Chapter XII: Front Matter (12)

The geographical change in Northern Europe at the close of the forest-bed age was very great. The forest of the North Sea sank beneath the waves, and Britain was depressed to a depth of no less than 2,300 feet in the Welsh Mountains, and was reduced to an archipelago of islands, composed of what are now the higher lands. The area of the English Channel was also depressed, and the “silver streak” was wider than it is now, as is proved by the raised beach at Brighton, at Brackelsham, and elsewhere, which marks the sea-line of the largest island of the archipelago, the Southern Island, as it may be termed, the northern shores of which extended along a line passing from Bristol to London. The northern shore of the Continent at this time extended eastward from Abbeville, north of the Erzgebirge, through Saxony and Poland, into the middle of Russia, Scandinavia being an island from which the glaciers descended into the sea. This geographical change was accompanied by a corresponding change in climate. Glaciers descended from the higher mountains to the sea level, and icebergs, melting as they passed southward, deposited their burdens of clay and sand which occupy such a wide area in the portions then submerged of Britain and the Continent. This depression was followed by a re-elevation, by which the British Isles, a part of the Continent, all the large tract of country within the 100-fathom line, again became the feeding-grounds of the late Pleistocene mammalia.

An appeal to the animals associated with the River-drift implements will not help us to fix the exact relation of man to these changes, because they were in Britain before as well as after the submergence, and were living throughout in those parts of Europe which were not submerged. It can only be done in areas where the submergence is clearly defined. At Salisbury, for instance, the River-drift hunter may have lived either before, during or after the southern counties became an island. When, however, he hunted the woolly and leptorhine rhinoceros, the mammoth, and the horse, in the neighborhood of Brighton, he looked down upon a broad expanse of sea, in the spring flecked with small icebergs such as those which dropped their burdens in Brackelsham Bay. At Abbeville, too, he hunted the mammoth, reindeer, and horse down to the mouth of the Somme on the shore of the glacial sea. The evidence is equally clear that the River-drift hunter followed the chase in Britain after it had emerged from beneath the waters of the glacial sea, from the fact that the river deposits in which his implements occur either rest upon the glacial clays, or are composed of fragments derived from them, as in the oft-quoted case of Hoxne and Bedford. Further, it is very probable that he may have wandered close up to the edge of the glaciers then covering the higher hills of Wales and the Pennine chain. The severity of the climate in winter at this time in Britain is proved, not merely by the presence of the Arctic animals, but by the numerous ice-borne blocks in the river gravels dropped in the spring after the break-up of the frosts.

The River-drift man is proved, by the implements which he left behind, to have wandered over the whole of France, and to have hunted the same animals in the valley of the Loire and the Garrone, as in the valley of the Thames. In the Iberian peninsula he was also a contemporary of the African elephant, the mammoth, and the straight-tusked elephant, and he occupied the neighborhood both of Madrid and Lisbon. He also ranged over Italy, leaving traces of his presence in the Abruzzo, and in Greece he was a contemporary of the extinct pygmy hippopotamus (H. Pentlandi). South of the Mediterranean his implements have been met with in Oran, and near Kolea in Algeria, and in Egypt in several localities. At Luxor they have been discovered by General Pitt-Rivers in the breccia, out of which are hewn the tombs of the kings. In Palestine, they have been obtained by the Abbé Richard between Mount Tabor and the Sea of Tiberias; and by Mr. Stopes between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Throughout this wide area the implements, for the most part of flint or of quartzite, are of the same rude types, and there is no difference to be noted between the hatchets found in the caves of Cresswell in Derbyshire and those of Thebes, or between those of the valley of the Somme and those of Palestine. The River-drift hunter ranged over the Indian peninsula from Madras as far north as the valley of the Nerbudda. Here we find him forming part of a fauna in which are species now living in India, such as the Indian rhinoceros and the arnee, and extinct types of oxen and elephants. There are two extinct hippopotami in the rivers, and living gavials, turtles, and tortoises. It is plain, therefore, that at this time the fauna of India stood in the same relation to the present fauna as the European fauna of the late Pleistocene does to that now living in Europe. In both there was a familiar association of extinct and living forms, from both the genus hippopotamus has disappeared in the lapse of time, and in both man forms the central figure.

We are led from the region of tropical India to the banks of the Delaware, in New Jersey, by the recent discoveries of Dr. C. C. Abbott. Here, too, living and extinct species are found side by side.

Thus in our survey of the group of animals surrounding man when he first appeared in Europe, India, and North America, we see that in all three regions, so widely removed from each other, the animal life was in the same stage of evolution, and “the old order” was yielding “place unto the new.” The River-drift man is proved by his surroundings to belong to the Pleistocene age in all three. The evidence of Palæolithic man in South Africa seems to me unsatisfactory, because the age of the deposits in which the implements are found has not been decided.

The identity of the implements of the River-drift hunter proves that he was in the same rude state of civilization, if it can be called civilization, in the Old and New Worlds, when the hands of the geological clock pointed to the same hour. It is not a little strange that his mode of life should have been the same in the forests to the north and south of the Mediterranean, in Palestine, in the tropical forests of India, and on the western shore of the Atlantic. The hunter of the reindeer in the valley of the Delaware was to all intents and purposes the same sort of savage as the hunter of the reindeer on the banks of the Wiley or of the Solent.

It does not, however, follow that this identity of implements implies that the same race of men were spread over this vast tract. It points rather to a primeval condition of savagery from which mankind has emerged in the long ages which separate it from our own time. It may further be inferred, from his widespread range, that the River-drift man (assuming that mankind sprang from one centre) must have inhabited the earth for a long time, and that his dispersal took place before the glacial submergence and the lowering of the temperature in Northern Europe, Asia, and America. It is not reasonable to suppose that the Straits of Behring would have offered a free passage, either to the River-drift man from Asia to America, or to American animals from America to Europe, or _vice versâ_, while there was a vast barrier of ice or of sea, or of both, in the high northern latitudes. I therefore feel inclined to view the River-drift man as having invaded Europe in pre-glacial time along with the other living species which then appeared. The evidence, as I have already pointed out, is conclusive that he was also glacial and post-glacial.

In all probability, the birthplace of man was in a warm, if not a tropical, region of Asia--“in a garden of Eden”; and from this the River-drift man found his way into those regions where his implements occur. In India, he was a member of a tropical fauna, and his distribution in Europe and along the shores of the Mediterranean proves him to have belonged either to the temperate or the southern fauna in those regions. It will naturally be asked, To what race can the River-drift man be referred? The question, in my opinion, can not be answered in the present stage of the inquiry, because the few fragments of human bones discovered along with the implements are too imperfect to afford any clew. Nor can we measure the interval in terms of years which separates the River-drift man from the present day, either by assuming that the glacial period was due to astronomical causes, and then proceeding to calculate the time necessary for them to produce their result, or by an appeal to the erosion of valleys, or the retrocession of waterfalls. The interval must, however, have been very great to allow of the changes in geography and climate, and the distribution of animals which has taken place--the succession of races, and the development of civilization before history began. Standing before the rock-hewn tombs of the kings at Luxor, we may realize the impossibility of fixing the time when the River-drift hunter lived in the side of the ancient Thebes, or of measuring the lapse of time between his days and the splendor of the civilization of Egypt. In this inquiry I have purposely omitted all reference to the successor of the River-drift man in Europe--the Cave man--who was in a higher stage of the hunter civilization. In the course of my remarks you will have seen that the story told by the rudely chipped implements found at our very door forms a part of the wider story of the first appearance of man and of his distribution on the earth.

MAN’S PRIMITIVE CONDITION
--DUKE OF ARGYLL

As the question of man’s origin is different from the question of his antiquity, and as the antiquity of man is a different question from his primitive condition, so again the last question includes within itself several different matters of inquiry. There is first the question, What consciousness had primeval man of moral obligation, and what communion with his Creator? Next there is the question, What were his innate intellect or understanding? And, thirdly, there is the question, What was his condition in respect to knowledge, whether as the result of intuition or as the result of teaching? Sir J. Lubbock speaks of primeval man as having been in a condition of “utter barbarism.” But no one, speaking philosophically, has a right to use such terms as “barbarism” and “civilization” without some definition of their meaning. What were those faculties which made the first creature who possessed them “worthy to be called a man”? A mind capable of reason, disposed to reason, and able to acquire, to accumulate, and to transmit knowledge--this is the distinctive attribute of man. The first being “worthy to be so called” must have had such a mind. But it could not properly be said of such a being, on the ground merely of his ignorance of mechanical arts, that he was in a condition of “utter barbarism,” if he were at the same time conscious of moral obligations and obedient to them.

Wherever a brutal or savage custom prevails it is at once assumed to be a sample of the original condition of mankind. And this in the teeth of facts which prove that many of such customs not only may have been, but must have been, the result of corruption. Take cannibalism as one of these. Sir J. Lubbock seems to admit that this loathsome practice was not primeval, probably because he considers it as unnatural. And so it is--that is to say, it is against the better nature of man; but the fact of its existence proves that within the limits of that nature there are elements liable to perversions even so horrible as this. And so we come upon the fact of the two natures of man, and of the power of the worst parts of his nature to overcome the best. It is thus that customs the most cruel and depraved become established. But if this be the explanation, and the only possible explanation, of cannibalism, is it not evident that this may also be the explanation of other customs which are violent and horrible only in a less degree? Cruel rites of worship and savage customs as regards marriage and the relation of the sexes come under the same category. Cannibalism is only an extreme case of a general law, and it is a crucial test of the fallacy of a whole class of arguments commonly assumed by those who support the savage theory respecting the primeval condition of mankind.

The great difficulty of teaching many savages the arts of civilized life is no proof whatever that the various degrees of advance toward the knowledge of those arts which are actually found among semi-barbarous nations may not have been of strictly indigenous growth. Thus it appears that one tribe of Red Indians, called “Mandans,” practiced the art of fortifying their towns. Surrounding tribes, although they saw the advantages derived from this art, yet never practiced it, and never learned it.

I do not agree with the late Archbishop of Dublin that we are entitled to assume it as a fact that, as regards the mechanical arts, no savage race has ever raised itself. Whately says that “the earliest generations of mankind had received only very limited, and what may be called elementary, instruction, enough merely to enable them to make further advances afterward by the exercise of their natural powers.” But how much was this “enough”? And what is meant by “instruction,” as distinguished from inborn or intuitive powers of observation and of reasoning? May not this have been the form in which the Creator first “instructed” man? For here it is important to observe that in direct proportion as we assume man’s primitive condition to have been such as to require elementary teaching, in the same proportion do we suppose that his primitive condition in respect to intellect was low and weak. Accordingly, Whately assumes as an indisputable fact, that man has no instincts such as enable the lower animals to construct nests, cells, and lairs. My own belief is that this is an assumption which is not only unproved, but one which in all probability is false. As Whately himself admits, “man is an animal” as well as the creatures that are below him. It is true that he has not instincts of the same kind as they have. But this is no proof whatever that he has not, and had not originally, instincts which stand in strict correlation with the peculiarities of his higher physical organization. There are many facts which go far to prove that man has, and must always have had, instincts which afford all that is required as a starting-ground for advance in the mechanical arts. Few persons have reflected on how much is involved in the most purely instinctive acts, such as the throwing of a stone or the wielding of a stick as a weapon of offence. Both these simple acts involve the great principle of the use of artificial tools. Even in the most rudimentary form the use of an implement fashioned for a special purpose is absolutely peculiar to man, and arises necessarily and instinctively out of the structure of his body. The bodies of the lower animals are so constructed that such implements as they are capable of directing are all supplied in the form of bodily organs. All effects which they desire to produce, or are capable of producing, are effected directly by the use of those organs under the guidance of implanted instincts. There are some very curious cases among the lower animals of a near approach to the principle involved in the use of tools--that is to say, the use of natural force through artificial means. Thus the common gray or hooded crow is constantly in the habit of lifting shell-fish to a certain height in the air and then letting them fall upon the rocks of the shore in order to break the shells. Some species of monkey will even use any stone which may be at hand for the purpose of striking and breaking a nut. The elephant tears branches from the trees and uses them as an artificial tail to fan himself and to keep off the flies. But between these rudiments of intellectual perception and the next step--that of adapting and fashioning an instrument for a particular purpose--there is a gulf in which lies the whole immeasurable distance between man and the brutes. In no case whatever do they ever use an implement made by themselves as an intermediate agency between their bodily organs and the work which they desire to do. Man, on the contrary, is so constructed that in almost everything he desires to do he must employ an agency intermediate between his bodily organs and the effect which he wishes to produce. But this necessity, which in one aspect is a physical disability, is correlated with a mind capable of invention, and with certain implanted instincts which involve all the rudiments of mechanical skill. The man who first lifted a stone and threw it, practiced an art which not one of the lower animals is capable of practicing. This is an act which in all probability is as strictly instinctive and natural to man as it is to a dog to bite, or to a bull to charge. Yet the act involves the idea and the knowledge of projectile force and of the arts by which direction can be given to that force. The wielding of a stick is, in all probability, an act equally of primitive intuition, and from this to the throwing of a stick, and the use of javelins, is an easy and natural transition. Simple as these acts are, they involve both physical and mental powers capable of all the developments which we see in the most advanced industrial arts.

And here it is important to observe that even if savage races be taken as the type of man’s primeval condition, the evidence afforded by these races is all in favor of the conclusion that, as regards his characteristic mental powers, man has always been man, and nothing less. There is quite as much ingenuity and skill in the manufacture of a knife of flint as in the manufacture of a knife of iron. And the skill displayed by the men who used stone implements is not confined to that which is involved in the selection of mineral substances suitable for the purpose. That skill is also eminently displayed in the use made of those stone implements after they had been fashioned. The smaller implements of bone, or of horn, or of wood which the stone knives and hatchets were employed to make are often highly ingenious, and sometimes eminently beautiful. The truth is that high qualities of reasoning and ready faculties of observation are called forth in the inverse ratio of the acquired knowledge with which they are provided, and from which they start.

It matters not which of the two theories we adopt in regard to the origin of the human race, whether we suppose it to have proceeded from one or from two, or even from several different centres of creation; it matters not whether we suppose with Sir J. Lubbock that the “first being worthy to be called a man” was born of some inferior creature, or whether we believe with Whately, that he was truly human in his powers, but required some “elementary instruction to enable his faculties to begin their work.” In any case we may safely assume that man must have begun his course in some one or more of those portions of the earth which are genial in climate, rich in natural fruits, and capable of yielding the most abundant return to the very simplest arts. It is under such conditions that the first establishment of the human race can be most easily understood; nay, it is under such conditions only that it is conceivable at all. And as these are the conditions which would favor the first establishment and the most rapid increase of man, so also are these the conditions under which knowledge would most rapidly accumulate, and the earliest possibilities of material civilization would arise.

Now what are the changes of external circumstance which first, in the natural course of things, would bring an adverse influence to bear upon mankind? Here again we are on firm ground, because we know one great cause which has been always operating, and we know its natural and inevitable effects. This cause is simply the law of increase. It is the consequence of that law that population is always pressing upon the limits of subsistence. Hence the necessity of migrations, and the force which has propelled successive generations of men further and further, in ever-widening circles round the original centre or centres of their birth. Then, as it would always be the weaker tribes who would be driven from the ground which had become overstocked, and as the lands to which they went forth were less and less hospitable in climate and productions, the struggle for life would be always harder. And so it always happens in the natural and necessary course of things, that the races which were driven furthest would be the rudest--the most engrossed in the pursuits of mere animal existence.

Is it not true that the lowest and rudest tribes in the population of the globe have been found at the furthest extremities of its great continents, and in the distant islands which would be the last refuge of the victims of violence and misfortune? “The New World” is the continent which presents the most uninterrupted stretch of habitable land from the highest northern to the lowest southern latitude. On the extreme north we have the Eskimo, or Inuit race, maintaining human life under conditions of extremest hardship, even amid the perpetual ice of the polar seas. And what a life it is! Watching at the blow-hole of a seal for many hours, in a temperature of 75° below freezing-point, is the constant work of the Inuit hunter. And when at last his prey is struck, it is his luxury to feast upon the raw blood and blubber. To civilized man it is hardly possible to conceive a life so wretched, and in many respects so brutal, as the life led by this race during the long lasting night of the Arctic winter. Not even the most extravagant theorist, as regards the plurality of human origins, can suppose that there was an Eskimo Adam--that any man was originally created or developed in the icy regions round the pole. Here then we have a case, beyond all question, of races driven by wars and migrations from the more temperate regions of the globe. So long as they were still in those regions, the ancestors of the Eskimo must have lived in another manner, and must have had wholly different habits. The rigors of the region they now inhabit have reduced this people to the condition in which we now see them, and whatever arts their fathers knew, suited to more genial climates, have been, and could not fail to be, utterly forgotten.

And now let us pass to the other extremity of the great continent of America--to Cape Horn, and to the island off it, which projects its desolate rocks into one of the most inhospitable climates in the world. The inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego are perhaps the most degraded among the races of mankind. How could they be otherwise? “Their country,” says Mr. Darwin, “is a broken mass of wild rocks, lofty hills, and useless forests; and these are viewed through mists and endless storms. The habitable land is reduced to the stones of the beach. In search of food they are compelled to wander unceasingly from spot to spot, and so steep is the coast that they can only move about in their wretched canoes.” They are habitual cannibals, killing and eating their old women before they kill their dogs, for the sufficient reason, as explained by themselves--“Doggies catch otters, old women no.” Well might Darwin add, “While beholding these savages one asks, Whence have they come? What could have tempted, or what change compelled, a tribe of men to leave the fine regions of the north, to travel down the Cordillera, or backbone of America, to invent and build canoes which are not used by the tribes of Chili, Peru, and Brazil, and then to enter on one of the most inhospitable countries within the limits of the globe?” There can be but one explanation. Quarrels and wars between tribe and tribe, induced by the mere increase of numbers and the consequent pressure on the means of subsistence, have been always, ever since man existed, driving the weaker races further and further from the older settlements of mankind. And when the ultimate points of the habitable world are reached, the conditions of existence cause and necessitate a savage and degraded life. Darwin gives the true explanation of their condition when he says, “How little can the higher powers of the mind be brought into play! What is there for imagination to picture, for reason to compare, for judgment to decide upon?” The case of the Fuegians is a case in which there can be no doubt whatever of the causes of their degraded condition. On every side of them, and in proportion as we recede from their wretched country, the surrounding tribes are less wretched and better acquainted with the simpler arts. And it is remarkable that in the case of this people we have proof of another point of great interest and importance, viz., this--that even the most degraded savages have all the perfect attributes of humanity, which can be and are developed the moment they are placed under favorable conditions. Captain Fitzroy had in 1830 carried off some of these people to England, where they were taught the habits and the arts of civilized life. Of one of these, who was taken back to his own country in the _Beagle_, Mr. Darwin tells us that his “intellect was good,” and of another that he had a “nice disposition.” We see, therefore, that every fact and circumstance connected with the Fuegians agrees with the supposition that their “utter barbarism” was due entirely to the cruel conditions of their life, and the wretched country into which they had been driven. The Bushmen of South Africa are another case in point. It seems to be clearly ascertained that they belong to the same race as other tribes who are far less degraded, and that they are simply the descendants of outcasts driven to the woods and rocks. So, again, among the great islands of the Pacific, the natives of Van Diemen’s Land were the most utterly degraded of all the Polynesian races.

With these facts staring us in the face, connecting themselves in an obvious order with causes which we know to be all operating in one direction, is it not absurd to argue that the condition of these outcasts of the human family can be assumed as representing the aboriginal condition of man? Is it not certain that whatever advances toward civilization may have been made among their progenitors, such advances must necessarily have been lost under the conditions to which their children are reduced?

And now we can better estimate the value to be set on the arguments which have been founded on the rude implements found in the river drifts and in the caves of Northern Europe. I, for one, accept the evidence which geology affords that these implements are of very ancient date. I accept too the evidence which that science affords, that these implements were in all probability the ice hatchets and rude knives used by tribes which toward the close of the glacial age had pushed their way to the furthest limits of the lands which were then habitable. And what follows? The inevitable conclusion is, that it must be about as safe to argue from those implements as to the condition of man at that time, in the countries of his primeval home, as it would be in our own day to argue from the habits and arts of the Eskimo as to the state of civilization in London or in Paris.

RACES OF MANKIND
--WILLIAM HUGHES

It is estimated that the earth is inhabited, at the present time, by 1,450 millions of human beings, who are distributed over its surface in the manner shown in the following table:

----------------+-----------------+---------------+--------------
| Area in British | Population | Population to
| square miles | | square mile
----------------+-----------------+---------------+--------------
Europe | 3,700,000 | 320,000,000 | 86
Asia | 17,000,000 | 830,000,000 | 47
Africa | 12,000,000 | 200,000,000 | 16
North America | | |
(including | 8,600,000 | 68,000,000 | 8
West Indies) | | |
South America | 7,000,000 | 28,000,000 | 4
Oceania | 3,000,000 | 4,000,000 | 1
----------------+-----------------+---------------+--------------

Europe is, therefore, relatively to its size, by much the most populous division of the globe, though Asia contains the highest number of inhabitants--amounting, indeed, to little less than two-thirds of the entire human race. The New World is very much less populated by man than the older known portions of the globe, though its capabilities for the support of man fully equal those of any of the continents of the Eastern Hemisphere. Australia, and the scattered islands of the Pacific Ocean, are the least populous portions of the earth, the total present number of their inhabitants amounting to a mere fraction of the entire number.[13]

The numerical distribution of mankind undergoes great change in the present day, when emigration from over-populated lands to distant parts of the globe is conducted on so extensive a scale. But this affects the distribution of _race_ in much higher measure than it does the merely numerical distribution of man. The fast-increasing numbers of the settlers in the fertile plains and river valleys of the New World, descendants of European colonists, perhaps hardly more than replaces, numerically, the native races who occupied the same regions prior to the first visit of the white man to their shores. It is the tendency, everywhere, of the native races to decay before the white settler. Wars, famine, epidemic diseases, and various social causes, again, tend to keep down the total number of the human family--at any rate, to check the more rapid numerical growth which it would otherwise exhibit.

The generally recognized ethnological division of mankind, with reference to race, is into three leading families--the Caucasian, Mongolian, and Negro. Two other families--the Malay and the American--are commonly added to these, making five in the total. The first-named division is that suggested by the illustrious French naturalist, Cuvier. The five-fold division is due to the German philosopher, Blumenbach. In the scheme of the former, the Malay and American are regarded as sub-varieties--the one of the Caucasian and the other of the Mongolian family. Other writers again enumerate a much greater number of varieties of mankind, each possessing characters sufficiently distinct to entitle it to be regarded as a separate family.

[In using the word _race_, as applied to different families
of man, the division must be understood as implying “variety”
only--not species. There is no _specific_ difference in the
various members of the human family--no difference, that is,
which implies anything in contradiction to the assumption that
all mankind have had a common origin, springing from a single
pair. The human family differs in this regard from all the lower
members of the animal kingdom. The order “bimana” (_i. e._,
_two-handed_), to which, in scientific classification, man is
referred, comprises only a single genus, and a single species.

The characteristic points of difference between the great
families of mankind above referred to are the color of the skin,
eyes, and hair (with the nature of the latter, whether curled,
lank, woolly, or frizzled), and the shape of the skull. All
other physical differences, as regards stature, form of limbs,
and general outline of body, seem capable of ready explanation
by reference to opposite conditions of climate, food, and habits
of social life. But between the Caucasian and the Negro, or the
latter and the Mongol, there is a broad and strongly marked
difference, and one that extends over the whole historic period.]

The distinguishing attributes of the Caucasian race, physically considered, are the oval form of the skull with the generally symmetrical shape of the entire head and frame of body. The face is of oval form, the features moderately prominent, the forehead arched, the cheek-bones only slightly projecting, the mouth small, the chin full and round; with the skin generally of light color (varying, however, from white to a deep brown, or swarthy, hue), the eyes and hair of various hue, and the latter often curling. The facial angle[14] is greater in the case of the Caucasian than in either of the other varieties of mankind.

The epithet Caucasian, applied to this branch of the human family, is derived from the high mountain range which stretches between the Black and Caspian Seas, and is justified by the fact that the finest specimens of man--physically considered--have in all ages been found in proximity to that region. The perfect forms and external beauty of the Circassian and Georgian people--male and female alike--are well known. The finest types of the white race (mere physical beauty alone being considered) are to be found within the elevated region of the Caucasian isthmus; and it has even been sought to show that the human form degenerates in proportion as its distance thence, in whatsoever direction, is increased. To the westward of the Caucasus (whatever may be the case in other directions), the grace which attends on moral and intellectual dignity is, however, added to that of merely personal beauty.

Considered in reference to color, the Caucasian is the _white_ variety of the human family; but the latter epithet must be considered as applicable only in a general sense, for numerous shades of color intervene between the swarthy complexions of the sub-tropical regions that border on the Mediterranean and the fair skins of the people of Northern and Northwestern Europe. These differences are doubtless in some measure dependent on climate. Yet there must be a well-grounded difference due to other causes, since families of whites dwell during several successive generations within the tropics without acquiring the hue of the Negro, or settle within the western continent without gaining any external resemblance to the copper-colored native of the New World.

The geographical distribution of the Caucasian family in the present day is nearly co-extensive with the land area of the globe; but this family of nations is most numerously developed within the temperate latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Western Asia, the European continent (with the exception of a portion in the extreme north), and the northern belt of Africa, are the proper home of the Caucasian tribes. Thence they have colonized nearly every part of the New World, as well as Southern Africa and the more distant regions of Australia and New Zealand, at the opposite side of the globe. Nine-tenths of the population of Europe belong to the Caucasian family of man, the small minority who constitute the exception consisting of the Turks, the Magyars, the Finns, the Laplanders, and the Samoiedes. In Asia, the Caucasian nations form but a minority of its vast population; they include, however, the natives of the Arabian or Semitic stock, the Persians, the Afghans, and perhaps also (such, at least, is the generally received theory) the Hindoos--that is, all the people dwelling to the south of the Himalaya and to the west of the Bay of Bengal. In Africa, the proportion of Caucasians to its population is probably small, though they are spread over the whole of Northern Africa, from the Mediterranean to the southern border of the desert, and the furthest limit of Abyssinia.

In America, the Caucasian family--settling in that part of the world as colonists only within the last three centuries and a half--is fast supplanting the indigenous races, and comprehends two-thirds of the total number of its inhabitants in the present day. Within the temperate latitudes of North America, that is, within the valleys of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, with the Atlantic seaboard from the Gulf of St. Lawrence southward, the white race is most numerous. Five-sixths of the present population of North America belong, either in whole or in part, to the Caucasian stock.

In the case of Australia, the diminution in the numbers of the native race has been even more rapid than in the case of the Western Continent. The white race, whose date of settlement on the Australian shores is as yet hardly more than three-quarters of a century, now vastly outnumbers the indigenous tribes. In Tasmania, the latter have indeed become extinct. Even in New Zealand, which was peopled by an athletic tribe of savages when Captain Cook visited it less than a century since, the colonial population, planted on its shores within the last forty years, now greatly outnumbers the native tribes, which, moreover, undergo gradual diminution in numerical amount.

The Mongolian variety of man is distinguished by a greater approach to squareness in the shape of the skull (viewed from above), with greater prominence in the cheek-bones--so that lines prolonged from the sides of the face upward meet in a point, giving the entire framework of the head a pyramidal shape. The forehead is comparatively low and slanting; the face and nose broad and flat; the eyes deeply sunk, with the inner corner slanting toward the nose; the complexion of an olive or yellowish-brown color, the hair lank and black, the beard scanty, the stature below that of Europeans, and the frame generally broad, square, and robust, with high shoulders, and the neck thick and strong. These attributes are much less strongly marked in the case of some nations of Mongol parentage than in others, and in the instances of the Magyars, Turks, and Finns--long settled among the Caucasian family--have in great measure disappeared. In point of color, the Mongolian is known as the _yellow_ variety of mankind.

The name of Mongolian, applied to this branch of the human family, is derived from the nomad races who peopled the upland plains of Central Asia. It comprehends, besides the Mongols proper, the vast population of China (above a third of the entire human family), together with the Burmese, Siamese, and other inhabitants of the southeastern peninsula of Asia, and the native tribes of the Siberian lowland. The Turks and the Magyars, in Southeastern and Central Europe, the Finns, Samoiedes, and Laplanders, in the extreme north of the same continent, and the Eskimos, in the correspondent latitudes of the New World, belong to the same stock. In all, probably three-fifths of the population of Asia, and more than a half of the population of the globe, are comprehended within this division of mankind.

The Negro, or _black_ variety of mankind, is distinguished in general by the elongated form of the skull, combined with a low facial angle. The eyes, as well as the skin, are black; the nose broad, flat, and thick; the cheek-bones prominent; the lips thick; the jaws (especially the lower one) narrow and projecting; the hair woolly; the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet flat; and the forms of the arms and lower extremities generally clumsy and ungraceful. These attributes, however, are very much modified in the case of some members of the Negro race, and they belong in very various degree to the different Negro nations who inhabit the African continent. The black skin, woolly hair, thick lips, and elongated skull are the most striking features of the Negro race.

Africa, to the south of the desert, is the proper home of the Negro race. Tribes of true Negro stock occupy by far the larger portion of that great continent to the southward of the Senegal, the Niger, the basin of Lake Chad, and the highlands of Abyssinia. The Arabs, however, have penetrated Central Africa within the basins of the Niger and Lake Chad, and have been settled for upward of five centuries upon the coasts of Eastern Africa.

The Hottentot and Caffre families, who inhabit the extreme south of the African continent, must be classed as sub-varieties of the Negro stock. The epithet _negroid_ is generally applied to these races. But between the Hottentot and Negro types there is a well-marked distinction, and not less so between the Hottentot and the Caffre families. The color of the Hottentot is a dark and yellowish brown; the hair short and frizzled, and distributed over the head in tufts; the stature short. The Caffres are well made and (comparatively to their neighbors of Hottentot race) of muscular frame--their limbs of rounded form, their skin of deep brown color, their hair short, black, and curly, but less woolly than that of the Negro.

The Negro race, through the iniquities of the slave-trade, has been transplanted from Africa to the other side of the Atlantic, and now forms a considerable item in the population of the New World. In North America, the people of pure Negro blood amount, however, to hardly more than a twelfth part of the total population; in South America the proportion is perhaps rather more considerable.

The Malay, or brown family of nations, is distinguished, besides the color of the skin, by lank, coarse, and black hair; with flat faces and obliquely set eyes. Their stature is below the average height either of the Caucasian or the Negro, and the figure generally square and robust.

If the nations of the Malay family are to be referred to one of the three greater divisions, they must be regarded as a sub-variety either of the Mongol or the Negro stock. Proximity of geographical position, with other circumstances, would lead us to prefer the former. The Papuans, however, who inhabit New Guinea and the adjacent islands to the eastward, exhibit many of the characteristics of the Negro type, and the native race of Australia is of the Papuan or Austral-Negro family. There is, in truth, throughout the Australian and Polynesian division of the globe, a well-marked distinction between the brown and the black races. The former, who belong to the true Malay family, comprehend, with the Malays proper (that is, the bulk of the inhabitants of the Malay peninsula and the adjacent islands), the people of Madagascar; also the New Zealanders, and the inhabitants of most of the smaller Polynesian archipelagoes, from the Sandwich Islands on the north to the Society, Navigators, and Friendly groups in the south. The Austral-Negro or Papuan division, on the other hand, includes the native tribes of the Australian continent and the adjacent island of Tasmania (the latter now all but extinct), with the inhabitants of New Guinea, the Louisiade archipelago, New Britain, the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and the Fiji Islands.

The American, or red variety of mankind, has its home in the two great continents which are together known as the New World. Its distinguishing attributes are a reddish or copper-colored skin, with long, coarse, black hair (which is never crisped like that of the Negro, or curled, as that of the white often is), and scanty beard. The cheek-bones are prominent, but more arched and rounded than those of the Mongol, without being so angular, or projecting at the sides; the orbit generally deep, and the outer angle slightly elevated. In point of temperament, the Indian (as the native inhabitant of the American wilderness is termed) is cold and phlegmatic to an unusual degree, and he manifests an extraordinary insensibility to bodily pain. His bodily senses--of sight, hearing, and smell--are remarkably acute. These, as well as many other attributes of the Indian race, have probably resulted from the conditions of the hunter’s life, pursued through many generations.

The above characteristics, however, are exhibited in widely different measure in the case of the numerous native tribes and nations that are found through the whole wide extent of the American continent, though all of them (with the exception of the Eskimos) are classed under the common term Indian. The native races of South America are generally further removed than those of North America from the higher type of the American family, and they become progressively more degraded toward its furthest extremity. Some of the Indian tribes who dwell in the Brazilian forest exhibit a degree of personal ugliness, and a degradation of condition in general, which contrasts strikingly with that of the higher classes of North American Indians, and the native savages of Tierra del Fuego are among the most misshapen and degraded of the human race. In these and some other cases the distortion of feature, and even that observable in the shape of the head, is produced by artificial means, applied in infancy.

The Indian family of nations makes, perhaps, nearer approach to the Mongol than to either of the other two great divisions of mankind, and must be regarded as a sub-variety of that family, if three great varieties only be allowed. The Eskimos, who inhabit the extreme northern shores of the New World, are uniformly regarded as of Mongol origin.

THE HUMAN RACE
--LOUIS FIGUIER

What is man? A profound thinker, Cardinal de Bonald, has said: “Man is an intelligence assisted by organs.” We would fain adopt this definition, which brings into relief the true attribute of man, intelligence, were it not defective in drawing no sufficient distinction between man and the brute. It is a fact that animals are intelligent and that their intelligence is assisted by organs. But their intelligence is infinitely inferior to that of man. It does not extend beyond the necessities of attack and defence, the power of seeking food, and a small number of affections or passions, whose very limited scope merely extends to material wants. With man, on the other hand, intelligence is of a high order, although its range is limited, and it is often arrested, powerless and mute, before the problems itself proposes. In bodily formation man is an animal, he lives in a material envelope, of which the structure is that of the Mammalia; but he far surpasses the animal in the extent of his intellectual faculties. The definition of man must therefore establish this relation which animals bear to ourselves, and indicate, if possible, the degree which separates them. For this reason we shall define man: _an organized, intelligent being, endowed with the faculty of abstraction_.

By saying that man appeared for the first time upon the globe at the commencement of the Quaternary Period, we establish the fact, which is agreeable to the cosmogony of Moses, that man was formed after the other animals, and that by his advent he crowned the edifice of animal creation.

At the Quaternary Period almost all the animals of our time had already seen the light, and a certain number of animal species existed which were shortly to disappear. When man was created, the mammoth, the great bear, the cave tiger, and the cervus megaceros--animals more bulky, more robust, and more agile than the corresponding species of our time--filled the forests and peopled the plains. The first men were therefore contemporary with the woolly elephant, the cave bear and tiger; they had to contend with these savage phalanxes, as formidable in their number as their strength. Nevertheless, in obedience to the laws of nature, these animals were to disappear from the globe and give place to smaller or different species, while man, persisting in the opposite direction, increased and multiplied, as the Scripture has said, and gradually spread into all inhabitable countries, taking possession of his empire, which daily increased with the progress of his intelligence.

Did man see the light at any one spot of the earth, and at that alone, and is it possible to indicate the region which was, so to say, the cradle of humanity? Or are we to believe that, in the first instance, man appeared in several places at the same time? That he was created and has always remained in the very localities he now inhabits? That the Negro was born in the burning regions of Central Africa, the Laplander or the Mongolian in the cold regions to which he is now confined?

There is a school of philosophers who assert that man was manifold in his creation, that each type of humanity originated in the region to which it is now attached, and that it was not emigration followed by the action of climate, circumstances, and customs which gave birth to the different races of man. This opinion has been upheld in a work by M. Georges Pouchet, son of the well-known naturalist of Rouen.

If there existed several centres of human creation, they should be indicated, and it should be shown that the men who dwell there nowadays have never been connected with other populations. M. Georges Pouchet preserves prudent silence upon this question; he avoids defining the locus of any one of these supposed multiple creations.

We, on our part, think that man had on the globe one centre of creation, that, fixed in the first instance in a particular region, he has radiated in every direction from that point, and by his wanderings, coupled with the rapid multiplication of his descendants, he has ultimately peopled all the inhabitable regions of the earth.

We need hardly say that animals, like plants, are attached to various localities which they rarely quit with impunity, since they have not the faculty of acclimatizing themselves at will. The elephant lives only in India and in certain parts of Africa; the hippopotamus and giraffe in other countries of the same continent; monkeys exist in very few portions of the globe, and if we consider their different species, we shall find that the place of abode of each species is very limited. For instance, of the larger apes the orang-outang is found only in Borneo and Sumatra, and the gorilla in a small corner of Western Africa. Had man originated in all those places where now his different races are found, he would stand alone as an exception among organized beings.

Reasoning then by induction, that is, applying to man all that we observe to obtain generally among beings living on the surface of the globe, we come to the conclusion that the human species, in common with every vegetable or animal species, had but one centre of creation.

Around the central tableland of Asia are found the three organic and fundamental types of man, that is to say, the white, the yellow, and the black. The black type has been somewhat scattered, although it is still found in the south of Japan, in the Malay Peninsula, in the Andaman Isles, and in the Philippines, at Formosa. The yellow type forms a large portion of the actual population of Asia, and it is well known whence came those white hordes that invaded Europe at times prehistoric and in more recent ages; those conquerors belonged to the Aryan or Persian race, and they came from Central Asia.

Around the central tableland of Asia, we find not only the three fundamental types of the human species, but the three types of human speech. Does not this, therefore, afford ground for presumption, if not actual proof, that man first appeared in this very region which Scripture assigns as the birthplace of the human race?

It is from this central tableland of Asia, radiating so to say around this point of origin, that man has progressively occupied every part of the earth.

Migration commenced at a very early period; the facility with which our species becomes habituated to every climate and accommodates itself to variations of temperature, taken in connection with the nomadic character which distinguished primitive populations, explains to us the displacement of the earlier inhabitants of the earth. Soon, means of navigation, although rude, were added to the power of traveling by land, and man passed from the continent to distant islands, and thus peopled the archipelagoes as well as the mainland. By means of transport, effected in canoes formed from the trunks of trees barely hollowed out, the archipelagoes of the Indian Ocean, and finally Australia, were gradually peopled.

The American continent formed no exception to this law of the invasion of the globe by the emigration of human phalanxes. It is a matter of no great difficulty to pass from Asia to America, across Behring Strait, which is almost always covered with ice, thus permitting of almost a dry passage from one continent to the other. Thus it is that the inhabitants of Northern Asia have found their way into the north of the New World.