observe to obtain generally among beings living on the surface of
the globe, we come to the conclusion that the human species, in
common with every vegetable or animal species, had but one centre of
creation.
Around the central tableland of Asia are found the three organic and
fundamental types of man, that is to say, the white, the yellow,
and the black. The black type has been somewhat scattered, although
it is still found in the south of Japan, in the Malay Peninsula, in
the Andaman Isles, and in the Philippines, at Formosa. The yellow
type forms a large portion of the actual population of Asia, and it
is well known whence came those white hordes that invaded Europe at
times prehistoric and in more recent ages; those conquerors belonged
to the Aryan or Persian race, and they came from Central Asia.
Around the central tableland of Asia, we find not only the three
fundamental types of the human species, but the three types of human
speech. Does not this, therefore, afford ground for presumption, if
not actual proof, that man first appeared in this very region which
Scripture assigns as the birthplace of the human race?
It is from this central tableland of Asia, radiating so to say around
this point of origin, that man has progressively occupied every part
of the earth.
Migration commenced at a very early period; the facility with which
our species becomes habituated to every climate and accommodates
itself to variations of temperature, taken in connection with the
nomadic character which distinguished primitive populations, explains
to us the displacement of the earlier inhabitants of the earth.
Soon, means of navigation, although rude, were added to the power
of traveling by land, and man passed from the continent to distant
islands, and thus peopled the archipelagoes as well as the mainland.
By means of transport, effected in canoes formed from the trunks of
trees barely hollowed out, the archipelagoes of the Indian Ocean, and
finally Australia, were gradually peopled.
The American continent formed no exception to this law of the
invasion of the globe by the emigration of human phalanxes. It
is a matter of no great difficulty to pass from Asia to America,
across Behring Strait, which is almost always covered with ice, thus
permitting of almost a dry passage from one continent to the other.
Thus it is that the inhabitants of Northern Asia have found their way
into the north of the New World.
This communication of one terrestrial hemisphere with the other is
less surprising when we consider what modern historical works have
shown, namely, that already about the Tenth Century, which would
be nearly 400 years before Christopher Columbus, navigators from
the coast of Norway had penetrated to the other hemisphere. The
inhabitants of Mexico and Chili possess most authentic historical
archives, which prove that a most advanced civilization flourished
there at an early period. Gigantic monuments which still remain bear
witness to the great antiquity of the civilization of the Incas
(Peru) and of the Aztecs (Mexico). It is reasonable to suppose that
the inhabitants of America, who thus advanced at a rapid pace in the
path of civilization, descended from the hordes of Northern Asia
which reached the New World by traversing the ice of Behring Strait.
To explain, therefore, the presence of man upon all parts of the
continent, and in the islands, it is not necessary to insist upon
the existence of several centres, where our species was created. If
popular traditions went to show that all the regions now inhabited
have always been occupied by the same people, and that those who are
found there have constantly lived in the same places, there might be
reason to admit the hypothesis of multiple creations of the human
race; but, on the contrary, traditions for the most part teach us
that each country has been peopled progressively by means of conquest
or emigration. Tradition shows that the nomadic state of existence
has universally preceded fixed settlements. It is, therefore,
probable that the first men were constantly on the move. A flood of
barbarians, coming from Central Asia, overflowed the Roman Empire,
and the Vandals penetrated even into Africa. Modern migrations have
been conducted on a still vaster scale, for at the present day we
find America almost wholly occupied by Europeans; English, Spanish,
and other people of the Latin race fill the vast American hemisphere,
and the primitive populations of the New World have almost entirely
disappeared, annihilated by the iron yoke of the conqueror.
The continent of Asia was peopled little by little by branches of the
Aryan race, who came down from the plains of Central Asia, directing
their course toward India. As to Africa: that continent received its
contingent of population through the Isthmus of Suez, the valley of
the Nile, and the coasts of Arabia, by the aid of navigation.
There is therefore nothing to show that humanity had several distinct
nuclei. It is clear that man started from one point alone, and that
through his power of adapting himself to the most different climates,
he has, little by little, covered the whole face of the inhabitable
earth.
There is another problem. Did the white, the yellow, and the black
man exist from the first moment of the appearance of our species
upon the globe, or have we to explain the formation of these three
fundamental races by the action of climate, by any special form of
nourishment, the result of local resources; in other words, by the
action of the soil?
Innumerable dissertations have been written with a view of explaining
the origin of these three races, and of connecting them with the
climate or the soil. But it must be admitted that the problem is
hardly capable of solution. The influence which a warm climate
exercises upon the color of the skin is a well-known fact, and it
is a matter of common observation that the white European, if
transported into the heart of Africa, or carried to the coast of
Guinea, transmits to his descendants the brown color which the skin
of the Negro possesses, and that in their turn the offspring of
Negroes, who have been brought into northern countries, become as
they descend paler and paler and end by being white. But the color of
the skin is not the only characteristic of a race; the Negro differs
from the white, less by the color of his skin than by the structure
of the face and cranium, as also by the proportion of his members to
one another. Is it not, moreover, a fact that the hottest countries
are inhabited by people with white skins? Such, for instance, are the
Touaricks of the African Sahara, and the Fellahs of Egypt. On the
other hand, men with black faces are found in countries enjoying a
mean temperature, as, for instance, the inhabitants of California on
the coast of the Pacific Ocean.
We have now another question to consider. Should these white, yellow,
or black men, to whom we must add those who are brown and red, all of
whom differ one from another in the color of their skin, in height,
in their physiognomy, and in their outward appearance, be grouped
into different species, or are we to regard them merely as varieties
of species--that is to say, _races_?
Buffon, in his chapter upon _man_, a work which we can always
read again with admiration and advantage, contents himself with
bringing forward the three fundamental types of the human species
which have been known from the first under the names of the white,
black, and yellow race. But these three types in themselves do
not exemplify every human physiognomy. The ancient inhabitants of
America, commonly known as the Red-Skins, are entirely overlooked
in this classification, and the distinction between the Negro and
the white man can not always be easily pointed out, for in Africa
the Abyssinians, the Egyptians, and many others, in America the
Californians, and in Asia the Hindoos, Malays, and Javanese are
neither white nor black.
[Illustration: American Reptiles
1 and 2, Water Snakes (_Masticophis_); 3, Horned Toad (_Phrynosoma_);
4, 5, 11, 12, 13, American Toads; 6, Kangaroo Lizard (_Crotaphytus_);
7, Gila Monster (_Heloderma_); 8, Chuckwalla; 9, Harlequin Snake
(_Elaps_); 10, Rattlesnake (_Crotalus)_]
Blumenbach, the most profound anthropologist of the last century,
and author of the first actual treatise upon the natural history
of man, distinguished in his Latin work, _De Homine_, five races
of men, the Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, Malay, and American.
Another anthropologist, Prochaska, adopted the divisions pointed
out by Blumenbach, but united under the name of the _white race_,
Blumenbach’s Caucasian and Mongolian groups, and added the _Hindoo
race_.
The eloquent naturalist Lacépède, in his _Histoire naturelle de
l’Homme_, added to the races admitted by Blumenbach the _hyperborean
race_, comprising the inhabitants of the northern portion of the
globe in either continent.
Cuvier fell back upon Buffon’s division, admitting only the white,
black, and yellow races, from which he simply derived the _Malay_ and
_American_ races.
A naturalist of renown, Virey, author of _l’Histoire naturelle du
Genre humain_, _l’Histoire naturelle de la Femme_, and of many
other clever productions upon natural history and particularly
anthropology, gave much attention to the classification of the human
races. But he was not favorable to the unity of our species, being
led to entertain the opinion that the human species was twofold.
This was the starting point of an erroneous deviation in the ideas
of naturalists who wrote after Virey. We find Bory de Saint Vincent
admitting as many as fifteen species of men, and another naturalist,
Desmoulins, doubtless influenced by a feeling of emulation,
distinguished sixteen human species, which, moreover, were not the
same as those admitted by Bory de Saint Vincent.
This course of classification might have been followed to a much
greater extent, for the differences among men are so great that if
strict rule is not adhered to it is impossible to fix any limit to
species. Unless therefore the principle of unity has been fully
conceded at starting, the investigation may result in the admission
of a truly indefinite quantity.
This is the principle which pervades the writings of the most
learned of all the anthropologists of our age, Dr. Pritchard, author
of a _Natural History of Man_, which in the original text formed
ten volumes, but of which the French language possesses but a very
incomplete translation.
Dr. Pritchard holds that all people of the earth belong to the same
species; he is a partisan of the unity of the human species, but
is not satisfied with any of the classifications already proposed,
and which were founded upon organic characteristics. He, in fact,
entirely alters the aspect of the ordinary classifications which
are to be met with in natural history. He commences by pointing
out three families, which, he asserts, were in history the first
human occupants of the earth: namely, the _Aryan_, _Semitic_, and
_Egyptian_. Having described these three families, Pritchard passes
to the people who, as he says, radiated in various directions from
the regions inhabited by them, and proceeded to occupy the entire
globe.
This mode of classification, as we have pointed out, leaves the
beaten track trodden by other natural historians. For this reason it
has not found favor among modern anthropologists, and this disfavor
has reacted upon the work itself, which, notwithstanding, is the most
complete and exact of all that we possess upon man. Although it has
been adopted by no other author, Pritchard’s classification of the
human race appears to us to be the most sound in principle.
The classification of the human race which we propose to follow,
modifying it where in our opinion it may appear to be necessary, is
due to a Belgian naturalist, M. d’Omalius d’Halloy. It acknowledges
five races of men: the white, black, yellow, brown, and red.
When we examine the form and relative size of the brain in
ascending the series of mammiferous animals, we find that this
organ increases in volume, and progresses, so to say, toward the
superior characteristics which it is to display in the human
species. The brain increases in importance from the zoophyte to
the ape. But, in comparing the brain of the ape with that of man,
an important difference becomes at once apparent. The brain of the
gorilla, orang-outang, or chimpanzee, which are the apes that bear
the greatest resemblance to man, and which for that reason are
designated _anthropomorphous_ apes, is very much smaller than that of
man.
The senses, taken individually, are not more developed in man than
they are in certain animals; but in man they are characterized
by their harmony, their perfect equilibrium, and their admirable
appropriation to a common end. Man, it will at once be admitted,
is not so keen of sight as the eagle, nor so subtle of hearing as
the hare, nor does he possess the wonderful scent of the dog. His
skin is far from being as fine and impressionable as that which
covers the wing of a bat. But, while among animals, one sense always
predominates to the disadvantage of the rest, and the individual is
thus forced to adopt a mode of existence which works hand in hand
with the development of this sense, with man, all the senses possess
almost equal delicacy, and the harmony of their association makes up
for what may be wanting in individual power.
Man is certainly better off, as regards the sense of sight, than a
large majority of animals. Instead of being placed upon different
sides of his head, looking in opposite directions, and receiving
two images which can not possibly be alike, his eyes are directed
forward, and regard similar objects, by which means the impression is
doubled.
The sense of touch in man reaches a degree of perfection which it
does not attain in animals. How marvelous is the sense of touch when
exercised by applying the extremities of the fingers, the part of the
body the best suited to this function, and how much more wonderful
is the organ called the hand, which applies itself in so admirable
a manner to the most different surfaces whose extent, form, or
qualities we wish to ascertain!
“Man alone,” says Galen, “is furnished with hands, as he alone is a
participator in wisdom.” The hand is a most marvelous instrument,
and one most admirably adapted to his nature. Remove his hand, and
man can no longer exist. By its means he is prepared for defence
or attack, for peace or war. What need has he of horns or talons?
With his hand, he grasps the sword and lance, he fashions iron and
steel. While with horns, teeth, and talons animals can only attack
or defend at close quarters, man is able to project from afar the
instruments with which he is armed. Shot from his hand, the feathered
arrow reaches at a great distance the heart of an enemy, or stops
the flight of a passing bird. Although man is less agile than the
horse and the deer, yet he mounts the horse, guides him, and thus
successfully hunts the deer. He is naked and feeble, yet his hand
procures him a covering of iron and steel. His body is unprotected
against the inclemencies of climate, yet his hand finds him a
convenient abode, and furnishes him with clothing. By the use of his
hand, he gains dominion and mastery over all that lives upon the
earth, in the air, or in the depths of the sea.
The sense of hearing, without attaining in man the perfection which
it reaches in certain animals, is nevertheless of great delicacy, and
becomes an infinite resource of instruction and pure enjoyment. Not
only are differences of intonation, intensity, and timbre recognized
by our ear, but the most delicate shades of rhythm and tone, the
relations of simultaneous and successive sounds which give the
sentiment of melody and harmony, are appreciated, and furnish us with
the first and most natural of the arts--music.
Let us now pass to the bony portion of the human body, and consider
first of all the head. The head is shared by two regions, the cranium
and the face. The predominance of either of these regions over the
other depends upon the development of the organs which belong to each.
The cranium contains the cerebral mass, that is, the seat of the
intellect; the face is occupied by the organs appertaining to the
principal senses. In animals, the face greatly exceeds the cranium in
extent; the reverse is, however, the case with man. It is but rarely
that with him the face assumes importance at the expense of the
cranium--in other words, that the jaws become elongated, and give to
the human face the aspect of a brute.
There is in the human face an anatomical characteristic of greater
importance than any taken from the elongation of the cranium; that
is, the projection forward, or the uprightness of the jaws. The term
_prognathism_ (from πρὸ, forward, and γνάθος, jaw) is applied to this
jutting forward of the teeth and jaws, and _orthognathism_ (from
ὀρθὸς, straight, γηάθς, jaw) to the latter arrangement.
It was long admitted that prognathism, or projection of the jaws,
was peculiar to the Negro race. But this opinion has been forced to
yield to the discovery that projecting jaws exist among people in
no way connected with the Negro. In the midst of white populations
this characteristic is frequently met with; it is occasionally found
among the English, and is by no means rare at Paris, especially
among women. Prognathism would appear to be characteristic of a
small European race dwelling to the south of the Baltic Sea, the
Esthonians, and which itself is but the residue of the _primitive
Mongolian_ race. It is probably the mixture of Esthonian blood
with that of the inhabitants of Central Europe, which causes the
appearance in our large cities of individuals whose faces are
prognathous.
We can not close our remarks upon the face without speaking of a
curious relation between it and the cranium, which has been much
abused; we allude to the _facial angle_. By _facial angle_ is meant
the angle which results from the union of two lines, one of which
touches the forehead, the other of which, drawn from the orifice of
the ear, meets the former line at the extremity of the front teeth.
The Dutch anatomist Camper, after having compared Greek and Roman
statues, or medals of either nationality, assumed that the cause of
the intellectual superiority which distinguished Greek from Roman
physiognomies was to be found in the fact that, with the Greeks,
the facial angle is larger than in Roman heads. Starting with this
observation, Camper pursued his inquiries until it occurred to him to
advance the theory that the increase of the facial angle may be taken
in the human race as a sign of superior intelligence.
This observation was correct, insomuch as it separated men from
apes, and carrion birds from other birds. But its application to
different varieties of men, as a measure of their various degrees
of intelligence, was a pretension doomed to be sacrificed to future
investigations. Dr. Jacquart, assistant naturalist in the Museum
of Natural History at Paris, calling to his aid an instrument he
invented, by which the facial angle is rapidly measured, has, in
our day, made numerous studies of the facial angle of human beings.
M. Jacquart found that this angle can not be taken as a measure of
intelligence, for he observed it to be a right angle in individuals
who, with respect to intelligence, were in no way superior to others
whose facial angle was much smaller.
Erect carriage is another of the characteristics which distinguish
the human species from all other animals, including the ape, by
whom this position is but rarely assumed, and then accidentally and
unnaturally.
Everything in the human skeleton is calculated to ensure a vertical
posture. In the first place, the head articulates with the vertebral
column at a point so situated that, when this vertebral column is
erect, the head, by means of its own weight, remains supported in
equilibrium. Besides this, the shape of the head, the direction of
the face, the position of the eye, and the form of the nostrils all
require that man should walk erect on two feet.
J. J. Rousseau was, therefore, very far from right when he contended
that man was born to go on all fours.
INDEX
A
Abbott, C. C., 1653
Abdelrahman Sûfi, 119
Acacia, 928, 950
Acalephian Hydroids, 459
Acalephs, 459
Acanth family, 483
Acephala, 459
Achenar, 57, 98, 147
Acorns, 1177
Acrogens, 455, 483, 1000
Adams, Prof., 431
Adanson, Michel, 994
Adanson’s region, 940
Adelsberg, cave of, 617-20
Æpyornis, 1524
Affinities, 1511-12
Afghans, 1672
Africa, deserts of, 947
fauna of, 1548-52
races of, 1675
vegetation in, 909-15
Agardh, 1266, 1267
Agassiz, 1213, 1297
Agriculture, progress of, 1091-99
Air, 773, 778-84
Airy, Sir George, 316, 806
Albatross, 1523
Alcor, 67, 81, 126-27, 196-97
Aldebaran, 57, 63, 96, 116, 124, 152, 187, 316
Alga, red snow, 514-15, 930
Algæ, 454, 455, 710, 712, 887, 888
Algol, 85, 128, 193, 208, 216-20
Alhazan, 799
Allen, Grant, 1003, 1104
Alligators, 1392, 1557, 1570, 1623
Aloes, 953
Alpha, Capricorni, 127
Centauri, 41, 57, 63, 99, 125, 134, 199, 204-5, 309
Cruci, 57
Eridani, 63
Orionis, 63
Alphabet, Greek, 65
Alphard, 188
Alpine plants, 930
Alps, glaciers of the, 510-13
Al-Sûfi, 60, 62, 63, 67, 68, 69, 163, 188, 193, 206, 219, 220
Altair, 57, 76, 85
Alternate generations, 962, 964-65, 1329
Amazon, the, 623, 625
America, fauna of, 1540, 1552-57
races of, 1672-73, 1677-78
vegetation in, 915-26
American Indians, 1677-78
Ammonites, 672
Amœba, 977-78
Anaxagoras, 376
Anchovy, 1544
Anderson, Dr., 68, 228-38
Andromeda, Constellation of, 78, 84
Andromedes, 281
Anemones, 1361
Angiosperms, 455, 890, 891-92, 958, 967
Angler-fish, 1569
Angström, 818
Animal, kingdom, 1296-1300, 1535
life, types of, 480
Animals, classification of, 1301-4
death-feigning instinct of, 1577-82
distribution of, 1520-35, 1561
dwellings of, 1601-2
fishing of, 1565-77
fur-bearing, 1547, 1554
hunting by, 1565-77
invertebrate, 1536
mimicry in, 1596, 1598-99
and plants, 976-78, 979-84, 1478
vertebrate, 1535
Annelids, 1603
Annulariæ, 469
Anogens, 455
Antares, 57, 76, 188
Ant-eater, 1571
Antennæ, 1439-45
Antherozoids, 1039
Anthers, 868, 1002
Antinous, 78
Ant-lions, 1417, 1568
Ants, 1408, 1409-11
Apes, 1626
Aphaniptera, 1419
Aphides, 1409-10, 1420
Apogamy, 967
Apospory, 967
Apothecia, 1212
Apple, of Carthage, 1095
Persian, 1095
Apteryx, 1524, 1528, 1561
Aquarius, 78
Arabians, 986, 1672, 1675
Arabs, the, 116-20
Arago, 54
Ararat, Mount, 500
Archegonia, 963
Archimedes, 64
Arcturus, 57, 63, 75, 86, 87, 122, 187, 315
Argelander, 58, 59, 62, 66, 68
Aristolochia, 956
Aristotle, 284
of Stagira, 986
Armadillo, 1555
Arnebia echioides. See _Prophet-Plant_
Arnold, Dr., 1069
Aroideæ, 952
Arrow, the, 77
Articulata, 481, 1303
Articulates, 459, 460
Arum, 952
Asia, fauna of, 1546-48
races of, 1672
vegetation in, 905-9
Ass, wild, 1546
Asteroids. See _Planetoids_
Astrocopium, 119
Astronomers, the first, 26
Atacama, desert of, 665
Atlantosaurus, 718
Atlas, 64
of Southern Stars, 61
Atlases, celestial, 65-66
Atmosphere, earth’s, 773-84
Atolls, 689-93, 699-707
Aurora, Borealis, 813-19
spectrum of, 346-47, 818
and sun, 817-18
Ausonius, 88-89
Australia, flora of, 886, 926-28
races of, 1673
vegetation in, 926-29
Avebury, Lord, 1105
B
Baboons, 1529
Bacon, Roger, 799
Bacteria, 648-54, 1131-35
Badger, 1616, 1617
Baer, Von, 1294
Baker, Sir S., 1566
Balance, the, 78
Balata, the, 1153-54
Balloon ascensions, 776-77
Baltimore Oriole, 1631
Bamboo, 1115-22
Banana, 942-43, 952
Banisteria, 953, 956
Banks, Sir Joseph, 1387
Banyan tree, 1169-70
Baobab, 941, 950
Barley, 944
Barometer, 785
Barnard, Prof., 155, 159, 263, 391, 419, 420
Bate, Spence, 1375, 1376
Bates, W. H., 1594, 1595, 1599
Bathybius haeckelii, 1306
Batrachia, 1379
Bats, 1547, 1550, 1555-56
Bauhinas, 953, 956
Baxendell, 344, 348
Bayer, John, 105
_Beagle_, the, 1665
Bear, the Great, 80-81, 122
the Little, 77, 82
Bears, 1543, 1546, 1553
Beaumont, Elie de, 572
Beaver, 1542, 1554