THE INFLUENCE OF HYBRIDITY.
We must regard hybridity in a double point of view, as being able or
unable to give an indication of the real value of different human
races, as compared with the acknowledged natural groups in the greater
number of zoological classifications; and on the other hand, we must
study hybridity, belonging, as has been asserted, to the creation of
new races.
It has been said, we repeat, that all men being able to reproduce one
with another, the genus _homo_ only constitutes one single family.
That this argument should hold good, it was necessary to be proved
that among animals (for thence it was that it was borrowed) two well
acknowledged species, more different even than two human races, should
never be prolific one with the other. Now, this is far from being the
case. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, who has treated this subject in a
masterly manner in his _Histoire Naturelle Générale_, acknowledges that
animals belonging to two different genera can, by a union, produce a
mixed breed, which, consequently he calls _bigenerate hybrids_.
So we will not give ourselves the trouble of contesting, as some
polygenists have done, the universality of reproduction between all
races of mankind; we will not ask if every degree of combination has
been observed,--the union, for instance, of an Esquimaux with a Negro,
an American with an Australian, a Tartar with a Bosjesman. Let us
admit, what is, perhaps, hardly the truth, that all races produce one
with another,--we will admit all this; and yet it will prove nothing
in favour of the monogenists who have brought forward this fact, since
we henceforth know that there is no basis in this universality of
reproduction for a serious argument,--since we know that two distinct
species, two genera, in fact, can produce cross-breeds. This faculty
of reproduction has had too much importance given to it,--it is only
a function, that is to say, a physiological character quite improper
for classification; the existence of _bigenerate hybrids_ shows
this sufficiently. It is a bad characteristic, because it is not a
constant one; because either the man or the animal does not bear it
in him, and that a given uniformity of circumstances is necessary in
order to reveal this characteristic to an observer. It is the same
with animal forms, which do not countenance in any manner such an
observation; it is sufficient to recall the alternating generations
of the invertebrata. Where shall we place all these agamous animals?
how shall we class these _proscolex_ and _scolex_, which have no sex,
and which will never have one? Instead of the idea of fecundity,
which is insufficient to characterise a species, we must substitute
another, that of the development of the produce. If everything shows
us that zoosperms, proceeding from very different animals, can equally
fecundate any given ovum,--if we even admit that we have no good reason
for rejecting the theory that each ovum can be impregnated by different
kinds of zoosperms, it is very easy, on the contrary, to account for
the fact that offspring will have no chance of life, except so far as
the two parents show a sufficient identity, but which we cannot regard
as fit to characterise species.
As the produce of two organisms, a descendant ought always to be
considered as the result of two united halves fitted together, and
combined one with the other. If the two halves are identical, the
animal is like its progenitors in everything. If the two beings,
who have endeavoured to unite themselves, are too dissimilar, the
two forces cannot combine, and there is either no produce, or it is
arrested in its development from the first moment of its embryo life.
If the two forces, or the sum of the two forces, have a certain amount
of common direction, they can produce a new being, but an imperfect
one, and which will not have all the conditions of existence like its
parents; it will not have genital power, and consequently will not
be fitted to become the founder of a series of individuals similar
to itself, succeeding it through time, “naturally, regularly, and
indefinitely.”[246]
Putting on one side the power of reproduction, we must attend solely to
the union of different human races with regard to vitality of produce,
and let us see what observation will teach us on this subject.
Jacquinot states, that “one can scarcely quote any cross between
Australians and Europeans.” When the ancient inhabitants of Van
Diemen’s Land, reduced to the number of two hundred and ten, were taken
from Flinder’s Island, not only had the union of the women with the
unscrupulous convicts been unable to form a distinct race, but only two
adults were found who were the produce of these unions.[247]
“The Mulattoes,” says Nott, “are the shortest-lived of any of the
branch races; when they unite amongst themselves, they are less
prolific than if united to one or other of the branches.[248]” This
assertion is especially true concerning the cross-breeds born of
Negroes and inhabitants of the north of Europe. At Java, crosses
between Malays and Dutch appear not to be able to reproduce beyond the
third generation.[249] “The _half-caste_ of India,” says Warren, “comes
to a premature end, generally without reproduction; and if there are
any offspring, they are always wretched and miserable.”[250]
We must say another word about Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s
opinion on the important question of cross-breeding in mankind. After
having reproached Cuvier, and with reason, with having often, in the
interest of particular views, admitted, as regards mankind, a flagrant
contravention of the biological laws which his genius proclaimed for
other animals, Isidore Geoffroy seems to us to have, in his turn,
fallen into a contradiction of the same kind. He especially calls
_hybrids_ the crosses which occur from the cross of two different
species, and he remarks, besides, that hybrids have generally tolerably
decided characteristics, which are partly those of the father and
partly those of the mother; so that the offspring, he adds, can
resemble one more than the other, but not _exclusively_ either of them:
the cross is always to be found in it. On the contrary, it is not
_always_ so with the cross between two varieties of the same species;
the produce has often the characteristics of both its parents, but very
frequently, also, it resembles one of them exclusively.
For these beings who are the offspring of two varieties of the same
species, and _who very frequently reproduce entire the type of one
of their parents_ to the exclusion of the other, Isidore Geoffroy
reserved the name of _homoïdes_. Well, we ask him this,--in taking,
as an example, the offspring of a union between a white and a black,
shall we find in it the characteristics of a homoïd cross? Will it
never resemble exclusively one of the two founders? Are not the
characteristics of the Mulatto perfectly represented, perfectly
defined, and always medium? Are not exceptions, if any can be quoted,
of extreme rarity?[251] In the name of this consistency, ought not
Isidore Geoffroy to have seen in a Mulatto something besides a homoïd
mongrel, and to doubt even more that the different races of mankind
constituted only varieties of the same species?
However, let us examine into hybridity so far as it may serve to
produce new, or modify existing races, as Blumenbach and Flourens have
admitted.[252] Let us only remark that these two authors, like most
monogenists, in placing hybridity, as the modifying cause, in the same
rank as climate or medium, commit a great error. Hybridity, even in
giving it the creative power which some have desired, goes entirely
into the second rank, for it supposes a pre-existing plurality. It can
only act, in the end, by weakening differences, by creating a middle
term to two extremes. It cannot of itself produce variety of origin, it
is the consequence of it, and we shall see that the part it takes on
this matter is extremely restricted.
White[253] supposes a colony composed of an equal number of blacks
and whites; then he tries to find out what will happen in the course
of time, by supposing that a thirtieth part of them die and are born
each year. He arrives, by his calculations, at the following results:
in sixty-five years the number of blacks, whites, and mulattos will be
equal; in ninety-one years the whites will only form one-tenth of the
total population, and the blacks one-tenth; in three centuries, there
would not remain one hundredth part of them, either black or white.
This proposition is true, theoretically speaking; it is practically
false: it rests upon what we may call an unstable equilibrium. In
the physical world we may, by care, happen to put an ellipsoid in a
state of equilibrium on the extremity of its greater axis, or a cone
on its apex; these are also unstable equilibria, but the least cause
intervening, the smallest movement, and the balance is instantly
destroyed. If we admit into White’s theory a birth which does not
take place, or an unproductive union, the conclusions are overturned
at once; a part of the new generation will preserve the primitive
type,[254] and this portion will be much more considerable than White
imagined. When the facts of arrest of development, quoted above, are
not sufficient to prove that a mongrel breed cannot subsist by itself,
can we anywhere find one? Do we find a people preserving for centuries
a medium type between two other types which gave it birth? We see them
nowhere,--just as little as we see a race of mules. The fact is that
such a hybrid race, intermediate to two defined types, can only have a
subjective and ephemeral existence.
The definition of the word _type_, both in natural history and in the
particular case in which we are engaged, is rather a difficult matter,
and which we can _feel_ much better than we can express it in writing.
When we have seen a certain number of men belonging to one race, the
mind, without any particular study, takes from each a number of
general characteristics, and forms from them a sort of ideal being, to
which it refers the real beings which it may henceforth see, and with
which it identifies those who have a sufficient amount of similarity
with this being.[255]
We have seen in the preceding chapter that, as regards historic times
at least, a type invariably reproduces itself through time and space,
when it does not succumb to the new climate in which it is about to
live. If we admit, however, that two types may have met with a harmony
of influences, a medium in which they can both live, we say that--even
with all the care that may be taken to mix them--we shall always find,
whatever White may say, black people and white people, if these races
were black and white originally; and this by reason of laws which we
think we can shape, and whose demonstration will be as positive as that
of the domain of history.
LAW I.--_A medium type cannot exist by itself, except on the condition
of being supported by the two creating types._
LAW II.--_When two types become united, two phenomena may arise: 1.
Either one of them will absorb the other; or, 2. They may subsist
simultaneously in the midst of a greater or less number of hybrids._
These two laws are only, in fact, the formula of the principles which
Prichard[256] himself laid down long ago, and which are held also by
the editor of the _Ethnological Journal_,[257] by Knox,[258] and by
William Edwards.[259]
By reason of these laws, we find that nowhere can a medium race either
establish itself on the ruins of two creating races, or replace them,
and live by itself with an independent existence, formed entirely of
hybrids which propagate among themselves. In fact we have laid down
a rule that conditions of development are very much restricted among
hybrids, and that they can only go on decreasing in their descendants,
if they are capable of producing any. The crossed race will only exist
in the condition of being supported by the two creating types remaining
in the midst of it. If the value of this law is only deduced from a
negative fact,--that is to say, from the absence on the surface of the
globe of any real hybrid race existing by itself on a certain extent
of territory,--we shall find, as regards the second, a great number of
_positive_ facts.
When two types unite, we said, a double phenomenon may be observed;
either of these two types will absorb the other, or they may subsist
simultaneously, one near the other. The first case ought to be the most
frequent; but it is the least appreciable, because it does not leave
sensible traces. We must endeavour to discover in history the remains
of a people who formerly existed, and who have since disappeared.
Thus, the colony of Nubians, taken to the banks of the Phasis by
Rámases, have left no trace of their sojourn among the inhabitants of
the land. It is the same with the Greek colonies of the Mediterranean
coasts.[260] The Normans have only left, on the coasts of Labrador,
their engraved _stelæ_;[261] their race has not remained. The primitive
Turkish and Asiatic type has likewise disappeared from Europe. This
has been attributed to the introduction of Georgian women into the
seraglios, and it is, perhaps, a reason only too readily accepted. It
is, indeed, very natural that the repeated introduction of Georgian
and Circassian women into the hárems should deprive the descendants of
the conquerors of their original characteristics; but if this were the
case, the Turks of our days would, from continued unions with the same
race, have become real Georgians and Circassians themselves. It has not
been so, however, because the harems are recruited in Europe as well as
in Asia, and even then the fact would only be applicable to families of
high position. The truth seems to be that the real Turkish blood has
nearly disappeared, and has been encroached upon and replaced by the
old blood of the country, either Macedonian or Thracian.
We are ignorant of the laws which govern the disappearance of one race
in the sight of another. Sometimes it happens very rapidly; sometimes
it does not show itself. The complex conditions which rule it enter
into the great order of facts which Darwin has so ingeniously classed
under the name of the _struggle for existence_. They have always
seemed to us to present a complete analogy with the disappearance of
certain animal species before others, the steps of which disappearance
history sometimes allows us to measure; so that there seems to be a
curious similarity between the great fluctuations of nations and of
animals upon continents. We are almost tempted to say that the invasion
of the West by the Barbarians, the black rat, and the field mouse,
is the triple expression of one and the same biological law. The
American population retrogrades, like certain animals;[262] that of the
Australian coasts has disappeared; and we believe that the Negroes of
Africa themselves will be called, at some distant period, to give up
their place in their turn.
We do not know any more about the conditions which allow two types
to subsist indefinitely one near the other: must we attribute this
resistance to the country, or the races which are always before them?
Why, if the Normans have disappeared in America, Italy, and Asia,
should they still remain in Normandy, few in number, it is true, but
always the same, and perfectly described by Linnæus, when he said
of the Goths in the Scandinavian peninsula, “They have smooth, fair
hair, and the iris of the eye is of a bluish colour.”[263] Even when
cross-breedings take place between more than two races,--even when
these various influences are mixed together, struggled with, and
assisted in a thousand ways, so that the question has become almost
inextricable to the anthropologist, in the midst of the varied produce
resulting from all these combinations, we are astonished to see here
and there individuals who have the absolute and complete character
of one of the original stock. Whilst there remains among a people a
considerable amount of mixed blood, we may always expect to see some
one appear who will have the pure characteristics of the race which was
believed to be extinguished, and mingled for ever with the blood of
others.[264]
The most remarkable instance which can be quoted about these crosses,
and at the same time the easiest to notice, is that presented by
England, where two races live side by side, mixed together, without one
having absorbed the other since the time of Strabo, Tacitus, and Julius
Cæsar. England, isolated from Europe, ought necessarily to be a fertile
field for the anthropologist, and it will be there where the history of
historic and pre-historic races will soonest be made. Eminent men work
at it with ardour; and the certainty of remounting, through archæology
and palæontology, to the first races which invaded England, at a time
when the use of metals was unknown in the west, makes this study one of
the most interesting of the present day.
Two distinct races divide Great Britain, or, at least, representatives
of two races are found there; and in the midst of an immense number of
intermediate individualities, the least accustomed eye will not fail to
distinguish these two fundamental types, as different as two men with
white skins can be. One of these races is composed of tall, strong,
powerful men, with transparent skin, and blue eyes;[265] the other,
with a more tawny complexion, has black, curling hair.[266] The first
were formerly called Caledonians, the second Silurians, very like the
Iberians of the Spanish peninsula: the first, of Germanic, or northern
origin; the second, of Celtic, or southern origin. Nobody denies,
at the present day, that these two races are well characterised,
and every day one can meet perfect specimens of them in England. We
may quote certain districts where the Silurian, Iberian, or Celtic
race, as tradition wills it, are dominant;[267] for example, in the
north-west of Glamorganshire, in the outskirts of Merthyr, and in the
Vale of Neath.[268] Mr. John Philips finds them equally abundant in the
Danelag[269] district, between Leicester, Nottingham, and Derby, with
the same characteristics, “black eyes and hair, uniform, or rather,
dark complexion.”[270] Among these two races there are of necessity a
considerable number of cross-breeds who, allying themselves among one
another, or to the pure types, produce varied results, and in this
manner unite the two groups by a multitude of inappreciable shades of
difference.
Such is also the case in France. Edwards[271] has divined it almost
by inspiration; and M. Périer[272] has powerfully added to his
presumptions, by examining more attentively all ancient documents which
treat on the inhabitants of Gaul. M. Broca, in the _Mémoire_ which
inaugurated the proceedings of the Paris Anthropological Society,[273]
has proved in the clearest possible manner, that if we draw a line
passing by Cherbourg and Nice,[274] we shall divide France into two
distinct zones as regards the appearance and height of the inhabitants.
In the south-west, the ancient Celtic population is of small height,
as is proved by the great number of military exemptions.[275] In the
north-west, in the region which was always encroached upon by the fair
and powerful races of the north, the result is quite the contrary.
Here, then, are two distinct races: the one, formerly mistress of the
west, and then pushed to the extremity of the continent; the other,
leaving its forests and encroaching on the rest,--both differing as
much as possible by physical aspect and by moral aptitudes, but now
filling up their numbers, so to speak, by each other’s help, and
working together for the glory and prosperity of their common land.
We must not, however, give a general meaning to these last words, and
thus extend their meaning to all cases of ethnic cross-breeding. The
two united terms must not be too dissimilar, so that the two branches
may reunite as regards progress. This is essential; and if we have
endeavoured to prove that the hybrids of distant races do not possess
all the necessary conditions of animal life and of propagation, it
would be easy to find numerous proofs in order to show that, generally,
the intellectual conditions of hybrids are not much more satisfactory
than their physical condition, since the two intelligent organisms
which are there combined do not show a decided similarity.
Doctor Tschudi[276] says, in speaking of the Zambos (hybrids from
aborigines and Negroes at Lima), “As men, they are greatly inferior
to the pure races; and as members of society, they are the worst
class of citizens:” they alone furnish four-fifths of the criminals
in the prisons of Lima. Mr. E. G. Squier[277] has made almost the
same observation about the Zambos of Nicaragua. In his part of the
country, the union of Spaniards with these same Americans, seems to
have only produced degenerate men, who show no capability whatsoever
for perfection or improvement. In fact, it is on account of these
same principles that M. de Gobineau[278] has set himself to prove
at length that the mixture of races necessarily conducts mankind to
degradation and universal debasement. Cabanis had the same ideas on the
subject.[279]
The supposition which Cabanis and M. de Gobineau have taken up will,
doubtless, never be realised. To admit that all human races can reach
a complete hybridity, would be to admit that each race is cosmopolite,
which it is not. But at least it remains true, that when two _very
different_ races are united, we must not hope for anything good or
durable from their union. The same phenomenon happens, with the simple
difference of _intensity_, when two different _species_ of animals are
united. So the monogenists are astonished at such a result in man, “a
result quite contrary,” says one of them,[280] “to what one generally
expects in crossing a race.”[281] The astonishment of the learned man,
of whom we speak, is explained easily enough by the ideas which he
holds of human races, where he only sees degenerated varieties of the
original type, preserved by the European in its primitive purity.
It is evident that in this monogenic hypothesis, which we shall not
touch on again, the union of one of these degenerated races with the
pure stock would be a sort of _hygid_[282] consanguinity, and therefore
favourable to the offspring. Here there would happen something
analogous to the practice of the peasants in the _crétin_ districts,
who try to struggle against the scourge by seeking for marriages in
the plains, in order to give purer blood to each generation. In a more
general manner it is evident that if we suppose two sets of people born
of the same stock, and that one of them, after various fortunes, after
having undergone fatal influences, should unite itself with the other,
which had remained unaltered, it is evident that the produce of such a
union ought to tend to reproduce in its purity the primitive type.[283]
If it is not so with the union of different races of men, the reason is
simply that they do not directly descend the one from the other; and
from this debasement of produce there results a new proof in favour of
the ideas which we are defending.
It remains for us to speak of hybridity, as applied to the propagation
of a deformity or a monstrosity. We know that when we experimentally
unite one of this class to the other, two individuals whose organism
has equally deviated from the usual type, “nothing is more difficult
than to prevent these mischances from being done away with.”[284] A
stronger reason, then, for the same when one of these individuals alone
is deformed, which happens always in a state of nature. The races which
we can thus produce are a kind of experiment which exist, but which it
would be illogical to deduce can exist naturally. Because we make in a
laboratory oxygenated water, or mixtures of hydrogen and chlorine, must
we admit that these bodies are to be found united in nature? Quite the
contrary; we deduce from their instability that they do not, and cannot
thus exist in a natural state.