Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844

Very little appears to be known, at least scarcely any intimation is given in the work before us, of the proximate or final cause of these changes. Great as they are, certainly, as far as we can judge, no nisus formativus can account for the enormous horns of the Spanish sheep; nor, looking to the final cause; does there appear any reason why domestic animals should need such overgrown instruments of defence. When, however, we come to the more important anatomical modifications, such as the length and shape of the legs, the bones of the pelvis or of the jaw, the object is more apparent. A greyhound, with the muzzle of a bull-dog, would be an obvious natural inconsistency.

We now pass to the physical distinctions of the different races of men. Here we may observe that a much greater importance is to be attached to comparatively slight variations. Considering the surprising external differences that exist in domesticated animals of the same species, the wonder rather is, that the different races of men differ physically so little as they do, than that they differ so much. Here we will take first, the least important shades of difference—the texture of the skin, hair, and complexion; and then pass on to the more prominent diversities of the bony fabric, cranium, &c.

“The texture of the body, in which all these varieties have their seat, is the extracorial or exodermal structure, constituting, if I may so speak, the outer coating of the body, external to the true skin, which corresponds to the cuticular and corneous excrescences of animals—a structure which includes horns, hoofs, hair, feathers, and all similar appendages in different orders of animals. This structure displays infinite diversities in colour, constitution, and organization, and is the most variable tissue on the whole body. Many different opinions have, however, been lately maintained, and much research has been made, as to the nature and texture of the parts on which the variety of colour depends.”

The ancient anatomists, it appears, recognised only two parts of the skin—the true skin, and the outer cuticle or epidermis. Malpighi discovered a third layer interposed between these, consisting of a sort of network, thence called rete mucosum, and believed to be the seat of colour in the negro. Albinus showed this to be a continuous layer, and not a network. Cruikshank discovered four layers—three membranes, and the fourth a layer of colour. Flourens, at a more recent period, made the number of intermediate layers five, four of which he showed to the French Academy; one   of these, a mucous membrane underlying the pigment, is, according to this anatomist, a distinct organized body, existing only in men of dark colour, and entirely wanting in the white races, or else (which appears the more probable conjecture) maceration, and the ordinary process of examination, fail to detect it in the skin of white men. Lastly, the microscopical researches of Henle, Purkinje, and Schwann, go to prove that the outer integument does not consist of separate membranes, but is of a cellular structure, and that of these cells or “cytoblasts,” there are three distinct kinds. We will not further analyse the different opinions as to the texture of the skin and position of the colouring material; it certainly throws no inconsiderable degree of doubt over certain classes of scientific investigation, to find each subsequent research entirely altering, and in some cases overturning, the previously received views.

To the different characters of human complexion, Dr Prichard gives three distinctive terms—the melanous or brunette; the xanthous or blonde; and the leucous or albino; the melanous predominating in the southern countries, the xanthous in the northern. It is observable here, that although the natural divisions of territory with respect to complexion, (supposing climate to have the principal modifying effect upon complexion,) would be the equatorial and polar regions, or the zones of the earth which differ in latitude, yet, with some few exceptions, it is only on the northern side of the equator that the xanthous complexion prevails—the inhabitants of Australia and the South Sea Islands being very generally melanous. The distribution of land and water cannot well be conceived to have any influence upon climate which would account for such diversity; it is probably, therefore, a result of long-continued civilization, the covering the body with clothes, and being for the most part sheltered from the direct rays of the sun. The leucous complexion is an abnormal variety, and occurs occasionally in all countries. It proceeds from the absence of the dark colouring matter, or pigment; there appears in this case, however, no difference of anatomical structure, the pigment being sometimes subsequently developed in persons who have been born albinoes. The change from the xanthous to the melanous complexion, is a circumstance of constant occurrence; there are few children born, whose complexion does not darken as they grow up, in many cases undergoing a total change: the passage from dark to fair is rare, but it constantly occurs that xanthous, or even leucous children, are born of melanous parents. There is nothing, therefore, in the diversities of complexion which indicates specific diversity in different human races. Of the conformation of the bony fabric in the human race, the formation of the skull is the part of the greatest importance; we shall only therefore briefly notice, as to the other parts of the skeleton, that between the most uncultivated races of men, and those tribes of apes which most nearly approach man, there is a wide difference—the arms of the orang-outang reach to the ankle, and those of the chimpanzee below the knee; the pelvis, or central bony fabric, differ much from those of the human race.

With regard to the skull, the value of the distinctions in its form and structure depends upon their connexion with the size and organization of the brain—involving the question, whether this has any, and what, influence upon the powers and habits of the creature. Dr Prichard, as we have already stated, blinks the question of phrenology; though he makes some inferences which prove him to have a general belief in the connexion between mental power and physical formation; nay, further, in the appropriation of different portions of the brain to different faculties.

Few will, we believe, in the present day be disposed entirely to deny that, ceteris paribus, the external formation of the skull, or rather the shape of the brain as shown by the formation of the skull, is a general index of the mental power of the individual to whom it belongs. Look over a collection of busts, or portraits, of eminent men, and, with scarcely an exception, they will be found to have high and capacious foreheads; while uncivilized races, and born idiots, are   lamentably deficient in this respect. The difficulties of phrenology exist in its details, which by many have been carried out into degrees of subdivision certainly not warranted either by the anatomical structure of the brain, or by any empirical data as to the form of different crania, and the biography of the individuals to whom they have belonged. Where, in the existing state of our knowledge, the proper mean may be, it is perhaps difficult to say; but it would have been well, we think, had Dr Prichard given us a little more explicitly his opinions as to what extent phrenology (we use the word in its broadest sense) may be fairly relied on. As far as we can gather from the scattered passages in his book, he seems to take a rational view of it; but a little less caution would certainly have been more instructive to his readers, not only on the subject of phrenology, but on many of the connexions between physical structure and the habits to which such structure is adapted. This is a hiatus in Dr Prichard’s work, the filling up of which would add much interesting matter, and serve to weave together acts which at present are disjointed and isolated; giving the book a dry character, and preventing its arresting the attention of the reader. Throughout a larger portion of the work also, we have, in every third page or so, a minute description of the complexion, hair, &c., of different people; which, however valuable as matter of record, becomes tiresome and uninteresting as a continuous narrative, and would be much better thrown into a tabular form, as matter of reference only, if incapable of being so linked as to present a plausible theory.

The following passage is the most explicit we can find on the subject of the connexion between the physique and morale, and, at the same time, will serve to introduce the three varieties of skull which the author deems principally worth notice:—

“If any method of subdividing the human family into groups, is likely to be of any particular advantage in elucidating the natural history of the species, it must be one founded on some relation between the physical characteristics of different tribes and the leading circumstances of their external condition.

“We shall clearly perceive, in tracing the following outline of ethnography, that the varieties of colour refer themselves, in part, to climates, elevations of land, proximity to the sea-coast, or distance from it. It can hardly be doubted that these conditions have likewise an effect on the configuration of the human body. But there is, perhaps, some truth in the remark, though frequently made on little better foundation than conjecture, that the prevailing form or configuration of the body is more liable to be influenced by the habits of different races, and their manner of living, than by the simple agencies of climate. It would be an interesting discovery, could it be shown that there is any apparent connexion between the display of particular forms, or the leading physical characters of human races, and their habits of existence. If I may venture to point out any such relation, it would be by remarking, in a very general manner, and without pretending to make the observation as one which holds without many exceptions, that there are in mankind three principal varieties in the form of the head and other physical characters, which are most prevalent respectively in the savage or hunting tribes, in the nomadic or wandering pastoral races, and in the civilized and intellectually cultivated divisions of the human family. Among the rudest tribes of men, hunters and savage inhabitants of forests, dependent for their supply of food on the accidental produce of the soil or on the chase, among whom are the most degraded of the African nations and the Australian savages, a form of the head is prevalent which is most aptly distinguished by the term prognathous, indicating a prolongation or extension forward of the jaws; and with this characteristic other traits are connected which will be described in the following pages. A second shape of the head, very different from the last mentioned, belongs principally to the nomadic races, who wander with their herds and flocks over vast plains, and to the tribes who creep along the shores of the Icy Sea, and live partly by fishing, and in part on the flesh of their reindeers. These nations have broad and lozenge-formed faces, and what I have termed pyramidal skulls.

 

“The Esquimaux, the Laplanders, Samoïedes, and Kamschatkans, belong to this department, as well as the Tartar nations—meaning the Mongolians, Tungusians, and nomadic races of Turks. In South Africa, the Hottentots, formerly a nomadic people, who wandered about with herds of cattle over the extensive plains of Kafirland, resembling in their manner of life the Tungusians and the Mongols, have also broadfaced, pyramidal skulls, and in many particulars of their organization resemble the Northern Asiatics. Other tribes in South Africa approximate to the same character, as do many of the native races of the New World.

“The most civilized races, those who live by agriculture and the arts of cultivated life, all the most intellectually improved nations of Europe and Asia, have a shape of the head which differs from both the forms above mentioned. The characteristic form of the skull among these nations may be termed oval or elliptical.

“We shall find hereafter that there are numerous instances of transition from one of these shapes of the head to another, and that these alterations have taken place in nations who have changed their manner of life.”

Blumenbach considered that the most important admeasurement of the skull was derivable from the shape and size of the oval, seen when the skull was viewed from above, looking vertically down upon it. Camper took as the basis of his theory of the gradations of different genera of mammalia, the angle formed by a line drawn from the aperture of the ear to the base of the nose, and a tangent to the forehead and jaw. Considering the increasing size of this angle to be the distinctive mark of intellectual superiority, he viewed a negro as an intermediate animal between an European and an ape. But Mr Owen has shown that the observations of Camper and others, being applied to immature animals, are not worthy of reliance; as the relations of all animals more closely approximate if they be examined in an infant, than in an adult state. The facial angle of the orang, which has been estimated at from 60° to 64°, he finds in the adult animal is only 30°—i. e. 40° short of the smallest facial angle in the human race! We should hence be led to suspect a proportionate difference between the infant and adult mind; but the psychological development of infants is a subject which has been strangely neglected by philosophers. A clever Italian authoress who has written an anonymous work upon education, gives as the reason for the dearth of writing on this subject, that philosophers are not mothers, and that mothers are not philosophers. Be this as it may, few theorems appear to us more promising of interest. The struggle of internal force with external resistance, the feelings manifested in the acquisition of new powers, the impressions made by objects seen for the first time, and first questions asked, form grounds for induction as to the psychology of man, which, thanks to the chartered tyranny of nursery-maids over philosophers, have been grossly neglected.

After going through other points of physical difference in human races, with which, being for the most part matter of anatomical detail, we shall not trouble our readers, Dr Prichard concludes:—

“On surveying the facts which relate to difference in the shape of the body, and the proportions of parts in human races, we may conclude that none of these deviations amount to specific distinction. We may rest this conclusion on two arguments. First, that none of the differences in question exceed the limits of individual variety, or are greater than the diversities found within the circle of one nation or family. Secondly, the varieties of form in human races are by no means so considerable, in many points of view, as the instances of variation which are known to occur in different tribes of animals belonging to the same stock, there being scarcely one domesticated species which does not display much more considerable deviations from the typical character of the tribe.”

The only observation we shall make upon this is, that, as before stated, the test of identity of species being the power of continued reproduction, not the slightest evidence having been ever offered that all the various human races have not inter se this power, but the contrary having been proved in every case within human   experience, none of the deviations can amount to specific distinctions.

Having noticed the most remarkable physical distinctions of the human race, we come to its ethnographical divisions—divisions founded partly upon traditional and historical records, and partly upon the internal evidence of similarity of language. The following sketch of hypotheses, as to the original birthplaces of the αυτοχθονες γαιας, although visionary, and in all probability incorrect, forms such an interesting abstract of philosophical speculations and poetical myths, that we cannot refrain from quoting it:—

“The most popular, or generally received distribution of human races in the present day, is that which was recommended by the adoption of Baron Cuvier. It did not entirely originate with that great writer, but was set forth by him in a more decided and complete manner than it had been before his time. This system refers different races of men to certain lofty mountain-chains, as the local seats of their original existence.

“The birthplace, or the primitive station, of the race of men who peopled Europe and Western Asia, is supposed to have been Mount Caucasus. From this conjecture, Europeans and many Asiatic nations, and even some Africans, have received the new designation of Caucasians. The nations of Eastern Asia are imagined, in like manner, to originate in the neighbourhood of Mount Altaï, and they are named after the Mongolians, who inhabit the highest region in that vast chain of hills. The African negroes are derived from the southern face of the chain of Mount Atlas.

“They are, however, named simply the Ethiopian race, from the Ethiopians, who were the only black people known to the ancients in very remote times. A mixture of somewhat vague notions, partly connected with physical theories, and in part derived from history, or rather from mythology, has formed the groundwork of this scheme, which refers the origin of human races to high mountainous tracts. The tops of mountains first emerged above the surface of the primeval ocean, and, in the language of some philosophical theorists, first became the scene of the organizing life of nature. From different mountain tops, Wildenow, and other writers on the history of plants, derive the vegetable tribes; which they suppose to have descended from high places into the plains, and to have spread their colonies along the margins of mountain streams. High mountains thus came to be regarded as the birthplaces of living races.

“Geological theories give their part to render these notions popular; not only the late speculations of the Count de Buffon and the learned Bailly, but the opinions of ancient philosophers, who maintained, before the time of Justin and of Pliny, that the mountains of high Asia must have been the part of the world first inhabited by men, inasmuch as that region must have been first refrigerated in the gradual cooling of the surface of our planet, and first raised sufficiently above the level of the ocean. Moreover, the poetical traditions of the ancient world describe high mountains as the scenes of the first mythical adventures of gods and men—as the resting-places on which celestial or aërial beings alighted from their cloudy habitations, to take up their abode with men, and to become the patriarchs of the human race. Lofty mountains are the points in the geography of our globe on which the first dawn of historic light casts its early beams; hence the legends of the first ages begin their thread. In the cosmogony of the Hindoos, it was on the summit of the sacred mountain Maha-meru, which rises in the midst of the seven dwipas, or great peninsulas, like the stalk between the expanded petals of a lotus, that Brahma, the creator, sits enthroned on a pillar of gold and gems, adored by Rishis and Gandharbhas; while the regents of the four quarters of the universe hold their stations on the four faces of the mountain. Equally famed in the ancient mythology of Iran and of Zoroaster, is the sacred mountain Albordy, based upon the earth, but raising through all the spheres of heaven, to the region of supernal light, its lofty top, the seat of Ormuzd, whence the bridge Ishinevad conducts blessed spirits of pious men to Gorodman, the solid vault of heaven, the abode of Ferouers and Arnshaspands. Even the prosing disciples of Confucius had their sacred mountain of Kuen-lun, where, according to the legends of their forefathers, was the abode of the early patriarchs of their race. The Arabs and the Persian Moslemin   had their poetical Kaf. The lofty hills of Phrygia and of Hellas—Ida, Olympus, Pindus—were, as every one knows, famous in Grecian story. Caucasus came in for a share of the reverence paid to the high places of the earth. Caucasus, however, was not the cradle of the human race, but the dwelling-place of Prometheus, the maker of men, and the teacher of astronomy.”

Abandoning this somewhat dreamy view, Dr Prichard regards, consistently with the Scriptural account, the birthplace of man as being on the banks of fertilizing rivers, and at a period when the world was, by its vegetable and animal productions, prepared for his reception, and adopts three divisions as being those of which we have the earliest records; 1st, the Semitic or Syro-Arabian, inhabiting countries between Egypt and the Ganges. 2dly, the Japetic, Indo-European, or Arian, spreading from the mouths of the Ganges over the greater part of Europe. And 3dly, the Egyptian or Hamitish,²⁰ who peopled the banks of the Nile, and of whom the African negroes are probably a degenerate offshoot. With regard to the knowledge of letters possessed by these three nations, our author gives two inconsistent statements. He says:—

“The three celebrated nations whose history we have surveyed, appear alone to have possessed in the earliest times the use of letters, and by written monuments to have transmitted to the last ages memorials of their existence. It seems improbable that each of these nations should have become, by a separate process, possessed of this important art: yet those eminent scholars who have laboured with so great success of late in elucidating the Oriental forms of writing, have not succeeded in tracing any connexion between the alphabetic systems of Egypt, of the Phœnicians, the Assyrians, and the Hindoos.”

 

And states afterwards:—

“It is plain that the use of letters was entirely unknown to the Arian nations, to those tribes at least of the race who passed into Europe: and that it was introduced among them in long after ages by the Phœnicians, who claim this most important invention, and certainly have the merit of having communicated it to the nations of the west.”

The words “those tribes at least,” are scarcely sufficient to remove the inconsistency.

A fourth division comprehends those various barbarous nations of unknown origin which occupied the territories surrounding the Indo-European race, and were for the most part subdued and expelled by the latter—to this fourth division he applies the term Allophyllian.

This glotto-historical division does not exactly correspond with the physical division as deduced from the form of the skull. The three nations first above mentioned, or the inhabitants of the central regions, from which they at least are supposed, according to this view, to have emanated, have all the oval skull; though, when we pass to the nomadic people of high Asia, we get the pyramidal, and, passing from Egypt to Africa, we get a gradually increasing tendency to the prognathous form.

It would carry us far beyond the usual bounds of an article in this Magazine, were we to give even a condensed abstract of the descriptions, individual and collective, of each of these leading divisions and their various subdivisions. We will observe generally that the central portion of the work, which contains a detailed account of the divisions physical, ethical, and ethnical, of all the most marked varieties of the human race, accompanied with illustrative pictures and woodcuts, evinces the most elaborate research, and, as a work of reference, will be doubtless found of great value. We will, therefore, pass to the fifth great division of the human race, which is discussed in a later portion of the work, and which is not very distinctly connected with the other four—viz. the American. The Sioux tribes, however, who occupy   tracts of land on the Upper Mississippi, are supposed with great probability, from their physical character, language, and tradition, to be the descendants of a Tartar race, who have emigrated across the north-west straits of America.

“The aboriginal people of America are generally considered as a department of the human family very distinct from the inhabitants of the Old World. The insulated situation of the continent, and the fact that it was so long unknown, and the tribes which it contains so long cut off from intercourse with other nations, are among the circumstances which have contributed to produce this impression. The American nations, taken in the aggregate, are neither among themselves so uniform and unvaried in the physical and moral qualities, nor is the line of distinction between them and the rest of mankind so strongly marked and so obvious, as most persons imagine. Yet it must be admitted that certain characters are discoverable which are common, or nearly so, to the whole of this department of nations; that there are strong indications, if not proofs, of a community of origin, or of very ancient relationship among them; and that in surveying collectively the people of the New World, we contemplate human nature under a peculiar aspect. On comparing the American tribes together, we find reasons to believe that they must have subsisted as a separate department of nations from the earliest ages of the world. Hence, in attempting to trace relations between them and the rest of mankind, we cannot expect to discover proofs of their derivation from any particular tribe or nation in the Old Continent. The era of their existence, as a distinct and insulated race, must probably be dated as far back as that time which separated into nations the inhabitants of the Old World, and gave to each branch of the human family its primitive language and individuality.”

The points which are supposed to indicate this relationship of the American aborigines inter se, and their distinction from the inhabitants of our continents, are, 1st, the structure of their language, in which—

“Striking analogies of grammatical construction have been recognised, not only in the more perfect languages, as that of the Incas, the Aymara, the Guarani, the Mexican, and the Cora, but also in languages extremely rude. Idioms, the roots of which do not resemble each other more than the roots of the Sclavonian and Biscayan, have resemblances of internal mechanism similar to those which are found in the Sanscrit, the Persian, the Greek, and the German languages.”

And, 2dly, their moral and social state, indicating a people which has anciently possessed institutions of a highly civilized character, such as, according to Dr Martius—

“A complicated form of government, regulated despotisms or monarchies, privileged orders, hierarchical and sacerdotal ordinances, systematic laws, the results of reflection, and a settled purpose, connected with marriage and inheritance, and family relationships, and other customs, which are strongly contrasted with the simple and unreflective habits of rude and uncivilized nations.

“The languages of these nations abound, as he says, with words expressive of metaphysical views and abstract conceptions. Their opinion respecting a future state, the nature and attributes of invisible agents, are strikingly different from those of nations who have never emerged from primitive barbarism. Another fact which tends, as M. Martius observes, to confirm the opinion that natives of the New World have fallen from a state of greater refinement, is their use, from immemorial ages, of certain domesticated animals and cultivated plants, and the notions which they entertained of the first acquisition of these possessions. Of such animals and plants the people of the Old World have their peculiar stock, and the American nations have their own entirely different.

“In the Old World we know not whence our horses, our dogs, cattle, and the various kinds of cerealian gramina were obtained, and the American nations are equally at a loss, when we enquire for the original stock of the dumb dog of the Mexicans, the llama, the root of the mandioca, the American corn, and of the quinoa.

“In the ancient world there were traditions of some mythical benefactors of mankind. Ceres, Triptolemus, Bacchus, Pallas, and Poseidon, who had contributed their gifts, corn and wine, the sacred olive, and the horse, and we   infer that all these had been known from periods of remote antiquity.

“In America, likewise, tradition refers the knowledge of cultivated plants and domestic animals, and the art of tilling the earth, to some fabulous person who descended from the gods, or suddenly made his appearance among their ancestors, such as the Manco-Capac of the Peruvians, and the Xolotl and the Xiuhtlato of the Tollecas and Chicimecas.

“The remains of ancient sculpture and architecture spread over Mexico, Yucatan, and Chiapa, as well as over the high plain of Quito and other parts of South America, and the extensive works of art, consisting of fortifications and other relics, discovered in the Tenessi country, as well as in the inland parts of New Mexico on the Rio Gila, afford some further support to the hypothesis of M. Martius.

“The possession of arts and acquirements, the most simple improvements of human life, and such as belong to the very infancy of human society, distinctively appropriate, and the origin of which is recorded by mythical legends peculiar to each division of mankind, seems to carry back the era of their separation to the first ages of the world.”

With regard to the physical character of the Americans, it appears, according to Dr Martius, that the principal characteristic is the truncation, or flatness, of the occipital portion of the cranium; the forehead wide, but low, supposed upon rather insufficient data to be moulded to this shape by artificial means; and the nose arched. In the new as in the old continent, the diversities of physical character do not correspond with the ethnical divisions. The principal criterion of the latter adopted by Dr Prichard is the affinity of languages; and, when this is insufficient to found any probable opinions, conjectures derived from geographical or traditional evidence are called in aid. Upon these grounds the Americans are arranged and described by the author, into the details of which, for the same reason as before stated, we regret not being able to follow him.