A. de Quatrefages

“ Can it be that a higher civilization bears within itself something which is incompatible with the existence of inferior races? Do the dominion exercised by the stranger, the invasion of the land, and the violence done to religion and customs inspire these men, once so free and proud, with such despair that they refuse to have any posterity? ”

“ This faculty is, in reality, one of the most important causes of his greatness. When men are once fully satisfied and have no more wants, they will come to a standstill, and progress, that great and sacred law of mankind, will come to a standstill also.
In reality, it is the want of the superfluous which has developed all our industries, which has engendered the arts and sciences without which many races and nations, and, even among ourselves, whole populations exist perfectly well. ”

“ Now I wish that candid men, who are free from party-spirit or prejudices, would follow me in this view, and study for themselves all these facts, a few of which I have only touched upon, and I am perfectly convinced that they will, with the great men of whom I am only the disciple,—with Linnæus, Buffon, Lamarck, Cuvier, Geoffroy, Humboldt and Müller, arrive at the conclusion that all men belong to the same species, and that there is but one species of man. ”

“ The most attentive examination, even of a human work, will never teach us anything of the processes which have permitted its realisation. The cleverest watchmaker, if he has not followed studies perfectly foreign to his vocation, will know nothing of the origin of iron, of its transformation into steel, of the rolling and tempering of a main spring. The minutest study of that metallic ribbon which he knows so well, will tell him nothing of its origin, nothing of the process of its fabrication. ”

“ Now the Polynesian area, the limits of which I have just pointed out, is of greater extent than the whole of Asia. What would an Asiatic Polynesia be like, if that continent were to sink beneath the waters and leave only the summits of its mountains visible, where some representatives of the present inhabitants might take refuge? Is it not at once evident that each archipelago, and often each island, would have its own race and language? ”

“ But organised beings have also their special phenomena radically distinct from, or even opposed to, the former. Is it possible to refer all of them to one, or to several, identical causes? I think not. For this reason, I admit with a great number of eminent men of every age and country, and, I believe, with the majority of those that respect modern science, that organised beings owe their distinctive characteristics to a Special Cause, to a Special Force, to Life, which in them is associated with the inorganic forces. For this reason I consider it legitimate to call them Living Beings. ”

“ All hunting peoples, including the Australians, according to travellers who have been among them, could furnish models for the sculptor, and are generally remarkable for the symmetry and beauty of their proportions. In this respect civilized populations, especially those of our great towns, present a deplorable inferiority. Is our fundamental type degraded in this respect? Certainly not. But civilization itself, by the facilities of existence which it procures, by the vices which it induces, by the weakly individuals which it preserves, introduces into the race the elements of degradation. ”

“ If the case is not the same where a social condemnation weighs upon the man of colour, the reason is that the moral and social conditions of life never lose their rights any more than the physical conditions. But the preceding will, I think, be a sufficient proof that, when placed under normal conditions, the half-breed of the Negro and the European would certainly justify in every place the words of the old traveller Thevenot: “The mulatto can do all that the white man can do; his intelligence is equal to ours.” ”

“ Let us not, above all, forget our conduct towards our inferior brethren; the depopulation which marks every step through the world; the massacres committed in cold blood, and often for amusement; the man-hunts organized after the manner of stag-hunts; the extermination of entire populations to make room for European colonies, and we shall be forced to acknowledge that if respect for human life is a moral and universal law, no race has violated it oftener, or in a more terrible manner than our own. ”

“ I shall, moreover, refuse to dispute with those who, rejecting on their own authority a whole century of work accomplished by the greatest naturalists, and by a number of men distinguished in botany and zoology, declare that it [82] is useless to try and discover what species and race are, and laugh at those who take the trouble to do so. I say the same to those who regard species and race as more or less arbitrary groups which may be compared to the genus, family and order. ”

“ Darwin, then, himself and his most enthusiastic adherents must admit that at some given moment these races became suddenly incapable of crossing with their predecessors. Whence then arises the sterility which separates species? When, and at what moment will the physiological bond be broken, which unites the original species with its modified descendants, even when this modification is carried as far as the ordinary ox and the niata? What will be the determining cause of this great fact which obtains through the whole economy of the organic kingdom? ”

“ Unless we pretend that man alone of all organised beings is free from the laws which, in every other case, govern and regulate the laws of reproduction, and consequently, unless we make him a solitary exception precisely in that order of facts which most closely unites all other beings, we shall be forced to admit that he also obeys the laws of crossing.
Thus, if the human groups represent a more or less considerable number of species, we ought to prove in the crossings of their species the existence of the characteristic phenomena of hybridism. ”

“ Modern civilisation is also answerable to a great extent for the losses involved by every settlement in a climate differing too widely from our own. By reason of the security with which she surrounds the poor as well as the rich, of the at least relative ease which is enjoyed by all classes of society, we are little prepared for the struggle for existence. Without going so far back as primitive man or the Aryans, let us simply call to mind Balbao, Pizarro, Cortez, Soto, Monbars, and their rough companions; can the present generation offer such a resistance as theirs? ”

“ Can anyone refuse to allow a religion, properly so called, to these peoples, to recognise as true divinities beings who receive a tribute of affection or terror, homage and prayers on the part of populations, who either fear or trust in them? It is possible. Here again our European pride seems to me to have often led to false conclusions. Believers or unbelievers, freethinkers or zealous Christians, savants and philosophers have been too much under the influence of the idea of the Deity as conceived by our most cultivated classes. ”

“ There are none which lead us to seek the origin of man in hot regions either of existing continents, or of one which has disappeared. This view, which has been frequently expressed, rests entirely upon the belief that the climate of the globe was the same at the time of the appearance of man as it is now. Modern science has taught us that this is an error. From that time there is nothing against our first ancestors having found favourable conditions of existence in northern Asia, which is indicated by so many facts borrowed from the history of man, and from that of animals and plants. ”

“ The law of heredity is one of those from which he cannot escape, and it is this law which, under the influence of the conditions of life, fashions races and makes them what they are.
When centuries have passed over a group of men, when from generation to generation, and under the influence of certain physical, intellectual and moral conditions, the whole being has contracted a certain habit, we cannot form any definite idea as to what length of time and what fresh circumstances would be necessary to efface this impression and form the race anew. ”

“ They merely show us that the Negro is subject to the law common to all other men. It is in vain that he has conformed to conditions of existence, which the White has so much difficulty in living under; when these conditions are aggravated and exceed a certain limit, he suffers, and his life is shortened. The native of the banks of the Nunn is placed, as a Negro, under conditions of existence similar to those to which, in former times, the Whites of the Dombe in France were subject, and in both cases the result was the same. ”

“ We have, therefore, in this crossing a means of judging whether the human groups are only races of a single species, or rather distinct species. For this purpose it will be sufficient to study the phenomena which, in other organised and living beings, accompany the production of mongrels and hybrids, and then to compare with both the phenomena which characterise the crosses effected between human groups. If, in the latter case, the phenomena are those which characterise hybridism, we must conclude that the groups are specifically distinct, and admit the multiplicity of human species. ”

“ The third was the only one which united bodily beauty with a warlike spirit, to the faculty of initiative, of organization and progress, which gives rise to societies and to civilization. The day came when the yellow race burst upon Asia, and, avoiding the central region occupied by the whites, went to people the western regions of the old world. Then, this wave, continuing its course, submerged the white race, which, in its turn, began to emigrate; and by the mixture of its blood with that of the inferior races, produced all the peoples who have succeeded each other upon the earth. ”

“ Agassiz is logical, and he exhausts the consequences of his theory. But he forgets one important fact which may be opposed to all those who, either fully or partially, embrace this order of ideas.
No animal species has ever changed its voice for that of a species nearly allied to it. An ass’s colt, reared by a mare and isolated in the midst of horses, never forgets its bray or learns to neigh. While, on the contrary, it is well known, that a White, if placed in earliest infancy in the midst of Chinese or Australians, will only speak their language. ”

“ There is, at first sight, no absurdity in the idea itself, nothing at all contradictory to anything which we have as yet met with. We have seen above that physiology leads to the conclusion that “human groups are to all appearance descended from one primitive pair.” It goes no further than that. Anyone who confines himself to inferences drawn from this order of facts might, therefore, accept the theory of Agassiz as, it is true, a very gratuitous hypothesis, but convenient in order to account for the distribution and actual diversity of human types. ”

“ By the single fact of domestication, by the confinement which is almost always the result of it, he changes entirely the natural conditions of existence. By leading in his train the animals which he has enslaved, he diversifies still more the influences which act upon them. Prompt to seize every means of rendering them most useful, he profits by the smallest modifications which show the least advantage, pushes them to their utmost limits and produces the extreme races, of which our exhibitions of animal races give such curious examples. ”

“ Passing over the comparisons established by M. Naudin, I will confine myself to a single observation upon all these ideas; properly speaking, they do not form a scientific theory.
When we fertilise by artificial means the egg of a frog, we know that we determine an entire series of phenomena, which results in the formation of a germ, then in that of an embryo, which will be established by a succession of metamorphoses, in that of a tadpole, which will be equally subject to metamorphoses, and in that of a definite animal which will assume all the characters of the species. ”

“ Again, it has been said, that the discussions which are always arising between naturalists as to whether a species should be preserved or regarded as a race, as to the genus, family, order, and sometimes the class in which it should be placed, betray a want of precision in general ideas.—Those who talk in this manner forget the immense number of species and races accepted and classified without discussion. ”

“ Now, between human races there can be no question of selection. The unions have always taken place by chance. Moreover, in the immense majority of cases, the continual intervention of individuals of pure race increases, and prolongs the confusion. This absence of uniformity, which astonishes polygenists, is easily explained by those who only consider human groups as races. From a general point of view it is very instructive; if it brings forward diversity of races, it attests specific unity. It is not between species that crossing presents similar phenomena. ”