CROSSING BETWEEN HUMAN GROUPS.—UNITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.
I. We now know what are species and race; the phenomena exhibited
by mongrels and hybrids furnish us with an experimental means of
distinguishing them. We can, therefore, now reply to the question
which has necessitated this discussion: Are there one or many human
species? Are the human groups races or species?
Unless we pretend that man alone of all organised beings is free from
the laws which, in every other case, govern and regulate the laws
of reproduction, and consequently, unless we make him a solitary
exception precisely in that order of facts which most closely unites
all other beings, we shall be forced to admit that he also obeys the
laws of crossing.
Thus, if the human groups represent a more or less considerable
number of _species_, we ought to prove in the crossings of their
species the existence of the characteristic phenomena of _hybridism_.
If these groups are only _races of a single species_, we ought, in
crossings between them, to meet with the phenomena exhibited by
mongrels.
II. It is scarcely necessary to recall what nearly four centuries of
experience and observation have taught us. It may be recapitulated in
a very few words.
Since Columbus commenced the era of great geographical discoveries,
the White, the highest division of mankind, has penetrated to almost
every part of the globe. He has everywhere met human groups which
differed considerably from himself in every kind of character; he has
everywhere mixed with them, and mixed races have everywhere sprung
up in his track.
Further still, thanks to an institution, detestable indeed, but the
results of which have been favourable to anthropology, the experiment
is complete. The White has enslaved the Negro and taken him away
with him to all parts of the globe, and where the local races have
consented to intermix with the enslaved race, in every case they
have produced mixed races of this inferior division. In America the
_Zambo_ is born side by side with the _Mulatto_ and the _Mamaluco_.
This crossing commenced less than four centuries ago, and some
time has elapsed since M. d’Omalius estimated that mixed races
constituted at least 1/80 of the entire population of the globe, and
he emphatically declared that he had only taken the half-breeds of
extreme races into consideration.
In South America, where Whites, Blacks and natives have long been in
contact and have intermingled more freely, there are whole States in
which half-breeds are in the majority, and in which it is extremely
difficult to find a native of pure blood.
Have subterfuges or precautions been necessary to form these unions
and to insure the fertility of the offspring? Quite the contrary.
The tyranny of the Whites, the crimes of slavery, afford quite
sufficient proof that in this case fertility was not dependent upon
circumstances, but simply upon the physical connections existing
between all men from the lowest of the Negroes to the first of the
Whites.
Has such facility, such certainty as this been experienced in the
production of chabins and leporides?
If another proof were necessary of the facility with which human
groups intercross, it might be found in one of those testimonies the
value of which is undisputed because they give the result of a daily
experience. In 1861, the Californian legislature declared that any
white person convicted of having cohabited with or married a Negro,
Mulatto, Chinese or Indian, had forfeited all his rights, and became
subject to all the constitutional incapacities imposed upon men of
colour. The local press announced very plainly that the object of
this measure was the prevention of the fusion and amalgamation of the
races.
The Californian legislature acted on this occasion like the
proprietor of a flock of pure breed which he is anxious to keep
free from all mixture. It was even more severe, ejecting from
legal society, not only the offspring of the cross, but also the
transgressing parents of the white race.
Do not our breeders take similar precautions in the case of races
only, and not in the case of species?
Far from being sterile, unions between human groups apparently
the most distinct are sometimes more fertile than those between
individuals taken from the same group. “Hottentot women,” says
Le Vaillant, “with husbands of their own race have three or four
children. With Negroes this number is tripled, and it is still
further increased with Whites.” M. Hombron, during four years which
he spent in Brazil, Chili and Peru, studied this phenomenon in a
large number of families. “I am able to state,” he says, “that unions
of Whites with American women have given the highest average of
births. Next come the Negro and Negress. And thirdly the Negro and
the American woman.” Unions between Americans themselves gave the
lowest average.
Thus, the maximum of fertility is here presented in a case which
would constitute a hybridism in the opinion of polygenists; the
minimum is exhibited between individuals of the same group, and it is
with the woman belonging to the latter, that, owing to the cross, the
maximum is obtained.
These facts are significant. In no case of crossing between species
has fertility been observed to increase; on the contrary it is almost
always diminished, and often, as we have seen above, in an immense
proportion. Crossings between races have alone presented facts
analogous to those mentioned by Hombron and Le Vaillant.
III. Thus, in every case crossings between human groups exhibit the
phenomena characteristic of mongrels and never those of hybrids.
Therefore, these human groups, however different they may be, or
appear to be, are only _races of one and the same species_ and not
_distinct species_.
Therefore, there is but _one human species_, taking this term species
in the acceptation employed when speaking of animals and plants.
IV. Anyone who refuses to accept these conclusions must either deny
all the facts of which it is the necessary consequence, or reject the
method employed in the examination and appreciation of these facts.
But these facts are borrowed entirely either from scientific
experiments, made without any discussion or controversy by men of
the highest authority, or drawn from the innumerable experiments
which are daily practised by agriculturalists, horticulturists, and
breeders. It is therefore very difficult to deny them.
As to the method, it is evident that it rests entirely upon the
identity of the general laws governing all organised and living
beings. Few true men of science will, I am sure, refuse to admit such
a starting point as this.
Now I wish that candid men, who are free from party-spirit or
prejudices, would follow me in this view, and study for themselves
all these facts, a few of which I have only touched upon, and I am
perfectly convinced that they will, with the great men of whom I am
only the disciple,—with Linnæus, Buffon, Lamarck, Cuvier, Geoffroy,
Humboldt and Müller, arrive at the conclusion that _all men belong to
the same species_, and that there is but _one species of man_.
BOOK II.
ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.
CHAPTER X.
ORIGIN OF SPECIES.—HYPOTHESES OF TRANSMUTATION.—DARWINISM.
I. The unity of the human race raises some general questions, and
entails consequences which we must now examine.
The first question which is suggested to the mind is evidently that
of _origin_. Without abandoning the strictly scientific aspect of
the subject, that is to say, confining ourselves to the results of
experiment and observation, can we explain the appearance on our
globe of a being which forms a kingdom by itself? I do not hesitate
to reply in the negative.
Let us admit at starting that we cannot consider separately the
question of the human origin. Whatever may be the cause or causes
which preside over the birth or the development of the organic
kingdom, it is to them that the origin of all organised and living
bodies must be traced. The similarity between all the essential
phenomena which they exhibit, the identity of the general laws
which govern them, render it impossible to suppose that it can
be otherwise. The problem then of the origin of mankind becomes
identical with that of all animal and vegetable species.
II. This problem has been approached very frequently and by many
methods. But here we can only take into account the attempts which
have been made in the name of science. Nor can these possess any
interest for us until the time when it was at least possible to make
a clear statement of the question, which was impossible as long
as no clear definition had been given of _organic species_. In an
historic account of the attempts which have been made to solve the
question, it is useless, therefore, to go further back than Ray and
Tournefort. The publication of Maillet in 1748 is the first attempt
which deserves passing attention.
I do not intend to repeat here the account which I have given
elsewhere of the different theories proposed by that talented author,
by Buffon, Lamarck, Et. Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, Bory de St.-Vincent,
and by Naudin, Gaudry, Wallace, Owen, Gubler, Kölliker, Haeckel,
Filippi, Vogt, Huxley, and Mme. Royer. They all have this point in
common; they connect the origin of the more highly developed species
with transmutations undergone by inferior species. But there the
resemblance ceases, and their theories frequently differ entirely
on all other points. In short, their ideas may be arranged in two
principal groups according as their authors favour a _rapid_ or a
_gradual transmutation_. The former admit the sudden appearance of a
new type produced by a being entirely different: according to them
the first bird came from the egg of a reptile. The latter maintain
that the modifications are always gradual, that between one species
and another a number of links have intervened which unite the two
extremes. They consider that types are only multiplied slowly, and by
a progressive differentiation.
In reality the first of these two theories has never been stated
in such a manner as to form a real doctrine; it has never formed a
school. The philosophers who promoted it confined themselves most
frequently to pointing out, in a general manner, the _possibility_
of the phenomenon, while they attributed it to some accident. At
most they invoke in aid of this possibility, some analogies borrowed
from the history of ordinary individual development, from that of
alternate generation, or of hyper-metamorphosis; they produce no
definite fact in justification of their assertions.
With the exception perhaps of the hypothesis of M. Naudin, which we
shall presently discuss, all these theories which favour a rapid
transmutation deserve a still graver reproach, that, namely, of
neglecting the great general facts exhibited by the organic kingdom.
An explanation of the multiplication and the succession of principal
or secondary types by some hypothesis is not sufficient. Special
account must be taken of the relations which connect these types, of
the order which rules the whole and which has been maintained from
remote geological periods through all the revolutions of the globe,
and in spite of changes in fauna and flora.
Accident, without rule or law, when invoked as the immediate cause
of special transmutations, is obviously incapable of explaining this
important fact; it gives no explanation whatever of the generality
of fundamental types, and of the direct or lateral affinities which
exist between their derivatives.
It is different with the theories which favour gradual transmutation.
They deal with all these important questions, and give a more or
less plausible solution of them. They start from a certain number of
principles whose consequences more or less explain the whole question
and many of its details. In a word, they constitute genuine doctrines
and it is but natural that they should have gained a certain number
of adherents.
Unfortunately these theories all have the same radical fault. They
agree with a certain number of important facts, connected essentially
with the morphology of beings; but they are in direct contradiction
with the fundamental phenomena of general physiology, which are
no less general or fixed than the former. This contradiction is
not evident at first sight. This is the reason why these doctrines
have influenced not only the public at large, but even men of the
highest intellect, whose sole error consists in their having allowed
themselves to consider one side of the question only.
All these theories have been consolidated into the doctrine which
rightly bears the name of Darwin. At the hands of this illustrious
naturalist, the hypothesis of gradual transmutation has assumed
a force and appearance of truth which it never possessed before.
Doubtless, long before Darwin, Lamarck had formulated his _law
of heredity_ and his _law of development of organs_, to which
the English naturalist has added nothing; M. Naudin had compared
_natural selection_ to _artificial selection_; Etienne Geoffroy
St.-Hilaire had promulgated the principle of the _balance of organs_;
Serres and Agassiz had recognized in embryogenic phenomena the
representation of the genesis of beings. But by taking as a starting
point the _struggle for existence_; by explaining in this manner
_selection_; by fixing the results of _heredity_; by replacing the
_pre-established laws_ of Lamarck by the laws of _divergence_,
_continuity_, _permanent characters_ and of _finite heredity_; by
giving by these means an explanation of the _adaptation_ of beings
to all the conditions of existence, the _expansive power_ of some,
the _localisation_ of others, the successive _modifications_ of all,
under the dominion of the _laws of compensation_, _economy_ and of
_correlation of increase_; by applying these facts to the past,
present and future of animate creation, Darwin has formed a complete
and systematic theory, the whole, and often the details, of which it
is impossible not to admire.
I understand the fascination exercised by this profound and ingenious
conception, which is supported by immense knowledge, and ennobled
by his loyal honesty. I should doubtless have yielded as so many
others have done, if I had not long understood that all questions of
this kind depend especially upon physiology. Now, my attention once
aroused, I found no difficulty in recognising the point at which the
eminent author quits the ground of reality and enters upon that of
inadmissible hypothesis.
I have thought it right to publish my criticisms upon the theory of
transmutation, and upon Darwinism in particular. I was authorised
to do so by the numerous attacks which have often been made, in no
measured terms, against what I consider to be the truth, and against
every opponent of the new theory. But while refuting theories I have
always respected the authors and done justice to their work. I have
quoted the good as well as the bad, and have always held aloof from
the ardent and lamentable polemics raised by transmutation.
I have had great pleasure, when occasion has offered, in defending
the splendid researches made by Darwin in the natural sciences. For
this very reason, and at the risk of being considered narrow minded,
enslaved to prejudices and unable to leave an old groove, etc., etc.,
I consider myself entitled to attack Darwinism, if I employ none but
the weapons of science.
III. There are some points in Darwinism which are perfectly
unassailable. We may consider as the most important the _struggle
for existence_, and _selection_ which is the result of it. It is not
the first time, certainly, that the former has been established,
and the important part it has to play in the general harmony of the
world has at least been partly comprehended. I will here only recall
to the mind of my readers the fables of La Fontaine. But no one
had insisted, as Darwin has done, upon the enormous disproportion
which exists between the number of births and the number of living
individuals; no one had investigated, as he has, the general causes
of death or of survival which produce the final result. By pointing
out the fact that each species tends to increase in number in
geometrical progression, which is proved by the number of offspring
to which a single mother can give birth during the whole course of
her life, the English naturalist makes it easy to comprehend the
intensity of the struggles, direct or indirect, which are undergone
by animals and plants against one another and the surrounding world.
It is, most certainly, entirely owing to this struggle for existence,
that the whole world, in a few years, is not overrun by some species,
or the rivers and ocean filled in the same manner.
It is no less evident to me that the survivors cannot always owe
their preservation to a combination of happy chances. Among the
immense majority the victory can only be due to certain special
advantages, which are not enjoyed by those who succumb. The result of
this _struggle for existence_ is, then, the destruction of all the
inferior individuals, and the preservation of those individuals only
which possess some kind of superiority. This is what Darwin calls
_Natural Selection_.
I can scarcely understand how these two phenomena can be doubted or
even denied. They do not constitute a theory, but are facts. Far from
being repugnant to the mind, they seem inevitable, the consequences
follow with a sort of necessity and fatality resembling the laws of
the inorganic world.
The term _selection_ gives rise to criticism, and the language of
Darwin, at times too figurative, renders plausible the objection
of those who have reproached him with attributing to _nature_ the
part of an intelligent being. The word _elimination_ would have
been more exact. But much of this should have been prevented by the
explanations given by the author. Besides, it is evident that the
struggle for existence entails the elimination of individuals who are
less able to sustain it, and that the result exactly resembles that
produced by _unconscious human selection_. Then _heredity_ intervenes
among beings which are free as well as among those which we bring up
in captivity. It preserves and accumulates the progress made by each
generation in any direction, and the final result is the production
in the organism of certain appreciable anatomical and physiological
modifications.
The words _superior_ and _inferior_ should here only be taken
as relative to the conditions of existence in which animals and
vegetables are placed. In other words the individual which is best
adapted to those conditions, will be superior and will conquer in
the struggle for existence. For instance, the black rat and the
mouse have both to struggle against the brown rat which entered
France during the last century from the banks of the Volga. The
black rat was almost as large and as strong as his adversary, but
less ferocious and less prolific. It has been exterminated in spite
of refuges which are inaccessible to its enemy. The mouse, which is
much weaker, but at the same time much smaller, can retire into holes
which are too small for the brown rat; it has therefore survived the
black rat.
Is it possible to admit that selection and heredity act equally
upon that indefinable _something_ which is connected with the
rudimentary intelligence and instincts of animals? With Darwin I
unhesitatingly reply in the affirmative. With animals, as with man,
all the individuals of the same species have not an equal amount
of intelligence and do not invariably possess the same aptitudes;
certain instincts, like certain forms, are capable of modification.
Our domestic animals furnish a number of examples of these facts. The
wild ancestors of our dogs were certainly not accustomed to point
at game. When left to themselves and placed under new conditions of
existence, animals sometimes change their manner of life entirely.
Beavers, from being disturbed by hunters, have dispersed; they have
now abandoned the construction of their lodges and dig out long
burrows in the banks of rivers. The struggle for existence must
have been favourable to the first discoverers of this new method
of escaping from their persecutors, and natural selection, while
preserving them and their descendants, has converted a sociable and
constructive animal into a solitary and burrowing one.
Up to this point it is evident that I agree in all that Darwin has
said on the struggle for existence and natural selection. I disagree
with him when he attributes to them the power of modifying organised
beings indefinitely in a given direction, so that the direct
descendants of one _species_ form _another species_ distinct from the
first.
IV. The fundamental cause of the disagreement arises evidently from
the fact that Darwin had formed no clear conception of the sense
which he attributed to the word _species_. I have been unable to
find in any of his works a single precise statement on this point.
The accusation is more severe from being brought with justice against
an author who claims to have discovered the _origin of species_.
More frequently Darwin seems to adhere to a purely morphological
idea, which is also somewhat vague. He often opposes _species_ and
_race_, which he also calls _variety_, but without ever stating
clearly what he understands by one or the other. He endeavours,
moreover, to bring them together as closely as possible, though
occasionally recognising some of the points which separate them. “The
species,” he says in drawing one of his conclusions, “must be treated
as an artificial combination which is necessary for convenience.” His
disciples have followed him faithfully in this direction, and those
who use the most explicit language on this subject, join their master
in declaring that a species is only a kind of conventional group
similar to those which are used in classification. As for races,
they are only species undergoing transmutation. Now from what he has
already learnt, short though the study has been, the reader knows,
I hope, to which view he should adhere, and understands to what
confusions such a vague kind of theory must lead.
In spite of the inevitable uselessness of a discussion of this kind,
let us follow our adversaries into this unstable ground, and see
whether _morphological_ facts furnish their theory with the least
probability.
Darwin himself, on several occasions, states that the result
of selection is essentially to adapt animals and plants to the
conditions of existence in which they have to live. Upon this point
I agree with him entirely. If, however, harmony is once established
between organised beings and the conditions of life, the struggle for
existence and selection could only result in consolidating it and
consequently their action is preservative.
If the conditions of life change they will again come into play in
order to establish a new equilibrium, and modifications more or
less marked will be the result of their action. But will these
modifications be sufficiently great to give rise to a new species?
The following fact will serve as a reply.
At the present time there is a stag in Corsica, which from its form
has been compared to the badger-hound: its antlers differ from those
of European stags. Those who confine themselves to morphological
characters, will assuredly consider this as a distinct species, and
it has often been considered to be so. Now Buffon preserved a fawn
of this pretended species, and placed it in his park; in four years
it became both larger and finer than the French stags which were
older and considered finer grown. Moreover, the formal evidence of
Herodotus, Aristotle, Polybius and Pliny attest that in their time
there were no stags either in Corsica or Africa. Is it not evident
that the stag in question had been transported from the continent to
the island; that under the new conditions the species had undergone
temporary morphological modification, though it had lost none of
its power of resuming its primitive characters, when placed in its
primitive conditions of life?
Are we, then, to conclude that in time nature could have completed
the action, and entirely separated the Corsican stag from its
original stock? We may answer in the negative, if any weight is to be
attached to experience and observation.
Species partially subject to the rule of man furnish a number of
facts which enable us to compare the power of natural forces, when
abandoned to their own action, with that of man in modifying a
specific type. In all artificial races varieties are infinitely
more numerous, more varied and more marked than wild races and
varieties. Now the result of these transmutations of organisms has
only consisted in the formation of _races_, never in the formation of
a _new species_. Darwin himself accepts this conclusion implicitly
in his magnificent work on pigeons; for when speaking of the _races
of pigeons_ he only says that the difference of form is such that if
they had been found in a wild state, we should have been compelled to
make at least three or four genera of them. The wild rock pigeons,
the original stock of all our domestic pigeons, only differ, on the
contrary, in shades of colour.
The result is always the same, whenever we can compare the work of
nature with our own. When he has anything to do with any vegetable
or animal species, _man_ always changes its character, sometimes,
after a lapse of some years, the change being much greater than that
produced by nature since the species first came into existence. The
_effect of the conditions of life_ (_milieu_), of which we will speak
presently, the _struggle for existence_ and _natural selection_
understood as I have just described it, the power which man possesses
of directing natural forces and changing their resultant, easily
explain this superiority of action.
Consequently, without leaving the domain of facts, and only judging
from what we know, we can say that morphology itself justifies the
conclusion that one species has never produced another by means of
derivation. To admit the contrary is to call in the _unknown_, and to
substitute a _possibility_ for the results of experience.
Physiology justifies a still stronger assertion. Upon this ground
also man is shown to be as powerful as nature, and for the same
reasons. With our cultivated plants and domestic animals, it is not
only the primitive form which has undergone change, but certain
functions also. If we had only enlarged and deformed the wild carrot
and the wild radish, it would not have become more eatable. To render
it agreeable to our taste, the production of certain substances had
to be reduced, and that of others enlarged, that is to say, nutrition
and secretion had to be modified. If the functions in wild animal
stocks had remained permanent, we should have had none of those races
which are distinguished by a difference in the colour of the hair, in
the production of milk, in aptitude for work, or in the production of
meat. If instinct itself had not obeyed the action of man, we should
not have had in the same kennel, pointers, grey-hounds, truffle dogs
and terriers.
Nature produces nothing like this. To admit that similar results
will one day follow from the action of natural forces is to appeal
to the _unknown_, to _possibility_, and runs counter to all laws of
analogy, and all the results furnished by experience and observation.
Man’s superiority over nature is quite as clearly shown in the group
of phenomena, which relate to the question with which we are now
dealing.
We have seen how rare are the cases of natural hybrids among plants
themselves; we have also seen that no cases are known among mammalia.
Now since man has begun to make experiments in this direction,
he has increased the number of hybrids among plants, and among
animals also. Moreover, he has succeeded in preserving for more than
twenty generations, a hybrid which he has been able to protect from
reversion and disordered variation. But we know the care that was
necessary to insure the continuance of _Ægilops speltæformis_. If
this plant had been left to itself, it would soon have disappeared.
The single exception which is known confirms therefore the _law of
sterility_ among species left to themselves. Now this law is in
direct opposition to all the theories, which like Darwinism, tend to
confuse species and race. This has been clearly understood by Huxley
and has caused him to say, “I adopt the theory of Darwin under the
reserve that proof should be given that physiological species can be
produced by selective crossing.”
This proof has not yet been given, for it is a strange abuse of words
to call by the name of species, the series of hybrids whose history
I have given above, viz.: the leporides and the chabins. But even if
the proof demanded by Huxley were furnished, it does not follow that
the greatest objection to the Darwinian theories would be removed.
In fact, in this theory, as in all those which rest upon _gradual
transmutation_ the new species derives its origin from a _variety_,
possessing a character which is at first rudimentary, but which is
developed _very gradually_, making some progress in each generation.
The result of this is that between successive individuals the only
difference is that of _race_. Now, as we have seen, the fertility
among races of the same species remains constant, and consequently,
in the hypothesis of Darwin, as in that of Lamarck, etc., the
fertile crossings would in every sense of the word constantly
confuse the original and the derived species which was in process
of formation. The same cause having produced the same effects since
the commencement of the world, the organic world would present the
greatest confusion instead of its well-known order.
Darwin, then, himself and his most enthusiastic adherents must admit
that at some given moment these _races_ became suddenly incapable of
crossing with their predecessors. Whence then arises the _sterility_
which separates _species_? When, and at what moment will the
physiological _bond_ be broken, which unites the original species
with its modified descendants, even when this modification is carried
as far as the ordinary ox and the niata? What will be the determining
cause of this great fact which obtains through the whole economy of
the organic kingdom?
In his work upon the _Variation of Animals and Plants_, Darwin
replies: “Since species do not owe their mutual sterility to the
accumulative action of natural selection, and a great number of
considerations show us that they do not owe it to a creative act, we
ought to admit that it has been produced incidentally during their
gradual formation, and is connected with some unknown modification of
their organisation.”
We have seen that, in the last editions of the _Origin of Species_,
he refuses to admit that fertility among mongrels is general, taking
his stand upon our _ignorance_ on the subject of crossings between
wild _varieties_ (_races_).
Thus, in order to admit the physiological transmutation of race into
species, a fact which is contrary to all positive facts, Darwin
and his followers reject the secular results of experience and
observation, and substitute in their place a _possible accident_, and
the _unknown_.
The Darwinian theory relies entirely upon the possibility of
this transmutation. We see upon what data the hypothesis of this
possibility rests. Now, in a _truly liberal spirit_, I ask every
_unprejudiced_ man, however little he may be conversant with science,
the question, is it upon such foundations that a general theory in
physics or chemistry would be founded?
V. Moreover, the argument, of which we have just seen an example, may
be found in every page of Darwinian writings. Whether a fundamental
question, such as we have just been examining, or a minor problem,
as the transmutation of the tomtit into the nuthatch, is under
discussion, _possibility_, _chance_, and _personal conviction_
are invariably adduced as convincing reasons. Is modern science
established upon such foundations?
Darwin and his disciples wish that even our ignorance on the subject
of certain phenomena should be considered as in their favour. The
question has often been argued on the ground of palæontology, and
they have been asked to point out a single instance of those series
which ought, according to them, to unite the parent species with its
derivatives. They admit their inability; but they reply that the
extinct fauna and flora have left very few remains; that we only know
a small part of these ancient archives; that the facts which favour
their doctrine are doubtless buried under the waves with submerged
continents, etc. “This manner of treating the question,” Darwin
concludes, “diminishes the difficulties considerably, if it does not
cause them to disappear entirely.”
But, I again ask the question, in what branch of human knowledge,
except these obscure subjects, should we regard problems as solved,
for the very reason that we possess none of the requisite knowledge
for their solution?
I do not intend to reproduce here the entire examination which I
have made elsewhere of the transmutation theories in general, or of
Darwinism in particular. The above observations will suffice, I hope,
to show why I could not accept even the most seductive of these
theories. In certain points they agree with certain general facts
and give an explanation of a certain number of phenomena. But all
without exception attain this result only by the aid of hypotheses
which are in flagrant contradiction with other general facts, quite
as fundamental as those which they explain. In particular, all these
doctrines are based upon a gradual and progressive derivation, upon
the confusion of race and species. Consequently they ignore an
unquestionable physiological fact; they are entirely in opposition
with another fact, which follows from the first, and is conspicuous
from every point of view, the isolation, namely, of specific groups
from the earliest ages of the world, and the maintenance of organic
order through all the revolutions of the globe.
Such are my reasons for refusing my adherence to Darwin’s theories.
VII. The theory of the English naturalist is certainly the most
vigorous effort which has been made to trace back the origin of
the organic world by processes analogous to those which we have
discovered in the genesis of the inorganic world, that is to say, in
only having recourse to secondary causes. He has failed, as we see,
like Lamarck. These eminent men will be succeeded by others who will
attempt the solution of the same problem. Will they be more fortunate?
No one is less inclined than I am to place any limit upon the
extension of human knowledge. Yet the extension of our scientific
knowledge, in the widest sense of the term, is always subordinate
to certain conditions. The most attentive examination, even of a
human work, will never teach us anything of the _processes_ which
have permitted its realisation. The cleverest watchmaker, if he has
not followed studies perfectly foreign to his vocation, will know
nothing of the origin of iron, of its transformation into steel, of
the rolling and tempering of a main spring. The minutest study of
that metallic ribbon which he knows so well, will tell him nothing of
its origin, nothing of the process of its fabrication. To know more
he must leave his shop and visit the furnaces, the forges, and the
rolling mills.
In the works of nature it is the same. With nature as well as with
ourselves, the phenomena which _produce_ are very different from
those which _preserve_, and from those displayed in the _object
produced_.
The most complete anatomical and physiological study of an animal
or of a full-grown plant will certainly teach us nothing about the
metamorphoses of the microscopic cell from which sprang the dog, the
elephant, and man himself.
Now hitherto we have only directed our attention to species already
formed. We can therefore learn nothing more relative to their mode of
production.
But we know that the _unknown cause_ which has given birth to
extinct and living species has been manifested at different times
and intermittingly upon the surface of the globe. Nothing authorises
us to suppose that it is exhausted. Although it appears to have
generally acted at times which correspond to great geological
movements, it is not impossible that it may be at work on some point
of the earth even at this epoch of relatively profound rest. If this
is the case, perhaps some happy chance will throw a little light
upon the great mystery of organic origins. But until experience and
observation have taught us something, all who wish to remain faithful
to true science, will accept the existence and succession of species
as a primordial fact. He will apply to all what Darwin applies to
his single _prototype_; and, in order to explain what is still
inexplicable, he will not sacrifice to hypotheses, however ingenious
they may be, the exact and positive knowledge which has been won by
nearly two centuries of work.
CHAPTER XI.
ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.—DIFFERENT HYPOTHESES.
I. The preceding chapter might enable me to dispense with a
discussion of the applications which have been made of Darwinism to
the history of man. Nevertheless, apart from the curious points in
the subject itself, some discussion of it will be necessary, for it
will not be devoid of instruction.
Lamarck endeavoured to show how, by means of his _theory of habit_,
it was possible to conceive the direct transmutation of the
chimpanzee into man. The Darwinists also agree in connecting man with
the apes. Nevertheless none of them point out any of the species
at present existing as our immediate ancestor; on this point they
differ from their illustrious predecessor. It might be supposed that
Vogt had determined this point if we take literally some passages
of his _Leçons sur l’homme_. But the Genevese savant has clearly
expressed his theory in his _Mémoire sur les Microcéphales_. He
carries back the point of departure common to the two types to an
_anterior ancestor_. Darwin, Wallace, Filippi, Lubbock, Haeckel,
etc., connect man still more closely with the apes. The latter states
his conclusions in the following terms:—
“The human race is a branch of the catarrhine group; he was developed
in the old world, and sprang from apes of this group, which have long
been extinct.”
II. Vogt disagrees with his scientific colleagues in an important
point. He admits that different simian stocks may have given rise to
different human groups. The populations of the old and the new world
would thus be descendants of the different forms which are peculiar
to the two continents. On this hypothesis, Australia and Polynesia,
where there never have been apes, must necessarily have been peopled
by means of migration.
The eminent professor of Geneva, moreover, always confines himself to
a somewhat vague statement of his ideas relative to the genealogies
which he thinks fit to attribute to the different groups of mankind.
III. Darwin and Haeckel have been bolder. The former has published
an important work upon the _Descent of Man_, and the latter in
his _History of the Creation of Organised Beings_ has treated the
same subject in detail, and given the genealogical table of our
supposed ancestors, starting from the most simple known animals.
The master and the disciple agree almost invariably, and it is to
Haeckel himself that Darwin refers the reader who is curious to know
the human genealogy in detail. Let us glance rapidly at the origin
assigned to us by the German naturalist.
Haeckel considers as the first ancestor of all living beings the
_monera_, which are nothing more than the _amœbæ_ as understood by
Dujardin. From this initial form man has reached the state in which
we now find him, by passing through twenty-one typical transitory
forms. In the present state of things our nearest neighbours are the
anthropomorphous or _tailless catarrhine apes_, such as the orang,
the gorilla, the chimpanzee, etc. All are sprung from the same
stock, from the type of the _tailed catarrhine apes_, the latter are
descended from the _prosimiæ_, a type which is now represented by the
macaucos, the loris, etc. Next come the marsupials, which form the
17th stage of our evolution; further examination is useless.
Although the distance between anthropomorphous apes and man appears
to be but small to Haeckel, he has nevertheless thought it necessary
to admit the existence of an intermediate stage between ourselves
and the most highly developed ape. This purely hypothetical being,
of which not the slightest vestige has been found, is supposed to be
detached from the tailless catarrhine apes, and to constitute the
21st stage of the modification which has led to the human form,
Haeckel calls it the _ape-man_, or the _pithecoid man_. He denies
him the gift of articulate speech as well as the development of the
intelligence and self-consciousness.
Darwin also admits the existence of this link between man and apes.
He says nothing as to his intellectual faculties. On the other hand
he traces out his physical portrait, basing his remarks upon a
certain number of exceptional peculiarities observed in the human
species, which he regards as so many phenomena of _partial atavism_.
“The earliest ancestors of man,” he says, “were without doubt once
covered with hair; both sexes having beards; their ears were pointed
and capable of movement; and their bodies were provided with a tail
having the proper muscles. Their limbs and bodies were acted on
by many muscles, which now only occasionally reappear in man, but
which are still normally present in the quadrumana. The great artery
and nerve of the humerus ran through a supracondyloid foramen. At
this, or some earlier period, the intestine gave forth a much larger
diverticulum or cœcum than that now existing. The foot, judging from
the condition of the great toe in the fœtus, was then prehensile, and
our progenitors, no doubt, were arboreal in their habits, frequenting
some warm forest-clad land; the males were provided with canine teeth
which served as formidable weapons.”
IV. In attributing a tail to our first direct ancestors Darwin
connects him with the type of tailed catarrhines, and consequently
removes him a stage backward in the scale of evolutions. The English
naturalist is not satisfied to take his stand upon the ground of his
own doctrines, and, like Haeckel, on this point places himself in
direct variance with one of the fundamental laws which constitute the
principal charms of Darwinism, whose force I am far from denying.
In fact, in the theory of Darwin, transmutations do not take place,
either by chance or in every direction. They are ruled by certain
laws which are due to the organisation itself. If an organism is
once modified in a given direction, it can undergo secondary or
tertiary transmutations, but will still preserve the impress of
the original. It is the law of _permanent characterisation_ which
_alone_ permits Darwin to explain the filiation of groups, their
characteristics and their numerous relations. It is by virtue of
this law that _all_ the descendants of the first mollusc have been
molluscs; _all_ the descendants of the first vertebrate have been
vertebrates. It is clear that this constitutes one of the foundations
of the doctrine.
It follows that two beings belonging to two distinct types can be
referred to a _common ancestor_, whose characters were not clearly
developed, but the one cannot be the descendant of the other.
Now man and apes present a very striking contrast _in respect to
type_. Their organs, as I have already remarked, correspond almost
exactly term for term; but these organs are arranged after a very
different plan. In man they are so arranged that he is essentially a
_walker,_ while in apes they necessitate his being a _climber_ just
as strongly.
There is here an anatomical and mechanical distinction which had
already been proved, as regards the inferior apes, by the works of
Vicq d’Azyr, Lawrence, Serres, etc. The investigations of Duvernoy
on the gorilla, of Gratiolet and M. d’Alix upon the chimpanzee, have
established the fact that the anthropomorphous apes possess the
same fundamental character in every point. Moreover, a glance at
the page where Huxley has figured side by side a human skeleton and
the skeletons of the most highly developed apes, is a sufficiently
convincing proof of the fact.
The consequence of these facts, from the point of view of the logical
application of the law of _permanent characterisation_, is that man
cannot be descended from an ancestor who is already characterised
as an ape, any more than a catarrhine tailless ape can be descended
from a tailed catarrhine. A _walking animal cannot_ be descended from
a _climbing_ one. This was clearly understood by Vogt. In placing
man among the _primates_ he declares, without hesitation, that the
lowest class of apes have passed the landmark (the common ancestor)
from which the different types of this family have originated and
diverged.
We must then place the origin of man beyond the last ape if we wish
to adhere to one of the laws most emphatically necessary to the
Darwinian theory. We then come to the _prosimiæ_ of Haeckel, the
loris, indris, etc. But these animals also are climbers; we must
go further, therefore, in search of our first direct ancestor. But
the genealogy traced by Haeckel brings us from the latter to the
_marsupials_.
From man to the kangaroo the distance is certainly great. Now neither
living nor extinct fauna show the intermediate types which ought to
serve as land-marks. This difficulty causes but slight embarrassment
to Darwin. We know that he considers the want of information upon
similar questions as a proof in his favour. Haeckel doubtless is
just as little embarrassed. He admits the existence of an absolutely
theoretical _pithecoid man,_ and it is not the only instance in which
he proceeds in a similar manner in order to complete his genealogical
table. Take as an instance his words upon the _sozoura_ (14th stage),
an amphibious animal which is equally unknown to science. “The proof
of its existence arises from the necessity of an intermediate type
between the 13th and the 14th stage.”
Thus, since it has been proved that, according to Darwinism itself,
the origin of man must be placed beyond the 18th stage, and since
it becomes, in consequence _necessary_ to fill up the gap between
marsupials and man, will Haeckel admit the existence of _four unknown
intermediate groups_, instead of one? Will be complete his genealogy
in this manner? It is not for me to answer.
V. Darwin and Haeckel will most certainly think it very strange that
a representative of the old school, a man who believes in the reality
of species, should have the pretension to be better acquainted with
the application of the laws of Darwinism than themselves, and to
point out serious lapses in the applications they have made. Let us
take our stand then on the ground of _facts_. There we shall at once
find proof that this genealogy is wrong throughout, and is founded on
a material anatomical error.
Both Darwin and Haeckel connect the simian series with a type
which would now be represented by the _lemuridæ_, which the latter
designates by the term _prosimiæ_. The only grounds which Darwin
assigns for this opinion are certain characters taken especially from
dentition. Haeckel goes back to embryogenesis.
We know that with the exception of the marsupials (kangaroos,
sarrigue), and the monotremata (ornithorhynchus, echidna), all
mammals have a _placenta_, an organ essentially composed of a network
of blood-vessels, which unites the mother to the fœtus, and serves
for the nutrition of the latter. With the ruminants, the edentata,
and the cetacea, the placenta is _simple_ and _diffuse_, that is to
say, the tufts of the blood-vessels are developed upon the entire
surface of the fœtal envelope, and are in direct communication with
the inner surface of the uterus. In the rest of the mammals the
placenta is _double_; half being derived from the mother, and half
from the fœtus, or rather its external envelope. A special membrane
called the _Decidua_ covers the interior of the uterus, and unites
the placentæ. Haeckel, correctly attaching great importance to these
anatomical differences, divides mammals into two great groups: the
_indeciduata_, which have no decidua, and the _deciduata_, which
possess it.
Among the latter the placenta can surround the mammalian ovum like a
girdle (_zonoplacentalia_), or form a kind of circular disc more or
less developed (_discoplacentalia_). Man, apes, bats, insectivora,
and rodents, present the latter arrangement, and thus form a natural
group to which no _zonoplacential_, and, of course, no _indeciduate_
mammals can be admitted.
Haeckel, without the least hesitation, adds his _prosimiæ_ to the
groups which I have just enumerated, that is to say, he attributes
to them a decidua and a discoidal placenta. Now the anatomical
investigations of MM. Alphonse Milne Edwards and Grandidier upon the
animals brought by the latter from Madagascar place it beyond all
doubt that the prosimiæ of Haeckel have no decidua and a diffuse
placenta. They are _indeciduata_. Far from any possibility of their
being the ancestors of the apes, according to the principle laid down
by Haeckel himself, they cannot even be regarded as the ancestors of
the zonoplacential mammals, the carnivora for instance, and ought to
be connected with the pachydermata, the edentata and the cetacea.
Darwin and Haeckel will, perhaps reply that when they made their
genealogies, the embryogenesis of the prosimiæ was not known. But
why then represent them as one of the intermediate links to which
they attach so much importance? Their process is always the same,
considering the _unknown_ as a _proof_ in favour of their theory.
VI. The necessity, which I think has been clearly proved, of seeking
elsewhere than among the prosimiæ for the link which is required
between the marsupials and the apes, would not invalidate the
relationship between the latter and man. There are, however, other
facts which are irreconcilable with the theory.
M. Pruner Bey, resuming the descriptive and anatomical works which
have been carried on till within the last few years, has shown that
the comparison of man with the anthropomorphous apes brings to light
a fact which is subject to very few exceptions, the existence,
namely, of an _inverse order_ in the development of the principal
organs. The researches of Welker upon the sphenoïdal angle of Virchow
lead to the same conclusion, for in man the angle diminishes from the
time of birth, whilst in the ape it is always increasing, so much so
that sometimes it is effaced. It is upon the base of the cranium that
the German anatomist has remarked this inverse order, the importance
of which cannot escape notice.
A similar contrast has been remarked by Gratiolet upon the brain
itself. The following are his observations upon this subject. In
the ape the temporal sphenoïdal convolutions, which form the middle
lobe, make their appearance and are completed before the anterior
convolutions which form the frontal lobe. In man, on the contrary,
the frontal convolutions are the first to appear, and those of the
middle lobe are formed later.
It is evident, especially after the most fundamental principles of
Darwinism, that an organised being cannot be a descendant of another
whose development is in an inverse order to its own. Consequently,
in accordance with these principles, man cannot be considered as the
descendant of any simian type whatever.
VII. I have said above that palæontology has never shown anything
which recalls in the slightest degree the hypothetical _pithecoid
man_ of Haeckel. A hope was felt that what could not be found among
extinct forms might be found among living ones. Vogt has compared
the brain of microcephali to that of the anthropomorphous apes, and
Haeckel has represented in his genealogical table of idiots, crétins
and microcephali as actual representatives of his _speechless man_.
These beings, with their small brain and incomplete faculties, are,
according to these two naturalists, cases of _atavism_, and recall
the normal state of our most remote direct ancestors.
Here we have another instance of the curious method of reasoning
familiar to Darwinists. Microcephalism, idiotcy, and crétinism
constitute so many teratological or pathological states. They belong,
consequently, to the very numerous groups of facts which have long
been studied. If some of these facts can be regarded as _phenomena
of atavism_, why should it be otherwise with the rest? Why attribute
to atavism a single character only in crétins and microcephali,
and refer the other to teratology and pathology? This is evidently
an _entirely arbitrary_ kind of treatment, and as much opposed as
possible to the true scientific method.
After the works of teratologists, after the experiments of Geoffroy,
so ably resumed and completed by M. Dareste, the part played by
pathogenic causes, even by external causes, in arrested development
cannot be denied. Now microcephalism is nothing else than _arrested
development_ acting on the cranium and its contents. But this is not
an isolated case. Other organs and functions in microcephali suffer
in the same manner. They have been proved to be always sterile, and
certainly sterility is not a phenomenon which can be referred to
atavism.
Thus among microcephali a teratogenic cause is clearly proved to
have acted on part of the organism, viz., the generative organs.
What reason can be alleged for attributing alterations of the
cranium and brain to an entirely different cause? By virtue of what
principle can two facts be separated, which observation has shown to
be so intimately connected with each other? Why should the first be
appealed to as an argument and nothing said about the second? Is it
not evident that this is an entirely arbitrary kind of procedure, and
actuated solely by the requirements of theory?
The general plan of the brain is fundamentally the same in all
the mammalia and in man. Upon this point, as upon every other,
the resemblance is greatest when the latter is compared with the
anthropomorphous apes. When, for some reason or other, his brain is
altered and reduced, as in the microcephali, is it at all surprising
that fresh resemblances should arise. The contrary would be
unintelligible.
This is a fact upon which Vogt has especially insisted, and he has
described from this point of view several interesting details which
render less general some of the results obtained by M. Gratiolet. But
it is a remarkable fact that these new relations are not established
with the most highly developed apes, but with the tailed apes of the
new world, with the _platyrrhini_, which are excluded by Haeckel and
Darwin from the human ancestral series. Thus, the Darwinian theory
itself protests against the comparison between the microcephali and
our pretended pithecoid ancestors.
The relations which we are discussing do not, moreover, reach a
similarity which would authorise the conclusions of the Genevese
savant. The brains of microcephali, though often less voluminous
and less convoluted than those of the anthropoid apes, according to
Gratiolet, do not become at all similar to them. This proposition is
confirmed by the work of Vogt.
The case is the same with the skeleton as with the brain. I will
here appeal to an authority, which none of my adversaries can
reject, that, namely, of Huxley. After having protested against the
statements of those who declare “that the structural differences
between man and apes are small and insignificant,” the eminent
anatomist adds that “every bone of the gorilla bears a mark by which
it can be distinguished from the corresponding human bone, and that,
in the present state of creation at least, no intermediary being
fills the gap which separates man from the troglodyte.” In the
general conclusion of his book, Huxley moreover recognises the fact
that the fossil human remains hitherto discovered do not indicate any
approach towards the pithecoid form.
VIII. After the formal declarations of a naturalist, whose Darwinian
convictions place him beyond all suspicion of partiality, how is it
that we continually find the expression _simian character_ employed
_à propos_ of the most insignificant modifications of some human
type of which no one gives a precise description? It is, to say the
least, an abuse of words, against which I have often protested. We
have just seen that this expression assumes an anatomical fact which
does not exist, and which, consequently, constitutes an error. It
has, moreover, the inconvenience of being understood literally by the
ignorant, and sometimes of deceiving even educated men, and of giving
rise to a belief in imaginary degradations and comparisons.
In fact, man and the rest of the vertebrata are constructed upon the
same fundamental plan. Between him and the other members of this
group numerous relations exist. Organised beings are not crystals
whose forms are mathematically defined; with the former the whole of
the body and each part of this whole oscillate between limits whose
extent has not yet been fixed, but which is at times considerable.
By these very oscillations the customary relations are continually
modified, not only between man and the apes, but between man and
the rest of the vertebrata. If we compare man to any animal type
whatever, if we apply the same method to this comparison, and the
same terminology, we shall arrive at singular conclusions. I will
quote a single example.
The most important fact in connection with the brain is certainly
not its absolute development. It is the relation of this development
to that of the rest of the body. The agreement upon this point,
when animals are the subject of discussion, is general. It should
be the same when the discussion is on man. Undoubtedly upon this
ground of relative superiority or inferiority, upon which certain
anthropologists so readily take their stand _à propos_ of races or
individuals, the relations of which I speak constitute one of the
most striking and essential characters.
I subjoin some of these relations taken from a table of Duvernoy, and
in which the weight of the brain is taken as unity.
Man { Infant 1 : 22
{ Youth 1 : 25
{ Adult 1 : 30
{ Old 1 : 35
Apes { Saimiri 1 : 22
{ Saï 1 : 25
{ Ouisititi 1 : 28
{ Gibbon 1 : 48
Rodents { Field Mouse 1 : 31
{ Mouse 1 : 43
Carnivora { Mole 1 : 36
{ Dogs 1 : 47 1 : 305
Birds { Blue Tit 1 : 12
{ Canary 1 : 14
{ Cole Tit 1 : 18
{ Sparrow 1 : 25
{ Chaffinch 1 : 27
The man in question is the European White. Now from this table we see
that from infancy to old age the relation of the brain to the rest of
the body keeps diminishing. Are we to conclude then from this that
the youth is _degraded_ relatively to the infant, and that the adult
or the old man has assumed a _simian character_?
We see, moreover, that there ought to be some understanding as to
the word _simian_ itself. If the gibbon, which belongs to the type
of our supposed ancestors, has a brain relatively smaller than ours,
it is otherwise with the three members of the genus cebus given in
the table. The latter are superior to the anthropoid; the two first
show exactly the same relation as the infant and youth; the third
surpasses the adult man. But all three are surpassed by the two tits
and the canary.
Consequently, if we are right in regarding the human race, or the
human individual whose brain is below the mean by several grammes, as
tending towards the anthropoid ape, we ought to consider the race, or
the individual whose brain is above the mean as approximating to the
cebus, or even the passerines or conirostres. If the first comparison
is admissible, the second is equally so.
We can then say with the learned anatomist whose authority I have so
often appealed to: “The microcephali, however reduced their brain
may be, are not brutes; they are merely undeveloped men.” Or again,
we may say with M. Best, whose testimony cannot be suspected in such
a matter, that in their development apes do not resemble man, and,
conversely, that the human type when degraded does not resemble the
ape.
IX. From the pithecoid man of Darwin and Haeckel, from the speechless
man who used his teeth as weapons, to the man of our age, the
distance is still very great. How has it been filled up? How has
this intelligence been developed which is able in many cases to
hold nature herself in subjection? It is Wallace who has especially
answered this question in the name of the theory of which he is
one of the founders. We shall see at the same time that he admits
the imperfection of this theory, when he discusses the peculiar
attributes of the human species.
It is well known that this naturalist shares with Darwin and M.
Naudin, the honour of having sought in natural selection for an
explanation of organic origins. But our fellow countryman has
confined himself to a sketch the fundamental character of which he
has recently entirely modified. Darwin has embraced the problem as
a whole and in its details; he has added to his first work several
publications upon subjects very different in appearance, but all of
which tend to the same end. He may with justice be considered as the
chief of the school.
Wallace, who almost anticipated Darwin in the publication of ideas
which are common to both, recognises him as his master on all
occasions. He has discussed a small number of points in special
memoirs which never cover much ground. From not attempting the
solution of all the questions suggested by the theory, he has neither
met with so many or such serious difficulties as his eminent rival.
This, perhaps, explains the fact that he generally shows himself more
precise and logical. He therefore, always possessed considerable
authority among the partisans of Darwinism, until he published his
special views on man.
According to Wallace, _immediate and personal utility_ is the only
cause which sets _selection_ in action. This is fundamentally the
theory of Darwin; but the latter has allowed himself to be influenced
by comparisons or metaphors, which have raised sharp criticisms,
which have perhaps deceived him, and which he employs more or less to
evade his difficulties. We never meet with the same in Wallace, who
accepts all the consequences to which his absolute principle leads
him.
According to Wallace, _utility alone_ is able to account for the
manner in which inferior animal forms could have produced apes, and
afterwards a being having almost all the physical characters of man
as he is now. This _race_ lived in herds scattered throughout the
hot regions of the ancient continent. It was not, however, wanting
in true sociability; it possessed the perception of sensations,
but was incapable of thought; moral sense and sympathetic feelings
were unknown to it. It was still only a _material outline_ of the
human being, yet superior to the _tailed man_ of Darwin, and to the
pithecoid man of Haeckel.
Towards the earlier part of the tertiary period, adds Wallace,
_an unknown cause_ began to accelerate the development of
the intelligence in this anthropoid being. It soon played a
preponderating part in the existence of man. The perfection of this
faculty became incomparably _more useful_ than any other organic
modification. Henceforward the powerful modifying agent of selection
acted necessarily almost entirely in this direction. The physical
characters already acquired remained almost unaltered, while the
organs of the intelligence and the intelligence itself were perfected
more and more in each generation. Animals unaffected by this
_unknown cause_ which separates us from them, continued to undergo
morphological transmutations, so that since the Miocene epoch there
has been a great change in the terrestrial fauna. With man only did
the form remain the same. We ought not, therefore, to be surprised to
find in the Quaternary epoch skulls like those of Denise and Engis,
resembling those of men of the present age.
The superiority acquired by the intelligence has, moreover, removed
our race for ever from the law of the action of _morphological
transmutations_. His intellectual and moral faculties only are from
this time subject to the power of selection, which will cause the
disappearance of inferior races and their replacement by a new race,
the lowest individual of which would be, in our time, a superior man.
After having read the pages, of which I have just made a summary,
we cannot but be surprised to find Wallace declare that natural
selection by itself is incapable of producing from an _anthropoid
animal_, a man such as we find in the most savage nations known to
us. He thus makes the human species an exception to the laws, which,
according to him, rule all other living beings. There is a double
interest in following Darwin’s rival in this new path.
Wallace begins by reminding us that natural selection rests
_entirely_ upon the principle of _immediate utility_, relative
only to the conditions of the struggle maintained at the time by
the individuals constituting the species. Darwin in all his works
declares, on different occasions, this same principle, upon which
rests, in fact, all his statements upon adaptation, the possibility
of _retrogressive transmutations_, etc.
It results necessarily from this principle, that selection cannot
produce _variations in any way injurious_ to any being whatever.
Darwin has often declared that a single well-attested case of this
kind would destroy his whole theory.
But it is evident, adds Wallace, that selection is as incapable of
producing a _useless variation_; it cannot then develop an organ in
proportions which would go beyond its degree of _present utility_.
Now Wallace shews very clearly that in the savage there are organs
whose development is out of all proportion with their _present
utility_, and even faculties and physical characters which are either
useless or injurious, at least to the individual. “But,” says he,
“if it can be proved that these modifications, though dangerous or
useless at the time of their first appearance, have become much more
useful, and are now indispensable to the complete development of the
intellectual and moral nature of man, we ought to believe in the
existence of an intelligent action, foreseeing and providing for the
future, just as we should do, when we see a breeder set to work to
produce a definite improvement in any direction in any cultivated
plant or domestic animal.”
The relative development of the body and the brain, the organ of
intelligence, is one of the points upon which our author insists most
strongly. The height of the orang, he says, is almost equal to that
of man; the gorilla is much taller and bigger. Nevertheless, if we
represent by ten the average volume of the brain in the anthropoid
apes, this same volume will be represented by twenty-six in savages,
and by thirty-two in civilised men. The English naturalist also makes
the remark, that among savages, the Esquimaux, for instance, we find
individuals the capacity of whose skull almost reaches the maximum
which is given for the most highly developed nations.
Finally, Wallace, relying upon the experiments and calculations of
Galton, admits distinctly that though the brain of savages is to that
of civilised man in the proportion of five to six, the intellectual
manifestations are, at the most, that of one to one thousand. The
material development is, then, out of all proportion to the function.
A brain, a little more voluminous than that of the gorilla, would,
in the eyes of the eminent traveller, be perfectly sufficient for
the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, of Australia, Tasmania, and
Tierra del Fuego.
Wallace explains the development of the ideas of justice and
benevolence by the advantages which would result from them to the
tribe and to each individual. But faculties essentially _individual_,
and without _immediate_ utility to others, are not subject, according
to him, to selection. “How,” says he, “could the struggle for
existence, the victory of the most fitted and natural selection
give any aid to the development of mental faculties,” such as ideal
conceptions of space and time, of eternity and infinity, the artistic
feeling, abstract ideas of number and form, without which arithmetic
and geometry are impossible?
For a much more cogent reason, the development of the moral sense
in the savage cannot be accounted for by considerations taken from
_utility_, whether _individual_ or _collective_. Wallace insists upon
this point at some length; he quotes examples which prove that this
feeling exists, in all which is most delicate and most opposed to
utilitarian notions, among the most savage tribes of Central India.
We could give many examples of this fact; among others, that the
Red-skins have the greatest respect for their word of honour, though
it should entail torture and death.
Our author bases numerous arguments upon the physical examination
of man. “It is perfectly certain,” he says, “that natural selection
could not have produced the present naked body of man from an
ancestor covered with hair, for such a modification, far from
being useful, would be injurious, at least in certain respects;”
in civilised man a number of movements are executed by the hand of
which savages have not the slightest idea, although no anatomical
difference exists in the structure of the superior members; the
larynx of our singers is constructed similarly to that of savages,
and, nevertheless, what a contrast between the sounds produced!
From all these facts Wallace concludes that the brain, hand, and
larynx of savages possess _latent aptitudes_, which being temporarily
_useless_ cannot be attributed to _natural selection_. Man, moreover,
has not the power of acquiring them himself. Foreign intervention
therefore is necessary, for the explanation of their existence.
Wallace attributes this intervention to a _superior intelligence_
which acted on the human species, just as the latter has acted on the
rock-pigeon to produce from it the pouter or the carrier, and which
employed analogous processes.
In short, _natural selection_, regulated by the laws of nature
only, is sufficient to produce wild species; _artificial_ or _human
selection_ can produce improved races of animals and plants; a
kind of _divine selection_ must have produced the present man, and
can alone bring him to the highest pitch of intellectual and moral
development.
In advancing this latter hypothesis, Wallace declares that it no
more impairs the theory of natural selection than the latter is
weakened by the fact of artificial selection. Few, I think, will
accept this proposition. The chief apology for Darwinism in the eyes
of men of science, its great charm to all its partisans, lies in the
pretensions which it puts forward of connecting organic origins,
those of man as well as those of plants, with the single action of
second causes; and to explain the present state of living beings
by physical and physiological laws, just as geology and astronomy
explain the present state of the material world entirely by the
general laws of matter. In making the intervention of an _intelligent
will_ necessary for the realisation of the human being, Wallace has
set himself in opposition to the very essence of the theory. Such is
the opinion of most Darwinists, who have treated him somewhat as a
deserter.
I am not therefore called upon to examine this latter hypothesis of
Wallace. I am, however, at liberty to state that most of the facts,
which have induced one of the founders of Darwinism to separate
from his chief upon so important a point, retain all their value as
objections. The mistake of Wallace consists in failing to see that
his statements upon the subject of man apply equally to animals, and
Claparède has justly reproached him with a want of logic on this
point. He has been less happy in the answers which he has made to his
old ally. Doubtless, he who regards the question exclusively from a
Darwinian point of view, and accepts as true everything which I have
endeavoured to shew to be false, will readily find a solution for
many of the difficulties raised by Wallace. But his statements upon
_latent aptitudes_, upon the superior faculties of the human mind,
and upon the moral sense, are very difficult to refute. Claparède has
only alluded to the former. Darwin has attempted to go further; but
his theories and hypotheses upon these important questions do not
appear to me to have given much satisfaction to the most devoted of
his followers. I cannot here enter into a discussion, which, to have
any value, should be carried to some length, and I refer the reader
to the work upon the _Descent of Man_, and to my articles in the
Journal des Savants.
X. I cannot close this short account of the origins, which have been
attributed to man during late years, without mentioning the new
theory which has lately been put forward by an eminent botanist,
to whose works I have often had to allude. M. Naudin has been one
of the most important of Darwin’s precursors. Six years before the
English naturalist, he compared the action exercised by natural
forces in the production of _species_ to the methods used by man in
obtaining _races_; he admitted the _derivation_ and _filiation_ of
species; he compared the vegetable kingdom to a tree “where roots,
mysteriously hidden in the depths of cosmogenic time, have produced
a limited number of branches successively divided and sub-divided.
The first branches represent the primordial types of the kingdom, the
subsequent ramifications the existing species.” We cannot fail to
recognise in these words an idea very similar to Darwinism.
M. Naudin now proposes an _evolution theory_ which is very different.
He “entirely excludes the hypothesis of natural selection, unless
the sense of the word is changed so as to make it synonymous with
_survival_.” He rejects no less strongly the idea of _gradual
transmutations_, which require millions of years to effect the
transmutation of a single plant. He insists, on the contrary, upon
the _suddenness_ with which most of the variations observed in plants
have been produced, and regards it as a representation of what must
have taken place in the successive genesis of living beings. Let
us remark in passing, that Darwin, in the last edition of his work
recognises the reality of these _sudden leaps_, which have taken
place without transitions between one generation and another, and
confesses that he has not taken sufficient account of them in his
earlier writings.
M. Naudin admits the existence of a _protoplasma_ or _primordial
blastema_, the origin of which he does not pretend to explain nor its
entrance into action. Under the influence of the _organo-plastic_
or _evolutive force_ there were formed _proto-organisms_ of a very
simple structure, asexual, and endowed with the power of producing
by buds and with a great activity _meso-organisms_, similar to the
first, though already more complicated. With each generation forms
are multiplied, and become more pronounced, and nature rapidly
passes on to the _adult state_. The beings in question were not,
however, _species_. They were not complete beings, but merely a kind
of _larvæ_, whose sole duty was to serve as transitions between the
primitive blastema and the definite forms. Dispersed in different
regions of the globe, they have carried everywhere the germs of
future forms which _evolution_ had to produce from them. From the
_creative_ character which distinguished it at first, the evolutive
force exhausted by its very action, acquired a _preservative_
character. Forms are now _integrated_. They preserve, however, a
residue of _plasticity_; they vary under the influence of certain
conditions, and hence results the multitude of forms which the same
species now presents.
The proto- and meso-organisms contained in themselves, each according
to its position in the order of evolution, the rudiments of kingdoms,
branches, classes, orders, families, and genera. Points where they
were fixed, became so many _centres of creation_. Moreover, they have
not engendered simultaneously all the forms which they were capable
of producing. There have been considerable intervals between the
production of living beings, which explains why groups of the same
order have not been contemporaneous.
Organic types, even those least marked, have not passed into each
other. The paths followed by the evolutive force have always been
divergent. “Let us picture to ourselves,” says M. Naudin, “the
meso-organism which has been the source of the mammalia; ever since
its appearance, all the mammalian orders, including the human
order, were fermenting in it. Before their appearance, they were
virtually distinct, in the sense that the evolutive forces were
already distributed, and the method of their effecting, each in
its proper time, the production of these different orders, already
defined. This is a similar phenomenon to that of the evolution of
organs in a growing embryo, where we see springing from a common and
uniform origin, parts at first similar, but which are impelled in a
determinate direction each by its own particular _future_.”
M. Naudin, as we see, in order to support his theory, appeals to
the embryogenic phenomena, to which the Darwinists also look for
testimony in favour of their doctrines. The learned botanist,
however, attaches much more importance to the metamorphoses
which take place subsequently to the egg. He recognises _true
proto-organisms_ in the pro-embryo of mosses, in the larvæ of
insects, and of many other inferior animals. He lays particular
stress upon the phenomena of alternate generation, as representing
what has already taken place, or better, as representing in part “the
ancient and general process of creation.”
According to M. Naudin, man was subject to the common law, and
the Mosaic account is at the same time very true and full of
instruction. In its first phase, mankind was concealed within a
temporary organism, already distinct from all others, and incapable
of contracting an alliance with any of them. This is Adam, who sprang
from a primordial blastema called _clay_ in the Bible. At this epoch,
he was, properly speaking, neither male nor female; the two sexes
were not yet differentiated. “It is from this larval form of mankind,
that the evolutive force effected the completion of the species. For
the accomplishment of this great phenomenon, Adam had to pass through
a phase of immobility and unconsciousness, very analogous to the
nymphal state of animals undergoing metamorphosis.” This is the sleep
mentioned in the Bible, during which the work of differentiation
was accomplished, to use the words of M. Naudin, by a process of
germination, similar to that of medusæ and ascidians. Mankind, thus
constituted physiologically, would retain a sufficient evolutive
force for the rapid production of the various great human races.
Passing over the comparisons established by M. Naudin, I will confine
myself to a single observation upon all these ideas; properly
speaking, they do not form a _scientific theory_.
When we fertilise by artificial means the egg of a frog, we know
that we determine an entire series of phenomena, which results in
the formation of a germ, then in that of an embryo, which will be
established by a succession of metamorphoses, in that of a tadpole,
which will be equally subject to metamorphoses, and in that of a
definite animal which will assume all the characters of the species.
So far as man can _make a being_, we _make a frog_ when we fertilise
an egg.
If the _first cause_, with which M. Naudin immediately connects his
primordial blastema, has made potentially in this blastema all past,
present, and future beings, as well as the power of producing them
at the proper time, with all their distinctive characters, _It_ has,
in reality, _created_ all these beings _en masse_. We do not see
what kind of action is reserved for _second causes_; unless it is,
perhaps, the power of accelerating or retarding, of obstructing or
favouring the appearance of types of different value, when number and
relations have been immutably determined beforehand. But M. Naudin
has not even mentioned their part in this _evolution_ of the organic
world. That science which is only occupied with second causes has,
therefore, nothing to say to the theory of M. Naudin. It can neither
praise nor criticise it.
XI. To explain the origin of the world in which we live, that of
beings surrounding us, and our own, is evidently one of the most
general aspirations of the human mind. The most civilised nations,
as well as the most savage tribes, have satisfied this want in one
way or another. Even Australians, whatever may have been said to the
contrary, have their rudimentary cosmogony, which those who have
taken some interest in the matter, have made them relate.
In all cases, man has at first connected his cosmogonic conceptions
with his religious belief. Then among the most advanced ancient
nations, independent spirits have sought for an explanation of nature
in natural phenomena. But from want of precise knowledge, all their
hypothetical conceptions have no fundamental value.
With us also, the purely religious cosmogony has long been accepted
as an article of faith. What was called science was confounded with
dogma, itself relying upon interpretations of the Bible in harmony
with the knowledge of the time.
Science, properly so called, is entirely the creation of modern
times. The rapidity, the grandeur of its developments, fill one
of the most magnificent pages of human history. Relying entirely
upon experiment and observation, it could not fail to contradict
certain beliefs, which were drawn from a book written in an entirely
different sense to its own, and explained by the aid of data which
were incomplete or false. Between the representatives of the past and
those of the new era, the struggle was inevitable. It needed to be
sharp, and it was so. It is now keener than ever.
Circumstances of every kind have destroyed in many minds the old
faith of our ancestors. Carried away by the general stream, many in
the matter of religious belief, have arrived at absolute denial. The
need of an explanation of the universe is still felt by these uneasy
minds; and since they have no belief in the Bible, they have turned
their attention to science.
The latter has already given them magnificent answers in astronomy
and in geology. Before irrefutable facts, the later upholders of
the ancient biblical interpretations have either been obliged to
withdraw, or to be silent. No one believes in the immobility of the
earth, in creation having taken place in six days of twenty-four
hours each, or in the simultaneous appearance of all animals, or all
plants. Astronomy has made known to us the genesis of worlds; geology
has taught us how continents and seas, valleys and mountains are
formed, thus evolving some of the grandest results due to the action
of second causes in the inorganic empire.
There remains the organic empire, plants, animals, and man himself.
Here curiosity is excited, and the want of explanation becomes more
pressing, but unfortunately observation and experiment are equally at
fault.
Some men, eminent in science and in the richness of their
imaginations, have thought themselves able to do without it.
Reviving the methods of the Greek philosophers, they have thought
it possible to explain living nature and the entire universe, by
connecting certain facts with conceptions, which are almost entirely
intellectual. Once started in this path, they are readily elated
at their own thoughts. When the positive knowledge which has been
accumulated by the long-continued labours of their illustrious
predecessors, has embarrassed their speculations, they have at once,
so to speak, thrown it overboard; they have pushed to the utmost
the more or less logical development of their _à priori_, and have
nothing but irony and disdain for those who hesitate to follow them.
These men could not but excite admiration. They spoke in the name of
science alone; by its means they replied to aspirations perfectly
justifiable on such a topic; they produced theories which charmed by
their fulness and the apparent precision of their explanations. They
were able consequently to influence even those men of science who
had not gone to the bottom of things, and much more so the general
public, who are always satisfied to believe what they are told.
The nature of the resistance which they have met with from time to
time was calculated to increase the splendour of their triumph. Men
as imprudent as ill-judged have attacked them in the name of dogma.
Scientific discovery has degenerated into controversy; both parties
have become excited, and in the two camps it has been considered
necessary to deny all the statements of the enemy; they have vied
with each other in violence, and _savants_, who pretended to speak
in the name of free thought, have not shown themselves the less
intolerant.
I will only remind the one party of the trial of Galileo, and the
other of the theories of Voltaire denying the existence of fossils.
Others have resisted the impulse of the time; they have remained
faithful to method, the mother of modern science; they have carefully
preserved their inheritance of solid and precise knowledge, acquired
from past centuries. They cannot on that account be accused of
acting from routine or be considered as retrograding. As warmly
as the most ardent partisans of the so-called advanced theories,
they have applauded all the progress, and have received with equal
favour new ideas, on the condition of exposing them to experiment
and observation. But when they meet with questions the solution of
which is at present impossible, and will perhaps always be so, they
have not hesitated to answer:—WE DO NOT KNOW;—and when they find
purely metaphysical theories are being imposed upon them, they have
protested in the name of experiment and observation.
I venture to say that I have always remained faithful to the ranks
of this phalanx, to which the future distinctly belongs. For this
reason, to those who question me upon the problem of our origin, I do
not hesitate to answer in the name of science:—I DO NOT KNOW.
I do not on that account anathematise those who consider they ought
to act otherwise, nor do I greatly blame their boldness. The study of
second causes has enabled man to explain scientifically the present
constitution of the inorganic world; and it is quite legitimate to
attempt to account for the present state of the organic world by
causes of the same nature; perhaps success will one day crown our
efforts, and should they for ever remain unrewarded, as they have
hitherto done, they will still possess a certain utility. These
efforts of the imagination provoke new research, make new openings,
and thus render a service to real science in the world of facts,
as well as in that of ideas. If Darwin had not been actuated by
his preconceptions, he would probably never have accomplished his
excellent work upon the 150 races of pigeons, nor developed his
theory of the struggle for existence and natural selection, which
accounts for so many facts.
Unfortunately, from having forgotten the works of their predecessors,
Darwin and his followers have drawn erroneous conclusions from
these premises. They imagine they have given explanations when they
have given none. This is what I have endeavoured to show. I have
been obliged to resume the debate; it is for the impartial and
unprejudiced reader to decide between us.
BOOK III.
ANTIQUITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.
CHAPTER XII.
AGE OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.—PRESENT GEOLOGICAL EPOCH.
I. Without prejudging the future, we have been obliged to acknowledge
that the problem of the specific origin of man cannot be solved, or
even attempted, with the scientific data which we at present possess.
This is not quite so much the case with certain questions which are
naturally suggested to the mind by the preceding.
We know that our globe has passed through several geological and
palæontological epochs; that living beings have not appeared
simultaneously, and that the present fauna and flora have been
preceded by very different ones. It is natural to ask the question,
when man began to inhabit the earth, and to endeavour to determine
the moment of the appearance of this being, so similar to other
beings in many respects, so exceptional in his most noble faculties,
and superior to everything around him.
This question of time should be stated precisely; we must understand
the sense which may be attributed to it.
Let us observe, in the first place, that here we can have no dates
properly so called. They only exist in history. Now primitive mankind
can have no history in the scientific sense of the word. Most great
religions have endeavoured to fill up this gap. But my readers are
already aware that I have refused all considerations drawn from
such a source, and that I intend to bring forward here none but the
results of experiment and observation. I shall then try how far back
we can go with the aid of these guides alone, quoting in the first
place a few historic dates as terms of comparison.
II. The Greeks and Romans, with whom classical education too often
terminates, do not take us very far. The former had much more ancient
records than the latter, and yet the era of the Olympiads only brings
us to the year 776 before our era; according to Hecateus of Miletus,
it was in the ninth or tenth century before our era that the gods
ceased to intermarry with mortals, and the Trojan war is regarded
approximately as having taken place in the eleventh or twelfth
century. Beyond this period, it is evident that we are led by Greece
into mere mythology, or rather into those legendary times where truth
and fable are confounded.
The Aryan traditions go further. M. Vivien de Saint Martin, summing
up the works of which he is so good a judge, refers the arrival
of the Hindoos on the river of Cabul to about the sixteenth or
eighteenth century before our era. These tribes were only an offshoot
of the great emigration which the Zend-Avesta takes back almost
as far as the Bolor. We can, therefore, refer the latter to the
twentieth or twenty-eighth century before our era.
Jewish history, starting with Abraham, goes back almost to the same
period (2296 years); the deluge of Noah, according to the estimation
generally received, to the year 3308. Say about thirty centuries.
In China, the Chou-King places the reign of Hoang-ti in the year
2698, and that of Jao in the year 2357 before our era. This would
correspond almost to a century, with the date of the migration of
Abraham.
Egypt had no Chou-King, but her monuments are the most magnificent
of books. Champollion has taught us how to read them, and we can
decipher them page by page. Now Lepsius and Bunsen place the fifth
dynasty about the fortieth century, and according to Mariette
Bey, the lists of Manetho, upon the subject of which the eminent
Egyptologist makes formal reserves, go back to the year 5004 before
our era. We should, then, be separated from the earliest historical
times of Egypt by an interval of about seventy centuries. If,
instead of counting by years, we count by the human life, which we
will estimate at about twenty-five years, we find that we are only
separated from these times, which constitute the extreme limit of
past history, by 280 generations.
These numbers are undoubtedly interesting. They tend to modify some
of the impressions which we have received in our childhood; but they
tell us nothing of the antiquity of the human race. At most, in
showing us that at this period there existed people in the valley of
the Nile sufficiently civilised to possess the art of writing, and
to raise monuments worthy of our admiration, they refer the first
appearance of man far beyond the limits which they reach themselves.
III. The Egyptians themselves have, then, a past anterior to all
history. With much greater reason is this the case with the Chinese,
Hindoos, Greeks, and still more so with nations less well endowed,
or accidentally retarded in their evolution. To plunge into this
obscurity with the hope of finding in it any certain land-marks, and
to discover facts of which even legends say nothing, would thirty
years ago have appeared a senseless enterprise. It is, nevertheless,
the work accomplished by one of the most recent of sciences,
_Prehistoric Archæology_. We should therefore regard the year
1847 as a memorable date, when three Danish savants, a geologist,
a zoologist, and an archæologist, were charged by the Society of
Northern Antiquaries to carry out the studies which have served as
its foundation. By a study of the Kitchenmiddens and peat-mosses of
their country, Forchammer, Steenstrup and Worsaar have done for the
history of man what De Buch, Elie de Beaumont, and Cuvier have done
for the history of the globe.
The _Kitchenmiddens_ are essentially formed by the accumulation of
shells strewn on the sea-shore, which sometimes attain considerable
proportions. With the shells are found the remains of fish, and bones
of birds and mammalia. Man alone could have formed this accumulation,
and his presence, moreover, is revealed by the implements, tools, and
weapons, which he once mislaid, and which are now found among the
remains of his meals. They consist of stone, almost always rudely
shaped. In some of these artificial hills, among the traces of a very
rudimentary industry, we meet with other stone objects which betray
workmanship of the most remarkable perfection.
The Kitchenmiddens, then, reveal the existence of a population
now forgotten, which at first lived in an entirely savage state,
but afterwards acquired a certain amount of civilisation. From a
chronological point of view, however, this information is still very
imperfect. The mixture of implements, sometimes almost without form,
and sometimes again showing wonderful workmanship, permits of various
interpretations, which have in fact been given.
It is different with the objects found in the peat-mosses, and
especially in those which the Danes call _skovmoses_, that is,
_forest mosses_. These formations are found in hollows of irregular
form which have been excavated in Quaternary clays, reaching at times
a depth of thirty feet or more. The detailed study which Steenstrup
especially has made of them led him to distinguish among them the
_central region_ or _peat-moss_, and the _exterior region_ or _forest
region_.
The first is formed by the cavity itself. It is the peat-moss
properly so called, formed by the layers of peat which fill the
cavity, and have been deposited subsequently to its formation. A
meagre vegetation grew upon the surface, which divides this mass
of vegetable _débris_ into distinct zones. They are, proceeding
downwards:—1st, certain trees, such as the birch, alder, and hazel,
etc., mixed with heaths; 2nd, small stunted, but sturdy pines (_Pinus
sylvestris_), which had grown upon peat in which mosses of a high
organisation, such as the hypnum, were found; 3rd, compact, amorphous
peat, the elements of which for a long time it was considered
impossible to discover, but in which MM. Steenstrup and Nathorst
discovered in 1872 undoubted remains of five species of plants
now confined to the Arctic circle, such as, _Salix herbacea_, _S.
polaris_, _S. reticulata_, _Betula nana_, _Dryas octopetala_; 4th,
a bed of clay evidently resulting from material washed down by rain
from the sides of the hollow, when the latter were still bare.
The forest region occupies the sides themselves. The trees were
there protected from the wind, and extending their roots into a
fertile clay they attained a magnificent development. Now we at once
meet with a very remarkable fact, the beech tree is not found in
the skovmoses. At the present day it is the essential constituent
of the Danish forests; it is the national tree, and the most
ancient traditions give no suspicion that it has ever been wanting
in Denmark. In its place the peat-mosses contain at first nothing
but oaks (_Quercus robur sessilifolia_) which disappeared from the
country in prehistoric times, and is only found in a few places in
Jutland. Then, as we descend deeper into the peat, the oaks give way
to pines. In their turn the latter gain the ascendant, and occupy the
lowest parts of the peat exclusively.
Oaks and pines, when they fell from old age, accident, or human
agency, generally fell towards the interior of the bog. Their
interlaced branches supported and consolidated the peat, which was
then in the best condition for preserving, as they fell, any solid
substances which may have been dropped or thrown into the bog.
Man used to frequent the skovmoses, and it is well known that he
cannot live in any place without losing a number of objects, even
those upon which he sets most value. He lost in the bogs weapons,
tools, and instruments of all kinds, and they all remain where they
fell. The skovmoses have thus become a kind of chronologically
stratified museum, where each generation has left its trace in the
contemporaneous peat. We have only to explore it layer by layer to
obtain many definite ideas about the predecessors of the present
Danes, and to find in this prehistoric past _relative dates_ or
_epochs_. In this manner the Scandinavian savants have arrived at
the idea of the _Ages of Iron_, _Bronze_, and _Stone_, which are
now universally adopted. I shall not here follow the development
which these fundamental ideas have received, nor the manner in which
they have been applied to the _Lake dwellings_ of Switzerland and
elsewhere. I shall not insist further upon the different degrees of
civilization betrayed by the use of two metals and of polished or
ground stone. I shall confine myself to the remark that in Denmark
the Iron age entirely corresponds with that of the beech tree, while
the Bronze age corresponds with the entire period of the oak, and the
close of that to the pine. Lastly, the pine is the tree of the Stone
age.
The presence of objects formed by human industry proves the presence
of man. Thanks to their irrefutable testimony, there is no difficulty
in tracing him through the zones of the oak and the pine. The immense
number of objects, which have been left by him in the peat period,
points to the existence of a somewhat dense population. These
objects, on the contrary, become very rare, and at the same time
ruder, in the layer of amorphous peat. They were, for some time, even
thought to be wanting altogether, till they were finally discovered
by Steenstrup associated with the remains of the reindeer.
Man, then, was living in Denmark when Arctic plants, such as _Betula
nana_ and _Salise polaris_ grew at the bottom of the skovmoses; he
was accompanied by the reindeer, which completes the resemblance
between the past state of that country and the present state of
Lapland. Now we know that such a state of things could only have
existed in Denmark in the latter part of the Quaternary epoch, when
the ice, retreating from the south northwards, would still be far
removed from its present limits. We can then affirm that man existed
and lived in Europe at the very dawn of the present geological epoch.
This fact is again proved by the discovery of a human station,
made by M. Fraas, at Schussenried in Wurtemberg. Here man, whose
presence is attested by worked flints of various forms, by weapons
and instruments of bone, by phalanges of reindeer made into whistles,
lived with the reindeer, the glutton, and the polar fox, and gathered
mosses which are now confined to Northern Europe, such as _Hypnum
sarmentosum_, _fluitans_, and _aduncum_. As in Denmark, he seems to
have followed the glaciers step by step, as the melting of the latter
opened out new lands to his activity.
IV. Without claiming such accuracy for the historic dates, or even
such an approximation as that derived from the Aryan traditions on
the most ancient monuments of Egypt, is it possible to estimate the
number of years which have elapsed since the times we have just been
discussing?
This question has often attracted the attention of geologists and
anthropologists, and several attempts have been made to solve it. But
the results are still far from being satisfactory. They are none the
less interesting, and calculated, to a certain extent, to encourage
fresh research. The method is good; it has only been hitherto wanting
in sufficiently precise dates, and we may hope that they will be
sooner or later forthcoming.
This method is easily comprehended. For example, let us admit
that the peat has a regular growth in the skovmoses, and suppose,
in addition, that a coin, recognised as belonging to the twelfth
century, has been found at a depth of 1·50 metres (4·9 feet); we
shall conclude that the layer of peat has only required about 600
years for its formation. The age of a bronze hatchet found at greater
depth, 8 metres (26·24 feet), will be given by the proportion l^m·50
: 6 :: 8^m : x. The hatchet would then be 3,200 years old, and would
date from the fourteenth century before our era.
Many natural phenomena are available for calculations of this kind.
Such are the alluvium of a river, the silting up of a lake, the
erosion of a hill or plateau, etc. Put in order that the results of
these calculations may have a real value, the phenomenon which serves
as the basis, and the calculations resulting from the data must
satisfy three conditions which have been very clearly stated by M.
Forel.
1. The phenomenon should be perfectly constant and regular, which
is never the case. At least, it ought to be possible to regard its
action as giving an annual mean or constant centennial result, by
means of compensations which are produced naturally.
2. When super-imposed strata are used as a means of estimation,
the age of the strata serving as a term of comparison, ought to be
rigorously determined; the nature of the objects compared should
leave no doubt.
3. We ought to be certain that the objects found in any stratum
really belong to it, that they have not been displaced by any
reformation or by their mere weight. (_Peat._)
Should even one only of these conditions be unfulfilled, the
calculation is necessarily erroneous. Now, hitherto, we cannot
be absolutely certain that the conditions laid down by M. Forel
are satisfied. Nevertheless, I repeat, it is interesting to know
what results have been obtained by these attempts at prehistoric
chronology.
It would seem, at first sight, that the skovmoses must be useful for
researches of this kind. It is not so. Steenstrup, an excellent judge
of these matters, after having estimated at forty centuries the time
necessary for the formation of the peat accumulated in these bogs,
declares that it might be twice, or even four times as much.
In reality, the uncertainty as to the results obtained from the
growth of peat, is very much greater than the Danish savant admits.
In adding to the data collected by Brandt, those kindly presented to
me by my colleague, M. Bésal, I find that for a period of 443 years
the mean annual growth of peat is 0·032 metre (1·26 inch). But this
mean is the result of numbers whose extremes are 0·065 metre (2·56
inch) and 0·0065 metre (0·26 inch). That is to say, that the means
found by different observers for the annual growth of peat, vary from
one to ten.
The calculations of MM. Gillieron and Troyon, resting upon the
deposition of silt, which has caused the retreat of the Lakes of
Bienne and Neuchâtel, have but little connection with the present
subject. Both have sought to determine the age of the Lake dwellings,
which belong, probably, to a much later period than the one which
we are now endeavouring to determine. We may, however, notice the
numbers, 6,000 years and 3,300 years, found by these observers.
The chronological results derived from the littoral accumulation
of silt, of which I have just spoken, exhibit chances for error
which Vogt has rightly pointed out. For some time the results
have been thought more worthy of confidence which were based upon
the researches made by M. Morlot upon the conical accumulation of
silt deposited by the Tinière. This cone, which was cut through by
the railway for a distance of 133^m (436 feet), and to a depth of
7·7^m (25 feet), exhibited in the midst of the mass of gravel three
undisturbed soils, the highest of which contained Roman instruments
and coins; the second, pottery of the Bronze age; and the third,
split bones, charcoal, and different objects referable to the close
of the Stone age. Fixing the commencement of the Roman period in
Switzerland at the first century of our era, and the end of it at
the year 563, and making some corrections which cannot be detailed
here, M. Morlot has considered himself able to propose the following
numbers as approximate dates:—
Age of layer of Roman period 10 to 15 centuries.
Age of layer of Bronze period 29 to 42 centuries.
Age of layer of Stone period 47 to 70 centuries.
Age of whole cone 74 to 100 centuries.
These numbers are not high. The number given by M. Morlot as the age
of the Stone period in Switzerland, leads us back to an antiquity
which does not exceed that given by the Egyptian monuments; and it is
impossible to avoid being struck with the differences of civilization
exhibited by the two countries. Nevertheless, this fact cannot
constitute a reason for doubting the results of the Swiss savant.
It is well known that man during the same time has not everywhere
equally advanced in civilization, and that the Esquimaux are still in
the Neolithic period.
But other criticisms have been brought forward against M. Morlot,
the result of which is that the numbers furnished by the cone of the
Tinière cannot be accepted as giving a real approximation to the date
which we are seeking for.
V. M. Forel, who has taken an active part in this discussion, has
tried to solve the problem in an indirect way. Instead of seeking
directly for the age of a prehistoric fact, he has proposed to
have recourse to the rule of false position, which allows the
determination either of a maximum which the numbers cannot possibly
exceed, or a minimum below which they cannot fall. He has applied
this plan, which is as correct as it is ingenious, to the Lake of
Geneva.
It is well known that the waters of the Rhone, especially during
the floods caused by the melting of the snow, enter the lake in a
very turbid condition, and flow on remarkably clear. The mud thus
deposited evidently tends to fill up the lake, and has already silted
up a part of the great depression which was filled by the ice of the
Quaternary epoch. M. Forel has first determined the annual volume of
the deposit. He has then calculated the volume of the present lake,
basing his calculations on the soundings made by La Bèche. He has
thus been enabled to calculate the time necessary for the sediment
of the Rhone to fill up the entire lake. Then, admitting that the
part of the original lake already filled up had a mean depth equal
to that of the present lake, he has compared the surface of the
alluvial deposits already formed with the surface of the lake itself.
The proportion is almost one to three. These deposits have then
been formed in a third of the time necessary to fill up the present
lake. Now their formation commenced immediately after the retreat of
the glaciers. The date thus obtained is, then, that of the modern
geological epoch.
Such is the method by which M. Forel arrives at the number of 100,000
years. This is a maximum which is probably much exaggerated. M.
Forel shows this himself very clearly. He has always taken the
lowest numbers for the estimation of the increase of alluvium; he
has considered on the whole year ninety days only as contributing to
this increase; he has only included the Rhone in this estimation,
and taken no account of other rivers, streams, etc.; he has not
taken into consideration inundations, extraordinary falls of rain,
landslips, etc.; he has assumed the floods of the Rhone have always
resembled the present floods, while they must originally have been
much more considerable, and have carried away much more material from
mountain slopes but recently relieved from their covering of ice; he
has said nothing of the gravel and sand which must necessarily be
carried along the bed of a rapid stream like the Rhone, etc.
M. Forel’s result must therefore undergo serious reduction before it
approximates to the truth. Without attempting a precise statement, we
can (at least) admit with almost absolute certainty that the present
geological epoch commenced less than 100,000 years ago.
On the other hand, M. Arcelin has sought for a solution of the same
problem in the deposits of the Saône. The present river flows in
a channel hollowed out in the alluvium of the Saône of Quaternary
times, the banks of which have been raised by the sediment deposited
during floods. The two deposits are very easily distinguished. The
homogeneity of the modern alluvium indicates, moreover, a remarkably
regular phenomenon. The banks of the Saône at different points form
more or less abrupt hills which constitute so many natural geological
sections. The erosions of the river have laid bare objects easily
recognised as belonging to the Roman period, the Bronze age, and the
Neolithic age. These objects are found at a constant height, showing
that they are in situ. The hills of the Saône, then, constitute one
of those means of estimating prehistoric chronology, which are so
valuable to us. MM. Arcelin and De Ferry have attempted first to
determine the age of the different layers. The numbers so obtained
show a certain amount of discordance, undoubtedly due to the fact
that M. de Ferry has based his calculations upon a single section,
while those of M. Arcelin represent the mean taken from 33 points.
The latter has, however, afterwards had recourse to the method of M.
Forel, and to the rule of false position. But instead of seeking a
maximum, he has endeavoured to determine a minimum. This calculation
gives the following results:—
Age of Roman layer 1,500 years
Age of Bronze layer 2,250 years
Age of Neolithic layer 3,000 years
Age of Quaternary clay 6,750 years
This represents a very moderate antiquity, and corresponds almost
entirely with the dates of Manetho. But the minimum of M. Arcelin
appears to me to be too low, and the error greater than in the case
of the maximum of M. Forel. I shall only point out the most important
of the causes which have led to this result. The calculations of the
author are based upon the hypothesis of the equality of the floods,
and of the alluvial deposit in the period between the present and the
Roman period, and in times previous to that. He thus confounds the
epochs when the basin of the Saône was left to Nature alone, with
other epochs when the same basin was stripped of its forests, cleared
and cultivated as it is at present. Now everyone knows how much more
powerful the action of atmospheric agents, of rain in particular,
are upon cultivated land than upon uncultivated. The upper layers,
which served as the basis for the calculations of M. Arcelin, have
necessarily diminished to a considerable extent the final result,
since they must have been formed much more rapidly than a great part
of the lower layers.
I shall say, then, of the minimum of M. Arcelin what I have said of
the maximum of M. Forel. It leaves us the certainty that the present
geological period goes back much further than 7-8000 years.
VI. What corrections ought the extreme numbers which I have just
quoted to undergo in order to approximate to the truth? It is still
impossible to say. But the path which should be followed in order to
diminish the space which separates them is henceforth clear. The
alluvium of the Saône has always appeared to me to present conditions
of uncertainty which it would be difficult to overcome, and the best
means of determining the age of the present period by prehistoric
chronology, appears to me to be the Lake of Geneva.
In order to correct the first results obtained by M. Forel, it would
be necessary to take into account all the circumstances pointed out
above, and several others also. It would be especially necessary,
at different seasons of the year, in dry and wet weather, to gauge
the smallest rivulets and ravines all round the lake, to measure the
amount of mud their waters contain, and the amount of gravel and sand
they carry down with it. This task is beyond the power of a single
man; it would require the formation of an _Association_ for this end.
The problem would be worth the trouble, and the Swiss savants, so
justly proud of their beautiful lake, might easily make arrangements
to obtain its solution.
Such as they are, the works of MM. Arcelin and Forel lead to some
important conclusions. The total age of our globe, used till lately
to be restricted to a little more than 6,000 years; the alluvial
deposits of the Saône show that the present geological epoch alone
surpasses this by several centuries. On the other hand, under the
influence of Darwinian prejudices, men have begun to handle time with
a strange laxity, and it has been affirmed that millions of years
separate us from glacial times. The deposits of silt in the Lake
of Geneva show that these times terminated less than 100,000 years
ago. As M. Forel well says, “This does not yet constitute historic
chronology; it is, nevertheless, a little more than simple geological
chronology;” and we see once more experience and observation doing
justice to theoretical conceptions.
CHAPTER XIII.
AGE OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.—PAST GEOLOGICAL EPOCHS.
I. The skovmoses and the remains at Schussenried have shown that
man existed in Europe at the close of the Glacial Epoch. But did he
live through this epoch? Did he precede it? Has he, therefore, been
contemporary with vegetable and animal species, which have long been
considered as fossils? We know that we can with certainty reply in
the affirmative to these questions. We know also that the proof of
this great fact, one of the grandest scientific conquests of modern
times, dates, so to speak, from yesterday.
This demonstration rests on proofs which are now so well known that
the enumeration of them will be sufficient. It is evident that
human bones, buried beneath an undisturbed layer of soil, prove the
existence of man at the time when the layer was formed. It is no
less clear that flints worked by human hands and made into hatchets,
knives, etc., bones of animals made into harpoons and arrow-heads,
are so many irrefutable testimonies of the existence of the workers.
Lastly, when human bones are found associated with bones of animals
in the same undisturbed layers, it is again evident that man and
these animal species have been contemporaneous.
Many facts included in these three categories were proved in the
earlier years, and during the course of the last century. Since 1700,
excavations made by the order of Duke Eberhard Louis de Wurtemberg,
at Canstadt, near Stuttgard, brought to light a great number of bones
of animals, among which was found a human cranium. The nature of this
precious relic was, however, only recognised by Jaeger in 1835.
About the same time an Englishman, Kemp, found in London itself, side
by side with the teeth of elephants, a stone hatchet similar to those
of Saint Acheul. Some time after Esper in Germany, and John Frere in
England, discovered more or less analogous facts. But none of them
were able to recognise their significance, for geology was quite in
its infancy, and palæontology not yet in existence.