Full text of "The anthropological treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach"

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APPI-EBV, PItlNTKR, SPALDIXO.

publications of t\)c

THE ANTHEOPOLOGICAL TREATISES OF

BLUMENBACH

AND

HUNTER.

:.i-hvio|
B THE

ANTHROPOLOGICAL TREATISES

JOHANN FKIEDRICH BLUMENBACH,

LATE PROFESSOR AT GOTTINGEN AND COURT PHYSICIAN
TO THE KING OF GREAT BRITAIN.

WITH MEMOIRS OF HIM BY MARX AND FLOUEENS,

AND AN ACCOUNT OF HIS ANTHROPOLOGICAL MUSEUM BY

PROFESSOR R. WAGNER,

AND

THE INAUGURAL DISSERTATION OF JOHN HUNTER, M.D.
ON THE VARIETIES OF MAN.

TRANSLATED AND EDITED

FROM THE LATIN, GERMAN, AND FRENCH ORIGINALS,

THOMAS BENDTSHE, M.A., V.P.A.S.L.

FELLOW OF KING'S COI,LEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED FOR THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY, BY

LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN.

1865.

'M^^

'^bfiqe

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

The Works of Blumenbach edited in this volume are the first
and third or last edition of his famous Treatise On the Na-
tural Variety of Mankind ; which were published in 1775 and
1795 respectively: the Contributions to Natural Histo7'y, in two
parts; and a slight notice of three skulls which appeared in
the Gottingische gelehrte Anzeigen of Nov. 1833, only remark-
able for being the last printed utterance of the author. Two
Memoirs of Blumenbach have been prefixed, which contain
together almost everything of interest concerning the circum-
stances of his life. I have also added an account of his once
famous anthropological collection, written by his successor, now
himself lately deceased, Professor Rudolph Wagner, one of
the original Honorary Fellows of the Anthropological Society,
London.

Blumenbach has related in the little autobiographical frag-
ment, which has been incorporated by Marx in his memoir,
the causes which led to his selection of an anthropological
subject as the thesis for his doctoral dissertation. It was
delivered in 1775, and reprinted word for word in 1776. A
second edition, enlarged by as much as would make about

Viii EDITORS PEEFACE.

fifteen printed pages uniform with this translation, was issued
in 1781 ; and finally a third in 1795, which in arrangement
and matter was almost a new work, I hesitated some time
as to which of the two first editions it would be most satis-
factory to give to the public ; for, on the one hand, the first
is obviously most interesting for the history of the science,
and the additional matter contained in the second has scarce
any intrinsic value in the present day ; but, on the other hand,
in the first mankind is divided into four races only, and the
now famous division of the Caucasian, Asiatic, American,
Ethiopian, and Malay races, occurs for the first time in the
edition of 1781.

To give them both in their entirety would have perhaps
been less troublesome to myself, but certainly tedious to the
reader, for not only are the Plates the same, but much the
greater part of the second edition is a mere repetition. At
last I determined to use the first as my text, and appended in
a note the important pentagenist arrangement. Accordingly
the translation has been made from the reprint of 1776, which
differs in the title-page alone, and that I have taken from the
copy in the British Museum. The preface To the Reader has
been omitted as of no value. But this is not the case with
the Letter to Sir Joseph Banks, which forms the preface to
the third edition of 1795, and contains a system of natural
history, with appendices giving an account of Blumenbach's
Collection as it then was.

The Contributions to Natural History consists of two parts;
the first of which went through two editions. The first in
1790, and the second, from which the translation is made, in
1806. The second part appeared in 1811. That part in the ori-
ginal is composed of two sections; the first upon Peter, the "Wild
Boy, and wild boys in general: and the second on Egyptian

editoe's peeface. ix

mummies. This latter essay, as may be supposed, is considerably
behind the knowledge of the present day, and though in it,
as well as in that written by Blumenbach in English and
printed in the Philosophical Transactions of 1794, he had
observed the varieties in the national character of the
Egyptian mummies and artistic representations, yet the whole
essay has been pronounced lately by a competent writer to
be "in some sort not worthy of that great authority'." The
fact that the incisors of the mummies resembled in shape the
molar teeth was thought by Blumenbach to be a discovery
of much gTeater importance than modern writers are willing
to allow. I have therefore come to the conclusion that it is
not worth wdiile to edit this part of the Contributions, especi-
ally as it is quite distinct by itself, and has no immediate bear-
ing on general anthropology.

The treatise On the Natural Variety of Mankind cannot be
considered obsolete even at the present day. All subsequent
writers, including Lawrence, Prichard, Waitz, &c., have ac-
knowledged their obligations and proved them, especially Law-
rence, by borrowing largely from it. "Blumenbach may still
be considered a chief authority," says Waitz^ And his classi-
fication of mankind, though avowedly neither final nor rigidly
scientific, has survived a very considerable number of preten-
tious improvements, and still holds its ground in the latest
elementary text-books of ethnology^ "The illustrious natu-
ralist, in whom, after Buffon, we ought to acknowledge the
father of anthropology, has made two important advances in

^ Perier (J. A. N.), S^ir Vethnogenie Egyptienne, Mem. de la Soc. de VAnthro^
pologie de Paris, Tom. I. p. 443.

* p. 29. Eng. Trl. by J. F. CoUingwood. 8vo. Lond. 1863.

3 See Page D. Introductory Text Book of Physical Geography, p. 178, Edinb.
and Load. 1863, 121110.

X EDITOR S PREFACE.

that science, in his views on the classification of races. Although
he continued to place at the head of all the characteristics that
derived from colour, Blumenbach is the first who founded his
classification in great part on those presented by the general
conformation of the head, so different in different races, as to
the proportion of the skull to the face, and of the encephalon
to the organs of sense and the jaws. This progress led also
to a second. It is because Blumenbach attributed a great
importance to that order of characteristics ; it is because he was
the first who devoted himself to determine exactly, by the
assistance of a great number of observations, the essential
elements which distinguished the types of man that he was
also the first who made a very clear distinction of several
races in Avhich it is impossible to fail of recognizing so many
natural groups. Thus it has happened that these races, after
having been once introduced into science by Blumenbach,
have been retained there; and we may assert that they will
always be retained, with some rectifications in their charac-
teristics and in their several boundaries. But are the five
races of Blumenbach the only ones possible to distinguish in
mankind ? And if all the five must be considered as natural
groups, is it proper to place them in the same rank, and allow
them all the same zoological value ? Blumenbach himself did
not think this.

" In the first place his five races are not the only ones whose
existence he is disposed to admit; but what is very different,
the five 'principal ones. Varietates quince principes, says Blu-
menbach in his treatise On the Varieties of Mankind. He uses
the same expression in his Representations. The unequal im-
portance of these races in a zoological point of view, is also, at
least by implication, admitted by Blumenbach. Of the five
races there are three which he considers above all as the princi-

editor's preface. xi

pal races; and therefore he deals with those first. These are
the Caucasian, which is not only for Blumenbach the most
beautiful, and that to which the pre-eminence belongs, but the
primitive race; then, the Mongolian and Ethiopian, in which
the author sees the extreme degenerations of the human species.
As to the other races, they are only for Blumenbach, transitional :
that is, the American is the passage from the Caucasian to
the Mongolian; and the Malay, from the Caucasian to the
Ethiopian. These two races are put off till the last, instead of
being treated of intermediately, as they ought to be, if they
were not considered as divisions of an inferior rank.

" It is apparent that Blumenbach was more or less aware of
three truths whose importance no one can dispute in anthropo-
logical taxinomy, that is to say. The plurality of races of man ;
the importance of the characteristics deduced from the confor-
mation of the head; and the necessity of not placing in the
same rank all the divisions of mankind, which bear the common
title of races, in spite of the unequal importance of their anato-
mical, physiological, and let us also add, psychological charac-
teristics\"

This criticism taken from one of the latest essays of a most
distinguished modem naturalist and anthropologist will relieve
me from the arduous task of passing this work of Blumenbach
in review. The Contributions as is pointed out by M. Flourens
is altogether a production of a lighter kind. It contains many
curious observations, and though its geological theories are long
since obsolete, the chapters on anthropological collections and
on the Negro may still be read with considerable interest.
Lawrence has largely borrowed from the last in his lectures on

^ Is. Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, Classification Anthropologique. Mim. de la Soc.
d'Anthrop. de Paris, Tom. I. p. 129. sq.

xii EDITORS PREFACE.

the Katural History of Man. The liistory of Peter the Wild Boy-
has, so far as I know, never been translated into English in its
entirety, but all that has been said of him and the other wild
men there mentioned has been borrowed from Blumenbach.

I had at one time intended to edit the Decades Craniorum, a
book now become somewhat scarce. Inquiries were made by the
President and Publishing Committee of the Anthropological
Society as to the probable expense which would be incurred in
reproducing the 65 plates of which that work is composed. The
results showed that such an undertaking would be beyond the
present means of the Society ; and an opinion was also expressed
by some who are worthy of all attention in such a matter that
more typical, characteristic, and hitherto undelineated skulls
scattered about in the different English Museums should have a
preference, in case such an outlay as the publication of so many
crania with their descriptions should at any time be seriously
contemplated. Whilst I do not for a moment doubt the wisdom
of the decision, or deny the expediency of preferring hitherto
inedited materials, I still think that if the present possessors
of the Blumenbachian Collection could be induced to join not
only in furnishing entirely fresh drawings of the skulls contained
in it, but also in publishing the very minute and accurate
descriptions, certificates, and documents relating to each particu-
lar one, which form by no means the least- instructive portion of
the inedited remains of Blumenbach, the result would not only
be a gTeat stimulus to those international exertions without
which the science of Anthropology cannot hope to make the
progress so much to be desired for it, but would also confer the
greatest credit on the Societies which might be principally con-
cerned in carrying out such an undertaking. With respect to
the last utterance of Blumenbach, which has been extracted
from the Gottingen Magazine, I am indebted to Professor

EDITORS PREFACE. Xlll

Marx for the following information. " The Spicilegiiim was not
printed. It had been the intention of Bkimenbach to work out
in greater detail the short lecture which was read at the session
of the 3rd August, 1833, but he did not fulfil it. Therefore the
short notice in the l77th number of the Gottingische Gelehrte
Anzeigen, for 1833, is the only communication on that point
that we have of his."

The Memoir of Prof. Marx has been previously translated
in the Edinburgh Kew Philosophical Magazine, but many in-
teresting details about the life and habits of Blumenbach were
omitted. It was made great use of by M. Flourens, as he acknow-
ledges ; but since his own memoir contains many original details
and remarks from an independent point of view, I have thought
it would be equally acceptable.

A singular mistake has however been made by M. Flourens,
both in this memoir, and in his larger book^ on Buffon, which I
cannot help pointing out. The reader will probably observe
that he gives as the title of Blumenbach's book The Unity of
the Human Genus, which is obviously wrong. This would be of
no importance ; but in the work above referred to we have this
reflexion: "Nothing promotes clearness of ideas so much as
precision in the use of words. Blumenbach wrote a book to
prove the unity of the human species ^ and entitled it On the
Unity of the Human Genus; now, a genus is made up of species,
a species only of varieties. Buffon writing on the same subject,
and putting before himself the same object, said excellently,
Varieties in the Human SjJecies.'"

Blumenbach never once gave as a title, The Unity, &c. ; and

1 Hist, dcs traraux et des idces de Buffon, p. 169, second ed. Paris, 1850,
iimo.

" De runiic da genre humaiii ct de scs varietes, Trad. Franc. Paris, 1804.

xiv EDITORS PREFACE.

notwithstanding the elaborate ingenuity of M. Flourens as to the
word genus, I have preferred to translate the Latin words
humanum genus, by the ambiguous, and as I believe correct
expression, mankind.

I have thought the reader would prefer for many reasons to
find each of the several treatises in this volume with an exact
copy of its original title-page prefixed. Those which had no title-
page have still one made up of that of the periodical, and the
heading prefixed to each in its original form of publication.

M. Flourens had appended to his Memoir a list of some of
Blumenbach's works. A much more perfect one, with notices of
many of their translations, and of the different portraits and en-
gravings taken of Blumenbach at various periods of his life, is
to be found in Callisen (A. C. P. von), Medicinisclies Schriftsteller-
Lexicon, B. Ii. pp. 846 356. 1830. Copenhagen, 12mo. As
will be observed it occupies ten pages, and therefore is far too
long for insertion here, yet is still neither quite complete nor
quite correct.

The treatise of John Hunter, delivered in June 1775, has
been added. It will be interesting to compare it with the
contemporaneous effort of Blumenbach. But to enter into
the question why the study of anthropology never became
popular in Edinburgh, whilst it continued to be cultivated
in Gottingen, would carry us beyond the limits of a Preface.

King's College, Cambridge.
Jan. I, T865.

CONTENTS.

Editor's Preface ....

Memoir of J. F. Blumenbach by Prof. Marx
M. Flourens

On the Natural Variety of Mankind, ed. 1775

THIRD ED. 179s

Contributions to Natural History, Part I.
Part II,

Remarks on an Hippocratic Macrocephalus

An Account op the Blumenbachian Museum by Prof. Eudolph
Wagner .......

Index op Subjects
Index of Authors

PAGE

65
145

34 >

345

Inaugural Disputation on the Varieties of Man, by John

Hunter, June, 1775 - . . . . 35-

395
399

ERRATA.

For Jesus Sirach, p, 35, 7-ead Jesus the son of Sirach.
... Mongoz Lemur, p. 90, read Lemur Mongoz.

ZUM ANDENKEN

JOHANN FRIEDRICH BLUMENBACH.

EINE GEDACHTNISS-REDE

GEHALTEN IN DER SITZUNG DEE KONIGLICHEN SOCIETAT
DEE WISSENSCHAFTEN DEN 8 FEBRUAE, 1S40.

VON

K. F. H. MARX.

GOTTINGEN :

DEUCK UND VEELAG DEE DIETEEICHSCHEN BUCHHANDLUNG.

1840.

LIFE OF BLUMENBACH

K. F. H. MARX.

Though a very vivid and imeffaceable recollection of the man,
who has lately departed from our circle, can never cease to
dwell in us, still I may be permitted to sketch with a few
strokes a picture of his occupations and his personality, and in
that way to strew a flower upon the grave of him who in life
was honoured by all of us, but was especially dear to myself

It was his happy lot to fulfil the office of instructor far
beyond the limits of the ordinary age of man, and to direct
the affairs of our society for a longer time than any one of
those here present can remember. For more than half a cen-
tury the most important events of this University are bound up
with his memory and his name ; and the development of one of
the greatest and most important branches of science is essen-
tially involved with his undertakings, his accomplishments, and
the efforts he made to advance it.

He stood at last like ^ solitary column from out the ranks
of those who had shared his struggles and his enterprises, and
had trodden in the same path, or as an old-world pyramid, a
stimulating example to us juniors, how nature will sometimes
stamp her crowning seal on high mental powers, by adding to
them the firmness and long continuance of the outer form.

John Frederick Blumenbach was born at Gotha on the 11th
May 1752. His father was a zealous admirer of geography and
natural history, and lost no time in arousing a love for them
in his son. It will be convenient to insert here a note in his

4 - LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

own handwriting, which I owe to the kindness of the departed,
upon the earliest incidents which happened to him while still
under the paternal roof, and his earliest promotion on his first
entrance into the great world; for it will tell a clearer tale than
if I were to turn it into an historical form.

"My father was born at Leipsig, and died at Gotha in 1787,
proctor and professor of the gymnasium \ He owed his scientific
culture to two men especially, Menz and Christ, two Leipsig
professors of philosophy, and so, indirectly through him, they
contributed a great deal to my own. Amongst other things, he
owed to the first his love for the history of literature and for
the natural sciences, to the second his antiquarian and artistic
tastes. And so in this way I also acquired a taste and a love
for these branches of knowledge, which I never found to stand
in the v/ay of my medical studies, to which in very early days
I had addicted myself from natural inclination, and sometimes
they were even in that way of great service.

" I began my academical career at Jena, and there I derived
nourishment for literature and book-lore from Baldinger, whilst
my relation, J. E. I. Walch, the professor of rhetoric, performed
the same office for me as to natural history and the so-called
arch geology. I 'went from there to Gottingen to fill up some
remaining gaps in my medical studies; and my old rector at
Gotha, the church-councillor Geisler, gave me a letter for Heyne.
As I was giving it to him, I showed him at the same time an
antique signet-ring, which I had bought when at school from
a goldsmith. Such a taste in a medical student attracted his
attention, and this little gem was the first step to the intimate
acquaintance which I subsequently enjoyed in so many ways
with that illustrious man.

" There resided then at Gottingen professor Chr. W. Buttner,

1 Besides the more considerable communication in the text BUimenbach has left
only a few scattered notices of his life. So far as these have come to my know-
ledge, I have made good use of them. He had an idea of composing his own
biography, and two passages, written by him in his pocket-book, seem to point to
tins intention. "Alany have written their own lives from feelings of sincerity
rather than of conceit." "Without favour or ambition, but induced by the reward
of a good conscience."

MARX. 5

ail extraordinary man, of singularly extensive learning. He
had at one time been famous for the great number of lan-
guages he was skilled in, but had for many years given up
delivering lectures, and was then quite unknown to the stu-
dents. Just, however, about the time I came, the eldest son of
his friend and gi'eat admirer, our orientalist, Michaelis, had
then begun to study medicine ; and his father had enjoined him
to do his best and get Biittner to deliver a lecture upon natural
history, which in old days he could do very well, and for which
he had a celebrated collection. Immediately on my arrival I
also was invited to the course, and as the hour was one I had
at my disposal, I put my name down, and so came to know the
whimsical but remarkable Biittner. The so-called lecture
became a mere conversation, where for weeks together not a
word was said of natural history. Still he had appointed as a
text-book the twelfth edition of the System of Nature; though
in the whole six months we did not get beyond the mammalia,
because of the hundred-and-one foreign matters he used to
introduce.

" He began with man, who had been passed over unnoticed
in his readings by Walch of Jena, and illustrated the subject
with a quantity of books of voyages and travels, and pictures
of foreign nations, out of his extensive library. It was thus I
was led to wiite as the dissertation for my doctorate. On the
natural variety of mankind; and the further prosecution of this
interesting subject laid the foundation of my anthropological
collection, which has in process of time become everywhere
quite famous for its completeness in its way.

" In that very first winter, through Heyne's arrangement,
the University undertook the purchase of Buttner's collection
of coins and natural history. But in consequence of the unex-
ampled disorder, in which the natural objects had been let lie
utterly undistinguished from each other by this most unhandy
of men, he was first of all in want of an assistant to arrange
and get them ready for delivery. So Heyne said to him,
'Don't you give lectures on natural history? and haven't you
got any one among your pupils whom you can employ for that?*

6 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

' That I have/ said Biittner, and named me. ' Ah, I know him
too;' so the office of assistant was offered to me, and I gladly
undertook it without any fee, and found it most instructive.-

"Sometime after, when everything had been handed over,
and the collection had found a temporary home in the former
medical lecture-room, the honourable minister and curator of
the University, von Lenthe, came to visit our institute, so these
things too had to be shown him, and as the worthy Biittner
did not seem quite fit to do it, I was hastily summoned, and
acquitted myself so well, that the minister directly he got
out took Heyne aside, and said, ' We must not let this young
man go.' I took my degree in the autumn of '75, on the anni-
versary day of the University, and directly afterwards in the
ensuing winter I commenced, as private tutor, my first readings
on natural history, and during the same term, in February '76,
was nominated extraordinary, and afterwards in November '78,
ordinary professor of medicine."

Such was Blumenbach's very promising beginning. How he
progressed onwards in his scientific and municipal career, how
he became in 1784 member of this society, in 1788 aulic coun-
cillor, in 1812 perpetual secretary of the physical and mathe-
matical class of this society, in 1815 member of the library
committee, in 1816 knight of the Order of the Guelph, and in
the same year chief medical councillor, and in 1822 commander of
the Order, all that is so well known and so fresh in everybody's
recollection, that I need make no further mention of any of those
particulars.

Much more appropriate will it be to describe here the
direction he followed himself and also imparted to the sciences,
his activity as teacher, his relations to the exterior world, and,
in a few characteristic outlines, the principal features of his
personal appearance and character.

First of all it may fairly be asserted of Blumenbach, that he
it was especially, who in Germany drew the natural sciences
out of the narrow circle of books and museums, into the wide
cheerful stream of life. He made the results of his own per-
severing researches intelligible and agreeable to every educated

MAKX. 7

person who was anxious for instruction, and understood very
well how to interest the upper classes of society in them, and
even to excite them. Taking a comprehensive view over the
whole domain of the exertions of natural science, he knew how
to select whatever could arouse or sharpen observation, to give
a clear prospect of what was in the distance, and to clothe the
practical necessities in a pleasing dress. This feeling and tact
for the common interest, this inclination for popular exposition
and easy comprehension was meantime no obstacle to his solid
progress. He laboured away on the most diverse departments
of his science with single and earnest application, and arrived at
results, w^hich threw light on the darkest corners.

Equipped with classical knowledge, perpetually sharpening
and enriching his intellect with continuous reading, and kept in
lively intercourse with the first men of his day, he knew how
not only to look at the subjects of his attention from new points
of view, but also how to invest them with a worthy form of
expression and representation.

Besides, he looked upon every result either of his own
researches, or those of other people, as seed-corn for better
and greater disclosures. He busied himself unceasingly by
writing, conversation, and instruction in disseminating them,
and endeavouring to fix them in a productive soil. Thus it
came to pass, that he soon came to be regarded as the supporter
and representative of natural science, and collected crowds of
young men about him, and by words as well as deeds continued
to exercise an increasing influence upon the entire circle of
study for many decades of years.

Blumenbach soon became known to the Society of Sciences
as an industrious student of physic, and in the meeting of
the 15th January, 1774*, he communicated^ the remarkable dis-
covery he had made (which had been already done by Braun in
1759 at St. Petersburg) of how to freeze quicksilver.

^ Gottinj. gel. Anzeigen. 1774, st. 13, s. ro5 7. Blumenbach himself set little
store by this experiment ; for he suspected that his friends might be too hasty iu
considering the fact to be proved.

8 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

In 1784; he became member of tliis Society, and immediately
afterwards read his first paper On the eyes of the Leuccethiojnans
and the movement of the ii'is^.

It was a happy chance, that his first literary work was con-
cerned with the races of men, and thus physical Anthropology
became the centre of the crystallization of his activity.

Few dissertations have passed through so many editions, or
procured their author such a wide recognition, as that On the
natural variety of mankind'. It operated as an introduction to
the subsequent intermittent publication of the Decades^, on the
forms of the skull of different people and nations, as well as
the foundation of a private collection*. This was unique in its
way ; and princes and the learned alike contributed to its forma-
tion by giving everything which could characterize the corjDoreal
formation and the shape of the skull in man. Blumenbach
used to call it his "Golgotha," and though they do not often go
to a place of skulls, still the curious and the inquisitive of both
sexes came there to wonder and reflect.

Perhaps it is worth while remarking that the theme of this
earhest work of his youth was Hkewise that of his last scientific
writing, for after the 3rd August, 1883, on the exhibition
of an Hippocratic Macrocephalus before the Society, when he
communicated his remarks^ thereon, he came no more before
the public except to read a memoir upon Stromeyer, and to
say a few never-to-be-forgotten words at the festival meeting of
the centenarian foundation feast.

One of Blumenbach's great endeavours was to illustrate the
difference between man and beast; and he insisted particularly

^ De oculis Leuccethiopum et iridis motu. Comment. Soc. R. Golt. Vol. vii. p.
29 62.

2 De generis humani nativa varietate. ist ed. 1775.

^ The first decade of Lis collection of skulls of difiFerent nations with illustrations
appeared in 1790 in Vol. X. of the Comment. Soc. &c. The last under the title,
Nova Pentus collcctionis suce craniorum diversarum gentium tanquam complementum
priorum decadum exhibita in consessu societatis 8 Jul. 1826. Comment, recentior.
Vol. VI. p. 141 8. Coiup. Gott. gel. Am. 1826. st. 121, s. 1201 6.

* Couip. his paper On anthropological collections in the second edition of his
Beitrdgc zur Naturgcschichte 1806. Th. i. s. 55 66.

' GiJlt. gel. Anz. 1833, st. 177, a. 1761. [Edited in this volume. Ed.]

MARX. 9

upon the importance of the upright walk of man, and the
vertical line. He asserted the claims of human nature, as such,
to all the privileges and rights of humanity, for, without deny-
ing altogether the influence of climate, soil, and heredity, he
regarded them in their progressive development, as the imme-
diate consequences of civilization and cultivation. Man was to
him "the most perfect of all domesticated animals." What he
might become by himself in his natural condition, without the
assistance of society, and what would be the condition of his
innate conceptions, he showed in his unsurpassable description
of the wild or savagje Peter von Hameln\ How the osseous
structure of the skull will approximate nearer and nearer to
the form of the beast, when unfortunate exterior circumstances
and inferior relations have stood in the way of the development
of the higher faculties, might be seen in his collection from the
cretin's skull, which, not without meaning, lay side by side
by that of the orang-utan; whilst, at a little distance off, the
surpassingly beautiful shape of that of a female Georgian
attracted every one's attention.

At the time when the negroes and the savages were still
considered as half animals, and no one had yet conceived the
idea of the emancipation of the slaves, Blumenbach raised his
voice, and showed that their psychical qualities were not inferior
to those of the European, that even amongst the latter them-
selves the greatest possible differences existed, and that oppor-
tunity alone was wanting for the development of their higher
faculties'.

Blumenbach had no objection to a joke, especially when it
injured no one, or when the subject in hand could be elucidated
thereby, and with this view he wrote a paper on Human and
Porcine Races\

1 Beitr. zur Naturg. Th. il. s. i 44.

Gotting. Magazin, 1781, st. 6, s. 409 425, On the capacities and manners of
the Savages.

^ Lichtenberg and Voigt, Magazin fur das neuestc aus der Fhysik, B. vi.
Gotha, 1 7 89, St. I. s. I.

10 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

Man always was and continued to be his chief subject, not
from a transcendental point of view, which he gave up to the
philosophers and theologians, but man as he stands in the visible
world. Not only did he contribute essentially to his better
comprehension and treatment, but it was not very easy for any-
one to surpass him in practical knowledge of men.

Natural history, not the description of nature, was the aim
he placed before him. With Bacon he considered that as the
first subject of philosophy. He understood how to indicate the
peculiarity of the subject with a few characteristic strokes; and
showed also how the inner^ properties, relations^ and attributes
of the individual were connected with each other, and their
connexion and position to the whole. With this view he busied 1

himself actively on organic and also on animal nature. Nor
was he a stranger to the study of geology and mineralogy, as
is clear from De Luc's letters^ to Blumenbach, besides what he
himself communicated about Hutton's theory of the earth, and
his paper on the impressions in the bituminous marl-slates at
Riegelsdorf^

The name of Blumenbach must certainly be recorded
amongst those who have signally contributed through the
research and discovery of the traces of the old world to the
history of the condition of our earth and of its earliest inhabi-
tants. He, too, it was who, long before any others, prepared
a collection of fossils for the illustration and systematic know-
ledge of the remains of the preadamite times*.

1 He worked long at a History of Natural Hhtorij, but he never gave any of it
to the public. That he had reflected on the possibility of a Philosophy of Natural
History may be seen, amongst other proofs, by a letter to Moll in his Communica-
tions, Abth. I. 1829, s. 60.

* Magaz. filr das neu. aus der Physik, B. VIII. st. 4. 1793. Comp. Gott. gel.
Anz. 1799, St. 135, s. 1348.

^ In Kohler's hergmannisch. Journ. Freyberg, 1791, Jahrg. iv. B. i. s. 151 6.
Blumenbach proved that though they were the marks of a mammal, they were
not those of a child, and therefore no anthropoliths.

* The fossil genus Oxyporus, which is found in amber, and was represented by
Gravehoorst in Monographia Coleopterorum Micropterorum, Getting. 1806, Svo. p.
235, exists also in Blumenbach's collection. Speaking of the last, that author
says, "I wish Blumenbach would give us a description of the numerous insects
preserved in amber, which he possesses, and compare them with the allied insects
of the present day. His well-known genius for natural history, so long and so

MARX. 11

In 1790 he wrote Contributions to the Natural History of tJie
Primitive World^. He devoted two papers before the society
to the remains with which he was acquainted of that oldest
epoch, principally from the neighbouring country ^ He also
expressed an opinion upon the connection of the knowledge of
petrifactions with that of geology, thinking by that means a
more accurate knowledge of the relative age of the different
strata of the earth's crust might be obtained^, and he was the
first who set this branch of study going. On the occasion of a
Swiss journey he drew particular attention to those fossils,
whose living representatives are still to be found in the same
country, to those whose representatives exist, but in very dis-
tant regions of the earth, and to those of which no true repre-
sentative has yet been found in the existing creation*. Later
on he elucidated the so-called fossil human bones in Guada-
loupe^

His views on opinions of that kind, as also on more compre-
hensive considerations, such as On the gradation in nature^, or,
On the so-called proofs of design'', generally like to abide within
the limits of experience, and the conclusions which may fairly

justly famous, might furnish us with some well-weighed and sound hypothesis on
the origin and formation of amber."
^ Mayaz. ib., B. vi. st. 4, s. i 17.

* Specimen archceologice telluris terrarumque imprimis Hannoveranarum, i8or.
In den Comment. Vol. xv. p. 132 156. Spec, alterum 1813. Vol. in. recent.

p. 324-

^ On the succession in time of the different Earth-catastrophes. Beitr. zur
Naturg. 2nd ed. 1806, Th. i. s. 113 123. One of the most competent judges on
this subject, namely, Link, in his work The Primevcd World and Antiquity eluci-
dated by Natural Science, which he dedicates to his teacher, says in the preface, that
the representation of the primeval world, as quite different from that of the pre-
sent, is due to the science of Blumenbach and Cuvier. . To the same effect Von
HofF, who is well entitled to a voice in this matter, expresses himself {Thoughts on
Blumenbach'' s Services to Geology. Gotha, 1862, s. 3.) : "Amongst naturalists
Blumenbach is the first who assigned to a knowledge of petrifactions its true
position in the foundation of Geology. He considered them as the most necessary
helps to that study. He asserted with determination, that from a knowledge of
petrifactions, and especially from an acquaintance with the different position of
fossils, the most important results for the cosmcjgenical part of mineralogy might bo
expected."

* Lichtenberg and Voigt's Mag. &c. 1788, B. v. s. 1324.
^ Gott.gel. Anz. 1815, st. 177, s. 1753.

Beitr. zur Naturg. 2nd ed. 1806, Th. i. s. 106 112.
^ Ib. s. 123.

12 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

be deduced therefrom. Brilliant hypotheses, subtle and imagi-
nary combinations, phantastic analogies, were not to his taste.

If it can be said of any scientific work of modern times,
that its utility has been incalculable, such a sentence must be
pronounced on Blumenbach's Handbook of Natural History'^.
Few cultivated circles or countries are ignorant of it. It con-
tains in a small space a marvellous quantity of well-arranged
material, and every fresh edition^ announced the progress of its
author. Still in spite of the effort after a certain grade of
perfection the skill is unmistakeable, with which only the actual
is set forth ; and with which by a word, or a remark, attention
is directed to what is truly interesting, agreeable, and useful,
and an incentive given to further study.

Not only did Blumenbach well know how to set out the
whole domain of this study in a simple, easily comprehensible
and transj^arent way, so as to utilize it for instruction; but he
also, by bringing to its assistance allied occupations, obtained
new points of view, and enlarged its boundaries.

His Contributions to Natural History^, and his ten numbers
of Representations of Subjects of Natural History*, have by
interesting translations, prudent selection, and accuracy in hand-
ling the subjects, done profitable service in the extension and
foundation of this science. He took special pains to throw
light on doubtful questions, and to clear up overshadowing and
difiicult undertakings in natural history from old monuments of
art^, and the traditions of the poets*'. He looked on the migra-

^ It appeared first in 1779.

2 The publishers alo^e issued 12, the last in 1830, not including the re issues
and the translations into almost all civilized languages.

^ The first part appeared in 1790, the second in 181 r. They contained the fol-
lowing essays: Part i. On varial)ility in creation. A glance at the primeval
world. On anthropological collections. On the division of mankind into five
principal races. On the gradation in nature. On the so-called proofs of design.
Part II. On the homo sajaiens ferus. On the Egyptian mummies.

* 1796 1810.

^ Specimen hist. nat. antiquce artis operibus illustr. eaq. vicissim illuslr., 1803.
Comment. Vol. xvi. p. 169 198.

^ Sp. hist. nat. ex auctor. class. 2^^'ccscrtim poctis illustr. eosq. ric. illustr.,
1815. Comm. recent. Vol. ill. p. 62 78. Comp. GiJtt. rjel. Am., 1815, st. 205,
s- 20332040.

MARX. 13

tions of animals and their appearance at different times, and
their wide dispersion in enormous numbers as a great, but not
necessarily insoluble riddle ; and he contributed his mite also to
the future solution of this weighty question'.

Blumenbach was blamed somewhat here and there for fol-
lowing with little divergence the artificial classification of
Linnaeus. But this conservatism was not the consequence either
of convenience, or want of knowledge, but from the conviction
that the time for a natural system was not yet come. That he
felt the want of such a system is plain, because as early as
1775 he sketched out' an attempt at a natural arrangement of
the mammalia, according to which attention is paid not to
single, or a few, but to every outward mark of distinction, and
the whole organization of the animals.

His communications, On the Loves of Animals^, and On the
Katural History of Serpents*, disj^lay not only the critical, but
the judicious observer. Manifold interest attaches to his re-
marks on the kangaroo', which he kept for a long time alive in
his house, on the pipa", and on the tape- worm''.

Blumenbach was thoroughly penetrated with the truth, that
we are only then in a proper position to understand the appear-
ances of the present, when we attempt to clear up as far as
possible their condition in the beginning, and from early times
down to the present. He considered archeeology and history
not only as the foundations of true knowledge, but also as the
sources of the purest pleasures. He was not afraid of being
reproached with encroaching upon foreign gTound^, for he knew
his own moderation: nor did he shrink from the trouble of
seeking and collecting, for he had too often had experience

^ De anim. colon, sire sponte migr., sive ccisu aut studio ah horn, aliors. transl.,
Comm. recent. Vol. v. p. loi ii6. Comp. GoU, gel. Anz., 1820, st. 57, s.
56168.

2 Gott. gel. Am. st. 147, s. i'257 1259.

3 Gott. Magaz. 1781, s. 93 107.

^ Magaz. fur das n. aus der pkys., B. v. st. i, 17S8, s. i 13.
s lb. 1792, B. VII. St. 4, s. 19 24.

6 Gott. gel. Anz. 1784, st. 156, s. 15531555.

7 lb. 1774, St. 154, s. 1313 1386.

^ He approved of Seneca; "I often pass into the enemy's camp, not as a
deserter, but as a spy."

14 LIFE OF BLUMENBACIT.

that though the roots of a solid undertaking may be bitter, the
fruit may be sweet. Besides he knew well how, by keeping
at a distance from useless distractions, and by internal collec-
tiveness a,nd regulated arrangement of work, to bring together
in one much that lay widely separated.

Some years after he had written his paper On the Teeth of
the Old Egyptians, and on Mummies^, he had an opportunity
during his stay in London on the 18th February, 1791, of
opening six mummies, and derived considerable reputation from
his communication^ to Banks on the results he obtained there-
from. He took his part also in the opinion^ pronounced by the
Society of Sciences of that day on Sickler's new method of
unfolding the Herculaneum manuscripts, which he had invented.

He showed that our granite answers to the syenite of Pliny*.
He possessed a collection of ancient kinds of stone to illustrate
the history of the art of antiquity, on which account his opinio^
was often consulted on the determination of doubtful antiques,
for example, those given out as such made of soap-stone^

He had himself, principally with a view to natural history
and the varieties of man, a collection of beautiful engravings
and pictures, and set great store besides on the woodcuts in old
works which give representations of animals", for in that way
the proper position of observing the art of that time is easily
arrived at. And so also he endeavoured to become better
acquainted with "the first anatomical wood-cuts," and drew
attention to them, when otherwise they would have remained
quite unnoticed''.

After a careful comparison of the objects of ancient art, with

^ Gott. Mag. 1780, Jahrg. i. s. 109 139.

^ Philos. Trans. 1794. [The original MS. of this paper is in the library of the
Anthrop. See. of London. Ed.] His letter to Sir Joseph Banks was printed in
the third edition of the De Generis Hum. v. n. 1795. The subject is thoroughly
treated of by him in the Beitr. zur Naturg. Th. Ii. s. 45 144.

* Gbtt. yel. Anz. 1814, st. 200, s. J 993.

* lb. 1819, s. 1208. Blumenbach gave his views before in the second part of
the edition of Natural History in 1780, on the proper distinction of the kinds
of stones employed by the ancients.

Gott. gel. Anz. 181 1, s. 2050.

^ Gott. Magaz. 1781, st. 4, s. 136 156.

" Baldinger, Neves Mag. fiir Aerzte, 1781, B. iii. s. 135 140.

MARX. 15

which he was acquainted, his opinion' was that we ought to be
chary in our praise of the anatomical knowledge of the artists
of antiquity, but that their accuracy in the representation of
characteristic expression had not been sufficiently appreciated.

In the history of literature Blumenbach emulated his origi-
nal and pattern, Albert Von Haller, whose acquaintance he had
made when studying at Gottingen, by sending to him at Berne
a book^ on the suggestion of Heyne, which Haller had men-
tioned in one of his works as unknown to him, and which he
had picked up at an auction^. Later in the day he often fur-
nished him with many additions and supplements to the already
published volumes of the Practical Medical Library^.

Among the bibliograjihical labours of that great writer Blu-
menbach esteemed most highly the Bihliotheca Anatomica. In
his own pocket copy he wrote down especially all the volumes
and editions of it which were at that time to be found in the
royal library, and to the first volume he added a supplement.

He wrote a preface^ to Haller's Journal of Medical Litera-
ture, in which his services as critic received their due.

However little value the body of physicians generally attach
to literary performances, still there is no doubt that most of
them are acquainted with Blumenbach's Introduction to the
Literary History of Medicine^. With a prudent selection, pre-
cision, and brevity the whole field of medicine, quite up to the
end of the preceding century, is there described in a compre-
hensive survev^

^ De veferum artifinim anatomicce peiitice laude limitanda, celehrancla vera
eorum in cliaractere gentiUtio exprimendo accuratione. The treatise itself was never
printed, but on its contents comp. Gott. gel. Am. 1823, st. 125, s. 1241.

^ Observationum anatomicarum collegii prlvati Amstelodamensis Pars altera.
Amst. 1673. i2mo.

^ Haller's answer is dated 28th March, 1775.

^ Baldinger's N. Magaz. fur Aerzte, 1780, B. 11. g. 33.

_ 5_ Besides this perhaps scarcely any one was so well acquainted with all the
writings of that most famous of Gottingen teachers as Blumenbach. He learnt
much from the collection of letters to and from Haller, for there he found, among
many other remarkable observations for the history of medicine, the mode o'f
curing deafness by piercing the tympanum. Giitt. gel. Am. 1806, st. 147, s. 1459.

" Theil 2. Bern. 1790.

'' Introductio in historiam medicince literariam, 1786.

16 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

On tlie occasion of the fifty-year Jubilee of our Univer-
sity he brought together all the literary performances of the
medical professors of Gottingen in a catalogue*, which had
equally the effect of serving as a memorial to them, and as
a cause of emulation to their successors.

He frequently celebrated the memorials of distinguished
men, especially in his Medical Lihravf, that almost insur-
passable journal, and then as secretary of our Society, in
which capacity he worthily fulfilled this painful duty over his
departed colleagues, in the memorial orations over Richter
(1812), Crell (1816), Osiander (1822), Bouterwek (1828), Mayer
(1831), Mende (1832), and Stromeyer (1835).

His Honourable mention of Megimental-Surgeon Johann Ernst
Wreden^ is so far of importance for the history of the career of
medicine, as that long-forgotten surgeon was the first on the
continent, and that in Hanover, to introduce inoculation for
the small-pox.

The lover of literature should not pass unnoticed his Notice
of the Meibomian Collection of Medical MS8. preserved in the
Gottingen Library^.

What has already been done goes some way to place Blumen-
bach's merits and excellence in a right light. But the most
important of all have not been mentioned yet, and from their
exposition it will be clear how many things were united in one
man, of which each by itself would have gone far to confer
reputation upon the possessor.

The branches of learning in which the name of Blumenbach
shines forth without ceasing are physiology and comparative
anatomy. What he performed both by word of mouth and by
his writings in these departments, will all the less easily be

^ Synoiisis systematica scnittorum, quibus inde ah inauguTatione Academice
GeorgicE Augiistce usque ad solemnia istius inaugurationis scmiscecularia discijilinaiiih
siiam augere et ornare studuerunt 2>i'ofessores medici Gottingeiises, 1 788.

'^ B. I III. 1783-1795.

^ Annalen der Braunschio. Luneb. Churlande. 1789, Jalirg. iii. st. 2, s. 389396.

* In his Medicin. Biblioth. B. i, s. 368 377.

MA EX. 17

forgotten by his fatherland, because foreign countries first took
a Hking to these studies through him, and expressed their grati-
tude not only to him, but above all to German erudition.

The obscure learning of generation, nutrition, and repro-
duction received hght and critical elucidation from him. If
after the lapse of sixty years since he first strenuously employed
his mind to sift the existing materials and make particular
investigations, more comprehensive results than he expected
have been obtained, still it is but just to observe, that his ideas
have certainly been expanded and here and there connected,
but have not in any way been controverted.

On the 9th of May, 1778, his observations upon green
hydrffi, then in the act of reproduction, first led him to the
comprehension, and afterwards to the further investigation of
the incredible activity of the powers of nature in the circle of
organized life. In 1780 appeared his essay On the Formative
Force and its Influence on Generation and Reproduction^; and
the next year the monograph, On the Formative Force and on
the Operations of Generation^ At the same time he expressed
himself On an uncommonly simple method of Propagation'^,
namely, on that of the conferva in wells, whose mode of propa-
gation he had discovered on the 18th of February, 1781.

He sent in on the 2oth of May a short reply to the question
proposed by the Academy of St. Petersburg, On the Force of
Nutrition^, which he wrote on the preceding day, and obtained
half the prize. He wrote some remarks on Troja's experi-
ments on the production of new bone^ On the occasion of

1 Gott. Mag. 1780, s. 247 ^dS.

2 1 78 1. Then in the Comment. T. viii. p. 4168 : De nisu formatiro et genera-
tionis negotio. 1785. In all living creatures there is a peculiar, inherent, live-long
active energy, which first of all causes them to put on their definite appearance,
then to preserve it, and if it should be disturbed, as far as possible to restore it.
The theory of development from spermatic animalcule, or by means of panspermy,
he showed is without foundation. [A translation of this treatise by Dr Crichtou
was published in 1792, London, i2mo. Ec]

3 Gm. Mag. i78r, st. i, s. 8089.

* De nutritione ultra vasa. The prize was awarded Dec. 4, 1788. The essays
sent in were 24. Nova Acta Sc. Petropol. T. VI. 1790: Ilistuire. Conip. Zxti
abhandl. iiber die Niitritionshraft, K. F. Wolf, St. Petersb. 1789. (The second is
by C. F. Bom.)

6 Richter's CMr. BihUoihel; B. vi. st. 1, 17S2, 3. 107.

18 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

The Generation of the Eye of a Water-Lizard, he communicated
in a sitting of this Society^ the fact that he had 'amputated
four-fifths of the apple of the eye, and a new eye had been
produced.

With clear insight and unusual experience he distinguished
the anomalous^ and morbid aberrations of the formative force,
and showed^ how The Artificial or Accidental Mutilations in
Animals degenerate in Process of Time info Hereditary Marks.
His studies upon the formative force were taken up by great
thinkers, and were made use of, though with alterations of
expression and manner of representation, as foundations for
further developments, by Kant* in his Critique of the Under-
standing, Fichte in the System of Morality, Schelling in the
Sold of the World, and Goethe in the Morphology. From this
he derived particular satisfaction, as it was a proof of their
solidity and productiveness.

His Elements of Physiology^ is remarkable not less for the
elegance of its language, than, like all his books, for a well-
selected display of reading, and the profusion of his own
observations.

He busied himself much" with the investigation, whether
a peculiar vital energy ought to be attributed to the blood,
or not. And also with the origin of the black colour of the
negroes^ He confirmed the principal discovery of Galvani,

^ Gott. gel. Anz. 1785, st. 47, s. 465.

2 De anomalis et vltiosis quibusdani nisus formativi aberrationibus, 1812. Com-
ment, recent. Vol. 11. p. 3 20.

3 Magazin fiir das N. aus der Physik. 1789, B. VI. st. i, s. 13.

* With reference to Kant's manner of expression, he remarked {Gott. gel. Anz.
1800, St. 62, B. 612), "that the ornithorynchus affords a speaking example of the
formative force, as showing the connection of those two principles, the mechanical
and the teleological, in the exhibition of an end being also a product of nature."

5 Inst'dutiones Physiologicce, 1787. Amongst the many editions and transla-
tions of this work, Blumenbach set the most value upon the edition of EUiotson's
translation, published by Bentley, London, 1814; because this was the first book
which was ever printed entirely by a machine. Comp. Gott. gel. Anz. 1818, st.
172, s. 1713.

^ De vi vitali sanguinis, 1787. Comment. Vol. ix. p. i 13. And again on
the appearance of the posthumous work of John Hunter On the Blood, on the
occasion of the degree of seven candidates in 1795, the argument he gave was iJe
vi vitali sanguini deneganda, vita autem propria solidis quibusdam corp. hum.
partibus adserenda curce iterates.

^ De gen. hum. var. naf. p. 122. ed. 3.

MARX. 19

reposing on his own observations*. With respect to the eyes of
the Leucasthiopians*^ and the movement of the iris, he took
great pains to ascertain their probable reasons by collecting
and criticizing the experiences of others, and by personal
observation. On the 23rd Aug. 1782, he examined two Albinos
at Chamouni.

In 1784 he discovered ^ during the dissection of the eye of
a seal, the remarkable property by means of which these
animals are enabled to shorten or lengthen the axis of the eye-
ball at pleasure, so that they can see clearly just as well under
the water as in the air, two mediums of very different density.
He was the first* who accurately distinguished the nature and
destination of the frontal sinuses, as also their condition in
disease. He showed the intersection of the optic nerves to be
a settled fact^ He would not adopt the belief in a muscular
coat of the gall-bladder". With regard to the protrusion of the
eyes in the case of persons beheaded, he drew attention to the
fact that the phenomenon was not, as in the case of those who
have been hanged, caused entirely by congestion^ On the
opportunity of a communication On a ram which gives milk^,
he expressed himself on the presence of milk in the breasts of
men, and attempted an explanation.

His History and Description of the Bones of the Human
Body^, in which this naturally dry subject is treated in the
most interesting way and from fresh points of view, will always
retain an enduring value.

His Handbook of Comparative Anatomy'^^ was the first of
its kind, not only in Germany but throughout the learned

^ Gott. gel. Am. 1793, st. 32, s. 320.

2 De oculis Leuccethiopmn et iridis motu. 1784. Comm. Vol. vii. pp. 29 62,
Comp. Gott. gel. Anz. 1784, st. 175. Med. Bibliothek. B. 11. s. 537 47.

^ Comment. Vol. VII. 1784, p. 46. Handbuch der vergl. Anat. Aufl. 3, s. 40 r.
* Prolus. anat. de sinibus frontal. 1779. His thesis on becoming ordinary Pro-
fessor. Comp. Gott. gel. Anz. I'j'jg, s. 913 916.
5 Gott. gel. Anz. 1793, st. 34, s. 334.
^ lb. 1806, st. 135, s. 1352.

^ Abhandl. der phys. med. societ. zu Erlangen. 1810, Th. I. s. 471.
8 Hannover Mag. 1787, st. 48, s. 753762.

3 First !n 17S6, then in 1806.
1 First in 1805.

20 LIFE OF BLUMENBACII.

world. Before his time there was no book on the totality of
this branch of learning ; he was the first to find a place for it in
the circle of subjects of instruction. One of his earliest com-
munications was upon Alcyonellce in the Gottingen ponds\
Then he furnished a running comparison between the warm
and cold-blooded animals^ and afterwards between the warm-
blooded viviparous and oviparous animals ^ Nor can we pass
over in silence his remarks upon the structure of the Orni-
thorynchus*, on the bilP of the duck and toucan, and on the
sack in the reindeer's neck^

Inasmuch as Blumenbach regarded physiology as the true
foundation of the science of medicine, it is not difficult to per-
ceive from what point of view his contributions to practical
^ medicine are to be criticized : besides, he let slip no ojaportunity
of proving his sympathy in that particular direction. Thus he
gave his opinions on the frequency of ruptures in the Alps"; on
nostalgia, on melancholy^ and suicide in Switzerland; on the
expulsion of a scolopendra electrica" from the nose; and on
a case of water in the head of seventeen years' standing". He
also contributed to the extension of the science of medicine
by experiments^^ with gases on live animals, and by the commu-
nication" of a new sort of dragon's blood from Botany Bay on

^ Gott. Mag. 1780, s. 117 127.

2 Specim. physiol. comp. inter animanda calicli etfrigidi sanguinis, 1786. Comm.

Vol. VIII. pp. 69 TOO.

^ Spec, pihys. comp. int. anim. cal. sang, rivip. et ovip. 1788. Comm. Vol. IX.
pp. 108 129. Comp. Goli. gel. Anz. 1789, st. 8, s. 73 77. In this treatise he
also gave his views upon the appearance of yellow corpuscles in the unimpregnated
ovum ; on the formation of the double heart ; on the period when the ribs are pro-
duced in the embryo.

* De OrnithoryncJn p)aradoxi fahrica ohserv. qucedam anat. Mem. de la soc.
med. d' Emulation, T. iv. Paris, 1779, pp. 320 323, Gott. gel. Anz. 1800, s.
609612.

^ Spec. phys. comp. int. anim. cal. sang, vivip. et ovip. 1789.

^ Gott. gel. Anz. 1783, st. 7, s. 68.

7 In his Medic. Bihliothelc. B. i. s. 725.

s lb. s. 732. Comp. Schlozer's Correspondence, Th. in. 1778, s. 231.

9 Med. Bib. B. II. s. 163-173.

10 Feuer-assel. Comp. J. L. Welge, Diss, de morhis sinuum frontalium.
Getting. 1786, 4to. rv. p. 10.

11 "w6cr den sogennant Wagler'schen.'" Med. Bihl. B. in. s. 616 630

12 Med. Bib. B. I. s. 173.

13 Contributions to the Materia Medica from the University Museum of Gottingen.
lb. B. I. s. 166 171.

MARX. 21

the east coast of New Holland, and by a description of the
true Winter's bark.

Blumenbach's reputation as a learned man was so great,
that every hint of his was considered and followed up, as that
On the best methods of putting together collectanea and eoctracts^;
and his works, especially his handbooks, stood in such esteem,
that authors and booksellers^ alike considered a preface from
him as the best recommendation for their works. In this way
he introduced Cheselden's Anatomy^, Neergard's* Comparative
Anatomy and Physiology of the Digestive Organs, and Gilbert
Blane's* Elements of Medical Logic.

I must take notice here of one branch of learning, in which
Blumenbach had scarce his like, I mean his familiarity with
voyages and travels. All the books of the sort in the library
of this place he had read through over and over again, and
made extracts of, and prepared a triple analysis, namely, one
arranged geographically, a chronological and an alphabetical
one. To this occupation, as he frequently took occasion to
mention, he owed no small part of his knowledge ; and for his
researches in natural history and ' ethnography it was a most
solid foundation.

He himself had made but few long journeys in proportion,
only through a part of Switzerland' and Holland to England,
or rather to London^, which afterwards he used to say was to
the sixth part of the world; and a diplomatical one to Paris,
in order, during the time of the kingdom of Westphalia, to

1 lb. B. HI. s. 547.

2 He wrote a preface to Gnielin's Geschichte der thiennch. u. mineral, 'jiftc. Er-
furt, 1805.

3 German by A. F. Wolf. Getting. 1789.

* Berlin, 1806. In the preface Blumenbach speaks of the influence of Com-
parative Anatomy on the pliiksophic study of natural history in general, and on
the physiology of the human body and the medical knowledge of beasts in
particular.

* Gottingen, 18 19.

^ When he wanted to take a journey for recreation, he liked going to the
widowed Princess Christiane von Waldeck at Arolsen, who had proved herself very
useful to him ; or to Pyrmont, or to Gotha, Eehburg, Weimar, and Dresden.

7 In 1783.

8 In 1791 92.

22 LIFE OF BLUMENBACII.

propitiate the good will of Napoleon for the University, on
which occasion De Lacepede was his advocate and guide. He
kept a journal on his travels, in which he made short notes
of all that was worth noticing. Up to this time very few of
these very multifarious remarks have been made public \

He published a translation of the medical observations in
the second part of Ives' Travels'^; he wrote a Preface to the first
part of the Collection of Rare Travels^, and a Preface and
Remarks to Volkmann's translation of Bruce's Travels*.

It is not perhaps too much to assert, what I may be allowed
to say here, that the desire which was aroused in many most
distinguished men to undertake great exj)editions for the sake
of natural history, and the results, which have accrued in con-
sequence to the knowledge of the earth and of mankind, were
particularly prompted through the medium of Blumenbach.
Hornemann^, Alex, von Humboldt, Langsdorf, Seetzen, Ront-
gen, Sibthorp, Prince Max von Neuwied, were and are his
grateful pupils.

Amongst the unknown, or, at all events, the insufficiently
appreciated services of Blumenbach to literature belong his
beyond measure numerous reviews, which he continued to write
for a long series of years, not only in the Bibliothek, which
he edited himself, but also particularly in the Gottingische
gelehrte A nzeige, on all the books in his various provinces. His
first criticism was upon Xenocrates, On the Aliment in Aquatic
Animals, in 1773, in Walch's Philological Library^.

1 Eemarks on some travels in Waldeck collected in Schlozer's Brief-wechsel,
Th. in. 1778, St. 16, s. 2-29237. Then: Some Remarks upon Ncttural History on
the occasion of a Swiss journey. In Marjaz. filr das neueste aus der Physik, B. iv.
St. 3, 1787, s. i; B. V. St. I, 1778, s. 13.

2 The remaining part of this Voyage to India was translated by Dohm. Leipz.

1775-

^ Memmingen, 1789.

* Leipz'g, 1790, in five volumes.

s On July 2, 1794 Hornemann first of all expressed a wish to his teacher
to travel into the interior of Africa. Zach's Geogr. Ephem. B. i. Weimar, 1798,
s. 1 16 120, s. 368371, and in B. iii. s. 193. Blumenbach gave a public notice
of this active young man and of the fortunate completion of his plan.

^ B. n. St. 6, s. 533. Blumenbach corrected and added to the edition of Xeno-
crates Trepi TTJs awQ twv ewdpuv r/)o^7Js by Franz.

MARX. 23

He himself had in the beginning to experience how unfairly
and carelessly reviews are often scribbled off\ He always
adhered to the rule of separating the man from the thing, and
tried to make his judgment as objective as possible, and not
to pervert the scientific judgment-seat with which he was
entrusted to gratifying his personal likes or dislikes. His
reviews may be known by their convincing brevity, their clear
exposition of the essential points, the witticisms scattered here
and there, and the instructive observations and remarks of
the writer.

One of his manuscript observations is worthy of notice,
which I found in a pocket-book that he once allowed me to
examine, because it explains to some extent how the facility
and power of finishing off work of this kind became in a
certain sense habitual to him. It is as follows: 'In church,
which we continually attended, I was always obliged whilst at
school to write down an abstract of the sermon. This has been
since of the greatest utility to me in my reading, extracting,
reviewing, and in many matters of business, &c., for it has
enabled me to detect the essential point with rapidity, to
exhibit it, and briefly to express it again.'

Although Blumenbach beyond all others was involved in few
literary feuds^ and it did not easily happen that any of his
reviews occasioned him any complaint' or enmity, still he could
not help frequently calling things by their right names, and
displaying false celebrities in their nakedness *.

And now we must turn our attention from Blumenbach the
author, to the Gottingen professor, to whose lecture-rooms youth

1 When his Handhooh of Natural History had been not only awkwardly but
inconsiderately criticized, he wrote bis On a literary incident worth notice, which
unfortunately is no rarity in Gott. Mar/. 1780, s. 467 484.

=* On one with his old colleague Meiners, comp. Beitr. zur Naturg. Aufl. i.
1790, Th. I. s. 62.

** His criticism on Kampf s new method of curing the most obstinate disorders
of the abdomen {Med. Bibl. B. 11. st. i), was however taken ill by him, but after-
wards was the subject of open thanks to Blumenbach, in the second edition of that
book, Leipz. 1786, s. 366.

* As in the review of Sander's Travels. Gott. gel. Am. 1784, st. 27.

24 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

and age alike pressed, in order to receive words of lasting
instruction from the wit and humour which overflowed from
his mouth.

The undivided approval, which was paid to his discourses,
underwent no diminution in his extreme old age, and he gave
up teaching, not because either the wish or the power failed
him, or because he suffered any diminution of audience or sym-
pathy, but solely in accordance with the entreaties of his friends.
He knew well how in a very singular and inimitable way to
unite the valuable with the amusing, the relation of dry facts
and scientific deductions with wit and humour, and to season
them with keen well-pointed anecdotes. Every one enjoyed the
lecture. Grave or gay, every one went away stimulated and
the better for it.

As listeners came to him from all parts of the world and
went home full of his praises, his name was carried into coun-
tries where previously German literati had been little thought
of With a letter of recommendation from Blumenbach, a man
might have travelled in all the zones of the earth.

He had the art of never giving too much, of confining him-
self to the principal points, and of deeply impressing what was
essential by well-varied repetitions. He assisted the compre-
hension by appealing to the senses in every way; by outlines
which he drew with chalk on a board, by the exhibition of
copies and preparations, by happy quotations of well-known
sayings. He laid stress on the fact, that from him might be
learnt the art of observing; but that it is necessary, according-
to circumstances, to listen, smell, and taste.

He made it plain, that he held no propositions such as could
be written out prettily on law-paper; his subject was the entire
man, his whole inner activity in representation, comparison, and
connection.

The means he employed to obtain this result were indeed
manifold, but it is very difficult to give a satisfactory account of
them ; they are too much bound up with his peculiar personal
appearance. One must have heard him speak himself, with the
expressive play of countenance, the remarkable tone of voice,

MAEX. 25

Avhich now fell upon the ear in sharp abrupt sentences, now
carried your senses along with him in overwhelming cadences,
and with the imposing effect with which he knew how, to some
extent, to throw life into the natural objects before him and
bring them into unexpected relations.

I could give many examples^ of his numerous clever and

^ For the sake of example I will give an inkling of them. He wished people
would accustom themselves to get a clear and definite notion of subjects, and to
reproduce the whole from a part, for, said he, " I cannot bring everytbuig into the
lecture, as the elephant or rhinoceros."

He tried also to prevent people from deriving false ideas from their impressions
and observations: viz. "If you wish to form an idea of the lowest depth to which
men have descended in the interior of the earth, pile up your Ubrary at home, your
Corpus Juris, your ecclesiastical history, and medical books, until you have put
i'2,ooo leaves, that is, 24,000 pages one upon the other. And how far do you
think we have got into the heart of the earth ? just so far as the first and second
leaf in thickness. And yet people are not ashamed to speak of the kernel of the
earth. When the poet speaks of the bowels of the earth, we ought to translate
'the epidermis of the earth.' "

He knew his audience so well, that if he wanted to get anything, he felt no
necessity for making long mancEuvres, still less for finding fault. He appealed to
the sense of what was right and proper, not with pathetic demonstrations, but
cursorily, as by an electric shock. If, for instance, he saw that his subjects were
handled rudely as they went round, he called out with an intelligible gesture ;
"They are best laid on your coat-la]3pet or on 'cotton ; but I know one word is
better than an hundred- weight of cotton."

Sometimes he was fond of speaking in aphorisms, leaving the connecting links
to be made out by his attentive hearers, though he always stirred up and set in
motion the most apathetic by his overflowing humoiu*. Once, for instance, when
lecturing on natural history, he told the story how they shaved a bear, and gave
him out as a new sort of man. "A beast in Gottingen, in whom Buffon would
have discovered a good deal that was human: it showed one particular trait of
modesty, because it would not allow its stockings to be taken off. Behind the
stove in the Golden Angel was the creature in question to be found, clad in a Hus-
sar's coat with an over-cloak. The breast was visible of a most inviting colour.
The mouth was silent ; large claws with long ruffles a Hussar with ruffles. That
was something to think of. Now I'm the man who gives the lectures here on
natural history, the lecture-room is gone mad; you show me this evening the
beast as God created it, or rather as you have shaved it, or I shall stand lor
nothing, for it is no laughing matter to play with the Professor in his lecture-room.
The man's hair stood up with fright, Uke spikes : later in the day Blumenbach was
present at its evening toilette. The waistcoat had been nailed to it."

Sometimes he did not disdain to say a word of fun to the students : viz.
"Many exegetists think that the whale cast out the prophet Jonah, because where
a horse can find a place, a prophet might do so too. Blumenbach however stands
rather by the opinion of Hermann von der Hardt in Helmstadt, who has written
a very nasty commentary on that man of God; that he lodged in Nineveh at the
"Whale; that his cash ran out; the landlord would give him no more credit he
was turned out of the club ; or the Whale cast him out."

Or; "John Hunter used to inquire whether it was not possible for men to be
thrown into the chrysalis state : that would be good for the conscription, forced
loans, or when the student is summoned; 'No, no, says the chambermaid, our
master is become a chrysalis.' "

26 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

humorous illustrations, but I should be afraid, that deprived of
the spirit of his pantomimic representation, and unsupported
by his cheerful but still highly imposing delivery, they might
easily appear in a false light.

It mig-ht sometimes have seemed that Blumenbach attached
too much value to the singular and the curious, but when any
one came to look into the matter more closely, he soon became
convinced, that though what was extraordinary attracted him
above all things, still, it was principally because it had remained
unnoticed by others, or because it served him as a means,
through which he could direct the attention to what was truly
worth knowing. His business was with knowledge and expla-
nation ; yet he knew too well that the majority of men must
have miracles to make them believe.

In literature he sometimes mentioned long-forgotten and
obsolete works, and noticed with particular emphasis such as
were not to be found in the royal library ; but all that was only
to excite the love of learning, and keep it at full stretch. Per-
haps no teacher understood so well as he how to instil by the
way a lasting interest in literature, and to accompany the ac-
quaintance with the best and most select with opportune
remarks.

The extraordinary reputation which remained to the famous
teacher in full strength for more than half a century may
partly be attributed to the influence of authority, which was
then of more weight than it is now ; partly perhaps to the
more comprehensive view that though the University was in
other ways crowded with teachers, he had no rival in his par-
ticular province ; partly that he in all his outward circumstances
and through his continuous good health was in a position to
concentrate on his immediate objects all the materials which
stood in his power ; still we cannot help always admiring the
greatness of his personality, and the wonderful insight and con-
sistency with which he knew how to keep all this together.
For a long period of time he continued to be the chief centre
of instruction at Gottingen.
. Not only did fathers send their sons, but grandfathers their

MARX. 27

gi'andcbildren, in order that these might hear Bkimenbach as
they had done themselves, and so participate in that particular
kind of learning, which had remained so singularly indelible in
their recollection. Many first heard of Gottingen through its
connection with Blumenbach, and lighted by his star, journeyed
to the place of his operations.

In the summer of 1776 he arranged for the public vivisec-
tions and physiological experiments on living animals in the
great theatre. Also in 1777 he gave there public readings on
the natural history of mankind. In the same year he gave
lectures on the dissection of the domestic animals of the coun-
try. Though he began very early to treat upon comparative
osteology, it was not till after 1785 that he gave lessons on
comparative anatomy in general. For a long time he delivered
lectures on pathology, after Gaub, on the history of authorities
on medicine and physiology, and at last in the winter term of
1836-37 on natural history, which he read 118 times.

The three English princes, who had arrived here on the 6th
July 1785, attended the course on natural history in the winter
of 1786 ^ Nor did the present king of Bavaria, then crown-
prince, disdain to take his seat on the allotted benches, and in
August, 1803, Blumenbach was his companion in the Harz as far
as Magdeburg. This same royal patron of the sciences never
forgot his student's time, or his teacher individually, as he
proved not only by sending him valuable presents, especially
the skull of an ancient Greek and his order of merit, but par-
ticularly by this, that he despatched in 1829 the present Crown-
prince to be the alumnus of the Georgia Augusta and of Blu-
menbach. When our king, on the occasion of the hundred-
year jubilee feast of the University, honoured us with his
illustrious presence, he did not omit to visit his old preceptor
in the house which he had so often entered as a student.

Blumenbach was a born professor ; in this occupation he
sought and found his satisfaction and his pride. What he

1 With which agrees the passage of Heyne {Opxisc. Vol. rv. p. 243), "the
royal princes of Great Britain attended the lectures of some of the Professors, and
were seen on the benches of the audience."

28 LIFE OF BLUMENBACir.

prompted and accomplished in that capacity is seen from the
history of the literati of later years ; innumerable are those
who prize him as their teacher, benefactor, and friend. Who
can enumerate the dedications in great and small books which
were offered to him from far and near, partly out of gratitude,
partly as expressions of praise and recognition ? Out of all the
great number of dissertations which have appeared here, the
best have been accomplished with and through him. Read
the words of affection and love in the elder Sommerring's
inaugural dissertation on Blumenbach\ which has since become
so famous, and you will want nothing more.

When his pupil Rudoljjhi, in conjunction with Stieglitz and
Lodemann, who had equally been instructed by him in science,
canvassed the German physicians, in order to celebrate the doc-
tor's jubilee of their great teacher in a worthy manner, all to
Avhom he had been a leader either by speech or writing rose
like one man, and perpetuated the recollection of the event with
a medal ^, and by the foundation of a travelling scholarship^

The naturalists of his day endeavoured to recognize the ser-
vices of the Nestor of their science by naming after him plants,
animals, and stones. It was for him a particular pleasure, that
on the morning of the day of his doctor's jubilee (Sept. 18,
1825), his colleague Schrader showed him a drawing of the
new kind of plant, Blumenhachia insignis*.

^ De basi Encephali. Gbtt. 1778, 4to. And Baldinger's title to it: Epitome neu-
rologiw phi/sioIogico-2MthologiccE, and in the Curriculum viUe Sommerrinrj, p. 15:
" Exc. Blumenbach was not only my most desirable instructor in general zoology,
mineralogy, physiology, pathology, the particular history of man, and in relating
the traditions of medicine, but also a distinguished patron, who deigned to treat me
as a friend. Such was his kindness that he not only often took me as his companion
in his zoological and mineralogical excursions, but also in his vivisections and ex-
periments, which he carried on at his own expense in order to illustrate pubHckly
the physiological part of natural history, he permitted me most kindly to give liim
my personal and manual assistance."

^ The dedication runs: Viro illustri Germanife decor! diem semisecularem
Physiophih Germanici Icete gratulantur. On the medal are drawn an European,
Ethiopian, and Mongolian skull with the legend : Naturae interpret!, ossa loqui
jubenti Physiophili Germanici. d. 19 Sept. 1825. [Wood-cuts from this medal
have been given on the title-page. Ed.]

^ The value of the travelling scholarship was 600 gold thalers. Comp. Gott.
gel, Anz. 1829, st. 73, s. 721.

* Comp. Comment. i?oc. R. Sc. Golt. Yo]. vi. 1S28, p. 91 13S. A Blumcn-

MAUX. ' 29

Although the confidence of the world in the learning of the
aged veteran rested on firm foundations, still notwithstanding
that he never left off continually improving it, for he was
always putting fresh life into what he knew, and endeavouring
to add new matter to his acquisitions. In his pocket-book we
find the following remark made in later days. " Although I
have been many years now delivering lectures, still up to this
time I have never once been into the lecture-room without
having prepared myself afresh, and specially for every particu-
lar hour, because I know from experience how much injury
many teachers have done to themselves, by considering as
unnecessary these perpetual preparations for lectures, which
they have read already twenty times and more."

Blumenbach never, above aU, allowed himself to repose
upon his hajjpy natural advantages, but was always endeavour-
ing without ceasing to procure for them the greatest possible
development. Only I may remark here, that his manner of
speaking and writing never grew old, but on the contrary
remained interesting and in many respects masterly, and was
such as to fix the attention of hearer and reader in a remark-
able way.

It is worth while to bring into notice the following extract
from his note-book, which is intimately connected with the
solidity and repose of his delivery. "Amongst the rules on
which my father most strongly insisted in our education, was
one especially, that when we had once commenced a sentence
with a certain form of construction we must go on with it, and try
to carry it out completely, and we were never allowed to begin
over again, and join another construction on to the first. This was
afterwards of great assistance to me towards an easy delivery."

Blumenbach not only developed himself into a most superior
teacher by natural talent, reflection and experience, but he also
possessed both by practice and by natural advantages the gift,
in ordinary conversation, of bringing out the main points in his

lacUa multifida is drawn and described in Curtis' Botanical Magazine, Vol. 64,
1837. PI. 3599-

30 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

answers and stories, partly by short terse sentences, partly by
unexpected hints. He was always lucky enough to hit the nail
on the head, to bring the subject into a fresh position, and to
attack it in new and interesting ways. He would sometimes
describe reason as " the desire of perfecting oneself, or the
determination to accommodate oneself to circumstances," and
his manner both of address and of doing business was a standing
commentary on this definition.

Generally he preferred listening to speaking; frequently he
would only let fall isolated sentences, leaving people to guess
at the connection; he avoided direct contradiction, and was
pleased when his meaning was understood, without his having
been obliged to express himself in so many words. In this way
he spared the personal feelings of others, gladly recognized
assistance from without, and was tender to human weaknesses,
especially the vanity of authorship \

Grammar had sometimes to give way in his cursory dis-
course for his immediate objects. In other respects his talk,
just like above all his style and delivery, was the result of con-
scious deliberation. In his note-book I find -written down the
following remark : " In the delivery of my lectures, as in my
writings, I have always endeavoured to follow Quintilian's
pattern! This is it. 'I^ tried to throw in some brilliancy, not
for the sake of displaying my genius, but that in this way I
might more readily attract youth to the acquaintance of those
things which are considered necessary for study. For it seemed
probable that if the lecture had anything pleasant in it they

^ He was of opinion that this in respect of opinions upon it, might fairly stand
upon the same footing as personal beauty. Hence he used to remark on the
latter: "If a toad could speak and were asked which was the loveliest creature
upon God's earth, it would say simpering, that modesty forbad it to give a real
opinion on that point."

In his pronunciation he followed ordinary usage, quoting Horace, ' quem penes
aibitrium est, et jus, et norma loquendi.' He used Adelung as a decisive authority,
and that dictionary always lay by the side of his table. Purists were a nuisance
to him. To call gr.anite kornstcin, he said, made him shudder.

He always tried to correct the improper use of definite words, especially with a
view to the language of natural history : viz. ' My canary bird sings beautifully.'
' To hear a canary bird si7iy I would go ten miles ; but perhaps it piles' ' Yes, pipes,
sings.' 'Ah, ah, now we understand each other.'

^ loistii. orator. 1. III. c. t. Ludg. Bat. 17:0, p. 211.

MARX. 3 1

would be more glad to learn; whereas a dry and barren mode
of teaching would j^robably turn their minds away, and grate
rudely against ears tender by nature.' "

After what has been said already about Blumenbach's rela-
tions to the outer world, it seems almost superfluous to go on
mentioning in detail how numerous and honourable his con-
nections with that world became.

It might be sufficient to mention, that 78 learned societies
elected him as a member. There was scarcely any scientific
body of reputation in the wide extent of cultivated nations
which did not send him its diploma by way of testifying their
respect.

One of the necessary consequences of this was a very exten-
sive correspondence, and though much of the correspondence
between him and distinguished persons has already been
printed \ there must still remain, on the other hand, a great
deal, which will one day be made public. Blumenbach himself
laid the greatest stress upon his correspondence with Haller,
Camper and Bonnet, and considered these as amongst the
fortunate incidents of his life I

He was made Secretary to the Physical and Mathematical
branches of our Society in 1812, and in 1811? General Secretary.
In this capacity, it was his duty to keep up the connection
between it and allied institutions, as well as with the individuals
who belonged to it, both at home and abroad; to prepare the
memorials of deceased members, and to compose the intro-
ductions to the printed volumes of our Society. We are all
witnesses of the zeal and devotion with which he fulfilled these

^ Viz. with Zach, to whom particularly he gave information about distant tra-
vellers. AlUjem. Geogr. Ephem. B. ii. s. 66, 158. B. in. s. loi. With Carl Eren-
bert von Moll in his Mlttheil. aus viein. brief icechsel , 1829, Abthl. i. s. 56 6.^,
on general subjects of natural history. With Johann Heinrich Merk in his Briefen,
published by K. Wagner, Darmstadt, 1835, Nos. 197, 218, 250, principally on
primeval bones.

2 Medic. Bibl. B. in. s. 734. These entries are to be found in his journal: "1775,
Nov. I, My first acquaintance with De Luc; 1777, Nov. 21, with G. Forster,
1778, in summer, with Camper. In the same year my correspondence with Baron
Asch began, 1781 with R. Forster in Halle ; in Bern, 1782, my acquaintance and
subsequent correspondence with Bonnet ; in 1786 my correspondence with Banks."

32 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

honourable duties. He had laid down himself the 84th year^
as the natural termination of human life, and so it might be
regarded as one of his many j)Gculiarities, that it was not till
his 88th year that he expressed a Avish, in a higher quarter,
to be relieved of that office.

There are still some of his official relations to be noticed,
which brought him into manifold connection with others, and
into business transactions with colleagues and magistrates,
namely, his position towards the Faculty, the Library, and the
public Natural History Collections. In all these different
circles it may be said, that he conducted himself to universal
satisfaction, and gave proofs in every detail of his knowledge,
his experience, his forbearance and good feeling.

As member of the Faculty of Honours^, he distinguished
himself throughout by conscientiousness in delivering the judg-
ments demanded of him, by giving out his individual state-
ments of the prizes, by mild and moderate examinations. He
did neither too little nor too much. Duiing his decanate in
1818 he created 76 doctors, the greatest number since the
foundation of the University. He fulfilled that office with all
its obligations up to 1835. On the 20th Feb. 1826, his Pro-
fessor's jubilee was celebrated. Blumenbach himself considered
it a remarkable occurrence, that he in his 60th year' should be
already not only the senior of the medical faculty, but also that
of the whole Senate. He showed that the case had now really
occurred which Michaelis* had declared was scarcely possible.

As member of the Library Committee he was always ready
to give his advice and influence for the improvement of an
institution he held so dear. He arranged, as its Director, the

^ Medic. B'M. B. III. s. i8r. "The goal which many old people arrive at,
but few pass by."

2 In 1783 he was assessor; in 1791 he shared the post with Gmelin, and in
1803, after his death, held it alone.

^ When Richter, July 23, 1812, had died, 71 years old.

* In his Raisonnement ilher die 2'>rotest. Universit. Th. Ii. s. 343 : " The senior
of a whole University can hardly be a man of sixty years, but generally somewhat
younger or older than 80."

^ GiJtt. yel. Anz. 17 78, st. \i2, s. 986.

QC>

MARX. 3

University Museum, and continued to overlook it to extreme
old age, when he could no more attend to it personally. To
his name also it was owing that many presents were sent to it
from far and near\

Blumenbach never undertook the office of Proctor of the
University, although he knew as well as anybody else how to
deal properly with the students, and to remain in the best
understanding possible with older jDersons and with his supe-
riors. Very early in the day he had asked it as a favour of the
Curator, that he might never be chosen for that office. His
familiarity with the older conditions of discipline, and the then
unavoidable disturbances which agitated the University, and his
fear^ of being withdrawn from pure scientific activity by this
official business determined him to come to this conclusion.

But this refusal did not prevent him from doing all the
services in his power, both to the University and the town,
by deputations of all kinds. On the 10th June, 1802, he went
with Martens to Hanover, and on the 5th Nov. 1805, to
Cassel, in the same company, to visit Mortier. On the part of
the higher authorities such a value was set upon these two
organs of the University, that it was made its duty never to put
them aside on any important occasion^

^ Comp. Some Notices of tJie University Museum in Annalen der BraunscTiw.
Lilneb. Churlande. Jahrg. i. 1787, st. 3, s. 84 99. Jahrg. il. 1788, st. 2, s. 25 35.
In his sketches of subjects of natural history, he always mentions where the
examples quoted were to be found in our Museum.

^ In his journal I find written with a lead pencil: "From the year when
Euhnken was made Rector Magnificus, says his biographer Wyttenbach (Ludg.
B. 1799, 8vo. p. 141), he became lost to literary pursuits."

^ In a P.M. of the University and School department at Hanover to the
University d. 12 Jan. 1805: "In respect of the business which under the present
circumstances are to be seen to by the Privy Councillor von Martens, which do
not ordinarily belong to the duties of Proctor, it will continue to be the case, and
so long as the condition of things renders it necessary, that all and every communi-
cation with the French generals, whatever name they may have, shall be conducted
by Privy Councillor Martens, or, if he is unable, by Privy Councillor Blumenbach,
since both are known to the French generals through the University deputations
they have already been employed upon. In consequence, the rules hitherto at-
tended to must be resumed, according to which, in all cases where it is necessary
to send a deputation of honour, the Proctor of the day does not go himself, but
must send a deputation, and that must consist, when there is no necessity for its
being more numerous, of Privy Councillors von Martens and Blumenbach, and if a
more numerous one be sent, then these two must always be members of it."

34 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

On tlie 28th Aug. 1806, Blumenbach and Martens set out
for Paris : on the 28th Sept. they had an audience of the Em-
peror. On the 80th Oct. 1812, Blumenbach went, as deputy of
the University, with Sartorius to Heihgenstadt, to the head-
quarters of Bernadotte, the subsequent King of Sweden.

In consequence of these important services, combined with
his other academical exertions, the town-magistrates resolved to
give him a most unusual proof of their recognition of them :
namely, on the 1st March, 1824, the magistracy of the town
decreed him a twenty years' exemption from the municipal
taxes imposed upon his house.

"With respect to the outer appearance and personal effect
of the departed, they are undoubtedly still fresh in our me-
mory. Still perhaps some outlines may be of use to preserve
them fresh, especially since in his last years he lived very much
retired in his apartments, and so many had very little oppor-
tunity of coming in contact with him.

No one who had once seen or conversed with Blumenbach
could easily forget him; and he knew how to make himself
valuable to every one who lived with him. Even in extreme
old age, when the weight of years had bent even his resisting
back, there he stood and sat, as if cast in bronze, in every look
a man. Any one who heard the stout voice with which he
answered, "Come in," to a knock at his door; or saw the
wonderful play of muscles in his expressive face, and remarked
in any interview his undisturbed equanimity and collectedness,
and the freshness and cheerfulness of his spirit, soon knew with
whom he had to do.

No one left his presence without receiving either an in-
structive narrative, a cheerful story of old times, or some
weighty hint. He understood a joke, and knew how to return
one. If any one let slip in conversation an expression, or a
suggestion, which was wanting in due consideration or respect,
or if any one appeared as if he wanted to impose upon the old
man, he must have been wonderfully put down, when he
snatched at his cap, and bared his snow-white head, with the

MARX. 35

words, "Old BlumenLach is obliged to you." I cannot leave
untold how Astley Cooper, in 1839, said in a letter of recom-
mendation, that King George IV. had declared that he had
never seen so imposing a man as Blumenbach.

His health suffered on an average little disturbance. Blu-
menbach refused to be ill ; he had no time for it. In his youth
he was delicate, and was liable to violent bleedings at the nose,
and even to spitting blood; but by taking the greatest care,
and by regularity in his mode of life, he arrived in the course
of years to a very sound state of health. He declared that the
occupying himself with natural history had done him this good
among others, that he could sleep like a marmot, and had
acquired the digestion of an ostrich. Every now and then he
suffered from diy coughs, inflammation of the eyes, or lumbago,
which he called the thorn in the flesh. If he found it impos-
sible to subdue or conceal the complaint, he went to a phy-
sician, and followed his prescriptions most punctually. Glad
indeed was he when he found himself relieved of the incon-
venience, and thankfully did he exclaim with Jesus Sirach,
"A short madness is the best."

Extreme old age can scarcely avoid bringing with it some
unpleasant consequences, but altogether the still intellectual
old man enjoyed sound bodily health. After he had got over
the cold days in the middle of the past January pretty well, he
was seized at the commencement of the mild but stormy
weather with his cough, which however left him again. Only
the old annoyance, of not being able convenientl}'' to void his
phlegm, drew from him the remark, that in the pathology which
he possessed, this chapter had not been satisfactorily accom-
plished.

On Saturday the 18th Jan. I was summoned between eight
and nine o'clock in the morning from the lecture to visit him.
He had chosen to get out of bed, but had been unable to walk or
to stand. On the first seizure they had placed him in his arm-
chair, close to the stove, and covered him with pillows. When
I came I saw what I had never before remarked in him, and
what immediately filled me with uneasiness ; his body trembled

r> 2

36 LIFE OF ELUMENBACn.

all over, and was cold to the touch ; his expression was altered ;
his pulse was irregular in the highest degree; nothing could
enable him to throw off his dejection.

Still by good luck this threatening storm passed away.
The remedies which were applied might congratulate them-
selves on a happy result. When I saw him again two hours
afterwards, he gave me his hand, he had recovered his usual
expression, and the natural motions seemed to have suffered no
essential interference.

However tranquillizing this might appear, still there was the
apprehension that so lamentable and powerful an accident,
which had proceeded from the central organ of the nervous sys-
tem, in an organism which had hitherto gone on working with
such regularity, might only too easily occur again, and at last
bring to a standstill the machine which was kept going by habit
alone. When I saw him again at 5 o'clock in the evening, he
stretched out his arms towards me, and spoke aloud; still I
thoufyht that he felt as if he must not consider the circumstances
as so trivial. About 8 o'clock I found him in a sound sleep,
which continued throughout the night.

Sunday and Monday passed off well enough, and he spent
them, with the exception of his siesta, in his arm-chair. When
I entered his room, he gave me so loud a " good day," that, ac-
cording to his own expression, the angels in heaven might have
heard him. When I asked him how he was, I received for
answer, " Quite in the old way." He had books brought to
him ag'ain, read them, had himself read to at intervals, and was
particularly cheerful. But I could only share this happy tone
of mind by constraint, for his pulse became more and more
irregular, and fainter, and when he spoke I missed the old tone
of voice.

On Tuesday one might still have been deceived as to his
condition on the first glance, because when I asked to feel his
pulse, he thrust out his arm with energy, in his usual way : and
he showed by all his other motions that the power of the will
over the body was yet entire. This was the first time that he
spent the whole day in bed. Still in the evening I conversed

MAEX. 37

with him upon subjects of natural history, and recounted to him
some bygone passages of his life, at which the expression of his
face, his cheerful humour, and many a subtle remark showed
the clearness of his mind.

Wednesday morning, the 22nd, about 8 o'clock, contrary to
his previous custom, he did not extend his hand to me ; still he
quickly recognized me, and was as friendly as usual. On my
repeated inquiry whether he felt anywhere any pain, any
oppression, or any anxiety, he answered straight and decided
with " No, nowhere at all." The only thing which annoyed him
was, that he could not expel the phlegm from the windpipe.
He began to doze, and spoke at intervals a few words to him-
self ; but when a question was put to him he always gave an
answer. As I was going away he said, "Adieu, dear friend."
These were the last words which I heard him speak plainly and
connectedly. The tone of his voice remained good till midday.
Dozing and feebleness increased; but his consciousness re-
mained undisturbed till evening, and when I asked him several
times if I should give him something stimulating, he opened
his eyes readily, and fixed them hard. At half-past 8 I could
feel no pulse, and the inspirations were numbered. I laid my
hand upon him and said, "Adieu;" but the dear well-known
voice, which had so often heartily responded to the greeting,
was silent for ever. Five minutes afterwards he was in another
world.

There still remain some isolated strokes to be given, which
may help to the better comprehension of this generous and
unusual character, who retained his innate harmony even in
the very hour of departure.

Blumenbach never shed tears \ After a heavy domestic
misfoi"tune I found him collected, reading some travels of natu-

1 "Look for the lachrymal gland after my death," he said sometimes, "you will
find none," or "I must have nerves like cords, or none at all." The dissection never
took place. It would have been most interesting in many respects for the more
accurate knowledge of the particular parts of the brain, and their connection with
each other, the comparison of the skull, the windpipe aud the lungs, with the well-
known symptoms which were seen during the life of the old man, who was
remarkable even in a physical point of view. Still, with respect even to the

8 LIFE OF BLUMENBACir.

ral history, and calling my attention to the pictures in them.
He suffered through his whole organization, yet he made no
complaint, and shed no tear, but tried to occupy himself as far
as he possibly could.

He never used spectacles, and in his 88th year read with ease
the smallest letters and type. His handwriting changed remark-
ably according to the different epochs of his existence. In his
youth and active manhood he wrote beautifully. Then he was
afflicted with a difficulty of using his writing finger, and after
he had tried hard to conquer it without success, he accustomed
himself to write with the left hand, guiding the pen with the
right. For this purpose he used a swan's quill, and the thickest
lead-pencil. In his 87th year however he again attempted to
write with the right hand, and the strokes by their firmness
and clearness recalled the best performances of his earlier years.
If you ever got him to talk on the chapter of writing, he took
care never to forget to recommend the art of writing handily in
your pocket, which had been of great service to him on diplo-
matic missions, through the agency of a short thick lead-pencil
and strong parchment paper.

Blumenbach was a man of the watch, which always lay
beside him. No one could be more punctual than he was. If
any one expected anything from him to no purpose, he might be
quite certain that it had not been forgotten, but that he had
let it go, because he considered that the proper thing to do.

Immediately after he had got up in the morning he was
frizzled and powdered, according to the old-fashioned style, and
then put on his boots and kept them on till he went to bed. It
took a great deal of trouble to get him at last to use slippers
and a footstool. Even his physician scarcely ever saw him in
his night-shirt. As he spent the whole day entirely in full
dress, so also he scarcely in other ways indulged himself in the
slightest relaxation. He had a sofa for visitors in his study,

peculiarities mentioned, it must be considered that the forms hinted at were easy
to be seen, and as normal as might be ; but long-continued design, iron will, and
custom, which had almost become law, had made their influence distinctly tell
upon them.

MARX. 39

but he never made any use of it himself. Only on one single
occasion, Avhen he was ill and obliged to lay up, did I Hnd him
upon it. He pronounced against arm-chairs for a long time,
and said there ought to be pricks in the back of them ; and
it was only by degrees that this position was made agreeable
to him.

It was one of his principles never to sleep in the day-time ;
only in his very last years did he allow himself a siesta. It was
his opinion that a man ought always to be wakeful, active, and
cheerful, and on that account he was slow to understand how
he sometimes in his 88th year went off into a doze in the day-
time, in the absence of any outward excitements.

He kept himself free from every confining habit ; after
allowing himself to smoke for some time, he gave it up again,
and did the same by snuff-taking too, which had occupied the
place of the other. After his 86th year I saw his snuff-box no
more.

Moderation at table was his habit ; he always took exactly
the same quantity. He used to tell of himself that he had
never been drunk\

With respect to this unusual self-reliance which Blumen-
bach arrived at so early, and which he retained to the end, it
will be interesting to hear his own account, to what influence
he principally ascribed this important result. It stands written
in his journal. " My parents, among other wise and serviceable
principles of education, as I consider, never allowed us children
to know that they had any possessions. All we knew was this,
that everything which they had was entirely their own unen-
cumbered property. That fortunate ignorance was for me a
mainspring to more earnest exertion to help myself on alone,
and it is that principally which has made of me an useful man.
How many unhappy examples there are, on the other hand, of
young people, who have neglected to cultivate their natural
capacities solely for the reason, that their parents have too

1 He used to say with Johnsoa, "Abstinence is an easy virtue, temperance a,
very difficult one."

40 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

early let them become acquainted with the lucrative inherit-
ance which was awaiting them."

Blumenbach was economical, but he understood also how
to give. He knew how to appreciate the value of money, with-
out at the same time setting any higher consideration upon it.
There was once a passage in his note-book which some time
later was written down : " However singular it may appear to
many, still it is literally true, that up to the date at which I am
now writing, I have never once solicited any emolument,
salary, or addition, or anything else of the kind concerning
myself, but have received everything throughout from the
Hanoverian government, from my first appointment up to the
last addition allotted to me in the summer of 1813, entirely
from free gifts, that is, without any exertion of my own; and so
also under the kingdom of Westphalia."

As Blumenbach himself was beyond all things discreet,
both in public and in private affairs, so also he expected the
same from those he associated with. He had no objection to a
piece of news, especially when it was of a piquant nature, but
beyond that, he troubled himself little about the concerns
of other people. He used to say, " De occultis non judicat
ecclesia."

If any one complained to him of his position, and solicited
his intercession, he would encourage him with the saying,
" Lipsia vult expectari." If it appeared to him that the peti-
tioner stepped beyond the proper bounds, he would exclaim,
" I shall remember you," and with these words the negotiation
would be closed.

Blumenbach was always himself, never distracted, never pre-
occupied. Had he been woke up in the middle of the night
and questioned upon the most important subjects, he would
certainly have given the same distinct answer as at midday.
He acted according to definite inner determination. He acted
or declined to do so according to certain rules of the under-
standing, which became at last a sort of machinery of his
character.

He was never wanting in attention to othei's, and he had

MARX. 41

the faculty of attaching to himself in a subtle way men of all
classes, but especially superior men. It was his plan to bring
up and, as it were, accidentally to allude to whatever must
necessarily have an agreeable effect, and to stir beforehand all
the strmgs in harmony; and in this way he won for himself
many well-wishers, and knew how to keep them when they
were won. Politeness he considered as a duty, and he knew
very well how to use it, both to attract people and to keep
them at a distance.

Not only did he closely adhere to what was demanded by
custom, and all the observances of society and official relations,
but his attention to these things put many younger men to
the blush.

Blumenbach was alw^ays anxious to leam, and was never
idle for a moment. He used to say, he only knew ennui by
reputation. As he was reckoned the great curiosity of Gottin-
gen, and scarcely any traveller omitted to visit him, he was
kept continually on the stretch through the quantity of fresh
information. To this also contributed his unceasing reading
in the evenings he preferred to be read to and his unexampled
memory, which he was always trying to strengthen by taking-
memoranda. He often used to laugh at the perverted manners
of certain men who wanted to be taken for clever, and com-
plained about their bad memory, when that was the very thing
they could exercise a certain power over. One hears people
say, " I have a most wretched memory," but never " What a
miserable judgment I have."

It will serve to show how attentive he still was in extreme
old age, that one Wednesday morning when the Literary
Notices had been published, and in one of the Reviews, without
naming him, I had hinted at something which concerned him,
he greeted me with the words, "To-day old Blumenbach has
been out-jockeyed."

He was not in the habit of speaking his opinion or his ideas
straight out, but he left them to be seen through a hint, or only
by a jest; any one who knew his way of speaking wanted no
further explanation.

42 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

He was not one of those who received everything imme-
diately as true and certain*; but he guarded himself and also
warned others against carrying their scepticism too far. He
said it would be a subject for a very acute head to decide,
whether too much credulity or hyper-scepticism had done the
most harm to science, and he inclined to the latter opinion.
He considered it as above all necessary, on every assertion to
keep in view the individual from whom it proceeded ^

He always found fault when any one lost himself in common
figures of speech, instead of seeing the way clearly to the
foundation of appearances from the immediately connected
facts. Thus he used to express himself: "The lament, that
mankind is always growing weaker, is a miserable Jeremiad.
Lay upon one of our horses the horse-trappings of the middle
ages it will be crushed under them as a pancake. Yet these
drink no tea or coffee, and do not suffer from the evil, which
has been given us by America. Habit does it all."

In his thought as in his action all was considerate, con-
nected and moderate.

In what has been done already, an attempt has been made

' In his preface to the Samml. Merhwurd. reiser^eitch. Erst, Th. , Memmingen,
1789, he gives some words of warning against too confident a belief in the accounts
of travellers.

2 This lay at the bottom of a playfully told story. "In Moravia on a sun-
bright day there was a thundei'-clap, and stones like pigeons' eggs fell from the sky.
The testimony of those who heaid it is remarkable, as a specimen of what often
occurs in courts of law. 'Did you hear the noise? what did you think it was
like?' 'Like platoon-firing.' 'Wliat are you?' 'Musketeer.' 'Did you hear it?'
'Yes.' 'And what did you think of it?' 'It was like an old carriage rolling along
the street.' ' What are you?' 'Postilion.' 'And you?' 'Yes.' 'What did you
think it was like?' 'Janissary music' 'Have you ever heard Janissary music? '
'Never in my life, but I think it must sound something like th;it.'"

He used to take opportunities of showing how people sometimes propagate an
error from a self-pleasing delusion, vi^. : "The Hungarians boast that on their
Tokay grapes you will often find grains of pure gold. All is not gold, which
glitters. Looked at more closely it is no real gold, but glittering yellow caterpil-
lars' eggs."

His criticism Was intelligible, and yet was more subtle and instructive than the
most elaborate exposition. Thus, "The Sloth can never be brought to move both
feet at the same time. When it goes it moves first one foot, stops and sighs Ah !
It could not have been in the universal menagerie of Mount Ararat, because it
lives in Brazil only ; if it had had to come from Ararat to Brazil, it would not
have been there yet,"

MAKX. 43

to throw off a silhouette of Blumenbach's exertions and per-
sonal appearance ; in conclusion, I may be allowed to give some
account of his nearest external connections.

His father, Henrich Blumenbach, was first of all private tutor
in Leipzig, and in 1737 became tutor to the chancellor of Oppel
in Gotha, and in the same year was made professor in the
school there. He had a very choice library, and many en-
gravings and maps. For Leipzig, the place of his birth, he had
such a preference, that when his son went, against his wishes,
to Gottingen, he alluded in a school prospectus to the new
University as the quasi modo genita; but however at last he
changed, and later in the day ceased to refuse it the well-
merited honour of being the optivio modo genita.

His mother, Charlotte Elenore Hedwig, was the daughter
of Buddeus, the Yice-Chancellor of Gotha, grand-daughter of the
Jena theologian; she died in 1793, sixty-eight years old. The
departed left behind him, in his journal, this remark upon her,
" A woman full of great and at the same time domestic virtues,,
and perfectly faultless." He had a brother who died in the
prime of life, in an employment at Gotha, and his sister was the
wife of Professor Yoigt, who afterwards came to Jena.

In 1759 Blumenbach went to the school of Michaelis. In
1768 he delivered an address on two occasions : on the Duke's
birth-day, and the marriage of the then Crown-prince.

Amongst the interesting men in Gotha, to whom he often
went, and who were glad to see him, was the Vice-President
Kluppel, who took a gi-eat share in the Gotha Literary Journal,
which began to appear in 1771'.

On the 12th October, 1769, Blumenbach, then seventeen
years old, went from school to Jena, where Baldinger was then
Proctor, principally to attend the lectures of the then famous
Kaltschmidt ; but on the very day when his lectures commenced,
he dropped down dead, from a stroke of apoplexy, at the wed-
dino- dance of one of his friends. In his place at Easter, 1770,
Neubauer came to Jena, to whom Blumenbach took prodigi-
ously, and to whom he was very grateful.

44 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

After he had studied there for three years, he felt the
necessity of getting instruction from other teachers, and soon
made his choice, in consequence of the renown Gottingen then
enjoyed. On the loth October, 1772, he arrived here; on the
18th September, 1775, a Sunday, he took his degree^; and on
the 31st October he began to read his first lecture.

For his learned career he considered it the greatest of good
luck that he came to Gottingen. He shared, as he often
remarked, with regard to a learned life the saying of Schlozer^:
" To live out of Gottingen is not to live at all."

Nor did he conceal from himself that the fact of his career
coinciding with the necessities of that day, and his personal
position to influential men, had had an important influence on
the recognition of his labours ^

By his marriage (on the 19th Oct. 1778) ho became the
brother-in-law of Heyne, and as his father-in-law George
Brandes, and afterwards his brother-in-law Ernst Brandes,
managed the affairs of the University, we can see partly at
least how Blumenbach came to have so much influence in it.

^ His sponsor was his old Jena tutor Baldinger, who in the meantime had been
summoned here, and who on that occasion had written his thesis De malignitatc in
morbis ex nuntc Hippocraiis, 1775, on which depended Bhimenbach's career in life.
According to him Blumenbach had attended the following lectures. In Jena:
logic with Hennings; pure mathematics and physics with Succow; botany, physi-
ology, pathology, and the history of medicine with Baldinger ; anatomy, surgery,
and midwifery with Neubauer; practical medicine and pathology wdth Nicolai;
natural history and archffiology with Walch; German antiquities with Miiller ;
EngHsh language with Tanner. In Gottingen: on the power of medicine, on the
nature and cure of diseases with Vogel; pharmaceutical chemistry and the prepar-
ation of medicines, the art of prescribing and clinical lectures with Baldinger;
botany and materia medica with Murray; anatomy and midwifery with Wrisberg;
pathology and ocular diseases with Eichter; mineralogy with Kastner; history of
the mammalia with Erxleben ; natural history witli Buttner ; on the odes of Horace
with Heyne ; the English language with Dietz ; the Swedish with Schlozer.

On the occasion of tliat anniversary, Heyne said {Opusc. Vol. 11. p. 215):
"Blumenbach, from whose genius and learning we expect something very great."

^ In his life written by Blumenbach himself. Getting. 1802, s. 197.

3 He had early made a mark against the two following passages: "It makes a
great difference on what times a man's peculiar virtues fall" (Plin. Nat. Hist. vu.
29). "Nor can any one have so splendid a genius that he can come to light
without material, opportunity, or even a patron and some one to recommend him"
(Plin. Ep. VI. 23).

MARX. 45

What he was to this institution of learning in general,
and our society in particular, that the world knows well, and
history will not forget. In our tablets of memory his name
will always endure, and his recollection will always renew in
us the picture of a great and beautiful activity.

He who like him has satisfied the best of his time, he has
lived for all time.

ELOGE HISTORIQUE

JEAN-FREDERIC BLUMENBACH,

UN DES HUIT ASSOCIliS ^TRANGEKS DE l'aCADI^MIE,

PAR M. FLOURENS,

SECRETAIRE PERPETUEL.

LU DANS LA SEANCE PUBLTQUE DU 26 AVRIL 1847.

PARIS. 1847.

MEMOIR OF BLUMENBACH

M. FLOURENS'.

Some years since died at Gottingen a member of our Academy,
whose great works have rendered him famous, and whose par-
ticular works, applied to the new study of man himself, have
rendered dear to humanity. It is to M. Blumenbach that our
age owes Anthropology. The history of mankind had been
disfigured by errors of every kind, physical, social and moral.
A sage appeared. He contended against the physical errors;
and, by so doing, destroyed in the surest manner the founda-
tion of all the others.

John Frederick Blumenbach was born at Gotha, in 1752.
From his very birth nature seemed to devote him to education.
His father was professor at Gotha ; his mother belonged to a
family at Jena, which was attached to the universities.

It was in one of those German interiors, where the love
of retirement, the necessity of study, the habits of an honourable
independence reign Avith such a charm, that the little Blumen-
bach first saw the light. A brother, a sister, a father studious
and grave, a mother tender and enlightened, formed at first
all his world. It was soon observed that this child, surrounded
by such soft affections, was occupied by quite a dreamy
curiosity. It played but little, and began to observe very early.
It endeavoured, and sometimes with great ingenuity, to com-
prehend or to explain to itself the structure of a plant or an
insect.

Everything is taken seriously in Germany, even the earliest
education of the infant. The father of M. Blumenbach, who

^ Mimoires de VInstitut de France, Tom. xxi. p. i, Paris. 1847.

50 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

intended him for education, never permitted him, even from the
most tender age, to break short a sentence badly commenced
in order to put something else in its place. The sentence
badly commenced had to be finished. The child had to get
itself out of the little difficulty it had got into. In this way it
learnt naturally, without effort, or rather by scarcely appreciable
efforts, to think clearly and express itself with precision.

His mother, a woman of elevated spirit and noble heart,
inspired him with ideas of glory. The soul of the mother is the
destiny of her son. These first impressions have never ceased to
influence the whole life of M. Blumenbach. Of his numerous
writings there is only one which is foreign to the sciences, and
that is the panegyric of his mother. He ends it by saying,
" She had all, and knew how to cherish all the family virtues."

To return to the child. At ten years old he already took
up the subject of comparative osteology, and this was the way.
There was then but one solitary skeleton in the town of Gotha.
This skeleton belonged to a doctor, who was the friend of the
family of our little scholar, who often told afterwards the story
of the many visits he used to make, during which he took
no notice of the doctor, but a great deal of the skeleton. His
visits became, by little and little, more assiduous and more
frequent. He came, on purpose, when his old friend was out ;
and, under pretence of waiting for him, spent whole hours in
looking at the skeleton. After having well fixed in his memory
the form of the different bones and their relations, he conceived
the bold idea of composing a copy. For this purpose he made
frequent journeys in the night to the cemeteries. But, as he
was determined to owe nothing except to chance, he soon found
out that he would have to content himself with the bones of
our domestic animals. In consequence, he directed his private
researches in such a way as to provide himself with all sorts of
that kind of bones. Then he carried them all to his bed-room,
concealed them as well as he could, and shut himself too up
there, in order to give himself up at his leisure, and with an
enthusiasm beyond his age, to the studies he had marked out
for himself.

FLOURENS. 51

Unfortunately, at last a servant discovered the child's
secret treasure; she saw that ingenious commencement of a
human skeleton, and cried out sacrilege and scandal. Young
Blumenbach, all in tears, ran to his mother ; and she, under the
advice of the good doctor, prudently decided that the precious
collection should be removed into one of the lofts. Such was the
modest beginning of the famous collection whose reputation
has become universal.

At seventeen, young Blumenbach quitted his family for the
University of Jena. There he found Sommerring: the same
age, the same tastes, the same passion for study, which already
concealed another, that for fame. They soon became friends ;
and for these two friends everything was in common, library
and laboratory, Blumenbach lent his books ; Sommerring lent
his anatomical preparations. In their confidential intimacies
they often allowed themselves to give way to their illusions,
predicting for one another the first rank in the sciences they
cultivated. Nor were they deceived; the one became the first
naturalist, the other the first anatomist of Germany.

After spending three years at Jena, Blumenbach went to
the university of Gottingen, then famous for the residence of
a great man, the great Haller, one of the grandest geniuses
science has ever had; a first-rate author, poet, profound ana-
tomist, a botanist equal to Linnaeus in his way, a physiologist
without parallel, and of an erudition almost unlimited. Haller
indeed had left the place ; but his reputation was everywhere.
At the sight of reputation the cry of genius is always the same ;
and Blumenbach said with Correggio, " I too am a painter."

There lived then, at Gottingen, an old professor, forgotten
by the students and very oblivious himself of delivering lec-
tures, but in other respects very learned, and, besides, the
possessor of an immense collection, remarkable for its books
of geography, philology, voyages, and pictures of distant nations.
Young Blumenbach, who was already dreaming of a history
of man, was delighted at finding materials of this kind, so labori-
ously and diligently brought together. He foresaw with a
singular clearness all the advantages that might be got from it.

52 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

He listened to and admired the old professor; and let him go
on talking for a whole twelvemonth; then, rich with these
treasures of erudition, of history, and continuous studies of the
physiognomy of peoples, he wrote his doctor's dissertation on
The Unity of Mankind.

This was quite a new way of opening the science which he
was destined to found and to render attractive. He com-
menced from that time his anthropological collection. He did
more ; he got the University to buy the collections of his old
master, he became their conservator, he arranged them; and
very soon brought them into notice by the great instruction
in natural history he added to them. His teaching in this way
marks quite an epoch in the studies of Germany.

The peculiar genius of that nation is well known; the
genius of thought governed by imagination; devoted at once
to truth and to systems; brilliant, and rejoicing in elevated
combinations, bold, surprising, and, if I may use the expression,
given up to the adventures of thought. M. Blumenbach was no
exception to this genius; but he developed, with a wonderful
good nature, all the wisest points of it.

The fifty years during which he was professor, and, if I may
say so, a kind of sovereign, was, for natural history in Germany,
the time of the most positive and the soundest study. The
day of systems did not re-appear till he was gone ; and when
they did, although recalled to life by a man of astonishing
vigour of mind\ they never could regain the empire they had
lost. They had to deal with an entirely new power. The
experimental method had been established. The great revolu-
tion which has made the modern human intellect what it is
had been effected.

M. Blumenbach has published four works which give us
pretty well the whole of his great course of instruction: the
first, on The Human Species^; the second, on Natural History;

^ M. Oken. I speak here of systems, and especially of the philosophy of
nature, only in reference to the study of the Animal Kingdom.

^ I include, under this head, his dissertation, De Generis humani varietate
ncitlva, &c., and his Decades craaiorum, &c.

FLOURENS. 53

tlie third, ou Pliysiology; and the fourth, on Comparative
Anatomy.

To form a proper opinion of these works, it is necessary
to consider the time when they appeared. About the middle
of the eighteenth century, Buffon, Linnseus and Haller had
founded modern natural history. Towards the end of the
centuiy, at the very moment when science lost these three
great men, M. Blumenbach wrote his first work\

The glory of M. Blumenbach is that he preceded Cuvier.
There was indeed between these two famous men more than
one relation; both introduced Comparative Anatomy into their
own country, both created a new science; the one. Anthropo-
logy; the other, the science of Fossil Anatomy: both con-
ceived the science of Animal Organization in its entirety; but
G. Cuvier, impelled by a greater bias towards abstract combi-
nations, did more to display a method; whilst Blumenbach,
guided by a most delicate sensibility, did more to elucidate
physiology.

Everything belonging to method was neglected by Blumen-
bach; he confined himself to following Linnseus; he adopted
from him almost all his divisions with whatever advantages they
had, and also with all their defects, their narrowness of study,
and their caprice.

In Germany, where they will not easily admit that M. Blu-
menbach was deficient in anything, this kind of forgetfulness
with which that great intellect treated method is explained
and excused by his deference for Linnseus, the master, in that
way, of a whole century. In France, where greater liberty of
speech is allowed, without going beyond the bounds of respect,
we say, plainly enough, that Blumenbach had not the genius
of m,ethod; a genius so rare, that Aristotle alone, of antiquity,
possessed it; and only three or four men in modern times have

1 His disserttitlon, Dc Generis humavi varietaie nativa, is of i77Sj ^^^ Manuel
d'Histoire Nalurelle is of 1779; ^^^ Manuel de PJiT/siologie, of 1787; bis works
on the Animaux a sang ckaud et a sang froid, on the Animaux a, sang chaud
vivipares et ovipares, are of 1786 and 1789; his first Decas craniorum, of 1790; his
Anatomic comparce, of 1805.

54 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

had it in so high a degree, Linnaeus, the two Jussieu and
G. Cuvier.

All the writings of M. Blumenbach indicate the character
and, if I may say so, the stamp of the physiologist. In his
Comparative Anatomy he arranges his facts according to the
organs, which is pre-eminently the physiological order. In the
Physiology, properly so called, he first of all considers the
forces of life, which is the point of view at once the most
elevated and the most essentially peculiar to that science.
His works on the cold-blooded and hot-blooded animals, and on
the hot-blooded viviparous and oviparous animals are a true
Comparative Physiology, and that too at an epoch when the
very name of that science was unknown\ He has submitted
the great question of the formation of heings to the most pro-
found researches ^ and always as a physiologist. Facts were his
study; and from facts he tried to mount up to the force which
produced them. Nothing is more famous than the formative
force of M. Blumenbach ^

Three principal ideas about the formation of beings have
been successively in vogue ; the idea of spontaneous generation,
which was the idea, or rather the error, of all antiquity; the
idea of the pre-existence of germs, conceived by Leibnitz, and
popularized by Bonnet; and the idea of the formative force of
M. Blumenbach. No doubt the new idea does not clear up the
difficulty any more than the two others ; but at least it does
not add to it. It does not contradict the facts, like the idea of
spontaneous generation ; nor does it exact of the mind all that
mob of suppositions and concessions which is demanded by
the idea of the pre-existence of germs*.

The formative force of M. Blumenbach is only a mode of
expressing a fact, like irritability or sensibility ; and whatever

1 1 consider him to be the first who employed in his works the terms "cold-
blooded" and "hot-blooded animals."

^ And through them he made the beautiful discovery of the umbilical membrane
of the mammals.

* His Nisus formativus.

* The Molecules organiqucs of Buffon are only the pre-existing germs in another
form. See my Hist, dcs travaux et des idees de Buffon, pp. 64, 72.

FLOURENS. 55

may be said of it, is not more obscure. Every original force is
obscure for the very reason that it is original. "The first
veil," says Fontenelle, " which covered the Isis of the Egyptians
has been Hfted a long time ; a second, if you please, has been so
in our time; a third never will be, if it is really the last\"

Great studies absorb those who pursue them. Blumenbach
travelled little. His labours were only interrupted by some
journeys in the interior of his country; and what was remark-
able, these very journeys were of just as much use to natural
history as his works. The old Germany, with its old chateaux,
seemed to pay no homage to science ; still the lords of these
ancient and noble mansions had long since made it a business,
and almost a point of honour, to form with care what were
called Cabinets of Curiosities. Their successors, attracted by
the warlike tastes of the great Frederick, had forgotten these
collections. Blumenbach came and reclaimed these treasures
in the name of science, and everything was granted to him.
Natural history began everywhere to have its museums, and so
had civil history; and all this was due to what Blumenbach
used to call, laughingly, his Voyages of Discovery.

Of all these collections, the most peculiar to Blumenbach,
the most important, the most precious at least for its object,
was his collection of human skulls; an admirable monument of
sagacity, labour and patience, and the best established and
surest foundation of the new science, which interests us all
to-day, of Anthropology. Anthropology sprung from a great
thought of Buffon. Up to his time man had never been
studied, except as an individual; Buffon was the first who,
in man, studied the species ^

After Buffon came Camper. Buffon had only considered
the colour, the physiognomy, the exterior traits, the superficial
characteristics of peoples; Camper, more of an anatomist, con-
sidered the more real characteristics. With Camper began the
study of skulls. Camper had a quick apprehension, and was as

' Panegyric of Ruysch.

" See Uist. des travaux et dcs idees de Buffon, p. 164.

56 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

ready at seizing a happy view as prompt to abandon it. He
compared the skull of the European with that of the negro ;
the skull of the negro with that of the orang-utan; he struck
out the idea of his facial angle, and very soon greatly exagge-
rated its importance.

Blumenbach has pointed out what a very unsatisfactory
and incomplete characteristic the facial angle is ; he has shown
that we must compare all the skull and all the face; he has
laid down rules for that learned and perfect comparison, and
was the first to deduce that division which is almost everywhere
now adopted, of the human species into five races; the
European, or white race; the Asiatic, or yellow; the African, or
black ; the American, or red ; and the Ma-lay.

I confess at once, and without difficulty, that this division
of races is not perfect. The division of races is the real diffi-
culty of the day, the obscure problem of Anthropology, and will
be so for a long time. The Malay race is not a simple or a
single race\ Precise characteristics have been sought, but not
yet found, by which to describe the American race* There are
three principal races, of which all the others are only varieties,
or suh-races; I mean the three races of Europe, Asia and
Africa. But the idea, the grand idea, which reigns and rules
and predominates throughout in the admirable studies of Blu-
menbach is the idea of the unity of the human species, or, as
it has also been expressed, of the human genus. Blumenbach
was the first who wrote a book under the express title of the
Unity of the Human Genus^.

The Unity of Mankind is the great result of the science of
Blumenbach, and the great result of all natural history. Anti-
quity never had any but the most confused ideas on the
physical constitution of man. Pliny talks seriously of peoples
with only one leg, of others whose eyes were on their shoulders.

1 But a mixture of two other?, the Caucasian and the Mongol.

^ Blumenbach says Human Genu?. We now say, what is much preferable,
the Human Species. The use of these two words is no longer arbitrary. The
characteristic of genus is limited fecundity ; the characteristic of species is unlimit-
ed fecundity. See Hist. des. t. et des i. de Bvffon, p. 177.

FLOURENS. 57

or who had no head, &c. In the sixteenth century, Rondelet,
an excellent naturalist, gravely describes sea-men, who live
in the water, and have scales and an oozy beard. In the
eighteenth century Maupertuis describes the Patagonians, as
giants whose ideas ought to correspond to their stature ; but as
a compensation, for the credit of the century, Voltaire laughed
at Maupertuis. Finally, what speaks volumes, Linnaeus, the
great Linngeus, puts into the same family man and the orang-
utan. The homo nocturnus, the homo troglodytes, the homo
sylvestris of Linnaeus is, in fact, the orang-utan.

To raise the science out of this chaos, Blumenbach laid
down first of all three rules. The first is, to draw a distinction
everywhere between what belongs to the brute and what
belongs to man. A profound interval, without connexion,
without passage, separates the human species from all others.
No other species comes near the human species; no genus even,
or family. The human species stands alone. Guided by his
facial angle. Camper approximated the orang-utan to the negro.
He saw the shape of the skull \ which gives an apparent
resemblance ; he failed to see the capacity of the skull, which
makes the real difference. In form nearly, the skull of the
negro is as the skull of the European ; the capacity of the two
skulls is the same. And what is much more essential, their
brain is absolutely the same. And, besides, what has the brain
to do with the matter? The human mind is one. The soul is
one. In spite of its misfortunes, the African race has had
heroes of all kinds. Blumenbach, who has collected everything
in its favour, reckons among it the most humane and the bravest
men; authors, learned men and poets. He had a library
entirely composed of books written by negroes. Our age will
doubtless witness the end of an odious traffic. Philanthropy,
science, politics, that is true politics, all join in attacking it;
humanity will not be without its crusades. The second rule of
Blumenbach is, not to admit any fact except when supported

1 Or, more precisely, the form and prominence of the upper jaw. See Ukt. des
t. et des i. de Buffon, p. 183.

58 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

by trustworthy documents; and in this way, everything which
is puerile and exaggerated, everything which is legend, will be
excluded from science. The third rule is the very basis of
science. Once nothing but extremes were compared; Blumen-
bach laid down the rule not to pass from one extreme to the
other, except by all the intermediate terms and all the shades
possible. The extreme cases seem to separate the human
species into decided races; the graduated shades, the continuous
intermediate terms make all men to form but one mankind.

There never was a scholar, author or philosopher, who
seemed more adapted to endow us with the admirable science
of Anthropology. Blumenbach joined to vast knowledge a
power of criticism still rarer than the most unbounded eru-
dition, and much more precious; he had that art which dis-
criminates and judges ; he had a clear sweep of view, a sure
tact, and a good sense not easily deceived. He knew every-
thing, and had read everything; histories, chronicles, relations,
travels, &c. ; and he took pleasure in saying, that it was from
travels that he had received the most instruction. ^ The study of
man is founded on three sciences, besides anthropology properly
so called: geography, philology and history. Geography gives
us the relations of races to climates; history teaches us to
follow the migrations of peoples and their intermixtures; and
when once they have been mixed, it is philology which teaches
us how to separate them again. But whatever be the progress
which these three sciences have made in our days, none has yet
arrived at the original and certain unity of man ; each foresees
it and prophesies it; all tend in that direction; thanks to
Blumenbach, that unity, which these scieuces still are in search
of, has been demonstrated by natural history. And here let me
speak out, without being afraid of exaggeration. Voltaire says
of Montesqviieu, that he restored its lost rights to the human
race. The human race had forgotten its original unity, and
Blumenbach restored it.

I have examined the principal works of Blumenbach; I
mean those works which have made him famous; but there is
another I cannot omit, a work very different from those, at

FLOURENS. 59

least, in the form; a work full of ideas, and one of the most
intellectual, the most discriminating, or, to speak like Descartes,
the most sensible that have ever been written on the sciences.
That work is composed of two little volumes. The title is very-
simple, that is, Contributions to Natural History^. The true
title should be, The Philosophy of Natural History. There
Blumenbach passes in review all the philosophical questions
of his science ; the question of the original unity of man, the
question of the scale of beings, that of innate ideas, that of the
so-called man of nature, and the others. The author's object
is to point out, in each instance, where the truth ends and
system commences. And to get to that point, there is no
apparatus of learning, no long ratiocination, no phrases ; a word,
a witty sally, an anecdote are enough. As to the original unity
of man, he says it was an honest German doctor, who not
being able to reconcile the different colour of men with the fact
of their single origin, imagined, in order to settle the ques-
tion, that God had created two Adams, one white and the
other black. As to the scale of beings, it was the opinion of
an English naturalist, who proposed to establish two, in order
to place in the second everything that could find no place
in the first. As to innate ideas and the man of nature, the
following are the facts. Towards the middle of the year 1724,
there was found, in the north of Germany, near a village called
Hameln, a young boy quite naked, who could not speak, but
eagerly devoured all the fruits he could get hold of At that
time the dispute about innate ideas was at its highest. Imme-
diately the imagination of the philosophers was excited. The
man that had been found was no doubt the wild man, the man
of nature; and the man of nature would finally resolve the
problem of innate ideas. The Count de Zinzendorf, who was
afterwards the founder of the Moravian brothers, hastened to
ask him of the Elector of Hanover. The Elector of Hanover
sent him to England. In England the curiosity was as great
as in Germany. Peter de Hameln, as the young savage was

1 [Edited in this volume. Ed.]

60 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

called, became famous. Dr Arbuthnot wrote his life. After
him Lord Monboddo wrote it again; and, with his usual en-
thusiasm, proclaimed the young savage as the most important
discovery of the age. At last, M. Blumenbach y/ished in his
turn to see what it all was ; he undertook the examination of
the facts as a philosopher, but as a calm and judicious one; and
he found that the wild man, the so-called man of nature, the
most important discovery of the age, was only a poor child, born
dumb, and driven from the paternal roof by a step-mother.

It will be seen what sort of book it is I am speaking about.
The tone is that of learned and delicate raillery. The author
rallies, but so as to make you think. It is the ironical philo-
sophy of Socrates, or at least what Socrates is said to have had,
and what Voltaire really possessed. He who has read that
book has the whole key to Blumenbach's character. He will
understand the charm of his conversations, the success of his
kssons, and his vast renown, so clear to all those who ap-
proached him. Above all, he will have the secret of his soul,
born essentially for that general virtue defined by Montesquieu,
the love of all. Even in this book, where however raillery pre-
dominates, as soon as Blumenbach touches on the great question
of the unity of men, he jokes no more; his language immedi-
ately alters, and takes naturally the tone of the truest sensibility.
He never speaks of men, or of any men, but with affection.
According indeed to his doctrine, all men are born, or might
have been born, from the same man. He calls the negroes
our black brothers. It is an admirable thing that science seems
to add to Christian charity, or, at all events, to extend it, and
invent what may be called human charity. The word Hu-
manity has its whole effect in Blumenbach alone.

I have already said that Blumenbach, always wrapped up in
his great works, had seldom quitted Germany. Still he made
two journeys, one to England and one to France. In these two
journeys he observed everything, but all as a naturalist. This
man, who had passed so many years in meditating on the most
important questions, on the highest problems of natural history,
had at last only one idea, one object, one all-powerful pre-

FLOUEENS. 61

occupation; a pre-occupation so strong as to be sometimes
quite ludicrous, as we may judge from the two instances he
used to relate himself.

Being entertained in London by all the English professors,
they one evening took him to the theatre. The actor Kemble
played the part of the Moor of Venice. Some days after,
Kemble met Blumenbach at a party, and said, "M. Blumen-
bach, how did you think I succeeded in representing the cha-
racter of a negro ?" " Well enough, as far as the moral character
goes," said our naturalist, and then added, " but all the illusion
was destroyed for me the moment you opened your hand; for
you had on black gloves, and the negroes have the inside of the
hand of a flesh-colour." Every one laughed except Blumen-
bach; he had spoken quite in earnest.

After the peace of Tilsit, the town of Gottingen was included
in the kingdom of Westj)halia, and the University thought
it necessary to solicit the protection of the great Emperor.
Blumenbach was chosen as a deputy. " I found," said he, " all
the French men of letters as eager to support me as if the
question had been the preservation of a French institution;
I owed to that generous zeal the success of my mission."
Admitted, at last, to take leave in solemn audience, he attended
in an antechamber with many of the foreign ambassadors,
Napoleon appeared ; all turned their attention to him except
Blumenbach ; for how could he ? "I had," said he, " before me
the ambassadors of Persia and Marocco, of two nations whom
I had never yet seen."

To his passion for natural history Blumenbach joined a
passion for all the great studies. Erudition, philosophy, letters
had a share of his attention, but did not exhaust it. He was a
good man of business. He had, in a high degree, that delicate
and calm judgment which business demands. More than once,
when charged with important missions, he brought them to an
end with singular good fortune. In fact, the town of Gottingen
decreed, in consideration of his services, that his property
should be exempted from taxes. Gottingen indeed ought to
have been grateful to him in every way. During sixty years

62 LIFE OF BLUMENBACH.

the celebrity of the man of learning and the professor was the
cause of its prosperity. His name alone brought there a crowd
of pupils ; a population brilliant, moving, always being changed,
always 3'oung and' always learned. Nothing could equal the
veneration all that po23ulation had for him. Almost all those
of his pupils who became famous dedicated their works to him ;
and these dedications were not the mere homage of admiration.
A touchinof and hio-her sentiment is found in them, and what
indeed is better still, an affection almost filial. What more can
I say? M. de Humboldt was a pupil of his\ and the highest
intellects of Germany, the Fichtes, the Kants, the Schellings
have interpreted his ideas ^

In private life Blumenbach was a thorough German, good-
natured, frank, open and mild in manner. In him an honest
character shone throughout. Essentially a man of good sense,
after more than forty years spent in education, he wrote these
words : " I never enter the amphitheatre without having par-
ticularly prepared each lesson, for I know that many professors
have lost reputation by thinking that they know well enough
a course they have delivered twenty times." He worked up to
the end of his life. " I only know satiety by reputation," said
he. It is said also that he preferred listening to speaking. He
was prudent in everything. As La Fontaine says,

"The wise know how to manage time and words."

He had a maxim which displays his character: "One must
know how to attract and retain by indulgence."

All happiness was his; a great reputation, a quiet life,
a family tenderly beloved, illustrious pupils, a son worthy of
his name. His long and beautiful old age was surrounded
with the most touching homages. Every anniversary, which
still preserved him to science, was celebrated as a festival.
Seventy-eight learned societies elected him an associate. Me-
dals were struck in his honour. Prizes were instituted in his

1 In 1786 he had the honour to see the British Princes attend his lectures; and
in 1803, the King of Bavaria; and in 1829, his son, the now Prince Eoyal.

2 Particularly his idea of a formative force.

FLOURENS. 63

name; useful foundations still exist which perpetuate his me-
mory by benefactions \ This universal enthusiasm made no
difference in him; he remained always good, simple, even
familiar; everything in him was natural; no pretension, no
affectation; nothing by which he tried to distinguish himself
from others. "When one has a great deal of merit," says Fon-
tenelle, " it is the crown of all to be like the rest of the world."

Blumenbach died on the 22Dd Jan. 1840, being nearly a
century old; a man of a high intellect, an almost universal
scholar, philosopher and sage; a naturalist, who had the glory,
or rather the good fortune, of making natural history the means
of proclaiming the noblest and, without doubt, the highest
truth that natural history ever had proclaimed, Tlie Physical
TJnitij, and through the physical unity the moral vnity, of the
human race.

^ In 1830, the friends of Blumenbach, when they met to celebrate the fiftieth
anniversary of his doctorate, conceived the idea of perpetuating the recollection of
the day so memorable for science, by making up a purse of 5,000 dollars, about
800, of which the interest should be adjudged every three years by way of prize,
to a young doctor, to be both physician and naturalist, who must have taken his
degree in a German university, and be, says the deed, young, poor, but fit. Blu-
menbach himself gave out the prize twice, in 1833 and in 1836; after his death,
it is to be adjudged alternately by the faculties of medicine at Gottingen and
Berlin.

DE GENERIS HUMANI VARIETATE

NATIVA

ILLUSTEIS FACULTATIS MEDICO CONSENSU

PRO

GRADU DOCTOEIS MEDICINE

DISPUTAVIT

D. XVI SEPT. M.DCC.LXXV

H. L. Q. S.

JOANN. FRIDER. BLUMENBACH,

GOTHANUS.

GOETTINGAE :

TYPIS FRID. ANDE. ROSENBUSCHII.

NATUR.E SPECIES, RATIOQUE.

CONTENTS.

Inteoduction ; generation; climate; mode of life and aliment; hybrid
generation; fertile hybrids; sterile hybrids; copulation of animals of
different species, barren; on Jumars; no human hybrids; difference
between man and other animals; mental endowments; instincts of
man very few and very simple ; reason the property of man alone ;
speech the same ; properties of the human body ; erect position ; two
hands; the human body naked and defenceless; laughter and tears;
hymen; menstruation; other differences falsely supposed; internal
structure of tlie human body; the brain oi the papio mandril; inter-
maxillary bone ; membrana nictitans; the suspensory ligament of the
neck; orang-utan and other anthropomorphous apes; is there one or
more species of mankind? one species alone; the vaiieties very ai-bi-
trary; division of mankind 'mto four varieties; \note from edition of
1781, containing the division into ^ ye] ; observations on national
differences; variety of the human stature; causes of this variety,
climate, food, &c. ; colour of man; causes of its variety; effect of
climate; examples from other organic bodies; effect of mode of life ;
various colour of the reticulum in apes; black men become white;
white men black ; mulattoes, &c. ; spot-ted skin ; different shape of
skulls; examples of the first variety; the second, third, and fourth;
conclusion ; physiognomy ; examples of the first, second, third, and
fourth variety; difference in hair, teeth, feet, breasts; singularities
of prontinciation; artificial varieties ; circumcision; castration; beard-
less Americans ; other mutilations ; monstrous ears ; other deformities ;
paintings; conclusion; digression on a^6m?'swi/ white rabbits; white
mice; diseased whiteness in other animals; human albiDism; symp-
toms of the disease ; unhealthy whiteness ; affection of the eyes ; re-
maining conditions of body; mental condition; disease known to the
ancients; recent examples from the world at large; stories of the
ancients about men with tails; fictitious ventrale of the Hottentot
women.

EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES.

Plate I. Fig. 1. Base of the skull of a Pcqno mandril.

A. Posterioi' lobes of the brain. B. Anterior lobes of the
brain. C. Fossa Sylvii. D. Cerebelhim. E. Commence-
ment of the spinal marrow. F. Region where in man the pyrami-
dal and olivaiy bodies are inserted. G. Place where in the human,
brain the pons Varolii is divided by a fissure from the medulla
oblongata. H. Pons Varolii.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Pairs of the nerves of the brain. The
mammillary eminences, infundibulum, &c. cannot be seen in conse-
quence of the size of the junction of the optic nerves.

Plate II. Fig. 1. Vertebrce of the neck of the same Papio. The
bodies of the vertebi-se descend by a kind of scaly processes in front
downwards, and stand upon each other like tiles.

Fig. 2. Fifth and sixth vertebrce of the neck of an adult man.
In these the bodies are jiarallel, smooth, and disciform.

Fig. 3. Skin from the forehead of the Papio mandril. The
varieties and diminution of the blackness in the reticulum are here
shown.

Fig. 4. The clitoris of an Arabia^i girl, circumcised.

Fig. 5. A callifrix, or some other tailed ape copied from Breyden-
hacKs Travels. This has been made more and more human by succes-
sive copyings till at last it has come out [in Martini's Buffon] a tailed
man.

ON THE NATUKAL VARIETY

MANKIND.

As I am going to wTite about the natural variety of mankind, I
think it worth while to begin from the beginning, that is, with
the process of generation itself I do not intend to put forth
a system, or frame hypotheses, or enter into the intricacies of a
labyrinth, out of which I should scarce find an exit ; or, lastly,
stir up cud already chewed a thousand times. Nor am I one to
write the Iliad after Homer, that is to say, the universal history
of generation after the immortal labours of the great Haller; but
to spend only a few words upon a matter, which may be con-
sidered as demonstrated from the repeated observations and
profound judgment of the most learned men, and which will
throw some light on my subject.

The part which each sex takes in the generation of the
foetus, and which of the two has the greatest influence has occu-
pied the principal philosophers and physicians for many thou-
sand years. It was reserved at last for the profound sagacity of
Haller, to be the first who was bold enough to break open the
bars of nature's doors, and to unfold, from observing the incu-
bation of eggs, so often investigated before by eminent men,
that great mystery, which it was thought could be explained
by nature alone ; and in the fewest possible words I must here
give his account of the matter \ A close dissection of impreg-

^ I use almost the exact words of the illustrious discoverer. Opusc. miii. ii. p.
418. Physiol. T. viii. See also Bonnet, C'oiys Organises, i. p. 107.

70 . GENEKATION.

iiated eggs shows that the intestine of the chick is so of a piece
with the envelopes of the yolk that the first envelope forms the
skin of the foetus ; the second envelope forms the exterior lining
of the intestine jointly with the mesentery and the peritonaeum
of the foetus ; the third is the covering of the interior intestine,
and is produced from the same membrane as the ventricle, the
oesophagus, the throat and the mouth, from what is in fact the
skin and the epidermis of the foetus: that the yolk takes up
the arteries from the mesenteries of the chicken itself. It follows
from this, that the whole egg is part of the mother, in whom
the ovarium lies with all its eggs quite perfect, before any con-
tact with the male has taken place. Then, that the foetus is
part of the egg, or at all events is joined to the egg by an in-
separable bond, for the yolk (and that alone) constitutes the
egg, together with its envelope, whilst it is in the mother, but
that yoke is so united with the fcetus by its duct, that it forms
but one continuous body. Hence it is proved, by direct demon-
stration, that the embryo is contained in the maternal egg, and
that the female supplies the true stamina of the future foetus.
That primeval germ would lie buried as it were in eternal slum-
ber, were it not aroused by the access and stimulus of the fertil-
izing seed of the male, and particularly by the subtle odour of
his parts, which are particularly adapted for causing irritation ;
and then it breaks forth from the Graafian follicle in which it
was shut up, runs through the canal, and in this way comes into
the womb ; there again it is finally unfolded and developed, and
changed in some of its parts by the influence of the male, comes
out like its parents. It leaves a manifest trace of its former
habitation in the ovarium, in the shape of an opaque body,
which takes its placed The offspring at last brought to light,
and in the process of time become adult, can produce like with
the other sex of its species, whose posterity ought to go on for
ever like their first parents. What then are the causes of the

^ As to this little body, which was also illustrated by the labours of the great
Haller, see Hist, de VAcad. des Sc. de Paris, 1753, No. vii., and Physiol. T. viii.
p. 30. It is well delineated from dissected bodies by W. Hunter, Anatomia Utiri
Humani Graridi. Ba-ni. 1774: Tab. 15, 29, 31.

CLIMATE. 71

contrary event ? What is it which changes the course of gene-
ration, and now produces a worse and now a better progeny, at
all events widely different from its original progenitors? This
it will be our business to answer in the course of this disserta-
tion. But in order not to break the thread of the discussion, it
will be better to make a few preliminary observations.

First of all I will say a few words about the influence of
climate, whose effects seem so great that distinguished men
have thought that on this alone depended the different shapes,
colour, manners and institutions of men\ There are, however,
two ways, in which men may gather experience of a change of
climate, both of which are to our purpose. They may emigrate
and so change the climate, and also it may happen that the
climate of their native country may sensibly become more mild
or more severe, and so the inhabitants may degenerate. Several
examples of each kind will be given in the proper place. It
will be sufficient to say here that there is no diversity of habit,
which may not be produced by varieties of climate; which is
extremely apparent, even from the history of brute animals.
If European horses are transported towards the east, as to
Siberia, China, &c., in process of time they, as it were, dwindle,
and become much smaller in body, so that at last you would
scarcely recognize them as being of the same species. Cattle,
on the contrary, whether they are sent to the Yakutan penin-
sula, or Kamtshatka, or Archangel, turn out taller and more
robust, and the same thing has been experienced with English
sheep in Sweden.

The squirrels on the river Obi are larger by one third than
those which are found at Obdorsk^, &c., to say nothing of the
difference in colour, which observation shows to vary with still
greater facility. But that the climate of the same country may

^ Polyb. T. I. p. 462, ed. Ernesti: "for through this cause and no other we
differ most from each other in our ethnical and universal distinctions, in customs,
in shape, and colour, and in most of our institutions." Comp. besides, Cardan in
Hipp. Be aer. a<i. et loc. p. 218, who goes at length into the effects of climate on
human bodies.

^ Steller, von sonderb. Meerthieren, p. 4 r sqq.

72 MODE OF LIFE,

undergo a change, no one can doubt, who will only compare
this very Germany of to-day with ancient Germany, or our own
contemporaries with our ancestors \ There was a time when the
elk, now only an inhabitant of the extreme north, was common
on the banks of the E,hine, and when that very river was so
often frozen that the Gauls themselves used to offer sacrifices
to prevent its affording a passage to our ancestors, their neigh-
bours; when the most prodigious, forest covered almost the
whole country, and when there were no vintages, and other
very good reasons of the same kind, which will account for our
being unable to find the huge bodies of our ancestors, powerful
only for attack, their firm limbs, threatening countenances, and
fierce eyes, in the Germans of our age.

Besides the climate there are other causes, which have indeed
an influence in altering bodies ; many of these you might say
depended, however, upon the climate themselves, but there are
others which it is very clear have nothing to do with it.
Amongst these influences above all we must set down the
mode of life and of bringing up. The examples of domestic
animals are trite, which manifestly have diverged into astonish-
ing varieties, and almost put off their original nature. I have
mentioned the effect climate has upon horses, and we shall
now see how they are affected by mode of life. It is quite
astonishing how wild horses'^ differ from our geldings by their
small stature, their large heads, their murrey colour, their
shaggy coats, and by a ferocity of disposition, which is almost
untameable, so that they seem to approach almost nearer to the
ass than to our domestic horses. Indeed, the famous Gmelin
had scarcely any hesitation in believing that the tame horse,
the wild horse, and the ass, were all of the same species, and
that the latter had by circumstances alone degenerated from
the tame horse; but this is going too far, because the ass has

^ Coming. De Germanic, corp. habitus anfiqui ac novi causis, learnedly according
to his wont.

^ Rzacynski, h. n. Pol. p. 217. Pallas, Rdsen, i. p. 2 11. S. C. Gmelin, Reis.
I. p. 44 S(i.firj.

HYBRIDITY. 73

certain interior organs which are wanting in the horse*, and the
reverse also is true. However, among horses certainly wild,
and also among our own, we may perceive a gi-eat difference in
strength between those which feed upon natural pastures^, and
those which are kept in stables. For example, it is known that
a colt, if it is born in a feeding-ground of the former kind,
within half-an-hour after its birth will run after its dam
seeking food, but if it is born in a stable, it will frequently
lie for twenty-four hours and more on the ground, before it
dares to stand on its feet.

As yet I have touched on two causes which change the
form of animals, climate and mode of life. It remains to speak
of the third, namely, the conjunction of different species, and
the hybrid animals thence produced. It is a difficult subject,
although after the labours of recent authors^ I may treat it
briefly.

There are three cases in the discussion about hybridity
which ought to be clearly distinguished. First, the mere
copulation of different animals ; secondly, the birth of offspring
from such copulation; and, thirdly, the fertility of such off-
spring and their capacity for propagation.

The latter case, although rare, (and that by the providence
of the Supreme Being, lest new species should be multiplied
indefinitely,) I would admit of in beings closely allied. At all
events there are many testimonies to the fertility of mules*.
There is no reason for doubting -that hybrids have sprung from
the union of the fox and the dog, and those too capable of
generation, as the Spartan dogs or alopekides of the ancients.

^ On the organs of the voice, Herissant, Mem. de VAcad. des Sciences de Paris,
I753> Tab. 9 sq.

^ As the Lippenses. Comp. J. G. Prizelius, Tom Senner gesiute, 1771, 8vo.

^ Buffon frequently but especially on the degeneration of animals, xiv. p. 248,
and Suppl. T. in. p. i. H. S. Reimar, Naturl. Religion, p. 411. Gleiclien,
Saamentkieren, p. 24; and above all HaUer, Physiol, vin. pp. 8, 100.

* Aristot. De gen. an. 11. 8, says they can only be conceived at a certain
time. Varro, Be re rust. 11. i, 27. Columella, VI. 37, 3. Plin. Viii. 44, and
Harduinus. Bartliii Adversar. 42. Bochart, Hieroz. 1. 2, 20. Eecently Rozier,
Ohs. sur la fhys. 1722. Comp. G-leichen, I. c. p. 25. Such things are often men-
tioned among the prodigies related by Livy and Obsequens.

74 HYBRIDITY.

There is still at Gottingen the daughter of a fox (from which
many children have been born) which was impregnated by a
domestic dog; and in it you may still recognize the smooth
forehead and other marks of the ancestral form. The experi-
ments of Sprenger^ prove the prolificacy of hybrid birds.

The number of infertile hybrids is so copious as to be tire-
some to count. Of all these, mules, so far as we know, are the
most ancient. For although we may doubt their being ante-
diluvian '^j nor dare ascribe their discovery to Anah^, yet their
extreme antiquity appears even from profane authors ^ and
almost the first monuments of art^ To these rarer hybrids may
be added the one Linneeus saw from the copulation of the
Capra reversa with the Capra depressa^. But I do not quite
trust Hesychius, when he says that the jackal comes from
the union of the hyoena and the common wolf I With respect to
the union of dogs and apes*, and the hybrids so born, I still,
remain in doubt. The animals seem too different ; still I have
known two instances, where bitches are said to have been im-
pregnated by male apes, to which I should think it wrong to
refuse credit. One took place in the territory of Schwartzburg ;
and a picture of this hybrid, carefully drawn, is in the possession
of Biittner, who very kindly lent it to me. It represents a dog,
of smaller size than the domestic dog, and of a dirty yellow
colour ; its eyes, ears, and hairy collar differed from the common
dog, but it is said were very like those parts in the father. The
other instance is related by an eye-witness, worthy of all belief,
to have occurred about three years ago at Frankfort-on-the-
Maine ; that a bitch brought forth offspring by the Simia Diana
of Linnaeus, in ferocity, disposition, and in its gibbous habit

1 Opusc. Physico-math. Hannov. 1753, p. 27.

2 Pererius, on Genesis, T. 11. p. 1S5, discusses at length the question if the
mule entered Noah's ark or not?

3 Genes, c. 36, v. 24. Bochart, I. c. at length.

4 Horn. n. B. 852, who derives them from Enes.

5 On the coffer of Cypselis. Heyne, ilber den hasten des Gyps. p. 58, ch-c.
B. c. 660.

6 In the Clifford menagerie. Syst. Nat. ed. Xll. p. 96.
^ Bochart, Hieroz. i. p. 832.

8 Osbeck, Ostindisk Resa. p. 99.

HYBRIDITY. 75

and long tail, exactly like its father. I leave this business to
be investigated by those who, perhaps, may have an opportunity
of more accurately observing it; for the difficulties are well
known which occur in experiments of this kind. It is very
hard to prevent the animals upon whom the experiment is to
be made from consorting with others, and at the same time not
to destroy the desire of copulation: moreover, if offspring have
anything peculiar by accident, it is instantly attributed to a
diversity of parentage. And what makes me suspicious about
these things is this especially, that I have seen many apes of
both sexes and different species constantly living for many
years in the midst of dogs, also of different sexes, and yet never
saw anything of the kind. On the other hand, instances of
false reports are very common, as that of a cat, born together
with Uyo puppies, the report of which reached this neighbour-
hood a few years ago; but when it was properly examined, the
little creature which they called a cat, was easily recognized by
the more sagacious as a puppy slightly deformed, and the whole
prodigy became a joke. Nor can I otherwise interpret
Clauder's account^ of a cat being impregnated by a squirrel, of
whose litter one is said to have been like the father, and the
rest like the mother ; and other stories of the same kind.

From all this we must carefully separate the plainly fruitless
unions of animals of different species. I will allow that male
brutes when burning with desire, and unable to obtain females
of their own species, may sometimes be so excited by others,
whom they come in contact with, as perchance to copulate with
them; but I think that with very few, and those only very
nearly allied, is this actually successful, and in most cases the
attempt is ineffectual. There are, however, good reasons for
refusing to believe that from any incongruous attempt of this
kind, offspring can be born or even conceived. Here let us
consider the unequal proportions of the genital organs in many%
which parts are providently and carefully adapted for copulation

1 Ejjh. N. C. dec. 2. arm. IX. p. 371.
* Haller, Physiol, viii. p. 9.

76 DOUBTFUL CASES.

in either sex of the same species; but in distant genera
render the whole thing impossible, or at all events very difficult,
and certainly unfit for the purposes of conception. Besides, I
do not see according to what laws the offspring of this kind,
coming from diverse parents, is to be formed in the womb,
since in each species of animals there are certain and very
definite periods for the gestation and pregnancy of the mother,
the formation and progressive development of the foetus. It
will, however, be worth while to relate some instances of con-
nexions of this kind which have been formed contrary to nature.

Of all these the most paradoxical seems to be the union of
a rabbit with a hen, so celebrated by Reaumur*; but on
which doubt has been thrown by his own pupil Buffon^, Haller^
and others; indeed, Buffon could not even succeed in raising a
progeny from the hare and the rabbit, animals so nearly allied,
although he suspected copulation took place. That illustrious
j)hilosopher seems, therefore, correct in supposing that if the
rabbit of Reaumur ever did tread the hen, it must have been
done from extreme lasciviousness, and had there been no hen
the animal would have made use of something else for the same
purpose. Meanwhile there are other evidences to this remark-
able fact. Thus my revered tutor Biittner, himself, often saw
rabbits treading hens, and they afterwards laid empty eggs
Qiyponemia or zepliyrea as the ancients called them).

I have often seen a rabbit running about alone amongst
broods of fowls, and playing with and imitating them, but I
never could observe that it attempted anything more, or really
had connexion with them. I have been told the same story
about a house dog of Matthew Gesner, who they say also used
to tread hens. I am not much surprised at this, since it is well
known that dogs, when in heat, make use of inanimate things
sometimes in order to effect their purpose. It is said that the
Gallus calecuticus has been known to tread the duck, and in the

' A rt de faire eclorre les poulets, T. ii. p. 340.

2 Hist. Nat. VI. p. 303.

^ I. c. aud in Bonnet, Corps Organ. 11. p. 214.

JUMAES. 77

same way that the drake treads the hen, and that chickens of
wonderful forms are the result \ They have often been observed
to copulate. There is still in the town a drake which treads
the hens, but they are barren. But I will pass over many in-
stances of this sort of monstrous and fruitless copulation, since
I wish to say a little about the jumars, those famous hybrids
from two clearly different species, the bovine and the equine.

I do not know whence Buffon^ took it, that Columella
had mentioned jumars, and that he had been quoted by Con-
rad Gesner. I cannot find either the mention in the one,
or the quotation in the other. On the contrary, I think Gesner
was the first to mention jumars^. For I cannot take notice
here of the filly born from a cow at Sinuessa in Livy*, since he
speaks of it as a most unheard-of prodigy. But Tigurinus
Polyhistor says "that he once heard that a particular kind of
mule was to be found in Gaul, near Grenoble, which was sprung
from an ass and a bull, and called in the vulgar tongue Jumar.
And in the Swiss Alps near Coire, in the Splugen country, he
had heard on credible testimony, that a horse had been born
from a bull and a mare." Jerome Cardan, a contemporary of
Gesner, has also mentioned jumars, and says they have superior
teeth ^, and are very strong and bold I After him Joh. BajDtist
Porta reports that he himself had seen at Ferrara an animal of
this kind, in shape like a mule, with a calf's head, two protu-
berances in the place of horns, black in colour, and with the
eyes of a bull^. Things of this kind are repeated down to the
time of John Leger, who discourses at great length^ about
them, and also gives a print of them^. He says "that jumars

1 Pliysic. Belustig. p. 392. Sparanzani in Memorie supra i mult. p. 18.

2 T. XIV. p. -248.

' Jlist. quadrup. vivip. pp. 19, 106, and 799.

* Dec. III. 1. 3.

^ Comp. Jac. Rueff, Dc conceptu. p. 48 a, in the history of monsters.

* Contradic. Medic. I. II. tr. vr. Contrad. 18, p. 444.
7 li. p. 448.

^ Mag. Nat. 1. i.e. 9. He adds that they were common in some parts of
France, although he did not see one when he passed through.

^ P. Zachias, Qucest. med. legal. T. i. p. 533, from a mare and bull.

^^ Jlist. generale des Eglises evavgeliques de valUes de Piemont ou Vaudoises,
Leyde, 1669, p. 7, and in Almanack de Gotha, 1767, p. 63.

78 JUMAES.

are bom from the union either of a bull and a mare, or a bull
and an ass: the former are taller, and called Baf; the latter
smaller, and Bif; that the former have the upper jaw evidently
much shorter than the lower, like swine; that the upper teeth
are placed further back than the lower, to the distance of a
thumb, or two fingers. In the latter, the Bif, the lower jaw is
shorter than the upper, as is the case in hares, and the upper
teeth project beyond the lower. So that neither kind can graze
in the fields, unless the grass is so long, that they can crop it
with the tongue. These hybrids are exactly like an ox in the
head and tail, and the places for horns are marked by small
protuberances. As to the rest, they are exactly like an ass or
horse. Their strength is wonderful, especially compared with
their small body; they are smaller than common mules; they
eat little and are swift; that he himself went in one day 18
miles among the mountains with a jumar of this kind, and that
much more comfortably than he could have done with a horse."

After this account more recent^ authorities have received
others in good faith, and report that jumars are to be found
elsewhere besides in Piedmont; according to Shaw^ at Tunis
and Algiers, according to Merolla^ at Cape Verde, and by others
in Languedoc*.

Naturalists gradually became more sceptical of the fact and
were disposed to dissect this kind of hybrid. Reaumur^ met
with a disappointment and so did Albinus, who had ordered
one from Africa, which perished on the way. Bourgelat, the
veterinary surgeon, was afterwards* fortunate enough to be able
to dissect a jumar in the theatre of Lyons**, but the results

^ Venette, p. 324, from a horse and cow. It was reported that the offspring of
an ass and a cow had cloven hoofs. Bourguet, Lettres philosophiques, iv. p. 160, and
from a bull and an ass Manuel Le^xique, Paris, 1755. Encyclop. Paris. T. ix. p.
57. B. S. Albinus in Prcelec. phiisiol. Msptis. Still more recently the author of
the book Cours cFhist. nat. ou tableau de la nature, T. i. Paris, 1770, i2mo. See
Gleichen, loc. at. p. 29.

^ Travels, p. 239, ed. Oxf., 1738, there called Kumrah,

3 Voyage to Congo in Churchill's C'ollec. T. i. p. 655.

* Diction. Languedocien Francois, par M. I Abbe de B... k Nimes, 1756, 8vo.
p. 256.

^ Mem. sopra i muli, p. 6.

^ xivunt-roureur, 1767, No. 50 sq.

JUMARS. 79

of his labours are not satisfactory, because he seems to ha\'e
tmsted too much to report. " The ventricle was in shape like
that of the horse, but much larger. The jumar had altogether
much more of the mare than of the bull, both as to its external
form, and its interior constitution, especially as regards the
ventricle, whose singular structure in the bovine genus, on
account of their rumination, is well known. And thus the
observation of those physicians stands confirmed, who assert
that the mother has a larger share in the formation of the
foetus than the father." The consequence therefore of this
investisration was that the learned knew less what to think
than ever'. Afterwards Buffon had two jumars dissected; one
from the Pjrrenees, the other from Dauphine. In neither of
them was any trace of a bull to be found I

All this however was not enough for inquirers into natural
history. And at last, at the request of some men of great note,
Bonnet, namely, and Spallanzani, Cardinal delle Lanze had two
jumars^ dissected by a skilful hand, and ordered anatomical
plates of them to be engraved. It is very clear from these
efforts that the pretended jumar is nothing more than a
mere hinny* (hardeau). The larynx, glottis, ventricle, biliary
ducts, are all specifically equine and not bovine.

Thus was finally proved what was suspected from the first
by the great Haller^ I myself have lately seen at Cassel quite
closely two hinnies, which report asserted to be jumars. They
were of the size of a large ass, and very like one in shape.

1 Dlctionn. des animauoc, T. ii. p. SSS- Bomare, Did. Nat. T. vi. ^. 174.

M. c.

3 Bonnet on Spallanz. ep. Mem. sopra i muli, p. 1 1 . Encyclop. par De Felice,
T. sxv. p. 242.

* From the stallion and she-ass. Varro, De re rust. 11. 8, i. Columella, vi.
37, 5. Plin. VIII. c. XLiv. 5. Hesych. "Hinny, of which the father is a horse,
and the mother an ass." Smaller than the mule, very patient of labour, tail like
an ass, &c. Linnaeus evidently transposed the terms of hinny and mule in Amcen.
Acad. VI. p. 12, gen. anibig.

^ I. c. p. 9. "This seems to me too much, nor is there any proportion between
the pizzle of the bull and the vagina of the mare. " The same difficulty which I
suggested above occurs here, if we compare the novimestral pregnancy of the cow
with the undecimestral of the mare.

80 HUMAN HYBRIDS.

black in colour, with horses' teeth in each jaw'; no vestige of
rumination, &c.

But to return from this digression. What has already
been said serves partly to show the difficulty of dealing
with the accounts of hybrids of species very different from
each other, and partly as some sort of proof of development;
and will afterwards be of use to us when in varieties alone
it will help to show that the greater part of the form in
animals is derived from the mother, and very little from the
father.

Let me say only a very few words about those human
hybrids which credulous antiquity so frequently declared to be
born or generated from brutes^, but to which not only physical
arguments but also moral ones of the greatest importance
forbid us to attach the slightest faith; so that it seems ex-
tremely likely that the Supreme Being foresaw these disgusting
kind of unions and took care to render them futile.

Those points which ought to be carefully attended to in any
discussion upon hybrids, and which I took notice of above ^, must
not be neglected here.

That men have very wickedly had connexion with beasts
seems to be proved by several passages both in ancient* and
modern writers ^ That however such a monstrous connexion

^ Comp. also BemerJc. eines reisend. durch Deutschland, Frankr. Engl. u. Holl,
1 Th. p. 60 sq.

- Jac. EuefF, Parseus, Aldrovandus, Schenk, Licetus, and other compilers of
prodigies. On the Swedish girl ravished by a bear, and the hero she gave birth to,
see Sax. Gramm. and Olaus Magnus. (The rage of bears against pregnant women
and the singular remedy for it perhaps occasioned this fable.) A similar story
occurs in Vine, le Blanc, Voyages, p. 119 sq. The instances in the WTitings of the
ancients have been studiously collected by Fortun. Fidelis, De relat. Medic, p. 493
sq. Storch, Kinderkranhh. i. p. 16, relates some more recent ones.

* Plutarch in several places in the Symposia and the Parallels. "Virgil, Eclog.
III. 8. That Semiramis carried her passion for a horse to that point is asserted by
Juba, in Pliny, viii. c. 42.

* On the 3000 Italian auxiliaries to the Due de Nemours, in 1562, who were
sent into Dauphin^, and who ravished the she-goats, see Bayle, Diet., Art. Bathyl-
Ivs, T. I. p. 469. Th. Warton on Tlieocr. Idyll. (Oxford, 1770, 4to.), r. 88. p. 19.
"I have heard from a learned friend, that when he was travelling in Sicily, and
was accurately investigating the ancient monuments and the manners of the people,
that one of the usual points of confession which the priests were in the habit of

MENTAL ENDOWMENTS. 81

has any where ever been fruitful there is no well-established
instance to prove. Indeed those things which are related of
the intercourse of Indian women with the larger apes and of
their anthropomorphous offspring^ seem dubious and fabulous
even to James Bontius^, who is in other respects sufficiently cre-
dulous. And even if it be granted that the lascivious male apes
attack women, any idea of progeny resulting cannot be enter-
tained for a moment, since those very travellers relate that
the women perish miserably in the brutal embraces of their
ravishers^ -

I now leave this disgusting theme, and all the more
willingly, because I must draw near our goal ; but still a few
words must be said upon the actual ways in which man differs
from other animals, before we investigate the varieties of men
amongst themselves. The theme is indeed a most fruitful and
admirable one, but the narrow limits of this book do not
permit me to linger long over it, and it is necessary in this
place to dismiss it in a few words; although the slender matter
which I have got together on this interesting subject, I will
gladly promise to give elsewhere to the public.

I think I shall here perform my duty best, if I first say
a little about the endowments of the mind, and then about
the bodily structure. Not indeed that these two points have
apparently the slightest relation to each other. For it would
clearly be impossible to draw any inference from comparing
the organic structure of animals with the human body, as to
their respective mental faculties: which will easily ajapear to
any one who compares an elephant or a horse with an ape
(which Reines* calls the copy of a man, or even a man as

examining the Sicilian herdsmen who spent a solitary life upon the mountains
about, was whether they had anything to do with their sows."

It is said that the organs of the Manatis are so liiie those of women that the
Arabs copulate with them, Comp. Michaelis, Frag, an die nach Arab, reisenden,
p. 115.

1 See Zucchelli, Relat. di Congo, p. 148.

2 Hist. Nat. et Med. Ind. v. c. 32. "Let boys believe who have not yet to
shave."

^ Comp. Wieland's elegant dissertation on this point against Rousseau, Beytr.
zur geh. gesch. des M. V. u. H. 11. p. 50.
* Var. led. p. 69,

82 INSTINCTS.

regards the structure of the face, the cpopdv and the motions of

the limbs).

As to the discussions, which in this age particularly, have
stirred up so many barren disputes about the mind, the reason,
and the speech, &c. of brutes, they do not seem to me to be
really so difficult or confused, if a man have only a moderate
familiarity with the habits of animals, some knowledge of the
physiology of the human body, and be sufficiently free from
prejudices.

Man then alone is destitute of what are called instincts, that
is, certain congenital faculties for protecting himself from exter-
nal injury, and for seeking nutritious food, &c. All his instincts
are artificial (kimst-triehe), and of the others there are only the
smallest traces to be seen. Mankind therefore would be very
wretched were it not preserved by the use of reason, of which
other animals are plainly destitute. I am sure they are only
endowed with innate or common and truly material sense (which
is not wanting either to man), especially after comparing every-
thino- which I have read^ upon the rational mind of animals with
their mode of life and actions, and what perhaps is the most
important speculation, and demands most attention, with the
phenomena of death, which are very much like both in animals
and men I Instinct always remains the same, and is not advanc-
ed by cultivation, nor is it smaller or weaker in the young
animal than in the adult. Reason, on the contrary, may be
compared to a developing germ, which in the process of time,
and by the accession of a social life and other external circum-
stances, is as it were developed, formed, and cultivated. The
bullock feels its strength so much as to threaten, though its
weapons of offence do not yet exist ;

Before his horns adorn the calf, they're there,

All weaponless he butts, and furious beats the air' ;

1 Very recently in Deutsch. Merlcur. 1775, September, October.

* Cardan, Be subtil. 1. XI. p. 551, T. in. Oper. "Man is no more an animal,

' than an animal is a plant. For if an animal, although it is noiu-ished and

lives, does not deserve the name of a plant, nor is entirely a plant, because it has a

life which feels over and above the plant, since man has a mind over and above the

animal, he ceases to be an animal," &c.

^ Lucret. v. 1033, Comp. Reimar, Trieb. der th. p. 202.

REASON. 83

whence unless from some interior sensation ? To man, on the
contrary, nothing- of the kind happens. He is born naked and
weaponless, furnished with no instinct, entirely dependent on
society and education. This excites the flame of reason by de-
grees, which at last shows itself capable of happily supplying, by
itself, all the defects in which animals seem to have the advan-
tage over men. Man brought up amongst the beasts, destitute
of intercourse with man, comes out a beast. The contrary how-
ever never occurs to beasts which live with man. Neither the
beavers, nor the seals, who live in comjDany, nor the domestic
animals who enjoy our familiar society, come out endowed with
reason.

From what has been said, the direct difference between the
voice and speech of animals is plain ^, since we consider that man
alone ought to be held to possess syeech^, or the voice of reason,
and beasts only the language of the affections. In process of
time, the mind becomes developed, and finds out how to express
its ideas with the tongue. Young children give names to those
they love, which is the case with no animal, although they can
distingTiish their master and those familiar to them well enough.
Those stories are utterly undeserving of attention which the old
travellers related about the language of certain distant nations,
who they said were endowed with nothing but an inarticulate
and, as it were, brutish voice. It is indeed beyond all doubt
that the fiercest nations, the Californians, the inhabitants of the
Cape of Good Hope, &c. have a peculiar sort of speech, and
plenty of definite words, and that animals on the contrary,
whether they be like man in structure, as the famous orang-
utan is^, or approach man in intelligence, to use the words of
Pliny about the elephant, are destitute of speech, and can only

1 Count de Gebelin says elegantly in Plan general du monde iwimitif, p. lo,
"Language is twofold: that of the sentiments and of the ideas. The first is
common both to man and the animals, though much more perfect in the former.
The second is absolutely peculiar to man, for it can only be adapted to him, inas-
much as it answers to the operations to which he alone of all the beings who inhabit
the earth can elevate himself."

2 Hence some of the Eabbins not inaptly call man the stealing animal.

3 Th. Bowrey, Malayo Dictionary, London, 1701, 4to. Ott. Fr. v. d. Groben,
Guineische reiseleschr. p. 3 1 .

84 ERECT POSITION.

emit a few and those equivocal sounds. That speech is the work
of reason alone, appears from this, that other animals, although
they have nearly the same organs of voice as man, are entirely
destitute of it^.

If now any one casts an eye on the human body, it would cer-
tainly be more easy to distinguish man from every other animal
at the very first glance, than to lay down any fixed criterion^ by
which he differs from the rest. It would seem as if the Supreme
Power had avoided giving any distinct and persistent characters
to the human body, just in exactly the same proportion as this
its highest master-piece far excels all other animals in its noblest
part, which is reason.

But it will be worth while to reckon up, one by one, a few of
those things which seem peculiar to our bodies. First of all I
would speak of the erect position of man, which I cannot leave
untouched because of the recent paradoxes of P. Moscati^;
although it is very tedious to serve up, and as it were to chew
over again a matter which has been most thoroughly investi-
gated, and is clearer than the noon-day sun. It is true, I can
believe that this elegant author, who is in other ways worthy of
all praise, composed this book as an attempt and not quite
seriously, partly because he has made use of arguments which
you would scarcely expect to find from a man not only acquaint-
ed with human and comparative anatomy, but from one who
constantly appeals to both; and partly because he leaves quite
unnoticed points of indisputably great importance as to the
bipedal structure of man, which have already been most dili-
gently handled by the great Galen*, and the immortal Earth.
Eustachiusl I could easily allow our author'' that there is little

1 I have myself found the uvula in apes, and the other parts of the larynx
exactly like those in man. See on the Pygmy, Tyson, p. 51.

- Linnaeus could discover no point by which man could be distinguished from
the ape. Praf. ad Faun. Suecic.

^ Delle corjioree differenze essenziali, che peissano fra la struttura de' bruti, c la
umana. Milano, 1770.

^ Especially in his precious books De usu partium, 1. in. c. i. p. 125 sqq., c. 16.
p. 193; 1. XIII. c. II. p. 765, ed. Lugd. 1550, i6mo.

^ Throughout the Ossium examen, pp. 175182, ed. Venet. 1564, 4to

* P. 34-

BIPEDAL WALK. 85

weight in those common arguments for the erect position of
man, deduced from the position of the great occipital foramen ^
the proportion of the feet to the hands, the mammae, the chest ^,
and the shape of the shoulder-blade ; although there remain the
greater difficulties of the parts which so wonderfully prove that
the walk should be bipedal. I say nothing of the apex of the
heart and its direction in the embryos of man and the brutes ;
this indeed our author^ mentions, but yet explains in such a way
that he seems to give a handle to the opposite opinion. I say
nothing of that powerful argument deduced from the movement
of the head and its connexion with the first cervical vertebras,
and I omit it the more readily, because of that elaborate work
of Eustachius on the pointy which I should have to transcribe
almost in its integrity. The pelvis alone, and the construction
of the feet would easily bring over to my view those in other
respects acquainted with anatomy, if they would compare even
cursorily the composition of the bones of the quadrupeds with
those of man. Let any one look at the broad flanks of the
human skeleton, ending below in a narrow hip, the short pelvis
largely dilated above but narrowed below so as to open an
escape for the foetus, yet carefully provide for the prolapsus of
the womb, and then compare these things with the oblong right-
angled and almost cylindrical pelvis of quadrupeds with their
wide hip, and their outwardly curved ischiatic prominences;
lastly, let him observe the construction of the glutei muscles,
and the connexion of the muscles of the leg in man and the
brutes, and then let him say if he thinks it probable that they
can have the same mode of locomotion. Let any one make the
experiment on some fresh animal skeleton, or at least let him
look at Goiter's picture^ of the erect skeleton of a fox, going along
in the most ridiculous manner on its hind-feet, and then let him
imagine a human skeleton resting upon its arms and feet, and

1 Daubenton, Sur les differences de la situation du grand trou occipital dans
I'homme et dans les animaux. Mem. de I'Acad. des Sc. de Paris, 1764, p. 568.

2 See Eustach. I. c. p. 175.

3 P. 26.

* I. c. p. 234 sq.

" Scelet. animal. Norib. 1575, fol. mag. Tab. 11.

86 HANDS.

he will not but see that a bipedal brute and a quadrupedal man
would equally pass for prodigies. Inseparable also from the
general consideration of the pelvis is that other proof derived
from the acetabulum, and the head and neck of the thigh-bone.
And that this neck is oblong in man, and goes downwards with
a sensible obliquity, but is short in brutes, even in apes, and
nearly horizontal; and the head more obliquely articulated with
the hip ; so the whole structure of the bones of the feet, the thick
calcaneum of man, the juncture of the ancle with the sole of the
foot, which in man too is oblong and broader, and many other
things of the kind which point in this direction, disagreeably
trite and too well known to students of anatomy, but difficult to
be understood by those unacquainted with medicine. For which
reason I think it would be foolish to say much about them,
especially as I have indicated the sources to which those should
go who want still more proofs of so easy a matter.

Another property of man comes directly from the foregoing,
namely, his two hands, which I consider belong to mankind
alone; whereas apes, on the contrary, must either have four or
none at all, of which the great toe being separated from the other
fingers of the feet serves the same purposes which the thumbs
do in the hands. This is so certain, that on that account alone
the foetus said by Robinet^ to be that of a pongo, must certainly
be considered a human embryo, even if no notice be taken of the
other proportions of the bodily parts, and the whole structure
which is entirely human. Hahn^ besides Galen^ has written
expressly on the admirable formation of the human hand.

All these things therefore being duly weighed, I am induced to
consider even that famous animal the orang-utan as a quadruped.
I know indeed that several authors of voyages have said a good
deal about him, and given him out as a biped. The reasons
which induce me to come to a different conclusion, besides the
tendency of many travellers to exaggerate a little what is extra-

1 Essais de la nature qui apprcnd dfaire I'hoinme, Tab. ix. p. 155.

** J. F. Hahn, De manu hominem a brutis disiinguentc, Lips. 1719, 8vo.

^ I. c.

WILD MEN. _ 87

ordinary, are the following; in the first place, some who have
described these animals have said only that it frequently^ goes
on its hinder feet, which at least excites a suspicion, that they
do go on all fours like other animals : moreover, many are de-
picted in the plates as leaning upon a club, after the fashion of
dancing bears ^. The palm of their hands is as deeply furrowed,
and marked with folds and slits as the soles of their feet I
The depressed and receding heel-bones prevent their walking
firmly. If you examine them more closely, the elongated j)elvis,
and especially the muscle called elevator claviculce^, -make it highly
probable that a quadrupedal gait is natural to this animal. The
instance of the long-armed ape is favourable to the same opinion ^
Man therefore is the only biped, unless any one likes to j)ut for-
ward the manati, birds, (especially iDenguins,) or the lizard
Siren. The examj)le of those unfortunate creatures who,
according to accounts, have been here and there brought up
amongst wild beasts, goes no way to show that the erect posi-
tion is not natural to man. Hard necessity, perhaps too imita-
tion, taught these wretches to go on their hands and feet at the
same time that they were obliged to creep through woods and
fruit-bearing copses, and even into the dens and receptacles of
wild beasts ; nor is it quite certain that it was the case with all.
The Hessian boy'^ found amongst the wolves sometimes only
walked as a quadruped; the girl .of ZelF, and the girl of
Champagne ^ and the boy of Hameln^ went upright. And the
argument deduced from the first crawlings of infants is much
weaker still, since it must be very well known to any one who
has observed" them, that they scarcely ever crawl as quadru-
peds, but rather squat upon their buttocks, rest upon their

1 Leguat, T. ii. p. 95 souvent Tulp. 1. in. c. 56 multoties.

^ Tyson, Edwards, BufFon. The orang-utan which I saw mj'self alive at Jena
in 1770 could not go on its hinder feet without the assistance of a stick, nor walk
ahout easily at all.

^ Le Cat, Traite du mouvement muscvlaire, Tab. I.

^ Tyson, Anat. of a pygmy, figs. 3, 12, p. 87. Oimsc. London, 1751.

^ Homo lar. Linn.

^ Dilich. Ilessische CkronicJc. P. it. p. 187.

^ Brcsl. Samml. January 1718, August and October 1722.

^ Hist. (Tune fdle sauvarje, &c. Paris, 1761, i2mo.

Bred. Samml. December, 1725.

88 MAN DEFENCELESS.

hands', and as it were row with their feet. Pliny ^ therefore was
not quite correct when he said that the first promise of strength
and the first gift of hfe was to make a man Uke a quadruped.

As to those who make out the erect position to be the
fomenter of disorders, they must forget both veterinary practice
and the diseases* which we find afflict both wretched men and
fierce quadrupeds.

Besides his erect position and his two hands there are some
other things to be considered which also seem peculiar to man.
Of all animals he alone seems to be placed on the earth alto-
gether naked and defenceless, since he has neither powerful
teeth, nor horns, nor talons, nor a shaggy hide, nor any other
protection. It is no use objecting that there are other animals
equally unprovided; something will always be found which
keeps them protected to some extent*. He is usually -v^^thout
hair, whereas the quadrupeds which expose their body to the
heavens and the seasons are provided either with a shaggy hide,
or a thick skin, or shells, or scales, or spikes. Few parts of a
man's body can be called hairy ^, and his back is nearly bare,
which is certainly another argument for the erect position of
man. His teeth all on a level, round, smooth, and perfectly
regular, are in one word so constructed, that it is clear from the
first glance, they were given to man principally to chew his food
with, partly also for speech, and in no wise as weapons of
attack. Even the teeth of apes differ gTeatly in form from
those of men. Their canines are longer, sharjDor, and more dis-

1 Thus the boy of Hamehi. Bresl. Samml. I. c.

2 VII. I. T. I. p. 369, ed. Hard.

^ See the hypochondriac tumors of ih.e juvmis hihernus in Tulp. IV. to.

* The polypus has scarcely any enemies, and when it is accidentally wounded
fresh animals of its own species are the result of the excrescence.

^ The instances of hauy men are no objection, and I am inclined to consider
them as prodigies. The hairy family of the Canary Islands, in Aldrovandus,
Monstr. hist. p. 16 sqq., even if we can trust a generally credulous author, are no
more to be wondered at than the six-fingered famiUes. Comp. Zahn, Spend.
pliysko-math. hist. T. in. p. 70. I recollect myself that the back of that man-
eating .shepherd, who was executed in 1772, at Berck, near Jena, when he had
besn fastened to the wheel for some weeks and exposed to the weather, and his
clothes fell off, appeared completely covered with shaggy hair.

^ Man is an animal mild and soft, whose strength and power consist more in
wisdom than in force of body. Eustach. De dentibus, p. m. 85.

LAUGHTER AND TEARS. 89

tant from their neighbours : the molars deeply incisive, bristling
as it were with enormous tusks. Besides the teeth, man is
marked out as a gentle and unarmed being, by the small bone
which is covered by the lips, by which also he is distinguished
from the apes and the other beasts like him.

It has been disputed whether brutes have the same affec-
tions^ of the mind as man. This is a very difficult question, if
we examine the ways in which men express joy and sorrow, and
especially laughter and tears. That animals can cry is certain,
since they have organs^ exactly like those in man for weeping;
but we must go deeper and enquire whether they do so in con-
sequence of feeling sorrow. It is said to be so with some
animals, as the orang-utan^, the sloth ^ seals ^ the horse^ the
stag'', the turtle^, the tortoise^, &c. The narrative of Steller,
amongst others, deserves certainly great credit; so that it is
probable that weeping from sadness is common to animals and
man. About laughter as the effect of joy there seems more
doubt. Some animals have peculiar ways of expressing^" tran-
quillity or joy, but I do not think that a change in the muscles
of the face", or the utterance of cacchination, has been observed
in any other animal but man. The croaking of apes, or the
cries of the sloth, have no more to do with this than the barking
of dogs, or the songs of birds, as the indications of joy.

Women have something peculiar, which seems to be denied
to all other animals, even if they remain untouched ; I mean the
hymen, which has been granted to woman-kind perhaps much
more for moral reasons ^^, than because it has any physical uses.

1 On this point, see Moscati, I. c. p. 38.

^ Bertin, <S'm)* le sac nasal ou laerymal de plusieurs especes d'animaux. Mem. de
Par. 1766, p. 281.

2 Bontius, 1. V. c. 32. Le Cat, I. c. p. 35. But this good man seems to allow
too much to the ape, in his endeavour to make out that there is an almost imper-
ceptible transition from man to the rest of the animals.

* Artedi in descr. Mus. Sehce, i. p. 53.

^ Steller, v. sonderb. meerth. p. 140.

^ Schneider, de Catarrho, p. 371.

^ Some look on these tears as dirt, osseous concretion, &c.

^ Quiqueran, Laud, provinc. p. 36.

" Ligon, Barhad. p. 36.

^^ The wagging of the dog's tail, the peculiar purring of cats, &c.
'^ James Parson, Human Physiognomy explained, p. 73.
^^ Read the great Haller, Physiol. L xxvni. p. 97.

90 , MENSTKUATION.

I am inclined to allow the menstrual flux to the females of
human kind alone \ There are some who say that some other
animals of that sex have also their menstrual excretions^, and
Buffon^ has particularly asserted this of many apes. The whole
point depends upon the notion of a periodic flux, which, if pro-
perly considered, will scarcely be allowed to apes. I have care-
fully observed many female apes of more than one species, and
that for many years, in the menagerie of Biittner, yet I cannot
undertake to say that they have menstrual excretions. Mean-
while it is certain that they are afflicted with hoemorrhages of
the womb, which however do not occur at any fixed period, but
sometimes after one week, and sometimes after three or more,
return in the same ape, which otherwise is enjoying good health;
in some however it never appears at all.

These two things then, the hymen and periodical menstru-
ation, I consider as peculiar to mankind 1 As to the clitoris and
the nymphs ^, there is no doubt that other animals also have
them too; and in some the clitoris appears very large and
almost enormous. The hymen, the guardian of chastity, is
"adapted to man who is alone endowed with reason ; but the
clitoris, the obscene organ of brute pleasure, is given to beasts
also. A few examples are enough : in the papio mandril (Simia
liiaimoiiides Linn.) which I dissected last winter, I observed the
clitoris of half-an-ounce in weight, swelling, wrapped in a loose
prepuce, and so prominent that it might easily have made an
incautious observer think the animal was an hermaphrodite, and
all the more because a little fold, which was visible in the apex
of the member and impervious, increased the general resem-
blance to the virile gland. The nymphce seemed worn down, or
had coalesced with the callous and gaping lips of the jDudendum.
And I have observed those as well as the clitoris distinctly in a
Mongoz Lemur, which I myself saw alive last summer at Gottin-

1 Thus Plinius, vii. 15. p. m. T. i. p. 38-2. Solinus ex Democriio, i. p. m. 6.
^ See in Haller, I. c. p. 137.
3 T. XIV. XV. frequently.

^ As to some of the old wives' stories about some nations of America, who are
sakl not to menstruate, at this time of day they want no refutation.
^ It is doubted by Linnseus, Syst. Nat, ed. xir. p. 33.

INTEKNAL STRUCTURE. 91

gen. The Didactylus ignavus of the Koyal Museum has a very
round clitoris between the swelling lips of the pudendum. But
the great Haller has collected many instances \ These therefore
are some of the points which are peculiar to mankind and which
can be easily distinguished without any very delicate anatomy.
I leave out others, as the immobility of the ears -, or the hairs of
either eye-brow ^ which were formerly attributed to man alone.

A very extensive and at the same time a very pleasant field
would be open to us, if we could now investigate the internal
structure of the human body, in so far as it differs plainly from
the structure of other animals. But the limits of this our book
do not allow us to wander so far. It is therefore the business
of those who want information on these points to go to the
authors of comparative anatomy, and, above all, to those who
have dissected carefully the animals which are most like man ;
amongst whom it will be sufficient to mention Eustachius'*,
Goiter ^ Riolani", and Tyson ^ Let them study those who think
that perhaps the orang-utan and some other apes are not so
much unlike man, but that they may be considered as of the
same species, or, at all events, as animals very closely allied to
man. It is now my present intention to select a few points
from many, and reckon them up briefly.

As the brain, the most noble entrail of the animal body, fr
numberless reasons which everybody knows, demands particular
attention beyond all other parts, men of the greatest reputation
have laboured on its comparative anatomy and have stirred up
others^, when there was an opportunity, to similar labours.

^ I. c. p. 80. Besides these is the perforated clitoris leading in the urinal
bladder of the Coocang Lemur {tardigrad Linn. But it seems best with Parkinson
to give it the name of its country) in Daubenton, T. Xlll. p. -217, Tab. XXXI. fig. 4.
Can it be likely that this was an abnormal accident ?

^ Aristot. De part. anim. u. ii.

^ Penault. Hhi. dcs anim. P. ill. p. 112. ed. Paris, 173'2. He saw it in the
elephant, the ostrich, the vulture. I have seen things very like the human ones in
many apes.

* Frequently. ^Principal. Corp. h. part. tab. Norib. 1575. fol. maj.

" Jo. Kiol. Jo. fil. Odeologia simice, Par. 16 14. 8vo. '' Op. cit.

^ Sana. Collin's Comparative Anatomy. Haller, Physiol. T. iv. and Op. Minor.
T. ra.

8 Haller, Physiol. T. v. p. 529.

92 BRAIN OF THE APE.

Recollecting this, as I have been fortunate enough to dissect
apes, last winter, of more than one kind, I have, -above all,
investigated their brains, and I exhibit as a specimen the base
of one\ It is the brain of that very mandril I was just speak-
ing of. Cut off at the great occipital foramen, and taken out
of the skull, it weighed three ounces and one drachm, whilst
the rest of the body of the ape weighed eight common pounds
and a half The principal points in which its base differs from
the human organ are these. The two anterior lobes of the
brain are almost entirely unified. The cerebellum is large in
proportion to the brain, more than is the case with the pygmy.
The pons varolii is separated from the medulla oblongata by no
apparent fissure, but is joined on, and down continuou.sly with
it. Not a vestige of the pyramidal or olivary bodies, as is also
the case in the pygmy. The medulla oblongata much thicker
than in the man or the pygmy. The second pair of nerves
which were united in one great mass and then again divided
at the very entrance of the orbits, was cut off before the sepa-
ration. No rete mirabile. I omit other things of less import-
ance, which any one who is skilled in anatomy will easily
recognize ; and I can assure such an one that the figure is
most accurately drawn '^

* I have subjoined to the brain the skull of the same jaapz'o,
in which, besides the deeper orbits, the thickness of the zygomata,
the widely divergent teeth, the immense canines, and other
things of smaller importance, that peculiar bone in which the
incisors are set deserves particular attention. This man is with-
out, although all the apes and most of the other mammals^
have it. I doubted whether it was to be found in the orang-utan ;
since in the figures of Tyson* and Daubenton^ the skulls were
not drawn in such a way that the sutures could be well distin-

1 PI. I. fig. I.

^ Compare with my figure the br.ain of Tyson's pygmy, fig. 13, and that most
elegant chart by Haller of the base of the human brain, Fasc. Vil. Tab. I. To make
the comparison easier, I have preserved the same lettering, by which in HaUer's
chart the parts of the brain are marked.

^ The Myrmecophaya didactyla, whose skull I have, does not possess it.

* I- c. fig. 5-

^ Mem. de Par. i 'J64, Tab. xvi. fig. 2,

SKULL or THE APE. 93

guished^ nor did the English author speak precisely about
it^ : but Fr. Gabr. Sulzer has settled the point, for he kindly
writes me word that Camper, a great authority, has dissected
animals of this kind, and found this bone in them. Another
difference flows from this singular structure, namely, in the
bone of the nose, which is double in the human head, and
nearly of a rhomboidal figure, whereas it is seen to be single in
the apes, and also triangular, which however, like the other
things which may be observed in this figure, are very patent,
and will easily be seen by those who know anything of osteology,
and therefore do not want any further explanation.

Amongst other differences between the human body and
that of the beasts there are some which are better known,
and may be briefly touched upon. As, for example, the mem-
hrana nictitans, periophtlialmium, or third eyelid, which Haller^
says is in man a very slight imitation of the organ in animals,
although in animals also according to their class and order,
their mode of life, and their size, it differs much in position and
constitution*.

Besides this, the bulbous or suspensory muscle of the eye is
common to nearly all'^ quadrupeds, and so is the suspensory liga-
ment of the neck, which is said to be wanting in man and the
apes alone ^ This white and tendonous part which is known to

^ The figure of the skeleton of the long-handed ape in Buffon, T. Xiv. Tab. vr,
has the same fault ; and even Goiter, who is famous in other things, has omitted to
mark this bone in the skeleton of the tailed ape, the figure of which is added to in
the book and place already quoted. Still it is most distinctly visible in the skulls
of five different kinds of apes which I have before me.

^ P. 65. "In a monkey I observed that peculiar suture Riolan mentions, but
did not find it in the Pygmie, only in the palate of the Pygmie I observed a
suture, not from the dens caninus, as was in the monkey, but from the second of
the dentes incisores."

^ Physiol. T. v. p. 328, where there are a good many interesting things about
this membrane. There is a good deal about it also in Peter Tarrarrani, Cose anato-
miche in Atti de fisico-critici di Siena, T. iii. p. 115. De Pauw. Recherch. philos.
sur les Americ. T. 11. p. yon.

* In some I certainly found a few traces, as in the Lemur Mongoz. It is small
too in the apes.

^ It is wanting in Tyson's orang-utan, p. 85. Andr. Vesalius had falsely and
obstinately assigned it to man. Comp. Haller, I. c. p. 421. Douglass Schreiberi,
p. 40.

^ Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. ed. xii. T. i. p. 48.

94 VERTEiiR.E OF THE APE.

everybody, and is called by my countrymen, Jiaarwachs; by the
English \ packwax, taxivax, fixfax and wliiteleather ; by the
Belgians ^ vast, &c, is inserted for the purpose of sustaining the
head and neck of quadrupeds^. But although man shares the
absence of this with the apes, yet it by no means follows that
apes are meant to walk upright, since in them the subtle
structure of the vertebrse of the neck, and in man the peculiar
bipedal walk, supply the defect of this ligament. The whole
point about the bodies of these vertebrse is best explained
by a comparison of these bones themselves, as they appear
in the skeleton of the man and the ape, and for this reason
I have had engraved the whole construction of the vertebrae of
the neck in the same papio ^ (PI. Ii. fig. 1), the base of whose
brain and whose skull we have just seen, because in that it
may be seen as clearly as possible why he scarcely ever goes
on two feet. I have subjoined the fifth and sixth vertebrse
of the human neck (PI. il. fig. 2). In these the bodies are
nearly parallel, and almost disciform, whereas in the ape they
descend by a sort of scaly process in front, and one is placed
upon and dove-tailed into the other. So it can easily be made
plain by experiment that the vertebrse in these animals sup-
port each other, and serve to sustain the head, which could not
be done with man if placed in a quadrupedal position, on ac-
count of the smooth surfaces of the body of the vertebrse, for so
it would be excessively difficult to sustain the mass of the very
heavy human head, which would more and more collapse and
subside by its own weight.

I have selected a few out of many points in which man differs
most clearly from the other animals. I have said that there are
many which go to demonstrate his natural position to be an erect
one, and to separate him fairly from the apes, especially from the
orang-utan. I have been induced to do this because of the

1 Allen Mullen, Anatomical Account of the Elcph. p. 14. Eay, \Yi&dorn of God,
pp. 261, 338, and Synoi^s. quaclrujiedum, p. 136. Derham, Physico-theol. p. ^2^,

2 Vesal. Be corp. hum fabr. p. 361.

^ La Fosse, Cours d' Hippiatrique, Tab. XI a.

* It would have been tedious to trarscribe from Eustachius and Coiter all the
other points in which the vertebrse of the apes diverge from those of man.

OEANG-UTAN. 95

opinions lately expressed by some famous men\ who however
are ill-instructed in natural history and anatomy, but who are
not ashamed to say that this ape is very nearly allied, and indeed
of the same species with themselves.

I do not think -this opinion deserves any lengthened refuta-
tion for those who are adepts in the matter; but it will clearly
not be foreign to our purpose if I say a few words about the

orancr-utan himself. After the labours of Buffon and others it is

...
not worth while to spend any time on his habits and mode of

life I But it would be worth while if the species were a little
more accurately defined. For although this remarkable animal
has very seldom been seen in Europe, aiid few authentic repre-
sentations of it exist, still such as they are they differ so much
from each other that they can in no way be considered as belong-
ing to one and the same species. I shall pass by the delineations
which are manifestly fictitious, or carelessly di'awn, such as those
of Bontius, Neuhof, Jiirgen Andersen, Jo. Jac. Saar, and Franc.
Leguat; and examine more closely the authentic ones alone.
These are those of Tulp, Tyson, Edwards, Scotin^, Le Cat, and
Buffon, which when they are compared together manifestly
differ very much l^th in form and size. Recent authors have
deduced from this a variety of species, and have called one the
larger, and the other the smaller orang-utan. I do not however
place much trust in this distinction. Some of the specimens
which have been brought to Europe were very young, and there
were indications which, considering that they all died prema-
turely*, forbid us to come to any conclusion ^ysto their size. Still

^ Cows d'hist. nat. T. i. That good citizen of Geneva Sur Vinegalite parmi Ics
hommts, p. 157 n. The Orujin unci Progress of Laiujuaje, Vol. i. pp. 175, 289. Mist,
of Jamaica, Vol. Ii. p. 363, Lond. 1774, 4to.

^ I shall only remark on the name orang-utan, that it is incorrectly translated
"^\\(\-m.a,n" homo sylvestris. Man in 2>Ialay is Mamisia, but the word 07-?i is
applied not only to man, but also to the elephant, whom the Indians think is
sensible. Eiittner, to whom I am indebted for this observation, translates it
intelligent being.

^ Scotin's animal, Chimpansi, brought by H. Howe, master of the ship Speaker,
from Angola to London, in Aug. 1738, was figured separately by Sloane, and
repeated in Nova acta erud. Lips. Sept. 1739, Tab. v. p. 564. Linn. Anthrop. Am.
ac. Vol. VI. Hauber, Bibl. magica, s. 35. Le Cat, above. The others are well
known.

* The one BufFon saw was two years old. Tyson's had not yet cut all its teeth.

96 OEANG-UTAN.

the habit of their whole body and the conformation of its parts
seem to me much more justly to constitute them into species.
I may be allowed therefore to admit at least two species, and
in order that names may not be unnecessarily multiplied, I shall
give them some which occur in Linnasus, one which has been
improperly appended to man by that illustrious author, the other
to the first species of apes. Let there be then,

1. Simia troglodytes or CJdmpansi ; represented by Tulp
and Scotin, macrocephalous, sinewy, hairy on the back of its
body alone ; the front, except the shoulders, being bare.

2. Satyrus or Orang-utan of Tyson, Edwards, Le Cat, and
Buffon ; rather slender, with small head, clothed with thick hair,
the hairs of the arm and fore-arm being in opposite directions.
Such was the male which I mentioned having seen alive at Jena.
It came very near to the figure of Tyson, and at the first glance
was most unmistakeably different from the Simia sylvanus, &c.
I made a drawing at that time of this rare animal, but I regret
that I neglected to measure its parts more accurately.

These are the observations made partly by myself, and partly
by my first preceptor in natural history, I. E. Im. Walch. The
stature was that of a boy about ten years, old, colour brown,
face sufficiently human, the fingers of the hands and feet rather
long, the thumb widely separated, the calves more fleshy than
in other apes, the scrotum pendulous almost square, rather
white, the penis small like Tyson's figure. It was so much in
the habit of leaning on a stick, that though it could stand and
walk on two feet> most persons would attribute that way of
walking to the effect of education. The same might be said of
his way of drinking and eating, in which actions he used spoon
and cup. He showed a great desire for the other sex.

Linnaeus doubted whether the animals which we have
divided into two species, but which in his opinion were only
varieties, differed in anything more than in sex. It is quite true
that those represented by Tulj) and Scotin were females, and the
others males ; but still the silence of travellers and eye-witnesses
like Bontius and Th. Bowrey, on any different form in the sexes,
convinces me that besides the difference of sex there must also

SIMIA LONGIMANA. 97

be a variety of species. I cannot dismiss these animals without
mentioning two points, of which one is concerned with a singu-
lar character of them which has been generally neglected, and
the other regards their native country. I owe the knowledge of
the former character to my great friend Sulzer, who repeated to
me the words of Camper, who, I just mentioned, dissected these
Satyri himself, "that in the front hands of these animals the
nails of the thumbs were wanting." There are indeed nails in the
plates of Tyson, Edwards, and Le Cat; but that singular and
paradoxical character might very easily have been unnoticed ; nor
did I pay any attention myself to the nails of the Jena satyr.
Was this a third species? that I cannot decide. The other
point that remains to be mentioned is as to the native country
of both species (chimpansi and orang-utan). By almost all zoo-
logical writers the torrid zone of the ancient woi'ld is given out
as their native country. Bancroft ^ however relates a report of the
inhabitants, that the orang-utan may also be found in the thick
woods of Guiana. This account deserves further attention, but
there is this against it, that the author adds that the animal has
not yet been seen by Europeans resident there.

There is another animal nearly allied to the Troglodyte and
the Satyr, which is the Simia longimana {Homo Lar, Linn., Gib-
hon, Buff), an animal exactly like man, if you look at its face:
but differing from almost all other animals if you consider the
enormous length of its anterior feet. They are indeed represented
as somewhat shorter in the figure of the Bengalese ape, which
is inserted in the Philosophical Tjansactions ^, and taken for the
S. longimana, which however is clearly drawn by the hand of
no artist, as is shown by the unequal length of either fore arm,
and by other particulars.

Enough then has been said about the Troglodyte and Satyr.
And now we must come more closely to the principal argument
of our dissertation, which is concerned with this question; Are

^ Nat. Hist, of Chiiana, p. 130.

^ Vol. Lix. p. I. for 1769, p. 71, Tab. III., of either sex. The female is
repeated in Gent. Maj. 1770, September, p. 402. Comp. Pennant, Synops. of
Quadr. p. 100.

98 PLURALITY OF SPECIES.

men, and have the men of all times and of every race been of one
and the same, or clearly of more than one species'} A question
much discussed in these days, but so far as I know, seldom
expressly treated of.

Ill-feeling, negligence, and the love of novelty have induced
persons to take up the latter opinion. The idea of the plurality
of human species has found particular favour^ with those who
made it their business to throw doubt on the accuracy of Scrip-
ture. For on the first discovery of the Ethiopians, or the beard-
less inhabitants of America, it was much easier to pronounce
them different species ^ than to inquire into the structure of the
human body, to consult the numerous anatomical authors and
travellers, and carefully to weigh their good faith or carelessness,
to compare parallel examples from the universal circuit of natural
history, and then at last to come to an opinion, and investigate
the causes of the variety. For such is the subtlety of the
human intellect, and such the rush for novelty, that many would
rather accept a new, though insufficiently considered opinion,
than subscribe to ancient truths which have been commonly
accepted for thousands of years.

I have endeavoured to keep free of all these mistakes ; I
have written this book quite unprejudiced, and I have desired
nothing so much as that the arguments which I have brought
forward for the unity of the human species, and for its mere
varieties, may seem as satisfactory to my learned and candid
readers as they do to myself.

For although there seems to be so great a difference between
widely separate nations, that you might easily take the inhabi-
tants of the Cape of Good Hope, the Greenlanders, and the Cir-
cassians for so many different species of man, yet when the
matter is thoroughly considered, you see that all do so run into
one another, and that one variety of mankind does so sensibly

^ Simon Tyssot de Patot, Voyages et aventures de Jaques Masse, T. i. p. 36.
Bazin (Voltaire), Philosophie de Vhistoire, p. 45. Idem in Quest, sur VEncyclop.
T. IV. p. 112, T. VII. p. 98, 179, is completely refuted by Haller. Brief en uher
einige Eimnirfe noch lebend. Freigeister wider die Offenh. i. Th. pp. 102, 184, 196.

'^ Of this opinion were Griffith Hughes, Nat. Hist, of Barhadoes, p. 14. Henry
Home, Sketches of the History of Man, Vol. i. p. 12.

CLASSIFICATIONS. 99

pass into the other, that you cannot mark out the limits between
them.

Very ai"bitrary indeed both in number and definition have
been the varieties of mankind accepted by eminent men. Lin-
naeus^ allotted four classes of inhabitants to the four quarters of
the globe respectively. Oliver Goldsmith^ reckons six. I have
followed Linnaeus in the number, but have defined my varieties
by other boundaries. The first and most important to us (which
is also the primitive one) is that of Europe, Asia this side of the
Ganges, and all the country situated to the north of the Amoor,
together with that part of North America, which is nearest both
in position^ and character of the inhabitants. Though the men of
these countries seem to differ very much amongst each other in
form and colour, still when they are looked at as a whole they
seem to agree in many things with ourselves. The second in-
cludes that part of Asia beyond the Ganges, and below the river
Amoor, which looks towards the south, together with the islands,
and the greater part of those countries which are now called
Australian. Men of dark colour, snub noses, with winking eye-
lids drawn outwards at the corners, scanty, and stiff hair. Africa
makes up the third. There remains finally, for the fourth, the
rest of America, except so much of the North as was included
in the first variety*.

It will easily appear from the progress of this dissertation in

^ Syst. Nat. p. -29. ^ Ilisf. of the Earth, Vol. 11. p. -211.

^ Comp. besides the English terraqueous globes, which by the liberality of our
queen the university library possesses, and the Swedish ones of Akerman, a copy
of which is due to the kindness of J. Andr. Murray, the maps of D'Anville,
Stahlin, and Engel, and the more recent labours of de Vaugondy, Sur les pays de
VAsie et de VAmerique situSs au Nord de la mer du Sud. Par. 1774, 4to.

* [33. Mankind divided into fire varieties. Formerly in the first edition of
this work I divided all mankind into four varieties; but after I had more accu-
rately investigated the different nations of Eastern Asia and America, and, so to
speak, looked at them more closely, I was compelled to give up that division, and
to place in its stead the following five varieties, as more consonant to nature.

The first of these and the largest, which is also the primeval one, embraces the
whole of Europe, including the Lapps, whom I cannot in any way separate from
the rest of the Europeans, when their appearance and their language bear such
testimony to their Finnish origin; and that western part of Asia which lies
towards us, this side of the Obi, the Caspian sea, mount Taurus and the Ganges ;
also northern Africa, and lastly, in America, the Greenlanders and the Esquimaux,
for I see in these people a wonderful difference from the other inhabitants of
America ; and, unless I am altogether deceived, 1 think they must be derived from

100 FOUR VARIETIES.

which of the four varieties most discrepancies are still to be
found, and on the contrary, that many in other varieties have
some points in common, or in some anomalous way differ from
the rest of their neighbours. Still it will be found serviceable
to the memory to have constituted certain classes into which the
men of our planet may be divided ; and this I hope I have not
altogether failed in doing, since for the reason I have given
before I have tried this and that, but found them less satisfac-
tory. Now I mean to go over one by one the points in which
man seems to differ from man by the natural conforpiation of his
body and in appearance, and I will investigate as far as I can
the causes which tend to produce that variety.

First of all I shall speak of the whole bodily constitution,
stature, and colour, and then I shall go on to the particular
structure and proportion of individual parts. It will then be ne-
cessary carefully to distinguish those points which are due to art
alone, and finally, though with reluctance, I shall touch upon

the Finns. AU tliese nations regarded as a whole are white in colour, and, if
compared with the rest, beautiful in form.

The second variety comprises that of the rest of Asia, which lies beyond the
Ganges, and the part lying beyond the Caspian Sea and the river Obi towards
Nova Zembla. The inhabitants of this country are distinguished by being of
brownish colour, more or less verging to the olive, straight face, narrow eye-lids,
and scanty hair. This whole variety may be sub-divided into two races, northern
and southern ; of which one may embrace China, the Corea, the kingdoms of
Tonkin, Pegu, Siam, and Ava, using rather monosyllabic languages, and distin-
guished for depravity and perfidiousness of spirit and of mauuers; and the other
the nations of northern Asia, the Ostiaks, and the other Siberians, the Tunguses,
the Mantchoos, the Tartars, tbe Ca'.mucks, and the Japanese.

The thii'd variety comprises what remains of Africa, besides that northern part
which I have already mentioned. Black men, muscular, with prominent upper
jaws, swelling lips, turned up nose, very black curly hair.

The fourth comprises tbe rest of America, whose inhabitants are distinguished
by their copper colour, their thin babit of body, and scanty hair.

Finally, the new southern world makes up the fifth, with which, unless I am
m'staken, the Sunda, the Molucca, and the Philippine Islands should be reckoned ;
the men throughout being of a very deep brown colour, with broad nose, and thick
hair. Those who inhabit the Pacific Archipelago are divided again by John Reinh.
Forster' into two tribes. One made up of the Otaheitans, the New Zealanders,
and the inhabitants of the Friendly Isles, the Society, Easter Island, and the
Marquesas, &c., men of elegant appearance and mild disposition; whereas the
others who inhabit New Caledonia, Tanna, and the New Hebrides, &c., are
blacker, more curly, and in disposition more distrustful and ferocious. Edit.
1781, pp. 51, 52. This is the first sketch of the still famous division of mankind
by Blumeubach : the well-known terms Caucasian, &c. will be found in the third
ed. below. Ed.]

1 Observations, p. 228.

EFFECT OF CLIMATE. 101

nosology and practical medicine, both which chapters recent
authors have tried to obtrude into natural history, but which
I shall endeavour to vindicate for and restore to pathology.

The first three things I mean to discuss, the whole bodily
constitution, the stature, and the colour, are owing almost en-
tirely to climate alone. I must be brief on the first of these
points, since I have had no 023portunity of exercising my personal
observation on the matter, and but few and scanty traces are to
be gathered from authors. That in hot countries bodies become
drier and heavier; in cold and v/et ones softer, more full of
juice and spongy, is easily noticed. It has long since been
noticed by W. Cavendish, Marquis of Newcastle, that the bones
of the wild horse have very small cavities, and those of the
Frisian horses much larger ones', &c. This was confirmed by
the elegant experiments of Kersting, a physician of Cassel, and
a most skilled in the treatment of animals. He observed^,
amongst other things, that the bones of an Arab horse, of six
years old, when subjected to the same degree of heat, were dis-
solved with much more difficulty in the machine of Papinus than
those of a Frisian of the same age. It is very likely that similar
differences would be observed in the bones of men born in
different countries, although ob^rvations are wanting, and con-
clusions drawn from a few facts are unsatisfactory. Here and
there indeed we find bones of Ethiopians^ which are thick, com-
pact, and hard ; but I should be unwilling to attribute these
properties to every skeleton coming from hot countries, since
other instances occur of skulls of Ethiopians, about which the
same remark has not been made*. The differences moroever are
very great between the skulls of Europeans of the same country
and the same age, which seem to depend, amongst other things,

^ Gen. Syst. of Horsemanship. [The passage alluded to stands thus in the edi-
tion of 1743, Vol. I. p. 21. "I have experienced this difference between the bone
of the leg of a Barbaiy horse, and one from Flanders, that the cavity of the bone
in the one shall hardly admit of a straw whilst you may thrust your finger into
that of the other." Ed.]

^ Horses' bones are much more easily dissolved than those of mules, and asses'
with still greater difficulty.

^ B. S. Albini, Supellex Ear. n. XXIX. P. Paaw, Prim. Anat. p. 29.

* In the Leg. Rav. n. XIII. and n. xxi, it is said that the bones of the Malabar
women are very thin. See also J. Beni. de Fischer, De modo quo ossa se vicin.
accomm. part., L.B. 1 743, Tab. in.

102 STATURE.

principally upon the mode of life \ Perhaps the same is the
case as to the sutures, which Arrian^ says the heads of the
Ethiopians are without, and Herodotus' says the same of the
Persian skulls after the battle of Platasa. The observation
about the whole habit of the body, that the northern* nations
are more sinewy and square, and the southern^ more elegant,
seems more reliable.

I go on to the human stature. It is an old opinion, that in
very ancient times men were much larger and taller, and that
they degenerate and diminish in size even now, that children
are now born smaller than their parents, and all the things of
this kind which the old poets and philosophers^ have said to
discredit their own times.

But although this may be going too far, still we must allow
something to climate, so far as that itself is altered by the lapse
of time. The soil itself becomes milder, so that it may at last
make its men less gigantic and less fierce. We have already
spoken of an example of this change in our own Germany.
But the idea that these differences of bodies in ancient and
modern times have been enormous, is refuted by the mummies
of Egypt, the fossil human skeletons , the sarcophagi, and a
thousand other proofs. ,

Nor do a few skulls conspicuous for their age and size^ scat-

^ J. B. Com. a Covolo, De met. duor. oss. ped. in quad, aliquot, Bonou. 1 765, p. 7.

^ dppa<f)s Ke<pd\ai. Arato.

^ C;b1. Ehodig. Led. Ant. xiii. 28. p. 501. ed. Froben.

* For the Lapps and Finns, Leem, Lules, Hbgstrom, Calmuchs, Pallas,
Greenlanders, Crantz, &c.

^ For New Zealand, New Holland, &c. see S. Parkinson. The inhabitants
of the island of Mallicolo, lately visited by Forster, are remarkable for their slender
arms and feet, as I have been kindly told by G. C. Lichtenberg since his return
from England.

^ Homer says repeatedly that Tydides, Hector, Ajax, Telamon, &c. (whose
gigantic knee-cap Pausanias describes as being shown long afterwards) were much
more strong and lai'ge than the men of his day, oiol vvu ^porol elai And he has
been imitated in this by Virgil, who represents Turnus as equally large, not to be
compared with ' Such human forms as earth produces now.'

^ Phn. VII. c. 16. Solin. v. Comp. more upon this point J. S. Elsholtz,
Anthropom. p. 31, ed. 1663.

^ There is in the Musevun of our University a fossil skull tolerably complete, of
the greatest antiquity, the bones of the head very thick, but neither in magnitude
nor form differing from a common skull.

^ Fabricius Hildan. Fiirtreffl. nutz und nothw. d. anat. Bern. 1624, p. 209. Head
of March. Dietzraann killed at Leipzig, 1307. Glafey, Saechss. Kernkist. Head

TEMPERATUKE. 103

tered about here and there, prove anything more than those solid
ones destitute of sutures, about which I was lately speaking.
Some, it is clear, are diseased'. But as to the bones which cre-
dulous antiquity showed as those of giants, they have long
since been restored to elephants and whales ^ The investigation
of the causes which in our days make the men of one country
tall and another short is more subtle. The principal one seems
to be the degree of cold or heat. The latter obstructs the
increase of organic bodies, whilst the former adds to them
and promotes their growth. It would be tedious even to touch
upon a thing so well known and so much confirmed in both king-
doms, were it not that in our time men have come forward, and
with the greatest confidence have presumed to think otherwise \
Experience teaches that both plants and animals are smaller in
northern countries than in southern ; why should not the same
law hold good as to mankind? Linnaeus long ago remarked in
his Flora Lapponica*, that alpine plants commonly reached
twice as great an altitude out of the Alps. And the same thing
may be observed frequently in those plants, some specimens of
which are kept in a conservatory, while others stand out in a
garden, of which the former come out much larger and taller
than the others.

I have before me the most splendid specimens in a collection
of plants from Labrador and Greenland, chosen by Brasen^
which I owe to the liberality of my great friend, J. Sam. Lieber-
kiihn, in which the common ones are almost all smaller than
those which are obtained in Germany; and in some, as the

of Henry of Austria in the famous burying-place of Kcenigsfeld. Faesi, Erdh. der
eidc/en. i.

' Fossil head of Rheims. Dargenville, Oryct. T. 17, f. 3, two osseous heads Zc^r.
rav. in Albin. p. 4.

2 J. Wallis, Antiq. of Northumberland. Dom. Gagliardi, An. Oss. p. 103.
Even Felix Plater, who was the best lecturer of his day in all Europe, suffered him-
self to be led into error by the bones dug up at Lucerne in 1577, ^nd after careful
comparison gave them out as those of a human giant, Obs. Med. 1. in. Wagner,
Hist. Nat. Helv. p. 1 49 : but they have lately been proved to be elephant's bones.
Erkl. der Gemdld auf die Kapellbr. zu Lucem. This is also the case with the ribs
of the Hun in the church of Gottingen.

3 As Henr. Home, loc. cit. p. 12. It is in vain to ascnhe to the climate the loxo
stature of the Esquimaux, &c.

* Prolegom. xvi. 8. Comp. Arwid Ehrenmalm, Asehle, p. 386.

5 The same observation has been made by Haller, Hist. Stirp. Helv. il. p. 317.

104 . EXAMPLES.

Rhodtola rosea, which are common to both those regions of
America, although their native soil is so near, yet the same
difference is observed that the specimens from Labrador are
somewhat larger than those from Greenland.

The same is the case with animals. The Greenland foxes
are smaller than those of the temperate zone\ The Swedish
and Scotch horses are low and small, and in the coldest part
of North Wales so little as scarcely to exceed dogs in size^ It is
however useless to bring a long string of examples about a thing
so evident, when the difference of a few degi'ees in so many
countries exhibits clearly the same difference. Thus, Henry
Ellis"' observed in Hudson's Strait, on its southern coasts, trees
and men of fair size; at 6i shrubs only, and that the men
became smaller by little and little, and at last at 6^ that not a
vestige of either was to be seen. And likewise Murray, within
the limits of a few degrees, and in Gotha alone, declared he
could observe so well, that whilst he was travelling, although he
took no notice of the mile-stones, yet he could easily distinguish
the different provinces by the difference of the inhabitants and
of the animals. In Scania* the men are tall of stature and bony,
the horses and cattle large, &c. : in Smaland they become sensi-
bly smaller, and the cattle are active but little, which at last
in Ostrogothia strikes the eye more and more.

The same thing may be observed in the opposite part of the
world, almost under the same degrees, towards the antarctic cir-
cle. One example will suffice, taken from the most southern
part of America, and compared with those European nations we
have just been speaking of The bodies of the notorious Pata-
gonians answer to the lofty stature of the Scandinavians. A
credulous antiquity indeed invented fabulous stories of their
enormous size^ But in the progress of time, after Patagonia

1 Cranz, Eist. v. Gh-. p. 97. 2 tj^ Birch, Hist, of the Royal Soe. in. p. I'ji.

^ Voy. to Hudson's Bay, p. 2 -.6. * Comp. Linn. Fauna Suecica, p. i.

5 Comp. de Brasses, i. p. 193; 11. beg. &c. De Pauw, I. c. 1. p. 281, and Hist,
gen. de VAs. Afr. et Ameri. par M. L. A. R. Vol. xiii. Par. 1755, p. 50. Tlios.
Falkner, Descr. of Patagonia, p. 126, "The Patagonians, or Puelches, are a large-
bodied people ; but I never heard of that gigantic race, which others have men-
tioned, though I have seen persons of all tlie different tribes of southern Indians."

COLOUIi. 105

had often been visited by Europeans, the inhabitants, Uke that
famous dog of Gellert, became sensibly smaller, until at last in
our own days they retained indeed a sufficiently large stature,
but were happily deprived of their gigantic form. If you go
down from them towards the south, you will find much smaller
men in the cold land of Terra del Fuego\ who must be compared
to the Smalands and the Ostrogoths, and by that example you
will again see how nature is always like itself even in the most
widely separated regions.

But besides the chmate, there are other causes which exercise
influence upon stature. Already, at first, I alluded to the mode
of life^ and it would be easy to bring here copious examples
taken from the vegetable and animal kingdoms, in which the
difference of nutrition may be detected by the greater or smaller
stature. But these things are too well kno^vn already, and so
many experiments of the kind have been made on Swiss cows,
Frisian horses, &c., that I may easily pass over any proofs of this
point. I omit also the causes of smaller importance which
change the stature of organic bodies, which have been already
most diligently handled by Haller^, and I hasten to the last of
those things which must be considered in the variety of mankind,
that is, colour.

There seems to be so great a difference between the Ethiop-
ian, the white, and the red American, that it is not "^onderful,
if men even of great reputation have considered them as forming
different species of mankind. But although the discussion of
this subject seems particularly to belong to our business, still so
many important things have been said about the seat and the
causes of this diversity of colour, by eminent men, that a good-
sized volume would scarcely contain them ; so that it is necessary
for me to be brief in this matter, and only to mention those
things which the industry of learned men has placed beyond
all doubt. The skin of man and of most animals consists of

1 Sydney Parkinson, p. 7, PI. i. 11. "None of them seemed above five feet
ten inches high."

2 p. y3. 3 PJiysiol. 1. XXX. S. I, l6.

106 CAUSE OF COLOUR.

three parts; the external epidermis, or cuticle; the reticulum
TYiucosum, called from its discoverer the Malphigian ; and lastly,
the imier, or coHum. The middle of these, which very much
resembles the external, so that by many it is considered as
another scale of it, is evidently more spongy, thick, and black
in the Ethiopians; and in them, as in the rest of men, is the
primary seat of the diversity of colour. For in all the corium is
white, excepting where, here and there, it is slightly coloured by
the adhering reticulum ; but the epidermis seems to shade off into
the same colour as the reticulum, yet still so, that being diaphan-
ous' like a plate of horn, it appears even in black men, if pro-
perly separated, to be scarcely grey; and therefore can have
little if any influence on the diversity of the colour of men.

The seat of colour is pretty clear, but for a very long time
back there have been many and great disputes about the causes
of it, especially in the Ethiopians. Some think it to be a sign of
the curse of Cain ^ or Cham^, and their posterity; others^ have
brought forward other hypotheses, amongst which the bile played
the most prominent part, and this was particularly advocated by
Peter Barrere^ following D. Santorini''. Although this view
has been opposed by many^ I do not think it ought altogether
to be neglected. The instances of persons affected with jaundice,
or chlorosis, of the fish mullet^, and moreover the black bile of
the Ethiopians, are all the less open to doubt, since more recent
authors'" have observed the blood to be black, and the brain and
the spinal marrow to be of an ashy colour; and the phlegm of

^ If the epidermis were less thin and not so transparent, perhaps it would seem
just as dark as the reticulum ; Jo. Fanton, Diss. VII. Anat. pi\ renov. Taurini,
1741, 8vo. p. 27.

2 A recent supporter of this opinion is the learned Sam. Engel in Ess. sur cette
question quand et comm. VAmer. a, t. elle ete peuplee, T. iv. p. 96.

3 Mem. de Trevoux, T. Lxxiv. p. 1155.

* B. S. Albinus has collected many in De sede et causa color, wth. et cet. horn.
L. B. 1737, with the beautifully coloured plates of that capital artist, J. Ladmiral,

^ Diss, sur la cause phys. de la couleur des negres. Paris, 1741, i2mo. Comp.
Diet. Encycl. by De Felice, T. xxx. p. 199.

6 Obs. Anat. p. i. ^ Le Cat, De la covl. de lapeau him. p. 72.

^ Santorini, I. c. ^ Barrere, I. c.

1* Meckel, Mem. de Berl. 1753, 1757. The lice of the negroes are black, Long.
II. p. 352.

COLOUR. 107

the northern nations and other things of this kind seem to add
weight to this opinion. But amongst all other causes of their
blackness, climate, and the influence of the soil, and the tempe-
rature, together with the mode of life, have the greatest influ-
ence. This is the old opinion of Ai'istotle, Alexander, Strabo,
and others \ and one which we will try and confirm by instances
and arguments brought forward separately.

In the first place, then, there is an almost insensible and in-
definable transition from the pure white skin of the German
lady through the yellow, the red, and the dark nations, to the
Ethiopian of the very deepest black, and we may observe this,
as we said just now in the case of stature, in the space of a few
degrees of latitude. Spain offers some trite examples ; it is well
known that the Biscayan women are a shining white, the inha-
bitants of Granada on the contrary dark, to such an extent that
in this region the pictures of the Blessed Virgin and other saints
are painted of the same colour ^ Those who live upon the
northern bank of the river Senegal are of ashy colour and
small body; but those beyond are black, of tall stature and
robust, as if in that part of the world one district was green, and
the other burnt up^ And the same thing was observed by some
learned Frenchmen on the Cordilleras, that those who live im-
mediately under the mountains towards the west, and exposed
to the Pacific Ocean, seem almost as white as Europeans,
whereas on the contrary, the inhabitants of the opposite side,
who are exposed to constant burning winds, are like the rest of
the Americans, copper-coloured*.

It is an old observation of Vitruvius^ and Pliny that the
northern nations are white, and this is clearly enough shown by
many instances of other animals and plants. For partly the

^ Csel. Ehodig. Led. Ant. ix. 15, p. 439, ed. Aid. Comp. Macrob. in Somn.
Scip. p. 128, ed. H. Steph. aidioxp ex aidia et wi/'.

2 Comp. a scale of colour in Mem. de Trev. I. c. p. 11 90.

3 Hier. Cardanus, De suhtilit. L. XI. T. III. Oper. p. 555.

* Bouguer, Voyage a Perou. Mem. de I'Acad. des Sc, de Paris, 1744, p. 274.
^ In the north are to be found nations of white colour, p. 104, ed. De Laert.
^ On the opposite and icy side of the world are nations of white skin, T. i.
p. Ill, ed. Hard.

108 COLOUE.

flowers^ of plants, like the animals of the northern regions, are
white, though they produce other colours in more southern lati-
tudes ; and partly in the more temperate zones animals only be-
come white in winter, and in spring put on again their own natural
colour. Of the former we have instances in the wolves^, dogs^
hares", cattle", crows^ the chaffinch'', &c., of the latter in the er-
mines ^ the squirrels", hares ^"j the ptarmigan", the Corsican dog^^
All of us are born nearly red, and at last in progress of time the
skin of the Ethiopian infants turns to black", and ours to white,
whereas in the American the primitive red colour remains, except-
ing so far as that by change of climate and the effects of their mode
of life those colours sensibly change, and as it were degenerate.
It is scarce worth while to notice the well-known difference
which occurs in the inhabitants of one and the same country,
whose skin varies wonderfully in colour, according to the kind of
life that they lead. The face of the working man or the artizan,
exposed to the force of the sun and the weather, differs as much
from the cheeks of a delicate female, as the man himself does
from the dark American, and he again from the Ethiopian.
Anatomists not unfrequently fall in with the corpses of the lowest
sort of men, whose reticulum comes much nearer to the black-
ness of the Ethiopians than to the brilliancy of the higher class
of European. Such an European, blacker than an Ethiop, was
dissected by Chr. Gottl. Ludwig^^; a very dark reticulum has
been observed by Giinz^^, and very frequently by many others^*';

1 Comp. Murray, Prodr. Stirjh Goett. p. iS, who instances the Campanula de-
currens, the common prim^rose, &c.

2 Cranz, Grocnl. p. 97. * lb. p. 100. * lb. p. 95.

5 Ehrenmalm, I. c. p. 342, " Tlie further you go towards the north, the more
frequently do animals of that kind occur."

'' Jo. Nich. Pechlin, De habitu et colore uEtliiopuni. Kilon. 1677, 8vo. p. 141.

7 Frisch, Gesch. der Vogcl. Fasc. I.

8 Wagner, Hist. nat. Helv. p. 180. Linn. Faun. Suec. p. 7. I myself have seen
specimens in our own neighbourhood.

8 Linn. I. c. p. 13. I have known too some caught near Jena.
'" lb. p. 10. Jetze, Monogr. Liib, 1749, Svo.

1^ Cranz, ^. c. p. lor. ^^ Linn. Syst. Not. Append.

1^ Albinus, Z. c. p. 12. Comp. Camper, Dem. A nat. Path. i. p. 1.
^* Ep. ad Haller. Script. Vol. i. p. 393. ^^ On Hippoc. De humor, p. 140.

'^ Franc, de Riet, De tact. org. in coll. Haller, T. iv. p. 10, See Haller,
Physiol. T. v. p. iS.

COLOUR OF APES. 109

and I recollect that I myself dissected at Jena a man's corpse of
this kind, whose whole skin was brown, and in some parts, as in
the scrotum, almost black ; for it is well known that some parts
of the human body become more black than others, as, for ex-
ample, the genitals of either sex, the tips of the breasts, and
other parts which easily verge towards a dark colour. Haller ob-
served in the aroin of a woman the reticulum so black ^ that it did
not seem to differ much from that of an Ethiopian; one as dark
in the groin of a man was in the possession of B. S. Albinus; and
it is so common an occuiTeuce in a woman's breast, that I cannot
be enough astonished that eminent men have been found to
reckon the dark teats of the Samoyeds as prodigies^, and there-
fore to consider that nation as a particular species of man*\

Such a diversity of the reticulum is seen in other animals
also, and especially in the face of the Papio 'mandril, a part of
which I have therefore had engraved, (PL il. fig. 3.) There is
a region of the upper part of the eyehds, of the root of the nose,
and of the eye-brows, in which you may observe almost every
variety of reticulum; the nose is plainly black, and also the part
where the eye-brows are inserted ; but that part which is lower
and more on the outside is sensibly brown, and at length
towards the outer corners of the eyes becomes pale. Not indeed
that I have found this blackness of the nose equally intense in
all the specimens of this ape which I have seen, since in apes, as
in man and in other animals, the greatest variety of colour
occurs in the reticulum. In two specimens of the Simia cyno-
molgus the tint of the face was not very different from that of an
Ethiopian or a dark European; and this difference is so well
known and so common throughout the animal kingdom, espe-
cially in the domestic quadrupeds, but above all in the vegetable"*

^ I. c. Abr. Kaav. Boerh. Pei'spir. Hipp. p. 21; so dark in the pudenda, that
you would not believe the skin to be that of an European.

2 Mem. sur les Samojedes et les Lajppons, 1762, 8vo. p. 44.

^ Lord Karnes, I. c.

* Two hundred years ago it was only the yellow tulip which was known
in Eui'ope ; but what a variety of different coloured ones horticulturists are
now acquainted with ! See Haller, on the subject of the varieties of man, Bibl.
raisonnee, 1744.

110 COLOUR.

kingdom, that I can scarcely take notice of it, but prefer to re-
turn at once to man.

We see white men in a lower class rendered brown by a hard
life; and it is equally certain that men of southern regions
become whiter when they are less exposed to the effects of
the weather and the sun. We have the most copious accounts
by travellers of the inhabitants of Guzerat\ of the Malabar
coast ^ of the Caffres^, of the Canadians^, and the Otaheitans^
But besides their mode of life, old age and the change of country
have an influence in making the Ethiopians more white. For
when the Ethiopians begin to approach their seventieth year,
the reticulum sensibly loses its dark colour, so that at last the
bulbs come out yellow", and the hair and beard are grey like
other nations ; and if the young Ethiopian infants are brought
into colder climates, it is certain that they lose a sensible quan-
tity of their blackness'', and their colour begins to verge more
and more towards brown.

On the other hand, it is apparent that when white men re-
side a considerable time in the torrid zones they become brown,
and sensibly verge towards black with much greater facility.

^ J. Schreyer, Ostind. reis. p. 121.

^ Tranquehar Miss. Ber. 22. Contin. p. 896. The more they dwell towards
the north, and the more agreeable the race is, the more their black colour changes
into brown, red, and yellow. The people of Barar are for the most part very
black, and for the whole day long they work and are burnt up in sweat and dust
by the rays of the sun. Tlie better class of people do not go so much into the sun,
and consequently they are not so black, &c. Comp. 30. Contin. p. 660.

3 Miiller. Linn. Syst. Nat. I. p. 95.

* Sir Francis Roberval in Hakluyt, Vol. III. p. 242. "The savages of Canada
are very white, but they are all naked, and if they were apparelled as the French
are they would be white and as fayre. But they paint themselves for feare of heat
and sunne burning." "Those who are painted and who wear clothes, become so
delicate in colour that they would be more readily taken for Spaniards than for
Indians." La Houtan, I. ep. 16.

' Hawkesworth, 11. p. 187.

Willi. J. Miiller, Fetu, p. 279. Mich. Hemmersam, Westind. Reisen, p. 38.

^ The Colchians in the time of Herodotus were still black and had curly hair,
p. 125, ed. Gronov. Leo Afric. P. I. s. 3. L. M. A. a most competent judge, says
in his Insdt. PhysioJog. Patav. 1773, 8vo. p. 194 : "A cobbler of this nation is still
living at Venice, whose blackness after a long lapse of years (for he came a boy to
this country) has so sensibly diminished that he looks as if suffering slightly from
jaundice." And I myself have seen a mulatto woman born from an Ethiopian
father and a white mother near Clotha, who in her very earliest infancy was suffici-
ently dark ; but in progress of time has so degenerated from her native colour, that
she now only retains a sort of cherry or yellow tint of skin.

COLOUR. Ill

The Spaniards who dwell under the equator in the new world
have so much degenerated towards the native colour of the soil,
that it has seemed very probable to eminent men\ that had they
not taken care to preserve their paternal constitution by inter-
marrying with Europeans, but had chosen to follow the same
kind of life as the American nations, in a short time they would
have fallen into almost the same coloration, which we see in the
natives of South America. An Englishman who had spent only
three years with the Virginians, became exactly like them in
colour, and Smithy his countryman, could only recognize him by
his language, A colony of Portuguese, who were carried to
Africa^ in the fifteenth century, can scarcely now be distinguished
from the aborigines. The French, whether they emigrate to
Africa or America, are invariably tinged with the brown colour
of those countries*. I do not adduce here the numerous exam-
ples of Europeans who have become unnaturally black in their
own country ^ or have brought forth black children, nor of
Ethiopians who have been, at all events in some parts of their
bodies, suddenly turned white'', since all these cases seem to in-
clude something diseased or morbid.

As by the climate so also by the mode of life the colours of
the body are seen to be changed. And this appears most clearly
in the unions of people of different tints, in which cases the
most distinct and contrary colours so degenerate, that white men
may sensibly pass and be changed into black, and the contrary.
The hybrid offspring (if we may use that word) are distin-
guished by particvilar names; in using which, however, the
authors of travels vary so much, that it seemed to me worth
while to collect as many of these synonyms as I could, to reduce
them into grades of descending affinity, and exhibit them in
a synoptic form.

1 Mitchell, Philos. Transact, n. 474. ^ Hist. Virgin, p. 116.

3 Rech. sur les Americ. i. p. 186. * Mem. de Trevmix, I.e. p. 1169.

5 Many instances are collected by Le Cat, Coul. de la peau, p. 130.

^ Casl. Rhodig. I. c. p. 776. Froben, Le Cat, p. 109. A black princess was born
to the queen of Louis XIV. Mem. de Trevoux, I. c. p. 1168. Abr. Kaav. Boerh.
impel, foe. p. 354,

^ Le Cat, p. 100. Frank, Philos. Tr. Vol. Li. Part i. p. 176.

112 HYBRIDS.

1. The offspring of a black man and a white woman, or
the reverse, is called Mulatto^, Mollaka^, Melatta; by the
Italians, Bertin, Creole and Criole^; by the inhabitans of Ma-
labar, Mestigo*. The offspring of an American man and an
European woman, Mameluck", and Metif^.

2. The offspring of an European male with a Mulatto
female is called Terceron\ Castigo^. The son of an European
female from a Metif is called a Quarteroon^. The offspring of
two Mulattoes is called Casque'^''; and of blacks and Mulattoes,
Griffs'\

3. A Terceron female and an European produce quaterons ^^
postigos^^. But the American quarteroon (who is of the same
degree as the black Terceron) produces from an European
octavoons^\

4. The offspring of a quateroon male and a white female,
a quinteroon^^; the child of an European woman with an Ame-
rican octavoon is called by the Spaniards PucliueW^.

It is plain therefore that the traces of blackness are pro-
pagated to great-grandchildren ; but they do not keep completely

1 Hist, of Jamaica, ir. p. 260. Aublet, Plantes de la Guiane Frangoise, T. 11.
p. 122, App.

^ Hemmersam, I. c. p. 36.

^ Thomas Hyde on Abr. Perizol. Cosmograph. p. 99, ed. Oxon. 169T, 4to.

* Chi-ist. Langhan's Ostind. Reise. p. 216. Tranquebar Miss. Ber. Cont. 33, p.
919. Mestifo Lusitan. that is, of mixed race.

5 Hid. de VAc. des Sc de Paris, 1724, p. 18.

^ Labat, Voy. aux Isles de VAmer. 11. p. 132. RecJievch. sur les Amer. t. p. 199.
Kewly-born nietifs are distinguished by the colour of the genitals from true blacks,
for it is well known that those parts are black even in the Ethiopian foetus. Phil.
Fermin, Sur V oeconomie animale, Part I. p. 180. This author calls the offspring
of the black male and the Indian female Kahougle, and the offspring of these and
the whites Midattas, p. 179.

"^ Hist, of Jamaica, I. c.

8 Langhan's Tranqu. Ber. I. c. Castigo, de hoa casta, of a good stock.

^ De Pauw, I. c. ^^ Comment. Paris. I. c.

^1 lb. p. 1 7. It is plain that the offspring of a Mesti50 and a Malabar woman
are black. Rdat. Tran.queh. I. c. Those from a Mulatto are called Sambo in Hist,
of Jamaica, I. c. p. 261, and the offspring of these and blacks become blacks again.

1^ Hist, of Jam. I. c. p. 260.

^^ Langhan's Jtel.Trariq. I.e. Postigo means adopted; thns cabello posti(o, false
hair.

1* De Pauw, I. c. p. 200.

15 Hist, of Jam. I. c. The children of Postigos and whites are clearly white.
Tranqu. Ber. I. c. According to the author of the Hist, of Jamaica the children
of a quinteroon and a white man become white.

IS De Pauw, I. c.

SPOTTED SKIN, 11,3

the degi'ees we have just noticed, for twins sometimes are born of
different colours; such as Fermin^ says came from an Ethiopian
woman, of which the male was a mulatto, but the female, like
the mother, an intense black. And from all these cases, this
is clearly proved, which I have been endeavouring by what has
been said to demonstrate, that colour, whatever be its cause, be
it bile, or the influence of the sun, the air, or the climate, is,
at all events, an adventitious and easily changeable thing, and
can never constitute a diversity of species.

A great deal of weight has attached to this opinion in con-
sequence of the well-known examples of those men, whose
reticulum has been conspicuously variegated and spotted with
different colours. Lamothe^ has described very carefully a boy
of this kind from the Antilles. Labat' saw the wife of a
Grifole like this, a native of Cayenne, and in other respects
handsome. Chr. D. Schreber^has collected many examples; and
I myself had lately an opportunity of seeing an instance of this
sort of variegated skin. One of my friends, a physician, has a
reticulum of almost a purple colour, and distinctly marked with
very white spots, of different sizes, but equal in other respects,
and similar to the most shining skin. And on the back of his
right hand there were five white spots of the same kind, of which
each was almost equal to a thumb's breadth in diameter, inter-
spersed with numerous smaller ones. This phenomenon very
seldom occurs in men; but is very common in animals, espe-
cially in the reticulum of quadrupeds. The throats of rams, for
example, are frequently so variegated, that you may observe in
them the greatest similarity, both to the black skin of the
Ethiop and the white skin of the European. I have examined
many flocks of sheep in their pastures with this object, and
I think T have observed, that the greater or smaller number of
black spots in the jaws answer to the greater or smaller quan-
tity of black wool on the animals themselves.

1 I. c. p. 1/8. ^ Ilamb. Mag. xix. p. 400.

3 Voy. en Esp. et en Ital. i. p. \)6.

* Saeugthiere, p. 15. I shall speak below about the spotting of the skia from
disease, which must be clearly distinguished from the instances in the text.

114 SKULLS.

I will say no more of colour ; and now, having disposed of all
the general varieties of the whole human body, I will go on to
the diversity of the separate parts and members; and will make
a beg'inninof with the head and its conformation. In the same
way that it is always the case that there is the greatest possible
difference between the skeleton of the embryo and the adult,
so above all, the bones of the skull differ to such an extent
in both, that you would scarcely recognize them as parts of the
same body. For the bones which, in the adult, constitute a
very solid case, and the hardest possible receptacle of what
is at once the softest and noblest entrail, in the embryo appear
only as thin but broad scales, " which," to use the words of
Coiter\ "are just fastened together by soft, broad, loose and
flaccid bonds, sutures and commissures." Now the skull of the
infant is wet and soft clay, and fit to be moulded into many
forms before it is perfectly solidified, so that if you consider the
innumerable and simultaneous external and adventitious causes
in operation, you will no longer be able to wonder that the
forms of skulls in adults should be different. But since for
a considerable period of time singular shapes of the head have
belonged to particular nations, and peculiar skulls have been
shaped out, in some of them certainly by artificial means, it
will be our business to look at these things a little more care-
fully, and to consider how far they constitute different varieties
of the human race. For, although I only intend to reckon
up in a passing way those differences of the human body which
are due to art alone, still I intend to treat now a little more at
length upon that part of the argument which has to do with
skulls, since things very nearly allied may be conveniently
embraced and handled at the same time. Claudius Galen ^, be-
sides the common and symmetrical skull ^, had already described
other skulls, which in some of their parts manifestly differed

^ De feet. hum. et inf. oss. p. 59.

- De usii iKirt. 1. ix. p. m. 544 and De oss. v. i. Ph. Ingrassise in h. 1. Comm.
Panormi, 1603, fol- P- 68, fig. 14.

^ See the dimensions and definitions of these in Alb. Diirer, ron menschl. pro-
port. Fol. P. and Q. ed. 1528. Elsholz. I. c. p. f 5. Petr. Lauremberg, Pasicompse,
p. 62, ed. 1634.

SKULLS. 115

from the common structure; and Andrew Vesalius^ and Barth.
Eustachius^ endeavoured to draw figures of them. But the forms
of these skulls seem to be so arbitrary and so monstrous, that
they are of little or no use to us at present, and seem rather
to belong to some morbid constitutions of the bones than to
any natural varieties of heads. Let us follow nature herself,
and we shall reckon up the various shapes of the head in the
various nations, according to the four varieties of mankind
which we constituted.

To begin with Germany itself, Vesalius^ says that its inhabit-
ants are generally remarkable for having the occiput compressed
and the head wide ; and gives as a reason that infants in their
cradles generally sleep on their backs, and besides being wrapped
in swaddling-clothes, generally have their hands tied to their
sides. This author also saw in the cemeteries of Stjaia and
Carinthia wonderfully different skulls, which from their extraor-
dinary shape seemed to be sports of nature*. Lauremberg^ says
the female inhabitants of Hamburg of his day were long-
headed, because they by ligaments and a foolish practice were
accustomed to elongate the head from the birth. The Belgians
are said to have their skulls more oblong" than other nations,
because the mothers permit their infants to sleep wrapped up in
swaddling-clothes very much on the side and the temples'; but
however the description of a Batavian skull by De Fischer does
not answer to this, who praises in it the bones of the skull for
being but little depressed around the sides, and making there
almost an equal arch. Albinus" declares that the skulls of the

1 De Corp. hum. fair. p. 21, ed. 1555.

" Tab. XLvi. f. 10, 15, 17, a little less monstrous than the figures of Vesalius
and Ingi-assias. The worst of all are in Matth. Meriani, Viv. ic. 2>o.rt. corp. hum.
inC. Bauhin, Th. Anat. L. iii. T. i. Comp. Bertini, Osteolog. at the end of Part 11.

^ I. c. p. 23, and in Put. Apol. exam. (Gabr. Cuneus), p. 838, Operum. Insfeldt
says the shape of the German skull is half-way between the oblong of the Belgians
and the round skull of the Tui'ks. De lus. not. L. B. 1772, p. 20.

* Ohserv. Fallop. exam. p. 768, ed. B. S. Albini.

^ /. c. p. 63. 6 Insfeldt, I. c. "^ Vesalius, I. c.

^ J. B. de Fischer, De moclo quo ossa se vicinis accommodant partibus. L. B. 1743,
4to. Tab. III. A reversed copy is given by J. Gasp. Lavater, Physiognom. Fraym.
Vol. II. p. 159, Tab. B. fig. I.

^ Ind. leg. Rav. p. 2.

116 HIPPOCRATES.

English, the Spanish, and French, are without any peculiarity of
structure at all; and he is in most respects a very accurate
observer of varieties of that kind. Christopher Pflug informed
Vesalius that the skulls of the inhabitants of the Styrian Alps
were of a singular shape. The same Yesalius is of opinion that
the heads of the Genoese, and still more of the Greeks and the
Turks, are nearly of the shape of a sphere, and that it is done
through the care of the midwives when they bring their assist-
ance, and sometimes through the great solicitude of the mothers \
There is a passage in Hijjpocrates^ about the skulls of the
Scythians, which is most worthy of notice. He says that after
they had apj^lied artificial means for a very long period in
shaping their heads, at last a kind of natural degeneration had
taken place, so that in his day there was no more necessity for
manual pressure to arrive at the end in view, but that the skulls
gi'ew up to be elongated of their own accord. And this kind of
thing should be examined in other varieties of mankind, espe-
cially as to form and colour, and their various causes, climate,
&c., which in the progress of time become hereditary and con-
stant, although they may have owed their first origin to adven-
titious causes. The nations towards our north have generally
flatter faces l Eber. Rosen is, so far as I know, the only writer
who says that the Lapps of Lulah can, for the most part by the
face being broad above*, attenuated below, with the cheeks
falling in, and terminated in a long chin, be distinguished from
the other Scandinavians ^ J. B. de Fischer has published a
drawing of a Calmuck's skull, and it is ugly, and nearly ap-

1 I. c. But I do not see how Winkelmann {Gesch. der Kunst des Alterth. T. i.
p. -24) can use this passage of Vesalius to prove the influence of a more favourable
climate and sky, when the Brussels anatomist attributes it to art alone. Moreover
those skulls of the Turks which are preserved in the Royal Museum are much less
oval, and of much less elegant shaf)e than the common heads of our countrymen ;
and therefore a man so learned iu his art ought to have said less about their
beauty.

^ De aer. aqu. et loc. 35.

^ Goldsmith, I. c. p. 214.

^ The jaws of the skull of a Malabar woman are also narrow. Leg. Rav. p. 3.

s De Medic. Lappon. Lulens. Lond. Goth. 175 r. Engraved in Hall. Coll. disp>.
fract. IV.

^ I, c, p. 24, Tab. r. lusfeldt, I. c. also calls the head of the Caimuck square.

SKULLS. 117

proaches a square in shape, and in many ways testifies to barba-
rism. Bnt tliis single example shows how unfair it is to draw
conclusions as to the conformation of a whole race from one or
two specimens. For Pallas^ describes the Calmucks as men of a
symmetrical, beautiful, and even round appearance, so that he
says their girls would find admirers in cultivated Europe. Nor
do the said skulls answer to the two very accurate representa-
tions of that Calmuck, a boy of eleven years old, who lately
came from Russia with the court of Darmstadt, drawings of
whom I received from Carlsruhe. They represent a young man
of handsome shape, lofty forehead and eye-brows; and whose
face agrees in this respect with the description of Pallas, and
diverges from the skull in question, that the mouth makes nearly
an equilateral triangle with the eyes furthest from it, which brings
out the head round instead of square. Passing from the most
north-easterly part of Asia by the Anadirski Archipelago into
North America, we come to the tribes whose name is derived
from the singular form of their heads ^ Either I am very much
mistaken, or it is a skull of this sort which has been described
by Winslow^ and engraved by him. With its very protracted
occiput, its somewhat flat forehead, the shape of the orbits, and
other aberrations of that sort from the common structure, it seems
to present some similarity to the skull of a dog. We know at
present too little of the history of that country and its inhabit-
ants to be able to add the cause of that singular conformation :
but whatever it be, it seems that it must rather be in the mode
of life, since the same peculiarity is observed sometimes in the
skulls of Europeans. I myself have in my possession a skull,
very ancient, dug out last summer from the city cemetery, which
is as like that American in the points I have mentioned ^ and in
every thing else, as one egg is to another.

1 Rcis. I. pp. 307, 311.

2 Tetcs-plates, or j>l'^^-s cotes de chiens. De Vaugondy, I. c. p. 27, lat. 65, long.
275. Engel, Tab. Am. Boreal.

3 Mem. de VAc. des Sc. de Paris, 1722, p. 323, Tab. 16. It is said to have
been found in Hond-Eyland, lat. 78, long. 310".

^ It measures six Paris inches and more from the apex of the nasal bone to the
extreme bulging part of the occipital bone ; but only four in diameter from tho

118 ESQUIMAUX.

Finally, as to the inhabitants of Greenland, and of Labrador,
the former we are told by Cranz\ and the latter by Henry Ellis^
are long-headed and have flat faces. But I am afraid that the
accounts of these most trustworthy men have been badly under-
stood by many, who have thence come to the conclusion that
these nations are badly formed and almost monstrous in shape ^
Cranz himself says that a gi'eat many Greenlanders are to be
found with faces so oblong that it is difficult to distinguish them
from Europeans'*; but as to the Esquimaux, I am led to a contrary
opinion by some very accurate drawings of three inhabitants of
Labrador, which have lately come into my possession, and are
painted in colours with great care by that excellent artist J.
Swertner, from copies sent by the Hernnhut Brothers, who have
an establishment there. One is a male; and the two females,
according to the custom of their nation, are clad with immense
greaves, nearly reaching to their hips, and one of them carries a
child in her right sandaP; all however are of a reasonably sym-
metrical and well-proportioned form. The face of the male is
rather flat, and the nose but little prominent, though by no
means turned up, the body square, and the head large, so as to
be equal to the sixth part of his whole height; but the women
are taller, and are seven of their own heads in length"; and if
you except their colour'', which verges towards brown, are in
other respects of good appearance.

Let us turn to Asia, and look at our second variety, which
dwells beyond the Ganges, and on the Islands, &c. The first

condyloid apophyses of the foramen magnum to the top of the head: the foramen
magnum is placed rather towards the front, and so the occiput is longer, and the
bones of the head descend in a more acute angle towards the base of the skull than
in Winslow's example ; and so in that it resembles the skull of Cowper's skeleton.
Myot. reform, fig. xviii.

^ Hist, of Greenl. p. 179.

^ Voy. to Hudson'' s l^ay, p. 132.

^ Henr. Home, /. c. Buffon, T. ITT. p. 485.

* This is confirmed by the pictures of the Greenlanders made after the life by
Adam Olearius, Gottorf. Kunsik. Tab. III. F. i 3.

5 Cranz, Fortsetz. p. 310. Elhs, p. 136.

" They are placed by Alb. Diirer io his tables between Al and Br.

'' Which is caused by their mode of life. Cranz, Fortsetz. I. c. Comp. with
Hist. p. 178.

SECOND VAKiETY'. 119

thing we see are the Aracani on the Ganges, who flatten the
foreheads of the newly-born with sheets of lead.

After these, going up to the Amur (Sahalien ula), the
northern termination of this variety, come the Chinese, who,
unless I am wrong, are less content than any other of the inha-
bitants of this world, with the natural conformation of their
body, and therefore use so many artificial means to distort it,
and squeeze it, that they differ from almost all other men in
most parts of their bodies. Their heads are usually oval, their
faces flat, their eyes narrow, drawn up towards the external
corners, their noses small, and all their other peculiarities of
this kind are well known from the numerous pictures of them,
and from their china and pottery figures. Those Chinese
whom Biittner saw at London were exactly of this kind, and so
also was the great botanist Whang-at-tong (the yellow man of
the East), whose acquaintance was made there by Lichtenberg.
But these artificial ways of moulding the head seem to have
more to do with the soft parts of the face than the bony struc-
ture, for Daubenton^ reckons up many skulls of the Chinese and
Tartars, and declares that they differ in no way from the ordi-
nary skulls of Europeans. The other nations of this variety
looked at as a whole answer to those characters which I laid
down above as belonging to them.

The New Hollanders make such a transition to the third
variety, that we perceive a sensible progress in going from the
New Zealanders through the Otaheitans to the fourth. The
inhabitants of the Island Mallicolo", whom I was just speaking
of, differ from their neighbours by the strange form of head, in
which late travellers assure us they approach nearest to the
figure of apes^ I do not see anything remarkable in the skulls

1 Bescr. du Cab. dw roi, Vol. xiv. n. M.ccc.xxxix.

^ It is situated with Tanna and New Caledonia in 15" S. L., and is nearly as
many degrees from the east coast of New Holland.

3 I hope it will be agreeable to my readers if I append a short description of
these rnen, taken from the account of the younger Forster, and communicated to
me by Lichtenberg. '"Contrary to all expectation, we found the inhabitants dif-
fering in everything from all the other people we had hitherto seen in the Southern
Ocean. They were of small stature, rarely exceeding 5 ft. 4 in. Their limbs were
slender, and ill-shaped; their colour blackish-brown, which was made more intense

120 THIRD VAUIETY.

of the remaining inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean ; and so we will
go on to the third variety of mankind, that is, the African
nations, about whom we may be brief, since what there is to be
said about their skulls is of small importance. Those skulls of
mummies which I have seen are of round and spherical, but still
of elegant and S3aiimetrical form. n

The head of an Ethiop from the southern part of Africa has M

been carefully described by J. Beni de Fischer, as I quoted

above \ Broader in the upper region, suddenly narrowed, sharp-
ened from the front towards the middle of the frontal bone and
over the eyes, and widely stretched out below these, and very
globular behind, he says that in its whole periphery it comes to
be nearly of a triangular shape. And yet this description is
scarcely satisfactory when I compare it with the Ethiopians that
I have seen myself and carefully examined, or with that skull of
Peter Pauw^; for this latter, if yeu except the large occiput and
the narrow orbits, has very little resemblance to the description
and very accurate engraving of Fischer.

There remains the fourth variety of the human race belong-
ing to America^, except that part we have just been speaking of.
The same thing may be said of the inhabitants of this quarter,
which I have just observed about the Chinese, that they take
great pains, and employ artificial means, to distort the natural
form of their bodies into some other. This is especially the case
with the head; and the most numerous evidences of the wonder-
ful ways in which they compress it are to be found in the stories
of travellers ; but still we are deficient in any accurate examina-

in the face, and the greater part of the body, by a black pigment. Their head was
singularly formed, for it receded more from the root of the nose than other men's,
and presented such a resemblance to that of the ape, that with one accord we all
expressed our astonishment at it. Their noses and lips did not seem more mis-
shapen than those of other nations of the Southern Ocean. The hair of their head
was black, curly, aud woolly; their beard thick and long, and less like wool.
They gird the abdomen with a rope so tightly, that it seems nearly divided into
two parts. So far as we saw they had no other covering, except in one place: but
this had so little the effect of concealing what other nations try to hide, that it
made it only still more conspicuous."

^ I. c. Tab. III. pp. 24, 26. Is it the same in Legat. liav. n. 5III. Insfeldt I. c.
The head of the Ethiopians ajiproaches the triangular shape.

^ Primit. Anat. p. 29. . ^ Recherch. philos. sur ks Amc7\ i. p. 146.

rOUI^TH VAIUETY. 121

tions of skulls of this kind, nor is it sufficiently clear in what
parts of the head the greatest change takes place. J. Cardan^
said that the heads of the inhabitants of the old Portus Provin-
cioe were square, and deficient in the occiput. Hunauld" has
exhibited the skull of a Carib, but it has been either so care-
lessly engraved, or is so naisshapen, that I should prefer to con-
sider it as a monstrosity, than to believe such to be the osseous
conformation of a whole nation. The enormous bones of the
nose, the little holes which give an exit to the nerves and
arteries of the same size as the external auditory canal, the
angular and large-lobed zygoma, the upper jaw deeply incised
for the matrices of the teeth, and other things of this sort, excite
a suspicion that this drawing was done in a hurry^. Finally, as
to North America, Charlevoix describes the heads of one of the
Canadian nations as globular, and the other as flat'*.

So much then about the shape of skulls. From what has
been said I trust that it is more than sufficiently clear, that
almost all the diversity of the form of the head in different
nations is to be attributed to the mode of life and to art:
although I should very willingly admit the position of Hippocra-
tes, that with the progress of time art may degenerate into a
second nature, since it has a very considerable influence in all
the other variations of mankind.

The physiognomy and the peculiar lineaments of the whole
countenance in different nations opens up a very vast and agree-
able field. In many they are sufficiently settled, and are such
faithful exponents of the climate and the mode of life, that even
after many generations spent in a foreign climate they can still
be recognized. But, besides other reasons, the want of suffi-
ciently faithful and accurately delineated pictures forbids me to
wander in that direction. I took a great deal of pains to com-
pare pictures drawn from the life of more remote and, at pre-
sent, little known nations; but I have been able to obtain very

1 De rer. varlet. 1. viii. c. XLiii. p. 162. T. in. Opcr. Cap. Maragnon, Brasil.

'! Mem. de VAc. des Sc. de Paris, 1740. p. 373. Tab. 16. %. i.

3 Hist, de la nouvelle France, III. pp. 187, 324. Algonquiiis. Tetes de Boule.

** lb. p. 323. Flat heads: each a work of .art.

122 PHYSIOGNOMY.

few; and there are not many authors of travels whose pictures,
so far as regards the likenesses of nations, can be trusted. If
you except the vast work of the brothers De Bry, the first
editions of the travels of Cornelius Le Brun, the Tartary of Nic.
Witsen, the diary of Sydney Parkinson, and the voyages of Cook
himself, and except some genuine representations scattered about
here and there in various books, especially in the work of
S. R. Lavater on physiognomy, there are many nations of whom
you can find no trustworthy pictures.

Meanwhile, it will be enough to bring forward a few ex-
amples, of which the Jewish race presents the most notorious
and least deceptive, which can easily be recognized everywhere
by their eyes alone, which breathe of the East. The Vallones,
though they have lived among the Swedes for many years, still
preserve the lineaments of the face, which are peculiar to them,
and by which they can be distinguished at the first glance from
the aborigines \ The clear and open countenance of the Swiss,
the cheerful one of the young Savoyards, the manly and serious
Turks", the simple and guileless look of the nations of the
extreme north ^, can easily be distinguished, even by those least
skilled in physiognomy.

The matter is a little more difficult in some nations of the
south, especially in the west of Europe, who, it has been ob-
served by some eminent men, from some reason or other, are
cheerful and sanguine in youth, but, as manhood advances, be-
come more morose, and inclined to be of a melancholy tem-
perament^. In our other varieties the lineaments of the face
are very much more persistent. To say nothing of the Chinese,
who I have mentioned make their heads so much out of shape
that it would be hazardous to say how much in them is to

1 Clas Alstromer Om den fin-ulliga fdr-aveln. Stock. 1770. 8vo. p. 76.

2 Russel, Aleppo. Niebuhr, Reis. &c.

^ Samojed. Le Brun, Voy. Amst. 1718. f. n. 7, 8, and p. 9. The Tartars of
Siberia, i6. p. 104. The Ostiaks, p. 112. The Greenlandera in Olear. I.e. The
Esquimaux in our pictures approach very much to the Samojed. Le Brun, n. 7
and 8.

* Boerhaave, Prcel. inpropr. inist. s. 879. "The Italians, Portufruese, and Spanish
are vivacious and playful up to the eighteenth year : after the thirtieth year they
all become sad, morose, melancholy, and subject to haemorrhages."

AFRICANS. 123

be referred to nature and how much to art, the inhabitants of
the Pacific Ocean retain evident examples of persistent physio-
gnomy. Every one, for instance, will recognize the fierce and
savage countenance of the New-Hollanders and New-Zealanders
by looking at the magnificent plates of Parkinson ^ whereas the
Otaheitans, on the contrary, looked at as a whole, seem to be
of a milder disposition, as also the many pictures^ of them by
the same well-known author testify^.

Although almost all the nations of Africa are sufficiently dis-
tinguished by persistent and peculiar lineaments of face, still the
ancient Egyptians, and the inhabitants of the south of Africa,
differ very much by their singular physiognomy from the rest,
both of the Africans and of mankind. All the monuments of the
old art of the ancient Egyptians, from the statue of Memnon down
to the pottery seals which are found with the mummies, show
likenesses very similar, and all closely resembling each other.
The face is somewhat long, but by no means emaciated, the nose
prominent, broad towards the nostrils, and ending in a sharpish
lobe, and finally the mouth small, girdled with swelling lips, all of
which are most positive and unmistakeable signs of the Egyp-
tian head. The appearance of the Ethiopians is so well known
that it would be superfluous to say much on that point. Their
depressed nose, which has been attributed by some to art*, most
recent authors, and those eye-witnesses, have shown to be due
to nature^, and the two Ethiopian foetuses preserved in the
Eioyal Museum are exactly like the figures of Ruyscli and
Seba', and answer to this description. For although the nose
in almost all human embryos is depressed, still the Ethiopians

1 PI. XVII. XXIII. XXVIII. &C. ^ PI. VIII,

3 When their faces are seen in profile, they are very distinct from the smooth
and equable countenance of the Chinese, through their distinctly prominent nose,
lips, and chin, &c. This was often observed in the men of both nations by Lich-
tenberg, who knew the Chinese I was speaking of and the Otaheitan 0-mai (which
is commonly, but wrongly made a trisyllable 0-mai-a) at London, and has often
wondered at the diversity of their faces,

^ Hemmersam, p. 37. ^ Miiller, Fetu, p. 31.

^ 2'hes. Anat. ill. t. 2. The forehead is more narrow than in any other foetus,
as is shewn by one of the specimens iu the Koyal Museum.

7 Thes. T. I. Tab. cxi. f. 2.

124 HAIK.

of whom we are speaking have their noses, or interstices (to
use the expression of Isidore) so expanded, that even setting
aside the swelHng hps, any one could tell the nation from them
alone.

A few variations of the human body remain besides those
which I think should be attributed to art alone, and which
have to do with the peculiar formation of members and parts.
The hair varies very much amongst most men, both in colour
and form, but in some nations is of a constant character. And
as it is said to be universal that white colours obtain more in
the north, and brown in the south, so black hair and black eyes
seem to be usual in the torrid zones, and light hair with blue
eyes in the colder regions'. But, beyond all, the hair of the
Ethiopians is consj)icuous for its intense black and its singular
woolliness, which however is no more congenital with them than
the colour of their skin, but both have been contracted, as
we have seen, by the progress of time and the heat of the sun^
For the Ethiopian foetus, 1 mentioned, is covered with light
brown straight hairs, which scarcely differ from the down of the
European embryo; so that it is probable that the tint of the
skin and the hair are changed sensibly at the same time. I
have already observed that the Ethiopians get paler in old age,
and that their hair also grows wdiite; and it is a well-known
thing, that in other men, in proportion as their skin is brown,
so are the genitals covered with curly hair. We are also told
in his last work, by D. Antonius de Ulloa^ that the Ethiopians
of Darien have hair, though black, still straight. Others too
have declared, and I myself have often observed, that the struc-
ture of the Ethiopian hair is the same as that of other men,
and the bulb of it as white.

Many authors tell us that the feet of the Ethiopians are
badly formed, in more than one way. The author of the

^ Avicenna, Canon. L. I. Fen. I. V. Haller, Elem. Physiol. T. v. p. 36.
" Csel. Rhodigin. I. c. p. 440, ed. Aid. For diiedup hair is turned black and
bent.

** Noikias Americanas. Madrid, 172-2. 4to. Enlretenim. xvii. p. 305.

SPLAY FEET. 125

Moretum (said to be Virgil) reckons up their many defects as
follows^:

With legs f30 tliln, and feet so widely splayed,
The wrinkled heels perpetual slits betrayed.

And Hier. Mercurialis agrees with him, for he saj^s that these
sHts in the feet are endemic to the Ethiopians I Another
passage worthy of notice is to be found in Petronius^ which, as
Heyne* tells us, refers to the Ethiopian slaves, like those we
call negroes. Csel. Rhodiginus^ says that the Egyptians and
Ethiopians have splay feet, &c., which, however, do not seem
to be by any means common to entire nations; for Albert
Durer, after speaking of these deformities in the feet of the
Ethiopians, adds that he has seen many well and symmetri-
cally formed; nor was I able to observe anything of this kind
in the Ethiopians I have seen myself

That the breasts of the Ethiopian'' and other ^ southern
women are pendulous and contracted, from their mode of life
and habits of lactation, wants scarcely any testimony adduced.
To those mutations of the human body which are occasioned
by the mode of life, we may also add those which owe their
oriofin to the difference of languag^es, and which are sometimes
to be found in the very organs of speech. To attribute this
difference, with J. Senebier^, to the influence of heat or cold,
is forbidden by a slight comparison of neighbouring languages.
Who could possibly attribute to the climate the fact that the
Ephraimites said Sibolet instead of Schibolet; that the Chinese
cannot pronounce the letters R and D; or the Spaniards the final
M, or the inhabitants of the Marquesas and the Greenlanders
of Kamtschadale Tsch and ks. But the prodigious labours of

1 V. 35. * De decorat. p. 103.

^ c. \oi. "Can we fill our lips with an ugly swelling? can we crisp our hair
with an iron? and mark our forel ead with scars? and distend our shanks into a
curve? and draw our heels down to the earth? and change our beard into a foreign
fashion? "

* Ad Moreti, I.e. ^ I. c. d. Aid.

^ I.e. Fol. T. III. '' Fermin, CEcon. An'im. p. 117.

8 Hottentots. Kolben, Vorgeb. de g. H. p. 474. The inhabitants of Horn
Island in Le ISIaire, and Schouten in Dalrynple's Collect. T. II. p. 58.

L'Art d'observer. Genev. 1775, 8vo. T. n. p. 227.

126 MUTILATIONS.

Biittner on this point forbid me to be more prolix on the matter,
for he has collected with incredible labour all that relates to
the subject, and will very soon give it to the press.

I pass on to those things which, besides the shape of the
head, are apt to be changed by the aid of art in the other parts
of the body amongst various nations. And first of all I mean to
speak of mutilations, where members and parts of the body are
cut or torn out, &c. The Scriptures, and the stories of Hero-
dotus ' about the Colchians, the Egyptians and the Ethioisians,
and the wide extent of the practice ^ all prove that circumcision
is exceedingly ancient. Nor is it confined entirely to the
stronger sex, for amongst many oriental people it is applied to
the weaker sex, and that part of their pudenda which answers^
to the prepuce of the virile member is cut o&; of which cere-
mony copious testimony both from ancient and modern writers
has been collected by Mart. Schurigius* and Theod. Tronchin^
It will be enough for us at present to give our readers a draw-
ing (PL II. fig. 4) of the genitals of a circumcised girl of
eighteen years old, which I owe to the kindness of Niebuhr,
who has also allowed me to give it to the public. When that
famous company went to travel in Asia, one of the questions
proposed to them was about this circumcision of both sexes ^;
and this illustrious man^, who was the sole survivor of the ex-
j)edition, settled this, as well as almost all the others; so much
so as to bring back this drawing I am speaking of, which the
great artist, G. W. Baurenfeind, had taken from the life. In it
you can see the body itself of the clitoris, bare and deprived of
its prepuce, hanging from the upper commissure of the labia,

^ pp. 102. 125. ed. Gron.

* Tlie negroes of Angola. Hughes, Barlad. p. 14. The Otaheitans. Eeinh.
Forster, I. c. p. 269.

^ So also P. Bellon, Ohs. 1. ill. c. 28; although he adds obscurely, that the part
which is in Greek called hymenea is in Latin alae. Thevenot says they do not
spare even these alcB or wings. Voy. 1. 11. c. 74. However the Greek words for
tliese parts are often confounded: see their genuine explanations in H. Stephani
Diction. Med. pp. 536, and 599, and Joach. Camerarius, Comment, utriusq. lingucp,

P- 359-

4 Muliebr. pp. 116, I42. Parthenol. p. 379.

^ Diss, de Clitoride, p. m. 75.

^ Michaelis, Fragm. p. 155. " Beschr. v. Arab. p. 77.

MUTILATIONS. 127

under the pubis, which is abraded, and below it lie the orifices
of the iirethra, and the vagina: if perchance some may think
these things are not particularly well done, they must excuse
the haste of the draughtsman \

Eunuchs have not so much to do with the matter in hand, as
-monorchides, one of whose testicles is extracted during infancy.
First, this custom prevails amongst the Hottentots, who gene-
rally in the eighth, and sometimes, if we can trust Kolben'"*, in
the eighteenth year, are made monorchides. They suppose it
makes them run quicker; but travellers remark that at the
same time it affects their fertility^ The Swiss peasants not
unfrequently undergo the like loss of a testicle, that being the
way in which the neighbours used to cure ruptures*.

To mutilations I refer the custom of eradicating the hair in
different parts of the body practised by some nations. Thus
the Burats keep only the hair below the chin, and pluck out
the rest^: the Turks destroy^ by various unguents the hair in
every part of the body except on the head and the beard : the
Otaheitans eradicate'' the hairs under the armpit; and almost
all the people of America extirpate the beard, which gave rise
to the old idea^ that the Americans were naturally beardless.
But this story scarcely needs refutation. Lionel Wafer^ ex-
pressly says about the inhabitants of Darien, that they would
have beards if they did not pluck them out : and there is still
a little beard in our picture of the male Esquimaux, though
the rest of his face is smooth^", I say nothing of the artificial
sharpening of the teeth " amongst others, and other mutilations

'' Beschr. v. Arab. p. 80. Baurenfeind designed it after nature, but with an
unsteady hand.

2 p. 147. 3 j_ Schreyer, p. 34.

* See Haller, adv. BuiF. Operum min. T. nr. p. 183.

^ Le Brun, Voij. p. 1 20. Meinoire sur hs Saniojedes, p. 39.

^ Leonh. Eauwolf, Eaiss. p. 31. BufF. T. in. p. 438.

" Hawkes worth, T. Ii. p. 188.

^ Eepeated lately in Rccherch. sur les Americains, T. I. p. 37. Quest, sur VEn-
cycl. T. VII. p. 98.

" Isthm. of Africa, p. 106.

1" The bearded race of the Esquimaux. Charlevoix, ill. p. 179. A bearded
inhabitant of Tierra del Fuego. Parkinson, Vol. I. Thus from all parts of America.

^^ Ethiopians. Hemmersam, p. J7.

128 DISFIGUREMENTS.

of equally little importance. First of all, I refer to deformities
those enormous and pendulous ears, which from a very long
time have been so much in favour among many nations, so as
to give a foundation to the old story about the Scythian popu-
lations in Pontus, that they have such large ears that they can
cover their whole bodies with themS We have certain in-
formation about the inhabitants of Malabar, of C Comorin^,
Benares, the Moluccas', and Mallicolo*, that they use various
artifices to make their ears as large as possible, and truly mon-
strous. The picture of a man of the south in Corn. Le Brun
represents them as disfigured in a wonderful way'. We are
told by some English travellers in southern countries how the
New Zealanders studiously prolong the prepuce of the penis.
The immense nails of the Chinese^ are well known. The
custom of making women thin by a particular diet is very
ancient, and has prevailed amongst the most refined nations^,
so politeness and respect forbid us to class it, with Linnaeus^
amongst deformities. Though the use of pigments and dif-
ferent kinds of paint does not change the shapes of the mem-
bers themselves, yet it is so constant in some nations, that
it would clearly be wrong to leave it untouched. Some merely
smear their skin with pigments, whilst others first of all prick
it with a needle, and then rub the colours in, which in this
way adhere most tenaciously. Both customs have prevailed
amongst the most remote and different nations. The Kana-
gystse'^ the Californiaus", the Turks'^, the inhabitants of the
island of Santa Croce", and Mallicolo, of New Holland'*, and

1 Plin. IV. 13, Yii. 2. Pompon. Mela, 1. III. dc Ilisp. et Sept. insults.
^ Schreyer, p. 1 1 7.

^ Maximil. Tiansylv. in Zahn, 5;3ec. T. III. p. 6g.
* They perforate them with reeds. ^ n. 197.

^ Hawkesworth, Vol. in. p. 50. ^ Ol. Toree, p. 69.

^ Chserea in Terence, Eunuch, il. 3. 21.
9 Syst. Nat. xii. i. p. 29.

1" In the Kad-jak islands of the Olutorian archipelago. Stathlin, I. c. p. 32.
^^ Begert, p. 109.

^^ Rauwolf, Russel, Niebuhr, in either work.

^' Intensely black. Alvaro Mendana de Neyra in Dalrymple, Vol. i. p. 7S.
^^ Parkinson, PI. XXVII. The abdomen and the legs distinguished hj white
bands.

WILD MEN. 129

Cape Verde \ paint themselves ^ We know that the Tungus^
the Tschuktschi*, the Arabians^ the Esquimaux, the New-Zea-
landers^, the Otaheitans, and many nations over all America^
draw designs in the skin with a needle, or what we call tattoo
themselves.

And this is pretty well all that I have to tell about the
variations of the human body and its members, whether oc-
casioned by climate, or mode of life, or diverse unions, or finally,
by artificial means. Any one will easily see that our discussion
has been about the varieties of whole nations, and that we have
nothing to do with those peculiarities which happen acciden-
tally to one or two individuals; and therefore I am quite justi-
fied in making no mention here of those unfortunate children,
who have been now and then found amongst wild beasts ; and
all the more because everything which is known of those in-
stances has been dihgently collected and dealt with in a regular
way by the industry of some famous men^". Their more im-
portant, and more noble part, that is reason, remains unculti-
vated; but hard necessity has so perverted their human nature,
that I should be inclined to refer these anthropomorphous
creatures, who are so like beasts, to the homines monstrosi of
Linn^us.

^ In blue. Groben, p. ig.

2 On the ancient Picts, see Martini on Buff. AUg. Nat. GescTi. vr. p. -258.

3 La Russie ouverte, Petersb. 1774, fol. Fasc. i. Tab. V. Coloured plates. Le
Brun, p. 118. J. G. Gmelin, Reis. i. p. 77, 11. p. 647.

^ Kraschemnikof, Kamtschatka, Part 11. p. 152,

' Niebuhr, Reis. I. Tab. Lix. An Arabian woman of Tehama.

The women in my plate are depicted with a double row of punctures on the
frontal arch, and a single one under the lower lip.

7 Parkinson, PI. xvi. xxi. xxiii. 8 iij_ pi_ -^^^

^ At lengtiL, John de Laet. adv. Hug. Grot, de Oi-ig. Gent. Americ. Amst. 1643,
8vo. p. 204. Canadians in Mus. Kirch, ed. BattaiTie. Rom. 1773, fol. Part r.
Tab. I. II. col. plates. In Tierra del Fuego, Parkins. PL i. Instances of ancient
tribes are collected by Ph. Cluver, German, antiquce, p. 129.

" For ancient instances see JElian. v. h. L xii. c. 42. Alex, ab Alex. Genial,
dier. 1. 11. c. 31. Herodot. I. i. has doubts about Cyrua. Livy, 1. i. c. 4, about
Eomulus and Eernu^. Pliny defends the story, viiL 15, xv. 18, and Plutarch
Romul. c. II. On the child of Gargoris by his daughter see Justin. 1. XLIV. c 4.

Among recent authors see for a well-written collection of histories, Henr. Conr.
Koenig, Sched. de horn, inter feras educat. statu not. solitario, Hanover, 1730, 4to.
Ph. Henr. Boeder, de Statu Anvmar. Hom.fer. Argent. 1756, 4to. Linn. Anthrcjmm.
T, VI. Amcenit. ac.p. 6$, and Sys. Nat. I. c. p. 28, at length Martini, I. c. p. 263,

130 ALBINISM.

The diseases to which the human body is subject would
appear to be much less to our purpose than even the wild state
of these children ; and yet I am unwillingly compelled to in-
trude here upon pathology, because of the recent mistakes of
some famous men, who have not hesitated to consider the af-
flicted persons about whom I am going to speak, not only as a
peculiar species of the human race, but even as the same with
the apes. There is a disorder affecting both the skin and the
eyes at the same time\ which sometimes occurs amongst men
of the most different nations, and amongst some kinds of quad-
rupeds, and birds. As we saw above that the whiteness of
organized bodies was due to cold, so now we have to consider
another kind of diseased whiteness which does not depend upon
cold. It seems to be found in plants^ also, but is more fre-
quently observed, and appears with stronger and more remark-
able symptoms in animals, whose skin and hair, or whose
feathers and quills, become of an unnaturally chalky, or milky
hair, and their eyes grey, or reddish. In some few genera this
singular condition seems to become a second nature, so that
they produce offspring like themselves, and the same colour is
preserved to all generations; in most however instances of this
sort seem scattered and anomalous ; they spring from parents of
the usual colour, and very often have offspring like them again,
or at all events the case is confined within the limits of a few
families.

Of the first sort the best known examples are white rabbits,
which are called, not inaptly, by Nic. leCat^, the leucoethiops of
their kind. Their fur is always a constant snowy white, whilst
their eyes are rosy or red, but in other rabbits grey or black.
They are deficient in that black pigment which lines internally

^ I am surprised to see that some eminent men so far differ from me as to deny
this leucoethiopia to be a disease, and* go so far as to confound it with that natural
whiteness which comes to animals in the winter; which I should scarcely have ex-
pected from men skilled in physiology, and who must be aware of the great impor-
tance of the black pigment which is drawn over the internal parts of the eye, and
is entirely deficient in this disorder.

^ Hyacinths, roses, &c. change anomalously their native colour into white.

^ Coul. de la peau, p. 55.

OF ANIMALS. 131

the eyes of all the mammalia, the birds, the amphibious animals,
many of the fishes, and even insects, and whose seat is to be
found in the cellular web which lines the choroidal membrane, and
the uvea, &c. That this blackness is of the greatest consequence
towards sound and good vision is proved, besides other ways, by
the weak eye-sight of those animals in whom, as in the white
rabbit, that jjigment is entirely wanting, or even in some consider-
able proportion'. For even those animals in whom the tapetum
is blue or green are less able to bear a clear and noonday light,
in proportion as they have that part larger or more conspicuous;
as may be observed in the cat and other animals whose habits
are nocturnal. But yet in them the external side of the
choroid, and whatever internal part there is besides the tape-
tum, is covered with the usual blackness, of which however not
a vestige appears in the rabbits we are speaking of Hence an
immense quantity of vessels, if they are turgid with blood, seem
to be transparent with a sort of rosy or auburn colour through
the pupil and in the iris; but this beautiful rosy hue perishes
if the bulb of the eye is taken away from the orbit and the
blood flows out ; and it remains, if you first of all replenish the
same vessels with dull-red suet. Tlie pupil is, as in all the
animals of which we shall speak, very large, even after death ;
the iris, if cut off from the vessels, white, and barely fibrous ;
which, if it is the case with the iris of other animals, clearly
shows that the absence of circular fibres is connected with this
deficiency of extraneous pigment: its vessels are beautifully
curved; so also the folds of the ciliary processes, if the injection
has been properly performed, &c. As this defect of the eyes
is so common to this kind of rabbits, that their females, when
embraced by black or grey males, produce offspring with white
and red eyes, it is not to be wondered at if they become easily
accustomed to the light, and able to endure the glare of day.

The nature of white mice is otherwise compounded, for
although they preserve for many generations the sno"\vy colour
of their fur, and the red colour of their eyes, so far, like rabbits,

^ The choroid grows pale in old men.

132 ALBINOS.

they still remain to an extreme degree avoiders of the light'.
There is here at Gottingen a bakehouse, in which white mice
are not unfrequently canght, many of which I have seen ahve;
and, if a light was brought to the hole, they would instantly hide
themselves in the cotton which was put for them, but in the
twilight, or when tlie season was cloudy, they used to run freely
about.

Besides rabbits and mice there are other animals in which
this variety of hair and feathers and eyes is sometimes, though
rarely, to be seen. Amongst horses^ such sometimes occur;
which however must not be confounded with the breed peculiar
to Denmark; for although these have white hair, yet their
hoofs and eyes are black, and, according to the observations
of Kersting, they have also the rete Malpighianum brown.

I myself have seen white dogs with red eyes ; a hamster of
the same sort I owe to the liberahty of Sulz; and such a
squirrel was kept living by J. J. Wagnerl

Amongst birds, white varieties are known to occur in
Canary-birds, parrots and cocks, and very seldom, but occa-
sionally, in crows.

Finally, as to men who suffer from this defect, the accounts
of them have been by some recent authors so deformed, and so
mixed up with fables, that we may easily pardon those who
have allowed themselves to be deceived, and have not hesitated
to make out of them a particular species of mankind. It will
therefore be our business to separate the stories from the truth,
to show that the disease, so far from forming a species, does not
even form a peculiar variety of mankind ; to narrate its
symptoms in detail; and to show that it was known to the
ancients, and has spread over almost all the world.

The other immense merits of Linnaeus, and my own respect
for so great a man, forbid me to say much about his gi-eat
mistake, repeated in so many editions* of his magnificent work,
and which other learned men declare was put forth in all good

^ Physical, bclustig. 14 st. p. 439.

^ Edm. Chapman, de Leucceth. in fine.

3 Hist. Nat. Helvet. p. 185. S. N. xir. p. 33.

LUSCITIO. 133

faith, especially after the severe censures of Buflfon' and Pau\v^
It will be sufficient to sum it up in a few words : that the
attributes of apes are there mixed up with those of men for
a hody less than ours hy half, eyes deep in their orbit, joined
to the niemhrana nictitans, and a lateral vision at the same time
on both sides^, the fingers of the hand touching the hiees when
in an erect position, the wrinkled skin of the pubis*, and finally,
the whispering tongue and those arrogant conceits, the hope
of future dominion, Sc. have nothing to do with the highest
work of the Supreme Being, but must be relegated to the
region of fable.

There is a disease of the human body, for the most part
congenital, exactly like that which I have shown to attack
certain animals ; it is, however, different in this, that it plays
with the symptoms, and now attacks man lightly, and now
severely; in some countries it is rare, in others more frequent
and endemic; here it is propagated in families, there it seizes
people capriciously and individually. It affects the skin and
the eyes at the same time, and therefore seems referable either
to tetter or to luscitio^: that it is related to both, will be plain
from an enumeration of the symptoms. As to the skin, or
rather the cuticle, which is the principal seat of disease, in
this disease it is affected in more than one way; it is indeed
always of a diseased whiteness, and the hair^ or groin are co-
loured in the same way; but the nature of the epiderm itself
undergoes all sorts of mutations, though it is not always entirely

^ T. XIV. 2 nech. sur le^ Am. T. Ii. p. 69.

3 Dalin. Am. Acad. T. vr. p. 74. * lb. p. 73.

^ Luscitio: a complaint of the eyes, when the sight is better in the evening than
at mid-day. Festus. In the same sense Hippocrates uses the vvKTa\o}irlas.
Prorrh. U. Galen, Isag. Plin. I. xxviii. c. 11, and Theod. Priscian, 1. i. c. 10.
Varro, on the contrary, calls those lusdtiosi who cannot see in the evening : and
yEtius, Paveus, Actuarius, and Orirasius call those vvKraXwir^s who see during
the day, but not so well when the sun sets, and at niglit not at all. See more
about this confusion of terms in H. Stephan. Diet. Med. p. 418. Ann. Foes, CEcon.
Ifippocr. p. 265. Tr. Taurmann on Plant. Mil. m. 52, and Jo. Harduin on Plin.
I. c. p. 471. E. Aug. Vogel follows Hippocr. de cogn. et cur. c. h. aff. p. 475,
where the nuctalopia of the ancients is said to be blindness by day {Hemeralopia
of the moderns), and the hemeralopia of the ancients (nvctalopia of the modems)
is said to be the periodical blindness which comes on at twilight.

^ See Actuar. 1. 11., ir. 5ta7i'. vddiav, c. 23.

134 SKIN DISEASES.

affected, but, in rare cases, the places are scattered over the
surface of the body. Those, however, who are ill in this way
must be carefully separated from those men who have the rete
parti-coloured, and of whom I have spoken above \ In the
disease of which I am now speaking, it has been observed in
the East Indies, by Rudolph^, that the spots are rough and can
be distinguished by the touch from the rest of the skin.
Strahlenberg^ and John Bell* report that parti-coloured persons
of this kind are found amongst the Tartars; and the accounts
of HalP describe the Malabars as marked by large spots of
the same kind, of a yellowish white, and make the disorder
something like leprosy. Closely allied to this sort of disease is
that in which the skin of the body becomes white, with spots of
another colour, as yellow, scattered over it'', or where the colour
is a mixture of red and white ^ or where the face at least
retains its natural redness.

In most cases however, the whole skin, though not in the
same way, becomes white. For in many, little or nothing at
all in the epidermis is changed, except the colour, so that in
other respects there is no symptom of any disease at all. Such
are many of the inhabitants of the isthmus of Darien, most
carefully described by Lionel Wafer ^"j who are said to be covered
with a copious, though thin and snowy down. Like this also
was a beautiful woman from the neighbouring island of Ternata,
whom Le Brun" says was a concubine of the king of Bantam;
and also a boy of five years old, shown to the Academy of Paris ^l
The English poet" speaks of another, lately shown in London,

1 p. 5. ^ Schrebei-, Saeugth. p. 15.

3 In Siberia, Nordostl. Eur. u. A sia, p. 121.

* Zulims. See Bell's Travels from Peter gb, to diverse jiarts of Asia, Glaeg. 1763,
4to. T. I. p. 89. He attributes it to scurvy.

^ Tranqueh. Miss. Ber. Contin. xxi. p. 741. So also horses may be seen
spotted black and white.

Like freckles. '' Tranqueh. Ber. Contin. cvi. p. 1232,

8 lb. Contin. XLVi. p. 1239.

8 Oliv. Goldsmith, Hist, of the Earth, T. II. p. 241. Whether the Otaheitan in
Parkinson, p. 27, was of this kind I dare not decide.

" p. 107. 1^ p. 353-

1"^ Hist, de VAc. des Sci. 1744, n. V. p. 12. Voltaire, Mclang. T. III. p. 326.
Maupertuis, Venus physique, p. 147.

13 Goldsmith, I. c.

LEPKOSY. 135

with a skin like that of an European. In many, however, the
epidermis too is scabby. I read the same about a Tamul
schoolmaster, whose skin as it were came off in scales, and be-
came almost of a red colour \ The disease is called the white
leprosy, in Malabar Wonkuschtam or Wenkuschtam'\ Allied to
this also is the crusted leprosy of some inhabitants of Paraguay,
recalling the scales of fish, painless, and in no ways affecting
the general health ^ The white Ethiopians too are made
lepers by Ludolph*, and so are the inhabitants of Guinea by
Isaac Voss^ I myself have been acquainted for many years
with a Saxon youth, whose whole skin, not excepting even his
face and the palms of the hands, was rough with white, and
as it were calcareous scales, which appeared red through the
numerous interstices, and as it were fissures, of the crust.
Sometimes these scales peeled off, and then the limbs looked
redder ; but new ones instantly grew up. The groin was white ;
the hair and the eye-brows, if I recollect right, of a mouse
colour. For those hairs do not, like that on the gi'oin, keep
the same colour in this disease, but vary in the most capricious
way. Most have white", soft hair, exactly like goats' wooF.
Nor in these is the colour constant, but as they grow older
is often changed into rosy^ Voss" attributes red and yellow
hair to his Leuccethiopians : the hair was yellow in the Malabar
family^, golden in the Manilla girl of G. Jos. Camelli".

So much about one phase of our disorder, which occurs
with tetter : the other phase, as I have said, affects the eyes,
and belongs to luscitio, yet it is wonderful how the symptoms
of it differ. In many the eyelids become turgid, winking ^^; the

^ Gottl. Anast. Freylinghausen, neuere Missions Geschichte, 8 st. p. 1071.

2 Tranqueb. M. B. Oont. cvi. p. 1233 not.

^ Lettres edlfiantes, Rec. XXV. p. 122. * Hist, ^thiopica, I. c, 14 32.

^ De Nili et alior. Jluv. origine, p. 68.

8 See de Groben, I. c. Wafer, p. 108. Trunqiieh. Miss. Ber. Contin. XLii.
c. VI. &c

^ lb. Goldsmith, I. c. " The hair was white and woolly, and very unlike any
thing I had seen before."

Tranqueb. M. B. Cont. cvi. p. 1283 not. ^ I. c.

^<* Miss. Ber. Cont. cii. p. 637.

^^ Philos. Trans, n. 307, p. 2268. ^- Le Brun, I. c.

136 EYES.

eyes of the iuliabitants of Darien open in a crescent shape*;
all blink during the day, which is also sometimes the case with
people in good health, and even with the foetus, according to
the observation of Wrisperg^, when the light is too strong. It
was also observed in that youth whose epidermis I lately de-
scribed, that this inconvenience was with him at its height during
winter, when he could not endure the brightness of the snow,
so that he stood in fear even of ice. In some the iris is in
perpetual motion, and the pupils so unquiet that they can
never distinguish minute objects, as letters^ The colours of
the iris and choroid are various, but all rather pale, so that
less lisfht is absorbed, and the retina all the more affected.

In some the eyes are rosy, as in the animals we mentioned.
I have myself known such, two sons and the daughter of a
French peasant*. Maupertuis and Voltaire differ in their de-
scription of the eyes of 1744 Leucoethiopians who were seen at
Paris ; for one calls them rosy, the other sky-coloured. They
may however be reconciled if we follow Fontenelle^, who says
that the iris, &c. appears red in a certain position of the eyes only.
The man that Goldsmith saw had red eyes. Sky-coloured eyes
are not however uncommon in this disease. For as this colour
always denotes weak vision, according to Avicenna and Averroes,
as quoted by Hermann Conring^, so especially it often occurs
in our nuctalopes. The young man I knew had sky-coloured
eyes. And those Malabars who suffer from white leprosy com-
bined with luscitio, have eyes of a similar colour'' ; and so also
those who are said to exist in the kingdom of Loango^ Dap-
per says they have grey eyes. I am not quite sure whether
this is the disease under which the family of Jerome Cardan

^ Wafer, p. io8. "Their eyelids bend and open in an oblong figure, pointing
downward at the comers, and forming an arch or figure of a crescent with the
points downwards. From hence, and from their seeing so clear as they do in a
moon-shiny night, we used to call them moon-eyed."

- De viiafet. hum. dijudic. in Nor. Comm. Soc. R. Sc. Gotting. T. in. p. 179.

^ Miss. Ber. Cont. xlvi. p. 1240.

* In the parish of Champniers, one-and-a-half leagues from Civray, 1763, were
still alive.

s I. c. Hist. Ac. Par. 6 j)c j^ab. Germ.

"^ Tranq. Miss. Ber. Cont. cii. p. 637, and CVI. p. 1283.

^ Vos3. I. c. p. 68.

ALBINOS. 137

laboured. For he says, in his own life\ "my father was red,
and had white eyes, and saw by night;" and again, "my eldest
son had eyes exactly like him;" and again, about the same
child ^ "like my father, with small, white eyes, which were
never at rest;" and elsewhere about himself^: "In my early
youth, immediately I awoke, though in extreme darkness, I
saw everything exactly as if it had been bright day-light : but
in a short time I lost this power. Even now I can see a little,
but not so as to discern anything."

Let so much suffice about external condition of the skin
and eyes in those suffering under this disorder. There is still
a little to be said about the rest of the constitution of their
body. In the first place, it does not follow that they all are
either foul or dirty. We are told that many of them belong to
the court of the king of Loango^ Certainly another was the
mistress of the king of Bantam^, and such a woman of Malabar"
married an European soldier. She is described as of square body
and round cheeks. And they seem at all events strong enough
to do their business by night. In fact, it is said that they make
hostile incursions into the neighbouring countries by night '', and
that the Portusfuese have carried off others from Guinea to
Brazil, to make them work in the gold mines : this certainly
would be a kind of life in which nuctalopia would be of some use.

Others seem to be of weak and feeble constitution. So
Wafer speaks of the inhabitants of Darien^ The French of the
parish of Champniers can scarcely stand being in the open air.
The Malabars certainly cannot endure long journeys, and are
speedily fatigued^" with the wind and the heat". The brightness
of the sun makes their eyes water '^ but they see pretty well in
cloudy weather".

I p. m. 7. ^ p. 70-

^ De O'er, variet. 1. vill. c. XLIII. p. 161, T. Ill, Operum.
* Vossius, I. c. * Le Brun, I. c.

^ Miss. Ber. Cont. cvi. p. 1-282.

^ De Gioben, I. c. Georg. Agricola, de Anim. sulterr. They are driven away
by burning funeral piles, because they cannot bear the lights.
^ "A weak people in comparison of the other."
FreyUnghausen, I. c. ^^ Miss. Ber. Cont. xxvi. p. 151.

II lb. and Freylingh. I. c. ^"^ Wafer. ^* FreyUnghausen.

138 KNOWN TO THE ANCIENTS.

Examples prove that the mind and the intellectual faculties
are in no respect affected by this disorder, but may remain
perfectly sound. The young man I have so' often spoken of,
was well instructed in more than one of what they call the
polite sciences. I have mentioned the schoolmaster of Malabar,
who was clever at writing poetry. And if you like, you may
consider Cardan a great luminary of art.

These then are the phenomena and symptoms of the dis-
ease. It still remains to be proved that it attacks nations at
all times and in all places, and that it partly belongs to the
endemic, and partly to the sporadic diseases. In both ways it
was long since known to the ancients. A sporadic instance of
it gave a handle to the Roman story which, under the title of
Ethiopics, has been handed down to us by Heliodoras. King
Hydaspes, it appears, hesitates to acknowledge his daughter
Charicles as his own, when she suddenly laid claim to him, be-
cause he and his wife were Ethiopians, whilst her skin was
white. But Sisimithres, the advocate of Charicles, who had
brought her up from infancy, explains the whole matter to the
father: "she too was white," says he, "whom I brought up;
besides, the lapse of time agrees with the present age of the
girl, since she is seventeen years old, which is just the time
the child was exposed. Moreover, the appearance of the eyes
bears me out ; and I recognize that the whole aspect of the
countenance, and the beautiful figure which I now see, agrees
with that which I then saw\" Perhaps also the story of the
female child Aristotle^ speaks of may be thus explained,
which was born of the adulterous connexion of a Sicilian woman
with an .^thiop, and did not have the colour of her father,
but in process of time gave birth to a son, who was entirely
black, like his grandfather. The ancients knew this disorder
also as endemic, so that they gave names to whole nations and
regions in consequence. It seems probable that Albania, on
the confines of the Caucasian mountains and Armenia'*, had

^ L. X. p. 477, ed. Bourdelot, Paris, 1619, 8vo.

2 Hist. Anim. 1. vii. c. 6. ^ Plin. 1. VI. c. 13, p. 311. Hard.

INSTANCES. 139

its name from this, about which Isigonus of Nice' speaks thus:
" Some are born there with grey eyes, white from early child-
hood, who see better by night than by day^ Another nation
of this kind acquired the name of Leucoethiopes, hence trans-
ferred to all who suffer from this disease. They are mentioned
by Pomponius Mela^ Pliny*, Ptolemy^, and Agathemerus*', but
are not noticed by Strabo, Julius Honorius^, Ister ^thicus,
the anonymous writer of Ravenna, &c. They do not however
agree as to the country which the Leucoethiopes are said to
inhabit. Mela and Pliny place them with the Libyco-Egyptians,
near the Libyan sea. Joh. Reinhold, in the plates to his edition
of Mela, about long. 50" N. lat. 15".^ But Ptolemy says the
Leucoethiopes live under Mount Kyssa, which, according to
DAnville, is the name for Cape Yerde. However that may be,
it is enough for our purpose, that this disease was not unknown
to the ancients.

We have seen that there are modern instances in the most
different and widely separated parts of the earth; and it will
be worth our while to add a few more, and in a few words
to reckon them up in the order of our four varieties. I have
carefully described a youth of our own Germany. Edm. Chap-
man relates that instances have been known in Spain and
France. Nic. Le Cat saw some children born at Ratisbon.
I have already noticed the case of those in the parish of Champ-
niers, and what Cardan says of his Italian family. G. Agricola
and Olaus Magnus found men of this kind in Scandinavia.
The accounts from Tranquebar tell us of many Malabars. They
are contemptuously called there kakerlacken^'^, from their resem-
blance to the eastern moth, which is a parti-coloured and noc-
turnal insect. And this disorder occurs in Labrador, if indeed

1 Pliu. 1. VIII. c. 2, p. 371.

* Comp. Salmas. ad Solin. c. 15, and Gellius, Noct. Att. 1. ix. c. 4.

2 L. I. c. 4, p. 12, ed. L. B. 1743. On which see John de Watt. Thus they call
some Ethiopians, who in comparison with others may be said to be whitish, neither
altogether white, nor altogether black, p. 155, ed. Bas. 1543.

* L. V. 0. 8, p. 252. Hard.

^ L. IV. c. 6, p. 77, ed. Mich. Serveti, Lugd. 1541.

^ Georg. 1. i. c. 5. ^ Excerpt, cosmogr. " ^ As is thought.

* Harduin on Plin. In the desert of Sahara.

1" Calkalaken, Miss. Bcr. cont. cvi. p. 1283. Kalkalatten, cont. cii. p. 637.

140 rATIIOLOGY.

the Champagne girlj Le Blanc, belonged to the Esquimaux, as
is most Hkely\

Lencoethiopian& (if we may apply the old term to them
also) of the second variety of mankind have been known in
the islands of Java^, Borneo^, Manila*, and others near
Ternata, and in New Guinea" and Otaheite. Of the third
variety, are found instances to the south beyond the foun-
tains of the Nile^, and towards the river Senegal, whose
mouth lies under the Ryssadian promontory, and still further
south in Guinea^, and its kingdom of Loango, and, finally, in the
interior of Kafifraria^" and the island of Madagascar", The fourth
variety can produce its Blafards on the isthmus of Darien, in
the kingdom of Mexico '^, in Tucuman, and Paraguay.

But our digression from the subject of natural history and
the varieties of mankind to pathology and diseases has been
already too long. Those must bear the blame who have con-
founded men suffering under disease with the beasts, which the
dignity of mankind demanded should be separated, and each
referred to their own place.

It would be an immense and irrelevant labour, if I were
to give an account of all the disorders which, according to the
authors of medical observations, journals, &c., have occurred
in the human body, in every quarter, contrary to nature. The
transition from hence to monsters would be easy, and so on to
general nosology; and thus the divine study of natviral history
would run up into a confused and formless mass. Let us leave
therefore unnoticed, for physiologists and pathologists, the black
and horny epidermis of the Italian boy'^ or the Englishman",
and others, and similar peculiar aberrations from the natural
condition. Nor have we anything to do with the dire disorder

1 Hist, d'une jeune fille saurage, &c. Par. 1761, iimo. Her countrymen
were nuctalopes, and did business by night, &c., and she had luscitio, p. 36, &c.

2 Leguat. T. n. p. 136. 3 Voss. 4 Camelli, I. c.
5 Voss. 6 Hawkesworth, Vol. 11. p. 1S8. Parkinson, p. 27.

7 Voss. 8 Chapman. Grbben, Dondos. Portug. AlUnos.

^0 Sim. V. d. Stel in Tachart, Siam, p. no.

" De Cossigny in Hist, de VAc. dcs Sci. I. c. 12 lb,

13 Stalf, V. d. Wiel, Obs. cent. 11. p. 376, Tab. Ii. stab. r2, fig. i, 2, 3.

1^ The porcupine man. G. Edwards, Gleanings of Natural History, Vol. i. p. 212.

SAT YES. 141

of cretinism, wliich is by no means peculiar to the inhabitants
of the Vallais, but has been noticed elsewhere ^ though dis-
torted here and there by wonderful stories^.

It seems almost too much even to name in this place the
centaurs, sirens, cynocephali, satyrs, pigmies^, giants, herma-
phrodites, and other idle creatures of that kind. Still, I con-
sider it necessary to spend a little time upon the men with
tails, since they have fallen in with some modern patrons.
There is an old story about the islands of the Satyrs in Pliny*,
Ptolemy ^ and Pausanias^ and often repeated afterwards by
Marco Polo, Munster and others, that men exist there with
shaggy tails, like the pictures of the satyrs, who are of incre-
dible swiftness, &c. Wlien the passages in these writers have
been compared, it seems most likely that these islands of the
Satyrs answer to our Borneo, Celebes^, &c., and that the tailed
apes have been taken for men. But a new story about men
with tails to be found here and there has made much more
to do. For partly, it is said, that men having tails are found
about the city of Turkestan^, in the island of Formosa*^, Borneo^",
Nicobar", &c.; partly the very pictures of tailed men of this kind
have been exhibited ^^ But upon a full consideration of the
matter, there is much which leads to the belief that the whole
story is founded upon the fictions I have spoken of. For, as to
the accounts about them, many of them manifestly depend upon
the narrations of others ; and they who say they have themselves
seen tailed men of this kind bear no very good reputation.

^ Haller, de vento Mupensi, Nor. Comm. Goett. T. I. p. 43.

2 See in Guindant, Variat. de la nat. dans Vesp^ce hum. Paris, 1771, Svo. iu
Encycl. de Par. altered in ed. De Felice, T. Xii. p. 3i'2.

* Comp. the book of Tyson on these stories. Apes were generally palmed upon
travellers, and this I suspect to have been the case with the Madagascar pigmies of
Commerson, in De la Lande. See Ro2aer, Obs. Sept. 1775.

4 ]. VI. VII. c. 2. p.m. 374. 5 1, VI. c. II. In Attica.

' See after Tyson, Jo. Caverhill, On the knowledge of the ancients in the East
Indies. Phil. Trans. Vol. Lvii. p. 172.

8 Pet. Rytschkov. Orenhurr/. Topogr. T. II. p. 34.

3 J. Ott. Helbig. Eph. N. C. Dec. L. ann. is. p. 456. Hesse, Osi. ind. diar.
p. 216.

1'^ Will. Harvey, de Gen. p. 194, ed. oper. Lond. 1766.

11 Nils Matthsson Koping, Besa, ed. 4to. Wasteras, 1759, Svo, p. 131.

i'-* Martini on Buff. atlg. nat. Gesch. T. vi. p. 41. T.-vb. 11. der geschicanz'te Mcnsch.

142 TAILED MEN.

The figure I have alluded to is of considerable antiquity,
and having been altered in the progress of time, first by one
and then by another, has by slow degrees become more and
more like the human figure. Martini took his figure from the
Amoenitates of Linnseus, who took it from Aldrovandus, and
he from Gesner, and, finally, this Swiss polyhistor says that he
took his from some description of the Holy Land\ Although he
does not name the author of the description, yet I could easily
see that it was Bernhard Von Breydenbach, and I have thought
it worth while to have the genuine figure reproduced from the
very rare first edition^ of his work (Tab. ii. fig. 5), which has
passed with recent authors for a man with a tail. For on the
reverse of the geographical chart on which Palestine is set out
he has delineated the figures of six animals with the epigraph ;
" These animals are faithfully represented as we saw them in the
Holy Land." The figure which I have repeated is the last of
all, as he adds, " of some nameless animal," but I think I should
readily conclude it was of some tailed ape, a Callitrichus, for
example {silenus, L.). Certainly the wide separation of the
great toe from the others, &c. show it to be a true ape. This in
progress of time, and through the carelessness of artists, has
been at last transmuted into a figure sufficiently like that
of a man, with human feet, &c. The very extraordinary in-
stances of a prolonged coccygis, or of an appendage with a tail,
in Trimethius^ Bauhin*, Blanchard^ Konig, and Elsholz\
relate to monstrous productions, and are out of place here. It
is well known to anatomists that variation often occurs in the
OS sacram^ and the number of the coccygeal vertebre

rse^

^ De quadrup. p. m. 970.

Reyss in das gelobte land. Meinz. 1486, fol. I do not find these figures in
the Latin edition of the same year, nor in that which he brought out in low Dutch
in 1488. But they occur in the French translation of T489; and the library of the
University possesses them all.

3 Aniial. Hirsavgitns. T. il. p. 179, ad ann. 1335.

4 TJieatr. Anat. p. 69.

s Coll. phys. med. Part li. ann. 1681. p. 290.
^ A. N. C. Dec. II. ann. 9. ohs. 129.

^ Be conccptione tubaria, &c. Col. Brand. 1669, p. 7, Tab. II.
^ Fallopia speaks of four vertebrse. Expos, de Oss. p. 579. See Doeveren. Obs.
Acad. p. 207. Generally there are five. See six in Vesal. and his followers Bauhin

HOTTENTOTS. 143

As to the cutaneous ventrale which has been asserted by
old travellers to belong to the Hottentot women, the most
recent testimonies^ compel us to class it with the men's tails,
and to consider it, like them, a fable.

and Paaw. See alsoEeal. Colurab. p. io6. Vesling, p. lo. Sal. Albert. Hist, plerar.
part. hum. corp. Viterb. 1585, p. 112. Albinus, Annot. Acad. 1. IV. Tab. vir. f. 4, 5,
p. 53. See Doeveren. I. c. p. 206. B. S. Albini, Annot. Acad. 1. IV, c. 11. For more
comp. P. Taberranni Act. Senens. T. iii. p. 142 ; and I myself in my private anato-
mical collection have three genuine specimens of this kind, provided with five pairs
of foramina. Paaw says that he has found seven vertebrae, de Oss. p. 102.

^ Bauhin and Vesling show instances with three vertebrae : generally there are
four. Four to five, Winslow, Exp. An. T. I. p. 136. Five in the coco, of a woman,
Matth. Merian. in Tab. ad Theat. Bauhin, T. XLI. f. 9, and Sal. Albertus, I. c,
who improperly refers to this bone the first vertebra, which, as is often the case,
belongs to the last bone of the os sacrum. Altogether however his specimen had
more vertebrae, sacr. 6, cocc. 5 = 11.

FaUopia calls those who have a large and prolonged os sacrum, tailed, I. c.

1 Hawkes worth, Vol. III. p. 792. The pendulosity of the labia seems to have
imposed upon the older travellers.

GENERIS HUMANI
VARIETATE NATIVA.

E DITTO TERTIA.

PRiEMISSA EST EPISTOLA
AD VIRUM PERILLUSTREM

JOSEPHUM BANKS, BARONETUM,

EEGI^ SOCIETATIS LONDINI PR^SIDEM.

AUCTORE

JO. FRID. BLUMENBACH, M.D,

EIVSDEM EOCIETATia SODALI.

GOTTING^ :

APUD VANDENHOEK ET RUPRECHT.
1795.

Non hie Centauros, non Gorgonas, Ilarpyasque
Invenies; liominem fagina nostra sapH.

Martial, Lib. x. Eplgr. 4.

CONTENTS.

Letter to Sir Joseph Bauks.

Index of the anthropological collection of the author, which he
used in illustrating this new edition, viz.

I. Skulls of different races.

II. Very characteristic foetuses of the middle and the two
extreme varieties.

III. Hair and hairs of different races.

IV. Anatomical preparations.

V. Collection of pictures.
Exj^lanation of the plates.

SECTION I.

ON THE DIFFEllENCE BETWEEN MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS.

Difficulty of the question; order of discussion ; external conform-
ation; erect position; proved natural to man; broad and flat pelvis;
relation of the soft parts to the human pelvis; the hymen, nymphse,
and clitoris; man a bimanous animal; apes and kindred animals
quadrumanous ; properties of the human teeth ; other peculiarities of
man; internal peculiarities; internal parts which man has not;
intermaxillary bone ; difference of internal parts ; functional pecu-
liarities of man; mental peculiarities, laughter and tears; diseases
peculiar to man ; recapitulation of difierences falsely ascribed to man.

SECTION II.

ON THE CAUSES AND WAYS BY WHICH ANIMALS DEGENERATE

UNIVERSALLY.

Object of this undertaking; wdiat is species; application to the
question of human species, or varieties; how the primitive species
degenerates into varieties; phenomena of degenei-ation in animals;

102

148 CONTENTS.

colour, hair; stature; proportion; form of the stull; causes of de-
generation; formative force; climate; aliment; mode of life;
hybridity; diseased hereditary dispositions; mutilations; are they
propagated? cautions to be observed in investigating degeneration.

SECTION III.

ON THE CAUSES AND WAYS IN WHICH MANKIND HAVE DEGENERATED

IN PARTICULAR.

Order of discussion; seat of colour; varieties of racial colour;
causes of this variety ; further illustration of causes ; Creoles ; mulat-
toes; dark skin with white spots; singular mutations of colour;
other properties of racial skin; agreement of hair and skin; varieties
of racial hair; agreement of the iris with the hair; colours of the
eye; racial face; varieties of racial face; causes thereof; racial form
of skulls; facial line of Camper; remarks; norma verticalis ; racial
varieties of skulls ; causes of the same ; racial varieties of teeth, and
causes; other racial varieties; ears; breasts; genitals; legs; feet and
hands; varieties of stature; Patagonians; Quimos; causes of racial
stature; fabulous varieties of mankind; story of tailed nations;
diseased variety; epilogue.

SECTION TV.

FIVE PRINCIPAL VARIETIES OF MANKIND, ONE SPECIES.

Varieties of mankind run into one another; five principal varie-
ties; characteristics and limits; Caucasian; Mongolian; Ethiopian;
American; Malay; divisions of other authors; remarks on the Cau-
casian, &c.; conclusion.

INTRODUCTORY LETTER

SIR JOSEPH BANKS.

Theee are many reasons, illustrious Sir, why I ought to
offer and dedicate to you this book, whatever it may be worth.

For besides my wish to express some time or other my
sense of gratitude for the innumerable favours you have con-
ferred upon me, from the time I came to have a nearer ac-
quaintance with you ; this very edition of my book, which now
comes out with fresh care bestowed upon it, owes in great part
to your liberality the splendid additions and the very remark-
able ornaments in which it excels the former ones. For many
years past you have spai'ed neither pains nor expense to
enrich my collection of the skulls of different nations with those
specimens I was so anxious above all to obtain, I mean of
Americans, and the inhabitants of the islands of the Southern
Ocean. And besides, when I visited London about three years
ago, with the same generous liberality with which you extended
the use of your nursery to our Gaertner, and other riches of your
museum to others, you gave me in my turn the unrestricted
use of all the collections of treasures relating to the study of
Anthropology, in which your library abounds ; I mean the pic-
tures, and the drawings, &c. taken by the best artists from the
life itself So I have been able to get copies of them and to
describe whatever I liked, and at last, assisted by so many new
and important additions, to proceed to the recasting of my
book, and am bold enough to say, now it has been amplified in

150 LINN^U?.

SO many ways, without IncuiTing any suspicion of boasting, that
it has been polished and perfected as fai' as its nature permits.

Accept then graciously this little work, which is so much in
fact your own; and I hope that in this way it will not be dis-
pleasing to you because it treats of a part of natural history,
which though second to no other in importance, still has most
surprisingly been above all others the longest neglected and
uncultivated.

It is one of the merits of the immortal Linnseus, that more
than sixty years ago, in the first edition of his 8y sterna Natures,
he was the first, as far as I know, of writers on natural history,
who attempted to arrange mankind in certain varieties according
to their external characters; and that with sufficient accuracy,
considering that then only four parts of the terraqueous globe
and its inhabitants were known.

But after your three-years' voyage round the world, illustri-
ous Sir, when a more accurate knowledge of the nations who
are dispersed far and wide over the islands of the Southern
Ocean had been obtained by the cultivators of natural history
and anthropology, it became very clear that the Linnsean di-
vision of mankind could no longer be adhered to; for which
reason I, in this little work, ceased like others to follow that
illustrious man, and had no hesitation in arranging the varieties
of man according to the truth of nature, the knowledge of
which we owe jDrincipally to your industry and most careful
observation.

Indeed though the general method of Linnaeus, of arranging
the mammalia according to their mode of dentition, was very
convenient at the time he founded it, yet now after so many
and such important species of this class have been discovered,
I think that it will be useful and profitable to the students of
zoology, to give it up as very im_perfect and liable to vast
exceptions, and to substitute for that artificial system one more
natural, deduced from the universal characteristics of the mam-
malia.

I am indeed very much opposed to the opinions of those,
who, especially of late, have amused their ingenuity so much

CHAIN OF NATURE. 151

with what they call the continuity or gradation of nature; and
have sought for a proof of the wisdom of the Creator, and the
perfection of the creation in the idea, as they say, that nature
takes no leaps, and that the natural productions of the three
kingdoms of nature, as far as regards their external conforma-
tion, follow one upon another like the steps in a scale, or like
points and joinings in a chain. But those who exa,mine the
matter without prejudice, and seriously, see clearly that even
in the animal kingdom there are whole classes on the one hand,
as that of birds, or genera, as that of cuttle-fish, which can only
be joined on to the neighbouring divisions in those kinds of
plans of the gradation of natural productions but indifferently
and by a kind of violence. And on the other hand, that there
are genera of animals, as silkv/orms, in which there is so gi'eat
a difference in the a,ppearance of either sex, that if you wanted
to refer them to a scale of that kind, it would be necessary to
separate the males as far as possible from their females, and to
place the different sexes of the same species in the most diffe-
rent places possible.

And in this kind of systems, so far from their being filled
up, there are large gaps where the natural kingdoms are very
plainly separated one from another. There are other things
of this kind ; and so although a,fter dvie consideration of these
things, I cannot altogether recognize so much weight and im-
portance in this doctrine of the gradation of nature, as is com-
monly ascribed to it by the physico-theologians, still I will
allow this to belong to both these metaphorical and allegorical
amusements, that they do not throw any obstacle in facilitating
the method of the study of natural history.

For they make as it were the basis of every natural system,
the way in which things rank according to their universal con-
dition, and the greatest number of external qualifies in which
they coincide with each other, whereas the artificial systems, on
the contrary, recognize single characters only as the foundation
of their arrangement.

And when I found it was beyond all doubt that a natural
system of that kind was preferable to an artificial one, because

152 NATUEAL OKDERS.

it is of such use in sharpening the judgment and assisting the
memory, I applied myself all the more to bring the class of
mammalia into the scope of a natural system of that kind,
especially as that artificial one of Linnaeus, deduced from com-
parison of the teeth, in consequence of the accession of so many
recently detected species in these times, came every day to be
encumbered with more troublesome anomalies and exceptions.
So that, for example, just to say a few words on this point,
we now are acquainted with two species of rhinoceros, in
their habit as like as possible to each other, but so different
in their dentition, that if we were now obliged to follow the
Linneean system, we should have to refer one species to the
Belluce, and the other to the Glires. And in like manner it
would be necessary to remove the Ethiopian boar, which is
destitute of the primary teeth, from the other Belluce and place
it among the Bruta of Linnaeus. I say nothing of that African
Myrmecophaga dentata which, according to the idea of Linnaeus,
would have to be separated from the genus edentata, or of some
of the Lemures (the indi^i and laniger) which, on account
of the anomalies of their dentition, would have to be sepa-
rated from the Linnsean genus of Lemures. No one will deny
that this confusion threw the greatest possible obstacles in
the way of the study of zoology, and I have tried to remedy it
by constructing the following ten natural orders of mammalia,
a statement of which I may here subjoin, because I shall fre-
quently make mention of them in the present work.

I. Bimanus. III. Bradypoda.

1. Homo. 6. Bradypus.

II. Quadrumana. 7. Myrmecophaga.

2. Simia. 8. Manis.

3. Papio. 9. Tatu"-.

4. Cercopithecus. IV. Chiroptera.

5. Lemur. 10. Vespertilio.

1 I am very far indeed from that itch for innovation which afflicts so many of
the moderns, who take a wonderful delight in giving new names to the natural
productions which have already received names very well known to all ; for this
kind of playing at onomatopeia has been a great misfortune to the study of natural

NATUKAL ORDERS.

153

V. Glires,

11. Sciurus.

12. Olis.

13. Mus.

14. Mar7nota.

15. Cavia.

16. Lepus.

17. Jaculus.

18. Castor.

19. Hystrix.
VI. Ferge.

20. Erinacms.

21. Sorecc.

22. Ta/pa.

23. Didelphis.
24). Fiwerra.

25. Mustela.

26. Lutra.

27. P/ioca.

28. ifeZes.

29. ^;-sw5.

30. Canis.

31. i^eZis.

VII. Solidungula.

32. Equus.
VIII. Pecora.

33. Canielus.

34. Capra.

35. Antilope.

36. 5o5.

37. G'w-a/a.

38. Cervus.

39. Moschus.
IX. BellujB.

40. a9ms.

41. Tapir.

42. Elephas.

43. Rhinoceros.

44. Hippopotamus.

45. Trichecus.
X. Cetacea.

46. Monodon.

47. Balcena.

48. Physeter.

49. Delphinus.

history. So I have very seldom deserted the terminology of Linnffius in the
systematic names of the mammalia, and then most unwillingly, and only when the
name adopted by that learned man evidently involved an en'oneous and false
notion. So, for example, I have restored to the armadilloes the native generic
name of Tatu, for the Linngean Dasypus had nothing to justify it. We all know
this name is Greek, and denotes an animal remarkable for its hairy feet, and so
was given by the ancients to the hare and the rabbit, because in them above all
others the palms and soles are most hairy, whereas it is scarcely necessary to men-
tion how very different in habit the armour-bearing animals in the new world are
from the rabbit. And so in the genus of bats, I think the name of vampyre should
be restored to that species of South America which Linnseus called spectrum, and
gave on the contrary the title of vampyre to that bat of the East Indies and of the
islands of the Southern Ocean, which is commonly called the flying dog. But now
it is known that the word vampyre means blood-snclxr, and therefore is particularly
applicable to that American bat, which is on this account very obnoxious to other
animals and especially to man : but does not apply at all to the other one I men-
tioned, namely, the canine, which is entirely f'rugivorous, and never, as far a.s I
know, sucks the blood of other animals.

154 CONCLUSION.

These with everything else, where in the work of which
this is the preface, I have on many points departed in opinion
from others, I submit to your judgment, iUustrious Sir, with
equal resj)ect and confidence, to you under whose most dignified
and worthy presidency the Royal Society of Science rejoices to
be, whose golden motto from its infancy has been, 'Nullius in
verba.'

Farewell, illustrious Sir, and be gracious to your most
devoted servant.

Dated from the University of the Georgia Augusta, April
11, 1795.

155

INDEX OF THE AUTHOR'S ANTHROPOLOGICAL

MATERIALS, WHICH HE MADE MOST USE

OF IN ILLUSTRATING THIS EDITION.

There are three special reasons why I have thought it worth
while to insert here this index.

First, that my learned and candid readers may know the quan-
tity and the quality of the assistance taken from nature itself, with
^\hich I have succeeded at last in publishing this book.

Secondly, that a testimony of my gratitude may remain for the
noble munificence which my patrons and friends have thus far shown
in enriching my materials for the extension of anthropological
studies.

Lastly, that what I am still in want of may be known, which
those same friends may further enrich me with, if they have a good
opportunity and are still so disposed.

SKULLS OF DIFFERENT NATIONS.

Of this collection, which in number and variety is, so far as I
know, unique in its kind, since the similar collections of Camper and
John Hunter cannot in these respects be compared to it, I have pub-
lished a selection, which I have described most fully in three decades,
and illustrated with the most accurate engravings, 8.nd there I have
given an account of the time and the way in which each skull came
into my possession. And I always keep together with these trea-
sures a collection of autograph letters, by which documentary evi-
dence the genuine history of each is preserved. Those which seern to
be in any way doubtful or ambiguous, I put in a separate place.

A. Five very choice examples of the principal varieties of man-
kind.

(a) The middle, or Caucasian variety.

1. A Georgian woman, PL in. Fig. 2, PI. iv. Fig. 3 (Dec
cranior. illustr. in. Tab. xxi.), a gift of de Asch.

156 COLLECTION.

Then the two extreme, or (b) Mongolian and (c) Ethiopic varie-
ties.

2. A Reindeer Tungus, PI. in. Fig. 1, PI. iv. Fig. 2 (Dec.
II. Tab. XVI.), a gift of de Asch.

3. A female African of Guinea, PI. in. Fig. 3, PI. iv.
Fig. 5 (Dec. II. Tab. xix.), a gift of Steph. Jo. Van Geuns,
Professor at Utrecht.

Lastly, the two intermediate varieties,
(d) The American, (e) The Malay.

4. A Carib chief from the Isle of St Vincent, PI. iv.
Fig. 2 (Dec. i. Tab. x.), a gift of Sir Joseph Banks,
Bart.

5. An Otaheitan, PI. iv. Fig. 4 (Dec. in. Tab. xxvi.), from
the same.

B. Five other specimens selected in the same way.

(a) The Caucasian variety.

6. Natolian of Tocat, gift of de Asch.

(b) Mongolian.

7. Chinese or Daiirian Tungus (Dec. in. Tab. xxiii.), from
the same.

8. Ethiop. (Dec. i. PI. 8), from Michael,, aulic- counsellor
of Hesse-Cassel, and Professor of Marburg.

(d) American.

9. Indian of North America (Dec. I. Tab. ix.), from the same.

(e) Malay.

10. New Hollander (Dec. in. Tab. xxvii.), from Banks.
For the demonstration of the norma veriicalis, s. 61.

Caucasian variety,

11. Tartar of Kazan (Dec. ii. Tab. xii.), gift of de Asch.

Mongolian.

12. Yacutan (Dec. ii. Tab. xv.), de Asch.

Ethiopian.

13. Ethiopian. Sommerring, aulic-counsellor, and Prof.
Mogiint.

COLLECTION. 157

Three other specimens by which, although they are partly deformed
on purpose and partly by disease, the norma verticalis still ia
well elucidated.

14. Caucasian. Turk, de Asch.

15. Mongolian. Calmxick (Dec. ii. Tab. xiv.), de Asch.

16. Ethiopian. Ethiop. (Dec. ii. Tab. xvii.), de Asch.

Three skulls of infants, clearly demonstrating the norma verticalis.

17. Caucasian. Jewish girl (Dec. iii. Tab. xxviii.).

18. 3[Qngolian. Burat girl (Dec. ili. Tab. xxix.), de Asch.

19. Ethiopian. New-born Ethiop. (Dec. ill. Tab. xxx.),
Billmann, Cassel surgeon.

Specimens remarkable for the manifest transitions by which they
connect the different varieties of mankind. These hold a mid-
dle place between the Caucasian and Mongolian.

20. Skull of a Cossack of the Don (Dec. i. Tab. iv.), de Asch.

21. Kirgis-Cossack (Dec. ii. Tab. xiii.), de Asch.

22. Another of the same, de Asch.

These Jbetween the Caucasian and Ethioi)ian.

23. EgyjDtian mvimmy (Dec. i. Tab. i.).

24. Genuine Zingari (Dec. ll. Tab. ll.), Pataki, phyisician of
Claudinopolis.

These between the Mongolian and American.

25. 26. Esquimaux (Dec. in. Tabb. xxiv. xxv.), Jo. Loretz.

Skulls deformed by particular arts in infancy.

27. Macrocephalic, probably Tartar (Dec. I. Tab. in.),
de Asch.

28. Carib female (Dec. in. Tab. xx.). Banks.

Remaining cranial collection.

29. German.

30. Female German.

31. Young Jew.

32. Old Jew.

33. Dutch. Wolff, Utrecht physician.

34. Frenchman. Sbmmerring.

35. Italian, de Asch.

158 COLLECTION.

36. Italian, Venetian. Michaelis, camp-physician of Han-
over.

37. Lombard. lb.

38. Ancient Roman praetorian soldier. Card. Steph. Borgia.

39. Lithuanian of Sarmatia. de Asch.

40. Calvaria of ancient Cimbrian. Bozenhard, imperial
consul general in Denmark.

41. 42. Finn, de Asch.

43. Female Finn.

44. Russian Zingari.

45. Russian youth*.

46. Russian old man.

47. 48, 49, 50, 51. Russians of Muscovy.

52. Female of Muscovy.

53. Russian of Swenigorod.

54. Old Russian youth.

55. Russian of Wenewski.

56. Romanoff.

57. Ribno.

58. Ribnisci.

59. Kostroman.

60. Female of Krasno. de Asch.

61. Russian of Nyschenovogorod.
(S2. Kursk.

63. Orlov.

64. Tartar of Orenburg.

65. Tartar (pi'obably of Kazan).

66. 67, 68. Tatars.

69. Tschuwasch.

70. Lesghi.

71. Georgian.

72. 73, 74. Female Turk.
75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80. Calmucks of Orenburg (76, Dec. i. ^

Tab. v.).

81. Creole Ethiopian from New York. Michaelis, Marburg.

82. Ethiopian of Congo (Dec. ii. Tab. xviii.), de Asch.

^ The very remarkable series of Euthenian skulls from No. 45 to No. 6^
shews great diversity, but always more or less approaches the Mongolian, and is
doubtless the product of mixed man-iages. I

COLLECTION. 159

II.

Foetuses rt:markably characteristic of the middle and the two

EXTREME Varieties.

Caucasian variety, German twins of either sex, remarkable for
their extreme beauty, four months old.

Mongolian. Calmuck of Orenburg, female, third montL From
D. Kosegarten.

Ethiopian. Male Ethiopian, fifth month. Meyer, chief physician,
Hanover.

III.

Hair and Hairs of different Nations.

Although at first sight these things may seem too minute, still
it cannot be denied that a collection of this kind, when very vai'ied,
is of considerable use for accurate anthi'opological studies. I have
here specimens of all the five principal varieties of mankind; some
of them are sufficiently remarkable, about which I shall speak
below j as the piebald hair of the negress, variegated with white
spots, whom I saw at London, &c.

IV.

Anatomical Preparations.

The greater part of these belong to the natural history of the
Ethiopians. I have made copious mention of them in various parts
of the book.

Collection of Pictures of different Nations, carefitlly
taken from the life by the first artists.

It is clear that a collection of this kind, especially whenever it
is invariably compared with such a collection of skulls as I have
been giving an account of, is one of the first, principal, and authen-
tic sources of anthropological studies; and so for the last twenty
years I have taken an immense deal of troixble to collect a quantity
of such drawings, taken from life, and what is very important, by
good artists. There is indeed a large quantity of similar drawings
in the books of travels and voyages; but when they are critically

160 COLLECTION.

examined, very few are found wliicb you can trust'. "When we leave
the i-epresentations of Corn, de Bruin in his Persian and Indian tra-
vels, and the second voyage of the immortal Cook, illustrated by his
own descriptions, and plates drawn by Hodges, we shall soon find
that in almost all the others the plates, however splendid they may
be, when we examine them closely, and compare them with genuine
repi'esentations, or with nature, are scarcely of any use for the natu-
ral history of mankind. It is necessary, therefore, for this object
to bring together all the extant representations of foreign races, and
the engravings, as well those edited separately as those scattered up
and down in books, and also the very drawings made by the artist's
own hand. I have collected a considerable quantity of them, amongst
which are particularly conspicuous the figures of Wenc. Hollar, a
great artist in this line, which are drawn in uqua fortis, and also
the splendid plates of some modern English engravers ; to mention
them singly would transgress the limits of an index. I will only
give a list of some of the most remarkable of those which are done
by the hand.

Caucasian variety.

1. Turkish woman; drawn with red chalk from the life at Ber-
lin, by Dan. Chodowiecki, who gave it me with his autograph.

2. Hindostan woman; drawn by an Indian painter with won-
derful refinement and accuracy : given to me at London by Sam.
Lysons.

Mongolia7i variety.

3. Cossim Ali Khan, formerly nawab of Bengal, who after-
wards became a Mohammedan faquir at Delhi. Drawn in colours
by a Mohammedan painter, a Moor. It was given to me with the
following one by Braun, now deceased, formerly British resident at
Berne, and once a colonel in India.

4. The wife of the last Mogul Emperor, Shah Allum, who
died 1790; also di-awn by an artistic hand^.

5. Portrait of Feodor Irvanowitsch, a Calmuck, by himself;
drawn in black chalk by his own hand, with incomparable skill and

^ Comp. a passage to this effect in Volney, Ruines, ou meditation sur les rivolu'
tions des empires, p. 349.

^ I have ascribed these to the Mongolian variety, having regard to the origin
of the present rulers of India, although from obvious causes they come very near
the Hindostanee in appearance.

COLLECTION. IGl

taste, and a most exact likeness. Done at Rome, whei'e he studied
painting witli the greatest success. Tliis handsome present was sent
me from Rome by Tatter, of the private British embassy.

6. Two Chinese sailors. Painted at Vienna. A gift from Nic.
Jos. de Jacquin, councillor of the imperial mint.

7. Ettuiack, an Esquimaux magician; brought to London in
1773 from the coast of Labrador. This, as well as the following
picture, according to the autograph of Nathan. Dance in Banks'
nniseum, was most carefully painted by the famous London painter,
G. Hunnemann.

8. Esquimaux woman, by name Caubvic (which in the language
of those barbarians means a blind bear) ; she was brought with
Ettuiack to London by Cartwright,

Ethiopian.

9. Hottentot female of Amaqui. This, with the following one,
comes from the collection of Banks.

10. Boschman, with wife and child.

11. Hottentot female. This portrait and the four succeeding
ones were drawn from the life at the Cape of Good Hope, and sent to
the Emperor Joseph II. at Vienna. Most careful copies given me
by de Jacquin.

12. Karmup, Hottentot female of Namaqui.

13. Kosjo, Hottentot female of Gonaga, on the borders of
CafFraria.

14. Koba, Caffir chief.

15. Puseka, his daughter.

American.
IG. An inhabitant of Tierra del Fucgo, from Magellan's straits.

1 7 . Female of the same tribe.

Mala9/.

18. Two New Zealanders.

19. New Zealand chief

20. Two youths of the same nation.

All these, as well as the Fuegians, are taken from the collection
made by Sir Joseph Banks in his voyage.

1G2 PLATES.

EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES.

Plate III.
A synoptic arrangement to illustrate the norma verticalis.
Fig. 1 answers to fig. 1 of PI. IV.

Fig. 2 fig. 3

^% 3 fig. 5

Plate IV.

Five very select skulls of my collection, to demonstrate the diver-
sity of the five principal human races.

Fig. 1. A Tungus, one of those commonly called the Reindeer
Tungus. His name was Tschewin Amureew, of the family of Gilge-
girsk. He lived about 350 versts from the city Bai-gns; and cut his
own throat in 179L Schilling, the head army-surgeon, was sent thence
by Werchnelldinski, to make a legal inquiry as to the cause of his
death; he brought back the skull with his own hand, and gave it to
Baron de Asch.

Fig. 2. The head of a Carib chief, who died at St. Vincent eight
years ago, and whose bones, at the request of Banks, were dug up
there by Anderson, the head of the royal garden in that island.

Fig. 3. A young Georgian female, made captive in the last
Turkish war by the Russians, and brought to Muscovy. There she
died suddenly, and an examination was made of the cause of death
by Hiltebrandt, the most learned anatomical professor in Russia.
He carefully preserved the skull for the extreme elegance of its
shape, and sent it to St Petersburg to de Asch.

Fig. 4. The skull of a Tahitian female, brought at the request
of Banks by the brave and energetic Captain Bligh, on his return
from his ftimous voyage, during which he transported with the greatest
success stocks of the bread-fruit tree from the Society Islands to the
East Indies.

Fig. 5. An Ethiopian female of Guinea; the concubine of a
Dutchman, who died at Amsterdam in her 28th year. She was dis-
sected by Staph. Jo. Van Geuns, the learned professor at Utrecht.

SECTION I.

OF THE DIFFERENCE OF MAN FROM OTHER ANIMALS.

1. Difficulty of the subject. He who means to write about
the variety of mankind, and to describe the points in which the
races of men differ from each other in bodily constitution, must
first of all investigate those differences which separate man him-
self from the rest of the animals. The same thing occurs here
which we often see happen in the study of natural history, and
especially of zoology, that it is much easier to distinguish any
species from its congeners at the first glance by a sort of divina-
tion of the senses, than to give an account of, or express in
words those distinctive characters themselves. Thus we find it
very easy to distinguish the rat from the domestic mouse, or
the rabbit from the hare, but difficult to lay down the charac-
teristic marks on which that diversity, which we all feel, de-
pends. This difficulty of our present subject has been candidly
and publicly confessed by the great authorities of the science ;
so much so that the immortal Linnasus, a man quite created
for investigating the characteristics of the works of nature, and
arranging them in systematic order, says, in the preface of his
Fauna Suecica, " that it is a matter for the most arduous in-
vestigation to enunciate in what the peculiar and specific dif-
ference of man consists;" nay more, he confesses "that up to
the present he has been unable to discover any character, by
which man can be distinguished from the ape;" and in his
Si/stema Naturce, he gives it as his opinion, "that it is won-
derful how little the most foolish ape differs from the wisest

112

164 ERECT POSITION.

man, so that we have still to seek for that measurer of nature,
who is to define their boundaries ;" finally, he did not attribute
to man any generic or specific character, but, on the contrary,
ranked the long-handed ape as his congener.

2. Order of treatment. Meanwhile I may be allowed to
enumerate the points, in which, if I have any powers of obser-
vation, man differs from other animals, and I mean to treat the
subject thus:

First, I shall enumerate those things which affect the ex-
ternal conformation of the human body.

Secondly, those which affect the internal conformation.
Thirdly, the functions of the animal economy.
Fourthly, the endowments of the mind.
Fifthly, I mean to add a few words about the disorders
peculiar to man.

And sixthly, I shall reckon up those points, in which
man is commonly, but wrongly, thought to differ from the
brutes.

3. External coirforination. Under this head I place some
characters, which, although they are closely connected with the
structure of the skeleton, yet are shown by the external habit
of body, which depends upon it ; and then the subsequent cha-
racters, especially if they are looked at collectively, seem to
suffice for a definition of mankind :

(A) The erect position;

(B) The broad, flat pelvis;

(D) The regular and close set rows of teeth.

To these heads all the other peculiarities which the human
body exhibits, may be easily referred; and now let us examine
them one by one.

4. The erect position. Here it is necessary for us to prove
two points : first, whether the erect position is natural to man ;
secondly, whether it is peculiar to man (of which below, s. 10).

WILD MEN. 165

The former is evident a priori, as they say, from the very
structure of the human body ; and a postenori from the unani-
mous concurrence of all the nations of all time that we are
acquainted with. It is no more necessary to spend any time on
this, than on the argument to the contrary, which some are in
the habit of brinsfinff from the instances of infants who have
been brought up among wild beasts, and found to go on all-
fours. Those who look carefully at the matter will easily see
that no condition can be conceived more different to that which
nature has designed for man, than that of those wretched chil-
dren alluded to; for we might just as well take some monstrous
birth as the normal idea of human conformation, as take ad-
vantaofe of those wild children to demonstrate the natural
method of man's gait and life. Indeed, if we look a little more
closely into these stories of wild children, it is more likely to
turn out in the instances which are the most authentic, and
placed beyond all doubt, as that of our famous Peter of Hameln '
(Peter the wild boy, Juvenis Hannoveranus Linn.), of the girl of
Champagne^, the Pyrensean wild man^, and of others, that these
wretches used to walk upright ; but in the stories of the others
who are commonly said to go on all-fours, as the Juvenis ovinus
Hihernus Linn., there are many things which make the story
very doubtful, and of but indifferent credit*; so that the Homo
sapiens ferus of Linnaeus {Si/st. N'at. ed. 12, Tom. i. p. 28)
seems no more entitled to the epithet of four-footed than that
of shaggy.

1 Comp. particularly Voigt, Magazin fiir Physik und Naturgesch. T. IV. Part III.
p. 91, and also Monboddo, Antient Metaphysics, Vol. III. Lend. 1784, pp 57, 367.
How much importance the Scotch philosopher attaches to Peter of Hameln is
proved amongst other passages by the following: "this phjenomenon is more extra-
ordinary, I think, than the new planet, or than if we were to discover 30,000 more
tixed stars, besides those lately discovered."

^ {T>e\a, CQudL-Aimue) Hisloire cVune jeune fille sauvage. Paris, 1761, i2mo.

^ Comp. Leroy, Sur V exploitation de la nature dans les Pyrenees. Lond. 1776,
4to. p. 8.

* [Blumenbach's note here consists of extracts from the account of this Juvenis
Hibernus by Tulp : but as that author is rare, I give instead the whole account at
length. "The most acute sense of hearing would have been deceived by that
genuine bleating which was heard by many others as well as myself to procee<l
from that Irish youth, who was brought up from infancy among sheep, and whom
therefore it will be here worth while to describe exactly as he was. There was

166 MAN A BIPED.

5. Man's structure proves that Jie was made upright hy
nature. It is irksome and tedious to go a long way about to
demonstrate a thing so manifest and evident of itself ; but that
pair of learned men, P. Moscati the Italian, and A. Schrage'
the Belgian, who have patronized the opposite paradox, prevent
my leaving it quite alone. Still it will be enough to touch on
a few points out of many.

The length of his legs, in proportion to his trunk and his
arms, show, at the first glance, that man was intended to be
upright by nature. For, although I cannot agi-ee with Dau-
benton, who thinks^ that no animal besides man has such
large hind feet, which are equal in length to the breadth of
his trunk and head; for this is negatived by the examples of
several mammals, as the Simia lar and the Jerboa Capensis ;
still it is j)lain to every one, that man is so made that he can
in no wise go on all-fours; for even infants crawl by resting
on their knees, although at that tender age the legs are smaller
in the proportion we spoke of than in adults.

It is not however the length only, but the remarkable

brought to Amsterdam, and exposed to the eyes of all, a youth of sixteen year.?,
who, being lost perhaps by his parents and brought up from his cradle amongst
the wild sheep in Ireland, had acquirt-d a sort of ovine nature. He was rapid in
body, nimble of foot, of fierce countenance, firm flesh, scorched skin, rigid hmbs,
with retreating and depressed forehead, but convex and knottj' occiput, rude, rash,
ig-norant of fear, and destitute of all softness. In other respects sound, and in
good health. Being without human voice he bleated like a sheep, and being
averse to the food and driuk that we are accustomed to, he chewed grass onlj' and
hay, and that with the same choice as the most particular sheep. Turning in the
same way every mouthful round, and taking account of each blade separately, he
made his selection, and tasted now only this, and now only that, as they seemed
more gi-ateful, and more agreeable to his sense of smell and taste.

"He had lived on rough moim^tains and in desert places, himself equally fierce
and untamed, delighting in caves and pathless and inaccessible dens. He was ac-
customed to spend all his time in the open air, and to put up equally with winter
and summer. He kept as far as he could away from the lures of huntsuen, but
at last fell into their nets, although he fled over uneven rocks, and precipitous
clififs, and threw himself most boldly into thorny brakes and sharp jungles, in
which being at last entangled he fell into the power of the huntsman. His appear-
ance was more that of a wild beast than a man ; and though kept in restraint, and
compelled to live among men, most unwilUngly, and only after a long time did he
put off his wild character.

" His throat was large and broad, his tongue as it were fastened to his palate,"
Tulp. Ohs. Med. 1. IV. c. lo, 5th ed. p. 296. Ludg. Bat. 1716, i2mo. Ed.]

^ See Verhandeling over de Longtecrivrj in the journal called Genccs Natuur-cn-
Htdshoudlitmditie Jaarhockeii, T. ill. Part I. p. 32.

^ Memoires dc I' Acad, des Sciences de Paris, 1764, p. 569.

MAN A BIPED. 167

strength of the legs compared with the more deHcate arms,
which clearly shows that the former are intended by nature for
the sole purpose of supporting the body. This is particularly
made manifest by a fact derived from osteogeny, namely, that
in the new-born infant the tarsal bones, and especially the
heel-bone, ossify much quicker, and become perfect much
sooner than the carpal. This is a natural provision, because
the little hands have no necessity for exercising any force in
the first years of life, whereas the feet have to be ready to sup-
port the body, and provide for the erect gait towards the end
of the first year, I say nothing of the powerful muscles of the
calf of the leg, especially of the gastrocnemii interni, though
these are made so strong and so prominent by nature to keep
man upright, that, on that account, Aristotle, with the old
anthropologists, thought that true calves should be ascribed to
man alone.

The whole construction of the chest shows that man cannot
in any way walk like the quadrupeds. For in the long-legged
beasts the chest adheres to the sides as if squeezed forwards in
a keel-like shape, and they have no collar-bone, so that the feet
can more easily converge towards one another from each side,
and in that way sustain the weight of the body more easily and
more firmly. Besides, quadrupeds are provided either with
a longer breast-bone, or with a larger number of ribs, descending-
nearer to the cristse ilei, in order to sustain the viscera in the
horizontal line of the trunk. But all these things are different
in man, the biped. His chest is more flattened throughout,
his shoulders are widely divaricated by the insertions of the
shoulder-blades, his sternum is short, his abdomen more desti-
tute of bony supports than is the case with those animals we
were speaking of; and there are things of the same kind which
cannot escape any one who compares with the human skeleton
even a few of the quadrupeds, especially the long-legged ones.
All these considerations show how ill adapted the human
frame is to a quadrupedal walk, and that it cannot be any-
thing else to him but unsteady, trembling, and very irksome
and fatiguing.

168 PELVIS.

6. The broad and flat human pelvis. What has been said
gains particularly additional weight from the consideration of
the human pelvis, whose clearly peculiar conformation again
affords a diagnostic character by which man is made wonder-
fully to differ from the anthropomorphous apes, and most
manifestly and most decidedly from all and singular the other
mammals.

Although it may seem an affected paradox, yet the assertion,
that a genuine pelvis is only to be found in the human skeleton
might be defended. I mean that peculiar conjunction of the
OS innominatum with the sacrum and coccyx, which gives the
appearance of a pelvis, or basin ; for it is surprising how far the
elongated ribs of the rest of the mammals differ from this
basin-shaped formation. The termination of the ribs in the
Simia satyrus and the elephant seem to come a little nearer
the shape of the human pelvis than in other mammals whose
skeletons I have examined. Still, in front the length is greater
than the breadth, and behind they exhibit a very greatly
elongated synchondrosis of the groin; and in both that resem-
blance to a basin which we spoke of is very much wanting,
which is so conspicuous in man alone, in the expansion of the
bones of the ilium over the linea innominata, and in the
delicacy of the synchrondrosis, and also in the curvature of the
OS sacrum from the promontory and in the direction of the
vertebrae of the coccyx towards the front.

7. The relation of the adjoining soft parts to the form, of
the human pelvis. The hinder face of the pelvis gives the
foundation to the glutaei muscles, of which the outermost or
larger exceed in thickness all other muscles of the body, and
being concealed by a remarkable stratum of fat from the
buttocks. Their fleshy, useful, and semicircular amplitude, in
which the podex is hidden, form, not only in the opinion of the
classical authors of natural history, such as Aristotle^ and Bufltbn^,

^ De partib. animalmm, iv. lo.

* Hint, Nat. T. ii. p. 544. " Buttocks belong to the human species alone."

VAGINA. 169

but also of the best physiologists, as Galen' and Haller'', the
principal character in which man especially differs from the
apes, who are manifestly destitute of fundament.

Moreover, in consequence of that curvature of the os sacrum
and the coccyx we mentioned, depends particularly the never-
to-be-forgotten direction of the interior genital members of the
female, and of the vagina also, the axis of which declines much
more in front than in other female mammals from what is
commonly called the axis of the pelvis. This makes, it is true,
parturition more difficult, but, on the other hand, admirably
guards against many other inconveniences, to which, especially
during pregnancy, the woman, from her erect position, would
be exposed.

It is in consequence of this same direction of the vagina,
that in mankind the weaker sex is not, like the females of
brutes, retromingent. And also because in animals (as far as
we know at present) the opening of the urethra does not
terminate as in woman, between the exact lips of the puden-
dum, but opens backwards into the vagina itself, as I have
observed in these same anthropomorphous animals, the Papio
maimon and the Simia cynomolgus, which I have anatomically
dissected.

And, according to this same direction of the female vagina,
that question must be settled which has been often discussed
from the time of Lucretius, Avhat position is most convenient
to man for copulation?

" How best to prolongate the soft deliglatf

For although man may perform this ceremony in more ways
than one, and this variety of worship has been considered by
the low Latinists as one of the things in which he differs

^ De usu partium, xv. 8. Spigel, De humani corporis fah-ica, p. 9, has cleverly
elaborated the physico-theological theory of this prerogative. "Man alone of all
animals can sit conveniently, since he has large and fleshy buttocks, which serve
for a seat and cushion, when his stomach is full, in order that he may sit without
annoyance, and easily apply his mind to reflection on divine subjects."

^ Be carp. hum. fmictionibus, T. i. p. 57. "Nor are the apes distinguished
from men by any mark easier than by this."

170 HYMEN.

from brutes, still physical causes sometimes interfere to in-
duce him to copulate*

" Like beasts or quadrupeds are used to do."

Still the proj)ortion of the virile member to the vagina seems
better adapted for the usual mode of venery^

8. Remarks on the hymen, nymphce, and clitoris. In order
to finish at one and the same time all those delicate matters
which belong to the female part of mankind, I must here throw
in something about the hymen, which little membrane, so far as I
know, has hitherto been found in no other animal. Though I
have examined the females of apes and papios with that view, I
have never been able to find any vestige of it, or any remains
changed into the caruncidce myrtiformes; nor was I more
successful with the female elephant which was led about Ger-
many many years ago, whose genitals I particularly examined,
because I had been told that Trendelnburg, a famous physician
of that day at Lubeck, had observed some kind of hymen in
that beast. This little appendage to the female body is all
the more remarkable, because I cannot imagine that any physi-
cal utility attaches to it. At the same time I am not much
satisfied with the conjectures the physiologists offer as to the
purpose of the hymen ; and least of all with what Haller rather
weakly suggests, " since it is found in mankind alone, it must
be admitted that this sign of virginity was given for moral
ends."

^ Comp. Carpi (Bei'eugarius), Commentaria svpcr avafomia Mimdini, p. 13.
"Man of all animals copulates by embraces and caresses in diiferent positions, and
is detestable for this, because he is more wicked and voluptuous and diabolical
than rational."

2 Ksenipf. EncTiiridium Mcdicum, p. 181.

' When I was at London two years ago, I looked over the vast treasury cf
engravings preserved in the library of the King of Great Britain ; and was particu-
larly struck with and most carefully studied that famous volume of drawings re-
lating both to human and comparative anatomy, etched by the great painter Leon-
ardo da Vinci. Amongst them I observed particularly that remarkable and, in its
way, unique representation of the copulation of a man with a woman, in which the
trunk of each is so exposed to view, that the relation I hinted at, of the genital
member when in a state of tension to the direction of the vagina, is made quite
plain. I am indebted for a most accurate copy of this very clever print to the
kindness of that most amiable man and excellent artist, John Ohamberlaine, librarian
of that Royal collection.

MAN BIMANOUS. 171

Linnasus seems to have been in doubt whether the females
of other kinds besides women are endowed with the nymphaj
and the chtoris. But I have proved myself that neither of
those parts is peculiar to mankind. I have, following many
other most competent witnesses, clearly observed the clitoris
in many sorts of mammals of different orders, and frequently
have found it very large as in the Papio maimon and the
Lemur tardigradus; but most prodigious of all, about the
size of a fish, in a sjDecimen of the Bakena hoops about
fifty-two feet in length, which I carefully examined when it
was thrown on the shore in Dec. 1791, near Sandfurt in
Holland. As to the nymphee, I have found them exactly
like human ones in a Lemur Mongoz, which I kept alive
myself for many years.

9. Man a himanous animal. From what has been so far
said about the erect stature of man follows that highest pre-
rogative of his external conformation, namely, the freest use of
two most perfect hands. By this conformation he so much ex-
cels the rest of the animals, as to have given rise to that old
saying of Anaxagoras, which has been cooked up again in our
time by Helvetius, "that he thought man was the wisest ani-
mal, because he was furnished with hands." This is rather too
paradoxical : the assertion of Aristotle seems nearer the real
truth, "that man alone has hands, which are real hands."
For in the anthropomorphous apes themselves, the principal
feature of the hands, I mean the thumb, is short in pro-
portion, and almost nailless, and to use the expression of
the famous Eustachius, quite ridiculous: so that it is true
that no other hand, except the human hand, deserves the
appellation of the organ of organs, with which the same
Stagyrite glorifies it.

10. Apes and the allied animals are quadrumanous. Apes
and the other animals, which are commonly called anthropo-
morphous, of the genera of Papiones, Gercopitheci and Lemures,
ought not in reality to be called either bipeds or quadrupeds,
but Quadrumana. For their hind feet are furnished with a
second genuine thumb, not with the great toe, which is given

172 APE QUADRUMANOUS.

to the biped, man, alone'; indeed their feet deserve the name
of hands more than their anterior extremities, since it is plain
that they are adapted for purposes of prehension ; and one kind
of cercopithecus (C. paniscus) is endowed with a thumb, which
is wanting in the anterior hands ; but it has never been ob-
served of any quadrumanous animal, that it is destitute of the
thumb of the hind-hands.

Hence too it will be easy to settle the dispute which has
been raised about the Simia satyrus and other anthropomor-
phous apes, namely, whether it is natural for them in their
own woods to go as bipeds, or as quadrupeds. Neither one
nor the other. For since the hands are not meant for walking
upon, but for prehension, it is at once plain, that nature has
designed these animals to spend their lives principally in trees.
These they climb, on these they seek for their food, and so
they want one pair of hands to support them, and the other
pair to pluck fruits with, and other things of the kind ; and
for the same end nature has provided many of the cercopitheci,
who are furnished with but imperfect hands, with a prehensile
tail, in order that they may have a more secure hold upon
trees.

It is scarcely necessary to point out that it is the result of
art and discipline if any apes are ever seen to walk erect, and is
plain from any drawings of the Simia satyrus^, which have been
taken carefully from the life, how inconvenient and unnatural
that affected position of theirs is, in which they are made to
lean with their fore-hands on a stick, their hind-hands meanwhile
being collected in an unmeaning way into a fist^ Nor have
I ever come across any example of an ape, or any other mam-
mal except man, who can, like him, preserve an equilibrium

1 That extraordinary lover of paradoxes, Eobinet (T. v. De la nature, Tab. 9),
exhibits the drawing of an embryo, which he gives out for that of the Simia satyr-
us: although it is plain at the first glance from the feet alone, which are furnished
with a great toe, not a thumb, that it is a human foetus.

2 See for example the monograph of Vosmaer.

^ Linnaeus tlierefore was mistaken when he said, "that there were apes which
walked with body erect on two feet like man, and who reminded one of the human
species by the use they made of their feet and hands."

DENTITION. 173

when standing erect on one leg at a time. Hence it is clear
that the erect posture, as we find it to be naturally convenient
to man, so also is it peculiar to him. Thus

" Mankind alone can lift the head on high
And stand with trunk erect."

11. Properties of the human teeth. The teeth of man are
more regular than those of any other mammals. The lower
incisors are more erect, which I reckon amongst the distinctive
characters of the human body. The laniarii are neither too
prominent, nor set too far back, but joined in the same line
with their neighbours. The molars have singularly round ob-
tuse crowns, by which they most clearly differ from the molar
teeth of the Simia satyrus and the S. longimana, and all the
other species of this genus whose skulls I have examined.
Finally, the mandibles of man are distinguished by three cha-
racters : by their excessive shortness; the prominence of the
chin, which corresponds with the erect incisors; but, above all,
by the singular shape, direction, and junction of the condyles
with the temporal bones, which certainly differ from the jaws
of all other animals I am acquainted with, and which clearly
prove that man is destined by nature for all kinds of food, or is
an animal truly omnivorous.

12. Other things which seem peculiar to the exterior of man,
as his hairless body, &c. I shall say nothing about some points
of less importance wdiich are frequently classed among the dis-
tinctive characters of man, such as the lobe of the ear, the
swelling of the lips, especially the under one, and other things
of that kind. But I must dispose in a few words of the glassy
smoothness of the human body, and inquire how far it can be
included among the diagnostic signs by which man differs from
other mammals, who are in some way like him. Linnaeus in-
deed asserts, " that there are some regions where there are apes
less hairy than man;" but I candidly confess that I have
hitherto made fruitless inquiries as to whereabouts these apes
may be. On the contrary, it is proved by the unanimous con-
sent of all travellers who are worthy of credit, and by the spe-
cimens of those animals which have been seen frequently in

174 SHAGGY MEN.

Europe, that those anthropomorphous apes which are usually
included under the common Malay name of Orang-utan, and
which are indigenous to Angola as well as to Borneo, and also
the >S'. lovgimana, are naturally much more shaggy than man:
insomuch that those which are not even adult, and have deli-
cate health, still are more hairy than man. Though this po-
sition is beyond all doubt, yet it is the fact that men have been
observed everywhere, and especially in some of the islands of
the Pacific ocean, remarkable for their shaggy bodies; but accu-
rate descriptions of them are still wanting.

The first mention of them occurs in the nautical expeditions
of the famous Spangberg\ who, on his return to Kamschatka
from the coast of Japan, relates that he found a nation of this
kind on the most southern of the Kurile islands^ (lat. 43" 50').
Anomalous individuals of the same kind were observed, but
only here and there, among the inhabitants of the islands of
Tanna, Mallicollo, and New Caledonia, by J. R. Forsterl There
is a report of a similar race in Sumatra*, which is said to in-
habit the interior of the island, and is called Orcmg-gugii. As,
however, man is in general conspicuous for his smooth and even
skin, so, on the other hand, some particular parts of the human
body seem to be more hairy than in brute animals, as the groin
and the arm-pit, which characteristic has accordingly been
ranked among those peculiar to man.

13. Remarkable properties of the human body as to its in-
ternal fabric. Having mentioned what was necessary about the
absolute properties of the external human body, we are now
brought to another point of the discussion, that is, his internal
fabric; about which however our narrow limits compel us to
follow Neoptolemus, and philosophize in a very few words. It
will be necessary to divide this discussion into two heads; first,

1 MixWers Samvihii'if/ liassischcr gcscJiichte, T. HI. p. 174.

^ Bej'ond doubt JVadigsda island, about whose inhabitants, though only by
hearsay, the companion of the great Cook, James King, received the same story.
Voyage to the Northern Hemisplicre, T. in. p. 377.

^ See his Bcmerl'vvyen auf geincr reise um die Welt. p. 21 8.

"* Marsden, the classical author on that island, tells us what he heard about
them. Hist, of Sumatra, p. 35 n.

INTERNAL PARTS. 175

by investigating those things which man alone, or only a few
other animals with him, has not got; secondly, those things
which are peculiar to him.

14. Internal parts which man is without. Those parts
which are found in mammals, and especially in the domestic
ones, were once, when the opportunities of dissecting human
corpses were rare or were entirely neglected with the taste
for dissection, generally almost all attributed to man. Thus,
for example, the panniculus carnosus or subcutaneous muscle,
which was wrongly ascribed to him by Galen and his followers,
and even by the restorer of human anatomy himself, I mean
Vesalius, who was an acute critic of the mistakes of Galen, was
properly denied to him by Nicolas of Steno, and ascribed to
brute animals alone.

The rete mirahile arteriosum, which was also reckoned by
Galen amongst the parts of the human body, was demonstrated
to be wanting in man by Vesalius, following Berengarius of Carpi.

The musculus ocidi suspensorius s. hulhosus s. septimus, with
which the four-footed mammals are furnished, was first shown
to be wanting in man according to the plan of nature by
Fallopius. It has lately been found out that the human foetus
has no allantoid membrane, which is common to almost every
other mammal.

I say nothing of other parts which though found in but few
genera of brute animals, nevertheless have been sometimes
falsely attributed to man, as the so-called pancreas aselli, ductus
hepaticystici, corpus Highmorianum, &c. or those which are be-
stowed on some orders of mammals alone, but are so manifestly
denied to man, that no one would readily attribute them to him ;
among which I mean the membrana nictitans (which for the
sake of the order of discussion I thought it better to mention
here, although it rather belongs to the external parts) and the
lirjamentuni suspensorium colli, and all other things of that kind.
Man shares the foramen incisivuni behind the upper primary
teeth with the quadrupeds, but it is smaller in proportion and
simple, whereas in most of the other mammals it is double, and
in many of vast size. ,

176 INTERMAXILLARY BONE.

15. The intermaxillary hone. An account of this remai-k-
able bone is given separately for more reasons than one. The
bones of the upper jaw which in man are contiguous to each
other, and keep all and each of the upper teeth fixed in their
place, in brutes are separated from one another by a singular
third bone shaped like a wedge inserted between them. This
bone is called by Haller the os incisivuni, because the upper
incisors (where there are any) are fitted in it. As however it is
also found in those mammals who are destitute of such teeth,
as cattle, the elephant, the two-horned African rhinoceros, or
those which belong to the Edentata, as the anteaters and the
Balsenee, I think it had better be called the os intermaxillare^.
In some this bone is one and indivisible, but in many bipartite,
and in all distinguished by its own sutures from the neighbour-
ing bones of the skull ; one, the facial, generally extending in
both directions along the nose to the extreme sockets of the
incisors, the other, the palatine, running in a curved direction
from those sockets to the foramina palatina.

When, therefore. Camper brings forward the want of this
bone as one of the principal characters by which man differs
from other mammals, a double question arises ; First, Is man
really without it ? secondly. Are all the rest of the mammals
provided with it ? It was about two centuries and a half ago
when this question first gave scope to a most bitter dispute
between anatomists. Galen indeed has reckoned the sutures
of what we have called the intermaxillary bone among the
others of the skull, but Vesalius made use of this argument
besides many others, to show that Galen had composed his
osteological hand-book, which had so long been accepted as law,
not from the skeleton of a man, but from that of an ape. It
was thought after the vain attempts of Jac. Sylvius to vindi-
cate^ his Galen by the most wretched excuses, that this whole

1 It is called by the famous zootomists Vitet and Vicq. d'Azyr os maxillarc
inferius; and by Blair, in his osteography of the elephant, os palati.

^ He so twists about in endeavouring to save his divine Galen, that at last he
drops down to this excuse, that although men of the present day have no inter-
maxillary bone, yet at the time of Galen they might have had one ; and so this is

INTERMAXILLARY BONE. 177

question was completely put an end to, when beyond all
expectation even in our own time, Vicq d'Azyr has attempted
to demonstrate an analogy between the human and animal
constitution as far as the os intermaxillare goes, as if it were
quite a new thing \ The only vestige of similitude on which
that analogy rests, namely, the semilunar fissure, which may
be seen in the maxillary bones of the human foetus, and of
infants, in a transverse direction behind the sockets of the
incisors, and which sometimes remains even in adults, has long
been very well known^ It was, however, well pointed out more
than two hundred years ago according to natural truth by the
sagacious Fallopius^ that the fissure in question was ill desig-
nated by the term suture. It is not necessary to mention that
the facial side of the maxillary bones in the human skull is
marked by no fissure, or even suture, of this kind, though it
is conspicuously so in ajDes^.

As to the other question, whether man is the only mammal
who is destitute of the intermaxillary bone, I must equally
confess, that I have in vain sought for it in many skulls of the
Quadricmana. The sutures which would indicate this bone are
wanting in the skeleton of the dead female Cercopiiliecus which
is preserved in the museum of the University, whose skull
in other ways shows the remaining sutures well enough. Nor
did I find them either in another skeleton of the same species,
belonging to Billmann, the clever surgeon of Cassel, which how-
ever was old at the time of death and has many of the sutures
obliterated, so that from this single specimen it would have
been impossible to come to any conclusion.

no reason for attacking the prince of anatomists "but there are some natural
obstructions, which have taken possession of our bodies from intemperance in diet
and venery, and from immoderate vice."

1 Memoires de VAcad. des Sciences de Paris, 1780.

^ See the figures of Vesalius and Colter.

^ "I do not agree," says he, "with those who give out publicly that they have
found out a suture under the palate attached in a transverse direction to either
canine, which is plain in boys, but so obliterated in adults, that no vestige of it
remains. For I consider this to be rather an indentation than a suture, since it
does not separate one bone from another, nor show on the outside."

* Eustachius, Tab. Anat. 46, fig. 2.

178 INTERMAXILLARY BONE.

But I am acquainted with a third specimen of the same
Cercopithecus, for the knowledge of which I am indebted to my
friend Schacht, the worthy Professor of Harderovich, and in this
too that bone is absent. So that it seems scarcely worth while
to inquire about the presence or absence of this bone in any
other specimens of this animal. In the ugly skeleton of that
truly vast anthropomorphous ape from the island of Borneo,
which I have examined carefully over and over again in the
collection of Natural History belonging to the Prince of Orange
at the Hague, I did not see the smallest vestige of those
sutures; but that this ape was full grown is proved not only by
the general condition of the skeleton, but also by the coalition
of most of the sutures of the skulP.

Such, however, is not the case with the skull of a younger
anthropomorphous animal of the same kind, the remains of
whose skeleton I dissected at London in the British Museum.
An old label yet attached to it informs us that it belongs to the
ape they call orang-utan, and was brought from the island of
Sumatra, by the captain of the ship ' Aprice.' In this skull not
a shadow of the sutures of the intermaxillary bone was to
be found, although the remains of all the others are without
exception still apparent. Neither did Tyson find them in his
Angolese Satyr, nor does the figure in Daubenton of the skull
of a similar animal, from the same locality, exhibit them. How-
ever then this may be, it is certain, what may also be held a
character of man, that in the skulls of the apes I have been
speaking of, the- jaws are very prominent and projected forward
as in the other mammals.

16. Differences between some internal imrts of man and
those of other animals. It must be seen at once that we can
only speak here of a few of these differences, and those the most
remarkable. To begin with the head, besides some things of
less moment, man has, as it seems, the smallest crystalhne lens

^ I wonder Camper should be of the opposite opinion, for he says that this is
the skeleton of an anthropomorphous ape not yet adult. Natunjeschichtedcs Orang-
utang, p. 146.

ARENUL^. 179

(the cetacea excepted) in proportion, and it is less convex in the
adult than in other animals ; the large occipital foramen is placed
more forward than in quadrupeds ', and there are other things of
the same kind. The mass of the brain is the largest of all,
not indeed (according to the opinion which has prevailed from
the time of Aristotle) in j^roportion to the whole body, but,
according to the able observation of Sommerring, when account
is taken of the slenderness of the nerves which issue from it^
For if the whole nervous system was divided from a physiolo-
gical point of view into two parts, one, the nervous part properly
so called, which embraces the nerves themselves and that por-
tion both of the brain and the spinal marrow which lies close to
their commencement; and the other, or sensorial part, which
lies nearer the knot where the functions begin to coincide with
the faculties of the mind, we should find that man has much
the largest share of that nobler sensorial part.

That too is equally remarkable, the knowledge of which we
also owe to the sagacity and acuteness of Sommerring, that the
arenulce of the pineal gland so often already observed by others,
are so constantly and perpetually found in human brains, from
the fourteenth year of age upwards, that they also deserve to
be reckoned amongst the peculiarities of man^ Once only, in
the pineal gland of a stag, did he find similar arenul^. And if
they are ever really absent in the encephalon of an adult man,
it certainly must be considered a very rare anomaly. One in-
stance of this absence I owe to the famous physiologist of
Padua, L. M. A. Caldani, who writes me word, that out of four
human brains which he examined in 1786 with that object,
there was only one, and that of an old man, in which no vestige
of a pineal arenula was to be found.

The position of the heart is peculiar to man, and is said to
be in the chest, because that entrail does not rest as in quadru-

^ Daubeuton, Memoires de VAcad. dcs Sc. de Paris, 1764.

2 See his Diss, de basi Encephali. Gotting. 1778. lb. Uber die Korperliche Ver-
schiedenkeit des Negers vovi Europaer, and Ebel (J. G.), Observationes neurolof/. ex
anatome comparata, Frankf. ad Viad. 1788.

3 Sommerring, De capillis rcl prope vel intra glandulam pinealem sitis. Mogunt.
1785. A figure is given in Diss, de decussationc nervorum opticorum, ib. 1786.

122

180 MUCOUS MEMBRANE.

peds upon the sternum, but in accordance with the erect posi-
tion, on the diaphragm. Its base too is not as in them at right
angles to the head, but to the vertebrse of the chest, like the
tip of the left breast, and hence in them the heart lies right and
left, whereas in man it rather has a front and back. Scarcely
any other mammals beside man have the pericardium adhering
to the diaphragm. The alimentary canal is just as perfect as
it ought to be in an omnivorous animal. You might say man
resembled the carnivores in the structure of the ventricle, and
the shortness of the blind intestine; on the other hand, he is
different from the herbivores in the length of the thin intestine,
and its great diversity from the thick one; in the bulbous
colon; in the absence of the sebaceous glands which secrete
smell behind the anus. The muliebria too are different in
man besides what has been already mentioned, in the singular
parenchyma of the womb; and the early foetus is remarkable
for the texture of the placentum, the length of the umbilical
funnel and the singular umbilical vein. So far as I know, the
hitherto enigmatical vesicula umhilicalis is peculiar to the young
human embryo; and I have mentioned elsewhere \ that it is
common and natural to every human foetus about the fourth
month after conception, where I also have said something about
the analogy it bears to the yolk-like bag of the chicken during
incubation.

17. Peculiarities of man, in respect of the functions of
animal economy. Here especial mention must be made of the
peculiar tenderness and delicate softness of the human tela
mucosa, or' cellulosa, as it is commonly called. It is well known
that there is a most remarkable difference in the different
genera and species of animals as regards the substance of this
tissue; that of eels being very tenacious, that of the herring
being very tender: and so it was long since observed by our
Zinn, a most eagle-eyed anatomist, that man, other things being
equal, had beyond all other mammals the most delicate and
subtle cellular substance.

1 Comment. Soc. Reg. Sclent. Gottmg. T. ix. p. ii6.

MAN COSMOPOLITE. 181

I am either very mucli mistaken, or the softness of that
envelope is to be counted amongst the chief prerogatives by
which man excels the rest of the animals. For as this mem-
brane is on the one side diffused over all parts of the body
from the corium to its inmost marrow, and is interwoven like a
chain with all and every part of the whole machine, and on the
other is the seat of that most universal of all vital forces, con-
tractility, next to which the dynamic power called after Stahl
seems to come, I am thoroughly persuaded that to the flexible
softness of this mucous membrane in man is owing his power
of accustoming himself more than every other mammal to every
climate, and being able to live in every region under the sun.
As then nature has made man omnivorous in the matter of
food as we have seen, so in respect of habitation it has intended
him to dwell in every country and climate (TravroSaTrov) : and so
his body has been composed of a most delicate mucous compo-
sition, that he may adapt and accommodate himself more
easily to the multifarious effects of different climates.

To this aptitude for accommodation admirably answers that
other physiological property of man, namely, his slow growth,
long infancy and late i^uherty. In no other mammal does the
skull unite or the teeth appear so late; no other animal is
so long learning to stand upon its feet, or in arriving at its full
stature, or so late in coming to the exercise of the sexual
functions. In another point of view no other animal, consider-
ing the moderate size of his body, has allotted him by nature
so protracted a term of life\ This incidental mention of his
stature recalls to my mind that other singular property which,
as far as I know, has been observed in no other animal, and
which depends upon his erect position, namely, that his height

^ It is scarcely possible to define the natural duration of human life, though
we may consider it to be the more common and, as it were, ordinary goal of pro-
tracted old age. It is worthy of remark, what I have learnt from a careful com-
parison of many tables, that a considerable number in proportion of European old
men attain the age of 84, whilst few survive it. Account therefore being taken of
human longevity, and comparing it with the diu-ation of the lives of other mam-
mals, it is at once seen what a prerogative is bestowed upon man under that name,
or at all events that his long infancy is compensated for with interest.

182 MENSTRUATION.

in tlie morning exceeds by somewliat more than a finger's
breadth his height in the evening \

There are also some particulars to be mentioned about the
sexual functions. Man has everywhere no particular time of
year, as the brutes, in which he desires to copulate^. To men
alone is conceded the prerogative of nocturnal pollutions, which
I am inclined to consider as natural excretions of the healthy
man, to the intent that he may be thereby freed from the
annoyance and stimulus of superfluous semen when it is suitable
to him on account of his temperament or constitution. The
menstrual flux, on the other hand, is not less peculiar to women,
and is more universal and common to all, so that I think Pliny
was right in calling woman the only menstruating animal. I
am indeed aware that a flux of the same kind has been fre-
quently attributed by authors to other female animals, especially
those of the quadrumanous order; thus, for example, the Simia
Diana is said to menstruate from the tip of its tail, &c. But
for twenty years I have had opportunities of seeing female apes
and papios, &c. in menageries, or in travelling caravans, and
have made inquiries about this subject. I often found that one
or other of them sometimes suffered from uterine haemorrhages,
but that they occurred at no regular period. Such was the
assertion of the more honest keepers, who looked on it as a kind
of diseased affection contrary to nature, and most of them can-
didly confessed, that they generally gave it out for a menstruous
flux, in order to excite the astonishment of the mob. As to the
fabulous stories of credulous antiquity about whole nations
whose women are destitute of the menstruous flux, I shall
briefly speak of them in another place.

18. Faculties of the mind which are ])eculiar to man. All
with one voice declare that here is the highest and best pre-

1 This wag first observed in 1724 by an English clergyman, Waase. Philos.
Trans. T. xxxiii.

^ Unless you like to believe Augustine Nipho, who in his singular book on
love (which he dedicated to Joan of Aragon, famous for her extreme beauty),
discusses the reasons which cause "women to be more lustful and amorous in
summer, but men on the other hand in winter."

REASON. 183

rogative of man, the use of reason. But when any one inquires
more particularly what these words mean, we must needs
wonder how many different reasons about the meaning of reason
are entertained by the most reasonable philosophers. Some
think it is altogether a quite unique and peculiar faculty of
man, others but the elevated and very superior grade of a
faculty, of which only slight vestiges are to be found in the soul
of brutes. Some look upon it as the union of all and singular
the highest faculties of man; others a particular direction of
the faculties of the human mind, &c.

' It is not ours to settle such disputes.'

I trust to resolve the question more briefly and safely, h pos-
teriori as they say, by considering it as that prerogative of man
which makes him lord and master of the rest of the animals'.
That he has this kind of dominion is obvious. It is also equally
plain that the cause of this dominion does not reside in his
bodily strength. It must therefore be referred exclusively to
the gifts of the mind and their superiority. And these gifts
in which man so far surpasses the rest of the animals, of what-
ever disposition and nature they may be, we will call reason.
Nature, as we have seen, has made man so as to be omnivorous
and an inhabitant of the whole world. But this unlimited
liberty of diet and locality, according to the almost infinite
variety of climate, soil and other circumstances, brings with it
also multifarious wants which cannot be met or remedied in
one way alone. His Creator has therefore fortified him Avith
the power of reason and invention, in order that he may accom-
modate himself to those conditions. Hence, even from the
most ancient times, by the wisest nations, this chief power of
man, that is, the genius of invention, has been celebrated with
divine honours. Thoth, for example, by the Egyptians, Hermes
by the Greeks, Thus, to compress a good deal in a few words,

1 " Whoever thou art who unjustly depreciate the lot of man, think what gifts
our parent has bestowed upon us, what much more powerful animals we put under
our yoke, what much fleeter animals we capture, and how there is nothing mortal
which is not put under our stroke." Seneca.

184 LANGUAGE.

man has made tools for himself, and so Franklin has acutely
defined him as a tool-making animal; thus he has prepared for
himself arms and weapons; thus he has found out ways of
eliciting fire; and thus, in order that one man may use the
advantages and assistance of another, he has invented language,
which again must be considered as one of the things peculiar to
man\ since it is not like the sounds of animals, conventional,
but, as the arbitrary variety of languages proves, has been
invented and turned to use by him^

19. Something about laughter and tears. Besides that other
manifestation of the mind I have just spoken of, I mean lan-
guage, two others must be mentioned, about which there has
hitherto been less doubt, whether, like speech, they are the
property of man alone, since they have not been invented by,
but are as it were congenital to him, and do not so much be-
long to the use of reason, as to the passions of the mind; I
mean, laughter, the companion of cheerfulness, and tears,

'The better part of all our senses.'

It is well known that many animals secrete tears, besides
man. But it is a question whether they weep from sorrow.
Competent witnesses assert it of some; as Steller^ of the Phoca
iirsina, and Pallas* of camels. It seems however more doubtful
whether brute animals display pleasure by laughter, although
many instances are given in authors. Le Cat, for example,
asserts that he had seen the Satyrus Angolensis both weeping
and laughing*.

' The subtleties of the old and more recent schoolmen on the language of brutes
are infinite. As a specimen it will be enough to cite Albertus called Magnus, who
allows language to one anthropomorphous ape, 1 mean the pygmaeus, besides man,
yet not without a memorable restriction. "The pygmy speaks although it is an
animal destitute of reason, but cannot discourse, nor make use of abstract terms,
but its words are rather directed to the concrete things about which it speaks."

^ Hobbes long since perceived that man had himself invented language (about
which the, in other respects, most accurate Sussmilch still doubts in our days);
"the most noble and profitable invention of all other was that of speech, whereby
men declare their thoughts one to another for mutual utility and conversation ;
without which there had been among-it men neither commonwealth, nor society, no
more than amongst lions, bears and wolves." Leviathan, p. 12, ed. 165 1.

^ Nov. Comment. Acad. Scienti. PetropoUt. T. Ii. p. 353.

* Nachrichten ilher die MongoUschen Vdlkerschaften, T. i. p. 177.

" Traitede V Existence dufiuide desnerfs, p. 35.

DISEASES. 185

20. The most note-worthy diseases peculiar to man. Al-
though these pathological affections seem at first sight to have
very little to do with the natural history of man, still I may
be allowed to spend a few words in borrowing a summary of
the principal diseases, which are also peculiar to man, especially
as these phenomena, which are against nature and peculiar to
him, depend on the temperament and constitution of his body,
and his animal economy; and may with the same justice be
noticed here, as the diseases of some animals peculiar to them
are recounted in their natural history, as the Lues bovilla, the
Coryza maligna of horses, or the voluntary madness which seems
so frequent in dogs, &c. It will be understood that we shall
only speak here of the most remarkable disorders, and that
even those few, chosen out of many others, are not yet placed
beyond all doubt, since the nosology of brutes, if we once leave
aside our few domestic animals, is almost entirely uncultivated
on account of its grave and partly insuperable difficulties. Still
we may enumerate the following diseases as being with great
probability some of those peculiar to mankind :

Very nearly all the eruptive fevers; or at all events par-
ticularly among them.

Variola \ Miliaria,

Morbilli, Petechise^

Scarlatina, Pestis.

Amongst the haemorrhages;

Epistaxis (?),

Hsemorrhoides,

Menorrhagia.

Amongst the nervous affections;
Hypochondriasis,
Hysteria.

^ Some years ago I was inforraed by letter by the famous doctor Jansen of
Amsterdam, that an ape there had contracted a local ulcer from some eruptive
contagion, but no fever of that kind.

186 DISEASES.

Disorders of the mind, properly so called, as Melancholia,
Nostalgia, &c. and perhaps Satyriasis and Nymphomania.

Cretinismus.

Of the cachectic disorders;
Rhachitis (?),
Scrofula (?),
Lues Venerea,
Pellagra,
Lepra and Elephantiasis.

Of the local disorders;

Amenorrhoea,

Cancer (?),

Clavus,

Hernia congenita (?).

The various sorts of Prolapsus, as that of the vesica urinaria
inversa, of which we owe a very accurate notice to the sagacity
of the famous Bonn\

Herpes (?),

Tinea capitis.

I am doubtful whether I ought to include here the intes-
tinal worms of man and two species of the genus pedicula, ob-
served in no other mammal, as far as I know, but him. I say
nothing of those disorders which, though not peculiar to man,
are far more frequent in him than in other animals; such as
tooth-ache, miscarriage, abortions, difficult parturition, &c.

21, Short list of those things, in luhich it is commonly,
though wrongly thought, that man differs from the brutes. Most
of these points have been referred to above as opportunities
occuiTed. Those which are left shall be briefly recounted.
Such, for example, is the proximity of the eyes, whereas, in

^ I think the reason why this remarkable defect in conformation has been so
observed in human infants, but not, as far as I know, in the fcetus of any other
mammal, is to be sought for in the narrower proportionate synchondrosis of the
pubis in man, that singular and, as it were, bipartite fissure, which also has been
so accurately investigated by Bonn. See Roose, Diss, de nativo veslcce urinarice
inverscE prolapsu. Getting. 1 793, 4to, with engravings.

FALSE DIFFERENCES. 187

the apes, the eyes are much closer together than in man. The
lashes in either eye-lid, which have been furnished not only to
man, but to many other quadrumanous animals, and even to
the elephant. The Simia rostrata has a more prominent nose
than man\ The ears are not immoveable in all men, nor are
they moveable in all the rest of the mammals. For example,
the Myrmecophagce must be excepted. The organ of touch is
common to most of the quadrumana with man; and so is the
uvula. I am ashamed to mention some things which are too
worthless, as eructation, which has been reckoned one of the
prerogatives of man^; and that man cannot, like brutes, be
fattened^, and other stuff of the same kind.

1 BufFon, Hist, des quadrupedes. Sup})!. T. vii. Tab. ii. 12.

2 ^milianus, De ruminantlbiis, p. 50. "As man alone walks upright, so he
alone, out of so many animals, can eruct ; for as the breath is light it seeks a
higher region, and, by a sort of natural impetus, is carried to the top."

2 Lorry in Hisl. de la Societe de Medicine, a. 1779.

SECTION II.

OF THE CAUSES AND WAYS BY WHICH THE SPECIES OF
ANIMALS DEGENERATE IN GENERAL.

22. Subject proposed. Hitherto we have investigated those
things in which man differs from the rest of the animals. Now
we come nearer to the primary object of the whole treatise, for
we are to inquire of what kind and how great is the natural
diversity which separates the races and the multifarious nations
of men; and to consider whether the origin of this diversity
can be traced to degeneration, or whether it is not so great as
to compel us rather to conclude that there is more than one
original species of man. Before this can be done, there are
two questions which must be considered: First, what is species
in zoology? Secondly, how in general a primordial species may
degenerate into varieties? and now of each separately.

23. What is species'? We say that animals belong to one
and the same species, if they agree so well in form and consti-
tution, that those things in which they do differ may have
arisen from degeneration. We say that those, on the other
hand, are of different species, whose essential difference is such
as cannot be explained by the known sources of degeneration,
if I may be allowed to use such a word. So far well in the
abstract, as they say. Now we come to the real difficulty,
which is to set forth the characters by which, in the natural
ivorld, we may distinguish mere varieties from genuine species.

The immortal Ray, in the last century, long before Buffon,
thought those animals should be referred to the same species,

srECiES. ISO

which copulate together, and have a fertile progeny. But, as
in the domestic animals which man has subdued, this character
seemed ambiguous and uncertain, on account of the enslaved
life they lead; in the beginning of this century, the sagacious
Frisch restricted it to wild animals alone, and declared that
those were of the same species, who copulate in a natural state\

But it must be confessed that, even with this limitation, we
make but little progress. For, in the first place, what very
little chance is there of bringing so many wild animals, espe-
cially the exotic ones, about which it is of the greatest possible
interest for us to know whether they are to be considered as
mere varieties, or as different species, to that test of copulation?
especially if their native countries are widely apart ; as is the
case with the Satyrus Angolensis (Chimpanzee) and that of the
island of Borneo (Orang-utan).

Then it is universally the case that the obscurity and doubt
is much smaller, and of much less importance, in the case of
wild animals on the point in question, than of those very ani-
mals which are excluded by this argument, that is, the domestic.
Here, in truth, is the great difficulty. Hence the wonderful
differences of opinion about, for example, the common dog,
whose races you see are by some referred to many primitive
species; by others are considered as mere degenerated varieties
from that stock which is called the domestic dog {Chien de
herger) ; again, there are others who think that all these varie-
ties are derived from the jackal; and, finally, others contend
that the latter, together with all the domestic dogs and their
varieties, are descended from the wolf, and so forth.

As then the principle sought to be deduced from copulation
is not sufficient to define the idea of species and its difference

1 "When beasts by nature copulate with each other, it is an unfailing sign that
they are of the same species." Berthout van Berchem fil. has lately adopted the
same test of species, "if animals mix when in a natural state." But he makes no
mention of Frisch, or even of Ray, nay, he says, " M. de Buffon, who was the
first to abandon the little-to-be-depended-upon distinctions of the nomenclators,
was also the first to make it understood that copulation was the best criterion for
ascertaining species." See Mem. de la Societe dcs Sciences Physiques de Laitsanne,
T. II. p. 49.

190 VAEIETIES.

from variety, so neither are the other things which are adduced
with this object, for example, the constancy of any character.
Thus the snowy colour and the red pupils of the white variety
of rabbit are as constant as any specific character could pos-
sibly be. So that I almost despair of being able to deduce any
notion of species in the study of zoology, except from analogy
and resemblance. I see, for example, that the molar teeth of
the African elephant differ most wonderfully in their conforma-
tion from those of the Asiatic. I do not know whether these
elephants, which come from such different parts of the world,
have ever copulated together; nor do I know any more how
constant this conformation of the teeth may be in each. But
since, so far in all the specimens which I have seen, I have ob-
served the same difference; and since I have never known any
example of molar teeth so changed by mere degeneration, I
conjecture from analogy that those elephants are not to be
considered as mere varieties, but must be held to be different
species.

The ferret, on the contrary, does not seem to me a separate
species, but must be considered as a mere variety of the pole-
cat, not so much because I have known them copulate together,
as because the former has red pupils, and from all analogy I
consider that those mammals in whom the internal eye is desti-
tute of the dark pigment, must be held to be mere varieties
which have degenerated from their original stocks.

24. Application of what has been said to the question
whether we should divide mankind into varieties or species.
It is easily manifest whither what we have hitherto said has
been tending. We have no other way, but that of analogy, by
which we are likely to arrive at a solution of the problem above
proposed. But as we enter upon this path, we ought always to
have before our eyes the two golden rules which the great
Newton has laid down for philosophizing. First, That the same
causes should he assigned to account for natural effects of the
same kind. We must therefore assign the same causes for the
bodily diversity of the races of mankind to which we assign
a similar diversity of body in the other domestic animals which

DEGENERATION. 191

are widely scattered over the world. Secondly, That ive ought
not to admit more causes of natural things than what are
sufficient to explain the phenomena. If therefore it shall appear
that the causes of degeneration are sufficient to explain the
phenomena of the corporeal diversity of mankind, we ought not
to admit anything else deduced from the idea of the plurality
of human sj)ecies.

25. How does the prhnitive species degenerate into varieties'?-
As we are now about to treat of the modes of degeneration, I
hope best to consult perspicuity in dealing with the subject if
I arrange it again under two heads; of which the first will
briefly relate the principal phenomena of the degeneration of
brute animals; and the second will inquire into the causes of
this degeneration. This being done, it will be easier in the
following section to compare the phenomena of variety in man-
kind as well with those phenomena of degeneration in brute
animals as with the causes of them.

26. Principal phenomena of the degeneration of brute ani-
mals. A few instances, and those taken from the warm-blooded
animals alone, and also as far as possible from the mammals
which are most like man in their corporeal economy, will be
enough to show that there is no native variety in mankind
which may not be observed to arise amongst other animals
as a mere variety and by degeneration. But it is better to go
over these things in separate chapters.

27. Colour. Thus in the way of colour, the pigs in Nor-
mandy are all white; in Savoy, black; in Bavaria^ chesnut.
The Fecus huhulum in Hungary generally varies from white to
grey; in Franconia they are red, &c. In Corsica the dogs and
horses are beautifully spotted. In Normandy, the peacocks are
black; ours, on the other hand, are generally white. On the
Guinea coast, the birds, especially of the hen tribe ^ and the
dogs, are black like the aborigines; and, what is particularly
remarkable, the Guinea dog (which Linnoeus calls C. jEgyptius,

1 Comp. Voigt, Magazin. T. vr. P. i, p. lo.

See Dan. Beeckman's Voyage to and from Borneo, Lond. 1718, 8vo. p. i

192 HAIR.

I do not know why) is, like the men of that climate, distin-
guished for the velvety softness of his smooth -skin, and the
great and nearly specific cutaneous perspiration \

28. Texture of the hair. As to the texture of hair, what
a difference is there not, I ask, in the wool alone of the sheep
of different climates, from the tender Tibetan up to the thick
and almost stiff Ethiopian ? Or in the bristles of the sow,
which are so soft in those of Normandy, that they are not
fit for scouring-brushes ? And what a difference there is, in this
respect, between the boar and the domestic sow, especially as to
the short wool which grows between the bristles \ How remark-
able too is the effect of every region of the globe upon the hair
of more than one kind of the domestic mammals, as the effect
of the climate of Galatia on the bearded cattle of Angora, and
on the rabbits and cats, who are so conspicuous for their woolly
softness and the extraordinary length and generally snowy
whiteness of their coats.

29. Stature. As to stature the difference between the
Patagonian and the Laplander is much smaller than what is
observed everywhere in other domestic animals of different
parts of the world. Thus pigs, when transported to Cuba from
Europe, grow to double their natural size'^. So also do cows
when transported to Paraguay ^

30. Figure and pi'oportion of parts. As to the proportion of
parts, what a great difference there is between the horses of
Ai'abia or Syria and of northern Germany; between the thick-
footed cows of the Cape of Good Hope and the thin-footed ones
of England! The hinder legs of the sows of Normandy are
much higher than the front legs, &c. The cows in some parts
of England and Ireland have no horns at all*; in Sicily, on the
other hand, they have very large ones; but I must not say
anything of the vast horns of the Abyssinian oxen, which Sir
Joseph Banks showed me, for they, if we are to trust Bruce,

1 Pechlin, Be Hahitu et Colore ^thiopum, Kilon. 1677, 8vo. p. 56.
^ Voigt, Magazin. I. c.

3 F. Saver. Clavigero, Sloria Antica del Messico, T. iv. p. 142.
* Comp. also Hippocrates, De acribus, aquis, et loch, s. 44.

DEGENERATION. 1D3

ought rather to be referred to some morbific disposition. We
may however mention here the Ovis polycerata; and as to the
variety of hoofs, there are whole races of sows with sohd and
with three-cloven hoofs \ As to some other parts, we have
sheep with broad tails; the fringes of the crested canary (what
our people call kapp. vogel) and other things of this kind.

81. Above all, the shape of the skull. The shape has been
observed to differ everywhere in the varieties of mankind ; but
all this difference is not a whit greater, if indeed it can be
compared to that which may be observed amongst the different
races of other domestic animals. The skull of the Ethiopian
does not differ more from that of the European than that of the
domestic sow from the osseous head of the boar; or than the
head of the Neapolitan horse, which is called from its shape
ram-headed, from that of the Hungarian horse, which the
learned know well is conspicuous for its singular lowness and
the size of its inferior jaw. In the urus, the progenitor of our
domestic race of bulls, according to the observations of Camper,
very large fovese lacrymales are visible; which, on the contrary,
are entirely obsolete in our country cattle. I say nothing of
that manifestly monstrous degeneration of skull in the variety
of hen they call the Paduan^

82. Causes of degeneration. Animal life supposes two facul-
ties, depending upon the vital forces as primary conditions and
principles of all and singular its functions ; the one, namely, of so
receiving the force of the stimuli which act upon the body that
the parts are affected by it ; the other of so reacting from this
affection that the living motions of the body are in this way set
in action and perfected. So there is no motion in the animal
machine without a preliminary stimulus and a consequent re-
action. These are the hinges on which all the physiology of
the animal economy turns. And these are the fountains from
which, just as the business itself of generation, so also the causes

1 Voigt, Magazin, I. c.

" Pallas, spicikrj. zoologic. fasc. IV. p. 22, and Sandifort, Museum Anatom. Acad.
Lufjd. Batav. T. i. p. 306.

194 FOEMATIVE FORCE.

of degeneration flow ; but in order to make this clear to those
even who know but little of physiology, it will be as Avell to
premise with a few words from that science.

83. Formative force. I have in another place professedly,
and in a separate book devoted to this subject, endeavoured to
show that the vulgar system of evolution, as it is called
(according to which it is taught that no animal or plant is
generated, but that all individual organic bodies were at the
very earliest dawn of creation already formed in the shape of
undeveloped germs and are now being only successively evolved),
answers neither to the phenomena themselves of nature, nor to
sound philosophic reasoning. But on the contrary, by properly
joining together the two principles which explain the nature
of organic bodies, that is the physico-mechanical with the
teleological, we are conducted both by the phenomena of gene-
ration, and by sound reasoning, to lay down this proposition :
That the genital liquid is only the shapeless material of organic
bodies, composed of the innate matter of the inorganic king-
dom, but differing in the force it shows, according to the phe-
nomena; by which its first business is under certain circum-
stances of maturation, mixture, place, &c. to put on the form
destined and determined by them; and afterwards through the
perpetual function of nutrition to preserve it, and if by chance
it should be mutilated, as far as lies in its power to restore
it by reproduction.

Let me be allowed to distinguish this energy, so as to pre-
vent its being confused with the other kinds of vital force,
or with the vague and undefined words of the ancients, the
plastic force, &c. by the name of the formative force (nisus
formativus) ; by which name I wish to designate not so much
the cause as some kind of perpetual and invariably consistent
effect, deduced a posteriori, as they say, from the very constancy
and universality of phenomena. Just in the same way as we
use the name of attraction or gravity to denote certain forces,
the causes of which however still remain hid, as they say, in
Cimmerian darkness.

As then other vital forces, when they are excited by their

ITS ACTION. 195

appointed and proper stimuli, become active and ready for re-
action, so also the formative force is excited by the stimuli
which belong to it, that is, by the kindling of heat in the egg
during the process of incubation. But as other vital forces, as
contractility, irritability, &c. put themselves out only by the
mode of motion, this, on the other hand, of which we are talk-
ing, manifests itself by increase, and by giving a determinate
form to matter; by which it haj)pens that every plant and
every animal propagates its species in its offspring (either im-
mediately, or gradually by the successive access and ckange of
other stimuli, through metamorphosis).

Now the way in which the formative force may sometimes
turn aside from its determined direction and plan is principally
in three forms. First, by the production of monsters ; then by
hybrid generation through the mixture of the genital liquid of
different species; finally, by degeneration into varieties, pro-
perly so called. The production of monsters, by which, whether
through some disturbance and as it were mistake of the forma-
tive force, or even through accidental or adventitious circum-
stances, as by external pressure, &c. a structure manifestly
faulty and unnaturally deformed is intruded upon organic
bodies, has nothing to do with our present purpose. Nor is
this the place to consider hybrids sprung from the commingling
of the generation of different species, since by a most wise law
of nature (by which the infinite confusion of specific forms is
guarded against) hybrids of this kind, especially in the animal
kingdom, scarcely ever occur except through the interference of
man: and then they are almost invariably sterile, so as to be
unable to propagate any further their new ambiguous shape
sprung from anomalous venery.

Still, meanwhile, this subject we are now discussing may
be illustrated by the history of hybrids sprung from different
species; partly on account of their analogy with those hybrids
which spring from different varieties, of which we shall speak
by and by; partly, because, like everything else, they go as
proofs to refute that theory about the evolution of pre-formed
germs, and to display clearly the power and efficacy of the for-

132

1 96 CLIMATE.

mative force; a consideration, which will escape no one who
rightly appreciates those well-known and very remarkable ex-
j)eriments, in which, in the very rare instances of prolific hy-
brids, when their fecundation has been frequently repeated for
many generations by the aid of the male seed of the same spe-
cies, that new appearance of hybrid posterity has so sensibly
deflected from the maternal form as more and more to pass
into the paternal form of the other species, and so, finally, the
former seems to become quite transmuted into the latter, by a
sort of arbitrary metamorphosis \

But the mixture of specifically different generation, al-
though it cannot overturn, or as it were suffocate, all .the
excitability of the formative force, still can impart to it a
singular and anomalous direction. And so it happens that the
continuous action, carried on for several series of generations
of some peculiar stimuli in organic bodies, again has great in-
fluence in sensibly diverting the formative force from its accus-
tomed path, which deflection is the most bountiful source of
degeneration, and the mother of varieties properly so called.
So now let us go to work and examine one by one the chief of
these stimuli.

84<. Climate. That the power of climate must be almost
infinite, as on all organic bodies, so especially on warm-blooded
animals, will quickly appear to any one who considers first, by
how intimate and how constant a bond these animals are
bound while alive to the action of the atmospheric air in which
they dwell. Besides, how wonderfully this air (which was once
held to be a simple element of itself) is made up of what they
call multifarious elements, such as gasiform constituents, the
accessories of light, heat, electricity, &c. Then of what differ-
ent proportions of these matters does it not consist, and in
consequence of this variety how different must be the atmo-
spheric action on those we call animals! Especially when we

1 Kolreuter. Third account of the news of some experiments relating to the
sex of plants, &c., p. 51, s. 24, with the title, "An entirely complete change of
one kind of plant into another."

CLIMATE. 197

throw in the consideration of so many other things, by whose
accession climates differ so much, as the position of countries
in respect of the zones of the globe, the elevation of the soil,
mountains, the vicinity of the sea or lakes and rivers, the cus-
tomary winds, and innumerable other things of this kind.

This air, then, which those we call animals suck in by
breathing from the time of birth, modified so greatly by the
variety of climates, is decomposed in their lungs as it were in a
living laboratory. Part of what they inhale is distributed with
the arterial blood over the whole body; but as a balance to
another portion of this point, elements are liberated, which are
partly deposited on the peripheral integuments of the body, and
partly are carried back by the flow of venous blood to the re-
spiratory organs; hence arise the various modifications of the
blood itself, and the remarkable influxes of these humours, es-
pecially of fat, bile, &c. into the secretions. Hence finally the
action of all these things as so many stimuli on a living solid,
and hence the resultinsf reaction as well of this thus affected
solid, as what especially belongs to our discussion, the direction
and determination of the formative force. This great and per-
petual influence of climate on the animal economy and the
habit and conformation of the body, although there has been no
time when it has not attracted the attention of good observers,
has in our own time above all been illustrated and confirmed by
the great advance that has been made in chemistry, and by a
deeper study of physiology. Still it is always a difficult and
arduous thing, in the discussion of these varieties, to settle
what is to be attributed exclusively to climate, what rather
to other causes of degeneration, and finally to the joint action
of both. Meanwhile I will bring forward one or two instances
of degeneration which seem most clearly to be derived from the
effects of climate. For example, the white colour of many
animals in northern regions, which have other colours in the
temperate zones. Instances are, those of wolves, hares, cattle,
falcons, crows, blackbirds, thrushes, chaffinches, &c. That this
whiteness must be attributed to cold, we learn from the analogy
of animals of the same kind who, under the same climate

198 DIET.

during winter, change their summer colour into white or
grey; as weasels and ermines, harq^, squirrels, reindeer, the
ptarmigan, snow-bunting, and others \ So also I am more
inclined to attribute to climate that snowy fleece so con-
spicuous for its silky softness of some of the animals of Angora
than to the kind of diet, because that is shared by those who
feed on all sorts of different things, by the carnivorous, as the
cat for example, equally with the herbivorous ruminants, as
goats, &c.

Such too seems to be the explanation of the coally blackness
which under some districts of the torrid zone, as on the coasts
of Guinea, animals of different orders, mammalia as well as
birds, are seen to put on with the colour of the Ethiopians
(s. 27). And it is above all worthy of remark that this Ethiopic
blackness, just like that Syrian whiteness, although the animals
may be transported into regions of a very different climate, is
still preserved permanently for many series of generations. Nor
is the power and influence of climate on the stature of organic
bodies at all inferior ; since cold obstructs their increase, which,
on the contrary is manifestly augmented and promoted by heat.
Thus the horses of Scotland, or cold North Wales, are small ; in
Scandinavia the horses and the cattle, like the indigenous races,
are of tall and stalwart stature ; in Smaland they ai'e sensibly
smaller, and in the north of East Gothland are in proportion
smallest of all.

85. Diet. It seems extremely probable, what has been
demonstrated principally by the sagacity of G. Fordyce, that
the primary elements, as they are called, of every kind of
alimentary substance, whether it be taken from the animal or
the vegetable kingdom, are the same. Hence the same sort of
chyle, and universally the same kind of blood, is elaborated by
all the multifarious warm-blooded animals, carnivorous as well
as herbivorous, out of the most different kinds of nourishment,
if only it has been properly submitted to the organs of diges-

1 Comp. besides others, Linnaeus, in Flora Lapponica, p. 55, 352, ed. Smith.

MODE OF LIFE. 199

tion. Still, however much this may appear to be true, it cannot
be denied that the innumerable adventitious qualities of different
matters of food, have had great power in changing the natures
and properties of animals; to prove which a few instances will
be enough.

Singing birds show that there is some specific power in some
kinds of food to change the colour of animals ; especially some
sorts of larks and finches, which it has been proved, if they
are fed upon hemp seed alone, sensibly grow black. The
African sheep when transported to England is a proof how
wonderfully, when the diet is changed, the texture of the hairs
will change also ; for its wool which is common by nature, and
stiff like the hair of a camel, after it has been fed one year upon
English pastures becomes of a most magnificent delicacy'. The
influence food has towards changing the stature and the pro-
portions, is plain from the comparison of domestic animals.
Horses which in marshy countries (called in the vernacular
Masclildnder) live upon rich food, as the Frisian especially, grow
large; whereas, on the contrary, in rocky and stony countries,
such as those of OEland, or on dry heathy soils, they remain
stunted. Thus it is surprising how fat and bellied hoi'ses be-
come on a fat soil, though their legs become shorter in propor-
tion. But when they are fed upon drier grass, as, for example,
the Cape grass, they secrete less fat, but are remarkable for
their strong and fleshy legs ; to say nothing of the multifarious
diversities of the taste and weight of flesh, which again depend
upon the variety of diet.

36. Mode of life. When I speak of the kind of life as
a cause of degeneration, I include under that head all those
points besides climate and diet which so far have to do with the
natural economy of animals, that when they act long and con-
tinuously upon the same condition of body they are at length
strong enough to change it to some extent. The principal of
these are cultivation and the force of custom, whose power and

1 Comp. Jam. Bates On the Literal Doctrine of Original Sin, Load. 1766, 8vo,
p. 2^4.

200 HYBRIDITY.

influence are again so manifestly conspicuous in our domestic
animals.

Consider, for instance, the vast difference which separates
the conformation and the proportions of the parts of the
generous horse trained in the school, and the wild horse, which
they call a wild beast. The latter, when it fights with others
bites rather than kicks; the former, on the other hand, when
bridled and armed with iron feet, prefers to attack his enemy
with them, and almost unlearns to bite. Many kinds of mam-
mals when subdued by man show by the hanging of their
tails and the lapjjing of their ears a spirit tamed and subdued
by slavery. In many the very corporeal functions of secretion,
generation, &c. are changed in a wonderful way. In the do-
mestic pig, for example, the adipose membrane appears in a
vast mass, which is quite wanting in the boar, whose tender and
as it were woolly hairs, on the contrary, inserted between the
bristles, sensibly disappear in that domestic variety. These
domestic animals are much more liable to monstrous births than
their wild aborigines; and also to troops of new diseases, and
especially to new kinds of worms of which no vestige is to be
found in their wild and original variety; the truth of which
assertion, though paradoxical, is not to be invalidated, as may
be proved by the instance of the Hydas intercutis, called, in the
vernacular, Finnen, Ital. Lazaroli\ I place under this head
also stunted stature from premature and unseasonable venery,
and everything of that kind.

37. Hybrid generation. So much for the triple sources of
degeneration which only by long and daily action, continued
through many series of generations, are sufficiently strong,
slowly, and by little and little, to change the primeval character
of animals and produce varieties. But the case is different, and
a new character is imparted to the immediate ofifsi3ring, when
different varieties of this kind, sprung at length from those

Toeze,

_ 1 Malpighii Opera Posthuma, p. 84, ed. Lond. 1697, foL so J. A. E. Go..^
Discovert/; that the hydatids in swine's jlesh are no fjlander disease, hut true bladder-
worms. 8vo. Hal. 1784.

HYBRIDITY. 201

causes, come to copulate together, for thus tliey give rise to
a hybrid offspring, like neither parent altogether, but partici-
pating in the form of each, and being as it were a mean be-
tween the two. Hybrid is the name commonly given to the
offspring of parents of manifestly different species, as mules
sprung from the horse and ass, or birds from the union of the
crested canary with the linnet. But this is not the place for
us to speak of these, for there is no account to be taken of them
in varieties of the human race. Not indeed that honid stories
are wanting of the union of men with brutes, when either men
have had to do with the females of beasts (whether carried
away by unbridled lust\ or from some mad idea of continence''*,
or because they expected some medicinal aid from this sort of
crime ^), or when we are told that women have been made use
of by male brutes (whether that has happened through any
violent rape*, or because women have solicited them in the
madness of lust^ or have prostituted themselves from religious
superstition*'), still we have never known any instance related
on good authority of any such connexion being fruitful, or that

1 Comp. Th. Warton on Tbeocriti IchjU. i. 88, p. 19. "I have been told by a
certain learned friend, that when he was travelling in Sicily and investigating
closely not only the ancient monuments but also the manners of the people, that
even their own priests used to ask the shepherds, who spend a solitary life in the
Sicilian mountains, as a matter of course among the articles of confession, whether
they had had anything to do with the shegoats."

^ See Mart, k Baumgarten E^u. G-erm. Travels in Egypt, Arabia, &c. p. 73.
" As we went out of Alkan, in Egypt, we came to a village called Belbes, where
we joined a caravan going to Damascus. There we saw a Saracenic saint, sitting
on the heaj:)s of sand, as naked as he came out of his mother's womb. We heard
this saint whom we saw in that place publicly praised above all things ; that he
was a holy man, divine and perfect beyond all measure, because he never had any
connexion with women or boys, but only with asses and mules."

'^ With this object Pallas says that when the Persians suffer from hip-gout they
copulate with the onagxa. Ncue Nnrdische beytrdge, P. ir. p. 38.

* Baboons. Comp. Ph. Phillips's Travels in Guinea in Churchill's Collection of
Voyages, T. vi. p. 211. " Here are a vast number of overgrown large baboons,
some as big as a large mastiff dog, which go in droves of 50 and 100 together, and
are very dangerous to be met vAth, especially by women, who, I have been credi-
bly assured, they have often seized upon, ravished, and in that kind abused one
after another, till they have killed them."

5 Thus Steller says that the women of Kamtschatka formerly copulated with
dogs. Beschreibung Von Kamtscliatl-a, p. 289.

^ As the women of Mendes with the sacred goat ; on which singular custom see
a copious dissertation by D'Hancarville, Eccherchcs sur Corigine des A rts de la Grece,
T. I. p. 320.

202 HEREDITY.

any hybrid has ever been produced from the horrid union of
beast and man. But we have only to do with those hybrids
which spring from the intercourse of different varieties of one
and the same species, as when, for example, the green canary
bird is paired with the white variety, &c., which connexion has a
wonderful effect in changing the colour and conformation of the
new progeny which results therefrom; so that this is often
applied with the greatest advantage in the impregnation of
domestic animals for the purpose of improving and ennobling
the offspring, especially in the case of horses and sheep.

38. Hereditary peculiarities of animals from diseased tem-
perament. An hereditary disposition to disease would seem at
first sight rather to belong to the pathology than to the natural
history of animals. But when the matter is more carefully
looked into, it is plain that in more ways than one it has some-
thing to do with those causes of degeneration we are concerned
with. For, in the first place, some external qualities of animals,
although according to common ideas they are never referred
to a truly diseased constitution, still seem to come very nearly
to that, since they are for the most part found in conjunction
with an unnaturally weak affection. I include among these, for
example, that peculiar whiteness of some animals, which the
wise Veinilam long ago called the colour of defect. We learn
by the example of the Hungarian oxen, whose woolly skin only
comes after castration, that we may frequently recognize as
a cause the vicious constitution and defect of the corporeal
economy. On the other hand, it is proved by the instances of
the Angora cats and dogs, that morbid symptoms follow extra-
ordinary whiteness of that kind, for it is a common observation
that those animals are almost always hard of hearing.

It is also the case that some genuine diseases when the
animal nature has been as it were used to them for a lonaf
series of generations seem to get sensibly milder and milder
and less inconvenient, so that at last they can scarcely be con-
sidered more than a diseased affection. An example is afforded
by that vicious species of whiteness which, when united to a
deficiency of the black pigment which lines the internal eye of

MUTILATIONS. 203

hot-blooded animals, is known by the name of leucaethiopia.
This when it seizes sporadically one or other of a family (for
it is always a congenital affection) exhibits plainly the symp-
toms of cachexia, which everywhere comes very near to a
leprous constitution. But in other cases when it has been esta-
blished by a sort of hereditary right for many generations, it
becomes a second nature, so that in the white variety of rab-
bits not a vestige remains of the original morbific affection,
the existence of which however is determined by the analogy
of other animals which have anomalously white pupils and red
eyes. The ferret has been considered by some zoologists as a
peculiar species of the genus Mustela, whereas, unless I am
altogether deceived, it is as I have said above (s. 23) a mere
variety of the pole-cat, and that of diseased origin through
leucaethiopia.

39. Problem proposed. Can mutilations and other artifices
give a- commencement to native varieties of animals ? It is dis-
puted whether deformities or mutilations, effected upon animals
either by accident or advisedly, especially in those cases where
they have been repeated for many series of generations, can at
length in progress of time terminate in a sort of second nature,
so that what before was done by art now degenerates into a
congenital conformation. Some^ have asserted this, whilst
others^ on the contrary have denied it. Those who are for the
affirmative point to the examples of the young of different
kinds of animals, dogs and cats for example, which are born
without tails or ears after those parts have been cut off from
their parents, as is proved by credible witnesses. And of boys
among circumcised nations who are frequently born naturally
apellce^; and of scars which parents bear from wounds, whose
marks afterwards are congenital in the infants. Buffon, indeed,
went so far as to derive from the same source the peculiar
characters of some animals, as the callosities on the breast and

^ Hippocrates and Aristotle. And very recently Kliigel, in Tom. I. of the Ency-
clopedia, p. 541, ed. ind.

- See Kant, in Berliner Mcnatsschriff, 1785, T. vi. p. 400.
3 Voigt, Magazin, T. vi. P. i. p. 22, and P. iv. p. 40.

204 DEGENERATIOX.

legs of camels, or the bald scurfy forehead of the rook (Corvus
frugilegus). Those who do not allow these last instances will
not unwisely reject this opinion of Buffon, as what is called a
petitio principii; but the other instances we spoke of they
will think should rather be attributed to chance.

I have not at present adopted as my own either the affirma-
tive or the negative of these opinions ; I would willingly give
my suffrage with those on the negative side, if they could ex-
plain why peculiarities of the same sort of conformation,
which are first made intentionally or accidentally, cannot in
any way be handed down to descendants, when we see that
other marks of race which have come into existence from
other causes which up to the present time are unknown, especi-
ally in the face, as noses, lips, and eye-brows are universally
propagated in families for few or many generations with less or
greater constancy, just in the same way as organic^ disorders,
as deficiencies of speech and pronunciation, and such like ;
unless perhaps they prefer saying that all these occur also by
chance.

40. Some considerations to he observed in the examination
of the causes of degeneration. Many of the causes of degene-
ration we have already spoken of are so very clear, and so placed
beyond all possibility of doubt, that most phenomena of dege-
neration above enumerated may by an easy process be undoubt-
edly referred to them, as etfects to their causes. But on the
other hand even in that very way there is frequently such a
concurrence or such a conflicting opposition of many of them ;
such a diverse and multifarious proneness of organic bodies to
degeneration, or reaction from it ; and besides, these causes
have such effects upon these bodies according as they act im-
mediately (so to speak) or otherwise ; and finally, such is the
difference of these effects by which they are preserved unim-
paired by a sort of tenacious constancy through long series of
generations, or by some power of change withdraw themselves

^ A remarkable instance is related by Hacquet in the Marjazln of Voigt just
citcfl, T. VI. P. IV. p. 34.

CONCLUSIONS. 205

again in a short sjDace of time, that in consequence of tliis diver-
sified and various relation there is need of the greatest caution
in the examination of varieties.

Let me then, if only for the benefit of the student, at the
end of this discourse, before we pass to the varieties of men
themselves, lay down some maxims of caution at least, as corol-
laries to be carefully borne in mind in the discussion we are
entering upon :

1. The more causes of degeneration which act in conjunc-
tion, and the longer they act upon the same species of animals,
the more palpably that species may fall off from its primeval
conformation. Now no animal can be compared to man in this
respect, for he is omnivorous, and dwells in every climate, and
is far more domesticated and far more advanced from his first
beginnings than any other animal ; and so on him the united
force of climate, diet, and mode of life must have acted for a
very long time.

2. On the other hand an otherwise sufficiently powerful
cause of degeneration may be changed and debilitated by the
accession of other conditions, especially if they are as it were
opposed to it. Hence every^vhere in various regions of the
terraqueous globe, even those which lie in the same geographi-
cal latitude, still a very different temperature of the air and
an equally different and generally a contrary effect on the con-
dition of animals may be observed, according as they differ in
the circumstances of a higher or lower position, proximity to
the sea, or marshes, or mountains, or woods, or of a cloudy or
serene sky, or some peculiar character of soil, or other circum-
stances of that kind.

3. Sometimes a remarkable phenomenon of degeneration
ought to be referred not so much to the immediate, as to the
mediate, more remote, and at the first glance concealed influ-
ence of some cause. Hence the darker colour of peoples is
not to be derived solely from the direct action of the sun upon
the skin, but also from its more remote, as its powerful influ-
ence upon the functions of the liver.

4. Mutations which spring from the mediate influence of

206

CONCLUSIONS.

causes of this sort seem to strike root all the deeper, and so to
be all the more tenaciously propagated to following generations.
Hence, if I mistake not, we are to look for the reason why the
brown colour of skin contracted in the torrid zone will last
longer in another climate than the white colour of northern
animals if they are transported towards the south.

5. Finally, the mediate influences of those sort of causes
may lie hid and be at such a distance, that it may be impossible
even to conjecture what they are, and hence we shall have to
refer the enigmatical phenomena of degeneration to them, as to
their fountains. Thus, without doubt, we must refer to mediate
causes of this kind, which still escape our observation, the
racial and constant forms of skulls, the racial colour of eyes,
&c.

SECTION III.

ON THE CAUSES AND WAYS BY WHICH MANKIND HAS DEGENE-

EATED, AS A SPECIES.

41. Order of proceeding. Now let us come to the matter in
hand, and let us apply what we have hitherto been demonstrat-
ing about the ways in and the causes by which animals in
general degenerate, to the native variety of mankind, so as to
enumerate one by one the modes of degenerating, and allot to
each the particular cause to which it is to be referred. We
must begin with the colour of the skin, which although it
sometimes deceives, still is a much more constant character, and
more generally transmitted than the others ^ and which most
clearly appears in hybrid progeny sprung from the union of
varieties of different colour composed of the tint of either pa-
rent. Besides, it has a great connection with the colour of the
hair and the iris, and a great relation to the temperament of
men: and, moreover, it especially strikes everywhere the eyes
even of the most ignorant.

42. Seat of the colour of the skin. The mucous, commonly
called the cellular membrane, about whose most important
function in the economy of the human body we have spoken
above, affords as it were a foundation to the whole machine. It
is interwoven with almost all parts alike, even to the marrow of
the bones, and is collected on the outermost surface of the body

1 Kant, in Berliner MoncUsschrift, 1785, T. vi. p. 391, and in Teutschen Merkur,
1788, P. I. p. 48.

208 SKIN.

into a thick wliite universal integument, called the corium. By
this the rest of the body is surrounded and included; and
above all it is penetrated by a most enormous apparatus of
cutaneous nerves, lymphatic veins, and finally Avith a most close
and subtle net of sanguiferous vessels.

The nerves communicate sensation to the corium, so as to
make it the organ of touch, and as it were the sentinel of the
whole body. The lymphatic veins make this same corium the
instrument of absorption and inhalation. But the sanguiferous
vessels have most to do with the subject under discussion, as
being the constituent parts of the common integuments of the
body, and equally with the lungs and the alimentary canal make
up the great purifier and chemical laboratory of the human
machine; whose surfaces, as will soon be seen, have a good deal
to do with giving its colour to the skin. The corium is lined
with a very tender mucus, which from the erroneous descrij)tion
of its discoverer, is called the reticulum Malpighii: this affords
a sort of glutinous bond, by which the most external stratum of
the integuments, the epidermis, or cuticle, stretching over and
protecting the surface of the body, and which in the born man
is exposed immediately to the atmospheric air, adheres to the
corium. The reticulum, just like the epidermis, is a most
simple structure, entirely destitute of nerves and vessels, differ-
ing both 3f them as much as possible from the nature of the
corium. They agree themselves in more than one way, so that
it seems most probable that these similar parts are allied, or
that the exterior cuticle draws its origin in some way from its
substratum, the reticulum. Besides, each of these allied strata
of integuments so make up the seat of colour, that in clear-com-
plexioned men, where they are stained with no pigment, they .
permit the natural roseate whiteness of the corium to be seen
through : and in brown or coloured men, although the principal
cutaneous pigment may adhere to the Malpighian reticulum,
although the epidermis may be paler, still it will manifestly
j)artake of its tint. The darker the reticulum the thicker it is,
and the more it approaches the appearance of a membrane
peculiar to itself; the more transparent it is on the contrary

COLOUR. 209

the more tender it becomes, and only appears to have the con-
stitution of a diffused mucus.

48. Racial varieties of colour. Although the colour of tlie
human skin seems to play in numberless ways between the
snowy whiteness of the European girl and the deepest black of
the Ethiopian woman of Senegambia^ ; and though not one of
these phases is common either to all men of the same nation,
or so peculiar to any nation, but what it sometimes occurs in
others, though greatly different in other respects ; still, in gene-
ral, all the varieties of national colour seem to be most referable
to the five following classes.

1. The white colour holds the first place, such as is that of
most European peoples. The redness of the cheeks in this
variety is almost peculiar to it : at all events it is but seldom to
be seen in the rest.

2. The second is the yellow, olive-tinge, a sort of colour
half-way between grains of wheat and cooked oranges, or the
dry and exsiccated rind of lemons: very usual in the Mongolian
nations.

3. The copper colour (Fr. bronze) or dark orange, or a sort
of iron, not unlike the bruised bark of cinnamon or tanner's
bark : peculiar almost to the Americans.

4. Tawny (Fr. basane), midway between the colour of fresh
mahogany and dried pinks or chesnuts : common to the Malay
race and the men of the Southern Archipelago.

5. Lastly, the tawny-blach, up to almost a pitchy blackness
{jet-black), principally seen in some Ethiopian nations. Though
this tawny blackness is by no means peculiar to the Ethiopians,
but is to be found added to the principal colour of the skin in
others of the most different and the most widely-separated

^ Tlie indefinite and arbitrary sense in which most authors use the names of
colours has caused vast difficulty in all the study of natural history: and will cer-
tainly be particularly troublesome in this anthropological disquisition. That I may
not be accused of the same fault, I must give notice that I am far from considering
such words for example as the English yeUoiv and olive tinge, &c. which I have sub-
joined to each of the five principal colours which I have distinguished, as genuine
synonyms. All 1 wanted to do was to show that these words had been used by
diiTerent authors, and those classical ones, in denoting the national colour of one
and the same race.

210 CAUSES. -

varieties of mankind; as in the Braziliiins, the Cahfornians\
the Indians, and the islanders of the Southern Ocean, where,
for instance, the New Caledonians in this respect make an
insensible transition from the tawny colour of the Otaheitans,
througfh the chesnut-coloured inhabitants of the island of
Tongatabu, to the tawny-black of the New Hollanders.

4-i, Causes of this variety. The seat of the colour of the
skin has now been placed beyond all doubt. The division of
the varieties of colour, and their distribution, seem sufficiently
plain and perspicuous. But to dig out the causes of this variety
is the task and the trouble. Authors have laboured most in
endeavouring to explain the colour of the Ethiopians, which
above all other national colours from the most remote period
has struck the eyes of Europeans, and excited their minds to
inquire. Nor is it surprising that with that object all sorts of
hypotheses should be elaborated, which, however, I pass by
unnoticed, as being sufficiently known'^, and already explained
all together by others ^ and shall go into the details of that
opinion alone, which, unless I am much mistaken, seems to
come nearest the truth. I think, myself, the proxim.ate cause

^ On the Brazilians comp. G. Forster on Wilson's Naclirichten von den Pelew
Inseln, p. 36. On the Californians, Begert, Nachrichten von Californien, p. 89.

^ Buffon attributes most to climate. Hist. Naturelle, T. in. p. 526. Ziinmer-
mann, Geograph. Gcschichte des Menschen, T. I. p. 77. Abb. Nauton in Journal
de Physique, T. xvni. Sept. 1781. P. Barrere to bUe. Diss, sur la cause physique
de la Couleur des Negres, Perpig. 1741, i2mo. To the blood besides others especially
Th. Towns in Philos. Trans. T. x. p. 398, who also has doubts about the power of
the sun to dye the skin of the Ethiopians. To part of the globules of the blood
adhering to the skin the author of the medical question of Paris, an opinion sup-
ported on more than one occasion, as by Des Moles in 1742, and by Mouuier in
1775. Kant in Engel, Plilos. fur die Wilt, P. 11. p. 151, to the abundance of
iron in the blood of the Ethiopians, precipitated liy the transpiration of phosphoric
acid on the rete mucosum. I say nothing of a sort of mixture of nervous
juice and some secret liquid in the nervous and arterial paps of the integuments by
which Le Cat, who was a great physiologist as far as dreaming went, imagined
that he had explained the blackness of the Ethiopians, in his Traite de la Couleur
de la Peau Uumaine, Amst. 1765, Svo , or the elongated fibres in the aborigines of
Nubia, the dissolution of the red blood, the evaporation of the serum, and the
fixed saline particles of the blood, remaining oily and fat in the skin, by all of
which Attumonelli, Elementi di Fisiologia Medica, Neap. 1787, T. I. p. J40, tries
to explain the same thing.

^ Thus the opinions of the ancients have been collected by B. S. Albinus, De
sede et causa Coloris JSthiopmn, Ludg. Batav. 1737, 4to. Those of the moderns
by Haller, Element. Physiolog. T. v. p. 20. A heap of authors are cited by KrtLniz,
HamLurgisch Magazin, T. xix. p. 379.

COLOUR. 211

of the adust or tawrsy colour of the external integuments of the
skin, is to be looked for in the abundance of the carbon in the
human body, which, when it is excreted w^ith the hydrogen
through the corium, and precipitated by the contact of the
atmospheric oxygen, becomes imbedded in the Malpigliian
mucus. Hence it is well known that the national colour of
their skin is not congenital even to the Ethiopians themselves,
but is acquired by the access of the extei^nal air after birtli
and after the intercourse with the mother, by which the foetus
was nourished, has been taken awav.

Besides this, the action of the sanguineous vessels of the
corium seems necessary as well for secreting as for storing up
the carbon. For if this is disturbed or comes to a stop, an
unnatural and diseased colour is everywhere brought upon the
skin in dark men just as much as in Ethiopians. But on
the other hand, although in a white skin that action of the
corium may be stimulated, ephelides and spots of tawny colour
occur, and sometimes it is found that it puts on an Ethiopic
blackness.

Generally carbon seems to be in greater quantity in the
atrabilious ; for the connexion of the manufactory of the bile wath
the common integuments, and those which belong to them, as the
hair, is plain : indeed both organs, that is, the liver and the
skin, must be considered as by far the principal and mutually
co-operating purifiers of the mass of the blood.

Then there is the vast influence of climate upon the action
of the liver, which in tropical countries is wonderfully excited
and increased by the solar heat. Hence the various kinds of
bilious and endemic disorders in the tropics. Hence also the
temperament of most inhabitants of tropical countries is cho-
leric and prone to anger. Hence also, what was first observed
by physicians \ the bilious constitution and habit of Europeans
who dwell in India, and especially in the children which are
born there. But there is no other climate, in the vehemence
and duration of the heat, or in the peculiar chemical constitu-

1 De Haen, Preelection's in Boerhavii Tnstitut. Patholojiras, T. ii. p. 155.

H 2

212 COLOUK.

ents that make up the atmosphere there, such as particular
winds, and rains, which can be compared to that burning and
scorching chmate which is to be found on the wet and marshy
regions both of eastern and western Africa under the torrid zone.
Now the aboriginal Ethiopians have been for a long time and
for many series of generations exposed to the action of that
climate, since they must without doubt be ranked amongst the
most ancient nations of the world \ So we must not be sur-
prised if they propagate unadulterated, even under another
climate to succeeding generations, the same disposition which
has spread such deejD and perennial roots in their ancestors
from the most distant antiquity. But, on the other hand, from
this tenacity and constancy of the constitution of the Ethio-
pians, this comes out all the clearer, that such a power can
only be contracted after a long series of generations, and so it
must be considered as a miracle, and against all natural law, if
it be true, what we find frequently related that the present
descendants of some Portuguese colonists who emigrated to
Guinea in the loth century, have in so short an interval of
time, only through the influence of the climate^, been able to
contract the Ethiopian habit of body.

45. Final exposition of the causes of the colour of the shin.
"What I have summarily and succinctly already laid down about
the causes of the colour of the skin is strongly corroborated,
on more accurate inquiry, by all sorts of arguments answering
most accurately to each other, and taken from actual observa-
tion of human nature.

We have discovered from the antiphlogistic chemistry of
the French^ that carbon belongs to the radical elements of the

1 Those who like may consult three very learned works : Jac. Bryant, New
System of Ancient Mythology, Vol. i. ; Ja. Bruce, Journey to the Discovery of the
Sources of the Nile, Vol. i., and Sir W. Jones, Diss, in Asiatic Researches, Vols. ii.
and III.

2 We all know that black men have been found at the Gambia descended from
the original Portuguese. But it seems most probable that their blackness has b 'en
derived principally from the union of men with the indigenous Ethiopian women,
for this reason, that European women when taken directly from their own country
to Guinea can very seldom preserve life there ; for the effect of the climate is such
as to produce very copious menstruation, which almost always in a short space of
time ends in fatal haemorrhages of the uterus.

3 See Girtanner, Anfangsgriinde der Antiphlogistischen Chimie, p. 202.

COLOUR. 213

animal body, and is also the cause of dark colour, whether it be
yellow, tawny, or blackish. In order that the animal economy
may not be disturbed and endangered by a redundancy of this
substance various emunctories have been provided, in which
the liver and the skin occupy by no means the lowest place.
Pathology, here as elsewhere so often the instructor of phy-
siology, shows together with the phenomena just mentioned,
the co-operation of the functions of the bile with the common
integuments. For although I do not wish to insist too much
on the analogy of jaundice with national tints of the skin, still
there are various peculiar phenomena which deserve attention,
common to those suffering under the regius morbus, and the
nations of colour (so to speak) to which I refer, the fact of the
albuminous part of the eye being tinged with yellow, a thing
common to tawny nations and specially to the Indians \ the
Americans''', and the Ethiopians I Besides it not unfrequently
happens with jaundiced persons, according to the varieties of the
disease, that the skin, even after the disorder has been re-
moved, remains always tinged with a different shade, very like
the skin of coloured nations*. Nor are examples wanting of a
genuine sooty blackness being sometimes deposited in atra-
bilious disorders by a sort of true metamorphosis of the skin^
And from the affinity of the bile with fat'' it is clear that this
sort of cherry tint has been observed in tawny peoples ^ Hence,
unless I am mistaken, we must look for the reason why nations

^ I myself have often observed this in those on this side the Ganges. On those
beyond the Gauges see De la Loubere in Descrlpt. du JRoyaume de Slam, T. i.
p. "Sr. On the Nicobars, Nic. Fonlana in Asiatic Researches, Vol. in. p. 151.

2 On the Caribbees see Eochefort, Histoire Naturelle des Antilles, p. 383.

3 Sommerring, Ubc7- die K'&rperlicJie rerschiedenheit des Negers voni Europder, p. 1 1 .
* See Strack, Observationes de Febrihus Intermittentibus, 1. in. c. 2, de ictero ex

Febre Intermittente. "I have seen," says he, p. 194, "from such a jaundice that
an olive-coloured skin, just like that of Asiatics, has remained in the children.
Another person has become almost as black as an Indian from fever. The whole
body of another has preserved a black complexion, as if he had been born from an
Indian father and an European mother ; but like such he had the soles of his feet
and the palms of his hands white," &c.

s Lorry, De Melancholia, T. i. p. 273.

^ Fourcroy, Philosophic Chimique, p. III.

7 Observed in the Ethiopians by J. Fr. Meckel, Histoire de V Academic des
Sciences de Berlin, 1753, p. 92, and by Sommemng, I. c. p. 43.

21 4i COLOUR.

who feed copiously on animal oil not only smell of it, but also
contract a dark colour of skin^; while the more elegant Ota-
lieitans on the contrary, who try to be of a pale colour, live
every year for some months on the bread-fruit alone, to the use
of which they attribute great virtue in whitening the skin^;
although part of that effect must be attributed to the fact that
during the same period they remain at home, covered with
clothes, and never go out. How great an influence abstinence
from the free and open air has in giving whiteness to the skin,
our own experience teaches us every year, when in spring very
elegant and delicate women show a most brilliant whiteness of
skin, contracted by the indoor life of winter. Whilst those who
are less careful in this way, after they have exposed themselves
freely to the summer sun and air, lose that vernal beauty
before the arrival of the next autumn, and become sensibly
browner ^

If then under one and the same climate the mere difference
of the annual seasons has such influence in changing the colour
of the skin*, is there anything surprising in the fact that climates,
in the sense defined above (s. 34), according to their diversity

^ Cranz, Ilistorie von Gronland, T. i. p. 17S, attributes the tawny skin of the
Greenlanders to their particularly oily diet. Sloane declares, Voyage to Jamaica,
Vol. I. Introd. p. 18, and Vol. 11. p. 331, that the skin of Europeans in the East
Indies becomes yellow from copious meals of dishes prepared from the calipash
of turtles.

^ See the account of the surgeon Anderson in Cook's Voyage to the Northern
Hemisphere, Vol. 11. p. 147.

^ From the cloud of witnesses who have observed the same well-known effect
of the mode of life in other part-; of the world, 1 will quote only one, Poiret, about
the Moors in Voyage en Barharie, p. 31. "The Moors are by no means naturally
black, spite of the proverb, though many writers think so; they are born white
pnd remain white all their lives, when their business does not expose them to the
heat of the sun. In the towais the women are of such a brilliant whiteness that
they echpse most Europeans; but the Mauritanian mountaineers, burnt unceasingly
by the sun and always half-naked, become, even from infancy, of a brown colour,
which comes very near to that of soot."

* A few examples out of many will suffice. We know the Biscayan women
are of a brilliant wliite, those of Granada on the contrary brownish, so that in this
southern province the pictm-es of the Virgin Mary are painted of the same national
colour as is observed by 01. Toree, Rcise nach Surate, p. 9. We are told expressly
about the Malabars, that their black colour approaches nearer to tawny and yellow
the further they dwell towards the north, in Tranqueharischen Missions- Berichten,
Contin. xxn. p. 896. The Ethiopians on the north shore of the Senegal are tawny,
on t!ie south, black. See with others Barbot iu Churchill's Collection of Voyages,
T. V. p. 34.

CUEOLES. 21.5

should Lave tlic gTeatest and most permanent iutlueuce over
national colour : everywhere within the limits of a few degrees
of geographical latitude, and still more when a multifarious
concourse of the causes^ above-mentioned has occurred even
under the same latitude, a manifest difference in the colour of
the inhabitants may be observed".

46. Creoles. The same power of affecting colour, about
which we are speaking, is shown very clearly in Creoles, under
vrhich name (so frequently improperly confounded even by good
authors^ wdth the word Mulattos) in a narrower sense* we un-
derstand those men born indeed either in the East or the West
Indies, but of European parents. In these the face and colour are
so constant and impossible to be mistaken, breathing as it were
of the south, and particularly besides the hair and the almost
burning eyes, that the most brilliant in other respects and most
beautiful women may easily be distinguished by those peculiar
characters from others, even their relatives, if these are born in
Europe*'. Nor does this appear only in Europeans, but also in

^ Marsden. History of Sumatra, p. 43, notices the effect of sea-air upon tlie
sliin, and so Wallis in Hawkesworth's Collection of Voyages, Vol. i. p. 260. Harts-
ink, that of woods, Beschryving ran Guinea, T. I. p. 9. Bouguer of mountains,
Figure de la Tcrre, Intr. p. loi, de Pinto of the altitude of the country, in Robert-
son's Hist, of America, Vol. ii. p. 403.

^ On this point Zimmermann has some deep and learned remarks when discus-
sing the problem why we do not find Ethiopians in America also in equatorial
regions. Geograph. geschichte dcs Menschcn, T. i. p. 86.

* As Thomas Hyde in the notes to Abr. Piritsol, Itinera mundi, in Ugorui,
Thesaxirus Aniiquitatum Sacrarum, T. vii. p. 141.

* This word originated with the Ethiopian slaves transported in the sixteenth
century to the min^s in America, who first of all called their own children who
were born there, Criollos and CrioUas: this name was afterwards borrowed from the
Spaniards, and imposed upon their children bom in the new world. 8e j Garcilasso,
Del Origen de las Incas, p. m. 255. Now this word has been extended in the East
Indies to the domestic animals which are not indigenous in America, but have
been transplanted there by Europeans. Oldendorp, Geschichte der Mission auf den
Caraih. Inseln, T. I. p. 2 32.

^ On these Creoles of the Antilles, see the curious and elaborate works of Gir-
tanner, iiher die Franzosische Revolution, T. i. p. 60 72, 2nd ed.

^ Hawkesworth's Collection of Voyages, T. ill. p. m. 374. "If two natives of
England marry in their own country and afterwards remove to our settlements in
the West Indies, the children that are conceived and born there will have the com-
plexion and cast of countenance that distinguish the Creole ; if they return, the
children conceived and born afterwards will have no such characteristics," &c.

216 MULATTOS.

Asiatics who are born in the East Indies from Persian or Mon-
golian parents who have emigrated there \

47. Mulattos, &c. Remarkable too is the constancy with
which offspring born from parents of different colours present a
middle tint made up as it were from that of either parent. For
although we read everywhere of single specimens of hybrid in-
fants born from the union (s. 37) of different varieties of this sort,
who have been of the colour of one or other parent alone ^; still,
generally speaking, the course of this mixture is so consistently
hereditary, that we may susj)ect the accuracy of James Bruce
about the Ethiopians of some countries in the kingdom of
Tigre, who keep their black colour unadulterated, although
some of the parents were of one colour and some of another;
or about the Arabians, who beget white children with the female
Ethiopians like the father alone ^ But as the hybrids of
this sort of origin from parents of various colours are distin-
guished by particular names, it will be worth while to exhibit
them here arranged in synoptical order.

A. The first generation. The offspring of Europeans and
Ethiopians are called Mulattos'^. Of Europeans and Indians,
Mestizos^. Of Europeans and Americans also Mestizos^ or
Mestinde'^, or Metifs^, or Mamlucks^. Of Ethiopians and
Americans Zamhos^"; by those called also Mulattos^^, Lobos^^,
Curihoca^ and Kahuglos^^. All these present an appearance and
colour compounded of either parent, and that more or less

"^ See Hodges's Travels in India, p. 3.

2 Comp. Jac. Pai.sons in Philos. Trans, Vol. LV. p. 47.

3 Journey to the Sources of the Nile, Vol. Iir. p. 106, and Vol. IV. p. 470. See
the remarks of Tychsen at T. v. p. 357.

* See a law-suit which turned upon the habit and characters of mulattos in
Klein, Annalen der Gesetzgebung in den Preussischen Staaten, T. vii. p. 116.

5 See the figure of the Cingalese Mestizo in de Bruin, Reizen over Moshovie,
p. m. 358, and of the Ternatese though less remarkable in Valentyn, Oud en Nieuw
Oost-Indien, T. I. P. 1, p. 18.

^ Garcilasso, " Po^- dezir que somos mezelados de amias Nasciones."

7 Twiss' Travels through Portugal and Spain, p. 332, from pictures seen by
him at Malaga.

8 Labat, Voyage aux isles de VAmerique, T. 11. p. 13-2.

9 De Hauterive, Hist, de I'Acad. des Sc. de Paj-is, 1724, p. 18.

^0 Gily, Storia Americana, T. it. p. 320. ^^ Garcilasso, I. c.

12 Twiss, I.e. ^^ Marograv, Tractatus Brasilice, p. 12.

MULATTOS. 217

brownish or muddy, witii scarcely any redness visible in the
cheeks. The hair of Mulattos is generally curly, that of the
rest straight, of almost all black ; the iris of the eye is brown.

B. The second generation. Mulattos forming unions with
each other produce Casquas^; Europeans and Mulattos Ter-
cerons^, which others call Quarterons^, others Moriscos^ and
Mestizos^. The countenance and hair of all is that of Europeans,
the skin very lightly stained with a brownish tint, and the
cheeks mddy. The lips of the female mouth and pudenda
violet coloured; the scrotum of the male blackish. The Ethi-
opians with the Mulattos produce Griffs'^, called by others
Zamho Mulattos\ and by others Cabros^. The Europeans with
the Indian Mestizos, Castissi^. Those born of Europeans and
American Mestizos are called Quai'terons^'^ or Quatrah'i^\ and by
the Spaniards also Castissi'\ Those born of the Americans
themselves and their Mestizos are called Tresalvi^^. Those of
the Americans and the Mulattos are also called Mestizos^^.
Those of Europeans and Zambos or Lobos of the first generation
are called indifferently Mulattos^'. Those of the Americans and
these same Zambos or Lobos Zamhaigi^'^. The progeny of the
Zambos or Lobos themselves are called contemptuously by the
Spaniards Cholos".

C. The third generation. Some call those who are born of
Europeans and Tercerons Quaterons^^, others Ochavons^'^, or
Octavons, and the Spaniards Alvinos'^. In these it is asserted

1 De Hauterive, I. c. ^ Long, History of Jamaica, T. ir. p. 260.

^ Aublet, Histoire des Plantes de la Guiane, T. 11. App. p. 123. * Twiss.

^ Moreton's Manners and Customs in the West India Islands, p. 123.

" De Hauterive, I. c. '' Hist, of Jamaica, I. c.

" Boinare, Dictionnaire d'Histoire Nafurelle, ed. 4, T. ix. Art. Negre.

^ Tranqmharische Missions- Berichte, Contin. xxxiil. p. 919.
I" Gumilla, Orinoco Illustrado, T. i. p. 83.

^^ Garcilasso, I. c, "to show that they are one-fourth Indian,* and three-fourths
Spanish." ^^ Twiss.

^^ Garcilasso, " to show that they are three parts Indian and one part Spanish."
^' Hist, of Jamaica.

^5 Fermin, Sur VCEcon. Animale, T. I. p. 179. ^ Twiss.

^^ Garcilasso, "Cholo is a word of the islands of Barlovento, meaning the same
as Dog; and the Spaniards use it by way of contempt or reproach."

1* History of Jamaica. The offspring of Quaterons of this kind from Tercerons
of the second generation are called Tente-enel-cyre.
19 Gumilla, I. c. p. 86. 2" Twiss.

218 VAiaEGATlOX.

by tbe most acute observers tliat no trace of their Ethiopian
origin can be found \ Those of Mulattos and Tercerons Salta-
tras"^. Of Europeans and Castissi, Postissi^. Of Europeans and
American Quarterons of the second generation Octavons*. Of
Quarterons and American Mestizos of the first generation,
Coyotas^. Of Griffs and Zambo Mulattos with Zambos of the
first generation Giveros^. Of Zambaigis and Mulattos Cam-
bujos\ There are those who extend even into the fourth gene-
ration this kind of pedigree, and say that those born from
Europeans from Quarterons of the third generation are called
Quiuterons^ in Spanish Puchuelas^ but this name is also
applied to those who are born of Europeans and American
Octavons". But that the slightest permanent vestige of their
mixed origin" is to be found in productions like these, after what
we have been told by most credible eye-witnesses about the
men of the third generation, that as to colour and constitution
they are exactly like the aboriginal Europeans, is a thing that
seems almost incredible.

48. Brown skin variegated with white sjjots. What I said
above (s. 44) about the action of the sanguiferous vessels of
the corium in excreting the carbon, which is afterwards pre-
cipitated by the addition of oxygen, is singularly confirmed by
the instances of dark-coloured men, especially Ethiopians,
whose skin, and that too not always from their first tender
infancy'^, is distinguished by spots of a snowy whiteness (Fr. ne-
g res-pies; Eng. piebald negroes).

I saw an Ethiopian of this kind at London, by name John
Richardson, a servant of T. Clarke, wdio exhibited there (in
Exeter Change), live exotic animals as shows and also for sale.

^ Aublet. ^ Hist, of Jamaica. "* Tranqttebarische Missions- Berichte, I. c.

* Gumilla, I. c. p. 1 3. ^ Twiss. * History of Jamaica.

'' Twiss. ^ Hist, of Jamaica.

s Gumilla, p. 86. f| " Id. p. 83.

^' Thus those born from the Coyotes of the third generation and the Americans
are called Harnizos; from the Cambujos and Mulattos, Alharassados ; finally,
Twiss, whom I have so often quoted before, calls those born from the last and
Mulattos, Barzinos.

^^ W. Byrd, in Philos. Trans Vol. Xix. p. 781, mentions the instance of an
Ethiopian boy in whom the spots did not appear till his fourth year, and in process
of time beyan to increase iu size.

INSTANCES. 219

The young man was perfectly black except in the umbilical and
epigastric region of the abdomen, and in the middle part of
either leg, that is the knees, with the adjoining regions of the
thigh and the tibia, which were remarkable for a most brilliant
and snowy whiteness, and were themselves again distinguished
by black scattered sjDots, like those of a panther. His hair was
also parti-coloured. For the middle part of his sinciput de-
scending in an acute angle from the vertex towards the fore-
head was white, not however like the regions of the skin we have
been speaking of, but a little snowy with a tinge of yellow.
The rest of the hair was, as is usually the case with Ethiopians,
curly; and this curliness still continue.5 unaltered up to this
time, in a specimen of each kind of hair which I obtained from
the man himself more than two years ago. I had also a picture
taken of the man, which on comparison with three others
equally of Ethiopians, which I have by me, a boy and two girls,
shows that in all, the regions of the abdomen and legs were
more or less white, but that the hands and feet, that is, those
parts which with the groin are the first to grow black in new-
born Ethiopians, were perfectly tawnj', and that in all the
disposition of the white regions was thoroughly symmetrical.
The gums, to go on to that also, in the man I saw, the tongue
and all the jaws, were of an equable and beautiful red.

Both the parents of the man I am speaking of, as of all the
other spotted Ethiopians^ of whom I have found descriptions, were
perfectly black, so that the conjecture of Buffon seems badly
founded when he attributes such offspring to the union of Ethio-
pians and Leucaethiopian women, when suffering under a dis-
eased affection of the skin and the eyes, about which I shall
take an opportunity of speaking more particularly below.

Care must always be taken that the spots we are speaking
about, and which can only be distinguished by a snowy white-

^ See a print of a girl of this kind iu Bufion, Supjd. T. iv. Tab. 2, p. 565.
This, unless I am mistaken, is the same which has been described at length by
Gumilla, Orinoco Illustrndo, T. i. p. 109. Other instances of this kind of Ethio-
pians are found in La Mothe, Bibliotheque Impartiale, Apr. 1752. See D. Morgan
in Transactions vf the Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, Vol. 11. p. 392.

220 SKIN.

ness from the rest of the skin, the epidermis being in other
respects unaffected, be not improperly confounded with those
by which the whole integument is covered, which are to be
recognized not so much by a different colour as by a degrada-
tion of the texture of the corium itself, T\hich becomes rough,
and as it were scaly or scurvy. Writers have observed this
kind of cutaneous disorder particularly amongst the Malabars^
and the Tschulymik Tartars "^ But these snowy, equable and
smooth spots which only occur in a disordered action of the
smallest vessels of the corium, are by uo means confined to
the Ethiopians, but sometimes occur amongst our own peo-
ple. I have myself had the ojiportunity of observing two in-
stances of this kind in German men, one a young man, the
other more than sixty years old. The skin of each was brown-
ish, studded here and there with very white spots of different
sizes. In neither were these congenital, but had appeared sud-
denly and spontaneously in one during infancy, in the other in
manhood.

49. Similar remarkable mutations of the colour of the skin.
As these instances I have just been mentioning seem to demon-
strate the power of the smaller vessels of the corium in modi-
fying the colour of the skin ; so there are other phenomena
which often occur, and point in this direction, by which, unless
I am much mistaken, those conjectures I made above (s. 44, 45)
about the abundance of carbon, and the impressions of the Mal-
pighian mucus being as it were the jjroximate cause of that
colour, are well illustrated.

Above all others I shall consider in this place the singular
change of colour so often observed in European women"*, in some

^ Tranquebarische Missions-Berickte, Cont. xxi. p. 74 1, compare the disorder to
leprosy.

^ See Strahlenberg, Nord-ostlich Europa und Asien, p. \66, who suspects them
to be the same Tartar horde which went under the name oiPkgaja or Pestraj a orda.
J. Gr. GmeHn attributes it to disease, Reise durch Sibirien, pref. T. 11. and J. Bell
to some scorbutic affection, Travels from St Petersburg to diverse parts of Asia, Vol.
I. p. 218.

3 " In many women the under part of the body (the abdomen) and the rings
about the breasts (that is the teats) when they are ill, become quite black."
Camper, Klein Schrift, T. i. P. i. p. 47. "In our own time a similar metamor-

BLACKNESS. 221

of whom, and those in other respects particularly white, at the
time of pregnancy a larger or smaller number of the parts of
the bod}^ are darkened with a coaly blackness, which however
gradually disappears again after child-birth, when the original
clearness is restored to the body. The solution of this puz-
zling problem is to be found in the application of modern che-
mistry to the physiology of pregnancy. When the woman is not
pregnant the moderate portion of carbon of her own body is
easily excreted by superfluous cutaneous perspiration ; but in a
pregnant woman, besides her own share, another quantity
accrues from the foetus, which immersed in ammonial liquid
does not as yet breathe. Thus the blood of the mother be-
comes too much laden with the carbon arising from two human
bodies joined as it were in one, so that all of it cannot as
usual be excreted with the perspiration of the mother : so part
of it is preciiDitated in the Malpighian mucus, and there re-
mains, tinging the skin, until the child being delivered, the
original equilibrium between the carbon of her o^vn body and
the perspiring vessels of the skin is restored; and the epider-
mis, which with the mucus lying under it is constantly de-
stroyed by degrees and again renewed at last, recovers its
natural whiteness.

In different circumstances the same reason seems to hold
good in so many instances of Europeans, in whom the differ-
ent parts of the body are unnaturally affected by a smoky
blackness ; since here also it may be referred to a congestion of
carbon. Thus, for instance, a similar blackness is observable in
women who never menstruate \ So also in other atrabilious

phosis has been renewed annually in the person of a lady of distinction, of a good
complexion, and a very white skin.^ As soon as she was pregnant, she began to
get brown, and towards the end of her time she became a true negress. After her
deliveries the black colour disappeared little by little, her original whiteness re-
turned, and her progeny had no trace of blackness." Bomare, I.e. Art. Negre. Le
Cat, I.e. in many places ; for ex. p. 141. "A peasant of the environs of Paris, a
nurse by prolession, had the belly regularly quite black at every pregnancy, and
that colour disappeared after dehvery." " Another always had the left leg black
on those occasions," &c. So also Lorry, De Melancliolia, T. i. p. 298, &c.
1 Comp. Jas. Yonge in Fkilosopk. Trans. Vol. xxvi. p. 425.

222 SKIN.

men\ especially of the lowest sort, and tliose who suffer from
cachexia caused by want and dirt. This is often the case too in
scurvy^, &c. On the other hand we know by experience that
the blackness of the Ethiopians is not so constant but what it
sometimes is rendered paler, or even changed quite into a white
colour. It has been recorded that Ethiopians, when they have
changed their climate in early infancy, and from that time
forward have inhabited a temperate zone, have gone on getting
paler by degrees^ The same thing happens also somewhat
quicker to the same negroes when they suffer under severe
disorders*. Many instances also are to be found where, apart
from any particular state of health, the natural blackness of
the Ethiopian skin has sensibly and spontaneously been changed
into a whiteness, such as that of Europeans ^

50. Some other national properties of shin. Besides colour,
other singular qualities are often attributed to the skin of
some nations, about which I must say a few v/ords at all
events. Amongst these there is that smoothness and softness
of skin which has been compared to silk, and has been noticed

'^ I have in my anatomical collection a specimen of the integuments of the
abdomen of a beggar who died here some years ago, which does not yield at all in
blackness to the skin of the Etliiop. Others too have shown many instances of
that kiiid in Europeans. See for ex. Haller, Element. Physiol. T, v. p. i8.
Ludwig, Ejiistoloi ad HaUerum scriptce, T. I. p. 393. De Riet, De organo
tacius, p. 13. Albirius, De sedc et caussa colons jEthiopum, p. 9. Klinkosch, De
cuticula, p. 46. Sommerring, Uber die lorperl. verschiedenheit dcs Negers rom
Europder, p. 48. Comp. Loschge in Naturforsrher, P. xxiir. p. 214. ib. P. xvr.
p. 170, for the description of some brown (Daiihelbraiin) spots of diiferent size,
some of the diameter of a span, observed in a man then sixty years old, in whom
they appeared when young during a quartan fever.

^ Comp. besides others, Jo. Narborough's Voyage to the Straits of Magellan,
p. m. 64. "Their legs and thighs are turned as black as a h:it," &c. So also
Phillip's Voyage to Botany Bay, p. 229.

^ "There is a cobbler of this nation still living at Venice, whose blackness,
after a great many years, (for he came to this country a boy) has so sensibly
diminished, that he seems like one suffering from a slight jaundice." Caldan,
Institut. Physiol, p. 151, ed. 1786. Comp. also Pecblin, De habitu et colore
uEthiopuni, p. 128, and Oldendorp, T. I. p. 406.

* " I have seen them of so light a colour that it was difficult to distinguish
them from a white man of a bad complexion." Labat, Relation d'Afrir^ue occiden-
tale, T. II. p. 260. And KUnkosch, I. c. p. 48.

5 Comp. Jaa. Bate in Philosojph. Trans. Vol. Li. P. i. p. 175.

IIAIR. 223

Ly Avriters in many nations, as the Caribs\ the Ethiopian^ the
Otaheitans^ and even the Turks^ It is clear that in all these
it depends either upon a more tender epidermis, or a thicker
stratum of the Malpighian mucus. The cause of the coldness
to the touch which has been observed in the skin of various
nations of Africa^ and the East Indies*^ seems different, and
must be referred rather to the chemical affinities of the body
and the atmospheric elements. Here also is to be considered
that insensible perspiration of Sanctorius, which is accompa-
nied in some nations with a peculiar smell, as in the Caribs^
Ethiopians*, and others ; in the same way that in some varieties
of domestic animals, as among dogs, the Egyptian, among horses,
those of a reddish- white are well known to have a specific and
peculiar perspiration.

51. Consensus of the hair and skin. As the hair, especially
that of the head, is generated and nourished by the common
integuments, so it has invariably a great and multifarious
agreement with them. Hence, those variegated Ethiopians we
spoke of have also hair of different colour. Men whose white
skin is marked with ephelitic spots have red hair'". Besides,

1 " Tlieir flesh is very dark and soft ; -when you touch their skin, it feels like
satin." Biet, Voijaje de la France Equinoxicde, p. 352.
^ Pechlin, I. c. p. 54, and Sommeiriug, I. c. p. 45.
3 "Theii- skin is most delicately smooth and soft." Hawkes. Coll. T. II. p. m.

' " The wife of every labourer or rustic in Asia (Turkey) has a skin so soft that
you seem to touch a fine velvet." Belon, Obs. p. m. 198.

5 Bruce's Voyaije to the Sources of the Nile, T. 11. p. 552, T. iv. p. 471 and
489.

6 On the Indians see Kant in Engel, Philosophic fur die J] cU, P. 11. p. 154.
On the inhabitants of Sumatra, Marsden, p. 41.

7 "They all have a strung aid disagreeable smell. I know nothing which can
give an idea of it. When anything smells hke it, they s;.y in the Antilles, 'a smell
of Carib,' which shows the difficulty of expressing it." Thibault de Charwalon,
Voi/'if/c a la Blartinique, p. 44.

* Comp. Schotte On the synochus atrahiliosa, p. 104. Hist, of Jamaica, 11. pp.

35'. 425- . ,

" So Pausanias in his Phocica teUs us that the Ozolians, an mdigenous people,

of Locris, smelt disgustingly on account _of something in the air. Comp. Lavater,

Physioijnom. Fragmente, T. iv. p. 268." And J. Jb'. Ackerman, De discrimine

sexuum prater genitalia, p. 10.

1" Among ourselves the thing is very common. It has been observed also among

the most distant nations; as in the island Otaba of the Pacific ocean. See J. R.

Forster, Bemerhmgen auf seiner reise u,a die weU, p. 205. Many inhabitants of

224 HATR.

there is a remarkable correspondence of the hair with the
whole constitution and temperament of the body. This, too,
we learn from pathological phenomena, such for example as
that those who have yellow hair (hlondins), in consequence of
the tenderer and more impressible cellular texture, break out
more easily in rashes and similar eruptions ; whilst those who
have black hair are almost always of a costive and atrabilious
temperament, so much so that it has long since been observed
that far the greater number of men in mad hospitals and jails
have black hair.

52. Princi]_Ml national varieties of hair. In general, the
national diversity of hair seems capable of being reduced to
four principal varieties :

1. The first of a brownish or nutty colour (cendre), shading
off on the one side into yellow, on the other into black : soft,
long, and undulating. Common in the nations of temperate
Europe ; formerly particularly famous among the inhabitants
of ancient Germany \

2. The second, black, stiff, straight, and scanty ; such as is
common to the Mongolian and American nations.

8. The third, black, soft, in locks, thick and exuberant ;
such as the inhabitants of most of the islands of the Pacific
Ocean exhibit.

4. The fourth, black and curly, which is generally compared
to the wool of sheej) ; common to the Ethiopians.

Thus, a general division of this kind may be made, which
is not without its use. That it is no more a purely natural
division than other divisions of the national varieties of human
races, is not necessary to dwell upon here. This I will show,
though it is quite unnecessary, by one or two arguments,
namely, that curliness is not peculiar to the Ethiopians, nor
blackness to the three varieties I put in the last place. Some

Timur are of a copper colour with red hair ; see Van Hogendorp in Verhanddbigen
van het Bataviaasch GenootscJtap, T. I. p. m. 319. Marcgrav saw an African
woman with an undoubted red skin and red hair, Tracfatus Brasilice, p. 12.
^ Conring, De habitus corporum Germanicorum antiqui ac novi causis, p. 85.

EYES. 225

races of Ethiopians are found with long hair' ; other copper-
coloured nations again have curly hair^, like that of the Ethio-
pians. There are others, the New Hollanders, whose hair, as I
see from the specimens I have in hand, holds so perfectly the
middle place between the curliness of the Ethiopians and the
locks of the inhabitants of the islands in the Pacific Ocean, that
a wonderful difference of opinion is to be found in the ac-
counts of expeditions from the first Dutch ones of the last
century to the very latest of the English, as to which variety of
hair it should be considered to belong. As to the various
colour of hairs, occurring amongst those nations also, who gene-
rally have black hair, it is sufficient to cite good witnesses, who
say that red hair is frequently found in the three other varieties
I reckoned besides the first.

53. The iris of the eye conforms to the colour of the hair.
We have seen that the hair coincides with the common integu-
ments of the body. Aristotle^ had, however, long ago taught
that the colour of the eyes followed that of the skin. Those
whose colour was white had grey eyes ; black, black eyes.
Thus very often amongst ourselves new-born infants have grey
eyes and light hair, which afterwards in those who become dark
{hrunet), is slowly and as it were simultaneously darkened also.
In old men as the hair grows white the pigment of the internal
eye loses much of its usual dark colour. In the Leucoethiopians,
about whom I shall speak more particularly below, as the hair
passes from a yellowish tinge to white, so the pigment of the
eye is clearly nothing, and hence a pale rosy kind of iris.

It is remarkable that in no case at all is there any variation
in the eyes of animals, except in those who vary in the colour
of their skin and hair, as we know to be the case not only in
men and horses, which was the opinion of the ancients, but also

^ Comp. Bruce on the Gallas, Journey, <fcc. Vol. n. p. 214. As to the inhabit-
ants of the kingdom of Bornou, Proceedings of the Association, p. m. 201.

2 The inhabitants of the Duke of York's Island not far from the New Ireland
of the Southern Ocean. See J. Hunter's Historical Journal of the Transactions at
Port Jackson, &c. p. 233 : " they are of a light copper colour, the hair is woolly."

3 Probkmat. s. 10. p. 416, ed. Casaub,

226 PHYSIOGNOMY.

in other principally domestic animals. Very often also the iris
is variegated with more than one colour in those animals whose
skin is variegated. This was first observed in