Publications of the
Anthropological Society of London.
HYBRIDITY IN THE GENUS HOMO.
BROCA.
ON THE
PHENOMENA OF HYBRIDITY
IN THE
GENUS HOMO.
BY
DR. PAUL BROCA,
SÉCRÉTAIRE GÉNÉRAL À LA SOCIÉTÉ D’ANTHROPOLOGIE DE PARIS, HONORARY
FELLOW OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.
EDITED,
With the Permission of the Author,
BY
C. CARTER BLAKE, F.G.S., F.A.S.L.,
HONORARY SECRETARY OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, FOREIGN
ASSOCIATE OF THE SOCIÉTÉ D’ANTHROPOLOGIE DE PARIS, MEMBER OF THE COMITÉ
D’ARCHÉOLOGIE AMÉRICAINE DE FRANCE, ETC., ETC.
LONDON:
PUBLISHED FOR THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY, BY
LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, & ROBERTS,
PATERNOSTER ROW.
1864.
T. RICHARDS, 37, GREAT QUEEN STREET.
TO
RICHARD OWEN, ESQ.,
F.R.S., M.D., D.C.L., LL.D., F.L.S., F.G.S., F.Z.S.
FOREIGN ASSOCIATE OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS, AND HONORARY
FELLOW OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON,
ARE DEDICATED THESE PAGES,
As a Testimony
OF THE RESPECT AND FRIENDSHIP OF
HIS PUPIL,
C. CARTER BLAKE.
EDITOR’S PREFACE.
The Publishing Committee of the ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY have done me
the honour to confide to me the task of editing Dr. Broca’s valuable
little volume. This duty I have now fulfilled, and hope that the
members of the Society and the general public will experience the same
pleasure in reading the translation, as I received when first I perused
the original.
The causes which led the committee to suggest the publication of the
present translation are lucidly expressed by the motto which Dr. Broca
placed on his title-page. The public mind is so little acquainted with
the real facts relating to the hybridity of the Races of Man, that
its investigation, “_non ex vulgi opinione, sed ex sano judicio_,”
is necessary to the efficient progress of our science. Such an
appeal, however, necessitates that the whole subject should be again
reviewed, and to attain this object the perusal of a work on similar
principles to that of Dr. Broca becomes the primary requisite for
future researches. It may be said, that no work which so completely
investigates the whole subject of Human Hybridity has ever been
published, and the Council having confirmed the recommendation of the
Publishing Committee, I have endeavoured to perform my allotted task
with as much prospect of success as could be anticipated amidst the
pressure of numerous and laborious avocations unconnected with the
Society.
The necessity for the publication of this work in England may be
conceived, when we reflect on the laxly defined ideas which form an
integral part of the intellectual heritage of even educated Englishmen,
with regard to the problems of anthropology. We have been so often
told, that all races of men have been demonstrably proved to be fertile
_inter se_, that many have conceived that the laws regulating this
presumed fertility are ascertained and fixed, beyond the reach of
disproof, or even of doubt. The Author and Editor of the following
pages are, however, of a different opinion; and are content to wait for
the accumulation of future facts.
To obviate any misconstruction which may be placed on my meaning on
this topic, I shall quote the words of the great Dutch philosopher:--
“I invite not the vulgar, therefore, nor those whose minds, like
theirs, are full of prejudices, to the perusal of this book. I would
much rather that they should entirely neglect it, than that they
should misconstrue its purpose and contents after the fashion usual
with them.”
I should have felt more gratification if the task of interpreting the
thoughts of the great French master of our science had fallen into
worthier hands than my own. The habitual methods of thought of Dr.
PAUL BROCA are so exact, his style so terse, his knowledge of the
literature of Anthropology so vast, and his power of application and
concentration of ideas so powerful, that a just preference might have
selected another Editor. It has scarcely been necessary for me to add a
single foot-note to the lucid exposition of the Secretary of our parent
Society.
It is my pleasurable duty to thank my friend Dr. James Hunt, the
President of our Society, for the kindness by which he placed in
my hands the editorship of this volume, and for many most valuable
suggestions regarding it. To my colleague Mr. J. Frederick Collingwood,
for whose friendly assistance in the performance of the secretarial
duties I am indebted for the leisure which has enabled me to edit this
work, my thanks are also due.
To the Council and to the Society I now commit this little tract, an
earnest of the more important works which will be hereafter published
during the year 1864, in the hope that it may ultimately advance the
best interests of the science all sincere anthropologists must desire
to aid.
C. C. B.
4, ST. MARTIN’S PLACE,
_March_, 1864.
GLOSSARIAL NOTE.
The significations of the following words, habitually used by Dr.
Broca, are appended:--
AGENESIC. Mongrels of the first generation, entirely
unfertile, either between each other, or with the two parent species,
and consequently being unable to produce either direct descendants or
mongrels of the second generation.
DYSGENESIC. Mongrels of the first generation, nearly altogether
sterile.
_a._ Unfertile with each other, therefore with no direct descendants.
_b._ They sometimes, but rarely and with difficulty, breed with one
or the other parent species. The mongrels of the second generation,
produced by this interbreeding, are infertile.
PARAGENESIC. Mongrels of the first generation having a partial
fecundity.
_a._ They are hardly fertile or infertile _inter se_, and when they
produce direct descendants, these have merely a decreasing fertility,
tending to necessary extinction at the end of some generations.
_b._ They breed easily with one at least of the two parent species.
The mongrels of the second generation, issued from this second
breeding, are themselves and their descendants fertile _inter se_,
and with the mongrels of the first generation, with the nearest
allied pure species, and with the intermediate mongrels arising from
these various crossings.
EUGENESIC. Mongrels of the first generation entirely fertile.
_a._ They are fertile _inter se_, and their direct descendants are
equally so.
_b._ They breed easily and indiscriminately with the two parent
species; the mongrels of the second generation, in their turn are,
themselves and their descendants, indefinitely fertile, both _inter
se_ or with the mongrels of all kinds which result from the mixture
of the two parent species.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
DEDICATION v
EDITOR’S PREFACE vii
Glossarial Note x
SECTION I.
General remarks on the interbreeding of human races 1
Pretended examples of hybrid races (_note_ on the Griquas of
Southern Africa) 3
Significations of the words _race_ and _type_ 12
SECTION II.
On Eugenesic Hybridity in the Genus _Homo_ 16
SECTION III.
Examples tending to prove that the interbreeding of certain
human races is not Eugenesic 25
Remarks on the interpretation of human hybridity 26
Relative infecundity of the interbreeds between the White and
Negro 28
Relative sterility of some Mulattoes in the first generation 30
Moral or physical inferiority of some Mulattoes _ib._
Malay and mixed breeds 40
Relative sterility of the interbreeds between the Europeans
and the Australians or Tasmanians 45
Observations of Count Strzelecki; discussion 55
Conclusions on human hybridity 60
SECTION IV.
Recapitulation and Conclusion 61
ON THE PHENOMENA OF HYBRIDITY IN THE HUMAN SPECIES.
SECTION I.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON CROSSING IN HUMAN RACES.
That very ingenious writer, M. A. de Gobineau,[1] whose efforts have
been directed towards bringing the light of modern ethnology to bear
upon the political and social history of nations, but who, in this very
difficult and almost entirely new inquiry, has more than once indulged
in paradoxical generalisations, has thought proper to affirm, in his
_Essay on the Inequality of Human Races_ (1855), that the crossing
of races constantly produces disastrous effects, and that, sooner or
later, a physical and moral degeneration is the inevitable result
thereof. It is, therefore, chiefly to this cause that he attributes
the decline of the Roman Republic and the downfall of liberty, which
was soon followed by the decline of civilisation. I am very far from
sharing his opinion, and, were this the proper place, I might show that
the social corruption and the intellectual degradation which prepared
the ruin of the Roman power was due to quite different causes. M.
Gobineau’s proposition appears to me by far too general; and I am still
more opposed to the opinion of those who advance that every mixed race
separated from the parent stocks is incapable of perpetuation.[2]
It has even been asserted that the United States of America, where
the Anglo-Saxon race is still predominant, but which is overrun by
immigrants of various other races, is, by that very circumstance,
threatened with decay, inasmuch as this continuous immigration may have
the effect of producing a hybrid race containing the germ of future
sterility. Do we not know that, on the faith of this prognostication,
a certain party has proposed the restriction of foreign immigration,
and even in England there have been serious men who have predicted,
from ethnological causes, the overthrow of the United States, just as
Ezekiel predicted the ruin of Alexandria.
When we see the prosperity and the power of the new continent grow
with such unexampled rapidity, we can certainly put no faith in such a
prediction. Still there must have been a certain number of fundamental
facts, which led even monogenists to deny the viability of _all_
crossed races. They must have sought in vain among the nations of the
earth for a race manifestly hybrid, with well-defined characters,
intermediate between two known races, perpetuating itself without the
concurrence of the parent races.
“When the facts quoted above,” says M. Georges Pouchet, “are not
sufficient to prove that a mongrel breed cannot be engendered, can we
anywhere find one? Do we find a people conserving a medium type between
two other types? We see them nowhere just as little as we see a race
of mules. The fact is, that such a race, such a type can only have an
ephemeral subjective existence.”[3]
The question, where do we find hybrid races subsisting by themselves,
has been asked before M. Pouchet. Dr. Prichard, in replying to it,
could only find three instances:--1. The Griquas, the progeny of the
Hottentots and the Dutch. 2. The Cafusos of the forests of Varama
(Brazil), a race described by Spix and Martius, and, according to them,
the offspring of indigenous Americans and African Negroes. 3. The
mop-headed Papuans inhabiting the island of Waigiou and the surrounding
islands and the northern part of New Guinea, and who, according to MM.
Quoy and Gaimard, are a hybrid race, the issue of a union of Malays and
the Papuans proper.[4]
These three examples have been objected to, and are indeed liable
to objections.[5] We know next to nothing about the Cafusos, and no
one can positively assert that they have remained unmixed with the
indigenous race; but we know for certain that the Griquas have risen
since the commencement of this century around a Protestant mission, by
the fusion of some Dutch-Hottentot _bastaard_ families with a large
number of the Hottentot race, the Bosjesmen, and the Kaffir race. This
example then proves, by no means, that a mixed race can perpetuate
itself separately.[6]
With regard to the mop-headed Papuans, they live in a region the
ethnography of which is scarcely known. MM. Quoy and Gaimard are of
opinion that they are the issue of a mixture between the Malays and
indigenous Negroes (_sic_); but they only advanced this opinion as an
hypothesis: “They appeared to us to hold a medium place between those
people (Malays) and the Negroes in regard to character, physiognomy,
and the nature of their hair.”[7] This is all those authors say; but
Mr. Lesson instead of quoting this as a mere hypothesis, says, “These
people have been perfectly described by MM. Quoy and Gaimard, who were
the first to _demonstrate_ that they constitute a hybrid race, and are,
_unquestionably_, the issue of Papuans (properly so called) and Malays
located in those parts, and which form the mass of the population.” Mr.
de Rienzi, on the other hand, has described two varieties of Papuan
hybrids: one variety the issue of a crossing between the Papuans
and the Malays,--the Papou-Malays; the second variety, the issue of
an intermixture between the Papuans and the Alforian-Endamenes--the
Pou-Endamenes.[8] There is already a complication here. Now comes
Mr. Maury, who maintains that the race issued from the Papuans and
Malays is the Alforian race.[9] What are we to conclude from these
contradictions? M. Quoy and Gaimard had a certain impression, M. Rienzi
entertained a somewhat different impression, to which the authorities
cited by Mr. Maury are altogether opposed. All is then, as yet, an
hypothesis, and the question is as yet doubtful. In this uncertainty it
might well be asked whether the Malays, the Alfourous, the mop-headed
Papuans, and the Papuans properly so called might not be as many pure
races. It is not merely in the region of the mop-headed Papuans that
the other three races are to be met with. The Malays, an invading
people _par excellence_, have, like the English, established themselves
on all the coasts accessible to their vessels, and if the mop-headed
race occupies only a very confined district, and is perfectly unknown
elsewhere where the same elements are present, we are permitted to
conclude that it is not the result of an intermixture. Moreover, Dr.
Latham, the most zealous of Dr. Prichard’s pupils, informs us that Mr.
Earle has seen and described “the real and undoubted hybrids” of the
Papuans and Malays, and that these are altogether different from the
mop-headed Papuans.[10]
It will be perceived that the example of the Papuans is a worse
selection than that of the Griquas, since it is very probable that
those mop-headed men, the type of which was so perfectly described
by Dampier two centuries ago, having been since preserved without
alteration, are a pure race. Granting even that it is demonstrated
that they belong to a hybrid race, they can scarcely be cited as a
mixed race persisting by themselves, since, so far from living secluded
from the two races from which they are said to be the issue, they
live with them in the same localities. MM. Quoy and Gaimard, in their
description of these pretended mongrels, add that there were Negroes
among them (by which name they designate the Papuans proper) which
formed a part of the tribe which visited us daily. There were even
among them two individuals of a higher complexion, which, rightly or
wrongly, were considered to be descended from Europeans or Chinese. It
was thus a very mixed people. Mr. Lesson, speaking of the population
of the small island of Waigiou,[11] says that two races are found
there, the Malays and the Alfourous, besides the hybrid races of the
Papuans: “These are men without vigour or moral energy, subjected to
the authority of the Malay rajahs, and frequently reduced to slavery
by the surrounding islanders.”[12] But it is well known what is the
consequence of slavery, especially under an equatorial climate, and
among a people given to incontinency. It is, then, simply impossible
that the mop-headed race of the Isle of Waigiou should remain free from
intermixture with the Alfourous and the Malays, and if this race be
really hybrid, it is not easy to see how Prichard and his adherents are
authorised to assert that they persist by themselves.
The three examples adduced by Prichard having thus proved without any
absolute value, a diametrically opposite doctrine has been advanced. It
has been said that since this author was obliged to go so far for such
indifferent examples, it amounts to a proof that he could not find any
others,[13] and the conclusion was arrived at that a mixed race neither
has nor could have a permanent existence.
This novel assertion is perfectly erroneous, and if it found adherents,
it is simply because the question has been badly put; because the word
_race_ has not received a precise signification, and consequently, a
very confused acceptation has been given to the term.
Among the various characters which distinguish the numerous varieties
of the _genus homo_, some are more or less important, and more or less
evident. To distinguish two races, a single character, however slight,
is sufficient, provided it be hereditary and sufficiently fixed. If,
for instance, two peoples differed merely from each other by the colour
of the hair and the beard, though they may resemble each other in every
other respect, by the simple fact that the one has black, whilst the
other has fair hair, it may be asserted that they are not of the same
race. This is the popular and the true meaning of the term race, which,
however, does not necessarily implicate the idea either of identity
or diversity of origin. Thus all ethnologists and historians, all the
monogenists, and polygenistic authors say that the Irish proper are not
of the same race as the English. The Germans, the Celts, the Basques,
the Sclaves, the Jews, Arabs, Kabyles, etc., etc., are considered
more or less separate races, more or less easy to be characterised,
and more or less distinguished by their manners, tongues, history and
origin. There are thus a large number of human races; but if, instead
of considering all the characters, we confine ourselves to take into
consideration but a few of the more important, or if, after having by
an analytical process, first studied the various races separately, we
now subject them to a synthetic process, we soon recognise that there
exists among them numerous affinities, which enable us to dispose them
in a certain number of natural groups.
The ensemble of the characters common to each group, constitute the
type of that group. Thus, all the races we have just enumerated, and
many others, have the skin white, regular features, soft hair, oval
face, vertical jaws, and elliptical cranium, etc. These points of
resemblance give them in some sort a family likeness, by which they
are recognised at once, and which has caused them to be designated by
the collective name of Caucasian races. The hyperborean races, and
those of Eastern Asia, constitute the family of Mongolian races; the
group of Ethiopian races equally comprises a large number of black
races with woolly hair, and a prognathous head. The American and the
Malayo-Polynesian races form the two last groups.
It must not be believed that all human races can with equal facility
be ranged in either of these divisions; nor must we believe that the
characteristic traits of one group are equally marked in all the
dependent races; nor even that they are found combined in any of
these races; nor, finally, that in the centre of each group we find
a typical race in which all the characters have their maximum of
development. This might be the case if all known races had descended
from five primitive stocks, as admitted by several polygenists, or
if, as many monogenists think, humanity, _one_ in the beginning, had
soon afterwards been divided into five principal trunks, from which
issued, as so many accessory branches, the numerous sub-divisions
which constitute the secondary races. But there is no race which can
pretend to personify within itself the type to which it belongs. This
type is fictitious; the description is an ideal one, like the forms of
the Apollo de Belvedere. Human types, like all other types, are merely
abstractions, and in proportion as we attach more importance to this or
that character, we obtain a more or less considerable number of types.
Thus, Blumenbach had five, Cuvier only three, and Bérard describes
fifteen types. This is also proved by the fact, that whilst many races
attach themselves directly and evidently to a fixed type, there are
others belonging to two very dissimilar types. Thus the Abyssinians
are Caucasian in form and Ethiopian by colour. The description of the
principal types is thus merely a methodical process, fit to facilitate,
by the formation of a certain number of groups, the comparison of human
races, and to simplify the partial description of each. This division
has, moreover, the advantage of establishing for the greater part of
the races, their degree of relative affinity or divergence. It even
accords to a certain point with their primitive repartition upon the
surface of the globe, which has permitted, without doing any violence
to the facts, to distinguish the types by denominations borrowed from
geography.[14]
There is in the human mind a tendency to personify abstractions.
These ideal types have usurped a place in the domain of facts, so
that a real existence has been given to them. The monogenists had,
strictly speaking, a right to do so without any violence to their
principles; but the polygenists, who have followed their example,
have sinned against logic. The former attribute all varieties of the
human species to the numerous modifications of five _principal_ races,
issued themselves from one common stock, and the same influences which,
according to then, have in the origin produced fundamental races,
have afterwards by an analogous process produced the _secondary_
races. All this is sufficiently clear; and such stood the question
when the polygenists appeared in the arena. Their first efforts were
directed to attack the doctrine in its essential foundations, and to
demonstrate that by no natural causation could Whites be transformed
into Negroes, or Negroes into Mongolians; they therefore proclaimed
the multiplicity of human origin and the plurality of species. Be it
that they have shrunk from the idea of causing too great a revolution
in science, or that they thought that it would conduce sooner to the
triumph of their doctrine, they retained as far as possible the number
of species, and confined themselves to assume a primitive stock for
each of the five races described by the Unitarians. I do not assert
that all polygenists followed this course, as some proceeded in a more
independent manner. Bory de Saint-Vincent, Desmoulins, P. Bérard,
Morton, had the courage to break entirely with the past, and to remodel
the classical divisions. They found, however, but few imitators; and
many polygenists are to this day content to assign a distinct origin to
each of the five principal trunks, which constitute for the monogenists
the five fundamental races, but which are to us only natural groups
formed by the union of races or species of the same type. They continue
also very often to use the term _race_ to designate the _ensemble_ of
all individuals of each group, adopting thus by a sort of transaction
the language of those whose system they reject; and thus they speak of
the white or Caucasian race, the yellow or Mongolian race, the black
or Ethiopian race, etc., as if all these individuals of a Caucasian
type resembled each other to constitute one race; as if, for instance,
the brown Celts and the fair-haired Germans had descended from the
same primitive stock. This contradiction has given a handle to the
monogenists; for if climate and mode of life may cause a German to
become a Celt, there is no reason why, under certain influences, a Celt
might not become a Berber, a Berber a Foulah, a Foulah a Negro, and a
Negro an Australian.
I easily comprehend how careful we ought to be to employ in
Anthropology the term _species_. It can scarcely be used with certainty
until science has clearly circumscribed the limits of each species of
men. This moment is not come yet, and may, perhaps, never arrive, for,
in the midst of constant changes produced by crossing, migrations,
and conquests, and with the certainty that several races, or a great
number of them, have disappeared within historical time,[15] it seems
impossible to appreciate the degree of purity of certain races, to
discover their origin, to know whether they are autochthonic or
exotic, whether they belonged originally to this or that Fauna, and
re-establish the Ethnology of our planet as it was in the beginning.
To fix the number of primitive species of men, or even the number of
actual species, is an insoluble problem to us, and probably to our
successors. The attempts of Desmoulins et Bory de Saint Vincent have
only produced imperfect sketches, which have led to contradictory
classifications, where the number of arbitrary divisions is nearly
equal to more natural divisions.
The term species has, in classical language, an absolute sense,
implying both the idea of a special conformation and special origin,
and if some races--the Australians, for instance--unite these
conditions in a sufficient degree, to constitute a clearly marked
species, many other pure or mixed races escape, in this respect, a
rigorous appreciation. It is for these reasons that many polygenists,
after having proclaimed the multiplicity of the origins of humanity,
and having recognised the impossibility of determining the number
and the characters of the primitive stocks, have justly avoided
methodically to divide the human genus into species. Many among them,
however, who thought that they were, nevertheless, bound to establish
divisions, have committed the error to accept the basis of the
classification of the monogenists, and, like them, to establish five
chief human families, and, like them, to admit that the individuals
of each family are issued from a common trunk, with this difference,
that, whilst the monogenists assume that the five primary trunks
have proceeded from the same stock, and have the same roots, the
pentagenists (if we may use this term) assume five distinct and
independent stocks. Logically speaking, it would have been requisite to
term the five fundamental races of the monogenists _species_, but it
is easy to perceive that, for many reasons, the term species cannot be
employed here in an absolute sense. The pentagenists have felt this,
and, for want of a better term, use the word _race_, which has thus
been diverted from its real acceptation.
The word _race_ has thus, in the language of authors, two very
different significations; one is particular and exact, the other
general and misleading. Taken in the first sense, it designates
individuals sufficiently resembling each other, that we may, without
prejudging their origin, and without deciding whether they are the
issues of one or several primitive couples, admit, if necessary, as
theoretically possible, that they have descended from common parents.
Such are, for instance, among the white races, the Arabs, the Basques,
the Celts, the Kimris, the Germans, the Berbers, etc.; and among the
black races, the Ethiopian Negroes, the Caffres, the Tasmanians,
Australians, Papuans, etc.
In the second, that is to say, in a general sense, the term race
designates the _ensemble_ of all such individuals who have a certain
number of characters in common, and who, though differing in other
characters, and divided, perhaps, in an indefinite number of natural
groups or races, have to each other a greater morphological affinity
than they have with the rest of mankind.
Every confusion in words exposes us to errors in the interpretation
of facts, and this rather long digression in relation to the origin
of a denomination, borrowed by certain polygenists from the language
of monogenists, enables us to understand the denial of the existence
of mixed races, and why Prichard could only oppose to this idea the
doubtful and fictitious examples of the Cafusos, the Griquas, and the
mop-headed Papuans.
If, indeed, it were true that there are only five races of men on
the globe, and if it were capable of demonstration that either of
them, in mixing with another, produced eugenesic Mulattos capable of
constituting a mixed race enduring by itself, without the ulterior
concurrence of the parent races, the embarrassment would not yet be
at an end. After having succeeded to establish such a demonstration
for two of the chief races, it would by no means necessarily result
that the intercrossings of the nine other combinations are eugenesic
like the first. We should then be obliged to prove (what is evidently
impracticable), by ten successive examples, that the ten possible
intercrossings between the five fundamental races are all equally and
completely prolific. The difficulty is such, that Dr. Prichard, after
much research, could only find the three instances already cited and
refuted. These facts having proved inconclusive, and other facts which
we shall mention presently having induced the theory that _certain_
intermixtures are imperfectly prolific, the pentagenists were led to
the opinion that the possibility of a definitive intermixture of races
is by no means established, and that, on the contrary, this possibility
may be denied.
The pentagenists occupied themselves at first chiefly with the
intermixture of the five chief races; but even from this point of view,
and taking the term race in a general sense, their negation, though,
it must be admitted, far from being justifiable, is still founded upon
a more solid basis, and less removed from the truth than the opposed
affirmation. Hence it was considered valuable _ad interim_. But the
principle of non-intermixture of races being once promulgated, the
confusion of terms soon became apparent. The negation which was at
first applied merely to the artificial groups formed by the reunion
of races of the same type was applied to natural races, and thus
arose that frightful proposition, that _no mixed races can subsist in
humanity_.
It is noteworthy how this excessive and exclusive theory differs from
the first, which it has displaced. There is such a gap between the
starting point and the conclusion, that it could never have been
cleared had not the ambiguous term _race_ concealed the distance.
The fact is established that affinities of organisation may exercise
some influence on the results of crossing. In studying the phenomena
of hybridity in quadrupeds and birds, we have already stated that
homœogenesis, without being _always_ proportionate to the degree of
the proximity of species, decreases _ordinarily_ in comparison with
more removed animals, and that probability induces us to expect similar
phenomena in the intermixture of human beings. But what have been the
bases of the monogenists and of the pentagenists in forming the five
ethnological groups, which constitute the five fundamental races?
Why have all Caucasian races been united by them in one family, and
called by them _the white_ or the Caucasian race? It has been already
stated because the races with a skin more or less white possess between
themselves a greater affinity than with any of the other races. In
other terms, the zoological distance is less between Celts, Germans,
Kimris, etc., compared with that existing between them and the Negroes,
Caffres, Lapps, Australians, Malays, etc.
Supposing now that it has been demonstrated--which it has not--that
the races of any group can _never_ engender a durable and permanent
line by an intermixture with any of the others, can we infer from this
that the races of the same group are equally incapable of producing
by their intermixture mongrels indefinitely prolific? Just as little
as the sterility of the union between the dog and the fox would
enable us to infer the sterility between the wolf and the dog; these
conclusions would be as little physiological as the former. Such as
deny the fecundity of the reciprocal cross-breeds of the five chief
primary races might err in some points, and be right as to others. But
those who extend this by far too general negation in applying it to
the intermixture of secondary races of the same group commit a more
serious error. They have reasoned like the monogenists, who knowing
from experience that _certain_ human races may become mixed without
limitation, have affirmed that _all_ the races, without exception, are
in a similar condition. There obtains thus a strange contradiction
in these two schools; the one maintains resolutely that all races
may intermix, and that their offspring and their descendants will
be as prolific as if they were of a pure race, whilst the second as
firmly sustains that no mixed race can have any other but an ephemeral
existence.
Between these opposite assertions we may well ask where lies the truth?
Facts must answer the question. We shall endeavour to examine a few.
Some of the facts are in favour of the monogenists, others support
the opinion of their adversaries, from which we shall be enabled to
infer that in the _genus homo_, as in the genera of their mammalia,
there are different degrees of homœogenesis, according to the races
or species; that the cross-breeds of certain races are perfectly
eugenesic; that others occupy a less elevated position in the series of
hybridity; and finally, that there are human races the homœogenesis
of which is still so obscure, that the results even of the first
intermixture are still doubtful.