against the notion that the first human families
might soon have been separated, and lived under very different
conditions of climate, in regions far apart from each other. But it is
not necessary, even under present circumstances, for the places to be
far apart, in order to ensure a variation in the temperature, and in the
local conditions resulting from it. In mountainous countries like
Switzerland, the distance of a few miles makes such a difference in the
soil and atmosphere, that we find the flora of Lapland and Southern
Italy practically side by side; similarly in Isola Madre, on Lago
Maggiore, oranges, great cacti, and dwarf palms grow in the open, in
full view of the Simplon. We need not confine ourselves to mountains;
the temperature of Normandy is lower than that of Jersey, while in the
narrow triangle formed by the Western coasts of France, the vegetation
is of the most varied character.[92]
The contrasts must have been tremendous, even over the smallest areas,
in the days that followed the first appearance of our species on the
globe. The selfsame place might easily become the theatre of vast
atmospheric revolutions, when the sea retreated or advanced by the
inundation or drying up of the neighbouring regions; when mountains
suddenly rose in enormous masses, or sank to the common level of the
earth, so that the plains covered what once was their crests; and when
tremors, that shook the axis of the earth, and by affecting its
equilibrium and the inclination of the poles to the ecliptic, came to
disturb the general economy of the planet.
We may now consider that we have met all the objections, that might be
urged as to the difficulty of changing one’s place and climate in the
early ages of the world. There is no reason why some groups of the human
family should not have gone far afield, while others were huddled
together in a limited area and yet were exposed to very varied
influences. It is thus that the secondary types, from which are
descended the existing races, could have come into being. As to the type
of man first created, the Adamite, we will leave him out of the argument
altogether; for it is impossible to know anything of his specific
character, or how far each of the later families has kept or lost its
likeness to him. Our investigation will not take us further back than
the races of the second stage.
I find these races naturally divided into three, and three only—the
white, the black, and the yellow.[93] If I use a basis of division
suggested by the colour of the skin, it is not that I consider it either
correct or happy, for the three categories of which I speak are not
distinguished exactly by colour, which is a very complex and variable
thing; I have already said that certain facts in the conformation of the
skeleton are far more important. But in default of inventing new
names—which I do not consider myself justified in doing—I must make my
choice from the vocabulary already in use. The terms may not be very
good, but they are at any rate less open to objection than any others,
especially if they are carefully defined. I certainly prefer them to all
the designations taken from geography or history, for these have thrown
an already confused subject into further confusion. So I may say, once
for all, that I understand by _white_ men the members of those races
which are also called Caucasian, Semitic, or Japhetic. By _black_ men I
mean the Hamites; by _yellow_ the Altaic, Mongol, Finnish, and Tatar
branches. These are the three primitive elements of mankind. There is no
more reason to admit Blumenbach’s twenty-eight varieties than Prichard’s
seven; for both these schemes include notorious hybrids. It is probable
that none of the three original types was ever found in absolute
simplicity. The great cosmic agents had not merely brought into being
the three clear-cut varieties; they had also, in the course of their
action, caused many sub-species to appear. These were distinguished by
some peculiar features, quite apart from the general character which
they had in common with the whole branch. Racial crossing was not
necessary to create these specific modifications; they existed before
any interbreeding took place at all. It would be fruitless to try to
identify them to-day in the hybrid agglomeration that constitutes what
we call the “white race.” It would be equally impossible with regard to
the yellow race. Perhaps the black type has to some extent kept itself
pure; at any rate it has remained nearer its original form, and thus
shows at first sight what, in the case of the other great human
divisions, is not given by the testimony of our senses, but may be
admitted on the strength of historical proof.
The negroes have always perpetuated the original forms of their race,
such as the prognathous type with woolly hair, the Hindu type of the
Kamaun and the Deccan, and the Pelagian of Polynesia. New varieties have
certainly been created from their intermixture; this is the origin of
what we may call the “tertiary types,” which are seen in the white and
yellow races, as well as the black.
Much has been made of a noteworthy fact, which is used to-day as a sure
criterion for determining the racial purity of a nation. This fact is
the resemblance of face, shape, and general constitution, including
gesture and carriage. The further these resemblances go, the less
mixture of blood is there supposed to be in the whole people. On the
other hand, the more crossing there has been, the greater differences we
shall find in the features, stature, walk, and general appearance of the
individuals. The fact is incontestable, and valuable conclusions may be
drawn from it; but the conclusions are a little different from those
hitherto made.
The first series of observations by which the fact was discovered was
carried out on the Polynesians. Now, these are far from being of pure
race; they come from mixtures, in different proportions, of yellow and
black. Hence the complete transmission of the type that we see to-day
among the Polynesians shows, not the purity of the race, but simply that
the more or less numerous elements of which it is composed have at last
been fused in a full and homogeneous unity. Each man has the same blood
in his veins as his neighbour, and so there is no reason why he should
differ physically from him. Just as brothers and sisters are often much
alike, as being produced from like elements, so, when two races have
been so completely amalgamated that there is no group in the resulting
people in which either race predominates, an artificial type is
established, with a kind of factitious purity; and every new-born child
bears its impress.
What I have defined as the “tertiary type” might in this way easily
acquire the quality that is wrongly appropriated to a people of
absolutely pure race—namely the likeness of the individual members to
each other. This could be attained in a much shorter time at this stage,
as the differences between two varieties of the same type are relatively
slight. In a family, for example, where the father and mother belong to
different nations, the children will be like one or the other, but there
will be little chance of any real identity of physical characteristics
between them. If, however, the parents are both from the same national
stock, such an identity will be easily produced.
We must mention another law before going further. Crossing of blood does
not merely imply the fusion of the two varieties, but also creates new
characteristics, which henceforth furnish the most important standpoint
from which to consider any particular sub-species. Examples will be
given later; meanwhile I need hardly say that these new and original
qualities cannot be completely developed unless there has previously
been a perfect fusion of the parent-types; otherwise the tertiary race
cannot be considered as really established. The larger the two nations
are, the greater will naturally be the time required for their fusion.
But until the process is complete, and a state of physiological identity
brought about, no new sub-species will be possible, as there is no
question of normal development from an original, though composite
source, but merely of the confusion and disorder that are always
engendered from the imperfect mixture of elements which are naturally
foreign to each other.
Our actual knowledge of the life of these tertiary races is very slight.
Only in the misty beginnings of human history can we catch a glimpse, in
certain places, of the white race when it was still in this stage—a
stage which seems to have been everywhere short-lived. The civilizing
instincts of these chosen peoples were continually forcing them to mix
their blood with that of others. As for the black and yellow types, they
are mere savages in the tertiary stage, and have no history at all.[94]
To the tertiary races succeed others, which I will call “quaternary.”
The Polynesians, sprung from the mixture of black and yellow,[95] the
mulattoes, a blend of white and black,—these are among the peoples
belonging to the quaternary type. I need hardly say, once more, that the
new type brings the characteristics peculiar to itself more or less into
harmony with those which recall its twofold descent.
When a quaternary race is again modified by the intervention of a new
type, the resulting mixture has great difficulty in becoming stable; its
elements are brought very slowly into harmony, and are combined in very
irregular proportions. The original qualities of which it is composed
are already weakened to a considerable extent, and become more and more
neutralized. They tend to disappear in the confusion that has grown to
be the main feature of the new product. The more this product reproduces
itself and crosses its blood, the more the confusion increases. It
reaches infinity, when the people is too numerous for any equilibrium to
have a chance of being established—at any rate, not before long ages
have passed. Such a people is merely an awful example of racial anarchy.
In the individuals we find, here and there, a dominant feature reminding
us in no uncertain way that blood from every source runs in their veins.
One man will have the negro’s hair, another the eyes of a Teuton, a
third will have a Mongolian face, a fourth a Semitic figure; and yet all
these will be akin! This is the state in which the great civilized
nations are to-day; we may especially see proofs of it in their
sea-ports, capitals, and colonies, where a fusion of blood is more
easily brought about. In Paris, London, Cadiz, and Constantinople, we
find traits recalling every branch of mankind, and that without going
outside the circle of the walls, or considering any but the so-called
“native population.” The lower classes will give us examples of all
kinds, from the prognathous head of the negro to the triangular face and
slanting eyes of the Chinaman; for, especially since the Roman Empire,
the most remote and divergent races have contributed to the blood of the
inhabitants of our great cities. Commerce, peace, and war, the founding
of colonies, the succession of invasions, have all helped in their turn
to increase the disorder; and if one could trace, some way back, the
genealogical tree of the first man he met, he would probably be
surprised at the strange company of ancestors among whom he would find
himself.[96]
We have shown that races differ physically from each other; we must now
ask if they are also unequal in beauty and muscular strength. The answer
cannot be long doubtful.
I have already observed that the human groups to which the European
nations and their descendants belong are the most beautiful. One has
only to compare the various types of men scattered over the earth’s
surface to be convinced of this. From the almost rudimentary face and
structure of the Pelagian and the Pecheray to the tall and nobly
proportioned figure of Charlemagne, the intelligent regularity of the
features of Napoleon, and the imposing majesty that exhales from the
royal countenance of Louis XIV, there is a series of gradations; the
peoples who are not of white blood approach beauty, but do not attain
it.
Those who are most akin to us come nearest to beauty; such are the
degenerate Aryan stocks of India and Persia, and the Semitic peoples who
are least infected by contact with the black race.[97] As these races
recede from the white type, their features and limbs become incorrect in
form; they acquire defects of proportion which, in the races that are
completely foreign to us, end by producing an extreme ugliness. This is
the ancient heritage and indelible mark of the greater number of human
groups. We can no longer subscribe to the doctrine (reproduced by
Helvetius in his book on the “Human Intellect”) which regards the idea
of the beautiful as purely artificial and variable. All who still have
scruples on that point should consult the admirable “Essay on the
Beautiful” of the Piedmontese philosopher, Gioberti; and their doubts
will be laid to rest. Nowhere is it better brought out that beauty is an
absolute and necessary idea, admitting of no arbitrary application. I
take my stand on the solid principles established by Gioberti, and have
no hesitation in regarding the white race as superior to all others in
beauty; these, again, differ among themselves in the degree in which
they approach or recede from their model. Thus the human groups are
unequal in beauty; and this inequality is rational, logical, permanent,
and indestructible.
Is there also an inequality in physical strength? The American savages,
like the Hindus, are certainly our inferiors in this respect, as are
also the Australians. The negroes, too, have less muscular power;[98]
and all these peoples are infinitely less able to bear fatigue. We must
distinguish, however, between purely muscular strength, which merely
needs to spend itself for a single instant of victory, and the power of
keeping up a prolonged resistance. The latter is far more typical than
the former, of which we may find examples even in notoriously feeble
races. If we take the blow of the fist as the sole criterion of
strength, we shall find, among very backward negro races, among the New
Zealanders (who are usually of weak constitution), among Lascars and
Malays, certain individuals who can deliver such a blow as well as any
Englishman. But if we take the peoples as a whole, and judge them by the
amount of labour that they can go through without flinching, we shall
give the palm to those belonging to the white race.
The different groups within the white race itself are as unequal in
strength as they are in beauty, though the difference is less marked.
The Italians are more beautiful than the Germans or the Swiss, the
French or the Spanish. Similarly, the English show a higher type of
physical beauty than the Slav nations.
In strength of fist, the English are superior to all the other European
races; while the French and Spanish have a greater power of resisting
fatigue and privation, as well as the inclemency of extreme climates.
The question is settled, so far as the French are concerned, by the
terrible campaign in Russia. Nearly all the Germans and the northern
troops, accustomed though they were to very low temperatures, sank down
in the snow; while the French regiments, though they paid their awful
tribute to the rigours of the retreat, were yet able to save most of
their number. This superiority has been attributed to their better moral
education and military spirit. But such an explanation is insufficient.
The German officers, who perished by hundreds, had just as high a sense
of honour and duty as our soldiers had; but this did not prevent them
from going under. We may conclude that the French have certain physical
qualities that are superior to those of the Germans, which allow them to
brave with impunity the snows of Russia as well as the burning sands of
Egypt.