On the Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo

Significations of the words race and type

The word race has thus, in the language of authors, two very different significations; one is particular and exact, the other general and misleading. Taken in the first sense, it designates individuals sufficiently resembling each other, that we may, without prejudging their origin, and without deciding whether they are the issues of one or several primitive couples, admit, if necessary, as theoretically possible, that they have descended from common parents. Such are, for instance, among the white races, the Arabs, the Basques, the Celts, the Kimris, the Germans, the Berbers, etc.; and among the black races, the Ethiopian Negroes, the Caffres, the Tasmanians, Australians, Papuans, etc.

In the second, that is to say, in a general sense, the term race designates the ensemble of all such individuals who have a certain number of characters in common, and who, though differing in other characters, and divided, perhaps, in an indefinite number of natural groups or races, have to each other a greater morphological affinity than they have with the rest of mankind.

Every confusion in words exposes us to errors in the interpretation of facts, and this rather long digression in relation to the origin of a denomination, borrowed by certain polygenists from the language of monogenists, enables us to understand the denial of the existence of mixed races, and why Prichard could only oppose to this idea the doubtful and fictitious examples of the Cafusos, the Griquas, and the mop-headed Papuans.

If, indeed, it were true that there are only five races of men on the globe, and if it were capable of demonstration that either of them, in mixing with another, produced eugenesic Mulattos capable of constituting a mixed race enduring by itself, without the ulterior concurrence of the parent races, the embarrassment would not yet be at an end. After having succeeded to establish such a demonstration for two of the chief races, it would by no means necessarily result that the intercrossings of the nine other combinations are eugenesic like the first. We should then be obliged to prove (what is evidently impracticable), by ten successive examples, that the ten possible intercrossings between the five fundamental races are all equally and completely prolific. The difficulty is such, that Dr. Prichard, after much research, could only find the three instances already cited and refuted. These facts having proved inconclusive, and other facts which we shall mention presently having induced the theory that certain intermixtures are imperfectly prolific, the pentagenists were led to the opinion that the possibility of a definitive intermixture of races is by no means established, and that, on the contrary, this possibility may be denied.

The pentagenists occupied themselves at first chiefly with the intermixture of the five chief races; but even from this point of view, and taking the term race in a general sense, their negation, though, it must be admitted, far from being justifiable, is still founded upon a more solid basis, and less removed from the truth than the opposed affirmation. Hence it was considered valuable ad interim. But the principle of non-intermixture of races being once promulgated, the confusion of terms soon became apparent. The negation which was at first applied merely to the artificial groups formed by the reunion of races of the same type was applied to natural races, and thus arose that frightful proposition, that no mixed races can subsist in humanity.

It is noteworthy how this excessive and exclusive theory differs from the first, which it has displaced. There is such a gap between the starting point and the conclusion, that it could never have been cleared had not the ambiguous term race concealed the distance. The fact is established that affinities of organisation may exercise some influence on the results of crossing. In studying the phenomena of hybridity in quadrupeds and birds, we have already stated that homœogenesis, without being always proportionate to the degree of the proximity of species, decreases ordinarily in comparison with more removed animals, and that probability induces us to expect similar phenomena in the intermixture of human beings. But what have been the bases of the monogenists and of the pentagenists in forming the five ethnological groups, which constitute the five fundamental races? Why have all Caucasian races been united by them in one family, and called by them the white or the Caucasian race? It has been already stated because the races with a skin more or less white possess between themselves a greater affinity than with any of the other races. In other terms, the zoological distance is less between Celts, Germans, Kimris, etc., compared with that existing between them and the Negroes, Caffres, Lapps, Australians, Malays, etc.

Supposing now that it has been demonstrated – which it has not – that the races of any group can never engender a durable and permanent line by an intermixture with any of the others, can we infer from this that the races of the same group are equally incapable of producing by their intermixture mongrels indefinitely prolific? Just as little as the sterility of the union between the dog and the fox would enable us to infer the sterility between the wolf and the dog; these conclusions would be as little physiological as the former. Such as deny the fecundity of the reciprocal cross-breeds of the five chief primary races might err in some points, and be right as to others. But those who extend this by far too general negation in applying it to the intermixture of secondary races of the same group commit a more serious error. They have reasoned like the monogenists, who knowing from experience that certain human races may become mixed without limitation, have affirmed that all the races, without exception, are in a similar condition. There obtains thus a strange contradiction in these two schools; the one maintains resolutely that all races may intermix, and that their offspring and their descendants will be as prolific as if they were of a pure race, whilst the second as firmly sustains that no mixed race can have any other but an ephemeral existence.

Between these opposite assertions we may well ask where lies the truth? Facts must answer the question. We shall endeavour to examine a few. Some of the facts are in favour of the monogenists, others support the opinion of their adversaries, from which we shall be enabled to infer that in the genus homo, as in the genera of their mammalia, there are different degrees of homœogenesis, according to the races or species; that the cross-breeds of certain races are perfectly eugenesic; that others occupy a less elevated position in the series of hybridity; and finally, that there are human races the homœogenesis of which is still so obscure, that the results even of the first intermixture are still doubtful.

SECTION II

OF EUGENESIC HYBRIDITY IN MANKIND

If the opinion I wish to combat were not supported by authors of If, perhaps, be superfluous to demonstrate that there exists in the human species eugenesic hybrids. Most of the readers of these pages must reconcile themselves to this qualification, for assuredly men of a pure race are very rare in the country they inhabit. Nothing is, in fact, more clear than that many modern nations, to commence with the French, have been formed by the intermixture of two or more races. My excellent teacher, Gerdy,¹⁶ has devoted a long chapter, in his Physiology, to this subject, and has, after great research, arrived at the conclusion that all, or nearly all, actual races have been crossed more than once, and that the primitive types of mankind, altered and modified by so many crossings, are no longer represented upon the earth. There is here much exaggeration: for there are races who, by a peculiar geographical situation, and the prejudices of caste or religion, have remained in a state of purity; and on the other hand, as M. P. Bérard¹⁷ remarks, it is not sufficient for the production of a mongrel race, that two groups of different races should become allied and fused. If in either of the groups there exists too great a numerical inequality, the mongrels resume, after the lapse of a few generations, nearly all the traits of the more numerous race, and are fused in it. It is for this reason that, despite of numerous crossings, many races have preserved all their characters from remote antiquity. I have already had occasion to observe that the Fellahs of present Egypt are exactly like the figures represented upon the Pharaonic epoch.¹⁸ No country has, however, been so frequently conquered as Egypt, which from Cambyses to Mehemet-Ali, for more than twenty-three centuries has been governed and oppressed by peoples of foreign races, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, and Mamelukes. The Macedonian colonies, founded by Alexander and his successors, soon lost their ethnological character.¹⁹ Southern Italy has not preserved the impress of the Norman race. It would be vain to search in Asia Minor for the descendants of the Gauls with fair hair,²⁰ who once established themselves in Galatia; and though the Visigoths possessed Spain for more than two centuries, and have never been expelled from it, and we may without exaggeration compute the number of the conquerors at several hundred thousand, and though their blood, mitigated by intermixture, runs to this day in the veins of an immense number of Spaniards, the latter have preserved no trace of their Germanic origin.

But when the intermixture of races is effected in nearly equal proportions, or if it be the result, not of one invasion, but of a constant and abundant immigration, the case is altogether different, and the fusion of the ethnological elements gives rise to a hybrid population, in which the number of individuals of a pure race is constantly diminishing, so that at the termination of a few centuries the representatives of the two primitive types become the exceptions. In a long Memoir “On the Ethnology of France,” which I lately read before the Anthropological Society of Paris, I have shown to what extent intermixture may modify the physiognomy of a people. Examining in the first place the records of history on hand, the origin of the populations of our departments, and appreciating as much as possible the proportion of the elements which we find in combination; determining, also, for each region the principal and the accessory stocks, I have been enabled to find in the present French nation, in the midst of the innumerable variations of stature, complexion, hair, eyes, cephalic shapes, etc., which may everywhere be expected in mixed races; I have been able to detect, I repeat, the characters of these different races, and to recognise the more or less marked and dominant impress of the Celts, Kimris, Romans, and Germans. I was even enabled, on the statistics of recruiting, to give to my inquiries, in regard to stature, a rigorous precision. I cannot in this place enter into any details: I am obliged to refer the reader to the Memoir, which is published by the Anthropological Society. In point of fact, it was merely because eminent men have for some years doubted the existence of eugenesic hybridity in mankind, that it became necessary to demonstrate so evident a proposition, that the population of France in at least nineteen-twentieths of our territory, presents in unequal degrees the characters of mixed races.

This single example might suffice; but I have no doubt that by examining in a similar manner the historical origin and the actual condition of the peoples of Northern Italy, Southern Germany, Great Britain – not to speak of the United States, where the fusion of blood is probably inexplicable – it might be demonstrated with equal certainty, that these different races have given birth, by their intermixture, to ethnological modifications still recognisable. In all these countries is the instability of anthropological characters in contrast with the fixity which is the mark of pure races; and we might say, without fear of error, that the greater part of Western Europe is inhabited by mixed races.

Moreover, the authors who have denied the existence of mixed races, have not denied that there are in Europe and elsewhere, numerous vivacious populations, formed by the intermixture of two or several distinct races. They merely asserted that mongrel breeds, whatever their origin, were necessarily inferior in reference to fecundity to individuals of pure blood, and that their direct descendants would become extinct after a few generations, unless they contracted new alliances with the mother races, or at least with one of them. If we object to this, that the mixed populations possess everywhere, as those of France and Great Britain, a vitality and fecundity which leaves nothing to be desired, they reply that this proves nothing; that the cross breeds are prolific in a collateral line, as is observed in cases of paragenesic hybridity, and they add that two cases may present themselves:

1. If among the two primitive races these obtain a very large numerical inequality, the predominant race soon absorbs the other. After two or three generations, the less numerous race counts scarcely one representative, and the cross-breeds are fused in the more numerous race. The latter thus returns to a state of original purity. The mixed race has only a transitory duration, and leaves no trace of its existence.

2. If, on the contrary, the two races, though numerically unequal, are in sufficient proportion that neither can absorb the other, both persist indefinitely beside each other upon the same soil. The hybrid race which they engender, seems also to persist indefinitely; but only in appearance, for they constantly intermarry with the pure races, while the latter marry between themselves. The mixed race gains thus, in every generation, a contingent equal to what it loses, those which represent it at present are not the descendants of those who represented the mixed race five or six generations back. It is not maintained by itself: existing only under the condition of being sustained by the races from which it is issued, and if there arrived a time when it is completely isolated from these two races, and reduced to its own forces, it would necessarily become extinct after a few generations.

I might urge some objection against the first point, for it does not seem to me to be demonstrated, that in a mixture of very unequal proportions, the less numerous race exercises no influence upon the other race. I acknowledge, however, that this influence, if it exists, is sufficiently slight to be set aside.

The second point is much more serious, for if accepted without restriction, we must admit that eugenesic hybridity does not exist in mankind, and that all cross-breeds, whatever their origin, whether they are issued from nearly approaching or distant races, not merely the descendants of whites and negroes, but also of Celts and Kimris, are incapable of engendering a durable posterity. For my part, I believe that such is actually the case with certain mongrel-breeds; I believe that in the genus Homo, there are very unequal degrees of eugenesic hybridity; but after having recognised that eugenesic hybridity does exist between dog and wolf, hare and rabbit, goat and sheep, camel and dromedary, I am permitted to say that it also exists between certain races of men.

Among the facts quoted to prove the sterility of human cross-breeds, some are of great value: and we shall examine them in the sequel; others have been wrongly interpreted, while some are far from being exact. I have already pointed out a cause of error which was not taken into account, and which occurs frequently: it is the change of climate which alone is capable of sterilising a race transplanted into the midst of another race. Before attributing a defect of fecundity to the mixed descendants of an immigrant race, we must see whether in the same country the individuals of this race are more prolific in their direct alliances. It is known, for instance, that the Mamelukes, originating from the region of the Caucasus, have never taken root in Egypt, where, nevertheless, from 1250, the epoch of their advent, until 1811, the period of their extermination, their caste has always formed a notable part of the population. They could only maintain themselves by reinforcements which they annually received from the native country, and though not half a century has elapsed since the great massacre of Cairo, there remains no trace of them on the borders of the Nile. Such being the fact, it was concluded therefrom, that the descendants of the Mamelukes and the Egyptians were hybrids of little or no fecundity. Gliddon has thus interpreted it, and Pouchet has accepted that interpretation.²¹ This, however, is not the real cause of the sterility of the Mamelukes in Egypt, and Volney, who, towards the end of the last century, has carefully observed and studied this race, offers the following remarks on them: “Seeing that they have existed in Egypt for centuries, one would be apt to believe that they have reproduced themselves by the ordinary process of breeding; but if their first settlement is a curious fact, their perpetuation is not less so. For five centuries there have been Mamelukes in Egypt, yet not one of them has left a subsisting line: there exists not one family of the second generation, all their children perish in the first or second generation. The Ottomans are nearly in the same condition, and it is observed that they only preserve themselves from the same fate by marrying indigenous females – what the Mamelukes have always disdained. (The wives of the Mamelukes were, like their slaves, imported from Georgia, Mongrelia, etc.) Let it now be explained why well formed men, married to healthy women, cannot naturalise on the borders of the Nile a blood formed at the foot of the Caucasus! We are at the same time reminded that European plants equally refuse to perpetuate their species in that locality.”²² Despite the precision of this passage, many Mamelukes no doubt took wives and numerous concubines from the indigenous population. It is difficult to believe that it could have been otherwise, and Gliddon had a right to say, that if the offspring of the two races had been prolific, there would inevitably have been produced in Egypt a mixed race. But the fact revealed by Volney, which is perfectly authentic, still maintains its force, namely, that the Mamelukes, by the simple fact of change of country, had lost the power of engendering with the women of their own race, a prolific posterity; hence, nothing proves that the sterility of their offspring depended on the influence of hybridity, but rather on the influence of climate.

It is not our purpose successively to review all particular intermixtures produced in human races, or to determine the degree of the fecundity of the hybrids resulting from it.

To demonstrate that eugenesic hybridity really exists, one instance is sufficient, provided it be conclusive; and to find this example we need not travel beyond our country. The population of France, as we have amply established elsewhere, is descended from several very distinct races, and presents everywhere the character of mixed races. The pure representatives of the primitive races form a very small minority; nevertheless, this hybrid nation, so far from decaying, in accordance with the theory of Mr. Gobineau; far from presenting a decreasing fecundity, according to some other authors, grows every day in intelligence, prosperity, and numbers. Ever since the revolution has broken the last obstacle which opposed themselves to the mixture of races, and despite of the gigantic wars which during twenty-five years mowed down the élite of its male population, France has seen the number of its inhabitants increase by more than one-third; this is not a symptom of decay. Dr. Knox, in his curious essay on the Races of Men (London, 1850), has thought proper to utter, in relation to the French, some hard truths: and also some calumnies, which we shall put to the account of his patriotism. Mr. Knox has accorded to the French nation an increasing physical prosperity, and as this side of the question is the only one which occupies us here, we might dispense with any other testimony. That learned author thought what he said about the French applied exclusively to the Celtic race; he supposed that upon our soil there were nought but pure Celts, and that the other ethnological elements have not in any degree modified the character of the old Gallic race. I have refuted this assertion at some length in my Mémoire sur l’Ethnologie de la France, and Dr. Knox,²³ in praising in his own manner the Celtic race, has not perceived that unconsciously, and contrary to his own system, he wrote the apology of a strongly mixed race. But the partisans of this system will doubtless say that, on the whole, the mixed Kimro-Celtic race, which now inhabits France, does not subsist by itself; that the two parent races, the Celts and the Kimris, one of which predominates in the north-east, the other in the north-west, the south and the centre, persist, almost pure, in their respective regions, and that the mixed race only maintains itself by recruiting themselves incessantly in these vivacious foci. My reply to this is, that the individuals perfectly representing the Celtic or Kimri type are infinitely rarer than the rest, even in the departments where history or observation demonstrates that the influence of one of these races is altogether preponderant. They are especially rare in the districts of the intermediary zone, which I have termed Kimro-Celtic, and where the two chief races have originally become intermixed in nearly equal proportions. Finally, in these latter departments, where the intermixture has been strongest, the population is neither less handsome, nor less robust or prolific than in the others. As regards the vigour of the constitution, I have consulted in the registers for recruiting the special list of exemptions on account of infirmities, that is, for other physical causes than stature. I have found that, other circumstances being equal, there are as many infirm in 1000 conscripts in the purest departments, as in the mixed districts. I cannot here dwell any longer upon this proposition, of which I have given a rigorous demonstration in my Mémoire sur l’Ethnologie de la France.

There remains now the question of fecundity. The causes which determine the increase or the decay of a population are so multifarious, and for the most part so foreign to ethnological influences, that we cannot without committing grave errors, estimate the degree of fecundity of different races, in comparing for each of them, the number of births and deaths. It appears, nevertheless, very probable that all the races are not equally prolific, and the mind easily perceives that there must be between them notable differences. It is, therefore, unnecessary that in order a mixture should be eugenesic the fecundity of the cross-breed should be absolutely equal to that of individuals of pure blood. Had it been demonstrated by strict numbers, that a mixed race, by the simple fact of intermixture breeds less rapidly than the two parent races, and were it demonstrated that it presents a greater number of cases of sporadic sterility, it would by no means result from it that this mixed race is incapable of maintaining itself and increasing by itself. The intermixture would cease to be eugenesic if the fact of sterility became sufficiently general to render the births diminishing with every new generation, so that at length the gaps caused by death could no longer be filled and the race would prove inevitably destined, sooner or later, to become extinct. Thus, even if it were demonstrated that the offspring of an intermixture between Celts and Kimris are somewhat less prolific than the ancestors of the pure races, and that the mixed populations increased less rapidly than the others; the Kimro-Celtic hybridity would not on that account cease to be eugenesic, provided the relative sterility did not descend beneath the degree when the sterility becomes absolute, that is to say, when the fecundity becomes insufficient. But the departments in which history and ethnology prove that the intermixture has been pushed to the extreme point, the population far from having diminished, has increased since the revolution, namely, since the establishment of new territorial divisions, as rapidly as in the rest of France, and it appears to me as certain that the intermixture of Kimris and Celts either between themselves, or with the Romans and Germans, constitute examples of eugenesic hybridity.

We must, however, take care not to imitate the paradoxical reasoning of our adversaries, and because some crossings of certain races are eugenesic, to conclude, à priori, that all the other intermixtures are equally so. The study of hybridity in birds and quadrupeds has taught us that we can never know with certainty, before making the experiment, what will be the result of crossing. Neither must we forget that the ethnological facts which have served us as examples apply to the intermixture of races distinct, no doubt, but nearly related in many respects. The mixture of races more distant from each other, is it equally prolific, and are the descendants eugenesic? This is the question we now intend to examine.