THE MIGRATIONS OF MEN 301 



Now, man is everywhere, and still he is incontestably, even from 

 the point of view of his body, very superior to the monkeys. He alone 

 has true hands, those marvellous instruments which you know so well 

 how to use ; he alone possesses a brain of which the size of the skull 

 attests the development. Without speaking of other characters, man 

 is evidently superior to all species of monkeys by his hand and his 

 brain. 



Well, then, the monkey, which, although so distant from man, still 

 comes nearest to him, occupies but a restricted habitat ; while man, 

 the superior being par excellence, has originated, you say, simulta- 

 neously everywhere ! Evidently, gentlemen, to accept this interpre- 

 tation of facts, will be to make him a single exception among all or- 

 ganized beings ; and so, I repeat, we can never accept this conclusion. 



So you see, we are led to admit, not only that man originated 

 in one single place upon the globe, but farther, that this was a limited 

 region of very small extent. It was probably not greater than the 

 habitat now allowed either to the gorillas or the orangs. 



Can we go still further ? Can we determine the particular spot 

 of the globe where arose this privileged species which was to go forth 

 and conquer the whole earth ? We cannot answer this question with 

 the same confidence as the others. But we may answer it with great 

 probability. According to all appearances, the point where man ori- 

 ginated, and whence he emigrated to all parts of the globe, was situated 

 somewhere in the centre of Asia. 



The reasons which lead us to this conclusion are of many kinds. I 

 can only indicate the two following : 



Around the elevated central region that you see pictured upon the 

 chart in the heart of Asia, we find the three fundamental types of 

 humanity : the black man, the yellow man, and the white man. Black 

 men are at the present time widely enough dispersed. We see them 

 still, however, in the peninsula of Malacca and in the isles of Anda- 

 man. Again, we find traces of these blacks in the east of Asia, at the 

 isle of Formosa, at the south of Japan, and in the Philippines : the 

 Melanesia belong to them. The yellow race occupies almost all the 

 southeast part and even the centre of Asia ; and finally we know that 

 from this elevated central region came the great white race which to- 

 day rules everywhere the Aryan race, that to which we belong. The 

 groups, more or less pure, are besides related to each other by a multi- 

 tude of intermediates which may be regarded as transitional. 



It is not only by the features, by fundamental physical traits, that 

 the men found around this immense table-land ai*e interrelated, and 

 seem to blend into one another. We see, furthermore, on the sides 

 of this vast table-land, the three essential types of language of the 

 most striking intellectual manifestation of man. 



We shall come to this question by-and-by, but to-day I may say to 

 you that we distinguish three fundamental forms of human language: 



