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).

19 M. de Serres, in his Lectures on Anthropology, at the Jardin des Plantes.

20 P. J. Proudhon has said, in another arrangement of facts depending on social science, “Revolution is not atheistical; it does not deny the absolute, it removes it altogether” (De la Justice, vol. ii, p. 301). See, for fuller development of our ideas on this subject, the Progrès of the 20th of May, 1859, article on Science et Religion.

21 Discours sur le Méthode.

22 Lettres à M. Villemain sur la Méthode, Paris, 1856, p. 3.

23 See these ideas categorically explained, vol. ii, p. 281.

24 M. de Quatrefages admits a sidereal kingdom; and such a thesis seems to us a very difficult one to sustain, after the experiments of Bunsen and Kirchoff on the chemical composition of the stars. M. de Quatrefages admits also a human kingdom; but admitting that animals think, he makes morality and religion characteristics of this kingdom. Unité de l’Espèce Humaine, 1861, p. 30. We shall have occasion to revert again to these two points. See Bert., Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, August 7, 1862.

25 See Is. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Histoire Naturelle Générale des règnes organiques, vol. ii, p. 252.

26 Certain essential oils, like those of coffee, tea, or hemp.

27 Alcoholic liquors.

28 Narcotics.

29 “If I am not mistaken,” says M. de Quatrefages, “there is in this result, independently of the scientific consequences which may proceed from it, a something which responds to our most noble aspirations. Man confers upon himself dominion of his own will; he loves to proclaim himself legitimate sovereign of all things on the surface of this globe; and, in fact, no creature will dare to dispute with him an empire which, day by day, extends and increases. Well! is it not satisfactory to behold anthropological characteristics sanction and ennoble this empire by placing by the side of the right, which springs from intellectual superiority, the notion of duty, which arises from morality and religion?” (Unité de l’Espèce Humaine, p. 33.)

30 Courtet de l’Isle has already made this remark. (Tableau Ethnographique du Genre Humain, 1849, p. 8.)

31 See the Voyage de l’Isabelle; also Desmoulins, Histoire Naturelle des Races Humaines, 1826, p. 276.

32 Cirripeds, tortoises, ornithodelphi, and generally speaking, the extreme representatives of the divisions of each natural classification.

33 Mémoire sur les Tasmaniens, sur les Alfourous, et sur les Australiens, in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 1827, vol. x, p. 155.

34 Hale, Natives of Australia, etc. See American Journal of Science, second series, vol. i, p. 302, May 1846; extract from the account of C. Wilkes’ Expedition: Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition during the years 1838-1842, vol. vi, “Ethnography and Philology.”

35 Voyage de l’Astrolabe: Zoologie, vol. i, p. 43.

36 Even after the assertions of M. de Quatrefages in the Unité des Races Humaines, p. 162, and following, we have not thought ourselves justified in changing our opinions on the subject of the Australians, which have lately been confirmed at the Anthropological Society; a Mr. O’Rourke, an eyewitness, having answered M. de Quatrefages (Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, 21 June, 1860).

37 J. Ross, Narrative of a Second Voyage, etc., 1835, p. 448.

38 J. Ross, Narrative of a Second Voyage, p. 490.

39 See Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Comptes Rendus, vol. v, p. 42. [We should very much like to know at what period our author imagines this to have been the case, and whether he considers that these apes were the “men of the day.”—Editor.]

40 “Memorandum on an Unknown Forest Race,” etc., Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1855, vol. xxiv, p. 207.

41 M. Ehrenberg, speaking one day of the unknown centre of Africa, said to us, “that it might not be impossible to find there men so different from us that we ought to make of them, willingly or unwillingly, a special group.” I quote these words in no way with the design of presuming that there is such an order of beings; but in order to show that the father of the naturalists of Europe, the friend of Humboldt, believes in something else than the unity of the human species, because he admits that a generic plurality is possible.

42 R. Owen, On the Characters of the Class Mammalia, 1857, p. 20, note. The illustrious savant has himself treated on this subject, ex professo, in the catalogue of the collection in the College of Surgeons.

43 “The orang-outang is capable of a kind of laugh when pleasantly excited,” J. Grant, “Account of the Structure of an Orang-Outang” (Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol. ix, 1828).

44 Artificial love itself, with all the complexity of ideas which it is supposed must thence arise, is not, as one may think, the debauchery of civilisation; it belongs to animals akin to man as well as to man himself. See Ch. Robin and Béraud, Précis de la Physiologie de l’Homme, vol. ii, p. 384. It is the same with impure connection, or coupling, radically inexplicable by instinct. See Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Histoire Naturelle Générale des Règnes Organiques, vol. iii, p. 142.

45 Doctor Yvan commanded the Archimedes; he has written an account of his voyage: Voyages et Récits, Brussels, 1853, 2 vols. in 12mo.

46 “The Australians only wear woollen clothing in order to protect the chest; ... no idea of shame has ever led them to hide the natural parts.” Lesson et Garnot, Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 1827, vol. x.

47 The orang observed by J. Grant also showed these signs of desperation; “he poured it (a saucer) angrily out on the floor, whined in a peculiar manner, and threw himself passionately on his back on the ground, striking his breast and paunch with his palms, and giving a kind of reiterated croak.”—“Account of the Structure of an Orang-Outang,” Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol. ix, p. 11. [The same demonstration of feeling was showed by the orangs in the Zoological Gardens, May 1864.—Editor.]

48 [Tagal, a chief town of Java.—Editor.]

49 Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. ii, p. 582.

50 Essai Philosophique sur l’âme des bêtes, 1728, p. 132.

51 [Guenon, the Simia nasalis of Buffon.—Editor.]

52 Plato, Leges, x, 1. See Maury, Religions, vol. iii, p. 4, note 2.

53 After having said that the idea of good and evil (moralité) exists among all men, M. de Quatrefages adds, that “the notion of the Divinity and that of another life are also generally diffused” (Unité de l’Espèce Humaine, p. 23). We shall demonstrate further on (chap. v) that this statement is incorrect, and how fragile the bases are upon which M. de Quatrefages rests the fundamental characteristics which, according to him, distinguish the human kingdom.

54 M. Chevreul has already defined the “Beautiful” as “the expression of causes whose influence has most force in moving mankind by appealing to their senses” (Lettres à M. Villemain sur la Méthode, 1856, p. 169).

55 [“Truth lies at the bottom of a well,” is an old saying, but our author does not seem to agree with it. We should be very sorry to think that truth was only to be found in science. This is, doubtless, the opinion of a great many learned men at the present day; but we must candidly own we do not agree with it, and certainly are not able to endorse M. Pouchet’s sentiment. We have ourselves not arrived at the point, and in this we are, doubtless, old-fashioned,—of referring everything to “reason,” as opposed to faith.—Editor.]

56 Edinburgh Journal of Science, 1828, vol. ix, p. 10.

57 Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. iii, p. 29.

58 We can compare this passage from the naturalist philosopher with the other quotations we made farther back. “Females are extremely curious about this spectacle (the fondness of a “mother” monkey for her young one), and doubtless their attention is caused by discovering therein a true manifestation of the feelings they have themselves experienced as mothers; they are, above all things, astonished to recognise in these ardent attentions the joy and pride of maternity, of which they believed themselves alone to be susceptible.” (É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Cours d’Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères, Paris, 1829, vol. i; Lesson, vi, p. 16).

59 Proudhon has already laid down as a principle the establishment of a psychology among animals (De la Justice, vol. ii, p. 279). Frederick Cuvier has done the same.

60 Hom. iv in Acta Apostolorum. See Rechtenbach, De Sermone Brutorum, Erfurt, 1706, p. 1.

61 Sometimes this restraint is openly avowed; and we see M. Maire, who is also engaged upon the same questions, admit that, without these influences, he would embrace the same ideas that we are endeavouring to bring forward. “Let us frankly avow,” he says, “if we had not continually before our minds the doctrines of a religion which we respect,—if we had not a sincere faith, this intuitive belief which tells us we must make a mistake,—we should dare to write thus. The more the organisation of the animal is perfected, the more the spiritual element produced by the action of the various functions is itself perfected.... There would then be only a hierarchical gradation of one and the same principle. The psychical fluid would be always the same in all individuals. The difference in its manifestations would refer to the difference in the organisations which produce them” (Société Havraise d’Etudes Diverses, p. 169, 1855-1856).

62 [We cannot exactly see why it must necessarily have been offensive to Christianity. There is nothing injurious to religion in the theory of intellectual gradation.—Editor.]

63 Jam vero nobis ostendendum est eam (bestia) habere rationem internam et intus conceptam. Videtur sane a nostra differre, non essentia sed gradu. Uti nonnulli existimant Deorum a nostra discrepare rationem, non differentia essentiali, sed quod illorum magis, nostra minus sit accurata. Et quidem quod ad sensum attinet et reliquam, tum instrumentorum sensus, tum carnis universæ, conformationem attinet, eam eodem nobiscum modo se habere in animalibus, ab omnibus fere conceditur.—Porphyrius, transl. by Holsteinius, De Abstinentiâ, 1655, p. 108. Is not unity of composition here conjectured, both for the intellect and the body?

64 Disquisitio de Animâ Brutorum, Bremæ, 1676.

65 Logicæ Brutorum, Hamburg, 1697. This little treatise, in spite of the extreme ideas of its author, is not the less precious. J. Stahl was one of those wells of learning which Germany has so often produced. There is, perhaps, not one passage in the old authors who wrote on this point to which he has not referred in his work.

66 See, among others, S. Gros, De Animâ Brutorum, Wittemberg, 1680; Klemnius, De Animâ Brutorum, Vittembergiæ, 1704.

67 Upon this point, M. de Quatrefages agrees with M. Flourens; but the distinction which he endeavours to establish, being based upon morality and religion, seems to us much more restricted and much less clear. Not being able to answer everybody, we have been obliged to attend merely to the opinions of that partisan of the human kingdom who gives to animals the largest portion of it.

68 Proudhon says, in language which is even more concise and affirmative, “In man, the mind knows itself; whilst elsewhere it seems to us that it does not do so” (Système des Contradictions économiques, vol. i, 1850, p. 20).

69 Annales du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, vol. xvi, p. 58.

70 Maire, Société Havraise d’Etudes Diverses, 1855-1856.

71 Unité de l’Espèce Humaine, 1861, p. 24.

72 Maire, Société Havraise d’Etudes Diverses, 1855-1856. We can make the same comparison with a passage almost similar from Maupertuis, Essai Philosophique sur l’âme des Bêtes, 1728, p. 134.

73 Essai Philosophique sur l’âme des Bêtes, 1728, p. 95.

74 See É. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Comptes Rendus des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. iv, p. 261.

75 See Flourens, Histoire des Travaux de Buffon, 1844, p. 135. Descartes made use of the absence of speech in animals as a strong argument against them.

76 See Gratiolet, Bulletins de la Soc. d’Anthropologie de Paris, 18 April, 1861.

77 See J. Grimm, De l’Origine du Langage, transl., 1859, p. 53.

78 Traité de l’Origine du Langage, Engl. transl., 1827, p. 6.

79 De l’Origine du Langage, transl., 1859.

80 De l’Origine du Langage, 2nd edit., 1858.

81 It is by tracing, according to custom, effects to their causes, that the Buddhist philosophy arrives at the principles of joint responsibility, which, according to it, unites reason to language, making them mutually flow one from the other. “Name and form have as a cause, intellect, and intellect has for a cause, name and form.”—See Burnouf, Le Lotus de la bonne loi, p. 550. Mercurius Trismegistus, in the Pimander (Pimander, De sapientiâ et potestate Dei), says almost the same thing: “Speech is the sister of intellect; intellect is the sister of language.” See Rechtenbach, De Sermone Brutorum, 1706, p. 2.

82 See De l’Origine du Langage, transl., 1859.

83 De l’Origine du Langage, 1858, p. 31.

84 See Jacob Grimm, De l’Origine du Langage, transl., 1859, p. 29.

85 Father Pardies (S. J.), in a work, otherwise of no great value, Discours de la Connaissance des Bêtes, 1672, p. 39.

86 Recherches sur les mœurs de fourmis indigènes, Genève, 1810.

87 We refer our readers for all these questions to the remarkable works of M. Toussenel.

88 Essai Philosophique sur l’âme des Bêtes, 1728, p. 217.

89 It may be seen, in analysing these two simple facts, that they lead us to admit the existence of a notion of duty among animals, although, perhaps, an obscure one:—they know that they ought to act as they are doing from fear of a whipping, and this is an operation of the mind which no one, we think, will deny to be complex in its nature, and purely intellectual.

90 Isid. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Histoire Naturelle Générale, vol. iii, 1860, p. 114. M. Roulin has remarked, that there is something analogous in this as regards the cat, which loses, in the savage state, those troublesome mewings which we hear so often during the night from the European race.—Mémoires du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, vol. xvii.

91 It is because there is a sort of capability for education in the animal, and indeed in the whole of his race, placed under certain circumstances; it is because, on the other hand, we refuse to certain human races the “initiative in progress,” (see Broca, Bulletins de la Société d’Anthropologie, May 24 and June 21, 1860), that we cannot accept the “class man” of M. Chevreul, preceding the “class mammalia,” and having, as a characteristic, the capability of perfection in the individual, and in the association of individuals.—See Exposé d’un moyen de Définir et de Nommer les Couleurs, § 185. (Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. xxxiii, 1861.)

92 See Dr. Gibson, Amer. Assoc. (compare Ami des Sciences, 29 August, 1858.)

93 It would be a curious study, for instance, to find out if certain noises,—certain sounds which have no signification to our ears, do not produce, among some animals, clearly determined impressions, having their first origin in these animals themselves, or in their mutual relations, the education we give them going for nothing in this sort of evidence.

94 [The Rev. F. W. Robertson (who died some years ago), states some opinions in his published sermons which show he was almost before his time in his ideas concerning animals. He says, in comparing them with mankind, “There is the same external form, the same material in the blood-vessels, in the nerves, and in the muscular system. Nay, more than that, our appetites and instincts are alike, our lower pleasures like their lower pleasures, our lower pain like their lower pain; our life is supported by the same means, and our animal functions are almost indistinguishably the same.” Sermons, 3rd series, 1857 (preached in 1850), p. 49. “It is the law of being, that in proportion as you rise from lower to higher life, the parts are more distinctly developed, while yet the unity becomes more entire. You find, for example, in the lowest forms of animal life, one organ performs several functions; one organ being, at the same time, heart, and brain, and blood-vessel. But when you come to man, you find all these various functions existing in different organs, and every organ more distinctly developed; and yet the unity of a man is a higher unity than that of a limpet.” (Sermons, p. 57.)—Editor.]

95 A Treatise on the Records of the Creation, by J. Bird Sumner, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, 6th edit., 8vo, London, 1850.

96 Nullum characterem hactenus eruere potui, unde homo a simia internoscatur.—Linnæus, Fauna Suecica: præfatio.

97 Owen, On the Characters of the Class Mammalia, p. 20, note (Journal of Proceedings of Linnean Society, 1857.)

98 Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. ii, p. 581.

99 See the magnificent work, Sketches of Central Africa, and the portrait of the chief, Kanéma, in Barth’s Travels, vol. iii.

100 Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Hist. Naturelle Générale, vol. ii, pp. 200-515.

101 [See Huxley’s Man’s Place in Nature, 8vo, London, 1863; and the article thereon in the Edinburgh Review, April, 1863.—Editor.]

102 Crawfurd, On the Negro Race, etc. (British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1852, p. 86.)

103 See the translation of this veritable Iliad, by M. H. Fauche. Râmâyana, 1857.

104 [We are told in the Voyages de François Pyrard, vol. ii, p. 331, Paris, 1615, “that in the province of Sierra Leone there is a species (of orang-outang) so strong limbed and so industrious that, when properly trained and fed, they work like servants; that they generally walk on the two hind feet; that they pound any substances in a mortar; that they go and bring water from the river in small pitchers, which they carry, full, on their heads. But when they arrive at the door, if the pitchers are not soon taken off, they allow them to fall; and when they perceive the pitchers overturned and broken they weep and lament.” In the Voyages de Guat. Shoutten aux Indes Orientales, we find nearly the same account of the orang: “they are taken with snares, taught to walk on their hind feet, and to use their fore-feet as hands in performing different operations, as rinsing glasses, carrying drink round to the company, turning a spit,” etc.—Editor.]

105 Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, vol. ii. See, also, for the separation of the great toe, the photographs in the Voyage à la Côte Orientale d’Afrique, by Captain Guillain.

106 Odontography, London, 1840, p. 452. Catalogue of the Hunterian Collection, “Osteology,” vol. ii, p. 800.

107 [A character which, as the Cuviers and Owen have pointed out, man shares with the fossil Anoplotherium and its allies, from the Paris gypsum.—Editor.]

108 Tiedemann, of Heidelberg, wrote to Knox with reference to the nervous system, that he had great reason to believe that the natives of Australia differed in this matter from Europeans in an extraordinary degree.—Knox, The Races of Men, London, 1850, p. 2.

109 “The physical characteristics which distinguish human races, one from the other, are, perhaps, the one fact in natural history which has always most struck the imagination of mankind.... Historians relate, that when Columbus first returned, Europeans could not take their eyes off the plants and unknown animals which he had brought with him; and above all, the Indians, so different from all the races of men they had ever seen.”—Flourens, Considérations sur l’enseignement de l’Histoire Naturelle de l’Homme. (Annales des Sciences Naturelles, vol. x, p. 357.) This wonder is renewed every day; and I once knew an intelligent negro who had a very unpleasant remembrance of the French provinces, where he had been the object of a very general and indiscreet curiosity.

110 The works which followed one another on this subject are due to Reinhold Wagner (1699), B. S. Albin (1737), Barrière (1742), Mitchell (1744), Baeck (1748), Meckel (1753-1757), Le Cat (1756-1765), etc. See G. Pouchet, Des Colorations de l’Epiderme, 4to, Paris, 1864.

111 The analysis of the anatomical differences in the skeleton has been, perhaps, best made by Bérard, in France, and Lawrence in England; I may refer for the details to these two authors. Bérard, Cours de Physiologie, 1848, vol. i; Lawrence, Lectures on Comparative Anatomy, 9th edition, 1848.