268 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Dec. 1,1867. 



himself a believer in different centres of creation 

 for mankind, as well as for animals and plants. 

 That is, he thinks that every distinct race had its 

 own Adam and Eve. But then the following diffi- 

 culties suggest themselves. Did every race have 

 separate progenitors ? What are the limits of this 

 theory? If the black and white were separately 

 created, why not also the fifty different coloured 

 tribes to which " R. G." so touchingly referred in 

 enumerating the difficulties of my hypothesis ? And 

 if " R. G." concedes this, how can he account for 

 the universal diffusion of legends recording "the 

 descent of mankind from one pair," " the deluge," 

 "the confusion of tongues," &c. ? But if he 

 repudiates the design of carrying out his theory to 

 such extremes, and allows that climate has power to 

 modify races, then he adopts the principle for which 

 I contend, and our difference becomes no longer 

 one of essentials, but only of degree. 



" R. G." says, as I have shown, that you can no 

 more educate the negro up to the European 

 standard, than you can deprive him of the power of 

 resisting his own unhealthy climate. But is this 

 true? On the contrary, as has been shown in 

 several letters to the Times, the black troops 

 brought from the West Indies, to join in the 

 Ashantee war, had so completely lost the power, 

 which their ancestors possessed, of resisting African 

 fever, that there were actually more black than 

 white soldiers disabled by disease ! It is well 

 known that the average duration of the negro's life 

 in America is far longer than that enjoyed by his 

 relative at home, and that his physique is much 

 more strongly developed. These facts, then, seem 

 to prove that "R. G.'s" theory is not correct; 

 they seem to show that the negro will bear removal 

 from the place of his birth as well as any other 

 human being ; and that, therefore, there is no 

 ground for believing he was created only to inhabit 

 his native land. Again, " R. G." denies that great 

 solar heat, an unhealthy climate, and complete 

 isolation would produce a race marked by strong 

 physical peculiarities. On the contrary, he avers 

 that a race subjected to such conditions would die 

 out; and further says that "unhealthy climate" is 

 merely a comparative term, meaning "a climate 

 uncongenial to white men." In order to show 

 "R. G." that I am by no means peculiar in the 

 opinion he so flatly challenges, I subjoin the views 

 of Professor Huxley, extracted from a lecture 

 delivered by him at the Birmingham and Midland 

 Institute, October 11, 1867. He said, — " Now and 

 then a group of men were shut off for thousands 

 and thousands of years in a limited area, under 

 peculiar physical conditions. Within the epoch 

 immediately preceding our own — when the fauna 

 and flora were what they are now — the whole of 

 the southern part of Africa was a vast island, like 

 Australia. It was perfectly certain that for untold 



ages the great sandy desert of the Sahara was th e 

 bottom of the sea continuous with the Mediterra- 

 nean. Imagine, in the course of these changes, a 

 stock of men shut off, and mixing with themselves 

 only for untold ages, and at length hardening down 

 into something like what were called races among 

 animals. Imagine another lot shut off in a different 

 part of the world— in Australia ; another in South 

 America ; others in Hindustan ; and the result 

 would be distinct breeds originating even from one 

 homogeneous kind of men. These breeds were, he 

 believed, what were now known as persistent modi - 

 fications of mankind. They were persistent because 

 they had persisted so long. They had become what 

 they were in virtue of the selective influences of 

 the different localities in which they were shut up." 

 "R. G." will see in this a repetition, almost 

 verbatim, of the assertions made, and illustrations 

 used, 1 ) in the August number of Science-Gossip. 

 I, myself, cannot see how " R. G." can call unhealthi- 

 ness a comparative term, since malaria and other 

 air-poisons can suit no human constitution living, 

 and certainly nowhere is human life shorter, and 

 tribe-extinction more common, than on the malarious 

 coast of western Africa. 



" R. G." makes merry over my supposed doubt as 

 to whether white or red was the original colour of 

 man. I am inclined to think that the fact of the 

 great primitive nations of antiquity being red or 

 copper-coloured, proves that the original colour was 

 white or yellow; that, as the more tropical and 

 arid regions of the earth's surface were reached, it 

 turned into red, and in isolated and low countries 

 into a dark brown, very nearly approaching black. 

 "R. G." says, why "may he (our progenitor) not 

 have been black ? and instead of the negro being a 

 degenerated white man, may we not be improved 

 negroes? If climate can degenerate, can it not 

 regenerate ?" I believe it can, and that the superior 

 robustness and longevity of the negro in theNew Con- 

 tinent to his own compatriot in Africa, is due to this. 

 As to his preceding questions, perhaps the opinion of 

 M. Quatrefuges, the celebrated French savan, may 

 have some weight. He says, " All travellers who 

 have lived in countries where only the negro race 

 dwelt, have remarked that sometimes children were 

 born of paler colour, less distant from the white 

 type. This is to be explained by the influence of 

 white ancestors, whose type reappears exceptionally 

 amongst their negro descendants. This reappear- 

 ance of the ancestral type is what is called atavism ; 

 and as black children are never found amongst 

 the white races, it must be inferred that if the 

 negroes descend from the whites, the whites do 

 not descend from the negroes." * I think I have 

 now answered most of the queries of "R. G." and 

 Mr. Milton. I may add, in conclusion,— What is 



British Medical Journal. 



