ACCLIMATIZATION. 509 



what it ought to be, and yet there are some respecting which informa- 

 tion is particularly important to us. Inasmuch as a transformation of 

 the organism constitutes the principal element of a durable acclimati- 

 zation, it is not the individual alone who is affected by a prolonged 

 sojourn away from his native country, but his entire posterity as well. 

 We can not, therefore, deny that this side of the question is the most 

 important of all. There is one point of view from which the study of 

 the transformations acquires a general interest of really vast extent. 

 It is that of their relations with the history of the human race. Two 

 questions occur at once to all who seek to arrive at a clear idea of the 

 manner in which man has reached his present condition. Is it true 

 that the different human races and varieties are issues from a com- 

 mon stock ? And what are the causes of their diversity ? It is of no 

 use for our friends the zoologists to preach transformism to us. That 

 may do very well of itself when we have only an affair of building up 

 a system. But, unfortunately, no man has ever yet observed the trans- 

 formation from one race to another. No one has, for example, seen 

 a people of the white race become black under the tropics, or negroes 

 transplanted to the polar regions or to Canada metamorphosed into 

 whites. The question whether color is related to climate still remains 

 to be solved, experimentally at least ; data bearing on the subject are 

 still absolutely wanting. I confess that, if any one should ask me for 

 the slightest light respecting the origin of races, I should not be in a 

 condition to give a plausible argument or an experimental fact that 

 would be competent to justify any point of view whatever. It is nev- 

 ertheless true that, at the bottom of every impartial study of the phe- 

 nomena of acclimatization, we arrive inevitably at the old point of view 

 of Hippocrates, and that the existence of a relation between the so- 

 matic properties of man and certain geographical circumscriptions is 

 not doubtful. That is what my friend Bastian understands by the 

 term ethnological provinces. The reality of such provinces is incon- 

 testable ; and they have the same significance with reference to man 

 as zoological and botanical provinces in the geographical distribution 

 of plants and animals. We can not deny that we have also the right 

 to premise the existence of general laws of acclimatization which apply 

 to plants and animals as well as to man — at least so far as regards the 

 modifications of classes. 



The prime question for us relates to the aptitude which the white 

 man has manifested for acclimatization through all his historical evo- 

 lution. To what point have we a right to conclude, from the data 

 furnished by history, that the white man can find, outside of the limits 

 of his country, conditions favorable to his existence ? To bring up 

 the vital point of the problem at once, the white man is not everywhere 

 the same. Scientific experiment is every day tending to bring into 

 more prominent relief the sharp differences in this matter which exist 

 among the different subdivisions o-f the white race which we ordi- 



