SYSTEM.
All science leads necessarily to a _system_; and system signifies
here, not the proceeds of observation or a route followed by analysis
or synthesis in order to arrive at the knowledge of the truth. System
here means, a mode of classifying beings or observed facts, a mode
essentially in connection with the science which treats of these beings
or of these facts, and often applicable to itself alone.
A perfect system can only be really established _à posteriori_, after
the knowledge has been acquired of all the phenomena which are to be
classed. This is absolute. In practice, a system can only be observed
_à priori_, by reference to a certain number of facts which it is
destined afterwards to embrace; it is only true that the more facts
we acquire, the more chance has a system of being exact, without
our ever having the right of proclaiming it to be absolutely good;
it may be satisfactory, and remain so for a long time, but one fine
day a new fact may prove it to be false. “I am of opinion,” said
Étienne Geoffroy, “that a perfect system cannot exist; it is a sort of
philosopher’s stone, impossible to be discovered.”[327]
A science being given, it does not at all follow that there already
exists a proper method for classifying in a natural series the
phenomena which manifest themselves to us in this branch of human
knowledge. If we have not yet succeeded in discovering a true
anthropological system, if Camper, Prichard, and Morton have been
foiled, it is because the science of mankind is still too new.
Even in making an abstract of the difficulties always to be found in
determining every animal _species_, difficulties which are derived
from the way in which we understand its evolution,[328] must we be
astonished that the human race is not yet divided into distinct groups,
when animals, much more easy to class on account of their lesser
degree of intellectual and social activity, are not yet classed in a
satisfactory manner,[329] when the Geoffroys, Cuvier, and De Blainville
have failed in something or other, since this question seems still
worthy of examination by the greatest minds of Europe with which the
natural sciences are honoured at the present day? The natural history
of man is of to-day, and the difficulties are great, because by virtue
of his intellect man possesses resistance and special affinity.
Living by nations, he lives a double life; his own, and that of the
nation--which is a separate thing--into which a neighbouring race or
species can enter wholly, adopting the same customs, the same dress,
and the same language. There are difficulties which we meet with in
anthropology, and which we only meet with there. A species has been
known to disappear, for instance, and has left its name to some group
entirely different from it, for if the Ethnic name has served at
the origin to name the inhabited country, the geographical name has
reacted in its turn, and has imposed itself on all the people who have
successively occupied the same area. Other difficulties will arise from
regions inhabited by distinct species, if these limits are not marked
by some physical barrier almost impossible to be passed.
Thus we are far, even at the present day, from agreeing about the
bases of a good anthropological classification. Many methods have
been tried, but none have as yet succeeded. Some have adopted
geographical division. Others, the colour of the skin. Others, the
state of the hair. Others (the most numerous class), have stopped at
the shape of the head. The skull has chiefly exercised the sagacity of
anatomists and anthropologists, and we can say fairly that there is no
combination to which it has not been submitted in order to arrive at
the distribution of mankind into natural groups. We must remark that
all these cranioscopic classifications rest involuntarily upon this
_datum_, that the different kinds of men are unequally endowed with
intellect. Starting, then, from this principle, that the volume of the
brain is in _ratio_ to intelligence, or that intellect is in _ratio_ to
the volume of the brain, people tried to find a simple, rather than an
easy, method of taking account of such an irregular solid: and Camper
opened the way with his famous angle.
This system was soon followed by others who are less celebrated,
having come after him. We may quote, among others, the interior angle
of Walther, described by two lines, the one going from the occipital
protuberance to the _crista galli_ process, the other from the frontal
prominence to the root of the nose. There is also the external angle of
Mulders, described by the facial line of Camper, and another line going
from the base of the process to the root of the nose. And, lastly,
that of Daubenton, described by a line going from the inferior margin
of the orbit to the posterior region of the occipital orifice, and by
another following the direction of the plane of the same.[330] All
these systems are worth as much as Camper’s. All, including Camper’s,
are false and worthless, from the mere fact that they pretend to
measure a solid by the inclination of two of its boundary-planes one
upon the other. After these methods of measurement, and superior to
all of them, comes the _norma verticalis_ of Blumenbach; then the
measurements of Cuvier, Owen, etc. Here we gain a step; we endeavour
to measure a solid by its outline, or by the area of a systematic
division or section. Already had Camper, better gifted than his angle
would inform us, endeavoured to compare the different diameters of the
profile of the skull, as seen in front.[331] As to Cuvier’s division,
it is a very happy modification of a former proposed measurement, the
incisive-occipital line of Doornick. It is obtained by lowering a
vertical line to the plane of the external auditory orifice, and by
leading another line from the incisors to the extreme protuberance of
the occipital region. The relation of the two determinated divisions in
this line by its intersection with the first, will give the statistics
of comparison.[332]
Progress has been immense, and yet our systems remain very
unsatisfactory; the skull seems to escape every method of measurement.
Some time ago a meeting of craniologists took place at Gottingen, and
yet the learned assembly was obliged to separate without settling
anything.[333] It seems that the old saying of Bernard Palissy about
measuring some peculiar skull, will remain true in spite of all our
efforts: “I have never known how to obtain a correct measurement.”[334]
Another method is that of Morton, to which he has attached his name by
the multiplicity of facts which he has drawn, from it, by the justice
of the views which he has expressed, after having used it thousands
of times; we speak of the direct measurement of the interior capacity
of the skull. It is for ever to be regretted that Morton finished his
laborious career without having been able to publish the ultimate
results of his long researches; but this method (which M. Broca has
actively applied), is, however, not quite perfect. If there was merely
a difference among the different races in the amount of intellect
shown in their works, this measurement would be sufficient to establish
a division; but there is more than that; all races have different
aptitudes, and here is to be found the fault of Morton’s system, which
only takes the whole, which makes no distinction between very different
skulls if they have the same volume, like those of the Esquimaux, for
instance, and those of Americans. The subject of measurement differs,
like intellect, otherwise than merely in dimension, and that which
craniology wants is the definition of all these special tendencies of
the intellect by as many tangible varieties as possible.[335]
Craniology is not anthropology; it assists it materially, but the
partial results which it obtains have not necessarily the same value in
the more general point of view of anthropology. Every classification,
based on the form of the skull, will be necessarily an artificial
classification, because it will only rest upon one sole order of
phenomena. Besides, this study presents great difficulties from the
individual differences which the various heads show, in which the
qualities belonging to the individual have been so far able to hide the
general characters of the race, that these often remain unrecognisable.
Divisions have also increased in proportion as craniological
collections have come richer in specimens. Morton only reckoned
eleven human races, but he believed under the truth. We may very well
have a poor idea of the value of this classification by studying the
materials which were used by the philosopher of Philadelphia. Besides
the American race, Morton had only a very few skulls at his disposal.
The Philadelphian collection, which has been much increased since
his death, contained, only a few years ago, 1035 skulls, 38 of them
pathological; there remain therefore but 997. Out of this number the
American race figures in 502, or more than one-half. There remains,
therefore 495, 154 of which came from the valley of the Nile; so that
merely 350 skulls represent the whole of Europe, Asia, the Oceanic
countries, and Africa (excepting Egypt). This is not much for the
purpose of classing a population likely to be raised to five hundred
millions of inhabitants.[336]
It remains for us to study and determine the intrinsic value of each of
these heads. The authentic production of a skull is not always easy to
be established when it comes from the other side of the world, obtained
by travellers who have not made a special study of anthropology; it is
even less so when a skull is dug up in a burial ground, where there
may be a certain promiscuousness very apt to hinder our inquiries.
Errors of this kind steal into science only too often, and we have
for a long time in particular objected to the name of _Gallic mummy_,
which has been given to a body in a collection at Paris, the history
of which does not at all justify this denomination, since we simply
believe that _when it was first dug up_ it was only referred back to
the _thirteenth_ century![337]
Craniology was anthropology itself, whilst this science was being
cultivated merely by learned men in their studies. If a skull does
not always bear about it the stamp of the race to which it belongs,
we must nevertheless own that it is the best representative of the
dead individual. Craniology obtains all its weight and powers from the
study of ancient races and extinct peoples. There it ought to intervene
with an unequalled importance, for want of better points of reference.
By its means anthropology can search in the past, clearing up those
questions which history is incapable of explaining. In this manner
Morton has been able to prove better than by any historical document
that Ancient Egypt was inhabited by very mixed races, and composed of
the most different elements, exactly as in our own days. But there
remained a problem even more interesting: that of knowing if the
different races who then inhabited the banks of the Nile were as much
divided into various occupations as at the present day: the Albanians
are all soldiers, the Copts all scribes and officials, the Fellahs
all labourers, etc. Doubtless it would be possible, if not easy, to
arrive at the solution of this new problem by collecting skulls and
mummies with more care than has hitherto been done, and, above all,
by assisting the researches of the Egyptiologists, who can read upon
the coffin that such and such a body is that of a workman, a priest, or
a king. We may thus be able to ascertain if the kings of such or such
a dynasty were black or yellow; if the dominant population of such or
such a _nome_ had the Coptic, Berberine, or Fellah type. Here we have a
large field for study, which has been almost entirely neglected by the
American school of anthropology, precisely because Morton found himself
without information about the production and true age of the immense
materials which he had at his disposal.
But we must not be forgetful: the classification of skulls by their
shape, of hairs by their colour, or skins by their hue, is not the
classification of races of mankind. We only perceive here one order of
phenomena. A classification established upon such bases has its point
of departure only in the mind of him who conceived it, and not in the
nature of things.
We shall only have a natural and rational classification by comparing
entire individuals one with the other.[338] To this we must come;
we must study at one and the same time the height, the skin with
its dependencies, and, above all, the character of the countenance,
the attitude, the _facies_, and the _habitus_ of different races,
which Caldwell called “the variety discoverable in the complexion
and feature, the figure and stature of the human race;[339]” this
_something_ is explained in one word, which we call _type_, about
which we are never mistaken, and which makes us say, “This is a man
from the south, that is a man from the north; this is a Mongolian,
that an Indian.”[340] By this means alone we can form natural groups;
difficulties will, doubtless, be great at the beginning, but light will
come little by little, and time will teach us surely to distinguish
certain distinctive characteristics, whose expression will be gradually
more and more simple. This is a work for the future.
Anthropology regarding man as a whole, classifiers ought not to neglect
his psychological value. Although craniology is only an indirect
appreciation of the same, few had ever thought, Linnæus excepted, of
using the purely intellectual characteristics of races in order to
assist them in classification, when all at once the American school
gave an immense importance to these characteristics, and placed
psychological varieties above all the material differences which can
be observed in the configuration of the bony case of the skull. The
American school has gone too far, for it is tangible forms especially
which must furnish specific characteristics in the animal kingdom.
However this may be, we may willingly give a secondary value to the
intellectual classification of the human race, although _data_ are
still wanting in order to establish one which can be considered as
complete. We will even add that the characteristics of this order
are the more authentic and the more precious since they are not
the expression of a given moment, nor that of a certain number of
individuals. They belong to a whole race.
We must seek for them in the literary remains of a people. These teach
us surely, even after many ages have elapsed, about the mind, belief,
and thoughts of their readers. The monuments of plastic art remain,
even if they were a complete contradiction against their time, their
epoch, the men who ordered them, and the crowd which now regards
without understanding them.[341] A book, on the contrary, has no
success except as it enters into the mind of a people,--except as the
ideas which it expresses are those of all the world. Each book which
is published, then (like the Mosaic books among the Jews, the Korán
amongst the Mussulmen), is the true expression of the mind of a race at
all the periods of its existence, even were it written in a language
which is no longer spoken. The best Greek and Roman works, written for
men of the same blood as ourselves, have remained classical. We must
understand them, even at the present day, and we do understand them,
because the thoughts which animated their authors are still our own.
If, on the contrary, we wish to penetrate into any foreign literature,
it becomes a labour and a fatigue, we only reach it by making an
abstraction of our thoughts and our ideas, by endeavouring to enter
entirely, by a violent effort, into the life and feelings of another
people.
Languages also have been considered capable of serving as a basis for
the classification of the human race. Their importance has been largely
discussed, and counts numerous warm partisans.[342] At their head we
may perhaps mention Latham, who wishes the ancient history of mankind
to be studied by languages,[343] and agreeing in Prichard’s ideas
about the production of intermediary hybrid races, he only sees this
method of reading the history of the past, and he is quite naturally
led to language, which seems to him to offer better conditions of
resistance[344] than physical characteristics.
It is true that philology, applied to anthropological research, is of
immense assistance to it; it can give us powerful inductions on the
history of the past, and on the origin of the present human species.
But even these, solutions agree very well with the theory of gradual
evolution, and with the corollary of this theory, namely, that man has
not always possessed the faculty of speech.[345] Philologists tell
us, for instance, that two sister tribes may have been able, at some
past time, to create on each side of a mountain two different idioms,
which may produce in their turn two families of languages absolutely
irreducible one from the other. This is what would take place,
according to M. Renan, when the sons of the same parents, separating
on the sides of the Imäus, became the double branch from whence have
sprung the Semites on one side, and the Aryas on the other. This would
be the explanation of the fact so embarrassing for anthropologists,
that physical characteristics are sensibly identical among the Semites
and Europeans, whilst these races are as distinct as possible in the
matter of language. Now, we may even go further, and infer from these
facts that the common species from whence the Semites, on the one hand,
and the Aryas, on the other, are descended, did not yet know how to
speak.
Inversely to Latham, some anthropologists have given, in our opinion,
too little importance to language: we speak especially of Edwards and
M. Omalius d’Halloy.[346] The truth lies, doubtless, between these two
extremes. It must be acknowledged that language can very often furnish
excellent evidence, but it must not be forgotten that it shows at the
same time a more rapid liability to change than moral characteristics
and corporal form. Niebuhr seems to us to be right when he insists upon
the precautions to be taken in order to apply philology in a useful
manner to the determination of races, and he concludes that we must
give the greatest attention to physical configuration.[347] This is
also the opinion of Humboldt[348] and M. Vivien.[349] A language, like
every custom, and every act of individual relation, can transmit itself
from one race to another which is very different. The unity of a family
of languages is not always sufficient to establish that the people who
speak these idioms are of one and the same origin; we can only conclude
from it that they have been in relation one with the other, and it is
even reasonable to admit that this cause has been able to act with a
decisive influence at the epoch when man first commenced to lisp.[350]
These two tribes meeting for the first time, physically strangers one
to the other, were doubtless able to borrow mutually certain habits,
and to mingle in a decided manner their two manners of explaining their
thoughts, from which has resulted one sole language, in which we cannot
distinguish except by analysis the two different branches which have
contributed to its formation. This hypothesis has been even elevated
to a general thesis by several philologists, and M. d’Escayrac de
Lauture, among others, believes that the centre of Africa, that land
of the unknown and of mystery, is reserved to us as a spectacle of
this phenomenon.[351] Without going back to origin, it is evident that
two neighbouring peoples, in continual relation one with the other,
ought to end by borrowing mutually the forms of language, letters, and
articulation, especially when they have neither of them any literature
capable of retaining the language within its limits, and of preserving
it from all separation.
Hence it results that anthropology must take its most precious
authorities from the study of languages, in the language of the
islands, for instance, and in the idioms spoken at the extremity of the
continents: thus surrounded by the sea, in relation by its less extent
with the others, these idioms will be preserved even more intact. We
shall find here the real expression of the most ancient state of things
which we can directly recognise by philology. The _click_ language, so
peculiar to one single race,[352] exists only in the most southern part
of Africa. They still speak the ancient Pali[353] in the south of Asia
and at Ceylon. The most ancient language of Europe, so far as we know,
namely the Celtic, still remains in Britanny and in Wales.
From all which has gone before, we may then conclude that in order
to establish a rational classification of human species, the first
characteristics to be considered will be the _external aspect_, and
perhaps the _moral characteristics_; the rest will come in the second
rank: at first, language, then deep anatomical varieties which do not
strike us at the first glance, then physiological and pathological
varieties, etc. Such is, we think, the only certain basis upon which
anthropology can rest--the true distinctions between human species.
We do not even yet know exactly their number, and naturalists do not
at all agree on this subject; the work is to be done over again, by
following a new route.
Without troubling ourselves with enquiring into the whole system of
the genus _homo_, we must at first examine these well-characterised
centres of population which are entirely distinct as regards aspect and
physiognomy. We must mark these centres with care, paying attention
to all the physical, moral, and philological varieties which we are
able to notice. M. Flourens has given some excellent principles for
the study of animal species; he wishes simply to apply them to the
study of human species; and from this connection, which nobody can
contradict as a means of investigation, there arises a farther proof
of the rank which we must give to man in the organic series. “We must
observe the living animal,” said M. Flourens; “we must observe him
for a long time, and also both sexes and all ages. We must study his
nature, his instincts, and his intellect. Each of these things has its
own characteristic in each animal, and it is by the whole of these
characteristics put together that species is defined.” It is impossible
to trace in a better manner the anthropologists’ task.
When we have well studied a homogeneous centre of population under all
its aspects, when we have rendered an account of its physiological,
psychological, and philological characteristics, we may stop; and
without prejudging anything concerning the area of this race, may then
pass on to another centre, which we shall notice in the same way,
without troubling ourselves with intermediary varieties, which will
always be in a greater or lesser number wherever we do not happen to
meet with a physical barrier, like the sea or a chain of mountains,
which may separate the two centres which are to be observed. Then we
shall, doubtless, have numberless shades and transitions; but these are
merely the phenomena of hybridity, entirely secondary, and which ought
not at all to influence our essays on anthropological classification.
At a later period, when we know more, we shall be able to review all
these intermediary varieties, when we understand their conditions of
existence better. In this manner we must take care at the beginning to
study certain countries, places of travel, and meeting, to which all
the neighbouring races have given some portion of their blood. Such are
most European countries, and such always was the Valley of the Nile
and the Blue Nile. The streets of Cairo are not only a picturesque
spectacle; from thence did Étienne Geoffroy borrow his grand views
about the position of the genus _homo_ in nature; the man of science
profits here as much in his search after truth as the artist in his
search after the beautiful.
Who can forget, even if he has only once seen it, this phantasmagoria
of customs and physiognomies which developes itself before our eyes
at every moment; here a gigantic Circassian, there a smaller sized
Copt, with an arched nose; a Nubian, with his “violet ebony” colour,
but with a pleasing figure, nose straight and small, thin lips, well
arranged teeth; a Turk, with as white and transparent a skin as a
man of the north; a Negro, with crisped hair, flat nose, prominent
cheek-bones, thick lips, large and projecting teeth; a Fellah, with
olive complexion; a Bedouin, almost as black as a Nubian, but tall,
with aquiline nose, thin lips, and kingly bearing.
We must not seek for a pure population in the streets of Paris, London,
Marseilles, Trieste, or Constantinople: we only find in these capitals
isolated facts, good specimens, perhaps, of different species, but
lost in the multitude of hybrids. We can only study in these places
_individuals_, not _species_. In those parts alone which we must make
centres of observation, can we see the same man indefinitely multiplied
among really primitive people, still free from intermixture, or with
the least possible taint of the same. Then we must hasten to seize his
general characteristics, and take both his physical and moral portrait.
The physical portrait in particular comprises two series of _data_,
features and colour. As to feature, photography is an unequalled
resource, but it belongs to anthropological study to settle its
application in a clear manner: we must always choose some individual
presenting the usual type of the population in the midst of which he
is found, rather than among the chiefs or nobles of the land. We must
select this type in the prime of life, when the animal œconomy has
arrived at its perfect development, and has not yet commenced to decay,
and still shines in all the splendour of its reproductive force; this
would be, for man, from twenty-two to twenty-seven years of age. For
photographic portraits to be of real utility to anthropologists, they
ought to represent the individual completely full face, or in profile;
thus only can they be of use in measurements. For it is important not
to confound anthropology with ethnology, as is done every day. They are
two things entirely different. _Dressed-up_ portraits are the domain of
the latter, the _natural_ history of man demands _always_ absolutely
nude representations, and the best will be those which show us the
individual with untouched beard and hair.
As to colour, we must refer as much as possible to oil-painting. In
fact, the colour of the human skin, as we have formerly said,[354] is,
in reality, a complex visual impression; all the coloured rays (we
employ the term here in the conventional sense given to it in physics)
which emanate from the skin, and which strike the eye of the observer,
are not formed by the same plane surface; they arise from the more
or less profound parts seen by transparency, through a more or less
diaphanous medium, more or less favourable for the emission of these
rays. Hence results, as regards the eye, a special sensation, and as
regards the mind, a special notion, which we explain in the arts by the
word _transparency_ or _diaphaneity_.
Now, this kind of sensation will not be reproduced by the artist unless
he employs certain processes recalling to the mind those of nature
itself. This is not the case with water-colour painting. The colouring
matter, reduced to extremely fine particles, is applied, it is true,
in a transparent vehicle--water; but this, destined to evaporate
almost immediately, leaves the colour on the surface of the paper,
stretched into an extremely fine layer, without appreciable thickness.
We perceive from this the radical imperfection of water-colour for
portraiture, and the impossibility of rendering by such means, at least
with truth, the effect of skin colours. Oil painting offers far better
resources, and here is the secret of its incomparable superiority. The
colouring matter, diluted by the oil, remains suspended as before in
its transparent medium when the painting is dry; so that the luminous
rays, in order to arrive at the eye, start from the surface of the
paint as well as from its interior substance. We find exactly the
same process in nature; an impalpable powder, like the pigmentary
granulations, or the globules of blood in the capillaries of the skin,
is spread over a diaphanous substance.
We may now understand the advantage of such a process in
anthropological iconography. We must, indeed, almost give up all
other methods. It is easy to convince oneself of the fact by examining
the coloured portraits which illustrate the works of Prichard,[355]
Nott, and Gliddon,[356] who are, however, extremely particular about
the correctness of the types which they bring before our notice. But
all these coloured portraits are unsatisfactory, and when we see some
anthropologist invoke the authority of these bad prints, we really ask
ourselves which we ought most to admire, either the blind confidence
of the _savant_, the imprudence of the author, or the rashness of the
artist. Fancy, however, attacking with such platitudes the portraits
of dark-coloured men which the masters of painting have left us, from
Veronese to Géricault! They alone have been able, by their process, to
seize the reality of the complexion and colour of their models.[357]
But the surest method of arriving at conclusive evidence in
anthropology is necessarily _travels_. Doubtless the study alone of
the materials collected from afar is of the greatest possible use. But
we repeat concerning the study of mankind what we said about the study
of animals; the anthropologist must leave his library and go into the
great continents, in order to study by means of his own eye-sight. “We
can only arrive at the distinction of species,” says M. Flourens, “by
_direct and complete personal observation_.” That it must be complete,
we have endeavoured to show; but the only condition for its being
complete is its being direct. Had we even the genius of Buffon,[358] we
should see but poorly by means of others; facts reach us distorted and
altered, because they have not always been observed by competent men;
they are not comparable, resulting as they do from diverse individual
impressions. It will be especially necessary to control with care
travellers’ tales as regards the study of intellectual tendencies,
since they are too often influenced by their own ideas on the subject.
Let us say this before concluding: among the _à priori_ proofs which
polygenists can bring forward on their side, there is one which is
of some importance; it is this, that while contrary ideas have been
sustained and defended by men who never go beyond their own studies,
the former have been generally brought forward by travellers and
sailors, by those indeed who have been best able to put in practice
this _direct observation_, which is generally conclusive and decisive.
It is these whom we find the most ready to separate mankind into
distinct groups, and to recognise in the inferior species a manifest
tendency to approach nearer the nature of the anthropomorphous apes.
A valuable source of information, from which anthropologists must not
neglect to borrow, are the accounts of those who landed for the first
time on certain islands and continents.
If they have even conceived any erroneous ideas, it must usually
be acknowledged that they are most likely to be able to give us a
tolerably faithful portrait of the nations with whom they have met,
even more important in certain points of view than the accounts
afterwards given of them, since at that time these people have not
been submitted to the various influences which necessarily result from
contact with Europeans.
We can study philology and craniology in the library and in solitude,
assisted by proper documents and sufficient materials, _but not
anthropology_; because anthropology is a science still in its
cradle, and observation must have furnished its proper and necessary
contingent before we can endeavour to apply any general idea or view.
But anthropology ought, more especially, to disengage itself from all
trammels of former ideas, as well as from all pretended humanitarian
tendencies. It would be nonsense to believe that the advance of the
truth will not contribute to social progress. The searcher after it can
free himself in all tranquillity of mind from this kind of trouble.
Haller has said, in reference to this matter, “The cultivation of
truth alone is sufficient for the good man.”[359] That which is
true,[360] cannot be evil, because it is in the eternal order of nature.
Thus, free from fetters, and obeying pure reason, resting on all the
sciences which can assist it, anatomy, physiology, psychology, and
philology, the science of mankind will advance, like every other
science, towards the conquest of that truth which is so much to be
desired; and sooner or later, by means of archæology and palæontology,
retracing its steps in the past beyond history itself, and beyond the
remotest geological epochs of which we have any record, science will
eventually discover the grand problem of the origin of mankind, if the
elements themselves are not for ever engulphed in the depths of the
ocean.
FINIS.
INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
Aborigines, 54
Abou Simbel, 50
Abyssinia, 57
Acclimatisation, 58, 89
Aërolites, 112
Africa, Central, inhabitants of, 14, 68
African equality with European, 8
Age of the world, 122
Aldridge, Ira, 63
America, 6, 67, 74
Anatomy, human, 13
Angles of the skull, 137
Anoplotherium, 42
Anthropological Societies of Paris and London, 7
Anthropomorphous apes, 11, 41
Antilles, 56
Ants, 33
Arabs, 47
Aryan family, 19, 131, 143
Asiatic tribes, 18
Australia, 14, 67
Australian aborigines, 5, 16, 17, 44
Babel, Tower of, 5
Bedouin, 147
Bees, 33
Bigenerate hybrids, 96
Bimana, order of, 38
Blood, 53
Bosjesmans, 55, 79
Bourbon, Isle of, 87
Bowed legs, 47
Brain, 12
Brazil, 69
Brute and man, 19
Buddha, 52, 67, 71
Caffres, 68, 79
Cairo, 146
Çakhya-Mouni, 52
Caledonians, 103
Cartesian theory, 26
Causæ degenerationis, 90
Central America, 81
Chain of gradation, 37
Chinese, 5, 53, 78
Circassia, 147
Classification, 64, 135
Climate, 92
Clitoris, 54
Colour, 148
Consanguinity, 107
Consciousness, 12
Copts, 147
Cordilleras, 66
Craniology, 138
Crétins, 106
Crocodile, 128
Cross-breeding, 97
Danelag, 104
Degraded nations, 75
Desdemona, 63
Development of animals, 15
Dhargonis, 18
Disease, 58
Dog, 34
Earth, motion of, round the sun, 6
Egyptians, 49, 139
England, 103
Esquimaux, 15, 17, 18, 53, 54, 68, 75
Eurygnathi, 45
Évangile de l’Enfance, 64
Evolution, 122
Family of man, 42
Fellah, 147
Flinder’s Island, 97
Flood, the word, 122
Foot, 49
Forearm in Negro, 48
France, ethnology of, 104
Frugivorous man, 39
Gallic mummy, 139
God, belief in, 71
Good and evil, 23
Goths, 62
Gradation, chain of, 37
Grecian, theories, 81
Hair, colour of, 50, 52
Half-castes, 98
Hamites, 131
Harems, 101
Height, differences of, 47
Hindoostan, 40, 145
Hippopotamus, 128
History, 80
Homoïdes, 98
Host, elevation of the, 66
Hottentots, 68
Human kingdom, 10
Humanitarian considerations, 73
Hybridity, 95
Iconography, 148
Ilotes, 84
Index, the congregation of the, 6
Individual-element, 124
Intelligence of man, 12
Japanese, 5
Jesus, 64
Jews, 70, 89
Korán, 1, 141
Labrador, 101
Language, 30, 33, 142, 145
Leucous, 51
Lima, 105
Linear series, 10
Lions, 128
Man and brute, 18
Marsh fever, 59
Material substance, 12
Mathesiological order of science, 2
Mechanical theory of mind, 26
Mediæval science, 1
Medium, action of, 82
Melanesians, 57
Melanocomous, 51
Monkey-countenance, 56
Monkey-people, 18
Monogenists, 3, 80
Monotheism, 66
Moral sense, 23
Mosaic statement, 114, 141
Namaquas, 68
Natural selection, 119
Negroes, 5, 39, 44, 48, 52, 53, 54, 58, 59, 60, 63, 64, 86, 147
Neo-Platonists, the, 2
New Guinea, 40
Nicaragua, 106
Niger, 59
Nile, 68
Nile-boats, 39
Noah’s curse, 50
Norma verticalis, 136
Normans, 101, 102
Nubians, 39, 101, 147
Official science, 113
Orang-outang, 19, 20, 22, 24, 41
Orthodox ethnology, 5
Orthognathi, 45
Othello, 63
Palæontology, 131
Pali, 145
Pandora, 133
Pathological varieties, 43, 58
Pelvis, form of, 46
Penis, 54
Peruvians, 55
Phidias, 5
Physiological varieties, 43
Polygenists, 3
Praxiteles, 5
Prepuce, 54
Prognathi, 45
Prometheus, 133
Protozoa, 111
Psychology, comparative, 24, 36
Races, 65
Reason and faith, 23
“Records of Creation,” 37
Religious dogmas, 9, 65, 67, 85
Reproduction by eggs, 111
Réunion, Isle of, 88
Revealed religion, 2
” ” relations with science, 4
Revolution, 122
Riff, 89
Rosin-makers of the Landes, 39
Scandinavian antiquities, 48
Scriptures, the Holy, 1
Selection, natural, 118
Self-consciousness, 28
Semitic race, 1, 53, 65, 75, 89, 143
Sidereal kingdom, 11
Sierra Leone, 41, 93
Silurians, 103
Slaves, 84
Soudan, 45, 61
Soul in animals, 25
South Africa, 78
Spaniards, 47
Species, definition of, 108
Speech, 30
Sperma, 53
Spontaneous generation, 110, 123
Squatting attitude, 57
Stags, 85
Stirrup leather, 39
Struggle for existence, 102
Sumatran animal, 21
Sunburn, 91
Tartars, 47, 54
Thomas, St., 69
Toe, great, 39, 42
Truth, the reign of, 9, 23
Tuân, an orang-outang, 20
Turk, 147
Type, 99
Valmîki, poem of, 40
Vanikoro, 49
Variability of species, 115
Vera Cruz, 61
Vertebrate kingdom, 125
Vital competition, 128
Voice in animals, 34
Vulcan, 133
Wild man of the woods, 14
Woolly hair, 51
Xanthus, 51
Yellow Fever, 94
Zambos, 105
Zoology, 65, 85, 109
INDEX OF AUTHORS.
About, 63
Agassiz, 113
Albin, 44
Albinus, 86
Apollonius, 35
Appleyard, 79
Aristotle, 2, 28, 37, 53
Arnold, 59, 94
Baeck, 44
Bancroft, 60
Barrière, 44
Bartlett, 59
Barton, 94
Bayle, 4, 28
Beavan, 59, 88
Bérard, 20, 45, 46, 50
Bert, 11
Bertillon, 5, 68
Bertrand de Saint-Germain, 120
Biot, 6
Blainville, 37, 38, 41, 109, 135
Blair, 60, 93
Blake, Carter, 57, 65, 85, 110
Blumenbach, 3, 90, 98
Bonaparte, 38, 42
Bonnet, 15, 37
Bonpland, 6
Bonté, 84
Bory de Saint-Vincent, 17, 39, 50, 88
Bossuet, 12
Boudin, 58
Bourdet, 3, 88, 91, 97
Brayley, 7
Brecher, 70
Broca, 3, 35, 48, 110, 137
Brunet, 64
Bryant, 60
Brydone, 122
Büchner, 66
Buffon, 21, 28, 102, 111, 113
Bunsen, 11, 144
Burnouf, 30, 52
Busk, 137
Cabanis, 81, 106
Caldwell, 140
Cameron, 59
Camper, 46, 134, 136
Carus, 50, 63
Charles IV, 6
Charnock, 77
Chavée, 77, 142
Chevreul, 8, 23, 35
Chrysostom, Saint, 25
Cohen, 76
Collingwood, 66, 91
Cook, 56
Coombes, 77
Copernicus, 6
Coréard, 57
Courtet de l’Isle, 14, 100
Crawfurd, 40, 52
Crocius, 26
Crull, 136
Cull, 104
Cuvier, Frederic, 25, 28, 38, 41, 42
Cuvier, G., 38, 41, 42, 82, 83, 109, 112
Dally, 88
Darwin, 110, 115, 118, 126
Davis, 92
Davy, 48
D’Eichthal, 54, 62
Descartes, 4, 12, 26
D’Escayrac de Lauture, 75, 144
De Maillet, 63
Desmoulins, 15
Dickinson, 94
Dickson, 94
Didot, 111
Doornick, 136
D’Orbigny, 74, 77
Durer, 48
Earl, 52
Edwards, 89, 99, 100, 140, 143
Ehrenberg, 19
Epianus, 7
Epp, 59
Fauche, 40
Fée, 110
Fenner, 60
Ferguson, 94
Fleury, 5
Flourens, 20, 27, 28, 30, 37, 44, 98, 107, 115, 142, 145
Galen, 13
Galileo, 3, 6
Garnot, 16, 104
Génébrard, 71
Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, Barthélemy, 71, 97
Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, Étienne, 4, 17, 20, 27, 38, 39, 109, 114, 132, 146
Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, Isidore, 11, 12, 20, 34, 38, 39, 79, 81, 83, 84,
87, 95, 109, 110, 113
Géricault, 56
Geulinx, 27
Gibson, 34
Gliddon, 63
Gobineau, 3, 63, 105
Godron, 110
Grandsagne, 48
Grant, 20, 24
Gratiolet, 30
Gray, 66
Grimm, 30
Gros, 27
Guillain, 42
Hale, 16
Haller, 56
Hanneman, 50
Harris, 49
Hasskarl, 66
Herder, 30
Herrera, 60
Herschop, 149
Heymann, 59
Hippocrates, 81
Hirsch, 59, 60, 93
Holsteinius, 26
Huber, 33
Humboldt, 6, 19, 55, 57, 66, 77, 84, 144
Hunt, 63, 77
Hunter, 59, 90
Huxley, 39
Jackson, 60
Jacquinot, 53, 97
Jobin, 59
Josephus, 70
Joulin, 46
Jouvencel, 5
Julius Cæsar, 103
Kaempfer, 5, 6
Karr, 7
King, 6
Kirchoff, 11
Klemnius, 27
Kluegel, 44
Knox, 43, 54, 81, 100
Lallemand, 94
Lamarck, 112, 115
Lartet, 121
Latham, 66, 78, 101, 104, 142
Laugenhert, 27
Lawrence, 45, 48
Le Cat, 44, 56
Leibnitz, 15, 37, 120
Leighton, 68
Lepsius, 50
Lesseps, 68
Lesson and Garnot, 16, 20, 25
Linnæus, 37, 41, 64, 102, 109
Livingstone, 68
Longfellow, 151
Maire, 26, 28
Malte-Brun, 59
Martius, 74
Maupertuis, 20, 29, 34
Maury, 22, 46, 49
McCabe, 59
Meckel, 44
Meigs, 137
Mercurius Trismegistus, 36
Michelet, 126, 141
Mitchell, 44, 86
Montagne, 13
Morel, 74, 79, 81, 90, 97, 100, 106
Morton, 76, 110, 134, 137, 138
Mulders, 136
Müller, 77
Newton, 76
Niebuhr, 73, 89
Nott, 50, 60, 97, 110
Omalius D’Halloy, 143
O’Rourke, 17
Owen, 20, 36, 38, 42, 135
Palissy, 137
Pallas, 48, 54
Pardies, 32
Parker, 66
Pereira, 26
Périer, 87, 98, 104
Philips, 104
Piddington, 17, 18
Plato, 4, 22, 122
Plutarch, 111
Polybius, 81
Porphyrius, 26
Pouchet, 50, 123
Prichard, 3, 51, 78, 100, 129, 134, 142
Proudhon, 5, 8, 24
Prout, 114
Pruner-Bey, 50, 51
Pucheran, 8
Pyrard, 41
Pythagoras, 26
Quatrefages, 1, 4, 11, 12, 13, 17, 20, 23, 27
Quekett, 137
Quoy and Gaimard, 17, 49
Rechtenbach, 25
Remusat, 65
Renan, 32, 64, 65, 76, 78, 143
Robertson, 35
Robin, 20, 56, 84
Romay, 94
Ross, 17, 18, 53, 54, 69, 75
Roulin, 34
Schlegel, 73
Schmidt, 66
Schnurrer, 58
Schomburgk, 94
Serres, 6, 8, 54, 62
Servetus, 1
Shoutten, 41
Smith, Hamilton, 4, 51, 53
Sömmering, 44, 46, 56
Speke, 62
Squier, 105
Stahl, 27
Steinthal, 31, 32
Strabo, 103
Strope, 139
Sumner, 37
Tacitus, 103
Thomas, Saint, 69
Thomson, 59
Thurnam, 104
Tidyman, 59
Tiedemann, 43
Toussenel, 33
Townsend, 93
Trail, 19
Tschudi, 59, 105
Verneuil, 84
Vitruvius, 81
Vivien, 140, 144
Voltaire, 7
Vrolik, 46
Wagner, 44, 106
Waitz, 9
Warren, 97
Weber, 46
White, 46, 79, 88
Whitebourne, 69
Wied, 88
Wilkes, 17
Wilson, 48
Wise, 92
Yvan, 20, 87
Zimpel, 94
Zobrega, 69.
ERRATA.
Page 122, line 11 from bottom, _for “Atalantis” read “Atlantis_.”
[Transcriber's note: Footnote 312 has been corrected.]
” 135, bottom line, _for_ “British Association for the Advancement
of Science, 1857,” _read_ “Journal of Linnean Society, 1857.”
[Transcriber's note: Footnote 329 has been corrected.]
T. RICHARDS, 37, GREAT QUEEN STREET.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] We must here inform the reader, once for all, that we shall use,
until we say anything to the contrary, the word “_race_,” to designate
the different natural groups of the human genus (genus Homo). We intend
definitely to prove that these groups constitute veritable _species_.
M. de Quatrefages has on this matter reproached us with a confusion,
which is accounted for partly by the incorrectness of his quotation.
He makes us say, “_The plurality of_ original _races_, otherwise _the
plurality of the species_, of the genus ‘man’” (_Unité de l’Espèce
Humaine_, 1861, p. 309). It stands as follows in our own text: “The
original plurality of races, otherwise the plurality of the _species_
composing the genus ‘_man_,’” etc. It is evident that the confusion
which is found in these words is entirely voluntary.
[2] One day, I was talking with one of the principal officers of
Mehemet-Saïd, at Korosko, in Nubia, about the earthquake which was felt
in Lower Egypt on the 12th of October, 1856. He asked me the cause of
this phenomenon. I attempted an explanation suited to the understanding
of a man who was without the slightest knowledge of this part of
scientific information. He replied by telling me the history of the cow
who throws the earth from one horn to the other, saying, that this was
written, and therefore, such a belief ought to suffice him.
[With this opinion may be compared the doctrine of the Muyscas or
Chibchas of New Granada, who consider that the earth is supported
by Chibchacum, their deity, on pillars of _guiacum_-wood, and that
earthquakes are produced by his shifting the burden from one shoulder
to the other.--EDITOR.]
[3] It is only necessary, in order to be sure of this fact, to glance
over the _Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie_, the creation of
which is due above all to the indefatigable zeal of a partisan of the
doctrines which we defend--to M. P. Broca.
[4] Anthropology is not the only branch in modern science which opens
new paths to the human mind: see Michelet, _L’Insecte_, p. 106; see
also Bourdet, _Traité d’éducation positive_, 1863.
[5] This name has been definitely adopted in France in preference to
that of “Unitarians” (_Unitaires_), used by M. de Gobineau.
[6] “All monogenists,” we said in the first edition of this book. M.
de Quatrefages has exclaimed loudly against these words (_Unité de
l’Espèce Humaine_, 1861, p. 299), and in the same passage has shown
himself an open enemy to all mingling of religion in the domain of
science. We are too glad of this declaration not to recall it in this
place. We should be sorry not to be able always to agree in these pages
with the masters of science,--with those, indeed, who have been our
own. We have been led to touch on several questions already treated of
by them, by following another path,--by looking at facts from another
point of view; therefore, there are some differences of opinion. Our
excuse lies in the universal right of free inquiry; for the rest, we
shall always name the persons with whom we think we do not agree. “Not
to do so,” as Bayle said, “is in some measure an excess of ceremony
prejudicial to the liberty which we ought to enjoy in the republic of
letters; it is to introduce therein works of supererogation. It should
be always allowable to name those whom we disprove; this is sufficient
to prevent a bitter, injurious, or dishonest spirit.”--_Dictionnaire
Philosophique_, art. _Pereira_, note D.
[7] É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire has not, however, been able to free
himself completely from the unhappy influences which we endeavour to
oppose. See _Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences_, vol. iv, p. 78.
[8] “It is too evident,” says a modern philosopher, “that in the eyes
of science, which, reasoning about discoveries, makes a rule to admit
nothing as a theory which cannot be proved by experience, the agreement
of faith with reason is a chimera: to speak more exactly, such a
problem does not exist. The conditions of science are the observation
of facts,--not of facts exceptionally produced, seen by chance, noted
by privileged witnesses, and unable to be reproduced at will; but
constant facts, placed under one’s hand for observation, and always
able to be verified. We must consider that religion can in no way
submit to such exigencies, and that the faith which it proclaims must
be, _in this light_, radically inconsistent.”--P. J. Proudhon, _De la
Justice_, vol. ii, p. 309. See also on this subject, L. Fleury, _Le
Progrès_, 1858, No. 4, p. 92. De Jouvencel, _Bulletins de la Société
d’Anthropologie_, May 2, 1861.
[9] See Bertillon, _Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie_, June 18,
1863.
[10] _The Natural History of the Human Species_, 1848, p. 40.
[11] Kaempfer, _Histoire Naturelle, etc., du Japon_, Lahaye, 1729, vol.
i, p. 75.
[12] Marcel de Serres, _De l’Unité de l’Espèce Humaine: Bib. Univ. de
Genève_, new series, vol. liv, 1844, p. 145.
[13] “The doctrine attributed to Copernicus,” said the declaration made
by the Pope, and published by the Holy Office, “that the earth moves
round the sun, and that the sun remains motionless in the centre of the
world without moving either to the east or to the west, is contrary
to Holy Scripture, and consequently, can neither be professed nor
defended.”--Biot, _La vérité sur le Procès de Galilée_, in the _Journal
des Savants_, July 1858, p. 401.
[14] _Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne_, vol. ii, p. 79.
[15] _Essai sur les Mœurs_: Introd., § 2.
[16] There is an idea of adding to the Linnean Society a new section
of Anthropology.--See “Letter from E. W. Brayley,” _Medical Times and
Gazette_, p. 491, May 10, 1862.
[17] Alphonse Karr was the first who proposed to substitute
the name of “searcher” (_chercheur_) for that of “learned man”
(_savant_).--_Nouvelles Guêpes_, February 1859.
[18] See, for example, Pucheran, _Considérations Anatomiques sur les
Formes de la tête osseuse_.--Paris, 1841 (Thesis).