The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races

The white man is also characterized by a singular love of life. Perhaps it is because he knows better how to make use of it than other races, that he attaches to it a greater value and spares it more both in himself and in others. In the extreme of his cruelty, he is conscious of his excesses; a sentiment which it may well be doubted whether it exist among the blacks. Yet though he loves life better than other races, he has discovered a number of reasons for sacrificing it or laying it down without murmur. His valor, his bravery, are not brute, unthinking passions, not the result of callousness or impassivity: they spring from exalted, though often erroneous, sentiments, the principal of which is expressed by the word "honor." This feeling, under a variety of names and applications, has formed the mainspring of action of most of the white races since the beginning of historical times. It accommodates itself to every mode of existence, to every walk of life. It is as puissant in the pulpit and at the martyr's stake, as on the field of battle; in the most peaceful and humble pursuits of life as in the highest and most stirring. It were impossible to define all the ideas which this word comprises; they are better felt than expressed. But this feeling – we might call it instinctive – is unknown to the yellow, and unknown to the black races: while in the white it quickens every noble sentiment – the sense of justice, liberty, patriotism, love, religion – it has no name in the language, no place in the hearts, of other races. This I consider as the principal reason of the superiority of our branch of the human family over all others; because even in the lowest, the most debased of our race, we generally find some spark of this redeeming trait, and however misapplied it may often be, and certainly is, it prevents us, even in our deepest errors, from falling so fearfully low as the others. The extent of moral abasement in which we find so many of the yellow and black races is absolutely impossible even to the very refuse of our society. The latter may equal, nay, surpass them in crime; but even they would shudder at that hideous abyss of corrosive vices, which opens before the friend of humanity on a closer study of these races.194

Before concluding this picture, I would add that the immense superiority of the white races in all that regards the intellectual faculties, is joined to an inferiority as strikingly marked, in the intensity of sensations. Though his whole structure is more vigorous, the white man is less gifted in regard to the perfection of the senses than either the black or the yellow, and therefore less solicited and less absorbed by animal gratifications.

I have now arrived at the historical portion of my subject. There I shall place the truths enounced in this volume in a clearer light, and furnish irrefragable proofs of the fact, which forms the basis of my theory, that nations degenerate only in consequence and in proportion to their admixture with an inferior race – that a society receives its death-blow when, from the number of diverse ethnical elements which it comprises, a number of diverse modes of thinking and interests contend for predominance; when these modes of thinking, and these interests have arisen in such multiplicity that every effort to harmonize them, to make them subservient to some great purpose, is in vain; when, therefore, the only natural ties that can bind large masses of men, homogeneity of thoughts and feelings, are severed, the only solid foundation of a social structure sapped and rotten.

To furnish the necessary details for this assertion, to remove the possibility of even the slightest doubt, I shall take up separately, every great and independent civilization that the world has seen flourish. I shall trace its first beginnings, its subsequent stages of development, its decadence and final decay. Here, then, is the proper test of my theory; here we can see the laws that govern ethnical relations in full force on a magnificent scale; we can verify their inexorably uniform and rigorous application. The subject is immense, the panorama spread before us the grandest and most imposing that the philosopher can contemplate, for its tableaux comprise the scene of action of every instance where man has really worked out his mission "to have dominion over the earth."

The task is great – too great, perhaps, for any one's undertaking. Yet, on a more careful investigation, many of the apparently insuperable difficulties which discouraged the inquirer will vanish; in the gorgeous succession of scenes that meet his glance, he will perceive a uniformity, an intimate relation and connection which, like Ariadne's thread, will enable the undaunted and persevering student to find his way through the mazes of the labyrinth: we shall find that every civilization owes its origin, its development, its splendors, to the agency of the white races. In China and in India, in the vast continent of the West, centuries ere Columbus found it – it was one of the group of white races that gave the impetus, and, so long as it lasted, sustained it. Startling as this assertion may appear to a great number of readers, I hope to demonstrate its correctness by incontrovertible historical testimony. Everywhere the white races have taken the initiative, everywhere they have brought civilization to the others – everywhere they have sown the seed: the vigor and beauty of the plant depended on whether the soil it found was congenial or not.

The migrations of the white race, therefore, afford us at once a guide for our historical researches, and a clue to many apparently inexplicable mysteries: we shall learn to understand why, in a vast country, the development of civilization has come to a stand, and been superseded by a retrogressive movement; why, in another, all but feeble traces of a high state of culture has vanished without apparent cause; why people, the lowest in the scale of intellect, are yet found in possession of arts and mechanical processes that would do honor to a highly intellectual race.

Among the group of white races, the noblest, the most highly gifted in intellect and personal beauty, the most active in the cause of civilization, is the Arian195 race. Its history is intimately associated with almost every effort on the part of man to develop his moral and intellectual powers.

It now remains for me to trace out the field of inquiry into which I propose to enter in the succeeding volumes. The list of great, independent civilizations is not long. Among all the innumerable nations that "strutted their brief hour on the stage" of the world, ten only have arrived at the state of complete societies, giving birth to distinct modes of intellectual culture. All the others were imitators or dependents; like planets they revolved around, and derived their light from the suns of the systems to which they belonged. At the head of my list I would place: —

1. The Indian civilization. It spread among the islands of the Indian Ocean, towards the north, beyond the Himalaya Mountains, and towards the east, beyond the Brahmapootra. It was originated by a white race of the Arian stock.

2. The Egyptian civilization comes next. As its satellites may be mentioned the less perfect civilizations of the Ethiopians, Nubians, and several other small peoples west of the oasis of Ammon. An Arian colony from India, settled in the upper part of the Nile valley, had established this society.

3. The Assyrians, around whom rallied the Jews, Phenicians, Lydians, Carthaginians, and Hymiarites, were indebted for their social intelligence to the repeated invasions of white populations. The Zoroastrian Iranians, who flourished in Further Asia, under the names of Medes, Persians, and Bactrians, were all branches of the Arian family.

4. The Greeks belonged to the same stock, but were modified by Shemitic elements, which, in course of time, totally transformed their character.

5. China presents the precise counterpart of Egypt. The light of civilization was carried thither by Arian colonies. The substratum of the social structure was composed of elements of the yellow race, but the white civilizers received reinforcements of their blood at various times.

6. The ancient civilization of the Italian peninsula (the Etruscan civilization), was developed by a mosaic of populations of the Celtic, Iberian, and Shemitic stock, but cemented by Arian elements. From it emerged the civilization of Rome.

7. Our civilization is indebted for its tone and character to the Germanic conquerors of the fifth century. They were a branch of the Arian family.

8, 9, 10. Under these heads I class the three civilizations of the western continent, the Alleghanian, the Mexican, and the Peruvians.

This is the field I have marked out for my investigations, the results of which will be laid before the reader in the succeeding volumes. The first part of my work is here at an end – the vestibule of the structure I wish to erect is completed.

APPENDIX

I have seldom perused a work which has afforded me so much pleasure and instruction as the one of Count Gobineau, "Sur l'Inégalité des Races Humaines," and regard most of his conclusions as incontrovertible. There are, however, a few points in his argument which should not be passed without comment, and others not sufficiently elaborated. My original intention was to say much, but, fortunately for me, my colleague, Mr. Hotz, has so fully and ably anticipated me, in his Introduction and Notes, as to leave me little of importance to add.

The essay of Count Gobineau is eminently practical and useful in its design. He views the various races of men rather as a historian than a naturalist, and while he leaves open the long mooted question of unity of origin, he so fully establishes the permanency of the actual moral, intellectual, and physical diversities of races as to leave no ground for antagonists to stand upon. Whatever remote causes may be assigned, there is no appeal from the conclusion that white, black, Mongol, and other races were fully developed in nations some 3000 years before Christ, and that no physical causes, during this long course of time, have been in operation, to change one type of man into another. Count Gobineau, therefore, accepts the existing diversity of races as at least an accomplished fact, and draws lessons of wisdom from the plain teachings of history. Man with him ceases to be an abstraction; each race, each nation, is made a separate study, and a fertile but unexplored field is opened to our view.

Our author leans strongly towards a belief in the original diversity of races, but has evidently been much embarrassed in arriving at conclusions by religious scruples and by the want of accurate knowledge in that part of natural history which treats of the designation of species, and the laws of hybridity; he has been taught to believe that two distinct species cannot produce perfectly prolific offspring, and therefore concludes that all races of men must be of one origin, because they are prolific inter se. My appendix will therefore be devoted mainly to this question of species.

A

Our author has taken the facts of Dr. Morton at second hand, and, moreover, had not before him Dr. Morton's later tables and more matured deductions; I shall therefore give an abstract of his results as published by himself in 1849, with some comments of my own. The figures represent the internal capacity of the skull in cubic inches, and were obtained by filling the cavity with shot and afterwards pouring them into an accurately graduated measure.

It must be admitted that the collection of Morton is not sufficiently full in all its departments to enable us to arrive at the absolute capacity of crania in the different races; but it is sufficiently complete to establish beyond cavil, the fact that the crania of the white are much larger than those of the dark races. His table is very incomplete in Mongol, Malays, and some others; but in the white races of Europe, the black races, and the American, the results are substantially correct. I have myself had ample opportunities for examining the heads of living negroes and Indians of America, as well as a considerable number of crania, and can fully indorse Dr. Morton's results. It will be seen that his skulls of American aborigines amount to 338.

Table, showing the Size of the Brain in Cubic Inches, as obtained by the Measurement of 623 Crania of various Races and Families of Man.

Dr. Morton's mind, it will be seen by this table, had not yet freed itself from the incubus of artificial and unnatural classifications. Like Tiedemann and others, he has grouped together races which have not the slightest affinity in physical, moral, or linguistic characters. In the Caucasian group, for example, are placed the Teutonic, Indostanic, Shemitic, and Nilotic families, each of which, it can be shown, has existed utterly distinct for 5000 years, not to mention many subdivisions.

The table of Dr. Morton affords some curious results. His ancient Pelasgic heads and those of the modern white races, give the same size of brain, viz: 88 cubic inches; and his ancient Egyptians and their modern representatives, the Fellahs, yield the same mean, 80 cubic inches; the difference between the two groups being 8 cubic inches. These facts have a strong bearing on the question of permanence of types. The small-headed Hindoos present the same cranial capacity as the Egyptians, and though these races have each been the repository of early civilization, it is a question whether either was the originator of civilization. The Egyptian race, from the earliest monumental dawn, exhibits Shemitic adulteration; and Latham proves that the Sanscrit language was not indigenous to India, but was carried there from Northern Europe in early ages by conquerors.

Again, in the negro group, while it is absolutely shown that certain African races, whether born in Africa, or of the tenth descent in America, give a cranial capacity almost identical, 83 cubic inches; we see, on the contrary, the Hottentot and Australian yielding a mean of but 75 inches, thereby showing a like difference of eight cubic inches.

In the American group, also, the same parallel holds good. The Toltecan family, the most civilized race, exhibit a mean of but 77 inches, while the barbarous tribes give 84, that is, a difference of 7 inches in favor of the savage. While, however, the Toltecans have the smaller heads, they are, according to Combe, much more developed in the anterior or intellectual lobes, which may serve to explain this apparent paradox.

When we compare the highest and lowest races with each other, the contrast becomes still more striking, viz: the Teutonic with the Hottentot and Australian. The former family gives a mean capacity of 92 inches, while the latter two yield but 75, or a difference of 17 cubic inches between the skulls of these types!

Now, as far back as history and monuments carry us, as well as crania and other testimonies, these various types have been permanent; and most of them we can trace back several thousand years. If such permanence of type through thousands of years, and in defiance of all climatic influences, does not establish specific characters, then is the naturalist at sea without a compass to guide him.

These facts determine clearly the arbitrary nature of all classifications heretofore adopted; the Teuton, the Jew, the Hindoo, the Egyptian, &c., have all been included under the term Caucasian; and yet they have, as far as we know, been through all time as distinct in physical and moral characters from each other, as they have from the negro races of Africa and Oceanica. The same diversity of types is found among all the other groups, or arbitrary divisions of the human family.

Rich and rare as is the collection of Dr. Morton, it is very defective in many of its divisions, and it occurred to me that this deficiency might to some degree be supplied by the hat manufacturers of various nations; notwithstanding that the information derived from this source could give but one measurement, viz: the horizontal periphery. Yet this one measurement alone, on an extended scale, would go far towards determining the general size of the brain. I accordingly applied to three hat dealers in Mobile, and a large manufacturer in New Jersey, for statements of the relative number of hats of each size sold to adult males; their tables agree so perfectly as to leave no doubt as to the circumference of the heads of the white population of the United States. The three houses together dispose of about 15,000 hats annually.

The following table was obligingly sent me by Messrs. Vail & Yates, of Newark; and they accompanied it with the remark, that their hats were sent principally to our Western States, where there is a large proportion of German population; also that the sizes of these hats were a little larger (about one fourth of an inch) than those sold in the Southern States. This remark was confirmed by the three dealers in Mobile. Our table gives, 1st. The number or size of the hat. 2d. The circumference of the head corresponding. 3d. The circumference of the hat; and lastly, the relative proportion of each No. sold out of 12 hats.

All hats larger than these are called "extra sizes."

The average size, then, of the crania of white races in the United States, is about 22½ inches circumference, including the hair and scalp, for which about 1½ inches should be deducted, leaving a mean horizontal periphery, for adult males, of 21 inches. The measurements of the purest Teutonic races in Germany and other countries, would give a larger mean; and I have reason to believe that the population of France, which is principally Celtic, would yield a smaller mean. I hope that others will extend these observations.

Dr. Morton's measurements of aboriginal American races, give a mean of but 19½ inches; and this statement is greatly strengthened by the fact that the Mexicans and other Indian races wear much smaller hats than our white races. (See Types of Mankind, p. 289 and 453.)

Prof. Tiedemann, of Heidelberg, asserts that the head of the negro is as large as that of the white man, but this we have shown to be an error. (Types of Mankind, p. 453.)

Tiedemann adopted the vulgar error of grouping together under the term Caucasian, all the Indo-Germanic, Shemitic, and Nilotic races; also all the black and dark races of Africa under the term Negro. Now I have shown that the Hindoo and Egyptian races possess about 12 cubic inches less of brain than the Teutonic; and the Hottentots about 8 inches less than the Negro proper. I affirm that no valid reason has ever been assigned why the Teuton and Hindoo, or Hottentot and Negro, should be classed together in their cranial measurements. I can discover no facts which can assign a greater age to one of these races than another; and unless Professor Tiedemann can overcome these difficulties, he has no right to assume identity for the various races he is pleased to group under each of his arbitrary divisions. Mummies from the catacombs, and portraits on the monuments, show that the heads of races on both sides of the Red Sea have remained unchanged 4000 years.

As Dr. Morton tabulated his skulls on the same arbitrary basis, I abandon his arrangement and present his facts as they stand in nature, allowing the reader to compare and judge for himself. The following table gives the internal capacity in cubic inches, and it will be seen that the measurements arrange themselves in a sliding scale of 17 cubic inches from the Teuton down to the Hottentot and Australian.

Such has been, through several thousand years, the incessant commingling of races, that we are free to admit that absolute accuracy in measurements of crania cannot now be attained. Yet so constant are the results in contrasting groups, that no unprejudiced mind can deny that there is a wide and well-marked disparity in the cranial developments of races.

B

As the discussion stands at the present day, we may assume that the scientific world is pretty equally divided on the question of unity of the human family, and the point is to be settled by facts, and not by names. Natural history is a comparatively new and still rapidly progressing science, and the study of man has been one of the last departments to attract serious attention. Blumenbach and Prichard, who may be regarded among the early explorers in this vast field, have but recently been numbered with the dead; and we may safely assert that the last ten years have brought forth materials which have shed an entirely new light on this subject.

Mr. Agassiz, Dr. Morton, Prof. Leidy, and many other naturalists of the United States, contend for an original diversity in the races of men, and we shall proceed to give some of the reasons why we have adopted similar views. Two of the latest writers of any note on the opposite side are the Rev. Dr. Bachman, of Charleston, and M. Flourens, of Paris; and as these gentlemen have very fully travelled over the argument opposed to us, we shall take the liberty, in the course of our remarks, to offer some objections to their views.

The great difficulty in this discussion is, to define clearly what meaning should be attached to the term species; and to the illustration of this point, mainly, will our labors be confined. Genera are, for the most part, well defined by anatomical characters, and little dispute exists respecting them; but no successful attempt has yet been made to designate species in this way, and it is by their permanency of type alone, as ascertained from written or monumental records, that our decision can be guided.

SPECIES

The following definitions of species have been selected by Dr. Bachman, and may be received as unexceptionable as any others; but we shall show that they fall far short of the true difficulties of the case.

"We are under the necessity of admitting the existence of certain forms, which have perpetuated themselves, from the beginning of the world, without exceeding the limits prescribed: all the individuals belonging to one of these forms constitute a species." – Cuvier.

"We unite under the designation species all those individuals who mutually bear to each other so close a resemblance as to allow of our supposing that they may have proceeded originally from a single being, or a single pair." – De Candolle.

"The name species is applied to an assemblage of individuals which bear a strong resemblance to each other, and which are perpetuated with the same essential qualities. Thus man, the dog, the horse, constitute to the zoologist so many distinct species." – Milne Edwards and Achille Compte.

We have no objection to this definition, but the examples cited are points in dispute, and not received by many of the leading naturalists of the day.

"Species are fixed and permanent forms of being, exhibiting indeed certain modes of variation, of which they may be more or less susceptible, but maintaining throughout those modifications a sameness of structural essentials, transmitted from generation to generation, and never lost by the influence of causes which otherwise produce obvious effects. Varieties are either accidental or the result of the care and culture of man."196– Martin.

Dr. Bachman gives another, substantially the same, from Agassiz; and also one of his own, to which he appends, as an additional test of species, the production of "fertile offspring by association." In this definition the doctor assumes one of the main points in dispute.

"Varieties," says Dr. Bachman, "are those that are produced within the limits of particular species, and have not existed from its origin. They sometimes originate in wild species, especially those that have a wide geographical range, and are thus exposed to change of climate and temperature," &c. * * * "Permanent varieties are such as, having once taken place, are propagated in perpetuity, and do not change their characteristics unless they breed with other varieties."