Brain, Centres of ProjectionFIG.25.—Brain with indication of the three “centres of projection”(2, general sensibility; 4, visual; 6, auditory) and the three “centres of association”(1, frontal; 3, parietal; 5, occipito-temporal); 1, fissure of Rolando; 7, Island of Reil.(After Flechsig.)
FIG.25.—Brain with indication of the three “centres of projection”(2, general sensibility; 4, visual; 6, auditory) and the three “centres of association”(1, frontal; 3, parietal; 5, occipito-temporal); 1, fissure of Rolando; 7, Island of Reil.(After Flechsig.)
It is believed that certain cells of the grey substance only, the great and the little pyramidal-shaped cells, are associated with the psychical functions, and that each of these, forming with its axis-cylinder, dendrons and other branching prolongations what is called aneuron, is not in constant connection with, and does not occupy a fixed position once for all in regard to, other similarneurons, but may by means of its prolongations place itself alternately in contact with a great number of these.[115]Hence the complexity of the nervous currents resulting from these continual changes of contact. Thus the cerebral activity might not merely be measured by the quantity and the size of the cells of the grey substance, but also by the number and the variety of the habitual contacts which are probably established after an education, a training of the cells. As from the same number of keys of a piano the tyro can produce only a few dissimilar sounds, while an artist elicits varied melodies, so from cerebral cells practically equal in number a savage is only able to extract vague and rudimentary ideas, while a thinker brings out of them intellectual treasures. How far are we, then, from the true appreciation of cerebral work with our rude weighings of an organ in which, with one part that would assuredly help us to the solution of the problem, we weigh at least three other parts having nothing or almost nothing to do with it! And even if we succeeded in finding the number, the weight, and the volume of the neurons, how are we to estimate the innumerable combinations of which they are capable? The problem appears almost insoluble. However, in science we must never lose hope, and—who knows?—perhaps some day the solution of the question will be found, and it will then appear as simple as to-day it appears a matter of course to see through the body with radioscopical apparatus.
2.—PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.
Functions of nutrition and assimilation: Digestion, alimentation, growth, temperature of the body, etc.—Respiration and circulation: Pulse, composition of the blood, etc.—Special odour—Functions of communication: Expression of the emotions, acuteness of the senses, etc.—Functions of reproduction: Menstruation, menopause, increase in the number of conceptions according to season, etc.—Influence of environment: Acclimatation—Cosmopolitanism of the genusHomoand the races of mankind—Cross-breeding.
3.—PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL CHARACTERS.
Difficulties of studying them—Immunities—Nervous diseases of uncivilised peoples.
THEdifferences observable in the fulfilment of the organic functions—nutrition, respiration, circulation of the blood, reproduction, etc.—according to race are unquestionable; but they are still too little studied for us to be able to speak with as much certainty of them as of morphological differences. Further, these functions exhibit so many individual variations that it will always be difficult to rely on averages; besides, the latter present as far as we know a great uniformity.
The functions of nutrition and assimilationscarcely present any varieties according to race. Indigent populations living from hand to mouth by hunting, fishing, the gathering of fruit, etc., exposed to the alternations of famine and plenty, surprise us by their faculty of absorbing a great quantity of food; thus the Eskimo and the Fuegians feed for several days running on a stranded whale. The tendency to obesity isobserved in certain races more than in others; very frequent among the Kirghiz, it is rare among their neighbours the Kalmuks, etc. The early obesity of Jewish women, which is besides artificially fostered in Africa and in the East, is also to be noted. Growth in different races would prove of some interest, but investigations into this subject have been made only in Europe and America.[116]Great difficulties stand in the way of these inquiries among uncivilised peoples, as it is almost impossible to ascertain the exact age of individuals. In a general way stature and weight increase with age somewhat irregularly, and as if by fits and starts; almost always a period of rapid growth in height succeeds a period of calm, during which the dimensions of the body increase in width (shoulders, pelvis, etc.). It has also been remarked that growth in height is especially rapid from the month of April to July and August, that it diminishes from November to March; and that, lastly, weight increases especially from August-September to the end of November. Sexual differences make themselves felt from birth. We have already seen (p.26) that at birth the stature of boys exceeds that of girls by a figure which varies from two to eight millimetres (.08 to .32 of an inch), let us say of half a centimetre (less than the quarter of an inch) on an average. During the first year stature increases very rapidly: the child a year old is one and a half times as tall as at birth. The increase is less rapid until the fourth year, when the height is double what it was at birth. From the fourth year the growth is a little slower till the age of puberty, when there is a fresh start, and when the sexual differences are especially marked; girls grow more rapidly than boys between ten and fifteen years of age, but after fifteen boys take the lead and grow at first quickly, then slowly till their twenty-third year, at which age they have almost attainedthe limit of their stature; while women seem to stop growing at twenty.
The size of most of the organs increases pretty regularly; the heart in girls at the age of puberty and the brain in the two sexes are the only exceptions to this rule. The weight of the brain is21⁄2times greater at one year than at birth,31⁄3at five years, 3.7 at ten, and 3.9 at fifteen; later its growth diminishes, to reach its maximum before the age of twenty, 4 times its initial weight, and to decline slightly after forty or forty-five years.
At birth the brain represents 12.4 per cent. of the total weight of the body, at a year old 10.9 per cent., at five 8.4, at fifteen 3.8, and at twenty-five 2.3 per cent. only.[117]Unfortunately we have hardly any parallel observations on non-European populations. The only observations of this kind based on a sufficient number of subjects (several thousands) relate to the Japanese. According to Baelz, the stature of the Japanese increases after the age of puberty only 8 per cent., whilst it increases 13 per cent. among Europeans. On the other hand, Drs. Hamada and Sasaki say that growth diminishes greatly among Japanese men from sixteen or eighteen, and is found to be completely arrested at the age of twenty-two.[118]There is abundance of evidence that Negroes, Melanesians, and Malays attain their maximum height between eighteen and twenty-one. Dietary regimen and comfortable circumstances have a great influence on growth, as I have already said when speaking of stature (p.31).
The activity of transformations in the system certainly presents differences according to climate, but not according to race. Thus the alimentary supply is conditioned solely by the heat required.[119]Thetemperature of the bodyhardly varies twoor three tenths of a degree, for instance, among two peoples so different as regards type and mode of life as the French of the north and the Fuegians. In fact, the temperature taken in the mouth is from 37.1° to 37.2° C. among the former and 37.4° among the latter.[120]Besides, among Europeans the individual variations range between 37.1° and 37.5° C. Among Negroes the temperature appears to be, on the contrary, a little lower than that of Europeans.
Let us pass on to therespiratory functions. The vital capacity or the quantity of air in the expanded lungs, which is 3.7 cubic metres among the English according to Hutchinson, and from 3 to 4 cubic metres among Europeans in general, falls to 3 metres among the Whites and the Indians of the United States (Gould), and even to 2.7 among the Negroes of this latter country. The difference is very trifling; however, it has to be taken into consideration, seeing that among Europeans persons of high stature have an absolute capacity superior to that of people of low stature. Frequency of respiration seems to be greater among uncivilised peoples than with Europeans (14 to 18 respirations per minute); it is from 16 to 20 respirations among the Fuegians, 18 to 20 among the Mongol-Torgootes, 19 among the Kirghiz, and 18 among the Afghans.[121]
For thecirculation of the bloodhere are a few scattered data. The pulse is the same among the Fuegians (72 beats per second) and the Tarantchi of Chinese Turkestan (72.9 beats) as among Europeans (71 to 72); it is a little faster among the Whites and the Negroes of the United States (74.8 and 74 beats), and much faster among the Indians of America and the Mulattos (76.3 and 77 beats), among the Torgootes(76.6), and among the Kirghiz (77.7). The number of red globules in the blood varies but little according to race: Europeans have on an average five millions of them to the cubic millimetre, Hindus and Negroes seem to have half a million less, and the Fuegians half a million more.[122]But these differences are insignificant when we think that the number of these elements of the blood may vary by a million in the same subject according to the state of his health, nutrition, etc.
Certain travellers (Erman, Huc) have asserted that they could recognise a population by itsodour. Without going so far as this, it must be admitted that some ethnic groups and, more particularly, the Negroes and the Chinese have their specific odour, which gets fainter with scrupulous cleanliness, but, it is said, never disappears. In the case of the Negro this odour is due especially to the abundance of the secretion of his very voluminous and numerous sebaceous glands. It was on this property that the planters relied for putting their dogs on the scent of the fugitive Negro. The Blacks themselves are perfectly aware of it, it appears, and those of the West Indies have even framed this proverb—
“The Lord He loves the nigger well,He knows His nigger by the smell.”
“The Lord He loves the nigger well,He knows His nigger by the smell.”
“The Lord He loves the nigger well,
He knows His nigger by the smell.”
The odour of musk exhaled by the Chinese is attested by a great amount of evidence; that of the Australians and New Caledonians appears to be also duly reported. We must not confound these odourssui generiswith those which certain peoples contract from the food they eat, as, for instance, the odour of garlic among the populations of Southern Europe and the Jews.[123]
With regard tomuscular force, the data furnished by thedynamometer are deceptive, and cannot teach us anything; besides, the individual differences are enormous.
Functions of Relation.—A whole chapter could be written on the muscles and gestures serving for theexpression of the emotions, and on their differences according to race.[124]Let us content ourselves with a single example connected with astonishment and surprise. These feelings are expressed almost everywhere by the raising of the eyebrows and the opening of the mouth; several peoples (Eskimo, Tlinkits, Andamanese, Indians of Brazil) accompany this play of feature by a slap on the hips; the Ainus and the Shin-Wans of Formosa give themselves a light tap on the nose or the mouth, whilst the Thibetans pinch their cheek. The Negro Bantus have the habit of moving the hand before the mouth as a sign of astonishment, and the Australians, as well as the western Negroes, protrude their lips as if to whistle (Fig.141). In a general way the play of physiognomy is more complicated the more the people is civilised. Certain peoples execute movements of facial muscles difficult to imitate, such as the protrusion of the upper lip alone, which the Malays execute with the same facility and grace as a chimpanzee (Hagen). I shall speak inChapter IV.of conventional gestures. Theattitudes of the bodyin repose also vary with the different peoples: the kneeling attitude is common to Negroes (Figs.135and142); the squatting position is frequently used by them and the peoples of the East, and also by the Americans; the upright position on one foot, the other being bent and the sole supported on the knee of the former, is met with as well in Oceania as among the Bejas, Negroes, etc.[125]
Theacuteness of the sensesis superior to ours among uncultured and half-civilised peoples. The Andamanese can discover certain fruits in the forests a long way off, being guided solely by the sense of smell. Taking as a unit the normal visualacuteness calculated according to the formula of Snellen, we shall have the following figures for different populations:—1.1 for the Germans; 1.4 for the Russians; 1.6 for the Georgians; 2.7 for the Ossetes and Kalmuks; 3 for the Nubian Bejas; and 5 for the Indians of the Andes. It is in a Kalmuk that the individual maximum of visual acuteness (6.7) has been noted.[126]An interesting fact has been observed by Dr. Herzenstein from the study of 39,805 Russian soldiers, viz., that visual acuteness is greater as the pigment of the iris and the hair is more developed. In fact, we only find among the fair-haired 72.4 per cent. of individuals whose visual acuteness is stronger than the normal, and 2.7 per cent. whose acuteness is weaker, whilst among the dark-haired the corresponding figures are 84.1 and 1.7; they see then, other things being equal, better than the fair-haired.[127]
The functions of reproductionare so difficult to study, even among civilised peoples, that it is almost impossible to say anything positive about them when dealing with savage peoples. Thus, for example, we can scarcely draw up an exact table of the first appearance of menstruation. This period varies from the age of ten (Negresses of Sierra Leone) to that of eighteen (Lapps). The influence of climate is unquestionable; authors as competent as Tilt in England, Krieger in Germany, Dubois and Pajot in France, are agreed on this point. They state that the first indication of the period of puberty appears between eleven and fourteen in warm countries, between thirteen and sixteen in temperate countries, and between fifteen and eighteen in cold countries. But they are also obliged to admit the influence of other factors—race, occupation, dietary regimen, etc. Thus in Austria, with the same climate and in the same social conditions, Jewish girls menstruate at fourteen to fifteen, Hungarian girls at fifteen to sixteen, and Slovak girls at fourteen to sixteen (Joachim); on the other hand, it is known thatdwelling in a town, indolent life, premature sexual excitations, accelerate the appearance of the menses. Alimentation has also its share of influence in the matter. Thus among the badly-fed girls of the despised caste of Illuvar (Southern India) their periods appear at about sixteen, while the girls of India in general menstruate at eleven, twelve, or thirteen.[128]It must not be thought that in all countries the appearance of the menses is also indicative of the period when sexual relations begin. Among the majority of the peoples of India, among the Turks, the Mongols, the Persians, among the Polynesians, the Malays, and the Negroes, young girls enter into sexual relations much before the appearance of the menses—at eleven, ten, and even nine years of age. The time when marriage takes place is also not an indication; it is a matter of social convention, among the savage as among the half-civilised. Thus among the Mongol Torgootes girls begin to have sexual relations at fourteen on an average, and marry at eighteen; for boys the corresponding figures are fourteen and a half and nineteen (Ivanovsky).
The time of theappearance of the critical ageis subject to so many fluctuations that even for European populations it is scarcely possible to establish averages, but most of the figures oscillate around the ages of forty-five to fifty. It is known that in woman ovulation goes on regularly throughout the year without those accelerations or exasperations of the genesic functions in certain seasons which are observed among animals in heat. In this respect the human female differs totally from wild animals (except the apes, among whom menstruation has been noted), and approximates closely to the female of domestic animals. And yet certain facts seem to indicate that it has not always been so. These facts have reference to the greater frequency of conceptions during certain periods of the year.
The Swedish physician Wargentin was the first to point out in 1767 this frequency in his own country. Since then, several statisticians, doctors, and naturalists have confirmed it:Quetelet for Belgium and Holland (maximum of births in February, the maximum of conceptions in May); Wappæus for Central Europe (two maxima of conception, in winter, and at the end of spring or the beginning of summer); Villermé (same periods) for different countries, including those of the southern hemisphere; Sormani for Italy (conceptions in July); Mayr for Germany (conceptions in December); Beukemann for the different provinces of the German empire (maximum of conceptions in December in the north, in spring in the south); Hill for India (maximum of conceptions, December-January); lastly, different authors for Russia (maximum of conceptions in winter).
The explanations which have been put forward up to the present of this phenomenon are of different kinds. According to certain authors, the maxima observed in many countries in the spring are owing to the fact of there being in this season “plenty of everything,” better nourishment, in short, something which compels the genesic instinct of man, like that of most animals, to participate in the “awakening of nature.” To this it is replied by other observers that in certain countries the maxima are reported in the winter months, that is to say in the season when the temperature and the relative absence of the good things of life do not seem to bea priorifavourable to generation; these scientists look for the cause in the social organisation. They notice that in countries of the north it is in the month of December that, after having finished their work in the fields, the inhabitants give themselves up to festivities and rejoicings, and that it is in this month the greatest number of unions are contracted; on the other hand, in the south the most popular festivals are those of the spring at the awakening of nature. Others, again, assert that these differences are owing as much to religion as to latitude.
All these explanations are somewhat unscientific, and have never been verified by figures or experience. According to Rosenstadt,[129]cosmic and social influences do not count atall in the question, for often the periods during which recrudescence of conceptions occurs are the same for countries differing entirely in climate, religion, and manners (Italy, Russia, Sweden). These influences may, at the most, create conditions favourable to the bringing about of the phenomenon, may prepare the ground for it. But as to the phenomenon itself it would be, according to Rosenstadt, merely the remains in man of his animal nature, a “physiological custom” inherited from the animals, his ancestors.
Primitive man would inherit from his ancestors the habit of procreating by preference at particular times. On the arrival of this period of sexual excitement fecundations would take place wholesale. With the development of civilisation man has sexual relations all the year round, but the “physiological custom” of procreating at a certain period does not entirely disappear; it remains as a survival of the animal state, and manifests itself in the recrudescence of the number of conceptions during certain months of the year. This conclusion is corroborated by the fact that among certain savage tribes copulation seems to take place at certain periods of the year; for example, among the Australians at the time of the yam harvest (seeChap. VII.,Marriage, etc.).[130]
It is perhaps as a survival of these habits that we must regard the annual festivals followed by wholesale marriages among the Sonthals, and the wholesale marriages still practised to-day in Brittany on the eve of Lent. Thus in the little market-town of Plougastel-Daoulas (Finistère), containing only 7000 inhabitants, thirty-four marriages were celebrated at once on the 5th of February 1896, and the preceding year, before Lent, forty-eight couples had been united on the same day in this locality.[131]The famous “Bharzwad Jang,” or “Marriage of the Shepherds,” a ceremony practised by certain tribes (Mer, Shir, Rabai) of Western Kathiawar (India), is also perhaps a survival of this custom. It consists in thecelebration of marriage on the same day, but at stated intervals (of about twenty-four years), of all the bachelors of the tribe. At the last ceremony of this kind, which took place from the 28th of April to the 3rd of May 1895, 775 couples were thus married at once.[132]
The question of thefertilityof women in different populations is one of great interest as regards the future of these populations, but it is scarcely more than outlined yet. If we know in a general way that the birth-rate is very low in France and somewhat low in the non-immigrant part of the population of the United States, that it is very high in Russia and among the Jews, etc., we know almost nothing about the subject in connection with uncivilised peoples; in their case, as in our own, we must take into account the different elements of the problem—social conditions, voluntary limitation (Australians), infanticide (Polynesia), etc.
Influence of Environment.—I can scarcely treat here as fully as I could wish such interesting questions as the influence of external circumstance, of acclimatation and crossings or hybridisation, inasmuch as they are still very little and imperfectly studied. The direct influence of environment has rarely been observed with all the scientific exactness to be wished. Ordinarily we have to rest satisfied with phrases which do not mean a great deal.[133]Even the influence of conditions so abnormal as the complete absence of light and solar heat, those sources of everything living, during several months, has only been observed incidentally. Nossiloff,[134]however, has noted day by day the influence of the polar night on an ordinary population (not hardened and picked, like the crews of polar expeditions) and proved its depressing action, manifesting itself in general apathy of body and mind, in a tendency to drowsiness, and in diminution of the height and the thoracic perimeter; this action is especially noticeable in children, who visibly pine away during this period. Unfortunately the observations of Nossiloff are limited to a small number of subjects.
It is more than probable that all the modifications which the organism undergoes as a result of the influence of environment are mostly of a chemical nature, and have only a remote effect on the human frame. According to W. Kochs,[135]the whole question of acclimatation in tropical countries resolves itself into the quantity of water in the organism. He bases his deductions principally on the difference found to exist in the quantity of water contained in the flesh of oxen of the Argentine Republic in comparison with thatfound among cattle of Northern Germany. The former have from 80 to 83 per cent. of water, while the latter have from 72 to 75 per cent. only. If it is the same with man, as Kochs supposes, he would have from 7 to 8 per cent. less solid matter to burn in his body in the tropics than in temperate countries, and the vital energy would be affected accordingly. Thus only the organism that had acquired the quantity of water necessary for supporting the heat of the tropics would be acclimatised; this is so true that Whites acclimatised in tropical countries suffer more from the cold in Europe than their compatriots who have never left Europe.[136]Besides, the Negroes of Senegal begin to suffer from cold when the thermometer falls below 20° C. (68° Fahr.), whilst the Fuegians who are not more warmly clad bear very well the cold of 0° to-4° C. (32° to 25° Fahr.).
Taken as a whole, the genusHomoiscosmopolitan. In fact, man inhabits the whole earth from the icy regions of Greenland (in the neighbourhood of the eightieth degree of N. latitude) to the torrid zone which stretches between the tropic of Cancer and the Equator. He is found in countries situated at 75 or 200 metres below the level of the sea (Caspian depression, depression of Louktchin in Eastern Turkestan), as well as on table-lands at an elevation of more than 5000 metres (Thibet). But if we consider the numerous sub-divisions of the genusHomowhich are called species, sub-species, or races, the question of cosmopolitanism becomes more complicated as at the same time the positive data for its solution are less numerous.
Apart from the European and Negro races, peoples have never changed their habitat abruptly—have not transported themselves in a body into climates very different from their native country, though slow migrations, advancing from place to neighbouring place, have been numerous at all times and among all peoples; these have been followed by acclimatation, the sole criterion of cosmopolitanism. It must also be remarked that civilised peoples withstand better thansavages changes of every kind. In this respect the former bear a stronger resemblance than the latter to domestic animals, which rarely become sterile outside of their native country. According to Darwin,[137]this results from the fact that civilised peoples, as well as domestic animals, have been subjected in the course of their evolution to more numerous variations, more frequent changes of place, and also more important crossings.
The question whether each race of mankind can live and reproduce itself—that is to say, become acclimatised—on any point of the globe will, evidently, only be resolved when attempts of this kind are undertaken by each race and pursued during several generations. Now there are no exact data on this subject except for the so-called white race and in some measure for Negroes. Without reckoning cosmopolitan peoples like the Jews and the Gypsies, it is certain that the majority of European peoples can as a race get acclimatised in the most diverse regions, in Canada (English and French) as in Brazil (Portuguese and Germans), Mexico (Spaniards), Australia (English), Southern Africa (Dutch Boers). The assumed failures of acclimatation are connected with countries where there has never been any Europeancolonisation(India, Java), and where it is known that there are isolated cases of the collective acclimatation of several families.
According to Clements Markham and Elisée Reclus, the Englishman not only as an individual but as a race is able to live in the Cisgangetic peninsula.[138]Many generations of Englishmen have flourished in various parts of India. Numerous examples could be cited of children being acclimatised without detriment to their strength or health. According to Francis Galton, the mortality in 1877 of European soldiers in India (12.7 per 1000) was less than that of native soldiers (13.4) and Hindus in general (35). In the Dutch Indies the Dutch have kept themselves in good health for several generations.[139]We must leave out of the question certain unhealthy regions (like Lower Senegal) where the natives suffer almost as much as Europeans. On the whole, the so-called white race appears to have the aptitude of acclimatation in all countries, provided, of course, that it makes the necessary sacrifices for several generations.
If it be said of certain regions that they are not colonisable by Europeans, it is thereby implied that the sacrifices entailed by acclimatation are out of all proportion to the advantages to be gained by colonisation. As to Negroes, they thrive in temperate countries like the United States, where they multiply at the same rate as the Whites. By a strange anomaly they do not seem to thrive as well in Mexico, in the Antilles, and in Guiana—that is to say in the same isothermal zone (26°–28° C., or 70°–82° Fahr.) as their native country; nevertheless they live and reproduce there.
Upon the whole, if we consider (1) that the most mixed and most civilised races are those which are soonest acclimatised, (2) that the tendency of races to intermingle, and of civilisation to develop, goes on increasing every day in every part of the world, we may affirm without being accused of exaggeration that the cosmopolitanism of mankind, if it does not yet exist to-day in all races (which seems somewhat improbable), will develop as a necessary consequence of the facility of acclimatation. For it to become general is only a matter of time.
As to the fertility of acclimatised families, it has been established outside of hybridisation. Thus it has been possible to trace back certain English families in the Barbadoes for six generations.[140]As much may be said of the French in the islands of Mauritius and Réunion. In the Brazilian province of Rio Grande do Sul, between 25°–30° S. latitude—that is, in a sub-tropical region—it has been ascertained that there are three or four generations of German colonists,whose children enjoy very good health.[141]Lastly, in Matabeleland there are already two or three generations of Dutch.[142]It must be said that certain European races are more capable than others of becoming acclimatised in tropical countries. Thus it is universally acknowledged that people of the south of Europe—Spaniards, Italians, Provençals—become sooner acclimatised in Africa and equatorial America than the English and the Germans of the north.
But in spite of the facility of acclimatation, race-characters hardly seem to change in the new environment; the chemical constituents of the tissues having changed, the body adapts itself without change either in outward form or even colour.
The German colonists of Brazil and the Steppes of the Volga bear a perfect resemblance to each other after more than a century of separation from their race-brothers of Swabia or Franconia. It is the same after two or three centuries with the English of the Barbadoes, the French of Réunion, the Dutch of the Transvaal, etc.
The phenomena ofhybridityare even less studied than those of the influence of environment; I shall speak of some of these in regard to different populations, but the facts are too isolated and disputed for any general conclusions to be drawn.
In reality, all that we know is that a great number of races produce half-breeds by crossing, but whether these half-breeds in so crossing produce a new race or revert to one of the ancestral types has not been demonstrated. Humanity appears to move in a confused medley of the most diverse and composite forms, without any one of them being able to persist; for the means of persistence, artificial selection or sexual selection, are wanting. The only selection which may have a decided influence on the predominance of the characters of a race in its interminglings is that which proceeds from thenumberof individuals of each of the races concerned inthe blending and their respective fecundity, but this selection has hardly begun to be studied.
It remains to speak ofpsychological characters—that is to say, of temperament and the different manifestations of mind, feeling, and affections. But it must be admitted that it is almost impossible to treat these in the face of many contradictory facts. Speaking generally, it may be said that the American and Mongoloid races are grave, meditative, a little obtuse, melancholic; and that, on the contrary, the Negro races and Melanesians are playful, laughing, lively, and superficial as children. But there are many exceptions to such general rules. Each traveller, each observer, tends to judge in his own way a given people according to the nature of the relations (pacific, hostile, etc.) which he has had with it. We are unable to affirm anything when we have once made up our minds to escape from the commonplace generalities that savages are wanting in foresight and general ideas, that they are cruel, that their imitative faculties are highly developed, etc.
Pathological charactersare better known, as for example, in regard to immunities. It is a proved fact that Negroes, for instance, are proof against the contagion of yellow fever; that they resist much better than Europeans the terrible intermittent fevers which prevail on the coasts of Africa. But if savage peoples enjoy certain immunities, they are, on the contrary, very susceptible to the infectious diseases which civilised peoples introduce among them; whole tribes have been exterminated by syphilis, measles, and consumption in South America, Polynesia, and Siberia.[143]There are also diseases peculiar to certain populations, such, for example, as thesleeping sicknessamong the Wolofs and Songhaï, which manifests itself in an invincible tendency to sleep.[144]It haslong been asserted that savage peoples are not afflicted by nervous and mental diseases. Nothing of the kind. The genuine “great hysteria” of Charcot has been observed among Negresses of Senegal, among Hottentot women and Kafirs, as well as in Abyssinia and Madagascar.[145]Other nervous diseases have been noticed among Hurons and Iroquois,[146]and in New Zealand. Some forms of neurosis appear to be limited to certain ethnic groups. Such is the “Amok” of the Malays—a sort of furious and imitative madness perhaps provoked at the same time by suggestion. Developed especially among the Malays, it is also met with among the Indians of North America, where it has been called “jumping” by the Whites. The “Myriachit” of the Ostiaks and other natives of Siberia, the “Malimali” of the Tagals of the Philippines, the “Bakchis” of the Siamese, are similar diseases. Under the name of “Latah” are designated among the Malays all sorts of nervous diseases, but more particularly the imitative madness which impels women to undress before men, to throw children up in the air in imitation of a game of ball, etc. Besides, the name Latah is also given to a mental state in which the patient is afraid of certain words (tiger, crocodile), and which is met with somewhat frequently not only among the Malays, but also among the Tagals and the Sikhs of India.[147]
Various stages of social groups and essential characters of human societies: Progress.—Conditions of Progress: Innovating initiative, and tradition—Classification of “states of civilisation.”
I.—LINGUISTIC CHARACTERS.
Methods of exchanging ideas within a short distance—Gesture and speech—Divisions of language according to structure—Jargons—Communications at a relatively remote distance: optic and acoustic signals—Transmission of ideas at any distance and time whatever—Handwriting—Mnemotechnic objects—Pictography—Ideography—Alphabets—Direction of the lines of handwriting.
SOfar we have considered man as an isolated being, apart from the groupings which he forms with his fellows. But in order to get a correct idea of the sum-total of the manifestations of his physical life, and especially of his psychical life, we must further consider him in his social environment.
Nowhere on the earth has there been found a race of men the members of which lived completely alone and isolated as the majority of animals are seen to do. It is in fact but very rarely that the latter combine into societies; they form a family group only temporarily during the period of raising the young, etc. Man, on the contrary, becomes almost helpless apart from society, incapable of maintaining the struggle for existence without the help of his fellow-men. The development of all the manifestations of “sociality” is then the measure of progress of human societies. The more manis “socialised,” if I may thus express it, the less he depends on nature.
This dependence on nature has long served as a criterion in ethnography for dividing peoples into two groups—the “civilised” and the “savage.” The name given by the Germans to “savages,”Naturvölker(peoples in a state of nature), explains sufficiently this way of looking at things. According to their greater or less dependence on nature, peoples were divided into hunters, shepherds or nomads, and tillers of the soil or settlers, without, however, characterising in a very precise way each of these states. Morgan was the first to bring a little definiteness into this nomenclature, and at the same time he has shown the necessity of introducing another criterion into the estimate of states of civilisation. In fact, to establish the three forms of socialisation—savage,barbarous, andcivilised—he has accepted as a distinctive mark between the second and the third the existence of handwriting—that is to say, of the material means used by the two forces necessary to the inception and maintenance of progress: innovating initiative, and conservation of what has been acquired.[148]He has not made as much of this classification as, in my opinion, he might have done. In fact, the ethnic groups of the earth only differ among themselves from the social point of view by thedegreeof culture—its essence being always and everywhere the same: pursuit of more and more easy means of satisfying wants and desires. Now, if the form assumed by this species of activity, in a word, ifproduction, subject to the influence of climate, geographical position, etc., is the basis of all social development, as Grosse has so well shown,[149]the nature and evolution of the needs and desires themselves depend up to a certain point on the “temperament” of therace, which must likewise be taken into consideration. The nature and amount of psychic force in any given society, the evolution of which is effected by its mode of production, may in its turn, having attained a certain degree of development, re-act on the economic state, and modify it. We see nothing like this in the animal communities. Bees and ants arrange their hives and manage the affairs of their community to-day as they did a thousand insect-generations ago. It is very probable that race has something to do with psychic force, but up to the present time the fact has not been scientifically demonstrated. However that may be, in order to form a correct opinion as to the degree of civilisation of any people, we should have to take into consideration not only its material culture, but also itsétat d’âme, its psychology, to realise the psychical resources which it has at its command. Thus certain peoples (Australians, Bushmen), though at the bottom of the scale as regards material culture, are nevertheless well endowed from the artistic point of view; in the same way the Polynesians of a hundred years ago, who were inferior in knowledge of pottery and metallurgy to the Negroes, were superior to them in general intelligence and the richness of their mythology.
But progress is only possible if, side by side with individual power of initiating change, there exists in the social aggregate what may be called the power of conservation. There may be produced among savage peoples, as Ratzel[150]has so well pointed out, persons of exceptional natural talent, men of genius; but the activity of these will almost always be sterile. Even if they succeed in ameliorating the material condition, in raising the moral or intellectual level of the members of their tribe or of their class, the result of their activity has only an ephemeral existence, their efforts are not continued, and after their death, for want of the conservative power, everything falls back into the primitive condition. The secret of civilisation lies not so much in efforts of isolated individuals as in accumulation of these efforts, in the transmission from one generation toanother of the acquired result, of a sum-total of knowledge which enables each generation to go further without beginning everything over againab ovo. In this way progress is unlimited by the very conditions of its origin, and civilisation is only the sum of all the acquisitions of the human mind at any given period.
The conservative and transmittive power become really established in a society only when the means of communicating thought are sufficiently developed, when language has taken a definite form, and an easy method is devised of fixing it by conventional signs more or less indelible and transmissible to future generations. Thus, to estimate different states of civilisation we must have recourse to linguistic characters, understanding by such everything which concerns the means of communicating ideas in time and space—that is to say, spoken or mimetic language and its graphic representation. But before passing rapidly in review the linguistic characters, I owe the reader a few words of explanation of the terms which I am about to use in designating “states of civilisation.”
In these latter days a classification of these states nearly in accordance with the desiderata which were formulated at the beginning of this chapter has been proposed by Vierkandt.[151]This classification takes material culture into account, but the primordial division which is adopted in it, between peoples in a state of nature (or better, uncivilised) and civilised peoples, is based on the development of certain psychical traits denoting a greater or less development of individuality, of the spirit of free investigation, etc. Savage peoples, without any true civilisation, are divided in this classification into semi-civilised and uncivilised properly so-called, with sub-divisions into nomads and tillers of the soil for the former, and hunters and wanderers for the latter.
Admitting the criterion of the existence or non-existence of writing and the relative value of the two elements of progressmentioned above, I arrive at a classification of “states of civilisation” which recalls somewhat that of Vierkandt, but which differs from it on several points. It may be summarised as follows:—
(1)Savage peoples, progressing exceedingly slowly, without writing, sometimes possessing a pictographic method; living in little groups of some hundreds or thousands of individuals. They are divided into two categories:hunters[152](examples: Bushmen, Australians, Fuegians) andtillers of the soil(examples: Indians of North America, Melanesians, the majority of Negroes).
(2)Semi-civilised peoples, making an appreciable but slow progress, in which the conservative power predominates, forming authoritative societies or states of several thousands or millions of individuals; having an ideographic or phonetic writing, but a rudimentary literature. They are divided likewise into two categories:tillers of the soil(examples: Chinese, Siamese, Abyssinians, Malays, Ancient Egyptians, and Peruvians) andnomads(examples: Mongols, Arabs).
(3)Civilised peoples, making rapid progress, in which the initiating and innovating power predominates, forming states based on individual liberty, and consisting of several millions of individuals; having a phonetic writing and a developed literature. Their economic state is especially characterised byindustrialismandcosmopolitan commercialism(examples: the majority of the peoples of Europe and North America).
Having said this much, we shall begin the study of ethnic characters with those which we may consider the indispensable condition of all associability, that is to say the linguistic characters.
Without pursuing the inquiry whether language is born of inarticulate cries, of onomatopæias or otherwise, whether it has a single or a multiple origin, we may content ourselveswith stating the fact, that language does not constitute the only means by which men may understand each other and communicate ideas. There are several others. They may be arranged in three groups:—means of communicating near at hand: gestures and words; means of communicating at a relatively remote distance: various signals; means of communicating at any distance and time whatever: writing.
Gestures.—Many gestures are natural and common to all men. All who have had to ask for anything to eat or drink in a foreign country without knowing the language, must have appreciated this means of international communication. However, the same gestures do not always and everywhere signify the same thing. Let us take, for example, the simplest ideas, negation and affirmation. In Central and Northern Europe these ideas are expressed, as every one knows, by a bending of the head forward and by lateral movements of the head. But there are few exotic peoples (Andamanese, Ainus, certain Hindus) who make use of the same gestures. Most of them, on the contrary, affirm by shaking the head laterally (Arabs, Botocudos, certain Negroes) and deny by raising it; most frequently this latter gesture is accompanied by an uplifting of the eyebrows (Abyssinians) or a particular smacking of the tongue (Syro-Arabs, Naya-Kurumbas, etc.). The natives of the Admiralty Islands express negation by a tap on the nose.[153]In Italy and generally in Mediterranean Europe, the signs of negation, with many other feelings besides, are expressed by gestures of the hands; thus to say “no,” the hand is moved sharply before the breast, the fingers being closed except the forefinger, which is held up vertically. Perhaps the practice of carrying burdens on the head, thus preventing the movements of this part of the body, has had something to do with the abundant development of gestures with the arms by which the European of the south may be recognised. An almost analogous sign, but consisting in a slow movement outward and downward, signifies “yes” among the Indians of North America. These last have pushed to the utmost limits the use of the languageof gesture. G. Mallery has collected the treasures of this language, which is being lost to-day, and has drawn up a vocabulary of it.[154]At the period when this language flourished, the Indians were able to express by gestures not only common and proper nouns, but also verbs, pronouns, particles, etc.; they made elaborate speeches by combining the gestures of the body, the head, and the arms. They introduced abbreviations exactly as that is done in pictographic writing. Here is an example of how a Dakota Indian (Fig.26) says by means of gestures,I am going home: he brings his hand with the forefinger stretched out towards his breast (I), then extends it forward and outward as high as the shoulder (am going), and, closing the fist, he lets it drop abruptly (home). It is supposed that extreme diversity of dialects has been the chief cause of the development of this strange sign-language; it would serve as a bond between tribes which could not converse with one another.