them, on which his political doctrines are to be grounded, and which are-1, a general deep rooted gradation in animal beings and in the human race; 2, a plurality of original types amongst mankind; 3, the perpetuity of these types, entirely independent of the influ ence of climate. towards materialism: a philosophy that, in | ble characteristics. Having thus extirpated its self-sufficiency, continually flatters itself" un préjugé trop profondément enraciné," by seeking its defence in the ancient philo- namely, the notion that man is one class, M. sopy of the Greeks and Romans; overlook- Courtet sets down certain axioms, as he calls ing the characteristic fact, that whilst this latter was constantly grasping after truth, itself is as constantly running after error, and embracing, with an exulting satisfaction, every opinion that may reduce the intellect given us by our Creator to a level with the animals that grovel in the dust. We scarcely know from what causes such a theory has Before we go farther into M. Courtet's obtained disciples, unless it be more or less system, we will consider briefly the argu. attributable to a condition of society border-ments by which he supports these axioms (!) ing fast on the dissolution of social senti- and we trust that we shall, without much dif ments, or the bigotry of mental blindness, ficulty, be enabled to show their utter fallarejecting all evidence but that of the touch. ciousness. To this system of philosophy unquestion- In the first place, our author attempts to ably belongs the essay of M. Courtet, which demonstrate a logical necessity for the truth has just reached our hands. When he talks of his axioms, by a train of reasoning that of laying the foundations of political science would do honour to an "opponent" in any in the science of man, we must not under- one of our university schools. Buffon, says stand by this latter the science impressed he, places man at the head of the animal by the immortal γνῶθι σεαυτὸν. M. Courtet race: Buffon remarks the astonishing reguwishes to make politics what he terms une larity of the chain, descending" by steps alscience positive, by throwing overboard the most insensible, from the most perfect of study of man's high intellectual faculties, and creatures to the most shapeless mass." Now, basing it upon his physical constitution as an in order that there may be such a regularity animal; that is to say, he would have us of descent, "there must necessarily be in the consider the essence, or being, implied by the composition of the human race original differterm MAN, to be in the body and not in the ences of organization, at least as distinct as mind. He attempts to do away with the those which separate the different species of illusion which, it seems, has so long been animals :"*-Ergo, there are such differsuffered to mislead our theorics of govern-ences, &c. An admirable argument this, ment, viz. the consideration of man as a and equally remote from the common places "moral being" only; and accordingly divides of logic and fact. We must, nevertheless, his book into two parts, in the first of which consider poor Buffon as extremely ill used he developes his notions of Man as simply in this process of reasoning, since there is an animal; and in the second he applies these notions to the science of politics. Linnæus, says our author, when he placed man in his system of nature at the head of the animal kingdom, opened a new road to science. Buffon followed in the same train, and called the attention of his disciples to the singular and beautiful regularity with which the chain of animated nature extended, from its lofty climax, man, down to the lowest point of its gradation. But Linnæus and Buffon, with their followers, according to M. Courtet, although they made this grand step towards the true, fell into the important error of considering man, physically, as a class, instead of one species of a class. Others, too, of later years, have led the way to the grand discovery set forth, it seems, in the present work, viz. that as in every class of animals there is a regular series of species, so in this highest class of man there is such a series also; every species of which is dis. tinctly separated from the other, and has been ab origine, by the strongest and most indeli much more fathered upon him than he would willingly have acknowledged. When Lin. næus and Buffon placed man, as an animal, at the head of their system, the former at leas! knew well that it was taking him in only "Il résulte de cette opinion que l'homme, tout en se distinguant d'une manière sensible des genres inférieurs d'animaux, se lie néanmoins à ces genres par une facile transition, comme ceux-ci, également distincts les uns des autres, se lient évidemment entre eux. Il n'y a identitó nulle part, mais l'analogie est partout. Entre l'homme et les autres êtres organizés, il n'y a point similitude, il y a gradation. Mais pour qu'il y ait gradation, pour que l'on puisse descendre par des degrés presque insensibles de la créature la plus parfait à la matière la plus informe, de l'animal le mieux organizé au minéral le plus brut,' il fant nécessairement qu'il y ait dans le sein du genre humain (qui se trouve ainsi rattaché à tous les autres genres) des différences originelles d'organization, pour le moins aussi tranchées que celles qui séparent les diverses espèces d'animaux: car, si l'on comparait l'Européen à l'oran-outang, il serait absurde de dire que l'on passe de l'un à l'autre par une transition légèrement marqée."-p. 6. one of his attributes; and also, what M. Courtet seems to have left out of the consideration, that he possessed another attribute, marking the widest possible separation betwixt himself and the next species in descent: in fact, that it would have been as absurd to say there was an "insensible step" between man and the highest species of brutes, as it would have been both absurd and impious to say there was but an insensible step between God and man. The error is notorious; and with a known cause of such infinite difference, we have no ground whatever for as suming the logical necessity of a nearer and more regular approach. The system of M. Courtet is thus reduced to rest entirely upon facts, and not upon theoretic reasoning, in which the foregoing example proves that he is not over strong. To us there appears no conceivable reason for imagining that the different species of mankind must follow the same system as the inferior animals, or that any "original law of creation," as M. Courtet terms it, can be applicable here; unless, as he seems to suppose, and as some of the older philosophers in a barbarous age literally believed, men were produced like cabbages. between the general characteristics of any Beauty, according to our author, is itself a distinctive characteristic of the different species of the class MAN. Beginning with the lowest grade, we see extreme ugliness in the Hottentot, and find a constant and regu. M. Courtet next proceeds to show that lar increase of beauty through all the asthere are marked differences in the physical cending scale till we reach its highest degree organization of different races of Man, which in the European. We are strongly tempted must have co-existed with his origin, and to question this argument altogether, and see which prove such a graduated chain in that no ground for concluding the organization class as he had already assumed to exist. of the head to be connected with the features He specifies various physical characteristics which distinguish, for instance, the negro from the European: and, trifling as these appear and really are in comparison with the differences between other classes of animals, he asserts them to be such as render it impossible that the two races could ever have sprung from the same stock. He then enumerates the various species of mankind which some naturalists have interposed between the European and the negro, and finally arrives at the conclusion that all these varieties have been, from the first existence of man, as radically distinct as a tiger and a cat. of the face. With regard to beauty, M. Courtet overlooks the disparity often occurring in the different sexes of the same race; the Greeks, for instance; and for the Irish, compare the men of Munster and Connaught with their brethren. Is the native of Bengal, the Nair, the American Indian, the Persian, or the Circassian, superior in intellect, as un. questionably in beauty, to the ancient Roman* and the modern Chinese ?-and what, in a few centuries, has so changed the Tartars of Rubruquis and other old travellers? But may we not pursue M. Courtet's scale of beauty within the bounds of EuropeThe strongest distinguishing characteris-nay, in our own island-in the same mantics of the different races of mankind are ner? and is not the actuating cause the seated in the head and face. Here it cannot same? Why, for instance, do we we find be denied that the negro, with his low narrow forehead, his scull elongated backwards, his thick lips, &c., differs widely from the European; that the European differs from the Asiatic, and that the Jew differs from others: we admit the truth of many similar statements in the book before us. But are not these exactly what we ought to expect? and does there not exist as remarkable a distinction between two individuals of the same race and nation, in proportion to circumstances, as in England the greatest degree of beauty as well as intelligence, if we seek it as the characteristic of a class, amongst the highest grade, the nobility? Doubtless because we there find the most universally careful education. Who that is accustomed to observe attentively the features of any particular class of society in England, will not recognise, to a certain degree, a distinctive cha * See Cicero. racter between that class and another, and have yet only arrived at the first generation. thus afford one solution of the question as to But if we take the same stock two or three the difference of feature in different races. descents lower, can we doubt that the same Let us apply the same course of reasoning characteristics will have been not merely to other characteristics, besides those of in-transmitted, but increased and in-rooted and tellectual diversity. that we shall have a tribe of men differing much in physical organization from the people of the country from whence they originated, and who meanwhile have bee continually advancing in intellectual cultivation and refinement? "When we compare, says M.Courtet, "the varieties of the human race with each other and with the different races of animals, we discover a new progression in the senses of sight, hearing, and smell, in the faculty of memory and the powers of mastication; but here the order is inverted. The highest degree of perfection is on the side of the animals, and the European, in this respect, is greatly inferior not only to certain animals, but also to different branches of the human family."-p. 21. The same change in animal organization may be instanced, in the contrary progression, in examples constantly before our eyes. Animals when domesticated, being no longer subjected to the same necessities aswhen wild, lose entirely, after a few generations, many of their distinguishing characteristics, even to the change of colour. The domestic cat is become now a distinct species. While speaking of colour, we may observe that it appears to us somewhat more than doubtful whether this ought to be considered as an absolute distinction of different species. We know that the complexion of people in France and England varies considerably, even in infancy. It is one of M. Courtet's strongest arguments to prove that a negro is a different animal from an European, and he asks whether we have any historical docu Here,again, we have a diversity of physical character which may be observed equally in a single tribe or society as in different races. There is proportionally as great a diversity between the race of sailors, the race of hus. bandmen, the race of mountaineers, the race of the lower orders in London, and the race of gentlemen, as there is between the race of Europeans and the race of Calmucs. As the intellectual organs of the child,in the course of a refined education, are developed,and in some de gree the formation of his head along with them, so are the other, the more animal organs,each, in all probability, more or less strongly form.ment that could lead us to believe that negroes ed by the circumstances under which he has were ever less black than at present, or if it grown up to maturity. To think otherwise, was ever experienced that a negro became is to suppose material action without result. white by living in Europe amongst Europeans, For the sake of a familiar example, let us or the contrary? With respect to the first of imagine a pair taken from among the educa. these objections, it must be observed, that ted classes of society, and placed in a wild from the earliest ages of history, the negroes uninhabited country, where it required all of Africa have been living in the same positheir efforts from dawn till night to obtain a tion, and exactly under the same circumprecarious existence, and to defend themselves stances; that consequently there have been from the attacks of wild beasts; and fur. neither physical nor moral causes to produce ther, that in this position they were enabled any alteration, and hence we find they have to breed and bring up children, who must now the same characteristics as are exhibited naturally seek their living and defence in the in the tombs of the Pharaohs. How far civsame manner, from the moment they are ca- ilization can be spread amongst them in their pable of doing so. These children being ut- own country, remains to be seen by our desterly destitute of intellectual education, their cendants. Merkel, we know, set up the intellectual organs would naturally be little startling hypothesis that they originated civ. developed, but at the same time their organs ilization; it is sufficiently refuted by facts; of sight and hearing would, by constant habit, but that families transplanted to more tem. be developed to an extraordinary degree. perate climes, and educated amongst a more The organs of the other senses also are com- civilized population, will gradually undergo a monly prominent in proportion as the intellec- considerable organic change, we have no tual organs are defective. These children,again, doubt whatever. However, it must also be being destitute of clothing,their skins would be- observed, on the second objection of M. Courcome hard and discoloured, particularly if expo- tet, that this change will be very gradual, and sed to a sultry sun; and as they went barefoot, that it will take some time to eradicate entirely their feet would be large and flattened. Here organic forms which have been taking root then, without going any further, we have ob- and continuing through thousands of genera. tained some of the distinguishing charater- tions. This argument, though but one of istics of the lower races of mankind, even in probabilities, is yet of the highest class of some measure the colour of the skin, and we these, for it is founded on the analogies of experience, and we possess no nearer clue. languages that makes us feel and recognize To ask, therefore, for experimental proofs of with our fellow-man in every part of the such doctrines, reminds us of the man who put globe the link which the philosophy of M. a young raven into a cage in order to see if Courtet strives to sever. In tracing the hisit would exceed its reputed century and a half tory of languages, we truly study the history of man in his different migrations, and trace also the very few distinct stocks up to their grand starting point, before which historical documents of another kind, the Scriptures, inform us that there was but one. of life. M. Courtet, in bringing forward the Jews as evidencing the immutability of characteristics in what hells one species of man, gives us an example most peculiarly to our point. It is true that this people, on the oldest Egyp- We are aware that M. Courtet talks much tian monuments, may, after three thousand of treating historically the science of man. years, and after being scattered over every But we have many proofs, within the small part of the earth, be identified with the Jews compass of the present volume, that it is a of the present day. But this is a solitary in-task far beyond his grasp. Sorry are we to stance, and the history of their race affords a be obliged to avow it, but he cannot quote an satisfactory solution of the cause. Where- ordinary writer without making him say what ever they have wandered and wherever they he never dreamed of saying. We will give have settled themselves, the Jews have in all a single instance, that we may not incur the ages carefully excluded all outward influen- charge of condemning unjustly. "Pliny," ces; and the only change which we can ex- says he, "fancied that negroes blackened pect to find is that of complexion, which must their skin, and made their hair curl by bathnaturally be influenced by the climate under ing in a river in Thessaly, which had the which they live, as in the well-known instance strange property of thus transforming the of that race in Malabar. But is there any characters he believed common to the whole instance where a people, either advancing or race of mankind."* This wonderful river retrograding in culture and civilization was the far-famed Pencus. But how, it may through ages, have at the same time experi- be asked, came the negroes there? The quesenced no physical change in their personal tion occurs to ourselves, and we were satisappearance? Have we not, on the contrary, most incontrovertible testimony that individual tribes of people have in their progress changed organically-that is, have changed in fig. ure, stature, strength? fied at once by a reference to the original, which runs thus:-"In Falisco omnis aqua pota candidos boves facit: in Bocotia amnis Melas oves nigras: Cephissus, ex eodem lacu profluens, albas: rursus nigras Peneus: ruBut there is a greater proof of identity of fasque juxta Ilium Xanthus, unde et nomen race than any physical evidence that can be amni." (Plin. Hist. Nat. ii. 106.) Pliny is given; one which M. Courtet has entirely talking of wonderful springs and rivers ;overlooked, and that is, language. It is here"The water drank in the fountain Faliscus," that we trace beyond any doubt the fact of says he, "turns oxen white: in Boeotia, the people, who are now distinguished strongly river Melas turns sheep black; the Cephisfrom each other by a diversity of physical sus, issuing from the same lake, turns them characteristics, having branched off from one (the sheep) white; the Peneus, again, turns original stock. What is more, as we look them black; and the Xanthus, near Ilium, into the history of languages, we find, as eve- turns them red, and hence its name." Al. ry reflecting and penetrating mind might ex- though we do not deny that M. Courtet has pect, that they have been going through the as much right to take sheep for men as he same changes as have acted upon man's has to take men for oran outangs, yet we physical constitution. By them we trace an consider it a grave infraction of his own sysoriginal tongue, diverging first into slight and tem, to turn the men into negroes, and then scarcely-differing dialects, afterwards through to curl their hair gratuitously. time and position becoming as distinct, and, to the common observer, as difficult to identify with one another, as the people who speak them. The Jews still read the Bible in the language in which it was written when Christ manifested himself upon earth, and long before; could an Englishman read it in the language of Ulphilas? Let it not be forgot. ten, that community of language unites us in blood with native races whom we have joined to ourselves politically, on the distant banks of the Indus. It is particularly the study of When the reasoning is false, the conclusion need scarcely be examined; the foundations destroyed, the building naturally falls to the ground. We shall, therefore, pass quickly over the remainder of M. Courtet's treatise. Having, as he believes, established "Pline le naturaliste avait imaginé que les nègres teignaient leurs corps et crêpaient leurs cheveux en se baignant dans un fleuve de Thesainsi les caractères qu'il supposait communs à salie qui avait l'étrange propriété de transformer toute l'espeèce.”—p. 4. the doctrine that man is an animal divided | he goes on to explain the origin of the differinto different species, radically distinct from ent forms of society; in India and other each other, a new question presents itself, countries, a distinction of castes; in AmeriWhether there be not different gradations of ca, a more brutal distinction of master and intelligence, equally and as radically distinct slave; in the middle ages, a feudal servitude; from each other; in other words, whether and also how in France, there is now, or the mind is not as material a member of the there is fast approaching, a state of no disbody as the arm or the foot, and whether, tinction at all, but pure égalité. In all this therefore, it is not "by the original law of he treats us with arguments of the same creation," greater or longer in some species stamp as those we have examined, and beof the genus Man than in others. This queshaves towards Aristotle much in the way he tion, discussed in the seventh chapter of the had already done towards Pliny and Buffon. first section, is resolved in the affirmative, It is by no means our intention to follow him and it appears to us somewhat unceremoni- into this division of the subject. His theory ously. The sum of M. Courtet's argument is, that all states have been formed by the may be given in very few words; it amounts conjunction of species of the genus man, who simply to this, that a man who has little brains were made to be slaves, or little better; and cannot have much sense. It has been prov- of species of the same genus, who were made ed, he argues, that in the negro, for instance, to command, and who commonly, though apthe forehead is by an immutable law, name-parently not always, held the upper hand by ly, the law of his creation, depressed; there- right of conquest. We may here observe, fore there is no room for brains; therefore that if we followed the application of this doca negro has no brains; therefore he possess- trine closely and far, we should, perhaps, find es, by the law of his creation, a low species some such curious vagaries of the "original of intellect. It cannot be concealed, howe- law of creation" as would not a little surver, that in this argument there is an error prise M. Courtet; portions of one species in pricipio. The depression of the organs here, in their natural place of masters, and does not necessarily show a want of brain, there, at the mercy of an inferior genus; at but a want of development. The mind may be one time up, and at another down; nay, in there, but uncultivated; a long state of entire some instances, we might even find separated barbarism, rendering it, like some of our portions of one body meeting without recog. peerages, dormant. Experience, however, nizing the law of affinity, and overthrowing shows us that education, like the royal prero- all rights of the "original law," by lording it gative, can, though gradually, restore the long-over their own blood. In England, bound, slumbering faculties; and as the intellect is or rather separated by our feudal feelings, awakened, the organs being developed, even we have kept up the game of master and the depression might disappear in the course man even unto the present day but not so of a generation or two. But besides the error in France: there, M. Courtet informs us, in principio, religion and consciousness come the different species of man crossed so often, forward and tell us that there is an error also that by degrees the whole community wasin toto; that the mind is neither arm nor reduced to a kind of half breed, which has foot; that it is the action of an immaterial been approaching nearer and nearer to an and immortal soul, which, except in this state, universal equality, until now it is hard to say where its energies are clogged and fettered which ought to be above and which below. by its mortal tenement, acknowledges no In America, on the contrary, where the two physical inequality; in fine, that the reason- extreme links of the genus are brought in ings of M. Courtet are triflings unworthy of contact, the species European with the spea Christian, whatever they may be of the cies Negro, the former is justified, and has a mere genus Man, species European, variety right by "the original law of creation," to Frenchman, in which he is so proud of rang. flog the negro to his work, in the same way ing himself. that one beats a dog to teach him good man. In the second section of his book, M. Cour-ners. Such is the system of politics which tet applies the principles which he has set down in the preceding, to the science of poli- Be it ever remembered to the glory of Engtics; and he deduces thence the doctrine, land, that land polluted by feudal despotism, that the different species of the genus man and where the two species have not yet prowere not formed to live apart, like different duced a half breed to set up a cry of égalité, species of animals, but that they are naturally that she has held out her hand to the negro, made to lord it one over the other; and that proclaimed the great Christian principle of to one race of people was given by "the ori-equality of mankind, and told him that he ginal law of creation" the right to trample shall be enslaved no more, since the "nation down and enslave its fellow race. And thus of shopkeepers" has sacrificed millions in : M. Courtet founds upon the science of man! |