I. An eminent man may draw incorrect conclusions from the existence of centres of appearance without their existence being any the less real. Unconnected with animal or vegetable centres, the human races might have their own; man might have come into existence wherever we meet with him. But, before we accept this original cosmopolitanism, we must assure ourselves that it subjects man to general laws. Now we shall see that this hypothesis is, on the contrary, at variance with all general facts presented by plants as well as animals.
II. Let us first prove that no animal or vegetable species inhabits, as man does, almost the entire globe.
The assertion of Ad. de Candolle could not be more precise as far as plants are concerned. “No phanerogamous plant,” he says, “is distributed over the entire surface of the earth. There are only eighteen whose area extends to half the globe. No tree or shrub figures among these plants, which are so widely distributed.” This latter remark belongs to an order of considerations which we shall meet with again.
Being unable to enter into an examination of all the facts which are offered by the various classes of the Animal Kingdom from this point of view, I shall confine myself to a few details upon birds and mammals.
We should expect to find the former presenting very extensive areas of habitation by reason of their mode of locomotion. It is, in fact, among them that we find some of thespecies which most deserve the epithet of cosmopolitan. They do not, however, equal man in this respect.
The stock-dove, the parent stock of our domestic pigeon, extends from the south of Norway to Madeira and Abyssinia, from the Shetland Islands to Borneo and Japan; but it does not reach as far as either the equator or the polar circle; and it is wanting both in America and Polynesia.
The fulvous vulture is found in all the temperate regions of the old world, crosses the equator in Africa and descends as far as the Cape. But we do not meet with it either in our polar regions, in America or in Polynesia.
The peregrine falcon has perhaps of all animals the widest area. It is found in America, as also in all the warm or temperate regions of the old world. It is supposed to exist in Australia, but we do not meet with it either in Polynesia or in the polar regions.
Among mammals, whales, on account of their immense powers of locomotion and the continuity of seas, would seem to be adapted to true cosmopolitanism. This, however, is not the case. They are almost all confined within relatively very limited areas, and rarely pass beyond their customary boundaries. Commodore Maury regarded the equatorial sea as forming an invincible obstacle to their passage from one hemisphere to the other. Two exceptions have, however, been observed to this rule. A rorqual (Megaptera longimana) and aSibaldius laticepsare said to have crossed this barrier, and to have passed from our seas to those of the Cape and of Java. These exceptions might easily be explained by various accidental circumstances. Supposing however we were to accept them as testifying an exceptional relative cosmopolitanism, we still have the fact that they have never been met with in the Pacific Ocean.
With the exception of whales, we shall find nothing at all resembling cosmopolitanism. Setting aside the whole of Oceania, we only find, as common to both the Old and the New World, two or three ruminants, perhaps a bear, a fox and a wolf. All these species are, moreover, more or lesspolar, and are wanting in the central regions of the two worlds. Finally, there is not one species of cheiroptera or quadrumana which is indigenous both in America and the Old World.
Beyond those species which man has disseminated by making them follow his migrations, animals and plants evidently occupy their natural area, wherein lies the centre from which they have spread. We see that even after this dispersion none of them have acquired an area of habitation which can be compared to that of man.
The admission that the human species appeared in every place in which it is found, attributing to it an original cosmopolitanism, would make it a solitary exception in contradiction to the facts presented by all other species. An hypothesis which leads to such a conclusion should be rejected as irreconcilable with the results of observation. If man is now to be found everywhere, it is owing to his intelligence and industry.
III. This conclusion is forced even upon polygenists themselves; unless, indeed, they would reject, as inapplicable to man, the laws of zoological and botanical geography.
In fact, to whatever extent they may have multiplied their human species, they have been obliged, upon even the slightest study of natural history, to unite them into a single genus. Now, all that has just been said ofspeciesapplies equally togenera. The area of habitation is doubtless increased, and, for example, some genera of cetaceans, as dolphins and rorquals, are found in all seas; and amongst terrestrial mammals, some genera of ruminants and carnivora inhabit, in a greater or less degree, both the Old and the New World. But they are all absent in the greater part of Oceania.
Moreover, the higher the types, the fewer is the number of these genera of widely extended areas. Cheiroptera, which are not provided with a nasal membrane, have some genera common to both the Old and the New World. This is no longer the case in cheiroptera, in which the nose is providedwith a membrane. There is not a single genus among them, any more than among quadrumana, which inhabits both America and the Old World.
Consequently, polygenists must admit that the species of which theirhuman genusis composed could not have come into existence in every place where man is now found, unless they wish to make a striking exception of thishuman genus.
IV. Should we wish to regard the human races as forming afamilycomposed of severalgenera, or even as anordercomprising severalfamilies, the same difficulties would present themselves.
Setting aside the marsupials and edentata, to which we shall return, it is true that the great normal orders of terrestrial mammals, the ruminants, rodents, insectivora, and carnivora are almost as cosmopolitan as man. But this is no longer the case with the cheiroptera, not one of which passes the polar circle. As to the quadrumana, it is well-known that they are wanting in Europe, with the exception of the Rock of Gibraltar, in North America and in the greater part of Asia and Oceania. Thus it appears that, even in the extreme hypothesis which I have here indicated, it would not be in the animal types which present the greatest resemblance to man, but among the carnivora or ruminants that we should be forced to seek for geographical analogies in favour of the pretended cosmopolitanism of thehuman order.
V. This limitation of the areas of habitation of animals, which is evidently related to their degree of elevation in the scale of beings, is a general fact which we also meet with in plants. On this point Ad. de Candolle speaks as follows:—“The mean area of species is smaller according as the class to which they belong has a more complete, a more highly developed, or, in other words, a more perfect organisation.”
Theprogressive localisationof organised beings, increasing in degree as they become more perfect, is, then, a general law. Physiology will readily account for this fact.
The perfection of organisms is the result of division of labour, which demands the multiplication of functional apparatus. As the anatomical instruments become more numerous and special, the functions do the same. From this cause alone the conditions of harmony between the living being and the conditions of life which surround it become more and more definite. Consequently, the animal or the plant only finds its really favourable conditions in a constantly diminishing area. Beyond these limits the conditions of life change, the struggle for existence becomes more hazardous, and the spread of the species, genus, family, or even order is arrested. Man alone, armed against the conditions of life by hisintelligenceandindustry, is capable of overcoming conditions of existence which would be an impassable barrierto his material organisation.
The law of progressive localisation is in direct opposition to the doctrine of the original cosmopolitanism of the human species. In putting it aside, polygenists, properly so called, might draw attention to the diffusion of the genera of dolphins and rorquals; polygenistic monogenists of the school of Agassiz might argue from the facts mentioned above in connection with the genera of megaptera and sibaldius; they might both say: The general law of localisation offers two exceptions; why should not man form a third?
The analogy, it is clear, is fundamentally wrong. Dolphins, rorquals and sibaldius belong to the lowest order of mammals; man, even if his body alone is considered, belongs incontestably to the highest order. Unless we make him a solitary exception, it is to the laws of the superior groups that he should be subject, and not to those of the inferior.
Thus, we are so far justified in affirming that man could not have been originally cosmopolitan. But we can go further.
VI. Without having come into existence in every place where we now meet with him, man may have had several centres of appearance. Let us examine this latter question.The laws of progressive localisation and the characterisation of centres enable us both to put the question and to solve it.
Let us re-examine from this point of view the animal groups, setting aside all inferior groups and confining our attention to anthropoid apes. In this family, which most closely resembles man in its organisation, there are degrees also. The law of progressive localisation applies to this limited group equally with the entire kingdom.
We meet with the entire family in Asia, in the peninsula of Malacca, in Assam to 26° N. Lat., in Sumatra, Java, Borneo and in the Philippine Islands; in Eastern Africa from 10° S. to 15° N. Lat. The gibbon genus, however, which is the lowest, is the only one which occupies the whole of Asia. The orang is confined to Borneo and Sumatra. In Africa the chimpanzee extends almost from the Zaïre to Senegal; the gorilla has only been found on the Gaboon, and perhaps in Ashantee. Were he to occupy all the space which is still left blank upon that part of our maps by travellers, his area of habitation would even then be very limited. Thus, the higher the anthropoid type, the more limited the area of habitation.
If we consider the material organism alone, the human type is incontestably superior to that of the orang or gorilla. He must then have been originally localised just as much as these animal types. It will perhaps be objected that the great apes are gradually disappearing, and that the few survivors do no more than show that they once existed in greater numbers. This would be an entirely gratuitous hypothesis having no foundation in facts, and we shall at least be permitted to reply, that the gorilla and the orang might very well have continued to exist in those places where the chimpanzee and gibbon are still living. Now, what are the areas occupied by the latter compared with the human area?
VII. I have, as yet, neglected exceptional types, such as the marsupials, the edentata, the makis, etc.; I did not wish to argue from aberrant forms; I confined myself to demonstratingthelawsin action in species of a so-called normal organisation. Aberrant types have, however, a very high value, and furnish us with further instruction.
These types almost always characterise either the great centres of appearance, or the secondary centres or geographical regions. Not to mention mammals, I must remind my readers that Australia has its marsupials; South Australia, the ornithorynchus; polar America, the musk-ox; central America, the edentata; Africa, the giraffe; Asia, the yak; the Cape, the gnu; Madagascar, the makis and aye-aye; the Gaboon, the gorilla, etc.
Man, also, is evidently an exceptional or aberrant type among mammals. He, alone, is constructed for a vertical position; he, alone, has true hands and feet; he, alone, exhibits the highest degree of cerebral development, and possesses that superiority of intelligence which makes him master of all around him.
To allow that the human type, though the most perfect of all types, the exceptional genus in the midst of all others, has come into existence in several centres of appearance without characterising any, would be to make him a solitary exception.
However strong may be our polygenistic tendencies, and however many species we may admit, we cannot help acknowledging that the original localisation of the human genus in a single centre of appearance and the characterisation of this centre by him are the logical consequence of all the facts attested by zoological geography.
With still greater reason the monogenists will consider the privileged species which predominates over all others as one of those special types which characterise the centre, or the region in which they have appeared, as the ornithorynchus, the aye-aye, and the gnu characterise South Australia, Madagascar and the Cape.
Finally, the laws of zoological geography lead us to consider the human species as unmistakably characteristic of a single centre of appearance. Moreover, they justify us in concludingthat this centre cannot have been of greater extent than that of the gorilla and the orang.
VIII. Is it possible to go still farther and to endeavour to determine the geographical position of the human centre of appearance? I cannot here enter into the details of this problem. I shall confine myself to determining its meaning, and to indicating the probable solutions of it from the data of science of the present time.
I must observe, in the first place, that in considering an animal or vegetable species, even those whose area is most circumscribed, no one thinks of trying to discover the precise spot upon which it may have first appeared. There is always something very vague in such a determination and it is necessarily approximative. It is still more difficult when the species in question is of universal distribution. Within these limits we are justified in at least forming conjectures which, as such, have a certain amount of probability.
The question presents very different aspects according as we confine ourselves to the present or take into consideration the geological antiquity of man. Nevertheless, the facts are of the same order and seem to indicate two extremes. The truth lies, perhaps, between the two.
We know that in Asia there is a vast region bounded on the south and south-west by the Himalayas, on the west by the Bolor mountains, on the north-west by the Ala-Tau, on the north by the Altai range and its offshoots, on the east by the Kingkhan, on the south and south-east by the Felina and Kuen-Loun. Judging from the present state of things, this great central region might be regarded as having contained the cradle of the human species.
In fact, the three fundamental types of all the human races are represented in the populations grouped round this region. The black races are the furthest removed from it, but have, nevertheless, marine stations, where we find them either pure or as mixed races, from the Kioussiou to the Andaman Islands. Upon the continent they have intermixedwith almost every inferior caste and class of the two peninsulas of the Ganges; they are still found pure in both, ascend as high as Nepaul, and extend west as far as the Persian Gulf and Lake Zareh, according to Elphinstone.
The yellow race, either pure or in places mixed with white elements, seems to be the only one which occupies the space in question; it peoples all the north, east, south-east, and west. In the south it is more mixed, but forms, nevertheless, an important element in the population.
The white race, from its allophylian representatives, seems to have disputed the central area itself with the yellow race. In early times, we find the Yu-tchi and the Ou-soun to the north of the Hoang-ho; and in the present day cases of white populations have been observed in Little Thibet and in Eastern Thibet. The Miao-Tsé occupy the mountain region of China; the Siaputh are proof against all attack in the gorges of the Bolor. Upon the confines of the area we meet with the Aïnos and the Japanese of high caste, the Tinguianes of the Phillippine Islands; in the south with the Hindoos. In the south-west and west the white element, either pure or mixed, reigns supreme.
No other region of the globe presents a similar union of extreme human types distributed round a common centre. This fact, alone is sufficient to suggest to the mind of the naturalist the conjecture which I have expressed above; but we may appeal to other considerations.
One of the most important is drawn from philology. The three fundamental forms of human language are found in the same countries and under similar relations. In the centre, and south-east of our area, the monosyllabic languages are represented by those of China, Cochinchina, Siam and Thibet. As agglutinative languages, we find in the north-east and north-west the group of Ougro-Japanese, in the south that of the Dravidian and Malay, and in the west the Turkish languages. Lastly, Sanscrit with its derivatives, and the Iranian languages represent in the south and south-west the inflectional languages.
It is to the linguistic types gathered round the central region of Asia that all human languages must be referred; whether from their vocabulary or their grammar, some of these Asiatic languages bear a close resemblance to languages spoken in regions often very distant, or separated from the area in question by entirely different languages. We know that several philologists, M. Maury among others, establish an intimate connection between the Dravidian languages and Australian idioms, and that M. Picot has discovered numbers of Aryan words in our oldest European languages.
Finally, it is from Asia again that our earliest domesticated animals are derived. Isidore Geoffroy is entirely agreed with Dureau de la Malle upon this point.
Thus, the present epoch alone considered, everything points to this great central plateau, or rather to this great enclosure. There, we are inclined to say, the first human beings appeared and multiplied till the populations overflowed as from a bowl and spread themselves in human waves in every direction.
IX. Palæontological studies have, however, very recently led to results which are capable of modifying these primary conclusions. MM. Heer and de Saporta have informed us that in the Tertiary period Siberia and Spitzbergen were covered with plants, indicating a temperate climate. MM. Murchison, Keyserlink, de Verneuil, and d’Archiac tell us that, during the same period, thebarren-landsof our day supported large herbivorous animals, such as the reindeer, the mammoth, and the tichorhine rhinoceros. All these animals made their appearance at the commencement of the Quaternary period. It seems to me that they did not come alone.
I have said above that the discoveries of M. l’Abbé Bourgeois testify, in my opinion, to the existence of atertiary man. But everything seems to show that as yet his representatives were but few in number. The Quaternary populations, on the contrary, were, at least in distribution, quite as numerous as the life of the hunter permitted. Are we justified in imagining that during the Tertiary period manlived in polar Asia side by side with those species which I have just mentioned, and that he supported himself by hunting them as he afterwards did in France? The fall of temperature compelled the animals to migrate southwards; man must have followed them to find a milder climate, and to be within reach of his customary game. Their simultaneous arrival in our climates and the apparently sudden multiplication of man would thus be easily explained.
The centre of human appearance might then be carried considerably to the north of the region I have just been discussing. Perhaps prehistoric archæology or palæontology will some day confirm or confute this conjecture.
However this may be, no facts have as yet been discovered which authorise us to place the cradle of the human race elsewhere than in Asia. There are none which lead us to seek the origin of man in hot regions either of existing continents, or of one which has disappeared. This view, which has been frequently expressed, rests entirely upon the belief that the climate of the globe was the same at the time of the appearance of man as it is now. Modern science has taught us that this is an error. From that time there is nothing against our first ancestors having found favourable conditions of existence in northern Asia, which is indicated by so many facts borrowed from the history of man, and from that of animals and plants.