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THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF RACES.
With Particular Reference to Their Respective Influence
in the Civil and Political History Of Mankind.
From the French of COUNT A. DE GOBINEAU:
With an Analytical Introduction and Copious Historical Notes.
By H. Hotz.
To Which Is Added an Appendix Containing a Summary
of the Latest Scientific Facts Bearing upon the
Question of Unity or Plurality of Species.
By J. C. Nott, M. D., of Mobile.
Philadelphia:
J. B. Lippincott & Co.
1856.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
J. B. Lippincott & Co.,
in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United
States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
TO THE
STATESMEN OF AMERICA,
THIS WORK,
THE FIRST ON THE RACES OF MEN CONTEMPLATED FROM THE
POINT OF VIEW OF THE STATESMAN AND HISTORIAN
RATHER THAN THE NATURALIST,
IS
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY THE
AMERICAN EDITOR.
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
It has been truly observed that a good book seldom requires, and a bad
one never deserves, a long preface. When a foreign book, however, is
obtruded on the notice of the public, it is but just that the reasons
for so doing should be explained; and, in the present case, this is the
more necessary, as the title of the work might lead many to believe that
it was intended to re-agitate the question of unity or plurality of the
human species--a question which the majority of readers consider
satisfactorily and forever settled by the words of Holy Writ. Such,
however, is not the purpose of either the author or the editor. The
design of this work is, to contribute toward the knowledge of the
leading mental and moral characteristics of the various races of men
which have subsisted from the dawn of history to the present era, and to
ascertain, if possible, the degree to which they are susceptible of
improvement. The annals of the world demonstrate beyond a doubt, that
the different branches of the human family, like the individual members
of a community, are endowed with capacities, different not only in
degree but in kind, and that, in proportion to these endowments, they
have contributed, and still contribute to that great march of progress
of the human race, which we term civilization. To portray the nature of
these endowments, to estimate the influence of each race in the
destinies of all, and to point out the effects of mixture of races in
the rise and fall of great empires, has been the task to the
accomplishment of which, though too extensive for one man, the author
has devoted his abilities. The troubles and sufferings of his native
country, from sudden political gyrations, led him to speculate upon
their causes, which he believes are to be traced to the great variety of
incongruous ethnical elements composing the population of France. The
deductions at which he arrived in that field of observation he subjected
to the test of universal history; and the result of his studies for many
years, facilitated by the experiences of a diplomatic career, are now
before the American public in a translation. That a work, on so
comprehensive a subject, should be exempt from error, cannot be
expected, and is not pretended; but the aim is certainly a noble one,
and its pursuit cannot be otherwise than instructive to the statesman
and historian, and no less so to the general reader. In this country, it
is peculiarly interesting and important, for not only is our immense
territory the abode of the three best defined varieties of the human
species--the white, the negro, and the Indian--to which the extensive
immigration of the Chinese on our Pacific coast is rapidly adding a
fourth, but the fusion of diverse nationalities is nowhere more rapid
and complete; nowhere is the great problem of man's perfectibility being
solved on a grander scale, or in a more decisive manner. While, then,
nothing can be further removed from our intentions, or more repugnant to
our sentiments, than to wage war on religion, or throw ridicule on the
labors of the missionary and philanthropist, we thought it not a useless
undertaking to lay before our countrymen the opinions of a European
thinker, who, without straining or superseding texts to answer his
purposes, or departing in any way from the pure spirit of Christianity,
has reflected upon questions which with us are of immense moment and
constant recurrence.
H. H.
PHILADELPHIA, _Nov. 1, 1855_.
CONTENTS.
ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION.
The discussion of the moral and intellectual diversity of races
totally independent of the question of unity or plurality of
origin--Leading propositions of this volume, with illustrations and
comments.
CHAPTER I.
POLITICAL CATASTROPHES.
Perishable condition of all human societies--Ancient ideas concerning
this phenomenon--Modern theories 105
CHAPTER II.
ALLEGED CAUSES OF POLITICAL CATASTROPHES EXAMINED.
FANATICISM--Aztec Empire of Mexico.--LUXURY--Modern European States
as luxurious as the ancient.--Corruption of morals--The standard of
morality fluctuates in the various periods of a nation's history:
example, France--Is no higher in youthful communities than in old
ones--Morality of Paris.--IRRELIGION--Never spreads through all
ranks of a nation--Greece and Rome--Tenacity of Paganism 114
CHAPTER III.
INFLUENCE OF GOVERNMENT UPON THE LONGEVITY OF NATIONS.
Misgovernment defined--Athens, China, Spain, Germany, Italy, etc.--Is
not in itself a sufficient cause for the ruin of nations. 138
CHAPTER IV.
DEFINITION OF THE WORD DEGENERACY--ITS CAUSE.
Skeleton history of a nation--Origin of castes, nobility,
etc.--Vitality of nations not necessarily extinguished by
conquest--China, Hindostan--Permanency of their peculiar
civilizations. 146
CHAPTER V.
THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF RACES IS NOT THE RESULT OF
POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.
Antipathy of races--Results of their mixture--The scientific axiom of
the absolute equality of men, but an extension of the
political--Its fallacy--Universal belief in unequal endowment of
races--The moral and intellectual diversity of races not
attributable to institutions--Indigenous institutions are the
expression of popular sentiments; when foreign and imported, they
never prosper--Illustrations: England and France--Roman
Empire--European Colonies--Sandwich Islands--St. Domingo--Jesuit
missions in Paraguay 172
CHAPTER VI.
THIS DIVERSITY IS NOT THE RESULT OF GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION.
America--Ancient empires--Phenicians and Romans--Jews--Greece and
Rome--Commercial cities of Europe--Isthmus of Darien 201
CHAPTER VII.
INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY UPON MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF
RACES.
The term Christian civilization examined--Reasons for rejecting
it--Intellectual diversity no hindrance to the universal diffusion
of Christianity--Civilizing influence of Christian religion by
elevating and purifying the morals, etc.; but does not remove
intellectual disparities--Various instances--Cherokees--Difference
between imitation and comprehension of civilized life 215
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO CHAPTERS VIII. AND IX.
Rapid survey of the populations comprised under the appellation
"Teutonic"--Their present ethnological area, and leading
characteristics--Fondness for the sea displayed by the Teutonic
tribes of Northwestern Europe, and perceptible in their
descendants 234
CHAPTER VIII.
CIVILIZATION.
Mr. Guizot's and Mr. W. von Humboldt's definitions examined. Its
elements 246
CHAPTER IX.
ELEMENTS OF CIVILIZATION--CONTINUED.
Definition of the term--Specific differences of
civilizations--Hindoo, Chinese, European, Greek, and Roman
civilizations--Universality of Chinese civilization--Superficiality
of ours--Picture of the social condition of France 272
CHAPTER X.
QUESTION OF UNITY OR PLURALITY OF RACES.
Systems of Camper, Blumenbach, Morton, Carus--Investigations of Owen,
Vrolik, Weber--Prolificness of hybrids, the great scientific
stronghold of the advocates of unity of species 312
CHAPTER XI.
PERMANENCY OF TYPES.
The language of Holy Writ in favor of common origin--The permanency
of their characteristics separates the races of men as effectually
as if they were distinct creations--Arabs, Jews--Prichard's
argument about the influence of climate examined--Ethnological
history of the Turks and Hungarians 336
CHAPTER XII.
CLASSIFICATION OF RACES.
Primary varieties--Test for recognizing them; not always
reliable--Effects of intermixture--Secondary varieties--Tertiary
varieties--Amalgamation of races in large cities--Relative scale of
beauty in various branches of the human family--Their inequality in
muscular strength and powers of endurance 368
NOTE TO THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.
The position and treatment of woman among the various races of men a
proof of their moral and intellectual diversity 384
CHAPTER XIII.
PERFECTIBILITY OF MAN.
Imperfect notions of the capability of savage tribes--Parallel
between our civilization and those that preceded it--Our modern
political theories no novelty--The political parties of Rome--Peace
societies--The art of printing a means, the results of which depend
on its use--What constitutes a "living" civilization--Limits of the
sphere of intellectual acquisitions 391
CHAPTER XIV.
MUTUAL RELATIONS OF DIFFERENT MODES OF INTELLECTUAL CULTURE.
Necessary consequences of a supposed equality of all races--Uniform
testimony of history to the contrary--Traces of extinct
civilizations among barbarous tribes--Laws which govern the
adoption of a state of civilization by conquered
populations--Antagonism of different modes of culture; the Hellenic
and Persian, European and Arab, etc. 414
CHAPTER XV.
MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THREE GREAT VARIETIES.
Impropriety of drawing general conclusions from individual
cases--Recapitulatory sketch of the leading features of the Negro,
the Yellow, and the White races--Superiority of the
latter--Conclusion of volume the first 439
APPENDIX.
BY J. C. NOTT, M. D.
A.--Dr. Morton's later tables 461
B.--Species; varieties. Latest experiments upon the laws of
hybridity 473
C.--Biblical connections of the question of unity or plurality of
species 504
ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION.
Before departing on one's travels to a foreign country, it is well to
cast a glance on the map, and if we expect to meet and examine many
curiosities, a correct itinerary may not be an inconvenient travelling
companion. In laying before the public the present work of Mr. Gobineau,
embracing a field of inquiry so boundless and treating of subjects of
such vast importance to all, it has been thought not altogether useless
or inappropriate to give a rapid outline of the topics presented to the
consideration of the reader--a ground-plan, as it were, of the extensive
edifice he is invited to enter, so that he may afterwards examine it at
leisure, and judge of the symmetry of its parts. This, though fully
sensible of the inadequacy of his powers to the due execution of the
task, the present writer has endeavored to do, making such comments on
the way, and using such additional illustrations as the nature of the
subject seemed to require.
* * * * *
Whether we contemplate the human family from the point of view of the
naturalist or of the philosopher, we are struck with the marked
dissimilarity of the various groups. The obvious physical
characteristics by which we distinguish what are termed different races,
are not more clearly defined than the psychical diversities observable
among them. "If a person," says the learned vindicator of the unity of
the human species,[1] "after surveying some brilliant ceremony or court
pageant in one of the splendid cities of Europe, were suddenly carried
into a hamlet in Negro-land, at the hour when the sable tribes recreate
themselves with dancing and music; or if he were transported to the
saline plains over which bald and tawny Mongolians roam, differing but
little in hue from the yellow soil of their steppes, brightened by the
saffron flowers of the iris and tulip; if he were placed near the
solitary dens of the Bushman, where the lean and hungry savage crouches
in silence, like a beast of prey, watching with fixed eyes the birds
which enter his pitfall, or greedily devouring the insects and reptiles
which chance may bring within his grasp; if he were carried into the
midst of an Australian forest, where the squalid companions of kangaroos
may be seen crawling in procession, in imitation of quadrupeds, would
the spectator of such phenomena imagine the different groups which he
had surveyed to be the offspring of one family? And if he were led to
adopt that opinion, how would he attempt to account for the striking
diversities in their aspect and manner of existence?"
These diversities, so graphically described by Mr. Prichard, present a
problem, the solution of which has occupied the most ingenious minds,
especially of our times. The question of unity or plurality of the human
species has of late excited much animated discussion; great names and
weighty authorities are enlisted on either side, and a unanimous
decision appears not likely to be soon agreed upon. But it is not my
purpose, nor that of the author to whose writings these pages are
introductory, to enter into a contest which to me seems rather a dispute
about words than essentials. The distinguishing physical characteristics
of what we term races of man are recognized by all parties, and whether
these races are _distinct species_ or _permanent varieties_[2] only of
the same, cannot affect the subject under investigation. In whatever
manner the diversities among the various branches of the human family
may have originated, whether they are primordial or were produced by
external causes, their permanency is now generally admitted. "The
Ethiopian cannot change his skin." If there are, or ever have been,
external agencies that could change a white man into a negro, or _vice
versa_, it is obvious that such causes have either ceased to operate, or
operate only in a lapse of time so incommensurable as to be imponderable
to our perceptions, for the races which now exist can be traced up to
the dawn of history, and no well-authenticated instance of a
transformation under any circumstances is on record. In human reasoning
it is certainly legitimate to judge of the future by the experiences of
the past, and we are, therefore, warranted to conclude that if races
have preserved their identity for the last two thousand years, they will
not lose it in the next two thousand.
It is somewhat singular, however, that while most writers have ceased to
explain the physical diversities of races by external causes, such as
climate, food, etc., yet many still persist in maintaining the absolute
equality of all in other respects, referring such differences in
character as are undeniable, solely to circumstances, education, mode of
life, etc. These writers consider all races as merely in different
stages of development, and pretend that the lowest savage, or at least
his offspring, may, by judicious training, and in course of time, be
rendered equal to the civilized man. Before mentioning any facts in
opposition to this doctrine, let us examine the reasoning upon which it
is based.
"Man is the creature of circumstances," is an adage extended from
individuals to races, and repeated by many without considering its
bearing. The celebrated author of _Wealth of Nations_[3] says, "that the
difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher
and a common street porter, for example, arises, not so much from
nature, but from habit and education." That a mind, which, with proper
nurture, might have graced a philosopher, should, under unfavorable
circumstances, remain forever confined in a narrow and humble sphere,
does not, indeed, seem at all improbable; but Dr. Smith certainly does
not mean to deny the existence of natural talents, of innate peculiar
capacities for the accomplishment of certain purposes. This is what they
do who ascribe the mental inequality of the various branches of the
human family to external circumstances only. "The intellectual qualities
of man," say they, "are developed entirely by education. The mind is, at
first, a perfect blank, fitted and ready to receive any kind of
impressions. For these, we are dependent on the political, civil, and
religious institutions under which we live, the persons with whom we are
connected, and the circumstances in which we are placed in the different
periods of life. Wholly the creatures of association and habit, the
characters of men are formed by the instruction, conversation, and
example of those with whom they mix in society, or whose ideas they
imbibe in the course of their reading and studies."[4] Again: "As all
men, in all nations, are of the same species, are endowed with the same
senses and feelings, and receive their perceptions and ideas through
similar organs, the difference, whether physical or moral, that is
observed in comparing different races or assemblages of men, can arise
only from external and adventitious circumstances."[5] The last position
is entirely dependent on the first; if we grant the first, relating to
individuals, the other follows as a necessary consequence. For, if we
assume that the infinite intellectual diversities of individuals are
owing solely to external influences, it is self-evident that the same
diversities in nations, which are but aggregations of individuals, must
result from the same causes. But are we prepared to grant this first
position--to assert that man is but an automaton, whose wheelwork is
entirely without--the mere buffet and plaything of accident and
circumstances? Is not this the first step to gross materialism, the
first argument laid down by that school, of which the great Locke has
been stigmatized as the father, because he also asserts that the human
mind is at first a blank tablet. But Locke certainly could not mean that
all these tablets were the same and of equal value. A tablet of wax
receives an impression which one of marble will not; on the former is
easily effaced what the other forever retains. We do not deny that
circumstances have a great influence in moulding both moral and
intellectual character, but we do insist that there is a primary basis
upon which the degree of that influence depends, and which is the work
of God and not of man or chance. What agriculturist could be made to
believe that, with the same care, all plants would thrive equally well
in all soils? To assert that the character of a man, whether good or
wicked, noble or mean, is the aggregate result of influences over which
he has no control, is to deny that man is a free agent; it is infinitely
worse than the creed of the Buddhist, who believes that all animated
beings possess a detached portion of an all-embracing intelligence,
which acts according to the nature and capacity of the machine of clay
that it, for the time, occupies, and when the machine is worn out or
destroyed, returns, like a rivulet to the sea, to the vast ocean of
intelligence whence it came, and in which again it is lost. In the name
of common sense, daily observation, and above all, of revelation, we
protest against a doctrine which paves the road to the most absurd as
well as anti-religious conclusions. In it we recognize the fountain
whence flow all the varied forms and names under which Atheism disguises
itself. But it is useless to enter any further upon the refutation of
an argument which few would be willing seriously to maintain. It is one
of those plausible speculations which, once admitted, serve as the basis
of so many brilliant, but airy, theories that dazzle and attract those
who do not take the trouble of examining their solidity.
Once we admit that circumstances, though they may impede or favor the
development of powers, cannot give them; in other words, that they can
call into action, but cannot create, moral and intellectual resources;
no argument can be drawn from the unity of species in favor of the
mental equality of races. If two men, the offspring of the same parents,
can be the one a dunce, the other a genius, why cannot different races,
though descended of the same stock, be different also in intellectual
endowments? We should laugh at, or rather, pity the man who would try to
persuade us that there is no difference in color, etc., between the
Scandinavian and the African, and yet it is by some considered little
short of heresy to affirm, that there is an imparity in their minds as
well as in their bodies.
We are told--and the objection seems indeed a grave one--that if we
admit psychical as well as physical gradations in the scale of human
races, the lowest must be so hopelessly inferior to the higher, their
perceptions and intellectual capacities so dim, that even the light of
the gospel cannot illumine them. Were it so, we should at once abandon
the argument as one above human comprehension, rather than suppose that
God's mercy is confined to any particular race or races. But let us
earnestly investigate the question. On so vital a point the sacred
record cannot but be plain and explicit. To it let us turn. Man--even
the lowest of his species--has a soul. However much defaced God's image,
it is vivified by His breath. To save that soul, to release it from the
bondage of evil, Christ descended upon earth and gave to mankind, not a
complicated system of philosophy which none but the learned and
intellectual could understand, but a few simple lessons and precepts,
comprehensible to the meanest capacity. He did not address himself to
the wise of this world, but bade them be like children if they would
come unto him. The learned Pharisees of Judea jeered and ridiculed him,
but the poor woman of Canaan eagerly picked up the precious crumbs of
that blessed repast which they despised. His apostles were chosen from
among the lowly and simple, his first followers belonged to that class.
He himself hath said:[6] "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and
earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
hast revealed them unto babes." How then shall we judge of the degree of
intellect necessary to be a follower of Jesus? Are the most
intellectual, the best informed men generally the best Christians? Or
does the word of God anywhere lead us to suppose that at the great final
judgment the learned prelate or ingenious expositor of the faith will be
preferred to the humble, illiterate savage of some almost unknown coast,
who eagerly drinks of the living water whereof whosoever drinketh shall
never thirst again?
This subject has met with the attention which its importance deserves,
at the hands of Mr. Gobineau, and he also shows the fallacy of the idea
that Christianity will remove the mental inequality of races. True
religion, among all nations who are blessed with it and sincerely
embrace it, will purify their morals, and establish friendly relations
between man and his fellow-man. But it will not make an _intellectually_
inferior race equal to a superior one, because it was not designed to
bestow talents or to endow with genius those who are devoid of it.
Civilization is essentially the result of man's intellectual gifts, and
must vary in its character and degree like them. Of this we shall speak
again in treating of the _specific differences of civilization_, when
the term _Christian civilization_ will also be examined.
One great reason why so many refuse to recognize mental as well as
physical differences among races, is the common and favorite belief of
our time in the infinite perfectibility of man. Under various forms this
development-theory, so flattering to humanity, has gained an incredible
number of adherents and defenders. We believe ourselves steadily
marching towards some brilliant goal, to which every generation brings
us nearer. We look with a pity, almost amounting to contempt, upon those
who preceded us, and envy posterity, which we expect to surpass us in a
ratio even greater than we believe ourselves to surpass our ancestors.
It is indeed a beautiful and poetic idea that civilization is a vast and
magnificent edifice of which the first generation laid the corner-stone,
and to which each succeeding age contributes new materials and new
embellishments. It is our tower of Babel, by which we, like the first
men after the flood, hope to reach heaven and escape the ills of life.
Some such idea has flattered all ages, but in ours it has assumed a more
definite form. We point with pride to our inventions, annihilating--we
say--time and distance; our labor-saving machines refining the mechanic
and indirectly diffusing information among all classes, and confidently
look forward to a new era close at hand, a millennium to come. Let us,
for a moment, divest ourselves of the conceit which belongs to every
age, as well as to every country and individual; and let us ask
ourselves seriously and candidly: In what are we superior to our
predecessors? We have inventions that they had not, it is true, and
these inventions increase in an astonishing ratio; we have clearer ideas
of the laws which govern the material world, and better contrivances to
apply these laws and to make the elements subservient to our comfort.
But has the human mind really expanded since the days of Pythagoras and
Plato? Has the thinker of the nineteenth century faculties and
perceptions which they had not? Have we one virtue more or one vice less
than former generations? Has human nature changed, or has it even
modified its failings? Though we succeed in traversing the regions of
air as easily and swifter than we now do broad continents and stormy
seas; though we count all the worlds in the immensity of space; though
we snatch from nature her most recondite secrets, shall we be aught but
men? To the true philosopher these conquests over the material world
will be but additional proofs of the greatness of God and man's
littleness. It is the vanity and arrogance of the creature of clay that
make him believe that by his own exertions he can arrive at God-like
perfection. The insane research after the philosopher's stone and the
elixir of life may be classed among the many other futile attempts of
man to invade the immutable decree: "Thus far, and no farther." To
escape from the moral and intellectual imperfections of his nature,
there is but one way; the creature must humbly and devoutly cast himself
into the ever-open arms of the Creator and seek for knowledge where none
knocketh in vain. This privilege he has enjoyed in all ages, and it is a
question which I would hesitate to answer whether the progress of
physical science has not, in many cases at least, rather the effect of
making him self-sufficient and too confident in his own powers, than of
bringing him nearer to the knowledge of the true God. It is one of the
fatal errors of our age in particular, to confound the progress of
physical science with a supposed moral progress of man. Were it so, the
Bible would have been a revelation of science as well as of religion,
and that it is not is now beginning to be conceded, though by no means
so generally as true theology would require; for the law of God was
intended for every age, for every country, for every individual,
independent of the state of science or a peculiar stage of civilization,
and not to be modified by any change which man might make in his
material existence. With due deference, then, to those philosophers who
assert that the moral nature of the human species has undergone a change
at various periods of the world's history; and those enthusiasts who
dream of an approaching millennium, we hold, that human nature has
always been the same and always will be the same, and that no inventions
or discoveries, however promotive of his material well-being, can effect
a moral change or bring him any nearer to the Divine essence than he was
in the beginning of his mundane existence. Science and knowledge may
indeed illumine his earthly career, but they can shed no light upon the
path he is to tread to reach a better world.
Christ himself has recognized the diversity of intellectual gifts in his
parable of the talents, from which we borrow the very term to designate
those gifts; and if, in a community of pure and faithful Christians,
there still are many degrees and kinds of talents, is it reasonable to
suppose that in that millennium--the only one I can imagine--when all
nations shall call on His name with hope and praise, all mental
imparities of races will be obliterated? There are, at the present time,
nations upon whom we look down as being inferior in civilization to
ourselves, yet they are as good--if, indeed, not better--Christians than
we are as a people. The progress of physical science, by facilitating
the intercourse between distant parts of the world, tends, indeed, to
diffuse true religion, and in this manner--and this manner
only--promotes the moral good of mankind. But here it is only an
instrument, and not an agent, as the machines which the architect uses
to raise his building materials do not erect the structure.
One more reason why the unity of the human species cannot be considered
a proof of equal intellectual capability of races. It is a favorite
method of naturalists to draw an analogy between man and the brute
creation; and, so far as he belongs to the animal kingdom, this method
is undoubtedly correct and legitimate. But, with regard to man's higher
attributes, there is an impassable barrier between him and the brute,
which, in the heat of argument, contending parties have not always
sufficiently respected. The great Prichard himself seems sometimes to
have lost sight of it.[7] Thus, he speaks of "psychological" diversities
in varieties of the same undoubted species of animal, though it is
obvious that animals can have no psychological attributes. But I am
willing to concede to Mr. Prichard all the conclusions he derives from
this analogy in favor of unity of the human species. All dogs, he
believes, are derived from one pair; yet, there are a number of
varieties of dogs, and these varieties are different not only in
external appearance, but in what Mr. Prichard would call psychological
qualities. No shepherd expects to train a common cur to be the
intelligent guardian of a flock; no sportsman to teach his hounds, or
their unmixed progeny, to perform the office of setters. That the
characteristics of every variety of dogs are permanent so long as the
breed remains pure, every one knows, and that their distinctive type
remains the same in all countries and through all time, is proved by the
mural paintings of Egypt, which show that, 2,000 years B. C., they were
as well known as in our day.[8] If, then, this permanency of
"psychological" (to take Mr. Prichard's ground) diversity is compatible
with unity of origin in the dog, why not in the case of man? I am far
from desiring to call into question the unity of our species, but I
contend that the rule must work both ways, and if "psychological"
diversities can be permanent in the branches of the same species of
animals, they can be permanent also in the branches of the human family.
In the preceding pages, I have endeavored to show that the unity of
species is no proof of equal intellectual capability of races, that
mental imparities do not conflict with the universality of the gospel
tidings, and that the permanency of these imparities is consistent with
the reasoning of the greatest expounder of the unity theory. I shall now
proceed to state the facts which prove the intellectual diversities
among the races of man. In doing so, it is important to guard against an
error into which so many able writers have fallen, that of comparing
individuals rather than masses.
What we term national character, is the aggregate of the qualities
preponderating in a community. It is obvious that when we speak of the
artistic genius of the Greeks, we do not mean that every native of
Hellas and Ionia was an artist; and when we call a nation unwarlike or
valorous, we do not thereby either stigmatize every individual as a
coward, or extol him as a hero. The same is the case with races. When,
for example, we assert that the black race is intellectually inferior to
the white, it is not implied that the most intelligent negro should
still be more obtuse than the most stupid white man. The maximum
intellect and capacity of one race may greatly exceed the minimum of
another, without placing them on an equality. The testimony of history,
and the results of philanthropic experiment, are the data upon which the
ethnologist must institute his inquiries, if he would arrive at
conclusions instructive to humanity.
Let us take for illustration the white and the black races, supposed by
many to represent the two extremes of the scale of gradation. The whole
history of the former shows an uninterrupted progress; that of the
latter, monotonous stagnation. To the one, mankind owes the most
valuable discoveries in the domain of thought, and their practical
application; to the other, it owes nothing. For ages plunged in the
darkest gloom of barbarism, there is not one ray of even temporary or
borrowed improvement to cheer the dismal picture of its history, or
inspire with hope the disheartened philanthropist. At the boundary of
its territory, the ever-encroaching spirit of conquest of the European
stops powerless.[9] Never, in the history of the world, has a grander
or more conclusive experiment been tried than in the case of the negro
race. We behold them placed in immediate possession of the richest
island in the richest part of the globe, with every advantage that
climate, soil, geographical situation, can afford; removed from every
injurious contact, yet with every facility for constant intercourse with
the most polished nations of the earth; inheriting all that the white
race had gained by the toil of centuries in science, politics, and
morals; and what is the result? As if to afford a still more
irrefragable proof of the mental inequality of races, we find separate
divisions of the same island inhabited, one by the pure, the other by a
half-breed race; and the infusion of the white blood in the latter case
forms a population incontestably and avowedly superior. In opposition to
such facts, some special pleader, bent upon establishing a preconceived
notion, ransacks the records of history to find a few isolated instances
where an individual of the inferior race has displayed average ability,
and from such exceptional cases he deduces conclusions applicable to
the whole mass! He points with exultation to a negro who calculates, a
negro who is an officer of artillery in Russia, a few others who are
employed in a counting-house. And yet he does not even tell us whether
these _raræ aves_ are of pure blood or not, as is often the case.[10]
Moreover, these instances are proclaimed to the world with an air of
triumph, as if they were drawn at random from an inexhaustible arsenal
of facts, when in reality they are all that the most anxious research
could discover, and form the stock in trade of every declaimer on the
absolute equality of races.
Had it pleased the Creator to endow all branches of the human family
equally, all would then have pursued the same career, though, perhaps,
not all with equal rapidity. Some, favored by circumstances, might have
distanced others in the race; a few, peculiarly unfortunately situated,
would have lagged behind. Still, the progress of all would have been in
the same direction, all would have had the same stages to traverse. Now
is this the case? There are not a few who assert it. From our earliest
infancy we are told of the savage, barbarous, semi-civilized, civilized,
and enlightened states. These we are taught to consider as the steps of
the ladder by which man climbs up to infinite perfection, we ourselves
being near the top, while others are either a little below us, or have
scarcely yet firmly established themselves upon the first rounds. In the
beautiful language of Schiller, these latter are to us a mirror in which
we behold our own ancestors, as an adult in the children around him
re-witnesses his own infancy. This is, in a measure, true of nations of
the same race, but is it true with regard to different races? It is
little short of presumption to venture to combat an idea perhaps more
extensively spread than any of our time, yet this we shall endeavor to
do. Were the differences in civilization which we observe in various
nations of the world, differences of degree only, and not of kind, it is
obvious that the most advanced individual in one degree must closely
approach the confines of a higher. But this is not the case. The highest
degree of culture known to Hindoo or Chinese civilization, approaches
not the possessor one step nearer to the ideas and views of the
European. The Chinese civilization is as perfect, in its own way, as
ours, nay more so.[11] It is not a mere child, or even an adult not yet
arrived at maturity; it is rather a decrepit old man. It too has its
degrees; it too has had its periods of infancy, of adult age, of
maturity. And when we contemplate its fruits, the immense works which
have been undertaken and completed under its ægis, the systems of morals
and politics to which it gave rise, the inventions which signalized its
more vigorous periods, we cannot but admit that it is entitled in a high
degree to our veneration and esteem.[12] Moreover it has excellencies
which our civilization as yet has not; it pervades all classes, ours
not. In the whole Chinese empire, comprising, as it does, one-third of
the human race, we find few individuals unable to read and write; in
China proper, none. How many European countries can pretend to this? And
yet, because Chinese civilization has a different tendency from ours,
because its course lies in another direction, we call it a
semi-civilization. At what time of the world's history then have we--the
_civilized_ nations--passed through this stage of semi-civilization?
The monuments of Sanscrit literature, the magnificent remains of palaces
and temples, the great number of ingenious arts, the elaborate systems
of metaphysics, attest a state of intellectual culture, far from
contemptible, among the Hindoos. Yet their civilization, too, we term a
semi-civilization, albeit it is as little like the Chinese as it is like
anything ever seen in Europe.
Few who will carefully investigate and reflect upon these facts, will
doubt that the terms Hindoo, Chinese, European civilization, are not
indicative of degrees only, but mean the respective development of
powers essentially different in their nature. We may consider our
civilization the best, but it is both arrogant and unphilosophical to
consider it as the only one, or as the standard by which to measure all
others. This idea, moreover, is neither peculiar to ourselves nor to our
age. The Chinese even yet look upon us as barbarians; the Hindoos
probably do the same. The Greeks considered all extra-Hellenic peoples
as barbarians. The Romans ascribed the same pre-excellency to
themselves, and the predilections for these nations, which we imbibe
already in our academic years from our classical studies, cause us to
share the same opinion, and to view with their prejudices nations less
akin to us than they. The Persians, for instance, whom the Greeks
self-complacently styled outside-barbarians, were, in reality, a highly
cultivated people, as no one can deny who will examine the facts which
modern research has brought to light. Their arts, if not Hellenic, still
attained a high degree of perfection. Their architecture, though not of
Grecian style, was not inferior in magnificence and splendor. Nay, I for
one am willing to render myself obnoxious to the charge of classical
heresy, by regarding the pure Persians as a people, in some respects at
least, superior to the Greeks. Their religious system seems to me a much
purer, nobler one than the inconsistent, immoral mythology of our
favorites. Their ideas of a good and an evil power in perpetual
conflict, and of a mediator who loves and protects the human race; their
utter detestation of every species of idolatry, have to me something
that prepossesses me in their favor.
I have now alleged, in a cursory manner, my principal reasons for
considering civilizations as specifically distinct. To further dilate
upon the subject, though I greatly desire to do so, would carry me too
far; not, indeed, beyond the scope of the inquiries proposed in this
volume, but beyond the limited space assigned for my introduction. I
shall add only, that--assuming the intellectual equality of all branches
of the human family--we can assign no causes for the differences of
_degree only_ of their development. Geographical position cannot explain
them, because the people who have made the greatest advance, have not
always been the most favorably situated. The greatest geographical
advantages have been in possession of others that made no use of them,
and became of importance only by changing owners. To cite one of a
thousand similar instances. The glorious Mississippi Valley, with its
innumerable tributary streams, its unparalleled fertility and mineral
wealth, seems especially adapted by nature for the abode of a great
agricultural and commercial nation. Yet, the Indians roamed over it, and
plied their canoes on its rivers, without ever being aware of the
advantages they possessed. The Anglo-Saxon, on the contrary, no sooner
perceived them than he dreamed of the conquest of the world. We may
therefore compare such and other advantages to a precious instrument
which it requires the skill of the workman to use. To ascribe
differences of civilizations to the differences of laws and political
institutions, is absolutely begging the question, for such institutions
are themselves an effect and an inherent portion of the civilization,
and when transplanted into foreign soils, never prosper. That the moral
and physical well-being of a nation will be better promoted when liberty
presides over her councils than when stern despotism sits at the helm,
no one can deny; but it is obvious that the nation must first be
prepared to receive the blessings of liberty, lest they prove a curse.
Here is the place for a few remarks upon the epithet Christian, applied
to our civilization. Mr. Gobineau justly observes, that he knows of no
social or political order of things to which this term may fitly be said
to belong. We may justly speak of a Brahminic, Buddhistic, Pagan, Judaic
civilization, because the social or political systems designated by
these appellations were intimately connected with a more or less
exclusive theocratical formula. Religion there prescribed everything:
social and political laws, government, manners, nay, in many instances,
dress and food. But one of the distinguishing characteristics of
Christianity is its universality. Right at the beginning it disclaimed
all interference in temporal affairs. Its precepts may be followed under
every system of government, in every path of life, every variety of
modes of existence. Such is, in substance, Mr. Gobineau's view of the
subject. To this I would add a few comments of my own. The error is not
one of recent date. Its baneful effects have been felt from almost the
first centuries of the establishment of the Church down to our times.
Human legislation ought, indeed, to be in strict accordance with the law
of God, but to commend one system as Christian, and proscribe another
as unchristian, is opening the door to an endless train of frightful
evils. This is what, virtually, they do who would call a civilization
Christian, for civilization is the aggregate social and political
development of a nation, or a race, and the political is always in
direct proportion to the social progress; both mutually influence each
other. By speaking of a Christian civilization, therefore, we assert
that some particular political as well as social system, is most
conformable to the spirit of our religion. Hence the union of church and
State, and the influence of the former in temporal affairs--an influence
which few enlightened churchmen, at least of our age, would wish to
claim. Not to speak of the danger of placing into the hands of any class
of men, however excellent, the power of declaring what legislation is
Christian or not, and thus investing them with supreme political as well
as spiritual authority; it is sufficient to point out the disastrous
effects of such a system to the interests of the church itself. The
opponents of a particular political organization become also the
opponents of the religion which advocates and defends it. The
indifferentism of Germany, once so zealous in the cause of religion, is
traceable to this source. The people are dissatisfied with their
political machinery, and hate the church which vindicates it, and
stigmatizes as impious every attempt at change. Indeed, one has but to
read the religious journals of Prussia, to understand the lukewarmness
of that people. Mr. Brace, in his _Home Life in Germany_, says that many
intelligent natives of that country had told him: Why should we go to
church to hear a sermon that extols an order of things which we know to
be wicked, and in the highest degree detestable? How can a religion be
true which makes adherence to such an order a fundamental article of its
creed?
One of the features of our constitution which Mr. De Tocqueville most
admires, is the utter separation of church and State. Mere religious
toleration practically prevails in most European countries, but this
total disconnection of the religious from the civil institutions, is
peculiar to the United States, and a lesson which it has given to the
rest of the world.
I do not mean that every one who makes use of the word Christian
civilization thereby implies a union of church and State, but I wish to
point out the principle upon which this expression is based, viz: that a
certain social and political order of things is more according to the
spirit of the Christian religion than another; and the consequences
which must, or at least may, follow from the practical acceptation of
this principle. Taking my view of the subject, few, I think, will
dispute that the term Christian civilization is a misnomer. Of the
civilizing influence of Christianity, I have spoken before, but this
influence would be as great in the Chinese or Hindoo civilizations,
without, in the least, obliterating their characteristic features.
Few terms of equal importance are so vaguely defined as the term
CIVILIZATION; few definitions are so difficult. In common parlance, the
word civilization is used to designate that moral, intellectual, and
material condition at which the so-called European race, whether
occupying the Eastern or the Western continent, has arrived in the
nineteenth century. But the nations comprised in this race differ from
one another so extensively, that it has been found necessary to invent a
new term: _enlightenment_. Thus, Great Britain, France, the United
States, Switzerland, several of the States of the German Confederacy,
Sweden, and Denmark, are called enlightened; while Russia, Spain,
Portugal, Italy, Brazil, and the South American republics are merely
civilized. Now, I ask, in what does the difference consist?
Is the diffusion of knowledge by popular education to be the test? Then
Great Britain and France would fall far below some countries now placed
in the second, or even third rank. Denmark and China would be the most
civilized countries in the world; nay, even Thibet, and the rest of
Central Asia, would take precedence before the present champions of
civilization. The whole of Germany and Switzerland would come next, then
the eastern and middle sections of the United States, then the southern
and western; and, after them, Great Britain and France. Still retaining
the same scale, Russia would actually be ranked above Italy, the native
clime of the arts. In Great Britain itself, Scotland would far surpass
England in civilization[13].
Is the perfection to which the arts are carried, the test of
civilization? Then Bavaria and Italy are the most civilized countries.
Then are we far behind the Greeks in civilization. Or, are the useful
arts to carry the prize? Then the people showing the greatest mechanical
genius is the most civilized.
Are political institutions to be the test? Then the question, "Which is
the best government?" must first be decided. But the philosophic answer
would be: "That which is best adapted to the genius of the people, and
therefore best answers the purposes for which all government is
instituted." Those who believe in the abstract superiority of any
governmental theory, may be compared to the tailor who would finish some
beau-ideal of a coat, without taking his customer's measure. We could
afford to laugh at such theorists, were not their schemes so often
recorded in blood in the annals of the world. Besides, if this test be
admitted, no two could agree upon what was a civilized community. The
panegyrist of constitutional monarchy would call England the only
civilized country; the admirer of municipal liberty would point to the
Hanse towns of the Middle Ages, and their miserable relics, the present
free cities of Germany; the friend of sober republicanism would exclude
from the pale of civilization all but the United States and Switzerland;
the lover of pure democracy would contend that mankind had retrograded
since the time of Athens, and deplore that civilization was now confined
to some few rude mountain or nomadic tribes with few and simple wants;
finally, the defender of a paternal autocracy would sigh for the days of
Trajan or Marcus Aurelius, and hesitate whether, in our age, Austria or
Russia deserved the crown.
Neither pre-eminence in arts and sciences, nor in popular instruction,
nor in government, can singly be taken as the test of civilization.
Pre-eminence in all, no country enjoys. Yet all these are signs of
civilization--the only ones by which we distinguish and recognize it.
How, then, shall we define this term? I would suggest a simple and, I
think, sufficiently explicit definition: Civilization is the continuous
development of man's moral and intellectual powers. As the aggregate of
these differs in different nations, so differs the character of their
civilization. In one, civilization manifests itself in the perfection of
the arts, either useful or polite; in another, in the cultivation of the
sciences; in a third; in the care bestowed upon politics, or, in the
diffusion of knowledge among the masses. Each has its own merits, each
its own defects; none combines the excellencies of all, but whichever
combines the most with fewest defects, may be considered the best, or
most perfect. It is because not keeping this obvious truth in view that
John Bull laughs (or used to laugh) self-complacently at Monsieur
Crapaud, and that we ourselves sometimes laugh at his political capers,
forgetting that the thinkers of his nation have, for the last century at
least, led the van in science and politics--yes, even in politics.[14]
It is, for the same reason, that the Frenchman laughs at the German, or
the Dutchman; that the foreigner cannot understand that there is an
_American civilization_ as well, and, bringing his own country's
standard along with him, finds everything either too little or too
great; or, that the American, going to the native soil of the ripest
scholars in the world, and seeing brick and mortar carried up by hand to
the fourth story of a building in process of erection,[15] or seeing
five men painfully perform a job which his youngest son would have
accomplished without trouble by the simplest, perhaps self-invented,
contrivance, revolves in his own mind how it is possible that these
people--when the schoolmaster is abroad, too--are still so many
centuries "behind the time." Thus each nation has its own standard by
which it judges its neighbors; but when extra-European nations, such as
the Chinese or Hindoos, are to be judged, all unite in voting them
_outside barbarians_.
Here, then, we have indubitable proofs of moral and intellectual
diversities, not only in what are generally termed different races, but
even in nations apparently belonging to the same race. Nor do I see in
this diversity ought that can militate against our ideas of universal
brotherhood. Among individuals, diversity of talent does not preclude
friendly intercourse; on the contrary, it promotes it, for rivals seldom
are friends. Neither does superior ability exempt us from the duties
which we owe to our fellow-man.
I have repeatedly made use of the analogy between societies and the
individuals that compose them. I cannot more clearly express my idea of
civilization than by recurring to it again. Civilization, then, is to
nations what the development of his physical and intellectual powers is
to an individual; indeed, it is nothing but the aggregate result of all
these individual powers; a common reservoir to which each contributes a
share, whether large or small. The analogy may be extended further.
Nations may be considered as themselves members of societies, bearing
the same relations to each other and to the whole, as individuals. Thus,
all the nations of Europe contribute, each in its own manner and degree,
to what has been called the _European_ civilization. And, in the same
manner, the nations of Asia form distinct systems of civilizations. But
all these systems ultimately tend to one great aim--the general welfare
of mankind. I would therefore carefully distinguish between the
civilizations of particular nations, of clusters of nations, and of the
whole of our species. To borrow a metaphor from the mechanism of the
universe, the first are like the planets of a solar system,
revolving--though in different orbits, and with different
velocities--around the same common centre; but the solar systems
again--with all their planets--revolve round another, more distant
point.
Let us take two individuals of undoubted intellect. One may be a great
mathematician, the other a great statesman. Place the first at the head
of a cabinet, the second in an observatory, and the mathematician will
as signally fail in correctly observing the changes in the political
firmament, as the other in noting those in the heavenly. Yet, who would
decide which had the superior intellect? This diversity of gifts is not
the result of education. No training, however ingenious, could have
changed an Arago into a Pitt, or _vice versa_. Raphael could under no
circumstances have become a Handel, or either of them a Milton. Nay, men
differ in following the same career. Can any one conceive that Michael
Angelo could ever have painted Vandyke's pictures, Shakspeare written
Milton's verses, Mozart composed Rossini's music, or Jefferson followed
Hamilton's policy? Here, then, we have excellencies, perhaps of equal
degree, but of very different kinds. Nature, from her inexhaustible
store, has not only unequally, but variously, bestowed her favors, and
this infinite variety of gifts, as infinite as the variety of faces, God
has doubtless designed for the happiness of men, and for their more
intimate union, in making them dependent one on another. As each
creature sings his Maker's praise in his own voice and cadence, the
sparrow in his twitter, the nightingale in her warble, so each human
being proclaims the Almighty's glory by the rightful use of his talents,
whether great or small, for the promotion of his fellow-creatures'
happiness; one may raise pious emotion in the breast by the tuneful
melody of his song; another by the beauty and vividness of his images on
canvas or in verse; a third discovers new worlds--additional evidences
of His omnipotence who made them--and, by his calculations,
demonstrates, even to the sceptic, the wonderful mechanism of the
universe; to another, again, it is given to guide a nation's councils,
and, by His assistance, to avert danger, or correct evils. Fie upon
those who would raise man's powers above those of God, and ascribe
diversity of talents to education and accident, rather than to His
wisdom and design. Can we not admire the Almighty as well in the variety
as in a fancied uniformity of His works? Harmony consists in the union
of different sounds; the harmony of the universe, in the diversity of
its parts.
What is true of a society composed of individuals, is true of that vast
political assemblage composed of nations. That each has a career to run
through, a destiny to fulfil, is my firm and unwavering belief. That
each must be gifted with peculiar qualities for that purpose, is a mere
corollary of the proposition. This has been the opinion of all ages:
"The men of Boeotia are noted for their stolidity, those of Attica for
their wit." Common parlance proves that it is now, to-day, the opinion
of all mankind, whatever theorists may say. Many affect to deride the
idea of "manifest destiny" that possesses us Anglo-Americans, but who in
the main doubts it? Who, that will but cast one glance on the map, or
look back upon our history of yesterday only, can think of seriously
denying that great purposes have been accomplished, will still be
accomplished, and that these purposes were designed and guided by
something more than blind chance? Unroll the page of history--of the
great chain of human events, it is true, we perceive but few links;
like eternity, its beginning is wrapt in darkness, its end a mystery
above human comprehension--but, in the vast drama presented to us, in
which nations form the cast, we see each play its part, then disappear.
Some, as Mr. Gobineau has it, act the kings and rulers, others are
content with inferior roles.
As it is incompatible with the wisdom of the Creator, to suppose that
each nation was not specially fitted[16] for the part assigned to it, we
may judge of what they were capable of by what they have accomplished.
History, then, must be our guide; and never was epoch more propitious,
for never has her lamp shone brighter. The study of this important
science, which Niebuhr truly calls the _magistra vitæ_, has received
within our days an impulse such as it never had before. The invaluable
archæological treasures which the linguists and antiquarians of Europe
have rescued from the literature and monuments of the great nations of
former ages, bring--as it were--back to life again the mouldered
generations of the dim past. We no longer content ourselves with
chronological outlines, mere names, and unimportant accounts of kings
and their quarrels; we seek to penetrate into the inner life of those
multitudes who acted their part on the stage of history, and then
disappeared, to understand the modes of thought, the feelings, ideas,
_instincts_, which actuated them, and made them what they were. The
hoary pyramids of the Nile valley are forced to divulge their age, the
date of a former civilization; the temples and sepulchres, to furnish a
minute account of even the private life of their builders;[17] the
arrow-headed characters on the disinterred bricks of the sites of
Babylon and Nineveh, are no longer a secret to the indefatigable
orientalists; the classic writers of Hindostan and China find their most
zealous scholiasts, and profoundest critics, in the capitals of Western
Europe. The dross of childish fables, which age after age has
transmitted to its successor under the name of history, is exposed to
the powerful furnace of reason and criticism, and the pure ore
extracted, by such men as Niebuhr, Heeren, Ranke, Gibbon, Grote. The
enthusiastic lover of ancient Rome now sees her early history in
clearer, truer colors than did her own historians.
But, if history is indispensable to ethnology, the latter is no less so
to a true understanding of history. The two sciences mutually shed light
on one another's path, and though one of them is as yet in its infancy,
its wonderful progress in so short a time, and the almost unparalleled
attention which it has excited at all hands, are bright omens for the
future. It will be obvious that, by _ethnology_, we do not mean
_ethnography_, with which it has long been synonymous. Their meaning
differs in the same manner, they bear almost the same relation to one
another as _geology_ and _geography_. While ethnography contents herself
with the mere description and classification of the races of man,
ethnology, to borrow the expressive language of the editor of the
_London Ethnological Journal_, "investigates the mental and physical
differences of mankind, and the organic laws upon which they depend;
seeks to deduce from these investigations principles of human guidance,
in all the important relations of social and national existence."[18]
The importance of this study cannot be better expressed than in the
words of a writer in the _North British Review_ for August, 1849: "No
one that has not worked much in the element of history, can be aware of
the immense importance of clearly keeping in view the differences of
race that are discernible among the nations that inhabit different parts
of the world.... In speculative history, in questions relating to the
past career and the future destinies of nations, _it is only by a firm
and efficient handling of this conception of our species, as broken up
into so many groups or masses, physiologically different to a certain
extent, that any progress can be made, or any available conclusions
accurately arrived at_."[19]
But in attempting to divide mankind into such groups, an ethnologist is
met by a serious and apparently insurmountable difficulty. The gradation
of color is so imperceptible from the clearest white to the jettest
black; and even anatomical peculiarities, normal in one branch, are
found to exist, albeit in exceptional cases, in many others; so that the
ethnographers scarce know where to stop in their classification, and
while some recognize but three grand varieties, others contend for five,
for eleven, or even for a much greater number. This difficulty arises,
in my estimation, mainly from the attempt to class mankind into
different species, that is, groups who have a separate origin; and
also, from the proneness to draw deductions from individual instances,
by which almost any absurdity can be sustained, or truth refuted. As we
have already inveighed against the latter error, and shall therefore try
to avoid falling into it; and as we have no desire to enter the field of
discussion about unity or plurality of species, we hope, in a great
measure, to obviate the difficulties that beset the path of so many
inquirers. By the word _race_[20] we mean, both here and in the body of
the work, such branches of the human family as are distinguished in the
aggregate by certain well-defined physical or mental peculiarities,
independent of the question whether they be of identical or diverse
origin. For the sake of simplicity, these races are arranged in several
principal classes, according to their relative affinities and
resemblances. The most popular system of arrangement is that of
Blumenbach, who recognizes five grand divisions, distinguished by
appellations descriptive either of color or geographical position, viz:
the White, Circassian, or European; the Yellow, Altaic, Asiatic, or
Mongolian; the Red, American, or Indian; the Brown, or Malay; and,
lastly, the Black, African, or negro. This division, though the most
commonly adopted, has no superior claims above any other. Not only are
its designations liable to very serious objections, but it is, in
itself, entirely arbitrary. The Hottentot differs as much from the negro
as the latter does from the Malay; and the Polynesian from the Malay
more than the American from the Mongolian. Upon the same principle,
then, the number of classes might be indefinitely extended. Mr. Gobineau
thought three classes sufficient to answer every purpose, and these he
calls respectively the white, yellow, and black. Mr. Latham,[21] the
great ethnographer, adopts a system almost precisely similar to our
author's, and upon grounds entirely different. Though, for my own part,
I should prefer a greater number of primary divisions, I confess that
this coincidence of opinion in two men, pursuing, independent of, and
unknown to each other, different paths of investigation, is a strong
evidence of the correctness of their system, which, moreover, has the
merit of great simplicity and clearness.
It must be borne in mind that the races comprised under these divisions,
are by no means to be considered equal among themselves. We should lay
it down as a general truth, that while the entire groups differ
principally in _degree_ of intellectual capacity, the races comprised in
each differ among themselves rather in kind. Thus, we assert upon the
testimony of history, that the white races are superior to the yellow;
and these, in turn, to the black. But the Lithuanian and the Anglo-Saxon
both belong to the same group of races, and yet, history shows that
they differ; so do the Samoyede and the Chinese, the negro of Lower
Guinea, and the Fellah. These differences, observable among nations
classed under the same head, as, for instance, the difference between
the Russians and Italians (both white), we express in every day's
language by the word "genius." Thus, we constantly hear persons speak of
the artistic, administrative, nautical genius of the Greeks, Romans, and
Phenicians, respectively; or, such phrases as these, which I borrow from
Mr. Gobineau: "Napoleon rightly understood the _genius_ of his nation
when he reinstated the Church, and placed the supreme authority on a
secure basis; Charles I. and his adviser did not, when they attempted to
bend the neck of Englishmen under the yoke of absolutism." But, as the
word _genius_ applied to the capacities or tendencies of a nation, in
general implies either too much or too little, it has been found
convenient, in this work, to substitute for it another term--_instinct_.
By the use of this word, it was not intended to assimilate man to the
brute, to express aught differing from intellect or the reasoning
capacity; but only to designate the peculiar manner in which that
intellect or reasoning capacity manifests itself; in other words, the
special adaptation of a nation for the part assigned to it in the
world's history; and, as this part is performed involuntarily and, for
the most part, unconsciously, the term was deemed neither improper nor
inappropriate. I do not, however, contend for its correctness, though I
could cite the authority of high names for its use in this sense; I
contend merely for its convenience, for we thereby gain an easy method
of making distinctions of _kind_ in the mental endowments of races, in
cases where we would hesitate to make distinctions of _degree_. In fact,
it is saying of multitudes only what we say of an individual by speaking
of his _talent_; with this difference, however, that by talent we
understand excellency of a certain order, while instinct applies to
every grade. Two persons of equal intellectual calibre may have, one a
talent for mathematics, the other for literature; that is, one can
exhibit his intellect to advantage only in calculation, the other only
in writing. Thus, of two nations standing equally high in the
intellectual scale, one shall be distinguished for the high perfection
attained in the fine arts, the other for the same perfection in the
useful.
At the risk of wearying the reader with my definitions, I must yet
inflict on him another which is essential to the right understanding of
the following pages. In common parlance, the terms _nation_ and
_people_ have become strictly synonymous. We speak indifferently of the
French people, or the French nation; the English people, or the English
nation. If we make any distinction at all, we perhaps designate by the
first expression the masses; by the second, rather the sovereignty.
Thus, we say the French people are versatile, the French nation is at
war with Russia. But even this distinction is not always made.
My purpose is to restore the word nation to its original signification,
in which it expresses the same as the word race, including, besides, the
idea of some sort of political organization. It is, in fact, nothing but
the Latin equivalent of that word, and was applied, like tribe, to a
collection of individuals not only living under the same government, but
also claiming a closer consanguinity to one another than to their
neighbors. It differs from tribe only in this respect, that it is
applied to greater multitudes, as for instance to a coalescence of
several closely-allied tribes, which gives rise to more complicated
political forms. It might therefore be defined by an ethnologist as _a
population consisting of homogeneous ethnical elements_.
The word _people_, on the contrary, when applied to an aggregation of
individuals living under the same government, implies no immediate
consanguineous ties among them. _Nation_ does not necessarily imply
political unity; _people_, always. Thus, we speak of the Greek _nation_,
though the Greeks were divided into a number of independent and very
dissimilar sovereignties; but, we say the Roman _people_, though the
whole population of the empire obeyed the same supreme head. The Russian
empire contains within its limits, besides the Russians proper, an
almost equal number of Cossacks, Calmucks, Tartars, Fins, and a number
of other races, all very different from one another and still more so
from the Russians, not only in language and external appearance, but in
manners, modes of thinking: in one word, in instincts. By the expression
Russian people I should therefore understand the whole population of
that empire; by Russian nation, only the dominant race to which the Czar
belongs. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of keeping
in view this distinction, as I shall prove by another instance. The
Hungarian people are very nearly equally divided (exclusive of about one
million Germans) into two nations, the Magyars and the Sclaves. Not only
have these two, though for centuries occupying the same soil, remained
unmixed and distinct, but the most intense antipathy exists between
them, which only requires an occasion to display itself in acts of
bloodshed and relentless cruelty, that would make the tenants of hell
shudder. Such an occasion was the recent revolution, in which, while the
Magyars fought like lions for their independence, the Sclaves, knowing
that they would not participate in any advantage the others might gain,
proved more formidable opponents than the Austrians.[22]
If I have been successful in my discrimination between the two words, it
follows plainly that a member of one nation, strictly speaking, can no
more become a member of another by process of law, than a man, by
adopting a child, can make it the fruit of his loins. This rule, though
correct in the abstract, does not always apply to individual cases; but
these, as has already been remarked, cannot be made the groundwork of
general deductions. In conclusion of this somewhat digressional
definition, I would observe that, owing to the great intermixture of the
European populations, produced by their various and intimate mutual
relations, it does not apply with the same force to them as to others,
and this I regard as the reason why the signification of the word has
become modified.
If we will carefully examine the history of great empires, we shall be
able, in almost every instance, to trace their beginning to the activity
of what, in the strictest sense of the word, may be called a nation.
Gradually, as the sphere of that nation expands, it incorporates, and in
course of time amalgamates with foreign elements.
Nimrod, we learn from sacred history, established the Assyrian empire.
At first, this consisted of but little more than the city of Babylon,
and must necessarily have contained a very homogeneous population, if
from no other cause than its narrow geographical limits. At the dawn of
profane history, however, we find this empire extending over boundless
tracts, and uniting under one rule tribes and nations of the most
dissimilar manners and tongues.
The Assyrian empire fell, and that of the Medes rose on its ruins. The
Median monarchy had an humble beginning. Dejoces, says tradition, united
the independent tribes of the Medes. Later, we find them ruling nations
whose language they did not understand, whose manners they despised.
The Persian empire exceeded in grandeur its mighty predecessors.
Originating in a rebellion of a few liberty-loving tribes, concerted and
successfully executed by a popular leader (Cyrus), two generations of
rulers extended its boundaries to the banks of the Nile. In Alexander's
time, it was a conglomeration of a countless number of nations, many of
whom remained under their hereditary rulers while rendering allegiance,
and paying tribute to the great king.
I pass over the Macedonian empire, as of too short a duration to be a
fair illustration. The germ of the Roman empire consisted of a
coalescence of very closely allied tribes: Romulus's band of adventurers
(who must have come from neighboring communities), the Sabines, Albans,
and Latins. At the period of its downfall, it ruled, at least nominally,
over every then known race.
In all these instances, the number of which might be further increased,
we find homogeneousness of population at first, ethnical mixture and
confusion at the end. "But what does this prove? will be asked. That too
great an extension of territory is the cause of weakness? The idea is
old, and out of date in our times, when steam and electricity bring the
outskirts of the largest empire in closer proximity than formerly were
the frontiers of the humblest sovereignty." Extension of territory does
not itself prove a cause of weakness and ruin. The largest empire in the
world is that of China, and, without steam or electricity, it has
maintained itself for 4,000 years, and bids fair, spite of the present
revolution, to last a good long while yet. But, when extension of
territory is attended with the incorporation of heterogeneous masses,
having different interests, different instincts, from the conqueror,
then indeed the extension must be an element of weakness, and not of
strength.
The armies which Xerxes led into Greece were not Persians; but a small
fragment of that motley congregation, the _élite_, the leaven of the
whole mass, was composed of the king's countrymen. Upon this small body
he placed his principal reliance, and when, at the fatal battle of
Salamis, he beheld the slaughter of that valiant and noble band, though
he had hundreds of thousands yet at his command, he rent his garments
and fled a country which he had well-nigh conquered. Here is the
difference between the armies of Cyrus and those of Xerxes and Darius.
The rabbles which obeyed the latter, perhaps contained as much valor as
the ranks of the enthusiastic followers of the first, though the fact
of their fighting under Persian standards might be considered as a proof
of their inferiority. But what interest had they in the success of the
great king? To forge still firmer their own fetters? Could the name of
Cyrus, the remembrance of the storming of Sardis, the siege of Babylon,
the conquest of Egypt, fire them with enthusiasm? Perhaps, in some of
those glorious events, their forefathers became slaves to the tyrants
they now serve, tyrants whose very language they do not understand.
The last armies of tottering Rome were drafted from every part of her
boundless dominions, and of the men who were sent to oppose the
threatening barbarians of the north, some, it might be, felt the blood
of humbled Greece in their veins; some had been torn from a distant home
in Egypt, or Libya; others, perhaps, remembered with pride how their
ancestors had fought the Romans in the times of Juba, or Mithridates;
others, again, boiled with indignation at the oppression of their Gallic
brethren;--could those men respect the glorious traditions of Rome,
could they be supposed to emulate the former legions of the proud city?
It is not, then, an extensive territory that ruins nations; it is a
diversity of instincts, a clashing of interests among the various parts
of the population. When each province is isolated in feelings and
interests from every other, no external foe is wanted to complete the
ruin. Ambitious and adroit men will soon arise who know how to play upon
these interests, and employ them for the promotion of their own schemes.
Nations, in the various stages of their career, have often been compared
to individuals. They have, it is said, their period of infancy, of
youth, of manhood, of old age. But the similitude, however striking, is
not extended further, and, while individuals die a natural death,
nations are supposed always to come to a violent end. Probably, we do
not like to concede that all nations, like all individuals, must
ultimately die a natural death, even though no disease anticipates it;
because we dislike to recognize a rule which must apply to us as well.
Each nation fancies its own vitality imperishable. When we are young, we
seldom seriously think of death; in the same manner, societies in the
period of their youthful vigor and energy, cannot conceive the
possibility of their dissolution. In old age and decrepitude, they are
like the consumptive patient, who, while fell disease is severing the
last thread that binds him to the earth, is still forming plans for
years to come. Falling Rome dreamed herself eternal. Yet, the mortality
of nations admits of precisely the same proof as that of
individuals--universal experience. The great empires that overshadowed
the world, where are they? The memory of some is perpetuated in the
hearts of mankind by imperishable monuments; of others, the slightest
trace is obliterated, the vaguest remembrance vanished. As the great
individual intelligences, whose appearance marks an era in the history
of human thought, live in the minds of posterity, even though no
gorgeous tombstone points out the resting-place of their hull of clay;
while the mausoleum of him whose grandeur was but temporary, whose
influence transient only, carries no meaning on its sculptured surface
to after ages; even so the ancient civilizations which adorned the
globe, if their monuments be not in the domain of thought, their
gigantic vestiges serve but to excite the wonder of the traveller and
antiquary, and perplex the historian. Their sepulchres, however grand,
are mute.[23]
Many have been the attempts to detect the causes why nations die, in
order to prevent that catastrophe; as the physicians of the Middle Ages,
who thought death was always the consequence of disease, sought for the
panacea that was to cure all ills and thus prolong life forever. But
nations, like individuals, often survive the severest attacks of the
most formidable disease, and die without sickness. In ancient times,
those great catastrophes which annihilated the political existence of
millions, were regarded as direct interpositions of Providence, visiting
in its wrath the sins of a nation, and erecting a warning example for
others; just as the remarkable destruction of a noted individual, or the
occurrence of an unusual phenomenon was, and by many is even now,
ascribed to the same immediate agency. But when philosophy discovered
that the universe is governed by pre-established, immutable laws, and
refused to credit miracles not sanctioned by religion; then the dogma
gained ground that punishment follows the commission of sin, as effect
does the cause; and national calamities had to be explained by other
reasons. It was then said, nations die of luxury, immorality, bad
government, irreligion, etc. In other words, success was made the test
of excellency and failure of crime. If, in individual life, we were to
lay it down as an infallible rule, that he who commits no excesses lives
forever, or at least very long; and he who does, will immediately die;
that he who is honest in his dealings, will always prosper more than he
who is not; we should have a very fluctuating standard of morality,
since it has pleased God to sometimes try the good by severe
afflictions, and let the wicked prosper. We should therefore be often
called upon to admire what is deserving of contempt or punishment, and
to seek for guilt in the innocent. This is what we do in nations. Wicked
institutions have been called good, because they were attended with
success; good ones have been pronounced bad, because they failed.
A more critical study of history has demonstrated the fallibility of
this theory, which is now in a great measure discarded, and another
adopted in its stead. It is argued that, at a certain period in its
existence, a nation infallibly becomes degenerated, and thus falls. But,
asks Mr. Gobineau, what is degeneracy? A nation is said to be
degenerated when the virtues of its ancestry are lost. But why are they
lost? Because the nation is degenerated. Is not this like the reasoning
in the child's story-book: Why is Jack a bad boy? Because he disobeys
his parents. Why does he disobey his parents? Because he is a bad boy.
It is necessary, then, to show what degeneracy is. This step in advance,
Mr. Gobineau attempts to make. He shows that each race is distinguished
by certain capabilities, which, if its civilizing genius is sufficiently
strong to enable it to assume a rank among the nations of the world,
determine the character of its social and political development. Like
the Phenicians, it may become the merchant and barterer of the world;
or, like the Greeks, the teacher of future generations; or, like the
Romans, the model-giver of laws and forms. Its part in the drama of
history may be an humble one or a proud, but it is always proportionate
to its powers. These powers, and the instincts or aspirations which
spring from them, never change as long as the race remains pure. They
progress and develop themselves, but never alter their nature. The
purposes of the race are always the same. It may arrive at great
perfection in the useful arts, but, without infiltration of a different
element, will never be distinguished for poetry, painting, sculpture,
etc.; and _vice versa_. Its nature may be belligerent, and it will
always find causes for quarrel; or it may be pacific, and then it will
manage to live at peace, or fall a prey to a neighbor.
In the same manner, the government of a race will be in accordance with
its instincts, and here I have the weighty authority of the author of
_Democracy in America_, in my favor, and the author's whom I am
illustrating. "A government," says De Tocqueville,[24] "retains its sway
over a great number of citizens, far less by the voluntary and rational
consent of the multitude, than by that _instinctive_, and, to a certain
extent, involuntary agreement, which results from similarity of
feelings, and resemblances of opinions. I will never admit that men
constitute a social body, simply because they obey the same head and the
same laws. A society can exist only when a great number of men consider
a great number of things in the same point of view; when they hold the
same opinions upon many subjects, and when the same occurrences suggest
the same thoughts and impressions to their minds." The laws and
government of a nation are always an accurate reflex of its manners and
modes of thinking. "If, at first, it would appear," says Mr. Gobineau,
"as if, in some cases, they were the production of some superior
individual intellect, like the great law-givers of antiquity; let the
facts be more carefully examined, and it will be found that the
law-giver--if wise and judicious--has contented himself with consulting
the genius of his nation, and giving a voice to the common sentiment.
If, on the contrary, he be a theorist like Draco, his system remains a
dead letter, soon to be superseded by the more judicious institutions of
a Solon who aims to give to his countrymen, not the best laws possible,
but the best he thinks them capable of receiving." It is a great and a
very general error to suppose that the sense of a nation will always
decide in favor of what we term "popular" institutions, that is to say,
such in which each individual shares more or less immediately in the
government. Its genius may tend to the establishment of absolute
authority, and in that case the autocrat is but an impersonation of the
_vox populi_, by which he must be guided in his policy. If he be too
deaf or rash to listen to it, his own ruin will be the inevitable
consequence, but the nation persists in the same career.
The meaning of the word degeneracy is now obvious. This inevitable evil
is concealed in the very successes to which a nation owes its splendor.
Whether, like the Persians, Romans, &c., it is swallowed up and
absorbed by the multitudes its arms have subjected, or whether the
ethnical mixture proceeds in a peaceful manner, the result is the same.
Even where no foreign conquests add suddenly hundreds of thousands of a
foreign population to the original mass, the fertility of uncultivated
fields, the opulence of great commercial cities, and all the advantages
to be found in the bosom of a rising nation, accomplish it, if in a less
perceptible, in a no less certain manner. The two young nations of the
world are now the United States and Russia. See the crowds which are
thronging over the frontiers of both. Both already count their foreign
population by millions. As the original population--the initiatory
element of the whole mass--has no additions to its numbers but its
natural increase, it follows that the influent elements must, in course
of time, be of equal strength, and the influx still continuing, finally
absorb it altogether. Sometimes a nation establishes itself upon the
basis of a much more numerous conquered population, as in the case of
the Frankish conquerors of Gaul; then the amalgamation of ranks and
classes produces the same results as foreign immigration. It is clear
that each new ethnical element brings with it its own characteristics or
instincts, and according to the relative strength of these will be the
modifications in government, social relations, and the whole tendencies
of the race. The modifications may be for the better, they may be for
the worse; they may be very gradual, or very sudden, according to the
merit and power of the foreign influence; but in course of time they
will amount to radical, positive changes, and then the original nation
has ceased to exist.
This is the natural death of human societies. Sometimes they expire
gently and almost imperceptibly; oftener with a convulsion and a crash.
I shall attempt to explain my meaning by a familiar simile. A mansion is
built which in all respects suits the taste and wants of the owner.
Succeeding generations find it too small, too dark, or otherwise ill
adapted to their purposes. Respect for their progenitor, and family
association, prevent, at first, very extensive changes, still each one
makes some; and as these associations grow fainter, the changes become
more radical, until at last nothing of the old house remains. But if it
had previously passed into the hands of a stranger, who had none of
these associations to venerate and respect, he would probably have
pulled it down at once and built another.
An empire, then, falls, when the vitalizing principle which gave it
birth is exhausted; when its parts are connected by none but artificial
ties, and artificial ties are all those which unite races possessed of
different instincts. This idea is expressed in the beautiful image of
the inspired prophet, when he tells the mighty king that great truth,
which so many refuse to believe, that all earthly kingdoms must perish
until "the God of Heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be
destroyed."[25] "Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This
great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee, and the
form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his
breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his
legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till
that a stone was cut without hands, which smote the image upon his feet
that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron,
the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces
together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and
the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them."[26]
I have now illustrated, to the best of my abilities, several of the most
important propositions of Mr. Gobineau, and attempted to sustain them
by arguments and examples different from those used by the author. For a
more perfect exposition I must refer the reader to the body of the work.
My purpose was humbly to clear away such obstacles as the author has
left in the path, and remove difficulties that escaped his notice. The
task which I have set myself, would, however, be far from accomplished,
were I to pass over what I consider a serious error on his part, in
silence and without an effort at emendation.
Civilization, says Mr. Gobineau, arises from the combined action and
mutual reaction of man's moral aspirations, and the pressure of his
material wants. This, in a general sense, is obviously true. But let us
see the practical application. I shall endeavor to give a concise
abstract of his views, and then to point out where and why he errs.
In some races, says he, the spiritual aspirations predominate over their
physical desires, in others it is the reverse. In none are either
entirely wanting. According to the relative proportion and intensity of
either of these influences, which counteract and yet assist each other,
the tendency of the civilization varies. If either is possessed in but a
feeble degree, or if one of them so greatly outweighs the other as to
completely neutralize its effects, there is no civilization, and never
can be one until the race is modified by intermixture with one of higher
endowments. But if both prevail to a sufficient extent, the
preponderance of either one determines the character of the
civilization. In the Chinese, it is the material tendency that prevails,
in the Hindoo the other. Consequently we find that in China,
civilization is principally directed towards the gratification of
physical wants, the perfection of material well-being. In other words,
it is of an eminently utilitarian character, which discourages all
speculation not susceptible of immediate practical application.
This well describes the Chinese, and is precisely the picture which M.
Huc, who has lived among them for many years, and has enjoyed better
opportunities for studying their genius than any other writer, gives of
them in his late publication.[27]
Hindoo culture, on the contrary, displays a very opposite tendency.
Among that nation, everything is speculative, nothing practical. The
toils of human intellect are in the regions of the abstract where the
mind often loses itself in depths beyond its sounding. The material
wants are few and easily supplied. If great works are undertaken, it is
in honor of the gods, so that even their physical labor bears homage to
the invisible rather than the visible world. This also is a tolerably
correct picture.
He therefore divides all races into these two categories, taking the
Chinese as the type of the one and the Hindoos as that of the other.
According to him, the yellow races belong pre-eminently to the former,
the black to the latter, while the white are distinguished by a greater
intensity and better proportion of the qualities of both. But this
division, and no other is consistent with the author's proposition, by
assuming that in the black races the moral preponderates over the
physical tendency, comes in direct conflict not only with the plain
teachings of anatomy, but with all we know of the history of those
races. I shall attempt to show wherein Mr. Gobineau's error lies, an
error from the consequences of which I see no possibility for him to
escape, and suggest an emendation which, so far from invalidating his
general position, tends rather to confirm and strengthen it. In doing
so, I am actuated by the belief that even if I err, I may be useful by
inviting others more capable to the task of investigation. Suggestions
on important subjects, if they serve no other purpose than to provoke
inquiry, are never useless. The alchemists of the Middle Ages, in their
frivolous pursuit of impossibilities, discovered many invaluable secrets
of nature and laid the foundation of that science which, by explaining
the intimate mutual action of all natural bodies, has become the
indispensable handmaiden of almost every other.
The error, it seems to me, lies in the same confusion of distinct ideas,
to which I had already occasion to advert. In ordinary language, we
speak of the physical and moral nature of man, terming physical whatever
relates to his material, and moral what relates to his immaterial being.
Again, we speak of _mind_, and though in theory we consider it as a
synonyme of soul, in practical application it has a very different
signification. A person may cultivate his mind without benefiting his
soul, and the term _a superior mind_, does not necessarily imply moral
excellency. That mental qualifications or acquisitions are in no way
connected with sound morality or true piety, I have pointed out before.
Should any further illustrations be necessary, I might remark that the
greatest monsters that blot the page of history, have been, for the most
part, men of what are called superior minds, of great intellectual
attainments. Indeed, wickedness is seldom very dangerous, unless joined
to intellect, as the common sense of mankind has expressed in the adage
that a fool is seldom a knave. We daily see men perverting the highest
mental gifts to the basest purposes, a fact which ought to be carefully
weighed by those who believe that education consists in the cultivation
of the intellect only. I therefore consider the moral endowments of man
as practically different from the mental or intellectual, at least in
their manifestations, if not in their essence. To define my idea more
clearly, let me attempt to explain the difference between what I term
the moral and the intellectual nature of man. I am aware of the
dangerous nature of the ground I am treading, but shall nevertheless
make the attempt to show that it is in accordance with the spirit of
religion to consider what in common parlance is called the moral
attributes of man, and which would be better expressed by the word
_psychical_, as divisible into two, the strictly moral, and the
intellectual.
The former is what leads man to look beyond his earthly existence, and
gives even the most brutish savage some vague idea of a Deity. I am
making no rash or unfounded assertion when I declare, Mr. Locke's
weighty opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, that no tribe has ever
been discovered in which some notion of this kind, however rude, was
wanting, and I consider it innate--a yearning, as it were, of the soul
towards the regions to which it belongs. The feeling of religion is
implanted in our breast; it is not a production of the intellect, and
this the Christian church confirms when it declares that _faith_ we owe
to the grace of God.
Intellect is that faculty of soul by which it takes cognizance of,
classes and compares the facts of the _material_ world. As all
perceptions are derived through the senses, it follows that upon the
nicety of these its powers must in a great measure depend. The vigor and
delicacy of the nerves, and the size and texture of the brain in which
they all centre, form what we call native intellectual gifts. Hence,
when the body is impaired, the mind suffers; "mens sana in corpore
sano;" hence, a fever prostrates, and may forever destroy, the most
powerful intellect; a glass of wine may dim and distort it. Here, then,
is the grand distinction between soul and mind. The latter, human
wickedness may annihilate; the former, man killeth not. I should wish to
enter more fully upon this investigation, not new, indeed, in
speculative science, yet new in the application I purpose to make of it,
were it not for fear of wearying my reader, to whom my only apology can
be, that the discussion is indispensable to the proper investigation of
the moral and intellectual diversities of races. When I say moral
diversities, I do not mean that man's moral endowments, strictly
speaking, are unequal. This assertion I am not prepared to make,
because--as religion is accessible and comprehensible to them all--it
may be supposed that these are in all cases equal. But I mean that the
manifestation of these moral endowments varies, owing to causes which I
am now about to consider. I have said that the moral nature of man leads
him to look beyond the confines of the material world. This, when not
assisted by revelation, he attempts to do by means of his intellect. The
intellect is, as it were, the visual organ by which the soul scans the
abyss between the present and the future existence. According to the
dimness or brightness of this mental eye, are his perceptions. If the
intellectual capacity is weak, he is content with a grovelling
conception of the Deity; if powerful, he erects an elaborate fabric of
philosophical speculations. But, as the Almighty has decreed that human
intellect, even in its sublimest flight, cannot soar to His presence; it
follows that the most elaborate fabric of the philosopher is still a
_human_ fabric, that the most perfect human theology is still _human_,
and hence--the necessity of revelation. This divine light, which His
mercy has vouchsafed us, dispenses with, and eclipses, the feeble
glimmerings of human intellect. It illumines as well the soul of the
rude savage as of the learned theologian; of the illiterate as of the
erudite. Nay, very often the former has the advantage, for the erudite
philosopher is prone to think his own lamp all-sufficient. If it be
objected that a highly cultivated mind, if directed to rightful
purposes, will assist in gaining a _nobler_ conception of the Deity, I
shall not contradict, for in the study of His works, we learn still more
to admire the Maker. But I insist that true piety can, and does exist
without it, and let those who trust so much in their own powers beware
lest they lean upon a broken staff.
The strictly moral attributes of man, therefore, those attributes which
enable him to communicate with his Maker, are common--probably in equal
degree--to all men, and to all races of men. But his communications with
the external world depend on his physical conformation. The body is the
connecting link between the spirit and the material world, and, by its
intimate relations to both, specially adapted to be the means of
communication between them. There seems to me nothing irrational or
irreligious in the doctrine that, according to the perfectness of this
means of communication, must be the intercourse between the two. A
person with dull auditory organs can never appreciate music, and
whatever his talents otherwise may be, can never become a Meyerbeer or a
Mozart. Upon quickness of perception, power of analysis and combination,
perseverance and endurance, depend our intellectual faculties, both in
their degree and their kind; and are not they blunted or otherwise
modified in a morbid state of the body? I consider it therefore
established beyond dispute, that a certain general physical conformation
is productive of corresponding mental characteristics. A human being,
whom God has created with a negro's skull and general _physique_, can
never equal one with a Newton's or a Humboldt's cranial development,
though the soul of both is equally precious in the eyes of the Lord, and
should be in the eyes of all his followers. There is no tendency to
materialism in this idea; I have no sympathy with those who deny the
existence of the soul, because they cannot find it under the scalpel,
and I consider the body not the mental agent, but the servant, the tool.
It is true that science has not discovered, and perhaps never will
discover, what physical differences correspond to the differences in
individual minds. Phrenology, starting with brilliant promises, and
bringing to the task powers of no mean order, has failed. But there is a
vast difference between the characteristics by which we distinguish
individuals of the same race, and those by which we distinguish
races themselves. The former are not strictly--at least not
immediately--hereditary, for the child most often differs from both
parents in body and mind, because no two individuals, as no two leaves
of one tree, are precisely alike. But, although every oak-leaf differs
from its fellow, we know the leaf of the oak-tree from that of the
beech, or every other; and, in the same manner, races are distinguished
by peculiarities which are hereditary and permanent. Thus, every negro
differs from every other negro, else we could not tell them apart; yet
all, if pure blood, have the same characteristics in common that
distinguish them from the white. I have been prolix, but intentionally
so, in my discrimination between individual distinction and those of
race, because of the latter, comparative anatomy takes cognizance; the
former are left to phrenology, and I wished to remove any suspicion that
in the investigation of moral and intellectual diversities of races,
recourse must be had to the ill-authenticated speculations of a dubious
science. But, from the data of comparative anatomy, attained by a slow
and cautious progress, we deduce that races are distinguished by certain
permanent physical characteristics; and, if these physical
characteristics correspond to the mental, it follows as an obvious
conclusion that the latter are permanent also. History ratifies the
conclusion, and the common sense of mankind practically acquiesces in
it.
To return, then, to our author. I would add to his two elements of
civilization a third--intellect _per se_; or rather, to speak more
correctly, I would subdivide one of his elements into two, of which one
is probably dependent on physical conformation. The combinations will
then be more complex, but will remove every difficulty.
I remarked that although we may consider all races as possessed of equal
moral endowments, we yet may speak of moral diversities; because,
without the light of revelation, man has nothing but his intellect
whereby to compass the immaterial world, and the manifestation of his
moral faculties must therefore be in proportion to the clearness of his
intellectual, and their preponderance over the animal tendencies. The
three I consider as existing about in the following relative proportions
in the three great groups under which Mr. Gobineau and Mr. Latham[28]
have arranged the various races--a classification, however, which, as I
already observed, I cannot entirely approve.
BLACK RACES, OR YELLOW RACES, OR WHITE RACES, OR
ATLANTIDÆ.[29] MONGOLIDÆ.[29] JAPETIDÆ.[29]
INTELLECT Feeble Mediocre Vigorous.
ANIMAL }
PROPENSITIES } Very strong Moderate Strong.
MORAL } Partially Comparatively Highly
MANIFESTATIONS } latent developed cultivated.
But the races comprised in each group vary among themselves, if not with
regard to the relative proportion in which they possess the elements of
civilization, at least in their intensity. The following formulas will,
I think, apply to the majority of cases, and, at the same time, bring
out my idea in a clearer light:--
If the animal propensities are strongly developed, and not tempered by
the intellectual faculties, the moral conceptions must be exceedingly
low, because they necessarily depend on the clearness, refinement, and
comprehensiveness of the ideas derived from the material world through
the senses. The religious cravings will, therefore, be contented with a
gross worship of material objects, and the moral sense degenerate into
a grovelling superstition. The utmost elevation which a population, so
constituted, can reach, will be an unconscious impersonation of the good
aspirations and the evil tendencies of their nature under the form of a
good and an evil spirit, to the latter of which absurd and often bloody
homage is paid. Government there can be no other than the right which
force gives to the strong, and its forms will be slavery among
themselves, and submissiveness of all to a tyrannical absolutism.
When the same animal propensities are combined with intellect of a
higher order, the moral faculties have more room for action. The
penetration of intellect will not be long in discovering that the
gratification of physical desires is easiest and safest in a state of
order and stability. Hence a more complex system of legislation both
social and political. The conceptions of the Deity will be more elevated
and refined, though the idea of a future state will probably be
connected with visions of material enjoyment, as in the paradise of the
Mohammedans.
Where the animal propensities are weak and the intellect feeble, a
vegetating national life results. No political organization, or of the
very simplest kind. Few laws, for what need of restraining passions
which do not exist. The moral sense content with the vague recognition
of a superior being, to whom few or no rites are rendered.
But when the animal propensities are so moderate as to be subordinate to
an intellect more or less vigorous, the moral aspirations will yearn
towards the regions of the abstract. Religion becomes a system of
metaphysics, and often loses itself in the mazes of its own subtlety.
The political organization and civil legislation will be simple, for
there are few passions to restrain; but the laws which regulate social
intercourse will be many and various, and supposed to emanate directly
from the Deity.
Strong animal passions, joined to an intellect equally strong, allow the
greatest expanse for the moral sense. Political organizations the most
complex and varied, social and civil laws the most studied, will be the
outward character of a society composed of such elements. Internally we
shall perceive the greatest contrasts of individual goodness and
wickedness. Religion will be a symbolism of human passions and the
natural elements for the many, an ingenious fabric of moral speculations
for the few.
I have here rapidly sketched a series of pictures from nature, which
the historian and ethnographer will not fail to recognize. Whether the
features thus cursorily delineated are owing to the causes to which I
ascribe them, I must leave for the reader to decide. My space is too
limited to allow of my entering into an elaborate argumentation. But I
would observe that, by taking this view of the subject, we can
understand why all human--and therefore false--religions are so
intimately connected with the social and political organization of the
peoples which profess them, and why they are so plainly mapped out on
the globe as belonging to certain races, to whom alone they are
applicable, and beyond whose area they cannot extend: while Christianity
knows no political or social forms, no geographical or ethnological
limits. The former, being the productions of human intellect, must vary
with its variation, and perish in its decay, while revelation is
universal and immutable, like the Intelligence of which it is the
emanation.
It is time now to conclude the task, the accomplishment of which has
carried me far beyond the limits I had at first proposed to myself. If I
have so long detained the reader on the threshold of the edifice, it was
to facilitate his after progress, and to give him a chart, that he may
not lose himself in the vast field it covers. There he may often meet
me again, and if I be sometimes deemed officious with my proffered
explanations, he will at least give me credit for good intentions, and
he may, if he chooses, pass me without recognition. Both this
introduction and notes in the body of the work were thought necessary
for several reasons. First, the subject is in some measure a new one,
and it was important to guard against misconception, and show, right at
the beginning, what was attempted to be proved, and in what manner.
Secondly, the author wrote for a European public, and many allusions are
made, or positions taken, upon an assumed knowledge of facts, of which
the general reader on this side of the ocean can be supposed to have but
a slight and vague apprehension. Thirdly, the author has, in many cases,
contented himself with abstract reasoning, and therefore is sometimes
chargeable with obscureness, on which account familiar illustrations
have been supplied. Fourthly, the volume now presented to the reader is
one of a series of four, the remainder of which, if this meets the
public approbation, may in time appear in an English garb. But it was
important to make this, as much as possible, independent of the others
and complete in itself. The discussion of the moral and intellectual
diversities of the various groups of the human family, is, as I have
before shown, totally independent of the question of unity or diversity
of species; yet, as it increases the interest attached to the solution
of that question, which has been but imperfectly discussed by the
author, my esteemed friend, Dr. J. C. Nott, who has so often and so ably
treated the subject, has promised to furnish, in notes and an appendix,
such additional facts pertaining to his province as a naturalist, as may
assist the reader in arriving at a correct opinion.
With regard to the translation, it must be observed that it is not a
_literal_ rendering of the original. The translator has aimed rather at
giving the meaning, than the exact words or phraseology of the author,
at no time, however, departing from the former. He has, in some
instances, condensed or omitted what seemed irrelevant, or useless to
the discussion of the question in this country, and in a few cases, he
has transposed a sentence to a different part of the paragraph, where it
seemed more in its place, and more effective. To explain and justify
these alterations, we must remind our readers that the author wrote for
a public essentially different from that of the translator; that
continental writers on grave subjects are in general more intent upon
vindicating their opinions than the form in which they express them,
and seldom devote that attention to style which English or American
readers expect; to which may be added that Count Gobineau wrote in the
midst of a multiplicity of diplomatic affairs, and had no time, even if
he had thought it worth his while, to give his work that literary finish
which would satisfy the fastidious. Had circumstances permitted, this
translation would have been submitted to his approbation, but at the
time of its going to press he is engaged in the service of his country
at the court of Persia.
* * * * *
For obtruding the present work on the notice of the American public, no
apology will be required. The subject is one of immense importance, and
especially in this country, where it can seldom be discussed without
adventitious circumstances biassing the inquirers. To the
philanthropist, the leading idea of the book, "that different races,
like different individuals, are specially fitted for special purposes,
for the fulfilment of which they are accountable in the measure laid
down in Holy Writ: 'To whom much is given, from him much will be asked,'
and that they are _equal_ only when they truly and faithfully perform
the duties of their station"--to the philanthropist, this idea must be
fraught with many valuable suggestions. So far from loosening the ties
of brotherhood, it binds them closer, because it teaches us not to
despise those who are endowed differently from us; and shows us that
they, too, may have excellencies which we have not.
To the statesman, the student of history, and the general reader, it is
hoped that this volume will not be altogether useless, and may assist to
a better understanding of many of the problems that have so long puzzled
the philosopher. The greatest revolutions in national relations have
been accomplished by the migrations of races, the most calamitous wars
that have desolated the globe have been the result of the hostility of
races. Even now, a cloud is lowering in the horizon. The friend of peace
and order watches it with silent anxiety, lest he hasten its coming. The
spirit of mischief exults in its approach, but fears to betray his
plans. Thus, western and central Europe now present the spectacle of a
lull before the storm. Monarchs sit trembling on their thrones, while
nations mutter curses. Nor have premonitory symptoms been wanting. Three
times, within little more than half a century, have the eruptions of
that ever-burning political volcano--France--shaken the social and
political system of the civilized world, and shown the amount of
combustible materials, which all the efforts of a ruling class cannot
always protect from ignition. The grand catastrophe may come within our
times. And, is it the result of any particular social condition, the
action of any particular class in the social scale, the diffusion of any
particular political principles? No, because the revolutionary
tendencies are various, and even opposite; if republican in one place,
monarchical in another; if democratic in France, aristocratic in Poland.
Nor is it a particular social class wherein the revolutionary principle
flourishes, for the classes which, in one country, wish subversion, in
another, are firmly attached to the established order of things. The
poor in Germany are proletarians and revolutionists; in Spain, Portugal,
and Italy, the enthusiastic lovers of their king. The better classes in
the former country are mostly conservative; in the latter, they are the
makers, or rather attempters, of revolutions. Nor is it any particular
social condition, for no class is so degraded as it has been; never was
poverty less, and prosperity greater in Europe than in the present
century; and everywhere the political institutions are more liberal than
ever before. Whence, then, this gathering storm? Does it exist only in
the minds of the visionary, or is it a mere bugbear of the timorous? Ask
the prudent statesman, the traveller who pierces the different strata of
the population; look behind the grates of the State-prisons; count--if
this be possible--the number of victims of military executions in
Germany and Austria, in 1848 and 1849; read the fearful accounts of the
taking of Vienna, of Rome, of Ancona, of Venice, during the same short
space of time. Everywhere the same cry: Nationality. It is not the
temporary ravings of a mob rendered frantic by hunger and misery. It is
a question of nationality, a war of races. Happy we who are removed from
the immediate scene of the struggle, and can be but remotely affected by
it. Yet, while I write, it seems as though the gales of the Atlantic had
blown to our peaceful shores some taints of the epidemic that rages in
the Old World. May it soon pass over, and a healthy atmosphere again
prevail!
H. H.
MOBILE, Aug. 20, 1855.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Researches into the Physical History of Mankind_. By James Cowles
Prichard, M. D., London, 1841. Vol. i. p. 1.
[2] "Mr. Prichard's _permanent variety_, from his own definition, is to
all intents and purposes _a species_."--_Kneeland's Introduction to
Hamilton Smith's Natural History of the Human Species_, p. 84.
[3] Smith's Wealth of Nations, Amer. ed., vol. i. p. 29.
[4] _Vide_ Bigland's Effects of Physical and Moral Causes on the
Character and Circumstances of Nations. London, 1828, p. 282.
[5] _Op. cit._, p. 7.
[6] St. Matthew, ch. xi. v. 25.
[7] _Vide_ Prichard's _Natural History of Man_, p. 66, _et passim_. "His
theory," says Van Amringe, "required that animals should be analogous to
man. It was therefore highly important that, as he was then laying the
foundation for all his future arguments and conclusions, he should
elevate animals to the proper eminence, to be analogous; rather than, as
Mr. Lawrence did, sink man to the level of brutes. It was an ingenious
contrivance by which he could gain all the advantages, and escape the
censures of the learned lecturer. It is so simple a contrivance,
too--merely substituting the word 'psychological' for 'instinctive
characteristics,' and the whole animal kingdom would instantly rise to
the proper platform, to be the types of the human family. To get the
psychology of men and animals thus related, without the trouble of
philosophically accomplishing so impossible a thing, by the mere use of
a word, was an ingenious, though not an ingenuous achievement. It gave
him a specious right to use bees and wasps, rats and dogs, sheep, goats,
and rabbits--in short, the whole animal kingdom--as human psychical
analogues, which would be amazingly convenient when conclusions were to
be made."--_Natural History of Man_, by W. F. VAN AMRINGE. 1848, p. 459.
[8] This fact is considered by Dr. Nott as a proof of _specific_
difference among dogs.--_Types of Mankind._ Phila., 1854.
[9] In 1497, Vasco di Gama sailed around Cape Good Hope; even previous
to that, Portuguese vessels had coasted along the western shores of
Africa. Since that time the Europeans have subjected the whole of the
American continents, southern Asia and the island world of the Pacific,
while Africa is almost as unknown as it ever was. The Cape Colony is not
in the original territory of the negro. Liberia and Sierra Leone contain
a half-breed population, and present experiments by no means tested. It
may be fairly asserted that nowhere has the power and intelligence of
the white race made less impression, produced fewer results, than in the
domain of the negro.
[10] Roberts, the president of the Liberian Republic, boasts of but a
small portion of African blood in his veins. Sequoyah, the often-cited
inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, so far from being a pure Indian, was
the son of a white man.
[11] For the great perfection to which the Chinese have carried the
luxuries and amenities of life, see particularly M. Huc's _Travels in
China_. He lived among them for years, and, what few travellers do,
spoke their language so fluently and perfectly that he was enabled,
during a considerable number of years, to discharge the duties of a
missionary, disguised as a native.
[12] It would be useless to remind our readers of the famous Great Wall,
the Imperial Canals, that largest of the cities of the world--Pekin. The
various treatises of the Chinese on morals and politics, especially that
of Confucius, have been admired by all European thinkers. _Consult
Pauthier's elaborate work on China._ It is equally well known that the
Chinese knew the art of printing, gunpowder and its uses, the mariner's
compass, etc., centuries before we did. For the general diffusion of
elementary knowledge among the Chinese, see _Davis's Sketches_, and
other authors. Those who may think me a biassed panegyrist of the
Chinese, I refer to the following works as among the most reliable of
the vast number written on the subject:--
_Description Historique, Géographique, et Littéraire de la Chine._ Par
M. G. PAUTHIER. Paris, 1839.
_China Opened._ By REV. CHS. GUTZLAFF. London, 1838.
_China, Political, Commercial, and Social._ By R. MONTGOMERY MARTIN.
London, 1847.
_Sketches of China._ By JOHN F. DAVIS. London, 1841.
And above all, for amusing and instructive reading,
_Journey through the Chinese Empire._ By M. HUC. New York, 1855; and
_Mélanges Asiatiques._ Par ABEL REMUSAT. Paris, 1835.
[13] Unwilling to introduce statistic pedantry into a composition of so
humble pretensions as an introduction, I have refrained to give the
figures--not always very accurate, I admit--upon which the preceding
gradation is based, viz: the number of persons able to read and write in
each of the above-named countries. How far England and France are
behindhand in this respect, compared either with ourselves, or with
other European nations, is tolerably well known; but the fact that not
only in China proper, but in Thibet, Japan, Anam, Tonquin, etc., few can
be found devoid of that acquirement, will probably meet with many
incredulous readers, though it is mentioned by almost every traveller.
(See _J. Mohl's Annual Report to the Asiatic Society_, 1851.) But, it
may be safely asserted that, in the whole of that portion of Asia lying
south of the Altai Mountains, including Japan, altogether the most
populous region of the globe, the percentage of males unable to read and
write is by far smaller than in the entire population of Europe. Be it
well understood, that I do not, therefore, claim any superiority for the
inhabitants of the former region over those of the latter.
"In China," says M. Huc, "there are not, as in Europe, public libraries
and reading-rooms; but those who have a taste for reading, and a desire
to instruct themselves, can satisfy their inclinations very easily, as
books are sold here at a lower price than in any other country. Besides,
the Chinese find everywhere something to read; they can scarcely take a
step without seeing some of the characters of which they are so proud.
One may say, in fact, that all China is an immense library; for
inscriptions, sentences, moral precepts, are found in every corner,
written in letters of all colors and all sizes. The façades of the
tribunals, the pagodas, the public monuments, the signs of the shops,
the doors of the houses, the interior of the apartments, the corridors,
all are full of fine quotations from the best authors. Teacups, plates,
vases, fans, are so many selections of poems, often chosen with much
taste, and prettily printed. A Chinese has no need to give himself much
trouble in order to enjoy the finest productions of his country's
literature. He need only take his pipe, and walk out, with his nose in
the air, through the principal streets of the first town he comes to.
Let him enter the poorest house in the most wretched village; the
destitution may be complete, things the most necessary will be wanting;
but he is sure of finding some fine maxims written out on strips of red
paper. Thus, if those grand large characters, which look so terrific in
our eyes, though they delight the Chinese, are really so difficult to
learn, at least the people have the most ample opportunities of studying
them, almost in play, and of impressing them ineffaceably on their
memories."--_A Journey through the Chinese Empire_, vol. i. pp. 327-328.
[14] Is it necessary to call to the mind of the reader, that the most
prominent physicians, the greatest chemists, the best mathematicians,
were French, and that to the same nation belong the Comptes, the De
Maistres, the Guizots, the De Tocquevilles; or that, notwithstanding its
political extravaganzas, every liberal theory was first fostered in its
bosom? The father of our democratic party was the pupil of French
governmental philosophy, by the lessons of which even his political
opponents profited quite as much as by its errors.
[15] Brace, in his _Home Life in Germany_, mentions an instance of this
kind, but not having the volume at hand, I cannot cite the page. To
every one, however, that has travelled in Europe, or has not, such facts
are familiar. It is well known, for instance, that in some of the most
polished European countries, the wooden ploughshare is still used; and
that, in Paris, that metropolis of arts and fashion, every drop of water
must be carried, in buckets, from the public fountains to the Dutchess'
_boudoir_ in the first, and to the Grisette's garret in the seventh
story. Compare this with the United States, where--not to mention
Fairmount and Croton--the smallest town, almost, has her water-works, if
required by her topography. Are we, then, so infinitely more civilized
than France?
[16] Since writing the above, I lit upon the following striking
confirmation of my idea by Dr. Pickering, whose analogism here so
closely resembles mine, as almost to make me suspect myself of
unconscious plagiarism. "While admitting the general truth, that mankind
are essentially alike, no one doubts the existence of character,
distinguishing not only individuals, but communities and nations. I am
persuaded that there is, besides, a character of race. It would not be
difficult to select epithets; such as 'amphibious, enduring,
insititious;' or to point out as accomplished by one race of men, that
which seemed beyond the powers of another. Each race possessing its
peculiar points of excellence, and, at the same time, counterbalancing
defects, it may be that union was required to attain the full measure of
civilization. In the organic world, each field requires a new creation;
each change in circumstances going beyond the constitution of a plant or
animal, is met by a new adaptation, until the whole universe is full;
while, among the immense variety of created beings, two kinds are hardly
found fulfilling the same precise purpose. Some analogy may possibly
exist in the human family; and it may even be questioned, whether any
one of the races existing singly would, up to the present day, have
extended itself over the whole surface of the globe."--_The Races of
Man, and their Geographical Distribution._ By CHARLES PICKERING, M. D.
Boston, 1811. (_U. S. Exploring Expedition_, vol. ix. p. 200.)
[17] Since Champollion's fortunate discovery of the Rosetta stone, which
furnished the key to the hieroglyphics, the deciphering of these once so
mysterious characters has made such progress, that Lepsius, the great
modern Egyptologist, declares it possible to write a minute court
gazette of the reign of Ramses II., the Sesostris of the Greeks, and
even of monarchs as far back as the IVth dynasty. To understand that
this is no vain boast, the reader must remember that these hieroglyphics
mostly contain records of private or royal lives, and that the mural
paintings in the temples and sepulchral chambers, generally represent
scenes illustrative of trades, or other occupations, games, etc.,
practised among the people of that early day.
[18] _Ethnological Journal_, edited by Luke Burke, London, 1848; June 1,
No. 1, from _Types of Mankind_. By NOTT and GLIDDON, p. 49.
[19] From _Types of Mankind_. By NOTT and GLIDDON, p. 52.
[20] The term "race" is of relative meaning, and, though often
erroneously used synonymously with _species_, by no means signifies the
same. The most strenuous advocates of sameness of species, use it to
designate well-defined groups, as the white and black. If we consider
ourselves warranted by the language of the Bible, to believe in separate
origins of the human family, then, indeed, it may be considered as
similar in meaning to species; otherwise, it must signify but
subdivisions of one. We may therefore speak of ten or a hundred races of
man, without impugning their being descended from the same stock. All
that is here contended for is, that the distinctive features of such
races, in whatever manner they may have originated, are now persistent.
Two men may, the one arrive at the highest honors of the State, the
other, with every facility at his command, forever remain in mediocrity.
Yet, these two men may be brothers.
That the question of species, when disconnected from any theological
bearing, is one belonging exclusively to the province of the naturalist,
and in which the metaphysician can have but a subordinate part, may be
illustrated by a homely simile. Diversity of talent in the same family
involves no doubt of parentage; but, if one child be born with a black
skin and woolly hair, questions about the paternity might indeed arise.
[21] _Natural History of the Varieties of Man._ By ROBERT GORDON LATHAM.
London, 1850.
[22] The collision between these two nationalities, only a few years
ago, was attended by scenes so revolting--transcending even the horrors
of the Corcyrian sedition, the sack of Magdeburg, or the bloodiest page
in the French Revolution--that, for the honor of human nature, I would
gladly disbelieve the accounts given of them. But the testimony comes
from neutral sources, the friends of either party being interested in
keeping silence. I shall have occasion to allude to this subject again,
and therefore reserve further details for a note in the body of the
work.
[23] Even the historians of ancient Greece wondered at those gigantic
ruins, of which many are still extant. Of these cyclopean remains, as
they were often called, no one knew the builders or the history, and
they were considered as the labors of the fabulous heroes of a
traditional epoch. For an account of these memorials of an
_ante-hellenic civilization in Greece, of which we have no record_,
particularly the ruins of Orchomonos, Tirgus, Mycene, and the tunnels of
Lake Copais, see _Niebuhr's Ancient History_, vol. i. p. 241, _et
passim_.
[24] Democracy in America, vol. ii. ch. xviii. p. 424.
[25] Daniel ii. 44.
[26] Daniel ii. 31 to 35.
[27] Among many passages illustrative of the ultra utilitarianism of the
Chinese, I can find space but for one, and that selected almost at
random. After speaking of the exemplary diffusion of primary instruction
among the masses, he says that, though they all read, and frequently,
yet even their reading is of a strictly utilitarian character, and never
answers any but practical purposes or temporary amusement. The name of
the author is seldom known, and never inquired after. "That class are,
in their eyes, only idle persons, who pass their time in making prose or
verse. They have no objection to such a pursuit. A man may, they say,
'amuse himself with his pen as with his kite, if he likes it as well--it
is all a matter of taste.' The inhabitants of the celestial empire would
never recover from their astonishment if they knew to what extent
intellectual labor may be in Europe a source of honor and often wealth.
If they were told that a person among us may obtain great glory by
composing a drama or a novel, they would either not believe it, or set
it down as an additional proof of our well-known want of common sense.
How would it be if they should be told of the renown of a dancer or a
violin player, and that one cannot make a bound, nor the other draw a
bow anywhere without thousands of newspapers hastening to spread the
important news over all the kingdoms of Europe!
"The Chinese are too decided utilitarians to enter into our views of the
arts. In their opinion, a man is only worthy of the admiration of his
fellow-creatures when he has well fulfilled the social duties, and
especially if he knows better than any one else how to get out of a
scrape. You are regarded as a man of genius if you know how to regulate
your family, make your lands fruitful, traffic with ability, and realize
great profits. This, at least, is the only kind of genius that is of any
value in the eyes of these eminently practical men."--_Voyages en
Chine_, par M. Huc, Amer. trans., vol. i. pp. 316 and 317.
[28] Nat. Hist. of the Varieties of Man. London.
[29] According to Latham's classification, _op. cit._
DIVERSITY OF RACES.
CHAPTER I.
POLITICAL CATASTROPHES.
Perishable condition of all human societies--Ancient ideas concerning
this phenomenon--Modern theories.
The downfall of civilizations is the most striking, and, at the same
time, the most obscure of all the phenomena of history. If the sublime
grandeur of this spectacle impresses the mind with awe, the mystery in
which it is wrapped presents a boundless field for inquiry and
meditation to a reflecting mind. The study of the birth and growth of
nations is, indeed, fraught with many valuable observations: the gradual
development of human societies, their successes, conquests, and
triumphs, strike the imagination in a lively manner, and excite an ever
increasing interest. But these phenomena, however grand and interesting,
seem susceptible of an easy explanation. We consider them as the
necessary consequences of the intellectual and moral endowments of man.
Once we admit the existence of these endowments, their results will no
longer surprise us.
But we perceive that, after a period of glory and strength, all
societies formed by man begin to totter and fall; all, I said, because
there is no exception. Scattered over the surface of our globe, we see
the vestiges of preceding civilizations, many of which are known to us
only by name, or have not left behind them even that faint memorial, and
are recorded only by the mute stones in the depths of primeval
forests.[30] If we glance at our modern States, we are forced to the
conclusion that, though their date is but of yesterday, some of them
already exhibit signs of old age. The awful truth of prophetic language
about the instability of all things human, applies with equal force to
political bodies and to individuals, to nations and their civilizations.
Every association of men for social and political purposes, though
protected by the most ingenious social and political ties and
contrivances, conceals among the very elements of its life, the germ of
inevitable destruction, contracted the day it was formed. This terrible
fact is proved by the history of all ages as well as of our own. It is
owing to a natural law of death which seems to govern societies as well
as individuals; but, does this law operate alike in all cases? is it
uniform like the result it brings about, and do all civilizations perish
from the same pre-existing cause?
A superficial glance at the page of history would tempt us to answer in
the negative, for the apparent causes of the downfall of the great
empires of antiquity were very different in each case. Yet, if we pierce
below the surface, we find in this very necessity of decay, which weighs
so imperiously upon all societies without exception, the evidence of the
existence of some general, though concealed, cause, producing a natural
death, even where no external causes anticipate it by violent
destruction. We also discover that all civilizations, after a short
duration, exhibit, to the acute observer, certain intimate disturbances,
difficult to define, but whose existence is undeniable; and that these
present in all cases an analogous character. Finally, if we distinguish
the ruin of civilizations from that of States (for we sometimes see the
same culture subsist in a country under foreign domination, and survive
the destruction of the political body which gave it birth; while,
again, comparatively slight misfortunes cause it to be transformed, or
to disappear altogether), we become more and more confirmed in the idea
that this principle of death in all societies is not only a necessary
condition of their life, independent, in a great measure, of external
causes, but is also uniform in all. To fix and determine this principle,
and to trace its effects in the lives of those nations, of whom history
has left us records, has been my object and endeavor in the studies, the
results of which I now lay before the reader.
The fact that every human agglomeration, and the peculiar culture
resulting from it, is doomed to perish, was not known to the ancients.
Even in the epochs immediately preceding ours, it was not believed. The
religious spirit of Asiatic antiquity looked upon the great political
catastrophes in the same light that they did upon the sudden destruction
of an individual: as a demonstration of Divine wrath, visiting a nation
or an individual whose sins had marked them out for signal punishment,
which would serve as an example to those criminals whom the rod had as
yet spared. The Jews, misunderstanding the meaning of the promise,
believed their empire imperishable. Rome, at the very moment when the
threatening clouds lowered in the horizon of her grandeur, entertained
no doubt as to the eternity of hers.[31] But our generation has profited
by experience; and, as no one presumes to doubt that all men must die,
because all who came before us have died; so we are firmly convinced,
that the days of nations, as of individuals, however many they be, are
numbered. The wisdom of the ancients, therefore, will afford us but
little assistance in the unravelling of our subject, if we except one
fundamental maxim: that the finger of Divine Providence is always
visible in the conduct of the affairs of this world. From this solid
basis we shall not depart, accepting it in the full extent that it is
recognized by the church. It cannot be contested that no civilization
will perish without the will of God, and to apply to the mortal
condition of all societies, the sacred axiom by which the ancients
explained certain remarkable, and, in their opinion, isolated cases of
destruction, is but proclaiming a truth of the first order, of which we
must never lose sight in our researches after truths of secondary
importance. If it be further added that societies perish by their sins,
I willingly accede to it; it is but drawing a parallel between them and
individuals who also find their death, or accelerate it, by disobedience
to the laws of the Creator. So far, there is nothing contradictory to
reason, even when unassisted by Divine light; but these two truths once
admitted and duly weighed, the wisdom of the ancients, I repeat, affords
no further assistance. They did not search into the ways by which the
Divine will effected the ruin of nations; on the contrary, they were
rather inclined to consider these ways as essentially mysterious, and
above comprehension. Seized with pious terror at the aspect of the
wrecks, they easily imagined that Providence had specially interfered
thus to strike and completely destroy once powerful states. Where a
miracle is recorded by the Sacred Scriptures, I willingly submit; but
where that high testimony is wanting, as it is in the great number of
cases, we may justly consider the ancient theory as defective, and not
sufficiently enlightened. We may even conclude, that as Divine Justice
watches over nations unremittingly, and its decrees were pronounced ere
the first human society was formed, they are also enforced in a
predeterminate manner, and according to the unalterable laws of the
universe, which govern both animated nature and the inorganic world.
If we have cause to reproach the philosophers of the earlier ages, for
having contented themselves, in attempting to fathom the mystery, with
the vindication of an incontestable theological truth, but which itself
is another mystery; at least, they have not increased the difficulties
of the question by making it a theme for a maze of errors. In this
respect, they rank highly above the rationalist schools of various
epochs.
The thinkers of Athens and Rome established the doctrine, which has
retained its ground to our days, that states, nations, civilizations,
perished only through luxury, enervation, bad government, corruption of
morals, fanaticism. All these causes, either singly or combined, were
supposed to account for the downfall of civilizations. It is a necessary
consequence of this doctrine, that where neither of these causes are in
operation, no destructive agency is at work. Societies would therefore
possess this advantage over individuals, that they could die no other
but a violent death; and, to establish a body politic as durable as the
globe itself, nothing further would be necessary than to elude the
dangers which I enumerated above.
The inventors of this thesis did not perceive its bearing. They
considered it as an excellent means for illustrating the doctrine of
morality, which, as is well known, was the sole aim of their historical
writings. In their narratives of events, they were so strongly
preoccupied with showing the happy rewards of virtue, and the disastrous
results of crime and vice, that they cared little for what seemed to
furnish no illustration. This erroneous and narrow-minded system often
operated contrary to the intention of the authors, for it applied,
according to occasion, the name of virtue and vice in a very arbitrary
manner; still, to a great extent, the severe and laudable sentiment upon
which it was based, excuses it. If the genius of a Plutarch or a Tacitus
could draw from history, studied in this manner, nothing but romances
and satires, yet the romances were sublime, and the satires generous.
I wish I could be equally indulgent to the writers of the eighteenth
century, who made their own application of the same theory; but there
is, between them and their teachers, too great a difference. While the
ancients were attached to the established social system, even to a
fault, our moderns were anxious for destruction, and greedy of untried
novelties. The former exerted themselves to deduce useful lessons from
their theory; the latter have perverted it into a fearful weapon against
all rational principles of government, which they stigmatized by every
term that mankind holds in horror. To save societies from ruin, the
disciples of Voltaire would destroy religion, law, industry, commerce;
because, if we believe them, religion is fanaticism; laws, despotism;
industry and commerce, luxury and corruption.
I have not the slightest intention of entering the field of polemics; I
wished merely to direct attention to the widely diverging results of
this principle, when applied by Thucydides, or the Abbé Raynal.
Conservative in the one, cynically aggressive in the other, it is
erroneous in both.
The causes to which the downfall of nations is generally ascribed are
not the true ones, and whilst I admit that these evils may be rifest in
the last stages of dissolution of a people, I deny that they possess in
themselves sufficient strength, and so destructive an energy, as to
produce the final, irremediable catastrophe.
FOOTNOTES:
[30] A. de Humboldt, Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Géographie du
Nouveau Continent. Paris.
[31] Amadée Thierry, _La Gaule sous l'Administration Romaine_, vol. i.
p. 244.