The Descent of Man Page 20
Although the existing races of man differ in many respects, as in colour, hair, shape of skull, proportions of the body, &c., yet if their whole organisation be taken232 into consideration they are found to resemble each other closely in a multitude of points. Many of these points are of so unimportant or of so singular a nature, that it is extremely improbable that they should have been independently acquired by aboriginally distinct species or races. The same remark holds good with equal or greater force with respect to the numerous points of mental similarity between the most distinct races of man. The American aborigines, Negroes and Europeans differ as much from each other in mind as any three races that can be named; yet I was incessantly struck, whilst living with the Fuegians on board the “Beagle,” with the many little traits of character, shewing how similar their minds were to ours; and so it was with a full-blooded negro with whom I happened once to be intimate.
He who will carefully read Mr. Tylor’s and Sir J. Lubbock’s interesting works304 can hardly fail to be deeply impressed with the close similarity between the men of all races in tastes, dispositions and habits. This is shewn by the pleasure which they all take in dancing, rude music, acting, painting, tattooing, and otherwise decorating themselves,—in their mutual comprehension of gesture-language—and, as I shall be able to shew in a future essay, by the same expression in their features, and by the same inarticulate cries, when they are excited by various emotions. This similarity, or rather identity, is striking, when contrasted with the different expressions which may be observed in distinct species of monkeys. There is good evidence that the art of shooting with bows and arrows has not been handed down from any common progenitor of 233mankind, yet the stone arrow-heads, brought from the most distant parts of the world and manufactured at the most remote periods, are, as Nilsson has shewn,305 almost identical; and this fact can only be accounted for by the various races having similar inventive or mental powers. The same observation has been made by archæologists306 with respect to certain widely-prevalent ornaments, such as zigzags, &c.; and with respect to various simple beliefs and customs, such as the burying of the dead under megalithic structures. I remember observing in South America,307 that there, as in so many other parts of the world, man has generally chosen the summits of lofty hills, on which to throw up piles of stones, either for the sake of recording some remarkable event, or for burying his dead.
Now when naturalists observe a close agreement in numerous small details of habits, tastes and dispositions between two or more domestic races, or between nearly-allied natural forms, they use this fact as an argument that all are descended from a common progenitor who was thus endowed; and consequently that all should be classed under the same species. The same argument may be applied with much force to the races of man.
As it is improbable that the numerous and unimportant points of resemblance between the several races of man in bodily structure and mental faculties (I do not here refer to similar customs) should all have been independently acquired, they must have been inherited from progenitors who were thus characterised. We thus gain some insight into the early state of man, 234before he had spread step by step over the face of the earth. The spreading of man to regions widely separated by the sea, no doubt, preceded any considerable amount of divergence of character in the several races; for otherwise we should sometimes meet with the same race in distinct continents; and this is never the case. Sir J. Lubbock, after comparing the arts now practised by savages in all parts of the world, specifies those which man could not have known, when he first wandered from his original birthplace; for if once learnt they would never have been forgotten.308 He thus shews that “the spear, which is but a development of the knife-point, and the club, which is but a long hammer, are the only things left.” He admits, however, that the art of making fire probably had already been discovered, for it is common to all the races now existing, and was known to the ancient cave-inhabitants of Europe. Perhaps the art of making rude canoes or rafts was likewise known; but as man existed at a remote epoch, when the land in many places stood at a very different level, he would have been able, without the aid of canoes, to have spread widely. Sir J. Lubbock further remarks how improbable it is that our earliest ancestors could have “counted as high as ten, considering that so many races now in existence cannot get beyond four.” Nevertheless, at this early period, the intellectual and social faculties of man could hardly have been inferior in any extreme degree to those now possessed by the lowest savages; otherwise primeval man could not have been so eminently successful in the struggle for life, as proved by his early and wide diffusion.
From the fundamental differences between certain 235languages, some philologists have inferred that when man first became widely diffused he was not a speaking animal; but it may be suspected that languages, far less perfect than any now spoken, aided by gestures, might have been used, and yet have left no traces on subsequent and more highly-developed tongues. Without the use of some language, however imperfect, it appears doubtful whether man’s intellect could have risen to the standard implied by his dominant position at an early period.
Whether primeval man, when he possessed very few arts of the rudest kind, and when his power of language was extremely imperfect, would have deserved to be called man, must depend on the definition which we employ. In a series of forms graduating insensibly from some ape-like creature to man as he now exists, it would be impossible to fix on any definite point when the term “man” ought to be used. But this is a matter of very little importance. So again it is almost a matter of indifference whether the so-called races of man are thus designated, or are ranked as species or sub-species; but the latter term appears the most appropriate. Finally, we may conclude that when the principles of evolution are generally accepted, as they surely will be before long, the dispute between the monogenists and the polygenists will die a silent and unobserved death.
One other question ought not to be passed over without notice, namely, whether, as is sometimes assumed, each sub-species or race of man has sprung from a single pair of progenitors. With our domestic animals a new race can readily be formed from a single pair possessing some new character, or even from a single individual thus characterised, by carefully match236ing the varying offspring; but most of our races have been formed, not intentionally from a selected pair, but unconsciously by the preservation of many individuals which have varied, however slightly, in some useful or desired manner. If in one country stronger and heavier horses, and in another country lighter and fleeter horses, were habitually preferred, we may feel sure that two distinct sub-breeds would, in the course of time, be produced, without any particular pairs or individuals having been separated and bred from in either country. Many races have been thus formed, and their manner of formation is closely analogous with that of natural species. We know, also, that the horses which have been brought to the Falkland Islands have become, during successive generations, smaller and weaker, whilst those which have run wild on the Pampas have acquired larger and coarser heads; and such changes are manifestly due, not to any one pair, but to all the individuals having been subjected to the same conditions, aided, perhaps, by the principle of reversion. The new sub-breeds in none of these cases are descended from any single pair, but from many individuals which have varied in different degrees, but in the same general manner; and we may conclude that the races of man have been similarly produced, the modifications being either the direct result of exposure to different conditions, or the indirect result of some form of selection. But to this latter subject we shall presently return.
On the Extinction of the Races of Man.—The partial and complete extinction of many races and sub-races of man are historically known events. Humboldt saw in South America a parrot which was the sole living creature that could speak the language of a lost tribe.237 Ancient monuments and stone implements found in all parts of the world, of which no tradition is preserved by the present inhabitants, indicate much extinction. Some small an
d broken tribes, remnants of former races, still survive in isolated and generally mountainous districts. In Europe the ancient races were all, according to Schaaffhausen,309 “lower in the scale than the rudest living savages;” they must therefore have differed, to a certain extent, from any existing race. The remains described by Professor Broca310 from Les Eyzies, though they unfortunately appear to have belonged to a single family, indicate a race with a most singular combination of low or simious and high characteristics, and is “entirely different from any other race, ancient or modern, that we have ever heard of.” It differed, therefore, from the quaternary race of the caverns of Belgium.
Unfavourable physical conditions appear to have had but little effect in the extinction of races.311 Man has long lived in the extreme regions of the North, with no wood wherewith to make his canoes or other implements, and with blubber alone for burning and giving him warmth, but more especially for melting the snow. In the Southern extremity of America the Fuegians survive without the protection of clothes, or of any building worthy to be called a hovel. In South Africa the aborigines wander over the most arid plains, where dangerous beasts abound. Man can withstand the deadly influence of the Terai at the foot of the Himalaya, and the pestilential shores of tropical Africa.
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Extinction follows chiefly from the competition of tribe with tribe, and race with race. Various checks are always in action, as specified in a former chapter, which serve to keep down the numbers of each savage tribe,—such as periodical famines, the wandering of the parents and the consequent deaths of infants, prolonged suckling, the stealing of women, wars, accidents, sickness, licentiousness, especially infanticide, and, perhaps, lessened fertility from less nutritious food, and many hardships. If from any cause any one of these checks is lessened, even in a slight degree, the tribe thus favoured will tend to increase; and when one of two adjoining tribes becomes more numerous and powerful than the other, the contest is soon settled by war, slaughter, cannibalism, slavery, and absorption. Even when a weaker tribe is not thus abruptly swept away, if it once begins to decrease, it generally goes on decreasing until it is extinct.312
When civilised nations come into contact with barbarians the struggle is short, except where a deadly climate gives its aid to the native race. Of the causes which lead to the victory of civilised nations, some are plain and some very obscure. We can see that the cultivation of the land will be fatal in many ways to savages, for they cannot, or will not, change their habits. New diseases and vices are highly destructive; and it appears that in every nation a new disease causes much death, until those who are most susceptible to its destructive influence are gradually weeded out;313 and so it may be with the evil effects from spirituous liquors, as well as with the unconquerably strong taste for them shewn by so many savages. It further appears, mysterious as is 239the fact, that the first meeting of distinct and separated people generates disease.314 Mr. Sproat, who in Vancouver Island closely attended to the subject of extinction, believes that changed habits of life, which always follow from the advent of Europeans, induces much ill-health. He lays, also, great stress on so trifling a cause as that the natives become “bewildered and dull by the new life around them; they lose the motives for exertion, and get no new ones in their place.”315
The grade of civilisation seems a most important element in the success of nations which come in competition. A few centuries ago Europe feared the inroads of Eastern barbarians; now, any such fear would be ridiculous. It is a more curious fact, that savages did not formerly waste away, as Mr. Bagehot has remarked, before the classical nations, as they now do before modern civilised nations; had they done so, the old moralists would have mused over the event; but there is no lament in any writer of that period over the perishing barbarians.316
Although the gradual decrease and final extinction of the races of man is an obscure problem, we can see that it depends on many causes, differing in different places and at different times. It is the same difficult problem as that presented by the extinction of one of the higher animals—of the fossil horse, for instance, which disappeared from South America, soon afterwards to be replaced, within the same districts, by countless troops of the Spanish horse. The New Zealander seems 240conscious of this parallelism, for he compares his future fate with that of the native rat almost exterminated by the European rat. The difficulty, though great to our imagination, and really great if we wish to ascertain the precise causes, ought not to be so to our reason, as long as we keep steadily in mind that the increase of each species and each race is constantly hindered by various checks; so that if any new check, or cause of destruction, even a slight one, be superadded, the race will surely decrease in number; and as it has everywhere been observed that savages are much opposed to any change of habits, by which means injurious checks could be counterbalanced, decreasing numbers will sooner or later lead to extinction; the end, in most cases, being promptly determined by the inroads of increasing and conquering tribes.
On the Formation of the Races of Man.—It may be premised that when we find the same race, though broken up into distinct tribes, ranging over a great area, as over America, we may attribute their general resemblance to descent from a common stock. In some cases the crossing of races already, distinct has led to the formation of new races. The singular fact that Europeans and Hindoos, who belong to the same Aryan stock and speak a language fundamentally the same, differ widely in appearance, whilst Europeans differ but little from Jews, who belong to the Semitic stock and speak quite another language, has been accounted for by Broca317 through the Aryan branches having been largely crossed during their wide diffusion by various indigenous tribes. When two races in close contact 241cross, the first result is a heterogeneous mixture: thus Mr. Hunter, in describing the Santali or hill-tribes of India, says that hundreds of imperceptible gradations may be traced “from the black, squat tribes of the mountains to the tall olive-coloured Brahman, with his intellectual brow, calm eyes, and high but narrow head;” so that it is necessary in courts of justice to ask the witnesses whether they are Santalis or Hindoos.318 Whether a heterogeneous people, such as the inhabitants of some of the Polynesian islands, formed by the crossing of two distinct races, with few or no pure members left, would ever become homogeneous, is not known from direct evidence. But as with our domesticated animals, a crossed breed can certainly, in the course of a few generations, be fixed and made uniform by careful selection,319 we may infer that the free and prolonged intercrossing during many generations of a heterogeneous mixture would supply the place of selection, and overcome any tendency to reversion, so that a crossed race would ultimately become homogeneous, though it might not partake in an equal degree of the characters of the two parent-races.
Of all the differences between the races of man, the colour of the skin is the most conspicuous and one of the best marked. Differences of this kind, it was formerly thought, could be accounted for by long exposure under different climates; but Pallas first shewed that this view is not tenable, and he has been followed by almost all anthropologists.320 The view has been 242rejected chiefly because the distribution of the variously coloured races, most of whom must have long inhabited their present homes, does not coincide with corresponding differences of climate. Weight must also be given to such cases as that of the Dutch families, who, as we hear on excellent authority,321 have not undergone the least change of colour, after residing for three centuries in South Africa. The uniform appearance in various parts of the world of gypsies and Jews, though the uniformity of the latter has been somewhat exaggerated,322 is likewise an argument on the same side. A very damp or a very dry atmosphere has been supposed to be more influential in modifying the colour of the skin than mere heat; but as D’Orbigny in South America, and Livingstone in Africa, arrived at diametrically opposite conclusions with respect to dampness and dryness, any conclusion on this head must be considered as very doubtful.323
Various facts, which I have elsewhere given, prov
e that the colour of the skin and hair is sometimes correlated in a surprising manner with a complete immunity from the action of certain vegetable poisons and from the attacks of certain parasites. Hence it occurred to me, that negroes and other dark races might have acquired their dark tints by the darker individuals escaping during a long series of generations from the deadly influence of the miasmas of their native countries.
I afterwards found that the same idea had long ago 243occurred to Dr. Wells.324 That negroes, and even mulattoes, are almost completely exempt from the yellow-fever, which is so destructive in tropical America, has long been known.325 They likewise escape to a large extent the fatal intermittent fevers that prevail along, at least, 2600 miles of the shores of Africa, and which annually cause one-fifth of the white settlers to die, and another fifth to return home invalided.326 This immunity in the negro seems to be partly inherent, depending on some unknown peculiarity of constitution, and partly the result of acclimatisation. Pouchet327 states that the negro regiments, borrowed from the Viceroy of Egypt for the Mexican war, which had been recruited near the Soudan, escaped the yellow-fever almost equally well with the negroes originally brought from various parts of Africa, and accustomed to the climate of the West Indies. That acclimatisation plays a part is shewn by the many cases in which negroes, after having resided for some time in a colder climate, have become to a certain extent liable to tropical fevers.328 The nature of the climate under which the white races have long resided, likewise has some influence on them; for during the fearful epidemic of yellow-fever in Demerara during 1837, Dr. Blair found that the death-rate of the immigrants was proportional 244to the latitude of the country whence they had come. With the negro the immunity, as far as it is the result of acclimatisation, implies exposure during a prodigious length of time; for the aborigines of tropical America, who have resided there from time immemorial, are not exempt from yellow-fever; and the Rev. B. Tristram states, that there are districts in Northern Africa which the native inhabitants are compelled annually to leave, though the negroes can remain with safety.