Compulsion is resorted to--every one who has lived in the provinces knows with what success. Parents send their children to school with undisguised repugnance, for they regret the time thus spent as wasted, and, therefore, eagerly seize the most trifling pretext for withdrawing them, and never suffer them to exceed the legal term of attendance. So soon as the young man leaves school, or the soldier has served his time, they hasten to forget what they were compelled to learn, and what they are heartily ashamed of. They return forever after to the local _patois_[112] of their birthplace, and pretend to have forgotten the French language, which, indeed, is but too often true. It is a painful conclusion, but one which many and careful observations have forced upon me, that all the generous private and public endeavors to instruct our rural population, are absolutely futile, and can tend no further than to enforce an outward compliance. They care not for the knowledge we wish to give them--they will not have it, and this not from mere negligence or apathy, but from a feeling of positive hostility to our civilization. This is a startling a.s.sertion, but I have not yet adduced all the proofs in support of it.
In those parts of the country where the laboring cla.s.ses are employed in manufactures princ.i.p.ally, and in the great cities, the workmen are easily induced to learn to read and write. The circ.u.mstances with which they are surrounded, leave them no doubt as to the practical advantages accruing to them from these acquisitions. But so soon as these men have sufficiently mastered the first elements of knowledge, to what use do they, for the most part, apply them? To imbibe or give vent to ideas and sentiments the most subversive of all social order. The instinctive, but pa.s.sive hostility to our civilization, is superseded by a bitter and active enmity, often productive of the most fearful calamities. It is among these cla.s.ses that the projectors of the wildest, most incendiary schemes readily recruit their partisans; that the advocates of socialism, community of goods and wives, all, in fact, who, under the pretext of removing the ills and abuses that afflict the social system, propose to tear it down, find ready listeners and zealous believers.
There are, however, portions of the country to which this picture does not apply; and these exceptions furnish me with another proof in favor of my proposition. Among the agricultural and manufacturing populations of the north and northeast, information is general; it is readily received, and, once received, retained and productive of good fruits.
These people are intelligent, well-informed, and orderly, like their neighbors in Belgium and the whole of the Netherlands. And these, also, are the populations most closely akin to the Teutonic race, the race which, as I said in another place, gave the initiative to our civilization.
The aversion to our civilization, of which I spoke, is not the only singular feature in the character of our rural populations. If we penetrate into the privacy of their thoughts and beliefs, we make discoveries equally striking and startling. The bishops and parish clergy have to this day, as they had one, five, or fifteen centuries ago, to battle with mysterious superst.i.tions, or hereditary tendencies, some of which are the more formidable as they are seldom openly avowed, and can, therefore, be neither attacked nor conquered. There is no enlightened priest, that has the care of his flock at heart, but knows from experience with what deep cunning the peasant, however devout, knows how to conceal in his own bosom some fondly cherished traditional idea or belief, which reveals itself only at long intervals, and without his knowledge. If he is spoken to about it, he denies or evades the discussion, but remains unshaken in his convictions. He has unbounded confidence in his pastor, unbounded except upon this one subject, that might not inappropriately be called his secret religion.
Hence that taciturnity and reserve which, in all our provinces, is the most marked characteristic of the peasant, and which he never for a moment lays aside towards the cla.s.s he calls _bourgeois_; that impa.s.sable barrier between him and even the most popular and well-intentioned landed proprietor of his district.
It must not be supposed that this results merely from rudeness and ignorance. Were it so, we might console ourselves with the hope that they will gradually improve and a.s.similate with the more enlightened cla.s.ses. But these people are precisely like certain savages; at a superficial glance they appear unreflecting and brutish, because their exterior is humble, and their character requires to be studied. But so soon as we penetrate, however little, into their own circle of ideas, the feelings that govern their private life, we discover that in their obstinate isolation from our civilization, they are not actuated by a feeling of degradation. Their affections and antipathies do not arise from mere accidental circ.u.mstances, but, on the contrary, are in accordance with logical reasoning based upon well-defined and clearly conceived ideas.[113] In speaking of their religious notions awhile ago, I should have remarked what an immense distance there is between our doctrines of morals and those of the peasantry, how widely different are their ideas from those which we attach to the same word.[114] With what pertinacious obstinacy they continue to look upon every one not peasant like themselves, as the people of remote antiquity looked upon a foreigner. It is true they do not kill him, thanks to the singular and mysterious terror which the laws, in the making of which they have no part, inspire them; but they hate him cordially, distrust him, and if they can do so without too great a risk, fleece him without scruple and with immense satisfaction. Yet they are not wicked or ill-disposed.
Among themselves they are kind-hearted, charitable, and obliging. But then they regard themselves as a distinct race--a race, they tell you--that is weak, oppressed, and that must resort to cunning and stratagem to gain their due, but which, nevertheless, preserves its pride and contempt for all others. In many of our provinces, the laborer believes himself of much better stock than his former lord or present employer. The family pride of many of our peasants is, to say the least, as great as that of the n.o.bility during the Middle Ages.[115]
It cannot be doubted that the lower strata of the population of France have few features in common with the higher. Our civilization penetrates but little below the surface. The great ma.s.s is indifferent--nay, positively hostile to it. The most tragic events have stained the country with torrents of blood, unparalleled convulsions have destroyed every ancient fabric, both social and political. Yet the agricultural populations have never been roused from their apathetic indifference,[116] have never taken any other part but that to which they were forced. When their own personal and immediate interests were not at stake, they allowed the tempests to blow by without concern, without even pa.s.sive sympathy on one side or the other. Many persons, frightened and scandalized at this spectacle, have declared the peasantry as irreclaimably perverse. This is at the same time an injustice, and a very false appreciation of their character. The peasants regard us almost as their enemies. They comprehend nothing of our civilization, contribute nothing to it of their own accord, and they think themselves authorized to profit by its disasters, whenever they can. Apart from this antagonism, which sometimes displays itself in an active, but oftener in a pa.s.sive manner, it cannot be doubted that they possess moral qualities of a high order, though often singularly applied.
Such is the state of civilization in France. It may be a.s.serted that of a population of thirty-six millions, ten partic.i.p.ate in the ideas and mode of thinking upon which our civilization is based, while the remaining twenty-six altogether ignore them, are indifferent and even hostile to them, and this computation would, I think, be even more flattering than the real truth. Nor is France an exception in this respect. The picture I have given applies to the greater part of Europe.
Our civilization is suspended, as it were, over an unfathomable gulf, at the bottom of which there slumber elements which may, one day, be roused and prove fearfully, irresistibly destructive. This is an awful, an ominous truth. Upon its ultimate consequences it is painful to reflect.
Wisdom may, perhaps, foresee the storm, but can do little to avert it.
But ignored, despised, or hated as it is by the greater number of those over whom it extends its dominion, our civilization is, nevertheless, one of the grandest, most glorious monuments of the human mind. In the inventive, initiatory quality it does not surpa.s.s, or even equal some of its predecessors, but in comprehensiveness it surpa.s.ses all. From this comprehensiveness arise its powers of appropriation, of conquest; for, to comprehend is to seize, to possess. It has appropriated all their acquisitions, and has remodelled, reconstructed them. It did not create the exact sciences, but it has given them their exact.i.tude, and has disembarra.s.sed them from the divagations from which, by a singular paradox, they were anciently less free than any other branch of knowledge. Thanks to its discoveries, the material world is better known than at any other epoch. The laws by which nature is governed, it has, in a great measure, succeeded in unveiling, and it has applied them so as to produce results truly wonderful. Gradually, and by the clearness and correctness of its induction, it has reconstructed immense fragments of history, of which the ancients had no knowledge; and as it recedes from the primitive ages of the world, it penetrates further into the mist that obscures them. These are great points of superiority, and which cannot be contested.
But these being admitted, are we authorized to conclude--as is so generally a.s.sumed as a matter of course--that the characteristics of our civilization are such as to ent.i.tle it to the pre-eminence among all others? Let us examine what are its peculiar excellencies. Thanks to the prodigious number of various elements that contributed to its formation, it has an eclectic character which none of its predecessors or contemporaries possess. It unites and combines so many various qualities and faculties, that its progress is equally facile in all directions; and it has powers of a.n.a.lysis and generalization so great, that it can embrace and appropriate all things, and, what is more, apply them to practical purposes. In other words, it advances at once in a number of different directions, and makes valuable conquests in all, but it cannot be said that it advances at the same time _furthest_ in all. Variety, perhaps, rather than great intensity, is its characteristic. If we compare its progress in any one direction with what has been done by others in the same, we shall find that in few, indeed, can our civilization claim pre-eminence. I shall select three of the most striking features of every civilization; the art of government, the state of the fine arts, and refinement of manners.
In the art of government, the civilization of Europe has arrived at no positive result. In this respect, it has been unable to a.s.sume a definite character. It has laid down no principles. In every country over which its dominion extends, it is subservient to the exigencies of the various races which it has aggregated, but not united. In England, Holland, Naples, and Russia, political forms are still in a state of comparative stability, because either the whole population, or the dominant portion of it, is composed of the same or h.o.m.ogeneous elements.
But everywhere else, especially in France, Central Italy, and Germany, where the ethnical diversity is boundless, governmental theories have never risen to the dignity of recognized truth; political science consisted in an endless series of experiments. Our civilization, therefore, being unable to a.s.sume a definite political feature, is devoid, in this respect, of that stability which I comprised as an essential feature in my definition of a civilization. This impotency is not found in many other civilizations which we deem inferior. In the Celestial Empire, in the Buddhistic and Brahminical societies, the political feature of the civilization is clearly enounced, and clearly understood by each individual member. In matters of politics all think alike; under a wise administration, when the secular inst.i.tutions produce beneficent fruits, all rejoice; when in unskilled or malignant hands, they endanger the public welfare, it is a misfortune to be regretted as we regret our own faults; but no circ.u.mstance can abate the respect and admiration with which they are regarded. It may be desirable to correct abuses that have crept into them, but never to replace them by others. It cannot be denied that these civilizations, therefore, whatever we may think of them in other respects, enjoy a guarantee of durability, of longevity, in which ours is sadly wanting.
With regard to the arts, our civilization is decidedly inferior to others. Whether we aim at the grand or the beautiful, we cannot rival either the imposing grandeur of the civilization of Egypt, of India, or even of the ancient American empires, nor the elegant beauty of that of Greece. Centuries hence--when the span of time allotted to us shall have been consumed, when our civilization, like all that preceded it, shall have sunk in the dim shades of the past, and have become a matter of inquiry only to the historical student--some future traveller may wander among the forests and marshes on the banks of the Thames, the Seine, or the Rhine, but he will find no glorious monuments of our grandeur; no sumptuous or gigantic ruins like those of Philae, of Nineveh, of Athens, of Salsetta, or of Tenocht.i.tlan. A remote posterity may venerate our memory as their preceptors in exact sciences. They may admire our ingenuity, our patience, the perfection to which we have carried inductive reasoning--not so our conquests in the regions of the abstract. In poesy we can bequeath them nothing. The boundless admiration which we bestow upon the productions of foreign civilizations both past and present, is a positive proof of our own inferiority in this respect.[117]
Perhaps the most striking features of a civilization, though not a true standard of its merit, is the degree of refinement which it has attained. By refinement I mean all the luxuries and amenities of life, the regulations of social intercourse, delicacy of habits and tastes. It cannot be denied that in all these we do not surpa.s.s, nor even equal, many former as well as contemporaneous civilizations. We cannot rival the magnificence of the latter days of Rome, or of the Byzantine empire; we can but imagine the gorgeous luxury of Eastern civilizations; and in our own past history we find periods when the modes of living were more sumptuous, polished intercourse regulated by a higher and more exacting standard, when taste was more cultivated, and habits more refined. It is true, that we are amply compensated by a greater and more general diffusion of the comforts of life; but in its exterior manifestations, our civilization compares unfavorably with many others, and might almost be called shabby.
Before concluding this digression upon civilization, which has already extended perhaps too far, it may not be unnecessary to reiterate the princ.i.p.al ideas which I wished to present to the mind of the reader. I have endeavored to show that every civilization derives its peculiar character from the race which gave the initiatory impulse. The alteration of this initiatory principle produces corresponding modifications, and even total changes, in the character of the civilization. Thus our civilization owes its origin to the Teutonic race, whose leading characteristic was an elevated utilitarianism. But as these races ingrafted their mode of culture upon stocks essentially different, the character of the civilization has been variously modified according to the elements which it combined and amalgamated. The civilization of a nation, therefore, exhibits the kind and degree of their capabilities. It is the mirror in which they reflect their individuality.
I shall now return to the natural order of my deductions, the series of which is yet far from being complete. I commenced by enouncing the truth that the existence and annihilation of human societies depended upon immutable and uniform laws. I have proved the insufficiency of advent.i.tious circ.u.mstances to produce these phenomena, and have traced their causes to the various capabilities of different human groups; in other words, to the moral and intellectual diversity of races. Logic, then, demands that I should determine the meaning and bearing of the word race, and this will be the object of the next chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[102] See a quotation from De Tocqueville to the same effect, p. 77.
[103] One striking observation, in connection with this fact, Mr.
Gobineau has omitted to make, probably not because it escaped his sagacity, but because he is himself a Roman Catholic. Wherever the Teutonic element in the population is predominant, as in Denmark, Sweden, Holland, England, Scotland, Northern Germany, and the United States, Protestantism prevails; wherever, on the contrary, the Germanic element is subordinate, as in portions of Ireland, in South America, and the South of Europe, Roman Catholicism finds an impregnable fortress in the hearts of the people. An ethnographical chart, carefully made out, would indicate the boundaries of each in Christendom. I do not here mean to a.s.sert that the Christian religion is accessible only to certain races, having already emphatically expressed my opinion to the contrary.
I feel firmly convinced that a Roman Catholic may be as good and pious a Christian as a member of any other Christian Church whatever, but I see in this fact the demonstration of that leading characteristic of the Germanic races--independence of thought, which incites them to seek for truth, even in religion, for themselves; to investigate everything, and take nothing upon trust.
I have, moreover, in favor of my position, the high authority of Mr.
Macaulay: "The Reformation," says that distinguished essayist and historian, "was a national as well as a moral revolt. It had been not only an insurrection of the laity against the clergy, but _also an insurrection of the great German race against an alien domination_. It is a most significant circ.u.mstance, that no large society of which the tongue is not Teutonic, has ever turned Protestant, and that, wherever a language derived from ancient Rome is spoken, the religion of modern Rome to this day prevails." (_Hist. of England_, vol. i. p. 53.)--H.
[104] Thus Sparta and Athens, respectively, stood at the head of the oligarchic and democratic parties, and the alternate preponderance of either of the two often inundated each state with blood. Yet Sparta and Athens, and the partisans of each in every state, possessed the spirit of liberty and independence in an equal degree. Themistocles and Aristides, the two great party leaders of Athens, vied with each other in patriotism.
This uniformity of general views and purpose, Mr. De Tocqueville found in the United States, and he correctly deduces from it the conclusion that "though the citizens are divided into 24 (31) distinct sovereignties, they, nevertheless, const.i.tute a single nation, and form more truly a state of society, than many peoples of Europe, living under the same legislation, and the same prince." (Vol. i. p. 425.) This is an observation which Europeans make last, because they do not find it at home; and in return, it prevents the American from acquiring a clear conception of the state of Europe, because he thinks the disputes there involve no deeper questions than the disputes around him. In certain fundamental principles, all Americans agree, to whatever party they may belong; certain general characteristics belong to them all, whatever be the differences of taste, and individual preferences; it is not so in Europe--England, perhaps, excepted, and Sweden and Denmark. But I will not antic.i.p.ate the author.--H.
[105] It is well known that, in both Greece and Rome, the education of the children of wealthy families was very generally intrusted to slaves.
Some of the greatest philosophers of ancient Greece were bondsmen.--H.
[106] China has no hereditary n.o.bility. The cla.s.s of mandarins is composed of those who have received diplomas in the great colleges with which the country abounds. A decree of the Emperor JIN-TSOUNG, who reigned from 1023 to 1063, regulated the modes of examination, to which all, indiscriminately, are admitted. The candidates are examined more than once, and every precaution is taken to prevent frauds. Thus, the son of the poorest peasant may become a mandarin, but, as he afterwards is dependent on the emperor for office or employment, this dignity is often of but little practical value. Still, there are numerous instances on record, in the history of China, of men who have risen from the lowest ranks to the first offices of the State, and even to the imperial dignity. (See _Pauthier"s Histoire de la Chine_.)--H.
[107] John F. Davis, _The Chinese_. London, 1840, p. 274. "Three or four volumes of any ordinary work of the octavo size and shape, may be had for a sum equivalent to two shillings. A Canton bookseller"s ma.n.u.script catalogue marked the price of the four books of Confucius, including the commentary, at a price rather under half a crown. The cheapness of their common literature is occasioned partly by the mode of printing, but partly also by the low price of paper."
These are Canton prices; in the interior of the empire, books are still cheaper, even in proportion to the value of money in China. Their cla.s.sic works are sold at a proportionably lower price than the very refuse of our literature. A pamphlet, or small tale, may be bought for a sapeck, about the seventeenth part of a cent; an ordinary novel, for a little more or less than one cent.--H.
[108] There are certain offences for which the punishment is remitted, if the culprit is able to explain lucidly the nature and object of the law respecting them. (See _Huc"s Trav. in China_, vol. ii. p. 252.) In the same place, Mr. Huc bears witness to the correctness of our author"s a.s.sertion. "Measures are taken," says he, "not only to enable the magistrates to understand perfectly the laws they are called upon to apply, but also to diffuse a knowledge of them among the people at large. All persons in the employment of the government, are ordered to make the code their particular study; and a special enactment provides, that at certain periods, all officers, in all localities, shall be examined upon their knowledge of the laws by their respective superiors; and if their answers are not satisfactory, they are punished, the high officials by the retention of a month"s pay; the inferior ones by forty strokes of the bamboo." It must not be imagined that Mr. Huc speaks of the Chinese in the spirit of a panegyrist. Any one who reads this highly instructive and amusing book (now accessible to English readers by a translation), will soon be convinced of the contrary. He seldom speaks of them to praise them.--H.
[109] Op. cit., p. 100.
[110] The reader will remember that DIOCLETIAN, who, the son of a slave, rose from the rank of a common soldier, to the throne of the empire of the world, a.s.sociated with himself in the government, his friend MAXIMIAN, A. D. 286. After six years of this joint reign, they took two other partners, GALERIUS and CONSTANTIUS. Thus, the empire, though nominally one sovereignty, had in reality four supreme heads. Under Constantine the Great, the imperial unity was restored; but at his decease, the purple was again parcelled out among his sons and nephews.
A permanent division of the empire, however, was not effected until the death of Theodosius the Great, who for sixteen years had enjoyed undivided power.
[111] It is not universally known that the various populations of France differ, not only in character, but in physical appearance. The native of the southern departments is easily known from the native of the central and northern. The average stature in the north is said to be an inch and a half more than in the south. This difference is easily perceptible in the regiments drawn from either.--H.
[112] Many of these patois bear but little resemblance to the French language: the inhabitants of the Landes, for example, speak a tongue of their own, which, I believe, has roots entirely different. For the most part, they are unintelligible to those who have not studied them. Over a million and a half of the population of France speak German or German dialects.--H.
[113] Mr. Gobineau"s remarks apply with equal, and, in some cases, with greater force, to other portions of Europe, as I had myself ample means for observing. I have always considered the character of the European peasantry as the most difficult problem in the social system of those countries. Inst.i.tutions cannot in all cases account for it. In Germany, for instance, education is general and even compulsory: I have never met a man under thirty that could not read and write. Yet, each place has its local _patois_, which no rustic abandons, for it would be deemed by his companions a most insufferable affectation. I have heard ministers in the pulpit use local dialects, of which there are over five hundred in Germany alone, and most of them widely different. Together with their _patois_, the rustics preserve their local costumes, which mostly date from the Middle Ages. But the peculiarity of their manners, customs, and modes of thinking, is still more striking. Their superst.i.tions are often of the darkest, and, at best, of the most pitiable nature. I have seen hundreds of poor creatures, males and females, on their pilgrimage to some far distant shrine in expiation of their own sins or those of others who pay them to go in their place. On these expeditions they start in great numbers, chanting _Aves_ on the way the whole day long, so that you can hear a large band of them for miles. Each carries a bag on the back or head, containing their whole stock of provisions for a journey of generally from one to two weeks. At night, they sleep in barns, or on stacks of hay in the fields. If you converse with them, you will find them imbued with superst.i.tions absolutely idolatrous. Yet they all know how to read and write. The perfect isolation in which these creatures live from the world, despite that knowledge, is altogether inconceivable to an American. As Mr. Gobineau says of the French peasants, they believe themselves a distinct race. There is little or no discontent among them; the revolutionary fire finds but scanty fuel among these rural populations. But they look upon those who govern and make the laws as upon different beings, created especially for that purpose; the principles which regulate their private conduct, the whole sphere of their ideas, are peculiar to themselves. In one word, they form, not a cla.s.s, but a caste, with lines of demarcation as clearly defined as the castes of India. I have said before that this is not from want of education; nor can any other explanation of the mystery be found. It is not poverty, for among these rustics there are many wealthy people, and, in general, they are not so poor as the lower cla.s.ses in cities. Nor do the laws restrain them within the limits of a caste. In Germany, hereditary aristocracy is almost obsolete. The ranks of the actual aristocracy are daily recruited from the burgher cla.s.ses. The highest offices of the various states are often found in possession of unt.i.tled men, or men with newly created t.i.tles. The colleges and universities are open to all, and great facilities are afforded even to the poorest. Yet these differences between various parts of the population remain, and this generally in those localities which the ethnographer describes as strongly tinctured with non-Teutonic elements.--H.
[114] A nurse from Tours had put a bird into the hands of her little ward, and was teaching him to pull out the feathers and wings of the poor creature. When the parents reproached her for giving him this lesson of wickedness, she answered: "C"est pour le rendre _fier_."--(It is to make him fierce or high-spirited.) This answer of 1847 is in strict accordance with the most approved maxims of education of the nurse"s ancestors in the times of Vercingetorix.
[115] A few years ago, a church-warden was to be elected in a very small and very obscure parish of French Brittany, that part of the former province which the real Britons used to call the _pays Gallais_, or Gallic land. The electors, who were all peasants, deliberated two days without being able to agree upon a selection, because the candidate, a very honest, wealthy, and highly respected man and a good Christian, was a _foreigner_. Now, this _foreigner_ was born in the locality, and his father had resided there before him, and had also been born there, but it was recollected that his grandfather, who had been dead many years, and whom no one in the a.s.sembly had known, came from somewhere else.
[116] This is no exaggeration, as every one acquainted with French history knows. In the great revolution of the last century, the peasantry of France took no interest and no part. In the Vendee, indeed, they fought, and fought bravely, for the ancient forms, their king, and their feudatory lords. Everywhere else, the rural districts remained in perfect apathy. The revolutions since then have been decided in Paris.
The _emeutes_ seldom extended beyond the walls of the great cities. It is a well-known fact, that in many of the rural districts, the peasants did not hear of the expulsion of the Bourbon dynasty, until years afterwards, and even then had no conception of the nature of the change.
Bourbon, Orleans, Republic, are words, to them, of no definite meaning.
The only name that can rouse them from their apathy, is "Napoleon." At that sound, the Gallic heart thrills with enthusiasm and thirst for glory. Hence the unparalleled success with which the present emperor has appealed to universal suffrage.--H.
[117] It is not generally appreciated how much we are indebted to Oriental civilizations for our lighter and more graceful literature. Our first works of fiction were translations or paraphrases of Eastern tales introduced into Western Europe by the returning crusaders. The songs of the troubadour, the many-tomed romances of the Middle Ages--those ponderous sires of modern novels--all emanated from that source. The works of Dante, Ta.s.so, Ariosto, Boccacio, and nearer home, of Chaucer and Spenser, are incontestable proofs of this fact. Even Milton himself drew from the inexhaustible stores of Eastern legends and romances. Our fairy tales, and almost all of our most graceful lyric poesy, that is not borrowed from Greece, is of Persian origin. Almost every popular poet of England and the continent has invoked the Oriental muse, none more successfully than Southey and Moore. It would be useless to allude to the immense popularity of acknowledged versions of Oriental literature, such as the _Thousand and One Nights_, the Apologues, Allegories, &c. What we do not owe to the East, we have taken from the Greeks. Even to this day, Grecian mythology is the never-failing resource of the lyric poet, and so familiar has that graceful imagery become to us, that we introduce it, often _mal-a-propos_, even in our colloquial language.
In metaphysics, also, we have confessedly done little more than revive the labors of the Greeks.--H.
CHAPTER X.
QUESTION OF UNITY OR PLURALITY OF SPECIES.
Systems of Camper, Blumenbach, Morton, Carus--Investigations of Owen, Vrolik, Weber--Prolificness of hybrids, the great scientific stronghold of the advocates of unity of species.
It will be necessary to determine first the physiological bearing of the word _race_.
In the opinion of many scientific observers, who judge from the first impression, and take extremes[118] as the basis of their reasoning, the groups of the human family are distinguished by differences so radical and essential, that it is impossible to believe them all derived from the same stock. They, therefore, suppose several other genealogies besides that of Adam and Eve. According to this doctrine, instead of but one species in the genus _h.o.m.o_, there would be three, four, or even more, entirely distinct ones, whose commingling would produce what the naturalists call _hybrids_.