Part 11

Change now the scene,--from ancient India, and the shadow of unknown centuries, to our Republic, born on yesterday. How unlike in venerable antiquity! How like in the pretension of Caste! Here the caste claiming hereditary rank and privilege is white, the caste doomed to hereditary degradation and disability is black or yellow; and it is gravely asserted that this difference of color marks difference of race, which in itself justifies the discrimination. To save this enormity of claim from indignant reprobation, it is insisted that the varieties of men do not proceed from a common stock,--that they are different in origin,--that this difference is perpetuated in their respective capacities; and the apology concludes with the practical assumption, that the white man is a superior caste not unlike the Brahmin, while the black man is an inferior caste not unlike the Sudra, sometimes even the Pariah; nor is the yellow man exempted from this same insulting proscription. When I consider how for a long time the African was shut out from testifying in court, even when seeking redress for the grossest outrage, and how at this time in some places the Chinese is also shut out from testifying in court, each seems to have been little better than the Pariah. In stating this assumption of superiority, which I do not exaggerate, I open a question of surpassing interest, whether in science, government, or religion.

Here I must not forget that some, who admit the common origin of all men, insist that the African is descended from Ham, son of Noah, through Canaan, cursed by Noah to be servant of his brethren, and that therefore he may be degraded even to slavery. But this apology is not original with us. Nobles in Poland seized upon it to justify their lordly pretensions, calling their serfs, though white, descendants of Ham.[124] But whether employed by Pole or American, it is worthy only of derision. I do not know that this apology is invoked for maltreating the Chinese, although he is descended from Ham as much as the Pole.

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Two passages of Scripture, one in the Old Testament and the other in the New, both governing this question, attest the Unity of the Human Family. The first is in that sublime chapter of Genesis, where, amidst the wonders of Creation, it is said: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them; and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.”[125] The other passage is from that great sermon of Saint Paul, when, standing in the midst of Mars Hill, he proclaimed to the men of Athens, and through them to all mankind, that God “hath made of _one blood_ all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.”[126] If, as is sometimes argued, there be ambiguity in the account of the Creation, or if in any way its authority has been impaired by scientific criticism, there is nothing of the kind to detract from the sermon of Saint Paul, which must continue forevermore venerable and beautiful.

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Appealing from these texts, the apologists hurry to Science; and there I follow. But I must compress into paragraphs what might fill volumes.

Ethnology, to which we repair, is a science of recent origin, exhibiting the different races or varieties of Man in their relations with each other, as that other science, Anthropology, exhibits Man in his relation to the animal world. Nature and History are our authorities, but all science and all knowledge are tributary. Perhaps no other theme is grander; for it is the very beginning of human history, in which all nations and men have a common interest. Its vastness is increased, when we consider that it embraces properly not only the origin, distribution, and capacity of Man, but his destiny on earth,--stretching into the infinite past, stretching also into the infinite future, and thus spanning Humanity.

The subject is entirely modern. Hippocrates, one of our ancient masters, has left a treatise on “Air, Water, and Place,” where climatic influences are recognized; but nobody in Antiquity studied the varieties of our race, or regarded its origin except mythically. The discovery of America, and the later circumnavigation of the globe, followed by the development of the sciences generally, prepared the way for this new science.

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It is obvious to the most superficial observer that there are divisions or varieties in the Human Family, commonly called Races; but the most careful explorations of Science leave the number uncertain. These differences are in Color and in Skull,--also in Language. Of these the most obvious is Color; but here, again, the varieties multiply in proportion as we consider transitional or intermediate hues. Two great teachers in the last century--Linnæus, of whom it was said, “God created, Linnæus classified,” _Deus creavit, Linnæus disposuit_,[127] and Kant, a sincere and penetrating seeker of truth--were content with four,--white, copper, tawny or olive, and black,--corresponding geographically to European, American, Asiatic, and African. Buffon, in his eloquent portraiture, recognizes five, with geographical designations. He was followed by Blumenbach, who also recognizes five, with the names which have become so famous since,--Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American, and Malay. Here first appears the popular, but deceptive term, Caucasian; for nobody supposes now that the white cradle was on Caucasus, which is best known to English-speaking people by the verse of Shakespeare, making it anything but Eden,--

“Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?”[128]

Blumenbach was an able and honest inquirer; and if his nomenclature is defective, it is only another illustration of the adage, that nothing is at the same time invented and perfected.

If I mention other attempts, it is only to show how Science hesitates before this great problem. Cuvier reduces the Family to three, with branches or subdivisions, and lends his great authority to the term Caucasian, which he adopts from Blumenbach. Lesson began with three, according to color,--white, yellow, and black; but afterwards recognized six,--white, bistre, orange, yellow, red, black,--represented respectively by European, Hindoo, Malay, Mongolian, American, and Negro, African and Asiatic. Desmoulins makes eleven. Bory de Saint-Vincent adds to Desmoulins. Broc adds to Saint-Vincent. The London “Ethnological Journal” makes no less than sixty-three, of which twenty-eight varieties are intellectual and thirty-five physical; and we are told[129] that thirty varieties of Caucasian alone are recognized on the monuments of ancient Egypt, as they appear in the magnificent works of Rosellini and Lepsius. Our own countryman, Pickering,--whose experience was gained on the Exploring Expedition of Captain Wilkes,--in his work on “The Races of Man and their Geographical Distribution,” enumerates eleven varieties of Man, divided into four groups, according to color,--white, brown, blackish-brown, and black. In his opinion, “there is no middle ground between the admission of eleven distinct species in the Human Family and the reduction to one.”[130]

The Dutch anatomist, Camper, distinguishes the Human Family by the facial angle, ranging from eighty degrees, in the European, down to seventy degrees, in the Negro.[131] This attempt was continued by Virey, who divides Man into two species: the first with a facial angle of 85° to 90°, including Caucasian, Mongolian, and copper-colored American; and the second with a facial angle of 75° to 82°, including dark-brown Malay, blackish Hottentot and Papuan, and the Negro. Prichard, whose voluminous works constitute an ethnological mine, finds, chiefly from the skull, seven varieties, which he calls (1.) Iranian, from Iran, the primeval seat in Persia of the Aryan race, embracing the Caucasian of Blumenbach with some Asiatic and African nations; (2.) Turanian or Mongolian; (3.) American, including Esquimaux; (4.) Hottentot and Bushman; (5.) Negro; (6.) Papuan, or woolly-haired Polynesian; (7.) Australian. The same industrious observer finds three principal varieties in the conformation of the head, corresponding respectively to Savage, Nomadic, and Civilized Man. In the savage African and Australian the jaw is prolonged forward, constituting what he calls, by an expressive term, _prognathous_. In the nomadic Mongolian the skull is pyramidal and the face broad. In Civilized Man the skull is oval or elliptical. But the naturalist records that there are forms of transition, as nations approach to civilization or relapse into barbarism.

Thus does the Human Skull refuse any definitive answer. There are varieties of skull, as of color; but the question remains, to what extent they attest original diversity. Equally vain is the attempt to obtain a guide in the form of the human pelvis. But every such attempt and its failure have their lesson.

There remains one other criterion: I mean Language. And here the testimony is such as to disturb all divisions founded on Color or Skull; for it is ascertained that people differing in these respects speak languages having a common origin. The ancient Sanscrit, sometimes called the most elaborate of human dialects, has yielded its secret to philological research, and now stands forth the mother tongue of the European nations. It is difficult to measure the importance of this revelation; for, while not decisive on the main question, it increases our difficulty in accepting any postulate of original diversity.[132]

And now the question arises, How are these varieties to be regarded in the light of science? Are they aboriginal and from the beginning,--or are they super-induced by secondary causes, of which the record is lost in the extended night preceding our historic day? Here the authorities are divided. On the one side, we are reminded that within the period of recognized chronology no perceptible change has occurred in any of these varieties,--that on the earliest monuments of Egypt the African is pictured precisely as we see him now, even to that servitude from which among us he is happily released,--and it is insisted that no known influences of climate or place are sufficient to explain such transformations from an aboriginal type, while plural types are in conformity with the analogies of the animal and vegetable world. On the other side, we are reminded, that, whatever may be the difficulties from supposing a common centre of Creation, there are greater still in supposing plural centres,--that it is easier to understand one creation than many,[133]--that geographical science makes us acquainted with intermediate gradations of color and conformation in which the great contrasts disappear,--that, even within the last half-century and in Europe, people have tended to lose their national physiognomy and run into a common type, thus attesting subjection to transforming influences,--that, after accepting the races already described, there are other varieties, national, family, and individual, not less difficult of explanation,--and it is insisted, that, whatever these varieties, be they few or many, there is among them all _an overruling Unity_, by which they are constituted one and the same cosmopolitan species, endowed with speech, reason, conscience, and the hope of immortality, knitting all together in a common Humanity, and, amidst all seeming differences, making all as near to each other as they are far apart from every other created thing, while to every one is given that great first instrument of civilization, the human hand, by which the earth is tilled, cities built, history written, and the stars measured;--and this unquestionable Unity is pronounced all-sufficient evidence of a common origin.

In considering this great question, do all inquirers sufficiently recognize the element of Time? Obviously the sphere of operation is enlarged in proportion to the time employed. Everything is possible with time. Confining ourselves to recognized chronology, existing varieties cannot be reconciled with that unity found in a common origin. What are the six thousand years of Hebrew time, what are the twenty-two thousand years of human annals sanctioned by the learning and piety of Bunsen,[134] for the consummation of these transformations? And this longest period, how brief for the completion of those two marvellous languages, Sanscrit and Greek, which at the earliest dawn of authentic history were already so perfect! Considering the infinitudes of astronomy, and those other infinitudes of geology, it is not unreasonable to claim an antiquity for Primeval Man compared with which all the years of authentic history are a span. With such incalculable opportunity, amidst unknown changes of Nature where heat and cold strove for mastery, no transformation consistent with the preservation of the characteristic species was impossible. Egypt is not alone in its Sphinx, perplexing mortals with perpetual enigma. Science is our Sphinx, and its enigma is Man and his varieties on earth: to which I answer, “Time.”

Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that at the Creation conditions were stamped upon man, making transformations natural. Because unnatural according to observation during the brief period of historic time, it does not follow that they are not strictly according to law. The famous Calculating Engine of Charles Babbage, the distinguished mathematician, as described in his remarkable “Bridgewater Treatise,” where Science vindicates anew the ways of Providence to man, supplies an illustration which is not without instruction. This machine, with a power almost miraculous, was so adjusted as to produce a series of natural numbers in regular order from unity to a number expressed by one hundred millions and one,--100,000,001,--when another series was commenced, regulated by a different law, which continued until at a certain number the series was again changed; and all these changes in the immense progression proceeded from a propulsion at the beginning.[135] Any simple observer, finding that the series stretched onwards through successive millions, would have no hesitation in concluding from the vast induction that it must proceed always according to the same law; and yet it was not so. But the Calculating Engine is only a contrivance of human skill. And cannot the Creator do as much? That is a very inadequate conception of the Almighty Power creating the universe and placing man in it, which supposes, according to the language of Sir John Herschel, the eminent astronomer, that “His combinations are exhausted upon any one of the theatres of their former exercise.”[136] Thus far we know not the law of the series which governed Primeval Man. Who can say that after lapse of time changes did not occur, always in obedience to conditions stamped upon him at the Creation?

A simpler illustration carries us to the same result. A cog-wheel, so common in machinery, operates ordinarily by the cogs on its rim; but the wheel may be so constructed, that, after a certain series of rotations, another set of cogs is presented, inducing a different motion. All can see how, in conformity with preëxisting law, a change may occur in the operations of the machine. But it was not less easy for the Creator to fix His law at the beginning, according to which the evolutions of this world proceed. And thus are we brought back to the conclusion, so often announced, that unity of origin must not be set aside simply because existing varieties of Man cannot be sufficiently explained by known laws, operating during that brief period which we call History.

In considering this great question, there are authorities which cannot be disregarded. Count them or weigh them, it is the same. I adduce a few only, beginning with Latham, the ethnologist, who insists,--

“(1.) That, as a matter of fact, the languages of the earth’s surface are referable to one common origin; (2.) that, as a matter of logic, this common origin of language is _primâ facie_ evidence of a common origin for those who speak it.”[137]

The great French geographer and circumnavigator, Dumont d’Urville, testifies thus:--

“I see on the whole surface of the globe only three types or divisions of mankind which seem to me to merit the title of distinct races: the white, more or less colored with red; the yellow, inclining to different tints of copper or bronze; and the black.--I share in the opinion which refers these three races to one and the same primitive stock, and which places their common cradle on the central plateau of Asia.”[138]

Buffon, the brilliant naturalist, whose work is one of the French classics, thus records his judgment:--

“All concurs to prove that the human race is not composed of species essentially different among themselves,--that, on the contrary, there was originally but a single species of men, who, in multiplying and spreading over all the surface of the globe, have undergone different changes through the influence of climate, difference of food, difference in the manner of living, epidemic maladies, and the infinitely varied intermixture of individuals more or less alike.”[139]

Another authority, avoiding the question of origin, has given a summary full of instruction and beauty. I refer to Alexander von Humboldt, the life-long companion of every science, to whom all science was revealed,--who studied Man in both hemispheres, and ever afterwards, throughout his long and glorious career, continued the pursuit. Adopting the words of the great German anatomist, Johannes Müller, that “the different races of mankind are forms of one sole species, by the union of two individuals of which descendants are propagated,”[140] and criticizing the popular classifications of Blumenbach and Prichard as wanting “typical sharpness” or “well-established principle,” the author of “Cosmos” insists that “the distribution of mankind is only a distribution into _varieties_, which are commonly designated by the somewhat indefinite term _races_,” and then announces the grand conclusion:--

“Whilst we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men. There are nations more susceptible of cultivation, more highly civilized, more ennobled by mental cultivation, than others, _but none in themselves nobler than others_.”[141]

Such is the testimony of Science by one of its greatest masters. Rarely have better words been uttered. Nor should it be said longer that Science is silent. Humboldt has spoken. And what he said is much in little,--most simple, but most comprehensive; for, while asserting the Unity of the Human Family, he repels that disheartening pretension of Caste which I insist shall find no place in our political system. Through him Science is enlisted for the Equal Rights of All.

Whatever the judgment on the unity of origin, where, from the nature of the case, there can be no final human testimony, it is a source of infinite consolation that we can anchor to that other unity found in a common organization, a common nature, and a common destiny, being at once physical, moral, and prophetic. This is the true Unity of the Human Family. In all essentials constituting Humanity, in all that makes Man, all varieties of the human species are one and the same. There is no real difference between them. The variance, whether of complexion, configuration, or language, is external and superficial only, like the dress we wear. Here all knowledge and every science concur. Anatomy, physiology, psychology, history, the equal promises to all men, testify. Look at Man on the dissecting table, and he is always the same, no matter in what color he is clad,--same limbs, same bones, same proportions, same structure, same upright stature. Look at Man in the world, and you will find him in nature always the same,--modified only by the civilization about him. There is no human being, black or yellow, who may not apply to himself the language of Shakespeare’s Jew:--

“Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?--fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?”[142]

Look at Man in his destiny here or hereafter, so far as it can be penetrated by mortal vision, and who will venture to claim for any variety or class exclusive prerogatives on earth or in heaven? Where is this preposterous pretender? God has given to all the same longevity, marking a common mortality,--the same cosmopolitan character, marking citizenship everywhere,--and the same capacity for improvement, marking that tendency sometimes called the perfectibility of the race; and He has given to all alike the same promise of immortal life. By these tokens is Man known everywhere to be Man, and by these tokens is he everywhere entitled to the Rights of Man.

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There is a lesson in the Dog,--is there not? Who does not admire that fidelity which makes this animal ally and friend of man, following him over the whole earth, in every climate, under all influences of sky, cosmopolitan as himself, in prosperity and adversity always true,--and then, by beautiful fable, transported to another world, where the association of life is prolonged to man, while “his faithful dog shall bear him company”?[143] The dog of Ulysses dying for joy at his master’s return, when all Ithaca had forgotten the long-absent lord, is not the only instance. But who has heard that this wonderful instinct makes any discrimination of manhood? It is to Man that the dog is faithful; nor does it matter of what condition, whether the child of wealth or the rough shepherd tending his flocks; nor does it matter of what complexion, whether Caucasian white, or Ethiopian black, or Mongolian yellow. It is enough that the master is Man; and thus, even through the instincts of a brute, does Nature testify to that Unity of the Human Family by virtue of which all are alike in rights.

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Experts in Ethnology are earnest to recognize this other Unity on which I now insist. Our own Agassiz, who is the most illustrious of the masters not accepting the unity of origin, is careful to add, “that the moral question of Brotherhood among men” is not affected by this dissent; and he announces “that Unity is not only compatible with diversity of origin, but that it is the universal law of Nature.”[144] This other Unity found an eloquent representative in William von Humboldt, not less eminent as philologist than his brother as naturalist, who proclaims our Common Humanity to be the dominant idea of history, more and more extending its empire, “striving to remove the barriers which prejudice and limited views of every kind have erected amongst men, and to treat all mankind, without reference to religion, nation, or color, as one Fraternity, one great community”; and he concludes by announcing “the recognition of the bond of Humanity” as “one of the noblest leading principles in the history of mankind.”[145] And these grand words are adopted by Alexander von Humboldt,[146] so that the philologist and the naturalist unite in this cause. Thus in every direction do we find new testimony against the pretension of Caste.