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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of
+Races, by Arthur, comte de Gobineau
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races
+ With Particular Reference to Their Respective Influence in the Civil and Political History of Mankind
+
+
+Author: Arthur, comte de Gobineau
+
+
+
+Release Date: August 17, 2011 [eBook #37115]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL
+DIVERSITY OF RACES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Fritz Ohrenschall, Sarah Thomson, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+ +---------------------------------------------------------+
+ |Transcriber's note: |
+ | |
+ | Text transliterated from Greek is enclosed by tilde |
+ | characters (~transliterated Greek~). |
+ | |
+ | Text that was in small capitals has been converted to |
+ | all upper case. |
+ | |
+ | The oe ligature has been removed from words such as |
+ | Boeotia and foetus. |
+ | |
+ | A list of corrections is at the end of this e-book. |
+ +---------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF RACES.
+
+With Particular Reference to Their Respective Influence
+in the Civil and Political History Of Mankind.
+
+From the French of COUNT A. DE GOBINEAU:
+
+With an Analytical Introduction and Copious Historical Notes.
+By H. Hotz.
+
+To Which Is Added an Appendix Containing a Summary
+of the Latest Scientific Facts Bearing upon the
+Question of Unity or Plurality of Species.
+By J. C. Nott, M. D., of Mobile.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Philadelphia:
+J. B. Lippincott & Co.
+1856.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
+J. B. Lippincott & Co.,
+in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United
+States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
+
+
+
+
+ TO THE
+
+ STATESMEN OF AMERICA,
+
+ THIS WORK,
+
+ THE FIRST ON THE RACES OF MEN CONTEMPLATED FROM THE
+ POINT OF VIEW OF THE STATESMAN AND HISTORIAN
+ RATHER THAN THE NATURALIST,
+
+ IS
+
+ RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
+
+ BY THE
+
+ AMERICAN EDITOR.
+
+
+
+
+EDITOR'S PREFACE.
+
+
+It has been truly observed that a good book seldom requires, and a bad
+one never deserves, a long preface. When a foreign book, however, is
+obtruded on the notice of the public, it is but just that the reasons
+for so doing should be explained; and, in the present case, this is the
+more necessary, as the title of the work might lead many to believe that
+it was intended to re-agitate the question of unity or plurality of the
+human species--a question which the majority of readers consider
+satisfactorily and forever settled by the words of Holy Writ. Such,
+however, is not the purpose of either the author or the editor. The
+design of this work is, to contribute toward the knowledge of the
+leading mental and moral characteristics of the various races of men
+which have subsisted from the dawn of history to the present era, and to
+ascertain, if possible, the degree to which they are susceptible of
+improvement. The annals of the world demonstrate beyond a doubt, that
+the different branches of the human family, like the individual members
+of a community, are endowed with capacities, different not only in
+degree but in kind, and that, in proportion to these endowments, they
+have contributed, and still contribute to that great march of progress
+of the human race, which we term civilization. To portray the nature of
+these endowments, to estimate the influence of each race in the
+destinies of all, and to point out the effects of mixture of races in
+the rise and fall of great empires, has been the task to the
+accomplishment of which, though too extensive for one man, the author
+has devoted his abilities. The troubles and sufferings of his native
+country, from sudden political gyrations, led him to speculate upon
+their causes, which he believes are to be traced to the great variety of
+incongruous ethnical elements composing the population of France. The
+deductions at which he arrived in that field of observation he subjected
+to the test of universal history; and the result of his studies for many
+years, facilitated by the experiences of a diplomatic career, are now
+before the American public in a translation. That a work, on so
+comprehensive a subject, should be exempt from error, cannot be
+expected, and is not pretended; but the aim is certainly a noble one,
+and its pursuit cannot be otherwise than instructive to the statesman
+and historian, and no less so to the general reader. In this country, it
+is peculiarly interesting and important, for not only is our immense
+territory the abode of the three best defined varieties of the human
+species--the white, the negro, and the Indian--to which the extensive
+immigration of the Chinese on our Pacific coast is rapidly adding a
+fourth, but the fusion of diverse nationalities is nowhere more rapid
+and complete; nowhere is the great problem of man's perfectibility being
+solved on a grander scale, or in a more decisive manner. While, then,
+nothing can be further removed from our intentions, or more repugnant to
+our sentiments, than to wage war on religion, or throw ridicule on the
+labors of the missionary and philanthropist, we thought it not a useless
+undertaking to lay before our countrymen the opinions of a European
+thinker, who, without straining or superseding texts to answer his
+purposes, or departing in any way from the pure spirit of Christianity,
+has reflected upon questions which with us are of immense moment and
+constant recurrence.
+
+ H. H.
+
+ PHILADELPHIA, _Nov. 1, 1855_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION.
+
+ The discussion of the moral and intellectual diversity of races
+ totally independent of the question of unity or plurality of
+ origin--Leading propositions of this volume, with illustrations and
+ comments.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+POLITICAL CATASTROPHES.
+
+ Perishable condition of all human societies--Ancient ideas concerning
+ this phenomenon--Modern theories 105
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ALLEGED CAUSES OF POLITICAL CATASTROPHES EXAMINED.
+
+ FANATICISM--Aztec Empire of Mexico.--LUXURY--Modern European States
+ as luxurious as the ancient.--Corruption of morals--The standard of
+ morality fluctuates in the various periods of a nation's history:
+ example, France--Is no higher in youthful communities than in old
+ ones--Morality of Paris.--IRRELIGION--Never spreads through all
+ ranks of a nation--Greece and Rome--Tenacity of Paganism 114
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+INFLUENCE OF GOVERNMENT UPON THE LONGEVITY OF NATIONS.
+
+ Misgovernment defined--Athens, China, Spain, Germany, Italy, etc.--Is
+ not in itself a sufficient cause for the ruin of nations. 138
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+DEFINITION OF THE WORD DEGENERACY--ITS CAUSE.
+
+ Skeleton history of a nation--Origin of castes, nobility,
+ etc.--Vitality of nations not necessarily extinguished by
+ conquest--China, Hindostan--Permanency of their peculiar
+ civilizations. 146
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF RACES IS NOT THE RESULT OF
+POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.
+
+ Antipathy of races--Results of their mixture--The scientific axiom of
+ the absolute equality of men, but an extension of the
+ political--Its fallacy--Universal belief in unequal endowment of
+ races--The moral and intellectual diversity of races not
+ attributable to institutions--Indigenous institutions are the
+ expression of popular sentiments; when foreign and imported, they
+ never prosper--Illustrations: England and France--Roman
+ Empire--European Colonies--Sandwich Islands--St. Domingo--Jesuit
+ missions in Paraguay 172
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THIS DIVERSITY IS NOT THE RESULT OF GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION.
+
+ America--Ancient empires--Phenicians and Romans--Jews--Greece and
+ Rome--Commercial cities of Europe--Isthmus of Darien 201
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY UPON MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF
+RACES.
+
+ The term Christian civilization examined--Reasons for rejecting
+ it--Intellectual diversity no hindrance to the universal diffusion
+ of Christianity--Civilizing influence of Christian religion by
+ elevating and purifying the morals, etc.; but does not remove
+ intellectual disparities--Various instances--Cherokees--Difference
+ between imitation and comprehension of civilized life 215
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO CHAPTERS VIII. AND IX.
+
+ Rapid survey of the populations comprised under the appellation
+ "Teutonic"--Their present ethnological area, and leading
+ characteristics--Fondness for the sea displayed by the Teutonic
+ tribes of Northwestern Europe, and perceptible in their
+ descendants 234
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CIVILIZATION.
+
+ Mr. Guizot's and Mr. W. von Humboldt's definitions examined. Its
+ elements 246
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ELEMENTS OF CIVILIZATION--CONTINUED.
+
+ Definition of the term--Specific differences of
+ civilizations--Hindoo, Chinese, European, Greek, and Roman
+ civilizations--Universality of Chinese civilization--Superficiality
+ of ours--Picture of the social condition of France 272
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+QUESTION OF UNITY OR PLURALITY OF RACES.
+
+ Systems of Camper, Blumenbach, Morton, Carus--Investigations of Owen,
+ Vrolik, Weber--Prolificness of hybrids, the great scientific
+ stronghold of the advocates of unity of species 312
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+PERMANENCY OF TYPES.
+
+ The language of Holy Writ in favor of common origin--The permanency
+ of their characteristics separates the races of men as effectually
+ as if they were distinct creations--Arabs, Jews--Prichard's
+ argument about the influence of climate examined--Ethnological
+ history of the Turks and Hungarians 336
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CLASSIFICATION OF RACES.
+
+ Primary varieties--Test for recognizing them; not always
+ reliable--Effects of intermixture--Secondary varieties--Tertiary
+ varieties--Amalgamation of races in large cities--Relative scale of
+ beauty in various branches of the human family--Their inequality in
+ muscular strength and powers of endurance 368
+
+
+NOTE TO THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.
+
+ The position and treatment of woman among the various races of men a
+ proof of their moral and intellectual diversity 384
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+PERFECTIBILITY OF MAN.
+
+ Imperfect notions of the capability of savage tribes--Parallel
+ between our civilization and those that preceded it--Our modern
+ political theories no novelty--The political parties of Rome--Peace
+ societies--The art of printing a means, the results of which depend
+ on its use--What constitutes a "living" civilization--Limits of the
+ sphere of intellectual acquisitions 391
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+MUTUAL RELATIONS OF DIFFERENT MODES OF INTELLECTUAL CULTURE.
+
+ Necessary consequences of a supposed equality of all races--Uniform
+ testimony of history to the contrary--Traces of extinct
+ civilizations among barbarous tribes--Laws which govern the
+ adoption of a state of civilization by conquered
+ populations--Antagonism of different modes of culture; the Hellenic
+ and Persian, European and Arab, etc. 414
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THREE GREAT VARIETIES.
+
+ Impropriety of drawing general conclusions from individual
+ cases--Recapitulatory sketch of the leading features of the Negro,
+ the Yellow, and the White races--Superiority of the
+ latter--Conclusion of volume the first 439
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+BY J. C. NOTT, M. D.
+
+ A.--Dr. Morton's later tables 461
+
+ B.--Species; varieties. Latest experiments upon the laws of
+ hybridity 473
+
+ C.--Biblical connections of the question of unity or plurality of
+ species 504
+
+
+
+ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+Before departing on one's travels to a foreign country, it is well to
+cast a glance on the map, and if we expect to meet and examine many
+curiosities, a correct itinerary may not be an inconvenient travelling
+companion. In laying before the public the present work of Mr. Gobineau,
+embracing a field of inquiry so boundless and treating of subjects of
+such vast importance to all, it has been thought not altogether useless
+or inappropriate to give a rapid outline of the topics presented to the
+consideration of the reader--a ground-plan, as it were, of the extensive
+edifice he is invited to enter, so that he may afterwards examine it at
+leisure, and judge of the symmetry of its parts. This, though fully
+sensible of the inadequacy of his powers to the due execution of the
+task, the present writer has endeavored to do, making such comments on
+the way, and using such additional illustrations as the nature of the
+subject seemed to require.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Whether we contemplate the human family from the point of view of the
+naturalist or of the philosopher, we are struck with the marked
+dissimilarity of the various groups. The obvious physical
+characteristics by which we distinguish what are termed different races,
+are not more clearly defined than the psychical diversities observable
+among them. "If a person," says the learned vindicator of the unity of
+the human species,[1] "after surveying some brilliant ceremony or court
+pageant in one of the splendid cities of Europe, were suddenly carried
+into a hamlet in Negro-land, at the hour when the sable tribes recreate
+themselves with dancing and music; or if he were transported to the
+saline plains over which bald and tawny Mongolians roam, differing but
+little in hue from the yellow soil of their steppes, brightened by the
+saffron flowers of the iris and tulip; if he were placed near the
+solitary dens of the Bushman, where the lean and hungry savage crouches
+in silence, like a beast of prey, watching with fixed eyes the birds
+which enter his pitfall, or greedily devouring the insects and reptiles
+which chance may bring within his grasp; if he were carried into the
+midst of an Australian forest, where the squalid companions of kangaroos
+may be seen crawling in procession, in imitation of quadrupeds, would
+the spectator of such phenomena imagine the different groups which he
+had surveyed to be the offspring of one family? And if he were led to
+adopt that opinion, how would he attempt to account for the striking
+diversities in their aspect and manner of existence?"
+
+These diversities, so graphically described by Mr. Prichard, present a
+problem, the solution of which has occupied the most ingenious minds,
+especially of our times. The question of unity or plurality of the human
+species has of late excited much animated discussion; great names and
+weighty authorities are enlisted on either side, and a unanimous
+decision appears not likely to be soon agreed upon. But it is not my
+purpose, nor that of the author to whose writings these pages are
+introductory, to enter into a contest which to me seems rather a dispute
+about words than essentials. The distinguishing physical characteristics
+of what we term races of man are recognized by all parties, and whether
+these races are _distinct species_ or _permanent varieties_[2] only of
+the same, cannot affect the subject under investigation. In whatever
+manner the diversities among the various branches of the human family
+may have originated, whether they are primordial or were produced by
+external causes, their permanency is now generally admitted. "The
+Ethiopian cannot change his skin." If there are, or ever have been,
+external agencies that could change a white man into a negro, or _vice
+versa_, it is obvious that such causes have either ceased to operate, or
+operate only in a lapse of time so incommensurable as to be imponderable
+to our perceptions, for the races which now exist can be traced up to
+the dawn of history, and no well-authenticated instance of a
+transformation under any circumstances is on record. In human reasoning
+it is certainly legitimate to judge of the future by the experiences of
+the past, and we are, therefore, warranted to conclude that if races
+have preserved their identity for the last two thousand years, they will
+not lose it in the next two thousand.
+
+It is somewhat singular, however, that while most writers have ceased to
+explain the physical diversities of races by external causes, such as
+climate, food, etc., yet many still persist in maintaining the absolute
+equality of all in other respects, referring such differences in
+character as are undeniable, solely to circumstances, education, mode of
+life, etc. These writers consider all races as merely in different
+stages of development, and pretend that the lowest savage, or at least
+his offspring, may, by judicious training, and in course of time, be
+rendered equal to the civilized man. Before mentioning any facts in
+opposition to this doctrine, let us examine the reasoning upon which it
+is based.
+
+"Man is the creature of circumstances," is an adage extended from
+individuals to races, and repeated by many without considering its
+bearing. The celebrated author of _Wealth of Nations_[3] says, "that the
+difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher
+and a common street porter, for example, arises, not so much from
+nature, but from habit and education." That a mind, which, with proper
+nurture, might have graced a philosopher, should, under unfavorable
+circumstances, remain forever confined in a narrow and humble sphere,
+does not, indeed, seem at all improbable; but Dr. Smith certainly does
+not mean to deny the existence of natural talents, of innate peculiar
+capacities for the accomplishment of certain purposes. This is what they
+do who ascribe the mental inequality of the various branches of the
+human family to external circumstances only. "The intellectual qualities
+of man," say they, "are developed entirely by education. The mind is, at
+first, a perfect blank, fitted and ready to receive any kind of
+impressions. For these, we are dependent on the political, civil, and
+religious institutions under which we live, the persons with whom we are
+connected, and the circumstances in which we are placed in the different
+periods of life. Wholly the creatures of association and habit, the
+characters of men are formed by the instruction, conversation, and
+example of those with whom they mix in society, or whose ideas they
+imbibe in the course of their reading and studies."[4] Again: "As all
+men, in all nations, are of the same species, are endowed with the same
+senses and feelings, and receive their perceptions and ideas through
+similar organs, the difference, whether physical or moral, that is
+observed in comparing different races or assemblages of men, can arise
+only from external and adventitious circumstances."[5] The last position
+is entirely dependent on the first; if we grant the first, relating to
+individuals, the other follows as a necessary consequence. For, if we
+assume that the infinite intellectual diversities of individuals are
+owing solely to external influences, it is self-evident that the same
+diversities in nations, which are but aggregations of individuals, must
+result from the same causes. But are we prepared to grant this first
+position--to assert that man is but an automaton, whose wheelwork is
+entirely without--the mere buffet and plaything of accident and
+circumstances? Is not this the first step to gross materialism, the
+first argument laid down by that school, of which the great Locke has
+been stigmatized as the father, because he also asserts that the human
+mind is at first a blank tablet. But Locke certainly could not mean that
+all these tablets were the same and of equal value. A tablet of wax
+receives an impression which one of marble will not; on the former is
+easily effaced what the other forever retains. We do not deny that
+circumstances have a great influence in moulding both moral and
+intellectual character, but we do insist that there is a primary basis
+upon which the degree of that influence depends, and which is the work
+of God and not of man or chance. What agriculturist could be made to
+believe that, with the same care, all plants would thrive equally well
+in all soils? To assert that the character of a man, whether good or
+wicked, noble or mean, is the aggregate result of influences over which
+he has no control, is to deny that man is a free agent; it is infinitely
+worse than the creed of the Buddhist, who believes that all animated
+beings possess a detached portion of an all-embracing intelligence,
+which acts according to the nature and capacity of the machine of clay
+that it, for the time, occupies, and when the machine is worn out or
+destroyed, returns, like a rivulet to the sea, to the vast ocean of
+intelligence whence it came, and in which again it is lost. In the name
+of common sense, daily observation, and above all, of revelation, we
+protest against a doctrine which paves the road to the most absurd as
+well as anti-religious conclusions. In it we recognize the fountain
+whence flow all the varied forms and names under which Atheism disguises
+itself. But it is useless to enter any further upon the refutation of
+an argument which few would be willing seriously to maintain. It is one
+of those plausible speculations which, once admitted, serve as the basis
+of so many brilliant, but airy, theories that dazzle and attract those
+who do not take the trouble of examining their solidity.
+
+Once we admit that circumstances, though they may impede or favor the
+development of powers, cannot give them; in other words, that they can
+call into action, but cannot create, moral and intellectual resources;
+no argument can be drawn from the unity of species in favor of the
+mental equality of races. If two men, the offspring of the same parents,
+can be the one a dunce, the other a genius, why cannot different races,
+though descended of the same stock, be different also in intellectual
+endowments? We should laugh at, or rather, pity the man who would try to
+persuade us that there is no difference in color, etc., between the
+Scandinavian and the African, and yet it is by some considered little
+short of heresy to affirm, that there is an imparity in their minds as
+well as in their bodies.
+
+We are told--and the objection seems indeed a grave one--that if we
+admit psychical as well as physical gradations in the scale of human
+races, the lowest must be so hopelessly inferior to the higher, their
+perceptions and intellectual capacities so dim, that even the light of
+the gospel cannot illumine them. Were it so, we should at once abandon
+the argument as one above human comprehension, rather than suppose that
+God's mercy is confined to any particular race or races. But let us
+earnestly investigate the question. On so vital a point the sacred
+record cannot but be plain and explicit. To it let us turn. Man--even
+the lowest of his species--has a soul. However much defaced God's image,
+it is vivified by His breath. To save that soul, to release it from the
+bondage of evil, Christ descended upon earth and gave to mankind, not a
+complicated system of philosophy which none but the learned and
+intellectual could understand, but a few simple lessons and precepts,
+comprehensible to the meanest capacity. He did not address himself to
+the wise of this world, but bade them be like children if they would
+come unto him. The learned Pharisees of Judea jeered and ridiculed him,
+but the poor woman of Canaan eagerly picked up the precious crumbs of
+that blessed repast which they despised. His apostles were chosen from
+among the lowly and simple, his first followers belonged to that class.
+He himself hath said:[6] "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and
+earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
+hast revealed them unto babes." How then shall we judge of the degree of
+intellect necessary to be a follower of Jesus? Are the most
+intellectual, the best informed men generally the best Christians? Or
+does the word of God anywhere lead us to suppose that at the great final
+judgment the learned prelate or ingenious expositor of the faith will be
+preferred to the humble, illiterate savage of some almost unknown coast,
+who eagerly drinks of the living water whereof whosoever drinketh shall
+never thirst again?
+
+This subject has met with the attention which its importance deserves,
+at the hands of Mr. Gobineau, and he also shows the fallacy of the idea
+that Christianity will remove the mental inequality of races. True
+religion, among all nations who are blessed with it and sincerely
+embrace it, will purify their morals, and establish friendly relations
+between man and his fellow-man. But it will not make an _intellectually_
+inferior race equal to a superior one, because it was not designed to
+bestow talents or to endow with genius those who are devoid of it.
+Civilization is essentially the result of man's intellectual gifts, and
+must vary in its character and degree like them. Of this we shall speak
+again in treating of the _specific differences of civilization_, when
+the term _Christian civilization_ will also be examined.
+
+One great reason why so many refuse to recognize mental as well as
+physical differences among races, is the common and favorite belief of
+our time in the infinite perfectibility of man. Under various forms this
+development-theory, so flattering to humanity, has gained an incredible
+number of adherents and defenders. We believe ourselves steadily
+marching towards some brilliant goal, to which every generation brings
+us nearer. We look with a pity, almost amounting to contempt, upon those
+who preceded us, and envy posterity, which we expect to surpass us in a
+ratio even greater than we believe ourselves to surpass our ancestors.
+It is indeed a beautiful and poetic idea that civilization is a vast and
+magnificent edifice of which the first generation laid the corner-stone,
+and to which each succeeding age contributes new materials and new
+embellishments. It is our tower of Babel, by which we, like the first
+men after the flood, hope to reach heaven and escape the ills of life.
+Some such idea has flattered all ages, but in ours it has assumed a more
+definite form. We point with pride to our inventions, annihilating--we
+say--time and distance; our labor-saving machines refining the mechanic
+and indirectly diffusing information among all classes, and confidently
+look forward to a new era close at hand, a millennium to come. Let us,
+for a moment, divest ourselves of the conceit which belongs to every
+age, as well as to every country and individual; and let us ask
+ourselves seriously and candidly: In what are we superior to our
+predecessors? We have inventions that they had not, it is true, and
+these inventions increase in an astonishing ratio; we have clearer ideas
+of the laws which govern the material world, and better contrivances to
+apply these laws and to make the elements subservient to our comfort.
+But has the human mind really expanded since the days of Pythagoras and
+Plato? Has the thinker of the nineteenth century faculties and
+perceptions which they had not? Have we one virtue more or one vice less
+than former generations? Has human nature changed, or has it even
+modified its failings? Though we succeed in traversing the regions of
+air as easily and swifter than we now do broad continents and stormy
+seas; though we count all the worlds in the immensity of space; though
+we snatch from nature her most recondite secrets, shall we be aught but
+men? To the true philosopher these conquests over the material world
+will be but additional proofs of the greatness of God and man's
+littleness. It is the vanity and arrogance of the creature of clay that
+make him believe that by his own exertions he can arrive at God-like
+perfection. The insane research after the philosopher's stone and the
+elixir of life may be classed among the many other futile attempts of
+man to invade the immutable decree: "Thus far, and no farther." To
+escape from the moral and intellectual imperfections of his nature,
+there is but one way; the creature must humbly and devoutly cast himself
+into the ever-open arms of the Creator and seek for knowledge where none
+knocketh in vain. This privilege he has enjoyed in all ages, and it is a
+question which I would hesitate to answer whether the progress of
+physical science has not, in many cases at least, rather the effect of
+making him self-sufficient and too confident in his own powers, than of
+bringing him nearer to the knowledge of the true God. It is one of the
+fatal errors of our age in particular, to confound the progress of
+physical science with a supposed moral progress of man. Were it so, the
+Bible would have been a revelation of science as well as of religion,
+and that it is not is now beginning to be conceded, though by no means
+so generally as true theology would require; for the law of God was
+intended for every age, for every country, for every individual,
+independent of the state of science or a peculiar stage of civilization,
+and not to be modified by any change which man might make in his
+material existence. With due deference, then, to those philosophers who
+assert that the moral nature of the human species has undergone a change
+at various periods of the world's history; and those enthusiasts who
+dream of an approaching millennium, we hold, that human nature has
+always been the same and always will be the same, and that no inventions
+or discoveries, however promotive of his material well-being, can effect
+a moral change or bring him any nearer to the Divine essence than he was
+in the beginning of his mundane existence. Science and knowledge may
+indeed illumine his earthly career, but they can shed no light upon the
+path he is to tread to reach a better world.
+
+Christ himself has recognized the diversity of intellectual gifts in his
+parable of the talents, from which we borrow the very term to designate
+those gifts; and if, in a community of pure and faithful Christians,
+there still are many degrees and kinds of talents, is it reasonable to
+suppose that in that millennium--the only one I can imagine--when all
+nations shall call on His name with hope and praise, all mental
+imparities of races will be obliterated? There are, at the present time,
+nations upon whom we look down as being inferior in civilization to
+ourselves, yet they are as good--if, indeed, not better--Christians than
+we are as a people. The progress of physical science, by facilitating
+the intercourse between distant parts of the world, tends, indeed, to
+diffuse true religion, and in this manner--and this manner
+only--promotes the moral good of mankind. But here it is only an
+instrument, and not an agent, as the machines which the architect uses
+to raise his building materials do not erect the structure.
+
+One more reason why the unity of the human species cannot be considered
+a proof of equal intellectual capability of races. It is a favorite
+method of naturalists to draw an analogy between man and the brute
+creation; and, so far as he belongs to the animal kingdom, this method
+is undoubtedly correct and legitimate. But, with regard to man's higher
+attributes, there is an impassable barrier between him and the brute,
+which, in the heat of argument, contending parties have not always
+sufficiently respected. The great Prichard himself seems sometimes to
+have lost sight of it.[7] Thus, he speaks of "psychological" diversities
+in varieties of the same undoubted species of animal, though it is
+obvious that animals can have no psychological attributes. But I am
+willing to concede to Mr. Prichard all the conclusions he derives from
+this analogy in favor of unity of the human species. All dogs, he
+believes, are derived from one pair; yet, there are a number of
+varieties of dogs, and these varieties are different not only in
+external appearance, but in what Mr. Prichard would call psychological
+qualities. No shepherd expects to train a common cur to be the
+intelligent guardian of a flock; no sportsman to teach his hounds, or
+their unmixed progeny, to perform the office of setters. That the
+characteristics of every variety of dogs are permanent so long as the
+breed remains pure, every one knows, and that their distinctive type
+remains the same in all countries and through all time, is proved by the
+mural paintings of Egypt, which show that, 2,000 years B. C., they were
+as well known as in our day.[8] If, then, this permanency of
+"psychological" (to take Mr. Prichard's ground) diversity is compatible
+with unity of origin in the dog, why not in the case of man? I am far
+from desiring to call into question the unity of our species, but I
+contend that the rule must work both ways, and if "psychological"
+diversities can be permanent in the branches of the same species of
+animals, they can be permanent also in the branches of the human family.
+
+In the preceding pages, I have endeavored to show that the unity of
+species is no proof of equal intellectual capability of races, that
+mental imparities do not conflict with the universality of the gospel
+tidings, and that the permanency of these imparities is consistent with
+the reasoning of the greatest expounder of the unity theory. I shall now
+proceed to state the facts which prove the intellectual diversities
+among the races of man. In doing so, it is important to guard against an
+error into which so many able writers have fallen, that of comparing
+individuals rather than masses.
+
+What we term national character, is the aggregate of the qualities
+preponderating in a community. It is obvious that when we speak of the
+artistic genius of the Greeks, we do not mean that every native of
+Hellas and Ionia was an artist; and when we call a nation unwarlike or
+valorous, we do not thereby either stigmatize every individual as a
+coward, or extol him as a hero. The same is the case with races. When,
+for example, we assert that the black race is intellectually inferior to
+the white, it is not implied that the most intelligent negro should
+still be more obtuse than the most stupid white man. The maximum
+intellect and capacity of one race may greatly exceed the minimum of
+another, without placing them on an equality. The testimony of history,
+and the results of philanthropic experiment, are the data upon which the
+ethnologist must institute his inquiries, if he would arrive at
+conclusions instructive to humanity.
+
+Let us take for illustration the white and the black races, supposed by
+many to represent the two extremes of the scale of gradation. The whole
+history of the former shows an uninterrupted progress; that of the
+latter, monotonous stagnation. To the one, mankind owes the most
+valuable discoveries in the domain of thought, and their practical
+application; to the other, it owes nothing. For ages plunged in the
+darkest gloom of barbarism, there is not one ray of even temporary or
+borrowed improvement to cheer the dismal picture of its history, or
+inspire with hope the disheartened philanthropist. At the boundary of
+its territory, the ever-encroaching spirit of conquest of the European
+stops powerless.[9] Never, in the history of the world, has a grander
+or more conclusive experiment been tried than in the case of the negro
+race. We behold them placed in immediate possession of the richest
+island in the richest part of the globe, with every advantage that
+climate, soil, geographical situation, can afford; removed from every
+injurious contact, yet with every facility for constant intercourse with
+the most polished nations of the earth; inheriting all that the white
+race had gained by the toil of centuries in science, politics, and
+morals; and what is the result? As if to afford a still more
+irrefragable proof of the mental inequality of races, we find separate
+divisions of the same island inhabited, one by the pure, the other by a
+half-breed race; and the infusion of the white blood in the latter case
+forms a population incontestably and avowedly superior. In opposition to
+such facts, some special pleader, bent upon establishing a preconceived
+notion, ransacks the records of history to find a few isolated instances
+where an individual of the inferior race has displayed average ability,
+and from such exceptional cases he deduces conclusions applicable to
+the whole mass! He points with exultation to a negro who calculates, a
+negro who is an officer of artillery in Russia, a few others who are
+employed in a counting-house. And yet he does not even tell us whether
+these _rarę aves_ are of pure blood or not, as is often the case.[10]
+Moreover, these instances are proclaimed to the world with an air of
+triumph, as if they were drawn at random from an inexhaustible arsenal
+of facts, when in reality they are all that the most anxious research
+could discover, and form the stock in trade of every declaimer on the
+absolute equality of races.
+
+Had it pleased the Creator to endow all branches of the human family
+equally, all would then have pursued the same career, though, perhaps,
+not all with equal rapidity. Some, favored by circumstances, might have
+distanced others in the race; a few, peculiarly unfortunately situated,
+would have lagged behind. Still, the progress of all would have been in
+the same direction, all would have had the same stages to traverse. Now
+is this the case? There are not a few who assert it. From our earliest
+infancy we are told of the savage, barbarous, semi-civilized, civilized,
+and enlightened states. These we are taught to consider as the steps of
+the ladder by which man climbs up to infinite perfection, we ourselves
+being near the top, while others are either a little below us, or have
+scarcely yet firmly established themselves upon the first rounds. In the
+beautiful language of Schiller, these latter are to us a mirror in which
+we behold our own ancestors, as an adult in the children around him
+re-witnesses his own infancy. This is, in a measure, true of nations of
+the same race, but is it true with regard to different races? It is
+little short of presumption to venture to combat an idea perhaps more
+extensively spread than any of our time, yet this we shall endeavor to
+do. Were the differences in civilization which we observe in various
+nations of the world, differences of degree only, and not of kind, it is
+obvious that the most advanced individual in one degree must closely
+approach the confines of a higher. But this is not the case. The highest
+degree of culture known to Hindoo or Chinese civilization, approaches
+not the possessor one step nearer to the ideas and views of the
+European. The Chinese civilization is as perfect, in its own way, as
+ours, nay more so.[11] It is not a mere child, or even an adult not yet
+arrived at maturity; it is rather a decrepit old man. It too has its
+degrees; it too has had its periods of infancy, of adult age, of
+maturity. And when we contemplate its fruits, the immense works which
+have been undertaken and completed under its ęgis, the systems of morals
+and politics to which it gave rise, the inventions which signalized its
+more vigorous periods, we cannot but admit that it is entitled in a high
+degree to our veneration and esteem.[12] Moreover it has excellencies
+which our civilization as yet has not; it pervades all classes, ours
+not. In the whole Chinese empire, comprising, as it does, one-third of
+the human race, we find few individuals unable to read and write; in
+China proper, none. How many European countries can pretend to this? And
+yet, because Chinese civilization has a different tendency from ours,
+because its course lies in another direction, we call it a
+semi-civilization. At what time of the world's history then have we--the
+_civilized_ nations--passed through this stage of semi-civilization?
+
+The monuments of Sanscrit literature, the magnificent remains of palaces
+and temples, the great number of ingenious arts, the elaborate systems
+of metaphysics, attest a state of intellectual culture, far from
+contemptible, among the Hindoos. Yet their civilization, too, we term a
+semi-civilization, albeit it is as little like the Chinese as it is like
+anything ever seen in Europe.
+
+Few who will carefully investigate and reflect upon these facts, will
+doubt that the terms Hindoo, Chinese, European civilization, are not
+indicative of degrees only, but mean the respective development of
+powers essentially different in their nature. We may consider our
+civilization the best, but it is both arrogant and unphilosophical to
+consider it as the only one, or as the standard by which to measure all
+others. This idea, moreover, is neither peculiar to ourselves nor to our
+age. The Chinese even yet look upon us as barbarians; the Hindoos
+probably do the same. The Greeks considered all extra-Hellenic peoples
+as barbarians. The Romans ascribed the same pre-excellency to
+themselves, and the predilections for these nations, which we imbibe
+already in our academic years from our classical studies, cause us to
+share the same opinion, and to view with their prejudices nations less
+akin to us than they. The Persians, for instance, whom the Greeks
+self-complacently styled outside-barbarians, were, in reality, a highly
+cultivated people, as no one can deny who will examine the facts which
+modern research has brought to light. Their arts, if not Hellenic, still
+attained a high degree of perfection. Their architecture, though not of
+Grecian style, was not inferior in magnificence and splendor. Nay, I for
+one am willing to render myself obnoxious to the charge of classical
+heresy, by regarding the pure Persians as a people, in some respects at
+least, superior to the Greeks. Their religious system seems to me a much
+purer, nobler one than the inconsistent, immoral mythology of our
+favorites. Their ideas of a good and an evil power in perpetual
+conflict, and of a mediator who loves and protects the human race; their
+utter detestation of every species of idolatry, have to me something
+that prepossesses me in their favor.
+
+I have now alleged, in a cursory manner, my principal reasons for
+considering civilizations as specifically distinct. To further dilate
+upon the subject, though I greatly desire to do so, would carry me too
+far; not, indeed, beyond the scope of the inquiries proposed in this
+volume, but beyond the limited space assigned for my introduction. I
+shall add only, that--assuming the intellectual equality of all branches
+of the human family--we can assign no causes for the differences of
+_degree only_ of their development. Geographical position cannot explain
+them, because the people who have made the greatest advance, have not
+always been the most favorably situated. The greatest geographical
+advantages have been in possession of others that made no use of them,
+and became of importance only by changing owners. To cite one of a
+thousand similar instances. The glorious Mississippi Valley, with its
+innumerable tributary streams, its unparalleled fertility and mineral
+wealth, seems especially adapted by nature for the abode of a great
+agricultural and commercial nation. Yet, the Indians roamed over it, and
+plied their canoes on its rivers, without ever being aware of the
+advantages they possessed. The Anglo-Saxon, on the contrary, no sooner
+perceived them than he dreamed of the conquest of the world. We may
+therefore compare such and other advantages to a precious instrument
+which it requires the skill of the workman to use. To ascribe
+differences of civilizations to the differences of laws and political
+institutions, is absolutely begging the question, for such institutions
+are themselves an effect and an inherent portion of the civilization,
+and when transplanted into foreign soils, never prosper. That the moral
+and physical well-being of a nation will be better promoted when liberty
+presides over her councils than when stern despotism sits at the helm,
+no one can deny; but it is obvious that the nation must first be
+prepared to receive the blessings of liberty, lest they prove a curse.
+
+Here is the place for a few remarks upon the epithet Christian, applied
+to our civilization. Mr. Gobineau justly observes, that he knows of no
+social or political order of things to which this term may fitly be said
+to belong. We may justly speak of a Brahminic, Buddhistic, Pagan, Judaic
+civilization, because the social or political systems designated by
+these appellations were intimately connected with a more or less
+exclusive theocratical formula. Religion there prescribed everything:
+social and political laws, government, manners, nay, in many instances,
+dress and food. But one of the distinguishing characteristics of
+Christianity is its universality. Right at the beginning it disclaimed
+all interference in temporal affairs. Its precepts may be followed under
+every system of government, in every path of life, every variety of
+modes of existence. Such is, in substance, Mr. Gobineau's view of the
+subject. To this I would add a few comments of my own. The error is not
+one of recent date. Its baneful effects have been felt from almost the
+first centuries of the establishment of the Church down to our times.
+Human legislation ought, indeed, to be in strict accordance with the law
+of God, but to commend one system as Christian, and proscribe another
+as unchristian, is opening the door to an endless train of frightful
+evils. This is what, virtually, they do who would call a civilization
+Christian, for civilization is the aggregate social and political
+development of a nation, or a race, and the political is always in
+direct proportion to the social progress; both mutually influence each
+other. By speaking of a Christian civilization, therefore, we assert
+that some particular political as well as social system, is most
+conformable to the spirit of our religion. Hence the union of church and
+State, and the influence of the former in temporal affairs--an influence
+which few enlightened churchmen, at least of our age, would wish to
+claim. Not to speak of the danger of placing into the hands of any class
+of men, however excellent, the power of declaring what legislation is
+Christian or not, and thus investing them with supreme political as well
+as spiritual authority; it is sufficient to point out the disastrous
+effects of such a system to the interests of the church itself. The
+opponents of a particular political organization become also the
+opponents of the religion which advocates and defends it. The
+indifferentism of Germany, once so zealous in the cause of religion, is
+traceable to this source. The people are dissatisfied with their
+political machinery, and hate the church which vindicates it, and
+stigmatizes as impious every attempt at change. Indeed, one has but to
+read the religious journals of Prussia, to understand the lukewarmness
+of that people. Mr. Brace, in his _Home Life in Germany_, says that many
+intelligent natives of that country had told him: Why should we go to
+church to hear a sermon that extols an order of things which we know to
+be wicked, and in the highest degree detestable? How can a religion be
+true which makes adherence to such an order a fundamental article of its
+creed?
+
+One of the features of our constitution which Mr. De Tocqueville most
+admires, is the utter separation of church and State. Mere religious
+toleration practically prevails in most European countries, but this
+total disconnection of the religious from the civil institutions, is
+peculiar to the United States, and a lesson which it has given to the
+rest of the world.
+
+I do not mean that every one who makes use of the word Christian
+civilization thereby implies a union of church and State, but I wish to
+point out the principle upon which this expression is based, viz: that a
+certain social and political order of things is more according to the
+spirit of the Christian religion than another; and the consequences
+which must, or at least may, follow from the practical acceptation of
+this principle. Taking my view of the subject, few, I think, will
+dispute that the term Christian civilization is a misnomer. Of the
+civilizing influence of Christianity, I have spoken before, but this
+influence would be as great in the Chinese or Hindoo civilizations,
+without, in the least, obliterating their characteristic features.
+
+Few terms of equal importance are so vaguely defined as the term
+CIVILIZATION; few definitions are so difficult. In common parlance, the
+word civilization is used to designate that moral, intellectual, and
+material condition at which the so-called European race, whether
+occupying the Eastern or the Western continent, has arrived in the
+nineteenth century. But the nations comprised in this race differ from
+one another so extensively, that it has been found necessary to invent a
+new term: _enlightenment_. Thus, Great Britain, France, the United
+States, Switzerland, several of the States of the German Confederacy,
+Sweden, and Denmark, are called enlightened; while Russia, Spain,
+Portugal, Italy, Brazil, and the South American republics are merely
+civilized. Now, I ask, in what does the difference consist?
+
+Is the diffusion of knowledge by popular education to be the test? Then
+Great Britain and France would fall far below some countries now placed
+in the second, or even third rank. Denmark and China would be the most
+civilized countries in the world; nay, even Thibet, and the rest of
+Central Asia, would take precedence before the present champions of
+civilization. The whole of Germany and Switzerland would come next, then
+the eastern and middle sections of the United States, then the southern
+and western; and, after them, Great Britain and France. Still retaining
+the same scale, Russia would actually be ranked above Italy, the native
+clime of the arts. In Great Britain itself, Scotland would far surpass
+England in civilization[13].
+
+Is the perfection to which the arts are carried, the test of
+civilization? Then Bavaria and Italy are the most civilized countries.
+Then are we far behind the Greeks in civilization. Or, are the useful
+arts to carry the prize? Then the people showing the greatest mechanical
+genius is the most civilized.
+
+Are political institutions to be the test? Then the question, "Which is
+the best government?" must first be decided. But the philosophic answer
+would be: "That which is best adapted to the genius of the people, and
+therefore best answers the purposes for which all government is
+instituted." Those who believe in the abstract superiority of any
+governmental theory, may be compared to the tailor who would finish some
+beau-ideal of a coat, without taking his customer's measure. We could
+afford to laugh at such theorists, were not their schemes so often
+recorded in blood in the annals of the world. Besides, if this test be
+admitted, no two could agree upon what was a civilized community. The
+panegyrist of constitutional monarchy would call England the only
+civilized country; the admirer of municipal liberty would point to the
+Hanse towns of the Middle Ages, and their miserable relics, the present
+free cities of Germany; the friend of sober republicanism would exclude
+from the pale of civilization all but the United States and Switzerland;
+the lover of pure democracy would contend that mankind had retrograded
+since the time of Athens, and deplore that civilization was now confined
+to some few rude mountain or nomadic tribes with few and simple wants;
+finally, the defender of a paternal autocracy would sigh for the days of
+Trajan or Marcus Aurelius, and hesitate whether, in our age, Austria or
+Russia deserved the crown.
+
+Neither pre-eminence in arts and sciences, nor in popular instruction,
+nor in government, can singly be taken as the test of civilization.
+Pre-eminence in all, no country enjoys. Yet all these are signs of
+civilization--the only ones by which we distinguish and recognize it.
+How, then, shall we define this term? I would suggest a simple and, I
+think, sufficiently explicit definition: Civilization is the continuous
+development of man's moral and intellectual powers. As the aggregate of
+these differs in different nations, so differs the character of their
+civilization. In one, civilization manifests itself in the perfection of
+the arts, either useful or polite; in another, in the cultivation of the
+sciences; in a third; in the care bestowed upon politics, or, in the
+diffusion of knowledge among the masses. Each has its own merits, each
+its own defects; none combines the excellencies of all, but whichever
+combines the most with fewest defects, may be considered the best, or
+most perfect. It is because not keeping this obvious truth in view that
+John Bull laughs (or used to laugh) self-complacently at Monsieur
+Crapaud, and that we ourselves sometimes laugh at his political capers,
+forgetting that the thinkers of his nation have, for the last century at
+least, led the van in science and politics--yes, even in politics.[14]
+It is, for the same reason, that the Frenchman laughs at the German, or
+the Dutchman; that the foreigner cannot understand that there is an
+_American civilization_ as well, and, bringing his own country's
+standard along with him, finds everything either too little or too
+great; or, that the American, going to the native soil of the ripest
+scholars in the world, and seeing brick and mortar carried up by hand to
+the fourth story of a building in process of erection,[15] or seeing
+five men painfully perform a job which his youngest son would have
+accomplished without trouble by the simplest, perhaps self-invented,
+contrivance, revolves in his own mind how it is possible that these
+people--when the schoolmaster is abroad, too--are still so many
+centuries "behind the time." Thus each nation has its own standard by
+which it judges its neighbors; but when extra-European nations, such as
+the Chinese or Hindoos, are to be judged, all unite in voting them
+_outside barbarians_.
+
+Here, then, we have indubitable proofs of moral and intellectual
+diversities, not only in what are generally termed different races, but
+even in nations apparently belonging to the same race. Nor do I see in
+this diversity ought that can militate against our ideas of universal
+brotherhood. Among individuals, diversity of talent does not preclude
+friendly intercourse; on the contrary, it promotes it, for rivals seldom
+are friends. Neither does superior ability exempt us from the duties
+which we owe to our fellow-man.
+
+I have repeatedly made use of the analogy between societies and the
+individuals that compose them. I cannot more clearly express my idea of
+civilization than by recurring to it again. Civilization, then, is to
+nations what the development of his physical and intellectual powers is
+to an individual; indeed, it is nothing but the aggregate result of all
+these individual powers; a common reservoir to which each contributes a
+share, whether large or small. The analogy may be extended further.
+Nations may be considered as themselves members of societies, bearing
+the same relations to each other and to the whole, as individuals. Thus,
+all the nations of Europe contribute, each in its own manner and degree,
+to what has been called the _European_ civilization. And, in the same
+manner, the nations of Asia form distinct systems of civilizations. But
+all these systems ultimately tend to one great aim--the general welfare
+of mankind. I would therefore carefully distinguish between the
+civilizations of particular nations, of clusters of nations, and of the
+whole of our species. To borrow a metaphor from the mechanism of the
+universe, the first are like the planets of a solar system,
+revolving--though in different orbits, and with different
+velocities--around the same common centre; but the solar systems
+again--with all their planets--revolve round another, more distant
+point.
+
+Let us take two individuals of undoubted intellect. One may be a great
+mathematician, the other a great statesman. Place the first at the head
+of a cabinet, the second in an observatory, and the mathematician will
+as signally fail in correctly observing the changes in the political
+firmament, as the other in noting those in the heavenly. Yet, who would
+decide which had the superior intellect? This diversity of gifts is not
+the result of education. No training, however ingenious, could have
+changed an Arago into a Pitt, or _vice versa_. Raphael could under no
+circumstances have become a Handel, or either of them a Milton. Nay, men
+differ in following the same career. Can any one conceive that Michael
+Angelo could ever have painted Vandyke's pictures, Shakspeare written
+Milton's verses, Mozart composed Rossini's music, or Jefferson followed
+Hamilton's policy? Here, then, we have excellencies, perhaps of equal
+degree, but of very different kinds. Nature, from her inexhaustible
+store, has not only unequally, but variously, bestowed her favors, and
+this infinite variety of gifts, as infinite as the variety of faces, God
+has doubtless designed for the happiness of men, and for their more
+intimate union, in making them dependent one on another. As each
+creature sings his Maker's praise in his own voice and cadence, the
+sparrow in his twitter, the nightingale in her warble, so each human
+being proclaims the Almighty's glory by the rightful use of his talents,
+whether great or small, for the promotion of his fellow-creatures'
+happiness; one may raise pious emotion in the breast by the tuneful
+melody of his song; another by the beauty and vividness of his images on
+canvas or in verse; a third discovers new worlds--additional evidences
+of His omnipotence who made them--and, by his calculations,
+demonstrates, even to the sceptic, the wonderful mechanism of the
+universe; to another, again, it is given to guide a nation's councils,
+and, by His assistance, to avert danger, or correct evils. Fie upon
+those who would raise man's powers above those of God, and ascribe
+diversity of talents to education and accident, rather than to His
+wisdom and design. Can we not admire the Almighty as well in the variety
+as in a fancied uniformity of His works? Harmony consists in the union
+of different sounds; the harmony of the universe, in the diversity of
+its parts.
+
+What is true of a society composed of individuals, is true of that vast
+political assemblage composed of nations. That each has a career to run
+through, a destiny to fulfil, is my firm and unwavering belief. That
+each must be gifted with peculiar qualities for that purpose, is a mere
+corollary of the proposition. This has been the opinion of all ages:
+"The men of Boeotia are noted for their stolidity, those of Attica for
+their wit." Common parlance proves that it is now, to-day, the opinion
+of all mankind, whatever theorists may say. Many affect to deride the
+idea of "manifest destiny" that possesses us Anglo-Americans, but who in
+the main doubts it? Who, that will but cast one glance on the map, or
+look back upon our history of yesterday only, can think of seriously
+denying that great purposes have been accomplished, will still be
+accomplished, and that these purposes were designed and guided by
+something more than blind chance? Unroll the page of history--of the
+great chain of human events, it is true, we perceive but few links;
+like eternity, its beginning is wrapt in darkness, its end a mystery
+above human comprehension--but, in the vast drama presented to us, in
+which nations form the cast, we see each play its part, then disappear.
+Some, as Mr. Gobineau has it, act the kings and rulers, others are
+content with inferior roles.
+
+As it is incompatible with the wisdom of the Creator, to suppose that
+each nation was not specially fitted[16] for the part assigned to it, we
+may judge of what they were capable of by what they have accomplished.
+
+History, then, must be our guide; and never was epoch more propitious,
+for never has her lamp shone brighter. The study of this important
+science, which Niebuhr truly calls the _magistra vitę_, has received
+within our days an impulse such as it never had before. The invaluable
+archęological treasures which the linguists and antiquarians of Europe
+have rescued from the literature and monuments of the great nations of
+former ages, bring--as it were--back to life again the mouldered
+generations of the dim past. We no longer content ourselves with
+chronological outlines, mere names, and unimportant accounts of kings
+and their quarrels; we seek to penetrate into the inner life of those
+multitudes who acted their part on the stage of history, and then
+disappeared, to understand the modes of thought, the feelings, ideas,
+_instincts_, which actuated them, and made them what they were. The
+hoary pyramids of the Nile valley are forced to divulge their age, the
+date of a former civilization; the temples and sepulchres, to furnish a
+minute account of even the private life of their builders;[17] the
+arrow-headed characters on the disinterred bricks of the sites of
+Babylon and Nineveh, are no longer a secret to the indefatigable
+orientalists; the classic writers of Hindostan and China find their most
+zealous scholiasts, and profoundest critics, in the capitals of Western
+Europe. The dross of childish fables, which age after age has
+transmitted to its successor under the name of history, is exposed to
+the powerful furnace of reason and criticism, and the pure ore
+extracted, by such men as Niebuhr, Heeren, Ranke, Gibbon, Grote. The
+enthusiastic lover of ancient Rome now sees her early history in
+clearer, truer colors than did her own historians.
+
+But, if history is indispensable to ethnology, the latter is no less so
+to a true understanding of history. The two sciences mutually shed light
+on one another's path, and though one of them is as yet in its infancy,
+its wonderful progress in so short a time, and the almost unparalleled
+attention which it has excited at all hands, are bright omens for the
+future. It will be obvious that, by _ethnology_, we do not mean
+_ethnography_, with which it has long been synonymous. Their meaning
+differs in the same manner, they bear almost the same relation to one
+another as _geology_ and _geography_. While ethnography contents herself
+with the mere description and classification of the races of man,
+ethnology, to borrow the expressive language of the editor of the
+_London Ethnological Journal_, "investigates the mental and physical
+differences of mankind, and the organic laws upon which they depend;
+seeks to deduce from these investigations principles of human guidance,
+in all the important relations of social and national existence."[18]
+The importance of this study cannot be better expressed than in the
+words of a writer in the _North British Review_ for August, 1849: "No
+one that has not worked much in the element of history, can be aware of
+the immense importance of clearly keeping in view the differences of
+race that are discernible among the nations that inhabit different parts
+of the world.... In speculative history, in questions relating to the
+past career and the future destinies of nations, _it is only by a firm
+and efficient handling of this conception of our species, as broken up
+into so many groups or masses, physiologically different to a certain
+extent, that any progress can be made, or any available conclusions
+accurately arrived at_."[19]
+
+But in attempting to divide mankind into such groups, an ethnologist is
+met by a serious and apparently insurmountable difficulty. The gradation
+of color is so imperceptible from the clearest white to the jettest
+black; and even anatomical peculiarities, normal in one branch, are
+found to exist, albeit in exceptional cases, in many others; so that the
+ethnographers scarce know where to stop in their classification, and
+while some recognize but three grand varieties, others contend for five,
+for eleven, or even for a much greater number. This difficulty arises,
+in my estimation, mainly from the attempt to class mankind into
+different species, that is, groups who have a separate origin; and
+also, from the proneness to draw deductions from individual instances,
+by which almost any absurdity can be sustained, or truth refuted. As we
+have already inveighed against the latter error, and shall therefore try
+to avoid falling into it; and as we have no desire to enter the field of
+discussion about unity or plurality of species, we hope, in a great
+measure, to obviate the difficulties that beset the path of so many
+inquirers. By the word _race_[20] we mean, both here and in the body of
+the work, such branches of the human family as are distinguished in the
+aggregate by certain well-defined physical or mental peculiarities,
+independent of the question whether they be of identical or diverse
+origin. For the sake of simplicity, these races are arranged in several
+principal classes, according to their relative affinities and
+resemblances. The most popular system of arrangement is that of
+Blumenbach, who recognizes five grand divisions, distinguished by
+appellations descriptive either of color or geographical position, viz:
+the White, Circassian, or European; the Yellow, Altaic, Asiatic, or
+Mongolian; the Red, American, or Indian; the Brown, or Malay; and,
+lastly, the Black, African, or negro. This division, though the most
+commonly adopted, has no superior claims above any other. Not only are
+its designations liable to very serious objections, but it is, in
+itself, entirely arbitrary. The Hottentot differs as much from the negro
+as the latter does from the Malay; and the Polynesian from the Malay
+more than the American from the Mongolian. Upon the same principle,
+then, the number of classes might be indefinitely extended. Mr. Gobineau
+thought three classes sufficient to answer every purpose, and these he
+calls respectively the white, yellow, and black. Mr. Latham,[21] the
+great ethnographer, adopts a system almost precisely similar to our
+author's, and upon grounds entirely different. Though, for my own part,
+I should prefer a greater number of primary divisions, I confess that
+this coincidence of opinion in two men, pursuing, independent of, and
+unknown to each other, different paths of investigation, is a strong
+evidence of the correctness of their system, which, moreover, has the
+merit of great simplicity and clearness.
+
+It must be borne in mind that the races comprised under these divisions,
+are by no means to be considered equal among themselves. We should lay
+it down as a general truth, that while the entire groups differ
+principally in _degree_ of intellectual capacity, the races comprised in
+each differ among themselves rather in kind. Thus, we assert upon the
+testimony of history, that the white races are superior to the yellow;
+and these, in turn, to the black. But the Lithuanian and the Anglo-Saxon
+both belong to the same group of races, and yet, history shows that
+they differ; so do the Samoyede and the Chinese, the negro of Lower
+Guinea, and the Fellah. These differences, observable among nations
+classed under the same head, as, for instance, the difference between
+the Russians and Italians (both white), we express in every day's
+language by the word "genius." Thus, we constantly hear persons speak of
+the artistic, administrative, nautical genius of the Greeks, Romans, and
+Phenicians, respectively; or, such phrases as these, which I borrow from
+Mr. Gobineau: "Napoleon rightly understood the _genius_ of his nation
+when he reinstated the Church, and placed the supreme authority on a
+secure basis; Charles I. and his adviser did not, when they attempted to
+bend the neck of Englishmen under the yoke of absolutism." But, as the
+word _genius_ applied to the capacities or tendencies of a nation, in
+general implies either too much or too little, it has been found
+convenient, in this work, to substitute for it another term--_instinct_.
+By the use of this word, it was not intended to assimilate man to the
+brute, to express aught differing from intellect or the reasoning
+capacity; but only to designate the peculiar manner in which that
+intellect or reasoning capacity manifests itself; in other words, the
+special adaptation of a nation for the part assigned to it in the
+world's history; and, as this part is performed involuntarily and, for
+the most part, unconsciously, the term was deemed neither improper nor
+inappropriate. I do not, however, contend for its correctness, though I
+could cite the authority of high names for its use in this sense; I
+contend merely for its convenience, for we thereby gain an easy method
+of making distinctions of _kind_ in the mental endowments of races, in
+cases where we would hesitate to make distinctions of _degree_. In fact,
+it is saying of multitudes only what we say of an individual by speaking
+of his _talent_; with this difference, however, that by talent we
+understand excellency of a certain order, while instinct applies to
+every grade. Two persons of equal intellectual calibre may have, one a
+talent for mathematics, the other for literature; that is, one can
+exhibit his intellect to advantage only in calculation, the other only
+in writing. Thus, of two nations standing equally high in the
+intellectual scale, one shall be distinguished for the high perfection
+attained in the fine arts, the other for the same perfection in the
+useful.
+
+At the risk of wearying the reader with my definitions, I must yet
+inflict on him another which is essential to the right understanding of
+the following pages. In common parlance, the terms _nation_ and
+_people_ have become strictly synonymous. We speak indifferently of the
+French people, or the French nation; the English people, or the English
+nation. If we make any distinction at all, we perhaps designate by the
+first expression the masses; by the second, rather the sovereignty.
+Thus, we say the French people are versatile, the French nation is at
+war with Russia. But even this distinction is not always made.
+
+My purpose is to restore the word nation to its original signification,
+in which it expresses the same as the word race, including, besides, the
+idea of some sort of political organization. It is, in fact, nothing but
+the Latin equivalent of that word, and was applied, like tribe, to a
+collection of individuals not only living under the same government, but
+also claiming a closer consanguinity to one another than to their
+neighbors. It differs from tribe only in this respect, that it is
+applied to greater multitudes, as for instance to a coalescence of
+several closely-allied tribes, which gives rise to more complicated
+political forms. It might therefore be defined by an ethnologist as _a
+population consisting of homogeneous ethnical elements_.
+
+The word _people_, on the contrary, when applied to an aggregation of
+individuals living under the same government, implies no immediate
+consanguineous ties among them. _Nation_ does not necessarily imply
+political unity; _people_, always. Thus, we speak of the Greek _nation_,
+though the Greeks were divided into a number of independent and very
+dissimilar sovereignties; but, we say the Roman _people_, though the
+whole population of the empire obeyed the same supreme head. The Russian
+empire contains within its limits, besides the Russians proper, an
+almost equal number of Cossacks, Calmucks, Tartars, Fins, and a number
+of other races, all very different from one another and still more so
+from the Russians, not only in language and external appearance, but in
+manners, modes of thinking: in one word, in instincts. By the expression
+Russian people I should therefore understand the whole population of
+that empire; by Russian nation, only the dominant race to which the Czar
+belongs. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of keeping
+in view this distinction, as I shall prove by another instance. The
+Hungarian people are very nearly equally divided (exclusive of about one
+million Germans) into two nations, the Magyars and the Sclaves. Not only
+have these two, though for centuries occupying the same soil, remained
+unmixed and distinct, but the most intense antipathy exists between
+them, which only requires an occasion to display itself in acts of
+bloodshed and relentless cruelty, that would make the tenants of hell
+shudder. Such an occasion was the recent revolution, in which, while the
+Magyars fought like lions for their independence, the Sclaves, knowing
+that they would not participate in any advantage the others might gain,
+proved more formidable opponents than the Austrians.[22]
+
+If I have been successful in my discrimination between the two words, it
+follows plainly that a member of one nation, strictly speaking, can no
+more become a member of another by process of law, than a man, by
+adopting a child, can make it the fruit of his loins. This rule, though
+correct in the abstract, does not always apply to individual cases; but
+these, as has already been remarked, cannot be made the groundwork of
+general deductions. In conclusion of this somewhat digressional
+definition, I would observe that, owing to the great intermixture of the
+European populations, produced by their various and intimate mutual
+relations, it does not apply with the same force to them as to others,
+and this I regard as the reason why the signification of the word has
+become modified.
+
+If we will carefully examine the history of great empires, we shall be
+able, in almost every instance, to trace their beginning to the activity
+of what, in the strictest sense of the word, may be called a nation.
+Gradually, as the sphere of that nation expands, it incorporates, and in
+course of time amalgamates with foreign elements.
+
+Nimrod, we learn from sacred history, established the Assyrian empire.
+At first, this consisted of but little more than the city of Babylon,
+and must necessarily have contained a very homogeneous population, if
+from no other cause than its narrow geographical limits. At the dawn of
+profane history, however, we find this empire extending over boundless
+tracts, and uniting under one rule tribes and nations of the most
+dissimilar manners and tongues.
+
+The Assyrian empire fell, and that of the Medes rose on its ruins. The
+Median monarchy had an humble beginning. Dejoces, says tradition, united
+the independent tribes of the Medes. Later, we find them ruling nations
+whose language they did not understand, whose manners they despised.
+
+The Persian empire exceeded in grandeur its mighty predecessors.
+Originating in a rebellion of a few liberty-loving tribes, concerted and
+successfully executed by a popular leader (Cyrus), two generations of
+rulers extended its boundaries to the banks of the Nile. In Alexander's
+time, it was a conglomeration of a countless number of nations, many of
+whom remained under their hereditary rulers while rendering allegiance,
+and paying tribute to the great king.
+
+I pass over the Macedonian empire, as of too short a duration to be a
+fair illustration. The germ of the Roman empire consisted of a
+coalescence of very closely allied tribes: Romulus's band of adventurers
+(who must have come from neighboring communities), the Sabines, Albans,
+and Latins. At the period of its downfall, it ruled, at least nominally,
+over every then known race.
+
+In all these instances, the number of which might be further increased,
+we find homogeneousness of population at first, ethnical mixture and
+confusion at the end. "But what does this prove? will be asked. That too
+great an extension of territory is the cause of weakness? The idea is
+old, and out of date in our times, when steam and electricity bring the
+outskirts of the largest empire in closer proximity than formerly were
+the frontiers of the humblest sovereignty." Extension of territory does
+not itself prove a cause of weakness and ruin. The largest empire in the
+world is that of China, and, without steam or electricity, it has
+maintained itself for 4,000 years, and bids fair, spite of the present
+revolution, to last a good long while yet. But, when extension of
+territory is attended with the incorporation of heterogeneous masses,
+having different interests, different instincts, from the conqueror,
+then indeed the extension must be an element of weakness, and not of
+strength.
+
+The armies which Xerxes led into Greece were not Persians; but a small
+fragment of that motley congregation, the _élite_, the leaven of the
+whole mass, was composed of the king's countrymen. Upon this small body
+he placed his principal reliance, and when, at the fatal battle of
+Salamis, he beheld the slaughter of that valiant and noble band, though
+he had hundreds of thousands yet at his command, he rent his garments
+and fled a country which he had well-nigh conquered. Here is the
+difference between the armies of Cyrus and those of Xerxes and Darius.
+The rabbles which obeyed the latter, perhaps contained as much valor as
+the ranks of the enthusiastic followers of the first, though the fact
+of their fighting under Persian standards might be considered as a proof
+of their inferiority. But what interest had they in the success of the
+great king? To forge still firmer their own fetters? Could the name of
+Cyrus, the remembrance of the storming of Sardis, the siege of Babylon,
+the conquest of Egypt, fire them with enthusiasm? Perhaps, in some of
+those glorious events, their forefathers became slaves to the tyrants
+they now serve, tyrants whose very language they do not understand.
+
+The last armies of tottering Rome were drafted from every part of her
+boundless dominions, and of the men who were sent to oppose the
+threatening barbarians of the north, some, it might be, felt the blood
+of humbled Greece in their veins; some had been torn from a distant home
+in Egypt, or Libya; others, perhaps, remembered with pride how their
+ancestors had fought the Romans in the times of Juba, or Mithridates;
+others, again, boiled with indignation at the oppression of their Gallic
+brethren;--could those men respect the glorious traditions of Rome,
+could they be supposed to emulate the former legions of the proud city?
+
+It is not, then, an extensive territory that ruins nations; it is a
+diversity of instincts, a clashing of interests among the various parts
+of the population. When each province is isolated in feelings and
+interests from every other, no external foe is wanted to complete the
+ruin. Ambitious and adroit men will soon arise who know how to play upon
+these interests, and employ them for the promotion of their own schemes.
+
+Nations, in the various stages of their career, have often been compared
+to individuals. They have, it is said, their period of infancy, of
+youth, of manhood, of old age. But the similitude, however striking, is
+not extended further, and, while individuals die a natural death,
+nations are supposed always to come to a violent end. Probably, we do
+not like to concede that all nations, like all individuals, must
+ultimately die a natural death, even though no disease anticipates it;
+because we dislike to recognize a rule which must apply to us as well.
+Each nation fancies its own vitality imperishable. When we are young, we
+seldom seriously think of death; in the same manner, societies in the
+period of their youthful vigor and energy, cannot conceive the
+possibility of their dissolution. In old age and decrepitude, they are
+like the consumptive patient, who, while fell disease is severing the
+last thread that binds him to the earth, is still forming plans for
+years to come. Falling Rome dreamed herself eternal. Yet, the mortality
+of nations admits of precisely the same proof as that of
+individuals--universal experience. The great empires that overshadowed
+the world, where are they? The memory of some is perpetuated in the
+hearts of mankind by imperishable monuments; of others, the slightest
+trace is obliterated, the vaguest remembrance vanished. As the great
+individual intelligences, whose appearance marks an era in the history
+of human thought, live in the minds of posterity, even though no
+gorgeous tombstone points out the resting-place of their hull of clay;
+while the mausoleum of him whose grandeur was but temporary, whose
+influence transient only, carries no meaning on its sculptured surface
+to after ages; even so the ancient civilizations which adorned the
+globe, if their monuments be not in the domain of thought, their
+gigantic vestiges serve but to excite the wonder of the traveller and
+antiquary, and perplex the historian. Their sepulchres, however grand,
+are mute.[23]
+
+Many have been the attempts to detect the causes why nations die, in
+order to prevent that catastrophe; as the physicians of the Middle Ages,
+who thought death was always the consequence of disease, sought for the
+panacea that was to cure all ills and thus prolong life forever. But
+nations, like individuals, often survive the severest attacks of the
+most formidable disease, and die without sickness. In ancient times,
+those great catastrophes which annihilated the political existence of
+millions, were regarded as direct interpositions of Providence, visiting
+in its wrath the sins of a nation, and erecting a warning example for
+others; just as the remarkable destruction of a noted individual, or the
+occurrence of an unusual phenomenon was, and by many is even now,
+ascribed to the same immediate agency. But when philosophy discovered
+that the universe is governed by pre-established, immutable laws, and
+refused to credit miracles not sanctioned by religion; then the dogma
+gained ground that punishment follows the commission of sin, as effect
+does the cause; and national calamities had to be explained by other
+reasons. It was then said, nations die of luxury, immorality, bad
+government, irreligion, etc. In other words, success was made the test
+of excellency and failure of crime. If, in individual life, we were to
+lay it down as an infallible rule, that he who commits no excesses lives
+forever, or at least very long; and he who does, will immediately die;
+that he who is honest in his dealings, will always prosper more than he
+who is not; we should have a very fluctuating standard of morality,
+since it has pleased God to sometimes try the good by severe
+afflictions, and let the wicked prosper. We should therefore be often
+called upon to admire what is deserving of contempt or punishment, and
+to seek for guilt in the innocent. This is what we do in nations. Wicked
+institutions have been called good, because they were attended with
+success; good ones have been pronounced bad, because they failed.
+
+A more critical study of history has demonstrated the fallibility of
+this theory, which is now in a great measure discarded, and another
+adopted in its stead. It is argued that, at a certain period in its
+existence, a nation infallibly becomes degenerated, and thus falls. But,
+asks Mr. Gobineau, what is degeneracy? A nation is said to be
+degenerated when the virtues of its ancestry are lost. But why are they
+lost? Because the nation is degenerated. Is not this like the reasoning
+in the child's story-book: Why is Jack a bad boy? Because he disobeys
+his parents. Why does he disobey his parents? Because he is a bad boy.
+
+It is necessary, then, to show what degeneracy is. This step in advance,
+Mr. Gobineau attempts to make. He shows that each race is distinguished
+by certain capabilities, which, if its civilizing genius is sufficiently
+strong to enable it to assume a rank among the nations of the world,
+determine the character of its social and political development. Like
+the Phenicians, it may become the merchant and barterer of the world;
+or, like the Greeks, the teacher of future generations; or, like the
+Romans, the model-giver of laws and forms. Its part in the drama of
+history may be an humble one or a proud, but it is always proportionate
+to its powers. These powers, and the instincts or aspirations which
+spring from them, never change as long as the race remains pure. They
+progress and develop themselves, but never alter their nature. The
+purposes of the race are always the same. It may arrive at great
+perfection in the useful arts, but, without infiltration of a different
+element, will never be distinguished for poetry, painting, sculpture,
+etc.; and _vice versa_. Its nature may be belligerent, and it will
+always find causes for quarrel; or it may be pacific, and then it will
+manage to live at peace, or fall a prey to a neighbor.
+
+In the same manner, the government of a race will be in accordance with
+its instincts, and here I have the weighty authority of the author of
+_Democracy in America_, in my favor, and the author's whom I am
+illustrating. "A government," says De Tocqueville,[24] "retains its sway
+over a great number of citizens, far less by the voluntary and rational
+consent of the multitude, than by that _instinctive_, and, to a certain
+extent, involuntary agreement, which results from similarity of
+feelings, and resemblances of opinions. I will never admit that men
+constitute a social body, simply because they obey the same head and the
+same laws. A society can exist only when a great number of men consider
+a great number of things in the same point of view; when they hold the
+same opinions upon many subjects, and when the same occurrences suggest
+the same thoughts and impressions to their minds." The laws and
+government of a nation are always an accurate reflex of its manners and
+modes of thinking. "If, at first, it would appear," says Mr. Gobineau,
+"as if, in some cases, they were the production of some superior
+individual intellect, like the great law-givers of antiquity; let the
+facts be more carefully examined, and it will be found that the
+law-giver--if wise and judicious--has contented himself with consulting
+the genius of his nation, and giving a voice to the common sentiment.
+If, on the contrary, he be a theorist like Draco, his system remains a
+dead letter, soon to be superseded by the more judicious institutions of
+a Solon who aims to give to his countrymen, not the best laws possible,
+but the best he thinks them capable of receiving." It is a great and a
+very general error to suppose that the sense of a nation will always
+decide in favor of what we term "popular" institutions, that is to say,
+such in which each individual shares more or less immediately in the
+government. Its genius may tend to the establishment of absolute
+authority, and in that case the autocrat is but an impersonation of the
+_vox populi_, by which he must be guided in his policy. If he be too
+deaf or rash to listen to it, his own ruin will be the inevitable
+consequence, but the nation persists in the same career.
+
+The meaning of the word degeneracy is now obvious. This inevitable evil
+is concealed in the very successes to which a nation owes its splendor.
+Whether, like the Persians, Romans, &c., it is swallowed up and
+absorbed by the multitudes its arms have subjected, or whether the
+ethnical mixture proceeds in a peaceful manner, the result is the same.
+Even where no foreign conquests add suddenly hundreds of thousands of a
+foreign population to the original mass, the fertility of uncultivated
+fields, the opulence of great commercial cities, and all the advantages
+to be found in the bosom of a rising nation, accomplish it, if in a less
+perceptible, in a no less certain manner. The two young nations of the
+world are now the United States and Russia. See the crowds which are
+thronging over the frontiers of both. Both already count their foreign
+population by millions. As the original population--the initiatory
+element of the whole mass--has no additions to its numbers but its
+natural increase, it follows that the influent elements must, in course
+of time, be of equal strength, and the influx still continuing, finally
+absorb it altogether. Sometimes a nation establishes itself upon the
+basis of a much more numerous conquered population, as in the case of
+the Frankish conquerors of Gaul; then the amalgamation of ranks and
+classes produces the same results as foreign immigration. It is clear
+that each new ethnical element brings with it its own characteristics or
+instincts, and according to the relative strength of these will be the
+modifications in government, social relations, and the whole tendencies
+of the race. The modifications may be for the better, they may be for
+the worse; they may be very gradual, or very sudden, according to the
+merit and power of the foreign influence; but in course of time they
+will amount to radical, positive changes, and then the original nation
+has ceased to exist.
+
+This is the natural death of human societies. Sometimes they expire
+gently and almost imperceptibly; oftener with a convulsion and a crash.
+I shall attempt to explain my meaning by a familiar simile. A mansion is
+built which in all respects suits the taste and wants of the owner.
+Succeeding generations find it too small, too dark, or otherwise ill
+adapted to their purposes. Respect for their progenitor, and family
+association, prevent, at first, very extensive changes, still each one
+makes some; and as these associations grow fainter, the changes become
+more radical, until at last nothing of the old house remains. But if it
+had previously passed into the hands of a stranger, who had none of
+these associations to venerate and respect, he would probably have
+pulled it down at once and built another.
+
+An empire, then, falls, when the vitalizing principle which gave it
+birth is exhausted; when its parts are connected by none but artificial
+ties, and artificial ties are all those which unite races possessed of
+different instincts. This idea is expressed in the beautiful image of
+the inspired prophet, when he tells the mighty king that great truth,
+which so many refuse to believe, that all earthly kingdoms must perish
+until "the God of Heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be
+destroyed."[25] "Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This
+great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee, and the
+form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his
+breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his
+legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till
+that a stone was cut without hands, which smote the image upon his feet
+that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron,
+the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces
+together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and
+the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them."[26]
+
+I have now illustrated, to the best of my abilities, several of the most
+important propositions of Mr. Gobineau, and attempted to sustain them
+by arguments and examples different from those used by the author. For a
+more perfect exposition I must refer the reader to the body of the work.
+My purpose was humbly to clear away such obstacles as the author has
+left in the path, and remove difficulties that escaped his notice. The
+task which I have set myself, would, however, be far from accomplished,
+were I to pass over what I consider a serious error on his part, in
+silence and without an effort at emendation.
+
+Civilization, says Mr. Gobineau, arises from the combined action and
+mutual reaction of man's moral aspirations, and the pressure of his
+material wants. This, in a general sense, is obviously true. But let us
+see the practical application. I shall endeavor to give a concise
+abstract of his views, and then to point out where and why he errs.
+
+In some races, says he, the spiritual aspirations predominate over their
+physical desires, in others it is the reverse. In none are either
+entirely wanting. According to the relative proportion and intensity of
+either of these influences, which counteract and yet assist each other,
+the tendency of the civilization varies. If either is possessed in but a
+feeble degree, or if one of them so greatly outweighs the other as to
+completely neutralize its effects, there is no civilization, and never
+can be one until the race is modified by intermixture with one of higher
+endowments. But if both prevail to a sufficient extent, the
+preponderance of either one determines the character of the
+civilization. In the Chinese, it is the material tendency that prevails,
+in the Hindoo the other. Consequently we find that in China,
+civilization is principally directed towards the gratification of
+physical wants, the perfection of material well-being. In other words,
+it is of an eminently utilitarian character, which discourages all
+speculation not susceptible of immediate practical application.
+
+This well describes the Chinese, and is precisely the picture which M.
+Huc, who has lived among them for many years, and has enjoyed better
+opportunities for studying their genius than any other writer, gives of
+them in his late publication.[27]
+
+Hindoo culture, on the contrary, displays a very opposite tendency.
+Among that nation, everything is speculative, nothing practical. The
+toils of human intellect are in the regions of the abstract where the
+mind often loses itself in depths beyond its sounding. The material
+wants are few and easily supplied. If great works are undertaken, it is
+in honor of the gods, so that even their physical labor bears homage to
+the invisible rather than the visible world. This also is a tolerably
+correct picture.
+
+He therefore divides all races into these two categories, taking the
+Chinese as the type of the one and the Hindoos as that of the other.
+According to him, the yellow races belong pre-eminently to the former,
+the black to the latter, while the white are distinguished by a greater
+intensity and better proportion of the qualities of both. But this
+division, and no other is consistent with the author's proposition, by
+assuming that in the black races the moral preponderates over the
+physical tendency, comes in direct conflict not only with the plain
+teachings of anatomy, but with all we know of the history of those
+races. I shall attempt to show wherein Mr. Gobineau's error lies, an
+error from the consequences of which I see no possibility for him to
+escape, and suggest an emendation which, so far from invalidating his
+general position, tends rather to confirm and strengthen it. In doing
+so, I am actuated by the belief that even if I err, I may be useful by
+inviting others more capable to the task of investigation. Suggestions
+on important subjects, if they serve no other purpose than to provoke
+inquiry, are never useless. The alchemists of the Middle Ages, in their
+frivolous pursuit of impossibilities, discovered many invaluable secrets
+of nature and laid the foundation of that science which, by explaining
+the intimate mutual action of all natural bodies, has become the
+indispensable handmaiden of almost every other.
+
+The error, it seems to me, lies in the same confusion of distinct ideas,
+to which I had already occasion to advert. In ordinary language, we
+speak of the physical and moral nature of man, terming physical whatever
+relates to his material, and moral what relates to his immaterial being.
+Again, we speak of _mind_, and though in theory we consider it as a
+synonyme of soul, in practical application it has a very different
+signification. A person may cultivate his mind without benefiting his
+soul, and the term _a superior mind_, does not necessarily imply moral
+excellency. That mental qualifications or acquisitions are in no way
+connected with sound morality or true piety, I have pointed out before.
+Should any further illustrations be necessary, I might remark that the
+greatest monsters that blot the page of history, have been, for the most
+part, men of what are called superior minds, of great intellectual
+attainments. Indeed, wickedness is seldom very dangerous, unless joined
+to intellect, as the common sense of mankind has expressed in the adage
+that a fool is seldom a knave. We daily see men perverting the highest
+mental gifts to the basest purposes, a fact which ought to be carefully
+weighed by those who believe that education consists in the cultivation
+of the intellect only. I therefore consider the moral endowments of man
+as practically different from the mental or intellectual, at least in
+their manifestations, if not in their essence. To define my idea more
+clearly, let me attempt to explain the difference between what I term
+the moral and the intellectual nature of man. I am aware of the
+dangerous nature of the ground I am treading, but shall nevertheless
+make the attempt to show that it is in accordance with the spirit of
+religion to consider what in common parlance is called the moral
+attributes of man, and which would be better expressed by the word
+_psychical_, as divisible into two, the strictly moral, and the
+intellectual.
+
+The former is what leads man to look beyond his earthly existence, and
+gives even the most brutish savage some vague idea of a Deity. I am
+making no rash or unfounded assertion when I declare, Mr. Locke's
+weighty opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, that no tribe has ever
+been discovered in which some notion of this kind, however rude, was
+wanting, and I consider it innate--a yearning, as it were, of the soul
+towards the regions to which it belongs. The feeling of religion is
+implanted in our breast; it is not a production of the intellect, and
+this the Christian church confirms when it declares that _faith_ we owe
+to the grace of God.
+
+Intellect is that faculty of soul by which it takes cognizance of,
+classes and compares the facts of the _material_ world. As all
+perceptions are derived through the senses, it follows that upon the
+nicety of these its powers must in a great measure depend. The vigor and
+delicacy of the nerves, and the size and texture of the brain in which
+they all centre, form what we call native intellectual gifts. Hence,
+when the body is impaired, the mind suffers; "mens sana in corpore
+sano;" hence, a fever prostrates, and may forever destroy, the most
+powerful intellect; a glass of wine may dim and distort it. Here, then,
+is the grand distinction between soul and mind. The latter, human
+wickedness may annihilate; the former, man killeth not. I should wish to
+enter more fully upon this investigation, not new, indeed, in
+speculative science, yet new in the application I purpose to make of it,
+were it not for fear of wearying my reader, to whom my only apology can
+be, that the discussion is indispensable to the proper investigation of
+the moral and intellectual diversities of races. When I say moral
+diversities, I do not mean that man's moral endowments, strictly
+speaking, are unequal. This assertion I am not prepared to make,
+because--as religion is accessible and comprehensible to them all--it
+may be supposed that these are in all cases equal. But I mean that the
+manifestation of these moral endowments varies, owing to causes which I
+am now about to consider. I have said that the moral nature of man leads
+him to look beyond the confines of the material world. This, when not
+assisted by revelation, he attempts to do by means of his intellect. The
+intellect is, as it were, the visual organ by which the soul scans the
+abyss between the present and the future existence. According to the
+dimness or brightness of this mental eye, are his perceptions. If the
+intellectual capacity is weak, he is content with a grovelling
+conception of the Deity; if powerful, he erects an elaborate fabric of
+philosophical speculations. But, as the Almighty has decreed that human
+intellect, even in its sublimest flight, cannot soar to His presence; it
+follows that the most elaborate fabric of the philosopher is still a
+_human_ fabric, that the most perfect human theology is still _human_,
+and hence--the necessity of revelation. This divine light, which His
+mercy has vouchsafed us, dispenses with, and eclipses, the feeble
+glimmerings of human intellect. It illumines as well the soul of the
+rude savage as of the learned theologian; of the illiterate as of the
+erudite. Nay, very often the former has the advantage, for the erudite
+philosopher is prone to think his own lamp all-sufficient. If it be
+objected that a highly cultivated mind, if directed to rightful
+purposes, will assist in gaining a _nobler_ conception of the Deity, I
+shall not contradict, for in the study of His works, we learn still more
+to admire the Maker. But I insist that true piety can, and does exist
+without it, and let those who trust so much in their own powers beware
+lest they lean upon a broken staff.
+
+The strictly moral attributes of man, therefore, those attributes which
+enable him to communicate with his Maker, are common--probably in equal
+degree--to all men, and to all races of men. But his communications with
+the external world depend on his physical conformation. The body is the
+connecting link between the spirit and the material world, and, by its
+intimate relations to both, specially adapted to be the means of
+communication between them. There seems to me nothing irrational or
+irreligious in the doctrine that, according to the perfectness of this
+means of communication, must be the intercourse between the two. A
+person with dull auditory organs can never appreciate music, and
+whatever his talents otherwise may be, can never become a Meyerbeer or a
+Mozart. Upon quickness of perception, power of analysis and combination,
+perseverance and endurance, depend our intellectual faculties, both in
+their degree and their kind; and are not they blunted or otherwise
+modified in a morbid state of the body? I consider it therefore
+established beyond dispute, that a certain general physical conformation
+is productive of corresponding mental characteristics. A human being,
+whom God has created with a negro's skull and general _physique_, can
+never equal one with a Newton's or a Humboldt's cranial development,
+though the soul of both is equally precious in the eyes of the Lord, and
+should be in the eyes of all his followers. There is no tendency to
+materialism in this idea; I have no sympathy with those who deny the
+existence of the soul, because they cannot find it under the scalpel,
+and I consider the body not the mental agent, but the servant, the tool.
+
+It is true that science has not discovered, and perhaps never will
+discover, what physical differences correspond to the differences in
+individual minds. Phrenology, starting with brilliant promises, and
+bringing to the task powers of no mean order, has failed. But there is a
+vast difference between the characteristics by which we distinguish
+individuals of the same race, and those by which we distinguish
+races themselves. The former are not strictly--at least not
+immediately--hereditary, for the child most often differs from both
+parents in body and mind, because no two individuals, as no two leaves
+of one tree, are precisely alike. But, although every oak-leaf differs
+from its fellow, we know the leaf of the oak-tree from that of the
+beech, or every other; and, in the same manner, races are distinguished
+by peculiarities which are hereditary and permanent. Thus, every negro
+differs from every other negro, else we could not tell them apart; yet
+all, if pure blood, have the same characteristics in common that
+distinguish them from the white. I have been prolix, but intentionally
+so, in my discrimination between individual distinction and those of
+race, because of the latter, comparative anatomy takes cognizance; the
+former are left to phrenology, and I wished to remove any suspicion that
+in the investigation of moral and intellectual diversities of races,
+recourse must be had to the ill-authenticated speculations of a dubious
+science. But, from the data of comparative anatomy, attained by a slow
+and cautious progress, we deduce that races are distinguished by certain
+permanent physical characteristics; and, if these physical
+characteristics correspond to the mental, it follows as an obvious
+conclusion that the latter are permanent also. History ratifies the
+conclusion, and the common sense of mankind practically acquiesces in
+it.
+
+To return, then, to our author. I would add to his two elements of
+civilization a third--intellect _per se_; or rather, to speak more
+correctly, I would subdivide one of his elements into two, of which one
+is probably dependent on physical conformation. The combinations will
+then be more complex, but will remove every difficulty.
+
+I remarked that although we may consider all races as possessed of equal
+moral endowments, we yet may speak of moral diversities; because,
+without the light of revelation, man has nothing but his intellect
+whereby to compass the immaterial world, and the manifestation of his
+moral faculties must therefore be in proportion to the clearness of his
+intellectual, and their preponderance over the animal tendencies. The
+three I consider as existing about in the following relative proportions
+in the three great groups under which Mr. Gobineau and Mr. Latham[28]
+have arranged the various races--a classification, however, which, as I
+already observed, I cannot entirely approve.
+
+
+ BLACK RACES, OR YELLOW RACES, OR WHITE RACES, OR
+ ATLANTIDĘ.[29] MONGOLIDĘ.[29] JAPETIDĘ.[29]
+
+ INTELLECT Feeble Mediocre Vigorous.
+
+ ANIMAL }
+ PROPENSITIES } Very strong Moderate Strong.
+
+ MORAL } Partially Comparatively Highly
+ MANIFESTATIONS } latent developed cultivated.
+
+
+But the races comprised in each group vary among themselves, if not with
+regard to the relative proportion in which they possess the elements of
+civilization, at least in their intensity. The following formulas will,
+I think, apply to the majority of cases, and, at the same time, bring
+out my idea in a clearer light:--
+
+If the animal propensities are strongly developed, and not tempered by
+the intellectual faculties, the moral conceptions must be exceedingly
+low, because they necessarily depend on the clearness, refinement, and
+comprehensiveness of the ideas derived from the material world through
+the senses. The religious cravings will, therefore, be contented with a
+gross worship of material objects, and the moral sense degenerate into
+a grovelling superstition. The utmost elevation which a population, so
+constituted, can reach, will be an unconscious impersonation of the good
+aspirations and the evil tendencies of their nature under the form of a
+good and an evil spirit, to the latter of which absurd and often bloody
+homage is paid. Government there can be no other than the right which
+force gives to the strong, and its forms will be slavery among
+themselves, and submissiveness of all to a tyrannical absolutism.
+
+When the same animal propensities are combined with intellect of a
+higher order, the moral faculties have more room for action. The
+penetration of intellect will not be long in discovering that the
+gratification of physical desires is easiest and safest in a state of
+order and stability. Hence a more complex system of legislation both
+social and political. The conceptions of the Deity will be more elevated
+and refined, though the idea of a future state will probably be
+connected with visions of material enjoyment, as in the paradise of the
+Mohammedans.
+
+Where the animal propensities are weak and the intellect feeble, a
+vegetating national life results. No political organization, or of the
+very simplest kind. Few laws, for what need of restraining passions
+which do not exist. The moral sense content with the vague recognition
+of a superior being, to whom few or no rites are rendered.
+
+But when the animal propensities are so moderate as to be subordinate to
+an intellect more or less vigorous, the moral aspirations will yearn
+towards the regions of the abstract. Religion becomes a system of
+metaphysics, and often loses itself in the mazes of its own subtlety.
+The political organization and civil legislation will be simple, for
+there are few passions to restrain; but the laws which regulate social
+intercourse will be many and various, and supposed to emanate directly
+from the Deity.
+
+Strong animal passions, joined to an intellect equally strong, allow the
+greatest expanse for the moral sense. Political organizations the most
+complex and varied, social and civil laws the most studied, will be the
+outward character of a society composed of such elements. Internally we
+shall perceive the greatest contrasts of individual goodness and
+wickedness. Religion will be a symbolism of human passions and the
+natural elements for the many, an ingenious fabric of moral speculations
+for the few.
+
+I have here rapidly sketched a series of pictures from nature, which
+the historian and ethnographer will not fail to recognize. Whether the
+features thus cursorily delineated are owing to the causes to which I
+ascribe them, I must leave for the reader to decide. My space is too
+limited to allow of my entering into an elaborate argumentation. But I
+would observe that, by taking this view of the subject, we can
+understand why all human--and therefore false--religions are so
+intimately connected with the social and political organization of the
+peoples which profess them, and why they are so plainly mapped out on
+the globe as belonging to certain races, to whom alone they are
+applicable, and beyond whose area they cannot extend: while Christianity
+knows no political or social forms, no geographical or ethnological
+limits. The former, being the productions of human intellect, must vary
+with its variation, and perish in its decay, while revelation is
+universal and immutable, like the Intelligence of which it is the
+emanation.
+
+It is time now to conclude the task, the accomplishment of which has
+carried me far beyond the limits I had at first proposed to myself. If I
+have so long detained the reader on the threshold of the edifice, it was
+to facilitate his after progress, and to give him a chart, that he may
+not lose himself in the vast field it covers. There he may often meet
+me again, and if I be sometimes deemed officious with my proffered
+explanations, he will at least give me credit for good intentions, and
+he may, if he chooses, pass me without recognition. Both this
+introduction and notes in the body of the work were thought necessary
+for several reasons. First, the subject is in some measure a new one,
+and it was important to guard against misconception, and show, right at
+the beginning, what was attempted to be proved, and in what manner.
+Secondly, the author wrote for a European public, and many allusions are
+made, or positions taken, upon an assumed knowledge of facts, of which
+the general reader on this side of the ocean can be supposed to have but
+a slight and vague apprehension. Thirdly, the author has, in many cases,
+contented himself with abstract reasoning, and therefore is sometimes
+chargeable with obscureness, on which account familiar illustrations
+have been supplied. Fourthly, the volume now presented to the reader is
+one of a series of four, the remainder of which, if this meets the
+public approbation, may in time appear in an English garb. But it was
+important to make this, as much as possible, independent of the others
+and complete in itself. The discussion of the moral and intellectual
+diversities of the various groups of the human family, is, as I have
+before shown, totally independent of the question of unity or diversity
+of species; yet, as it increases the interest attached to the solution
+of that question, which has been but imperfectly discussed by the
+author, my esteemed friend, Dr. J. C. Nott, who has so often and so ably
+treated the subject, has promised to furnish, in notes and an appendix,
+such additional facts pertaining to his province as a naturalist, as may
+assist the reader in arriving at a correct opinion.
+
+With regard to the translation, it must be observed that it is not a
+_literal_ rendering of the original. The translator has aimed rather at
+giving the meaning, than the exact words or phraseology of the author,
+at no time, however, departing from the former. He has, in some
+instances, condensed or omitted what seemed irrelevant, or useless to
+the discussion of the question in this country, and in a few cases, he
+has transposed a sentence to a different part of the paragraph, where it
+seemed more in its place, and more effective. To explain and justify
+these alterations, we must remind our readers that the author wrote for
+a public essentially different from that of the translator; that
+continental writers on grave subjects are in general more intent upon
+vindicating their opinions than the form in which they express them,
+and seldom devote that attention to style which English or American
+readers expect; to which may be added that Count Gobineau wrote in the
+midst of a multiplicity of diplomatic affairs, and had no time, even if
+he had thought it worth his while, to give his work that literary finish
+which would satisfy the fastidious. Had circumstances permitted, this
+translation would have been submitted to his approbation, but at the
+time of its going to press he is engaged in the service of his country
+at the court of Persia.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+For obtruding the present work on the notice of the American public, no
+apology will be required. The subject is one of immense importance, and
+especially in this country, where it can seldom be discussed without
+adventitious circumstances biassing the inquirers. To the
+philanthropist, the leading idea of the book, "that different races,
+like different individuals, are specially fitted for special purposes,
+for the fulfilment of which they are accountable in the measure laid
+down in Holy Writ: 'To whom much is given, from him much will be asked,'
+and that they are _equal_ only when they truly and faithfully perform
+the duties of their station"--to the philanthropist, this idea must be
+fraught with many valuable suggestions. So far from loosening the ties
+of brotherhood, it binds them closer, because it teaches us not to
+despise those who are endowed differently from us; and shows us that
+they, too, may have excellencies which we have not.
+
+To the statesman, the student of history, and the general reader, it is
+hoped that this volume will not be altogether useless, and may assist to
+a better understanding of many of the problems that have so long puzzled
+the philosopher. The greatest revolutions in national relations have
+been accomplished by the migrations of races, the most calamitous wars
+that have desolated the globe have been the result of the hostility of
+races. Even now, a cloud is lowering in the horizon. The friend of peace
+and order watches it with silent anxiety, lest he hasten its coming. The
+spirit of mischief exults in its approach, but fears to betray his
+plans. Thus, western and central Europe now present the spectacle of a
+lull before the storm. Monarchs sit trembling on their thrones, while
+nations mutter curses. Nor have premonitory symptoms been wanting. Three
+times, within little more than half a century, have the eruptions of
+that ever-burning political volcano--France--shaken the social and
+political system of the civilized world, and shown the amount of
+combustible materials, which all the efforts of a ruling class cannot
+always protect from ignition. The grand catastrophe may come within our
+times. And, is it the result of any particular social condition, the
+action of any particular class in the social scale, the diffusion of any
+particular political principles? No, because the revolutionary
+tendencies are various, and even opposite; if republican in one place,
+monarchical in another; if democratic in France, aristocratic in Poland.
+Nor is it a particular social class wherein the revolutionary principle
+flourishes, for the classes which, in one country, wish subversion, in
+another, are firmly attached to the established order of things. The
+poor in Germany are proletarians and revolutionists; in Spain, Portugal,
+and Italy, the enthusiastic lovers of their king. The better classes in
+the former country are mostly conservative; in the latter, they are the
+makers, or rather attempters, of revolutions. Nor is it any particular
+social condition, for no class is so degraded as it has been; never was
+poverty less, and prosperity greater in Europe than in the present
+century; and everywhere the political institutions are more liberal than
+ever before. Whence, then, this gathering storm? Does it exist only in
+the minds of the visionary, or is it a mere bugbear of the timorous? Ask
+the prudent statesman, the traveller who pierces the different strata of
+the population; look behind the grates of the State-prisons; count--if
+this be possible--the number of victims of military executions in
+Germany and Austria, in 1848 and 1849; read the fearful accounts of the
+taking of Vienna, of Rome, of Ancona, of Venice, during the same short
+space of time. Everywhere the same cry: Nationality. It is not the
+temporary ravings of a mob rendered frantic by hunger and misery. It is
+a question of nationality, a war of races. Happy we who are removed from
+the immediate scene of the struggle, and can be but remotely affected by
+it. Yet, while I write, it seems as though the gales of the Atlantic had
+blown to our peaceful shores some taints of the epidemic that rages in
+the Old World. May it soon pass over, and a healthy atmosphere again
+prevail!
+
+ H. H.
+ MOBILE, Aug. 20, 1855.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _Researches into the Physical History of Mankind_. By James Cowles
+Prichard, M. D., London, 1841. Vol. i. p. 1.
+
+[2] "Mr. Prichard's _permanent variety_, from his own definition, is to
+all intents and purposes _a species_."--_Kneeland's Introduction to
+Hamilton Smith's Natural History of the Human Species_, p. 84.
+
+[3] Smith's Wealth of Nations, Amer. ed., vol. i. p. 29.
+
+[4] _Vide_ Bigland's Effects of Physical and Moral Causes on the
+Character and Circumstances of Nations. London, 1828, p. 282.
+
+[5] _Op. cit._, p. 7.
+
+[6] St. Matthew, ch. xi. v. 25.
+
+[7] _Vide_ Prichard's _Natural History of Man_, p. 66, _et passim_. "His
+theory," says Van Amringe, "required that animals should be analogous to
+man. It was therefore highly important that, as he was then laying the
+foundation for all his future arguments and conclusions, he should
+elevate animals to the proper eminence, to be analogous; rather than, as
+Mr. Lawrence did, sink man to the level of brutes. It was an ingenious
+contrivance by which he could gain all the advantages, and escape the
+censures of the learned lecturer. It is so simple a contrivance,
+too--merely substituting the word 'psychological' for 'instinctive
+characteristics,' and the whole animal kingdom would instantly rise to
+the proper platform, to be the types of the human family. To get the
+psychology of men and animals thus related, without the trouble of
+philosophically accomplishing so impossible a thing, by the mere use of
+a word, was an ingenious, though not an ingenuous achievement. It gave
+him a specious right to use bees and wasps, rats and dogs, sheep, goats,
+and rabbits--in short, the whole animal kingdom--as human psychical
+analogues, which would be amazingly convenient when conclusions were to
+be made."--_Natural History of Man_, by W. F. VAN AMRINGE. 1848, p. 459.
+
+[8] This fact is considered by Dr. Nott as a proof of _specific_
+difference among dogs.--_Types of Mankind._ Phila., 1854.
+
+[9] In 1497, Vasco di Gama sailed around Cape Good Hope; even previous
+to that, Portuguese vessels had coasted along the western shores of
+Africa. Since that time the Europeans have subjected the whole of the
+American continents, southern Asia and the island world of the Pacific,
+while Africa is almost as unknown as it ever was. The Cape Colony is not
+in the original territory of the negro. Liberia and Sierra Leone contain
+a half-breed population, and present experiments by no means tested. It
+may be fairly asserted that nowhere has the power and intelligence of
+the white race made less impression, produced fewer results, than in the
+domain of the negro.
+
+[10] Roberts, the president of the Liberian Republic, boasts of but a
+small portion of African blood in his veins. Sequoyah, the often-cited
+inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, so far from being a pure Indian, was
+the son of a white man.
+
+[11] For the great perfection to which the Chinese have carried the
+luxuries and amenities of life, see particularly M. Huc's _Travels in
+China_. He lived among them for years, and, what few travellers do,
+spoke their language so fluently and perfectly that he was enabled,
+during a considerable number of years, to discharge the duties of a
+missionary, disguised as a native.
+
+[12] It would be useless to remind our readers of the famous Great Wall,
+the Imperial Canals, that largest of the cities of the world--Pekin. The
+various treatises of the Chinese on morals and politics, especially that
+of Confucius, have been admired by all European thinkers. _Consult
+Pauthier's elaborate work on China._ It is equally well known that the
+Chinese knew the art of printing, gunpowder and its uses, the mariner's
+compass, etc., centuries before we did. For the general diffusion of
+elementary knowledge among the Chinese, see _Davis's Sketches_, and
+other authors. Those who may think me a biassed panegyrist of the
+Chinese, I refer to the following works as among the most reliable of
+the vast number written on the subject:--
+
+_Description Historique, Géographique, et Littéraire de la Chine._ Par
+M. G. PAUTHIER. Paris, 1839.
+
+_China Opened._ By REV. CHS. GUTZLAFF. London, 1838.
+
+_China, Political, Commercial, and Social._ By R. MONTGOMERY MARTIN.
+London, 1847.
+
+_Sketches of China._ By JOHN F. DAVIS. London, 1841.
+
+And above all, for amusing and instructive reading,
+
+_Journey through the Chinese Empire._ By M. HUC. New York, 1855; and
+
+_Mélanges Asiatiques._ Par ABEL REMUSAT. Paris, 1835.
+
+[13] Unwilling to introduce statistic pedantry into a composition of so
+humble pretensions as an introduction, I have refrained to give the
+figures--not always very accurate, I admit--upon which the preceding
+gradation is based, viz: the number of persons able to read and write in
+each of the above-named countries. How far England and France are
+behindhand in this respect, compared either with ourselves, or with
+other European nations, is tolerably well known; but the fact that not
+only in China proper, but in Thibet, Japan, Anam, Tonquin, etc., few can
+be found devoid of that acquirement, will probably meet with many
+incredulous readers, though it is mentioned by almost every traveller.
+(See _J. Mohl's Annual Report to the Asiatic Society_, 1851.) But, it
+may be safely asserted that, in the whole of that portion of Asia lying
+south of the Altai Mountains, including Japan, altogether the most
+populous region of the globe, the percentage of males unable to read and
+write is by far smaller than in the entire population of Europe. Be it
+well understood, that I do not, therefore, claim any superiority for the
+inhabitants of the former region over those of the latter.
+
+"In China," says M. Huc, "there are not, as in Europe, public libraries
+and reading-rooms; but those who have a taste for reading, and a desire
+to instruct themselves, can satisfy their inclinations very easily, as
+books are sold here at a lower price than in any other country. Besides,
+the Chinese find everywhere something to read; they can scarcely take a
+step without seeing some of the characters of which they are so proud.
+One may say, in fact, that all China is an immense library; for
+inscriptions, sentences, moral precepts, are found in every corner,
+written in letters of all colors and all sizes. The faēades of the
+tribunals, the pagodas, the public monuments, the signs of the shops,
+the doors of the houses, the interior of the apartments, the corridors,
+all are full of fine quotations from the best authors. Teacups, plates,
+vases, fans, are so many selections of poems, often chosen with much
+taste, and prettily printed. A Chinese has no need to give himself much
+trouble in order to enjoy the finest productions of his country's
+literature. He need only take his pipe, and walk out, with his nose in
+the air, through the principal streets of the first town he comes to.
+Let him enter the poorest house in the most wretched village; the
+destitution may be complete, things the most necessary will be wanting;
+but he is sure of finding some fine maxims written out on strips of red
+paper. Thus, if those grand large characters, which look so terrific in
+our eyes, though they delight the Chinese, are really so difficult to
+learn, at least the people have the most ample opportunities of studying
+them, almost in play, and of impressing them ineffaceably on their
+memories."--_A Journey through the Chinese Empire_, vol. i. pp. 327-328.
+
+[14] Is it necessary to call to the mind of the reader, that the most
+prominent physicians, the greatest chemists, the best mathematicians,
+were French, and that to the same nation belong the Comptes, the De
+Maistres, the Guizots, the De Tocquevilles; or that, notwithstanding its
+political extravaganzas, every liberal theory was first fostered in its
+bosom? The father of our democratic party was the pupil of French
+governmental philosophy, by the lessons of which even his political
+opponents profited quite as much as by its errors.
+
+[15] Brace, in his _Home Life in Germany_, mentions an instance of this
+kind, but not having the volume at hand, I cannot cite the page. To
+every one, however, that has travelled in Europe, or has not, such facts
+are familiar. It is well known, for instance, that in some of the most
+polished European countries, the wooden ploughshare is still used; and
+that, in Paris, that metropolis of arts and fashion, every drop of water
+must be carried, in buckets, from the public fountains to the Dutchess'
+_boudoir_ in the first, and to the Grisette's garret in the seventh
+story. Compare this with the United States, where--not to mention
+Fairmount and Croton--the smallest town, almost, has her water-works, if
+required by her topography. Are we, then, so infinitely more civilized
+than France?
+
+[16] Since writing the above, I lit upon the following striking
+confirmation of my idea by Dr. Pickering, whose analogism here so
+closely resembles mine, as almost to make me suspect myself of
+unconscious plagiarism. "While admitting the general truth, that mankind
+are essentially alike, no one doubts the existence of character,
+distinguishing not only individuals, but communities and nations. I am
+persuaded that there is, besides, a character of race. It would not be
+difficult to select epithets; such as 'amphibious, enduring,
+insititious;' or to point out as accomplished by one race of men, that
+which seemed beyond the powers of another. Each race possessing its
+peculiar points of excellence, and, at the same time, counterbalancing
+defects, it may be that union was required to attain the full measure of
+civilization. In the organic world, each field requires a new creation;
+each change in circumstances going beyond the constitution of a plant or
+animal, is met by a new adaptation, until the whole universe is full;
+while, among the immense variety of created beings, two kinds are hardly
+found fulfilling the same precise purpose. Some analogy may possibly
+exist in the human family; and it may even be questioned, whether any
+one of the races existing singly would, up to the present day, have
+extended itself over the whole surface of the globe."--_The Races of
+Man, and their Geographical Distribution._ By CHARLES PICKERING, M. D.
+Boston, 1811. (_U. S. Exploring Expedition_, vol. ix. p. 200.)
+
+[17] Since Champollion's fortunate discovery of the Rosetta stone, which
+furnished the key to the hieroglyphics, the deciphering of these once so
+mysterious characters has made such progress, that Lepsius, the great
+modern Egyptologist, declares it possible to write a minute court
+gazette of the reign of Ramses II., the Sesostris of the Greeks, and
+even of monarchs as far back as the IVth dynasty. To understand that
+this is no vain boast, the reader must remember that these hieroglyphics
+mostly contain records of private or royal lives, and that the mural
+paintings in the temples and sepulchral chambers, generally represent
+scenes illustrative of trades, or other occupations, games, etc.,
+practised among the people of that early day.
+
+[18] _Ethnological Journal_, edited by Luke Burke, London, 1848; June 1,
+No. 1, from _Types of Mankind_. By NOTT and GLIDDON, p. 49.
+
+[19] From _Types of Mankind_. By NOTT and GLIDDON, p. 52.
+
+[20] The term "race" is of relative meaning, and, though often
+erroneously used synonymously with _species_, by no means signifies the
+same. The most strenuous advocates of sameness of species, use it to
+designate well-defined groups, as the white and black. If we consider
+ourselves warranted by the language of the Bible, to believe in separate
+origins of the human family, then, indeed, it may be considered as
+similar in meaning to species; otherwise, it must signify but
+subdivisions of one. We may therefore speak of ten or a hundred races of
+man, without impugning their being descended from the same stock. All
+that is here contended for is, that the distinctive features of such
+races, in whatever manner they may have originated, are now persistent.
+Two men may, the one arrive at the highest honors of the State, the
+other, with every facility at his command, forever remain in mediocrity.
+Yet, these two men may be brothers.
+
+That the question of species, when disconnected from any theological
+bearing, is one belonging exclusively to the province of the naturalist,
+and in which the metaphysician can have but a subordinate part, may be
+illustrated by a homely simile. Diversity of talent in the same family
+involves no doubt of parentage; but, if one child be born with a black
+skin and woolly hair, questions about the paternity might indeed arise.
+
+[21] _Natural History of the Varieties of Man._ By ROBERT GORDON LATHAM.
+London, 1850.
+
+[22] The collision between these two nationalities, only a few years
+ago, was attended by scenes so revolting--transcending even the horrors
+of the Corcyrian sedition, the sack of Magdeburg, or the bloodiest page
+in the French Revolution--that, for the honor of human nature, I would
+gladly disbelieve the accounts given of them. But the testimony comes
+from neutral sources, the friends of either party being interested in
+keeping silence. I shall have occasion to allude to this subject again,
+and therefore reserve further details for a note in the body of the
+work.
+
+[23] Even the historians of ancient Greece wondered at those gigantic
+ruins, of which many are still extant. Of these cyclopean remains, as
+they were often called, no one knew the builders or the history, and
+they were considered as the labors of the fabulous heroes of a
+traditional epoch. For an account of these memorials of an
+_ante-hellenic civilization in Greece, of which we have no record_,
+particularly the ruins of Orchomonos, Tirgus, Mycene, and the tunnels of
+Lake Copais, see _Niebuhr's Ancient History_, vol. i. p. 241, _et
+passim_.
+
+[24] Democracy in America, vol. ii. ch. xviii. p. 424.
+
+[25] Daniel ii. 44.
+
+[26] Daniel ii. 31 to 35.
+
+[27] Among many passages illustrative of the ultra utilitarianism of the
+Chinese, I can find space but for one, and that selected almost at
+random. After speaking of the exemplary diffusion of primary instruction
+among the masses, he says that, though they all read, and frequently,
+yet even their reading is of a strictly utilitarian character, and never
+answers any but practical purposes or temporary amusement. The name of
+the author is seldom known, and never inquired after. "That class are,
+in their eyes, only idle persons, who pass their time in making prose or
+verse. They have no objection to such a pursuit. A man may, they say,
+'amuse himself with his pen as with his kite, if he likes it as well--it
+is all a matter of taste.' The inhabitants of the celestial empire would
+never recover from their astonishment if they knew to what extent
+intellectual labor may be in Europe a source of honor and often wealth.
+If they were told that a person among us may obtain great glory by
+composing a drama or a novel, they would either not believe it, or set
+it down as an additional proof of our well-known want of common sense.
+How would it be if they should be told of the renown of a dancer or a
+violin player, and that one cannot make a bound, nor the other draw a
+bow anywhere without thousands of newspapers hastening to spread the
+important news over all the kingdoms of Europe!
+
+"The Chinese are too decided utilitarians to enter into our views of the
+arts. In their opinion, a man is only worthy of the admiration of his
+fellow-creatures when he has well fulfilled the social duties, and
+especially if he knows better than any one else how to get out of a
+scrape. You are regarded as a man of genius if you know how to regulate
+your family, make your lands fruitful, traffic with ability, and realize
+great profits. This, at least, is the only kind of genius that is of any
+value in the eyes of these eminently practical men."--_Voyages en
+Chine_, par M. Huc, Amer. trans., vol. i. pp. 316 and 317.
+
+[28] Nat. Hist. of the Varieties of Man. London.
+
+[29] According to Latham's classification, _op. cit._
+
+
+
+
+ DIVERSITY OF RACES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+POLITICAL CATASTROPHES.
+
+ Perishable condition of all human societies--Ancient ideas concerning
+ this phenomenon--Modern theories.
+
+
+The downfall of civilizations is the most striking, and, at the same
+time, the most obscure of all the phenomena of history. If the sublime
+grandeur of this spectacle impresses the mind with awe, the mystery in
+which it is wrapped presents a boundless field for inquiry and
+meditation to a reflecting mind. The study of the birth and growth of
+nations is, indeed, fraught with many valuable observations: the gradual
+development of human societies, their successes, conquests, and
+triumphs, strike the imagination in a lively manner, and excite an ever
+increasing interest. But these phenomena, however grand and interesting,
+seem susceptible of an easy explanation. We consider them as the
+necessary consequences of the intellectual and moral endowments of man.
+Once we admit the existence of these endowments, their results will no
+longer surprise us.
+
+But we perceive that, after a period of glory and strength, all
+societies formed by man begin to totter and fall; all, I said, because
+there is no exception. Scattered over the surface of our globe, we see
+the vestiges of preceding civilizations, many of which are known to us
+only by name, or have not left behind them even that faint memorial, and
+are recorded only by the mute stones in the depths of primeval
+forests.[30] If we glance at our modern States, we are forced to the
+conclusion that, though their date is but of yesterday, some of them
+already exhibit signs of old age. The awful truth of prophetic language
+about the instability of all things human, applies with equal force to
+political bodies and to individuals, to nations and their civilizations.
+Every association of men for social and political purposes, though
+protected by the most ingenious social and political ties and
+contrivances, conceals among the very elements of its life, the germ of
+inevitable destruction, contracted the day it was formed. This terrible
+fact is proved by the history of all ages as well as of our own. It is
+owing to a natural law of death which seems to govern societies as well
+as individuals; but, does this law operate alike in all cases? is it
+uniform like the result it brings about, and do all civilizations perish
+from the same pre-existing cause?
+
+A superficial glance at the page of history would tempt us to answer in
+the negative, for the apparent causes of the downfall of the great
+empires of antiquity were very different in each case. Yet, if we pierce
+below the surface, we find in this very necessity of decay, which weighs
+so imperiously upon all societies without exception, the evidence of the
+existence of some general, though concealed, cause, producing a natural
+death, even where no external causes anticipate it by violent
+destruction. We also discover that all civilizations, after a short
+duration, exhibit, to the acute observer, certain intimate disturbances,
+difficult to define, but whose existence is undeniable; and that these
+present in all cases an analogous character. Finally, if we distinguish
+the ruin of civilizations from that of States (for we sometimes see the
+same culture subsist in a country under foreign domination, and survive
+the destruction of the political body which gave it birth; while,
+again, comparatively slight misfortunes cause it to be transformed, or
+to disappear altogether), we become more and more confirmed in the idea
+that this principle of death in all societies is not only a necessary
+condition of their life, independent, in a great measure, of external
+causes, but is also uniform in all. To fix and determine this principle,
+and to trace its effects in the lives of those nations, of whom history
+has left us records, has been my object and endeavor in the studies, the
+results of which I now lay before the reader.
+
+The fact that every human agglomeration, and the peculiar culture
+resulting from it, is doomed to perish, was not known to the ancients.
+Even in the epochs immediately preceding ours, it was not believed. The
+religious spirit of Asiatic antiquity looked upon the great political
+catastrophes in the same light that they did upon the sudden destruction
+of an individual: as a demonstration of Divine wrath, visiting a nation
+or an individual whose sins had marked them out for signal punishment,
+which would serve as an example to those criminals whom the rod had as
+yet spared. The Jews, misunderstanding the meaning of the promise,
+believed their empire imperishable. Rome, at the very moment when the
+threatening clouds lowered in the horizon of her grandeur, entertained
+no doubt as to the eternity of hers.[31] But our generation has profited
+by experience; and, as no one presumes to doubt that all men must die,
+because all who came before us have died; so we are firmly convinced,
+that the days of nations, as of individuals, however many they be, are
+numbered. The wisdom of the ancients, therefore, will afford us but
+little assistance in the unravelling of our subject, if we except one
+fundamental maxim: that the finger of Divine Providence is always
+visible in the conduct of the affairs of this world. From this solid
+basis we shall not depart, accepting it in the full extent that it is
+recognized by the church. It cannot be contested that no civilization
+will perish without the will of God, and to apply to the mortal
+condition of all societies, the sacred axiom by which the ancients
+explained certain remarkable, and, in their opinion, isolated cases of
+destruction, is but proclaiming a truth of the first order, of which we
+must never lose sight in our researches after truths of secondary
+importance. If it be further added that societies perish by their sins,
+I willingly accede to it; it is but drawing a parallel between them and
+individuals who also find their death, or accelerate it, by disobedience
+to the laws of the Creator. So far, there is nothing contradictory to
+reason, even when unassisted by Divine light; but these two truths once
+admitted and duly weighed, the wisdom of the ancients, I repeat, affords
+no further assistance. They did not search into the ways by which the
+Divine will effected the ruin of nations; on the contrary, they were
+rather inclined to consider these ways as essentially mysterious, and
+above comprehension. Seized with pious terror at the aspect of the
+wrecks, they easily imagined that Providence had specially interfered
+thus to strike and completely destroy once powerful states. Where a
+miracle is recorded by the Sacred Scriptures, I willingly submit; but
+where that high testimony is wanting, as it is in the great number of
+cases, we may justly consider the ancient theory as defective, and not
+sufficiently enlightened. We may even conclude, that as Divine Justice
+watches over nations unremittingly, and its decrees were pronounced ere
+the first human society was formed, they are also enforced in a
+predeterminate manner, and according to the unalterable laws of the
+universe, which govern both animated nature and the inorganic world.
+
+If we have cause to reproach the philosophers of the earlier ages, for
+having contented themselves, in attempting to fathom the mystery, with
+the vindication of an incontestable theological truth, but which itself
+is another mystery; at least, they have not increased the difficulties
+of the question by making it a theme for a maze of errors. In this
+respect, they rank highly above the rationalist schools of various
+epochs.
+
+The thinkers of Athens and Rome established the doctrine, which has
+retained its ground to our days, that states, nations, civilizations,
+perished only through luxury, enervation, bad government, corruption of
+morals, fanaticism. All these causes, either singly or combined, were
+supposed to account for the downfall of civilizations. It is a necessary
+consequence of this doctrine, that where neither of these causes are in
+operation, no destructive agency is at work. Societies would therefore
+possess this advantage over individuals, that they could die no other
+but a violent death; and, to establish a body politic as durable as the
+globe itself, nothing further would be necessary than to elude the
+dangers which I enumerated above.
+
+The inventors of this thesis did not perceive its bearing. They
+considered it as an excellent means for illustrating the doctrine of
+morality, which, as is well known, was the sole aim of their historical
+writings. In their narratives of events, they were so strongly
+preoccupied with showing the happy rewards of virtue, and the disastrous
+results of crime and vice, that they cared little for what seemed to
+furnish no illustration. This erroneous and narrow-minded system often
+operated contrary to the intention of the authors, for it applied,
+according to occasion, the name of virtue and vice in a very arbitrary
+manner; still, to a great extent, the severe and laudable sentiment upon
+which it was based, excuses it. If the genius of a Plutarch or a Tacitus
+could draw from history, studied in this manner, nothing but romances
+and satires, yet the romances were sublime, and the satires generous.
+
+I wish I could be equally indulgent to the writers of the eighteenth
+century, who made their own application of the same theory; but there
+is, between them and their teachers, too great a difference. While the
+ancients were attached to the established social system, even to a
+fault, our moderns were anxious for destruction, and greedy of untried
+novelties. The former exerted themselves to deduce useful lessons from
+their theory; the latter have perverted it into a fearful weapon against
+all rational principles of government, which they stigmatized by every
+term that mankind holds in horror. To save societies from ruin, the
+disciples of Voltaire would destroy religion, law, industry, commerce;
+because, if we believe them, religion is fanaticism; laws, despotism;
+industry and commerce, luxury and corruption.
+
+I have not the slightest intention of entering the field of polemics; I
+wished merely to direct attention to the widely diverging results of
+this principle, when applied by Thucydides, or the Abbé Raynal.
+Conservative in the one, cynically aggressive in the other, it is
+erroneous in both.
+
+The causes to which the downfall of nations is generally ascribed are
+not the true ones, and whilst I admit that these evils may be rifest in
+the last stages of dissolution of a people, I deny that they possess in
+themselves sufficient strength, and so destructive an energy, as to
+produce the final, irremediable catastrophe.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[30] A. de Humboldt, Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Géographie du
+Nouveau Continent. Paris.
+
+[31] Amadée Thierry, _La Gaule sous l'Administration Romaine_, vol. i.
+p. 244.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ALLEGED CAUSES OF POLITICAL CATASTROPHES EXAMINED.
+
+ FANATICISM--Aztec Empire of Mexico.--LUXURY--Modern European States
+ as luxurious as the ancient.--Corruption of morals--The standard of
+ morality fluctuates in the various periods of a nation's history:
+ example, France--Is no higher in youthful communities than in old
+ ones--Morality of Paris.--IRRELIGION--Never spreads through all
+ ranks of a nation--Greece and Rome--Tenacity of Paganism.
+
+
+Before entering upon my reasons for the opinion expressed at the end of
+the preceding chapter, it will be necessary to explain and define what I
+understand by the term society. I do not apply this term to the more or
+less extended circle belonging to a distinct sovereignty. The republic
+of Athens is not, in my sense of the word, a society; neither is the
+kingdom of Magadha, the empire of Pontus, or the caliphat of Egypt in
+the time of the Fatimites. These are fragments of societies, which are
+transformed, united, or subdivided, by the operation of those
+primordial laws into which I am inquiring, but whose existence or
+annihilation does not constitute the existence or annihilation of a
+society. Their formation is, for the most part, a transient phenomenon,
+which exerts but a limited, or even indirect influence upon the
+civilization that gave it birth. By the term society, I understand an
+association of men, actuated by similar ideas, and possessed of the same
+general instincts. This association need by no means be perfect in a
+political sense, but must be complete from a social point of view. Thus,
+Egypt, Assyria, Greece, India, China, have been, or are still, the
+theatres upon which distinct societies have worked out their destinies,
+to which the perturbations in their political relations were merely
+secondary. I shall, therefore, speak of the fractions of these societies
+only when my reasoning applies equally to the whole. I am now prepared
+to proceed to the examination of the question before us, and I hope to
+prove that fanaticism, luxury, corruption of morals, and irreligion, do
+not _necessarily_ occasion the ruin of nations.
+
+All these maladies, either singly or combined, have attacked, and
+sometimes with great virulence, nations which nevertheless recovered
+from them, and were, perhaps, all the more vigorous afterward.
+
+The Aztec empire, in Mexico, seemed to flourish for the especial glory
+and exaltation of fanaticism. What can there be more fanatical than a
+social and political system, based on a religion which requires the
+incessant and profuse shedding of the blood of fellow-beings?[32] Our
+remote ancestors, the barbarous nations of Northern Europe, did indeed
+practise this unholy rite, but they never chose for their sacrifices
+innocent victims,[33] or, at least, such as they considered so: the
+shipwrecked and prisoners of war, were not considered innocent. But, for
+the Mexicans, all victims were alike; with that ferocity, which a modern
+physiologist[34] recognizes as a characteristic of the races of the New
+World, they butchered their own fellow-citizens indiscriminately, and
+without remorse or pity. And yet, this did not prevent them from being a
+powerful, industrious, and wealthy nation, who might long have
+continued to blaspheme the Deity by their dark creed, but for Cortez's
+genius and the bravery of his companions. In this instance, then,
+fanaticism was not the cause of the downfall.[35]
+
+Nor are luxury or enervation more powerful in their effects. These
+vices are almost always peculiar to the higher classes, and seldom
+penetrate the whole mass of the population. But I doubt whether among
+the Greeks, the Persians, or the Romans, whose downfall they are said to
+have caused, luxury and enervation, albeit in a different form, had
+risen to a higher pitch than we see them to-day in some of our modern
+States, in France, Germany, England, and Russia, for instance. The two
+last countries are especially distinguished for the luxury prevalent
+among the higher classes, and yet, these two countries seem to be endued
+with a vitality much more vigorous and promising than most other
+European States. In the Middle Ages, the Venetians, Genoese, Pisanese,
+accumulated in their magazines the treasures and luxuries of the world;
+yet, the gorgeous magnificence of their palaces, and the splendid
+decorations of their vessels, did certainly not diminish their power, or
+subvert their dominion.[36]
+
+Even the corruption of morals, this most terrible of all scourges, is
+not necessarily a cause of national ruin. If it were, the prosperity of
+a nation, its power and preponderance, would be in a direct ratio to the
+purity of its manners; and it is hardly necessary to say that this is
+not the case. The odd fashion of ascribing all sorts of imaginary
+virtues to the first Romans, is now pretty much out of date.[37] Few
+would now dare to hold up as models of morality those sturdy patricians
+of the old school, who treated their women as slaves, their children as
+cattle, and their creditors like wild beasts. If there should still be
+some who would defend so bad a cause, their reasoning could easily be
+refuted, and its want of solidity shown. Abuse of power, in all epochs,
+has created equal indignation; there were deeper reasons for the
+abolition of royalty than the rape of Lucretia, for the expulsion of the
+decemvirs than the outrage of Appius; but these pretexts for two
+important revolutions, sufficiently demonstrate the public sentiment
+with regard to morals. It is a great mistake to ascribe the vigor of a
+young nation to its superior virtues; since the beginning of historical
+times, there has not been a community, however small, among which all
+the reprehensible tendencies of human nature were not visible,
+notwithstanding which, it has increased and prospered. There are even
+instances where the splendor of a state was owing to the most abominable
+institutions. The Spartans are indebted for their renown, and place in
+history, to a legislation fit only for a community of bandits.[38]
+
+So far from being willing to accord to youthful communities any
+superiority in regard to morals, I have no doubt that, as nations
+advance in age and consequently approach their period of decay, they
+present to the eyes of the moralist a far more satisfactory
+spectacle.[39] Manners become milder; men accommodate themselves more
+readily to one another; the means of subsistence become, if not easier,
+at least more varied; reciprocal obligations are better defined and
+understood; more refined theories of right and wrong gain ground. It
+would be difficult to show that at the time when the Greek arms
+conquered Darius, or when Greek liberty itself fled forever from the
+battle-field of Chęronęa, or when the Goths entered Rome as victors;
+that the Persian monarchy, Athens, or the imperial city, in those times
+of their downfall, contained a smaller proportion of honest and virtuous
+people than in the most glorious epochs of their national existence.
+
+But we need not go so far back for illustrations. If any one were
+required to name the place where the spirit of our age displayed itself
+in the most complete contrast with the virtuous ages of the world (if
+such there were), he would most certainly point out Paris. Yet, many
+learned and pious persons have assured me, that nowhere, and in no
+epoch, could more practical virtue, solid piety, greater delicacy of
+conscience, be found than within the precincts of this great and corrupt
+city. The ideal of goodness is as exalted, the duties of a Christian as
+well understood, as by the most brilliant luminaries of the Church in
+the seventeenth century. I might add, that these virtues are divested of
+the bitterness and severity from which, in those times, they were not
+always exempt; and that they are more united with feelings of toleration
+and universal philanthropy.[40] Thus we find, as if to counterbalance
+the fearful aberrations of our own epoch, in the principal theatre of
+these aberrations, contrasts more numerous and more striking, than
+probably blessed the sight of the faithful in preceding ages.
+
+I cannot even perceive that great men are wanting in those periods of
+corruption and decay; on the contrary, these periods are often
+signalized by the appearance of men remarkable for energy of character
+and stern virtue.[41] If we look at the catalogue of Roman emperors, we
+find a great number of them as exalted in merit as in rank; we meet with
+names like those of Trajan, Antoninus Pius, Septimius Severus, Alexander
+Severus, Jovian; and if we glance beneath the throne, we see a glorious
+constellation of great doctors of our faith, of martyrs, and apostles of
+the primitive church; not to consider the number of virtuous pagans.
+Active, firm, and valorous minds filled the camps and the forums, so
+that it may reasonably be doubted whether Rome, in the times of
+Cincinnatus, possessed so great a number of eminent men in every
+department of human activity. Many other examples might be alleged, to
+prove that senile and tottering communities, so far from being deficient
+in men of virtue, talent, and action, possess them probably in greater
+number than young and rising states; and that their general standard of
+morals is often higher.
+
+Public morality, indeed, varies greatly at different periods of a
+nation's history. The history of the French nation, better than any
+other, illustrates this fact. Few will deny that the Gallo-Romans of
+the fifth and sixth centuries, though a subject race, were greatly
+superior in point of morals to their heroic conquerors.[42] Individually
+taken, they were often not inferior to the latter in courage and
+military virtue.[43] The intermixture of the two races, during the
+eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, reduced the standard of morals among
+the whole nation to a disgraceful level. In the three succeeding
+centuries, the picture brightens again. Yet, this period of comparative
+light was succeeded by the dark scenes of the fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries, when tyranny and debauchery ran riot over the land, and
+infected all classes of society, not excepting the clergy; when the
+nobles robbed their vassals, and the commonalty sold their country to a
+foreign foe. This period, so distinguished for the total absence of
+patriotism, and every honest sentiment, was emphatically one of decay;
+the state was shaken to its very foundation, and seemed ready to bury
+under its ruins so much shame and dishonor. But the crisis passed;
+foreign and intestine foes were vanquished; the machinery of government
+reconstructed on a firmer basis; the state of society improved.
+Notwithstanding its bloody follies, the sixteenth century dishonors less
+the annals of the nation than its predecessors, and it formed the
+transition period to the age of those pure and ever-brilliant lights,
+Fenelon, Bossuet, Montausier, and others. This period, again, was
+succeeded by the vices of the regency, and the horrors of the
+Revolution. Since that time, we have witnessed almost incredible
+fluctuations of public morality every decade of years.
+
+I have sketched rapidly, and merely pointed out the most prominent
+changes. To do even this properly, much more to descend to details,
+would require greater space than the limits and designs of this work
+permit. But I think what I have said is sufficient to show that the
+corruption of public morals, though always a great, is often a transient
+evil, a malady which may be corrected or which corrects itself, and
+cannot, therefore, be the sole cause of national ruin, though it may
+hasten the catastrophe.
+
+The corruption of public morals is nearly allied to another evil, which
+has been assigned as one of the causes of the downfall of empires. It is
+observed of Athens and Rome, that the glory of these two commonwealths
+faded about the same time that they abandoned their national creeds.
+These, however, are the only examples of such a coincidence that can be
+cited. The religion of Zoroaster was never more flourishing in the
+Persian empire, than at the time of its downfall. Tyre, Carthage, Judea,
+the Mexican and Peruvian empires expired at the moment when they
+embraced their altars with the greatest zeal and devotion. Nay, I do not
+believe that even at Athens and Rome, the ancient creed was abandoned
+until the day when it was replaced in every conscience, by the complete
+triumph of Christianity. I am firmly convinced that, politically
+speaking, irreligion never existed among any people, and that none ever
+abandoned the faith of their forefathers, except in exchange for
+another. In other words, there never was such a thing as a religious
+interregnum. The Gallic Teutates gave way to the Jupiter of the Romans;
+the worship of Jupiter, in its turn, was replaced by Christianity. It is
+true that, in Athens, not long before the time of Pericles, and in Rome,
+towards the age of the Scipios, it became the fashion among the higher
+classes, first to reason upon religious subjects, next to doubt them,
+and finally to disbelieve them altogether, and to pride themselves upon
+scepticism. But though there were many who joined in the sentiment of
+the ancient "freethinker" who dared the augurs to look at one another
+without laughing, yet this scepticism never gained ground among the mass
+of the people.
+
+Aspasia at her evening parties, and Lelius among his intimates, might
+ridicule the religious dogmas of their country, and amuse themselves at
+the expense of those that believed them. But at both these epochs, the
+most brilliant in the history of Greece and Rome, it would have been
+highly dangerous to express such sentiments publicly. The imprudence of
+his mistress came near costing Pericles himself dearly, and the tears
+which he shed before the tribunal, were not in themselves sufficiently
+powerful to save the fair sceptic. The poets of the times, Aristophanes,
+Sophocles, and afterwards Ęschylus, found it necessary, whatever were
+their private sentiments, to flatter the religious notions of the
+masses. The whole nation regarded Socrates as an impious innovator, and
+would have put to death Anaxagoras, but for the strenuous intercession
+of Pericles. Nor did the philosophical and sceptical theories penetrate
+the masses at a later period. Never, at any time, did they extend beyond
+the sphere of the elegant and refined. It may be objected that the
+opinion of the rest, the mechanics, traders, the rural population, the
+slaves, etc., was of little moment, as they had no influence in the
+policy of the state. If this were the case, why was it necessary, until
+the last expiring throb of Paganism, to preserve its temples and pay the
+hierophants? Why did men, the most eminent and enlightened, the most
+sceptical in their religious notions, not only don the sacerdotal robe,
+but even descend to the most repugnant offices of the popular worship?
+The daily reader of Lucretius[44] had to snatch moments of leisure from
+the all-absorbing game of politics, to compose a treatise on haruspicy.
+I allude to the first Cęsar.[45] And all his successors, down to
+Constantine, were compelled to unite the pontificial with the imperial
+dignity. Even Constantine himself, though as a Christian prince he had
+far better reasons for repugnance to such an office than any of his
+predecessors, was compelled to compromise with the still powerful
+ancient religion of the nation.[46] This is a clear proof of the
+prevalence of the popular sentiment over the opinion of the higher and
+more enlightened classes. They might appeal to reason and common sense,
+against the absurdities of the masses, but the latter would not, could
+not, renounce one faith until they had adopted another, confirming the
+old truth, that in the affairs of this world, the positive ever takes
+precedent over the negative. The popular sentiment was so strong that,
+in the third century, it infected even the higher classes to some
+extent, and created among them a serious religious reaction, which did
+not entirely subside until after the final triumph of Christianity. The
+revolution of ideas which gradually diffused true religion among all
+classes, is highly interesting, and it may not be altogether irrelevant
+to my subject, to point out the principal causes which occasioned it.
+
+In the latter stages of the Roman empire, the armies had acquired such
+undue political preponderance, that from the emperor, who inevitably
+was chosen by them, down to the pettiest governor of a district, all the
+functionaries of the government issued from the ranks. They had sprung
+from those popular masses, of whose passionate attachment to their faith
+I have already spoken, and upon attaining their elevated stations, came
+in contact with the former rulers of the country, the old distinguished
+families, the municipal dignitaries of cities, in fact those classes who
+took pride and delight in sceptical literature. At first there was
+hostility between these latter and the real rulers of the state, whom
+they would willingly have treated as upstarts, if they had dared. But as
+the court gave the tone, and all the minor military chiefs were, for the
+most part, devout and fanatic, the sceptics were compelled to disguise
+their real sentiments, and the philosophers set about inventing systems
+to reconcile the rationalistic theories with the state religion. This
+revival of pagan piety caused the greater number of the persecutions.
+The rural populations, who had suffered their faith to be outraged by
+the atheists so long as the higher classes domineered over them, now,
+that the imperial democracy had reduced all to the same level, were
+panting for revenge; but, mistaking their victims, they directed their
+fury against the Christians. The real sceptics were such men as King
+Agrippa, who wishes to hear St. Paul[47] from mere curiosity; who hears
+him, debates with him, considers him a fool, but never thinks of
+persecuting him because he differs in opinion; or Tacitus, the
+historian, who, though full of contempt for the believers in the new
+religion, blames Nero for his cruelties towards them.
+
+Agrippa and Tacitus were pagan sceptics. Diocletian was a politician,
+who gave way to the clamors of an incensed populace. Decius and Aurelian
+were fanatics, like the masses they governed, and from whom they had
+sprung.
+
+Even after the Christian religion had become the religion of the state,
+what immense difficulties were experienced in attempting to bring the
+masses within its pale! So hopeless was in some places the contest with
+the local divinities, that in many instances conversion was rather the
+result of address, than the effect of persuasion. The genius of the holy
+propagators of our religion was reduced to the invention of pious
+frauds. The divinities of the groves, fields, and fountains, were still
+worshipped, but under the name of the saints, the martyrs, and the
+Virgin. After being for a time misdirected, these homages would finally
+find the right way. Yet such is the obstinacy with which the masses
+cling to a faith once received, that there are traces of it remaining in
+our day. There are still parishes in France, where some heathenish
+superstition alarms the piety, and defies the efforts of the minister.
+In Catholic Brittany, even in the last centuries, the bishop in vain
+attempted to dehort his flock from the worship of an idol of stone. The
+rude image was thrown into the water, but rescued by its obstinate
+adorers; and the assistance of the military was required to break it to
+pieces. Such was, and such is the longevity of paganism. I conclude,
+therefore, that no nation, either in ancient or modern times, ever
+abandoned its religion without having duly and earnestly embraced
+another, and that, consequently, none ever found itself, for a moment,
+in a state of irreligion, which could have been the cause of its ruin.
+
+Having denied the destructive effects of fanaticism, luxury, and
+immorality, and the political possibility of irreligion, I shall now
+speak of the effects of bad government. This subject is well worthy of
+an entire chapter.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[32] See Prescott's _History of the Conquest of Mexico_.
+
+[33] C. F. Weber, _M. A. Lucani Pharsalia_. Leipzig, 1828, vol. i. pp.
+122-123, _note_.
+
+[34] Prichard, _Natural History of Man_.--Dr. Martius is still more
+explicit. (See _Martius and Spix_, _Reise in Brasilien_. Munich, vol. i.
+pp. 379-380.)
+
+Mr. Gobineau quotes from M. Roulin's French translation of Prichard's
+great work, and as I could not always find the corresponding pages in
+the original, I have sometimes been obliged to omit the citation of the
+page, that in the French translation being useless to English
+readers.--_Transl._
+
+[35] I greatly doubt whether the fanaticism of even the ancient Mexicans
+could exceed that displayed by some of our not very remote ancestors.
+Who, that reads the trials for witchcraft in the judicial records of
+Scotland, and, after smiling at the frivolous, inconsistent testimony
+against the accused, comes to the cool, uncommented marginal note of the
+reporter: "Convicta et combusta," does not feel his heart leap for
+horror? But, if he comes to an entry like the following, he feels as
+though lightning from heaven could but inflict too mild a punishment on
+the perpetrators of such unnatural crimes.
+
+"1608, Dec. 1.--The Earl of Mar declared to the council, that some women
+were taken in Broughton as witches, and being put to an assize, and
+convicted, albeit they persevered constant in their denial to the end,
+they were burnt quick (alive), after such a cruel manner, that some of
+them died in despair, renouncing and blaspheming God; and _others,
+half-burned, brak out of the fire, and were cast in it again, till they
+were burned to death_." Entry in Sir Thomas Hamilton's _Minutes of
+Proceedings in the Privy Council_. (From W. Scott's _Letters on
+Demonology and Witchcraft_, p. 315.)
+
+Really, I do not believe that the Peruvians ever carried fanaticism so
+far. Yet, a counterpart to this horrible picture is found in the history
+of New England. A man, named Cory, being accused of witchcraft, and
+refusing to plead, was accordingly pressed to death. And when, in the
+agony of death, the unfortunate man thrust out his tongue, the sheriff,
+without the least emotion, crammed it back into the mouth with his cane.
+(See Cotton Mather's _Magnalia Christi Americana_, Hardford. _Thau.
+Pneu_, c. vii. p. 383, _et passim_.)
+
+Did the ferocity of the most brutish savages ever invent any torture
+more excruciating than that in use in the British Isles, not much more
+than two centuries ago, for bringing poor, decrepit old women to the
+confession of a crime which never existed but in the crazed brain of
+bigots. "The nails were torn from the fingers with smith's pincers; pins
+driven into the places which the nails defended; the knees were crushed
+in the _boots_, the finger-bones splintered in the _pilniewinks_," etc.
+(Scott, _op. cit._, p. 312.) But then, it is true, they had a more
+_gentle_ torture, which an English Lord (Eglington) had the honor and
+humanity to invent! This consisted in placing the legs of a poor woman
+in the stocks, and then _loading the bare shins with bars of iron_.
+Above thirty stones of iron were placed upon the limbs of an unfortunate
+woman before she could be brought to the confession which led her to the
+stake. (Scott, _op. cit._, pp. 321, 324, 327, etc. etc.)
+
+As late as 1682, not yet 200 years ago, three women were hanged, in
+England, for witchcraft; and the fatal statute against it was not
+abolished until 1751, when the rabble put to death, in the most horrible
+manner, an old pauper woman, and very nearly killed another.
+
+And, in the middle of last century, eighty-five persons were burnt, or
+otherwise executed, for witchcraft, at Mohra, in Sweden. Among them were
+fifteen young children.
+
+If God had ordained that fanaticism should be punished by national ruin,
+were not these crimes, in which, in most cases, the whole nation
+participated, were not they horrible enough to draw upon the
+perpetrators the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah? Surely, if fanaticism were
+the cause of national decay, most European nations had long since been
+swept from the face of the globe, "so that their places could nowhere be
+found."--H.
+
+[36] There seem, at first sight, to be exceptions to the truth of the
+assertion, that luxury, in itself, is not productive of national ruin.
+Venice, Genoa, Pisa, etc., were _aristocratic_ republics, in which, as
+in monarchies, a high degree of luxury is not only compatible with, but
+may even be greatly conducive to the prosperity of the state. But the
+basis of a _democratic_ republic is a more or less perfect equality
+among its citizens, which is often impaired, and, in the end, subverted
+by too great a disparity of wealth. Yet, even in them, glaring contrasts
+between extravagant luxury and abject poverty are rather the sign than
+the cause, of the disappearance of democratic principles. Examples might
+be adduced from history, of democracies in which great wealth did not
+destroy democratic ideas and a consequent simplicity of manners. These
+ideas must first be forgotten, before wealth can produce luxury, and
+luxury its attendant train of evils. Though accelerating the downfall of
+a democratic republic, it is therefore not the primary cause of that
+downfall.--H.
+
+[37] Balzac, _Lettre ą Madame la Duchesse de Montausier_.
+
+[38] That this stricture is not too severe will be obvious to any one
+who reflects on the principles upon which this legislation was based.
+Inculcating that war was the great business of life, and to be terrible
+to one's enemies the only object of manly ambition, the Spartan laws
+sacrificed the noblest private virtues and domestic affections. They
+deprived the female character of the charms that most adorn it--modesty,
+tenderness, and sensibility; they made men brutal, coarse, and cruel.
+They stunted individual talents; Sparta has produced but few great men,
+and these, says Macaulay, only became great when they ceased to be
+Lacedemonians. Much unsound sentimentality has been expended in
+eulogizing Sparta, from Xenophon down to Mitford, yet the verdict of the
+unbiassed historian cannot differ very widely from that of Macaulay:
+"The Spartans purchased for their government a prolongation of its
+existence by the sacrifice of happiness at home, and dignity abroad.
+They cringed to the powerful, they trampled on the weak, they massacred
+their helots, they betrayed their allies, they contrived to be a day too
+late for the battle of Marathon, they attempted to avoid the battle of
+Salamis, they suffered the Athenians, to whom they owed their lives and
+liberties, to be a second time driven from their country by the
+Persians, that they might finish their own fortifications on the
+Isthmus; they attempted to take advantage of the distress to which
+exertions in their cause had reduced their preservers, in order to make
+them their slaves; they strove to prevent those who had abandoned their
+walls to defend them, from rebuilding them to defend themselves; they
+commenced the Peloponnesian war in violation of their engagements with
+their allies; they gave up to the sword whole cities which had placed
+themselves under their protection; they bartered for advantages confined
+to themselves the interests, the freedom, and the lives of those who had
+served them most faithfully; they took, with equal complacency, and
+equal infamy, the stripes of Elis and the bribes of Persia; they never
+showed either resentment or gratitude; they abstained from no injury,
+and they revenged none. Above all, they looked on a citizen who served
+them well as their deadliest enemy."--_Essays_, iii. 389.--H.
+
+[39] The horrid scenes of California life, its lynch laws, murders, and
+list of all possible crimes, are still ringing in our ears, and have not
+entirely ceased, though their number is lessened, and they are rapidly
+disappearing before lawful order. Australia offered, and still offers,
+the same spectacle. Texas, but a few years ago, and all newly settled
+countries in our day, afford another striking illustration of the
+author's remark. Young communities ever attract a great number of
+lawless and desperate men; and this has been the case in all ages. Rome
+was founded by a band of fugitives from justice, and if her early
+history be critically examined, it will be found to reveal a state of
+society, with which the Rome described by the Satirists, and upbraided
+by the Censors, compares favorably. Any one who will cast a glance into
+Bishop Potter's _Antiquities_, can convince himself that the state of
+morals, in Athens, was no better in her most flourishing periods than at
+the time of her downfall, if, indeed, as good; notwithstanding the
+glowing colors in which Isocrates and his followers describe the virtues
+of her youthful period, and the degeneracy of the age. Who can doubt
+that public morality has attained a higher standard in England, at the
+present day when her strength seems to have departed from her, than it
+had at any previous era in her history. Where are the brutal fox-hunting
+country squires of former centuries? the good old customs, when
+hospitality consisted in drinking one's guest underneath the table? What
+audience could now endure, or what police permit, the plays of Congreve
+and of Otway? Even Shakspeare has to be pruned by the moral censor,
+before he can charm our ears. Addison himself, than whom none
+contributed more to purify the morals of his age, bears unmistakable
+traces of the coarseness of the time in which he wrote. It will be
+objected that we are only more prudish, no better at the bottom. But,
+even supposing that the same vices still exist, is it not a great step
+in advance, that they dare no longer parade themselves with unblushing
+impudence? Many who derive their ideas of the Middle Ages, of chivalry,
+etc., from the accounts of romance writers, have very erroneous notions
+about the manners of that period. "It so happens," says Byron, "that the
+good old times when '_l'amour du bon vieux temps, l'amour antique_'
+flourished, were the most profligate of all possible centuries. Those
+who have any doubts on the subject may consult St. Palay, particularly
+vol. ii. p. 69. The vows of chivalry were no better kept than any other
+vows whatever, and the songs of the troubadour were not more decent, and
+certainly much less refined, than those of Ovid. The 'cours d'amour,
+parlements d'amour, ou de courtoisie et de gentilesse,' had much more of
+love than of courtesy and gentleness. (See Roland on the same subject
+with St. Palay.)" _Preface to Childe Harold._ I should not have quoted
+the authority of a poet on historical matters, were I not convinced,
+from my own investigations, that his pungent remarks are perfectly
+correct. As a further confirmation, I may mention that a few years ago,
+in rummaging over the volumes of a large European library, I casually
+lit upon a record of judicial proceedings during the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries, in a little commonwealth, whose simplicity of
+manners, and purity of public morals, especially in that period, has
+been greatly extolled by historians. There, I found a list of crimes, to
+which the most corrupt of modern great cities can furnish no parallel.
+In horror and hellish ingenuity, they can be faintly approached only by
+the punishment which followed them. Of many, our generation ignores even
+the name, and, of others, dares not utter them.--H.
+
+[40] This assertion may surprise those who, in the words of a piquant
+writer on Parisian life, "have thought of Paris only under two
+aspects--one, as the emporium of fashion, fun, and refinement; the abode
+of good fellows somewhat dissipated, of fascinating ladies somewhat
+over-kind; of succulent dinners, somewhat indigestible; of pleasures,
+somewhat illicit;--the other, as the place _par excellence_, of
+revolutions, _émeutes_, and barricades." Yet, all who have pierced below
+the brilliant surface, and penetrated into the recesses of destitution
+and crime, have seen the ministering angel of charity on his errand, and
+can bear witness to the truth of the author's remark. No city can show a
+greater number of benevolent institutions, none more active and
+practical _private_ charity, which inquires not after the country or
+creed of its object.--H.
+
+[41] Tottering, falling Greece, gave birth to a Demosthenes, a Phocian;
+the period of the downfall of the Roman republic was the age of Cicero,
+Brutus, and Cato.--H.
+
+[42] The subjoined picture of the manners of the Frankish conquerors of
+Gaul, is selected on account of the weighty authority from which it
+comes, from among a number of even darker ones. "The history of Gregory
+of Tours shows us on the one hand, a fierce and barbarous nation; and on
+the other, kings of as bad a character. These princes were bloody,
+unjust, and cruel, because all the nation was so. If Christianity seemed
+sometimes to soften them, it was only by the terror which this religion
+imprints in the guilty; the church supported herself against them by the
+miracles and prodigies of her saints. The kings were not sacrilegious,
+because they dreaded the punishments inflicted on sacrilegious people:
+but this excepted, they committed, either in their passion or cold
+blood, all manner of crimes and injustice, because in these the avenging
+hand of the Deity did not appear so visible. The Franks, as I have
+already observed, bore with bloody kings, because they were fond of
+blood themselves; they were not affected with the wickedness and
+extortion of their princes, because this was their own character. There
+had been a great many laws established, but the kings rendered them all
+useless by the practice of issuing _preceptions_, a kind of decrees,
+after the manner of the rescripts of the Roman emperors. These
+preceptions were orders to the judges to do, or to tolerate, things
+contrary to law. They were given for illicit marriages, and even those
+with consecrated virgins; for transferring successions, and depriving
+relations of their rights; for putting to death persons who had not been
+convicted of any crime, and not been heard in their defence,
+etc."--MONTESQUIEU, _Esprit des Lois_, b. 31, c. 2.--H.
+
+[43] Augustin Thierry, _Récit des Temps Mérovingiens_. (See particularly
+the _History of Mummolus_.)
+
+[44] Lucretius was the author of _De Rerum Natura_, and one of the most
+distinguished of pagan "free-thinkers." He labored to combine the
+philosophy of Epicurus, Evhenius, and others, into a sort of moral
+religion, much after the fashion of some of the German mystics and
+Platonists of our times.--H.
+
+[45] Cęsar, whose private opinions were both democratical and sceptical,
+found it convenient to speak very differently in public, as the funeral
+oration in honor of his aunt proves. "On the maternal side, said he, my
+aunt Julia is descended from the kings; on the paternal, from the
+immortal gods. For my aunt's mother was of the family of the Martii, who
+are descended from King Ancus Martius; and the Julii, to which stock our
+family belongs, trace their origin to Venus. Thus, in her blood was
+blended the majesty of kings, the most powerful of men, and the sanctity
+of the gods, who have even the kings in their power."--_Suetonius_,
+_Julius_, 5.
+
+Are not these sentiments very monarchical for a democrat; very religious
+for an atheist?
+
+[46] It is well known that Constantine did not receive the rite of
+baptism until within the last hours of his life, although he professed
+to be a sincere believer. The coins, also, struck during his reign, all
+bore pagan emblems.--H.
+
+[47] Acts xxvi. 24, 28, 31.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+INFLUENCE OF GOVERNMENT UPON THE LONGEVITY OF NATIONS.
+
+ Misgovernment defined--Athens, China, Spain, Germany, Italy, etc.--Is
+ not in itself a sufficient cause for the ruin of nations.
+
+
+I am aware of the difficulty of the task I have undertaken in attempting
+to establish a truth, which by many of my readers will be regarded as a
+mere paradox. That good laws and good government exert a direct and
+powerful influence upon the well-being and prosperity of a nation, is an
+indisputable fact, of which I am fully convinced; but I think that
+history proves that they are not absolute conditions of the existence of
+a community; or, in other words, that their absence is not necessarily
+productive of ruin. Nations, like individuals, are often preyed upon by
+fearful diseases, which show no outward traces of the ravages within,
+and which, though dangerous, are not always fatal. Indeed, if they
+were, few communities would survive the first few years of their
+formation, for it is precisely during that period that the government is
+worst, the laws most imperfect, and least observed. But here the
+comparison between the body political and the human organization ceases,
+for while the latter dreads most the attack of disease during infancy,
+the former easily overcomes it at that period. History furnishes
+innumerable examples of successful contest on the part of young
+communities with the most formidable and most devastating political
+evils, of which none can be worse than ill-conceived laws, administered
+in an oppressive or negligent manner.[48]
+
+Let us first define what we understand by bad government. The varieties
+of this evil are as various as nations, countries, and epochs. It were
+impossible to enumerate them all. Yet, by classing them under four
+principal categories, few varieties will be omitted.
+
+A government is bad, when imposed by foreign influence. Athens
+experienced this evil under the thirty tyrants. Yet she shook off the
+odious yoke, and patriotism, far from expiring, gained renewed vigor by
+the oppression.
+
+A government is bad, when based upon absolute and unconditional
+conquest. Almost the whole extent of France in the fourteenth century,
+groaned under the dominion of England. The ordeal was passed, and the
+nation rose from it more powerful and brilliant than before. China was
+overrun and conquered by the Mongol hordes. They were ejected from its
+territories, after having previously undergone a singular
+transformation. It next fell into the hands of the Mantchoo conquerors,
+but though they already count the years of their reign by centuries,
+they are now at the eve of experiencing the same fate as their Mongol
+predecessors.
+
+A government is especially bad, when the principles upon which it was
+based are disregarded or forgotten. This was the fate of the Spanish
+monarchy. It was based upon the military spirit of the nation, and upon
+its municipal freedom, and declined soon after these principles came to
+be forgotten. It is impossible to imagine greater political
+disorganization than this country represented. Nowhere was the authority
+of the sovereign more nominal and despised; nowhere did the clergy lay
+themselves more open to censure. Agriculture and industry, following the
+same downward impulse, were also involved in the national marasmus. Yet
+Spain, of whom so many despaired, at a moment when her star seemed
+setting forever, gave the glorious example of heroic and successful
+resistance to the arms of one who had hitherto experienced no check in
+his career of conquest. Since that, the better spirit of the nation has
+been roused, and there is, probably, at this time, no European state
+with more promising prospects, and stronger vitality.[49]
+
+A government is also very bad, when, by its institutions, it authorizes
+an antagonism either between the supreme power and the nation, or among
+the different classes of which it is composed. This was the case in the
+Middle Ages, when the kings of France and England were at war with their
+great vassals, and the peasants in perpetual feud with the lords. In
+Germany, the first effects of the liberty of thought, were the civil
+wars of the Hussites, Anabaptists, and other sectaries. Italy, at a
+more remote period, was so distracted by the division of the supreme
+authority for which emperor, pope, nobles, and municipalities contended,
+that the masses, not knowing whom to obey, in many instances finished by
+obeying neither. Yet in the midst of all these troubles, Italian
+nationality did not perish. On the contrary, its civilization was at no
+time more brilliant, its industry never more productive, its foreign
+influence never greater.
+
+If communities have survived such fearful political tempests, it cannot
+well be said that national ruin is a necessary cause of misgovernment.
+Besides, wise and happy reigns are few and far between, in the history
+of every nation; and these few are not considered such by all.
+Historians are not unanimous in their praise of Elizabeth, nor do they
+all consider the reign of William and Mary as an epoch of prosperity for
+England. Truly this science of statesmanship, the highest and most
+complicated of all, is so disproportionate to the capacity of man,[50]
+and so various are the opinions concerning it, that nations have early
+and frequent opportunities of learning to accommodate themselves to
+misgovernment, which, in its worst forms, is still preferable to
+anarchy. It is a well-proved fact, which even a superficial study of
+history will clearly demonstrate, that communities often perish under
+the best government of a long series that came before.[51]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[48] It will be understood that I speak here, not of the political
+existence of a centre of sovereignty, but of the life of an entire
+nation, the prosperity of a civilization. Here is the place to apply the
+definition given above, page 114.
+
+[49] This assertion will appear paradoxical to those who are in the
+habit of looking upon Spain as the type of hopeless national
+degradation. But whoever studies the history of the last thirty years,
+which is but a series of struggles to rise from this position, will
+probably arrive at the same conclusions as the author. The revolution of
+1820 redeems the character of the nation. "The Spanish Constitution"
+became the watchword of the friends of constitutional liberty in the
+South of Europe, and ere thirteen months had fully passed, it had become
+the fundamental law of three other countries--Portugal, Naples, and
+Sardinia. At the mere sound of those words, two kings had resigned their
+crowns. These revolutions were not characterized by excesses. They were,
+for the most part, accomplished peacefully, quietly, and orderly. They
+were not the result of the temporary passions of an excited mob. The
+most singular feature of these countries is that the lowest dregs of the
+population are the most zealous adherents of absolutism. No, these
+revolutions were the work of the best elements in the population, the
+most intelligent classes, of people who knew what they wanted, and how
+to get it. And then, when Spain had set that ever glorious example to
+her neighbors, the great powers, with England at the head, concluded to
+re-establish the former state of things. In those memorable congresses
+of plenipotentiaries, the most influential was the representative of
+England, the Duke of Wellington. And by his advice, or, at least, with
+his sanction, an Austrian army entered Sardinia, and abolished the new
+constitution; an Austrian army entered Naples and abolished the new
+constitution; English vessels of war threatened Lisbon, and Portugal
+abolished her new constitution; and finally a French army entered Spain,
+and abolished the new constitution. So Naples and Portugal regained
+their tyrants, and Spain her imbecile dynasty. For years the Spaniards
+have tried to shake it off, and English influence alone has maintained
+on a great nation's throne, a wretch that would have disgraced the
+lowest walks of private life. But the day of Spanish liberty and Spanish
+_independence_ will dawn, and perhaps already has dawned. The efforts of
+the last Cortes were wisely directed, and their proceedings marked with
+a manliness, a moderation, and a firmness that augur well for the future
+weal of Spain.--H.
+
+[50] Who is not reminded of Oxenstierna's famous saying to his son: "Cum
+parva sapientiā mundus gubernatur."--H.
+
+[51] It is obvious that so long as the vitality of a nation remains
+unimpaired, misgovernment can be but a temporary ill. The regenerative
+principle will be at work to remove the evil and heal the wounds it has
+inflicted; and though the remedy be sometimes violent, and throw the
+state into fearful convulsions, it will seldom be found ineffectual. So
+long as the spirit of liberty prevailed among the Romans, the
+Tarquiniuses and Appiuses were as a straw before the storm of popular
+indignation; but the death of Cęsar could but substitute a despot in the
+stead of a mild and generous usurper. The first Brutus might save the
+nation, because he was the expression of the national sentiment; the
+second could not, because he was one man opposed to millions. It is a
+common error to ascribe too much to individual exertions, and whimsical
+philosophers have amused themselves to trace great events to petty
+causes; but a deeper inquiry will demonstrate that the great
+catastrophes which arrest our attention and form the landmarks of
+history, are but the inevitable result of all the whole chain of
+antecedent events. Julius Cęsar and Napoleon Bonaparte were, indeed,
+especially gifted for their great destinies, but the same gifts could
+not have raised them to their exalted positions at any other epoch than
+the one in which each lived. Those petty causes are but the drop which
+causes the measure to overflow, the pretext of the moment; or as the
+small fissure in the dyke which produces the _crevasse_: the wall of
+waters stood behind. No man can usurp supreme power, unless the
+prevailing tendency of the nation favors it; no man can long persist in
+hurrying a nation along in a course repulsive to it; and in this sense,
+therefore, not with regard to its abstract justness, it is undoubtedly
+true, that the voice of the nation is the voice of God. It is the
+expression of what shall and must be.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+DEFINITION OF THE WORD DEGENERACY--ITS CAUSE.
+
+ Skeleton history of a nation--Origin of castes, nobility,
+ etc.--Vitality of nations not necessarily extinguished by
+ conquest--China, Hindostan--Permanency of their peculiar
+ civilizations.
+
+
+If the spirit of the preceding pages has been at all understood, it will
+be seen that I am far from considering these great national maladies,
+misgovernment, fanaticism, irreligion, and immorality, as mere trifling
+accidents, without influence or importance. On the contrary, I sincerely
+pity the community which is afflicted by such scourges, and think that
+no efforts can be misdirected which tend to mitigate or remove them. But
+I repeat, that unless these disorganizing elements are grafted upon
+another more destructive principle, unless they are the consequences of
+a greater, though concealed, evil; we may rest assured that their
+ravages are not fatal, and that society, after a shorter or longer
+period of suffering, will escape their toils, perhaps with renewed vigor
+and youth.
+
+The examples I have alleged seem to me conclusive; their number, if
+necessary, might be increased to any extent. But the conviction has
+already gained ground, that these are but secondary evils, to which an
+undue importance has hitherto been attached, and that the law which
+governs the life and death of societies must be sought for elsewhere,
+and deeper. It is admitted that the germ of destruction is inherent in
+the constitution of communities; that so long as it remains latent,
+exterior dangers are little to be dreaded; but when it has once attained
+full growth and maturity, the nation must die, even though surrounded by
+the most favorable circumstances, precisely as a jaded steed breaks
+down, be the track ever so smooth.
+
+Degeneracy was the name given to this cause of dissolution. This view of
+the question was a great step towards the truth, but, unfortunately, it
+went no further; the first difficulty proved insurmountable. The term
+was certainly correct, etymologically and in every other respect, but
+how is it with the definition. A people is said to be degenerated, when
+it is badly governed, abuses its riches, is fanatical, or irreligious;
+in short, when it has lost the characteristic virtues of its
+forefathers. This is begging the question. Thus, communities succumb
+under the burden of social and political evils only when they are
+degenerate, and they are degenerate only when such evils prevail. This
+circular argument proves nothing but the small progress hitherto made in
+the science of national biology. I readily admit that nations perish
+from degeneracy, and from no other cause; it is when in that wretched
+condition, that foreign attacks are fatal to them, for then they no
+longer possess the strength to protect themselves against adverse
+fortune, or to recover from its blows. They die, because, though exposed
+to the same perils as their ancestors, they have not the same powers of
+overcoming them. I repeat it, the term _degeneracy_ is correct; but it
+is necessary to define it, to give it a real and tangible meaning. It is
+necessary to say how and why this vigor, this capacity of overcoming
+surrounding dangers, are lost. Hitherto, we have been satisfied with a
+mere word, but the thing itself is as little known as ever.[52] The step
+beyond, I shall attempt to make.
+
+In my opinion, a nation is degenerate, when the blood of its founders no
+longer flows in its veins, but has been gradually deteriorated by
+successive foreign admixtures; so that the nation, while retaining its
+original name, is no longer composed of the same elements. The
+attenuation of the original blood is attended by a modification of the
+original instincts, or modes of thinking; the new elements assert their
+influence, and when they have once gained perfect and entire
+preponderance, the degeneration may be considered as complete. With the
+last remnant of the original ethnical principle, expires the life of the
+society and its civilization. The masses, which composed it, have
+thenceforth no separate, independent, social and political existence;
+they are attracted to different centres of civilization, and swell the
+ranks of new societies having new instincts and new purposes.
+
+In attempting to establish this theorem, I am met by a question which
+involves the solution of a far more difficult problem than any I have
+yet approached. This question, so momentous in its bearings, is the
+following:--
+
+Is there, in reality, a serious and palpable difference in the capacity
+and intrinsic worth of different branches of the human family?
+
+For the sake of clearness, I shall advance, _ą priori_, that this
+difference exists. It then remains to show how the ethnical character of
+a nation can undergo such a total change as I designate by the term
+_degeneracy_.
+
+Physiologists assert that the human frame is subject to a constant wear
+and tear, which would soon destroy the whole machine, but for new
+particles which are continually taking the form and place of the old
+ones. So rapid is this change said to be, that, in a few years, the
+whole framework is renovated, and the material identity of the
+individual changed. The same, to a great extent, may be said of nations,
+only that, while the individual always preserves a certain similarity
+of form and features, those of a nation are subject to innumerable and
+ever-varying changes. Let us take a nation at the moment when it assumes
+a political existence, and commences to play a part in the great drama
+of the world's stage. In its embryo, we call it a tribe.
+
+The simplest and most natural political institution is that of tribes.
+It is the only form of government known to rude and savage nations.
+Civilization is the result of a great concentration of powerful physical
+and intellectual forces,[53] which, in small and scattered fragments, is
+impossible. The first step towards it is, therefore, undoubtedly, the
+union of several tribes by alliance or conquest. Such a coalescence is
+what we call a nation or empire. I think it admits of an easy
+demonstration, that in proportion as a human family is endowed with the
+capacity for intellectual progress, it exhibits a tendency to enlarge
+the circle of its influence and dominion. On the contrary, where that
+capacity is weak, or wanting, we find the population subdivided into
+innumerable small fragments, which, though in perpetual collision,
+remain forever detached and isolated. The stronger may massacre the
+weaker, but permanent conquest is never attempted; depredatory
+incursions are the sole object and whole extent of warfare. This is the
+case with the natives of Polynesia, many parts of Africa, and the Arctic
+regions. Nor can their stagnant condition be ascribed to local or
+climatical causes. We have seen such wretched hordes inhabiting,
+indifferently, temperate as well as torrid or frigid zones; fertile
+prairies and barren deserts; river-shores and coasts as well as inland
+regions. It must therefore be founded upon an inherent incapacity of
+progress. The more civilizable a race is, the stronger is the tendency
+for aggregation of masses. Complex political organizations are not so
+much the effect as the cause of civilization.[54] A tribe with superior
+intellectual and physical endowments, soon perceives that, to increase
+its power and prosperity, it must compel its neighbors to enter into the
+sphere of its influence. Where peaceful means fail, war is resorted to.
+Territories are conquered, a division into classes established between
+the victorious and the subjugated race; in one word, a nation has made
+its appearance upon the theatre of history. The impulse being once
+given, it will not stop short in the career of conquest. If wisdom and
+moderation preside in its councils, the tracks of its armies will not be
+marked by wanton destruction and bloodshed; the monuments, institutions,
+and manners of the conquered will be respected; superior creations will
+take the place of the old, where changes are necessary and useful;--a
+great empire will be formed.[55] At first, and perhaps for a long time,
+victors and vanquished will remain separated and distinct. But
+gradually, as the pride of the conqueror becomes less obtrusive, and the
+bitterness of defeat is forgotten by the conquered; as the ties of
+common interest become stronger, the boundary line between them is
+obliterated. Policy, fear, or natural justice, prompts the masters to
+concessions; intermarriages take place, and, in the course of time, the
+various ethnical elements are blended, and the different nations
+composing the state begin to consider themselves as one. This is the
+general history of the rise of all empires whose records have been
+transmitted to us.[56] An inferior race, by falling into the hands of
+vigorous masters, is thus called to share a destiny, of which, alone, it
+would have been incapable. Witness the Saxons by the Norman
+conquest.[57] But, if there is a decided disparity in the capacity of
+the two races, their mixture, while it ennobles the baser, deteriorates
+the nobler; a new race springs up, inferior to the one, though superior
+to the other, and, perhaps, possessed of peculiar qualities unknown to
+either. The modification of the ethnical character of the nation,
+however, does not terminate here.
+
+Every new acquisition of territory, by conquest or treaty, brings an
+addition of foreign blood. The wealth and splendor of a great empire
+attract crowds of strangers to its capital, great inland cities, or
+seaports. Apart from the fact that the conquering race--that which
+founds the empire, and supports and animates it--is, in most cases,
+inferior in numbers to the masses which it subdued and assimilated; the
+conspicuous part which it takes in the affairs of the state, renders it
+more directly exposed to the fatal results of battles, proscriptions,
+and revolts.[58] In some instances, also, it happens that the
+substratum of native populations are singularly prolific--witness the
+Celts and Sclaves. Sooner or later, therefore, the conquering race is
+absorbed by the masses which its vigor and superiority have aggregated.
+The very materials of which it erected its splendor, and upon which it
+based its strength, are ultimately the means of its weakness and
+destruction. But the civilization which it has developed, may survive
+for a limited period. The forward impulse, once imparted to the mass,
+will still propel it for a while, but its force is continually
+decreasing. Manners, laws, and institutions remain, but the spirit
+which animated them has fled; the lifeless body still exhibits the
+apparent symptoms of life, and, perhaps, even increases, but the real
+strength has departed; the edifice soon begins to totter, at the
+slightest collision it will crumble, and bury beneath its ruins the
+civilization which it had developed.
+
+If this definition of degeneracy be accepted, and its consequences
+admitted, the problem of the rise and fall of empires no longer presents
+any difficulty. A nation lives so long as it preserves the ethnical
+principle to which it owes its existence; with this principle, it loses
+the _primum mobile_ of its successes, its glory, and its civilization:
+it must therefore disappear from the stage of history. Who can doubt
+that if Alexander had been opposed by real Persians, the men of the
+Arian stock, whom Cyrus led to victory, the issue of the battle of
+Arbela would have been very different. Or if Rome, in her decadence, had
+possessed soldiers and senators like those of the time of Fabius,
+Scipio, and Cato, would she have fallen so easy a prey to the barbarians
+of the North?
+
+It will be objected that, even had the integrity of the original blood
+remained intact, a time must have come when they would find their
+masters. They would have succumbed under a series of well-combined
+attacks, a long-continued overwhelming pressure, or simply by the
+chances of a lost battle. The political edifice might have been
+destroyed in this manner, not the civilization, not the social
+organization. Invasion and defeat would have been reverses, sad ones,
+indeed, but not irremediable. There is no want of facts to confirm this
+assertion.
+
+In modern times, the Chinese have suffered two complete conquests. In
+each case they have imposed their manners and their institutions upon
+the conquerors; they have given them much, and received but little in
+return. The first invaders, after having undergone this change, were
+expelled; the same fate is now threatening the second.[59] In this case
+the vanquished were intellectually and numerically superior to their
+victors. I shall mention another case where the victors, though
+intellectually superior, are not possessed of sufficient numerical
+strength to transform the intellectual and moral character of the
+vanquished.
+
+The political supremacy of the British in Hindostan is perfect, yet they
+exert little or no moral influence over the masses they govern. All that
+the utmost exertion of their power can effect upon the fears of their
+subjects, is an outward compliance. The notions of the Hindoo cannot be
+replaced by European ideas--the spirit of Hindoo civilization cannot be
+conquered by any power, however great, of the law. Political forms may
+change, and do change, without materially affecting the basis upon which
+they rest; Hyderabad, Lahore, and Delhi may cease to be capitals: Hindoo
+society will subsist, nevertheless. A time must come, sooner or later,
+when India will regain a separate political existence, and publicly
+proclaim those laws of her own, which she now secretly obeys, or of
+which she is tacitly left in possession.
+
+The mere accident of conquest cannot destroy the principle of vitality
+in a people. At most, it may suspend for a time the exterior
+manifestations of that vitality, and strip it of its outward honors. But
+so long as the blood, and consequently the culture of a nation, exhibit
+sufficiently strong traces of the initiatory race, that nation exists;
+and whether it has to deal, like the Chinese, with conquerors who are
+superior only materially; or whether, like the Hindoos, it maintains a
+struggle of patience against a race much superior in every respect; that
+nation may rest assured of its future--independence will dawn for it one
+day. On the contrary, when a nation has completely exhausted the
+initiatory ethnical element, defeat is certain death; it has consumed
+the term of existence which Heaven had granted it--its destiny is
+fulfilled.[60]
+
+I, therefore, consider the question as settled, which has been so often
+discussed, as to what would have been the result, if the Carthaginians,
+instead of succumbing to the fortune of Rome, had conquered Italy. As
+they belonged to the Phenician family, a stock greatly inferior to the
+Italian in political capacity, they would have been absorbed by the
+superior race after the victory, precisely as they were after the
+defeat. The final result, therefore, would have been the same in either
+case.
+
+The destiny of civilizations is not ruled by accident; it depends not on
+the issue of a battle, a thrust of a sword, the favors or frowns of
+fickle fortune. The most warlike, formidable, and triumphant nations,
+when they were distinguished for nothing but bravery, strategical
+science, and military successes, have never had a nobler fate than that
+of learning from their subjects, perhaps too late, the art of living in
+peace. The Celts, the nomad hordes of Central Asia, are memorable
+illustrations of this truth.
+
+The whole of my demonstration now rests upon one hypothesis, the proof
+of which I have reserved for the succeeding chapters: THE MORAL AND
+INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITIES OF THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF THE HUMAN FAMILY.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[52] The author has neglected to advert to one very clear explanation of
+this word, which, from its extensive popularity, seems to me to deserve
+some notice. It is said, and very commonly believed, that there is a
+physical degeneracy in mankind; that a nation cultivating for a long
+time the arts of peace, and enjoying the fruits of well-directed
+industry, loses the capacity for warfare; in other words becomes
+effeminate, and, consequently, less capable of defending itself against
+ruder, and, therefore, more warlike invaders. It is further said, though
+with less plausibility, that there is a general degeneracy of the human
+race--that we are inferior in physical strength to our ancestors, etc.
+If this theory could be supported by incontestable facts--and there are
+many who think it possible--it would give to the term degeneracy that
+real and tangible meaning which the author alleges to be wanting. But a
+slight investigation will demonstrate that it is more specious than
+correct.
+
+In the first place, to prove that an advance in civilization does not
+lessen the material puissance of a nation, but rather increases it, we
+may point to the well-known fact that the most civilized nations are the
+most formidable opponents in warfare, because they have brought the
+means of attack and defence to the greatest perfection.
+
+But that for this strength they are not solely indebted to artificial
+means, is proved by the history of modern civilized states. The French
+now fight with as much martial ardor and intrepidity, and with more
+success than they did in the times of Francis I. or Louis XIV., albeit
+they have since both these epochs made considerable progress in
+civilization, and this progress has been most perceptible in those
+classes which form the bulk and body of armies. England, though,
+perhaps, she could not muster an army as large as in former times, has
+hearts as stout, and arms as strong as those that gained for her
+imperishable glory at Agincourt and Poitiers. The charge at Balaklava,
+rash and useless as it may be termed, was worthy of the followers of the
+Black Prince.
+
+A theory to be correct, must admit of mathematical demonstration. The
+most civilized nations, then, would be the most effeminate; the most
+barbarous, the most warlike. And, descending from nations to
+individuals, the most cultivated and refined mind would be accompanied
+by a deficiency in many of the manly virtues. Such an assertion is
+ridiculous. The most refined and fastidious gentleman has never, as a
+class, displayed less courage and fortitude than the rowdy and fighter
+by profession. Men sprung from the bosom of the most polished circles in
+the most civilized communities, have surpassed the most warlike
+barbarians in deeds of hardihood and heroic valor.
+
+Civilization, therefore, produces no degeneracy; the cultivation of the
+arts of peace, no diminution of manly virtues. We have seen the peaceful
+burghers of free cities successfully resist the trained bands of a
+superior foe; we have seen the artisans and merchants of Holland
+invincible to the veteran armies of the then most powerful prince of
+Christendom, backed as he was by the inexhaustible treasures of a newly
+discovered hemisphere; we have seen, in our times, troops composed of
+volunteers who left their hearthstones to fight for their country, rout
+incredible odds of the standing armies of a foe, who, for the last
+thirty years, has known no peace.
+
+I believe that an advanced state of civilization, accompanied by long
+peace, gives rise to a certain _domestication_ of man, that is to say,
+it lays on a polish over the more ferocious or pugnacious tendencies of
+his nature; because it, in some measure deprives him of the
+opportunities of exercising them, but it cannot deprive him of the
+power, should the opportunity present itself. Let us suppose two
+brothers born in some of our great commercial cities, one to enter a
+counting-house, the other to settle in the western wilderness. The
+former might become a polished, elegant, perhaps even dandified young
+gentleman; the other might evince a supreme contempt for all the
+amenities of life, be ever ready to draw his bowie-knife or revolver,
+however slight the provocation. The country requires the services of
+both; a great principle is at stake, and in some battle of Matamoras or
+Buena Vista, the two brothers fight side by side; who will be the
+braver?
+
+I believe that both individual and national character admit of a certain
+degree of pressure by surrounding circumstances; the pressure removed,
+the character at once regains its original form. See with what
+kindliness the civilized descendant of the wild Teuton hunter takes to
+the hunter's life in new countries, and how soon he learns to despise
+the comforts of civilized life and fix his abode in the solitary
+wilderness. The Normans had been settled over six centuries in the
+beautiful province of France, to which they gave their name; their
+nobles had frequented the most polished court in Europe, adapted
+themselves to the fashions and requirements of life in a luxurious
+metropolis; they themselves had learned to plough the soil instead of
+the wave; yet in another hemisphere they at once regained their ancient
+habits, and--as six hundred years before--became the most dreaded
+pirates of the seas they infested; the savage buccaneers of the Spanish
+main. I can see no difference between Lolonnois and his followers, and
+the terrible men of the north (his lineal ancestors) that ravaged the
+shores of the Seine and the Rhine, and whose name is even yet mentioned
+with horror every evening, in the other hemisphere, by thousands of
+praying children: "God preserve us from the Northmen." Morgan, the Welch
+buccaneer, who, with a thousand men, vanquished five times as many
+well-equipped Spaniards, took their principal cities, Porto Bello and
+Panama; who tortured his captives to make them reveal the hiding-place
+of their treasure; Morgan might have been--sixteen centuries
+notwithstanding--a tributary chief to Caractacus, or one of those who
+opposed Cęsar's landing in Britain. To make the resemblance still more
+complete, the laws and regulations of these lawless bands were a precise
+copy of those to which their not more savage ancestors bound themselves.
+
+I regret that my limited space precludes me from entering into a more
+elaborate exposition of the futility of the theory that civilization, or
+a long continued state of peace, can produce physical degeneracy or
+inaptitude for the ruder duties of the battle-field; but I believe that
+what I have said will suffice to suggest to the thoughtful reader
+numerous confirmations of my position; and I may, therefore, now refer
+him to Mr. Gobineau's explanation of the term degeneracy.--H.
+
+[53] "Nothing but the great number of citizens in a state can occasion
+the flourishing of the arts and sciences. Accordingly, we see that, in
+all ages, it was great empires only which enjoyed this advantage. In
+these great states, the arts, especially that of agriculture, were soon
+brought to great perfection, and thus that leisure afforded to a
+considerable number of men, which is so necessary to study and
+speculation. The Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians, had the
+advantage of being formed into regular, well-constituted
+states."--_Origin of Laws and Sciences, and their Progress among the
+most Ancient Nations._ By President DE GOGUET. Edinburgh, 1761, vol. i.
+pp. 272-273.--H.
+
+[54] "Conquests, by uniting many nations under one sovereign, have
+formed great and powerful empires, out of the ruins of many petty
+states. In these great empires, men began insensibly to form clearer
+views of politics, juster and more salutary notions of government.
+Experience taught them to avoid the errors which had occasioned the ruin
+of the nations whom they had subdued, and put them upon taking measures
+to prevent surprises, invasions, and the like misfortunes. With these
+views they fortified cities, secured such passes as might have admitted
+an enemy into their country, and kept a certain number of troops
+constantly on foot. By these precautions, several States rendered
+themselves formidable to their neighbors, and none durst lightly attack
+powers which were every way so respectable. The interior parts of such
+mighty monarchies were no longer exposed to ravages and devastations.
+War was driven far from the centre, and only infected the frontiers. The
+inhabitants of the country, and of the cities, began to breathe in
+safety. The calamities which conquests and revolutions had occasioned,
+disappeared; but the blessings which had grown out of them, remained.
+Ingenious and active spirits, encouraged by the repose which they
+enjoyed, devoted themselves to study. _It was in the bosom of great
+empires the arts were invented, and the sciences had their
+birth._"--_Op. cit._, vol. i. Book 5, p. 326.--H.
+
+[55] The history of every great empire proves the correctness of this
+remark. The conqueror never attempted to change the manners or local
+institutions of the peoples subdued, but contented himself with an
+acknowledgment of his supremacy, the payment of tribute, and the
+rendering of assistance in war. Those who have pursued a contrary
+course, may be likened to an overflowing river, which, though it leaves
+temporary marks of its destructive course behind, must, sooner or later,
+return to its bed, and, in a short time, its invasions are forgotten,
+and their traces obliterated.--H.
+
+[56] The most striking illustration of the correctness of this
+reasoning, is found in Roman history, the earlier portion of which
+is--thanks to Niebuhr's genius--just beginning to be understood. The
+lawless followers of Romulus first coalesced with the Sabines; the two
+nations united, then compelled the Albans to raze their city to the
+ground, and settle in Rome. Next came the Latins, to whom, also, a
+portion of the city was allotted for settlement. These two conquered
+nations were, of course, not permitted the same civil and political
+privileges as the conquerors, and, with the exception of a few noble
+families among them (which probably had been, from the beginning, in the
+interests of the conquerors), these tribes formed the _plebs_. The
+distinction by nations was forgotten, and had become a distinction of
+_classes_. Then began the progress which Mr. Gobineau describes. The
+Plebeians first gained their _tribunes_, who could protect their
+interests against the one-sided legislation of the dominant class; then,
+the right of discussing and deciding certain public questions in the
+_comitia_, or public assembly. Next, the law prohibiting intermarriage
+between the Patricians and Plebeians was repealed; and thus, in course
+of time, the government changed from an oligarchical to a democratic
+form. I might go into details, or, I might mention other nations in
+which the same process is equally manifest, but I think the above
+well-known facts sufficient to bring the author's idea into a clear
+light, and illustrate its correctness. The history of the Middle Ages,
+the establishment of serfdom and its gradual abolition, also furnish an
+analogue.
+
+Wherever we see an hereditary aristocracy (whether called class or
+caste), it will be found to originate in a race, which, if no longer
+_dominant_, was once conqueror. Before the Norman conquest, the English
+aristocracy was _Saxon_, there were no nobles of the ancient British
+blood, east of Wales; after the conquest, the aristocracy was _Norman_,
+and nine-tenths of the noble families of England to this day trace, or
+pretend to trace, their origin to that stock. The noble French families,
+anterior to the Revolution, were almost all of _Frankish_ or
+_Burgundian_ origin. The same observation applies everywhere else. In
+support of my opinion, I have Niebuhr's great authority: "Wherever there
+are castes, they are the consequence of foreign conquest and
+subjugation; it is impossible for a nation to submit to such a system,
+unless it be compelled by the calamities of a conquest. By this means
+only it is, that, contrary to the will of a people, circumstances arise
+which afterwards assume the character of a division into classes or
+castes."--_Lect. on Anc. Hist._ (In the English translation, this
+passage occurs in vol. i. p. 90.)
+
+In conclusion, I would observe that, whenever it becomes politic to
+flatter the mass of the people, the fact of conquest is denied. Thus,
+English writers labored hard to prove that William the Norman did not,
+in reality, conquer the Saxons. Some time before the French Revolution,
+the same was attempted to be proved in the case of the Germanic tribes
+in France. L'Abbé du Bos, and other writers, taxed their ingenuity to
+disguise an obvious fact, and to hide the truth under a pile of
+ponderous volumes.--H.
+
+[57] "It has been a favorite thesis with many writers, to pretend that
+the Saxon government was, at the time of the conquest, by no means
+subverted; that William of Normandy legally acceded to the throne, and,
+consequently, to the engagements of the Saxon kings.... But, if we
+consider that the manner in which the public power is formed in a state,
+is so very essential a part of its government, and that a thorough
+change in this respect was introduced into England by the conquest, we
+shall not scruple to allow that a _new government_ was established. Nay,
+as almost the whole landed property in the kingdom was, at that time,
+transferred to other hands, a new system of criminal justice introduced,
+and the language of the law moreover altered, the revolution may be said
+to have been such as is not, perhaps, to be paralleled in the history of
+any other country."--DE LOLME'S _English Constitution_, c. i., _note_
+c.--"The battle of Hastings, and the events which followed it, not only
+placed a Duke of Normandy on the English throne, but gave up the whole
+population of England to the tyranny of the Norman race. The subjugation
+of a nation has seldom, even in Asia, been more complete."--MACAULAY'S
+_History of England_, vol. i. p. 10.--H.
+
+[58] This assertion seems self-evident; it may, however, be not
+altogether irrelevant to the subject, to direct attention to a few facts
+in illustration of it. Great national calamities like wars,
+proscriptions, and revolutions, are like thunderbolts, striking mostly
+the objects of greatest elevation. We have seen that a conquering race
+generally, for a long time even after the conquest has been forgotten,
+forms an aristocracy, which generally monopolizes the prominent
+positions. In great political convulsions, this aristocracy suffers
+most, often in numbers, and always in proportion. Thus, at the battle of
+Cannę, from 5,000 to 6,000 Roman knights are said to have been slain,
+and, at all times, the officer's dress has furnished the most
+conspicuous, and at the same time the most important target for the
+death-dealing stroke. In those fearful proscriptions, in which Sylla and
+Marius vied with each other in wholesale slaughter, the number of
+victims included two hundred senators and thirty-three ex-consuls. That
+the major part of the rest were prominent men, and therefore patricians,
+is obvious from the nature of this persecution. Revolutions are most
+often, though not always, produced by a fermentation among the mass of
+the population, who have a heavy score to settle against a class that
+has domineered and tyrannized over them. Their fury, therefore, is
+directed against this aristocracy. I have now before me a curious
+document (first published in the _Prussian State-Gazette_, in
+1828, and for which I am indebted to a little German volume, _Das
+Menschengeschlecht auf seinem Gegenwärtigen Standpuncte_, by
+SMIDT-PHISELDECK), giving a list of the victims that fell under the
+guillotine by sentence of the revolutionary tribunal, from August, 1792,
+to the 27th of July, 1794, in a little less than two years. The number
+of victims there given is 2,774. Of these, 941 are of rank unknown. The
+remaining 1,833 may be divided in the following proportions:--
+
+ 1,084 highest nobility (princes, dukes, marshals of France, generals,
+ and other officers, etc. etc.)
+ 636 of the gentry (members of Parliament, judges, etc. etc.)
+ 113 of the bourgeoisie (including non-commissioned officers and
+ soldiers.)
+ -----
+ 1,833
+
+Such facts require no comments.--H.
+
+[59] The recent insurrection in China has given rise to a great deal of
+speculation, and various are the opinions that have been formed
+respecting it. But it is now pretty generally conceded that it is a
+great national movement, and, therefore, must ultimately be successful.
+The history of this insurrection, by Mr. Callery and Dr. Ivan (one the
+interpreter, and the other the physician of the French embassy in China,
+and both well known and reliable authorities) leaves no doubt upon the
+subject. One of the most significant signs in this movement is the
+cutting off the tails, and letting the hair grow, which is being
+practised, says Dr. Ivan, in all the great cities, and in the very teeth
+of the mandarins. (_Ins. in China_, p. 243.) Let not the reader smile at
+this seemingly puerile demonstration, or underrate its importance.
+Apparently trivial occurrences are often the harbingers of the most
+important events. Were I to see in the streets of Berlin or Vienna, men
+with long beards or hats of a certain shape, I should know that serious
+troubles are to be expected; and in proportion to the number of such
+men, I should consider the catastrophe more or less near at hand, and
+the monarch's crown in danger. When the Lombard stops smoking in the
+streets, he meditates a revolution; and France is comparatively safe,
+even though every street in Paris is barricaded, and blood flows in
+torrents; but when bands march through the streets singing the _ēa ira_,
+we know that to-morrow the _Red Republic_ will be proclaimed. All these
+are silent, but expressive demonstrations of the prevalence of a certain
+principle among the masses. Such a one is the cutting off of the tail
+among the Chinese. Nor is this a mere emblem. The shaved crown and the
+tail are the brands of conquest, a mark of degradation imposed by the
+Mantchoos on the subjugated race. The Chinese have never abandoned the
+hope of one day expelling their conquerors, as they did already once
+before. "Ever since the fall of the Mings," says Dr. Ivan, "and the
+accession of the Mantchoo dynasty, clandestine associations--these
+intellectual laboratories of declining states--have been incessantly in
+operation. The most celebrated of these secret societies, that of the
+Triad, or the _three principles_, commands so extensive and powerful an
+organization, that its members may be found throughout China, and
+wherever the Chinese emigrate; so that there is no great exaggeration in
+the Chinese saying: 'When three of us are together, the Triad is among
+us.'" (_Hist. of the Insur. in Ch._, p. 112.) Again, the writer says:
+"The revolutionary impetus is now so strong, the affairs of the
+pretender or chief of the insurrection in so prosperous a condition,
+that the success of his cause has nothing to fear from the loss of a
+battle. It would require a series of unprecedented reverses to ruin his
+hopes" (p. 243 and 245).
+
+I have written this somewhat lengthy note to show that Mr. Gobineau
+makes no rash assertion, when he says that the Mantchoos are about to
+experience the same fate as their Tartar predecessors.--H.
+
+[60] The author might have mentioned Russia in illustration of his
+position. The star of no nation that we are acquainted with has suffered
+an eclipse so total and so protracted, nor re-appeared with so much
+brilliancy. Russia, whose history so many believe to date from the time
+of Peter the Great only, was one of the earliest actors on the stage of
+modern history. Its people had adopted Christianity when our forefathers
+were yet heathens; its princes formed matrimonial alliances with the
+monarchs of Byzantine Rome, while Charlemagne was driving the reluctant
+Saxon barbarians by thousands into rivers to be baptized _en masse_.
+Russia had magnificent cities before Paris was more than a collection of
+hovels on a small island of the Seine. Its monarchs actually
+contemplated, and not without well-founded hopes, the conquest of
+Constantinople, while the Norman barges were devastating the coasts and
+river-shores of Western Europe. Nay, to that far-off, almost polar
+region, the enterprise of the inhabitants had attracted the genius of
+commerce and its attendants, prosperity and abundance. One of the
+greatest commercial cities of the first centuries after Christ, one of
+the first of the Hanse-Towns, was the great city of Novogorod, the
+capital of a republic that furnished three hundred thousand fighting
+men. But the east of Europe was not destined to outstrip the west in the
+great race of progress. The millions of Tartars, that, locust-like--but
+more formidable--marked their progress by hopeless devastation, had
+converted the greater portion of Asia into a desert, and now sought a
+new field for their savage exploits. Russia stood the first brunt, and
+its conquest exhausted the strength of the ruthless foe, and saved
+Western Europe from overwhelming ruin. In the beginning of the
+thirteenth century, five hundred thousand Tartar horsemen crossed the
+Ural Mountains. Slow, but gradual, was their progress. The Russian
+armies were trampled down by this countless cavalry. But the resistance
+must have been a brave and vigorous one, for few of the invaders lived
+long enough to see the conquest. Not until after a desperate struggle of
+fifty years, did Russia acknowledge a Tartar master. Nor were the
+conquerors even then allowed to enjoy their prize in peace. For two
+centuries more, the Russians never remitted their efforts to regain
+their independence. Each generation transmitted to its posterity the
+remembrance of that precious treasure, and the care of reconquering it.
+Nor were their efforts unsuccessful. Year after year the Tartars saw the
+prize gliding from their grasp, and towards the end of the fifteenth
+century, we find them driven to the banks of the Volga, and the coasts
+of the Black Sea. Russia now began to breathe again. But, lo! during the
+long struggle, Pole and Swede had vied with the Tartar in stripping her
+of her fairest domains. Her territory extended scarce two hundred miles,
+in any direction from Moscow. Her very name was unknown. Western Europe
+had forgotten her. The same causes that established the feudal system
+there, had, in the course of two centuries and a half, changed a nation
+of freemen into a nation of serfs. The arts of peace were lost, the
+military element had gained an undue preponderance, and a band of
+soldiers, like the Pretorian Guards of Rome, made and deposed
+sovereigns, and shook the state to its very foundations. Yet here and
+there a vigorous monarch appeared, who controlled the fierce element,
+and directed it to the weal of the state. Smolensk, the fairest portion
+of the ancient Russian domain, was re-conquered from the Pole. The
+Swede, also, was forced to disgorge a portion of his spoils. But it was
+reserved for Peter the Great and his successors to restore to Russia the
+rank she had once held, and to which she was entitled.
+
+I will not further trespass on the patience of the reader, now that we
+have arrived at that portion of Russian history which many think the
+first. I would merely observe that not only did Peter add to his empire
+no territory that had not formerly belonged to it, but even Catharine,
+at the first partition of Poland (I speak not of the subsequent ones),
+merely re-united to her dominion what once were integral portions. The
+rapid growth of Russia, since she has reassumed her station among the
+nations of the earth, is well known. Cities have sprung up in places
+where once the nomad had pitched his tent. A great capital, the
+handsomest in the world, has risen from the marsh, within one hundred
+and fifty years after the founder, whose name it perpetuates, had laid
+the first stone. Another has risen from the ashes, within less than a
+decade of years from the time when--a holocaust on the altar of
+patriotism--its flames announced to the world the vengeance of a nation
+on an intemperate aggressor.
+
+Truly, it seems to me, that Mr. Gobineau could not have chosen a better
+illustration of his position, that the mere accident of conquest can not
+annihilate a nation, than this great empire, in whose history conquest
+forms so terrible and so long an episode, that the portion anterior to
+it is almost forgotten to this day.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF RACES IS NOT THE RESULT OF
+POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.
+
+ Antipathy of races--Results of their mixture--The scientific axiom of
+ the absolute equality of men, but an extension of the
+ political--Its fallacy--Universal belief in unequal endowment of
+ races--The moral and intellectual diversity of races not
+ attributable to institutions--Indigenous institutions are the
+ expression of popular sentiments; when foreign and imported, they
+ never prosper--Illustrations: England and France--Roman
+ Empire--European Colonies--Sandwich Islands--St. Domingo--Jesuit
+ missions in Paraguay.
+
+
+The idea of an innate and permanent difference in the moral and mental
+endowments of the various groups of the human species, is one of the
+most ancient, as well as universally adopted, opinions. With few
+exceptions, and these mostly in our own times, it has formed the basis
+of almost all political theories, and has been the fundamental maxim of
+government of every nation, great or small. The prejudices of country
+have no other cause; each nation believes in its own superiority over
+its neighbors, and very often different parts of the same nation regard
+each other with contempt. There seems to exist an instinctive antipathy
+among the different races, and even among the subdivisions of the same
+race, of which none is entirely exempt, but which acts with the greatest
+force in the least civilized or least civilizable. We behold it in the
+characteristic suspiciousness and hostility of the savage; in the
+isolation from foreign influence and intercourse of the Chinese and
+Japanese; in the various distinctions founded upon birth in more
+civilized communities, such as castes, orders of nobility and
+aristocratic privileges.[61] Not even a common religion can extinguish
+the hereditary aversion of the Arab[62] to the Turk, of the Kurd to the
+Nestorian of Syria; or the bitter hostility of the Magyar and Sclave,
+who, without intermingling, have inhabited the same country for
+centuries. But as the different types lose their purity and become
+blended, this hostility of race abates; the maxim of absolute and
+permanent inequality is first discussed, then doubted. A man of mixed
+race or caste will not be apt to admit disparity in his double ancestry.
+The superiority of particular types, and their consequent claims to
+dominion, find fewer advocates. This dominion is stigmatized as a
+tyrannical usurpation of power.[63] The mixture of castes gives rise to
+the political axiom that all men are equal, and, therefore, entitled to
+the same rights. Indeed, since there are no longer any distinct
+hereditary classes, none can justly claim superior merit and privileges.
+But this assertion, which is true only where a complete fusion has taken
+place, is applied to the whole human race--to all present, past, and
+future generations. The political axiom of equality which, like the bag
+of Ęolus, contains so many tempests, is soon followed by the scientific.
+It is said--and the more heterogeneous the ethnical elements of a
+nation are, the more extensively the theory gains ground--that, "all
+branches of the human family are endowed with intellectual capacities of
+the same nature, which, though in different stages of development, are
+all equally susceptible of improvement." This is not, perhaps, the
+precise language, but certainly the meaning. Thus, the Huron, by proper
+culture, might become the equal of the Englishman and Frenchman. Why,
+then, I would ask, did he never, in the course of centuries, invent the
+art of printing or apply the power of steam; why, among the warriors of
+his tribe, has there never arisen a Cęsar or a Charlemagne, among his
+bards and medicine-men, a Homer or a Hippocrates?
+
+These questions are generally met by advancing the influence of climate,
+local circumstances, etc. An island, it is said, can never be the
+theatre of great social and political developments in the same measure
+as a continent; the natives of a southern clime will not display the
+energy of those of the north; seacoasts and large navigable rivers will
+promote a civilization which could never have flourished in an inland
+region;--and a great deal more to the same purpose. But all these
+ingenious and plausible hypotheses are contradicted by facts. The same
+soil and the same climate have been visited, alternately, by barbarism
+and civilization. The degraded fellah is charred by the same sun which
+once burnt the powerful priest of Memphis; the learned professor of
+Berlin lectures under the same inclement sky that witnessed the miseries
+of the savage Finn.
+
+What is most curious is, that while the belief of equality may influence
+institutions and manners, there is not a nation, nor an individual but
+renders homage to the contrary sentiment. Who has not heard of the
+distinctive traits of the Frenchman, the German, the Spaniard, the
+English, the Russ. One is called sprightly and volatile, but brave; the
+other is sober and meditative; a third is noted for his gravity; a
+fourth is known by his coldness and reserve, and his eagerness of gain;
+a fifth, on the contrary, is notorious for reckless expense. I shall not
+express any opinion upon the accuracy of these distinctions, I merely
+point out that they are made daily and adopted by common consent. The
+same has been done in all ages. The Roman of Italy distinguished the
+Roman of Greece by the epithet _Gręculus_, and attributed to him, as
+characteristic peculiarities, want of courage and boastful loquacity. He
+laughed at the colonist of Carthage, whom he pretended to recognize
+among thousands by his litigious spirit and bad faith. The Alexandrians
+passed for wily, insolent, and seditious. Yet the doctrine of equality
+was as universally received among the Romans of that period as it is
+among ourselves. If, then, various nations display qualities so
+different; if some are eager for war and glory; others, lovers of their
+ease and comfort, it follows that their destinies must be very diverse.
+The strongest will act in the great tragedy of history the roles of
+kings and heroes, the weaker will be content with the humbler parts.
+
+I do not believe that the ingenuity of our times has succeeded in
+reconciling the universally adopted belief in the special character of
+each nation with the no less general conviction that they are all equal.
+Yet this contradiction is very flagrant, the more so as its partisans
+are not behindhand in extolling the superiority of the Anglo-Saxons of
+North America over all the other nations of the same continent. It is
+true that they ascribe that superiority to the influence of political
+institutions. But they will hardly contest the characteristic aptitude
+of the countrymen of Penn and Washington, to establish wherever they go
+liberal forms of government, and their still more valuable ability to
+preserve them, when once established. Is not this a very high
+prerogative allotted to that branch of the human family? the more
+precious, since so few of the groups that have ever inhabited the globe
+possessed it.
+
+I know that my opponents will not allow me an easy victory. They will
+object to me the immense potency of manners and institutions; they will
+show me how much the spirit of the government, by its inherent and
+irresistible force, influences the development of a nation; how vastly
+different will be its progress when fostered by liberty or crushed by
+despotism. This argument, however, by no means invalidates my position.
+
+Political institutions can have but two origins: either they emanate
+from the people which is to be governed by them, or they are the
+invention of a foreign nation, by whom they are imposed, or from whom
+they are copied.
+
+In the former case, the institutions are necessarily moulded upon the
+instincts and wants of the people; and if, through carelessness or
+ignorance, they are in aught incompatible with either, such defects will
+soon be removed or remedied. In every independent community the law may
+be said to emanate from the people; for though they have not apparently
+the power of promulgating it, it cannot be applicable to them unless it
+is consonant with their views and sentiments: it must be the reflex of
+the national character.[64] The wise law-giver, to whose superior genius
+his countrymen seem solely indebted, has but given a voice to the wants
+and desires of all. The mere theorist, like Draco, finds his code a dead
+letter, and destined soon to give place to the institutions of the more
+judicious philosopher who would give to his compatriots "not the best
+laws possible, but such only as they were capable of receiving." When
+Charles I., guided by the fatal counsels of the Earl of Strafford,
+attempted to curb the English nation under the yoke of absolutism, king
+and minister were treading the bloody quagmire of theories. But when
+Ferdinand the Catholic ordered those terrible, but, in the then
+condition of the nation, politically necessary persecutions of the
+Spanish Moors, or when Napoleon re-established religion and authority in
+France, and flattered the military spirit of the nation--both these
+potentates had rightly understood the genius of their subjects, and were
+building upon a solid and practical foundation.
+
+False institutions, often beautiful on paper, are those which are not
+conformed to the national virtues _or failings_, and consequently
+unsuitable to the country, though perhaps perfectly practicable and
+highly useful in a neighboring state. Such institutions, were they
+borrowed from the legislation of the angels, will produce nothing but
+discord and anarchy. Others, on the contrary, which the theorist will
+eschew, and the moralist blame in many points, or perhaps throughout,
+may be the best adapted to the community. Lycurgus was no theorist; his
+laws were in strict accordance with the spirit and manners of his
+countrymen.[65] The Dorians of Sparta were few in number, valiant, and
+rapacious; false institutions would have made them but petty
+villains--Lycurgus changed them into heroic brigands.[66]
+
+The influence of laws and political institutions is certainly very
+great; they preserve and invigorate the genius of a nation, define its
+objects, and help to attain them; but though they may develop powers,
+they cannot create them where they do not already exist. They first
+receive their imprint from the nation, and then return and confirm it.
+In other words, it is the nation that fashions the laws, before the
+laws, in turn, can fashion the nation. Another proof of this fact are
+the changes and modifications which they undergo in the course of time.
+
+I have already said above, that in proportion as nations advance in
+civilization, and extend their territory and power, their ethnical
+character, and, with it, their instincts, undergo a gradual alteration.
+New manners and new tendencies prevail, and soon give rise to a series
+of modifications, the more frequent and radical as the influx of blood
+becomes greater and the fusion more complete.
+
+England, where the ethnical changes have been slower and less
+considerable than in any other European country, preserves to this day
+the basis of the social system of the fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries. The municipal organization of the times of the Plantagenets
+and the Tudors flourishes in almost all its ancient vigor. There is the
+same participation of the nobility in the government, and the same
+manner of composing that nobility; the same respect for ancient
+families, united to an appreciation of those whose merits raise them
+above their class. Since the accession of James I., and still more
+since the union, in Queen Anne's reign, there has indeed been an influx
+of Scotch and Irish blood; foreign nations have also, though
+imperceptibly, furnished their contingent to the mixture; alterations
+have consequently become more frequent of late, but without, as yet,
+touching the original spirit of the constitution.
+
+In France, the ethnical elements are much more numerous, and their
+mixtures more varied; and there it has repeatedly happened that the
+principal power of the state passed suddenly from the hands of one race
+to those of another. Changes, rather than modifications, have therefore
+taken place in the social and political system; and the changes were
+abrupt or radical, in proportion as these races were more or less
+dissimilar. So long as the north of France, where the Germanic element
+prevailed, preponderated in the policy of the country, the fabric of
+feudalism, or rather its inform remains, maintained their ground. After
+the expulsion of the English in the fifteenth century, the provinces of
+the centre took the lead. Their efforts, under the guidance of Charles
+VII., had recently restored the national independence, and the
+Gallo-Roman blood naturally predominated in camp and council. From this
+time dates the introduction of the taste for military life and foreign
+conquests, peculiar to the Celtic race, and the tendency to concentrate
+and consolidate the sovereign authority, which characterized the Roman.
+The road being thus prepared, the next step towards the establishment of
+absolute power was made at the end of the sixteenth century, by the
+Aquitanian followers of Henry IV., who had still more of the Roman than
+of the Celtic blood in their veins. The centralization of power,
+resulting from the ascendency of the southern populations, soon gave
+Paris an overweening preponderance, and finally made it, what it now is,
+the sovereign of the state. This great capital, this modern Babel, whose
+population is a motley compound of all the most varied ethnical
+elements, no longer had any motive to love or respect any tradition or
+peculiar tendency, and, coming to a complete rupture with the past,
+hurried France into a series of political and social experiments of
+doctrines the most remote from, and repulsive to, the ancient customs
+and traditional tendencies of the realm.
+
+These examples seem to me sufficient to prove that political
+institutions, when not imposed by foreign influence, take their mould
+from the national character, not only in the first place, but throughout
+all subsequent changes. Let us now examine the second case, when a
+foreign code is, _nolens volens_, forced upon a nation by a superior
+power.
+
+There are few instances of such attempts. Indeed, they were never made
+on a grand scale, by any truly sagacious governments of either ancient
+or modern times. The Romans were too politic to indulge in such
+hazardous experiments. Alexander, before them, had never ventured it,
+and his successors, convinced, either by reason or instinct, of the
+futility of such efforts, had been contented to reign, like the
+conqueror of Darius, over a vast mosaic of nations, each of which
+retained its own habits, manners, laws, and administrative forms, and,
+at least so long as it preserved its ethnical identity, resembled its
+fellow-subjects in nothing but submission to the same fiscal and
+military regulations.
+
+There were, it is true, among the nations subdued by the Romans, some
+whose codes contained practices so utterly repugnant to their masters,
+that the latter could not possibly have tolerated them. Such were the
+human sacrifices of the Druids, which were, indeed, visited with the
+severest penalties. But the Romans, with all their power, never
+succeeded in completely extirpating this barbarous rite. In the
+Narbonnese, the victory was easy, for the Gallic population had been
+almost completely replaced by Roman colonists; but the more intact
+tribes of the interior provinces made an obstinate resistance; and, in
+the peninsula of Brittany, where, in the fourth century, a British
+colony re-imported the ancient instincts with the ancient blood, the
+population, in spite of the Romans, continued, either from patriotism or
+veneration for their ancient traditions, to butcher fellow-beings on
+their altars, as often as they could elude the vigilance of their
+masters. All revolts began with the restoration of this fearful feature
+of the national creed, and even Christianity could not entirely efface
+its traces, until after protracted and strenuous efforts. As late as the
+seventeenth century, the shipwrecked were murdered, and wrecks plundered
+in all the maritime provinces where the Kimric blood had preserved
+itself unmixed. These barbarous customs were in accordance with the
+manners of a race which, not being yet sufficiently admixed, still
+remained true to its irrepressible instincts.
+
+One characteristic of European civilization is its intolerance.
+Conscious of its pre-eminence, we are prone to deny the existence of any
+other, or, at least, to consider it as the standard of all. We look with
+supreme contempt upon all nations that are not within its pale, and when
+they fall under our influence, we attempt to convert them to our views
+and modes of thinking. Institutions which we know to be good and useful,
+but which persuasion fails to propagate among nations to whose instincts
+they are foreign, we force upon them by the power of our arms. Where are
+the results? Since the sixteenth century, when the European spirit of
+discovery and conquest penetrated to the east, it does not seem to have
+operated the slightest change in the manners and mode of existence of
+the populations which it subjected.
+
+I have already adduced the example of British India. All the other
+European possessions present the same spectacle. The aborigines of Java,
+though completely subjugated by the Dutch, have not yet made the first
+step towards embracing the manners of their conquerors. Java, at this
+day, preserves the social regulations of the time of its independence.
+In South America, where Spain ruled with unrestrained power for
+centuries, what effect has it produced? The ancient empires, it is true,
+are no longer; their traces, even, are almost obliterated. But while the
+native has not risen to the level of his conqueror, the latter has been
+degraded by the mixture of blood.[67] In the North, a different method
+has been pursued, but with results equally negative; nay, in the eyes
+of philanthropy, more deplorable; for, while the Spanish Indians have
+at least increased in numbers,[68] and even mixed with their masters, to
+the Red-Man of the North, the contact with the Anglo-Saxon race has been
+death. The feeble remnants of these wretched tribes are fast
+disappearing, and disappearing as uncivilized, as uncivilizable, as
+their ancestors. In Oceanica, the same observation holds good. The
+number of aborigines is daily diminishing. The European may disarm them,
+and prevent them from doing him injury, but change them he cannot.
+Where-ever he is master, they no longer eat one another, but they fill
+themselves with firewater, and this novel species of brutishness is all
+they learn of European civilization.
+
+There are, indeed, two governments framed by nations of a different
+race, after our models: that of the Sandwich Islands, and that of St.
+Domingo. A glance at these two countries will complete the proof of the
+futility of any attempts to give to a nation institutions not suggested
+by its own genius.
+
+In the Sandwich Islands, the representative system shines with full
+lustre. We there find an Upper House, a Lower House, a ministry who
+govern, and a king who reigns; nothing is wanted. Yet all this is mere
+decoration; the wheel-work that moves the whole machine, the
+indispensable motive power, is the corps of missionaries. To them alone
+belongs the honor of finding the ideas, of presenting them, and carrying
+them through, either by their personal influence over their neophytes,
+or, if need be, by threats. It may be doubted, however, whether the
+missionaries, if they had no other instruments but the king and
+chambers, would not, after struggling for a while against the inaptitude
+of their pupils, find themselves compelled to take a more direct, and,
+consequently, more apparent part in the management of affairs. This
+difficulty is obviated by the establishment of a ministry composed of
+Europeans, or half-bloods. Between them and the missionaries, all public
+affairs are prearranged; the rest is only for show. King Kamehameha III.
+is, it seems, a man of ability. For his own account, he has abandoned
+tattooing, and although he has not yet succeeded in dissuading all his
+courtiers from this agreeable practice, he enjoys the satisfaction of
+seeing their countenances adorned with comparatively slight designs. The
+mass of the nation, the country nobility and common people, persist upon
+this as all other points, in the ancient ideas and customs.[69] Still, a
+variety of causes tend to daily increase the European population of the
+Isles. The proximity of California makes them a point of great interest
+to the far-seeing energy of our nations. Runaway sailors, and mutineers,
+are no longer the only white colonists; merchants, speculators,
+adventurers of all sorts, collect there in considerable numbers, build
+houses, and become permanent settlers. The native population is
+gradually becoming absorbed in the mixture with the whites. It is highly
+probable that, ere long, the present representative form of government
+will be superseded by an administration composed of delegates from one
+or all of the great maritime powers.
+
+Of one thing I feel firmly convinced, that these imported institutions
+will take firm root in the country, but the day of their final triumph,
+by a necessary synchronism, will be that of the extinction of the native
+race.
+
+In St. Domingo, national independence is intact. There are no
+missionaries exercising absolute, though concealed, control, no foreign
+ministry governing in the European spirit; everything is left to the
+genius and inspiration of the population. In the Spanish part of the
+island, this population consists of mulattoes. I shall not speak of
+them. They seem to imitate, in some fashion, the simplest and easiest
+features of our civilization. Like all half-breeds, they have a tendency
+to assimilate with that branch of their genealogy which does them most
+honor. They are, therefore, capable of practising, in some degree, our
+usages. The absolute question of the capacity of races cannot be studied
+among them. Let us cross the mountain ridge which separates the republic
+of Dominica from the empire of Hayti.
+
+There we find institutions not only similar to ours, but founded upon
+the most recent maxims of our political wisdom. All that, since sixty
+years, the voice of the most refined liberalism has proclaimed in the
+deliberative assemblies of Europe, all that the most zealous friends of
+the freedom and dignity of man have written, all the declarations of
+rights and principles, have found an echo on the banks of Artibonite. No
+trace of Africa remains in the _written_ laws, or the _official_
+language; the recollections of the land of Ham are _officially_ expunged
+from every mind; once more, the institutions are completely European.
+Let us now examine how they harmonize with the manners.
+
+What a contrast! The manners are as depraved, as beastly, as ferocious
+as in Dahomey[70] or the country of the Fellatahs. The same barbarous
+love of ornament, combined with the same indifference to form; beauty
+consists in color, and provided a garment is of gaudy red, and adorned
+with imitation gold, taste is little concerned with useless attention to
+materials or fitness; and as for cleanliness, this is a superfluity for
+which no one cares. You desire an audience with some high functionary:
+you are ushered into the presence of an athletic negro, stretched on a
+wooden bench, his head wrapped in a dirty, tattered handkerchief, and
+surmounted by a three-cornered hat, profusely decorated with gold. The
+general apparel consists of an embroidered coat (without suitable
+nether-garments), a huge sword, and slippers. You converse with this
+mass of flesh, and are anxious to discover what ideas can occupy a mind
+under so unpromising an exterior. You find an intellect of the lowest
+order combined with the most savage pride, which can be equalled only by
+as profound and incurable a laziness. If the individual before you opens
+his mouth, he will retail all the hackneyed common-places that the
+papers have wearied you with for the last half century. This barbarian
+knows them by heart; he has very different interests, different
+instincts; he has no ideas of his own. He will talk like Baron Holbach,
+reason like Grimm, and at the bottom has no serious care except chewing
+tobacco, drinking spirits, butchering his enemies, and propitiating his
+sorcerers. The rest of the time he sleeps.
+
+The state is divided into two factions, not separated by incompatibility
+of politics, but of color--the negroes and the mulattoes. The latter,
+doubtless, are superior in intelligence, as I have already remarked with
+regard to the Dominicans. The European blood has modified the nature of
+the African, and in a community of whites, with good models constantly
+before their eyes, these men might be converted into useful members of
+society. But, unfortunately, the superiority of numbers belongs at
+present to the negroes, and these, though removed from Africa by several
+generations, are the same as in their native clime. Their supreme
+felicity is idleness; their supreme reason, murder. Among the two
+divisions of the island the most intense hatred has always prevailed.
+The history of independent Hayti is nothing but a long series of
+massacres: massacres of mulattoes by the negroes, when the latter were
+strongest; of the negroes by the mulattoes, when the power was in their
+hands. The institutions, with all their boasted liberality and
+philanthropy, are of no use whatever. They sleep undisturbedly and
+impotently upon the paper on which they were written, and the savage
+instincts of the population reign supreme. Conformably to the law of
+nature which I pointed out before, the negro, who belongs to a race
+exhibiting little aptitude for civilization, entertains the most
+profound horror for all other races. Thus we see the Haytien negroes
+energetically repel the white man from their territory, and forbid him
+even to enter it; they would also drive out the mulattoes, and
+contemplate their ultimate extermination. Hostility to the foreigner is
+the _primum mobile_ of their local policy. Owing to the innate laziness
+of the race, agriculture is abandoned, industry not known even by name,
+commerce drivelling; misery prevents the increase of the population,
+while continual wars, insurrections, and military executions diminish it
+continually. The inevitable and not very remote consequence of such a
+condition of things is to convert into a desert a country whose
+fertility and natural resources enriched generations of planters, which
+in exports and commercial activity surpassed even Cuba.[71]
+
+These examples of St. Domingo and the Sandwich Islands seem to me
+conclusive. I cannot, however, forbear, before definitely leaving the
+subject, from mentioning another analogous fact, the peculiar character
+of which greatly confirms my position. I allude to the attempts of the
+Jesuit missionaries to civilize the natives of Paraguay.[72]
+
+These missionaries, by their exalted intelligence and self-sacrificing
+courage, have excited universal admiration; and the most decided enemies
+of their order have never refused them an unstinted tribute of praise.
+If foreign institutions have ever had the slightest chance of success
+with a nation, these assuredly had it, based as they were upon the
+power of religious feelings, and supported and applied with a tact as
+correct as it was refined. The fathers were of the pretty general
+opinion that barbarism was to nations what childhood is to the
+individual, and that the more savage and untutored we find a people, the
+younger we may conclude them to be. To educate their neophytes to
+adolescence, they therefore treated them like children. Their government
+was as firm in its views and commands as it was mild and affectionate in
+its forms. The aborigines of the American continent have generally a
+tendency to republicanism; a monarchy or aristocracy is rarely found
+among them, and then in a very restricted form. The Guaranis of Paraguay
+did not differ, in this respect, from their congeners. By a happy
+circumstance, however, these tribes displayed rather more intelligence
+and less ferocity than their neighbors, and seemed capable, to some
+extent, of conceiving new wants and adopting new ideas. About one
+hundred and twenty thousand souls were collected in the villages of the
+missions, under the guidance of the fathers. All that experience, daily
+study, and active charity could teach the Jesuits, was employed for the
+benefit of their pupils; incessant efforts were made to hasten success,
+without hazarding it by rashness. In spite of all these cares, however,
+it was soon felt that the most absolute authority over the neophytes
+could hardly constrain them to persist in the right path, and occasions
+were not wanting that revealed the little real solidity of the
+edifice.[73]
+
+When the measures of Count Aranda deprived Paraguay of its pious and
+skilful civilizers, the sad truth appeared in complete light. The
+Guaranis, deprived of their spiritual guides, refused all confidence in
+the lay directors sent them by the Spanish crown. They showed no
+attachment to their new institutions. Their taste for savage life
+revived, and at present there are but thirty-seven little villages
+still vegetating on the banks of the Parana, the Paraguay, and Uraguay,
+and these contain a considerable nucleus of half-breed population. The
+rest have returned to the forest, and live there in as savage a state as
+the western tribes of the same stock, the Guaranis and Cirionos. I will
+not say that the deserters have readopted their ancient manners
+completely, but there is little trace left of the pious missionaries'
+labors, and this because it is given to no human race to be oblivious of
+its instincts, nor to abandon the path in which the Creator has placed
+them.
+
+It may be supposed, had the Jesuits continued to direct their missions
+in Paraguay, that their efforts, assisted by time, would have been
+crowned with better success. I am willing to concede this, but on one
+condition only, always the same: that a group of Europeans would
+gradually have settled in the country under the protection of the Jesuit
+directors. These would have modified, and finally completely transformed
+the native blood, and a state would have been formed, bearing probably
+an aboriginal name, whose inhabitants might have prided themselves upon
+descending from autochthonic ancestors, though as completely belonging
+to Europe as the institutions by which they might be governed.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[61] The author of _Democracy in America_ (vol. ii. book 3, ch. 1),
+speculating upon the total want of sympathy among the various classes of
+an aristocratic community, says: "Each caste has its own opinions,
+feelings, rights, manners, and mode of living. The members of each caste
+do not resemble the rest of their fellow-citizens; they do not think and
+feel in the same manner, and believe themselves a distinct race.... When
+the chroniclers of the Middle Ages, who all belonged to the aristocracy
+by birth and education, relate the tragical end of a noble, their grief
+flows apace; while they tell, with the utmost indifference, of massacres
+and tortures inflicted on the common people. In this they were actuated
+by an _instinct_ rather than by a passion, for they felt no habitual
+hatred or systematic disdain for the people: war between the several
+classes of the community was not yet declared." The writer gives
+extracts from Mme. de Sevigné's letters, displaying, to use his own
+words, "a cruel jocularity which, in our day, the harshest man writing
+to the most insensible person of his acquaintance would not venture to
+indulge in; and yet Madame de Sevigné was not selfish or cruel; she was
+passionately attached to her children, and ever ready to sympathize with
+her friends, and she treated her servants and vassals with kindness and
+indulgence." "Whence does this arise?" asks M. De Tocqueville; "have we
+really more sensibility than our forefathers?" When it is recollected,
+as has been pointed out in a previous note, that the nobility of France
+were of Germanic, and the peasantry of Celtic origin, we will find in
+this an additional proof of the correctness of our author's theory.
+Thanks to the revolution, the barriers that separated the various ranks
+have been torn down, and continual intermixture has blended the blood of
+the Frankish noble and of the Gallic boor. Wherever this fusion has not
+yet taken place, or but imperfectly, M. De Tocqueville's remarks still
+apply.--H.
+
+[62] The spirit of clanship is so strong in the Arab tribes, and their
+instinct of ethnical isolation so powerful, that it often displays
+itself in a rather odd manner. A traveller (Mr. Fulgence Fresnel, if I
+am not mistaken) relates that at Djidda, where morality is at a rather
+low ebb, the same Bedouine who cannot resist the slightest pecuniary
+temptation, would think herself forever dishonored, if she were joined
+in lawful wedlock to the Turk or European, to whose embrace she
+willingly yields while she despises him.
+
+[63]
+ The man
+ Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.
+ Power, like a desolating pestilence,
+ Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,
+ Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
+ Makes slaves of man, and of the human frame
+ A mechanized automaton.
+
+SHELLEY, _Queen Mab_.
+
+[64] Montesquieu expresses a similar idea, in his usual epigrammatic
+style. "The customs of an enslaved people," says he, "are a part of
+their servitude; those of a free people, a part of their
+liberty."--_Esprit des Lois_, b. xix. c. 27.--H.
+
+[65] "A great portion of the peculiarities of the Spartan constitution
+and their institutions was assuredly of ancient Doric origin, and must
+have been rather given up by the other Dorians, than newly invented and
+instituted by the Spartans."--_Niebuhr's Ancient History_, vol. i. p.
+306.--H.
+
+[66] See note on page 121.
+
+[67] The amalgamation of races in South America must indeed be
+inconceivable. "I find," says Alex. von Humboldt, in 1826, "by several
+statements, that if we estimate the population of the whole of the
+Spanish colonies at fourteen or fifteen millions of souls, there are, in
+that number, at most, _three_ millions of pure whites, including about
+200,000 Europeans." (_Pers. Nar._, vol. i. p. 400.) Of the progress
+which this mongrel population have made in civilization, I cannot give a
+better idea than by an extract from Dr. Tschudi's work, describing the
+mode of ploughing in some parts of Chili. "If a field is to be tilled,
+it is done by two natives, who are furnished with long poles, pointed at
+one end. The one thrusts his pole, pretty deeply, and in an oblique
+direction, into the earth, so that it forms an angle with the surface of
+the ground. The other Indian sticks his pole in, at a little distance,
+and also obliquely, and he forces it beneath that of his fellow-laborer,
+so that the first pole lies, as it were, upon the second. The first
+Indian then presses on his pole, and makes it work on the other, as a
+lever on its fulcrum, and the earth is thrown up by the point of the
+pole. Thus they gradually advance, until the whole field is furrowed by
+this laborious process." (_Dr. Tschudi, Travels in Peru, during the
+years 1838-1842._ London, 1847, p. 14.) I really do not think that a
+counterpart to this could be found, except, perhaps, in the manner of
+working the mines all over South America. Both Darwin and Tschudi speak
+of it with surprise. Every pound of ore is brought out of the shafts on
+men's shoulders. The mines are drained of the water accumulating in
+them, in the same manner, by means of water-tight bags. Dr. Tschudi
+describes the process employed for the amalgamation of the quicksilver
+with the silver ore. It is done by causing them to be trodden together
+by horses', or human feet. Not only is this method attended with
+incredible waste of material, and therefore very expensive, but it soon
+kills the horses employed in it, while the men contract the most
+fearful, and, generally, incurable diseases! (_Op. cit._, p.
+331-334.)--H.
+
+[68] A. von Humboldt, _Examen critique de l'Histoire et de la Géographie
+du N. C._, vol. ii. p. 129-130.
+
+The same opinion is expressed by Mr. Humboldt in his _Personal
+Narrative_. London, 1852, vol. i. p. 296.--H.
+
+[69] Speaking of the habit of tattooing among the South Sea Islanders,
+Mr. Darwin says that even girls who had been brought up in missionaries'
+houses, could not be dissuaded from this practice, though in everything
+else, they seemed to have forgotten the savage instincts of their race.
+"The wives of the missionaries tried to prevent them, but a famous
+operator having arrived from the South, they said: 'We really must have
+just a few lines on our lips, else, when we grow old, we shall be so
+ugly.'"--_Journal of a Naturalist_, vol. ii. p. 208.--H.
+
+[70] For the latest details, see Mr. Gustave d'Alaux's articles in the
+_Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1853.
+
+[71] The subjoined comparison of the exports of Haytien staple products
+may not be uninteresting to many of our readers, while it serves to
+confirm the author's assertion. I extract it from a statistical table in
+Mackenzie's report to the British government, upon the condition of the
+then republic (now empire). Mr. Mackenzie resided there as special
+_envoyé_ several years, for the purpose of collecting authentic
+information for his government, and his statements may therefore be
+relied upon. (_Notes on Hayti_, vol. ii. note FF. London, 1830.)
+
+ SUGAR. COTTON. COFFEE.
+ lbs. lbs. lbs.
+
+ 1789 141,089,831 7,004,274 76,835,219
+ 1826 32,864 620,972 32,189,784
+
+It will be perceived, from these figures, that the decrease is greatest
+in that staple which requires the most laborious cultivation. Thus,
+sugar requires almost unremitting toil; coffee, comparatively little.
+All branches of industry have fearfully decreased; some of them have
+ceased entirely; and the small and continually dwindling commerce of
+that wretched country consists now mainly of articles of spontaneous
+growth. The statistics of imports are in perfect keeping with those of
+exports. (_Op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 183.) As might be expected from such a
+state of things, the annual expenditure in 1827 was estimated at a
+little more than _double_ the amount of the annual revenue! (_Ibid._,
+"Finance.")
+
+That matters have not improved under the administration of that Most
+Gracious, Most Christian monarch, the Emperor Faustin I., will be seen
+by reference to last year's _Annuaire de la Revue del deux Mondes_,
+"Haiti," p. 876, _et seq._, where some curious details about his majesty
+and his majesty's sable subjects will be found.
+
+[72] Upon this subject, consult Prichard, d'Orbigny, and A. de Humboldt.
+
+[73] I recollect having read, several years ago, in a Jesuit missionary
+journal (I forget its name and date, but am confident that the authority
+is a reliable one), a rather ludicrous account of an instance of this
+kind. One of the fathers, who had a little isolated village under his
+charge, had occasion to leave his flock for a time, and his place,
+unfortunately, could not be replaced by another. He therefore called the
+most promising of his neophytes, and committed to their care the
+domestic animals and agricultural implements with which the society had
+provided the newly-converted savages, then left them with many
+exhortations and instructions. His absence being prolonged beyond the
+period anticipated, the Indians thought him dead, and instituted a grand
+funeral feast in his honor, at which they slaughtered all the oxen, and
+roasted them by fires made of the ploughs, hoe-handles, etc.; and he
+arrived just in time to witness the closing scenes of this mourning
+ceremony.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THIS DIVERSITY IS NOT THE RESULT OF GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION.
+
+ America--Ancient empires--Phenicians and Romans--Jews--Greece and
+ Rome--Commercial cities of Europe--Isthmus of Darien.
+
+
+It is impossible to leave entirely out of the question the influence
+which climate, the nature of the soil, and topographical circumstances,
+exert upon the development of nations. This influence, so much overrated
+by many of the learned, I shall investigate more fully, although I have
+rapidly glanced at it already, in another place.
+
+It is a very common opinion that a nation living under a temperate sky,
+not too warm to enervate the man, nor too cold to render the soil
+unproductive; on the shores of large rivers, affording extensive and
+commodious means of communication; in plains and valleys adapted to
+varied cultivation; at the foot of mountains pregnant with the useful
+and precious ores--that a nation thus favored by nature, would soon be
+prompted to cast off barbarism, and progress rapidly in
+civilization.[74] On the other hand, and by the same reasoning, it is
+easily admitted that tribes, charred by an ardent sun, or benumbed by
+unceasing cold, and having no territory save sterile rocks, would be
+much more liable to remain in a state of barbarism. According to this
+hypothesis, the intellectual powers of man could be developed only by
+the aid of external nature, and all his worth and greatness are not
+implanted in him, but in the objects without and around. Specious as is
+this opinion at first sight, it has against it all the numerous facts
+which observation furnishes.
+
+Nowhere, certainly, is there a greater variety of soil and climate than
+in the extensive Western Continent. Nowhere are there more fertile
+regions, milder skies, larger and more numerous rivers. The coasts are
+indented with gulfs and bays; deep and magnificent harbors abound; the
+most valuable riches of the mineral kingdom crop out of the ground;
+nature has lavished on the soil her choicest and most variegated
+vegetable productions, and the woods and prairies swarm with alimentary
+species of animals, presenting still more substantial resources. And
+yet, the greater part of these happy countries is inhabited, and has
+been for a series of centuries, by tribes who ignore the most mediocre
+exploration of all these treasures.
+
+Several of them seem to have been in the way of doing better. A meagre
+culture, a rude knowledge of the art of working metals, may be observed
+in more than one place. Several useful arts, practised with some
+ingenuity, still surprise the traveller. But all this is really on a
+very humble scale, and never formed what might be termed a civilization.
+There certainly has existed at some very remote period, a nation which
+inhabited the vast region extending from Lake Erie to the Mexican Gulf.
+There can be no doubt that the country lying between the Alleghany and
+the Rocky Mountains, and extending from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico,
+was, at some very remote epoch, inhabited by a nation that has left
+remarkable traces of its existence behind.[75] The remains of
+buildings, inscriptions on rocks, the tumuli,[76] and mummies which they
+inclose, indicate a high degree of intellectual culture. But there is no
+evidence that between this mysterious people and the tribes now
+wandering over its tombs, there is any very near affinity. However this
+may be, if by inheritance or slavish imitation the now existing
+aborigines derive their first knowledge of the arts which they now
+rudely practise, from the former masters of the soil, we cannot but be
+struck by their incapacity of perfecting what they had been taught; and
+I see in this a new motive for adhering to my opinion, that a nation
+placed amid the most favorable geographical circumstances, is not,
+therefore, destined to arrive at civilization.
+
+On the contrary, there is between the propitiousness of soil and climate
+and the establishment of civilization, a complete independence. India
+was a country which required fertilization; so was Egypt.[77] Here we
+have two very celebrated centres of human culture and development.
+China, though very productive in some parts, presented in others
+difficulties of a very serious character. The first events recorded in
+its history are struggles with rivers that had burst their bonds; its
+heroes are victors over the ruthless flood; the ancient emperors
+distinguished themselves by excavating canals and draining marshes. The
+country of the Tigris and Euphrates, the theatre of Assyrian splendor
+and hallowed by our most sacred traditions, those regions where,
+Syncellus says, wheat grew spontaneously, possess a soil so little
+productive, when unassisted by art, that only a vast and laborious
+system of irrigation can render it capable of giving the means of
+subsistence to its inhabitants. Now that the canals are filled up or
+obstructed, sterility has reassumed its former dominion. I am,
+therefore, inclined to think that nature had not so greatly favored
+these countries as is usually supposed. Yet, I shall not discuss this
+point.
+
+I am willing to admit that China, Egypt, India, and Mesopotamia were
+regions perfectly adapted in every respect to the establishment of great
+empires, and the consequent development of brilliant civilizations. But
+it cannot be disputed that these nations, to profit by these superior
+advantages, must have previously brought their social system to a high
+degree of perfection. Before the great watercourses became the highways
+of commerce, industry, or at least agriculture, must have flourished to
+some extent. The great advantages accorded to these countries
+presuppose, therefore, in the nations that have profited by them, a
+peculiar intellectual vocation, and even a certain anterior degree of
+civilization. But from these specially favored regions let us glance
+elsewhere.
+
+When the Phenicians migrated from the southeast, they fixed their abode
+on an arid, rocky coast, inclosed by steep and ragged mountains. Such a
+geographical situation would appear to preclude a people from any
+expansion, and force them to remain forever dependent on the produce of
+their fisheries for sustenance. The utmost that could be expected of
+them was to see them petty pirates. They were pirates, indeed, but on a
+magnificent scale; and, what is more, they were bold and successful
+merchants and speculators. They planted colonies everywhere, while the
+barren rocks of the mother country were covered with the palaces and
+temples of a wealthy and luxurious community. Some will say, that "the
+very unpropitiousness of external circumstances forced the founders of
+Tyre and Sidon to become what they were. Necessity is the mother of
+invention; their misery spurred them on to exertion; had they inhabited
+the plains of Damascus, they would have been content with the peaceful
+products of agriculture, and would probably never have become an
+illustrious nation."[78]
+
+And why does not misery spur on other nations placed under similar
+circumstances? The Kabyles of Morocco are an ancient race; they have had
+sufficient time for reflection, and, moreover, every possible inducement
+for mere imitation; yet they have never imagined any other method for
+alleviating their wretched lot except petty piracy. The unparalleled
+facilities for commerce afforded by the Indian archipelago and the
+island clusters of the Pacific, have never been improved by the natives;
+all the peaceful and profitable relations were left in the hands of
+foreign races--the Chinese, Malays, and Arabs; where commerce has fallen
+into the hands of a semi-indigenous or half-breed population, it has
+instantly commenced to languish. What conclusions can we deduce from
+these observations than that pressing wants are not sufficient for
+inciting a nation to profit by the natural facilities of its coasts and
+islands, and that some special aptitude is needed for establishing a
+commercial state even in localities best adapted for that purpose.
+
+But I shall not content myself with proving that the social and
+political aptitudes of races are not dependent on geographical
+situations, whether these be favorable or unfavorable; I shall,
+moreover, endeavor to show that these aptitudes have no sort of relation
+with any exterior circumstances. The Armenians, in their almost
+inaccessible mountains, where so many other nations have vegetated in a
+state of barbarism from generation to generation, and without any access
+to the sea, attained, already at a remote period, a high state of
+civilization. The Jews found themselves in an analogous position; they
+were surrounded by tribes who spoke kindred dialects, and who, for the
+most part, were nearly related to them in blood. Yet, they excelled all
+these groups. They were warriors, agriculturists, and merchants. Under a
+government in which theocracy, monarchy, patriarchal authority, and
+popular will, were singularly complicated and balanced, they traversed
+centuries of prosperity and glory. The difficulties which the narrow
+limits of their patrimonial domain opposed to their expansion, were
+overcome by an intelligent system of emigration. What was this famous
+Canaan? Modern travellers bear witness to the laborious and
+well-directed efforts by which the Jewish agriculturists maintained the
+factitious fertility of their soil. Since the chosen race no longer
+inhabits these mountains and plains, the wells where Jacob's flocks
+drank are dried up; Naboth's vineyard is invaded by the desert, Achab's
+palace-gardens filled with thistles. In this miserable corner of the
+world, what were the Jews? A people dextrous in all they undertook, a
+free, powerful, intelligent people, who, before losing bravely, and
+against a much superior foe, the title of independent nation, had
+furnished to the world almost as many doctors as merchants.[79]
+
+Let us look at Greece. Arcadia was the paradise of the shepherd, and
+Boeotia, the favored land of Ceres and Triptolemus: yet, Arcadia and
+Boeotia play but a very inferior part in history. The wealthy Corinth,
+the favorite of Plutus and Venus, also appears in the second rank. To
+whom pertains the glory of Grecian history? To Attica, whose whitish,
+sandy soil afforded a scanty sustenance to puny olive-trees; to Athens,
+whose principal commerce consisted in books and statues. Then to Sparta,
+shut up in a narrow valley between masses of rocks, where victory went
+in search of it.
+
+Who would dare to assert that Rome owed her universal empire to her
+geographical position? In the poor district of Latium, on the banks of a
+tiny stream emptying its waters on an almost unknown coast, where
+neither Greek nor Phenician vessel ever landed, except by accident, the
+future mistress of the world was born. So soon as the nations of the
+earth obeyed the Roman standard, politicians found the metropolis
+ill-placed, and the eternal city was neglected: even abandoned. The
+first emperors, being chiefly occupied with the East, resided in Greece
+almost continually. Tiberius chose Caprea, in the centre of his empire.
+His successors went to Antioch. Several lived at Trebia. Finally, a
+decree deprived Rome of the very name of capital, and gave it to Milan.
+If the Romans have conquered the world, it is certainly in spite of the
+locality whence issued forth their first armies, and not on account of
+its advantages.
+
+In modern history, the proofs of the correctness of my position are so
+abundant, that I hardly know how to select. I see prosperity abandoning
+the coasts of the Mediterranean, evidence that it was not dependent on
+them. The great commercial cities of the Middle Ages rise where no
+theorist of a preceding age could have predicted them. Novogorod
+flourishes in an almost arctic region, Bremen on a coast nearly as
+cold. The Hanse-towns of Germany rise in a country where civilization
+has scarcely dawned; Venice appears at the head of a long, narrow gulf.
+Political preponderance belongs to places before unknown. Lyons,
+Toulouse, Narbonne, Marseilles, Bordeaux, lose the importance assigned
+them by the Romans, and Paris becomes the metropolis--Paris, then a
+third-rate town, too far from the sea for commerce, too near it for the
+Norman barges. In Italy, cities formerly obscure, surpass the capital of
+the popes. Ravenna rises in the midst of marshes; Amalfi, for a long
+time, enjoys extensive dominion. It must be observed, that in all these
+changes accident has no part: they all are the result of the presence of
+a victorious and preponderating race. It is not the place which
+determines the importance of a nation, it is the nation which gives to
+the place its political and economical importance.
+
+I do not, however, deny the importance of certain situations for
+commercial depots, or for capitals. The observations made with regard to
+Alexandria and Constantinople, are incontestable.[80] There are, upon
+our globe, various points which may be called the keys of the world.
+Thus, it is obvious that a city, built on the proposed canal which is
+to pierce the Isthmus of Darien, would act an important part in the
+affairs of the world.
+
+But, such a part a nation may act well or badly, or even not at all,
+according to its merits. Aggrandize Chagres, and let the two oceans
+unite under her walls, the destiny of the city would depend entirely on
+the race by which it was peopled. If this race be worthy of their good
+fortune, they will soon discover whether Chagres be the point whence the
+greatest benefits can be derived from the union of the two oceans; and,
+if it is not, they will leave it, and then, untrammelled, develop
+elsewhere their brilliant destinies.[81]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[74] Consult, among others, Carus: _Uber ungleiche Befähigung der
+vershiedenen Menschen-stämme für höhere geistige Entwickelung._ Leipzig,
+1849, p. 96 _et passim_.
+
+[75] Prichard, _Natural History of Man_, vol. ii.
+
+See particularly the recent researches of E. G. Squier, published in
+1847, under the title: _Observations on the Aboriginal Monuments of the
+Mississippi Valley_, and also in various late reviews and other
+periodicals.
+
+[76] The very singular construction of these tumuli, and the numerous
+utensils found in them, occupy at this moment the penetration and talent
+of American antiquaries. I shall have occasion, in a subsequent volume,
+to express an opinion as to their value in the inquiries about a former
+civilization; at present, I shall only say that their almost incredible
+antiquity cannot be called in question. Mr. Squier is right in
+considering this proved by the fact merely, that the skeletons exhumed
+from these tumuli crumble into dust as soon as exposed to the
+atmosphere, although the condition of the soil in which they lie, is the
+most favorable possible; while the human remains under the British
+cromlichs, and which have been interred for at least eighteen centuries,
+are perfectly solid. It is easily conceived, therefore, that between the
+first possessors of the American soil and the Lenni-Lenape and other
+tribes, there is no connection. Before concluding this note, I cannot
+refrain from praising the industry and skill manifested by American
+scholars in the study of the antiquities of their immense continent. To
+obviate the difficulties arising from the excessive fragility of the
+exhumed skulls, many futile attempts were made, but the object was
+finally accomplished by pouring into them a bituminous preparation which
+instantly solidifies and thus preserves the osseous parts. This process,
+which requires many precautions, and as much skill as promptitude, is
+said to be generally successful.
+
+[77] Ancient India required, on the part of its first white colonists,
+immense labor of cultivation and improvement. (See Lassen, _Indische
+Alterthumskunde_, vol. i.) As to Egypt, see what Chevalier Bunsen,
+_Ęgypten's Stelle in der Weltgeschichte_, says of the fertilization of
+the Fayoum, that gigantic work of the earliest sovereigns.
+
+[78] "Why have accidental circumstances always prevented some from
+rising, while they have only stimulated others to higher
+attainments?"--_Dr. Kneeland's Introd. to Hamilton Smith's Nat. Hist. of
+Man_, p. 95.--H.
+
+[79] Salvador, _Histoire des Juifs_.
+
+[80] M. Saint-Marc Girardin, _Revue des Deux Mondes_.
+
+[81] See, upon this often-debated subject, the opinion--somewhat acerbly
+expressed--of a learned historian and philologist:--
+
+"A great number of writers have suffered themselves to be persuaded that
+the country made the nation; that the Bavarians and Saxons were
+predestined, by the nature of their soil, to become what they are
+to-day; that Protestantism belonged not to the regions of the south; and
+that Catholicism could not penetrate to those of the north; and many
+similar things. Men who interpret history according to their own slender
+knowledge, their narrow hearts, and near-sighted minds, would, by the
+same reasoning, make us believe that the Jews had possessed such and
+such qualities--more or less clearly understood--because they inhabited
+Palestine, and not India or Greece. But, if these philosophers, so
+dextrous in proving whatever flatters their notions, were to reflect
+that the Holy Land contained, in its limited compass, peoples of the
+most dissimilar religions and modes of thinking, that between them,
+again, and their present successors, there is the utmost difference
+conceivable, although the country is still the same; they would
+understand how little influence, upon the character and civilization of
+a nation has the country they inhabit."--EWALD, _Geschichte des Volkes
+Israel_, vol. i. p. 259.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY UPON MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF
+RACES.
+
+ The term Christian civilization examined--Reasons for rejecting
+ it--Intellectual diversity no hindrance to the universal diffusion
+ of Christianity--Civilizing influence of Christian religion by
+ elevating and purifying the morals, etc.; but does not remove
+ intellectual disparities--Various instances--Cherokees--Difference
+ between imitation and comprehension of civilized life.
+
+
+By the foregoing observations, two facts seem to me clearly established:
+first, that there are branches of the human family incapable of
+spontaneous civilization, so long as they remain unmixed; and, secondly,
+that this innate incapacity cannot be overcome by external agencies,
+however powerful in their nature. It now remains to speak of the
+civilizing influence of Christianity, a subject which, on account of its
+extensive bearing, I have reserved for the last, in my consideration of
+the instruments of civilization.
+
+The first question that suggests itself to the thinking mind, is a
+startling one. If some races are so vastly inferior in all respects, can
+they comprehend the truths of the gospel, or are they forever to be
+debarred from the blessing of salvation?
+
+In answer, I unhesitatingly declare my firm conviction, that the pale of
+salvation is open to them all, and that all are endowed with equal
+capacity to enter it. Writers are not wanting who have asserted a
+contrary opinion. They dare to contradict the sacred promise of the
+Gospel, and deny the peculiar characteristic of our faith, which
+consists in its accessibility to all men. According to them, religions
+are confined within geographical limits which they cannot transgress.
+But the Christian religion knows no degrees of latitude or longitude.
+There is scarcely a nation, or a tribe, among whom it has not made
+converts. Statistics--imperfect, no doubt, but, as far as they go,
+reliable--show them in great numbers in the remotest parts of the globe:
+nomad Mongols, in the steppes of Asia, savage hunters in the table-lands
+of the Andes; dark-hued natives of an African clime; persecuted in
+China;[82] tortured in Madagascar; perishing under the lash in Japan.
+
+But this universal capacity of receiving the light of the gospel must
+not be confounded, as is so often done, with a faculty of entirely
+different character, that of social improvement. This latter consists in
+being able to conceive new wants, which, being supplied, give rise to
+others, and gradually produce that perfection of the social and
+political system which we call civilization. While the former belongs
+equally to all races, whatever may be their disparity in other respects,
+the latter is of a purely intellectual character, and the prerogative of
+certain privileged groups, to the partial or even total exclusion of
+others.
+
+With regard to Christianity, intellectual deficiencies cannot be a
+hindrance to a race. Our religion addresses itself to the lowly and
+simple, even in preference to the great and wise of this earth.
+Intellect and learning are not necessary to salvation. The most
+brilliant lights of our church were not always found among the body of
+the learned. The glorious martyrs, whom we venerate even above the
+skilful and erudite defender of the dogma, or the eloquent panegyrist of
+the faith, were men who sprang from the masses of the people; men,
+distinguished neither for worldly learning, nor brilliant talents, but
+for the simple virtues of their lives, their unwavering faith, their
+self-devotion. It is exactly in this that consists one great superiority
+of our religion over the most elaborate and ingenious systems devised by
+philosophers, that it is intelligible to the humblest capacity as well
+as to the highest. The poor Esquimaux of Labrador may be as good and as
+pure a Christian as the most learned prelate in Europe.
+
+But we now come to an error which, in its various phases, has led to
+serious consequences. The utilitarian tendency of our age renders us
+prone to seek, even in things sacred, a character of material
+usefulness. We ascribe to the influence of Christianity a certain order
+of things, which we call _Christian civilization_.
+
+To what political or social condition this term can be fitly applied, I
+confess myself unable to conceive. There certainly is a Pagan, a
+Brahmin, and Buddhistic, a Judaic civilization. There have been, and
+still are, societies so intimately connected with a more or less
+exclusive theological formula, that the civilizations peculiar to them,
+can only be designated by the name of their creed. In such societies,
+religion is the sole source of all political forms, all civil and social
+legislation; the groundwork of the whole civilization. This union of
+religious and temporal institutions, we find in the history of every
+nation of antiquity. Each country had its own peculiar divinity, which
+exercised a more or less direct influence in the government,[83] and
+from which laws and civilization were said to be immediately derived.
+It was only when paganism began to wane, that the politicians of Rome
+imagined a separation of temporal and religious power, by attempting a
+fusion of the different forms of worship, and proclaiming the dogma of
+legal toleration. When paganism was in its youth and vigor, each city
+had its Jupiter, Mercury, or Venus, and the local deity recognized
+neither in this world nor the next any but compatriots.
+
+But, with Christianity, it is otherwise. It chooses no particular
+people, prescribes no form of government, no social system. It
+interferes not in temporal matters, has naught to do with the material
+world, "its kingdom is of another." Provided it succeeds in changing the
+interior man, external circumstances are of no import. If the convert
+fervently embraces the faith, and in all his actions tries to observe
+its prescriptions, it inquires not about the built of his dwelling, the
+cut of his garments, or the materials of which they are composed, his
+daily occupations, the regulations of his government, the degree of
+despotism, or of freedom, which pervades his political institutions. It
+leaves the Chinese in his robes, the Esquimaux in his seal-skins; the
+former to his rice, the latter to his fish-oil; and who would dare to
+assert that the prayers of both may not breathe as pure a faith as those
+of the _civilized_ European? No mode of existence can attract its
+preference, none, however humble, its disdain. It attacks no form of
+government, no social institution; prescribes none, because it has
+adopted none. It teaches not the art of promoting worldly comforts, it
+teaches to despise them. What, then, can we call a Christian
+civilization? Had Christ, or his disciples, prescribed, or even
+recommended any particular political or social forms,[84] the term would
+then be applicable. But his law may be observed under all--of whatever
+nature--and is therefore superior to them all. It is justly and truly
+called the _Catholic_, or Universal.
+
+And has Christianity, then, no civilizing influence? I shall be asked.
+Undoubtedly; and a very great one. Its precepts elevate and purify the
+soul, and, by their purely spiritual nature, disengage the mind from
+worldly things, and expand its powers. In a merely human point of view,
+the material benefits it confers on its followers are inestimable. It
+softens the manners, and facilitates the intercourse between man and his
+fellow-man; it mitigates violence, and weans him from corrosive vices.
+It is, therefore, a powerful promoter of his worldly interests. But it
+only expands the mind in proportion to the susceptibility of the mind
+for being expanded. It does not give intellect, or confer talents,
+though it may exalt both, and render them more useful. It does not
+create new capacities, though it fosters and develops those it finds.
+Where the capacities of an individual, or a race, are such as to admit
+an improvement in the mode of existence, it tends to produce it; where
+such capacities are not already, it does not give them. As it belongs to
+no particular civilization, it does not compel a nation to change its
+own. In fine, as it does not level all individuals to the same
+intellectual standard, so it does not raise all races to the same rank
+in the political assemblage of the nations of the earth. It is wrong,
+therefore, to consider the equal aptitude of all races for the true
+religion, as a proof of their intellectual equality. Though having
+embraced it, they will still display the same characteristic
+differences, and divergent or even opposite tendencies. A few examples
+will suffice to set my idea in a clearer light.
+
+The major portion of the Indian tribes of South America have, for
+centuries, been received within the pale of the church, yet the European
+civilization, with which they are in constant contact, has never become
+their own.[85] The Cherokees, in the northern part of the same
+continent, have nearly all been converted by the Methodist
+missionaries. At this I am not surprised, but I should be greatly so, if
+these tribes, without mixing with the whites, were ever to form one of
+the States, and exercise any influence in Congress. The Moravians and
+Danish Lutheran missionaries in Labrador and Greenland, have opened the
+eyes of the Esquimaux to the light of religion; but their neophytes have
+remained in the same social condition in which they vegetated before. A
+still more forcible illustration is afforded by the Laplanders of
+Sweden, who have not emerged from the state of barbarism of their
+ancestors, though the doctrine of salvation was preached to them, and
+believed by them, centuries ago.
+
+I sincerely believe that all these peoples may produce, and, perhaps,
+already have produced, persons remarkable for piety and pure morals; but
+I do not expect ever to see among them learned theologians, great
+statesmen, able military leaders, profound mathematicians, or
+distinguished artists;--any of those superior minds, whose number and
+perpetual succession are the cause of power in a preponderating race;
+much less those rare geniuses whose meteor-like appearance is productive
+of permanent good only when their countrymen are so constituted as to be
+able to understand them, and to advance under their direction. We
+cannot, therefore, call Christianity a promoter of civilization in the
+narrow and purely material sense of some writers.
+
+Many of my readers, while admitting my observations in the main to be
+correct, will object that the modifying influence of religion upon the
+manners must produce a corresponding modification of the institutions,
+and finally in the whole social system. The propagators of the gospel,
+they will say, are almost always--though not necessarily--from a nation
+superior in civilization to the one they visit. In their personal
+intercourse, therefore, with their neophytes, the latter cannot but
+acquire new notions of material well-being. Even the political system
+may be greatly influenced by the relations between instructor and pupil.
+The missionary, while he provides for the spiritual welfare of his
+flock, will not either neglect their material wants. By his teaching and
+example, the savage will learn how to provide against famine, by tilling
+the soil. This improvement in his condition once effected, he will soon
+be led to build himself a better dwelling, and to practise some of the
+simpler useful arts. Gradually, and by careful training, he may acquire
+sufficient taste for things purely intellectual, to learn the alphabet,
+or even, as in the case of the Cherokees, to invent one himself. In
+course of time, if the missionaries' labors are crowned with success,
+they may, perhaps, so firmly implant their manners and mode of living
+among this formerly savage tribe, that the traveller will find among
+them well-cultivated fields, numerous flocks, and, like these same
+Cherokees, and the Creeks on the southern banks of the Arkansas, black
+slaves to work on their plantations.
+
+Let us see how far facts correspond with this plausible argument. I
+shall select the two nations which are cited as being the furthest
+advanced in European civilization, and their example will, it seems to
+me, demonstrate beyond a doubt, how impossible it is for any race to
+pursue a career in which their own nature has not placed them.
+
+The Cherokees and Creeks are said to be the remnants or descendants of
+the Alleghanian Race, the supposed builders of those great monuments of
+which we still find traces in the Mississippi Valley. If this be the
+case, these two nations may lay claim to a natural superiority over the
+other tribes of North America.
+
+Deprived of their hereditary dominions by the American government, they
+were forced--under a treaty of transplantation--to emigrate to regions
+selected for them by the latter. There they were placed under the
+superintendence of the Minister of War, and of Protestant missionaries,
+who finally succeeded in persuading them to embrace the mode of life
+they now lead. Mr. Prichard,[86] my authority for these facts, and who
+derives them himself from the great work of Mr. Gallatin,[87] asserts
+that, while all the other Indian tribes are continually diminishing,
+these are steadily increasing in numbers. As a proof of this, he alleges
+that when Adair visited the Cherokee tribes, in 1762, the number of
+their warriors was estimated at 2,300; at present, their total
+population amounts to 15,000 souls, including about 1,200 negroes in
+their possession. When we consider that their schools, as well as
+churches, are directed by white missionaries; that the greater number of
+these missionaries--being Protestants--are probably married and have
+children and servants also white, besides, very likely, a sort of
+retinue of clerks and other European employees;--the increase of the
+aboriginal population becomes extremely doubtful,[88] while it is easy
+to conceive the pressure of the white race upon its pupils. Surrounded
+on all sides by the power of the United States, incommensurable to their
+imagination; converted to the religion of their masters, which they
+have, I think, sincerely embraced; treated kindly and judiciously by
+their spiritual guides; and exposed to the alternation of working or of
+starving in their contracted territory;--I can understand that it was
+possible to make them tillers of the earth.
+
+It would be underrating the intelligence of the humblest, meanest
+specimen of our kind, to express surprise at such a result, when we see
+that, by dexterously and patiently acting upon the passions and wants of
+animals, we succeed in teaching them what their own instincts would
+never have taught them. Every village fair is filled with animals which
+are trained to perform the oddest tricks, and is it to be wondered at
+that men submitted to a rigorous system of training, and deprived of the
+means of escaping from it, should, in the end, be made to perform
+certain mechanical functions of civilized life; functions which, even in
+the savage state, they are capable of understanding, though they have
+not the will to practise them? This were placing human beings lower in
+the scale of creation than the learned pig, or Mr. Leonard's
+domino-playing dogs.[89] Such exultation on the part of the believers in
+the equality of races is little flattering to those who excite it.
+
+I am aware that this exaggeration of the intellectual capacity of
+certain races is in a great measure provoked by the notions of some very
+learned and distinguished men, who pretend that between the lowest races
+of men, and the highest of apes there was but a shade of distinction.
+So gross an insult to the dignity of man, I indignantly reject.
+Certainly, in my estimation, the different races are very unequally
+endowed, both physically and mentally; but I should be loath to think
+that in any, even in the most degraded, the unmistakable line of
+demarcation between man and brute were effaced. I recognize no link of
+gradation which would connect man mentally with the brute creation.
+
+But does it follow, that because the lowest of the human species is
+still unmistakably human, that all of that species are capable of the
+same development? Take a Bushman, the most hideous and stupid of human
+families, and by careful training you may teach him, or if he is already
+adult, his son, to learn and practise a handicraft, even one that
+requires a certain degree of intelligence. But are we warranted thence
+to conclude that the nation to which this individual belongs, is
+susceptible of adopting our civilization? There is a vast difference
+between mechanically practising handicrafts and arts, the products of an
+advanced civilization, and that civilization itself. Let us suppose that
+the Cherokee tribes were suddenly cut off from all connection with the
+American government, the traveller, a few years hence, would find among
+them very unexpected and singular institutions, resulting from their
+mixture with the whites, but partaking only feebly of the character of
+European civilization.
+
+We often hear of negroes proficient in music, negroes who are clerks in
+counting-rooms, who can read, write, talk like the whites. We admire,
+and conclude that the negroes are capable of everything that whites are.
+Notwithstanding this admiration and these hasty conclusions, we express
+surprise at the contrast of Sclavonian civilization with ours. We aver
+that the Russian, Polish, Servish nations, are civilized only at the
+surface, that none but the higher classes are in possession of our
+ideas, and this, thanks to their intermixture with the English, French,
+and German stock; that the masses, on the contrary, evince a hopeless
+inaptitude for participating in the forward movement of Western Europe,
+although these masses have been Christians for centuries, many of them
+while our ancestors were heathens. Are the negroes, then, more closely
+allied to our race than the Sclavonic nations? On the one hand, we
+assert the intellectual equality of the white and black races; on the
+other, a disparity among subdivisions of our own race.
+
+There is a vast difference between imitation and comprehension. The
+imitation of a civilization does not necessarily imply an eradication
+of the hereditary instincts. A _nation_ can be said to have adopted a
+civilization, only when it has the power to progress in it unprompted,
+and without guidance. Instead of extolling the intelligence of savages
+in handling a plough, after being shown; in spelling and reading, after
+they have been taught; let a single example be alleged of a tribe in any
+of the numerous countries in contact with Europeans, which, with our
+religion, has also made the ideas, institutions, and manners of a
+European nation so completely its own, that the whole social and
+political machinery moves forward as easily and naturally as in our
+States. Let an example be alleged of an extra-European nation, among
+whom the art of printing produces effects analogous to those it produces
+among us; where new applications of our discoveries are attempted; where
+our systems of philosophy give birth to new systems; where our arts and
+sciences flourish.
+
+But, no; I will be more moderate in my demands. I shall not ask of that
+nation to adopt, together with our faith, all in which consists our
+individuality. I shall suppose that it rejects it totally, and chooses
+one entirely different, adapted to its peculiar genius and
+circumstances. When the eyes of that nation open to the truths of the
+Gospel, it perceives that its earthly course is as encumbered and
+wretched as its spiritual life had hitherto been. It now begins the work
+of improvement, collects its ideas, which had hitherto remained
+fruitless, examines the notions of others, transforms them, and adapts
+them to its peculiar circumstances; in fact, erects, by its own power, a
+social and political system, a civilization, however humble. Where is
+there such a nation? The entire records of all history may be searched
+in vain for a single instance of a nation which, together with
+Christianity, adopted European civilization, or which--by the same grand
+change in its religious ideas--was led to form a civilization of its
+own, if it did not possess one already before.
+
+On the contrary, I will show, in every part of the world, ethnical
+characteristics not in the least effaced by the adoption of
+Christianity. The Christian Mongol and Tartar tribes lead the same
+erratic life as their unconverted brethren, and are as distinct from the
+Russian of the same religion, who tills the soil, or plies his trade in
+their midst, as they were centuries ago. Nay, the very hostilities of
+race survive the adoption of a common religion, as we have already
+pointed out in a preceding chapter. The Christian religion, then, does
+not equalize the intellectual disparities of races.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[82] Although the success of the Chinese missions has not been
+proportionate to the self-devoting zeal of its laborers, there yet are,
+in China, a vast number of believers in the true faith. M. Huc tells us,
+in the relation of his journey, that, in almost every place where he and
+his fellow-traveller stopped, they could perceive, among the crowds that
+came to stare at the two "Western devils" (as the celestials courteously
+call us Europeans), men making furtively, and sometimes quite openly,
+the sign of the cross. Among the nomadic hordes of the table-lands of
+Central Asia, the number of Christians is much greater than among the
+Chinese, and much greater than is generally supposed. (See _Annals of
+the Propagation of the Faith_, No. 135, et seq.)--H.
+
+[83] The tutelary divinity was generally a typification of the national
+character. A commercial or maritime nation, would worship Mercury or
+Neptune; an aggressive and warlike one, Hercules or Mars; a pastoral
+one, Pan; an agricultural one, Ceres or Triptolemus; one sunk in luxury,
+as Corinth, would render almost exclusive homage to Venus.
+
+As the author observes, all ancient governments were more or less
+theocratical. The regulations of castes among the Hindoos and Egyptians
+were ascribed to the gods, and even the most absolute monarch dared not,
+and could not, transgress the limits which the immortals had set to his
+power. This so-called divine legislation often answered the same purpose
+as the charters of modern constitutional monarchies. The authority of
+the Persian kings was confined by religious regulations, and this has
+always been the case with the sultans of Turkey. Even in Rome, whose
+population had a greater tendency for the positive and practical, than
+for the things of another world, we find the traces of theocratical
+government. The sibylline books, the augurs, etc., were something more
+than a vulgar superstition; and the latter, who could stop or postpone
+the most important proceedings, by declaring the omens unpropitious,
+must have possessed very considerable political influence, especially in
+the earlier periods. The rude, liberty-loving tribes of Scandinavia,
+Germany, Gaul, and Britain, were likewise subjected to their druids, or
+other priests, without whose permission they never undertook any
+important enterprise, whether public or private. Truly does our author
+observe, that Christianity came to deliver mankind from such trammels,
+though the mistaken or interested zeal of some of its servants, has so
+often attempted, and successfully, to fasten them again. How ill adapted
+Christianity would be, even in a political point of view, for a
+theocratical formula, is well shown by Mr. Guizot, in his _Hist. of
+Civilization_, vol. i. p. 213.--H.
+
+[84] I have already pointed out, in my introduction (p. 41-43), some of
+the fatal consequences that spring from that doctrine. It may not,
+however, be out of place here to mention another. The communists,
+socialists, Fourrierites, or whatever names such enemies to our social
+system assume, have often seduced the unwary and weak-minded, by the
+plausible assertion that they wished to restore the social system of the
+first Christians, who held all goods in common, etc. Many religious
+sectaries have created serious disturbances under the same pretence. It
+seems, indeed, reasonable to suppose, that if Christianity had given its
+exclusive sanction to any particular social and political system, it
+must have been that which the first Christian communities adopted.--H.
+
+[85] See note on page 188.--H.
+
+[86] _Natural History of Man_, p. 390. London, 1843.
+
+[87] _Synopsis of the Indian Tribes of North America._
+
+[88] Had I desired to contest the accuracy of the assertions upon which
+Mr. Prichard bases his arguments in this case, I should have had in my
+favor the weighty authority of Mr. De Tocqueville, who, in speaking of
+the Cherokees, says: "What has greatly promoted the introduction of
+European habits among these Indians, is the presence of so great a
+number of half-breeds. The man of mixed race--participating as he does,
+to a certain extent, in the enlightenment of the father, without,
+however, entirely abandoning the savage manner of the mother--forms the
+natural link between civilization and barbarism. As the half-breeds
+increase among them, we find savages modify their social condition, and
+change their manners." (_Dem. in Am._, vol. i. p. 412.) Mr. De
+Tocqueville ends by predicting that the Cherokees and Creeks, albeit
+they are half-breeds, and not, as Mr. Prichard affirms, pure aborigines,
+will, nevertheless, disappear before the encroachments of the whites.
+
+[89] "When four pieces of cards were laid before them, each having a
+number pronounced _once_ in connection with it, they will, after a
+re-arrangement of the pieces, select any one named by its number. They
+also play at domino, and with so much skill as to triumph over biped
+opponents, whining if the adversary plays a wrong piece, or if they
+themselves are deficient in the right one."--_Vest. of Cr._, p. 236.--H.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO CHAPTERS VIII. AND IX.
+
+ Rapid survey of the populations comprised under the appellation
+ "Teutonic"--Their present ethnological area, and leading
+ characteristics--Fondness for the sea displayed by the Teutonic
+ tribes of Northwestern Europe, and perceptible in their
+ descendants.
+
+
+Several of the ideas expressed by the author in the course of the two
+next following chapters, seemed to the annotator of this volume to call
+for a few remarks on his part, which could not conveniently be condensed
+within the limited space of foot-notes. Besides, the text is already
+sufficiently encumbered with them, and any increase in their length or
+number could not but be displeasing to the eye, while it would divert
+attention from the main subject. He has, therefore, taken the
+liberty--an unwarranted one, perhaps--of introducing his remarks in this
+form and place.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The leading proposition in this volume is, that the civilization
+originated and developed by a race, is the clearest index of its
+character--the mirror in which its principal features are truthfully
+reflected. In other words, that every race, capable of developing a
+civilization, will develop one peculiar to itself, and impossible to
+every other. This the author illustrates by the actual state of our
+civilization, which he asserts to be originated by the Teutonic race,
+but modified in proportion to the admixture of that race with a
+different blood. To clearly comprehend his idea, and to appreciate the
+value of his arguments, it is, therefore, necessary for the reader to
+take a rapid survey of the populations comprised under the appellation
+_Teutonic_, and to examine into the present geographical extension of
+that race. This I shall endeavor to do, not, indeed, by entering into an
+elaborate ethnological disquisition--a task greatly beyond my powers,
+and the due performance of which would require a space much larger than
+the whole of this volume--but by merely grouping together well-known
+facts, in such a manner as to set the author's idea in a clearer light.
+
+The words _Teutonic_ and _Germanic_ are generally used synonymously, and
+we shall not depart from this custom. Strict accuracy, however, would
+probably require that the term Teutonic should be used as the general
+appellation of all those swarms of northern warriors, who, under various
+names, harassed and finally subverted the overgrown dominion of ancient
+Rome, while the term Germanic would apply to a portion of them only. The
+Northern Barbarians, as the Romans contemptuously styled them, all
+claimed to belong to the "_Thiudu_," or the nation _par excellence_, and
+from that word the term Teutonic is supposed to be derived. Many of
+their descendants still retain the name: _Teutsch_ or _Deutsch_
+(German). The Romans called them _Germanes_, from the boastful title of
+"the warlike," or "the men of war," which the first invading tribes had
+given themselves. These _Germanes_ of the Romans were again divided into
+two classes, the Saxon tribes, and the Suevic; terms expressive of their
+mode of life, the former having fixed habitations and inclosed farms,
+the latter cultivating the fields by turn, and being prone to change
+their abodes. The first class comprised many other tribes besides those
+who figure in history, under the name of Saxons, as the invaders and
+conquerors of Britain. But as I desire to avoid all not well-authorized
+distinctions, I shall use the terms Teutonic and Germanic
+indiscriminately.
+
+The Germans appear to have been at all times an eminently warlike and
+courageous race. History first speaks of them as warriors alarming, nay,
+terrifying, the arrogant Romans, and that not in the infancy of Rome's
+power, when the Samnites and Volscians were formidable antagonists, but
+in the very fulness of its strength, in the first vigor of youthful
+manhood, when Italy, Spain, part of Gaul, the northern coasts of Africa,
+Greece, Syria, and Asia Minor, were subdued to the republican yoke. Then
+it was that the Cimbri and Teutones invaded and harassed Italy, chilling
+the mistress of the world with fear.
+
+The Germans next meet us in Cęsar's Commentaries. The principal
+resistance which the future usurper experienced in subduing Gaul,
+appears to have been offered, not by the Gallic population, but either
+by German tribes, settled in that country, or German armies from the
+right banks of the Rhine, who longed to dispute the tempting prize with
+the Romans. The great general twice crossed the Rhine, but probably more
+for the _éclat_ of such an exploit, than with the hope of making
+permanent conquests. The temporary successes gained by his imperial
+successors were amply counterbalanced by the massacre of the flower of
+the Roman armies.
+
+At the end of the first five centuries after Christ, nothing was left of
+the great Roman empire but ruins. Every country in Northern, Western,
+and Southern Europe acknowledged German masters. The tribes of the
+extreme north had entered Russia, and there established a powerful
+republic; the tribes of the northwest (the Angles and Saxons) had
+conquered Britain; a confederation of the southern tribes, under the
+name of Franks, had conquered Gaul; the various Gothic tribes of the
+east, the Heruli, the Longobardi, Ostrogoths, etc., had subjected Italy
+to their arms, and disputed its possession among themselves. Other
+Gothic tribes (the Visigoths, Burgundians, and Vandals) had shared with
+the Franks the beautiful tracts of Gaul, or had carried their victorious
+arms to Spain, and the northern coasts of Africa. The three most
+beautiful and most fertile countries of Europe, to this day, retain the
+name of their conquerors--England, France, Lombardy.
+
+It is impossible now to determine with accuracy the amount of German
+blood in the populations of the various states founded by the Teutonic
+tribes. Yet certain general results are easily arrived at in this
+interesting investigation.
+
+Thus, we know that Germany, notwithstanding its name, contains by no
+means a pure Germanic population. The fierce Scythian hordes, whom
+Attila led on to the work of devastation, after the death of their
+leader, incorporated themselves with various of the Teutonic tribes.
+They form one of the ethnical elements of the population of Italy, but
+especially of the south and southeast of Germany. While, therefore, the
+population of Northern Germany is comparatively pure Teutonic, that of
+the southern and eastern portion is a mixture of Teutonic and Sclavonian
+elements.
+
+The Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, are probably the most Germanic
+nations of continental Europe.
+
+In Spain, the Visigoths were, in a great measure, absorbed by the native
+population, consisting of the aboriginal Celtiberians and the numerous
+Roman colonists. In the tenth century, an amalgamation began with the
+eastern blood brought by the Arab conquerors.
+
+Italy, already at the time of the downfall of Rome, contained an
+extremely mixed population, drawn thither by the all-absorbing vortex of
+the Eternal City. In the north, the Germanic element had time to engraft
+itself in some measure; but the south, passing into the hands of the
+Byzantine emperors, received an addition of the already mixed Greek
+blood of the east.
+
+Gaul, at the time of the Frankish conquest, was an extremely populous
+country. Beside the aboriginal Gauls, the population consisted of
+numerous Roman colonists. The Mediterranean coast of Gaul had, from the
+earliest times, received Phenician, Carthaginian, and Greek settlers,
+who founded there large and prosperous cities. The original differences
+in the population of Gaul are to this day perceptible. The Germanic
+element preponderates in the north, where already, in Cęsar's time, the
+Germans had succeeded in making permanent settlements, and in the
+northeast, where the Burgundians had well-nigh extirpated and
+completely supplanted the Gallic natives.[90] But everywhere else,[91]
+the Germanic element forms but a small portion of the population, and
+this is well illustrated by the striking resemblance of the character of
+the modern French to that of the ancient Gauls. But though vastly
+inferior in numbers, the descendants of the German conquerors, for one
+thousand years, were the dominant race in France. Until the fifteenth
+century, all the higher nobility were of Frankish or Burgundian origin.
+But, after the Celtic and Celto-Roman provinces south of the Loire had
+rallied around a youthful king, to reconquer their capital and best
+territories from the English foe, the Frankish blood ruled with less
+exclusive sway in all the higher offices of the state; and the
+distinction was almost entirely lost by the accession of the first
+southern dynasty, that of the Bourbons, towards the end of the sixteenth
+century. The corresponding variations in the national policy and the
+exterior manifestations of the national character, Mr. Gobineau has
+rapidly pointed out elsewhere.[92]
+
+While the population of France presents so great a mixture of various
+different races, and but a slight infusion of German blood, that of
+England, on the contrary, is almost purely Teutonic. The original
+inhabitants of the country were, for the most part, driven into the
+mountain fastnesses of Wales by the German invaders, where they
+preserve, to this day, their original language. Every subsequent great
+addition to the population of England was by the German race. The Danes,
+and, after them, the Normans, were tribes of the same stock as the
+Saxons, and all came from very nearly the same portion of Europe. It is
+obvious, therefore, that England, even after the Norman conquest, when,
+for a time, the upper and the lower classes spoke different languages,
+contained a more homogeneous population than France did at the same, or
+any subsequent epoch. In England, from the Saxon yeoman up to the
+proudest Norman lord, all belonged to the great German race; in France,
+only the nobility, while the peasants were Gauls. The wars between the
+two countries afford a striking proof of the difference of these two
+races. The battles of Cressy, of Poitiers, and of Agincourt, which will
+never be forgotten so long as English poetry can find an echo in an
+English breast, were won by the English against greatly superior
+numbers. "Victories, indeed, they were," says Macaulay, "of which a
+nation may justly be proud; for they are to be attributed to the moral
+superiority of the victors, _a superiority which was most striking in
+the lowest ranks_. The knights of England found worthy rivals in the
+knights of France. Chandos encountered an equal foe in Du Guesclin. But
+France had no infantry that dared to face the English bows and bills."
+The Celt has probably, at no time, been inferior to the Teuton in valor;
+in martial enthusiasm, he exceeds him. But, at a time when bodily
+strength decided the combat, the difference between the sturdy Saxon and
+the small, slight--though active--Gaul, must have been great.
+
+In this rapid and necessarily imperfect sketch, I have endeavored to
+show the relative proportion of the Teutonic blood in the population of
+the various countries of Europe. I have endeavored to direct the
+reader's attention to the fact, that though it forms an element in the
+population of all, it exists in perfect purity in but few, and that
+England presents a happy fusion of some of the most distinguished
+branches of the German family. If we now glance at the United States, we
+shall there find--at least in the first years of her national
+existence--a pendant to what has been asserted of England. The elements
+of the population of the original thirteen States, were almost
+exclusively of English, Lowland Scotch, Dutch, and Swedish blood; that
+is to say, decidedly Germanic. Ireland was as yet slightly represented.
+France had made but inconsiderable contributions to the population.
+Since we have assumed a rank among the great powers of the earth, every
+portion of the inhabited globe has sent us its contingent of blood, yet
+even now, the great body of the nation belongs to the Teutonic race.
+
+Much has been said of the effects of ethnical mixture. Many consider it
+as decidedly beneficial, others as decidedly deleterious. It seems to me
+susceptible of mathematical demonstration, that when a very inferior
+race amalgamates with one of higher order, the compound--though superior
+to the one, must be inferior to the other. In that case, therefore,
+mixture is injurious. But when various branches of the same race, or
+nearly cognate races mix, as in the case of the Saxons, Angles, Danes,
+and Normans, the mixture cannot but be beneficial. For, while none of
+the higher qualities are lost, the compound presents a felicitous
+combination of some of the virtues peculiar to each.
+
+If our civilization received its tone and character from the Teutonic
+race, as Mr. Gobineau asserts, this character must be most strikingly
+displayed wherever that race forms the preponderating element of the
+population.
+
+Before investigating this question, we must cast a glance on the manners
+and modes of thinking that characterized this race in the earliest
+times. Unfortunately, but few records are left to assist us in forming a
+judgment. Tacitus's celebrated treatise was, probably, more an imaginary
+sketch, which he wished to hold up to a people sunk in luxury and vice,
+as were his countrymen. In our times, the North American Indian has
+often been held up as a model of uncorrupted simplicity, and many
+touching romances have been written on the theme, now rather hackneyed
+and out of fashion. But though the noble Roman may have highly colored
+the picture, the incorruptible love of truth, which shines so
+brilliantly in all his works, assures us of the truth of its outlines.
+
+Of one thing we can entertain no doubt, viz: that history nowhere shows
+us our Germanic forefathers in the same state of barbarism that we find
+other races--many of the American Indians, the South-Sea Islanders, and
+others. In the earliest times they practised agriculture, they
+cultivated rye, barley, oats and wheat. Many of the tribes had regular
+farms, which were inclosed. They knew how to work iron, an art which
+even the most civilized of the American Indians had never learned. They
+had extensive and complicated political relations, often forming
+themselves in vast confederacies. But, above all, they were an
+eminently chaste people; they respected woman,[93] and assigned to her
+her legitimate place in the social circle. Marriage with them was a
+sacred institution.
+
+The greatest point of superiority of our civilization, over all
+preceding and contemporaneous ones--a point which Mr. Gobineau has
+omitted to mention--is the high rank which woman occupies in the modern
+structure of society. The boasted civilizations of Greece and Rome, if
+superior in others, are vastly inferior to us in this respect. And this
+glorious superiority we owe to the pure and chaste manners of our
+forefathers.
+
+Representative government, trial by jury, and all the discoveries in
+political science upon which we pride ourselves most, are the necessary
+development of their simple institutions, to which, indeed, they can be
+distinctly traced.
+
+I have purposely selected these two characteristics of the German
+races--respect for woman, and love of liberty, or, what is more, a
+capacity for establishing and preserving liberal institutions. The
+question now resolves itself into this: Does woman occupy the highest
+rank, do liberal institutions best flourish where the Germanic race is
+most pure? I will not answer the question, but beg the reader to compare
+the more Germanic countries with those that are less so--England,
+Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Northern Germany, with France,
+Spain, Italy, Greece, and Russia; the United States and Canada, with
+Mexico and the South American republics.
+
+Mr. Gobineau speaks of the utilitarian character of the Germanic races,
+but furnishes no proofs of his assertion. I shall therefore endeavor to
+supply the deficiency.
+
+Those countries which ethnology tells us contain the most Germanic
+populations, viz: England, the northern States of Europe, including
+Holland, and the United States, have the entire commerce, and nearly all
+the manufacture of the whole world in their hands. They have given to
+mankind all the great inventions which shed an everlasting lustre over
+our era. They, together, possess nine-tenths of all the railroads built
+in the world, and the greater part of the remaining tenth was built by
+_their_ enterprise and capital. Whatever perfection in the useful arts
+one of these countries attains, is readily adopted by all; slowly only,
+and sometimes never by any of the others.
+
+On the other hand, we find that the polite arts do not meet, in these
+countries, with a very congenial soil. Artists may flock thither, and,
+perhaps, reap a harvest of gold; but they seldom stay. The admiration
+which they receive is oftenest the mere dictate of fashion. It is true
+that England, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, and the United States, have
+produced some eminent artists, but the mass of the population do not
+exhibit that innate taste, that passionate fondness for the arts, which
+we find among all classes in Italy, Spain, and to some extent in France
+and Southern Germany.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Before I conclude this hasty sketch, for which I crave the reader's
+indulgence, I wish to draw attention to a striking instance of the
+permanency of ethnical characteristics. The nations that most fondly and
+most successfully plough the briny main, are the English, the
+Americans, the Swedes, Danes, Dutch. Notwithstanding the littleness of
+these latter, they have successfully competed in maritime discovery with
+larger nations; and even now, own considerable and far distant colonial
+possessions. The Dutch, for a time, were the greatest maritime power in
+the world, and to this day carry on an extensive and profitable
+commerce. History tells us that the forefathers of these nations were
+distinguished by the same nautical genius.
+
+The real Saxons--the invaders of England--are mentioned already in the
+middle of the second century, by Ptolemy, as skilful sailors. In the
+fourth and fifth century, they became dreaded from their piracies. They
+and their confederates, the Angles, originally inhabited the present
+Holstein, and the islands in the vicinity of the Baltic coast. Their
+neighbors, the Danes, were equally famous for maritime exploits. Their
+celebrated vykings still live in song and tale. Their piratical
+incursions and settlements in England, are known to every schoolboy. How
+familiar the Normans were with the watery element, is abundantly proved
+by history. They ascended the Rhine, and other rivers, for hundreds of
+miles, marking their landing-place by devastation.
+
+Of the Angle, the Saxon, the Dane, and the Norman, the present
+Englishman and his adventurous brother of Massachusetts, are lineal
+descendants. The best sailors in our commercial navy, next to the native
+sailors, are the Danes and the Swedes. Normandy, to this day, furnishes
+the best for the French service.--H.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[90] In those portions of the present France, over one million and a
+half of the inhabitants speak German. The pure Gauls in the Landes have
+not yet learned the French language, and speak a peculiar--probably
+their original--_patois_.
+
+[91] With the exception of Normandy.
+
+[92] See p. 183.
+
+[93] I am not aware that any writer has ever presumed to doubt this fact
+except Mr. Guizot, who dismisses it with a sneer. Fortunately, a sneer
+is not an argument, though it often has more weight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CIVILIZATION.
+
+ Mr. Guizot's and Mr. W. von Humboldt's definitions examined. Its
+ elements.
+
+
+The reader will here pardon me an indispensable digression. I make use
+at almost every moment of a term comprising in its extensive
+signification a collection of ideas which it is important to define
+accurately: _civilization_. The greater or less degree in which this
+term is applicable to the social condition of various nations, is my
+only standard for the comparative merit of races. I also speak of a
+_European_ civilization, in contradistinction to others of a different
+character. It is the more necessary to avoid the least vagueness, as I
+am under the disagreeable necessity of differing from a celebrated
+writer, who has assumed the special task of determining the meaning and
+comprehensiveness of this expression.
+
+Mr. Guizot, in his _History of Civilization in Modern Europe_, makes
+use of a term which seems to me to give rise to a serious confusion of
+ideas, and lead to positive errors. He says that civilization is a
+_fact_.
+
+Now, either the word fact must here be understood in a sense much less
+strict and precise than common usage requires, a sense so indistinct--I
+might almost say elastic--as has never pertained to it, or what we
+comprehend under the term civilization cannot be expressed by the word
+fact. Civilization is not _a fact_; it is a _series_, a _concatenation
+of facts_, more or less logically united, and resulting from ideas often
+sufficiently diverse: ideas and facts continually reproduce each other.
+Civilization is a term applied to a certain state or condition in which
+a society exists--a condition which is of its own creation, bears its
+character, and, in turn, reacts upon it. This condition is of so
+variable a nature, that it cannot be called a fact; for a fact cannot be
+variable without ceasing to be a fact. In other words, there is more
+than one civilization: there are various kinds. Thus, a civilization may
+flourish under every form of government, and it does not cease to exist
+when civil commotions destroy or alter that form.
+
+Let it not be understood that I esteem governmental forms of little
+importance. Their choice is intimately connected with the prosperity of
+the society: if judicious, promoting and developing it; if unpractical,
+endangering its destruction. But I speak not here of the temporary
+prosperity or misery of a society. I speak of its civilization; and this
+is a phenomenon whose causes must be sought elsewhere, and deeper than
+in transient political forms. Its character, its growth, fecundity, or
+barrenness, depends upon elementary principles of far greater
+importance.
+
+But, in Mr. Guizot's opinion, civilization is a fact, a unity; and it is
+of an essentially political character. Let us see how he defines it. He
+has chosen a series of hypotheses, describing society in various
+conditions, and then asks if the state so described is, in the general
+opinion of mankind, the state of a people advancing in civilization--if
+it answers to the signification which mankind generally attaches to this
+word.[94]
+
+"First imagine a people whose outward circumstances are easy and
+agreeable; few taxes; few hardships; justice is fairly administered; in
+a word, physical existence, taken altogether, is satisfactorily and
+happily regulated. But, with all this, the moral and intellectual
+energies of this people are studiously kept in a state of torpor and
+inertness. It can hardly be called oppression; its tendency is not of
+that character--it is rather compression. We are not without examples of
+this state of society. There have been a great number of little
+aristocratic republics, in which the people have been thus treated like
+a flock of sheep, carefully tended, physically happy, but without the
+least intellectual and moral activity. Is this civilization? Do we
+recognize here a people in a state of moral and social advancement?"
+
+I know not whether such a people is in a state of advancement, but it
+certainly may be in a very advanced state of civilization, else we
+should find ourselves compelled to class among the savages or barbarians
+all those aristocratic republics of ancient and modern times, which
+answer Mr. Guizot's description. But the common sense of mankind would
+never ratify a method which ejected from within the pale of civilization
+not only the Phenicians, Carthaginians, and Lacedęmonians, but even
+Venice, Genoa, Pisa, the free cities of Germany--in fact, all the
+powerful municipalities of the last centuries. But, besides this mode of
+proceeding being too paradoxical and restrictive, it seems to me to
+encounter another difficulty. Those little aristocratic states, to whom,
+on account of their form of government, Mr. Guizot denies the aptitude
+for civilization, have, for the most part, never been in possession of a
+special culture peculiar to themselves. Powerful as many of them have
+been, they assimilated, in this respect, with nations differently
+governed, but of consanguineous affinity; they formed a fragment only of
+a greater and more general civilization. Thus, the Carthaginians and
+Phenicians, though at a great distance from one another, had a similar
+mode of culture, the type of which must be sought in Assyria. The
+Italian republics participated in the same ideas and opinions which
+developed themselves in the bosom of neighboring monarchies. The
+imperial cities of Thuringia and Suabia, although perfectly independent
+in a political point of view, were nevertheless intimately united with
+the general progressive or retrogressive movement of the whole German
+race. Mr. Guizot, therefore, by assigning to the people of different
+countries degrees of merit proportionate to the degree and form of their
+liberty, creates unjustifiable subdivisions in the same race, and makes
+distinctions without a difference. A lengthy discussion is not in its
+place here, and I shall therefore proceed rapidly. If, however, it were
+necessary to enter into a controversy, might we not justly protest
+against recognizing any inferiority in the case of Genoa, Pisa, Venice,
+and others, when compared with countries like Milan, Naples, or Rome?
+
+Mr. Guizot has himself foreseen this difficulty, and removed the
+objection. If he does not recognize a state of civilization among a
+people "mildly governed, but in a state of compression," neither does he
+accord this prerogative to another, "whose outward circumstances are
+less favorable and agreeable, although supportable, but whose
+intellectual and moral cravings have not been entirely neglected; among
+whom pure and elevated sentiments have been cultivated, and religious
+and moral notions reached a certain degree of improvement, but among
+whom the desire of liberty has been stifled; where a certain portion of
+truth is doled out to each, but no one permitted to seek for it himself.
+This is the condition to which most of the populations of Asia are sunk,
+because theocratical governments there restrain the progress of mankind;
+such, for instance, is the state of the Hindoos."
+
+Thus, besides the aristocratic nations of the earth, we must moreover
+exclude from the pale of civilization the Hindoos, Egyptians, Etruscans,
+Peruvians, Thibetans, Japanese--nay, even modern Rome and her
+territories.
+
+I omit the last two hypotheses, because, thanks to the first two, the
+state of civilization is already restricted within boundaries so
+contracted that scarce any people on the globe is justified in
+pretending to it. A nation, then, can be called civilized only when it
+enjoys institutions happily blending popular liberty and the requisite
+strength of authority for maintaining order; when its progress in
+material well-being and its moral development are co-ordinate in a
+certain manner, and no other; where religion, as well as government, is
+confined within limits accurately defined, which neither ever
+transgresses; where each individual possesses clearly determinate and
+inalienable rights. According to this formula, no nation can be
+civilized unless its political institutions are of the constitutional
+and representative form, and consequently it is impossible to save many
+European nations from the reproach of barbarism. Then, measuring the
+_degree_ of civilization by the perfection of this same and only
+political form, we are compelled to place in a second rank all those
+constitutional states which have ill employed the engine of parliament,
+to reserve the crown exclusively for those who know how to make good use
+of it. By this reasoning, I am forced to consider as truly civilized,
+in the past as well as the present, none but the single English
+nation.[95]
+
+I sincerely respect and admire that great people, whose victories,
+industry, and universal commerce have left no portion of our globe
+ignorant of its puissance and the prodigies it has performed. But
+still, I do not feel disposed to respect and admire in the world no
+other: it would seem to me too humiliating and cruel to humanity to
+confess that, since the beginning of time, it has never succeeded in
+producing a civilization anywhere but upon a small island of the Western
+Ocean, has never discovered the laws and forms which produce this state
+until the reign of William and Mary. Such a conception of civilization
+might seem to many rather a little too narrow and restrictive. But there
+is another objection. If we attach the idea of civilization to a
+political form, reason, observation, and science will soon lose their
+vote in the decision of the question, which must thenceforth be left to
+the passions and prejudices of parties. There will be some whose
+preferences will lead them stoutly to deny that the institutions of the
+British Isles are the "perfection of human reason:" their enthusiasm,
+perchance, will be expended in praising the order established in St.
+Petersburg or in Vienna. Many, again, and perhaps the greater number of
+all living between the Rhine and the Pyrenees, will sustain to the last
+that, notwithstanding a few blemishes, the most polished, the most
+civilized country of the world is _la belle France_. The moment that the
+decision of the degree of intellectual culture becomes a matter of
+preference, a question of sentiment, to come to an understanding is
+impossible. Each one will think him the man most advanced in
+civilization who shall coincide with his views about the respective
+duties of the governing and the governed; while those who are
+unfortunate enough to differ, will be set down as men behind the age,
+little better than barbarians, mere "old fogies," whose visual organs
+are too weak for the dazzling lights of the epoch; or else as daring,
+incendiary innovators, who wish to destroy all established order, and
+sap the very foundation of civilization. I think few will differ from me
+in considering Mr. Guizot's definition as defective, and the source from
+which he derives civilization as not the real one.
+
+Let us now examine Baron W. Von Humboldt's definition. "Civilization,"
+says that celebrated statesman, "is the humanization of nations in their
+outward institutions, in their manners, and in the inward feelings upon
+which these depend."[96]
+
+Here we meet with a defect of the very opposite kind to that which I
+took the liberty to point out in Mr. Guizot's definition. The formula is
+too vague, the boundary lines too indistinct. If civilization consists
+in a softening of manners, more than one untutored tribe, some extremely
+low in the scale of races, might take precedence over several European
+nations whose character contains more acerbity. There are in the South
+Sea Islands, and elsewhere, very inoffensive populations, of
+exceedingly gentle manners, and kind, accommodating dispositions; yet,
+though we may praise them, no one would think of placing them, in the
+scale of civilization, above the rough Norwegians, or even above the
+ferocious Malays, who, dressed in brilliant garments of their own
+fabric, and upon skilfully constructed vessels of their own making,
+traverse the Indian seas, at the same time the terror and scourge of
+maritime commerce, and its most successful votaries. This observation
+could not escape so great a mind as William Von Humboldt's; and he
+therefore imagines, besides civilization, a higher degree of
+development, which he calls _culture_, and by which he declares that
+nations gain, above their gentle manners, "_science and the arts_."[97]
+When the world shall have arrived at this higher state, it will be
+peopled by _affectionate_ and _sympathetic_ beings, very erudite,
+poetic, and artistic, but, by reason of this same reunion of qualities,
+ignoring the grosser wants of existence: strangers to the necessity of
+war, as well as those of rude mechanical toil.
+
+When we reflect upon the limited leisure that the mass of even those
+can enjoy whose lot is cast in the happiest epoch, to abandon themselves
+to purely intellectual occupations--when we consider how incessant and
+arduous must ever be the strife of man with nature and the elements to
+insure the mere means of subsistence, it will soon be perceived that the
+philosopher of Berlin aimed less at depicting realities than at drawing
+from the domain of abstraction certain entities which appeared to him
+beautiful and sublime, and which are so, indeed, and at causing them to
+act and move in a sphere as ideal as themselves. If any doubts should
+still remain in this respect, they are soon dispelled when we arrive at
+the culminating point of the system, consisting of a third and last
+degree superior to the two others. This greatest point of perfection is
+that upon which stands the _finished_ man (_der Gebildete_); that is to
+say, the man who, in his nature, possesses "something higher and more
+inward or essential; a clear and comprehensive faculty of seeing all
+things in their true light; a recognition and appreciation of the
+ultimate goal of man's moral and intellectual aspirations, which
+diffuses itself harmoniously over all his feelings and his
+character."[98]
+
+We here have a regular gradation from man in a civilized or "humanized"
+state, to the man of cultivation--the philosopher, the poet, the artist;
+and thence still higher to the _finished_, the _perfect_ man, who has
+attained the greatest elevation possible to our species; a man who, if I
+seize rightly Mr. Humboldt's idea, had his living counterpart in
+Goethe, as that towering mind is described to us in its olympic
+serenity. This theory rests upon no other basis than Mr. Von Humboldt's
+perception of the immense difference between the civilization of a
+nation and the comparative height of perfection attained by great,
+isolated individualities. This difference is so great that civilizations
+different from ours, and perhaps inferior to it, have produced men in
+some respects superior to those we admire most.
+
+Upon this point I fully coincide with the great philosopher whose theory
+I am unfolding. It is perfectly correct, that our state of
+development--what we call the European civilization--produces neither
+the profoundest nor the sublimest thinkers, nor the greatest poets, nor
+the most skilful artists. Yet I venture to differ from the illustrious
+philologist in believing that to give a practical meaning to the word
+civilization, it is necessary to divest one's self, if but for a moment,
+from the prejudices or prepossessions resulting from the examination of
+mere details in any particular civilization. We must take the aggregate
+result of the whole, and not make the requisites too few, as in the case
+of the man of the first degree, whom I persist in not acknowledging as
+civilized merely because his manners are gentle; nor too many, as in the
+case of the sage of the third, for then the development of human
+faculties would be limited to a few individuals, and would produce
+results purely isolated and typical.
+
+The Baron Von Humboldt's system, however, does honor to that exquisite
+and generous sensibility, that grand sublimity which was the dominant
+characteristic of this great mind; and in its purely abstract nature may
+be compared to the fragile worlds of Brahmin philosophy. Born from the
+brain of a slumbering god, they rise in the air like the irised bubbles
+that the child blows from the suds, bursting and succeeding one another
+as the dreams that amuse the celestial sleeper.
+
+But the character of my researches permits me not to indulge in mere
+abstractions, however brilliant and attractive; I must arrive at results
+tangible to practical sense and common experience. I do not wish, like
+Mr. Guizot, to investigate the conditions more or less favorable to the
+prosperity of societies, nor, like Mr. William Von Humboldt, to
+speculate upon the isolated elevation of individual intelligences; my
+purpose is to encompass, if possible, the aggregate power, moral as well
+as material, which is developed in great masses of men. It is not
+without trepidation that I engage in a path in which two of the most
+admired men of our century have lost themselves; and to avoid the errors
+into which they have fallen, I shall descend to first principles, and
+define civilization by first investigating from what causes it results.
+If the reader, then, will follow me patiently and attentively through
+the mazes into which I am forced to enter, I shall endeavor to throw as
+much light as I am capable of, upon this inherently obscure and abstruse
+subject.
+
+There is no human being so degraded, so brutish, in whom a twofold
+instinct, if I may be permitted so to call it, is not manifest; the
+instinct which incites to the gratification of material wants, and that
+which leads to higher aspirations. The degree of intensity of either of
+these two is the first and principal measure of the differences among
+races. In none, not even in the lowest tribes, are the two instincts
+precisely balanced. Among some, the physical wants or animal
+propensities preponderate; in others, these are subordinate to the
+speculative tendencies--the cravings for the abstract, the supernatural.
+Thus, the lowest of the yellow races seem to me to be dominated rather
+by the first, the physical instinct, without, however, being absolutely
+deprived of all capacity for abstractions. On the contrary, among the
+majority of the black races of corresponding rank, the habits are less
+active than pensive; imagination there attaches greater value to the
+things of the invisible than to those of the visible world. I do not
+thence deduce any conclusion of superior capacity for civilization on
+the part of those latter races over the former, for history demonstrates
+that both are equally insusceptible to attain it. Centuries, thousands
+of years, have passed by without either of them doing aught to
+ameliorate their condition, because they have never been able to
+associate a sufficient number of ideas with the same number of facts, to
+begin the march of progress. I wish merely to draw attention to the
+fact, that even among the lowest races we find this double current
+differently constituted. I shall now follow the ascending scale.
+
+Above the Samoyedes on the one hand, and the Fidas and Pelagian negroes
+on the other, we must place those tribes who are not content with a mere
+hut of branches, and a social condition based upon force only, but who
+are capable of comprehending and aspiring to a better condition. These
+are one degree above the most barbarous.
+
+If they belong to the first category of races--those who act more than
+they think, among whom the material tendency predominates over that for
+the abstract--their development will display itself in a greater
+perfection of their instruments of labor, and of war, in a greater care
+and skill in their ornaments, etc. In government, the warriors will
+take precedence over the priests; in their intercourse with others, they
+will show a certain aptitude and readiness for trafficking. Their wars,
+though still characterized by cruelty, will originate rather in a love
+of gain, than in the mere gratification of vindictive passions. In one
+word, material well-being, physical enjoyments, will be the main pursuit
+of each individual. I find this picture realized among several of the
+Mongol races, and also, to some extent, among the Quichuas and Azmaras
+of Peru.
+
+On the other hand, if they belong to the second category--to those who
+have a predominating tendency for the speculative, the abstract--less
+care will be bestowed upon the material interests; the influence of the
+priests will preponderate in the government; in fact, we perceive a
+complete antithesis to the condition above described. The Dahomees, of
+Western Africa, and the Caffres of the south, are examples of this
+state.
+
+Leaving those races whose progressive tendency is not sufficiently
+vigorous to enable them to extend their influence over great
+multitudes,[99] we come to those of a higher order, in whom this
+tendency is so vigorous that they are capable of incorporating, and
+bringing within their sphere of action, all those they come in contact
+with. They soon ingraft their own social and political system upon
+immense multitudes, and impose upon vast countries the dominion of that
+combination of facts and ideas--more or less co-ordinate--which we call
+a _civilization_. Among these races, again, we find the same difference,
+the same division, that I already pointed out in those of inferior
+merit--in some the speculative, in others the more materially active
+tendency predominates. It is, indeed, among these races only, that this
+difference has important consequences, and is clearly perceptible. When
+a tribe, by incorporating with it great multitudes, has become a people,
+has founded a vast dominion, we find that these two currents or
+tendencies have augmented in strength, according to the character of the
+populations which enter into the combination, and there become blended.
+Whatever tendency prevails among these populations, they will
+proportionably modify the character of the whole. It will be remarked,
+moreover, that at different periods of the life of a people, and in
+strict accordance with the mixture of blood and the fusion of different
+elements, the oscillation between the two tendencies becomes more
+violent, and it may happen that their relative proportion changes
+altogether; that one, at first subordinate, in time becomes predominant.
+The results of this mobility are important, as they influence, in a
+sensible manner, the character of a civilization, and its
+stability.[100]
+
+For the sake of simplicity, I shall distinguish the two categories of
+races by designations expressive of the tendency which predominates in
+them, and shall call them accordingly, either _speculative_ or
+_utilitarian_.[101] As I have before observed, these terms imply neither
+praise nor blame. I use them merely for convenience, to designate the
+leading characteristic, without thereby expressing a total absence of
+the other. Thus, the most utilitarian of the speculative races would
+closely approximate to the most speculative of the utilitarian. At the
+head of the utilitarian category, as its type, I place the Chinese; at
+the head, and as the type of the other, the Hindoos. Next to the Chinese
+I would put the majority of the populations of ancient Italy, the first
+Romans of the time of the republic, and the Germanic tribes. On the
+opposite side, among the speculative races, I would range next to the
+Hindoos, the Egyptians, and the nations of the Assyrian empire.
+
+I have said already that the oscillations of the two principles or
+tendencies sometimes result in the preponderance of one, which before
+was subordinate, and thus the character of the civilization is changed.
+Minor modifications, the history of almost every people presents. Thus,
+even the materialistic utilitarian tendency of the Chinese has been
+somewhat modified by their amalgamation with tribes of another blood,
+and a different tendency. In the south, the Yunnan particularly, where
+this population prevailed, the inhabitants are much less exclusively
+utilitarian than in the north, where the Chinese element is more pure.
+If this admixture of blood operated so slight a change in the genius of
+that immense nation, that its effects have ceased, or make themselves
+perceptible only in an exceedingly slow manner, it is because its
+quantity was so extremely small, compared to the utilitarian population
+by which it was absorbed.
+
+Into the actual populations of Europe, the Germanic tribes infused a
+strong utilitarian tendency, and in the north, this has been continually
+recruited by new accessions of the same ethnical element; but in the
+south (with some exceptions, Piedmont, and the North of Spain, for
+example), the Germanic element forms not so great a portion of the whole
+mass, and the utilitarian tendency has there been overweighed by the
+opposite genius of the native populations.
+
+Among the speculative races we have signalized the Hindoos. They are
+endowed in a high degree with the tendency for the supernatural, the
+abstract. Their character is more meditative than active and practical.
+As their ancient conquests incorporated with them races of a similar
+disposition, the utilitarian element has never prevailed sufficiently to
+produce decided results. While, therefore, their civilization has
+arrived at a high degree of perfection in other respects, it has lagged
+far behind in all that promotes material comfort, in all that is
+strictly useful and practical.
+
+Rome, at first strictly utilitarian, changed its character gradually as
+the fusion with Greek, Asiatic, and African elements proceeded, and when
+once the ancient utilitarian population was absorbed in this ethnical
+inundation, the practical character of Rome was lost.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From the consideration of these and similar facts, I arrive at the
+conclusion, that all intellectual or moral activity results from the
+combined action and mutual reaction of these two tendencies, and that
+the social system can arrive at that development which entitles it to
+the name of civilization, only in races which possess, in a high degree,
+either of the two, without being too much deficient in the other.
+
+I now proceed to the examination of other points also deserving of
+notice.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[94] Hazlitt's translation, vol. i. p 21. New York, 1855.--H.
+
+[95] A careful comparison of Mr. Guizot's views with those expressed by
+Count Gobineau upon this interesting subject convinced me that the
+differences of opinion between these two investigators required a more
+careful and minute examination than the author has thought necessary.
+With this view, I subjoin further extracts from the celebrated "_History
+of Civilization in Europe_," from which, I think, it will appear that
+few of the great truths comprised in the definition of _civilization_
+have escaped the penetration and research of the illustrious writer, but
+that, being unable to divest himself of the idea of _unity_ of
+civilization, he has necessarily fallen into an error, with which a
+great metaphysician justly charges so many reasoners. "It is hard," says
+Locke, speaking of the abuse of words, "to find a discourse written on
+any subject, especially of controversy, wherein one shall not observe,
+if he read with attention, the same words (and those commonly the most
+material in the discourse, and upon which the argument turns) used
+sometimes for one collection of simple ideas, and sometimes for
+another.... A man, in his accompts with another, might with as much
+fairness, make the characters of numbers stand sometimes for one, and
+sometimes for another collection of units (_e. g._, this character, 3,
+stand sometimes for three, sometimes for four, and sometimes for eight),
+as, in his discourse or reasoning, make the same words stand for
+different collections of simple ideas."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Mr. Guizot opens his first lecture by declaring his intention of giving
+a "general survey of the history of _European civilization_, of its
+_origin_, its _progress_, its _end_, its _character_. I say European
+civilization, because there is evidently so striking a uniformity in the
+civilization of the different states of Europe, as fully to warrant this
+appellation. Civilization has flowed to them all from sources so much
+alike, it is so connected in them all--notwithstanding the great
+differences of time, of place, and circumstances--by the same
+principles, and it tends in them all to bring about the same results,
+that no one will doubt of there being _a civilization essentially
+European_."
+
+Here, then, Mr. Guizot acknowledges one great truth contended for in
+this volume; he virtually recognizes the fact that there may be other
+civilizations, having different origins, a different progress, different
+characters, different ends.
+
+"At the same time, it must be observed, that this civilization cannot be
+found in--its history cannot be collected from--the history of any
+single state of Europe. However similar in its general appearance
+throughout the whole, its variety is not less remarkable, nor has it
+ever yet developed itself completely in any particular country. Its
+characteristic features are widely spread, and we shall be obliged to
+seek, as occasion may require, in England, in France, in Germany, in
+Spain, for the elements of its history."
+
+This is precisely the idea expressed in my introduction, that according
+to the character of a nation, its civilization manifests itself in
+various ways; in some, by perfection in the arts, useful or polite; in
+others, by development of political forms, and their practical
+application, etc. If I had then wished to support my opinion by a great
+authority, I should, assuredly, have quoted Mr. Guizot, who, a few pages
+further on, says:--
+
+"Wherever the exterior condition of man becomes enlarged, quickened, and
+improved; wherever the intellectual nature of man distinguishes itself
+by its energy, brilliancy, and its grandeur; wherever these signs occur,
+notwithstanding the gravest imperfections in the social system, there
+man proclaims and applauds a civilization."
+
+"_Notwithstanding the gravest imperfections in the social system_," says
+Mr. Guizot, yet in the series of hypotheses, quoted in the text, in
+which he attempts a negative definition of civilization, by showing what
+civilization is _not_, he virtually makes a political form the test of
+civilization.
+
+In another passage, again, he says that civilization "is a course for
+humanity to run--a destiny for it to accomplish. Nations have
+transmitted, from age to age, something to their successors which is
+never lost, but which grows, and continues as a common stock, and will
+thus be carried on to the end of all things. For my part (he continues),
+I feel assured that human nature has such a destiny; that a general
+civilization pervades the human race; that at every epoch it augments;
+and that there, consequently, is a universal history of civilization to
+be written."
+
+It must be obvious to the reader who compares these extracts, that Mr.
+Guizot expresses a totally distinct idea or collection of ideas in each.
+
+First, the civilization of a particular nation, which exists "wherever
+the intellectual nature of man distinguishes itself by its energy,
+brilliancy, and grandeur." Such a civilization may flourish,
+"notwithstanding the greatest imperfections in the social system."
+
+Secondly, Mr. Guizot's _beau-idéal_ of the best, most perfect
+civilization, where the political forms insure the greatest happiness,
+promote the most rapid--yet well-regulated--progress.
+
+Thirdly, a great system of particular civilizations, as that of Europe,
+the various elements of which "are connected by the same principles, and
+tend all to bring about the same general results."
+
+Fourthly, a supposed general progress of the whole human race toward a
+higher state of perfection.
+
+To all these ideas, provided they are not confounded one with another, I
+have already given my assent. (See _Introduction_, p. 51.) With regard
+to the latter, however, I would observe that it by no means militates
+against a belief in the intellectual imparity of races, and the
+permanency of this imparity. As in a society composed of individuals,
+all enjoy the fruits of the general progress, though all have not
+contributed to it in equal measure, and some not at all: so, in that
+society, of which we may suppose the various branches of the human
+family to be the members, even the inferior participate more or less in
+the benefits of intellectual labor, of which they would have been
+incapable. Because I can transport myself with almost the swiftness of a
+bird from one place to another, it does not follow that--though I profit
+by Watt's genius--I could have invented the steam-engine, or even that I
+understand the principles upon which that invention is based.--H.
+
+[96] W. Von Humboldt, _Ueber die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java;
+Einleitung_, vol. i. p. 37. Berlin. "Die _Civilization_ ist die
+Vermenschlichung der Völker in ihren äusseren Einrichtungen und
+Gebräuchen, und der darauf Bezug habenden inneren Gesinnung."
+
+[97] William Von Humboldt. "Die Kultur fügt dieser Veredlung des
+gesellschaftlichen Zustandes Wissenschaft und Kunst hinzu."
+
+[98] W. Von Humboldt, _op. cit._, p. 37: "Wenn wir in unserer Sprache
+_Bildung_ sagen, so meinen wir damit etwas zugleich Höheres und mehr
+Innerlicheres, nämlich die Sinnesart, die sich aus der Erkenntniss und
+dem Gefühle des gesammten geistigen und sittlichen Streben harmonish auf
+die Empfindung und den Charakter ergiesst."
+
+As nothing can exceed the difficulty of rendering an abstract idea from
+the French into English, except to transmit the same from German into
+French, and as if _all_ these processes must be undergone, the identity
+of the idea is greatly endangered, I have thought proper to translate at
+once from the original German, and therefore differ somewhat from Mr.
+Gobineau, who gives it thus: "L'homme formé, c'est-ą-dire, l'homme qui,
+dans sa nature, possčde quelque chose de plus haut, de plus intime ą la
+fois, c'est-ą-dire, une faēon de comprendre qui répand harmonieusement
+sur la sensibilité et le charactčre les impressions qu'elle reēoit de
+l'activité intellectuelle et morale dans son ensemble." I have taken
+great pains to express clearly Mr. Von Humboldt's idea, and have
+therefore amplified the word _Sinnesart_, which has not its precise
+equivalent in English.--TRANS.
+
+[99] See page 154.
+
+[100] Mr. Klemm (_Allgemeine Culturgeschichte der Menschheit_, Leipzig,
+1849) adopts, also, a division of all races into two categories, which
+he calls respectively the _active_ and the _passive_. I have not had the
+advantage of perusing his book, and cannot, therefore, say whether his
+idea is similar to mine. It would not be surprising that, in pursuing
+the same road, we should both have stumbled over the same truth.
+
+[101] The translator has here permitted himself a deviation from the
+original. Mr. Gobineau, to express his idea, borrows from the symbolism
+of the Hindoos, where the feminine principle is represented by Prakriti,
+and the masculine by Purucha, and calls the two categories of races
+respectively feminine and masculine. But as he "thereby wishes to
+express nothing but a mutual fecundation, without ascribing any
+superiority to either," and as the idea seems fully rendered by the
+words used in the translation, the latter have been thought preferable,
+as not so liable to misrepresentation and misconception.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ELEMENTS OF CIVILIZATION--CONTINUED.
+
+ Definition of the term--Specific differences of
+ civilizations--Hindoo, Chinese, European, Greek, and Roman
+ civilizations--Universality of Chinese civilization--Superficiality
+ of ours--Picture of the social condition of France.
+
+
+When a tribe, impelled by more vigorous instincts than its neighbors,
+succeeds in collecting the hitherto scattered and isolated fragments
+into a compact whole, the first impetus of progress is thus given, the
+corner-stone of a civilization laid. But, to produce great and lasting
+results, a mere political preponderance is not sufficient. The dominant
+race must know how to lay hold of the feelings of the masses it has
+aggregated, to assimilate their individual interests, and to concentrate
+their energies to the same purposes. When the different elements
+composing the nation are thus blended into a more or less homogeneous
+mass, certain principles and modes of thinking become general, and form
+the standard around which all rally. These principles and modes of
+thinking, however, cannot be arbitrarily imposed, and must be resulting
+from, and in the main consonant with, pre-existing sentiments and
+desires.[102] They will be characterized by a utilitarian or a
+speculative tendency, according to the degree in which either instinct
+predominates in the constituent elements of the nation.
+
+This harmony of views and interests is the first essential to
+civilization; the second is stability, and is a natural consequence of
+the first. The general principles upon which the political and social
+system rests, being based upon instincts common to all, are by all
+regarded with the most affectionate veneration, and firmly believed to
+be perpetual. The purer a race remains, the more conservative will it be
+in its institutions, for its instincts never change. But the admixture
+of foreign blood produces proportionate modifications in the national
+ideas. The new-comers introduce instincts and notions which were not
+calculated upon in the social edifice. Alterations therefore become
+necessary, and these are often wholesome, especially in the youthful
+period of the society, when the new ethnical elements have not as yet
+acquired an undue preponderance. But, as the empire increases, and
+comprises elements more and more heterogeneous, the changes become more
+radical, and are not always for the better. Finally, as the initiatory
+and conservative element disappears, the different parts of the nation
+are no longer united by common instincts and interests; the original
+institutions are not adapted to their wants; sudden and total
+transformations become common, and a vain phantom of stability is
+pursued through endless experiments. But, while thus vacillating betwixt
+conflicting interests, and changing its purpose every hour, the nation
+imagines itself advancing to some imaginary goal of perfection. Firmly
+convinced of its own perpetuity, it holds fast to the doctrine which its
+daily acts disprove, that one of the principal features of a
+civilization is God-like immutability. And though each day brings forth
+new discontents and new changes equally futile, the apprehensions of the
+day are quieted with the expectations of to-morrow.
+
+I have said that the conditions necessary for the development of a
+civilization are--the aggregation of large masses, and stable
+institutions resulting from common views and interests. The sociable
+inclinations of man, and the less noble attributes of his nature,
+perform the rest. While the former bring him in intimate and varied
+connections with his fellow-men, the latter give rise to continual
+contests and emulation. In a large community, a strong fist is no longer
+sufficient to insure protection and give distinction, and the resources
+of the mind are applied and developed. Intellect continually seeks and
+finds new fields for exertion, either in the regions of the abstract, or
+in the material world. By its productions in either, we recognize an
+advanced state of society. The most common source of error in judging
+foreign nations, is that we are apt to look merely at the exterior
+demonstrations of their civilization, and because, in this respect,
+their civilization does not resemble ours, we hastily conclude that they
+are barbarous, or, at least, greatly inferior to us. A conclusion, drawn
+from such premises, must needs be very superficial, and therefore ought
+to be received with caution.
+
+I believe myself now prepared to express my idea of a civilization, by
+defining it as
+
+_A state of comparative stability, in which a large collection of
+individuals strive, by peaceful means, to satisfy their wants, and
+refine their intelligence and manners._
+
+This definition includes, without exception, all the nations which I
+have mentioned as being civilized. But, as these nations have few points
+of resemblance, the question suggests itself: Do not, then, all
+civilizations tend to the same results? I think not; for, as the nations
+called to the noble task of accomplishing a civilization, are endowed
+with the utilitarian and speculative tendencies in various degrees and
+proportions, their paths must necessarily lie in very divergent
+directions.
+
+What are the material wants of the Hindoo? Rice and butter for his
+nourishment, and a piece of cotton cloth for his garment. Nor can this
+abstemiousness be accounted for by climate, for the native of Thibet,
+under a much more rigorous sky, displays the same quality. In these
+peoples, the imaginative faculty greatly predominates, their
+intellectual efforts are directed to abstractions, and the fruits of
+their civilization are therefore seldom of a practical or utilitarian
+character. Magnificent temples are hewn out of mountains of solid rock
+at an expense of labor and time that terrifies the imagination; gigantic
+constructions are erected;--all this in honor of the gods, while nothing
+is done for man's benefit, unless it be tombs. By the side of the
+miracles wrought by the sculptor's chisel, we admire the finished
+masterpieces of a literature full of vigor, and as ingenious and subtle
+in theology and metaphysics, as beautiful in its variety: in speculative
+efforts, human thought descends without trepidation to immeasurable
+depths; its lyric poetry challenges the admiration of all mankind.
+
+But if we leave the domain of idealistic reveries, and seek for
+inventions of practical utility, and for the sciences that are their
+theoretical basis, we find a deplorable deficiency. From a dazzling
+height, we suddenly find ourselves descended to a profound and darksome
+abyss. Useful inventions are scarce, of a petty character, and, being
+neglected, remain barren of results. While the Chinese observed and
+invented a great deal, the Hindoos invented but little, and of that
+little took no care; the Greeks, also, have left us much information,
+but little worthy of their genius; and the Romans, once arrived at the
+culminating point of their history, could no longer make any real
+progress, for the Asiatic admixture in which they were absorbed with
+surprising rapidity, produced a population incapable of the patient and
+toilsome investigation of stern realities. Their administrative genius,
+however, their legislation, and the useful monuments with which they
+provided the soil of their territories, attest sufficiently the
+practical character which, at one time, so eminently characterized that
+people; and prove that if the South of Europe had not been so rapidly
+submerged with colonists from Asia and the North of Africa, positive
+science would have been the gainer, and less would have been left to be
+accomplished by the Germanic races, which afterward gave it a renewed
+impulse.
+
+The Germanic conquerors of the fifth century were characterized by
+instincts of a similar kind to those of the Chinese, but of a higher
+order. While they possessed the utilitarian tendency as strongly, if not
+stronger, they had, at the same time, a much greater endowment of the
+speculative. Their disposition presented a happy blending of these two
+mainsprings of activity. Where-ever the Teutonic blood predominates, the
+utilitarian tendency, ennobled and refined by the speculative, is
+unmistakable. In England, North America, and Holland, this tendency
+governs and preponderates over all the other national instincts. It is
+so, in a lesser degree, in Belgium, and even in the North of France,
+where everything susceptible of practical application is understood with
+marvellous facility. But as we advance further south, this
+predisposition is less apparent, and, finally, disappears altogether. We
+cannot attribute this to the action of the sun, for the Piedmontese
+live in a much warmer climate than the Provenēals and the inhabitants of
+the Languedoc; it is the effect of blood.
+
+The series of speculative races, or those rendered so by admixture,
+occupies the greater portion of the globe, and this observation is
+particularly applicable to Europe. With the exception of the Teutonic
+family, and a portion of the Sclavonic, all other groups of our part of
+the world are but slightly endowed with the faculty for the useful and
+practical; or, having already acted their part in the world's history,
+will not be able to recommence it. All these races, from the Gaul to the
+Celtiberian, and thence to the variegated compounds of the Italian
+populations, present a descending scale from a utilitarian point of
+view. Not that they are devoid of all the aptitudes of that tendency,
+but they are wanting in some of the most essential.
+
+The union of the Germanic tribes with the races of the ancient world,
+this engrafting of a vigorous utilitarian principle upon the ideas of
+that variegated compound, produced our civilization; the richness,
+diversity, and fecundity of our state of culture is the natural result
+of that combination of so many different elements, which each
+contributed their part, and which the practical vigor of our Germanic
+ancestors, succeeded in blending into a more or less harmonious whole.
+
+Wherever our state of civilization extends, it is characterized by two
+traits; the first, that the population contains a greater or less
+admixture of Teutonic blood; the other, that it is Christian. This last
+feature, however, as I said before, though the most obvious and
+striking, is by no means essential, because many nations are Christian,
+and many more may become so, without participating in our civilization.
+But the first feature is positive, decisive. Wherever the Germanic
+element has not penetrated, our civilization cannot flourish.[103]
+
+This leads me to the investigation of a serious and important question:
+"Can it be asserted that all the European nations are really and
+thoroughly civilized?" Do the ideas and facts which rise upon the
+surface of our civilization, strike root in the basis of our social and
+political structure, and derive their vitality from that source? Are the
+results of these ideas and facts such as are conformable to the
+instincts, the tendencies, of the masses? Or, in other words, have the
+lowest strata of our populations the same direction of thought and
+action as the highest--that direction which we may call the spirit or
+genius of our progressive movement?
+
+To arrive at a true and unbiassed solution of this question, let us
+examine other civilizations, different from ours, and then institute a
+comparison.
+
+The similarity of views and ideas, the unity of purpose, which
+characterized the whole body of citizens in the Grecian states, during
+the brilliant period of their history, has been justly admired. Upon
+every essential point, the opinions of every individual, though often
+conflicting, were, nevertheless, derived from the same source, emanated
+from the same general views and sentiments; individuals might differ in
+politics, one wishing a more oligarchical, another a more democratic
+government; or they might differ in religion, one worshipping, by
+preference, the Eleusinian Ceres, another the Minerva of the Parthenon;
+or in matters of taste, one might prefer Ęschylus to Sophocles, Alceus
+to Pindar. At the bottom, the disputants all participated in the same
+views and ideas, ideas which might well be called national. The question
+was one of degree, not of kind.[104]
+
+Rome, previous to the Punic wars, presented the same spectacle; the
+civilization of the country was uniform, and embraced all, from the
+master to the slave.[105] All might not participate in it to the same
+extent, but all participated in it and in no other.
+
+But in Rome, after the Punic wars, and in Greece, soon after Pericles,
+and especially after Philip of Macedon, this character of homogeneity
+began to disappear. The greater mixture of nations produced a
+corresponding mixture of civilizations, and the compound thus formed
+exceeded in variety, elegance, refinement, and learning, the ancient
+mode of culture. But it had this capital inconvenience, both in Hellas
+and in Italy, that it belonged exclusively to the higher classes. Its
+nature, its merits, its tendencies, were ignored by the sub-strata of
+the population. Let us take the civilization of Rome after the Asiatic
+wars. It was a grand, magnificent monument of human genius. It had a
+cosmopolitan character: the rhetoricians of Greece contributed to it the
+transcendental spirit, the jurists and publicists of Syria and
+Alexandria gave it a code of atheistic, levelling, and monarchical
+laws--each part of the empire furnished to the common store some portion
+of its ideas, its sciences, and its character. But whom did this
+civilization embrace? The men engaged in the public administration or in
+great monetary enterprises, the people of wealth and of leisure. It was
+merely submitted to, not adopted by the masses. The populations of
+Europe understood nothing of those Asiatic and African contributions to
+the civilization; the inhabitants of Egypt, Numidia, or Asia, were
+equally uninterested in what came from Gaul and Spain, countries with
+which they had nothing in common. But a small minority of the Roman
+people stood on the pinnacle, and being in possession of the secret,
+valued it. The rest, those not included in the aristocracy of wealth and
+position, preserved the civilization peculiar to the land of their
+birth, or, perhaps, had none at all. Here, then, we have an example of a
+great and highly perfected civilization, dominating over untold
+millions, but founding its reign not in their desires or convictions,
+but in their exhaustion, their weakness, their listlessness.
+
+A very different spectacle is presented in China. The boundless extent
+of that empire includes, indeed, several races markedly distinct, but I
+shall speak at present only of the national race, the Chinese proper.
+One spirit animates the whole of this immense multitude, which is
+counted by hundreds of millions. Whatever we think of their
+civilization, whether we admire or censure the principles upon which it
+is based, the results which it has produced, and the direction which it
+takes; we cannot deny that it pervades all ranks, that every individual
+takes in it a definite and intelligent part. And this is not because the
+country is free, in our sense of the word: there is no democratic
+principle which secures, by law, to every one the position which his
+efforts may attain, and thus spurs him on to exertions. No; I discard
+all Utopian pictures. The peasant and the man of the middle classes, in
+the Celestial Empire, are no better assured of rising by their own merit
+only, than they are elsewhere. It is true that, in theory, public honors
+are solely the reward of merit, and every one is permitted to offer
+himself as a candidate;[106] but it is well known that, in reality, the
+families of great functionaries monopolize all lucrative offices, and
+that the scholastic diplomas often cost more money than efforts of
+study. But disappointed or hopeless ambition never leads the possessor
+to imagine a different system; the aim of the reformer is to remedy the
+abuses of the established organization, not to substitute another. The
+masses may groan under ills and abuses, but the fault is charged, not to
+the social and political system, which to them is an object of
+unqualified admiration, but to the persons to whose care the performance
+of its duties is committed. The head of the government, or his
+functionaries, may become unpopular, but the form itself, the
+government, never. A very remarkable feature of the Chinese is that
+among them primary instruction is so universal; it reaches classes whom
+we hardly imagine to have any need of it. The cheapness of books, the
+immense number and low price of the schools, enable even the poorest to
+acquire the elements of knowledge, reading and writing.[107] The laws,
+their spirit and tendency, are well known and understood by all classes,
+and the government prides itself upon facilitating the study of this
+useful science.[108] The instinct of the masses is decidedly averse to
+all political convulsions. Mr. Davis, who was commissioner of H. B.
+Majesty in China, and who studied its affairs with the assiduity of a
+man who is interested in understanding them well, says that the
+character of the people cannot be better expressed than by calling them
+"a nation of steady conservatives."[109]
+
+Here, then, we have a most striking contrast to the civilization of Rome
+in her latter days, when governmental changes occurred in fearfully
+rapid succession, until the arrival of the nations of the north. In
+every portion of that vast empire, there were whole populations that had
+no interest in the preservation of established order, and were ever
+ready to second the maddest schemes, to embark in any enterprise that
+seemed to promise advantage, or that was represented in seductive colors
+by some ambitious demagogue. During that long period of several
+centuries, no scheme was left untried: property, religion, the sanctity
+of family relations, were all called in question, and innovators in
+every portion of the empire, found multitudes ever disposed to carry
+their theories into practice by force. Nothing in the Greco-Roman world
+rested on a solid basis, not even the imperial unity, so indispensable,
+it would seem, to the mere self-preservation of such a state of
+society. It was not only the armies, with their swarm of _improvisto_
+Cęsars, that undertook the task of shaking this palladium of national
+safety; the emperors themselves, beginning with Diocletian, had so
+little faith in monarchy, that they willingly made the experiment of
+dualism in the government, and finally found four at a time not too many
+for governing the empire.[110] I repeat it, not one institution, not one
+principle, was stable in that wretched state of society, which continued
+to preserve some outward form, merely from the physical impossibility of
+assuming any others, until the men of the north came to assist in its
+demolition.
+
+Between these two great societies, then, the Roman empire, and that of
+China, we perceive the most complete contrast. By the side of the
+civilization of Eastern Asia, I may mention that of India, Thibet, and
+other portions of Central Asia, which is equally universal, and diffused
+among all ranks and classes. As in China there is a certain level of
+information to which all attain, so in Hindostan, every one is animated
+by the same spirit; each individual knows precisely what his caste
+requires him to learn, to think, to believe. Among the Buddhists of
+Thibet, and the table-lands of Asia, nothing is rarer than to find a
+peasant who cannot read, and there everybody has the same convictions
+upon important subjects.
+
+Do we find this homogeneity in European nations? It is scarce worth
+while to put the question. Not even the Greco-Roman empire presents
+incongruities so strange, or contrasts so striking, as are to be found
+among us; not only among the various nationalities of Europe, but in the
+bosom of the same sovereignty. I shall not speak of Russia, and the
+states that form the Austrian empire; the demonstration of my position
+would there be too facile. Let us turn to Germany; to Italy, Southern
+Italy in particular; to Spain, which, though in a less degree, presents
+a similar picture; or to France.
+
+I select France. The difference of manners, in various parts of this
+country, has struck even the most superficial observer, and it has long
+since been observed that Paris is separated from the rest of France by a
+line of demarcation so decided and accurately defined, that at the very
+gates of the capital, a nation is found, utterly different from that
+within the walls. Nothing can be more true: those who attach to our
+political unity the idea of similarity of thoughts, of character--in
+fine, of nationality, are laboring under a great delusion. There is not
+one principle that governs society and is connected with our
+civilization, which is understood in the same manner in all our
+departments. I do not speak here merely of the peculiarities that
+characterize the native of Normandy, of Brittany, Angevin, Limousin,
+Gascony, Provence. Every one knows how little alike these various
+populations are,[111] and how they differ in their tendencies and modes
+of thinking. I wish to draw attention to the fact, that while in China,
+Thibet, India, the most essential ideas upon which the civilization is
+based, are common to all classes, participated in by all, it is by no
+means so among us. The very rudiments of our knowledge, the most
+elementary and most generally accessible portion of it, remain an
+impenetrable mystery to our rural populations, among whom but few
+individuals are found acquainted with reading and writing. This is not
+for want of opportunities--it is because no value is attached to these
+acquisitions, because their utility is not perceived. I speak from my
+own observation, and that of persons who had ample facilities, and
+brought extensive information and great judgment to the task of
+investigation. Government has made the most praiseworthy efforts to
+remedy the evil, to raise the peasantry from the sink of ignorance in
+which they vegetate. But the wisest laws, and the most carefully
+calculated institutions have proved abortive. The smallest village
+affords ample opportunities for common education; even the adult, when
+conscription forces him into the army, finds in the regimental schools
+every facility for acquiring the most necessary branches of knowledge.
+Compulsion is resorted to--every one who has lived in the provinces
+knows with what success. Parents send their children to school with
+undisguised repugnance, for they regret the time thus spent as wasted,
+and, therefore, eagerly seize the most trifling pretext for withdrawing
+them, and never suffer them to exceed the legal term of attendance. So
+soon as the young man leaves school, or the soldier has served his time,
+they hasten to forget what they were compelled to learn, and what they
+are heartily ashamed of. They return forever after to the local
+_patois_[112] of their birthplace, and pretend to have forgotten the
+French language, which, indeed, is but too often true. It is a painful
+conclusion, but one which many and careful observations have forced upon
+me, that all the generous private and public endeavors to instruct our
+rural population, are absolutely futile, and can tend no further than to
+enforce an outward compliance. They care not for the knowledge we wish
+to give them--they will not have it, and this not from mere negligence
+or apathy, but from a feeling of positive hostility to our
+civilization. This is a startling assertion, but I have not yet adduced
+all the proofs in support of it.
+
+In those parts of the country where the laboring classes are employed in
+manufactures principally, and in the great cities, the workmen are
+easily induced to learn to read and write. The circumstances with which
+they are surrounded, leave them no doubt as to the practical advantages
+accruing to them from these acquisitions. But so soon as these men have
+sufficiently mastered the first elements of knowledge, to what use do
+they, for the most part, apply them? To imbibe or give vent to ideas and
+sentiments the most subversive of all social order. The instinctive, but
+passive hostility to our civilization, is superseded by a bitter and
+active enmity, often productive of the most fearful calamities. It is
+among these classes that the projectors of the wildest, most incendiary
+schemes readily recruit their partisans; that the advocates of
+socialism, community of goods and wives, all, in fact, who, under the
+pretext of removing the ills and abuses that afflict the social system,
+propose to tear it down, find ready listeners and zealous believers.
+
+There are, however, portions of the country to which this picture does
+not apply; and these exceptions furnish me with another proof in favor
+of my proposition. Among the agricultural and manufacturing populations
+of the north and northeast, information is general; it is readily
+received, and, once received, retained and productive of good fruits.
+These people are intelligent, well-informed, and orderly, like their
+neighbors in Belgium and the whole of the Netherlands. And these, also,
+are the populations most closely akin to the Teutonic race, the race
+which, as I said in another place, gave the initiative to our
+civilization.
+
+The aversion to our civilization, of which I spoke, is not the only
+singular feature in the character of our rural populations. If we
+penetrate into the privacy of their thoughts and beliefs, we make
+discoveries equally striking and startling. The bishops and parish
+clergy have to this day, as they had one, five, or fifteen centuries
+ago, to battle with mysterious superstitions, or hereditary tendencies,
+some of which are the more formidable as they are seldom openly avowed,
+and can, therefore, be neither attacked nor conquered. There is no
+enlightened priest, that has the care of his flock at heart, but knows
+from experience with what deep cunning the peasant, however devout,
+knows how to conceal in his own bosom some fondly cherished traditional
+idea or belief, which reveals itself only at long intervals, and
+without his knowledge. If he is spoken to about it, he denies or evades
+the discussion, but remains unshaken in his convictions. He has
+unbounded confidence in his pastor, unbounded except upon this one
+subject, that might not inappropriately be called his secret religion.
+Hence that taciturnity and reserve which, in all our provinces, is the
+most marked characteristic of the peasant, and which he never for a
+moment lays aside towards the class he calls _bourgeois_; that
+impassable barrier between him and even the most popular and
+well-intentioned landed proprietor of his district.
+
+It must not be supposed that this results merely from rudeness and
+ignorance. Were it so, we might console ourselves with the hope that
+they will gradually improve and assimilate with the more enlightened
+classes. But these people are precisely like certain savages; at a
+superficial glance they appear unreflecting and brutish, because their
+exterior is humble, and their character requires to be studied. But so
+soon as we penetrate, however little, into their own circle of ideas,
+the feelings that govern their private life, we discover that in their
+obstinate isolation from our civilization, they are not actuated by a
+feeling of degradation. Their affections and antipathies do not arise
+from mere accidental circumstances, but, on the contrary, are in
+accordance with logical reasoning based upon well-defined and clearly
+conceived ideas.[113] In speaking of their religious notions awhile
+ago, I should have remarked what an immense distance there is between
+our doctrines of morals and those of the peasantry, how widely different
+are their ideas from those which we attach to the same word.[114] With
+what pertinacious obstinacy they continue to look upon every one not
+peasant like themselves, as the people of remote antiquity looked upon a
+foreigner. It is true they do not kill him, thanks to the singular and
+mysterious terror which the laws, in the making of which they have no
+part, inspire them; but they hate him cordially, distrust him, and if
+they can do so without too great a risk, fleece him without scruple and
+with immense satisfaction. Yet they are not wicked or ill-disposed.
+Among themselves they are kind-hearted, charitable, and obliging. But
+then they regard themselves as a distinct race--a race, they tell
+you--that is weak, oppressed, and that must resort to cunning and
+stratagem to gain their due, but which, nevertheless, preserves its
+pride and contempt for all others. In many of our provinces, the laborer
+believes himself of much better stock than his former lord or present
+employer. The family pride of many of our peasants is, to say the least,
+as great as that of the nobility during the Middle Ages.[115]
+
+It cannot be doubted that the lower strata of the population of France
+have few features in common with the higher. Our civilization penetrates
+but little below the surface. The great mass is indifferent--nay,
+positively hostile to it. The most tragic events have stained the
+country with torrents of blood, unparalleled convulsions have destroyed
+every ancient fabric, both social and political. Yet the agricultural
+populations have never been roused from their apathetic
+indifference,[116] have never taken any other part but that to which
+they were forced. When their own personal and immediate interests were
+not at stake, they allowed the tempests to blow by without concern,
+without even passive sympathy on one side or the other. Many persons,
+frightened and scandalized at this spectacle, have declared the
+peasantry as irreclaimably perverse. This is at the same time an
+injustice, and a very false appreciation of their character. The
+peasants regard us almost as their enemies. They comprehend nothing of
+our civilization, contribute nothing to it of their own accord, and they
+think themselves authorized to profit by its disasters, whenever they
+can. Apart from this antagonism, which sometimes displays itself in an
+active, but oftener in a passive manner, it cannot be doubted that they
+possess moral qualities of a high order, though often singularly
+applied.
+
+Such is the state of civilization in France. It may be asserted that of
+a population of thirty-six millions, ten participate in the ideas and
+mode of thinking upon which our civilization is based, while the
+remaining twenty-six altogether ignore them, are indifferent and even
+hostile to them, and this computation would, I think, be even more
+flattering than the real truth. Nor is France an exception in this
+respect. The picture I have given applies to the greater part of Europe.
+Our civilization is suspended, as it were, over an unfathomable gulf, at
+the bottom of which there slumber elements which may, one day, be roused
+and prove fearfully, irresistibly destructive. This is an awful, an
+ominous truth. Upon its ultimate consequences it is painful to reflect.
+Wisdom may, perhaps, foresee the storm, but can do little to avert it.
+
+But ignored, despised, or hated as it is by the greater number of those
+over whom it extends its dominion, our civilization is, nevertheless,
+one of the grandest, most glorious monuments of the human mind. In the
+inventive, initiatory quality it does not surpass, or even equal some
+of its predecessors, but in comprehensiveness it surpasses all. From
+this comprehensiveness arise its powers of appropriation, of conquest;
+for, to comprehend is to seize, to possess. It has appropriated all
+their acquisitions, and has remodelled, reconstructed them. It did not
+create the exact sciences, but it has given them their exactitude, and
+has disembarrassed them from the divagations from which, by a singular
+paradox, they were anciently less free than any other branch of
+knowledge. Thanks to its discoveries, the material world is better known
+than at any other epoch. The laws by which nature is governed, it has,
+in a great measure, succeeded in unveiling, and it has applied them so
+as to produce results truly wonderful. Gradually, and by the clearness
+and correctness of its induction, it has reconstructed immense fragments
+of history, of which the ancients had no knowledge; and as it recedes
+from the primitive ages of the world, it penetrates further into the
+mist that obscures them. These are great points of superiority, and
+which cannot be contested.
+
+But these being admitted, are we authorized to conclude--as is so
+generally assumed as a matter of course--that the characteristics of our
+civilization are such as to entitle it to the pre-eminence among all
+others? Let us examine what are its peculiar excellencies. Thanks to the
+prodigious number of various elements that contributed to its formation,
+it has an eclectic character which none of its predecessors or
+contemporaries possess. It unites and combines so many various qualities
+and faculties, that its progress is equally facile in all directions;
+and it has powers of analysis and generalization so great, that it can
+embrace and appropriate all things, and, what is more, apply them to
+practical purposes. In other words, it advances at once in a number of
+different directions, and makes valuable conquests in all, but it cannot
+be said that it advances at the same time _furthest_ in all. Variety,
+perhaps, rather than great intensity, is its characteristic. If we
+compare its progress in any one direction with what has been done by
+others in the same, we shall find that in few, indeed, can our
+civilization claim pre-eminence. I shall select three of the most
+striking features of every civilization; the art of government, the
+state of the fine arts, and refinement of manners.
+
+In the art of government, the civilization of Europe has arrived at no
+positive result. In this respect, it has been unable to assume a
+definite character. It has laid down no principles. In every country
+over which its dominion extends, it is subservient to the exigencies of
+the various races which it has aggregated, but not united. In England,
+Holland, Naples, and Russia, political forms are still in a state of
+comparative stability, because either the whole population, or the
+dominant portion of it, is composed of the same or homogeneous elements.
+But everywhere else, especially in France, Central Italy, and Germany,
+where the ethnical diversity is boundless, governmental theories have
+never risen to the dignity of recognized truth; political science
+consisted in an endless series of experiments. Our civilization,
+therefore, being unable to assume a definite political feature, is
+devoid, in this respect, of that stability which I comprised as an
+essential feature in my definition of a civilization. This impotency is
+not found in many other civilizations which we deem inferior. In the
+Celestial Empire, in the Buddhistic and Brahminical societies, the
+political feature of the civilization is clearly enounced, and clearly
+understood by each individual member. In matters of politics all think
+alike; under a wise administration, when the secular institutions
+produce beneficent fruits, all rejoice; when in unskilled or malignant
+hands, they endanger the public welfare, it is a misfortune to be
+regretted as we regret our own faults; but no circumstance can abate
+the respect and admiration with which they are regarded. It may be
+desirable to correct abuses that have crept into them, but never to
+replace them by others. It cannot be denied that these civilizations,
+therefore, whatever we may think of them in other respects, enjoy a
+guarantee of durability, of longevity, in which ours is sadly wanting.
+
+With regard to the arts, our civilization is decidedly inferior to
+others. Whether we aim at the grand or the beautiful, we cannot rival
+either the imposing grandeur of the civilization of Egypt, of India, or
+even of the ancient American empires, nor the elegant beauty of that of
+Greece. Centuries hence--when the span of time allotted to us shall have
+been consumed, when our civilization, like all that preceded it, shall
+have sunk in the dim shades of the past, and have become a matter of
+inquiry only to the historical student--some future traveller may wander
+among the forests and marshes on the banks of the Thames, the Seine, or
+the Rhine, but he will find no glorious monuments of our grandeur; no
+sumptuous or gigantic ruins like those of Philę, of Nineveh, of Athens,
+of Salsetta, or of Tenochtitlan. A remote posterity may venerate our
+memory as their preceptors in exact sciences. They may admire our
+ingenuity, our patience, the perfection to which we have carried
+inductive reasoning--not so our conquests in the regions of the
+abstract. In poesy we can bequeath them nothing. The boundless
+admiration which we bestow upon the productions of foreign civilizations
+both past and present, is a positive proof of our own inferiority in
+this respect.[117]
+
+Perhaps the most striking features of a civilization, though not a true
+standard of its merit, is the degree of refinement which it has
+attained. By refinement I mean all the luxuries and amenities of life,
+the regulations of social intercourse, delicacy of habits and tastes. It
+cannot be denied that in all these we do not surpass, nor even equal,
+many former as well as contemporaneous civilizations. We cannot rival
+the magnificence of the latter days of Rome, or of the Byzantine empire;
+we can but imagine the gorgeous luxury of Eastern civilizations; and in
+our own past history we find periods when the modes of living were more
+sumptuous, polished intercourse regulated by a higher and more exacting
+standard, when taste was more cultivated, and habits more refined. It is
+true, that we are amply compensated by a greater and more general
+diffusion of the comforts of life; but in its exterior manifestations,
+our civilization compares unfavorably with many others, and might almost
+be called shabby.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Before concluding this digression upon civilization, which has already
+extended perhaps too far, it may not be unnecessary to reiterate the
+principal ideas which I wished to present to the mind of the reader. I
+have endeavored to show that every civilization derives its peculiar
+character from the race which gave the initiatory impulse. The
+alteration of this initiatory principle produces corresponding
+modifications, and even total changes, in the character of the
+civilization. Thus our civilization owes its origin to the Teutonic
+race, whose leading characteristic was an elevated utilitarianism. But
+as these races ingrafted their mode of culture upon stocks essentially
+different, the character of the civilization has been variously modified
+according to the elements which it combined and amalgamated. The
+civilization of a nation, therefore, exhibits the kind and degree of
+their capabilities. It is the mirror in which they reflect their
+individuality.
+
+I shall now return to the natural order of my deductions, the series of
+which is yet far from being complete. I commenced by enouncing the truth
+that the existence and annihilation of human societies depended upon
+immutable and uniform laws. I have proved the insufficiency of
+adventitious circumstances to produce these phenomena, and have traced
+their causes to the various capabilities of different human groups; in
+other words, to the moral and intellectual diversity of races. Logic,
+then, demands that I should determine the meaning and bearing of the
+word race, and this will be the object of the next chapter.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[102] See a quotation from De Tocqueville to the same effect, p. 77.
+
+[103] One striking observation, in connection with this fact, Mr.
+Gobineau has omitted to make, probably not because it escaped his
+sagacity, but because he is himself a Roman Catholic. Wherever the
+Teutonic element in the population is predominant, as in Denmark,
+Sweden, Holland, England, Scotland, Northern Germany, and the United
+States, Protestantism prevails; wherever, on the contrary, the Germanic
+element is subordinate, as in portions of Ireland, in South America, and
+the South of Europe, Roman Catholicism finds an impregnable fortress in
+the hearts of the people. An ethnographical chart, carefully made out,
+would indicate the boundaries of each in Christendom. I do not here mean
+to assert that the Christian religion is accessible only to certain
+races, having already emphatically expressed my opinion to the contrary.
+I feel firmly convinced that a Roman Catholic may be as good and pious a
+Christian as a member of any other Christian Church whatever, but I see
+in this fact the demonstration of that leading characteristic of the
+Germanic races--independence of thought, which incites them to seek for
+truth, even in religion, for themselves; to investigate everything, and
+take nothing upon trust.
+
+I have, moreover, in favor of my position, the high authority of Mr.
+Macaulay: "The Reformation," says that distinguished essayist and
+historian, "was a national as well as a moral revolt. It had been not
+only an insurrection of the laity against the clergy, but _also an
+insurrection of the great German race against an alien domination_. It
+is a most significant circumstance, that no large society of which the
+tongue is not Teutonic, has ever turned Protestant, and that, wherever a
+language derived from ancient Rome is spoken, the religion of modern
+Rome to this day prevails." (_Hist. of England_, vol. i. p. 53.)--H.
+
+[104] Thus Sparta and Athens, respectively, stood at the head of the
+oligarchic and democratic parties, and the alternate preponderance of
+either of the two often inundated each state with blood. Yet Sparta and
+Athens, and the partisans of each in every state, possessed the spirit
+of liberty and independence in an equal degree. Themistocles and
+Aristides, the two great party leaders of Athens, vied with each other
+in patriotism.
+
+This uniformity of general views and purpose, Mr. De Tocqueville found
+in the United States, and he correctly deduces from it the conclusion
+that "though the citizens are divided into 24 (31) distinct
+sovereignties, they, nevertheless, constitute a single nation, and form
+more truly a state of society, than many peoples of Europe, living under
+the same legislation, and the same prince." (Vol. i. p. 425.) This is an
+observation which Europeans make last, because they do not find it at
+home; and in return, it prevents the American from acquiring a clear
+conception of the state of Europe, because he thinks the disputes there
+involve no deeper questions than the disputes around him. In certain
+fundamental principles, all Americans agree, to whatever party they may
+belong; certain general characteristics belong to them all, whatever be
+the differences of taste, and individual preferences; it is not so in
+Europe--England, perhaps, excepted, and Sweden and Denmark. But I will
+not anticipate the author.--H.
+
+[105] It is well known that, in both Greece and Rome, the education of
+the children of wealthy families was very generally intrusted to slaves.
+Some of the greatest philosophers of ancient Greece were bondsmen.--H.
+
+[106] China has no hereditary nobility. The class of mandarins is
+composed of those who have received diplomas in the great colleges with
+which the country abounds. A decree of the Emperor JIN-TSOUNG, who
+reigned from 1023 to 1063, regulated the modes of examination, to which
+all, indiscriminately, are admitted. The candidates are examined more
+than once, and every precaution is taken to prevent frauds. Thus, the
+son of the poorest peasant may become a mandarin, but, as he afterwards
+is dependent on the emperor for office or employment, this dignity is
+often of but little practical value. Still, there are numerous instances
+on record, in the history of China, of men who have risen from the
+lowest ranks to the first offices of the State, and even to the imperial
+dignity. (See _Pauthier's Histoire de la Chine_.)--H.
+
+[107] John F. Davis, _The Chinese_. London, 1840, p. 274. "Three or four
+volumes of any ordinary work of the octavo size and shape, may be had
+for a sum equivalent to two shillings. A Canton bookseller's manuscript
+catalogue marked the price of the four books of Confucius, including the
+commentary, at a price rather under half a crown. The cheapness of their
+common literature is occasioned partly by the mode of printing, but
+partly also by the low price of paper."
+
+These are Canton prices; in the interior of the empire, books are still
+cheaper, even in proportion to the value of money in China. Their
+classic works are sold at a proportionably lower price than the very
+refuse of our literature. A pamphlet, or small tale, may be bought for a
+sapeck, about the seventeenth part of a cent; an ordinary novel, for a
+little more or less than one cent.--H.
+
+[108] There are certain offences for which the punishment is remitted,
+if the culprit is able to explain lucidly the nature and object of the
+law respecting them. (See _Huc's Trav. in China_, vol. ii. p. 252.) In
+the same place, Mr. Huc bears witness to the correctness of our author's
+assertion. "Measures are taken," says he, "not only to enable the
+magistrates to understand perfectly the laws they are called upon to
+apply, but also to diffuse a knowledge of them among the people at
+large. All persons in the employment of the government, are ordered to
+make the code their particular study; and a special enactment provides,
+that at certain periods, all officers, in all localities, shall be
+examined upon their knowledge of the laws by their respective superiors;
+and if their answers are not satisfactory, they are punished, the high
+officials by the retention of a month's pay; the inferior ones by forty
+strokes of the bamboo." It must not be imagined that Mr. Huc speaks of
+the Chinese in the spirit of a panegyrist. Any one who reads this highly
+instructive and amusing book (now accessible to English readers by a
+translation), will soon be convinced of the contrary. He seldom speaks
+of them to praise them.--H.
+
+[109] Op. cit., p. 100.
+
+[110] The reader will remember that DIOCLETIAN, who, the son of a slave,
+rose from the rank of a common soldier, to the throne of the empire of
+the world, associated with himself in the government, his friend
+MAXIMIAN, A. D. 286. After six years of this joint reign, they took two
+other partners, GALERIUS and CONSTANTIUS. Thus, the empire, though
+nominally one sovereignty, had in reality four supreme heads. Under
+Constantine the Great, the imperial unity was restored; but at his
+decease, the purple was again parcelled out among his sons and nephews.
+A permanent division of the empire, however, was not effected until the
+death of Theodosius the Great, who for sixteen years had enjoyed
+undivided power.
+
+[111] It is not universally known that the various populations of France
+differ, not only in character, but in physical appearance. The native of
+the southern departments is easily known from the native of the central
+and northern. The average stature in the north is said to be an inch and
+a half more than in the south. This difference is easily perceptible in
+the regiments drawn from either.--H.
+
+[112] Many of these patois bear but little resemblance to the French
+language: the inhabitants of the Landes, for example, speak a tongue of
+their own, which, I believe, has roots entirely different. For the most
+part, they are unintelligible to those who have not studied them. Over a
+million and a half of the population of France speak German or German
+dialects.--H.
+
+[113] Mr. Gobineau's remarks apply with equal, and, in some cases, with
+greater force, to other portions of Europe, as I had myself ample means
+for observing. I have always considered the character of the European
+peasantry as the most difficult problem in the social system of those
+countries. Institutions cannot in all cases account for it. In Germany,
+for instance, education is general and even compulsory: I have never met
+a man under thirty that could not read and write. Yet, each place has
+its local _patois_, which no rustic abandons, for it would be deemed by
+his companions a most insufferable affectation. I have heard ministers
+in the pulpit use local dialects, of which there are over five hundred
+in Germany alone, and most of them widely different. Together with their
+_patois_, the rustics preserve their local costumes, which mostly date
+from the Middle Ages. But the peculiarity of their manners, customs, and
+modes of thinking, is still more striking. Their superstitions are often
+of the darkest, and, at best, of the most pitiable nature. I have seen
+hundreds of poor creatures, males and females, on their pilgrimage to
+some far distant shrine in expiation of their own sins or those of
+others who pay them to go in their place. On these expeditions they
+start in great numbers, chanting _Aves_ on the way the whole day long,
+so that you can hear a large band of them for miles. Each carries a bag
+on the back or head, containing their whole stock of provisions for a
+journey of generally from one to two weeks. At night, they sleep in
+barns, or on stacks of hay in the fields. If you converse with them, you
+will find them imbued with superstitions absolutely idolatrous. Yet they
+all know how to read and write. The perfect isolation in which these
+creatures live from the world, despite that knowledge, is altogether
+inconceivable to an American. As Mr. Gobineau says of the French
+peasants, they believe themselves a distinct race. There is little or no
+discontent among them; the revolutionary fire finds but scanty fuel
+among these rural populations. But they look upon those who govern and
+make the laws as upon different beings, created especially for that
+purpose; the principles which regulate their private conduct, the whole
+sphere of their ideas, are peculiar to themselves. In one word, they
+form, not a class, but a caste, with lines of demarcation as clearly
+defined as the castes of India. I have said before that this is not from
+want of education; nor can any other explanation of the mystery be
+found. It is not poverty, for among these rustics there are many wealthy
+people, and, in general, they are not so poor as the lower classes in
+cities. Nor do the laws restrain them within the limits of a caste. In
+Germany, hereditary aristocracy is almost obsolete. The ranks of the
+actual aristocracy are daily recruited from the burgher classes. The
+highest offices of the various states are often found in possession of
+untitled men, or men with newly created titles. The colleges and
+universities are open to all, and great facilities are afforded even to
+the poorest. Yet these differences between various parts of the
+population remain, and this generally in those localities which the
+ethnographer describes as strongly tinctured with non-Teutonic
+elements.--H.
+
+[114] A nurse from Tours had put a bird into the hands of her little
+ward, and was teaching him to pull out the feathers and wings of the
+poor creature. When the parents reproached her for giving him this
+lesson of wickedness, she answered: "C'est pour le rendre _fier_."--(It
+is to make him fierce or high-spirited.) This answer of 1847 is in
+strict accordance with the most approved maxims of education of the
+nurse's ancestors in the times of Vercingetorix.
+
+[115] A few years ago, a church-warden was to be elected in a very small
+and very obscure parish of French Brittany, that part of the former
+province which the real Britons used to call the _pays Gallais_, or
+Gallic land. The electors, who were all peasants, deliberated two days
+without being able to agree upon a selection, because the candidate, a
+very honest, wealthy, and highly respected man and a good Christian, was
+a _foreigner_. Now, this _foreigner_ was born in the locality, and his
+father had resided there before him, and had also been born there, but
+it was recollected that his grandfather, who had been dead many years,
+and whom no one in the assembly had known, came from somewhere else.
+
+[116] This is no exaggeration, as every one acquainted with French
+history knows. In the great revolution of the last century, the
+peasantry of France took no interest and no part. In the Vendée, indeed,
+they fought, and fought bravely, for the ancient forms, their king, and
+their feudatory lords. Everywhere else, the rural districts remained in
+perfect apathy. The revolutions since then have been decided in Paris.
+The _émeutes_ seldom extended beyond the walls of the great cities. It
+is a well-known fact, that in many of the rural districts, the peasants
+did not hear of the expulsion of the Bourbon dynasty, until years
+afterwards, and even then had no conception of the nature of the change.
+Bourbon, Orleans, Republic, are words, to them, of no definite meaning.
+The only name that can rouse them from their apathy, is "Napoleon." At
+that sound, the Gallic heart thrills with enthusiasm and thirst for
+glory. Hence the unparalleled success with which the present emperor has
+appealed to universal suffrage.--H.
+
+[117] It is not generally appreciated how much we are indebted to
+Oriental civilizations for our lighter and more graceful literature. Our
+first works of fiction were translations or paraphrases of Eastern tales
+introduced into Western Europe by the returning crusaders. The songs of
+the troubadour, the many-tomed romances of the Middle Ages--those
+ponderous sires of modern novels--all emanated from that source. The
+works of Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, Boccacio, and nearer home, of Chaucer
+and Spenser, are incontestable proofs of this fact. Even Milton himself
+drew from the inexhaustible stores of Eastern legends and romances. Our
+fairy tales, and almost all of our most graceful lyric poesy, that is
+not borrowed from Greece, is of Persian origin. Almost every popular
+poet of England and the continent has invoked the Oriental muse, none
+more successfully than Southey and Moore. It would be useless to allude
+to the immense popularity of acknowledged versions of Oriental
+literature, such as the _Thousand and One Nights_, the Apologues,
+Allegories, &c. What we do not owe to the East, we have taken from the
+Greeks. Even to this day, Grecian mythology is the never-failing
+resource of the lyric poet, and so familiar has that graceful imagery
+become to us, that we introduce it, often _mal-ą-propos_, even in our
+colloquial language.
+
+In metaphysics, also, we have confessedly done little more than revive
+the labors of the Greeks.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+QUESTION OF UNITY OR PLURALITY OF SPECIES.
+
+ Systems of Camper, Blumenbach, Morton, Carus--Investigations of Owen,
+ Vrolik, Weber--Prolificness of hybrids, the great scientific
+ stronghold of the advocates of unity of species.
+
+
+It will be necessary to determine first the physiological bearing of the
+word _race_.
+
+In the opinion of many scientific observers, who judge from the first
+impression, and take extremes[118] as the basis of their reasoning, the
+groups of the human family are distinguished by differences so radical
+and essential, that it is impossible to believe them all derived from
+the same stock. They, therefore, suppose several other genealogies
+besides that of Adam and Eve. According to this doctrine, instead of but
+one species in the genus _homo_, there would be three, four, or even
+more, entirely distinct ones, whose commingling would produce what the
+naturalists call _hybrids_.
+
+General conviction is easily secured in favor of this theory, by placing
+before the eyes of the observer instances of obvious and striking
+dissimilarities among the various groups. The critic who has before him
+a human subject with a skin of olive-yellow; black, straight, and thin
+hair; little, if any beard, eyebrows, and eyelashes; a broad and
+flattened face, with features not very distinct; the space between the
+eyes broad and flat; the orbits large and open; the nose flattened; the
+cheeks high and prominent; the opening of the eyelids narrow, linear,
+and oblique, the inner angle the lowest; the ears and lips large; the
+forehead low and slanting, allowing a considerable portion of the face
+to be seen when viewed from above; the head of somewhat a pyramidal
+form; the limbs clumsy; the stature humble; the whole conformation
+betraying a marked tendency to obesity:[119] the critic who examines
+this specimen of humanity, at once recognizes a well characterized and
+clearly defined type, the principal features of which will readily be
+imprinted in his memory.
+
+Let us suppose him now to examine another individual: a negro, from the
+western coast of Africa. This specimen is of large size, and vigorous
+appearance. The color is a jetty black, the hair crisp, generally called
+_woolly_; the eyes are prominent, and the orbits large; the nose thick,
+flat, and confounded with the prominent cheeks; the lips very thick and
+everted; the jaws projecting, and the chin receding; the skull assuming
+the form called prognathous. The low forehead and muzzle-like elongation
+of the jaws, give to the whole being an almost animal appearance, which
+is heightened by the large and powerful lower-jaw, the ample provision
+for muscular insertions, the greater size of cavities destined for the
+reception of the organs of smell and sight, the length of the forearm
+compared with the arm, the narrow and tapering fingers, etc. "In the
+negro, the bones of the leg are bent outwards; the tibia and fibula are
+more convex in front than in the European; the calves of the legs are
+very high, so as to encroach upon the hams; the feet and hand, but
+particularly the former, are flat; the os calcis, instead of being
+arched, is continued nearly in a straight line with the other bones of
+the foot, which is remarkably broad."[120]
+
+In contemplating a human being so formed, we are involuntarily reminded
+of the structure of the ape, and we feel almost inclined to admit that
+the tribes of Western Africa are descended from a stock which bears but
+a slight and general resemblance to that of the Mongolian family.
+
+But there are some groups, whose aspect is even less flattering to the
+self-love of humanity than that of the Congo. It is the peculiar
+distinction of Oceanica to furnish about the most degraded and repulsive
+of those wretched beings, who seem to occupy a sort of intermediate
+station between man and the mere brute. Many of the groups of that
+latest-discovered world, by the excessive leanness and starveling
+development of their limbs;[121] the disproportionate size of their
+heads; the excessive, hopeless stupidity stamped upon their
+countenances; present an aspect so hideous and disgusting,
+that--contrasted with them--even the negro of Western Africa gains in
+our estimation, and seems to claim a less ignoble descent than they.
+
+We are still more tempted to adopt the conclusions of the advocates for
+the plurality of species, when, after having examined types taken from
+every quarter of the globe, we return to the inhabitants of Europe and
+Southern and Western Asia. How vast a superiority these exhibit in
+beauty, correctness of proportion, and regularity of features! It is
+they who enjoy the honor of having furnished the living models for the
+unrivalled masterpieces of ancient sculpture. But even among these races
+there has existed, since the remotest times, a gradation of beauty, at
+the head of which the European may justly be placed, as well for
+symmetry of limbs as for vigorous muscular development. Nothing, then,
+would appear more reasonable than to pronounce the different types of
+mankind as foreign to each other as are animals of different species.
+
+Such, indeed, was the conclusion arrived at by those who first
+systematized their observations, and attempted to establish a
+classification; and so far as this classification depended upon general
+facts, it seemed incontestable.
+
+_Camper_ took the lead. He was not content with deciding upon merely
+superficial appearances, but wished to rest his demonstrations upon a
+mathematical basis, by defining, anatomically, the distinguishing
+characteristics of different types. If he succeeded in this, he would
+thereby establish a strict and logical method of treating the subject,
+preclude all doubt, and give to his opinions that rigorous precision
+without which there is no true science. I borrow from Mr. Prichard,[122]
+Camper's own account of his method. "The basis on which the distinction
+of nations[123] is founded, says he, may be displayed by two straight
+lines; one of which is to be drawn through the _meatus auditorius_ (the
+external entrance of the ear) to the base of the nose; and the other
+touching the prominent centre of the forehead, and falling thence on the
+most prominent part of the upper jaw-bone, the head being viewed in
+profile. In the angle produced by these two lines, may be said to
+consist, not only the distinctions between the skulls of the several
+species of animals, but also those which are found to exist between
+different nations; and it might be concluded that nature has availed
+herself of this angle to mark out the diversities of the animal kingdom,
+and at the same time to establish a scale from the inferior tribes up to
+the most beautiful forms which are found in the human species. Thus it
+will be found that the heads of birds display the smallest angle, and
+that it always becomes of greater extent as the animal approaches more
+nearly to the human figure. Thus, there is one species of the ape tribe,
+in which the head has a facial angle of forty-two degrees; in another
+animal of the same family, which is one of those simię most
+approximating in figure to mankind, the facial angle contains exactly
+fifty degrees. Next to this is the head of an African negro, which, as
+well as that of the Kalmuc, forms an angle of seventy degrees; while the
+angle discovered in the heads of Europeans contains eighty degrees. On
+this difference of ten degrees in the facial angle, the superior beauty
+of the European depends; while that high character of sublime beauty,
+which is so striking in some works of ancient statuary, as in the head
+of Apollo, and in the Medusa of Sisocles, is given by an angle which
+amounts to one hundred degrees."
+
+This method was seductive from its exceeding simplicity. Unfortunately,
+facts were against it, as happens to a good many theories. The curious
+and interesting discoveries of Prof. Owen have proved beyond dispute,
+that Camper, as well as other anatomists since him, founded all their
+observations on orangs of immature age, and that, while the jaws become
+enlarged, and lengthened with the increase of the maxillary apparatus,
+and the zygomatic arch is extended, no corresponding increase of the
+brain takes place. The importance of this difference of age, with
+respect to the facial angle, is very great in the simię. Thus, while
+Camper, measuring the skull of young apes, has found the facial angle
+even as much as sixty-four degrees; in reality, it never exceeds, in the
+most favored specimen, from thirty to thirty-five. Between this figure
+and the seventy degrees of the negro and Kalmuc, there is too wide a gap
+to admit of the possibility of Camper's ascending series.
+
+The advocates of phrenological science eagerly espoused the theory of
+the Dutch _savant_. They imagined that they could detect a development
+of instincts corresponding to the rank which the animal occupied in his
+scale. But even here facts were against them. It was objected that the
+elephant--not to mention numerous other instances--whose intelligence
+is incontestably superior to that of the orang, presents a much more
+acute facial angle than the latter. Even among the ape tribes, the most
+intelligent, those most susceptible of education, are by no means the
+highest in Camper's scale.
+
+Besides these great defects, the theory possessed another very weak
+point. It did not apply to all the varieties of the human species. The
+races with pyramidal skulls found no place in it. Yet this is a
+sufficiently striking characteristic.
+
+Camper's theory being refuted, _Blumenbach_ proposed another system. He
+called his invention _norma verticalis_, the vertical method. According
+to him,[124] the comparison of the breadth of the head, particularly of
+the vertex, points out the principal and most strongly marked
+differences in the general configuration of the cranium. He adds that
+the whole cranium is susceptible of so many varieties in its form, the
+parts which contribute more or less to determine the national character
+displaying such different proportions and directions, that it is
+impossible to subject all these diversities to the measurement of any
+lines and angles. In comparing and arranging skulls according to the
+varieties in their shape, it is preferable to survey them in that method
+which presents at one view the greatest number of characteristic
+peculiarities. "The best way of obtaining this end is to place a series
+of skulls, with the cheek-bones on the same horizontal line, resting on
+the lower jaws, and then, viewing them from behind, and fixing the eye
+on the vertex of each, to mark all the varieties in the shape of parts
+that contribute most to the national character, whether they consist in
+the direction of the maxillary and malar bones, in the breadth or
+narrowness of the oval figure presented by the vertex, or in the
+flattened or vaulted form of the frontal bone."
+
+The results which Blumenbach deduced from this method, were a division
+of mankind into five grand categories, each of which was again
+subdivided into a variety of families and types.
+
+This classification, also, is liable to many objections. Like Camper's,
+it left out several important characteristics. _Owen_ supposed that
+these objections might be obviated by measuring the basis of the skull
+instead of the summit. "The relative proportions and extent," says
+Prichard, "and the peculiarities of formation of the different parts of
+the cranium, are more fully discovered by this mode of comparison, than
+by any other." One of the most important results of this method was the
+discovery of a line of demarcation between man and the anthropoid apes,
+so distinct, and clearly drawn, that it becomes thenceforward impossible
+to find between the two genera the connecting link which Camper supposed
+to exist. It is, indeed, sufficient to cast one glance at the bases of
+two skulls, one human, and the other that of an orang, to perceive
+essential and decisive differences. The antero-posterior diameter of the
+basis of the skull is, in the orang, very much longer than in man. The
+zygoma is situated in the middle region of the skull, instead of being
+included, as in all races of men, and even human idiots, in the anterior
+half of the basis cranii; and it occupies in the basis just one-third
+part of the entire length of its diameter. Moreover, the position of the
+great occipital foramen is very different in the two skulls; and this
+feature is very important, on account of its relations to the general
+character of structure, and its influence on the habits of the whole
+being. This foramen, in the human head, is very near the middle of the
+basis of the skull, or, rather, it is situated immediately behind the
+middle transverse diameter; while, in the adult chimpantsi, it is
+placed in the middle of the posterior third part of the basis
+cranii.[125]
+
+Owen certainly deserves great credit for his observations, but I should
+prefer the most recent, as well as ingenious, of cranioscopic systems,
+that of the learned American, Dr. Morton, which has been adopted by Mr.
+Carus.[126]
+
+The substance of this theory is, that individuals are superior in
+intellect in proportion as their skulls are larger.[127] Taking this as
+the general rule, Dr. Morton and Mr. Carus proceed thereby to
+demonstrate the difference of races. The question to be decided is,
+whether all types of the human race have the same craniological
+development.
+
+To elucidate this fact, Dr. Morton took a certain number of skulls,
+belonging to the four principal human families--Whites, Mongolians,
+Negroes, and North American Indians--and, after carefully closing every
+aperture, except the _foramen magnum_, he measured their capacity by
+filling them with well dried grains of pepper. The results of this
+measurement are exhibited in the subjoined table.[128]
+
+ -------------------------+-----------+----------+----------+----------
+ | Number | | |
+ | of skulls | Average | Maximum. | Minimum.
+ | measured. | capacity.| |
+ -------------------------|-----------|----------|----------|----------
+ White races | 52 | 87 | 109 | 75
+ Yellow races {Mongolians| 10 | 83 | 93 | 69
+ {Malays | 18 | 81 | 89 | 64
+ Copper-colored races | 147 | 82 | 100 | 60
+ Negroes | 29 | 78 | 94 | 65
+ -------------------------+-----------+----------+----------+----------
+
+The results given in the first two columns are certainly very curious,
+but to those in the last two I attach little value. These two columns,
+giving the maximum and minimum capacities, differ so greatly from the
+second, which shows the average, that they could be of weight only if
+Mr. Morton had experimented upon a much greater number of skulls, and if
+he had specified the social position of the individuals to whom they
+belonged. Thus, for his specimens of the white and copper-colored races,
+he might select skulls that had belonged to individuals rather above the
+common herd.[129] But the Blacks and Mongolians were not represented by
+the skulls of their great chiefs and mandarins. This explains why Dr.
+Morton could ascribe the figure 100 to an aboriginal of America, while
+the most intelligent Mongolian that he examined did not exceed 93, and
+is surpassed even by the negro, who reaches 94. Such results are
+entirely incomplete, fortuitous, and of no scientific value. In
+questions of this kind, too much care cannot be taken to reject
+conclusions which are based upon the examination of individualities. I
+am, therefore, unable to accept the second half of Dr. Morton's
+calculations.
+
+I am also disposed to doubt one of the details in the other half. The
+figures 100, 83, and 78, respectively indicating the average capacity of
+the skull of the white, Mongolian, and negro, follow a clear and evident
+gradation. But the figures 83, 81, and 82, given for the Mongol, the
+Malay, and the red-skin, are conflicting; the more so, as Mr. Carus does
+not hesitate to comprise the Mongols and Malays into one and the same
+race, and thus unites the figures 83 and 81--by which he receives, as
+the average capacity of the yellow race, 82, or the same as that of the
+red-skins. Wherefore, then, take the figure 82 as the characteristic of
+a distinct race, and thus create, quite arbitrarily, a fourth great
+subdivision of our species.
+
+This anomaly supports the weak side of Mr. Carus's system. The learned
+Saxon amuses himself by supposing that, just as we see our planet pass
+through the four stages of day, night, morning twilight, and evening
+twilight, so there _must_ be four subdivisions of the human species,
+corresponding to these variations of light. He perceives in this a
+symbol,[130] which is always a dangerous temptation to a mind of refined
+susceptibilities. The white races are to him the nations of day; the
+black, those of night; the yellow, those of morning; the red, those of
+evening. It will be perceived how many ingenious analogies may be
+brought forward in support of this fanciful invention. Thus, the
+European nations, by the brilliancy of their scientific discoveries and
+their superior civilization, are in an enlightened state, while the
+blacks are plunged in the gloomy darkness of ignorance. The Eastern
+nations live in a sort of twilight, which affords them an incomplete,
+though powerful, social existence. And as for the Indians of the Western
+World, who are rapidly disappearing, what more beautiful image of their
+destiny can be found than the setting sun?
+
+Unfortunately, parables are no arguments, and Mr. Carus has somewhat
+injured his beautiful theory by unduly abandoning himself to this
+poetical current. Moreover, what I have said with regard to all other
+ethnological theories--those of Camper, Blumenbach, and Owen--holds good
+of this: Mr. Carus does not succeed in systematizing regularly the
+whole of the physiological diversities observable in races.[131]
+
+The advocates for unity of species have not failed to take advantage of
+this inability on the part of their opponents to find a system which
+will include the many varieties of the human family; and they pretend
+that, as the observations upon the conformation of the skull cannot be
+reduced to a system which demonstrates the original separation of types,
+the different varieties must be regarded as simple divergencies
+occasioned by adventitious and secondary causes, and which do not prove
+a difference of origin.
+
+This is crying victory too soon. The difficulty of finding a method does
+not always prove that none can be found. But the believers in the unity
+of species did not admit this reserve. To set off their theory, they
+point to the fact that certain tribes, belonging to the same race,
+instead of presenting the same physical type, diverge from it very
+considerably. They cite the different groups of the mixed
+Malay-Polynesian family; and, without paying attention to the proportion
+of the elements which compose the mixtures, they say that if groups of
+the same origin can assume such totally different craniological and
+facial forms, the greatest diversities of that kind do not prove the
+primary plurality of origins.[132] Strange as it may be to European
+eyes, the distinct types of the negro and the Mongolian are not then
+demonstrative of difference of species; and the differences among the
+human family must be ascribed simply to certain local causes operating
+during a greater or less lapse of time.[133]
+
+The advocates for the plurality of races, being met with so many
+objections, good as well as bad, have attempted to enlarge the circle of
+their arguments, and, ceasing to make the skull their only study, have
+proceeded to the examination of the entire individual. They have rightly
+shown that the differences do not exist merely in the aspect of the face
+and formation of the skull, but, what is no less important, they exist
+also in the shape of the pelvis, the relative proportion of the limbs,
+and the nature of the pilous system.
+
+Camper and other naturalists had long since perceived that the pelvis of
+the negro presented certain peculiarities. Dr. Vrolik extended his
+researches further, and observed that in the European race the
+differences between the male and female pelvis are much less distinctly
+marked, while the pelvis of the negro, of either sex, partakes in a very
+striking degree of the animal character. The Amsterdam _savant_,
+starting from the idea that the formation of the pelvis necessarily
+influences that of the foetus, concludes that there must be difference
+of origin.[134]
+
+Mr. Weber has attacked this theory with but little success. He was
+obliged to allow that certain formations of the pelvis occur more
+frequently in one race than in another; and all he could do, was to show
+that the rule is not without exceptions, and that some individuals of
+the American, African, or Mongol race presented the forms common among
+the European. This is not proving a great deal, especially as it never
+seems to have occurred to Mr. Weber that these exceptions might be owing
+to a mixture of blood.
+
+The adversaries of the unity doctrine pretend that the European is
+better proportioned. They are answered that the excessive leanness of
+the extremities among those nations which subsist principally on
+vegetable diet, or whose alimentation is imperfect, is not at all
+surprising; and this reply is certainly valid. But a much less
+conclusive reply is made to the argument drawn from the excessive
+development of bust among the mountaineers of Peru (Quichuas) by those
+who are unwilling to recognize it as a specific characteristic; for to
+pretend, as they do, that it can be explained by the elevation of the
+Andes, is not advancing a very serious reason.[135] There are in the
+world many mountain populations who are constituted very differently
+from the Quichuas.[136]
+
+The color of the skin is another argument for diversity of origin. But
+the opposite party refuse to accept this as a specific characteristic,
+for two reasons: first, because, they say, this coloration depends upon
+climatic circumstances, and is not permanent--which is, to say the least
+of it, a very bold assertion; secondly, because color is liable to
+indefinite gradations, by which white insensibly passes into yellow,
+yellow into black, so that it is impossible to find a line of
+demarcation sufficiently decided. This fact simply proves the existence
+of innumerable hybrids; an observation to which the advocates for unity
+are constantly inattentive.
+
+With regard to the specific differences in the formation of the pile,
+Mr. Flourens brings his great authority in favor of the original unity
+of race.[137]
+
+I have now passed rapidly in review the more or less inconsistent
+arguments of the advocates of unity; but their strongest one still
+remains. It is of great force, and I therefore reserved it for the
+last--the facility with which the different branches of the human family
+produce hybrids, and the fecundity of these hybrids themselves.
+
+The observations of naturalists seem to have well established the fact
+that half-breeds can spring only from nearly related species, and that
+even in that case they are condemned to sterility. It has been further
+observed that, even among closely allied species, where fecundation is
+possible, copulation is repugnant, and obtained, generally, either by
+force or ruse, which would lead us to suppose that, in a state of
+nature, the number of hybrids is even more limited than that obtained by
+the intervention of man. It has, therefore, been concluded that, among
+the number of specific characteristics, we must place the faculty of
+producing prolific offspring.
+
+As nothing authorizes us to believe that the human race are exempt from
+this law, so nothing has hitherto been able to shake the strength of
+this objection,[138] which, more than all the others, holds the
+advocates for plurality in check. It is, indeed, affirmed that, in
+certain portions of Oceanica, indigenous women, after having brought
+forth a half-breed European child, can no longer be fecundated by
+compatriots. If this assertion be admitted as correct, it might serve as
+a starting point for further investigations; but at present it could not
+be used to invalidate the admitted principles of science upon the
+generation of hybrids--against the deductions drawn from these it proves
+nothing.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[118] M. Flourens, _Eloge de Blumenbach, Mémoires de l'Académie des
+Sciences_. Paris, 1847, p. xiii. This _savant_ justly protests against
+such a method.
+
+[119] For the description of types in this and other portions of this
+chapter, I am indebted to
+
+M. WILLIAM LAWRENCE, _Lect. on the Nat. Hist. of Man_. London, 1844. But
+especially to the learned
+
+JAMES COWLES PRICHARD, _Nat. Hist. of Man_. London, 1848.
+
+[120] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 129.
+
+[121] It is impossible to conceive an idea of the scarce human form of
+these creatures, without the aid of pictorial representations. In
+Prichard's _Natural History of Man_ will be found a plate (No. 23, p.
+355) from M. d'Urville's atlas, which may assist the reader in gaining
+an idea of the utmost hideousness that the human form is capable of. I
+cannot but believe that the picture there given is considerably
+exaggerated, but with all due allowance in this respect, enough ugliness
+will be left to make us almost ashamed to recognize these beings as
+belonging to our kind.--H.
+
+[122] _Op. cit._, p. 111.
+
+[123] It will be observed that Prichard and Camper, and further on
+Blumenbach, here use the word _nation_ as synonymous to _race_. See my
+introduction, p. 65.--H.
+
+[124] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 115.
+
+[125] _Op. cit._, p. 117.
+
+[126] Carus, _Ueber ungleiche Befähigung_, etc., p. 19.
+
+[127] _Op. cit._, p. 20.
+
+[128] As Mr. Gobineau has taken the facts presented by Dr. Morton at
+second hand, and, moreover, had not before him Dr. Morton's later tables
+and more matured deductions, Dr. Nott has given an abstract of the
+result arrived at by the learned craniologist, as published by himself
+in 1849. This abstract, and the valuable comments of Dr. Nott himself,
+will be found in the Appendix, under A.--H.
+
+[129] I fear that our author has here fallen into an error which his own
+facts disprove, and which is still everywhere received without
+examination, viz: that cultivation can change the form or size of the
+head, either of individuals or races; an opinion, in support of which,
+no facts whatever can be adduced. The heads of the barbarous races of
+Europe were precisely the same as those of civilized Europe in our day;
+this is proven by the disinterred crania of ancient races, and by other
+facts. Nor do we see around us among the uneducated, heads inferior in
+form and size to those of the more privileged classes. Does any one
+pretend that the nobility of England, which has been an educated class
+for centuries, have larger heads, or more intelligence than the ignoble?
+On the contrary, does not most of the talent of England spring up from
+plebeian ranks? Wherever civilization has been brought to a population
+of the white race, they have accepted it at once--their heads required
+no development. Where, on the contrary, it has been carried to Negroes,
+Mongols, and Indians, they have rejected it. Egyptians and Hindoos have
+small heads, but we know little of the early history of their
+civilization. Egyptian monuments prove that the early people and
+language of Egypt were strongly impregnated with Semitic elements.
+Latham has shown that the Sanscrit language was carried _from_ Europe to
+India, and probably civilization with it.
+
+I have looked in vain for twenty years for evidence to prove that
+cultivation could enlarge a _brain_, while it expands the mind. The head
+of a boy at twelve is as large as it ever is.--N.
+
+[130] Carus, _op. cit._, p. 12.
+
+[131] There are some very slight ones, which nevertheless are very
+characteristic. Among this number I would class a certain enlargement on
+each side of the lower lip, which is found among the English and
+Germans. I find this indication of Germanic origin in several paintings
+of the Flemish school, in the _Madonna_ of Rubens, in the museum of
+Dresden, in the _Satyrs_ and _Nymphs_ of the same collection, in a
+_Lute-player_ of Miéris, etc. No cranioscopic method whatever could
+embrace such details, which, however, are not without value in the great
+mixture of races which Europe presents.
+
+[132] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 329.
+
+[133] Job Ludolf, whose facilities of observation must necessarily have
+been very defective when compared with those we enjoy at the present
+day, nevertheless combats in very forcible language, and with
+arguments--so far as concerns the negro--invincible, the opinion here
+adopted by Mr. Prichard. I cannot refrain from quoting him in this
+place, not for any novelty contained in his arguments, but to show their
+very antiquity: "De nigredine Ęthiopum hic agere nostri non
+est instituti, plerique ardoribus solis atquę zonę torridę id tribuant.
+Verum etiam intra solis orbitam populi dantur, si non plane albi, saltem
+non prorsus nigri. Multi extra utrumque tropicum a media mundi linea
+longius absunt quam Persę aut Syri, veluti pramontorii Bonę Spei
+habitantes, et tamen iste sunt nigerrimi. Si Africę tantum et Chami
+posteris id inspectari velis, Malabares et Ceilonii aliique remotiores
+Asię populi ęque nigri excipiendi erunt. Quod si causam ad coeli
+solique naturam referas, non homines albi in illis regionibus
+renascentes non nigrescunt? Aut qui ad occultas qualitates confugiunt,
+melius fecerint si sese nescire fateantur."--JOBUS LUDOLFUS,
+_Commentarium ad Historiam Ęthiopicam_, fol. Norimb. p. 56.
+
+[134] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 124.
+
+[135] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 433.
+
+[136] Neither the Swiss, nor the Tyrolese, nor the Highlanders of
+Scotland, nor the Sclaves of the Balkan, nor the tribes of the Himaleh,
+nor any other mountaineers whatever, present the monstrous appearance of
+the Quichuas.
+
+[137] The distinguished microscopist, Dr. Peter A. Browne, of
+Philadelphia, has published the most elaborate observations on hair, of
+any author I have met with; and he asserts that the pile of the negro is
+_wool_, and not hair. He has gone so far as to distinguish the leading
+races of men by the direction, shape, and structure of the hair. The
+reader is referred to his works for much very curious, new, and valuable
+matter.--N.
+
+To those of our readers who may not have the inclination or opportunity
+of consulting Mr. Browne's work, the following concise and excellent
+synopsis of his views, which I borrow from Dr. Kneeland's _Introduction
+to Hamilton Smith's Natural History of Man_, may not be unacceptable:
+"There are, on microscopical examination, three prevailing forms of the
+transverse section of the filament, viz: the cylindrical, the oval, and
+the eccentrically elliptical. There are also three directions in which
+it pierces the epidermis. The straight and lank, the flowing or curled,
+and the crisped or frizzled, differ respectively as to the angle which
+the filament makes with the skin on leaving it. The cylindrical and oval
+pile has an oblique angle of inclination. The eccentrically elliptical
+pierces the epidermis at right angles, and lies perpendicularly in the
+dermis. The hair of the white man is oval; that of the Choctaw, and some
+other American Indians, is cylindrical; that of the negro is
+eccentrically elliptical or flat. The hair of the white man has, beside
+its cortex and intermediate fibres, a central canal, which contains the
+coloring matter when present. The pile of the negro has no central
+canal, and the coloring matter is diffused, when present, either
+throughout the cortex or the intermediate fibres. Hair, according to
+these observations, is more complex in its structure than wool. In hair,
+the enveloping scales are comparatively few, with smooth surfaces,
+rounded at their points, and closely embracing the shaft. In wool, they
+are numerous, rough, sharp-pointed, and project from the shaft. _Hence,
+the hair of the white man will not felt, that of the negro will._ In
+this respect, therefore, it comes near to true wool"--pp. 88, 89.--H.
+
+[138] A full answer to this objection will be found in our Appendix,
+under _B_.--N.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+PERMANENCY OF TYPES.
+
+ The language of Holy Writ in favor of common origin--The permanency
+ of their characteristics separates the races of men as effectually
+ as if they were distinct creations--Arabs, Jews--Prichard's
+ argument about the influence of climate examined--Ethnological
+ history of the Turks and Hungarians.
+
+
+The believers in unity of race affirm that types are different in
+appearance only; that, in fact, the differences existing among them are
+owing to local circumstances still in operation, or to an accidental
+peculiarity of conformation in the progenitor of a branch, and that,
+though they all, more or less, diverge from the original prototype, they
+all are capable of again returning to it. According to this, then, the
+negro, the North American savage, the Tungoose of North Siberia, might,
+under favorable circumstances, gain all the physical and mental
+attributes which now distinguish the European. Such a theory is
+inadmissible.
+
+We have shown above that the only solid scientific stronghold of the
+believers in unity of species is the prolificness of human hybrids. This
+fact, which seems at present so difficult to refute, may not always
+present the same difficulties, and would not, by itself, suffice to
+arrest my conclusions, were it not supported by another argument which,
+I confess, appears to me of greater moment: Scripture is said to declare
+against difference of origin.
+
+If the text is clear, peremptory, and indisputable, we must submit; the
+most serious doubts must disappear; human reason, in its imperfection,
+must bow to faith. Better to let the veil of obscurity cover a point of
+erudition, than to call in question so high and incontestable an
+authority. If the Bible declares that mankind are descended from the
+same common stock, all that goes to prove the contrary is mere
+semblance, unworthy of consideration. But is the Bible really explicit
+on this point? The sacred writings have a much higher purpose than the
+elucidation of ethnological problems; and if it be admitted that they
+may have been misunderstood in this particular, and that without
+straining the text, it may be interpreted otherwise, I return to my
+first impression.
+
+The Bible evidently speaks of Adam as the progenitor of the white race,
+because from him are descended generations which--it cannot be
+doubted--were white. But nothing proves that at the first redaction of
+the Adamite genealogies the colored races were considered as forming
+part of the species. There is not a word said about the yellow nations,
+and I hope to prove, in my second volume, that the pretended black color
+of the patriarch Ham rests upon no other basis than an arbitrary
+interpretation. At a later period, doubtless, translators and
+commentators, who affirmed that Adam was the father of all beings called
+men, were obliged to bring in as descendants of the sons of Noah all the
+different varieties with whom they were acquainted. In this manner,
+Japheth was considered the progenitor of the European nations, while the
+inhabitants of the greater portion of Asia were looked upon as the
+descendants of Shem; and those of Africa, of Ham. This arrangement
+answers admirably for one portion of the globe. But what becomes of the
+population of the rest of the world, who are not included in this
+classification?
+
+I will not, at present, particularly insist upon this idea. I dislike
+the mere appearance of impugning even simple interpretations if they
+have the sanction of the church, and wish merely to intimate that their
+authority might, perhaps, be questioned without transgressing the limits
+established by the church.[139] If this is not the case, and we must
+accept, in the main, the opinions of the believers in unity, I still do
+not despair that the facts may be explained in a manner different from
+theirs, and that the principal physical and moral differences among the
+branches of the human family may exist, with all their necessary
+consequences, independently of unity or plurality of origin.
+
+The specific identity of all canines is acknowledged,[140] but who would
+undertake the difficult task of proving that all these animals, to
+whatever variety they may belong, were possessed of the same shapes,
+instincts, habits, qualities? The same is the case with many other
+species, the equine, bovine, ursine, etc. Here we find perfect identity
+of origin, and yet diversity in every other respect, and a diversity so
+radical, that even intermixture can not produce a real identity of
+character in the several types. On the contrary, so long as each type
+remains pure, their distinctive features are permanent, and reproduced,
+without any sensible deviation, in each successive generation.[141]
+
+This incontestable fact has led to the inquiry whether in those species
+which, by domestication, have lost their original habits, and contracted
+others, the forms and instincts of the primitive stock were still
+discernible. I think this highly improbable, and can hardly believe that
+we shall ever be able to determine the shape and characteristics of the
+prototype of each species, and how much or how little it is approached
+by the deviations now before our eyes. A very great number of vegetables
+present the same problem, and with regard to man, whose origin it is
+most interesting and important for us to know, the inquiry seems to be
+attended with the greatest and most insurmountable difficulties.
+
+Each race is convinced that its progenitor had precisely the
+characteristics which now distinguish it. This is the only point upon
+which their traditions perfectly agree. The white races represent to
+themselves an Adam and Eve, whom Blumenbach would at once have
+pronounced Caucasians; the Mohammedan negroes, on the contrary, believe
+the first pair to have been black; these being created in God's own
+image, it follows that the Supreme Being, and also the angels, are of
+the same color, and the prophet himself was certainly too greatly
+favored by his Sender to display a pale skin to his disciples.[142]
+
+Unfortunately, modern science has as yet found no clue to this maze of
+opinions. No admissible theory has been advanced which affords the least
+light upon the subject, and, in all probability, the various types
+differ as much from their common progenitor--if they possess one--as
+they do among themselves. The causes of these deviations are
+exceedingly difficult to ascertain. The believers in the unity of origin
+pretend to find them, as I remarked before, in various local
+circumstances, such as climate, habits, &c. It is impossible to coincide
+with such an opinion, for, although these circumstances have always
+existed, they have not, within historical times, produced such
+alterations in the races which were exposed to their influence as to
+make it even probable that they were the causes of so vast and radical a
+dissimilarity as we now see before us. Suppose two tribes, not yet
+departed from the primitive type, to inhabit, one an alpine region in
+the interior of a continent, the other some isolated isle in the
+immensity of the ocean. Their atmospheric and alimentary conditions
+would, of course, be totally different. If we further suppose one of
+these tribes to be abundantly provided with nourishment, and the other
+possessing but precarious means of subsistence; one to inhabit a cold
+latitude, and the other to be exposed to the action of a tropical sun;
+it seems to me that we have accumulated the most essential local
+contrasts. Allowing these physical causes to operate a sufficient lapse
+of time, the two groups would, no doubt, ultimately assume certain
+peculiar characteristics, by which they might be distinguished from each
+other. But no imaginable length of time could bring about any
+essential, organic change of conformation; and as a proof of this
+assertion, I would point to the populations of opposite portions of the
+globe, living under physical conditions the most widely different, who,
+nevertheless, present a perfect resemblance of type.
+
+The Hottentots so strongly resemble the inhabitants of the Celestial
+Empire, that it has even been supposed, though without good reasons,
+that they were originally a Chinese colony. A great similarity exists
+between the ancient Etruscans, whose portraits have come down to us, and
+the Araucanians of South America. The features and outlines of the
+Cherokees seem to be perfectly identical with those of several Italian
+populations, the Calabrians, for instance. The inhabitants of Auvergne,
+especially the female portion, much more nearly resemble in physiognomy
+several Indian tribes of North America than any European nation. Thus we
+see that in very different climes, and under conditions of life so very
+dissimilar, nature can reproduce the same forms. The peculiar
+characteristics which now distinguish the different types cannot,
+therefore, be the effects of local circumstances such as now exist.[143]
+
+Though it is impossible to ascertain what physical changes different
+branches of the human family may have undergone anterior to the historic
+epoch, yet we have the best proofs that since then, no race has changed
+its peculiar characteristics. The historic epoch comprises about one
+half of the time during which our earth is supposed to have been
+inhabited, and there are several nations whom we can trace up to the
+verge of ante-historic ages; yet we find that the races then known have
+remained the same to our days, even though they ceased to inhabit the
+same localities, and consequently were no longer exposed to the
+influence of the same external conditions.
+
+Witness the Arabs. As they are represented on the monuments of Egypt, so
+we find them at present, not only in the arid deserts of their native
+land, but in the fertile regions and moist climate of Malabar,
+Coromandel, and the islands of the Indian Ocean. We find them again,
+though more mixed, on the northern coasts of Africa, and, although many
+centuries have elapsed since their invasion, traces of Arab blood are
+still discernible in some portions of Roussillon, Languedoc, and Spain.
+
+Next to the Arabs I would instance the Jews. They have emigrated to
+countries in every respect the most dissimilar to Palestine, and have
+not even preserved their ancient habits of life. Yet their type has
+always remained peculiar and the same in every latitude and under every
+physical condition. The warlike Rechabites in the deserts of Arabia
+present to us the same features as our own peaceable Jews. I had
+occasion not long since to examine a Polish Jew. The cut of his face,
+and especially his eyes, perfectly betrayed his origin. This inhabitant
+of a northern zone, whose direct ancestors for several generations had
+lived among the snows and ice of an inhospitable clime, seemed to have
+been tanned but the day before, by the ardent rays of a Syrian sun. The
+same Shemitic face which the Egyptian artist represented some four
+thousand or more years ago, we recognize daily around us; and its
+principal and really characteristic features are equally strikingly
+preserved under the most diverse climatic circumstances. But the
+resemblance is not confined to the face only, it extends to the
+conformation of the limbs and the nature of the temperament. German Jews
+are generally smaller and more slender in stature than the European
+nations among whom they have lived for centuries; and the age of puberty
+arrives earlier with them than with their compatriots of another
+race.[144]
+
+This is, I am aware, an assertion diametrically opposed to Mr.
+Prichard's opinions. This celebrated physiologist, in his zeal to prove
+the unity of species, attempts to prove that the age of puberty in both
+sexes is the same everywhere and among all races. His arguments are
+based upon the precepts of the Old Testament and the Koran, by which the
+marriageable age of women is fixed at fifteen, and even eighteen,
+according to Abou-Hanifah.[145]
+
+I hardly think that biblical testimony is admissible in matters of this
+kind, because the Scriptures often narrate facts which cannot be
+accounted for by the ordinary laws of nature. Thus, the pregnancy of
+Sarah at an extreme old age, and when Abraham himself was a centenarian,
+is an event upon which no ordinary course of reasoning could be based.
+As for the precepts of the Mohammedan law, I would observe that they
+were intended to insure not merely the physical aptitude for marriage,
+but also that degree of mental maturity and education which befit a
+woman about to enter on the duties of so serious a station. The prophet
+makes it a special injunction that the religious education of young
+women should be continued to the time of their marriage. Taking this
+view, the law-giver would naturally incline to delay the period of
+marriage as long as possible, in order to afford time for the
+development of the reasoning faculties, and he would therefore be less
+precipitate in his authorizations than nature in hers. But there are
+some other proofs which I would adduce against Mr. Prichard's grave
+arguments, which, though of less weighty character, are not the less
+conclusive, and will settle the question, I think, in my favor.
+
+Poets, in their tales of love, are mainly solicitous of exhibiting their
+heroines in the first bloom of beauty, without caring much about their
+moral and mental development. Accordingly, we find that oriental poets
+have always made their lovers much younger than the age prescribed by
+the Koran. Zelika and Leila are not, surely, fourteen years old. In
+India, this difference is still more striking. Sacontala, in Europe,
+would be quite a small girl, a mere child. The spring-time of life for
+a Hindoo female is from the age of nine to that of twelve. In the
+Chinese romance, _Yu-Kiao-li_, the heroine is sixteen; and her father is
+in great distress, and laments pathetically that at so advanced an age
+she should still be unmarried. The Roman writers, following in the
+footsteps of their Greek preceptors, took fifteen as the period of bloom
+of a woman's life; our own authors for a long time adhered to these
+models, but since the ideas of the North have begun to exert their
+influence upon our literature, the heroines of our novels are full-grown
+young ladies of eighteen, and very often more.[146]
+
+But arguments of a more serious character are by no means wanting.
+Besides what I said of the precocity of the Jews in Germany, I may point
+out the reverse as a peculiarity of the population of many portions of
+Switzerland. Among them the physical development is so slow, that the
+age of puberty is not always attained at twenty. The Zingaris, or
+gypsies, display the same physical precocity as their Hindoo ancestry,
+and, under the austere sky of Russia and Moldavia, they preserve,
+together with their ancient notions and habits, the general aspect of
+face and form of the Pariahs.[147]
+
+I do not, however, wish to attack Mr. Prichard upon all points. There is
+one of his conclusions which I readily adopt, viz.: "_that the
+difference of climate occasions very little, if any, important diversity
+as to the periods of life and the physical changes to which the human
+constitution is subject_."[148] This conclusion is very well founded,
+and I shall not seek to invalidate it; but it appears to me that it
+contradicts a little the principles so ably advocated by the learned
+physiologist and antiquary.
+
+The reader must have perceived that the discussion turns solely upon
+permanency of type. If it can be proved that the different branches of
+the human family are each possessed of a certain individuality which is
+independent of climate and the lapse of ages, and can be effaced only by
+intermixture, the question of origin is reduced to little importance;
+for, in that case, the different types are no less completely and
+irrevocably separated than if their specific differences arose from
+diversity of origin.
+
+That such is the case, we have already proved by the testimony of
+Egyptian sculptures with regard to the Arabs, and by our observations
+upon the Jews and gypsies. Should any further proofs be needed, we would
+mention that the paintings in the temples and subterraneous buildings of
+the Nile valley as indubitably attest the permanence of the negro type.
+There we see the same crisped hair, prognathous skull, and thick lips.
+The recent discovery of the bas-reliefs of Khorsabad[149] has removed
+beyond doubt the conclusions previously formed from the figured
+monuments of Persepolis, viz.: that the present Assyrian nations are
+physiologically identical with those who formerly inhabited the same
+regions.
+
+If similar investigations could be made upon a greater number of
+existing races, the results would be the same. We have established the
+fact of permanence of types in all cases where investigation is
+possible, and the burden of proof, therefore, falls upon the dissenting
+party.
+
+Their arguments, indeed, are in direct contradiction to the most obvious
+facts. Thus they allege, although the most ordinary observation shows
+the contrary, that climate _has_ produced alterations in the Jewish
+type, inasmuch as many light-haired, blue-eyed Jews are found in
+Germany. For this argument to be of any weight in their position, the
+advocates for unity of race must recognize climate to be the sole, or at
+least principal, cause of this phenomenon. But the adherents of that
+doctrine elsewhere assert that the color of the eyes, hair, and skin, no
+ways depends upon geographical situation or the action of heat and
+cold.[150] As an evidence of this, they justly cite the Cinghalese, who
+have blue eyes and light hair;[151] they even observe among them a very
+considerable difference of complexion, varying from a light brown to
+black. Again, they admit that the Samoiedes and Tungusians, though
+living on the borders of the Frozen Ocean,[152] have an exceedingly
+swarthy complexion. If, therefore, climate exerts no influence upon the
+complexion and color of hair and eyes, these marks must be considered as
+of no importance, or as pertaining to race. We know that red hair is not
+at all uncommon in the East, and at no time has been so; it cannot,
+therefore, create much surprise if we occasionally find it among the
+Jews of Germany. This fact cannot be adduced as evidence either in
+favor of, or against, the permanence of types.
+
+The advocates for unity are no less unfortunate in their historical
+arguments. They furnish but two; the Turks and the Magyars. The Asiatic
+origin of the former is supposed to be established beyond doubt, as well
+as of their intimate relationship with the Finnic branches of the
+Laplanders and Ostiacs. It follows from this that they must originally
+have displayed the yellow skin, projecting cheek bones, and low stature
+of the Mongolian races. This point being settled, we are told to look at
+the Turks of our day, who exhibit all the characteristics of the
+European type. Types, then, are not permanent, it is victoriously
+concluded, because the Turks have undergone such a transformation. "It
+is true," say the adherents of the unity school, "that some pretend
+there had been an admixture of Greek, Georgian, and Circassian blood.
+But this admixture can have taken place only to a very limited extent;
+all Turks are not rich enough to buy their wives in the Caucasus, or to
+have seraglios filled with white slaves; on the other hand, the hatred
+which the Greeks cherish for their conquerors, and the religious
+antipathies of both nations, were not favorable to alliances between
+them, and consequently we see them--though inhabiting the same
+country--as distinct at this day as at the time of the conquest."[153]
+
+These arguments are more specious than solid. In the first place, I am
+greatly disposed to doubt the Finnic origin of the Turkish race, because
+the only evidence that has hitherto been produced in favor of this
+supposition is affinity of language, and I shall hereafter give my
+reasons for believing this argument--when unsupported by any other--as
+extremely unreliable, and open to doubt. But even if we suppose the
+ancestors of the Turkish nation to belong to the yellow race, it is easy
+to show why their descendants have so widely departed from that type.
+
+Centuries elapsed from the time of the first appearance of the Turanian
+hordes to the day which saw them the masters of the city of Constantine,
+and during that period, multifarious events took place; the fortune of
+the Western Turks has been a checkered one. Alternately conquerors or
+conquered, masters or slaves, they have become incorporated with various
+nationalities. According to the annalists,[154] their Orghuse ancestors,
+who descended from the Altai Mountains, inhabited in Abraham's time the
+immense steppes of Upper Asia which extend from Katai to the sea of
+Aral, from Siberia to Thibet, and which, as has recently been
+proved--were then the abode of numerous Germanic tribes.[155] It is a
+singular circumstance, that the first mentioning by Oriental writers of
+the tribes of Turkestan is in celebrating them for their beauty of face
+and form.[156] The most extravagant hyperboles are lavished on them
+without reserve, and as these writers had before their eyes the
+handsomest types of the old world with which to compare them, it is not
+probable that they should have wasted their enthusiasm on creatures so
+ugly and repulsive as are generally the races of pure Mongolian blood.
+Thus, notwithstanding the dicta of philology, I think serious doubts
+might be raised on that point.[157]
+
+But I am willing to admit that the Turcomannic tribes were, indeed, as
+is supposed, of Finnic origin. Let us come down to a later period--the
+Mohammedan era. We then find these tribes under various denominations
+and in equally various situations, dispersed over Persia and Asia Minor.
+The Osmanli were not yet existing at that time, and their predecessors,
+the Seldjuks, were already greatly mixed with the races that had
+embraced Islamism. We see from the example of Ghaļased-din-Keikosrew,
+who lived in 1237, that the Seljuk princes were in the habit of
+frequently intermarrying with Arab women. They must have gone still
+further, for we find that Aseddin, the mother of one of the Seljuk
+dynasties, was a Christian. It is reasonable to suppose, that if the
+chiefs of the nation, who everywhere are the most anxious to preserve
+the purity of their genealogy, showed themselves so devoid of prejudice,
+their subjects were still less scrupulous on that point. Their constant
+inroads in which they ranged over vast districts, gave them ample
+opportunities for capturing slaves, and there is every reason to believe
+that already in the 13th century, the ancient Orghuse branch was
+strongly tinctured with Shemitic blood.
+
+To this branch belonged Osman, the son of Ortoghrul, and father of the
+Osmanli. But few families were collected around his tent. His army was,
+at first, little better than a band of adventurers, and the same
+expedient which swelled the ranks of the first builders of Rome,
+increased the number of adherents of this new Romulus of the Steppes.
+Every desperate adventurer or fugitive, of whatever nation, was welcome
+among them, and assured of protection. I shall suppose that the
+downfall of the Seljuk empire brought to their standards a great number
+of their own race. But we have already said that this race was very much
+mixed; and besides, this addition was insufficient, as is proved by the
+fact that, from that time, the Turks began to capture slaves for the
+avowed purpose of repairing, by this means, the waste which constant
+warfare made in their own ranks. In the beginning of the 14th century,
+the sultan Orkhan, following the advice of his vizier, Khalil
+Tjendereli, surnamed the Black, instituted the famous military body
+called Janissaries.[158] They were composed entirely of Christian
+children captured in Poland, Germany, Italy, or the Bizantine Empire,
+who were educated in the Mohammedan religion and the practice of arms.
+Under Mohammed IV., their number had increased to 140,000 men. Here,
+then, we find an influx of at least half a million male individuals of
+European blood in the course of four centuries.
+
+But the infusion of European blood was not limited to this. The piracy
+which was carried on, on so large a scale, in the whole basin of the
+Mediterranean, had for one of its principal objects the replenishment of
+the harems. Every victory gained increased the number of believers in
+the Prophet. A great number of the prisoners of war abjured
+Christianity, and were henceforth counted among the true believers. The
+localities adjacent to the field of battle supplied as many females as
+the marauding victors could lay hold of. In some cases, this sort of
+booty was so plentiful that it became inconvenient to dispose of. Hammer
+relates[159] that, on one occasion, the handsomest female captive was
+bartered for _one boot_. When we consider that the Turkish population of
+the whole Ottoman empire never exceeded twelve millions, it becomes
+apparent that the history of so amalgamated a nation affords no
+arguments, either for or against, the permanency of type. We will now
+proceed to the second historic argument advanced by the believers in
+unity.
+
+"The Magyars," they say, "are of Finnic origin, nearly related to the
+Laplanders, Samoiedes, and Esquimaux, all of which are people of low
+stature, with big faces, projecting cheek-bones, and yellowish or dirty
+brown complexion. Yet the Magyars are tall, well formed, and have
+handsome features. The Finns have always been feeble, unintelligent,
+and oppressed; the Magyars, on the contrary, occupy a distinguished
+rank among the conquerors of the earth, and are noted for their love
+of liberty and independence. As they are so immensely superior,
+both physically and morally, to all the collateral branches of the
+Finnic stock, it follows that they have undergone an enormous
+transformation."[160]
+
+If such a transformation had ever taken place, it would, indeed, be
+astonishing and inexplicable even to those who ascribe the least
+stability to types, for it must have occurred within the last 800 years,
+during which we know that the compatriots of St. Stephen[161] mixed but
+little with surrounding nations. But the whole course of reasoning is
+based upon false premises, for the Hungarians are most assuredly not of
+Finnic origin. Mr. A. De Gérando[162] has placed this fact beyond doubt.
+He has proved, by the authority of Greek and Arab historians, as well as
+Hungarian annalists and by indisputable philological arguments, that the
+Magyars are a fragment of that great inundation of nations which swept
+over Europe under the denomination of Huns. It will be objected that
+this is merely giving the Hungarians another parentage, but which
+connects them no less intimately with the yellow race. Such is not the
+case. The designation of Huns applies not only to a nation, but is also
+a collective appellation of a very heterogeneous mass. Among the tribes
+which rallied around the standards of Attila and his ancestors, there
+were some which have at all times been distinguished from the rest by
+the term _white Huns_. Among them the Germanic blood predominated.[163]
+It is true, that the close contact with the yellow race somewhat
+adulterated the breed; but this very fact is singularly exhibited in the
+somewhat angular and bony facial conformation of the Hungarians. I
+conclude, therefore, that the Magyars were _white Huns_, and of Germanic
+origin, though slightly mixed with the Mongolian stock.
+
+The philological difficulty of their speaking a non-Germanic dialect is
+not insurmountable. I have already alluded to the Mongolian Scyths who
+yet spoke an Arian tongue;[164] I might, moreover, cite the Norman
+settlers in France who, not many years after their conquest, exchanged
+their Scandinavian dialect, in a great measure, for the Celto-Latin of
+their subjects,[165] whence sprang that singular compound called
+Norman-French, which the followers of William the Conqueror imported
+into England, and which now forms an element of the English language.
+
+There is, therefore, no reason to suppose that the agency of climate and
+change of habits have transformed a Laplander, or an Ostiak, or a
+Tunguse, or a Permian, into a St. Stephen or a Kossuth.
+
+Having thus, I think, refuted the only two historical instances which
+the believers in unity of species adduce, of a pretended alteration of
+type by local circumstances and change of habits, and having, moreover,
+instanced several cases where these causes could produce no alteration;
+the fact of permanency of type seems to me to be incontestably
+established.[166] Thus, whichever side we take, whether we believe in
+original unity, or original diversity, is immaterial; the several groups
+of the human species are, at present, so perfectly separated from each
+other, that no exterior influence can efface their distinctive
+peculiarities. The permanency of these differences, so long as there is
+no intermixture, produces precisely the same physical and moral results
+as if the groups were so many distinct and separate creations.
+
+In conclusion, I shall repeat what I have said above, that I have very
+serious doubts as to the unity of origin. These doubts, however, I am
+compelled to repress, because they are in contradiction to a scientific
+fact which I cannot refute--the prolificness of half-breeds; and
+secondly, what is of much greater weight with me, they impugn a
+religious interpretation sanctioned by the church.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[139] For the arguments which may be deduced from the language of Holy
+Writ, in favor of plurality of origins, see Appendix _C_.--H.
+
+[140] Among others, FRÉDÉRIC CUVIER, _Annales du Muséum_, vol. xi. p.
+458.
+
+[141] The reader will be struck by the remarkable illustration of the
+truth of this remark, which the equine species affords. The vast
+difference between the swift courser, who excites the enthusiasm of
+admiring multitudes, and the common hack, need not be pointed out, and
+it is as well known that either, if the breed be preserved unmixed, will
+perpetuate their distinctive qualities to a countless progeny.--H.
+
+[142] A free mulatto, who had received a very good education in France,
+once seriously undertook to prove to me that the Saviour's earthly form
+partook, at the same time, of the characteristics of the white and the
+black races; in other words, was that of a half-breed. The arguments by
+which he supported this singular hypothesis were drawn from theology, as
+well as Scriptural ethnology, and were remarkably plausible and
+ingenious. I am convinced that if the real opinion of colored Christians
+on this subject could be collected, a vast majority would be found to
+agree with my informant.--H.
+
+[143] Our author here gives evidence of a want of critical study of
+races--the resemblances he has traced do not exist. There is no type in
+Africa south of the equator, or among the aborigines of America, that
+bears any resemblance to any race in Europe or Asia.--N.
+
+[144] Müller, _Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen_, vol. ii. p. 639.
+
+[145] Prichard, _op. cit._, pp. 484, 485.
+
+[146] An exception, however, must be made in the case of Shakspeare,
+while painting on an Italian canvas. In _Romeo and Juliet_, Capulet
+says:--
+
+ "My child is yet a stranger in the world,
+ She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;
+ Let two more summers wither in their pride,
+ Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride."
+
+To which Paris answers:--
+
+ "Younger than she are happy mothers made."
+
+[147] According to M. Krapff, a Protestant minister in Eastern Africa,
+among the Wanikos both sexes marry at the age of twelve. (_Zeitschrift
+der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, vol. iii. p. 317.) In
+Paraguay, the Jesuits had established the custom, which subsists to this
+day, of marrying their neophytes, the girls at the age of ten, the boys
+at that of thirteen. It is not rare to find, in that country, widowers
+and widows eleven and twelve years old. (A. D'ORBIGNY, _L'Homme
+Américain_, vol. i. p. 40.) In Southern Brazil, females marry at the age
+of ten and eleven. Menstruation there begins also at a very early age,
+and ceases equally early. (MARTIUS and SPIX, _Reise in Brasilien_, vol.
+i. p. 382.) I might increase the number of similar quotations
+indefinitely.
+
+[148] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 486.
+
+[149] Botta, _Monumens de Ninive_. Paris, 1850.
+
+[150] _Edinburgh Review_, "Ethnology, or the Science of Races," Oct.
+1844, p. 144, _et passim_. "There is probably no evidence of original
+diversity of race which is so generally and unhesitatingly relied upon
+as that derived from the _color of the skin_ and the _character of the
+hair_; ... but it will not, we think, stand the test of serious
+examination.... Among the Kabyles of Algiers and Tunis, the Tuarites of
+Sahara, the Shelahs or mountaineers of Southern Morocco, and other
+people of the same race, there are very considerable differences of
+complexion." (p. 448.)
+
+[151] _Ibid._, _loc. cit._, p. 453. "The Cinghalese are described by Dr.
+Davy as varying in color from light brown to black, the prevalent hue of
+their hair and eyes is black, but hazel eyes and brown hair are not very
+uncommon; gray eyes and red hair are occasionally seen, though rarely,
+and sometimes the light-blue or red eye and flaxen hair of the albino."
+
+[152] _Ibid._, _loc. cit._ "The Samoiedes, Tungusians, and others living
+on the borders of the Icy Sea, have a dirty-brown or swarthy
+complexion."
+
+[153] Edinburgh Review, p. 439.
+
+[154] Hammer, _Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches_, vol. i. p. 2.
+(_History of the Ottoman Empire._)
+
+[155] Ritter, _Erdkunde Asien_, vol. i. p. 433, et passim, p. 1115,
+etc. Lassen, _Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes_, vol. ii. p.
+65. Benfey, _Encyclopędie_, by Ersch and Gruber, _Indien_, p. 12.
+Alexander Von Humboldt, speaking of this fact, styles it one of the most
+important discoveries of our times. (_Asie Centrale_, vol. ii. p. 649.)
+With regard to its bearings upon historical science, nothing can be more
+true.
+
+[156] Nouschirwan, whose reign falls in the first half of the sixth
+century of our era, married Scharouz, the daughter of the Khakan of the
+Turks. She was the most beautiful woman of her time. (Haneberg,
+_Zeitschr. f. d. K. des Morgenl._, vol. i. p. 187.) This is by no means
+an isolated instance; Schahnameh furnishes a number of similar ones.
+
+[157] The Scythes, though having adopted a language of the Arian
+classes, were, nevertheless, a Mongolian nation; there would, therefore,
+be nothing very surprising if the Orghuses had been an Arian nation,
+though speaking a Finnic dialect. This hypothesis is singularly
+corroborated by a passage in the relations of the traveller Rubruquis,
+who was sent by St. Louis as ambassador to the sovereign of the Mongols.
+"I was struck," says the worthy monk, "with the prince's resemblance to
+the deceased _M. John de Beaumont_, whose complexion was equally fresh
+and colored." Alexander Von Humboldt, justly interested by this remark,
+adds: "This physiognomical observation acquires importance, when we
+recollect that the monarch here spoken of belonged to the family of
+Tchinguiz, who were really of Turkish, not of Mogul origin." And
+pursuing this trace, the great _savant_ finds another corroborating
+fact: "The absence of Mongolian features," says he, "strikes us also in
+the portraits which we possess of the Baburides, the conquerors of
+India." (_Asie Centrale_, vol. i. p. 248, and note.)
+
+[158] It will be seen that Mr. Gobineau differs, in the date he gives of
+the institution of the Janissaries, from all other European writers, who
+unanimously ascribe the establishment of this corps to Mourad I., the
+third prince of the line of Othman. This error, into which Gibbon
+himself has fallen, originated with Cantemir: but the concurrent
+testimony of every Turkish historian fixes the epoch of their formation
+and consecration by the Dervish Hadji-Becktash, to the reign of Orkhan,
+the father of Mourad, who, in 1328, enrolled a body of Christian youths
+as soldiers under this name (which signifies, "new regulars"), by the
+advice of his cousin Tchenderli, to whose councils the wise and simple
+regulations of the infant empire are chiefly attributed. Their number
+was at first only a thousand; but it was greatly augmented when Mourad,
+in 1361, appropriated to this service, by an edict, the _imperial fifth_
+of the European captives taken in the war--a measure which has been
+generally confounded with the first enrolment of the corps. At the
+accession of Soliman the Magnificent, their effective strength had
+reached 40,000; and under Mohammed IV., in the middle of the seventeenth
+century, that number was more than doubled. But though the original
+composition of the Janissaries is related by every writer who has
+treated of them, it has not been so generally noticed that for more than
+two centuries and a half not a single native Turk was admitted into
+their ranks, which were recruited, like those of the Mamelukes, solely
+by the continual supply of Christian slaves, at first captives of tender
+age taken in war, and afterwards, when this source proved inadequate to
+the increased demand, by an annual levy among the children of the lower
+orders of Christians throughout the empire--a dreadful tax, frequently
+alluded to by Busbequius, and which did not finally cease till the reign
+of Mohammed IV.
+
+At a later period, when the Krim Tartars became vassals of the Porte,
+the yearly inroads of the fierce cavalry of that nation into the
+southern provinces of Russia, were principally instrumental in
+replenishing this nursery of soldiers; and Fletcher, who was ambassador
+from Queen Elizabeth to Ivan the Terrible, describes, in his quaint
+language, the method pursued in these depredations: "The chief bootie
+the Tartars seeke for in all their warres, is to get store of captives,
+specially young boyes and girles, whom they sell to the Turkes, or
+other, their neighbours. To this purpose, they take with them great
+baskets, made like bakers' panniers, _to carrie them tenderly_; and if
+any of them happens to tyre, or bee sicke on the way, they dash him
+against the ground, or some tree, and so leave him dead." (_Purchas's
+Pilgrims_, vol. iii. p. 441.)
+
+The boys, thus procured from various quarters, were assembled at
+Constantinople, where, after a general inspection, those whose personal
+advantages or indications of superior talent distinguished them from the
+crowd, were set aside as pages of the seraglio or Mamelukes in the
+households of the pashas and other officers, whence in due time they
+were promoted to military commands or other appointments: but the
+remaining multitude were given severally in charge to peasants or
+artisans of Turkish race, principally in Anatolia, by whom they were
+trained up, till they approached the age of manhood, in the tenets of
+the Moslem faith, and inured to all the privations and toils of a hardy
+and laborious life. After this severe probation, they were again
+transferred to the capital, and enrolled in the different _odas_ or
+regiments; and here their military education commenced.--H.
+
+[159] _Erdkunde, Asien_, vol. i. p. 448.
+
+[160] _Ethnology_, etc., p. 439: "The Hungarian nobility ... is proved
+by historical and philological evidence to have been a branch of the
+great Northern Asiatic stock, closely allied in blood to the stupid and
+feeble Ostiaks, and the untamable Laplander."
+
+[161] St. Stephen reigned about the year 1000, nearly one century and a
+half after the first invasion of the Magyars, under their leaders, Arpad
+and Zulta. He introduced Christianity among his people, on which account
+he was canonized, and is now the tutelary saint of his nation. It may
+not be known to the generality of our readers, that the Magyars, though
+they have now resided nearly one thousand years in Hungary, have, with
+few exceptions, never applied themselves to the tillage of the soil.
+Agriculture, to this day, remains almost exclusively in the hands of the
+original (the Slowack or Sclavonian) population. The Magyar's wealth
+consists in his herds, or, if he owns land, it is the Slowacks that
+cultivate it for him. It is a singular phenomenon that these two races,
+though professing the same religion, have remained almost entirely
+unmixed, and each still preserves its own language.--H.
+
+[162] _Essai Historique sur l'Origine des Hongrois._ Paris, 1844.
+
+[163] It appears that we shall be compelled henceforward to considerably
+modify our usually received opinions with regard to the nations of
+Central Asia. It cannot now be any longer doubted that many of these
+populations contain a very considerable admixture of white blood, a fact
+of which our predecessors in the study of history had not the slightest
+apprehension. Alexander Von Humboldt makes a very important remark upon
+this subject, in speaking of the Kirghis-Kazakes, mentioned by Menander
+of Byzant, and Constantine Porphyrogenetus; and he shows conclusively
+that the Kirghis (~cherchis~) concubine spoken of by the former
+writer as a present of the Turkish chief Dithubłl to Zemarch, the
+ambassador of Justinian II., in A. D. 569, was a girl of mixed
+blood--partly white. She is the precise counterpart of those beautiful
+Turkish girls, whose charms are so much extolled by Persian writers, and
+who did not belong, any more than she, to the Mongolian race. (Vide
+_Asie Centrale_, vol. i. p. 237, _et passim_, and vol. ii. pp. 130,
+131.)
+
+[164] Schaffarick, _Slawische Alterthümer_, vol. i. p. 279, _et passim_.
+
+[165] Aug. Thierry, _Histoire de la Conquite de l'Angleterre_. Paris,
+1846, vol. i. p. 155.
+
+[166] In my introductory note to Chapters VIII. and IX. (see p. 244), I
+have mentioned a remarkable instance of the permanency of
+characteristics, even in branches of the same race. An equally, if not
+more striking illustration of this fact is given by Alex. Von Humboldt.
+
+It is well known that Spain contains a population composed of very
+dissimilar ethnical elements, and that the inhabitants of its various
+provinces differ essentially, not only in physical appearance, but still
+more in mental characteristics. As in all newly-settled countries,
+immigrants from the same locality are apt to select the same spot, the
+extensive Spanish possessions on this continent were colonized, each
+respectively, by some particular province in the mother country. Thus
+the Biscayans settled Mexico; the Andalusians and natives of the Canary
+Islands, Venezuela; the Catalonians, Buenos Ayres; the Castillians,
+Peru, etc. Although centuries have elapsed since these original
+settlements, and although the character of the Spanish Americans must
+have been variously modified by the physical nature of their new homes,
+whether situated in the vicinity of coasts, or of mining districts, or
+in isolated table-lands, or in fertile valleys; notwithstanding all
+this, the great traveller and experienced observer still clearly
+recognizes in the character of the various populations of South America,
+the distinctive peculiarities of the original settlers. Says he: "The
+Andalusians and Canarians of Venezuela, the Mountaineers and the
+Biscayans of Mexico, the Catalonians of Buenos Ayres, evince
+considerable differences in their aptitude for agriculture, for the
+mechanical arts, for commerce, and for all objects connected with
+intellectual development. _Each of these races has preserved, in the
+new, as in the old world, the shades that constitute its national
+physiognomy_; its asperity or mildness of character; its freedom from
+sordid feelings, or its excessive love of gain; its social hospitality,
+or its taste of solitude.... In the inhabitants of Caracas, Santa Fé,
+Quito, and Buenos Ayres, we still recognize the features that belong to
+the race of the first settlers."--_Personal Narrative_, Eng. Trans.,
+vol. i. p. 395.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CLASSIFICATION OF RACES.
+
+ Primary varieties--Test for recognizing them; not always
+ reliable--Effects of intermixture--Secondary varieties--Tertiary
+ varieties--Amalgamation of races in large cities--Relative scale of
+ beauty in various branches of the human family--Their inequality in
+ muscular strength and powers of endurance.
+
+
+ [In supervising the publication of this work, I have thought
+ proper to omit, in this place, a portion of the translation,
+ because containing ideas and suggestions which--though they might
+ be novel to a French public--have often been laid before English
+ readers, and as often proven untenable. This omission, however,
+ embraces no essential feature of the book, no link of the chain
+ of argumentation. It extends no further than a digressional
+ attempt of the author to account for the diversities observable
+ in the various branches of the human family, by imagining the
+ existence of cosmogonal causes, long since effete, but operating
+ for a time soon after the creation of man, when the globe was
+ still in a nascent and chaotic state. It must be obvious that all
+ such speculations can never bridge over the wide abyss which
+ separates _hypotheses_ from _facts_. They afford a boundless
+ field for play to a fertile imagination, but will never stand the
+ test of criticism. Even if we were to suppose that such causes
+ had effected diversities in the human family in primeval times,
+ the types thus produced must all have perished in the flood, save
+ that to which Noah and his family belonged. If these writers,
+ however, should be disposed to deny the universality of the
+ deluge, they would evidently do greater violence to the language
+ of Holy Writ, than by at once supposing a plurality of origins
+ for mankind.
+
+ The legitimate field of human science is the investigation of the
+ laws _now_ governing the material world. Beyond this it may not
+ go. Whatever is recognized as not coming within the scope of
+ action of these laws, belongs not to its province. We have proved,
+ and I think it is generally admitted, that the actual varieties of
+ the human family are _permanent_; that there are no causes _now in
+ operation_, which can transform them. The investigation of those
+ causes, therefore, cannot properly be said to belong to the
+ province of human science. In regard to their various systems of
+ classification, naturalists may be permitted to dispute about
+ unity or plurality of species, because the use of the word species
+ is more or less arbitrary; it is an expedient to secure a
+ convenient arrangement. But none, I hope, presume ever to be able
+ to fathom the mysteries of Creative Power--to challenge the fiat
+ of the Almighty, and inquire into his _means_.--H.]
+
+In the investigation of the moral and intellectual diversities of races,
+there is no difficulty so great as an accurate classification. I am
+disposed to think a separation into three great groups sufficient for
+all practical purposes. These groups I shall call primary varieties, not
+in the sense of distinct creations, but as offering obvious and
+well-defined distinguishing characteristics. I would designate them
+respectively by the terms white, yellow, and black. I am aware of the
+inaccuracy of these appellations, because the complexion is not always
+the distinctive feature of these groups: other and more important
+physiological traits must be taken into consideration. But as I have not
+the right to invent new names, and am, therefore, compelled to select
+among those already in use, I have chosen these because, though by no
+means correct, they seemed preferable to others borrowed from geography
+or history, and not so apt as the latter to add to the confusion which
+already sufficiently perplexes the investigator of this subject. To
+obviate any misconception here and hereafter, I wish it to be distinctly
+understood that by "white" races I mean those usually comprised under
+the name of Caucasian, Shemitic, Japhetic; by "black," the Hamitic,
+African, etc.; by "yellow," the Altaic, Mongolian, Finnic, and Tartar.
+These I consider to be the three categories under which all races of the
+human family can be placed. I shall hereafter explain my reasons for
+not recognizing the American Indians as a separate variety, and for
+classing them among the yellow races.[167]
+
+It is obvious that each of these groups comprises races very dissimilar
+among themselves, each of which, besides the general characteristics
+belonging to the whole group, possesses others peculiar to itself. Thus,
+in the group of black races we find marked distinctions: the tribes
+with prognathous skull and woolly hair, the low-caste Hindoos of
+Kamaoun and of Dekhan, the Pelagian negroes of Polynesia, etc. In the
+yellow group, the Tungusians, Mongols, Chinese, etc. There is every
+reason to believe that these sub-varieties are coeval; that is, the same
+causes which produced one, produced at the same time all the others.
+
+It is, moreover, extremely difficult to determine the typical character
+of each variety. In the white, and also in the yellow group, the mixture
+of the sub-varieties is so great, that it is impossible to fix upon the
+type. In the black group, the type is perhaps discernible; at least, it
+is preserved in its greatest purity.
+
+To ascertain the relative purity or mixture of a race, a criterion has
+been adopted by many, who consider it infallible: this is resemblance of
+face, form, constitution, etc. It is supposed that the purer a race has
+preserved itself, the greater must be the exterior resemblances of all
+the individuals composing it. On the contrary, considerable and varied
+intermixtures would produce an infinite diversity of appearance among
+individuals. This fact is incontestable, and of great value in
+ethnological science, but I do not think it quite so reliable as some
+suppose.
+
+Intermixture of races does, indeed, produce at first individual
+dissemblances, for few individuals belong in precisely the same degree
+to either of the races composing the mixture. But suppose that, in
+course of time, the fusion has become complete--that every individual
+member of the mixed race had precisely the same proportion of mixed
+blood as every other--he could not then differ greatly from his
+neighbor. The whole mass, in that case, must present the same general
+homogeneity as a pure race. The perfect amalgamation of two races of the
+same group would, therefore, produce a new type, presenting a fictitious
+appearance of purity, and reproducing itself in succeeding generations.
+
+I imagine it possible, therefore, that a "secondary" type may in time
+assume all the characteristics of a "primary" one, viz: resemblance of
+the individuals composing it. The lapse of time to produce this
+complete fusion would necessarily be commensurate to the original
+diversity of the constituent elements. Where two races belonging to
+different groups combine, such a complete fusion would probably never be
+possible. I can illustrate this by reference to individuals. Parents of
+widely different nations generally have children but little resembling
+each other--some apparently partaking more of the father's type, some
+more of the mother's. But if the parents are both of the same, or at
+least of homogeneous stocks, their offspring exhibits little or no
+variety; and though the children might resemble neither of the parents,
+they would be apt to resemble one another.
+
+To distinguish the varieties produced by a fusion of proximate races
+from those which are the effect of intermixture between races belonging
+to different groups, I shall call the latter _tertiary_ varieties. Thus
+the woolly-headed negro and the Pelagian are both "primary" varieties
+belonging to the same group; their offspring I would call a "secondary"
+variety; but the hymen of either of them with a race belonging to the
+white or yellow groups, would produce a "tertiary" variety. To this
+last, then, belong the mulatto, or cross between white and black, and
+the Polynesian, who is a cross between the black and the yellow.[168]
+Half-breeds of this kind display, in various proportions and degrees,
+the special characteristics of both the ancestral races. But a complete
+fusion, as in the case of branches of the same group, probably never
+results from the union of two widely dissimilar races, or, at least,
+would require an incommensurable lapse of time.
+
+If a tertiary type is again modified by intermixture with another, as is
+the case in a cross between a mulatto and a Mongolian, or between a
+Polynesian and a European, the ethnical mixture is too great to permit
+us, in the present state of the science, to arrive at any general
+conclusions. It appears that every additional intermixture increases the
+difficulty of complete fusion. In a population composed of a great
+number of dissimilar ethnical elements, it would require countless ages
+for a thorough amalgamation; that is to say, so complete a mixture that
+each individual would have precisely the kind and relative proportion of
+mixed blood as every other. It follows, therefore, that, in a
+population so constituted, there is an infinite diversity of form and
+features among individuals, some pertaining more to one type than
+another. In other words, there being no equilibrium between the various
+types, they crop out here and there without any apparent reason.
+
+We find this spectacle among the great civilized nations of Europe,
+especially in their capitals and seaports. In these great vortexes of
+humanity, every possible variety of our species has been absorbed.
+Negro, Chinese, Tartar, Hottentot, Indian, Malay, and all the minor
+varieties produced by their mixture, have contributed their contingent
+to the population of our large cities. Since the Roman domination, this
+amalgamation has continually increased, and is still increasing in
+proportion as our inventions bring in closer proximity the various
+portions of the globe. It affects all classes to some extent, but more
+especially the lowest. Among them you may see every type of the human
+family more or less represented. In London, Paris, Cadiz,
+Constantinople, in any of the greater marts and thoroughfares of the
+world, the lower strata of the _native_ population exhibit every
+possible variety, from the prognathous skull to the pyramidal: you shall
+find one man with hair as crisp as a negro's; another, with the eyes of
+an ancient German, or the oblique ones of a Chinese; a third, with a
+thoroughly Shemitic countenance; yet all three may be close relations,
+and would be greatly surprised were they told that any but the purest
+white blood flows in their veins. In these vast gathering places of
+humanity, if you could take the first comer--a native of the place--and
+ascend his genealogical tree to any height, you would probably be amazed
+at the strange ancestry at the top.
+
+It may now be asked whether, for all the various races of which I have
+spoken, there is but one standard of beauty, or whether each has one of
+its own. Helvetius, in his _De l'Esprit_, maintains that the idea of
+beauty is purely conventional and variable. This assertion found many
+advocates in its time, but it is at present superseded by the more
+philosophical theory that the conception of the beautiful is an absolute
+and invariable idea, and can never have a merely optional application.
+Believing the latter view to be correct, I do not hesitate to compare
+the various races of man in point of beauty, and to establish a regular
+scale of gradation. Thus, if we compare the various races, from the
+ungainly appearance of the Pelagian or Pecherai up to the noble
+proportions of a Charlemagne, the expressive regularity of features of a
+Napoleon, or the majestic countenance of a Louis XIV., we shall find in
+the lowest on the scale a sort of rudimentary development of the beauty
+which attracts us in the highest; and in proportion to the perfectness
+of that development, the races rise in the scale of beauty.[169] Taking
+the white race as the standard of beauty, we perceive all the others
+more or less receding from that model. There is, then, an inequality in
+point of beauty among the various races of men, and this inequality is
+permanent and indelible.[170]
+
+The next question to be decided is, whether there is also an inequality
+in point of physical strength. It cannot be denied that the American
+Indians and the Hindoos are greatly inferior to us in this respect. Of
+the Australians, the same may safely be asserted. Even the negroes
+possess less muscular vigor.[171] It is necessary, however, to
+distinguish between purely muscular force--that which exerts itself
+suddenly at a given moment--and the force of resistance or capacity for
+endurance. The degree of the former is measured by its intensity, that
+of the other by its duration. Of the two, the latter is the typical--the
+standard by which to judge of the capabilities of races. Great muscular
+strength is found among races notoriously weak. Among the lowest of the
+negro tribes, for instance, it would not be difficult to find
+individuals that could match an experienced European wrestler or English
+boxer. This is equally true of the Lascars and Malays. But we must take
+the masses, and judge according to the amount of long-continued,
+persevering toil and fatigue they are capable of. In this respect, the
+white races are undoubtedly entitled to pre-eminence.
+
+But there are differences, again, among the white races, both in beauty
+and in strength, which even the extensive ethnical mixture, that
+European nations present, has not entirely obliterated. The Italians are
+handsomer than the French and the Spaniards, and still more so than the
+Swiss and Germans. The English also present a high degree of corporeal
+beauty; the Sclavonian nations a comparatively humble one.
+
+In muscular power, the English rank far above all other European
+nations; but the French and Spaniards are greatly superior in power of
+endurance: they suffer less from fatigue, from privations, and the
+rigors and changes of climate. This question has been settled beyond
+dispute by the fatal campaign in Russia. While the Germans, and other
+troops from the North, who yet were accustomed to severe cold, were
+almost totally annihilated, the French regiments, though paying
+fearfully dear for their retreat, nevertheless saved the greatest number
+of men. Some have attempted to explain this by a supposed superiority on
+the part of the French in martial education and military spirit. But the
+German officers had certainly as high a conception of a soldier's duty,
+as elevated a sentiment of honor, as our soldiers; yet they perished in
+incredibly greater numbers. I think it can hardly be disputed that the
+masses of the population of France possess a superiority in certain
+physical qualities, which enables them to defy with greater impunity
+than most other nations the freezing snows of Russia and the burning
+sands of Egypt.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[167] I have already alluded to the classification adopted by Mr.
+Latham, the great ethnographer, which, though different in the
+designations, is precisely similar to that of Mr. Gobineau. Hamilton
+Smith also comes to the conclusion that, "as there are only three
+varieties who attain the typical standard, we have in them the
+foundation of that number being exclusively aboriginal." He therefore
+divides the races of men into three classes, which he calls "typical
+forms," and which nearly correspond to Mr. Gobineau's and Mr. Latham's
+"primary varieties." But, notwithstanding this weight of authorities
+against me, I cannot entirely agree as to the correctness of this
+classification. Fewer objections seem to me to lie against that proposed
+by Van Amringe, which I recommend to the consideration of the reader,
+and, though perhaps out of place in a mere foot-note, subjoin at full
+length. It must be remembered that the author of this system, though he
+uses the word species to distinguish the various groups, is one of the
+advocates for _unity of origin_. (The words _Japhetic_ and _Shemitic_
+are also employed in a sense somewhat different from that which common
+usage has assigned them.)
+
+
+ THE SHEMITIC SPECIES.
+
+ _Psychical or Spiritual Character_, viz:--
+ All the Physical Attributes developed harmoniously.--Warlike, but
+ not cruel, or destructive.
+
+ _Temperament._--Strenuous.
+
+ _Physical Character_, viz:--
+ A high degree of sensibility; fair complexion; copious, soft,
+ flowing hair, often curled, or waving; ample beard; small, oval,
+ perpendicular face, with features very distinct; expanded forehead;
+ large and elevated cranium; narrow elevated nose, distinct from the
+ other features; small mouth, and thin lips; chin, round, full, and
+ somewhat prominent, generally equal with the lips.
+
+ VARIETIES.
+
+ The Israelites, Greeks, Romans, Teutones, Sclavons, Celts, &c., and
+ many sub-varieties.
+
+
+ THE JAPHETIC SPECIES.
+
+ _Psychical or Spiritual Character_, viz:
+ Attributes unequally developed. Moderately mental--originative,
+ inventive, but not speculative. Not warlike, but destructive.
+
+ _Temperament._--Passive.
+
+ _Physical Character_, viz:--
+ Medium sensibility; olive yellow complexion; hair thin, coarse, and
+ black; little or no beard; broad, flattened, and triangular face;
+ high, pyramidal, and square-shaped skull; forehead small and low;
+ wide and small nose, particularly broad at the root; linear and
+ highly arched eyebrows; very oblique eyes, broad, irregular, and
+ half-closed, the upper eyelid extending a little beyond the lower;
+ thick lips.
+
+
+ VARIETIES.
+
+ The Chinese, Mongolians, Japanese, Chin Indians, &c., and probably
+ the Esquimaux, Toltecs, Aztecs, Peruvians.
+
+
+ THE ISHMAELITIC SPECIES.
+
+ _Psychical or Spiritual Character_, viz:--
+ Attributes generally equally developed. Moderately mental; not
+ originative, or inventive, but speculative; roving, predatory,
+ revengeful, and sensual. Warlike and highly destructive.
+
+ _Temperament._--Callous.
+
+ _Physical Character._--Sub-medium sensibility; dark skin, more or less
+ red, or of a copper-color tinge; hair black, straight, and strong;
+ face broad, immediately under the eyes; high cheek-bones; nose
+ prominent and distinct, particularly in profile; mouth and chin,
+ European.
+
+
+ VARIETIES.
+
+ Most of the Tartar and Arabian tribes, and the whole of the American
+ Indians, unless those mentioned in the second species should be
+ excepted.
+
+
+ THE CANAANITIC SPECIES.
+
+ _Psychical or Spiritual Character_, viz:--
+ Attributes equally undeveloped. Inferiorly mental; not originative,
+ inventive, or speculative; roving, revengeful, predatory, and highly
+ sensual; warlike and destructive.
+
+ _Temperament._--Sluggish.
+
+ _Physical Character._--Sluggish sensibility, approaching to torpor;
+ dark or black skin; hair black, generally woolly; skull compressed
+ on the sides, narrow at the forehead, which slants backwards;
+ cheek-bones very prominent; jaws projecting; teeth oblique, and chin
+ retreating, forming a muzzle-shaped profile; nose broad, flat, and
+ confused with the face; eyes prominent; lips thick.
+
+
+ VARIETIES.
+
+ The Negroes of Central Africa, Hottentots, Cafirs, Australasian
+ Negroes, &c.; and probably the Malays, &c.
+
+ _Nat. Hist. of Man_, p. 73 _et passim_.
+
+If the reader will carefully examine the psychical characteristics of
+these groups, as given in the above extract, he will find them to accord
+better with the whole of Mr. Gobineau's theories, than Mr. Gobineau's
+own classification.--H.
+
+[168] It is probably a typographical error, that makes Mr. Flourens
+(_Eloge de Blumenbach_, p. 11) say that the Polynesian race was "a
+mixture of two others, the _Caucasian_ and the Mongolian." The Black and
+the Mongolian is undoubtedly what the learned Academician wished to say.
+
+[169] This may be so in our eyes. It is natural for us to think those
+the most pleasing in appearance, that closest resemble our own type. But
+were an African to institute a comparative scale of beauty, would he not
+place his own race highest, and declare that "all races rose in the
+scale of beauty in proportion to the perfectness of the development" of
+African features? I think it extremely probable--nay, positively
+certain.
+
+Mr. Hamilton Smith takes the same side as the author. "It is a mistaken
+notion," says he, "to believe that the standard contour of beauty and
+form differs materially in any country. Fashion may have the influence
+of setting up certain deformities for perfections, both at Pekin and at
+Paris, but they are invariably apologies which national pride offers for
+its own defects. The youthful beauty of Canton would be handsome (?) in
+London," etc.
+
+Mr. Van Amringe, on the contrary, after a careful examination of the
+facts brought to light by travellers and other investigators, comes to
+the conclusion that "the standard of beauty in the different species
+(see p. 371, _note_) of man is wholly different, physically, morally,
+and intellectually. Consequently, that taste for personal beauty in each
+species is incompatible with the perception of sexual beauty out of the
+species." (_Op. cit._, p. 656.) "A difference of taste for sexual beauty
+in the several races of men is the great natural law which has been
+instrumental in separating them, and keeping them distinct, more
+effectually than mountains, deserts, or oceans. This separation has been
+perfect for the whole historic period, and continues to be now as wide
+as it is or has been in any distinct species of animals. Why has this
+been so? Did prejudice operate four thousand years ago exactly as it
+does now? If it did not, how came the races to separate into distinct
+masses at the very earliest known period, and, either voluntarily or by
+force, take up distinct geographical abodes?" (_Ibid._, pp. 41 and
+42.)--H.
+
+[170] This inequality is not the less great, nor the less permanent, if
+we suppose each type to have its own standard. Nay, if the latter be
+true, it is a sign of a more _radical_ difference among races.--H.
+
+[171] Upon the aborigines of America, consult Martius and Spix, _Reise
+in Brasilien_, vol. i. p. 259; upon the negroes, Pruner, _Der Neger,
+eine aphoristische Skizze aus der medicinischen Topographie von Cairo_.
+In regard to the superiority in muscular vigor over all other races, see
+Carus, _Ueber ungl. Bef._, p. 84.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE TO THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.
+
+ The position and treatment of woman among the various races of men a
+ proof of their moral and intellectual diversity.
+
+
+The reader will pardon me if to Mr. Gobineau's scale of gradation in
+point of beauty and physical strength, I add another as accurate, I
+think, if not more so, and certainly as interesting. I allude to the
+manner in which the weaker sex is regarded and treated among the various
+races of men.
+
+In the words of Van Amringe, "from the brutal New Hollander, who secures
+his wife by knocking her down with a club and dragging the prize to his
+cave, to the polished European, who, fearfully, but respectfully and
+assiduously, spends a probation of months or years for his better half,
+the ascent may be traced with unfailing precision and accuracy." The
+same writer correctly argues that if any principle could be inferred
+from analogy to animals, it would certainly be a uniform treatment of
+the female sex among all races of man; for animals are remarkably
+uniform in the relations of the male and female in the same species. Yet
+among some races of men _polygamy has always prevailed, among others
+never_. Would not any naturalist consider as distinct species any
+animals of the same genus so distinguished? This subject has not yet met
+with due attention at the hands of ethnologists. "When we hear of a race
+of men," says the same author, "being subjected to the tyranny of
+another race, either by personal bondage or the more easy condition of
+tribute, our sympathies are enlisted in their favor, and our constant
+good wishes, if not our efforts, accompany them. But when we hear of
+hundreds of millions of the truest and most tender-hearted of human
+creatures being trodden down and trampled upon in everything that is
+dear to the human heart, our sympathies, which are so freely expended on
+slighter occasions or imaginary evils, are scarcely awakened to their
+crushing woes."
+
+With the writer from whom I have already made copious extracts, I
+believe that the _moral and intellectual diversity_ of the races of men
+cannot be thoroughly and accurately investigated without taking into
+consideration the relations which most influence individual as well as
+national progress and development, and which result from the position
+occupied by woman towards man. This truth has not escaped former
+investigators--it would be singular if it had--but they have contented
+themselves with asserting that the condition of the female sex was
+indicative of the degree of civilization. Had they said, of the
+intrinsic worth of various races, I should cheerfully assent. But the
+elevation or degradation of woman in the social scale is generally
+regarded as a _result_, not a _cause_. It is said that all barbarians
+treat their women as slaves; but, as they progress in civilization,
+woman gradually rises to her legitimate rank.
+
+For the sake of the argument, I shall assume that all now civilized
+nations at first treated their women as the actual barbarians treat
+theirs. That this is not so, I hope to place beyond doubt; but, assuming
+it to be the case, might not the fact that some left off that
+treatment, while others did not, be adduced as a proof of the inequality
+of races? "The law of the relation of the sexes," says Van Amringe, "is
+more deeply engraven upon human nature than any other; because, whatever
+theories may be adopted in regard to the origin of society, languages,
+etc., no doubt can be entertained that the _influence of woman must have
+been anterior to any improvements of the original condition of man_.
+Consequently it was antecedent and superior to education and government.
+That these relations were powerfully instrumental in the origin of
+development, to give it a direction and character according to the
+natures operating and operated upon, cannot be doubted by any one who
+has paid the slightest attention to domestic influences, from and under
+which education, customs, and government commenced."
+
+But I totally deny that all races, in their first state of development,
+treated their women equally. There is not only no historical testimony
+to prove that _any_ of the white races were ever in such a state of
+barbarity and in such moral debasement as most of the dark races are to
+this day, and have always been, but there is positive evidence to show
+that our barbarous ancestors assigned to woman the same position we
+assign her now: she was the companion, and not the slave, of man. I have
+already alluded to this in a previous note on the Teutonic races; I
+cannot, however, but revert to it again.
+
+As I have not space for a lengthy discussion, I shall mention but one
+fact, which I think conclusive, and which rests upon incontrovertible
+historical testimony. "To a German mind," says Tacitus (Murphy's
+transl., vol. vii. 8), "the idea of a woman led into captivity is
+insupportable. In consequence of this prevailing sentiment, the states
+which deliver as hostages the daughters of illustrious families are
+bound by the most effectual obligations." Did this assertion rest on the
+authority of Tacitus only, it might perhaps be called in question. It
+might be said that the illustrious Roman had drawn an ideal picture,
+etc. But Cęsar dealt with realities, not idealities; he was a shrewd,
+practical statesman, and an able general; yet Cęsar _did_ take females
+as hostages from the German tribes, in preference to men. Suppose Cęsar
+had made war against the King of Ashantee, and taken away some of his
+three thousand three hundred and thirty-three wives, the mystical number
+being thus forcibly disturbed, might have alarmed the nation, whose
+welfare is supposed to depend on it; but the misfortune would soon have
+been remedied.
+
+But it is possible to demonstrate not only that all races did not treat
+their women equally in their first stage of development, but also that
+no race which assigned to woman in the beginning an inferior position
+ever raised her from it in any subsequent stage of development. I select
+the Chinese for illustration, because they furnish us with an example of
+a long-continued and regular intellectual progress,[172] which yet never
+resulted in an alteration of woman's position in the social structure.
+The decadent Chinese of our day look upon the female half of their
+nation as did the rapidly advancing Chinese of the seventh and eighth
+centuries; and the latter in precisely the same manner as their
+barbarous ancestors, the subjects of the Emperor _Fou_, more than twenty
+centuries before.
+
+I repeat it, the relations of the sexes, in various races, are equally
+dissimilar in every stage of development. The state of society may
+change, the tendency of a race never. Faculties may be developed, but
+never lost.
+
+As the mothers and wives of our Teutonic ancestors were near the
+battle-field, to administer refreshments to the wearied combatants, to
+stanch the bleeding of their wounds, and to inspire with renewed courage
+the despairing, so, in modern times, matrons and maidens of the highest
+rank--worthy daughters of a heroic ancestry--have been found by
+thousands ready to sacrifice the comforts and quiet of home for the
+horrors of a hospital.[173] As the rude warrior of a former age won his
+beloved by deeds of valor, so, to his civilized descendant, the hand of
+his mistress is the prize and reward of exertion. The wives and mothers
+of the ancient Germans and Celts were the counsellors of their sons and
+husbands in the most important affairs; our wives and mothers are our
+advisers in our more peaceful pursuits.
+
+But the Arab, when he had arrived at the culminating point of his
+civilization, and when he had become the teacher of our forefathers of
+the Middle Ages in science and the arts, looked upon his many wives in
+the same light as his roaming brother in the desert had done before, and
+does now. I do not ask of all these races that they should assign to
+their women the same rank that we do. If intellectual progress and
+social development among them showed the slightest tendency to produce
+ultimately an alteration in woman's position towards her lord, I might
+be content to submit to the opinion of those who regard that position
+as the effect of such a progress and such a development. But I cannot,
+in the history of those races, perceive the slightest indication of such
+a result, and all my observations lead me to the conclusion that the
+relations between the sexes are a cause, and not an effect.
+
+The character of the women of different races differs in essential
+points. What a vast difference, for instance, between the females of the
+rude crusaders who took possession of Constantinople, and the more
+civilized Byzantine Greeks whom they so easily conquered; between the
+heroic matron of barbarous Germany and the highly civilized Chinese
+lady! These differences cannot be entirely the effect of education, else
+we are forced to consider the female sex as mere automatons. They must
+be the result of diversity of character. And why not, in the
+investigation of the moral and intellectual diversity of races and the
+natural history of man, take into consideration the peculiarities that
+characterize the female portion of each race, a portion--I am forced to
+make this trite observation, because so many investigators seem to
+forget it--which comprises at least one-half of the individuals to be
+described?--H.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[172] Because we now find the Chinese apparently stationary, many
+persons unreflectingly conclude that they were always so; which would
+presuppose that the Chinese were placed upon earth with the faculty of
+making porcelain, gunpowder, paper, etc., somewhat after the manner in
+which bees make their cells. But in the annals of the Chinese empire,
+the date of many of their principal inventions is distinctly recorded.
+There was a long period of vigorous intellectual activity among that
+singular people, a period during which good books were written, and
+ingenious inventions made in rapid succession. This period has ceased,
+but the Chinese are not therefore stationary. They are _retrograding_.
+No Chinese workman can now make porcelain equal to that of former ages,
+which consequently bears an exorbitant price as an object of _virtū_.
+The secret of many of their arts has been lost, the practice of all is
+gradually deteriorating. No book of any note has been written these
+hundreds of years in that great empire. Hence their passionate
+attachment to everything old, which is not, as is so generally presumed,
+the _cause_ of their stagnation: it is the _sign_ of intellectual
+decadence, and the brake which prevents a still more rapid descent.
+Whenever a nation begins to extravagantly prize the productions of
+preceding ages, it is a confession that it can no longer equal them: it
+has begun to retrograde. But the very retrogression is a proof that
+there once was an opposite movement.
+
+[173] The fearful scenes of blood which the beginning of our century
+witnessed, had crowded the hospitals with wounded and dying.
+Professional nurses could afford little help after battles like those of
+Jena, of Eylau, of Feldbach, or of Leipsic. It was then that, in
+Northern Germany, thousands of ladies of the first families sacrificed
+their health, and, in too many instances, their lives, to the Christian
+duty of charity. Many of the noble houses still mourn the loss of some
+fair matron or maiden, who fell a victim to her self-devotion. In the
+late war between Denmark and Prussia, the Danish ladies displayed an
+equal zeal. Scutari also will be remembered in after ages as a monument
+of what the women of our race can do. But why revert to the past, and to
+distant scenes? Have we not daily proofs around us that the heroic
+virtues of by-gone ages still live in ours?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+PERFECTIBILITY OF MAN.
+
+ Imperfect notions of the capability of savage tribes--Parallel
+ between our civilization and those that preceded it--Our modern
+ political theories no novelty--The political parties of Rome--Peace
+ societies--The art of printing a means, the results of which depend
+ on its use--What constitutes a "living" civilization--Limits of the
+ sphere of intellectual acquisitions.
+
+
+To understand perfectly the differences existing among races, in regard
+to their intellectual capacity, it is necessary to ascertain the lowest
+degree of stupidity that humanity is capable of. The inferior branches
+of the human family have hitherto been represented, by a majority of
+scientific observers, as considerably more abased than they are in
+reality. The first accounts of a tribe of savages almost always depict
+them in exaggerated colors of the darkest cast, and impute to them such
+utter intellectual and reasoning incapacity, that they seem to sink to
+the level of the monkey, and below that of the elephant. There are,
+indeed, some contrasts. Let a navigator be well received in some
+island--let him succeed in persuading a few of the natives to work,
+however little, with the sailors, and praises are lavished upon the
+fortunate tribe: they are declared susceptible of every improvement; and
+perhaps the eulogist will go so far as to assert that he has found among
+them minds of a very superior order.
+
+To both these judgments we must object--the one being too favorable, the
+other too severe. Because some natives of Tahiti assisted in repairing a
+whaler, or some inhabitant of Tonga Tabou exhibited good feelings
+towards the white strangers who landed on his isle, it does not follow
+that either are capable of receiving our civilization, or of being
+raised to a level with us. Nor are we warranted in classing among brutes
+the poor naturals of a newly-discovered coast, who greet their first
+visitors with a shower of stones and arrows, or who are found making a
+dainty repast on raw lizards and clods of clay. Such a meal does not,
+indeed, indicate a very superior intelligence, or very refined manners.
+But even in the most repulsive cannibal there lies latent a spark of the
+divine flame, and reason may be awakened to a certain extent. There are
+no tribes so very degraded that they do not reason in some degree,
+whether correctly or otherwise, upon the things which surround them.
+This ray of human intelligence, however faint it may be, is what
+distinguishes the most degraded savage from the most intelligent brute,
+and capacitates him for receiving the teachings of religion.
+
+But are these mental faculties, which every individual of our species
+possesses, susceptible of indefinite development? Have all men the same
+capacity for intellectual progress? In other words, can cultivation
+raise all the different races to the same intellectual standard? and are
+no limits imposed to the perfectibility of our species? My answer to
+these questions is, that all races are capable of improvement, but all
+cannot attain the same degree of perfection, and even the most favored
+cannot exceed a certain limit.
+
+The idea of infinite perfection has gained many partisans in our times,
+because we, like all who came before us, pride ourselves upon possessing
+advantages and points of superiority unknown to our predecessors. I have
+already spoken of the distinguishing features of our civilization, but
+willingly revert to this subject again.
+
+It may be said, that in all the departments of science we possess
+clearer and more correct notions; that, upon the whole, our manners are
+more polished, and our code of morals is preferable to that of the
+ancients. It is further asserted, as the principal proof of our
+superiority, that we have better defined, juster and more tolerant ideas
+with regard to political liberty. Sanguine theorists are not wanting,
+who pretend that our discoveries in political science and our
+enlightened views of the rights of man will ultimately lead us to that
+universal happiness and harmony which the ancients in vain sought in the
+fabled garden of Hesperides.
+
+These lofty pretensions will hardly bear the test of severe historical
+criticism.
+
+If we surpass preceding generations in scientific knowledge, it is
+because we have added our share to the discoveries which they bequeathed
+to us. We are their heirs, their pupils, their continuators, just as
+future generations will be ours. We achieve great results by the
+application of the power of steam; we have solved many great problems in
+mechanics, and pressed the elements as submissive slaves into our
+service. But do these successes bring us any nearer to omniscience. At
+most, they may enable us ultimately to fathom all the secrets of the
+material world. And when we shall have achieved that grand conquest, for
+which so much requires still to be done that is not yet commenced, nor
+even anticipated; have we advanced a single step beyond the simple
+exposition of the laws which govern the material world? We may have
+learned to direct our course through the air, to approach the limits of
+the respirable atmosphere; we may discover and elucidate several
+interesting astronomical problems; we may have greater powers for
+controlling nature and compelling her to minister to our wants, but can
+all this knowledge make us better, happier beings? Suppose we had
+counted all the planetary systems and measured the immense regions of
+space, would we know more of the grand mystery of existence than those
+that came before us? Would this add one new faculty to the human mind,
+or ennoble human nature by the eradication of one bad passion?
+
+Admitting that we are more enlightened upon some subjects, in how many
+other respects are we inferior to our more remote ancestors? Can it be
+doubted, for instance, that in Abraham's times much more was known of
+primordial traditions than the dubious beams which have come down to us?
+How many discoveries which we owe to mere accident, or which are the
+fruits of painful efforts, were the lost possessions of remote ages? How
+many more are not yet restored? What is there in the most splendid of
+our works that can compare with those wonders by which Egypt, India,
+Greece, and America still attest the grandeur and magnificence of so
+many edifices which the weight of centuries, much more than the impotent
+ravages of man, has caused to disappear? What are our works of art by
+the side of those of Athens; our thinkers by the side of those of
+Alexandria or India; our poets by the side of a Valmiki, Kalidasa,
+Homer, Pindar?
+
+The truth is, we pursue a different direction from that of the human
+societies whose civilization preceded ours. We apply our mind to
+different purposes and different investigations; but while we clear and
+cultivate new lands, we are compelled to neglect and abandon to
+sterility those to which they devoted their attention. What we gain in
+one direction we lose in another. We cannot call ourselves superior to
+the ancients, unless we had preserved at least the principal
+acquisitions of preceding ages in all their integrity, and had succeeded
+in establishing by the side of these, the great results which they as
+well as we sought after. Our sciences and arts superadded to theirs have
+not enabled us to advance one step nearer the solution of the great
+problems of existence, the mysteries of life and death. "I seek, but
+find not," has always been, will ever be, the humiliating confession of
+science when endeavoring to penetrate into the secrets concealed by the
+veil that it is not given to mortal to lift. In criticism[174] we are,
+undoubtedly, much in advance of our predecessors; but criticism implies
+classification, not acquisition.
+
+Nor can we justly pride ourselves upon any superiority in regard to
+political ideas. Political and social theories were as rife in Athens
+after the age of Pericles as they are in our days. To be convinced of
+this, it is necessary only to study Aristophanes, whose comedies Plato
+recommends to the perusal of whoever wishes to become acquainted with
+the public morals of the city of Minerva. It has been pretended that our
+present structure of society, and that of the ancients, admit of no
+comparison, owing to the institution of slavery which formed an element
+of the latter. But the only real difference is that demagogism had then
+an even more fertile soil in which to strike root. The slaves of those
+days find their precise counterpart in our working classes and
+proletarians.[175] The Athenian people propitiating their servile class
+after the battle of Arginuses, might be taken for a picture of the
+nineteenth century.
+
+Look at Rome. Open Cicero's letters. What a specimen of the moderate
+Tory that great Roman orator was; what a similarity between his republic
+and our constitutional bodies politic, with regard to the language of
+parties and parliamentary debates! There, too, the background of the
+picture was occupied by degraded masses of a servile and prędial
+population, always eager for change, and ready to rise in actual
+rebellion.
+
+Let us leave those dregs of the population, whose civil existence the
+law ignored, and who counted in politics but as the formidable tool of
+designing individuals of free birth. But does not the free population of
+Rome afford a perfect analogue to a modern body politic? There is the
+mob crying for bread, greedy of shows, flattery, gratuitous
+distributions, and amusements; the middle classes (_bourgeoisie_)
+monopolizing and dividing among themselves the public offices; the
+hereditary aristocracy, continually assailed at all points, continually
+losing ground, until driven in mere self-defence to abjure all superior
+claims and stipulate for equal rights to all. Are not these perfect
+resemblances?
+
+Among the boundless variety of opinions that make themselves heard in
+our day, there is not one that had not advocates in Rome. I alluded a
+while ago to the letters written from the villa of Tusculum; they
+express the sentiments of the Roman conservative _Progressist_ party. By
+the side of Sylla, Pompey and Cicero were Radicals.[176] Their notions
+were not sufficiently radical for Cęsar; too much so for Cato. At a
+later period we find in Pliny the younger a mild royalist, a friend of
+quiet, even at some cost. Apprehensive of too much liberty, yet jealous
+of power too absolute; very practical in his views, caring but little
+for the poetical splendor of the age of the Fabii, he preferred the more
+prosaic administration of Trajan. There were others not of his opinion,
+good people who feared an insurrection headed by some new Spartacus, and
+who, therefore, thought that the Emperor could not hold the reins too
+tight. Then there were others, from the provinces, who obstreperously
+demanded and obtained what would now be called "constitutional
+guaranties." Again, there were the socialists, and their views found no
+less an expounder than the Gallic Cęsar, C. Junius Posthumus, who
+exclaims: "Dives et pauper, inimici," the rich and the poor are enemies
+born.
+
+Every man who had any pretensions to participate in the lights of the
+day, declaimed on the absolute equality of all men, their "inalienable
+rights," the manifest necessity and ultimate universality of the
+Greco-Latin civilization, its superiority, its mildness, its future
+progress, much greater even than that actually made, and above all its
+perpetuity. Nor were those ideas merely the pride and consolation of the
+pagans; they were the firm hopes and expectations of the earliest and
+most illustrious Fathers of the Church, whose sentiments found so
+eloquent an interpreter in Tertullian.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+And as a last touch, to complete the picture, let us not forget those
+people who, then as now, formed the most numerous of all parties: those
+that belonged to none--people who are too weak-minded, or indifferent,
+or apprehensive, or disgusted, to lay hold of a truth, from among the
+midst of contradictory theories that float around them--people who are
+content with order when it exists, submit passively in times of disorder
+and confusion; who admire the increase of conveniences and comforts of
+life unknown to their ancestors, and who, without thinking further,
+centre their hope in the future and pride in the present, in the
+reflection: "What wonderful facilities we enjoy now-a-days."
+
+There would be some reason for believing in an improvement in political
+science, if we had invented some governmental machinery which had
+hitherto been unknown, or at least never carried into practice. This
+glory we cannot arrogate to ourselves. Limited monarchies were known in
+every age. There are even some very curious examples of this form of
+government found among certain Indian tribes who, nevertheless, have
+remained savages. Democratic and aristocratic republics of every form,
+and balanced in the most varied manner, flourished in the new world as
+well as the old. Tlascala is as complete a model of this kind as
+Athens, Sparta, or Mecca before Mohammed's times. And even supposing
+that we have applied to governmental science some secondary principle of
+our own invention, does this justify us in our exaggerated pretension to
+unlimited perfectibility? Let us rather be modest, and say with the
+wisest of kings: "_Nil novi sub sole._"[177]
+
+It is said that our manners are milder than those of the other great
+human societies; this assertion also is very open to criticism. There
+are some philanthropists who would induce nations no longer to resort to
+armies in settling their quarrels. The idea is borrowed from Seneca.
+Some of the Eastern sages professed the same principles in this respect
+as the Moravian Brethren. But assuming that the members of the Peace
+Congress succeed in disgusting Europe with the turmoil and miseries of
+warfare, they would still have the difficult task left of forever
+transforming the human passions. Neither Seneca nor the Eastern sages
+have been able to accomplish this, and it may reasonably be doubted
+whether this grand achievement is reserved for our generation. We
+possess pure and exalted principles, I admit, but are they carried into
+practice? Look at our fields, the streets of our cities--the bloody
+traces of contests as fierce as any recorded in history are scarcely yet
+effaced. Never since the beginning of our civilization has there been an
+interval of peace of fifty years, and we are, in this respect, far
+behind ancient Italy, which, under the Romans, once enjoyed two
+centuries of perfect tranquillity. But even so long a repose would not
+warrant us in concluding that the temple of Janus was thenceforth to be
+forever closed.
+
+The state of our civilization does not, therefore, prove the unlimited
+perfectibility of man. If he have learned many things, he has forgotten
+others. He has not added another to his senses; his soul is not enriched
+by one new faculty. I cannot too much insist upon the great though sad
+truth, that whatever we gain in one direction is counterbalanced by some
+loss in another; that, limited as is our intellectual domain, we are
+doomed never to possess its whole extent at once. Were it not for this
+fatal law, we might imagine that at some period, however distant, man,
+finding himself in possession of the experience of successive ages, and
+having acquired all that it is in his power to acquire, would have
+learned at last to apply his acquisitions to his welfare--to live
+without battling against his kind, and against misery; to enjoy a state,
+if not of unalloyed happiness, at least of abundance and peace.
+
+But even so limited a felicity is not promised us here below, for in
+proportion as man learns he unlearns; whatever he acquires, is at the
+cost of some previous acquisition; whatever he possesses he is always in
+danger of losing.
+
+We flatter ourselves with the belief that our civilization is
+imperishable, because we possess the art of printing, gunpowder, the
+steam engine, &c. These are valuable means to accomplish great results,
+but the accomplishment depends on their use.
+
+The art of printing is known to many other nations beside ourselves, and
+is as extensively used by them as by us.[178] Let us see its fruits. In
+Tonquin, Anam, Japan, books are plentiful, much cheaper than with
+us--so cheap that they are within the reach of even the poorest--and
+even the poorest read them. How is it, then, that these people are so
+enervated, so degraded, so sunk in sloth and vice[179]--so near that
+stage in which even civilized man, having frittered away his physical
+and mental powers, may sink infinitely below the rude barbarian, who, at
+the first convenient opportunity, becomes his master? Whence this
+result? Precisely because the art of printing is a means, and not an
+agent. So long as it is used to diffuse sound, sterling ideas, to afford
+wholesome and refreshing nutriment to vigorous minds, a civilization
+never decays. But when it becomes the vile caterer to a depraved taste,
+when it serves only to multiply the morbid productions of enervated or
+vitiated minds, the senseless quibbles of a sectarian theology instead
+of religion, the venomous scurrility of libellists instead of politics,
+the foul obscenities of licentious rhymers instead of poesy--how and why
+should the art of printing save a civilization from ruin?
+
+It is objected that the art of printing contributes to the preservation
+of a civilization by the facility with which it multiplies and diffuses
+the masterpieces of the human mind, so that, even in times of
+intellectual sterility, when they can no longer be emulated, they still
+form the standard of taste, and by their clear and steady light prevent
+the possibility of utter darkness. But it should be remembered that to
+delve in the hoarded treasures of thought, and to appropriate them for
+purposes of mental improvement, presupposes the possession of that
+greatest of earthly goods--an enlightened mind. And in epochs of
+intellectual degeneracy, few care about those monuments of lost virtues
+and powers; they are left undisturbed on their dusty shelves in
+libraries whose silence is but seldom broken by the tread of the
+anxious, painstaking student.
+
+The longevity which Guttenberg's invention assures to the productions of
+genius is much exaggerated. There are a few works that enjoy the honor
+of being reproduced occasionally; with this exception, books die now
+precisely as formerly did the manuscripts. Works of science, especially,
+disappear with singular rapidity from the realms of literature. A few
+hundred copies are struck off at first, and they are seldom, and, after
+a while, never heard of more. With considerable trouble you can find
+them in some large collection. Look what has become of the thousands of
+excellent works that have appeared since the first printed page came
+from the press. The greater portion are forgotten. Many that are still
+spoken of, are never read; the titles even of others, that were
+carefully sought after fifty years ago, are gradually disappearing from
+every memory.
+
+So long as a civilization is vigorous and flourishing, this
+disappearance of old books is but a slight misfortune. They are
+superseded; their valuable portions are embodied in new ones; the seed
+exists no longer, but the fruit is developing. In times of intellectual
+degeneracy it is otherwise. The weakened powers cannot grapple with the
+solid thought of more vigorous eras; it is split up into more convenient
+fragments--rendered more portable, as it were; the strong beverage that
+once was the pabulum of minds as strong, must be diluted to suit the
+present taste; and innumerable dilutions, each weaker than the other,
+immediately claim public favor; the task of learning must be lightened
+in proportion to the decreasing capacity for acquiring; everything
+becomes superficial; what costs the least effort gains the greatest
+esteem; play upon words is accounted wit; shallowness, learning; the
+surface is preferred to the depth. Thus it has ever been in periods of
+decay; thus it will be with us when we have once reached that point
+whence every movement is retrogressive. Who knows but we are near it
+already?--and the art of printing will not save us from it.
+
+To enhance the advantages which we derive from that art, the number and
+diffusion of manuscripts have been too much underrated. It is true that
+they were scarce in the epoch immediately preceding; but in the latter
+periods of the Roman empire they were much more numerous and much more
+widely diffused than is generally imagined. In those times, the
+facilities for instruction were by no means of difficult access; books,
+indeed, were quite common. We may judge so from the extraordinary number
+of threadbare grammarians with which even the smallest villages swarmed;
+a sort of people very much like the petty novelists, lawyers, and
+editors of modern times, and whose loose morals, shabbiness, and
+passionate love for enjoyments, are described in Pretronius's Satyricon.
+Even when the decadence was complete, those who wished for books could
+easily procure them. Virgil was read everywhere; so much so, that the
+illiterate peasantry, hearing so much of him, imagined him to be some
+dangerous and powerful sorcerer. The monks copied him; they copied
+Pliny, Dioscorides, Plato, and Aristotle; they copied Catullus and
+Martial. These books, then, cannot have been very rare. Again, when we
+consider how great a number has come down to us notwithstanding
+centuries of war and devastation--notwithstanding so many conflagrations
+of monasteries, castles, libraries, &c.--we cannot but admit that, in
+spite of the laborious process of transcription, literary productions
+must have been multiplied to a very great extent. It is possible,
+therefore, to greatly exaggerate the obligations under which science,
+poetry, morality, and true civilization lie to the typographic art; and
+I repeat it, that art is a marvellous instrument, but if the arm that
+wields it, and the head that directs the arm, are not, the instrument
+cannot be, of much service.
+
+Some people believe that the possession of gunpowder exempts modern
+societies from many of the dangers that proved fatal to the ancient.
+They assert that it abates the horrors of warfare, and diminishes its
+frequency, bidding fair, therefore, to establish, in time, a state of
+universal peace. If such be the beneficial results attendant on this
+accidental invention, they have not as yet manifested themselves.
+
+Of the various applications of steam, and other industrial inventions, I
+would say, as of the art of printing, that they are great means, but
+their results depend upon the agent. Such arts might be practised by
+rote long after the intellectual activity that produced them had ceased.
+There are innumerable instances of processes which continue in use,
+though the theoretical secret is lost. It is therefore not unreasonable
+to suppose, that the practice of our inventions might survive our
+civilization; that is, it might continue when these inventions were no
+longer possible, when no further improvements were to be hoped for.
+Material well-being is but an external appendage of a civilization;
+intellectual activity, and a consequent progress, are its life. A state
+of intellectual torpor, therefore, cannot be a state of civilization,
+even though the people thus stagnating, have the means of transporting
+themselves rapidly from place to place, or of adorning themselves and
+their dwellings. This would only prove that they were the _heirs_ of a
+former civilization, but not that they actually possessed one. I have
+said, in another place, that a civilization may thus preserve, for a
+time, every appearance of life: the effect may continue after the cause
+has ceased. But, as a continuous change seems to be the order of nature
+in all things material and immaterial, a downward tendency is soon
+manifest. I have before compared a civilization to the human body. While
+alive, it undergoes a perpetual modification: every hour has wrought a
+change; when dead, it preserves, for a time, the appearance of life,
+perhaps even its beauty; but gradually, symptoms of decay become
+manifest, and every stage of dissolution is more precipitate than the
+one before, as a stone thrown up in the air, poises itself there for an
+inappreciable fraction of time, then falls with continually increasing
+velocity, more and more swiftly as it approaches the ground.
+
+Every civilization has produced in those who enjoyed its fruits, a firm
+conviction of its stability, its perpetuity.
+
+When the palanquins of the Incas travelled rapidly on the smooth,
+magnificent causeways which still unite Cuzco and Quito, a distance of
+fifteen hundred miles, with what feelings of exultation must they have
+contemplated the conquests of the present, what magnificent prospects of
+the future must have presented themselves to their imaginations! Stern
+time, with one blow of his gigantic wings, hurled their empire into the
+deepest depths of the abyss of oblivion. These proud sovereigns of
+Peru--they, too, had their sciences, their mechanical inventions, their
+powerful machines: the works they accomplished we contemplate with
+amazement, and a vain effort to divine the means employed. How were
+those blocks of stone, thirty-five feet long and eighteen thick, raised
+one upon another? How were they transported the vast distance from the
+quarries where they were hewn? By what contrivance did the engineers of
+that people hoist those enormous masses to a dizzy height? It is indeed
+a problem--a problem, too, which we will never solve. Nor are the ruins
+of Tihuanaco unparalleled by the remains of European civilizations of
+ante-historic times. The cyclopean walls with which Southern Europe
+abounds, and which have withstood the all-destroying tooth of time for
+thousands upon thousands of years--who built them? Who piled these
+monstrous masses, which modern art could scarcely move?
+
+Let us not mistake the results of a civilization for its causes. The
+causes cease, the results subsist for a while, then are lost. If they
+again bear fruit, it is because a new spirit has appropriated them, and
+converted them to purposes often very different from those they had at
+first. Human intelligence is finite, nor can it ever reign at once in
+the whole of its domain:[180] it can turn to account one portion of it
+only by leaving the other bare; it exalts what it possesses, esteems
+lightly what it has lost. Thus, every generation is at the same time
+superior and inferior to its predecessors. Man cannot, then, surpass
+himself: man's perfectibility is not infinite.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[174] The word _criticism_ has here been used by the translator in a
+sense somewhat unusual in the English language, where it is generally
+made to signify "the art of judging of literary or artistic
+productions." In a more comprehensive sense, it means _the art of
+discriminating between truth and error_, or rather, perhaps, between
+_the probable and the improbable_. In this sense, the word is often used
+by continental metaphysicians, and also, though less frequently, by
+English writers. As the definition is perfectly conformable to
+etymology, I have concluded to let the above passage stand as it is.--H.
+
+[175] It will be remembered that Mr. Gobineau speaks of Europe.--H.
+
+[176] The term "Radical" is used on the European continent to designate
+that party who desire thorough, uncompromising reform: the plucking out
+of evils by the _root_.--H.
+
+[177] The principles of government applied to practice at the formation
+of our Constitution, Mr. Gobineau considers as identical with those laid
+down at the beginning of every society founded by the Germanic race. In
+his succeeding volumes he mentions several analogues.--H.
+
+[178] M. J. Mohl, _Rapport Annuel ą la Société Asiatique_, 1851, p. 92:
+"The Indian book trade of indigenous productions is extremely lively,
+and consists of a number of works which are never heard of in Europe,
+nor ever enter a European's library even in India. Mr. Springer asserts
+in a letter, that in the single town of Luknau there are thirteen
+lithographical establishments exclusively occupied with multiplying
+books for the schools, and he gives a list of considerable length of
+books, none of which have probably ever reached Europe. The same is the
+case in Delhi, Agra, Cawnpour, Allahabad, and other cities."
+
+[179] The Siamese are probably the most debased in morals of any people
+on earth. They belong to the remotest outskirts of the Indo-Chinese
+civilization; yet among them every one knows how to read and write.
+(Ritter, _Erdkunde, Asien_, vol. iii. p. 1152.)
+
+[180] No individual can encompass the whole circle of human knowledge:
+no civilization comprise at once all the improvements possible to
+humanity.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+MUTUAL RELATIONS OF DIFFERENT MODES OF INTELLECTUAL CULTURE.
+
+ Necessary consequences of a supposed equality of all races--Uniform
+ testimony of history to the contrary--Traces of extinct
+ civilizations among barbarous tribes--Laws which govern the
+ adoption of a state of civilization by conquered
+ populations--Antagonism of different modes of culture; the Hellenic
+ and Persian, European and Arab, etc.
+
+
+Had it been the will of the Creator to endow all the branches of the
+human family with equal intellectual capacities, what a glorious tableau
+would history not unfold before us. All being equally intelligent,
+equally aware of their true interests, equally capable of triumphing
+over obstacles, a number of simultaneous and flourishing civilizations
+would have gladdened every portion of the inhabited globe. While the
+most ancient Sanscrit nations covered Northern India with harvests,
+cities, palaces, and temples; and the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates
+shook under the trampling of Nimrod's cavalry and chariots, the
+prognathous tribes of Africa would have formed and developed a social
+system, sagaciously constructed, and productive of brilliant results.
+
+Some luckless tribes, whose lot fortune had cast in inhospitable climes,
+burning sands, or glacial regions, mountain gorges, or cheerless steppes
+swept by the piercing winds of the north, would have been compelled to a
+longer and severer struggle against such unpropitious circumstances,
+than more fortunate nations. But being not inferior in intelligence and
+sagacity, they would not have been long in discovering the means of
+bettering their condition. Like the Icelanders, the Danes, and
+Norwegians, they would have forced the reluctant soil to afford them
+sustenance; if inhabitants of mountainous regions, they would, like the
+Swiss, have enjoyed the advantages of a pastoral life, or like the
+Cashmerians, resorted to manufacturing industry. But if their
+geographical situation had been so unfavorable as to admit of no
+resource, they would have reflected that the world was large, contained
+many a pleasant valley and fertile plain, where they might seek the
+fruits of intelligent activity, which their stepmotherly native land
+refused them.
+
+Thus all the nations of the earth would have been equally enlightened,
+equally prosperous; some by the commerce of maritime cities, others by
+productive agriculture in inland regions, or successful industry in
+barren and Alpine districts. Though they might not exempt themselves
+from the misfortunes to which the imperfections of human nature give
+rise--transitory dissensions, civil wars, seditions, etc.--their
+individual interests would soon have led them to invent some system of
+relative equiponderance. As the differences in their civilizations
+resulted merely from fortuitous circumstances, and not from innate
+inequalities, a mutual interchange would soon have assimilated them in
+all essential points. Nothing could then prevent a universal
+confederation, that dream of so many centuries; and the inhabitants of
+the most distant parts of the globe would have been as members of one
+great cosmopolite people.
+
+Let us contrast this fantastic picture with the reality. The first
+nations worthy of the name, owed their formation to an instinct of
+aggregation, which the barbarous tribes near them not only did not feel
+then, but never afterward. These nations spread beyond their original
+boundaries, and forced others to submit to their power. But the
+conquered neither adopted nor understood the principles of the
+civilization imposed upon them. Nor has the force of example been of
+avail to those in whom innate capacity was wanting. The native
+populations of the Spanish peninsula, and of Transalpine and Ligurian
+Gaul, saw Phenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians, successively establish
+flourishing cities on their coasts, without feeling the least incitement
+to imitate the manners or forms of government of these prosperous
+merchants.
+
+What a glorious spectacle do not the Indians of North America witness at
+this moment. They have before their eyes a great and prosperous nation,
+eminent for the successful practical application of modern theories and
+sciences to political and social forms, as well as to industrial art.
+The superiority of this foreign race, which has so firmly established
+itself upon his former patrimony, is evident to the red man. He sees
+their magnificent cities, their thousands of vessels upon the once
+silent rivers, their successful agriculture; he knows that even his own
+rude wants, the blanket with which he covers himself, the weapon with
+which he slays his game, the ardent spirits he has learned to love so
+well, can be supplied only by the stranger. The last feeble hope to see
+his native soil delivered from the presence of the conqueror's race, has
+long since vanished from his breast; he feels that the land of his
+fathers is not his own. Yet he stubbornly refuses to enter the pale of
+this civilization which invites him, solicits him, tries to entice him
+with superior advantages and comforts. He prefers to retreat from
+solitude to solitude, deeper and deeper into the primitive forest. He is
+doomed to perish, and he knows it; but a mysterious power retains him
+under the yoke of his invincible repugnances, and while he admires the
+strength and superiority of the whites, his conscience, his whole
+nature, revolts at the idea of assimilating to them. He cannot forget or
+smother the instincts of his race.
+
+The aborigines of Spanish America are supposed to evince a less
+unconquerable aversion. It is because the Spanish metropolitan
+government had never attempted to civilize them. Provided they were
+Christians, at least in name, they were left to their own usages and
+habits, and, in many instances, under the administration of their
+Caziques. The Spaniards colonized but little, and when the conquest was
+completed and their sanguinary appetites glutted by those unparalleled
+atrocities which brand them with indelible disgrace, they indulged in a
+lazy toleration, and directed their tyranny rather against individuals
+than against modes of thinking and living. The Indians have, in a great
+measure, mixed with their conquerors, and will continue to live while
+their brethren in the vicinity of the Anglo-Saxon race are inevitably
+doomed to perish.
+
+But not only savages, even nations of a higher rank in the intellectual
+scale are incapable of adopting a foreign civilization. We have already
+alluded to the failure of the English in India and of the Dutch in Java,
+in trying to import their own ideas into their foreign dependencies.
+French philanthropy is at this moment gaining the same experience in the
+new French possession of Algeria. There can be no stronger or more
+conclusive proof of the various endowments of different races.
+
+If we had no other argument in proof of the innate imparity of races
+than the actual condition of certain barbarous tribes, and the
+supposition that they had always been in that condition, and,
+consequently, always would be, we should expose ourselves to serious
+objections. For many barbarous nations preserve traces of former
+cultivation and refinement. There are some tribes, very degraded in
+every other respect, who yet possess traditional regulations respecting
+the marriage celebration, the forms of justice and the division of
+inheritances, which evidently are remnants of a higher state of society,
+though the rites have long since lost all meaning. Many of the Indian
+tribes who wander over the tracts once occupied by the Alleghanian race,
+may be cited as instances of this kind. The natives of the Marian
+Islands, and many other savages, practise mechanically certain processes
+of manufacture, the invention of which presupposes a degree of ingenuity
+and knowledge utterly at variance with their present stupidity and
+ignorance. To avoid hasty and erroneous conclusions concerning this
+seeming decadence, there are several circumstances to be taken into
+consideration.
+
+Let us suppose a savage population to fall within the sphere of activity
+of a proximate, but superior race. In that case they may gradually learn
+to conform externally to the civilization of their masters, and acquire
+the technicalities of their arts and inventions. Should the dominant
+race disappear either by expulsion or absorption, the civilization would
+expire, but some of its outward forms might be retained and perpetuated.
+A certain degree of mechanical skill might survive the scientific
+principles upon which it was based. In other words, practice might long
+continue after the theory was lost. History furnishes us a number of
+examples in support of this assertion.
+
+Such, for instance, was the attitude of the Assyrians toward the
+civilization of the Chaldeans; of the Iberians, Celts, and Illyrians
+towards that of the Romans. If, then, the Cherokees, the Catawbas,
+Muskogees, Seminoles, Natchez and other tribes, still preserve a feeble
+impress of the Alleghanian civilization, I should not thence conclude
+that they are the pure and direct descendants of the initiatory element
+of that people, which would imply that a race may once have been
+civilized, and be no longer so. I should say, on the contrary, that the
+Cherokees, if at all ethnically connected with the ancient dominant
+type, are so by only a collateral tie of consanguinity, else they could
+never have relapsed into a state of barbarism. The other tribes which
+exhibit little or no vestiges of the former civilization are probably
+the descendants of a different conquered population which formed no
+constituent element of the society, but served rather as the substratum
+upon which the edifice was erected. It is no matter of surprise, if this
+be the case, that they should preserve--without understanding them and
+with a sort of superstitious veneration--customs, laws, and rites
+invented by others far more intelligent than themselves.
+
+The same may be said of the mechanical arts. The aborigines of the
+Carolines are about the most interesting of the South Sea islanders.
+Their looms, sculptured canoes, their taste for navigation and commerce
+show them vastly superior to the Pelagian negroes, their neighbors. It
+is easy to account for this superiority by the well-authenticated
+admixture of Malay blood. But as this element is greatly attenuated, the
+inventions which it introduced have not borne indigenous fruits, but, on
+the contrary, are gradually, but surely, disappearing.
+
+The preceding observations will, I think, suffice to show that the
+traces of civilization among a barbarous tribe are not a necessary proof
+that this tribe itself has ever been really civilized. It may either
+have lived under the domination of a superior but consanguineous race,
+or living in its vicinity, have, in an humble and feeble degree,
+profited by its lessons. This result, however, is possible only when
+there exists between the superior and the inferior race a certain
+ethnical affinity; that is to say, when the former is either a noble
+branch of the same stock, or ennobled by intermixture with another. When
+the disparity between races is too great and too decided, and there is
+no intermediate link to connect them, the contact is always fatal to the
+inferior race, as is abundantly proved by the disappearance of the
+aborigines of North America and Polynesia.
+
+I shall now speak of the relations arising from the contact of different
+civilizations.
+
+The Persian civilization came in contact with the Grecian; the Egyptian
+with the Grecian and Roman; the Roman with the Grecian; and finally the
+modern civilization of Europe with all those at present subsisting on
+the globe, and especially with the Arabian.
+
+The contact of Greek intelligence with the culture of the Persians was
+as frequent as it was compulsory. The greater portion of the Hellenic
+population, and the wealthiest, though not the most independent, was
+concentrated in the cities of the Syrian coast, the Greek colonies of
+Asia Minor, and on the shores of the Euxine, all of which formed a part
+of the Persian dominions. Though these colonies preserved their own
+local laws and politics, they were under the authority of the satraps of
+the great king. Intimate relations, moreover, were maintained between
+European Greece and Asia. That the Persians were then possessed of a
+high degree of civilization is proved by their political organization
+and financial administration, by the magnificent ruins which still
+attest the splendor and grandeur of their cities. But the principles of
+government and religion, the modes and habits of life, the genius of the
+arts, were very differently understood by the two nations; and,
+therefore, notwithstanding their constant intercourse, neither made the
+slightest approach toward assimilation with the other. The Greeks called
+their puissant neighbors barbarians, and the latter, no doubt, amply
+returned the compliment.
+
+In Ecbatana no other form of government could be conceived than an
+undivided hereditary authority, limited only by certain religious
+prescriptions and a court ceremonial. The genius of the Greeks tended to
+an endless variety of governmental forms; subdivided into a number of
+petty sovereignties. Greek society presented a singular mosaic of
+political structures; oligarchical in Sparta, democratical in Athens,
+tyrannical in Sicyon, monarchical in Macedonia, the forms of government
+were the same in scarcely two cities or districts. The state religion of
+the Persians evinced the same tendency to unity as their politics, and
+was more of a metaphysical and moral than a material character. The
+Greeks, on the contrary, had a symbolical system of religion, consisting
+in the worship of natural objects and influences, which gradually
+changed into a perfect prosopopoeia, representing the gods as
+sentient beings, subject to the same passions, and engaged in the same
+pursuits and occupations as the inhabitants of the earth. The worship
+consisted principally in the performance of rites and demonstrations of
+respect to the deities; the conscience was left to the direction of the
+civil laws. Besides, the rites, as well as the divinities and heroes in
+whose honor they were practised, were different in every place.
+
+As for the manners and habits of life, it is unnecessary to point out
+how vastly different they were from those of Persia. Public contempt
+punished the young, wealthy, pleasure-loving cosmopolitan, who attempted
+to live in Persian style. Thus, until the time of Alexander, when the
+power of Greece had arrived at its culminating point, Persia, with all
+her preponderance, could not convert Hellas to her civilization.
+
+In the time of Alexander, this incompatibility of dissimilar modes of
+culture was singularly demonstrated. When the empire of Darius succumbed
+to the Macedonian phalanxes, it was expected, for a time, that a
+Hellenic civilization would spread over Asia. There seemed the more
+reason for this belief when the conqueror, in a moment of aberrancy,
+treated the monuments of the land with such aggressive violence as
+seemed to evince equal hatred and contempt. But the wanton incendiary
+of Persepolis soon changed his mind, and so completely, that his design
+became apparent to simply substitute himself in the room of the dynasty
+of Achęmenes, and rule over Persia like a Persian king, with Greece
+added to his estates. Great as was Alexander's power, it was
+insufficient for the execution of such a project. His generals and
+soldiers could not brook to see their commander assume the long flowing
+robes of the eastern kings, surround himself with eunuchs, and renounce
+the habits and manners of his native land. Though after his death some
+of his successors persisted in the same system, they were compelled
+greatly to mitigate it. Where the population consisted of a motley
+compound of Greeks, Syrians, and Arabs, as in Egypt and the coast of
+Asia Minor, a sort of compromise between the two civilizations became
+thenceforth the normal state of the country; but where the races
+remained unmixed, the national manners were preserved.
+
+In the latter periods of the Roman empire, the two civilizations had
+become completely blended in the whole East, including continental
+Greece; but it was tinged more with the Asiatic than the Greek
+tendencies, because the masses belonged much more to the former element
+than to the latter. Hellenic forms, it is true, still subsisted, but it
+is not difficult to discover in the ideas of those periods and countries
+the Oriental stock upon which the scions of the Alexandrian school had
+been engrafted. The respective influence of the various elements was in
+strict proportion to the quantity of blood; the intellectual
+preponderance belonged to that which had contributed the greatest share.
+
+The same antagonism which I pointed out between the intellectual culture
+of the Greeks and that of the Persians, will be found to result from the
+contact of all other widely different civilizations. I shall mention but
+one more instance: the relations between the Arab civilization[181] and
+our own.
+
+There was a time when the arts and sciences, the muses and their train,
+seemed to have forsaken their former abodes, to rally around the
+standard of Mohammed. That our forefathers were not blind to the
+excellencies of the Arab civilization is proved by their sending their
+sons to the schools of Cordova. But not a trace of the spirit of that
+civilization has remained in Europe, save in those countries which still
+retain a portion of Ishmaelitic blood. Nor has the Arab civilization
+found a more congenial soil in India over which, also, its dominion
+extended. Like those portions of Europe which were subjected to Moslem
+masters, that country has preserved its own modes of thinking intact.
+
+But if the pressure of the Arab civilization, at the time of its
+greatest splendor and our greatest ignorance, could not affect the modes
+of thinking of the races of Western Europe, neither can we, at present,
+when the positions are reversed, affect in the slightest degree the
+feeble remnants of that once so flourishing civilization. Our action
+upon these remnants is continuous--the pressure of our intellectual
+activity upon them immense; we succeed only in destroying, not in
+transforming or remodelling.[182]
+
+Yet this civilization was not even original, and might, therefore, be
+supposed to have a less obstinate vitality. The Arab nation, it is well
+known, based its empire and its intellectual culture upon fragments of
+races which it had aggregated by the weight of the sword. A variegated
+compound like the Islamitic populations, could not but develop a
+civilization of an equally variegated character, to which each ethnical
+element contributed its share. These elements it is not difficult to
+determine and point out.
+
+The nucleus, around which aggregated those countless multitudes, was a
+small band of valiant warriors who unfurled in their native deserts the
+standard of a new creed. They were not, before Mohammed's time, a new or
+unknown people. They had frequently come in contact with the Jews and
+Phenicians, and had in their veins the blood of both these nations.
+Taking advantage of their favorable situation for commerce, they had
+performed the carrier trade of the Red Sea, and the eastern coast of
+Africa and India, for the most celebrated nations of ancient times, the
+Jews and the Phenicians, later still, for the Romans and Persians. They
+had the same traditions in common with the Shemitic and Hamitic families
+from which they sprung.[183] They had even taken an active part in the
+political life of neighboring nations. Under the Arsacides and the sons
+of Sassan, some of their tribes exerted great influence in the politics
+of the Persian empire. One of their adventurers[184] had become Emperor
+of Rome; one of their princes protected the majesty of Rome against a
+conqueror before whom the whole east trembled, and shared the imperial
+purple with the Roman sovereign;[185] one of their cities had become,
+under Zenobia, the centre and capital of a vast empire that rivalled and
+even threatened Rome.[186]
+
+It is evident, therefore, that the Arab nation had never ceased, from
+the remotest antiquity, to entertain intimate relations with the most
+powerful and celebrated ancient societies. It had taken part in their
+political and intellectual[187] activity; and it might not
+inappropriately be compared to a body half-plunged into the water, and
+half exposed to the sun, as it partook at the same time of an advanced
+state of civilization and of complete barbarism.
+
+Mohammed invented the religion most conformable to the ideas of a
+people, among whom idolatry had still many zealous adherents, but where
+Christianity, though having made numerous converts, was losing favor on
+account of the endless schisms and contentions of its followers.[188]
+The religious dogma of the Koreishite prophet was a skilful compromise
+between the various contending opinions. It reconciled the Jewish
+dispensation with the New Law better than could the Church at that time,
+and thus solved a problem which had disquieted the consciences of many
+of the earlier Christians, and which, especially in the east, had given
+rise to many heretical sects. This was in itself a very tempting bait,
+and, besides, any theological novelty had decided chances of success
+among the Syrians and Egyptians.[189] Moreover, the new religion
+appeared with sword in hand, which in those times of schismatical
+propagandism seemed a warrant of success more relied upon by the masses
+to whom it addressed itself, than peaceful persuasion.
+
+Thus arrayed, Islamism issued from its native deserts. Arrogant, and
+possessed but in a very slight degree of the inventive faculty, it
+developed no civilization peculiar to itself, but it had adopted, as far
+as it was capable of doing, the bastard Greco-Asiatic civilization
+already extant. As its triumphant banners progressed on the east and
+south of the Mediterranean, it incorporated masses imbued with the same
+tendencies and spirit. From each of these it borrowed something. As its
+religious dogmas were a patchwork of the tenets of the Church, those of
+the Synagogue, and of the disfigured traditions of Hedjaz and Yemen, so
+its code of laws was a compound of the Persian and the Roman, its
+science was Greco-Syrian[190] and Egyptian, its administration from the
+beginning tolerant like that of every body politic that embraces many
+heterogeneous elements.
+
+It has caused much useless surprise, that Moslem society should have
+made such rapid strides to refinement of manners. But the mass of the
+people over whom its dominion extended, had merely changed the name of
+their creed; they were old and well-known actors on the stage of
+history, and have simply been mistaken for a new nation when they
+undertook to play the part of apostles before the world. These people
+gave to the common store their previous refinement and luxury; each new
+addition to the standard of Islamism, contributed some portion of its
+acquisitions. The vitalizing principle of the society, the motive power
+of this cumbrous mass, was the small nucleus of Arab tribes that had
+come forth from the heart of the peninsula. They furnished, not artists
+and learned men, but fanatics, soldiers, victors, and masters.
+
+The Arab civilization, then, is nothing but the Greco-Syrian
+civilization, rejuvenated and quickened, for a time, with a new and
+energetic, but short-lived, genius. It was, besides, a little renovated
+and a little modified, by a slight dash of Persian civilization.
+
+Yet, motley and incongruous as are the elements of which it is composed,
+and capable of stretching and accommodating itself as such a compound
+must be, it cannot adapt itself to any social structure erected by other
+elements than its own. In other words, many as are the races that
+contributed to its formation, it is suited to none that have _not_
+contributed to it.
+
+This is what the whole course of history teaches us. Every race has its
+own modes of thinking; every race, capable of developing a civilization,
+develops one peculiar to itself, and which it cannot engraft upon any
+other, except by amalgamation of blood, and then in but a modified
+degree. The European cannot win the Asiatic to his modes of thinking; he
+cannot civilize the Australian, or the Negro; he can transmit but a
+portion of his intelligence to his half-breed offspring of the inferior
+race; the progeny of that half-breed and the nobler branch of his
+ancestry, is but one degree nearer, but not equal to that branch in
+capacity: the proportions of blood are strictly preserved. I have
+adduced illustrations of this truth from the history of various branches
+of the human family, of the lowest as well as of the higher in the scale
+of intellectual progress. Are we not, then, authorized to conclude that
+the diversity observable among them is constitutional, innate, and not
+the result of accident or circumstances--that there is an absolute
+inequality in their intellectual endowments?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[181] The word _Arab_ is here used instead of the more common, but less
+correct, term _Saracen_, which was the general appellation bestowed on
+the first propagators of the Islam by the Greeks and Latins. The Arab
+civilization reached its culminating point about the reign of Harun al
+Rashid. At that time, it comprised nearly all that remained of the arts
+and sciences of former ages. The splendor and magnificence for which it
+was distinguished, is even yet the theme of romancers and poets; and may
+be discerned to this day in the voluptuous and gorgeous modes of life
+among the higher classes in those countries where it still survives, as
+well as in the remains of Arab architecture in Spain, the best preserved
+and most beautiful of which is the well-known Alhambra. Though the Arab
+civilization had a decidedly sensual tendency and character, it was not
+without great benefits to mankind. From it our forefathers learned some
+valuable secrets of agriculture, and the first lessons in horticulture.
+The peach, the pear, the apricot, the finer varieties of apples and
+plums, and nearly all of our most valued fruits were brought into
+Western and Central Europe by the returning crusaders from the land of
+the Saracens. Many valuable processes of manufacture, and especially of
+the art of working metals, are derived from the same source. In the
+science of medicine, the Arabs laid the foundation of that noble
+structure we now admire. Though they were prevented by religious
+scruples from dissecting the human body, and, therefore, remained in
+ignorance of the most important facts of anatomy, they brought to light
+innumerable secrets of the healing powers in the vegetable kingdom; they
+first practised the art of distillation and of chemical analysis. They
+were the beginners of the science of Chemistry, to which they gave its
+name, and in which many of the commonest technical terms (such as
+alkali, alembic, alcohol, and many others), still attest their labors.
+In mathematical science they were no less industrious. To them we owe
+that simple and useful method which so greatly facilitates the more
+complex processes of calculation, without which, indeed, some of them
+would be impossible, and which still retains its Arabic name--Algebra.
+But what is more, to them we owe our system of notation, so vastly
+superior to that of the Greeks and Romans, so admirable in its efficacy
+and simplicity, that it has made arithmetic accessible to the humblest
+understanding; at the present time, the whole Christian world uses
+Arabic numerals.--H.
+
+[182] It is supposed by many that Turkey will ultimately be won to our
+civilization, and, as a proof of this, great stress is laid upon the
+efforts of the present Sultan, as well as his predecessor, to
+"Europeanize" the Turks. Whoever has carefully and unbiassedly studied
+the present condition of that nation, knows how unsuccessful these
+efforts, backed, though they were, by absolute authority, and by the
+immense influence of the whole of Western Europe, have hitherto been and
+always will be. It is a notorious fact, that the Turks fight less well
+in their semi-European dress and with their European tactics, of which
+so much was anticipated, than they did with their own. The Moslem now
+regards the Christian with the same feelings that he did in the zenith
+of his power, and these feelings are not the less bitter, because they
+can no longer be so ostentatiously displayed.--H.
+
+[183] The Arabs believed themselves the descendants of Ishmael, the son
+of Hagar. This belief, even before Mohammed's time, had been curiously
+blended with the idolatrous doctrines of some of their tribes.--H.
+
+[184] _Philip_, an Arabian adventurer who was prefect of the prętorian
+guards under the third Gordian, and who, through his boldness and
+ability, succeeded that sovereign on the throne in A. D. 244.--H.
+
+[185] _Odenathus_, senator of Palmyra, after Sapor, the King of Persia,
+had taken prisoner the Emperor of Rome, and was devastating the empire,
+met the ruthless conqueror with a body of Palmyrians, and several times
+routed his much more numerous armies. Being the only one who could
+protect the Eastern possessions of the Roman empire against the
+aggressions of the Persians, he was appointed _Cęsar_, or coadjutor to
+the emperor by Gallienus, the son of Valerian, the captive
+sovereign.--H.
+
+[186] The history of _Zenobia_, the Queen of the East, as she styled
+herself, and one of the most interesting characters in history, is well
+known. As in the preceding notes, I shall, therefore, merely draw
+attention to familiar facts, with a view to refresh the reader's memory,
+not to instruct him.
+
+The famous Arabian queen was the widow of Odenathus, of Palmyra, who
+bequeathed to her his dignity as _Cęsar_, or protector of the Eastern
+dominions of Rome. It soon, however, became apparent that she disdained
+to owe allegiance to the Roman emperors, and aimed at establishing a new
+great empire for herself and her descendants. Though the most
+accomplished, as well as the most beautiful woman of her time, she led
+her armies in person, and was so eminently successful in her military
+enterprises that she soon extended her dominion from the Euphrates to
+the Nile. Palmyra thus became the centre and capital of a vast empire,
+which, as Mr. Gobineau observes, rivalled and even threatened Rome
+itself. She was, however, defeated by Aurelian, and, in A. D. 273,
+graced the triumph of her conqueror on his return to Rome.
+
+The former splendor of the now deserted Palmyra is attested by the
+magnificent ruins which still form an inexhaustible theme for the
+admiration of the traveller and antiquarian.--H.
+
+[187] Though the mass of the nation were ignorant of letters, the Arabs
+had already before Mohammed's times some famous writers. They had even
+made voyages of discovery, in which they went as far as China. The
+earliest, and, as modern researches have proved, the most truthful,
+account of the manners and customs of that country is by Arab
+writers.--H.
+
+[188] At the time of the appearance of the false prophet, Arabia
+contained within its bosom every then known religious sect. This was
+owing not only to the central position of that country, but also to the
+liberty which was then as now a prerogative of the Arab. Among them
+every one was free to select or compose for himself his own private
+religion. While the adjacent countries were shaken by the storms of
+conquest and tyranny, the persecuted sects fled to the happy land where
+they might profess what they thought, and practice what they professed.
+
+A religious persecution had driven from Persia many who professed the
+religion of the ancient Magi. The Jews also were early settlers in
+Arabia. Seven centuries before the death of Mohammed they had firmly
+established themselves there. The destruction of Jerusalem brought still
+greater numbers of these industrious exiles, who at once erected
+synagogues, and to protect the wealth they rapidly acquired, built and
+garrisoned strongly fortified towns in various portions of the
+wilderness. The Bible had at an early day been translated into the
+Arabic tongue. Christian missionaries were not wanting, and their active
+zeal was eminently successful. Several of the Arab tribes had become
+converts. There were Christian churches in Yemen; the states of Hira and
+Gassan were under the jurisdiction of Jacobite and Nestorian bishops.
+The various heretical sects found shelter and safety among the
+hospitable Arabs. But this very fact proved detrimental to the progress
+of the Christian religion, and opened the path for the creed of
+Mohammed. So many and various were the Christian sects that crowded
+together in that country, and so widely departed from the true spirit of
+Christianity were some of them, that bitter hostilities sprung up among
+them, and their religion fell into contempt. The Eastern Christians of
+the seventh century had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of
+paganism, one of the sects (the Collyridian heretics) had even gone so
+far as to invest the virgin Mary with the name and honors of a goddess.
+This is what the author alludes to in saying that Christianity was
+losing favor in Arabia at the time of the appearance of Mohammed.--H.
+
+[189] The student of ecclesiastical history knows what a number of sects
+had sprung up about that time to distress and harass the Church. It is
+not so generally appreciated, however, that for the first hundred years,
+the progress of Islamism was almost exclusively at the expense of
+Christianity. The whole of the present Ottoman empire, and almost the
+whole northern coast of Africa were previously Christian countries.
+Whether the loss is greatly to be regretted, I know not, for the Syrians
+and Egyptians, from being very indifferent Christians, became good
+Mohammedans. These populations were to the Christian Church like a
+cankered limb, the lopping off of which may have been ordained by an
+all-wise Providence for the salvation of what was yet sound in the
+body.--H.
+
+[190] W. Von Humboldt. _Ueber die Karo-Sprache, Einleitung_,
+p. 243. "Durch die Richtung auf diese Bildung und durch innere
+Stammes-verwandschaft wurden sie wirklich für griechischen Geist und
+griechische Sprache empfänglich, da die Araber vorzugsweise nur an den
+wissenschaftlichen Resultaten griechischer Forschung hiengen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THREE GREAT VARIETIES.
+
+ Impropriety of drawing general conclusions from individual
+ cases--Recapitulatory sketch of the leading features of the Negro,
+ the Yellow, and the White races--Superiority of the
+ latter--Conclusion of volume the first.
+
+
+In the preceding pages, I have endeavored to show that, though there are
+both scientific and religious reasons for not believing in a plurality
+of origins of our species, the various branches of the human family are
+distinguished by permanent and irradicable differences, both mentally
+and physically. They are unequal in intellectual capacity,[191] in
+personal beauty, and in physical strength. Again I repeat, that in
+coming to this conclusion, I have totally eschewed the method which is,
+unfortunately for the cause of science, too often resorted to by
+ethnologists, and which, to say the least of it, is simply ridiculous.
+The discussion has not rested upon the moral and intellectual worth of
+isolated individuals.
+
+With regard to moral worth, I have proved that all men, to whatever race
+they may belong, are capable of receiving the lights of true religion,
+and of sufficiently appreciating that blessing to work out their own
+salvation. With regard to intellectual capacity, I emphatically protest
+against that mode of arguing which consists in saying, "every negro is a
+dunce;" because, by the same logic, I should be compelled to admit that
+"every white man is intelligent;" and I shall take good care to commit
+no such absurdity.
+
+I shall not even wait for the vindicators of the absolute equality of
+all races, to adduce to me such and such a passage in some missionary's
+or navigator's journal, wherefrom it appears that some Yolof has become
+a skilful carpenter, that some Hottentot has made an excellent domestic,
+that some Caffre plays well on the violin, or that some Bambarra has
+made very respectable progress in arithmetic.
+
+I am prepared to admit--and to admit without proof--anything of that
+sort, however remarkable, that may be related of the most degraded
+savages. I have already denied the excessive stupidity, the incurable
+idiotcy of even the lowest on the scale of humanity. Nay, I go further
+than my opponents, and am not in the least disposed to doubt that, among
+the chiefs of the rude negroes of Africa, there could be found a
+considerable number of active and vigorous minds, greatly surpassing in
+fertility of ideas and mental resources, the average of our peasantry,
+and even of some of our middle classes. But the unfairness of deductions
+based upon a comparison of the most intelligent blacks and the least
+intelligent whites, must be obvious to every candid mind.
+
+Once for all, such arguments seem to me unworthy of real science, and I
+do not wish to place myself upon so narrow and unsafe a ground. If Mungo
+Park, or the brothers Lander, have given to some negro a certificate of
+superior intelligence, who will assure us that another traveller,
+meeting the same individual, would not have arrived at a diametrically
+opposite conclusion concerning him? Let us leave such puerilities, and
+compare, not the individuals, but the masses. When we shall have
+clearly established of what the latter are capable, by what tendencies
+they are characterized, and by what limits their intellectual activity
+and development are circumscribed, whether, since the beginning of the
+historic epoch, they have acted upon, or been acted upon by other
+groups--when we shall have clearly established these points, we may then
+descend to details, and, perhaps, one day be able to decide why the
+greatest minds of one group are inferior to the most brilliant geniuses
+of another, in what respects the vulgar herds of all types assimilate,
+and in what others they differ, and why. But this difficult and delicate
+task cannot be accomplished until the relative position of the whole
+mass of each race shall have been nicely, and, so to say, mathematically
+defined. I do not know whether we may hope ever to arrive at results of
+such incontestable clearness and precision, as to be able to no longer
+trust solely to general facts, but to embrace the various shades of
+intelligence in each group, to define and class the inferior strata of
+every population and their influence on the activity of the whole. Were
+it possible thus to divide each group into certain strata, and compare
+these with the corresponding strata of every other: the most gifted of
+the dominant with the most gifted of the dominated races, and so on
+downwards, the superiority of some in capacity, energy, and activity
+would be self-demonstrated.
+
+After having mentioned the facts which prove the inequality of various
+branches of the human family, and having laid down the method by which
+that proof should be established, I arrived at the conclusion that the
+whole of our species is divisible into three great groups, which I call
+primary varieties, in order to distinguish them from others formed by
+intermixture. It now remains for me to assign to each of these groups
+the principal characteristics by which it is distinguished from the
+others.
+
+The dark races are the lowest on the scale. The shape of the pelvis has
+a character of animalism, which is imprinted on the individuals of that
+race ere their birth, and seems to portend their destiny. The circle of
+intellectual development of that group is more contracted than that of
+either of the two others.
+
+If the negro's narrow and receding forehead seems to mark him as
+inferior in reasoning capacity, other portions of his cranium as
+decidedly point to faculties of an humbler, but not the less powerful
+character. He has energies of a not despicable order, and which
+sometimes display themselves with an intensity truly formidable. He is
+capable of violent passions, and passionate attachments. Some of his
+senses have an acuteness unknown to the other races: the sense of taste,
+and that of smell, for instance.
+
+But it is precisely this development of the animal faculties that stamps
+the negro with the mark of inferiority to other races. I said that his
+sense of taste was acute; it is by no means fastidious. Every sort of
+food is welcome to his palate; none disgusts[192] him; there is no flesh
+nor fowl too vile to find a place in his stomach. So it is with regard
+to odor. His sense of smell might rather be called greedy than acute. He
+easily accommodates himself to the most repulsive.
+
+To these traits he joins a childish instability of humor. His feelings
+are intense, but not enduring. His grief is as transitory as it is
+poignant, and he rapidly passes from it to extreme gayety. He is seldom
+vindictive--his anger is violent, but soon appeased. It might almost be
+said that this variability of sentiments annihilates for him the
+existence of both virtue and vice. The very ardency to which his
+sensibilities are aroused, implies a speedy subsidence; the intensity of
+his desire, a prompt gratification, easily forgotten. He does not cling
+to life with the tenacity of the whites. But moderately careful of his
+own, he easily sacrifices that of others, and kills, though not
+absolutely bloodthirsty, without much provocation or subsequent
+remorse.[193] Under intense suffering, he exhibits a moral cowardice
+which readily seeks refuge in death, or in a sort of monstrous
+impassivity.[194]
+
+With regard to his moral capacities, it may be stated that he is
+susceptible, in an eminent degree, of religious emotions; but unless
+assisted by the light of the Gospel, his religious sentiments are of a
+decidedly sensual character.
+
+Having demonstrated the little intellectual and strongly sensual[195]
+character of the black variety, as the type of which I have taken the
+negro of Western Africa, I shall now proceed to examine the moral and
+intellectual characteristics of the second in the scale--the yellow.
+
+This seems to form a complete antithesis to the former. In them, the
+skull, instead of being thrown backward, projects. The forehead is
+large, often jutting out, and of respectable height. The facial
+conformation is somewhat triangular, but neither chin nor nose has the
+rude, animalish development that characterizes the negro. A tendency to
+obesity is not precisely a specific feature, but it is more often met
+with among the yellow races than among any others. In muscular vigor, in
+intensity of feelings and desires, they are greatly inferior to the
+black. They are supple and agile, but not strong. They have a decided
+taste for sensual pleasures, but their sensuality is less violent, and,
+if I may so call it, more vicious than the negro's, and less quickly
+appeased. They place a somewhat greater value upon human life than the
+negro does, but they are more cruel for the sake of cruelty. They are as
+gluttonous as the negro, but more fastidious in their choice of viands,
+as is proved by the immoderate attention bestowed on the culinary art
+among the more civilized of these races. In other words, the yellow
+races are less impulsive than the black. Their will is characterized by
+obstinacy rather than energetic violence; their anger is vindictive
+rather than clamorous; their cruelty more studied than passionate; their
+sensuality more refinedly vicious than absorbing. They are, therefore,
+seldom prone to extremes. In morals, as in intellect, they display a
+mediocrity: they are given to grovelling vices rather than to dark
+crimes; when virtuous, they are so oftener from a sense of practical
+usefulness than from exalted sentiments. In regard to intellectual
+capacity, they easily understand whatever is not very profound, nor very
+sublime; they have a keen appreciation of the useful and practical, a
+great love of quiet and order, and even a certain conception of a slight
+modicum of personal or municipal liberty. The yellow races are practical
+people in the narrowest sense of the word. They have little scope of
+imagination, and therefore invent but little: for great inventions, even
+the most exclusively utilitarian, require a high degree of the
+imaginative faculty. But they easily understand and adopt whatever is of
+practical utility. The _summum bonum_ of their desires and aspirations
+is to pass smoothly and quietly through life.
+
+It is apparent from this sketch, that they are superior to the blacks in
+aptitude and intellectual capacity. A theorist who would form some
+model society, might wish such a population to form the substratum upon
+which to erect his structure; but a society, composed entirely of such
+elements, would display neither great stamina nor capacity for anything
+great and exalted.
+
+We are now arrived at the third and last of the "primary" varieties--the
+white. Among them we find great physical vigor and capacity of
+endurance; an intensity of will and desire, but which is balanced and
+governed by the intellectual faculties. Great things are undertaken, but
+not blindly, not without a full appreciation of the obstacles to be
+overcome, and with a systematic effort to overcome them. The utilitarian
+tendency is strong, but is united with a powerful imaginative faculty,
+which elevates, ennobles, idealizes it. Hence, the power of invention;
+while the negro can merely imitate, the Chinese only utilize, to a
+certain extent, the practical results attained by the white, the latter
+is continually adding new ones to those already gained. His capacity for
+combination of ideas leads him perpetually to construct new facts from
+the fragments of the old; hurries him along through a series of
+unceasing modifications and changes. He has as keen a sense of order as
+the man of the yellow race, but not, like him, from love of repose and
+inertia, but from a desire to protect and preserve his acquisitions. At
+the same time, he has an ardent love of liberty, which is often carried
+to an extreme; an instinctive aversion to the trammels of that rigidly
+formalistic organization under which the Chinese vegetates with
+luxurious ease; and he as indignantly rejects the haughty despotism
+which alone proves a sufficient restraint for the black races.
+
+The white man is also characterized by a singular love of life. Perhaps
+it is because he knows better how to make use of it than other races,
+that he attaches to it a greater value and spares it more both in
+himself and in others. In the extreme of his cruelty, he is conscious of
+his excesses; a sentiment which it may well be doubted whether it exist
+among the blacks. Yet though he loves life better than other races, he
+has discovered a number of reasons for sacrificing it or laying it down
+without murmur. His valor, his bravery, are not brute, unthinking
+passions, not the result of callousness or impassivity: they spring from
+exalted, though often erroneous, sentiments, the principal of which is
+expressed by the word "honor." This feeling, under a variety of names
+and applications, has formed the mainspring of action of most of the
+white races since the beginning of historical times. It accommodates
+itself to every mode of existence, to every walk of life. It is as
+puissant in the pulpit and at the martyr's stake, as on the field of
+battle; in the most peaceful and humble pursuits of life as in the
+highest and most stirring. It were impossible to define all the ideas
+which this word comprises; they are better felt than expressed. But this
+feeling--we might call it instinctive--is unknown to the yellow, and
+unknown to the black races: while in the white it quickens every noble
+sentiment--the sense of justice, liberty, patriotism, love, religion--it
+has no name in the language, no place in the hearts, of other races.
+This I consider as the principal reason of the superiority of our branch
+of the human family over all others; because even in the lowest, the
+most debased of our race, we generally find some spark of this redeeming
+trait, and however misapplied it may often be, and certainly is, it
+prevents us, even in our deepest errors, from falling so fearfully low
+as the others. The extent of moral abasement in which we find so many of
+the yellow and black races is absolutely impossible even to the very
+refuse of our society. The latter may equal, nay, surpass them in crime;
+but even they would shudder at that hideous abyss of corrosive vices,
+which opens before the friend of humanity on a closer study of these
+races.[196]
+
+Before concluding this picture, I would add that the immense superiority
+of the white races in all that regards the intellectual faculties, is
+joined to an inferiority as strikingly marked, in the intensity of
+sensations. Though his whole structure is more vigorous, the white man
+is less gifted in regard to the perfection of the senses than either the
+black or the yellow, and therefore less solicited and less absorbed by
+animal gratifications.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I have now arrived at the historical portion of my subject. There I
+shall place the truths enounced in this volume in a clearer light, and
+furnish irrefragable proofs of the fact, which forms the basis of my
+theory, that nations degenerate only in consequence and in proportion to
+their admixture with an inferior race--that a society receives its
+death-blow when, from the number of diverse ethnical elements which it
+comprises, a number of diverse modes of thinking and interests contend
+for predominance; when these modes of thinking, and these interests
+have arisen in such multiplicity that every effort to harmonize them, to
+make them subservient to some great purpose, is in vain; when,
+therefore, the only natural ties that can bind large masses of men,
+homogeneity of thoughts and feelings, are severed, the only solid
+foundation of a social structure sapped and rotten.
+
+To furnish the necessary details for this assertion, to remove the
+possibility of even the slightest doubt, I shall take up separately,
+every great and independent civilization that the world has seen
+flourish. I shall trace its first beginnings, its subsequent stages of
+development, its decadence and final decay. Here, then, is the proper
+test of my theory; here we can see the laws that govern ethnical
+relations in full force on a magnificent scale; we can verify their
+inexorably uniform and rigorous application. The subject is immense, the
+panorama spread before us the grandest and most imposing that the
+philosopher can contemplate, for its tableaux comprise the scene of
+action of every instance where man has really worked out his mission "to
+have dominion over the earth."
+
+The task is great--too great, perhaps, for any one's undertaking. Yet,
+on a more careful investigation, many of the apparently insuperable
+difficulties which discouraged the inquirer will vanish; in the
+gorgeous succession of scenes that meet his glance, he will perceive a
+uniformity, an intimate relation and connection which, like Ariadne's
+thread, will enable the undaunted and persevering student to find his
+way through the mazes of the labyrinth: we shall find that every
+civilization owes its origin, its development, its splendors, to the
+agency of the white races. In China and in India, in the vast continent
+of the West, centuries ere Columbus found it--it was one of the group of
+white races that gave the impetus, and, so long as it lasted, sustained
+it. Startling as this assertion may appear to a great number of readers,
+I hope to demonstrate its correctness by incontrovertible historical
+testimony. Everywhere the white races have taken the initiative,
+everywhere they have _brought_ civilization to the others--everywhere
+they have sown the seed: the vigor and beauty of the plant depended on
+whether the soil it found was congenial or not.
+
+The migrations of the white race, therefore, afford us at once a guide
+for our historical researches, and a clue to many apparently
+inexplicable mysteries: we shall learn to understand why, in a vast
+country, the development of civilization has come to a stand, and been
+superseded by a retrogressive movement; why, in another, all but feeble
+traces of a high state of culture has vanished without apparent cause;
+why people, the lowest in the scale of intellect, are yet found in
+possession of arts and mechanical processes that would do honor to a
+highly intellectual race.
+
+Among the group of white races, the noblest, the most highly gifted in
+intellect and personal beauty, the most active in the cause of
+civilization, is the Arian[197] race. Its history is intimately
+associated with almost every effort on the part of man to develop his
+moral and intellectual powers.
+
+It now remains for me to trace out the field of inquiry into which I
+propose to enter in the succeeding volumes. The list of great,
+independent civilizations is not long. Among all the innumerable nations
+that "strutted their brief hour on the stage" of the world, ten only
+have arrived at the state of complete societies, giving birth to
+distinct modes of intellectual culture. All the others were imitators or
+dependents; like planets they revolved around, and derived their light
+from the suns of the systems to which they belonged. At the head of my
+list I would place:--
+
+1. The Indian civilization. It spread among the islands of the Indian
+Ocean, towards the north, beyond the Himalaya Mountains, and towards the
+east, beyond the Brahmapootra. It was originated by a white race of the
+Arian stock.
+
+2. The Egyptian civilization comes next. As its satellites may be
+mentioned the less perfect civilizations of the Ethiopians, Nubians, and
+several other small peoples west of the oasis of Ammon. An Arian colony
+from India, settled in the upper part of the Nile valley, had
+established this society.
+
+3. The Assyrians, around whom rallied the Jews, Phenicians, Lydians,
+Carthaginians, and Hymiarites, were indebted for their social
+intelligence to the repeated invasions of white populations. The
+Zoroastrian Iranians, who flourished in Further Asia, under the names of
+Medes, Persians, and Bactrians, were all branches of the Arian family.
+
+4. The Greeks belonged to the same stock, but were modified by Shemitic
+elements, which, in course of time, totally transformed their character.
+
+5. China presents the precise counterpart of Egypt. The light of
+civilization was carried thither by Arian colonies. The substratum of
+the social structure was composed of elements of the yellow race, but
+the white civilizers received reinforcements of their blood at various
+times.
+
+6. The ancient civilization of the Italian peninsula (the Etruscan
+civilization), was developed by a mosaic of populations of the Celtic,
+Iberian, and Shemitic stock, but cemented by Arian elements. From it
+emerged the civilization of Rome.
+
+7. Our civilization is indebted for its tone and character to the
+Germanic conquerors of the fifth century. They were a branch of the
+Arian family.
+
+8, 9, 10. Under these heads I class the three civilizations of the
+western continent, the Alleghanian, the Mexican, and the Peruvians.
+
+This is the field I have marked out for my investigations, the results
+of which will be laid before the reader in the succeeding volumes. The
+first part of my work is here at an end--the vestibule of the structure
+I wish to erect is completed.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[191] I do not hesitate to consider as an unmistakable mark of
+intellectual inferiority, the exaggerated development of instincts that
+characterizes certain savages. The perfection which some of their senses
+acquire, cannot but be at the expense of the reasoning faculties. See,
+upon this subject, the opinions of Mr. Lesson des Papous, in a memoir
+inserted in the tenth volume of the _Annales des Sciences Naturelles_.
+
+[192] "The negro's sense of smell and of taste is as powerful as it is
+unselecting. He eats everything, and I have good reasons for asserting,
+that odors the most disagreeable to us, are positively pleasant to him."
+(Pruner, _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 133.)
+
+Mr. Pruner's assertions would, I think, be corroborated by every one who
+has lived much among the negroes. It is a notorious fact that the blacks
+on our southern plantations eat every animal they can lay hold of. I
+have seen them discuss a piece of fox, or the still more strongly
+flavored pole-cat, with evident relish. Nay, on one occasion, I have
+known a party of negroes feast on an alligator for a whole week, during
+which time they bartered their allowance of meat for trinkets. Upon my
+expressing surprise at so strange a repast, I was assured that it was by
+no means uncommon; that it was a favorite viand of the negroes in their
+native country, and that even here they often killed them with the
+prospect of a savory roast or stew. I am aware that some persons north
+of the Mason's & Dixon's line might be disposed to explain this by
+asserting that _hunger_ drove them to such extremities; but I can
+testify, from my own observation, that this is not the case. In the
+instances I have mentioned, and in many others which are too repulsive
+to be committed to paper, the banqueters were well fed, and evidently
+made such a feast from choice. There are, in the Southern States, many
+of the poor white population who are neither so well clothed nor so well
+fed as these negroes were, and yet I never heard of their resorting to
+such dishes.
+
+In regard to the negro's fondness for odors, I am less qualified to
+speak from my own observations, but nearly every description of the
+manners of his native climes that I have read, mentioned the fact of
+their besmearing themselves with the strong musky fluid secreted by many
+animals--the alligator, for instance. And I remember having heard
+woodsmen in the South say, that while the white man shuns the polecat
+more than he does the rattlesnake, and will make a considerable circuit
+to get out of its way, the negro is but little afraid of this formidable
+animal and its nauseous weapon.--H.
+
+[193] This is illustrated by many of their practices in their natural
+state. For instance, the well-known custom of putting to death, at the
+demise of some prince or great man, a number--corresponding with the
+rank of the deceased--of his slaves, in order that they may wait upon
+him in the other world. Hundreds of poor creatures are often thus
+massacred at the funeral celebrations in honor of some king or ruler.
+Yet it would be unjust to call the negro ferocious or cruel. It merely
+proves the slight estimation in which he holds human life.--H.
+
+[194] There is a callousness in the negro, which strikingly
+distinguishes him from the whites, though it is possessed in perhaps an
+equal degree by other races. I borrow from Mr. Van Amringe's _Nat. Hist.
+of Man_, a few remarks on this subject by Dr. Mosely, in his _Treatise
+on Tropical Diseases_: "Negroes," says the Doctor, "whatever the cause
+may be, are devoid of sensibility (physical) to a surprising degree.
+They are not subject to nervous diseases. They sleep sound in every
+disease, nor does any mental disturbance ever keep them awake. They bear
+chirurgical operations much better than white people, and what would be
+the cause of insupportable pain to a white man, a negro would almost
+disregard. I have amputated the legs of many negroes, who have held the
+upper part of the limb themselves." Every southern planter, and every
+physician of experience in the South, could bear witness to these
+facts.--H.
+
+[195] Thinking that it might not be uninteresting to some of our readers
+to see the views concerning the negro of another European writer besides
+Mr. Gobineau, I subjoin the following extract from Mr. Tschudi's
+_Travels in South America_. Mr. Tschudi is a Swiss naturalist of
+undoubted reputation, an experienced philosophic observer, and a candid
+seeker for truth. His opinion is somewhat harsher than would be that of
+a man who had resided among that class all his life, but it nevertheless
+contains some valuable truths, and is, at least, curious on account of
+the source whence it comes.
+
+"In Lima, and, indeed, throughout the whole of Peru, the free negroes
+are a plague to society. Too indolent to support themselves by laborious
+industry, they readily fall into any dishonest means of getting money.
+Almost all the robbers that infest the roads on the coast of Peru are
+free negroes. Dishonesty seems to be a part of their very nature; and,
+moreover, all their tastes and inclinations are coarse and sensual. Many
+warm defenders excuse these qualities by ascribing them to the want of
+education, the recollection of slavery, the spirit of revenge, etc. But
+I here speak of free-born negroes, who are admitted into the houses of
+wealthy families, who, from their early childhood, have received as good
+an education as falls to the share of many of the white Creoles--who are
+treated with kindness and liberally remunerated, and yet they do not
+differ from their half-savage brethren who are shut out from these
+advantages. If the negro has learned to read and write, and has thereby
+made some little advance in education, he is transformed into a
+conceited coxcomb, who, instead of plundering travellers on the highway,
+finds in city life a sphere for the indulgence of his evil
+propensities.... My opinion is, that the negroes, in respect to
+capability for mental improvement, are far behind the Europeans; and
+that, considered in the aggregate, they will not, even with the
+advantages of careful education, attain a very high degree of
+cultivation. This is apparent from the structure of the skull, on which
+depends the development of the brain, and which, in the negro,
+approximates closely to the animal form. The imitative faculty of the
+monkey is highly developed in the negro, who readily seizes anything
+merely mechanical, whilst things demanding intelligence are beyond his
+reach. Sensuality is the impulse which controls the thoughts, the acts,
+the whole existence of the negroes. To them, freedom can be only
+nominal, for if they conduct themselves well, it is because they are
+compelled, not because they are inclined to do so. Herein lie at once
+the cause of, and the apology for, their bad character." (_Travels in
+Peru_, London, 1848, p. 110, _et passim_.)--H.
+
+[196] The sickening moral degradation of some of the branches of our
+species is well known to the student of anthropology, though, for
+obvious reasons, details of this kind cannot find a place in books
+destined for the general reader.--H.
+
+[197] As many of the terms of modern ethnography have not yet found
+their way into the dictionaries, I shall offer a short explanation of
+the meaning of this word, for the benefit of those readers who have not
+paid particular attention to that science.
+
+The word "Arian" is derived from _Aryas_ or ~Arioi~, respectively
+the indigenous and the Greek designation of the ancient Medes, and is
+applied to a race, or rather a family of races, whose original
+ethnological area is not as yet accurately defined, but who have
+gradually spread from the centre of Asia to the mouth of the Ganges, to
+the British Isles, and the northern extremities of Scandinavia. To
+this family of races belong, among others, the ancient Medes and
+Persians, the white conquerors of India (now forming the caste of the
+Brahmins), _and the Germanic races_. The whole group is often called
+Indo-European. The affinities between the Greek and the German languages
+had long been an interesting question to philologists; but Schlegel, I
+believe, was the first to discover the intimate relations between these
+two and the Sanscrit, and he applied to the whole three, and their
+collateral branches, the name of _Indo-Germanic_ languages. The
+discovery attracted the attention both of philologists and
+ethnographers, and it is now indubitably proved that the civilizers of
+India, and the subverters of the Roman Empire are descended from the
+same ethnical stock. It is known that the Sanscrit is as unlike all
+other Indian languages, as the high-caste Brahmins are unlike the
+Pariahs and all the other aboriginal races of that country; and Latham
+has lately come to the conclusion that it has actually been _carried to
+India from Europe_. It will be seen from this that Mr. Gobineau, in his
+view of the origin of various civilizations, is supported in at least
+several of the most important instances.
+
+It is a familiar saying that _civilization travels westward_: if we
+believe ethnologists, the Arian races have _always migrated in that
+direction_--from Central Asia to India, to Asia Minor, to Egypt, to
+Greece, to Western Europe, to the western coasts of the Atlantic, and
+the same impulse of migration is now carrying them to the Pacific.--H.
+
+
+
+
+ APPENDIX.
+
+ BY J. C. NOTT, M. D.,
+
+ MOBILE, ALABAMA.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+I have seldom perused a work which has afforded me so much pleasure and
+instruction as the one of Count Gobineau, "_Sur l'Inégalité des Races
+Humaines_," and regard most of his conclusions as incontrovertible.
+There are, however, a few points in his argument which should not be
+passed without comment, and others not sufficiently elaborated. My
+original intention was to say much, but, fortunately for me, my
+colleague, Mr. Hotz, has so fully and ably anticipated me, in his
+Introduction and Notes, as to leave me little of importance to add.
+
+The essay of Count Gobineau is eminently practical and useful in its
+design. He views the various races of men rather as a historian than a
+naturalist, and while he leaves open the long mooted question of _unity_
+of origin, he so fully establishes the _permanency_ of the actual moral,
+intellectual, and physical diversities of races as to leave no ground
+for antagonists to stand upon. Whatever _remote causes_ may be assigned,
+there is no appeal from the conclusion that white, black, Mongol, and
+other races were fully developed in nations some 3000 years before
+Christ, and that no physical causes, during this long course of time,
+have been in operation, to change one type of man into another. Count
+Gobineau, therefore, accepts the _existing_ diversity of races as at
+least an _accomplished fact_, and draws lessons of wisdom from the plain
+teachings of history. Man with him ceases to be an abstraction; each
+race, each nation, is made a separate study, and a fertile but
+unexplored field is opened to our view.
+
+Our author leans strongly towards a belief in the _original diversity_
+of races, but has evidently been much embarrassed in arriving at
+conclusions by religious scruples and by the want of accurate knowledge
+in that part of natural history which treats of the designation of
+_species_, and the laws of _hybridity_; he has been taught to believe
+that two distinct species cannot produce perfectly prolific offspring,
+and therefore concludes that all races of men _must_ be of one origin,
+because they are prolific _inter se_. My appendix will therefore be
+devoted mainly to this question of species.
+
+
+
+
+A.
+
+
+Our author has taken the facts of Dr. Morton at second hand, and,
+moreover, had not before him Dr. Morton's later tables and more matured
+deductions; I shall therefore give an abstract of his results as
+published by himself in 1849, with some comments of my own. The figures
+represent the internal capacity of the skull in cubic inches, and were
+obtained by filling the cavity with shot and afterwards pouring them
+into an accurately graduated measure.
+
+It must be admitted that the collection of Morton is not sufficiently
+full in all its departments to enable us to arrive at the absolute
+capacity of crania in the different races; but it is sufficiently
+complete to establish beyond cavil, the fact that the crania of the
+white are much larger than those of the dark races. His table is very
+incomplete in Mongol, Malays, and some others; but in the white races of
+Europe, the black races, and the American, the results are substantially
+correct. I have myself had ample opportunities for examining the heads
+of living negroes and Indians of America, as well as a considerable
+number of crania, and can fully indorse Dr. Morton's results. It will be
+seen that his skulls of American aborigines amount to 338.
+
+
+_Table, showing the Size of the Brain in Cubic Inches, as obtained by
+the Measurement of 623 Crania of various Races and Families of Man._
+
+ -----------------------------------------------------------------------
+ | No. of | Largest | Smallest | |
+ RACES AND FAMILIES. | skulls.| internal | internal | Mean.| Mean.
+ | | capacity.| capacity.| |
+ -----------------------------------------------------------------------
+ MODERN CAUCASIAN GROUP. | | | | |
+ TEUTONIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Germans | 18 | 114 | 70 | 90 }
+ English | 5 | 105 | 91 | 96 } 92
+ Anglo-Americans | 7 | 97 | 82 | 90 }
+ PELASGIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Persians } | | | |
+ Armenians } 10 | 94 | 75 | 84 |
+ Circassians } | | | |
+ CELTIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Native Irish | 6 | 97 | 78 | 87 |
+ INDOSTANIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Bengalees, &c. | 32 | 91 | 67 | 80 |
+ SHEMITIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Arabs | 3 | 98 | 84 | 89 |
+ NILOTIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Fellahs | 17 | 96 | 66 | 80 |
+ | | | | |
+ ANCIENT CAUCASIAN GROUP.| | | | |
+ PELASGIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Greco-Egyptians | 18 | 97 | 74 | 88 |
+ (from Catacombs) | | | | |
+ NILOTIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Egyptians | 55 | 96 | 68 | 80 |
+ (from Catacombs) | | | | |
+ | | | | |
+ MONGOLIAN GROUP. | | | | |
+ CHINESE FAMILY | 6 | 91 | 70 | 82 |
+ | | | | |
+ MALAY GROUP. | | | | |
+ MALAYAN FAMILY | 20 | 97 | 68 | 86 }
+ POLYNESIAN FAMILY | 8 | 84 | 82 | 83 } 85
+ | | | | |
+ AMERICAN GROUP. | | | | |
+ TOLTECAN FAMILY | | | | |
+ Peruvians | 155 | 101 | 58 | 75 }
+ Mexicans | 22 | 92 | 67 | 79 }
+ BARBAROUS TRIBES | | | | }
+ Iroquois } | | | } 79
+ Lenapč } | | | }
+ Cherokee } 161 | 104 | 70 | 84 }
+ Shoshonč, &c. } | | | |
+ | | | | |
+ NEGRO GROUP. | | | | |
+ NATIVE AFRICAN FAMILY | 62 | 99 | 65 | 83 }
+ AMERICAN-BORN NEGROES | 12 | 89 | 73 | 82 } 83
+ HOTTENTOT FAMILY | 3 | 83 | 68 | 75 |
+ ALFOREAN FAMILY | | | | |
+ Australians | 8 | 83 | 63 | 75 |
+ -----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Dr. Morton's mind, it will be seen by this table, had not yet freed
+itself from the incubus of artificial and unnatural classifications.
+Like Tiedemann and others, he has grouped together races which have not
+the slightest affinity in physical, moral, or linguistic characters. In
+the _Caucasian_ group, for example, are placed the Teutonic, Indostanic,
+Shemitic, and Nilotic families, each of which, it can be shown, has
+existed utterly distinct for 5000 years, not to mention many
+subdivisions.
+
+The table of Dr. Morton affords some curious results. His ancient
+Pelasgic heads and those of the modern white races, give the same size
+of brain, viz: 88 cubic inches; and his ancient Egyptians and their
+modern representatives, the Fellahs, yield the same mean, 80 cubic
+inches; the difference between the two groups being 8 cubic inches.
+These facts have a strong bearing on the question of _permanence_ of
+types. The small-headed Hindoos present the same cranial capacity as the
+Egyptians, and though these races have each been the repository of early
+civilization, it is a question whether either was the originator of
+civilization. The Egyptian race, from the earliest monumental dawn,
+exhibits Shemitic adulteration; and Latham proves that the Sanscrit
+language was not indigenous to India, but was carried there from
+Northern Europe in early ages by conquerors.
+
+Again, in the negro group, while it is absolutely shown that certain
+African races, whether born in Africa, or of the tenth descent in
+America, give a cranial capacity almost identical, 83 cubic inches; we
+see, on the contrary, the Hottentot and Australian yielding a mean of
+but 75 inches, thereby showing a like difference of eight cubic inches.
+
+In the American group, also, the same parallel holds good. The Toltecan
+family, the most civilized race, exhibit a mean of but 77 inches, while
+the barbarous tribes give 84, that is, a difference of 7 inches in favor
+of the savage. While, however, the Toltecans have the smaller heads,
+they are, according to Combe, much more developed in the anterior or
+_intellectual_ lobes, which may serve to explain this apparent paradox.
+
+When we compare the highest and lowest races with each other, the
+contrast becomes still more striking, viz: the Teutonic with the
+Hottentot and Australian. The former family gives a mean capacity of 92
+inches, while the latter two yield but 75, or a difference of _17 cubic
+inches_ between the skulls of these types!
+
+Now, as far back as history and monuments carry us, as well as crania
+and other testimonies, these various types have been _permanent_; and
+most of them we can trace back several thousand years. If such
+permanence of type through thousands of years, and in defiance of all
+climatic influences, does not establish _specific_ characters, then is
+the naturalist at sea without a compass to guide him.
+
+These facts determine clearly the arbitrary nature of all
+classifications heretofore adopted; the Teuton, the Jew, the Hindoo,
+the Egyptian, &c., have all been included under the term _Caucasian_;
+and yet they have, as far as we know, been through all time as distinct
+in physical and moral characters from each other, as they have from the
+negro races of Africa and Oceanica. The same diversity of types is found
+among all the other groups, or arbitrary divisions of the human family.
+
+Rich and rare as is the collection of Dr. Morton, it is very defective
+in many of its divisions, and it occurred to me that this deficiency
+might to some degree be supplied by the hat manufacturers of various
+nations; notwithstanding that the information derived from this source
+could give but one measurement, viz: the _horizontal periphery_. Yet
+this one measurement alone, on an extended scale, would go far towards
+determining the general size of the brain. I accordingly applied to
+three hat dealers in Mobile, and a large manufacturer in New Jersey, for
+statements of the relative number of hats of each size sold to adult
+males; their tables agree so perfectly as to leave no doubt as to the
+circumference of the heads of the white population of the United States.
+The three houses together dispose of about 15,000 hats annually.
+
+The following table was obligingly sent me by Messrs. Vail & Yates, of
+Newark; and they accompanied it with the remark, that their hats were
+sent principally to our Western States, where there is a large
+proportion of German population; also that the sizes of these hats were
+a little larger (about one fourth of an inch) than those sold in the
+Southern States. This remark was confirmed by the three dealers in
+Mobile. Our table gives, 1st. The number or size of the hat. 2d. The
+circumference of the head corresponding. 3d. The circumference of the
+hat; and lastly, the relative proportion of each No. sold out of 12
+hats.
+
+ Size--inches. Circum. Circum. Relative
+ of head. of hat. prop. in 12.
+
+ 6-7/8 21-5/8 22-3/8 1
+ 7 22 22-3/4 2
+ 7-1/8 22-3/8 23-1/8 3
+ 7-1/4 22-3/4 23-1/2 3
+ 7-3/8 23-1/8 23-7/8 2
+ 7-1/2 23-1/2 24-1/4 1
+
+All hats larger than these are called "extra sizes."
+
+The average size, then, of the crania of white races in the United
+States, is about 22-1/2 inches circumference, including the hair and
+scalp, for which about 1-1/2 inches should be deducted, leaving a mean
+horizontal periphery, for adult males, of 21 inches. The measurements of
+the purest Teutonic races in Germany and other countries, would give a
+larger mean; and I have reason to believe that the population of France,
+which is principally Celtic, would yield a smaller mean. I hope that
+others will extend these observations.
+
+Dr. Morton's measurements of aboriginal American races, give a mean of
+but 19-1/2 inches; and this statement is greatly strengthened by the
+fact that the Mexicans and other Indian races wear much smaller hats
+than our white races. (See _Types of Mankind_, p. 289 and 453.)
+
+Prof. Tiedemann, of Heidelberg, asserts that the head of the negro is as
+large as that of the white man, but this we have shown to be an error.
+(_Types of Mankind_, p. 453.)
+
+Tiedemann adopted the vulgar error of grouping together under the term
+_Caucasian_, all the Indo-Germanic, Shemitic, and Nilotic races; also
+all the black and dark races of Africa under the term _Negro_. Now I
+have shown that the Hindoo and Egyptian races possess about 12 cubic
+inches less of brain than the Teutonic; and the Hottentots about 8
+inches less than the Negro proper. I affirm that no valid reason has
+ever been assigned why the Teuton and Hindoo, or Hottentot and Negro,
+should be classed together in their cranial measurements. I can discover
+no facts which can assign a greater age to one of these races than
+another; and unless Professor Tiedemann can overcome these difficulties,
+he has no right to assume identity for the various races he is pleased
+to group under each of his arbitrary divisions. Mummies from the
+catacombs, and portraits on the monuments, show that the heads of races
+on both sides of the Red Sea have remained unchanged 4000 years.
+
+As Dr. Morton tabulated his skulls on the same arbitrary basis, I
+abandon his arrangement and present his facts as they stand in nature,
+allowing the reader to compare and judge for himself. The following
+table gives the _internal capacity_ in cubic inches, and it will be
+seen that the measurements arrange themselves in a sliding scale of 17
+cubic inches from the Teuton down to the Hottentot and Australian.
+
+_Internal Capacity of Brain in Cubic Inches._
+
+ RACES. Internal Internal
+ capacity. capacity.
+ Mean. Mean.
+ MODERN WHITE RACES--
+ Teutonic group 92 92
+ Pelasgic " 84 }
+ Celtic " 87 } 88
+ Shemitic " 89 }
+ ANCIENT PELASGIC 88
+ MALAYS 85 } 83-1/2
+ CHINESE 82 }
+ NEGROES (AFRICAN) 83 83
+ INDOSTANESE 80 }
+ FELLAHS (modern Egyptians) 80 } 80
+ EGYPTIANS (ancient) 80 }
+
+ AMERICAN GROUP--
+ Toltecan family 77 } 79
+ Barbarous tribes 84 }
+
+ HOTTENTOTS 75 } 75
+ AUSTRALIANS 75 }
+
+Such has been, through several thousand years, the incessant commingling
+of races, that we are free to admit that absolute accuracy in
+measurements of crania cannot now be attained. Yet so constant are the
+results in contrasting groups, that no unprejudiced mind can deny that
+there is a wide and well-marked disparity in the cranial developments of
+races.
+
+
+
+
+B.
+
+
+As the discussion stands at the present day, we may assume that the
+scientific world is pretty equally divided on the question of unity of
+the human family, and the point is to be settled by facts, and not by
+names. Natural history is a comparatively new and still rapidly
+progressing science, and the study of man has been one of the last
+departments to attract serious attention. Blumenbach and Prichard, who
+may be regarded among the early explorers in this vast field, have but
+recently been numbered with the dead; and we may safely assert that the
+last ten years have brought forth materials which have shed an entirely
+new light on this subject.
+
+Mr. Agassiz, Dr. Morton, Prof. Leidy, and many other naturalists of the
+United States, contend for an original diversity in the races of men,
+and we shall proceed to give some of the reasons why we have adopted
+similar views. Two of the latest writers of any note on the opposite
+side are the Rev. Dr. Bachman, of Charleston, and M. Flourens, of Paris;
+and as these gentlemen have very fully travelled over the argument
+opposed to us, we shall take the liberty, in the course of our remarks,
+to offer some objections to their views.
+
+The great difficulty in this discussion is, to define clearly what
+meaning should be attached to the term _species_; and to the
+illustration of this point, mainly, will our labors be confined.
+_Genera_ are, for the most part, well defined by _anatomical_
+characters, and little dispute exists respecting them; but no successful
+attempt has yet been made to designate _species_ in this way, and it is
+by their _permanency of type alone_, as ascertained from written or
+monumental records, that our decision can be guided.
+
+
+SPECIES.
+
+The following definitions of species have been selected by Dr. Bachman,
+and may be received as unexceptionable as any others; but we shall show
+that they fall far short of the true difficulties of the case.
+
+ "We are under the necessity of admitting the existence of certain
+ forms, which have perpetuated themselves, from the beginning of
+ the world, without exceeding the limits prescribed: all the
+ individuals belonging to one of these forms constitute a
+ _species_."--CUVIER.
+
+ "We unite under the designation species all those individuals who
+ mutually bear to each other so close a resemblance as to allow of
+ our supposing that they may have proceeded originally from a
+ single being, or a single pair."--DE CANDOLLE.
+
+ "The name species is applied to an assemblage of individuals which
+ bear a strong resemblance to each other, and which are perpetuated
+ with the same essential qualities. Thus man, the dog, the horse,
+ constitute to the zoologist so many distinct species."--MILNE
+ EDWARDS and ACHILLE COMPTE.
+
+We have no objection to this definition, but the examples cited are
+points in dispute, and not received by many of the leading naturalists
+of the day.
+
+ "Species are fixed and permanent forms of being, exhibiting
+ indeed certain modes of variation, of which they may be more or
+ less susceptible, but maintaining throughout those modifications
+ a sameness of structural essentials, transmitted from generation
+ to generation, and never lost by the influence of causes which
+ otherwise produce obvious effects. _Varieties_ are either
+ accidental or the result of the care and culture of
+ man."[198]--MARTIN.
+
+Dr. Bachman gives another, substantially the same, from Agassiz; and
+also one of his own, to which he appends, as an additional test of
+species, the production of "_fertile offspring by association_." In this
+definition the doctor _assumes_ one of the main points in dispute.
+
+ "_Varieties_," says Dr. Bachman, "are those that are produced
+ within the limits of particular species, and have not existed
+ from its origin. They sometimes originate in wild species,
+ especially those that have a wide geographical range, and are
+ thus exposed to change of climate and temperature," &c. * * *
+ "_Permanent varieties_ are such as, having once taken place, are
+ propagated in perpetuity, and do not change their characteristics
+ unless they breed with other varieties."
+
+We may remark that the existence of such _permanent varieties_ as here
+described is also in dispute.
+
+The same author continues:--
+
+ "On comparing these definitions, as given by various naturalists,
+ each in his own language, it will be perceived that there is no
+ essential difference in the various views expressed in regard to
+ the characters by which a species is designated. They all regard
+ it as 'the lowest term to which we descend, with the exception of
+ _varieties_, such as are seen in domestic animals.' They are, to
+ examine the external and internal organization of the animal or
+ plant--they are, to compare it with kindred species, and if by
+ this examination they are found to possess _permanent characters
+ differing from those of other species, it proves itself to be a
+ distinct species_. When this fact is satisfactorily ascertained,
+ and the specimen is not found a domestic species, in which
+ varieties always occur, presumptive evidence is afforded of its
+ having had a primordial existence. We infer this from the fact
+ that no species is the production of blind chance, and that
+ within the _knowledge of history_ no true species, but
+ _varieties_ only, whose origin can be _distinctly traced to
+ existing and well-known species_, have made their appearance in
+ the world. This, then, is the only means within the knowledge of
+ man by which any species of plant or animal _can be shown_ to be
+ primordial. The peculiar form and characters designated the
+ species, and its origin was a necessary inference derived from
+ the characters stamped on it by the hand of the Creator."
+
+To all the positions thus far taken by Dr. Bachman, we most cheerfully
+subscribe; they are strictly scientific, and by such criteria alone do
+we desire to test the unity of the human family; but we must enter a
+decided demurrer to the assertion which follows, viz: that, "according
+to the universally received definition of species, all the individuals
+of the human race are proved to be of one species." When it shall be
+shown that all the races of men, dogs, horses, cattle, wolves, foxes,
+&c., are "varieties only, _whose origin can be distinctly traced to
+existing and well-known species_," we may then yield the point; but we
+must be permitted to say that Dr. Bachman is the only naturalist, as far
+as we know, who has assumed to know these original types.
+
+Now, if the reader will turn back and review carefully all the
+definitions of species cited, he will perceive that they are not based
+upon _anatomical characters_, but simply on the _permanency_ of certain
+organic forms, and that this permanence of form is determined by its
+_history_ alone.
+
+Professor Owen, of London, has thrown the weight of his great name into
+the scale, and tells us that "man is the sole species of his genus, the
+sole representative of his order." But proving that man is not a monkey,
+as the professor has done in the lecture alluded to, does not prove that
+men are all of _one_ species, according to any definition yet received:
+he has made the assertion, but has assigned no scientific reasons to
+sustain it. No one would be more rejoiced than ourselves, to see the
+great talent and learning of Professor Owen brought fully to bear on
+this point; but, like most naturalists, he has overlooked one of the
+most important points in this discussion--_the monumental history of
+man_.
+
+Will Professor Owen or Dr. Bachman tell us wherein the lion and
+tiger--the dog, wolf, fox, and jackal--the fossil horse, and living
+species--the Siberian mammoth and the Indian elephant, differ more from
+each other than the white man and the negro? Are not all these regarded
+by naturalists as distinct species, and yet who pretends to be able to
+distinguish the skeleton of one from the other by specific characters?
+
+The examples just cited, of living species, have been decided upon
+simply from their permanency of type, as derived from their history; and
+we say that, by the same process of reasoning, the races of men
+depicted on the monuments of Egypt, five thousand years ago, and which
+have maintained their types through all time and all climates since, are
+_distinct species_.
+
+Dr. Morton defines species--"a primordial organic form," and determines
+these forms by their permanence through all human records; and Mr.
+Agassiz, who adopts this definition, adds: "Species are thus distinct
+forms of organic life, the origin of which is lost in the primitive
+establishment of the state of things now existing; and varieties are
+such modification of the species as may return to the typical form under
+temporary influences."
+
+Dr. Bachman objects very strongly to this definition, and declares it a
+"cunning device, and, to all intents, an _ex post facto_ law," suddenly
+conjured up during a controversy, to avoid the difficulties of the case;
+but we have serious doubts whether these gentlemen are capable of such
+subterfuge in matters of science, and confess that we cannot see any
+substantial difference between their definition and those given by Dr.
+Bachman. Morton and Agassiz determine a form to be "_primordial_" by its
+permanency, as proved by history, and the other definitions assign no
+other test.
+
+Professor Leidy, who has not only studied the "lower departments of
+zoology," like Mr. Agassiz, but also the "higher forms of animal life,"
+says that "too much importance has been attached to the term species,"
+and gives the following definition: "A species of plant or animal may be
+defined to be an immutable organic form, whose characteristic
+distinctions may always be recognized by _a study of its history_."[199]
+
+M. Jourdain, under the head "Espčce," in his _Dictionnaire des Termes
+des Sciences Naturelles_, after citing a long list of definitions from
+leading authors, concludes with the following remarks, which, as the
+question now stands before the world, places the term species just where
+it should be:--
+
+ "It is evident that we can, among organized bodies, regard as a
+ _species_ only such a collection of beings as resemble each other
+ more than they resemble others, and which, by a consent more or
+ less unanimous, it is agreed to designate by a common name; for a
+ _species_ is but a simple _abstraction of the mind_, and not a
+ group, exactly determined by nature herself, as ancient as she
+ is, and of which she has irrevocably traced the limits. It is in
+ the definition of species that we recognize how far the influence
+ of ideas adopted without examination in youth is powerful in
+ obscuring the most simple ideas of general physics."
+
+Although not written with the expectation of publication, I will take
+the liberty of publishing the following private letter just received
+from Prof. Leidy. He has not appeared at all in this controversy before
+the public, and we may safely say that no one can be better qualified
+than he is to express an opinion on this question of species.
+
+ "With all the contention about the question of what constitutes a
+ _species_, there appears to be almost no difficulty,
+ comparatively, in its practical recognition. Species of plants
+ and animals are daily determined, and the characters which are
+ given to distinguish them are viewed by the great body of
+ naturalists as sufficient. All the definitions, however, which
+ have been given for a species, are objectionable. Morton says: 'A
+ species is a primordial organic form.' But how shall we
+ distinguish the latter? How can it be proved that any existing
+ forms primordially were distinct? In my attempted definition, I
+ think, I fail, for I only direct how species are discovered.
+
+ "According to the practical determination of a species by
+ naturalists, in a late number of the _Proceedings_ of our Academy
+ (vol. vii. p. 201), I observe: 'A species is a mere convenient
+ word with which naturalists empirically designate groups of
+ organized beings possessing characters of comparative constancy,
+ as far as historic experience has guided them in giving due weight
+ to such constancy.'
+
+ "According to this definition, the races of men are evidently
+ distinct species. But it may be said that the definition is given
+ to suit the circumstances. So it is, and so it should be; or, if
+ not, then all characterized species should conform to an arbitrary
+ definition. The species of gypętus, haliętus, tanagra, and of many
+ other genera of birds, are no more distinguishable than the
+ species of men; and, I repeat, the anatomy of one species of
+ haliętus, or of any other genus, will answer for that of all the
+ other species of the same genus. The same is the case with
+ mammals. One species of felis, ursus, or equus will give the exact
+ anatomy of all the other species in each genus, just as you may
+ study the anatomy of the white man upon the black man. While Prof.
+ Richard Owen will compare the orang with man, and therefore deduce
+ all races of the latter to be of one species, he divides the genus
+ cervus into several other genera, and yet there is no difference
+ in their internal anatomy; while he considers the horse and the
+ ass as two distinct genera, and says that a certain fossil
+ horse-tooth, carefully compared with the corresponding tooth of
+ the recent horse, showed no differences, excepting in being a
+ little more curved, he considers it a distinct species, under the
+ name of equus curvidens; and yet, with differences of greater
+ value in the jaws of the negro and white man, he considers them
+ the same.
+
+ "In the restricted genera of vertebrata of modern naturalists, the
+ specific characters are founded on the external appendages, for
+ the most part--differences in the scales, horns, antlers,
+ feathers, hairs, or bills. Just as you separate the black and
+ white man by the difference in the color of the skin and the
+ character of the hair, so do we separate the species of bears, or
+ cats, &c.
+
+ "PHILADELPHIA, _April 18, 1855_."
+
+We might thus go on and multiply, to the extent of an octavo volume,
+evidence to show how vague and unsettled is the term species among
+naturalists, and that, when we abandon historical records, we have no
+reliable guide left. Moreover, were we able to establish perfectly
+reliable landmarks between species, we still have no means of
+determining whether they were originally created in one pair, or many
+pairs. The latter is certainly the most rational supposition: there is
+every reason to believe that the earth and the sea brought forth
+"_abundantly_" of each species.
+
+It must be clear to the reader, from the evidence above adduced, that
+Dr. Bachman claims far too much when he asserts that--
+
+ "Naturalists can be found, in Europe and America, who, without
+ any _vain boast_, can distinguish every species of bird and
+ quadruped on their separate continents; and the characters which
+ distinguish and separate the several species are as distinct and
+ infallible as are those which form the genera."[200]
+
+And, again, when he says:--
+
+ "From the opportunities we have enjoyed in the examination of the
+ varieties and species of domesticated quadrupeds and birds, we
+ have never found any difficulty in deciding on the species to
+ which these varieties belong."
+
+Those of us who are still groping in darkness certainly have a right to
+ask who are the authorities alluded to, and what are those "characters
+which distinguish and separate species" as distinctly and infallibly as
+"genera?" They are certainly not in print.
+
+The doctor must pardon us for reminding him that there is printed
+evidence that his own mind is not always free from doubts. In the
+introduction of Audubon and Bachman's _Quadrupeds of America_, p. vii.,
+it is said:--
+
+ "Although _genera_ may be easily ascertained by the forms and
+ dental arrangements peculiar to each, many _species_ so nearly
+ approach each other in size, while they are so variable in color,
+ that it is exceedingly difficult to separate them with positive
+ certainty."
+
+Again, in speaking of the genus _vulpes_ (foxes), the same work says:--
+
+ "The characters of this genus differ so slightly from those of
+ the genus _canis_, that we are induced to pause before removing
+ it from the sub-genus in which it had so long remained. As a
+ general rule, we are obliged to _admit that a large fox is a
+ wolf, and a small wolf may be termed a fox_. So inconveniently
+ large, however, is the list of species in the old genus _canis_,
+ that it is, we think, advisable to separate into distinct groups
+ such species as possess any characters different from true
+ wolves."
+
+Speaking of the origin of the domestic dog, Dr. Bachman, in his work on
+_Unity of Races_, p. 63, says:--
+
+ "Notwithstanding all these difficulties--and we confess we are
+ not free from some doubts in regard to their identity (dog and
+ wolf)--if we were called upon to decide on any wild species as
+ the progenitor of our dogs, we would sooner fix upon the large
+ wolf than on any other dog, hyena, or jackal," &c.
+
+The doctor is unable, here at least (and we can point out many other
+cases), to "designate species;" and the recent investigations of
+Flourens, at the _Jardin des Plantes_, prove him wrong as regards the
+origin of the dog. The dog is not derived from the "large wolf," but,
+with it, produces hybrids, sterile after the third generation. The dog
+forms a genus apart.
+
+We repeat, then, that in a large number of _genera_, the species cannot
+be separated by any anatomical characters, and that it is from their
+history alone naturalists have arrived at those minute divisions now
+generally received. We may, without the fear of contradiction, go a step
+further, and assert that several of the races of men are as widely
+separated in physical organization, physiological and psychological
+characters, as are the canidę, equidę, felines, elephants, bears and
+others. When the white races of Europe, the Mongols of Asia, the
+aborigines of America, the black races of Africa and Oceanica are placed
+beside each other, they are marked by stronger differences than are the
+species of the genera above named. It has been objected that these gaps
+are filled by intermediate links which make the chain complete from one
+extremity to the other. The admission of the fact does not invalidate
+our position, for we have shown elsewhere (see _Types of Mankind_)
+_gradation_ is the law of nature. The extreme types, we have proven,
+have been distinct for more than 5000 years, and no existing causes
+during that time have transformed one type into another. The well-marked
+negro type, for example, stands face to face with the white type on the
+monuments of Egypt; and they differ more from each other than the dog
+and wolf, ass and _Equis Hemionus_, lion and tiger, &c. The hair and
+skin, the size and shape of head, the pelvis, the extremities, and other
+points, separate certain African and Oceanican negroes more widely than
+the above species. This will not be questioned, whatever difference of
+opinion may exist with regard to the permanency of these forms. In the
+language of Prof. Leidy, "the question to be determined is, whether the
+differences in the races of men are as permanent and of as much value as
+those which characterize species in the lower genera of animals." These
+races of men too are governed by the same laws of geographical
+distribution, as the species of the lower genera; they are found, as far
+back as history can trace them, as widely separated as possible, and
+surrounded by local Florę and Faunę.
+
+
+VARIETIES.
+
+This term is very conveniently introduced to explain all the
+difficulties which embarrass this discussion. Dr. Bachman insists that
+all the races of men are mere _varieties_, and sustains the opinion by a
+repetition of those analogies which have been so often drawn from the
+animal kingdom by Prichard and his school. It is well known that those
+animals which have been domesticated undergo, in a few generations, very
+remarkable changes in color, form, size, habits, &c. For example, all
+the hogs, black, white, brown, gray, spotted, &c., now found scattered
+over the earth, have, it is said, their parentage in one pair of wild
+hogs. "This being admitted," says Dr. B. "we invite the advocates of
+plurality in the human species to show wherein these varieties are less
+striking than their eight (alluding to Agassiz) originally created
+nations." Again--
+
+ "And how has the discovery been made that all the permanent races
+ are mere varieties, and not 'originally created' species, or
+ 'primitive varieties?' Simply because the naturalists of Germany,
+ finding that the original wild hog still exists in their forests,
+ have, in a thousand instances, reclaimed them from the woods. By
+ this means they have discovered that their descendants, _after a
+ few generations_, lose their ferocity, assume all colors," &c.
+
+The same reasoning is applied to horses, cattle, goats, sheep, &c.,
+while many, if not most of the best naturalists of the day deny that we
+know anything of the origin of our domestic animals. Geoffroy St.
+Hilaire, in his work, just out, denies it in toto. We are, however, for
+the sake of argument, willing to admit all the examples, and all he
+claims with regard to the origin of endless varieties in domesticated
+animals.[201]
+
+Let us, on the other hand, "invite the advocates of _unity_ of the human
+species" to say when and where such varieties have sprung up in the
+human family. We not only have the written history of man for 2000
+years, but his monumental history for 2000 more; and yet, while the
+naturalists of Germany are catching wild hogs, and recording in a
+thousand instances "after a few generations" these wonderful changes, no
+one has yet pointed out anything analogous in the human family; the
+porcupine family in England, a few spotted Mexicans, &c., do not meet
+the case; history records the origin of no permanent variety. No race of
+men has in the same country turned black, brown, gray, white, and
+spotted. The negroes in America have not in ten generations turned to
+all colors, though fully _domesticated_, like pigs and turkeys. The
+Jews in all countries for 2000 years are still Jews. The gypsies are
+everywhere still gypsies. In India, the different castes, of different
+colors, have been living together several thousand years, and are still
+distinct, &c. &c.
+
+Nor does domestication affect all animals and fowls equally; compare the
+camel, ass, and deer, with the hog and dog; the Guinea fowl, pea fowl,
+and goose, with pigeons, turkeys, and common fowls. In fact, no one
+animal can be taken as an analogue for another: each has its own
+physiological laws; each is influenced differently and in different
+degrees by the same external influences. How, then, can an animal be
+taken as an analogue for man?
+
+We have also abundant authority to show that all wild species do not
+present the same uniformity in external characters.
+
+ "All packs of American wolves usually consist of various shades
+ of color, and varieties nearly black have been occasionally found
+ in every part of the United States.... In a gang of wolves which
+ existed in Colleton District, South Carolina, a few years ago
+ (sixteen of which were killed by hunters in eighteen months), we
+ were informed that about one-fifth were black, and the others of
+ every shade of color, from black to dusky gray and yellowish
+ white."--AUDUBON & BACHMAN, 2d Amer. ed., vol. ii. pp. 130-1.
+
+Speaking of the white American wolf, the same authors say:--
+
+ "Their gait and movements are precisely the same as those of the
+ common dog, and their mode of copulating and number of young
+ brought forth at a litter, are about the same." (It might have
+ been added that their number of bones, teeth, whole anatomical
+ structure are the same.) "The diversity of their size and color
+ is remarkable, no two being quite alike."... "The wolves of the
+ prairies ... produce from six to eleven at a birth, of which
+ there are very seldom two alike in color."--_Op. cit._, p. 159.
+
+ "The common American wolf, Richardson observes, sometimes shows
+ remarkable diversity of color. On the banks of the Mackenzie River
+ I saw five young wolves leaping and tumbling over each other with
+ all the playfulness of the puppies of the domestic dog, and it is
+ not improbable they were all of one litter. One of them was pied,
+ another black, and the rest showed the colors of the common gray
+ wolves."
+
+The same diversity is seen in the prairie wolf, and naturalists have
+been much embarrassed in classifying the various wolves on account of
+colors, size, &c.
+
+All this is independent of _domestication_, and shows the uncertainty of
+analogues; and still it is remarkable that though considerable variety
+exists in the native dogs of America in color and size, they do not run
+into the thousand grotesque forms seen on the old continent, where a
+much greater mixture exists. The dogs of America, like the aboriginal
+races of men, are comparatively uniform. In the East, where various
+races have come together, the men, like the dogs, present endless
+varieties, Egypt, Assyria, India, &c.
+
+Let us suppose that one variety of hog had been discovered in Africa,
+one in Asia, one in Europe, one in Australia, another in America, as
+well marked as those Dr. B. describes; that these varieties had been
+transferred to other climates as have been Jews, gypsies, negroes, &c.,
+and had remained for ages without change of form or color, would they be
+considered as distinct species or not?--can any one doubt? The rule must
+work both ways, or the argument falls to the ground.
+
+In fact the Dr. himself makes admissions which fully refute his whole
+theory.
+
+ "Whilst," says he, "we are willing to allow some weight to the
+ argument advanced by President Smyth, who endeavors to account
+ for the varieties in man from the combined influences of three
+ causes, 'climate, the state of society, and manner of living,' we
+ are free to admit that it is impossible to account for the
+ varieties in the human family from the causes which he has
+ assigned."[202]
+
+The Dr. further admits, in the same work, that the races have been
+_permanent_ since the time of the old Egyptian empire, and _supposes_
+that at some extremely remote time, of which we have no record, that
+"they were more susceptible of producing varieties than at a later
+period." These suppositions answer a very good purpose in theology, but
+do not meet the requirements of science.
+
+
+HYBRIDITY.
+
+Having shown the insufficiency of all the other arguments in
+establishing the landmarks of _species_, let us now turn to those based
+on _hybridity_, which seems to be the last stronghold of the unity
+party. On this point hang all the difficulties of M. Gobineau, and had
+he been posted up to date here, his doubts would all have vanished. The
+last twelve months have added some very important facts to those
+previously published, and we shall, with as little detail as possible,
+present the subject in its newest light.
+
+It is contended that when two animals of distinct species, or, in other
+words, of distinct origin, are bred together, they produce a hybrid
+which is _infertile_, or which at least becomes sterile in a few
+generations if preserved free from admixture with the parent stocks. It
+is assumed that unlimited prolificness is a certain test of community of
+origin.
+
+We, on the contrary, contend that there is no abrupt line of
+demarcation; that no complete laws of hybridity have yet been
+established; that there is a _regular gradation_ in the prolificness of
+the species, and that, according to the best lights we now possess,
+there is a continued series from perfect sterility to perfect
+prolificacy. The degrees may be expressed in the following language:--
+
+1. That in which hybrids never reproduce; in other words, where the
+mixed progeny begins and ends with the first cross.
+
+2. That in which the hybrids are incapable of producing _inter se_, but
+multiply by union with the parent stock.
+
+3. That in which animals of unquestionably distinct species produce a
+progeny which are prolific _inter se_, but have a tendency to run out.
+
+4. That which takes place between closely proximate species; among
+mankind, for example, and among those domestic animals most essential to
+human wants and happiness; here the prolificacy is unlimited.
+
+It seems to be a law that in those genera where several or many species
+exist, there is a certain gradation which is shown in degrees of
+hybridity; some having greater affinity than others. Experiments are
+still wanting to make our knowledge perfect, but we know enough to
+establish our points.
+
+There are many points we have not space to dwell on, as the relative
+influence of the male and female on the offspring; the tendency of one
+species to predominate over another; the tendency of types to "crop out"
+after lying dormant for many generations; the fact that in certain
+species some of the progeny take after one parent and some after the
+other, while in other cases the offspring presents a medium type, &c.
+
+The genus _Equus_ (Horse) comprises six species, of which three belong
+to Asia, and three to Africa. The Asiatic species are the _Equus
+Caballus_ (Horse), _Equus Hemionus_ (Dzigguetai), and _Equus Asinus_
+(Ass). Those of Africa are the _Equus Zebra_ (Zebra), _Equus Montanus_
+(Daw), and the _Equus Quaccha_ (Quagga). The horse and ass alone have
+been submitted to domestication from time immemorial; the others have
+remained wild.
+
+It is well known that the horse and ass produce together an unprolific
+mule, and as these two species are the furthest removed from each other
+in their physical structure, Dr. Morton long since suggested that
+intermediate species bred together would show a higher degree of
+prolificness, and this prediction has been vindicated by experiments
+recently made in the Garden of Plants at Paris, where the ass and
+dzigguetai have been bred together for the last ten years. "What is very
+remarkable, these hybrids differ considerably from each other; some
+resemble much more closely the dzigguetai, others the ass." In regard to
+the product of the male dzigguetai and the jenny, Mr. Geoffroy St.
+Hilaire says:[203]--
+
+ "Another fact, not less worthy of interest, is the fecundity, if
+ not of all the mules, at least the firstborn among them; with
+ regard to this, the fact is certain; he has produced several
+ times with Jennies, and once with the female dzigguetai, the only
+ one he has covered."[204]
+
+At a meeting of the "Société Zoologique d'Acclimation,"
+
+ M. Richard (du Cantal) "parle des essais de croisements de
+ l'hémione avec l'anesse, et dit qu'ils ont donnč un mulet
+ beaucoup _plus ardent_ que l'āne. Il asserte que les produits de
+ l'hémione avec l'āne, sont féconds, et que le métis, nommé Polka,
+ ą déja produit."
+
+To what extent the prolificness of these two species will go is yet to
+be determined, and there is an unexplored field still open among the
+other species of this genus; it is highly probable that a gradation may
+be established from sterility, up to perfect prolificacy.
+
+Not only do the female ass and the male onager breed together, but a
+male offspring of this cross, with a mare, produces an animal more
+docile than either parent, and combining the best physical qualities,
+such as strength, speed, &c.; whence the ancients preferred the onager
+to the ass, for the production of mules.[205] Mr. Gliddon, who lived
+upwards of twenty years in Egypt and other eastern countries, informs me
+this opinion is still prevalent in Egypt, and is acted upon more
+particularly in Arabia, Persia, &c., where the _gour_, or wild ass,
+still roams the desert. The zebra has also been several times crossed
+with the horse.
+
+The genus _canis_ contains a great many species, as domestic dogs,
+wolves, foxes, jackals, &c., and much discussion exists as to which are
+really species and which mere varieties. In this genus experiments in
+crossing have been carried a step further than in the _Equidę_, but
+there is much yet to be done. All the species produce prolific
+offspring, but how far the prolificness might extend in each instance is
+not known; there is reason to believe that every grade would be found
+except that of absolute sterility which is seen in the offspring of the
+horse and ass.
+
+The following facts are given by M. Flourens, and are the result of his
+own observations at the _Jardin des Plantes_.
+
+ "The hybrids of the dog and wolf are sterile after the _third_
+ generation; those of the jackal and dog, are so after the
+ _fourth_.
+
+ "Moreover, if one of these hybrids is bred with one of the
+ primitive species, they soon return, completely and totally, to
+ this species.
+
+ "My experiments on the crossing of species have given me
+ opportunities of making a great many observations of this kind.
+
+ "The union of the dog and jackal produces a hybrid--a mixed
+ animal, an animal partaking almost equally of the two, but in
+ which, however, the type of the _jackal_ predominates over that of
+ the _dog_.
+
+ "I have remarked, in fact, in my experiments, that all types are
+ not equally dominant and persistent. The type of the dog is more
+ persistent than that of the wolf--that of the jackal more than
+ that of the dog; that of the horse is less than that of the ass,
+ &c. The hybrid of the dog and the wolf partakes more of the dog
+ than the wolf; the hybrid of the jackal and dog, takes more after
+ the jackal than dog; the hybrid of the horse and the ass partakes
+ less of the horse than the ass; it has the ears, back, rump, voice
+ of the ass; the horse neighs, the ass brays, and the mule brays
+ like the ass, &c.
+
+ "The hybrid of the dog and jackal, then, partakes more of the
+ jackal than dog--it has straight ears, hanging tail, does not
+ bark, and is wild--it is more jackal than dog.
+
+ "So much for the FIRST cross product of the dog with the jackal. I
+ continue to unite, from generation to generation, the successive
+ products with one of the two primitive stocks--with that of the
+ dog, for example. The hybrid of the _second generation_ does not
+ yet bark, but has already the ears pendent at the ends, and is
+ less savage. The hybrid of the third generation barks, has the
+ ears pendent, the tail turned up, and is no longer wild. The
+ hybrid of the _fourth generation_ is entirely a dog.
+
+ "Four generations, then, have sufficed to re-establish one of the
+ two primitive types--the type of the dog; and four generations
+ suffice, also, to bring back the other type."[206]
+
+From the foregoing facts, M. Flourens deduces, without assigning a
+reason, the following _non sequitur_:--
+
+ "Thus, then, either hybrids, born of the union of two distinct
+ species, unite and soon become sterile, or they unite with one of
+ the parent stocks, and soon return to this type--they in no case
+ give what may be called a new species, that is to say, an
+ intermediate durable species."[207]
+
+The dog also produces hybrids with the fox and hyena, but to what extent
+has not yet been determined. The hybrid fox is certainly prolific for
+several generations.
+
+There are also bovine, camelline, caprine, ovine, feline, deer with the
+ram, and endless other hybrids, running through the animal kingdom, but
+they are but repetitions of the above facts, and experiments are still
+far from being complete in establishing the _degrees_ which attach to
+each two species. We have abundant proofs, however, of the three first
+degrees of hybridity. 1st. Where the hybrid is infertile. 2d. Where it
+produces with the parent stock. 3d. Where it is prolific for one, two,
+three, or four generations, and then becomes sterile. Up to this point
+there is no diversity of opinion. Let us now inquire what evidence there
+is of the existence of the 4th degree, in which hybrids may form a new
+and permanent race.
+
+To show how slow has been our progress in this question, and what
+difficulties beset our path, we need only state that the facts
+respecting the dog, wolf, and jackal, quoted above from Flourens, have
+only been published within the last twelve months. The identity of the
+dog and wolf has heretofore been undetermined, and the _degrees_ of
+hybridity of the dog with the wolf and jackal were before unknown. These
+experiments do not extend beyond one species of wolf.
+
+M. Flourens says:--
+
+ "_Les espčces ne s'altčrent point, ne changent point, ne passent
+ point de l'une ą l'autre; les espčces sont_ FIXÉS."
+
+ "If species have a tendency to transformation, to pass one into
+ another, why has not time, which, in everything, effects all that
+ can happen, ended by disclosing, by betraying, by implying this
+ tendency.
+
+ "But time, they may tell me, is wanting. It is not wanting. It is
+ 2000 years since Aristotle wrote, and we recognize in our day all
+ the animals which he describes; and we recognize them by the
+ characters which he assigns.... Cuvier states that the history of
+ the elephant is more exact in Aristotle than in Buffon. They bring
+ us every day from Egypt, the remains of animals which lived there
+ two or three thousand years ago--the ox, crocodiles, ibis, &c.
+ &c., which are the same as those of the present day. We have under
+ our eyes _human mummies_--the skeleton of that day is identical
+ with that of the Egyptian of our day."
+
+(M. Flourens might have added that the mummies of the white and black
+races show them to have been as distinct then as now, and that the
+monumental drawings represent the different races more than a thousand
+years further back.)
+
+ "Thus, then, through three thousand years, no species has
+ changed. An experiment which continues through three thousand
+ years, is not an experiment to be made--it is an experiment
+ _made_. Species do not change."[208]
+
+_Permanence of type_, then, is the only test which he can adduce for the
+designation of species, and he here comes back plainly to the position
+we have taken. Let us now test the races of men by this rule. The white
+Asiatic races, the Jew, the Arab, the Egyptian, the negro, at least, are
+distinctly figured on the monuments of Egypt and Assyria, as distinct as
+they are now, and _time_ and change of climate have not transformed any
+one type into another. In whatever unexplored regions of the earth the
+earliest voyagers have gone, they have found races equally well marked.
+These races are all prolific _inter se_, and there is every reason to
+believe that we here find the fourth and last degree of hybridity.
+Whether the prolificacy is _unlimited_ between all the races or species
+of men is still an unsettled point, and experiments have not yet been
+fully and fairly made to determine the question. The dog and wolf become
+sterile at the _third_. The dog and jackal at the fourth generation,
+and who can tell whether the law of hybridity might not show itself in
+man, after a longer succession of generations. There are no observations
+yet of this kind in the human family. It is a common belief in our
+Southern States, that mulattoes are less prolific, and attain a less
+longevity than the parent stocks. I am convinced of the truth of this
+remark, when applied to the mulatto from the strictly white and black
+races, and I am equally convinced, from long personal observation, that
+the _dark_-skinned European races, as Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians,
+Basques, &c., mingle much more perfectly with the negroes than do fair
+races, thus carrying out the law of gradation in hybridity. If the
+mulattoes of New Orleans and Mobile be compared with those of the
+Atlantic States, the fact will become apparent.
+
+The argument in favor of unlimited prolificacy between species may be
+strongly corroborated by an appeal to the history of our domestic
+animals, whose history is involved in the same impenetrable mystery as
+that of man. M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire very justly remarks that we know
+nothing of the origin of our domestic animals; because we find wild
+hogs, goats, sheep, &c., in certain parts of Europe, several thousand
+years subsequent to the early migrations of man, this does not prove
+that the domestic come from these wild ones. The reverse may be the
+case.[209]
+
+We have already made some general observations on the _genus canis_,
+whose natural history is most closely allied to that of man. Let us now
+inquire whether the domestic dog is but one species, or whether under
+this head have been included many proximate species of unlimited
+prolificacy. If we try the question by _permanency of type_, like the
+races of men, and all well-marked species, the doubt must be yielded.
+
+There are strong reasons given by Dr. Morton and other naturalists, for
+supposing that our common dogs, independent of mixtures of _their_
+various races, may also have an infusion of the blood of foxes, wolves,
+jackals, and even the hyena; thus forming, as we see every day around
+us, _curs_ of every possible grade; but setting aside all this, we have
+abundant evidence to show that each zoological province has its original
+dog, and, perhaps, not unfrequently several.
+
+In one chapter on hybridity in the "_Types of Mankind_," it is shown
+that our Indian dogs in America present several well-marked types,
+unlike any in the Old World, and which are indigenous to the soil. For
+example, the Esquimaux dog, the Hare Indian dog, the North American dog,
+and several others. We have not space here to enter fully into the
+facts, but they will be found at length in the work above mentioned.
+These dogs, too, are clearly traced to wild species of this continent.
+
+In other parts of the world we find other species equally well marked,
+but we shall content ourselves with the facts drawn from the ancient
+monuments of Egypt. It is no longer a matter of dispute that as far
+back, at least, as the twelfth dynasty, about 2300 years before Christ,
+we find the common small dog of Egypt, the greyhound, the staghound, the
+turnspit, and several other types which do not correspond with any dogs
+that can now be identified.[210] We find, also, the mastiff admirably
+portrayed on the monuments of Babylon, which dog was first brought from
+the East to Greece by Alexander the Great, 300 years B. C. The museums
+of natural history, also, everywhere abound in the remains of _fossil_
+dogs, which long antedate all living species.
+
+The wolf, jackal, and hyena are also found distinctly drawn on the early
+monuments of Egypt, and a greyhound, exactly like the English greyhound,
+with semi-pendent ears, is seen on a statue in the Vatican, at Rome. It
+is clear, then, that the leading types of dogs of the present day (and
+probably all) existed more than four thousand years ago, and it is
+equally certain that the type of a dog, when kept pure, will endure in
+opposite climates for ages. Our staghounds, greyhounds, mastiffs,
+turnspits, pointers, terriers, &c., are bred for centuries, not only in
+Egypt and Europe without losing their types, but in any climate which
+does not destroy them. No one denies that climate influences these
+animals greatly, but the greyhound, staghound, or bulldog can never be
+transformed into each other.
+
+The facts above stated cannot be questioned, and it is admitted that
+these species are all prolific without limit _inter se_.
+
+The llama affords another strong argument in favor of the fourth degree
+of hybridity. Cuvier admits but two species--the llama (_camelus
+llacma_), of which he regards the _alpaca_ as a variety, and the vigogne
+(_camelus vicunna_). More recent naturalists regard the alpaca as a
+distinct species, among whom is M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire.[211] At all
+events, it seems settled that they _all_ breed together without limit.
+
+ "A son tour, aprčs la vigogne, viendra bientōt l'alpavigogne,
+ fruit du croisement de l'alpaca avec la vigogne. Don Francisco de
+ Theran, il ya quarante ans, et M. de Castelnau, avaient annoncé
+ déją que ce métis est fécond, et qu'il porte une laine presque
+ aussi longue que celle de l'alpaca, presque aussi fine que celle
+ de la vigogne.... M. Weddell a mis tout récemment l'Académie des
+ Sciences ą mźme de voir et d'admirer cette admirable toison. Il a
+ confirmé en mźme temps un fait que n'avait trouvé que des
+ incrédules parmi les naturalists--la fécondité de
+ l'alpaca-vigogne: l'abbé Cabrera, curé de la petite ville de
+ Macusani, a obtenu une race qui se perpétue et dont il possčde
+ déją tout un troupeau. C'est, donc, pour ainsi dire, une
+ nouvelle espčce créée par l'homme; et si paradoxal qu' ait pu
+ sembler ce résultat, il est, fort heureusement pour l'industrie,
+ _définitivement acquis ą la science_.
+
+ "Ce résultat n'aurait rien de paradoxal, si l'alpaca n'était,
+ comme l'ont pensé plusieurs auteurs, qu'une race domestique et
+ trźs modifiée de la vigogne. Cette objection contre le pretendu
+ principe de l'infécondite des mulets ne serait d'ailleurs levée
+ que pour faire place ą une autre; _l'alpa-llama_ serait alors un
+ mulet, issu de deux espčces distincts, et l'alpa-llama est fécond
+ comme l'alpa-vigogne."[212]
+
+We have recently seen exhibited in Mobile a beautiful hybrid of the
+alpaca and common sheep, and the owner informed us that he had a flock
+at home, which breed perfectly.
+
+Dr. Bachman confesses that he has not examined the drawings given in the
+works of Lepsius, Champollion, Rossellini, and other Egyptologists, of
+various animals represented on the monuments, and ridicules the idea of
+their being received as authority in matters of natural history.
+Although many of the drawings are rudely done, most of them, in outline,
+are beautifully executed, and Dr. B. is the first, so far as we know, to
+call the fact in question. Dr. Chas. Pickering is received by Dr. B. as
+high authority in scientific matters--he has not only examined these
+drawings, but their originals. Lepsius, Champollion, Rossellini,
+Wilkinson, and all the Egyptologists, have borne witness to the
+reliability of these drawings, and have enumerated hundreds of animals
+and plants which are perfectly identified.
+
+Martin, the author of the work on "_Man and Monkeys_," is certainly good
+authority. He says:--
+
+ "Now we have in modern Egypt and Arabia, and also in Persia,
+ varieties of greyhound closely resembling those of the ancient
+ remains of art, and it would appear that two or three varieties
+ exist--one smooth, another long haired, and another smooth with
+ long-haired ears, resembling those of the spaniel. In Persia, the
+ greyhound, to judge from specimens we have seen, is silk-haired,
+ with a fringed tail. They are of a black color; but a fine breed,
+ we are informed, is of a slate or ash color, as are some of the
+ smooth-haired greyhounds depicted in the Egyptian paintings. In
+ Arabia, a large, rough, powerful race exists; and about Akaba,
+ according to Laborde, a breed of slender form, fleet, with a long
+ tail, very hairy, in the form of a brush, with the ears erect and
+ pointed, closely resembling, in fact, many of those figured by
+ the ancient Egyptians."[213]
+
+He goes on to quote Col. Sykes, and others, for other varieties of
+greyhound in the east, unlike any in Europe.
+
+Dr. Pickering, after enumerating various objects identified on the
+monuments of the third and fourth dynasties, as Nubians, white races,
+the ostrich, ibis, jackal, antelope, hedgehog, goose, fowls, ducks,
+bullock, donkey, goats, dog-faced ape, hyena, porcupine, wolves, foxes,
+&c. &c., when he comes down to the twelfth dynasty, says:--
+
+ "The paintings on the walls represent a vast variety of subjects;
+ including, most unexpectedly, the greater part of the _arts_ and
+ _trades_ practised among civilized nations at the present day;
+ also birds, quadrupeds, fishes, and insects, amounting to an
+ _extended treatise on zoology_, well deserving the attention of
+ naturalists. The date accompanying these representations has
+ been astronomically determined by Biot, at about B. C. 2200
+ (Champollion-Figeac, _Egyp. Arc._); and Lepsius's chronological
+ computation corresponds."[214]
+
+Dr. P. gives us a fauna and flora of Egypt, running further back than
+Usher's date for the creation, and it cannot be doubted that the
+drawings are as reliable as those in any modern work on natural history.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[198] Natural History of Man and Monkeys.
+
+[199] Fauna and Flora within Living Animals, p. 9.
+
+[200] Doctrine of the Unity of the Human Race, p. 10.
+
+[201] We are told that the pigs in one department of France are all
+black, in another, all white, and local causes are assigned! When I was
+a boy, my father introduced what was then called the China hog into the
+Union District, South Carolina; they were black, with white faces. On a
+visit to that district about twelve years ago, I found the whole country
+for 40 miles covered with them. On a visit one year ago, I found they
+had been supplanted entirely by other breeds of different colors: the
+old familiar type had disappeared.
+
+[202] _Op. cit._, p. 177.
+
+[203] _Domestication et Naturalization des Animaux utiles_, par M.
+Isadore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, p. 71, Paris, 1854.
+
+[204] Ibid.
+
+[205] Columbia, p. 135.
+
+[206] _De la Longevité Humaine_, &c., par P. Flourens, Paris, 1855.
+
+[207] M. Flourens here, perhaps, speaks too positively. The blood of the
+apparently lost species will show itself from time to time for many, if
+not endless generations.
+
+[208] _Op. cit._
+
+[209] _Op. cit._, p. 122.
+
+[210] It has been objected, that the drawings cannot be relied on, as
+some of these types are no longer to be found. But there are several
+well-marked types of domestic animals on the old monuments that no
+longer exist, because they have been supplanted by better breeds. In
+this country several varieties of the Indian dogs are rapidly
+disappearing for the same reason. The llama must give place, in the same
+way, to the cow and the horse. Many other instances may be cited.
+
+[211] _Op. cit._, p. 29. 1854.
+
+[212] _Op. cit._, p. 101.
+
+[213] _Op. cit._, p. 53.
+
+[214] _Geographical Dist._, p. 17.
+
+This work, I believe, is not yet issued, but Dr. Pickering has kindly
+sent me the first 150 pages, as printed.
+
+
+
+
+C.
+
+
+Mr. Gobineau remarks (p. 367), that he has very serious doubts as to the
+unity of origin. "These doubts, however," he continues, "I am compelled
+to repress, because they are in contradiction to a scientific fact,
+which I cannot refute--the prolificness of half-breeds; and secondly,
+what is of much greater weight with me, they impugn a religious
+interpretation sanctioned by the church."
+
+With regard to the prolificness of half-breeds, I have already mentioned
+such facts as might have served to dispel the learned writer's doubts,
+had he been acquainted with them. In reference to the other, more
+serious, obstacle to his admission of the plurality of origins, he
+himself intimates (p. 339) that the authority of this interpretation
+might, perhaps, be questioned without transgressing the limits imposed
+by the church. Believing this view to be correct, I shall venture on a
+few remarks upon this last scruple of the author, which is shared by
+many investigators of this interesting subject.
+
+ "The strict rule of scientific scrutiny," says the most learned
+ and formidable opponent in the adversary's camp,[215] "exacts,
+ according to modern philosophers, in matters of inductive
+ reasoning, an exclusive homage. It requires that we should close
+ our eyes against all presumptive and exterior evidence, and
+ _abstract our minds from all considerations not derived from the
+ matters of fact which bear immediately on the question_. The
+ maxim we have to follow in such controversies is 'fiat justitia,
+ ruat coelum.' _In fact, what is actually true, it is always
+ desirous to know, whatever consequences may arise from its
+ admission._"
+
+To this sentiment I cheerfully subscribe: it has always been my maxim.
+Yet I find it necessary, in treating of this subject, to touch on its
+_biblical_ connections, for although we have great reason to rejoice at
+the improved tone of toleration, or even liberality which prevails in
+this country, the day has not come when science can be severed from
+theology, and the student of nature can calmly follow her truths, no
+matter whither they may lead. What a mortifying picture do we behold in
+the histories of astronomy, geology, chronology, cosmogony, geographical
+distribution of animals, &c.; they have been compelled to fight their
+way, step by step, through human passion and prejudice, from their
+supposed contradiction to Holy Writ. But science has been
+vindicated--their great truths have been established, and the Bible
+stands as firmly as it did before. The last great struggle between
+science and theology is the one we are now engaged in--the _natural
+history of man_--it has now, for the first time, a fair hearing before
+Christendom, and all any question should ask is "_daylight and fair
+play_."
+
+The Bible should not be regarded as a text-book of natural history. On
+the contrary, it must be admitted that none of the writers of the Old or
+New Testament give the slightest evidence of knowledge in any department
+of science beyond that of their profane contemporaries; and we hold that
+the natural history of man is a department of science which should be
+placed upon the same footing with others, and its facts dispassionately
+investigated. What we require for our guidance in this world is truth,
+and the history of science shows how long it has been stifled by bigotry
+and error.
+
+It was taught for ages that the sun moved around the earth; that there
+had been but one creation of organized beings; that our earth was
+created but six thousand years ago, and that the stars were made to shed
+light upon it; that the earth was a plane, with sides and ends; that all
+the animals on earth were derived from Noah's ark, &c. But what a
+different revelation does science give us? We now know that the earth
+revolves around the sun, that the earth is a globe which turns on its
+own axis, that there has been a succession of destructions and creations
+of living beings, that the earth has existed countless ages, and that
+there are stars so distant as to require millions of years for their
+light to reach us; that instead of one, there are many centres of
+creation for existing animals and plants, &c.
+
+If so many false readings of the Bible have been admitted among
+theologians, who has authority or wisdom to say to science--"thus far
+shalt thou go, and no further?" The doctrine of _unity_ for the human
+family may be another great error, and certainly a denial of its truth
+does no more, nay, less violence to the language of the Bible, than do
+the examples above cited.
+
+It is a popular error, and one difficult to eradicate, that all the
+species of animals now dwelling on the earth are descendants of pairs
+and septuples preserved in Noah's ark, and certainly the language of
+Genesis on this point is too plain to admit of any quibble; it does
+teach that every living being perished by the flood, except those alone
+which were saved in the ark. Yet no living naturalist, in or out of the
+church, believes this statement to be correct. The centres of creation
+are so numerous, and the number of animals so great that it is
+impossible it should be so.
+
+On the other hand, the first chapter of Genesis gives an account
+entirely in accordance with the teachings of science.
+
+ "And God said, let the earth bring forth _grass_, the herb
+ yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, after his kind,
+ whose seed is in itself upon the earth; and it was so." _Gen._ i.
+ 11.
+
+ "And God said, let the waters bring forth _abundantly_, the moving
+ creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in
+ the open firmament of heaven." v. 20.
+
+ "And God created great _whales_, and every living creature that
+ moveth, which the waters brought forth _abundantly_," &c. v. 21.
+
+ "And God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after
+ his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after
+ his kind, and it was so." v. 24.
+
+ "God created _man_ in his own image; _male_ and _female_ created
+ he _them_."
+
+In the language above quoted, nothing is said about one seed or one
+blade of grass; about one fruit tree, or about _single pairs_ of animals
+or human beings. On the contrary, this chapter closes with the distinct
+impression on the mind that everything was created _abundantly_. The
+only difficulty arises with regard to the human family, and we are here
+confused by the contradictory statements of the first and second
+chapters. In the first chapter, man was created _male and female_, on
+the sixth day--in the second chapter, woman was not created until after
+Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden. Commentators explain this
+discrepancy by the difference in style of the two chapters, and the
+inference that Genesis is a compilation made up by Moses from two or
+three different writers; but it is not our purpose here to open these
+theological discussions. Both sides are sustained by innumerable
+authorities. From what we have before shown, it is clear that the
+inspired writers possessed no knowledge of physical sciences, and as
+little respecting the natural history of man, as of any other
+department.
+
+Their _moral_ mission does not concern our subject, and we leave that to
+theologians, to whom it more properly belongs. On the other hand, we ask
+to be let alone in our study of the physical laws of the universe. The
+theologian and the naturalist have each an ample field without the
+necessity of interfering with each other.
+
+The Bible is here viewed only in its relations with physical science. We
+have already alluded to the fact that in astronomy, geology, &c., the
+authors of the Bible possessed no knowledge beyond that of their profane
+contemporaries, and a dispassionate examination of the text from Genesis
+to Revelation will show that the writers had but an imperfect knowledge
+of contemporary races, and did not design to teach the doctrine of unity
+of mankind, or rather origin from a single pair. The writer of the
+_Pentateuch_ could attach little importance to such an idea, as he
+nowhere alludes to a future existence, or rewards and punishments--all
+good and evil, as far as the human race is concerned, with him, were
+merely temporal.
+
+This idea of a future state does not distinctly appear in the Jewish
+writings until after their return from the Babylonish captivity.
+
+The extent of the surface of the globe, known even to the writers of the
+New Testament, formed but a small fraction of it--little beyond the
+confines of the Roman empire. No allusion is even made to Southern and
+Eastern Asia; Africa, south of the Desert; Australia, America, &c.; all
+of which were inhabited long before the time of Moses; and of the races
+of men inhabiting these countries, and their languages, they certainly
+knew nothing. The Chinese and Indian empires, at least, are beyond
+dispute. The early Hebrews were a pastoral people; had little commercial
+or other intercourse with the rest of the world, and were far from being
+"learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." The Egyptian empire was
+fully developed--arts and science as flourishing--pyramids and gorgeous
+temples built, not only before the time of Moses, but long prior to that
+of the Patriarch Abraham, who, with Sarah, went to Egypt to buy corn of
+the reigning Pharaoh. What is remarkable, too, the Egyptians had their
+ethnographers, and had already classified the human family into four
+races, and depicted them on the monuments, viz: the black, white,
+yellow, and red.[216]
+
+In fact, nothing can be more incomplete, contradictory, and
+unsatisfactory than the ethnography of Genesis. We see Cain going into a
+foreign land and taking a wife before there were any women born of his
+parent stock. Cities are seen springing up in the second and third
+generations, in every direction, &c. All this shows that we have in
+Genesis no satisfactory history of the human family, and that we can
+rely no more upon its ethnography than upon its geography, astronomy,
+cosmogony, geology, zoology, &c.
+
+We have already alluded to the fact that the writers of the New
+Testament give no evidence of additional knowledge in such matters. The
+sermon from the Mount comes like a light from Heaven, but this volume is
+mute on all that pertains to the physical laws of the universe.
+
+If the common origin of man were such an important point in the eyes of
+the Almighty as we have been taught to believe, is it reasonable to
+suppose it would have been left by the inspired writers in such utter
+confusion and doubt? The coming of Christ changed the whole question,
+and we should expect, at least in the four Gospels, for some authority
+that would settle this vital point; but strange as the assertion may
+seem, there is not a single passage here to be found, which, by any
+distortion, can be made to sustain this _unity_; and on searching
+diligently the New Testament, from one end to the other, we were not a
+little surprised to find but a single text that seemed to bear directly
+upon it, viz: the oft quoted one in Acts xvii. 26: "And hath made of
+_one blood_ all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the
+earth," &c. Being astonished at the fact that this great question of
+common origin of man should thus be made to hang so much upon a single
+verse, it occurred to me that there might be some error, some
+interpolation in the text, and having no material at hand for such an
+investigation in Mobile, I wrote to a competent friend in Philadelphia,
+to examine for me all the Greek texts and old versions, and his reply
+confirmed fully my suspicions. The word _blood_ is an interpolation, and
+not to be found in the original texts. The word _blood_ has been
+rejected by the Catholic Church, from the time of St. Jerome to the
+present hour. The text of Tischendorf is regarded, I believe, generally
+as the most accurate Greek text known, and in this the word blood does
+not appear. I have at hand a long list of authorities to the same
+effect, but as it is presumed no competent authority will call our
+assertion in question, it is needless to cite them. The verse above
+alluded to in Acts should, therefore, read:--
+
+ "And hath made of _one_ all races (genus) of men," &c.
+
+The word _blood_ is a gloss, and we have just as much right to
+interpolate _one form_, _one substance_, _one nature_, _one
+responsibility_, or anything else, as _blood_.
+
+These remarks on the ethnography of the Bible might be greatly extended,
+but my object here is simply to show that the Bible, to say the least,
+leaves the field open, and that I have entered it soberly, discreetly,
+and advisedly.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[215] Prichard, _Nat. Hist. of Man_, p. 8. London, 1843.
+
+[216] See "_Types of Mankind_," by Nott and Gliddon.
+
+
+
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |Transcriber's note: |
+ | |
+ | Inconsistent use of law-giver vs. lawgiver was made |
+ | consistent as "law-giver". |
+ | |
+ | Page 476: Corrected typographical error "criterea". |
+ | |
+ | Footnote 39: Placement of quotation marks has been |
+ | made consistent. |
+ | |
+ | Footnote 59: Added missing closing quotation mark "...'When|
+ | three of us are together, the Triad is among us.'" |
+ | |
+ | Footnote 85: I believe the editor meant "page 187". |
+ | |
+ | Footnote 195: Added dash to sign-off "--H." to conform to |
+ | other footnotes. |
+ | |
+ | All other inconsistencies, variant spellings, and a large |
+ | number of mis-quoted references have been preserved. |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY
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+<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of
+Races, by Arthur, comte de Gobineau</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races</p>
+<p> With Particular Reference to Their Respective Influence in the Civil and Political History of Mankind</p>
+<p>Author: Arthur, comte de Gobineau</p>
+<p>Release Date: August 17, 2011 [eBook #37115]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF RACES***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Fritz Ohrenschall, Sarah Thomson,<br />
+ and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+ (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="note" style="margin-bottom: 3em;">
+<a name="TN" id="TN"></a><h1 class="center">Transcriber's Note:</h1>
+
+<p class="center">Skip to <a href="#PREFACE">Editor's Preface</a> or list of <a href="#TOC">Contents</a></p>
+
+<ul>
+ <li>Minor corrections are marked in the text with <ins class="correction">a dotted under-line</ins>. Hover the cursor over the underlined text and the nature of the correction should appear.</li>
+ <li>Greek transliterations are marked with <ins class="greek">a dashed under-line</ins>.</li>
+ <li>Additional HTML links have been added to the Contents list for ease of navigation</li>
+ <li>
+ <a title="Go to Footnote 39" href="#Footnote-39">Footnote 39:</a> Original: "...(See Roland on the same subject with St. Palay.") Author has likely converted '--' to parenthesis - I have moved the terminal quotation mark outside the parenthesis.</li>
+ <li><a title="Go to Footnote 59" href="#Footnote-59">Footnote 59:</a> Original: "...'When three of us are together, the Triad is among us.' Terminating " added.</li>
+ <li><a title="Go to Footnote 195" href="#Footnote-195">Footnote 195:</a> Standardized the Translator's ititials to "--H."</li>
+ <li>Inconsistent use of law-giver vs. lawgiver was made consistent as "law-giver".</li>
+ <li>All other inconsistencies, variant spellings, and a large number of mis-quoted references have been preserved.</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h2><small>THE</small><br /><br />
+MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL<br /><br />
+<big>DIVERSITY OF RACES.</big></h2>
+
+<p class="center break"><small>THE</small><br /><br />
+MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL<br /><br />
+<big>DIVERSITY OF RACES,</big></p>
+
+<p class="center"><small>WITH</small><br /><br />
+
+PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THEIR RESPECTIVE INFLUENCE<br />
+IN THE CIVIL AND POLITICAL HISTORY OF MANKIND.<br /><br />
+
+<small>FROM THE</small><br /><br />
+
+FRENCH OF COUNT A. DE GOBINEAU:<br /><br /><br />
+
+<small>WITH AN<br /><br />
+
+ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION AND COPIOUS HISTORICAL NOTES.</small><br /><br />
+
+<big><em class="smcap">By</em> H. HOTZ.</big><br /><br /><br />
+
+TO WHICH IS ADDED AN APPENDIX CONTAINING A SUMMARY<br />
+OF THE LATEST SCIENTIFIC FACTS BEARING UPON THE<br />
+QUESTION OF UNITY OR PLURALITY OF SPECIES.<br /><br />
+
+<big><em class="smcap">By</em> J. C. NOTT, M. D.,</big><br />
+
+<small>OF MOBILE.</small><br /><br /><br />
+
+PHILADELPHIA:<br />
+<big>J. B. LIPPINCOTT &amp; CO.</big><br />
+1856.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class="center">Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by<br /><br />
+
+J. B. LIPPINCOTT &amp; CO.,<br /><br />
+
+in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United<br />
+States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h3><small>TO THE</small><br /><br />
+
+STATESMEN OF AMERICA,</h3>
+
+<p class="center"><span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',sans-serif; font-size:150%;">This Work,</span><br /><br />
+
+THE FIRST ON THE RACES OF MEN CONTEMPLATED FROM THE<br />
+POINT OF VIEW OF THE STATESMAN AND HISTORIAN<br />
+RATHER THAN THE NATURALIST,<br /><br />
+
+<small>IS</small><br /><br />
+
+RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED<br /><br />
+
+<small>BY THE</small><br /><br />
+
+AMERICAN EDITOR.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagevii" id="pagevii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3 class="break"><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>EDITOR'S PREFACE.</h3>
+
+<hr class="minor" />
+
+<p>It has been truly observed that a good book
+seldom requires, and a bad one never deserves, a
+long preface. When a foreign book, however, is
+obtruded on the notice of the public, it is but just
+that the reasons for so doing should be explained;
+and, in the present case, this is the more necessary,
+as the title of the work might lead many to believe
+that it was intended to re-agitate the question of
+unity or plurality of the human species&mdash;a question
+which the majority of readers consider satisfactorily
+and forever settled by the words of Holy Writ.
+Such, however, is not the purpose of either the
+author or the editor. The design of this work
+is, to contribute toward the knowledge of the
+leading mental and moral characteristics of the
+various races of men which have subsisted from
+the dawn of history to the present era, and to
+ascertain, if possible, the degree to which they are
+susceptible of improvement. The annals of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="pageviii" id="pageviii">[Pg viii]</a></span>
+world demonstrate beyond a doubt, that the
+different branches of the human family, like the
+individual members of a community, are endowed
+with capacities, different not only in degree but in
+kind, and that, in proportion to these endowments,
+they have contributed, and still contribute to that
+great march of progress of the human race, which
+we term civilization. To portray the nature of
+these endowments, to estimate the influence of each
+race in the destinies of all, and to point out the
+effects of mixture of races in the rise and fall of
+great empires, has been the task to the accomplishment
+of which, though too extensive for one
+man, the author has devoted his abilities. The
+troubles and sufferings of his native country, from
+sudden political gyrations, led him to speculate
+upon their causes, which he believes are to be
+traced to the great variety of incongruous ethnical
+elements composing the population of France. The
+deductions at which he arrived in that field of
+observation he subjected to the test of universal
+history; and the result of his studies for many
+years, facilitated by the experiences of a diplomatic
+career, are now before the American public
+in a translation. That a work, on so comprehensive
+a subject, should be exempt from error, cannot be
+expected, and is not pretended; but the aim is<span class="pagenum"><a name="pageix" id="pageix">[Pg ix]</a></span>
+certainly a noble one, and its pursuit cannot be
+otherwise than instructive to the statesman and
+historian, and no less so to the general reader.
+In this country, it is peculiarly interesting and
+important, for not only is our immense territory
+the abode of the three best defined varieties of the
+human species&mdash;the white, the negro, and the
+Indian&mdash;to which the extensive immigration of
+the Chinese on our Pacific coast is rapidly adding
+a fourth, but the fusion of diverse nationalities is
+nowhere more rapid and complete; nowhere is the
+great problem of man's perfectibility being solved
+on a grander scale, or in a more decisive manner.
+While, then, nothing can be further removed from
+our intentions, or more repugnant to our sentiments,
+than to wage war on religion, or throw
+ridicule on the labors of the missionary and philanthropist,
+we thought it not a useless undertaking
+to lay before our countrymen the opinions of a
+European thinker, who, without straining or
+superseding texts to answer his purposes, or departing
+in any way from the pure spirit of Christianity,
+has reflected upon questions which with us
+are of immense moment and constant recurrence.</p>
+
+<p class="right10">H. H.</p>
+
+<p class="left10"><em class="smcap">Philadelphia</em>, <i>Nov. 1, 1855</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden"><a name="pagex" id="pagex">[Pg x]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexi" id="pagexi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3 class="break"><a name="TOC" id="TOC"></a>CONTENTS.</h3>
+
+<hr class="minor" />
+
+<ul class="none">
+<li class="center"><big><a title="Go to the Analytical Introduction." href="#INTRODUCTION">ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION.</a></big>
+
+<p class="chapdesc">The discussion of the moral and intellectual diversity of races
+totally independent of the question of unity or plurality of
+origin&mdash;Leading propositions of this volume, with illustrations
+and comments.</p>
+</li>
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 1." href="#CHAPTER_I"><big>CHAPTER I.</big></a>
+<br />POLITICAL CATASTROPHES.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">Perishable condition of all human societies&mdash;Ancient ideas concerning
+this phenomenon&mdash;Modern theories
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 105, Chapter 1." href="#page105">105</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 2." href="#CHAPTER_II"><big>CHAPTER II.</big></a>
+
+<br />ALLEGED CAUSES OF POLITICAL CATASTROPHES EXAMINED.
+
+<p class="chapdesc"><em class="smcap">Fanaticism</em>&mdash;Aztec Empire of Mexico.&mdash;<em class="smcap">Luxury</em>&mdash;Modern European
+States as luxurious as the ancient.&mdash;Corruption of
+morals&mdash;The standard of morality fluctuates in the various
+periods of a nation's history: example, France&mdash;Is no higher
+in youthful communities than in old ones&mdash;Morality of Paris.&mdash;<em class="smcap">Irreligion</em>&mdash;Never
+spreads through all ranks of a nation&mdash;Greece
+and Rome&mdash;Tenacity of Paganism
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 114, Chapter 2." href="#page114">114</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 3." href="#CHAPTER_III"><big>CHAPTER III.</big></a>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexii" id="pagexii">[Pg xii]</a></span>
+
+<br />INFLUENCE OF GOVERNMENT UPON THE LONGEVITY OF
+NATIONS.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">Misgovernment defined&mdash;Athens, China, Spain, Germany, Italy,
+etc.&mdash;Is not in itself a sufficient cause for the ruin of nations.
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 138, Chapter 3." href="#page138">138</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 4." href="#CHAPTER_IV"><big>CHAPTER IV.</big></a>
+
+<br />DEFINITION OF THE WORD DEGENERACY&mdash;ITS CAUSE.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">Skeleton history of a nation&mdash;Origin of castes, nobility, etc.&mdash;Vitality
+of nations not necessarily extinguished by conquest&mdash;China,
+Hindostan&mdash;Permanency of their peculiar civilizations.
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 146, Chapter 4." href="#page146">146</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 5." href="#CHAPTER_V"><big>CHAPTER V.</big></a>
+
+<br />THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF RACES IS
+NOT THE RESULT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">Antipathy of races&mdash;Results of their mixture&mdash;The scientific
+axiom of the absolute equality of men, but an extension of
+the political&mdash;Its fallacy&mdash;Universal belief in unequal endowment
+of races&mdash;The moral and intellectual diversity of races
+not attributable to institutions&mdash;Indigenous institutions are
+the expression of popular sentiments; when foreign and
+imported, they never prosper&mdash;Illustrations: England and
+France&mdash;Roman Empire&mdash;European Colonies&mdash;Sandwich
+Islands&mdash;St. Domingo&mdash;Jesuit missions in Paraguay
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 172, Chapter 5." href="#page172">172</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 6." href="#CHAPTER_VI"><big>CHAPTER VI.</big></a>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexiii" id="pagexiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span>
+
+<br />THIS DIVERSITY IS NOT THE RESULT OF GEOGRAPHICAL
+SITUATION.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">America&mdash;Ancient empires&mdash;Phenicians and Romans&mdash;Jews&mdash;Greece
+and Rome&mdash;Commercial cities of Europe&mdash;Isthmus of
+Darien
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 201, Chapter 6." href="#page201">201</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 7." href="#CHAPTER_VII"><big>CHAPTER VII.</big></a>
+
+<br />INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY UPON MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL
+DIVERSITY OF RACES.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">The term Christian civilization examined&mdash;Reasons for rejecting
+it&mdash;Intellectual diversity no hindrance to the universal diffusion
+of Christianity&mdash;Civilizing influence of Christian religion
+by elevating and purifying the morals, etc.; but does not
+remove intellectual disparities&mdash;Various instances&mdash;Cherokees&mdash;Difference
+between imitation and comprehension of
+civilized life
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 215, Chapter 7." href="#page215">215</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to 'Introductory Note to Chapters 8 and 9.'" href="#I_NOTE"><big>INTRODUCTORY NOTE</big><br />
+TO<br />
+CHAPTERS VIII. AND IX.</a>
+
+<p class="chapdesc">Rapid survey of the populations comprised under the appellation
+"Teutonic"&mdash;Their present ethnological area, and leading
+characteristics&mdash;Fondness for the sea displayed by the
+Teutonic tribes of Northwestern Europe, and perceptible in
+their descendants
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 234, Introductory Note." href="#page234">234</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 8." href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><big>CHAPTER VIII.</big></a>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexiv" id="pagexiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span>
+
+<br />CIVILIZATION.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">Mr. Guizot's and Mr. W. von Humboldt's definitions examined.
+Its elements
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 246, Chapter 8." href="#page246">246</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 9." href="#CHAPTER_IX"><big>CHAPTER IX.</big></a>
+
+<br />ELEMENTS OF CIVILIZATION&mdash;CONTINUED.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">Definition of the term&mdash;Specific differences of civilizations&mdash;Hindoo,
+Chinese, European, Greek, and Roman civilizations&mdash;Universality
+of Chinese civilization&mdash;Superficiality of ours&mdash;Picture
+of the social condition of France
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 272, Chapter 9." href="#page272">272</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 10." href="#CHAPTER_X"><big>CHAPTER X.</big></a>
+
+<br />QUESTION OF UNITY OR PLURALITY OF RACES.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">Systems of Camper, Blumenbach, Morton, Carus&mdash;Investigations
+of Owen, Vrolik, Weber&mdash;Prolificness of hybrids, the great
+scientific stronghold of the advocates of unity of species
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 312, Chapter 10." href="#page312">312</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 11." href="#CHAPTER_XI"><big>CHAPTER XI.</big></a>
+
+<br />PERMANENCY OF TYPES.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">The language of Holy Writ in favor of common origin&mdash;The
+permanency of their characteristics separates the races of
+men as effectually as if they were distinct creations&mdash;Arabs,
+Jews&mdash;Prichard's argument about the influence of climate
+examined&mdash;Ethnological history of the Turks and Hungarians
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 336, Chapter 11." href="#page336">336</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 12." href="#CHAPTER_XII"><big>CHAPTER XII.</big></a>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexv" id="pagexv">[Pg xv]</a></span>
+
+<br />CLASSIFICATION OF RACES.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">Primary varieties&mdash;Test for recognizing them; not always reliable&mdash;Effects
+of intermixture&mdash;Secondary varieties&mdash;Tertiary
+varieties&mdash;Amalgamation of races in large cities&mdash;Relative
+scale of beauty in various branches of the human family&mdash;Their
+inequality in muscular strength and powers of endurance
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 368, Chapter 12." href="#page368">368</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to 'Note to the Preceding Chapter.'" href="#C_NOTE">NOTE TO THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.</a>
+
+<p class="chapdesc">The position and treatment of woman among the various races
+of men a proof of their moral and intellectual diversity
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 384, Note." href="#page384">384</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 13." href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><big>CHAPTER XIII.</big></a>
+
+<br />PERFECTIBILITY OF MAN.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">Imperfect notions of the capability of savage tribes&mdash;Parallel
+between our civilization and those that preceded it&mdash;Our
+modern political theories no novelty&mdash;The political parties
+of Rome&mdash;Peace societies&mdash;The art of printing a means, the
+results of which depend on its use&mdash;What constitutes a
+"living" civilization&mdash;Limits of the sphere of intellectual
+acquisitions
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 391, Chapter 13." href="#page391">391</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+
+<li class="center"><a title="Go to Chapter 14." href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><big>CHAPTER XIV.</big></a>
+
+<br />MUTUAL RELATIONS OF DIFFERENT MODES OF INTELLECTUAL
+CULTURE.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">Necessary consequences of a supposed equality of all races&mdash;Uniform
+testimony of history to the contrary&mdash;Traces of extinct
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="pagexvi" id="pagexvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span>civilizations among barbarous tribes&mdash;Laws which govern
+the adoption of a state of civilization by conquered populations&mdash;Antagonism
+of different modes of culture; the Hellenic
+and Persian, European and Arab, etc.
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 414, Chapter 14." href="#page414">414</a></span>
+</p>
+</li>
+
+
+<li class="center"><big><a title="Go to Chapter 15." href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></big>
+
+<br />MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
+THREE GREAT VARIETIES.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">Impropriety of drawing general conclusions from individual
+cases&mdash;Recapitulatory sketch of the leading features of the
+Negro, the Yellow, and the White races&mdash;Superiority of the
+latter&mdash;Conclusion of volume the first
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Page 439, Chapter 15." href="#page439">439</a></span>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="minor" />
+
+</li>
+
+<li class="center"><big><a title="Go to the Appendix." href="#APPENDIX">APPENDIX.</a></big>
+
+<br /><em class="smcap">By J. C. Nott</em>, M. D.
+
+<p class="chapdesc">A&mdash;Dr. Morton's later tables
+<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Appendix A, Page 461." href="#A">461</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="chapdesc">B&mdash;Species; varieties. Latest experiments upon the laws of
+hybridity<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Appendix B, Page 473." href="#B">473</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="chapdesc">C&mdash;Biblical connections of the question of unity or plurality of
+species<span class="linenum"><a title="Go to Appendix C, Page 504." href="#C">504</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="minor" />
+
+</li>
+
+<li class="center"><big><a href="#FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</a></big></li>
+
+</ul>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page13" id="page13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3 class="break"><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION.</h3>
+
+<hr class="minor" />
+
+<p>Before departing on one's travels to a foreign
+country, it is well to cast a glance on the map,
+and if we expect to meet and examine many
+curiosities, a correct itinerary may not be an
+inconvenient travelling companion. In laying
+before the public the present work of Mr. Gobineau,
+embracing a field of inquiry so boundless
+and treating of subjects of such vast importance
+to all, it has been thought not altogether useless
+or inappropriate to give a rapid outline of the
+topics presented to the consideration of the
+reader&mdash;a ground-plan, as it were, of the extensive
+edifice he is invited to enter, so that he may
+afterwards examine it at leisure, and judge of
+the symmetry of its parts. This, though fully
+sensible of the inadequacy of his powers to the
+due execution of the task, the present writer has
+endeavored to do, making such comments on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page14" id="page14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+way, and using such additional illustrations as the
+nature of the subject seemed to require.</p>
+
+<p class="tbreak">Whether we contemplate the human family
+from the point of view of the naturalist or of the
+philosopher, we are struck with the marked
+dissimilarity of the various groups. The obvious
+physical characteristics by which we distinguish
+what are termed different races, are not more
+clearly defined than the psychical diversities observable
+among them. "If a person," says the learned
+vindicator of the unity of the human species,<a name="FNanchor-1" id="FNanchor-1"></a><a href="#Footnote-1" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 1.">[1]</a>
+"after surveying some brilliant ceremony or court
+pageant in one of the splendid cities of Europe,
+were suddenly carried into a hamlet in Negro-land,
+at the hour when the sable tribes recreate
+themselves with dancing and music; or if he were
+transported to the saline plains over which bald
+and tawny Mongolians roam, differing but little in
+hue from the yellow soil of their steppes, brightened
+by the saffron flowers of the iris and tulip;
+if he were placed near the solitary dens of the
+Bushman, where the lean and hungry savage<span class="pagenum"><a name="page15" id="page15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+crouches in silence, like a beast of prey, watching
+with fixed eyes the birds which enter his pitfall,
+or greedily devouring the insects and reptiles
+which chance may bring within his grasp; if he
+were carried into the midst of an Australian
+forest, where the squalid companions of kangaroos
+may be seen crawling in procession, in imitation of
+quadrupeds, would the spectator of such phenomena
+imagine the different groups which he had surveyed
+to be the offspring of one family? And if
+he were led to adopt that opinion, how would he
+attempt to account for the striking diversities in
+their aspect and manner of existence?"</p>
+
+<p>These diversities, so graphically described by
+Mr. Prichard, present a problem, the solution of
+which has occupied the most ingenious minds,
+especially of our times. The question of unity
+or plurality of the human species has of late
+excited much animated discussion; great names
+and weighty authorities are enlisted on either
+side, and a unanimous decision appears not likely
+to be soon agreed upon. But it is not my purpose,
+nor that of the author to whose writings these
+pages are introductory, to enter into a contest which
+to me seems rather a dispute about words than
+essentials. The distinguishing physical characteristics
+of what we term races of man are recognized<span class="pagenum"><a name="page16" id="page16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+by all parties, and whether these races are <em>distinct
+species</em> or <em>permanent varieties</em><a name="FNanchor-2" id="FNanchor-2"></a><a href="#Footnote-2" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 2.">[2]</a> only of the same,
+cannot affect the subject under investigation. In
+whatever manner the diversities among the
+various branches of the human family may have
+originated, whether they are primordial or were
+produced by external causes, their permanency is
+now generally admitted. "The Ethiopian cannot
+change his skin." If there are, or ever have been,
+external agencies that could change a white man
+into a negro, or <i>vice versa</i>, it is obvious that such
+causes have either ceased to operate, or operate
+only in a lapse of time so incommensurable as to
+be imponderable to our perceptions, for the races
+which now exist can be traced up to the dawn of
+history, and no well-authenticated instance of a
+transformation under any circumstances is on
+record. In human reasoning it is certainly legitimate
+to judge of the future by the experiences of
+the past, and we are, therefore, warranted to conclude
+that if races have preserved their identity
+for the last two thousand years, they will not lose
+it in the next two thousand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page17" id="page17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+It is somewhat singular, however, that while
+most writers have ceased to explain the physical
+diversities of races by external causes, such as
+climate, food, etc., yet many still persist in maintaining
+the absolute equality of all in other
+respects, referring such differences in character as
+are undeniable, solely to circumstances, education,
+mode of life, etc. These writers consider all races
+as merely in different stages of development, and
+pretend that the lowest savage, or at least his
+offspring, may, by judicious training, and in course
+of time, be rendered equal to the civilized man.
+Before mentioning any facts in opposition to this
+doctrine, let us examine the reasoning upon which
+it is based.</p>
+
+<p>"Man is the creature of circumstances," is an
+adage extended from individuals to races, and repeated
+by many without considering its bearing.
+The celebrated author of <cite>Wealth of Nations</cite><a name="FNanchor-3" id="FNanchor-3"></a><a href="#Footnote-3" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 3.">[3]</a> says,
+"that the difference between the most dissimilar
+characters, between a philosopher and a common
+street porter, for example, arises, not so much from
+nature, but from habit and education." That a
+mind, which, with proper nurture, might have
+graced a philosopher, should, under unfavorable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page18" id="page18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+circumstances, remain forever confined in a narrow
+and humble sphere, does not, indeed, seem at
+all improbable; but Dr. Smith certainly does not
+mean to deny the existence of natural talents, of
+innate peculiar capacities for the accomplishment
+of certain purposes. This is what they do who
+ascribe the mental inequality of the various
+branches of the human family to external circumstances
+only. "The intellectual qualities of man,"
+say they, "are developed entirely by education.
+The mind is, at first, a perfect blank, fitted and
+ready to receive any kind of impressions. For
+these, we are dependent on the political, civil, and
+religious institutions under which we live, the
+persons with whom we are connected, and the circumstances
+in which we are placed in the different
+periods of life. Wholly the creatures of association
+and habit, the characters of men are formed
+by the instruction, conversation, and example of
+those with whom they mix in society, or whose
+ideas they imbibe in the course of their reading
+and studies."<a name="FNanchor-4" id="FNanchor-4"></a><a href="#Footnote-4" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 4.">[4]</a> Again: "As all men, in all nations,
+are of the same species, are endowed with
+the same senses and feelings, and receive their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page19" id="page19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+perceptions and ideas through similar organs, the
+difference, whether physical or moral, that is observed
+in comparing different races or assemblages
+of men, can arise only from external and
+adventitious circumstances."<a name="FNanchor-5" id="FNanchor-5"></a><a href="#Footnote-5" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 5.">[5]</a> The last position is
+entirely dependent on the first; if we grant the
+first, relating to individuals, the other follows as a
+necessary consequence. For, if we assume that
+the infinite intellectual diversities of individuals
+are owing solely to external influences, it is self-evident
+that the same diversities in nations, which
+are but aggregations of individuals, must result
+from the same causes. But are we prepared to
+grant this first position&mdash;to assert that man is but
+an automaton, whose wheelwork is entirely without&mdash;the
+mere buffet and plaything of accident and
+circumstances? Is not this the first step to gross
+materialism, the first argument laid down by that
+school, of which the great Locke has been stigmatized
+as the father, because he also asserts that the
+human mind is at first a blank tablet. But Locke
+certainly could not mean that all these tablets
+were the same and of equal value. A tablet of
+wax receives an impression which one of marble
+will not; on the former is easily effaced what the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page20" id="page20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+other forever retains. We do not deny that circumstances
+have a great influence in moulding
+both moral and intellectual character, but we do
+insist that there is a primary basis upon which
+the degree of that influence depends, and which
+is the work of God and not of man or chance.
+What agriculturist could be made to believe that,
+with the same care, all plants would thrive equally
+well in all soils? To assert that the character of
+a man, whether good or wicked, noble or mean, is
+the aggregate result of influences over which he
+has no control, is to deny that man is a free agent;
+it is infinitely worse than the creed of the Buddhist,
+who believes that all animated beings possess
+a detached portion of an all-embracing intelligence,
+which acts according to the nature and
+capacity of the machine of clay that it, for the
+time, occupies, and when the machine is worn out
+or destroyed, returns, like a rivulet to the sea, to
+the vast ocean of intelligence whence it came, and
+in which again it is lost. In the name of common
+sense, daily observation, and above all, of revelation,
+we protest against a doctrine which paves
+the road to the most absurd as well as anti-religious
+conclusions. In it we recognize the fountain
+whence flow all the varied forms and names
+under which Atheism disguises itself. But it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page21" id="page21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+useless to enter any further upon the refutation of
+an argument which few would be willing seriously
+to maintain. It is one of those plausible speculations
+which, once admitted, serve as the basis of
+so many brilliant, but airy, theories that dazzle
+and attract those who do not take the trouble of
+examining their solidity.</p>
+
+<p>Once we admit that circumstances, though they
+may impede or favor the development of powers,
+cannot give them; in other words, that they can
+call into action, but cannot create, moral and intellectual
+resources; no argument can be drawn
+from the unity of species in favor of the mental
+equality of races. If two men, the offspring of
+the same parents, can be the one a dunce, the
+other a genius, why cannot different races, though
+descended of the same stock, be different also in
+intellectual endowments? We should laugh at,
+or rather, pity the man who would try to persuade
+us that there is no difference in color, etc., between
+the Scandinavian and the African, and yet it is by
+some considered little short of heresy to affirm,
+that there is an imparity in their minds as well as
+in their bodies.</p>
+
+<p>We are told&mdash;and the objection seems indeed
+a grave one&mdash;that if we admit psychical as well
+as physical gradations in the scale of human races,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page22" id="page22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+the lowest must be so hopelessly inferior to the
+higher, their perceptions and intellectual capacities
+so dim, that even the light of the gospel
+cannot illumine them. Were it so, we should at
+once abandon the argument as one above human
+comprehension, rather than suppose that God's
+mercy is confined to any particular race or races.
+But let us earnestly investigate the question. On
+so vital a point the sacred record cannot but be
+plain and explicit. To it let us turn. Man&mdash;even
+the lowest of his species&mdash;has a soul. However
+much defaced God's image, it is vivified
+by His breath. To save that soul, to release it
+from the bondage of evil, Christ descended upon
+earth and gave to mankind, not a complicated
+system of philosophy which none but the learned
+and intellectual could understand, but a few
+simple lessons and precepts, comprehensible to the
+meanest capacity. He did not address himself to
+the wise of this world, but bade them be like
+children if they would come unto him. The
+learned Pharisees of Judea jeered and ridiculed
+him, but the poor woman of Canaan eagerly
+picked up the precious crumbs of that blessed repast
+which they despised. His apostles were chosen
+from among the lowly and simple, his first followers
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page23" id="page23">[Pg 23]</a></span>belonged to that class. He himself hath said:<a name="FNanchor-6" id="FNanchor-6"></a><a href="#Footnote-6" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 6.">[6]</a>
+"I thank thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and
+earth, because thou hast hid these things from the
+wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto
+babes." How then shall we judge of the degree
+of intellect necessary to be a follower of Jesus?
+Are the most intellectual, the best informed men
+generally the best Christians? Or does the word
+of God anywhere lead us to suppose that at the
+great final judgment the learned prelate or ingenious
+expositor of the faith will be preferred to
+the humble, illiterate savage of some almost unknown
+coast, who eagerly drinks of the living
+water whereof whosoever drinketh shall never
+thirst again?</p>
+
+<p>This subject has met with the attention which
+its importance deserves, at the hands of Mr.
+Gobineau, and he also shows the fallacy of the
+idea that Christianity will remove the mental
+inequality of races. True religion, among all
+nations who are blessed with it and sincerely
+embrace it, will purify their morals, and establish
+friendly relations between man and his fellow-man.
+But it will not make an <em>intellectually</em> inferior
+race equal to a superior one, because it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page24" id="page24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+not designed to bestow talents or to endow with
+genius those who are devoid of it. Civilization is
+essentially the result of man's intellectual gifts,
+and must vary in its character and degree like
+them. Of this we shall speak again in treating of
+the <em>specific differences of civilization</em>, when the term
+<em>Christian civilization</em> will also be examined.</p>
+
+<p>One great reason why so many refuse to recognize
+mental as well as physical differences among
+races, is the common and favorite belief of our
+time in the infinite perfectibility of man. Under
+various forms this development-theory, so flattering
+to humanity, has gained an incredible number
+of adherents and defenders. We believe ourselves
+steadily marching towards some brilliant goal, to
+which every generation brings us nearer. We
+look with a pity, almost amounting to contempt,
+upon those who preceded us, and envy posterity,
+which we expect to surpass us in a ratio even
+greater than we believe ourselves to surpass our
+ancestors. It is indeed a beautiful and poetic idea
+that civilization is a vast and magnificent edifice
+of which the first generation laid the corner-stone,
+and to which each succeeding age contributes new
+materials and new embellishments. It is our tower
+of Babel, by which we, like the first men after the
+flood, hope to reach heaven and escape the ills of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page25" id="page25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+life. Some such idea has flattered all ages, but in
+ours it has assumed a more definite form. We
+point with pride to our inventions, annihilating&mdash;we
+say&mdash;time and distance; our labor-saving machines
+refining the mechanic and indirectly diffusing
+information among all classes, and confidently
+look forward to a new era close at hand, a millennium
+to come. Let us, for a moment, divest ourselves
+of the conceit which belongs to every age,
+as well as to every country and individual; and
+let us ask ourselves seriously and candidly: In
+what are we superior to our predecessors? We
+have inventions that they had not, it is true, and
+these inventions increase in an astonishing ratio;
+we have clearer ideas of the laws which govern
+the material world, and better contrivances to
+apply these laws and to make the elements subservient
+to our comfort. But has the human mind
+really expanded since the days of Pythagoras and
+Plato? Has the thinker of the nineteenth century
+faculties and perceptions which they had not?
+Have we one virtue more or one vice less than
+former generations? Has human nature changed,
+or has it even modified its failings? Though
+we succeed in traversing the regions of air as
+easily and swifter than we now do broad continents
+and stormy seas; though we count all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page26" id="page26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+worlds in the immensity of space; though we
+snatch from nature her most recondite secrets,
+shall we be aught but men? To the true philosopher
+these conquests over the material world
+will be but additional proofs of the greatness of
+God and man's littleness. It is the vanity and
+arrogance of the creature of clay that make him
+believe that by his own exertions he can arrive at
+God-like perfection. The insane research after
+the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life may
+be classed among the many other futile attempts
+of man to invade the immutable decree: "Thus
+far, and no farther." To escape from the moral and
+intellectual imperfections of his nature, there is
+but one way; the creature must humbly and devoutly
+cast himself into the ever-open arms of the
+Creator and seek for knowledge where none
+knocketh in vain. This privilege he has enjoyed
+in all ages, and it is a question which I would
+hesitate to answer whether the progress of physical
+science has not, in many cases at least, rather
+the effect of making him self-sufficient and too
+confident in his own powers, than of bringing him
+nearer to the knowledge of the true God. It is
+one of the fatal errors of our age in particular, to
+confound the progress of physical science with a
+supposed moral progress of man. Were it so, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page27" id="page27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+Bible would have been a revelation of science as
+well as of religion, and that it is not is now beginning
+to be conceded, though by no means so generally
+as true theology would require; for the law
+of God was intended for every age, for every
+country, for every individual, independent of the
+state of science or a peculiar stage of civilization,
+and not to be modified by any change which man
+might make in his material existence. With due
+deference, then, to those philosophers who assert
+that the moral nature of the human species has
+undergone a change at various periods of the
+world's history; and those enthusiasts who dream
+of an approaching millennium, we hold, that human
+nature has always been the same and always
+will be the same, and that no inventions or discoveries,
+however promotive of his material well-being,
+can effect a moral change or bring him
+any nearer to the Divine essence than he was in
+the beginning of his mundane existence. Science
+and knowledge may indeed illumine his earthly
+career, but they can shed no light upon the path
+he is to tread to reach a better world.</p>
+
+<p>Christ himself has recognized the diversity of
+intellectual gifts in his parable of the talents, from
+which we borrow the very term to designate those
+gifts; and if, in a community of pure and faithful<span class="pagenum"><a name="page28" id="page28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+Christians, there still are many degrees and kinds
+of talents, is it reasonable to suppose that in that
+millennium&mdash;the only one I can imagine&mdash;when all
+nations shall call on His name with hope and praise,
+all mental imparities of races will be obliterated?
+There are, at the present time, nations upon whom
+we look down as being inferior in civilization to
+ourselves, yet they are as good&mdash;if, indeed, not
+better&mdash;Christians than we are as a people. The
+progress of physical science, by facilitating the
+intercourse between distant parts of the world,
+tends, indeed, to diffuse true religion, and in this
+manner&mdash;and this manner only&mdash;promotes the
+moral good of mankind. But here it is only an
+instrument, and not an agent, as the machines
+which the architect uses to raise his building
+materials do not erect the structure.</p>
+
+<p>One more reason why the unity of the human
+species cannot be considered a proof of equal intellectual
+capability of races. It is a favorite
+method of naturalists to draw an analogy between
+man and the brute creation; and, so far as he belongs
+to the animal kingdom, this method is undoubtedly
+correct and legitimate. But, with regard
+to man's higher attributes, there is an impassable
+barrier between him and the brute, which, in
+the heat of argument, contending parties have not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page29" id="page29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
+always sufficiently respected. The great Prichard
+himself seems sometimes to have lost sight of it.<a name="FNanchor-7" id="FNanchor-7"></a><a href="#Footnote-7" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 7.">[7]</a>
+Thus, he speaks of "psychological" diversities in
+varieties of the same undoubted species of animal,
+though it is obvious that animals can have no
+psychological attributes. But I am willing to
+concede to Mr. Prichard all the conclusions he
+derives from this analogy in favor of unity of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page30" id="page30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
+human species. All dogs, he believes, are derived
+from one pair; yet, there are a number of varieties
+of dogs, and these varieties are different not
+only in external appearance, but in what Mr.
+Prichard would call psychological qualities. No
+shepherd expects to train a common cur to be the
+intelligent guardian of a flock; no sportsman to
+teach his hounds, or their unmixed progeny, to
+perform the office of setters. That the characteristics
+of every variety of dogs are permanent so
+long as the breed remains pure, every one knows,
+and that their distinctive type remains the same in
+all countries and through all time, is proved by
+the mural paintings of Egypt, which show that,
+2,000 years B. C., they were as well known as in
+our day.<a name="FNanchor-8" id="FNanchor-8"></a><a href="#Footnote-8" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 8.">[8]</a> If, then, this permanency of "psychological"
+(to take Mr. Prichard's ground) diversity
+is compatible with unity of origin in the dog, why
+not in the case of man? I am far from desiring to
+call into question the unity of our species, but I
+contend that the rule must work both ways, and
+if "psychological" diversities can be permanent
+in the branches of the same species of animals,
+they can be permanent also in the branches of the
+human family.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page31" id="page31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+In the preceding pages, I have endeavored to
+show that the unity of species is no proof of equal
+intellectual capability of races, that mental imparities
+do not conflict with the universality of
+the gospel tidings, and that the permanency of
+these imparities is consistent with the reasoning
+of the greatest expounder of the unity theory. I
+shall now proceed to state the facts which prove
+the intellectual diversities among the races of man.
+In doing so, it is important to guard against an
+error into which so many able writers have fallen,
+that of comparing individuals rather than masses.</p>
+
+<p>What we term national character, is the aggregate
+of the qualities preponderating in a community.
+It is obvious that when we speak of the
+artistic genius of the Greeks, we do not mean that
+every native of Hellas and Ionia was an artist;
+and when we call a nation unwarlike or valorous,
+we do not thereby either stigmatize every individual
+as a coward, or extol him as a hero. The
+same is the case with races. When, for example,
+we assert that the black race is intellectually inferior
+to the white, it is not implied that the most
+intelligent negro should still be more obtuse than
+the most stupid white man. The maximum intellect
+and capacity of one race may greatly exceed
+the minimum of another, without placing them on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page32" id="page32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+an equality. The testimony of history, and the
+results of philanthropic experiment, are the data
+upon which the ethnologist must institute his
+inquiries, if he would arrive at conclusions instructive
+to humanity.</p>
+
+<p>Let us take for illustration the white and the
+black races, supposed by many to represent the
+two extremes of the scale of gradation. The
+whole history of the former shows an uninterrupted
+progress; that of the latter, monotonous
+stagnation. To the one, mankind owes the most
+valuable discoveries in the domain of thought,
+and their practical application; to the other, it
+owes nothing. For ages plunged in the darkest
+gloom of barbarism, there is not one ray of even
+temporary or borrowed improvement to cheer the
+dismal picture of its history, or inspire with hope
+the disheartened philanthropist. At the boundary
+of its territory, the ever-encroaching spirit of
+conquest of the European stops powerless.<a name="FNanchor-9" id="FNanchor-9"></a><a href="#Footnote-9" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 9.">[9]</a> Never,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page33" id="page33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+in the history of the world, has a grander or more
+conclusive experiment been tried than in the case
+of the negro race. We behold them placed in
+immediate possession of the richest island in
+the richest part of the globe, with every advantage
+that climate, soil, geographical situation,
+can afford; removed from every injurious contact,
+yet with every facility for constant intercourse
+with the most polished nations of the earth;
+inheriting all that the white race had gained by
+the toil of centuries in science, politics, and morals;
+and what is the result? As if to afford a still
+more irrefragable proof of the mental inequality
+of races, we find separate divisions of the same
+island inhabited, one by the pure, the other by
+a half-breed race; and the infusion of the white
+blood in the latter case forms a population incontestably
+and avowedly superior. In opposition to
+such facts, some special pleader, bent upon establishing
+a preconceived notion, ransacks the
+records of history to find a few isolated instances
+where an individual of the inferior race has displayed
+average ability, and from such exceptional<span class="pagenum"><a name="page34" id="page34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+cases he deduces conclusions applicable to the
+whole mass! He points with exultation to a
+negro who calculates, a negro who is an officer of
+artillery in Russia, a few others who are employed
+in a counting-house. And yet he does not even
+tell us whether these <i>rar&aelig; aves</i> are of pure blood
+or not, as is often the case.<a name="FNanchor-10" id="FNanchor-10"></a><a href="#Footnote-10" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 10.">[10]</a> Moreover, these instances
+are proclaimed to the world with an air of
+triumph, as if they were drawn at random from
+an inexhaustible arsenal of facts, when in reality
+they are all that the most anxious research could
+discover, and form the stock in trade of every
+declaimer on the absolute equality of races.</p>
+
+<p>Had it pleased the Creator to endow all branches
+of the human family equally, all would then have
+pursued the same career, though, perhaps, not all
+with equal rapidity. Some, favored by circumstances,
+might have distanced others in the race;
+a few, peculiarly unfortunately situated, would
+have lagged behind. Still, the progress of all
+would have been in the same direction, all would
+have had the same stages to traverse. Now is this<span class="pagenum"><a name="page35" id="page35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+the case? There are not a few who assert it.
+From our earliest infancy we are told of the
+savage, barbarous, semi-civilized, civilized, and
+enlightened states. These we are taught to consider
+as the steps of the ladder by which man
+climbs up to infinite perfection, we ourselves being
+near the top, while others are either a little below
+us, or have scarcely yet firmly established themselves
+upon the first rounds. In the beautiful language
+of Schiller, these latter are to us a mirror
+in which we behold our own ancestors, as an adult
+in the children around him re-witnesses his own
+infancy. This is, in a measure, true of nations of
+the same race, but is it true with regard to different
+races? It is little short of presumption to
+venture to combat an idea perhaps more extensively
+spread than any of our time, yet this we
+shall endeavor to do. Were the differences in
+civilization which we observe in various nations
+of the world, differences of degree only, and not
+of kind, it is obvious that the most advanced individual
+in one degree must closely approach the
+confines of a higher. But this is not the case.
+The highest degree of culture known to Hindoo
+or Chinese civilization, approaches not the possessor
+one step nearer to the ideas and views of
+the European. The Chinese civilization is as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page36" id="page36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+perfect, in its own way, as ours, nay more so.<a name="FNanchor-11" id="FNanchor-11"></a><a href="#Footnote-11" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 11.">[11]</a> It
+is not a mere child, or even an adult not yet arrived
+at maturity; it is rather a decrepit old man.
+It too has its degrees; it too has had its periods
+of infancy, of adult age, of maturity. And when
+we contemplate its fruits, the immense works
+which have been undertaken and completed
+under its &aelig;gis, the systems of morals and politics
+to which it gave rise, the inventions which signalized
+its more vigorous periods, we cannot but
+admit that it is entitled in a high degree to our
+veneration and esteem.<a name="FNanchor-12" id="FNanchor-12"></a><a href="#Footnote-12" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 12.">[12]</a> Moreover it has excellencies
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page37" id="page37">[Pg 37]</a></span>which our civilization as yet has not; it
+pervades all classes, ours not. In the whole Chinese
+empire, comprising, as it does, one-third of the
+human race, we find few individuals unable to
+read and write; in China proper, none. How many
+European countries can pretend to this? And
+yet, because Chinese civilization has a different
+tendency from ours, because its course lies in another
+direction, we call it a semi-civilization. At
+what time of the world's history then have we&mdash;the
+<em>civilized</em> nations&mdash;passed through this stage of
+semi-civilization?</p>
+
+<p>The monuments of Sanscrit literature, the magnificent
+remains of palaces and temples, the great
+number of ingenious arts, the elaborate systems of
+metaphysics, attest a state of intellectual culture,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page38" id="page38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+far from contemptible, among the Hindoos. Yet
+their civilization, too, we term a semi-civilization,
+albeit it is as little like the Chinese as it is like
+anything ever seen in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Few who will carefully investigate and reflect
+upon these facts, will doubt that the terms Hindoo,
+Chinese, European civilization, are not indicative
+of degrees only, but mean the respective
+development of powers essentially different in
+their nature. We may consider our civilization
+the best, but it is both arrogant and unphilosophical
+to consider it as the only one, or as the
+standard by which to measure all others. This
+idea, moreover, is neither peculiar to ourselves nor
+to our age. The Chinese even yet look upon us
+as barbarians; the Hindoos probably do the same.
+The Greeks considered all extra-Hellenic peoples
+as barbarians. The Romans ascribed the same
+pre-excellency to themselves, and the predilections
+for these nations, which we imbibe already in
+our academic years from our classical studies,
+cause us to share the same opinion, and to view
+with their prejudices nations less akin to us than
+they. The Persians, for instance, whom the
+Greeks self-complacently styled outside-barbarians,
+were, in reality, a highly cultivated people, as no
+one can deny who will examine the facts which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page39" id="page39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+modern research has brought to light. Their arts,
+if not Hellenic, still attained a high degree of perfection.
+Their architecture, though not of Grecian
+style, was not inferior in magnificence and splendor.
+Nay, I for one am willing to render myself
+obnoxious to the charge of classical heresy, by
+regarding the pure Persians as a people, in some
+respects at least, superior to the Greeks. Their
+religious system seems to me a much purer, nobler
+one than the inconsistent, immoral mythology of
+our favorites. Their ideas of a good and an evil
+power in perpetual conflict, and of a mediator who
+loves and protects the human race; their utter detestation
+of every species of idolatry, have to me
+something that prepossesses me in their favor.</p>
+
+<p>I have now alleged, in a cursory manner, my
+principal reasons for considering civilizations as
+specifically distinct. To further dilate upon the
+subject, though I greatly desire to do so, would
+carry me too far; not, indeed, beyond the scope
+of the inquiries proposed in this volume, but beyond
+the limited space assigned for my introduction.
+I shall add only, that&mdash;assuming the intellectual
+equality of all branches of the human
+family&mdash;we can assign no causes for the differences
+of <em>degree only</em> of their development. Geographical
+position cannot explain them, because the
+people who have made the greatest advance, have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page40" id="page40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+not always been the most favorably situated. The
+greatest geographical advantages have been in
+possession of others that made no use of them,
+and became of importance only by changing owners.
+To cite one of a thousand similar instances.
+The glorious Mississippi Valley, with its innumerable
+tributary streams, its unparalleled fertility
+and mineral wealth, seems especially adapted by
+nature for the abode of a great agricultural and
+commercial nation. Yet, the Indians roamed over
+it, and plied their canoes on its rivers, without ever
+being aware of the advantages they possessed. The
+Anglo-Saxon, on the contrary, no sooner perceived
+them than he dreamed of the conquest of the world.
+We may therefore compare such and other advantages
+to a precious instrument which it requires
+the skill of the workman to use. To ascribe differences
+of civilizations to the differences of laws
+and political institutions, is absolutely begging the
+question, for such institutions are themselves an
+effect and an inherent portion of the civilization,
+and when transplanted into foreign soils, never
+prosper. That the moral and physical well-being
+of a nation will be better promoted when liberty
+presides over her councils than when stern despotism
+sits at the helm, no one can deny; but it is
+obvious that the nation must first be prepared to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page41" id="page41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+receive the blessings of liberty, lest they prove a
+curse.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the place for a few remarks upon the
+epithet Christian, applied to our civilization. Mr.
+Gobineau justly observes, that he knows of no
+social or political order of things to which this term
+may fitly be said to belong. We may justly speak of
+a Brahminic, Buddhistic, Pagan, Judaic civilization,
+because the social or political systems designated
+by these appellations were intimately connected
+with a more or less exclusive theocratical formula.
+Religion there prescribed everything: social and
+political laws, government, manners, nay, in many
+instances, dress and food. But one of the distinguishing
+characteristics of Christianity is its universality.
+Right at the beginning it disclaimed
+all interference in temporal affairs. Its precepts
+may be followed under every system of government,
+in every path of life, every variety of modes
+of existence. Such is, in substance, Mr. Gobineau's
+view of the subject. To this I would add a few
+comments of my own. The error is not one of
+recent date. Its baneful effects have been felt
+from almost the first centuries of the establishment
+of the Church down to our times. Human legislation
+ought, indeed, to be in strict accordance with
+the law of God, but to commend one system as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page42" id="page42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+Christian, and proscribe another as unchristian, is
+opening the door to an endless train of frightful
+evils. This is what, virtually, they do who would
+call a civilization Christian, for civilization is the
+aggregate social and political development of a
+nation, or a race, and the political is always in
+direct proportion to the social progress; both
+mutually influence each other. By speaking of a
+Christian civilization, therefore, we assert that
+some particular political as well as social system,
+is most conformable to the spirit of our religion.
+Hence the union of church and State, and the influence
+of the former in temporal affairs&mdash;an influence
+which few enlightened churchmen, at least
+of our age, would wish to claim. Not to speak of
+the danger of placing into the hands of any class
+of men, however excellent, the power of declaring
+what legislation is Christian or not, and thus investing
+them with supreme political as well as
+spiritual authority; it is sufficient to point out the
+disastrous effects of such a system to the interests
+of the church itself. The opponents of a particular
+political organization become also the opponents
+of the religion which advocates and defends it.
+The indifferentism of Germany, once so zealous in
+the cause of religion, is traceable to this source.
+The people are dissatisfied with their political<span class="pagenum"><a name="page43" id="page43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+machinery, and hate the church which vindicates
+it, and stigmatizes as impious every attempt at
+change. Indeed, one has but to read the religious
+journals of Prussia, to understand the lukewarmness
+of that people. Mr. Brace, in his <cite>Home Life
+in Germany</cite>, says that many intelligent natives of
+that country had told him: Why should we go to
+church to hear a sermon that extols an order of
+things which we know to be wicked, and in the
+highest degree detestable? How can a religion
+be true which makes adherence to such an order
+a fundamental article of its creed?</p>
+
+<p>One of the features of our constitution which
+Mr. De Tocqueville most admires, is the utter
+separation of church and State. Mere religious
+toleration practically prevails in most European
+countries, but this total disconnection of the religious
+from the civil institutions, is peculiar to
+the United States, and a lesson which it has given
+to the rest of the world.</p>
+
+<p>I do not mean that every one who makes use of
+the word Christian civilization thereby implies a
+union of church and State, but I wish to point out
+the principle upon which this expression is based,
+viz: that a certain social and political order of things
+is more according to the spirit of the Christian religion
+than another; and the consequences which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page44" id="page44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
+must, or at least may, follow from the practical
+acceptation of this principle. Taking my view of
+the subject, few, I think, will dispute that the term
+Christian civilization is a misnomer. Of the civilizing
+influence of Christianity, I have spoken before,
+but this influence would be as great in the
+Chinese or Hindoo civilizations, without, in the
+least, obliterating their characteristic features.</p>
+
+<p>Few terms of equal importance are so vaguely
+defined as the term <strong class="smcap">civilization</strong>; few definitions
+are so difficult. In common parlance, the word
+civilization is used to designate that moral, intellectual,
+and material condition at which the so-called
+European race, whether occupying the Eastern
+or the Western continent, has arrived in the
+nineteenth century. But the nations comprised in
+this race differ from one another so extensively, that
+it has been found necessary to invent a new term:
+<em>enlightenment</em>. Thus, Great Britain, France, the
+United States, Switzerland, several of the States
+of the German Confederacy, Sweden, and Denmark,
+are called enlightened; while Russia, Spain,
+Portugal, Italy, Brazil, and the South American
+republics are merely civilized. Now, I ask, in
+what does the difference consist?</p>
+
+<p>Is the diffusion of knowledge by popular education
+to be the test? Then Great Britain and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page45" id="page45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+France would fall far below some countries now
+placed in the second, or even third rank. Denmark
+and China would be the most civilized countries
+in the world; nay, even Thibet, and the rest of
+Central Asia, would take precedence before the
+present champions of civilization. The whole of
+Germany and Switzerland would come next, then
+the eastern and middle sections of the United States,
+then the southern and western; and, after them,
+Great Britain and France. Still retaining the
+same scale, Russia would actually be ranked above
+Italy, the native clime of the arts. In Great
+Britain itself, Scotland would far surpass England
+in civilization<a name="FNanchor-13" id="FNanchor-13"></a><a href="#Footnote-13" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 13.">[13]</a>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page46" id="page46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
+Is the perfection to which the arts are carried,
+the test of civilization? Then Bavaria and Italy<span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden;"><a name="page47" id="page47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+are the most civilized countries. Then are we far
+behind the Greeks in civilization. Or, are the
+useful arts to carry the prize? Then the people
+showing the greatest mechanical genius is the most
+civilized.</p>
+
+<p>Are political institutions to be the test? Then
+the question, "Which is the best government?"
+must first be decided. But the philosophic answer
+would be: "That which is best adapted to the
+genius of the people, and therefore best answers the
+purposes for which all government is instituted."
+Those who believe in the abstract superiority of
+any governmental theory, may be compared to the
+tailor who would finish some beau-ideal of a coat,
+without taking his customer's measure. We could
+afford to laugh at such theorists, were not their
+schemes so often recorded in blood in the annals
+of the world. Besides, if this test be admitted,
+no two could agree upon what was a civilized
+community. The panegyrist of constitutional
+monarchy would call England the only civilized
+country; the admirer of municipal liberty would
+point to the Hanse towns of the Middle Ages, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page48" id="page48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+their miserable relics, the present free cities of
+Germany; the friend of sober republicanism would
+exclude from the pale of civilization all but the
+United States and Switzerland; the lover of pure
+democracy would contend that mankind had retrograded
+since the time of Athens, and deplore that
+civilization was now confined to some few rude
+mountain or nomadic tribes with few and simple
+wants; finally, the defender of a paternal autocracy
+would sigh for the days of Trajan or Marcus Aurelius,
+and hesitate whether, in our age, Austria or
+Russia deserved the crown.</p>
+
+<p>Neither pre-eminence in arts and sciences, nor
+in popular instruction, nor in government, can
+singly be taken as the test of civilization. Pre-eminence
+in all, no country enjoys. Yet all these
+are signs of civilization&mdash;the only ones by which
+we distinguish and recognize it. How, then, shall
+we define this term? I would suggest a simple
+and, I think, sufficiently explicit definition: Civilization
+is the continuous development of man's
+moral and intellectual powers. As the aggregate
+of these differs in different nations, so differs the
+character of their civilization. In one, civilization
+manifests itself in the perfection of the arts, either
+useful or polite; in another, in the cultivation of
+the sciences; in a third; in the care bestowed upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page49" id="page49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+politics, or, in the diffusion of knowledge among
+the masses. Each has its own merits, each its own
+defects; none combines the excellencies of all, but
+whichever combines the most with fewest defects,
+may be considered the best, or most perfect. It is
+because not keeping this obvious truth in view
+that John Bull laughs (or used to laugh) self-complacently
+at Monsieur Crapaud, and that we ourselves
+sometimes laugh at his political capers, forgetting
+that the thinkers of his nation have, for
+the last century at least, led the van in science and
+politics&mdash;yes, even in politics.<a name="FNanchor-14" id="FNanchor-14"></a><a href="#Footnote-14" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 14.">[14]</a> It is, for the same
+reason, that the Frenchman laughs at the German,
+or the Dutchman; that the foreigner cannot understand
+that there is an <em>American civilization</em> as well,
+and, bringing his own country's standard along
+with him, finds everything either too little or too
+great; or, that the American, going to the native<span class="pagenum"><a name="page50" id="page50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+soil of the ripest scholars in the world, and seeing
+brick and mortar carried up by hand to the fourth
+story of a building in process of erection,<a name="FNanchor-15" id="FNanchor-15"></a><a href="#Footnote-15" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 15.">[15]</a> or seeing
+five men painfully perform a job which his youngest
+son would have accomplished without trouble
+by the simplest, perhaps self-invented, contrivance,
+revolves in his own mind how it is possible that
+these people&mdash;when the schoolmaster is abroad,
+too&mdash;are still so many centuries "behind the time."
+Thus each nation has its own standard by which
+it judges its neighbors; but when extra-European
+nations, such as the Chinese or Hindoos, are to be
+judged, all unite in voting them <em>outside barbarians</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Here, then, we have indubitable proofs of moral
+and intellectual diversities, not only in what are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page51" id="page51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+generally termed different races, but even in nations
+apparently belonging to the same race. Nor do I
+see in this diversity ought that can militate against
+our ideas of universal brotherhood. Among individuals,
+diversity of talent does not preclude
+friendly intercourse; on the contrary, it promotes
+it, for rivals seldom are friends. Neither does
+superior ability exempt us from the duties which
+we owe to our fellow-man.</p>
+
+<p>I have repeatedly made use of the analogy between
+societies and the individuals that compose
+them. I cannot more clearly express my idea of
+civilization than by recurring to it again. Civilization,
+then, is to nations what the development of
+his physical and intellectual powers is to an individual;
+indeed, it is nothing but the aggregate
+result of all these individual powers; a common
+reservoir to which each contributes a share, whether
+large or small. The analogy may be extended
+further. Nations may be considered as themselves
+members of societies, bearing the same relations
+to each other and to the whole, as individuals.
+Thus, all the nations of Europe contribute, each
+in its own manner and degree, to what has been
+called the <em>European</em> civilization. And, in the same
+manner, the nations of Asia form distinct systems of
+civilizations. But all these systems ultimately tend<span class="pagenum"><a name="page52" id="page52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+to one great aim&mdash;the general welfare of mankind.
+I would therefore carefully distinguish between
+the civilizations of particular nations, of clusters
+of nations, and of the whole of our species. To
+borrow a metaphor from the mechanism of the
+universe, the first are like the planets of a solar
+system, revolving&mdash;though in different orbits, and
+with different velocities&mdash;around the same common
+centre; but the solar systems again&mdash;with all
+their planets&mdash;revolve round another, more distant
+point.</p>
+
+<p>Let us take two individuals of undoubted intellect.
+One may be a great mathematician, the other
+a great statesman. Place the first at the head of
+a cabinet, the second in an observatory, and the
+mathematician will as signally fail in correctly
+observing the changes in the political firmament,
+as the other in noting those in the heavenly. Yet,
+who would decide which had the superior intellect?
+This diversity of gifts is not the result of education.
+No training, however ingenious, could have
+changed an Arago into a Pitt, or <i>vice versa</i>. Raphael
+could under no circumstances have become
+a Handel, or either of them a Milton. Nay, men
+differ in following the same career. Can any one
+conceive that Michael Angelo could ever have
+painted Vandyke's pictures, Shakspeare written<span class="pagenum"><a name="page53" id="page53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+Milton's verses, Mozart composed Rossini's music,
+or Jefferson followed Hamilton's policy? Here,
+then, we have excellencies, perhaps of equal degree,
+but of very different kinds. Nature, from
+her inexhaustible store, has not only unequally,
+but variously, bestowed her favors, and this infinite
+variety of gifts, as infinite as the variety of faces,
+God has doubtless designed for the happiness of
+men, and for their more intimate union, in making
+them dependent one on another. As each creature
+sings his Maker's praise in his own voice and cadence,
+the sparrow in his twitter, the nightingale
+in her warble, so each human being proclaims the
+Almighty's glory by the rightful use of his talents,
+whether great or small, for the promotion of his
+fellow-creatures' happiness; one may raise pious
+emotion in the breast by the tuneful melody of his
+song; another by the beauty and vividness of his
+images on canvas or in verse; a third discovers
+new worlds&mdash;additional evidences of His omnipotence
+who made them&mdash;and, by his calculations,
+demonstrates, even to the sceptic, the wonderful
+mechanism of the universe; to another, again, it
+is given to guide a nation's councils, and, by His
+assistance, to avert danger, or correct evils. Fie
+upon those who would raise man's powers above
+those of God, and ascribe diversity of talents to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page54" id="page54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+education and accident, rather than to His wisdom
+and design. Can we not admire the Almighty as
+well in the variety as in a fancied uniformity of
+His works? Harmony consists in the union of
+different sounds; the harmony of the universe, in
+the diversity of its parts.</p>
+
+<p>What is true of a society composed of individuals,
+is true of that vast political assemblage composed
+of nations. That each has a career to run
+through, a destiny to fulfil, is my firm and unwavering
+belief. That each must be gifted with
+peculiar qualities for that purpose, is a mere corollary
+of the proposition. This has been the opinion
+of all ages: "The men of B&oelig;otia are noted for
+their stolidity, those of Attica for their wit." Common
+parlance proves that it is now, to-day, the
+opinion of all mankind, whatever theorists may
+say. Many affect to deride the idea of "manifest
+destiny" that possesses us Anglo-Americans, but
+who in the main doubts it? Who, that will but
+cast one glance on the map, or look back upon
+our history of yesterday only, can think of seriously
+denying that great purposes have been accomplished,
+will still be accomplished, and that
+these purposes were designed and guided by something
+more than blind chance? Unroll the page
+of history&mdash;of the great chain of human events,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page55" id="page55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+it is true, we perceive but few links; like eternity,
+its beginning is wrapt in darkness, its end a mystery
+above human comprehension&mdash;but, in the
+vast drama presented to us, in which nations form
+the cast, we see each play its part, then disappear.
+Some, as Mr. Gobineau has it, act the kings and
+rulers, others are content with inferior roles.</p>
+
+<p>As it is incompatible with the wisdom of the
+Creator, to suppose that each nation was not specially
+fitted<a name="FNanchor-16" id="FNanchor-16"></a><a href="#Footnote-16" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 16.">[16]</a> for the part assigned to it, we may<span class="pagenum"><a name="page56" id="page56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+judge of what they were capable of by what they
+have accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>History, then, must be our guide; and never
+was epoch more propitious, for never has her lamp
+shone brighter. The study of this important
+science, which Niebuhr truly calls the <i>magistra
+vit&aelig;</i>, has received within our days an impulse
+such as it never had before. The invaluable
+arch&aelig;ological treasures which the linguists and
+antiquarians of Europe have rescued from the
+literature and monuments of the great nations of
+former ages, bring&mdash;as it were&mdash;back to life again
+the mouldered generations of the dim past. We
+no longer content ourselves with chronological
+outlines, mere names, and unimportant accounts
+of kings and their quarrels; we seek to penetrate
+into the inner life of those multitudes who acted
+their part on the stage of history, and then disappeared,
+to understand the modes of thought, the
+feelings, ideas, <em>instincts</em>, which actuated them, and
+made them what they were. The hoary pyramids
+of the Nile valley are forced to divulge their age,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page57" id="page57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+the date of a former civilization; the temples and
+sepulchres, to furnish a minute account of even
+the private life of their builders;<a name="FNanchor-17" id="FNanchor-17"></a><a href="#Footnote-17" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 17.">[17]</a> the arrow-headed
+characters on the disinterred bricks of the sites of
+Babylon and Nineveh, are no longer a secret to
+the indefatigable orientalists; the classic writers
+of Hindostan and China find their most zealous
+scholiasts, and profoundest critics, in the capitals
+of Western Europe. The dross of childish fables,
+which age after age has transmitted to its successor
+under the name of history, is exposed to the
+powerful furnace of reason and criticism, and the
+pure ore extracted, by such men as Niebuhr, Heeren,
+Ranke, Gibbon, Grote. The enthusiastic lover of
+ancient Rome now sees her early history in clearer,
+truer colors than did her own historians.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page58" id="page58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+But, if history is indispensable to ethnology,
+the latter is no less so to a true understanding of
+history. The two sciences mutually shed light on
+one another's path, and though one of them is as
+yet in its infancy, its wonderful progress in so
+short a time, and the almost unparalleled attention
+which it has excited at all hands, are bright omens
+for the future. It will be obvious that, by <em>ethnology</em>,
+we do not mean <em>ethnography</em>, with which it has long
+been synonymous. Their meaning differs in the
+same manner, they bear almost the same relation
+to one another as <em>geology</em> and <em>geography</em>. While
+ethnography contents herself with the mere description
+and classification of the races of man, ethnology,
+to borrow the expressive language of the
+editor of the <cite>London Ethnological Journal</cite>, "investigates
+the mental and physical differences of mankind,
+and the organic laws upon which they depend;
+seeks to deduce from these investigations
+principles of human guidance, in all the important
+relations of social and national existence."<a name="FNanchor-18" id="FNanchor-18"></a><a href="#Footnote-18" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 18.">[18]</a> The
+importance of this study cannot be better expressed
+than in the words of a writer in the <cite>North British
+Review</cite> for August, 1849: "No one that has not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page59" id="page59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+worked much in the element of history, can be
+aware of the immense importance of clearly keeping
+in view the differences of race that are discernible
+among the nations that inhabit different
+parts of the world.... In speculative history,
+in questions relating to the past career and the
+future destinies of nations, <em>it is only by a firm and
+efficient handling of this conception of our species, as
+broken up into so many groups or masses, physiologically
+different to a certain extent, that any progress
+can be made, or any available conclusions accurately
+arrived at</em>."<a name="FNanchor-19" id="FNanchor-19"></a><a href="#Footnote-19" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 19.">[19]</a></p>
+
+<p>But in attempting to divide mankind into such
+groups, an ethnologist is met by a serious and apparently
+insurmountable difficulty. The gradation
+of color is so imperceptible from the clearest white
+to the jettest black; and even anatomical peculiarities,
+normal in one branch, are found to exist,
+albeit in exceptional cases, in many others; so
+that the ethnographers scarce know where to stop
+in their classification, and while some recognize
+but three grand varieties, others contend for five,
+for eleven, or even for a much greater number.
+This difficulty arises, in my estimation, mainly
+from the attempt to class mankind into different<span class="pagenum"><a name="page60" id="page60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+species, that is, groups who have a separate origin;
+and also, from the proneness to draw deductions
+from individual instances, by which almost any
+absurdity can be sustained, or truth refuted. As
+we have already inveighed against the latter error,
+and shall therefore try to avoid falling into it; and
+as we have no desire to enter the field of discussion
+about unity or plurality of species, we hope,
+in a great measure, to obviate the difficulties that
+beset the path of so many inquirers. By the word
+<em>race</em><a name="FNanchor-20" id="FNanchor-20"></a><a href="#Footnote-20" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 20.">[20]</a> we mean, both here and in the body of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page61" id="page61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+work, such branches of the human family as are
+distinguished in the aggregate by certain well-defined
+physical or mental peculiarities, independent
+of the question whether they be of identical or
+diverse origin. For the sake of simplicity, these
+races are arranged in several principal classes, according
+to their relative affinities and resemblances.
+The most popular system of arrangement is that
+of Blumenbach, who recognizes five grand divisions,
+distinguished by appellations descriptive
+either of color or geographical position, viz: the
+White, Circassian, or European; the Yellow, Altaic,
+Asiatic, or Mongolian; the Red, American,
+or Indian; the Brown, or Malay; and, lastly, the
+Black, African, or negro. This division, though
+the most commonly adopted, has no superior claims
+above any other. Not only are its designations
+liable to very serious objections, but it is, in itself,
+entirely arbitrary. The Hottentot differs as much
+from the negro as the latter does from the Malay;
+and the Polynesian from the Malay more than the
+American from the Mongolian. Upon the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="page62" id="page62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+principle, then, the number of classes might be
+indefinitely extended. Mr. Gobineau thought three
+classes sufficient to answer every purpose, and these
+he calls respectively the white, yellow, and black.
+Mr. Latham,<a name="FNanchor-21" id="FNanchor-21"></a><a href="#Footnote-21" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 21.">[21]</a> the great ethnographer, adopts a
+system almost precisely similar to our author's,
+and upon grounds entirely different. Though, for
+my own part, I should prefer a greater number of
+primary divisions, I confess that this coincidence
+of opinion in two men, pursuing, independent of,
+and unknown to each other, different paths of investigation,
+is a strong evidence of the correctness
+of their system, which, moreover, has the merit
+of great simplicity and clearness.</p>
+
+<p>It must be borne in mind that the races comprised
+under these divisions, are by no means to
+be considered equal among themselves. We should
+lay it down as a general truth, that while the entire
+groups differ principally in <em>degree</em> of intellectual
+capacity, the races comprised in each differ
+among themselves rather in kind. Thus, we assert
+upon the testimony of history, that the white
+races are superior to the yellow; and these, in turn,
+to the black. But the Lithuanian and the Anglo-Saxon
+both belong to the same group of races, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page63" id="page63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+yet, history shows that they differ; so do the Samoyede
+and the Chinese, the negro of Lower
+Guinea, and the Fellah. These differences, observable
+among nations classed under the same head,
+as, for instance, the difference between the Russians
+and Italians (both white), we express in
+every day's language by the word "genius." Thus,
+we constantly hear persons speak of the artistic,
+administrative, nautical genius of the Greeks, Romans,
+and Phenicians, respectively; or, such
+phrases as these, which I borrow from Mr. Gobineau:
+"Napoleon rightly understood the <em>genius</em>
+of his nation when he reinstated the Church, and
+placed the supreme authority on a secure basis;
+Charles I. and his adviser did not, when they attempted
+to bend the neck of Englishmen under
+the yoke of absolutism." But, as the word <em>genius</em>
+applied to the capacities or tendencies of a nation,
+in general implies either too much or too little, it
+has been found convenient, in this work, to substitute
+for it another term&mdash;<em>instinct</em>. By the use
+of this word, it was not intended to assimilate man
+to the brute, to express aught differing from intellect
+or the reasoning capacity; but only to designate
+the peculiar manner in which that intellect
+or reasoning capacity manifests itself; in other
+words, the special adaptation of a nation for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page64" id="page64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+part assigned to it in the world's history; and, as
+this part is performed involuntarily and, for the
+most part, unconsciously, the term was deemed
+neither improper nor inappropriate. I do not,
+however, contend for its correctness, though I
+could cite the authority of high names for its use
+in this sense; I contend merely for its convenience,
+for we thereby gain an easy method of making
+distinctions of <em>kind</em> in the mental endowments of
+races, in cases where we would hesitate to make
+distinctions of <em>degree</em>. In fact, it is saying of multitudes
+only what we say of an individual by
+speaking of his <em>talent</em>; with this difference, however,
+that by talent we understand excellency of
+a certain order, while instinct applies to every
+grade. Two persons of equal intellectual calibre
+may have, one a talent for mathematics, the other
+for literature; that is, one can exhibit his intellect
+to advantage only in calculation, the other only in
+writing. Thus, of two nations standing equally
+high in the intellectual scale, one shall be distinguished
+for the high perfection attained in the fine
+arts, the other for the same perfection in the useful.</p>
+
+<p>At the risk of wearying the reader with my
+definitions, I must yet inflict on him another
+which is essential to the right understanding of the
+following pages. In common parlance, the terms<span class="pagenum"><a name="page65" id="page65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+<em>nation</em> and <em>people</em> have become strictly synonymous.
+We speak indifferently of the French people, or
+the French nation; the English people, or the
+English nation. If we make any distinction at
+all, we perhaps designate by the first expression
+the masses; by the second, rather the sovereignty.
+Thus, we say the French people are versatile, the
+French nation is at war with Russia. But even
+this distinction is not always made.</p>
+
+<p>My purpose is to restore the word nation to its
+original signification, in which it expresses the
+same as the word race, including, besides, the idea
+of some sort of political organization. It is, in
+fact, nothing but the Latin equivalent of that
+word, and was applied, like tribe, to a collection
+of individuals not only living under the same government,
+but also claiming a closer consanguinity
+to one another than to their neighbors. It differs
+from tribe only in this respect, that it is applied to
+greater multitudes, as for instance to a coalescence
+of several closely-allied tribes, which gives rise to
+more complicated political forms. It might therefore
+be defined by an ethnologist as <em>a population
+consisting of homogeneous ethnical elements</em>.</p>
+
+<p>The word <em>people</em>, on the contrary, when applied
+to an aggregation of individuals living under the
+same government, implies no immediate consanguineous
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page66" id="page66">[Pg 66]</a></span>ties among them. <em>Nation</em> does not necessarily
+imply political unity; <em>people</em>, always. Thus,
+we speak of the Greek <em>nation</em>, though the Greeks
+were divided into a number of independent and
+very dissimilar sovereignties; but, we say the
+Roman <em>people</em>, though the whole population of the
+empire obeyed the same supreme head. The Russian
+empire contains within its limits, besides the
+Russians proper, an almost equal number of Cossacks,
+Calmucks, Tartars, Fins, and a number of
+other races, all very different from one another
+and still more so from the Russians, not only in
+language and external appearance, but in manners,
+modes of thinking: in one word, in instincts. By
+the expression Russian people I should therefore
+understand the whole population of that empire; by
+Russian nation, only the dominant race to which
+the Czar belongs. It is hardly possible to exaggerate
+the importance of keeping in view this distinction,
+as I shall prove by another instance. The
+Hungarian people are very nearly equally divided
+(exclusive of about one million Germans) into two
+nations, the Magyars and the Sclaves. Not only
+have these two, though for centuries occupying the
+same soil, remained unmixed and distinct, but the
+most intense antipathy exists between them, which
+only requires an occasion to display itself in acts<span class="pagenum"><a name="page67" id="page67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+of bloodshed and relentless cruelty, that would
+make the tenants of hell shudder. Such an occasion
+was the recent revolution, in which, while the
+Magyars fought like lions for their independence,
+the Sclaves, knowing that they would not participate
+in any advantage the others might gain,
+proved more formidable opponents than the Austrians.<a name="FNanchor-22" id="FNanchor-22"></a><a href="#Footnote-22" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 22.">[22]</a></p>
+
+<p>If I have been successful in my discrimination
+between the two words, it follows plainly that a
+member of one nation, strictly speaking, can no
+more become a member of another by process of
+law, than a man, by adopting a child, can make it
+the fruit of his loins. This rule, though correct
+in the abstract, does not always apply to individual
+cases; but these, as has already been remarked,
+cannot be made the groundwork of general deductions.
+In conclusion of this somewhat digressional
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page68" id="page68">[Pg 68]</a></span>definition, I would observe that, owing to
+the great intermixture of the European populations,
+produced by their various and intimate mutual
+relations, it does not apply with the same
+force to them as to others, and this I regard as the
+reason why the signification of the word has become
+modified.</p>
+
+<p>If we will carefully examine the history of great
+empires, we shall be able, in almost every instance,
+to trace their beginning to the activity of what, in
+the strictest sense of the word, may be called a
+nation. Gradually, as the sphere of that nation
+expands, it incorporates, and in course of time
+amalgamates with foreign elements.</p>
+
+<p>Nimrod, we learn from sacred history, established
+the Assyrian empire. At first, this consisted of but
+little more than the city of Babylon, and must necessarily
+have contained a very homogeneous population,
+if from no other cause than its narrow geographical
+limits. At the dawn of profane history, however,
+we find this empire extending over boundless
+tracts, and uniting under one rule tribes and nations
+of the most dissimilar manners and tongues.</p>
+
+<p>The Assyrian empire fell, and that of the Medes
+rose on its ruins. The Median monarchy had an
+humble beginning. Dejoces, says tradition, united
+the independent tribes of the Medes. Later, we<span class="pagenum"><a name="page69" id="page69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+find them ruling nations whose language they did
+not understand, whose manners they despised.</p>
+
+<p>The Persian empire exceeded in grandeur its
+mighty predecessors. Originating in a rebellion of
+a few liberty-loving tribes, concerted and successfully
+executed by a popular leader (Cyrus), two
+generations of rulers extended its boundaries to the
+banks of the Nile. In Alexander's time, it was a
+conglomeration of a countless number of nations,
+many of whom remained under their hereditary
+rulers while rendering allegiance, and paying tribute
+to the great king.</p>
+
+<p>I pass over the Macedonian empire, as of too
+short a duration to be a fair illustration. The
+germ of the Roman empire consisted of a coalescence
+of very closely allied tribes: Romulus's
+band of adventurers (who must have come from
+neighboring communities), the Sabines, Albans, and
+Latins. At the period of its downfall, it ruled, at
+least nominally, over every then known race.</p>
+
+<p>In all these instances, the number of which
+might be further increased, we find homogeneousness
+of population at first, ethnical mixture and
+confusion at the end. "But what does this prove?
+will be asked. That too great an extension of territory
+is the cause of weakness? The idea is old,
+and out of date in our times, when steam and electricity
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page70" id="page70">[Pg 70]</a></span>bring the outskirts of the largest empire
+in closer proximity than formerly were the frontiers
+of the humblest sovereignty." Extension of
+territory does not itself prove a cause of weakness
+and ruin. The largest empire in the world is that
+of China, and, without steam or electricity, it has
+maintained itself for 4,000 years, and bids fair, spite
+of the present revolution, to last a good long while
+yet. But, when extension of territory is attended
+with the incorporation of heterogeneous masses,
+having different interests, different instincts, from
+the conqueror, then indeed the extension must be
+an element of weakness, and not of strength.</p>
+
+<p>The armies which Xerxes led into Greece were
+not Persians; but a small fragment of that motley
+congregation, the <em>&eacute;lite</em>, the leaven of the whole
+mass, was composed of the king's countrymen.
+Upon this small body he placed his principal reliance,
+and when, at the fatal battle of Salamis, he
+beheld the slaughter of that valiant and noble
+band, though he had hundreds of thousands yet at
+his command, he rent his garments and fled a
+country which he had well-nigh conquered. Here
+is the difference between the armies of Cyrus and
+those of Xerxes and Darius. The rabbles which
+obeyed the latter, perhaps contained as much valor
+as the ranks of the enthusiastic followers of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page71" id="page71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+first, though the fact of their fighting under Persian
+standards might be considered as a proof of
+their inferiority. But what interest had they in the
+success of the great king? To forge still firmer
+their own fetters? Could the name of Cyrus, the
+remembrance of the storming of Sardis, the siege
+of Babylon, the conquest of Egypt, fire them with
+enthusiasm? Perhaps, in some of those glorious
+events, their forefathers became slaves to the tyrants
+they now serve, tyrants whose very language they
+do not understand.</p>
+
+<p>The last armies of tottering Rome were drafted
+from every part of her boundless dominions, and
+of the men who were sent to oppose the threatening
+barbarians of the north, some, it might
+be, felt the blood of humbled Greece in their
+veins; some had been torn from a distant home
+in Egypt, or Libya; others, perhaps, remembered
+with pride how their ancestors had fought the
+Romans in the times of Juba, or Mithridates;
+others, again, boiled with indignation at the oppression
+of their Gallic brethren;&mdash;could those men respect
+the glorious traditions of Rome, could they
+be supposed to emulate the former legions of the
+proud city?</p>
+
+<p>It is not, then, an extensive territory that ruins
+nations; it is a diversity of instincts, a clashing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page72" id="page72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+of interests among the various parts of the population.
+When each province is isolated in feelings
+and interests from every other, no external
+foe is wanted to complete the ruin. Ambitious
+and adroit men will soon arise who know how to
+play upon these interests, and employ them for the
+promotion of their own schemes.</p>
+
+<p>Nations, in the various stages of their career,
+have often been compared to individuals. They
+have, it is said, their period of infancy, of youth,
+of manhood, of old age. But the similitude, however
+striking, is not extended further, and, while
+individuals die a natural death, nations are supposed
+always to come to a violent end. Probably,
+we do not like to concede that all nations, like
+all individuals, must ultimately die a natural
+death, even though no disease anticipates it;
+because we dislike to recognize a rule which
+must apply to us as well. Each nation fancies
+its own vitality imperishable. When we are
+young, we seldom seriously think of death; in the
+same manner, societies in the period of their youthful
+vigor and energy, cannot conceive the possibility
+of their dissolution. In old age and decrepitude,
+they are like the consumptive patient,
+who, while fell disease is severing the last thread
+that binds him to the earth, is still forming plans<span class="pagenum"><a name="page73" id="page73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+for years to come. Falling Rome dreamed herself
+eternal. Yet, the mortality of nations admits of
+precisely the same proof as that of individuals&mdash;universal
+experience. The great empires that
+overshadowed the world, where are they? The
+memory of some is perpetuated in the hearts of
+mankind by imperishable monuments; of others,
+the slightest trace is obliterated, the vaguest remembrance
+vanished. As the great individual
+intelligences, whose appearance marks an era in
+the history of human thought, live in the minds
+of posterity, even though no gorgeous tombstone
+points out the resting-place of their hull of clay;
+while the mausoleum of him whose grandeur was
+but temporary, whose influence transient only,
+carries no meaning on its sculptured surface to
+after ages; even so the ancient civilizations which
+adorned the globe, if their monuments be not in
+the domain of thought, their gigantic vestiges
+serve but to excite the wonder of the traveller
+and antiquary, and perplex the historian. Their
+sepulchres, however grand, are mute.<a name="FNanchor-23" id="FNanchor-23"></a><a href="#Footnote-23" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 23.">[23]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page74" id="page74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+Many have been the attempts to detect the causes
+why nations die, in order to prevent that catastrophe;
+as the physicians of the Middle Ages, who
+thought death was always the consequence of disease,
+sought for the panacea that was to cure all ills
+and thus prolong life forever. But nations, like individuals,
+often survive the severest attacks of the
+most formidable disease, and die without sickness.
+In ancient times, those great catastrophes which
+annihilated the political existence of millions, were
+regarded as direct interpositions of Providence,
+visiting in its wrath the sins of a nation, and
+erecting a warning example for others; just as the
+remarkable destruction of a noted individual, or
+the occurrence of an unusual phenomenon was, and
+by many is even now, ascribed to the same immediate
+agency. But when philosophy discovered
+that the universe is governed by pre-established,
+immutable laws, and refused to credit miracles not
+sanctioned by religion; then the dogma gained
+ground that punishment follows the commission of
+sin, as effect does the cause; and national calamities
+had to be explained by other reasons. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page75" id="page75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+then said, nations die of luxury, immorality, bad
+government, irreligion, etc. In other words, success
+was made the test of excellency and failure of
+crime. If, in individual life, we were to lay it
+down as an infallible rule, that he who commits
+no excesses lives forever, or at least very long;
+and he who does, will immediately die; that he
+who is honest in his dealings, will always prosper
+more than he who is not; we should have a very
+fluctuating standard of morality, since it has pleased
+God to sometimes try the good by severe afflictions,
+and let the wicked prosper. We should therefore
+be often called upon to admire what is deserving
+of contempt or punishment, and to seek for guilt
+in the innocent. This is what we do in nations.
+Wicked institutions have been called good, because
+they were attended with success; good ones have
+been pronounced bad, because they failed.</p>
+
+<p>A more critical study of history has demonstrated
+the fallibility of this theory, which is
+now in a great measure discarded, and another
+adopted in its stead. It is argued that, at a certain
+period in its existence, a nation infallibly
+becomes degenerated, and thus falls. But, asks
+Mr. Gobineau, what is degeneracy? A nation
+is said to be degenerated when the virtues of its
+ancestry are lost. But why are they lost? Because
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page76" id="page76">[Pg 76]</a></span>the nation is degenerated. Is not this like
+the reasoning in the child's story-book: Why is
+Jack a bad boy? Because he disobeys his parents.
+Why does he disobey his parents? Because
+he is a bad boy.</p>
+
+<p>It is necessary, then, to show what degeneracy
+is. This step in advance, Mr. Gobineau attempts
+to make. He shows that each race is distinguished
+by certain capabilities, which, if its civilizing genius
+is sufficiently strong to enable it to assume a rank
+among the nations of the world, determine the
+character of its social and political development.
+Like the Phenicians, it may become the merchant
+and barterer of the world; or, like the Greeks, the
+teacher of future generations; or, like the Romans,
+the model-giver of laws and forms. Its part in the
+drama of history may be an humble one or a
+proud, but it is always proportionate to its powers.
+These powers, and the instincts or aspirations
+which spring from them, never change as long
+as the race remains pure. They progress and
+develop themselves, but never alter their nature.
+The purposes of the race are always the same.
+It may arrive at great perfection in the useful
+arts, but, without infiltration of a different element,
+will never be distinguished for poetry, painting,
+sculpture, etc.; and <i>vice versa</i>. Its nature<span class="pagenum"><a name="page77" id="page77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+may be belligerent, and it will always find causes
+for quarrel; or it may be pacific, and then it will
+manage to live at peace, or fall a prey to a neighbor.</p>
+
+<p>In the same manner, the government of a race
+will be in accordance with its instincts, and here
+I have the weighty authority of the author of
+<cite>Democracy in America</cite>, in my favor, and the author's
+whom I am illustrating. "A government,"
+says De Tocqueville,<a name="FNanchor-24" id="FNanchor-24"></a><a href="#Footnote-24" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 24.">[24]</a> "retains its sway over a great
+number of citizens, far less by the voluntary and
+rational consent of the multitude, than by that <em>instinctive</em>,
+and, to a certain extent, involuntary agreement,
+which results from similarity of feelings, and
+resemblances of opinions. I will never admit that
+men constitute a social body, simply because they
+obey the same head and the same laws. A society
+can exist only when a great number of men consider
+a great number of things in the same point
+of view; when they hold the same opinions upon
+many subjects, and when the same occurrences
+suggest the same thoughts and impressions to their
+minds." The laws and government of a nation are
+always an accurate reflex of its manners and modes
+of thinking. "If, at first, it would appear," says
+Mr. Gobineau, "as if, in some cases, they were the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page78" id="page78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+production of some superior individual intellect,
+like the great law-givers of antiquity; let the facts
+be more carefully examined, and it will be found
+that the law-giver&mdash;if wise and judicious&mdash;has contented
+himself with consulting the genius of his
+nation, and giving a voice to the common sentiment.
+If, on the contrary, he be a theorist like
+Draco, his system remains a dead letter, soon to be
+superseded by the more judicious institutions of a
+Solon who aims to give to his countrymen, not the
+best laws possible, but the best he thinks them
+capable of receiving." It is a great and a very
+general error to suppose that the sense of a nation
+will always decide in favor of what we term "popular"
+institutions, that is to say, such in which each
+individual shares more or less immediately in the
+government. Its genius may tend to the establishment
+of absolute authority, and in that case the
+autocrat is but an impersonation of the <i>vox populi</i>,
+by which he must be guided in his policy. If he
+be too deaf or rash to listen to it, his own ruin
+will be the inevitable consequence, but the nation
+persists in the same career.</p>
+
+<p>The meaning of the word degeneracy is now
+obvious. This inevitable evil is concealed in the
+very successes to which a nation owes its splendor.
+Whether, like the Persians, Romans, &amp;c., it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page79" id="page79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+swallowed up and absorbed by the multitudes its
+arms have subjected, or whether the ethnical mixture
+proceeds in a peaceful manner, the result is
+the same. Even where no foreign conquests add
+suddenly hundreds of thousands of a foreign population
+to the original mass, the fertility of uncultivated
+fields, the opulence of great commercial
+cities, and all the advantages to be found in the
+bosom of a rising nation, accomplish it, if in a
+less perceptible, in a no less certain manner. The
+two young nations of the world are now the United
+States and Russia. See the crowds which are
+thronging over the frontiers of both. Both already
+count their foreign population by millions. As
+the original population&mdash;the initiatory element of
+the whole mass&mdash;has no additions to its numbers
+but its natural increase, it follows that the influent
+elements must, in course of time, be of equal
+strength, and the influx still continuing, finally
+absorb it altogether. Sometimes a nation establishes
+itself upon the basis of a much more numerous
+conquered population, as in the case of
+the Frankish conquerors of Gaul; then the amalgamation
+of ranks and classes produces the same
+results as foreign immigration. It is clear that
+each new ethnical element brings with it its own
+characteristics or instincts, and according to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page80" id="page80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+relative strength of these will be the modifications
+in government, social relations, and the whole
+tendencies of the race. The modifications may be
+for the better, they may be for the worse; they
+may be very gradual, or very sudden, according
+to the merit and power of the foreign influence;
+but in course of time they will amount to radical,
+positive changes, and then the original nation has
+ceased to exist.</p>
+
+<p>This is the natural death of human societies.
+Sometimes they expire gently and almost imperceptibly;
+oftener with a convulsion and a
+crash. I shall attempt to explain my meaning
+by a familiar simile. A mansion is built
+which in all respects suits the taste and wants of
+the owner. Succeeding generations find it too
+small, too dark, or otherwise ill adapted to their
+purposes. Respect for their progenitor, and
+family association, prevent, at first, very extensive
+changes, still each one makes some; and as these
+associations grow fainter, the changes become
+more radical, until at last nothing of the old house
+remains. But if it had previously passed into the
+hands of a stranger, who had none of these associations
+to venerate and respect, he would probably
+have pulled it down at once and built another.</p>
+
+<p>An empire, then, falls, when the vitalizing principle
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page81" id="page81">[Pg 81]</a></span>which gave it birth is exhausted; when its
+parts are connected by none but artificial ties, and
+artificial ties are all those which unite races possessed
+of different instincts. This idea is expressed
+in the beautiful image of the inspired prophet,
+when he tells the mighty king that great truth,
+which so many refuse to believe, that all earthly
+kingdoms must perish until "the God of Heaven
+set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed."<a name="FNanchor-25" id="FNanchor-25"></a><a href="#Footnote-25" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 25.">[25]</a>
+"Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image.
+This great image, whose brightness was excellent,
+stood before thee, and the form thereof was terrible.
+This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and
+his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of
+brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and
+part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was
+cut without hands, which smote the image upon
+his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake
+them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the
+brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces
+together, and became like the chaff of the summer
+threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away,
+that no place was found for them."<a name="FNanchor-26" id="FNanchor-26"></a><a href="#Footnote-26" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 26.">[26]</a></p>
+
+<p>I have now illustrated, to the best of my abilities,
+several of the most important propositions of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page82" id="page82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+Mr. Gobineau, and attempted to sustain them by
+arguments and examples different from those used
+by the author. For a more perfect exposition I
+must refer the reader to the body of the work.
+My purpose was humbly to clear away such obstacles
+as the author has left in the path, and remove
+difficulties that escaped his notice. The task
+which I have set myself, would, however, be far
+from accomplished, were I to pass over what I
+consider a serious error on his part, in silence and
+without an effort at emendation.</p>
+
+<p>Civilization, says Mr. Gobineau, arises from the
+combined action and mutual reaction of man's
+moral aspirations, and the pressure of his material
+wants. This, in a general sense, is obviously true.
+But let us see the practical application. I shall
+endeavor to give a concise abstract of his views,
+and then to point out where and why he errs.</p>
+
+<p>In some races, says he, the spiritual aspirations
+predominate over their physical desires,
+in others it is the reverse. In none are either
+entirely wanting. According to the relative proportion
+and intensity of either of these influences,
+which counteract and yet assist each
+other, the tendency of the civilization varies. If
+either is possessed in but a feeble degree, or if
+one of them so greatly outweighs the other as to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page83" id="page83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+completely neutralize its effects, there is no civilization,
+and never can be one until the race is
+modified by intermixture with one of higher endowments.
+But if both prevail to a sufficient extent,
+the preponderance of either one determines
+the character of the civilization. In the Chinese,
+it is the material tendency that prevails, in the
+Hindoo the other. Consequently we find that in
+China, civilization is principally directed towards
+the gratification of physical wants, the perfection
+of material well-being. In other words, it is of an
+eminently utilitarian character, which discourages
+all speculation not susceptible of immediate practical
+application.</p>
+
+<p>This well describes the Chinese, and is precisely
+the picture which M. Huc, who has lived
+among them for many years, and has enjoyed
+better opportunities for studying their genius
+than any other writer, gives of them in his late
+publication.<a name="FNanchor-27" id="FNanchor-27"></a><a href="#Footnote-27" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 27.">[27]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page84" id="page84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+Hindoo culture, on the contrary, displays a
+very opposite tendency. Among that nation,
+everything is speculative, nothing practical. The
+toils of human intellect are in the regions of
+the abstract where the mind often loses itself<span class="pagenum"><a name="page85" id="page85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+in depths beyond its sounding. The material wants
+are few and easily supplied. If great works are
+undertaken, it is in honor of the gods, so that
+even their physical labor bears homage to the invisible
+rather than the visible world. This also
+is a tolerably correct picture.</p>
+
+<p>He therefore divides all races into these two
+categories, taking the Chinese as the type of the
+one and the Hindoos as that of the other. According
+to him, the yellow races belong pre-eminently
+to the former, the black to the latter, while the
+white are distinguished by a greater intensity and
+better proportion of the qualities of both. But this
+division, and no other is consistent with the author's
+proposition, by assuming that in the black
+races the moral preponderates over the physical
+tendency, comes in direct conflict not only with the
+plain teachings of anatomy, but with all we know
+of the history of those races. I shall attempt to
+show wherein Mr. Gobineau's error lies, an error
+from the consequences of which I see no possibility
+for him to escape, and suggest an emendation which,
+so far from invalidating his general position, tends
+rather to confirm and strengthen it. In doing so,
+I am actuated by the belief that even if I err, I
+may be useful by inviting others more capable to
+the task of investigation. Suggestions on important<span class="pagenum"><a name="page86" id="page86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+subjects, if they serve no other purpose than to provoke
+inquiry, are never useless. The alchemists
+of the Middle Ages, in their frivolous pursuit of
+impossibilities, discovered many invaluable secrets
+of nature and laid the foundation of that science
+which, by explaining the intimate mutual action
+of all natural bodies, has become the indispensable
+handmaiden of almost every other.</p>
+
+<p>The error, it seems to me, lies in the same confusion
+of distinct ideas, to which I had already
+occasion to advert. In ordinary language, we
+speak of the physical and moral nature of man,
+terming physical whatever relates to his material,
+and moral what relates to his immaterial being.
+Again, we speak of <em>mind</em>, and though in theory we
+consider it as a synonyme of soul, in practical application
+it has a very different signification. A
+person may cultivate his mind without benefiting
+his soul, and the term <em>a superior mind</em>, does not
+necessarily imply moral excellency. That mental
+qualifications or acquisitions are in no way connected
+with sound morality or true piety, I have
+pointed out before. Should any further illustrations
+be necessary, I might remark that the greatest
+monsters that blot the page of history, have
+been, for the most part, men of what are called
+superior minds, of great intellectual attainments.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page87" id="page87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+Indeed, wickedness is seldom very dangerous, unless
+joined to intellect, as the common sense of
+mankind has expressed in the adage that a fool is
+seldom a knave. We daily see men perverting
+the highest mental gifts to the basest purposes, a
+fact which ought to be carefully weighed by those
+who believe that education consists in the cultivation
+of the intellect only. I therefore consider the
+moral endowments of man as practically different
+from the mental or intellectual, at least in their
+manifestations, if not in their essence. To define
+my idea more clearly, let me attempt to explain
+the difference between what I term the moral and
+the intellectual nature of man. I am aware of the
+dangerous nature of the ground I am treading, but
+shall nevertheless make the attempt to show that
+it is in accordance with the spirit of religion to
+consider what in common parlance is called the
+moral attributes of man, and which would be
+better expressed by the word <em>psychical</em>, as divisible
+into two, the strictly moral, and the intellectual.</p>
+
+<p>The former is what leads man to look beyond his
+earthly existence, and gives even the most brutish
+savage some vague idea of a Deity. I am making
+no rash or unfounded assertion when I declare,
+Mr. Locke's weighty opinion to the contrary notwithstanding,
+that no tribe has ever been discovered
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page88" id="page88">[Pg 88]</a></span>in which some notion of this kind, however
+rude, was wanting, and I consider it innate&mdash;a
+yearning, as it were, of the soul towards the regions
+to which it belongs. The feeling of religion is
+implanted in our breast; it is not a production of
+the intellect, and this the Christian church confirms
+when it declares that <em>faith</em> we owe to the grace of
+God.</p>
+
+<p>Intellect is that faculty of soul by which it
+takes cognizance of, classes and compares the facts
+of the <em>material</em> world. As all perceptions are derived
+through the senses, it follows that upon the
+nicety of these its powers must in a great measure
+depend. The vigor and delicacy of the nerves, and
+the size and texture of the brain in which they all
+centre, form what we call native intellectual gifts.
+Hence, when the body is impaired, the mind suffers;
+"mens sana in corpore sano;" hence, a fever prostrates,
+and may forever destroy, the most powerful
+intellect; a glass of wine may dim and distort it.
+Here, then, is the grand distinction between soul
+and mind. The latter, human wickedness may
+annihilate; the former, man killeth not. I should
+wish to enter more fully upon this investigation, not
+new, indeed, in speculative science, yet new in the
+application I purpose to make of it, were it not for
+fear of wearying my reader, to whom my only<span class="pagenum"><a name="page89" id="page89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+apology can be, that the discussion is indispensable
+to the proper investigation of the moral and intellectual
+diversities of races. When I say moral
+diversities, I do not mean that man's moral endowments,
+strictly speaking, are unequal. This assertion
+I am not prepared to make, because&mdash;as religion
+is accessible and comprehensible to them all&mdash;it
+may be supposed that these are in all cases
+equal. But I mean that the manifestation of these
+moral endowments varies, owing to causes which
+I am now about to consider. I have said that the
+moral nature of man leads him to look beyond the
+confines of the material world. This, when not
+assisted by revelation, he attempts to do by means
+of his intellect. The intellect is, as it were, the
+visual organ by which the soul scans the abyss
+between the present and the future existence. According
+to the dimness or brightness of this mental
+eye, are his perceptions. If the intellectual
+capacity is weak, he is content with a grovelling
+conception of the Deity; if powerful, he erects an
+elaborate fabric of philosophical speculations. But,
+as the Almighty has decreed that human intellect,
+even in its sublimest flight, cannot soar to His
+presence; it follows that the most elaborate fabric
+of the philosopher is still a <em>human</em> fabric, that the
+most perfect human theology is still <em>human</em>, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page90" id="page90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
+hence&mdash;the necessity of revelation. This divine
+light, which His mercy has vouchsafed us, dispenses
+with, and eclipses, the feeble glimmerings of human
+intellect. It illumines as well the soul of the rude
+savage as of the learned theologian; of the illiterate
+as of the erudite. Nay, very often the former has
+the advantage, for the erudite philosopher is prone
+to think his own lamp all-sufficient. If it be objected
+that a highly cultivated mind, if directed to
+rightful purposes, will assist in gaining a <em>nobler</em>
+conception of the Deity, I shall not contradict, for
+in the study of His works, we learn still more to
+admire the Maker. But I insist that true piety
+can, and does exist without it, and let those who
+trust so much in their own powers beware lest
+they lean upon a broken staff.</p>
+
+<p>The strictly moral attributes of man, therefore,
+those attributes which enable him to communicate
+with his Maker, are common&mdash;probably in equal
+degree&mdash;to all men, and to all races of men. But
+his communications with the external world depend
+on his physical conformation. The body is the
+connecting link between the spirit and the material
+world, and, by its intimate relations to both,
+specially adapted to be the means of communication
+between them. There seems to me nothing
+irrational or irreligious in the doctrine that, according
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page91" id="page91">[Pg 91]</a></span>to the perfectness of this means of communication,
+must be the intercourse between the two.
+A person with dull auditory organs can never
+appreciate music, and whatever his talents otherwise
+may be, can never become a Meyerbeer or a
+Mozart. Upon quickness of perception, power of
+analysis and combination, perseverance and endurance,
+depend our intellectual faculties, both in their
+degree and their kind; and are not they blunted
+or otherwise modified in a morbid state of the body?
+I consider it therefore established beyond dispute,
+that a certain general physical conformation is
+productive of corresponding mental characteristics.
+A human being, whom God has created with a
+negro's skull and general <em>physique</em>, can never equal
+one with a Newton's or a Humboldt's cranial
+development, though the soul of both is equally
+precious in the eyes of the Lord, and should be in
+the eyes of all his followers. There is no tendency
+to materialism in this idea; I have no sympathy
+with those who deny the existence of the soul,
+because they cannot find it under the scalpel, and
+I consider the body not the mental agent, but the
+servant, the tool.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that science has not discovered, and
+perhaps never will discover, what physical differences
+correspond to the differences in individual<span class="pagenum"><a name="page92" id="page92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+minds. Phrenology, starting with brilliant promises,
+and bringing to the task powers of no mean order,
+has failed. But there is a vast difference between the
+characteristics by which we distinguish individuals
+of the same race, and those by which we distinguish
+races themselves. The former are not strictly&mdash;at
+least not immediately&mdash;hereditary, for the child
+most often differs from both parents in body and
+mind, because no two individuals, as no two leaves
+of one tree, are precisely alike. But, although every
+oak-leaf differs from its fellow, we know the leaf of
+the oak-tree from that of the beech, or every other;
+and, in the same manner, races are distinguished by
+peculiarities which are hereditary and permanent.
+Thus, every negro differs from every other negro,
+else we could not tell them apart; yet all, if pure
+blood, have the same characteristics in common
+that distinguish them from the white. I have
+been prolix, but intentionally so, in my discrimination
+between individual distinction and those of
+race, because of the latter, comparative anatomy
+takes cognizance; the former are left to phrenology,
+and I wished to remove any suspicion that
+in the investigation of moral and intellectual diversities
+of races, recourse must be had to the ill-authenticated
+speculations of a dubious science.
+But, from the data of comparative anatomy, attained
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page93" id="page93">[Pg 93]</a></span>by a slow and cautious progress, we deduce
+that races are distinguished by certain permanent
+physical characteristics; and, if these physical
+characteristics correspond to the mental, it follows
+as an obvious conclusion that the latter are permanent
+also. History ratifies the conclusion, and the
+common sense of mankind practically acquiesces
+in it.</p>
+
+<p>To return, then, to our author. I would add
+to his two elements of civilization a third&mdash;intellect
+<i>per se</i>; or rather, to speak more correctly, I
+would subdivide one of his elements into two, of
+which one is probably dependent on physical conformation.
+The combinations will then be more
+complex, but will remove every difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>I remarked that although we may consider all
+races as possessed of equal moral endowments, we
+yet may speak of moral diversities; because, without
+the light of revelation, man has nothing but
+his intellect whereby to compass the immaterial
+world, and the manifestation of his moral faculties
+must therefore be in proportion to the clearness
+of his intellectual, and their preponderance
+over the animal tendencies. The three I consider
+as existing about in the following relative proportions
+in the three great groups under which Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page94" id="page94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+Gobineau and Mr. Latham<a name="FNanchor-28" id="FNanchor-28"></a><a href="#Footnote-28" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 28.">[28]</a> have arranged the
+various races&mdash;a classification, however, which, as
+I already observed, I cannot entirely approve.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table title="Elements of Civilization" border="0" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="8" summary="White races have the highest rating in each of the 3 elements; yellow races score mediocre, and black races score low except in Animal Properties.">
+ <tr>
+ <th></th>
+ <th abbr="black" scope="col"> BLACK RACES,<br /><small>OR</small><br />ATLANTID&AElig;.<a name="FNanchor-29" id="FNanchor-29"></a><a href="#Footnote-29" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 29.">[29]</a></th>
+ <th abbr="yellow" scope="col">YELLOW RACES,<br /><small>OR</small><br />MONGOLID&AElig;.<a href="#Footnote-29" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 29.">[29]</a></th>
+ <th abbr="white" scope="col">WHITE RACES,<br /><small>OR</small><br />JAPETID&AElig;.<a href="#Footnote-29" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 29.">[29]</a></th>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" scope="row">Intellect</th>
+ <td>Feeble</td>
+ <td>Mediocre</td>
+ <td>Vigorous.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" scope="row">Animal Propensities</th>
+ <td>Very strong</td>
+ <td>Moderate</td>
+ <td>Strong.</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" scope="row">Moral Manifestations</th>
+ <td>Partially latent</td>
+ <td>Comparatively developed</td>
+ <td>Highly cultivated.</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>But the races comprised in each group vary
+among themselves, if not with regard to the relative
+proportion in which they possess the elements
+of civilization, at least in their intensity.
+The following formulas will, I think, apply to the
+majority of cases, and, at the same time, bring out
+my idea in a clearer light:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>If the animal propensities are strongly developed,
+and not tempered by the intellectual
+faculties, the moral conceptions must be exceedingly
+low, because they necessarily depend on
+the clearness, refinement, and comprehensiveness
+of the ideas derived from the material world
+through the senses. The religious cravings will,
+therefore, be contented with a gross worship of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page95" id="page95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
+material objects, and the moral sense degenerate
+into a grovelling superstition. The utmost elevation
+which a population, so constituted, can reach,
+will be an unconscious impersonation of the good
+aspirations and the evil tendencies of their nature
+under the form of a good and an evil spirit, to
+the latter of which absurd and often bloody
+homage is paid. Government there can be no
+other than the right which force gives to the
+strong, and its forms will be slavery among themselves,
+and submissiveness of all to a tyrannical
+absolutism.</p>
+
+<p>When the same animal propensities are combined
+with intellect of a higher order, the moral
+faculties have more room for action. The penetration
+of intellect will not be long in discovering
+that the gratification of physical desires is easiest
+and safest in a state of order and stability. Hence
+a more complex system of legislation both social
+and political. The conceptions of the Deity will
+be more elevated and refined, though the idea of
+a future state will probably be connected with
+visions of material enjoyment, as in the paradise
+of the Mohammedans.</p>
+
+<p>Where the animal propensities are weak and
+the intellect feeble, a vegetating national life results.
+No political organization, or of the very<span class="pagenum"><a name="page96" id="page96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+simplest kind. Few laws, for what need of restraining
+passions which do not exist. The moral sense
+content with the vague recognition of a superior
+being, to whom few or no rites are rendered.</p>
+
+<p>But when the animal propensities are so moderate
+as to be subordinate to an intellect more or less
+vigorous, the moral aspirations will yearn towards
+the regions of the abstract. Religion becomes a
+system of metaphysics, and often loses itself in the
+mazes of its own subtlety. The political organization
+and civil legislation will be simple, for
+there are few passions to restrain; but the laws
+which regulate social intercourse will be many
+and various, and supposed to emanate directly
+from the Deity.</p>
+
+<p>Strong animal passions, joined to an intellect
+equally strong, allow the greatest expanse for the
+moral sense. Political organizations the most
+complex and varied, social and civil laws the most
+studied, will be the outward character of a society
+composed of such elements. Internally we shall
+perceive the greatest contrasts of individual goodness
+and wickedness. Religion will be a symbolism
+of human passions and the natural elements
+for the many, an ingenious fabric of moral speculations
+for the few.</p>
+
+<p>I have here rapidly sketched a series of pictures<span class="pagenum"><a name="page97" id="page97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+from nature, which the historian and ethnographer
+will not fail to recognize. Whether the features
+thus cursorily delineated are owing to the causes
+to which I ascribe them, I must leave for the
+reader to decide. My space is too limited to
+allow of my entering into an elaborate argumentation.
+But I would observe that, by taking this
+view of the subject, we can understand why all
+human&mdash;and therefore false&mdash;religions are so intimately
+connected with the social and political
+organization of the peoples which profess them,
+and why they are so plainly mapped out on the
+globe as belonging to certain races, to whom alone
+they are applicable, and beyond whose area they
+cannot extend: while Christianity knows no political
+or social forms, no geographical or ethnological
+limits. The former, being the productions
+of human intellect, must vary with its variation,
+and perish in its decay, while revelation is universal
+and immutable, like the Intelligence of which it
+is the emanation.</p>
+
+<p>It is time now to conclude the task, the accomplishment
+of which has carried me far beyond the
+limits I had at first proposed to myself. If I have
+so long detained the reader on the threshold of the
+edifice, it was to facilitate his after progress, and to
+give him a chart, that he may not lose himself in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page98" id="page98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+the vast field it covers. There he may often meet
+me again, and if I be sometimes deemed officious
+with my proffered explanations, he will at least
+give me credit for good intentions, and he may, if
+he chooses, pass me without recognition. Both
+this introduction and notes in the body of the
+work were thought necessary for several reasons.
+First, the subject is in some measure a new one,
+and it was important to guard against misconception,
+and show, right at the beginning, what was
+attempted to be proved, and in what manner. Secondly,
+the author wrote for a European public,
+and many allusions are made, or positions taken,
+upon an assumed knowledge of facts, of which the
+general reader on this side of the ocean can be
+supposed to have but a slight and vague apprehension.
+Thirdly, the author has, in many cases,
+contented himself with abstract reasoning, and
+therefore is sometimes chargeable with obscureness,
+on which account familiar illustrations have
+been supplied. Fourthly, the volume now presented
+to the reader is one of a series of four, the
+remainder of which, if this meets the public approbation,
+may in time appear in an English garb.
+But it was important to make this, as much as
+possible, independent of the others and complete
+in itself. The discussion of the moral and intellectual
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page99" id="page99">[Pg 99]</a></span>diversities of the various groups of the
+human family, is, as I have before shown, totally
+independent of the question of unity or diversity
+of species; yet, as it increases the interest attached
+to the solution of that question, which has been
+but imperfectly discussed by the author, my esteemed
+friend, Dr. J. C. Nott, who has so often and
+so ably treated the subject, has promised to furnish,
+in notes and an appendix, such additional facts
+pertaining to his province as a naturalist, as may
+assist the reader in arriving at a correct opinion.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the translation, it must be observed
+that it is not a <em>literal</em> rendering of the original.
+The translator has aimed rather at giving
+the meaning, than the exact words or phraseology
+of the author, at no time, however, departing from
+the former. He has, in some instances, condensed
+or omitted what seemed irrelevant, or useless to
+the discussion of the question in this country, and
+in a few cases, he has transposed a sentence to a
+different part of the paragraph, where it seemed
+more in its place, and more effective. To explain
+and justify these alterations, we must remind our
+readers that the author wrote for a public essentially
+different from that of the translator; that
+continental writers on grave subjects are in general
+more intent upon vindicating their opinions<span class="pagenum"><a name="page100" id="page100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+than the form in which they express them, and
+seldom devote that attention to style which English
+or American readers expect; to which may be added
+that Count Gobineau wrote in the midst of a multiplicity
+of diplomatic affairs, and had no time,
+even if he had thought it worth his while, to give
+his work that literary finish which would satisfy
+the fastidious. Had circumstances permitted, this
+translation would have been submitted to his approbation,
+but at the time of its going to press he
+is engaged in the service of his country at the
+court of Persia.</p>
+
+<p class="tbreak">For obtruding the present work on the notice
+of the American public, no apology will be required.
+The subject is one of immense importance,
+and especially in this country, where it can
+seldom be discussed without adventitious circumstances
+biassing the inquirers. To the philanthropist,
+the leading idea of the book, "that different
+races, like different individuals, are specially fitted
+for special purposes, for the fulfilment of which
+they are accountable in the measure laid down in
+Holy Writ: 'To whom much is given, from him
+much will be asked,' and that they are <em>equal</em> only
+when they truly and faithfully perform the duties of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page101" id="page101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+their station"&mdash;to the philanthropist, this idea must
+be fraught with many valuable suggestions. So
+far from loosening the ties of brotherhood, it binds
+them closer, because it teaches us not to despise
+those who are endowed differently from us; and
+shows us that they, too, may have excellencies
+which we have not.</p>
+
+<p>To the statesman, the student of history, and
+the general reader, it is hoped that this volume
+will not be altogether useless, and may assist to a
+better understanding of many of the problems that
+have so long puzzled the philosopher. The greatest
+revolutions in national relations have been accomplished
+by the migrations of races, the most
+calamitous wars that have desolated the globe have
+been the result of the hostility of races. Even
+now, a cloud is lowering in the horizon. The
+friend of peace and order watches it with silent
+anxiety, lest he hasten its coming. The spirit of
+mischief exults in its approach, but fears to betray
+his plans. Thus, western and central Europe now
+present the spectacle of a lull before the storm.
+Monarchs sit trembling on their thrones, while
+nations mutter curses. Nor have premonitory
+symptoms been wanting. Three times, within
+little more than half a century, have the eruptions
+of that ever-burning political volcano&mdash;France&mdash;shaken
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page102" id="page102">[Pg 102]</a></span>the social and political system of the civilized
+world, and shown the amount of combustible
+materials, which all the efforts of a ruling class
+cannot always protect from ignition. The grand
+catastrophe may come within our times. And, is
+it the result of any particular social condition, the
+action of any particular class in the social scale,
+the diffusion of any particular political principles?
+No, because the revolutionary tendencies are various,
+and even opposite; if republican in one place,
+monarchical in another; if democratic in France,
+aristocratic in Poland. Nor is it a particular social
+class wherein the revolutionary principle flourishes,
+for the classes which, in one country, wish subversion,
+in another, are firmly attached to the established
+order of things. The poor in Germany are
+proletarians and revolutionists; in Spain, Portugal,
+and Italy, the enthusiastic lovers of their king.
+The better classes in the former country are
+mostly conservative; in the latter, they are the
+makers, or rather attempters, of revolutions. Nor
+is it any particular social condition, for no class is
+so degraded as it has been; never was poverty less,
+and prosperity greater in Europe than in the present
+century; and everywhere the political institutions
+are more liberal than ever before. Whence,
+then, this gathering storm? Does it exist only in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page103" id="page103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+the minds of the visionary, or is it a mere bugbear
+of the timorous? Ask the prudent statesman, the
+traveller who pierces the different strata of the
+population; look behind the grates of the State-prisons;
+count&mdash;if this be possible&mdash;the number
+of victims of military executions in Germany and
+Austria, in 1848 and 1849; read the fearful accounts
+of the taking of Vienna, of Rome, of Ancona,
+of Venice, during the same short space of time.
+Everywhere the same cry: Nationality. It is not
+the temporary ravings of a mob rendered frantic
+by hunger and misery. It is a question of nationality,
+a war of races. Happy we who are removed
+from the immediate scene of the struggle, and can
+be but remotely affected by it. Yet, while I write,
+it seems as though the gales of the Atlantic had
+blown to our peaceful shores some taints of the
+epidemic that rages in the Old World. May it soon
+pass over, and a healthy atmosphere again prevail!</p>
+
+<p class="right10">H. H.</p>
+
+<p class="left10"><em class="smcap">Mobile</em>, Aug. 20, 1855.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden;"><a name="page104" id="page104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page105" id="page105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="break"><a name="DIVERSITY_OF_RACES" id="DIVERSITY_OF_RACES"></a><big>DIVERSITY OF RACES.</big></h2>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">POLITICAL CATASTROPHES.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>Perishable condition of all human societies&mdash;Ancient ideas concerning
+this phenomenon&mdash;Modern theories.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The downfall of civilizations is the most striking,
+and, at the same time, the most obscure of all the
+phenomena of history. If the sublime grandeur
+of this spectacle impresses the mind with awe, the
+mystery in which it is wrapped presents a boundless
+field for inquiry and meditation to a reflecting
+mind. The study of the birth and growth of nations
+is, indeed, fraught with many valuable observations:
+the gradual development of human
+societies, their successes, conquests, and triumphs,
+strike the imagination in a lively manner, and
+excite an ever increasing interest. But these
+phenomena, however grand and interesting, seem<span class="pagenum"><a name="page106" id="page106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+susceptible of an easy explanation. We consider
+them as the necessary consequences of the intellectual
+and moral endowments of man. Once we
+admit the existence of these endowments, their
+results will no longer surprise us.</p>
+
+<p>But we perceive that, after a period of glory and
+strength, all societies formed by man begin to totter
+and fall; all, I said, because there is no exception.
+Scattered over the surface of our globe, we
+see the vestiges of preceding civilizations, many
+of which are known to us only by name, or have
+not left behind them even that faint memorial, and
+are recorded only by the mute stones in the depths
+of primeval forests.<a name="FNanchor-30" id="FNanchor-30"></a><a href="#Footnote-30" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 30.">[30]</a> If we glance at our modern
+States, we are forced to the conclusion that, though
+their date is but of yesterday, some of them already
+exhibit signs of old age. The awful truth of prophetic
+language about the instability of all things
+human, applies with equal force to political bodies
+and to individuals, to nations and their civilizations.
+Every association of men for social and
+political purposes, though protected by the most
+ingenious social and political ties and contrivances,
+conceals among the very elements of its life, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page107" id="page107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+germ of inevitable destruction, contracted the day
+it was formed. This terrible fact is proved by the
+history of all ages as well as of our own. It is
+owing to a natural law of death which seems to
+govern societies as well as individuals; but, does
+this law operate alike in all cases? is it uniform
+like the result it brings about, and do all civilizations
+perish from the same pre-existing cause?</p>
+
+<p>A superficial glance at the page of history would
+tempt us to answer in the negative, for the apparent
+causes of the downfall of the great empires of
+antiquity were very different in each case. Yet,
+if we pierce below the surface, we find in this very
+necessity of decay, which weighs so imperiously
+upon all societies without exception, the evidence
+of the existence of some general, though concealed,
+cause, producing a natural death, even where no
+external causes anticipate it by violent destruction.
+We also discover that all civilizations, after a short
+duration, exhibit, to the acute observer, certain
+intimate disturbances, difficult to define, but whose
+existence is undeniable; and that these present in
+all cases an analogous character. Finally, if we
+distinguish the ruin of civilizations from that of
+States (for we sometimes see the same culture
+subsist in a country under foreign domination, and
+survive the destruction of the political body which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page108" id="page108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+gave it birth; while, again, comparatively slight
+misfortunes cause it to be transformed, or to disappear
+altogether), we become more and more
+confirmed in the idea that this principle of death
+in all societies is not only a necessary condition of
+their life, independent, in a great measure, of external
+causes, but is also uniform in all. To fix
+and determine this principle, and to trace its effects
+in the lives of those nations, of whom history has
+left us records, has been my object and endeavor
+in the studies, the results of which I now lay before
+the reader.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that every human agglomeration, and
+the peculiar culture resulting from it, is doomed
+to perish, was not known to the ancients. Even
+in the epochs immediately preceding ours, it was
+not believed. The religious spirit of Asiatic antiquity
+looked upon the great political catastrophes
+in the same light that they did upon the sudden destruction
+of an individual: as a demonstration of
+Divine wrath, visiting a nation or an individual
+whose sins had marked them out for signal punishment,
+which would serve as an example to those criminals
+whom the rod had as yet spared. The Jews,
+misunderstanding the meaning of the promise,
+believed their empire imperishable. Rome, at the
+very moment when the threatening clouds lowered<span class="pagenum"><a name="page109" id="page109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+in the horizon of her grandeur, entertained no
+doubt as to the eternity of hers.<a name="FNanchor-31" id="FNanchor-31"></a><a href="#Footnote-31" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 31.">[31]</a> But our generation
+has profited by experience; and, as no one
+presumes to doubt that all men must die, because
+all who came before us have died; so we are firmly
+convinced, that the days of nations, as of individuals,
+however many they be, are numbered. The
+wisdom of the ancients, therefore, will afford us
+but little assistance in the unravelling of our subject,
+if we except one fundamental maxim: that
+the finger of Divine Providence is always visible
+in the conduct of the affairs of this world. From
+this solid basis we shall not depart, accepting it in
+the full extent that it is recognized by the church.
+It cannot be contested that no civilization will
+perish without the will of God, and to apply to the
+mortal condition of all societies, the sacred axiom
+by which the ancients explained certain remarkable,
+and, in their opinion, isolated cases of destruction,
+is but proclaiming a truth of the first
+order, of which we must never lose sight in our
+researches after truths of secondary importance.
+If it be further added that societies perish by their
+sins, I willingly accede to it; it is but drawing a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page110" id="page110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+parallel between them and individuals who also
+find their death, or accelerate it, by disobedience
+to the laws of the Creator. So far, there is nothing
+contradictory to reason, even when unassisted by
+Divine light; but these two truths once admitted
+and duly weighed, the wisdom of the ancients, I
+repeat, affords no further assistance. They did
+not search into the ways by which the Divine will
+effected the ruin of nations; on the contrary, they
+were rather inclined to consider these ways as
+essentially mysterious, and above comprehension.
+Seized with pious terror at the aspect of the wrecks,
+they easily imagined that Providence had specially
+interfered thus to strike and completely
+destroy once powerful states. Where a miracle
+is recorded by the Sacred Scriptures, I willingly
+submit; but where that high testimony is wanting,
+as it is in the great number of cases, we may justly
+consider the ancient theory as defective, and not
+sufficiently enlightened. We may even conclude,
+that as Divine Justice watches over nations unremittingly,
+and its decrees were pronounced ere the
+first human society was formed, they are also enforced
+in a predeterminate manner, and according
+to the unalterable laws of the universe, which
+govern both animated nature and the inorganic
+world.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page111" id="page111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+If we have cause to reproach the philosophers of
+the earlier ages, for having contented themselves,
+in attempting to fathom the mystery, with the vindication
+of an incontestable theological truth, but
+which itself is another mystery; at least, they
+have not increased the difficulties of the question
+by making it a theme for a maze of errors. In
+this respect, they rank highly above the rationalist
+schools of various epochs.</p>
+
+<p>The thinkers of Athens and Rome established
+the doctrine, which has retained its ground to our
+days, that states, nations, civilizations, perished
+only through luxury, enervation, bad government,
+corruption of morals, fanaticism. All these causes,
+either singly or combined, were supposed to account
+for the downfall of civilizations. It is a
+necessary consequence of this doctrine, that where
+neither of these causes are in operation, no destructive
+agency is at work. Societies would therefore
+possess this advantage over individuals, that they
+could die no other but a violent death; and, to
+establish a body politic as durable as the globe
+itself, nothing further would be necessary than to
+elude the dangers which I enumerated above.</p>
+
+<p>The inventors of this thesis did not perceive its
+bearing. They considered it as an excellent means
+for illustrating the doctrine of morality, which, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page112" id="page112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+is well known, was the sole aim of their historical
+writings. In their narratives of events, they were so
+strongly preoccupied with showing the happy rewards
+of virtue, and the disastrous results of crime
+and vice, that they cared little for what seemed to
+furnish no illustration. This erroneous and narrow-minded
+system often operated contrary to the intention
+of the authors, for it applied, according to occasion,
+the name of virtue and vice in a very arbitrary
+manner; still, to a great extent, the severe
+and laudable sentiment upon which it was based,
+excuses it. If the genius of a Plutarch or a Tacitus
+could draw from history, studied in this manner,
+nothing but romances and satires, yet the romances
+were sublime, and the satires generous.</p>
+
+<p>I wish I could be equally indulgent to the
+writers of the eighteenth century, who made their
+own application of the same theory; but there is,
+between them and their teachers, too great a difference.
+While the ancients were attached to the
+established social system, even to a fault, our
+moderns were anxious for destruction, and greedy
+of untried novelties. The former exerted themselves
+to deduce useful lessons from their theory;
+the latter have perverted it into a fearful weapon
+against all rational principles of government, which
+they stigmatized by every term that mankind holds<span class="pagenum"><a name="page113" id="page113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+in horror. To save societies from ruin, the disciples
+of Voltaire would destroy religion, law, industry,
+commerce; because, if we believe them,
+religion is fanaticism; laws, despotism; industry
+and commerce, luxury and corruption.</p>
+
+<p>I have not the slightest intention of entering
+the field of polemics; I wished merely to direct
+attention to the widely diverging results of this
+principle, when applied by Thucydides, or the
+Abb&eacute; Raynal. Conservative in the one, cynically
+aggressive in the other, it is erroneous in both.</p>
+
+<p>The causes to which the downfall of nations is
+generally ascribed are not the true ones, and
+whilst I admit that these evils may be rifest in
+the last stages of dissolution of a people, I deny
+that they possess in themselves sufficient strength,
+and so destructive an energy, as to produce the
+final, irremediable catastrophe.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page114" id="page114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">ALLEGED CAUSES OF POLITICAL CATASTROPHES
+EXAMINED.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p><em class="smcap">Fanaticism</em>&mdash;Aztec Empire of Mexico.&mdash;<em class="smcap">Luxury</em>&mdash;Modern European
+States as luxurious as the ancient.&mdash;Corruption of
+morals&mdash;The standard of morality fluctuates in the various
+periods of a nation's history: example, France&mdash;Is no higher
+in youthful communities than in old ones&mdash;Morality of Paris.&mdash;<em class="smcap">Irreligion</em>&mdash;Never
+spreads through all ranks of a nation&mdash;Greece
+and Rome&mdash;Tenacity of Paganism.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Before entering upon my reasons for the opinion
+expressed at the end of the preceding chapter,
+it will be necessary to explain and define what I
+understand by the term society. I do not apply
+this term to the more or less extended circle belonging
+to a distinct sovereignty. The republic
+of Athens is not, in my sense of the word, a society;
+neither is the kingdom of Magadha, the
+empire of Pontus, or the caliphat of Egypt in the
+time of the Fatimites. These are fragments of
+societies, which are transformed, united, or subdivided,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page115" id="page115">[Pg 115]</a></span>by the operation of those primordial laws
+into which I am inquiring, but whose existence or
+annihilation does not constitute the existence or
+annihilation of a society. Their formation is, for
+the most part, a transient phenomenon, which exerts
+but a limited, or even indirect influence upon the
+civilization that gave it birth. By the term society,
+I understand an association of men, actuated
+by similar ideas, and possessed of the same general
+instincts. This association need by no means
+be perfect in a political sense, but must be complete
+from a social point of view. Thus, Egypt,
+Assyria, Greece, India, China, have been, or are
+still, the theatres upon which distinct societies
+have worked out their destinies, to which the perturbations
+in their political relations were merely
+secondary. I shall, therefore, speak of the fractions
+of these societies only when my reasoning
+applies equally to the whole. I am now prepared
+to proceed to the examination of the question before
+us, and I hope to prove that fanaticism, luxury,
+corruption of morals, and irreligion, do not <em>necessarily</em>
+occasion the ruin of nations.</p>
+
+<p>All these maladies, either singly or combined,
+have attacked, and sometimes with great virulence,
+nations which nevertheless recovered from them,
+and were, perhaps, all the more vigorous afterward.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page116" id="page116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+The Aztec empire, in Mexico, seemed to flourish
+for the especial glory and exaltation of fanaticism.
+What can there be more fanatical than a social
+and political system, based on a religion which
+requires the incessant and profuse shedding of the
+blood of fellow-beings?<a name="FNanchor-32" id="FNanchor-32"></a><a href="#Footnote-32" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 32.">[32]</a> Our remote ancestors,
+the barbarous nations of Northern Europe, did
+indeed practise this unholy rite, but they never
+chose for their sacrifices innocent victims,<a name="FNanchor-33" id="FNanchor-33"></a><a href="#Footnote-33" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 33.">[33]</a> or, at
+least, such as they considered so: the shipwrecked
+and prisoners of war, were not considered innocent.
+But, for the Mexicans, all victims were alike; with
+that ferocity, which a modern physiologist<a name="FNanchor-34" id="FNanchor-34"></a><a href="#Footnote-34" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 34.">[34]</a> recognizes
+as a characteristic of the races of the New
+World, they butchered their own fellow-citizens
+indiscriminately, and without remorse or pity. And
+yet, this did not prevent them from being a powerful,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page117" id="page117">[Pg 117]</a></span>industrious, and wealthy nation, who might
+long have continued to blaspheme the Deity by
+their dark creed, but for Cortez's genius and
+the bravery of his companions. In this instance,
+then, fanaticism was not the cause of the downfall.<a name="FNanchor-35" id="FNanchor-35"></a><a href="#Footnote-35" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 35.">[35]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page118" id="page118">[Pg 118]</a></span>Nor are luxury or enervation more powerful in
+their effects. These vices are almost always peculiar
+<span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden;"><a name="page119" id="page119">[Pg 119]</a></span>to the higher classes, and seldom penetrate
+the whole mass of the population. But I doubt
+whether among the Greeks, the Persians, or the
+Romans, whose downfall they are said to have
+caused, luxury and enervation, albeit in a different
+form, had risen to a higher pitch than we see them
+to-day in some of our modern States, in France,
+Germany, England, and Russia, for instance. The
+two last countries are especially distinguished for
+the luxury prevalent among the higher classes,
+and yet, these two countries seem to be endued
+with a vitality much more vigorous and promising
+than most other European States. In the Middle
+Ages, the Venetians, Genoese, Pisanese, accumulated
+in their magazines the treasures and luxuries
+of the world; yet, the gorgeous magnificence of
+their palaces, and the splendid decorations of their
+vessels, did certainly not diminish their power, or
+subvert their dominion.<a name="FNanchor-36" id="FNanchor-36"></a><a href="#Footnote-36" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 36.">[36]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page120" id="page120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+Even the corruption of morals, this most terrible
+of all scourges, is not necessarily a cause of
+national ruin. If it were, the prosperity of a nation,
+its power and preponderance, would be in a
+direct ratio to the purity of its manners; and it is
+hardly necessary to say that this is not the case.
+The odd fashion of ascribing all sorts of imaginary
+virtues to the first Romans, is now pretty much
+out of date.<a name="FNanchor-37" id="FNanchor-37"></a><a href="#Footnote-37" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 37.">[37]</a> Few would now dare to hold up as
+models of morality those sturdy patricians of the
+old school, who treated their women as slaves, their
+children as cattle, and their creditors like wild
+beasts. If there should still be some who would<span class="pagenum"><a name="page121" id="page121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+defend so bad a cause, their reasoning could easily
+be refuted, and its want of solidity shown. Abuse
+of power, in all epochs, has created equal indignation;
+there were deeper reasons for the abolition of
+royalty than the rape of Lucretia, for the expulsion
+of the decemvirs than the outrage of Appius; but
+these pretexts for two important revolutions, sufficiently
+demonstrate the public sentiment with regard
+to morals. It is a great mistake to ascribe the vigor
+of a young nation to its superior virtues; since
+the beginning of historical times, there has not
+been a community, however small, among which
+all the reprehensible tendencies of human nature
+were not visible, notwithstanding which, it has increased
+and prospered. There are even instances
+where the splendor of a state was owing to the
+most abominable institutions. The Spartans are
+indebted for their renown, and place in history, to
+a legislation fit only for a community of bandits.<a name="FNanchor-38" id="FNanchor-38"></a><a href="#Footnote-38" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 38.">[38]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page122" id="page122">[Pg 122]</a></span>So far from being willing to accord to youthful
+communities any superiority in regard to morals,
+<span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden;"><a name="page123" id="page123">[Pg 123]</a></span>I have no doubt that, as nations advance in age
+and consequently approach their period of decay,
+they present to the eyes of the moralist a far more
+satisfactory spectacle.<a name="FNanchor-39" id="FNanchor-39"></a><a href="#Footnote-39" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 39.">[39]</a> Manners become milder;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page124" id="page124">[Pg 124]</a></span>men accommodate themselves more readily to one
+another; the means of subsistence become, if not
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page125" id="page125">[Pg 125]</a></span>easier, at least more varied; reciprocal obligations
+are better defined and understood; more refined
+theories of right and wrong gain ground. It would
+be difficult to show that at the time when the
+Greek arms conquered Darius, or when Greek
+liberty itself fled forever from the battle-field of
+Ch&aelig;ron&aelig;a, or when the Goths entered Rome as
+victors; that the Persian monarchy, Athens, or
+the imperial city, in those times of their downfall,
+contained a smaller proportion of honest and virtuous
+people than in the most glorious epochs of
+their national existence.</p>
+
+<p>But we need not go so far back for illustrations.
+If any one were required to name
+the place where the spirit of our age displayed
+itself in the most complete contrast with the
+virtuous ages of the world (if such there were),
+he would most certainly point out Paris. Yet,
+many learned and pious persons have assured
+me, that nowhere, and in no epoch, could more
+practical virtue, solid piety, greater delicacy of
+conscience, be found than within the precincts of
+this great and corrupt city. The ideal of goodness<span class="pagenum"><a name="page126" id="page126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+is as exalted, the duties of a Christian as well understood,
+as by the most brilliant luminaries of
+the Church in the seventeenth century. I might
+add, that these virtues are divested of the bitterness
+and severity from which, in those times, they were
+not always exempt; and that they are more united
+with feelings of toleration and universal philanthropy.<a name="FNanchor-40" id="FNanchor-40"></a><a href="#Footnote-40" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 40.">[40]</a>
+Thus we find, as if to counterbalance
+the fearful aberrations of our own epoch, in the
+principal theatre of these aberrations, contrasts
+more numerous and more striking, than probably
+blessed the sight of the faithful in preceding ages.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot even perceive that great men are wanting
+in those periods of corruption and decay; on
+the contrary, these periods are often signalized by<span class="pagenum"><a name="page127" id="page127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+the appearance of men remarkable for energy of
+character and stern virtue.<a name="FNanchor-41" id="FNanchor-41"></a><a href="#Footnote-41" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 41.">[41]</a> If we look at the
+catalogue of Roman emperors, we find a great
+number of them as exalted in merit as in rank;
+we meet with names like those of Trajan, Antoninus
+Pius, Septimius Severus, Alexander Severus,
+Jovian; and if we glance beneath the throne,
+we see a glorious constellation of great doctors
+of our faith, of martyrs, and apostles of the primitive
+church; not to consider the number of
+virtuous pagans. Active, firm, and valorous minds
+filled the camps and the forums, so that it may
+reasonably be doubted whether Rome, in the times
+of Cincinnatus, possessed so great a number of
+eminent men in every department of human activity.
+Many other examples might be alleged, to
+prove that senile and tottering communities, so
+far from being deficient in men of virtue, talent,
+and action, possess them probably in greater number
+than young and rising states; and that their
+general standard of morals is often higher.</p>
+
+<p>Public morality, indeed, varies greatly at different
+periods of a nation's history. The history of
+the French nation, better than any other, illustrates<span class="pagenum"><a name="page128" id="page128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+this fact. Few will deny that the Gallo-Romans
+of the fifth and sixth centuries, though a subject
+race, were greatly superior in point of morals
+to their heroic conquerors.<a name="FNanchor-42" id="FNanchor-42"></a><a href="#Footnote-42" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 42.">[42]</a> Individually taken,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page129" id="page129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+they were often not inferior to the latter in courage
+and military virtue.<a name="FNanchor-43" id="FNanchor-43"></a><a href="#Footnote-43" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 43.">[43]</a> The intermixture of the
+two races, during the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries,
+reduced the standard of morals among the
+whole nation to a disgraceful level. In the three
+succeeding centuries, the picture brightens again.
+Yet, this period of comparative light was succeeded
+by the dark scenes of the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries, when tyranny and debauchery
+ran riot over the land, and infected all classes of
+society, not excepting the clergy; when the nobles
+robbed their vassals, and the commonalty sold their
+country to a foreign foe. This period, so distinguished
+for the total absence of patriotism, and
+every honest sentiment, was emphatically one of
+decay; the state was shaken to its very foundation,
+and seemed ready to bury under its ruins so much
+shame and dishonor. But the crisis passed; foreign
+and intestine foes were vanquished; the machinery
+of government reconstructed on a firmer basis;
+the state of society improved. Notwithstanding
+its bloody follies, the sixteenth century dishonors
+less the annals of the nation than its predecessors,
+and it formed the transition period to the age of
+those pure and ever-brilliant lights, Fenelon, Bossuet,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page130" id="page130">[Pg 130]</a></span>Montausier, and others. This period, again,
+was succeeded by the vices of the regency, and the
+horrors of the Revolution. Since that time, we
+have witnessed almost incredible fluctuations of
+public morality every decade of years.</p>
+
+<p>I have sketched rapidly, and merely pointed
+out the most prominent changes. To do even
+this properly, much more to descend to details,
+would require greater space than the limits and
+designs of this work permit. But I think what
+I have said is sufficient to show that the corruption
+of public morals, though always a great,
+is often a transient evil, a malady which may be
+corrected or which corrects itself, and cannot,
+therefore, be the sole cause of national ruin,
+though it may hasten the catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>The corruption of public morals is nearly allied
+to another evil, which has been assigned as one of
+the causes of the downfall of empires. It is observed
+of Athens and Rome, that the glory of
+these two commonwealths faded about the same
+time that they abandoned their national creeds.
+These, however, are the only examples of such a
+coincidence that can be cited. The religion of
+Zoroaster was never more flourishing in the Persian
+empire, than at the time of its downfall.
+Tyre, Carthage, Judea, the Mexican and Peruvian<span class="pagenum"><a name="page131" id="page131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+empires expired at the moment when they embraced
+their altars with the greatest zeal and
+devotion. Nay, I do not believe that even at
+Athens and Rome, the ancient creed was abandoned
+until the day when it was replaced in every
+conscience, by the complete triumph of Christianity.
+I am firmly convinced that, politically
+speaking, irreligion never existed among any
+people, and that none ever abandoned the faith of
+their forefathers, except in exchange for another.
+In other words, there never was such a thing as a
+religious interregnum. The Gallic Teutates gave
+way to the Jupiter of the Romans; the worship of
+Jupiter, in its turn, was replaced by Christianity.
+It is true that, in Athens, not long before the time
+of Pericles, and in Rome, towards the age of the
+Scipios, it became the fashion among the higher
+classes, first to reason upon religious subjects,
+next to doubt them, and finally to disbelieve them
+altogether, and to pride themselves upon scepticism.
+But though there were many who joined
+in the sentiment of the ancient "freethinker" who
+dared the augurs to look at one another without
+laughing, yet this scepticism never gained ground
+among the mass of the people.</p>
+
+<p>Aspasia at her evening parties, and Lelius
+among his intimates, might ridicule the religious<span class="pagenum"><a name="page132" id="page132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+dogmas of their country, and amuse themselves at
+the expense of those that believed them. But at
+both these epochs, the most brilliant in the history
+of Greece and Rome, it would have been highly
+dangerous to express such sentiments publicly.
+The imprudence of his mistress came near costing
+Pericles himself dearly, and the tears which he
+shed before the tribunal, were not in themselves
+sufficiently powerful to save the fair sceptic. The
+poets of the times, Aristophanes, Sophocles, and
+afterwards &AElig;schylus, found it necessary, whatever
+were their private sentiments, to flatter the religious
+notions of the masses. The whole nation
+regarded Socrates as an impious innovator, and
+would have put to death Anaxagoras, but for the
+strenuous intercession of Pericles. Nor did the
+philosophical and sceptical theories penetrate the
+masses at a later period. Never, at any time, did
+they extend beyond the sphere of the elegant and
+refined. It may be objected that the opinion of
+the rest, the mechanics, traders, the rural population,
+the slaves, etc., was of little moment, as
+they had no influence in the policy of the state.
+If this were the case, why was it necessary, until
+the last expiring throb of Paganism, to preserve
+its temples and pay the hierophants? Why did
+men, the most eminent and enlightened, the most<span class="pagenum"><a name="page133" id="page133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+sceptical in their religious notions, not only don
+the sacerdotal robe, but even descend to the most
+repugnant offices of the popular worship? The
+daily reader of Lucretius<a name="FNanchor-44" id="FNanchor-44"></a><a href="#Footnote-44" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 44.">[44]</a> had to snatch moments
+of leisure from the all-absorbing game of politics,
+to compose a treatise on haruspicy. I allude to
+the first C&aelig;sar.<a name="FNanchor-45" id="FNanchor-45"></a><a href="#Footnote-45" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 45.">[45]</a> And all his successors, down to
+Constantine, were compelled to unite the pontificial
+with the imperial dignity. Even Constantine
+himself, though as a Christian prince he had far
+better reasons for repugnance to such an office<span class="pagenum"><a name="page134" id="page134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+than any of his predecessors, was compelled
+to compromise with the still powerful ancient
+religion of the nation.<a name="FNanchor-46" id="FNanchor-46"></a><a href="#Footnote-46" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 46.">[46]</a> This is a clear proof
+of the prevalence of the popular sentiment
+over the opinion of the higher and more enlightened
+classes. They might appeal to reason
+and common sense, against the absurdities of the
+masses, but the latter would not, could not, renounce
+one faith until they had adopted another,
+confirming the old truth, that in the affairs of this
+world, the positive ever takes precedent over the
+negative. The popular sentiment was so strong
+that, in the third century, it infected even the
+higher classes to some extent, and created among
+them a serious religious reaction, which did not
+entirely subside until after the final triumph of
+Christianity. The revolution of ideas which gradually
+diffused true religion among all classes, is
+highly interesting, and it may not be altogether
+irrelevant to my subject, to point out the principal
+causes which occasioned it.</p>
+
+<p>In the latter stages of the Roman empire, the
+armies had acquired such undue political preponderance,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page135" id="page135">[Pg 135]</a></span>that from the emperor, who inevitably
+was chosen by them, down to the pettiest governor
+of a district, all the functionaries of the government
+issued from the ranks. They had sprung
+from those popular masses, of whose passionate
+attachment to their faith I have already spoken,
+and upon attaining their elevated stations, came
+in contact with the former rulers of the country,
+the old distinguished families, the municipal dignitaries
+of cities, in fact those classes who took
+pride and delight in sceptical literature. At first
+there was hostility between these latter and the
+real rulers of the state, whom they would willingly
+have treated as upstarts, if they had dared. But
+as the court gave the tone, and all the minor military
+chiefs were, for the most part, devout and
+fanatic, the sceptics were compelled to disguise
+their real sentiments, and the philosophers set
+about inventing systems to reconcile the rationalistic
+theories with the state religion. This revival
+of pagan piety caused the greater number of the
+persecutions. The rural populations, who had
+suffered their faith to be outraged by the atheists
+so long as the higher classes domineered over
+them, now, that the imperial democracy had reduced
+all to the same level, were panting for
+revenge; but, mistaking their victims, they directed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page136" id="page136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
+their fury against the Christians. The real sceptics
+were such men as King Agrippa, who wishes
+to hear St. Paul<a name="FNanchor-47" id="FNanchor-47"></a><a href="#Footnote-47" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 47.">[47]</a> from mere curiosity; who hears
+him, debates with him, considers him a fool, but
+never thinks of persecuting him because he differs
+in opinion; or Tacitus, the historian, who, though
+full of contempt for the believers in the new
+religion, blames Nero for his cruelties towards
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Agrippa and Tacitus were pagan sceptics. Diocletian
+was a politician, who gave way to the
+clamors of an incensed populace. Decius and
+Aurelian were fanatics, like the masses they
+governed, and from whom they had sprung.</p>
+
+<p>Even after the Christian religion had become
+the religion of the state, what immense difficulties
+were experienced in attempting to bring the masses
+within its pale! So hopeless was in some places
+the contest with the local divinities, that in many
+instances conversion was rather the result of address,
+than the effect of persuasion. The genius
+of the holy propagators of our religion was reduced
+to the invention of pious frauds. The
+divinities of the groves, fields, and fountains, were
+still worshipped, but under the name of the saints,
+the martyrs, and the Virgin. After being for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page137" id="page137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+time misdirected, these homages would finally
+find the right way. Yet such is the obstinacy
+with which the masses cling to a faith once received,
+that there are traces of it remaining in our
+day. There are still parishes in France, where
+some heathenish superstition alarms the piety, and
+defies the efforts of the minister. In Catholic Brittany,
+even in the last centuries, the bishop in vain
+attempted to dehort his flock from the worship of
+an idol of stone. The rude image was thrown
+into the water, but rescued by its obstinate adorers;
+and the assistance of the military was required to
+break it to pieces. Such was, and such is the
+longevity of paganism. I conclude, therefore, that
+no nation, either in ancient or modern times, ever
+abandoned its religion without having duly and
+earnestly embraced another, and that, consequently,
+none ever found itself, for a moment, in a state
+of irreligion, which could have been the cause of
+its ruin.</p>
+
+<p>Having denied the destructive effects of fanaticism,
+luxury, and immorality, and the political
+possibility of irreligion, I shall now speak of the
+effects of bad government. This subject is well
+worthy of an entire chapter.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page138" id="page138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">INFLUENCE OF GOVERNMENT UPON THE LONGEVITY
+OF NATIONS.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>Misgovernment defined&mdash;Athens, China, Spain, Germany, Italy,
+etc.&mdash;Is not in itself a sufficient cause for the ruin of nations.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>I am aware of the difficulty of the task I have
+undertaken in attempting to establish a truth,
+which by many of my readers will be regarded as
+a mere paradox. That good laws and good
+government exert a direct and powerful influence
+upon the well-being and prosperity of
+a nation, is an indisputable fact, of which I am
+fully convinced; but I think that history proves
+that they are not absolute conditions of the existence
+of a community; or, in other words, that
+their absence is not necessarily productive of ruin.
+Nations, like individuals, are often preyed upon
+by fearful diseases, which show no outward traces
+of the ravages within, and which, though dangerous,
+are not always fatal. Indeed, if they were,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page139" id="page139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+few communities would survive the first few years
+of their formation, for it is precisely during that
+period that the government is worst, the laws most
+imperfect, and least observed. But here the comparison
+between the body political and the human
+organization ceases, for while the latter dreads
+most the attack of disease during infancy, the
+former easily overcomes it at that period. History
+furnishes innumerable examples of successful contest
+on the part of young communities with the
+most formidable and most devastating political
+evils, of which none can be worse than ill-conceived
+laws, administered in an oppressive or
+negligent manner.<a name="FNanchor-48" id="FNanchor-48"></a><a href="#Footnote-48" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 48.">[48]</a></p>
+
+<p>Let us first define what we understand by bad
+government. The varieties of this evil are as
+various as nations, countries, and epochs. It were
+impossible to enumerate them all. Yet, by classing
+them under four principal categories, few
+varieties will be omitted.</p>
+
+<p>A government is bad, when imposed by foreign
+influence. Athens experienced this evil under the
+thirty tyrants. Yet she shook off the odious<span class="pagenum"><a name="page140" id="page140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+yoke, and patriotism, far from expiring, gained
+renewed vigor by the oppression.</p>
+
+<p>A government is bad, when based upon absolute
+and unconditional conquest. Almost the whole extent
+of France in the fourteenth century, groaned
+under the dominion of England. The ordeal was
+passed, and the nation rose from it more powerful
+and brilliant than before. China was overrun and
+conquered by the Mongol hordes. They were
+ejected from its territories, after having previously
+undergone a singular transformation. It next fell
+into the hands of the Mantchoo conquerors, but
+though they already count the years of their reign
+by centuries, they are now at the eve of experiencing
+the same fate as their Mongol predecessors.</p>
+
+<p>A government is especially bad, when the principles
+upon which it was based are disregarded or
+forgotten. This was the fate of the Spanish monarchy.
+It was based upon the military spirit of
+the nation, and upon its municipal freedom, and
+declined soon after these principles came to be
+forgotten. It is impossible to imagine greater
+political disorganization than this country represented.
+Nowhere was the authority of the sovereign
+more nominal and despised; nowhere did
+the clergy lay themselves more open to censure.
+Agriculture and industry, following the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="page141" id="page141">[Pg 141]</a></span>
+downward impulse, were also involved in the
+national marasmus. Yet Spain, of whom so many
+despaired, at a moment when her star seemed
+setting forever, gave the glorious example of
+heroic and successful resistance to the arms of one
+who had hitherto experienced no check in his
+career of conquest. Since that, the better spirit
+of the nation has been roused, and there is, probably,
+at this time, no European state with more
+promising prospects, and stronger vitality.<a name="FNanchor-49" id="FNanchor-49"></a><a href="#Footnote-49" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 49.">[49]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page142" id="page142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+A government is also very bad, when, by its
+institutions, it authorizes an antagonism either
+between the supreme power and the nation, or
+among the different classes of which it is composed.
+This was the case in the Middle Ages,
+when the kings of France and England were at
+war with their great vassals, and the peasants in
+perpetual feud with the lords. In Germany, the
+first effects of the liberty of thought, were the
+civil wars of the Hussites, Anabaptists, and other<span class="pagenum"><a name="page143" id="page143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+sectaries. Italy, at a more remote period, was so
+distracted by the division of the supreme authority
+for which emperor, pope, nobles, and municipalities
+contended, that the masses, not knowing whom
+to obey, in many instances finished by obeying
+neither. Yet in the midst of all these troubles,
+Italian nationality did not perish. On the contrary,
+its civilization was at no time more brilliant,
+its industry never more productive, its foreign influence
+never greater.</p>
+
+<p>If communities have survived such fearful political
+tempests, it cannot well be said that national
+ruin is a necessary cause of misgovernment. Besides,
+wise and happy reigns are few and far
+between, in the history of every nation; and these
+few are not considered such by all. Historians
+are not unanimous in their praise of Elizabeth,
+nor do they all consider the reign of William and
+Mary as an epoch of prosperity for England.
+Truly this science of statesmanship, the highest
+and most complicated of all, is so disproportionate
+to the capacity of man,<a name="FNanchor-50" id="FNanchor-50"></a><a href="#Footnote-50" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 50.">[50]</a> and so various are the
+opinions concerning it, that nations have early and
+frequent opportunities of learning to accommodate
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page144" id="page144">[Pg 144]</a></span>themselves to misgovernment, which, in its
+worst forms, is still preferable to anarchy. It is a
+well-proved fact, which even a superficial study of
+history will clearly demonstrate, that communities
+often perish under the best government of a long
+series that came before.<a name="FNanchor-51" id="FNanchor-51"></a><a href="#Footnote-51" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 51.">[51]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden"><a name="page145" id="page145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page146" id="page146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">DEFINITION OF THE WORD DEGENERACY&mdash;ITS
+CAUSE.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>Skeleton history of a nation&mdash;Origin of castes, nobility, etc.&mdash;Vitality
+of nations not necessarily extinguished by conquest&mdash;China,
+Hindostan&mdash;Permanency of their peculiar civilizations.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>If the spirit of the preceding pages has been at
+all understood, it will be seen that I am far from
+considering these great national maladies, misgovernment,
+fanaticism, irreligion, and immorality,
+as mere trifling accidents, without influence or importance.
+On the contrary, I sincerely pity the
+community which is afflicted by such scourges,
+and think that no efforts can be misdirected which
+tend to mitigate or remove them. But I repeat,
+that unless these disorganizing elements are grafted
+upon another more destructive principle, unless
+they are the consequences of a greater, though
+concealed, evil; we may rest assured that their
+ravages are not fatal, and that society, after a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page147" id="page147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+shorter or longer period of suffering, will escape
+their toils, perhaps with renewed vigor and youth.</p>
+
+<p>The examples I have alleged seem to me conclusive;
+their number, if necessary, might be increased
+to any extent. But the conviction has
+already gained ground, that these are but secondary
+evils, to which an undue importance has
+hitherto been attached, and that the law which
+governs the life and death of societies must be
+sought for elsewhere, and deeper. It is admitted
+that the germ of destruction is inherent in the
+constitution of communities; that so long as it
+remains latent, exterior dangers are little to be
+dreaded; but when it has once attained full growth
+and maturity, the nation must die, even though
+surrounded by the most favorable circumstances,
+precisely as a jaded steed breaks down, be the
+track ever so smooth.</p>
+
+<p>Degeneracy was the name given to this cause of
+dissolution. This view of the question was a great
+step towards the truth, but, unfortunately, it went
+no further; the first difficulty proved insurmountable.
+The term was certainly correct, etymologically
+and in every other respect, but how is it with
+the definition. A people is said to be degenerated,
+when it is badly governed, abuses its riches, is
+fanatical, or irreligious; in short, when it has lost<span class="pagenum"><a name="page148" id="page148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+the characteristic virtues of its forefathers. This
+is begging the question. Thus, communities succumb
+under the burden of social and political evils
+only when they are degenerate, and they are degenerate
+only when such evils prevail. This circular
+argument proves nothing but the small
+progress hitherto made in the science of national
+biology. I readily admit that nations perish from
+degeneracy, and from no other cause; it is when
+in that wretched condition, that foreign attacks are
+fatal to them, for then they no longer possess the
+strength to protect themselves against adverse
+fortune, or to recover from its blows. They die,
+because, though exposed to the same perils as their
+ancestors, they have not the same powers of overcoming
+them. I repeat it, the term <em>degeneracy</em> is
+correct; but it is necessary to define it, to give it
+a real and tangible meaning. It is necessary to
+say how and why this vigor, this capacity of overcoming
+surrounding dangers, are lost. Hitherto,
+we have been satisfied with a mere word, but the
+thing itself is as little known as ever.<a name="FNanchor-52" id="FNanchor-52"></a><a href="#Footnote-52" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 52.">[52]</a> The step
+beyond, I shall attempt to make.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page149" id="page149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>In my opinion, a nation is degenerate, when
+the blood of its founders no longer flows in its<span class="pagenum"><a name="page150" id="page150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+veins, but has been gradually deteriorated by
+successive foreign admixtures; so that the nation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page151" id="page151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+while retaining its original name, is no longer
+composed of the same elements. The attenuation<span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden;"><a name="page152" id="page152">[Pg 152]</a></span>
+of the original blood is attended by a modification
+of the original instincts, or modes of thinking;
+the new elements assert their influence, and when
+they have once gained perfect and entire preponderance,
+the degeneration may be considered as
+complete. With the last remnant of the original
+ethnical principle, expires the life of the society
+and its civilization. The masses, which composed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page153" id="page153">[Pg 153]</a></span>
+it, have thenceforth no separate, independent, social
+and political existence; they are attracted to
+different centres of civilization, and swell the ranks
+of new societies having new instincts and new
+purposes.</p>
+
+<p>In attempting to establish this theorem, I am
+met by a question which involves the solution of
+a far more difficult problem than any I have yet
+approached. This question, so momentous in its
+bearings, is the following:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Is there, in reality, a serious and palpable difference
+in the capacity and intrinsic worth of different
+branches of the human family?</p>
+
+<p>For the sake of clearness, I shall advance, <i>&agrave; priori</i>,
+that this difference exists. It then remains to show
+how the ethnical character of a nation can undergo
+such a total change as I designate by the term
+<em>degeneracy</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Physiologists assert that the human frame is
+subject to a constant wear and tear, which would
+soon destroy the whole machine, but for new particles
+which are continually taking the form and
+place of the old ones. So rapid is this change
+said to be, that, in a few years, the whole framework
+is renovated, and the material identity of the
+individual changed. The same, to a great extent,
+may be said of nations, only that, while the individual
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page154" id="page154">[Pg 154]</a></span>always preserves a certain similarity of form
+and features, those of a nation are subject to innumerable
+and ever-varying changes. Let us take
+a nation at the moment when it assumes a political
+existence, and commences to play a part in the
+great drama of the world's stage. In its embryo,
+we call it a tribe.</p>
+
+<p>The simplest and most natural political institution
+is that of tribes. It is the only form of
+government known to rude and savage nations.
+Civilization is the result of a great concentration
+of powerful physical and intellectual forces,<a name="FNanchor-53" id="FNanchor-53"></a><a href="#Footnote-53" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 53.">[53]</a>
+which, in small and scattered fragments, is impossible.
+The first step towards it is, therefore, undoubtedly,
+the union of several tribes by alliance
+or conquest. Such a coalescence is what we call
+a nation or empire. I think it admits of an easy<span class="pagenum"><a name="page155" id="page155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+demonstration, that in proportion as a human
+family is endowed with the capacity for intellectual
+progress, it exhibits a tendency to enlarge the
+circle of its influence and dominion. On the contrary,
+where that capacity is weak, or wanting, we
+find the population subdivided into innumerable
+small fragments, which, though in perpetual collision,
+remain forever detached and isolated. The
+stronger may massacre the weaker, but permanent
+conquest is never attempted; depredatory incursions
+are the sole object and whole extent of warfare.
+This is the case with the natives of Polynesia,
+many parts of Africa, and the Arctic regions.
+Nor can their stagnant condition be ascribed to
+local or climatical causes. We have seen such
+wretched hordes inhabiting, indifferently, temperate
+as well as torrid or frigid zones; fertile prairies
+and barren deserts; river-shores and coasts as well
+as inland regions. It must therefore be founded
+upon an inherent incapacity of progress. The
+more civilizable a race is, the stronger is the tendency
+for aggregation of masses. Complex political
+organizations are not so much the effect as the
+cause of civilization.<a name="FNanchor-54" id="FNanchor-54"></a><a href="#Footnote-54" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 54.">[54]</a> A tribe with superior intellectual
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page156" id="page156">[Pg 156]</a></span>and physical endowments, soon perceives
+that, to increase its power and prosperity, it must
+compel its neighbors to enter into the sphere of its
+influence. Where peaceful means fail, war is resorted
+to. Territories are conquered, a division
+into classes established between the victorious and
+the subjugated race; in one word, a nation has
+made its appearance upon the theatre of history.
+The impulse being once given, it will not stop
+short in the career of conquest. If wisdom and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page157" id="page157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+moderation preside in its councils, the tracks of
+its armies will not be marked by wanton destruction
+and bloodshed; the monuments, institutions,
+and manners of the conquered will be respected;
+superior creations will take the place of the old,
+where changes are necessary and useful;&mdash;a great
+empire will be formed.<a name="FNanchor-55" id="FNanchor-55"></a><a href="#Footnote-55" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 55.">[55]</a> At first, and perhaps for
+a long time, victors and vanquished will remain
+separated and distinct. But gradually, as the
+pride of the conqueror becomes less obtrusive, and
+the bitterness of defeat is forgotten by the conquered;
+as the ties of common interest become
+stronger, the boundary line between them is obliterated.
+Policy, fear, or natural justice, prompts
+the masters to concessions; intermarriages take
+place, and, in the course of time, the various ethnical
+elements are blended, and the different nations
+composing the state begin to consider themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="page158" id="page158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+as one. This is the general history of the rise of
+all empires whose records have been transmitted
+to us.<a name="FNanchor-56" id="FNanchor-56"></a><a href="#Footnote-56" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 56.">[56]</a> An inferior race, by falling into the hands<span class="pagenum"><a name="page159" id="page159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+of vigorous masters, is thus called to share a
+destiny, of which, alone, it would have been incapable.
+Witness the Saxons by the Norman
+conquest.<a name="FNanchor-57" id="FNanchor-57"></a><a href="#Footnote-57" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 57.">[57]</a> But, if there is a decided disparity in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page160" id="page160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+the capacity of the two races, their mixture, while
+it ennobles the baser, deteriorates the nobler; a
+new race springs up, inferior to the one, though
+superior to the other, and, perhaps, possessed of
+peculiar qualities unknown to either. The modification
+of the ethnical character of the nation,
+however, does not terminate here.</p>
+
+<p>Every new acquisition of territory, by conquest
+or treaty, brings an addition of foreign blood. The
+wealth and splendor of a great empire attract
+crowds of strangers to its capital, great inland<span class="pagenum"><a name="page161" id="page161">[Pg 161]</a></span>
+cities, or seaports. Apart from the fact that the
+conquering race&mdash;that which founds the empire,
+and supports and animates it&mdash;is, in most cases,
+inferior in numbers to the masses which it subdued
+and assimilated; the conspicuous part which it
+takes in the affairs of the state, renders it more
+directly exposed to the fatal results of battles,
+proscriptions, and revolts.<a name="FNanchor-58" id="FNanchor-58"></a><a href="#Footnote-58" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 58.">[58]</a> In some instances,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page162" id="page162">[Pg 162]</a></span>
+also, it happens that the substratum of native
+populations are singularly prolific&mdash;witness the
+Celts and Sclaves. Sooner or later, therefore, the
+conquering race is absorbed by the masses which
+its vigor and superiority have aggregated. The
+very materials of which it erected its splendor, and
+upon which it based its strength, are ultimately
+the means of its weakness and destruction. But
+the civilization which it has developed, may survive
+for a limited period. The forward impulse,
+once imparted to the mass, will still propel it for a
+while, but its force is continually decreasing. Manners,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page163" id="page163">[Pg 163]</a></span>laws, and institutions remain, but the spirit
+which animated them has fled; the lifeless body
+still exhibits the apparent symptoms of life, and,
+perhaps, even increases, but the real strength has
+departed; the edifice soon begins to totter, at the
+slightest collision it will crumble, and bury beneath
+its ruins the civilization which it had developed.</p>
+
+<p>If this definition of degeneracy be accepted, and
+its consequences admitted, the problem of the rise
+and fall of empires no longer presents any difficulty.
+A nation lives so long as it preserves the ethnical
+principle to which it owes its existence; with this
+principle, it loses the <i>primum mobile</i> of its successes,
+its glory, and its civilization: it must therefore disappear
+from the stage of history. Who can doubt
+that if Alexander had been opposed by real Persians,
+the men of the Arian stock, whom Cyrus led
+to victory, the issue of the battle of Arbela would
+have been very different. Or if Rome, in her decadence,
+had possessed soldiers and senators like those
+of the time of Fabius, Scipio, and Cato, would she
+have fallen so easy a prey to the barbarians of the
+North?</p>
+
+<p>It will be objected that, even had the integrity
+of the original blood remained intact, a time must
+have come when they would find their masters.
+They would have succumbed under a series of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page164" id="page164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+well-combined attacks, a long-continued overwhelming
+pressure, or simply by the chances of a
+lost battle. The political edifice might have been
+destroyed in this manner, not the civilization,
+not the social organization. Invasion and defeat
+would have been reverses, sad ones, indeed, but
+not irremediable. There is no want of facts to
+confirm this assertion.</p>
+
+<p>In modern times, the Chinese have suffered two
+complete conquests. In each case they have imposed
+their manners and their institutions upon
+the conquerors; they have given them much, and
+received but little in return. The first invaders,
+after having undergone this change, were expelled;
+the same fate is now threatening the second.<a name="FNanchor-59" id="FNanchor-59"></a><a href="#Footnote-59" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 59.">[59]</a>
+In<span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden"><a name="page165" id="page165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+this case the vanquished were intellectually and
+numerically superior to their victors. I shall mention
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page166" id="page166">[Pg 166]</a></span>another case where the victors, though intellectually
+superior, are not possessed of sufficient
+numerical strength to transform the intellectual
+and moral character of the vanquished.</p>
+
+<p>The political supremacy of the British in Hindostan
+is perfect, yet they exert little or no moral
+influence over the masses they govern. All
+that the utmost exertion of their power can effect
+upon the fears of their subjects, is an outward
+compliance. The notions of the Hindoo cannot
+be replaced by European ideas&mdash;the spirit of
+Hindoo civilization cannot be conquered by any
+power, however great, of the law. Political forms
+may change, and do change, without materially
+affecting the basis upon which they rest; Hyderabad,
+Lahore, and Delhi may cease to be capitals:
+Hindoo society will subsist, nevertheless. A time
+must come, sooner or later, when India will regain
+a separate political existence, and publicly proclaim
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page167" id="page167">[Pg 167]</a></span>those laws of her own, which she now
+secretly obeys, or of which she is tacitly left in
+possession.</p>
+
+<p>The mere accident of conquest cannot destroy
+the principle of vitality in a people. At most, it
+may suspend for a time the exterior manifestations
+of that vitality, and strip it of its outward honors.
+But so long as the blood, and consequently the
+culture of a nation, exhibit sufficiently strong
+traces of the initiatory race, that nation exists;
+and whether it has to deal, like the Chinese, with
+conquerors who are superior only materially; or
+whether, like the Hindoos, it maintains a struggle
+of patience against a race much superior in every
+respect; that nation may rest assured of its future&mdash;independence
+will dawn for it one day. On the
+contrary, when a nation has completely exhausted
+the initiatory ethnical element, defeat is certain
+death; it has consumed the term of existence
+which Heaven had granted it&mdash;its destiny is
+fulfilled.<a name="FNanchor-60" id="FNanchor-60"></a><a href="#Footnote-60" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 60.">[60]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page168" id="page168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+I, therefore, consider the question as settled,
+which has been so often discussed, as to what<span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden;"><a name="page169" id="page169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
+would have been the result, if the Carthaginians,
+instead of succumbing to the fortune of Rome,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page170" id="page170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+had conquered Italy. As they belonged to the
+Phenician family, a stock greatly inferior to the
+Italian in political capacity, they would have been
+absorbed by the superior race after the victory,
+precisely as they were after the defeat. The final
+result, therefore, would have been the same in
+either case.</p>
+
+<p>The destiny of civilizations is not ruled by
+accident; it depends not on the issue of a battle,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page171" id="page171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+a thrust of a sword, the favors or frowns of fickle
+fortune. The most warlike, formidable, and triumphant
+nations, when they were distinguished
+for nothing but bravery, strategical science, and
+military successes, have never had a nobler fate
+than that of learning from their subjects, perhaps
+too late, the art of living in peace. The Celts,
+the nomad hordes of Central Asia, are memorable
+illustrations of this truth.</p>
+
+<p>The whole of my demonstration now rests upon
+one hypothesis, the proof of which I have reserved
+for the succeeding chapters: <strong class="smcap">the moral
+and intellectual diversities of the various
+branches of the human family</strong>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page172" id="page172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF
+RACES IS NOT THE RESULT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.</p>
+
+<p class="chapdesc">Antipathy of races&mdash;Results of their mixture&mdash;The scientific
+axiom of the absolute equality of men, but an extension of
+the political&mdash;Its fallacy&mdash;Universal belief in unequal endowment
+of races&mdash;The moral and intellectual diversity of races
+not attributable to institutions&mdash;Indigenous institutions are
+the expression of popular sentiments; when foreign and
+imported, they never prosper&mdash;Illustrations: England and
+France&mdash;Roman Empire&mdash;European Colonies&mdash;Sandwich
+Islands&mdash;St. Domingo&mdash;Jesuit missions in Paraguay.</p>
+
+
+<p>The idea of an innate and permanent difference
+in the moral and mental endowments of the various
+groups of the human species, is one of the
+most ancient, as well as universally adopted, opinions.
+With few exceptions, and these mostly in
+our own times, it has formed the basis of almost
+all political theories, and has been the fundamental
+maxim of government of every nation, great or
+small. The prejudices of country have no other
+cause; each nation believes in its own superiority<span class="pagenum"><a name="page173" id="page173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+over its neighbors, and very often different parts
+of the same nation regard each other with contempt.
+There seems to exist an instinctive antipathy
+among the different races, and even among
+the subdivisions of the same race, of which none
+is entirely exempt, but which acts with the greatest
+force in the least civilized or least civilizable.
+We behold it in the characteristic suspiciousness
+and hostility of the savage; in the isolation from
+foreign influence and intercourse of the Chinese
+and Japanese; in the various distinctions founded
+upon birth in more civilized communities, such as
+castes, orders of nobility and aristocratic privileges.<a name="FNanchor-61" id="FNanchor-61"></a><a href="#Footnote-61" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 61.">[61]</a>
+Not even a common religion can extinguish
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page174" id="page174">[Pg 174]</a></span>the hereditary aversion of the Arab<a name="FNanchor-62" id="FNanchor-62"></a><a href="#Footnote-62" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 62.">[62]</a> to the
+Turk, of the Kurd to the Nestorian of Syria; or
+the bitter hostility of the Magyar and Sclave, who,
+without intermingling, have inhabited the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="page175" id="page175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+country for centuries. But as the different types
+lose their purity and become blended, this hostility
+of race abates; the maxim of absolute and permanent
+inequality is first discussed, then doubted.
+A man of mixed race or caste will not be apt to
+admit disparity in his double ancestry. The superiority
+of particular types, and their consequent
+claims to dominion, find fewer advocates. This
+dominion is stigmatized as a tyrannical usurpation
+of power.<a name="FNanchor-63" id="FNanchor-63"></a><a href="#Footnote-63" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 63.">[63]</a> The mixture of castes gives rise to
+the political axiom that all men are equal, and,
+therefore, entitled to the same rights. Indeed,
+since there are no longer any distinct hereditary
+classes, none can justly claim superior merit and
+privileges. But this assertion, which is true only
+where a complete fusion has taken place, is applied
+to the whole human race&mdash;to all present, past, and
+future generations. The political axiom of equality
+which, like the bag of &AElig;olus, contains so many
+tempests, is soon followed by the scientific. It is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page176" id="page176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+said&mdash;and the more heterogeneous the ethnical
+elements of a nation are, the more extensively the
+theory gains ground&mdash;that, "all branches of the
+human family are endowed with intellectual capacities
+of the same nature, which, though in different
+stages of development, are all equally susceptible
+of improvement." This is not, perhaps,
+the precise language, but certainly the meaning.
+Thus, the Huron, by proper culture, might become
+the equal of the Englishman and Frenchman.
+Why, then, I would ask, did he never, in the
+course of centuries, invent the art of printing or
+apply the power of steam; why, among the warriors
+of his tribe, has there never arisen a C&aelig;sar
+or a Charlemagne, among his bards and medicine-men,
+a Homer or a Hippocrates?</p>
+
+<p>These questions are generally met by advancing
+the influence of climate, local circumstances, etc.
+An island, it is said, can never be the theatre of
+great social and political developments in the same
+measure as a continent; the natives of a southern
+clime will not display the energy of those of the
+north; seacoasts and large navigable rivers will
+promote a civilization which could never have
+flourished in an inland region;&mdash;and a great deal
+more to the same purpose. But all these ingenious
+and plausible hypotheses are contradicted by facts.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page177" id="page177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+The same soil and the same climate have been
+visited, alternately, by barbarism and civilization.
+The degraded fellah is charred by the same sun
+which once burnt the powerful priest of Memphis;
+the learned professor of Berlin lectures
+under the same inclement sky that witnessed the
+miseries of the savage Finn.</p>
+
+<p>What is most curious is, that while the belief of
+equality may influence institutions and manners,
+there is not a nation, nor an individual but renders
+homage to the contrary sentiment. Who has not
+heard of the distinctive traits of the Frenchman,
+the German, the Spaniard, the English, the Russ.
+One is called sprightly and volatile, but brave;
+the other is sober and meditative; a third is noted
+for his gravity; a fourth is known by his coldness
+and reserve, and his eagerness of gain; a fifth, on
+the contrary, is notorious for reckless expense. I
+shall not express any opinion upon the accuracy
+of these distinctions, I merely point out that they
+are made daily and adopted by common consent.
+The same has been done in all ages. The Roman
+of Italy distinguished the Roman of Greece by
+the epithet <em>Gr&aelig;culus</em>, and attributed to him, as
+characteristic peculiarities, want of courage and
+boastful loquacity. He laughed at the colonist of
+Carthage, whom he pretended to recognize among<span class="pagenum"><a name="page178" id="page178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+thousands by his litigious spirit and bad faith.
+The Alexandrians passed for wily, insolent, and
+seditious. Yet the doctrine of equality was as
+universally received among the Romans of that
+period as it is among ourselves. If, then, various
+nations display qualities so different; if some are
+eager for war and glory; others, lovers of their
+ease and comfort, it follows that their destinies
+must be very diverse. The strongest will act in
+the great tragedy of history the roles of kings and
+heroes, the weaker will be content with the humbler
+parts.</p>
+
+<p>I do not believe that the ingenuity of our times
+has succeeded in reconciling the universally adopted
+belief in the special character of each nation
+with the no less general conviction that they are
+all equal. Yet this contradiction is very flagrant,
+the more so as its partisans are not behindhand in
+extolling the superiority of the Anglo-Saxons of
+North America over all the other nations of the
+same continent. It is true that they ascribe that
+superiority to the influence of political institutions.
+But they will hardly contest the characteristic
+aptitude of the countrymen of Penn and Washington,
+to establish wherever they go liberal forms of
+government, and their still more valuable ability
+to preserve them, when once established. Is not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page179" id="page179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+this a very high prerogative allotted to that branch
+of the human family? the more precious, since so
+few of the groups that have ever inhabited the
+globe possessed it.</p>
+
+<p>I know that my opponents will not allow me an
+easy victory. They will object to me the immense
+potency of manners and institutions; they will
+show me how much the spirit of the government,
+by its inherent and irresistible force, influences the
+development of a nation; how vastly different will
+be its progress when fostered by liberty or crushed
+by despotism. This argument, however, by no
+means invalidates my position.</p>
+
+<p>Political institutions can have but two origins:
+either they emanate from the people which is to be
+governed by them, or they are the invention of a
+foreign nation, by whom they are imposed, or from
+whom they are copied.</p>
+
+<p>In the former case, the institutions are necessarily
+moulded upon the instincts and wants of the
+people; and if, through carelessness or ignorance,
+they are in aught incompatible with either, such
+defects will soon be removed or remedied. In
+every independent community the law may be said
+to emanate from the people; for though they have
+not apparently the power of promulgating it, it
+cannot be applicable to them unless it is consonant<span class="pagenum"><a name="page180" id="page180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+with their views and sentiments: it must be the
+reflex of the national character.<a name="FNanchor-64" id="FNanchor-64"></a><a href="#Footnote-64" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 64.">[64]</a> The wise law-giver,
+to whose superior genius his countrymen
+seem solely indebted, has but given a voice to the
+wants and desires of all. The mere theorist, like
+Draco, finds his code a dead letter, and destined
+soon to give place to the institutions of the more
+judicious philosopher who would give to his compatriots
+"not the best laws possible, but such
+only as they were capable of receiving." When
+Charles I., guided by the fatal counsels of the Earl
+of Strafford, attempted to curb the English nation
+under the yoke of absolutism, king and minister
+were treading the bloody quagmire of theories.
+But when Ferdinand the Catholic ordered those
+terrible, but, in the then condition of the nation,
+politically necessary persecutions of the Spanish
+Moors, or when Napoleon re-established religion
+and authority in France, and flattered the military
+spirit of the nation&mdash;both these potentates had
+rightly understood the genius of their subjects,
+and were building upon a solid and practical
+foundation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page181" id="page181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+False institutions, often beautiful on paper, are
+those which are not conformed to the national
+virtues <em>or failings</em>, and consequently unsuitable
+to the country, though perhaps perfectly practicable
+and highly useful in a neighboring state.
+Such institutions, were they borrowed from the
+legislation of the angels, will produce nothing but
+discord and anarchy. Others, on the contrary,
+which the theorist will eschew, and the moralist
+blame in many points, or perhaps throughout, may
+be the best adapted to the community. Lycurgus
+was no theorist; his laws were in strict accordance
+with the spirit and manners of his countrymen.<a name="FNanchor-65" id="FNanchor-65"></a><a href="#Footnote-65" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 65.">[65]</a>
+The Dorians of Sparta were few in number, valiant,
+and rapacious; false institutions would have
+made them but petty villains&mdash;Lycurgus changed
+them into heroic brigands.<a name="FNanchor-66" id="FNanchor-66"></a><a href="#Footnote-66" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 66.">[66]</a></p>
+
+<p>The influence of laws and political institutions
+is certainly very great; they preserve and invigorate
+the genius of a nation, define its objects, and
+help to attain them; but though they may develop<span class="pagenum"><a name="page182" id="page182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+powers, they cannot create them where they do not
+already exist. They first receive their imprint
+from the nation, and then return and confirm it.
+In other words, it is the nation that fashions the
+laws, before the laws, in turn, can fashion the nation.
+Another proof of this fact are the changes and modifications
+which they undergo in the course of time.</p>
+
+<p>I have already said above, that in proportion as
+nations advance in civilization, and extend their
+territory and power, their ethnical character, and,
+with it, their instincts, undergo a gradual alteration.
+New manners and new tendencies prevail,
+and soon give rise to a series of modifications, the
+more frequent and radical as the influx of blood
+becomes greater and the fusion more complete.</p>
+
+<p>England, where the ethnical changes have been
+slower and less considerable than in any other European
+country, preserves to this day the basis of
+the social system of the fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries. The municipal organization of the times
+of the Plantagenets and the Tudors flourishes in
+almost all its ancient vigor. There is the same
+participation of the nobility in the government,
+and the same manner of composing that nobility;
+the same respect for ancient families, united to an
+appreciation of those whose merits raise them
+above their class. Since the accession of James I.,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page183" id="page183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+and still more since the union, in Queen Anne's
+reign, there has indeed been an influx of Scotch
+and Irish blood; foreign nations have also, though
+imperceptibly, furnished their contingent to the
+mixture; alterations have consequently become
+more frequent of late, but without, as yet, touching
+the original spirit of the constitution.</p>
+
+<p>In France, the ethnical elements are much more
+numerous, and their mixtures more varied; and
+there it has repeatedly happened that the principal
+power of the state passed suddenly from the hands
+of one race to those of another. Changes, rather
+than modifications, have therefore taken place in
+the social and political system; and the changes
+were abrupt or radical, in proportion as these races
+were more or less dissimilar. So long as the north
+of France, where the Germanic element prevailed,
+preponderated in the policy of the country, the
+fabric of feudalism, or rather its inform remains,
+maintained their ground. After the expulsion of
+the English in the fifteenth century, the provinces
+of the centre took the lead. Their efforts, under
+the guidance of Charles VII., had recently restored
+the national independence, and the Gallo-Roman
+blood naturally predominated in camp and council.
+From this time dates the introduction of the
+taste for military life and foreign conquests, peculiar
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page184" id="page184">[Pg 184]</a></span>to the Celtic race, and the tendency to concentrate
+and consolidate the sovereign authority,
+which characterized the Roman. The road being
+thus prepared, the next step towards the establishment
+of absolute power was made at the end of
+the sixteenth century, by the Aquitanian followers
+of Henry IV., who had still more of the Roman
+than of the Celtic blood in their veins. The centralization
+of power, resulting from the ascendency
+of the southern populations, soon gave Paris an
+overweening preponderance, and finally made it,
+what it now is, the sovereign of the state. This
+great capital, this modern Babel, whose population
+is a motley compound of all the most varied ethnical
+elements, no longer had any motive to love or
+respect any tradition or peculiar tendency, and,
+coming to a complete rupture with the past, hurried
+France into a series of political and social
+experiments of doctrines the most remote from,
+and repulsive to, the ancient customs and traditional
+tendencies of the realm.</p>
+
+<p>These examples seem to me sufficient to prove
+that political institutions, when not imposed by
+foreign influence, take their mould from the national
+character, not only in the first place, but
+throughout all subsequent changes. Let us now
+examine the second case, when a foreign code is,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page185" id="page185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+<i>nolens volens</i>, forced upon a nation by a superior
+power.</p>
+
+<p>There are few instances of such attempts. Indeed,
+they were never made on a grand scale, by
+any truly sagacious governments of either ancient
+or modern times. The Romans were too politic
+to indulge in such hazardous experiments. Alexander,
+before them, had never ventured it, and his
+successors, convinced, either by reason or instinct, of
+the futility of such efforts, had been contented to
+reign, like the conqueror of Darius, over a vast
+mosaic of nations, each of which retained its own
+habits, manners, laws, and administrative forms,
+and, at least so long as it preserved its ethnical
+identity, resembled its fellow-subjects in nothing
+but submission to the same fiscal and military
+regulations.</p>
+
+<p>There were, it is true, among the nations subdued
+by the Romans, some whose codes contained
+practices so utterly repugnant to their masters,
+that the latter could not possibly have tolerated
+them. Such were the human sacrifices of the
+Druids, which were, indeed, visited with the severest
+penalties. But the Romans, with all their
+power, never succeeded in completely extirpating
+this barbarous rite. In the Narbonnese, the victory
+was easy, for the Gallic population had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page186" id="page186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+been almost completely replaced by Roman colonists;
+but the more intact tribes of the interior
+provinces made an obstinate resistance; and, in
+the peninsula of Brittany, where, in the fourth century,
+a British colony re-imported the ancient instincts
+with the ancient blood, the population, in
+spite of the Romans, continued, either from patriotism
+or veneration for their ancient traditions, to
+butcher fellow-beings on their altars, as often as
+they could elude the vigilance of their masters.
+All revolts began with the restoration of this
+fearful feature of the national creed, and even
+Christianity could not entirely efface its traces,
+until after protracted and strenuous efforts. As
+late as the seventeenth century, the shipwrecked
+were murdered, and wrecks plundered in all the
+maritime provinces where the Kimric blood had
+preserved itself unmixed. These barbarous customs
+were in accordance with the manners of a
+race which, not being yet sufficiently admixed,
+still remained true to its irrepressible instincts.</p>
+
+<p>One characteristic of European civilization is
+its intolerance. Conscious of its pre-eminence, we
+are prone to deny the existence of any other, or,
+at least, to consider it as the standard of all. We
+look with supreme contempt upon all nations that
+are not within its pale, and when they fall under
+our influence, we attempt to convert them to our<span class="pagenum"><a name="page187" id="page187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+views and modes of thinking. Institutions which
+we know to be good and useful, but which persuasion
+fails to propagate among nations to whose
+instincts they are foreign, we force upon them by
+the power of our arms. Where are the results?
+Since the sixteenth century, when the European
+spirit of discovery and conquest penetrated to the
+east, it does not seem to have operated the slightest
+change in the manners and mode of existence
+of the populations which it subjected.</p>
+
+<p>I have already adduced the example of British
+India. All the other European possessions present
+the same spectacle. The aborigines of
+Java, though completely subjugated by the
+Dutch, have not yet made the first step towards
+embracing the manners of their conquerors.
+Java, at this day, preserves the social regulations
+of the time of its independence. In South America,
+where Spain ruled with unrestrained power
+for centuries, what effect has it produced? The
+ancient empires, it is true, are no longer; their
+traces, even, are almost obliterated. But while
+the native has not risen to the level of his conqueror,
+the latter has been degraded by the mixture
+of blood.<a name="FNanchor-67" id="FNanchor-67"></a><a href="#Footnote-67" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 67.">[67]</a>
+In the North, a different method has<span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden"><a name="page188" id="page188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
+been pursued, but with results equally negative;
+nay, in the eyes of philanthropy, more deplorable;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page189" id="page189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+for, while the Spanish Indians have at least increased
+in numbers,<a name="FNanchor-68" id="FNanchor-68"></a><a href="#Footnote-68" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 68.">[68]</a> and even mixed with their
+masters, to the Red-Man of the North, the contact
+with the Anglo-Saxon race has been death. The
+feeble remnants of these wretched tribes are fast
+disappearing, and disappearing as uncivilized, as
+uncivilizable, as their ancestors. In Oceanica, the
+same observation holds good. The number of
+aborigines is daily diminishing. The European
+may disarm them, and prevent them from doing
+him injury, but change them he cannot. Where-ever
+he is master, they no longer eat one another,
+but they fill themselves with firewater, and this
+novel species of brutishness is all they learn of
+European civilization.</p>
+
+<p>There are, indeed, two governments framed by
+nations of a different race, after our models: that
+of the Sandwich Islands, and that of St. Domingo.
+A glance at these two countries will complete the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page190" id="page190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+proof of the futility of any attempts to give to a
+nation institutions not suggested by its own genius.</p>
+
+<p>In the Sandwich Islands, the representative system
+shines with full lustre. We there find an Upper
+House, a Lower House, a ministry who govern,
+and a king who reigns; nothing is wanted. Yet
+all this is mere decoration; the wheel-work that
+moves the whole machine, the indispensable motive
+power, is the corps of missionaries. To them alone
+belongs the honor of finding the ideas, of presenting
+them, and carrying them through, either by
+their personal influence over their neophytes, or,
+if need be, by threats. It may be doubted, however,
+whether the missionaries, if they had no other
+instruments but the king and chambers, would not,
+after struggling for a while against the inaptitude
+of their pupils, find themselves compelled to take
+a more direct, and, consequently, more apparent
+part in the management of affairs. This difficulty
+is obviated by the establishment of a ministry
+composed of Europeans, or half-bloods. Between
+them and the missionaries, all public affairs are
+prearranged; the rest is only for show. King
+Kamehameha III. is, it seems, a man of ability.
+For his own account, he has abandoned tattooing,
+and although he has not yet succeeded in dissuading
+all his courtiers from this agreeable practice,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page191" id="page191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+he enjoys the satisfaction of seeing their countenances
+adorned with comparatively slight designs.
+The mass of the nation, the country nobility and
+common people, persist upon this as all other
+points, in the ancient ideas and customs.<a name="FNanchor-69" id="FNanchor-69"></a><a href="#Footnote-69" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 69.">[69]</a> Still, a
+variety of causes tend to daily increase the European
+population of the Isles. The proximity of
+California makes them a point of great interest to
+the far-seeing energy of our nations. Runaway
+sailors, and mutineers, are no longer the only
+white colonists; merchants, speculators, adventurers
+of all sorts, collect there in considerable
+numbers, build houses, and become permanent
+settlers. The native population is gradually becoming
+absorbed in the mixture with the whites.
+It is highly probable that, ere long, the present
+representative form of government will be superseded
+by an administration composed of delegates
+from one or all of the great maritime powers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page192" id="page192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+Of one thing I feel firmly convinced, that these
+imported institutions will take firm root in the
+country, but the day of their final triumph, by a
+necessary synchronism, will be that of the extinction
+of the native race.</p>
+
+<p>In St. Domingo, national independence is intact.
+There are no missionaries exercising absolute,
+though concealed, control, no foreign ministry
+governing in the European spirit; everything is
+left to the genius and inspiration of the population.
+In the Spanish part of the island, this population
+consists of mulattoes. I shall not speak of them.
+They seem to imitate, in some fashion, the simplest
+and easiest features of our civilization. Like all
+half-breeds, they have a tendency to assimilate
+with that branch of their genealogy which does
+them most honor. They are, therefore, capable
+of practising, in some degree, our usages. The
+absolute question of the capacity of races cannot be
+studied among them. Let us cross the mountain
+ridge which separates the republic of Dominica
+from the empire of Hayti.</p>
+
+<p>There we find institutions not only similar to
+ours, but founded upon the most recent maxims
+of our political wisdom. All that, since sixty
+years, the voice of the most refined liberalism has
+proclaimed in the deliberative assemblies of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page193" id="page193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+Europe, all that the most zealous friends of the
+freedom and dignity of man have written, all the
+declarations of rights and principles, have found
+an echo on the banks of Artibonite. No trace of
+Africa remains in the <em>written</em> laws, or the <em>official</em>
+language; the recollections of the land of Ham
+are <em>officially</em> expunged from every mind; once
+more, the institutions are completely European.
+Let us now examine how they harmonize with the
+manners.</p>
+
+<p>What a contrast! The manners are as depraved,
+as beastly, as ferocious as in Dahomey<a name="FNanchor-70" id="FNanchor-70"></a><a href="#Footnote-70" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 70.">[70]</a> or the country
+of the Fellatahs. The same barbarous love of
+ornament, combined with the same indifference to
+form; beauty consists in color, and provided a garment
+is of gaudy red, and adorned with imitation
+gold, taste is little concerned with useless attention
+to materials or fitness; and as for cleanliness, this
+is a superfluity for which no one cares. You desire
+an audience with some high functionary: you
+are ushered into the presence of an athletic negro,
+stretched on a wooden bench, his head wrapped
+in a dirty, tattered handkerchief, and surmounted
+by a three-cornered hat, profusely decorated with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page194" id="page194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+gold. The general apparel consists of an embroidered
+coat (without suitable nether-garments), a
+huge sword, and slippers. You converse with this
+mass of flesh, and are anxious to discover what
+ideas can occupy a mind under so unpromising an
+exterior. You find an intellect of the lowest order
+combined with the most savage pride, which can
+be equalled only by as profound and incurable a
+laziness. If the individual before you opens his
+mouth, he will retail all the hackneyed common-places
+that the papers have wearied you with for
+the last half century. This barbarian knows them
+by heart; he has very different interests, different
+instincts; he has no ideas of his own. He will
+talk like Baron Holbach, reason like Grimm, and
+at the bottom has no serious care except chewing
+tobacco, drinking spirits, butchering his enemies,
+and propitiating his sorcerers. The rest of the
+time he sleeps.</p>
+
+<p>The state is divided into two factions, not separated
+by incompatibility of politics, but of color&mdash;the
+negroes and the mulattoes. The latter, doubtless,
+are superior in intelligence, as I have already
+remarked with regard to the Dominicans. The
+European blood has modified the nature of the
+African, and in a community of whites, with good
+models constantly before their eyes, these men<span class="pagenum"><a name="page195" id="page195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+might be converted into useful members of society.
+But, unfortunately, the superiority of numbers
+belongs at present to the negroes, and these,
+though removed from Africa by several generations,
+are the same as in their native clime. Their
+supreme felicity is idleness; their supreme reason,
+murder. Among the two divisions of the island
+the most intense hatred has always prevailed. The
+history of independent Hayti is nothing but a long
+series of massacres: massacres of mulattoes by the
+negroes, when the latter were strongest; of the
+negroes by the mulattoes, when the power was in
+their hands. The institutions, with all their boasted
+liberality and philanthropy, are of no use whatever.
+They sleep undisturbedly and impotently
+upon the paper on which they were written, and
+the savage instincts of the population reign supreme.
+Conformably to the law of nature which
+I pointed out before, the negro, who belongs to a
+race exhibiting little aptitude for civilization, entertains
+the most profound horror for all other
+races. Thus we see the Haytien negroes energetically
+repel the white man from their territory,
+and forbid him even to enter it; they would also
+drive out the mulattoes, and contemplate their
+ultimate extermination. Hostility to the foreigner
+is the <i>primum mobile</i> of their local policy. Owing<span class="pagenum"><a name="page196" id="page196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+to the innate laziness of the race, agriculture is
+abandoned, industry not known even by name,
+commerce drivelling; misery prevents the increase
+of the population, while continual wars, insurrections,
+and military executions diminish it continually.
+The inevitable and not very remote
+consequence of such a condition of things is to
+convert into a desert a country whose fertility and
+natural resources enriched generations of planters,
+which in exports and commercial activity surpassed
+even Cuba.<a name="FNanchor-71" id="FNanchor-71"></a><a href="#Footnote-71" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 71.">[71]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page197" id="page197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+These examples of St. Domingo and the Sandwich
+Islands seem to me conclusive. I cannot,
+however, forbear, before definitely leaving the subject,
+from mentioning another analogous fact, the
+peculiar character of which greatly confirms my
+position. I allude to the attempts of the Jesuit
+missionaries to civilize the natives of Paraguay.<a name="FNanchor-72" id="FNanchor-72"></a><a href="#Footnote-72" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 72.">[72]</a></p>
+
+<p>These missionaries, by their exalted intelligence
+and self-sacrificing courage, have excited universal
+admiration; and the most decided enemies of
+their order have never refused them an unstinted
+tribute of praise. If foreign institutions have ever
+had the slightest chance of success with a nation,
+these assuredly had it, based as they were upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="page198" id="page198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+the power of religious feelings, and supported and
+applied with a tact as correct as it was refined.
+The fathers were of the pretty general opinion
+that barbarism was to nations what childhood is
+to the individual, and that the more savage and
+untutored we find a people, the younger we may
+conclude them to be. To educate their neophytes
+to adolescence, they therefore treated them like
+children. Their government was as firm in its
+views and commands as it was mild and affectionate
+in its forms. The aborigines of the American
+continent have generally a tendency to republicanism;
+a monarchy or aristocracy is rarely found
+among them, and then in a very restricted form.
+The Guaranis of Paraguay did not differ, in this
+respect, from their congeners. By a happy circumstance,
+however, these tribes displayed rather more
+intelligence and less ferocity than their neighbors,
+and seemed capable, to some extent, of conceiving
+new wants and adopting new ideas. About one
+hundred and twenty thousand souls were collected
+in the villages of the missions, under the guidance
+of the fathers. All that experience, daily study,
+and active charity could teach the Jesuits, was
+employed for the benefit of their pupils; incessant
+efforts were made to hasten success, without hazarding
+it by rashness. In spite of all these cares,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page199" id="page199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
+however, it was soon felt that the most absolute
+authority over the neophytes could hardly constrain
+them to persist in the right path, and occasions
+were not wanting that revealed the little real
+solidity of the edifice.<a name="FNanchor-73" id="FNanchor-73"></a><a href="#Footnote-73" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 73.">[73]</a></p>
+
+<p>When the measures of Count Aranda deprived
+Paraguay of its pious and skilful civilizers, the
+sad truth appeared in complete light. The Guaranis,
+deprived of their spiritual guides, refused
+all confidence in the lay directors sent them by the
+Spanish crown. They showed no attachment to
+their new institutions. Their taste for savage life
+revived, and at present there are but thirty-seven<span class="pagenum"><a name="page200" id="page200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+little villages still vegetating on the banks of the
+Parana, the Paraguay, and Uraguay, and these
+contain a considerable nucleus of half-breed population.
+The rest have returned to the forest, and
+live there in as savage a state as the western tribes
+of the same stock, the Guaranis and Cirionos. I
+will not say that the deserters have readopted
+their ancient manners completely, but there is little
+trace left of the pious missionaries' labors, and
+this because it is given to no human race to be
+oblivious of its instincts, nor to abandon the path
+in which the Creator has placed them.</p>
+
+<p>It may be supposed, had the Jesuits continued to
+direct their missions in Paraguay, that their efforts,
+assisted by time, would have been crowned with
+better success. I am willing to concede this, but
+on one condition only, always the same: that a
+group of Europeans would gradually have settled
+in the country under the protection of the Jesuit
+directors. These would have modified, and finally
+completely transformed the native blood, and a
+state would have been formed, bearing probably
+an aboriginal name, whose inhabitants might have
+prided themselves upon descending from autochthonic
+ancestors, though as completely belonging
+to Europe as the institutions by which they might
+be governed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page201" id="page201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">THIS DIVERSITY IS NOT THE RESULT OF GEOGRAPHICAL
+SITUATION.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>America&mdash;Ancient empires&mdash;Phenicians and Romans&mdash;Jews&mdash;Greece
+and Rome&mdash;Commercial cities of Europe&mdash;Isthmus of
+Darien.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>It is impossible to leave entirely out of the
+question the influence which climate, the nature of
+the soil, and topographical circumstances, exert
+upon the development of nations. This influence,
+so much overrated by many of the learned, I shall
+investigate more fully, although I have rapidly
+glanced at it already, in another place.</p>
+
+<p>It is a very common opinion that a nation living
+under a temperate sky, not too warm to enervate
+the man, nor too cold to render the soil unproductive;
+on the shores of large rivers, affording extensive
+and commodious means of communication;
+in plains and valleys adapted to varied cultivation;
+at the foot of mountains pregnant with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page202" id="page202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+useful and precious ores&mdash;that a nation thus favored
+by nature, would soon be prompted to cast off
+barbarism, and progress rapidly in civilization.<a name="FNanchor-74" id="FNanchor-74"></a><a href="#Footnote-74" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 74.">[74]</a>
+On the other hand, and by the same reasoning, it
+is easily admitted that tribes, charred by an ardent
+sun, or benumbed by unceasing cold, and having
+no territory save sterile rocks, would be much
+more liable to remain in a state of barbarism.
+According to this hypothesis, the intellectual powers
+of man could be developed only by the aid of
+external nature, and all his worth and greatness
+are not implanted in him, but in the objects without
+and around. Specious as is this opinion at
+first sight, it has against it all the numerous facts
+which observation furnishes.</p>
+
+<p>Nowhere, certainly, is there a greater variety of
+soil and climate than in the extensive Western Continent.
+Nowhere are there more fertile regions,
+milder skies, larger and more numerous rivers.
+The coasts are indented with gulfs and bays; deep
+and magnificent harbors abound; the most valuable
+riches of the mineral kingdom crop out of the
+ground; nature has lavished on the soil her
+choicest and most variegated vegetable productions,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page203" id="page203">[Pg 203]</a></span>and the woods and prairies swarm with alimentary
+species of animals, presenting still more
+substantial resources. And yet, the greater part
+of these happy countries is inhabited, and has been
+for a series of centuries, by tribes who ignore the
+most mediocre exploration of all these treasures.</p>
+
+<p>Several of them seem to have been in the way
+of doing better. A meagre culture, a rude knowledge
+of the art of working metals, may be observed
+in more than one place. Several useful
+arts, practised with some ingenuity, still surprise
+the traveller. But all this is really on a very
+humble scale, and never formed what might be
+termed a civilization. There certainly has existed
+at some very remote period, a nation which inhabited
+the vast region extending from Lake Erie
+to the Mexican Gulf. There can be no doubt that
+the country lying between the Alleghany and the
+Rocky Mountains, and extending from Lake Erie
+to the Gulf of Mexico, was, at some very remote
+epoch, inhabited by a nation that has left remarkable
+traces of its existence behind.<a name="FNanchor-75" id="FNanchor-75"></a><a href="#Footnote-75" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 75.">[75]</a> The remains<span class="pagenum"><a name="page204" id="page204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+of buildings, inscriptions on rocks, the tumuli,<a name="FNanchor-76" id="FNanchor-76"></a><a href="#Footnote-76" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 76.">[76]</a>
+and mummies which they inclose, indicate a high
+degree of intellectual culture. But there is no
+evidence that between this mysterious people and
+the tribes now wandering over its tombs, there is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page205" id="page205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
+any very near affinity. However this may be, if by
+inheritance or slavish imitation the now existing
+aborigines derive their first knowledge of the arts
+which they now rudely practise, from the former
+masters of the soil, we cannot but be struck by
+their incapacity of perfecting what they had been
+taught; and I see in this a new motive for adhering
+to my opinion, that a nation placed amid the
+most favorable geographical circumstances, is not,
+therefore, destined to arrive at civilization.</p>
+
+<p>On the contrary, there is between the propitiousness
+of soil and climate and the establishment
+of civilization, a complete independence. India
+was a country which required fertilization; so was
+Egypt.<a name="FNanchor-77" id="FNanchor-77"></a><a href="#Footnote-77" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 77.">[77]</a> Here we have two very celebrated centres
+of human culture and development. China,
+though very productive in some parts, presented
+in others difficulties of a very serious character.
+The first events recorded in its history are struggles
+with rivers that had burst their bonds; its
+heroes are victors over the ruthless flood; the ancient
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page206" id="page206">[Pg 206]</a></span>emperors distinguished themselves by excavating
+canals and draining marshes. The country
+of the Tigris and Euphrates, the theatre of Assyrian
+splendor and hallowed by our most sacred
+traditions, those regions where, Syncellus says,
+wheat grew spontaneously, possess a soil so little
+productive, when unassisted by art, that only a
+vast and laborious system of irrigation can render
+it capable of giving the means of subsistence to
+its inhabitants. Now that the canals are filled up
+or obstructed, sterility has reassumed its former
+dominion. I am, therefore, inclined to think that
+nature had not so greatly favored these countries
+as is usually supposed. Yet, I shall not discuss
+this point.</p>
+
+<p>I am willing to admit that China, Egypt, India,
+and Mesopotamia were regions perfectly adapted
+in every respect to the establishment of great empires,
+and the consequent development of brilliant
+civilizations. But it cannot be disputed that these
+nations, to profit by these superior advantages,
+must have previously brought their social system
+to a high degree of perfection. Before the great
+watercourses became the highways of commerce,
+industry, or at least agriculture, must have flourished
+to some extent. The great advantages accorded
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page207" id="page207">[Pg 207]</a></span>to these countries presuppose, therefore,
+in the nations that have profited by them, a peculiar
+intellectual vocation, and even a certain anterior
+degree of civilization. But from these specially
+favored regions let us glance elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>When the Phenicians migrated from the southeast,
+they fixed their abode on an arid, rocky
+coast, inclosed by steep and ragged mountains.
+Such a geographical situation would appear to
+preclude a people from any expansion, and force
+them to remain forever dependent on the produce
+of their fisheries for sustenance. The utmost that
+could be expected of them was to see them petty
+pirates. They were pirates, indeed, but on a magnificent
+scale; and, what is more, they were bold
+and successful merchants and speculators. They
+planted colonies everywhere, while the barren
+rocks of the mother country were covered with the
+palaces and temples of a wealthy and luxurious
+community. Some will say, that "the very unpropitiousness
+of external circumstances forced the
+founders of Tyre and Sidon to become what they
+were. Necessity is the mother of invention; their
+misery spurred them on to exertion; had they inhabited
+the plains of Damascus, they would have
+been content with the peaceful products of agriculture,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page208" id="page208">[Pg 208]</a></span>and would probably never have become an
+illustrious nation."<a name="FNanchor-78" id="FNanchor-78"></a><a href="#Footnote-78" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 78.">[78]</a></p>
+
+<p>And why does not misery spur on other nations
+placed under similar circumstances? The Kabyles
+of Morocco are an ancient race; they have had
+sufficient time for reflection, and, moreover, every
+possible inducement for mere imitation; yet they
+have never imagined any other method for alleviating
+their wretched lot except petty piracy. The
+unparalleled facilities for commerce afforded by the
+Indian archipelago and the island clusters of the
+Pacific, have never been improved by the natives;
+all the peaceful and profitable relations were left
+in the hands of foreign races&mdash;the Chinese, Malays,
+and Arabs; where commerce has fallen into the
+hands of a semi-indigenous or half-breed population,
+it has instantly commenced to languish.
+What conclusions can we deduce from these observations
+than that pressing wants are not sufficient
+for inciting a nation to profit by the natural
+facilities of its coasts and islands, and that some
+special aptitude is needed for establishing a commercial
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page209" id="page209">[Pg 209]</a></span>state even in localities best adapted for
+that purpose.</p>
+
+<p>But I shall not content myself with proving that
+the social and political aptitudes of races are not
+dependent on geographical situations, whether these
+be favorable or unfavorable; I shall, moreover,
+endeavor to show that these aptitudes have no sort
+of relation with any exterior circumstances. The
+Armenians, in their almost inaccessible mountains,
+where so many other nations have vegetated in a
+state of barbarism from generation to generation,
+and without any access to the sea, attained, already
+at a remote period, a high state of civilization. The
+Jews found themselves in an analogous position;
+they were surrounded by tribes who spoke kindred
+dialects, and who, for the most part, were nearly
+related to them in blood. Yet, they excelled all
+these groups. They were warriors, agriculturists,
+and merchants. Under a government in which
+theocracy, monarchy, patriarchal authority, and
+popular will, were singularly complicated and
+balanced, they traversed centuries of prosperity
+and glory. The difficulties which the narrow
+limits of their patrimonial domain opposed to
+their expansion, were overcome by an intelligent
+system of emigration. What was this famous
+Canaan? Modern travellers bear witness to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page210" id="page210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
+laborious and well-directed efforts by which the
+Jewish agriculturists maintained the factitious
+fertility of their soil. Since the chosen race no
+longer inhabits these mountains and plains, the
+wells where Jacob's flocks drank are dried up;
+Naboth's vineyard is invaded by the desert,
+Achab's palace-gardens filled with thistles. In
+this miserable corner of the world, what were the
+Jews? A people dextrous in all they undertook,
+a free, powerful, intelligent people, who, before
+losing bravely, and against a much superior foe,
+the title of independent nation, had furnished to
+the world almost as many doctors as merchants.<a name="FNanchor-79" id="FNanchor-79"></a><a href="#Footnote-79" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 79.">[79]</a></p>
+
+<p>Let us look at Greece. Arcadia was the paradise
+of the shepherd, and B&oelig;otia, the favored land
+of Ceres and Triptolemus: yet, Arcadia and B&oelig;otia
+play but a very inferior part in history. The
+wealthy Corinth, the favorite of Plutus and Venus,
+also appears in the second rank. To whom pertains
+the glory of Grecian history? To Attica,
+whose whitish, sandy soil afforded a scanty sustenance
+to puny olive-trees; to Athens, whose principal
+commerce consisted in books and statues.
+Then to Sparta, shut up in a narrow valley between
+masses of rocks, where victory went in search of it.</p>
+
+<p>Who would dare to assert that Rome owed her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page211" id="page211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+universal empire to her geographical position? In
+the poor district of Latium, on the banks of a tiny
+stream emptying its waters on an almost unknown
+coast, where neither Greek nor Phenician vessel
+ever landed, except by accident, the future mistress
+of the world was born. So soon as the nations
+of the earth obeyed the Roman standard,
+politicians found the metropolis ill-placed, and
+the eternal city was neglected: even abandoned.
+The first emperors, being chiefly occupied with the
+East, resided in Greece almost continually. Tiberius
+chose Caprea, in the centre of his empire. His
+successors went to Antioch. Several lived at Trebia.
+Finally, a decree deprived Rome of the very name
+of capital, and gave it to Milan. If the Romans
+have conquered the world, it is certainly in spite
+of the locality whence issued forth their first armies,
+and not on account of its advantages.</p>
+
+<p>In modern history, the proofs of the correctness
+of my position are so abundant, that I
+hardly know how to select. I see prosperity
+abandoning the coasts of the Mediterranean, evidence
+that it was not dependent on them. The
+great commercial cities of the Middle Ages rise
+where no theorist of a preceding age could have
+predicted them. Novogorod flourishes in an almost
+arctic region, Bremen on a coast nearly as cold.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page212" id="page212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+The Hanse-towns of Germany rise in a country
+where civilization has scarcely dawned; Venice
+appears at the head of a long, narrow gulf. Political
+preponderance belongs to places before unknown.
+Lyons, Toulouse, Narbonne, Marseilles,
+Bordeaux, lose the importance assigned them by
+the Romans, and Paris becomes the metropolis&mdash;Paris,
+then a third-rate town, too far from the sea
+for commerce, too near it for the Norman barges.
+In Italy, cities formerly obscure, surpass the capital
+of the popes. Ravenna rises in the midst of
+marshes; Amalfi, for a long time, enjoys extensive
+dominion. It must be observed, that in all these
+changes accident has no part: they all are the
+result of the presence of a victorious and preponderating
+race. It is not the place which determines
+the importance of a nation, it is the nation which
+gives to the place its political and economical importance.</p>
+
+<p>I do not, however, deny the importance of certain
+situations for commercial depots, or for capitals.
+The observations made with regard to
+Alexandria and Constantinople, are incontestable.<a name="FNanchor-80" id="FNanchor-80"></a><a href="#Footnote-80" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 80.">[80]</a>
+There are, upon our globe, various points which
+may be called the keys of the world. Thus, it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page213" id="page213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+obvious that a city, built on the proposed canal
+which is to pierce the Isthmus of Darien, would
+act an important part in the affairs of the world.</p>
+
+<p>But, such a part a nation may act well or badly,
+or even not at all, according to its merits. Aggrandize
+Chagres, and let the two oceans unite under
+her walls, the destiny of the city would depend
+entirely on the race by which it was peopled. If
+this race be worthy of their good fortune, they will
+soon discover whether Chagres be the point whence
+the greatest benefits can be derived from the union
+of the two oceans; and, if it is not, they will leave
+it, and then, untrammelled, develop elsewhere their
+brilliant destinies.<a name="FNanchor-81" id="FNanchor-81"></a><a href="#Footnote-81" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 81.">[81]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden;"><a name="page214" id="page214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page215" id="page215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY UPON MORAL AND
+INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF RACES.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>The term Christian civilization examined&mdash;Reasons for rejecting
+it&mdash;Intellectual diversity no hindrance to the universal diffusion
+of Christianity&mdash;Civilizing influence of Christian religion
+by elevating and purifying the morals, etc.; but does not
+remove intellectual disparities&mdash;Various instances&mdash;Cherokees&mdash;Difference
+between imitation and comprehension of
+civilized life.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>By the foregoing observations, two facts seem
+to me clearly established: first, that there are
+branches of the human family incapable of spontaneous
+civilization, so long as they remain unmixed;
+and, secondly, that this innate incapacity
+cannot be overcome by external agencies, however
+powerful in their nature. It now remains to speak
+of the civilizing influence of Christianity, a subject
+which, on account of its extensive bearing, I have
+reserved for the last, in my consideration of the
+instruments of civilization.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page216" id="page216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+The first question that suggests itself to the
+thinking mind, is a startling one. If some races
+are so vastly inferior in all respects, can they comprehend
+the truths of the gospel, or are they forever
+to be debarred from the blessing of salvation?</p>
+
+<p>In answer, I unhesitatingly declare my firm
+conviction, that the pale of salvation is open to
+them all, and that all are endowed with equal
+capacity to enter it. Writers are not wanting
+who have asserted a contrary opinion. They dare
+to contradict the sacred promise of the Gospel, and
+deny the peculiar characteristic of our faith, which
+consists in its accessibility to all men. According
+to them, religions are confined within geographical
+limits which they cannot transgress. But the
+Christian religion knows no degrees of latitude or
+longitude. There is scarcely a nation, or a tribe,
+among whom it has not made converts. Statistics&mdash;imperfect,
+no doubt, but, as far as they go, reliable&mdash;show
+them in great numbers in the remotest
+parts of the globe: nomad Mongols, in the steppes
+of Asia, savage hunters in the table-lands of the
+Andes; dark-hued natives of an African clime;
+persecuted in China;<a name="FNanchor-82" id="FNanchor-82"></a><a href="#Footnote-82" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 82.">[82]</a> tortured in Madagascar;
+perishing under the lash in Japan.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page217" id="page217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+But this universal capacity of receiving the
+light of the gospel must not be confounded, as is
+so often done, with a faculty of entirely different
+character, that of social improvement. This latter
+consists in being able to conceive new wants,
+which, being supplied, give rise to others, and
+gradually produce that perfection of the social and
+political system which we call civilization. While
+the former belongs equally to all races, whatever
+may be their disparity in other respects, the latter
+is of a purely intellectual character, and the prerogative
+of certain privileged groups, to the partial
+or even total exclusion of others.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to Christianity, intellectual deficiencies
+cannot be a hindrance to a race. Our
+religion addresses itself to the lowly and simple,
+even in preference to the great and wise of this
+earth. Intellect and learning are not necessary<span class="pagenum"><a name="page218" id="page218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+to salvation. The most brilliant lights of our
+church were not always found among the body
+of the learned. The glorious martyrs, whom we
+venerate even above the skilful and erudite defender
+of the dogma, or the eloquent panegyrist of
+the faith, were men who sprang from the masses of
+the people; men, distinguished neither for worldly
+learning, nor brilliant talents, but for the simple
+virtues of their lives, their unwavering faith, their
+self-devotion. It is exactly in this that consists
+one great superiority of our religion over the
+most elaborate and ingenious systems devised by
+philosophers, that it is intelligible to the humblest
+capacity as well as to the highest. The poor
+Esquimaux of Labrador may be as good and as
+pure a Christian as the most learned prelate in
+Europe.</p>
+
+<p>But we now come to an error which, in its various
+phases, has led to serious consequences. The
+utilitarian tendency of our age renders us prone
+to seek, even in things sacred, a character of material
+usefulness. We ascribe to the influence of
+Christianity a certain order of things, which we
+call <em>Christian civilization</em>.</p>
+
+<p>To what political or social condition this term
+can be fitly applied, I confess myself unable to
+conceive. There certainly is a Pagan, a Brahmin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page219" id="page219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+and Buddhistic, a Judaic civilization. There have
+been, and still are, societies so intimately connected
+with a more or less exclusive theological formula,
+that the civilizations peculiar to them, can only be
+designated by the name of their creed. In such
+societies, religion is the sole source of all political
+forms, all civil and social legislation; the groundwork
+of the whole civilization. This union of religious
+and temporal institutions, we find in the history
+of every nation of antiquity. Each country had its
+own peculiar divinity, which exercised a more or
+less direct influence in the government,<a name="FNanchor-83" id="FNanchor-83"></a><a href="#Footnote-83" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 83.">[83]</a> and from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page220" id="page220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
+which laws and civilization were said to be immediately
+derived. It was only when paganism began
+to wane, that the politicians of Rome imagined a
+separation of temporal and religious power, by
+attempting a fusion of the different forms of worship,
+and proclaiming the dogma of legal toleration.
+When paganism was in its youth and vigor, each
+city had its Jupiter, Mercury, or Venus, and the
+local deity recognized neither in this world nor
+the next any but compatriots.</p>
+
+<p>But, with Christianity, it is otherwise. It chooses
+no particular people, prescribes no form of government,
+no social system. It interferes not in temporal
+matters, has naught to do with the material<span class="pagenum"><a name="page221" id="page221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+world, "its kingdom is of another." Provided it
+succeeds in changing the interior man, external
+circumstances are of no import. If the convert
+fervently embraces the faith, and in all his actions
+tries to observe its prescriptions, it inquires not
+about the built of his dwelling, the cut of his
+garments, or the materials of which they are composed,
+his daily occupations, the regulations of his
+government, the degree of despotism, or of freedom,
+which pervades his political institutions. It
+leaves the Chinese in his robes, the Esquimaux in
+his seal-skins; the former to his rice, the latter to
+his fish-oil; and who would dare to assert that the
+prayers of both may not breathe as pure a faith
+as those of the <em>civilized</em> European? No mode of
+existence can attract its preference, none, however
+humble, its disdain. It attacks no form of government,
+no social institution; prescribes none, because
+it has adopted none. It teaches not the art
+of promoting worldly comforts, it teaches to despise
+them. What, then, can we call a Christian
+civilization? Had Christ, or his disciples, prescribed,
+or even recommended any particular
+political or social forms,<a name="FNanchor-84" id="FNanchor-84"></a><a href="#Footnote-84" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 84.">[84]</a> the term would then be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page222" id="page222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+applicable. But his law may be observed under
+all&mdash;of whatever nature&mdash;and is therefore superior
+to them all. It is justly and truly called the
+<em>Catholic</em>, or Universal.</p>
+
+<p>And has Christianity, then, no civilizing influence?
+I shall be asked. Undoubtedly; and a
+very great one. Its precepts elevate and purify
+the soul, and, by their purely spiritual nature, disengage
+the mind from worldly things, and expand
+its powers. In a merely human point of view,
+the material benefits it confers on its followers are
+inestimable. It softens the manners, and facilitates
+the intercourse between man and his fellow-man;
+it mitigates violence, and weans him from corrosive
+vices. It is, therefore, a powerful promoter
+of his worldly interests. But it only expands the
+mind in proportion to the susceptibility of the
+mind for being expanded. It does not give intellect,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page223" id="page223">[Pg 223]</a></span>or confer talents, though it may exalt both,
+and render them more useful. It does not create
+new capacities, though it fosters and develops
+those it finds. Where the capacities of an individual,
+or a race, are such as to admit an improvement
+in the mode of existence, it tends to
+produce it; where such capacities are not already,
+it does not give them. As it belongs to no particular
+civilization, it does not compel a nation to
+change its own. In fine, as it does not level all
+individuals to the same intellectual standard, so it
+does not raise all races to the same rank in the
+political assemblage of the nations of the earth.
+It is wrong, therefore, to consider the equal aptitude
+of all races for the true religion, as a proof
+of their intellectual equality. Though having embraced
+it, they will still display the same characteristic
+differences, and divergent or even opposite
+tendencies. A few examples will suffice to set my
+idea in a clearer light.</p>
+
+<p>The major portion of the Indian tribes of South
+America have, for centuries, been received within
+the pale of the church, yet the European civilization,
+with which they are in constant contact, has
+never become their own.<a name="FNanchor-85" id="FNanchor-85"></a><a href="#Footnote-85" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 85.">[85]</a> The Cherokees, in the
+northern part of the same continent, have nearly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page224" id="page224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+all been converted by the Methodist missionaries.
+At this I am not surprised, but I should be greatly
+so, if these tribes, without mixing with the whites,
+were ever to form one of the States, and exercise
+any influence in Congress. The Moravians and
+Danish Lutheran missionaries in Labrador and
+Greenland, have opened the eyes of the Esquimaux
+to the light of religion; but their neophytes
+have remained in the same social condition in
+which they vegetated before. A still more forcible
+illustration is afforded by the Laplanders of
+Sweden, who have not emerged from the state of
+barbarism of their ancestors, though the doctrine
+of salvation was preached to them, and believed
+by them, centuries ago.</p>
+
+<p>I sincerely believe that all these peoples may
+produce, and, perhaps, already have produced,
+persons remarkable for piety and pure morals;
+but I do not expect ever to see among them learned
+theologians, great statesmen, able military leaders,
+profound mathematicians, or distinguished artists;&mdash;any
+of those superior minds, whose number and
+perpetual succession are the cause of power in a
+preponderating race; much less those rare geniuses
+whose meteor-like appearance is productive of
+permanent good only when their countrymen are
+so constituted as to be able to understand them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page225" id="page225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+and to advance under their direction. We cannot,
+therefore, call Christianity a promoter of civilization
+in the narrow and purely material sense of
+some writers.</p>
+
+<p>Many of my readers, while admitting my observations
+in the main to be correct, will object that
+the modifying influence of religion upon the manners
+must produce a corresponding modification
+of the institutions, and finally in the whole social
+system. The propagators of the gospel, they will
+say, are almost always&mdash;though not necessarily&mdash;from
+a nation superior in civilization to the one
+they visit. In their personal intercourse, therefore,
+with their neophytes, the latter cannot but
+acquire new notions of material well-being. Even
+the political system may be greatly influenced by
+the relations between instructor and pupil. The
+missionary, while he provides for the spiritual
+welfare of his flock, will not either neglect their
+material wants. By his teaching and example,
+the savage will learn how to provide against
+famine, by tilling the soil. This improvement in
+his condition once effected, he will soon be led to
+build himself a better dwelling, and to practise
+some of the simpler useful arts. Gradually, and
+by careful training, he may acquire sufficient taste
+for things purely intellectual, to learn the alphabet,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page226" id="page226">[Pg 226]</a></span>or even, as in the case of the Cherokees, to
+invent one himself. In course of time, if the
+missionaries' labors are crowned with success, they
+may, perhaps, so firmly implant their manners
+and mode of living among this formerly savage
+tribe, that the traveller will find among them well-cultivated
+fields, numerous flocks, and, like these
+same Cherokees, and the Creeks on the southern
+banks of the Arkansas, black slaves to work on
+their plantations.</p>
+
+<p>Let us see how far facts correspond with this
+plausible argument. I shall select the two nations
+which are cited as being the furthest advanced in
+European civilization, and their example will, it
+seems to me, demonstrate beyond a doubt, how
+impossible it is for any race to pursue a career in
+which their own nature has not placed them.</p>
+
+<p>The Cherokees and Creeks are said to be the
+remnants or descendants of the Alleghanian Race,
+the supposed builders of those great monuments
+of which we still find traces in the Mississippi
+Valley. If this be the case, these two nations may
+lay claim to a natural superiority over the other
+tribes of North America.</p>
+
+<p>Deprived of their hereditary dominions by the
+American government, they were forced&mdash;under a
+treaty of transplantation&mdash;to emigrate to regions<span class="pagenum"><a name="page227" id="page227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+selected for them by the latter. There they were
+placed under the superintendence of the Minister
+of War, and of Protestant missionaries, who finally
+succeeded in persuading them to embrace the mode
+of life they now lead. Mr. Prichard,<a name="FNanchor-86" id="FNanchor-86"></a><a href="#Footnote-86" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 86.">[86]</a> my authority
+for these facts, and who derives them himself from
+the great work of Mr. Gallatin,<a name="FNanchor-87" id="FNanchor-87"></a><a href="#Footnote-87" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 87.">[87]</a> asserts that, while
+all the other Indian tribes are continually diminishing,
+these are steadily increasing in numbers. As
+a proof of this, he alleges that when Adair visited
+the Cherokee tribes, in 1762, the number of their
+warriors was estimated at 2,300; at present, their
+total population amounts to 15,000 souls, including
+about 1,200 negroes in their possession. When
+we consider that their schools, as well as churches,
+are directed by white missionaries; that the greater
+number of these missionaries&mdash;being Protestants&mdash;are
+probably married and have children and servants
+also white, besides, very likely, a sort of
+retinue of clerks and other European employees;&mdash;the
+increase of the aboriginal population becomes
+extremely doubtful,<a name="FNanchor-88" id="FNanchor-88"></a><a href="#Footnote-88" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 88.">[88]</a> while it is easy to conceive the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page228" id="page228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+pressure of the white race upon its pupils. Surrounded
+on all sides by the power of the United
+States, incommensurable to their imagination;
+converted to the religion of their masters, which
+they have, I think, sincerely embraced; treated
+kindly and judiciously by their spiritual guides;
+and exposed to the alternation of working or of
+starving in their contracted territory;&mdash;I can understand
+that it was possible to make them tillers
+of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>It would be underrating the intelligence of the
+humblest, meanest specimen of our kind, to
+express surprise at such a result, when we see
+that, by dexterously and patiently acting upon
+the passions and wants of animals, we succeed
+in teaching them what their own instincts
+would never have taught them. Every village<span class="pagenum"><a name="page229" id="page229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+fair is filled with animals which are trained to
+perform the oddest tricks, and is it to be wondered
+at that men submitted to a rigorous system of
+training, and deprived of the means of escaping
+from it, should, in the end, be made to perform
+certain mechanical functions of civilized life;
+functions which, even in the savage state, they are
+capable of understanding, though they have not
+the will to practise them? This were placing
+human beings lower in the scale of creation than
+the learned pig, or Mr. Leonard's domino-playing
+dogs.<a name="FNanchor-89" id="FNanchor-89"></a><a href="#Footnote-89" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 89.">[89]</a> Such exultation on the part of the believers
+in the equality of races is little flattering to those
+who excite it.</p>
+
+<p>I am aware that this exaggeration of the intellectual
+capacity of certain races is in a great
+measure provoked by the notions of some very
+learned and distinguished men, who pretend that
+between the lowest races of men, and the highest
+of apes there was but a shade of distinction. So<span class="pagenum"><a name="page230" id="page230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+gross an insult to the dignity of man, I indignantly
+reject. Certainly, in my estimation, the different
+races are very unequally endowed, both physically
+and mentally; but I should be loath to think that
+in any, even in the most degraded, the unmistakable
+line of demarcation between man and
+brute were effaced. I recognize no link of gradation
+which would connect man mentally with the
+brute creation.</p>
+
+<p>But does it follow, that because the lowest of
+the human species is still unmistakably human, that
+all of that species are capable of the same development?
+Take a Bushman, the most hideous and
+stupid of human families, and by careful training
+you may teach him, or if he is already adult, his
+son, to learn and practise a handicraft, even one
+that requires a certain degree of intelligence. But
+are we warranted thence to conclude that the nation
+to which this individual belongs, is susceptible
+of adopting our civilization? There is a vast
+difference between mechanically practising handicrafts
+and arts, the products of an advanced civilization,
+and that civilization itself. Let us suppose
+that the Cherokee tribes were suddenly cut
+off from all connection with the American government,
+the traveller, a few years hence, would find
+among them very unexpected and singular institutions,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page231" id="page231">[Pg 231]</a></span>resulting from their mixture with the
+whites, but partaking only feebly of the character
+of European civilization.</p>
+
+<p>We often hear of negroes proficient in music,
+negroes who are clerks in counting-rooms, who
+can read, write, talk like the whites. We admire,
+and conclude that the negroes are capable of everything
+that whites are. Notwithstanding this admiration
+and these hasty conclusions, we express
+surprise at the contrast of Sclavonian civilization
+with ours. We aver that the Russian, Polish, Servish
+nations, are civilized only at the surface, that
+none but the higher classes are in possession of
+our ideas, and this, thanks to their intermixture
+with the English, French, and German stock; that
+the masses, on the contrary, evince a hopeless inaptitude
+for participating in the forward movement
+of Western Europe, although these masses have
+been Christians for centuries, many of them while
+our ancestors were heathens. Are the negroes,
+then, more closely allied to our race than the Sclavonic
+nations? On the one hand, we assert the
+intellectual equality of the white and black races;
+on the other, a disparity among subdivisions of
+our own race.</p>
+
+<p>There is a vast difference between imitation and
+comprehension. The imitation of a civilization does<span class="pagenum"><a name="page232" id="page232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+not necessarily imply an eradication of the hereditary
+instincts. A <em>nation</em> can be said to have adopted
+a civilization, only when it has the power to progress
+in it unprompted, and without guidance. Instead
+of extolling the intelligence of savages in handling
+a plough, after being shown; in spelling and reading,
+after they have been taught; let a single example
+be alleged of a tribe in any of the numerous
+countries in contact with Europeans, which, with
+our religion, has also made the ideas, institutions,
+and manners of a European nation so completely
+its own, that the whole social and political machinery
+moves forward as easily and naturally as in
+our States. Let an example be alleged of an extra-European
+nation, among whom the art of printing
+produces effects analogous to those it produces
+among us; where new applications of our discoveries
+are attempted; where our systems of philosophy
+give birth to new systems; where our arts
+and sciences flourish.</p>
+
+<p>But, no; I will be more moderate in my demands.
+I shall not ask of that nation to adopt, together
+with our faith, all in which consists our individuality.
+I shall suppose that it rejects it totally,
+and chooses one entirely different, adapted to its
+peculiar genius and circumstances. When the
+eyes of that nation open to the truths of the Gospel,
+it perceives that its earthly course is as encumbered
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page233" id="page233">[Pg 233]</a></span>and wretched as its spiritual life had hitherto
+been. It now begins the work of improvement,
+collects its ideas, which had hitherto remained
+fruitless, examines the notions of others, transforms
+them, and adapts them to its peculiar circumstances;
+in fact, erects, by its own power, a
+social and political system, a civilization, however
+humble. Where is there such a nation? The entire
+records of all history may be searched in vain
+for a single instance of a nation which, together
+with Christianity, adopted European civilization,
+or which&mdash;by the same grand change in its religious
+ideas&mdash;was led to form a civilization of its
+own, if it did not possess one already before.</p>
+
+<p>On the contrary, I will show, in every part of
+the world, ethnical characteristics not in the least
+effaced by the adoption of Christianity. The
+Christian Mongol and Tartar tribes lead the
+same erratic life as their unconverted brethren,
+and are as distinct from the Russian of the same
+religion, who tills the soil, or plies his trade in
+their midst, as they were centuries ago. Nay, the
+very hostilities of race survive the adoption of a
+common religion, as we have already pointed out
+in a preceding chapter. The Christian religion,
+then, does not equalize the intellectual disparities
+of races.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page234" id="page234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="I_NOTE" id="I_NOTE"></a>INTRODUCTORY NOTE<br />
+<small>TO<br />
+CHAPTERS VIII. AND IX.</small></h3>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>Rapid survey of the populations comprised under the appellation
+"Teutonic"&mdash;Their present ethnological area, and leading
+characteristics&mdash;Fondness for the sea displayed by the
+Teutonic tribes of Northwestern Europe, and perceptible in
+their descendants.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Several of the ideas expressed by the author in the
+course of the two next following chapters, seemed to
+the annotator of this volume to call for a few remarks
+on his part, which could not conveniently be condensed
+within the limited space of foot-notes. Besides, the
+text is already sufficiently encumbered with them, and
+any increase in their length or number could not but
+be displeasing to the eye, while it would divert attention
+from the main subject. He has, therefore, taken
+the liberty&mdash;an unwarranted one, perhaps&mdash;of introducing
+his remarks in this form and place.</p>
+
+<p class="tbreak">The leading proposition in this volume is, that the
+civilization originated and developed by a race, is the
+clearest index of its character&mdash;the mirror in which its
+principal features are truthfully reflected. In other<span class="pagenum"><a name="page235" id="page235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
+words, that every race, capable of developing a civilization,
+will develop one peculiar to itself, and impossible
+to every other. This the author illustrates by the
+actual state of our civilization, which he asserts to be
+originated by the Teutonic race, but modified in proportion
+to the admixture of that race with a different
+blood. To clearly comprehend his idea, and to appreciate
+the value of his arguments, it is, therefore, necessary
+for the reader to take a rapid survey of the populations
+comprised under the appellation <em>Teutonic</em>, and
+to examine into the present geographical extension of
+that race. This I shall endeavor to do, not, indeed, by
+entering into an elaborate ethnological disquisition&mdash;a
+task greatly beyond my powers, and the due performance
+of which would require a space much larger than
+the whole of this volume&mdash;but by merely grouping together
+well-known facts, in such a manner as to set the
+author's idea in a clearer light.</p>
+
+<p>The words <em>Teutonic</em> and <em>Germanic</em> are generally
+used synonymously, and we shall not depart from this
+custom. Strict accuracy, however, would probably require
+that the term Teutonic should be used as the
+general appellation of all those swarms of northern
+warriors, who, under various names, harassed and finally
+subverted the overgrown dominion of ancient Rome,
+while the term Germanic would apply to a portion of
+them only. The Northern Barbarians, as the Romans
+contemptuously styled them, all claimed to belong to
+the "<em>Thiudu</em>," or the nation <i>par excellence</i>, and from
+that word the term Teutonic is supposed to be derived.
+Many of their descendants still retain the name: <em>Teutsch</em>
+or <em>Deutsch</em> (German). The Romans called them <em>Germanes</em>,
+from the boastful title of "the warlike," or "the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page236" id="page236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+men of war," which the first invading tribes had given
+themselves. These <em>Germanes</em> of the Romans were
+again divided into two classes, the Saxon tribes, and
+the Suevic; terms expressive of their mode of life, the
+former having fixed habitations and inclosed farms, the
+latter cultivating the fields by turn, and being prone to
+change their abodes. The first class comprised many
+other tribes besides those who figure in history, under
+the name of Saxons, as the invaders and conquerors of
+Britain. But as I desire to avoid all not well-authorized
+distinctions, I shall use the terms Teutonic and Germanic
+indiscriminately.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans appear to have been at all times an
+eminently warlike and courageous race. History first
+speaks of them as warriors alarming, nay, terrifying,
+the arrogant Romans, and that not in the infancy
+of Rome's power, when the Samnites and Volscians
+were formidable antagonists, but in the very fulness of
+its strength, in the first vigor of youthful manhood,
+when Italy, Spain, part of Gaul, the northern coasts
+of Africa, Greece, Syria, and Asia Minor, were subdued
+to the republican yoke. Then it was that the
+Cimbri and Teutones invaded and harassed Italy, chilling
+the mistress of the world with fear.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans next meet us in C&aelig;sar's Commentaries.
+The principal resistance which the future usurper experienced
+in subduing Gaul, appears to have been
+offered, not by the Gallic population, but either by
+German tribes, settled in that country, or German
+armies from the right banks of the Rhine, who longed
+to dispute the tempting prize with the Romans. The
+great general twice crossed the Rhine, but probably
+more for the <em>&eacute;clat</em> of such an exploit, than with the hope<span class="pagenum"><a name="page237" id="page237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+of making permanent conquests. The temporary successes
+gained by his imperial successors were amply
+counterbalanced by the massacre of the flower of the
+Roman armies.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the first five centuries after Christ,
+nothing was left of the great Roman empire but ruins.
+Every country in Northern, Western, and Southern
+Europe acknowledged German masters. The tribes of
+the extreme north had entered Russia, and there
+established a powerful republic; the tribes of the northwest
+(the Angles and Saxons) had conquered Britain;
+a confederation of the southern tribes, under the name
+of Franks, had conquered Gaul; the various Gothic
+tribes of the east, the Heruli, the Longobardi, Ostrogoths,
+etc., had subjected Italy to their arms, and disputed
+its possession among themselves. Other Gothic
+tribes (the Visigoths, Burgundians, and Vandals) had
+shared with the Franks the beautiful tracts of Gaul,
+or had carried their victorious arms to Spain, and the
+northern coasts of Africa. The three most beautiful and
+most fertile countries of Europe, to this day, retain the
+name of their conquerors&mdash;England, France, Lombardy.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible now to determine with accuracy the
+amount of German blood in the populations of the
+various states founded by the Teutonic tribes. Yet
+certain general results are easily arrived at in this interesting
+investigation.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, we know that Germany, notwithstanding its
+name, contains by no means a pure Germanic population.
+The fierce Scythian hordes, whom Attila led on to
+the work of devastation, after the death of their leader,
+incorporated themselves with various of the Teutonic<span class="pagenum"><a name="page238" id="page238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+tribes. They form one of the ethnical elements of the
+population of Italy, but especially of the south and
+southeast of Germany. While, therefore, the population
+of Northern Germany is comparatively pure
+Teutonic, that of the southern and eastern portion is a
+mixture of Teutonic and Sclavonian elements.</p>
+
+<p>The Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, are probably
+the most Germanic nations of continental Europe.</p>
+
+<p>In Spain, the Visigoths were, in a great measure,
+absorbed by the native population, consisting of the
+aboriginal Celtiberians and the numerous Roman colonists.
+In the tenth century, an amalgamation began
+with the eastern blood brought by the Arab conquerors.</p>
+
+<p>Italy, already at the time of the downfall of Rome,
+contained an extremely mixed population, drawn thither
+by the all-absorbing vortex of the Eternal City. In
+the north, the Germanic element had time to engraft
+itself in some measure; but the south, passing into the
+hands of the Byzantine emperors, received an addition
+of the already mixed Greek blood of the east.</p>
+
+<p>Gaul, at the time of the Frankish conquest, was an
+extremely populous country. Beside the aboriginal
+Gauls, the population consisted of numerous Roman
+colonists. The Mediterranean coast of Gaul had, from
+the earliest times, received Phenician, Carthaginian,
+and Greek settlers, who founded there large and prosperous
+cities. The original differences in the population
+of Gaul are to this day perceptible. The Germanic
+element preponderates in the north, where already,
+in C&aelig;sar's time, the Germans had succeeded in making
+permanent settlements, and in the northeast, where
+the Burgundians had well-nigh extirpated and completely
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page239" id="page239">[Pg 239]</a></span>supplanted the Gallic natives.<a name="FNanchor-90" id="FNanchor-90"></a><a href="#Footnote-90" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 90.">[90]</a> But everywhere
+else,<a name="FNanchor-91" id="FNanchor-91"></a><a href="#Footnote-91" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 91.">[91]</a> the Germanic element forms but a small portion
+of the population, and this is well illustrated by the
+striking resemblance of the character of the modern
+French to that of the ancient Gauls. But though
+vastly inferior in numbers, the descendants of the German
+conquerors, for one thousand years, were the dominant
+race in France. Until the fifteenth century, all
+the higher nobility were of Frankish or Burgundian
+origin. But, after the Celtic and Celto-Roman provinces
+south of the Loire had rallied around a youthful
+king, to reconquer their capital and best territories from
+the English foe, the Frankish blood ruled with less exclusive
+sway in all the higher offices of the state; and
+the distinction was almost entirely lost by the accession
+of the first southern dynasty, that of the Bourbons, towards
+the end of the sixteenth century. The corresponding
+variations in the national policy and the
+exterior manifestations of the national character, Mr.
+Gobineau has rapidly pointed out elsewhere.<a name="FNanchor-92" id="FNanchor-92"></a><a href="#Footnote-92" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 92.">[92]</a></p>
+
+<p>While the population of France presents so great a
+mixture of various different races, and but a slight infusion
+of German blood, that of England, on the contrary,
+is almost purely Teutonic. The original inhabitants
+of the country were, for the most part, driven into
+the mountain fastnesses of Wales by the German invaders,
+where they preserve, to this day, their original<span class="pagenum"><a name="page240" id="page240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+language. Every subsequent great addition to the
+population of England was by the German race. The
+Danes, and, after them, the Normans, were tribes of the
+same stock as the Saxons, and all came from very nearly
+the same portion of Europe. It is obvious, therefore,
+that England, even after the Norman conquest, when,
+for a time, the upper and the lower classes spoke different
+languages, contained a more homogeneous population
+than France did at the same, or any subsequent
+epoch. In England, from the Saxon yeoman up to the
+proudest Norman lord, all belonged to the great German
+race; in France, only the nobility, while the peasants
+were Gauls. The wars between the two countries
+afford a striking proof of the difference of these two
+races. The battles of Cressy, of Poitiers, and of Agincourt,
+which will never be forgotten so long as English
+poetry can find an echo in an English breast, were won
+by the English against greatly superior numbers. "Victories,
+indeed, they were," says Macaulay, "of which
+a nation may justly be proud; for they are to be attributed
+to the moral superiority of the victors, <em>a superiority
+which was most striking in the lowest ranks</em>. The
+knights of England found worthy rivals in the knights
+of France. Chandos encountered an equal foe in Du
+Guesclin. But France had no infantry that dared to
+face the English bows and bills." The Celt has probably,
+at no time, been inferior to the Teuton in valor;
+in martial enthusiasm, he exceeds him. But, at a time
+when bodily strength decided the combat, the difference
+between the sturdy Saxon and the small, slight&mdash;though
+active&mdash;Gaul, must have been great.</p>
+
+<p>In this rapid and necessarily imperfect sketch, I have
+endeavored to show the relative proportion of the Teutonic
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page241" id="page241">[Pg 241]</a></span>blood in the population of the various countries
+of Europe. I have endeavored to direct the reader's
+attention to the fact, that though it forms an element
+in the population of all, it exists in perfect purity in
+but few, and that England presents a happy fusion of
+some of the most distinguished branches of the German
+family. If we now glance at the United States, we shall
+there find&mdash;at least in the first years of her national
+existence&mdash;a pendant to what has been asserted of England.
+The elements of the population of the original
+thirteen States, were almost exclusively of English,
+Lowland Scotch, Dutch, and Swedish blood; that is
+to say, decidedly Germanic. Ireland was as yet slightly
+represented. France had made but inconsiderable contributions
+to the population. Since we have assumed
+a rank among the great powers of the earth, every
+portion of the inhabited globe has sent us its contingent
+of blood, yet even now, the great body of the
+nation belongs to the Teutonic race.</p>
+
+<p>Much has been said of the effects of ethnical mixture.
+Many consider it as decidedly beneficial, others as
+decidedly deleterious. It seems to me susceptible of
+mathematical demonstration, that when a very inferior
+race amalgamates with one of higher order, the compound&mdash;though
+superior to the one, must be inferior to
+the other. In that case, therefore, mixture is injurious.
+But when various branches of the same race, or nearly
+cognate races mix, as in the case of the Saxons, Angles,
+Danes, and Normans, the mixture cannot but be beneficial.
+For, while none of the higher qualities are lost,
+the compound presents a felicitous combination of some
+of the virtues peculiar to each.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page242" id="page242">[Pg 242]</a></span>If our civilization received its tone and character
+from the Teutonic race, as Mr. Gobineau asserts, this
+character must be most strikingly displayed wherever
+that race forms the preponderating element of the
+population.</p>
+
+<p>Before investigating this question, we must cast a
+glance on the manners and modes of thinking that
+characterized this race in the earliest times. Unfortunately,
+but few records are left to assist us in forming
+a judgment. Tacitus's celebrated treatise was, probably,
+more an imaginary sketch, which he wished to hold
+up to a people sunk in luxury and vice, as were his
+countrymen. In our times, the North American Indian
+has often been held up as a model of uncorrupted simplicity,
+and many touching romances have been written
+on the theme, now rather hackneyed and out of fashion.
+But though the noble Roman may have highly colored
+the picture, the incorruptible love of truth, which
+shines so brilliantly in all his works, assures us of the
+truth of its outlines.</p>
+
+<p>Of one thing we can entertain no doubt, viz: that
+history nowhere shows us our Germanic forefathers in
+the same state of barbarism that we find other races&mdash;many
+of the American Indians, the South-Sea Islanders,
+and others. In the earliest times they practised
+agriculture, they cultivated rye, barley, oats and wheat.
+Many of the tribes had regular farms, which were inclosed.
+They knew how to work iron, an art which
+even the most civilized of the American Indians had
+never learned. They had extensive and complicated
+political relations, often forming themselves in vast
+confederacies. But, above all, they were an eminently<span class="pagenum"><a name="page243" id="page243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+chaste people; they respected woman,<a name="FNanchor-93" id="FNanchor-93"></a><a href="#Footnote-93" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 93.">[93]</a> and assigned to
+her her legitimate place in the social circle. Marriage
+with them was a sacred institution.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest point of superiority of our civilization,
+over all preceding and contemporaneous ones&mdash;a point
+which Mr. Gobineau has omitted to mention&mdash;is the
+high rank which woman occupies in the modern structure
+of society. The boasted civilizations of Greece
+and Rome, if superior in others, are vastly inferior to
+us in this respect. And this glorious superiority we
+owe to the pure and chaste manners of our forefathers.</p>
+
+<p>Representative government, trial by jury, and all the
+discoveries in political science upon which we pride ourselves
+most, are the necessary development of their
+simple institutions, to which, indeed, they can be distinctly
+traced.</p>
+
+<p>I have purposely selected these two characteristics
+of the German races&mdash;respect for woman, and love of
+liberty, or, what is more, a capacity for establishing
+and preserving liberal institutions. The question now
+resolves itself into this: Does woman occupy the highest
+rank, do liberal institutions best flourish where the
+Germanic race is most pure? I will not answer the
+question, but beg the reader to compare the more Germanic
+countries with those that are less so&mdash;England,
+Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Northern
+Germany, with France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Russia;
+the United States and Canada, with Mexico and
+the South American republics.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page244" id="page244">[Pg 244]</a></span>Mr. Gobineau speaks of the utilitarian character of the
+Germanic races, but furnishes no proofs of his assertion.
+I shall therefore endeavor to supply the deficiency.</p>
+
+<p>Those countries which ethnology tells us contain the
+most Germanic populations, viz: England, the northern
+States of Europe, including Holland, and the United
+States, have the entire commerce, and nearly all the
+manufacture of the whole world in their hands. They
+have given to mankind all the great inventions which
+shed an everlasting lustre over our era. They, together,
+possess nine-tenths of all the railroads built in the world,
+and the greater part of the remaining tenth was built by
+<em>their</em> enterprise and capital. Whatever perfection in
+the useful arts one of these countries attains, is readily
+adopted by all; slowly only, and sometimes never by any
+of the others.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, we find that the polite arts do
+not meet, in these countries, with a very congenial soil.
+Artists may flock thither, and, perhaps, reap a harvest
+of gold; but they seldom stay. The admiration which
+they receive is oftenest the mere dictate of fashion. It
+is true that England, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, and
+the United States, have produced some eminent artists,
+but the mass of the population do not exhibit that innate
+taste, that passionate fondness for the arts, which
+we find among all classes in Italy, Spain, and to some
+extent in France and Southern Germany.</p>
+
+<p class="tbreak">Before I conclude this hasty sketch, for which I crave
+the reader's indulgence, I wish to draw attention to a
+striking instance of the permanency of ethnical characteristics.
+The nations that most fondly and most successfully
+plough the briny main, are the English, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page245" id="page245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+Americans, the Swedes, Danes, Dutch. Notwithstanding
+the littleness of these latter, they have successfully
+competed in maritime discovery with larger nations;
+and even now, own considerable and far distant colonial
+possessions. The Dutch, for a time, were the greatest
+maritime power in the world, and to this day carry on
+an extensive and profitable commerce. History tells
+us that the forefathers of these nations were distinguished
+by the same nautical genius.</p>
+
+<p>The real Saxons&mdash;the invaders of England&mdash;are
+mentioned already in the middle of the second century,
+by Ptolemy, as skilful sailors. In the fourth and fifth
+century, they became dreaded from their piracies. They
+and their confederates, the Angles, originally inhabited
+the present Holstein, and the islands in the vicinity of
+the Baltic coast. Their neighbors, the Danes, were
+equally famous for maritime exploits. Their celebrated
+vykings still live in song and tale. Their piratical incursions
+and settlements in England, are known to
+every schoolboy. How familiar the Normans were with
+the watery element, is abundantly proved by history.
+They ascended the Rhine, and other rivers, for hundreds
+of miles, marking their landing-place by devastation.</p>
+
+<p>Of the Angle, the Saxon, the Dane, and the Norman,
+the present Englishman and his adventurous brother of
+Massachusetts, are lineal descendants. The best sailors
+in our commercial navy, next to the native sailors, are
+the Danes and the Swedes. Normandy, to this day,
+furnishes the best for the French service.&mdash;H.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page246" id="page246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">CIVILIZATION.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>Mr. Guizot's and Mr. W. von Humboldt's definitions examined.
+Its elements.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The reader will here pardon me an indispensable
+digression. I make use at almost every
+moment of a term comprising in its extensive signification
+a collection of ideas which it is important
+to define accurately: <em>civilization</em>. The greater
+or less degree in which this term is applicable to
+the social condition of various nations, is my only
+standard for the comparative merit of races. I
+also speak of a <em>European</em> civilization, in contradistinction
+to others of a different character. It
+is the more necessary to avoid the least vagueness,
+as I am under the disagreeable necessity of differing
+from a celebrated writer, who has assumed the
+special task of determining the meaning and comprehensiveness
+of this expression.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Guizot, in his <cite>History of Civilization in Modern
+Europe</cite>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page247" id="page247">[Pg 247]</a></span> makes use of a term which seems to
+me to give rise to a serious confusion of ideas, and
+lead to positive errors. He says that civilization
+is a <em>fact</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Now, either the word fact must here be understood
+in a sense much less strict and precise than
+common usage requires, a sense so indistinct&mdash;I
+might almost say elastic&mdash;as has never pertained to
+it, or what we comprehend under the term civilization
+cannot be expressed by the word fact. Civilization
+is not <em>a fact</em>; it is a <em>series</em>, a <em>concatenation
+of facts</em>, more or less logically united, and resulting
+from ideas often sufficiently diverse: ideas and
+facts continually reproduce each other. Civilization
+is a term applied to a certain state or condition
+in which a society exists&mdash;a condition which
+is of its own creation, bears its character, and, in
+turn, reacts upon it. This condition is of so variable
+a nature, that it cannot be called a fact; for a
+fact cannot be variable without ceasing to be a
+fact. In other words, there is more than one civilization:
+there are various kinds. Thus, a civilization
+may flourish under every form of government,
+and it does not cease to exist when civil commotions
+destroy or alter that form.</p>
+
+<p>Let it not be understood that I esteem governmental
+forms of little importance. Their choice<span class="pagenum"><a name="page248" id="page248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
+is intimately connected with the prosperity of the
+society: if judicious, promoting and developing it;
+if unpractical, endangering its destruction. But
+I speak not here of the temporary prosperity or
+misery of a society. I speak of its civilization;
+and this is a phenomenon whose causes must be
+sought elsewhere, and deeper than in transient
+political forms. Its character, its growth, fecundity,
+or barrenness, depends upon elementary principles
+of far greater importance.</p>
+
+<p>But, in Mr. Guizot's opinion, civilization is a
+fact, a unity; and it is of an essentially political
+character. Let us see how he defines it. He
+has chosen a series of hypotheses, describing society
+in various conditions, and then asks if the
+state so described is, in the general opinion of
+mankind, the state of a people advancing in civilization&mdash;if
+it answers to the signification which
+mankind generally attaches to this word.<a name="FNanchor-94" id="FNanchor-94"></a><a href="#Footnote-94" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 94.">[94]</a></p>
+
+<p>"First imagine a people whose outward circumstances
+are easy and agreeable; few taxes; few
+hardships; justice is fairly administered; in a
+word, physical existence, taken altogether, is satisfactorily
+and happily regulated. But, with all
+this, the moral and intellectual energies of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="page249" id="page249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+people are studiously kept in a state of torpor and
+inertness. It can hardly be called oppression; its
+tendency is not of that character&mdash;it is rather compression.
+We are not without examples of this
+state of society. There have been a great number
+of little aristocratic republics, in which the people
+have been thus treated like a flock of sheep, carefully
+tended, physically happy, but without the
+least intellectual and moral activity. Is this civilization?
+Do we recognize here a people in a state
+of moral and social advancement?"</p>
+
+<p>I know not whether such a people is in a state
+of advancement, but it certainly may be in a very
+advanced state of civilization, else we should find
+ourselves compelled to class among the savages
+or barbarians all those aristocratic republics of
+ancient and modern times, which answer Mr.
+Guizot's description. But the common sense of
+mankind would never ratify a method which
+ejected from within the pale of civilization not only
+the Phenicians, Carthaginians, and Laced&aelig;monians,
+but even Venice, Genoa, Pisa, the free cities
+of Germany&mdash;in fact, all the powerful municipalities
+of the last centuries. But, besides this mode
+of proceeding being too paradoxical and restrictive,
+it seems to me to encounter another difficulty.
+Those little aristocratic states, to whom, on account<span class="pagenum"><a name="page250" id="page250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+of their form of government, Mr. Guizot denies the
+aptitude for civilization, have, for the most part,
+never been in possession of a special culture peculiar
+to themselves. Powerful as many of them
+have been, they assimilated, in this respect, with
+nations differently governed, but of consanguineous
+affinity; they formed a fragment only of a greater
+and more general civilization. Thus, the Carthaginians
+and Phenicians, though at a great distance
+from one another, had a similar mode of culture,
+the type of which must be sought in Assyria. The
+Italian republics participated in the same ideas and
+opinions which developed themselves in the bosom
+of neighboring monarchies. The imperial cities
+of Thuringia and Suabia, although perfectly independent
+in a political point of view, were nevertheless
+intimately united with the general progressive
+or retrogressive movement of the whole German
+race. Mr. Guizot, therefore, by assigning to the
+people of different countries degrees of merit proportionate
+to the degree and form of their liberty,
+creates unjustifiable subdivisions in the same race,
+and makes distinctions without a difference. A
+lengthy discussion is not in its place here, and I
+shall therefore proceed rapidly. If, however, it
+were necessary to enter into a controversy, might
+we not justly protest against recognizing any inferiority
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page251" id="page251">[Pg 251]</a></span>in the case of Genoa, Pisa, Venice, and
+others, when compared with countries like Milan,
+Naples, or Rome?</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Guizot has himself foreseen this difficulty,
+and removed the objection. If he does not recognize
+a state of civilization among a people "mildly
+governed, but in a state of compression," neither
+does he accord this prerogative to another, "whose
+outward circumstances are less favorable and agreeable,
+although supportable, but whose intellectual
+and moral cravings have not been entirely neglected;
+among whom pure and elevated sentiments
+have been cultivated, and religious and moral
+notions reached a certain degree of improvement,
+but among whom the desire of liberty has been
+stifled; where a certain portion of truth is doled
+out to each, but no one permitted to seek for it
+himself. This is the condition to which most of
+the populations of Asia are sunk, because theocratical
+governments there restrain the progress of
+mankind; such, for instance, is the state of the
+Hindoos."</p>
+
+<p>Thus, besides the aristocratic nations of the
+earth, we must moreover exclude from the pale
+of civilization the Hindoos, Egyptians, Etruscans,
+Peruvians, Thibetans, Japanese&mdash;nay, even modern
+Rome and her territories.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page252" id="page252">[Pg 252]</a></span>I omit the last two hypotheses, because, thanks
+to the first two, the state of civilization is already
+restricted within boundaries so contracted that
+scarce any people on the globe is justified in
+pretending to it. A nation, then, can be called
+civilized only when it enjoys institutions happily
+blending popular liberty and the requisite
+strength of authority for maintaining order; when
+its progress in material well-being and its moral
+development are co-ordinate in a certain manner,
+and no other; where religion, as well as government,
+is confined within limits accurately defined,
+which neither ever transgresses; where each individual
+possesses clearly determinate and inalienable
+rights. According to this formula, no nation
+can be civilized unless its political institutions are
+of the constitutional and representative form, and
+consequently it is impossible to save many European
+nations from the reproach of barbarism.
+Then, measuring the <em>degree</em> of civilization by the
+perfection of this same and only political form, we
+are compelled to place in a second rank all those
+constitutional states which have ill employed the
+engine of parliament, to reserve the crown exclusively
+for those who know how to make good use
+of it. By this reasoning, I am forced to consider<span class="pagenum"><a name="page253" id="page253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
+as truly civilized, in the past as well as the present,
+none but the single English nation.<a name="FNanchor-95" id="FNanchor-95"></a><a href="#Footnote-95" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 95.">[95]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page254" id="page254">[Pg 254]</a></span>I sincerely respect and admire that great people,
+whose victories, industry, and universal commerce
+<span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden"><a name="page255" id="page255">[Pg 255]</a></span>have left no portion of our globe ignorant
+of its puissance and the prodigies it has<span class="pagenum"><a name="page256" id="page256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
+performed. But still, I do not feel disposed to
+respect and admire in the world no other: it
+would seem to me too humiliating and cruel to
+humanity to confess that, since the beginning of
+time, it has never succeeded in producing a civilization
+anywhere but upon a small island of the
+Western Ocean, has never discovered the laws
+and forms which produce this state until the reign<span class="pagenum"><a name="page257" id="page257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+of William and Mary. Such a conception of civilization
+might seem to many rather a little too
+narrow and restrictive. But there is another objection.
+If we attach the idea of civilization to a
+political form, reason, observation, and science will
+soon lose their vote in the decision of the question,
+which must thenceforth be left to the passions and
+prejudices of parties. There will be some whose
+preferences will lead them stoutly to deny that the
+institutions of the British Isles are the "perfection
+of human reason:" their enthusiasm, perchance,
+will be expended in praising the order established
+in St. Petersburg or in Vienna. Many, again, and
+perhaps the greater number of all living between
+the Rhine and the Pyrenees, will sustain to the last
+that, notwithstanding a few blemishes, the most
+polished, the most civilized country of the world
+is <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">la belle France</em>. The moment that the decision
+of the degree of intellectual culture becomes a
+matter of preference, a question of sentiment, to
+come to an understanding is impossible. Each
+one will think him the man most advanced in
+civilization who shall coincide with his views
+about the respective duties of the governing and
+the governed; while those who are unfortunate
+enough to differ, will be set down as men behind
+the age, little better than barbarians, mere "old<span class="pagenum"><a name="page258" id="page258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+fogies," whose visual organs are too weak for the
+dazzling lights of the epoch; or else as daring,
+incendiary innovators, who wish to destroy all
+established order, and sap the very foundation of
+civilization. I think few will differ from me in
+considering Mr. Guizot's definition as defective,
+and the source from which he derives civilization
+as not the real one.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now examine Baron W. Von Humboldt's
+definition. "Civilization," says that celebrated
+statesman, "is the humanization of nations in their
+outward institutions, in their manners, and in the
+inward feelings upon which these depend."<a name="FNanchor-96" id="FNanchor-96"></a><a href="#Footnote-96" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 96.">[96]</a></p>
+
+<p>Here we meet with a defect of the very opposite
+kind to that which I took the liberty to point out
+in Mr. Guizot's definition. The formula is too
+vague, the boundary lines too indistinct. If civilization
+consists in a softening of manners, more
+than one untutored tribe, some extremely low in
+the scale of races, might take precedence over
+several European nations whose character contains
+more acerbity. There are in the South Sea<span class="pagenum"><a name="page259" id="page259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+Islands, and elsewhere, very inoffensive populations,
+of exceedingly gentle manners, and kind,
+accommodating dispositions; yet, though we may
+praise them, no one would think of placing them,
+in the scale of civilization, above the rough Norwegians,
+or even above the ferocious Malays, who,
+dressed in brilliant garments of their own fabric,
+and upon skilfully constructed vessels of their
+own making, traverse the Indian seas, at the same
+time the terror and scourge of maritime commerce,
+and its most successful votaries. This observation
+could not escape so great a mind as William Von
+Humboldt's; and he therefore imagines, besides
+civilization, a higher degree of development, which
+he calls <em>culture</em>, and by which he declares that nations
+gain, above their gentle manners, "<em>science and
+the arts</em>."<a name="FNanchor-97" id="FNanchor-97"></a><a href="#Footnote-97" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 97.">[97]</a> When the world shall have arrived at
+this higher state, it will be peopled by <em>affectionate</em>
+and <em>sympathetic</em> beings, very erudite, poetic, and
+artistic, but, by reason of this same reunion of
+qualities, ignoring the grosser wants of existence:
+strangers to the necessity of war, as well as those
+of rude mechanical toil.</p>
+
+<p>When we reflect upon the limited leisure that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page260" id="page260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+the mass of even those can enjoy whose lot is cast
+in the happiest epoch, to abandon themselves to
+purely intellectual occupations&mdash;when we consider
+how incessant and arduous must ever be the strife
+of man with nature and the elements to insure the
+mere means of subsistence, it will soon be perceived
+that the philosopher of Berlin aimed less
+at depicting realities than at drawing from the
+domain of abstraction certain entities which appeared
+to him beautiful and sublime, and which
+are so, indeed, and at causing them to act and
+move in a sphere as ideal as themselves. If any
+doubts should still remain in this respect, they are
+soon dispelled when we arrive at the culminating
+point of the system, consisting of a third and last
+degree superior to the two others. This greatest
+point of perfection is that upon which stands the
+<em>finished</em> man (<em lang="de" xml:lang="de">der Gebildete</em>); that is to say, the
+man who, in his nature, possesses "something
+higher and more inward or essential; a clear and
+comprehensive faculty of seeing all things in their
+true light; a recognition and appreciation of the
+ultimate goal of man's moral and intellectual aspirations,
+which diffuses itself harmoniously over all
+his feelings and his character."<a name="FNanchor-98" id="FNanchor-98"></a><a href="#Footnote-98" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 98.">[98]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page261" id="page261">[Pg 261]</a></span>We here have a regular gradation from man in
+a civilized or "humanized" state, to the man of cultivation&mdash;the
+philosopher, the poet, the artist; and
+thence still higher to the <em>finished</em>, the <em>perfect</em> man,
+who has attained the greatest elevation possible
+to our species; a man who, if I seize rightly Mr.
+Humboldt's idea, had his living counterpart in
+G&oelig;the, as that towering mind is described to us
+in its olympic serenity. This theory rests upon
+no other basis than Mr. Von Humboldt's perception
+of the immense difference between the civilization<span class="pagenum"><a name="page262" id="page262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+of a nation and the comparative height of perfection
+attained by great, isolated individualities. This
+difference is so great that civilizations different
+from ours, and perhaps inferior to it, have produced
+men in some respects superior to those we
+admire most.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this point I fully coincide with the great
+philosopher whose theory I am unfolding. It is
+perfectly correct, that our state of development&mdash;what
+we call the European civilization&mdash;produces
+neither the profoundest nor the sublimest thinkers,
+nor the greatest poets, nor the most skilful artists.
+Yet I venture to differ from the illustrious philologist
+in believing that to give a practical meaning
+to the word civilization, it is necessary to divest
+one's self, if but for a moment, from the prejudices
+or prepossessions resulting from the examination
+of mere details in any particular civilization. We
+must take the aggregate result of the whole, and
+not make the requisites too few, as in the case of
+the man of the first degree, whom I persist in not
+acknowledging as civilized merely because his
+manners are gentle; nor too many, as in the case
+of the sage of the third, for then the development
+of human faculties would be limited to a few
+individuals, and would produce results purely
+isolated and typical.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page263" id="page263">[Pg 263]</a></span>The Baron Von Humboldt's system, however,
+does honor to that exquisite and generous sensibility,
+that grand sublimity which was the dominant
+characteristic of this great mind; and in its
+purely abstract nature may be compared to the
+fragile worlds of Brahmin philosophy. Born from
+the brain of a slumbering god, they rise in the air
+like the irised bubbles that the child blows from
+the suds, bursting and succeeding one another as
+the dreams that amuse the celestial sleeper.</p>
+
+<p>But the character of my researches permits me
+not to indulge in mere abstractions, however brilliant
+and attractive; I must arrive at results tangible
+to practical sense and common experience.
+I do not wish, like Mr. Guizot, to investigate the
+conditions more or less favorable to the prosperity
+of societies, nor, like Mr. William Von Humboldt,
+to speculate upon the isolated elevation of individual
+intelligences; my purpose is to encompass,
+if possible, the aggregate power, moral as well as
+material, which is developed in great masses of
+men. It is not without trepidation that I engage
+in a path in which two of the most admired men
+of our century have lost themselves; and to avoid
+the errors into which they have fallen, I shall
+descend to first principles, and define civilization
+by first investigating from what causes it results.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page264" id="page264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+If the reader, then, will follow me patiently and
+attentively through the mazes into which I am
+forced to enter, I shall endeavor to throw as much
+light as I am capable of, upon this inherently obscure
+and abstruse subject.</p>
+
+<p>There is no human being so degraded, so
+brutish, in whom a twofold instinct, if I may be
+permitted so to call it, is not manifest; the instinct
+which incites to the gratification of material wants,
+and that which leads to higher aspirations. The
+degree of intensity of either of these two is the
+first and principal measure of the differences
+among races. In none, not even in the lowest
+tribes, are the two instincts precisely balanced.
+Among some, the physical wants or animal propensities
+preponderate; in others, these are subordinate
+to the speculative tendencies&mdash;the cravings
+for the abstract, the supernatural. Thus, the
+lowest of the yellow races seem to me to be
+dominated rather by the first, the physical instinct,
+without, however, being absolutely deprived
+of all capacity for abstractions. On the
+contrary, among the majority of the black races
+of corresponding rank, the habits are less active
+than pensive; imagination there attaches greater
+value to the things of the invisible than to those
+of the visible world. I do not thence deduce any<span class="pagenum"><a name="page265" id="page265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+conclusion of superior capacity for civilization on
+the part of those latter races over the former, for
+history demonstrates that both are equally insusceptible
+to attain it. Centuries, thousands of
+years, have passed by without either of them
+doing aught to ameliorate their condition, because
+they have never been able to associate a sufficient
+number of ideas with the same number of facts,
+to begin the march of progress. I wish merely to
+draw attention to the fact, that even among the
+lowest races we find this double current differently
+constituted. I shall now follow the ascending
+scale.</p>
+
+<p>Above the Samoyedes on the one hand, and
+the Fidas and Pelagian negroes on the other, we
+must place those tribes who are not content with
+a mere hut of branches, and a social condition
+based upon force only, but who are capable of
+comprehending and aspiring to a better condition.
+These are one degree above the most barbarous.</p>
+
+<p>If they belong to the first category of races&mdash;those
+who act more than they think, among whom
+the material tendency predominates over that for
+the abstract&mdash;their development will display itself
+in a greater perfection of their instruments of
+labor, and of war, in a greater care and skill in
+their ornaments, etc. In government, the warriors<span class="pagenum"><a name="page266" id="page266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
+will take precedence over the priests; in their
+intercourse with others, they will show a certain
+aptitude and readiness for trafficking. Their wars,
+though still characterized by cruelty, will originate
+rather in a love of gain, than in the mere gratification
+of vindictive passions. In one word, material
+well-being, physical enjoyments, will be the
+main pursuit of each individual. I find this picture
+realized among several of the Mongol races,
+and also, to some extent, among the Quichuas and
+Azmaras of Peru.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, if they belong to the second
+category&mdash;to those who have a predominating tendency
+for the speculative, the abstract&mdash;less care will
+be bestowed upon the material interests; the influence
+of the priests will preponderate in the government;
+in fact, we perceive a complete antithesis to
+the condition above described. The Dahomees,
+of Western Africa, and the Caffres of the south,
+are examples of this state.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving those races whose progressive tendency
+is not sufficiently vigorous to enable them to extend
+their influence over great multitudes,<a name="FNanchor-99" id="FNanchor-99"></a><a href="#Footnote-99" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 99.">[99]</a> we
+come to those of a higher order, in whom this
+tendency is so vigorous that they are capable of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page267" id="page267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+incorporating, and bringing within their sphere
+of action, all those they come in contact with.
+They soon ingraft their own social and political
+system upon immense multitudes, and impose
+upon vast countries the dominion of that combination
+of facts and ideas&mdash;more or less co-ordinate&mdash;which
+we call a <em>civilization</em>. Among these
+races, again, we find the same difference, the same
+division, that I already pointed out in those of inferior
+merit&mdash;in some the speculative, in others
+the more materially active tendency predominates.
+It is, indeed, among these races only, that this
+difference has important consequences, and is
+clearly perceptible. When a tribe, by incorporating
+with it great multitudes, has become a people,
+has founded a vast dominion, we find that these
+two currents or tendencies have augmented in
+strength, according to the character of the populations
+which enter into the combination, and there
+become blended. Whatever tendency prevails
+among these populations, they will proportionably
+modify the character of the whole. It will be remarked,
+moreover, that at different periods of the
+life of a people, and in strict accordance with the
+mixture of blood and the fusion of different elements,
+the oscillation between the two tendencies
+becomes more violent, and it may happen that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268" id="page268">[Pg 268]</a></span>
+their relative proportion changes altogether; that
+one, at first subordinate, in time becomes predominant.
+The results of this mobility are important,
+as they influence, in a sensible manner, the
+character of a civilization, and its stability.<a name="FNanchor-100" id="FNanchor-100"></a><a href="#Footnote-100" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 100.">[100]</a></p>
+
+<p>For the sake of simplicity, I shall distinguish
+the two categories of races by designations expressive
+of the tendency which predominates in
+them, and shall call them accordingly, either <em>speculative</em>
+or <em>utilitarian</em>.<a name="FNanchor-101" id="FNanchor-101"></a><a href="#Footnote-101" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 101.">[101]</a> As I have before observed,
+these terms imply neither praise nor blame. I use
+them merely for convenience, to designate the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269" id="page269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+leading characteristic, without thereby expressing
+a total absence of the other. Thus, the most
+utilitarian of the speculative races would closely
+approximate to the most speculative of the utilitarian.
+At the head of the utilitarian category, as
+its type, I place the Chinese; at the head, and as
+the type of the other, the Hindoos. Next to the
+Chinese I would put the majority of the populations
+of ancient Italy, the first Romans of the time
+of the republic, and the Germanic tribes. On the
+opposite side, among the speculative races, I would
+range next to the Hindoos, the Egyptians, and the
+nations of the Assyrian empire.</p>
+
+<p>I have said already that the oscillations of the
+two principles or tendencies sometimes result in
+the preponderance of one, which before was subordinate,
+and thus the character of the civilization
+is changed. Minor modifications, the history of
+almost every people presents. Thus, even the materialistic
+utilitarian tendency of the Chinese has been
+somewhat modified by their amalgamation with
+tribes of another blood, and a different tendency.
+In the south, the Yunnan particularly, where this
+population prevailed, the inhabitants are much less
+exclusively utilitarian than in the north, where
+the Chinese element is more pure. If this admixture
+of blood operated so slight a change in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page270" id="page270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+genius of that immense nation, that its effects have
+ceased, or make themselves perceptible only in an
+exceedingly slow manner, it is because its quantity
+was so extremely small, compared to the utilitarian
+population by which it was absorbed.</p>
+
+<p>Into the actual populations of Europe, the Germanic
+tribes infused a strong utilitarian tendency,
+and in the north, this has been continually recruited
+by new accessions of the same ethnical element;
+but in the south (with some exceptions, Piedmont,
+and the North of Spain, for example), the Germanic
+element forms not so great a portion of the
+whole mass, and the utilitarian tendency has there
+been overweighed by the opposite genius of the
+native populations.</p>
+
+<p>Among the speculative races we have signalized
+the Hindoos. They are endowed in a high degree
+with the tendency for the supernatural, the abstract.
+Their character is more meditative than active and
+practical. As their ancient conquests incorporated
+with them races of a similar disposition, the utilitarian
+element has never prevailed sufficiently to
+produce decided results. While, therefore, their
+civilization has arrived at a high degree of perfection
+in other respects, it has lagged far behind in
+all that promotes material comfort, in all that is
+strictly useful and practical.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page271" id="page271">[Pg 271]</a></span>Rome, at first strictly utilitarian, changed its
+character gradually as the fusion with Greek,
+Asiatic, and African elements proceeded, and when
+once the ancient utilitarian population was absorbed
+in this ethnical inundation, the practical
+character of Rome was lost.</p>
+
+<p class="tbreak">From the consideration of these and similar
+facts, I arrive at the conclusion, that all intellectual
+or moral activity results from the combined action
+and mutual reaction of these two tendencies, and
+that the social system can arrive at that development
+which entitles it to the name of civilization,
+only in races which possess, in a high degree,
+either of the two, without being too much deficient
+in the other.</p>
+
+<p>I now proceed to the examination of other
+points also deserving of notice.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page272" id="page272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">ELEMENTS OF CIVILIZATION&mdash;CONTINUED.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>Definition of the term&mdash;Specific differences of civilizations&mdash;Hindoo,
+Chinese, European, Greek, and Roman civilizations&mdash;Universality
+of Chinese civilization&mdash;Superficiality of ours&mdash;Picture
+of the social condition of France.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>When a tribe, impelled by more vigorous instincts
+than its neighbors, succeeds in collecting
+the hitherto scattered and isolated fragments into
+a compact whole, the first impetus of progress is
+thus given, the corner-stone of a civilization laid.
+But, to produce great and lasting results, a mere
+political preponderance is not sufficient. The
+dominant race must know how to lay hold of the
+feelings of the masses it has aggregated, to assimilate
+their individual interests, and to concentrate
+their energies to the same purposes. When the
+different elements composing the nation are thus
+blended into a more or less homogeneous mass,
+certain principles and modes of thinking become<span class="pagenum"><a name="page273" id="page273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+general, and form the standard around which all
+rally. These principles and modes of thinking,
+however, cannot be arbitrarily imposed, and must
+be resulting from, and in the main consonant with,
+pre-existing sentiments and desires.<a name="FNanchor-102" id="FNanchor-102"></a><a href="#Footnote-102" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 102.">[102]</a> They will
+be characterized by a utilitarian or a speculative
+tendency, according to the degree in which either
+instinct predominates in the constituent elements
+of the nation.</p>
+
+<p>This harmony of views and interests is the first
+essential to civilization; the second is stability,
+and is a natural consequence of the first. The
+general principles upon which the political and
+social system rests, being based upon instincts
+common to all, are by all regarded with the most
+affectionate veneration, and firmly believed to be
+perpetual. The purer a race remains, the more
+conservative will it be in its institutions, for its
+instincts never change. But the admixture of
+foreign blood produces proportionate modifications
+in the national ideas. The new-comers
+introduce instincts and notions which were
+not calculated upon in the social edifice. Alterations
+therefore become necessary, and these are
+often wholesome, especially in the youthful period<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274" id="page274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+of the society, when the new ethnical elements
+have not as yet acquired an undue preponderance.
+But, as the empire increases, and comprises elements
+more and more heterogeneous, the changes
+become more radical, and are not always for the
+better. Finally, as the initiatory and conservative
+element disappears, the different parts of the nation
+are no longer united by common instincts
+and interests; the original institutions are not
+adapted to their wants; sudden and total transformations
+become common, and a vain phantom of
+stability is pursued through endless experiments.
+But, while thus vacillating betwixt conflicting interests,
+and changing its purpose every hour, the
+nation imagines itself advancing to some imaginary
+goal of perfection. Firmly convinced of its own
+perpetuity, it holds fast to the doctrine which its
+daily acts disprove, that one of the principal features
+of a civilization is God-like immutability.
+And though each day brings forth new discontents
+and new changes equally futile, the apprehensions
+of the day are quieted with the expectations of
+to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that the conditions necessary for the
+development of a civilization are&mdash;the aggregation
+of large masses, and stable institutions resulting
+from common views and interests. The sociable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275" id="page275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+inclinations of man, and the less noble attributes
+of his nature, perform the rest. While the former
+bring him in intimate and varied connections with
+his fellow-men, the latter give rise to continual
+contests and emulation. In a large community, a
+strong fist is no longer sufficient to insure protection
+and give distinction, and the resources of the
+mind are applied and developed. Intellect continually
+seeks and finds new fields for exertion,
+either in the regions of the abstract, or in the
+material world. By its productions in either, we
+recognize an advanced state of society. The most
+common source of error in judging foreign nations,
+is that we are apt to look merely at the exterior
+demonstrations of their civilization, and because,
+in this respect, their civilization does not resemble
+ours, we hastily conclude that they are barbarous,
+or, at least, greatly inferior to us. A conclusion,
+drawn from such premises, must needs be very
+superficial, and therefore ought to be received with
+caution.</p>
+
+<p>I believe myself now prepared to express my
+idea of a civilization, by defining it as</p>
+
+<p><em>A state of comparative stability, in which a large
+collection of individuals strive, by peaceful means, to
+satisfy their wants, and refine their intelligence and
+manners.</em></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page276" id="page276">[Pg 276]</a></span>This definition includes, without exception, all
+the nations which I have mentioned as being civilized.
+But, as these nations have few points of resemblance,
+the question suggests itself: Do not, then,
+all civilizations tend to the same results? I think
+not; for, as the nations called to the noble task of
+accomplishing a civilization, are endowed with the
+utilitarian and speculative tendencies in various
+degrees and proportions, their paths must necessarily
+lie in very divergent directions.</p>
+
+<p>What are the material wants of the Hindoo?
+Rice and butter for his nourishment, and a piece
+of cotton cloth for his garment. Nor can this
+abstemiousness be accounted for by climate, for
+the native of Thibet, under a much more rigorous
+sky, displays the same quality. In these peoples,
+the imaginative faculty greatly predominates, their
+intellectual efforts are directed to abstractions, and
+the fruits of their civilization are therefore seldom
+of a practical or utilitarian character. Magnificent
+temples are hewn out of mountains of solid rock
+at an expense of labor and time that terrifies the
+imagination; gigantic constructions are erected;&mdash;all
+this in honor of the gods, while nothing is
+done for man's benefit, unless it be tombs. By
+the side of the miracles wrought by the sculptor's
+chisel, we admire the finished masterpieces of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page277" id="page277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+literature full of vigor, and as ingenious and subtle
+in theology and metaphysics, as beautiful in its
+variety: in speculative efforts, human thought descends
+without trepidation to immeasurable depths;
+its lyric poetry challenges the admiration of all
+mankind.</p>
+
+<p>But if we leave the domain of idealistic reveries,
+and seek for inventions of practical utility, and
+for the sciences that are their theoretical basis, we
+find a deplorable deficiency. From a dazzling
+height, we suddenly find ourselves descended to a
+profound and darksome abyss. Useful inventions
+are scarce, of a petty character, and, being neglected,
+remain barren of results. While the Chinese observed
+and invented a great deal, the Hindoos invented
+but little, and of that little took no care;
+the Greeks, also, have left us much information,
+but little worthy of their genius; and the Romans,
+once arrived at the culminating point of their
+history, could no longer make any real progress,
+for the Asiatic admixture in which they were absorbed
+with surprising rapidity, produced a population
+incapable of the patient and toilsome investigation
+of stern realities. Their administrative
+genius, however, their legislation, and the useful
+monuments with which they provided the soil of
+their territories, attest sufficiently the practical<span class="pagenum"><a name="page278" id="page278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+character which, at one time, so eminently characterized
+that people; and prove that if the
+South of Europe had not been so rapidly submerged
+with colonists from Asia and the North of
+Africa, positive science would have been the
+gainer, and less would have been left to be accomplished
+by the Germanic races, which afterward
+gave it a renewed impulse.</p>
+
+<p>The Germanic conquerors of the fifth century
+were characterized by instincts of a similar kind
+to those of the Chinese, but of a higher order.
+While they possessed the utilitarian tendency as
+strongly, if not stronger, they had, at the same
+time, a much greater endowment of the speculative.
+Their disposition presented a happy blending
+of these two mainsprings of activity. Where-ever
+the Teutonic blood predominates, the utilitarian
+tendency, ennobled and refined by the
+speculative, is unmistakable. In England, North
+America, and Holland, this tendency governs and
+preponderates over all the other national instincts.
+It is so, in a lesser degree, in Belgium, and even
+in the North of France, where everything susceptible
+of practical application is understood with
+marvellous facility. But as we advance further
+south, this predisposition is less apparent, and,
+finally, disappears altogether. We cannot attribute
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page279" id="page279">[Pg 279]</a></span>this to the action of the sun, for the
+Piedmontese live in a much warmer climate than
+the Proven&ccedil;als and the inhabitants of the Languedoc;
+it is the effect of blood.</p>
+
+<p>The series of speculative races, or those rendered
+so by admixture, occupies the greater portion
+of the globe, and this observation is particularly
+applicable to Europe. With the exception of the
+Teutonic family, and a portion of the Sclavonic,
+all other groups of our part of the world are but
+slightly endowed with the faculty for the useful
+and practical; or, having already acted their part
+in the world's history, will not be able to recommence
+it. All these races, from the Gaul to the
+Celtiberian, and thence to the variegated compounds
+of the Italian populations, present a descending
+scale from a utilitarian point of view.
+Not that they are devoid of all the aptitudes of
+that tendency, but they are wanting in some of
+the most essential.</p>
+
+<p>The union of the Germanic tribes with the
+races of the ancient world, this engrafting of a
+vigorous utilitarian principle upon the ideas of
+that variegated compound, produced our civilization;
+the richness, diversity, and fecundity of our
+state of culture is the natural result of that combination
+of so many different elements, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="page280" id="page280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+each contributed their part, and which the practical
+vigor of our Germanic ancestors, succeeded in
+blending into a more or less harmonious whole.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever our state of civilization extends, it is
+characterized by two traits; the first, that the
+population contains a greater or less admixture of
+Teutonic blood; the other, that it is Christian.
+This last feature, however, as I said before, though
+the most obvious and striking, is by no means
+essential, because many nations are Christian, and
+many more may become so, without participating
+in our civilization. But the first feature is positive,
+decisive. Wherever the Germanic element
+has not penetrated, our civilization cannot flourish.<a name="FNanchor-103" id="FNanchor-103"></a><a href="#Footnote-103" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 103.">[103]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page281" id="page281">[Pg 281]</a></span>This leads me to the investigation of a serious
+and important question: "Can it be asserted that
+all the European nations are really and thoroughly
+civilized?" Do the ideas and facts which rise
+upon the surface of our civilization, strike root
+in the basis of our social and political structure,
+and derive their vitality from that source? Are
+the results of these ideas and facts such as are
+conformable to the instincts, the tendencies, of the
+masses? Or, in other words, have the lowest strata
+of our populations the same direction of thought
+and action as the highest&mdash;that direction which we<span class="pagenum"><a name="page282" id="page282">[Pg 282]</a></span>
+may call the spirit or genius of our progressive
+movement?</p>
+
+<p>To arrive at a true and unbiassed solution of
+this question, let us examine other civilizations,
+different from ours, and then institute a comparison.</p>
+
+<p>The similarity of views and ideas, the unity of
+purpose, which characterized the whole body of
+citizens in the Grecian states, during the brilliant
+period of their history, has been justly admired.
+Upon every essential point, the opinions of every
+individual, though often conflicting, were, nevertheless,
+derived from the same source, emanated
+from the same general views and sentiments; individuals
+might differ in politics, one wishing a more
+oligarchical, another a more democratic government;
+or they might differ in religion, one worshipping,
+by preference, the Eleusinian Ceres, another
+the Minerva of the Parthenon; or in matters of
+taste, one might prefer &AElig;schylus to Sophocles,
+Alceus to Pindar. At the bottom, the disputants
+all participated in the same views and ideas, ideas
+which might well be called national. The question
+was one of degree, not of kind.<a name="FNanchor-104" id="FNanchor-104"></a><a href="#Footnote-104" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 104.">[104]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page283" id="page283">[Pg 283]</a></span>Rome, previous to the Punic wars, presented
+the same spectacle; the civilization of the country
+was uniform, and embraced all, from the master to
+the slave.<a name="FNanchor-105" id="FNanchor-105"></a><a href="#Footnote-105" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 105.">[105]</a> All might not participate in it to the
+same extent, but all participated in it and in no
+other.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page284" id="page284">[Pg 284]</a></span>But in Rome, after the Punic wars, and in Greece,
+soon after Pericles, and especially after Philip of
+Macedon, this character of homogeneity began to
+disappear. The greater mixture of nations produced
+a corresponding mixture of civilizations,
+and the compound thus formed exceeded in variety,
+elegance, refinement, and learning, the ancient
+mode of culture. But it had this capital inconvenience,
+both in Hellas and in Italy, that it belonged
+exclusively to the higher classes. Its nature, its
+merits, its tendencies, were ignored by the sub-strata
+of the population. Let us take the civilization
+of Rome after the Asiatic wars. It was a grand,
+magnificent monument of human genius. It had a
+cosmopolitan character: the rhetoricians of Greece
+contributed to it the transcendental spirit, the
+jurists and publicists of Syria and Alexandria
+gave it a code of atheistic, levelling, and monarchical
+laws&mdash;each part of the empire furnished to the
+common store some portion of its ideas, its sciences,
+and its character. But whom did this civilization
+embrace? The men engaged in the public administration
+or in great monetary enterprises, the people
+of wealth and of leisure. It was merely submitted
+to, not adopted by the masses. The populations
+of Europe understood nothing of those Asiatic and
+African contributions to the civilization; the inhabitants
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page285" id="page285">[Pg 285]</a></span>of Egypt, Numidia, or Asia, were equally
+uninterested in what came from Gaul and Spain,
+countries with which they had nothing in common.
+But a small minority of the Roman people stood
+on the pinnacle, and being in possession of the
+secret, valued it. The rest, those not included in
+the aristocracy of wealth and position, preserved
+the civilization peculiar to the land of their birth,
+or, perhaps, had none at all. Here, then, we have
+an example of a great and highly perfected civilization,
+dominating over untold millions, but
+founding its reign not in their desires or convictions,
+but in their exhaustion, their weakness, their
+listlessness.</p>
+
+<p>A very different spectacle is presented in China.
+The boundless extent of that empire includes, indeed,
+several races markedly distinct, but I shall
+speak at present only of the national race, the
+Chinese proper. One spirit animates the whole of
+this immense multitude, which is counted by hundreds
+of millions. Whatever we think of their
+civilization, whether we admire or censure the
+principles upon which it is based, the results which
+it has produced, and the direction which it takes;
+we cannot deny that it pervades all ranks, that
+every individual takes in it a definite and intelligent
+part. And this is not because the country is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page286" id="page286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+free, in our sense of the word: there is no democratic
+principle which secures, by law, to every
+one the position which his efforts may attain, and
+thus spurs him on to exertions. No; I discard
+all Utopian pictures. The peasant and the man of
+the middle classes, in the Celestial Empire, are no
+better assured of rising by their own merit only,
+than they are elsewhere. It is true that, in theory,
+public honors are solely the reward of merit, and
+every one is permitted to offer himself as a candidate;<a name="FNanchor-106" id="FNanchor-106"></a><a href="#Footnote-106" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 106.">[106]</a>
+but it is well known that, in reality, the
+families of great functionaries monopolize all
+lucrative offices, and that the scholastic diplomas
+often cost more money than efforts of study. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="page287" id="page287">[Pg 287]</a></span>
+disappointed or hopeless ambition never leads the
+possessor to imagine a different system; the aim
+of the reformer is to remedy the abuses of the
+established organization, not to substitute another.
+The masses may groan under ills and abuses, but
+the fault is charged, not to the social and political
+system, which to them is an object of unqualified
+admiration, but to the persons to whose care the performance
+of its duties is committed. The head of
+the government, or his functionaries, may become
+unpopular, but the form itself, the government,
+never. A very remarkable feature of the Chinese
+is that among them primary instruction is so
+universal; it reaches classes whom we hardly
+imagine to have any need of it. The cheapness
+of books, the immense number and low price of
+the schools, enable even the poorest to acquire the
+elements of knowledge, reading and writing.<a name="FNanchor-107" id="FNanchor-107"></a><a href="#Footnote-107" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 107.">[107]</a> The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page288" id="page288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+laws, their spirit and tendency, are well known
+and understood by all classes, and the government
+prides itself upon facilitating the study of this useful
+science.<a name="FNanchor-108" id="FNanchor-108"></a><a href="#Footnote-108" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 108.">[108]</a> The instinct of the masses is decidedly
+averse to all political convulsions. Mr. Davis, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="page289" id="page289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+was commissioner of H. B. Majesty in China, and
+who studied its affairs with the assiduity of a man
+who is interested in understanding them well, says
+that the character of the people cannot be better
+expressed than by calling them "a nation of steady
+conservatives."<a name="FNanchor-109" id="FNanchor-109"></a><a href="#Footnote-109" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 109.">[109]</a></p>
+
+<p>Here, then, we have a most striking contrast to
+the civilization of Rome in her latter days, when
+governmental changes occurred in fearfully rapid
+succession, until the arrival of the nations of the
+north. In every portion of that vast empire, there
+were whole populations that had no interest in the
+preservation of established order, and were ever
+ready to second the maddest schemes, to embark in
+any enterprise that seemed to promise advantage,
+or that was represented in seductive colors by some
+ambitious demagogue. During that long period
+of several centuries, no scheme was left untried:
+property, religion, the sanctity of family relations,
+were all called in question, and innovators in
+every portion of the empire, found multitudes
+ever disposed to carry their theories into practice
+by force. Nothing in the Greco-Roman world
+rested on a solid basis, not even the imperial
+unity, so indispensable, it would seem, to the mere<span class="pagenum"><a name="page290" id="page290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+self-preservation of such a state of society. It
+was not only the armies, with their swarm of
+<i>improvisto</i> C&aelig;sars, that undertook the task of
+shaking this palladium of national safety; the emperors
+themselves, beginning with Diocletian, had
+so little faith in monarchy, that they willingly made
+the experiment of dualism in the government,
+and finally found four at a time not too many for
+governing the empire.<a name="FNanchor-110" id="FNanchor-110"></a><a href="#Footnote-110" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 110.">[110]</a> I repeat it, not one institution,
+not one principle, was stable in that
+wretched state of society, which continued to preserve
+some outward form, merely from the physical
+impossibility of assuming any others, until the
+men of the north came to assist in its demolition.</p>
+
+<p>Between these two great societies, then, the Roman
+empire, and that of China, we perceive the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page291" id="page291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+most complete contrast. By the side of the civilization
+of Eastern Asia, I may mention that of
+India, Thibet, and other portions of Central Asia,
+which is equally universal, and diffused among
+all ranks and classes. As in China there is a certain
+level of information to which all attain, so in
+Hindostan, every one is animated by the same
+spirit; each individual knows precisely what his
+caste requires him to learn, to think, to believe.
+Among the Buddhists of Thibet, and the table-lands
+of Asia, nothing is rarer than to find a peasant
+who cannot read, and there everybody has the
+same convictions upon important subjects.</p>
+
+<p>Do we find this homogeneity in European nations?
+It is scarce worth while to put the question.
+Not even the Greco-Roman empire presents incongruities
+so strange, or contrasts so striking, as are
+to be found among us; not only among the
+various nationalities of Europe, but in the bosom
+of the same sovereignty. I shall not speak of
+Russia, and the states that form the Austrian
+empire; the demonstration of my position would
+there be too facile. Let us turn to Germany; to
+Italy, Southern Italy in particular; to Spain, which,
+though in a less degree, presents a similar picture;
+or to France.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page292" id="page292">[Pg 292]</a></span>I select France. The difference of manners, in
+various parts of this country, has struck even the
+most superficial observer, and it has long since
+been observed that Paris is separated from the
+rest of France by a line of demarcation so decided
+and accurately defined, that at the very gates of
+the capital, a nation is found, utterly different from
+that within the walls. Nothing can be more true:
+those who attach to our political unity the idea of
+similarity of thoughts, of character&mdash;in fine, of
+nationality, are laboring under a great delusion.
+There is not one principle that governs society
+and is connected with our civilization, which is
+understood in the same manner in all our departments.
+I do not speak here merely of the
+peculiarities that characterize the native of Normandy,
+of Brittany, Angevin, Limousin, Gascony,
+Provence. Every one knows how little alike
+these various populations are,<a name="FNanchor-111" id="FNanchor-111"></a><a href="#Footnote-111" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 111.">[111]</a> and how they differ
+in their tendencies and modes of thinking. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page293" id="page293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
+wish to draw attention to the fact, that while in
+China, Thibet, India, the most essential ideas upon
+which the civilization is based, are common to all
+classes, participated in by all, it is by no means
+so among us. The very rudiments of our knowledge,
+the most elementary and most generally accessible
+portion of it, remain an impenetrable mystery
+to our rural populations, among whom but
+few individuals are found acquainted with reading
+and writing. This is not for want of opportunities&mdash;it
+is because no value is attached to these
+acquisitions, because their utility is not perceived.
+I speak from my own observation, and that of
+persons who had ample facilities, and brought
+extensive information and great judgment to the
+task of investigation. Government has made the
+most praiseworthy efforts to remedy the evil, to
+raise the peasantry from the sink of ignorance in
+which they vegetate. But the wisest laws, and
+the most carefully calculated institutions have
+proved abortive. The smallest village affords
+ample opportunities for common education; even
+the adult, when conscription forces him into the
+army, finds in the regimental schools every facility
+for acquiring the most necessary branches of
+knowledge. Compulsion is resorted to&mdash;every one
+who has lived in the provinces knows with what<span class="pagenum"><a name="page294" id="page294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
+success. Parents send their children to school
+with undisguised repugnance, for they regret the
+time thus spent as wasted, and, therefore, eagerly
+seize the most trifling pretext for withdrawing
+them, and never suffer them to exceed the legal
+term of attendance. So soon as the young man
+leaves school, or the soldier has served his time,
+they hasten to forget what they were compelled to
+learn, and what they are heartily ashamed of.
+They return forever after to the local <i>patois</i><a name="FNanchor-112" id="FNanchor-112"></a><a href="#Footnote-112" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 112.">[112]</a> of
+their birthplace, and pretend to have forgotten
+the French language, which, indeed, is but too
+often true. It is a painful conclusion, but one
+which many and careful observations have forced
+upon me, that all the generous private and public
+endeavors to instruct our rural population, are absolutely
+futile, and can tend no further than to
+enforce an outward compliance. They care not for
+the knowledge we wish to give them&mdash;they will
+not have it, and this not from mere negligence or
+apathy, but from a feeling of positive hostility to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page295" id="page295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
+our civilization. This is a startling assertion, but
+I have not yet adduced all the proofs in support of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>In those parts of the country where the laboring
+classes are employed in manufactures principally,
+and in the great cities, the workmen are
+easily induced to learn to read and write. The
+circumstances with which they are surrounded,
+leave them no doubt as to the practical advantages
+accruing to them from these acquisitions. But so
+soon as these men have sufficiently mastered the
+first elements of knowledge, to what use do they,
+for the most part, apply them? To imbibe or
+give vent to ideas and sentiments the most subversive
+of all social order. The instinctive, but
+passive hostility to our civilization, is superseded
+by a bitter and active enmity, often productive
+of the most fearful calamities. It is among
+these classes that the projectors of the wildest,
+most incendiary schemes readily recruit their
+partisans; that the advocates of socialism, community
+of goods and wives, all, in fact, who, under
+the pretext of removing the ills and abuses that
+afflict the social system, propose to tear it down,
+find ready listeners and zealous believers.</p>
+
+<p>There are, however, portions of the country to
+which this picture does not apply; and these exceptions
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page296" id="page296">[Pg 296]</a></span>furnish me with another proof in favor of
+my proposition. Among the agricultural and
+manufacturing populations of the north and northeast,
+information is general; it is readily received,
+and, once received, retained and productive of
+good fruits. These people are intelligent, well-informed,
+and orderly, like their neighbors in Belgium
+and the whole of the Netherlands. And
+these, also, are the populations most closely akin
+to the Teutonic race, the race which, as I said in
+another place, gave the initiative to our civilization.</p>
+
+<p>The aversion to our civilization, of which I spoke,
+is not the only singular feature in the character of
+our rural populations. If we penetrate into the privacy
+of their thoughts and beliefs, we make discoveries
+equally striking and startling. The bishops
+and parish clergy have to this day, as they had one,
+five, or fifteen centuries ago, to battle with mysterious
+superstitions, or hereditary tendencies, some
+of which are the more formidable as they are seldom
+openly avowed, and can, therefore, be neither
+attacked nor conquered. There is no enlightened
+priest, that has the care of his flock at heart, but
+knows from experience with what deep cunning
+the peasant, however devout, knows how to conceal
+in his own bosom some fondly cherished traditional
+idea or belief, which reveals itself only at<span class="pagenum"><a name="page297" id="page297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
+long intervals, and without his knowledge. If he
+is spoken to about it, he denies or evades the discussion,
+but remains unshaken in his convictions.
+He has unbounded confidence in his pastor, unbounded
+except upon this one subject, that might
+not inappropriately be called his secret religion.
+Hence that taciturnity and reserve which, in all
+our provinces, is the most marked characteristic
+of the peasant, and which he never for a moment
+lays aside towards the class he calls <em>bourgeois</em>; that
+impassable barrier between him and even the most
+popular and well-intentioned landed proprietor of
+his district.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be supposed that this results merely
+from rudeness and ignorance. Were it so,
+we might console ourselves with the hope that
+they will gradually improve and assimilate with
+the more enlightened classes. But these people
+are precisely like certain savages; at a superficial
+glance they appear unreflecting and brutish,
+because their exterior is humble, and their
+character requires to be studied. But so soon as
+we penetrate, however little, into their own circle
+of ideas, the feelings that govern their private
+life, we discover that in their obstinate isolation
+from our civilization, they are not actuated by a
+feeling of degradation. Their affections and antipathies
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page298" id="page298">[Pg 298]</a></span>do not arise from mere accidental circumstances,
+but, on the contrary, are in accordance
+with logical reasoning based upon well-defined
+and clearly conceived ideas.<a name="FNanchor-113" id="FNanchor-113"></a><a href="#Footnote-113" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 113.">[113]</a> In speaking of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page299" id="page299">[Pg 299]</a></span>
+religious notions awhile ago, I should have remarked
+what an immense distance there is between
+our doctrines of morals and those of the peasantry,
+how widely different are their ideas from those<span class="pagenum"><a name="page300" id="page300">[Pg 300]</a></span>
+which we attach to the same word.<a name="FNanchor-114" id="FNanchor-114"></a><a href="#Footnote-114" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 114.">[114]</a> With what
+pertinacious obstinacy they continue to look upon
+every one not peasant like themselves, as the people
+of remote antiquity looked upon a foreigner.
+It is true they do not kill him, thanks to the singular
+and mysterious terror which the laws, in the
+making of which they have no part, inspire them;
+but they hate him cordially, distrust him, and if
+they can do so without too great a risk, fleece him
+without scruple and with immense satisfaction.
+Yet they are not wicked or ill-disposed. Among
+themselves they are kind-hearted, charitable, and
+obliging. But then they regard themselves as a
+distinct race&mdash;a race, they tell you&mdash;that is weak,
+oppressed, and that must resort to cunning and
+stratagem to gain their due, but which, nevertheless,
+preserves its pride and contempt for all others.
+In many of our provinces, the laborer believes
+himself of much better stock than his former lord<span class="pagenum"><a name="page301" id="page301">[Pg 301]</a></span>
+or present employer. The family pride of many
+of our peasants is, to say the least, as great as that
+of the nobility during the Middle Ages.<a name="FNanchor-115" id="FNanchor-115"></a><a href="#Footnote-115" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 115.">[115]</a></p>
+
+<p>It cannot be doubted that the lower strata of
+the population of France have few features in
+common with the higher. Our civilization penetrates
+but little below the surface. The great
+mass is indifferent&mdash;nay, positively hostile to it.
+The most tragic events have stained the country
+with torrents of blood, unparalleled convulsions
+have destroyed every ancient fabric, both social
+and political. Yet the agricultural populations
+have never been roused from their apathetic indifference,<a name="FNanchor-116" id="FNanchor-116"></a><a href="#Footnote-116" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 116.">[116]</a>
+have never taken any other part but that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page302" id="page302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+to which they were forced. When their own personal
+and immediate interests were not at stake,
+they allowed the tempests to blow by without concern,
+without even passive sympathy on one side
+or the other. Many persons, frightened and scandalized
+at this spectacle, have declared the peasantry
+as irreclaimably perverse. This is at the
+same time an injustice, and a very false appreciation
+of their character. The peasants regard us
+almost as their enemies. They comprehend nothing
+of our civilization, contribute nothing to it
+of their own accord, and they think themselves
+authorized to profit by its disasters, whenever they
+can. Apart from this antagonism, which sometimes
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page303" id="page303">[Pg 303]</a></span>displays itself in an active, but oftener in a
+passive manner, it cannot be doubted that they
+possess moral qualities of a high order, though
+often singularly applied.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the state of civilization in France. It
+may be asserted that of a population of thirty-six
+millions, ten participate in the ideas and mode of
+thinking upon which our civilization is based,
+while the remaining twenty-six altogether ignore
+them, are indifferent and even hostile to them, and
+this computation would, I think, be even more
+flattering than the real truth. Nor is France an
+exception in this respect. The picture I have
+given applies to the greater part of Europe. Our
+civilization is suspended, as it were, over an unfathomable
+gulf, at the bottom of which there slumber
+elements which may, one day, be roused and
+prove fearfully, irresistibly destructive. This is
+an awful, an ominous truth. Upon its ultimate
+consequences it is painful to reflect. Wisdom
+may, perhaps, foresee the storm, but can do little
+to avert it.</p>
+
+<p>But ignored, despised, or hated as it is by the
+greater number of those over whom it extends its
+dominion, our civilization is, nevertheless, one of
+the grandest, most glorious monuments of the
+human mind. In the inventive, initiatory quality<span class="pagenum"><a name="page304" id="page304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+it does not surpass, or even equal some of its predecessors,
+but in comprehensiveness it surpasses all.
+From this comprehensiveness arise its powers of
+appropriation, of conquest; for, to comprehend is
+to seize, to possess. It has appropriated all their
+acquisitions, and has remodelled, reconstructed
+them. It did not create the exact sciences, but it
+has given them their exactitude, and has disembarrassed
+them from the divagations from which,
+by a singular paradox, they were anciently less
+free than any other branch of knowledge. Thanks
+to its discoveries, the material world is better
+known than at any other epoch. The laws by
+which nature is governed, it has, in a great measure,
+succeeded in unveiling, and it has applied
+them so as to produce results truly wonderful.
+Gradually, and by the clearness and correctness of
+its induction, it has reconstructed immense fragments
+of history, of which the ancients had no
+knowledge; and as it recedes from the primitive
+ages of the world, it penetrates further into the
+mist that obscures them. These are great points
+of superiority, and which cannot be contested.</p>
+
+<p>But these being admitted, are we authorized to
+conclude&mdash;as is so generally assumed as a matter
+of course&mdash;that the characteristics of our civilization
+are such as to entitle it to the pre-eminence<span class="pagenum"><a name="page305" id="page305">[Pg 305]</a></span>
+among all others? Let us examine what are its
+peculiar excellencies. Thanks to the prodigious
+number of various elements that contributed to
+its formation, it has an eclectic character which
+none of its predecessors or contemporaries possess.
+It unites and combines so many various qualities
+and faculties, that its progress is equally facile
+in all directions; and it has powers of analysis
+and generalization so great, that it can embrace
+and appropriate all things, and, what is more,
+apply them to practical purposes. In other words,
+it advances at once in a number of different directions,
+and makes valuable conquests in all, but it
+cannot be said that it advances at the same time
+<em>furthest</em> in all. Variety, perhaps, rather than great
+intensity, is its characteristic. If we compare its
+progress in any one direction with what has been
+done by others in the same, we shall find that in
+few, indeed, can our civilization claim pre-eminence.
+I shall select three of the most striking
+features of every civilization; the art of government,
+the state of the fine arts, and refinement of
+manners.</p>
+
+<p>In the art of government, the civilization of
+Europe has arrived at no positive result. In this
+respect, it has been unable to assume a definite
+character. It has laid down no principles. In<span class="pagenum"><a name="page306" id="page306">[Pg 306]</a></span>
+every country over which its dominion extends, it
+is subservient to the exigencies of the various
+races which it has aggregated, but not united. In
+England, Holland, Naples, and Russia, political
+forms are still in a state of comparative stability,
+because either the whole population, or the dominant
+portion of it, is composed of the same or
+homogeneous elements. But everywhere else,
+especially in France, Central Italy, and Germany,
+where the ethnical diversity is boundless, governmental
+theories have never risen to the dignity of
+recognized truth; political science consisted in an
+endless series of experiments. Our civilization,
+therefore, being unable to assume a definite political
+feature, is devoid, in this respect, of that stability
+which I comprised as an essential feature in
+my definition of a civilization. This impotency
+is not found in many other civilizations which we
+deem inferior. In the Celestial Empire, in the
+Buddhistic and Brahminical societies, the political
+feature of the civilization is clearly enounced, and
+clearly understood by each individual member.
+In matters of politics all think alike; under a wise
+administration, when the secular institutions produce
+beneficent fruits, all rejoice; when in unskilled
+or malignant hands, they endanger the
+public welfare, it is a misfortune to be regretted<span class="pagenum"><a name="page307" id="page307">[Pg 307]</a></span>
+as we regret our own faults; but no circumstance
+can abate the respect and admiration with which
+they are regarded. It may be desirable to correct
+abuses that have crept into them, but never to replace
+them by others. It cannot be denied that
+these civilizations, therefore, whatever we may
+think of them in other respects, enjoy a guarantee
+of durability, of longevity, in which ours is sadly
+wanting.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the arts, our civilization is decidedly
+inferior to others. Whether we aim at
+the grand or the beautiful, we cannot rival either
+the imposing grandeur of the civilization of Egypt,
+of India, or even of the ancient American empires,
+nor the elegant beauty of that of Greece. Centuries
+hence&mdash;when the span of time allotted to us
+shall have been consumed, when our civilization,
+like all that preceded it, shall have sunk in the
+dim shades of the past, and have become a matter
+of inquiry only to the historical student&mdash;some
+future traveller may wander among the forests and
+marshes on the banks of the Thames, the Seine,
+or the Rhine, but he will find no glorious monuments
+of our grandeur; no sumptuous or gigantic
+ruins like those of Phil&aelig;, of Nineveh, of Athens, of
+Salsetta, or of Tenochtitlan. A remote posterity<span class="pagenum"><a name="page308" id="page308">[Pg 308]</a></span>
+may venerate our memory as their preceptors in
+exact sciences. They may admire our ingenuity,
+our patience, the perfection to which we have carried
+inductive reasoning&mdash;not so our conquests in
+the regions of the abstract. In poesy we can bequeath
+them nothing. The boundless admiration
+which we bestow upon the productions of foreign
+civilizations both past and present, is a positive
+proof of our own inferiority in this respect.<a name="FNanchor-117" id="FNanchor-117"></a><a href="#Footnote-117" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 117.">[117]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page309" id="page309">[Pg 309]</a></span>Perhaps the most striking features of a civilization,
+though not a true standard of its merit, is
+the degree of refinement which it has attained.
+By refinement I mean all the luxuries and amenities
+of life, the regulations of social intercourse,
+delicacy of habits and tastes. It cannot be denied
+that in all these we do not surpass, nor even equal,
+many former as well as contemporaneous civilizations.
+We cannot rival the magnificence of the
+latter days of Rome, or of the Byzantine empire;
+we can but imagine the gorgeous luxury of Eastern
+civilizations; and in our own past history we
+find periods when the modes of living were more
+sumptuous, polished intercourse regulated by a
+higher and more exacting standard, when taste
+was more cultivated, and habits more refined. It
+is true, that we are amply compensated by a
+greater and more general diffusion of the comforts
+of life; but in its exterior manifestations, our civilization
+compares unfavorably with many others,
+and might almost be called shabby.</p>
+
+<p class="tbreak">Before concluding this digression upon civilization,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page310" id="page310">[Pg 310]</a></span>which has already extended perhaps too far,
+it may not be unnecessary to reiterate the principal
+ideas which I wished to present to the mind
+of the reader. I have endeavored to show that
+every civilization derives its peculiar character
+from the race which gave the initiatory impulse.
+The alteration of this initiatory principle produces
+corresponding modifications, and even total changes,
+in the character of the civilization. Thus our
+civilization owes its origin to the Teutonic race,
+whose leading characteristic was an elevated utilitarianism.
+But as these races ingrafted their mode
+of culture upon stocks essentially different, the
+character of the civilization has been variously
+modified according to the elements which it combined
+and amalgamated. The civilization of a
+nation, therefore, exhibits the kind and degree of
+their capabilities. It is the mirror in which they
+reflect their individuality.</p>
+
+<p>I shall now return to the natural order of my
+deductions, the series of which is yet far from
+being complete. I commenced by enouncing the
+truth that the existence and annihilation of human
+societies depended upon immutable and uniform
+laws. I have proved the insufficiency of adventitious
+circumstances to produce these phenomena,
+and have traced their causes to the various capabilities
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page311" id="page311">[Pg 311]</a></span>of different human groups; in other
+words, to the moral and intellectual diversity of
+races. Logic, then, demands that I should determine
+the meaning and bearing of the word race,
+and this will be the object of the next chapter.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page312" id="page312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">QUESTION OF UNITY OR PLURALITY OF SPECIES.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>Systems of Camper, Blumenbach, Morton, Carus&mdash;Investigations
+of Owen, Vrolik, Weber&mdash;Prolificness of hybrids, the great
+scientific stronghold of the advocates of unity of species.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>It will be necessary to determine first the physiological
+bearing of the word <em>race</em>.</p>
+
+<p>In the opinion of many scientific observers, who
+judge from the first impression, and take extremes<a name="FNanchor-118" id="FNanchor-118"></a><a href="#Footnote-118" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 118.">[118]</a>
+as the basis of their reasoning, the groups of the
+human family are distinguished by differences so
+radical and essential, that it is impossible to believe
+them all derived from the same stock. They,
+therefore, suppose several other genealogies besides
+that of Adam and Eve. According to this doctrine,
+instead of but one species in the genus <i>homo</i>,
+there would be three, four, or even more, entirely<span class="pagenum"><a name="page313" id="page313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+distinct ones, whose commingling would produce
+what the naturalists call <em>hybrids</em>.</p>
+
+<p>General conviction is easily secured in favor of
+this theory, by placing before the eyes of the observer
+instances of obvious and striking dissimilarities
+among the various groups. The critic who
+has before him a human subject with a skin of
+olive-yellow; black, straight, and thin hair; little,
+if any beard, eyebrows, and eyelashes; a broad
+and flattened face, with features not very distinct;
+the space between the eyes broad and flat; the
+orbits large and open; the nose flattened; the
+cheeks high and prominent; the opening of the
+eyelids narrow, linear, and oblique, the inner angle
+the lowest; the ears and lips large; the forehead
+low and slanting, allowing a considerable portion
+of the face to be seen when viewed from above;
+the head of somewhat a pyramidal form; the limbs
+clumsy; the stature humble; the whole conformation
+betraying a marked tendency to obesity:<a name="FNanchor-119" id="FNanchor-119"></a><a href="#Footnote-119" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 119.">[119]</a> the
+critic who examines this specimen of humanity,
+at once recognizes a well characterized and clearly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page314" id="page314">[Pg 314]</a></span>
+defined type, the principal features of which will
+readily be imprinted in his memory.</p>
+
+<p>Let us suppose him now to examine another individual:
+a negro, from the western coast of
+Africa. This specimen is of large size, and vigorous
+appearance. The color is a jetty black, the
+hair crisp, generally called <em>woolly</em>; the eyes are
+prominent, and the orbits large; the nose thick,
+flat, and confounded with the prominent cheeks;
+the lips very thick and everted; the jaws projecting,
+and the chin receding; the skull assuming
+the form called prognathous. The low forehead
+and muzzle-like elongation of the jaws, give to
+the whole being an almost animal appearance,
+which is heightened by the large and powerful
+lower-jaw, the ample provision for muscular insertions,
+the greater size of cavities destined for the
+reception of the organs of smell and sight, the
+length of the forearm compared with the arm, the
+narrow and tapering fingers, etc. "In the negro,
+the bones of the leg are bent outwards; the tibia
+and fibula are more convex in front than in the
+European; the calves of the legs are very high,
+so as to encroach upon the hams; the feet and
+hand, but particularly the former, are flat; the os
+calcis, instead of being arched, is continued nearly<span class="pagenum"><a name="page315" id="page315">[Pg 315]</a></span>
+in a straight line with the other bones of the foot,
+which is remarkably broad."<a name="FNanchor-120" id="FNanchor-120"></a><a href="#Footnote-120" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 120.">[120]</a></p>
+
+<p>In contemplating a human being so formed, we
+are involuntarily reminded of the structure of the
+ape, and we feel almost inclined to admit that the
+tribes of Western Africa are descended from a
+stock which bears but a slight and general resemblance
+to that of the Mongolian family.</p>
+
+<p>But there are some groups, whose aspect is even
+less flattering to the self-love of humanity than
+that of the Congo. It is the peculiar distinction
+of Oceanica to furnish about the most degraded
+and repulsive of those wretched beings, who seem
+to occupy a sort of intermediate station between
+man and the mere brute. Many of the groups of
+that latest-discovered world, by the excessive leanness
+and starveling development of their limbs;<a name="FNanchor-121" id="FNanchor-121"></a><a href="#Footnote-121" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 121.">[121]</a>
+the disproportionate size of their heads; the excessive,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page316" id="page316">[Pg 316]</a></span>hopeless stupidity stamped upon their
+countenances; present an aspect so hideous and
+disgusting, that&mdash;contrasted with them&mdash;even the
+negro of Western Africa gains in our estimation,
+and seems to claim a less ignoble descent than
+they.</p>
+
+<p>We are still more tempted to adopt the conclusions
+of the advocates for the plurality of species,
+when, after having examined types taken from
+every quarter of the globe, we return to the inhabitants
+of Europe and Southern and Western
+Asia. How vast a superiority these exhibit in
+beauty, correctness of proportion, and regularity
+of features! It is they who enjoy the honor of
+having furnished the living models for the unrivalled
+masterpieces of ancient sculpture. But
+even among these races there has existed, since the
+remotest times, a gradation of beauty, at the head
+of which the European may justly be placed, as
+well for symmetry of limbs as for vigorous muscular
+development. Nothing, then, would appear
+more reasonable than to pronounce the different
+types of mankind as foreign to each other as are
+animals of different species.</p>
+
+<p>Such, indeed, was the conclusion arrived at by
+those who first systematized their observations, and
+attempted to establish a classification; and so far<span class="pagenum"><a name="page317" id="page317">[Pg 317]</a></span>
+as this classification depended upon general facts,
+it seemed incontestable.</p>
+
+<p><cite>Camper</cite> took the lead. He was not content
+with deciding upon merely superficial appearances,
+but wished to rest his demonstrations upon a
+mathematical basis, by defining, anatomically, the
+distinguishing characteristics of different types.
+If he succeeded in this, he would thereby establish
+a strict and logical method of treating the subject,
+preclude all doubt, and give to his opinions that
+rigorous precision without which there is no true
+science. I borrow from Mr. Prichard,<a name="FNanchor-122" id="FNanchor-122"></a><a href="#Footnote-122" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 122.">[122]</a> Camper's
+own account of his method. "The basis on which
+the distinction of nations<a name="FNanchor-123" id="FNanchor-123"></a><a href="#Footnote-123" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 123.">[123]</a> is founded, says he, may
+be displayed by two straight lines; one of which
+is to be drawn through the <i>meatus auditorius</i> (the
+external entrance of the ear) to the base of the
+nose; and the other touching the prominent centre
+of the forehead, and falling thence on the most
+prominent part of the upper jaw-bone, the head
+being viewed in profile. In the angle produced
+by these two lines, may be said to consist, not
+only the distinctions between the skulls of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page318" id="page318">[Pg 318]</a></span>
+several species of animals, but also those which
+are found to exist between different nations; and
+it might be concluded that nature has availed herself
+of this angle to mark out the diversities of
+the animal kingdom, and at the same time to establish
+a scale from the inferior tribes up to the
+most beautiful forms which are found in the human
+species. Thus it will be found that the heads of
+birds display the smallest angle, and that it always
+becomes of greater extent as the animal approaches
+more nearly to the human figure. Thus, there is
+one species of the ape tribe, in which the head has
+a facial angle of forty-two degrees; in another animal
+of the same family, which is one of those
+simi&aelig; most approximating in figure to mankind,
+the facial angle contains exactly fifty degrees.
+Next to this is the head of an African negro,
+which, as well as that of the Kalmuc, forms an
+angle of seventy degrees; while the angle discovered
+in the heads of Europeans contains eighty
+degrees. On this difference of ten degrees in the
+facial angle, the superior beauty of the European
+depends; while that high character of sublime
+beauty, which is so striking in some works of
+ancient statuary, as in the head of Apollo, and in
+the Medusa of Sisocles, is given by an angle
+which amounts to one hundred degrees."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page319" id="page319">[Pg 319]</a></span>This method was seductive from its exceeding
+simplicity. Unfortunately, facts were against it,
+as happens to a good many theories. The curious
+and interesting discoveries of Prof. Owen have
+proved beyond dispute, that Camper, as well as
+other anatomists since him, founded all their observations
+on orangs of immature age, and that,
+while the jaws become enlarged, and lengthened
+with the increase of the maxillary apparatus, and
+the zygomatic arch is extended, no corresponding
+increase of the brain takes place. The importance
+of this difference of age, with respect to the facial
+angle, is very great in the simi&aelig;. Thus, while
+Camper, measuring the skull of young apes, has
+found the facial angle even as much as sixty-four
+degrees; in reality, it never exceeds, in the most
+favored specimen, from thirty to thirty-five.
+Between this figure and the seventy degrees of the
+negro and Kalmuc, there is too wide a gap to
+admit of the possibility of Camper's ascending
+series.</p>
+
+<p>The advocates of phrenological science eagerly
+espoused the theory of the Dutch <i>savant</i>. They
+imagined that they could detect a development of
+instincts corresponding to the rank which the animal
+occupied in his scale. But even here facts
+were against them. It was objected that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page320" id="page320">[Pg 320]</a></span> elephant&mdash;not
+to mention numerous other instances&mdash;whose
+intelligence is incontestably superior to that
+of the orang, presents a much more acute facial
+angle than the latter. Even among the ape tribes,
+the most intelligent, those most susceptible of
+education, are by no means the highest in Camper's
+scale.</p>
+
+<p>Besides these great defects, the theory possessed
+another very weak point. It did not apply to all
+the varieties of the human species. The races
+with pyramidal skulls found no place in it. Yet
+this is a sufficiently striking characteristic.</p>
+
+<p>Camper's theory being refuted, <cite>Blumenbach</cite> proposed
+another system. He called his invention
+<i>norma verticalis</i>, the vertical method. According
+to him,<a name="FNanchor-124" id="FNanchor-124"></a><a href="#Footnote-124" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 124.">[124]</a> the comparison of the breadth of the
+head, particularly of the vertex, points out the
+principal and most strongly marked differences in
+the general configuration of the cranium. He
+adds that the whole cranium is susceptible of so
+many varieties in its form, the parts which contribute
+more or less to determine the national
+character displaying such different proportions and
+directions, that it is impossible to subject all these
+diversities to the measurement of any lines and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page321" id="page321">[Pg 321]</a></span>
+angles. In comparing and arranging skulls according
+to the varieties in their shape, it is preferable
+to survey them in that method which presents
+at one view the greatest number of characteristic
+peculiarities. "The best way of obtaining this
+end is to place a series of skulls, with the cheek-bones
+on the same horizontal line, resting on the
+lower jaws, and then, viewing them from behind,
+and fixing the eye on the vertex of each, to mark
+all the varieties in the shape of parts that contribute
+most to the national character, whether
+they consist in the direction of the maxillary and
+malar bones, in the breadth or narrowness of the
+oval figure presented by the vertex, or in the flattened
+or vaulted form of the frontal bone."</p>
+
+<p>The results which Blumenbach deduced from
+this method, were a division of mankind into
+five grand categories, each of which was again
+subdivided into a variety of families and types.</p>
+
+<p>This classification, also, is liable to many objections.
+Like Camper's, it left out several important
+characteristics. <cite>Owen</cite> supposed that these
+objections might be obviated by measuring the
+basis of the skull instead of the summit. "The
+relative proportions and extent," says Prichard,
+"and the peculiarities of formation of the different
+parts of the cranium, are more fully discovered<span class="pagenum"><a name="page322" id="page322">[Pg 322]</a></span>
+by this mode of comparison, than by any other."
+One of the most important results of this method
+was the discovery of a line of demarcation between
+man and the anthropoid apes, so distinct,
+and clearly drawn, that it becomes thenceforward
+impossible to find between the two genera the
+connecting link which Camper supposed to exist.
+It is, indeed, sufficient to cast one glance at the
+bases of two skulls, one human, and the other
+that of an orang, to perceive essential and decisive
+differences. The antero-posterior diameter of
+the basis of the skull is, in the orang, very much
+longer than in man. The zygoma is situated in
+the middle region of the skull, instead of being
+included, as in all races of men, and even human
+idiots, in the anterior half of the basis cranii; and
+it occupies in the basis just one-third part of the
+entire length of its diameter. Moreover, the position
+of the great occipital foramen is very different
+in the two skulls; and this feature is very important,
+on account of its relations to the general
+character of structure, and its influence on the
+habits of the whole being. This foramen, in the
+human head, is very near the middle of the basis
+of the skull, or, rather, it is situated immediately
+behind the middle transverse diameter; while, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page323" id="page323">[Pg 323]</a></span>
+the adult chimpantsi, it is placed in the middle of
+the posterior third part of the basis cranii.<a name="FNanchor-125" id="FNanchor-125"></a><a href="#Footnote-125" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 125.">[125]</a></p>
+
+<p>Owen certainly deserves great credit for his observations,
+but I should prefer the most recent, as
+well as ingenious, of cranioscopic systems, that of
+the learned American, Dr. Morton, which has been
+adopted by Mr. Carus.<a name="FNanchor-126" id="FNanchor-126"></a><a href="#Footnote-126" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 126.">[126]</a></p>
+
+<p>The substance of this theory is, that individuals
+are superior in intellect in proportion as their skulls
+are larger.<a name="FNanchor-127" id="FNanchor-127"></a><a href="#Footnote-127" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 127.">[127]</a> Taking this as the general rule, Dr.
+Morton and Mr. Carus proceed thereby to demonstrate
+the difference of races. The question to be
+decided is, whether all types of the human race
+have the same craniological development.</p>
+
+<p>To elucidate this fact, Dr. Morton took a certain
+number of skulls, belonging to the four principal
+human families&mdash;Whites, Mongolians, Negroes,
+and North American Indians&mdash;and, after
+carefully closing every aperture, except the <i>foramen
+magnum</i>, he measured their capacity by filling
+them with well dried grains of pepper. The results
+of this measurement are exhibited in the
+subjoined table.<a name="FNanchor-128" id="FNanchor-128"></a><a href="#Footnote-128" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 128.">[128]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page324" id="page324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table title="Skull capacity of various races" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="White races have the highest average skull capacity; Negroes have the lowest.">
+ <tr>
+ <th class="bt bb br" colspan="3"></th>
+ <th class="bbox" abbr="number" scope="col">Number<br />of skulls<br />measured.</th>
+ <th class="bbox" abbr="capacity" scope="col">Average<br />capacity.</th>
+ <th class="bbox" abbr="max" scope="col">Maximum.</th>
+ <th class="bt bb bl" abbr="min" scope="col">Minimum.</th>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left bt br" colspan="3" id="a1">White races</th>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a1">52</td>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a1">87</td>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a1">109</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="a1">75</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left" rowspan="2">Yellow races</th>
+ <td rowspan="2"><span style="font-size:300%;font-weight:lighter;margin:0;line-height:.5em;text-indent:0;">{</span></td>
+ <th class="left br" id="a2">Mongolians</th>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a2">10</td>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a2">83</td>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a2">93</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="a2">69</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left br" id="a3">Malays</th>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a3">18</td>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a3">81</td>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a3">89</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="a3">64</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left br" colspan="3" id="a4">Copper-colored races</th>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a4">147</td>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a4">82</td>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a4">100</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="a4">60</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr class="bb">
+ <th class="left br" colspan="3" id="a5">Negroes</th>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a5">29</td>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a5">78</td>
+ <td class="bl br" headers="a5">94</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="a5">65</td>
+ </tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+<p>The results given in the first two columns are
+certainly very curious, but to those in the last two
+I attach little value. These two columns, giving
+the maximum and minimum capacities, differ so
+greatly from the second, which shows the average,
+that they could be of weight only if Mr. Morton
+had experimented upon a much greater number of
+skulls, and if he had specified the social position
+of the individuals to whom they belonged. Thus,
+for his specimens of the white and copper-colored
+races, he might select skulls that had belonged to
+individuals rather above the common herd.<a name="FNanchor-129" id="FNanchor-129"></a><a href="#Footnote-129" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 129.">[129]</a> But<span class="pagenum"><a name="page325" id="page325">[Pg 325]</a></span>
+the Blacks and Mongolians were not represented
+by the skulls of their great chiefs and mandarins.
+This explains why Dr. Morton could ascribe the
+figure 100 to an aboriginal of America, while the
+most intelligent Mongolian that he examined did
+not exceed 93, and is surpassed even by the negro,
+who reaches 94. Such results are entirely incomplete,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page326" id="page326">[Pg 326]</a></span>fortuitous, and of no scientific value. In
+questions of this kind, too much care cannot be
+taken to reject conclusions which are based upon
+the examination of individualities. I am, therefore,
+unable to accept the second half of Dr. Morton's
+calculations.</p>
+
+<p>I am also disposed to doubt one of the details
+in the other half. The figures 100, 83, and 78,
+respectively indicating the average capacity of the
+skull of the white, Mongolian, and negro, follow
+a clear and evident gradation. But the figures 83,
+81, and 82, given for the Mongol, the Malay, and
+the red-skin, are conflicting; the more so, as Mr.
+Carus does not hesitate to comprise the Mongols
+and Malays into one and the same race, and thus
+unites the figures 83 and 81&mdash;by which he receives,
+as the average capacity of the yellow race,
+82, or the same as that of the red-skins. Wherefore,
+then, take the figure 82 as the characteristic
+of a distinct race, and thus create, quite arbitrarily,
+a fourth great subdivision of our species.</p>
+
+<p>This anomaly supports the weak side of Mr.
+Carus's system. The learned Saxon amuses himself
+by supposing that, just as we see our planet
+pass through the four stages of day, night, morning
+twilight, and evening twilight, so there <em>must</em>
+be four subdivisions of the human species, corresponding
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page327" id="page327">[Pg 327]</a></span>to these variations of light. He perceives
+in this a symbol,<a name="FNanchor-130" id="FNanchor-130"></a><a href="#Footnote-130" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 130.">[130]</a> which is always a dangerous
+temptation to a mind of refined susceptibilities.
+The white races are to him the nations of day;
+the black, those of night; the yellow, those of
+morning; the red, those of evening. It will be
+perceived how many ingenious analogies may be
+brought forward in support of this fanciful invention.
+Thus, the European nations, by the brilliancy
+of their scientific discoveries and their superior
+civilization, are in an enlightened state, while the
+blacks are plunged in the gloomy darkness of
+ignorance. The Eastern nations live in a sort of
+twilight, which affords them an incomplete, though
+powerful, social existence. And as for the Indians
+of the Western World, who are rapidly disappearing,
+what more beautiful image of their destiny
+can be found than the setting sun?</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, parables are no arguments, and
+Mr. Carus has somewhat injured his beautiful
+theory by unduly abandoning himself to this
+poetical current. Moreover, what I have said
+with regard to all other ethnological theories&mdash;those
+of Camper, Blumenbach, and Owen&mdash;holds
+good of this: Mr. Carus does not succeed in systematizing
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page328" id="page328">[Pg 328]</a></span>regularly the whole of the physiological
+diversities observable in races.<a name="FNanchor-131" id="FNanchor-131"></a><a href="#Footnote-131" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 131.">[131]</a></p>
+
+<p>The advocates for unity of species have not
+failed to take advantage of this inability on the
+part of their opponents to find a system which
+will include the many varieties of the human
+family; and they pretend that, as the observations
+upon the conformation of the skull cannot be reduced
+to a system which demonstrates the original
+separation of types, the different varieties must be
+regarded as simple divergencies occasioned by adventitious
+and secondary causes, and which do not
+prove a difference of origin.</p>
+
+<p>This is crying victory too soon. The difficulty
+of finding a method does not always prove that
+none can be found. But the believers in the
+unity of species did not admit this reserve. To
+set off their theory, they point to the fact that certain
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page329" id="page329">[Pg 329]</a></span>tribes, belonging to the same race, instead of
+presenting the same physical type, diverge from it
+very considerably. They cite the different groups
+of the mixed Malay-Polynesian family; and, without
+paying attention to the proportion of the elements
+which compose the mixtures, they say that
+if groups of the same origin can assume such
+totally different craniological and facial forms, the
+greatest diversities of that kind do not prove the
+primary plurality of origins.<a name="FNanchor-132" id="FNanchor-132"></a><a href="#Footnote-132" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 132.">[132]</a> Strange as it may
+be to European eyes, the distinct types of the
+negro and the Mongolian are not then demonstrative
+of difference of species; and the differences
+among the human family must be ascribed
+simply to certain local causes operating during a
+greater or less lapse of time.<a name="FNanchor-133" id="FNanchor-133"></a><a href="#Footnote-133" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 133.">[133]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page330" id="page330">[Pg 330]</a></span>The advocates for the plurality of races, being
+met with so many objections, good as well as bad,
+have attempted to enlarge the circle of their arguments,
+and, ceasing to make the skull their only
+study, have proceeded to the examination of the
+entire individual. They have rightly shown that
+the differences do not exist merely in the aspect
+of the face and formation of the skull, but, what
+is no less important, they exist also in the shape
+of the pelvis, the relative proportion of the limbs,
+and the nature of the pilous system.</p>
+
+<p>Camper and other naturalists had long since
+perceived that the pelvis of the negro presented
+certain peculiarities. Dr. Vrolik extended his researches
+further, and observed that in the European
+race the differences between the male and
+female pelvis are much less distinctly marked,
+while the pelvis of the negro, of either sex, partakes
+in a very striking degree of the animal character.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page331" id="page331">[Pg 331]</a></span>The Amsterdam <i>savant</i>, starting from the
+idea that the formation of the pelvis necessarily
+influences that of the f&oelig;tus, concludes that there
+must be difference of origin.<a name="FNanchor-134" id="FNanchor-134"></a><a href="#Footnote-134" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 134.">[134]</a></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Weber has attacked this theory with but
+little success. He was obliged to allow that certain
+formations of the pelvis occur more frequently
+in one race than in another; and all he could do,
+was to show that the rule is not without exceptions,
+and that some individuals of the American, African,
+or Mongol race presented the forms common
+among the European. This is not proving a great
+deal, especially as it never seems to have occurred
+to Mr. Weber that these exceptions might be
+owing to a mixture of blood.</p>
+
+<p>The adversaries of the unity doctrine pretend
+that the European is better proportioned. They
+are answered that the excessive leanness of the
+extremities among those nations which subsist
+principally on vegetable diet, or whose alimentation
+is imperfect, is not at all surprising; and this
+reply is certainly valid. But a much less conclusive
+reply is made to the argument drawn from
+the excessive development of bust among the
+mountaineers of Peru (Quichuas) by those who<span class="pagenum"><a name="page332" id="page332">[Pg 332]</a></span>
+are unwilling to recognize it as a specific characteristic;
+for to pretend, as they do, that it can be
+explained by the elevation of the Andes, is not
+advancing a very serious reason.<a name="FNanchor-135" id="FNanchor-135"></a><a href="#Footnote-135" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 135.">[135]</a> There are in
+the world many mountain populations who are
+constituted very differently from the Quichuas.<a name="FNanchor-136" id="FNanchor-136"></a><a href="#Footnote-136" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 136.">[136]</a></p>
+
+<p>The color of the skin is another argument for
+diversity of origin. But the opposite party refuse
+to accept this as a specific characteristic, for two
+reasons: first, because, they say, this coloration
+depends upon climatic circumstances, and is not
+permanent&mdash;which is, to say the least of it, a
+very bold assertion; secondly, because color is
+liable to indefinite gradations, by which white
+insensibly passes into yellow, yellow into black,
+so that it is impossible to find a line of demarcation
+sufficiently decided. This fact simply proves
+the existence of innumerable hybrids; an observation
+to which the advocates for unity are constantly
+inattentive.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the specific differences in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page333" id="page333">[Pg 333]</a></span>
+formation of the pile, Mr. Flourens brings his great
+authority in favor of the original unity of race.<a name="FNanchor-137" id="FNanchor-137"></a><a href="#Footnote-137" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 137.">[137]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page334" id="page334">[Pg 334]</a></span>I have now passed rapidly in review the more
+or less inconsistent arguments of the advocates of
+unity; but their strongest one still remains. It is
+of great force, and I therefore reserved it for the
+last&mdash;the facility with which the different branches
+of the human family produce hybrids, and the
+fecundity of these hybrids themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The observations of naturalists seem to have
+well established the fact that half-breeds can
+spring only from nearly related species, and that
+even in that case they are condemned to sterility.
+It has been further observed that, even among
+closely allied species, where fecundation is possible,
+copulation is repugnant, and obtained, generally,
+either by force or ruse, which would lead
+us to suppose that, in a state of nature, the number
+of hybrids is even more limited than that
+obtained by the intervention of man. It has,
+therefore, been concluded that, among the number
+of specific characteristics, we must place the
+faculty of producing prolific offspring.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page335" id="page335">[Pg 335]</a></span>As nothing authorizes us to believe that the
+human race are exempt from this law, so nothing
+has hitherto been able to shake the strength of
+this objection,<a name="FNanchor-138" id="FNanchor-138"></a><a href="#Footnote-138" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 138.">[138]</a> which, more than all the others,
+holds the advocates for plurality in check. It is,
+indeed, affirmed that, in certain portions of Oceanica,
+indigenous women, after having brought forth
+a half-breed European child, can no longer be
+fecundated by compatriots. If this assertion be
+admitted as correct, it might serve as a starting
+point for further investigations; but at present it
+could not be used to invalidate the admitted principles
+of science upon the generation of hybrids&mdash;against
+the deductions drawn from these it proves
+nothing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page336" id="page336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">PERMANENCY OF TYPES.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>The language of Holy Writ in favor of common origin&mdash;The
+permanency of their characteristics separates the races of
+men as effectually as if they were distinct creations&mdash;Arabs,
+Jews&mdash;Prichard's argument about the influence of climate
+examined&mdash;Ethnological history of the Turks and Hungarians.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The believers in unity of race affirm that types
+are different in appearance only; that, in fact, the
+differences existing among them are owing to local
+circumstances still in operation, or to an accidental
+peculiarity of conformation in the progenitor of a
+branch, and that, though they all, more or less,
+diverge from the original prototype, they all are
+capable of again returning to it. According to
+this, then, the negro, the North American savage,
+the Tungoose of North Siberia, might, under
+favorable circumstances, gain all the physical and
+mental attributes which now distinguish the European.
+Such a theory is inadmissible.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page337" id="page337">[Pg 337]</a></span>We have shown above that the only solid scientific
+stronghold of the believers in unity of species
+is the prolificness of human hybrids. This fact,
+which seems at present so difficult to refute, may
+not always present the same difficulties, and would
+not, by itself, suffice to arrest my conclusions,
+were it not supported by another argument which,
+I confess, appears to me of greater moment:
+Scripture is said to declare against difference of
+origin.</p>
+
+<p>If the text is clear, peremptory, and indisputable,
+we must submit; the most serious doubts must
+disappear; human reason, in its imperfection, must
+bow to faith. Better to let the veil of obscurity
+cover a point of erudition, than to call in question
+so high and incontestable an authority. If the
+Bible declares that mankind are descended from
+the same common stock, all that goes to prove the
+contrary is mere semblance, unworthy of consideration.
+But is the Bible really explicit on this
+point? The sacred writings have a much higher
+purpose than the elucidation of ethnological problems;
+and if it be admitted that they may have
+been misunderstood in this particular, and that
+without straining the text, it may be interpreted
+otherwise, I return to my first impression.</p>
+
+<p>The Bible evidently speaks of Adam as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page338" id="page338">[Pg 338]</a></span>
+progenitor of the white race, because from him
+are descended generations which&mdash;it cannot be
+doubted&mdash;were white. But nothing proves that
+at the first redaction of the Adamite genealogies
+the colored races were considered as forming part
+of the species. There is not a word said about the
+yellow nations, and I hope to prove, in my second
+volume, that the pretended black color of the
+patriarch Ham rests upon no other basis than an
+arbitrary interpretation. At a later period, doubtless,
+translators and commentators, who affirmed
+that Adam was the father of all beings called men,
+were obliged to bring in as descendants of the sons
+of Noah all the different varieties with whom they
+were acquainted. In this manner, Japheth was
+considered the progenitor of the European nations,
+while the inhabitants of the greater portion of
+Asia were looked upon as the descendants of
+Shem; and those of Africa, of Ham. This arrangement
+answers admirably for one portion of
+the globe. But what becomes of the population
+of the rest of the world, who are not included in
+this classification?</p>
+
+<p>I will not, at present, particularly insist upon
+this idea. I dislike the mere appearance of impugning
+even simple interpretations if they have
+the sanction of the church, and wish merely to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page339" id="page339">[Pg 339]</a></span>
+intimate that their authority might, perhaps, be
+questioned without transgressing the limits established
+by the church.<a name="FNanchor-139" id="FNanchor-139"></a><a href="#Footnote-139" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 139.">[139]</a> If this is not the case, and
+we must accept, in the main, the opinions of the
+believers in unity, I still do not despair that the
+facts may be explained in a manner different from
+theirs, and that the principal physical and moral
+differences among the branches of the human
+family may exist, with all their necessary consequences,
+independently of unity or plurality of
+origin.</p>
+
+<p>The specific identity of all canines is acknowledged,<a name="FNanchor-140" id="FNanchor-140"></a><a href="#Footnote-140" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 140.">[140]</a>
+but who would undertake the difficult
+task of proving that all these animals, to whatever
+variety they may belong, were possessed of
+the same shapes, instincts, habits, qualities? The
+same is the case with many other species, the
+equine, bovine, ursine, etc. Here we find perfect
+identity of origin, and yet diversity in every other
+respect, and a diversity so radical, that even intermixture
+can not produce a real identity of character
+in the several types. On the contrary, so long<span class="pagenum"><a name="page340" id="page340">[Pg 340]</a></span>
+as each type remains pure, their distinctive features
+are permanent, and reproduced, without any sensible
+deviation, in each successive generation.<a name="FNanchor-141" id="FNanchor-141"></a><a href="#Footnote-141" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 141.">[141]</a></p>
+
+<p>This incontestable fact has led to the inquiry
+whether in those species which, by domestication,
+have lost their original habits, and contracted
+others, the forms and instincts of the primitive
+stock were still discernible. I think this highly
+improbable, and can hardly believe that we shall
+ever be able to determine the shape and characteristics
+of the prototype of each species, and how
+much or how little it is approached by the deviations
+now before our eyes. A very great number
+of vegetables present the same problem, and with
+regard to man, whose origin it is most interesting
+and important for us to know, the inquiry seems
+to be attended with the greatest and most insurmountable
+difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>Each race is convinced that its progenitor had
+precisely the characteristics which now distinguish<span class="pagenum"><a name="page341" id="page341">[Pg 341]</a></span>
+it. This is the only point upon which their traditions
+perfectly agree. The white races represent
+to themselves an Adam and Eve, whom Blumenbach
+would at once have pronounced Caucasians;
+the Mohammedan negroes, on the contrary, believe
+the first pair to have been black; these being created
+in God's own image, it follows that the Supreme
+Being, and also the angels, are of the same
+color, and the prophet himself was certainly too
+greatly favored by his Sender to display a pale
+skin to his disciples.<a name="FNanchor-142" id="FNanchor-142"></a><a href="#Footnote-142" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 142.">[142]</a></p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, modern science has as yet found
+no clue to this maze of opinions. No admissible
+theory has been advanced which affords the least
+light upon the subject, and, in all probability, the
+various types differ as much from their common
+progenitor&mdash;if they possess one&mdash;as they do among
+themselves. The causes of these deviations are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page342" id="page342">[Pg 342]</a></span>
+exceedingly difficult to ascertain. The believers
+in the unity of origin pretend to find them, as I remarked
+before, in various local circumstances, such
+as climate, habits, &amp;c. It is impossible to coincide
+with such an opinion, for, although these circumstances
+have always existed, they have not, within
+historical times, produced such alterations in the
+races which were exposed to their influence as to
+make it even probable that they were the causes
+of so vast and radical a dissimilarity as we now
+see before us. Suppose two tribes, not yet departed
+from the primitive type, to inhabit, one an
+alpine region in the interior of a continent, the
+other some isolated isle in the immensity of the
+ocean. Their atmospheric and alimentary conditions
+would, of course, be totally different. If we
+further suppose one of these tribes to be abundantly
+provided with nourishment, and the other
+possessing but precarious means of subsistence;
+one to inhabit a cold latitude, and the other to be
+exposed to the action of a tropical sun; it seems
+to me that we have accumulated the most essential
+local contrasts. Allowing these physical causes to
+operate a sufficient lapse of time, the two groups
+would, no doubt, ultimately assume certain peculiar
+characteristics, by which they might be distinguished
+from each other. But no imaginable<span class="pagenum"><a name="page343" id="page343">[Pg 343]</a></span>
+length of time could bring about any essential,
+organic change of conformation; and as a proof
+of this assertion, I would point to the populations
+of opposite portions of the globe, living under
+physical conditions the most widely different, who,
+nevertheless, present a perfect resemblance of type.</p>
+
+<p>The Hottentots so strongly resemble the inhabitants
+of the Celestial Empire, that it has even been
+supposed, though without good reasons, that they
+were originally a Chinese colony. A great similarity
+exists between the ancient Etruscans, whose
+portraits have come down to us, and the Araucanians
+of South America. The features and outlines
+of the Cherokees seem to be perfectly identical
+with those of several Italian populations, the
+Calabrians, for instance. The inhabitants of Auvergne,
+especially the female portion, much more
+nearly resemble in physiognomy several Indian
+tribes of North America than any European nation.
+Thus we see that in very different climes,
+and under conditions of life so very dissimilar,
+nature can reproduce the same forms. The peculiar
+characteristics which now distinguish the different
+types cannot, therefore, be the effects of
+local circumstances such as now exist.<a name="FNanchor-143" id="FNanchor-143"></a><a href="#Footnote-143" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 143.">[143]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page344" id="page344">[Pg 344]</a></span>Though it is impossible to ascertain what physical
+changes different branches of the human
+family may have undergone anterior to the historic
+epoch, yet we have the best proofs that since
+then, no race has changed its peculiar characteristics.
+The historic epoch comprises about one
+half of the time during which our earth is supposed
+to have been inhabited, and there are several
+nations whom we can trace up to the verge of
+ante-historic ages; yet we find that the races then
+known have remained the same to our days, even
+though they ceased to inhabit the same localities,
+and consequently were no longer exposed to the
+influence of the same external conditions.</p>
+
+<p>Witness the Arabs. As they are represented
+on the monuments of Egypt, so we find them at
+present, not only in the arid deserts of their native
+land, but in the fertile regions and moist climate
+of Malabar, Coromandel, and the islands of the
+Indian Ocean. We find them again, though more
+mixed, on the northern coasts of Africa, and, although
+many centuries have elapsed since their
+invasion, traces of Arab blood are still discernible<span class="pagenum"><a name="page345" id="page345">[Pg 345]</a></span>
+in some portions of Roussillon, Languedoc, and
+Spain.</p>
+
+<p>Next to the Arabs I would instance the Jews.
+They have emigrated to countries in every respect
+the most dissimilar to Palestine, and have not
+even preserved their ancient habits of life. Yet
+their type has always remained peculiar and the
+same in every latitude and under every physical
+condition. The warlike Rechabites in the deserts
+of Arabia present to us the same features as our
+own peaceable Jews. I had occasion not long
+since to examine a Polish Jew. The cut of his
+face, and especially his eyes, perfectly betrayed
+his origin. This inhabitant of a northern zone,
+whose direct ancestors for several generations had
+lived among the snows and ice of an inhospitable
+clime, seemed to have been tanned but the day
+before, by the ardent rays of a Syrian sun. The
+same Shemitic face which the Egyptian artist represented
+some four thousand or more years ago,
+we recognize daily around us; and its principal
+and really characteristic features are equally
+strikingly preserved under the most diverse climatic
+circumstances. But the resemblance is not
+confined to the face only, it extends to the conformation
+of the limbs and the nature of the temperament.
+German Jews are generally smaller<span class="pagenum"><a name="page346" id="page346">[Pg 346]</a></span>
+and more slender in stature than the European
+nations among whom they have lived for centuries;
+and the age of puberty arrives earlier
+with them than with their compatriots of another
+race.<a name="FNanchor-144" id="FNanchor-144"></a><a href="#Footnote-144" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 144.">[144]</a></p>
+
+<p>This is, I am aware, an assertion diametrically
+opposed to Mr. Prichard's opinions. This celebrated
+physiologist, in his zeal to prove the unity
+of species, attempts to prove that the age of puberty
+in both sexes is the same everywhere and
+among all races. His arguments are based upon
+the precepts of the Old Testament and the Koran,
+by which the marriageable age of women is fixed
+at fifteen, and even eighteen, according to Abou-Hanifah.<a name="FNanchor-145" id="FNanchor-145"></a><a href="#Footnote-145" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 145.">[145]</a></p>
+
+<p>I hardly think that biblical testimony is admissible
+in matters of this kind, because the Scriptures
+often narrate facts which cannot be accounted
+for by the ordinary laws of nature. Thus, the
+pregnancy of Sarah at an extreme old age, and
+when Abraham himself was a centenarian, is an
+event upon which no ordinary course of reasoning
+could be based. As for the precepts of the Mohammedan
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page347" id="page347">[Pg 347]</a></span>law, I would observe that they were
+intended to insure not merely the physical aptitude
+for marriage, but also that degree of mental maturity
+and education which befit a woman about
+to enter on the duties of so serious a station. The
+prophet makes it a special injunction that the religious
+education of young women should be continued
+to the time of their marriage. Taking this
+view, the law-giver would naturally incline to delay
+the period of marriage as long as possible, in order
+to afford time for the development of the reasoning
+faculties, and he would therefore be less precipitate
+in his authorizations than nature in hers. But
+there are some other proofs which I would adduce
+against Mr. Prichard's grave arguments, which,
+though of less weighty character, are not the less
+conclusive, and will settle the question, I think, in
+my favor.</p>
+
+<p>Poets, in their tales of love, are mainly solicitous
+of exhibiting their heroines in the first bloom of
+beauty, without caring much about their moral and
+mental development. Accordingly, we find that
+oriental poets have always made their lovers much
+younger than the age prescribed by the Koran.
+Zelika and Leila are not, surely, fourteen years
+old. In India, this difference is still more striking.
+Sacontala, in Europe, would be quite a small girl,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page348" id="page348">[Pg 348]</a></span>
+a mere child. The spring-time of life for a Hindoo
+female is from the age of nine to that of twelve.
+In the Chinese romance, <cite>Yu-Kiao-li</cite>, the heroine is
+sixteen; and her father is in great distress, and
+laments pathetically that at so advanced an age
+she should still be unmarried. The Roman writers,
+following in the footsteps of their Greek preceptors,
+took fifteen as the period of bloom of a
+woman's life; our own authors for a long time adhered
+to these models, but since the ideas of the
+North have begun to exert their influence upon
+our literature, the heroines of our novels are full-grown
+young ladies of eighteen, and very often
+more.<a name="FNanchor-146" id="FNanchor-146"></a><a href="#Footnote-146" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 146.">[146]</a></p>
+
+<p>But arguments of a more serious character are
+by no means wanting. Besides what I said of the
+precocity of the Jews in Germany, I may point
+out the reverse as a peculiarity of the population
+of many portions of Switzerland. Among them<span class="pagenum"><a name="page349" id="page349">[Pg 349]</a></span>
+the physical development is so slow, that the age
+of puberty is not always attained at twenty. The
+Zingaris, or gypsies, display the same physical
+precocity as their Hindoo ancestry, and, under the
+austere sky of Russia and Moldavia, they preserve,
+together with their ancient notions and habits, the
+general aspect of face and form of the Pariahs.<a name="FNanchor-147" id="FNanchor-147"></a><a href="#Footnote-147" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 147.">[147]</a></p>
+
+<p>I do not, however, wish to attack Mr. Prichard
+upon all points. There is one of his conclusions
+which I readily adopt, viz.: "<em>that the difference of
+climate occasions very little, if any, important diversity
+as to the periods of life and the physical changes
+to which the human constitution is subject</em>."<a name="FNanchor-148" id="FNanchor-148"></a><a href="#Footnote-148" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 148.">[148]</a> This
+conclusion is very well founded, and I shall not<span class="pagenum"><a name="page350" id="page350">[Pg 350]</a></span>
+seek to invalidate it; but it appears to me that it
+contradicts a little the principles so ably advocated
+by the learned physiologist and antiquary.</p>
+
+<p>The reader must have perceived that the discussion
+turns solely upon permanency of type. If
+it can be proved that the different branches of the
+human family are each possessed of a certain individuality
+which is independent of climate and the
+lapse of ages, and can be effaced only by intermixture,
+the question of origin is reduced to
+little importance; for, in that case, the different
+types are no less completely and irrevocably separated
+than if their specific differences arose from
+diversity of origin.</p>
+
+<p>That such is the case, we have already proved
+by the testimony of Egyptian sculptures with regard
+to the Arabs, and by our observations upon
+the Jews and gypsies. Should any further proofs
+be needed, we would mention that the paintings
+in the temples and subterraneous buildings of the
+Nile valley as indubitably attest the permanence
+of the negro type. There we see the same crisped
+hair, prognathous skull, and thick lips. The recent
+discovery of the bas-reliefs of Khorsabad<a name="FNanchor-149" id="FNanchor-149"></a><a href="#Footnote-149" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 149.">[149]</a> has removed
+beyond doubt the conclusions previously<span class="pagenum"><a name="page351" id="page351">[Pg 351]</a></span>
+formed from the figured monuments of Persepolis,
+viz.: that the present Assyrian nations are
+physiologically identical with those who formerly
+inhabited the same regions.</p>
+
+<p>If similar investigations could be made upon a
+greater number of existing races, the results would
+be the same. We have established the fact of permanence
+of types in all cases where investigation
+is possible, and the burden of proof, therefore, falls
+upon the dissenting party.</p>
+
+<p>Their arguments, indeed, are in direct contradiction
+to the most obvious facts. Thus they allege,
+although the most ordinary observation shows the
+contrary, that climate <em>has</em> produced alterations in
+the Jewish type, inasmuch as many light-haired,
+blue-eyed Jews are found in Germany. For this
+argument to be of any weight in their position,
+the advocates for unity of race must recognize climate
+to be the sole, or at least principal, cause of
+this phenomenon. But the adherents of that doctrine
+elsewhere assert that the color of the eyes,
+hair, and skin, no ways depends upon geographical
+situation or the action of heat and cold.<a name="FNanchor-150" id="FNanchor-150"></a><a href="#Footnote-150" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 150.">[150]</a> As an<span class="pagenum"><a name="page352" id="page352">[Pg 352]</a></span>
+evidence of this, they justly cite the Cinghalese,
+who have blue eyes and light hair;<a name="FNanchor-151" id="FNanchor-151"></a><a href="#Footnote-151" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 151.">[151]</a> they even
+observe among them a very considerable difference
+of complexion, varying from a light brown to
+black. Again, they admit that the Samoiedes and
+Tungusians, though living on the borders of the
+Frozen Ocean,<a name="FNanchor-152" id="FNanchor-152"></a><a href="#Footnote-152" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 152.">[152]</a> have an exceedingly swarthy complexion.
+If, therefore, climate exerts no influence
+upon the complexion and color of hair and eyes,
+these marks must be considered as of no importance,
+or as pertaining to race. We know that red
+hair is not at all uncommon in the East, and at no
+time has been so; it cannot, therefore, create much
+surprise if we occasionally find it among the Jews<span class="pagenum"><a name="page353" id="page353">[Pg 353]</a></span>
+of Germany. This fact cannot be adduced as evidence
+either in favor of, or against, the permanence
+of types.</p>
+
+<p>The advocates for unity are no less unfortunate
+in their historical arguments. They furnish but
+two; the Turks and the Magyars. The Asiatic
+origin of the former is supposed to be established
+beyond doubt, as well as of their intimate relationship
+with the Finnic branches of the Laplanders
+and Ostiacs. It follows from this that they must
+originally have displayed the yellow skin, projecting
+cheek bones, and low stature of the Mongolian
+races. This point being settled, we are told to look
+at the Turks of our day, who exhibit all the characteristics
+of the European type. Types, then,
+are not permanent, it is victoriously concluded,
+because the Turks have undergone such a transformation.
+"It is true," say the adherents of the
+unity school, "that some pretend there had been
+an admixture of Greek, Georgian, and Circassian
+blood. But this admixture can have taken place
+only to a very limited extent; all Turks are not
+rich enough to buy their wives in the Caucasus, or
+to have seraglios filled with white slaves; on the
+other hand, the hatred which the Greeks cherish
+for their conquerors, and the religious antipathies
+of both nations, were not favorable to alliances<span class="pagenum"><a name="page354" id="page354">[Pg 354]</a></span>
+between them, and consequently we see them&mdash;though
+inhabiting the same country&mdash;as distinct
+at this day as at the time of the conquest."<a name="FNanchor-153" id="FNanchor-153"></a><a href="#Footnote-153" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 153.">[153]</a></p>
+
+<p>These arguments are more specious than solid.
+In the first place, I am greatly disposed to doubt
+the Finnic origin of the Turkish race, because the
+only evidence that has hitherto been produced in
+favor of this supposition is affinity of language,
+and I shall hereafter give my reasons for believing
+this argument&mdash;when unsupported by any other&mdash;as
+extremely unreliable, and open to doubt. But
+even if we suppose the ancestors of the Turkish
+nation to belong to the yellow race, it is easy to
+show why their descendants have so widely departed
+from that type.</p>
+
+<p>Centuries elapsed from the time of the first appearance
+of the Turanian hordes to the day which
+saw them the masters of the city of Constantine,
+and during that period, multifarious events took
+place; the fortune of the Western Turks has been
+a checkered one. Alternately conquerors or conquered,
+masters or slaves, they have become incorporated
+with various nationalities. According to
+the annalists,<a name="FNanchor-154" id="FNanchor-154"></a><a href="#Footnote-154" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 154.">[154]</a> their Orghuse ancestors, who descended
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page355" id="page355">[Pg 355]</a></span>from the Altai Mountains, inhabited in
+Abraham's time the immense steppes of Upper
+Asia which extend from Katai to the sea of Aral,
+from Siberia to Thibet, and which, as has recently
+been proved&mdash;were then the abode of numerous
+Germanic tribes.<a name="FNanchor-155" id="FNanchor-155"></a><a href="#Footnote-155" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 155.">[155]</a> It is a singular circumstance,
+that the first mentioning by Oriental writers of the
+tribes of Turkestan is in celebrating them for
+their beauty of face and form.<a name="FNanchor-156" id="FNanchor-156"></a><a href="#Footnote-156" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 156.">[156]</a> The most extravagant
+hyperboles are lavished on them without
+reserve, and as these writers had before their eyes
+the handsomest types of the old world with which
+to compare them, it is not probable that they
+should have wasted their enthusiasm on creatures
+so ugly and repulsive as are generally the races of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page356" id="page356">[Pg 356]</a></span>
+pure Mongolian blood. Thus, notwithstanding
+the dicta of philology, I think serious doubts
+might be raised on that point.<a name="FNanchor-157" id="FNanchor-157"></a><a href="#Footnote-157" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 157.">[157]</a></p>
+
+<p>But I am willing to admit that the Turcomannic
+tribes were, indeed, as is supposed, of Finnic origin.
+Let us come down to a later period&mdash;the Mohammedan
+era. We then find these tribes under various
+denominations and in equally various situations,
+dispersed over Persia and Asia Minor. The
+Osmanli were not yet existing at that time, and
+their predecessors, the Seldjuks, were already<span class="pagenum"><a name="page357" id="page357">[Pg 357]</a></span>
+greatly mixed with the races that had embraced
+Islamism. We see from the example of Gha&iuml;ased-din-Keikosrew,
+who lived in 1237, that the Seljuk
+princes were in the habit of frequently intermarrying
+with Arab women. They must have gone
+still further, for we find that Aseddin, the mother
+of one of the Seljuk dynasties, was a Christian.
+It is reasonable to suppose, that if the chiefs of
+the nation, who everywhere are the most anxious
+to preserve the purity of their genealogy, showed
+themselves so devoid of prejudice, their subjects
+were still less scrupulous on that point. Their
+constant inroads in which they ranged over vast
+districts, gave them ample opportunities for capturing
+slaves, and there is every reason to believe
+that already in the 13th century, the ancient
+Orghuse branch was strongly tinctured with Shemitic
+blood.</p>
+
+<p>To this branch belonged Osman, the son of Ortoghrul,
+and father of the Osmanli. But few
+families were collected around his tent. His army
+was, at first, little better than a band of adventurers,
+and the same expedient which swelled the
+ranks of the first builders of Rome, increased the
+number of adherents of this new Romulus of the
+Steppes. Every desperate adventurer or fugitive,
+of whatever nation, was welcome among them,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page358" id="page358">[Pg 358]</a></span>
+and assured of protection. I shall suppose that
+the downfall of the Seljuk empire brought to their
+standards a great number of their own race. But
+we have already said that this race was very much
+mixed; and besides, this addition was insufficient,
+as is proved by the fact that, from that time, the
+Turks began to capture slaves for the avowed purpose
+of repairing, by this means, the waste which
+constant warfare made in their own ranks. In
+the beginning of the 14th century, the sultan Orkhan,
+following the advice of his vizier, Khalil
+Tjendereli, surnamed the Black, instituted the
+famous military body called Janissaries.<a name="FNanchor-158" id="FNanchor-158"></a><a href="#Footnote-158" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 158.">[158]</a> They
+<span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden"><a name="page359" id="page359">[Pg 359]</a></span>
+were composed entirely of Christian children captured
+in Poland, Germany, Italy, or the Bizantine
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page360" id="page360">[Pg 360]</a></span>Empire, who were educated in the Mohammedan
+religion and the practice of arms. Under
+Mohammed IV., their number had increased to
+140,000 men. Here, then, we find an influx of at
+least half a million male individuals of European
+blood in the course of four centuries.</p>
+
+<p>But the infusion of European blood was not
+limited to this. The piracy which was carried on,
+on so large a scale, in the whole basin of the Mediterranean,
+had for one of its principal objects
+the replenishment of the harems. Every victory
+gained increased the number of believers in the
+Prophet. A great number of the prisoners of war
+abjured Christianity, and were henceforth counted
+among the true believers. The localities adjacent<span class="pagenum"><a name="page361" id="page361">[Pg 361]</a></span>
+to the field of battle supplied as many females as
+the marauding victors could lay hold of. In some
+cases, this sort of booty was so plentiful that it
+became inconvenient to dispose of. Hammer relates<a name="FNanchor-159" id="FNanchor-159"></a><a href="#Footnote-159" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 159.">[159]</a>
+that, on one occasion, the handsomest female
+captive was bartered for <em>one boot</em>. When we consider
+that the Turkish population of the whole
+Ottoman empire never exceeded twelve millions,
+it becomes apparent that the history of so amalgamated
+a nation affords no arguments, either for or
+against, the permanency of type. We will now
+proceed to the second historic argument advanced
+by the believers in unity.</p>
+
+<p>"The Magyars," they say, "are of Finnic origin,
+nearly related to the Laplanders, Samoiedes, and
+Esquimaux, all of which are people of low stature,
+with big faces, projecting cheek-bones, and
+yellowish or dirty brown complexion. Yet the
+Magyars are tall, well formed, and have handsome
+features. The Finns have always been feeble, unintelligent,
+and oppressed; the Magyars, on the
+contrary, occupy a distinguished rank among the
+conquerors of the earth, and are noted for their
+love of liberty and independence. As they are
+so immensely superior, both physically and morally,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page362" id="page362">[Pg 362]</a></span>to all the collateral branches of the Finnic
+stock, it follows that they have undergone an
+enormous transformation."<a name="FNanchor-160" id="FNanchor-160"></a><a href="#Footnote-160" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 160.">[160]</a></p>
+
+<p>If such a transformation had ever taken place,
+it would, indeed, be astonishing and inexplicable
+even to those who ascribe the least stability to
+types, for it must have occurred within the last
+800 years, during which we know that the compatriots
+of St. Stephen<a name="FNanchor-161" id="FNanchor-161"></a><a href="#Footnote-161" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 161.">[161]</a> mixed but little with surrounding
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page363" id="page363">[Pg 363]</a></span>nations. But the whole course of reasoning
+is based upon false premises, for the Hungarians
+are most assuredly not of Finnic origin.
+Mr. A. De G&eacute;rando<a name="FNanchor-162" id="FNanchor-162"></a><a href="#Footnote-162" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 162.">[162]</a> has placed this fact beyond
+doubt. He has proved, by the authority of Greek
+and Arab historians, as well as Hungarian annalists
+and by indisputable philological arguments,
+that the Magyars are a fragment of that great inundation
+of nations which swept over Europe
+under the denomination of Huns. It will be objected
+that this is merely giving the Hungarians
+another parentage, but which connects them no
+less intimately with the yellow race. Such is not
+the case. The designation of Huns applies not
+only to a nation, but is also a collective appellation
+of a very heterogeneous mass. Among the
+tribes which rallied around the standards of Attila
+and his ancestors, there were some which have at all
+times been distinguished from the rest by the term
+<em>white Huns</em>. Among them the Germanic blood
+predominated.<a name="FNanchor-163" id="FNanchor-163"></a><a href="#Footnote-163" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 163.">[163]</a> It is true, that the close contact<span class="pagenum"><a name="page364" id="page364">[Pg 364]</a></span>
+with the yellow race somewhat adulterated the
+breed; but this very fact is singularly exhibited
+in the somewhat angular and bony facial conformation
+of the Hungarians. I conclude, therefore,
+that the Magyars were <em>white Huns</em>, and of Germanic
+origin, though slightly mixed with the Mongolian
+stock.</p>
+
+<p>The philological difficulty of their speaking a
+non-Germanic dialect is not insurmountable. I
+have already alluded to the Mongolian Scyths
+who yet spoke an Arian tongue;<a name="FNanchor-164" id="FNanchor-164"></a><a href="#Footnote-164" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 164.">[164]</a> I might, moreover,
+cite the Norman settlers in France who, not
+many years after their conquest, exchanged their
+Scandinavian dialect, in a great measure, for the
+Celto-Latin of their subjects,<a name="FNanchor-165" id="FNanchor-165"></a><a href="#Footnote-165" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 165.">[165]</a> whence sprang that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page365" id="page365">[Pg 365]</a></span>
+singular compound called Norman-French, which
+the followers of William the Conqueror imported
+into England, and which now forms an element of
+the English language.</p>
+
+<p>There is, therefore, no reason to suppose that
+the agency of climate and change of habits have
+transformed a Laplander, or an Ostiak, or a
+Tunguse, or a Permian, into a St. Stephen or a
+Kossuth.</p>
+
+<p>Having thus, I think, refuted the only two historical
+instances which the believers in unity of
+species adduce, of a pretended alteration of type
+by local circumstances and change of habits, and
+having, moreover, instanced several cases where
+these causes could produce no alteration; the fact
+of permanency of type seems to me to be incontestably
+established.<a name="FNanchor-166" id="FNanchor-166"></a><a href="#Footnote-166" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 166.">[166]</a> Thus, whichever side we<span class="pagenum"><a name="page366" id="page366">[Pg 366]</a></span>
+take, whether we believe in original unity, or
+original diversity, is immaterial; the several groups
+of the human species are, at present, so perfectly
+separated from each other, that no exterior influence
+can efface their distinctive peculiarities. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page367" id="page367">[Pg 367]</a></span>
+permanency of these differences, so long as there
+is no intermixture, produces precisely the same
+physical and moral results as if the groups were
+so many distinct and separate creations.</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion, I shall repeat what I have said
+above, that I have very serious doubts as to the
+unity of origin. These doubts, however, I am compelled
+to repress, because they are in contradiction
+to a scientific fact which I cannot refute&mdash;the prolificness
+of half-breeds; and secondly, what is of
+much greater weight with me, they impugn a
+religious interpretation sanctioned by the church.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page368" id="page368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">CLASSIFICATION OF RACES.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>Primary varieties&mdash;Test for recognizing them; not always reliable&mdash;Effects
+of intermixture&mdash;Secondary varieties&mdash;Tertiary
+varieties&mdash;Amalgamation of races in large cities&mdash;Relative
+scale of beauty in various branches of the human family&mdash;Their
+inequality in muscular strength and powers of endurance.</p></div>
+
+
+<blockquote><p>[In supervising the publication of this work, I have
+thought proper to omit, in this place, a portion of the
+translation, because containing ideas and suggestions
+which&mdash;though they might be novel to a French public&mdash;have
+often been laid before English readers, and as
+often proven untenable. This omission, however, embraces
+no essential feature of the book, no link of the
+chain of argumentation. It extends no further than
+a digressional attempt of the author to account for the
+diversities observable in the various branches of the
+human family, by imagining the existence of cosmogonal
+causes, long since effete, but operating for a time
+soon after the creation of man, when the globe was
+still in a nascent and chaotic state. It must be obvious
+that all such speculations can never bridge over the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page369" id="page369">[Pg 369]</a></span>
+wide abyss which separates <em>hypotheses</em> from <em>facts</em>.
+They afford a boundless field for play to a fertile
+imagination, but will never stand the test of criticism.
+Even if we were to suppose that such causes had effected
+diversities in the human family in primeval times, the
+types thus produced must all have perished in the
+flood, save that to which Noah and his family belonged.
+If these writers, however, should be disposed to deny
+the universality of the deluge, they would evidently
+do greater violence to the language of Holy Writ, than
+by at once supposing a plurality of origins for mankind.</p>
+
+<p>The legitimate field of human science is the investigation
+of the laws <em>now</em> governing the material world.
+Beyond this it may not go. Whatever is recognized as
+not coming within the scope of action of these laws,
+belongs not to its province. We have proved, and I
+think it is generally admitted, that the actual varieties
+of the human family are <em>permanent</em>; that there are no
+causes <em>now in operation</em>, which can transform them.
+The investigation of those causes, therefore, cannot
+properly be said to belong to the province of human
+science. In regard to their various systems of classification,
+naturalists may be permitted to dispute about
+unity or plurality of species, because the use of the
+word species is more or less arbitrary; it is an expedient
+to secure a convenient arrangement. But none,
+I hope, presume ever to be able to fathom the mysteries
+of Creative Power&mdash;to challenge the fiat of the Almighty,
+and inquire into his <em>means</em>.&mdash;H.]</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In the investigation of the moral and intellectual
+diversities of races, there is no difficulty so
+great as an accurate classification. I am disposed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page370" id="page370">[Pg 370]</a></span>
+to think a separation into three great groups sufficient
+for all practical purposes. These groups I
+shall call primary varieties, not in the sense of
+distinct creations, but as offering obvious and well-defined
+distinguishing characteristics. I would
+designate them respectively by the terms white,
+yellow, and black. I am aware of the inaccuracy
+of these appellations, because the complexion is
+not always the distinctive feature of these groups:
+other and more important physiological traits must
+be taken into consideration. But as I have not
+the right to invent new names, and am, therefore,
+compelled to select among those already in
+use, I have chosen these because, though by no
+means correct, they seemed preferable to others
+borrowed from geography or history, and not so
+apt as the latter to add to the confusion which
+already sufficiently perplexes the investigator of
+this subject. To obviate any misconception here
+and hereafter, I wish it to be distinctly understood
+that by "white" races I mean those usually comprised
+under the name of Caucasian, Shemitic,
+Japhetic; by "black," the Hamitic, African, etc.;
+by "yellow," the Altaic, Mongolian, Finnic, and
+Tartar. These I consider to be the three categories
+under which all races of the human family
+can be placed. I shall hereafter explain my reasons<span class="pagenum"><a name="page371" id="page371">[Pg 371]</a></span>
+for not recognizing the American Indians as a
+separate variety, and for classing them among the
+yellow races.<a name="FNanchor-167" id="FNanchor-167"></a><a href="#Footnote-167" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 167.">[167]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page372" id="page372">[Pg 372]</a></span>It is obvious that each of these groups comprises
+races very dissimilar among themselves,
+each of which, besides the general characteristics<span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden"><a name="page373" id="page373">[Pg 373]</a></span>
+belonging to the whole group, possesses others
+peculiar to itself. Thus, in the group of black
+races we find marked distinctions: the tribes with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page374" id="page374">[Pg 374]</a></span>
+prognathous skull and woolly hair, the low-caste
+Hindoos of Kamaoun and of Dekhan, the Pelagian
+negroes of Polynesia, etc. In the yellow
+group, the Tungusians, Mongols, Chinese, etc.
+There is every reason to believe that these sub-varieties
+are coeval; that is, the same causes which
+produced one, produced at the same time all the
+others.</p>
+
+<p>It is, moreover, extremely difficult to determine
+the typical character of each variety. In the
+white, and also in the yellow group, the mixture
+of the sub-varieties is so great, that it is impossible
+to fix upon the type. In the black group,
+the type is perhaps discernible; at least, it is preserved
+in its greatest purity.</p>
+
+<p>To ascertain the relative purity or mixture of a
+race, a criterion has been adopted by many, who
+consider it infallible: this is resemblance of face,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page375" id="page375">[Pg 375]</a></span>
+form, constitution, etc. It is supposed that the
+purer a race has preserved itself, the greater must
+be the exterior resemblances of all the individuals
+composing it. On the contrary, considerable and
+varied intermixtures would produce an infinite
+diversity of appearance among individuals. This
+fact is incontestable, and of great value in ethnological
+science, but I do not think it quite so reliable
+as some suppose.</p>
+
+<p>Intermixture of races does, indeed, produce at
+first individual dissemblances, for few individuals
+belong in precisely the same degree to either of
+the races composing the mixture. But suppose
+that, in course of time, the fusion has become complete&mdash;that
+every individual member of the mixed
+race had precisely the same proportion of mixed
+blood as every other&mdash;he could not then differ
+greatly from his neighbor. The whole mass, in
+that case, must present the same general homogeneity
+as a pure race. The perfect amalgamation
+of two races of the same group would, therefore,
+produce a new type, presenting a fictitious appearance
+of purity, and reproducing itself in succeeding
+generations.</p>
+
+<p>I imagine it possible, therefore, that a "secondary"
+type may in time assume all the characteristics
+of a "primary" one, viz: resemblance of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page376" id="page376">[Pg 376]</a></span>
+individuals composing it. The lapse of time to
+produce this complete fusion would necessarily be
+commensurate to the original diversity of the constituent
+elements. Where two races belonging to
+different groups combine, such a complete fusion
+would probably never be possible. I can illustrate
+this by reference to individuals. Parents of widely
+different nations generally have children but little
+resembling each other&mdash;some apparently partaking
+more of the father's type, some more of the mother's.
+But if the parents are both of the same,
+or at least of homogeneous stocks, their offspring
+exhibits little or no variety; and though the children
+might resemble neither of the parents, they
+would be apt to resemble one another.</p>
+
+<p>To distinguish the varieties produced by a fusion
+of proximate races from those which are the effect
+of intermixture between races belonging to different
+groups, I shall call the latter <em>tertiary</em> varieties.
+Thus the woolly-headed negro and the Pelagian
+are both "primary" varieties belonging to the same
+group; their offspring I would call a "secondary"
+variety; but the hymen of either of them with a
+race belonging to the white or yellow groups,
+would produce a "tertiary" variety. To this last,
+then, belong the mulatto, or cross between white
+and black, and the Polynesian, who is a cross between
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page377" id="page377">[Pg 377]</a></span>the black and the yellow.<a name="FNanchor-168" id="FNanchor-168"></a><a href="#Footnote-168" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 168.">[168]</a> Half-breeds of
+this kind display, in various proportions and degrees,
+the special characteristics of both the ancestral
+races. But a complete fusion, as in the case
+of branches of the same group, probably never
+results from the union of two widely dissimilar
+races, or, at least, would require an incommensurable
+lapse of time.</p>
+
+<p>If a tertiary type is again modified by intermixture
+with another, as is the case in a cross between
+a mulatto and a Mongolian, or between a Polynesian
+and a European, the ethnical mixture is too
+great to permit us, in the present state of the
+science, to arrive at any general conclusions. It
+appears that every additional intermixture increases
+the difficulty of complete fusion. In a population
+composed of a great number of dissimilar ethnical
+elements, it would require countless ages for a
+thorough amalgamation; that is to say, so complete
+a mixture that each individual would have
+precisely the kind and relative proportion of mixed
+blood as every other. It follows, therefore, that,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page378" id="page378">[Pg 378]</a></span>
+in a population so constituted, there is an infinite
+diversity of form and features among individuals,
+some pertaining more to one type than another.
+In other words, there being no equilibrium between
+the various types, they crop out here and
+there without any apparent reason.</p>
+
+<p>We find this spectacle among the great civilized
+nations of Europe, especially in their capitals and
+seaports. In these great vortexes of humanity, every
+possible variety of our species has been absorbed.
+Negro, Chinese, Tartar, Hottentot, Indian, Malay,
+and all the minor varieties produced by their mixture,
+have contributed their contingent to the population
+of our large cities. Since the Roman domination,
+this amalgamation has continually increased,
+and is still increasing in proportion as our inventions
+bring in closer proximity the various portions
+of the globe. It affects all classes to some extent,
+but more especially the lowest. Among them you
+may see every type of the human family more or
+less represented. In London, Paris, Cadiz, Constantinople,
+in any of the greater marts and thoroughfares
+of the world, the lower strata of the
+<em>native</em> population exhibit every possible variety,
+from the prognathous skull to the pyramidal: you
+shall find one man with hair as crisp as a negro's;
+another, with the eyes of an ancient German, or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page379" id="page379">[Pg 379]</a></span>
+the oblique ones of a Chinese; a third, with a
+thoroughly Shemitic countenance; yet all three
+may be close relations, and would be greatly surprised
+were they told that any but the purest white
+blood flows in their veins. In these vast gathering
+places of humanity, if you could take the first
+comer&mdash;a native of the place&mdash;and ascend his
+genealogical tree to any height, you would probably
+be amazed at the strange ancestry at the top.</p>
+
+<p>It may now be asked whether, for all the various
+races of which I have spoken, there is but one
+standard of beauty, or whether each has one of its
+own. Helvetius, in his <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">De l'Esprit</cite>, maintains that
+the idea of beauty is purely conventional and variable.
+This assertion found many advocates in
+its time, but it is at present superseded by the
+more philosophical theory that the conception of
+the beautiful is an absolute and invariable idea,
+and can never have a merely optional application.
+Believing the latter view to be correct, I do not
+hesitate to compare the various races of man in
+point of beauty, and to establish a regular scale of
+gradation. Thus, if we compare the various races,
+from the ungainly appearance of the Pelagian or
+Pecherai up to the noble proportions of a Charlemagne,
+the expressive regularity of features of a
+Napoleon, or the majestic countenance of a Louis<span class="pagenum"><a name="page380" id="page380">[Pg 380]</a></span>
+XIV., we shall find in the lowest on the scale a
+sort of rudimentary development of the beauty
+which attracts us in the highest; and in proportion
+to the perfectness of that development, the races
+rise in the scale of beauty.<a name="FNanchor-169" id="FNanchor-169"></a><a href="#Footnote-169" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 169.">[169]</a> Taking the white<span class="pagenum"><a name="page381" id="page381">[Pg 381]</a></span>
+race as the standard of beauty, we perceive all
+the others more or less receding from that model.
+There is, then, an inequality in point of beauty
+among the various races of men, and this inequality
+is permanent and indelible.<a name="FNanchor-170" id="FNanchor-170"></a><a href="#Footnote-170" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 170.">[170]</a></p>
+
+<p>The next question to be decided is, whether
+there is also an inequality in point of physical
+strength. It cannot be denied that the American
+Indians and the Hindoos are greatly inferior to us
+in this respect. Of the Australians, the same may
+safely be asserted. Even the negroes possess less
+muscular vigor.<a name="FNanchor-171" id="FNanchor-171"></a><a href="#Footnote-171" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 171.">[171]</a> It is necessary, however, to distinguish
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page382" id="page382">[Pg 382]</a></span>between purely muscular force&mdash;that which
+exerts itself suddenly at a given moment&mdash;and the
+force of resistance or capacity for endurance. The
+degree of the former is measured by its intensity,
+that of the other by its duration. Of the two, the
+latter is the typical&mdash;the standard by which to
+judge of the capabilities of races. Great muscular
+strength is found among races notoriously weak.
+Among the lowest of the negro tribes, for instance,
+it would not be difficult to find individuals that
+could match an experienced European wrestler or
+English boxer. This is equally true of the Lascars
+and Malays. But we must take the masses, and
+judge according to the amount of long-continued,
+persevering toil and fatigue they are capable of.
+In this respect, the white races are undoubtedly
+entitled to pre-eminence.</p>
+
+<p>But there are differences, again, among the white
+races, both in beauty and in strength, which even
+the extensive ethnical mixture, that European nations
+present, has not entirely obliterated. The
+Italians are handsomer than the French and the
+Spaniards, and still more so than the Swiss and
+Germans. The English also present a high degree
+of corporeal beauty; the Sclavonian nations a
+comparatively humble one.</p>
+
+<p>In muscular power, the English rank far above<span class="pagenum"><a name="page383" id="page383">[Pg 383]</a></span>
+all other European nations; but the French and
+Spaniards are greatly superior in power of endurance:
+they suffer less from fatigue, from privations,
+and the rigors and changes of climate. This
+question has been settled beyond dispute by the
+fatal campaign in Russia. While the Germans,
+and other troops from the North, who yet were
+accustomed to severe cold, were almost totally
+annihilated, the French regiments, though paying
+fearfully dear for their retreat, nevertheless saved
+the greatest number of men. Some have attempted
+to explain this by a supposed superiority on the
+part of the French in martial education and military
+spirit. But the German officers had certainly
+as high a conception of a soldier's duty, as elevated
+a sentiment of honor, as our soldiers; yet
+they perished in incredibly greater numbers. I
+think it can hardly be disputed that the masses of
+the population of France possess a superiority in
+certain physical qualities, which enables them to
+defy with greater impunity than most other nations
+the freezing snows of Russia and the burning
+sands of Egypt.</p>
+
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page384" id="page384">[Pg 384]</a></span></p>
+
+<h4><a name="C_NOTE" id="C_NOTE"></a>NOTE TO THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.</h4>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>The position and treatment of woman among the various races
+of men a proof of their moral and intellectual diversity.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>The reader will pardon me if to Mr. Gobineau's scale
+of gradation in point of beauty and physical strength,
+I add another as accurate, I think, if not more so, and
+certainly as interesting. I allude to the manner in which
+the weaker sex is regarded and treated among the various
+races of men.</p>
+
+<p>In the words of Van Amringe, "from the brutal New
+Hollander, who secures his wife by knocking her down
+with a club and dragging the prize to his cave, to the
+polished European, who, fearfully, but respectfully and
+assiduously, spends a probation of months or years for
+his better half, the ascent may be traced with unfailing
+precision and accuracy." The same writer correctly
+argues that if any principle could be inferred from analogy
+to animals, it would certainly be a uniform treatment
+of the female sex among all races of man; for animals
+are remarkably uniform in the relations of the male and
+female in the same species. Yet among some races of
+men <em>polygamy has always prevailed, among others never</em>.
+Would not any naturalist consider as distinct species
+any animals of the same genus so distinguished? This
+subject has not yet met with due attention at the hands of
+ethnologists. "When we hear of a race of men," says<span class="pagenum"><a name="page385" id="page385">[Pg 385]</a></span>
+the same author, "being subjected to the tyranny of
+another race, either by personal bondage or the more
+easy condition of tribute, our sympathies are enlisted
+in their favor, and our constant good wishes, if not our
+efforts, accompany them. But when we hear of hundreds
+of millions of the truest and most tender-hearted
+of human creatures being trodden down and trampled
+upon in everything that is dear to the human heart, our
+sympathies, which are so freely expended on slighter
+occasions or imaginary evils, are scarcely awakened to
+their crushing woes."</p>
+
+<p>With the writer from whom I have already made copious
+extracts, I believe that the <em>moral and intellectual
+diversity</em> of the races of men cannot be thoroughly and
+accurately investigated without taking into consideration
+the relations which most influence individual as
+well as national progress and development, and which
+result from the position occupied by woman towards
+man. This truth has not escaped former investigators&mdash;it
+would be singular if it had&mdash;but they have contented
+themselves with asserting that the condition of
+the female sex was indicative of the degree of civilization.
+Had they said, of the intrinsic worth of various
+races, I should cheerfully assent. But the elevation or
+degradation of woman in the social scale is generally
+regarded as a <em>result</em>, not a <em>cause</em>. It is said that all
+barbarians treat their women as slaves; but, as they
+progress in civilization, woman gradually rises to her
+legitimate rank.</p>
+
+<p>For the sake of the argument, I shall assume that
+all now civilized nations at first treated their women
+as the actual barbarians treat theirs. That this is
+not so, I hope to place beyond doubt; but, assuming it<span class="pagenum"><a name="page386" id="page386">[Pg 386]</a></span>
+to be the case, might not the fact that some left off that
+treatment, while others did not, be adduced as a proof
+of the inequality of races? "The law of the relation of
+the sexes," says Van Amringe, "is more deeply engraven
+upon human nature than any other; because, whatever
+theories may be adopted in regard to the origin of society,
+languages, etc., no doubt can be entertained that
+the <em>influence of woman must have been anterior to any
+improvements of the original condition of man</em>. Consequently
+it was antecedent and superior to education
+and government. That these relations were powerfully
+instrumental in the origin of development, to give it a
+direction and character according to the natures operating
+and operated upon, cannot be doubted by any
+one who has paid the slightest attention to domestic
+influences, from and under which education, customs,
+and government commenced."</p>
+
+<p>But I totally deny that all races, in their first state
+of development, treated their women equally. There
+is not only no historical testimony to prove that <em>any</em> of
+the white races were ever in such a state of barbarity
+and in such moral debasement as most of the dark races
+are to this day, and have always been, but there is positive
+evidence to show that our barbarous ancestors assigned
+to woman the same position we assign her now:
+she was the companion, and not the slave, of man. I
+have already alluded to this in a previous note on the
+Teutonic races; I cannot, however, but revert to it
+again.</p>
+
+<p>As I have not space for a lengthy discussion, I shall
+mention but one fact, which I think conclusive, and
+which rests upon incontrovertible historical testimony.
+"To a German mind," says Tacitus (Murphy's transl.,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page387" id="page387">[Pg 387]</a></span>
+vol. vii. 8), "the idea of a woman led into captivity is
+insupportable. In consequence of this prevailing sentiment,
+the states which deliver as hostages the daughters
+of illustrious families are bound by the most effectual
+obligations." Did this assertion rest on the authority
+of Tacitus only, it might perhaps be called in question.
+It might be said that the illustrious Roman had drawn
+an ideal picture, etc. But C&aelig;sar dealt with realities,
+not idealities; he was a shrewd, practical statesman,
+and an able general; yet C&aelig;sar <em>did</em> take females as
+hostages from the German tribes, in preference to men.
+Suppose C&aelig;sar had made war against the King of
+Ashantee, and taken away some of his three thousand
+three hundred and thirty-three wives, the mystical number
+being thus forcibly disturbed, might have alarmed
+the nation, whose welfare is supposed to depend on it;
+but the misfortune would soon have been remedied.</p>
+
+<p>But it is possible to demonstrate not only that all
+races did not treat their women equally in their first
+stage of development, but also that no race which assigned
+to woman in the beginning an inferior position
+ever raised her from it in any subsequent stage of development.
+I select the Chinese for illustration, because
+they furnish us with an example of a long-continued
+and regular intellectual progress,<a name="FNanchor-172" id="FNanchor-172"></a><a href="#Footnote-172" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 172.">[172]</a> which yet never resulted
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page388" id="page388">[Pg 388]</a></span>in an alteration of woman's position in the social
+structure. The decadent Chinese of our day look upon
+the female half of their nation as did the rapidly advancing
+Chinese of the seventh and eighth centuries;
+and the latter in precisely the same manner as their
+barbarous ancestors, the subjects of the Emperor <em>Fou</em>,
+more than twenty centuries before.</p>
+
+<p>I repeat it, the relations of the sexes, in various
+races, are equally dissimilar in every stage of development.
+The state of society may change, the tendency
+of a race never. Faculties may be developed, but
+never lost.</p>
+
+<p>As the mothers and wives of our Teutonic ancestors
+were near the battle-field, to administer refreshments
+to the wearied combatants, to stanch the bleeding of
+their wounds, and to inspire with renewed courage the
+despairing, so, in modern times, matrons and maidens
+of the highest rank&mdash;worthy daughters of a heroic<span class="pagenum"><a name="page389" id="page389">[Pg 389]</a></span> ancestry&mdash;have
+been found by thousands ready to sacrifice
+the comforts and quiet of home for the horrors of a
+hospital.<a name="FNanchor-173" id="FNanchor-173"></a><a href="#Footnote-173" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 173.">[173]</a> As the rude warrior of a former age won his
+beloved by deeds of valor, so, to his civilized descendant,
+the hand of his mistress is the prize and reward of
+exertion. The wives and mothers of the ancient Germans
+and Celts were the counsellors of their sons and
+husbands in the most important affairs; our wives and
+mothers are our advisers in our more peaceful pursuits.</p>
+
+<p>But the Arab, when he had arrived at the culminating
+point of his civilization, and when he had become the
+teacher of our forefathers of the Middle Ages in science
+and the arts, looked upon his many wives in the same
+light as his roaming brother in the desert had done
+before, and does now. I do not ask of all these races
+that they should assign to their women the same rank
+that we do. If intellectual progress and social development
+among them showed the slightest tendency to
+produce ultimately an alteration in woman's position
+towards her lord, I might be content to submit to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page390" id="page390">[Pg 390]</a></span>
+opinion of those who regard that position as the effect
+of such a progress and such a development. But I
+cannot, in the history of those races, perceive the slightest
+indication of such a result, and all my observations
+lead me to the conclusion that the relations between the
+sexes are a cause, and not an effect.</p>
+
+<p>The character of the women of different races differs
+in essential points. What a vast difference, for instance,
+between the females of the rude crusaders who took
+possession of Constantinople, and the more civilized
+Byzantine Greeks whom they so easily conquered; between
+the heroic matron of barbarous Germany and the
+highly civilized Chinese lady! These differences cannot
+be entirely the effect of education, else we are forced
+to consider the female sex as mere automatons. They
+must be the result of diversity of character. And why
+not, in the investigation of the moral and intellectual
+diversity of races and the natural history of man, take
+into consideration the peculiarities that characterize the
+female portion of each race, a portion&mdash;I am forced to
+make this trite observation, because so many investigators
+seem to forget it&mdash;which comprises at least one-half
+of the individuals to be described?&mdash;H.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page391" id="page391">[Pg 391]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">PERFECTIBILITY OF MAN.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>Imperfect notions of the capability of savage tribes&mdash;Parallel
+between our civilization and those that preceded it&mdash;Our
+modern political theories no novelty&mdash;The political parties
+of Rome&mdash;Peace societies&mdash;The art of printing a means, the
+results of which depend on its use&mdash;What constitutes a
+"living" civilization&mdash;Limits of the sphere of intellectual
+acquisitions.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>To understand perfectly the differences existing
+among races, in regard to their intellectual capacity,
+it is necessary to ascertain the lowest degree of
+stupidity that humanity is capable of. The inferior
+branches of the human family have hitherto
+been represented, by a majority of scientific observers,
+as considerably more abased than they are
+in reality. The first accounts of a tribe of savages
+almost always depict them in exaggerated colors
+of the darkest cast, and impute to them such utter
+intellectual and reasoning incapacity, that they
+seem to sink to the level of the monkey, and below<span class="pagenum"><a name="page392" id="page392">[Pg 392]</a></span>
+that of the elephant. There are, indeed, some contrasts.
+Let a navigator be well received in some
+island&mdash;let him succeed in persuading a few of the
+natives to work, however little, with the sailors,
+and praises are lavished upon the fortunate tribe:
+they are declared susceptible of every improvement;
+and perhaps the eulogist will go so far as
+to assert that he has found among them minds of
+a very superior order.</p>
+
+<p>To both these judgments we must object&mdash;the
+one being too favorable, the other too severe. Because
+some natives of Tahiti assisted in repairing
+a whaler, or some inhabitant of Tonga Tabou exhibited
+good feelings towards the white strangers
+who landed on his isle, it does not follow that
+either are capable of receiving our civilization, or
+of being raised to a level with us. Nor are we
+warranted in classing among brutes the poor naturals
+of a newly-discovered coast, who greet their
+first visitors with a shower of stones and arrows,
+or who are found making a dainty repast on raw
+lizards and clods of clay. Such a meal does not,
+indeed, indicate a very superior intelligence, or
+very refined manners. But even in the most repulsive
+cannibal there lies latent a spark of the
+divine flame, and reason may be awakened to a
+certain extent. There are no tribes so very degraded
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page393" id="page393">[Pg 393]</a></span>that they do not reason in some degree,
+whether correctly or otherwise, upon the things
+which surround them. This ray of human intelligence,
+however faint it may be, is what distinguishes
+the most degraded savage from the most
+intelligent brute, and capacitates him for receiving
+the teachings of religion.</p>
+
+<p>But are these mental faculties, which every individual
+of our species possesses, susceptible of
+indefinite development? Have all men the same
+capacity for intellectual progress? In other words,
+can cultivation raise all the different races to the
+same intellectual standard? and are no limits imposed
+to the perfectibility of our species? My
+answer to these questions is, that all races are
+capable of improvement, but all cannot attain the
+same degree of perfection, and even the most
+favored cannot exceed a certain limit.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of infinite perfection has gained many
+partisans in our times, because we, like all who
+came before us, pride ourselves upon possessing
+advantages and points of superiority unknown to
+our predecessors. I have already spoken of the
+distinguishing features of our civilization, but willingly
+revert to this subject again.</p>
+
+<p>It may be said, that in all the departments of
+science we possess clearer and more correct notions;
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page394" id="page394">[Pg 394]</a></span>that, upon the whole, our manners are more
+polished, and our code of morals is preferable to
+that of the ancients. It is further asserted, as the
+principal proof of our superiority, that we have
+better defined, juster and more tolerant ideas with
+regard to political liberty. Sanguine theorists are
+not wanting, who pretend that our discoveries in
+political science and our enlightened views of the
+rights of man will ultimately lead us to that universal
+happiness and harmony which the ancients
+in vain sought in the fabled garden of Hesperides.</p>
+
+<p>These lofty pretensions will hardly bear the test
+of severe historical criticism.</p>
+
+<p>If we surpass preceding generations in scientific
+knowledge, it is because we have added
+our share to the discoveries which they bequeathed
+to us. We are their heirs, their pupils, their continuators,
+just as future generations will be ours.
+We achieve great results by the application of the
+power of steam; we have solved many great problems
+in mechanics, and pressed the elements as
+submissive slaves into our service. But do these
+successes bring us any nearer to omniscience. At
+most, they may enable us ultimately to fathom all
+the secrets of the material world. And when we
+shall have achieved that grand conquest, for which
+so much requires still to be done that is not yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="page395" id="page395">[Pg 395]</a></span>
+commenced, nor even anticipated; have we advanced
+a single step beyond the simple exposition
+of the laws which govern the material world?
+We may have learned to direct our course through
+the air, to approach the limits of the respirable
+atmosphere; we may discover and elucidate several
+interesting astronomical problems; we may
+have greater powers for controlling nature and
+compelling her to minister to our wants, but can
+all this knowledge make us better, happier beings?
+Suppose we had counted all the planetary systems
+and measured the immense regions of space, would
+we know more of the grand mystery of existence
+than those that came before us? Would this add
+one new faculty to the human mind, or ennoble
+human nature by the eradication of one bad passion?</p>
+
+<p>Admitting that we are more enlightened upon
+some subjects, in how many other respects are we
+inferior to our more remote ancestors? Can it be
+doubted, for instance, that in Abraham's times much
+more was known of primordial traditions than the
+dubious beams which have come down to us?
+How many discoveries which we owe to mere accident,
+or which are the fruits of painful efforts,
+were the lost possessions of remote ages? How
+many more are not yet restored? What is there<span class="pagenum"><a name="page396" id="page396">[Pg 396]</a></span>
+in the most splendid of our works that can compare
+with those wonders by which Egypt, India,
+Greece, and America still attest the grandeur and
+magnificence of so many edifices which the weight
+of centuries, much more than the impotent ravages
+of man, has caused to disappear? What are
+our works of art by the side of those of Athens;
+our thinkers by the side of those of Alexandria
+or India; our poets by the side of a Valmiki,
+Kalidasa, Homer, Pindar?</p>
+
+<p>The truth is, we pursue a different direction
+from that of the human societies whose civilization
+preceded ours. We apply our mind to different
+purposes and different investigations; but
+while we clear and cultivate new lands, we are
+compelled to neglect and abandon to sterility those
+to which they devoted their attention. What we
+gain in one direction we lose in another. We
+cannot call ourselves superior to the ancients, unless
+we had preserved at least the principal acquisitions
+of preceding ages in all their integrity, and
+had succeeded in establishing by the side of these,
+the great results which they as well as we sought
+after. Our sciences and arts superadded to theirs
+have not enabled us to advance one step nearer
+the solution of the great problems of existence,
+the mysteries of life and death. "I seek, but find<span class="pagenum"><a name="page397" id="page397">[Pg 397]</a></span>
+not," has always been, will ever be, the humiliating
+confession of science when endeavoring to
+penetrate into the secrets concealed by the veil
+that it is not given to mortal to lift. In criticism<a name="FNanchor-174" id="FNanchor-174"></a><a href="#Footnote-174" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 174.">[174]</a>
+we are, undoubtedly, much in advance of our predecessors;
+but criticism implies classification, not
+acquisition.</p>
+
+<p>Nor can we justly pride ourselves upon any
+superiority in regard to political ideas. Political
+and social theories were as rife in Athens after the
+age of Pericles as they are in our days. To be
+convinced of this, it is necessary only to study
+Aristophanes, whose comedies Plato recommends
+to the perusal of whoever wishes to become acquainted
+with the public morals of the city of
+Minerva. It has been pretended that our present
+structure of society, and that of the ancients, admit
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page398" id="page398">[Pg 398]</a></span>of no comparison, owing to the institution of
+slavery which formed an element of the latter.
+But the only real difference is that demagogism
+had then an even more fertile soil in which to
+strike root. The slaves of those days find their
+precise counterpart in our working classes and
+proletarians.<a name="FNanchor-175" id="FNanchor-175"></a><a href="#Footnote-175" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 175.">[175]</a> The Athenian people propitiating
+their servile class after the battle of Arginuses,
+might be taken for a picture of the nineteenth
+century.</p>
+
+<p>Look at Rome. Open Cicero's letters. What a
+specimen of the moderate Tory that great Roman
+orator was; what a similarity between his republic
+and our constitutional bodies politic, with regard
+to the language of parties and parliamentary debates!
+There, too, the background of the picture
+was occupied by degraded masses of a servile and
+pr&aelig;dial population, always eager for change, and
+ready to rise in actual rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>Let us leave those dregs of the population,
+whose civil existence the law ignored, and who
+counted in politics but as the formidable tool of
+designing individuals of free birth. But does not
+the free population of Rome afford a perfect analogue
+to a modern body politic? There is the mob<span class="pagenum"><a name="page399" id="page399">[Pg 399]</a></span>
+crying for bread, greedy of shows, flattery, gratuitous
+distributions, and amusements; the middle
+classes (<em>bourgeoisie</em>) monopolizing and dividing
+among themselves the public offices; the hereditary
+aristocracy, continually assailed at all points,
+continually losing ground, until driven in mere
+self-defence to abjure all superior claims and stipulate
+for equal rights to all. Are not these perfect
+resemblances?</p>
+
+<p>Among the boundless variety of opinions that
+make themselves heard in our day, there is not
+one that had not advocates in Rome. I alluded a
+while ago to the letters written from the villa of
+Tusculum; they express the sentiments of the
+Roman conservative <em>Progressist</em> party. By the side
+of Sylla, Pompey and Cicero were Radicals.<a name="FNanchor-176" id="FNanchor-176"></a><a href="#Footnote-176" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 176.">[176]</a> Their
+notions were not sufficiently radical for C&aelig;sar;
+too much so for Cato. At a later period we find
+in Pliny the younger a mild royalist, a friend of
+quiet, even at some cost. Apprehensive of too
+much liberty, yet jealous of power too absolute;
+very practical in his views, caring but little for
+the poetical splendor of the age of the Fabii, he preferred
+the more prosaic administration of Trajan.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page400" id="page400">[Pg 400]</a></span>
+There were others not of his opinion, good people
+who feared an insurrection headed by some new
+Spartacus, and who, therefore, thought that the
+Emperor could not hold the reins too tight.
+Then there were others, from the provinces,
+who obstreperously demanded and obtained what
+would now be called "constitutional guaranties."
+Again, there were the socialists, and their views
+found no less an expounder than the Gallic C&aelig;sar,
+C. Junius Posthumus, who exclaims: "Dives et
+pauper, inimici," the rich and the poor are enemies
+born.</p>
+
+<p>Every man who had any pretensions to participate
+in the lights of the day, declaimed on the
+absolute equality of all men, their "inalienable
+rights," the manifest necessity and ultimate universality
+of the Greco-Latin civilization, its superiority,
+its mildness, its future progress, much greater
+even than that actually made, and above all its
+perpetuity. Nor were those ideas merely the
+pride and consolation of the pagans; they were
+the firm hopes and expectations of the earliest
+and most illustrious Fathers of the Church, whose
+sentiments found so eloquent an interpreter in
+Tertullian.</p>
+
+<p class="tbreak">And as a last touch, to complete the picture, let<span class="pagenum"><a name="page401" id="page401">[Pg 401]</a></span>
+us not forget those people who, then as now, formed
+the most numerous of all parties: those that
+belonged to none&mdash;people who are too weak-minded,
+or indifferent, or apprehensive, or disgusted,
+to lay hold of a truth, from among the
+midst of contradictory theories that float around
+them&mdash;people who are content with order when
+it exists, submit passively in times of disorder
+and confusion; who admire the increase of conveniences
+and comforts of life unknown to their
+ancestors, and who, without thinking further,
+centre their hope in the future and pride in the
+present, in the reflection: "What wonderful facilities
+we enjoy now-a-days."</p>
+
+<p>There would be some reason for believing in an
+improvement in political science, if we had invented
+some governmental machinery which had
+hitherto been unknown, or at least never carried
+into practice. This glory we cannot arrogate to
+ourselves. Limited monarchies were known in
+every age. There are even some very curious
+examples of this form of government found among
+certain Indian tribes who, nevertheless, have remained
+savages. Democratic and aristocratic republics of
+every form, and balanced in the most varied manner,
+flourished in the new world as well as the old.
+Tlascala is as complete a model of this kind as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page402" id="page402">[Pg 402]</a></span>
+Athens, Sparta, or Mecca before Mohammed's times.
+And even supposing that we have applied to governmental
+science some secondary principle of
+our own invention, does this justify us in our exaggerated
+pretension to unlimited perfectibility?
+Let us rather be modest, and say with the wisest
+of kings: "<em lang="la" xml:lang="la">Nil novi sub sole.</em>"<a name="FNanchor-177" id="FNanchor-177"></a><a href="#Footnote-177" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 177.">[177]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is said that our manners are milder than
+those of the other great human societies; this assertion
+also is very open to criticism. There are
+some philanthropists who would induce nations no
+longer to resort to armies in settling their quarrels.
+The idea is borrowed from Seneca. Some of the
+Eastern sages professed the same principles in this
+respect as the Moravian Brethren. But assuming
+that the members of the Peace Congress succeed
+in disgusting Europe with the turmoil and miseries
+of warfare, they would still have the difficult
+task left of forever transforming the human passions.
+Neither Seneca nor the Eastern sages have
+been able to accomplish this, and it may reasonably
+be doubted whether this grand achievement<span class="pagenum"><a name="page403" id="page403">[Pg 403]</a></span>
+is reserved for our generation. We possess pure
+and exalted principles, I admit, but are they carried
+into practice? Look at our fields, the streets
+of our cities&mdash;the bloody traces of contests as
+fierce as any recorded in history are scarcely yet
+effaced. Never since the beginning of our civilization
+has there been an interval of peace of fifty
+years, and we are, in this respect, far behind
+ancient Italy, which, under the Romans, once enjoyed
+two centuries of perfect tranquillity. But
+even so long a repose would not warrant us in
+concluding that the temple of Janus was thenceforth
+to be forever closed.</p>
+
+<p>The state of our civilization does not, therefore,
+prove the unlimited perfectibility of man. If he
+have learned many things, he has forgotten others.
+He has not added another to his senses; his soul
+is not enriched by one new faculty. I cannot too
+much insist upon the great though sad truth, that
+whatever we gain in one direction is counterbalanced
+by some loss in another; that, limited as
+is our intellectual domain, we are doomed never to
+possess its whole extent at once. Were it not for
+this fatal law, we might imagine that at some period,
+however distant, man, finding himself in
+possession of the experience of successive ages,
+and having acquired all that it is in his power to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page404" id="page404">[Pg 404]</a></span>
+acquire, would have learned at last to apply his
+acquisitions to his welfare&mdash;to live without battling
+against his kind, and against misery; to enjoy a
+state, if not of unalloyed happiness, at least of
+abundance and peace.</p>
+
+<p>But even so limited a felicity is not promised
+us here below, for in proportion as man learns he
+unlearns; whatever he acquires, is at the cost of
+some previous acquisition; whatever he possesses
+he is always in danger of losing.</p>
+
+<p>We flatter ourselves with the belief that our
+civilization is imperishable, because we possess the
+art of printing, gunpowder, the steam engine, &amp;c.
+These are valuable means to accomplish great
+results, but the accomplishment depends on their
+use.</p>
+
+<p>The art of printing is known to many other
+nations beside ourselves, and is as extensively used
+by them as by us.<a name="FNanchor-178" id="FNanchor-178"></a><a href="#Footnote-178" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 178.">[178]</a> Let us see its fruits. In Tonquin,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page405" id="page405">[Pg 405]</a></span>Anam, Japan, books are plentiful, much
+cheaper than with us&mdash;so cheap that they are
+within the reach of even the poorest&mdash;and even
+the poorest read them. How is it, then, that these
+people are so enervated, so degraded, so sunk in
+sloth and vice<a name="FNanchor-179" id="FNanchor-179"></a><a href="#Footnote-179" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 179.">[179]</a>&mdash;so near that stage in which even
+civilized man, having frittered away his physical
+and mental powers, may sink infinitely below the
+rude barbarian, who, at the first convenient opportunity,
+becomes his master? Whence this result?
+Precisely because the art of printing is a means,
+and not an agent. So long as it is used to diffuse
+sound, sterling ideas, to afford wholesome and refreshing
+nutriment to vigorous minds, a civilization
+never decays. But when it becomes the vile
+caterer to a depraved taste, when it serves only to
+multiply the morbid productions of enervated or
+vitiated minds, the senseless quibbles of a sectarian
+theology instead of religion, the venomous scurrility
+of libellists instead of politics, the foul obscenities
+of licentious rhymers instead of poesy&mdash;how
+and why should the art of printing save a
+civilization from ruin?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page406" id="page406">[Pg 406]</a></span>It is objected that the art of printing contributes
+to the preservation of a civilization by the facility
+with which it multiplies and diffuses the masterpieces
+of the human mind, so that, even in times
+of intellectual sterility, when they can no longer
+be emulated, they still form the standard of taste,
+and by their clear and steady light prevent the
+possibility of utter darkness. But it should be
+remembered that to delve in the hoarded treasures
+of thought, and to appropriate them for purposes
+of mental improvement, presupposes the possession
+of that greatest of earthly goods&mdash;an enlightened
+mind. And in epochs of intellectual degeneracy,
+few care about those monuments of lost virtues
+and powers; they are left undisturbed on their
+dusty shelves in libraries whose silence is but seldom
+broken by the tread of the anxious, painstaking
+student.</p>
+
+<p>The longevity which Guttenberg's invention
+assures to the productions of genius is much
+exaggerated. There are a few works that enjoy
+the honor of being reproduced occasionally; with
+this exception, books die now precisely as formerly
+did the manuscripts. Works of science,
+especially, disappear with singular rapidity from
+the realms of literature. A few hundred copies<span class="pagenum"><a name="page407" id="page407">[Pg 407]</a></span>
+are struck off at first, and they are seldom, and,
+after a while, never heard of more. With considerable
+trouble you can find them in some large
+collection. Look what has become of the thousands
+of excellent works that have appeared since
+the first printed page came from the press. The
+greater portion are forgotten. Many that are still
+spoken of, are never read; the titles even of others,
+that were carefully sought after fifty years ago, are
+gradually disappearing from every memory.</p>
+
+<p>So long as a civilization is vigorous and flourishing,
+this disappearance of old books is but a slight
+misfortune. They are superseded; their valuable
+portions are embodied in new ones; the seed
+exists no longer, but the fruit is developing. In
+times of intellectual degeneracy it is otherwise.
+The weakened powers cannot grapple with the
+solid thought of more vigorous eras; it is split up
+into more convenient fragments&mdash;rendered more
+portable, as it were; the strong beverage that once
+was the pabulum of minds as strong, must be
+diluted to suit the present taste; and innumerable
+dilutions, each weaker than the other, immediately
+claim public favor; the task of learning must be
+lightened in proportion to the decreasing capacity
+for acquiring; everything becomes superficial;
+what costs the least effort gains the greatest esteem;<span class="pagenum"><a name="page408" id="page408">[Pg 408]</a></span>
+play upon words is accounted wit; shallowness,
+learning; the surface is preferred to the depth.
+Thus it has ever been in periods of decay; thus it
+will be with us when we have once reached that
+point whence every movement is retrogressive.
+Who knows but we are near it already?&mdash;and the
+art of printing will not save us from it.</p>
+
+<p>To enhance the advantages which we derive
+from that art, the number and diffusion of manuscripts
+have been too much underrated. It is true
+that they were scarce in the epoch immediately
+preceding; but in the latter periods of the Roman
+empire they were much more numerous and much
+more widely diffused than is generally imagined.
+In those times, the facilities for instruction were
+by no means of difficult access; books, indeed,
+were quite common. We may judge so from the
+extraordinary number of threadbare grammarians
+with which even the smallest villages swarmed; a
+sort of people very much like the petty novelists,
+lawyers, and editors of modern times, and whose
+loose morals, shabbiness, and passionate love for
+enjoyments, are described in Pretronius's Satyricon.
+Even when the decadence was complete, those who
+wished for books could easily procure them. Virgil
+was read everywhere; so much so, that the
+illiterate peasantry, hearing so much of him, imagined
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page409" id="page409">[Pg 409]</a></span>him to be some dangerous and powerful sorcerer.
+The monks copied him; they copied Pliny,
+Dioscorides, Plato, and Aristotle; they copied
+Catullus and Martial. These books, then, cannot
+have been very rare. Again, when we consider
+how great a number has come down to us notwithstanding
+centuries of war and devastation&mdash;notwithstanding
+so many conflagrations of monasteries,
+castles, libraries, &amp;c.&mdash;we cannot but admit
+that, in spite of the laborious process of transcription,
+literary productions must have been multiplied
+to a very great extent. It is possible, therefore,
+to greatly exaggerate the obligations under
+which science, poetry, morality, and true civilization
+lie to the typographic art; and I repeat it,
+that art is a marvellous instrument, but if the arm
+that wields it, and the head that directs the arm,
+are not, the instrument cannot be, of much service.</p>
+
+<p>Some people believe that the possession of gunpowder
+exempts modern societies from many of
+the dangers that proved fatal to the ancient. They
+assert that it abates the horrors of warfare, and
+diminishes its frequency, bidding fair, therefore, to
+establish, in time, a state of universal peace. If
+such be the beneficial results attendant on this accidental
+invention, they have not as yet manifested
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page410" id="page410">[Pg 410]</a></span>Of the various applications of steam, and other
+industrial inventions, I would say, as of the art of
+printing, that they are great means, but their results
+depend upon the agent. Such arts might be
+practised by rote long after the intellectual activity
+that produced them had ceased. There are innumerable
+instances of processes which continue in
+use, though the theoretical secret is lost. It is
+therefore not unreasonable to suppose, that the
+practice of our inventions might survive our civilization;
+that is, it might continue when these inventions
+were no longer possible, when no further
+improvements were to be hoped for. Material
+well-being is but an external appendage of a civilization;
+intellectual activity, and a consequent
+progress, are its life. A state of intellectual torpor,
+therefore, cannot be a state of civilization,
+even though the people thus stagnating, have the
+means of transporting themselves rapidly from
+place to place, or of adorning themselves and their
+dwellings. This would only prove that they were
+the <em>heirs</em> of a former civilization, but not that they
+actually possessed one. I have said, in another
+place, that a civilization may thus preserve, for a
+time, every appearance of life: the effect may
+continue after the cause has ceased. But, as a
+continuous change seems to be the order of nature<span class="pagenum"><a name="page411" id="page411">[Pg 411]</a></span>
+in all things material and immaterial, a downward
+tendency is soon manifest. I have before compared
+a civilization to the human body. While alive, it
+undergoes a perpetual modification: every hour
+has wrought a change; when dead, it preserves,
+for a time, the appearance of life, perhaps even its
+beauty; but gradually, symptoms of decay become
+manifest, and every stage of dissolution is more
+precipitate than the one before, as a stone thrown
+up in the air, poises itself there for an inappreciable
+fraction of time, then falls with continually
+increasing velocity, more and more swiftly as it
+approaches the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Every civilization has produced in those who
+enjoyed its fruits, a firm conviction of its stability,
+its perpetuity.</p>
+
+<p>When the palanquins of the Incas travelled
+rapidly on the smooth, magnificent causeways
+which still unite Cuzco and Quito, a distance of
+fifteen hundred miles, with what feelings of exultation
+must they have contemplated the conquests
+of the present, what magnificent prospects of the
+future must have presented themselves to their
+imaginations! Stern time, with one blow of his
+gigantic wings, hurled their empire into the deepest
+depths of the abyss of oblivion. These proud
+sovereigns of Peru&mdash;they, too, had their sciences,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page412" id="page412">[Pg 412]</a></span>
+their mechanical inventions, their powerful machines:
+the works they accomplished we contemplate
+with amazement, and a vain effort to divine
+the means employed. How were those blocks of
+stone, thirty-five feet long and eighteen thick,
+raised one upon another? How were they transported
+the vast distance from the quarries where
+they were hewn? By what contrivance did the
+engineers of that people hoist those enormous
+masses to a dizzy height? It is indeed a problem&mdash;a
+problem, too, which we will never solve. Nor
+are the ruins of Tihuanaco unparalleled by the
+remains of European civilizations of ante-historic
+times. The cyclopean walls with which Southern
+Europe abounds, and which have withstood the
+all-destroying tooth of time for thousands upon
+thousands of years&mdash;who built them? Who piled
+these monstrous masses, which modern art could
+scarcely move?</p>
+
+<p>Let us not mistake the results of a civilization
+for its causes. The causes cease, the results subsist
+for a while, then are lost. If they again bear
+fruit, it is because a new spirit has appropriated
+them, and converted them to purposes often very
+different from those they had at first. Human intelligence
+is finite, nor can it ever reign at once in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page413" id="page413">[Pg 413]</a></span>
+the whole of its domain:<a name="FNanchor-180" id="FNanchor-180"></a><a href="#Footnote-180" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 180.">[180]</a> it can turn to account
+one portion of it only by leaving the other bare;
+it exalts what it possesses, esteems lightly what it
+has lost. Thus, every generation is at the same
+time superior and inferior to its predecessors. Man
+cannot, then, surpass himself: man's perfectibility
+is not infinite.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page414" id="page414">[Pg 414]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">MUTUAL RELATIONS OF DIFFERENT MODES OF
+INTELLECTUAL CULTURE.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>Necessary consequences of a supposed equality of all races&mdash;Uniform
+testimony of history to the contrary&mdash;Traces of extinct
+civilizations among barbarous tribes&mdash;Laws which govern
+the adoption of a state of civilization by conquered populations&mdash;Antagonism
+of different modes of culture; the Hellenic
+and Persian, European and Arab, etc.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>Had it been the will of the Creator to endow
+all the branches of the human family with equal
+intellectual capacities, what a glorious tableau
+would history not unfold before us. All being
+equally intelligent, equally aware of their true
+interests, equally capable of triumphing over
+obstacles, a number of simultaneous and flourishing
+civilizations would have gladdened every portion
+of the inhabited globe. While the most
+ancient Sanscrit nations covered Northern India
+with harvests, cities, palaces, and temples; and the
+plains of the Tigris and Euphrates shook under<span class="pagenum"><a name="page415" id="page415">[Pg 415]</a></span>
+the trampling of Nimrod's cavalry and chariots,
+the prognathous tribes of Africa would have formed
+and developed a social system, sagaciously
+constructed, and productive of brilliant results.</p>
+
+<p>Some luckless tribes, whose lot fortune had cast
+in inhospitable climes, burning sands, or glacial
+regions, mountain gorges, or cheerless steppes
+swept by the piercing winds of the north, would
+have been compelled to a longer and severer
+struggle against such unpropitious circumstances,
+than more fortunate nations. But being not inferior
+in intelligence and sagacity, they would not
+have been long in discovering the means of bettering
+their condition. Like the Icelanders, the
+Danes, and Norwegians, they would have forced
+the reluctant soil to afford them sustenance; if
+inhabitants of mountainous regions, they would,
+like the Swiss, have enjoyed the advantages of a
+pastoral life, or like the Cashmerians, resorted to
+manufacturing industry. But if their geographical
+situation had been so unfavorable as to admit of
+no resource, they would have reflected that the
+world was large, contained many a pleasant valley
+and fertile plain, where they might seek the fruits
+of intelligent activity, which their stepmotherly
+native land refused them.</p>
+
+<p>Thus all the nations of the earth would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page416" id="page416">[Pg 416]</a></span>
+been equally enlightened, equally prosperous;
+some by the commerce of maritime cities, others
+by productive agriculture in inland regions, or
+successful industry in barren and Alpine districts.
+Though they might not exempt themselves from
+the misfortunes to which the imperfections of
+human nature give rise&mdash;transitory dissensions,
+civil wars, seditions, etc.&mdash;their individual interests
+would soon have led them to invent some system
+of relative equiponderance. As the differences in
+their civilizations resulted merely from fortuitous
+circumstances, and not from innate inequalities, a
+mutual interchange would soon have assimilated
+them in all essential points. Nothing could then
+prevent a universal confederation, that dream of
+so many centuries; and the inhabitants of the
+most distant parts of the globe would have been
+as members of one great cosmopolite people.</p>
+
+<p>Let us contrast this fantastic picture with the
+reality. The first nations worthy of the name,
+owed their formation to an instinct of aggregation,
+which the barbarous tribes near them not only did
+not feel then, but never afterward. These nations
+spread beyond their original boundaries, and
+forced others to submit to their power. But the
+conquered neither adopted nor understood the
+principles of the civilization imposed upon them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page417" id="page417">[Pg 417]</a></span>
+Nor has the force of example been of avail to
+those in whom innate capacity was wanting. The
+native populations of the Spanish peninsula, and
+of Transalpine and Ligurian Gaul, saw Phenicians,
+Greeks, and Carthaginians, successively establish
+flourishing cities on their coasts, without feeling
+the least incitement to imitate the manners or
+forms of government of these prosperous merchants.</p>
+
+<p>What a glorious spectacle do not the Indians of
+North America witness at this moment. They
+have before their eyes a great and prosperous
+nation, eminent for the successful practical application
+of modern theories and sciences to political
+and social forms, as well as to industrial art. The
+superiority of this foreign race, which has so firmly
+established itself upon his former patrimony, is
+evident to the red man. He sees their magnificent
+cities, their thousands of vessels upon the once
+silent rivers, their successful agriculture; he knows
+that even his own rude wants, the blanket with
+which he covers himself, the weapon with which
+he slays his game, the ardent spirits he has learned
+to love so well, can be supplied only by the
+stranger. The last feeble hope to see his native
+soil delivered from the presence of the conqueror's
+race, has long since vanished from his breast; he
+feels that the land of his fathers is not his own.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page418" id="page418">[Pg 418]</a></span>
+Yet he stubbornly refuses to enter the pale of this
+civilization which invites him, solicits him, tries to
+entice him with superior advantages and comforts.
+He prefers to retreat from solitude to solitude,
+deeper and deeper into the primitive forest. He
+is doomed to perish, and he knows it; but a mysterious
+power retains him under the yoke of his
+invincible repugnances, and while he admires the
+strength and superiority of the whites, his conscience,
+his whole nature, revolts at the idea of
+assimilating to them. He cannot forget or smother
+the instincts of his race.</p>
+
+<p>The aborigines of Spanish America are supposed
+to evince a less unconquerable aversion.
+It is because the Spanish metropolitan government
+had never attempted to civilize them. Provided
+they were Christians, at least in name, they were
+left to their own usages and habits, and, in many
+instances, under the administration of their Caziques.
+The Spaniards colonized but little, and
+when the conquest was completed and their sanguinary
+appetites glutted by those unparalleled
+atrocities which brand them with indelible disgrace,
+they indulged in a lazy toleration, and directed
+their tyranny rather against individuals
+than against modes of thinking and living. The
+Indians have, in a great measure, mixed with their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page419" id="page419">[Pg 419]</a></span>
+conquerors, and will continue to live while their
+brethren in the vicinity of the Anglo-Saxon race
+are inevitably doomed to perish.</p>
+
+<p>But not only savages, even nations of a higher
+rank in the intellectual scale are incapable of
+adopting a foreign civilization. We have already
+alluded to the failure of the English in India and
+of the Dutch in Java, in trying to import their
+own ideas into their foreign dependencies. French
+philanthropy is at this moment gaining the same
+experience in the new French possession of Algeria.
+There can be no stronger or more conclusive
+proof of the various endowments of different
+races.</p>
+
+<p>If we had no other argument in proof of the
+innate imparity of races than the actual condition
+of certain barbarous tribes, and the supposition
+that they had always been in that condition, and,
+consequently, always would be, we should expose
+ourselves to serious objections. For many barbarous
+nations preserve traces of former cultivation
+and refinement. There are some tribes, very degraded
+in every other respect, who yet possess
+traditional regulations respecting the marriage
+celebration, the forms of justice and the division
+of inheritances, which evidently are remnants of
+a higher state of society, though the rites have<span class="pagenum"><a name="page420" id="page420">[Pg 420]</a></span>
+long since lost all meaning. Many of the Indian
+tribes who wander over the tracts once occupied
+by the Alleghanian race, may be cited as instances
+of this kind. The natives of the Marian Islands,
+and many other savages, practise mechanically
+certain processes of manufacture, the invention
+of which presupposes a degree of ingenuity and
+knowledge utterly at variance with their present
+stupidity and ignorance. To avoid hasty and
+erroneous conclusions concerning this seeming
+decadence, there are several circumstances to be
+taken into consideration.</p>
+
+<p>Let us suppose a savage population to fall within
+the sphere of activity of a proximate, but superior
+race. In that case they may gradually
+learn to conform externally to the civilization of
+their masters, and acquire the technicalities of
+their arts and inventions. Should the dominant
+race disappear either by expulsion or absorption,
+the civilization would expire, but some of its outward
+forms might be retained and perpetuated.
+A certain degree of mechanical skill might survive
+the scientific principles upon which it was
+based. In other words, practice might long continue
+after the theory was lost. History furnishes
+us a number of examples in support of this assertion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page421" id="page421">[Pg 421]</a></span>Such, for instance, was the attitude of the Assyrians
+toward the civilization of the Chaldeans; of
+the Iberians, Celts, and Illyrians towards that of
+the Romans. If, then, the Cherokees, the Catawbas,
+Muskogees, Seminoles, Natchez and other
+tribes, still preserve a feeble impress of the Alleghanian
+civilization, I should not thence conclude
+that they are the pure and direct descendants of
+the initiatory element of that people, which would
+imply that a race may once have been civilized,
+and be no longer so. I should say, on the contrary,
+that the Cherokees, if at all ethnically connected
+with the ancient dominant type, are so by
+only a collateral tie of consanguinity, else they
+could never have relapsed into a state of barbarism.
+The other tribes which exhibit little or no
+vestiges of the former civilization are probably
+the descendants of a different conquered population
+which formed no constituent element of the
+society, but served rather as the substratum upon
+which the edifice was erected. It is no matter of
+surprise, if this be the case, that they should preserve&mdash;without
+understanding them and with a
+sort of superstitious veneration&mdash;customs, laws,
+and rites invented by others far more intelligent
+than themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The same may be said of the mechanical arts.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page422" id="page422">[Pg 422]</a></span>
+The aborigines of the Carolines are about the
+most interesting of the South Sea islanders. Their
+looms, sculptured canoes, their taste for navigation
+and commerce show them vastly superior to
+the Pelagian negroes, their neighbors. It is easy
+to account for this superiority by the well-authenticated
+admixture of Malay blood. But as this
+element is greatly attenuated, the inventions which
+it introduced have not borne indigenous fruits,
+but, on the contrary, are gradually, but surely,
+disappearing.</p>
+
+<p>The preceding observations will, I think, suffice
+to show that the traces of civilization among a
+barbarous tribe are not a necessary proof that this
+tribe itself has ever been really civilized. It may
+either have lived under the domination of a superior
+but consanguineous race, or living in its vicinity,
+have, in an humble and feeble degree, profited
+by its lessons. This result, however, is possible
+only when there exists between the superior
+and the inferior race a certain ethnical affinity;
+that is to say, when the former is either a noble
+branch of the same stock, or ennobled by intermixture
+with another. When the disparity between
+races is too great and too decided, and there
+is no intermediate link to connect them, the contact
+is always fatal to the inferior race, as is abundantly
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page423" id="page423">[Pg 423]</a></span>proved by the disappearance of the aborigines
+of North America and Polynesia.</p>
+
+<p>I shall now speak of the relations arising from
+the contact of different civilizations.</p>
+
+<p>The Persian civilization came in contact with
+the Grecian; the Egyptian with the Grecian and
+Roman; the Roman with the Grecian; and finally
+the modern civilization of Europe with all those
+at present subsisting on the globe, and especially
+with the Arabian.</p>
+
+<p>The contact of Greek intelligence with the culture
+of the Persians was as frequent as it was
+compulsory. The greater portion of the Hellenic
+population, and the wealthiest, though not the
+most independent, was concentrated in the cities
+of the Syrian coast, the Greek colonies of Asia
+Minor, and on the shores of the Euxine, all of
+which formed a part of the Persian dominions.
+Though these colonies preserved their own local
+laws and politics, they were under the authority
+of the satraps of the great king. Intimate relations,
+moreover, were maintained between European
+Greece and Asia. That the Persians were
+then possessed of a high degree of civilization is
+proved by their political organization and financial
+administration, by the magnificent ruins which
+still attest the splendor and grandeur of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="page424" id="page424">[Pg 424]</a></span>
+cities. But the principles of government and religion,
+the modes and habits of life, the genius of
+the arts, were very differently understood by the
+two nations; and, therefore, notwithstanding their
+constant intercourse, neither made the slightest
+approach toward assimilation with the other.
+The Greeks called their puissant neighbors barbarians,
+and the latter, no doubt, amply returned
+the compliment.</p>
+
+<p>In Ecbatana no other form of government could
+be conceived than an undivided hereditary authority,
+limited only by certain religious prescriptions
+and a court ceremonial. The genius of the Greeks
+tended to an endless variety of governmental forms;
+subdivided into a number of petty sovereignties.
+Greek society presented a singular mosaic of political
+structures; oligarchical in Sparta, democratical
+in Athens, tyrannical in Sicyon, monarchical in
+Macedonia, the forms of government were the same
+in scarcely two cities or districts. The state religion
+of the Persians evinced the same tendency to unity
+as their politics, and was more of a metaphysical and
+moral than a material character. The Greeks, on
+the contrary, had a symbolical system of religion,
+consisting in the worship of natural objects and
+influences, which gradually changed into a perfect
+prosopop&oelig;ia, representing the gods as sentient<span class="pagenum"><a name="page425" id="page425">[Pg 425]</a></span>
+beings, subject to the same passions, and engaged
+in the same pursuits and occupations as the inhabitants
+of the earth. The worship consisted
+principally in the performance of rites and demonstrations
+of respect to the deities; the conscience
+was left to the direction of the civil laws. Besides,
+the rites, as well as the divinities and heroes in
+whose honor they were practised, were different
+in every place.</p>
+
+<p>As for the manners and habits of life, it is unnecessary
+to point out how vastly different they
+were from those of Persia. Public contempt
+punished the young, wealthy, pleasure-loving cosmopolitan,
+who attempted to live in Persian style.
+Thus, until the time of Alexander, when the power
+of Greece had arrived at its culminating point,
+Persia, with all her preponderance, could not convert
+Hellas to her civilization.</p>
+
+<p>In the time of Alexander, this incompatibility of
+dissimilar modes of culture was singularly demonstrated.
+When the empire of Darius succumbed
+to the Macedonian phalanxes, it was expected, for
+a time, that a Hellenic civilization would spread
+over Asia. There seemed the more reason for
+this belief when the conqueror, in a moment of
+aberrancy, treated the monuments of the land
+with such aggressive violence as seemed to evince<span class="pagenum"><a name="page426" id="page426">[Pg 426]</a></span>
+equal hatred and contempt. But the wanton incendiary
+of Persepolis soon changed his mind,
+and so completely, that his design became apparent
+to simply substitute himself in the room of
+the dynasty of Ach&aelig;menes, and rule over Persia
+like a Persian king, with Greece added to his
+estates. Great as was Alexander's power, it was
+insufficient for the execution of such a project.
+His generals and soldiers could not brook to see
+their commander assume the long flowing robes of
+the eastern kings, surround himself with eunuchs,
+and renounce the habits and manners of his native
+land. Though after his death some of his successors
+persisted in the same system, they were compelled
+greatly to mitigate it. Where the population
+consisted of a motley compound of Greeks,
+Syrians, and Arabs, as in Egypt and the coast of
+Asia Minor, a sort of compromise between the two
+civilizations became thenceforth the normal state
+of the country; but where the races remained
+unmixed, the national manners were preserved.</p>
+
+<p>In the latter periods of the Roman empire, the
+two civilizations had become completely blended
+in the whole East, including continental Greece;
+but it was tinged more with the Asiatic than the
+Greek tendencies, because the masses belonged
+much more to the former element than to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page427" id="page427">[Pg 427]</a></span>
+latter. Hellenic forms, it is true, still subsisted,
+but it is not difficult to discover in the ideas of
+those periods and countries the Oriental stock
+upon which the scions of the Alexandrian school
+had been engrafted. The respective influence of
+the various elements was in strict proportion to
+the quantity of blood; the intellectual preponderance
+belonged to that which had contributed the
+greatest share.</p>
+
+<p>The same antagonism which I pointed out between
+the intellectual culture of the Greeks and
+that of the Persians, will be found to result from
+the contact of all other widely different civilizations.
+I shall mention but one more instance:
+the relations between the Arab civilization<a name="FNanchor-181" id="FNanchor-181"></a><a href="#Footnote-181" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 181.">[181]</a> and
+our own.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page428" id="page428">[Pg 428]</a></span>There was a time when the arts and sciences,
+the muses and their train, seemed to have forsaken<span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden"><a name="page429" id="page429">[Pg 429]</a></span>
+their former abodes, to rally around the standard
+of Mohammed. That our forefathers were not
+blind to the excellencies of the Arab civilization
+is proved by their sending their sons to the schools
+of Cordova. But not a trace of the spirit of that
+civilization has remained in Europe, save in those
+countries which still retain a portion of Ishmaelitic
+blood. Nor has the Arab civilization found a
+more congenial soil in India over which, also, its
+dominion extended. Like those portions of Europe
+which were subjected to Moslem masters,
+that country has preserved its own modes of thinking
+intact.</p>
+
+<p>But if the pressure of the Arab civilization, at
+the time of its greatest splendor and our greatest
+ignorance, could not affect the modes of thinking
+of the races of Western Europe, neither can we,
+at present, when the positions are reversed, affect
+in the slightest degree the feeble remnants of that
+once so flourishing civilization. Our action upon
+these remnants is continuous&mdash;the pressure of our
+intellectual activity upon them immense; we succeed
+only in destroying, not in transforming or
+remodelling.<a name="FNanchor-182" id="FNanchor-182"></a><a href="#Footnote-182" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 182.">[182]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page430" id="page430">[Pg 430]</a></span>Yet this civilization was not even original, and
+might, therefore, be supposed to have a less obstinate
+vitality. The Arab nation, it is well known,
+based its empire and its intellectual culture upon
+fragments of races which it had aggregated by
+the weight of the sword. A variegated compound
+like the Islamitic populations, could not but develop
+a civilization of an equally variegated character,
+to which each ethnical element contributed its
+share. These elements it is not difficult to determine
+and point out.</p>
+
+<p>The nucleus, around which aggregated those
+countless multitudes, was a small band of valiant
+warriors who unfurled in their native deserts the
+standard of a new creed. They were not, before
+Mohammed's time, a new or unknown people.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page431" id="page431">[Pg 431]</a></span>
+They had frequently come in contact with the
+Jews and Phenicians, and had in their veins the
+blood of both these nations. Taking advantage of
+their favorable situation for commerce, they had
+performed the carrier trade of the Red Sea, and
+the eastern coast of Africa and India, for the most
+celebrated nations of ancient times, the Jews and
+the Phenicians, later still, for the Romans and
+Persians. They had the same traditions in common
+with the Shemitic and Hamitic families from
+which they sprung.<a name="FNanchor-183" id="FNanchor-183"></a><a href="#Footnote-183" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 183.">[183]</a> They had even taken an
+active part in the political life of neighboring nations.
+Under the Arsacides and the sons of Sassan,
+some of their tribes exerted great influence in the
+politics of the Persian empire. One of their adventurers<a name="FNanchor-184" id="FNanchor-184"></a><a href="#Footnote-184" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 184.">[184]</a>
+had become Emperor of Rome; one of
+their princes protected the majesty of Rome against
+a conqueror before whom the whole east trembled,
+and shared the imperial purple with the Roman<span class="pagenum"><a name="page432" id="page432">[Pg 432]</a></span>
+sovereign;<a name="FNanchor-185" id="FNanchor-185"></a><a href="#Footnote-185" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 185.">[185]</a> one of their cities had become, under
+Zenobia, the centre and capital of a vast empire
+that rivalled and even threatened Rome.<a name="FNanchor-186" id="FNanchor-186"></a><a href="#Footnote-186" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 186.">[186]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page433" id="page433">[Pg 433]</a></span>It is evident, therefore, that the Arab nation
+had never ceased, from the remotest antiquity, to
+entertain intimate relations with the most powerful
+and celebrated ancient societies. It had taken
+part in their political and intellectual<a name="FNanchor-187" id="FNanchor-187"></a><a href="#Footnote-187" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 187.">[187]</a> activity;
+and it might not inappropriately be compared to a
+body half-plunged into the water, and half exposed
+to the sun, as it partook at the same time of an
+advanced state of civilization and of complete
+barbarism.</p>
+
+<p>Mohammed invented the religion most conformable
+to the ideas of a people, among whom idolatry
+had still many zealous adherents, but where
+Christianity, though having made numerous converts,
+was losing favor on account of the endless
+schisms and contentions of its followers.<a name="FNanchor-188" id="FNanchor-188"></a><a href="#Footnote-188" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 188.">[188]</a> The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page434" id="page434">[Pg 434]</a></span>
+religious dogma of the Koreishite prophet was a
+skilful compromise between the various contending<span class="pagenum"><a name="page435" id="page435">[Pg 435]</a></span>
+opinions. It reconciled the Jewish dispensation
+with the New Law better than could the Church
+at that time, and thus solved a problem which had
+disquieted the consciences of many of the earlier
+Christians, and which, especially in the east, had
+given rise to many heretical sects. This was in
+itself a very tempting bait, and, besides, any theological
+novelty had decided chances of success
+among the Syrians and Egyptians.<a name="FNanchor-189" id="FNanchor-189"></a><a href="#Footnote-189" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 189.">[189]</a> Moreover, the
+new religion appeared with sword in hand, which
+in those times of schismatical propagandism seemed
+a warrant of success more relied upon by the masses
+to whom it addressed itself, than peaceful persuasion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page436" id="page436">[Pg 436]</a></span>Thus arrayed, Islamism issued from its native
+deserts. Arrogant, and possessed but in a very
+slight degree of the inventive faculty, it developed
+no civilization peculiar to itself, but it had adopted,
+as far as it was capable of doing, the bastard Greco-Asiatic
+civilization already extant. As its triumphant
+banners progressed on the east and south of
+the Mediterranean, it incorporated masses imbued
+with the same tendencies and spirit. From each
+of these it borrowed something. As its religious
+dogmas were a patchwork of the tenets of the
+Church, those of the Synagogue, and of the disfigured
+traditions of Hedjaz and Yemen, so its
+code of laws was a compound of the Persian and
+the Roman, its science was Greco-Syrian<a name="FNanchor-190" id="FNanchor-190"></a><a href="#Footnote-190" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 190.">[190]</a> and Egyptian,
+its administration from the beginning tolerant
+like that of every body politic that embraces many
+heterogeneous elements.</p>
+
+<p>It has caused much useless surprise, that Moslem
+society should have made such rapid strides to
+refinement of manners. But the mass of the people
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page437" id="page437">[Pg 437]</a></span>over whom its dominion extended, had merely
+changed the name of their creed; they were old
+and well-known actors on the stage of history, and
+have simply been mistaken for a new nation when
+they undertook to play the part of apostles before
+the world. These people gave to the common
+store their previous refinement and luxury; each
+new addition to the standard of Islamism, contributed
+some portion of its acquisitions. The vitalizing
+principle of the society, the motive power of
+this cumbrous mass, was the small nucleus of Arab
+tribes that had come forth from the heart of the
+peninsula. They furnished, not artists and learned
+men, but fanatics, soldiers, victors, and masters.</p>
+
+<p>The Arab civilization, then, is nothing but
+the Greco-Syrian civilization, rejuvenated and
+quickened, for a time, with a new and energetic,
+but short-lived, genius. It was, besides, a little
+renovated and a little modified, by a slight dash of
+Persian civilization.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, motley and incongruous as are the elements
+of which it is composed, and capable of stretching
+and accommodating itself as such a compound
+must be, it cannot adapt itself to any social structure
+erected by other elements than its own. In
+other words, many as are the races that contributed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page438" id="page438">[Pg 438]</a></span>
+to its formation, it is suited to none that have <em>not</em>
+contributed to it.</p>
+
+<p>This is what the whole course of history teaches
+us. Every race has its own modes of thinking;
+every race, capable of developing a civilization,
+develops one peculiar to itself, and which it cannot
+engraft upon any other, except by amalgamation
+of blood, and then in but a modified degree.
+The European cannot win the Asiatic to his modes
+of thinking; he cannot civilize the Australian, or
+the Negro; he can transmit but a portion of his
+intelligence to his half-breed offspring of the inferior
+race; the progeny of that half-breed and the
+nobler branch of his ancestry, is but one degree
+nearer, but not equal to that branch in capacity:
+the proportions of blood are strictly preserved. I
+have adduced illustrations of this truth from the
+history of various branches of the human family,
+of the lowest as well as of the higher in the scale
+of intellectual progress. Are we not, then, authorized
+to conclude that the diversity observable
+among them is constitutional, innate, and not the
+result of accident or circumstances&mdash;that there is
+an absolute inequality in their intellectual endowments?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page439" id="page439">[Pg 439]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h3>
+
+<p class="center">MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF
+THE THREE GREAT VARIETIES.</p>
+
+<div class="chapdesc"><p>Impropriety of drawing general conclusions from individual
+cases&mdash;Recapitulatory sketch of the leading features of the
+Negro, the Yellow, and the White races&mdash;Superiority of the
+latter&mdash;Conclusion of volume the first.</p></div>
+
+
+<p>In the preceding pages, I have endeavored to
+show that, though there are both scientific and
+religious reasons for not believing in a plurality
+of origins of our species, the various branches of
+the human family are distinguished by permanent
+and irradicable differences, both mentally and physically.
+They are unequal in intellectual capacity,<a name="FNanchor-191" id="FNanchor-191"></a><a href="#Footnote-191" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 191.">[191]</a>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page440" id="page440">[Pg 440]</a></span>in personal beauty, and in physical strength.
+Again I repeat, that in coming to this conclusion,
+I have totally eschewed the method which is, unfortunately
+for the cause of science, too often resorted
+to by ethnologists, and which, to say the
+least of it, is simply ridiculous. The discussion
+has not rested upon the moral and intellectual
+worth of isolated individuals.</p>
+
+<p>With regard to moral worth, I have proved
+that all men, to whatever race they may belong,
+are capable of receiving the lights of true religion,
+and of sufficiently appreciating that blessing to
+work out their own salvation. With regard to
+intellectual capacity, I emphatically protest against
+that mode of arguing which consists in saying,
+"every negro is a dunce;" because, by the same
+logic, I should be compelled to admit that "every
+white man is intelligent;" and I shall take good
+care to commit no such absurdity.</p>
+
+<p>I shall not even wait for the vindicators of the
+absolute equality of all races, to adduce to me
+such and such a passage in some missionary's or
+navigator's journal, wherefrom it appears that some
+Yolof has become a skilful carpenter, that some
+Hottentot has made an excellent domestic, that
+some Caffre plays well on the violin, or that some<span class="pagenum"><a name="page441" id="page441">[Pg 441]</a></span>
+Bambarra has made very respectable progress in
+arithmetic.</p>
+
+<p>I am prepared to admit&mdash;and to admit without
+proof&mdash;anything of that sort, however remarkable,
+that may be related of the most degraded
+savages. I have already denied the excessive
+stupidity, the incurable idiotcy of even the
+lowest on the scale of humanity. Nay, I go
+further than my opponents, and am not in the least
+disposed to doubt that, among the chiefs of the
+rude negroes of Africa, there could be found a
+considerable number of active and vigorous minds,
+greatly surpassing in fertility of ideas and mental
+resources, the average of our peasantry, and even
+of some of our middle classes. But the unfairness
+of deductions based upon a comparison of the
+most intelligent blacks and the least intelligent
+whites, must be obvious to every candid mind.</p>
+
+<p>Once for all, such arguments seem to me unworthy
+of real science, and I do not wish to place
+myself upon so narrow and unsafe a ground. If
+Mungo Park, or the brothers Lander, have given
+to some negro a certificate of superior intelligence,
+who will assure us that another traveller, meeting
+the same individual, would not have arrived
+at a diametrically opposite conclusion concerning
+him? Let us leave such puerilities, and compare,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page442" id="page442">[Pg 442]</a></span>
+not the individuals, but the masses. When we
+shall have clearly established of what the latter
+are capable, by what tendencies they are characterized,
+and by what limits their intellectual activity
+and development are circumscribed, whether, since
+the beginning of the historic epoch, they have
+acted upon, or been acted upon by other groups&mdash;when
+we shall have clearly established these points,
+we may then descend to details, and, perhaps, one
+day be able to decide why the greatest minds of
+one group are inferior to the most brilliant geniuses
+of another, in what respects the vulgar herds of
+all types assimilate, and in what others they differ,
+and why. But this difficult and delicate task cannot
+be accomplished until the relative position of
+the whole mass of each race shall have been
+nicely, and, so to say, mathematically defined. I
+do not know whether we may hope ever to arrive
+at results of such incontestable clearness and precision,
+as to be able to no longer trust solely to
+general facts, but to embrace the various shades
+of intelligence in each group, to define and class
+the inferior strata of every population and their
+influence on the activity of the whole. Were it
+possible thus to divide each group into certain
+strata, and compare these with the corresponding
+strata of every other: the most gifted of the dominant
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page443" id="page443">[Pg 443]</a></span>with the most gifted of the dominated races,
+and so on downwards, the superiority of some in
+capacity, energy, and activity would be self-demonstrated.</p>
+
+<p>After having mentioned the facts which prove
+the inequality of various branches of the human
+family, and having laid down the method by which
+that proof should be established, I arrived at the
+conclusion that the whole of our species is divisible
+into three great groups, which I call primary
+varieties, in order to distinguish them from others
+formed by intermixture. It now remains for me
+to assign to each of these groups the principal
+characteristics by which it is distinguished from
+the others.</p>
+
+<p>The dark races are the lowest on the scale. The
+shape of the pelvis has a character of animalism,
+which is imprinted on the individuals of that race
+ere their birth, and seems to portend their destiny.
+The circle of intellectual development of that group
+is more contracted than that of either of the two
+others.</p>
+
+<p>If the negro's narrow and receding forehead
+seems to mark him as inferior in reasoning capacity,
+other portions of his cranium as decidedly
+point to faculties of an humbler, but not the less
+powerful character. He has energies of a not despicable
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page444" id="page444">[Pg 444]</a></span>order, and which sometimes display themselves
+with an intensity truly formidable. He is
+capable of violent passions, and passionate attachments.
+Some of his senses have an acuteness unknown
+to the other races: the sense of taste, and
+that of smell, for instance.</p>
+
+<p>But it is precisely this development of the animal
+faculties that stamps the negro with the mark
+of inferiority to other races. I said that his sense
+of taste was acute; it is by no means fastidious.
+Every sort of food is welcome to his palate; none
+disgusts<a name="FNanchor-192" id="FNanchor-192"></a><a href="#Footnote-192" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 192.">[192]</a> him; there is no flesh nor fowl too vile<span class="pagenum"><a name="page445" id="page445">[Pg 445]</a></span>
+to find a place in his stomach. So it is with regard
+to odor. His sense of smell might rather be called
+greedy than acute. He easily accommodates himself
+to the most repulsive.</p>
+
+<p>To these traits he joins a childish instability of
+humor. His feelings are intense, but not enduring.
+His grief is as transitory as it is poignant, and he
+rapidly passes from it to extreme gayety. He is
+seldom vindictive&mdash;his anger is violent, but soon
+appeased. It might almost be said that this variability
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page446" id="page446">[Pg 446]</a></span>of sentiments annihilates for him the existence
+of both virtue and vice. The very ardency
+to which his sensibilities are aroused, implies a
+speedy subsidence; the intensity of his desire, a
+prompt gratification, easily forgotten. He does not
+cling to life with the tenacity of the whites. But
+moderately careful of his own, he easily sacrifices
+that of others, and kills, though not absolutely
+bloodthirsty, without much provocation or subsequent
+remorse.<a name="FNanchor-193" id="FNanchor-193"></a><a href="#Footnote-193" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 193.">[193]</a> Under intense suffering, he exhibits
+a moral cowardice which readily seeks refuge
+in death, or in a sort of monstrous impassivity.<a name="FNanchor-194" id="FNanchor-194"></a><a href="#Footnote-194" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 194.">[194]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page447" id="page447">[Pg 447]</a></span>With regard to his moral capacities, it may be
+stated that he is susceptible, in an eminent degree,
+of religious emotions; but unless assisted by the
+light of the Gospel, his religious sentiments are of
+a decidedly sensual character.</p>
+
+<p>Having demonstrated the little intellectual and
+strongly sensual<a name="FNanchor-195" id="FNanchor-195"></a><a href="#Footnote-195" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 195.">[195]</a> character of the black variety,
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page448" id="page448">[Pg 448]</a></span>
+as the type of which I have taken the negro of
+Western Africa, I shall now proceed to examine<span class="pagenum"><a name="page449" id="page449">[Pg 449]</a></span>
+the moral and intellectual characteristics of the
+second in the scale&mdash;the yellow.</p>
+
+<p>This seems to form a complete antithesis to
+the former. In them, the skull, instead of being
+thrown backward, projects. The forehead is large,
+often jutting out, and of respectable height. The
+facial conformation is somewhat triangular, but
+neither chin nor nose has the rude, animalish
+development that characterizes the negro. A
+tendency to obesity is not precisely a specific
+feature, but it is more often met with among the
+yellow races than among any others. In muscular
+vigor, in intensity of feelings and desires, they are
+greatly inferior to the black. They are supple and
+agile, but not strong. They have a decided taste
+for sensual pleasures, but their sensuality is less
+violent, and, if I may so call it, more vicious than
+the negro's, and less quickly appeased. They
+place a somewhat greater value upon human life
+than the negro does, but they are more cruel for
+the sake of cruelty. They are as gluttonous as
+the negro, but more fastidious in their choice of
+viands, as is proved by the immoderate attention
+bestowed on the culinary art among the more
+civilized of these races. In other words, the yellow
+races are less impulsive than the black. Their
+will is characterized by obstinacy rather than<span class="pagenum"><a name="page450" id="page450">[Pg 450]</a></span>
+energetic violence; their anger is vindictive
+rather than clamorous; their cruelty more studied
+than passionate; their sensuality more refinedly
+vicious than absorbing. They are, therefore, seldom
+prone to extremes. In morals, as in intellect,
+they display a mediocrity: they are given to grovelling
+vices rather than to dark crimes; when
+virtuous, they are so oftener from a sense of practical
+usefulness than from exalted sentiments. In
+regard to intellectual capacity, they easily understand
+whatever is not very profound, nor very
+sublime; they have a keen appreciation of the
+useful and practical, a great love of quiet and
+order, and even a certain conception of a slight
+modicum of personal or municipal liberty. The
+yellow races are practical people in the narrowest
+sense of the word. They have little scope of
+imagination, and therefore invent but little: for
+great inventions, even the most exclusively utilitarian,
+require a high degree of the imaginative
+faculty. But they easily understand and adopt
+whatever is of practical utility. The <i>summum
+bonum</i> of their desires and aspirations is to pass
+smoothly and quietly through life.</p>
+
+<p>It is apparent from this sketch, that they are
+superior to the blacks in aptitude and intellectual
+capacity. A theorist who would form some model<span class="pagenum"><a name="page451" id="page451">[Pg 451]</a></span>
+society, might wish such a population to form the
+substratum upon which to erect his structure; but
+a society, composed entirely of such elements,
+would display neither great stamina nor capacity
+for anything great and exalted.</p>
+
+<p>We are now arrived at the third and last of the
+"primary" varieties&mdash;the white. Among them we
+find great physical vigor and capacity of endurance;
+an intensity of will and desire, but which
+is balanced and governed by the intellectual faculties.
+Great things are undertaken, but not blindly,
+not without a full appreciation of the obstacles to
+be overcome, and with a systematic effort to overcome
+them. The utilitarian tendency is strong,
+but is united with a powerful imaginative faculty,
+which elevates, ennobles, idealizes it. Hence, the
+power of invention; while the negro can merely
+imitate, the Chinese only utilize, to a certain extent,
+the practical results attained by the white,
+the latter is continually adding new ones to those
+already gained. His capacity for combination of
+ideas leads him perpetually to construct new facts
+from the fragments of the old; hurries him along
+through a series of unceasing modifications and
+changes. He has as keen a sense of order as the
+man of the yellow race, but not, like him, from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page452" id="page452">[Pg 452]</a></span>
+love of repose and inertia, but from a desire to
+protect and preserve his acquisitions. At the
+same time, he has an ardent love of liberty, which
+is often carried to an extreme; an instinctive aversion
+to the trammels of that rigidly formalistic
+organization under which the Chinese vegetates
+with luxurious ease; and he as indignantly rejects
+the haughty despotism which alone proves a sufficient
+restraint for the black races.</p>
+
+<p>The white man is also characterized by a singular
+love of life. Perhaps it is because he knows
+better how to make use of it than other races, that
+he attaches to it a greater value and spares it more
+both in himself and in others. In the extreme of
+his cruelty, he is conscious of his excesses; a sentiment
+which it may well be doubted whether it
+exist among the blacks. Yet though he loves life
+better than other races, he has discovered a number
+of reasons for sacrificing it or laying it down
+without murmur. His valor, his bravery, are not
+brute, unthinking passions, not the result of callousness
+or impassivity: they spring from exalted,
+though often erroneous, sentiments, the principal
+of which is expressed by the word "honor." This
+feeling, under a variety of names and applications,
+has formed the mainspring of action of most of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page453" id="page453">[Pg 453]</a></span>
+white races since the beginning of historical times.
+It accommodates itself to every mode of existence,
+to every walk of life. It is as puissant in the
+pulpit and at the martyr's stake, as on the field of
+battle; in the most peaceful and humble pursuits
+of life as in the highest and most stirring. It were
+impossible to define all the ideas which this word
+comprises; they are better felt than expressed.
+But this feeling&mdash;we might call it instinctive&mdash;is
+unknown to the yellow, and unknown to the black
+races: while in the white it quickens every noble
+sentiment&mdash;the sense of justice, liberty, patriotism,
+love, religion&mdash;it has no name in the language, no
+place in the hearts, of other races. This I consider
+as the principal reason of the superiority of our
+branch of the human family over all others; because
+even in the lowest, the most debased of our
+race, we generally find some spark of this redeeming
+trait, and however misapplied it may often be,
+and certainly is, it prevents us, even in our deepest
+errors, from falling so fearfully low as the others.
+The extent of moral abasement in which we find so
+many of the yellow and black races is absolutely
+impossible even to the very refuse of our society.
+The latter may equal, nay, surpass them in crime;
+but even they would shudder at that hideous abyss<span class="pagenum"><a name="page454" id="page454">[Pg 454]</a></span>
+of corrosive vices, which opens before the friend of
+humanity on a closer study of these races.<a name="FNanchor-196" id="FNanchor-196"></a><a href="#Footnote-196" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 196.">[196]</a></p>
+
+<p>Before concluding this picture, I would add that
+the immense superiority of the white races in all
+that regards the intellectual faculties, is joined to
+an inferiority as strikingly marked, in the intensity
+of sensations. Though his whole structure is more
+vigorous, the white man is less gifted in regard to
+the perfection of the senses than either the black
+or the yellow, and therefore less solicited and less
+absorbed by animal gratifications.</p>
+
+<p class="tbreak">I have now arrived at the historical portion of
+my subject. There I shall place the truths
+enounced in this volume in a clearer light, and
+furnish irrefragable proofs of the fact, which forms
+the basis of my theory, that nations degenerate
+only in consequence and in proportion to their
+admixture with an inferior race&mdash;that a society
+receives its death-blow when, from the number of
+diverse ethnical elements which it comprises, a
+number of diverse modes of thinking and interests
+contend for predominance; when these modes<span class="pagenum"><a name="page455" id="page455">[Pg 455]</a></span>
+of thinking, and these interests have arisen in
+such multiplicity that every effort to harmonize
+them, to make them subservient to some great
+purpose, is in vain; when, therefore, the only
+natural ties that can bind large masses of men,
+homogeneity of thoughts and feelings, are severed,
+the only solid foundation of a social structure
+sapped and rotten.</p>
+
+<p>To furnish the necessary details for this assertion,
+to remove the possibility of even the slightest
+doubt, I shall take up separately, every great
+and independent civilization that the world has
+seen flourish. I shall trace its first beginnings, its
+subsequent stages of development, its decadence
+and final decay. Here, then, is the proper test of
+my theory; here we can see the laws that govern
+ethnical relations in full force on a magnificent
+scale; we can verify their inexorably uniform and
+rigorous application. The subject is immense, the
+panorama spread before us the grandest and most
+imposing that the philosopher can contemplate,
+for its tableaux comprise the scene of action of
+every instance where man has really worked out
+his mission "to have dominion over the earth."</p>
+
+<p>The task is great&mdash;too great, perhaps, for any
+one's undertaking. Yet, on a more careful investigation,
+many of the apparently insuperable difficulties
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page456" id="page456">[Pg 456]</a></span>which discouraged the inquirer will vanish;
+in the gorgeous succession of scenes that meet his
+glance, he will perceive a uniformity, an intimate
+relation and connection which, like Ariadne's
+thread, will enable the undaunted and persevering
+student to find his way through the mazes of the
+labyrinth: we shall find that every civilization
+owes its origin, its development, its splendors, to
+the agency of the white races. In China and in
+India, in the vast continent of the West, centuries
+ere Columbus found it&mdash;it was one of the group
+of white races that gave the impetus, and, so long
+as it lasted, sustained it. Startling as this assertion
+may appear to a great number of readers,
+I hope to demonstrate its correctness by incontrovertible
+historical testimony. Everywhere the
+white races have taken the initiative, everywhere
+they have <em>brought</em> civilization to the others&mdash;everywhere
+they have sown the seed: the vigor
+and beauty of the plant depended on whether the
+soil it found was congenial or not.</p>
+
+<p>The migrations of the white race, therefore,
+afford us at once a guide for our historical researches,
+and a clue to many apparently inexplicable
+mysteries: we shall learn to understand why,
+in a vast country, the development of civilization
+has come to a stand, and been superseded by a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page457" id="page457">[Pg 457]</a></span>
+retrogressive movement; why, in another, all but
+feeble traces of a high state of culture has vanished
+without apparent cause; why people, the lowest
+in the scale of intellect, are yet found in possession
+of arts and mechanical processes that would do
+honor to a highly intellectual race.</p>
+
+<p>Among the group of white races, the noblest,
+the most highly gifted in intellect and personal
+beauty, the most active in the cause of civilization,
+is the Arian<a name="FNanchor-197" id="FNanchor-197"></a><a href="#Footnote-197" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 197.">[197]</a> race. Its history is intimately associated
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page458" id="page458">[Pg 458]</a></span>with almost every effort on the part of man
+to develop his moral and intellectual powers.</p>
+
+<p>It now remains for me to trace out the field of
+inquiry into which I propose to enter in the succeeding
+volumes. The list of great, independent
+civilizations is not long. Among all the innumerable
+nations that "strutted their brief hour on the
+stage" of the world, ten only have arrived at the
+state of complete societies, giving birth to distinct
+modes of intellectual culture. All the others
+were imitators or dependents; like planets they
+revolved around, and derived their light from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page459" id="page459">[Pg 459]</a></span>
+suns of the systems to which they belonged. At
+the head of my list I would place:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. The Indian civilization. It spread among
+the islands of the Indian Ocean, towards the north,
+beyond the Himalaya Mountains, and towards
+the east, beyond the Brahmapootra. It was originated
+by a white race of the Arian stock.</p>
+
+<p>2. The Egyptian civilization comes next. As
+its satellites may be mentioned the less perfect
+civilizations of the Ethiopians, Nubians, and several
+other small peoples west of the oasis of Ammon.
+An Arian colony from India, settled in the
+upper part of the Nile valley, had established this
+society.</p>
+
+<p>3. The Assyrians, around whom rallied the
+Jews, Phenicians, Lydians, Carthaginians, and Hymiarites,
+were indebted for their social intelligence
+to the repeated invasions of white populations.
+The Zoroastrian Iranians, who flourished in Further
+Asia, under the names of Medes, Persians,
+and Bactrians, were all branches of the Arian
+family.</p>
+
+<p>4. The Greeks belonged to the same stock, but
+were modified by Shemitic elements, which, in
+course of time, totally transformed their character.</p>
+
+<p>5. China presents the precise counterpart of
+Egypt. The light of civilization was carried<span class="pagenum"><a name="page460" id="page460">[Pg 460]</a></span>
+thither by Arian colonies. The substratum of the
+social structure was composed of elements of the
+yellow race, but the white civilizers received reinforcements
+of their blood at various times.</p>
+
+<p>6. The ancient civilization of the Italian peninsula
+(the Etruscan civilization), was developed by
+a mosaic of populations of the Celtic, Iberian, and
+Shemitic stock, but cemented by Arian elements.
+From it emerged the civilization of Rome.</p>
+
+<p>7. Our civilization is indebted for its tone and
+character to the Germanic conquerors of the fifth
+century. They were a branch of the Arian family.</p>
+
+<p>8, 9, 10. Under these heads I class the three
+civilizations of the western continent, the Alleghanian,
+the Mexican, and the Peruvians.</p>
+
+<p>This is the field I have marked out for my investigations,
+the results of which will be laid before
+the reader in the succeeding volumes. The first
+part of my work is here at an end&mdash;the vestibule
+of the structure I wish to erect is completed.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page461" id="page461">[Pg 461]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><big>APPENDIX.</big></p>
+
+<p class="center"><em class="smcap">By</em> J. C. NOTT, M. D.,<br />
+<small>MOBILE, ALABAMA.</small></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" style="visibility:hidden"><a name="page462" id="page462">[Pg 462]</a></span>
+
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page463" id="page463">[Pg 463]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="break"><a name="APPENDIX" id="APPENDIX"></a>APPENDIX.</h2>
+
+<hr class="minor" />
+
+<p>I have seldom perused a work which has afforded
+me so much pleasure and instruction as the
+one of Count Gobineau, "<cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Sur l'In&eacute;galit&eacute; des Races
+Humaines</cite>," and regard most of his conclusions as
+incontrovertible. There are, however, a few points
+in his argument which should not be passed without
+comment, and others not sufficiently elaborated.
+My original intention was to say much, but, fortunately
+for me, my colleague, Mr. Hotz, has so
+fully and ably anticipated me, in his Introduction
+and Notes, as to leave me little of importance to
+add.</p>
+
+<p>The essay of Count Gobineau is eminently practical
+and useful in its design. He views the
+various races of men rather as a historian than
+a naturalist, and while he leaves open the long
+mooted question of <em>unity</em> of origin, he so fully
+establishes the <em>permanency</em> of the actual moral,
+intellectual, and physical diversities of races as to
+leave no ground for antagonists to stand upon.
+Whatever <em>remote causes</em> may be assigned, there is<span class="pagenum"><a name="page464" id="page464">[Pg 464]</a></span>
+no appeal from the conclusion that white, black,
+Mongol, and other races were fully developed in
+nations some 3000 years before Christ, and that
+no physical causes, during this long course of time,
+have been in operation, to change one type of man
+into another. Count Gobineau, therefore, accepts
+the <em>existing</em> diversity of races as at least an <em>accomplished
+fact</em>, and draws lessons of wisdom from the
+plain teachings of history. Man with him ceases
+to be an abstraction; each race, each nation, is
+made a separate study, and a fertile but unexplored
+field is opened to our view.</p>
+
+<p>Our author leans strongly towards a belief in
+the <em>original diversity</em> of races, but has evidently
+been much embarrassed in arriving at conclusions
+by religious scruples and by the want of accurate
+knowledge in that part of natural history which
+treats of the designation of <em>species</em>, and the laws of
+<em>hybridity</em>; he has been taught to believe that two
+distinct species cannot produce perfectly prolific
+offspring, and therefore concludes that all races of
+men <em>must</em> be of one origin, because they are prolific
+<i>inter se</i>. My appendix will therefore be devoted
+mainly to this question of species.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page465" id="page465">[Pg 465]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="A" id="A"></a>A.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Our author has taken the facts of Dr. Morton at
+second hand, and, moreover, had not before him Dr.
+Morton's later tables and more matured deductions;
+I shall therefore give an abstract of his results as
+published by himself in 1849, with some comments of
+my own. The figures represent the internal capacity
+of the skull in cubic inches, and were obtained by filling
+the cavity with shot and afterwards pouring them
+into an accurately graduated measure.</p>
+
+<p>It must be admitted that the collection of Morton is
+not sufficiently full in all its departments to enable
+us to arrive at the absolute capacity of crania in the
+different races; but it is sufficiently complete to establish
+beyond cavil, the fact that the crania of the white
+are much larger than those of the dark races. His
+table is very incomplete in Mongol, Malays, and some
+others; but in the white races of Europe, the black
+races, and the American, the results are substantially
+correct. I have myself had ample opportunities for
+examining the heads of living negroes and Indians of
+America, as well as a considerable number of crania,
+and can fully indorse Dr. Morton's results. It will be
+seen that his skulls of American aborigines amount to
+338.</p>
+
+<div class="center">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page466" id="page466">[Pg 466]</a></span>
+
+<table title="Size of the brains of various races" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="The mean brain size in cubic inches is highest amongst modern white families and lowest among native American families">
+<caption>Table, showing the Size of the Brain in Cubic Inches,
+as obtained by the Measurement of 623 Crania of
+various Races and Families of Man.</caption>
+<thead>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="bt bb" colspan="3" scope="col">RACES AND FAMILIES.</th>
+ <th class="bbox" abbr="Number" id="h2">No. of<br /> skulls.</th>
+ <th class="bbox" abbr="Max" id="h3">Largest <br />internal<br /> capacity.</th>
+ <th class="bbox" abbr="Min" id="h4">Smallest <br />internal <br />capacity.</th>
+ <th class="bbox" title="Race" id="h5">Mean.</th>
+ <th class="bt bb bl" title="Family" id="h6" colspan="2">Mean.</th>
+ </tr>
+</thead>
+<tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="bt" colspan="3" id="ar" axis="group">MODERN CAUCASIAN GROUP.</th>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left top smcap" rowspan="3" id="ar1" axis="family">Teutonic Family&mdash;</th>
+ <td class="left" colspan="2" id="ar11" axis="race">Germans</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar11 h2">18</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar11 h3">114</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar11 h4">70</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar11 h5">90</td>
+ <td style="width: 5%; text-align:left;" rowspan="3">
+ <span style="font-size:400%;font-weight:lighter;margin:0;line-height:.5em;text-indent:0;">}</span>
+ </td>
+ <td class="left" style="width: 10%;" rowspan="3" headers="ar1 h6">92</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left" colspan="2" id="ar12" axis="race">English</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar12 h2">5</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar12 h3">105</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar12 h4">91</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar12 h5">96</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left" colspan="2" id="ar13" axis="race">Anglo-Americans</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar13 h2">7</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar13 h3">97</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar13 h4">82</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar13 h5">90</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left top smcap" rowspan="3" id="ar2" axis="family">Pelasgic Family&mdash;</th>
+ <td class="left" id="ar21" axis="race">Persians</td>
+ <td style="width: 5%; text-align:right;padding:0;" rowspan="3">
+ <span style="font-size:400%;font-weight:lighter;margin:0;line-height:.5em;text-indent:0;">}</span></td>
+ <td rowspan="3" headers="ar2 h2">10</td>
+ <td class="bl" rowspan="3" headers="ar2 h3">94</td>
+ <td class="bl" rowspan="3" headers="ar2 h4">75</td>
+ <td class="bl" rowspan="3" headers="ar2 h5">84</td>
+ <td class="bl" rowspan="3"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left" id="ar22" axis="race">Armenians</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left" id="ar23" axis="race">Circassians</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" id="ar3" axis="family">Celtic Family&mdash;</th>
+ <td class="left" colspan="2" id="ar31" axis="race">Native Irish</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar31 h2">6</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar31 h3">97</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar31 h4">78</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar31 h5">87</td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" id="ar4" axis="family">Indostanic Family&mdash;</th>
+ <td class="left" colspan="2" id="ar41" axis="race">Bengalees, &amp;c.</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar41 h2">32</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar41 h3">91</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar41 h4">67</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar41 h5">80</td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" id="ar5" axis="family">Shemitic Family&mdash;</th>
+ <td class="left" colspan="2" id="ar51" axis="race">Arabs</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar51 h2">3</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar51 h3">98</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar51 h4">84</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar51 h5">89</td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" id="ar6" axis="family">Nilotic Family&mdash;</th>
+ <td class="left" colspan="2" id="ar61" axis="race">Fellahs</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar61 h2">17</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar61 h3">96</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar61 h4">66</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="ar61 h5">80</td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th colspan="3" id="br" axis="group">ANCIENT CAUCASIAN GROUP.</th>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left top smcap" id="br1" axis="family">Pelasgic Family&mdash;</th>
+ <td class="left" colspan="2" id="br11" axis="race">Greco-Egyptians<br />(from Catacombs)</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="br11 h2">18</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="br11 h3">97</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="br11 h4">74</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="br11 h5">88</td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left top smcap" id="br2" axis="family">Nilotic Family&mdash;</th>
+ <td class="left" colspan="2" id="br21" axis="race">Egyptians<br />(from Catacombs)</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="br21 h2">55</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="br21 h3">96</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="br21 h4">68</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="br21 h5">80</td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th colspan="3" id="cr" axis="group">MONGOLIAN GROUP.</th>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" colspan="3" id="cr1" axis="family">Chinese Family</th>
+ <td class="bl" headers="cr1 h2">6</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="cr1 h3">91</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="cr1 h4">70</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="cr1 h5">82</td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th colspan="3" id="dr" axis="group">MALAY GROUP.</th>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" colspan="3" id="dr1" axis="family">Malayan Family</th>
+ <td class="bl" headers="dr1 h2">20</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="dr1 h3">97</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="dr1 h4">68</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="dr1 h5">86</td>
+ <td style="width: 5%; text-align:left;" rowspan="2">
+ <span style="font-size:300%;font-weight:lighter;margin:0;line-height:.5em;text-indent:0;">}</span></td>
+ <td class="left" style="width: 10%;" rowspan="2" headers="dr h6">85</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" colspan="3" id="dr2" axis="family">Polynesian Family</th>
+ <td class="bl" headers="dr2 h2">8</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="dr2 h3">84</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="dr2 h4">82</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="dr2 h5">83</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th colspan="3" id="er" axis="group">AMERICAN GROUP.</th>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left top smcap" rowspan="2" id="er1" axis="family">Toltecan Family&mdash;</th>
+ <td class="left" colspan="2" id="er11" axis="race">Peruvians</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="er11 h2">155</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="er11 h3">101</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="er11 h4">58</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="er11 h5">75</td>
+ <td style="width: 3%; text-align:left;padding:0;" rowspan="5">
+ <span style="font-size:600%;font-weight:lighter;margin:0;line-height:.5em;text-indent:0;">}</span></td>
+ <td class="left" style="width: 10%;" rowspan="5" headers="er h6">79</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left" colspan="2" id="er12" axis="race">Mexicans</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="er12 h2">22</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="er12 h3">92</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="er12 h4">67</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="er12 h5">79</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left top smcap" rowspan="4" id="er2" axis="family">Barbarous Tribes&mdash;</th>
+ <td class="left" id="er21" axis="race">Iroquois</td>
+ <td style="width: 3%; text-align:right;padding:0;" rowspan="4">
+ <span style="font-size:500%;font-weight:lighter;margin:0;line-height:.5em;text-indent:0;">}</span></td>
+ <td rowspan="4" headers="er2 h2">161</td>
+ <td class="bl" rowspan="4" headers="er2 h3">104</td>
+ <td class="bl" rowspan="4" headers="er2 h4">70</td>
+ <td class="bl" rowspan="4" headers="er2 h5">84</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left" id="er22" axis="race">Lenap&egrave;</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left" id="er23" axis="race">Cherokee</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left" id="er24" axis="race">Shoshon&egrave;, &amp;c.</td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th colspan="3" id="fr" axis="group">NEGRO GROUP.</th>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" colspan="3" id="fr1" axis="group">Native African Family</th>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr1 h2">62</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr1 h3">99</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr1 h4">65</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr1 h5">83</td>
+ <td style="width: 5%; text-align:left;" rowspan="2">
+ <span style="font-size:300%;font-weight:lighter;margin:0;line-height:.5em;text-indent:0;">}</span></td>
+ <td class="left" rowspan="2" headers="fr1 fr2 h6">83</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" colspan="3" id="fr2" axis="group">American-born Negroes</th>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr2 h2">12</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr2 h3">89</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr2 h4">73</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr2 h5">82</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" colspan="3" id="fr3" axis="group">Hottentot Family</th>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr3 h2">3</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr3 h3">83</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr3 h4">68</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr3 h5">75</td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr class="bb">
+ <th class="left smcap" id="fr4" axis="group">Alforean Family&mdash;</th>
+ <td class="left" colspan="2" id="fr41" axis="race">Australians</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr41 h2">8</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr41 h3">83</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr41 h4">63</td>
+ <td class="bl" headers="fr41 h5">75</td>
+ <td class="bl"></td>
+ </tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page467" id="page467">[Pg 467]</a></span>
+Dr. Morton's mind, it will be seen by this table,
+had not yet freed itself from the incubus of artificial
+and unnatural classifications. Like Tiedemann and
+others, he has grouped together races which have not
+the slightest affinity in physical, moral, or linguistic
+characters. In the <em>Caucasian</em> group, for example,
+are placed the Teutonic, Indostanic, Shemitic, and Nilotic
+families, each of which, it can be shown, has
+existed utterly distinct for 5000 years, not to mention
+many subdivisions.</p>
+
+<p>The table of Dr. Morton affords some curious results.
+His ancient Pelasgic heads and those of the modern
+white races, give the same size of brain, viz: 88 cubic
+inches; and his ancient Egyptians and their modern
+representatives, the Fellahs, yield the same mean, 80
+cubic inches; the difference between the two groups
+being 8 cubic inches. These facts have a strong
+bearing on the question of <em>permanence</em> of types. The
+small-headed Hindoos present the same cranial capacity
+as the Egyptians, and though these races have each
+been the repository of early civilization, it is a question
+whether either was the originator of civilization. The
+Egyptian race, from the earliest monumental dawn,
+exhibits Shemitic adulteration; and Latham proves that
+the Sanscrit language was not indigenous to India, but
+was carried there from Northern Europe in early ages
+by conquerors.</p>
+
+<p>Again, in the negro group, while it is absolutely
+shown that certain African races, whether born in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page468" id="page468">[Pg 468]</a></span>
+Africa, or of the tenth descent in America, give a
+cranial capacity almost identical, 83 cubic inches; we
+see, on the contrary, the Hottentot and Australian
+yielding a mean of but 75 inches, thereby showing a
+like difference of eight cubic inches.</p>
+
+<p>In the American group, also, the same parallel holds
+good. The Toltecan family, the most civilized race,
+exhibit a mean of but 77 inches, while the barbarous
+tribes give 84, that is, a difference of 7 inches in favor
+of the savage. While, however, the Toltecans have
+the smaller heads, they are, according to Combe, much
+more developed in the anterior or <em>intellectual</em> lobes,
+which may serve to explain this apparent paradox.</p>
+
+<p>When we compare the highest and lowest races with
+each other, the contrast becomes still more striking,
+viz: the Teutonic with the Hottentot and Australian.
+The former family gives a mean capacity of 92 inches,
+while the latter two yield but 75, or a difference of <em>17
+cubic inches</em> between the skulls of these types!</p>
+
+<p>Now, as far back as history and monuments carry us,
+as well as crania and other testimonies, these various
+types have been <em>permanent</em>; and most of them we can
+trace back several thousand years. If such permanence
+of type through thousands of years, and in defiance of
+all climatic influences, does not establish <em>specific</em> characters,
+then is the naturalist at sea without a compass
+to guide him.</p>
+
+<p>These facts determine clearly the arbitrary nature of
+all classifications heretofore adopted; the Teuton, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page469" id="page469">[Pg 469]</a></span>
+Jew, the Hindoo, the Egyptian, &amp;c., have all been
+included under the term <em>Caucasian</em>; and yet they have,
+as far as we know, been through all time as distinct
+in physical and moral characters from each other, as
+they have from the negro races of Africa and Oceanica.
+The same diversity of types is found among all the
+other groups, or arbitrary divisions of the human family.</p>
+
+<p>Rich and rare as is the collection of Dr. Morton, it
+is very defective in many of its divisions, and it occurred
+to me that this deficiency might to some degree be supplied
+by the hat manufacturers of various nations;
+notwithstanding that the information derived from this
+source could give but one measurement, viz: the <em>horizontal
+periphery</em>. Yet this one measurement alone, on
+an extended scale, would go far towards determining
+the general size of the brain. I accordingly applied to
+three hat dealers in Mobile, and a large manufacturer
+in New Jersey, for statements of the relative number of
+hats of each size sold to adult males; their tables agree
+so perfectly as to leave no doubt as to the circumference
+of the heads of the white population of the
+United States. The three houses together dispose of
+about 15,000 hats annually.</p>
+
+<p>The following table was obligingly sent me by
+Messrs. Vail &amp; Yates, of Newark; and they accompanied
+it with the remark, that their hats were sent
+principally to our Western States, where there is a
+large proportion of German population; also that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page470" id="page470">[Pg 470]</a></span>
+sizes of these hats were a little larger (about one fourth
+of an inch) than those sold in the Southern States.
+This remark was confirmed by the three dealers in
+Mobile. Our table gives, 1st. The number or size of
+the hat. 2d. The circumference of the head corresponding.
+3d. The circumference of the hat; and lastly, the
+relative proportion of each No. sold out of 12 hats.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table title="Number of hats sold vs. size of hat and circumference of head" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0"
+summary="One-half of hats sold in the Western states are sizes 7-1/8 or 7-1/4">
+ <tr>
+ <th scope="col" style="padding-left:1em">Size&mdash;inches.</th>
+ <th scope="col" style="padding-left:1em">Circum. of head.</th>
+ <th scope="col" style="padding-left:1em">Circum. of hat.</th>
+ <th scope="col" style="padding-left:1em">Relative prop. in 12.</th>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>6&#8542;</td>
+ <td>21&#8541;</td>
+ <td>22&#8540;</td>
+ <td>1</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>7</td>
+ <td>22</td>
+ <td>22&frac34;</td>
+ <td>2</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>7&#8539;</td>
+ <td>22&#8540;</td>
+ <td>23&#8539;</td>
+ <td>3</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>7&frac14;</td>
+ <td>22&frac34;</td>
+ <td>23&frac12;</td>
+ <td>3</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>7&#8540;</td>
+ <td>23&#8539;</td>
+ <td>23&#8542;</td>
+ <td>2</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td>7&frac12;</td>
+ <td>23&frac12;</td>
+ <td>24&frac14;</td>
+ <td>1</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>All hats larger than these are called "extra sizes."</p>
+
+<p>The average size, then, of the crania of white races
+in the United States, is about 22&frac12; inches circumference,
+including the hair and scalp, for which about
+1&frac12; inches should be deducted, leaving a mean horizontal
+periphery, for adult males, of 21 inches. The
+measurements of the purest Teutonic races in Germany
+and other countries, would give a larger mean; and I
+have reason to believe that the population of France,
+which is principally Celtic, would yield a smaller mean.
+I hope that others will extend these observations.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Morton's measurements of aboriginal American
+races, give a mean of but 19&frac12; inches; and this statement
+is greatly strengthened by the fact that the
+Mexicans and other Indian races wear much smaller<span class="pagenum"><a name="page471" id="page471">[Pg 471]</a></span>
+hats than our white races. (See <cite>Types of Mankind</cite>, p.
+289 and 453.)</p>
+
+<p>Prof. Tiedemann, of Heidelberg, asserts that the head
+of the negro is as large as that of the white man, but
+this we have shown to be an error. (<cite>Types of Mankind</cite>,
+p. 453.)</p>
+
+<p>Tiedemann adopted the vulgar error of grouping
+together under the term <em>Caucasian</em>, all the Indo-Germanic,
+Shemitic, and Nilotic races; also all the black
+and dark races of Africa under the term <em>Negro</em>. Now
+I have shown that the Hindoo and Egyptian races
+possess about 12 cubic inches less of brain than the
+Teutonic; and the Hottentots about 8 inches less than
+the Negro proper. I affirm that no valid reason has
+ever been assigned why the Teuton and Hindoo, or
+Hottentot and Negro, should be classed together in
+their cranial measurements. I can discover no facts
+which can assign a greater age to one of these races
+than another; and unless Professor Tiedemann can
+overcome these difficulties, he has no right to assume
+identity for the various races he is pleased to group
+under each of his arbitrary divisions. Mummies from
+the catacombs, and portraits on the monuments, show
+that the heads of races on both sides of the Red Sea
+have remained unchanged 4000 years.</p>
+
+<p>As Dr. Morton tabulated his skulls on the same
+arbitrary basis, I abandon his arrangement and present
+his facts as they stand in nature, allowing the reader to
+compare and judge for himself. The following table<span class="pagenum"><a name="page472" id="page472">[Pg 472]</a></span>
+gives the <em>internal capacity</em> in cubic inches, and it will be
+seen that the measurements arrange themselves in a
+sliding scale of 17 cubic inches from the Teuton down
+to the Hottentot and Australian.</p>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table title="Average Internal Capacity of the brains of various races"
+cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0"
+summary="The modern white races (specifically the Teutonic group) have the largest internal mean
+brain capacity, while Australians have the lowest">
+<caption>Internal Capacity of Brain in Cubic Inches.</caption>
+<thead>
+ <tr>
+ <th id="h1">RACES.</th>
+ <th scope="col" colspan="2">Internal capacity.<br />Mean.</th>
+ <th scope="col">Internal capacity.<br />Mean.</th>
+ </tr>
+</thead>
+<tbody>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap">Modern White Races&mdash;</th>
+ <td colspan="3"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left cindent" id="r1">Teutonic group</td>
+ <td class="right" headers="r1">92</td>
+ <td></td>
+ <td headers="r1">92</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left cindent" id="r2">Pelasgic group</td>
+ <td class="right" headers="r2">84</td>
+ <td style="width: 13%; text-align:left;" rowspan="3"><span style="font-size:400%;font-weight:lighter;margin:0;line-height:.5em;text-indent:0;">}</span></td>
+ <td rowspan="3" headers="r2 r3 r4">88</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left cindent" id="r3">Celtic group</td>
+ <td class="right" headers="r3">87</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left cindent" id="r4">Shemitic group</td>
+ <td class="right" headers="r4">89</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" id="r5">Ancient Pelasgic</th>
+ <td class="right" headers="r5">88</td>
+ <td colspan="2"></td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" id="r6">Malays</th>
+ <td class="right" headers="r6">85</td>
+ <td style="width: 13%; text-align:left;" rowspan="2"><span style="font-size:300%;font-weight:lighter;margin:0;line-height:.5em;text-indent:0;">}</span></td>
+ <td rowspan="2" headers="r6 r7">83&frac12;</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" id="r7">Chinese</th>
+ <td class="right" headers="r7">82</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" id="r8">Negroes (African)</th>
+ <td class="right" headers="r8">83</td>
+ <td></td>
+ <td headers="r8">83</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" id="r9">Indostanese</th>
+ <td class="right" headers="r9">80</td>
+ <td style="width: 13%; text-align:left;" rowspan="3"><span style="font-size:400%;font-weight:lighter;margin:0;line-height:.5em;text-indent:0;">}</span></td>
+ <td rowspan="3" headers="r9 r10 r11">80</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left" id="r10"><span class="smcap">Fellahs</span> (modern Egyptians)</th>
+ <td class="right" headers="r10">80</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left" id="r11"><span class="smcap">Egyptians</span> (ancient)</th>
+ <td class="right" headers="r8">80</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap">American Group&mdash;</th>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left cindent" id="r12">Toltecan family</td>
+ <td class="right" headers="r12">77</td>
+ <td style="width: 13%; text-align:left;" rowspan="2"><span style="font-size:300%;font-weight:lighter;margin:0;line-height:.5em;text-indent:0;">}</span></td>
+ <td rowspan="2" headers="r12 r13">79</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="left cindent" id="r13">Barbarous tribes</td>
+ <td class="right" headers="r13">84</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" id="r14">Hottentots</th>
+ <td class="right" headers="r14">75</td>
+ <td style="width: 13%; text-align:left;" rowspan="2"><span style="font-size:300%;font-weight:lighter;margin:0;line-height:.5em;text-indent:0;">}</span></td>
+ <td rowspan="2" headers="r14 r15">75</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th class="left smcap" id="r15">Australians</th>
+ <td class="right" headers="r15">75</td>
+ </tr>
+</tbody>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Such has been, through several thousand years, the
+incessant commingling of races, that we are free to
+admit that absolute accuracy in measurements of crania
+cannot now be attained. Yet so constant are the
+results in contrasting groups, that no unprejudiced
+mind can deny that there is a wide and well-marked
+disparity in the cranial developments of races.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page473" id="page473">[Pg 473]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a name="B" id="B"></a>B.</h3>
+
+
+<p>As the discussion stands at the present day, we may
+assume that the scientific world is pretty equally divided
+on the question of unity of the human family,
+and the point is to be settled by facts, and not by
+names. Natural history is a comparatively new and
+still rapidly progressing science, and the study of man
+has been one of the last departments to attract serious
+attention. Blumenbach and Prichard, who may be
+regarded among the early explorers in this vast field,
+have but recently been numbered with the dead; and
+we may safely assert that the last ten years have
+brought forth materials which have shed an entirely new
+light on this subject.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Agassiz, Dr. Morton, Prof. Leidy, and many
+other naturalists of the United States, contend for an
+original diversity in the races of men, and we shall
+proceed to give some of the reasons why we have
+adopted similar views. Two of the latest writers of
+any note on the opposite side are the Rev. Dr. Bachman,
+of Charleston, and M. Flourens, of Paris; and
+as these gentlemen have very fully travelled over the
+argument opposed to us, we shall take the liberty,
+in the course of our remarks, to offer some objections
+to their views.</p>
+
+<p>The great difficulty in this discussion is, to define<span class="pagenum"><a name="page474" id="page474">[Pg 474]</a></span>
+clearly what meaning should be attached to the term
+<em>species</em>; and to the illustration of this point, mainly,
+will our labors be confined. <em>Genera</em> are, for the most
+part, well defined by <em>anatomical</em> characters, and little
+dispute exists respecting them; but no successful attempt
+has yet been made to designate <em>species</em> in this
+way, and it is by their <em>permanency of type alone</em>, as
+ascertained from written or monumental records, that
+our decision can be guided.</p>
+
+
+<h4>SPECIES.</h4>
+
+<p>The following definitions of species have been selected
+by Dr. Bachman, and may be received as unexceptionable
+as any others; but we shall show that they
+fall far short of the true difficulties of the case.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"We are under the necessity of admitting the existence of
+certain forms, which have perpetuated themselves, from the
+beginning of the world, without exceeding the limits prescribed:
+all the individuals belonging to one of these forms constitute a
+<em>species</em>."&mdash;<cite class="author">Cuvier.</cite></p>
+
+<p>"We unite under the designation species all those individuals
+who mutually bear to each other so close a resemblance as to
+allow of our supposing that they may have proceeded originally
+from a single being, or a single pair."&mdash;<cite class="author">De Candolle.</cite></p>
+
+<p>"The name species is applied to an assemblage of individuals
+which bear a strong resemblance to each other, and which are
+perpetuated with the same essential qualities. Thus man, the
+dog, the horse, constitute to the zoologist so many distinct species."&mdash;<cite class="author">Milne
+Edwards</cite> and <cite class="author">Achille Compte</cite>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We have no objection to this definition, but the examples
+cited are points in dispute, and not received by
+many of the leading naturalists of the day.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page475" id="page475">[Pg 475]</a></span>
+"Species are fixed and permanent forms of being, exhibiting
+indeed certain modes of variation, of which they may be more
+or less susceptible, but maintaining throughout those modifications
+a sameness of structural essentials, transmitted from generation
+to generation, and never lost by the influence of causes
+which otherwise produce obvious effects. <em>Varieties</em> are either
+accidental or the result of the care and culture of man."<a name="FNanchor-198" id="FNanchor-198"></a><a href="#Footnote-198" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 198.">[198]</a>&mdash;<cite class="author">Martin.</cite></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Dr. Bachman gives another, substantially the same,
+from Agassiz; and also one of his own, to which he
+appends, as an additional test of species, the production
+of "<em>fertile offspring by association</em>." In this definition
+the doctor <em>assumes</em> one of the main points in
+dispute.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<em>Varieties</em>," says Dr. Bachman, "are those that are produced
+within the limits of particular species, and have not existed
+from its origin. They sometimes originate in wild species, especially
+those that have a wide geographical range, and are thus
+exposed to change of climate and temperature," &amp;c. * * *
+"<em>Permanent varieties</em> are such as, having once taken place, are
+propagated in perpetuity, and do not change their characteristics
+unless they breed with other varieties."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We may remark that the existence of such <em>permanent
+varieties</em> as here described is also in dispute.</p>
+
+<p>The same author continues:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"On comparing these definitions, as given by various naturalists,
+each in his own language, it will be perceived that there is
+no essential difference in the various views expressed in regard
+to the characters by which a species is designated. They all
+regard it as 'the lowest term to which we descend, with the exception
+of <em>varieties</em>, such as are seen in domestic animals.' They
+are, to examine the external and internal organization of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page476" id="page476">[Pg 476]</a></span>
+animal or plant&mdash;they are, to compare it with kindred species,
+and if by this examination they are found to possess <em>permanent
+characters differing from those of other species, it proves itself to be
+a distinct species</em>. When this fact is satisfactorily ascertained, and
+the specimen is not found a domestic species, in which varieties
+always occur, presumptive evidence is afforded of its having had
+a primordial existence. We infer this from the fact that no
+species is the production of blind chance, and that within the
+<em>knowledge of history</em> no true species, but <em>varieties</em> only, whose
+origin can be <em>distinctly traced to existing and well-known species</em>,
+have made their appearance in the world. This, then, is the
+only means within the knowledge of man by which any species
+of plant or animal <em>can be shown</em> to be primordial. The peculiar
+form and characters designated the species, and its origin was a
+necessary inference derived from the characters stamped on it
+by the hand of the Creator."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To all the positions thus far taken by Dr. Bachman,
+we most cheerfully subscribe; they are strictly scientific,
+and by such <ins class="correction" title="Transcriber's note: Corrected typo 'criterea'">criteria</ins> alone do we desire to test the
+unity of the human family; but we must enter a decided
+demurrer to the assertion which follows, viz: that, "according
+to the universally received definition of species,
+all the individuals of the human race are proved to be
+of one species." When it shall be shown that all the
+races of men, dogs, horses, cattle, wolves, foxes, &amp;c.,
+are "varieties only, <em>whose origin can be distinctly traced
+to existing and well-known species</em>," we may then yield
+the point; but we must be permitted to say that Dr.
+Bachman is the only naturalist, as far as we know, who
+has assumed to know these original types.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if the reader will turn back and review carefully
+all the definitions of species cited, he will perceive<span class="pagenum"><a name="page477" id="page477">[Pg 477]</a></span>
+that they are not based upon <em>anatomical characters</em>, but
+simply on the <em>permanency</em> of certain organic forms,
+and that this permanence of form is determined by its
+<em>history</em> alone.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Owen, of London, has thrown the weight
+of his great name into the scale, and tells us that "man
+is the sole species of his genus, the sole representative
+of his order." But proving that man is not a monkey,
+as the professor has done in the lecture alluded to, does
+not prove that men are all of <em>one</em> species, according to
+any definition yet received: he has made the assertion,
+but has assigned no scientific reasons to sustain it. No
+one would be more rejoiced than ourselves, to see the
+great talent and learning of Professor Owen brought
+fully to bear on this point; but, like most naturalists,
+he has overlooked one of the most important points in
+this discussion&mdash;<em>the monumental history of man</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Will Professor Owen or Dr. Bachman tell us wherein
+the lion and tiger&mdash;the dog, wolf, fox, and jackal&mdash;the
+fossil horse, and living species&mdash;the Siberian mammoth
+and the Indian elephant, differ more from each other
+than the white man and the negro? Are not all these
+regarded by naturalists as distinct species, and yet who
+pretends to be able to distinguish the skeleton of one
+from the other by specific characters?</p>
+
+<p>The examples just cited, of living species, have been
+decided upon simply from their permanency of type, as
+derived from their history; and we say that, by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page478" id="page478">[Pg 478]</a></span>
+same process of reasoning, the races of men depicted
+on the monuments of Egypt, five thousand years ago,
+and which have maintained their types through all time
+and all climates since, are <em>distinct species</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Morton defines species&mdash;"a primordial organic
+form," and determines these forms by their permanence
+through all human records; and Mr. Agassiz, who
+adopts this definition, adds: "Species are thus distinct
+forms of organic life, the origin of which is lost in the
+primitive establishment of the state of things now existing;
+and varieties are such modification of the species
+as may return to the typical form under temporary
+influences."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Bachman objects very strongly to this definition,
+and declares it a "cunning device, and, to all intents,
+an <i>ex post facto</i> law," suddenly conjured up during a
+controversy, to avoid the difficulties of the case; but
+we have serious doubts whether these gentlemen are
+capable of such subterfuge in matters of science,
+and confess that we cannot see any substantial difference
+between their definition and those given by
+Dr. Bachman. Morton and Agassiz determine a form
+to be "<em>primordial</em>" by its permanency, as proved by
+history, and the other definitions assign no other
+test.</p>
+
+<p>Professor Leidy, who has not only studied the "lower
+departments of zoology," like Mr. Agassiz, but also
+the "higher forms of animal life," says that "too<span class="pagenum"><a name="page479" id="page479">[Pg 479]</a></span>
+much importance has been attached to the term species,"
+and gives the following definition: "A species
+of plant or animal may be defined to be an immutable
+organic form, whose characteristic distinctions may
+always be recognized by <em>a study of its history</em>."<a name="FNanchor-199" id="FNanchor-199"></a><a href="#Footnote-199" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 199.">[199]</a></p>
+
+<p>M. Jourdain, under the head "Esp&egrave;ce," in his <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Dictionnaire
+des Termes des Sciences Naturelles</cite>, after citing
+a long list of definitions from leading authors, concludes
+with the following remarks, which, as the question
+now stands before the world, places the term species
+just where it should be:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"It is evident that we can, among organized bodies, regard as
+a <em>species</em> only such a collection of beings as resemble each other
+more than they resemble others, and which, by a consent more
+or less unanimous, it is agreed to designate by a common name;
+for a <em>species</em> is but a simple <em>abstraction of the mind</em>, and not a
+group, exactly determined by nature herself, as ancient as she
+is, and of which she has irrevocably traced the limits. It is in
+the definition of species that we recognize how far the influence
+of ideas adopted without examination in youth is powerful in
+obscuring the most simple ideas of general physics."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Although not written with the expectation of publication,
+I will take the liberty of publishing the following
+private letter just received from Prof. Leidy. He
+has not appeared at all in this controversy before the
+public, and we may safely say that no one can be better
+qualified than he is to express an opinion on this question
+of species.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page480" id="page480">[Pg 480]</a></span>
+"With all the contention about the question of what constitutes
+a <em>species</em>, there appears to be almost no difficulty, comparatively,
+in its practical recognition. Species of plants and animals
+are daily determined, and the characters which are given to distinguish
+them are viewed by the great body of naturalists as
+sufficient. All the definitions, however, which have been given
+for a species, are objectionable. Morton says: 'A species is a
+primordial organic form.' But how shall we distinguish the
+latter? How can it be proved that any existing forms primordially
+were distinct? In my attempted definition, I think, I
+fail, for I only direct how species are discovered.</p>
+
+<p>"According to the practical determination of a species by
+naturalists, in a late number of the <cite>Proceedings</cite> of our Academy
+(vol. vii. p. 201), I observe: 'A species is a mere convenient
+word with which naturalists empirically designate groups of
+organized beings possessing characters of comparative constancy,
+as far as historic experience has guided them in giving
+due weight to such constancy.'</p>
+
+<p>"According to this definition, the races of men are evidently
+distinct species. But it may be said that the definition is given
+to suit the circumstances. So it is, and so it should be; or, if
+not, then all characterized species should conform to an arbitrary
+definition. The species of gyp&aelig;tus, hali&aelig;tus, tanagra,
+and of many other genera of birds, are no more distinguishable
+than the species of men; and, I repeat, the anatomy of one
+species of hali&aelig;tus, or of any other genus, will answer for that
+of all the other species of the same genus. The same is the
+case with mammals. One species of felis, ursus, or equus will
+give the exact anatomy of all the other species in each genus,
+just as you may study the anatomy of the white man upon the
+black man. While Prof. Richard Owen will compare the orang
+with man, and therefore deduce all races of the latter to be of
+one species, he divides the genus cervus into several other
+genera, and yet there is no difference in their internal anatomy;
+while he considers the horse and the ass as two distinct genera,
+and says that a certain fossil horse-tooth, carefully compared
+with the corresponding tooth of the recent horse, showed no differences,
+excepting in being a little more curved, he considers it
+a distinct species, under the name of equus curvidens; and yet,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page481" id="page481">[Pg 481]</a></span>
+with differences of greater value in the jaws of the negro and
+white man, he considers them the same.</p>
+
+<p>"In the restricted genera of vertebrata of modern naturalists,
+the specific characters are founded on the external appendages,
+for the most part&mdash;differences in the scales, horns, antlers,
+feathers, hairs, or bills. Just as you separate the black and
+white man by the difference in the color of the skin and the
+character of the hair, so do we separate the species of bears, or
+cats, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>"<em class="smcap">Philadelphia</em>, <i>April 18, 1855</i>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We might thus go on and multiply, to the extent of
+an octavo volume, evidence to show how vague and unsettled
+is the term species among naturalists, and that,
+when we abandon historical records, we have no reliable
+guide left. Moreover, were we able to establish perfectly
+reliable landmarks between species, we still have
+no means of determining whether they were originally
+created in one pair, or many pairs. The latter is certainly
+the most rational supposition: there is every
+reason to believe that the earth and the sea brought
+forth "<em>abundantly</em>" of each species.</p>
+
+<p>It must be clear to the reader, from the evidence
+above adduced, that Dr. Bachman claims far too much
+when he asserts that&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Naturalists can be found, in Europe and America, who,
+without any <em>vain boast</em>, can distinguish every species of bird and
+quadruped on their separate continents; and the characters
+which distinguish and separate the several species are as distinct
+and infallible as are those which form the genera."<a name="FNanchor-200" id="FNanchor-200"></a><a href="#Footnote-200" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 200.">[200]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page482" id="page482">[Pg 482]</a></span>
+And, again, when he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"From the opportunities we have enjoyed in the examination
+of the varieties and species of domesticated quadrupeds and
+birds, we have never found any difficulty in deciding on the species
+to which these varieties belong."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Those of us who are still groping in darkness certainly
+have a right to ask who are the authorities
+alluded to, and what are those "characters which distinguish
+and separate species" as distinctly and infallibly
+as "genera?" They are certainly not in print.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor must pardon us for reminding him that
+there is printed evidence that his own mind is not
+always free from doubts. In the introduction of Audubon
+and Bachman's <cite>Quadrupeds of America</cite>, p. vii.,
+it is said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Although <em>genera</em> may be easily ascertained by the forms and
+dental arrangements peculiar to each, many <em>species</em> so nearly
+approach each other in size, while they are so variable in color,
+that it is exceedingly difficult to separate them with positive
+certainty."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Again, in speaking of the genus <i>vulpes</i> (foxes), the
+same work says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The characters of this genus differ so slightly from those of
+the genus <i>canis</i>, that we are induced to pause before removing
+it from the sub-genus in which it had so long remained. As a
+general rule, we are obliged to <em>admit that a large fox is a wolf,
+and a small wolf may be termed a fox</em>. So inconveniently large,
+however, is the list of species in the old genus <i>canis</i>, that it is,
+we think, advisable to separate into distinct groups such species
+as possess any characters different from true wolves."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page483" id="page483">[Pg 483]</a></span>Speaking of the origin of the domestic dog, Dr. Bachman,
+in his work on <cite>Unity of Races</cite>, p. 63, says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Notwithstanding all these difficulties&mdash;and we confess we
+are not free from some doubts in regard to their identity (dog
+and wolf)&mdash;if we were called upon to decide on any wild species
+as the progenitor of our dogs, we would sooner fix upon the
+large wolf than on any other dog, hyena, or jackal," &amp;c.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The doctor is unable, here at least (and we can point
+out many other cases), to "designate species;" and the
+recent investigations of Flourens, at the <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Jardin des
+Plantes</cite>, prove him wrong as regards the origin of the
+dog. The dog is not derived from the "large wolf,"
+but, with it, produces hybrids, sterile after the third
+generation. The dog forms a genus apart.</p>
+
+<p>We repeat, then, that in a large number of <em>genera</em>, the
+species cannot be separated by any anatomical characters,
+and that it is from their history alone naturalists
+have arrived at those minute divisions now generally
+received. We may, without the fear of contradiction,
+go a step further, and assert that several of the races of
+men are as widely separated in physical organization,
+physiological and psychological characters, as are the
+canid&aelig;, equid&aelig;, felines, elephants, bears and others.
+When the white races of Europe, the Mongols of Asia,
+the aborigines of America, the black races of Africa
+and Oceanica are placed beside each other, they are
+marked by stronger differences than are the species of
+the genera above named. It has been objected that
+these gaps are filled by intermediate links which make<span class="pagenum"><a name="page484" id="page484">[Pg 484]</a></span>
+the chain complete from one extremity to the other.
+The admission of the fact does not invalidate our position,
+for we have shown elsewhere (see <cite>Types of Mankind</cite>)
+<em>gradation</em> is the law of nature. The extreme
+types, we have proven, have been distinct for more than
+5000 years, and no existing causes during that time
+have transformed one type into another. The well-marked
+negro type, for example, stands face to face
+with the white type on the monuments of Egypt; and
+they differ more from each other than the dog and
+wolf, ass and <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Equis Hemionus</i>, lion and tiger, &amp;c.
+The hair and skin, the size and shape of head, the
+pelvis, the extremities, and other points, separate certain
+African and Oceanican negroes more widely than the
+above species. This will not be questioned, whatever
+difference of opinion may exist with regard to the permanency
+of these forms. In the language of Prof.
+Leidy, "the question to be determined is, whether the
+differences in the races of men are as permanent and of
+as much value as those which characterize species in
+the lower genera of animals." These races of men too
+are governed by the same laws of geographical distribution,
+as the species of the lower genera; they are
+found, as far back as history can trace them, as widely
+separated as possible, and surrounded by local Flor&aelig;
+and Faun&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page485" id="page485">[Pg 485]</a></span></p>
+
+<h4>VARIETIES.</h4>
+
+<p>This term is very conveniently introduced to explain
+all the difficulties which embarrass this discussion.
+Dr. Bachman insists that all the races of men are mere
+<em>varieties</em>, and sustains the opinion by a repetition of
+those analogies which have been so often drawn from
+the animal kingdom by Prichard and his school. It
+is well known that those animals which have been
+domesticated undergo, in a few generations, very remarkable
+changes in color, form, size, habits, &amp;c. For
+example, all the hogs, black, white, brown, gray,
+spotted, &amp;c., now found scattered over the earth, have,
+it is said, their parentage in one pair of wild hogs.
+"This being admitted," says Dr. B. "we invite the advocates
+of plurality in the human species to show wherein
+these varieties are less striking than their eight (alluding
+to Agassiz) originally created nations." Again&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"And how has the discovery been made that all the permanent
+races are mere varieties, and not 'originally created'
+species, or 'primitive varieties?' Simply because the naturalists
+of Germany, finding that the original wild hog still exists
+in their forests, have, in a thousand instances, reclaimed them
+from the woods. By this means they have discovered that their
+descendants, <em>after a few generations</em>, lose their ferocity, assume
+all colors," &amp;c.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The same reasoning is applied to horses, cattle,
+goats, sheep, &amp;c., while many, if not most of the best
+naturalists of the day deny that we know anything of
+the origin of our domestic animals. Geoffroy St.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page486" id="page486">[Pg 486]</a></span>
+Hilaire, in his work, just out, denies it in toto. We
+are, however, for the sake of argument, willing to
+admit all the examples, and all he claims with regard
+to the origin of endless varieties in domesticated
+animals.<a name="FNanchor-201" id="FNanchor-201"></a><a href="#Footnote-201" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 201.">[201]</a></p>
+
+<p>Let us, on the other hand, "invite the advocates of
+<em>unity</em> of the human species" to say when and where
+such varieties have sprung up in the human family.
+We not only have the written history of man for 2000
+years, but his monumental history for 2000 more; and
+yet, while the naturalists of Germany are catching wild
+hogs, and recording in a thousand instances "after a
+few generations" these wonderful changes, no one has
+yet pointed out anything analogous in the human
+family; the porcupine family in England, a few spotted
+Mexicans, &amp;c., do not meet the case; history records
+the origin of no permanent variety. No race of men
+has in the same country turned black, brown, gray,
+white, and spotted. The negroes in America have not
+in ten generations turned to all colors, though fully<span class="pagenum"><a name="page487" id="page487">[Pg 487]</a></span>
+<em>domesticated</em>, like pigs and turkeys. The Jews in all
+countries for 2000 years are still Jews. The gypsies
+are everywhere still gypsies. In India, the different
+castes, of different colors, have been living together
+several thousand years, and are still distinct, &amp;c. &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Nor does domestication affect all animals and fowls
+equally; compare the camel, ass, and deer, with the
+hog and dog; the Guinea fowl, pea fowl, and goose,
+with pigeons, turkeys, and common fowls. In fact, no
+one animal can be taken as an analogue for another:
+each has its own physiological laws; each is influenced
+differently and in different degrees by the same external
+influences. How, then, can an animal be taken as an
+analogue for man?</p>
+
+<p>We have also abundant authority to show that all
+wild species do not present the same uniformity in external
+characters.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"All packs of American wolves usually consist of various
+shades of color, and varieties nearly black have been occasionally
+found in every part of the United States.... In
+a gang of wolves which existed in Colleton District, South Carolina,
+a few years ago (sixteen of which were killed by hunters
+in eighteen months), we were informed that about one-fifth were
+black, and the others of every shade of color, from black to
+dusky gray and yellowish white."&mdash;<cite class="author">Audubon &amp; Bachman</cite>, 2d
+Amer. ed., vol. ii. pp. 130-1.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Speaking of the white American wolf, the same
+authors say:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Their gait and movements are precisely the same as those
+of the common dog, and their mode of copulating and number
+of young brought forth at a litter, are about the same." (It might<span class="pagenum"><a name="page488" id="page488">[Pg 488]</a></span>
+have been added that their number of bones, teeth, whole anatomical
+structure are the same.) "The diversity of their size
+and color is remarkable, no two being quite alike."...
+"The wolves of the prairies ... produce from six to eleven at
+a birth, of which there are very seldom two alike in color."&mdash;<cite>Op.
+cit.</cite>, p. 159.</p>
+
+<p>"The common American wolf, Richardson observes, sometimes
+shows remarkable diversity of color. On the banks of
+the Mackenzie River I saw five young wolves leaping and tumbling
+over each other with all the playfulness of the puppies of
+the domestic dog, and it is not improbable they were all of one
+litter. One of them was pied, another black, and the rest
+showed the colors of the common gray wolves."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The same diversity is seen in the prairie wolf, and
+naturalists have been much embarrassed in classifying
+the various wolves on account of colors, size, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>All this is independent of <em>domestication</em>, and shows
+the uncertainty of analogues; and still it is remarkable
+that though considerable variety exists in the native
+dogs of America in color and size, they do not run
+into the thousand grotesque forms seen on the old
+continent, where a much greater mixture exists. The
+dogs of America, like the aboriginal races of men, are
+comparatively uniform. In the East, where various
+races have come together, the men, like the dogs, present
+endless varieties, Egypt, Assyria, India, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>Let us suppose that one variety of hog had been
+discovered in Africa, one in Asia, one in Europe, one
+in Australia, another in America, as well marked as
+those Dr. B. describes; that these varieties had been
+transferred to other climates as have been Jews,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page489" id="page489">[Pg 489]</a></span>
+gypsies, negroes, &amp;c., and had remained for ages
+without change of form or color, would they be considered
+as distinct species or not?&mdash;can any one doubt?
+The rule must work both ways, or the argument falls to
+the ground.</p>
+
+<p>In fact the Dr. himself makes admissions which fully
+refute his whole theory.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Whilst," says he, "we are willing to allow some weight to
+the argument advanced by President Smyth, who endeavors to
+account for the varieties in man from the combined influences
+of three causes, 'climate, the state of society, and manner of
+living,' we are free to admit that it is impossible to account for
+the varieties in the human family from the causes which he has
+assigned."<a name="FNanchor-202" id="FNanchor-202"></a><a href="#Footnote-202" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 202.">[202]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The Dr. further admits, in the same work, that the
+races have been <em>permanent</em> since the time of the old
+Egyptian empire, and <em>supposes</em> that at some extremely
+remote time, of which we have no record, that "they
+were more susceptible of producing varieties than at a
+later period." These suppositions answer a very good
+purpose in theology, but do not meet the requirements
+of science.</p>
+
+
+<h4>HYBRIDITY.</h4>
+
+<p>Having shown the insufficiency of all the other
+arguments in establishing the landmarks of <em>species</em>, let
+us now turn to those based on <em>hybridity</em>, which seems
+to be the last stronghold of the unity party. On this<span class="pagenum"><a name="page490" id="page490">[Pg 490]</a></span>
+point hang all the difficulties of M. Gobineau, and had
+he been posted up to date here, his doubts would all
+have vanished. The last twelve months have added
+some very important facts to those previously published,
+and we shall, with as little detail as possible,
+present the subject in its newest light.</p>
+
+<p>It is contended that when two animals of distinct
+species, or, in other words, of distinct origin, are bred
+together, they produce a hybrid which is <em>infertile</em>, or
+which at least becomes sterile in a few generations if
+preserved free from admixture with the parent stocks.
+It is assumed that unlimited prolificness is a certain test
+of community of origin.</p>
+
+<p>We, on the contrary, contend that there is no abrupt
+line of demarcation; that no complete laws of hybridity
+have yet been established; that there is a <em>regular
+gradation</em> in the prolificness of the species, and that,
+according to the best lights we now possess, there is a
+continued series from perfect sterility to perfect prolificacy.
+The degrees may be expressed in the following
+language:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. That in which hybrids never reproduce; in other
+words, where the mixed progeny begins and ends with
+the first cross.</p>
+
+<p>2. That in which the hybrids are incapable of producing
+<i>inter se</i>, but multiply by union with the parent
+stock.</p>
+
+<p>3. That in which animals of unquestionably distinct<span class="pagenum"><a name="page491" id="page491">[Pg 491]</a></span>
+species produce a progeny which are prolific <i>inter se</i>,
+but have a tendency to run out.</p>
+
+<p>4. That which takes place between closely proximate
+species; among mankind, for example, and among those
+domestic animals most essential to human wants and
+happiness; here the prolificacy is unlimited.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to be a law that in those genera where
+several or many species exist, there is a certain gradation
+which is shown in degrees of hybridity; some
+having greater affinity than others. Experiments are
+still wanting to make our knowledge perfect, but we
+know enough to establish our points.</p>
+
+<p>There are many points we have not space to dwell
+on, as the relative influence of the male and female on
+the offspring; the tendency of one species to predominate
+over another; the tendency of types to
+"crop out" after lying dormant for many generations;
+the fact that in certain species some of the progeny
+take after one parent and some after the other, while
+in other cases the offspring presents a medium type, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>The genus <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Equus</i> (Horse) comprises six species, of
+which three belong to Asia, and three to Africa. The
+Asiatic species are the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Equus Caballus</i> (Horse), <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Equus
+Hemionus</i> (Dzigguetai), and <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Equus Asinus</i> (Ass).
+Those of Africa are the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Equus Zebra</i> (Zebra), <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Equus
+Montanus</i> (Daw), and the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Equus Quaccha</i> (Quagga).
+The horse and ass alone have been submitted to domestication
+from time immemorial; the others have
+remained wild.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page492" id="page492">[Pg 492]</a></span>It is well known that the horse and ass produce
+together an unprolific mule, and as these two species
+are the furthest removed from each other in their
+physical structure, Dr. Morton long since suggested
+that intermediate species bred together would show a
+higher degree of prolificness, and this prediction has
+been vindicated by experiments recently made in the
+Garden of Plants at Paris, where the ass and dzigguetai
+have been bred together for the last ten years.
+"What is very remarkable, these hybrids differ considerably
+from each other; some resemble much more
+closely the dzigguetai, others the ass." In regard to
+the product of the male dzigguetai and the jenny, Mr.
+Geoffroy St. Hilaire says:<a name="FNanchor-203" id="FNanchor-203"></a><a href="#Footnote-203" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 203.">[203]</a>&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Another fact, not less worthy of interest, is the fecundity, if
+not of all the mules, at least the firstborn among them; with
+regard to this, the fact is certain; he has produced several
+times with Jennies, and once with the female dzigguetai, the
+only one he has covered."<a name="FNanchor-204" id="FNanchor-204"></a><a href="#Footnote-204" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 204.">[204]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>At a meeting of the "<span xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Soci&eacute;t&eacute; Zoologique d'Acclimation</span>,"</p>
+
+<blockquote><p xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">M. Richard (du Cantal) "parle des essais de croisements de
+l'h&eacute;mione avec l'anesse, et dit qu'ils ont donn&egrave; un mulet beaucoup
+<em>plus ardent</em> que l'&acirc;ne. Il asserte que les produits de
+l'h&eacute;mione avec l'&acirc;ne, sont f&eacute;conds, et que le m&eacute;tis, nomm&eacute;
+Polka, &agrave; d&eacute;ja produit."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page493" id="page493">[Pg 493]</a></span>To what extent the prolificness of these two species
+will go is yet to be determined, and there is an unexplored
+field still open among the other species of this
+genus; it is highly probable that a gradation may be
+established from sterility, up to perfect prolificacy.</p>
+
+<p>Not only do the female ass and the male onager
+breed together, but a male offspring of this cross, with
+a mare, produces an animal more docile than either
+parent, and combining the best physical qualities,
+such as strength, speed, &amp;c.; whence the ancients preferred
+the onager to the ass, for the production of
+mules.<a name="FNanchor-205" id="FNanchor-205"></a><a href="#Footnote-205" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 205.">[205]</a> Mr. Gliddon, who lived upwards of twenty
+years in Egypt and other eastern countries, informs me
+this opinion is still prevalent in Egypt, and is acted
+upon more particularly in Arabia, Persia, &amp;c., where
+the <em>gour</em>, or wild ass, still roams the desert. The zebra
+has also been several times crossed with the horse.</p>
+
+<p>The genus <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">canis</i> contains a great many species, as
+domestic dogs, wolves, foxes, jackals, &amp;c., and much
+discussion exists as to which are really species and
+which mere varieties. In this genus experiments in
+crossing have been carried a step further than in the
+<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Equid&aelig;</i>, but there is much yet to be done. All the
+species produce prolific offspring, but how far the
+prolificness might extend in each instance is not known;
+there is reason to believe that every grade would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page494" id="page494">[Pg 494]</a></span>
+found except that of absolute sterility which is seen
+in the offspring of the horse and ass.</p>
+
+<p>The following facts are given by M. Flourens, and
+are the result of his own observations at the <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Jardin des
+Plantes</cite>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The hybrids of the dog and wolf are sterile after the <em>third</em>
+generation; those of the jackal and dog, are so after the <em>fourth</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"Moreover, if one of these hybrids is bred with one of the
+primitive species, they soon return, completely and totally, to
+this species.</p>
+
+<p>"My experiments on the crossing of species have given me
+opportunities of making a great many observations of this
+kind.</p>
+
+<p>"The union of the dog and jackal produces a hybrid&mdash;a mixed
+animal, an animal partaking almost equally of the two, but
+in which, however, the type of the <em>jackal</em> predominates over
+that of the <em>dog</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"I have remarked, in fact, in my experiments, that all types
+are not equally dominant and persistent. The type of the dog
+is more persistent than that of the wolf&mdash;that of the jackal
+more than that of the dog; that of the horse is less than that
+of the ass, &amp;c. The hybrid of the dog and the wolf partakes
+more of the dog than the wolf; the hybrid of the jackal and
+dog, takes more after the jackal than dog; the hybrid of the
+horse and the ass partakes less of the horse than the ass; it
+has the ears, back, rump, voice of the ass; the horse neighs,
+the ass brays, and the mule brays like the ass, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>"The hybrid of the dog and jackal, then, partakes more of
+the jackal than dog&mdash;it has straight ears, hanging tail, does not
+bark, and is wild&mdash;it is more jackal than dog.</p>
+
+<p>"So much for the <strong class="smcap">first</strong> cross product of the dog with the
+jackal. I continue to unite, from generation to generation, the
+successive products with one of the two primitive stocks&mdash;with
+that of the dog, for example. The hybrid of the <em>second generation</em>
+does not yet bark, but has already the ears pendent at the
+ends, and is less savage. The hybrid of the third generation<span class="pagenum"><a name="page495" id="page495">[Pg 495]</a></span>
+barks, has the ears pendent, the tail turned up, and is no longer
+wild. The hybrid of the <em>fourth generation</em> is entirely a dog.</p>
+
+<p>"Four generations, then, have sufficed to re-establish one of
+the two primitive types&mdash;the type of the dog; and four generations
+suffice, also, to bring back the other type."<a name="FNanchor-206" id="FNanchor-206"></a><a href="#Footnote-206" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 206.">[206]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>From the foregoing facts, M. Flourens deduces,
+without assigning a reason, the following <i>non sequitur</i>:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Thus, then, either hybrids, born of the union of two distinct
+species, unite and soon become sterile, or they unite with
+one of the parent stocks, and soon return to this type&mdash;they in
+no case give what may be called a new species, that is to say,
+an intermediate durable species."<a name="FNanchor-207" id="FNanchor-207"></a><a href="#Footnote-207" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 207.">[207]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The dog also produces hybrids with the fox and
+hyena, but to what extent has not yet been determined.
+The hybrid fox is certainly prolific for several generations.</p>
+
+<p>There are also bovine, camelline, caprine, ovine,
+feline, deer with the ram, and endless other hybrids,
+running through the animal kingdom, but they are but
+repetitions of the above facts, and experiments are
+still far from being complete in establishing the <em>degrees</em>
+which attach to each two species. We have abundant
+proofs, however, of the three first degrees of hybridity.
+1st. Where the hybrid is infertile. 2d. Where it produces
+with the parent stock. 3d. Where it is prolific<span class="pagenum"><a name="page496" id="page496">[Pg 496]</a></span>
+for one, two, three, or four generations, and then becomes
+sterile. Up to this point there is no diversity
+of opinion. Let us now inquire what evidence there is
+of the existence of the 4th degree, in which hybrids
+may form a new and permanent race.</p>
+
+<p>To show how slow has been our progress in this
+question, and what difficulties beset our path, we need
+only state that the facts respecting the dog, wolf, and
+jackal, quoted above from Flourens, have only been
+published within the last twelve months. The identity
+of the dog and wolf has heretofore been undetermined,
+and the <em>degrees</em> of hybridity of the dog with the wolf
+and jackal were before unknown. These experiments
+do not extend beyond one species of wolf.</p>
+
+<p>M. Flourens says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">"<em>Les esp&egrave;ces ne s'alt&egrave;rent point, ne changent point, ne passent
+point de l'une &agrave; l'autre; les esp&egrave;ces sont</em> <strong class="smcap">fix&eacute;s</strong>."</p>
+
+<p>"If species have a tendency to transformation, to pass one
+into another, why has not time, which, in everything, effects all
+that can happen, ended by disclosing, by betraying, by implying
+this tendency.</p>
+
+<p>"But time, they may tell me, is wanting. It is not wanting.
+It is 2000 years since Aristotle wrote, and we recognize in our
+day all the animals which he describes; and we recognize them
+by the characters which he assigns.... Cuvier states that
+the history of the elephant is more exact in Aristotle than in
+Buffon. They bring us every day from Egypt, the remains of
+animals which lived there two or three thousand years ago&mdash;the
+ox, crocodiles, ibis, &amp;c. &amp;c., which are the same as those of the
+present day. We have under our eyes <em>human mummies</em>&mdash;the
+skeleton of that day is identical with that of the Egyptian of
+our day."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>(M. Flourens might have added that the mummies<span class="pagenum"><a name="page497" id="page497">[Pg 497]</a></span>
+of the white and black races show them to have been
+as distinct then as now, and that the monumental drawings
+represent the different races more than a thousand
+years further back.)</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Thus, then, through three thousand years, no species has
+changed. An experiment which continues through three thousand
+years, is not an experiment to be made&mdash;it is an experiment
+<em>made</em>. Species do not change."<a name="FNanchor-208" id="FNanchor-208"></a><a href="#Footnote-208" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 208.">[208]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p><em>Permanence of type</em>, then, is the only test which he
+can adduce for the designation of species, and he here
+comes back plainly to the position we have taken. Let
+us now test the races of men by this rule. The white
+Asiatic races, the Jew, the Arab, the Egyptian, the
+negro, at least, are distinctly figured on the monuments
+of Egypt and Assyria, as distinct as they are now,
+and <em>time</em> and change of climate have not transformed
+any one type into another. In whatever unexplored
+regions of the earth the earliest voyagers have gone,
+they have found races equally well marked. These
+races are all prolific <i>inter se</i>, and there is every reason
+to believe that we here find the fourth and last degree
+of hybridity. Whether the prolificacy is <em>unlimited</em> between
+all the races or species of men is still an unsettled
+point, and experiments have not yet been fully and
+fairly made to determine the question. The dog and
+wolf become sterile at the <em>third</em>. The dog and jackal<span class="pagenum"><a name="page498" id="page498">[Pg 498]</a></span>
+at the fourth generation, and who can tell whether the
+law of hybridity might not show itself in man, after a
+longer succession of generations. There are no observations
+yet of this kind in the human family. It is a
+common belief in our Southern States, that mulattoes
+are less prolific, and attain a less longevity than the
+parent stocks. I am convinced of the truth of this remark,
+when applied to the mulatto from the strictly
+white and black races, and I am equally convinced,
+from long personal observation, that the <em>dark</em>-skinned
+European races, as Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians,
+Basques, &amp;c., mingle much more perfectly with the negroes
+than do fair races, thus carrying out the law of
+gradation in hybridity. If the mulattoes of New Orleans
+and Mobile be compared with those of the
+Atlantic States, the fact will become apparent.</p>
+
+<p>The argument in favor of unlimited prolificacy between
+species may be strongly corroborated by an appeal
+to the history of our domestic animals, whose
+history is involved in the same impenetrable mystery
+as that of man. M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire very justly
+remarks that we know nothing of the origin of our
+domestic animals; because we find wild hogs, goats,
+sheep, &amp;c., in certain parts of Europe, several thousand
+years subsequent to the early migrations of man, this
+does not prove that the domestic come from these wild
+ones. The reverse may be the case.<a name="FNanchor-209" id="FNanchor-209"></a><a href="#Footnote-209" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 209.">[209]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page499" id="page499">[Pg 499]</a></span>We have already made some general observations on
+the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">genus canis</i>, whose natural history is most closely
+allied to that of man. Let us now inquire whether
+the domestic dog is but one species, or whether under
+this head have been included many proximate species
+of unlimited prolificacy. If we try the question by
+<em>permanency of type</em>, like the races of men, and all well-marked
+species, the doubt must be yielded.</p>
+
+<p>There are strong reasons given by Dr. Morton and
+other naturalists, for supposing that our common dogs,
+independent of mixtures of <em>their</em> various races, may
+also have an infusion of the blood of foxes, wolves,
+jackals, and even the hyena; thus forming, as we see
+every day around us, <em>curs</em> of every possible grade; but
+setting aside all this, we have abundant evidence to
+show that each zoological province has its original dog,
+and, perhaps, not unfrequently several.</p>
+
+<p>In one chapter on hybridity in the "<cite>Types of Mankind</cite>,"
+it is shown that our Indian dogs in America
+present several well-marked types, unlike any in the
+Old World, and which are indigenous to the soil. For
+example, the Esquimaux dog, the Hare Indian dog,
+the North American dog, and several others. We
+have not space here to enter fully into the facts, but
+they will be found at length in the work above mentioned.
+These dogs, too, are clearly traced to wild
+species of this continent.</p>
+
+<p>In other parts of the world we find other species
+equally well marked, but we shall content ourselves with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page500" id="page500">[Pg 500]</a></span>
+the facts drawn from the ancient monuments of Egypt.
+It is no longer a matter of dispute that as far back, at
+least, as the twelfth dynasty, about 2300 years before
+Christ, we find the common small dog of Egypt, the
+greyhound, the staghound, the turnspit, and several
+other types which do not correspond with any dogs
+that can now be identified.<a name="FNanchor-210" id="FNanchor-210"></a><a href="#Footnote-210" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 210.">[210]</a> We find, also, the mastiff
+admirably portrayed on the monuments of Babylon,
+which dog was first brought from the East to Greece
+by Alexander the Great, 300 years B. C. The museums
+of natural history, also, everywhere abound in the
+remains of <em>fossil</em> dogs, which long antedate all living
+species.</p>
+
+<p>The wolf, jackal, and hyena are also found distinctly
+drawn on the early monuments of Egypt, and a greyhound,
+exactly like the English greyhound, with semi-pendent
+ears, is seen on a statue in the Vatican, at Rome.
+It is clear, then, that the leading types of dogs of the
+present day (and probably all) existed more than four
+thousand years ago, and it is equally certain that the
+type of a dog, when kept pure, will endure in opposite<span class="pagenum"><a name="page501" id="page501">[Pg 501]</a></span>
+climates for ages. Our staghounds, greyhounds, mastiffs,
+turnspits, pointers, terriers, &amp;c., are bred for centuries,
+not only in Egypt and Europe without losing
+their types, but in any climate which does not destroy
+them. No one denies that climate influences these animals
+greatly, but the greyhound, staghound, or bulldog
+can never be transformed into each other.</p>
+
+<p>The facts above stated cannot be questioned, and it
+is admitted that these species are all prolific without
+limit <i>inter se</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The llama affords another strong argument in favor
+of the fourth degree of hybridity. Cuvier admits but
+two species&mdash;the llama (<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">camelus llacma</i>), of which he
+regards the <em>alpaca</em> as a variety, and the vigogne
+(<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">camelus vicunna</i>). More recent naturalists regard
+the alpaca as a distinct species, among whom is M.
+Geoffroy St. Hilaire.<a name="FNanchor-211" id="FNanchor-211"></a><a href="#Footnote-211" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 211.">[211]</a> At all events, it seems settled
+that they <em>all</em> breed together without limit.</p>
+
+<blockquote lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"><p>"A son tour, apr&egrave;s la vigogne, viendra bient&ocirc;t l'alpavigogne,
+fruit du croisement de l'alpaca avec la vigogne. Don Francisco
+de Theran, il ya quarante ans, et M. de Castelnau, avaient
+annonc&eacute; d&eacute;j&agrave; que ce m&eacute;tis est f&eacute;cond, et qu'il porte une laine
+presque aussi longue que celle de l'alpaca, presque aussi fine que
+celle de la vigogne.... M. Weddell a mis tout r&eacute;cemment
+l'Acad&eacute;mie des Sciences &agrave; m&ecirc;me de voir et d'admirer cette
+admirable toison. Il a confirm&eacute; en m&ecirc;me temps un fait que
+n'avait trouv&eacute; que des incr&eacute;dules parmi les naturalists&mdash;la f&eacute;condit&eacute;
+de l'alpaca-vigogne: l'abb&eacute; Cabrera, cur&eacute; de la petite
+ville de Macusani, a obtenu une race qui se perp&eacute;tue et dont il
+poss&egrave;de d&eacute;j&agrave; tout un troupeau. C'est, donc, pour ainsi dire,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page502" id="page502">[Pg 502]</a></span>
+une nouvelle esp&egrave;ce cr&eacute;&eacute;e par l'homme; et si paradoxal qu' ait
+pu sembler ce r&eacute;sultat, il est, fort heureusement pour l'industrie,
+<em>d&eacute;finitivement acquis &agrave; la science</em>.</p>
+
+<p>"Ce r&eacute;sultat n'aurait rien de paradoxal, si l'alpaca n'&eacute;tait,
+comme l'ont pens&eacute; plusieurs auteurs, qu'une race domestique
+et tr&ecirc;s modifi&eacute;e de la vigogne. Cette objection contre le pretendu
+principe de l'inf&eacute;condite des mulets ne serait d'ailleurs lev&eacute;e que
+pour faire place &agrave; une autre; <em>l'alpa-llama</em> serait alors un mulet,
+issu de deux esp&egrave;ces distincts, et l'alpa-llama est f&eacute;cond comme
+l'alpa-vigogne."<a name="FNanchor-212" id="FNanchor-212"></a><a href="#Footnote-212" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 212.">[212]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>We have recently seen exhibited in Mobile a beautiful
+hybrid of the alpaca and common sheep, and the
+owner informed us that he had a flock at home, which
+breed perfectly.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Bachman confesses that he has not examined the
+drawings given in the works of Lepsius, Champollion,
+Rossellini, and other Egyptologists, of various animals
+represented on the monuments, and ridicules the idea
+of their being received as authority in matters of natural
+history. Although many of the drawings are rudely
+done, most of them, in outline, are beautifully executed,
+and Dr. B. is the first, so far as we know, to call the
+fact in question. Dr. Chas. Pickering is received by
+Dr. B. as high authority in scientific matters&mdash;he has
+not only examined these drawings, but their originals.
+Lepsius, Champollion, Rossellini, Wilkinson, and all
+the Egyptologists, have borne witness to the reliability
+of these drawings, and have enumerated hundreds of
+animals and plants which are perfectly identified.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page503" id="page503">[Pg 503]</a></span>Martin, the author of the work on "<cite>Man and
+Monkeys</cite>," is certainly good authority. He says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Now we have in modern Egypt and Arabia, and also in
+Persia, varieties of greyhound closely resembling those of the
+ancient remains of art, and it would appear that two or three
+varieties exist&mdash;one smooth, another long haired, and another
+smooth with long-haired ears, resembling those of the spaniel.
+In Persia, the greyhound, to judge from specimens we have seen,
+is silk-haired, with a fringed tail. They are of a black color;
+but a fine breed, we are informed, is of a slate or ash color, as
+are some of the smooth-haired greyhounds depicted in the
+Egyptian paintings. In Arabia, a large, rough, powerful race
+exists; and about Akaba, according to Laborde, a breed of
+slender form, fleet, with a long tail, very hairy, in the form of a
+brush, with the ears erect and pointed, closely resembling, in
+fact, many of those figured by the ancient Egyptians."<a name="FNanchor-213" id="FNanchor-213"></a><a href="#Footnote-213" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 213.">[213]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>He goes on to quote Col. Sykes, and others, for other
+varieties of greyhound in the east, unlike any in Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Pickering, after enumerating various objects
+identified on the monuments of the third and fourth
+dynasties, as Nubians, white races, the ostrich, ibis,
+jackal, antelope, hedgehog, goose, fowls, ducks, bullock,
+donkey, goats, dog-faced ape, hyena, porcupine, wolves,
+foxes, &amp;c. &amp;c., when he comes down to the twelfth
+dynasty, says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The paintings on the walls represent a vast variety of subjects;
+including, most unexpectedly, the greater part of the <em>arts</em>
+and <em>trades</em> practised among civilized nations at the present day;
+also birds, quadrupeds, fishes, and insects, amounting to an <em>extended
+treatise on zoology</em>, well deserving the attention of naturalists.
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="page504" id="page504">[Pg 504]</a></span>The date accompanying these representations has been
+astronomically determined by Biot, at about B. C. 2200
+(Champollion-Figeac, <cite>Egyp. Arc.</cite>); and Lepsius's chronological
+computation corresponds."<a name="FNanchor-214" id="FNanchor-214"></a><a href="#Footnote-214" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 214.">[214]</a></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Dr. P. gives us a fauna and flora of Egypt, running
+further back than Usher's date for the creation, and it
+cannot be doubted that the drawings are as reliable as
+those in any modern work on natural history.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<h3><a name="C" id="C"></a>C.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Gobineau remarks (<a title="Go to page 367." href="#page367">p. 367</a>), that he has very
+serious doubts as to the unity of origin. "These
+doubts, however," he continues, "I am compelled to
+repress, because they are in contradiction to a scientific
+fact, which I cannot refute&mdash;the prolificness of half-breeds;
+and secondly, what is of much greater weight
+with me, they impugn a religious interpretation sanctioned
+by the church."</p>
+
+<p>With regard to the prolificness of half-breeds, I have
+already mentioned such facts as might have served to
+dispel the learned writer's doubts, had he been acquainted
+with them. In reference to the other, more
+serious, obstacle to his admission of the plurality of
+origins, he himself intimates (<a title="Go to page 339." href="#page339">p. 339</a>) that the authority<span class="pagenum"><a name="page505" id="page505">[Pg 505]</a></span>
+of this interpretation might, perhaps, be questioned
+without transgressing the limits imposed by the church.
+Believing this view to be correct, I shall venture on a
+few remarks upon this last scruple of the author, which
+is shared by many investigators of this interesting subject.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"The strict rule of scientific scrutiny," says the most learned
+and formidable opponent in the adversary's camp,<a name="FNanchor-215" id="FNanchor-215"></a><a href="#Footnote-215" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 215.">[215]</a> "exacts,
+according to modern philosophers, in matters of inductive
+reasoning, an exclusive homage. It requires that we should
+close our eyes against all presumptive and exterior evidence,
+and <em>abstract our minds from all considerations not derived from
+the matters of fact which bear immediately on the question</em>. The
+maxim we have to follow in such controversies is '<span xml:lang="la" lang="la">fiat justitia,
+ruat c&oelig;lum.</span>' <em>In fact, what is actually true, it is always desirous
+to know, whatever consequences may arise from its admission.</em>"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>To this sentiment I cheerfully subscribe: it has always
+been my maxim. Yet I find it necessary, in
+treating of this subject, to touch on its <em>biblical</em> connections,
+for although we have great reason to rejoice at
+the improved tone of toleration, or even liberality
+which prevails in this country, the day has not
+come when science can be severed from theology, and
+the student of nature can calmly follow her truths, no
+matter whither they may lead. What a mortifying
+picture do we behold in the histories of astronomy,
+geology, chronology, cosmogony, geographical distribution
+of animals, &amp;c.; they have been compelled to
+fight their way, step by step, through human passion<span class="pagenum"><a name="page506" id="page506">[Pg 506]</a></span>
+and prejudice, from their supposed contradiction to
+Holy Writ. But science has been vindicated&mdash;their
+great truths have been established, and the Bible stands
+as firmly as it did before. The last great struggle between
+science and theology is the one we are now engaged
+in&mdash;the <em>natural history of man</em>&mdash;it has now, for
+the first time, a fair hearing before Christendom, and
+all any question should ask is "<em>daylight and fair
+play</em>."</p>
+
+<p>The Bible should not be regarded as a text-book of
+natural history. On the contrary, it must be admitted
+that none of the writers of the Old or New Testament
+give the slightest evidence of knowledge in any
+department of science beyond that of their profane
+contemporaries; and we hold that the natural history
+of man is a department of science which should be
+placed upon the same footing with others, and its facts
+dispassionately investigated. What we require for our
+guidance in this world is truth, and the history of
+science shows how long it has been stifled by bigotry
+and error.</p>
+
+<p>It was taught for ages that the sun moved around
+the earth; that there had been but one creation of
+organized beings; that our earth was created but six
+thousand years ago, and that the stars were made to
+shed light upon it; that the earth was a plane, with
+sides and ends; that all the animals on earth were derived
+from Noah's ark, &amp;c. But what a different revelation
+does science give us? We now know that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page507" id="page507">[Pg 507]</a></span>
+earth revolves around the sun, that the earth is a globe
+which turns on its own axis, that there has been a succession
+of destructions and creations of living beings,
+that the earth has existed countless ages, and that
+there are stars so distant as to require millions of years
+for their light to reach us; that instead of one, there
+are many centres of creation for existing animals and
+plants, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>If so many false readings of the Bible have been
+admitted among theologians, who has authority or
+wisdom to say to science&mdash;"thus far shalt thou go,
+and no further?" The doctrine of <em>unity</em> for the human
+family may be another great error, and certainly a
+denial of its truth does no more, nay, less violence to the
+language of the Bible, than do the examples above cited.</p>
+
+<p>It is a popular error, and one difficult to eradicate,
+that all the species of animals now dwelling on the
+earth are descendants of pairs and septuples preserved
+in Noah's ark, and certainly the language of Genesis
+on this point is too plain to admit of any quibble; it
+does teach that every living being perished by the
+flood, except those alone which were saved in the ark.
+Yet no living naturalist, in or out of the church, believes
+this statement to be correct. The centres of
+creation are so numerous, and the number of animals
+so great that it is impossible it should be so.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the first chapter of Genesis gives
+an account entirely in accordance with the teachings
+of science.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page508" id="page508">[Pg 508]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"And God said, let the earth bring forth <em>grass</em>, the herb
+yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, after his kind,
+whose seed is in itself upon the earth; and it was so." <cite>Gen.</cite>
+i. 11.</p>
+
+<p>"And God said, let the waters bring forth <em>abundantly</em>, the
+moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the
+earth in the open firmament of heaven." v. 20.</p>
+
+<p>"And God created great <em>whales</em>, and every living creature
+that moveth, which the waters brought forth <em>abundantly</em>," &amp;c.
+v. 21.</p>
+
+<p>"And God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature
+after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth
+after his kind, and it was so." v. 24.</p>
+
+<p>"God created <em>man</em> in his own image; <em>male</em> and <em>female</em> created
+he <em>them</em>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>In the language above quoted, nothing is said about
+one seed or one blade of grass; about one fruit tree,
+or about <em>single pairs</em> of animals or human beings. On
+the contrary, this chapter closes with the distinct impression
+on the mind that everything was created
+<em>abundantly</em>. The only difficulty arises with regard to
+the human family, and we are here confused by the
+contradictory statements of the first and second chapters.
+In the first chapter, man was created <em>male and
+female</em>, on the sixth day&mdash;in the second chapter, woman
+was not created until after Adam was placed in the
+Garden of Eden. Commentators explain this discrepancy
+by the difference in style of the two chapters, and
+the inference that Genesis is a compilation made up by
+Moses from two or three different writers; but it is
+not our purpose here to open these theological discussions.
+Both sides are sustained by innumerable authorities.
+From what we have before shown, it is clear<span class="pagenum"><a name="page509" id="page509">[Pg 509]</a></span>
+that the inspired writers possessed no knowledge of
+physical sciences, and as little respecting the natural
+history of man, as of any other department.</p>
+
+<p>Their <em>moral</em> mission does not concern our subject,
+and we leave that to theologians, to whom it more
+properly belongs. On the other hand, we ask to be
+let alone in our study of the physical laws of the universe.
+The theologian and the naturalist have each
+an ample field without the necessity of interfering with
+each other.</p>
+
+<p>The Bible is here viewed only in its relations with
+physical science. We have already alluded to the fact
+that in astronomy, geology, &amp;c., the authors of the
+Bible possessed no knowledge beyond that of their
+profane contemporaries, and a dispassionate examination
+of the text from Genesis to Revelation will show
+that the writers had but an imperfect knowledge of
+contemporary races, and did not design to teach the
+doctrine of unity of mankind, or rather origin from a
+single pair. The writer of the <cite>Pentateuch</cite> could
+attach little importance to such an idea, as he nowhere
+alludes to a future existence, or rewards and
+punishments&mdash;all good and evil, as far as the human
+race is concerned, with him, were merely temporal.</p>
+
+<p>This idea of a future state does not distinctly appear
+in the Jewish writings until after their return from the
+Babylonish captivity.</p>
+
+<p>The extent of the surface of the globe, known even
+to the writers of the New Testament, formed but a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page510" id="page510">[Pg 510]</a></span>
+small fraction of it&mdash;little beyond the confines of the
+Roman empire. No allusion is even made to Southern
+and Eastern Asia; Africa, south of the Desert; Australia,
+America, &amp;c.; all of which were inhabited long
+before the time of Moses; and of the races of men inhabiting
+these countries, and their languages, they
+certainly knew nothing. The Chinese and Indian
+empires, at least, are beyond dispute. The early
+Hebrews were a pastoral people; had little commercial
+or other intercourse with the rest of the world,
+and were far from being "learned in all the wisdom
+of the Egyptians." The Egyptian empire was fully
+developed&mdash;arts and science as flourishing&mdash;pyramids
+and gorgeous temples built, not only before the time
+of Moses, but long prior to that of the Patriarch
+Abraham, who, with Sarah, went to Egypt to buy
+corn of the reigning Pharaoh. What is remarkable,
+too, the Egyptians had their ethnographers, and had
+already classified the human family into four races, and
+depicted them on the monuments, viz: the black,
+white, yellow, and red.<a name="FNanchor-216" id="FNanchor-216"></a><a href="#Footnote-216" class="fnanchor" title="Go to footnote 216.">[216]</a></p>
+
+<p>In fact, nothing can be more incomplete, contradictory,
+and unsatisfactory than the ethnography of Genesis.
+We see Cain going into a foreign land and taking
+a wife before there were any women born of his parent
+stock. Cities are seen springing up in the second and
+third generations, in every direction, &amp;c. All this
+shows that we have in Genesis no satisfactory history<span class="pagenum"><a name="page511" id="page511">[Pg 511]</a></span>
+of the human family, and that we can rely no more
+upon its ethnography than upon its geography, astronomy,
+cosmogony, geology, zoology, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>We have already alluded to the fact that the writers
+of the New Testament give no evidence of additional
+knowledge in such matters. The sermon from the
+Mount comes like a light from Heaven, but this volume
+is mute on all that pertains to the physical laws of the
+universe.</p>
+
+<p>If the common origin of man were such an important
+point in the eyes of the Almighty as we have been
+taught to believe, is it reasonable to suppose it would
+have been left by the inspired writers in such utter
+confusion and doubt? The coming of Christ changed
+the whole question, and we should expect, at least in
+the four Gospels, for some authority that would settle
+this vital point; but strange as the assertion may seem,
+there is not a single passage here to be found, which,
+by any distortion, can be made to sustain this <em>unity</em>;
+and on searching diligently the New Testament, from
+one end to the other, we were not a little surprised to
+find but a single text that seemed to bear directly upon
+it, viz: the oft quoted one in Acts xvii. 26: "And
+hath made of <em>one blood</em> all nations of men for to dwell
+on all the face of the earth," &amp;c. Being astonished at
+the fact that this great question of common origin of
+man should thus be made to hang so much upon a
+single verse, it occurred to me that there might be
+some error, some interpolation in the text, and having<span class="pagenum"><a name="page512" id="page512">[Pg 512]</a></span>
+no material at hand for such an investigation in Mobile,
+I wrote to a competent friend in Philadelphia, to examine
+for me all the Greek texts and old versions, and
+his reply confirmed fully my suspicions. The word
+<em>blood</em> is an interpolation, and not to be found in the
+original texts. The word <em>blood</em> has been rejected by
+the Catholic Church, from the time of St. Jerome to
+the present hour. The text of Tischendorf is regarded,
+I believe, generally as the most accurate Greek text
+known, and in this the word blood does not appear. I
+have at hand a long list of authorities to the same
+effect, but as it is presumed no competent authority
+will call our assertion in question, it is needless to cite
+them. The verse above alluded to in Acts should,
+therefore, read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"And hath made of <em>one</em> all races (genus) of men," &amp;c.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The word <em>blood</em> is a gloss, and we have just as much
+right to interpolate <em>one form</em>, <em>one substance</em>, <em>one nature</em>,
+<em>one responsibility</em>, or anything else, as <em>blood</em>.</p>
+
+<p>These remarks on the ethnography of the Bible
+might be greatly extended, but my object here is simply
+to show that the Bible, to say the least, leaves the field
+open, and that I have entered it soberly, discreetly,
+and advisedly.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><a name="THE_END" id="THE_END"></a>THE END.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="note tbreak" title="Navigation">
+<p class="center">Return to <a href="#TN">Top of Page</a> or list of <a href="#TOC">Contents</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><a name="FOOTNOTES" id="FOOTNOTES"></a><h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2>
+
+<ol>
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-1" id="Footnote-1"></a> <cite>Researches into the Physical History of Mankind</cite>. By James
+Cowles Prichard, M. D., London, 1841. Vol. i. p. 1.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-1">1</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-2" id="Footnote-2"></a> "Mr. Prichard's <em>permanent variety</em>, from his own definition,
+is to all intents and purposes <em>a species</em>."&mdash;<cite>Kneeland's Introduction
+to Hamilton Smith's Natural History of the Human Species</cite>,
+p. 84.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-2">2</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-3" id="Footnote-3"></a> Smith's Wealth of Nations, Amer. ed., vol. i. p. 29.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-3">3</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-4" id="Footnote-4"></a> <i>Vide</i> Bigland's Effects of Physical and Moral Causes on the
+Character and Circumstances of Nations. London, 1828, p. 282.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-4">4</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-5" id="Footnote-5"></a> <cite>Op. cit.</cite>, p. 7.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-5">5</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-6" id="Footnote-6"></a> St. Matthew, ch. xi. v. 25.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-6">6</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-7" id="Footnote-7"></a> <i>Vide</i> Prichard's <cite>Natural History of Man</cite>, p. 66, <i>et passim</i>.
+"His theory," says Van Amringe, "required that animals should
+be analogous to man. It was therefore highly important that,
+as he was then laying the foundation for all his future arguments
+and conclusions, he should elevate animals to the proper eminence,
+to be analogous; rather than, as Mr. Lawrence did, sink
+man to the level of brutes. It was an ingenious contrivance by
+which he could gain all the advantages, and escape the censures
+of the learned lecturer. It is so simple a contrivance, too&mdash;merely
+substituting the word 'psychological' for 'instinctive
+characteristics,' and the whole animal kingdom would instantly
+rise to the proper platform, to be the types of the human family.
+To get the psychology of men and animals thus related, without
+the trouble of philosophically accomplishing so impossible a
+thing, by the mere use of a word, was an ingenious, though not
+an ingenuous achievement. It gave him a specious right to use
+bees and wasps, rats and dogs, sheep, goats, and rabbits&mdash;in
+short, the whole animal kingdom&mdash;as human psychical analogues,
+which would be amazingly convenient when conclusions were to
+be made."&mdash;<cite>Natural History of Man</cite>, by <cite class="author">W. F. Van Amringe</cite>.
+1848, p. 459.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-7">7</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-8" id="Footnote-8"></a> This fact is considered by Dr. Nott as a proof of <em>specific</em>
+difference among dogs.&mdash;<cite>Types of Mankind.</cite> Phila., 1854.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-8">8</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-9" id="Footnote-9"></a> In 1497, Vasco di Gama sailed around Cape Good Hope;
+even previous to that, Portuguese vessels had coasted along the
+western shores of Africa. Since that time the Europeans have
+subjected the whole of the American continents, southern Asia
+and the island world of the Pacific, while Africa is almost as
+unknown as it ever was. The Cape Colony is not in the original
+territory of the negro. Liberia and Sierra Leone contain a half-breed
+population, and present experiments by no means tested.
+It may be fairly asserted that nowhere has the power and intelligence
+of the white race made less impression, produced
+fewer results, than in the domain of the negro.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-9">9</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-10" id="Footnote-10"></a> Roberts, the president of the Liberian Republic, boasts of but
+a small portion of African blood in his veins. Sequoyah, the
+often-cited inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, so far from being
+a pure Indian, was the son of a white man.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-10">10</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-11" id="Footnote-11"></a> For the great perfection to which the Chinese have carried
+the luxuries and amenities of life, see particularly M. Huc's
+<cite>Travels in China</cite>. He lived among them for years, and, what
+few travellers do, spoke their language so fluently and perfectly
+that he was enabled, during a considerable number of
+years, to discharge the duties of a missionary, disguised as a
+native.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-11">11</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-12" id="Footnote-12"></a> It would be useless to remind our readers of the famous
+Great Wall, the Imperial Canals, that largest of the cities of
+the world&mdash;Pekin. The various treatises of the Chinese on morals
+and politics, especially that of Confucius, have been admired
+by all European thinkers. <em>Consult Pauthier's elaborate work on
+China.</em> It is equally well known that the Chinese knew the
+art of printing, gunpowder and its uses, the mariner's compass,
+etc., centuries before we did. For the general diffusion of
+elementary knowledge among the Chinese, see <cite>Davis's Sketches</cite>,
+and other authors. Those who may think me a biassed panegyrist
+of the Chinese, I refer to the following works as among
+the most reliable of the vast number written on the subject:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<ul class="none">
+ <li><cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Description Historique, G&eacute;ographique, et Litt&eacute;raire de la Chine.</cite> Par M. <cite class="author">G. Pauthier</cite>. Paris, 1839.</li>
+ <li><cite>China Opened.</cite> By <cite class="author">Rev. Chs. Gutzlaff</cite>. London, 1838.</li>
+ <li><cite>China, Political, Commercial, and Social.</cite> By <cite class="author">R. Montgomery Martin</cite>. London, 1847.</li>
+ <li><cite>Sketches of China.</cite> By <cite class="author">John F. Davis</cite>. London, 1841.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>And above all, for amusing and instructive reading,</p>
+
+<ul class="none">
+ <li><cite>Journey through the Chinese Empire.</cite> By <cite class="author">M. Huc</cite>. New York, 1855; and</li>
+ <li><cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">M&eacute;langes Asiatiques.</cite> Par <cite class="author">Abel Remusat</cite>. Paris, 1835.</li>
+</ul>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-12">12</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-13" id="Footnote-13"></a> Unwilling to introduce statistic pedantry into a composition
+of so humble pretensions as an introduction, I have refrained to
+give the figures&mdash;not always very accurate, I admit&mdash;upon which
+the preceding gradation is based, viz: the number of persons
+able to read and write in each of the above-named countries.
+How far England and France are behindhand in this respect,
+compared either with ourselves, or with other European nations,
+is tolerably well known; but the fact that not only in China
+proper, but in Thibet, Japan, Anam, Tonquin, etc., few can be
+found devoid of that acquirement, will probably meet with many
+incredulous readers, though it is mentioned by almost every
+traveller. (See <cite>J. Mohl's Annual Report to the Asiatic Society</cite>, 1851.)
+But, it may be safely asserted that, in the whole of that portion
+of Asia lying south of the Altai Mountains, including Japan,
+altogether the most populous region of the globe, the percentage
+of males unable to read and write is by far smaller than in the
+entire population of Europe. Be it well understood, that I do
+not, therefore, claim any superiority for the inhabitants of the
+former region over those of the latter.
+</p><p>
+"In China," says M. Huc, "there are not, as in Europe,
+public libraries and reading-rooms; but those who have a taste
+for reading, and a desire to instruct themselves, can satisfy their
+inclinations very easily, as books are sold here at a lower price
+than in any other country. Besides, the Chinese find everywhere
+something to read; they can scarcely take a step without seeing
+some of the characters of which they are so proud. One may
+say, in fact, that all China is an immense library; for inscriptions,
+sentences, moral precepts, are found in every corner, written in
+letters of all colors and all sizes. The fa&ccedil;ades of the tribunals,
+the pagodas, the public monuments, the signs of the shops, the
+doors of the houses, the interior of the apartments, the corridors,
+all are full of fine quotations from the best authors. Teacups,
+plates, vases, fans, are so many selections of poems, often chosen
+with much taste, and prettily printed. A Chinese has no need
+to give himself much trouble in order to enjoy the finest productions
+of his country's literature. He need only take his pipe,
+and walk out, with his nose in the air, through the principal
+streets of the first town he comes to. Let him enter the poorest
+house in the most wretched village; the destitution may be complete,
+things the most necessary will be wanting; but he is sure
+of finding some fine maxims written out on strips of red paper.
+Thus, if those grand large characters, which look so terrific in
+our eyes, though they delight the Chinese, are really so difficult
+to learn, at least the people have the most ample opportunities
+of studying them, almost in play, and of impressing them ineffaceably
+on their memories."&mdash;<cite>A Journey through the Chinese
+Empire</cite>, vol. i. pp. 327-328.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-13">13</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-14" id="Footnote-14"></a> Is it necessary to call to the mind of the reader, that the
+most prominent physicians, the greatest chemists, the best mathematicians,
+were French, and that to the same nation belong
+the Comptes, the De Maistres, the Guizots, the De Tocquevilles;
+or that, notwithstanding its political extravaganzas, every liberal
+theory was first fostered in its bosom? The father of our democratic
+party was the pupil of French governmental philosophy,
+by the lessons of which even his political opponents profited
+quite as much as by its errors.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-14">14</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-15" id="Footnote-15"></a> Brace, in his <cite>Home Life in Germany</cite>, mentions an instance
+of this kind, but not having the volume at hand, I cannot cite
+the page. To every one, however, that has travelled in Europe,
+or has not, such facts are familiar. It is well known, for instance,
+that in some of the most polished European countries,
+the wooden ploughshare is still used; and that, in Paris, that
+metropolis of arts and fashion, every drop of water must be
+carried, in buckets, from the public fountains to the Dutchess'
+<em>boudoir</em> in the first, and to the Grisette's garret in the seventh
+story. Compare this with the United States, where&mdash;not to
+mention Fairmount and Croton&mdash;the smallest town, almost, has
+her water-works, if required by her topography. Are we, then,
+so infinitely more civilized than France?</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-15">15</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-16" id="Footnote-16"></a> Since writing the above, I lit upon the following striking
+confirmation of my idea by Dr. Pickering, whose analogism here
+so closely resembles mine, as almost to make me suspect myself
+of unconscious plagiarism. "While admitting the general truth,
+that mankind are essentially alike, no one doubts the existence
+of character, distinguishing not only individuals, but communities
+and nations. I am persuaded that there is, besides, a
+character of race. It would not be difficult to select epithets;
+such as 'amphibious, enduring, insititious;' or to point out
+as accomplished by one race of men, that which seemed beyond
+the powers of another. Each race possessing its peculiar points
+of excellence, and, at the same time, counterbalancing defects,
+it may be that union was required to attain the full measure of
+civilization. In the organic world, each field requires a new
+creation; each change in circumstances going beyond the constitution
+of a plant or animal, is met by a new adaptation, until
+the whole universe is full; while, among the immense variety of
+created beings, two kinds are hardly found fulfilling the same
+precise purpose. Some analogy may possibly exist in the human
+family; and it may even be questioned, whether any one of the
+races existing singly would, up to the present day, have extended
+itself over the whole surface of the globe."&mdash;<cite>The Races of Man,
+and their Geographical Distribution.</cite> By <cite class="author">Charles Pickering</cite>,
+M. D. Boston, 1811. (<cite>U. S. Exploring Expedition</cite>, vol. ix. p. 200.)</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-16">16</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-17" id="Footnote-17"></a> Since Champollion's fortunate discovery of the Rosetta
+stone, which furnished the key to the hieroglyphics, the deciphering
+of these once so mysterious characters has made such progress,
+that Lepsius, the great modern Egyptologist, declares it
+possible to write a minute court gazette of the reign of Ramses
+II., the Sesostris of the Greeks, and even of monarchs as far back
+as the IVth dynasty. To understand that this is no vain boast,
+the reader must remember that these hieroglyphics mostly contain
+records of private or royal lives, and that the mural paintings
+in the temples and sepulchral chambers, generally represent
+scenes illustrative of trades, or other occupations, games, etc.,
+practised among the people of that early day.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-17">17</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-18" id="Footnote-18"></a> <cite>Ethnological Journal</cite>, edited by Luke Burke, London, 1848;
+June 1, No. 1, from <cite>Types of Mankind</cite>. By <cite class="author">Nott</cite> and <cite class="author">Gliddon</cite>,
+p. 49.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-18">18</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-19" id="Footnote-19"></a> From <cite>Types of Mankind</cite>. By <cite class="author">Nott</cite> and <cite class="author">Gliddon</cite>, p. 52.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-19">19</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-20" id="Footnote-20"></a> The term "race" is of relative meaning, and, though often
+erroneously used synonymously with <em>species</em>, by no means signifies
+the same. The most strenuous advocates of sameness of
+species, use it to designate well-defined groups, as the white and
+black. If we consider ourselves warranted by the language of
+the Bible, to believe in separate origins of the human family,
+then, indeed, it may be considered as similar in meaning to
+species; otherwise, it must signify but subdivisions of one. We
+may therefore speak of ten or a hundred races of man, without
+impugning their being descended from the same stock. All that
+is here contended for is, that the distinctive features of such
+races, in whatever manner they may have originated, are now
+persistent. Two men may, the one arrive at the highest honors
+of the State, the other, with every facility at his command,
+forever remain in mediocrity. Yet, these two men may be
+brothers.
+</p><p>
+That the question of species, when disconnected from any
+theological bearing, is one belonging exclusively to the province
+of the naturalist, and in which the metaphysician can have but
+a subordinate part, may be illustrated by a homely simile. Diversity
+of talent in the same family involves no doubt of parentage;
+but, if one child be born with a black skin and woolly hair,
+questions about the paternity might indeed arise.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-20">20</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-21" id="Footnote-21"></a> <cite>Natural History of the Varieties of Man.</cite> By <cite class="author">Robert Gordon
+Latham</cite>. London, 1850.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-21">21</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-22" id="Footnote-22"></a> The collision between these two nationalities, only a few
+years ago, was attended by scenes so revolting&mdash;transcending
+even the horrors of the Corcyrian sedition, the sack of Magdeburg,
+or the bloodiest page in the French Revolution&mdash;that, for
+the honor of human nature, I would gladly disbelieve the accounts
+given of them. But the testimony comes from neutral
+sources, the friends of either party being interested in keeping
+silence. I shall have occasion to allude to this subject again,
+and therefore reserve further details for a note in the body of
+the work.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-22">22</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-23" id="Footnote-23"></a> Even the historians of ancient Greece wondered at those
+gigantic ruins, of which many are still extant. Of these cyclopean
+remains, as they were often called, no one knew the builders
+or the history, and they were considered as the labors of the
+fabulous heroes of a traditional epoch. For an account of these
+memorials of an <em>ante-hellenic civilization in Greece, of which we have
+no record</em>, particularly the ruins of Orchomonos, Tirgus, Mycene,
+and the tunnels of Lake Copais, see <cite>Niebuhr's Ancient History</cite>,
+vol. i. p. 241, <i>et passim</i>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-23">23</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-24" id="Footnote-24"></a> Democracy in America, vol. ii. ch. xviii. p. 424.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-24">24</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-25" id="Footnote-25"></a> Daniel ii. 44.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-25">25</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-26" id="Footnote-26"></a> Daniel ii. 31 to 35.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-26">26</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-27" id="Footnote-27"></a> Among many passages illustrative of the ultra utilitarianism
+of the Chinese, I can find space but for one, and that
+selected almost at random. After speaking of the exemplary
+diffusion of primary instruction among the masses, he says
+that, though they all read, and frequently, yet even their reading
+is of a strictly utilitarian character, and never answers any
+but practical purposes or temporary amusement. The name
+of the author is seldom known, and never inquired after.
+"That class are, in their eyes, only idle persons, who pass
+their time in making prose or verse. They have no objection
+to such a pursuit. A man may, they say, 'amuse himself with
+his pen as with his kite, if he likes it as well&mdash;it is all a matter
+of taste.' The inhabitants of the celestial empire would never
+recover from their astonishment if they knew to what extent
+intellectual labor may be in Europe a source of honor and often
+wealth. If they were told that a person among us may obtain
+great glory by composing a drama or a novel, they would either
+not believe it, or set it down as an additional proof of our well-known
+want of common sense. How would it be if they should
+be told of the renown of a dancer or a violin player, and that
+one cannot make a bound, nor the other draw a bow anywhere
+without thousands of newspapers hastening to spread the important
+news over all the kingdoms of Europe!
+</p><p>
+"The Chinese are too decided utilitarians to enter into our
+views of the arts. In their opinion, a man is only worthy of the
+admiration of his fellow-creatures when he has well fulfilled
+the social duties, and especially if he knows better than any
+one else how to get out of a scrape. You are regarded as a
+man of genius if you know how to regulate your family, make
+your lands fruitful, traffic with ability, and realize great profits.
+This, at least, is the only kind of genius that is of any value
+in the eyes of these eminently practical men."&mdash;<cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Voyages en
+Chine</cite>, par M. Huc, Amer. trans., vol. i. pp. 316 and 317.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-27">27</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-28" id="Footnote-28"></a> Nat. Hist. of the Varieties of Man. London.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-28">28</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-29" id="Footnote-29"></a> According to Latham's classification, <cite>op. cit.</cite></p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-29">29</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-30" id="Footnote-30"></a> A. de Humboldt, <span xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la G&eacute;ographie
+du Nouveau Continent</span>. Paris.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-30">30</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-31" id="Footnote-31"></a> Amad&eacute;e Thierry, <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">La Gaule sous l'Administration Romaine</cite>,
+vol. i. p. 244.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-31">31</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-32" id="Footnote-32"></a> See Prescott's <cite>History of the Conquest of Mexico</cite>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-32">32</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-33" id="Footnote-33"></a> C. F. Weber, <cite>M. A. Lucani Pharsalia</cite>. Leipzig, 1828, vol. i.
+pp. 122-123, <cite>note</cite>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-33">33</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-34" id="Footnote-34"></a> Prichard, <cite>Natural History of Man</cite>.&mdash;Dr. Martius is still more
+explicit. (See <cite>Martius and Spix</cite>, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Reise in Brasilien</cite>. Munich, vol.
+i. pp. 379-380.)
+</p><p>
+Mr. Gobineau quotes from M. Roulin's French translation of
+Prichard's great work, and as I could not always find the corresponding
+pages in the original, I have sometimes been obliged
+to omit the citation of the page, that in the French translation
+being useless to English readers.&mdash;<cite>Transl.</cite></p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-34">34</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-35" id="Footnote-35"></a> I greatly doubt whether the fanaticism of even the ancient
+Mexicans could exceed that displayed by some of our not very
+remote ancestors. Who, that reads the trials for witchcraft in
+the judicial records of Scotland, and, after smiling at the frivolous,
+inconsistent testimony against the accused, comes to the
+cool, uncommented marginal note of the reporter: "Convicta et
+combusta," does not feel his heart leap for horror? But, if he
+comes to an entry like the following, he feels as though lightning
+from heaven could but inflict too mild a punishment on the
+perpetrators of such unnatural crimes.
+</p><p>
+"1608, Dec. 1.&mdash;The Earl of Mar declared to the council, that
+some women were taken in Broughton as witches, and being put
+to an assize, and convicted, albeit they persevered constant in
+their denial to the end, they were burnt quick (alive), after such
+a cruel manner, that some of them died in despair, renouncing
+and blaspheming God; and <em>others, half-burned, brak out of the
+fire, and were cast in it again, till they were burned to death</em>." Entry
+in Sir Thomas Hamilton's <cite>Minutes of Proceedings in the Privy
+Council</cite>. (From W. Scott's <cite>Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft</cite>,
+p. 315.)
+</p><p>
+Really, I do not believe that the Peruvians ever carried fanaticism
+so far. Yet, a counterpart to this horrible picture is found
+in the history of New England. A man, named Cory, being
+accused of witchcraft, and refusing to plead, was accordingly
+pressed to death. And when, in the agony of death, the unfortunate
+man thrust out his tongue, the sheriff, without the least
+emotion, crammed it back into the mouth with his cane. (See
+Cotton Mather's <cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Magnalia Christi Americana</cite>, Hardford. <cite>Thau.
+Pneu</cite>, c. vii. p. 383, <i>et passim</i>.)
+</p><p>
+Did the ferocity of the most brutish savages ever invent any
+torture more excruciating than that in use in the British Isles,
+not much more than two centuries ago, for bringing poor, decrepit
+old women to the confession of a crime which never existed
+but in the crazed brain of bigots. "The nails were torn from the
+fingers with smith's pincers; pins driven into the places which the
+nails defended; the knees were crushed in the <em>boots</em>, the finger-bones
+splintered in the <em>pilniewinks</em>," etc. (Scott, <cite>op. cit.</cite>, p. 312.)
+But then, it is true, they had a more <em>gentle</em> torture, which an English
+Lord (Eglington) had the honor and humanity to invent! This
+consisted in placing the legs of a poor woman in the stocks, and
+then <em>loading the bare shins with bars of iron</em>. Above thirty stones
+of iron were placed upon the limbs of an unfortunate woman
+before she could be brought to the confession which led her to
+the stake. (Scott, <cite>op. cit.</cite>, pp. 321, 324, 327, etc. etc.)
+</p><p>
+As late as 1682, not yet 200 years ago, three women were
+hanged, in England, for witchcraft; and the fatal statute against
+it was not abolished until 1751, when the rabble put to death, in
+the most horrible manner, an old pauper woman, and very nearly
+killed another.
+</p><p>
+And, in the middle of last century, eighty-five persons were
+burnt, or otherwise executed, for witchcraft, at Mohra, in
+Sweden. Among them were fifteen young children.
+</p><p>
+If God had ordained that fanaticism should be punished by
+national ruin, were not these crimes, in which, in most cases,
+the whole nation participated, were not they horrible enough to
+draw upon the perpetrators the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah?
+Surely, if fanaticism were the cause of national decay, most
+European nations had long since been swept from the face of
+the globe, "so that their places could nowhere be found."&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-35">35</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-36" id="Footnote-36"></a> There seem, at first sight, to be exceptions to the truth of
+the assertion, that luxury, in itself, is not productive of national
+ruin. Venice, Genoa, Pisa, etc., were <em>aristocratic</em> republics, in
+which, as in monarchies, a high degree of luxury is not only
+compatible with, but may even be greatly conducive to the
+prosperity of the state. But the basis of a <em>democratic</em> republic
+is a more or less perfect equality among its citizens, which is
+often impaired, and, in the end, subverted by too great a disparity
+of wealth. Yet, even in them, glaring contrasts between
+extravagant luxury and abject poverty are rather the sign than
+the cause, of the disappearance of democratic principles. Examples
+might be adduced from history, of democracies in which
+great wealth did not destroy democratic ideas and a consequent
+simplicity of manners. These ideas must first be forgotten,
+before wealth can produce luxury, and luxury its attendant
+train of evils. Though accelerating the downfall of a democratic
+republic, it is therefore not the primary cause of that
+downfall.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-36">36</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-37" id="Footnote-37"></a> Balzac, <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Lettre &agrave; Madame la Duchesse de Montausier</cite>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-37">37</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-38" id="Footnote-38"></a> That this stricture is not too severe will be obvious to any
+one who reflects on the principles upon which this legislation
+was based. Inculcating that war was the great business of
+life, and to be terrible to one's enemies the only object of manly
+ambition, the Spartan laws sacrificed the noblest private virtues
+and domestic affections. They deprived the female character
+of the charms that most adorn it&mdash;modesty, tenderness,
+and sensibility; they made men brutal, coarse, and cruel.
+They stunted individual talents; Sparta has produced but few
+great men, and these, says Macaulay, only became great when
+they ceased to be Lacedemonians. Much unsound sentimentality
+has been expended in eulogizing Sparta, from Xenophon
+down to Mitford, yet the verdict of the unbiassed historian cannot
+differ very widely from that of Macaulay: "The Spartans
+purchased for their government a prolongation of its existence
+by the sacrifice of happiness at home, and dignity abroad.
+They cringed to the powerful, they trampled on the weak, they
+massacred their helots, they betrayed their allies, they contrived
+to be a day too late for the battle of Marathon, they
+attempted to avoid the battle of Salamis, they suffered the
+Athenians, to whom they owed their lives and liberties, to be a
+second time driven from their country by the Persians, that
+they might finish their own fortifications on the Isthmus; they
+attempted to take advantage of the distress to which exertions
+in their cause had reduced their preservers, in order to make
+them their slaves; they strove to prevent those who had abandoned
+their walls to defend them, from rebuilding them to defend
+themselves; they commenced the Peloponnesian war in
+violation of their engagements with their allies; they gave up
+to the sword whole cities which had placed themselves under
+their protection; they bartered for advantages confined to
+themselves the interests, the freedom, and the lives of those
+who had served them most faithfully; they took, with equal
+complacency, and equal infamy, the stripes of Elis and the
+bribes of Persia; they never showed either resentment or gratitude;
+they abstained from no injury, and they revenged none.
+Above all, they looked on a citizen who served them well as
+their deadliest enemy."&mdash;<cite>Essays</cite>, iii. 389.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-38">38</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-39" id="Footnote-39"></a> The horrid scenes of California life, its lynch laws, murders,
+and list of all possible crimes, are still ringing in our ears, and
+have not entirely ceased, though their number is lessened, and they
+are rapidly disappearing before lawful order. Australia offered,
+and still offers, the same spectacle. Texas, but a few years ago,
+and all newly settled countries in our day, afford another striking
+illustration of the author's remark. Young communities ever
+attract a great number of lawless and desperate men; and this
+has been the case in all ages. Rome was founded by a band of
+fugitives from justice, and if her early history be critically examined,
+it will be found to reveal a state of society, with which
+the Rome described by the Satirists, and upbraided by the Censors,
+compares favorably. Any one who will cast a glance into
+Bishop Potter's <cite>Antiquities</cite>, can convince himself that the state
+of morals, in Athens, was no better in her most flourishing periods
+than at the time of her downfall, if, indeed, as good; notwithstanding
+the glowing colors in which Isocrates and his followers
+describe the virtues of her youthful period, and the
+degeneracy of the age. Who can doubt that public morality
+has attained a higher standard in England, at the present day
+when her strength seems to have departed from her, than it had
+at any previous era in her history. Where are the brutal fox-hunting
+country squires of former centuries? the good old customs,
+when hospitality consisted in drinking one's guest underneath
+the table? What audience could now endure, or what
+police permit, the plays of Congreve and of Otway? Even Shakspeare
+has to be pruned by the moral censor, before he can charm
+our ears. Addison himself, than whom none contributed more
+to purify the morals of his age, bears unmistakable traces of
+the coarseness of the time in which he wrote. It will be objected
+that we are only more prudish, no better at the bottom. But,
+even supposing that the same vices still exist, is it not a great
+step in advance, that they dare no longer parade themselves with
+unblushing impudence? Many who derive their ideas of the
+Middle Ages, of chivalry, etc., from the accounts of romance
+writers, have very erroneous notions about the manners of that
+period. "It so happens," says Byron, "that the good old times
+when '<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">l'amour du bon vieux temps, l'amour antique</i>' flourished,
+were the most profligate of all possible centuries. Those who
+have any doubts on the subject may consult St. Palay, particularly
+vol. ii. p. 69. The vows of chivalry were no better kept
+than any other vows whatever, and the songs of the troubadour
+were not more decent, and certainly much less refined, than those
+of Ovid. The 'cours d'amour, parlements d'amour, ou de courtoisie
+et de gentilesse,' had much more of love than of courtesy
+and gentleness. (See Roland on the same subject with St. Palay.)"
+<cite>Preface to Childe Harold.</cite> I should not have quoted the authority
+of a poet on historical matters, were I not convinced, from
+my own investigations, that his pungent remarks are perfectly
+correct. As a further confirmation, I may mention that a few
+years ago, in rummaging over the volumes of a large European
+library, I casually lit upon a record of judicial proceedings
+during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, in a little commonwealth,
+whose simplicity of manners, and purity of public morals,
+especially in that period, has been greatly extolled by historians.
+There, I found a list of crimes, to which the most corrupt of
+modern great cities can furnish no parallel. In horror and hellish
+ingenuity, they can be faintly approached only by the punishment
+which followed them. Of many, our generation ignores
+even the name, and, of others, dares not utter them.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-39">39</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-40" id="Footnote-40"></a> This assertion may surprise those who, in the words of a
+piquant writer on Parisian life, "have thought of Paris only
+under two aspects&mdash;one, as the emporium of fashion, fun, and
+refinement; the abode of good fellows somewhat dissipated, of
+fascinating ladies somewhat over-kind; of succulent dinners,
+somewhat indigestible; of pleasures, somewhat illicit;&mdash;the other,
+as the place <i>par excellence</i>, of revolutions, <i>&eacute;meutes</i>, and barricades."
+Yet, all who have pierced below the brilliant surface,
+and penetrated into the recesses of destitution and crime, have
+seen the ministering angel of charity on his errand, and can bear
+witness to the truth of the author's remark. No city can show
+a greater number of benevolent institutions, none more active
+and practical <em>private</em> charity, which inquires not after the country
+or creed of its object.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-40">40</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-41" id="Footnote-41"></a> Tottering, falling Greece, gave birth to a Demosthenes, a
+Phocian; the period of the downfall of the Roman republic was
+the age of Cicero, Brutus, and Cato.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-41">41</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-42" id="Footnote-42"></a> The subjoined picture of the manners of the Frankish conquerors
+of Gaul, is selected on account of the weighty authority
+from which it comes, from among a number of even darker ones.
+"The history of Gregory of Tours shows us on the one hand,
+a fierce and barbarous nation; and on the other, kings of as
+bad a character. These princes were bloody, unjust, and cruel,
+because all the nation was so. If Christianity seemed sometimes
+to soften them, it was only by the terror which this religion imprints
+in the guilty; the church supported herself against them
+by the miracles and prodigies of her saints. The kings were not
+sacrilegious, because they dreaded the punishments inflicted on
+sacrilegious people: but this excepted, they committed, either
+in their passion or cold blood, all manner of crimes and injustice,
+because in these the avenging hand of the Deity did not
+appear so visible. The Franks, as I have already observed,
+bore with bloody kings, because they were fond of blood themselves;
+they were not affected with the wickedness and extortion
+of their princes, because this was their own character. There
+had been a great many laws established, but the kings rendered
+them all useless by the practice of issuing <em>preceptions</em>, a kind of
+decrees, after the manner of the rescripts of the Roman emperors.
+These preceptions were orders to the judges to do, or to
+tolerate, things contrary to law. They were given for illicit
+marriages, and even those with consecrated virgins; for transferring
+successions, and depriving relations of their rights; for
+putting to death persons who had not been convicted of any
+crime, and not been heard in their defence, etc."&mdash;<cite class="author">Montesquieu</cite>,
+<cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Esprit des Lois</cite>, b. 31, c. 2.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-42">42</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-43" id="Footnote-43"></a> Augustin Thierry, <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">R&eacute;cit des Temps M&eacute;rovingiens</cite>. (See particularly
+the <cite>History of Mummolus</cite>.)</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-43">43</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-44" id="Footnote-44"></a> Lucretius was the author of <cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">De Rerum Natura</cite>, and one
+of the most distinguished of pagan "free-thinkers." He labored
+to combine the philosophy of Epicurus, Evhenius, and others,
+into a sort of moral religion, much after the fashion of some of
+the German mystics and Platonists of our times.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-44">44</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-45" id="Footnote-45"></a> C&aelig;sar, whose private opinions were both democratical and
+sceptical, found it convenient to speak very differently in public,
+as the funeral oration in honor of his aunt proves. "On
+the maternal side, said he, my aunt Julia is descended from
+the kings; on the paternal, from the immortal gods. For my
+aunt's mother was of the family of the Martii, who are
+descended from King Ancus Martius; and the Julii, to
+which stock our family belongs, trace their origin to Venus.
+Thus, in her blood was blended the majesty of kings, the most
+powerful of men, and the sanctity of the gods, who have even
+the kings in their power."&mdash;<cite>Suetonius</cite>, <cite>Julius</cite>, 5.
+</p><p>
+Are not these sentiments very monarchical for a democrat;
+very religious for an atheist?</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-45">45</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-46" id="Footnote-46"></a> It is well known that Constantine did not receive the rite
+of baptism until within the last hours of his life, although he
+professed to be a sincere believer. The coins, also, struck
+during his reign, all bore pagan emblems.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-46">46</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-47" id="Footnote-47"></a> Acts xxvi. 24, 28, 31.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-47">47</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-48" id="Footnote-48"></a> It will be understood that I speak here, not of the political
+existence of a centre of sovereignty, but of the life of an entire
+nation, the prosperity of a civilization. Here is the place to
+apply the definition given above, <a title="Go to page 114." href="#page114">page 114</a>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-48">48</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-49" id="Footnote-49"></a> This assertion will appear paradoxical to those who are in
+the habit of looking upon Spain as the type of hopeless national
+degradation. But whoever studies the history of the last thirty
+years, which is but a series of struggles to rise from this position,
+will probably arrive at the same conclusions as the author.
+The revolution of 1820 redeems the character of the nation.
+"The Spanish Constitution" became the watchword of the
+friends of constitutional liberty in the South of Europe, and ere
+thirteen months had fully passed, it had become the fundamental
+law of three other countries&mdash;Portugal, Naples, and Sardinia.
+At the mere sound of those words, two kings had resigned their
+crowns. These revolutions were not characterized by excesses.
+They were, for the most part, accomplished peacefully, quietly,
+and orderly. They were not the result of the temporary passions
+of an excited mob. The most singular feature of these
+countries is that the lowest dregs of the population are the most
+zealous adherents of absolutism. No, these revolutions were
+the work of the best elements in the population, the most intelligent
+classes, of people who knew what they wanted, and how
+to get it. And then, when Spain had set that ever glorious example to her neighbors, the great powers, with England at the
+head, concluded to re-establish the former state of things. In
+those memorable congresses of plenipotentiaries, the most influential
+was the representative of England, the Duke of Wellington.
+And by his advice, or, at least, with his sanction, an
+Austrian army entered Sardinia, and abolished the new constitution;
+an Austrian army entered Naples and abolished the new
+constitution; English vessels of war threatened Lisbon, and Portugal
+abolished her new constitution; and finally a French army
+entered Spain, and abolished the new constitution. So Naples
+and Portugal regained their tyrants, and Spain her imbecile
+dynasty. For years the Spaniards have tried to shake it off,
+and English influence alone has maintained on a great nation's
+throne, a wretch that would have disgraced the lowest walks of
+private life. But the day of Spanish liberty and Spanish <em>independence</em>
+will dawn, and perhaps already has dawned. The efforts
+of the last Cortes were wisely directed, and their proceedings
+marked with a manliness, a moderation, and a firmness that
+augur well for the future weal of Spain.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-49">49</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-50" id="Footnote-50"></a> Who is not reminded of Oxenstierna's famous saying to
+his son: "<span xml:lang="la" lang="la">Cum parva sapienti&acirc; mundus gubernatur</span>."&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-50">50</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-51" id="Footnote-51"></a> It is obvious that so long as the vitality of a nation remains
+unimpaired, misgovernment can be but a temporary ill. The
+regenerative principle will be at work to remove the evil and
+heal the wounds it has inflicted; and though the remedy be
+sometimes violent, and throw the state into fearful convulsions,
+it will seldom be found ineffectual. So long as the spirit of
+liberty prevailed among the Romans, the Tarquiniuses and
+Appiuses were as a straw before the storm of popular indignation;
+but the death of C&aelig;sar could but substitute a despot in
+the stead of a mild and generous usurper. The first Brutus
+might save the nation, because he was the expression of the
+national sentiment; the second could not, because he was one
+man opposed to millions. It is a common error to ascribe too
+much to individual exertions, and whimsical philosophers have
+amused themselves to trace great events to petty causes; but
+a deeper inquiry will demonstrate that the great catastrophes
+which arrest our attention and form the landmarks of history,
+are but the inevitable result of all the whole chain of antecedent
+events. Julius C&aelig;sar and Napoleon Bonaparte were, indeed,
+especially gifted for their great destinies, but the same gifts
+could not have raised them to their exalted positions at any
+other epoch than the one in which each lived. Those petty
+causes are but the drop which causes the measure to overflow,
+the pretext of the moment; or as the small fissure in the dyke
+which produces the <em>crevasse</em>: the wall of waters stood behind.
+No man can usurp supreme power, unless the prevailing tendency
+of the nation favors it; no man can long persist in hurrying
+a nation along in a course repulsive to it; and in this
+sense, therefore, not with regard to its abstract justness, it is
+undoubtedly true, that the voice of the nation is the voice of
+God. It is the expression of what shall and must be.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-51">51</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-52" id="Footnote-52"></a> The author has neglected to advert to one very clear explanation
+of this word, which, from its extensive popularity,
+seems to me to deserve some notice. It is said, and very commonly
+believed, that there is a physical degeneracy in mankind;
+that a nation cultivating for a long time the arts of peace, and
+enjoying the fruits of well-directed industry, loses the capacity
+for warfare; in other words becomes effeminate, and, consequently,
+less capable of defending itself against ruder, and, therefore,
+more warlike invaders. It is further said, though with less
+plausibility, that there is a general degeneracy of the human
+race&mdash;that we are inferior in physical strength to our ancestors,
+etc. If this theory could be supported by incontestable facts&mdash;and
+there are many who think it possible&mdash;it would give to the
+term degeneracy that real and tangible meaning which the author
+alleges to be wanting. But a slight investigation will demonstrate
+that it is more specious than correct.
+</p><p>
+In the first place, to prove that an advance in civilization
+does not lessen the material puissance of a nation, but rather
+increases it, we may point to the well-known fact that the most
+civilized nations are the most formidable opponents in warfare,
+because they have brought the means of attack and defence to
+the greatest perfection.
+</p><p>
+But that for this strength they are not solely indebted to artificial
+means, is proved by the history of modern civilized states.
+The French now fight with as much martial ardor and intrepidity,
+and with more success than they did in the times of Francis
+I. or Louis XIV., albeit they have since both these epochs
+made considerable progress in civilization, and this progress
+has been most perceptible in those classes which form the bulk
+and body of armies. England, though, perhaps, she could not
+muster an army as large as in former times, has hearts as stout,
+and arms as strong as those that gained for her imperishable
+glory at Agincourt and Poitiers. The charge at Balaklava, rash
+and useless as it may be termed, was worthy of the followers of
+the Black Prince.
+</p><p>
+A theory to be correct, must admit of mathematical demonstration.
+The most civilized nations, then, would be the most
+effeminate; the most barbarous, the most warlike. And, descending
+from nations to individuals, the most cultivated and
+refined mind would be accompanied by a deficiency in many of
+the manly virtues. Such an assertion is ridiculous. The most
+refined and fastidious gentleman has never, as a class, displayed
+less courage and fortitude than the rowdy and fighter by profession.
+Men sprung from the bosom of the most polished
+circles in the most civilized communities, have surpassed the
+most warlike barbarians in deeds of hardihood and heroic
+valor.
+</p><p>
+Civilization, therefore, produces no degeneracy; the cultivation
+of the arts of peace, no diminution of manly virtues. We have
+seen the peaceful burghers of free cities successfully resist the
+trained bands of a superior foe; we have seen the artisans and
+merchants of Holland invincible to the veteran armies of the
+then most powerful prince of Christendom, backed as he was
+by the inexhaustible treasures of a newly discovered hemisphere;
+we have seen, in our times, troops composed of volunteers who
+left their hearthstones to fight for their country, rout incredible
+odds of the standing armies of a foe, who, for the last thirty years,
+has known no peace.
+</p><p>
+I believe that an advanced state of civilization, accompanied
+by long peace, gives rise to a certain <em>domestication</em> of man, that
+is to say, it lays on a polish over the more ferocious or pugnacious
+tendencies of his nature; because it, in some measure deprives
+him of the opportunities of exercising them, but it cannot
+deprive him of the power, should the opportunity present
+itself. Let us suppose two brothers born in some of our great
+commercial cities, one to enter a counting-house, the other to
+settle in the western wilderness. The former might become a
+polished, elegant, perhaps even dandified young gentleman; the
+other might evince a supreme contempt for all the amenities of
+life, be ever ready to draw his bowie-knife or revolver, however
+slight the provocation. The country requires the services of
+both; a great principle is at stake, and in some battle of Matamoras
+or Buena Vista, the two brothers fight side by side; who
+will be the braver?
+</p><p>
+I believe that both individual and national character admit of
+a certain degree of pressure by surrounding circumstances;
+the pressure removed, the character at once regains its original
+form. See with what kindliness the civilized descendant
+of the wild Teuton hunter takes to the hunter's life in new
+countries, and how soon he learns to despise the comforts of
+civilized life and fix his abode in the solitary wilderness. The
+Normans had been settled over six centuries in the beautiful
+province of France, to which they gave their name; their nobles
+had frequented the most polished court in Europe, adapted
+themselves to the fashions and requirements of life in a luxurious
+metropolis; they themselves had learned to plough the soil
+instead of the wave; yet in another hemisphere they at once
+regained their ancient habits, and&mdash;as six hundred years before&mdash;became
+the most dreaded pirates of the seas they infested; the
+savage buccaneers of the Spanish main. I can see no difference
+between Lolonnois and his followers, and the terrible men of the
+north (his lineal ancestors) that ravaged the shores of the Seine
+and the Rhine, and whose name is even yet mentioned with
+horror every evening, in the other hemisphere, by thousands of
+praying children: "God preserve us from the Northmen."
+Morgan, the Welch buccaneer, who, with a thousand men, vanquished
+five times as many well-equipped Spaniards, took their
+principal cities, Porto Bello and Panama; who tortured his
+captives to make them reveal the hiding-place of their treasure;
+Morgan might have been&mdash;sixteen centuries notwithstanding&mdash;a
+tributary chief to Caractacus, or one of those who opposed
+C&aelig;sar's landing in Britain. To make the resemblance still
+more complete, the laws and regulations of these lawless bands
+were a precise copy of those to which their not more savage
+ancestors bound themselves.
+</p><p>
+I regret that my limited space precludes me from entering
+into a more elaborate exposition of the futility of the theory
+that civilization, or a long continued state of peace, can produce
+physical degeneracy or inaptitude for the ruder duties of the
+battle-field; but I believe that what I have said will suffice
+to suggest to the thoughtful reader numerous confirmations of
+my position; and I may, therefore, now refer him to Mr. Gobineau's
+explanation of the term degeneracy.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-52">52</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-53" id="Footnote-53"></a> "Nothing but the great number of citizens in a state can
+occasion the flourishing of the arts and sciences. Accordingly,
+we see that, in all ages, it was great empires only which enjoyed
+this advantage. In these great states, the arts, especially that
+of agriculture, were soon brought to great perfection, and thus
+that leisure afforded to a considerable number of men, which is
+so necessary to study and speculation. The Babylonians, Assyrians,
+and Egyptians, had the advantage of being formed into
+regular, well-constituted states."&mdash;<cite>Origin of Laws and Sciences,
+and their Progress among the most Ancient Nations.</cite> By President
+<cite class="author">De Goguet</cite>. Edinburgh, 1761, vol. i. pp. 272-273.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-53">53</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-54" id="Footnote-54"></a> "Conquests, by uniting many nations under one sovereign,
+have formed great and powerful empires, out of the ruins of
+many petty states. In these great empires, men began insensibly
+to form clearer views of politics, juster and more salutary
+notions of government. Experience taught them to avoid the
+errors which had occasioned the ruin of the nations whom they
+had subdued, and put them upon taking measures to prevent
+surprises, invasions, and the like misfortunes. With these views
+they fortified cities, secured such passes as might have admitted
+an enemy into their country, and kept a certain number of troops
+constantly on foot. By these precautions, several States rendered
+themselves formidable to their neighbors, and none durst
+lightly attack powers which were every way so respectable. The
+interior parts of such mighty monarchies were no longer exposed
+to ravages and devastations. War was driven far from
+the centre, and only infected the frontiers. The inhabitants of
+the country, and of the cities, began to breathe in safety. The
+calamities which conquests and revolutions had occasioned, disappeared;
+but the blessings which had grown out of them, remained.
+Ingenious and active spirits, encouraged by the repose
+which they enjoyed, devoted themselves to study. <em>It was in the
+bosom of great empires the arts were invented, and the sciences had
+their birth.</em>"&mdash;<cite>Op. cit.</cite>, vol. i. Book 5, p. 326.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-54">54</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-55" id="Footnote-55"></a> The history of every great empire proves the correctness of
+this remark. The conqueror never attempted to change the
+manners or local institutions of the peoples subdued, but contented
+himself with an acknowledgment of his supremacy, the
+payment of tribute, and the rendering of assistance in war.
+Those who have pursued a contrary course, may be likened to
+an overflowing river, which, though it leaves temporary marks
+of its destructive course behind, must, sooner or later, return to
+its bed, and, in a short time, its invasions are forgotten, and
+their traces obliterated.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-55">55</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-56" id="Footnote-56"></a> The most striking illustration of the correctness of this
+reasoning, is found in Roman history, the earlier portion of
+which is&mdash;thanks to Niebuhr's genius&mdash;just beginning to be understood.
+The lawless followers of Romulus first coalesced with
+the Sabines; the two nations united, then compelled the Albans
+to raze their city to the ground, and settle in Rome. Next came
+the Latins, to whom, also, a portion of the city was allotted for
+settlement. These two conquered nations were, of course, not
+permitted the same civil and political privileges as the conquerors,
+and, with the exception of a few noble families among
+them (which probably had been, from the beginning, in the interests
+of the conquerors), these tribes formed the <em>plebs</em>. The
+distinction by nations was forgotten, and had become a distinction
+of <em>classes</em>. Then began the progress which Mr. Gobineau
+describes. The Plebeians first gained their <em>tribunes</em>, who could
+protect their interests against the one-sided legislation of the
+dominant class; then, the right of discussing and deciding certain
+public questions in the <em>comitia</em>, or public assembly. Next,
+the law prohibiting intermarriage between the Patricians and
+Plebeians was repealed; and thus, in course of time, the government
+changed from an oligarchical to a democratic form. I
+might go into details, or, I might mention other nations in which
+the same process is equally manifest, but I think the above well-known
+facts sufficient to bring the author's idea into a clear
+light, and illustrate its correctness. The history of the Middle
+Ages, the establishment of serfdom and its gradual abolition,
+also furnish an analogue.
+</p><p>
+Wherever we see an hereditary aristocracy (whether called
+class or caste), it will be found to originate in a race, which, if
+no longer <em>dominant</em>, was once conqueror. Before the Norman
+conquest, the English aristocracy was <em>Saxon</em>, there were no
+nobles of the ancient British blood, east of Wales; after the
+conquest, the aristocracy was <em>Norman</em>, and nine-tenths of the
+noble families of England to this day trace, or pretend to trace,
+their origin to that stock. The noble French families, anterior to
+the Revolution, were almost all of <em>Frankish</em> or <em>Burgundian</em> origin.
+The same observation applies everywhere else. In support of
+my opinion, I have Niebuhr's great authority: "Wherever there
+are castes, they are the consequence of foreign conquest and
+subjugation; it is impossible for a nation to submit to such a
+system, unless it be compelled by the calamities of a conquest.
+By this means only it is, that, contrary to the will of a people,
+circumstances arise which afterwards assume the character of a
+division into classes or castes."&mdash;<cite>Lect. on Anc. Hist.</cite> (In the
+English translation, this passage occurs in vol. i. p. 90.)
+</p><p>
+In conclusion, I would observe that, whenever it becomes
+politic to flatter the mass of the people, the fact of conquest is
+denied. Thus, English writers labored hard to prove that William
+the Norman did not, in reality, conquer the Saxons. Some
+time before the French Revolution, the same was attempted to
+be proved in the case of the Germanic tribes in France. L'Abb&eacute;
+du Bos, and other writers, taxed their ingenuity to disguise an
+obvious fact, and to hide the truth under a pile of ponderous
+volumes.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-56">56</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-57" id="Footnote-57"></a> "It has been a favorite thesis with many writers, to pretend
+that the Saxon government was, at the time of the conquest, by
+no means subverted; that William of Normandy legally acceded
+to the throne, and, consequently, to the engagements of the
+Saxon kings.... But, if we consider that the manner in
+which the public power is formed in a state, is so very essential
+a part of its government, and that a thorough change in this
+respect was introduced into England by the conquest, we shall
+not scruple to allow that a <em>new government</em> was established. Nay,
+as almost the whole landed property in the kingdom was, at that
+time, transferred to other hands, a new system of criminal justice
+introduced, and the language of the law moreover altered, the
+revolution may be said to have been such as is not, perhaps, to
+be paralleled in the history of any other country."&mdash;<cite class="author">De Lolme's</cite>
+<cite>English Constitution</cite>, c. i., <cite>note</cite> c.&mdash;"The battle of Hastings, and
+the events which followed it, not only placed a Duke of Normandy
+on the English throne, but gave up the whole population
+of England to the tyranny of the Norman race. The subjugation
+of a nation has seldom, even in Asia, been more complete."&mdash;<cite class="author">Macaulay's</cite>
+<cite>History of England</cite>, vol. i. p. 10.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-57">57</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-58" id="Footnote-58"></a> This assertion seems self-evident; it may, however, be not
+altogether irrelevant to the subject, to direct attention to a few
+facts in illustration of it. Great national calamities like wars,
+proscriptions, and revolutions, are like thunderbolts, striking
+mostly the objects of greatest elevation. We have seen that a
+conquering race generally, for a long time even after the conquest
+has been forgotten, forms an aristocracy, which generally
+monopolizes the prominent positions. In great political convulsions,
+this aristocracy suffers most, often in numbers, and always
+in proportion. Thus, at the battle of Cann&aelig;, from 5,000 to 6,000
+Roman knights are said to have been slain, and, at all times,
+the officer's dress has furnished the most conspicuous, and at
+the same time the most important target for the death-dealing
+stroke. In those fearful proscriptions, in which Sylla and
+Marius vied with each other in wholesale slaughter, the number
+of victims included two hundred senators and thirty-three ex-consuls.
+That the major part of the rest were prominent men,
+and therefore patricians, is obvious from the nature of this persecution.
+Revolutions are most often, though not always, produced
+by a fermentation among the mass of the population, who
+have a heavy score to settle against a class that has domineered
+and tyrannized over them. Their fury, therefore, is directed
+against this aristocracy. I have now before me a curious document
+(first published in the <cite>Prussian State-Gazette</cite>, in 1828, and
+for which I am indebted to a little German volume, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Das Menschengeschlecht
+auf seinem Gegenw&auml;rtigen Standpuncte</cite>, by <cite class="author" xml:lang="de" lang="de">Smidt-Phiseldeck</cite>),
+giving a list of the victims that fell under the
+guillotine by sentence of the revolutionary tribunal, from
+August, 1792, to the 27th of July, 1794, in a little less than
+two years. The number of victims there given is 2,774. Of
+these, 941 are of rank unknown. The remaining 1,833 may be
+divided in the following proportions:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table title="Victims of the guillotine (with known rank) from August, 1792 to the 27th of July, 1974"
+border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0"
+summary="1,084 victims of the highest nobility; 535 of the gentry, 113 of the bourgeoisie,
+for a total of 1,833 victims of known rank.">
+ <tr>
+ <td class="right">1,084</td>
+ <td class="left">highest nobility (princes, dukes, marshals of France,
+generals, and other officers, etc. etc.)</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="right">636</td>
+ <td class="left">of the gentry (members of Parliament, judges, etc. etc.)</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td class="right bb">113</td>
+ <td class="left">of the bourgeoisie (including non-commissioned officers
+and soldiers.)</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <td title="Total number of victims with known rank." class="right">1,833</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>Such facts require no comments.&mdash;H.</p>
+
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-58">58</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-59" id="Footnote-59"></a> The recent insurrection in China has given rise to a great
+deal of speculation, and various are the opinions that have
+been formed respecting it. But it is now pretty generally
+conceded that it is a great national movement, and, therefore,
+must ultimately be successful. The history of this insurrection,
+by Mr. Callery and Dr. Ivan (one the interpreter, and the other
+the physician of the French embassy in China, and both well
+known and reliable authorities) leaves no doubt upon the subject.
+One of the most significant signs in this movement is
+the cutting off the tails, and letting the hair grow, which is
+being practised, says Dr. Ivan, in all the great cities, and in the
+very teeth of the mandarins. (<cite>Ins. in China</cite>, p. 243.) Let not
+the reader smile at this seemingly puerile demonstration, or
+underrate its importance. Apparently trivial occurrences are
+often the harbingers of the most important events. Were I to
+see in the streets of Berlin or Vienna, men with long beards
+or hats of a certain shape, I should know that serious troubles
+are to be expected; and in proportion to the number of such
+men, I should consider the catastrophe more or less near at
+hand, and the monarch's crown in danger. When the Lombard
+stops smoking in the streets, he meditates a revolution; and
+France is comparatively safe, even though every street in Paris
+is barricaded, and blood flows in torrents; but when bands march
+through the streets singing the <em xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">&ccedil;a ira</em>, we know that to-morrow
+the <em>Red Republic</em> will be proclaimed. All these are silent, but
+expressive demonstrations of the prevalence of a certain principle
+among the masses. Such a one is the cutting off of the tail
+among the Chinese. Nor is this a mere emblem. The shaved
+crown and the tail are the brands of conquest, a mark of degradation
+imposed by the Mantchoos on the subjugated race. The
+Chinese have never abandoned the hope of one day expelling
+their conquerors, as they did already once before. "Ever since
+the fall of the Mings," says Dr. Ivan, "and the accession of the
+Mantchoo dynasty, clandestine associations&mdash;these intellectual
+laboratories of declining states&mdash;have been incessantly in operation.
+The most celebrated of these secret societies, that of
+the Triad, or the <em>three principles</em>, commands so extensive and
+powerful an organization, that its members may be found throughout
+China, and wherever the Chinese emigrate; so that there is
+no great exaggeration in the Chinese saying: 'When three of us
+are together, the Triad is among us.'" (<cite>Hist. of the Insur. in Ch.</cite>,
+p. 112.) Again, the writer says: "The revolutionary impetus
+is now so strong, the affairs of the pretender or chief of the insurrection
+in so prosperous a condition, that the success of his
+cause has nothing to fear from the loss of a battle. It would
+require a series of unprecedented reverses to ruin his hopes"
+(p. 243 and 245).
+</p><p>
+I have written this somewhat lengthy note to show that Mr.
+Gobineau makes no rash assertion, when he says that the Mantchoos
+are about to experience the same fate as their Tartar
+predecessors.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-59">59</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-60" id="Footnote-60"></a> The author might have mentioned Russia in illustration of
+his position. The star of no nation that we are acquainted with
+has suffered an eclipse so total and so protracted, nor re-appeared
+with so much brilliancy. Russia, whose history so many
+believe to date from the time of Peter the Great only, was one
+of the earliest actors on the stage of modern history. Its people
+had adopted Christianity when our forefathers were yet
+heathens; its princes formed matrimonial alliances with the
+monarchs of Byzantine Rome, while Charlemagne was driving
+the reluctant Saxon barbarians by thousands into rivers to be
+baptized <i>en masse</i>. Russia had magnificent cities before Paris
+was more than a collection of hovels on a small island of the
+Seine. Its monarchs actually contemplated, and not without
+well-founded hopes, the conquest of Constantinople, while the
+Norman barges were devastating the coasts and river-shores of
+Western Europe. Nay, to that far-off, almost polar region, the
+enterprise of the inhabitants had attracted the genius of commerce
+and its attendants, prosperity and abundance. One of
+the greatest commercial cities of the first centuries after Christ,
+one of the first of the Hanse-Towns, was the great city of Novogorod,
+the capital of a republic that furnished three hundred
+thousand fighting men. But the east of Europe was not destined
+to outstrip the west in the great race of progress. The
+millions of Tartars, that, locust-like&mdash;but more formidable&mdash;marked
+their progress by hopeless devastation, had converted
+the greater portion of Asia into a desert, and now sought a new
+field for their savage exploits. Russia stood the first brunt, and
+its conquest exhausted the strength of the ruthless foe, and
+saved Western Europe from overwhelming ruin. In the beginning
+of the thirteenth century, five hundred thousand Tartar
+horsemen crossed the Ural Mountains. Slow, but gradual, was
+their progress. The Russian armies were trampled down by
+this countless cavalry. But the resistance must have been a
+brave and vigorous one, for few of the invaders lived long enough
+to see the conquest. Not until after a desperate struggle of
+fifty years, did Russia acknowledge a Tartar master. Nor
+were the conquerors even then allowed to enjoy their prize in
+peace. For two centuries more, the Russians never remitted
+their efforts to regain their independence. Each generation
+transmitted to its posterity the remembrance of that precious
+treasure, and the care of reconquering it. Nor were their efforts
+unsuccessful. Year after year the Tartars saw the prize gliding
+from their grasp, and towards the end of the fifteenth century,
+we find them driven to the banks of the Volga, and the coasts of
+the Black Sea. Russia now began to breathe again. But,
+lo! during the long struggle, Pole and Swede had vied with the
+Tartar in stripping her of her fairest domains. Her territory
+extended scarce two hundred miles, in any direction from Moscow.
+Her very name was unknown. Western Europe had forgotten
+her. The same causes that established the feudal system
+there, had, in the course of two centuries and a half, changed
+a nation of freemen into a nation of serfs. The arts of peace
+were lost, the military element had gained an undue preponderance,
+and a band of soldiers, like the Pretorian Guards of Rome,
+made and deposed sovereigns, and shook the state to its very
+foundations. Yet here and there a vigorous monarch appeared,
+who controlled the fierce element, and directed it to the weal of
+the state. Smolensk, the fairest portion of the ancient Russian
+domain, was re-conquered from the Pole. The Swede, also, was
+forced to disgorge a portion of his spoils. But it was reserved
+for Peter the Great and his successors to restore to Russia the
+rank she had once held, and to which she was entitled.
+</p><p>
+I will not further trespass on the patience of the reader, now
+that we have arrived at that portion of Russian history which
+many think the first. I would merely observe that not only
+did Peter add to his empire no territory that had not formerly
+belonged to it, but even Catharine, at the first partition
+of Poland (I speak not of the subsequent ones), merely
+re-united to her dominion what once were integral portions.
+The rapid growth of Russia, since she has reassumed her station
+among the nations of the earth, is well known. Cities have
+sprung up in places where once the nomad had pitched his tent.
+A great capital, the handsomest in the world, has risen from the
+marsh, within one hundred and fifty years after the founder,
+whose name it perpetuates, had laid the first stone. Another
+has risen from the ashes, within less than a decade of years
+from the time when&mdash;a holocaust on the altar of patriotism&mdash;its
+flames announced to the world the vengeance of a nation on an
+intemperate aggressor.
+</p><p>
+Truly, it seems to me, that Mr. Gobineau could not have
+chosen a better illustration of his position, that the mere accident
+of conquest can not annihilate a nation, than this great
+empire, in whose history conquest forms so terrible and so long
+an episode, that the portion anterior to it is almost forgotten to
+this day.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-60">60</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-61" id="Footnote-61"></a> The author of <cite>Democracy in America</cite> (vol. ii. book 3, ch. 1),
+speculating upon the total want of sympathy among the various
+classes of an aristocratic community, says: "Each caste has
+its own opinions, feelings, rights, manners, and mode of living.
+The members of each caste do not resemble the rest of their
+fellow-citizens; they do not think and feel in the same manner,
+and believe themselves a distinct race.... When the
+chroniclers of the Middle Ages, who all belonged to the aristocracy
+by birth and education, relate the tragical end of a noble,
+their grief flows apace; while they tell, with the utmost indifference,
+of massacres and tortures inflicted on the common people.
+In this they were actuated by an <em>instinct</em> rather than by a
+passion, for they felt no habitual hatred or systematic disdain
+for the people: war between the several classes of the community
+was not yet declared." The writer gives extracts from
+Mme. de Sevign&eacute;'s letters, displaying, to use his own words,
+"a cruel jocularity which, in our day, the harshest man writing
+to the most insensible person of his acquaintance would not
+venture to indulge in; and yet Madame de Sevign&eacute; was not selfish
+or cruel; she was passionately attached to her children, and
+ever ready to sympathize with her friends, and she treated her
+servants and vassals with kindness and indulgence." "Whence
+does this arise?" asks M. De Tocqueville; "have we really more
+sensibility than our forefathers?" When it is recollected, as
+has been pointed out in a previous note, that the nobility of
+France were of Germanic, and the peasantry of Celtic origin,
+we will find in this an additional proof of the correctness of our
+author's theory. Thanks to the revolution, the barriers that
+separated the various ranks have been torn down, and continual
+intermixture has blended the blood of the Frankish noble and
+of the Gallic boor. Wherever this fusion has not yet taken
+place, or but imperfectly, M. De Tocqueville's remarks still
+apply.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-61">61</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-62" id="Footnote-62"></a> The spirit of clanship is so strong in the Arab tribes, and
+their instinct of ethnical isolation so powerful, that it often
+displays itself in a rather odd manner. A traveller (Mr. Fulgence
+Fresnel, if I am not mistaken) relates that at Djidda,
+where morality is at a rather low ebb, the same Bedouine who
+cannot resist the slightest pecuniary temptation, would think
+herself forever dishonored, if she were joined in lawful wedlock
+to the Turk or European, to whose embrace she willingly yields
+while she despises him.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-62">62</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><a name="Footnote-63" id="Footnote-63"></a>
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i11">The man<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Power, like a desolating pestilence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Makes slaves of man, and of the human frame<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A mechanized automaton.</span>
+</div>
+<p class="citation"><cite class="author">Shelley</cite>, <cite>Queen Mab</cite>.</p>
+</div>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-63">63</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-64" id="Footnote-64"></a> Montesquieu expresses a similar idea, in his usual epigrammatic
+style. "The customs of an enslaved people," says he,
+"are a part of their servitude; those of a free people, a part
+of their liberty."&mdash;<cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Esprit des Lois</cite>, b. xix. c. 27.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-64">64</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-65" id="Footnote-65"></a> "A great portion of the peculiarities of the Spartan constitution
+and their institutions was assuredly of ancient Doric
+origin, and must have been rather given up by the other Dorians,
+than newly invented and instituted by the Spartans."&mdash;<cite>Niebuhr's
+Ancient History</cite>, vol. i. p. 306.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-65">65</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-66" id="Footnote-66"></a> See <a title="Go to Footnote 38 on Page 121." href="#Footnote-38">note</a> on <a title="Go to Page 121." href="#page121">page 121</a>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-66">66</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-67" id="Footnote-67"></a> The amalgamation of races in South America must indeed
+be inconceivable. "I find," says Alex. von Humboldt, in 1826,
+"by several statements, that if we estimate the population of
+the whole of the Spanish colonies at fourteen or fifteen millions
+of souls, there are, in that number, at most, <em>three</em> millions of
+pure whites, including about 200,000 Europeans." (<cite>Pers. Nar.</cite>,
+vol. i. p. 400.) Of the progress which this mongrel population
+have made in civilization, I cannot give a better idea than by an
+extract from Dr. Tschudi's work, describing the mode of ploughing
+in some parts of Chili. "If a field is to be tilled, it is done
+by two natives, who are furnished with long poles, pointed at
+one end. The one thrusts his pole, pretty deeply, and in an
+oblique direction, into the earth, so that it forms an angle with
+the surface of the ground. The other Indian sticks his pole in,
+at a little distance, and also obliquely, and he forces it beneath
+that of his fellow-laborer, so that the first pole lies, as it were,
+upon the second. The first Indian then presses on his pole, and
+makes it work on the other, as a lever on its fulcrum, and the
+earth is thrown up by the point of the pole. Thus they gradually
+advance, until the whole field is furrowed by this laborious
+process." (<cite>Dr. Tschudi, Travels in Peru, during the years 1838-1842.</cite>
+London, 1847, p. 14.) I really do not think that a
+counterpart to this could be found, except, perhaps, in the
+manner of working the mines all over South America. Both
+Darwin and Tschudi speak of it with surprise. Every pound
+of ore is brought out of the shafts on men's shoulders. The
+mines are drained of the water accumulating in them, in the
+same manner, by means of water-tight bags. Dr. Tschudi describes
+the process employed for the amalgamation of the quicksilver
+with the silver ore. It is done by causing them to be trodden
+together by horses', or human feet. Not only is this method
+attended with incredible waste of material, and therefore very
+expensive, but it soon kills the horses employed in it, while the
+men contract the most fearful, and, generally, incurable diseases!
+(<cite>Op. cit.</cite>, p. 331-334.)&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-67">67</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-68" id="Footnote-68"></a> A. von Humboldt, <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Examen critique de l'Histoire et de la
+G&eacute;ographie du N. C.</cite>, vol. ii. p. 129-130.
+</p><p>
+The same opinion is expressed by Mr. Humboldt in his <cite>Personal
+Narrative</cite>. London, 1852, vol. i. p. 296.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-68">68</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-69" id="Footnote-69"></a> Speaking of the habit of tattooing among the South Sea Islanders,
+Mr. Darwin says that even girls who had been brought
+up in missionaries' houses, could not be dissuaded from this
+practice, though in everything else, they seemed to have forgotten
+the savage instincts of their race. "The wives of the missionaries
+tried to prevent them, but a famous operator having
+arrived from the South, they said: 'We really must have just
+a few lines on our lips, else, when we grow old, we shall be so
+ugly.'"&mdash;<cite>Journal of a Naturalist</cite>, vol. ii. p. 208.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-69">69</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-70" id="Footnote-70"></a> For the latest details, see Mr. Gustave d'Alaux's articles in
+the <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Revue des Deux Mondes</cite>, 1853.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-70">70</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-71" id="Footnote-71"></a> The subjoined comparison of the exports of Haytien staple
+products may not be uninteresting to many of our readers,
+while it serves to confirm the author's assertion. I extract it
+from a statistical table in Mackenzie's report to the British
+government, upon the condition of the then republic (now
+empire). Mr. Mackenzie resided there as special <em>envoy&eacute;</em> several
+years, for the purpose of collecting authentic information for
+his government, and his statements may therefore be relied
+upon. (<cite>Notes on Hayti</cite>, vol. ii. note FF. London, 1830.)
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table title="Comparison of three crop yeilds, in lbs, from 1789 to 1826"
+border="0" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0"
+summary="Coffee requires the least amount of labor and therefore yeild decreased the least. Sugar
+requires the most labor and thus yeild decreased the most.">
+ <tr>
+ <th></th>
+ <th scope="col">SUGAR.<br />lbs.</th>
+ <th scope="col">COTTON.<br />lbs.</th>
+ <th scope="col">COFFEE.<br />lbs.</th>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th scope="row">1789</th>
+ <td class="right">141,089,831</td>
+ <td class="right">7,004,274</td>
+ <td class="right">76,835,219</td>
+ </tr>
+ <tr>
+ <th scope="row">1826</th>
+ <td class="right">32,864</td>
+ <td class="right">620,972</td>
+ <td class="right">32,189,784</td>
+ </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>It will be perceived, from these figures, that the decrease is
+greatest in that staple which requires the most laborious cultivation.
+Thus, sugar requires almost unremitting toil; coffee,
+comparatively little. All branches of industry have fearfully
+decreased; some of them have ceased entirely; and the small and
+continually dwindling commerce of that wretched country consists
+now mainly of articles of spontaneous growth. The statistics
+of imports are in perfect keeping with those of exports.
+(<cite>Op. cit.</cite>, vol. ii. p. 183.) As might be expected from such a
+state of things, the annual expenditure in 1827 was estimated
+at a little more than <em>double</em> the amount of the annual revenue!
+(<cite>Ibid.</cite>, "Finance.")
+</p><p>
+That matters have not improved under the administration of
+that Most Gracious, Most Christian monarch, the Emperor
+Faustin I., will be seen by reference to last year's <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Annuaire de
+la Revue del deux Mondes</cite>, "Haiti," p. 876, <i>et seq.</i>, where some
+curious details about his majesty and his majesty's sable subjects
+will be found.</p>
+
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-71">71</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-72" id="Footnote-72"></a> Upon this subject, consult Prichard, d'Orbigny, and A. de
+Humboldt.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-72">72</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-73" id="Footnote-73"></a> I recollect having read, several years ago, in a Jesuit missionary
+journal (I forget its name and date, but am confident
+that the authority is a reliable one), a rather ludicrous account
+of an instance of this kind. One of the fathers, who had a little
+isolated village under his charge, had occasion to leave his flock
+for a time, and his place, unfortunately, could not be replaced
+by another. He therefore called the most promising of his
+neophytes, and committed to their care the domestic animals
+and agricultural implements with which the society had provided
+the newly-converted savages, then left them with many
+exhortations and instructions. His absence being prolonged
+beyond the period anticipated, the Indians thought him dead,
+and instituted a grand funeral feast in his honor, at which they
+slaughtered all the oxen, and roasted them by fires made of the
+ploughs, hoe-handles, etc.; and he arrived just in time to witness
+the closing scenes of this mourning ceremony.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-73">73</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-74" id="Footnote-74"></a> Consult, among others, Carus: <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Uber ungleiche Bef&auml;higung der
+vershiedenen Menschen-st&auml;mme f&uuml;r h&ouml;here geistige Entwickelung.</cite>
+Leipzig, 1849, p. 96 <i>et passim</i>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-74">74</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-75" id="Footnote-75"></a> Prichard, <cite>Natural History of Man</cite>, vol. ii.
+</p><p>
+See particularly the recent researches of E. G. Squier, published
+in 1847, under the title: <cite>Observations on the Aboriginal
+Monuments of the Mississippi Valley</cite>, and also in various late
+reviews and other periodicals.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-75">75</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-76" id="Footnote-76"></a> The very singular construction of these tumuli, and the
+numerous utensils found in them, occupy at this moment the
+penetration and talent of American antiquaries. I shall have
+occasion, in a subsequent volume, to express an opinion as to
+their value in the inquiries about a former civilization; at
+present, I shall only say that their almost incredible antiquity
+cannot be called in question. Mr. Squier is right in considering
+this proved by the fact merely, that the skeletons exhumed
+from these tumuli crumble into dust as soon as exposed to the
+atmosphere, although the condition of the soil in which they
+lie, is the most favorable possible; while the human remains
+under the British cromlichs, and which have been interred for
+at least eighteen centuries, are perfectly solid. It is easily conceived,
+therefore, that between the first possessors of the American
+soil and the Lenni-Lenape and other tribes, there is no
+connection. Before concluding this note, I cannot refrain from
+praising the industry and skill manifested by American scholars
+in the study of the antiquities of their immense continent. To
+obviate the difficulties arising from the excessive fragility of the
+exhumed skulls, many futile attempts were made, but the object
+was finally accomplished by pouring into them a bituminous
+preparation which instantly solidifies and thus preserves the
+osseous parts. This process, which requires many precautions,
+and as much skill as promptitude, is said to be generally successful.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-76">76</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-77" id="Footnote-77"></a> Ancient India required, on the part of its first white colonists,
+immense labor of cultivation and improvement. (See
+Lassen, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Indische Alterthumskunde</cite>, vol. i.) As to Egypt, see what
+Chevalier Bunsen, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">&AElig;gypten's Stelle in der Weltgeschichte</cite>, says
+of the fertilization of the Fayoum, that gigantic work of the
+earliest sovereigns.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-77">77</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-78" id="Footnote-78"></a> "Why have accidental circumstances always prevented some
+from rising, while they have only stimulated others to higher
+attainments?"&mdash;<cite>Dr. Kneeland's Introd. to Hamilton Smith's Nat.
+Hist. of Man</cite>, p. 95.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-78">78</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-79" id="Footnote-79"></a> Salvador, <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Histoire des Juifs</cite>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-79">79</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-80" id="Footnote-80"></a> M. Saint-Marc Girardin, <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Revue des Deux Mondes</cite>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-80">80</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-81" id="Footnote-81"></a> See, upon this often-debated subject, the opinion&mdash;somewhat
+acerbly expressed&mdash;of a learned historian and philologist:&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"A great number of writers have suffered themselves to be
+persuaded that the country made the nation; that the Bavarians
+and Saxons were predestined, by the nature of their soil, to become
+what they are to-day; that Protestantism belonged not to
+the regions of the south; and that Catholicism could not penetrate
+to those of the north; and many similar things. Men
+who interpret history according to their own slender knowledge,
+their narrow hearts, and near-sighted minds, would, by the same
+reasoning, make us believe that the Jews had possessed such
+and such qualities&mdash;more or less clearly understood&mdash;because
+they inhabited Palestine, and not India or Greece. But, if these
+philosophers, so dextrous in proving whatever flatters their notions,
+were to reflect that the Holy Land contained, in its limited
+compass, peoples of the most dissimilar religions and modes of
+thinking, that between them, again, and their present successors,
+there is the utmost difference conceivable, although the country
+is still the same; they would understand how little influence,
+upon the character and civilization of a nation has the country
+they inhabit."&mdash;<cite class="author">Ewald</cite>, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Geschichte des Volkes Israel</cite>, vol. i. p. 259.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-81">81</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-82" id="Footnote-82"></a> Although the success of the Chinese missions has not been
+proportionate to the self-devoting zeal of its laborers, there yet
+are, in China, a vast number of believers in the true faith. M.
+Huc tells us, in the relation of his journey, that, in almost every
+place where he and his fellow-traveller stopped, they could perceive,
+among the crowds that came to stare at the two "Western
+devils" (as the celestials courteously call us Europeans), men
+making furtively, and sometimes quite openly, the sign of the
+cross. Among the nomadic hordes of the table-lands of Central
+Asia, the number of Christians is much greater than among the
+Chinese, and much greater than is generally supposed. (See
+<cite>Annals of the Propagation of the Faith</cite>, No. 135, et seq.)&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-82">82</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-83" id="Footnote-83"></a> The tutelary divinity was generally a typification of the
+national character. A commercial or maritime nation, would
+worship Mercury or Neptune; an aggressive and warlike one,
+Hercules or Mars; a pastoral one, Pan; an agricultural one, Ceres
+or Triptolemus; one sunk in luxury, as Corinth, would render
+almost exclusive homage to Venus.
+</p><p>
+As the author observes, all ancient governments were more or
+less theocratical. The regulations of castes among the Hindoos
+and Egyptians were ascribed to the gods, and even the most
+absolute monarch dared not, and could not, transgress the limits
+which the immortals had set to his power. This so-called divine
+legislation often answered the same purpose as the charters of
+modern constitutional monarchies. The authority of the Persian
+kings was confined by religious regulations, and this has
+always been the case with the sultans of Turkey. Even in
+Rome, whose population had a greater tendency for the positive
+and practical, than for the things of another world, we find
+the traces of theocratical government. The sibylline books, the
+augurs, etc., were something more than a vulgar superstition;
+and the latter, who could stop or postpone the most important
+proceedings, by declaring the omens unpropitious, must have
+possessed very considerable political influence, especially in the
+earlier periods. The rude, liberty-loving tribes of Scandinavia,
+Germany, Gaul, and Britain, were likewise subjected to their
+druids, or other priests, without whose permission they never
+undertook any important enterprise, whether public or private.
+Truly does our author observe, that Christianity came to deliver
+mankind from such trammels, though the mistaken or interested
+zeal of some of its servants, has so often attempted, and successfully,
+to fasten them again. How ill adapted Christianity
+would be, even in a political point of view, for a theocratical
+formula, is well shown by Mr. Guizot, in his <cite>Hist. of Civilization</cite>,
+vol. i. p. 213.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-83">83</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-84" id="Footnote-84"></a> I have already pointed out, in my introduction (<a title="Go to page 41." href="#page41">p. 41-43</a>),
+some of the fatal consequences that spring from that doctrine.
+It may not, however, be out of place here to mention another.
+The communists, socialists, Fourrierites, or whatever names such
+enemies to our social system assume, have often seduced the
+unwary and weak-minded, by the plausible assertion that they
+wished to restore the social system of the first Christians, who
+held all goods in common, etc. Many religious sectaries have
+created serious disturbances under the same pretence. It seems,
+indeed, reasonable to suppose, that if Christianity had given its
+exclusive sanction to any particular social and political system,
+it must have been that which the first Christian communities
+adopted.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-84">84</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-85" id="Footnote-85"></a> See <a title="Go to footnote 67 on page 187." href="#Footnote-67">note</a> on <ins class="correction" title="I believe the translator meant 'page 187'">page 188</ins>.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-85">85</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-86" id="Footnote-86"></a> <cite>Natural History of Man</cite>, p. 390. London, 1843.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-86">86</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-87" id="Footnote-87"></a> <cite>Synopsis of the Indian Tribes of North America.</cite></p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-87">87</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-88" id="Footnote-88"></a> Had I desired to contest the accuracy of the assertions
+upon which Mr. Prichard bases his arguments in this case, I
+should have had in my favor the weighty authority of Mr. De
+Tocqueville, who, in speaking of the Cherokees, says: "What
+has greatly promoted the introduction of European habits
+among these Indians, is the presence of so great a number of
+half-breeds. The man of mixed race&mdash;participating as he does,
+to a certain extent, in the enlightenment of the father, without,
+however, entirely abandoning the savage manner of the mother&mdash;forms
+the natural link between civilization and barbarism.
+As the half-breeds increase among them, we find savages modify
+their social condition, and change their manners." (<cite>Dem. in Am.</cite>,
+vol. i. p. 412.) Mr. De Tocqueville ends by predicting that the
+Cherokees and Creeks, albeit they are half-breeds, and not, as
+Mr. Prichard affirms, pure aborigines, will, nevertheless, disappear
+before the encroachments of the whites.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-88">88</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-89" id="Footnote-89"></a> "When four pieces of cards were laid before them, each
+having a number pronounced <em>once</em> in connection with it, they
+will, after a re-arrangement of the pieces, select any one named
+by its number. They also play at domino, and with so much
+skill as to triumph over biped opponents, whining if the adversary
+plays a wrong piece, or if they themselves are deficient in
+the right one."&mdash;<cite>Vest. of Cr.</cite>, p. 236.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-89">89</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-90" id="Footnote-90"></a> In those portions of the present France, over one million
+and a half of the inhabitants speak German. The pure Gauls
+in the Landes have not yet learned the French language, and
+speak a peculiar&mdash;probably their original&mdash;<i>patois</i>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-90">90</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-91" id="Footnote-91"></a> With the exception of Normandy.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-91">91</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-92" id="Footnote-92"></a> See <a title="Go to page 183." href="#page183">p. 183</a>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-92">92</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-93" id="Footnote-93"></a> I am not aware that any writer has ever presumed to doubt
+this fact except Mr. Guizot, who dismisses it with a sneer.
+Fortunately, a sneer is not an argument, though it often has
+more weight.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-93">93</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-94" id="Footnote-94"></a> Hazlitt's translation, vol. i. p 21. New York, 1855.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-94">94</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-95" id="Footnote-95"></a> A careful comparison of Mr. Guizot's views with those expressed
+by Count Gobineau upon this interesting subject convinced
+me that the differences of opinion between these two
+investigators required a more careful and minute examination
+than the author has thought necessary. With this view, I subjoin
+further extracts from the celebrated "<cite>History of Civilization
+in Europe</cite>," from which, I think, it will appear that few of the
+great truths comprised in the definition of <em>civilization</em> have escaped
+the penetration and research of the illustrious writer, but
+that, being unable to divest himself of the idea of <em>unity</em> of
+civilization, he has necessarily fallen into an error, with which
+a great metaphysician justly charges so many reasoners. "It
+is hard," says Locke, speaking of the abuse of words, "to find
+a discourse written on any subject, especially of controversy,
+wherein one shall not observe, if he read with attention, the
+same words (and those commonly the most material in the discourse,
+and upon which the argument turns) used sometimes for
+one collection of simple ideas, and sometimes for another....
+A man, in his accompts with another, might with as much
+fairness, make the characters of numbers stand sometimes for
+one, and sometimes for another collection of units (<i>e. g.</i>, this
+character, 3, stand sometimes for three, sometimes for four, and
+sometimes for eight), as, in his discourse or reasoning, make the
+same words stand for different collections of simple ideas."
+</p>
+<p class="tbreak">
+Mr. Guizot opens his first lecture by declaring his intention
+of giving a "general survey of the history of <em>European civilization</em>,
+of its <em>origin</em>, its <em>progress</em>, its <em>end</em>, its <em>character</em>. I say European
+civilization, because there is evidently so striking a uniformity
+in the civilization of the different states of Europe, as
+fully to warrant this appellation. Civilization has flowed to
+them all from sources so much alike, it is so connected in them
+all&mdash;notwithstanding the great differences of time, of place, and
+circumstances&mdash;by the same principles, and it tends in them all
+to bring about the same results, that no one will doubt of there
+being <em>a civilization essentially European</em>."
+</p><p>
+Here, then, Mr. Guizot acknowledges one great truth contended
+for in this volume; he virtually recognizes the fact that
+there may be other civilizations, having different origins, a different
+progress, different characters, different ends.
+</p><p>
+"At the same time, it must be observed, that this civilization
+cannot be found in&mdash;its history cannot be collected from&mdash;the
+history of any single state of Europe. However similar in its
+general appearance throughout the whole, its variety is not less
+remarkable, nor has it ever yet developed itself completely in
+any particular country. Its characteristic features are widely
+spread, and we shall be obliged to seek, as occasion may require,
+in England, in France, in Germany, in Spain, for the elements
+of its history."
+</p><p>
+This is precisely the idea expressed in my introduction, that
+according to the character of a nation, its civilization manifests
+itself in various ways; in some, by perfection in the arts, useful
+or polite; in others, by development of political forms, and
+their practical application, etc. If I had then wished to support
+my opinion by a great authority, I should, assuredly, have
+quoted Mr. Guizot, who, a few pages further on, says:&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Wherever the exterior condition of man becomes enlarged,
+quickened, and improved; wherever the intellectual nature of
+man distinguishes itself by its energy, brilliancy, and its grandeur;
+wherever these signs occur, notwithstanding the gravest
+imperfections in the social system, there man proclaims and
+applauds a civilization."
+</p><p>
+"<em>Notwithstanding the gravest imperfections in the social system</em>,"
+says Mr. Guizot, yet in the series of hypotheses, quoted in the
+text, in which he attempts a negative definition of civilization,
+by showing what civilization is <em>not</em>, he virtually makes a political
+form the test of civilization.
+</p><p>
+In another passage, again, he says that civilization "is a
+course for humanity to run&mdash;a destiny for it to accomplish.
+Nations have transmitted, from age to age, something to their
+successors which is never lost, but which grows, and continues
+as a common stock, and will thus be carried on to the end of all
+things. For my part (he continues), I feel assured that human
+nature has such a destiny; that a general civilization pervades
+the human race; that at every epoch it augments; and that
+there, consequently, is a universal history of civilization to be
+written."
+</p><p>
+It must be obvious to the reader who compares these extracts,
+that Mr. Guizot expresses a totally distinct idea or collection of
+ideas in each.
+</p><p>
+First, the civilization of a particular nation, which exists
+"wherever the intellectual nature of man distinguishes itself
+by its energy, brilliancy, and grandeur." Such a civilization
+may flourish, "notwithstanding the greatest imperfections in
+the social system."
+</p><p>
+Secondly, Mr. Guizot's <em xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">beau-id&eacute;al</em> of the best, most perfect
+civilization, where the political forms insure the greatest happiness,
+promote the most rapid&mdash;yet well-regulated&mdash;progress.
+</p><p>
+Thirdly, a great system of particular civilizations, as that of
+Europe, the various elements of which "are connected by the
+same principles, and tend all to bring about the same general
+results."
+</p><p>
+Fourthly, a supposed general progress of the whole human
+race toward a higher state of perfection.
+</p><p>
+To all these ideas, provided they are not confounded one with
+another, I have already given my assent. (See <cite>Introduction</cite>, <a title="Go to page 51." href="#page51">p. 51</a>.)
+With regard to the latter, however, I would observe that it by
+no means militates against a belief in the intellectual imparity
+of races, and the permanency of this imparity. As in a
+society composed of individuals, all enjoy the fruits of the
+general progress, though all have not contributed to it in equal
+measure, and some not at all: so, in that society, of which we
+may suppose the various branches of the human family to be
+the members, even the inferior participate more or less in the
+benefits of intellectual labor, of which they would have been
+incapable. Because I can transport myself with almost the
+swiftness of a bird from one place to another, it does not follow
+that&mdash;though I profit by Watt's genius&mdash;I could have invented
+the steam-engine, or even that I understand the principles upon
+which that invention is based.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-95">95</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-96" id="Footnote-96"></a> W. Von Humboldt, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Ueber die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel
+Java; Einleitung</cite>, vol. i. p. 37. Berlin. "<span xml:lang="de" lang="de">Die <em>Civilization</em> ist die
+Vermenschlichung der V&ouml;lker in ihren &auml;usseren Einrichtungen
+und Gebr&auml;uchen, und der darauf Bezug habenden inneren Gesinnung.</span>"</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-96">96</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-97" id="Footnote-97"></a> William Von Humboldt. <span xml:lang="de" lang="de">"Die Kultur f&uuml;gt dieser Veredlung
+des gesellschaftlichen Zustandes Wissenschaft und Kunst
+hinzu."</span></p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-97">97</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-98" id="Footnote-98"></a> W. Von Humboldt, <cite>op. cit.</cite>, p. 37: <span xml:lang="de" lang="de">"Wenn wir in unserer
+Sprache <em>Bildung</em> sagen, so meinen wir damit etwas zugleich
+H&ouml;heres und mehr Innerlicheres, n&auml;mlich die Sinnesart, die sich
+aus der Erkenntniss und dem Gef&uuml;hle des gesammten geistigen
+und sittlichen Streben harmonish auf die Empfindung und den
+Charakter ergiesst."</span></p>
+
+<p>As nothing can exceed the difficulty of rendering an abstract
+idea from the French into English, except to transmit the same
+from German into French, and as if <em>all</em> these processes must be
+undergone, the identity of the idea is greatly endangered, I
+have thought proper to translate at once from the original German,
+and therefore differ somewhat from Mr. Gobineau, who
+gives it thus: <span xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">"L'homme form&eacute;, c'est-&agrave;-dire, l'homme qui, dans
+sa nature, poss&egrave;de quelque chose de plus haut, de plus intime
+&agrave; la fois, c'est-&agrave;-dire, une fa&ccedil;on de comprendre qui r&eacute;pand harmonieusement
+sur la sensibilit&eacute; et le charact&egrave;re les impressions
+qu'elle re&ccedil;oit de l'activit&eacute; intellectuelle et morale dans son ensemble."</span>
+I have taken great pains to express clearly Mr. Von
+Humboldt's idea, and have therefore amplified the word <em>Sinnesart</em>,
+which has not its precise equivalent in English.&mdash;<cite class="author">Trans.</cite></p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-98">98</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-99" id="Footnote-99"></a> See <a title="Go to page 154." href="#page154">page 154</a>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-99">99</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-100" id="Footnote-100"></a> Mr. Klemm (<cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Allgemeine Culturgeschichte der Menschheit</cite>,
+Leipzig, 1849) adopts, also, a division of all races into two categories,
+which he calls respectively the <em>active</em> and the <em>passive</em>. I
+have not had the advantage of perusing his book, and cannot,
+therefore, say whether his idea is similar to mine. It would
+not be surprising that, in pursuing the same road, we should
+both have stumbled over the same truth.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-100">100</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-101" id="Footnote-101"></a> The translator has here permitted himself a deviation from
+the original. Mr. Gobineau, to express his idea, borrows from
+the symbolism of the Hindoos, where the feminine principle is
+represented by Prakriti, and the masculine by Purucha, and
+calls the two categories of races respectively feminine and
+masculine. But as he "thereby wishes to express nothing but a
+mutual fecundation, without ascribing any superiority to either,"
+and as the idea seems fully rendered by the words used in the
+translation, the latter have been thought preferable, as not so
+liable to misrepresentation and misconception.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-101">101</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-102" id="Footnote-102"></a> See a quotation from De Tocqueville to the same effect,
+<a title="Go to Page 77." href="#page77">p. 77.</a></p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-102">102</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-103" id="Footnote-103"></a> One striking observation, in connection with this fact, Mr.
+Gobineau has omitted to make, probably not because it escaped
+his sagacity, but because he is himself a Roman Catholic.
+Wherever the Teutonic element in the population is predominant,
+as in Denmark, Sweden, Holland, England, Scotland,
+Northern Germany, and the United States, Protestantism prevails;
+wherever, on the contrary, the Germanic element is subordinate,
+as in portions of Ireland, in South America, and the
+South of Europe, Roman Catholicism finds an impregnable
+fortress in the hearts of the people. An ethnographical chart,
+carefully made out, would indicate the boundaries of each in
+Christendom. I do not here mean to assert that the Christian
+religion is accessible only to certain races, having already emphatically
+expressed my opinion to the contrary. I feel firmly
+convinced that a Roman Catholic may be as good and pious a
+Christian as a member of any other Christian Church whatever,
+but I see in this fact the demonstration of that leading characteristic
+of the Germanic races&mdash;independence of thought, which
+incites them to seek for truth, even in religion, for themselves;
+to investigate everything, and take nothing upon trust.
+</p><p>
+I have, moreover, in favor of my position, the high authority
+of Mr. Macaulay: "The Reformation," says that distinguished
+essayist and historian, "was a national as well as a moral
+revolt. It had been not only an insurrection of the laity
+against the clergy, but <em>also an insurrection of the great German
+race against an alien domination</em>. It is a most significant
+circumstance, that no large society of which the tongue is not
+Teutonic, has ever turned Protestant, and that, wherever a
+language derived from ancient Rome is spoken, the religion of
+modern Rome to this day prevails." (<cite>Hist. of England</cite>, vol. i.
+p. 53.)&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-103">103</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-104" id="Footnote-104"></a> Thus Sparta and Athens, respectively, stood at the head of
+the oligarchic and democratic parties, and the alternate preponderance
+of either of the two often inundated each state with
+blood. Yet Sparta and Athens, and the partisans of each in
+every state, possessed the spirit of liberty and independence in
+an equal degree. Themistocles and Aristides, the two great
+party leaders of Athens, vied with each other in patriotism.
+</p><p>
+This uniformity of general views and purpose, Mr. De Tocqueville
+found in the United States, and he correctly deduces from
+it the conclusion that "though the citizens are divided into 24
+(31) distinct sovereignties, they, nevertheless, constitute a
+single nation, and form more truly a state of society, than many
+peoples of Europe, living under the same legislation, and the
+same prince." (Vol. i. p. 425.) This is an observation which
+Europeans make last, because they do not find it at home; and
+in return, it prevents the American from acquiring a clear conception
+of the state of Europe, because he thinks the disputes
+there involve no deeper questions than the disputes around him.
+In certain fundamental principles, all Americans agree, to whatever
+party they may belong; certain general characteristics belong
+to them all, whatever be the differences of taste, and individual
+preferences; it is not so in Europe&mdash;England, perhaps,
+excepted, and Sweden and Denmark. But I will not anticipate
+the author.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-104">104</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-105" id="Footnote-105"></a> It is well known that, in both Greece and Rome, the education
+of the children of wealthy families was very generally intrusted
+to slaves. Some of the greatest philosophers of ancient
+Greece were bondsmen.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-105">105</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-106" id="Footnote-106"></a> China has no hereditary nobility. The class of mandarins
+is composed of those who have received diplomas in the great
+colleges with which the country abounds. A decree of the Emperor
+<em class="smcap">Jin-Tsoung</em>, who reigned from 1023 to 1063, regulated
+the modes of examination, to which all, indiscriminately, are
+admitted. The candidates are examined more than once, and
+every precaution is taken to prevent frauds. Thus, the son of
+the poorest peasant may become a mandarin, but, as he afterwards
+is dependent on the emperor for office or employment,
+this dignity is often of but little practical value. Still, there
+are numerous instances on record, in the history of China, of
+men who have risen from the lowest ranks to the first offices of
+the State, and even to the imperial dignity. (See <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Pauthier's Histoire
+de la Chine</cite>.)&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-106">106</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-107" id="Footnote-107"></a> John F. Davis, <cite>The Chinese</cite>. London, 1840, p. 274. "Three
+or four volumes of any ordinary work of the octavo size and
+shape, may be had for a sum equivalent to two shillings. A
+Canton bookseller's manuscript catalogue marked the price of
+the four books of Confucius, including the commentary, at a
+price rather under half a crown. The cheapness of their common
+literature is occasioned partly by the mode of printing, but
+partly also by the low price of paper."
+</p><p>
+These are Canton prices; in the interior of the empire, books
+are still cheaper, even in proportion to the value of money in
+China. Their classic works are sold at a proportionably lower
+price than the very refuse of our literature. A pamphlet, or
+small tale, may be bought for a sapeck, about the seventeenth
+part of a cent; an ordinary novel, for a little more or less than
+one cent.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-107">107</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-108" id="Footnote-108"></a> There are certain offences for which the punishment is remitted,
+if the culprit is able to explain lucidly the nature and
+object of the law respecting them. (See <cite>Huc's Trav. in China</cite>, vol.
+ii. p. 252.) In the same place, Mr. Huc bears witness to the
+correctness of our author's assertion. "Measures are taken,"
+says he, "not only to enable the magistrates to understand perfectly
+the laws they are called upon to apply, but also to diffuse
+a knowledge of them among the people at large. All persons in
+the employment of the government, are ordered to make the code
+their particular study; and a special enactment provides, that
+at certain periods, all officers, in all localities, shall be examined
+upon their knowledge of the laws by their respective superiors;
+and if their answers are not satisfactory, they are punished, the
+high officials by the retention of a month's pay; the inferior
+ones by forty strokes of the bamboo." It must not be imagined
+that Mr. Huc speaks of the Chinese in the spirit of a panegyrist.
+Any one who reads this highly instructive and amusing book
+(now accessible to English readers by a translation), will soon
+be convinced of the contrary. He seldom speaks of them to
+praise them.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-108">108</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-109" id="Footnote-109"></a> Op. cit., p. 100.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-109">109</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-110" id="Footnote-110"></a> The reader will remember that <em class="smcap">Diocletian</em>, who, the son
+of a slave, rose from the rank of a common soldier, to the
+throne of the empire of the world, associated with himself in
+the government, his friend <em class="smcap">Maximian</em>, A. D. 286. After six
+years of this joint reign, they took two other partners, <em class="smcap">Galerius</em>
+and <em class="smcap">Constantius</em>. Thus, the empire, though nominally
+one sovereignty, had in reality four supreme heads. Under
+Constantine the Great, the imperial unity was restored; but at
+his decease, the purple was again parcelled out among his sons
+and nephews. A permanent division of the empire, however,
+was not effected until the death of Theodosius the Great, who
+for sixteen years had enjoyed undivided power.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-110">110</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-111" id="Footnote-111"></a> It is not universally known that the various populations
+of France differ, not only in character, but in physical appearance.
+The native of the southern departments is easily known
+from the native of the central and northern. The average
+stature in the north is said to be an inch and a half more than
+in the south. This difference is easily perceptible in the regiments
+drawn from either.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-111">111</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-112" id="Footnote-112"></a> Many of these patois bear but little resemblance to the
+French language: the inhabitants of the Landes, for example,
+speak a tongue of their own, which, I believe, has roots entirely
+different. For the most part, they are unintelligible to those
+who have not studied them. Over a million and a half of the
+population of France speak German or German dialects.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-112">112</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-113" id="Footnote-113"></a> Mr. Gobineau's remarks apply with equal, and, in some
+cases, with greater force, to other portions of Europe, as I had
+myself ample means for observing. I have always considered
+the character of the European peasantry as the most difficult
+problem in the social system of those countries. Institutions
+cannot in all cases account for it. In Germany, for instance,
+education is general and even compulsory: I have never met a
+man under thirty that could not read and write. Yet, each
+place has its local <i>patois</i>, which no rustic abandons, for it would
+be deemed by his companions a most insufferable affectation.
+I have heard ministers in the pulpit use local dialects, of which
+there are over five hundred in Germany alone, and most of them
+widely different. Together with their <i>patois</i>, the rustics preserve
+their local costumes, which mostly date from the Middle
+Ages. But the peculiarity of their manners, customs, and
+modes of thinking, is still more striking. Their superstitions
+are often of the darkest, and, at best, of the most pitiable nature.
+I have seen hundreds of poor creatures, males and females,
+on their pilgrimage to some far distant shrine in expiation
+of their own sins or those of others who pay them to go in
+their place. On these expeditions they start in great numbers,
+chanting <i>Aves</i> on the way the whole day long, so that you can
+hear a large band of them for miles. Each carries a bag on
+the back or head, containing their whole stock of provisions for
+a journey of generally from one to two weeks. At night, they
+sleep in barns, or on stacks of hay in the fields. If you converse
+with them, you will find them imbued with superstitions
+absolutely idolatrous. Yet they all know how to read and
+write. The perfect isolation in which these creatures live from
+the world, despite that knowledge, is altogether inconceivable to
+an American. As Mr. Gobineau says of the French peasants,
+they believe themselves a distinct race. There is little or no
+discontent among them; the revolutionary fire finds but scanty
+fuel among these rural populations. But they look upon those
+who govern and make the laws as upon different beings, created
+especially for that purpose; the principles which regulate
+their private conduct, the whole sphere of their ideas, are peculiar
+to themselves. In one word, they form, not a class, but a
+caste, with lines of demarcation as clearly defined as the castes
+of India. I have said before that this is not from want of education;
+nor can any other explanation of the mystery be found.
+It is not poverty, for among these rustics there are many
+wealthy people, and, in general, they are not so poor as the
+lower classes in cities. Nor do the laws restrain them within
+the limits of a caste. In Germany, hereditary aristocracy is
+almost obsolete. The ranks of the actual aristocracy are daily
+recruited from the burgher classes. The highest offices of the
+various states are often found in possession of untitled men, or
+men with newly created titles. The colleges and universities
+are open to all, and great facilities are afforded even to the
+poorest. Yet these differences between various parts of the
+population remain, and this generally in those localities which
+the ethnographer describes as strongly tinctured with non-Teutonic
+elements.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-113">113</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-114" id="Footnote-114"></a> A nurse from Tours had put a bird into the hands of her
+little ward, and was teaching him to pull out the feathers and
+wings of the poor creature. When the parents reproached her
+for giving him this lesson of wickedness, she answered: "C'est
+pour le rendre <em>fier</em>."&mdash;(It is to make him fierce or high-spirited.)
+This answer of 1847 is in strict accordance with the most approved
+maxims of education of the nurse's ancestors in the times
+of Vercingetorix.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-114">114</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-115" id="Footnote-115"></a> A few years ago, a church-warden was to be elected in a
+very small and very obscure parish of French Brittany, that
+part of the former province which the real Britons used to call
+the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pays Gallais</em>, or Gallic land. The electors, who were all
+peasants, deliberated two days without being able to agree upon
+a selection, because the candidate, a very honest, wealthy, and
+highly respected man and a good Christian, was a <em>foreigner</em>.
+Now, this <em>foreigner</em> was born in the locality, and his father had
+resided there before him, and had also been born there, but it
+was recollected that his grandfather, who had been dead many
+years, and whom no one in the assembly had known, came from
+somewhere else.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-115">115</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-116" id="Footnote-116"></a> This is no exaggeration, as every one acquainted with
+French history knows. In the great revolution of the last century,
+the peasantry of France took no interest and no part. In
+the Vend&eacute;e, indeed, they fought, and fought bravely, for the
+ancient forms, their king, and their feudatory lords. Everywhere
+else, the rural districts remained in perfect apathy. The
+revolutions since then have been decided in Paris. The <i>&eacute;meutes</i>
+seldom extended beyond the walls of the great cities. It is a well-known
+fact, that in many of the rural districts, the peasants did
+not hear of the expulsion of the Bourbon dynasty, until years
+afterwards, and even then had no conception of the nature of the
+change. Bourbon, Orleans, Republic, are words, to them, of
+no definite meaning. The only name that can rouse them from
+their apathy, is "Napoleon." At that sound, the Gallic heart
+thrills with enthusiasm and thirst for glory. Hence the
+unparalleled success with which the present emperor has appealed
+to universal suffrage.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-116">116</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-117" id="Footnote-117"></a> It is not generally appreciated how much we are indebted
+to Oriental civilizations for our lighter and more graceful literature.
+Our first works of fiction were translations or paraphrases
+of Eastern tales introduced into Western Europe by the
+returning crusaders. The songs of the troubadour, the many-tomed
+romances of the Middle Ages&mdash;those ponderous sires of
+modern novels&mdash;all emanated from that source. The works of
+Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, Boccacio, and nearer home, of Chaucer
+and Spenser, are incontestable proofs of this fact. Even Milton
+himself drew from the inexhaustible stores of Eastern
+legends and romances. Our fairy tales, and almost all of our
+most graceful lyric poesy, that is not borrowed from Greece, is
+of Persian origin. Almost every popular poet of England and
+the continent has invoked the Oriental muse, none more successfully
+than Southey and Moore. It would be useless to allude
+to the immense popularity of acknowledged versions of Oriental
+literature, such as the <cite>Thousand and One Nights</cite>, the Apologues,
+Allegories, &amp;c. What we do not owe to the East, we
+have taken from the Greeks. Even to this day, Grecian mythology
+is the never-failing resource of the lyric poet, and so familiar
+has that graceful imagery become to us, that we introduce
+it, often <i>mal-&agrave;-propos</i>, even in our colloquial language.
+</p><p>
+In metaphysics, also, we have confessedly done little more
+than revive the labors of the Greeks.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-117">117</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-118" id="Footnote-118"></a> M. Flourens, <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Eloge de Blumenbach, M&eacute;moires de l'Acad&eacute;mie
+des Sciences</cite>. Paris, 1847, p. xiii. This <i>savant</i> justly protests
+against such a method.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-118">118</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-119" id="Footnote-119"></a> For the description of types in this and other portions of
+this chapter, I am indebted to
+</p><p>
+M. <cite class="author">William Lawrence</cite>, <cite>Lect. on the Nat. Hist. of Man</cite>.
+London, 1844. But especially to the learned
+</p><p>
+<cite class="author">James Cowles Prichard</cite>, <cite>Nat. Hist. of Man</cite>. London, 1848.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-119">119</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-120" id="Footnote-120"></a> Prichard, <cite>op. cit.</cite>, p. 129.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-120">120</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-121" id="Footnote-121"></a> It is impossible to conceive an idea of the scarce human
+form of these creatures, without the aid of pictorial representations.
+In Prichard's <cite>Natural History of Man</cite> will be found a
+plate (No. 23, p. 355) from M. d'Urville's atlas, which may assist
+the reader in gaining an idea of the utmost hideousness
+that the human form is capable of. I cannot but believe that
+the picture there given is considerably exaggerated, but with
+all due allowance in this respect, enough ugliness will be left to
+make us almost ashamed to recognize these beings as belonging
+to our kind.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-121">121</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-122" id="Footnote-122"></a> <cite>Op. cit.</cite>, p. 111.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-122">122</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-123" id="Footnote-123"></a> It will be observed that Prichard and Camper, and further
+on Blumenbach, here use the word <em>nation</em> as synonymous to <em>race</em>.
+See my introduction, <a title="Go to Page 65." href="#page65">p. 65</a>.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-123">123</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-124" id="Footnote-124"></a> Prichard, <cite>op. cit.</cite>, p. 115.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-124">124</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-125" id="Footnote-125"></a> <cite>Op. cit.</cite>, p. 117.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-125">125</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-126" id="Footnote-126"></a> Carus, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Ueber ungleiche Bef&auml;higung</cite>, etc., p. 19.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-126">126</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-127" id="Footnote-127"></a> <cite>Op. cit.</cite>, p. 20.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-127">127</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-128" id="Footnote-128"></a> As Mr. Gobineau has taken the facts presented by Dr. Morton
+at second hand, and, moreover, had not before him Dr.
+Morton's later tables and more matured deductions, Dr. Nott
+has given an abstract of the result arrived at by the learned
+craniologist, as published by himself in 1849. This abstract,
+and the valuable comments of Dr. Nott himself, will be found
+in the Appendix, under <a title="Go to Appendix A." href="#A">A</a>.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-128">128</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-129" id="Footnote-129"></a> I fear that our author has here fallen into an error which
+his own facts disprove, and which is still everywhere received
+without examination, viz: that cultivation can change the form
+or size of the head, either of individuals or races; an opinion,
+in support of which, no facts whatever can be adduced. The
+heads of the barbarous races of Europe were precisely the same
+as those of civilized Europe in our day; this is proven by the
+disinterred crania of ancient races, and by other facts. Nor do
+we see around us among the uneducated, heads inferior in form
+and size to those of the more privileged classes. Does any one
+pretend that the nobility of England, which has been an educated
+class for centuries, have larger heads, or more intelligence
+than the ignoble? On the contrary, does not most of the talent
+of England spring up from plebeian ranks? Wherever civilization
+has been brought to a population of the white race, they
+have accepted it at once&mdash;their heads required no development.
+Where, on the contrary, it has been carried to Negroes, Mongols,
+and Indians, they have rejected it. Egyptians and Hindoos
+have small heads, but we know little of the early history
+of their civilization. Egyptian monuments prove that the early
+people and language of Egypt were strongly impregnated with
+Semitic elements. Latham has shown that the Sanscrit language
+was carried <em>from</em> Europe to India, and probably civilization
+with it.
+</p><p>
+I have looked in vain for twenty years for evidence to prove
+that cultivation could enlarge a <em>brain</em>, while it expands the
+mind. The head of a boy at twelve is as large as it ever is.&mdash;N.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-129">129</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-130" id="Footnote-130"></a> Carus, <cite>op. cit.</cite>, p. 12.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-130">130</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-131" id="Footnote-131"></a> There are some very slight ones, which nevertheless are
+very characteristic. Among this number I would class a certain
+enlargement on each side of the lower lip, which is found
+among the English and Germans. I find this indication of Germanic
+origin in several paintings of the Flemish school, in the
+<cite>Madonna</cite> of Rubens, in the museum of Dresden, in the <cite>Satyrs</cite>
+and <cite>Nymphs</cite> of the same collection, in a <cite>Lute-player</cite> of Mi&eacute;ris,
+etc. No cranioscopic method whatever could embrace such
+details, which, however, are not without value in the great
+mixture of races which Europe presents.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-131">131</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-132" id="Footnote-132"></a> Prichard, <cite>op. cit.</cite>, p. 329.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-132">132</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-133" id="Footnote-133"></a> Job Ludolf, whose facilities of observation must necessarily
+have been very defective when compared with those we enjoy
+at the present day, nevertheless combats in very forcible language,
+and with arguments&mdash;so far as concerns the negro&mdash;invincible,
+the opinion here adopted by Mr. Prichard. I cannot
+refrain from quoting him in this place, not for any novelty contained
+in his arguments, but to show their very antiquity: <span xml:lang="la" lang="la">"De
+nigredine &AElig;thiopum hic agere nostri non est instituti, plerique
+ardoribus solis atqu&aelig; zon&aelig; torrid&aelig; id tribuant. Verum etiam
+intra solis orbitam populi dantur, si non plane albi, saltem non
+prorsus nigri. Multi extra utrumque tropicum a media mundi
+linea longius absunt quam Pers&aelig; aut Syri, veluti pramontorii
+Bon&aelig; Spei habitantes, et tamen iste sunt nigerrimi. Si Afric&aelig;
+tantum et Chami posteris id inspectari velis, Malabares et Ceilonii
+aliique remotiores Asi&aelig; populi &aelig;que nigri excipiendi
+erunt. Quod si causam ad c&oelig;li solique naturam referas, non
+homines albi in illis regionibus renascentes non nigrescunt? Aut
+qui ad occultas qualitates confugiunt, melius fecerint si sese
+nescire fateantur."</span>&mdash;<cite class="author">Jobus Ludolfus</cite>, <cite xml:lang="la" lang="la">Commentarium ad Historiam
+&AElig;thiopicam</cite>, fol. Norimb. p. 56.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-133">133</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-134" id="Footnote-134"></a> Prichard, <cite>op. cit.</cite>, p. 124.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-134">134</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-135" id="Footnote-135"></a> Prichard, <cite>op. cit.</cite>, p. 433.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-135">135</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-136" id="Footnote-136"></a> Neither the Swiss, nor the Tyrolese, nor the Highlanders
+of Scotland, nor the Sclaves of the Balkan, nor the tribes of
+the Himaleh, nor any other mountaineers whatever, present
+the monstrous appearance of the Quichuas.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-136">136</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-137" id="Footnote-137"></a> The distinguished microscopist, Dr. Peter A. Browne, of
+Philadelphia, has published the most elaborate observations on
+hair, of any author I have met with; and he asserts that the
+pile of the negro is <em>wool</em>, and not hair. He has gone so far as
+to distinguish the leading races of men by the direction, shape,
+and structure of the hair. The reader is referred to his works
+for much very curious, new, and valuable matter.&mdash;N.
+</p><p>
+To those of our readers who may not have the inclination or
+opportunity of consulting Mr. Browne's work, the following
+concise and excellent synopsis of his views, which I borrow
+from Dr. Kneeland's <cite>Introduction to Hamilton Smith's Natural
+History of Man</cite>, may not be unacceptable: "There are, on
+microscopical examination, three prevailing forms of the transverse
+section of the filament, viz: the cylindrical, the oval, and
+the eccentrically elliptical. There are also three directions in
+which it pierces the epidermis. The straight and lank, the
+flowing or curled, and the crisped or frizzled, differ respectively
+as to the angle which the filament makes with the skin on leaving
+it. The cylindrical and oval pile has an oblique angle of
+inclination. The eccentrically elliptical pierces the epidermis
+at right angles, and lies perpendicularly in the dermis. The
+hair of the white man is oval; that of the Choctaw, and some
+other American Indians, is cylindrical; that of the negro is
+eccentrically elliptical or flat. The hair of the white man has,
+beside its cortex and intermediate fibres, a central canal, which
+contains the coloring matter when present. The pile of the
+negro has no central canal, and the coloring matter is diffused,
+when present, either throughout the cortex or the intermediate
+fibres. Hair, according to these observations, is more complex
+in its structure than wool. In hair, the enveloping scales are
+comparatively few, with smooth surfaces, rounded at their
+points, and closely embracing the shaft. In wool, they are
+numerous, rough, sharp-pointed, and project from the shaft.
+<em>Hence, the hair of the white man will not felt, that of the negro
+will.</em> In this respect, therefore, it comes near to true wool"&mdash;pp.
+88, 89.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-137">137</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-138" id="Footnote-138"></a> A full answer to this objection will be found in our Appendix,
+under <a title="Go to Appendix B." href="#B"><cite>B</cite></a>.&mdash;N.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-138">138</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-139" id="Footnote-139"></a> For the arguments which may be deduced from the language
+of Holy Writ, in favor of plurality of origins, see <a title="Go to Appendix C." href="#C">Appendix <cite>C</cite></a>.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-139">139</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-140" id="Footnote-140"></a> Among others, <cite class="author">Fr&eacute;d&eacute;ric Cuvier</cite>, <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Annales du Mus&eacute;um</cite>, vol.
+xi. p. 458.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-140">140</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-141" id="Footnote-141"></a> The reader will be struck by the remarkable illustration of
+the truth of this remark, which the equine species affords. The
+vast difference between the swift courser, who excites the enthusiasm
+of admiring multitudes, and the common hack, need
+not be pointed out, and it is as well known that either, if the
+breed be preserved unmixed, will perpetuate their distinctive
+qualities to a countless progeny.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-141">141</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-142" id="Footnote-142"></a> A free mulatto, who had received a very good education in
+France, once seriously undertook to prove to me that the Saviour's
+earthly form partook, at the same time, of the characteristics
+of the white and the black races; in other words, was
+that of a half-breed. The arguments by which he supported
+this singular hypothesis were drawn from theology, as well as
+Scriptural ethnology, and were remarkably plausible and ingenious.
+I am convinced that if the real opinion of colored
+Christians on this subject could be collected, a vast majority
+would be found to agree with my informant.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-142">142</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-143" id="Footnote-143"></a> Our author here gives evidence of a want of critical study
+of races&mdash;the resemblances he has traced do not exist. There
+is no type in Africa south of the equator, or among the aborigines
+of America, that bears any resemblance to any race in
+Europe or Asia.&mdash;N.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-143">143</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-144" id="Footnote-144"></a> M&uuml;ller, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen</cite>, vol. ii. p.
+639.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-144">144</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-145" id="Footnote-145"></a> Prichard, <cite>op. cit.</cite>, pp. 484, 485.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-145">145</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-146" id="Footnote-146"></a> An exception, however, must be made in the case of Shakspeare,
+while painting on an Italian canvas. In <cite>Romeo and
+Juliet</cite>, Capulet says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"My child is yet a stranger in the world,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Let two more summers wither in their pride,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride."<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>To which Paris answers:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Younger than she are happy mothers made."<br /></span>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-146">146</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-147" id="Footnote-147"></a> According to M. Krapff, a Protestant minister in Eastern
+Africa, among the Wanikos both sexes marry at the age of twelve.
+(<cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenl&auml;ndischen Gesellschaft</cite>, vol. iii.
+p. 317.) In Paraguay, the Jesuits had established the custom,
+which subsists to this day, of marrying their neophytes, the
+girls at the age of ten, the boys at that of thirteen. It is not
+rare to find, in that country, widowers and widows eleven and
+twelve years old. (<cite class="author">A. d'Orbigny</cite>, <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">L'Homme Am&eacute;ricain</cite>, vol. i. p.
+40.) In Southern Brazil, females marry at the age of ten and
+eleven. Menstruation there begins also at a very early age, and
+ceases equally early. (<cite class="author">Martius</cite> and <cite class="author">Spix</cite>, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Reise in Brasilien</cite>,
+vol. i. p. 382.) I might increase the number of similar quotations
+indefinitely.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-147">147</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-148" id="Footnote-148"></a> Prichard, <cite>op. cit.</cite>, p. 486.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-148">148</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-149" id="Footnote-149"></a> Botta, <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Monumens de Ninive</cite>. Paris, 1850.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-149">149</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-150" id="Footnote-150"></a> <cite>Edinburgh Review</cite>, "Ethnology, or the Science of Races,"
+Oct. 1844, p. 144, <i>et passim</i>. "There is probably no evidence
+of original diversity of race which is so generally and unhesitatingly
+relied upon as that derived from the <em>color of the skin</em>
+and the <em>character of the hair</em>; ... but it will not, we think,
+stand the test of serious examination.... Among the Kabyles
+of Algiers and Tunis, the Tuarites of Sahara, the Shelahs or
+mountaineers of Southern Morocco, and other people of the
+same race, there are very considerable differences of complexion."
+(p. 448.)</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-150">150</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-151" id="Footnote-151"></a> <cite>Ibid.</cite>, <cite>loc. cit.</cite>, p. 453. "The Cinghalese are described by
+Dr. Davy as varying in color from light brown to black, the
+prevalent hue of their hair and eyes is black, but hazel eyes
+and brown hair are not very uncommon; gray eyes and red
+hair are occasionally seen, though rarely, and sometimes the
+light-blue or red eye and flaxen hair of the albino."</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-151">151</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-152" id="Footnote-152"></a> <cite>Ibid.</cite>, <cite>loc. cit.</cite> "The Samoiedes, Tungusians, and others
+living on the borders of the Icy Sea, have a dirty-brown or
+swarthy complexion."</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-152">152</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-153" id="Footnote-153"></a> Edinburgh Review, p. 439.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-153">153</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-154" id="Footnote-154"></a> Hammer, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches</cite>, vol. i. p. 2.
+(<cite>History of the Ottoman Empire.</cite>)</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-154">154</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-155" id="Footnote-155"></a> Ritter, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Erdkunde Asien</cite>, vol. i. p. 433, et passim, p. 1115,
+etc. Lassen, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Zeitschrift f&uuml;r die Kunde des Morgenlandes</cite>, vol. ii.
+p. 65. Benfey, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Encyclop&aelig;die</cite>, by Ersch and Gruber, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Indien</cite>, p.
+12. Alexander Von Humboldt, speaking of this fact, styles it
+one of the most important discoveries of our times. (<cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Asie Centrale</cite>,
+vol. ii. p. 649.) With regard to its bearings upon historical
+science, nothing can be more true.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-155">155</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-156" id="Footnote-156"></a> Nouschirwan, whose reign falls in the first half of the sixth
+century of our era, married Scharouz, the daughter of the Khakan
+of the Turks. She was the most beautiful woman of her
+time. (Haneberg, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Zeitschr. f. d. K. des Morgenl.</cite>, vol. i. p. 187.)
+This is by no means an isolated instance; Schahnameh furnishes
+a number of similar ones.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-156">156</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-157" id="Footnote-157"></a> The Scythes, though having adopted a language of the
+Arian classes, were, nevertheless, a Mongolian nation; there
+would, therefore, be nothing very surprising if the Orghuses
+had been an Arian nation, though speaking a Finnic dialect.
+This hypothesis is singularly corroborated by a passage in the
+relations of the traveller Rubruquis, who was sent by St. Louis
+as ambassador to the sovereign of the Mongols. "I was struck,"
+says the worthy monk, "with the prince's resemblance to the
+deceased <em>M. John de Beaumont</em>, whose complexion was equally
+fresh and colored." Alexander Von Humboldt, justly interested
+by this remark, adds: "This physiognomical observation acquires
+importance, when we recollect that the monarch here
+spoken of belonged to the family of Tchinguiz, who were really
+of Turkish, not of Mogul origin." And pursuing this trace, the
+great <i>savant</i> finds another corroborating fact: "The absence of
+Mongolian features," says he, "strikes us also in the portraits
+which we possess of the Baburides, the conquerors of India."
+(<cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Asie Centrale</cite>, vol. i. p. 248, and note.)</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-157">157</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-158" id="Footnote-158"></a> It will be seen that Mr. Gobineau differs, in the date he
+gives of the institution of the Janissaries, from all other European
+writers, who unanimously ascribe the establishment of this
+corps to Mourad I., the third prince of the line of Othman.
+This error, into which Gibbon himself has fallen, originated
+with Cantemir: but the concurrent testimony of every Turkish
+historian fixes the epoch of their formation and consecration by
+the Dervish Hadji-Becktash, to the reign of Orkhan, the father
+of Mourad, who, in 1328, enrolled a body of Christian youths
+as soldiers under this name (which signifies, "new regulars"),
+by the advice of his cousin Tchenderli, to whose councils the
+wise and simple regulations of the infant empire are chiefly
+attributed. Their number was at first only a thousand; but it
+was greatly augmented when Mourad, in 1361, appropriated to
+this service, by an edict, the <em>imperial fifth</em> of the European captives
+taken in the war&mdash;a measure which has been generally
+confounded with the first enrolment of the corps. At the accession
+of Soliman the Magnificent, their effective strength had
+reached 40,000; and under Mohammed IV., in the middle of
+the seventeenth century, that number was more than doubled.
+But though the original composition of the Janissaries is related
+by every writer who has treated of them, it has not been
+so generally noticed that for more than two centuries and a half
+not a single native Turk was admitted into their ranks, which
+were recruited, like those of the Mamelukes, solely by the continual
+supply of Christian slaves, at first captives of tender age
+taken in war, and afterwards, when this source proved inadequate
+to the increased demand, by an annual levy among the
+children of the lower orders of Christians throughout the empire&mdash;a
+dreadful tax, frequently alluded to by Busbequius, and
+which did not finally cease till the reign of Mohammed IV.
+</p><p>
+At a later period, when the Krim Tartars became vassals of
+the Porte, the yearly inroads of the fierce cavalry of that nation
+into the southern provinces of Russia, were principally instrumental
+in replenishing this nursery of soldiers; and Fletcher,
+who was ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to Ivan the Terrible,
+describes, in his quaint language, the method pursued in these
+depredations: "The chief bootie the Tartars seeke for in all
+their warres, is to get store of captives, specially young boyes
+and girles, whom they sell to the Turkes, or other, their neighbours.
+To this purpose, they take with them great baskets,
+made like bakers' panniers, <em>to carrie them tenderly</em>; and if any
+of them happens to tyre, or bee sicke on the way, they dash
+him against the ground, or some tree, and so leave him dead."
+(<cite>Purchas's Pilgrims</cite>, vol. iii. p. 441.)
+</p><p>
+The boys, thus procured from various quarters, were assembled
+at Constantinople, where, after a general inspection, those
+whose personal advantages or indications of superior talent distinguished
+them from the crowd, were set aside as pages of the
+seraglio or Mamelukes in the households of the pashas and other
+officers, whence in due time they were promoted to military
+commands or other appointments: but the remaining multitude
+were given severally in charge to peasants or artisans of Turkish
+race, principally in Anatolia, by whom they were trained up,
+till they approached the age of manhood, in the tenets of the
+Moslem faith, and inured to all the privations and toils of a
+hardy and laborious life. After this severe probation, they
+were again transferred to the capital, and enrolled in the different
+<em>odas</em> or regiments; and here their military education commenced.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-158">158</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-159" id="Footnote-159"></a> <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Erdkunde, Asien</cite>, vol. i. p. 448.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-159">159</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-160" id="Footnote-160"></a> <cite>Ethnology</cite>, etc., p. 439: "The Hungarian nobility ...
+is proved by historical and philological evidence to have been a
+branch of the great Northern Asiatic stock, closely allied in
+blood to the stupid and feeble Ostiaks, and the untamable Laplander."</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-160">160</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-161" id="Footnote-161"></a> St. Stephen reigned about the year 1000, nearly one century
+and a half after the first invasion of the Magyars, under
+their leaders, Arpad and Zulta. He introduced Christianity
+among his people, on which account he was canonized, and is
+now the tutelary saint of his nation. It may not be known to
+the generality of our readers, that the Magyars, though they
+have now resided nearly one thousand years in Hungary, have,
+with few exceptions, never applied themselves to the tillage of
+the soil. Agriculture, to this day, remains almost exclusively
+in the hands of the original (the Slowack or Sclavonian) population.
+The Magyar's wealth consists in his herds, or, if he owns
+land, it is the Slowacks that cultivate it for him. It is a singular
+phenomenon that these two races, though professing the
+same religion, have remained almost entirely unmixed, and each
+still preserves its own language.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-161">161</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-162" id="Footnote-162"></a> <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Essai Historique sur l'Origine des Hongrois.</cite> Paris, 1844.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-162">162</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-163" id="Footnote-163"></a> It appears that we shall be compelled henceforward to considerably
+modify our usually received opinions with regard to
+the nations of Central Asia. It cannot now be any longer
+doubted that many of these populations contain a very considerable
+admixture of white blood, a fact of which our predecessors
+in the study of history had not the slightest apprehension.
+Alexander Von Humboldt makes a very important remark
+upon this subject, in speaking of the Kirghis-Kazakes, mentioned
+by Menander of Byzant, and Constantine Porphyrogenetus;
+and he shows conclusively that the Kirghis (<ins class="greek" title="Transliteration: cherchis" xml:lang="el" lang="el">&chi;&epsilon;&rho;&chi;&iota;&sigmaf;</ins>) concubine
+spoken of by the former writer as a present of the Turkish
+chief Dithub&ugrave;l to Zemarch, the ambassador of Justinian II., in
+A. D. 569, was a girl of mixed blood&mdash;partly white. She is the
+precise counterpart of those beautiful Turkish girls, whose
+charms are so much extolled by Persian writers, and who did
+not belong, any more than she, to the Mongolian race. (Vide
+<cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Asie Centrale</cite>, vol. i. p. 237, <i>et passim</i>, and vol. ii. pp. 130, 131.)</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-163">163</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-164" id="Footnote-164"></a> Schaffarick, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Slawische Alterth&uuml;mer</cite>, vol. i. p. 279, <i>et passim</i>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-164">164</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-165" id="Footnote-165"></a> Aug. Thierry, <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Histoire de la Conquite de l'Angleterre</cite>. Paris,
+1846, vol. i. p. 155.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-165">165</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-166" id="Footnote-166"></a> In my introductory note to Chapters VIII. and IX. (see
+<a title="Go to page 244." href="#page244">p. 244</a>), I have mentioned a remarkable instance of the permanency
+of characteristics, even in branches of the same race.
+An equally, if not more striking illustration of this fact is given
+by Alex. Von Humboldt.
+</p><p>
+It is well known that Spain contains a population composed of
+very dissimilar ethnical elements, and that the inhabitants of its
+various provinces differ essentially, not only in physical appearance,
+but still more in mental characteristics. As in all newly-settled
+countries, immigrants from the same locality are apt to
+select the same spot, the extensive Spanish possessions on this
+continent were colonized, each respectively, by some particular
+province in the mother country. Thus the Biscayans settled
+Mexico; the Andalusians and natives of the Canary Islands,
+Venezuela; the Catalonians, Buenos Ayres; the Castillians,
+Peru, etc. Although centuries have elapsed since these original
+settlements, and although the character of the Spanish Americans
+must have been variously modified by the physical nature
+of their new homes, whether situated in the vicinity of coasts,
+or of mining districts, or in isolated table-lands, or in fertile
+valleys; notwithstanding all this, the great traveller and experienced
+observer still clearly recognizes in the character of the
+various populations of South America, the distinctive peculiarities
+of the original settlers. Says he: "The Andalusians and
+Canarians of Venezuela, the Mountaineers and the Biscayans
+of Mexico, the Catalonians of Buenos Ayres, evince considerable
+differences in their aptitude for agriculture, for the mechanical
+arts, for commerce, and for all objects connected with
+intellectual development. <em>Each of these races has preserved, in
+the new, as in the old world, the shades that constitute its national
+physiognomy</em>; its asperity or mildness of character; its freedom
+from sordid feelings, or its excessive love of gain; its social
+hospitality, or its taste of solitude.... In the inhabitants of
+Caracas, Santa F&eacute;, Quito, and Buenos Ayres, we still recognize
+the features that belong to the race of the first settlers."&mdash;<cite>Personal
+Narrative</cite>, Eng. Trans., vol. i. p. 395.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-166">166</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-167" id="Footnote-167"></a> I have already alluded to the classification adopted by Mr.
+Latham, the great ethnographer, which, though different in the
+designations, is precisely similar to that of Mr. Gobineau.
+Hamilton Smith also comes to the conclusion that, "as there are
+only three varieties who attain the typical standard, we have in
+them the foundation of that number being exclusively aboriginal."
+He therefore divides the races of men into three
+classes, which he calls "typical forms," and which nearly correspond
+to Mr. Gobineau's and Mr. Latham's "primary varieties."
+But, notwithstanding this weight of authorities against
+me, I cannot entirely agree as to the correctness of this classification.
+Fewer objections seem to me to lie against that proposed
+by Van Amringe, which I recommend to the consideration
+of the reader, and, though perhaps out of place in a mere
+foot-note, subjoin at full length. It must be remembered that
+the author of this system, though he uses the word species to
+distinguish the various groups, is one of the advocates for
+<em>unity of origin</em>. (The words <em>Japhetic</em> and <em>Shemitic</em> are also employed
+in a sense somewhat different from that which common
+usage has assigned them.)
+</p>
+
+<h3>THE SHEMITIC SPECIES.</h3>
+
+<p class="blockquot2"><em>Psychical or Spiritual Character</em>, viz:&mdash;<br />
+All the Physical Attributes developed harmoniously.&mdash;Warlike,
+but not cruel, or destructive.</p>
+
+<p><em>Temperament.&mdash;</em>Strenuous.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot2"><em>Physical Character</em>, viz:&mdash;<br />
+
+A high degree of sensibility; fair complexion; copious, soft,
+flowing hair, often curled, or waving; ample beard; small,
+oval, perpendicular face, with features very distinct; expanded
+forehead; large and elevated cranium; narrow elevated
+nose, distinct from the other features; small mouth,
+and thin lips; chin, round, full, and somewhat prominent,
+generally equal with the lips.</p>
+
+<h4>VARIETIES.</h4>
+
+<p class="blockquot3">The Israelites, Greeks, Romans, Teutones, Sclavons, Celts,
+&amp;c., and many sub-varieties.</p>
+
+<h3>THE JAPHETIC SPECIES.</h3>
+
+<p class="blockquot2"><em>Psychical or Spiritual Character</em>, viz:<br />
+
+Attributes unequally developed. Moderately mental&mdash;originative,
+inventive, but not speculative. Not warlike, but destructive.</p>
+
+<p><em>Temperament.</em>&mdash;Passive.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot2"><em>Physical Character</em>, viz:&mdash;<br />
+
+Medium sensibility; olive yellow complexion; hair thin,
+coarse, and black; little or no beard; broad, flattened, and
+triangular face; high, pyramidal, and square-shaped skull;
+forehead small and low; wide and small nose, particularly broad
+at the root; linear and highly arched eyebrows; very oblique
+eyes, broad, irregular, and half-closed, the upper eyelid extending
+a little beyond the lower; thick lips.</p>
+
+<h4>VARIETIES.</h4>
+
+<p class="blockquot3">The Chinese, Mongolians, Japanese, Chin Indians, &amp;c., and
+probably the Esquimaux, Toltecs, Aztecs, Peruvians.</p>
+
+<h3>THE ISHMAELITIC SPECIES.</h3>
+
+<p class="blockquot2"><em>Psychical or Spiritual Character</em>, viz:&mdash;<br />
+
+Attributes generally equally developed. Moderately mental;
+not originative, or inventive, but speculative; roving, predatory,
+revengeful, and sensual. Warlike and highly destructive.</p>
+
+<p><em>Temperament.</em>&mdash;Callous.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot2"><em>Physical Character.</em>&mdash;Sub-medium sensibility; dark skin, more
+or less red, or of a copper-color tinge; hair black, straight,
+and strong; face broad, immediately under the eyes; high
+cheek-bones; nose prominent and distinct, particularly in
+profile; mouth and chin, European.</p>
+
+<h4>VARIETIES.</h4>
+
+<p class="blockquot3">Most of the Tartar and Arabian tribes, and the whole of the
+American Indians, unless those mentioned in the second
+species should be excepted.</p>
+
+<h3>THE CANAANITIC SPECIES.</h3>
+
+<p class="blockquot2"><em>Psychical or Spiritual Character</em>, viz:&mdash;<br />
+
+Attributes equally undeveloped. Inferiorly mental; not
+originative, inventive, or speculative; roving, revengeful,
+predatory, and highly sensual; warlike and destructive.</p>
+
+<p><em>Temperament.</em>&mdash;Sluggish.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot2"><em>Physical Character.</em>&mdash;Sluggish sensibility, approaching to torpor;
+dark or black skin; hair black, generally woolly; skull compressed
+on the sides, narrow at the forehead, which slants
+backwards; cheek-bones very prominent; jaws projecting;
+teeth oblique, and chin retreating, forming a muzzle-shaped
+profile; nose broad, flat, and confused with the face; eyes
+prominent; lips thick.</p>
+
+<h4>VARIETIES.</h4>
+
+<p class="blockquot3">The Negroes of Central Africa, Hottentots, Cafirs, Australasian
+Negroes, &amp;c.; and probably the Malays, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p class="right10"><cite>Nat. Hist. of Man</cite>, p. 73 <i>et passim</i>.<br /></p>
+
+
+<p>If the reader will carefully examine the psychical characteristics
+of these groups, as given in the above extract, he will find
+them to accord better with the whole of Mr. Gobineau's theories,
+than Mr. Gobineau's own classification.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-167">167</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-168" id="Footnote-168"></a> It is probably a typographical error, that makes Mr. Flourens
+(<cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Eloge de Blumenbach</cite>, p. 11) say that the Polynesian race
+was "a mixture of two others, the <em>Caucasian</em> and the Mongolian."
+The Black and the Mongolian is undoubtedly what the
+learned Academician wished to say.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-168">168</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-169" id="Footnote-169"></a> This may be so in our eyes. It is natural for us to think
+those the most pleasing in appearance, that closest resemble our
+own type. But were an African to institute a comparative scale
+of beauty, would he not place his own race highest, and declare
+that "all races rose in the scale of beauty in proportion to the
+perfectness of the development" of African features? I think
+it extremely probable&mdash;nay, positively certain.
+</p><p>
+Mr. Hamilton Smith takes the same side as the author. "It
+is a mistaken notion," says he, "to believe that the standard
+contour of beauty and form differs materially in any country.
+Fashion may have the influence of setting up certain deformities
+for perfections, both at Pekin and at Paris, but they are invariably
+apologies which national pride offers for its own defects.
+The youthful beauty of Canton would be handsome (?) in London,"
+etc.
+</p><p>
+Mr. Van Amringe, on the contrary, after a careful examination
+of the facts brought to light by travellers and other investigators,
+comes to the conclusion that "the standard of beauty in
+the different species (see <a title="Go to Page 371." href="#page371">p. 371</a>, <cite><a title="Go to Footnote 167 on Page 371." href="#Footnote-167">note</a></cite>) of man is wholly different,
+physically, morally, and intellectually. Consequently, that taste
+for personal beauty in each species is incompatible with the perception
+of sexual beauty out of the species." (<cite>Op. cit.</cite>, p. 656.)
+"A difference of taste for sexual beauty in the several races of
+men is the great natural law which has been instrumental in
+separating them, and keeping them distinct, more effectually
+than mountains, deserts, or oceans. This separation has been
+perfect for the whole historic period, and continues to be now
+as wide as it is or has been in any distinct species of animals.
+Why has this been so? Did prejudice operate four thousand
+years ago exactly as it does now? If it did not, how came the
+races to separate into distinct masses at the very earliest known
+period, and, either voluntarily or by force, take up distinct geographical
+abodes?" (<cite>Ibid.</cite>, pp. 41 and 42.)&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-169">169</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-170" id="Footnote-170"></a> This inequality is not the less great, nor the less permanent,
+if we suppose each type to have its own standard. Nay, if the
+latter be true, it is a sign of a more <em>radical</em> difference among
+races.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-170">170</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-171" id="Footnote-171"></a> Upon the aborigines of America, consult Martius and Spix,
+<cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Reise in Brasilien</cite>, vol. i. p. 259; upon the negroes, Pruner, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Der
+Neger, eine aphoristische Skizze aus der medicinischen Topographie
+von Cairo</cite>. In regard to the superiority in muscular vigor over
+all other races, see Carus, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Ueber ungl. Bef.</cite>, p. 84.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-171">171</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-172" id="Footnote-172"></a> Because we now find the Chinese apparently stationary, many
+persons unreflectingly conclude that they were always so; which
+would presuppose that the Chinese were placed upon earth with
+the faculty of making porcelain, gunpowder, paper, etc., somewhat
+after the manner in which bees make their cells. But in
+the annals of the Chinese empire, the date of many of their principal
+inventions is distinctly recorded. There was a long period
+of vigorous intellectual activity among that singular people, a
+period during which good books were written, and ingenious inventions
+made in rapid succession. This period has ceased, but
+the Chinese are not therefore stationary. They are <em>retrograding</em>.
+No Chinese workman can now make porcelain equal to that of
+former ages, which consequently bears an exorbitant price as an
+object of <i>virt&ucirc;</i>. The secret of many of their arts has been lost,
+the practice of all is gradually deteriorating. No book of any
+note has been written these hundreds of years in that great
+empire. Hence their passionate attachment to everything old,
+which is not, as is so generally presumed, the <em>cause</em> of their
+stagnation: it is the <em>sign</em> of intellectual decadence, and the
+brake which prevents a still more rapid descent. Whenever a
+nation begins to extravagantly prize the productions of preceding
+ages, it is a confession that it can no longer equal them: it has
+begun to retrograde. But the very retrogression is a proof that
+there once was an opposite movement.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-172">172</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-173" id="Footnote-173"></a> The fearful scenes of blood which the beginning of our century
+witnessed, had crowded the hospitals with wounded and
+dying. Professional nurses could afford little help after battles
+like those of Jena, of Eylau, of Feldbach, or of Leipsic. It was
+then that, in Northern Germany, thousands of ladies of the first
+families sacrificed their health, and, in too many instances, their
+lives, to the Christian duty of charity. Many of the noble
+houses still mourn the loss of some fair matron or maiden, who
+fell a victim to her self-devotion. In the late war between Denmark
+and Prussia, the Danish ladies displayed an equal zeal.
+Scutari also will be remembered in after ages as a monument of
+what the women of our race can do. But why revert to the
+past, and to distant scenes? Have we not daily proofs around
+us that the heroic virtues of by-gone ages still live in ours?</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-173">173</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-174" id="Footnote-174"></a> The word <em>criticism</em> has here been used by the translator in
+a sense somewhat unusual in the English language, where it is
+generally made to signify "the art of judging of literary or
+artistic productions." In a more comprehensive sense, it means
+<em>the art of discriminating between truth and error</em>, or rather, perhaps,
+between <em>the probable and the improbable</em>. In this sense,
+the word is often used by continental metaphysicians, and also,
+though less frequently, by English writers. As the definition
+is perfectly conformable to etymology, I have concluded to let
+the above passage stand as it is.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-174">174</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-175" id="Footnote-175"></a> It will be remembered that Mr. Gobineau speaks of Europe.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-175">175</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-176" id="Footnote-176"></a> The term "Radical" is used on the European continent to
+designate that party who desire thorough, uncompromising reform:
+the plucking out of evils by the <em>root</em>.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-176">176</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-177" id="Footnote-177"></a> The principles of government applied to practice at the
+formation of our Constitution, Mr. Gobineau considers as identical
+with those laid down at the beginning of every society
+founded by the Germanic race. In his succeeding volumes he
+mentions several analogues.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-177">177</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-178" id="Footnote-178"></a> M. J. Mohl, <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Rapport Annuel &agrave; la Soci&eacute;t&eacute; Asiatique</cite>, 1851, p.
+92: "The Indian book trade of indigenous productions is extremely
+lively, and consists of a number of works which are
+never heard of in Europe, nor ever enter a European's library
+even in India. Mr. Springer asserts in a letter, that in the single
+town of Luknau there are thirteen lithographical establishments
+exclusively occupied with multiplying books for the schools, and
+he gives a list of considerable length of books, none of which
+have probably ever reached Europe. The same is the case in
+Delhi, Agra, Cawnpour, Allahabad, and other cities."</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-178">178</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-179" id="Footnote-179"></a> The Siamese are probably the most debased in morals of
+any people on earth. They belong to the remotest outskirts of
+the Indo-Chinese civilization; yet among them every one knows
+how to read and write. (Ritter, <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Erdkunde, Asien</cite>, vol. iii. p.
+1152.)</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-179">179</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-180" id="Footnote-180"></a> No individual can encompass the whole circle of human
+knowledge: no civilization comprise at once all the improvements
+possible to humanity.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-180">180</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-181" id="Footnote-181"></a> The word <em>Arab</em> is here used instead of the more common,
+but less correct, term <em>Saracen</em>, which was the general appellation
+bestowed on the first propagators of the Islam by the
+Greeks and Latins. The Arab civilization reached its culminating
+point about the reign of Harun al Rashid. At that time, it
+comprised nearly all that remained of the arts and sciences of
+former ages. The splendor and magnificence for which it was
+distinguished, is even yet the theme of romancers and poets; and
+may be discerned to this day in the voluptuous and gorgeous
+modes of life among the higher classes in those countries where
+it still survives, as well as in the remains of Arab architecture
+in Spain, the best preserved and most beautiful of which is
+the well-known Alhambra. Though the Arab civilization had a
+decidedly sensual tendency and character, it was not without
+great benefits to mankind. From it our forefathers learned
+some valuable secrets of agriculture, and the first lessons in
+horticulture. The peach, the pear, the apricot, the finer varieties
+of apples and plums, and nearly all of our most valued
+fruits were brought into Western and Central Europe by the
+returning crusaders from the land of the Saracens. Many valuable
+processes of manufacture, and especially of the art of
+working metals, are derived from the same source. In the
+science of medicine, the Arabs laid the foundation of that noble
+structure we now admire. Though they were prevented by religious
+scruples from dissecting the human body, and, therefore,
+remained in ignorance of the most important facts of anatomy,
+they brought to light innumerable secrets of the healing powers
+in the vegetable kingdom; they first practised the art of distillation
+and of chemical analysis. They were the beginners of
+the science of Chemistry, to which they gave its name, and in
+which many of the commonest technical terms (such as alkali,
+alembic, alcohol, and many others), still attest their labors. In
+mathematical science they were no less industrious. To them
+we owe that simple and useful method which so greatly facilitates
+the more complex processes of calculation, without which,
+indeed, some of them would be impossible, and which still retains
+its Arabic name&mdash;Algebra. But what is more, to them
+we owe our system of notation, so vastly superior to that of the
+Greeks and Romans, so admirable in its efficacy and simplicity,
+that it has made arithmetic accessible to the humblest understanding;
+at the present time, the whole Christian world uses
+Arabic numerals.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-181">181</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-182" id="Footnote-182"></a> It is supposed by many that Turkey will ultimately be won
+to our civilization, and, as a proof of this, great stress is laid
+upon the efforts of the present Sultan, as well as his predecessor,
+to "Europeanize" the Turks. Whoever has carefully and
+unbiassedly studied the present condition of that nation, knows
+how unsuccessful these efforts, backed, though they were, by
+absolute authority, and by the immense influence of the whole
+of Western Europe, have hitherto been and always will be. It
+is a notorious fact, that the Turks fight less well in their semi-European
+dress and with their European tactics, of which so
+much was anticipated, than they did with their own. The
+Moslem now regards the Christian with the same feelings that
+he did in the zenith of his power, and these feelings are not the
+less bitter, because they can no longer be so ostentatiously displayed.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-182">182</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-183" id="Footnote-183"></a> The Arabs believed themselves the descendants of Ishmael,
+the son of Hagar. This belief, even before Mohammed's time,
+had been curiously blended with the idolatrous doctrines of some
+of their tribes.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-183">183</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-184" id="Footnote-184"></a> <em>Philip</em>, an Arabian adventurer who was prefect of the pr&aelig;torian
+guards under the third Gordian, and who, through his
+boldness and ability, succeeded that sovereign on the throne in
+A. D. 244.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-184">184</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-185" id="Footnote-185"></a> <em>Odenathus</em>, senator of Palmyra, after Sapor, the King of
+Persia, had taken prisoner the Emperor of Rome, and was devastating
+the empire, met the ruthless conqueror with a body
+of Palmyrians, and several times routed his much more numerous
+armies. Being the only one who could protect the Eastern
+possessions of the Roman empire against the aggressions of the
+Persians, he was appointed <i>C&aelig;sar</i>, or coadjutor to the emperor
+by Gallienus, the son of Valerian, the captive sovereign.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-185">185</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-186" id="Footnote-186"></a> The history of <em>Zenobia</em>, the Queen of the East, as she
+styled herself, and one of the most interesting characters in
+history, is well known. As in the preceding notes, I shall,
+therefore, merely draw attention to familiar facts, with a view
+to refresh the reader's memory, not to instruct him.
+</p><p>
+The famous Arabian queen was the widow of Odenathus, of
+Palmyra, who bequeathed to her his dignity as <i>C&aelig;sar</i>, or protector
+of the Eastern dominions of Rome. It soon, however,
+became apparent that she disdained to owe allegiance to the
+Roman emperors, and aimed at establishing a new great empire
+for herself and her descendants. Though the most accomplished,
+as well as the most beautiful woman of her time, she
+led her armies in person, and was so eminently successful in
+her military enterprises that she soon extended her dominion
+from the Euphrates to the Nile. Palmyra thus became the centre
+and capital of a vast empire, which, as Mr. Gobineau observes,
+rivalled and even threatened Rome itself. She was,
+however, defeated by Aurelian, and, in A. D. 273, graced the
+triumph of her conqueror on his return to Rome.
+</p><p>
+The former splendor of the now deserted Palmyra is attested
+by the magnificent ruins which still form an inexhaustible theme
+for the admiration of the traveller and antiquarian.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-186">186</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-187" id="Footnote-187"></a> Though the mass of the nation were ignorant of letters, the
+Arabs had already before Mohammed's times some famous writers.
+They had even made voyages of discovery, in which they
+went as far as China. The earliest, and, as modern researches
+have proved, the most truthful, account of the manners and
+customs of that country is by Arab writers.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-187">187</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-188" id="Footnote-188"></a> At the time of the appearance of the false prophet, Arabia
+contained within its bosom every then known religious sect. This
+was owing not only to the central position of that country, but
+also to the liberty which was then as now a prerogative of the
+Arab. Among them every one was free to select or compose
+for himself his own private religion. While the adjacent countries
+were shaken by the storms of conquest and tyranny, the
+persecuted sects fled to the happy land where they might profess
+what they thought, and practice what they professed.
+</p><p>
+A religious persecution had driven from Persia many who professed
+the religion of the ancient Magi. The Jews also were
+early settlers in Arabia. Seven centuries before the death of
+Mohammed they had firmly established themselves there. The
+destruction of Jerusalem brought still greater numbers of these
+industrious exiles, who at once erected synagogues, and to protect
+the wealth they rapidly acquired, built and garrisoned
+strongly fortified towns in various portions of the wilderness.
+The Bible had at an early day been translated into the Arabic
+tongue. Christian missionaries were not wanting, and their
+active zeal was eminently successful. Several of the Arab tribes
+had become converts. There were Christian churches in Yemen;
+the states of Hira and Gassan were under the jurisdiction of
+Jacobite and Nestorian bishops. The various heretical sects
+found shelter and safety among the hospitable Arabs. But this
+very fact proved detrimental to the progress of the Christian
+religion, and opened the path for the creed of Mohammed. So
+many and various were the Christian sects that crowded together
+in that country, and so widely departed from the true spirit of
+Christianity were some of them, that bitter hostilities sprung up
+among them, and their religion fell into contempt. The Eastern
+Christians of the seventh century had insensibly relapsed into a
+semblance of paganism, one of the sects (the Collyridian heretics)
+had even gone so far as to invest the virgin Mary with the name
+and honors of a goddess. This is what the author alludes to in
+saying that Christianity was losing favor in Arabia at the time
+of the appearance of Mohammed.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-188">188</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-189" id="Footnote-189"></a> The student of ecclesiastical history knows what a number
+of sects had sprung up about that time to distress and harass the
+Church. It is not so generally appreciated, however, that for
+the first hundred years, the progress of Islamism was almost
+exclusively at the expense of Christianity. The whole of the
+present Ottoman empire, and almost the whole northern coast
+of Africa were previously Christian countries. Whether the loss
+is greatly to be regretted, I know not, for the Syrians and Egyptians,
+from being very indifferent Christians, became good Mohammedans.
+These populations were to the Christian Church
+like a cankered limb, the lopping off of which may have been
+ordained by an all-wise Providence for the salvation of what was
+yet sound in the body.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-189">189</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-190" id="Footnote-190"></a> W. Von Humboldt. <cite xml:lang="de" lang="de">Ueber die Karo-Sprache, Einleitung</cite>, p.
+243. <span xml:lang="de" lang="de">"Durch die Richtung auf diese Bildung und durch innere
+Stammes-verwandschaft wurden sie wirklich f&uuml;r griechischen
+Geist und griechische Sprache empf&auml;nglich, da die Araber vorzugsweise
+nur an den wissenschaftlichen Resultaten griechischer
+Forschung hiengen."</span></p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-190">190</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-191" id="Footnote-191"></a> I do not hesitate to consider as an unmistakable mark of
+intellectual inferiority, the exaggerated development of instincts
+that characterizes certain savages. The perfection which some
+of their senses acquire, cannot but be at the expense of the
+reasoning faculties. See, upon this subject, the opinions of
+Mr. Lesson des Papous, in a memoir inserted in the tenth volume
+of the <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Annales des Sciences Naturelles</cite>.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-191">191</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-192" id="Footnote-192"></a> "The negro's sense of smell and of taste is as powerful as
+it is unselecting. He eats everything, and I have good reasons
+for asserting, that odors the most disagreeable to us, are positively
+pleasant to him." (Pruner, <cite>Op. cit.</cite>, vol. i. p. 133.)
+</p><p>
+Mr. Pruner's assertions would, I think, be corroborated by
+every one who has lived much among the negroes. It is a
+notorious fact that the blacks on our southern plantations eat
+every animal they can lay hold of. I have seen them discuss a
+piece of fox, or the still more strongly flavored pole-cat, with
+evident relish. Nay, on one occasion, I have known a party of
+negroes feast on an alligator for a whole week, during which
+time they bartered their allowance of meat for trinkets. Upon
+my expressing surprise at so strange a repast, I was assured
+that it was by no means uncommon; that it was a favorite viand of
+the negroes in their native country, and that even here they often
+killed them with the prospect of a savory roast or stew. I am
+aware that some persons north of the Mason's &amp; Dixon's line
+might be disposed to explain this by asserting that <em>hunger</em> drove
+them to such extremities; but I can testify, from my own observation,
+that this is not the case. In the instances I have
+mentioned, and in many others which are too repulsive to be
+committed to paper, the banqueters were well fed, and evidently
+made such a feast from choice. There are, in the Southern
+States, many of the poor white population who are neither so
+well clothed nor so well fed as these negroes were, and yet I
+never heard of their resorting to such dishes.
+</p><p>
+In regard to the negro's fondness for odors, I am less qualified
+to speak from my own observations, but nearly every description
+of the manners of his native climes that I have read,
+mentioned the fact of their besmearing themselves with the
+strong musky fluid secreted by many animals&mdash;the alligator,
+for instance. And I remember having heard woodsmen in the
+South say, that while the white man shuns the polecat more
+than he does the rattlesnake, and will make a considerable circuit
+to get out of its way, the negro is but little afraid of this
+formidable animal and its nauseous weapon.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-192">192</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-193" id="Footnote-193"></a> This is illustrated by many of their practices in their natural
+state. For instance, the well-known custom of putting to death,
+at the demise of some prince or great man, a number&mdash;corresponding
+with the rank of the deceased&mdash;of his slaves, in order
+that they may wait upon him in the other world. Hundreds of
+poor creatures are often thus massacred at the funeral celebrations
+in honor of some king or ruler. Yet it would be unjust
+to call the negro ferocious or cruel. It merely proves the slight
+estimation in which he holds human life.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-193">193</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-194" id="Footnote-194"></a> There is a callousness in the negro, which strikingly distinguishes
+him from the whites, though it is possessed in perhaps
+an equal degree by other races. I borrow from Mr. Van Amringe's
+<cite>Nat. Hist. of Man</cite>, a few remarks on this subject by Dr.
+Mosely, in his <cite>Treatise on Tropical Diseases</cite>: "Negroes," says
+the Doctor, "whatever the cause may be, are devoid of sensibility
+(physical) to a surprising degree. They are not subject to
+nervous diseases. They sleep sound in every disease, nor does
+any mental disturbance ever keep them awake. They bear chirurgical
+operations much better than white people, and what
+would be the cause of insupportable pain to a white man, a negro
+would almost disregard. I have amputated the legs of many
+negroes, who have held the upper part of the limb themselves."
+Every southern planter, and every physician of experience in
+the South, could bear witness to these facts.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-194">194</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-195" id="Footnote-195"></a> Thinking that it might not be uninteresting to some of our
+readers to see the views concerning the negro of another European
+writer besides Mr. Gobineau, I subjoin the following
+extract from Mr. Tschudi's <cite>Travels in South America</cite>. Mr.
+Tschudi is a Swiss naturalist of undoubted reputation, an experienced
+philosophic observer, and a candid seeker for truth.
+His opinion is somewhat harsher than would be that of a man
+who had resided among that class all his life, but it nevertheless
+contains some valuable truths, and is, at least, curious on
+account of the source whence it comes.
+</p><p>
+"In Lima, and, indeed, throughout the whole of Peru, the
+free negroes are a plague to society. Too indolent to support
+themselves by laborious industry, they readily fall into any dishonest
+means of getting money. Almost all the robbers that
+infest the roads on the coast of Peru are free negroes. Dishonesty
+seems to be a part of their very nature; and, moreover,
+all their tastes and inclinations are coarse and sensual. Many
+warm defenders excuse these qualities by ascribing them to the
+want of education, the recollection of slavery, the spirit of revenge,
+etc. But I here speak of free-born negroes, who are
+admitted into the houses of wealthy families, who, from their
+early childhood, have received as good an education as falls to
+the share of many of the white Creoles&mdash;who are treated with
+kindness and liberally remunerated, and yet they do not differ
+from their half-savage brethren who are shut out from these
+advantages. If the negro has learned to read and write, and has
+thereby made some little advance in education, he is transformed
+into a conceited coxcomb, who, instead of plundering travellers
+on the highway, finds in city life a sphere for the indulgence of
+his evil propensities.... My opinion is, that the negroes,
+in respect to capability for mental improvement, are far behind
+the Europeans; and that, considered in the aggregate, they will
+not, even with the advantages of careful education, attain a very
+high degree of cultivation. This is apparent from the structure
+of the skull, on which depends the development of the brain,
+and which, in the negro, approximates closely to the animal
+form. The imitative faculty of the monkey is highly developed
+in the negro, who readily seizes anything merely mechanical,
+whilst things demanding intelligence are beyond his reach.
+Sensuality is the impulse which controls the thoughts, the acts,
+the whole existence of the negroes. To them, freedom can be
+only nominal, for if they conduct themselves well, it is because
+they are compelled, not because they are inclined to do so.
+Herein lie at once the cause of, and the apology for, their bad
+character." (<cite>Travels in Peru</cite>, London, 1848, p. 110, <i>et passim</i>.)&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-195">195</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-196" id="Footnote-196"></a> The sickening moral degradation of some of the branches of
+our species is well known to the student of anthropology, though,
+for obvious reasons, details of this kind cannot find a place in
+books destined for the general reader.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-196">196</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-197" id="Footnote-197"></a> As many of the terms of modern ethnography have not yet
+found their way into the dictionaries, I shall offer a short explanation
+of the meaning of this word, for the benefit of those
+readers who have not paid particular attention to that science.
+</p><p>
+The word "Arian" is derived from <em>Aryas</em> or <ins class="greek" title="Transliteration: Arioi" xml:lang="el" lang="el">&Alpha;&rho;&iota;&omicron;&iota;</ins>, respectively
+the indigenous and the Greek designation of the ancient Medes,
+and is applied to a race, or rather a family of races, whose original
+ethnological area is not as yet accurately defined, but who
+have gradually spread from the centre of Asia to the mouth of
+the Ganges, to the British Isles, and the northern extremities of
+Scandinavia. To this family of races belong, among others,
+the ancient Medes and Persians, the white conquerors of India
+(now forming the caste of the Brahmins), <em>and the Germanic races</em>.
+The whole group is often called Indo-European. The affinities
+between the Greek and the German languages had long been an
+interesting question to philologists; but Schlegel, I believe, was
+the first to discover the intimate relations between these two
+and the Sanscrit, and he applied to the whole three, and their
+collateral branches, the name of <em>Indo-Germanic</em> languages.
+The discovery attracted the attention both of philologists and
+ethnographers, and it is now indubitably proved that the civilizers
+of India, and the subverters of the Roman Empire are
+descended from the same ethnical stock. It is known that the
+Sanscrit is as unlike all other Indian languages, as the high-caste
+Brahmins are unlike the Pariahs and all the other aboriginal
+races of that country; and Latham has lately come to the
+conclusion that it has actually been <em>carried to India from Europe</em>.
+It will be seen from this that Mr. Gobineau, in his view of the
+origin of various civilizations, is supported in at least several of
+the most important instances.
+</p><p>
+It is a familiar saying that <em>civilization travels westward</em>: if
+we believe ethnologists, the Arian races have <em>always migrated
+in that direction</em>&mdash;from Central Asia to India, to Asia Minor, to
+Egypt, to Greece, to Western Europe, to the western coasts of
+the Atlantic, and the same impulse of migration is now carrying
+them to the Pacific.&mdash;H.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-197">197</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-198" id="Footnote-198"></a> Natural History of Man and Monkeys.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-198">198</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-199" id="Footnote-199"></a> Fauna and Flora within Living Animals, p. 9.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-199">199</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-200" id="Footnote-200"></a> Doctrine of the Unity of the Human Race, p. 10.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-200">200</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-201" id="Footnote-201"></a> We are told that the pigs in one department of France are
+all black, in another, all white, and local causes are assigned!
+When I was a boy, my father introduced what was then called
+the China hog into the Union District, South Carolina; they
+were black, with white faces. On a visit to that district about
+twelve years ago, I found the whole country for 40 miles covered
+with them. On a visit one year ago, I found they had been
+supplanted entirely by other breeds of different colors: the old
+familiar type had disappeared.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-201">201</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-202" id="Footnote-202"></a> <cite>Op. cit.</cite>, p. 177.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-202">202</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-203" id="Footnote-203"></a> <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Domestication et Naturalization des Animaux utiles</cite>, par M.
+Isadore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, p. 71, Paris, 1854.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-203">203</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-204" id="Footnote-204"></a> Ibid.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-204">204</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-205" id="Footnote-205"></a> Columbia, p. 135.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-205">205</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-206" id="Footnote-206"></a> <cite xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">De la Longevit&eacute; Humaine</cite>, &amp;c., par P. Flourens, Paris, 1855.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-206">206</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-207" id="Footnote-207"></a> M. Flourens here, perhaps, speaks too positively. The
+blood of the apparently lost species will show itself from time
+to time for many, if not endless generations.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-207">207</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-208" id="Footnote-208"></a> <cite>Op. cit.</cite></p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-208">208</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-209" id="Footnote-209"></a> <cite>Op. cit.</cite>, p. 122.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-209">209</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-210" id="Footnote-210"></a> It has been objected, that the drawings cannot be relied on,
+as some of these types are no longer to be found. But there
+are several well-marked types of domestic animals on the old
+monuments that no longer exist, because they have been supplanted
+by better breeds. In this country several varieties of
+the Indian dogs are rapidly disappearing for the same reason.
+The llama must give place, in the same way, to the cow and the
+horse. Many other instances may be cited.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-210">210</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-211" id="Footnote-211"></a> <cite>Op. cit.</cite>, p. 29. 1854.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-211">211</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-212" id="Footnote-212"></a> <cite>Op. cit.</cite>, p. 101.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-212">212</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-213" id="Footnote-213"></a> <cite>Op. cit.</cite>, p. 53.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-213">213</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-214" id="Footnote-214"></a> <cite>Geographical Dist.</cite>, p. 17.
+</p><p>
+This work, I believe, is not yet issued, but Dr. Pickering has
+kindly sent me the first 150 pages, as printed.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-214">214</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-215" id="Footnote-215"></a> Prichard, <cite>Nat. Hist. of Man</cite>, p. 8. London, 1843.</p>
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-215">215</a>]</span> </li>
+
+<li class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote-216" id="Footnote-216"></a> See "<cite>Types of Mankind</cite>," by Nott and Gliddon.</p>
+
+<span class="label">[<a title="Return to text." href="#FNanchor-216">216</a>]</span> </li>
+</ol>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="note tbreak" title="Transcriber Notes">
+<p class="center">Return to <a href="#TN">Top of Page</a> or list of <a href="#TOC">Contents</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
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+++ b/37115.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of
+Races, by Arthur, comte de Gobineau
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races
+ With Particular Reference to Their Respective Influence in the Civil and Political History of Mankind
+
+
+Author: Arthur, comte de Gobineau
+
+
+
+Release Date: August 17, 2011 [eBook #37115]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL
+DIVERSITY OF RACES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Fritz Ohrenschall, Sarah Thomson, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+ +---------------------------------------------------------+
+ |Transcriber's note: |
+ | |
+ | Text transliterated from Greek is enclosed by tilde |
+ | characters (~transliterated Greek~). |
+ | |
+ | Text that was in small capitals has been converted to |
+ | all upper case. |
+ | |
+ | The oe ligature has been removed from words such as |
+ | Boeotia and foetus. |
+ | |
+ | A list of corrections is at the end of this e-book. |
+ +---------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF RACES.
+
+With Particular Reference to Their Respective Influence
+in the Civil and Political History Of Mankind.
+
+From the French of COUNT A. DE GOBINEAU:
+
+With an Analytical Introduction and Copious Historical Notes.
+By H. Hotz.
+
+To Which Is Added an Appendix Containing a Summary
+of the Latest Scientific Facts Bearing upon the
+Question of Unity or Plurality of Species.
+By J. C. Nott, M. D., of Mobile.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Philadelphia:
+J. B. Lippincott & Co.
+1856.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
+J. B. Lippincott & Co.,
+in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United
+States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
+
+
+
+
+ TO THE
+
+ STATESMEN OF AMERICA,
+
+ THIS WORK,
+
+ THE FIRST ON THE RACES OF MEN CONTEMPLATED FROM THE
+ POINT OF VIEW OF THE STATESMAN AND HISTORIAN
+ RATHER THAN THE NATURALIST,
+
+ IS
+
+ RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
+
+ BY THE
+
+ AMERICAN EDITOR.
+
+
+
+
+EDITOR'S PREFACE.
+
+
+It has been truly observed that a good book seldom requires, and a bad
+one never deserves, a long preface. When a foreign book, however, is
+obtruded on the notice of the public, it is but just that the reasons
+for so doing should be explained; and, in the present case, this is the
+more necessary, as the title of the work might lead many to believe that
+it was intended to re-agitate the question of unity or plurality of the
+human species--a question which the majority of readers consider
+satisfactorily and forever settled by the words of Holy Writ. Such,
+however, is not the purpose of either the author or the editor. The
+design of this work is, to contribute toward the knowledge of the
+leading mental and moral characteristics of the various races of men
+which have subsisted from the dawn of history to the present era, and to
+ascertain, if possible, the degree to which they are susceptible of
+improvement. The annals of the world demonstrate beyond a doubt, that
+the different branches of the human family, like the individual members
+of a community, are endowed with capacities, different not only in
+degree but in kind, and that, in proportion to these endowments, they
+have contributed, and still contribute to that great march of progress
+of the human race, which we term civilization. To portray the nature of
+these endowments, to estimate the influence of each race in the
+destinies of all, and to point out the effects of mixture of races in
+the rise and fall of great empires, has been the task to the
+accomplishment of which, though too extensive for one man, the author
+has devoted his abilities. The troubles and sufferings of his native
+country, from sudden political gyrations, led him to speculate upon
+their causes, which he believes are to be traced to the great variety of
+incongruous ethnical elements composing the population of France. The
+deductions at which he arrived in that field of observation he subjected
+to the test of universal history; and the result of his studies for many
+years, facilitated by the experiences of a diplomatic career, are now
+before the American public in a translation. That a work, on so
+comprehensive a subject, should be exempt from error, cannot be
+expected, and is not pretended; but the aim is certainly a noble one,
+and its pursuit cannot be otherwise than instructive to the statesman
+and historian, and no less so to the general reader. In this country, it
+is peculiarly interesting and important, for not only is our immense
+territory the abode of the three best defined varieties of the human
+species--the white, the negro, and the Indian--to which the extensive
+immigration of the Chinese on our Pacific coast is rapidly adding a
+fourth, but the fusion of diverse nationalities is nowhere more rapid
+and complete; nowhere is the great problem of man's perfectibility being
+solved on a grander scale, or in a more decisive manner. While, then,
+nothing can be further removed from our intentions, or more repugnant to
+our sentiments, than to wage war on religion, or throw ridicule on the
+labors of the missionary and philanthropist, we thought it not a useless
+undertaking to lay before our countrymen the opinions of a European
+thinker, who, without straining or superseding texts to answer his
+purposes, or departing in any way from the pure spirit of Christianity,
+has reflected upon questions which with us are of immense moment and
+constant recurrence.
+
+ H. H.
+
+ PHILADELPHIA, _Nov. 1, 1855_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION.
+
+ The discussion of the moral and intellectual diversity of races
+ totally independent of the question of unity or plurality of
+ origin--Leading propositions of this volume, with illustrations and
+ comments.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+POLITICAL CATASTROPHES.
+
+ Perishable condition of all human societies--Ancient ideas concerning
+ this phenomenon--Modern theories 105
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ALLEGED CAUSES OF POLITICAL CATASTROPHES EXAMINED.
+
+ FANATICISM--Aztec Empire of Mexico.--LUXURY--Modern European States
+ as luxurious as the ancient.--Corruption of morals--The standard of
+ morality fluctuates in the various periods of a nation's history:
+ example, France--Is no higher in youthful communities than in old
+ ones--Morality of Paris.--IRRELIGION--Never spreads through all
+ ranks of a nation--Greece and Rome--Tenacity of Paganism 114
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+INFLUENCE OF GOVERNMENT UPON THE LONGEVITY OF NATIONS.
+
+ Misgovernment defined--Athens, China, Spain, Germany, Italy, etc.--Is
+ not in itself a sufficient cause for the ruin of nations. 138
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+DEFINITION OF THE WORD DEGENERACY--ITS CAUSE.
+
+ Skeleton history of a nation--Origin of castes, nobility,
+ etc.--Vitality of nations not necessarily extinguished by
+ conquest--China, Hindostan--Permanency of their peculiar
+ civilizations. 146
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF RACES IS NOT THE RESULT OF
+POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.
+
+ Antipathy of races--Results of their mixture--The scientific axiom of
+ the absolute equality of men, but an extension of the
+ political--Its fallacy--Universal belief in unequal endowment of
+ races--The moral and intellectual diversity of races not
+ attributable to institutions--Indigenous institutions are the
+ expression of popular sentiments; when foreign and imported, they
+ never prosper--Illustrations: England and France--Roman
+ Empire--European Colonies--Sandwich Islands--St. Domingo--Jesuit
+ missions in Paraguay 172
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THIS DIVERSITY IS NOT THE RESULT OF GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION.
+
+ America--Ancient empires--Phenicians and Romans--Jews--Greece and
+ Rome--Commercial cities of Europe--Isthmus of Darien 201
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY UPON MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF
+RACES.
+
+ The term Christian civilization examined--Reasons for rejecting
+ it--Intellectual diversity no hindrance to the universal diffusion
+ of Christianity--Civilizing influence of Christian religion by
+ elevating and purifying the morals, etc.; but does not remove
+ intellectual disparities--Various instances--Cherokees--Difference
+ between imitation and comprehension of civilized life 215
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO CHAPTERS VIII. AND IX.
+
+ Rapid survey of the populations comprised under the appellation
+ "Teutonic"--Their present ethnological area, and leading
+ characteristics--Fondness for the sea displayed by the Teutonic
+ tribes of Northwestern Europe, and perceptible in their
+ descendants 234
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CIVILIZATION.
+
+ Mr. Guizot's and Mr. W. von Humboldt's definitions examined. Its
+ elements 246
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ELEMENTS OF CIVILIZATION--CONTINUED.
+
+ Definition of the term--Specific differences of
+ civilizations--Hindoo, Chinese, European, Greek, and Roman
+ civilizations--Universality of Chinese civilization--Superficiality
+ of ours--Picture of the social condition of France 272
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+QUESTION OF UNITY OR PLURALITY OF RACES.
+
+ Systems of Camper, Blumenbach, Morton, Carus--Investigations of Owen,
+ Vrolik, Weber--Prolificness of hybrids, the great scientific
+ stronghold of the advocates of unity of species 312
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+PERMANENCY OF TYPES.
+
+ The language of Holy Writ in favor of common origin--The permanency
+ of their characteristics separates the races of men as effectually
+ as if they were distinct creations--Arabs, Jews--Prichard's
+ argument about the influence of climate examined--Ethnological
+ history of the Turks and Hungarians 336
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CLASSIFICATION OF RACES.
+
+ Primary varieties--Test for recognizing them; not always
+ reliable--Effects of intermixture--Secondary varieties--Tertiary
+ varieties--Amalgamation of races in large cities--Relative scale of
+ beauty in various branches of the human family--Their inequality in
+ muscular strength and powers of endurance 368
+
+
+NOTE TO THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.
+
+ The position and treatment of woman among the various races of men a
+ proof of their moral and intellectual diversity 384
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+PERFECTIBILITY OF MAN.
+
+ Imperfect notions of the capability of savage tribes--Parallel
+ between our civilization and those that preceded it--Our modern
+ political theories no novelty--The political parties of Rome--Peace
+ societies--The art of printing a means, the results of which depend
+ on its use--What constitutes a "living" civilization--Limits of the
+ sphere of intellectual acquisitions 391
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+MUTUAL RELATIONS OF DIFFERENT MODES OF INTELLECTUAL CULTURE.
+
+ Necessary consequences of a supposed equality of all races--Uniform
+ testimony of history to the contrary--Traces of extinct
+ civilizations among barbarous tribes--Laws which govern the
+ adoption of a state of civilization by conquered
+ populations--Antagonism of different modes of culture; the Hellenic
+ and Persian, European and Arab, etc. 414
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THREE GREAT VARIETIES.
+
+ Impropriety of drawing general conclusions from individual
+ cases--Recapitulatory sketch of the leading features of the Negro,
+ the Yellow, and the White races--Superiority of the
+ latter--Conclusion of volume the first 439
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+BY J. C. NOTT, M. D.
+
+ A.--Dr. Morton's later tables 461
+
+ B.--Species; varieties. Latest experiments upon the laws of
+ hybridity 473
+
+ C.--Biblical connections of the question of unity or plurality of
+ species 504
+
+
+
+ANALYTICAL INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+Before departing on one's travels to a foreign country, it is well to
+cast a glance on the map, and if we expect to meet and examine many
+curiosities, a correct itinerary may not be an inconvenient travelling
+companion. In laying before the public the present work of Mr. Gobineau,
+embracing a field of inquiry so boundless and treating of subjects of
+such vast importance to all, it has been thought not altogether useless
+or inappropriate to give a rapid outline of the topics presented to the
+consideration of the reader--a ground-plan, as it were, of the extensive
+edifice he is invited to enter, so that he may afterwards examine it at
+leisure, and judge of the symmetry of its parts. This, though fully
+sensible of the inadequacy of his powers to the due execution of the
+task, the present writer has endeavored to do, making such comments on
+the way, and using such additional illustrations as the nature of the
+subject seemed to require.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Whether we contemplate the human family from the point of view of the
+naturalist or of the philosopher, we are struck with the marked
+dissimilarity of the various groups. The obvious physical
+characteristics by which we distinguish what are termed different races,
+are not more clearly defined than the psychical diversities observable
+among them. "If a person," says the learned vindicator of the unity of
+the human species,[1] "after surveying some brilliant ceremony or court
+pageant in one of the splendid cities of Europe, were suddenly carried
+into a hamlet in Negro-land, at the hour when the sable tribes recreate
+themselves with dancing and music; or if he were transported to the
+saline plains over which bald and tawny Mongolians roam, differing but
+little in hue from the yellow soil of their steppes, brightened by the
+saffron flowers of the iris and tulip; if he were placed near the
+solitary dens of the Bushman, where the lean and hungry savage crouches
+in silence, like a beast of prey, watching with fixed eyes the birds
+which enter his pitfall, or greedily devouring the insects and reptiles
+which chance may bring within his grasp; if he were carried into the
+midst of an Australian forest, where the squalid companions of kangaroos
+may be seen crawling in procession, in imitation of quadrupeds, would
+the spectator of such phenomena imagine the different groups which he
+had surveyed to be the offspring of one family? And if he were led to
+adopt that opinion, how would he attempt to account for the striking
+diversities in their aspect and manner of existence?"
+
+These diversities, so graphically described by Mr. Prichard, present a
+problem, the solution of which has occupied the most ingenious minds,
+especially of our times. The question of unity or plurality of the human
+species has of late excited much animated discussion; great names and
+weighty authorities are enlisted on either side, and a unanimous
+decision appears not likely to be soon agreed upon. But it is not my
+purpose, nor that of the author to whose writings these pages are
+introductory, to enter into a contest which to me seems rather a dispute
+about words than essentials. The distinguishing physical characteristics
+of what we term races of man are recognized by all parties, and whether
+these races are _distinct species_ or _permanent varieties_[2] only of
+the same, cannot affect the subject under investigation. In whatever
+manner the diversities among the various branches of the human family
+may have originated, whether they are primordial or were produced by
+external causes, their permanency is now generally admitted. "The
+Ethiopian cannot change his skin." If there are, or ever have been,
+external agencies that could change a white man into a negro, or _vice
+versa_, it is obvious that such causes have either ceased to operate, or
+operate only in a lapse of time so incommensurable as to be imponderable
+to our perceptions, for the races which now exist can be traced up to
+the dawn of history, and no well-authenticated instance of a
+transformation under any circumstances is on record. In human reasoning
+it is certainly legitimate to judge of the future by the experiences of
+the past, and we are, therefore, warranted to conclude that if races
+have preserved their identity for the last two thousand years, they will
+not lose it in the next two thousand.
+
+It is somewhat singular, however, that while most writers have ceased to
+explain the physical diversities of races by external causes, such as
+climate, food, etc., yet many still persist in maintaining the absolute
+equality of all in other respects, referring such differences in
+character as are undeniable, solely to circumstances, education, mode of
+life, etc. These writers consider all races as merely in different
+stages of development, and pretend that the lowest savage, or at least
+his offspring, may, by judicious training, and in course of time, be
+rendered equal to the civilized man. Before mentioning any facts in
+opposition to this doctrine, let us examine the reasoning upon which it
+is based.
+
+"Man is the creature of circumstances," is an adage extended from
+individuals to races, and repeated by many without considering its
+bearing. The celebrated author of _Wealth of Nations_[3] says, "that the
+difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher
+and a common street porter, for example, arises, not so much from
+nature, but from habit and education." That a mind, which, with proper
+nurture, might have graced a philosopher, should, under unfavorable
+circumstances, remain forever confined in a narrow and humble sphere,
+does not, indeed, seem at all improbable; but Dr. Smith certainly does
+not mean to deny the existence of natural talents, of innate peculiar
+capacities for the accomplishment of certain purposes. This is what they
+do who ascribe the mental inequality of the various branches of the
+human family to external circumstances only. "The intellectual qualities
+of man," say they, "are developed entirely by education. The mind is, at
+first, a perfect blank, fitted and ready to receive any kind of
+impressions. For these, we are dependent on the political, civil, and
+religious institutions under which we live, the persons with whom we are
+connected, and the circumstances in which we are placed in the different
+periods of life. Wholly the creatures of association and habit, the
+characters of men are formed by the instruction, conversation, and
+example of those with whom they mix in society, or whose ideas they
+imbibe in the course of their reading and studies."[4] Again: "As all
+men, in all nations, are of the same species, are endowed with the same
+senses and feelings, and receive their perceptions and ideas through
+similar organs, the difference, whether physical or moral, that is
+observed in comparing different races or assemblages of men, can arise
+only from external and adventitious circumstances."[5] The last position
+is entirely dependent on the first; if we grant the first, relating to
+individuals, the other follows as a necessary consequence. For, if we
+assume that the infinite intellectual diversities of individuals are
+owing solely to external influences, it is self-evident that the same
+diversities in nations, which are but aggregations of individuals, must
+result from the same causes. But are we prepared to grant this first
+position--to assert that man is but an automaton, whose wheelwork is
+entirely without--the mere buffet and plaything of accident and
+circumstances? Is not this the first step to gross materialism, the
+first argument laid down by that school, of which the great Locke has
+been stigmatized as the father, because he also asserts that the human
+mind is at first a blank tablet. But Locke certainly could not mean that
+all these tablets were the same and of equal value. A tablet of wax
+receives an impression which one of marble will not; on the former is
+easily effaced what the other forever retains. We do not deny that
+circumstances have a great influence in moulding both moral and
+intellectual character, but we do insist that there is a primary basis
+upon which the degree of that influence depends, and which is the work
+of God and not of man or chance. What agriculturist could be made to
+believe that, with the same care, all plants would thrive equally well
+in all soils? To assert that the character of a man, whether good or
+wicked, noble or mean, is the aggregate result of influences over which
+he has no control, is to deny that man is a free agent; it is infinitely
+worse than the creed of the Buddhist, who believes that all animated
+beings possess a detached portion of an all-embracing intelligence,
+which acts according to the nature and capacity of the machine of clay
+that it, for the time, occupies, and when the machine is worn out or
+destroyed, returns, like a rivulet to the sea, to the vast ocean of
+intelligence whence it came, and in which again it is lost. In the name
+of common sense, daily observation, and above all, of revelation, we
+protest against a doctrine which paves the road to the most absurd as
+well as anti-religious conclusions. In it we recognize the fountain
+whence flow all the varied forms and names under which Atheism disguises
+itself. But it is useless to enter any further upon the refutation of
+an argument which few would be willing seriously to maintain. It is one
+of those plausible speculations which, once admitted, serve as the basis
+of so many brilliant, but airy, theories that dazzle and attract those
+who do not take the trouble of examining their solidity.
+
+Once we admit that circumstances, though they may impede or favor the
+development of powers, cannot give them; in other words, that they can
+call into action, but cannot create, moral and intellectual resources;
+no argument can be drawn from the unity of species in favor of the
+mental equality of races. If two men, the offspring of the same parents,
+can be the one a dunce, the other a genius, why cannot different races,
+though descended of the same stock, be different also in intellectual
+endowments? We should laugh at, or rather, pity the man who would try to
+persuade us that there is no difference in color, etc., between the
+Scandinavian and the African, and yet it is by some considered little
+short of heresy to affirm, that there is an imparity in their minds as
+well as in their bodies.
+
+We are told--and the objection seems indeed a grave one--that if we
+admit psychical as well as physical gradations in the scale of human
+races, the lowest must be so hopelessly inferior to the higher, their
+perceptions and intellectual capacities so dim, that even the light of
+the gospel cannot illumine them. Were it so, we should at once abandon
+the argument as one above human comprehension, rather than suppose that
+God's mercy is confined to any particular race or races. But let us
+earnestly investigate the question. On so vital a point the sacred
+record cannot but be plain and explicit. To it let us turn. Man--even
+the lowest of his species--has a soul. However much defaced God's image,
+it is vivified by His breath. To save that soul, to release it from the
+bondage of evil, Christ descended upon earth and gave to mankind, not a
+complicated system of philosophy which none but the learned and
+intellectual could understand, but a few simple lessons and precepts,
+comprehensible to the meanest capacity. He did not address himself to
+the wise of this world, but bade them be like children if they would
+come unto him. The learned Pharisees of Judea jeered and ridiculed him,
+but the poor woman of Canaan eagerly picked up the precious crumbs of
+that blessed repast which they despised. His apostles were chosen from
+among the lowly and simple, his first followers belonged to that class.
+He himself hath said:[6] "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and
+earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
+hast revealed them unto babes." How then shall we judge of the degree of
+intellect necessary to be a follower of Jesus? Are the most
+intellectual, the best informed men generally the best Christians? Or
+does the word of God anywhere lead us to suppose that at the great final
+judgment the learned prelate or ingenious expositor of the faith will be
+preferred to the humble, illiterate savage of some almost unknown coast,
+who eagerly drinks of the living water whereof whosoever drinketh shall
+never thirst again?
+
+This subject has met with the attention which its importance deserves,
+at the hands of Mr. Gobineau, and he also shows the fallacy of the idea
+that Christianity will remove the mental inequality of races. True
+religion, among all nations who are blessed with it and sincerely
+embrace it, will purify their morals, and establish friendly relations
+between man and his fellow-man. But it will not make an _intellectually_
+inferior race equal to a superior one, because it was not designed to
+bestow talents or to endow with genius those who are devoid of it.
+Civilization is essentially the result of man's intellectual gifts, and
+must vary in its character and degree like them. Of this we shall speak
+again in treating of the _specific differences of civilization_, when
+the term _Christian civilization_ will also be examined.
+
+One great reason why so many refuse to recognize mental as well as
+physical differences among races, is the common and favorite belief of
+our time in the infinite perfectibility of man. Under various forms this
+development-theory, so flattering to humanity, has gained an incredible
+number of adherents and defenders. We believe ourselves steadily
+marching towards some brilliant goal, to which every generation brings
+us nearer. We look with a pity, almost amounting to contempt, upon those
+who preceded us, and envy posterity, which we expect to surpass us in a
+ratio even greater than we believe ourselves to surpass our ancestors.
+It is indeed a beautiful and poetic idea that civilization is a vast and
+magnificent edifice of which the first generation laid the corner-stone,
+and to which each succeeding age contributes new materials and new
+embellishments. It is our tower of Babel, by which we, like the first
+men after the flood, hope to reach heaven and escape the ills of life.
+Some such idea has flattered all ages, but in ours it has assumed a more
+definite form. We point with pride to our inventions, annihilating--we
+say--time and distance; our labor-saving machines refining the mechanic
+and indirectly diffusing information among all classes, and confidently
+look forward to a new era close at hand, a millennium to come. Let us,
+for a moment, divest ourselves of the conceit which belongs to every
+age, as well as to every country and individual; and let us ask
+ourselves seriously and candidly: In what are we superior to our
+predecessors? We have inventions that they had not, it is true, and
+these inventions increase in an astonishing ratio; we have clearer ideas
+of the laws which govern the material world, and better contrivances to
+apply these laws and to make the elements subservient to our comfort.
+But has the human mind really expanded since the days of Pythagoras and
+Plato? Has the thinker of the nineteenth century faculties and
+perceptions which they had not? Have we one virtue more or one vice less
+than former generations? Has human nature changed, or has it even
+modified its failings? Though we succeed in traversing the regions of
+air as easily and swifter than we now do broad continents and stormy
+seas; though we count all the worlds in the immensity of space; though
+we snatch from nature her most recondite secrets, shall we be aught but
+men? To the true philosopher these conquests over the material world
+will be but additional proofs of the greatness of God and man's
+littleness. It is the vanity and arrogance of the creature of clay that
+make him believe that by his own exertions he can arrive at God-like
+perfection. The insane research after the philosopher's stone and the
+elixir of life may be classed among the many other futile attempts of
+man to invade the immutable decree: "Thus far, and no farther." To
+escape from the moral and intellectual imperfections of his nature,
+there is but one way; the creature must humbly and devoutly cast himself
+into the ever-open arms of the Creator and seek for knowledge where none
+knocketh in vain. This privilege he has enjoyed in all ages, and it is a
+question which I would hesitate to answer whether the progress of
+physical science has not, in many cases at least, rather the effect of
+making him self-sufficient and too confident in his own powers, than of
+bringing him nearer to the knowledge of the true God. It is one of the
+fatal errors of our age in particular, to confound the progress of
+physical science with a supposed moral progress of man. Were it so, the
+Bible would have been a revelation of science as well as of religion,
+and that it is not is now beginning to be conceded, though by no means
+so generally as true theology would require; for the law of God was
+intended for every age, for every country, for every individual,
+independent of the state of science or a peculiar stage of civilization,
+and not to be modified by any change which man might make in his
+material existence. With due deference, then, to those philosophers who
+assert that the moral nature of the human species has undergone a change
+at various periods of the world's history; and those enthusiasts who
+dream of an approaching millennium, we hold, that human nature has
+always been the same and always will be the same, and that no inventions
+or discoveries, however promotive of his material well-being, can effect
+a moral change or bring him any nearer to the Divine essence than he was
+in the beginning of his mundane existence. Science and knowledge may
+indeed illumine his earthly career, but they can shed no light upon the
+path he is to tread to reach a better world.
+
+Christ himself has recognized the diversity of intellectual gifts in his
+parable of the talents, from which we borrow the very term to designate
+those gifts; and if, in a community of pure and faithful Christians,
+there still are many degrees and kinds of talents, is it reasonable to
+suppose that in that millennium--the only one I can imagine--when all
+nations shall call on His name with hope and praise, all mental
+imparities of races will be obliterated? There are, at the present time,
+nations upon whom we look down as being inferior in civilization to
+ourselves, yet they are as good--if, indeed, not better--Christians than
+we are as a people. The progress of physical science, by facilitating
+the intercourse between distant parts of the world, tends, indeed, to
+diffuse true religion, and in this manner--and this manner
+only--promotes the moral good of mankind. But here it is only an
+instrument, and not an agent, as the machines which the architect uses
+to raise his building materials do not erect the structure.
+
+One more reason why the unity of the human species cannot be considered
+a proof of equal intellectual capability of races. It is a favorite
+method of naturalists to draw an analogy between man and the brute
+creation; and, so far as he belongs to the animal kingdom, this method
+is undoubtedly correct and legitimate. But, with regard to man's higher
+attributes, there is an impassable barrier between him and the brute,
+which, in the heat of argument, contending parties have not always
+sufficiently respected. The great Prichard himself seems sometimes to
+have lost sight of it.[7] Thus, he speaks of "psychological" diversities
+in varieties of the same undoubted species of animal, though it is
+obvious that animals can have no psychological attributes. But I am
+willing to concede to Mr. Prichard all the conclusions he derives from
+this analogy in favor of unity of the human species. All dogs, he
+believes, are derived from one pair; yet, there are a number of
+varieties of dogs, and these varieties are different not only in
+external appearance, but in what Mr. Prichard would call psychological
+qualities. No shepherd expects to train a common cur to be the
+intelligent guardian of a flock; no sportsman to teach his hounds, or
+their unmixed progeny, to perform the office of setters. That the
+characteristics of every variety of dogs are permanent so long as the
+breed remains pure, every one knows, and that their distinctive type
+remains the same in all countries and through all time, is proved by the
+mural paintings of Egypt, which show that, 2,000 years B. C., they were
+as well known as in our day.[8] If, then, this permanency of
+"psychological" (to take Mr. Prichard's ground) diversity is compatible
+with unity of origin in the dog, why not in the case of man? I am far
+from desiring to call into question the unity of our species, but I
+contend that the rule must work both ways, and if "psychological"
+diversities can be permanent in the branches of the same species of
+animals, they can be permanent also in the branches of the human family.
+
+In the preceding pages, I have endeavored to show that the unity of
+species is no proof of equal intellectual capability of races, that
+mental imparities do not conflict with the universality of the gospel
+tidings, and that the permanency of these imparities is consistent with
+the reasoning of the greatest expounder of the unity theory. I shall now
+proceed to state the facts which prove the intellectual diversities
+among the races of man. In doing so, it is important to guard against an
+error into which so many able writers have fallen, that of comparing
+individuals rather than masses.
+
+What we term national character, is the aggregate of the qualities
+preponderating in a community. It is obvious that when we speak of the
+artistic genius of the Greeks, we do not mean that every native of
+Hellas and Ionia was an artist; and when we call a nation unwarlike or
+valorous, we do not thereby either stigmatize every individual as a
+coward, or extol him as a hero. The same is the case with races. When,
+for example, we assert that the black race is intellectually inferior to
+the white, it is not implied that the most intelligent negro should
+still be more obtuse than the most stupid white man. The maximum
+intellect and capacity of one race may greatly exceed the minimum of
+another, without placing them on an equality. The testimony of history,
+and the results of philanthropic experiment, are the data upon which the
+ethnologist must institute his inquiries, if he would arrive at
+conclusions instructive to humanity.
+
+Let us take for illustration the white and the black races, supposed by
+many to represent the two extremes of the scale of gradation. The whole
+history of the former shows an uninterrupted progress; that of the
+latter, monotonous stagnation. To the one, mankind owes the most
+valuable discoveries in the domain of thought, and their practical
+application; to the other, it owes nothing. For ages plunged in the
+darkest gloom of barbarism, there is not one ray of even temporary or
+borrowed improvement to cheer the dismal picture of its history, or
+inspire with hope the disheartened philanthropist. At the boundary of
+its territory, the ever-encroaching spirit of conquest of the European
+stops powerless.[9] Never, in the history of the world, has a grander
+or more conclusive experiment been tried than in the case of the negro
+race. We behold them placed in immediate possession of the richest
+island in the richest part of the globe, with every advantage that
+climate, soil, geographical situation, can afford; removed from every
+injurious contact, yet with every facility for constant intercourse with
+the most polished nations of the earth; inheriting all that the white
+race had gained by the toil of centuries in science, politics, and
+morals; and what is the result? As if to afford a still more
+irrefragable proof of the mental inequality of races, we find separate
+divisions of the same island inhabited, one by the pure, the other by a
+half-breed race; and the infusion of the white blood in the latter case
+forms a population incontestably and avowedly superior. In opposition to
+such facts, some special pleader, bent upon establishing a preconceived
+notion, ransacks the records of history to find a few isolated instances
+where an individual of the inferior race has displayed average ability,
+and from such exceptional cases he deduces conclusions applicable to
+the whole mass! He points with exultation to a negro who calculates, a
+negro who is an officer of artillery in Russia, a few others who are
+employed in a counting-house. And yet he does not even tell us whether
+these _rarae aves_ are of pure blood or not, as is often the case.[10]
+Moreover, these instances are proclaimed to the world with an air of
+triumph, as if they were drawn at random from an inexhaustible arsenal
+of facts, when in reality they are all that the most anxious research
+could discover, and form the stock in trade of every declaimer on the
+absolute equality of races.
+
+Had it pleased the Creator to endow all branches of the human family
+equally, all would then have pursued the same career, though, perhaps,
+not all with equal rapidity. Some, favored by circumstances, might have
+distanced others in the race; a few, peculiarly unfortunately situated,
+would have lagged behind. Still, the progress of all would have been in
+the same direction, all would have had the same stages to traverse. Now
+is this the case? There are not a few who assert it. From our earliest
+infancy we are told of the savage, barbarous, semi-civilized, civilized,
+and enlightened states. These we are taught to consider as the steps of
+the ladder by which man climbs up to infinite perfection, we ourselves
+being near the top, while others are either a little below us, or have
+scarcely yet firmly established themselves upon the first rounds. In the
+beautiful language of Schiller, these latter are to us a mirror in which
+we behold our own ancestors, as an adult in the children around him
+re-witnesses his own infancy. This is, in a measure, true of nations of
+the same race, but is it true with regard to different races? It is
+little short of presumption to venture to combat an idea perhaps more
+extensively spread than any of our time, yet this we shall endeavor to
+do. Were the differences in civilization which we observe in various
+nations of the world, differences of degree only, and not of kind, it is
+obvious that the most advanced individual in one degree must closely
+approach the confines of a higher. But this is not the case. The highest
+degree of culture known to Hindoo or Chinese civilization, approaches
+not the possessor one step nearer to the ideas and views of the
+European. The Chinese civilization is as perfect, in its own way, as
+ours, nay more so.[11] It is not a mere child, or even an adult not yet
+arrived at maturity; it is rather a decrepit old man. It too has its
+degrees; it too has had its periods of infancy, of adult age, of
+maturity. And when we contemplate its fruits, the immense works which
+have been undertaken and completed under its aegis, the systems of morals
+and politics to which it gave rise, the inventions which signalized its
+more vigorous periods, we cannot but admit that it is entitled in a high
+degree to our veneration and esteem.[12] Moreover it has excellencies
+which our civilization as yet has not; it pervades all classes, ours
+not. In the whole Chinese empire, comprising, as it does, one-third of
+the human race, we find few individuals unable to read and write; in
+China proper, none. How many European countries can pretend to this? And
+yet, because Chinese civilization has a different tendency from ours,
+because its course lies in another direction, we call it a
+semi-civilization. At what time of the world's history then have we--the
+_civilized_ nations--passed through this stage of semi-civilization?
+
+The monuments of Sanscrit literature, the magnificent remains of palaces
+and temples, the great number of ingenious arts, the elaborate systems
+of metaphysics, attest a state of intellectual culture, far from
+contemptible, among the Hindoos. Yet their civilization, too, we term a
+semi-civilization, albeit it is as little like the Chinese as it is like
+anything ever seen in Europe.
+
+Few who will carefully investigate and reflect upon these facts, will
+doubt that the terms Hindoo, Chinese, European civilization, are not
+indicative of degrees only, but mean the respective development of
+powers essentially different in their nature. We may consider our
+civilization the best, but it is both arrogant and unphilosophical to
+consider it as the only one, or as the standard by which to measure all
+others. This idea, moreover, is neither peculiar to ourselves nor to our
+age. The Chinese even yet look upon us as barbarians; the Hindoos
+probably do the same. The Greeks considered all extra-Hellenic peoples
+as barbarians. The Romans ascribed the same pre-excellency to
+themselves, and the predilections for these nations, which we imbibe
+already in our academic years from our classical studies, cause us to
+share the same opinion, and to view with their prejudices nations less
+akin to us than they. The Persians, for instance, whom the Greeks
+self-complacently styled outside-barbarians, were, in reality, a highly
+cultivated people, as no one can deny who will examine the facts which
+modern research has brought to light. Their arts, if not Hellenic, still
+attained a high degree of perfection. Their architecture, though not of
+Grecian style, was not inferior in magnificence and splendor. Nay, I for
+one am willing to render myself obnoxious to the charge of classical
+heresy, by regarding the pure Persians as a people, in some respects at
+least, superior to the Greeks. Their religious system seems to me a much
+purer, nobler one than the inconsistent, immoral mythology of our
+favorites. Their ideas of a good and an evil power in perpetual
+conflict, and of a mediator who loves and protects the human race; their
+utter detestation of every species of idolatry, have to me something
+that prepossesses me in their favor.
+
+I have now alleged, in a cursory manner, my principal reasons for
+considering civilizations as specifically distinct. To further dilate
+upon the subject, though I greatly desire to do so, would carry me too
+far; not, indeed, beyond the scope of the inquiries proposed in this
+volume, but beyond the limited space assigned for my introduction. I
+shall add only, that--assuming the intellectual equality of all branches
+of the human family--we can assign no causes for the differences of
+_degree only_ of their development. Geographical position cannot explain
+them, because the people who have made the greatest advance, have not
+always been the most favorably situated. The greatest geographical
+advantages have been in possession of others that made no use of them,
+and became of importance only by changing owners. To cite one of a
+thousand similar instances. The glorious Mississippi Valley, with its
+innumerable tributary streams, its unparalleled fertility and mineral
+wealth, seems especially adapted by nature for the abode of a great
+agricultural and commercial nation. Yet, the Indians roamed over it, and
+plied their canoes on its rivers, without ever being aware of the
+advantages they possessed. The Anglo-Saxon, on the contrary, no sooner
+perceived them than he dreamed of the conquest of the world. We may
+therefore compare such and other advantages to a precious instrument
+which it requires the skill of the workman to use. To ascribe
+differences of civilizations to the differences of laws and political
+institutions, is absolutely begging the question, for such institutions
+are themselves an effect and an inherent portion of the civilization,
+and when transplanted into foreign soils, never prosper. That the moral
+and physical well-being of a nation will be better promoted when liberty
+presides over her councils than when stern despotism sits at the helm,
+no one can deny; but it is obvious that the nation must first be
+prepared to receive the blessings of liberty, lest they prove a curse.
+
+Here is the place for a few remarks upon the epithet Christian, applied
+to our civilization. Mr. Gobineau justly observes, that he knows of no
+social or political order of things to which this term may fitly be said
+to belong. We may justly speak of a Brahminic, Buddhistic, Pagan, Judaic
+civilization, because the social or political systems designated by
+these appellations were intimately connected with a more or less
+exclusive theocratical formula. Religion there prescribed everything:
+social and political laws, government, manners, nay, in many instances,
+dress and food. But one of the distinguishing characteristics of
+Christianity is its universality. Right at the beginning it disclaimed
+all interference in temporal affairs. Its precepts may be followed under
+every system of government, in every path of life, every variety of
+modes of existence. Such is, in substance, Mr. Gobineau's view of the
+subject. To this I would add a few comments of my own. The error is not
+one of recent date. Its baneful effects have been felt from almost the
+first centuries of the establishment of the Church down to our times.
+Human legislation ought, indeed, to be in strict accordance with the law
+of God, but to commend one system as Christian, and proscribe another
+as unchristian, is opening the door to an endless train of frightful
+evils. This is what, virtually, they do who would call a civilization
+Christian, for civilization is the aggregate social and political
+development of a nation, or a race, and the political is always in
+direct proportion to the social progress; both mutually influence each
+other. By speaking of a Christian civilization, therefore, we assert
+that some particular political as well as social system, is most
+conformable to the spirit of our religion. Hence the union of church and
+State, and the influence of the former in temporal affairs--an influence
+which few enlightened churchmen, at least of our age, would wish to
+claim. Not to speak of the danger of placing into the hands of any class
+of men, however excellent, the power of declaring what legislation is
+Christian or not, and thus investing them with supreme political as well
+as spiritual authority; it is sufficient to point out the disastrous
+effects of such a system to the interests of the church itself. The
+opponents of a particular political organization become also the
+opponents of the religion which advocates and defends it. The
+indifferentism of Germany, once so zealous in the cause of religion, is
+traceable to this source. The people are dissatisfied with their
+political machinery, and hate the church which vindicates it, and
+stigmatizes as impious every attempt at change. Indeed, one has but to
+read the religious journals of Prussia, to understand the lukewarmness
+of that people. Mr. Brace, in his _Home Life in Germany_, says that many
+intelligent natives of that country had told him: Why should we go to
+church to hear a sermon that extols an order of things which we know to
+be wicked, and in the highest degree detestable? How can a religion be
+true which makes adherence to such an order a fundamental article of its
+creed?
+
+One of the features of our constitution which Mr. De Tocqueville most
+admires, is the utter separation of church and State. Mere religious
+toleration practically prevails in most European countries, but this
+total disconnection of the religious from the civil institutions, is
+peculiar to the United States, and a lesson which it has given to the
+rest of the world.
+
+I do not mean that every one who makes use of the word Christian
+civilization thereby implies a union of church and State, but I wish to
+point out the principle upon which this expression is based, viz: that a
+certain social and political order of things is more according to the
+spirit of the Christian religion than another; and the consequences
+which must, or at least may, follow from the practical acceptation of
+this principle. Taking my view of the subject, few, I think, will
+dispute that the term Christian civilization is a misnomer. Of the
+civilizing influence of Christianity, I have spoken before, but this
+influence would be as great in the Chinese or Hindoo civilizations,
+without, in the least, obliterating their characteristic features.
+
+Few terms of equal importance are so vaguely defined as the term
+CIVILIZATION; few definitions are so difficult. In common parlance, the
+word civilization is used to designate that moral, intellectual, and
+material condition at which the so-called European race, whether
+occupying the Eastern or the Western continent, has arrived in the
+nineteenth century. But the nations comprised in this race differ from
+one another so extensively, that it has been found necessary to invent a
+new term: _enlightenment_. Thus, Great Britain, France, the United
+States, Switzerland, several of the States of the German Confederacy,
+Sweden, and Denmark, are called enlightened; while Russia, Spain,
+Portugal, Italy, Brazil, and the South American republics are merely
+civilized. Now, I ask, in what does the difference consist?
+
+Is the diffusion of knowledge by popular education to be the test? Then
+Great Britain and France would fall far below some countries now placed
+in the second, or even third rank. Denmark and China would be the most
+civilized countries in the world; nay, even Thibet, and the rest of
+Central Asia, would take precedence before the present champions of
+civilization. The whole of Germany and Switzerland would come next, then
+the eastern and middle sections of the United States, then the southern
+and western; and, after them, Great Britain and France. Still retaining
+the same scale, Russia would actually be ranked above Italy, the native
+clime of the arts. In Great Britain itself, Scotland would far surpass
+England in civilization[13].
+
+Is the perfection to which the arts are carried, the test of
+civilization? Then Bavaria and Italy are the most civilized countries.
+Then are we far behind the Greeks in civilization. Or, are the useful
+arts to carry the prize? Then the people showing the greatest mechanical
+genius is the most civilized.
+
+Are political institutions to be the test? Then the question, "Which is
+the best government?" must first be decided. But the philosophic answer
+would be: "That which is best adapted to the genius of the people, and
+therefore best answers the purposes for which all government is
+instituted." Those who believe in the abstract superiority of any
+governmental theory, may be compared to the tailor who would finish some
+beau-ideal of a coat, without taking his customer's measure. We could
+afford to laugh at such theorists, were not their schemes so often
+recorded in blood in the annals of the world. Besides, if this test be
+admitted, no two could agree upon what was a civilized community. The
+panegyrist of constitutional monarchy would call England the only
+civilized country; the admirer of municipal liberty would point to the
+Hanse towns of the Middle Ages, and their miserable relics, the present
+free cities of Germany; the friend of sober republicanism would exclude
+from the pale of civilization all but the United States and Switzerland;
+the lover of pure democracy would contend that mankind had retrograded
+since the time of Athens, and deplore that civilization was now confined
+to some few rude mountain or nomadic tribes with few and simple wants;
+finally, the defender of a paternal autocracy would sigh for the days of
+Trajan or Marcus Aurelius, and hesitate whether, in our age, Austria or
+Russia deserved the crown.
+
+Neither pre-eminence in arts and sciences, nor in popular instruction,
+nor in government, can singly be taken as the test of civilization.
+Pre-eminence in all, no country enjoys. Yet all these are signs of
+civilization--the only ones by which we distinguish and recognize it.
+How, then, shall we define this term? I would suggest a simple and, I
+think, sufficiently explicit definition: Civilization is the continuous
+development of man's moral and intellectual powers. As the aggregate of
+these differs in different nations, so differs the character of their
+civilization. In one, civilization manifests itself in the perfection of
+the arts, either useful or polite; in another, in the cultivation of the
+sciences; in a third; in the care bestowed upon politics, or, in the
+diffusion of knowledge among the masses. Each has its own merits, each
+its own defects; none combines the excellencies of all, but whichever
+combines the most with fewest defects, may be considered the best, or
+most perfect. It is because not keeping this obvious truth in view that
+John Bull laughs (or used to laugh) self-complacently at Monsieur
+Crapaud, and that we ourselves sometimes laugh at his political capers,
+forgetting that the thinkers of his nation have, for the last century at
+least, led the van in science and politics--yes, even in politics.[14]
+It is, for the same reason, that the Frenchman laughs at the German, or
+the Dutchman; that the foreigner cannot understand that there is an
+_American civilization_ as well, and, bringing his own country's
+standard along with him, finds everything either too little or too
+great; or, that the American, going to the native soil of the ripest
+scholars in the world, and seeing brick and mortar carried up by hand to
+the fourth story of a building in process of erection,[15] or seeing
+five men painfully perform a job which his youngest son would have
+accomplished without trouble by the simplest, perhaps self-invented,
+contrivance, revolves in his own mind how it is possible that these
+people--when the schoolmaster is abroad, too--are still so many
+centuries "behind the time." Thus each nation has its own standard by
+which it judges its neighbors; but when extra-European nations, such as
+the Chinese or Hindoos, are to be judged, all unite in voting them
+_outside barbarians_.
+
+Here, then, we have indubitable proofs of moral and intellectual
+diversities, not only in what are generally termed different races, but
+even in nations apparently belonging to the same race. Nor do I see in
+this diversity ought that can militate against our ideas of universal
+brotherhood. Among individuals, diversity of talent does not preclude
+friendly intercourse; on the contrary, it promotes it, for rivals seldom
+are friends. Neither does superior ability exempt us from the duties
+which we owe to our fellow-man.
+
+I have repeatedly made use of the analogy between societies and the
+individuals that compose them. I cannot more clearly express my idea of
+civilization than by recurring to it again. Civilization, then, is to
+nations what the development of his physical and intellectual powers is
+to an individual; indeed, it is nothing but the aggregate result of all
+these individual powers; a common reservoir to which each contributes a
+share, whether large or small. The analogy may be extended further.
+Nations may be considered as themselves members of societies, bearing
+the same relations to each other and to the whole, as individuals. Thus,
+all the nations of Europe contribute, each in its own manner and degree,
+to what has been called the _European_ civilization. And, in the same
+manner, the nations of Asia form distinct systems of civilizations. But
+all these systems ultimately tend to one great aim--the general welfare
+of mankind. I would therefore carefully distinguish between the
+civilizations of particular nations, of clusters of nations, and of the
+whole of our species. To borrow a metaphor from the mechanism of the
+universe, the first are like the planets of a solar system,
+revolving--though in different orbits, and with different
+velocities--around the same common centre; but the solar systems
+again--with all their planets--revolve round another, more distant
+point.
+
+Let us take two individuals of undoubted intellect. One may be a great
+mathematician, the other a great statesman. Place the first at the head
+of a cabinet, the second in an observatory, and the mathematician will
+as signally fail in correctly observing the changes in the political
+firmament, as the other in noting those in the heavenly. Yet, who would
+decide which had the superior intellect? This diversity of gifts is not
+the result of education. No training, however ingenious, could have
+changed an Arago into a Pitt, or _vice versa_. Raphael could under no
+circumstances have become a Handel, or either of them a Milton. Nay, men
+differ in following the same career. Can any one conceive that Michael
+Angelo could ever have painted Vandyke's pictures, Shakspeare written
+Milton's verses, Mozart composed Rossini's music, or Jefferson followed
+Hamilton's policy? Here, then, we have excellencies, perhaps of equal
+degree, but of very different kinds. Nature, from her inexhaustible
+store, has not only unequally, but variously, bestowed her favors, and
+this infinite variety of gifts, as infinite as the variety of faces, God
+has doubtless designed for the happiness of men, and for their more
+intimate union, in making them dependent one on another. As each
+creature sings his Maker's praise in his own voice and cadence, the
+sparrow in his twitter, the nightingale in her warble, so each human
+being proclaims the Almighty's glory by the rightful use of his talents,
+whether great or small, for the promotion of his fellow-creatures'
+happiness; one may raise pious emotion in the breast by the tuneful
+melody of his song; another by the beauty and vividness of his images on
+canvas or in verse; a third discovers new worlds--additional evidences
+of His omnipotence who made them--and, by his calculations,
+demonstrates, even to the sceptic, the wonderful mechanism of the
+universe; to another, again, it is given to guide a nation's councils,
+and, by His assistance, to avert danger, or correct evils. Fie upon
+those who would raise man's powers above those of God, and ascribe
+diversity of talents to education and accident, rather than to His
+wisdom and design. Can we not admire the Almighty as well in the variety
+as in a fancied uniformity of His works? Harmony consists in the union
+of different sounds; the harmony of the universe, in the diversity of
+its parts.
+
+What is true of a society composed of individuals, is true of that vast
+political assemblage composed of nations. That each has a career to run
+through, a destiny to fulfil, is my firm and unwavering belief. That
+each must be gifted with peculiar qualities for that purpose, is a mere
+corollary of the proposition. This has been the opinion of all ages:
+"The men of Boeotia are noted for their stolidity, those of Attica for
+their wit." Common parlance proves that it is now, to-day, the opinion
+of all mankind, whatever theorists may say. Many affect to deride the
+idea of "manifest destiny" that possesses us Anglo-Americans, but who in
+the main doubts it? Who, that will but cast one glance on the map, or
+look back upon our history of yesterday only, can think of seriously
+denying that great purposes have been accomplished, will still be
+accomplished, and that these purposes were designed and guided by
+something more than blind chance? Unroll the page of history--of the
+great chain of human events, it is true, we perceive but few links;
+like eternity, its beginning is wrapt in darkness, its end a mystery
+above human comprehension--but, in the vast drama presented to us, in
+which nations form the cast, we see each play its part, then disappear.
+Some, as Mr. Gobineau has it, act the kings and rulers, others are
+content with inferior roles.
+
+As it is incompatible with the wisdom of the Creator, to suppose that
+each nation was not specially fitted[16] for the part assigned to it, we
+may judge of what they were capable of by what they have accomplished.
+
+History, then, must be our guide; and never was epoch more propitious,
+for never has her lamp shone brighter. The study of this important
+science, which Niebuhr truly calls the _magistra vitae_, has received
+within our days an impulse such as it never had before. The invaluable
+archaeological treasures which the linguists and antiquarians of Europe
+have rescued from the literature and monuments of the great nations of
+former ages, bring--as it were--back to life again the mouldered
+generations of the dim past. We no longer content ourselves with
+chronological outlines, mere names, and unimportant accounts of kings
+and their quarrels; we seek to penetrate into the inner life of those
+multitudes who acted their part on the stage of history, and then
+disappeared, to understand the modes of thought, the feelings, ideas,
+_instincts_, which actuated them, and made them what they were. The
+hoary pyramids of the Nile valley are forced to divulge their age, the
+date of a former civilization; the temples and sepulchres, to furnish a
+minute account of even the private life of their builders;[17] the
+arrow-headed characters on the disinterred bricks of the sites of
+Babylon and Nineveh, are no longer a secret to the indefatigable
+orientalists; the classic writers of Hindostan and China find their most
+zealous scholiasts, and profoundest critics, in the capitals of Western
+Europe. The dross of childish fables, which age after age has
+transmitted to its successor under the name of history, is exposed to
+the powerful furnace of reason and criticism, and the pure ore
+extracted, by such men as Niebuhr, Heeren, Ranke, Gibbon, Grote. The
+enthusiastic lover of ancient Rome now sees her early history in
+clearer, truer colors than did her own historians.
+
+But, if history is indispensable to ethnology, the latter is no less so
+to a true understanding of history. The two sciences mutually shed light
+on one another's path, and though one of them is as yet in its infancy,
+its wonderful progress in so short a time, and the almost unparalleled
+attention which it has excited at all hands, are bright omens for the
+future. It will be obvious that, by _ethnology_, we do not mean
+_ethnography_, with which it has long been synonymous. Their meaning
+differs in the same manner, they bear almost the same relation to one
+another as _geology_ and _geography_. While ethnography contents herself
+with the mere description and classification of the races of man,
+ethnology, to borrow the expressive language of the editor of the
+_London Ethnological Journal_, "investigates the mental and physical
+differences of mankind, and the organic laws upon which they depend;
+seeks to deduce from these investigations principles of human guidance,
+in all the important relations of social and national existence."[18]
+The importance of this study cannot be better expressed than in the
+words of a writer in the _North British Review_ for August, 1849: "No
+one that has not worked much in the element of history, can be aware of
+the immense importance of clearly keeping in view the differences of
+race that are discernible among the nations that inhabit different parts
+of the world.... In speculative history, in questions relating to the
+past career and the future destinies of nations, _it is only by a firm
+and efficient handling of this conception of our species, as broken up
+into so many groups or masses, physiologically different to a certain
+extent, that any progress can be made, or any available conclusions
+accurately arrived at_."[19]
+
+But in attempting to divide mankind into such groups, an ethnologist is
+met by a serious and apparently insurmountable difficulty. The gradation
+of color is so imperceptible from the clearest white to the jettest
+black; and even anatomical peculiarities, normal in one branch, are
+found to exist, albeit in exceptional cases, in many others; so that the
+ethnographers scarce know where to stop in their classification, and
+while some recognize but three grand varieties, others contend for five,
+for eleven, or even for a much greater number. This difficulty arises,
+in my estimation, mainly from the attempt to class mankind into
+different species, that is, groups who have a separate origin; and
+also, from the proneness to draw deductions from individual instances,
+by which almost any absurdity can be sustained, or truth refuted. As we
+have already inveighed against the latter error, and shall therefore try
+to avoid falling into it; and as we have no desire to enter the field of
+discussion about unity or plurality of species, we hope, in a great
+measure, to obviate the difficulties that beset the path of so many
+inquirers. By the word _race_[20] we mean, both here and in the body of
+the work, such branches of the human family as are distinguished in the
+aggregate by certain well-defined physical or mental peculiarities,
+independent of the question whether they be of identical or diverse
+origin. For the sake of simplicity, these races are arranged in several
+principal classes, according to their relative affinities and
+resemblances. The most popular system of arrangement is that of
+Blumenbach, who recognizes five grand divisions, distinguished by
+appellations descriptive either of color or geographical position, viz:
+the White, Circassian, or European; the Yellow, Altaic, Asiatic, or
+Mongolian; the Red, American, or Indian; the Brown, or Malay; and,
+lastly, the Black, African, or negro. This division, though the most
+commonly adopted, has no superior claims above any other. Not only are
+its designations liable to very serious objections, but it is, in
+itself, entirely arbitrary. The Hottentot differs as much from the negro
+as the latter does from the Malay; and the Polynesian from the Malay
+more than the American from the Mongolian. Upon the same principle,
+then, the number of classes might be indefinitely extended. Mr. Gobineau
+thought three classes sufficient to answer every purpose, and these he
+calls respectively the white, yellow, and black. Mr. Latham,[21] the
+great ethnographer, adopts a system almost precisely similar to our
+author's, and upon grounds entirely different. Though, for my own part,
+I should prefer a greater number of primary divisions, I confess that
+this coincidence of opinion in two men, pursuing, independent of, and
+unknown to each other, different paths of investigation, is a strong
+evidence of the correctness of their system, which, moreover, has the
+merit of great simplicity and clearness.
+
+It must be borne in mind that the races comprised under these divisions,
+are by no means to be considered equal among themselves. We should lay
+it down as a general truth, that while the entire groups differ
+principally in _degree_ of intellectual capacity, the races comprised in
+each differ among themselves rather in kind. Thus, we assert upon the
+testimony of history, that the white races are superior to the yellow;
+and these, in turn, to the black. But the Lithuanian and the Anglo-Saxon
+both belong to the same group of races, and yet, history shows that
+they differ; so do the Samoyede and the Chinese, the negro of Lower
+Guinea, and the Fellah. These differences, observable among nations
+classed under the same head, as, for instance, the difference between
+the Russians and Italians (both white), we express in every day's
+language by the word "genius." Thus, we constantly hear persons speak of
+the artistic, administrative, nautical genius of the Greeks, Romans, and
+Phenicians, respectively; or, such phrases as these, which I borrow from
+Mr. Gobineau: "Napoleon rightly understood the _genius_ of his nation
+when he reinstated the Church, and placed the supreme authority on a
+secure basis; Charles I. and his adviser did not, when they attempted to
+bend the neck of Englishmen under the yoke of absolutism." But, as the
+word _genius_ applied to the capacities or tendencies of a nation, in
+general implies either too much or too little, it has been found
+convenient, in this work, to substitute for it another term--_instinct_.
+By the use of this word, it was not intended to assimilate man to the
+brute, to express aught differing from intellect or the reasoning
+capacity; but only to designate the peculiar manner in which that
+intellect or reasoning capacity manifests itself; in other words, the
+special adaptation of a nation for the part assigned to it in the
+world's history; and, as this part is performed involuntarily and, for
+the most part, unconsciously, the term was deemed neither improper nor
+inappropriate. I do not, however, contend for its correctness, though I
+could cite the authority of high names for its use in this sense; I
+contend merely for its convenience, for we thereby gain an easy method
+of making distinctions of _kind_ in the mental endowments of races, in
+cases where we would hesitate to make distinctions of _degree_. In fact,
+it is saying of multitudes only what we say of an individual by speaking
+of his _talent_; with this difference, however, that by talent we
+understand excellency of a certain order, while instinct applies to
+every grade. Two persons of equal intellectual calibre may have, one a
+talent for mathematics, the other for literature; that is, one can
+exhibit his intellect to advantage only in calculation, the other only
+in writing. Thus, of two nations standing equally high in the
+intellectual scale, one shall be distinguished for the high perfection
+attained in the fine arts, the other for the same perfection in the
+useful.
+
+At the risk of wearying the reader with my definitions, I must yet
+inflict on him another which is essential to the right understanding of
+the following pages. In common parlance, the terms _nation_ and
+_people_ have become strictly synonymous. We speak indifferently of the
+French people, or the French nation; the English people, or the English
+nation. If we make any distinction at all, we perhaps designate by the
+first expression the masses; by the second, rather the sovereignty.
+Thus, we say the French people are versatile, the French nation is at
+war with Russia. But even this distinction is not always made.
+
+My purpose is to restore the word nation to its original signification,
+in which it expresses the same as the word race, including, besides, the
+idea of some sort of political organization. It is, in fact, nothing but
+the Latin equivalent of that word, and was applied, like tribe, to a
+collection of individuals not only living under the same government, but
+also claiming a closer consanguinity to one another than to their
+neighbors. It differs from tribe only in this respect, that it is
+applied to greater multitudes, as for instance to a coalescence of
+several closely-allied tribes, which gives rise to more complicated
+political forms. It might therefore be defined by an ethnologist as _a
+population consisting of homogeneous ethnical elements_.
+
+The word _people_, on the contrary, when applied to an aggregation of
+individuals living under the same government, implies no immediate
+consanguineous ties among them. _Nation_ does not necessarily imply
+political unity; _people_, always. Thus, we speak of the Greek _nation_,
+though the Greeks were divided into a number of independent and very
+dissimilar sovereignties; but, we say the Roman _people_, though the
+whole population of the empire obeyed the same supreme head. The Russian
+empire contains within its limits, besides the Russians proper, an
+almost equal number of Cossacks, Calmucks, Tartars, Fins, and a number
+of other races, all very different from one another and still more so
+from the Russians, not only in language and external appearance, but in
+manners, modes of thinking: in one word, in instincts. By the expression
+Russian people I should therefore understand the whole population of
+that empire; by Russian nation, only the dominant race to which the Czar
+belongs. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of keeping
+in view this distinction, as I shall prove by another instance. The
+Hungarian people are very nearly equally divided (exclusive of about one
+million Germans) into two nations, the Magyars and the Sclaves. Not only
+have these two, though for centuries occupying the same soil, remained
+unmixed and distinct, but the most intense antipathy exists between
+them, which only requires an occasion to display itself in acts of
+bloodshed and relentless cruelty, that would make the tenants of hell
+shudder. Such an occasion was the recent revolution, in which, while the
+Magyars fought like lions for their independence, the Sclaves, knowing
+that they would not participate in any advantage the others might gain,
+proved more formidable opponents than the Austrians.[22]
+
+If I have been successful in my discrimination between the two words, it
+follows plainly that a member of one nation, strictly speaking, can no
+more become a member of another by process of law, than a man, by
+adopting a child, can make it the fruit of his loins. This rule, though
+correct in the abstract, does not always apply to individual cases; but
+these, as has already been remarked, cannot be made the groundwork of
+general deductions. In conclusion of this somewhat digressional
+definition, I would observe that, owing to the great intermixture of the
+European populations, produced by their various and intimate mutual
+relations, it does not apply with the same force to them as to others,
+and this I regard as the reason why the signification of the word has
+become modified.
+
+If we will carefully examine the history of great empires, we shall be
+able, in almost every instance, to trace their beginning to the activity
+of what, in the strictest sense of the word, may be called a nation.
+Gradually, as the sphere of that nation expands, it incorporates, and in
+course of time amalgamates with foreign elements.
+
+Nimrod, we learn from sacred history, established the Assyrian empire.
+At first, this consisted of but little more than the city of Babylon,
+and must necessarily have contained a very homogeneous population, if
+from no other cause than its narrow geographical limits. At the dawn of
+profane history, however, we find this empire extending over boundless
+tracts, and uniting under one rule tribes and nations of the most
+dissimilar manners and tongues.
+
+The Assyrian empire fell, and that of the Medes rose on its ruins. The
+Median monarchy had an humble beginning. Dejoces, says tradition, united
+the independent tribes of the Medes. Later, we find them ruling nations
+whose language they did not understand, whose manners they despised.
+
+The Persian empire exceeded in grandeur its mighty predecessors.
+Originating in a rebellion of a few liberty-loving tribes, concerted and
+successfully executed by a popular leader (Cyrus), two generations of
+rulers extended its boundaries to the banks of the Nile. In Alexander's
+time, it was a conglomeration of a countless number of nations, many of
+whom remained under their hereditary rulers while rendering allegiance,
+and paying tribute to the great king.
+
+I pass over the Macedonian empire, as of too short a duration to be a
+fair illustration. The germ of the Roman empire consisted of a
+coalescence of very closely allied tribes: Romulus's band of adventurers
+(who must have come from neighboring communities), the Sabines, Albans,
+and Latins. At the period of its downfall, it ruled, at least nominally,
+over every then known race.
+
+In all these instances, the number of which might be further increased,
+we find homogeneousness of population at first, ethnical mixture and
+confusion at the end. "But what does this prove? will be asked. That too
+great an extension of territory is the cause of weakness? The idea is
+old, and out of date in our times, when steam and electricity bring the
+outskirts of the largest empire in closer proximity than formerly were
+the frontiers of the humblest sovereignty." Extension of territory does
+not itself prove a cause of weakness and ruin. The largest empire in the
+world is that of China, and, without steam or electricity, it has
+maintained itself for 4,000 years, and bids fair, spite of the present
+revolution, to last a good long while yet. But, when extension of
+territory is attended with the incorporation of heterogeneous masses,
+having different interests, different instincts, from the conqueror,
+then indeed the extension must be an element of weakness, and not of
+strength.
+
+The armies which Xerxes led into Greece were not Persians; but a small
+fragment of that motley congregation, the _elite_, the leaven of the
+whole mass, was composed of the king's countrymen. Upon this small body
+he placed his principal reliance, and when, at the fatal battle of
+Salamis, he beheld the slaughter of that valiant and noble band, though
+he had hundreds of thousands yet at his command, he rent his garments
+and fled a country which he had well-nigh conquered. Here is the
+difference between the armies of Cyrus and those of Xerxes and Darius.
+The rabbles which obeyed the latter, perhaps contained as much valor as
+the ranks of the enthusiastic followers of the first, though the fact
+of their fighting under Persian standards might be considered as a proof
+of their inferiority. But what interest had they in the success of the
+great king? To forge still firmer their own fetters? Could the name of
+Cyrus, the remembrance of the storming of Sardis, the siege of Babylon,
+the conquest of Egypt, fire them with enthusiasm? Perhaps, in some of
+those glorious events, their forefathers became slaves to the tyrants
+they now serve, tyrants whose very language they do not understand.
+
+The last armies of tottering Rome were drafted from every part of her
+boundless dominions, and of the men who were sent to oppose the
+threatening barbarians of the north, some, it might be, felt the blood
+of humbled Greece in their veins; some had been torn from a distant home
+in Egypt, or Libya; others, perhaps, remembered with pride how their
+ancestors had fought the Romans in the times of Juba, or Mithridates;
+others, again, boiled with indignation at the oppression of their Gallic
+brethren;--could those men respect the glorious traditions of Rome,
+could they be supposed to emulate the former legions of the proud city?
+
+It is not, then, an extensive territory that ruins nations; it is a
+diversity of instincts, a clashing of interests among the various parts
+of the population. When each province is isolated in feelings and
+interests from every other, no external foe is wanted to complete the
+ruin. Ambitious and adroit men will soon arise who know how to play upon
+these interests, and employ them for the promotion of their own schemes.
+
+Nations, in the various stages of their career, have often been compared
+to individuals. They have, it is said, their period of infancy, of
+youth, of manhood, of old age. But the similitude, however striking, is
+not extended further, and, while individuals die a natural death,
+nations are supposed always to come to a violent end. Probably, we do
+not like to concede that all nations, like all individuals, must
+ultimately die a natural death, even though no disease anticipates it;
+because we dislike to recognize a rule which must apply to us as well.
+Each nation fancies its own vitality imperishable. When we are young, we
+seldom seriously think of death; in the same manner, societies in the
+period of their youthful vigor and energy, cannot conceive the
+possibility of their dissolution. In old age and decrepitude, they are
+like the consumptive patient, who, while fell disease is severing the
+last thread that binds him to the earth, is still forming plans for
+years to come. Falling Rome dreamed herself eternal. Yet, the mortality
+of nations admits of precisely the same proof as that of
+individuals--universal experience. The great empires that overshadowed
+the world, where are they? The memory of some is perpetuated in the
+hearts of mankind by imperishable monuments; of others, the slightest
+trace is obliterated, the vaguest remembrance vanished. As the great
+individual intelligences, whose appearance marks an era in the history
+of human thought, live in the minds of posterity, even though no
+gorgeous tombstone points out the resting-place of their hull of clay;
+while the mausoleum of him whose grandeur was but temporary, whose
+influence transient only, carries no meaning on its sculptured surface
+to after ages; even so the ancient civilizations which adorned the
+globe, if their monuments be not in the domain of thought, their
+gigantic vestiges serve but to excite the wonder of the traveller and
+antiquary, and perplex the historian. Their sepulchres, however grand,
+are mute.[23]
+
+Many have been the attempts to detect the causes why nations die, in
+order to prevent that catastrophe; as the physicians of the Middle Ages,
+who thought death was always the consequence of disease, sought for the
+panacea that was to cure all ills and thus prolong life forever. But
+nations, like individuals, often survive the severest attacks of the
+most formidable disease, and die without sickness. In ancient times,
+those great catastrophes which annihilated the political existence of
+millions, were regarded as direct interpositions of Providence, visiting
+in its wrath the sins of a nation, and erecting a warning example for
+others; just as the remarkable destruction of a noted individual, or the
+occurrence of an unusual phenomenon was, and by many is even now,
+ascribed to the same immediate agency. But when philosophy discovered
+that the universe is governed by pre-established, immutable laws, and
+refused to credit miracles not sanctioned by religion; then the dogma
+gained ground that punishment follows the commission of sin, as effect
+does the cause; and national calamities had to be explained by other
+reasons. It was then said, nations die of luxury, immorality, bad
+government, irreligion, etc. In other words, success was made the test
+of excellency and failure of crime. If, in individual life, we were to
+lay it down as an infallible rule, that he who commits no excesses lives
+forever, or at least very long; and he who does, will immediately die;
+that he who is honest in his dealings, will always prosper more than he
+who is not; we should have a very fluctuating standard of morality,
+since it has pleased God to sometimes try the good by severe
+afflictions, and let the wicked prosper. We should therefore be often
+called upon to admire what is deserving of contempt or punishment, and
+to seek for guilt in the innocent. This is what we do in nations. Wicked
+institutions have been called good, because they were attended with
+success; good ones have been pronounced bad, because they failed.
+
+A more critical study of history has demonstrated the fallibility of
+this theory, which is now in a great measure discarded, and another
+adopted in its stead. It is argued that, at a certain period in its
+existence, a nation infallibly becomes degenerated, and thus falls. But,
+asks Mr. Gobineau, what is degeneracy? A nation is said to be
+degenerated when the virtues of its ancestry are lost. But why are they
+lost? Because the nation is degenerated. Is not this like the reasoning
+in the child's story-book: Why is Jack a bad boy? Because he disobeys
+his parents. Why does he disobey his parents? Because he is a bad boy.
+
+It is necessary, then, to show what degeneracy is. This step in advance,
+Mr. Gobineau attempts to make. He shows that each race is distinguished
+by certain capabilities, which, if its civilizing genius is sufficiently
+strong to enable it to assume a rank among the nations of the world,
+determine the character of its social and political development. Like
+the Phenicians, it may become the merchant and barterer of the world;
+or, like the Greeks, the teacher of future generations; or, like the
+Romans, the model-giver of laws and forms. Its part in the drama of
+history may be an humble one or a proud, but it is always proportionate
+to its powers. These powers, and the instincts or aspirations which
+spring from them, never change as long as the race remains pure. They
+progress and develop themselves, but never alter their nature. The
+purposes of the race are always the same. It may arrive at great
+perfection in the useful arts, but, without infiltration of a different
+element, will never be distinguished for poetry, painting, sculpture,
+etc.; and _vice versa_. Its nature may be belligerent, and it will
+always find causes for quarrel; or it may be pacific, and then it will
+manage to live at peace, or fall a prey to a neighbor.
+
+In the same manner, the government of a race will be in accordance with
+its instincts, and here I have the weighty authority of the author of
+_Democracy in America_, in my favor, and the author's whom I am
+illustrating. "A government," says De Tocqueville,[24] "retains its sway
+over a great number of citizens, far less by the voluntary and rational
+consent of the multitude, than by that _instinctive_, and, to a certain
+extent, involuntary agreement, which results from similarity of
+feelings, and resemblances of opinions. I will never admit that men
+constitute a social body, simply because they obey the same head and the
+same laws. A society can exist only when a great number of men consider
+a great number of things in the same point of view; when they hold the
+same opinions upon many subjects, and when the same occurrences suggest
+the same thoughts and impressions to their minds." The laws and
+government of a nation are always an accurate reflex of its manners and
+modes of thinking. "If, at first, it would appear," says Mr. Gobineau,
+"as if, in some cases, they were the production of some superior
+individual intellect, like the great law-givers of antiquity; let the
+facts be more carefully examined, and it will be found that the
+law-giver--if wise and judicious--has contented himself with consulting
+the genius of his nation, and giving a voice to the common sentiment.
+If, on the contrary, he be a theorist like Draco, his system remains a
+dead letter, soon to be superseded by the more judicious institutions of
+a Solon who aims to give to his countrymen, not the best laws possible,
+but the best he thinks them capable of receiving." It is a great and a
+very general error to suppose that the sense of a nation will always
+decide in favor of what we term "popular" institutions, that is to say,
+such in which each individual shares more or less immediately in the
+government. Its genius may tend to the establishment of absolute
+authority, and in that case the autocrat is but an impersonation of the
+_vox populi_, by which he must be guided in his policy. If he be too
+deaf or rash to listen to it, his own ruin will be the inevitable
+consequence, but the nation persists in the same career.
+
+The meaning of the word degeneracy is now obvious. This inevitable evil
+is concealed in the very successes to which a nation owes its splendor.
+Whether, like the Persians, Romans, &c., it is swallowed up and
+absorbed by the multitudes its arms have subjected, or whether the
+ethnical mixture proceeds in a peaceful manner, the result is the same.
+Even where no foreign conquests add suddenly hundreds of thousands of a
+foreign population to the original mass, the fertility of uncultivated
+fields, the opulence of great commercial cities, and all the advantages
+to be found in the bosom of a rising nation, accomplish it, if in a less
+perceptible, in a no less certain manner. The two young nations of the
+world are now the United States and Russia. See the crowds which are
+thronging over the frontiers of both. Both already count their foreign
+population by millions. As the original population--the initiatory
+element of the whole mass--has no additions to its numbers but its
+natural increase, it follows that the influent elements must, in course
+of time, be of equal strength, and the influx still continuing, finally
+absorb it altogether. Sometimes a nation establishes itself upon the
+basis of a much more numerous conquered population, as in the case of
+the Frankish conquerors of Gaul; then the amalgamation of ranks and
+classes produces the same results as foreign immigration. It is clear
+that each new ethnical element brings with it its own characteristics or
+instincts, and according to the relative strength of these will be the
+modifications in government, social relations, and the whole tendencies
+of the race. The modifications may be for the better, they may be for
+the worse; they may be very gradual, or very sudden, according to the
+merit and power of the foreign influence; but in course of time they
+will amount to radical, positive changes, and then the original nation
+has ceased to exist.
+
+This is the natural death of human societies. Sometimes they expire
+gently and almost imperceptibly; oftener with a convulsion and a crash.
+I shall attempt to explain my meaning by a familiar simile. A mansion is
+built which in all respects suits the taste and wants of the owner.
+Succeeding generations find it too small, too dark, or otherwise ill
+adapted to their purposes. Respect for their progenitor, and family
+association, prevent, at first, very extensive changes, still each one
+makes some; and as these associations grow fainter, the changes become
+more radical, until at last nothing of the old house remains. But if it
+had previously passed into the hands of a stranger, who had none of
+these associations to venerate and respect, he would probably have
+pulled it down at once and built another.
+
+An empire, then, falls, when the vitalizing principle which gave it
+birth is exhausted; when its parts are connected by none but artificial
+ties, and artificial ties are all those which unite races possessed of
+different instincts. This idea is expressed in the beautiful image of
+the inspired prophet, when he tells the mighty king that great truth,
+which so many refuse to believe, that all earthly kingdoms must perish
+until "the God of Heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be
+destroyed."[25] "Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This
+great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee, and the
+form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his
+breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his
+legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till
+that a stone was cut without hands, which smote the image upon his feet
+that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron,
+the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces
+together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and
+the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them."[26]
+
+I have now illustrated, to the best of my abilities, several of the most
+important propositions of Mr. Gobineau, and attempted to sustain them
+by arguments and examples different from those used by the author. For a
+more perfect exposition I must refer the reader to the body of the work.
+My purpose was humbly to clear away such obstacles as the author has
+left in the path, and remove difficulties that escaped his notice. The
+task which I have set myself, would, however, be far from accomplished,
+were I to pass over what I consider a serious error on his part, in
+silence and without an effort at emendation.
+
+Civilization, says Mr. Gobineau, arises from the combined action and
+mutual reaction of man's moral aspirations, and the pressure of his
+material wants. This, in a general sense, is obviously true. But let us
+see the practical application. I shall endeavor to give a concise
+abstract of his views, and then to point out where and why he errs.
+
+In some races, says he, the spiritual aspirations predominate over their
+physical desires, in others it is the reverse. In none are either
+entirely wanting. According to the relative proportion and intensity of
+either of these influences, which counteract and yet assist each other,
+the tendency of the civilization varies. If either is possessed in but a
+feeble degree, or if one of them so greatly outweighs the other as to
+completely neutralize its effects, there is no civilization, and never
+can be one until the race is modified by intermixture with one of higher
+endowments. But if both prevail to a sufficient extent, the
+preponderance of either one determines the character of the
+civilization. In the Chinese, it is the material tendency that prevails,
+in the Hindoo the other. Consequently we find that in China,
+civilization is principally directed towards the gratification of
+physical wants, the perfection of material well-being. In other words,
+it is of an eminently utilitarian character, which discourages all
+speculation not susceptible of immediate practical application.
+
+This well describes the Chinese, and is precisely the picture which M.
+Huc, who has lived among them for many years, and has enjoyed better
+opportunities for studying their genius than any other writer, gives of
+them in his late publication.[27]
+
+Hindoo culture, on the contrary, displays a very opposite tendency.
+Among that nation, everything is speculative, nothing practical. The
+toils of human intellect are in the regions of the abstract where the
+mind often loses itself in depths beyond its sounding. The material
+wants are few and easily supplied. If great works are undertaken, it is
+in honor of the gods, so that even their physical labor bears homage to
+the invisible rather than the visible world. This also is a tolerably
+correct picture.
+
+He therefore divides all races into these two categories, taking the
+Chinese as the type of the one and the Hindoos as that of the other.
+According to him, the yellow races belong pre-eminently to the former,
+the black to the latter, while the white are distinguished by a greater
+intensity and better proportion of the qualities of both. But this
+division, and no other is consistent with the author's proposition, by
+assuming that in the black races the moral preponderates over the
+physical tendency, comes in direct conflict not only with the plain
+teachings of anatomy, but with all we know of the history of those
+races. I shall attempt to show wherein Mr. Gobineau's error lies, an
+error from the consequences of which I see no possibility for him to
+escape, and suggest an emendation which, so far from invalidating his
+general position, tends rather to confirm and strengthen it. In doing
+so, I am actuated by the belief that even if I err, I may be useful by
+inviting others more capable to the task of investigation. Suggestions
+on important subjects, if they serve no other purpose than to provoke
+inquiry, are never useless. The alchemists of the Middle Ages, in their
+frivolous pursuit of impossibilities, discovered many invaluable secrets
+of nature and laid the foundation of that science which, by explaining
+the intimate mutual action of all natural bodies, has become the
+indispensable handmaiden of almost every other.
+
+The error, it seems to me, lies in the same confusion of distinct ideas,
+to which I had already occasion to advert. In ordinary language, we
+speak of the physical and moral nature of man, terming physical whatever
+relates to his material, and moral what relates to his immaterial being.
+Again, we speak of _mind_, and though in theory we consider it as a
+synonyme of soul, in practical application it has a very different
+signification. A person may cultivate his mind without benefiting his
+soul, and the term _a superior mind_, does not necessarily imply moral
+excellency. That mental qualifications or acquisitions are in no way
+connected with sound morality or true piety, I have pointed out before.
+Should any further illustrations be necessary, I might remark that the
+greatest monsters that blot the page of history, have been, for the most
+part, men of what are called superior minds, of great intellectual
+attainments. Indeed, wickedness is seldom very dangerous, unless joined
+to intellect, as the common sense of mankind has expressed in the adage
+that a fool is seldom a knave. We daily see men perverting the highest
+mental gifts to the basest purposes, a fact which ought to be carefully
+weighed by those who believe that education consists in the cultivation
+of the intellect only. I therefore consider the moral endowments of man
+as practically different from the mental or intellectual, at least in
+their manifestations, if not in their essence. To define my idea more
+clearly, let me attempt to explain the difference between what I term
+the moral and the intellectual nature of man. I am aware of the
+dangerous nature of the ground I am treading, but shall nevertheless
+make the attempt to show that it is in accordance with the spirit of
+religion to consider what in common parlance is called the moral
+attributes of man, and which would be better expressed by the word
+_psychical_, as divisible into two, the strictly moral, and the
+intellectual.
+
+The former is what leads man to look beyond his earthly existence, and
+gives even the most brutish savage some vague idea of a Deity. I am
+making no rash or unfounded assertion when I declare, Mr. Locke's
+weighty opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, that no tribe has ever
+been discovered in which some notion of this kind, however rude, was
+wanting, and I consider it innate--a yearning, as it were, of the soul
+towards the regions to which it belongs. The feeling of religion is
+implanted in our breast; it is not a production of the intellect, and
+this the Christian church confirms when it declares that _faith_ we owe
+to the grace of God.
+
+Intellect is that faculty of soul by which it takes cognizance of,
+classes and compares the facts of the _material_ world. As all
+perceptions are derived through the senses, it follows that upon the
+nicety of these its powers must in a great measure depend. The vigor and
+delicacy of the nerves, and the size and texture of the brain in which
+they all centre, form what we call native intellectual gifts. Hence,
+when the body is impaired, the mind suffers; "mens sana in corpore
+sano;" hence, a fever prostrates, and may forever destroy, the most
+powerful intellect; a glass of wine may dim and distort it. Here, then,
+is the grand distinction between soul and mind. The latter, human
+wickedness may annihilate; the former, man killeth not. I should wish to
+enter more fully upon this investigation, not new, indeed, in
+speculative science, yet new in the application I purpose to make of it,
+were it not for fear of wearying my reader, to whom my only apology can
+be, that the discussion is indispensable to the proper investigation of
+the moral and intellectual diversities of races. When I say moral
+diversities, I do not mean that man's moral endowments, strictly
+speaking, are unequal. This assertion I am not prepared to make,
+because--as religion is accessible and comprehensible to them all--it
+may be supposed that these are in all cases equal. But I mean that the
+manifestation of these moral endowments varies, owing to causes which I
+am now about to consider. I have said that the moral nature of man leads
+him to look beyond the confines of the material world. This, when not
+assisted by revelation, he attempts to do by means of his intellect. The
+intellect is, as it were, the visual organ by which the soul scans the
+abyss between the present and the future existence. According to the
+dimness or brightness of this mental eye, are his perceptions. If the
+intellectual capacity is weak, he is content with a grovelling
+conception of the Deity; if powerful, he erects an elaborate fabric of
+philosophical speculations. But, as the Almighty has decreed that human
+intellect, even in its sublimest flight, cannot soar to His presence; it
+follows that the most elaborate fabric of the philosopher is still a
+_human_ fabric, that the most perfect human theology is still _human_,
+and hence--the necessity of revelation. This divine light, which His
+mercy has vouchsafed us, dispenses with, and eclipses, the feeble
+glimmerings of human intellect. It illumines as well the soul of the
+rude savage as of the learned theologian; of the illiterate as of the
+erudite. Nay, very often the former has the advantage, for the erudite
+philosopher is prone to think his own lamp all-sufficient. If it be
+objected that a highly cultivated mind, if directed to rightful
+purposes, will assist in gaining a _nobler_ conception of the Deity, I
+shall not contradict, for in the study of His works, we learn still more
+to admire the Maker. But I insist that true piety can, and does exist
+without it, and let those who trust so much in their own powers beware
+lest they lean upon a broken staff.
+
+The strictly moral attributes of man, therefore, those attributes which
+enable him to communicate with his Maker, are common--probably in equal
+degree--to all men, and to all races of men. But his communications with
+the external world depend on his physical conformation. The body is the
+connecting link between the spirit and the material world, and, by its
+intimate relations to both, specially adapted to be the means of
+communication between them. There seems to me nothing irrational or
+irreligious in the doctrine that, according to the perfectness of this
+means of communication, must be the intercourse between the two. A
+person with dull auditory organs can never appreciate music, and
+whatever his talents otherwise may be, can never become a Meyerbeer or a
+Mozart. Upon quickness of perception, power of analysis and combination,
+perseverance and endurance, depend our intellectual faculties, both in
+their degree and their kind; and are not they blunted or otherwise
+modified in a morbid state of the body? I consider it therefore
+established beyond dispute, that a certain general physical conformation
+is productive of corresponding mental characteristics. A human being,
+whom God has created with a negro's skull and general _physique_, can
+never equal one with a Newton's or a Humboldt's cranial development,
+though the soul of both is equally precious in the eyes of the Lord, and
+should be in the eyes of all his followers. There is no tendency to
+materialism in this idea; I have no sympathy with those who deny the
+existence of the soul, because they cannot find it under the scalpel,
+and I consider the body not the mental agent, but the servant, the tool.
+
+It is true that science has not discovered, and perhaps never will
+discover, what physical differences correspond to the differences in
+individual minds. Phrenology, starting with brilliant promises, and
+bringing to the task powers of no mean order, has failed. But there is a
+vast difference between the characteristics by which we distinguish
+individuals of the same race, and those by which we distinguish
+races themselves. The former are not strictly--at least not
+immediately--hereditary, for the child most often differs from both
+parents in body and mind, because no two individuals, as no two leaves
+of one tree, are precisely alike. But, although every oak-leaf differs
+from its fellow, we know the leaf of the oak-tree from that of the
+beech, or every other; and, in the same manner, races are distinguished
+by peculiarities which are hereditary and permanent. Thus, every negro
+differs from every other negro, else we could not tell them apart; yet
+all, if pure blood, have the same characteristics in common that
+distinguish them from the white. I have been prolix, but intentionally
+so, in my discrimination between individual distinction and those of
+race, because of the latter, comparative anatomy takes cognizance; the
+former are left to phrenology, and I wished to remove any suspicion that
+in the investigation of moral and intellectual diversities of races,
+recourse must be had to the ill-authenticated speculations of a dubious
+science. But, from the data of comparative anatomy, attained by a slow
+and cautious progress, we deduce that races are distinguished by certain
+permanent physical characteristics; and, if these physical
+characteristics correspond to the mental, it follows as an obvious
+conclusion that the latter are permanent also. History ratifies the
+conclusion, and the common sense of mankind practically acquiesces in
+it.
+
+To return, then, to our author. I would add to his two elements of
+civilization a third--intellect _per se_; or rather, to speak more
+correctly, I would subdivide one of his elements into two, of which one
+is probably dependent on physical conformation. The combinations will
+then be more complex, but will remove every difficulty.
+
+I remarked that although we may consider all races as possessed of equal
+moral endowments, we yet may speak of moral diversities; because,
+without the light of revelation, man has nothing but his intellect
+whereby to compass the immaterial world, and the manifestation of his
+moral faculties must therefore be in proportion to the clearness of his
+intellectual, and their preponderance over the animal tendencies. The
+three I consider as existing about in the following relative proportions
+in the three great groups under which Mr. Gobineau and Mr. Latham[28]
+have arranged the various races--a classification, however, which, as I
+already observed, I cannot entirely approve.
+
+
+ BLACK RACES, OR YELLOW RACES, OR WHITE RACES, OR
+ ATLANTIDAE.[29] MONGOLIDAE.[29] JAPETIDAE.[29]
+
+ INTELLECT Feeble Mediocre Vigorous.
+
+ ANIMAL }
+ PROPENSITIES } Very strong Moderate Strong.
+
+ MORAL } Partially Comparatively Highly
+ MANIFESTATIONS } latent developed cultivated.
+
+
+But the races comprised in each group vary among themselves, if not with
+regard to the relative proportion in which they possess the elements of
+civilization, at least in their intensity. The following formulas will,
+I think, apply to the majority of cases, and, at the same time, bring
+out my idea in a clearer light:--
+
+If the animal propensities are strongly developed, and not tempered by
+the intellectual faculties, the moral conceptions must be exceedingly
+low, because they necessarily depend on the clearness, refinement, and
+comprehensiveness of the ideas derived from the material world through
+the senses. The religious cravings will, therefore, be contented with a
+gross worship of material objects, and the moral sense degenerate into
+a grovelling superstition. The utmost elevation which a population, so
+constituted, can reach, will be an unconscious impersonation of the good
+aspirations and the evil tendencies of their nature under the form of a
+good and an evil spirit, to the latter of which absurd and often bloody
+homage is paid. Government there can be no other than the right which
+force gives to the strong, and its forms will be slavery among
+themselves, and submissiveness of all to a tyrannical absolutism.
+
+When the same animal propensities are combined with intellect of a
+higher order, the moral faculties have more room for action. The
+penetration of intellect will not be long in discovering that the
+gratification of physical desires is easiest and safest in a state of
+order and stability. Hence a more complex system of legislation both
+social and political. The conceptions of the Deity will be more elevated
+and refined, though the idea of a future state will probably be
+connected with visions of material enjoyment, as in the paradise of the
+Mohammedans.
+
+Where the animal propensities are weak and the intellect feeble, a
+vegetating national life results. No political organization, or of the
+very simplest kind. Few laws, for what need of restraining passions
+which do not exist. The moral sense content with the vague recognition
+of a superior being, to whom few or no rites are rendered.
+
+But when the animal propensities are so moderate as to be subordinate to
+an intellect more or less vigorous, the moral aspirations will yearn
+towards the regions of the abstract. Religion becomes a system of
+metaphysics, and often loses itself in the mazes of its own subtlety.
+The political organization and civil legislation will be simple, for
+there are few passions to restrain; but the laws which regulate social
+intercourse will be many and various, and supposed to emanate directly
+from the Deity.
+
+Strong animal passions, joined to an intellect equally strong, allow the
+greatest expanse for the moral sense. Political organizations the most
+complex and varied, social and civil laws the most studied, will be the
+outward character of a society composed of such elements. Internally we
+shall perceive the greatest contrasts of individual goodness and
+wickedness. Religion will be a symbolism of human passions and the
+natural elements for the many, an ingenious fabric of moral speculations
+for the few.
+
+I have here rapidly sketched a series of pictures from nature, which
+the historian and ethnographer will not fail to recognize. Whether the
+features thus cursorily delineated are owing to the causes to which I
+ascribe them, I must leave for the reader to decide. My space is too
+limited to allow of my entering into an elaborate argumentation. But I
+would observe that, by taking this view of the subject, we can
+understand why all human--and therefore false--religions are so
+intimately connected with the social and political organization of the
+peoples which profess them, and why they are so plainly mapped out on
+the globe as belonging to certain races, to whom alone they are
+applicable, and beyond whose area they cannot extend: while Christianity
+knows no political or social forms, no geographical or ethnological
+limits. The former, being the productions of human intellect, must vary
+with its variation, and perish in its decay, while revelation is
+universal and immutable, like the Intelligence of which it is the
+emanation.
+
+It is time now to conclude the task, the accomplishment of which has
+carried me far beyond the limits I had at first proposed to myself. If I
+have so long detained the reader on the threshold of the edifice, it was
+to facilitate his after progress, and to give him a chart, that he may
+not lose himself in the vast field it covers. There he may often meet
+me again, and if I be sometimes deemed officious with my proffered
+explanations, he will at least give me credit for good intentions, and
+he may, if he chooses, pass me without recognition. Both this
+introduction and notes in the body of the work were thought necessary
+for several reasons. First, the subject is in some measure a new one,
+and it was important to guard against misconception, and show, right at
+the beginning, what was attempted to be proved, and in what manner.
+Secondly, the author wrote for a European public, and many allusions are
+made, or positions taken, upon an assumed knowledge of facts, of which
+the general reader on this side of the ocean can be supposed to have but
+a slight and vague apprehension. Thirdly, the author has, in many cases,
+contented himself with abstract reasoning, and therefore is sometimes
+chargeable with obscureness, on which account familiar illustrations
+have been supplied. Fourthly, the volume now presented to the reader is
+one of a series of four, the remainder of which, if this meets the
+public approbation, may in time appear in an English garb. But it was
+important to make this, as much as possible, independent of the others
+and complete in itself. The discussion of the moral and intellectual
+diversities of the various groups of the human family, is, as I have
+before shown, totally independent of the question of unity or diversity
+of species; yet, as it increases the interest attached to the solution
+of that question, which has been but imperfectly discussed by the
+author, my esteemed friend, Dr. J. C. Nott, who has so often and so ably
+treated the subject, has promised to furnish, in notes and an appendix,
+such additional facts pertaining to his province as a naturalist, as may
+assist the reader in arriving at a correct opinion.
+
+With regard to the translation, it must be observed that it is not a
+_literal_ rendering of the original. The translator has aimed rather at
+giving the meaning, than the exact words or phraseology of the author,
+at no time, however, departing from the former. He has, in some
+instances, condensed or omitted what seemed irrelevant, or useless to
+the discussion of the question in this country, and in a few cases, he
+has transposed a sentence to a different part of the paragraph, where it
+seemed more in its place, and more effective. To explain and justify
+these alterations, we must remind our readers that the author wrote for
+a public essentially different from that of the translator; that
+continental writers on grave subjects are in general more intent upon
+vindicating their opinions than the form in which they express them,
+and seldom devote that attention to style which English or American
+readers expect; to which may be added that Count Gobineau wrote in the
+midst of a multiplicity of diplomatic affairs, and had no time, even if
+he had thought it worth his while, to give his work that literary finish
+which would satisfy the fastidious. Had circumstances permitted, this
+translation would have been submitted to his approbation, but at the
+time of its going to press he is engaged in the service of his country
+at the court of Persia.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+For obtruding the present work on the notice of the American public, no
+apology will be required. The subject is one of immense importance, and
+especially in this country, where it can seldom be discussed without
+adventitious circumstances biassing the inquirers. To the
+philanthropist, the leading idea of the book, "that different races,
+like different individuals, are specially fitted for special purposes,
+for the fulfilment of which they are accountable in the measure laid
+down in Holy Writ: 'To whom much is given, from him much will be asked,'
+and that they are _equal_ only when they truly and faithfully perform
+the duties of their station"--to the philanthropist, this idea must be
+fraught with many valuable suggestions. So far from loosening the ties
+of brotherhood, it binds them closer, because it teaches us not to
+despise those who are endowed differently from us; and shows us that
+they, too, may have excellencies which we have not.
+
+To the statesman, the student of history, and the general reader, it is
+hoped that this volume will not be altogether useless, and may assist to
+a better understanding of many of the problems that have so long puzzled
+the philosopher. The greatest revolutions in national relations have
+been accomplished by the migrations of races, the most calamitous wars
+that have desolated the globe have been the result of the hostility of
+races. Even now, a cloud is lowering in the horizon. The friend of peace
+and order watches it with silent anxiety, lest he hasten its coming. The
+spirit of mischief exults in its approach, but fears to betray his
+plans. Thus, western and central Europe now present the spectacle of a
+lull before the storm. Monarchs sit trembling on their thrones, while
+nations mutter curses. Nor have premonitory symptoms been wanting. Three
+times, within little more than half a century, have the eruptions of
+that ever-burning political volcano--France--shaken the social and
+political system of the civilized world, and shown the amount of
+combustible materials, which all the efforts of a ruling class cannot
+always protect from ignition. The grand catastrophe may come within our
+times. And, is it the result of any particular social condition, the
+action of any particular class in the social scale, the diffusion of any
+particular political principles? No, because the revolutionary
+tendencies are various, and even opposite; if republican in one place,
+monarchical in another; if democratic in France, aristocratic in Poland.
+Nor is it a particular social class wherein the revolutionary principle
+flourishes, for the classes which, in one country, wish subversion, in
+another, are firmly attached to the established order of things. The
+poor in Germany are proletarians and revolutionists; in Spain, Portugal,
+and Italy, the enthusiastic lovers of their king. The better classes in
+the former country are mostly conservative; in the latter, they are the
+makers, or rather attempters, of revolutions. Nor is it any particular
+social condition, for no class is so degraded as it has been; never was
+poverty less, and prosperity greater in Europe than in the present
+century; and everywhere the political institutions are more liberal than
+ever before. Whence, then, this gathering storm? Does it exist only in
+the minds of the visionary, or is it a mere bugbear of the timorous? Ask
+the prudent statesman, the traveller who pierces the different strata of
+the population; look behind the grates of the State-prisons; count--if
+this be possible--the number of victims of military executions in
+Germany and Austria, in 1848 and 1849; read the fearful accounts of the
+taking of Vienna, of Rome, of Ancona, of Venice, during the same short
+space of time. Everywhere the same cry: Nationality. It is not the
+temporary ravings of a mob rendered frantic by hunger and misery. It is
+a question of nationality, a war of races. Happy we who are removed from
+the immediate scene of the struggle, and can be but remotely affected by
+it. Yet, while I write, it seems as though the gales of the Atlantic had
+blown to our peaceful shores some taints of the epidemic that rages in
+the Old World. May it soon pass over, and a healthy atmosphere again
+prevail!
+
+ H. H.
+ MOBILE, Aug. 20, 1855.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] _Researches into the Physical History of Mankind_. By James Cowles
+Prichard, M. D., London, 1841. Vol. i. p. 1.
+
+[2] "Mr. Prichard's _permanent variety_, from his own definition, is to
+all intents and purposes _a species_."--_Kneeland's Introduction to
+Hamilton Smith's Natural History of the Human Species_, p. 84.
+
+[3] Smith's Wealth of Nations, Amer. ed., vol. i. p. 29.
+
+[4] _Vide_ Bigland's Effects of Physical and Moral Causes on the
+Character and Circumstances of Nations. London, 1828, p. 282.
+
+[5] _Op. cit._, p. 7.
+
+[6] St. Matthew, ch. xi. v. 25.
+
+[7] _Vide_ Prichard's _Natural History of Man_, p. 66, _et passim_. "His
+theory," says Van Amringe, "required that animals should be analogous to
+man. It was therefore highly important that, as he was then laying the
+foundation for all his future arguments and conclusions, he should
+elevate animals to the proper eminence, to be analogous; rather than, as
+Mr. Lawrence did, sink man to the level of brutes. It was an ingenious
+contrivance by which he could gain all the advantages, and escape the
+censures of the learned lecturer. It is so simple a contrivance,
+too--merely substituting the word 'psychological' for 'instinctive
+characteristics,' and the whole animal kingdom would instantly rise to
+the proper platform, to be the types of the human family. To get the
+psychology of men and animals thus related, without the trouble of
+philosophically accomplishing so impossible a thing, by the mere use of
+a word, was an ingenious, though not an ingenuous achievement. It gave
+him a specious right to use bees and wasps, rats and dogs, sheep, goats,
+and rabbits--in short, the whole animal kingdom--as human psychical
+analogues, which would be amazingly convenient when conclusions were to
+be made."--_Natural History of Man_, by W. F. VAN AMRINGE. 1848, p. 459.
+
+[8] This fact is considered by Dr. Nott as a proof of _specific_
+difference among dogs.--_Types of Mankind._ Phila., 1854.
+
+[9] In 1497, Vasco di Gama sailed around Cape Good Hope; even previous
+to that, Portuguese vessels had coasted along the western shores of
+Africa. Since that time the Europeans have subjected the whole of the
+American continents, southern Asia and the island world of the Pacific,
+while Africa is almost as unknown as it ever was. The Cape Colony is not
+in the original territory of the negro. Liberia and Sierra Leone contain
+a half-breed population, and present experiments by no means tested. It
+may be fairly asserted that nowhere has the power and intelligence of
+the white race made less impression, produced fewer results, than in the
+domain of the negro.
+
+[10] Roberts, the president of the Liberian Republic, boasts of but a
+small portion of African blood in his veins. Sequoyah, the often-cited
+inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, so far from being a pure Indian, was
+the son of a white man.
+
+[11] For the great perfection to which the Chinese have carried the
+luxuries and amenities of life, see particularly M. Huc's _Travels in
+China_. He lived among them for years, and, what few travellers do,
+spoke their language so fluently and perfectly that he was enabled,
+during a considerable number of years, to discharge the duties of a
+missionary, disguised as a native.
+
+[12] It would be useless to remind our readers of the famous Great Wall,
+the Imperial Canals, that largest of the cities of the world--Pekin. The
+various treatises of the Chinese on morals and politics, especially that
+of Confucius, have been admired by all European thinkers. _Consult
+Pauthier's elaborate work on China._ It is equally well known that the
+Chinese knew the art of printing, gunpowder and its uses, the mariner's
+compass, etc., centuries before we did. For the general diffusion of
+elementary knowledge among the Chinese, see _Davis's Sketches_, and
+other authors. Those who may think me a biassed panegyrist of the
+Chinese, I refer to the following works as among the most reliable of
+the vast number written on the subject:--
+
+_Description Historique, Geographique, et Litteraire de la Chine._ Par
+M. G. PAUTHIER. Paris, 1839.
+
+_China Opened._ By REV. CHS. GUTZLAFF. London, 1838.
+
+_China, Political, Commercial, and Social._ By R. MONTGOMERY MARTIN.
+London, 1847.
+
+_Sketches of China._ By JOHN F. DAVIS. London, 1841.
+
+And above all, for amusing and instructive reading,
+
+_Journey through the Chinese Empire._ By M. HUC. New York, 1855; and
+
+_Melanges Asiatiques._ Par ABEL REMUSAT. Paris, 1835.
+
+[13] Unwilling to introduce statistic pedantry into a composition of so
+humble pretensions as an introduction, I have refrained to give the
+figures--not always very accurate, I admit--upon which the preceding
+gradation is based, viz: the number of persons able to read and write in
+each of the above-named countries. How far England and France are
+behindhand in this respect, compared either with ourselves, or with
+other European nations, is tolerably well known; but the fact that not
+only in China proper, but in Thibet, Japan, Anam, Tonquin, etc., few can
+be found devoid of that acquirement, will probably meet with many
+incredulous readers, though it is mentioned by almost every traveller.
+(See _J. Mohl's Annual Report to the Asiatic Society_, 1851.) But, it
+may be safely asserted that, in the whole of that portion of Asia lying
+south of the Altai Mountains, including Japan, altogether the most
+populous region of the globe, the percentage of males unable to read and
+write is by far smaller than in the entire population of Europe. Be it
+well understood, that I do not, therefore, claim any superiority for the
+inhabitants of the former region over those of the latter.
+
+"In China," says M. Huc, "there are not, as in Europe, public libraries
+and reading-rooms; but those who have a taste for reading, and a desire
+to instruct themselves, can satisfy their inclinations very easily, as
+books are sold here at a lower price than in any other country. Besides,
+the Chinese find everywhere something to read; they can scarcely take a
+step without seeing some of the characters of which they are so proud.
+One may say, in fact, that all China is an immense library; for
+inscriptions, sentences, moral precepts, are found in every corner,
+written in letters of all colors and all sizes. The facades of the
+tribunals, the pagodas, the public monuments, the signs of the shops,
+the doors of the houses, the interior of the apartments, the corridors,
+all are full of fine quotations from the best authors. Teacups, plates,
+vases, fans, are so many selections of poems, often chosen with much
+taste, and prettily printed. A Chinese has no need to give himself much
+trouble in order to enjoy the finest productions of his country's
+literature. He need only take his pipe, and walk out, with his nose in
+the air, through the principal streets of the first town he comes to.
+Let him enter the poorest house in the most wretched village; the
+destitution may be complete, things the most necessary will be wanting;
+but he is sure of finding some fine maxims written out on strips of red
+paper. Thus, if those grand large characters, which look so terrific in
+our eyes, though they delight the Chinese, are really so difficult to
+learn, at least the people have the most ample opportunities of studying
+them, almost in play, and of impressing them ineffaceably on their
+memories."--_A Journey through the Chinese Empire_, vol. i. pp. 327-328.
+
+[14] Is it necessary to call to the mind of the reader, that the most
+prominent physicians, the greatest chemists, the best mathematicians,
+were French, and that to the same nation belong the Comptes, the De
+Maistres, the Guizots, the De Tocquevilles; or that, notwithstanding its
+political extravaganzas, every liberal theory was first fostered in its
+bosom? The father of our democratic party was the pupil of French
+governmental philosophy, by the lessons of which even his political
+opponents profited quite as much as by its errors.
+
+[15] Brace, in his _Home Life in Germany_, mentions an instance of this
+kind, but not having the volume at hand, I cannot cite the page. To
+every one, however, that has travelled in Europe, or has not, such facts
+are familiar. It is well known, for instance, that in some of the most
+polished European countries, the wooden ploughshare is still used; and
+that, in Paris, that metropolis of arts and fashion, every drop of water
+must be carried, in buckets, from the public fountains to the Dutchess'
+_boudoir_ in the first, and to the Grisette's garret in the seventh
+story. Compare this with the United States, where--not to mention
+Fairmount and Croton--the smallest town, almost, has her water-works, if
+required by her topography. Are we, then, so infinitely more civilized
+than France?
+
+[16] Since writing the above, I lit upon the following striking
+confirmation of my idea by Dr. Pickering, whose analogism here so
+closely resembles mine, as almost to make me suspect myself of
+unconscious plagiarism. "While admitting the general truth, that mankind
+are essentially alike, no one doubts the existence of character,
+distinguishing not only individuals, but communities and nations. I am
+persuaded that there is, besides, a character of race. It would not be
+difficult to select epithets; such as 'amphibious, enduring,
+insititious;' or to point out as accomplished by one race of men, that
+which seemed beyond the powers of another. Each race possessing its
+peculiar points of excellence, and, at the same time, counterbalancing
+defects, it may be that union was required to attain the full measure of
+civilization. In the organic world, each field requires a new creation;
+each change in circumstances going beyond the constitution of a plant or
+animal, is met by a new adaptation, until the whole universe is full;
+while, among the immense variety of created beings, two kinds are hardly
+found fulfilling the same precise purpose. Some analogy may possibly
+exist in the human family; and it may even be questioned, whether any
+one of the races existing singly would, up to the present day, have
+extended itself over the whole surface of the globe."--_The Races of
+Man, and their Geographical Distribution._ By CHARLES PICKERING, M. D.
+Boston, 1811. (_U. S. Exploring Expedition_, vol. ix. p. 200.)
+
+[17] Since Champollion's fortunate discovery of the Rosetta stone, which
+furnished the key to the hieroglyphics, the deciphering of these once so
+mysterious characters has made such progress, that Lepsius, the great
+modern Egyptologist, declares it possible to write a minute court
+gazette of the reign of Ramses II., the Sesostris of the Greeks, and
+even of monarchs as far back as the IVth dynasty. To understand that
+this is no vain boast, the reader must remember that these hieroglyphics
+mostly contain records of private or royal lives, and that the mural
+paintings in the temples and sepulchral chambers, generally represent
+scenes illustrative of trades, or other occupations, games, etc.,
+practised among the people of that early day.
+
+[18] _Ethnological Journal_, edited by Luke Burke, London, 1848; June 1,
+No. 1, from _Types of Mankind_. By NOTT and GLIDDON, p. 49.
+
+[19] From _Types of Mankind_. By NOTT and GLIDDON, p. 52.
+
+[20] The term "race" is of relative meaning, and, though often
+erroneously used synonymously with _species_, by no means signifies the
+same. The most strenuous advocates of sameness of species, use it to
+designate well-defined groups, as the white and black. If we consider
+ourselves warranted by the language of the Bible, to believe in separate
+origins of the human family, then, indeed, it may be considered as
+similar in meaning to species; otherwise, it must signify but
+subdivisions of one. We may therefore speak of ten or a hundred races of
+man, without impugning their being descended from the same stock. All
+that is here contended for is, that the distinctive features of such
+races, in whatever manner they may have originated, are now persistent.
+Two men may, the one arrive at the highest honors of the State, the
+other, with every facility at his command, forever remain in mediocrity.
+Yet, these two men may be brothers.
+
+That the question of species, when disconnected from any theological
+bearing, is one belonging exclusively to the province of the naturalist,
+and in which the metaphysician can have but a subordinate part, may be
+illustrated by a homely simile. Diversity of talent in the same family
+involves no doubt of parentage; but, if one child be born with a black
+skin and woolly hair, questions about the paternity might indeed arise.
+
+[21] _Natural History of the Varieties of Man._ By ROBERT GORDON LATHAM.
+London, 1850.
+
+[22] The collision between these two nationalities, only a few years
+ago, was attended by scenes so revolting--transcending even the horrors
+of the Corcyrian sedition, the sack of Magdeburg, or the bloodiest page
+in the French Revolution--that, for the honor of human nature, I would
+gladly disbelieve the accounts given of them. But the testimony comes
+from neutral sources, the friends of either party being interested in
+keeping silence. I shall have occasion to allude to this subject again,
+and therefore reserve further details for a note in the body of the
+work.
+
+[23] Even the historians of ancient Greece wondered at those gigantic
+ruins, of which many are still extant. Of these cyclopean remains, as
+they were often called, no one knew the builders or the history, and
+they were considered as the labors of the fabulous heroes of a
+traditional epoch. For an account of these memorials of an
+_ante-hellenic civilization in Greece, of which we have no record_,
+particularly the ruins of Orchomonos, Tirgus, Mycene, and the tunnels of
+Lake Copais, see _Niebuhr's Ancient History_, vol. i. p. 241, _et
+passim_.
+
+[24] Democracy in America, vol. ii. ch. xviii. p. 424.
+
+[25] Daniel ii. 44.
+
+[26] Daniel ii. 31 to 35.
+
+[27] Among many passages illustrative of the ultra utilitarianism of the
+Chinese, I can find space but for one, and that selected almost at
+random. After speaking of the exemplary diffusion of primary instruction
+among the masses, he says that, though they all read, and frequently,
+yet even their reading is of a strictly utilitarian character, and never
+answers any but practical purposes or temporary amusement. The name of
+the author is seldom known, and never inquired after. "That class are,
+in their eyes, only idle persons, who pass their time in making prose or
+verse. They have no objection to such a pursuit. A man may, they say,
+'amuse himself with his pen as with his kite, if he likes it as well--it
+is all a matter of taste.' The inhabitants of the celestial empire would
+never recover from their astonishment if they knew to what extent
+intellectual labor may be in Europe a source of honor and often wealth.
+If they were told that a person among us may obtain great glory by
+composing a drama or a novel, they would either not believe it, or set
+it down as an additional proof of our well-known want of common sense.
+How would it be if they should be told of the renown of a dancer or a
+violin player, and that one cannot make a bound, nor the other draw a
+bow anywhere without thousands of newspapers hastening to spread the
+important news over all the kingdoms of Europe!
+
+"The Chinese are too decided utilitarians to enter into our views of the
+arts. In their opinion, a man is only worthy of the admiration of his
+fellow-creatures when he has well fulfilled the social duties, and
+especially if he knows better than any one else how to get out of a
+scrape. You are regarded as a man of genius if you know how to regulate
+your family, make your lands fruitful, traffic with ability, and realize
+great profits. This, at least, is the only kind of genius that is of any
+value in the eyes of these eminently practical men."--_Voyages en
+Chine_, par M. Huc, Amer. trans., vol. i. pp. 316 and 317.
+
+[28] Nat. Hist. of the Varieties of Man. London.
+
+[29] According to Latham's classification, _op. cit._
+
+
+
+
+ DIVERSITY OF RACES.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+POLITICAL CATASTROPHES.
+
+ Perishable condition of all human societies--Ancient ideas concerning
+ this phenomenon--Modern theories.
+
+
+The downfall of civilizations is the most striking, and, at the same
+time, the most obscure of all the phenomena of history. If the sublime
+grandeur of this spectacle impresses the mind with awe, the mystery in
+which it is wrapped presents a boundless field for inquiry and
+meditation to a reflecting mind. The study of the birth and growth of
+nations is, indeed, fraught with many valuable observations: the gradual
+development of human societies, their successes, conquests, and
+triumphs, strike the imagination in a lively manner, and excite an ever
+increasing interest. But these phenomena, however grand and interesting,
+seem susceptible of an easy explanation. We consider them as the
+necessary consequences of the intellectual and moral endowments of man.
+Once we admit the existence of these endowments, their results will no
+longer surprise us.
+
+But we perceive that, after a period of glory and strength, all
+societies formed by man begin to totter and fall; all, I said, because
+there is no exception. Scattered over the surface of our globe, we see
+the vestiges of preceding civilizations, many of which are known to us
+only by name, or have not left behind them even that faint memorial, and
+are recorded only by the mute stones in the depths of primeval
+forests.[30] If we glance at our modern States, we are forced to the
+conclusion that, though their date is but of yesterday, some of them
+already exhibit signs of old age. The awful truth of prophetic language
+about the instability of all things human, applies with equal force to
+political bodies and to individuals, to nations and their civilizations.
+Every association of men for social and political purposes, though
+protected by the most ingenious social and political ties and
+contrivances, conceals among the very elements of its life, the germ of
+inevitable destruction, contracted the day it was formed. This terrible
+fact is proved by the history of all ages as well as of our own. It is
+owing to a natural law of death which seems to govern societies as well
+as individuals; but, does this law operate alike in all cases? is it
+uniform like the result it brings about, and do all civilizations perish
+from the same pre-existing cause?
+
+A superficial glance at the page of history would tempt us to answer in
+the negative, for the apparent causes of the downfall of the great
+empires of antiquity were very different in each case. Yet, if we pierce
+below the surface, we find in this very necessity of decay, which weighs
+so imperiously upon all societies without exception, the evidence of the
+existence of some general, though concealed, cause, producing a natural
+death, even where no external causes anticipate it by violent
+destruction. We also discover that all civilizations, after a short
+duration, exhibit, to the acute observer, certain intimate disturbances,
+difficult to define, but whose existence is undeniable; and that these
+present in all cases an analogous character. Finally, if we distinguish
+the ruin of civilizations from that of States (for we sometimes see the
+same culture subsist in a country under foreign domination, and survive
+the destruction of the political body which gave it birth; while,
+again, comparatively slight misfortunes cause it to be transformed, or
+to disappear altogether), we become more and more confirmed in the idea
+that this principle of death in all societies is not only a necessary
+condition of their life, independent, in a great measure, of external
+causes, but is also uniform in all. To fix and determine this principle,
+and to trace its effects in the lives of those nations, of whom history
+has left us records, has been my object and endeavor in the studies, the
+results of which I now lay before the reader.
+
+The fact that every human agglomeration, and the peculiar culture
+resulting from it, is doomed to perish, was not known to the ancients.
+Even in the epochs immediately preceding ours, it was not believed. The
+religious spirit of Asiatic antiquity looked upon the great political
+catastrophes in the same light that they did upon the sudden destruction
+of an individual: as a demonstration of Divine wrath, visiting a nation
+or an individual whose sins had marked them out for signal punishment,
+which would serve as an example to those criminals whom the rod had as
+yet spared. The Jews, misunderstanding the meaning of the promise,
+believed their empire imperishable. Rome, at the very moment when the
+threatening clouds lowered in the horizon of her grandeur, entertained
+no doubt as to the eternity of hers.[31] But our generation has profited
+by experience; and, as no one presumes to doubt that all men must die,
+because all who came before us have died; so we are firmly convinced,
+that the days of nations, as of individuals, however many they be, are
+numbered. The wisdom of the ancients, therefore, will afford us but
+little assistance in the unravelling of our subject, if we except one
+fundamental maxim: that the finger of Divine Providence is always
+visible in the conduct of the affairs of this world. From this solid
+basis we shall not depart, accepting it in the full extent that it is
+recognized by the church. It cannot be contested that no civilization
+will perish without the will of God, and to apply to the mortal
+condition of all societies, the sacred axiom by which the ancients
+explained certain remarkable, and, in their opinion, isolated cases of
+destruction, is but proclaiming a truth of the first order, of which we
+must never lose sight in our researches after truths of secondary
+importance. If it be further added that societies perish by their sins,
+I willingly accede to it; it is but drawing a parallel between them and
+individuals who also find their death, or accelerate it, by disobedience
+to the laws of the Creator. So far, there is nothing contradictory to
+reason, even when unassisted by Divine light; but these two truths once
+admitted and duly weighed, the wisdom of the ancients, I repeat, affords
+no further assistance. They did not search into the ways by which the
+Divine will effected the ruin of nations; on the contrary, they were
+rather inclined to consider these ways as essentially mysterious, and
+above comprehension. Seized with pious terror at the aspect of the
+wrecks, they easily imagined that Providence had specially interfered
+thus to strike and completely destroy once powerful states. Where a
+miracle is recorded by the Sacred Scriptures, I willingly submit; but
+where that high testimony is wanting, as it is in the great number of
+cases, we may justly consider the ancient theory as defective, and not
+sufficiently enlightened. We may even conclude, that as Divine Justice
+watches over nations unremittingly, and its decrees were pronounced ere
+the first human society was formed, they are also enforced in a
+predeterminate manner, and according to the unalterable laws of the
+universe, which govern both animated nature and the inorganic world.
+
+If we have cause to reproach the philosophers of the earlier ages, for
+having contented themselves, in attempting to fathom the mystery, with
+the vindication of an incontestable theological truth, but which itself
+is another mystery; at least, they have not increased the difficulties
+of the question by making it a theme for a maze of errors. In this
+respect, they rank highly above the rationalist schools of various
+epochs.
+
+The thinkers of Athens and Rome established the doctrine, which has
+retained its ground to our days, that states, nations, civilizations,
+perished only through luxury, enervation, bad government, corruption of
+morals, fanaticism. All these causes, either singly or combined, were
+supposed to account for the downfall of civilizations. It is a necessary
+consequence of this doctrine, that where neither of these causes are in
+operation, no destructive agency is at work. Societies would therefore
+possess this advantage over individuals, that they could die no other
+but a violent death; and, to establish a body politic as durable as the
+globe itself, nothing further would be necessary than to elude the
+dangers which I enumerated above.
+
+The inventors of this thesis did not perceive its bearing. They
+considered it as an excellent means for illustrating the doctrine of
+morality, which, as is well known, was the sole aim of their historical
+writings. In their narratives of events, they were so strongly
+preoccupied with showing the happy rewards of virtue, and the disastrous
+results of crime and vice, that they cared little for what seemed to
+furnish no illustration. This erroneous and narrow-minded system often
+operated contrary to the intention of the authors, for it applied,
+according to occasion, the name of virtue and vice in a very arbitrary
+manner; still, to a great extent, the severe and laudable sentiment upon
+which it was based, excuses it. If the genius of a Plutarch or a Tacitus
+could draw from history, studied in this manner, nothing but romances
+and satires, yet the romances were sublime, and the satires generous.
+
+I wish I could be equally indulgent to the writers of the eighteenth
+century, who made their own application of the same theory; but there
+is, between them and their teachers, too great a difference. While the
+ancients were attached to the established social system, even to a
+fault, our moderns were anxious for destruction, and greedy of untried
+novelties. The former exerted themselves to deduce useful lessons from
+their theory; the latter have perverted it into a fearful weapon against
+all rational principles of government, which they stigmatized by every
+term that mankind holds in horror. To save societies from ruin, the
+disciples of Voltaire would destroy religion, law, industry, commerce;
+because, if we believe them, religion is fanaticism; laws, despotism;
+industry and commerce, luxury and corruption.
+
+I have not the slightest intention of entering the field of polemics; I
+wished merely to direct attention to the widely diverging results of
+this principle, when applied by Thucydides, or the Abbe Raynal.
+Conservative in the one, cynically aggressive in the other, it is
+erroneous in both.
+
+The causes to which the downfall of nations is generally ascribed are
+not the true ones, and whilst I admit that these evils may be rifest in
+the last stages of dissolution of a people, I deny that they possess in
+themselves sufficient strength, and so destructive an energy, as to
+produce the final, irremediable catastrophe.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[30] A. de Humboldt, Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Geographie du
+Nouveau Continent. Paris.
+
+[31] Amadee Thierry, _La Gaule sous l'Administration Romaine_, vol. i.
+p. 244.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ALLEGED CAUSES OF POLITICAL CATASTROPHES EXAMINED.
+
+ FANATICISM--Aztec Empire of Mexico.--LUXURY--Modern European States
+ as luxurious as the ancient.--Corruption of morals--The standard of
+ morality fluctuates in the various periods of a nation's history:
+ example, France--Is no higher in youthful communities than in old
+ ones--Morality of Paris.--IRRELIGION--Never spreads through all
+ ranks of a nation--Greece and Rome--Tenacity of Paganism.
+
+
+Before entering upon my reasons for the opinion expressed at the end of
+the preceding chapter, it will be necessary to explain and define what I
+understand by the term society. I do not apply this term to the more or
+less extended circle belonging to a distinct sovereignty. The republic
+of Athens is not, in my sense of the word, a society; neither is the
+kingdom of Magadha, the empire of Pontus, or the caliphat of Egypt in
+the time of the Fatimites. These are fragments of societies, which are
+transformed, united, or subdivided, by the operation of those
+primordial laws into which I am inquiring, but whose existence or
+annihilation does not constitute the existence or annihilation of a
+society. Their formation is, for the most part, a transient phenomenon,
+which exerts but a limited, or even indirect influence upon the
+civilization that gave it birth. By the term society, I understand an
+association of men, actuated by similar ideas, and possessed of the same
+general instincts. This association need by no means be perfect in a
+political sense, but must be complete from a social point of view. Thus,
+Egypt, Assyria, Greece, India, China, have been, or are still, the
+theatres upon which distinct societies have worked out their destinies,
+to which the perturbations in their political relations were merely
+secondary. I shall, therefore, speak of the fractions of these societies
+only when my reasoning applies equally to the whole. I am now prepared
+to proceed to the examination of the question before us, and I hope to
+prove that fanaticism, luxury, corruption of morals, and irreligion, do
+not _necessarily_ occasion the ruin of nations.
+
+All these maladies, either singly or combined, have attacked, and
+sometimes with great virulence, nations which nevertheless recovered
+from them, and were, perhaps, all the more vigorous afterward.
+
+The Aztec empire, in Mexico, seemed to flourish for the especial glory
+and exaltation of fanaticism. What can there be more fanatical than a
+social and political system, based on a religion which requires the
+incessant and profuse shedding of the blood of fellow-beings?[32] Our
+remote ancestors, the barbarous nations of Northern Europe, did indeed
+practise this unholy rite, but they never chose for their sacrifices
+innocent victims,[33] or, at least, such as they considered so: the
+shipwrecked and prisoners of war, were not considered innocent. But, for
+the Mexicans, all victims were alike; with that ferocity, which a modern
+physiologist[34] recognizes as a characteristic of the races of the New
+World, they butchered their own fellow-citizens indiscriminately, and
+without remorse or pity. And yet, this did not prevent them from being a
+powerful, industrious, and wealthy nation, who might long have
+continued to blaspheme the Deity by their dark creed, but for Cortez's
+genius and the bravery of his companions. In this instance, then,
+fanaticism was not the cause of the downfall.[35]
+
+Nor are luxury or enervation more powerful in their effects. These
+vices are almost always peculiar to the higher classes, and seldom
+penetrate the whole mass of the population. But I doubt whether among
+the Greeks, the Persians, or the Romans, whose downfall they are said to
+have caused, luxury and enervation, albeit in a different form, had
+risen to a higher pitch than we see them to-day in some of our modern
+States, in France, Germany, England, and Russia, for instance. The two
+last countries are especially distinguished for the luxury prevalent
+among the higher classes, and yet, these two countries seem to be endued
+with a vitality much more vigorous and promising than most other
+European States. In the Middle Ages, the Venetians, Genoese, Pisanese,
+accumulated in their magazines the treasures and luxuries of the world;
+yet, the gorgeous magnificence of their palaces, and the splendid
+decorations of their vessels, did certainly not diminish their power, or
+subvert their dominion.[36]
+
+Even the corruption of morals, this most terrible of all scourges, is
+not necessarily a cause of national ruin. If it were, the prosperity of
+a nation, its power and preponderance, would be in a direct ratio to the
+purity of its manners; and it is hardly necessary to say that this is
+not the case. The odd fashion of ascribing all sorts of imaginary
+virtues to the first Romans, is now pretty much out of date.[37] Few
+would now dare to hold up as models of morality those sturdy patricians
+of the old school, who treated their women as slaves, their children as
+cattle, and their creditors like wild beasts. If there should still be
+some who would defend so bad a cause, their reasoning could easily be
+refuted, and its want of solidity shown. Abuse of power, in all epochs,
+has created equal indignation; there were deeper reasons for the
+abolition of royalty than the rape of Lucretia, for the expulsion of the
+decemvirs than the outrage of Appius; but these pretexts for two
+important revolutions, sufficiently demonstrate the public sentiment
+with regard to morals. It is a great mistake to ascribe the vigor of a
+young nation to its superior virtues; since the beginning of historical
+times, there has not been a community, however small, among which all
+the reprehensible tendencies of human nature were not visible,
+notwithstanding which, it has increased and prospered. There are even
+instances where the splendor of a state was owing to the most abominable
+institutions. The Spartans are indebted for their renown, and place in
+history, to a legislation fit only for a community of bandits.[38]
+
+So far from being willing to accord to youthful communities any
+superiority in regard to morals, I have no doubt that, as nations
+advance in age and consequently approach their period of decay, they
+present to the eyes of the moralist a far more satisfactory
+spectacle.[39] Manners become milder; men accommodate themselves more
+readily to one another; the means of subsistence become, if not easier,
+at least more varied; reciprocal obligations are better defined and
+understood; more refined theories of right and wrong gain ground. It
+would be difficult to show that at the time when the Greek arms
+conquered Darius, or when Greek liberty itself fled forever from the
+battle-field of Chaeronaea, or when the Goths entered Rome as victors;
+that the Persian monarchy, Athens, or the imperial city, in those times
+of their downfall, contained a smaller proportion of honest and virtuous
+people than in the most glorious epochs of their national existence.
+
+But we need not go so far back for illustrations. If any one were
+required to name the place where the spirit of our age displayed itself
+in the most complete contrast with the virtuous ages of the world (if
+such there were), he would most certainly point out Paris. Yet, many
+learned and pious persons have assured me, that nowhere, and in no
+epoch, could more practical virtue, solid piety, greater delicacy of
+conscience, be found than within the precincts of this great and corrupt
+city. The ideal of goodness is as exalted, the duties of a Christian as
+well understood, as by the most brilliant luminaries of the Church in
+the seventeenth century. I might add, that these virtues are divested of
+the bitterness and severity from which, in those times, they were not
+always exempt; and that they are more united with feelings of toleration
+and universal philanthropy.[40] Thus we find, as if to counterbalance
+the fearful aberrations of our own epoch, in the principal theatre of
+these aberrations, contrasts more numerous and more striking, than
+probably blessed the sight of the faithful in preceding ages.
+
+I cannot even perceive that great men are wanting in those periods of
+corruption and decay; on the contrary, these periods are often
+signalized by the appearance of men remarkable for energy of character
+and stern virtue.[41] If we look at the catalogue of Roman emperors, we
+find a great number of them as exalted in merit as in rank; we meet with
+names like those of Trajan, Antoninus Pius, Septimius Severus, Alexander
+Severus, Jovian; and if we glance beneath the throne, we see a glorious
+constellation of great doctors of our faith, of martyrs, and apostles of
+the primitive church; not to consider the number of virtuous pagans.
+Active, firm, and valorous minds filled the camps and the forums, so
+that it may reasonably be doubted whether Rome, in the times of
+Cincinnatus, possessed so great a number of eminent men in every
+department of human activity. Many other examples might be alleged, to
+prove that senile and tottering communities, so far from being deficient
+in men of virtue, talent, and action, possess them probably in greater
+number than young and rising states; and that their general standard of
+morals is often higher.
+
+Public morality, indeed, varies greatly at different periods of a
+nation's history. The history of the French nation, better than any
+other, illustrates this fact. Few will deny that the Gallo-Romans of
+the fifth and sixth centuries, though a subject race, were greatly
+superior in point of morals to their heroic conquerors.[42] Individually
+taken, they were often not inferior to the latter in courage and
+military virtue.[43] The intermixture of the two races, during the
+eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, reduced the standard of morals among
+the whole nation to a disgraceful level. In the three succeeding
+centuries, the picture brightens again. Yet, this period of comparative
+light was succeeded by the dark scenes of the fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries, when tyranny and debauchery ran riot over the land, and
+infected all classes of society, not excepting the clergy; when the
+nobles robbed their vassals, and the commonalty sold their country to a
+foreign foe. This period, so distinguished for the total absence of
+patriotism, and every honest sentiment, was emphatically one of decay;
+the state was shaken to its very foundation, and seemed ready to bury
+under its ruins so much shame and dishonor. But the crisis passed;
+foreign and intestine foes were vanquished; the machinery of government
+reconstructed on a firmer basis; the state of society improved.
+Notwithstanding its bloody follies, the sixteenth century dishonors less
+the annals of the nation than its predecessors, and it formed the
+transition period to the age of those pure and ever-brilliant lights,
+Fenelon, Bossuet, Montausier, and others. This period, again, was
+succeeded by the vices of the regency, and the horrors of the
+Revolution. Since that time, we have witnessed almost incredible
+fluctuations of public morality every decade of years.
+
+I have sketched rapidly, and merely pointed out the most prominent
+changes. To do even this properly, much more to descend to details,
+would require greater space than the limits and designs of this work
+permit. But I think what I have said is sufficient to show that the
+corruption of public morals, though always a great, is often a transient
+evil, a malady which may be corrected or which corrects itself, and
+cannot, therefore, be the sole cause of national ruin, though it may
+hasten the catastrophe.
+
+The corruption of public morals is nearly allied to another evil, which
+has been assigned as one of the causes of the downfall of empires. It is
+observed of Athens and Rome, that the glory of these two commonwealths
+faded about the same time that they abandoned their national creeds.
+These, however, are the only examples of such a coincidence that can be
+cited. The religion of Zoroaster was never more flourishing in the
+Persian empire, than at the time of its downfall. Tyre, Carthage, Judea,
+the Mexican and Peruvian empires expired at the moment when they
+embraced their altars with the greatest zeal and devotion. Nay, I do not
+believe that even at Athens and Rome, the ancient creed was abandoned
+until the day when it was replaced in every conscience, by the complete
+triumph of Christianity. I am firmly convinced that, politically
+speaking, irreligion never existed among any people, and that none ever
+abandoned the faith of their forefathers, except in exchange for
+another. In other words, there never was such a thing as a religious
+interregnum. The Gallic Teutates gave way to the Jupiter of the Romans;
+the worship of Jupiter, in its turn, was replaced by Christianity. It is
+true that, in Athens, not long before the time of Pericles, and in Rome,
+towards the age of the Scipios, it became the fashion among the higher
+classes, first to reason upon religious subjects, next to doubt them,
+and finally to disbelieve them altogether, and to pride themselves upon
+scepticism. But though there were many who joined in the sentiment of
+the ancient "freethinker" who dared the augurs to look at one another
+without laughing, yet this scepticism never gained ground among the mass
+of the people.
+
+Aspasia at her evening parties, and Lelius among his intimates, might
+ridicule the religious dogmas of their country, and amuse themselves at
+the expense of those that believed them. But at both these epochs, the
+most brilliant in the history of Greece and Rome, it would have been
+highly dangerous to express such sentiments publicly. The imprudence of
+his mistress came near costing Pericles himself dearly, and the tears
+which he shed before the tribunal, were not in themselves sufficiently
+powerful to save the fair sceptic. The poets of the times, Aristophanes,
+Sophocles, and afterwards Aeschylus, found it necessary, whatever were
+their private sentiments, to flatter the religious notions of the
+masses. The whole nation regarded Socrates as an impious innovator, and
+would have put to death Anaxagoras, but for the strenuous intercession
+of Pericles. Nor did the philosophical and sceptical theories penetrate
+the masses at a later period. Never, at any time, did they extend beyond
+the sphere of the elegant and refined. It may be objected that the
+opinion of the rest, the mechanics, traders, the rural population, the
+slaves, etc., was of little moment, as they had no influence in the
+policy of the state. If this were the case, why was it necessary, until
+the last expiring throb of Paganism, to preserve its temples and pay the
+hierophants? Why did men, the most eminent and enlightened, the most
+sceptical in their religious notions, not only don the sacerdotal robe,
+but even descend to the most repugnant offices of the popular worship?
+The daily reader of Lucretius[44] had to snatch moments of leisure from
+the all-absorbing game of politics, to compose a treatise on haruspicy.
+I allude to the first Caesar.[45] And all his successors, down to
+Constantine, were compelled to unite the pontificial with the imperial
+dignity. Even Constantine himself, though as a Christian prince he had
+far better reasons for repugnance to such an office than any of his
+predecessors, was compelled to compromise with the still powerful
+ancient religion of the nation.[46] This is a clear proof of the
+prevalence of the popular sentiment over the opinion of the higher and
+more enlightened classes. They might appeal to reason and common sense,
+against the absurdities of the masses, but the latter would not, could
+not, renounce one faith until they had adopted another, confirming the
+old truth, that in the affairs of this world, the positive ever takes
+precedent over the negative. The popular sentiment was so strong that,
+in the third century, it infected even the higher classes to some
+extent, and created among them a serious religious reaction, which did
+not entirely subside until after the final triumph of Christianity. The
+revolution of ideas which gradually diffused true religion among all
+classes, is highly interesting, and it may not be altogether irrelevant
+to my subject, to point out the principal causes which occasioned it.
+
+In the latter stages of the Roman empire, the armies had acquired such
+undue political preponderance, that from the emperor, who inevitably
+was chosen by them, down to the pettiest governor of a district, all the
+functionaries of the government issued from the ranks. They had sprung
+from those popular masses, of whose passionate attachment to their faith
+I have already spoken, and upon attaining their elevated stations, came
+in contact with the former rulers of the country, the old distinguished
+families, the municipal dignitaries of cities, in fact those classes who
+took pride and delight in sceptical literature. At first there was
+hostility between these latter and the real rulers of the state, whom
+they would willingly have treated as upstarts, if they had dared. But as
+the court gave the tone, and all the minor military chiefs were, for the
+most part, devout and fanatic, the sceptics were compelled to disguise
+their real sentiments, and the philosophers set about inventing systems
+to reconcile the rationalistic theories with the state religion. This
+revival of pagan piety caused the greater number of the persecutions.
+The rural populations, who had suffered their faith to be outraged by
+the atheists so long as the higher classes domineered over them, now,
+that the imperial democracy had reduced all to the same level, were
+panting for revenge; but, mistaking their victims, they directed their
+fury against the Christians. The real sceptics were such men as King
+Agrippa, who wishes to hear St. Paul[47] from mere curiosity; who hears
+him, debates with him, considers him a fool, but never thinks of
+persecuting him because he differs in opinion; or Tacitus, the
+historian, who, though full of contempt for the believers in the new
+religion, blames Nero for his cruelties towards them.
+
+Agrippa and Tacitus were pagan sceptics. Diocletian was a politician,
+who gave way to the clamors of an incensed populace. Decius and Aurelian
+were fanatics, like the masses they governed, and from whom they had
+sprung.
+
+Even after the Christian religion had become the religion of the state,
+what immense difficulties were experienced in attempting to bring the
+masses within its pale! So hopeless was in some places the contest with
+the local divinities, that in many instances conversion was rather the
+result of address, than the effect of persuasion. The genius of the holy
+propagators of our religion was reduced to the invention of pious
+frauds. The divinities of the groves, fields, and fountains, were still
+worshipped, but under the name of the saints, the martyrs, and the
+Virgin. After being for a time misdirected, these homages would finally
+find the right way. Yet such is the obstinacy with which the masses
+cling to a faith once received, that there are traces of it remaining in
+our day. There are still parishes in France, where some heathenish
+superstition alarms the piety, and defies the efforts of the minister.
+In Catholic Brittany, even in the last centuries, the bishop in vain
+attempted to dehort his flock from the worship of an idol of stone. The
+rude image was thrown into the water, but rescued by its obstinate
+adorers; and the assistance of the military was required to break it to
+pieces. Such was, and such is the longevity of paganism. I conclude,
+therefore, that no nation, either in ancient or modern times, ever
+abandoned its religion without having duly and earnestly embraced
+another, and that, consequently, none ever found itself, for a moment,
+in a state of irreligion, which could have been the cause of its ruin.
+
+Having denied the destructive effects of fanaticism, luxury, and
+immorality, and the political possibility of irreligion, I shall now
+speak of the effects of bad government. This subject is well worthy of
+an entire chapter.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[32] See Prescott's _History of the Conquest of Mexico_.
+
+[33] C. F. Weber, _M. A. Lucani Pharsalia_. Leipzig, 1828, vol. i. pp.
+122-123, _note_.
+
+[34] Prichard, _Natural History of Man_.--Dr. Martius is still more
+explicit. (See _Martius and Spix_, _Reise in Brasilien_. Munich, vol. i.
+pp. 379-380.)
+
+Mr. Gobineau quotes from M. Roulin's French translation of Prichard's
+great work, and as I could not always find the corresponding pages in
+the original, I have sometimes been obliged to omit the citation of the
+page, that in the French translation being useless to English
+readers.--_Transl._
+
+[35] I greatly doubt whether the fanaticism of even the ancient Mexicans
+could exceed that displayed by some of our not very remote ancestors.
+Who, that reads the trials for witchcraft in the judicial records of
+Scotland, and, after smiling at the frivolous, inconsistent testimony
+against the accused, comes to the cool, uncommented marginal note of the
+reporter: "Convicta et combusta," does not feel his heart leap for
+horror? But, if he comes to an entry like the following, he feels as
+though lightning from heaven could but inflict too mild a punishment on
+the perpetrators of such unnatural crimes.
+
+"1608, Dec. 1.--The Earl of Mar declared to the council, that some women
+were taken in Broughton as witches, and being put to an assize, and
+convicted, albeit they persevered constant in their denial to the end,
+they were burnt quick (alive), after such a cruel manner, that some of
+them died in despair, renouncing and blaspheming God; and _others,
+half-burned, brak out of the fire, and were cast in it again, till they
+were burned to death_." Entry in Sir Thomas Hamilton's _Minutes of
+Proceedings in the Privy Council_. (From W. Scott's _Letters on
+Demonology and Witchcraft_, p. 315.)
+
+Really, I do not believe that the Peruvians ever carried fanaticism so
+far. Yet, a counterpart to this horrible picture is found in the history
+of New England. A man, named Cory, being accused of witchcraft, and
+refusing to plead, was accordingly pressed to death. And when, in the
+agony of death, the unfortunate man thrust out his tongue, the sheriff,
+without the least emotion, crammed it back into the mouth with his cane.
+(See Cotton Mather's _Magnalia Christi Americana_, Hardford. _Thau.
+Pneu_, c. vii. p. 383, _et passim_.)
+
+Did the ferocity of the most brutish savages ever invent any torture
+more excruciating than that in use in the British Isles, not much more
+than two centuries ago, for bringing poor, decrepit old women to the
+confession of a crime which never existed but in the crazed brain of
+bigots. "The nails were torn from the fingers with smith's pincers; pins
+driven into the places which the nails defended; the knees were crushed
+in the _boots_, the finger-bones splintered in the _pilniewinks_," etc.
+(Scott, _op. cit._, p. 312.) But then, it is true, they had a more
+_gentle_ torture, which an English Lord (Eglington) had the honor and
+humanity to invent! This consisted in placing the legs of a poor woman
+in the stocks, and then _loading the bare shins with bars of iron_.
+Above thirty stones of iron were placed upon the limbs of an unfortunate
+woman before she could be brought to the confession which led her to the
+stake. (Scott, _op. cit._, pp. 321, 324, 327, etc. etc.)
+
+As late as 1682, not yet 200 years ago, three women were hanged, in
+England, for witchcraft; and the fatal statute against it was not
+abolished until 1751, when the rabble put to death, in the most horrible
+manner, an old pauper woman, and very nearly killed another.
+
+And, in the middle of last century, eighty-five persons were burnt, or
+otherwise executed, for witchcraft, at Mohra, in Sweden. Among them were
+fifteen young children.
+
+If God had ordained that fanaticism should be punished by national ruin,
+were not these crimes, in which, in most cases, the whole nation
+participated, were not they horrible enough to draw upon the
+perpetrators the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah? Surely, if fanaticism were
+the cause of national decay, most European nations had long since been
+swept from the face of the globe, "so that their places could nowhere be
+found."--H.
+
+[36] There seem, at first sight, to be exceptions to the truth of the
+assertion, that luxury, in itself, is not productive of national ruin.
+Venice, Genoa, Pisa, etc., were _aristocratic_ republics, in which, as
+in monarchies, a high degree of luxury is not only compatible with, but
+may even be greatly conducive to the prosperity of the state. But the
+basis of a _democratic_ republic is a more or less perfect equality
+among its citizens, which is often impaired, and, in the end, subverted
+by too great a disparity of wealth. Yet, even in them, glaring contrasts
+between extravagant luxury and abject poverty are rather the sign than
+the cause, of the disappearance of democratic principles. Examples might
+be adduced from history, of democracies in which great wealth did not
+destroy democratic ideas and a consequent simplicity of manners. These
+ideas must first be forgotten, before wealth can produce luxury, and
+luxury its attendant train of evils. Though accelerating the downfall of
+a democratic republic, it is therefore not the primary cause of that
+downfall.--H.
+
+[37] Balzac, _Lettre a Madame la Duchesse de Montausier_.
+
+[38] That this stricture is not too severe will be obvious to any one
+who reflects on the principles upon which this legislation was based.
+Inculcating that war was the great business of life, and to be terrible
+to one's enemies the only object of manly ambition, the Spartan laws
+sacrificed the noblest private virtues and domestic affections. They
+deprived the female character of the charms that most adorn it--modesty,
+tenderness, and sensibility; they made men brutal, coarse, and cruel.
+They stunted individual talents; Sparta has produced but few great men,
+and these, says Macaulay, only became great when they ceased to be
+Lacedemonians. Much unsound sentimentality has been expended in
+eulogizing Sparta, from Xenophon down to Mitford, yet the verdict of the
+unbiassed historian cannot differ very widely from that of Macaulay:
+"The Spartans purchased for their government a prolongation of its
+existence by the sacrifice of happiness at home, and dignity abroad.
+They cringed to the powerful, they trampled on the weak, they massacred
+their helots, they betrayed their allies, they contrived to be a day too
+late for the battle of Marathon, they attempted to avoid the battle of
+Salamis, they suffered the Athenians, to whom they owed their lives and
+liberties, to be a second time driven from their country by the
+Persians, that they might finish their own fortifications on the
+Isthmus; they attempted to take advantage of the distress to which
+exertions in their cause had reduced their preservers, in order to make
+them their slaves; they strove to prevent those who had abandoned their
+walls to defend them, from rebuilding them to defend themselves; they
+commenced the Peloponnesian war in violation of their engagements with
+their allies; they gave up to the sword whole cities which had placed
+themselves under their protection; they bartered for advantages confined
+to themselves the interests, the freedom, and the lives of those who had
+served them most faithfully; they took, with equal complacency, and
+equal infamy, the stripes of Elis and the bribes of Persia; they never
+showed either resentment or gratitude; they abstained from no injury,
+and they revenged none. Above all, they looked on a citizen who served
+them well as their deadliest enemy."--_Essays_, iii. 389.--H.
+
+[39] The horrid scenes of California life, its lynch laws, murders, and
+list of all possible crimes, are still ringing in our ears, and have not
+entirely ceased, though their number is lessened, and they are rapidly
+disappearing before lawful order. Australia offered, and still offers,
+the same spectacle. Texas, but a few years ago, and all newly settled
+countries in our day, afford another striking illustration of the
+author's remark. Young communities ever attract a great number of
+lawless and desperate men; and this has been the case in all ages. Rome
+was founded by a band of fugitives from justice, and if her early
+history be critically examined, it will be found to reveal a state of
+society, with which the Rome described by the Satirists, and upbraided
+by the Censors, compares favorably. Any one who will cast a glance into
+Bishop Potter's _Antiquities_, can convince himself that the state of
+morals, in Athens, was no better in her most flourishing periods than at
+the time of her downfall, if, indeed, as good; notwithstanding the
+glowing colors in which Isocrates and his followers describe the virtues
+of her youthful period, and the degeneracy of the age. Who can doubt
+that public morality has attained a higher standard in England, at the
+present day when her strength seems to have departed from her, than it
+had at any previous era in her history. Where are the brutal fox-hunting
+country squires of former centuries? the good old customs, when
+hospitality consisted in drinking one's guest underneath the table? What
+audience could now endure, or what police permit, the plays of Congreve
+and of Otway? Even Shakspeare has to be pruned by the moral censor,
+before he can charm our ears. Addison himself, than whom none
+contributed more to purify the morals of his age, bears unmistakable
+traces of the coarseness of the time in which he wrote. It will be
+objected that we are only more prudish, no better at the bottom. But,
+even supposing that the same vices still exist, is it not a great step
+in advance, that they dare no longer parade themselves with unblushing
+impudence? Many who derive their ideas of the Middle Ages, of chivalry,
+etc., from the accounts of romance writers, have very erroneous notions
+about the manners of that period. "It so happens," says Byron, "that the
+good old times when '_l'amour du bon vieux temps, l'amour antique_'
+flourished, were the most profligate of all possible centuries. Those
+who have any doubts on the subject may consult St. Palay, particularly
+vol. ii. p. 69. The vows of chivalry were no better kept than any other
+vows whatever, and the songs of the troubadour were not more decent, and
+certainly much less refined, than those of Ovid. The 'cours d'amour,
+parlements d'amour, ou de courtoisie et de gentilesse,' had much more of
+love than of courtesy and gentleness. (See Roland on the same subject
+with St. Palay.)" _Preface to Childe Harold._ I should not have quoted
+the authority of a poet on historical matters, were I not convinced,
+from my own investigations, that his pungent remarks are perfectly
+correct. As a further confirmation, I may mention that a few years ago,
+in rummaging over the volumes of a large European library, I casually
+lit upon a record of judicial proceedings during the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries, in a little commonwealth, whose simplicity of
+manners, and purity of public morals, especially in that period, has
+been greatly extolled by historians. There, I found a list of crimes, to
+which the most corrupt of modern great cities can furnish no parallel.
+In horror and hellish ingenuity, they can be faintly approached only by
+the punishment which followed them. Of many, our generation ignores even
+the name, and, of others, dares not utter them.--H.
+
+[40] This assertion may surprise those who, in the words of a piquant
+writer on Parisian life, "have thought of Paris only under two
+aspects--one, as the emporium of fashion, fun, and refinement; the abode
+of good fellows somewhat dissipated, of fascinating ladies somewhat
+over-kind; of succulent dinners, somewhat indigestible; of pleasures,
+somewhat illicit;--the other, as the place _par excellence_, of
+revolutions, _emeutes_, and barricades." Yet, all who have pierced below
+the brilliant surface, and penetrated into the recesses of destitution
+and crime, have seen the ministering angel of charity on his errand, and
+can bear witness to the truth of the author's remark. No city can show a
+greater number of benevolent institutions, none more active and
+practical _private_ charity, which inquires not after the country or
+creed of its object.--H.
+
+[41] Tottering, falling Greece, gave birth to a Demosthenes, a Phocian;
+the period of the downfall of the Roman republic was the age of Cicero,
+Brutus, and Cato.--H.
+
+[42] The subjoined picture of the manners of the Frankish conquerors of
+Gaul, is selected on account of the weighty authority from which it
+comes, from among a number of even darker ones. "The history of Gregory
+of Tours shows us on the one hand, a fierce and barbarous nation; and on
+the other, kings of as bad a character. These princes were bloody,
+unjust, and cruel, because all the nation was so. If Christianity seemed
+sometimes to soften them, it was only by the terror which this religion
+imprints in the guilty; the church supported herself against them by the
+miracles and prodigies of her saints. The kings were not sacrilegious,
+because they dreaded the punishments inflicted on sacrilegious people:
+but this excepted, they committed, either in their passion or cold
+blood, all manner of crimes and injustice, because in these the avenging
+hand of the Deity did not appear so visible. The Franks, as I have
+already observed, bore with bloody kings, because they were fond of
+blood themselves; they were not affected with the wickedness and
+extortion of their princes, because this was their own character. There
+had been a great many laws established, but the kings rendered them all
+useless by the practice of issuing _preceptions_, a kind of decrees,
+after the manner of the rescripts of the Roman emperors. These
+preceptions were orders to the judges to do, or to tolerate, things
+contrary to law. They were given for illicit marriages, and even those
+with consecrated virgins; for transferring successions, and depriving
+relations of their rights; for putting to death persons who had not been
+convicted of any crime, and not been heard in their defence,
+etc."--MONTESQUIEU, _Esprit des Lois_, b. 31, c. 2.--H.
+
+[43] Augustin Thierry, _Recit des Temps Merovingiens_. (See particularly
+the _History of Mummolus_.)
+
+[44] Lucretius was the author of _De Rerum Natura_, and one of the most
+distinguished of pagan "free-thinkers." He labored to combine the
+philosophy of Epicurus, Evhenius, and others, into a sort of moral
+religion, much after the fashion of some of the German mystics and
+Platonists of our times.--H.
+
+[45] Caesar, whose private opinions were both democratical and sceptical,
+found it convenient to speak very differently in public, as the funeral
+oration in honor of his aunt proves. "On the maternal side, said he, my
+aunt Julia is descended from the kings; on the paternal, from the
+immortal gods. For my aunt's mother was of the family of the Martii, who
+are descended from King Ancus Martius; and the Julii, to which stock our
+family belongs, trace their origin to Venus. Thus, in her blood was
+blended the majesty of kings, the most powerful of men, and the sanctity
+of the gods, who have even the kings in their power."--_Suetonius_,
+_Julius_, 5.
+
+Are not these sentiments very monarchical for a democrat; very religious
+for an atheist?
+
+[46] It is well known that Constantine did not receive the rite of
+baptism until within the last hours of his life, although he professed
+to be a sincere believer. The coins, also, struck during his reign, all
+bore pagan emblems.--H.
+
+[47] Acts xxvi. 24, 28, 31.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+INFLUENCE OF GOVERNMENT UPON THE LONGEVITY OF NATIONS.
+
+ Misgovernment defined--Athens, China, Spain, Germany, Italy, etc.--Is
+ not in itself a sufficient cause for the ruin of nations.
+
+
+I am aware of the difficulty of the task I have undertaken in attempting
+to establish a truth, which by many of my readers will be regarded as a
+mere paradox. That good laws and good government exert a direct and
+powerful influence upon the well-being and prosperity of a nation, is an
+indisputable fact, of which I am fully convinced; but I think that
+history proves that they are not absolute conditions of the existence of
+a community; or, in other words, that their absence is not necessarily
+productive of ruin. Nations, like individuals, are often preyed upon by
+fearful diseases, which show no outward traces of the ravages within,
+and which, though dangerous, are not always fatal. Indeed, if they
+were, few communities would survive the first few years of their
+formation, for it is precisely during that period that the government is
+worst, the laws most imperfect, and least observed. But here the
+comparison between the body political and the human organization ceases,
+for while the latter dreads most the attack of disease during infancy,
+the former easily overcomes it at that period. History furnishes
+innumerable examples of successful contest on the part of young
+communities with the most formidable and most devastating political
+evils, of which none can be worse than ill-conceived laws, administered
+in an oppressive or negligent manner.[48]
+
+Let us first define what we understand by bad government. The varieties
+of this evil are as various as nations, countries, and epochs. It were
+impossible to enumerate them all. Yet, by classing them under four
+principal categories, few varieties will be omitted.
+
+A government is bad, when imposed by foreign influence. Athens
+experienced this evil under the thirty tyrants. Yet she shook off the
+odious yoke, and patriotism, far from expiring, gained renewed vigor by
+the oppression.
+
+A government is bad, when based upon absolute and unconditional
+conquest. Almost the whole extent of France in the fourteenth century,
+groaned under the dominion of England. The ordeal was passed, and the
+nation rose from it more powerful and brilliant than before. China was
+overrun and conquered by the Mongol hordes. They were ejected from its
+territories, after having previously undergone a singular
+transformation. It next fell into the hands of the Mantchoo conquerors,
+but though they already count the years of their reign by centuries,
+they are now at the eve of experiencing the same fate as their Mongol
+predecessors.
+
+A government is especially bad, when the principles upon which it was
+based are disregarded or forgotten. This was the fate of the Spanish
+monarchy. It was based upon the military spirit of the nation, and upon
+its municipal freedom, and declined soon after these principles came to
+be forgotten. It is impossible to imagine greater political
+disorganization than this country represented. Nowhere was the authority
+of the sovereign more nominal and despised; nowhere did the clergy lay
+themselves more open to censure. Agriculture and industry, following the
+same downward impulse, were also involved in the national marasmus. Yet
+Spain, of whom so many despaired, at a moment when her star seemed
+setting forever, gave the glorious example of heroic and successful
+resistance to the arms of one who had hitherto experienced no check in
+his career of conquest. Since that, the better spirit of the nation has
+been roused, and there is, probably, at this time, no European state
+with more promising prospects, and stronger vitality.[49]
+
+A government is also very bad, when, by its institutions, it authorizes
+an antagonism either between the supreme power and the nation, or among
+the different classes of which it is composed. This was the case in the
+Middle Ages, when the kings of France and England were at war with their
+great vassals, and the peasants in perpetual feud with the lords. In
+Germany, the first effects of the liberty of thought, were the civil
+wars of the Hussites, Anabaptists, and other sectaries. Italy, at a
+more remote period, was so distracted by the division of the supreme
+authority for which emperor, pope, nobles, and municipalities contended,
+that the masses, not knowing whom to obey, in many instances finished by
+obeying neither. Yet in the midst of all these troubles, Italian
+nationality did not perish. On the contrary, its civilization was at no
+time more brilliant, its industry never more productive, its foreign
+influence never greater.
+
+If communities have survived such fearful political tempests, it cannot
+well be said that national ruin is a necessary cause of misgovernment.
+Besides, wise and happy reigns are few and far between, in the history
+of every nation; and these few are not considered such by all.
+Historians are not unanimous in their praise of Elizabeth, nor do they
+all consider the reign of William and Mary as an epoch of prosperity for
+England. Truly this science of statesmanship, the highest and most
+complicated of all, is so disproportionate to the capacity of man,[50]
+and so various are the opinions concerning it, that nations have early
+and frequent opportunities of learning to accommodate themselves to
+misgovernment, which, in its worst forms, is still preferable to
+anarchy. It is a well-proved fact, which even a superficial study of
+history will clearly demonstrate, that communities often perish under
+the best government of a long series that came before.[51]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[48] It will be understood that I speak here, not of the political
+existence of a centre of sovereignty, but of the life of an entire
+nation, the prosperity of a civilization. Here is the place to apply the
+definition given above, page 114.
+
+[49] This assertion will appear paradoxical to those who are in the
+habit of looking upon Spain as the type of hopeless national
+degradation. But whoever studies the history of the last thirty years,
+which is but a series of struggles to rise from this position, will
+probably arrive at the same conclusions as the author. The revolution of
+1820 redeems the character of the nation. "The Spanish Constitution"
+became the watchword of the friends of constitutional liberty in the
+South of Europe, and ere thirteen months had fully passed, it had become
+the fundamental law of three other countries--Portugal, Naples, and
+Sardinia. At the mere sound of those words, two kings had resigned their
+crowns. These revolutions were not characterized by excesses. They were,
+for the most part, accomplished peacefully, quietly, and orderly. They
+were not the result of the temporary passions of an excited mob. The
+most singular feature of these countries is that the lowest dregs of the
+population are the most zealous adherents of absolutism. No, these
+revolutions were the work of the best elements in the population, the
+most intelligent classes, of people who knew what they wanted, and how
+to get it. And then, when Spain had set that ever glorious example to
+her neighbors, the great powers, with England at the head, concluded to
+re-establish the former state of things. In those memorable congresses
+of plenipotentiaries, the most influential was the representative of
+England, the Duke of Wellington. And by his advice, or, at least, with
+his sanction, an Austrian army entered Sardinia, and abolished the new
+constitution; an Austrian army entered Naples and abolished the new
+constitution; English vessels of war threatened Lisbon, and Portugal
+abolished her new constitution; and finally a French army entered Spain,
+and abolished the new constitution. So Naples and Portugal regained
+their tyrants, and Spain her imbecile dynasty. For years the Spaniards
+have tried to shake it off, and English influence alone has maintained
+on a great nation's throne, a wretch that would have disgraced the
+lowest walks of private life. But the day of Spanish liberty and Spanish
+_independence_ will dawn, and perhaps already has dawned. The efforts of
+the last Cortes were wisely directed, and their proceedings marked with
+a manliness, a moderation, and a firmness that augur well for the future
+weal of Spain.--H.
+
+[50] Who is not reminded of Oxenstierna's famous saying to his son: "Cum
+parva sapientia mundus gubernatur."--H.
+
+[51] It is obvious that so long as the vitality of a nation remains
+unimpaired, misgovernment can be but a temporary ill. The regenerative
+principle will be at work to remove the evil and heal the wounds it has
+inflicted; and though the remedy be sometimes violent, and throw the
+state into fearful convulsions, it will seldom be found ineffectual. So
+long as the spirit of liberty prevailed among the Romans, the
+Tarquiniuses and Appiuses were as a straw before the storm of popular
+indignation; but the death of Caesar could but substitute a despot in the
+stead of a mild and generous usurper. The first Brutus might save the
+nation, because he was the expression of the national sentiment; the
+second could not, because he was one man opposed to millions. It is a
+common error to ascribe too much to individual exertions, and whimsical
+philosophers have amused themselves to trace great events to petty
+causes; but a deeper inquiry will demonstrate that the great
+catastrophes which arrest our attention and form the landmarks of
+history, are but the inevitable result of all the whole chain of
+antecedent events. Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte were, indeed,
+especially gifted for their great destinies, but the same gifts could
+not have raised them to their exalted positions at any other epoch than
+the one in which each lived. Those petty causes are but the drop which
+causes the measure to overflow, the pretext of the moment; or as the
+small fissure in the dyke which produces the _crevasse_: the wall of
+waters stood behind. No man can usurp supreme power, unless the
+prevailing tendency of the nation favors it; no man can long persist in
+hurrying a nation along in a course repulsive to it; and in this sense,
+therefore, not with regard to its abstract justness, it is undoubtedly
+true, that the voice of the nation is the voice of God. It is the
+expression of what shall and must be.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+DEFINITION OF THE WORD DEGENERACY--ITS CAUSE.
+
+ Skeleton history of a nation--Origin of castes, nobility,
+ etc.--Vitality of nations not necessarily extinguished by
+ conquest--China, Hindostan--Permanency of their peculiar
+ civilizations.
+
+
+If the spirit of the preceding pages has been at all understood, it will
+be seen that I am far from considering these great national maladies,
+misgovernment, fanaticism, irreligion, and immorality, as mere trifling
+accidents, without influence or importance. On the contrary, I sincerely
+pity the community which is afflicted by such scourges, and think that
+no efforts can be misdirected which tend to mitigate or remove them. But
+I repeat, that unless these disorganizing elements are grafted upon
+another more destructive principle, unless they are the consequences of
+a greater, though concealed, evil; we may rest assured that their
+ravages are not fatal, and that society, after a shorter or longer
+period of suffering, will escape their toils, perhaps with renewed vigor
+and youth.
+
+The examples I have alleged seem to me conclusive; their number, if
+necessary, might be increased to any extent. But the conviction has
+already gained ground, that these are but secondary evils, to which an
+undue importance has hitherto been attached, and that the law which
+governs the life and death of societies must be sought for elsewhere,
+and deeper. It is admitted that the germ of destruction is inherent in
+the constitution of communities; that so long as it remains latent,
+exterior dangers are little to be dreaded; but when it has once attained
+full growth and maturity, the nation must die, even though surrounded by
+the most favorable circumstances, precisely as a jaded steed breaks
+down, be the track ever so smooth.
+
+Degeneracy was the name given to this cause of dissolution. This view of
+the question was a great step towards the truth, but, unfortunately, it
+went no further; the first difficulty proved insurmountable. The term
+was certainly correct, etymologically and in every other respect, but
+how is it with the definition. A people is said to be degenerated, when
+it is badly governed, abuses its riches, is fanatical, or irreligious;
+in short, when it has lost the characteristic virtues of its
+forefathers. This is begging the question. Thus, communities succumb
+under the burden of social and political evils only when they are
+degenerate, and they are degenerate only when such evils prevail. This
+circular argument proves nothing but the small progress hitherto made in
+the science of national biology. I readily admit that nations perish
+from degeneracy, and from no other cause; it is when in that wretched
+condition, that foreign attacks are fatal to them, for then they no
+longer possess the strength to protect themselves against adverse
+fortune, or to recover from its blows. They die, because, though exposed
+to the same perils as their ancestors, they have not the same powers of
+overcoming them. I repeat it, the term _degeneracy_ is correct; but it
+is necessary to define it, to give it a real and tangible meaning. It is
+necessary to say how and why this vigor, this capacity of overcoming
+surrounding dangers, are lost. Hitherto, we have been satisfied with a
+mere word, but the thing itself is as little known as ever.[52] The step
+beyond, I shall attempt to make.
+
+In my opinion, a nation is degenerate, when the blood of its founders no
+longer flows in its veins, but has been gradually deteriorated by
+successive foreign admixtures; so that the nation, while retaining its
+original name, is no longer composed of the same elements. The
+attenuation of the original blood is attended by a modification of the
+original instincts, or modes of thinking; the new elements assert their
+influence, and when they have once gained perfect and entire
+preponderance, the degeneration may be considered as complete. With the
+last remnant of the original ethnical principle, expires the life of the
+society and its civilization. The masses, which composed it, have
+thenceforth no separate, independent, social and political existence;
+they are attracted to different centres of civilization, and swell the
+ranks of new societies having new instincts and new purposes.
+
+In attempting to establish this theorem, I am met by a question which
+involves the solution of a far more difficult problem than any I have
+yet approached. This question, so momentous in its bearings, is the
+following:--
+
+Is there, in reality, a serious and palpable difference in the capacity
+and intrinsic worth of different branches of the human family?
+
+For the sake of clearness, I shall advance, _a priori_, that this
+difference exists. It then remains to show how the ethnical character of
+a nation can undergo such a total change as I designate by the term
+_degeneracy_.
+
+Physiologists assert that the human frame is subject to a constant wear
+and tear, which would soon destroy the whole machine, but for new
+particles which are continually taking the form and place of the old
+ones. So rapid is this change said to be, that, in a few years, the
+whole framework is renovated, and the material identity of the
+individual changed. The same, to a great extent, may be said of nations,
+only that, while the individual always preserves a certain similarity
+of form and features, those of a nation are subject to innumerable and
+ever-varying changes. Let us take a nation at the moment when it assumes
+a political existence, and commences to play a part in the great drama
+of the world's stage. In its embryo, we call it a tribe.
+
+The simplest and most natural political institution is that of tribes.
+It is the only form of government known to rude and savage nations.
+Civilization is the result of a great concentration of powerful physical
+and intellectual forces,[53] which, in small and scattered fragments, is
+impossible. The first step towards it is, therefore, undoubtedly, the
+union of several tribes by alliance or conquest. Such a coalescence is
+what we call a nation or empire. I think it admits of an easy
+demonstration, that in proportion as a human family is endowed with the
+capacity for intellectual progress, it exhibits a tendency to enlarge
+the circle of its influence and dominion. On the contrary, where that
+capacity is weak, or wanting, we find the population subdivided into
+innumerable small fragments, which, though in perpetual collision,
+remain forever detached and isolated. The stronger may massacre the
+weaker, but permanent conquest is never attempted; depredatory
+incursions are the sole object and whole extent of warfare. This is the
+case with the natives of Polynesia, many parts of Africa, and the Arctic
+regions. Nor can their stagnant condition be ascribed to local or
+climatical causes. We have seen such wretched hordes inhabiting,
+indifferently, temperate as well as torrid or frigid zones; fertile
+prairies and barren deserts; river-shores and coasts as well as inland
+regions. It must therefore be founded upon an inherent incapacity of
+progress. The more civilizable a race is, the stronger is the tendency
+for aggregation of masses. Complex political organizations are not so
+much the effect as the cause of civilization.[54] A tribe with superior
+intellectual and physical endowments, soon perceives that, to increase
+its power and prosperity, it must compel its neighbors to enter into the
+sphere of its influence. Where peaceful means fail, war is resorted to.
+Territories are conquered, a division into classes established between
+the victorious and the subjugated race; in one word, a nation has made
+its appearance upon the theatre of history. The impulse being once
+given, it will not stop short in the career of conquest. If wisdom and
+moderation preside in its councils, the tracks of its armies will not be
+marked by wanton destruction and bloodshed; the monuments, institutions,
+and manners of the conquered will be respected; superior creations will
+take the place of the old, where changes are necessary and useful;--a
+great empire will be formed.[55] At first, and perhaps for a long time,
+victors and vanquished will remain separated and distinct. But
+gradually, as the pride of the conqueror becomes less obtrusive, and the
+bitterness of defeat is forgotten by the conquered; as the ties of
+common interest become stronger, the boundary line between them is
+obliterated. Policy, fear, or natural justice, prompts the masters to
+concessions; intermarriages take place, and, in the course of time, the
+various ethnical elements are blended, and the different nations
+composing the state begin to consider themselves as one. This is the
+general history of the rise of all empires whose records have been
+transmitted to us.[56] An inferior race, by falling into the hands of
+vigorous masters, is thus called to share a destiny, of which, alone, it
+would have been incapable. Witness the Saxons by the Norman
+conquest.[57] But, if there is a decided disparity in the capacity of
+the two races, their mixture, while it ennobles the baser, deteriorates
+the nobler; a new race springs up, inferior to the one, though superior
+to the other, and, perhaps, possessed of peculiar qualities unknown to
+either. The modification of the ethnical character of the nation,
+however, does not terminate here.
+
+Every new acquisition of territory, by conquest or treaty, brings an
+addition of foreign blood. The wealth and splendor of a great empire
+attract crowds of strangers to its capital, great inland cities, or
+seaports. Apart from the fact that the conquering race--that which
+founds the empire, and supports and animates it--is, in most cases,
+inferior in numbers to the masses which it subdued and assimilated; the
+conspicuous part which it takes in the affairs of the state, renders it
+more directly exposed to the fatal results of battles, proscriptions,
+and revolts.[58] In some instances, also, it happens that the
+substratum of native populations are singularly prolific--witness the
+Celts and Sclaves. Sooner or later, therefore, the conquering race is
+absorbed by the masses which its vigor and superiority have aggregated.
+The very materials of which it erected its splendor, and upon which it
+based its strength, are ultimately the means of its weakness and
+destruction. But the civilization which it has developed, may survive
+for a limited period. The forward impulse, once imparted to the mass,
+will still propel it for a while, but its force is continually
+decreasing. Manners, laws, and institutions remain, but the spirit
+which animated them has fled; the lifeless body still exhibits the
+apparent symptoms of life, and, perhaps, even increases, but the real
+strength has departed; the edifice soon begins to totter, at the
+slightest collision it will crumble, and bury beneath its ruins the
+civilization which it had developed.
+
+If this definition of degeneracy be accepted, and its consequences
+admitted, the problem of the rise and fall of empires no longer presents
+any difficulty. A nation lives so long as it preserves the ethnical
+principle to which it owes its existence; with this principle, it loses
+the _primum mobile_ of its successes, its glory, and its civilization:
+it must therefore disappear from the stage of history. Who can doubt
+that if Alexander had been opposed by real Persians, the men of the
+Arian stock, whom Cyrus led to victory, the issue of the battle of
+Arbela would have been very different. Or if Rome, in her decadence, had
+possessed soldiers and senators like those of the time of Fabius,
+Scipio, and Cato, would she have fallen so easy a prey to the barbarians
+of the North?
+
+It will be objected that, even had the integrity of the original blood
+remained intact, a time must have come when they would find their
+masters. They would have succumbed under a series of well-combined
+attacks, a long-continued overwhelming pressure, or simply by the
+chances of a lost battle. The political edifice might have been
+destroyed in this manner, not the civilization, not the social
+organization. Invasion and defeat would have been reverses, sad ones,
+indeed, but not irremediable. There is no want of facts to confirm this
+assertion.
+
+In modern times, the Chinese have suffered two complete conquests. In
+each case they have imposed their manners and their institutions upon
+the conquerors; they have given them much, and received but little in
+return. The first invaders, after having undergone this change, were
+expelled; the same fate is now threatening the second.[59] In this case
+the vanquished were intellectually and numerically superior to their
+victors. I shall mention another case where the victors, though
+intellectually superior, are not possessed of sufficient numerical
+strength to transform the intellectual and moral character of the
+vanquished.
+
+The political supremacy of the British in Hindostan is perfect, yet they
+exert little or no moral influence over the masses they govern. All that
+the utmost exertion of their power can effect upon the fears of their
+subjects, is an outward compliance. The notions of the Hindoo cannot be
+replaced by European ideas--the spirit of Hindoo civilization cannot be
+conquered by any power, however great, of the law. Political forms may
+change, and do change, without materially affecting the basis upon which
+they rest; Hyderabad, Lahore, and Delhi may cease to be capitals: Hindoo
+society will subsist, nevertheless. A time must come, sooner or later,
+when India will regain a separate political existence, and publicly
+proclaim those laws of her own, which she now secretly obeys, or of
+which she is tacitly left in possession.
+
+The mere accident of conquest cannot destroy the principle of vitality
+in a people. At most, it may suspend for a time the exterior
+manifestations of that vitality, and strip it of its outward honors. But
+so long as the blood, and consequently the culture of a nation, exhibit
+sufficiently strong traces of the initiatory race, that nation exists;
+and whether it has to deal, like the Chinese, with conquerors who are
+superior only materially; or whether, like the Hindoos, it maintains a
+struggle of patience against a race much superior in every respect; that
+nation may rest assured of its future--independence will dawn for it one
+day. On the contrary, when a nation has completely exhausted the
+initiatory ethnical element, defeat is certain death; it has consumed
+the term of existence which Heaven had granted it--its destiny is
+fulfilled.[60]
+
+I, therefore, consider the question as settled, which has been so often
+discussed, as to what would have been the result, if the Carthaginians,
+instead of succumbing to the fortune of Rome, had conquered Italy. As
+they belonged to the Phenician family, a stock greatly inferior to the
+Italian in political capacity, they would have been absorbed by the
+superior race after the victory, precisely as they were after the
+defeat. The final result, therefore, would have been the same in either
+case.
+
+The destiny of civilizations is not ruled by accident; it depends not on
+the issue of a battle, a thrust of a sword, the favors or frowns of
+fickle fortune. The most warlike, formidable, and triumphant nations,
+when they were distinguished for nothing but bravery, strategical
+science, and military successes, have never had a nobler fate than that
+of learning from their subjects, perhaps too late, the art of living in
+peace. The Celts, the nomad hordes of Central Asia, are memorable
+illustrations of this truth.
+
+The whole of my demonstration now rests upon one hypothesis, the proof
+of which I have reserved for the succeeding chapters: THE MORAL AND
+INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITIES OF THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF THE HUMAN FAMILY.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[52] The author has neglected to advert to one very clear explanation of
+this word, which, from its extensive popularity, seems to me to deserve
+some notice. It is said, and very commonly believed, that there is a
+physical degeneracy in mankind; that a nation cultivating for a long
+time the arts of peace, and enjoying the fruits of well-directed
+industry, loses the capacity for warfare; in other words becomes
+effeminate, and, consequently, less capable of defending itself against
+ruder, and, therefore, more warlike invaders. It is further said, though
+with less plausibility, that there is a general degeneracy of the human
+race--that we are inferior in physical strength to our ancestors, etc.
+If this theory could be supported by incontestable facts--and there are
+many who think it possible--it would give to the term degeneracy that
+real and tangible meaning which the author alleges to be wanting. But a
+slight investigation will demonstrate that it is more specious than
+correct.
+
+In the first place, to prove that an advance in civilization does not
+lessen the material puissance of a nation, but rather increases it, we
+may point to the well-known fact that the most civilized nations are the
+most formidable opponents in warfare, because they have brought the
+means of attack and defence to the greatest perfection.
+
+But that for this strength they are not solely indebted to artificial
+means, is proved by the history of modern civilized states. The French
+now fight with as much martial ardor and intrepidity, and with more
+success than they did in the times of Francis I. or Louis XIV., albeit
+they have since both these epochs made considerable progress in
+civilization, and this progress has been most perceptible in those
+classes which form the bulk and body of armies. England, though,
+perhaps, she could not muster an army as large as in former times, has
+hearts as stout, and arms as strong as those that gained for her
+imperishable glory at Agincourt and Poitiers. The charge at Balaklava,
+rash and useless as it may be termed, was worthy of the followers of the
+Black Prince.
+
+A theory to be correct, must admit of mathematical demonstration. The
+most civilized nations, then, would be the most effeminate; the most
+barbarous, the most warlike. And, descending from nations to
+individuals, the most cultivated and refined mind would be accompanied
+by a deficiency in many of the manly virtues. Such an assertion is
+ridiculous. The most refined and fastidious gentleman has never, as a
+class, displayed less courage and fortitude than the rowdy and fighter
+by profession. Men sprung from the bosom of the most polished circles in
+the most civilized communities, have surpassed the most warlike
+barbarians in deeds of hardihood and heroic valor.
+
+Civilization, therefore, produces no degeneracy; the cultivation of the
+arts of peace, no diminution of manly virtues. We have seen the peaceful
+burghers of free cities successfully resist the trained bands of a
+superior foe; we have seen the artisans and merchants of Holland
+invincible to the veteran armies of the then most powerful prince of
+Christendom, backed as he was by the inexhaustible treasures of a newly
+discovered hemisphere; we have seen, in our times, troops composed of
+volunteers who left their hearthstones to fight for their country, rout
+incredible odds of the standing armies of a foe, who, for the last
+thirty years, has known no peace.
+
+I believe that an advanced state of civilization, accompanied by long
+peace, gives rise to a certain _domestication_ of man, that is to say,
+it lays on a polish over the more ferocious or pugnacious tendencies of
+his nature; because it, in some measure deprives him of the
+opportunities of exercising them, but it cannot deprive him of the
+power, should the opportunity present itself. Let us suppose two
+brothers born in some of our great commercial cities, one to enter a
+counting-house, the other to settle in the western wilderness. The
+former might become a polished, elegant, perhaps even dandified young
+gentleman; the other might evince a supreme contempt for all the
+amenities of life, be ever ready to draw his bowie-knife or revolver,
+however slight the provocation. The country requires the services of
+both; a great principle is at stake, and in some battle of Matamoras or
+Buena Vista, the two brothers fight side by side; who will be the
+braver?
+
+I believe that both individual and national character admit of a certain
+degree of pressure by surrounding circumstances; the pressure removed,
+the character at once regains its original form. See with what
+kindliness the civilized descendant of the wild Teuton hunter takes to
+the hunter's life in new countries, and how soon he learns to despise
+the comforts of civilized life and fix his abode in the solitary
+wilderness. The Normans had been settled over six centuries in the
+beautiful province of France, to which they gave their name; their
+nobles had frequented the most polished court in Europe, adapted
+themselves to the fashions and requirements of life in a luxurious
+metropolis; they themselves had learned to plough the soil instead of
+the wave; yet in another hemisphere they at once regained their ancient
+habits, and--as six hundred years before--became the most dreaded
+pirates of the seas they infested; the savage buccaneers of the Spanish
+main. I can see no difference between Lolonnois and his followers, and
+the terrible men of the north (his lineal ancestors) that ravaged the
+shores of the Seine and the Rhine, and whose name is even yet mentioned
+with horror every evening, in the other hemisphere, by thousands of
+praying children: "God preserve us from the Northmen." Morgan, the Welch
+buccaneer, who, with a thousand men, vanquished five times as many
+well-equipped Spaniards, took their principal cities, Porto Bello and
+Panama; who tortured his captives to make them reveal the hiding-place
+of their treasure; Morgan might have been--sixteen centuries
+notwithstanding--a tributary chief to Caractacus, or one of those who
+opposed Caesar's landing in Britain. To make the resemblance still more
+complete, the laws and regulations of these lawless bands were a precise
+copy of those to which their not more savage ancestors bound themselves.
+
+I regret that my limited space precludes me from entering into a more
+elaborate exposition of the futility of the theory that civilization, or
+a long continued state of peace, can produce physical degeneracy or
+inaptitude for the ruder duties of the battle-field; but I believe that
+what I have said will suffice to suggest to the thoughtful reader
+numerous confirmations of my position; and I may, therefore, now refer
+him to Mr. Gobineau's explanation of the term degeneracy.--H.
+
+[53] "Nothing but the great number of citizens in a state can occasion
+the flourishing of the arts and sciences. Accordingly, we see that, in
+all ages, it was great empires only which enjoyed this advantage. In
+these great states, the arts, especially that of agriculture, were soon
+brought to great perfection, and thus that leisure afforded to a
+considerable number of men, which is so necessary to study and
+speculation. The Babylonians, Assyrians, and Egyptians, had the
+advantage of being formed into regular, well-constituted
+states."--_Origin of Laws and Sciences, and their Progress among the
+most Ancient Nations._ By President DE GOGUET. Edinburgh, 1761, vol. i.
+pp. 272-273.--H.
+
+[54] "Conquests, by uniting many nations under one sovereign, have
+formed great and powerful empires, out of the ruins of many petty
+states. In these great empires, men began insensibly to form clearer
+views of politics, juster and more salutary notions of government.
+Experience taught them to avoid the errors which had occasioned the ruin
+of the nations whom they had subdued, and put them upon taking measures
+to prevent surprises, invasions, and the like misfortunes. With these
+views they fortified cities, secured such passes as might have admitted
+an enemy into their country, and kept a certain number of troops
+constantly on foot. By these precautions, several States rendered
+themselves formidable to their neighbors, and none durst lightly attack
+powers which were every way so respectable. The interior parts of such
+mighty monarchies were no longer exposed to ravages and devastations.
+War was driven far from the centre, and only infected the frontiers. The
+inhabitants of the country, and of the cities, began to breathe in
+safety. The calamities which conquests and revolutions had occasioned,
+disappeared; but the blessings which had grown out of them, remained.
+Ingenious and active spirits, encouraged by the repose which they
+enjoyed, devoted themselves to study. _It was in the bosom of great
+empires the arts were invented, and the sciences had their
+birth._"--_Op. cit._, vol. i. Book 5, p. 326.--H.
+
+[55] The history of every great empire proves the correctness of this
+remark. The conqueror never attempted to change the manners or local
+institutions of the peoples subdued, but contented himself with an
+acknowledgment of his supremacy, the payment of tribute, and the
+rendering of assistance in war. Those who have pursued a contrary
+course, may be likened to an overflowing river, which, though it leaves
+temporary marks of its destructive course behind, must, sooner or later,
+return to its bed, and, in a short time, its invasions are forgotten,
+and their traces obliterated.--H.
+
+[56] The most striking illustration of the correctness of this
+reasoning, is found in Roman history, the earlier portion of which
+is--thanks to Niebuhr's genius--just beginning to be understood. The
+lawless followers of Romulus first coalesced with the Sabines; the two
+nations united, then compelled the Albans to raze their city to the
+ground, and settle in Rome. Next came the Latins, to whom, also, a
+portion of the city was allotted for settlement. These two conquered
+nations were, of course, not permitted the same civil and political
+privileges as the conquerors, and, with the exception of a few noble
+families among them (which probably had been, from the beginning, in the
+interests of the conquerors), these tribes formed the _plebs_. The
+distinction by nations was forgotten, and had become a distinction of
+_classes_. Then began the progress which Mr. Gobineau describes. The
+Plebeians first gained their _tribunes_, who could protect their
+interests against the one-sided legislation of the dominant class; then,
+the right of discussing and deciding certain public questions in the
+_comitia_, or public assembly. Next, the law prohibiting intermarriage
+between the Patricians and Plebeians was repealed; and thus, in course
+of time, the government changed from an oligarchical to a democratic
+form. I might go into details, or, I might mention other nations in
+which the same process is equally manifest, but I think the above
+well-known facts sufficient to bring the author's idea into a clear
+light, and illustrate its correctness. The history of the Middle Ages,
+the establishment of serfdom and its gradual abolition, also furnish an
+analogue.
+
+Wherever we see an hereditary aristocracy (whether called class or
+caste), it will be found to originate in a race, which, if no longer
+_dominant_, was once conqueror. Before the Norman conquest, the English
+aristocracy was _Saxon_, there were no nobles of the ancient British
+blood, east of Wales; after the conquest, the aristocracy was _Norman_,
+and nine-tenths of the noble families of England to this day trace, or
+pretend to trace, their origin to that stock. The noble French families,
+anterior to the Revolution, were almost all of _Frankish_ or
+_Burgundian_ origin. The same observation applies everywhere else. In
+support of my opinion, I have Niebuhr's great authority: "Wherever there
+are castes, they are the consequence of foreign conquest and
+subjugation; it is impossible for a nation to submit to such a system,
+unless it be compelled by the calamities of a conquest. By this means
+only it is, that, contrary to the will of a people, circumstances arise
+which afterwards assume the character of a division into classes or
+castes."--_Lect. on Anc. Hist._ (In the English translation, this
+passage occurs in vol. i. p. 90.)
+
+In conclusion, I would observe that, whenever it becomes politic to
+flatter the mass of the people, the fact of conquest is denied. Thus,
+English writers labored hard to prove that William the Norman did not,
+in reality, conquer the Saxons. Some time before the French Revolution,
+the same was attempted to be proved in the case of the Germanic tribes
+in France. L'Abbe du Bos, and other writers, taxed their ingenuity to
+disguise an obvious fact, and to hide the truth under a pile of
+ponderous volumes.--H.
+
+[57] "It has been a favorite thesis with many writers, to pretend that
+the Saxon government was, at the time of the conquest, by no means
+subverted; that William of Normandy legally acceded to the throne, and,
+consequently, to the engagements of the Saxon kings.... But, if we
+consider that the manner in which the public power is formed in a state,
+is so very essential a part of its government, and that a thorough
+change in this respect was introduced into England by the conquest, we
+shall not scruple to allow that a _new government_ was established. Nay,
+as almost the whole landed property in the kingdom was, at that time,
+transferred to other hands, a new system of criminal justice introduced,
+and the language of the law moreover altered, the revolution may be said
+to have been such as is not, perhaps, to be paralleled in the history of
+any other country."--DE LOLME'S _English Constitution_, c. i., _note_
+c.--"The battle of Hastings, and the events which followed it, not only
+placed a Duke of Normandy on the English throne, but gave up the whole
+population of England to the tyranny of the Norman race. The subjugation
+of a nation has seldom, even in Asia, been more complete."--MACAULAY'S
+_History of England_, vol. i. p. 10.--H.
+
+[58] This assertion seems self-evident; it may, however, be not
+altogether irrelevant to the subject, to direct attention to a few facts
+in illustration of it. Great national calamities like wars,
+proscriptions, and revolutions, are like thunderbolts, striking mostly
+the objects of greatest elevation. We have seen that a conquering race
+generally, for a long time even after the conquest has been forgotten,
+forms an aristocracy, which generally monopolizes the prominent
+positions. In great political convulsions, this aristocracy suffers
+most, often in numbers, and always in proportion. Thus, at the battle of
+Cannae, from 5,000 to 6,000 Roman knights are said to have been slain,
+and, at all times, the officer's dress has furnished the most
+conspicuous, and at the same time the most important target for the
+death-dealing stroke. In those fearful proscriptions, in which Sylla and
+Marius vied with each other in wholesale slaughter, the number of
+victims included two hundred senators and thirty-three ex-consuls. That
+the major part of the rest were prominent men, and therefore patricians,
+is obvious from the nature of this persecution. Revolutions are most
+often, though not always, produced by a fermentation among the mass of
+the population, who have a heavy score to settle against a class that
+has domineered and tyrannized over them. Their fury, therefore, is
+directed against this aristocracy. I have now before me a curious
+document (first published in the _Prussian State-Gazette_, in
+1828, and for which I am indebted to a little German volume, _Das
+Menschengeschlecht auf seinem Gegenwaertigen Standpuncte_, by
+SMIDT-PHISELDECK), giving a list of the victims that fell under the
+guillotine by sentence of the revolutionary tribunal, from August, 1792,
+to the 27th of July, 1794, in a little less than two years. The number
+of victims there given is 2,774. Of these, 941 are of rank unknown. The
+remaining 1,833 may be divided in the following proportions:--
+
+ 1,084 highest nobility (princes, dukes, marshals of France, generals,
+ and other officers, etc. etc.)
+ 636 of the gentry (members of Parliament, judges, etc. etc.)
+ 113 of the bourgeoisie (including non-commissioned officers and
+ soldiers.)
+ -----
+ 1,833
+
+Such facts require no comments.--H.
+
+[59] The recent insurrection in China has given rise to a great deal of
+speculation, and various are the opinions that have been formed
+respecting it. But it is now pretty generally conceded that it is a
+great national movement, and, therefore, must ultimately be successful.
+The history of this insurrection, by Mr. Callery and Dr. Ivan (one the
+interpreter, and the other the physician of the French embassy in China,
+and both well known and reliable authorities) leaves no doubt upon the
+subject. One of the most significant signs in this movement is the
+cutting off the tails, and letting the hair grow, which is being
+practised, says Dr. Ivan, in all the great cities, and in the very teeth
+of the mandarins. (_Ins. in China_, p. 243.) Let not the reader smile at
+this seemingly puerile demonstration, or underrate its importance.
+Apparently trivial occurrences are often the harbingers of the most
+important events. Were I to see in the streets of Berlin or Vienna, men
+with long beards or hats of a certain shape, I should know that serious
+troubles are to be expected; and in proportion to the number of such
+men, I should consider the catastrophe more or less near at hand, and
+the monarch's crown in danger. When the Lombard stops smoking in the
+streets, he meditates a revolution; and France is comparatively safe,
+even though every street in Paris is barricaded, and blood flows in
+torrents; but when bands march through the streets singing the _ca ira_,
+we know that to-morrow the _Red Republic_ will be proclaimed. All these
+are silent, but expressive demonstrations of the prevalence of a certain
+principle among the masses. Such a one is the cutting off of the tail
+among the Chinese. Nor is this a mere emblem. The shaved crown and the
+tail are the brands of conquest, a mark of degradation imposed by the
+Mantchoos on the subjugated race. The Chinese have never abandoned the
+hope of one day expelling their conquerors, as they did already once
+before. "Ever since the fall of the Mings," says Dr. Ivan, "and the
+accession of the Mantchoo dynasty, clandestine associations--these
+intellectual laboratories of declining states--have been incessantly in
+operation. The most celebrated of these secret societies, that of the
+Triad, or the _three principles_, commands so extensive and powerful an
+organization, that its members may be found throughout China, and
+wherever the Chinese emigrate; so that there is no great exaggeration in
+the Chinese saying: 'When three of us are together, the Triad is among
+us.'" (_Hist. of the Insur. in Ch._, p. 112.) Again, the writer says:
+"The revolutionary impetus is now so strong, the affairs of the
+pretender or chief of the insurrection in so prosperous a condition,
+that the success of his cause has nothing to fear from the loss of a
+battle. It would require a series of unprecedented reverses to ruin his
+hopes" (p. 243 and 245).
+
+I have written this somewhat lengthy note to show that Mr. Gobineau
+makes no rash assertion, when he says that the Mantchoos are about to
+experience the same fate as their Tartar predecessors.--H.
+
+[60] The author might have mentioned Russia in illustration of his
+position. The star of no nation that we are acquainted with has suffered
+an eclipse so total and so protracted, nor re-appeared with so much
+brilliancy. Russia, whose history so many believe to date from the time
+of Peter the Great only, was one of the earliest actors on the stage of
+modern history. Its people had adopted Christianity when our forefathers
+were yet heathens; its princes formed matrimonial alliances with the
+monarchs of Byzantine Rome, while Charlemagne was driving the reluctant
+Saxon barbarians by thousands into rivers to be baptized _en masse_.
+Russia had magnificent cities before Paris was more than a collection of
+hovels on a small island of the Seine. Its monarchs actually
+contemplated, and not without well-founded hopes, the conquest of
+Constantinople, while the Norman barges were devastating the coasts and
+river-shores of Western Europe. Nay, to that far-off, almost polar
+region, the enterprise of the inhabitants had attracted the genius of
+commerce and its attendants, prosperity and abundance. One of the
+greatest commercial cities of the first centuries after Christ, one of
+the first of the Hanse-Towns, was the great city of Novogorod, the
+capital of a republic that furnished three hundred thousand fighting
+men. But the east of Europe was not destined to outstrip the west in the
+great race of progress. The millions of Tartars, that, locust-like--but
+more formidable--marked their progress by hopeless devastation, had
+converted the greater portion of Asia into a desert, and now sought a
+new field for their savage exploits. Russia stood the first brunt, and
+its conquest exhausted the strength of the ruthless foe, and saved
+Western Europe from overwhelming ruin. In the beginning of the
+thirteenth century, five hundred thousand Tartar horsemen crossed the
+Ural Mountains. Slow, but gradual, was their progress. The Russian
+armies were trampled down by this countless cavalry. But the resistance
+must have been a brave and vigorous one, for few of the invaders lived
+long enough to see the conquest. Not until after a desperate struggle of
+fifty years, did Russia acknowledge a Tartar master. Nor were the
+conquerors even then allowed to enjoy their prize in peace. For two
+centuries more, the Russians never remitted their efforts to regain
+their independence. Each generation transmitted to its posterity the
+remembrance of that precious treasure, and the care of reconquering it.
+Nor were their efforts unsuccessful. Year after year the Tartars saw the
+prize gliding from their grasp, and towards the end of the fifteenth
+century, we find them driven to the banks of the Volga, and the coasts
+of the Black Sea. Russia now began to breathe again. But, lo! during the
+long struggle, Pole and Swede had vied with the Tartar in stripping her
+of her fairest domains. Her territory extended scarce two hundred miles,
+in any direction from Moscow. Her very name was unknown. Western Europe
+had forgotten her. The same causes that established the feudal system
+there, had, in the course of two centuries and a half, changed a nation
+of freemen into a nation of serfs. The arts of peace were lost, the
+military element had gained an undue preponderance, and a band of
+soldiers, like the Pretorian Guards of Rome, made and deposed
+sovereigns, and shook the state to its very foundations. Yet here and
+there a vigorous monarch appeared, who controlled the fierce element,
+and directed it to the weal of the state. Smolensk, the fairest portion
+of the ancient Russian domain, was re-conquered from the Pole. The
+Swede, also, was forced to disgorge a portion of his spoils. But it was
+reserved for Peter the Great and his successors to restore to Russia the
+rank she had once held, and to which she was entitled.
+
+I will not further trespass on the patience of the reader, now that we
+have arrived at that portion of Russian history which many think the
+first. I would merely observe that not only did Peter add to his empire
+no territory that had not formerly belonged to it, but even Catharine,
+at the first partition of Poland (I speak not of the subsequent ones),
+merely re-united to her dominion what once were integral portions. The
+rapid growth of Russia, since she has reassumed her station among the
+nations of the earth, is well known. Cities have sprung up in places
+where once the nomad had pitched his tent. A great capital, the
+handsomest in the world, has risen from the marsh, within one hundred
+and fifty years after the founder, whose name it perpetuates, had laid
+the first stone. Another has risen from the ashes, within less than a
+decade of years from the time when--a holocaust on the altar of
+patriotism--its flames announced to the world the vengeance of a nation
+on an intemperate aggressor.
+
+Truly, it seems to me, that Mr. Gobineau could not have chosen a better
+illustration of his position, that the mere accident of conquest can not
+annihilate a nation, than this great empire, in whose history conquest
+forms so terrible and so long an episode, that the portion anterior to
+it is almost forgotten to this day.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF RACES IS NOT THE RESULT OF
+POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.
+
+ Antipathy of races--Results of their mixture--The scientific axiom of
+ the absolute equality of men, but an extension of the
+ political--Its fallacy--Universal belief in unequal endowment of
+ races--The moral and intellectual diversity of races not
+ attributable to institutions--Indigenous institutions are the
+ expression of popular sentiments; when foreign and imported, they
+ never prosper--Illustrations: England and France--Roman
+ Empire--European Colonies--Sandwich Islands--St. Domingo--Jesuit
+ missions in Paraguay.
+
+
+The idea of an innate and permanent difference in the moral and mental
+endowments of the various groups of the human species, is one of the
+most ancient, as well as universally adopted, opinions. With few
+exceptions, and these mostly in our own times, it has formed the basis
+of almost all political theories, and has been the fundamental maxim of
+government of every nation, great or small. The prejudices of country
+have no other cause; each nation believes in its own superiority over
+its neighbors, and very often different parts of the same nation regard
+each other with contempt. There seems to exist an instinctive antipathy
+among the different races, and even among the subdivisions of the same
+race, of which none is entirely exempt, but which acts with the greatest
+force in the least civilized or least civilizable. We behold it in the
+characteristic suspiciousness and hostility of the savage; in the
+isolation from foreign influence and intercourse of the Chinese and
+Japanese; in the various distinctions founded upon birth in more
+civilized communities, such as castes, orders of nobility and
+aristocratic privileges.[61] Not even a common religion can extinguish
+the hereditary aversion of the Arab[62] to the Turk, of the Kurd to the
+Nestorian of Syria; or the bitter hostility of the Magyar and Sclave,
+who, without intermingling, have inhabited the same country for
+centuries. But as the different types lose their purity and become
+blended, this hostility of race abates; the maxim of absolute and
+permanent inequality is first discussed, then doubted. A man of mixed
+race or caste will not be apt to admit disparity in his double ancestry.
+The superiority of particular types, and their consequent claims to
+dominion, find fewer advocates. This dominion is stigmatized as a
+tyrannical usurpation of power.[63] The mixture of castes gives rise to
+the political axiom that all men are equal, and, therefore, entitled to
+the same rights. Indeed, since there are no longer any distinct
+hereditary classes, none can justly claim superior merit and privileges.
+But this assertion, which is true only where a complete fusion has taken
+place, is applied to the whole human race--to all present, past, and
+future generations. The political axiom of equality which, like the bag
+of Aeolus, contains so many tempests, is soon followed by the scientific.
+It is said--and the more heterogeneous the ethnical elements of a
+nation are, the more extensively the theory gains ground--that, "all
+branches of the human family are endowed with intellectual capacities of
+the same nature, which, though in different stages of development, are
+all equally susceptible of improvement." This is not, perhaps, the
+precise language, but certainly the meaning. Thus, the Huron, by proper
+culture, might become the equal of the Englishman and Frenchman. Why,
+then, I would ask, did he never, in the course of centuries, invent the
+art of printing or apply the power of steam; why, among the warriors of
+his tribe, has there never arisen a Caesar or a Charlemagne, among his
+bards and medicine-men, a Homer or a Hippocrates?
+
+These questions are generally met by advancing the influence of climate,
+local circumstances, etc. An island, it is said, can never be the
+theatre of great social and political developments in the same measure
+as a continent; the natives of a southern clime will not display the
+energy of those of the north; seacoasts and large navigable rivers will
+promote a civilization which could never have flourished in an inland
+region;--and a great deal more to the same purpose. But all these
+ingenious and plausible hypotheses are contradicted by facts. The same
+soil and the same climate have been visited, alternately, by barbarism
+and civilization. The degraded fellah is charred by the same sun which
+once burnt the powerful priest of Memphis; the learned professor of
+Berlin lectures under the same inclement sky that witnessed the miseries
+of the savage Finn.
+
+What is most curious is, that while the belief of equality may influence
+institutions and manners, there is not a nation, nor an individual but
+renders homage to the contrary sentiment. Who has not heard of the
+distinctive traits of the Frenchman, the German, the Spaniard, the
+English, the Russ. One is called sprightly and volatile, but brave; the
+other is sober and meditative; a third is noted for his gravity; a
+fourth is known by his coldness and reserve, and his eagerness of gain;
+a fifth, on the contrary, is notorious for reckless expense. I shall not
+express any opinion upon the accuracy of these distinctions, I merely
+point out that they are made daily and adopted by common consent. The
+same has been done in all ages. The Roman of Italy distinguished the
+Roman of Greece by the epithet _Graeculus_, and attributed to him, as
+characteristic peculiarities, want of courage and boastful loquacity. He
+laughed at the colonist of Carthage, whom he pretended to recognize
+among thousands by his litigious spirit and bad faith. The Alexandrians
+passed for wily, insolent, and seditious. Yet the doctrine of equality
+was as universally received among the Romans of that period as it is
+among ourselves. If, then, various nations display qualities so
+different; if some are eager for war and glory; others, lovers of their
+ease and comfort, it follows that their destinies must be very diverse.
+The strongest will act in the great tragedy of history the roles of
+kings and heroes, the weaker will be content with the humbler parts.
+
+I do not believe that the ingenuity of our times has succeeded in
+reconciling the universally adopted belief in the special character of
+each nation with the no less general conviction that they are all equal.
+Yet this contradiction is very flagrant, the more so as its partisans
+are not behindhand in extolling the superiority of the Anglo-Saxons of
+North America over all the other nations of the same continent. It is
+true that they ascribe that superiority to the influence of political
+institutions. But they will hardly contest the characteristic aptitude
+of the countrymen of Penn and Washington, to establish wherever they go
+liberal forms of government, and their still more valuable ability to
+preserve them, when once established. Is not this a very high
+prerogative allotted to that branch of the human family? the more
+precious, since so few of the groups that have ever inhabited the globe
+possessed it.
+
+I know that my opponents will not allow me an easy victory. They will
+object to me the immense potency of manners and institutions; they will
+show me how much the spirit of the government, by its inherent and
+irresistible force, influences the development of a nation; how vastly
+different will be its progress when fostered by liberty or crushed by
+despotism. This argument, however, by no means invalidates my position.
+
+Political institutions can have but two origins: either they emanate
+from the people which is to be governed by them, or they are the
+invention of a foreign nation, by whom they are imposed, or from whom
+they are copied.
+
+In the former case, the institutions are necessarily moulded upon the
+instincts and wants of the people; and if, through carelessness or
+ignorance, they are in aught incompatible with either, such defects will
+soon be removed or remedied. In every independent community the law may
+be said to emanate from the people; for though they have not apparently
+the power of promulgating it, it cannot be applicable to them unless it
+is consonant with their views and sentiments: it must be the reflex of
+the national character.[64] The wise law-giver, to whose superior genius
+his countrymen seem solely indebted, has but given a voice to the wants
+and desires of all. The mere theorist, like Draco, finds his code a dead
+letter, and destined soon to give place to the institutions of the more
+judicious philosopher who would give to his compatriots "not the best
+laws possible, but such only as they were capable of receiving." When
+Charles I., guided by the fatal counsels of the Earl of Strafford,
+attempted to curb the English nation under the yoke of absolutism, king
+and minister were treading the bloody quagmire of theories. But when
+Ferdinand the Catholic ordered those terrible, but, in the then
+condition of the nation, politically necessary persecutions of the
+Spanish Moors, or when Napoleon re-established religion and authority in
+France, and flattered the military spirit of the nation--both these
+potentates had rightly understood the genius of their subjects, and were
+building upon a solid and practical foundation.
+
+False institutions, often beautiful on paper, are those which are not
+conformed to the national virtues _or failings_, and consequently
+unsuitable to the country, though perhaps perfectly practicable and
+highly useful in a neighboring state. Such institutions, were they
+borrowed from the legislation of the angels, will produce nothing but
+discord and anarchy. Others, on the contrary, which the theorist will
+eschew, and the moralist blame in many points, or perhaps throughout,
+may be the best adapted to the community. Lycurgus was no theorist; his
+laws were in strict accordance with the spirit and manners of his
+countrymen.[65] The Dorians of Sparta were few in number, valiant, and
+rapacious; false institutions would have made them but petty
+villains--Lycurgus changed them into heroic brigands.[66]
+
+The influence of laws and political institutions is certainly very
+great; they preserve and invigorate the genius of a nation, define its
+objects, and help to attain them; but though they may develop powers,
+they cannot create them where they do not already exist. They first
+receive their imprint from the nation, and then return and confirm it.
+In other words, it is the nation that fashions the laws, before the
+laws, in turn, can fashion the nation. Another proof of this fact are
+the changes and modifications which they undergo in the course of time.
+
+I have already said above, that in proportion as nations advance in
+civilization, and extend their territory and power, their ethnical
+character, and, with it, their instincts, undergo a gradual alteration.
+New manners and new tendencies prevail, and soon give rise to a series
+of modifications, the more frequent and radical as the influx of blood
+becomes greater and the fusion more complete.
+
+England, where the ethnical changes have been slower and less
+considerable than in any other European country, preserves to this day
+the basis of the social system of the fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries. The municipal organization of the times of the Plantagenets
+and the Tudors flourishes in almost all its ancient vigor. There is the
+same participation of the nobility in the government, and the same
+manner of composing that nobility; the same respect for ancient
+families, united to an appreciation of those whose merits raise them
+above their class. Since the accession of James I., and still more
+since the union, in Queen Anne's reign, there has indeed been an influx
+of Scotch and Irish blood; foreign nations have also, though
+imperceptibly, furnished their contingent to the mixture; alterations
+have consequently become more frequent of late, but without, as yet,
+touching the original spirit of the constitution.
+
+In France, the ethnical elements are much more numerous, and their
+mixtures more varied; and there it has repeatedly happened that the
+principal power of the state passed suddenly from the hands of one race
+to those of another. Changes, rather than modifications, have therefore
+taken place in the social and political system; and the changes were
+abrupt or radical, in proportion as these races were more or less
+dissimilar. So long as the north of France, where the Germanic element
+prevailed, preponderated in the policy of the country, the fabric of
+feudalism, or rather its inform remains, maintained their ground. After
+the expulsion of the English in the fifteenth century, the provinces of
+the centre took the lead. Their efforts, under the guidance of Charles
+VII., had recently restored the national independence, and the
+Gallo-Roman blood naturally predominated in camp and council. From this
+time dates the introduction of the taste for military life and foreign
+conquests, peculiar to the Celtic race, and the tendency to concentrate
+and consolidate the sovereign authority, which characterized the Roman.
+The road being thus prepared, the next step towards the establishment of
+absolute power was made at the end of the sixteenth century, by the
+Aquitanian followers of Henry IV., who had still more of the Roman than
+of the Celtic blood in their veins. The centralization of power,
+resulting from the ascendency of the southern populations, soon gave
+Paris an overweening preponderance, and finally made it, what it now is,
+the sovereign of the state. This great capital, this modern Babel, whose
+population is a motley compound of all the most varied ethnical
+elements, no longer had any motive to love or respect any tradition or
+peculiar tendency, and, coming to a complete rupture with the past,
+hurried France into a series of political and social experiments of
+doctrines the most remote from, and repulsive to, the ancient customs
+and traditional tendencies of the realm.
+
+These examples seem to me sufficient to prove that political
+institutions, when not imposed by foreign influence, take their mould
+from the national character, not only in the first place, but throughout
+all subsequent changes. Let us now examine the second case, when a
+foreign code is, _nolens volens_, forced upon a nation by a superior
+power.
+
+There are few instances of such attempts. Indeed, they were never made
+on a grand scale, by any truly sagacious governments of either ancient
+or modern times. The Romans were too politic to indulge in such
+hazardous experiments. Alexander, before them, had never ventured it,
+and his successors, convinced, either by reason or instinct, of the
+futility of such efforts, had been contented to reign, like the
+conqueror of Darius, over a vast mosaic of nations, each of which
+retained its own habits, manners, laws, and administrative forms, and,
+at least so long as it preserved its ethnical identity, resembled its
+fellow-subjects in nothing but submission to the same fiscal and
+military regulations.
+
+There were, it is true, among the nations subdued by the Romans, some
+whose codes contained practices so utterly repugnant to their masters,
+that the latter could not possibly have tolerated them. Such were the
+human sacrifices of the Druids, which were, indeed, visited with the
+severest penalties. But the Romans, with all their power, never
+succeeded in completely extirpating this barbarous rite. In the
+Narbonnese, the victory was easy, for the Gallic population had been
+almost completely replaced by Roman colonists; but the more intact
+tribes of the interior provinces made an obstinate resistance; and, in
+the peninsula of Brittany, where, in the fourth century, a British
+colony re-imported the ancient instincts with the ancient blood, the
+population, in spite of the Romans, continued, either from patriotism or
+veneration for their ancient traditions, to butcher fellow-beings on
+their altars, as often as they could elude the vigilance of their
+masters. All revolts began with the restoration of this fearful feature
+of the national creed, and even Christianity could not entirely efface
+its traces, until after protracted and strenuous efforts. As late as the
+seventeenth century, the shipwrecked were murdered, and wrecks plundered
+in all the maritime provinces where the Kimric blood had preserved
+itself unmixed. These barbarous customs were in accordance with the
+manners of a race which, not being yet sufficiently admixed, still
+remained true to its irrepressible instincts.
+
+One characteristic of European civilization is its intolerance.
+Conscious of its pre-eminence, we are prone to deny the existence of any
+other, or, at least, to consider it as the standard of all. We look with
+supreme contempt upon all nations that are not within its pale, and when
+they fall under our influence, we attempt to convert them to our views
+and modes of thinking. Institutions which we know to be good and useful,
+but which persuasion fails to propagate among nations to whose instincts
+they are foreign, we force upon them by the power of our arms. Where are
+the results? Since the sixteenth century, when the European spirit of
+discovery and conquest penetrated to the east, it does not seem to have
+operated the slightest change in the manners and mode of existence of
+the populations which it subjected.
+
+I have already adduced the example of British India. All the other
+European possessions present the same spectacle. The aborigines of Java,
+though completely subjugated by the Dutch, have not yet made the first
+step towards embracing the manners of their conquerors. Java, at this
+day, preserves the social regulations of the time of its independence.
+In South America, where Spain ruled with unrestrained power for
+centuries, what effect has it produced? The ancient empires, it is true,
+are no longer; their traces, even, are almost obliterated. But while the
+native has not risen to the level of his conqueror, the latter has been
+degraded by the mixture of blood.[67] In the North, a different method
+has been pursued, but with results equally negative; nay, in the eyes
+of philanthropy, more deplorable; for, while the Spanish Indians have
+at least increased in numbers,[68] and even mixed with their masters, to
+the Red-Man of the North, the contact with the Anglo-Saxon race has been
+death. The feeble remnants of these wretched tribes are fast
+disappearing, and disappearing as uncivilized, as uncivilizable, as
+their ancestors. In Oceanica, the same observation holds good. The
+number of aborigines is daily diminishing. The European may disarm them,
+and prevent them from doing him injury, but change them he cannot.
+Where-ever he is master, they no longer eat one another, but they fill
+themselves with firewater, and this novel species of brutishness is all
+they learn of European civilization.
+
+There are, indeed, two governments framed by nations of a different
+race, after our models: that of the Sandwich Islands, and that of St.
+Domingo. A glance at these two countries will complete the proof of the
+futility of any attempts to give to a nation institutions not suggested
+by its own genius.
+
+In the Sandwich Islands, the representative system shines with full
+lustre. We there find an Upper House, a Lower House, a ministry who
+govern, and a king who reigns; nothing is wanted. Yet all this is mere
+decoration; the wheel-work that moves the whole machine, the
+indispensable motive power, is the corps of missionaries. To them alone
+belongs the honor of finding the ideas, of presenting them, and carrying
+them through, either by their personal influence over their neophytes,
+or, if need be, by threats. It may be doubted, however, whether the
+missionaries, if they had no other instruments but the king and
+chambers, would not, after struggling for a while against the inaptitude
+of their pupils, find themselves compelled to take a more direct, and,
+consequently, more apparent part in the management of affairs. This
+difficulty is obviated by the establishment of a ministry composed of
+Europeans, or half-bloods. Between them and the missionaries, all public
+affairs are prearranged; the rest is only for show. King Kamehameha III.
+is, it seems, a man of ability. For his own account, he has abandoned
+tattooing, and although he has not yet succeeded in dissuading all his
+courtiers from this agreeable practice, he enjoys the satisfaction of
+seeing their countenances adorned with comparatively slight designs. The
+mass of the nation, the country nobility and common people, persist upon
+this as all other points, in the ancient ideas and customs.[69] Still, a
+variety of causes tend to daily increase the European population of the
+Isles. The proximity of California makes them a point of great interest
+to the far-seeing energy of our nations. Runaway sailors, and mutineers,
+are no longer the only white colonists; merchants, speculators,
+adventurers of all sorts, collect there in considerable numbers, build
+houses, and become permanent settlers. The native population is
+gradually becoming absorbed in the mixture with the whites. It is highly
+probable that, ere long, the present representative form of government
+will be superseded by an administration composed of delegates from one
+or all of the great maritime powers.
+
+Of one thing I feel firmly convinced, that these imported institutions
+will take firm root in the country, but the day of their final triumph,
+by a necessary synchronism, will be that of the extinction of the native
+race.
+
+In St. Domingo, national independence is intact. There are no
+missionaries exercising absolute, though concealed, control, no foreign
+ministry governing in the European spirit; everything is left to the
+genius and inspiration of the population. In the Spanish part of the
+island, this population consists of mulattoes. I shall not speak of
+them. They seem to imitate, in some fashion, the simplest and easiest
+features of our civilization. Like all half-breeds, they have a tendency
+to assimilate with that branch of their genealogy which does them most
+honor. They are, therefore, capable of practising, in some degree, our
+usages. The absolute question of the capacity of races cannot be studied
+among them. Let us cross the mountain ridge which separates the republic
+of Dominica from the empire of Hayti.
+
+There we find institutions not only similar to ours, but founded upon
+the most recent maxims of our political wisdom. All that, since sixty
+years, the voice of the most refined liberalism has proclaimed in the
+deliberative assemblies of Europe, all that the most zealous friends of
+the freedom and dignity of man have written, all the declarations of
+rights and principles, have found an echo on the banks of Artibonite. No
+trace of Africa remains in the _written_ laws, or the _official_
+language; the recollections of the land of Ham are _officially_ expunged
+from every mind; once more, the institutions are completely European.
+Let us now examine how they harmonize with the manners.
+
+What a contrast! The manners are as depraved, as beastly, as ferocious
+as in Dahomey[70] or the country of the Fellatahs. The same barbarous
+love of ornament, combined with the same indifference to form; beauty
+consists in color, and provided a garment is of gaudy red, and adorned
+with imitation gold, taste is little concerned with useless attention to
+materials or fitness; and as for cleanliness, this is a superfluity for
+which no one cares. You desire an audience with some high functionary:
+you are ushered into the presence of an athletic negro, stretched on a
+wooden bench, his head wrapped in a dirty, tattered handkerchief, and
+surmounted by a three-cornered hat, profusely decorated with gold. The
+general apparel consists of an embroidered coat (without suitable
+nether-garments), a huge sword, and slippers. You converse with this
+mass of flesh, and are anxious to discover what ideas can occupy a mind
+under so unpromising an exterior. You find an intellect of the lowest
+order combined with the most savage pride, which can be equalled only by
+as profound and incurable a laziness. If the individual before you opens
+his mouth, he will retail all the hackneyed common-places that the
+papers have wearied you with for the last half century. This barbarian
+knows them by heart; he has very different interests, different
+instincts; he has no ideas of his own. He will talk like Baron Holbach,
+reason like Grimm, and at the bottom has no serious care except chewing
+tobacco, drinking spirits, butchering his enemies, and propitiating his
+sorcerers. The rest of the time he sleeps.
+
+The state is divided into two factions, not separated by incompatibility
+of politics, but of color--the negroes and the mulattoes. The latter,
+doubtless, are superior in intelligence, as I have already remarked with
+regard to the Dominicans. The European blood has modified the nature of
+the African, and in a community of whites, with good models constantly
+before their eyes, these men might be converted into useful members of
+society. But, unfortunately, the superiority of numbers belongs at
+present to the negroes, and these, though removed from Africa by several
+generations, are the same as in their native clime. Their supreme
+felicity is idleness; their supreme reason, murder. Among the two
+divisions of the island the most intense hatred has always prevailed.
+The history of independent Hayti is nothing but a long series of
+massacres: massacres of mulattoes by the negroes, when the latter were
+strongest; of the negroes by the mulattoes, when the power was in their
+hands. The institutions, with all their boasted liberality and
+philanthropy, are of no use whatever. They sleep undisturbedly and
+impotently upon the paper on which they were written, and the savage
+instincts of the population reign supreme. Conformably to the law of
+nature which I pointed out before, the negro, who belongs to a race
+exhibiting little aptitude for civilization, entertains the most
+profound horror for all other races. Thus we see the Haytien negroes
+energetically repel the white man from their territory, and forbid him
+even to enter it; they would also drive out the mulattoes, and
+contemplate their ultimate extermination. Hostility to the foreigner is
+the _primum mobile_ of their local policy. Owing to the innate laziness
+of the race, agriculture is abandoned, industry not known even by name,
+commerce drivelling; misery prevents the increase of the population,
+while continual wars, insurrections, and military executions diminish it
+continually. The inevitable and not very remote consequence of such a
+condition of things is to convert into a desert a country whose
+fertility and natural resources enriched generations of planters, which
+in exports and commercial activity surpassed even Cuba.[71]
+
+These examples of St. Domingo and the Sandwich Islands seem to me
+conclusive. I cannot, however, forbear, before definitely leaving the
+subject, from mentioning another analogous fact, the peculiar character
+of which greatly confirms my position. I allude to the attempts of the
+Jesuit missionaries to civilize the natives of Paraguay.[72]
+
+These missionaries, by their exalted intelligence and self-sacrificing
+courage, have excited universal admiration; and the most decided enemies
+of their order have never refused them an unstinted tribute of praise.
+If foreign institutions have ever had the slightest chance of success
+with a nation, these assuredly had it, based as they were upon the
+power of religious feelings, and supported and applied with a tact as
+correct as it was refined. The fathers were of the pretty general
+opinion that barbarism was to nations what childhood is to the
+individual, and that the more savage and untutored we find a people, the
+younger we may conclude them to be. To educate their neophytes to
+adolescence, they therefore treated them like children. Their government
+was as firm in its views and commands as it was mild and affectionate in
+its forms. The aborigines of the American continent have generally a
+tendency to republicanism; a monarchy or aristocracy is rarely found
+among them, and then in a very restricted form. The Guaranis of Paraguay
+did not differ, in this respect, from their congeners. By a happy
+circumstance, however, these tribes displayed rather more intelligence
+and less ferocity than their neighbors, and seemed capable, to some
+extent, of conceiving new wants and adopting new ideas. About one
+hundred and twenty thousand souls were collected in the villages of the
+missions, under the guidance of the fathers. All that experience, daily
+study, and active charity could teach the Jesuits, was employed for the
+benefit of their pupils; incessant efforts were made to hasten success,
+without hazarding it by rashness. In spite of all these cares, however,
+it was soon felt that the most absolute authority over the neophytes
+could hardly constrain them to persist in the right path, and occasions
+were not wanting that revealed the little real solidity of the
+edifice.[73]
+
+When the measures of Count Aranda deprived Paraguay of its pious and
+skilful civilizers, the sad truth appeared in complete light. The
+Guaranis, deprived of their spiritual guides, refused all confidence in
+the lay directors sent them by the Spanish crown. They showed no
+attachment to their new institutions. Their taste for savage life
+revived, and at present there are but thirty-seven little villages
+still vegetating on the banks of the Parana, the Paraguay, and Uraguay,
+and these contain a considerable nucleus of half-breed population. The
+rest have returned to the forest, and live there in as savage a state as
+the western tribes of the same stock, the Guaranis and Cirionos. I will
+not say that the deserters have readopted their ancient manners
+completely, but there is little trace left of the pious missionaries'
+labors, and this because it is given to no human race to be oblivious of
+its instincts, nor to abandon the path in which the Creator has placed
+them.
+
+It may be supposed, had the Jesuits continued to direct their missions
+in Paraguay, that their efforts, assisted by time, would have been
+crowned with better success. I am willing to concede this, but on one
+condition only, always the same: that a group of Europeans would
+gradually have settled in the country under the protection of the Jesuit
+directors. These would have modified, and finally completely transformed
+the native blood, and a state would have been formed, bearing probably
+an aboriginal name, whose inhabitants might have prided themselves upon
+descending from autochthonic ancestors, though as completely belonging
+to Europe as the institutions by which they might be governed.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[61] The author of _Democracy in America_ (vol. ii. book 3, ch. 1),
+speculating upon the total want of sympathy among the various classes of
+an aristocratic community, says: "Each caste has its own opinions,
+feelings, rights, manners, and mode of living. The members of each caste
+do not resemble the rest of their fellow-citizens; they do not think and
+feel in the same manner, and believe themselves a distinct race.... When
+the chroniclers of the Middle Ages, who all belonged to the aristocracy
+by birth and education, relate the tragical end of a noble, their grief
+flows apace; while they tell, with the utmost indifference, of massacres
+and tortures inflicted on the common people. In this they were actuated
+by an _instinct_ rather than by a passion, for they felt no habitual
+hatred or systematic disdain for the people: war between the several
+classes of the community was not yet declared." The writer gives
+extracts from Mme. de Sevigne's letters, displaying, to use his own
+words, "a cruel jocularity which, in our day, the harshest man writing
+to the most insensible person of his acquaintance would not venture to
+indulge in; and yet Madame de Sevigne was not selfish or cruel; she was
+passionately attached to her children, and ever ready to sympathize with
+her friends, and she treated her servants and vassals with kindness and
+indulgence." "Whence does this arise?" asks M. De Tocqueville; "have we
+really more sensibility than our forefathers?" When it is recollected,
+as has been pointed out in a previous note, that the nobility of France
+were of Germanic, and the peasantry of Celtic origin, we will find in
+this an additional proof of the correctness of our author's theory.
+Thanks to the revolution, the barriers that separated the various ranks
+have been torn down, and continual intermixture has blended the blood of
+the Frankish noble and of the Gallic boor. Wherever this fusion has not
+yet taken place, or but imperfectly, M. De Tocqueville's remarks still
+apply.--H.
+
+[62] The spirit of clanship is so strong in the Arab tribes, and their
+instinct of ethnical isolation so powerful, that it often displays
+itself in a rather odd manner. A traveller (Mr. Fulgence Fresnel, if I
+am not mistaken) relates that at Djidda, where morality is at a rather
+low ebb, the same Bedouine who cannot resist the slightest pecuniary
+temptation, would think herself forever dishonored, if she were joined
+in lawful wedlock to the Turk or European, to whose embrace she
+willingly yields while she despises him.
+
+[63]
+ The man
+ Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.
+ Power, like a desolating pestilence,
+ Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,
+ Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
+ Makes slaves of man, and of the human frame
+ A mechanized automaton.
+
+SHELLEY, _Queen Mab_.
+
+[64] Montesquieu expresses a similar idea, in his usual epigrammatic
+style. "The customs of an enslaved people," says he, "are a part of
+their servitude; those of a free people, a part of their
+liberty."--_Esprit des Lois_, b. xix. c. 27.--H.
+
+[65] "A great portion of the peculiarities of the Spartan constitution
+and their institutions was assuredly of ancient Doric origin, and must
+have been rather given up by the other Dorians, than newly invented and
+instituted by the Spartans."--_Niebuhr's Ancient History_, vol. i. p.
+306.--H.
+
+[66] See note on page 121.
+
+[67] The amalgamation of races in South America must indeed be
+inconceivable. "I find," says Alex. von Humboldt, in 1826, "by several
+statements, that if we estimate the population of the whole of the
+Spanish colonies at fourteen or fifteen millions of souls, there are, in
+that number, at most, _three_ millions of pure whites, including about
+200,000 Europeans." (_Pers. Nar._, vol. i. p. 400.) Of the progress
+which this mongrel population have made in civilization, I cannot give a
+better idea than by an extract from Dr. Tschudi's work, describing the
+mode of ploughing in some parts of Chili. "If a field is to be tilled,
+it is done by two natives, who are furnished with long poles, pointed at
+one end. The one thrusts his pole, pretty deeply, and in an oblique
+direction, into the earth, so that it forms an angle with the surface of
+the ground. The other Indian sticks his pole in, at a little distance,
+and also obliquely, and he forces it beneath that of his fellow-laborer,
+so that the first pole lies, as it were, upon the second. The first
+Indian then presses on his pole, and makes it work on the other, as a
+lever on its fulcrum, and the earth is thrown up by the point of the
+pole. Thus they gradually advance, until the whole field is furrowed by
+this laborious process." (_Dr. Tschudi, Travels in Peru, during the
+years 1838-1842._ London, 1847, p. 14.) I really do not think that a
+counterpart to this could be found, except, perhaps, in the manner of
+working the mines all over South America. Both Darwin and Tschudi speak
+of it with surprise. Every pound of ore is brought out of the shafts on
+men's shoulders. The mines are drained of the water accumulating in
+them, in the same manner, by means of water-tight bags. Dr. Tschudi
+describes the process employed for the amalgamation of the quicksilver
+with the silver ore. It is done by causing them to be trodden together
+by horses', or human feet. Not only is this method attended with
+incredible waste of material, and therefore very expensive, but it soon
+kills the horses employed in it, while the men contract the most
+fearful, and, generally, incurable diseases! (_Op. cit._, p.
+331-334.)--H.
+
+[68] A. von Humboldt, _Examen critique de l'Histoire et de la Geographie
+du N. C._, vol. ii. p. 129-130.
+
+The same opinion is expressed by Mr. Humboldt in his _Personal
+Narrative_. London, 1852, vol. i. p. 296.--H.
+
+[69] Speaking of the habit of tattooing among the South Sea Islanders,
+Mr. Darwin says that even girls who had been brought up in missionaries'
+houses, could not be dissuaded from this practice, though in everything
+else, they seemed to have forgotten the savage instincts of their race.
+"The wives of the missionaries tried to prevent them, but a famous
+operator having arrived from the South, they said: 'We really must have
+just a few lines on our lips, else, when we grow old, we shall be so
+ugly.'"--_Journal of a Naturalist_, vol. ii. p. 208.--H.
+
+[70] For the latest details, see Mr. Gustave d'Alaux's articles in the
+_Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1853.
+
+[71] The subjoined comparison of the exports of Haytien staple products
+may not be uninteresting to many of our readers, while it serves to
+confirm the author's assertion. I extract it from a statistical table in
+Mackenzie's report to the British government, upon the condition of the
+then republic (now empire). Mr. Mackenzie resided there as special
+_envoye_ several years, for the purpose of collecting authentic
+information for his government, and his statements may therefore be
+relied upon. (_Notes on Hayti_, vol. ii. note FF. London, 1830.)
+
+ SUGAR. COTTON. COFFEE.
+ lbs. lbs. lbs.
+
+ 1789 141,089,831 7,004,274 76,835,219
+ 1826 32,864 620,972 32,189,784
+
+It will be perceived, from these figures, that the decrease is greatest
+in that staple which requires the most laborious cultivation. Thus,
+sugar requires almost unremitting toil; coffee, comparatively little.
+All branches of industry have fearfully decreased; some of them have
+ceased entirely; and the small and continually dwindling commerce of
+that wretched country consists now mainly of articles of spontaneous
+growth. The statistics of imports are in perfect keeping with those of
+exports. (_Op. cit._, vol. ii. p. 183.) As might be expected from such a
+state of things, the annual expenditure in 1827 was estimated at a
+little more than _double_ the amount of the annual revenue! (_Ibid._,
+"Finance.")
+
+That matters have not improved under the administration of that Most
+Gracious, Most Christian monarch, the Emperor Faustin I., will be seen
+by reference to last year's _Annuaire de la Revue del deux Mondes_,
+"Haiti," p. 876, _et seq._, where some curious details about his majesty
+and his majesty's sable subjects will be found.
+
+[72] Upon this subject, consult Prichard, d'Orbigny, and A. de Humboldt.
+
+[73] I recollect having read, several years ago, in a Jesuit missionary
+journal (I forget its name and date, but am confident that the authority
+is a reliable one), a rather ludicrous account of an instance of this
+kind. One of the fathers, who had a little isolated village under his
+charge, had occasion to leave his flock for a time, and his place,
+unfortunately, could not be replaced by another. He therefore called the
+most promising of his neophytes, and committed to their care the
+domestic animals and agricultural implements with which the society had
+provided the newly-converted savages, then left them with many
+exhortations and instructions. His absence being prolonged beyond the
+period anticipated, the Indians thought him dead, and instituted a grand
+funeral feast in his honor, at which they slaughtered all the oxen, and
+roasted them by fires made of the ploughs, hoe-handles, etc.; and he
+arrived just in time to witness the closing scenes of this mourning
+ceremony.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THIS DIVERSITY IS NOT THE RESULT OF GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION.
+
+ America--Ancient empires--Phenicians and Romans--Jews--Greece and
+ Rome--Commercial cities of Europe--Isthmus of Darien.
+
+
+It is impossible to leave entirely out of the question the influence
+which climate, the nature of the soil, and topographical circumstances,
+exert upon the development of nations. This influence, so much overrated
+by many of the learned, I shall investigate more fully, although I have
+rapidly glanced at it already, in another place.
+
+It is a very common opinion that a nation living under a temperate sky,
+not too warm to enervate the man, nor too cold to render the soil
+unproductive; on the shores of large rivers, affording extensive and
+commodious means of communication; in plains and valleys adapted to
+varied cultivation; at the foot of mountains pregnant with the useful
+and precious ores--that a nation thus favored by nature, would soon be
+prompted to cast off barbarism, and progress rapidly in
+civilization.[74] On the other hand, and by the same reasoning, it is
+easily admitted that tribes, charred by an ardent sun, or benumbed by
+unceasing cold, and having no territory save sterile rocks, would be
+much more liable to remain in a state of barbarism. According to this
+hypothesis, the intellectual powers of man could be developed only by
+the aid of external nature, and all his worth and greatness are not
+implanted in him, but in the objects without and around. Specious as is
+this opinion at first sight, it has against it all the numerous facts
+which observation furnishes.
+
+Nowhere, certainly, is there a greater variety of soil and climate than
+in the extensive Western Continent. Nowhere are there more fertile
+regions, milder skies, larger and more numerous rivers. The coasts are
+indented with gulfs and bays; deep and magnificent harbors abound; the
+most valuable riches of the mineral kingdom crop out of the ground;
+nature has lavished on the soil her choicest and most variegated
+vegetable productions, and the woods and prairies swarm with alimentary
+species of animals, presenting still more substantial resources. And
+yet, the greater part of these happy countries is inhabited, and has
+been for a series of centuries, by tribes who ignore the most mediocre
+exploration of all these treasures.
+
+Several of them seem to have been in the way of doing better. A meagre
+culture, a rude knowledge of the art of working metals, may be observed
+in more than one place. Several useful arts, practised with some
+ingenuity, still surprise the traveller. But all this is really on a
+very humble scale, and never formed what might be termed a civilization.
+There certainly has existed at some very remote period, a nation which
+inhabited the vast region extending from Lake Erie to the Mexican Gulf.
+There can be no doubt that the country lying between the Alleghany and
+the Rocky Mountains, and extending from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico,
+was, at some very remote epoch, inhabited by a nation that has left
+remarkable traces of its existence behind.[75] The remains of
+buildings, inscriptions on rocks, the tumuli,[76] and mummies which they
+inclose, indicate a high degree of intellectual culture. But there is no
+evidence that between this mysterious people and the tribes now
+wandering over its tombs, there is any very near affinity. However this
+may be, if by inheritance or slavish imitation the now existing
+aborigines derive their first knowledge of the arts which they now
+rudely practise, from the former masters of the soil, we cannot but be
+struck by their incapacity of perfecting what they had been taught; and
+I see in this a new motive for adhering to my opinion, that a nation
+placed amid the most favorable geographical circumstances, is not,
+therefore, destined to arrive at civilization.
+
+On the contrary, there is between the propitiousness of soil and climate
+and the establishment of civilization, a complete independence. India
+was a country which required fertilization; so was Egypt.[77] Here we
+have two very celebrated centres of human culture and development.
+China, though very productive in some parts, presented in others
+difficulties of a very serious character. The first events recorded in
+its history are struggles with rivers that had burst their bonds; its
+heroes are victors over the ruthless flood; the ancient emperors
+distinguished themselves by excavating canals and draining marshes. The
+country of the Tigris and Euphrates, the theatre of Assyrian splendor
+and hallowed by our most sacred traditions, those regions where,
+Syncellus says, wheat grew spontaneously, possess a soil so little
+productive, when unassisted by art, that only a vast and laborious
+system of irrigation can render it capable of giving the means of
+subsistence to its inhabitants. Now that the canals are filled up or
+obstructed, sterility has reassumed its former dominion. I am,
+therefore, inclined to think that nature had not so greatly favored
+these countries as is usually supposed. Yet, I shall not discuss this
+point.
+
+I am willing to admit that China, Egypt, India, and Mesopotamia were
+regions perfectly adapted in every respect to the establishment of great
+empires, and the consequent development of brilliant civilizations. But
+it cannot be disputed that these nations, to profit by these superior
+advantages, must have previously brought their social system to a high
+degree of perfection. Before the great watercourses became the highways
+of commerce, industry, or at least agriculture, must have flourished to
+some extent. The great advantages accorded to these countries
+presuppose, therefore, in the nations that have profited by them, a
+peculiar intellectual vocation, and even a certain anterior degree of
+civilization. But from these specially favored regions let us glance
+elsewhere.
+
+When the Phenicians migrated from the southeast, they fixed their abode
+on an arid, rocky coast, inclosed by steep and ragged mountains. Such a
+geographical situation would appear to preclude a people from any
+expansion, and force them to remain forever dependent on the produce of
+their fisheries for sustenance. The utmost that could be expected of
+them was to see them petty pirates. They were pirates, indeed, but on a
+magnificent scale; and, what is more, they were bold and successful
+merchants and speculators. They planted colonies everywhere, while the
+barren rocks of the mother country were covered with the palaces and
+temples of a wealthy and luxurious community. Some will say, that "the
+very unpropitiousness of external circumstances forced the founders of
+Tyre and Sidon to become what they were. Necessity is the mother of
+invention; their misery spurred them on to exertion; had they inhabited
+the plains of Damascus, they would have been content with the peaceful
+products of agriculture, and would probably never have become an
+illustrious nation."[78]
+
+And why does not misery spur on other nations placed under similar
+circumstances? The Kabyles of Morocco are an ancient race; they have had
+sufficient time for reflection, and, moreover, every possible inducement
+for mere imitation; yet they have never imagined any other method for
+alleviating their wretched lot except petty piracy. The unparalleled
+facilities for commerce afforded by the Indian archipelago and the
+island clusters of the Pacific, have never been improved by the natives;
+all the peaceful and profitable relations were left in the hands of
+foreign races--the Chinese, Malays, and Arabs; where commerce has fallen
+into the hands of a semi-indigenous or half-breed population, it has
+instantly commenced to languish. What conclusions can we deduce from
+these observations than that pressing wants are not sufficient for
+inciting a nation to profit by the natural facilities of its coasts and
+islands, and that some special aptitude is needed for establishing a
+commercial state even in localities best adapted for that purpose.
+
+But I shall not content myself with proving that the social and
+political aptitudes of races are not dependent on geographical
+situations, whether these be favorable or unfavorable; I shall,
+moreover, endeavor to show that these aptitudes have no sort of relation
+with any exterior circumstances. The Armenians, in their almost
+inaccessible mountains, where so many other nations have vegetated in a
+state of barbarism from generation to generation, and without any access
+to the sea, attained, already at a remote period, a high state of
+civilization. The Jews found themselves in an analogous position; they
+were surrounded by tribes who spoke kindred dialects, and who, for the
+most part, were nearly related to them in blood. Yet, they excelled all
+these groups. They were warriors, agriculturists, and merchants. Under a
+government in which theocracy, monarchy, patriarchal authority, and
+popular will, were singularly complicated and balanced, they traversed
+centuries of prosperity and glory. The difficulties which the narrow
+limits of their patrimonial domain opposed to their expansion, were
+overcome by an intelligent system of emigration. What was this famous
+Canaan? Modern travellers bear witness to the laborious and
+well-directed efforts by which the Jewish agriculturists maintained the
+factitious fertility of their soil. Since the chosen race no longer
+inhabits these mountains and plains, the wells where Jacob's flocks
+drank are dried up; Naboth's vineyard is invaded by the desert, Achab's
+palace-gardens filled with thistles. In this miserable corner of the
+world, what were the Jews? A people dextrous in all they undertook, a
+free, powerful, intelligent people, who, before losing bravely, and
+against a much superior foe, the title of independent nation, had
+furnished to the world almost as many doctors as merchants.[79]
+
+Let us look at Greece. Arcadia was the paradise of the shepherd, and
+Boeotia, the favored land of Ceres and Triptolemus: yet, Arcadia and
+Boeotia play but a very inferior part in history. The wealthy Corinth,
+the favorite of Plutus and Venus, also appears in the second rank. To
+whom pertains the glory of Grecian history? To Attica, whose whitish,
+sandy soil afforded a scanty sustenance to puny olive-trees; to Athens,
+whose principal commerce consisted in books and statues. Then to Sparta,
+shut up in a narrow valley between masses of rocks, where victory went
+in search of it.
+
+Who would dare to assert that Rome owed her universal empire to her
+geographical position? In the poor district of Latium, on the banks of a
+tiny stream emptying its waters on an almost unknown coast, where
+neither Greek nor Phenician vessel ever landed, except by accident, the
+future mistress of the world was born. So soon as the nations of the
+earth obeyed the Roman standard, politicians found the metropolis
+ill-placed, and the eternal city was neglected: even abandoned. The
+first emperors, being chiefly occupied with the East, resided in Greece
+almost continually. Tiberius chose Caprea, in the centre of his empire.
+His successors went to Antioch. Several lived at Trebia. Finally, a
+decree deprived Rome of the very name of capital, and gave it to Milan.
+If the Romans have conquered the world, it is certainly in spite of the
+locality whence issued forth their first armies, and not on account of
+its advantages.
+
+In modern history, the proofs of the correctness of my position are so
+abundant, that I hardly know how to select. I see prosperity abandoning
+the coasts of the Mediterranean, evidence that it was not dependent on
+them. The great commercial cities of the Middle Ages rise where no
+theorist of a preceding age could have predicted them. Novogorod
+flourishes in an almost arctic region, Bremen on a coast nearly as
+cold. The Hanse-towns of Germany rise in a country where civilization
+has scarcely dawned; Venice appears at the head of a long, narrow gulf.
+Political preponderance belongs to places before unknown. Lyons,
+Toulouse, Narbonne, Marseilles, Bordeaux, lose the importance assigned
+them by the Romans, and Paris becomes the metropolis--Paris, then a
+third-rate town, too far from the sea for commerce, too near it for the
+Norman barges. In Italy, cities formerly obscure, surpass the capital of
+the popes. Ravenna rises in the midst of marshes; Amalfi, for a long
+time, enjoys extensive dominion. It must be observed, that in all these
+changes accident has no part: they all are the result of the presence of
+a victorious and preponderating race. It is not the place which
+determines the importance of a nation, it is the nation which gives to
+the place its political and economical importance.
+
+I do not, however, deny the importance of certain situations for
+commercial depots, or for capitals. The observations made with regard to
+Alexandria and Constantinople, are incontestable.[80] There are, upon
+our globe, various points which may be called the keys of the world.
+Thus, it is obvious that a city, built on the proposed canal which is
+to pierce the Isthmus of Darien, would act an important part in the
+affairs of the world.
+
+But, such a part a nation may act well or badly, or even not at all,
+according to its merits. Aggrandize Chagres, and let the two oceans
+unite under her walls, the destiny of the city would depend entirely on
+the race by which it was peopled. If this race be worthy of their good
+fortune, they will soon discover whether Chagres be the point whence the
+greatest benefits can be derived from the union of the two oceans; and,
+if it is not, they will leave it, and then, untrammelled, develop
+elsewhere their brilliant destinies.[81]
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[74] Consult, among others, Carus: _Uber ungleiche Befaehigung der
+vershiedenen Menschen-staemme fuer hoehere geistige Entwickelung._ Leipzig,
+1849, p. 96 _et passim_.
+
+[75] Prichard, _Natural History of Man_, vol. ii.
+
+See particularly the recent researches of E. G. Squier, published in
+1847, under the title: _Observations on the Aboriginal Monuments of the
+Mississippi Valley_, and also in various late reviews and other
+periodicals.
+
+[76] The very singular construction of these tumuli, and the numerous
+utensils found in them, occupy at this moment the penetration and talent
+of American antiquaries. I shall have occasion, in a subsequent volume,
+to express an opinion as to their value in the inquiries about a former
+civilization; at present, I shall only say that their almost incredible
+antiquity cannot be called in question. Mr. Squier is right in
+considering this proved by the fact merely, that the skeletons exhumed
+from these tumuli crumble into dust as soon as exposed to the
+atmosphere, although the condition of the soil in which they lie, is the
+most favorable possible; while the human remains under the British
+cromlichs, and which have been interred for at least eighteen centuries,
+are perfectly solid. It is easily conceived, therefore, that between the
+first possessors of the American soil and the Lenni-Lenape and other
+tribes, there is no connection. Before concluding this note, I cannot
+refrain from praising the industry and skill manifested by American
+scholars in the study of the antiquities of their immense continent. To
+obviate the difficulties arising from the excessive fragility of the
+exhumed skulls, many futile attempts were made, but the object was
+finally accomplished by pouring into them a bituminous preparation which
+instantly solidifies and thus preserves the osseous parts. This process,
+which requires many precautions, and as much skill as promptitude, is
+said to be generally successful.
+
+[77] Ancient India required, on the part of its first white colonists,
+immense labor of cultivation and improvement. (See Lassen, _Indische
+Alterthumskunde_, vol. i.) As to Egypt, see what Chevalier Bunsen,
+_Aegypten's Stelle in der Weltgeschichte_, says of the fertilization of
+the Fayoum, that gigantic work of the earliest sovereigns.
+
+[78] "Why have accidental circumstances always prevented some from
+rising, while they have only stimulated others to higher
+attainments?"--_Dr. Kneeland's Introd. to Hamilton Smith's Nat. Hist. of
+Man_, p. 95.--H.
+
+[79] Salvador, _Histoire des Juifs_.
+
+[80] M. Saint-Marc Girardin, _Revue des Deux Mondes_.
+
+[81] See, upon this often-debated subject, the opinion--somewhat acerbly
+expressed--of a learned historian and philologist:--
+
+"A great number of writers have suffered themselves to be persuaded that
+the country made the nation; that the Bavarians and Saxons were
+predestined, by the nature of their soil, to become what they are
+to-day; that Protestantism belonged not to the regions of the south; and
+that Catholicism could not penetrate to those of the north; and many
+similar things. Men who interpret history according to their own slender
+knowledge, their narrow hearts, and near-sighted minds, would, by the
+same reasoning, make us believe that the Jews had possessed such and
+such qualities--more or less clearly understood--because they inhabited
+Palestine, and not India or Greece. But, if these philosophers, so
+dextrous in proving whatever flatters their notions, were to reflect
+that the Holy Land contained, in its limited compass, peoples of the
+most dissimilar religions and modes of thinking, that between them,
+again, and their present successors, there is the utmost difference
+conceivable, although the country is still the same; they would
+understand how little influence, upon the character and civilization of
+a nation has the country they inhabit."--EWALD, _Geschichte des Volkes
+Israel_, vol. i. p. 259.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY UPON MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF
+RACES.
+
+ The term Christian civilization examined--Reasons for rejecting
+ it--Intellectual diversity no hindrance to the universal diffusion
+ of Christianity--Civilizing influence of Christian religion by
+ elevating and purifying the morals, etc.; but does not remove
+ intellectual disparities--Various instances--Cherokees--Difference
+ between imitation and comprehension of civilized life.
+
+
+By the foregoing observations, two facts seem to me clearly established:
+first, that there are branches of the human family incapable of
+spontaneous civilization, so long as they remain unmixed; and, secondly,
+that this innate incapacity cannot be overcome by external agencies,
+however powerful in their nature. It now remains to speak of the
+civilizing influence of Christianity, a subject which, on account of its
+extensive bearing, I have reserved for the last, in my consideration of
+the instruments of civilization.
+
+The first question that suggests itself to the thinking mind, is a
+startling one. If some races are so vastly inferior in all respects, can
+they comprehend the truths of the gospel, or are they forever to be
+debarred from the blessing of salvation?
+
+In answer, I unhesitatingly declare my firm conviction, that the pale of
+salvation is open to them all, and that all are endowed with equal
+capacity to enter it. Writers are not wanting who have asserted a
+contrary opinion. They dare to contradict the sacred promise of the
+Gospel, and deny the peculiar characteristic of our faith, which
+consists in its accessibility to all men. According to them, religions
+are confined within geographical limits which they cannot transgress.
+But the Christian religion knows no degrees of latitude or longitude.
+There is scarcely a nation, or a tribe, among whom it has not made
+converts. Statistics--imperfect, no doubt, but, as far as they go,
+reliable--show them in great numbers in the remotest parts of the globe:
+nomad Mongols, in the steppes of Asia, savage hunters in the table-lands
+of the Andes; dark-hued natives of an African clime; persecuted in
+China;[82] tortured in Madagascar; perishing under the lash in Japan.
+
+But this universal capacity of receiving the light of the gospel must
+not be confounded, as is so often done, with a faculty of entirely
+different character, that of social improvement. This latter consists in
+being able to conceive new wants, which, being supplied, give rise to
+others, and gradually produce that perfection of the social and
+political system which we call civilization. While the former belongs
+equally to all races, whatever may be their disparity in other respects,
+the latter is of a purely intellectual character, and the prerogative of
+certain privileged groups, to the partial or even total exclusion of
+others.
+
+With regard to Christianity, intellectual deficiencies cannot be a
+hindrance to a race. Our religion addresses itself to the lowly and
+simple, even in preference to the great and wise of this earth.
+Intellect and learning are not necessary to salvation. The most
+brilliant lights of our church were not always found among the body of
+the learned. The glorious martyrs, whom we venerate even above the
+skilful and erudite defender of the dogma, or the eloquent panegyrist of
+the faith, were men who sprang from the masses of the people; men,
+distinguished neither for worldly learning, nor brilliant talents, but
+for the simple virtues of their lives, their unwavering faith, their
+self-devotion. It is exactly in this that consists one great superiority
+of our religion over the most elaborate and ingenious systems devised by
+philosophers, that it is intelligible to the humblest capacity as well
+as to the highest. The poor Esquimaux of Labrador may be as good and as
+pure a Christian as the most learned prelate in Europe.
+
+But we now come to an error which, in its various phases, has led to
+serious consequences. The utilitarian tendency of our age renders us
+prone to seek, even in things sacred, a character of material
+usefulness. We ascribe to the influence of Christianity a certain order
+of things, which we call _Christian civilization_.
+
+To what political or social condition this term can be fitly applied, I
+confess myself unable to conceive. There certainly is a Pagan, a
+Brahmin, and Buddhistic, a Judaic civilization. There have been, and
+still are, societies so intimately connected with a more or less
+exclusive theological formula, that the civilizations peculiar to them,
+can only be designated by the name of their creed. In such societies,
+religion is the sole source of all political forms, all civil and social
+legislation; the groundwork of the whole civilization. This union of
+religious and temporal institutions, we find in the history of every
+nation of antiquity. Each country had its own peculiar divinity, which
+exercised a more or less direct influence in the government,[83] and
+from which laws and civilization were said to be immediately derived.
+It was only when paganism began to wane, that the politicians of Rome
+imagined a separation of temporal and religious power, by attempting a
+fusion of the different forms of worship, and proclaiming the dogma of
+legal toleration. When paganism was in its youth and vigor, each city
+had its Jupiter, Mercury, or Venus, and the local deity recognized
+neither in this world nor the next any but compatriots.
+
+But, with Christianity, it is otherwise. It chooses no particular
+people, prescribes no form of government, no social system. It
+interferes not in temporal matters, has naught to do with the material
+world, "its kingdom is of another." Provided it succeeds in changing the
+interior man, external circumstances are of no import. If the convert
+fervently embraces the faith, and in all his actions tries to observe
+its prescriptions, it inquires not about the built of his dwelling, the
+cut of his garments, or the materials of which they are composed, his
+daily occupations, the regulations of his government, the degree of
+despotism, or of freedom, which pervades his political institutions. It
+leaves the Chinese in his robes, the Esquimaux in his seal-skins; the
+former to his rice, the latter to his fish-oil; and who would dare to
+assert that the prayers of both may not breathe as pure a faith as those
+of the _civilized_ European? No mode of existence can attract its
+preference, none, however humble, its disdain. It attacks no form of
+government, no social institution; prescribes none, because it has
+adopted none. It teaches not the art of promoting worldly comforts, it
+teaches to despise them. What, then, can we call a Christian
+civilization? Had Christ, or his disciples, prescribed, or even
+recommended any particular political or social forms,[84] the term would
+then be applicable. But his law may be observed under all--of whatever
+nature--and is therefore superior to them all. It is justly and truly
+called the _Catholic_, or Universal.
+
+And has Christianity, then, no civilizing influence? I shall be asked.
+Undoubtedly; and a very great one. Its precepts elevate and purify the
+soul, and, by their purely spiritual nature, disengage the mind from
+worldly things, and expand its powers. In a merely human point of view,
+the material benefits it confers on its followers are inestimable. It
+softens the manners, and facilitates the intercourse between man and his
+fellow-man; it mitigates violence, and weans him from corrosive vices.
+It is, therefore, a powerful promoter of his worldly interests. But it
+only expands the mind in proportion to the susceptibility of the mind
+for being expanded. It does not give intellect, or confer talents,
+though it may exalt both, and render them more useful. It does not
+create new capacities, though it fosters and develops those it finds.
+Where the capacities of an individual, or a race, are such as to admit
+an improvement in the mode of existence, it tends to produce it; where
+such capacities are not already, it does not give them. As it belongs to
+no particular civilization, it does not compel a nation to change its
+own. In fine, as it does not level all individuals to the same
+intellectual standard, so it does not raise all races to the same rank
+in the political assemblage of the nations of the earth. It is wrong,
+therefore, to consider the equal aptitude of all races for the true
+religion, as a proof of their intellectual equality. Though having
+embraced it, they will still display the same characteristic
+differences, and divergent or even opposite tendencies. A few examples
+will suffice to set my idea in a clearer light.
+
+The major portion of the Indian tribes of South America have, for
+centuries, been received within the pale of the church, yet the European
+civilization, with which they are in constant contact, has never become
+their own.[85] The Cherokees, in the northern part of the same
+continent, have nearly all been converted by the Methodist
+missionaries. At this I am not surprised, but I should be greatly so, if
+these tribes, without mixing with the whites, were ever to form one of
+the States, and exercise any influence in Congress. The Moravians and
+Danish Lutheran missionaries in Labrador and Greenland, have opened the
+eyes of the Esquimaux to the light of religion; but their neophytes have
+remained in the same social condition in which they vegetated before. A
+still more forcible illustration is afforded by the Laplanders of
+Sweden, who have not emerged from the state of barbarism of their
+ancestors, though the doctrine of salvation was preached to them, and
+believed by them, centuries ago.
+
+I sincerely believe that all these peoples may produce, and, perhaps,
+already have produced, persons remarkable for piety and pure morals; but
+I do not expect ever to see among them learned theologians, great
+statesmen, able military leaders, profound mathematicians, or
+distinguished artists;--any of those superior minds, whose number and
+perpetual succession are the cause of power in a preponderating race;
+much less those rare geniuses whose meteor-like appearance is productive
+of permanent good only when their countrymen are so constituted as to be
+able to understand them, and to advance under their direction. We
+cannot, therefore, call Christianity a promoter of civilization in the
+narrow and purely material sense of some writers.
+
+Many of my readers, while admitting my observations in the main to be
+correct, will object that the modifying influence of religion upon the
+manners must produce a corresponding modification of the institutions,
+and finally in the whole social system. The propagators of the gospel,
+they will say, are almost always--though not necessarily--from a nation
+superior in civilization to the one they visit. In their personal
+intercourse, therefore, with their neophytes, the latter cannot but
+acquire new notions of material well-being. Even the political system
+may be greatly influenced by the relations between instructor and pupil.
+The missionary, while he provides for the spiritual welfare of his
+flock, will not either neglect their material wants. By his teaching and
+example, the savage will learn how to provide against famine, by tilling
+the soil. This improvement in his condition once effected, he will soon
+be led to build himself a better dwelling, and to practise some of the
+simpler useful arts. Gradually, and by careful training, he may acquire
+sufficient taste for things purely intellectual, to learn the alphabet,
+or even, as in the case of the Cherokees, to invent one himself. In
+course of time, if the missionaries' labors are crowned with success,
+they may, perhaps, so firmly implant their manners and mode of living
+among this formerly savage tribe, that the traveller will find among
+them well-cultivated fields, numerous flocks, and, like these same
+Cherokees, and the Creeks on the southern banks of the Arkansas, black
+slaves to work on their plantations.
+
+Let us see how far facts correspond with this plausible argument. I
+shall select the two nations which are cited as being the furthest
+advanced in European civilization, and their example will, it seems to
+me, demonstrate beyond a doubt, how impossible it is for any race to
+pursue a career in which their own nature has not placed them.
+
+The Cherokees and Creeks are said to be the remnants or descendants of
+the Alleghanian Race, the supposed builders of those great monuments of
+which we still find traces in the Mississippi Valley. If this be the
+case, these two nations may lay claim to a natural superiority over the
+other tribes of North America.
+
+Deprived of their hereditary dominions by the American government, they
+were forced--under a treaty of transplantation--to emigrate to regions
+selected for them by the latter. There they were placed under the
+superintendence of the Minister of War, and of Protestant missionaries,
+who finally succeeded in persuading them to embrace the mode of life
+they now lead. Mr. Prichard,[86] my authority for these facts, and who
+derives them himself from the great work of Mr. Gallatin,[87] asserts
+that, while all the other Indian tribes are continually diminishing,
+these are steadily increasing in numbers. As a proof of this, he alleges
+that when Adair visited the Cherokee tribes, in 1762, the number of
+their warriors was estimated at 2,300; at present, their total
+population amounts to 15,000 souls, including about 1,200 negroes in
+their possession. When we consider that their schools, as well as
+churches, are directed by white missionaries; that the greater number of
+these missionaries--being Protestants--are probably married and have
+children and servants also white, besides, very likely, a sort of
+retinue of clerks and other European employees;--the increase of the
+aboriginal population becomes extremely doubtful,[88] while it is easy
+to conceive the pressure of the white race upon its pupils. Surrounded
+on all sides by the power of the United States, incommensurable to their
+imagination; converted to the religion of their masters, which they
+have, I think, sincerely embraced; treated kindly and judiciously by
+their spiritual guides; and exposed to the alternation of working or of
+starving in their contracted territory;--I can understand that it was
+possible to make them tillers of the earth.
+
+It would be underrating the intelligence of the humblest, meanest
+specimen of our kind, to express surprise at such a result, when we see
+that, by dexterously and patiently acting upon the passions and wants of
+animals, we succeed in teaching them what their own instincts would
+never have taught them. Every village fair is filled with animals which
+are trained to perform the oddest tricks, and is it to be wondered at
+that men submitted to a rigorous system of training, and deprived of the
+means of escaping from it, should, in the end, be made to perform
+certain mechanical functions of civilized life; functions which, even in
+the savage state, they are capable of understanding, though they have
+not the will to practise them? This were placing human beings lower in
+the scale of creation than the learned pig, or Mr. Leonard's
+domino-playing dogs.[89] Such exultation on the part of the believers in
+the equality of races is little flattering to those who excite it.
+
+I am aware that this exaggeration of the intellectual capacity of
+certain races is in a great measure provoked by the notions of some very
+learned and distinguished men, who pretend that between the lowest races
+of men, and the highest of apes there was but a shade of distinction.
+So gross an insult to the dignity of man, I indignantly reject.
+Certainly, in my estimation, the different races are very unequally
+endowed, both physically and mentally; but I should be loath to think
+that in any, even in the most degraded, the unmistakable line of
+demarcation between man and brute were effaced. I recognize no link of
+gradation which would connect man mentally with the brute creation.
+
+But does it follow, that because the lowest of the human species is
+still unmistakably human, that all of that species are capable of the
+same development? Take a Bushman, the most hideous and stupid of human
+families, and by careful training you may teach him, or if he is already
+adult, his son, to learn and practise a handicraft, even one that
+requires a certain degree of intelligence. But are we warranted thence
+to conclude that the nation to which this individual belongs, is
+susceptible of adopting our civilization? There is a vast difference
+between mechanically practising handicrafts and arts, the products of an
+advanced civilization, and that civilization itself. Let us suppose that
+the Cherokee tribes were suddenly cut off from all connection with the
+American government, the traveller, a few years hence, would find among
+them very unexpected and singular institutions, resulting from their
+mixture with the whites, but partaking only feebly of the character of
+European civilization.
+
+We often hear of negroes proficient in music, negroes who are clerks in
+counting-rooms, who can read, write, talk like the whites. We admire,
+and conclude that the negroes are capable of everything that whites are.
+Notwithstanding this admiration and these hasty conclusions, we express
+surprise at the contrast of Sclavonian civilization with ours. We aver
+that the Russian, Polish, Servish nations, are civilized only at the
+surface, that none but the higher classes are in possession of our
+ideas, and this, thanks to their intermixture with the English, French,
+and German stock; that the masses, on the contrary, evince a hopeless
+inaptitude for participating in the forward movement of Western Europe,
+although these masses have been Christians for centuries, many of them
+while our ancestors were heathens. Are the negroes, then, more closely
+allied to our race than the Sclavonic nations? On the one hand, we
+assert the intellectual equality of the white and black races; on the
+other, a disparity among subdivisions of our own race.
+
+There is a vast difference between imitation and comprehension. The
+imitation of a civilization does not necessarily imply an eradication
+of the hereditary instincts. A _nation_ can be said to have adopted a
+civilization, only when it has the power to progress in it unprompted,
+and without guidance. Instead of extolling the intelligence of savages
+in handling a plough, after being shown; in spelling and reading, after
+they have been taught; let a single example be alleged of a tribe in any
+of the numerous countries in contact with Europeans, which, with our
+religion, has also made the ideas, institutions, and manners of a
+European nation so completely its own, that the whole social and
+political machinery moves forward as easily and naturally as in our
+States. Let an example be alleged of an extra-European nation, among
+whom the art of printing produces effects analogous to those it produces
+among us; where new applications of our discoveries are attempted; where
+our systems of philosophy give birth to new systems; where our arts and
+sciences flourish.
+
+But, no; I will be more moderate in my demands. I shall not ask of that
+nation to adopt, together with our faith, all in which consists our
+individuality. I shall suppose that it rejects it totally, and chooses
+one entirely different, adapted to its peculiar genius and
+circumstances. When the eyes of that nation open to the truths of the
+Gospel, it perceives that its earthly course is as encumbered and
+wretched as its spiritual life had hitherto been. It now begins the work
+of improvement, collects its ideas, which had hitherto remained
+fruitless, examines the notions of others, transforms them, and adapts
+them to its peculiar circumstances; in fact, erects, by its own power, a
+social and political system, a civilization, however humble. Where is
+there such a nation? The entire records of all history may be searched
+in vain for a single instance of a nation which, together with
+Christianity, adopted European civilization, or which--by the same grand
+change in its religious ideas--was led to form a civilization of its
+own, if it did not possess one already before.
+
+On the contrary, I will show, in every part of the world, ethnical
+characteristics not in the least effaced by the adoption of
+Christianity. The Christian Mongol and Tartar tribes lead the same
+erratic life as their unconverted brethren, and are as distinct from the
+Russian of the same religion, who tills the soil, or plies his trade in
+their midst, as they were centuries ago. Nay, the very hostilities of
+race survive the adoption of a common religion, as we have already
+pointed out in a preceding chapter. The Christian religion, then, does
+not equalize the intellectual disparities of races.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[82] Although the success of the Chinese missions has not been
+proportionate to the self-devoting zeal of its laborers, there yet are,
+in China, a vast number of believers in the true faith. M. Huc tells us,
+in the relation of his journey, that, in almost every place where he and
+his fellow-traveller stopped, they could perceive, among the crowds that
+came to stare at the two "Western devils" (as the celestials courteously
+call us Europeans), men making furtively, and sometimes quite openly,
+the sign of the cross. Among the nomadic hordes of the table-lands of
+Central Asia, the number of Christians is much greater than among the
+Chinese, and much greater than is generally supposed. (See _Annals of
+the Propagation of the Faith_, No. 135, et seq.)--H.
+
+[83] The tutelary divinity was generally a typification of the national
+character. A commercial or maritime nation, would worship Mercury or
+Neptune; an aggressive and warlike one, Hercules or Mars; a pastoral
+one, Pan; an agricultural one, Ceres or Triptolemus; one sunk in luxury,
+as Corinth, would render almost exclusive homage to Venus.
+
+As the author observes, all ancient governments were more or less
+theocratical. The regulations of castes among the Hindoos and Egyptians
+were ascribed to the gods, and even the most absolute monarch dared not,
+and could not, transgress the limits which the immortals had set to his
+power. This so-called divine legislation often answered the same purpose
+as the charters of modern constitutional monarchies. The authority of
+the Persian kings was confined by religious regulations, and this has
+always been the case with the sultans of Turkey. Even in Rome, whose
+population had a greater tendency for the positive and practical, than
+for the things of another world, we find the traces of theocratical
+government. The sibylline books, the augurs, etc., were something more
+than a vulgar superstition; and the latter, who could stop or postpone
+the most important proceedings, by declaring the omens unpropitious,
+must have possessed very considerable political influence, especially in
+the earlier periods. The rude, liberty-loving tribes of Scandinavia,
+Germany, Gaul, and Britain, were likewise subjected to their druids, or
+other priests, without whose permission they never undertook any
+important enterprise, whether public or private. Truly does our author
+observe, that Christianity came to deliver mankind from such trammels,
+though the mistaken or interested zeal of some of its servants, has so
+often attempted, and successfully, to fasten them again. How ill adapted
+Christianity would be, even in a political point of view, for a
+theocratical formula, is well shown by Mr. Guizot, in his _Hist. of
+Civilization_, vol. i. p. 213.--H.
+
+[84] I have already pointed out, in my introduction (p. 41-43), some of
+the fatal consequences that spring from that doctrine. It may not,
+however, be out of place here to mention another. The communists,
+socialists, Fourrierites, or whatever names such enemies to our social
+system assume, have often seduced the unwary and weak-minded, by the
+plausible assertion that they wished to restore the social system of the
+first Christians, who held all goods in common, etc. Many religious
+sectaries have created serious disturbances under the same pretence. It
+seems, indeed, reasonable to suppose, that if Christianity had given its
+exclusive sanction to any particular social and political system, it
+must have been that which the first Christian communities adopted.--H.
+
+[85] See note on page 188.--H.
+
+[86] _Natural History of Man_, p. 390. London, 1843.
+
+[87] _Synopsis of the Indian Tribes of North America._
+
+[88] Had I desired to contest the accuracy of the assertions upon which
+Mr. Prichard bases his arguments in this case, I should have had in my
+favor the weighty authority of Mr. De Tocqueville, who, in speaking of
+the Cherokees, says: "What has greatly promoted the introduction of
+European habits among these Indians, is the presence of so great a
+number of half-breeds. The man of mixed race--participating as he does,
+to a certain extent, in the enlightenment of the father, without,
+however, entirely abandoning the savage manner of the mother--forms the
+natural link between civilization and barbarism. As the half-breeds
+increase among them, we find savages modify their social condition, and
+change their manners." (_Dem. in Am._, vol. i. p. 412.) Mr. De
+Tocqueville ends by predicting that the Cherokees and Creeks, albeit
+they are half-breeds, and not, as Mr. Prichard affirms, pure aborigines,
+will, nevertheless, disappear before the encroachments of the whites.
+
+[89] "When four pieces of cards were laid before them, each having a
+number pronounced _once_ in connection with it, they will, after a
+re-arrangement of the pieces, select any one named by its number. They
+also play at domino, and with so much skill as to triumph over biped
+opponents, whining if the adversary plays a wrong piece, or if they
+themselves are deficient in the right one."--_Vest. of Cr._, p. 236.--H.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO CHAPTERS VIII. AND IX.
+
+ Rapid survey of the populations comprised under the appellation
+ "Teutonic"--Their present ethnological area, and leading
+ characteristics--Fondness for the sea displayed by the Teutonic
+ tribes of Northwestern Europe, and perceptible in their
+ descendants.
+
+
+Several of the ideas expressed by the author in the course of the two
+next following chapters, seemed to the annotator of this volume to call
+for a few remarks on his part, which could not conveniently be condensed
+within the limited space of foot-notes. Besides, the text is already
+sufficiently encumbered with them, and any increase in their length or
+number could not but be displeasing to the eye, while it would divert
+attention from the main subject. He has, therefore, taken the
+liberty--an unwarranted one, perhaps--of introducing his remarks in this
+form and place.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The leading proposition in this volume is, that the civilization
+originated and developed by a race, is the clearest index of its
+character--the mirror in which its principal features are truthfully
+reflected. In other words, that every race, capable of developing a
+civilization, will develop one peculiar to itself, and impossible to
+every other. This the author illustrates by the actual state of our
+civilization, which he asserts to be originated by the Teutonic race,
+but modified in proportion to the admixture of that race with a
+different blood. To clearly comprehend his idea, and to appreciate the
+value of his arguments, it is, therefore, necessary for the reader to
+take a rapid survey of the populations comprised under the appellation
+_Teutonic_, and to examine into the present geographical extension of
+that race. This I shall endeavor to do, not, indeed, by entering into an
+elaborate ethnological disquisition--a task greatly beyond my powers,
+and the due performance of which would require a space much larger than
+the whole of this volume--but by merely grouping together well-known
+facts, in such a manner as to set the author's idea in a clearer light.
+
+The words _Teutonic_ and _Germanic_ are generally used synonymously, and
+we shall not depart from this custom. Strict accuracy, however, would
+probably require that the term Teutonic should be used as the general
+appellation of all those swarms of northern warriors, who, under various
+names, harassed and finally subverted the overgrown dominion of ancient
+Rome, while the term Germanic would apply to a portion of them only. The
+Northern Barbarians, as the Romans contemptuously styled them, all
+claimed to belong to the "_Thiudu_," or the nation _par excellence_, and
+from that word the term Teutonic is supposed to be derived. Many of
+their descendants still retain the name: _Teutsch_ or _Deutsch_
+(German). The Romans called them _Germanes_, from the boastful title of
+"the warlike," or "the men of war," which the first invading tribes had
+given themselves. These _Germanes_ of the Romans were again divided into
+two classes, the Saxon tribes, and the Suevic; terms expressive of their
+mode of life, the former having fixed habitations and inclosed farms,
+the latter cultivating the fields by turn, and being prone to change
+their abodes. The first class comprised many other tribes besides those
+who figure in history, under the name of Saxons, as the invaders and
+conquerors of Britain. But as I desire to avoid all not well-authorized
+distinctions, I shall use the terms Teutonic and Germanic
+indiscriminately.
+
+The Germans appear to have been at all times an eminently warlike and
+courageous race. History first speaks of them as warriors alarming, nay,
+terrifying, the arrogant Romans, and that not in the infancy of Rome's
+power, when the Samnites and Volscians were formidable antagonists, but
+in the very fulness of its strength, in the first vigor of youthful
+manhood, when Italy, Spain, part of Gaul, the northern coasts of Africa,
+Greece, Syria, and Asia Minor, were subdued to the republican yoke. Then
+it was that the Cimbri and Teutones invaded and harassed Italy, chilling
+the mistress of the world with fear.
+
+The Germans next meet us in Caesar's Commentaries. The principal
+resistance which the future usurper experienced in subduing Gaul,
+appears to have been offered, not by the Gallic population, but either
+by German tribes, settled in that country, or German armies from the
+right banks of the Rhine, who longed to dispute the tempting prize with
+the Romans. The great general twice crossed the Rhine, but probably more
+for the _eclat_ of such an exploit, than with the hope of making
+permanent conquests. The temporary successes gained by his imperial
+successors were amply counterbalanced by the massacre of the flower of
+the Roman armies.
+
+At the end of the first five centuries after Christ, nothing was left of
+the great Roman empire but ruins. Every country in Northern, Western,
+and Southern Europe acknowledged German masters. The tribes of the
+extreme north had entered Russia, and there established a powerful
+republic; the tribes of the northwest (the Angles and Saxons) had
+conquered Britain; a confederation of the southern tribes, under the
+name of Franks, had conquered Gaul; the various Gothic tribes of the
+east, the Heruli, the Longobardi, Ostrogoths, etc., had subjected Italy
+to their arms, and disputed its possession among themselves. Other
+Gothic tribes (the Visigoths, Burgundians, and Vandals) had shared with
+the Franks the beautiful tracts of Gaul, or had carried their victorious
+arms to Spain, and the northern coasts of Africa. The three most
+beautiful and most fertile countries of Europe, to this day, retain the
+name of their conquerors--England, France, Lombardy.
+
+It is impossible now to determine with accuracy the amount of German
+blood in the populations of the various states founded by the Teutonic
+tribes. Yet certain general results are easily arrived at in this
+interesting investigation.
+
+Thus, we know that Germany, notwithstanding its name, contains by no
+means a pure Germanic population. The fierce Scythian hordes, whom
+Attila led on to the work of devastation, after the death of their
+leader, incorporated themselves with various of the Teutonic tribes.
+They form one of the ethnical elements of the population of Italy, but
+especially of the south and southeast of Germany. While, therefore, the
+population of Northern Germany is comparatively pure Teutonic, that of
+the southern and eastern portion is a mixture of Teutonic and Sclavonian
+elements.
+
+The Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, are probably the most Germanic
+nations of continental Europe.
+
+In Spain, the Visigoths were, in a great measure, absorbed by the native
+population, consisting of the aboriginal Celtiberians and the numerous
+Roman colonists. In the tenth century, an amalgamation began with the
+eastern blood brought by the Arab conquerors.
+
+Italy, already at the time of the downfall of Rome, contained an
+extremely mixed population, drawn thither by the all-absorbing vortex of
+the Eternal City. In the north, the Germanic element had time to engraft
+itself in some measure; but the south, passing into the hands of the
+Byzantine emperors, received an addition of the already mixed Greek
+blood of the east.
+
+Gaul, at the time of the Frankish conquest, was an extremely populous
+country. Beside the aboriginal Gauls, the population consisted of
+numerous Roman colonists. The Mediterranean coast of Gaul had, from the
+earliest times, received Phenician, Carthaginian, and Greek settlers,
+who founded there large and prosperous cities. The original differences
+in the population of Gaul are to this day perceptible. The Germanic
+element preponderates in the north, where already, in Caesar's time, the
+Germans had succeeded in making permanent settlements, and in the
+northeast, where the Burgundians had well-nigh extirpated and
+completely supplanted the Gallic natives.[90] But everywhere else,[91]
+the Germanic element forms but a small portion of the population, and
+this is well illustrated by the striking resemblance of the character of
+the modern French to that of the ancient Gauls. But though vastly
+inferior in numbers, the descendants of the German conquerors, for one
+thousand years, were the dominant race in France. Until the fifteenth
+century, all the higher nobility were of Frankish or Burgundian origin.
+But, after the Celtic and Celto-Roman provinces south of the Loire had
+rallied around a youthful king, to reconquer their capital and best
+territories from the English foe, the Frankish blood ruled with less
+exclusive sway in all the higher offices of the state; and the
+distinction was almost entirely lost by the accession of the first
+southern dynasty, that of the Bourbons, towards the end of the sixteenth
+century. The corresponding variations in the national policy and the
+exterior manifestations of the national character, Mr. Gobineau has
+rapidly pointed out elsewhere.[92]
+
+While the population of France presents so great a mixture of various
+different races, and but a slight infusion of German blood, that of
+England, on the contrary, is almost purely Teutonic. The original
+inhabitants of the country were, for the most part, driven into the
+mountain fastnesses of Wales by the German invaders, where they
+preserve, to this day, their original language. Every subsequent great
+addition to the population of England was by the German race. The Danes,
+and, after them, the Normans, were tribes of the same stock as the
+Saxons, and all came from very nearly the same portion of Europe. It is
+obvious, therefore, that England, even after the Norman conquest, when,
+for a time, the upper and the lower classes spoke different languages,
+contained a more homogeneous population than France did at the same, or
+any subsequent epoch. In England, from the Saxon yeoman up to the
+proudest Norman lord, all belonged to the great German race; in France,
+only the nobility, while the peasants were Gauls. The wars between the
+two countries afford a striking proof of the difference of these two
+races. The battles of Cressy, of Poitiers, and of Agincourt, which will
+never be forgotten so long as English poetry can find an echo in an
+English breast, were won by the English against greatly superior
+numbers. "Victories, indeed, they were," says Macaulay, "of which a
+nation may justly be proud; for they are to be attributed to the moral
+superiority of the victors, _a superiority which was most striking in
+the lowest ranks_. The knights of England found worthy rivals in the
+knights of France. Chandos encountered an equal foe in Du Guesclin. But
+France had no infantry that dared to face the English bows and bills."
+The Celt has probably, at no time, been inferior to the Teuton in valor;
+in martial enthusiasm, he exceeds him. But, at a time when bodily
+strength decided the combat, the difference between the sturdy Saxon and
+the small, slight--though active--Gaul, must have been great.
+
+In this rapid and necessarily imperfect sketch, I have endeavored to
+show the relative proportion of the Teutonic blood in the population of
+the various countries of Europe. I have endeavored to direct the
+reader's attention to the fact, that though it forms an element in the
+population of all, it exists in perfect purity in but few, and that
+England presents a happy fusion of some of the most distinguished
+branches of the German family. If we now glance at the United States, we
+shall there find--at least in the first years of her national
+existence--a pendant to what has been asserted of England. The elements
+of the population of the original thirteen States, were almost
+exclusively of English, Lowland Scotch, Dutch, and Swedish blood; that
+is to say, decidedly Germanic. Ireland was as yet slightly represented.
+France had made but inconsiderable contributions to the population.
+Since we have assumed a rank among the great powers of the earth, every
+portion of the inhabited globe has sent us its contingent of blood, yet
+even now, the great body of the nation belongs to the Teutonic race.
+
+Much has been said of the effects of ethnical mixture. Many consider it
+as decidedly beneficial, others as decidedly deleterious. It seems to me
+susceptible of mathematical demonstration, that when a very inferior
+race amalgamates with one of higher order, the compound--though superior
+to the one, must be inferior to the other. In that case, therefore,
+mixture is injurious. But when various branches of the same race, or
+nearly cognate races mix, as in the case of the Saxons, Angles, Danes,
+and Normans, the mixture cannot but be beneficial. For, while none of
+the higher qualities are lost, the compound presents a felicitous
+combination of some of the virtues peculiar to each.
+
+If our civilization received its tone and character from the Teutonic
+race, as Mr. Gobineau asserts, this character must be most strikingly
+displayed wherever that race forms the preponderating element of the
+population.
+
+Before investigating this question, we must cast a glance on the manners
+and modes of thinking that characterized this race in the earliest
+times. Unfortunately, but few records are left to assist us in forming a
+judgment. Tacitus's celebrated treatise was, probably, more an imaginary
+sketch, which he wished to hold up to a people sunk in luxury and vice,
+as were his countrymen. In our times, the North American Indian has
+often been held up as a model of uncorrupted simplicity, and many
+touching romances have been written on the theme, now rather hackneyed
+and out of fashion. But though the noble Roman may have highly colored
+the picture, the incorruptible love of truth, which shines so
+brilliantly in all his works, assures us of the truth of its outlines.
+
+Of one thing we can entertain no doubt, viz: that history nowhere shows
+us our Germanic forefathers in the same state of barbarism that we find
+other races--many of the American Indians, the South-Sea Islanders, and
+others. In the earliest times they practised agriculture, they
+cultivated rye, barley, oats and wheat. Many of the tribes had regular
+farms, which were inclosed. They knew how to work iron, an art which
+even the most civilized of the American Indians had never learned. They
+had extensive and complicated political relations, often forming
+themselves in vast confederacies. But, above all, they were an
+eminently chaste people; they respected woman,[93] and assigned to her
+her legitimate place in the social circle. Marriage with them was a
+sacred institution.
+
+The greatest point of superiority of our civilization, over all
+preceding and contemporaneous ones--a point which Mr. Gobineau has
+omitted to mention--is the high rank which woman occupies in the modern
+structure of society. The boasted civilizations of Greece and Rome, if
+superior in others, are vastly inferior to us in this respect. And this
+glorious superiority we owe to the pure and chaste manners of our
+forefathers.
+
+Representative government, trial by jury, and all the discoveries in
+political science upon which we pride ourselves most, are the necessary
+development of their simple institutions, to which, indeed, they can be
+distinctly traced.
+
+I have purposely selected these two characteristics of the German
+races--respect for woman, and love of liberty, or, what is more, a
+capacity for establishing and preserving liberal institutions. The
+question now resolves itself into this: Does woman occupy the highest
+rank, do liberal institutions best flourish where the Germanic race is
+most pure? I will not answer the question, but beg the reader to compare
+the more Germanic countries with those that are less so--England,
+Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Northern Germany, with France,
+Spain, Italy, Greece, and Russia; the United States and Canada, with
+Mexico and the South American republics.
+
+Mr. Gobineau speaks of the utilitarian character of the Germanic races,
+but furnishes no proofs of his assertion. I shall therefore endeavor to
+supply the deficiency.
+
+Those countries which ethnology tells us contain the most Germanic
+populations, viz: England, the northern States of Europe, including
+Holland, and the United States, have the entire commerce, and nearly all
+the manufacture of the whole world in their hands. They have given to
+mankind all the great inventions which shed an everlasting lustre over
+our era. They, together, possess nine-tenths of all the railroads built
+in the world, and the greater part of the remaining tenth was built by
+_their_ enterprise and capital. Whatever perfection in the useful arts
+one of these countries attains, is readily adopted by all; slowly only,
+and sometimes never by any of the others.
+
+On the other hand, we find that the polite arts do not meet, in these
+countries, with a very congenial soil. Artists may flock thither, and,
+perhaps, reap a harvest of gold; but they seldom stay. The admiration
+which they receive is oftenest the mere dictate of fashion. It is true
+that England, Denmark, Holland, Sweden, and the United States, have
+produced some eminent artists, but the mass of the population do not
+exhibit that innate taste, that passionate fondness for the arts, which
+we find among all classes in Italy, Spain, and to some extent in France
+and Southern Germany.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Before I conclude this hasty sketch, for which I crave the reader's
+indulgence, I wish to draw attention to a striking instance of the
+permanency of ethnical characteristics. The nations that most fondly and
+most successfully plough the briny main, are the English, the
+Americans, the Swedes, Danes, Dutch. Notwithstanding the littleness of
+these latter, they have successfully competed in maritime discovery with
+larger nations; and even now, own considerable and far distant colonial
+possessions. The Dutch, for a time, were the greatest maritime power in
+the world, and to this day carry on an extensive and profitable
+commerce. History tells us that the forefathers of these nations were
+distinguished by the same nautical genius.
+
+The real Saxons--the invaders of England--are mentioned already in the
+middle of the second century, by Ptolemy, as skilful sailors. In the
+fourth and fifth century, they became dreaded from their piracies. They
+and their confederates, the Angles, originally inhabited the present
+Holstein, and the islands in the vicinity of the Baltic coast. Their
+neighbors, the Danes, were equally famous for maritime exploits. Their
+celebrated vykings still live in song and tale. Their piratical
+incursions and settlements in England, are known to every schoolboy. How
+familiar the Normans were with the watery element, is abundantly proved
+by history. They ascended the Rhine, and other rivers, for hundreds of
+miles, marking their landing-place by devastation.
+
+Of the Angle, the Saxon, the Dane, and the Norman, the present
+Englishman and his adventurous brother of Massachusetts, are lineal
+descendants. The best sailors in our commercial navy, next to the native
+sailors, are the Danes and the Swedes. Normandy, to this day, furnishes
+the best for the French service.--H.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[90] In those portions of the present France, over one million and a
+half of the inhabitants speak German. The pure Gauls in the Landes have
+not yet learned the French language, and speak a peculiar--probably
+their original--_patois_.
+
+[91] With the exception of Normandy.
+
+[92] See p. 183.
+
+[93] I am not aware that any writer has ever presumed to doubt this fact
+except Mr. Guizot, who dismisses it with a sneer. Fortunately, a sneer
+is not an argument, though it often has more weight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+CIVILIZATION.
+
+ Mr. Guizot's and Mr. W. von Humboldt's definitions examined. Its
+ elements.
+
+
+The reader will here pardon me an indispensable digression. I make use
+at almost every moment of a term comprising in its extensive
+signification a collection of ideas which it is important to define
+accurately: _civilization_. The greater or less degree in which this
+term is applicable to the social condition of various nations, is my
+only standard for the comparative merit of races. I also speak of a
+_European_ civilization, in contradistinction to others of a different
+character. It is the more necessary to avoid the least vagueness, as I
+am under the disagreeable necessity of differing from a celebrated
+writer, who has assumed the special task of determining the meaning and
+comprehensiveness of this expression.
+
+Mr. Guizot, in his _History of Civilization in Modern Europe_, makes
+use of a term which seems to me to give rise to a serious confusion of
+ideas, and lead to positive errors. He says that civilization is a
+_fact_.
+
+Now, either the word fact must here be understood in a sense much less
+strict and precise than common usage requires, a sense so indistinct--I
+might almost say elastic--as has never pertained to it, or what we
+comprehend under the term civilization cannot be expressed by the word
+fact. Civilization is not _a fact_; it is a _series_, a _concatenation
+of facts_, more or less logically united, and resulting from ideas often
+sufficiently diverse: ideas and facts continually reproduce each other.
+Civilization is a term applied to a certain state or condition in which
+a society exists--a condition which is of its own creation, bears its
+character, and, in turn, reacts upon it. This condition is of so
+variable a nature, that it cannot be called a fact; for a fact cannot be
+variable without ceasing to be a fact. In other words, there is more
+than one civilization: there are various kinds. Thus, a civilization may
+flourish under every form of government, and it does not cease to exist
+when civil commotions destroy or alter that form.
+
+Let it not be understood that I esteem governmental forms of little
+importance. Their choice is intimately connected with the prosperity of
+the society: if judicious, promoting and developing it; if unpractical,
+endangering its destruction. But I speak not here of the temporary
+prosperity or misery of a society. I speak of its civilization; and this
+is a phenomenon whose causes must be sought elsewhere, and deeper than
+in transient political forms. Its character, its growth, fecundity, or
+barrenness, depends upon elementary principles of far greater
+importance.
+
+But, in Mr. Guizot's opinion, civilization is a fact, a unity; and it is
+of an essentially political character. Let us see how he defines it. He
+has chosen a series of hypotheses, describing society in various
+conditions, and then asks if the state so described is, in the general
+opinion of mankind, the state of a people advancing in civilization--if
+it answers to the signification which mankind generally attaches to this
+word.[94]
+
+"First imagine a people whose outward circumstances are easy and
+agreeable; few taxes; few hardships; justice is fairly administered; in
+a word, physical existence, taken altogether, is satisfactorily and
+happily regulated. But, with all this, the moral and intellectual
+energies of this people are studiously kept in a state of torpor and
+inertness. It can hardly be called oppression; its tendency is not of
+that character--it is rather compression. We are not without examples of
+this state of society. There have been a great number of little
+aristocratic republics, in which the people have been thus treated like
+a flock of sheep, carefully tended, physically happy, but without the
+least intellectual and moral activity. Is this civilization? Do we
+recognize here a people in a state of moral and social advancement?"
+
+I know not whether such a people is in a state of advancement, but it
+certainly may be in a very advanced state of civilization, else we
+should find ourselves compelled to class among the savages or barbarians
+all those aristocratic republics of ancient and modern times, which
+answer Mr. Guizot's description. But the common sense of mankind would
+never ratify a method which ejected from within the pale of civilization
+not only the Phenicians, Carthaginians, and Lacedaemonians, but even
+Venice, Genoa, Pisa, the free cities of Germany--in fact, all the
+powerful municipalities of the last centuries. But, besides this mode of
+proceeding being too paradoxical and restrictive, it seems to me to
+encounter another difficulty. Those little aristocratic states, to whom,
+on account of their form of government, Mr. Guizot denies the aptitude
+for civilization, have, for the most part, never been in possession of a
+special culture peculiar to themselves. Powerful as many of them have
+been, they assimilated, in this respect, with nations differently
+governed, but of consanguineous affinity; they formed a fragment only of
+a greater and more general civilization. Thus, the Carthaginians and
+Phenicians, though at a great distance from one another, had a similar
+mode of culture, the type of which must be sought in Assyria. The
+Italian republics participated in the same ideas and opinions which
+developed themselves in the bosom of neighboring monarchies. The
+imperial cities of Thuringia and Suabia, although perfectly independent
+in a political point of view, were nevertheless intimately united with
+the general progressive or retrogressive movement of the whole German
+race. Mr. Guizot, therefore, by assigning to the people of different
+countries degrees of merit proportionate to the degree and form of their
+liberty, creates unjustifiable subdivisions in the same race, and makes
+distinctions without a difference. A lengthy discussion is not in its
+place here, and I shall therefore proceed rapidly. If, however, it were
+necessary to enter into a controversy, might we not justly protest
+against recognizing any inferiority in the case of Genoa, Pisa, Venice,
+and others, when compared with countries like Milan, Naples, or Rome?
+
+Mr. Guizot has himself foreseen this difficulty, and removed the
+objection. If he does not recognize a state of civilization among a
+people "mildly governed, but in a state of compression," neither does he
+accord this prerogative to another, "whose outward circumstances are
+less favorable and agreeable, although supportable, but whose
+intellectual and moral cravings have not been entirely neglected; among
+whom pure and elevated sentiments have been cultivated, and religious
+and moral notions reached a certain degree of improvement, but among
+whom the desire of liberty has been stifled; where a certain portion of
+truth is doled out to each, but no one permitted to seek for it himself.
+This is the condition to which most of the populations of Asia are sunk,
+because theocratical governments there restrain the progress of mankind;
+such, for instance, is the state of the Hindoos."
+
+Thus, besides the aristocratic nations of the earth, we must moreover
+exclude from the pale of civilization the Hindoos, Egyptians, Etruscans,
+Peruvians, Thibetans, Japanese--nay, even modern Rome and her
+territories.
+
+I omit the last two hypotheses, because, thanks to the first two, the
+state of civilization is already restricted within boundaries so
+contracted that scarce any people on the globe is justified in
+pretending to it. A nation, then, can be called civilized only when it
+enjoys institutions happily blending popular liberty and the requisite
+strength of authority for maintaining order; when its progress in
+material well-being and its moral development are co-ordinate in a
+certain manner, and no other; where religion, as well as government, is
+confined within limits accurately defined, which neither ever
+transgresses; where each individual possesses clearly determinate and
+inalienable rights. According to this formula, no nation can be
+civilized unless its political institutions are of the constitutional
+and representative form, and consequently it is impossible to save many
+European nations from the reproach of barbarism. Then, measuring the
+_degree_ of civilization by the perfection of this same and only
+political form, we are compelled to place in a second rank all those
+constitutional states which have ill employed the engine of parliament,
+to reserve the crown exclusively for those who know how to make good use
+of it. By this reasoning, I am forced to consider as truly civilized,
+in the past as well as the present, none but the single English
+nation.[95]
+
+I sincerely respect and admire that great people, whose victories,
+industry, and universal commerce have left no portion of our globe
+ignorant of its puissance and the prodigies it has performed. But
+still, I do not feel disposed to respect and admire in the world no
+other: it would seem to me too humiliating and cruel to humanity to
+confess that, since the beginning of time, it has never succeeded in
+producing a civilization anywhere but upon a small island of the Western
+Ocean, has never discovered the laws and forms which produce this state
+until the reign of William and Mary. Such a conception of civilization
+might seem to many rather a little too narrow and restrictive. But there
+is another objection. If we attach the idea of civilization to a
+political form, reason, observation, and science will soon lose their
+vote in the decision of the question, which must thenceforth be left to
+the passions and prejudices of parties. There will be some whose
+preferences will lead them stoutly to deny that the institutions of the
+British Isles are the "perfection of human reason:" their enthusiasm,
+perchance, will be expended in praising the order established in St.
+Petersburg or in Vienna. Many, again, and perhaps the greater number of
+all living between the Rhine and the Pyrenees, will sustain to the last
+that, notwithstanding a few blemishes, the most polished, the most
+civilized country of the world is _la belle France_. The moment that the
+decision of the degree of intellectual culture becomes a matter of
+preference, a question of sentiment, to come to an understanding is
+impossible. Each one will think him the man most advanced in
+civilization who shall coincide with his views about the respective
+duties of the governing and the governed; while those who are
+unfortunate enough to differ, will be set down as men behind the age,
+little better than barbarians, mere "old fogies," whose visual organs
+are too weak for the dazzling lights of the epoch; or else as daring,
+incendiary innovators, who wish to destroy all established order, and
+sap the very foundation of civilization. I think few will differ from me
+in considering Mr. Guizot's definition as defective, and the source from
+which he derives civilization as not the real one.
+
+Let us now examine Baron W. Von Humboldt's definition. "Civilization,"
+says that celebrated statesman, "is the humanization of nations in their
+outward institutions, in their manners, and in the inward feelings upon
+which these depend."[96]
+
+Here we meet with a defect of the very opposite kind to that which I
+took the liberty to point out in Mr. Guizot's definition. The formula is
+too vague, the boundary lines too indistinct. If civilization consists
+in a softening of manners, more than one untutored tribe, some extremely
+low in the scale of races, might take precedence over several European
+nations whose character contains more acerbity. There are in the South
+Sea Islands, and elsewhere, very inoffensive populations, of
+exceedingly gentle manners, and kind, accommodating dispositions; yet,
+though we may praise them, no one would think of placing them, in the
+scale of civilization, above the rough Norwegians, or even above the
+ferocious Malays, who, dressed in brilliant garments of their own
+fabric, and upon skilfully constructed vessels of their own making,
+traverse the Indian seas, at the same time the terror and scourge of
+maritime commerce, and its most successful votaries. This observation
+could not escape so great a mind as William Von Humboldt's; and he
+therefore imagines, besides civilization, a higher degree of
+development, which he calls _culture_, and by which he declares that
+nations gain, above their gentle manners, "_science and the arts_."[97]
+When the world shall have arrived at this higher state, it will be
+peopled by _affectionate_ and _sympathetic_ beings, very erudite,
+poetic, and artistic, but, by reason of this same reunion of qualities,
+ignoring the grosser wants of existence: strangers to the necessity of
+war, as well as those of rude mechanical toil.
+
+When we reflect upon the limited leisure that the mass of even those
+can enjoy whose lot is cast in the happiest epoch, to abandon themselves
+to purely intellectual occupations--when we consider how incessant and
+arduous must ever be the strife of man with nature and the elements to
+insure the mere means of subsistence, it will soon be perceived that the
+philosopher of Berlin aimed less at depicting realities than at drawing
+from the domain of abstraction certain entities which appeared to him
+beautiful and sublime, and which are so, indeed, and at causing them to
+act and move in a sphere as ideal as themselves. If any doubts should
+still remain in this respect, they are soon dispelled when we arrive at
+the culminating point of the system, consisting of a third and last
+degree superior to the two others. This greatest point of perfection is
+that upon which stands the _finished_ man (_der Gebildete_); that is to
+say, the man who, in his nature, possesses "something higher and more
+inward or essential; a clear and comprehensive faculty of seeing all
+things in their true light; a recognition and appreciation of the
+ultimate goal of man's moral and intellectual aspirations, which
+diffuses itself harmoniously over all his feelings and his
+character."[98]
+
+We here have a regular gradation from man in a civilized or "humanized"
+state, to the man of cultivation--the philosopher, the poet, the artist;
+and thence still higher to the _finished_, the _perfect_ man, who has
+attained the greatest elevation possible to our species; a man who, if I
+seize rightly Mr. Humboldt's idea, had his living counterpart in
+Goethe, as that towering mind is described to us in its olympic
+serenity. This theory rests upon no other basis than Mr. Von Humboldt's
+perception of the immense difference between the civilization of a
+nation and the comparative height of perfection attained by great,
+isolated individualities. This difference is so great that civilizations
+different from ours, and perhaps inferior to it, have produced men in
+some respects superior to those we admire most.
+
+Upon this point I fully coincide with the great philosopher whose theory
+I am unfolding. It is perfectly correct, that our state of
+development--what we call the European civilization--produces neither
+the profoundest nor the sublimest thinkers, nor the greatest poets, nor
+the most skilful artists. Yet I venture to differ from the illustrious
+philologist in believing that to give a practical meaning to the word
+civilization, it is necessary to divest one's self, if but for a moment,
+from the prejudices or prepossessions resulting from the examination of
+mere details in any particular civilization. We must take the aggregate
+result of the whole, and not make the requisites too few, as in the case
+of the man of the first degree, whom I persist in not acknowledging as
+civilized merely because his manners are gentle; nor too many, as in the
+case of the sage of the third, for then the development of human
+faculties would be limited to a few individuals, and would produce
+results purely isolated and typical.
+
+The Baron Von Humboldt's system, however, does honor to that exquisite
+and generous sensibility, that grand sublimity which was the dominant
+characteristic of this great mind; and in its purely abstract nature may
+be compared to the fragile worlds of Brahmin philosophy. Born from the
+brain of a slumbering god, they rise in the air like the irised bubbles
+that the child blows from the suds, bursting and succeeding one another
+as the dreams that amuse the celestial sleeper.
+
+But the character of my researches permits me not to indulge in mere
+abstractions, however brilliant and attractive; I must arrive at results
+tangible to practical sense and common experience. I do not wish, like
+Mr. Guizot, to investigate the conditions more or less favorable to the
+prosperity of societies, nor, like Mr. William Von Humboldt, to
+speculate upon the isolated elevation of individual intelligences; my
+purpose is to encompass, if possible, the aggregate power, moral as well
+as material, which is developed in great masses of men. It is not
+without trepidation that I engage in a path in which two of the most
+admired men of our century have lost themselves; and to avoid the errors
+into which they have fallen, I shall descend to first principles, and
+define civilization by first investigating from what causes it results.
+If the reader, then, will follow me patiently and attentively through
+the mazes into which I am forced to enter, I shall endeavor to throw as
+much light as I am capable of, upon this inherently obscure and abstruse
+subject.
+
+There is no human being so degraded, so brutish, in whom a twofold
+instinct, if I may be permitted so to call it, is not manifest; the
+instinct which incites to the gratification of material wants, and that
+which leads to higher aspirations. The degree of intensity of either of
+these two is the first and principal measure of the differences among
+races. In none, not even in the lowest tribes, are the two instincts
+precisely balanced. Among some, the physical wants or animal
+propensities preponderate; in others, these are subordinate to the
+speculative tendencies--the cravings for the abstract, the supernatural.
+Thus, the lowest of the yellow races seem to me to be dominated rather
+by the first, the physical instinct, without, however, being absolutely
+deprived of all capacity for abstractions. On the contrary, among the
+majority of the black races of corresponding rank, the habits are less
+active than pensive; imagination there attaches greater value to the
+things of the invisible than to those of the visible world. I do not
+thence deduce any conclusion of superior capacity for civilization on
+the part of those latter races over the former, for history demonstrates
+that both are equally insusceptible to attain it. Centuries, thousands
+of years, have passed by without either of them doing aught to
+ameliorate their condition, because they have never been able to
+associate a sufficient number of ideas with the same number of facts, to
+begin the march of progress. I wish merely to draw attention to the
+fact, that even among the lowest races we find this double current
+differently constituted. I shall now follow the ascending scale.
+
+Above the Samoyedes on the one hand, and the Fidas and Pelagian negroes
+on the other, we must place those tribes who are not content with a mere
+hut of branches, and a social condition based upon force only, but who
+are capable of comprehending and aspiring to a better condition. These
+are one degree above the most barbarous.
+
+If they belong to the first category of races--those who act more than
+they think, among whom the material tendency predominates over that for
+the abstract--their development will display itself in a greater
+perfection of their instruments of labor, and of war, in a greater care
+and skill in their ornaments, etc. In government, the warriors will
+take precedence over the priests; in their intercourse with others, they
+will show a certain aptitude and readiness for trafficking. Their wars,
+though still characterized by cruelty, will originate rather in a love
+of gain, than in the mere gratification of vindictive passions. In one
+word, material well-being, physical enjoyments, will be the main pursuit
+of each individual. I find this picture realized among several of the
+Mongol races, and also, to some extent, among the Quichuas and Azmaras
+of Peru.
+
+On the other hand, if they belong to the second category--to those who
+have a predominating tendency for the speculative, the abstract--less
+care will be bestowed upon the material interests; the influence of the
+priests will preponderate in the government; in fact, we perceive a
+complete antithesis to the condition above described. The Dahomees, of
+Western Africa, and the Caffres of the south, are examples of this
+state.
+
+Leaving those races whose progressive tendency is not sufficiently
+vigorous to enable them to extend their influence over great
+multitudes,[99] we come to those of a higher order, in whom this
+tendency is so vigorous that they are capable of incorporating, and
+bringing within their sphere of action, all those they come in contact
+with. They soon ingraft their own social and political system upon
+immense multitudes, and impose upon vast countries the dominion of that
+combination of facts and ideas--more or less co-ordinate--which we call
+a _civilization_. Among these races, again, we find the same difference,
+the same division, that I already pointed out in those of inferior
+merit--in some the speculative, in others the more materially active
+tendency predominates. It is, indeed, among these races only, that this
+difference has important consequences, and is clearly perceptible. When
+a tribe, by incorporating with it great multitudes, has become a people,
+has founded a vast dominion, we find that these two currents or
+tendencies have augmented in strength, according to the character of the
+populations which enter into the combination, and there become blended.
+Whatever tendency prevails among these populations, they will
+proportionably modify the character of the whole. It will be remarked,
+moreover, that at different periods of the life of a people, and in
+strict accordance with the mixture of blood and the fusion of different
+elements, the oscillation between the two tendencies becomes more
+violent, and it may happen that their relative proportion changes
+altogether; that one, at first subordinate, in time becomes predominant.
+The results of this mobility are important, as they influence, in a
+sensible manner, the character of a civilization, and its
+stability.[100]
+
+For the sake of simplicity, I shall distinguish the two categories of
+races by designations expressive of the tendency which predominates in
+them, and shall call them accordingly, either _speculative_ or
+_utilitarian_.[101] As I have before observed, these terms imply neither
+praise nor blame. I use them merely for convenience, to designate the
+leading characteristic, without thereby expressing a total absence of
+the other. Thus, the most utilitarian of the speculative races would
+closely approximate to the most speculative of the utilitarian. At the
+head of the utilitarian category, as its type, I place the Chinese; at
+the head, and as the type of the other, the Hindoos. Next to the Chinese
+I would put the majority of the populations of ancient Italy, the first
+Romans of the time of the republic, and the Germanic tribes. On the
+opposite side, among the speculative races, I would range next to the
+Hindoos, the Egyptians, and the nations of the Assyrian empire.
+
+I have said already that the oscillations of the two principles or
+tendencies sometimes result in the preponderance of one, which before
+was subordinate, and thus the character of the civilization is changed.
+Minor modifications, the history of almost every people presents. Thus,
+even the materialistic utilitarian tendency of the Chinese has been
+somewhat modified by their amalgamation with tribes of another blood,
+and a different tendency. In the south, the Yunnan particularly, where
+this population prevailed, the inhabitants are much less exclusively
+utilitarian than in the north, where the Chinese element is more pure.
+If this admixture of blood operated so slight a change in the genius of
+that immense nation, that its effects have ceased, or make themselves
+perceptible only in an exceedingly slow manner, it is because its
+quantity was so extremely small, compared to the utilitarian population
+by which it was absorbed.
+
+Into the actual populations of Europe, the Germanic tribes infused a
+strong utilitarian tendency, and in the north, this has been continually
+recruited by new accessions of the same ethnical element; but in the
+south (with some exceptions, Piedmont, and the North of Spain, for
+example), the Germanic element forms not so great a portion of the whole
+mass, and the utilitarian tendency has there been overweighed by the
+opposite genius of the native populations.
+
+Among the speculative races we have signalized the Hindoos. They are
+endowed in a high degree with the tendency for the supernatural, the
+abstract. Their character is more meditative than active and practical.
+As their ancient conquests incorporated with them races of a similar
+disposition, the utilitarian element has never prevailed sufficiently to
+produce decided results. While, therefore, their civilization has
+arrived at a high degree of perfection in other respects, it has lagged
+far behind in all that promotes material comfort, in all that is
+strictly useful and practical.
+
+Rome, at first strictly utilitarian, changed its character gradually as
+the fusion with Greek, Asiatic, and African elements proceeded, and when
+once the ancient utilitarian population was absorbed in this ethnical
+inundation, the practical character of Rome was lost.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+From the consideration of these and similar facts, I arrive at the
+conclusion, that all intellectual or moral activity results from the
+combined action and mutual reaction of these two tendencies, and that
+the social system can arrive at that development which entitles it to
+the name of civilization, only in races which possess, in a high degree,
+either of the two, without being too much deficient in the other.
+
+I now proceed to the examination of other points also deserving of
+notice.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[94] Hazlitt's translation, vol. i. p 21. New York, 1855.--H.
+
+[95] A careful comparison of Mr. Guizot's views with those expressed by
+Count Gobineau upon this interesting subject convinced me that the
+differences of opinion between these two investigators required a more
+careful and minute examination than the author has thought necessary.
+With this view, I subjoin further extracts from the celebrated "_History
+of Civilization in Europe_," from which, I think, it will appear that
+few of the great truths comprised in the definition of _civilization_
+have escaped the penetration and research of the illustrious writer, but
+that, being unable to divest himself of the idea of _unity_ of
+civilization, he has necessarily fallen into an error, with which a
+great metaphysician justly charges so many reasoners. "It is hard," says
+Locke, speaking of the abuse of words, "to find a discourse written on
+any subject, especially of controversy, wherein one shall not observe,
+if he read with attention, the same words (and those commonly the most
+material in the discourse, and upon which the argument turns) used
+sometimes for one collection of simple ideas, and sometimes for
+another.... A man, in his accompts with another, might with as much
+fairness, make the characters of numbers stand sometimes for one, and
+sometimes for another collection of units (_e. g._, this character, 3,
+stand sometimes for three, sometimes for four, and sometimes for eight),
+as, in his discourse or reasoning, make the same words stand for
+different collections of simple ideas."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Mr. Guizot opens his first lecture by declaring his intention of giving
+a "general survey of the history of _European civilization_, of its
+_origin_, its _progress_, its _end_, its _character_. I say European
+civilization, because there is evidently so striking a uniformity in the
+civilization of the different states of Europe, as fully to warrant this
+appellation. Civilization has flowed to them all from sources so much
+alike, it is so connected in them all--notwithstanding the great
+differences of time, of place, and circumstances--by the same
+principles, and it tends in them all to bring about the same results,
+that no one will doubt of there being _a civilization essentially
+European_."
+
+Here, then, Mr. Guizot acknowledges one great truth contended for in
+this volume; he virtually recognizes the fact that there may be other
+civilizations, having different origins, a different progress, different
+characters, different ends.
+
+"At the same time, it must be observed, that this civilization cannot be
+found in--its history cannot be collected from--the history of any
+single state of Europe. However similar in its general appearance
+throughout the whole, its variety is not less remarkable, nor has it
+ever yet developed itself completely in any particular country. Its
+characteristic features are widely spread, and we shall be obliged to
+seek, as occasion may require, in England, in France, in Germany, in
+Spain, for the elements of its history."
+
+This is precisely the idea expressed in my introduction, that according
+to the character of a nation, its civilization manifests itself in
+various ways; in some, by perfection in the arts, useful or polite; in
+others, by development of political forms, and their practical
+application, etc. If I had then wished to support my opinion by a great
+authority, I should, assuredly, have quoted Mr. Guizot, who, a few pages
+further on, says:--
+
+"Wherever the exterior condition of man becomes enlarged, quickened, and
+improved; wherever the intellectual nature of man distinguishes itself
+by its energy, brilliancy, and its grandeur; wherever these signs occur,
+notwithstanding the gravest imperfections in the social system, there
+man proclaims and applauds a civilization."
+
+"_Notwithstanding the gravest imperfections in the social system_," says
+Mr. Guizot, yet in the series of hypotheses, quoted in the text, in
+which he attempts a negative definition of civilization, by showing what
+civilization is _not_, he virtually makes a political form the test of
+civilization.
+
+In another passage, again, he says that civilization "is a course for
+humanity to run--a destiny for it to accomplish. Nations have
+transmitted, from age to age, something to their successors which is
+never lost, but which grows, and continues as a common stock, and will
+thus be carried on to the end of all things. For my part (he continues),
+I feel assured that human nature has such a destiny; that a general
+civilization pervades the human race; that at every epoch it augments;
+and that there, consequently, is a universal history of civilization to
+be written."
+
+It must be obvious to the reader who compares these extracts, that Mr.
+Guizot expresses a totally distinct idea or collection of ideas in each.
+
+First, the civilization of a particular nation, which exists "wherever
+the intellectual nature of man distinguishes itself by its energy,
+brilliancy, and grandeur." Such a civilization may flourish,
+"notwithstanding the greatest imperfections in the social system."
+
+Secondly, Mr. Guizot's _beau-ideal_ of the best, most perfect
+civilization, where the political forms insure the greatest happiness,
+promote the most rapid--yet well-regulated--progress.
+
+Thirdly, a great system of particular civilizations, as that of Europe,
+the various elements of which "are connected by the same principles, and
+tend all to bring about the same general results."
+
+Fourthly, a supposed general progress of the whole human race toward a
+higher state of perfection.
+
+To all these ideas, provided they are not confounded one with another, I
+have already given my assent. (See _Introduction_, p. 51.) With regard
+to the latter, however, I would observe that it by no means militates
+against a belief in the intellectual imparity of races, and the
+permanency of this imparity. As in a society composed of individuals,
+all enjoy the fruits of the general progress, though all have not
+contributed to it in equal measure, and some not at all: so, in that
+society, of which we may suppose the various branches of the human
+family to be the members, even the inferior participate more or less in
+the benefits of intellectual labor, of which they would have been
+incapable. Because I can transport myself with almost the swiftness of a
+bird from one place to another, it does not follow that--though I profit
+by Watt's genius--I could have invented the steam-engine, or even that I
+understand the principles upon which that invention is based.--H.
+
+[96] W. Von Humboldt, _Ueber die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java;
+Einleitung_, vol. i. p. 37. Berlin. "Die _Civilization_ ist die
+Vermenschlichung der Voelker in ihren aeusseren Einrichtungen und
+Gebraeuchen, und der darauf Bezug habenden inneren Gesinnung."
+
+[97] William Von Humboldt. "Die Kultur fuegt dieser Veredlung des
+gesellschaftlichen Zustandes Wissenschaft und Kunst hinzu."
+
+[98] W. Von Humboldt, _op. cit._, p. 37: "Wenn wir in unserer Sprache
+_Bildung_ sagen, so meinen wir damit etwas zugleich Hoeheres und mehr
+Innerlicheres, naemlich die Sinnesart, die sich aus der Erkenntniss und
+dem Gefuehle des gesammten geistigen und sittlichen Streben harmonish auf
+die Empfindung und den Charakter ergiesst."
+
+As nothing can exceed the difficulty of rendering an abstract idea from
+the French into English, except to transmit the same from German into
+French, and as if _all_ these processes must be undergone, the identity
+of the idea is greatly endangered, I have thought proper to translate at
+once from the original German, and therefore differ somewhat from Mr.
+Gobineau, who gives it thus: "L'homme forme, c'est-a-dire, l'homme qui,
+dans sa nature, possede quelque chose de plus haut, de plus intime a la
+fois, c'est-a-dire, une facon de comprendre qui repand harmonieusement
+sur la sensibilite et le charactere les impressions qu'elle recoit de
+l'activite intellectuelle et morale dans son ensemble." I have taken
+great pains to express clearly Mr. Von Humboldt's idea, and have
+therefore amplified the word _Sinnesart_, which has not its precise
+equivalent in English.--TRANS.
+
+[99] See page 154.
+
+[100] Mr. Klemm (_Allgemeine Culturgeschichte der Menschheit_, Leipzig,
+1849) adopts, also, a division of all races into two categories, which
+he calls respectively the _active_ and the _passive_. I have not had the
+advantage of perusing his book, and cannot, therefore, say whether his
+idea is similar to mine. It would not be surprising that, in pursuing
+the same road, we should both have stumbled over the same truth.
+
+[101] The translator has here permitted himself a deviation from the
+original. Mr. Gobineau, to express his idea, borrows from the symbolism
+of the Hindoos, where the feminine principle is represented by Prakriti,
+and the masculine by Purucha, and calls the two categories of races
+respectively feminine and masculine. But as he "thereby wishes to
+express nothing but a mutual fecundation, without ascribing any
+superiority to either," and as the idea seems fully rendered by the
+words used in the translation, the latter have been thought preferable,
+as not so liable to misrepresentation and misconception.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ELEMENTS OF CIVILIZATION--CONTINUED.
+
+ Definition of the term--Specific differences of
+ civilizations--Hindoo, Chinese, European, Greek, and Roman
+ civilizations--Universality of Chinese civilization--Superficiality
+ of ours--Picture of the social condition of France.
+
+
+When a tribe, impelled by more vigorous instincts than its neighbors,
+succeeds in collecting the hitherto scattered and isolated fragments
+into a compact whole, the first impetus of progress is thus given, the
+corner-stone of a civilization laid. But, to produce great and lasting
+results, a mere political preponderance is not sufficient. The dominant
+race must know how to lay hold of the feelings of the masses it has
+aggregated, to assimilate their individual interests, and to concentrate
+their energies to the same purposes. When the different elements
+composing the nation are thus blended into a more or less homogeneous
+mass, certain principles and modes of thinking become general, and form
+the standard around which all rally. These principles and modes of
+thinking, however, cannot be arbitrarily imposed, and must be resulting
+from, and in the main consonant with, pre-existing sentiments and
+desires.[102] They will be characterized by a utilitarian or a
+speculative tendency, according to the degree in which either instinct
+predominates in the constituent elements of the nation.
+
+This harmony of views and interests is the first essential to
+civilization; the second is stability, and is a natural consequence of
+the first. The general principles upon which the political and social
+system rests, being based upon instincts common to all, are by all
+regarded with the most affectionate veneration, and firmly believed to
+be perpetual. The purer a race remains, the more conservative will it be
+in its institutions, for its instincts never change. But the admixture
+of foreign blood produces proportionate modifications in the national
+ideas. The new-comers introduce instincts and notions which were not
+calculated upon in the social edifice. Alterations therefore become
+necessary, and these are often wholesome, especially in the youthful
+period of the society, when the new ethnical elements have not as yet
+acquired an undue preponderance. But, as the empire increases, and
+comprises elements more and more heterogeneous, the changes become more
+radical, and are not always for the better. Finally, as the initiatory
+and conservative element disappears, the different parts of the nation
+are no longer united by common instincts and interests; the original
+institutions are not adapted to their wants; sudden and total
+transformations become common, and a vain phantom of stability is
+pursued through endless experiments. But, while thus vacillating betwixt
+conflicting interests, and changing its purpose every hour, the nation
+imagines itself advancing to some imaginary goal of perfection. Firmly
+convinced of its own perpetuity, it holds fast to the doctrine which its
+daily acts disprove, that one of the principal features of a
+civilization is God-like immutability. And though each day brings forth
+new discontents and new changes equally futile, the apprehensions of the
+day are quieted with the expectations of to-morrow.
+
+I have said that the conditions necessary for the development of a
+civilization are--the aggregation of large masses, and stable
+institutions resulting from common views and interests. The sociable
+inclinations of man, and the less noble attributes of his nature,
+perform the rest. While the former bring him in intimate and varied
+connections with his fellow-men, the latter give rise to continual
+contests and emulation. In a large community, a strong fist is no longer
+sufficient to insure protection and give distinction, and the resources
+of the mind are applied and developed. Intellect continually seeks and
+finds new fields for exertion, either in the regions of the abstract, or
+in the material world. By its productions in either, we recognize an
+advanced state of society. The most common source of error in judging
+foreign nations, is that we are apt to look merely at the exterior
+demonstrations of their civilization, and because, in this respect,
+their civilization does not resemble ours, we hastily conclude that they
+are barbarous, or, at least, greatly inferior to us. A conclusion, drawn
+from such premises, must needs be very superficial, and therefore ought
+to be received with caution.
+
+I believe myself now prepared to express my idea of a civilization, by
+defining it as
+
+_A state of comparative stability, in which a large collection of
+individuals strive, by peaceful means, to satisfy their wants, and
+refine their intelligence and manners._
+
+This definition includes, without exception, all the nations which I
+have mentioned as being civilized. But, as these nations have few points
+of resemblance, the question suggests itself: Do not, then, all
+civilizations tend to the same results? I think not; for, as the nations
+called to the noble task of accomplishing a civilization, are endowed
+with the utilitarian and speculative tendencies in various degrees and
+proportions, their paths must necessarily lie in very divergent
+directions.
+
+What are the material wants of the Hindoo? Rice and butter for his
+nourishment, and a piece of cotton cloth for his garment. Nor can this
+abstemiousness be accounted for by climate, for the native of Thibet,
+under a much more rigorous sky, displays the same quality. In these
+peoples, the imaginative faculty greatly predominates, their
+intellectual efforts are directed to abstractions, and the fruits of
+their civilization are therefore seldom of a practical or utilitarian
+character. Magnificent temples are hewn out of mountains of solid rock
+at an expense of labor and time that terrifies the imagination; gigantic
+constructions are erected;--all this in honor of the gods, while nothing
+is done for man's benefit, unless it be tombs. By the side of the
+miracles wrought by the sculptor's chisel, we admire the finished
+masterpieces of a literature full of vigor, and as ingenious and subtle
+in theology and metaphysics, as beautiful in its variety: in speculative
+efforts, human thought descends without trepidation to immeasurable
+depths; its lyric poetry challenges the admiration of all mankind.
+
+But if we leave the domain of idealistic reveries, and seek for
+inventions of practical utility, and for the sciences that are their
+theoretical basis, we find a deplorable deficiency. From a dazzling
+height, we suddenly find ourselves descended to a profound and darksome
+abyss. Useful inventions are scarce, of a petty character, and, being
+neglected, remain barren of results. While the Chinese observed and
+invented a great deal, the Hindoos invented but little, and of that
+little took no care; the Greeks, also, have left us much information,
+but little worthy of their genius; and the Romans, once arrived at the
+culminating point of their history, could no longer make any real
+progress, for the Asiatic admixture in which they were absorbed with
+surprising rapidity, produced a population incapable of the patient and
+toilsome investigation of stern realities. Their administrative genius,
+however, their legislation, and the useful monuments with which they
+provided the soil of their territories, attest sufficiently the
+practical character which, at one time, so eminently characterized that
+people; and prove that if the South of Europe had not been so rapidly
+submerged with colonists from Asia and the North of Africa, positive
+science would have been the gainer, and less would have been left to be
+accomplished by the Germanic races, which afterward gave it a renewed
+impulse.
+
+The Germanic conquerors of the fifth century were characterized by
+instincts of a similar kind to those of the Chinese, but of a higher
+order. While they possessed the utilitarian tendency as strongly, if not
+stronger, they had, at the same time, a much greater endowment of the
+speculative. Their disposition presented a happy blending of these two
+mainsprings of activity. Where-ever the Teutonic blood predominates, the
+utilitarian tendency, ennobled and refined by the speculative, is
+unmistakable. In England, North America, and Holland, this tendency
+governs and preponderates over all the other national instincts. It is
+so, in a lesser degree, in Belgium, and even in the North of France,
+where everything susceptible of practical application is understood with
+marvellous facility. But as we advance further south, this
+predisposition is less apparent, and, finally, disappears altogether. We
+cannot attribute this to the action of the sun, for the Piedmontese
+live in a much warmer climate than the Provencals and the inhabitants of
+the Languedoc; it is the effect of blood.
+
+The series of speculative races, or those rendered so by admixture,
+occupies the greater portion of the globe, and this observation is
+particularly applicable to Europe. With the exception of the Teutonic
+family, and a portion of the Sclavonic, all other groups of our part of
+the world are but slightly endowed with the faculty for the useful and
+practical; or, having already acted their part in the world's history,
+will not be able to recommence it. All these races, from the Gaul to the
+Celtiberian, and thence to the variegated compounds of the Italian
+populations, present a descending scale from a utilitarian point of
+view. Not that they are devoid of all the aptitudes of that tendency,
+but they are wanting in some of the most essential.
+
+The union of the Germanic tribes with the races of the ancient world,
+this engrafting of a vigorous utilitarian principle upon the ideas of
+that variegated compound, produced our civilization; the richness,
+diversity, and fecundity of our state of culture is the natural result
+of that combination of so many different elements, which each
+contributed their part, and which the practical vigor of our Germanic
+ancestors, succeeded in blending into a more or less harmonious whole.
+
+Wherever our state of civilization extends, it is characterized by two
+traits; the first, that the population contains a greater or less
+admixture of Teutonic blood; the other, that it is Christian. This last
+feature, however, as I said before, though the most obvious and
+striking, is by no means essential, because many nations are Christian,
+and many more may become so, without participating in our civilization.
+But the first feature is positive, decisive. Wherever the Germanic
+element has not penetrated, our civilization cannot flourish.[103]
+
+This leads me to the investigation of a serious and important question:
+"Can it be asserted that all the European nations are really and
+thoroughly civilized?" Do the ideas and facts which rise upon the
+surface of our civilization, strike root in the basis of our social and
+political structure, and derive their vitality from that source? Are the
+results of these ideas and facts such as are conformable to the
+instincts, the tendencies, of the masses? Or, in other words, have the
+lowest strata of our populations the same direction of thought and
+action as the highest--that direction which we may call the spirit or
+genius of our progressive movement?
+
+To arrive at a true and unbiassed solution of this question, let us
+examine other civilizations, different from ours, and then institute a
+comparison.
+
+The similarity of views and ideas, the unity of purpose, which
+characterized the whole body of citizens in the Grecian states, during
+the brilliant period of their history, has been justly admired. Upon
+every essential point, the opinions of every individual, though often
+conflicting, were, nevertheless, derived from the same source, emanated
+from the same general views and sentiments; individuals might differ in
+politics, one wishing a more oligarchical, another a more democratic
+government; or they might differ in religion, one worshipping, by
+preference, the Eleusinian Ceres, another the Minerva of the Parthenon;
+or in matters of taste, one might prefer Aeschylus to Sophocles, Alceus
+to Pindar. At the bottom, the disputants all participated in the same
+views and ideas, ideas which might well be called national. The question
+was one of degree, not of kind.[104]
+
+Rome, previous to the Punic wars, presented the same spectacle; the
+civilization of the country was uniform, and embraced all, from the
+master to the slave.[105] All might not participate in it to the same
+extent, but all participated in it and in no other.
+
+But in Rome, after the Punic wars, and in Greece, soon after Pericles,
+and especially after Philip of Macedon, this character of homogeneity
+began to disappear. The greater mixture of nations produced a
+corresponding mixture of civilizations, and the compound thus formed
+exceeded in variety, elegance, refinement, and learning, the ancient
+mode of culture. But it had this capital inconvenience, both in Hellas
+and in Italy, that it belonged exclusively to the higher classes. Its
+nature, its merits, its tendencies, were ignored by the sub-strata of
+the population. Let us take the civilization of Rome after the Asiatic
+wars. It was a grand, magnificent monument of human genius. It had a
+cosmopolitan character: the rhetoricians of Greece contributed to it the
+transcendental spirit, the jurists and publicists of Syria and
+Alexandria gave it a code of atheistic, levelling, and monarchical
+laws--each part of the empire furnished to the common store some portion
+of its ideas, its sciences, and its character. But whom did this
+civilization embrace? The men engaged in the public administration or in
+great monetary enterprises, the people of wealth and of leisure. It was
+merely submitted to, not adopted by the masses. The populations of
+Europe understood nothing of those Asiatic and African contributions to
+the civilization; the inhabitants of Egypt, Numidia, or Asia, were
+equally uninterested in what came from Gaul and Spain, countries with
+which they had nothing in common. But a small minority of the Roman
+people stood on the pinnacle, and being in possession of the secret,
+valued it. The rest, those not included in the aristocracy of wealth and
+position, preserved the civilization peculiar to the land of their
+birth, or, perhaps, had none at all. Here, then, we have an example of a
+great and highly perfected civilization, dominating over untold
+millions, but founding its reign not in their desires or convictions,
+but in their exhaustion, their weakness, their listlessness.
+
+A very different spectacle is presented in China. The boundless extent
+of that empire includes, indeed, several races markedly distinct, but I
+shall speak at present only of the national race, the Chinese proper.
+One spirit animates the whole of this immense multitude, which is
+counted by hundreds of millions. Whatever we think of their
+civilization, whether we admire or censure the principles upon which it
+is based, the results which it has produced, and the direction which it
+takes; we cannot deny that it pervades all ranks, that every individual
+takes in it a definite and intelligent part. And this is not because the
+country is free, in our sense of the word: there is no democratic
+principle which secures, by law, to every one the position which his
+efforts may attain, and thus spurs him on to exertions. No; I discard
+all Utopian pictures. The peasant and the man of the middle classes, in
+the Celestial Empire, are no better assured of rising by their own merit
+only, than they are elsewhere. It is true that, in theory, public honors
+are solely the reward of merit, and every one is permitted to offer
+himself as a candidate;[106] but it is well known that, in reality, the
+families of great functionaries monopolize all lucrative offices, and
+that the scholastic diplomas often cost more money than efforts of
+study. But disappointed or hopeless ambition never leads the possessor
+to imagine a different system; the aim of the reformer is to remedy the
+abuses of the established organization, not to substitute another. The
+masses may groan under ills and abuses, but the fault is charged, not to
+the social and political system, which to them is an object of
+unqualified admiration, but to the persons to whose care the performance
+of its duties is committed. The head of the government, or his
+functionaries, may become unpopular, but the form itself, the
+government, never. A very remarkable feature of the Chinese is that
+among them primary instruction is so universal; it reaches classes whom
+we hardly imagine to have any need of it. The cheapness of books, the
+immense number and low price of the schools, enable even the poorest to
+acquire the elements of knowledge, reading and writing.[107] The laws,
+their spirit and tendency, are well known and understood by all classes,
+and the government prides itself upon facilitating the study of this
+useful science.[108] The instinct of the masses is decidedly averse to
+all political convulsions. Mr. Davis, who was commissioner of H. B.
+Majesty in China, and who studied its affairs with the assiduity of a
+man who is interested in understanding them well, says that the
+character of the people cannot be better expressed than by calling them
+"a nation of steady conservatives."[109]
+
+Here, then, we have a most striking contrast to the civilization of Rome
+in her latter days, when governmental changes occurred in fearfully
+rapid succession, until the arrival of the nations of the north. In
+every portion of that vast empire, there were whole populations that had
+no interest in the preservation of established order, and were ever
+ready to second the maddest schemes, to embark in any enterprise that
+seemed to promise advantage, or that was represented in seductive colors
+by some ambitious demagogue. During that long period of several
+centuries, no scheme was left untried: property, religion, the sanctity
+of family relations, were all called in question, and innovators in
+every portion of the empire, found multitudes ever disposed to carry
+their theories into practice by force. Nothing in the Greco-Roman world
+rested on a solid basis, not even the imperial unity, so indispensable,
+it would seem, to the mere self-preservation of such a state of
+society. It was not only the armies, with their swarm of _improvisto_
+Caesars, that undertook the task of shaking this palladium of national
+safety; the emperors themselves, beginning with Diocletian, had so
+little faith in monarchy, that they willingly made the experiment of
+dualism in the government, and finally found four at a time not too many
+for governing the empire.[110] I repeat it, not one institution, not one
+principle, was stable in that wretched state of society, which continued
+to preserve some outward form, merely from the physical impossibility of
+assuming any others, until the men of the north came to assist in its
+demolition.
+
+Between these two great societies, then, the Roman empire, and that of
+China, we perceive the most complete contrast. By the side of the
+civilization of Eastern Asia, I may mention that of India, Thibet, and
+other portions of Central Asia, which is equally universal, and diffused
+among all ranks and classes. As in China there is a certain level of
+information to which all attain, so in Hindostan, every one is animated
+by the same spirit; each individual knows precisely what his caste
+requires him to learn, to think, to believe. Among the Buddhists of
+Thibet, and the table-lands of Asia, nothing is rarer than to find a
+peasant who cannot read, and there everybody has the same convictions
+upon important subjects.
+
+Do we find this homogeneity in European nations? It is scarce worth
+while to put the question. Not even the Greco-Roman empire presents
+incongruities so strange, or contrasts so striking, as are to be found
+among us; not only among the various nationalities of Europe, but in the
+bosom of the same sovereignty. I shall not speak of Russia, and the
+states that form the Austrian empire; the demonstration of my position
+would there be too facile. Let us turn to Germany; to Italy, Southern
+Italy in particular; to Spain, which, though in a less degree, presents
+a similar picture; or to France.
+
+I select France. The difference of manners, in various parts of this
+country, has struck even the most superficial observer, and it has long
+since been observed that Paris is separated from the rest of France by a
+line of demarcation so decided and accurately defined, that at the very
+gates of the capital, a nation is found, utterly different from that
+within the walls. Nothing can be more true: those who attach to our
+political unity the idea of similarity of thoughts, of character--in
+fine, of nationality, are laboring under a great delusion. There is not
+one principle that governs society and is connected with our
+civilization, which is understood in the same manner in all our
+departments. I do not speak here merely of the peculiarities that
+characterize the native of Normandy, of Brittany, Angevin, Limousin,
+Gascony, Provence. Every one knows how little alike these various
+populations are,[111] and how they differ in their tendencies and modes
+of thinking. I wish to draw attention to the fact, that while in China,
+Thibet, India, the most essential ideas upon which the civilization is
+based, are common to all classes, participated in by all, it is by no
+means so among us. The very rudiments of our knowledge, the most
+elementary and most generally accessible portion of it, remain an
+impenetrable mystery to our rural populations, among whom but few
+individuals are found acquainted with reading and writing. This is not
+for want of opportunities--it is because no value is attached to these
+acquisitions, because their utility is not perceived. I speak from my
+own observation, and that of persons who had ample facilities, and
+brought extensive information and great judgment to the task of
+investigation. Government has made the most praiseworthy efforts to
+remedy the evil, to raise the peasantry from the sink of ignorance in
+which they vegetate. But the wisest laws, and the most carefully
+calculated institutions have proved abortive. The smallest village
+affords ample opportunities for common education; even the adult, when
+conscription forces him into the army, finds in the regimental schools
+every facility for acquiring the most necessary branches of knowledge.
+Compulsion is resorted to--every one who has lived in the provinces
+knows with what success. Parents send their children to school with
+undisguised repugnance, for they regret the time thus spent as wasted,
+and, therefore, eagerly seize the most trifling pretext for withdrawing
+them, and never suffer them to exceed the legal term of attendance. So
+soon as the young man leaves school, or the soldier has served his time,
+they hasten to forget what they were compelled to learn, and what they
+are heartily ashamed of. They return forever after to the local
+_patois_[112] of their birthplace, and pretend to have forgotten the
+French language, which, indeed, is but too often true. It is a painful
+conclusion, but one which many and careful observations have forced upon
+me, that all the generous private and public endeavors to instruct our
+rural population, are absolutely futile, and can tend no further than to
+enforce an outward compliance. They care not for the knowledge we wish
+to give them--they will not have it, and this not from mere negligence
+or apathy, but from a feeling of positive hostility to our
+civilization. This is a startling assertion, but I have not yet adduced
+all the proofs in support of it.
+
+In those parts of the country where the laboring classes are employed in
+manufactures principally, and in the great cities, the workmen are
+easily induced to learn to read and write. The circumstances with which
+they are surrounded, leave them no doubt as to the practical advantages
+accruing to them from these acquisitions. But so soon as these men have
+sufficiently mastered the first elements of knowledge, to what use do
+they, for the most part, apply them? To imbibe or give vent to ideas and
+sentiments the most subversive of all social order. The instinctive, but
+passive hostility to our civilization, is superseded by a bitter and
+active enmity, often productive of the most fearful calamities. It is
+among these classes that the projectors of the wildest, most incendiary
+schemes readily recruit their partisans; that the advocates of
+socialism, community of goods and wives, all, in fact, who, under the
+pretext of removing the ills and abuses that afflict the social system,
+propose to tear it down, find ready listeners and zealous believers.
+
+There are, however, portions of the country to which this picture does
+not apply; and these exceptions furnish me with another proof in favor
+of my proposition. Among the agricultural and manufacturing populations
+of the north and northeast, information is general; it is readily
+received, and, once received, retained and productive of good fruits.
+These people are intelligent, well-informed, and orderly, like their
+neighbors in Belgium and the whole of the Netherlands. And these, also,
+are the populations most closely akin to the Teutonic race, the race
+which, as I said in another place, gave the initiative to our
+civilization.
+
+The aversion to our civilization, of which I spoke, is not the only
+singular feature in the character of our rural populations. If we
+penetrate into the privacy of their thoughts and beliefs, we make
+discoveries equally striking and startling. The bishops and parish
+clergy have to this day, as they had one, five, or fifteen centuries
+ago, to battle with mysterious superstitions, or hereditary tendencies,
+some of which are the more formidable as they are seldom openly avowed,
+and can, therefore, be neither attacked nor conquered. There is no
+enlightened priest, that has the care of his flock at heart, but knows
+from experience with what deep cunning the peasant, however devout,
+knows how to conceal in his own bosom some fondly cherished traditional
+idea or belief, which reveals itself only at long intervals, and
+without his knowledge. If he is spoken to about it, he denies or evades
+the discussion, but remains unshaken in his convictions. He has
+unbounded confidence in his pastor, unbounded except upon this one
+subject, that might not inappropriately be called his secret religion.
+Hence that taciturnity and reserve which, in all our provinces, is the
+most marked characteristic of the peasant, and which he never for a
+moment lays aside towards the class he calls _bourgeois_; that
+impassable barrier between him and even the most popular and
+well-intentioned landed proprietor of his district.
+
+It must not be supposed that this results merely from rudeness and
+ignorance. Were it so, we might console ourselves with the hope that
+they will gradually improve and assimilate with the more enlightened
+classes. But these people are precisely like certain savages; at a
+superficial glance they appear unreflecting and brutish, because their
+exterior is humble, and their character requires to be studied. But so
+soon as we penetrate, however little, into their own circle of ideas,
+the feelings that govern their private life, we discover that in their
+obstinate isolation from our civilization, they are not actuated by a
+feeling of degradation. Their affections and antipathies do not arise
+from mere accidental circumstances, but, on the contrary, are in
+accordance with logical reasoning based upon well-defined and clearly
+conceived ideas.[113] In speaking of their religious notions awhile
+ago, I should have remarked what an immense distance there is between
+our doctrines of morals and those of the peasantry, how widely different
+are their ideas from those which we attach to the same word.[114] With
+what pertinacious obstinacy they continue to look upon every one not
+peasant like themselves, as the people of remote antiquity looked upon a
+foreigner. It is true they do not kill him, thanks to the singular and
+mysterious terror which the laws, in the making of which they have no
+part, inspire them; but they hate him cordially, distrust him, and if
+they can do so without too great a risk, fleece him without scruple and
+with immense satisfaction. Yet they are not wicked or ill-disposed.
+Among themselves they are kind-hearted, charitable, and obliging. But
+then they regard themselves as a distinct race--a race, they tell
+you--that is weak, oppressed, and that must resort to cunning and
+stratagem to gain their due, but which, nevertheless, preserves its
+pride and contempt for all others. In many of our provinces, the laborer
+believes himself of much better stock than his former lord or present
+employer. The family pride of many of our peasants is, to say the least,
+as great as that of the nobility during the Middle Ages.[115]
+
+It cannot be doubted that the lower strata of the population of France
+have few features in common with the higher. Our civilization penetrates
+but little below the surface. The great mass is indifferent--nay,
+positively hostile to it. The most tragic events have stained the
+country with torrents of blood, unparalleled convulsions have destroyed
+every ancient fabric, both social and political. Yet the agricultural
+populations have never been roused from their apathetic
+indifference,[116] have never taken any other part but that to which
+they were forced. When their own personal and immediate interests were
+not at stake, they allowed the tempests to blow by without concern,
+without even passive sympathy on one side or the other. Many persons,
+frightened and scandalized at this spectacle, have declared the
+peasantry as irreclaimably perverse. This is at the same time an
+injustice, and a very false appreciation of their character. The
+peasants regard us almost as their enemies. They comprehend nothing of
+our civilization, contribute nothing to it of their own accord, and they
+think themselves authorized to profit by its disasters, whenever they
+can. Apart from this antagonism, which sometimes displays itself in an
+active, but oftener in a passive manner, it cannot be doubted that they
+possess moral qualities of a high order, though often singularly
+applied.
+
+Such is the state of civilization in France. It may be asserted that of
+a population of thirty-six millions, ten participate in the ideas and
+mode of thinking upon which our civilization is based, while the
+remaining twenty-six altogether ignore them, are indifferent and even
+hostile to them, and this computation would, I think, be even more
+flattering than the real truth. Nor is France an exception in this
+respect. The picture I have given applies to the greater part of Europe.
+Our civilization is suspended, as it were, over an unfathomable gulf, at
+the bottom of which there slumber elements which may, one day, be roused
+and prove fearfully, irresistibly destructive. This is an awful, an
+ominous truth. Upon its ultimate consequences it is painful to reflect.
+Wisdom may, perhaps, foresee the storm, but can do little to avert it.
+
+But ignored, despised, or hated as it is by the greater number of those
+over whom it extends its dominion, our civilization is, nevertheless,
+one of the grandest, most glorious monuments of the human mind. In the
+inventive, initiatory quality it does not surpass, or even equal some
+of its predecessors, but in comprehensiveness it surpasses all. From
+this comprehensiveness arise its powers of appropriation, of conquest;
+for, to comprehend is to seize, to possess. It has appropriated all
+their acquisitions, and has remodelled, reconstructed them. It did not
+create the exact sciences, but it has given them their exactitude, and
+has disembarrassed them from the divagations from which, by a singular
+paradox, they were anciently less free than any other branch of
+knowledge. Thanks to its discoveries, the material world is better known
+than at any other epoch. The laws by which nature is governed, it has,
+in a great measure, succeeded in unveiling, and it has applied them so
+as to produce results truly wonderful. Gradually, and by the clearness
+and correctness of its induction, it has reconstructed immense fragments
+of history, of which the ancients had no knowledge; and as it recedes
+from the primitive ages of the world, it penetrates further into the
+mist that obscures them. These are great points of superiority, and
+which cannot be contested.
+
+But these being admitted, are we authorized to conclude--as is so
+generally assumed as a matter of course--that the characteristics of our
+civilization are such as to entitle it to the pre-eminence among all
+others? Let us examine what are its peculiar excellencies. Thanks to the
+prodigious number of various elements that contributed to its formation,
+it has an eclectic character which none of its predecessors or
+contemporaries possess. It unites and combines so many various qualities
+and faculties, that its progress is equally facile in all directions;
+and it has powers of analysis and generalization so great, that it can
+embrace and appropriate all things, and, what is more, apply them to
+practical purposes. In other words, it advances at once in a number of
+different directions, and makes valuable conquests in all, but it cannot
+be said that it advances at the same time _furthest_ in all. Variety,
+perhaps, rather than great intensity, is its characteristic. If we
+compare its progress in any one direction with what has been done by
+others in the same, we shall find that in few, indeed, can our
+civilization claim pre-eminence. I shall select three of the most
+striking features of every civilization; the art of government, the
+state of the fine arts, and refinement of manners.
+
+In the art of government, the civilization of Europe has arrived at no
+positive result. In this respect, it has been unable to assume a
+definite character. It has laid down no principles. In every country
+over which its dominion extends, it is subservient to the exigencies of
+the various races which it has aggregated, but not united. In England,
+Holland, Naples, and Russia, political forms are still in a state of
+comparative stability, because either the whole population, or the
+dominant portion of it, is composed of the same or homogeneous elements.
+But everywhere else, especially in France, Central Italy, and Germany,
+where the ethnical diversity is boundless, governmental theories have
+never risen to the dignity of recognized truth; political science
+consisted in an endless series of experiments. Our civilization,
+therefore, being unable to assume a definite political feature, is
+devoid, in this respect, of that stability which I comprised as an
+essential feature in my definition of a civilization. This impotency is
+not found in many other civilizations which we deem inferior. In the
+Celestial Empire, in the Buddhistic and Brahminical societies, the
+political feature of the civilization is clearly enounced, and clearly
+understood by each individual member. In matters of politics all think
+alike; under a wise administration, when the secular institutions
+produce beneficent fruits, all rejoice; when in unskilled or malignant
+hands, they endanger the public welfare, it is a misfortune to be
+regretted as we regret our own faults; but no circumstance can abate
+the respect and admiration with which they are regarded. It may be
+desirable to correct abuses that have crept into them, but never to
+replace them by others. It cannot be denied that these civilizations,
+therefore, whatever we may think of them in other respects, enjoy a
+guarantee of durability, of longevity, in which ours is sadly wanting.
+
+With regard to the arts, our civilization is decidedly inferior to
+others. Whether we aim at the grand or the beautiful, we cannot rival
+either the imposing grandeur of the civilization of Egypt, of India, or
+even of the ancient American empires, nor the elegant beauty of that of
+Greece. Centuries hence--when the span of time allotted to us shall have
+been consumed, when our civilization, like all that preceded it, shall
+have sunk in the dim shades of the past, and have become a matter of
+inquiry only to the historical student--some future traveller may wander
+among the forests and marshes on the banks of the Thames, the Seine, or
+the Rhine, but he will find no glorious monuments of our grandeur; no
+sumptuous or gigantic ruins like those of Philae, of Nineveh, of Athens,
+of Salsetta, or of Tenochtitlan. A remote posterity may venerate our
+memory as their preceptors in exact sciences. They may admire our
+ingenuity, our patience, the perfection to which we have carried
+inductive reasoning--not so our conquests in the regions of the
+abstract. In poesy we can bequeath them nothing. The boundless
+admiration which we bestow upon the productions of foreign civilizations
+both past and present, is a positive proof of our own inferiority in
+this respect.[117]
+
+Perhaps the most striking features of a civilization, though not a true
+standard of its merit, is the degree of refinement which it has
+attained. By refinement I mean all the luxuries and amenities of life,
+the regulations of social intercourse, delicacy of habits and tastes. It
+cannot be denied that in all these we do not surpass, nor even equal,
+many former as well as contemporaneous civilizations. We cannot rival
+the magnificence of the latter days of Rome, or of the Byzantine empire;
+we can but imagine the gorgeous luxury of Eastern civilizations; and in
+our own past history we find periods when the modes of living were more
+sumptuous, polished intercourse regulated by a higher and more exacting
+standard, when taste was more cultivated, and habits more refined. It is
+true, that we are amply compensated by a greater and more general
+diffusion of the comforts of life; but in its exterior manifestations,
+our civilization compares unfavorably with many others, and might almost
+be called shabby.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Before concluding this digression upon civilization, which has already
+extended perhaps too far, it may not be unnecessary to reiterate the
+principal ideas which I wished to present to the mind of the reader. I
+have endeavored to show that every civilization derives its peculiar
+character from the race which gave the initiatory impulse. The
+alteration of this initiatory principle produces corresponding
+modifications, and even total changes, in the character of the
+civilization. Thus our civilization owes its origin to the Teutonic
+race, whose leading characteristic was an elevated utilitarianism. But
+as these races ingrafted their mode of culture upon stocks essentially
+different, the character of the civilization has been variously modified
+according to the elements which it combined and amalgamated. The
+civilization of a nation, therefore, exhibits the kind and degree of
+their capabilities. It is the mirror in which they reflect their
+individuality.
+
+I shall now return to the natural order of my deductions, the series of
+which is yet far from being complete. I commenced by enouncing the truth
+that the existence and annihilation of human societies depended upon
+immutable and uniform laws. I have proved the insufficiency of
+adventitious circumstances to produce these phenomena, and have traced
+their causes to the various capabilities of different human groups; in
+other words, to the moral and intellectual diversity of races. Logic,
+then, demands that I should determine the meaning and bearing of the
+word race, and this will be the object of the next chapter.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[102] See a quotation from De Tocqueville to the same effect, p. 77.
+
+[103] One striking observation, in connection with this fact, Mr.
+Gobineau has omitted to make, probably not because it escaped his
+sagacity, but because he is himself a Roman Catholic. Wherever the
+Teutonic element in the population is predominant, as in Denmark,
+Sweden, Holland, England, Scotland, Northern Germany, and the United
+States, Protestantism prevails; wherever, on the contrary, the Germanic
+element is subordinate, as in portions of Ireland, in South America, and
+the South of Europe, Roman Catholicism finds an impregnable fortress in
+the hearts of the people. An ethnographical chart, carefully made out,
+would indicate the boundaries of each in Christendom. I do not here mean
+to assert that the Christian religion is accessible only to certain
+races, having already emphatically expressed my opinion to the contrary.
+I feel firmly convinced that a Roman Catholic may be as good and pious a
+Christian as a member of any other Christian Church whatever, but I see
+in this fact the demonstration of that leading characteristic of the
+Germanic races--independence of thought, which incites them to seek for
+truth, even in religion, for themselves; to investigate everything, and
+take nothing upon trust.
+
+I have, moreover, in favor of my position, the high authority of Mr.
+Macaulay: "The Reformation," says that distinguished essayist and
+historian, "was a national as well as a moral revolt. It had been not
+only an insurrection of the laity against the clergy, but _also an
+insurrection of the great German race against an alien domination_. It
+is a most significant circumstance, that no large society of which the
+tongue is not Teutonic, has ever turned Protestant, and that, wherever a
+language derived from ancient Rome is spoken, the religion of modern
+Rome to this day prevails." (_Hist. of England_, vol. i. p. 53.)--H.
+
+[104] Thus Sparta and Athens, respectively, stood at the head of the
+oligarchic and democratic parties, and the alternate preponderance of
+either of the two often inundated each state with blood. Yet Sparta and
+Athens, and the partisans of each in every state, possessed the spirit
+of liberty and independence in an equal degree. Themistocles and
+Aristides, the two great party leaders of Athens, vied with each other
+in patriotism.
+
+This uniformity of general views and purpose, Mr. De Tocqueville found
+in the United States, and he correctly deduces from it the conclusion
+that "though the citizens are divided into 24 (31) distinct
+sovereignties, they, nevertheless, constitute a single nation, and form
+more truly a state of society, than many peoples of Europe, living under
+the same legislation, and the same prince." (Vol. i. p. 425.) This is an
+observation which Europeans make last, because they do not find it at
+home; and in return, it prevents the American from acquiring a clear
+conception of the state of Europe, because he thinks the disputes there
+involve no deeper questions than the disputes around him. In certain
+fundamental principles, all Americans agree, to whatever party they may
+belong; certain general characteristics belong to them all, whatever be
+the differences of taste, and individual preferences; it is not so in
+Europe--England, perhaps, excepted, and Sweden and Denmark. But I will
+not anticipate the author.--H.
+
+[105] It is well known that, in both Greece and Rome, the education of
+the children of wealthy families was very generally intrusted to slaves.
+Some of the greatest philosophers of ancient Greece were bondsmen.--H.
+
+[106] China has no hereditary nobility. The class of mandarins is
+composed of those who have received diplomas in the great colleges with
+which the country abounds. A decree of the Emperor JIN-TSOUNG, who
+reigned from 1023 to 1063, regulated the modes of examination, to which
+all, indiscriminately, are admitted. The candidates are examined more
+than once, and every precaution is taken to prevent frauds. Thus, the
+son of the poorest peasant may become a mandarin, but, as he afterwards
+is dependent on the emperor for office or employment, this dignity is
+often of but little practical value. Still, there are numerous instances
+on record, in the history of China, of men who have risen from the
+lowest ranks to the first offices of the State, and even to the imperial
+dignity. (See _Pauthier's Histoire de la Chine_.)--H.
+
+[107] John F. Davis, _The Chinese_. London, 1840, p. 274. "Three or four
+volumes of any ordinary work of the octavo size and shape, may be had
+for a sum equivalent to two shillings. A Canton bookseller's manuscript
+catalogue marked the price of the four books of Confucius, including the
+commentary, at a price rather under half a crown. The cheapness of their
+common literature is occasioned partly by the mode of printing, but
+partly also by the low price of paper."
+
+These are Canton prices; in the interior of the empire, books are still
+cheaper, even in proportion to the value of money in China. Their
+classic works are sold at a proportionably lower price than the very
+refuse of our literature. A pamphlet, or small tale, may be bought for a
+sapeck, about the seventeenth part of a cent; an ordinary novel, for a
+little more or less than one cent.--H.
+
+[108] There are certain offences for which the punishment is remitted,
+if the culprit is able to explain lucidly the nature and object of the
+law respecting them. (See _Huc's Trav. in China_, vol. ii. p. 252.) In
+the same place, Mr. Huc bears witness to the correctness of our author's
+assertion. "Measures are taken," says he, "not only to enable the
+magistrates to understand perfectly the laws they are called upon to
+apply, but also to diffuse a knowledge of them among the people at
+large. All persons in the employment of the government, are ordered to
+make the code their particular study; and a special enactment provides,
+that at certain periods, all officers, in all localities, shall be
+examined upon their knowledge of the laws by their respective superiors;
+and if their answers are not satisfactory, they are punished, the high
+officials by the retention of a month's pay; the inferior ones by forty
+strokes of the bamboo." It must not be imagined that Mr. Huc speaks of
+the Chinese in the spirit of a panegyrist. Any one who reads this highly
+instructive and amusing book (now accessible to English readers by a
+translation), will soon be convinced of the contrary. He seldom speaks
+of them to praise them.--H.
+
+[109] Op. cit., p. 100.
+
+[110] The reader will remember that DIOCLETIAN, who, the son of a slave,
+rose from the rank of a common soldier, to the throne of the empire of
+the world, associated with himself in the government, his friend
+MAXIMIAN, A. D. 286. After six years of this joint reign, they took two
+other partners, GALERIUS and CONSTANTIUS. Thus, the empire, though
+nominally one sovereignty, had in reality four supreme heads. Under
+Constantine the Great, the imperial unity was restored; but at his
+decease, the purple was again parcelled out among his sons and nephews.
+A permanent division of the empire, however, was not effected until the
+death of Theodosius the Great, who for sixteen years had enjoyed
+undivided power.
+
+[111] It is not universally known that the various populations of France
+differ, not only in character, but in physical appearance. The native of
+the southern departments is easily known from the native of the central
+and northern. The average stature in the north is said to be an inch and
+a half more than in the south. This difference is easily perceptible in
+the regiments drawn from either.--H.
+
+[112] Many of these patois bear but little resemblance to the French
+language: the inhabitants of the Landes, for example, speak a tongue of
+their own, which, I believe, has roots entirely different. For the most
+part, they are unintelligible to those who have not studied them. Over a
+million and a half of the population of France speak German or German
+dialects.--H.
+
+[113] Mr. Gobineau's remarks apply with equal, and, in some cases, with
+greater force, to other portions of Europe, as I had myself ample means
+for observing. I have always considered the character of the European
+peasantry as the most difficult problem in the social system of those
+countries. Institutions cannot in all cases account for it. In Germany,
+for instance, education is general and even compulsory: I have never met
+a man under thirty that could not read and write. Yet, each place has
+its local _patois_, which no rustic abandons, for it would be deemed by
+his companions a most insufferable affectation. I have heard ministers
+in the pulpit use local dialects, of which there are over five hundred
+in Germany alone, and most of them widely different. Together with their
+_patois_, the rustics preserve their local costumes, which mostly date
+from the Middle Ages. But the peculiarity of their manners, customs, and
+modes of thinking, is still more striking. Their superstitions are often
+of the darkest, and, at best, of the most pitiable nature. I have seen
+hundreds of poor creatures, males and females, on their pilgrimage to
+some far distant shrine in expiation of their own sins or those of
+others who pay them to go in their place. On these expeditions they
+start in great numbers, chanting _Aves_ on the way the whole day long,
+so that you can hear a large band of them for miles. Each carries a bag
+on the back or head, containing their whole stock of provisions for a
+journey of generally from one to two weeks. At night, they sleep in
+barns, or on stacks of hay in the fields. If you converse with them, you
+will find them imbued with superstitions absolutely idolatrous. Yet they
+all know how to read and write. The perfect isolation in which these
+creatures live from the world, despite that knowledge, is altogether
+inconceivable to an American. As Mr. Gobineau says of the French
+peasants, they believe themselves a distinct race. There is little or no
+discontent among them; the revolutionary fire finds but scanty fuel
+among these rural populations. But they look upon those who govern and
+make the laws as upon different beings, created especially for that
+purpose; the principles which regulate their private conduct, the whole
+sphere of their ideas, are peculiar to themselves. In one word, they
+form, not a class, but a caste, with lines of demarcation as clearly
+defined as the castes of India. I have said before that this is not from
+want of education; nor can any other explanation of the mystery be
+found. It is not poverty, for among these rustics there are many wealthy
+people, and, in general, they are not so poor as the lower classes in
+cities. Nor do the laws restrain them within the limits of a caste. In
+Germany, hereditary aristocracy is almost obsolete. The ranks of the
+actual aristocracy are daily recruited from the burgher classes. The
+highest offices of the various states are often found in possession of
+untitled men, or men with newly created titles. The colleges and
+universities are open to all, and great facilities are afforded even to
+the poorest. Yet these differences between various parts of the
+population remain, and this generally in those localities which the
+ethnographer describes as strongly tinctured with non-Teutonic
+elements.--H.
+
+[114] A nurse from Tours had put a bird into the hands of her little
+ward, and was teaching him to pull out the feathers and wings of the
+poor creature. When the parents reproached her for giving him this
+lesson of wickedness, she answered: "C'est pour le rendre _fier_."--(It
+is to make him fierce or high-spirited.) This answer of 1847 is in
+strict accordance with the most approved maxims of education of the
+nurse's ancestors in the times of Vercingetorix.
+
+[115] A few years ago, a church-warden was to be elected in a very small
+and very obscure parish of French Brittany, that part of the former
+province which the real Britons used to call the _pays Gallais_, or
+Gallic land. The electors, who were all peasants, deliberated two days
+without being able to agree upon a selection, because the candidate, a
+very honest, wealthy, and highly respected man and a good Christian, was
+a _foreigner_. Now, this _foreigner_ was born in the locality, and his
+father had resided there before him, and had also been born there, but
+it was recollected that his grandfather, who had been dead many years,
+and whom no one in the assembly had known, came from somewhere else.
+
+[116] This is no exaggeration, as every one acquainted with French
+history knows. In the great revolution of the last century, the
+peasantry of France took no interest and no part. In the Vendee, indeed,
+they fought, and fought bravely, for the ancient forms, their king, and
+their feudatory lords. Everywhere else, the rural districts remained in
+perfect apathy. The revolutions since then have been decided in Paris.
+The _emeutes_ seldom extended beyond the walls of the great cities. It
+is a well-known fact, that in many of the rural districts, the peasants
+did not hear of the expulsion of the Bourbon dynasty, until years
+afterwards, and even then had no conception of the nature of the change.
+Bourbon, Orleans, Republic, are words, to them, of no definite meaning.
+The only name that can rouse them from their apathy, is "Napoleon." At
+that sound, the Gallic heart thrills with enthusiasm and thirst for
+glory. Hence the unparalleled success with which the present emperor has
+appealed to universal suffrage.--H.
+
+[117] It is not generally appreciated how much we are indebted to
+Oriental civilizations for our lighter and more graceful literature. Our
+first works of fiction were translations or paraphrases of Eastern tales
+introduced into Western Europe by the returning crusaders. The songs of
+the troubadour, the many-tomed romances of the Middle Ages--those
+ponderous sires of modern novels--all emanated from that source. The
+works of Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, Boccacio, and nearer home, of Chaucer
+and Spenser, are incontestable proofs of this fact. Even Milton himself
+drew from the inexhaustible stores of Eastern legends and romances. Our
+fairy tales, and almost all of our most graceful lyric poesy, that is
+not borrowed from Greece, is of Persian origin. Almost every popular
+poet of England and the continent has invoked the Oriental muse, none
+more successfully than Southey and Moore. It would be useless to allude
+to the immense popularity of acknowledged versions of Oriental
+literature, such as the _Thousand and One Nights_, the Apologues,
+Allegories, &c. What we do not owe to the East, we have taken from the
+Greeks. Even to this day, Grecian mythology is the never-failing
+resource of the lyric poet, and so familiar has that graceful imagery
+become to us, that we introduce it, often _mal-a-propos_, even in our
+colloquial language.
+
+In metaphysics, also, we have confessedly done little more than revive
+the labors of the Greeks.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+QUESTION OF UNITY OR PLURALITY OF SPECIES.
+
+ Systems of Camper, Blumenbach, Morton, Carus--Investigations of Owen,
+ Vrolik, Weber--Prolificness of hybrids, the great scientific
+ stronghold of the advocates of unity of species.
+
+
+It will be necessary to determine first the physiological bearing of the
+word _race_.
+
+In the opinion of many scientific observers, who judge from the first
+impression, and take extremes[118] as the basis of their reasoning, the
+groups of the human family are distinguished by differences so radical
+and essential, that it is impossible to believe them all derived from
+the same stock. They, therefore, suppose several other genealogies
+besides that of Adam and Eve. According to this doctrine, instead of but
+one species in the genus _homo_, there would be three, four, or even
+more, entirely distinct ones, whose commingling would produce what the
+naturalists call _hybrids_.
+
+General conviction is easily secured in favor of this theory, by placing
+before the eyes of the observer instances of obvious and striking
+dissimilarities among the various groups. The critic who has before him
+a human subject with a skin of olive-yellow; black, straight, and thin
+hair; little, if any beard, eyebrows, and eyelashes; a broad and
+flattened face, with features not very distinct; the space between the
+eyes broad and flat; the orbits large and open; the nose flattened; the
+cheeks high and prominent; the opening of the eyelids narrow, linear,
+and oblique, the inner angle the lowest; the ears and lips large; the
+forehead low and slanting, allowing a considerable portion of the face
+to be seen when viewed from above; the head of somewhat a pyramidal
+form; the limbs clumsy; the stature humble; the whole conformation
+betraying a marked tendency to obesity:[119] the critic who examines
+this specimen of humanity, at once recognizes a well characterized and
+clearly defined type, the principal features of which will readily be
+imprinted in his memory.
+
+Let us suppose him now to examine another individual: a negro, from the
+western coast of Africa. This specimen is of large size, and vigorous
+appearance. The color is a jetty black, the hair crisp, generally called
+_woolly_; the eyes are prominent, and the orbits large; the nose thick,
+flat, and confounded with the prominent cheeks; the lips very thick and
+everted; the jaws projecting, and the chin receding; the skull assuming
+the form called prognathous. The low forehead and muzzle-like elongation
+of the jaws, give to the whole being an almost animal appearance, which
+is heightened by the large and powerful lower-jaw, the ample provision
+for muscular insertions, the greater size of cavities destined for the
+reception of the organs of smell and sight, the length of the forearm
+compared with the arm, the narrow and tapering fingers, etc. "In the
+negro, the bones of the leg are bent outwards; the tibia and fibula are
+more convex in front than in the European; the calves of the legs are
+very high, so as to encroach upon the hams; the feet and hand, but
+particularly the former, are flat; the os calcis, instead of being
+arched, is continued nearly in a straight line with the other bones of
+the foot, which is remarkably broad."[120]
+
+In contemplating a human being so formed, we are involuntarily reminded
+of the structure of the ape, and we feel almost inclined to admit that
+the tribes of Western Africa are descended from a stock which bears but
+a slight and general resemblance to that of the Mongolian family.
+
+But there are some groups, whose aspect is even less flattering to the
+self-love of humanity than that of the Congo. It is the peculiar
+distinction of Oceanica to furnish about the most degraded and repulsive
+of those wretched beings, who seem to occupy a sort of intermediate
+station between man and the mere brute. Many of the groups of that
+latest-discovered world, by the excessive leanness and starveling
+development of their limbs;[121] the disproportionate size of their
+heads; the excessive, hopeless stupidity stamped upon their
+countenances; present an aspect so hideous and disgusting,
+that--contrasted with them--even the negro of Western Africa gains in
+our estimation, and seems to claim a less ignoble descent than they.
+
+We are still more tempted to adopt the conclusions of the advocates for
+the plurality of species, when, after having examined types taken from
+every quarter of the globe, we return to the inhabitants of Europe and
+Southern and Western Asia. How vast a superiority these exhibit in
+beauty, correctness of proportion, and regularity of features! It is
+they who enjoy the honor of having furnished the living models for the
+unrivalled masterpieces of ancient sculpture. But even among these races
+there has existed, since the remotest times, a gradation of beauty, at
+the head of which the European may justly be placed, as well for
+symmetry of limbs as for vigorous muscular development. Nothing, then,
+would appear more reasonable than to pronounce the different types of
+mankind as foreign to each other as are animals of different species.
+
+Such, indeed, was the conclusion arrived at by those who first
+systematized their observations, and attempted to establish a
+classification; and so far as this classification depended upon general
+facts, it seemed incontestable.
+
+_Camper_ took the lead. He was not content with deciding upon merely
+superficial appearances, but wished to rest his demonstrations upon a
+mathematical basis, by defining, anatomically, the distinguishing
+characteristics of different types. If he succeeded in this, he would
+thereby establish a strict and logical method of treating the subject,
+preclude all doubt, and give to his opinions that rigorous precision
+without which there is no true science. I borrow from Mr. Prichard,[122]
+Camper's own account of his method. "The basis on which the distinction
+of nations[123] is founded, says he, may be displayed by two straight
+lines; one of which is to be drawn through the _meatus auditorius_ (the
+external entrance of the ear) to the base of the nose; and the other
+touching the prominent centre of the forehead, and falling thence on the
+most prominent part of the upper jaw-bone, the head being viewed in
+profile. In the angle produced by these two lines, may be said to
+consist, not only the distinctions between the skulls of the several
+species of animals, but also those which are found to exist between
+different nations; and it might be concluded that nature has availed
+herself of this angle to mark out the diversities of the animal kingdom,
+and at the same time to establish a scale from the inferior tribes up to
+the most beautiful forms which are found in the human species. Thus it
+will be found that the heads of birds display the smallest angle, and
+that it always becomes of greater extent as the animal approaches more
+nearly to the human figure. Thus, there is one species of the ape tribe,
+in which the head has a facial angle of forty-two degrees; in another
+animal of the same family, which is one of those simiae most
+approximating in figure to mankind, the facial angle contains exactly
+fifty degrees. Next to this is the head of an African negro, which, as
+well as that of the Kalmuc, forms an angle of seventy degrees; while the
+angle discovered in the heads of Europeans contains eighty degrees. On
+this difference of ten degrees in the facial angle, the superior beauty
+of the European depends; while that high character of sublime beauty,
+which is so striking in some works of ancient statuary, as in the head
+of Apollo, and in the Medusa of Sisocles, is given by an angle which
+amounts to one hundred degrees."
+
+This method was seductive from its exceeding simplicity. Unfortunately,
+facts were against it, as happens to a good many theories. The curious
+and interesting discoveries of Prof. Owen have proved beyond dispute,
+that Camper, as well as other anatomists since him, founded all their
+observations on orangs of immature age, and that, while the jaws become
+enlarged, and lengthened with the increase of the maxillary apparatus,
+and the zygomatic arch is extended, no corresponding increase of the
+brain takes place. The importance of this difference of age, with
+respect to the facial angle, is very great in the simiae. Thus, while
+Camper, measuring the skull of young apes, has found the facial angle
+even as much as sixty-four degrees; in reality, it never exceeds, in the
+most favored specimen, from thirty to thirty-five. Between this figure
+and the seventy degrees of the negro and Kalmuc, there is too wide a gap
+to admit of the possibility of Camper's ascending series.
+
+The advocates of phrenological science eagerly espoused the theory of
+the Dutch _savant_. They imagined that they could detect a development
+of instincts corresponding to the rank which the animal occupied in his
+scale. But even here facts were against them. It was objected that the
+elephant--not to mention numerous other instances--whose intelligence
+is incontestably superior to that of the orang, presents a much more
+acute facial angle than the latter. Even among the ape tribes, the most
+intelligent, those most susceptible of education, are by no means the
+highest in Camper's scale.
+
+Besides these great defects, the theory possessed another very weak
+point. It did not apply to all the varieties of the human species. The
+races with pyramidal skulls found no place in it. Yet this is a
+sufficiently striking characteristic.
+
+Camper's theory being refuted, _Blumenbach_ proposed another system. He
+called his invention _norma verticalis_, the vertical method. According
+to him,[124] the comparison of the breadth of the head, particularly of
+the vertex, points out the principal and most strongly marked
+differences in the general configuration of the cranium. He adds that
+the whole cranium is susceptible of so many varieties in its form, the
+parts which contribute more or less to determine the national character
+displaying such different proportions and directions, that it is
+impossible to subject all these diversities to the measurement of any
+lines and angles. In comparing and arranging skulls according to the
+varieties in their shape, it is preferable to survey them in that method
+which presents at one view the greatest number of characteristic
+peculiarities. "The best way of obtaining this end is to place a series
+of skulls, with the cheek-bones on the same horizontal line, resting on
+the lower jaws, and then, viewing them from behind, and fixing the eye
+on the vertex of each, to mark all the varieties in the shape of parts
+that contribute most to the national character, whether they consist in
+the direction of the maxillary and malar bones, in the breadth or
+narrowness of the oval figure presented by the vertex, or in the
+flattened or vaulted form of the frontal bone."
+
+The results which Blumenbach deduced from this method, were a division
+of mankind into five grand categories, each of which was again
+subdivided into a variety of families and types.
+
+This classification, also, is liable to many objections. Like Camper's,
+it left out several important characteristics. _Owen_ supposed that
+these objections might be obviated by measuring the basis of the skull
+instead of the summit. "The relative proportions and extent," says
+Prichard, "and the peculiarities of formation of the different parts of
+the cranium, are more fully discovered by this mode of comparison, than
+by any other." One of the most important results of this method was the
+discovery of a line of demarcation between man and the anthropoid apes,
+so distinct, and clearly drawn, that it becomes thenceforward impossible
+to find between the two genera the connecting link which Camper supposed
+to exist. It is, indeed, sufficient to cast one glance at the bases of
+two skulls, one human, and the other that of an orang, to perceive
+essential and decisive differences. The antero-posterior diameter of the
+basis of the skull is, in the orang, very much longer than in man. The
+zygoma is situated in the middle region of the skull, instead of being
+included, as in all races of men, and even human idiots, in the anterior
+half of the basis cranii; and it occupies in the basis just one-third
+part of the entire length of its diameter. Moreover, the position of the
+great occipital foramen is very different in the two skulls; and this
+feature is very important, on account of its relations to the general
+character of structure, and its influence on the habits of the whole
+being. This foramen, in the human head, is very near the middle of the
+basis of the skull, or, rather, it is situated immediately behind the
+middle transverse diameter; while, in the adult chimpantsi, it is
+placed in the middle of the posterior third part of the basis
+cranii.[125]
+
+Owen certainly deserves great credit for his observations, but I should
+prefer the most recent, as well as ingenious, of cranioscopic systems,
+that of the learned American, Dr. Morton, which has been adopted by Mr.
+Carus.[126]
+
+The substance of this theory is, that individuals are superior in
+intellect in proportion as their skulls are larger.[127] Taking this as
+the general rule, Dr. Morton and Mr. Carus proceed thereby to
+demonstrate the difference of races. The question to be decided is,
+whether all types of the human race have the same craniological
+development.
+
+To elucidate this fact, Dr. Morton took a certain number of skulls,
+belonging to the four principal human families--Whites, Mongolians,
+Negroes, and North American Indians--and, after carefully closing every
+aperture, except the _foramen magnum_, he measured their capacity by
+filling them with well dried grains of pepper. The results of this
+measurement are exhibited in the subjoined table.[128]
+
+ -------------------------+-----------+----------+----------+----------
+ | Number | | |
+ | of skulls | Average | Maximum. | Minimum.
+ | measured. | capacity.| |
+ -------------------------|-----------|----------|----------|----------
+ White races | 52 | 87 | 109 | 75
+ Yellow races {Mongolians| 10 | 83 | 93 | 69
+ {Malays | 18 | 81 | 89 | 64
+ Copper-colored races | 147 | 82 | 100 | 60
+ Negroes | 29 | 78 | 94 | 65
+ -------------------------+-----------+----------+----------+----------
+
+The results given in the first two columns are certainly very curious,
+but to those in the last two I attach little value. These two columns,
+giving the maximum and minimum capacities, differ so greatly from the
+second, which shows the average, that they could be of weight only if
+Mr. Morton had experimented upon a much greater number of skulls, and if
+he had specified the social position of the individuals to whom they
+belonged. Thus, for his specimens of the white and copper-colored races,
+he might select skulls that had belonged to individuals rather above the
+common herd.[129] But the Blacks and Mongolians were not represented by
+the skulls of their great chiefs and mandarins. This explains why Dr.
+Morton could ascribe the figure 100 to an aboriginal of America, while
+the most intelligent Mongolian that he examined did not exceed 93, and
+is surpassed even by the negro, who reaches 94. Such results are
+entirely incomplete, fortuitous, and of no scientific value. In
+questions of this kind, too much care cannot be taken to reject
+conclusions which are based upon the examination of individualities. I
+am, therefore, unable to accept the second half of Dr. Morton's
+calculations.
+
+I am also disposed to doubt one of the details in the other half. The
+figures 100, 83, and 78, respectively indicating the average capacity of
+the skull of the white, Mongolian, and negro, follow a clear and evident
+gradation. But the figures 83, 81, and 82, given for the Mongol, the
+Malay, and the red-skin, are conflicting; the more so, as Mr. Carus does
+not hesitate to comprise the Mongols and Malays into one and the same
+race, and thus unites the figures 83 and 81--by which he receives, as
+the average capacity of the yellow race, 82, or the same as that of the
+red-skins. Wherefore, then, take the figure 82 as the characteristic of
+a distinct race, and thus create, quite arbitrarily, a fourth great
+subdivision of our species.
+
+This anomaly supports the weak side of Mr. Carus's system. The learned
+Saxon amuses himself by supposing that, just as we see our planet pass
+through the four stages of day, night, morning twilight, and evening
+twilight, so there _must_ be four subdivisions of the human species,
+corresponding to these variations of light. He perceives in this a
+symbol,[130] which is always a dangerous temptation to a mind of refined
+susceptibilities. The white races are to him the nations of day; the
+black, those of night; the yellow, those of morning; the red, those of
+evening. It will be perceived how many ingenious analogies may be
+brought forward in support of this fanciful invention. Thus, the
+European nations, by the brilliancy of their scientific discoveries and
+their superior civilization, are in an enlightened state, while the
+blacks are plunged in the gloomy darkness of ignorance. The Eastern
+nations live in a sort of twilight, which affords them an incomplete,
+though powerful, social existence. And as for the Indians of the Western
+World, who are rapidly disappearing, what more beautiful image of their
+destiny can be found than the setting sun?
+
+Unfortunately, parables are no arguments, and Mr. Carus has somewhat
+injured his beautiful theory by unduly abandoning himself to this
+poetical current. Moreover, what I have said with regard to all other
+ethnological theories--those of Camper, Blumenbach, and Owen--holds good
+of this: Mr. Carus does not succeed in systematizing regularly the
+whole of the physiological diversities observable in races.[131]
+
+The advocates for unity of species have not failed to take advantage of
+this inability on the part of their opponents to find a system which
+will include the many varieties of the human family; and they pretend
+that, as the observations upon the conformation of the skull cannot be
+reduced to a system which demonstrates the original separation of types,
+the different varieties must be regarded as simple divergencies
+occasioned by adventitious and secondary causes, and which do not prove
+a difference of origin.
+
+This is crying victory too soon. The difficulty of finding a method does
+not always prove that none can be found. But the believers in the unity
+of species did not admit this reserve. To set off their theory, they
+point to the fact that certain tribes, belonging to the same race,
+instead of presenting the same physical type, diverge from it very
+considerably. They cite the different groups of the mixed
+Malay-Polynesian family; and, without paying attention to the proportion
+of the elements which compose the mixtures, they say that if groups of
+the same origin can assume such totally different craniological and
+facial forms, the greatest diversities of that kind do not prove the
+primary plurality of origins.[132] Strange as it may be to European
+eyes, the distinct types of the negro and the Mongolian are not then
+demonstrative of difference of species; and the differences among the
+human family must be ascribed simply to certain local causes operating
+during a greater or less lapse of time.[133]
+
+The advocates for the plurality of races, being met with so many
+objections, good as well as bad, have attempted to enlarge the circle of
+their arguments, and, ceasing to make the skull their only study, have
+proceeded to the examination of the entire individual. They have rightly
+shown that the differences do not exist merely in the aspect of the face
+and formation of the skull, but, what is no less important, they exist
+also in the shape of the pelvis, the relative proportion of the limbs,
+and the nature of the pilous system.
+
+Camper and other naturalists had long since perceived that the pelvis of
+the negro presented certain peculiarities. Dr. Vrolik extended his
+researches further, and observed that in the European race the
+differences between the male and female pelvis are much less distinctly
+marked, while the pelvis of the negro, of either sex, partakes in a very
+striking degree of the animal character. The Amsterdam _savant_,
+starting from the idea that the formation of the pelvis necessarily
+influences that of the foetus, concludes that there must be difference
+of origin.[134]
+
+Mr. Weber has attacked this theory with but little success. He was
+obliged to allow that certain formations of the pelvis occur more
+frequently in one race than in another; and all he could do, was to show
+that the rule is not without exceptions, and that some individuals of
+the American, African, or Mongol race presented the forms common among
+the European. This is not proving a great deal, especially as it never
+seems to have occurred to Mr. Weber that these exceptions might be owing
+to a mixture of blood.
+
+The adversaries of the unity doctrine pretend that the European is
+better proportioned. They are answered that the excessive leanness of
+the extremities among those nations which subsist principally on
+vegetable diet, or whose alimentation is imperfect, is not at all
+surprising; and this reply is certainly valid. But a much less
+conclusive reply is made to the argument drawn from the excessive
+development of bust among the mountaineers of Peru (Quichuas) by those
+who are unwilling to recognize it as a specific characteristic; for to
+pretend, as they do, that it can be explained by the elevation of the
+Andes, is not advancing a very serious reason.[135] There are in the
+world many mountain populations who are constituted very differently
+from the Quichuas.[136]
+
+The color of the skin is another argument for diversity of origin. But
+the opposite party refuse to accept this as a specific characteristic,
+for two reasons: first, because, they say, this coloration depends upon
+climatic circumstances, and is not permanent--which is, to say the least
+of it, a very bold assertion; secondly, because color is liable to
+indefinite gradations, by which white insensibly passes into yellow,
+yellow into black, so that it is impossible to find a line of
+demarcation sufficiently decided. This fact simply proves the existence
+of innumerable hybrids; an observation to which the advocates for unity
+are constantly inattentive.
+
+With regard to the specific differences in the formation of the pile,
+Mr. Flourens brings his great authority in favor of the original unity
+of race.[137]
+
+I have now passed rapidly in review the more or less inconsistent
+arguments of the advocates of unity; but their strongest one still
+remains. It is of great force, and I therefore reserved it for the
+last--the facility with which the different branches of the human family
+produce hybrids, and the fecundity of these hybrids themselves.
+
+The observations of naturalists seem to have well established the fact
+that half-breeds can spring only from nearly related species, and that
+even in that case they are condemned to sterility. It has been further
+observed that, even among closely allied species, where fecundation is
+possible, copulation is repugnant, and obtained, generally, either by
+force or ruse, which would lead us to suppose that, in a state of
+nature, the number of hybrids is even more limited than that obtained by
+the intervention of man. It has, therefore, been concluded that, among
+the number of specific characteristics, we must place the faculty of
+producing prolific offspring.
+
+As nothing authorizes us to believe that the human race are exempt from
+this law, so nothing has hitherto been able to shake the strength of
+this objection,[138] which, more than all the others, holds the
+advocates for plurality in check. It is, indeed, affirmed that, in
+certain portions of Oceanica, indigenous women, after having brought
+forth a half-breed European child, can no longer be fecundated by
+compatriots. If this assertion be admitted as correct, it might serve as
+a starting point for further investigations; but at present it could not
+be used to invalidate the admitted principles of science upon the
+generation of hybrids--against the deductions drawn from these it proves
+nothing.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[118] M. Flourens, _Eloge de Blumenbach, Memoires de l'Academie des
+Sciences_. Paris, 1847, p. xiii. This _savant_ justly protests against
+such a method.
+
+[119] For the description of types in this and other portions of this
+chapter, I am indebted to
+
+M. WILLIAM LAWRENCE, _Lect. on the Nat. Hist. of Man_. London, 1844. But
+especially to the learned
+
+JAMES COWLES PRICHARD, _Nat. Hist. of Man_. London, 1848.
+
+[120] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 129.
+
+[121] It is impossible to conceive an idea of the scarce human form of
+these creatures, without the aid of pictorial representations. In
+Prichard's _Natural History of Man_ will be found a plate (No. 23, p.
+355) from M. d'Urville's atlas, which may assist the reader in gaining
+an idea of the utmost hideousness that the human form is capable of. I
+cannot but believe that the picture there given is considerably
+exaggerated, but with all due allowance in this respect, enough ugliness
+will be left to make us almost ashamed to recognize these beings as
+belonging to our kind.--H.
+
+[122] _Op. cit._, p. 111.
+
+[123] It will be observed that Prichard and Camper, and further on
+Blumenbach, here use the word _nation_ as synonymous to _race_. See my
+introduction, p. 65.--H.
+
+[124] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 115.
+
+[125] _Op. cit._, p. 117.
+
+[126] Carus, _Ueber ungleiche Befaehigung_, etc., p. 19.
+
+[127] _Op. cit._, p. 20.
+
+[128] As Mr. Gobineau has taken the facts presented by Dr. Morton at
+second hand, and, moreover, had not before him Dr. Morton's later tables
+and more matured deductions, Dr. Nott has given an abstract of the
+result arrived at by the learned craniologist, as published by himself
+in 1849. This abstract, and the valuable comments of Dr. Nott himself,
+will be found in the Appendix, under A.--H.
+
+[129] I fear that our author has here fallen into an error which his own
+facts disprove, and which is still everywhere received without
+examination, viz: that cultivation can change the form or size of the
+head, either of individuals or races; an opinion, in support of which,
+no facts whatever can be adduced. The heads of the barbarous races of
+Europe were precisely the same as those of civilized Europe in our day;
+this is proven by the disinterred crania of ancient races, and by other
+facts. Nor do we see around us among the uneducated, heads inferior in
+form and size to those of the more privileged classes. Does any one
+pretend that the nobility of England, which has been an educated class
+for centuries, have larger heads, or more intelligence than the ignoble?
+On the contrary, does not most of the talent of England spring up from
+plebeian ranks? Wherever civilization has been brought to a population
+of the white race, they have accepted it at once--their heads required
+no development. Where, on the contrary, it has been carried to Negroes,
+Mongols, and Indians, they have rejected it. Egyptians and Hindoos have
+small heads, but we know little of the early history of their
+civilization. Egyptian monuments prove that the early people and
+language of Egypt were strongly impregnated with Semitic elements.
+Latham has shown that the Sanscrit language was carried _from_ Europe to
+India, and probably civilization with it.
+
+I have looked in vain for twenty years for evidence to prove that
+cultivation could enlarge a _brain_, while it expands the mind. The head
+of a boy at twelve is as large as it ever is.--N.
+
+[130] Carus, _op. cit._, p. 12.
+
+[131] There are some very slight ones, which nevertheless are very
+characteristic. Among this number I would class a certain enlargement on
+each side of the lower lip, which is found among the English and
+Germans. I find this indication of Germanic origin in several paintings
+of the Flemish school, in the _Madonna_ of Rubens, in the museum of
+Dresden, in the _Satyrs_ and _Nymphs_ of the same collection, in a
+_Lute-player_ of Mieris, etc. No cranioscopic method whatever could
+embrace such details, which, however, are not without value in the great
+mixture of races which Europe presents.
+
+[132] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 329.
+
+[133] Job Ludolf, whose facilities of observation must necessarily have
+been very defective when compared with those we enjoy at the present
+day, nevertheless combats in very forcible language, and with
+arguments--so far as concerns the negro--invincible, the opinion here
+adopted by Mr. Prichard. I cannot refrain from quoting him in this
+place, not for any novelty contained in his arguments, but to show their
+very antiquity: "De nigredine Aethiopum hic agere nostri non
+est instituti, plerique ardoribus solis atquae zonae torridae id tribuant.
+Verum etiam intra solis orbitam populi dantur, si non plane albi, saltem
+non prorsus nigri. Multi extra utrumque tropicum a media mundi linea
+longius absunt quam Persae aut Syri, veluti pramontorii Bonae Spei
+habitantes, et tamen iste sunt nigerrimi. Si Africae tantum et Chami
+posteris id inspectari velis, Malabares et Ceilonii aliique remotiores
+Asiae populi aeque nigri excipiendi erunt. Quod si causam ad coeli
+solique naturam referas, non homines albi in illis regionibus
+renascentes non nigrescunt? Aut qui ad occultas qualitates confugiunt,
+melius fecerint si sese nescire fateantur."--JOBUS LUDOLFUS,
+_Commentarium ad Historiam Aethiopicam_, fol. Norimb. p. 56.
+
+[134] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 124.
+
+[135] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 433.
+
+[136] Neither the Swiss, nor the Tyrolese, nor the Highlanders of
+Scotland, nor the Sclaves of the Balkan, nor the tribes of the Himaleh,
+nor any other mountaineers whatever, present the monstrous appearance of
+the Quichuas.
+
+[137] The distinguished microscopist, Dr. Peter A. Browne, of
+Philadelphia, has published the most elaborate observations on hair, of
+any author I have met with; and he asserts that the pile of the negro is
+_wool_, and not hair. He has gone so far as to distinguish the leading
+races of men by the direction, shape, and structure of the hair. The
+reader is referred to his works for much very curious, new, and valuable
+matter.--N.
+
+To those of our readers who may not have the inclination or opportunity
+of consulting Mr. Browne's work, the following concise and excellent
+synopsis of his views, which I borrow from Dr. Kneeland's _Introduction
+to Hamilton Smith's Natural History of Man_, may not be unacceptable:
+"There are, on microscopical examination, three prevailing forms of the
+transverse section of the filament, viz: the cylindrical, the oval, and
+the eccentrically elliptical. There are also three directions in which
+it pierces the epidermis. The straight and lank, the flowing or curled,
+and the crisped or frizzled, differ respectively as to the angle which
+the filament makes with the skin on leaving it. The cylindrical and oval
+pile has an oblique angle of inclination. The eccentrically elliptical
+pierces the epidermis at right angles, and lies perpendicularly in the
+dermis. The hair of the white man is oval; that of the Choctaw, and some
+other American Indians, is cylindrical; that of the negro is
+eccentrically elliptical or flat. The hair of the white man has, beside
+its cortex and intermediate fibres, a central canal, which contains the
+coloring matter when present. The pile of the negro has no central
+canal, and the coloring matter is diffused, when present, either
+throughout the cortex or the intermediate fibres. Hair, according to
+these observations, is more complex in its structure than wool. In hair,
+the enveloping scales are comparatively few, with smooth surfaces,
+rounded at their points, and closely embracing the shaft. In wool, they
+are numerous, rough, sharp-pointed, and project from the shaft. _Hence,
+the hair of the white man will not felt, that of the negro will._ In
+this respect, therefore, it comes near to true wool"--pp. 88, 89.--H.
+
+[138] A full answer to this objection will be found in our Appendix,
+under _B_.--N.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+PERMANENCY OF TYPES.
+
+ The language of Holy Writ in favor of common origin--The permanency
+ of their characteristics separates the races of men as effectually
+ as if they were distinct creations--Arabs, Jews--Prichard's
+ argument about the influence of climate examined--Ethnological
+ history of the Turks and Hungarians.
+
+
+The believers in unity of race affirm that types are different in
+appearance only; that, in fact, the differences existing among them are
+owing to local circumstances still in operation, or to an accidental
+peculiarity of conformation in the progenitor of a branch, and that,
+though they all, more or less, diverge from the original prototype, they
+all are capable of again returning to it. According to this, then, the
+negro, the North American savage, the Tungoose of North Siberia, might,
+under favorable circumstances, gain all the physical and mental
+attributes which now distinguish the European. Such a theory is
+inadmissible.
+
+We have shown above that the only solid scientific stronghold of the
+believers in unity of species is the prolificness of human hybrids. This
+fact, which seems at present so difficult to refute, may not always
+present the same difficulties, and would not, by itself, suffice to
+arrest my conclusions, were it not supported by another argument which,
+I confess, appears to me of greater moment: Scripture is said to declare
+against difference of origin.
+
+If the text is clear, peremptory, and indisputable, we must submit; the
+most serious doubts must disappear; human reason, in its imperfection,
+must bow to faith. Better to let the veil of obscurity cover a point of
+erudition, than to call in question so high and incontestable an
+authority. If the Bible declares that mankind are descended from the
+same common stock, all that goes to prove the contrary is mere
+semblance, unworthy of consideration. But is the Bible really explicit
+on this point? The sacred writings have a much higher purpose than the
+elucidation of ethnological problems; and if it be admitted that they
+may have been misunderstood in this particular, and that without
+straining the text, it may be interpreted otherwise, I return to my
+first impression.
+
+The Bible evidently speaks of Adam as the progenitor of the white race,
+because from him are descended generations which--it cannot be
+doubted--were white. But nothing proves that at the first redaction of
+the Adamite genealogies the colored races were considered as forming
+part of the species. There is not a word said about the yellow nations,
+and I hope to prove, in my second volume, that the pretended black color
+of the patriarch Ham rests upon no other basis than an arbitrary
+interpretation. At a later period, doubtless, translators and
+commentators, who affirmed that Adam was the father of all beings called
+men, were obliged to bring in as descendants of the sons of Noah all the
+different varieties with whom they were acquainted. In this manner,
+Japheth was considered the progenitor of the European nations, while the
+inhabitants of the greater portion of Asia were looked upon as the
+descendants of Shem; and those of Africa, of Ham. This arrangement
+answers admirably for one portion of the globe. But what becomes of the
+population of the rest of the world, who are not included in this
+classification?
+
+I will not, at present, particularly insist upon this idea. I dislike
+the mere appearance of impugning even simple interpretations if they
+have the sanction of the church, and wish merely to intimate that their
+authority might, perhaps, be questioned without transgressing the limits
+established by the church.[139] If this is not the case, and we must
+accept, in the main, the opinions of the believers in unity, I still do
+not despair that the facts may be explained in a manner different from
+theirs, and that the principal physical and moral differences among the
+branches of the human family may exist, with all their necessary
+consequences, independently of unity or plurality of origin.
+
+The specific identity of all canines is acknowledged,[140] but who would
+undertake the difficult task of proving that all these animals, to
+whatever variety they may belong, were possessed of the same shapes,
+instincts, habits, qualities? The same is the case with many other
+species, the equine, bovine, ursine, etc. Here we find perfect identity
+of origin, and yet diversity in every other respect, and a diversity so
+radical, that even intermixture can not produce a real identity of
+character in the several types. On the contrary, so long as each type
+remains pure, their distinctive features are permanent, and reproduced,
+without any sensible deviation, in each successive generation.[141]
+
+This incontestable fact has led to the inquiry whether in those species
+which, by domestication, have lost their original habits, and contracted
+others, the forms and instincts of the primitive stock were still
+discernible. I think this highly improbable, and can hardly believe that
+we shall ever be able to determine the shape and characteristics of the
+prototype of each species, and how much or how little it is approached
+by the deviations now before our eyes. A very great number of vegetables
+present the same problem, and with regard to man, whose origin it is
+most interesting and important for us to know, the inquiry seems to be
+attended with the greatest and most insurmountable difficulties.
+
+Each race is convinced that its progenitor had precisely the
+characteristics which now distinguish it. This is the only point upon
+which their traditions perfectly agree. The white races represent to
+themselves an Adam and Eve, whom Blumenbach would at once have
+pronounced Caucasians; the Mohammedan negroes, on the contrary, believe
+the first pair to have been black; these being created in God's own
+image, it follows that the Supreme Being, and also the angels, are of
+the same color, and the prophet himself was certainly too greatly
+favored by his Sender to display a pale skin to his disciples.[142]
+
+Unfortunately, modern science has as yet found no clue to this maze of
+opinions. No admissible theory has been advanced which affords the least
+light upon the subject, and, in all probability, the various types
+differ as much from their common progenitor--if they possess one--as
+they do among themselves. The causes of these deviations are
+exceedingly difficult to ascertain. The believers in the unity of origin
+pretend to find them, as I remarked before, in various local
+circumstances, such as climate, habits, &c. It is impossible to coincide
+with such an opinion, for, although these circumstances have always
+existed, they have not, within historical times, produced such
+alterations in the races which were exposed to their influence as to
+make it even probable that they were the causes of so vast and radical a
+dissimilarity as we now see before us. Suppose two tribes, not yet
+departed from the primitive type, to inhabit, one an alpine region in
+the interior of a continent, the other some isolated isle in the
+immensity of the ocean. Their atmospheric and alimentary conditions
+would, of course, be totally different. If we further suppose one of
+these tribes to be abundantly provided with nourishment, and the other
+possessing but precarious means of subsistence; one to inhabit a cold
+latitude, and the other to be exposed to the action of a tropical sun;
+it seems to me that we have accumulated the most essential local
+contrasts. Allowing these physical causes to operate a sufficient lapse
+of time, the two groups would, no doubt, ultimately assume certain
+peculiar characteristics, by which they might be distinguished from each
+other. But no imaginable length of time could bring about any
+essential, organic change of conformation; and as a proof of this
+assertion, I would point to the populations of opposite portions of the
+globe, living under physical conditions the most widely different, who,
+nevertheless, present a perfect resemblance of type.
+
+The Hottentots so strongly resemble the inhabitants of the Celestial
+Empire, that it has even been supposed, though without good reasons,
+that they were originally a Chinese colony. A great similarity exists
+between the ancient Etruscans, whose portraits have come down to us, and
+the Araucanians of South America. The features and outlines of the
+Cherokees seem to be perfectly identical with those of several Italian
+populations, the Calabrians, for instance. The inhabitants of Auvergne,
+especially the female portion, much more nearly resemble in physiognomy
+several Indian tribes of North America than any European nation. Thus we
+see that in very different climes, and under conditions of life so very
+dissimilar, nature can reproduce the same forms. The peculiar
+characteristics which now distinguish the different types cannot,
+therefore, be the effects of local circumstances such as now exist.[143]
+
+Though it is impossible to ascertain what physical changes different
+branches of the human family may have undergone anterior to the historic
+epoch, yet we have the best proofs that since then, no race has changed
+its peculiar characteristics. The historic epoch comprises about one
+half of the time during which our earth is supposed to have been
+inhabited, and there are several nations whom we can trace up to the
+verge of ante-historic ages; yet we find that the races then known have
+remained the same to our days, even though they ceased to inhabit the
+same localities, and consequently were no longer exposed to the
+influence of the same external conditions.
+
+Witness the Arabs. As they are represented on the monuments of Egypt, so
+we find them at present, not only in the arid deserts of their native
+land, but in the fertile regions and moist climate of Malabar,
+Coromandel, and the islands of the Indian Ocean. We find them again,
+though more mixed, on the northern coasts of Africa, and, although many
+centuries have elapsed since their invasion, traces of Arab blood are
+still discernible in some portions of Roussillon, Languedoc, and Spain.
+
+Next to the Arabs I would instance the Jews. They have emigrated to
+countries in every respect the most dissimilar to Palestine, and have
+not even preserved their ancient habits of life. Yet their type has
+always remained peculiar and the same in every latitude and under every
+physical condition. The warlike Rechabites in the deserts of Arabia
+present to us the same features as our own peaceable Jews. I had
+occasion not long since to examine a Polish Jew. The cut of his face,
+and especially his eyes, perfectly betrayed his origin. This inhabitant
+of a northern zone, whose direct ancestors for several generations had
+lived among the snows and ice of an inhospitable clime, seemed to have
+been tanned but the day before, by the ardent rays of a Syrian sun. The
+same Shemitic face which the Egyptian artist represented some four
+thousand or more years ago, we recognize daily around us; and its
+principal and really characteristic features are equally strikingly
+preserved under the most diverse climatic circumstances. But the
+resemblance is not confined to the face only, it extends to the
+conformation of the limbs and the nature of the temperament. German Jews
+are generally smaller and more slender in stature than the European
+nations among whom they have lived for centuries; and the age of puberty
+arrives earlier with them than with their compatriots of another
+race.[144]
+
+This is, I am aware, an assertion diametrically opposed to Mr.
+Prichard's opinions. This celebrated physiologist, in his zeal to prove
+the unity of species, attempts to prove that the age of puberty in both
+sexes is the same everywhere and among all races. His arguments are
+based upon the precepts of the Old Testament and the Koran, by which the
+marriageable age of women is fixed at fifteen, and even eighteen,
+according to Abou-Hanifah.[145]
+
+I hardly think that biblical testimony is admissible in matters of this
+kind, because the Scriptures often narrate facts which cannot be
+accounted for by the ordinary laws of nature. Thus, the pregnancy of
+Sarah at an extreme old age, and when Abraham himself was a centenarian,
+is an event upon which no ordinary course of reasoning could be based.
+As for the precepts of the Mohammedan law, I would observe that they
+were intended to insure not merely the physical aptitude for marriage,
+but also that degree of mental maturity and education which befit a
+woman about to enter on the duties of so serious a station. The prophet
+makes it a special injunction that the religious education of young
+women should be continued to the time of their marriage. Taking this
+view, the law-giver would naturally incline to delay the period of
+marriage as long as possible, in order to afford time for the
+development of the reasoning faculties, and he would therefore be less
+precipitate in his authorizations than nature in hers. But there are
+some other proofs which I would adduce against Mr. Prichard's grave
+arguments, which, though of less weighty character, are not the less
+conclusive, and will settle the question, I think, in my favor.
+
+Poets, in their tales of love, are mainly solicitous of exhibiting their
+heroines in the first bloom of beauty, without caring much about their
+moral and mental development. Accordingly, we find that oriental poets
+have always made their lovers much younger than the age prescribed by
+the Koran. Zelika and Leila are not, surely, fourteen years old. In
+India, this difference is still more striking. Sacontala, in Europe,
+would be quite a small girl, a mere child. The spring-time of life for
+a Hindoo female is from the age of nine to that of twelve. In the
+Chinese romance, _Yu-Kiao-li_, the heroine is sixteen; and her father is
+in great distress, and laments pathetically that at so advanced an age
+she should still be unmarried. The Roman writers, following in the
+footsteps of their Greek preceptors, took fifteen as the period of bloom
+of a woman's life; our own authors for a long time adhered to these
+models, but since the ideas of the North have begun to exert their
+influence upon our literature, the heroines of our novels are full-grown
+young ladies of eighteen, and very often more.[146]
+
+But arguments of a more serious character are by no means wanting.
+Besides what I said of the precocity of the Jews in Germany, I may point
+out the reverse as a peculiarity of the population of many portions of
+Switzerland. Among them the physical development is so slow, that the
+age of puberty is not always attained at twenty. The Zingaris, or
+gypsies, display the same physical precocity as their Hindoo ancestry,
+and, under the austere sky of Russia and Moldavia, they preserve,
+together with their ancient notions and habits, the general aspect of
+face and form of the Pariahs.[147]
+
+I do not, however, wish to attack Mr. Prichard upon all points. There is
+one of his conclusions which I readily adopt, viz.: "_that the
+difference of climate occasions very little, if any, important diversity
+as to the periods of life and the physical changes to which the human
+constitution is subject_."[148] This conclusion is very well founded,
+and I shall not seek to invalidate it; but it appears to me that it
+contradicts a little the principles so ably advocated by the learned
+physiologist and antiquary.
+
+The reader must have perceived that the discussion turns solely upon
+permanency of type. If it can be proved that the different branches of
+the human family are each possessed of a certain individuality which is
+independent of climate and the lapse of ages, and can be effaced only by
+intermixture, the question of origin is reduced to little importance;
+for, in that case, the different types are no less completely and
+irrevocably separated than if their specific differences arose from
+diversity of origin.
+
+That such is the case, we have already proved by the testimony of
+Egyptian sculptures with regard to the Arabs, and by our observations
+upon the Jews and gypsies. Should any further proofs be needed, we would
+mention that the paintings in the temples and subterraneous buildings of
+the Nile valley as indubitably attest the permanence of the negro type.
+There we see the same crisped hair, prognathous skull, and thick lips.
+The recent discovery of the bas-reliefs of Khorsabad[149] has removed
+beyond doubt the conclusions previously formed from the figured
+monuments of Persepolis, viz.: that the present Assyrian nations are
+physiologically identical with those who formerly inhabited the same
+regions.
+
+If similar investigations could be made upon a greater number of
+existing races, the results would be the same. We have established the
+fact of permanence of types in all cases where investigation is
+possible, and the burden of proof, therefore, falls upon the dissenting
+party.
+
+Their arguments, indeed, are in direct contradiction to the most obvious
+facts. Thus they allege, although the most ordinary observation shows
+the contrary, that climate _has_ produced alterations in the Jewish
+type, inasmuch as many light-haired, blue-eyed Jews are found in
+Germany. For this argument to be of any weight in their position, the
+advocates for unity of race must recognize climate to be the sole, or at
+least principal, cause of this phenomenon. But the adherents of that
+doctrine elsewhere assert that the color of the eyes, hair, and skin, no
+ways depends upon geographical situation or the action of heat and
+cold.[150] As an evidence of this, they justly cite the Cinghalese, who
+have blue eyes and light hair;[151] they even observe among them a very
+considerable difference of complexion, varying from a light brown to
+black. Again, they admit that the Samoiedes and Tungusians, though
+living on the borders of the Frozen Ocean,[152] have an exceedingly
+swarthy complexion. If, therefore, climate exerts no influence upon the
+complexion and color of hair and eyes, these marks must be considered as
+of no importance, or as pertaining to race. We know that red hair is not
+at all uncommon in the East, and at no time has been so; it cannot,
+therefore, create much surprise if we occasionally find it among the
+Jews of Germany. This fact cannot be adduced as evidence either in
+favor of, or against, the permanence of types.
+
+The advocates for unity are no less unfortunate in their historical
+arguments. They furnish but two; the Turks and the Magyars. The Asiatic
+origin of the former is supposed to be established beyond doubt, as well
+as of their intimate relationship with the Finnic branches of the
+Laplanders and Ostiacs. It follows from this that they must originally
+have displayed the yellow skin, projecting cheek bones, and low stature
+of the Mongolian races. This point being settled, we are told to look at
+the Turks of our day, who exhibit all the characteristics of the
+European type. Types, then, are not permanent, it is victoriously
+concluded, because the Turks have undergone such a transformation. "It
+is true," say the adherents of the unity school, "that some pretend
+there had been an admixture of Greek, Georgian, and Circassian blood.
+But this admixture can have taken place only to a very limited extent;
+all Turks are not rich enough to buy their wives in the Caucasus, or to
+have seraglios filled with white slaves; on the other hand, the hatred
+which the Greeks cherish for their conquerors, and the religious
+antipathies of both nations, were not favorable to alliances between
+them, and consequently we see them--though inhabiting the same
+country--as distinct at this day as at the time of the conquest."[153]
+
+These arguments are more specious than solid. In the first place, I am
+greatly disposed to doubt the Finnic origin of the Turkish race, because
+the only evidence that has hitherto been produced in favor of this
+supposition is affinity of language, and I shall hereafter give my
+reasons for believing this argument--when unsupported by any other--as
+extremely unreliable, and open to doubt. But even if we suppose the
+ancestors of the Turkish nation to belong to the yellow race, it is easy
+to show why their descendants have so widely departed from that type.
+
+Centuries elapsed from the time of the first appearance of the Turanian
+hordes to the day which saw them the masters of the city of Constantine,
+and during that period, multifarious events took place; the fortune of
+the Western Turks has been a checkered one. Alternately conquerors or
+conquered, masters or slaves, they have become incorporated with various
+nationalities. According to the annalists,[154] their Orghuse ancestors,
+who descended from the Altai Mountains, inhabited in Abraham's time the
+immense steppes of Upper Asia which extend from Katai to the sea of
+Aral, from Siberia to Thibet, and which, as has recently been
+proved--were then the abode of numerous Germanic tribes.[155] It is a
+singular circumstance, that the first mentioning by Oriental writers of
+the tribes of Turkestan is in celebrating them for their beauty of face
+and form.[156] The most extravagant hyperboles are lavished on them
+without reserve, and as these writers had before their eyes the
+handsomest types of the old world with which to compare them, it is not
+probable that they should have wasted their enthusiasm on creatures so
+ugly and repulsive as are generally the races of pure Mongolian blood.
+Thus, notwithstanding the dicta of philology, I think serious doubts
+might be raised on that point.[157]
+
+But I am willing to admit that the Turcomannic tribes were, indeed, as
+is supposed, of Finnic origin. Let us come down to a later period--the
+Mohammedan era. We then find these tribes under various denominations
+and in equally various situations, dispersed over Persia and Asia Minor.
+The Osmanli were not yet existing at that time, and their predecessors,
+the Seldjuks, were already greatly mixed with the races that had
+embraced Islamism. We see from the example of Ghaiased-din-Keikosrew,
+who lived in 1237, that the Seljuk princes were in the habit of
+frequently intermarrying with Arab women. They must have gone still
+further, for we find that Aseddin, the mother of one of the Seljuk
+dynasties, was a Christian. It is reasonable to suppose, that if the
+chiefs of the nation, who everywhere are the most anxious to preserve
+the purity of their genealogy, showed themselves so devoid of prejudice,
+their subjects were still less scrupulous on that point. Their constant
+inroads in which they ranged over vast districts, gave them ample
+opportunities for capturing slaves, and there is every reason to believe
+that already in the 13th century, the ancient Orghuse branch was
+strongly tinctured with Shemitic blood.
+
+To this branch belonged Osman, the son of Ortoghrul, and father of the
+Osmanli. But few families were collected around his tent. His army was,
+at first, little better than a band of adventurers, and the same
+expedient which swelled the ranks of the first builders of Rome,
+increased the number of adherents of this new Romulus of the Steppes.
+Every desperate adventurer or fugitive, of whatever nation, was welcome
+among them, and assured of protection. I shall suppose that the
+downfall of the Seljuk empire brought to their standards a great number
+of their own race. But we have already said that this race was very much
+mixed; and besides, this addition was insufficient, as is proved by the
+fact that, from that time, the Turks began to capture slaves for the
+avowed purpose of repairing, by this means, the waste which constant
+warfare made in their own ranks. In the beginning of the 14th century,
+the sultan Orkhan, following the advice of his vizier, Khalil
+Tjendereli, surnamed the Black, instituted the famous military body
+called Janissaries.[158] They were composed entirely of Christian
+children captured in Poland, Germany, Italy, or the Bizantine Empire,
+who were educated in the Mohammedan religion and the practice of arms.
+Under Mohammed IV., their number had increased to 140,000 men. Here,
+then, we find an influx of at least half a million male individuals of
+European blood in the course of four centuries.
+
+But the infusion of European blood was not limited to this. The piracy
+which was carried on, on so large a scale, in the whole basin of the
+Mediterranean, had for one of its principal objects the replenishment of
+the harems. Every victory gained increased the number of believers in
+the Prophet. A great number of the prisoners of war abjured
+Christianity, and were henceforth counted among the true believers. The
+localities adjacent to the field of battle supplied as many females as
+the marauding victors could lay hold of. In some cases, this sort of
+booty was so plentiful that it became inconvenient to dispose of. Hammer
+relates[159] that, on one occasion, the handsomest female captive was
+bartered for _one boot_. When we consider that the Turkish population of
+the whole Ottoman empire never exceeded twelve millions, it becomes
+apparent that the history of so amalgamated a nation affords no
+arguments, either for or against, the permanency of type. We will now
+proceed to the second historic argument advanced by the believers in
+unity.
+
+"The Magyars," they say, "are of Finnic origin, nearly related to the
+Laplanders, Samoiedes, and Esquimaux, all of which are people of low
+stature, with big faces, projecting cheek-bones, and yellowish or dirty
+brown complexion. Yet the Magyars are tall, well formed, and have
+handsome features. The Finns have always been feeble, unintelligent,
+and oppressed; the Magyars, on the contrary, occupy a distinguished
+rank among the conquerors of the earth, and are noted for their love
+of liberty and independence. As they are so immensely superior,
+both physically and morally, to all the collateral branches of the
+Finnic stock, it follows that they have undergone an enormous
+transformation."[160]
+
+If such a transformation had ever taken place, it would, indeed, be
+astonishing and inexplicable even to those who ascribe the least
+stability to types, for it must have occurred within the last 800 years,
+during which we know that the compatriots of St. Stephen[161] mixed but
+little with surrounding nations. But the whole course of reasoning is
+based upon false premises, for the Hungarians are most assuredly not of
+Finnic origin. Mr. A. De Gerando[162] has placed this fact beyond doubt.
+He has proved, by the authority of Greek and Arab historians, as well as
+Hungarian annalists and by indisputable philological arguments, that the
+Magyars are a fragment of that great inundation of nations which swept
+over Europe under the denomination of Huns. It will be objected that
+this is merely giving the Hungarians another parentage, but which
+connects them no less intimately with the yellow race. Such is not the
+case. The designation of Huns applies not only to a nation, but is also
+a collective appellation of a very heterogeneous mass. Among the tribes
+which rallied around the standards of Attila and his ancestors, there
+were some which have at all times been distinguished from the rest by
+the term _white Huns_. Among them the Germanic blood predominated.[163]
+It is true, that the close contact with the yellow race somewhat
+adulterated the breed; but this very fact is singularly exhibited in the
+somewhat angular and bony facial conformation of the Hungarians. I
+conclude, therefore, that the Magyars were _white Huns_, and of Germanic
+origin, though slightly mixed with the Mongolian stock.
+
+The philological difficulty of their speaking a non-Germanic dialect is
+not insurmountable. I have already alluded to the Mongolian Scyths who
+yet spoke an Arian tongue;[164] I might, moreover, cite the Norman
+settlers in France who, not many years after their conquest, exchanged
+their Scandinavian dialect, in a great measure, for the Celto-Latin of
+their subjects,[165] whence sprang that singular compound called
+Norman-French, which the followers of William the Conqueror imported
+into England, and which now forms an element of the English language.
+
+There is, therefore, no reason to suppose that the agency of climate and
+change of habits have transformed a Laplander, or an Ostiak, or a
+Tunguse, or a Permian, into a St. Stephen or a Kossuth.
+
+Having thus, I think, refuted the only two historical instances which
+the believers in unity of species adduce, of a pretended alteration of
+type by local circumstances and change of habits, and having, moreover,
+instanced several cases where these causes could produce no alteration;
+the fact of permanency of type seems to me to be incontestably
+established.[166] Thus, whichever side we take, whether we believe in
+original unity, or original diversity, is immaterial; the several groups
+of the human species are, at present, so perfectly separated from each
+other, that no exterior influence can efface their distinctive
+peculiarities. The permanency of these differences, so long as there is
+no intermixture, produces precisely the same physical and moral results
+as if the groups were so many distinct and separate creations.
+
+In conclusion, I shall repeat what I have said above, that I have very
+serious doubts as to the unity of origin. These doubts, however, I am
+compelled to repress, because they are in contradiction to a scientific
+fact which I cannot refute--the prolificness of half-breeds; and
+secondly, what is of much greater weight with me, they impugn a
+religious interpretation sanctioned by the church.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[139] For the arguments which may be deduced from the language of Holy
+Writ, in favor of plurality of origins, see Appendix _C_.--H.
+
+[140] Among others, FREDERIC CUVIER, _Annales du Museum_, vol. xi. p.
+458.
+
+[141] The reader will be struck by the remarkable illustration of the
+truth of this remark, which the equine species affords. The vast
+difference between the swift courser, who excites the enthusiasm of
+admiring multitudes, and the common hack, need not be pointed out, and
+it is as well known that either, if the breed be preserved unmixed, will
+perpetuate their distinctive qualities to a countless progeny.--H.
+
+[142] A free mulatto, who had received a very good education in France,
+once seriously undertook to prove to me that the Saviour's earthly form
+partook, at the same time, of the characteristics of the white and the
+black races; in other words, was that of a half-breed. The arguments by
+which he supported this singular hypothesis were drawn from theology, as
+well as Scriptural ethnology, and were remarkably plausible and
+ingenious. I am convinced that if the real opinion of colored Christians
+on this subject could be collected, a vast majority would be found to
+agree with my informant.--H.
+
+[143] Our author here gives evidence of a want of critical study of
+races--the resemblances he has traced do not exist. There is no type in
+Africa south of the equator, or among the aborigines of America, that
+bears any resemblance to any race in Europe or Asia.--N.
+
+[144] Mueller, _Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen_, vol. ii. p. 639.
+
+[145] Prichard, _op. cit._, pp. 484, 485.
+
+[146] An exception, however, must be made in the case of Shakspeare,
+while painting on an Italian canvas. In _Romeo and Juliet_, Capulet
+says:--
+
+ "My child is yet a stranger in the world,
+ She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;
+ Let two more summers wither in their pride,
+ Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride."
+
+To which Paris answers:--
+
+ "Younger than she are happy mothers made."
+
+[147] According to M. Krapff, a Protestant minister in Eastern Africa,
+among the Wanikos both sexes marry at the age of twelve. (_Zeitschrift
+der deutschen morgenlaendischen Gesellschaft_, vol. iii. p. 317.) In
+Paraguay, the Jesuits had established the custom, which subsists to this
+day, of marrying their neophytes, the girls at the age of ten, the boys
+at that of thirteen. It is not rare to find, in that country, widowers
+and widows eleven and twelve years old. (A. D'ORBIGNY, _L'Homme
+Americain_, vol. i. p. 40.) In Southern Brazil, females marry at the age
+of ten and eleven. Menstruation there begins also at a very early age,
+and ceases equally early. (MARTIUS and SPIX, _Reise in Brasilien_, vol.
+i. p. 382.) I might increase the number of similar quotations
+indefinitely.
+
+[148] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 486.
+
+[149] Botta, _Monumens de Ninive_. Paris, 1850.
+
+[150] _Edinburgh Review_, "Ethnology, or the Science of Races," Oct.
+1844, p. 144, _et passim_. "There is probably no evidence of original
+diversity of race which is so generally and unhesitatingly relied upon
+as that derived from the _color of the skin_ and the _character of the
+hair_; ... but it will not, we think, stand the test of serious
+examination.... Among the Kabyles of Algiers and Tunis, the Tuarites of
+Sahara, the Shelahs or mountaineers of Southern Morocco, and other
+people of the same race, there are very considerable differences of
+complexion." (p. 448.)
+
+[151] _Ibid._, _loc. cit._, p. 453. "The Cinghalese are described by Dr.
+Davy as varying in color from light brown to black, the prevalent hue of
+their hair and eyes is black, but hazel eyes and brown hair are not very
+uncommon; gray eyes and red hair are occasionally seen, though rarely,
+and sometimes the light-blue or red eye and flaxen hair of the albino."
+
+[152] _Ibid._, _loc. cit._ "The Samoiedes, Tungusians, and others living
+on the borders of the Icy Sea, have a dirty-brown or swarthy
+complexion."
+
+[153] Edinburgh Review, p. 439.
+
+[154] Hammer, _Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches_, vol. i. p. 2.
+(_History of the Ottoman Empire._)
+
+[155] Ritter, _Erdkunde Asien_, vol. i. p. 433, et passim, p. 1115,
+etc. Lassen, _Zeitschrift fuer die Kunde des Morgenlandes_, vol. ii. p.
+65. Benfey, _Encyclopaedie_, by Ersch and Gruber, _Indien_, p. 12.
+Alexander Von Humboldt, speaking of this fact, styles it one of the most
+important discoveries of our times. (_Asie Centrale_, vol. ii. p. 649.)
+With regard to its bearings upon historical science, nothing can be more
+true.
+
+[156] Nouschirwan, whose reign falls in the first half of the sixth
+century of our era, married Scharouz, the daughter of the Khakan of the
+Turks. She was the most beautiful woman of her time. (Haneberg,
+_Zeitschr. f. d. K. des Morgenl._, vol. i. p. 187.) This is by no means
+an isolated instance; Schahnameh furnishes a number of similar ones.
+
+[157] The Scythes, though having adopted a language of the Arian
+classes, were, nevertheless, a Mongolian nation; there would, therefore,
+be nothing very surprising if the Orghuses had been an Arian nation,
+though speaking a Finnic dialect. This hypothesis is singularly
+corroborated by a passage in the relations of the traveller Rubruquis,
+who was sent by St. Louis as ambassador to the sovereign of the Mongols.
+"I was struck," says the worthy monk, "with the prince's resemblance to
+the deceased _M. John de Beaumont_, whose complexion was equally fresh
+and colored." Alexander Von Humboldt, justly interested by this remark,
+adds: "This physiognomical observation acquires importance, when we
+recollect that the monarch here spoken of belonged to the family of
+Tchinguiz, who were really of Turkish, not of Mogul origin." And
+pursuing this trace, the great _savant_ finds another corroborating
+fact: "The absence of Mongolian features," says he, "strikes us also in
+the portraits which we possess of the Baburides, the conquerors of
+India." (_Asie Centrale_, vol. i. p. 248, and note.)
+
+[158] It will be seen that Mr. Gobineau differs, in the date he gives of
+the institution of the Janissaries, from all other European writers, who
+unanimously ascribe the establishment of this corps to Mourad I., the
+third prince of the line of Othman. This error, into which Gibbon
+himself has fallen, originated with Cantemir: but the concurrent
+testimony of every Turkish historian fixes the epoch of their formation
+and consecration by the Dervish Hadji-Becktash, to the reign of Orkhan,
+the father of Mourad, who, in 1328, enrolled a body of Christian youths
+as soldiers under this name (which signifies, "new regulars"), by the
+advice of his cousin Tchenderli, to whose councils the wise and simple
+regulations of the infant empire are chiefly attributed. Their number
+was at first only a thousand; but it was greatly augmented when Mourad,
+in 1361, appropriated to this service, by an edict, the _imperial fifth_
+of the European captives taken in the war--a measure which has been
+generally confounded with the first enrolment of the corps. At the
+accession of Soliman the Magnificent, their effective strength had
+reached 40,000; and under Mohammed IV., in the middle of the seventeenth
+century, that number was more than doubled. But though the original
+composition of the Janissaries is related by every writer who has
+treated of them, it has not been so generally noticed that for more than
+two centuries and a half not a single native Turk was admitted into
+their ranks, which were recruited, like those of the Mamelukes, solely
+by the continual supply of Christian slaves, at first captives of tender
+age taken in war, and afterwards, when this source proved inadequate to
+the increased demand, by an annual levy among the children of the lower
+orders of Christians throughout the empire--a dreadful tax, frequently
+alluded to by Busbequius, and which did not finally cease till the reign
+of Mohammed IV.
+
+At a later period, when the Krim Tartars became vassals of the Porte,
+the yearly inroads of the fierce cavalry of that nation into the
+southern provinces of Russia, were principally instrumental in
+replenishing this nursery of soldiers; and Fletcher, who was ambassador
+from Queen Elizabeth to Ivan the Terrible, describes, in his quaint
+language, the method pursued in these depredations: "The chief bootie
+the Tartars seeke for in all their warres, is to get store of captives,
+specially young boyes and girles, whom they sell to the Turkes, or
+other, their neighbours. To this purpose, they take with them great
+baskets, made like bakers' panniers, _to carrie them tenderly_; and if
+any of them happens to tyre, or bee sicke on the way, they dash him
+against the ground, or some tree, and so leave him dead." (_Purchas's
+Pilgrims_, vol. iii. p. 441.)
+
+The boys, thus procured from various quarters, were assembled at
+Constantinople, where, after a general inspection, those whose personal
+advantages or indications of superior talent distinguished them from the
+crowd, were set aside as pages of the seraglio or Mamelukes in the
+households of the pashas and other officers, whence in due time they
+were promoted to military commands or other appointments: but the
+remaining multitude were given severally in charge to peasants or
+artisans of Turkish race, principally in Anatolia, by whom they were
+trained up, till they approached the age of manhood, in the tenets of
+the Moslem faith, and inured to all the privations and toils of a hardy
+and laborious life. After this severe probation, they were again
+transferred to the capital, and enrolled in the different _odas_ or
+regiments; and here their military education commenced.--H.
+
+[159] _Erdkunde, Asien_, vol. i. p. 448.
+
+[160] _Ethnology_, etc., p. 439: "The Hungarian nobility ... is proved
+by historical and philological evidence to have been a branch of the
+great Northern Asiatic stock, closely allied in blood to the stupid and
+feeble Ostiaks, and the untamable Laplander."
+
+[161] St. Stephen reigned about the year 1000, nearly one century and a
+half after the first invasion of the Magyars, under their leaders, Arpad
+and Zulta. He introduced Christianity among his people, on which account
+he was canonized, and is now the tutelary saint of his nation. It may
+not be known to the generality of our readers, that the Magyars, though
+they have now resided nearly one thousand years in Hungary, have, with
+few exceptions, never applied themselves to the tillage of the soil.
+Agriculture, to this day, remains almost exclusively in the hands of the
+original (the Slowack or Sclavonian) population. The Magyar's wealth
+consists in his herds, or, if he owns land, it is the Slowacks that
+cultivate it for him. It is a singular phenomenon that these two races,
+though professing the same religion, have remained almost entirely
+unmixed, and each still preserves its own language.--H.
+
+[162] _Essai Historique sur l'Origine des Hongrois._ Paris, 1844.
+
+[163] It appears that we shall be compelled henceforward to considerably
+modify our usually received opinions with regard to the nations of
+Central Asia. It cannot now be any longer doubted that many of these
+populations contain a very considerable admixture of white blood, a fact
+of which our predecessors in the study of history had not the slightest
+apprehension. Alexander Von Humboldt makes a very important remark upon
+this subject, in speaking of the Kirghis-Kazakes, mentioned by Menander
+of Byzant, and Constantine Porphyrogenetus; and he shows conclusively
+that the Kirghis (~cherchis~) concubine spoken of by the former
+writer as a present of the Turkish chief Dithubul to Zemarch, the
+ambassador of Justinian II., in A. D. 569, was a girl of mixed
+blood--partly white. She is the precise counterpart of those beautiful
+Turkish girls, whose charms are so much extolled by Persian writers, and
+who did not belong, any more than she, to the Mongolian race. (Vide
+_Asie Centrale_, vol. i. p. 237, _et passim_, and vol. ii. pp. 130,
+131.)
+
+[164] Schaffarick, _Slawische Alterthuemer_, vol. i. p. 279, _et passim_.
+
+[165] Aug. Thierry, _Histoire de la Conquite de l'Angleterre_. Paris,
+1846, vol. i. p. 155.
+
+[166] In my introductory note to Chapters VIII. and IX. (see p. 244), I
+have mentioned a remarkable instance of the permanency of
+characteristics, even in branches of the same race. An equally, if not
+more striking illustration of this fact is given by Alex. Von Humboldt.
+
+It is well known that Spain contains a population composed of very
+dissimilar ethnical elements, and that the inhabitants of its various
+provinces differ essentially, not only in physical appearance, but still
+more in mental characteristics. As in all newly-settled countries,
+immigrants from the same locality are apt to select the same spot, the
+extensive Spanish possessions on this continent were colonized, each
+respectively, by some particular province in the mother country. Thus
+the Biscayans settled Mexico; the Andalusians and natives of the Canary
+Islands, Venezuela; the Catalonians, Buenos Ayres; the Castillians,
+Peru, etc. Although centuries have elapsed since these original
+settlements, and although the character of the Spanish Americans must
+have been variously modified by the physical nature of their new homes,
+whether situated in the vicinity of coasts, or of mining districts, or
+in isolated table-lands, or in fertile valleys; notwithstanding all
+this, the great traveller and experienced observer still clearly
+recognizes in the character of the various populations of South America,
+the distinctive peculiarities of the original settlers. Says he: "The
+Andalusians and Canarians of Venezuela, the Mountaineers and the
+Biscayans of Mexico, the Catalonians of Buenos Ayres, evince
+considerable differences in their aptitude for agriculture, for the
+mechanical arts, for commerce, and for all objects connected with
+intellectual development. _Each of these races has preserved, in the
+new, as in the old world, the shades that constitute its national
+physiognomy_; its asperity or mildness of character; its freedom from
+sordid feelings, or its excessive love of gain; its social hospitality,
+or its taste of solitude.... In the inhabitants of Caracas, Santa Fe,
+Quito, and Buenos Ayres, we still recognize the features that belong to
+the race of the first settlers."--_Personal Narrative_, Eng. Trans.,
+vol. i. p. 395.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+CLASSIFICATION OF RACES.
+
+ Primary varieties--Test for recognizing them; not always
+ reliable--Effects of intermixture--Secondary varieties--Tertiary
+ varieties--Amalgamation of races in large cities--Relative scale of
+ beauty in various branches of the human family--Their inequality in
+ muscular strength and powers of endurance.
+
+
+ [In supervising the publication of this work, I have thought
+ proper to omit, in this place, a portion of the translation,
+ because containing ideas and suggestions which--though they might
+ be novel to a French public--have often been laid before English
+ readers, and as often proven untenable. This omission, however,
+ embraces no essential feature of the book, no link of the chain
+ of argumentation. It extends no further than a digressional
+ attempt of the author to account for the diversities observable
+ in the various branches of the human family, by imagining the
+ existence of cosmogonal causes, long since effete, but operating
+ for a time soon after the creation of man, when the globe was
+ still in a nascent and chaotic state. It must be obvious that all
+ such speculations can never bridge over the wide abyss which
+ separates _hypotheses_ from _facts_. They afford a boundless
+ field for play to a fertile imagination, but will never stand the
+ test of criticism. Even if we were to suppose that such causes
+ had effected diversities in the human family in primeval times,
+ the types thus produced must all have perished in the flood, save
+ that to which Noah and his family belonged. If these writers,
+ however, should be disposed to deny the universality of the
+ deluge, they would evidently do greater violence to the language
+ of Holy Writ, than by at once supposing a plurality of origins
+ for mankind.
+
+ The legitimate field of human science is the investigation of the
+ laws _now_ governing the material world. Beyond this it may not
+ go. Whatever is recognized as not coming within the scope of
+ action of these laws, belongs not to its province. We have proved,
+ and I think it is generally admitted, that the actual varieties of
+ the human family are _permanent_; that there are no causes _now in
+ operation_, which can transform them. The investigation of those
+ causes, therefore, cannot properly be said to belong to the
+ province of human science. In regard to their various systems of
+ classification, naturalists may be permitted to dispute about
+ unity or plurality of species, because the use of the word species
+ is more or less arbitrary; it is an expedient to secure a
+ convenient arrangement. But none, I hope, presume ever to be able
+ to fathom the mysteries of Creative Power--to challenge the fiat
+ of the Almighty, and inquire into his _means_.--H.]
+
+In the investigation of the moral and intellectual diversities of races,
+there is no difficulty so great as an accurate classification. I am
+disposed to think a separation into three great groups sufficient for
+all practical purposes. These groups I shall call primary varieties, not
+in the sense of distinct creations, but as offering obvious and
+well-defined distinguishing characteristics. I would designate them
+respectively by the terms white, yellow, and black. I am aware of the
+inaccuracy of these appellations, because the complexion is not always
+the distinctive feature of these groups: other and more important
+physiological traits must be taken into consideration. But as I have not
+the right to invent new names, and am, therefore, compelled to select
+among those already in use, I have chosen these because, though by no
+means correct, they seemed preferable to others borrowed from geography
+or history, and not so apt as the latter to add to the confusion which
+already sufficiently perplexes the investigator of this subject. To
+obviate any misconception here and hereafter, I wish it to be distinctly
+understood that by "white" races I mean those usually comprised under
+the name of Caucasian, Shemitic, Japhetic; by "black," the Hamitic,
+African, etc.; by "yellow," the Altaic, Mongolian, Finnic, and Tartar.
+These I consider to be the three categories under which all races of the
+human family can be placed. I shall hereafter explain my reasons for
+not recognizing the American Indians as a separate variety, and for
+classing them among the yellow races.[167]
+
+It is obvious that each of these groups comprises races very dissimilar
+among themselves, each of which, besides the general characteristics
+belonging to the whole group, possesses others peculiar to itself. Thus,
+in the group of black races we find marked distinctions: the tribes
+with prognathous skull and woolly hair, the low-caste Hindoos of
+Kamaoun and of Dekhan, the Pelagian negroes of Polynesia, etc. In the
+yellow group, the Tungusians, Mongols, Chinese, etc. There is every
+reason to believe that these sub-varieties are coeval; that is, the same
+causes which produced one, produced at the same time all the others.
+
+It is, moreover, extremely difficult to determine the typical character
+of each variety. In the white, and also in the yellow group, the mixture
+of the sub-varieties is so great, that it is impossible to fix upon the
+type. In the black group, the type is perhaps discernible; at least, it
+is preserved in its greatest purity.
+
+To ascertain the relative purity or mixture of a race, a criterion has
+been adopted by many, who consider it infallible: this is resemblance of
+face, form, constitution, etc. It is supposed that the purer a race has
+preserved itself, the greater must be the exterior resemblances of all
+the individuals composing it. On the contrary, considerable and varied
+intermixtures would produce an infinite diversity of appearance among
+individuals. This fact is incontestable, and of great value in
+ethnological science, but I do not think it quite so reliable as some
+suppose.
+
+Intermixture of races does, indeed, produce at first individual
+dissemblances, for few individuals belong in precisely the same degree
+to either of the races composing the mixture. But suppose that, in
+course of time, the fusion has become complete--that every individual
+member of the mixed race had precisely the same proportion of mixed
+blood as every other--he could not then differ greatly from his
+neighbor. The whole mass, in that case, must present the same general
+homogeneity as a pure race. The perfect amalgamation of two races of the
+same group would, therefore, produce a new type, presenting a fictitious
+appearance of purity, and reproducing itself in succeeding generations.
+
+I imagine it possible, therefore, that a "secondary" type may in time
+assume all the characteristics of a "primary" one, viz: resemblance of
+the individuals composing it. The lapse of time to produce this
+complete fusion would necessarily be commensurate to the original
+diversity of the constituent elements. Where two races belonging to
+different groups combine, such a complete fusion would probably never be
+possible. I can illustrate this by reference to individuals. Parents of
+widely different nations generally have children but little resembling
+each other--some apparently partaking more of the father's type, some
+more of the mother's. But if the parents are both of the same, or at
+least of homogeneous stocks, their offspring exhibits little or no
+variety; and though the children might resemble neither of the parents,
+they would be apt to resemble one another.
+
+To distinguish the varieties produced by a fusion of proximate races
+from those which are the effect of intermixture between races belonging
+to different groups, I shall call the latter _tertiary_ varieties. Thus
+the woolly-headed negro and the Pelagian are both "primary" varieties
+belonging to the same group; their offspring I would call a "secondary"
+variety; but the hymen of either of them with a race belonging to the
+white or yellow groups, would produce a "tertiary" variety. To this
+last, then, belong the mulatto, or cross between white and black, and
+the Polynesian, who is a cross between the black and the yellow.[168]
+Half-breeds of this kind display, in various proportions and degrees,
+the special characteristics of both the ancestral races. But a complete
+fusion, as in the case of branches of the same group, probably never
+results from the union of two widely dissimilar races, or, at least,
+would require an incommensurable lapse of time.
+
+If a tertiary type is again modified by intermixture with another, as is
+the case in a cross between a mulatto and a Mongolian, or between a
+Polynesian and a European, the ethnical mixture is too great to permit
+us, in the present state of the science, to arrive at any general
+conclusions. It appears that every additional intermixture increases the
+difficulty of complete fusion. In a population composed of a great
+number of dissimilar ethnical elements, it would require countless ages
+for a thorough amalgamation; that is to say, so complete a mixture that
+each individual would have precisely the kind and relative proportion of
+mixed blood as every other. It follows, therefore, that, in a
+population so constituted, there is an infinite diversity of form and
+features among individuals, some pertaining more to one type than
+another. In other words, there being no equilibrium between the various
+types, they crop out here and there without any apparent reason.
+
+We find this spectacle among the great civilized nations of Europe,
+especially in their capitals and seaports. In these great vortexes of
+humanity, every possible variety of our species has been absorbed.
+Negro, Chinese, Tartar, Hottentot, Indian, Malay, and all the minor
+varieties produced by their mixture, have contributed their contingent
+to the population of our large cities. Since the Roman domination, this
+amalgamation has continually increased, and is still increasing in
+proportion as our inventions bring in closer proximity the various
+portions of the globe. It affects all classes to some extent, but more
+especially the lowest. Among them you may see every type of the human
+family more or less represented. In London, Paris, Cadiz,
+Constantinople, in any of the greater marts and thoroughfares of the
+world, the lower strata of the _native_ population exhibit every
+possible variety, from the prognathous skull to the pyramidal: you shall
+find one man with hair as crisp as a negro's; another, with the eyes of
+an ancient German, or the oblique ones of a Chinese; a third, with a
+thoroughly Shemitic countenance; yet all three may be close relations,
+and would be greatly surprised were they told that any but the purest
+white blood flows in their veins. In these vast gathering places of
+humanity, if you could take the first comer--a native of the place--and
+ascend his genealogical tree to any height, you would probably be amazed
+at the strange ancestry at the top.
+
+It may now be asked whether, for all the various races of which I have
+spoken, there is but one standard of beauty, or whether each has one of
+its own. Helvetius, in his _De l'Esprit_, maintains that the idea of
+beauty is purely conventional and variable. This assertion found many
+advocates in its time, but it is at present superseded by the more
+philosophical theory that the conception of the beautiful is an absolute
+and invariable idea, and can never have a merely optional application.
+Believing the latter view to be correct, I do not hesitate to compare
+the various races of man in point of beauty, and to establish a regular
+scale of gradation. Thus, if we compare the various races, from the
+ungainly appearance of the Pelagian or Pecherai up to the noble
+proportions of a Charlemagne, the expressive regularity of features of a
+Napoleon, or the majestic countenance of a Louis XIV., we shall find in
+the lowest on the scale a sort of rudimentary development of the beauty
+which attracts us in the highest; and in proportion to the perfectness
+of that development, the races rise in the scale of beauty.[169] Taking
+the white race as the standard of beauty, we perceive all the others
+more or less receding from that model. There is, then, an inequality in
+point of beauty among the various races of men, and this inequality is
+permanent and indelible.[170]
+
+The next question to be decided is, whether there is also an inequality
+in point of physical strength. It cannot be denied that the American
+Indians and the Hindoos are greatly inferior to us in this respect. Of
+the Australians, the same may safely be asserted. Even the negroes
+possess less muscular vigor.[171] It is necessary, however, to
+distinguish between purely muscular force--that which exerts itself
+suddenly at a given moment--and the force of resistance or capacity for
+endurance. The degree of the former is measured by its intensity, that
+of the other by its duration. Of the two, the latter is the typical--the
+standard by which to judge of the capabilities of races. Great muscular
+strength is found among races notoriously weak. Among the lowest of the
+negro tribes, for instance, it would not be difficult to find
+individuals that could match an experienced European wrestler or English
+boxer. This is equally true of the Lascars and Malays. But we must take
+the masses, and judge according to the amount of long-continued,
+persevering toil and fatigue they are capable of. In this respect, the
+white races are undoubtedly entitled to pre-eminence.
+
+But there are differences, again, among the white races, both in beauty
+and in strength, which even the extensive ethnical mixture, that
+European nations present, has not entirely obliterated. The Italians are
+handsomer than the French and the Spaniards, and still more so than the
+Swiss and Germans. The English also present a high degree of corporeal
+beauty; the Sclavonian nations a comparatively humble one.
+
+In muscular power, the English rank far above all other European
+nations; but the French and Spaniards are greatly superior in power of
+endurance: they suffer less from fatigue, from privations, and the
+rigors and changes of climate. This question has been settled beyond
+dispute by the fatal campaign in Russia. While the Germans, and other
+troops from the North, who yet were accustomed to severe cold, were
+almost totally annihilated, the French regiments, though paying
+fearfully dear for their retreat, nevertheless saved the greatest number
+of men. Some have attempted to explain this by a supposed superiority on
+the part of the French in martial education and military spirit. But the
+German officers had certainly as high a conception of a soldier's duty,
+as elevated a sentiment of honor, as our soldiers; yet they perished in
+incredibly greater numbers. I think it can hardly be disputed that the
+masses of the population of France possess a superiority in certain
+physical qualities, which enables them to defy with greater impunity
+than most other nations the freezing snows of Russia and the burning
+sands of Egypt.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[167] I have already alluded to the classification adopted by Mr.
+Latham, the great ethnographer, which, though different in the
+designations, is precisely similar to that of Mr. Gobineau. Hamilton
+Smith also comes to the conclusion that, "as there are only three
+varieties who attain the typical standard, we have in them the
+foundation of that number being exclusively aboriginal." He therefore
+divides the races of men into three classes, which he calls "typical
+forms," and which nearly correspond to Mr. Gobineau's and Mr. Latham's
+"primary varieties." But, notwithstanding this weight of authorities
+against me, I cannot entirely agree as to the correctness of this
+classification. Fewer objections seem to me to lie against that proposed
+by Van Amringe, which I recommend to the consideration of the reader,
+and, though perhaps out of place in a mere foot-note, subjoin at full
+length. It must be remembered that the author of this system, though he
+uses the word species to distinguish the various groups, is one of the
+advocates for _unity of origin_. (The words _Japhetic_ and _Shemitic_
+are also employed in a sense somewhat different from that which common
+usage has assigned them.)
+
+
+ THE SHEMITIC SPECIES.
+
+ _Psychical or Spiritual Character_, viz:--
+ All the Physical Attributes developed harmoniously.--Warlike, but
+ not cruel, or destructive.
+
+ _Temperament._--Strenuous.
+
+ _Physical Character_, viz:--
+ A high degree of sensibility; fair complexion; copious, soft,
+ flowing hair, often curled, or waving; ample beard; small, oval,
+ perpendicular face, with features very distinct; expanded forehead;
+ large and elevated cranium; narrow elevated nose, distinct from the
+ other features; small mouth, and thin lips; chin, round, full, and
+ somewhat prominent, generally equal with the lips.
+
+ VARIETIES.
+
+ The Israelites, Greeks, Romans, Teutones, Sclavons, Celts, &c., and
+ many sub-varieties.
+
+
+ THE JAPHETIC SPECIES.
+
+ _Psychical or Spiritual Character_, viz:
+ Attributes unequally developed. Moderately mental--originative,
+ inventive, but not speculative. Not warlike, but destructive.
+
+ _Temperament._--Passive.
+
+ _Physical Character_, viz:--
+ Medium sensibility; olive yellow complexion; hair thin, coarse, and
+ black; little or no beard; broad, flattened, and triangular face;
+ high, pyramidal, and square-shaped skull; forehead small and low;
+ wide and small nose, particularly broad at the root; linear and
+ highly arched eyebrows; very oblique eyes, broad, irregular, and
+ half-closed, the upper eyelid extending a little beyond the lower;
+ thick lips.
+
+
+ VARIETIES.
+
+ The Chinese, Mongolians, Japanese, Chin Indians, &c., and probably
+ the Esquimaux, Toltecs, Aztecs, Peruvians.
+
+
+ THE ISHMAELITIC SPECIES.
+
+ _Psychical or Spiritual Character_, viz:--
+ Attributes generally equally developed. Moderately mental; not
+ originative, or inventive, but speculative; roving, predatory,
+ revengeful, and sensual. Warlike and highly destructive.
+
+ _Temperament._--Callous.
+
+ _Physical Character._--Sub-medium sensibility; dark skin, more or less
+ red, or of a copper-color tinge; hair black, straight, and strong;
+ face broad, immediately under the eyes; high cheek-bones; nose
+ prominent and distinct, particularly in profile; mouth and chin,
+ European.
+
+
+ VARIETIES.
+
+ Most of the Tartar and Arabian tribes, and the whole of the American
+ Indians, unless those mentioned in the second species should be
+ excepted.
+
+
+ THE CANAANITIC SPECIES.
+
+ _Psychical or Spiritual Character_, viz:--
+ Attributes equally undeveloped. Inferiorly mental; not originative,
+ inventive, or speculative; roving, revengeful, predatory, and highly
+ sensual; warlike and destructive.
+
+ _Temperament._--Sluggish.
+
+ _Physical Character._--Sluggish sensibility, approaching to torpor;
+ dark or black skin; hair black, generally woolly; skull compressed
+ on the sides, narrow at the forehead, which slants backwards;
+ cheek-bones very prominent; jaws projecting; teeth oblique, and chin
+ retreating, forming a muzzle-shaped profile; nose broad, flat, and
+ confused with the face; eyes prominent; lips thick.
+
+
+ VARIETIES.
+
+ The Negroes of Central Africa, Hottentots, Cafirs, Australasian
+ Negroes, &c.; and probably the Malays, &c.
+
+ _Nat. Hist. of Man_, p. 73 _et passim_.
+
+If the reader will carefully examine the psychical characteristics of
+these groups, as given in the above extract, he will find them to accord
+better with the whole of Mr. Gobineau's theories, than Mr. Gobineau's
+own classification.--H.
+
+[168] It is probably a typographical error, that makes Mr. Flourens
+(_Eloge de Blumenbach_, p. 11) say that the Polynesian race was "a
+mixture of two others, the _Caucasian_ and the Mongolian." The Black and
+the Mongolian is undoubtedly what the learned Academician wished to say.
+
+[169] This may be so in our eyes. It is natural for us to think those
+the most pleasing in appearance, that closest resemble our own type. But
+were an African to institute a comparative scale of beauty, would he not
+place his own race highest, and declare that "all races rose in the
+scale of beauty in proportion to the perfectness of the development" of
+African features? I think it extremely probable--nay, positively
+certain.
+
+Mr. Hamilton Smith takes the same side as the author. "It is a mistaken
+notion," says he, "to believe that the standard contour of beauty and
+form differs materially in any country. Fashion may have the influence
+of setting up certain deformities for perfections, both at Pekin and at
+Paris, but they are invariably apologies which national pride offers for
+its own defects. The youthful beauty of Canton would be handsome (?) in
+London," etc.
+
+Mr. Van Amringe, on the contrary, after a careful examination of the
+facts brought to light by travellers and other investigators, comes to
+the conclusion that "the standard of beauty in the different species
+(see p. 371, _note_) of man is wholly different, physically, morally,
+and intellectually. Consequently, that taste for personal beauty in each
+species is incompatible with the perception of sexual beauty out of the
+species." (_Op. cit._, p. 656.) "A difference of taste for sexual beauty
+in the several races of men is the great natural law which has been
+instrumental in separating them, and keeping them distinct, more
+effectually than mountains, deserts, or oceans. This separation has been
+perfect for the whole historic period, and continues to be now as wide
+as it is or has been in any distinct species of animals. Why has this
+been so? Did prejudice operate four thousand years ago exactly as it
+does now? If it did not, how came the races to separate into distinct
+masses at the very earliest known period, and, either voluntarily or by
+force, take up distinct geographical abodes?" (_Ibid._, pp. 41 and
+42.)--H.
+
+[170] This inequality is not the less great, nor the less permanent, if
+we suppose each type to have its own standard. Nay, if the latter be
+true, it is a sign of a more _radical_ difference among races.--H.
+
+[171] Upon the aborigines of America, consult Martius and Spix, _Reise
+in Brasilien_, vol. i. p. 259; upon the negroes, Pruner, _Der Neger,
+eine aphoristische Skizze aus der medicinischen Topographie von Cairo_.
+In regard to the superiority in muscular vigor over all other races, see
+Carus, _Ueber ungl. Bef._, p. 84.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE TO THE PRECEDING CHAPTER.
+
+ The position and treatment of woman among the various races of men a
+ proof of their moral and intellectual diversity.
+
+
+The reader will pardon me if to Mr. Gobineau's scale of gradation in
+point of beauty and physical strength, I add another as accurate, I
+think, if not more so, and certainly as interesting. I allude to the
+manner in which the weaker sex is regarded and treated among the various
+races of men.
+
+In the words of Van Amringe, "from the brutal New Hollander, who secures
+his wife by knocking her down with a club and dragging the prize to his
+cave, to the polished European, who, fearfully, but respectfully and
+assiduously, spends a probation of months or years for his better half,
+the ascent may be traced with unfailing precision and accuracy." The
+same writer correctly argues that if any principle could be inferred
+from analogy to animals, it would certainly be a uniform treatment of
+the female sex among all races of man; for animals are remarkably
+uniform in the relations of the male and female in the same species. Yet
+among some races of men _polygamy has always prevailed, among others
+never_. Would not any naturalist consider as distinct species any
+animals of the same genus so distinguished? This subject has not yet met
+with due attention at the hands of ethnologists. "When we hear of a race
+of men," says the same author, "being subjected to the tyranny of
+another race, either by personal bondage or the more easy condition of
+tribute, our sympathies are enlisted in their favor, and our constant
+good wishes, if not our efforts, accompany them. But when we hear of
+hundreds of millions of the truest and most tender-hearted of human
+creatures being trodden down and trampled upon in everything that is
+dear to the human heart, our sympathies, which are so freely expended on
+slighter occasions or imaginary evils, are scarcely awakened to their
+crushing woes."
+
+With the writer from whom I have already made copious extracts, I
+believe that the _moral and intellectual diversity_ of the races of men
+cannot be thoroughly and accurately investigated without taking into
+consideration the relations which most influence individual as well as
+national progress and development, and which result from the position
+occupied by woman towards man. This truth has not escaped former
+investigators--it would be singular if it had--but they have contented
+themselves with asserting that the condition of the female sex was
+indicative of the degree of civilization. Had they said, of the
+intrinsic worth of various races, I should cheerfully assent. But the
+elevation or degradation of woman in the social scale is generally
+regarded as a _result_, not a _cause_. It is said that all barbarians
+treat their women as slaves; but, as they progress in civilization,
+woman gradually rises to her legitimate rank.
+
+For the sake of the argument, I shall assume that all now civilized
+nations at first treated their women as the actual barbarians treat
+theirs. That this is not so, I hope to place beyond doubt; but, assuming
+it to be the case, might not the fact that some left off that
+treatment, while others did not, be adduced as a proof of the inequality
+of races? "The law of the relation of the sexes," says Van Amringe, "is
+more deeply engraven upon human nature than any other; because, whatever
+theories may be adopted in regard to the origin of society, languages,
+etc., no doubt can be entertained that the _influence of woman must have
+been anterior to any improvements of the original condition of man_.
+Consequently it was antecedent and superior to education and government.
+That these relations were powerfully instrumental in the origin of
+development, to give it a direction and character according to the
+natures operating and operated upon, cannot be doubted by any one who
+has paid the slightest attention to domestic influences, from and under
+which education, customs, and government commenced."
+
+But I totally deny that all races, in their first state of development,
+treated their women equally. There is not only no historical testimony
+to prove that _any_ of the white races were ever in such a state of
+barbarity and in such moral debasement as most of the dark races are to
+this day, and have always been, but there is positive evidence to show
+that our barbarous ancestors assigned to woman the same position we
+assign her now: she was the companion, and not the slave, of man. I have
+already alluded to this in a previous note on the Teutonic races; I
+cannot, however, but revert to it again.
+
+As I have not space for a lengthy discussion, I shall mention but one
+fact, which I think conclusive, and which rests upon incontrovertible
+historical testimony. "To a German mind," says Tacitus (Murphy's
+transl., vol. vii. 8), "the idea of a woman led into captivity is
+insupportable. In consequence of this prevailing sentiment, the states
+which deliver as hostages the daughters of illustrious families are
+bound by the most effectual obligations." Did this assertion rest on the
+authority of Tacitus only, it might perhaps be called in question. It
+might be said that the illustrious Roman had drawn an ideal picture,
+etc. But Caesar dealt with realities, not idealities; he was a shrewd,
+practical statesman, and an able general; yet Caesar _did_ take females
+as hostages from the German tribes, in preference to men. Suppose Caesar
+had made war against the King of Ashantee, and taken away some of his
+three thousand three hundred and thirty-three wives, the mystical number
+being thus forcibly disturbed, might have alarmed the nation, whose
+welfare is supposed to depend on it; but the misfortune would soon have
+been remedied.
+
+But it is possible to demonstrate not only that all races did not treat
+their women equally in their first stage of development, but also that
+no race which assigned to woman in the beginning an inferior position
+ever raised her from it in any subsequent stage of development. I select
+the Chinese for illustration, because they furnish us with an example of
+a long-continued and regular intellectual progress,[172] which yet never
+resulted in an alteration of woman's position in the social structure.
+The decadent Chinese of our day look upon the female half of their
+nation as did the rapidly advancing Chinese of the seventh and eighth
+centuries; and the latter in precisely the same manner as their
+barbarous ancestors, the subjects of the Emperor _Fou_, more than twenty
+centuries before.
+
+I repeat it, the relations of the sexes, in various races, are equally
+dissimilar in every stage of development. The state of society may
+change, the tendency of a race never. Faculties may be developed, but
+never lost.
+
+As the mothers and wives of our Teutonic ancestors were near the
+battle-field, to administer refreshments to the wearied combatants, to
+stanch the bleeding of their wounds, and to inspire with renewed courage
+the despairing, so, in modern times, matrons and maidens of the highest
+rank--worthy daughters of a heroic ancestry--have been found by
+thousands ready to sacrifice the comforts and quiet of home for the
+horrors of a hospital.[173] As the rude warrior of a former age won his
+beloved by deeds of valor, so, to his civilized descendant, the hand of
+his mistress is the prize and reward of exertion. The wives and mothers
+of the ancient Germans and Celts were the counsellors of their sons and
+husbands in the most important affairs; our wives and mothers are our
+advisers in our more peaceful pursuits.
+
+But the Arab, when he had arrived at the culminating point of his
+civilization, and when he had become the teacher of our forefathers of
+the Middle Ages in science and the arts, looked upon his many wives in
+the same light as his roaming brother in the desert had done before, and
+does now. I do not ask of all these races that they should assign to
+their women the same rank that we do. If intellectual progress and
+social development among them showed the slightest tendency to produce
+ultimately an alteration in woman's position towards her lord, I might
+be content to submit to the opinion of those who regard that position
+as the effect of such a progress and such a development. But I cannot,
+in the history of those races, perceive the slightest indication of such
+a result, and all my observations lead me to the conclusion that the
+relations between the sexes are a cause, and not an effect.
+
+The character of the women of different races differs in essential
+points. What a vast difference, for instance, between the females of the
+rude crusaders who took possession of Constantinople, and the more
+civilized Byzantine Greeks whom they so easily conquered; between the
+heroic matron of barbarous Germany and the highly civilized Chinese
+lady! These differences cannot be entirely the effect of education, else
+we are forced to consider the female sex as mere automatons. They must
+be the result of diversity of character. And why not, in the
+investigation of the moral and intellectual diversity of races and the
+natural history of man, take into consideration the peculiarities that
+characterize the female portion of each race, a portion--I am forced to
+make this trite observation, because so many investigators seem to
+forget it--which comprises at least one-half of the individuals to be
+described?--H.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[172] Because we now find the Chinese apparently stationary, many
+persons unreflectingly conclude that they were always so; which would
+presuppose that the Chinese were placed upon earth with the faculty of
+making porcelain, gunpowder, paper, etc., somewhat after the manner in
+which bees make their cells. But in the annals of the Chinese empire,
+the date of many of their principal inventions is distinctly recorded.
+There was a long period of vigorous intellectual activity among that
+singular people, a period during which good books were written, and
+ingenious inventions made in rapid succession. This period has ceased,
+but the Chinese are not therefore stationary. They are _retrograding_.
+No Chinese workman can now make porcelain equal to that of former ages,
+which consequently bears an exorbitant price as an object of _virtu_.
+The secret of many of their arts has been lost, the practice of all is
+gradually deteriorating. No book of any note has been written these
+hundreds of years in that great empire. Hence their passionate
+attachment to everything old, which is not, as is so generally presumed,
+the _cause_ of their stagnation: it is the _sign_ of intellectual
+decadence, and the brake which prevents a still more rapid descent.
+Whenever a nation begins to extravagantly prize the productions of
+preceding ages, it is a confession that it can no longer equal them: it
+has begun to retrograde. But the very retrogression is a proof that
+there once was an opposite movement.
+
+[173] The fearful scenes of blood which the beginning of our century
+witnessed, had crowded the hospitals with wounded and dying.
+Professional nurses could afford little help after battles like those of
+Jena, of Eylau, of Feldbach, or of Leipsic. It was then that, in
+Northern Germany, thousands of ladies of the first families sacrificed
+their health, and, in too many instances, their lives, to the Christian
+duty of charity. Many of the noble houses still mourn the loss of some
+fair matron or maiden, who fell a victim to her self-devotion. In the
+late war between Denmark and Prussia, the Danish ladies displayed an
+equal zeal. Scutari also will be remembered in after ages as a monument
+of what the women of our race can do. But why revert to the past, and to
+distant scenes? Have we not daily proofs around us that the heroic
+virtues of by-gone ages still live in ours?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+PERFECTIBILITY OF MAN.
+
+ Imperfect notions of the capability of savage tribes--Parallel
+ between our civilization and those that preceded it--Our modern
+ political theories no novelty--The political parties of Rome--Peace
+ societies--The art of printing a means, the results of which depend
+ on its use--What constitutes a "living" civilization--Limits of the
+ sphere of intellectual acquisitions.
+
+
+To understand perfectly the differences existing among races, in regard
+to their intellectual capacity, it is necessary to ascertain the lowest
+degree of stupidity that humanity is capable of. The inferior branches
+of the human family have hitherto been represented, by a majority of
+scientific observers, as considerably more abased than they are in
+reality. The first accounts of a tribe of savages almost always depict
+them in exaggerated colors of the darkest cast, and impute to them such
+utter intellectual and reasoning incapacity, that they seem to sink to
+the level of the monkey, and below that of the elephant. There are,
+indeed, some contrasts. Let a navigator be well received in some
+island--let him succeed in persuading a few of the natives to work,
+however little, with the sailors, and praises are lavished upon the
+fortunate tribe: they are declared susceptible of every improvement; and
+perhaps the eulogist will go so far as to assert that he has found among
+them minds of a very superior order.
+
+To both these judgments we must object--the one being too favorable, the
+other too severe. Because some natives of Tahiti assisted in repairing a
+whaler, or some inhabitant of Tonga Tabou exhibited good feelings
+towards the white strangers who landed on his isle, it does not follow
+that either are capable of receiving our civilization, or of being
+raised to a level with us. Nor are we warranted in classing among brutes
+the poor naturals of a newly-discovered coast, who greet their first
+visitors with a shower of stones and arrows, or who are found making a
+dainty repast on raw lizards and clods of clay. Such a meal does not,
+indeed, indicate a very superior intelligence, or very refined manners.
+But even in the most repulsive cannibal there lies latent a spark of the
+divine flame, and reason may be awakened to a certain extent. There are
+no tribes so very degraded that they do not reason in some degree,
+whether correctly or otherwise, upon the things which surround them.
+This ray of human intelligence, however faint it may be, is what
+distinguishes the most degraded savage from the most intelligent brute,
+and capacitates him for receiving the teachings of religion.
+
+But are these mental faculties, which every individual of our species
+possesses, susceptible of indefinite development? Have all men the same
+capacity for intellectual progress? In other words, can cultivation
+raise all the different races to the same intellectual standard? and are
+no limits imposed to the perfectibility of our species? My answer to
+these questions is, that all races are capable of improvement, but all
+cannot attain the same degree of perfection, and even the most favored
+cannot exceed a certain limit.
+
+The idea of infinite perfection has gained many partisans in our times,
+because we, like all who came before us, pride ourselves upon possessing
+advantages and points of superiority unknown to our predecessors. I have
+already spoken of the distinguishing features of our civilization, but
+willingly revert to this subject again.
+
+It may be said, that in all the departments of science we possess
+clearer and more correct notions; that, upon the whole, our manners are
+more polished, and our code of morals is preferable to that of the
+ancients. It is further asserted, as the principal proof of our
+superiority, that we have better defined, juster and more tolerant ideas
+with regard to political liberty. Sanguine theorists are not wanting,
+who pretend that our discoveries in political science and our
+enlightened views of the rights of man will ultimately lead us to that
+universal happiness and harmony which the ancients in vain sought in the
+fabled garden of Hesperides.
+
+These lofty pretensions will hardly bear the test of severe historical
+criticism.
+
+If we surpass preceding generations in scientific knowledge, it is
+because we have added our share to the discoveries which they bequeathed
+to us. We are their heirs, their pupils, their continuators, just as
+future generations will be ours. We achieve great results by the
+application of the power of steam; we have solved many great problems in
+mechanics, and pressed the elements as submissive slaves into our
+service. But do these successes bring us any nearer to omniscience. At
+most, they may enable us ultimately to fathom all the secrets of the
+material world. And when we shall have achieved that grand conquest, for
+which so much requires still to be done that is not yet commenced, nor
+even anticipated; have we advanced a single step beyond the simple
+exposition of the laws which govern the material world? We may have
+learned to direct our course through the air, to approach the limits of
+the respirable atmosphere; we may discover and elucidate several
+interesting astronomical problems; we may have greater powers for
+controlling nature and compelling her to minister to our wants, but can
+all this knowledge make us better, happier beings? Suppose we had
+counted all the planetary systems and measured the immense regions of
+space, would we know more of the grand mystery of existence than those
+that came before us? Would this add one new faculty to the human mind,
+or ennoble human nature by the eradication of one bad passion?
+
+Admitting that we are more enlightened upon some subjects, in how many
+other respects are we inferior to our more remote ancestors? Can it be
+doubted, for instance, that in Abraham's times much more was known of
+primordial traditions than the dubious beams which have come down to us?
+How many discoveries which we owe to mere accident, or which are the
+fruits of painful efforts, were the lost possessions of remote ages? How
+many more are not yet restored? What is there in the most splendid of
+our works that can compare with those wonders by which Egypt, India,
+Greece, and America still attest the grandeur and magnificence of so
+many edifices which the weight of centuries, much more than the impotent
+ravages of man, has caused to disappear? What are our works of art by
+the side of those of Athens; our thinkers by the side of those of
+Alexandria or India; our poets by the side of a Valmiki, Kalidasa,
+Homer, Pindar?
+
+The truth is, we pursue a different direction from that of the human
+societies whose civilization preceded ours. We apply our mind to
+different purposes and different investigations; but while we clear and
+cultivate new lands, we are compelled to neglect and abandon to
+sterility those to which they devoted their attention. What we gain in
+one direction we lose in another. We cannot call ourselves superior to
+the ancients, unless we had preserved at least the principal
+acquisitions of preceding ages in all their integrity, and had succeeded
+in establishing by the side of these, the great results which they as
+well as we sought after. Our sciences and arts superadded to theirs have
+not enabled us to advance one step nearer the solution of the great
+problems of existence, the mysteries of life and death. "I seek, but
+find not," has always been, will ever be, the humiliating confession of
+science when endeavoring to penetrate into the secrets concealed by the
+veil that it is not given to mortal to lift. In criticism[174] we are,
+undoubtedly, much in advance of our predecessors; but criticism implies
+classification, not acquisition.
+
+Nor can we justly pride ourselves upon any superiority in regard to
+political ideas. Political and social theories were as rife in Athens
+after the age of Pericles as they are in our days. To be convinced of
+this, it is necessary only to study Aristophanes, whose comedies Plato
+recommends to the perusal of whoever wishes to become acquainted with
+the public morals of the city of Minerva. It has been pretended that our
+present structure of society, and that of the ancients, admit of no
+comparison, owing to the institution of slavery which formed an element
+of the latter. But the only real difference is that demagogism had then
+an even more fertile soil in which to strike root. The slaves of those
+days find their precise counterpart in our working classes and
+proletarians.[175] The Athenian people propitiating their servile class
+after the battle of Arginuses, might be taken for a picture of the
+nineteenth century.
+
+Look at Rome. Open Cicero's letters. What a specimen of the moderate
+Tory that great Roman orator was; what a similarity between his republic
+and our constitutional bodies politic, with regard to the language of
+parties and parliamentary debates! There, too, the background of the
+picture was occupied by degraded masses of a servile and praedial
+population, always eager for change, and ready to rise in actual
+rebellion.
+
+Let us leave those dregs of the population, whose civil existence the
+law ignored, and who counted in politics but as the formidable tool of
+designing individuals of free birth. But does not the free population of
+Rome afford a perfect analogue to a modern body politic? There is the
+mob crying for bread, greedy of shows, flattery, gratuitous
+distributions, and amusements; the middle classes (_bourgeoisie_)
+monopolizing and dividing among themselves the public offices; the
+hereditary aristocracy, continually assailed at all points, continually
+losing ground, until driven in mere self-defence to abjure all superior
+claims and stipulate for equal rights to all. Are not these perfect
+resemblances?
+
+Among the boundless variety of opinions that make themselves heard in
+our day, there is not one that had not advocates in Rome. I alluded a
+while ago to the letters written from the villa of Tusculum; they
+express the sentiments of the Roman conservative _Progressist_ party. By
+the side of Sylla, Pompey and Cicero were Radicals.[176] Their notions
+were not sufficiently radical for Caesar; too much so for Cato. At a
+later period we find in Pliny the younger a mild royalist, a friend of
+quiet, even at some cost. Apprehensive of too much liberty, yet jealous
+of power too absolute; very practical in his views, caring but little
+for the poetical splendor of the age of the Fabii, he preferred the more
+prosaic administration of Trajan. There were others not of his opinion,
+good people who feared an insurrection headed by some new Spartacus, and
+who, therefore, thought that the Emperor could not hold the reins too
+tight. Then there were others, from the provinces, who obstreperously
+demanded and obtained what would now be called "constitutional
+guaranties." Again, there were the socialists, and their views found no
+less an expounder than the Gallic Caesar, C. Junius Posthumus, who
+exclaims: "Dives et pauper, inimici," the rich and the poor are enemies
+born.
+
+Every man who had any pretensions to participate in the lights of the
+day, declaimed on the absolute equality of all men, their "inalienable
+rights," the manifest necessity and ultimate universality of the
+Greco-Latin civilization, its superiority, its mildness, its future
+progress, much greater even than that actually made, and above all its
+perpetuity. Nor were those ideas merely the pride and consolation of the
+pagans; they were the firm hopes and expectations of the earliest and
+most illustrious Fathers of the Church, whose sentiments found so
+eloquent an interpreter in Tertullian.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+And as a last touch, to complete the picture, let us not forget those
+people who, then as now, formed the most numerous of all parties: those
+that belonged to none--people who are too weak-minded, or indifferent,
+or apprehensive, or disgusted, to lay hold of a truth, from among the
+midst of contradictory theories that float around them--people who are
+content with order when it exists, submit passively in times of disorder
+and confusion; who admire the increase of conveniences and comforts of
+life unknown to their ancestors, and who, without thinking further,
+centre their hope in the future and pride in the present, in the
+reflection: "What wonderful facilities we enjoy now-a-days."
+
+There would be some reason for believing in an improvement in political
+science, if we had invented some governmental machinery which had
+hitherto been unknown, or at least never carried into practice. This
+glory we cannot arrogate to ourselves. Limited monarchies were known in
+every age. There are even some very curious examples of this form of
+government found among certain Indian tribes who, nevertheless, have
+remained savages. Democratic and aristocratic republics of every form,
+and balanced in the most varied manner, flourished in the new world as
+well as the old. Tlascala is as complete a model of this kind as
+Athens, Sparta, or Mecca before Mohammed's times. And even supposing
+that we have applied to governmental science some secondary principle of
+our own invention, does this justify us in our exaggerated pretension to
+unlimited perfectibility? Let us rather be modest, and say with the
+wisest of kings: "_Nil novi sub sole._"[177]
+
+It is said that our manners are milder than those of the other great
+human societies; this assertion also is very open to criticism. There
+are some philanthropists who would induce nations no longer to resort to
+armies in settling their quarrels. The idea is borrowed from Seneca.
+Some of the Eastern sages professed the same principles in this respect
+as the Moravian Brethren. But assuming that the members of the Peace
+Congress succeed in disgusting Europe with the turmoil and miseries of
+warfare, they would still have the difficult task left of forever
+transforming the human passions. Neither Seneca nor the Eastern sages
+have been able to accomplish this, and it may reasonably be doubted
+whether this grand achievement is reserved for our generation. We
+possess pure and exalted principles, I admit, but are they carried into
+practice? Look at our fields, the streets of our cities--the bloody
+traces of contests as fierce as any recorded in history are scarcely yet
+effaced. Never since the beginning of our civilization has there been an
+interval of peace of fifty years, and we are, in this respect, far
+behind ancient Italy, which, under the Romans, once enjoyed two
+centuries of perfect tranquillity. But even so long a repose would not
+warrant us in concluding that the temple of Janus was thenceforth to be
+forever closed.
+
+The state of our civilization does not, therefore, prove the unlimited
+perfectibility of man. If he have learned many things, he has forgotten
+others. He has not added another to his senses; his soul is not enriched
+by one new faculty. I cannot too much insist upon the great though sad
+truth, that whatever we gain in one direction is counterbalanced by some
+loss in another; that, limited as is our intellectual domain, we are
+doomed never to possess its whole extent at once. Were it not for this
+fatal law, we might imagine that at some period, however distant, man,
+finding himself in possession of the experience of successive ages, and
+having acquired all that it is in his power to acquire, would have
+learned at last to apply his acquisitions to his welfare--to live
+without battling against his kind, and against misery; to enjoy a state,
+if not of unalloyed happiness, at least of abundance and peace.
+
+But even so limited a felicity is not promised us here below, for in
+proportion as man learns he unlearns; whatever he acquires, is at the
+cost of some previous acquisition; whatever he possesses he is always in
+danger of losing.
+
+We flatter ourselves with the belief that our civilization is
+imperishable, because we possess the art of printing, gunpowder, the
+steam engine, &c. These are valuable means to accomplish great results,
+but the accomplishment depends on their use.
+
+The art of printing is known to many other nations beside ourselves, and
+is as extensively used by them as by us.[178] Let us see its fruits. In
+Tonquin, Anam, Japan, books are plentiful, much cheaper than with
+us--so cheap that they are within the reach of even the poorest--and
+even the poorest read them. How is it, then, that these people are so
+enervated, so degraded, so sunk in sloth and vice[179]--so near that
+stage in which even civilized man, having frittered away his physical
+and mental powers, may sink infinitely below the rude barbarian, who, at
+the first convenient opportunity, becomes his master? Whence this
+result? Precisely because the art of printing is a means, and not an
+agent. So long as it is used to diffuse sound, sterling ideas, to afford
+wholesome and refreshing nutriment to vigorous minds, a civilization
+never decays. But when it becomes the vile caterer to a depraved taste,
+when it serves only to multiply the morbid productions of enervated or
+vitiated minds, the senseless quibbles of a sectarian theology instead
+of religion, the venomous scurrility of libellists instead of politics,
+the foul obscenities of licentious rhymers instead of poesy--how and why
+should the art of printing save a civilization from ruin?
+
+It is objected that the art of printing contributes to the preservation
+of a civilization by the facility with which it multiplies and diffuses
+the masterpieces of the human mind, so that, even in times of
+intellectual sterility, when they can no longer be emulated, they still
+form the standard of taste, and by their clear and steady light prevent
+the possibility of utter darkness. But it should be remembered that to
+delve in the hoarded treasures of thought, and to appropriate them for
+purposes of mental improvement, presupposes the possession of that
+greatest of earthly goods--an enlightened mind. And in epochs of
+intellectual degeneracy, few care about those monuments of lost virtues
+and powers; they are left undisturbed on their dusty shelves in
+libraries whose silence is but seldom broken by the tread of the
+anxious, painstaking student.
+
+The longevity which Guttenberg's invention assures to the productions of
+genius is much exaggerated. There are a few works that enjoy the honor
+of being reproduced occasionally; with this exception, books die now
+precisely as formerly did the manuscripts. Works of science, especially,
+disappear with singular rapidity from the realms of literature. A few
+hundred copies are struck off at first, and they are seldom, and, after
+a while, never heard of more. With considerable trouble you can find
+them in some large collection. Look what has become of the thousands of
+excellent works that have appeared since the first printed page came
+from the press. The greater portion are forgotten. Many that are still
+spoken of, are never read; the titles even of others, that were
+carefully sought after fifty years ago, are gradually disappearing from
+every memory.
+
+So long as a civilization is vigorous and flourishing, this
+disappearance of old books is but a slight misfortune. They are
+superseded; their valuable portions are embodied in new ones; the seed
+exists no longer, but the fruit is developing. In times of intellectual
+degeneracy it is otherwise. The weakened powers cannot grapple with the
+solid thought of more vigorous eras; it is split up into more convenient
+fragments--rendered more portable, as it were; the strong beverage that
+once was the pabulum of minds as strong, must be diluted to suit the
+present taste; and innumerable dilutions, each weaker than the other,
+immediately claim public favor; the task of learning must be lightened
+in proportion to the decreasing capacity for acquiring; everything
+becomes superficial; what costs the least effort gains the greatest
+esteem; play upon words is accounted wit; shallowness, learning; the
+surface is preferred to the depth. Thus it has ever been in periods of
+decay; thus it will be with us when we have once reached that point
+whence every movement is retrogressive. Who knows but we are near it
+already?--and the art of printing will not save us from it.
+
+To enhance the advantages which we derive from that art, the number and
+diffusion of manuscripts have been too much underrated. It is true that
+they were scarce in the epoch immediately preceding; but in the latter
+periods of the Roman empire they were much more numerous and much more
+widely diffused than is generally imagined. In those times, the
+facilities for instruction were by no means of difficult access; books,
+indeed, were quite common. We may judge so from the extraordinary number
+of threadbare grammarians with which even the smallest villages swarmed;
+a sort of people very much like the petty novelists, lawyers, and
+editors of modern times, and whose loose morals, shabbiness, and
+passionate love for enjoyments, are described in Pretronius's Satyricon.
+Even when the decadence was complete, those who wished for books could
+easily procure them. Virgil was read everywhere; so much so, that the
+illiterate peasantry, hearing so much of him, imagined him to be some
+dangerous and powerful sorcerer. The monks copied him; they copied
+Pliny, Dioscorides, Plato, and Aristotle; they copied Catullus and
+Martial. These books, then, cannot have been very rare. Again, when we
+consider how great a number has come down to us notwithstanding
+centuries of war and devastation--notwithstanding so many conflagrations
+of monasteries, castles, libraries, &c.--we cannot but admit that, in
+spite of the laborious process of transcription, literary productions
+must have been multiplied to a very great extent. It is possible,
+therefore, to greatly exaggerate the obligations under which science,
+poetry, morality, and true civilization lie to the typographic art; and
+I repeat it, that art is a marvellous instrument, but if the arm that
+wields it, and the head that directs the arm, are not, the instrument
+cannot be, of much service.
+
+Some people believe that the possession of gunpowder exempts modern
+societies from many of the dangers that proved fatal to the ancient.
+They assert that it abates the horrors of warfare, and diminishes its
+frequency, bidding fair, therefore, to establish, in time, a state of
+universal peace. If such be the beneficial results attendant on this
+accidental invention, they have not as yet manifested themselves.
+
+Of the various applications of steam, and other industrial inventions, I
+would say, as of the art of printing, that they are great means, but
+their results depend upon the agent. Such arts might be practised by
+rote long after the intellectual activity that produced them had ceased.
+There are innumerable instances of processes which continue in use,
+though the theoretical secret is lost. It is therefore not unreasonable
+to suppose, that the practice of our inventions might survive our
+civilization; that is, it might continue when these inventions were no
+longer possible, when no further improvements were to be hoped for.
+Material well-being is but an external appendage of a civilization;
+intellectual activity, and a consequent progress, are its life. A state
+of intellectual torpor, therefore, cannot be a state of civilization,
+even though the people thus stagnating, have the means of transporting
+themselves rapidly from place to place, or of adorning themselves and
+their dwellings. This would only prove that they were the _heirs_ of a
+former civilization, but not that they actually possessed one. I have
+said, in another place, that a civilization may thus preserve, for a
+time, every appearance of life: the effect may continue after the cause
+has ceased. But, as a continuous change seems to be the order of nature
+in all things material and immaterial, a downward tendency is soon
+manifest. I have before compared a civilization to the human body. While
+alive, it undergoes a perpetual modification: every hour has wrought a
+change; when dead, it preserves, for a time, the appearance of life,
+perhaps even its beauty; but gradually, symptoms of decay become
+manifest, and every stage of dissolution is more precipitate than the
+one before, as a stone thrown up in the air, poises itself there for an
+inappreciable fraction of time, then falls with continually increasing
+velocity, more and more swiftly as it approaches the ground.
+
+Every civilization has produced in those who enjoyed its fruits, a firm
+conviction of its stability, its perpetuity.
+
+When the palanquins of the Incas travelled rapidly on the smooth,
+magnificent causeways which still unite Cuzco and Quito, a distance of
+fifteen hundred miles, with what feelings of exultation must they have
+contemplated the conquests of the present, what magnificent prospects of
+the future must have presented themselves to their imaginations! Stern
+time, with one blow of his gigantic wings, hurled their empire into the
+deepest depths of the abyss of oblivion. These proud sovereigns of
+Peru--they, too, had their sciences, their mechanical inventions, their
+powerful machines: the works they accomplished we contemplate with
+amazement, and a vain effort to divine the means employed. How were
+those blocks of stone, thirty-five feet long and eighteen thick, raised
+one upon another? How were they transported the vast distance from the
+quarries where they were hewn? By what contrivance did the engineers of
+that people hoist those enormous masses to a dizzy height? It is indeed
+a problem--a problem, too, which we will never solve. Nor are the ruins
+of Tihuanaco unparalleled by the remains of European civilizations of
+ante-historic times. The cyclopean walls with which Southern Europe
+abounds, and which have withstood the all-destroying tooth of time for
+thousands upon thousands of years--who built them? Who piled these
+monstrous masses, which modern art could scarcely move?
+
+Let us not mistake the results of a civilization for its causes. The
+causes cease, the results subsist for a while, then are lost. If they
+again bear fruit, it is because a new spirit has appropriated them, and
+converted them to purposes often very different from those they had at
+first. Human intelligence is finite, nor can it ever reign at once in
+the whole of its domain:[180] it can turn to account one portion of it
+only by leaving the other bare; it exalts what it possesses, esteems
+lightly what it has lost. Thus, every generation is at the same time
+superior and inferior to its predecessors. Man cannot, then, surpass
+himself: man's perfectibility is not infinite.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[174] The word _criticism_ has here been used by the translator in a
+sense somewhat unusual in the English language, where it is generally
+made to signify "the art of judging of literary or artistic
+productions." In a more comprehensive sense, it means _the art of
+discriminating between truth and error_, or rather, perhaps, between
+_the probable and the improbable_. In this sense, the word is often used
+by continental metaphysicians, and also, though less frequently, by
+English writers. As the definition is perfectly conformable to
+etymology, I have concluded to let the above passage stand as it is.--H.
+
+[175] It will be remembered that Mr. Gobineau speaks of Europe.--H.
+
+[176] The term "Radical" is used on the European continent to designate
+that party who desire thorough, uncompromising reform: the plucking out
+of evils by the _root_.--H.
+
+[177] The principles of government applied to practice at the formation
+of our Constitution, Mr. Gobineau considers as identical with those laid
+down at the beginning of every society founded by the Germanic race. In
+his succeeding volumes he mentions several analogues.--H.
+
+[178] M. J. Mohl, _Rapport Annuel a la Societe Asiatique_, 1851, p. 92:
+"The Indian book trade of indigenous productions is extremely lively,
+and consists of a number of works which are never heard of in Europe,
+nor ever enter a European's library even in India. Mr. Springer asserts
+in a letter, that in the single town of Luknau there are thirteen
+lithographical establishments exclusively occupied with multiplying
+books for the schools, and he gives a list of considerable length of
+books, none of which have probably ever reached Europe. The same is the
+case in Delhi, Agra, Cawnpour, Allahabad, and other cities."
+
+[179] The Siamese are probably the most debased in morals of any people
+on earth. They belong to the remotest outskirts of the Indo-Chinese
+civilization; yet among them every one knows how to read and write.
+(Ritter, _Erdkunde, Asien_, vol. iii. p. 1152.)
+
+[180] No individual can encompass the whole circle of human knowledge:
+no civilization comprise at once all the improvements possible to
+humanity.--H.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+MUTUAL RELATIONS OF DIFFERENT MODES OF INTELLECTUAL CULTURE.
+
+ Necessary consequences of a supposed equality of all races--Uniform
+ testimony of history to the contrary--Traces of extinct
+ civilizations among barbarous tribes--Laws which govern the
+ adoption of a state of civilization by conquered
+ populations--Antagonism of different modes of culture; the Hellenic
+ and Persian, European and Arab, etc.
+
+
+Had it been the will of the Creator to endow all the branches of the
+human family with equal intellectual capacities, what a glorious tableau
+would history not unfold before us. All being equally intelligent,
+equally aware of their true interests, equally capable of triumphing
+over obstacles, a number of simultaneous and flourishing civilizations
+would have gladdened every portion of the inhabited globe. While the
+most ancient Sanscrit nations covered Northern India with harvests,
+cities, palaces, and temples; and the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates
+shook under the trampling of Nimrod's cavalry and chariots, the
+prognathous tribes of Africa would have formed and developed a social
+system, sagaciously constructed, and productive of brilliant results.
+
+Some luckless tribes, whose lot fortune had cast in inhospitable climes,
+burning sands, or glacial regions, mountain gorges, or cheerless steppes
+swept by the piercing winds of the north, would have been compelled to a
+longer and severer struggle against such unpropitious circumstances,
+than more fortunate nations. But being not inferior in intelligence and
+sagacity, they would not have been long in discovering the means of
+bettering their condition. Like the Icelanders, the Danes, and
+Norwegians, they would have forced the reluctant soil to afford them
+sustenance; if inhabitants of mountainous regions, they would, like the
+Swiss, have enjoyed the advantages of a pastoral life, or like the
+Cashmerians, resorted to manufacturing industry. But if their
+geographical situation had been so unfavorable as to admit of no
+resource, they would have reflected that the world was large, contained
+many a pleasant valley and fertile plain, where they might seek the
+fruits of intelligent activity, which their stepmotherly native land
+refused them.
+
+Thus all the nations of the earth would have been equally enlightened,
+equally prosperous; some by the commerce of maritime cities, others by
+productive agriculture in inland regions, or successful industry in
+barren and Alpine districts. Though they might not exempt themselves
+from the misfortunes to which the imperfections of human nature give
+rise--transitory dissensions, civil wars, seditions, etc.--their
+individual interests would soon have led them to invent some system of
+relative equiponderance. As the differences in their civilizations
+resulted merely from fortuitous circumstances, and not from innate
+inequalities, a mutual interchange would soon have assimilated them in
+all essential points. Nothing could then prevent a universal
+confederation, that dream of so many centuries; and the inhabitants of
+the most distant parts of the globe would have been as members of one
+great cosmopolite people.
+
+Let us contrast this fantastic picture with the reality. The first
+nations worthy of the name, owed their formation to an instinct of
+aggregation, which the barbarous tribes near them not only did not feel
+then, but never afterward. These nations spread beyond their original
+boundaries, and forced others to submit to their power. But the
+conquered neither adopted nor understood the principles of the
+civilization imposed upon them. Nor has the force of example been of
+avail to those in whom innate capacity was wanting. The native
+populations of the Spanish peninsula, and of Transalpine and Ligurian
+Gaul, saw Phenicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians, successively establish
+flourishing cities on their coasts, without feeling the least incitement
+to imitate the manners or forms of government of these prosperous
+merchants.
+
+What a glorious spectacle do not the Indians of North America witness at
+this moment. They have before their eyes a great and prosperous nation,
+eminent for the successful practical application of modern theories and
+sciences to political and social forms, as well as to industrial art.
+The superiority of this foreign race, which has so firmly established
+itself upon his former patrimony, is evident to the red man. He sees
+their magnificent cities, their thousands of vessels upon the once
+silent rivers, their successful agriculture; he knows that even his own
+rude wants, the blanket with which he covers himself, the weapon with
+which he slays his game, the ardent spirits he has learned to love so
+well, can be supplied only by the stranger. The last feeble hope to see
+his native soil delivered from the presence of the conqueror's race, has
+long since vanished from his breast; he feels that the land of his
+fathers is not his own. Yet he stubbornly refuses to enter the pale of
+this civilization which invites him, solicits him, tries to entice him
+with superior advantages and comforts. He prefers to retreat from
+solitude to solitude, deeper and deeper into the primitive forest. He is
+doomed to perish, and he knows it; but a mysterious power retains him
+under the yoke of his invincible repugnances, and while he admires the
+strength and superiority of the whites, his conscience, his whole
+nature, revolts at the idea of assimilating to them. He cannot forget or
+smother the instincts of his race.
+
+The aborigines of Spanish America are supposed to evince a less
+unconquerable aversion. It is because the Spanish metropolitan
+government had never attempted to civilize them. Provided they were
+Christians, at least in name, they were left to their own usages and
+habits, and, in many instances, under the administration of their
+Caziques. The Spaniards colonized but little, and when the conquest was
+completed and their sanguinary appetites glutted by those unparalleled
+atrocities which brand them with indelible disgrace, they indulged in a
+lazy toleration, and directed their tyranny rather against individuals
+than against modes of thinking and living. The Indians have, in a great
+measure, mixed with their conquerors, and will continue to live while
+their brethren in the vicinity of the Anglo-Saxon race are inevitably
+doomed to perish.
+
+But not only savages, even nations of a higher rank in the intellectual
+scale are incapable of adopting a foreign civilization. We have already
+alluded to the failure of the English in India and of the Dutch in Java,
+in trying to import their own ideas into their foreign dependencies.
+French philanthropy is at this moment gaining the same experience in the
+new French possession of Algeria. There can be no stronger or more
+conclusive proof of the various endowments of different races.
+
+If we had no other argument in proof of the innate imparity of races
+than the actual condition of certain barbarous tribes, and the
+supposition that they had always been in that condition, and,
+consequently, always would be, we should expose ourselves to serious
+objections. For many barbarous nations preserve traces of former
+cultivation and refinement. There are some tribes, very degraded in
+every other respect, who yet possess traditional regulations respecting
+the marriage celebration, the forms of justice and the division of
+inheritances, which evidently are remnants of a higher state of society,
+though the rites have long since lost all meaning. Many of the Indian
+tribes who wander over the tracts once occupied by the Alleghanian race,
+may be cited as instances of this kind. The natives of the Marian
+Islands, and many other savages, practise mechanically certain processes
+of manufacture, the invention of which presupposes a degree of ingenuity
+and knowledge utterly at variance with their present stupidity and
+ignorance. To avoid hasty and erroneous conclusions concerning this
+seeming decadence, there are several circumstances to be taken into
+consideration.
+
+Let us suppose a savage population to fall within the sphere of activity
+of a proximate, but superior race. In that case they may gradually learn
+to conform externally to the civilization of their masters, and acquire
+the technicalities of their arts and inventions. Should the dominant
+race disappear either by expulsion or absorption, the civilization would
+expire, but some of its outward forms might be retained and perpetuated.
+A certain degree of mechanical skill might survive the scientific
+principles upon which it was based. In other words, practice might long
+continue after the theory was lost. History furnishes us a number of
+examples in support of this assertion.
+
+Such, for instance, was the attitude of the Assyrians toward the
+civilization of the Chaldeans; of the Iberians, Celts, and Illyrians
+towards that of the Romans. If, then, the Cherokees, the Catawbas,
+Muskogees, Seminoles, Natchez and other tribes, still preserve a feeble
+impress of the Alleghanian civilization, I should not thence conclude
+that they are the pure and direct descendants of the initiatory element
+of that people, which would imply that a race may once have been
+civilized, and be no longer so. I should say, on the contrary, that the
+Cherokees, if at all ethnically connected with the ancient dominant
+type, are so by only a collateral tie of consanguinity, else they could
+never have relapsed into a state of barbarism. The other tribes which
+exhibit little or no vestiges of the former civilization are probably
+the descendants of a different conquered population which formed no
+constituent element of the society, but served rather as the substratum
+upon which the edifice was erected. It is no matter of surprise, if this
+be the case, that they should preserve--without understanding them and
+with a sort of superstitious veneration--customs, laws, and rites
+invented by others far more intelligent than themselves.
+
+The same may be said of the mechanical arts. The aborigines of the
+Carolines are about the most interesting of the South Sea islanders.
+Their looms, sculptured canoes, their taste for navigation and commerce
+show them vastly superior to the Pelagian negroes, their neighbors. It
+is easy to account for this superiority by the well-authenticated
+admixture of Malay blood. But as this element is greatly attenuated, the
+inventions which it introduced have not borne indigenous fruits, but, on
+the contrary, are gradually, but surely, disappearing.
+
+The preceding observations will, I think, suffice to show that the
+traces of civilization among a barbarous tribe are not a necessary proof
+that this tribe itself has ever been really civilized. It may either
+have lived under the domination of a superior but consanguineous race,
+or living in its vicinity, have, in an humble and feeble degree,
+profited by its lessons. This result, however, is possible only when
+there exists between the superior and the inferior race a certain
+ethnical affinity; that is to say, when the former is either a noble
+branch of the same stock, or ennobled by intermixture with another. When
+the disparity between races is too great and too decided, and there is
+no intermediate link to connect them, the contact is always fatal to the
+inferior race, as is abundantly proved by the disappearance of the
+aborigines of North America and Polynesia.
+
+I shall now speak of the relations arising from the contact of different
+civilizations.
+
+The Persian civilization came in contact with the Grecian; the Egyptian
+with the Grecian and Roman; the Roman with the Grecian; and finally the
+modern civilization of Europe with all those at present subsisting on
+the globe, and especially with the Arabian.
+
+The contact of Greek intelligence with the culture of the Persians was
+as frequent as it was compulsory. The greater portion of the Hellenic
+population, and the wealthiest, though not the most independent, was
+concentrated in the cities of the Syrian coast, the Greek colonies of
+Asia Minor, and on the shores of the Euxine, all of which formed a part
+of the Persian dominions. Though these colonies preserved their own
+local laws and politics, they were under the authority of the satraps of
+the great king. Intimate relations, moreover, were maintained between
+European Greece and Asia. That the Persians were then possessed of a
+high degree of civilization is proved by their political organization
+and financial administration, by the magnificent ruins which still
+attest the splendor and grandeur of their cities. But the principles of
+government and religion, the modes and habits of life, the genius of the
+arts, were very differently understood by the two nations; and,
+therefore, notwithstanding their constant intercourse, neither made the
+slightest approach toward assimilation with the other. The Greeks called
+their puissant neighbors barbarians, and the latter, no doubt, amply
+returned the compliment.
+
+In Ecbatana no other form of government could be conceived than an
+undivided hereditary authority, limited only by certain religious
+prescriptions and a court ceremonial. The genius of the Greeks tended to
+an endless variety of governmental forms; subdivided into a number of
+petty sovereignties. Greek society presented a singular mosaic of
+political structures; oligarchical in Sparta, democratical in Athens,
+tyrannical in Sicyon, monarchical in Macedonia, the forms of government
+were the same in scarcely two cities or districts. The state religion of
+the Persians evinced the same tendency to unity as their politics, and
+was more of a metaphysical and moral than a material character. The
+Greeks, on the contrary, had a symbolical system of religion, consisting
+in the worship of natural objects and influences, which gradually
+changed into a perfect prosopopoeia, representing the gods as
+sentient beings, subject to the same passions, and engaged in the same
+pursuits and occupations as the inhabitants of the earth. The worship
+consisted principally in the performance of rites and demonstrations of
+respect to the deities; the conscience was left to the direction of the
+civil laws. Besides, the rites, as well as the divinities and heroes in
+whose honor they were practised, were different in every place.
+
+As for the manners and habits of life, it is unnecessary to point out
+how vastly different they were from those of Persia. Public contempt
+punished the young, wealthy, pleasure-loving cosmopolitan, who attempted
+to live in Persian style. Thus, until the time of Alexander, when the
+power of Greece had arrived at its culminating point, Persia, with all
+her preponderance, could not convert Hellas to her civilization.
+
+In the time of Alexander, this incompatibility of dissimilar modes of
+culture was singularly demonstrated. When the empire of Darius succumbed
+to the Macedonian phalanxes, it was expected, for a time, that a
+Hellenic civilization would spread over Asia. There seemed the more
+reason for this belief when the conqueror, in a moment of aberrancy,
+treated the monuments of the land with such aggressive violence as
+seemed to evince equal hatred and contempt. But the wanton incendiary
+of Persepolis soon changed his mind, and so completely, that his design
+became apparent to simply substitute himself in the room of the dynasty
+of Achaemenes, and rule over Persia like a Persian king, with Greece
+added to his estates. Great as was Alexander's power, it was
+insufficient for the execution of such a project. His generals and
+soldiers could not brook to see their commander assume the long flowing
+robes of the eastern kings, surround himself with eunuchs, and renounce
+the habits and manners of his native land. Though after his death some
+of his successors persisted in the same system, they were compelled
+greatly to mitigate it. Where the population consisted of a motley
+compound of Greeks, Syrians, and Arabs, as in Egypt and the coast of
+Asia Minor, a sort of compromise between the two civilizations became
+thenceforth the normal state of the country; but where the races
+remained unmixed, the national manners were preserved.
+
+In the latter periods of the Roman empire, the two civilizations had
+become completely blended in the whole East, including continental
+Greece; but it was tinged more with the Asiatic than the Greek
+tendencies, because the masses belonged much more to the former element
+than to the latter. Hellenic forms, it is true, still subsisted, but it
+is not difficult to discover in the ideas of those periods and countries
+the Oriental stock upon which the scions of the Alexandrian school had
+been engrafted. The respective influence of the various elements was in
+strict proportion to the quantity of blood; the intellectual
+preponderance belonged to that which had contributed the greatest share.
+
+The same antagonism which I pointed out between the intellectual culture
+of the Greeks and that of the Persians, will be found to result from the
+contact of all other widely different civilizations. I shall mention but
+one more instance: the relations between the Arab civilization[181] and
+our own.
+
+There was a time when the arts and sciences, the muses and their train,
+seemed to have forsaken their former abodes, to rally around the
+standard of Mohammed. That our forefathers were not blind to the
+excellencies of the Arab civilization is proved by their sending their
+sons to the schools of Cordova. But not a trace of the spirit of that
+civilization has remained in Europe, save in those countries which still
+retain a portion of Ishmaelitic blood. Nor has the Arab civilization
+found a more congenial soil in India over which, also, its dominion
+extended. Like those portions of Europe which were subjected to Moslem
+masters, that country has preserved its own modes of thinking intact.
+
+But if the pressure of the Arab civilization, at the time of its
+greatest splendor and our greatest ignorance, could not affect the modes
+of thinking of the races of Western Europe, neither can we, at present,
+when the positions are reversed, affect in the slightest degree the
+feeble remnants of that once so flourishing civilization. Our action
+upon these remnants is continuous--the pressure of our intellectual
+activity upon them immense; we succeed only in destroying, not in
+transforming or remodelling.[182]
+
+Yet this civilization was not even original, and might, therefore, be
+supposed to have a less obstinate vitality. The Arab nation, it is well
+known, based its empire and its intellectual culture upon fragments of
+races which it had aggregated by the weight of the sword. A variegated
+compound like the Islamitic populations, could not but develop a
+civilization of an equally variegated character, to which each ethnical
+element contributed its share. These elements it is not difficult to
+determine and point out.
+
+The nucleus, around which aggregated those countless multitudes, was a
+small band of valiant warriors who unfurled in their native deserts the
+standard of a new creed. They were not, before Mohammed's time, a new or
+unknown people. They had frequently come in contact with the Jews and
+Phenicians, and had in their veins the blood of both these nations.
+Taking advantage of their favorable situation for commerce, they had
+performed the carrier trade of the Red Sea, and the eastern coast of
+Africa and India, for the most celebrated nations of ancient times, the
+Jews and the Phenicians, later still, for the Romans and Persians. They
+had the same traditions in common with the Shemitic and Hamitic families
+from which they sprung.[183] They had even taken an active part in the
+political life of neighboring nations. Under the Arsacides and the sons
+of Sassan, some of their tribes exerted great influence in the politics
+of the Persian empire. One of their adventurers[184] had become Emperor
+of Rome; one of their princes protected the majesty of Rome against a
+conqueror before whom the whole east trembled, and shared the imperial
+purple with the Roman sovereign;[185] one of their cities had become,
+under Zenobia, the centre and capital of a vast empire that rivalled and
+even threatened Rome.[186]
+
+It is evident, therefore, that the Arab nation had never ceased, from
+the remotest antiquity, to entertain intimate relations with the most
+powerful and celebrated ancient societies. It had taken part in their
+political and intellectual[187] activity; and it might not
+inappropriately be compared to a body half-plunged into the water, and
+half exposed to the sun, as it partook at the same time of an advanced
+state of civilization and of complete barbarism.
+
+Mohammed invented the religion most conformable to the ideas of a
+people, among whom idolatry had still many zealous adherents, but where
+Christianity, though having made numerous converts, was losing favor on
+account of the endless schisms and contentions of its followers.[188]
+The religious dogma of the Koreishite prophet was a skilful compromise
+between the various contending opinions. It reconciled the Jewish
+dispensation with the New Law better than could the Church at that time,
+and thus solved a problem which had disquieted the consciences of many
+of the earlier Christians, and which, especially in the east, had given
+rise to many heretical sects. This was in itself a very tempting bait,
+and, besides, any theological novelty had decided chances of success
+among the Syrians and Egyptians.[189] Moreover, the new religion
+appeared with sword in hand, which in those times of schismatical
+propagandism seemed a warrant of success more relied upon by the masses
+to whom it addressed itself, than peaceful persuasion.
+
+Thus arrayed, Islamism issued from its native deserts. Arrogant, and
+possessed but in a very slight degree of the inventive faculty, it
+developed no civilization peculiar to itself, but it had adopted, as far
+as it was capable of doing, the bastard Greco-Asiatic civilization
+already extant. As its triumphant banners progressed on the east and
+south of the Mediterranean, it incorporated masses imbued with the same
+tendencies and spirit. From each of these it borrowed something. As its
+religious dogmas were a patchwork of the tenets of the Church, those of
+the Synagogue, and of the disfigured traditions of Hedjaz and Yemen, so
+its code of laws was a compound of the Persian and the Roman, its
+science was Greco-Syrian[190] and Egyptian, its administration from the
+beginning tolerant like that of every body politic that embraces many
+heterogeneous elements.
+
+It has caused much useless surprise, that Moslem society should have
+made such rapid strides to refinement of manners. But the mass of the
+people over whom its dominion extended, had merely changed the name of
+their creed; they were old and well-known actors on the stage of
+history, and have simply been mistaken for a new nation when they
+undertook to play the part of apostles before the world. These people
+gave to the common store their previous refinement and luxury; each new
+addition to the standard of Islamism, contributed some portion of its
+acquisitions. The vitalizing principle of the society, the motive power
+of this cumbrous mass, was the small nucleus of Arab tribes that had
+come forth from the heart of the peninsula. They furnished, not artists
+and learned men, but fanatics, soldiers, victors, and masters.
+
+The Arab civilization, then, is nothing but the Greco-Syrian
+civilization, rejuvenated and quickened, for a time, with a new and
+energetic, but short-lived, genius. It was, besides, a little renovated
+and a little modified, by a slight dash of Persian civilization.
+
+Yet, motley and incongruous as are the elements of which it is composed,
+and capable of stretching and accommodating itself as such a compound
+must be, it cannot adapt itself to any social structure erected by other
+elements than its own. In other words, many as are the races that
+contributed to its formation, it is suited to none that have _not_
+contributed to it.
+
+This is what the whole course of history teaches us. Every race has its
+own modes of thinking; every race, capable of developing a civilization,
+develops one peculiar to itself, and which it cannot engraft upon any
+other, except by amalgamation of blood, and then in but a modified
+degree. The European cannot win the Asiatic to his modes of thinking; he
+cannot civilize the Australian, or the Negro; he can transmit but a
+portion of his intelligence to his half-breed offspring of the inferior
+race; the progeny of that half-breed and the nobler branch of his
+ancestry, is but one degree nearer, but not equal to that branch in
+capacity: the proportions of blood are strictly preserved. I have
+adduced illustrations of this truth from the history of various branches
+of the human family, of the lowest as well as of the higher in the scale
+of intellectual progress. Are we not, then, authorized to conclude that
+the diversity observable among them is constitutional, innate, and not
+the result of accident or circumstances--that there is an absolute
+inequality in their intellectual endowments?
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[181] The word _Arab_ is here used instead of the more common, but less
+correct, term _Saracen_, which was the general appellation bestowed on
+the first propagators of the Islam by the Greeks and Latins. The Arab
+civilization reached its culminating point about the reign of Harun al
+Rashid. At that time, it comprised nearly all that remained of the arts
+and sciences of former ages. The splendor and magnificence for which it
+was distinguished, is even yet the theme of romancers and poets; and may
+be discerned to this day in the voluptuous and gorgeous modes of life
+among the higher classes in those countries where it still survives, as
+well as in the remains of Arab architecture in Spain, the best preserved
+and most beautiful of which is the well-known Alhambra. Though the Arab
+civilization had a decidedly sensual tendency and character, it was not
+without great benefits to mankind. From it our forefathers learned some
+valuable secrets of agriculture, and the first lessons in horticulture.
+The peach, the pear, the apricot, the finer varieties of apples and
+plums, and nearly all of our most valued fruits were brought into
+Western and Central Europe by the returning crusaders from the land of
+the Saracens. Many valuable processes of manufacture, and especially of
+the art of working metals, are derived from the same source. In the
+science of medicine, the Arabs laid the foundation of that noble
+structure we now admire. Though they were prevented by religious
+scruples from dissecting the human body, and, therefore, remained in
+ignorance of the most important facts of anatomy, they brought to light
+innumerable secrets of the healing powers in the vegetable kingdom; they
+first practised the art of distillation and of chemical analysis. They
+were the beginners of the science of Chemistry, to which they gave its
+name, and in which many of the commonest technical terms (such as
+alkali, alembic, alcohol, and many others), still attest their labors.
+In mathematical science they were no less industrious. To them we owe
+that simple and useful method which so greatly facilitates the more
+complex processes of calculation, without which, indeed, some of them
+would be impossible, and which still retains its Arabic name--Algebra.
+But what is more, to them we owe our system of notation, so vastly
+superior to that of the Greeks and Romans, so admirable in its efficacy
+and simplicity, that it has made arithmetic accessible to the humblest
+understanding; at the present time, the whole Christian world uses
+Arabic numerals.--H.
+
+[182] It is supposed by many that Turkey will ultimately be won to our
+civilization, and, as a proof of this, great stress is laid upon the
+efforts of the present Sultan, as well as his predecessor, to
+"Europeanize" the Turks. Whoever has carefully and unbiassedly studied
+the present condition of that nation, knows how unsuccessful these
+efforts, backed, though they were, by absolute authority, and by the
+immense influence of the whole of Western Europe, have hitherto been and
+always will be. It is a notorious fact, that the Turks fight less well
+in their semi-European dress and with their European tactics, of which
+so much was anticipated, than they did with their own. The Moslem now
+regards the Christian with the same feelings that he did in the zenith
+of his power, and these feelings are not the less bitter, because they
+can no longer be so ostentatiously displayed.--H.
+
+[183] The Arabs believed themselves the descendants of Ishmael, the son
+of Hagar. This belief, even before Mohammed's time, had been curiously
+blended with the idolatrous doctrines of some of their tribes.--H.
+
+[184] _Philip_, an Arabian adventurer who was prefect of the praetorian
+guards under the third Gordian, and who, through his boldness and
+ability, succeeded that sovereign on the throne in A. D. 244.--H.
+
+[185] _Odenathus_, senator of Palmyra, after Sapor, the King of Persia,
+had taken prisoner the Emperor of Rome, and was devastating the empire,
+met the ruthless conqueror with a body of Palmyrians, and several times
+routed his much more numerous armies. Being the only one who could
+protect the Eastern possessions of the Roman empire against the
+aggressions of the Persians, he was appointed _Caesar_, or coadjutor to
+the emperor by Gallienus, the son of Valerian, the captive
+sovereign.--H.
+
+[186] The history of _Zenobia_, the Queen of the East, as she styled
+herself, and one of the most interesting characters in history, is well
+known. As in the preceding notes, I shall, therefore, merely draw
+attention to familiar facts, with a view to refresh the reader's memory,
+not to instruct him.
+
+The famous Arabian queen was the widow of Odenathus, of Palmyra, who
+bequeathed to her his dignity as _Caesar_, or protector of the Eastern
+dominions of Rome. It soon, however, became apparent that she disdained
+to owe allegiance to the Roman emperors, and aimed at establishing a new
+great empire for herself and her descendants. Though the most
+accomplished, as well as the most beautiful woman of her time, she led
+her armies in person, and was so eminently successful in her military
+enterprises that she soon extended her dominion from the Euphrates to
+the Nile. Palmyra thus became the centre and capital of a vast empire,
+which, as Mr. Gobineau observes, rivalled and even threatened Rome
+itself. She was, however, defeated by Aurelian, and, in A. D. 273,
+graced the triumph of her conqueror on his return to Rome.
+
+The former splendor of the now deserted Palmyra is attested by the
+magnificent ruins which still form an inexhaustible theme for the
+admiration of the traveller and antiquarian.--H.
+
+[187] Though the mass of the nation were ignorant of letters, the Arabs
+had already before Mohammed's times some famous writers. They had even
+made voyages of discovery, in which they went as far as China. The
+earliest, and, as modern researches have proved, the most truthful,
+account of the manners and customs of that country is by Arab
+writers.--H.
+
+[188] At the time of the appearance of the false prophet, Arabia
+contained within its bosom every then known religious sect. This was
+owing not only to the central position of that country, but also to the
+liberty which was then as now a prerogative of the Arab. Among them
+every one was free to select or compose for himself his own private
+religion. While the adjacent countries were shaken by the storms of
+conquest and tyranny, the persecuted sects fled to the happy land where
+they might profess what they thought, and practice what they professed.
+
+A religious persecution had driven from Persia many who professed the
+religion of the ancient Magi. The Jews also were early settlers in
+Arabia. Seven centuries before the death of Mohammed they had firmly
+established themselves there. The destruction of Jerusalem brought still
+greater numbers of these industrious exiles, who at once erected
+synagogues, and to protect the wealth they rapidly acquired, built and
+garrisoned strongly fortified towns in various portions of the
+wilderness. The Bible had at an early day been translated into the
+Arabic tongue. Christian missionaries were not wanting, and their active
+zeal was eminently successful. Several of the Arab tribes had become
+converts. There were Christian churches in Yemen; the states of Hira and
+Gassan were under the jurisdiction of Jacobite and Nestorian bishops.
+The various heretical sects found shelter and safety among the
+hospitable Arabs. But this very fact proved detrimental to the progress
+of the Christian religion, and opened the path for the creed of
+Mohammed. So many and various were the Christian sects that crowded
+together in that country, and so widely departed from the true spirit of
+Christianity were some of them, that bitter hostilities sprung up among
+them, and their religion fell into contempt. The Eastern Christians of
+the seventh century had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of
+paganism, one of the sects (the Collyridian heretics) had even gone so
+far as to invest the virgin Mary with the name and honors of a goddess.
+This is what the author alludes to in saying that Christianity was
+losing favor in Arabia at the time of the appearance of Mohammed.--H.
+
+[189] The student of ecclesiastical history knows what a number of sects
+had sprung up about that time to distress and harass the Church. It is
+not so generally appreciated, however, that for the first hundred years,
+the progress of Islamism was almost exclusively at the expense of
+Christianity. The whole of the present Ottoman empire, and almost the
+whole northern coast of Africa were previously Christian countries.
+Whether the loss is greatly to be regretted, I know not, for the Syrians
+and Egyptians, from being very indifferent Christians, became good
+Mohammedans. These populations were to the Christian Church like a
+cankered limb, the lopping off of which may have been ordained by an
+all-wise Providence for the salvation of what was yet sound in the
+body.--H.
+
+[190] W. Von Humboldt. _Ueber die Karo-Sprache, Einleitung_,
+p. 243. "Durch die Richtung auf diese Bildung und durch innere
+Stammes-verwandschaft wurden sie wirklich fuer griechischen Geist und
+griechische Sprache empfaenglich, da die Araber vorzugsweise nur an den
+wissenschaftlichen Resultaten griechischer Forschung hiengen."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THREE GREAT VARIETIES.
+
+ Impropriety of drawing general conclusions from individual
+ cases--Recapitulatory sketch of the leading features of the Negro,
+ the Yellow, and the White races--Superiority of the
+ latter--Conclusion of volume the first.
+
+
+In the preceding pages, I have endeavored to show that, though there are
+both scientific and religious reasons for not believing in a plurality
+of origins of our species, the various branches of the human family are
+distinguished by permanent and irradicable differences, both mentally
+and physically. They are unequal in intellectual capacity,[191] in
+personal beauty, and in physical strength. Again I repeat, that in
+coming to this conclusion, I have totally eschewed the method which is,
+unfortunately for the cause of science, too often resorted to by
+ethnologists, and which, to say the least of it, is simply ridiculous.
+The discussion has not rested upon the moral and intellectual worth of
+isolated individuals.
+
+With regard to moral worth, I have proved that all men, to whatever race
+they may belong, are capable of receiving the lights of true religion,
+and of sufficiently appreciating that blessing to work out their own
+salvation. With regard to intellectual capacity, I emphatically protest
+against that mode of arguing which consists in saying, "every negro is a
+dunce;" because, by the same logic, I should be compelled to admit that
+"every white man is intelligent;" and I shall take good care to commit
+no such absurdity.
+
+I shall not even wait for the vindicators of the absolute equality of
+all races, to adduce to me such and such a passage in some missionary's
+or navigator's journal, wherefrom it appears that some Yolof has become
+a skilful carpenter, that some Hottentot has made an excellent domestic,
+that some Caffre plays well on the violin, or that some Bambarra has
+made very respectable progress in arithmetic.
+
+I am prepared to admit--and to admit without proof--anything of that
+sort, however remarkable, that may be related of the most degraded
+savages. I have already denied the excessive stupidity, the incurable
+idiotcy of even the lowest on the scale of humanity. Nay, I go further
+than my opponents, and am not in the least disposed to doubt that, among
+the chiefs of the rude negroes of Africa, there could be found a
+considerable number of active and vigorous minds, greatly surpassing in
+fertility of ideas and mental resources, the average of our peasantry,
+and even of some of our middle classes. But the unfairness of deductions
+based upon a comparison of the most intelligent blacks and the least
+intelligent whites, must be obvious to every candid mind.
+
+Once for all, such arguments seem to me unworthy of real science, and I
+do not wish to place myself upon so narrow and unsafe a ground. If Mungo
+Park, or the brothers Lander, have given to some negro a certificate of
+superior intelligence, who will assure us that another traveller,
+meeting the same individual, would not have arrived at a diametrically
+opposite conclusion concerning him? Let us leave such puerilities, and
+compare, not the individuals, but the masses. When we shall have
+clearly established of what the latter are capable, by what tendencies
+they are characterized, and by what limits their intellectual activity
+and development are circumscribed, whether, since the beginning of the
+historic epoch, they have acted upon, or been acted upon by other
+groups--when we shall have clearly established these points, we may then
+descend to details, and, perhaps, one day be able to decide why the
+greatest minds of one group are inferior to the most brilliant geniuses
+of another, in what respects the vulgar herds of all types assimilate,
+and in what others they differ, and why. But this difficult and delicate
+task cannot be accomplished until the relative position of the whole
+mass of each race shall have been nicely, and, so to say, mathematically
+defined. I do not know whether we may hope ever to arrive at results of
+such incontestable clearness and precision, as to be able to no longer
+trust solely to general facts, but to embrace the various shades of
+intelligence in each group, to define and class the inferior strata of
+every population and their influence on the activity of the whole. Were
+it possible thus to divide each group into certain strata, and compare
+these with the corresponding strata of every other: the most gifted of
+the dominant with the most gifted of the dominated races, and so on
+downwards, the superiority of some in capacity, energy, and activity
+would be self-demonstrated.
+
+After having mentioned the facts which prove the inequality of various
+branches of the human family, and having laid down the method by which
+that proof should be established, I arrived at the conclusion that the
+whole of our species is divisible into three great groups, which I call
+primary varieties, in order to distinguish them from others formed by
+intermixture. It now remains for me to assign to each of these groups
+the principal characteristics by which it is distinguished from the
+others.
+
+The dark races are the lowest on the scale. The shape of the pelvis has
+a character of animalism, which is imprinted on the individuals of that
+race ere their birth, and seems to portend their destiny. The circle of
+intellectual development of that group is more contracted than that of
+either of the two others.
+
+If the negro's narrow and receding forehead seems to mark him as
+inferior in reasoning capacity, other portions of his cranium as
+decidedly point to faculties of an humbler, but not the less powerful
+character. He has energies of a not despicable order, and which
+sometimes display themselves with an intensity truly formidable. He is
+capable of violent passions, and passionate attachments. Some of his
+senses have an acuteness unknown to the other races: the sense of taste,
+and that of smell, for instance.
+
+But it is precisely this development of the animal faculties that stamps
+the negro with the mark of inferiority to other races. I said that his
+sense of taste was acute; it is by no means fastidious. Every sort of
+food is welcome to his palate; none disgusts[192] him; there is no flesh
+nor fowl too vile to find a place in his stomach. So it is with regard
+to odor. His sense of smell might rather be called greedy than acute. He
+easily accommodates himself to the most repulsive.
+
+To these traits he joins a childish instability of humor. His feelings
+are intense, but not enduring. His grief is as transitory as it is
+poignant, and he rapidly passes from it to extreme gayety. He is seldom
+vindictive--his anger is violent, but soon appeased. It might almost be
+said that this variability of sentiments annihilates for him the
+existence of both virtue and vice. The very ardency to which his
+sensibilities are aroused, implies a speedy subsidence; the intensity of
+his desire, a prompt gratification, easily forgotten. He does not cling
+to life with the tenacity of the whites. But moderately careful of his
+own, he easily sacrifices that of others, and kills, though not
+absolutely bloodthirsty, without much provocation or subsequent
+remorse.[193] Under intense suffering, he exhibits a moral cowardice
+which readily seeks refuge in death, or in a sort of monstrous
+impassivity.[194]
+
+With regard to his moral capacities, it may be stated that he is
+susceptible, in an eminent degree, of religious emotions; but unless
+assisted by the light of the Gospel, his religious sentiments are of a
+decidedly sensual character.
+
+Having demonstrated the little intellectual and strongly sensual[195]
+character of the black variety, as the type of which I have taken the
+negro of Western Africa, I shall now proceed to examine the moral and
+intellectual characteristics of the second in the scale--the yellow.
+
+This seems to form a complete antithesis to the former. In them, the
+skull, instead of being thrown backward, projects. The forehead is
+large, often jutting out, and of respectable height. The facial
+conformation is somewhat triangular, but neither chin nor nose has the
+rude, animalish development that characterizes the negro. A tendency to
+obesity is not precisely a specific feature, but it is more often met
+with among the yellow races than among any others. In muscular vigor, in
+intensity of feelings and desires, they are greatly inferior to the
+black. They are supple and agile, but not strong. They have a decided
+taste for sensual pleasures, but their sensuality is less violent, and,
+if I may so call it, more vicious than the negro's, and less quickly
+appeased. They place a somewhat greater value upon human life than the
+negro does, but they are more cruel for the sake of cruelty. They are as
+gluttonous as the negro, but more fastidious in their choice of viands,
+as is proved by the immoderate attention bestowed on the culinary art
+among the more civilized of these races. In other words, the yellow
+races are less impulsive than the black. Their will is characterized by
+obstinacy rather than energetic violence; their anger is vindictive
+rather than clamorous; their cruelty more studied than passionate; their
+sensuality more refinedly vicious than absorbing. They are, therefore,
+seldom prone to extremes. In morals, as in intellect, they display a
+mediocrity: they are given to grovelling vices rather than to dark
+crimes; when virtuous, they are so oftener from a sense of practical
+usefulness than from exalted sentiments. In regard to intellectual
+capacity, they easily understand whatever is not very profound, nor very
+sublime; they have a keen appreciation of the useful and practical, a
+great love of quiet and order, and even a certain conception of a slight
+modicum of personal or municipal liberty. The yellow races are practical
+people in the narrowest sense of the word. They have little scope of
+imagination, and therefore invent but little: for great inventions, even
+the most exclusively utilitarian, require a high degree of the
+imaginative faculty. But they easily understand and adopt whatever is of
+practical utility. The _summum bonum_ of their desires and aspirations
+is to pass smoothly and quietly through life.
+
+It is apparent from this sketch, that they are superior to the blacks in
+aptitude and intellectual capacity. A theorist who would form some
+model society, might wish such a population to form the substratum upon
+which to erect his structure; but a society, composed entirely of such
+elements, would display neither great stamina nor capacity for anything
+great and exalted.
+
+We are now arrived at the third and last of the "primary" varieties--the
+white. Among them we find great physical vigor and capacity of
+endurance; an intensity of will and desire, but which is balanced and
+governed by the intellectual faculties. Great things are undertaken, but
+not blindly, not without a full appreciation of the obstacles to be
+overcome, and with a systematic effort to overcome them. The utilitarian
+tendency is strong, but is united with a powerful imaginative faculty,
+which elevates, ennobles, idealizes it. Hence, the power of invention;
+while the negro can merely imitate, the Chinese only utilize, to a
+certain extent, the practical results attained by the white, the latter
+is continually adding new ones to those already gained. His capacity for
+combination of ideas leads him perpetually to construct new facts from
+the fragments of the old; hurries him along through a series of
+unceasing modifications and changes. He has as keen a sense of order as
+the man of the yellow race, but not, like him, from love of repose and
+inertia, but from a desire to protect and preserve his acquisitions. At
+the same time, he has an ardent love of liberty, which is often carried
+to an extreme; an instinctive aversion to the trammels of that rigidly
+formalistic organization under which the Chinese vegetates with
+luxurious ease; and he as indignantly rejects the haughty despotism
+which alone proves a sufficient restraint for the black races.
+
+The white man is also characterized by a singular love of life. Perhaps
+it is because he knows better how to make use of it than other races,
+that he attaches to it a greater value and spares it more both in
+himself and in others. In the extreme of his cruelty, he is conscious of
+his excesses; a sentiment which it may well be doubted whether it exist
+among the blacks. Yet though he loves life better than other races, he
+has discovered a number of reasons for sacrificing it or laying it down
+without murmur. His valor, his bravery, are not brute, unthinking
+passions, not the result of callousness or impassivity: they spring from
+exalted, though often erroneous, sentiments, the principal of which is
+expressed by the word "honor." This feeling, under a variety of names
+and applications, has formed the mainspring of action of most of the
+white races since the beginning of historical times. It accommodates
+itself to every mode of existence, to every walk of life. It is as
+puissant in the pulpit and at the martyr's stake, as on the field of
+battle; in the most peaceful and humble pursuits of life as in the
+highest and most stirring. It were impossible to define all the ideas
+which this word comprises; they are better felt than expressed. But this
+feeling--we might call it instinctive--is unknown to the yellow, and
+unknown to the black races: while in the white it quickens every noble
+sentiment--the sense of justice, liberty, patriotism, love, religion--it
+has no name in the language, no place in the hearts, of other races.
+This I consider as the principal reason of the superiority of our branch
+of the human family over all others; because even in the lowest, the
+most debased of our race, we generally find some spark of this redeeming
+trait, and however misapplied it may often be, and certainly is, it
+prevents us, even in our deepest errors, from falling so fearfully low
+as the others. The extent of moral abasement in which we find so many of
+the yellow and black races is absolutely impossible even to the very
+refuse of our society. The latter may equal, nay, surpass them in crime;
+but even they would shudder at that hideous abyss of corrosive vices,
+which opens before the friend of humanity on a closer study of these
+races.[196]
+
+Before concluding this picture, I would add that the immense superiority
+of the white races in all that regards the intellectual faculties, is
+joined to an inferiority as strikingly marked, in the intensity of
+sensations. Though his whole structure is more vigorous, the white man
+is less gifted in regard to the perfection of the senses than either the
+black or the yellow, and therefore less solicited and less absorbed by
+animal gratifications.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I have now arrived at the historical portion of my subject. There I
+shall place the truths enounced in this volume in a clearer light, and
+furnish irrefragable proofs of the fact, which forms the basis of my
+theory, that nations degenerate only in consequence and in proportion to
+their admixture with an inferior race--that a society receives its
+death-blow when, from the number of diverse ethnical elements which it
+comprises, a number of diverse modes of thinking and interests contend
+for predominance; when these modes of thinking, and these interests
+have arisen in such multiplicity that every effort to harmonize them, to
+make them subservient to some great purpose, is in vain; when,
+therefore, the only natural ties that can bind large masses of men,
+homogeneity of thoughts and feelings, are severed, the only solid
+foundation of a social structure sapped and rotten.
+
+To furnish the necessary details for this assertion, to remove the
+possibility of even the slightest doubt, I shall take up separately,
+every great and independent civilization that the world has seen
+flourish. I shall trace its first beginnings, its subsequent stages of
+development, its decadence and final decay. Here, then, is the proper
+test of my theory; here we can see the laws that govern ethnical
+relations in full force on a magnificent scale; we can verify their
+inexorably uniform and rigorous application. The subject is immense, the
+panorama spread before us the grandest and most imposing that the
+philosopher can contemplate, for its tableaux comprise the scene of
+action of every instance where man has really worked out his mission "to
+have dominion over the earth."
+
+The task is great--too great, perhaps, for any one's undertaking. Yet,
+on a more careful investigation, many of the apparently insuperable
+difficulties which discouraged the inquirer will vanish; in the
+gorgeous succession of scenes that meet his glance, he will perceive a
+uniformity, an intimate relation and connection which, like Ariadne's
+thread, will enable the undaunted and persevering student to find his
+way through the mazes of the labyrinth: we shall find that every
+civilization owes its origin, its development, its splendors, to the
+agency of the white races. In China and in India, in the vast continent
+of the West, centuries ere Columbus found it--it was one of the group of
+white races that gave the impetus, and, so long as it lasted, sustained
+it. Startling as this assertion may appear to a great number of readers,
+I hope to demonstrate its correctness by incontrovertible historical
+testimony. Everywhere the white races have taken the initiative,
+everywhere they have _brought_ civilization to the others--everywhere
+they have sown the seed: the vigor and beauty of the plant depended on
+whether the soil it found was congenial or not.
+
+The migrations of the white race, therefore, afford us at once a guide
+for our historical researches, and a clue to many apparently
+inexplicable mysteries: we shall learn to understand why, in a vast
+country, the development of civilization has come to a stand, and been
+superseded by a retrogressive movement; why, in another, all but feeble
+traces of a high state of culture has vanished without apparent cause;
+why people, the lowest in the scale of intellect, are yet found in
+possession of arts and mechanical processes that would do honor to a
+highly intellectual race.
+
+Among the group of white races, the noblest, the most highly gifted in
+intellect and personal beauty, the most active in the cause of
+civilization, is the Arian[197] race. Its history is intimately
+associated with almost every effort on the part of man to develop his
+moral and intellectual powers.
+
+It now remains for me to trace out the field of inquiry into which I
+propose to enter in the succeeding volumes. The list of great,
+independent civilizations is not long. Among all the innumerable nations
+that "strutted their brief hour on the stage" of the world, ten only
+have arrived at the state of complete societies, giving birth to
+distinct modes of intellectual culture. All the others were imitators or
+dependents; like planets they revolved around, and derived their light
+from the suns of the systems to which they belonged. At the head of my
+list I would place:--
+
+1. The Indian civilization. It spread among the islands of the Indian
+Ocean, towards the north, beyond the Himalaya Mountains, and towards the
+east, beyond the Brahmapootra. It was originated by a white race of the
+Arian stock.
+
+2. The Egyptian civilization comes next. As its satellites may be
+mentioned the less perfect civilizations of the Ethiopians, Nubians, and
+several other small peoples west of the oasis of Ammon. An Arian colony
+from India, settled in the upper part of the Nile valley, had
+established this society.
+
+3. The Assyrians, around whom rallied the Jews, Phenicians, Lydians,
+Carthaginians, and Hymiarites, were indebted for their social
+intelligence to the repeated invasions of white populations. The
+Zoroastrian Iranians, who flourished in Further Asia, under the names of
+Medes, Persians, and Bactrians, were all branches of the Arian family.
+
+4. The Greeks belonged to the same stock, but were modified by Shemitic
+elements, which, in course of time, totally transformed their character.
+
+5. China presents the precise counterpart of Egypt. The light of
+civilization was carried thither by Arian colonies. The substratum of
+the social structure was composed of elements of the yellow race, but
+the white civilizers received reinforcements of their blood at various
+times.
+
+6. The ancient civilization of the Italian peninsula (the Etruscan
+civilization), was developed by a mosaic of populations of the Celtic,
+Iberian, and Shemitic stock, but cemented by Arian elements. From it
+emerged the civilization of Rome.
+
+7. Our civilization is indebted for its tone and character to the
+Germanic conquerors of the fifth century. They were a branch of the
+Arian family.
+
+8, 9, 10. Under these heads I class the three civilizations of the
+western continent, the Alleghanian, the Mexican, and the Peruvians.
+
+This is the field I have marked out for my investigations, the results
+of which will be laid before the reader in the succeeding volumes. The
+first part of my work is here at an end--the vestibule of the structure
+I wish to erect is completed.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[191] I do not hesitate to consider as an unmistakable mark of
+intellectual inferiority, the exaggerated development of instincts that
+characterizes certain savages. The perfection which some of their senses
+acquire, cannot but be at the expense of the reasoning faculties. See,
+upon this subject, the opinions of Mr. Lesson des Papous, in a memoir
+inserted in the tenth volume of the _Annales des Sciences Naturelles_.
+
+[192] "The negro's sense of smell and of taste is as powerful as it is
+unselecting. He eats everything, and I have good reasons for asserting,
+that odors the most disagreeable to us, are positively pleasant to him."
+(Pruner, _Op. cit._, vol. i. p. 133.)
+
+Mr. Pruner's assertions would, I think, be corroborated by every one who
+has lived much among the negroes. It is a notorious fact that the blacks
+on our southern plantations eat every animal they can lay hold of. I
+have seen them discuss a piece of fox, or the still more strongly
+flavored pole-cat, with evident relish. Nay, on one occasion, I have
+known a party of negroes feast on an alligator for a whole week, during
+which time they bartered their allowance of meat for trinkets. Upon my
+expressing surprise at so strange a repast, I was assured that it was by
+no means uncommon; that it was a favorite viand of the negroes in their
+native country, and that even here they often killed them with the
+prospect of a savory roast or stew. I am aware that some persons north
+of the Mason's & Dixon's line might be disposed to explain this by
+asserting that _hunger_ drove them to such extremities; but I can
+testify, from my own observation, that this is not the case. In the
+instances I have mentioned, and in many others which are too repulsive
+to be committed to paper, the banqueters were well fed, and evidently
+made such a feast from choice. There are, in the Southern States, many
+of the poor white population who are neither so well clothed nor so well
+fed as these negroes were, and yet I never heard of their resorting to
+such dishes.
+
+In regard to the negro's fondness for odors, I am less qualified to
+speak from my own observations, but nearly every description of the
+manners of his native climes that I have read, mentioned the fact of
+their besmearing themselves with the strong musky fluid secreted by many
+animals--the alligator, for instance. And I remember having heard
+woodsmen in the South say, that while the white man shuns the polecat
+more than he does the rattlesnake, and will make a considerable circuit
+to get out of its way, the negro is but little afraid of this formidable
+animal and its nauseous weapon.--H.
+
+[193] This is illustrated by many of their practices in their natural
+state. For instance, the well-known custom of putting to death, at the
+demise of some prince or great man, a number--corresponding with the
+rank of the deceased--of his slaves, in order that they may wait upon
+him in the other world. Hundreds of poor creatures are often thus
+massacred at the funeral celebrations in honor of some king or ruler.
+Yet it would be unjust to call the negro ferocious or cruel. It merely
+proves the slight estimation in which he holds human life.--H.
+
+[194] There is a callousness in the negro, which strikingly
+distinguishes him from the whites, though it is possessed in perhaps an
+equal degree by other races. I borrow from Mr. Van Amringe's _Nat. Hist.
+of Man_, a few remarks on this subject by Dr. Mosely, in his _Treatise
+on Tropical Diseases_: "Negroes," says the Doctor, "whatever the cause
+may be, are devoid of sensibility (physical) to a surprising degree.
+They are not subject to nervous diseases. They sleep sound in every
+disease, nor does any mental disturbance ever keep them awake. They bear
+chirurgical operations much better than white people, and what would be
+the cause of insupportable pain to a white man, a negro would almost
+disregard. I have amputated the legs of many negroes, who have held the
+upper part of the limb themselves." Every southern planter, and every
+physician of experience in the South, could bear witness to these
+facts.--H.
+
+[195] Thinking that it might not be uninteresting to some of our readers
+to see the views concerning the negro of another European writer besides
+Mr. Gobineau, I subjoin the following extract from Mr. Tschudi's
+_Travels in South America_. Mr. Tschudi is a Swiss naturalist of
+undoubted reputation, an experienced philosophic observer, and a candid
+seeker for truth. His opinion is somewhat harsher than would be that of
+a man who had resided among that class all his life, but it nevertheless
+contains some valuable truths, and is, at least, curious on account of
+the source whence it comes.
+
+"In Lima, and, indeed, throughout the whole of Peru, the free negroes
+are a plague to society. Too indolent to support themselves by laborious
+industry, they readily fall into any dishonest means of getting money.
+Almost all the robbers that infest the roads on the coast of Peru are
+free negroes. Dishonesty seems to be a part of their very nature; and,
+moreover, all their tastes and inclinations are coarse and sensual. Many
+warm defenders excuse these qualities by ascribing them to the want of
+education, the recollection of slavery, the spirit of revenge, etc. But
+I here speak of free-born negroes, who are admitted into the houses of
+wealthy families, who, from their early childhood, have received as good
+an education as falls to the share of many of the white Creoles--who are
+treated with kindness and liberally remunerated, and yet they do not
+differ from their half-savage brethren who are shut out from these
+advantages. If the negro has learned to read and write, and has thereby
+made some little advance in education, he is transformed into a
+conceited coxcomb, who, instead of plundering travellers on the highway,
+finds in city life a sphere for the indulgence of his evil
+propensities.... My opinion is, that the negroes, in respect to
+capability for mental improvement, are far behind the Europeans; and
+that, considered in the aggregate, they will not, even with the
+advantages of careful education, attain a very high degree of
+cultivation. This is apparent from the structure of the skull, on which
+depends the development of the brain, and which, in the negro,
+approximates closely to the animal form. The imitative faculty of the
+monkey is highly developed in the negro, who readily seizes anything
+merely mechanical, whilst things demanding intelligence are beyond his
+reach. Sensuality is the impulse which controls the thoughts, the acts,
+the whole existence of the negroes. To them, freedom can be only
+nominal, for if they conduct themselves well, it is because they are
+compelled, not because they are inclined to do so. Herein lie at once
+the cause of, and the apology for, their bad character." (_Travels in
+Peru_, London, 1848, p. 110, _et passim_.)--H.
+
+[196] The sickening moral degradation of some of the branches of our
+species is well known to the student of anthropology, though, for
+obvious reasons, details of this kind cannot find a place in books
+destined for the general reader.--H.
+
+[197] As many of the terms of modern ethnography have not yet found
+their way into the dictionaries, I shall offer a short explanation of
+the meaning of this word, for the benefit of those readers who have not
+paid particular attention to that science.
+
+The word "Arian" is derived from _Aryas_ or ~Arioi~, respectively
+the indigenous and the Greek designation of the ancient Medes, and is
+applied to a race, or rather a family of races, whose original
+ethnological area is not as yet accurately defined, but who have
+gradually spread from the centre of Asia to the mouth of the Ganges, to
+the British Isles, and the northern extremities of Scandinavia. To
+this family of races belong, among others, the ancient Medes and
+Persians, the white conquerors of India (now forming the caste of the
+Brahmins), _and the Germanic races_. The whole group is often called
+Indo-European. The affinities between the Greek and the German languages
+had long been an interesting question to philologists; but Schlegel, I
+believe, was the first to discover the intimate relations between these
+two and the Sanscrit, and he applied to the whole three, and their
+collateral branches, the name of _Indo-Germanic_ languages. The
+discovery attracted the attention both of philologists and
+ethnographers, and it is now indubitably proved that the civilizers of
+India, and the subverters of the Roman Empire are descended from the
+same ethnical stock. It is known that the Sanscrit is as unlike all
+other Indian languages, as the high-caste Brahmins are unlike the
+Pariahs and all the other aboriginal races of that country; and Latham
+has lately come to the conclusion that it has actually been _carried to
+India from Europe_. It will be seen from this that Mr. Gobineau, in his
+view of the origin of various civilizations, is supported in at least
+several of the most important instances.
+
+It is a familiar saying that _civilization travels westward_: if we
+believe ethnologists, the Arian races have _always migrated in that
+direction_--from Central Asia to India, to Asia Minor, to Egypt, to
+Greece, to Western Europe, to the western coasts of the Atlantic, and
+the same impulse of migration is now carrying them to the Pacific.--H.
+
+
+
+
+ APPENDIX.
+
+ BY J. C. NOTT, M. D.,
+
+ MOBILE, ALABAMA.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+I have seldom perused a work which has afforded me so much pleasure and
+instruction as the one of Count Gobineau, "_Sur l'Inegalite des Races
+Humaines_," and regard most of his conclusions as incontrovertible.
+There are, however, a few points in his argument which should not be
+passed without comment, and others not sufficiently elaborated. My
+original intention was to say much, but, fortunately for me, my
+colleague, Mr. Hotz, has so fully and ably anticipated me, in his
+Introduction and Notes, as to leave me little of importance to add.
+
+The essay of Count Gobineau is eminently practical and useful in its
+design. He views the various races of men rather as a historian than a
+naturalist, and while he leaves open the long mooted question of _unity_
+of origin, he so fully establishes the _permanency_ of the actual moral,
+intellectual, and physical diversities of races as to leave no ground
+for antagonists to stand upon. Whatever _remote causes_ may be assigned,
+there is no appeal from the conclusion that white, black, Mongol, and
+other races were fully developed in nations some 3000 years before
+Christ, and that no physical causes, during this long course of time,
+have been in operation, to change one type of man into another. Count
+Gobineau, therefore, accepts the _existing_ diversity of races as at
+least an _accomplished fact_, and draws lessons of wisdom from the plain
+teachings of history. Man with him ceases to be an abstraction; each
+race, each nation, is made a separate study, and a fertile but
+unexplored field is opened to our view.
+
+Our author leans strongly towards a belief in the _original diversity_
+of races, but has evidently been much embarrassed in arriving at
+conclusions by religious scruples and by the want of accurate knowledge
+in that part of natural history which treats of the designation of
+_species_, and the laws of _hybridity_; he has been taught to believe
+that two distinct species cannot produce perfectly prolific offspring,
+and therefore concludes that all races of men _must_ be of one origin,
+because they are prolific _inter se_. My appendix will therefore be
+devoted mainly to this question of species.
+
+
+
+
+A.
+
+
+Our author has taken the facts of Dr. Morton at second hand, and,
+moreover, had not before him Dr. Morton's later tables and more matured
+deductions; I shall therefore give an abstract of his results as
+published by himself in 1849, with some comments of my own. The figures
+represent the internal capacity of the skull in cubic inches, and were
+obtained by filling the cavity with shot and afterwards pouring them
+into an accurately graduated measure.
+
+It must be admitted that the collection of Morton is not sufficiently
+full in all its departments to enable us to arrive at the absolute
+capacity of crania in the different races; but it is sufficiently
+complete to establish beyond cavil, the fact that the crania of the
+white are much larger than those of the dark races. His table is very
+incomplete in Mongol, Malays, and some others; but in the white races of
+Europe, the black races, and the American, the results are substantially
+correct. I have myself had ample opportunities for examining the heads
+of living negroes and Indians of America, as well as a considerable
+number of crania, and can fully indorse Dr. Morton's results. It will be
+seen that his skulls of American aborigines amount to 338.
+
+
+_Table, showing the Size of the Brain in Cubic Inches, as obtained by
+the Measurement of 623 Crania of various Races and Families of Man._
+
+ -----------------------------------------------------------------------
+ | No. of | Largest | Smallest | |
+ RACES AND FAMILIES. | skulls.| internal | internal | Mean.| Mean.
+ | | capacity.| capacity.| |
+ -----------------------------------------------------------------------
+ MODERN CAUCASIAN GROUP. | | | | |
+ TEUTONIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Germans | 18 | 114 | 70 | 90 }
+ English | 5 | 105 | 91 | 96 } 92
+ Anglo-Americans | 7 | 97 | 82 | 90 }
+ PELASGIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Persians } | | | |
+ Armenians } 10 | 94 | 75 | 84 |
+ Circassians } | | | |
+ CELTIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Native Irish | 6 | 97 | 78 | 87 |
+ INDOSTANIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Bengalees, &c. | 32 | 91 | 67 | 80 |
+ SHEMITIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Arabs | 3 | 98 | 84 | 89 |
+ NILOTIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Fellahs | 17 | 96 | 66 | 80 |
+ | | | | |
+ ANCIENT CAUCASIAN GROUP.| | | | |
+ PELASGIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Greco-Egyptians | 18 | 97 | 74 | 88 |
+ (from Catacombs) | | | | |
+ NILOTIC FAMILY | | | | |
+ Egyptians | 55 | 96 | 68 | 80 |
+ (from Catacombs) | | | | |
+ | | | | |
+ MONGOLIAN GROUP. | | | | |
+ CHINESE FAMILY | 6 | 91 | 70 | 82 |
+ | | | | |
+ MALAY GROUP. | | | | |
+ MALAYAN FAMILY | 20 | 97 | 68 | 86 }
+ POLYNESIAN FAMILY | 8 | 84 | 82 | 83 } 85
+ | | | | |
+ AMERICAN GROUP. | | | | |
+ TOLTECAN FAMILY | | | | |
+ Peruvians | 155 | 101 | 58 | 75 }
+ Mexicans | 22 | 92 | 67 | 79 }
+ BARBAROUS TRIBES | | | | }
+ Iroquois } | | | } 79
+ Lenape } | | | }
+ Cherokee } 161 | 104 | 70 | 84 }
+ Shoshone, &c. } | | | |
+ | | | | |
+ NEGRO GROUP. | | | | |
+ NATIVE AFRICAN FAMILY | 62 | 99 | 65 | 83 }
+ AMERICAN-BORN NEGROES | 12 | 89 | 73 | 82 } 83
+ HOTTENTOT FAMILY | 3 | 83 | 68 | 75 |
+ ALFOREAN FAMILY | | | | |
+ Australians | 8 | 83 | 63 | 75 |
+ -----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Dr. Morton's mind, it will be seen by this table, had not yet freed
+itself from the incubus of artificial and unnatural classifications.
+Like Tiedemann and others, he has grouped together races which have not
+the slightest affinity in physical, moral, or linguistic characters. In
+the _Caucasian_ group, for example, are placed the Teutonic, Indostanic,
+Shemitic, and Nilotic families, each of which, it can be shown, has
+existed utterly distinct for 5000 years, not to mention many
+subdivisions.
+
+The table of Dr. Morton affords some curious results. His ancient
+Pelasgic heads and those of the modern white races, give the same size
+of brain, viz: 88 cubic inches; and his ancient Egyptians and their
+modern representatives, the Fellahs, yield the same mean, 80 cubic
+inches; the difference between the two groups being 8 cubic inches.
+These facts have a strong bearing on the question of _permanence_ of
+types. The small-headed Hindoos present the same cranial capacity as the
+Egyptians, and though these races have each been the repository of early
+civilization, it is a question whether either was the originator of
+civilization. The Egyptian race, from the earliest monumental dawn,
+exhibits Shemitic adulteration; and Latham proves that the Sanscrit
+language was not indigenous to India, but was carried there from
+Northern Europe in early ages by conquerors.
+
+Again, in the negro group, while it is absolutely shown that certain
+African races, whether born in Africa, or of the tenth descent in
+America, give a cranial capacity almost identical, 83 cubic inches; we
+see, on the contrary, the Hottentot and Australian yielding a mean of
+but 75 inches, thereby showing a like difference of eight cubic inches.
+
+In the American group, also, the same parallel holds good. The Toltecan
+family, the most civilized race, exhibit a mean of but 77 inches, while
+the barbarous tribes give 84, that is, a difference of 7 inches in favor
+of the savage. While, however, the Toltecans have the smaller heads,
+they are, according to Combe, much more developed in the anterior or
+_intellectual_ lobes, which may serve to explain this apparent paradox.
+
+When we compare the highest and lowest races with each other, the
+contrast becomes still more striking, viz: the Teutonic with the
+Hottentot and Australian. The former family gives a mean capacity of 92
+inches, while the latter two yield but 75, or a difference of _17 cubic
+inches_ between the skulls of these types!
+
+Now, as far back as history and monuments carry us, as well as crania
+and other testimonies, these various types have been _permanent_; and
+most of them we can trace back several thousand years. If such
+permanence of type through thousands of years, and in defiance of all
+climatic influences, does not establish _specific_ characters, then is
+the naturalist at sea without a compass to guide him.
+
+These facts determine clearly the arbitrary nature of all
+classifications heretofore adopted; the Teuton, the Jew, the Hindoo,
+the Egyptian, &c., have all been included under the term _Caucasian_;
+and yet they have, as far as we know, been through all time as distinct
+in physical and moral characters from each other, as they have from the
+negro races of Africa and Oceanica. The same diversity of types is found
+among all the other groups, or arbitrary divisions of the human family.
+
+Rich and rare as is the collection of Dr. Morton, it is very defective
+in many of its divisions, and it occurred to me that this deficiency
+might to some degree be supplied by the hat manufacturers of various
+nations; notwithstanding that the information derived from this source
+could give but one measurement, viz: the _horizontal periphery_. Yet
+this one measurement alone, on an extended scale, would go far towards
+determining the general size of the brain. I accordingly applied to
+three hat dealers in Mobile, and a large manufacturer in New Jersey, for
+statements of the relative number of hats of each size sold to adult
+males; their tables agree so perfectly as to leave no doubt as to the
+circumference of the heads of the white population of the United States.
+The three houses together dispose of about 15,000 hats annually.
+
+The following table was obligingly sent me by Messrs. Vail & Yates, of
+Newark; and they accompanied it with the remark, that their hats were
+sent principally to our Western States, where there is a large
+proportion of German population; also that the sizes of these hats were
+a little larger (about one fourth of an inch) than those sold in the
+Southern States. This remark was confirmed by the three dealers in
+Mobile. Our table gives, 1st. The number or size of the hat. 2d. The
+circumference of the head corresponding. 3d. The circumference of the
+hat; and lastly, the relative proportion of each No. sold out of 12
+hats.
+
+ Size--inches. Circum. Circum. Relative
+ of head. of hat. prop. in 12.
+
+ 6-7/8 21-5/8 22-3/8 1
+ 7 22 22-3/4 2
+ 7-1/8 22-3/8 23-1/8 3
+ 7-1/4 22-3/4 23-1/2 3
+ 7-3/8 23-1/8 23-7/8 2
+ 7-1/2 23-1/2 24-1/4 1
+
+All hats larger than these are called "extra sizes."
+
+The average size, then, of the crania of white races in the United
+States, is about 22-1/2 inches circumference, including the hair and
+scalp, for which about 1-1/2 inches should be deducted, leaving a mean
+horizontal periphery, for adult males, of 21 inches. The measurements of
+the purest Teutonic races in Germany and other countries, would give a
+larger mean; and I have reason to believe that the population of France,
+which is principally Celtic, would yield a smaller mean. I hope that
+others will extend these observations.
+
+Dr. Morton's measurements of aboriginal American races, give a mean of
+but 19-1/2 inches; and this statement is greatly strengthened by the
+fact that the Mexicans and other Indian races wear much smaller hats
+than our white races. (See _Types of Mankind_, p. 289 and 453.)
+
+Prof. Tiedemann, of Heidelberg, asserts that the head of the negro is as
+large as that of the white man, but this we have shown to be an error.
+(_Types of Mankind_, p. 453.)
+
+Tiedemann adopted the vulgar error of grouping together under the term
+_Caucasian_, all the Indo-Germanic, Shemitic, and Nilotic races; also
+all the black and dark races of Africa under the term _Negro_. Now I
+have shown that the Hindoo and Egyptian races possess about 12 cubic
+inches less of brain than the Teutonic; and the Hottentots about 8
+inches less than the Negro proper. I affirm that no valid reason has
+ever been assigned why the Teuton and Hindoo, or Hottentot and Negro,
+should be classed together in their cranial measurements. I can discover
+no facts which can assign a greater age to one of these races than
+another; and unless Professor Tiedemann can overcome these difficulties,
+he has no right to assume identity for the various races he is pleased
+to group under each of his arbitrary divisions. Mummies from the
+catacombs, and portraits on the monuments, show that the heads of races
+on both sides of the Red Sea have remained unchanged 4000 years.
+
+As Dr. Morton tabulated his skulls on the same arbitrary basis, I
+abandon his arrangement and present his facts as they stand in nature,
+allowing the reader to compare and judge for himself. The following
+table gives the _internal capacity_ in cubic inches, and it will be
+seen that the measurements arrange themselves in a sliding scale of 17
+cubic inches from the Teuton down to the Hottentot and Australian.
+
+_Internal Capacity of Brain in Cubic Inches._
+
+ RACES. Internal Internal
+ capacity. capacity.
+ Mean. Mean.
+ MODERN WHITE RACES--
+ Teutonic group 92 92
+ Pelasgic " 84 }
+ Celtic " 87 } 88
+ Shemitic " 89 }
+ ANCIENT PELASGIC 88
+ MALAYS 85 } 83-1/2
+ CHINESE 82 }
+ NEGROES (AFRICAN) 83 83
+ INDOSTANESE 80 }
+ FELLAHS (modern Egyptians) 80 } 80
+ EGYPTIANS (ancient) 80 }
+
+ AMERICAN GROUP--
+ Toltecan family 77 } 79
+ Barbarous tribes 84 }
+
+ HOTTENTOTS 75 } 75
+ AUSTRALIANS 75 }
+
+Such has been, through several thousand years, the incessant commingling
+of races, that we are free to admit that absolute accuracy in
+measurements of crania cannot now be attained. Yet so constant are the
+results in contrasting groups, that no unprejudiced mind can deny that
+there is a wide and well-marked disparity in the cranial developments of
+races.
+
+
+
+
+B.
+
+
+As the discussion stands at the present day, we may assume that the
+scientific world is pretty equally divided on the question of unity of
+the human family, and the point is to be settled by facts, and not by
+names. Natural history is a comparatively new and still rapidly
+progressing science, and the study of man has been one of the last
+departments to attract serious attention. Blumenbach and Prichard, who
+may be regarded among the early explorers in this vast field, have but
+recently been numbered with the dead; and we may safely assert that the
+last ten years have brought forth materials which have shed an entirely
+new light on this subject.
+
+Mr. Agassiz, Dr. Morton, Prof. Leidy, and many other naturalists of the
+United States, contend for an original diversity in the races of men,
+and we shall proceed to give some of the reasons why we have adopted
+similar views. Two of the latest writers of any note on the opposite
+side are the Rev. Dr. Bachman, of Charleston, and M. Flourens, of Paris;
+and as these gentlemen have very fully travelled over the argument
+opposed to us, we shall take the liberty, in the course of our remarks,
+to offer some objections to their views.
+
+The great difficulty in this discussion is, to define clearly what
+meaning should be attached to the term _species_; and to the
+illustration of this point, mainly, will our labors be confined.
+_Genera_ are, for the most part, well defined by _anatomical_
+characters, and little dispute exists respecting them; but no successful
+attempt has yet been made to designate _species_ in this way, and it is
+by their _permanency of type alone_, as ascertained from written or
+monumental records, that our decision can be guided.
+
+
+SPECIES.
+
+The following definitions of species have been selected by Dr. Bachman,
+and may be received as unexceptionable as any others; but we shall show
+that they fall far short of the true difficulties of the case.
+
+ "We are under the necessity of admitting the existence of certain
+ forms, which have perpetuated themselves, from the beginning of
+ the world, without exceeding the limits prescribed: all the
+ individuals belonging to one of these forms constitute a
+ _species_."--CUVIER.
+
+ "We unite under the designation species all those individuals who
+ mutually bear to each other so close a resemblance as to allow of
+ our supposing that they may have proceeded originally from a
+ single being, or a single pair."--DE CANDOLLE.
+
+ "The name species is applied to an assemblage of individuals which
+ bear a strong resemblance to each other, and which are perpetuated
+ with the same essential qualities. Thus man, the dog, the horse,
+ constitute to the zoologist so many distinct species."--MILNE
+ EDWARDS and ACHILLE COMPTE.
+
+We have no objection to this definition, but the examples cited are
+points in dispute, and not received by many of the leading naturalists
+of the day.
+
+ "Species are fixed and permanent forms of being, exhibiting
+ indeed certain modes of variation, of which they may be more or
+ less susceptible, but maintaining throughout those modifications
+ a sameness of structural essentials, transmitted from generation
+ to generation, and never lost by the influence of causes which
+ otherwise produce obvious effects. _Varieties_ are either
+ accidental or the result of the care and culture of
+ man."[198]--MARTIN.
+
+Dr. Bachman gives another, substantially the same, from Agassiz; and
+also one of his own, to which he appends, as an additional test of
+species, the production of "_fertile offspring by association_." In this
+definition the doctor _assumes_ one of the main points in dispute.
+
+ "_Varieties_," says Dr. Bachman, "are those that are produced
+ within the limits of particular species, and have not existed
+ from its origin. They sometimes originate in wild species,
+ especially those that have a wide geographical range, and are
+ thus exposed to change of climate and temperature," &c. * * *
+ "_Permanent varieties_ are such as, having once taken place, are
+ propagated in perpetuity, and do not change their characteristics
+ unless they breed with other varieties."
+
+We may remark that the existence of such _permanent varieties_ as here
+described is also in dispute.
+
+The same author continues:--
+
+ "On comparing these definitions, as given by various naturalists,
+ each in his own language, it will be perceived that there is no
+ essential difference in the various views expressed in regard to
+ the characters by which a species is designated. They all regard
+ it as 'the lowest term to which we descend, with the exception of
+ _varieties_, such as are seen in domestic animals.' They are, to
+ examine the external and internal organization of the animal or
+ plant--they are, to compare it with kindred species, and if by
+ this examination they are found to possess _permanent characters
+ differing from those of other species, it proves itself to be a
+ distinct species_. When this fact is satisfactorily ascertained,
+ and the specimen is not found a domestic species, in which
+ varieties always occur, presumptive evidence is afforded of its
+ having had a primordial existence. We infer this from the fact
+ that no species is the production of blind chance, and that
+ within the _knowledge of history_ no true species, but
+ _varieties_ only, whose origin can be _distinctly traced to
+ existing and well-known species_, have made their appearance in
+ the world. This, then, is the only means within the knowledge of
+ man by which any species of plant or animal _can be shown_ to be
+ primordial. The peculiar form and characters designated the
+ species, and its origin was a necessary inference derived from
+ the characters stamped on it by the hand of the Creator."
+
+To all the positions thus far taken by Dr. Bachman, we most cheerfully
+subscribe; they are strictly scientific, and by such criteria alone do
+we desire to test the unity of the human family; but we must enter a
+decided demurrer to the assertion which follows, viz: that, "according
+to the universally received definition of species, all the individuals
+of the human race are proved to be of one species." When it shall be
+shown that all the races of men, dogs, horses, cattle, wolves, foxes,
+&c., are "varieties only, _whose origin can be distinctly traced to
+existing and well-known species_," we may then yield the point; but we
+must be permitted to say that Dr. Bachman is the only naturalist, as far
+as we know, who has assumed to know these original types.
+
+Now, if the reader will turn back and review carefully all the
+definitions of species cited, he will perceive that they are not based
+upon _anatomical characters_, but simply on the _permanency_ of certain
+organic forms, and that this permanence of form is determined by its
+_history_ alone.
+
+Professor Owen, of London, has thrown the weight of his great name into
+the scale, and tells us that "man is the sole species of his genus, the
+sole representative of his order." But proving that man is not a monkey,
+as the professor has done in the lecture alluded to, does not prove that
+men are all of _one_ species, according to any definition yet received:
+he has made the assertion, but has assigned no scientific reasons to
+sustain it. No one would be more rejoiced than ourselves, to see the
+great talent and learning of Professor Owen brought fully to bear on
+this point; but, like most naturalists, he has overlooked one of the
+most important points in this discussion--_the monumental history of
+man_.
+
+Will Professor Owen or Dr. Bachman tell us wherein the lion and
+tiger--the dog, wolf, fox, and jackal--the fossil horse, and living
+species--the Siberian mammoth and the Indian elephant, differ more from
+each other than the white man and the negro? Are not all these regarded
+by naturalists as distinct species, and yet who pretends to be able to
+distinguish the skeleton of one from the other by specific characters?
+
+The examples just cited, of living species, have been decided upon
+simply from their permanency of type, as derived from their history; and
+we say that, by the same process of reasoning, the races of men
+depicted on the monuments of Egypt, five thousand years ago, and which
+have maintained their types through all time and all climates since, are
+_distinct species_.
+
+Dr. Morton defines species--"a primordial organic form," and determines
+these forms by their permanence through all human records; and Mr.
+Agassiz, who adopts this definition, adds: "Species are thus distinct
+forms of organic life, the origin of which is lost in the primitive
+establishment of the state of things now existing; and varieties are
+such modification of the species as may return to the typical form under
+temporary influences."
+
+Dr. Bachman objects very strongly to this definition, and declares it a
+"cunning device, and, to all intents, an _ex post facto_ law," suddenly
+conjured up during a controversy, to avoid the difficulties of the case;
+but we have serious doubts whether these gentlemen are capable of such
+subterfuge in matters of science, and confess that we cannot see any
+substantial difference between their definition and those given by Dr.
+Bachman. Morton and Agassiz determine a form to be "_primordial_" by its
+permanency, as proved by history, and the other definitions assign no
+other test.
+
+Professor Leidy, who has not only studied the "lower departments of
+zoology," like Mr. Agassiz, but also the "higher forms of animal life,"
+says that "too much importance has been attached to the term species,"
+and gives the following definition: "A species of plant or animal may be
+defined to be an immutable organic form, whose characteristic
+distinctions may always be recognized by _a study of its history_."[199]
+
+M. Jourdain, under the head "Espece," in his _Dictionnaire des Termes
+des Sciences Naturelles_, after citing a long list of definitions from
+leading authors, concludes with the following remarks, which, as the
+question now stands before the world, places the term species just where
+it should be:--
+
+ "It is evident that we can, among organized bodies, regard as a
+ _species_ only such a collection of beings as resemble each other
+ more than they resemble others, and which, by a consent more or
+ less unanimous, it is agreed to designate by a common name; for a
+ _species_ is but a simple _abstraction of the mind_, and not a
+ group, exactly determined by nature herself, as ancient as she
+ is, and of which she has irrevocably traced the limits. It is in
+ the definition of species that we recognize how far the influence
+ of ideas adopted without examination in youth is powerful in
+ obscuring the most simple ideas of general physics."
+
+Although not written with the expectation of publication, I will take
+the liberty of publishing the following private letter just received
+from Prof. Leidy. He has not appeared at all in this controversy before
+the public, and we may safely say that no one can be better qualified
+than he is to express an opinion on this question of species.
+
+ "With all the contention about the question of what constitutes a
+ _species_, there appears to be almost no difficulty,
+ comparatively, in its practical recognition. Species of plants
+ and animals are daily determined, and the characters which are
+ given to distinguish them are viewed by the great body of
+ naturalists as sufficient. All the definitions, however, which
+ have been given for a species, are objectionable. Morton says: 'A
+ species is a primordial organic form.' But how shall we
+ distinguish the latter? How can it be proved that any existing
+ forms primordially were distinct? In my attempted definition, I
+ think, I fail, for I only direct how species are discovered.
+
+ "According to the practical determination of a species by
+ naturalists, in a late number of the _Proceedings_ of our Academy
+ (vol. vii. p. 201), I observe: 'A species is a mere convenient
+ word with which naturalists empirically designate groups of
+ organized beings possessing characters of comparative constancy,
+ as far as historic experience has guided them in giving due weight
+ to such constancy.'
+
+ "According to this definition, the races of men are evidently
+ distinct species. But it may be said that the definition is given
+ to suit the circumstances. So it is, and so it should be; or, if
+ not, then all characterized species should conform to an arbitrary
+ definition. The species of gypaetus, haliaetus, tanagra, and of many
+ other genera of birds, are no more distinguishable than the
+ species of men; and, I repeat, the anatomy of one species of
+ haliaetus, or of any other genus, will answer for that of all the
+ other species of the same genus. The same is the case with
+ mammals. One species of felis, ursus, or equus will give the exact
+ anatomy of all the other species in each genus, just as you may
+ study the anatomy of the white man upon the black man. While Prof.
+ Richard Owen will compare the orang with man, and therefore deduce
+ all races of the latter to be of one species, he divides the genus
+ cervus into several other genera, and yet there is no difference
+ in their internal anatomy; while he considers the horse and the
+ ass as two distinct genera, and says that a certain fossil
+ horse-tooth, carefully compared with the corresponding tooth of
+ the recent horse, showed no differences, excepting in being a
+ little more curved, he considers it a distinct species, under the
+ name of equus curvidens; and yet, with differences of greater
+ value in the jaws of the negro and white man, he considers them
+ the same.
+
+ "In the restricted genera of vertebrata of modern naturalists, the
+ specific characters are founded on the external appendages, for
+ the most part--differences in the scales, horns, antlers,
+ feathers, hairs, or bills. Just as you separate the black and
+ white man by the difference in the color of the skin and the
+ character of the hair, so do we separate the species of bears, or
+ cats, &c.
+
+ "PHILADELPHIA, _April 18, 1855_."
+
+We might thus go on and multiply, to the extent of an octavo volume,
+evidence to show how vague and unsettled is the term species among
+naturalists, and that, when we abandon historical records, we have no
+reliable guide left. Moreover, were we able to establish perfectly
+reliable landmarks between species, we still have no means of
+determining whether they were originally created in one pair, or many
+pairs. The latter is certainly the most rational supposition: there is
+every reason to believe that the earth and the sea brought forth
+"_abundantly_" of each species.
+
+It must be clear to the reader, from the evidence above adduced, that
+Dr. Bachman claims far too much when he asserts that--
+
+ "Naturalists can be found, in Europe and America, who, without
+ any _vain boast_, can distinguish every species of bird and
+ quadruped on their separate continents; and the characters which
+ distinguish and separate the several species are as distinct and
+ infallible as are those which form the genera."[200]
+
+And, again, when he says:--
+
+ "From the opportunities we have enjoyed in the examination of the
+ varieties and species of domesticated quadrupeds and birds, we
+ have never found any difficulty in deciding on the species to
+ which these varieties belong."
+
+Those of us who are still groping in darkness certainly have a right to
+ask who are the authorities alluded to, and what are those "characters
+which distinguish and separate species" as distinctly and infallibly as
+"genera?" They are certainly not in print.
+
+The doctor must pardon us for reminding him that there is printed
+evidence that his own mind is not always free from doubts. In the
+introduction of Audubon and Bachman's _Quadrupeds of America_, p. vii.,
+it is said:--
+
+ "Although _genera_ may be easily ascertained by the forms and
+ dental arrangements peculiar to each, many _species_ so nearly
+ approach each other in size, while they are so variable in color,
+ that it is exceedingly difficult to separate them with positive
+ certainty."
+
+Again, in speaking of the genus _vulpes_ (foxes), the same work says:--
+
+ "The characters of this genus differ so slightly from those of
+ the genus _canis_, that we are induced to pause before removing
+ it from the sub-genus in which it had so long remained. As a
+ general rule, we are obliged to _admit that a large fox is a
+ wolf, and a small wolf may be termed a fox_. So inconveniently
+ large, however, is the list of species in the old genus _canis_,
+ that it is, we think, advisable to separate into distinct groups
+ such species as possess any characters different from true
+ wolves."
+
+Speaking of the origin of the domestic dog, Dr. Bachman, in his work on
+_Unity of Races_, p. 63, says:--
+
+ "Notwithstanding all these difficulties--and we confess we are
+ not free from some doubts in regard to their identity (dog and
+ wolf)--if we were called upon to decide on any wild species as
+ the progenitor of our dogs, we would sooner fix upon the large
+ wolf than on any other dog, hyena, or jackal," &c.
+
+The doctor is unable, here at least (and we can point out many other
+cases), to "designate species;" and the recent investigations of
+Flourens, at the _Jardin des Plantes_, prove him wrong as regards the
+origin of the dog. The dog is not derived from the "large wolf," but,
+with it, produces hybrids, sterile after the third generation. The dog
+forms a genus apart.
+
+We repeat, then, that in a large number of _genera_, the species cannot
+be separated by any anatomical characters, and that it is from their
+history alone naturalists have arrived at those minute divisions now
+generally received. We may, without the fear of contradiction, go a step
+further, and assert that several of the races of men are as widely
+separated in physical organization, physiological and psychological
+characters, as are the canidae, equidae, felines, elephants, bears and
+others. When the white races of Europe, the Mongols of Asia, the
+aborigines of America, the black races of Africa and Oceanica are placed
+beside each other, they are marked by stronger differences than are the
+species of the genera above named. It has been objected that these gaps
+are filled by intermediate links which make the chain complete from one
+extremity to the other. The admission of the fact does not invalidate
+our position, for we have shown elsewhere (see _Types of Mankind_)
+_gradation_ is the law of nature. The extreme types, we have proven,
+have been distinct for more than 5000 years, and no existing causes
+during that time have transformed one type into another. The well-marked
+negro type, for example, stands face to face with the white type on the
+monuments of Egypt; and they differ more from each other than the dog
+and wolf, ass and _Equis Hemionus_, lion and tiger, &c. The hair and
+skin, the size and shape of head, the pelvis, the extremities, and other
+points, separate certain African and Oceanican negroes more widely than
+the above species. This will not be questioned, whatever difference of
+opinion may exist with regard to the permanency of these forms. In the
+language of Prof. Leidy, "the question to be determined is, whether the
+differences in the races of men are as permanent and of as much value as
+those which characterize species in the lower genera of animals." These
+races of men too are governed by the same laws of geographical
+distribution, as the species of the lower genera; they are found, as far
+back as history can trace them, as widely separated as possible, and
+surrounded by local Florae and Faunae.
+
+
+VARIETIES.
+
+This term is very conveniently introduced to explain all the
+difficulties which embarrass this discussion. Dr. Bachman insists that
+all the races of men are mere _varieties_, and sustains the opinion by a
+repetition of those analogies which have been so often drawn from the
+animal kingdom by Prichard and his school. It is well known that those
+animals which have been domesticated undergo, in a few generations, very
+remarkable changes in color, form, size, habits, &c. For example, all
+the hogs, black, white, brown, gray, spotted, &c., now found scattered
+over the earth, have, it is said, their parentage in one pair of wild
+hogs. "This being admitted," says Dr. B. "we invite the advocates of
+plurality in the human species to show wherein these varieties are less
+striking than their eight (alluding to Agassiz) originally created
+nations." Again--
+
+ "And how has the discovery been made that all the permanent races
+ are mere varieties, and not 'originally created' species, or
+ 'primitive varieties?' Simply because the naturalists of Germany,
+ finding that the original wild hog still exists in their forests,
+ have, in a thousand instances, reclaimed them from the woods. By
+ this means they have discovered that their descendants, _after a
+ few generations_, lose their ferocity, assume all colors," &c.
+
+The same reasoning is applied to horses, cattle, goats, sheep, &c.,
+while many, if not most of the best naturalists of the day deny that we
+know anything of the origin of our domestic animals. Geoffroy St.
+Hilaire, in his work, just out, denies it in toto. We are, however, for
+the sake of argument, willing to admit all the examples, and all he
+claims with regard to the origin of endless varieties in domesticated
+animals.[201]
+
+Let us, on the other hand, "invite the advocates of _unity_ of the human
+species" to say when and where such varieties have sprung up in the
+human family. We not only have the written history of man for 2000
+years, but his monumental history for 2000 more; and yet, while the
+naturalists of Germany are catching wild hogs, and recording in a
+thousand instances "after a few generations" these wonderful changes, no
+one has yet pointed out anything analogous in the human family; the
+porcupine family in England, a few spotted Mexicans, &c., do not meet
+the case; history records the origin of no permanent variety. No race of
+men has in the same country turned black, brown, gray, white, and
+spotted. The negroes in America have not in ten generations turned to
+all colors, though fully _domesticated_, like pigs and turkeys. The
+Jews in all countries for 2000 years are still Jews. The gypsies are
+everywhere still gypsies. In India, the different castes, of different
+colors, have been living together several thousand years, and are still
+distinct, &c. &c.
+
+Nor does domestication affect all animals and fowls equally; compare the
+camel, ass, and deer, with the hog and dog; the Guinea fowl, pea fowl,
+and goose, with pigeons, turkeys, and common fowls. In fact, no one
+animal can be taken as an analogue for another: each has its own
+physiological laws; each is influenced differently and in different
+degrees by the same external influences. How, then, can an animal be
+taken as an analogue for man?
+
+We have also abundant authority to show that all wild species do not
+present the same uniformity in external characters.
+
+ "All packs of American wolves usually consist of various shades
+ of color, and varieties nearly black have been occasionally found
+ in every part of the United States.... In a gang of wolves which
+ existed in Colleton District, South Carolina, a few years ago
+ (sixteen of which were killed by hunters in eighteen months), we
+ were informed that about one-fifth were black, and the others of
+ every shade of color, from black to dusky gray and yellowish
+ white."--AUDUBON & BACHMAN, 2d Amer. ed., vol. ii. pp. 130-1.
+
+Speaking of the white American wolf, the same authors say:--
+
+ "Their gait and movements are precisely the same as those of the
+ common dog, and their mode of copulating and number of young
+ brought forth at a litter, are about the same." (It might have
+ been added that their number of bones, teeth, whole anatomical
+ structure are the same.) "The diversity of their size and color
+ is remarkable, no two being quite alike."... "The wolves of the
+ prairies ... produce from six to eleven at a birth, of which
+ there are very seldom two alike in color."--_Op. cit._, p. 159.
+
+ "The common American wolf, Richardson observes, sometimes shows
+ remarkable diversity of color. On the banks of the Mackenzie River
+ I saw five young wolves leaping and tumbling over each other with
+ all the playfulness of the puppies of the domestic dog, and it is
+ not improbable they were all of one litter. One of them was pied,
+ another black, and the rest showed the colors of the common gray
+ wolves."
+
+The same diversity is seen in the prairie wolf, and naturalists have
+been much embarrassed in classifying the various wolves on account of
+colors, size, &c.
+
+All this is independent of _domestication_, and shows the uncertainty of
+analogues; and still it is remarkable that though considerable variety
+exists in the native dogs of America in color and size, they do not run
+into the thousand grotesque forms seen on the old continent, where a
+much greater mixture exists. The dogs of America, like the aboriginal
+races of men, are comparatively uniform. In the East, where various
+races have come together, the men, like the dogs, present endless
+varieties, Egypt, Assyria, India, &c.
+
+Let us suppose that one variety of hog had been discovered in Africa,
+one in Asia, one in Europe, one in Australia, another in America, as
+well marked as those Dr. B. describes; that these varieties had been
+transferred to other climates as have been Jews, gypsies, negroes, &c.,
+and had remained for ages without change of form or color, would they be
+considered as distinct species or not?--can any one doubt? The rule must
+work both ways, or the argument falls to the ground.
+
+In fact the Dr. himself makes admissions which fully refute his whole
+theory.
+
+ "Whilst," says he, "we are willing to allow some weight to the
+ argument advanced by President Smyth, who endeavors to account
+ for the varieties in man from the combined influences of three
+ causes, 'climate, the state of society, and manner of living,' we
+ are free to admit that it is impossible to account for the
+ varieties in the human family from the causes which he has
+ assigned."[202]
+
+The Dr. further admits, in the same work, that the races have been
+_permanent_ since the time of the old Egyptian empire, and _supposes_
+that at some extremely remote time, of which we have no record, that
+"they were more susceptible of producing varieties than at a later
+period." These suppositions answer a very good purpose in theology, but
+do not meet the requirements of science.
+
+
+HYBRIDITY.
+
+Having shown the insufficiency of all the other arguments in
+establishing the landmarks of _species_, let us now turn to those based
+on _hybridity_, which seems to be the last stronghold of the unity
+party. On this point hang all the difficulties of M. Gobineau, and had
+he been posted up to date here, his doubts would all have vanished. The
+last twelve months have added some very important facts to those
+previously published, and we shall, with as little detail as possible,
+present the subject in its newest light.
+
+It is contended that when two animals of distinct species, or, in other
+words, of distinct origin, are bred together, they produce a hybrid
+which is _infertile_, or which at least becomes sterile in a few
+generations if preserved free from admixture with the parent stocks. It
+is assumed that unlimited prolificness is a certain test of community of
+origin.
+
+We, on the contrary, contend that there is no abrupt line of
+demarcation; that no complete laws of hybridity have yet been
+established; that there is a _regular gradation_ in the prolificness of
+the species, and that, according to the best lights we now possess,
+there is a continued series from perfect sterility to perfect
+prolificacy. The degrees may be expressed in the following language:--
+
+1. That in which hybrids never reproduce; in other words, where the
+mixed progeny begins and ends with the first cross.
+
+2. That in which the hybrids are incapable of producing _inter se_, but
+multiply by union with the parent stock.
+
+3. That in which animals of unquestionably distinct species produce a
+progeny which are prolific _inter se_, but have a tendency to run out.
+
+4. That which takes place between closely proximate species; among
+mankind, for example, and among those domestic animals most essential to
+human wants and happiness; here the prolificacy is unlimited.
+
+It seems to be a law that in those genera where several or many species
+exist, there is a certain gradation which is shown in degrees of
+hybridity; some having greater affinity than others. Experiments are
+still wanting to make our knowledge perfect, but we know enough to
+establish our points.
+
+There are many points we have not space to dwell on, as the relative
+influence of the male and female on the offspring; the tendency of one
+species to predominate over another; the tendency of types to "crop out"
+after lying dormant for many generations; the fact that in certain
+species some of the progeny take after one parent and some after the
+other, while in other cases the offspring presents a medium type, &c.
+
+The genus _Equus_ (Horse) comprises six species, of which three belong
+to Asia, and three to Africa. The Asiatic species are the _Equus
+Caballus_ (Horse), _Equus Hemionus_ (Dzigguetai), and _Equus Asinus_
+(Ass). Those of Africa are the _Equus Zebra_ (Zebra), _Equus Montanus_
+(Daw), and the _Equus Quaccha_ (Quagga). The horse and ass alone have
+been submitted to domestication from time immemorial; the others have
+remained wild.
+
+It is well known that the horse and ass produce together an unprolific
+mule, and as these two species are the furthest removed from each other
+in their physical structure, Dr. Morton long since suggested that
+intermediate species bred together would show a higher degree of
+prolificness, and this prediction has been vindicated by experiments
+recently made in the Garden of Plants at Paris, where the ass and
+dzigguetai have been bred together for the last ten years. "What is very
+remarkable, these hybrids differ considerably from each other; some
+resemble much more closely the dzigguetai, others the ass." In regard to
+the product of the male dzigguetai and the jenny, Mr. Geoffroy St.
+Hilaire says:[203]--
+
+ "Another fact, not less worthy of interest, is the fecundity, if
+ not of all the mules, at least the firstborn among them; with
+ regard to this, the fact is certain; he has produced several
+ times with Jennies, and once with the female dzigguetai, the only
+ one he has covered."[204]
+
+At a meeting of the "Societe Zoologique d'Acclimation,"
+
+ M. Richard (du Cantal) "parle des essais de croisements de
+ l'hemione avec l'anesse, et dit qu'ils ont donne un mulet
+ beaucoup _plus ardent_ que l'ane. Il asserte que les produits de
+ l'hemione avec l'ane, sont feconds, et que le metis, nomme Polka,
+ a deja produit."
+
+To what extent the prolificness of these two species will go is yet to
+be determined, and there is an unexplored field still open among the
+other species of this genus; it is highly probable that a gradation may
+be established from sterility, up to perfect prolificacy.
+
+Not only do the female ass and the male onager breed together, but a
+male offspring of this cross, with a mare, produces an animal more
+docile than either parent, and combining the best physical qualities,
+such as strength, speed, &c.; whence the ancients preferred the onager
+to the ass, for the production of mules.[205] Mr. Gliddon, who lived
+upwards of twenty years in Egypt and other eastern countries, informs me
+this opinion is still prevalent in Egypt, and is acted upon more
+particularly in Arabia, Persia, &c., where the _gour_, or wild ass,
+still roams the desert. The zebra has also been several times crossed
+with the horse.
+
+The genus _canis_ contains a great many species, as domestic dogs,
+wolves, foxes, jackals, &c., and much discussion exists as to which are
+really species and which mere varieties. In this genus experiments in
+crossing have been carried a step further than in the _Equidae_, but
+there is much yet to be done. All the species produce prolific
+offspring, but how far the prolificness might extend in each instance is
+not known; there is reason to believe that every grade would be found
+except that of absolute sterility which is seen in the offspring of the
+horse and ass.
+
+The following facts are given by M. Flourens, and are the result of his
+own observations at the _Jardin des Plantes_.
+
+ "The hybrids of the dog and wolf are sterile after the _third_
+ generation; those of the jackal and dog, are so after the
+ _fourth_.
+
+ "Moreover, if one of these hybrids is bred with one of the
+ primitive species, they soon return, completely and totally, to
+ this species.
+
+ "My experiments on the crossing of species have given me
+ opportunities of making a great many observations of this kind.
+
+ "The union of the dog and jackal produces a hybrid--a mixed
+ animal, an animal partaking almost equally of the two, but in
+ which, however, the type of the _jackal_ predominates over that of
+ the _dog_.
+
+ "I have remarked, in fact, in my experiments, that all types are
+ not equally dominant and persistent. The type of the dog is more
+ persistent than that of the wolf--that of the jackal more than
+ that of the dog; that of the horse is less than that of the ass,
+ &c. The hybrid of the dog and the wolf partakes more of the dog
+ than the wolf; the hybrid of the jackal and dog, takes more after
+ the jackal than dog; the hybrid of the horse and the ass partakes
+ less of the horse than the ass; it has the ears, back, rump, voice
+ of the ass; the horse neighs, the ass brays, and the mule brays
+ like the ass, &c.
+
+ "The hybrid of the dog and jackal, then, partakes more of the
+ jackal than dog--it has straight ears, hanging tail, does not
+ bark, and is wild--it is more jackal than dog.
+
+ "So much for the FIRST cross product of the dog with the jackal. I
+ continue to unite, from generation to generation, the successive
+ products with one of the two primitive stocks--with that of the
+ dog, for example. The hybrid of the _second generation_ does not
+ yet bark, but has already the ears pendent at the ends, and is
+ less savage. The hybrid of the third generation barks, has the
+ ears pendent, the tail turned up, and is no longer wild. The
+ hybrid of the _fourth generation_ is entirely a dog.
+
+ "Four generations, then, have sufficed to re-establish one of the
+ two primitive types--the type of the dog; and four generations
+ suffice, also, to bring back the other type."[206]
+
+From the foregoing facts, M. Flourens deduces, without assigning a
+reason, the following _non sequitur_:--
+
+ "Thus, then, either hybrids, born of the union of two distinct
+ species, unite and soon become sterile, or they unite with one of
+ the parent stocks, and soon return to this type--they in no case
+ give what may be called a new species, that is to say, an
+ intermediate durable species."[207]
+
+The dog also produces hybrids with the fox and hyena, but to what extent
+has not yet been determined. The hybrid fox is certainly prolific for
+several generations.
+
+There are also bovine, camelline, caprine, ovine, feline, deer with the
+ram, and endless other hybrids, running through the animal kingdom, but
+they are but repetitions of the above facts, and experiments are still
+far from being complete in establishing the _degrees_ which attach to
+each two species. We have abundant proofs, however, of the three first
+degrees of hybridity. 1st. Where the hybrid is infertile. 2d. Where it
+produces with the parent stock. 3d. Where it is prolific for one, two,
+three, or four generations, and then becomes sterile. Up to this point
+there is no diversity of opinion. Let us now inquire what evidence there
+is of the existence of the 4th degree, in which hybrids may form a new
+and permanent race.
+
+To show how slow has been our progress in this question, and what
+difficulties beset our path, we need only state that the facts
+respecting the dog, wolf, and jackal, quoted above from Flourens, have
+only been published within the last twelve months. The identity of the
+dog and wolf has heretofore been undetermined, and the _degrees_ of
+hybridity of the dog with the wolf and jackal were before unknown. These
+experiments do not extend beyond one species of wolf.
+
+M. Flourens says:--
+
+ "_Les especes ne s'alterent point, ne changent point, ne passent
+ point de l'une a l'autre; les especes sont_ FIXES."
+
+ "If species have a tendency to transformation, to pass one into
+ another, why has not time, which, in everything, effects all that
+ can happen, ended by disclosing, by betraying, by implying this
+ tendency.
+
+ "But time, they may tell me, is wanting. It is not wanting. It is
+ 2000 years since Aristotle wrote, and we recognize in our day all
+ the animals which he describes; and we recognize them by the
+ characters which he assigns.... Cuvier states that the history of
+ the elephant is more exact in Aristotle than in Buffon. They bring
+ us every day from Egypt, the remains of animals which lived there
+ two or three thousand years ago--the ox, crocodiles, ibis, &c.
+ &c., which are the same as those of the present day. We have under
+ our eyes _human mummies_--the skeleton of that day is identical
+ with that of the Egyptian of our day."
+
+(M. Flourens might have added that the mummies of the white and black
+races show them to have been as distinct then as now, and that the
+monumental drawings represent the different races more than a thousand
+years further back.)
+
+ "Thus, then, through three thousand years, no species has
+ changed. An experiment which continues through three thousand
+ years, is not an experiment to be made--it is an experiment
+ _made_. Species do not change."[208]
+
+_Permanence of type_, then, is the only test which he can adduce for the
+designation of species, and he here comes back plainly to the position
+we have taken. Let us now test the races of men by this rule. The white
+Asiatic races, the Jew, the Arab, the Egyptian, the negro, at least, are
+distinctly figured on the monuments of Egypt and Assyria, as distinct as
+they are now, and _time_ and change of climate have not transformed any
+one type into another. In whatever unexplored regions of the earth the
+earliest voyagers have gone, they have found races equally well marked.
+These races are all prolific _inter se_, and there is every reason to
+believe that we here find the fourth and last degree of hybridity.
+Whether the prolificacy is _unlimited_ between all the races or species
+of men is still an unsettled point, and experiments have not yet been
+fully and fairly made to determine the question. The dog and wolf become
+sterile at the _third_. The dog and jackal at the fourth generation,
+and who can tell whether the law of hybridity might not show itself in
+man, after a longer succession of generations. There are no observations
+yet of this kind in the human family. It is a common belief in our
+Southern States, that mulattoes are less prolific, and attain a less
+longevity than the parent stocks. I am convinced of the truth of this
+remark, when applied to the mulatto from the strictly white and black
+races, and I am equally convinced, from long personal observation, that
+the _dark_-skinned European races, as Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians,
+Basques, &c., mingle much more perfectly with the negroes than do fair
+races, thus carrying out the law of gradation in hybridity. If the
+mulattoes of New Orleans and Mobile be compared with those of the
+Atlantic States, the fact will become apparent.
+
+The argument in favor of unlimited prolificacy between species may be
+strongly corroborated by an appeal to the history of our domestic
+animals, whose history is involved in the same impenetrable mystery as
+that of man. M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire very justly remarks that we know
+nothing of the origin of our domestic animals; because we find wild
+hogs, goats, sheep, &c., in certain parts of Europe, several thousand
+years subsequent to the early migrations of man, this does not prove
+that the domestic come from these wild ones. The reverse may be the
+case.[209]
+
+We have already made some general observations on the _genus canis_,
+whose natural history is most closely allied to that of man. Let us now
+inquire whether the domestic dog is but one species, or whether under
+this head have been included many proximate species of unlimited
+prolificacy. If we try the question by _permanency of type_, like the
+races of men, and all well-marked species, the doubt must be yielded.
+
+There are strong reasons given by Dr. Morton and other naturalists, for
+supposing that our common dogs, independent of mixtures of _their_
+various races, may also have an infusion of the blood of foxes, wolves,
+jackals, and even the hyena; thus forming, as we see every day around
+us, _curs_ of every possible grade; but setting aside all this, we have
+abundant evidence to show that each zoological province has its original
+dog, and, perhaps, not unfrequently several.
+
+In one chapter on hybridity in the "_Types of Mankind_," it is shown
+that our Indian dogs in America present several well-marked types,
+unlike any in the Old World, and which are indigenous to the soil. For
+example, the Esquimaux dog, the Hare Indian dog, the North American dog,
+and several others. We have not space here to enter fully into the
+facts, but they will be found at length in the work above mentioned.
+These dogs, too, are clearly traced to wild species of this continent.
+
+In other parts of the world we find other species equally well marked,
+but we shall content ourselves with the facts drawn from the ancient
+monuments of Egypt. It is no longer a matter of dispute that as far
+back, at least, as the twelfth dynasty, about 2300 years before Christ,
+we find the common small dog of Egypt, the greyhound, the staghound, the
+turnspit, and several other types which do not correspond with any dogs
+that can now be identified.[210] We find, also, the mastiff admirably
+portrayed on the monuments of Babylon, which dog was first brought from
+the East to Greece by Alexander the Great, 300 years B. C. The museums
+of natural history, also, everywhere abound in the remains of _fossil_
+dogs, which long antedate all living species.
+
+The wolf, jackal, and hyena are also found distinctly drawn on the early
+monuments of Egypt, and a greyhound, exactly like the English greyhound,
+with semi-pendent ears, is seen on a statue in the Vatican, at Rome. It
+is clear, then, that the leading types of dogs of the present day (and
+probably all) existed more than four thousand years ago, and it is
+equally certain that the type of a dog, when kept pure, will endure in
+opposite climates for ages. Our staghounds, greyhounds, mastiffs,
+turnspits, pointers, terriers, &c., are bred for centuries, not only in
+Egypt and Europe without losing their types, but in any climate which
+does not destroy them. No one denies that climate influences these
+animals greatly, but the greyhound, staghound, or bulldog can never be
+transformed into each other.
+
+The facts above stated cannot be questioned, and it is admitted that
+these species are all prolific without limit _inter se_.
+
+The llama affords another strong argument in favor of the fourth degree
+of hybridity. Cuvier admits but two species--the llama (_camelus
+llacma_), of which he regards the _alpaca_ as a variety, and the vigogne
+(_camelus vicunna_). More recent naturalists regard the alpaca as a
+distinct species, among whom is M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire.[211] At all
+events, it seems settled that they _all_ breed together without limit.
+
+ "A son tour, apres la vigogne, viendra bientot l'alpavigogne,
+ fruit du croisement de l'alpaca avec la vigogne. Don Francisco de
+ Theran, il ya quarante ans, et M. de Castelnau, avaient annonce
+ deja que ce metis est fecond, et qu'il porte une laine presque
+ aussi longue que celle de l'alpaca, presque aussi fine que celle
+ de la vigogne.... M. Weddell a mis tout recemment l'Academie des
+ Sciences a meme de voir et d'admirer cette admirable toison. Il a
+ confirme en meme temps un fait que n'avait trouve que des
+ incredules parmi les naturalists--la fecondite de
+ l'alpaca-vigogne: l'abbe Cabrera, cure de la petite ville de
+ Macusani, a obtenu une race qui se perpetue et dont il possede
+ deja tout un troupeau. C'est, donc, pour ainsi dire, une
+ nouvelle espece creee par l'homme; et si paradoxal qu' ait pu
+ sembler ce resultat, il est, fort heureusement pour l'industrie,
+ _definitivement acquis a la science_.
+
+ "Ce resultat n'aurait rien de paradoxal, si l'alpaca n'etait,
+ comme l'ont pense plusieurs auteurs, qu'une race domestique et
+ tres modifiee de la vigogne. Cette objection contre le pretendu
+ principe de l'infecondite des mulets ne serait d'ailleurs levee
+ que pour faire place a une autre; _l'alpa-llama_ serait alors un
+ mulet, issu de deux especes distincts, et l'alpa-llama est fecond
+ comme l'alpa-vigogne."[212]
+
+We have recently seen exhibited in Mobile a beautiful hybrid of the
+alpaca and common sheep, and the owner informed us that he had a flock
+at home, which breed perfectly.
+
+Dr. Bachman confesses that he has not examined the drawings given in the
+works of Lepsius, Champollion, Rossellini, and other Egyptologists, of
+various animals represented on the monuments, and ridicules the idea of
+their being received as authority in matters of natural history.
+Although many of the drawings are rudely done, most of them, in outline,
+are beautifully executed, and Dr. B. is the first, so far as we know, to
+call the fact in question. Dr. Chas. Pickering is received by Dr. B. as
+high authority in scientific matters--he has not only examined these
+drawings, but their originals. Lepsius, Champollion, Rossellini,
+Wilkinson, and all the Egyptologists, have borne witness to the
+reliability of these drawings, and have enumerated hundreds of animals
+and plants which are perfectly identified.
+
+Martin, the author of the work on "_Man and Monkeys_," is certainly good
+authority. He says:--
+
+ "Now we have in modern Egypt and Arabia, and also in Persia,
+ varieties of greyhound closely resembling those of the ancient
+ remains of art, and it would appear that two or three varieties
+ exist--one smooth, another long haired, and another smooth with
+ long-haired ears, resembling those of the spaniel. In Persia, the
+ greyhound, to judge from specimens we have seen, is silk-haired,
+ with a fringed tail. They are of a black color; but a fine breed,
+ we are informed, is of a slate or ash color, as are some of the
+ smooth-haired greyhounds depicted in the Egyptian paintings. In
+ Arabia, a large, rough, powerful race exists; and about Akaba,
+ according to Laborde, a breed of slender form, fleet, with a long
+ tail, very hairy, in the form of a brush, with the ears erect and
+ pointed, closely resembling, in fact, many of those figured by
+ the ancient Egyptians."[213]
+
+He goes on to quote Col. Sykes, and others, for other varieties of
+greyhound in the east, unlike any in Europe.
+
+Dr. Pickering, after enumerating various objects identified on the
+monuments of the third and fourth dynasties, as Nubians, white races,
+the ostrich, ibis, jackal, antelope, hedgehog, goose, fowls, ducks,
+bullock, donkey, goats, dog-faced ape, hyena, porcupine, wolves, foxes,
+&c. &c., when he comes down to the twelfth dynasty, says:--
+
+ "The paintings on the walls represent a vast variety of subjects;
+ including, most unexpectedly, the greater part of the _arts_ and
+ _trades_ practised among civilized nations at the present day;
+ also birds, quadrupeds, fishes, and insects, amounting to an
+ _extended treatise on zoology_, well deserving the attention of
+ naturalists. The date accompanying these representations has
+ been astronomically determined by Biot, at about B. C. 2200
+ (Champollion-Figeac, _Egyp. Arc._); and Lepsius's chronological
+ computation corresponds."[214]
+
+Dr. P. gives us a fauna and flora of Egypt, running further back than
+Usher's date for the creation, and it cannot be doubted that the
+drawings are as reliable as those in any modern work on natural history.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[198] Natural History of Man and Monkeys.
+
+[199] Fauna and Flora within Living Animals, p. 9.
+
+[200] Doctrine of the Unity of the Human Race, p. 10.
+
+[201] We are told that the pigs in one department of France are all
+black, in another, all white, and local causes are assigned! When I was
+a boy, my father introduced what was then called the China hog into the
+Union District, South Carolina; they were black, with white faces. On a
+visit to that district about twelve years ago, I found the whole country
+for 40 miles covered with them. On a visit one year ago, I found they
+had been supplanted entirely by other breeds of different colors: the
+old familiar type had disappeared.
+
+[202] _Op. cit._, p. 177.
+
+[203] _Domestication et Naturalization des Animaux utiles_, par M.
+Isadore Geoffroy St. Hilaire, p. 71, Paris, 1854.
+
+[204] Ibid.
+
+[205] Columbia, p. 135.
+
+[206] _De la Longevite Humaine_, &c., par P. Flourens, Paris, 1855.
+
+[207] M. Flourens here, perhaps, speaks too positively. The blood of the
+apparently lost species will show itself from time to time for many, if
+not endless generations.
+
+[208] _Op. cit._
+
+[209] _Op. cit._, p. 122.
+
+[210] It has been objected, that the drawings cannot be relied on, as
+some of these types are no longer to be found. But there are several
+well-marked types of domestic animals on the old monuments that no
+longer exist, because they have been supplanted by better breeds. In
+this country several varieties of the Indian dogs are rapidly
+disappearing for the same reason. The llama must give place, in the same
+way, to the cow and the horse. Many other instances may be cited.
+
+[211] _Op. cit._, p. 29. 1854.
+
+[212] _Op. cit._, p. 101.
+
+[213] _Op. cit._, p. 53.
+
+[214] _Geographical Dist._, p. 17.
+
+This work, I believe, is not yet issued, but Dr. Pickering has kindly
+sent me the first 150 pages, as printed.
+
+
+
+
+C.
+
+
+Mr. Gobineau remarks (p. 367), that he has very serious doubts as to the
+unity of origin. "These doubts, however," he continues, "I am compelled
+to repress, because they are in contradiction to a scientific fact,
+which I cannot refute--the prolificness of half-breeds; and secondly,
+what is of much greater weight with me, they impugn a religious
+interpretation sanctioned by the church."
+
+With regard to the prolificness of half-breeds, I have already mentioned
+such facts as might have served to dispel the learned writer's doubts,
+had he been acquainted with them. In reference to the other, more
+serious, obstacle to his admission of the plurality of origins, he
+himself intimates (p. 339) that the authority of this interpretation
+might, perhaps, be questioned without transgressing the limits imposed
+by the church. Believing this view to be correct, I shall venture on a
+few remarks upon this last scruple of the author, which is shared by
+many investigators of this interesting subject.
+
+ "The strict rule of scientific scrutiny," says the most learned
+ and formidable opponent in the adversary's camp,[215] "exacts,
+ according to modern philosophers, in matters of inductive
+ reasoning, an exclusive homage. It requires that we should close
+ our eyes against all presumptive and exterior evidence, and
+ _abstract our minds from all considerations not derived from the
+ matters of fact which bear immediately on the question_. The
+ maxim we have to follow in such controversies is 'fiat justitia,
+ ruat coelum.' _In fact, what is actually true, it is always
+ desirous to know, whatever consequences may arise from its
+ admission._"
+
+To this sentiment I cheerfully subscribe: it has always been my maxim.
+Yet I find it necessary, in treating of this subject, to touch on its
+_biblical_ connections, for although we have great reason to rejoice at
+the improved tone of toleration, or even liberality which prevails in
+this country, the day has not come when science can be severed from
+theology, and the student of nature can calmly follow her truths, no
+matter whither they may lead. What a mortifying picture do we behold in
+the histories of astronomy, geology, chronology, cosmogony, geographical
+distribution of animals, &c.; they have been compelled to fight their
+way, step by step, through human passion and prejudice, from their
+supposed contradiction to Holy Writ. But science has been
+vindicated--their great truths have been established, and the Bible
+stands as firmly as it did before. The last great struggle between
+science and theology is the one we are now engaged in--the _natural
+history of man_--it has now, for the first time, a fair hearing before
+Christendom, and all any question should ask is "_daylight and fair
+play_."
+
+The Bible should not be regarded as a text-book of natural history. On
+the contrary, it must be admitted that none of the writers of the Old or
+New Testament give the slightest evidence of knowledge in any department
+of science beyond that of their profane contemporaries; and we hold that
+the natural history of man is a department of science which should be
+placed upon the same footing with others, and its facts dispassionately
+investigated. What we require for our guidance in this world is truth,
+and the history of science shows how long it has been stifled by bigotry
+and error.
+
+It was taught for ages that the sun moved around the earth; that there
+had been but one creation of organized beings; that our earth was
+created but six thousand years ago, and that the stars were made to shed
+light upon it; that the earth was a plane, with sides and ends; that all
+the animals on earth were derived from Noah's ark, &c. But what a
+different revelation does science give us? We now know that the earth
+revolves around the sun, that the earth is a globe which turns on its
+own axis, that there has been a succession of destructions and creations
+of living beings, that the earth has existed countless ages, and that
+there are stars so distant as to require millions of years for their
+light to reach us; that instead of one, there are many centres of
+creation for existing animals and plants, &c.
+
+If so many false readings of the Bible have been admitted among
+theologians, who has authority or wisdom to say to science--"thus far
+shalt thou go, and no further?" The doctrine of _unity_ for the human
+family may be another great error, and certainly a denial of its truth
+does no more, nay, less violence to the language of the Bible, than do
+the examples above cited.
+
+It is a popular error, and one difficult to eradicate, that all the
+species of animals now dwelling on the earth are descendants of pairs
+and septuples preserved in Noah's ark, and certainly the language of
+Genesis on this point is too plain to admit of any quibble; it does
+teach that every living being perished by the flood, except those alone
+which were saved in the ark. Yet no living naturalist, in or out of the
+church, believes this statement to be correct. The centres of creation
+are so numerous, and the number of animals so great that it is
+impossible it should be so.
+
+On the other hand, the first chapter of Genesis gives an account
+entirely in accordance with the teachings of science.
+
+ "And God said, let the earth bring forth _grass_, the herb
+ yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, after his kind,
+ whose seed is in itself upon the earth; and it was so." _Gen._ i.
+ 11.
+
+ "And God said, let the waters bring forth _abundantly_, the moving
+ creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in
+ the open firmament of heaven." v. 20.
+
+ "And God created great _whales_, and every living creature that
+ moveth, which the waters brought forth _abundantly_," &c. v. 21.
+
+ "And God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after
+ his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after
+ his kind, and it was so." v. 24.
+
+ "God created _man_ in his own image; _male_ and _female_ created
+ he _them_."
+
+In the language above quoted, nothing is said about one seed or one
+blade of grass; about one fruit tree, or about _single pairs_ of animals
+or human beings. On the contrary, this chapter closes with the distinct
+impression on the mind that everything was created _abundantly_. The
+only difficulty arises with regard to the human family, and we are here
+confused by the contradictory statements of the first and second
+chapters. In the first chapter, man was created _male and female_, on
+the sixth day--in the second chapter, woman was not created until after
+Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden. Commentators explain this
+discrepancy by the difference in style of the two chapters, and the
+inference that Genesis is a compilation made up by Moses from two or
+three different writers; but it is not our purpose here to open these
+theological discussions. Both sides are sustained by innumerable
+authorities. From what we have before shown, it is clear that the
+inspired writers possessed no knowledge of physical sciences, and as
+little respecting the natural history of man, as of any other
+department.
+
+Their _moral_ mission does not concern our subject, and we leave that to
+theologians, to whom it more properly belongs. On the other hand, we ask
+to be let alone in our study of the physical laws of the universe. The
+theologian and the naturalist have each an ample field without the
+necessity of interfering with each other.
+
+The Bible is here viewed only in its relations with physical science. We
+have already alluded to the fact that in astronomy, geology, &c., the
+authors of the Bible possessed no knowledge beyond that of their profane
+contemporaries, and a dispassionate examination of the text from Genesis
+to Revelation will show that the writers had but an imperfect knowledge
+of contemporary races, and did not design to teach the doctrine of unity
+of mankind, or rather origin from a single pair. The writer of the
+_Pentateuch_ could attach little importance to such an idea, as he
+nowhere alludes to a future existence, or rewards and punishments--all
+good and evil, as far as the human race is concerned, with him, were
+merely temporal.
+
+This idea of a future state does not distinctly appear in the Jewish
+writings until after their return from the Babylonish captivity.
+
+The extent of the surface of the globe, known even to the writers of the
+New Testament, formed but a small fraction of it--little beyond the
+confines of the Roman empire. No allusion is even made to Southern and
+Eastern Asia; Africa, south of the Desert; Australia, America, &c.; all
+of which were inhabited long before the time of Moses; and of the races
+of men inhabiting these countries, and their languages, they certainly
+knew nothing. The Chinese and Indian empires, at least, are beyond
+dispute. The early Hebrews were a pastoral people; had little commercial
+or other intercourse with the rest of the world, and were far from being
+"learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." The Egyptian empire was
+fully developed--arts and science as flourishing--pyramids and gorgeous
+temples built, not only before the time of Moses, but long prior to that
+of the Patriarch Abraham, who, with Sarah, went to Egypt to buy corn of
+the reigning Pharaoh. What is remarkable, too, the Egyptians had their
+ethnographers, and had already classified the human family into four
+races, and depicted them on the monuments, viz: the black, white,
+yellow, and red.[216]
+
+In fact, nothing can be more incomplete, contradictory, and
+unsatisfactory than the ethnography of Genesis. We see Cain going into a
+foreign land and taking a wife before there were any women born of his
+parent stock. Cities are seen springing up in the second and third
+generations, in every direction, &c. All this shows that we have in
+Genesis no satisfactory history of the human family, and that we can
+rely no more upon its ethnography than upon its geography, astronomy,
+cosmogony, geology, zoology, &c.
+
+We have already alluded to the fact that the writers of the New
+Testament give no evidence of additional knowledge in such matters. The
+sermon from the Mount comes like a light from Heaven, but this volume is
+mute on all that pertains to the physical laws of the universe.
+
+If the common origin of man were such an important point in the eyes of
+the Almighty as we have been taught to believe, is it reasonable to
+suppose it would have been left by the inspired writers in such utter
+confusion and doubt? The coming of Christ changed the whole question,
+and we should expect, at least in the four Gospels, for some authority
+that would settle this vital point; but strange as the assertion may
+seem, there is not a single passage here to be found, which, by any
+distortion, can be made to sustain this _unity_; and on searching
+diligently the New Testament, from one end to the other, we were not a
+little surprised to find but a single text that seemed to bear directly
+upon it, viz: the oft quoted one in Acts xvii. 26: "And hath made of
+_one blood_ all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the
+earth," &c. Being astonished at the fact that this great question of
+common origin of man should thus be made to hang so much upon a single
+verse, it occurred to me that there might be some error, some
+interpolation in the text, and having no material at hand for such an
+investigation in Mobile, I wrote to a competent friend in Philadelphia,
+to examine for me all the Greek texts and old versions, and his reply
+confirmed fully my suspicions. The word _blood_ is an interpolation, and
+not to be found in the original texts. The word _blood_ has been
+rejected by the Catholic Church, from the time of St. Jerome to the
+present hour. The text of Tischendorf is regarded, I believe, generally
+as the most accurate Greek text known, and in this the word blood does
+not appear. I have at hand a long list of authorities to the same
+effect, but as it is presumed no competent authority will call our
+assertion in question, it is needless to cite them. The verse above
+alluded to in Acts should, therefore, read:--
+
+ "And hath made of _one_ all races (genus) of men," &c.
+
+The word _blood_ is a gloss, and we have just as much right to
+interpolate _one form_, _one substance_, _one nature_, _one
+responsibility_, or anything else, as _blood_.
+
+These remarks on the ethnography of the Bible might be greatly extended,
+but my object here is simply to show that the Bible, to say the least,
+leaves the field open, and that I have entered it soberly, discreetly,
+and advisedly.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[215] Prichard, _Nat. Hist. of Man_, p. 8. London, 1843.
+
+[216] See "_Types of Mankind_," by Nott and Gliddon.
+
+
+
+
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------+
+ |Transcriber's note: |
+ | |
+ | Inconsistent use of law-giver vs. lawgiver was made |
+ | consistent as "law-giver". |
+ | |
+ | Page 476: Corrected typographical error "criterea". |
+ | |
+ | Footnote 39: Placement of quotation marks has been |
+ | made consistent. |
+ | |
+ | Footnote 59: Added missing closing quotation mark "...'When|
+ | three of us are together, the Triad is among us.'" |
+ | |
+ | Footnote 85: I believe the editor meant "page 187". |
+ | |
+ | Footnote 195: Added dash to sign-off "--H." to conform to |
+ | other footnotes. |
+ | |
+ | All other inconsistencies, variant spellings, and a large |
+ | number of mis-quoted references have been preserved. |
+ +-------------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
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