I. In this book I propose to give under a common title a concise examination of the characters due tointelligence,moralityandreligion. I shall thus, perhaps, be reproached with having connected too closely phenomena which, elsewhere, I have attributed to different causes, and consequently with having, apparently at least, contradicted myself. But, on the one hand, after what I have said upon this subject in the first chapter, there can be no doubt as to the manner in which I regard this question; and, on the other hand, intellectual phenomena acquire such a development in man, that sometimes they almost rise to the dignity of attributes, and therefore deserve to be placed by the side of phenomena which are entirely human.
II. In the preceding chapters we have reviewed physical man. But man is not merely a certain portion of organised and living matter like a plant. Besides this there is in mana somethingwhichfeels,judges,reasons, andwills. Thissomething, the origin and nature of which it is not the duty of the naturalist to discover, is manifested by actions and byfacts. These facts differ in different human races. They may,they ought tobe, looked upon ascharacters, equally withthe actions of our animal races, such as thepointer, thegreyhound, theterrieror thecollie.
We shall see that, although approaching ground generally regarded as belonging by right to philosophy, anthropology does not on that account show any less respect for the domain of the latter. The philosopher is concerned with the distinction to be established between mind and matter, and with the discovery of the mysterious link which unites the physical with the intellectual being; the anthropologist with the investigation of the several manifestations resulting from this connection, and with the recognition of the distinctive characteristic marks of the groups which he is studying. The former goes back to causes; the latter confines himself to effects, and therefore does not exceed the limits of natural science.
For this very reason, in treating of man, we meet with a difficulty at starting, which has been already pointed out. When entering upon the examination of psychological facts, science has scarcely more than details to study, as in the examination of physiological characters. Here, as elsewhere,the conditions of lifeplay a considerable part. If they exercise an influence upon the manifestations of organic life, they influence to an almost equal extent those actions which interpret the acting and reacting element in us. And not only does our intelligence conform to present conditions, but indefinitely multiplies their influence by accumulating and combining all anterior facts by means of memory, and imposes upon itself new conditions from which new phenomena incessantly result.
The study of intellectual characters must, therefore, for the most part be carried out by the detailed examination of races. Nevertheless, we may notice in passing the most general features of some races, if only in order to explain more fully the truth of the statements which have just been made.
III.Language.“Animals have voice, man alone has speech.” This truth, proclaimed by Aristotle, is universallyaccepted at the present day. Every one acknowledges that speech is one of the highest attributes of the human species.Languages, that is to say, the various forms assumed by speech among the different human races and their sub-divisions, have, on this account, a separate importance as differential characteristic facts.
Without being a linguist, the anthropologist can well avail himself of the results obtained by philology, and compare them with those obtained by the study of physical characters. When by two such different methods we arrive at the same conclusions, we are evidently very probably in the right.
While giving the detailed history of the different races in my course of lectures at the Paris Museum, I was often obliged to extend considerably the comparison which I have just mentioned. I have almost invariably found the most striking resemblance between descriptive philology and anthropology. When, as an exception to this rule, we find a want of resemblance, or, better still, a contrast, such as that which exists between the physical characters and the language of the Basques, when compared with the neighbouring population, the problem always, as in their case, presents special difficulties, from whatever point of view it is approached.
It it more especially amongst the mixed races that the general agreement which I have mentioned is exhibited. Language often betrays at once the mixture of races, their succession, and the nature of the influence exercised by the different elements which have assisted in their formation. I will here give a striking example.
All polygenists have regarded the Malays as one of theirhuman species; many monogenists have considered them as one of the principal races. I showed long ago that, in reality, they are only a mixed race in which white, black and yellow elements are associated, and that they are closely allied to the Polynesians. These facts become more striking every day as we know more of these two families which havesprung from a common stock. And further, as we study more thoroughly the history of these countries, we find that the relations between the insular and the continental regions must have been much closer than it was long thought could ever have been the case. Such are the results arrived at by anthropology.
On the other hand, philologists have only been able to form onelinguistic familyfrom all the Malayan and Polynesian languages, when considered from agrammaticalpoint of view. As tovocabulary, the following are the results given by Ritter.
The Malay language comprises in every 100 words—
50 Polynesian words, all answering to a very inferior social condition, only designating arts and objects for which all languages have names (heaven, earth, moon, mountain, hand, eye, etc.).
27 Malayan words, giving evidence of a more advanced civilization, and of the existence of arts already in a state of perfection (kriss).
16 Sanscrit words expressing religious ideas and abstract terms (time, cause, wisdom, etc.).
5 Arabian words relating to mythology, poetry, etc.
2 Javanese, Dravidian, Persian, Portuguese, Dutch or English words, all relating to commerce.
We see, therefore, that the language of the Malays explains, so to speak, under another form, the same facts as their physical characters.
IV. Although a naturalist, and therefore habitually disposed to attribute to the characters drawn from physical man a preponderating importance, I cannot allow that this superiority is absolutely constant. There are some facts which speak too strongly. Had it not been for their special language no one would have hesitated to consider the Basques as belonging to the same family as other Southern Europeans. Had their special dolichocephaly been discovered, as it has been by M. Broca, no one would have thought of making themallophylian whites. It is the samewith the peoples of the Caucasus, who were long considered, entirely on account of their physical characters, as the pure stock of White European populations. We must, therefore, acknowledge that in some cases language has a characteristic importance superior to that of external features and anatomical facts, or, at least, that it furnishes indications more readily understood.
Thisalternation of valuebetween certain characters will cause no surprise to naturalists who are familiar with the results of modern zoology. They know that it is the same with animal species. In the vertebrata the respiratory organs furnish characters of the first order, which aredominant: in annelids, and in secondary types in which this function is less rigorously localized, families, perfectly similar in other respects, have the branchia very highly developed or altogether wanting. In their case the characters drawn from the respiratory organs are evidently secondary andsubordinate. If this is the case betweendifferent speciesanddifferent groups, we must not be surprised if, with still greater reason, it should be the same betweendifferent races.
V. In anthropological applications of the science of language, every one will allow that far more importance must be attributed to grammar than to vocabulary; it is clear that it cannot be otherwise. But have we not in certain cases, despised too much the information which may be derived from the latter? The results to which Young has arrived from the calculation of probabilities may, it seems to me, be very aptly quoted here. The object of the illustrious author was to discover, how many similar words in two different languages were necessary to authorize us in considering these words as having belonged to the same language. From these calculations it appears that the common possession of one word has no meaning. But the probability of unity of origin is already three to one when there are two words common to both, and more than ten to one when there are three. When the number of words common to both is six,the probability is more than 1,700, and almost 100,000 when there are eight.
It is, therefore, almost certain that eight words common to two different languages have originally belonged to the same language, and when isolated in the midst of a language to which they do not belong must be regarded asimported. These conclusions of the learned Englishman are of extreme importance. They tend to make anthropologists regard the relations between various peoples in a different manner from that to which many anthropologists have been accustomed, and force us to admit the existence of communications which we should otherwise be inclined to doubt.
VI. Whilst fully recognising the undoubted importance of linguistic characters, we must not trust to them entirely as guides in the estimation of ethnological relations. A language may become extinct and be replaced upon the same spot. The mere linguist would then assume the annihilation of a race or population which was in reality flourishing. This was the case with the Canary Islanders. The descendants of the Guanches having all adopted the Spanish language, it was thought that they no longer existed, till M. Berthelot showed that in reality they formed the basis of the population of the whole archipelago.
VII. Monogenism and polygenism have fought, and are still fighting upon linguistic as well as upon organographical grounds. Thus it has very often happened that the scientific question has been obscured by considerations entirely foreign to science; and with the less reason as the opposed doctrines have really less connection with this subject than has generally been supposed.
From a linguistic point of view the problem may be stated in the following terms:—Was there in times past, a single primitive language, from which all languages, living or dead, have sprung? Or rather, have languages existed, and do languages still exist, which cannot be traced to a common origin?
We shall at once understand the reply of the polygenisticphilologist. Arguing from the differences by which certain families of languages are separated, they declare them to beirreducible, and with Crawfurd, M. Hovelacque, and others, state their belief “in the original plurality of theraceswhich have been formed with them.” On the other hand, this irreducibility is denied by Max Müller, who, without as yet affirming the existence of a primitive language, allows us to see that, in his opinion, all philological researches are tending to the demonstration of this fact.
Being a complete stranger to studies of this nature, I cannot express an opinion upon special questions. I shall confine myself to the statement of some general facts, and to pointing out the sense in which they seem to me to claim most attention.
This irreducibility, upon which the polygenistic philologists rely, recalls the argument, which is based upon physical characters, and consists in contrasting the Negro with the White. This argument long possessed a certain appearance of strength, which it has lost as more numerous intervening links were discovered between these two extremes. It seems to me that the general progress of philology is tending to the same result. All linguists now place side by side languages which would have been considered irreducible at the beginning of the century.
A certain number of languages may remain isolated without this fact affording any evidence against the specific unity of man. In all philological schools it is acknowledged that languages are variable and perishable. Now we do not know all thedeadlanguages, and if some of the links in the chain are wanting it will at once be evident that relations which formerly existed have been lost to us for ever.
Let anyone, moreover, refer to the observations of Lubbock upon roots, and he will at once admit that a certain number among them can scarcely be common to all languages. Those who hold that language is not of divine origin, but a human invention and creation, cannot help adopting the conclusions of the learned Englishman on this point. Now,however few these radical differences may be, they necessarily involve irreducibility, which cannot, however, on that account be invoked as an argument against monogenism.
In support of this conclusion, I am fortunate enough to be able to appeal to the testimony of a judge, both competent and trustworthy. Whitney, in his work upon “The Life of Language,” has examined the same question. With Crawfurd and M. Hovelacque, the American linguist admits that there are linguistic families which cannot be referred to a common origin. He does not, however, stop at the bare fact; he demonstrates and discusses the causes of it. He then gives, in the following terms, the general conclusion of this discussion: “The incompetency of the science of philology to decide upon the unity or diversity of human races appears to be completely and irrevocably demonstrated.”
However this may be, the results thus acquired bring to light a fact, the importance of which ought not, it seems to me, to be overlooked. Taking as guide the work of a man whose competency is above dispute, arranging the tables of the linguistic families admitted by M. Maury, and representing bylinesthe relations pointed out by this learned writer, we see that there exists between one language and another anintercrossing of charactersextremely analogous to that which I have so often pointed out in human groups. No one has supported the hypothesis of the multiple origins of languages more resolutely than Agassiz. In the memoir, which I attacked from a geographical point of view, he expressed himself very clearly upon this point. Since then he has developed the same ideas. I have already said that, in his opinion, mankind was created bynations, that each received, with its physical features, its particular language, developed in every direction, and just as characteristic as the voice of an animal species. I feel it necessary to insist upon this point here, and to quote the text itself: “Let anyone follow upon a map,” says Agassiz, “the geographical distribution of the bear, the felidæ, the ruminants, the gallinaceæ, or of any other family: we can prove, with just asmuch evidence as any philological research can for human languages, that the growling of the bear of Kamschatka is allied to that of the bear of Thibet, of the East Indies, of the Sonda Islands, of Nepaul, Syria, Europe, Siberia, the United States, the Rocky Mountains, and the Andes. Yet all these bears are considered to be distinct species, having in no way inherited voice from each other. Nor have the different human races done so. All this is equally true of the crowing of the gallinaceæ, of the quacking of ducks, as well as of the song of thrushes, who all pour forth their gay and harmonious notes, each in their own dialect, which is neither inherited nor derived from another, although all sing inthrush language. Let philologists study these facts, and if they are not absolutely blind to the signification of analogies in nature, they will themselves come to doubt the possibility of placing any confidence in philological arguments employed to prove genetic derivation.”
Agassiz is logical, and he exhausts the consequences of his theory. But he forgets one important fact which may be opposed to all those who, either fully or partially, embrace this order of ideas.
No animal species has ever changed itsvoicefor that of a species nearly allied to it. An ass’s colt, reared by a mare and isolated in the midst of horses, never forgets its bray or learns to neigh. While, on the contrary, it is well known, that a White, if placed in earliest infancy in the midst of Chinese or Australians, will only speak their language. The converse is equally true.
The reason of this is that theanimal voiceis a fundamental character, adhering evidently to the nature of the being, susceptible of slight modification, but incapable of disappearing, or of transference as a whole; it is aspecific character.
Human languageis entirely different. It is essentially variable, and subject to modification from one generation to another it is subject to transformation; it borrows and loses; it may be replaced by another; it is evidently subordinateto the intelligence and to the conditions of life. We can only, therefore, regard it as a secondary character; acharacter of race.
From the linguistic point of view, the specific attribute of man is not thespecial languagewhich he employs, it is thefaculty of articulation,speech, which has given him the power of creating a primitive language, and to vary it infinitely by means of his intelligence and will, more or less influenced by innumerable circumstances.
Here, again, I am fortunate enough to be able to support opinions, which I have long maintained, by the conclusions of Whitney upon this point. “Now,” says this learned linguist, “to pretend, in order to explain the variety of languages, that the power of expression has been virtually different in different races, that one language has contained, from its origin and in its primitive materials, a formative principle which is not in others; that the elements employed for a formal usage were formal by nature, and so on,—all this is pure mythology.”
VIII.General relations between languages and human races.It is generally admitted that human languages may be traced to three fundamental groups; the first, monosyllabic, or isolating languages; the second, agglutinative, or suffix languages; the third, inflectional languages. Thus, there are three linguistic types, as there are also three physical types. It will not be without interest to discover what relations are displayed by the characters drawn from these two orders of considerations.
The monosyllabic languages represent the most rudimentary condition of human language, which, moreover, has only arrived at inflection after passing through the period of agglutination. Considered from this point of view, languages have arrived at perfection by degrees, and it is only natural to inquire if the general degree of elevation of races corresponds with that of the development of language.
From a comparison of the results of philological and physical studies, it is at once evident that this is not thecase. Chinese, the most monosyllabic language, is spoken by one of the earliest civilized nations, belonging fundamentally to the yellow type. Tribes holding the lowest place, springing from the Negro type, speak, on the contrary, agglutinative languages, that is to say, have attained the second stage. I have already pointed out this fact, and insisted upon the consequences which arise from it with reference to the relative antiquity of human groups.
Nevertheless, we must remark that the greater number of Whites speak languages which have attained the highest degree of perfection—inflectional languages. Allophylian Whites, alone, are still in the agglutinative stage.
If, after having read the information which is given by philologists upon the distribution of races, we look at the map, we shall again meet with some very interesting general facts.
Monosyllabic languages are only found in Asia, as it were localized, and only occupy a very limited space. They were at one time even restricted to a kind of island, bounded by the sea on the east, and on all other sides by agglutinative languages. It is entirely due to the Aryan conquest that they have been placed in contact with inflectional languages.
The latter, now universally distributed, were for a long time confined to the old continent, of which, moreover, they were far from occupying the greatest part. Their expansion dates from the great modern discoveries.
Languages of intermediate development, the agglutinative languages, occupied before this epoch, as they still do, the larger portion of the surface of the globe. We do not know at what period they lost ground in Europe, but we can already almost assert as a fact, that they predominated there in former times. They probably occupied the whole of this part of the world before the Aryan invasion or infiltration. Perhaps they were spoken by quaternary man. However this may be, before the great and quite recent emigrations of European races, agglutinative languages reigned throughout the greater partof Asia, almost the whole of Africa, and all America and Oceania.
In pointing out approximately the areas occupied by the three fundamental groups of languages, we find that the agglutinative languages alone occupied but a short time ago about22/25of the earth’s surface, inflectional languages3/15, and monosyllabic languages1/25; or nearly74/100,20/100and6/100.
Agglutinative languages, again, have the advantage over the others in number. Finally, the number of nations, peoples or tribes, speaking these languages, is also superior to that of the groups which speak monosyllabic or inflectional languages.
But it is well known how slight a relation there is between the population of a country, and either its extent or the number of human groups by which it is peopled. In order to gain an idea of the importance, or of the part played upon the surface of the globe, by one, or by a group of languages, we must calculate the number of individuals by whom it is used. Now, in comparing statistical and linguistic data, for which we are indebted to MM. d’Omalius and Maury, we find that inflectional languages are spoken by 536,900,000 human beings; monosyllabic languages by 449,000,000; and agglutinative languages only by 216,550,000.
IX.Writing.Writing is, so to speak, to speech what speech is to thought. Nevertheless, by its very nature it furnishes the anthropologist with but very few precise data. Invented in a very limited number of places, it has been communicated from place to place, and by initiation. In their passage from one nation to another, the graphic representations of languages are often sensibly modified, and, from this point of view, they may undoubtedly be of real assistance to ethnology. But there is no real relation between the several forms which they assume, and the human groups by which they are employed.
We can hardly connect with writing the various arrangements of stories which were used by the Mexican Neophytesto recall to memory their prayers, or the purely mnemo-technical process observed by different travellers, such as theWampumof the Red-Skins. But the latter, and especially the Chinese, Thibetian and PeruvianQuipos, were something more than this. Here the colour and the mode of juxtaposition of straws, shells, or wood, the knots and the colour of the threads, had a conventional value permitting the expression of ideas, of great and multiple numbers, etc. In Peru it seems that real books werewrittenin this manner. Unfortunately, as M. Maury remarks, it is now impossible to decipher these singular productions.
Pictography, even, in a form as rudimentary as that which existed and which still exists among the Red-Skins, where Schoolcraft has studied it very thoroughly, was probably the universal starting point for writing properly so called. It is well known that pictography bears a strong resemblance to ourrebus, and that it has its monuments, which have been discovered by several travellers in Siberia, North America, the basin of the Orinoco, and even as far as Patagonia.
When symbolism was introduced into pictography, it would seem that a step had really been made, although grave errors may result from this manner of representing events, when the sense of the symbol is forgotten. The Virginians represented the Europeans, their ships and arms, by awhite swan vomiting fire. There was here evidently the germ of some legend. This observation alone, enables us to comprehend and interpret some of the traditions, fabulous in form, but having a foundation of truth, which have been collected with reference to the past history of certain American tribes. Nevertheless, symbolism has the advantage of accustoming the mind to detach itself from the material reproductions of objects. It is then an easy matter to pass to the graphic reduction of the symbol, and afterwards to theidiographic sign. At length, spurred on by the stimulus of necessity, thephonetic signis reached.
Even when the representation of the syllable is attained,writing has made immense progress. It seems as if certain races, in spite of contact with more advanced nations, and though they may have before their eyes examples of alphabetic writing, can never get beyond this. So at least it is at the present time with the Cherokees in Florida and the Veï on the coast of Africa. Sequoyah and Doala Bukara, in their efforts to imitate the Yankees and Arabs, only invented spelling-books. And yet the papers printed by the former bore, by the side of the Cherokee text, the English alphabetic translation.
It is unnecessary to insist upon the immense superiority of alphabetic writing. This means of fixing speech, at once so simple and so complete, has always presented an appearance of the marvellous to those who were unacquainted with it; and the ancients, struck with its utility, and not knowing that man had gained the art by slow stages, did not hesitate to regard it as a divine invention. Cicero himself seems inclined to share this opinion. We now know that the honour of this great discovery really belongs to the Phœnicians.
But the Phœnicians did not make this discovery at once or by their own efforts. MM. Wuttke and Lenormand have rightly given the honour of having prepared the way for, and of almost achieving the discovery, to the Egyptians. Egyptian writing, with its figurative, idiographic and phonetic signs, displays the whole course traversed by the human mind in rising from simple pictography to the alphabet. Unfortunately the Egyptians, fettered by the combined influences of their past, and by the very mass of ideas and facts represented in their complicated writing, especially perhaps by their religious traditions, could not free themselves from the cumbersome element in their system of writing. A strange people, free from these restraints, could alone, as M. Maury has remarked, take this step.
The Phœnician alphabet once discovered spread rapidly. At the same time, however, it necessarily underwent modifications to suit, sometimes veritable necessities, sometimes simple convenience or caprice. M. Lenormand admits fivegreat families of writing, as representing this filiation. These are the Semitic, Greco-Italian, Western or Iberian, and Northern or Indo-homerite. The latter, perhaps, owed its origin to the alphabet of Yemen, which, introduced into India about the third or fourth century of our era, has engendered almost all the Oriental alphabets.
Egypt and Phœnicia were not the only centres in which the art of writing took its rise. It also came into existence in the Old World in Mesopotamia and China, and in Mexico in the New World. Hieroglyphic writing, itself arising out of pictography, has been the universal starting point, but in each case writing has stopped short at different stages.
Cuneiform writing has not attained the alphabet, and seems to consist of a mixture of idiographic and syllabic signs. In China writing has remained idiographic. Under the influences, however, of Buddhist missionaries, who made known the Devânagari alphabet in the extreme East, the Japanese and the Coreans, after having servilely imitated the Chinese, were the first to reach syllabism, the second to attain a veritable alphabet.
In Mexico, writing consisted of the mixture, still very confused, of symbolic, idiographic and phonetic signs, the latter representing, in some cases syllables, in others, simple letters. The discoveries made by l’Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg seem to indicate that in Yucatan greater progress had been made, and that the Palanqué inscriptions are really alphabetic. It is much to be regretted that up to the present time the important facts, for which we are indebted to the aged curé of Rabinal, have not been utilized. The reading of the inscriptions of Central America would have a very different interest to the deciphering of a few more Egyptian tablets. However this may be, it is evident that the multiplicity, the variety of alphabets, and even their filiation furnish the anthropologist with characters of great importance, and specially fitted to establish ancient relations between human groups in some cases widely separated.
X.Social condition.Man is essentially a social being.“Were any one to ascend to heavenalone, and listenaloneto the harmony of the spheres, he would not enjoy these marvels,” a Greek philosopher has said. Thus we find the human species everywhere collected into more or less numerous societies. In exceptional cases, which may be generally explained by a violent dispersion, these societies always consist of a more or less considerable number of families, and deserve at least the designation ofpeoples.
However limited or numerous peoples, tribes, or nations may be, the existence of three elementary social conditions has long been accepted as a fact, each of which is connected with the satisfaction of the first and most imperious of all necessities, that, namely, of nourishment. A certain gradation may, moreover, be observed in these conditions. Man at first only depended upon daily industry for his subsistence: he hunted either terrestrial or aquatic animals: he became a hunter or a fisherman. He afterwards brought the herbivorous species under his power, and found an unfailing resource in his flocks: he became a shepherd. Finally he directed his attention to the earth; he multiplied and cultivated certain plants which he learnt to know by experience; he became an agriculturist. In the latter case his diet would be fundamentally vegetables; in the two former flesh would form the basis of his food.
It is clear that these several kinds of existence place man under very different conditions of life, and impose upon him certain necessities, by demanding the development of physical and intellectual faculties which sometimes bear but a very slight resemblance to each other. In this manner certain physical and intellectual peculiarities are engendered, which, developed by exercise and heredity, finally become characters of races.
The hunter and fisherman present some points of resemblance in their manner of life. Both are obliged to display in turn, and occasionally at the same moment, according to the animal they are pursuing, a great amount of patience and courage; they must never be at a loss for a resource. Both,even when placed in the most favourable circumstances, pass alternately from extreme activity to almost complete repose. But the fisherman’s field of action is on the whole less extensive than that of the hunter, and he is not like the latter, forced to exercise all his physical faculties. He will probably never possess the same delicacy of hearing, or the same agility. Moreover, neither of them are placed in conditions favourable to intellectual development properly so called.
The shepherd is much more independent in certain respects, while at the same time he is subject to greater regularity. He is always sure of his morrow. The daily duties to his charge once fulfilled, he is at liberty to abandon himself to reflection and revery, so that his intellectual faculties have every facility for development.
This is still more strongly the case with the agriculturist. Seed-time and harvest are to him times of inevitable physical activity. Between the two he can rest at leisure, and apply the faculties with which he is endowed to something entirely different.
These three elementary modes of human society involve immediate consequences.
Game, in the true acceptance of the term, is nowhere so abundant as to afford an indefinite amount of nourishment to populations, however small, accumulated upon one spot. A great extent of country is absolutely necessary to the hunter, so that he can only form very limited communities. As soon as they increase in size they are forced to separate. Fishermen may form larger communities, particularly upon the shore of a productive sea. Even in their case, however, the size of the population is necessarily confined within somewhat narrow limits.
The pastoral condition allows the formation of more numerous societies; but it also involves the existence of vast tracts entirely given up to grazing. Like the chase, therefore, though in a less degree, it enforces sub-divisions.
The culture of the soil permits the development of a population at once dense and continuous.
The hunter, as a natural consequence of his warlike habits, is inevitably a warrior; war is, in fact, nothing more than a “man-hunt.” Any discussion about ahunting-groundmay easily result in war, as the subsistence of the hunter is in question. This war would be conducted without mercy, for every prisoner would not only be useless, but an incumbrance to the conqueror; another mouth to feed. The hunter would kill him, and however little may be due to passion on the one hand, and pride on the other, he will put him to death with torments endured with heroic firmness.
The shepherd also will often be involved in armed conflict, for he must defend his pastures and his flocks. But, in his case, war will be less bitter; the prisoner may be useful to him. He can be forced to attend to the flocks, and, in return, be fed without involving any sacrifice: he can be a slave.
Were it not for the necessity of mutual destruction, which seems to be innate in man, and which, as yet, civilization has not been able to extirpate, agricultural tribes would have no cause to make war upon each other; indeed, it would be much more to their interests to avoid it. All that can be said, however, is that in their case it becomes by degrees less cruel. Here, again, the prisoner can be utilized. He is first reduced to slavery. Then it becomes evident that a certain amount of liberty might be profitable to the master, so he passes from the condition of a slave to that of a serf.
The three conditions which I have just described still exist upon the globe; and in each of the three great types of mankind, examples may still be pointed out at the present day. The White tribes of the north-west coast of America are fishers; some Arab tribes are still in the pastoral state, through which the Aryans, the progenitors of the present Indians, who are so essentially agricultural, have passed. Among the Yellows, the Tunguses of Daouria, are perhaps the most perfect type of a hunting people, as the hordes of Central Asia are of a shepherd people, and the Chinese of an agricultural people. Finally, among the Negroes,the Tasmanians were exclusively hunters and fishers, the Kaffirs are essentially shepherds, and the natives of Guinea agriculturalists.
Thus the fundamental nature of the social condition is not a character of race. The three physical types present the three social types.
From this fact alone we might conclude that between the three human types, regarded from the point of view of civilization, there are none of those radical differences which have been admitted,à priori, by some authors.
This conclusion can only be distinctly shown by a detailed study of the races. I can here merely state it, insisting upon this point that, in spite of the assertions of M. de Gobineau to the contrary, there still existWhitesin a distinctlysavagestate. We need only read the details given by Cook, La Pérouse, Meares, Marchand, Dixon, Dr. Scouler, and others, upon some Kolushes, and we shall be forced to recognise thesefishers, whose women besmear themselves with grease and soot, and wear a girdle, as bothtrue Whitesandtrue savages, who in many respects must rank below the Negro of Ardra or Juida.
On the other hand, the very names which I have just mentioned, especially those of Ghanata, Sonrhaï and Melle, with which Barth has made us acquainted, suffice to prove that the most strongly characterized Negro, thetypical Negro, has the power of raising himself to a considerably advanced social condition. It has been said, that, without being asavage, he has remained abarbarian, as was the case with our German or Gaulish ancestors. This view is not a just one; the Negro has risen much higher. The annals of Amed Baba show that in the Middle Ages the basin of the Niger contained empires very little inferior in many respects to European kingdoms of the same epoch.
As to the Yellow races, it will be sufficient to remember that the whole of the Aryan race was plunged in barbarism at the time when China was acquainted with the calendar, had determined the form of the earth, and recognised theflattening of the poles, had woven materials in silk, and possessed a coinage.
XI. Ought we to conclude from these and from many analogous facts which I cannot quote, that there exists a perfect equality between human races, that they all possess the same aptitudes, and can all rise, in every respect, to the same degree of intellectual development? Not so, for this would be a departure from the truth, and an evident exaggeration. Here, again, we must return to the comparison of man with animals. Does it follow that, because all the races of dogs belong to one and the same species, they all have the same aptitudes? Will a hunter choose indifferently a setter, or a blood-hound to use as a pointer or in the chase? Will he consider the street-cur as of equal value with either of thesepure-breeds? Clearly not. Now we must never forget that, while superior to animals and different to them in many respects, man is equally subject to all the general laws of animal nature. The law of heredity is one of those from which he cannot escape, and it is this law which, under the influence of the conditions of life, fashions races and makes them what they are.
When centuries have passed over a group of men, when from generation to generation, and under the influence of certain physical, intellectual and moral conditions, the whole being has contracted a certain habit, we cannot form any definite idea as to what length of time and what fresh circumstances would be necessary to efface this impression and form the race anew. In any case, it can only rise by undergoing modifications, and this fact alone produces a new or a derived race.
The result of all the conditions by which races have been formed has been to establish between them apresentinequality which it is impossible to deny. Such, however, is the exaggeration into whichnegrophilesby profession have fallen, when they maintain that the Negro in former ages, andin his present condition, is the equal of the White. A single fact will be a sufficient answer to them.
The discoveries of Barth have placed beyond a shadow of doubt the existence of apolitical historyamong the Negroes, which had previously been a matter of doubt. But this very fact alone only serves to place in still stronger relief the absence of thatintellectual historywhich is demonstrated by a general progressive movement, by literary, architectural and artistic monuments. The Negro race, left to itself, has produced nothing of this kind. An attempt has been made, in order to disguise this too manifest inferiority, to refer to the Negro race those peoples of black colour, who can only be said to be connected with it by crosses in which the superior blood predominates.
XII. Must we therefore pass to the opposite extreme, and admit that there are races radically incapable of elevating themselves above the social condition in which their ancestors have lived? This question has often been proposed, and has been answered in two different ways.
The attempt has been made, by means of a certain number of facts taken from America and Oceania, as well as from Africa, to show that certain human populations were irrevocably destined to a savage condition. The upholders of this opinion have chiefly quoted as examples the indigenous inhabitants of North America and Australia. Yet whoever will consider the matter from an unprejudiced point of view, will see at once, sometimes in the very facts brought forward by those who depreciate them, a clear proof that,placed in favourable conditions, these races would be able to raise themselves far above the condition in which we have found them, and would, in some respects at least, very quickly reach our level.
As far as the Red-Skins and the allied groups are concerned all doubt has been dissipated by the great work of Schoolcraft, and severalreportssince published.
There is, at the present day, upon the banks of the Cattaraugus, an agricultural and laborious population, formed from the remnants of the Iroquois, which has its schools, its printing establishments, and its journals. It is useless toinsist upon what the Kreecks, Cherokees and Choctaws have become. We know that these nations of the South had, of their own accord, started on the high road of settled civilization, that they cultivated and exported cotton, and published journals written in their own language, and printed in characters invented by one of their own nation. The government of Washington drove them from their lands, and transported them to the basin of the Arkansas. They there set themselves to work again, and travellers tell us that some of their farms even rival those of the Yankees.
But in reply to this the objection will be made that the Algonquins and the Dacotahs have resisted every attempt which has been made to assimilate them to Whites, and to civilization. This is an error, or rather it is but half the truth, and for this very reason affords important information to those who are inclined to receive it. The Algonquins (true Red-Skins), and the Dacotahs (Sioux) separated. Some renounced their ancient mode of life, and imitated that of the Cherokees, others adhered to it; how variable, then, is this supposed indelible character; how completely subordinate to a thousand insignificant local circumstances!
In fact, nothing has taken place with regard to the American Aborigines which could not also be observed among Whites. Side by side with the Arab of the town, dwells the Arab of the desert and the tent. In the same manner the natives of North America, when left to themselves, differed upon certain points. In the basin of the Rio del Norte, and beyond it, side by side with the urban and agricultural inhabitants of thepueblos, dwelt nomad and hunting tribes. The latter sometimes pillaged the former, but they did not the less recognise the kinship existing between them.
What here took place spontaneously still takes place under the pressure of the White. Is there anything strange in this? In every case when the half of a nation transforms its social condition, we cannot draw our conclusion from the backwardness of the other half, and say that it would beincapable of doing so as a whole. We might, with equal reason, maintain that a great number of Europeans were incapable of learning to read.
There remain the Australians.
I approach this subject very unwillingly. In no part of the globe has the White shown himself so merciless towards inferior races as in Australia; nowhere has he so audaciously calumniated those whom he has plundered and exterminated. In his opinion, the Australians are not evenmen. They are beings “in whom are combined all the worst characters which mankind could present, at many of which, monkeys, their congeners, would blush.” (Butler Earp.) Noble minds have doubtless protested against these terrible words, addressed to convicts who were about to seek their fortunes in Australia; but what could be expected of them when every evil passion was called forth and supported by similar arguments, which, again, rested upon assertions given as scientific? The result of these experiences in Australia and Tasmania is well known; and those who wish for further information have only to consult travellers of every country, Darwin as well as Petit-Thouars.
To maintain at the present day that the Australians are what Bory de Saint-Vincent and the anthropologists of that school endeavoured to prove them to be, is to deny unquestionable facts established by travellers of every description. This race has no more shown itself to be absolutely savage than any other human race. It organised the family and divided the tribe and nation into trueclans, the account of which is still extant. The Australians, more advanced upon this point than the Tahitians, understood the division of land amongst themselves, and the fixed limits agreed upon were religiously respected, except in time of war. I shall speak about their religious and moral characters at another time. We have here only to consider their intellectual characters, and I shall only add that these savages possessed villages of from 800 to 1000 inhabitants, that they knew how to hollow out canoes, and made nets for hunting and fishing, whichwere sometimes 80 feet long and of sufficient strength to resist the struggles of a kangaroo.
It will, however, be objected that all this does not constitute a well advanced social condition. Granted; but are the Australians incapable, as it has so often been said, and as it still is asserted, of raising themselves above this condition?
We have only to consult the writings of Dawson, who made a kind of farmers out of these savages, those of Salvado, who found them to be both devoted and useful workmen, those of Blosseville, declaring that he thought himself fortunate to be able to turn to them when thegold feverrobbed him of European hands, and we shall be convinced of the inaccuracy of the assertions made on the subject of the radical incapacity of the Australians. Finally, if we still retain some feeling of doubt, we need only look back upon those tribes which were settled andcivilizedby William Buckley, the deserter, and we shall be forced to allow that the faculty of raising themselves above their past condition exists among the Australians as among other human populations.
XIII. There are two causes which tend to lead us into error when we are dealing with the question of the appreciation of the social condition of races.
The first arises from the manner in which we regard, as a whole, the population to which we belong. The offspring of instructed and civilized classes, we forget that part of the nation which we left so far behind, which doubtless profits by the work of the intelligent classes, but does not follow them at all, or but very little, in the path of progress. There is not a country in Europe where numbers of facts, justifying what I have briefly stated here, may not be met with. If Lubbock had taken more notice of the facts around him, he would most certainly have modified many conclusions in his book.
The other cause proceeds from our pride of race, from the prejudices of our education, which altogether prevent us from going to the root of the matter, and from recognising extremeresemblances, almost identities, if they are in the least degree obscured by the slightest difference of forms or words. It was a long time before the resemblance was observed between the organisation of the Maories and that of the ancient Scotch. And yet if we deduct anthropophagy from the one people and from the other all that it has borrowed from the neighbouring nations, we shall be forced to admit that at the period when Cook visited the New Zealanders, the latter offered strange points of resemblance to the Highlanders of Rob Roy and Mac Ivor. As to theChildren of the Mist, akin to the other Scotch clans, were they much above the Australian tribes?
We must conclude, therefore, that civilization, with improvements and learning of every kind, is an exceptional fact, even in the midst of a most privileged people, and that upon their own territory they have had, and still have, their savage representatives. We must add that this fact is exhibited in different degrees among yellow and black tribes. Lastly, in reflecting upon our past history, we must avoid denying to other races aptitudes, which remained latent for centuries in our ancestors before they were developed, and which are still in the same condition in too many of our fellow-countrymen, and of our contemporaries.
XIV. In his remarkable work uponOrigins of Civilization, Sir John Lubbock admits that the “primitive condition of man was a state ofabsolute barbarism.” But he does not say what he means by this expression. Have there indeed ever been men living for centuries in the state depicted in Chinese traditions, men acknowledging no law, destitute of industry, ignorant of the use of fire, abandoning their dead without sepulture, living in trees...? There is every reason to doubt it, for all established facts protest against this conclusion.
Whenever it has been possible to attain even a slight knowledge of the life of savage tribes, they have been found subject to laws, which, although not written, are still rigorously observed. This fact is proclaimed by Lubbock himself.True, these laws may often appear to us iniquitous or barbarous, but sometimes there is, even in their severities towards certain classes of the population, a trace of the most just and praiseworthy sentiments. We cannot indeed approve of theAustralian codeas regards the enactions which make a miserable slave of the woman; the privileges which it reserves to the chiefs are perhaps excessive; but how can we help being struck when we see it grant to age the same advantages as to rank. Respect for old age was a feature in the manners of the Spartans which met with the admiration of the Athenians; we may well recognise its value in the Australians.
Mention has sometimes been made of races or populationsdwelling in trees, such as the Orang-Kubus, certain Blacks of New Guinea, etc. They have been described as making their homes in trees after the manner of monkeys. Earle has reduced these exaggerations to their true value. He has shown that upon certain coasts, lined with a belt of mangroves, it is easier to walk upon the crowded, interlaced branches, than to force a passage along the network of aërial roots plunging into a bed of mud. He saw European sailors several times, with their muskets slung, passing over marshes of this nature in single file, in the same way as the Indians. We see, therefore, that it is not at all necessary to be absolutely savage and nearly allied to monkeys to travel in this manner.
The Tasmanians, as good an example of a nomad people as it would be possible to mention, only erected temporary shelters, and yet they burnt their dead, and raised to them mausoleums of branches and bark, which have been described and figured by Péron. I have just remarked that the Australians had their institutions and their industries. Undoubtedly in Tasmania and Australia man is exhibited with the smallest amount of human development. And yet we nowhere observe thatabsolute barbarismwhich is apparently admitted by the learned Englishman.
However far we go back into our past history we shallmeet with similar facts. The little that we know of tertiary man shews him to be in possession of fire and the art of cutting flints. He already has his industries, and this fact alone proves that his mode of life was different to that of the brute.
It could not be otherwise. Whatever the cause may have been which determined the appearance of man upon the surface of the globe, he has, from the first, always been in possession of his specific nature. He has had from the outset his intelligence and his aptitudes which, though at that time in a torpid and slumbering state, were ready to start into life under the spur of necessity. To procure nourishment and to defend himself against the external world, he could only have recourse to them, and the smallest manifestations of these superior faculties have of necessity traced from the commencement a line of demarcation between him and the brute.
XV. The intelligence and the aptitudes of man have manifested themselves in a thousand ways, which may be included under the general name ofindustries. Pacific or warlike, relating to the individual or to the whole population, they very often differ in different races, in different peoples, sometimes almost in different tribes. The greater number may consequently be considered as so manycharactersby which the different groups of the human species may be distinguished. It will, however, at once be understood that questions of this nature can only be discussed in a detailed history, and I must here confine myself to stating one of those general facts which, by themselves, are sufficient to separate man from animals.
The latter have only physical wants which they satisfy as completely as possible. But, this end once attained, they go no further. The animal, when left to itself, does not know, or has scarcely a suspicion, of the superfluous. His wants are, therefore, always the same.
Man, on the contrary, whether the mind or the body is in question, is always seeking the superfluous, often at the expense of utility, sometimes to the detriment of the necessary.The result is that his wants increase from day to day. The luxury of the evening becomes the indispensable of the morrow.
This fact is just as true with regard to the savages as to civilized peoples. We must, then, consider it as one of those characters which belong to the very nature of beings. Regarded systematically from this point of view, man might be defined as ananimal requiring the superfluous, with just as much reason as he has been called areasoning animal.
Moralists have at all times severely blamed this tendency and condemned those insatiable appetites which are always asking for more and for what they do not possess. I cannot share this view. Far from blaming in principle that which essentially is but thedesire for the better, I cannot but see in it one of the noblest attributes of man. Thisfacultyis, in reality, one of the most important causes of his greatness. When men are once fully satisfied and have no more wants, they will come to a standstill, andprogress, that great and sacred law of mankind, will come to a standstill also.
In reality, it is the want of the superfluous which has developed all our industries, which has engendered the arts and sciences without which many races and nations, and, even among ourselves, whole populations exist perfectly well. We must therefore, with every reservation as to wrong applications, accept it in the first place as a fact, in the second as a benefit.