| RACES. | MEN. | WOMEN. | DIFFERENCE. |
+-----------------------------------+------+---------+-------------+
| Cavern of Homme-Mort. Neolithic | 1616 | 1507 | 109 |
| Gallo-Bretons | 1599 | 1426 | 173 |
| Auvergnats | 1598 | 1445 | 153 |
| Spanish Basques | 1574 | 1356 | 218 |
| Bas-Bretons | 1564 | 1366 | 198 |
| Contemporary Parisians | 1558 | 1337 | 221 |
| Guanches | 1557 | 1353 | 204 |
| Corsicans | 1552 | 1367 | 185 |
| Esquimaux | 1539 | 1428 | 111 |
| Chinese | 1518 | 1383 | 135 |
| Merovingians | 1504 | 1361 | 143 |
| New Caledonians | 1460 | 1330 | 130 |
| Negroes of West Africa | 1430 | 1281 | 179 |
| Tasmanians | 1452 | 1201 | 251 |
| Australians | 1347 | 1181 | 156 |
| Nubians | 1329 | 1298 | 31 |
+-----------------------------------+------+---------+-------------+
We here observe facts of intercrossing similar to those which I have
so often pointed out. The Merovingians, a white race of the first
order, are placed between the yellow Chinese and the New Caledonians,
Melanesian Negroes.
But the chief value of this table is to show into what serious
errors an estimation of the intellectual development of a race from
its cranial capacity would lead us. By such an estimation, the
troglodytes of the cavern of L’Homme-Mort would be superior to all
races enumerated in the table, including contemporary Parisians, and
the Chinese would come after the Esquimaux. The French populations
occupy, it is true, the upper portion of the table, and the several
Negro races are at the bottom. But here, again, when we find the
Nubians following closely upon the Australians, we must confess that
there can be no real relation between the dimensions of the cranial
capacity and social development. We meet, moreover, with similar
questions when we turn our attention to the brain.
The following table, which I borrow from Morton, is as instructive
as the preceding. It includes a greater number of races. Moreover,
the American _savant_ has not only given the means, but also the
maxima and minima as established by his researches. His measurements
are given in cubic inches. As they are only required for comparison
with those of other observers, I have not reduced them to cubic
centimetres. I have again confined myself to arranging the means in
a descending series, and to calculating the differences between the
maxima and minima.
+-------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| RACES. | MEAN. | MAX. | MIN. | DIFF. |
+-------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
| English | 96 | 105 | 91 | 14 |
| | | | | |
| Germans } | 90 { | 114 | 70 | 44 |
| Anglo-Americans } | { | 97 | 82 | 15 |
| | | | | |
| Arabs | 89 | 98 | 84 | 14 |
| | | | | |
| Greco-Egyptians of the Catacombs | 88 } | | 74 | 23 |
| Irish | 87 } | 97 | 78 | 19 |
| Malays | 86 } | | 68 | 29 |
| | | | | |
| Persians } | } | | | |
| Armenians } | } | 94 | 75 | 19 |
| Circassians } | } | | | |
| Iroquois } | 84 } | | | |
| Lenapes } | } | 104 | 70 | 34 |
| Cherokees } | } | | | |
| Shoshones } | } | | | |
| | | | | |
| African Negroes } | 83 { | 99 | 65 | 34 |
| Polynesians } | { | 84 | 82 | 2 |
| | | | | |
| Chinese } | 82 { | 91 | 70 | 21 |
| Creole Negroes of North America } | { | 89 | 73 | 16 |
| | | | | |
| Hindoos } | { | 91 | 77 | 14 |
| Ancient Egyptians of the Catacombs} | 80 { | 96 | 68 | 28 |
| Fellahs } | { | 96 | 66 | 30 |
| | | | | |
| Mexicans | 79 | 92 | 67 | 25 |
| | | | | |
| Peruvians } | { | 101 | 58 | 47 |
| Australians } | 75 { | 83 | 68 | 15 |
| Hottentots } | { | 83 | 63 | 20 |
+-------------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
This table, borrowed from one of the most eminent supporters of
polygenism, should, I think, excite reflections in all who pay any
attention to facts.
We find the Chinese placed, by their mean cranial capacity, below
the Polynesians, the African Negroes, and the savage tribes of North
America. Is this really the position which their civilization assigns
to them?
In Morton’s table the Creole Negroes of America fall below the
African Negroes by the lesser development of the same cavity. Meigs
has confirmed this curious fact in several ways, and has even made
the difference still wider; 80·8 for the former and 83·7 for the
latter. And yet it is universally acknowledged that Negroes born in
America are intellectually superior to their African brothers. Even
Nott allows that it is so. With them, therefore, the intelligence
increases, while the cranial capacity diminishes.
This fact is the more singular since the observations of M. Broca
upon Parisian skulls of the thirteenth to the nineteenth century
show that the Cranial capacity increases with general intellectual
progress. The measurements taken by the same observer upon
individuals belonging to the educated and illiterate classes lead to
the same conclusion.
Still, however, we cannot disregard the calculations of Morton and
Meigs; and this _experience_, bearing upon numerous populations of
the same race, seems to establish beyond a doubt the fact, which
already clearly results from the comparison of different races,
namely, that the development of the intellectual faculties of man is,
to a great extent, independent of the capacity of the cranium and the
volume of the brain.
I must here confine myself to the statement that the diminution of
the cranium is, in North America, one of the _characters of the
Creole Negro race_, derived from the _African Negro race_.
The intercrossing of races is again demonstrated in this table by the
means. The Hindoos and ancient Egyptians are separated from the other
White races of the Negroes, Chinese, Polynesians, and Red-Skins.
But the maxima and minima show still more clearly how far this
confusion would be carried, if individuals were compared. Hottentots
and Australians, by their maxima of 83, would stand before Germans
and Anglo-Americans, whose minimum is not so high. With much greater
reason would they be placed in the midst of all the other races,
which, by their means, are placed above them. This is not all.
Between the highest and the lowest mean, between the English and
Hottentots, or Australians, the difference in cranial capacity is
only twenty-one cubic inches. The difference between the maximum and
minimum of the Chinese is exactly the same. And it is much greater in
nine other races, being more than double in the Germans and Peruvians.
Do we meet with facts like those resulting from the measurements of
Morton in the _species_ of a single _genera_ of plants and animals?
Certainly not; and this table is of itself sufficient to prove that
the human groups are _races_, which have little uniformity owing to
the absence of selection, and in no sense _species_.
III. _Characters drawn from the face alone._—Similar conclusions to
those furnished by the examination of the cranium are suggested by
that of the entire face. It may be either broad or long; and in order
to distinguish these two forms by special epithets, we may employ the
terms _euryopse_, _dolichopse_ (οψις, _theatrical mask_).
Since the face is much more irregular in form than the cranium, it
gives rise to a far greater number of observations. Each one of its
features would deserve our attention, were we writing a detailed
work, and the more so, as such close study as this can only boast an
existence of a few years. Failing space, I shall confine myself to
pointing out the nature of the characters, and commenting upon some
of the principal results.
In the living subject the length of the face is estimated from
the commencement of the hair to the extremity of the chin. But
measurements of this kind are difficult to procure when exotic races
are in question. Skulls, therefore, have been examined. In the
latter, the inferior maxillary bone is very often wanting, and even
the teeth have, in too many cases, fallen out. The inferior limit of
the length of the face could therefore be carried no further than the
alveolar border of the superior maxillary bone. The _point sus-nasal_
of M. Broca serves as the superior limit. The interval comprised
within these limits is always less than the _breadth_ measured across
the zygomatic arches. In multiplying by 100 the length of the face
and dividing it by the breadth, M. Broca has obtained the _facial
index_. The following are some examples which I borrow from him with
M. Topinard:
Esquimaux 73·4
Negroes 68·6
Gallo-Bretons 68·5
Auvergnats 67·9
New Caledonians 66·2
Parisians 65·9
Australians 65·6
Tasmanians 62·6
In spite of the small number of these examples, they might lead to
remarks similar to those which I have already brought forward on
several occasions, and which I believe it to be unnecessary to repeat.
The nose is one of the most striking features of the human face. Its
general form and dimensions furnish some of the most special external
characters in the distinction of races. But the morphological
variations of this organ, presenting considerable difficulties,
had long been neglected. M. Topinard filled this gap, and showed
that it is possible, even upon casts, to take measurements suitable
for indices. Nevertheless, it is the skull that, up to the present
time, has contributed the clearest indications. The breadth of the
nose taken at the opening of the nasal fossæ and multiplied by
100, compared with the length from the spine to the naso-frontal
articulation, has furnished M. Broca with the terms of the relation
expressed by his _nasal index_, the study of which has led him to
important results.
Measurements, taken upon more than 1,200 skulls of all races, have
enabled M. Broca to give 50·00 as the mean nasal index. In the entire
number of races this index varies from 42·33 (Esquimaux) to 58·38
(Houzouanas). We see that the variation is only 16·05. The individual
differences are much wider, extending from 72·22 (Houzouanas) to
35·71 (Roumanians), thus giving a maximum variation of 36·51.
The difference between the maximum and minimum in the same race
is also very striking. When it exceeds ten, M. Broca seems to
attribute it almost exclusively to crossing. He has made an ingenious
application of this idea in the history of the crossing of the Franks
with the races who preceded them in France. But we can scarcely allow
that this is always the case when we see the difference rising to
21·98 in the Negroes of West Africa, and to 25·05 in the Hottentots
and Bosjesmans. It seems to me that this is only the repetition of
a fact which we have already proved with regard to the capacity of
crania.
M. Broca has made use of his nasal index to divide all human races
into three groups from this point of view. In races of a mean nasal
index, or _Mesorhinian_, it only varies from 48 to 53. Below these
are ranged races with a long narrow nose, or _Leptorhinian_; and
above, those with a broad and more or less flat nose, _Platyrhinian_.
The groups thus obtained are fairly homogeneous. The Leptorhinian
would comprise only Whites, if the Esquimaux had not most
unexpectedly stepped in. The Platyrhinian group is composed
exclusively of Negroes, and includes all the races of this type
studied by M. Broca, with the exception of the Papuans, who are
perhaps a mixed race. The Mesorhinians embrace all the Yellow races,
as well as the Polynesians, all the Americans and the Papuans, which
I have just mentioned. We also find in this group Allophylian Whites,
the Esthonians, and the Finns, who are thus separated from the Aryans
and Semites.
In short, if we take means alone into consideration, the nasal index,
taken as a basis in the division of races, breaks a much smaller
number of natural relations than the characters which we have as yet
discussed. Apart from the exceptions which I have just alluded to,
intercrossing here only appears between races belonging to the same
type. But as soon as we take individual variations into account, the
mixture, so often observed, reappears.
M. Broca has studied the nasal index not only in the adult, but also
when in a state of evolution. He found that in an embryo of three
months this index was 76·80; in a perfect fœtus, 62·18; in a child
of six years, 50·20; in modern Parisians, 46·81. Thus the index
constantly diminishes as the body approaches its definite form. Our
author concludes from this fact that the variations observed in the
same race may often be referred to an arrest of development, or
rather an arrest of evolution, and he seems disposed to attach the
platyrhinism of Negroes to the same cause. He thus adopts the idea
of Serres upon the general character of the Negro, which ideas we
shall examine presently. This I regard as a very correct explanation
of the origin of one of the distinctive features which most clearly
distinguishes the black race. It is not, however, to the nasal index
alone that this fact is applicable, as I have already proved.
The _orbital index_, also studied by M. Broca, is obtained by
multiplying the vertical diameter of the orbit by 100, and dividing
the product by the horizontal diameter. Considered from this point of
view, races are divided into three groups, namely, the _megasemes_,
whose mean index rises to 89 and higher; the _mesosemes_, whose index
varies from 83 to 89 only; and the _microsemes_, whose index fall
below 83.
The highest mean index stated by M. Broca, is found in the
Aymaras, in whom it rises to 98·8. But we know that the cranium is
artificially deformed by this people, and the practice may in some
measure influence the form of the orbit. The maximum in normal skulls
was observed in the Polynesians of Hawaï, where it was 95·40. The
minimum of 77·01 is presented by the Guanches of Teneriffe.
The mean maximum variation is then 18·30.
But here, as in all other cases, individual variations are much more
considerable. Without even taking the Aymaras into consideration,
whose index sometimes exceeds 109, M. Broca found 108·33 in a
Chinese, 105 in a Chinese and an Indian Red-Skin, 100 in two women
of the Marquesas Islands, a Peruvian woman, a Malay, a Mexican, an
Indo-Chinese, a woman of ancient Egypt, of Auvergne, and Paris. It is
unnecessary to insist upon the meaning of these similarities.
The smallest orbital index known is that of the old man of
Cro-Magnon, which we have seen to be 61·36. Above the latter, and
at small distances from each other, may be ranged a Tasmanian,
a Merovingian, the Mentone man (of the same race as that of
Cro-Magnon), a Guanche of Teneriffe, a New Caledonian, an Australian,
a Nubian, a Kaffir, a Spanish Basque, an Auvergnat, and lastly, the
woman of Cro-Magnon, whose index is 71·25.
The maximum individual variation is then 46·87.
Upon examining the table of M. Broca, we find that the white races
are represented in the three groups. The Dutch of Zaandam figure
among the megasemes between the aborigines of Mexico and those of
North-west America. The Gallo-Bretons are placed in the same group,
between the Chilians and the Indo-Chinese. The Whites form the great
majority in the group of mesosemes, and are much the most numerous
in that of the microsemes. One of their races indeed, the natives
of Teneriffe, terminates the series, immediately preceded by the
Tasmanians and Australians.
Thus, as far as the white race is concerned, the mean orbital index
proclaims an intercrossing comparable with all that we have hitherto
observed. The case is different with the two other fundamental types.
They are distinctly separated by this character. All the yellow races
are megasemes, for in my opinion the Lapps, considered by M. Broca
to belong to them, are in reality allophylian Whites. All the negro
races are mesosemes or microsemes. There is a difference of 4·03
between the aborigines of Brazil representing the last megasemes
which have not been deformed, and the Papuans of Toud Island, who
have, of all Blacks, the highest orbital index.
The usual intercrossing would undoubtedly reappear if we took
individual variations into consideration. The difference 9·89 which
separates the man of Cro-Magnon from the woman of the same race is
sufficient proof.
M. Broca has studied the influence of sex and age upon the orbital
index. I cannot follow him into these details, however interesting
they may be. I will only remark, that, as in the case of the nasal
index, it diminishes with the progress of evolution, and remains in
all races greater in the woman than in the man. The latter preserves,
then, throughout life, a certain infantile character.
This observation applies equally to races distinguished for the size
of their orbital index. The yellow races, including the Chinese,
present therefore, if compared with white races, _an arrest of
evolution_. Yet the Chinese are far superior to all the microseme
or mesoseme black races, and particularly the Australians and
Tasmanians, who are only followed by the inhabitants of Teneriffe in
the lowest places of the table. If we take the white as the normal
type, we must regard these two populations as presenting an _excess
of evolution_; but this excess is still more marked in the Guanches
of Teneriffe, who, in their mode of life, are considerably superior
to the Tasmanians and Australians.
A general conclusion follows from these facts, namely: that the
characters resulting from an _arrest_ or _excess_ of evolution, are
not of themselves a sign of superiority or inferiority.
M. Broca has, with great propriety, compared the orbital index of
apes with that of man. As might easily have been foreseen, the laws
of development are the same in the highest groups of apes as in man.
The influence of sex and age are as noticeable in the gorilla, the
orang, and in the chimpanzee as in our own races. It seems to be less
striking in the lower apes.
The orbital index groups apes, like man, into megasemes, mesosemes
and microsemes. But this character connects the anthropomorphous
apes with the lowest types, with the cebidæ, and even the lemuridæ,
which we now, from their embryogeny, connect with the ruminants or
edentata. The genera of simiadæ are divided into three groups. M.
Broca draws from these facts the very first conclusion that no value,
as characterising gradations, can be attributed to the orbital index.
It is well known that in the Negro the entire face, and especially
the lower portion, projects forward. This trait has been termed
_prognathism_. In the living subject it is exaggerated by the
thickness of the lips. But it is also apparent in the skull, and
constitutes one of its most striking characters. M. Topinard has
studied it in a special manner, and by a method of his own. He has
with justice separated _facial prognathism_, which embraces the
entire face, from the various _maxillary_ and _dental prognathisms_,
which distinctions I proposed some time ago. The index is here
furnished by the relation existing between the height, and the
horizontal projection of the region under consideration. But M.
Topinard has recently replaced this index by the angle formed by
the _profile lines_ with the horizontal plane. This is a happy
modification, as it presents a more precise idea to the mind.
The most important of the several prognathisms is that arising
from the portion of the maxillary bone situated below the nose,
and comprising the alveoli of the incisors and canines. This is
the _sub-nasal-alveolar prognathism_, or the _superior maxillary
prognathism_. It is this trait of the Negro which is opposed to the
_orthognathism_ of the White. This character suggests remarks similar
to those which I have already made so often. It is the evident result
of the following summary, which I borrow almost verbatim from M.
Topinard’s work.
All races and all individuals are more or less prognathous. As a
rule, in European races it is only slight; it is much more marked in
the Yellow and Polynesian races, and more strongly marked still in
Negro races. Let us remark, however, that even mean indices place the
Tasmanians (76°·28) above the Finns and Esthonians (75°·53), and very
near the Merovingians (75°·54).
The minimum prognathism, or maximum orthognathism, is found in the
Guanches (81°·34), and the opposite extreme in the Namaquois and
Bosjesmans (59°·88). The means establish limits between the various
sub-divisions of the great fundamental races. Individual variations,
however, in this case, as in others, obliterate these distinctions.
In all races there are exceptions, Negroes in whom prognathism is no
more marked than in Whites, and Whites in whom it is very pronounced.
M. Topinard regards these exceptional cases as examples of crossing,
atavism, or as pathological phenomena. There is certainly some truth
in this view. I have long referred the prognathism, sometimes so
curiously marked in certain Parisian women, to atavism. But we must
also take into consideration these _oscillations of characters_,
which we everywhere meet with in races not subject to selection with
any special aim.
In any case we cannot consider cessation of development as explaining
the existence of a most striking prognathism in certain individuals
of incontestably pure white race. In fact, far from diminishing with
age, like the preceding characters, it rather increases. Even in the
European, the child is manifestly more orthognathous than the adult.
With regard to Negroes, Pruner Bey observed some time ago, and I have
myself proved, that the child presents scarcely any trace of that
feature, so characteristic in the parents. It is not till the period
of puberty that it appears, and is rapidly developed. The forward
projection of the maxillary bone is, therefore, in both races a fact
of normal evolution, merely more marked in the one than in the other.
Far from being the result of a _cessation_, prognathism betrays an
_excess_ of development.
The absolute theory of Serres, which would treat the Negro merely
as a White, subjected to a cessation of general development, is
then here at fault. The truth is, that in the black race, organic
evolution is less advanced than the general type of white race in
some respects, and more so in others. This is a fact upon which
I have long insisted in my lectures at the Museum, and which is
confirmed, as we now see, by the more exact work of later years.
We see, also, that, in order to account for the differences
separating the Negro from the White, it is by no means necessary to
have recourse to phenomena of atavism as exhibited by animals. Simple
oscillations, above or below the mean in the normal evolution of man,
are sufficient to explain it. I feel myself, therefore, still more
strongly justified in opposing the _human evolution theory_ to the
_simian evolution theory_.
The zygomatic arches, the malar bone, the superior and inferior
maxillary bones also furnish the anthropologist with several more or
less essential characters which sometimes acquire, in reference to
a given race, a value superior to that which they have elsewhere.
Such is the slight elevation of the _palatine vault_ in the Lapps.
But I cannot here enter into these details, and refer the reader to
special books and memoirs.
IV. _Characters drawn from the skull considered as a whole._ When,
instead of studying the face or cranium alone, we consider them in
their reciprocal relations, we see new traits appearing, furnishing a
number of characters, some of which are of real importance.
Let us, in the first place, remark that there may be either _harmony_
or _dysharmony_ between these two great regions. The skull is
harmonic in the Negro, whose cranium and face are equally long,
and in the Mongol, who unites the two contrary characters; it is
dysharmonic, as we have seen, in the old man of Cro-Magnon, and in
the man of La Truchère, but for contrary reasons.
Cuvier endeavoured to find the relation of the skull and the face
by making an antero-posterior section of the skull, and directly
measuring the surfaces of the section. He found that in the White the
face represented about 0·25 of the skull, 0·30 in the Yellow, and
0·40 in the Black. These results entirely accord with those furnished
by the study of prognathism.
This relative difference of the development of the face led Camper
to the conception of his celebrated facial angle. Struck by seeing
painters represent Negroes as Whites painted black, he studied
the anatomical characters of the skull, and gave, as the proper
distinction, the angle formed by two lines; the one passing from
the auditory canal to the root of the nose, the other tangential to
the forehead and to the nasal bone, both being represented upon a
vertical projection of the model. Camper made use of his method to
distinguish between the products of Greek and Roman art. He thus
represented a decreasing scale from the works of art in statuary
to non-adult apes. I reproduce it, not because of its real value,
but on account of the importance which has been attributed to it.
The following are the variations of the facial angle, according to
Camper:
Greek statues 100°
Roman statues 95°
White race 80°
Yellow race 75°
Black race 70°
Young apes (superior type) 65°
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier, M. Jules Cloquet and Jacquard have
adopted different methods in determining the facial angle. Morton,
Jacquard, and M. Broca have invented instruments for measuring it
directly. M. Topinard, after having examined the several methods,
gives, with justice, his opinion in favour of that of Cloquet, which
places the upper extremity of the angle at the alveolar border. M.
Jacquard had chosen the nasal spine, remarking at the same time that
the difference between the two angles might be of service in the
calculation of prognathism.
Camper, or rather those who have followed him, wished to consider the
size of the facial angle as a sign of superior intellectual power.
His _graduated scale_ has evidently given rise to this false idea.
Pathological facts should have sufficed to show how great was the
error. The work of Jacquard has, moreover, established this fact
beyond a doubt. This author has proved a difference of more than
16° in the educated White of Paris, that is to say, 6° more than
the distance established by Camper as separating the Negro from the
White. Jacquard, again, has proved in the French race the existence
of an angle of 90°, an angle which Camper believed to belong only
to the ideal representations of the human form. Now this remarkable
angular superiority was by no means accompanied by an exceptional
intelligence.
If we pass from the psychological to the anatomical meaning I shall
have similar remarks to make. There has been much discussion as to
the position of the upper extremity of the facial line, which, with
the horizontal line, forms the angle of Camper. It has been thought
desirable to avoid the frontal sinuses, and to seek in the facial
angle indications relative to the dimensions of the encephalon,
and _not those of any particular bone_. I think, on the contrary,
that we must be content with the latter, and not go further. It is
evident that the dimensions of the encephalon are independent of
the position of the frontal point, and that it may be more or less
extended to the right, left, or behind this point without the facial
angle being affected in any manner whatever.
The exact determination of the _means_ of the facial angle will
still, however, be valuable, like all those which it is possible
to calculate upon the human body, provided there is a sufficient
distance between these means. But M. Topinard has shown that this
difference is not more than three degrees. Without altogether
renouncing the ideas of Camper, we see that science now has
characters preferable to those which he discovered.
A more important angle is the _anterior parietal angle_, formed on
both sides of the skull by two lines tangential to the most prominent
point of the zygomatic arch, and to the fronto-parietal suture. By
taking the most prominent point of the parietal eminences as the
second extremity, we obtain the _posterior parietal angle_. Prichard
applied the term _pyramidal skulls_ to those in which these lines
converged. I have endeavoured to measure the angle directly with an
instrument of my own invention, and my first researches have led me
to results which I believe to be interesting. The angle is sometimes
wide, sometimes narrow, and may be altogether wanting when the two
tangents are parallel. It is, then, sometimes positive, sometimes
negative. The latter is the case in the fœtus and infants of all
races. The negative angle is also met with in adults. This trait
appears to have been very striking in Cuvier, judging from a fine
portrait of the great naturalist when still young. I have found it
to be -18° and -22° in two living persons, both remarkable for their
intelligence. The positive maximum which I observed upon an Esquimaux
cranium was +14°. I have employed this character in my course of
lectures to complete the characterization of a great number of races,
but have never published any details.
M. Topinard has just filled this gap in a work which confirms, and
at the same time, completes all my first results. His researches,
bearing solely upon skulls, have given him as limits of individual
variations, 5° and +30°; as limits of the means, +2°·5 and +20°·3. He
found in the New Caledonians the most pyramidal heads. Finally, he
has seen in children from the age of four months to sixteen years,
the angle decreasing from -24° to 0° and rise to 7°.
Thus the negative parietal angle in the adult is nothing more than
a persistent fœtal or infantile character. It is evidently the
result of a _cessation of development_, or rather, a _cessation of
evolution_. Now, we have just seen that this character may exist in
individuals endowed with an intelligence above the average, and even
in men of genius. A _cessation of evolution_, the persistent trace
of a fœtal or infantile condition, is not, therefore, necessarily a
_character of inferiority_ either in individuals or races.
Two general views of the skull belong to the subject now under
examination. Blumenbach regarded and represented the human skull from
above. This is the _norma verticalis_, very valuable as permitting
the appreciation of the general form of the cranium and some of its
relations with the projections of the face. Owen has, so to speak,
regarded it from below, and insisted upon the differences which the
inferior surface offers between man and the highest types of apes.
Many characters of detail are brought to light by these two methods
which I cannot even mention here.
In this necessarily very incomplete sketch, I have been obliged to
pass by in silence a large number of characters which are often of a
very substantial importance. The greater number are obtained by the
method of projections so ingeniously perfected by M. Broca, and by
means of instruments, some of which were already in existence, such
as the diagraph, and others invented by various savants, amongst whom
we must, again, especially mention M. Broca.
V. _Skeleton of the trunk._ I have dwelt at some length upon the
characters drawn from the skeleton of the head; I shall be more
brief in discussing the other regions. They furnish characters
perhaps equally important, but they have been much less studied, and
the fault does not altogether lie with anthropologists. It is not
easy to procure skulls of the human races, even when we have to do
with populations living close to us; the difficulty of collecting a
certain number of entire skeletons is far greater.
The thoracic cage presents some interesting facts sufficiently well
proved. In consequence of the form of the sternum, the greater or
less curvature of the ribs, it is generally broad and flattened in
the White, narrow and prominent in the Negro and the Bosjesman.
According to d’Orbigny, it is still more prominent in certain
Americans. An analogous fact has been observed in some populations of
Asia Minor.
The pelvis is the portion of the trunk which has been most thoroughly
studied, by reason of the application which may be made of these
researches to obstetrics. As a rule, comparisons have been limited to
those between the Negro and the White. Vrolick, Weber, MM. Joulin,
Pruner Bey, and, quite recently, M. Verneau, have gone much further.
The latter, unfortunately, has not yet published his researches
relatively to the distinction of races. Vrolick insisted upon some
peculiarities of the pelvis of the Hottentot Venus, and endeavoured
to establish certain relations between her and the ape.
Weber found that in each of the races which he had studied, the
pelvis presented a predominant form, which, on that account alone,
became characteristic. He regarded the inlet as being generally
oval and of large transverse diameter in the White; quadrilateral
and of large transverse diameter in the Mongol; round, and of equal
diameters, in the American; cuneiform and of large antero-posterior
diameter in Negroes.
M. Joulin has disputed nearly all the propositions of Vrolick and
Weber, and seems unwilling to allow any characteristic value to
the pelvis. M. Pruner Bey has shown without difficulty the great
exaggeration of this view, and has determined the characters which
distinguish, from this point of view, the White from the Black.
The work of M. Verneau, much more complete than those of his
predecessors, but with the anatomical part of which we are at present
alone acquainted, will undoubtedly throw some light on the questions
raised by their controversies. At present, moreover, the work of
M. Verneau confirms the assertions of the greater number of his
predecessors, as to the reality of the characters of race to be found
in the pelvis.
Amongst these characters, there are some which have been pointed
out in the Negro as _indications of animalism_. Even M. Pruner Bey,
departing in this instance from his general practice, employs this
expression, though at the same time restricting its meaning by his
explanations. It seems to me much more natural to consider it as a
trace of a condition, normal at a certain period, and more or less
persistent according to the race.
In fact, the verticality of the ilia, and the increase of the
antero-posterior diameter of the pelvis in the Negro, have been
chiefly insisted upon as recalling characters which may be observed
in mammalia generally, and particularly in apes. But we meet with
the same anatomical characteristics strongly pronounced even in the
fœtus and children of the White. They, and especially the latter
peculiarity, are persistent to the age of seven years or more.
Their existence in the Negro is, then, nothing more than _relative
cessation_ in the evolution of this region of the skeleton. It is,
again, a _fœtal or infantile character_, and not _a character of
animalism_.
VI. _Skeleton of the limbs._—When speaking of fossil races, I pointed
out certain morphological characters of the bones of the limbs, and
among others, that of the perforation of the olecranon depression.
This character may be observed in the Bosjesman, the Guanches,
ancient Egyptians, and our own races. It seems to make its appearance
in Western Europe with the Quaternary brachycephalic races. M. Dupont
met with it in the proportion of thirty per cent. among the men of
the Lesse; according to M. Hamy, this proportion is twenty-eight per
cent. in the fossil race of Grenelle and only 4·66 per cent. in the
present population.
I have already observed that the upper limb is a little longer in the
Negro than in the White. The essential cause of this difference, is
the relative elongation of the fore-arm. M. Broca, after comparing
the radius and humerus of the two races, gives 79·43 for the Negro,
and 73·82 for the European. M. Hamy, who had more numerous materials
at his disposal, and followed a somewhat different method of
measurement, obtained as result 78·04 and 72·19.
This elongation of the radius, relatively greater in the Negro than
in the White, is one of the traits to which the expression _simian
character_ has been most frequently applied. We know, in fact, that
there is less inequality between the two regions of the arm in the
anthropomorphous apes than in man, and that in the orang the length
of the radius equals that of the humerus.
The researches of M. Hamy enable us to consider this peculiarity
of the Negro from an entirely human and truer point of view. This
anthropologist has followed the evolution of this limb with a view
of obtaining the changes which it involves in the relation under
consideration. The following table gives the results of these
investigations:
Embryo of 2½ months 88·88
Fœtus of 3-4 months 84·09
” ” 4-5 months 80·42
” ” 5-7 months 77·68
” ” 8-9 months 77·37
Infants of 1-10 days 76·20
” ” 11-20 days 74·78
” ” 21-30 days 74·51
” ” 2 months 73·03
” ” 6 months to 2 yrs. 72·46
” ” 5 months to 13½ yrs. 72·30
We see that in the development of the upper limb in man, there is a
constant tendency to diminish the relation in question. We see also
that the average of the Negro is almost that of a white fœtus of five
months. In his case, therefore, the elongation of the radius may be
explained quite naturally by an arrest of evolution, without giving
any occasion for comparing him with apes. Under what pretext should
we return to the simian theory in connection with this character,
after having seen that it is inapplicable in so many others?
The lower member presents similar facts. According to the
calculations borrowed by M. Topinard from M. Broca, the tibia, when
compared with the femur, gives a relation of 81·33 for the Negro, and
79·72 for the White.
By adding the figures which express the length of the radius and
humerus, we have the total length of the whole arm, with the
exception of the hand; and by acting in the same manner for the femur
and tibia, we have that of the lower member, with the exception of
the foot.
The relation of the former to the latter is 68·27 in the Negro, and
69·73 in the White.
The following is a table of several races, drawn up by M. Topinard
from his own researches and those of several other authors:
+----------------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| | Relation of | Relation of | Relation of |
| Races. | the inf. to | the femur to| the tibia to|
| | the sup. | the humerus.| the femur. |
| | member. | | |
+----------------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| Annamites | 67·5 | 76·7 | 67·5 |
| Tasmanians | 68·2 | 83·5 | 84·3 |
| Aënos } | 68·4 { | 75·2 | 76·8 |
| Bosjesmans } | { | 75·5 | 83·5 |
| Andaman Islanders | 70·3 | 79·9 | 81·8 |
| Australians | 70·7 | 75·6 | 76·9 |
| Blacks of Pondichery | 71·7 | 82·9 | 84·4 |
+----------------------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
We see that, by this character, the European White is placed between
the African Negro and the Andaman Islander.
I have already mentioned some remarkable morphological modifications,
such as the prominence of the linea aspera in the femur, the
platycnemism of the tibia, etc. I need not repeat them. The clavicle,
foot and hand, also suggest many details which I must pass by in
silence. I shall only observe that in Abyssinia it is neither
by his colour nor his hair that the true Negro is proved to be
characterised, but merely by the relatively exaggerated prominence of
the heel. But this sign, which has been asserted to be infallible,
is wanting in certain Negro races, not only in the Yoloffs, whose
inferior member resembles our own, but also in the Bambaras, who have
a _flat foot_.
VII. _Characters drawn from, the soft portions; nervous system._
After having examined the external forms of the body, and reviewed
the skeleton, we must take the organic apparatus one by one, and
study them in their turn. Unfortunately the facts collected are here
still more rare, when the observations should have been in larger
numbers in order to give a definite value to the results. This study,
which has been scarcely commenced, has in reality only been brought,
till the present time, to bear upon the two most distant terms of the
human series: the European White and the African Negro. This alone
will justify me in giving a very cursory exposition of the results
obtained.
The nervous system, of which Cuvier has said that it is the entire
animal, is fortunately the part about which we possess, perhaps, the
greatest number of comparative data. In the first place, we meet with
a general fact noticed by Sœmmering, and which is established beyond
a doubt by the splendid preparations of Jacquard, exhibited in the
galleries of the Paris Museum. Relatively to the White, the Negro
presents a marked predominance of peripheral nervous expansions. The
trunks are thicker, and the fibres more numerous, or perhaps merely
easier to isolate, and to preserve on account of their volume alone.
On the other hand, the cerebral centres, or at least the brain,
appear to be inferior in development.
In fact, in spite of what Blumenbach and Tiedmann have said on
this subject, the brain of the Negro is, as a general rule, less
voluminous than that of the White. This fact is chiefly the
result, it is true, of measurements of the capacity of crania. But
determinations of the weight confirm this result.
Seven Negro brains weighed by M. Broca gave a mean of 1316 grm.
(46·42 oz.). Upon uniting the weights of European brains I find,
however, a mean of only 1248 grm. (44·02 oz.), that is almost
exactly the average of the White woman. The average weight of adult
European brains is 1405·88 grm. (49·59 oz.). But in both races,
individual oscillations are very considerable. One of the skulls of
the Black race examined by M. Broca weighed 1500 grm. (52·91 oz.);
Mascagni had one of 1587 grm. (55·94 oz.), and another of only 738
grm. (26·03 oz.).
The truth is that the European White alone has been seriously
examined from the point of view of the estimation of cerebral
development by weight. The merit of having furnished the elements
of this study belongs incontestably to Rud. Wagner. Uniting the far
more important results of his own researches with those of Tiedmann,
Sims, Parchappe, Lélut, Huschke and Bergmann, this savant drew up a
table containing the weight of 964 brains, which had been directly
obtained after removing the coverings; he arranged them in order,
commencing with the heaviest and finishing with the lightest. But he
had not taken circumstances of sex, age, health, disease, etc., into
consideration. The results which he obtained were, therefore, subject
to alterations and corrections. M. Broca has accomplished this task.
He took 347 cases of healthy brains from Wagner’s table, and carried
out his investigations entirely upon them.
A certain number of general propositions rise from all these
researches, which may be formulated in the following manner:
1. Under similar circumstances, in other respects, the weight of
the brain varies proportionately, or almost proportionately, to the
height. According to Parchappe, the average weight of the brains of
two groups of men with an average height of 1·74 metre (5·7 feet)
and 1·63 metre (5·2 feet), was 1330 grm. (46·91 oz.), and 1254 grm.
(44·23 oz.). In this example the differential relation, 6 per cent.,
is exactly the same for the height of the body and the weight of
the brain. This influence of stature enables us to interpret and
comprehend the facts brought forward by Mr. Sandford Hunt. From the
calculations of this anatomist it would appear that the average
weight of the brain of Anglo-American soldiers exceeds the average
weight of European brains as deduced from Wagner’s tables; by from 19
to 14 grms. (·67 to ·49 oz.), or from 1·33 to ·99 per cent. But the
American anatomist did not take into consideration the difference in
stature, which he nevertheless notices. Now, from his calculations,
it appears that American soldiers have, in this respect, the
advantage over French and English soldiers to an extent of 3 per
cent. The increase is, therefore, only apparent, and, indeed, rather
points to a relative diminution.
2. Under similar circumstances in other respects, the female brain
weighs a little less than the male. M. Broca has shown that this
is the case at all periods of life. This difference appears to
me, however, to arise almost exclusively from that of the stature
of the body. Upon taking the woman as the term of comparison, and
representing her height and the weight of her brain by 100, we find
109·43 and 109·34 as the result for the man. The latter relation is
that given by Parchappe. M. Broca found 109·63; thus the relative
heights are intermediary.
3. The maximum average of the European is observed between the
thirtieth and fortieth years. It is then 1262 grms. (44·48 oz.)
in the female, and 1410·36 grms. (49·74 oz.) in the male, or, in
percentages, 100 and 111·7. The average for the entire period of
maturity, between 30 and 50, is 1405·88 grms. (49·59 oz.) in the
male, and 1261·5 grms. (44·5 oz.) in the female.
4. Beyond this maximum the weight of the brain appears to decrease
continually, and in a more or less constant manner. Such, at least,
is the result arising from calculations bearing upon decennial
intervals, which show a constantly decreasing average in the male, as
well as in the female. There is probably some relation between this
diminution and that of the horizontal circumference of the cranium
and the development of the frontal sinuses, observed long ago by
Camper.
5. In the European White, a brain, to be capable of performing its
functions, must weigh at least 975 grms. (34·39 oz.) in the female,
and 1133 grms. (39·96 oz.) in the male. These figures are the result
of the discussion upon Wagner’s table; they are, however, too high,
to judge from some of Hunt’s calculations. In the Bosjesman and
Australian, and probably in many other races, the weight of the brain
may descend as low as 907 grms. (31·99 oz.), without the intellectual
faculties being destroyed.
Let us add that this organ may, moreover, fall much below this weight
without causing cessation of life, or even the absolute disappearance
of the intelligence, as in some microcephali. The smallest brains
which have ever been weighed are those of Teite, quoted by Wagner,
300 grms. (10·58 oz.), and that of the woman who formed the subject
of a memoir by Gore, 283·75 grms. (10 oz.). These brains are
appreciably inferior in weight to those of the gorilla and orang.
6. In the European White, the maximum weight of a healthy brain
perhaps reaches 2231 grms. (78·69 oz.) (_Cromwell_), or even 2238
grms. (78·94 oz.) (_Byron_). But there is not the certainty we
should wish for about these figures. The weight of Cuvier’s brain
is, however, attested by the post-mortem examination conducted by
Professor Bérard; it is 1829·96 grms. (68·43 oz.). Mr. Sandford Hunt
quotes another at 1842 grms. (65·32 oz.). We may regard these figures
as indicating the superior limit which can be attained by the brain
in the White race without the general health appearing to be affected.
The figures obtained by Mr. Hunt from the calculations given by
several authors for 278 brains of European Whites agree sufficiently
well with the above. The average of the former is 1403 grms. (49·55
oz.). The maximum is that quoted above, 1842 grms. (64·97 oz.); the
minimum falls to 963 grms. (33·97 oz.), which is very remarkable from
its lightness, being below that which, in Wagner’s table, seems to
involve idiotcy. The results obtained by Mr. Hunt upon his Black and
White fellow-countrymen, present, as regards comparison, a special
interest. The brains of twenty-four American White soldiers gave an
average weight of 1424 grms. (43·2 oz.) in round numbers. The maximum
was 1814 grms. (63·98 oz.); the minimum 1247 grms. (43·98 oz.). The
brains of 141 Negroes gave an average of 1331 grms. (46·98 oz.),
which is greater than the results of investigations made in Europe.
The maximum was 1507 grms. (53·15 oz.); the minimum 1013 grms. (35·73
oz.).
The observations of Mr. Hunt upon 240 crosses between the White and
the Negro lead to interesting conclusions The following is the result:
grms. oz.
In crosses having ¾ white blood, the average weight
of the brain is 1390 49·03
” ” ½ ” ” 1334 47·05
” ” ¼ ” ” 1319 46·52
” ” ⅛ ” ” 1308 46·13
” ” 1/16 ” ” 1280 44·79
We see that the weight of the brain diminishes proportionately with
the white blood. But it is especially curious to observe, that in
crosses still possessing a tolerably strong proportion of superior
blood, the weight falls below that of pure Negroes. The average was
taken from twenty-two individuals, and the difference, 86 grms. (3·03
oz.), is too great not to be taken into serious consideration. We
should say that this is a phenomenon identical with that presented by
colouring. Certain crosses, in whom the black blood predominates, are
of a darker hue than the original Negro race.
To exhaust the little that we know of exotic races, I need only to
add that in a Hottentot examined by Wyman the brain weighed 1417
grms. (49·96 oz.). This weight, which is greater than that of the
average of Europeans, affords one more proof of that intercrossing to
which I have so often called attention, and which has, in this case,
perhaps a deeper meaning than elsewhere.
Since the publication of Gratiolet’s admirable work _Sur les plis
cérébraux de l’homme et des primates_, the study of _cerebral
convolutions_ has assumed considerable importance in anthropology,
although it has been somewhat exaggerated. The investigations
of MM. Dareste and Baillarger show that the development of
these convolutions depends to a great extent upon that of the
encephalon itself, and the influence exercised by stature at once
explains certain facts which had formerly been the cause of some
embarrassment. Under conditions similar in other respects, the brain
of _small races_ would be less convoluted than that of _large races_.
But, apart from this influence, it appears as a well established
fact, that in savage races the number and complication of the
cerebral convolutions are less than in intelligent and civilized
races. Intellectual culture would seem then to exercise an entirely
special action upon the cortical layers, and to favour their
development.
The known extremes at the present day of the character in question
are offered by the Hottentot Venus and Cuvier. The brain of the
former is the simplest that has ever been observed in an intelligent
person. It recalls that of an idiot. The brain of Cuvier, which
unfortunately has neither been modelled nor drawn, was, as we are
told by the eminent anatomists who saw it, distinguished by the
extraordinary complication of the convolutions and the depth of the
sulci. Moreover, each convolution was, as it were, doubled by a kind
of rounded ridge. In spite of these exceptional cases, no one would
surely dream of placing the great naturalist in any other _species_
than that to which his contemporaries belong. Neither can we consider
the simplification of the brain of the Hottentot Venus as a specific
character.
When comparative observations have sufficiently multiplied, we shall
doubtless find more or less striking characters in the relative
proportions of certain regions of the brain. For example, if Dr.
Nott’s observation be correct, the _cerebellum_ in the Red-Skin
extends beyond the cerebrum, while the latter, it is well known,
extends beyond the cerebellum in the White and Negro. The same organ
is longer in the Negro and broader in the White.
Naturalists, travellers, and anatomists announced long ago that
the brain of the Negro is distinguished from that of the White by
its blackish colour. An experiment performed at Paris under the
superintendence of M. Rayer, upon which I have already made some
passing remarks, confirms the general fact. I have already observed
how M. Gubler, by whom it was prepared, wished to discover if there
were no mean terms. He examined the colouring of brains obtained from
individuals, all belonging to the White race, but whose complexions
were differently coloured, and proved that the internal colouring was
in direct relation with the external. In fair individuals with blue
eyes and a pink and white skin, the pigment seemed to be entirely
wanting. In individuals with a brown skin, black hair, and a very
dark iris, “not only the brain enveloped by its membranes assumes a
deeper shade, but a layer of black matter, in every way comparable
to that of the Negro, covers the protuberance, the pineal gland, and
some other points of the nervous centres.”
Thus, internally, as well as externally, the colouring of tissues
presents that graduated series to which I have so often called
attention. This removes, therefore, the absolute nature which had
been attributed to a peculiarity which had so often been insisted
upon as separating the Negro from the White, to the extent of making
him a distinct species.
VIII. _Vascular and respiratory systems._ Considered as a whole, the
vascular system of the Black and that of the White present facts
somewhat similar to those which we have observed in the nervous
system. According to Pruner Bey, the venous system predominates
visibly over the arterial in the Black; and here, again, the
admirable preparations of Jacquard are a material proof of the
correctness of the observations of the savant I have just quoted.
This predominance seems to extend to the right cavities of the heart.
The lungs are less developed in the Negro than in the White. M.
Pruner Bey has observed cases in which they seem to be pressed
upwards by the abdominal viscera. The characters peculiar to the
blood of the Negro, which were noticed in a preceding chapter,
will, perhaps, at some future time, be connected with this group of
anatomical conditions.
We have already seen that the cutaneous glandular system is more
developed in the Negro than in the White. The investigations of
M. Pruner Bey demonstrate that the same fact reappears throughout
the whole length of the intestinal canal, the surface of which is
everywhere marked by the prominence of secreting organs, especially
in the stomach and colon. The large glands which are connected with
the alimentary canal are also remarkably developed, particularly the
liver. The case is also the same with the supra-renal capsules. All
these organs are in a constant state of venous hyperemia. Finally,
these intestinal mucous membranes are very thick, and present the
appearance of adipose tissue. Facts of a similar nature will perhaps
be observed in the greater number of intertropical races. We already
know that in the Javanese the liver is as fully developed as in the
Negro.
CHAPTER XXXI.
PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.
I. The special history of human races presents a considerable number
of interesting physiological facts which are sufficiently different
and well marked, to serve as _distinctive characters_. We find in
the tropics peoples remarkably abstemious, and living entirely upon
vegetables, without their organism being injuriously affected; in
the polar regions there are others who eat fat in quantities which
would be rejected by our digestive organs; there are also some slight
variations between the respiration, circulation, animal temperature,
secretions, etc. of the White man and the Negro; the muscular energy
and the manner in which it is employed, sometimes vary considerably
in different races; general sensibility, and consequently aptitude
for feeling pain, are very unequally developed. The same surgical
operation will not cause as much pain to a Chinese as to a European.
But the greater number of these traits arise from peculiarities
which do not belong to general considerations. Many are the _result
of anterior facts_, and are connected with conditions of life,
habit, etc., sometimes even with beliefs and institutions. Even if
we confined ourselves to a mere sketch, we should have to enter
into details incompatible with the plan of this book, if we wished
to discuss all these questions. I shall, therefore, here confine
myself to pointing out some general phenomena to justify the above
statements.
II. I will, in the first place, say a few words upon certain facts
and ideas which have often been the occasion of animated discussion.
I mean the degree of relation admissible between the development of
the intelligence and that of the brain. This question may seem at
first sight to belong almost entirely to the study of the individual.
But, from the manner in which it has been applied to the appreciation
of the intellectual power of races, it has acquired a real interest
in general anthropology.
On no occasion, perhaps, has this question been treated more
thoroughly and by more competent judges than by the Paris
Anthropological Society in the great discussion of 1861. Many
speakers took part in it, but the two principal champions of the
rival doctrines were Gratiolet on the one hand, and M. Broca upon the
other. Some of their statements, if taken literally, would lead us
to imagine that an impassable gulf lay between them. If, however, we
read them again, after the excitement of the moment has passed away,
we find, from the summaries which they themselves have drawn up, that
such is by no means the case, and that, far from their being divided
in principle, it would not be difficult to effect an understanding
between them.
Gratiolet considers “that power which lies in the brain, and which
can only be estimated by its manifestations,” far more important than
weight or form. But he is far from absolutely refusing to recognise
the influence of cerebral development; he allows that below a certain
limit the human brain no longer performs its functions in a normal
manner. This limit he places at 900 grms. (31·74 oz.) in the female.
M. Broca raises the number to 907 grms. (31·99 oz.), and adds that,
in the male, the limit is 1049 grms. (37 oz.). He attributes great
importance to the volume of the brain, estimated either directly, by
weight, or by the capacity of the cranium. But on several occasions
he protests most strongly against the intention which might be
imputed to him, of wishing to establish an absolute relation between
the development of the intelligence and the volume or weight of the
brain. “No well-instructed man,” he says, “would ever think of
estimating the intelligence by measuring the encephalon.”
The two following tables, borrowed from M. Broca, will suffice to
show the truth of these words:
AVERAGE WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN IN MAN.
grms. oz.
From 1 to 10 years 985·15 (34·75).
From 11 to 20 years 1465·27 (51·68).
From 21 to 30 years 1341·53 (47·67).
From 31 to 40 years 1410·36 (49·74).
From 41 to 50 years 1391·41 (49·07).
From 51 to 60 years 1341·19 (47·30).
From 61 and upwards 1326·21 (46·77).
WEIGHT OF THE BRAIN IN SOME EMINENT MEN.
NAME. AGE. PROFESSION. WEIGHT OF BRAIN.
grms. oz.
1. Cuvier 63 years naturalist 1829·96 (64·54).
2. Byron 36 years poet 1807·00 (63·73).
27. Lejeune·Dirichlet 64 years mathematician 1520·00 (53·61).
34. Fuchs 52 years pathologist 1499·00 (52·87).
43. Gauss 78 years mathematician 1492·00 (52·62).
52. Dupuytren 58 years surgeon 1436·00 (50·65).
92. Hermann 51 years philologist 1358·00 (47·90).
158. Haussmann 77 years mineralogist 1226·00 (43·24).
The numbers placed before the name of each person indicate the
position held by the latter in the list of 347 cases of healthy
brains taken by M. Broca from the general table of Wagner. We find
that the celebrated mineralogist Haussmann stands almost half-way
down the list, and that he is separated from his eminent colleagues
by a considerable number of unknown examples. Again, we observe that
the weight of his brain is 100 grms. (3·5 oz.) below the average
weight of men of his age. On the other hand, in all the other cases
the weight of the brain was above the average.
The exception presented by Haussmann, the manner in which all these
eminent men are scattered among their ordinary brethren, should
be sufficient to make us reject all exaggerated connection of the
magnitude of the intelligence and that of the brain. This result
is still more striking if we group these same numbers as Gratiolet
has done, calculating the mean of the contiguous weights. We thus
obtain for the first group (Cuvier, Byron) an average weight of
1818·48 grms. (64·14 oz.); for the second (Dirichlet, Fuchs, Gauss,
Dupuytren) 1487 grms. (52·44 oz.); for the third (Hermann, Haussmann)
1292 grms. (45·57 oz.). The latter is below the average weight of
German brains, that is to say, of the fellow-countrymen of the two
eminent men in question.
This remark is important. In the question under discussion it will
not do to compare separately the celebrities who figure in Wagner’s
table; we must connect them with the rest of mankind, with diseased,
as well as with other brains. To act otherwise would be to give rise
to the idea that we had wished to evade a difficulty by neglecting to
turn the attention to the fact that, immediately after the brain of
Byron, and long before that of Gauss, stands the brain of a madman.
Are, then, genius and madness in such close relationship? Are the
volume, the weight, and the peculiar characters of Cuvier’s brain
indeed due to a hypertrophy which came to a standstill just at the
right moment, as Gratiolet thought?
III. However abridged and curtailed this statement of facts may
be, it seems to me sufficient to justify us in drawing conclusions
equally applicable to individuals and to races.
We shall certainly not be accused of an exaggerated immaterialism
if we estimate the action of the brain as we estimate the action of
a muscle. Now experience and observation daily testify that in the
latter volume and form are not everything. Functional energy often
more than compensates for what is wanting with respect to mass.
Many other organic systems would furnish similar facts, well-known
to all doctors and all physiologists. To assert that the case is
different with the brain would be, even in the absence of all direct
observation, a purely gratuitous hypothesis, and, in the presence of
Wagner’s tables, a contradiction of evidence. With his small brain,
Haussmann, the correspondent of the French Institute, has evidently
surpassed, in the matter of intelligence, almost all his large-headed
contemporaries.
But, on the other hand, beyond a certain stage of decrease, the
muscular apparatus becomes incapable of effort. We can readily
understand that it should be so with the brain also. It is,
therefore, most natural to find that, when it has fallen below a
certain volume and weight, it gradually passes from weakness to
impotence. Even M. de Bonald could not consider it strange, that an
_intelligence_ when provided only with _imperfect or almost useless
organs,_ should only manifest itself in an incomplete manner.
Thus, irrespective of all dogmatic or philosophic ideas, we are
led to the conclusion that there is a certain relation between
the development of the intelligence and the volume and weight of
the brain. But, at the same time, we must allow that the material
element, that which is appreciable to our senses, is not the only
one which we must take into account, for behind it lies hidden
_an unknown quantity_, _an x_, at present undetermined and only
recognised by its effects.
IV. Thus from this fact alone it follows that we cannot act with too
much caution in forming an estimate of a race from the dimensions of
its cranium, and the relative development of the bones of which it is
composed. Gratiolet proposed to distinguish _frontal_, _parietal_,
and _occipital races_, characterised by the predominance of the
anterior, medial and posterior regions of the cranium and the brain.
If we accept the word character as it is understood by naturalists,
we shall have no objection to make to these denominations. But to go
beyond that, to attribute to one or other of these races any kind
of superiority by virtue of any one or other of these characters,
would be mere hypothesis. In fact, the Basques, with their occipital
dolichocephaly, are in no way inferior to the frontal dolichocephali
of Paris.
V. In those phenomena, amongst which, _à priori_, we should be
tempted to look for ethnological characters, we must give the first
place to _organic evolution_ at different periods of life. Now,
the examination of facts establishes the important fact, that, in
this respect, all human races present a remarkable uniformity. When
some slight differences are manifested, they show such coincidence
with the action of the conditions of life, that it is impossible
not to recognise the relation of cause and effect, and this fact
alone produced a most significant intercrossing between peoples
evidently identical in origin. Thus, the whole mass of physiological
phenomena, considered as characters, add one more proof in favour of
the monogenistic theory. A few examples will suffice to justify these
statements.
VI. Let us first prove that the duration of gestation is the same
in all human races. The importance of this fact will be readily
understood.
It is generally known that the intra-uterine life presents a notable
disparity in the same zoological group, and sometimes in nearly
related species. If men constituted _a genus_, it would be very
strange if they were exempt from this law, and that no differences
should have been observed, as they certainly would have been, between
groups. These differences may indeed exist to a certain extent
without rising to a specific character, for they are observed in our
races of domestic animals, where they appear to bear some relation
to stature. Gestation lasts sixty-three days in large races of dogs;
from fifty-nine to sixty-three in the small. This is the period
observed in menageries for the gestation of the jackal, the wild
stock of the dog. But it rises to something over a hundred days for
the wolf, however nearly related it may morphologically be to some
canine races.
The period of lactation is very variable as to duration in different
human peoples. Without even going beyond France, we should have no
difficulty in giving examples of such differences, in which the
maximum would almost double the minimum. It is evident that in this
case manners, customs, etc., play the most important part, and that
the question of races scarcely enters at all. With the Negroes,
lactation lasts, as a general rule, for two years, and the period
is quite as long in all oriental populations. It lasts for five
years in China. But as M. Morache tells us, the Chinese mother only
prolongs it in order to retard the recommencement of the monthly
courses, which, in this fertile race, is rapidly followed by a fresh
pregnancy. There is nothing surprising in the possibility of such
prolonged lactation. It is generally known that the secretion of the
milk is supported by its use. Amongst ourselves, according to the
evidence of Desormeaux, one nurse will sometimes suckle three or four
infants in succession.
VII. The period of suckling is followed by that of childhood, a
condition very distinct from those by which it will in turn be
followed. The human being is as yet neither male nor female. The
first manifestation of sex is one of the most important epochs of
life, and it is interesting to observe that the arrival of this epoch
varies within very wide limits.
The female, on account of the phenomena to which she is then subject,
and which admit the possibility of direct observation, is, in this
case, specially adapted for the researches of the anthropologist.
Now, taking extreme numbers, obtained by different observers upon
several peoples of the globe, we find that the minimum age at which
the female becomes pubescent is that of eight to nine years, as
observed by Oldfield in the Eboes, and the maximum age, that of
eighteen to twenty years, noticed by Rush, among some tribes of North
America. Setting aside these exceptional numbers, we find as general
extremes, ten to eleven years on the one hand, and fifteen to sixteen
on the other.
The variation we see is great, and we are naturally led to ask if it
is at all constant in human groups. The numerous statistics which
have been collected upon this subject, seem to justify us in giving
an absolutely negative reply to the question.
And, in the first place, there is no doubt that here _conditions of
life_ play an important part. From the researches of M. Brierre de
Boismont, it appears that, in the same locality, the higher or lower
social position, and the consequent difference in mode of living,
produces an average variation of fourteen months. In Paris, the women
of the lower classes are pubescent at fourteen years and ten months,
those of the middle class at fourteen years and five months; those of
the upper class at thirteen years and eight months.
The mode of life is sufficient to produce differences of a very
marked character in the age at which the female becomes capable of
conception. At Strasbourg, as at Paris, the young country girl is
behind those of the town. The difference is about 8½ months for
Strasbourg and 4½ for Paris. In Alsace, as upon the banks of the
Seine, the hardships of field labour render the functions of the
individual life more active at the expense of those connected with
the sexual.
Again, we cannot doubt the influence which is certainly exercised by
temperature. M. Raciborski, adding to his own investigations those
of a large number of other medical men, has even thought himself
justified in drawing the conclusion that the age of puberty is
advanced or retarded by a little more than a month for each degree
of latitude, according as we calculate from the equator or the pole,
with the condition only that the temperature increases or decreases
with the latitude.
The action of the three causes I have just mentioned are most
evident. But, as we have already remarked, food, temperature, and
even mode of life do not alone form _conditions of life_. Many other
influences besides these act upon the organism. The greater or less
amount of light, and of actinic rays, cannot be without effect.
All these influences explain how it is that the age of puberty varies
with the habits in the same race; how women, belonging to the same
branch of the white aryan race, may present the extremes which I have
alluded to above. From among the latter the Swedes and Norwegians are
pubescent at from 15 to 16 years; the English at from 13 to 14; but
the English Creoles of Jamaica at from 10 to 11 years. At Antigoa,
Negro and White women, transported into the same common conditions
of life, no longer present any difference in this respect. We see
also how it is that women belonging to the most different populations
and races, Swedes, Dacotas, Corfiotas, Potowatomies, English, and
Chinese, become pubescent at the same age.
Does then race stand for absolutely nothing in the physiological
phenomena under consideration?
Some facts seem to authorize us in holding a contrary opinion. The
Esquimaux women of Labrador are as forward in this respect as the
Negresses of our colonies. In the Potowatomies (Algonquins) and
the Dacotas (Sioux) there seems to be an average difference of a
year in the appearance of the first phenomena of puberty. Several
other observations of the same nature might be quoted from various
travellers. There is, however, nothing to astonish us in these facts.
They are only the reproduction in the human species, of what we
observe every day in our domestic animals and cultivated plants, all
of which have forward and backward races.
M. Lagneau studied this question with particular reference to
France. He came to the conclusion that the conditions of life are
not sufficient to explain the differences which were proved by his
investigations, and that the age of puberty, depending upon the
rapidity of the development of the organism, varies slightly with
the race. This opinion, which it seems as if we might accept within
the limits he himself has prescribed, M. Lagneau states with great
reserve.
These limits are very narrow. They vary from fourteen years and five
days to sixteen years, one month and twenty-four days. The minimum
age is presented by the female population of Toulon: the maximum,
by that of Strasbourg. But between these two localities there is a
difference of about three degrees of latitude and five degrees in the
mean temperature. Toulon enjoys a very equable climate; the climate
of Strasbourg is, on the contrary, _excessive_; at Toulon the climate
is sunny, while at Strasbourg there is much cloud; the _Toulonaise_
lives in the open air, and breathes the stimulating air of the
sea, the _Strasbourgeoise_ lives in the house and breathes an air
which is generally damp; the former drinks wine, the latter beer.
All these conditions, stimulating on the one hand, and debilitating
on the other, must exercise some influence. After taking all these
circumstances into consideration, we see that, in France at least,
the influence of race scarcely exceeds that exercised by difference
in social position upon the population of the same town.
The researches of M. Lagneau also have reference to the time when,
both in the male and in the female, the reproductive faculties become
extinct. The evidences are here neither so numerous nor so definite.
Nevertheless, from the little that we know on this point, the result
would seem to point to conclusions similar to those which we have
mentioned above.
VIII. We might easily be led to think that forwardness or
backwardness in organic development, defined by the age at which
puberty appears, should involve a proportionately longer or shorter
duration of human life. Precise observations are far from being
so numerous and complete as to solve this important problem with
any degree of certainty. The greater number of facts with which we
are acquainted, scarcely seem, however, to support the theoretical
conclusions admitted by some anthropologists, by Virey among others.
Everything seems to indicate, on the contrary, that the limits of
life are almost the same for all human races, _provided that_ they
are placed in conditions of existence, which are _relatively_ equally
favourable. It is, in fact, evident that these conditions exercise a
most marked influence upon the duration of organisms. When life is in
question we do not deny the _action of the conditions of life_.
Here, again, appears the multiple nature of these conditions. We find
from the statistical researches of Boudin that in sixty-seven years,
from 1776 to 1843, the average life of man in France was increased
by eleven years. It has, therefore, gained sixty days a year; it has
attained almost the highest limit gained in this respect by European
peoples (34·45 years). The temperature has not changed, nor has there
been any amelioration in the climate. But the general conditions
of existence are modified and the result appears in these very
significant figures.
The average life of European Whites, the only peoples concerning whom
we possess sufficiently exact data, oscillates between 28·18 years
(_Prussia_) and 39·8 years (_Schleswig-Holstein, Lauenbourg_); a
difference of more than eleven years.
The tables of average duration of life, collected by Boudin and
borrowed from Hain and Bernouilli, prove beyond a doubt that, amongst
our European peoples at least, mean duration of life depends to a
very slight extent, if at all, upon the race. The German states
present an average of from 28·18 years (_Prussia_) to 36·8 years
(_Hanover_).
Temperature, at least when considered alone, seems to exercise hardly
any notable influence, Naples standing almost midway between the
preceding numbers (31·65 years).
These facts, obtained from among the best known peoples, justify
us in thinking that, _other things being equal_, the duration of
life must be almost universally the same. It will be understood
that all strict comparison is here out of the question, for want of
statistical documents, properly so called. Still, a number of facts
obtained by various travellers amongst peoples of very different
races, and, in some cases, placed under opposite conditions of
existence, seem to justify this conclusion.
All travellers, who have been in a position to judge for themselves,
have spoken of the Lapps as generally living to a great age; men of
from seventy to ninety years are not rare amongst them.
Upon the evidence of travellers of the highest reputation, it seems
that the greater number of American peoples also reach an advanced
age, and often without bearing any external traces of decrepitude.
However rude and often precarious their mode of life may be, the
representatives of these races are in no way inferior to Europeans,
as regards duration of life.
Is it different in the case of the Negro, as Virey has thought?
Everything seems to prove the contrary. Even when removed from his
native land, and placed under conditions which we have seen to be
very unfavourable to him, the Negro lives as long as the European.
This result is obtained from the register of slaves consulted by
Prichard in the West Indies. This anthropologist has shown, by
examples drawn from different sources, that centenarians were far
from rare among the individuals of this race scattered through
different parts of America. From the documents which he quotes, it
even appears that in the States of New Jersey, an official census
gave a little more than one Negro centenarian in the thousand, but
only one White centenarian in one hundred and fifty thousand.
Nevertheless Adanson, Winterbottom, and others, state that the Negro
of the Senegal and Guinea age early in life, and the latter adds that
individuals of this race rarely reach an advanced age. Dr. Oldfield,
in the great English Expedition up the Niger, makes the same remark
with reference to the part of the country which skirts the river
Nunn, a marshy region, covered with a luxuriant vegetation supported
by inundations. But higher up the river, in the country discovered by
Nyffé, he met, on the contrary, with a large number of old men who
must have been upwards of eighty, and visited an old chief, who, he
says, was 115 years old.
There is nothing contradictory in these facts. They merely show us
that the Negro is subject to the law common to all other men. It is
in vain that he has conformed to conditions of existence, which the
White has so much difficulty in living under; when these conditions
are aggravated and exceed a certain limit, he suffers, and his life
is shortened. The native of the banks of the Nunn is placed, _as a
Negro_, under conditions of existence similar to those to which, in
former times, the _Whites_ of the Dombe in France were subject, and
in both cases the result was the same.
But beyond these exceptional localities, when the conditions are
equally favourable, the duration of life seems to be the same in the
two typical races which are the most widely separated of all in the
human species. In any case the same extreme limits have been proved
for the Negro and the White.
CHAPTER XXXII.
PATHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.
I. The pathological, as well as the physiological, condition in the
various human groups presents peculiarities which may be considered
as _characters_. These characters are sometimes even more clearly
defined, because morbid phenomena are often very strongly marked.
This question is one of great interest; but to treat it in the detail
which it deserves, would require a greater amount of both time and
space than can be given it here. I shall, therefore, confine myself
to recalling a few general facts already known, and to quoting a
few examples which will serve to fix the nature and meaning of
pathological facts regarded from an anthropological point of view.
II. We have, as yet, in treating of the conditions of life,
scarcely considered more than their _modifying action_, while it is
universally known that they also exert a _disturbing_ action. Actions
of this kind are in most cases the fundamental cause of disease.
We are here, therefore, again led to considerations similar to
those with which we have so often been brought in contact. We will
therefore recall in a few words the general results of the preceding
investigations.
1. The _fundamental nature_ of all men is the same.
2. The formation of distinct races has been the sole cause of
modifications in this fundamental nature of all human groups.
3. The several characters and special aptitudes which constitute
a kind of _acquired nature_, have, in each of the groups, been
developed under the influence of the conditions of life.
It is clear that when the disturbing action, the cause of disease,
works upon the _fundamental_ element, the same causes will produce
_fundamentally similar effects;_ when, on the contrary, this action
is exercised upon the _acquired and special_ element of each race,
the same causes will produce _different effects_. In other words,
_unity of species_ and _multiplicity of races_ involve the liability
of all men to common diseases, which will, at most, vary as to
accessory phenomena; but also allow the existence of diseases more or
less peculiar to certain human groups.
Nevertheless, the great majority of diseases will be common to all
men, and merely present modifications in the different groups. For
example, one race may be either more liable to or more unsusceptible
to certain affections than another.
Let me observe in passing, and without insisting upon facts known to
all agriculturists and to all breeders, that similar phenomena are
presented by the _races_ of vegetable _species_ which have long been
under cultivation, and of animal _species_ for centuries subject to
domestication.
The propositions which I have just brought forward are the natural
result of the facts to which I have already drawn attention, and of
the principles admitted at the commencement of this book. They are in
remarkable accordance with the results of experiment and observation.
III. It becomes more and more evident, from investigations which
are daily increasing in number, that all human races are subject to
almost every disease.
The Negro and the White have often been contrasted from a
pathological point of view, and it has been stated that localities
in which the latter succumb, are not unhealthy to the former. It is
said that marsh fevers, dysentery, and abscess upon the liver, so
feared by Europeans, do not attack the inhabitants of the coasts
of Guinea, and the banks of the Senegal and the Gaboon. These are
exaggerated statements which were reduced to their true value by the
observations of Winterbottom, Oldfield, and others. More recent
works confirm these earlier observations in every respect: “The
Negro race,” says M. Berchon, “suffers from dysentery and abscess
on the liver like the white race.... The deadly fevers, which, with
the two diseases just mentioned, form the pathognomonical trilogy of
Senegalese pathology, will first attack Europeans; but the Blacks are
by no means exempt from them.”
The last remark is confirmed in a very remarkable manner by the
numbers given in the accompanying table, which I borrow from M.
Boudin. He gives a summary of the English official documents upon the
annual mortality in the thousand at Sierra Leone from 1829 to 1836.
DISEASES. WHITES. NEGROES.
Marsh fevers 410·2 2·4
Eruptive fevers 0·0 6·9
Diseases of the lungs 4·9 6·3
Diseases of the liver 6·0 1·1
Gastro-intestinal diseases 41·3 5·3
Diseases of the nervous system 4·3 1·6
Dropsy 4·3 0·3
Other diseases 12·0 6·2
Sierra Leone is one of the most unhealthy stations for the White
race, while for the Negro it is, on the contrary, one of the places
where the rate of mortality is lowest. The relation which shows
this difference is indeed most alarming (483·0 to 30·1). Yet the
nosological table is the same for the two races, for although in
this statement there are no eruptive fevers given for the English
soldiers, we know very well that the White races are by no means
exempt from them.
Other tables drawn up by M. Boudin, with the assistance of the same
documents, bring into still stronger relief the fundamental fact
now under consideration. In one of them we learn the comparative
mortality of the Negro and the Black from marsh fevers in seventeen
localities, taken from nearly all parts of the globe, from Gibraltar
to Guiana, and from Jamaica to Ceylon. The number of deaths is always
considerably greater for the Europeans, but they almost always rise
or fall simultaneously, and in the same place, for the two races,
when both are immigrants.
It is almost unnecessary to repeat the remark that all the great
epidemics are common to all races, and that the yellow fever attacks
indifferently the White, Yellow, or the Black race. The yellow fever
is so far from being special in character, and is so subordinate
to the action of the conditions of life, that Mexicans from colder
regions are as liable to it as even Europeans; and in the islands
of the Gulf of Mexico the creole Whites easily withstand those
influences which are so fatal to immigrants.
IV. Eruptive maladies, and particularly small-pox, seem to have
been unknown in America till they were brought by Europeans to that
continent. On the other hand, the latter gave them some of the most
serious forms of syphilis, which characterised the terrible epidemic
of the fifteenth century. In this fatal exchange, the character of
the two diseases was remarkably aggravated in passing from one race
to the other, so that populations attacked by them for the first
time would suffer much more than those who had communicated the
disease. In America, whole populations have disappeared from eruptive
fevers, sometimes with terrible rapidity. The celebrated tribe of
the Mandans, when blockaded by the Sioux, and unable to escape this
scourge, was entirely annihilated in a few days, with the exception
of a few absent individuals. Catlin, to whom we are indebted
for these details, and who obtained them from Whites protected
by vaccination, adds that those who were attacked by small-pox,
succumbed in two or three hours. On the other hand, we know what were
the consequences in Europe of that infection, which, even at the
present day, too often poisons the very sources of life.
Thus, a human race may be unacquainted with one, or several diseases,
or with certain morbid forms, though at the same time but too apt to
contract them. Once attacked, it may even develop this disease, which
is new to it, in a more violent form than any hitherto known.
V. There are diseases which, though common to all human races, attack
some in preference to others. The latter then enjoy, compared with
the former, a _relative immunity_. This would necessarily result
from what we have already seen. Let us add that these differences
in the action of the same pathogenistic cause, are evident in cases
of epidemics. When Guadaloupe was attacked by cholera in 1865 and
1866, the rate of mortality was 2·70 per cent for Chinese, 3·86 for
Hindoos, 4·31 for Whites, 6·32 for Mulattoes, and 9·44 for Negroes.
These figures are the more interesting from the fact that all these
races were immigrants.
It seems sometimes, as if two causes of death maintained a kind
of equilibrium and reciprocity between two races. I have already,
when speaking of acclimatisation, pointed out the contrast which is
presented by the Negro and the White from this point of view. Of all
human races the White is most sensitive to marsh fevers, and the
Black least so. On the other hand, the Negro race suffers more than
any other from phthisis, while the White race may, in this respect,
be almost classed with other groups, with the Malays for example.
But, again, there are immunities more complete than that of the
Negro, from marsh affections; and, further, these immunities may be
lost, either in the case of an entire group of population, or in that
of isolated individuals. I will here borrow two striking examples
from M. Boudin’s work.
Elephantiasis, that affection by which certain parts of the body are
sometimes deformed in so strange a manner, is found in the Indies
and at Barbadoes. In the latter island, Negroes alone were attacked
by this hideous disease till the year 1704. _One White_ was, in that
year, affected by it for the first time. But the disease made way,
and in 1760 it had extended to the _creole_ population. Whites _of
European origin_ have, as yet, escaped.
The elephantiasis of India is found in Ceylon. There, again, it only
attacks natives, creoles and individuals of mixed blood. Hindoos and
Europeans, strangers in the island, are exempt from it. Scott, quoted
by M. Boudin, states that _only one case_ of this disease had been
observed in a European White. But this individual had inhabited the
island for thirty years; acclimatisation had been earned so far in
his case as to cause him to lose his _ethnological immunity_.
On the other hand, we have seen, in speaking of acclimatisation, that
creoles easily live and prosper in certain localities which are most
dangerous to immigrants. They have, therefore, acquired, at the price
of sacrifices made by preceding generations, a relative immunity
which is not enjoyed by the majority of Europeans.
In the acquisition of one of these immunities, a race may lose
another. In connection with the cholera which I have just mentioned,
creole Whites and Negroes were attacked to an appreciably greater
extent than Whites and Negroes who had recently immigrated, and were
consequently not yet acclimatised. Thus, the conditions of life in
Guadaloupe, and those of other Mexican islands, seem to exercise
a double action. On the one hand, it diminishes in a considerable
degree the aptitude to contract yellow fever; on the other, it
renders the human organism appreciably more accessible to the
influence of cholera.
VI. Such significant facts as these require no comment. It is
clear that we have here those _relative immunities_ which several
polygenists wished to consider as _specific characters_. Without
possessing anything approaching the importance which, from this
point of view, is possessed by physiological phenomena, they equally
render evident the fundamentally identical nature of all human
groups. Owing their special element essentially to _acquired nature_,
they demonstrate the difference of races rather more clearly than
physiological phenomena. Both, however, are equally _functional_;
and the functions acting necessarily under the immediate influence
of the conditions of life, demonstrate almost in the same degree the
preponderating influence of the latter.
VII. We cannot touch upon questions of ethnological pathology without
saying a few words upon the strange and fatal influence which the
White race seems to exercise upon certain inferior races whose
territories it has invaded.
Nowhere is this melancholy phenomena more striking than in Polynesia.
Figures here speak with touching eloquence.
In the Sandwich Islands Cook calculated the population at 300,000.
In 1861 there were but 67,084, about 22 per cent. of the original
population.
In New Zealand Cook found 400,000 Maories. In 1858 there were only
56,049 remaining, 14 per cent. of the former population. Depopulation
has continued from that time. From 1855 to 1864 the loss was 22 per
cent. for the province of Rotorua, the Lakes and Maketou; it was 19
per cent. _in two years_, from 1859 to 1861, in the Chatham Islands.
In the Marquesas Islands, in 1813, Porter calculated there were
19,000 warriors, giving a population of from 70,000 to 80,000.
In 1858 M. Jouan found 2,500 or 3,000 warriors and about 11,000
inhabitants, a decrease of 86 per cent.
From a comparison of the estimates of Cook and Forster, it appears
that the population of Tahiti must have been at least 240,000. In
1857 the official census only gave 7,212, that is to say, a little
more than 3 per cent. of the original population.
These facts would be equally strange, were they purely local. But
they are universal, appearing even in the most isolated islands, in
the Bass islands, which form the extreme limit of Polynesia on the
south-east. At the beginning of the century Davies counted 2,000
inhabitants; in 1874, Moerenhout only found 300, 15 per cent. of the
former population.
The preceding calculations have all been taken from eastern
Polynesia, which, as we know, was the first to attract Europeans. A
few years ago, however, the western archipelagoes were in their turn
invaded, and the population is already sensibly decreasing in the
islands of Tonga, Vavau, Tongatabou, etc. The case seems to be the
same in the Fijis.
Not only does the rate of mortality increase in this unfortunate
Polynesian race; there is also a decrease in the number of births.
The fact has long been noticed in a general manner. The following
figures give it a strange precision. In the Marquesas Archipelago, at
Taïo-Hae, M. Jouan saw the population fall in three years from 400
to 250, during which time only three or four births were registered.
In the Sandwich Islands, from among 80 women legitimately married,
M. Delapelin found that only 39 had children. There were only 19
children in the twenty principal families of chiefs. Finally, in
1849, the official statistics quoted by M. Remy, give 4,520 deaths,
and only 1,422 births. The case is the same at the other extremity
of Polynesia. In New Zealand, says M. Colenso, marriages are rarely
fertile. The seven principal chiefs of Ahuriri are without children,
with the exception of Te-Hapuku; but of the four married sons of
the latter, three are as yet without a family. Nine out of eleven
marriages were here barren.
Many causes have been proposed in order to explain these melancholy
phenomena. Wars, famines, and epidemics have been suggested in
turn, but these scourges are only local in their effects. Some
have mentioned syphilis, but they forget that the mother of Œdidée
had died of this disease before even Wallis undertook his voyage.
The blame has been laid on drunkenness introduced, it is said, by
Europeans; but before the importation of our spirits the Polynesians
were quite able to inebriate themselves with their _kava_, more
terrible even than our brandy. As to debauchery, we know to what
an extent it was carried by the natives, who had, in that respect,
nothing to learn from Europeans.
Can it be that a higher civilization bears within itself something
which is incompatible with the existence of inferior races? Do the
dominion exercised by the stranger, the invasion of the land, and
the violence done to religion and customs inspire these men, once
so free and proud, with such despair that they refuse to have any
posterity? We may allow some consideration to these moral causes in
the phenomena which occur in Tahiti, the Sandwich Islands and New
Zealand. But how can we apply this explanation to those archipelagoes
where the local race has remained dominant, and where, with its
ancient mode of life, it has preserved all the traditions of its
ancestors? Now this was the case in the Marquesas during the time
that M. Jouan and P. Mathias were there; European inhabitants are
still rare in the Samoan and Tongan Islands.
Two naval surgeons, MM. Bourgarel and Brulfert, have alone been able
to throw some light upon this melancholy problem. The former found
that tubercles were _invariably_ present in the lungs of bodies
submitted to post-mortem examination. The latter tells us that almost
all Polynesians suffer from an obstinate cough, and that in eight
cases out of ten tuberculosis follows these bronchial catarrhs. Now
phthisis does not appear in the list of diseases drawn up by the old
voyagers. Have we, then, imported it into these islands? Developing
in a new region, in a race to whom it was formerly unknown, has this
disease assumed a more terrible form, with examples of which we are
acquainted? Already hereditary in our own case, has it become endemic
or epidemic in Polynesia? If it is so, we may say that it is all
over with the Polynesian race. In another half century, or at most a
century, it will have disappeared, at least as a pure race; it will
have been replaced by a cross, which in the Marquesas Islands has
already begun to increase the population.
BOOK X.
PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERS.
I. In this book I propose to give under a common title a concise
examination of the characters due to _intelligence_, _morality_
and _religion_. I shall thus, perhaps, be reproached with having
connected too closely phenomena which, elsewhere, I have attributed
to different causes, and consequently with having, apparently at
least, contradicted myself. But, on the one hand, after what I have
said upon this subject in the first chapter, there can be no doubt
as to the manner in which I regard this question; and, on the other
hand, intellectual phenomena acquire such a development in man,
that sometimes they almost rise to the dignity of attributes, and
therefore deserve to be placed by the side of phenomena which are
entirely human.
II. In the preceding chapters we have reviewed physical man. But man
is not merely a certain portion of organised and living matter like
a plant. Besides this there is in man _a something_ which _feels_,
_judges_, _reasons_, and _wills_. This _something_, the origin and
nature of which it is not the duty of the naturalist to discover,
is manifested by actions and by _facts_. These facts differ in
different human races. They may, _they ought to_ be, looked upon as
_characters_, equally with the actions of our animal races, such as
the _pointer_, the _greyhound_, the _terrier_ or the _collie_.
We shall see that, although approaching ground generally regarded
as belonging by right to philosophy, anthropology does not on that
account show any less respect for the domain of the latter. The
philosopher is concerned with the distinction to be established
between mind and matter, and with the discovery of the mysterious
link which unites the physical with the intellectual being; the
anthropologist with the investigation of the several manifestations
resulting from this connection, and with the recognition of the
distinctive characteristic marks of the groups which he is studying.
The former goes back to causes; the latter confines himself to
effects, and therefore does not exceed the limits of natural science.
For this very reason, in treating of man, we meet with a difficulty
at starting, which has been already pointed out. When entering
upon the examination of psychological facts, science has scarcely
more than details to study, as in the examination of physiological
characters. Here, as elsewhere, _the conditions of life_ play
a considerable part. If they exercise an influence upon the
manifestations of organic life, they influence to an almost equal
extent those actions which interpret the acting and reacting
element in us. And not only does our intelligence conform to
present conditions, but indefinitely multiplies their influence by
accumulating and combining all anterior facts by means of memory,
and imposes upon itself new conditions from which new phenomena
incessantly result.
The study of intellectual characters must, therefore, for the
most part be carried out by the detailed examination of races.
Nevertheless, we may notice in passing the most general features of
some races, if only in order to explain more fully the truth of the
statements which have just been made.
III. _Language._ “Animals have voice, man alone has speech.” This
truth, proclaimed by Aristotle, is universally accepted at the
present day. Every one acknowledges that speech is one of the highest
attributes of the human species. _Languages_, that is to say, the
various forms assumed by speech among the different human races and
their sub-divisions, have, on this account, a separate importance as
differential characteristic facts.
Without being a linguist, the anthropologist can well avail himself
of the results obtained by philology, and compare them with those
obtained by the study of physical characters. When by two such
different methods we arrive at the same conclusions, we are evidently
very probably in the right.
While giving the detailed history of the different races in my
course of lectures at the Paris Museum, I was often obliged to
extend considerably the comparison which I have just mentioned. I
have almost invariably found the most striking resemblance between
descriptive philology and anthropology. When, as an exception to
this rule, we find a want of resemblance, or, better still, a
contrast, such as that which exists between the physical characters
and the language of the Basques, when compared with the neighbouring
population, the problem always, as in their case, presents special
difficulties, from whatever point of view it is approached.
It it more especially amongst the mixed races that the general
agreement which I have mentioned is exhibited. Language often betrays
at once the mixture of races, their succession, and the nature of the
influence exercised by the different elements which have assisted in
their formation. I will here give a striking example.
All polygenists have regarded the Malays as one of their _human
species_; many monogenists have considered them as one of the
principal races. I showed long ago that, in reality, they are only a
mixed race in which white, black and yellow elements are associated,
and that they are closely allied to the Polynesians. These facts
become more striking every day as we know more of these two families
which have sprung from a common stock. And further, as we study more
thoroughly the history of these countries, we find that the relations
between the insular and the continental regions must have been much
closer than it was long thought could ever have been the case. Such
are the results arrived at by anthropology.
On the other hand, philologists have only been able to form one
_linguistic family_ from all the Malayan and Polynesian languages,
when considered from a _grammatical_ point of view. As to
_vocabulary_, the following are the results given by Ritter.
The Malay language comprises in every 100 words—
50 Polynesian words, all answering to a very inferior social
condition, only designating arts and objects for which all languages
have names (heaven, earth, moon, mountain, hand, eye, etc.).
27 Malayan words, giving evidence of a more advanced civilization,
and of the existence of arts already in a state of perfection (kriss).
16 Sanscrit words expressing religious ideas and abstract terms
(time, cause, wisdom, etc.).
5 Arabian words relating to mythology, poetry, etc.
2 Javanese, Dravidian, Persian, Portuguese, Dutch or English words,
all relating to commerce.
We see, therefore, that the language of the Malays explains, so
to speak, under another form, the same facts as their physical
characters.
IV. Although a naturalist, and therefore habitually disposed to
attribute to the characters drawn from physical man a preponderating
importance, I cannot allow that this superiority is absolutely
constant. There are some facts which speak too strongly. Had it
not been for their special language no one would have hesitated
to consider the Basques as belonging to the same family as other
Southern Europeans. Had their special dolichocephaly been discovered,
as it has been by M. Broca, no one would have thought of making
them _allophylian whites_. It is the same with the peoples of the
Caucasus, who were long considered, entirely on account of their
physical characters, as the pure stock of White European populations.
We must, therefore, acknowledge that in some cases language has a
characteristic importance superior to that of external features and
anatomical facts, or, at least, that it furnishes indications more
readily understood.
This _alternation of value_ between certain characters will cause no
surprise to naturalists who are familiar with the results of modern
zoology. They know that it is the same with animal species. In the
vertebrata the respiratory organs furnish characters of the first
order, which are _dominant_: in annelids, and in secondary types in
which this function is less rigorously localized, families, perfectly
similar in other respects, have the branchia very highly developed
or altogether wanting. In their case the characters drawn from the
respiratory organs are evidently secondary and _subordinate_. If this
is the case between _different species_ and _different groups_, we
must not be surprised if, with still greater reason, it should be the
same between _different races_.
V. In anthropological applications of the science of language,
every one will allow that far more importance must be attributed to
grammar than to vocabulary; it is clear that it cannot be otherwise.
But have we not in certain cases, despised too much the information
which may be derived from the latter? The results to which Young
has arrived from the calculation of probabilities may, it seems to
me, be very aptly quoted here. The object of the illustrious author
was to discover, how many similar words in two different languages
were necessary to authorize us in considering these words as having
belonged to the same language. From these calculations it appears
that the common possession of one word has no meaning. But the
probability of unity of origin is already three to one when there
are two words common to both, and more than ten to one when there
are three. When the number of words common to both is six, the
probability is more than 1,700, and almost 100,000 when there are
eight.
It is, therefore, almost certain that eight words common to two
different languages have originally belonged to the same language,
and when isolated in the midst of a language to which they do not
belong must be regarded as _imported_. These conclusions of the
learned Englishman are of extreme importance. They tend to make
anthropologists regard the relations between various peoples in a
different manner from that to which many anthropologists have been
accustomed, and force us to admit the existence of communications
which we should otherwise be inclined to doubt.
VI. Whilst fully recognising the undoubted importance of linguistic
characters, we must not trust to them entirely as guides in the
estimation of ethnological relations. A language may become extinct
and be replaced upon the same spot. The mere linguist would then
assume the annihilation of a race or population which was in reality
flourishing. This was the case with the Canary Islanders. The
descendants of the Guanches having all adopted the Spanish language,
it was thought that they no longer existed, till M. Berthelot showed
that in reality they formed the basis of the population of the whole
archipelago.
VII. Monogenism and polygenism have fought, and are still fighting
upon linguistic as well as upon organographical grounds. Thus it has
very often happened that the scientific question has been obscured
by considerations entirely foreign to science; and with the less
reason as the opposed doctrines have really less connection with this
subject than has generally been supposed.
From a linguistic point of view the problem may be stated in the
following terms:—Was there in times past, a single primitive
language, from which all languages, living or dead, have sprung? Or
rather, have languages existed, and do languages still exist, which
cannot be traced to a common origin?
We shall at once understand the reply of the polygenistic
philologist. Arguing from the differences by which certain families
of languages are separated, they declare them to be _irreducible_,
and with Crawfurd, M. Hovelacque, and others, state their belief
“in the original plurality of the _races_ which have been formed
with them.” On the other hand, this irreducibility is denied by Max
Müller, who, without as yet affirming the existence of a primitive
language, allows us to see that, in his opinion, all philological
researches are tending to the demonstration of this fact.
Being a complete stranger to studies of this nature, I cannot express
an opinion upon special questions. I shall confine myself to the
statement of some general facts, and to pointing out the sense in
which they seem to me to claim most attention.
This irreducibility, upon which the polygenistic philologists rely,
recalls the argument, which is based upon physical characters, and
consists in contrasting the Negro with the White. This argument
long possessed a certain appearance of strength, which it has lost
as more numerous intervening links were discovered between these
two extremes. It seems to me that the general progress of philology
is tending to the same result. All linguists now place side by
side languages which would have been considered irreducible at the
beginning of the century.
A certain number of languages may remain isolated without this fact
affording any evidence against the specific unity of man. In all
philological schools it is acknowledged that languages are variable
and perishable. Now we do not know all the _dead_ languages, and if
some of the links in the chain are wanting it will at once be evident
that relations which formerly existed have been lost to us for ever.
Let anyone, moreover, refer to the observations of Lubbock upon
roots, and he will at once admit that a certain number among them can
scarcely be common to all languages. Those who hold that language is
not of divine origin, but a human invention and creation, cannot help
adopting the conclusions of the learned Englishman on this point.
Now, however few these radical differences may be, they necessarily
involve irreducibility, which cannot, however, on that account be
invoked as an argument against monogenism.
In support of this conclusion, I am fortunate enough to be able to
appeal to the testimony of a judge, both competent and trustworthy.
Whitney, in his work upon “The Life of Language,” has examined the
same question. With Crawfurd and M. Hovelacque, the American linguist
admits that there are linguistic families which cannot be referred
to a common origin. He does not, however, stop at the bare fact; he
demonstrates and discusses the causes of it. He then gives, in the
following terms, the general conclusion of this discussion: “The
incompetency of the science of philology to decide upon the unity or
diversity of human races appears to be completely and irrevocably
demonstrated.”
However this may be, the results thus acquired bring to light a fact,
the importance of which ought not, it seems to me, to be overlooked.
Taking as guide the work of a man whose competency is above dispute,
arranging the tables of the linguistic families admitted by M. Maury,
and representing by _lines_ the relations pointed out by this learned
writer, we see that there exists between one language and another
an _intercrossing of characters_ extremely analogous to that which
I have so often pointed out in human groups. No one has supported
the hypothesis of the multiple origins of languages more resolutely
than Agassiz. In the memoir, which I attacked from a geographical
point of view, he expressed himself very clearly upon this point.
Since then he has developed the same ideas. I have already said
that, in his opinion, mankind was created by _nations_, that each
received, with its physical features, its particular language,
developed in every direction, and just as characteristic as the
voice of an animal species. I feel it necessary to insist upon this
point here, and to quote the text itself: “Let anyone follow upon a
map,” says Agassiz, “the geographical distribution of the bear, the
felidæ, the ruminants, the gallinaceæ, or of any other family: we
can prove, with just as much evidence as any philological research
can for human languages, that the growling of the bear of Kamschatka
is allied to that of the bear of Thibet, of the East Indies, of
the Sonda Islands, of Nepaul, Syria, Europe, Siberia, the United
States, the Rocky Mountains, and the Andes. Yet all these bears
are considered to be distinct species, having in no way inherited
voice from each other. Nor have the different human races done so.
All this is equally true of the crowing of the gallinaceæ, of the
quacking of ducks, as well as of the song of thrushes, who all pour
forth their gay and harmonious notes, each in their own dialect,
which is neither inherited nor derived from another, although all
sing in _thrush language_. Let philologists study these facts, and if
they are not absolutely blind to the signification of analogies in
nature, they will themselves come to doubt the possibility of placing
any confidence in philological arguments employed to prove genetic
derivation.”
Agassiz is logical, and he exhausts the consequences of his theory.
But he forgets one important fact which may be opposed to all those
who, either fully or partially, embrace this order of ideas.
No animal species has ever changed its _voice_ for that of a species
nearly allied to it. An ass’s colt, reared by a mare and isolated
in the midst of horses, never forgets its bray or learns to neigh.
While, on the contrary, it is well known, that a White, if placed in
earliest infancy in the midst of Chinese or Australians, will only
speak their language. The converse is equally true.
The reason of this is that the _animal voice_ is a fundamental
character, adhering evidently to the nature of the being, susceptible
of slight modification, but incapable of disappearing, or of
transference as a whole; it is a _specific character_.