The Human Race. Figuier Louis
the island of Madagascar, who were styled Kymes. But Pygmies and Kymes are equally fabulous.
Antiquity tells us of giants, but without forming them into a separate race. It is rather in modern times that the existence of races of human giants has been put forward. In the sixteenth century, when Magellan had doubled Cape Horn and discovered the Pacific Ocean, a companion of this navigator, Pigafetta, gave an altogether extraordinary description of the Patagonians, or inhabitants of the Tierra del Fuego. He made giants of them. One of his successors, Leaya, adding yet more to the height of the Patagonians, assigned to these men a stature of from three to four metres.
Modern travellers have reduced to accurate proportions the exaggerated statements of ancient navigators. The French naturalist Alcide d’Orbigny actually measured a large number of Patagonians, and found that their height, on an average, was about 1m.73.
This, then, is about the limit of the height which is reached by the human species.
With reference to the extreme of smallness we are able to arrive at this by referring to the Bushmen who inhabit Southern Africa. An English traveller, Barrow, measured all the members of a tribe of Bushmen, and found that their average height was 1m.31.
The human species, therefore, varies in height to the extent of about 0m.42, that is to say, the difference between the height of the Patagonians and that of the Bushmen. It is well to make this observation whilst we are upon this subject, since the supporters of the theory of a plurality of human races have invoked these differences in height in support of the multiplicity of the races of humanity. It is clear that, among animals, races vary in height to a much greater extent than they do with man; there is, by comparison, a much greater difference in size between a mastiff and a dog of the Pyrenees, than there is between a Bushman and a Patagonian.
As regards the colour of the skin of the human race, we find it necessary to say a few words, since we propose to take this as the basis of our classification.
The colour of the skin is a very convenient characteristic to fix upon in order to identify the various races, since this quality is peculiarly adapted to suggest itself through the eye. Its scientific importance must, however, by no means be exaggerated. Certain individuals, though they be members of the White or Caucasian Race, may yet be very darkly tinted. Arabs are often of a brown colour, which nearly approaches black, and yet they possess the finest marks of the White or Caucasian Race. The Abyssinians, although very brown, are not black. The American Indians, whom we rank as members of the Red Race, often have dark brown or almost black skins. Among members of the White Race in northern latitudes, especially women, the skin has often a yellowish tint. We must add that the colour of the skin is often difficult to fix, since the shades of colour merge into one another. All this must be said in order to show how difficult it is to form natural groups of the innumerable types of our species.
It would be for us now to speak of the physiological characteristics of the human race; but our consideration of this subject will be limited to a few words, since the condition of physiological functions is almost identical among all men, whatever be their race.
There is, nevertheless, an important difference, well worthy of note, presented by the nervous system when we compare the two extremes of humanity, namely, the Negro and the white European. In the white man, the nervous centres, that is the brain and spinal cord, are of much greater volume than they are in the Negro. In the latter the expansions from these nervous centres, that is, the nerves properly so called, have relatively a greater volume.
A similar difference, quite on a par with this, exists in the circulatory system. In the white man, the arterial system is more developed than the venous; the reverse is the case with the Negro. Lastly, the blood of the Negro is more viscous, and of a deeper red than that of the white man.
With the exception of these general differences, the great physiological functions proceed in the same manner among all races of men. The differences are not remarked except when secondary functions are compared, but these differences then assume proportions of some consideration.
Climate, customs, and habits are the causes of these variations in the secondary functions, which at times become so similar as to permit of confusion in the most opposite races. Let a member of the white race be thrown into the midst of wild Indians, become a prisoner of the red-skins, and share their warlike existence in the midst of forests, we shall see that the sense of sight, as also that of hearing, will attain in this individual the same perfection which they enjoy in his new companions. It is by virtue of the prodigious flexibility of our organism, and of our powers of imitation and assimilation, that the physiological functions of secondary importance become capable of such modification.
The intellectual and moral characteristics are those which take the lead in man. Not only are we unable to pass them over in silence in the general study of the human race, but much more importance must be assigned to them than to mere corporeal characteristics. If the naturalist, when he studies an animal, makes a point, when he has described his structure and organism, of considering his habits and manner of life, how much more should he, when treating of man, dwell upon his intellectual faculties, the stamp which so truly identifies our species.
Man makes use of language as the means of expressing his intelligence. If man is provided with the power of speech, which he has in common with no other animal, it is owing to the fact that in him intelligence is infinitely more developed than in the animal. It is through the simultaneous concurrence of all his senses that the faculty of speech is manifested in man; and the proof of this is, that through the absence of one of his senses, he loses this faculty. What is meant by a person born dumb? It is an individual similar in all respects to speaking man, but differing from him in this, that he came into the world perfectly deaf. The primary absence of the power of hearing has paralysed the child’s intelligence with special reference to his imitative faculty, and in fact, the person called deaf and dumb is originally simply a person born deaf.
Language, then, is but the expression of the highest intelligence. “Animals have a voice,” says Aristotle, “but man alone speaks.” Nothing can be truer than this statement of the immortal Greek philosopher.
It is well known how the languages and dialects spoken in the world have multiplied; and, indeed, nothing is more difficult than to classify all the languages and dialects that exist. This difficulty becomes more insurmountable when we consider that languages vary in course of time to a very considerable extent. The French of Rabelais and Montaigne, who wrote at the time of the Renaissance, is not very intelligible to us, and that of French chroniclers at the time of St. Louis can only be understood by studying it specially and with a dictionary. Modern Italians read Dante with great difficulty, and the same may be said for the English as regards their great writer Shakespeare. Languages then alter very rapidly, even though the people themselves remain stationary. The alterations are much more serious and rapid when two peoples amalgamate.
These considerations are sufficient to convey an idea of the problem which scholars have propounded in wishing to ascertain the language of primitive humanity. It may be said that such a problem is incapable of solution. We must therefore despair of finding the mother tongue, and limit ourselves to those which are her offspring.
Upon a comparison of these last, it has been decided to assign to three fundamental groups all the languages which have been, and are still, spoken on the earth; these are, as we have already said, monosyllabic, agglutinative and inflected languages.
Chinese is the most decided example of a monosyllabic language. Each word comprises but one syllable, and has an absolute meaning in itself. Recourse must be had to the complicated combination of a quantity of utterances in order to impress all modifications of thought, all distinctions of time, place, person, condition, &c. One marvels to hear that the Chinese language comprehends such an immense number of words, that the life of a single man of letters is not sufficiently long to allow of his learning all. This apparent wealth is but the most utter poverty. This language, whose vocabulary is infinite, is simply detestable. To its imperfection must be attributed the smallness of the progress which the people of Asia have made in the direction of intelligence and commerce.
Agglutinative