The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races Part 14

On the contrary, does not most of the talent of England spring up from plebeian ranks? Wherever civilization has been brought to a population of the white race, they have accepted it at once--their heads required no development. Where, on the contrary, it has been carried to Negroes, Mongols, and Indians, they have rejected it. Egyptians and Hindoos have small heads, but we know little of the early history of their civilization. Egyptian monuments prove that the early people and language of Egypt were strongly impregnated with Semitic elements.

Latham has shown that the Sanscrit language was carried _from_ Europe to India, and probably civilization with it.

I have looked in vain for twenty years for evidence to prove that cultivation could enlarge a _brain_, while it expands the mind. The head of a boy at twelve is as large as it ever is.--N.

[130] Carus, _op. cit._, p. 12.

[131] There are some very slight ones, which nevertheless are very characteristic. Among this number I would cla.s.s a certain enlargement on each side of the lower lip, which is found among the English and Germans. I find this indication of Germanic origin in several paintings of the Flemish school, in the _Madonna_ of Rubens, in the museum of Dresden, in the _Satyrs_ and _Nymphs_ of the same collection, in a _Lute-player_ of Mieris, etc. No cranioscopic method whatever could embrace such details, which, however, are not without value in the great mixture of races which Europe presents.

[132] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 329.

[133] Job Ludolf, whose facilities of observation must necessarily have been very defective when compared with those we enjoy at the present day, nevertheless combats in very forcible language, and with arguments--so far as concerns the negro--invincible, the opinion here adopted by Mr. Prichard. I cannot refrain from quoting him in this place, not for any novelty contained in his arguments, but to show their very antiquity: "De nigredine aethiopum hic agere nostri non est inst.i.tuti, plerique ardoribus solis atquae zonae torridae id tribuant.

Verum etiam intra solis...o...b..tam populi dantur, si non plane albi, saltem non prorsus nigri. Multi extra utrumque tropic.u.m a media mundi linea longius absunt quam Persae aut Syri, veluti pramontorii Bonae Spei habitantes, et tamen iste sunt nigerrimi. Si Africae tantum et Chami posteris id inspectari velis, Malabares et Ceilonii aliique remotiores Asiae populi aeque nigri excipiendi erunt. Quod si causam ad coeli solique naturam referas, non homines albi in illis regionibus renascentes non nigresc.u.n.t? Aut qui ad occultas qualitates confugiunt, melius fecerint si sese nescire fateantur."--JOBUS LUDOLFUS, _Commentarium ad Historiam aethiopicam_, fol. Norimb. p. 56.

[134] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 124.

[135] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 433.

[136] Neither the Swiss, nor the Tyrolese, nor the Highlanders of Scotland, nor the Sclaves of the Balkan, nor the tribes of the Himaleh, nor any other mountaineers whatever, present the monstrous appearance of the Quichuas.

[137] The distinguished microscopist, Dr. Peter A. Browne, of Philadelphia, has published the most elaborate observations on hair, of any author I have met with; and he a.s.serts that the pile of the negro is _wool_, and not hair. He has gone so far as to distinguish the leading races of men by the direction, shape, and structure of the hair. The reader is referred to his works for much very curious, new, and valuable matter.--N.

To those of our readers who may not have the inclination or opportunity of consulting Mr. Browne's work, the following concise and excellent synopsis of his views, which I borrow from Dr. Kneeland's _Introduction to Hamilton Smith's Natural History of Man_, may not be unacceptable: "There are, on microscopical examination, three prevailing forms of the transverse section of the filament, viz: the cylindrical, the oval, and the eccentrically elliptical. There are also three directions in which it pierces the epidermis. The straight and lank, the flowing or curled, and the crisped or frizzled, differ respectively as to the angle which the filament makes with the skin on leaving it. The cylindrical and oval pile has an oblique angle of inclination. The eccentrically elliptical pierces the epidermis at right angles, and lies perpendicularly in the dermis. The hair of the white man is oval; that of the Choctaw, and some other American Indians, is cylindrical; that of the negro is eccentrically elliptical or flat. The hair of the white man has, beside its cortex and intermediate fibres, a central ca.n.a.l, which contains the coloring matter when present. The pile of the negro has no central ca.n.a.l, and the coloring matter is diffused, when present, either throughout the cortex or the intermediate fibres. Hair, according to these observations, is more complex in its structure than wool. In hair, the enveloping scales are comparatively few, with smooth surfaces, rounded at their points, and closely embracing the shaft. In wool, they are numerous, rough, sharp-pointed, and project from the shaft. _Hence, the hair of the white man will not felt, that of the negro will._ In this respect, therefore, it comes near to true wool"--pp. 88, 89.--H.

[138] A full answer to this objection will be found in our Appendix, under _B_.--N.

CHAPTER XI.

PERMANENCY OF TYPES.

The language of Holy Writ in favor of common origin--The permanency of their characteristics separates the races of men as effectually as if they were distinct creations--Arabs, Jews--Prichard's argument about the influence of climate examined--Ethnological history of the Turks and Hungarians.

The believers in unity of race affirm that types are different in appearance only; that, in fact, the differences existing among them are owing to local circ.u.mstances still in operation, or to an accidental peculiarity of conformation in the progenitor of a branch, and that, though they all, more or less, diverge from the original prototype, they all are capable of again returning to it. According to this, then, the negro, the North American savage, the Tungoose of North Siberia, might, under favorable circ.u.mstances, gain all the physical and mental attributes which now distinguish the European. Such a theory is inadmissible.

We have shown above that the only solid scientific stronghold of the believers in unity of species is the prolificness of human hybrids. This fact, which seems at present so difficult to refute, may not always present the same difficulties, and would not, by itself, suffice to arrest my conclusions, were it not supported by another argument which, I confess, appears to me of greater moment: Scripture is said to declare against difference of origin.

If the text is clear, peremptory, and indisputable, we must submit; the most serious doubts must disappear; human reason, in its imperfection, must bow to faith. Better to let the veil of obscurity cover a point of erudition, than to call in question so high and incontestable an authority. If the Bible declares that mankind are descended from the same common stock, all that goes to prove the contrary is mere semblance, unworthy of consideration. But is the Bible really explicit on this point? The sacred writings have a much higher purpose than the elucidation of ethnological problems; and if it be admitted that they may have been misunderstood in this particular, and that without straining the text, it may be interpreted otherwise, I return to my first impression.

The Bible evidently speaks of Adam as the progenitor of the white race, because from him are descended generations which--it cannot be doubted--were white. But nothing proves that at the first redaction of the Adamite genealogies the colored races were considered as forming part of the species. There is not a word said about the yellow nations, and I hope to prove, in my second volume, that the pretended black color of the patriarch Ham rests upon no other basis than an arbitrary interpretation. At a later period, doubtless, translators and commentators, who affirmed that Adam was the father of all beings called men, were obliged to bring in as descendants of the sons of Noah all the different varieties with whom they were acquainted. In this manner, j.a.pheth was considered the progenitor of the European nations, while the inhabitants of the greater portion of Asia were looked upon as the descendants of Shem; and those of Africa, of Ham. This arrangement answers admirably for one portion of the globe. But what becomes of the population of the rest of the world, who are not included in this cla.s.sification?

I will not, at present, particularly insist upon this idea. I dislike the mere appearance of impugning even simple interpretations if they have the sanction of the church, and wish merely to intimate that their authority might, perhaps, be questioned without transgressing the limits established by the church.[139] If this is not the case, and we must accept, in the main, the opinions of the believers in unity, I still do not despair that the facts may be explained in a manner different from theirs, and that the princ.i.p.al physical and moral differences among the branches of the human family may exist, with all their necessary consequences, independently of unity or plurality of origin.

The specific ident.i.ty of all canines is acknowledged,[140] but who would undertake the difficult task of proving that all these animals, to whatever variety they may belong, were possessed of the same shapes, instincts, habits, qualities? The same is the case with many other species, the equine, bovine, ursine, etc. Here we find perfect ident.i.ty of origin, and yet diversity in every other respect, and a diversity so radical, that even intermixture can not produce a real ident.i.ty of character in the several types. On the contrary, so long as each type remains pure, their distinctive features are permanent, and reproduced, without any sensible deviation, in each successive generation.[141]

This incontestable fact has led to the inquiry whether in those species which, by domestication, have lost their original habits, and contracted others, the forms and instincts of the primitive stock were still discernible. I think this highly improbable, and can hardly believe that we shall ever be able to determine the shape and characteristics of the prototype of each species, and how much or how little it is approached by the deviations now before our eyes. A very great number of vegetables present the same problem, and with regard to man, whose origin it is most interesting and important for us to know, the inquiry seems to be attended with the greatest and most insurmountable difficulties.

Each race is convinced that its progenitor had precisely the characteristics which now distinguish it. This is the only point upon which their traditions perfectly agree. The white races represent to themselves an Adam and Eve, whom Blumenbach would at once have p.r.o.nounced Caucasians; the Mohammedan negroes, on the contrary, believe the first pair to have been black; these being created in G.o.d's own image, it follows that the Supreme Being, and also the angels, are of the same color, and the prophet himself was certainly too greatly favored by his Sender to display a pale skin to his disciples.[142]

Unfortunately, modern science has as yet found no clue to this maze of opinions. No admissible theory has been advanced which affords the least light upon the subject, and, in all probability, the various types differ as much from their common progenitor--if they possess one--as they do among themselves. The causes of these deviations are exceedingly difficult to ascertain. The believers in the unity of origin pretend to find them, as I remarked before, in various local circ.u.mstances, such as climate, habits, &c. It is impossible to coincide with such an opinion, for, although these circ.u.mstances have always existed, they have not, within historical times, produced such alterations in the races which were exposed to their influence as to make it even probable that they were the causes of so vast and radical a dissimilarity as we now see before us. Suppose two tribes, not yet departed from the primitive type, to inhabit, one an alpine region in the interior of a continent, the other some isolated isle in the immensity of the ocean. Their atmospheric and alimentary conditions would, of course, be totally different. If we further suppose one of these tribes to be abundantly provided with nourishment, and the other possessing but precarious means of subsistence; one to inhabit a cold lat.i.tude, and the other to be exposed to the action of a tropical sun; it seems to me that we have acc.u.mulated the most essential local contrasts. Allowing these physical causes to operate a sufficient lapse of time, the two groups would, no doubt, ultimately a.s.sume certain peculiar characteristics, by which they might be distinguished from each other. But no imaginable length of time could bring about any essential, organic change of conformation; and as a proof of this a.s.sertion, I would point to the populations of opposite portions of the globe, living under physical conditions the most widely different, who, nevertheless, present a perfect resemblance of type.

The Hottentots so strongly resemble the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire, that it has even been supposed, though without good reasons, that they were originally a Chinese colony. A great similarity exists between the ancient Etruscans, whose portraits have come down to us, and the Araucanians of South America. The features and outlines of the Cherokees seem to be perfectly identical with those of several Italian populations, the Calabrians, for instance. The inhabitants of Auvergne, especially the female portion, much more nearly resemble in physiognomy several Indian tribes of North America than any European nation. Thus we see that in very different climes, and under conditions of life so very dissimilar, nature can reproduce the same forms. The peculiar characteristics which now distinguish the different types cannot, therefore, be the effects of local circ.u.mstances such as now exist.[143]

Though it is impossible to ascertain what physical changes different branches of the human family may have undergone anterior to the historic epoch, yet we have the best proofs that since then, no race has changed its peculiar characteristics. The historic epoch comprises about one half of the time during which our earth is supposed to have been inhabited, and there are several nations whom we can trace up to the verge of ante-historic ages; yet we find that the races then known have remained the same to our days, even though they ceased to inhabit the same localities, and consequently were no longer exposed to the influence of the same external conditions.

Witness the Arabs. As they are represented on the monuments of Egypt, so we find them at present, not only in the arid deserts of their native land, but in the fertile regions and moist climate of Malabar, Coromandel, and the islands of the Indian Ocean. We find them again, though more mixed, on the northern coasts of Africa, and, although many centuries have elapsed since their invasion, traces of Arab blood are still discernible in some portions of Roussillon, Languedoc, and Spain.

Next to the Arabs I would instance the Jews. They have emigrated to countries in every respect the most dissimilar to Palestine, and have not even preserved their ancient habits of life. Yet their type has always remained peculiar and the same in every lat.i.tude and under every physical condition. The warlike Rechabites in the deserts of Arabia present to us the same features as our own peaceable Jews. I had occasion not long since to examine a Polish Jew. The cut of his face, and especially his eyes, perfectly betrayed his origin. This inhabitant of a northern zone, whose direct ancestors for several generations had lived among the snows and ice of an inhospitable clime, seemed to have been tanned but the day before, by the ardent rays of a Syrian sun. The same Shemitic face which the Egyptian artist represented some four thousand or more years ago, we recognize daily around us; and its princ.i.p.al and really characteristic features are equally strikingly preserved under the most diverse climatic circ.u.mstances. But the resemblance is not confined to the face only, it extends to the conformation of the limbs and the nature of the temperament. German Jews are generally smaller and more slender in stature than the European nations among whom they have lived for centuries; and the age of p.u.b.erty arrives earlier with them than with their compatriots of another race.[144]

This is, I am aware, an a.s.sertion diametrically opposed to Mr.

Prichard's opinions. This celebrated physiologist, in his zeal to prove the unity of species, attempts to prove that the age of p.u.b.erty in both s.e.xes is the same everywhere and among all races. His arguments are based upon the precepts of the Old Testament and the Koran, by which the marriageable age of women is fixed at fifteen, and even eighteen, according to Abou-Hanifah.[145]

I hardly think that biblical testimony is admissible in matters of this kind, because the Scriptures often narrate facts which cannot be accounted for by the ordinary laws of nature. Thus, the pregnancy of Sarah at an extreme old age, and when Abraham himself was a centenarian, is an event upon which no ordinary course of reasoning could be based.

As for the precepts of the Mohammedan law, I would observe that they were intended to insure not merely the physical apt.i.tude for marriage, but also that degree of mental maturity and education which befit a woman about to enter on the duties of so serious a station. The prophet makes it a special injunction that the religious education of young women should be continued to the time of their marriage. Taking this view, the law-giver would naturally incline to delay the period of marriage as long as possible, in order to afford time for the development of the reasoning faculties, and he would therefore be less precipitate in his authorizations than nature in hers. But there are some other proofs which I would adduce against Mr. Prichard's grave arguments, which, though of less weighty character, are not the less conclusive, and will settle the question, I think, in my favor.

Poets, in their tales of love, are mainly solicitous of exhibiting their heroines in the first bloom of beauty, without caring much about their moral and mental development. Accordingly, we find that oriental poets have always made their lovers much younger than the age prescribed by the Koran. Zelika and Leila are not, surely, fourteen years old. In India, this difference is still more striking. Sacontala, in Europe, would be quite a small girl, a mere child. The spring-time of life for a Hindoo female is from the age of nine to that of twelve. In the Chinese romance, _Yu-Kiao-li_, the heroine is sixteen; and her father is in great distress, and laments pathetically that at so advanced an age she should still be unmarried. The Roman writers, following in the footsteps of their Greek preceptors, took fifteen as the period of bloom of a woman's life; our own authors for a long time adhered to these models, but since the ideas of the North have begun to exert their influence upon our literature, the heroines of our novels are full-grown young ladies of eighteen, and very often more.[146]

But arguments of a more serious character are by no means wanting.

Besides what I said of the precocity of the Jews in Germany, I may point out the reverse as a peculiarity of the population of many portions of Switzerland. Among them the physical development is so slow, that the age of p.u.b.erty is not always attained at twenty. The Zingaris, or gypsies, display the same physical precocity as their Hindoo ancestry, and, under the austere sky of Russia and Moldavia, they preserve, together with their ancient notions and habits, the general aspect of face and form of the Pariahs.[147]

I do not, however, wish to attack Mr. Prichard upon all points. There is one of his conclusions which I readily adopt, viz.: "_that the difference of climate occasions very little, if any, important diversity as to the periods of life and the physical changes to which the human const.i.tution is subject_."[148] This conclusion is very well founded, and I shall not seek to invalidate it; but it appears to me that it contradicts a little the principles so ably advocated by the learned physiologist and antiquary.

The reader must have perceived that the discussion turns solely upon permanency of type. If it can be proved that the different branches of the human family are each possessed of a certain individuality which is independent of climate and the lapse of ages, and can be effaced only by intermixture, the question of origin is reduced to little importance; for, in that case, the different types are no less completely and irrevocably separated than if their specific differences arose from diversity of origin.

That such is the case, we have already proved by the testimony of Egyptian sculptures with regard to the Arabs, and by our observations upon the Jews and gypsies. Should any further proofs be needed, we would mention that the paintings in the temples and subterraneous buildings of the Nile valley as indubitably attest the permanence of the negro type.

There we see the same crisped hair, prognathous skull, and thick lips.

The recent discovery of the bas-reliefs of Khorsabad[149] has removed beyond doubt the conclusions previously formed from the figured monuments of Persepolis, viz.: that the present a.s.syrian nations are physiologically identical with those who formerly inhabited the same regions.

If similar investigations could be made upon a greater number of existing races, the results would be the same. We have established the fact of permanence of types in all cases where investigation is possible, and the burden of proof, therefore, falls upon the dissenting party.

Their arguments, indeed, are in direct contradiction to the most obvious facts. Thus they allege, although the most ordinary observation shows the contrary, that climate _has_ produced alterations in the Jewish type, inasmuch as many light-haired, blue-eyed Jews are found in Germany. For this argument to be of any weight in their position, the advocates for unity of race must recognize climate to be the sole, or at least princ.i.p.al, cause of this phenomenon. But the adherents of that doctrine elsewhere a.s.sert that the color of the eyes, hair, and skin, no ways depends upon geographical situation or the action of heat and cold.[150] As an evidence of this, they justly cite the Cinghalese, who have blue eyes and light hair;[151] they even observe among them a very considerable difference of complexion, varying from a light brown to black. Again, they admit that the Samoiedes and Tungusians, though living on the borders of the Frozen Ocean,[152] have an exceedingly swarthy complexion. If, therefore, climate exerts no influence upon the complexion and color of hair and eyes, these marks must be considered as of no importance, or as pertaining to race. We know that red hair is not at all uncommon in the East, and at no time has been so; it cannot, therefore, create much surprise if we occasionally find it among the Jews of Germany. This fact cannot be adduced as evidence either in favor of, or against, the permanence of types.

The advocates for unity are no less unfortunate in their historical arguments. They furnish but two; the Turks and the Magyars. The Asiatic origin of the former is supposed to be established beyond doubt, as well as of their intimate relations.h.i.+p with the Finnic branches of the Laplanders and Ostiacs. It follows from this that they must originally have displayed the yellow skin, projecting cheek bones, and low stature of the Mongolian races. This point being settled, we are told to look at the Turks of our day, who exhibit all the characteristics of the European type. Types, then, are not permanent, it is victoriously concluded, because the Turks have undergone such a transformation. "It is true," say the adherents of the unity school, "that some pretend there had been an admixture of Greek, Georgian, and Circa.s.sian blood.

But this admixture can have taken place only to a very limited extent; all Turks are not rich enough to buy their wives in the Caucasus, or to have seraglios filled with white slaves; on the other hand, the hatred which the Greeks cherish for their conquerors, and the religious antipathies of both nations, were not favorable to alliances between them, and consequently we see them--though inhabiting the same country--as distinct at this day as at the time of the conquest."[153]

These arguments are more specious than solid. In the first place, I am greatly disposed to doubt the Finnic origin of the Turkish race, because the only evidence that has. .h.i.therto been produced in favor of this supposition is affinity of language, and I shall hereafter give my reasons for believing this argument--when unsupported by any other--as extremely unreliable, and open to doubt. But even if we suppose the ancestors of the Turkish nation to belong to the yellow race, it is easy to show why their descendants have so widely departed from that type.

Centuries elapsed from the time of the first appearance of the Turanian hordes to the day which saw them the masters of the city of Constantine, and during that period, multifarious events took place; the fortune of the Western Turks has been a checkered one. Alternately conquerors or conquered, masters or slaves, they have become incorporated with various nationalities. According to the annalists,[154] their Orghuse ancestors, who descended from the Altai Mountains, inhabited in Abraham's time the immense steppes of Upper Asia which extend from Katai to the sea of Aral, from Siberia to Thibet, and which, as has recently been proved--were then the abode of numerous Germanic tribes.[155] It is a singular circ.u.mstance, that the first mentioning by Oriental writers of the tribes of Turkestan is in celebrating them for their beauty of face and form.[156] The most extravagant hyperboles are lavished on them without reserve, and as these writers had before their eyes the handsomest types of the old world with which to compare them, it is not probable that they should have wasted their enthusiasm on creatures so ugly and repulsive as are generally the races of pure Mongolian blood.

Thus, notwithstanding the dicta of philology, I think serious doubts might be raised on that point.[157]

But I am willing to admit that the Turcomannic tribes were, indeed, as is supposed, of Finnic origin. Let us come down to a later period--the Mohammedan era. We then find these tribes under various denominations and in equally various situations, dispersed over Persia and Asia Minor.

The Osmanli were not yet existing at that time, and their predecessors, the Seldjuks, were already greatly mixed with the races that had embraced Islamism. We see from the example of Ghaased-din-Keikosrew, who lived in 1237, that the Seljuk princes were in the habit of frequently intermarrying with Arab women. They must have gone still further, for we find that Aseddin, the mother of one of the Seljuk dynasties, was a Christian. It is reasonable to suppose, that if the chiefs of the nation, who everywhere are the most anxious to preserve the purity of their genealogy, showed themselves so devoid of prejudice, their subjects were still less scrupulous on that point. Their constant inroads in which they ranged over vast districts, gave them ample opportunities for capturing slaves, and there is every reason to believe that already in the 13th century, the ancient Orghuse branch was strongly tinctured with Shemitic blood.

To this branch belonged Osman, the son of Ortoghrul, and father of the Osmanli. But few families were collected around his tent. His army was, at first, little better than a band of adventurers, and the same expedient which swelled the ranks of the first builders of Rome, increased the number of adherents of this new Romulus of the Steppes.

Every desperate adventurer or fugitive, of whatever nation, was welcome among them, and a.s.sured of protection. I shall suppose that the downfall of the Seljuk empire brought to their standards a great number of their own race. But we have already said that this race was very much mixed; and besides, this addition was insufficient, as is proved by the fact that, from that time, the Turks began to capture slaves for the avowed purpose of repairing, by this means, the waste which constant warfare made in their own ranks. In the beginning of the 14th century, the sultan Orkhan, following the advice of his vizier, Khalil Tjendereli, surnamed the Black, inst.i.tuted the famous military body called Janissaries.[158] They were composed entirely of Christian children captured in Poland, Germany, Italy, or the Bizantine Empire, who were educated in the Mohammedan religion and the practice of arms.

Under Mohammed IV., their number had increased to 140,000 men. Here, then, we find an influx of at least half a million male individuals of European blood in the course of four centuries.