Charles Hamilton Smith, Samuel Kneeland

Dr. PRICHARD, the most zealous and learned advocate of the unity of the human race, commences his second section as follows: “The Sacred Scriptures, whose testimony is received by all men of unclouded minds with implicit and reverential assent, declare that it pleased the Almighty Creator to make of one blood all the nations of the earth, and that all mankind are the offspring of common parents. But there are writers in the present day who maintain that this assertion does not comprehend the uncivilized inhabitants of remote regions; and that Negroes, Hottentots, Esquimaux, and Australians, are not, in fact, men in the full sense of that term, or beings endowed with like mental faculties as ourselves.” These half-brutes, half-men, do not belong to what Bory de Saint Vincent calls the “Race Adamique;” they were created to be the slaves of the superior races; and are capable of improvement to an extent comparable to that attained by dogs or horses. Such men think it the extreme of folly for England to have recently emancipated from West Indian slavery a tribe of Negroes, exactly in the situation for which nature designed them. There are not a few in this country who cherish, if they do not express, a similar opinion. But in matters of scientific inquiry, all considerations, not bearing on the immediate facts in the case, must be set aside the maxim to follow is “fiat Justitia, ruat cœlum” [Let justice be done, though the heavens fall]. “In fact, what is actually true it is always most desirable to know, whatever consequences may arise from its admission.”

As the signification of the word “species” has been variously understood, he defines species as “simply tribes of plants or of animals which are certainly known, or may be inferred, on satisfactory grounds, to have descended from the same stocks, or from parentages precisely similar, and in no way distinguished from each other.” The principal object of his work is to point out the most important diversities by which the genus Man is separated into different races, and to determine if these races are separate species, or merely varieties of one species. Permanent varieties, if we allow the existence of such tribes, come very near species, and may be defined as “races now displaying characteristic peculiarities which are constantly and permanently transmitted;” differing from species in that the peculiarities are not coeval with the tribe, but have arisen since the commencement of its existence: it is not unlikely that many so called distinct species of animals and plants are in reality only permanent varieties. (21-22)

It may now be asked if the species of man were created equal. We speak not of individuals, but of races. Many Caucasians may be inferior to many Negroes, or Mongolians, or Malays, and many individuals of talent may be found among the dark races; but they are acknowledged exceptions. The question is not whether a race may be improved, for that nobody doubts; else were they not human; but whether all have the same capability of being improved; and what the races are naturally, and what is the standard of the species.

History need not be very deeply consulted to convince one that the white races, without an exception, have attained a considerable degree of civilization and refinement; and that the dark races have always stopped short at a considerably lower level. There must have been a time when the Caucasian was as ignorant and uncivilized as the American or the African; all were once simple children of Nature, or while the former have advanced, the latter have degenerated from the original type of their species. Why have accidental circumstances always prevented the latter from rising, while they have only stimulated the former to higher attainment? The whole mass of facts leads to the conclusion that the dark races are inferiorly organized, and cannot, to the same extent as the white races, understand the laws of Nature, and therefrom obtain an ever-increasing light and knowledge; that they bear the stamp of their inferiority in their physical organization.

The North American Indian bears a stamp of inferiority in his physical and mental constitution; his nature shows a preponderance of the “vegetative element,” as Guyot calls it; his temperament is lymphatic, cold, unsocial, insensible; he is the man of the forest, sombre and sad. The results of the mixture of the White and Red races for two hundred years are well known. The Indian civilization has not advanced permanently, or of itself; they will not give up their wild life for the restraints of civilization; they cannot, from their organization, be civilized. Like the wild animals of the forest, they retreat before the whites, contact with whom has nearly annihilated them as a race. Similar reflections arise in contemplating the Negro races. Amalgamation of races will not mend the matter. The inferior race will gain, for a time, what the superior loses; but return to one of the original types, or degeneration and final extinction, must sooner or later be the result. (94-95)

ALTHOUGH the existence of Man upon the face of the earth, to a very remote period, cannot be denied, it still remains a question, in systematic zoology, whether mankind is wholly derived from a single species, divided by strongly marked varieties, or sprung successively or simultaneously from a genus, having no less than three distinct species, synchronizing in their creation, or produced by the hand of nature at different epochs, each adapted to the peculiar conditions of its period, and all endowed with the power of intermixing and reproducing filiations, up to a certain extent, in harmony with the intermediate locations, which circumstances, soil, climate, and food, necessitate. Of these questions, the first is assumed to be answered in the affirmative, notwithstanding the many difficulties which surround it and a very recent author, of undoubted ability, has gone so far as to conclude that man necessarily constitutes but one single species. The inference, at first sight, appears to repose almost wholly upon authority without physiological assent, excepting when physiology itself again upon an assumed conclusion. Now, with regard to the second proposition, notwithstanding an unnecessary multiplication of species successively adopted by other philosophical physiologists, it cannot be denied that, by their hypothesis, many phenomena, most difficult of explanation, are solved in a comparatively natural way, and so far deserve more implicit confidence. For the first, scientifically taken, reposes mainly upon the maxim in natural history, which declares, “That the faculty of procreating a fertile offspring constitutes identity of species, and that all differences of structure and external appearance, compatible therewith, are solely the effects resulting from variety of climate, food, or accident; consequently, are forms of mere varieties, or of races of one common species!” The second, on the contrary, while admitting the minor distinctions, as the effects of local causes, regards the structural, taken together with the moral and intellectual characters, as indications of a specific nature not referable to such causes, albeit the species remain prolific by inter-union, which, according to them, are the source of varieties and intermediate races. (167-68)

Reverting to Buffon’s experiment of breeding between the Wolf and Dog, intended by him more with a view to ascertain the reality of their common origin, or specifical identity, and by Frederick Cuvicr [George-Fréderick Cuvier, brother of Georges Cuvier; the first to use the term “hereditary”] pointed out as solved, because, according to his view, it established an increasing sterility in the successive generations, we have already stated, that neither sufficient care nor continuity was given to the experiment and that one single pair, of homogeneous origin, continuing propagation through successive offspring, without a single cross of renovating blood, would, in all probability, end in similar sterility, or at least in sensible degradation. Hence it remains to be proved, whether it would not hold equally between two such dissimilar forms of Man, as a typical African negro and an European conducted upon the same principle, of admitting no intermixture of a single collateral. We doubt, exceedingly, if a mulatto family does, or could exist, in any part of the tropics, continued to a fourth generation, from one stock: perhaps there is not even one of five generations of positive mulattoes (hybrids in the first degree), from different parents, but that all actually require, for continuity at least, a long previous succession of foreign influences of white or negro, mestise, quartroon, sambo, native Indian, or Malay blood, before the sinew and substance of a durable intermediate race can be reared.

When the case is referred to Mongolic blood, placed in similar circumstances, or when merely kept approaching to equal proportions with that of a Caucasian or Ethiopian stock, or even with any very aberrant, the effect would be the same. If the moral and instinctive impulses of the beardless stock be taken into account, they will be found to operate with a singularly repulsive tendency. Where the two types come in contact, it produces war, ever aiming, on the Mongolic side, at extermination, and in peace striving at an absolute exclusion of all intercourse with races typically distinct. In the wildest conquering inundations, lust itself obeying its impulses only by a kind of necessity; myriads of slaves carried off and embodied, still producing only a very gradual influence upon the normalisms of the typical form, and passing into absorption by certain external appearances, with very faint steps.

War and slavery seem to have been, and still are, the great elements, perhaps the only direct agents, to produce amalgamation of the typical stocks, without which no permanent progress in the path of true civilization is made. From war has resulted the intermediate races of man, in the regions where the typical species overlapped, strove for possession, and were forced to withdraw or to submit to absorption. Periods of repose seem even to be requisite before new influences are efficient; and thus, by degrees, commences that state of amalgamation which the necessities of the case, and the conditions already mentioned, prescribe to generate secondary forms of Man, by combinations, where new habits, new dialects, new articles of food, together with at least change of climate in one of the constituents, had their legitimate sphere of action. It is thus, where the foreign influence of infusion is modified by a change of climate, that mixed races spring up and have a continuous duration beyond the pale of their primitive centres of existence, until the ground is contested by the purer races, when they fall a prey to the victors, are exterminated, absorbed, or perish by a kind of decreasing vitality, or are entirely obliterated. (171-73)

It does not appear that a thorough research has yet been made in the successive cerebral appearances of the foetus, nor of the character the brain of infants exhibits, immediately after parturition, in each of the three typical forms. M. de Serres, indeed, has led the way, and already, according to him, most important discoveries have resulted from his investigations; for, should the conditions of cerebral progress be more complete at birth in the Caucasian type, as his discoveries indicate, and be successively lower in the Mongolic and intermediate Malay and American, with the woolly-haired least developed of all, it would follow, according to the apparently general law of progression in animated nature, that both—or at least the last mentioned—would be in the conditions which show a more ancient date of existence than the other, notwithstanding that both this and the Mongolic are so constituted that the spark of mental development can be received by them through contact with the higher Caucasian innervation; thus appearing, in classified zoology, to constitute perhaps three species, originating at different epochs, or simultaneously in separate regions, while by the faculty of fusion with the last or Caucasian, imparted to them, progression up to intellectual equality would manifest essential unity, and render all alike responsible beings, according to the degree of their existing capabilities—for this must be the ultimate condition for which Man is created. Fanciful though these speculations may appear, they seem to confer more harmony upon the conflicting phenomena surrounding the question, than any other hypothesis that rests upon physiology, combined with geological data and known historical facts.*

*The higher order of animals, according to the investigations of M. de Serres, passes successively through the state of inferior animals, as it were in transitu, adopting the characteristics that are permanently imprinted on those below them in the scale of organization. Thus, the brain of Man excels that of any other animal in complexity of organization and fulness of development. But this is only attained by gradual steps. At the earliest period that it is cognizable to the senses, it appears a simple fold of nervous matter, with difficulty distinguishable into three parts, and having a little tail-like prolongation, which indicates the spinal marrow. In this state it perfectly resembles the brain of an adult fish thus assuming, in transitu, the form that is permanent in fish. Shortly after, the structure becomes more complex, the parts more distinct, the spinal marrow better marked. It is now the brain of a reptile. . . . The complication increases; cavities or ventricles are formed, which do not exist in either fishes, reptiles, or birds. Curiously organized parts, such as the corpora striata, are added. It is now the brain of mammalia. Its last and final change is wanting, that which shall render it the brain of Man, in the structure of its full and human development. But although in this progressive augmentation of organized parts, the full complement of the human brain is thus attained, the Caucasian form of Man has still other transitions to undergo, before the complete chef d’oeuvre of nature is perfected. Thus, the human brain successively assumes the form of the Negroes, the Malays, the Americans, and the Mongolians, before it attains the Caucasian. Nay, more, the face partakes of these alterations. (176-77)

Among these [facts] perhaps not one is more forcible than the fact that the lowest form of the three [typical stocks] is the most ready to amalgamate with the highest. Again, that both the beardless and woolly-haired acquire the Caucasian expression of beauty from a first intermixture, and very often both stature and form exceeding either type; and, in the second generation, the eyes of Mongoles become horizontal, the face oval. The crania of the Negro stock immediately expand in their hybrid offspring, and leave more durable impressions than when the order is reversed. Even from the moment either typical stock is itself in a position to be intellectually excited by education, it is progressive in development in succeeding generations. Here then, at the point of most intense innervation, the spark of indefinite progress is alone excited, and communicated in power, precisely according to the quantity received. . . . But then, the intention of an aboriginal unity of the species is at least so far indicated by the circumstance of Man’s typical stock, having all a direct tendency to pass upwards towards the highest endowed, rather than to a lower condition, or to remain stationary. (180-81)

[including Giants, Dwarfs, Flatheads, and “other Abnormal Tribes”]

In the forests of ancient Dauphiny, there exist also relics of another population, unrecorded in history, but commonly ascribed to a Saracen or Moorish origin, stragglers of those who invaded France in the seventh and eighth century, and were unable to escape. There were Caucones in the Peloponnesus, Conconi (drinkers of horse blood), and Cheretani, in the Eastern Pyrenees; but they and the Almogavaries have been absorbed.

The Chuvash, still found scattered in the provinces of Kasan, Sembirsk, and Orenburg, in Russia, are a still more obscure race of men. They seem to be the remnant of a semi-brute population, which was scattered on the arrival of the more intellectual Caucasians. In mental capacity, the Chuvashes are reported to be inferior even to the Ostiaks and Samoyedes. They live without taking the slightest notice of the world around them, in a condition little elevated above the orang-outang. While increase and activity is everywhere witnessed in their vicinity, they alone remain stationary; industry and civilization excite in them no desires, no wish to be partakers of prosperity; none ever show inclinations to barter, or to be stimulated by gain to increase the means of comfort or of personal happiness, still less to learn any trade. Their countenances are stupid; their habits incurably lazy, and their religion, for they have a worship, the most degrading idolatry. Their language is barbarously imperfect, and their manners and customs are still more revolting. (194-95)

Therefore, in reasoning upon [the three “typical stocks” of white, red, and black], we must be guarded against certain prepossessions of self-esteem, which the educated man of the bearded stock, and, indeed, mankind in general, is apt to entertain of strangers; for the same tendency is ever at work between nation and nation, and between every sub-division of the human family, however formed. In the description of characters, scientifically taken, we can only point out what they are, without having the power of stating what may be eventually evolved; and though already assured, even with the apparently most degraded nations, that moral rectitude is fully understood, nay, often put in practice, by the savage, to the disgrace of the rapacious Christian who visits his abode; not ashamed to use knowledge for the purpose of deception and illusions for his own gain, though the consequences carry destruction to his victims. When bearing in mind what our own remote progenitors were, we must allow that all men, and all races, bear within them the elements of a measured perfectibility, probably as high as the Caucasian; and it would be revolting to believe that the less gifted tribes were predestined to perish beneath the conquering and all-absorbing covetousness of European civilization, without an enormous load of responsibility resting on the perpetrators. Yet their fate appears to be sealed in many quarters, and seems, by a preordained law, to be an effect of more mysterious import than human reason can grasp. (207)

Most of the black nations are capable of protracted toil, without much injury to their frames; they willingly share labor with the female sex in a state of independence as well as in captivity; they dig, hew wood, carry, walk, or row, for many hours, in a tropical sun, without repining.

. . . [In the West Indies] They have mostly lost the peculiar features belonging to the different African tribes. Their heads are larger, as is seen also in Dr. Morton’s measurements, who, we are inclined to believe, was not aware of the rapid change that takes place in the development of the skull; though, even in Europe, the difference of size in heads of the educated and uneducated classes, among civilized nations, is no secret to hatters. . . .

Collectively, the untutored Negro mind is confiding, single-hearted, naturally kind and hospitable. We speak not without personal experience. The female sex is affectionate, to absolute devotedness, in the character of mother, child, nurse, and attendant upon the sick, though these be strangers, and the often experienced reward scarcely amounting to thanks. As housewives, they are charitable to the wants of the wayfaring visitants; within doors orderly; and, personally, very clean; they are joyous; noisy; in the night-time indefatigable dancers, equally with the men, who are in general orderly, trustworthy, brave and unrepining. Both sexes are easily ruled, and appreciate what is good, under the guidance of common justice and prudence.

Yet, where so much that honors human nature remains—in apathy, the typical woolly-haired races have never invented a reasoned theological system, discovered an alphabet, framed a grammatical language, nor made the least step in science or art. . . .

Thus, the good qualities given to the Negro by the bounty of Nature, have served only to make him a slave, trodden down by every remorseless foot, and to brand him for ages with the epithet of outcast; the marked unceasing proof of a curse, as old as the origin of society, not even deserving human forbearance! and true it is, that the worst slavery is his lot, even at home, for he is there exposed to the constant peril of becoming also a victim, slaughtered with the most revolting torments. Tyrant of his blood, he traffics in slavery as it were merchandise; makes war purposely to capture neighbors, and sells even his own wives and children. (226-30)

Man of the bearded type attains the highest standard, is, in general, above the middle size, and in symmetry excels all the others: the arms are in better proportion, the hands more beautifully shaped, and the feet and toes more delicate, and more obliquely arranged. His movements are more decisive of purpose, more graceful; the poise of his head places the countenance vertically to the horizon. The shoulders are ample, the chest broad, the ribs firm, and the loins well turned; the thighs, and, in particular, the calves of the legs symmetrical; the whole frame constructed for the endurance of every kind of toil, being protected in some measure with a partial growth of hair, which is scarcely traceable in the other types exception on the chest. Thus he is constructed with physical powers equal to his intellectual organization, fitted to sustain protracted thought,--continuous attention, alike excited by an activity of disposition stimulating his brain, which is larger and more fully developed in the anterior portion than in any other form of Man. . . . Again, the Caucasian form of Man combines, above the rest, strength of limb with activity of motion, enabling it to endure the greatest vicissitudes of temperature in all climates,--to emigrate, colonize, and multiply in them, with the sole exception of the positive extremes. . . .

The moral and intellectual character we find to be in unison with his structure; the reasoning powers outstripping the mere process of comparing sensations, and showing, in volition, more elevated thought, more reasoning, justice, and humanity; he alone of the races of mankind has produced examples of free and popular institutions, and his physical characteristics have maintained them in social life. (360-61)

Of the three varieties of color and temperament most distinctly marked in the Caucasian type, the first is characterized by brown complexions and dark eyes and hair, very symmetrical proportions, a round-domed skull, and an intelligence most vividly imaginative. The temperament sensual, the vindictive passions active, the perceptive faculties quick, and the physical energies demanding mental excitement more than reason for exertion. Such are the ardent nations of the south. Opposed to them in form and disposition are the tribes of the north: with a loftier stature, a fair, often a ruddy skin, xanthous hair, rather ponderous limbs, a squarer skull, and coarser features; they have little comparative vivacity, but are endowed with the faculty of thought and reason less under the control of petulant desires; more reflective, and therefore more continuously attached to conclusions once formed; slow, but patient in perseverance; and brave, without requiring the stimulus of enthusiasm. They are sincere and single-minded; but addicted to gluttony and drunkenness. Between these two we find the typical root still more essentially mountaineer in habit, with clear complexions, light brown, auburn, light or dark hair. It has the skull formed almost like the southern stem, but broader in the forehead. By nature and locality possessed of the highest endowment s of the other two, excepting perhaps the quality of reasoned patience; it is imaginative, poetical, inventive, artful, eloquent, valiant, and indefatigable. It has been the master stem from all antiquity; and, in particular, that ambitious race, which is distinguished by high features, has ever been the conquering, the imperious form, that commands in battle and rules in peace, wherever it is found mixed in the social life of nations. Although beauty, valor, and logical capacity, may not by any means be denied the more vertical profiles, yet mathematical, linguistic, and experimental science belong more permanently to the less admired line of features. It is by the exercise of these faculties, tempered with forbearance, that the resolute tenacity of the last mentioned maintains its ground . . . .

It is the Caucasian Man, who, in all regions and times, has been the sole depositor of religion. (367-68)

We now come to the typical Caucasian family, which embraces the greatest celebral [sic] development in width and depth, combined with the highest form of beauty, strength, and power of endurance, coupled with a nervous system less swayed by impulse. In this group are found the most perfect notions of the ideal beautiful, of relative proportion in art and in literature, of logic and of the mathematical sciences in general. The skull, though somewhat lower in the dome, is broader in proportion than the Arab and the Hebrew, more developed at the forehead, making that line more continuously vertical down the nose, which, in the finer specimens, is not aquiline, but straight. The complexion is clear brown, with mostly dark-brown hair, passing to auburn, generally straight, the beard full, the chest ample and deep, the loins small, the gait erect, and the tread martial. It is here that female beauty is possessed of the highest human loveliness, grace, and delicacy and the manly character attains the most majestic and venerable aspect.

The primeval focus of the family is traced up to the highest glens of Hindu-Koosh, the real Imaus and Caucasus of antiquity. (383)