Among the human families, the law of hybridity, which has been pointed out
so clearly by Flourens, has also its fixed and inflexible rules; these
rules have not been so well studied with men as with animals, but it is
believed to have its limit at the seventh generation. At all events, the
experiments of human hybridism, and acclimation in strange latitudes, have
always in time ended in disaster; and that such will always be the fate of
the attempted union of different races in unfavorable climes, have been
the views of Humboldt, of Canning, of Guizot, and other profound
statesmen. We observe among the races in savage life a natural repugnance
to unite: as for instance, the negroes and the fairer people of the
Philippine and Polynesian Isles show no disposition to unite; and though
living side by side, in the same country, for a long period, they have not
produced an intermediate race. Neither do the Eskimos nor the Red Men,
neither do the Caffres nor the Hottentots mix, for in the state of nature
the law of ethnic repugnance is supreme. It is only in the artificial and
depraved states of society that hybrids appear, and their existence is of
short and fixed duration.
The apparent duration and perfection of the Coulouglis, the bipartates of
the Bergers and Turks, may be an exception to the general rule. But the
results of the mingling of human families, widely separated, is generally
very decided.
The Creoles, produced by the African with the Spaniard, Italian, and the
Southern French, possess considerable durability, but disease and
degeneration soon appear when the black mingles with the blood and humors
of the more northern nations. With all these mixtures there is a profound
characteristic, which constitutes the unity, identity, and reality of the
species, which is, continuous fecundity; and this characteristic never
varies: it is immutable. The mulattoes live less time than the black or
the white race, and their offspring perish readily, and are rarely
prolific, except when united with stronger individuals of either primitive
type, to which they soon return.