Volume 7 — Translated From The French. The Unity Of The Human Race.

This is one of a series of popular discourses given at the Imperial Asylum of Vincennes, France, by A. de Quatrefages, member of the Institute, and Professor of Natural Science. After some preliminary remarks to his audience, he proceeds to the question, What is man? "It is not difficult to perceive that man is neither a mineral nor a vegetable, neither a plant nor a stone. But is he an animal? Not likely, when we reflect upon all his attributes.

"None of you would like to be compared to those animals who feed on grass, to the hog who wallows in the mire, nor to the dog, in whom man has found the qualities of both friend and companion; nor further, to the horse, though he were as celebrated as the famous Gladiator.

"Man is not an animal. He is distinguished above the brute creation by numerous and important attributes. We have only to consider his intellectual capacity, the power of articulation, which gives to every people a special language, the capacity to write, which reproduces language; the aid of the fine arts, to explain and materialize the conceptions of his imagination. He is also distinguished above animals by two fundamental characters which belong solely to him. Man is the only organized and living being who has the abstract sentiment of both good and evil, the only being in whom there exists a moral sense, the only one who believes in a future state, and who recognizes the existence of beings superior to himself, having influence upon him for good or evil. It is this two-fold conviction which grasps and holds the great truths which are called religion.

"At a later period I will return to these two questions of morality and religion, not as a theologian, but as a naturalist. At present I limit myself to this fact, that man, however savage he may be, shows signs of morality and religion that are not found in any animal. Consequently, man is a being apart, separated from animals by two great distinctions which are his own, and also by his incontestable superiority. There the difference ceases. With regard to his body, man is nothing more or less than an animal. Apart from some differences of form and disposition, he is no more than equal to the superior animals that surround us. If we take for comparison those that assimilate to our general form, anatomy shows us that our organs are the same as theirs; we find in them muscle for muscle, nerve for nerve, that is found in man himself. Physiology, in turn, has demonstrated that, in the body of man, the organs, the muscles, the nerves, have the same animal functions.

"This fact is indisputable, taken from a purely scientific and practical view. We cannot experiment upon man, but it is possible to do so upon animals. Human physiology employs the means to enlighten us upon our organic functions. Physicians have carried to the sick-bed the result of their investigations upon animal life. Anthropology also, we shall see, has derived useful lessons from beings who are essentially our inferiors. Anthropology should descend still lower than animals to enlighten us thoroughly. Vegetables are not animals any more than animals are men; but man, animals, and vegetables are linked together in the same living organization. By this only, they are distinguished from the minerals, which are neither the one nor the other, and by certain general facts known to all.

"All organized beings have a limited duration, all are created small and weak, all grow and become strong; during a part of their existence, all decrease in energy and vitality, sometimes also in size, then die. During life, all organized beings have need of nourishment. Before dying, all produce, either by a seed or by an egg, (I speak of species, not individuals,) which is true of the species that seem to come directly from a shoot, a layer, or a graft; all proceed from a grain, or an egg. Thus, all these great phenomena, common to all living organized beings, including man as well as plants, suppose a general law for their government. Science confirms this conclusion every day, which is not an invention of reasoning alone, but is regarded as an experienced fact. Further explanations are not necessary to show the magnificent result.

"How admirable, that man and the smallest insect, that the lord of the soil and the smallest plant, are attached one to the other, by the same links, and that the entire living creation forms together a perfect harmony!

"In this communion, and in certain phenomena of this accordance with certain laws, equally common, there results one consequence upon which I would not too strongly insist. Whatever may be the questions relating to man, that we have to examine whenever these touch upon any one of the phenomena that are common to all living organized beings, we must not only investigate animal life, but also vegetable life, if we would wish to find the truth.

"When one of these questions is proposed, what can we truthfully urge in reply? We must examine man under the general laws that govern other living organized beings. If the investigation tends to make man an exception to these general laws, we shall know it is false. If you resolve the problem so as to include man in the general laws, you may be sure that you are scientific and correct. With these proofs, and these only, I proceed to the second question of anthropologists. Are there several species of men, or does there exist but one, comprising several races?

"Some explanations are necessary. Examine the designs before you, and you will discover the principal varieties exhibited in the human type. You have there individuals from all parts of the world; you see that they differ considerably in color, some in their hair, others in their size, or in their peculiar features. It behooves us to ascertain if the differences that present themselves in these human groups are those of species, or if they merely indicate the existence of races belonging to the same species.

"In order to reply to this question, you must ascertain the true significance of the words species and race. The result of the discussion depends upon these two words. Unhappily, they are often confounded and badly defined, and we become enveloped in mystery when we wish to consider them more closely. Let us then form a precise idea before entering into otherwise profitless details.

"None of you certainly confound the horse with the ass; though the horse may be no larger than the dogs of Newfoundland, or though the ass should attain the size of an ordinary horse—for example, the large asses of Poitou. You will immediately say they are different species. You will say the same if you place a dog and a wolf side by side.

"We call by the one name of dogs the different types, such as the spaniel, the greyhound, the lap-dog, the Newfoundland, the King Charles; and we are right. However, if we were to judge by the eyes only, and even after more minute observations, there is between the dogs I have named greater differences of color, proportion, and size, than between the horse and the ass. The latter have certainly more similarity between them than the types of dogs I have named.

"If I should place a black and a white water-spaniel side by side, you would call them both spaniels, though of a different color. When we examine vegetables, it is the same thing; a red and a white rose are equally roses; pears that are sold two for a penny, are the same species as those sold at twenty cents each.

"Without any doubt you have arrived at the exact conclusion of the naturalists; like them, you have resolved the questions of species and race, which at first sight seemed, for the reasons I have given, more or less confused.

"These examples fully prove that popular observation and common sense are in many things fully as reliable as the investigations of science. Were such deductions generalized into scientific language, I feel sure there would be found few if any mistakes.

"These investigations prove that animals and vegetables vary within certain limits. The dog remains but a dog, whatever may be his general form, color, or his shape. The pear is but a pear, whatever may be its flavor or the color of its skin. It is from these facts that I am led to believe that variations can be transmitted through generations. The union of two spaniels produces spaniels, the union of two mastiffs produces mastiffs. Thus, in a general manner, the result is, that beings of the same species can cease to resemble each other absolutely; moreover, take exteriorly different characters, without isolating or forming different species; as I have said, the dog remains a dog, whatever may be the modifications he presents. These are precisely the groups formed by individuals which we have spoken of as the remote primitive types of species that have formed distinct secondary groups, which naturalists call races.

"You will understand, then, what is meant in speaking of the races of beeves, horses, etc. We have domesticated but one kind of beeves, which have generated the Breton race, the great beeves of Uri, of such savage aspect, and also the gentle Durhams. We have but one kind of domestic horse, and this has given us the pony, as well as the enormous horses that are seen in the streets of London, commonly used by the brewers; finally, the several races of sheep, goats, etc., belong to one and the same species. I place this assemblage of proof vividly before you to avoid vagueness in your investigations, which would be attended with serious mistakes. I will now cite examples from the vegetable kingdom, which will be as familiar to you as the foregoing.

"Let us take the coffee-tree. Its history is quite interesting. The coffee-tree was originally from Africa. It has from time immemorial been cultivated in Abyssinia, on the borders of the Red Sea. It was not until toward the fifteenth century that the seed migrated from this sea and penetrated into Arabia, where it has been cultivated since that epoch. It is from there in particular that we get the famous Mocha. The use of coffee became common immediately. From the east it was introduced into Europe at a later period, and it was at Marseilles that it was used for the first time in France.

"The first cup of coffee that was drank in Paris, was in the year 1667. A few grains were brought over by a French sailor called Thevenot. Two years after, Soliman Aga, ambassador of the Porte, under Louis XIV., gave an entertainment to some friends of the king, where it was introduced, and the beverage pronounced delightful. The use of coffee, however, did not become general in France until the eighteenth century. You see, then, that coffee has not been very long in use. It was almost a century and a half before it became general among Europeans.

"During this time Europe became tributary to Arabia for this luxury. All the coffee that was used in Europe came from Arabia, and particularly from Mocha. Toward the beginning of the eighteenth century the Dutch tried to import it to Batavia, one of their Indian colonies. They succeeded. From Batavia, some plants were sent to Holland, and planted in heated earth. This also proved a success.

"One of these plants was carried to Paris in 1710, and was placed in one of the beds of the Jardin des Plantes. It flourished, and supplied numberless plants. Toward 1720 or 1725, a French marine officer named Captain Destiaux, thought that, as Holland had cultivated coffee in Batavia, it could also be acclimated in the French colonies in the Gulf of Mexico. At the moment of embarking for Martinique he took three plants from the Jardin des Plantes, and carried them with him. The voyage was long and impeded by head-winds. Water becoming scarce, it became necessary to put the crew upon short rations. Captain Destiaux, like the others, had but a small allowance for each day, and this he shared with his coffee-plants. Notwithstanding all his care, two of them died in their transit. One only arrived safe and sound at Martinique. Planted immediately, it prospered wonderfully, and from it have descended all the coffee-trees in the Antilles, and in South-America.

"Thirty years after, our western colonies exported millions of pounds each year. You see that the plant, starting from Africa, reached the east, the extremity of Asia, then America and the west. It has consequently made almost the tour of the world. In this long passage it has changed.

"Laying aside the plant that we are not familiar with, let us take merely the grain. It is not necessary to be a planter to distinguish its different qualities and their provinces. No one will confound the Mocha with the Bourbon, the Rio Janeiro with the Martinique. Each grain carries in its form, in its proportions and aroma, its extraction, so to speak.

"From whence came these changes? We cannot certainly explain the why or the wherefore, and follow rigorously the relation of cause and effect; but in taking these phenomena together, it is evident that these modifications result from the differences of temperature, climate, and cultivation.

"This example, taken from the vegetable kingdom, shows us that by transporting the same vegetable to different places, and subjecting it to different culture, diverse races are obtained.

"Tea that was transported to South America several years since presents the same results.

"Now take an example from among the animals. You know that the turkey is a native of America. Its introduction into Europe is quite recent.

"In America the turkey is wild; and there, in the condition of its natural existence, it presents several characteristics which distinguish it from the domestic bird. The wild turkey is beautiful. Of a rich brown color, its plumage presents the reflections of blue, copper, and gold, making it truly a beautiful ornament. It was on account of its plumage that it was first brought to France. No one dreamed of eating it, and the first one that was served upon a table in France, was in the year 1570, and upon the occasion of the nuptials of King Charles IX.

"When found to be such a luxury, it was considered too good to be merely looked at, and it passed from the court to the farm-yard, from farm to farm, from east to west, from north to south. At this present time it is an article of commerce all over France.

"In going from farm to farm, and from country to country, this bird has sustained different conditions of existence, nourishment, and temperature, but never a continuation of its primitive condition that was natural to it in America. The result is, that it has changed, and at this present time the turkey in France bears no resemblance to its savage source. In general, it is smaller, and its rich plumage has undergone a marked change. Some are yellow, others white, some mixed with black, gray, and yellow. Almost all the localities devoted to raising the fowl have caused several new varieties, which have transformed them into races.

"To have thus changed their habits so as to lose resemblance to their first parents, are our French fowls any the less descendants of the wild turkeys of America? Are they less the brothers, or cousins, if you like the term better? Have they ceased to be of the same species? Certainly not!

"That which is characteristic of the turkey is also true of the rabbit. The wild rabbit lives around and about us, on our downs, and in our woods. It resembles our domestic rabbits but little. Among the latter you will see the large and the small, the smooth-haired and the silky; the black and the white, the yellow and the gray, and the mixed. In a word, this species comprises a great number of different races, all constituting one and the same kind with the wild races we see around us. From these facts, which I could multiply, we can deduce an important consequence to which I call your attention. A pair of rabbits left unmolested in a field, would, in a few years, people entire France with their descendants. We have seen how the single coffee-plant, carried by Captain Destiaux, has propagated all the plants now found in America.

"The wild turkeys and their domestic descendants, the wild rabbits and theirs, reduced to captivity, could then be considered by naturalists as all proving equally their descent from one primitive pair.

"This is the secret of species. Having always before our eyes numbers of single groups of animals or vegetables, for one reason or other we hardly consider them as descendants of one only primitive pair; we call what we see a species; if there are differences observable among these groups, they are the races of this species.

"Observe that, in my explanations, I have not given for a certainty the existence of one primitive source for rabbits and turkeys. I do not affirm the fact, as neither observation nor experience—the two guides we must follow in science—teaches anything in this regard. I simply say, all are as though descended from one only primitive pair.

"In summing up the question of species and race, it is not difficult to understand nor to believe, when we know the savage type, and have historical authority which permits us to attach to this type the groups, more or less different, according to their domestication. But when we are ignorant of the savage type, and in want of historical authority, the question becomes extremely difficult at first, because the differences we find in one and the other, and above all, in the different groups, could hardly be considered other than such as characterize different species.

"Happily, physiology comes then to our relief. We find in this science one of those grand and beautiful general laws, which holds and maintains the established order, and which we admire the more we study it. It is the law of crossing, which governs animals as well as vegetables, and is, consequently, applicable to man himself.

"We understand by the term crossing, all unions effected between animals belonging to different species or to two different races. The result of the unions obeying these laws is, that if the animals of different species unite, in the majority of cases the union is barren.

"Thus, for example, it has been tried a million of times all over the world, to effect a union between rabbits and hares. It is said to have succeeded twice.

"Much doubt is cast upon this operation by the testimony of a man of undoubted talent, habituated to experiments, who believed these unions to be possible. Though availing himself of all possible means of proof, he was not more fortunate than his predecessors, Buffon and the brothers Geoffrey St. Hilaire. Thus, the rabbit and the hare, though presenting a great conformity in appearance, cannot reproduce. Such is the general result of crossing two different species.

"In a few cases, the union between two different species may be fruitful, but the offspring cannot reproduce. For example, the union between a horse and an ass. The product of this union is the mule. All the mules in the world are the descendants of the ass and the mare. These animals are so numerous in Spain and South America that they are preferred to horses, on account of their great strength and powers of endurance. The genet, which is less desirable because it is not so robust, is the fruit of the inverse crossing of the horse and the female ass. The genet, no more than the mule, can reproduce. If one or the other is desired, of necessity recourse is had to the two species. In extremely rare cases, fecundity remains among some of their descendants, but it diminishes gradually from the second generation down to the third, fourth, and fifth. The same result is shown in the union of the canary bird. I could here accumulate a crowd of analogous details. Above all, two great general facts appear that comprehend all, and are the expression of the law; they are that, notwithstanding the accumulated observations of years, made from experiments on certain species, not a single example is known of an intermediate species being obtained by the crossing of animals belonging to two different species.

"This general fact explains how order is maintained in the actual living creation. Were it otherwise, the animal and vegetable world would have been filled with intermediate groups, passing from one to the other insensibly, and in the confusion, it would be impossible for naturalists to recognize them. The general conclusion to draw from these precedents is, that infecundity is the law of union between animals of different species.

"Unions are always more fruitful when between two animals of the same race. Their descendants are as fruitful as the parents and the grandparents, where pains are taken to preserve the race pure, and to prevent strange blood from debasing it.

"When, on the contrary, a union is effected between two different races belonging to the same species, producing a mongrel race, the contrary takes place.

"There is no difficulty in obtaining a mongrel race—the result of a crossing of races; but the difficulty is when there is a pure race, and it is desirable to have it maintained, that great care is needed to prevent strange blood from changing it.

"Races crossed by mongrels—that is to say, by animals of the same species, but belonging to different races, multiply around us. There are the dogs in the streets, the cats of the alleys, the coach-horses; all beasts among whom the race is undecided in consequence of crossing indiscriminately, their characteristics becoming confounded.

"Far from endeavoring to obtain cross races, men who are occupied in raising stock, also bird-fanciers, know with what care they endeavor to preserve the purity of the races they keep. This is the general fact, and the result is, that infecundity is the law of unions between animals belonging to different races.

"This is the fundamental distinction between species and race. This distinction ought to be the more known and considered, as it is borrowed from experience.

"When there are two animals, or two vegetables, of whom we are uncertain as to whether they are two distinct species, we have but to observe if their union is fruitful; and if this quality attaches to their descendants, we can then affirm that, despite the differences that separate them, they are the races of the same species. If, on the contrary, their offspring diminishes in a remarkable manner at the end of several generations, we can then, without hesitation, declare them to belong to distinct species. In citing these examples, I have not overlooked the subject of my discourse, or the question at its commencement.

"In referring to the designs before our eyes, they show us that between the human groups the differences are marked enough, though to all appearance less considerable than they appeared at first. We do not know the types, or the primitive types, of the several groups.

"When we meet with one or several men presenting the characteristics of these types, and we cannot recognize them in spite of historical explanations, we are led to judge by our eyes. Without taking man himself into account, we cannot decide if these several differences that present themselves in the human family are those of race or of species; if man can be considered as having had but one primitive source only, or if he should have been derived from several primitive sources.

"I have said before, and repeat again, man is an organized and living being. Under this head he obeys all the general laws to which are attached all organized and living beings; he obeys, consequently, the law of crossing. He must then apply this law to ascertain if there is one or several species of men. Take, for example, the two types farthest removed—those which seem more separated than the others by the greatest differences—namely, the white and the black.

"If these types really constitute distinct species, the union between these species should follow the proof that we have seen characterize the unions between animals, and vegetables, of different species. They should be unfruitful in the majority of cases, or nearly so. Fecundity should disappear at the end of a short period, and they could not form intermediate families between the negroes and the whites. If these are only the races of one and the same species, then unions, on the contrary, should be quite fruitful, and fecundity should be found among their descendants, and they should form intermediate races.

"These facts are decisive, and admit of no doubt.

"For three centuries the whites, par excellence, the Europeans, have achieved, so to say, the conquest of the world. They have gone everywhere. Everywhere they have found local races who have borne them no resemblance. Whenever they have crossed with them, these unions have been fruitful; more so than with those indigenous to themselves.

"Man, from the result of the institution of slavery—which happily has never stained the soil of France—has transported the negro everywhere; everywhere he has crossed with his slaves, and everywhere they have formed a population of mulattoes. Wherever the negro has crossed with local groups or families, there has arisen an intermediate race, who in character manifest their two-fold origin. The whites have finally crossed with the mongrels of all origins, and the result is, that in certain quarters of the globe—particularly in South America—there is an inextricable mixture of people, comparable, under the class, to the dogs in our streets and the cats of our alleys.

"The rapidity with which these mongrel races cross and multiply is really remarkable. It is scarcely three centuries—hardly twelve generations—since Europeans penetrated into different parts of the world. It is estimated that already the number of mongrels resulting from the crossing of whites with natives, is a seventieth of the whole population of the globe. Experience is indisputable, if we even deny modern science, or at least, wish to make man an exception to all living and organized beings. We must admit that all men form but one species, composed of a certain number of different races; consequently, all men can only be considered as having descended from one primitive pair.

"We arrive at this conclusion in despite of all kinds of dogmatical, theological, philosophical, and metaphysical considerations. Observation and experience alone, applied to the animal and vegetable kingdoms, in a word, science, conducts us to the conclusion, there exists but one species of man.

"This result, I do not fear to say, is of great and serious importance; for it creates in our minds an idea of the universal fraternity of science and reason, the only schools that many persons recognize at this present time.

"I hope that my demonstrations will have convinced you; meanwhile, I am not ignorant, and you all know, that anthropologists differ. There are among my contemporaries a number of men, even of great merit, who believe in the plurality of the human species. You may possibly come into contact with them. Listen attentively, then, to the reasons they will urge to make you see with their eyes. You will find that their reasonings all tend to prove that there is too great a difference between the negro and the white for them to be of the same species. In reply, state that between the black and the white spaniel, the lap-dog and the mastiff, there exist greater differences than exist between the European and the African. Yet these animals are all dogs. They may argue, perhaps, that man, whatever may have been his characteristics, could not have generated both blacks and whites. Then ask why the wild turkey, whose origin, and that of its ancestors, we are acquainted with, and the wild rabbit, which we find everywhere, could have generated all our domestic races?

"We cannot, I repeat, explain perfectly the how and the wherefore; but what we know is, that the fact exists, and we shall find a general explanation in all states of existence—in all conditions of people.

"It is not, then, surprising that man presents, in the different groups, the differences herein depicted; man who trod the earth long before the turkey and the rabbit; man, who for centuries has existed upon the surface of the globe, submitting to the most diverse and opposite conditions of existence, multiplying again the causes of those modifications by his manners and habits, by his ways of living, by more or less care in his own preservation; man, finding himself in more marked and varied conditions than those sustained by the animals we have quoted. If anything surprises us, it is that the distinctions are not more considerable.

"In turn, ask the polygenists—as those savans are called who believe in the multiplicity of the human species—how it is that when the white man locates in any country, from the antipodes, if you will, or from America or Polynesia—that if he unites with the natives, who differ the most completely from him, these unions are fruitful, and that, above all, there remains traces of this alliance in producing a mongrel race?

"If you press the question more closely, you will find them denying the truth of species; by so doing, placing themselves in contradiction with all naturalists, botanists, or zoologists, without exception; consequently, with all the eminent minds who have followed in the wake of Buffon, Tournefort, Jussieu, Cuvier, and Geoffrey St. Hilaire, who made the animal and vegetable kingdoms their study, without discussion, or dreaming of its connection with man. In agitating these doctrines, polygenists place themselves in opposition to the most firmly established science. You will hear them declare that man, above all, is an exception; that he is guided by laws peculiar to himself; and that arguments deduced from the study of animals and plants, are not applicable to him. Then reply that, in the name of all the natural sciences, they are certainly in error, and that it is an impossibility that a living and organized being can escape the laws of organization and of life, having a body fortified against the laws that govern inorganic matter; that man, to be living and organized, obeys, under this title, all general laws, and those of intersection like all the others. The conclusion that we have attained is, then, legitimate, and the nature of the arguments employed to combat them, is a proof the more in its favor.