THE RACES OF MAN. 195 



elusion.* Ill the Uiiited States the eensus for the year 

 1854 inckided, according to Dr. Bachman, 405,751 mulat- 

 toes; and this number, considering all the circumstances 

 of the case, seems small; but it may partly be accounted for 

 by the degraded and anomalous position of the class and 

 by the profligacy of the women. A certain amount of 

 absorption of mulattoes into negroes must always be in 

 progress; and this woukl lead to an apparent diminution of 

 the former. The inferior vitality of mulattoes is spoken of 

 in a trustworthy workf as a well-known phenomenon; and 

 this, although a different consideration from their lessened 

 fertility, may perhaps be advanced as a proof of the specific 

 distinctness of the parent races. No doubt both animal 

 and vegetable hybrids, when produced from extremely dis- 

 tinct species, are liable to premature death; but the parents 

 of mulattoes cannot be put under the catagory of extremely 

 distinct species. The common mule, so notorious for long 

 life and vigor, and yet so sterile, shows how little necessary 

 connection there is in hybrids between lessened fertility 

 and vitality; other analogous cases could be cited. 



Even if it should hereafter be proved that all the races 

 of men were perfectly fertile together, he who was inclined 

 from other reasons to rank them as distinct species, might 

 with justice argue that fertility and sterility are not safe 

 criterions of specific distinctness. We know that these 

 qualities are easily affected by changed conditions of life, 

 or by close inter-breeding, and that they are governed by 

 highly complex laws, for instance, that of the unequal fer- 

 tility of converse crosses between the same two species. 

 With forms which must be ranked as undoubted species, a 

 perfect series exists from those which are absolutely sterile 

 when crossed, to those which are almost or completely fer- 

 tile. The degrees of sterility do not coincide strictly with 



* Dr. Rohlfs writes to me that he found the mixed races in the 

 Great Sahara, derived from Arabs, Berbers, and Negroes of three 

 tribes, extraordinarily fertile. On the other hand, Mr. Winwood 

 Reade informs me that the Negroes on the Gold Coast, though admir- 

 ing white men and mulattoes, have a maxim that mulattoes should 

 not intermarry, as the children are few and sickly. This belief, as 

 Mr. Reade remarks, deserves attention, as white men have visited 

 and resided on the Gold Coast for four hundred years, so that the 

 natives have had ample time to gain knowledge through experience. 



f " Military and Anthropolog. Statistics of American Soldiers," by 

 B. A. Gould, 1869, p. 319. 



