NA TURE 



429 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1S79 



THE HUMAN SPECIES 



The Human Speaes. By A. de Quatrefages, Professor of 

 Anthropology in the Museum of Natural History, Paris. 

 (London : C. Kegan Paul and Co., 1879.) 



THERE is possibly no science which is so generally 

 misunderstood, and yet has had so many works of 

 popular exposition, as anthropology. It is but a few years 

 ago that the works of Latham, Lawrence, Pickering, and 

 Prichard formed almost solely the consulting literature of 

 the science in this country ; and without referring to the 

 various standard works that have since been contributed 

 on special branches of the subject by English workers, 

 the exclusively English reader has perhaps been enabled 

 to consult the translated works of continental anthro- 

 pologists to a greater extent than has been the opportunity 

 of the student in other fields of science. During the last 

 fifteen years volumes of Blumenbach, Broca, Gastaldi, 

 Peschel, Pouchet, Topinard, Vogt, and Waitz have ap- 

 peared in this country in our own language, and now to 

 the list may be added the work of the distinguished 

 naturalist under notice, whose name, however, will be 

 popularly remembered as the author of " Rambles of a 

 Naturalist on the Coasts of France, Spain, and Sicily," 

 which appeared in London in 1857. 



Naturally, among the above treatises, there are to be 

 found wide divergences of views, and perhaps the student 

 of anthropology should be above all others careful to avoid 

 the scientific extremes of either a Paul or Barnabas per- 

 suasion. It is, however, absolutely necessary that we 

 should understand our author, especially that we should 

 learn whether he approaches the consideration of the 

 study of man with any preconceived notions, which may 

 be peculiar to himself or not generally held by other 

 thinkers. This M. de Quatrefages promptly discloses in 

 the first division of his book, entitled " Unity of the 

 Human Species," a subject which seems still somewhat 

 of a burning question among French anthropologists. 

 The question as to there being a fundamental distinction 

 between man and other animals is settled in the affirma- 

 tive, and for the following reasons : — 



1. Man has ^fi perception of moral good and evil, inde- 

 pendently of all physical welfare or suffering. 



2. Man believes in superior beings who can exercise an 

 influence upon his destiny. 



3. Man believes in the prolongation 0/ his existence after 

 this life. 



Readers of Lubbock, Spencer, or Tylor will perhaps 

 scarcely accept this as the philosophy at least of primi- 

 tive man, but, in justice to M. de Quatrefages, we 

 must endeavour to obtain his definition of the moral and 

 religious stage, and this again is clearly set forth in the 

 following sentence : — " The learned mathematician, who 

 seeks by the aid of the most profound abstractions the 

 solution of some great problem, is completely without the 

 moral or rehgious sphere into which, on the contrary, 

 the ignorant, simple-minded man enters when he struggles, 

 suffers, or dies for justice or for his faith." 



In discussing the different colours of mankind, melanism 

 is considered to be the result of accidental variations, and 

 is compared with that which, appearing in our poultry- 

 yards from time to time, is only prevented from spreading 

 Vol. XX. — No. 514 



by the destruction of the fowls attacked. It is a question 

 however, whether the occurrence of melanism in our 

 poultry-yards is not often an instance of atavism, and it 

 is probably incorrect to say (p. 49) that the flesh of black 

 fowls presents a repugant appearance, and for this reason 

 the propagation of the variety is prevented, when, as is 

 generally well known, fowls of the black Spanish breed 

 are greatly valued as table birds. This section concludes 

 with a discussion of the vexed term " species," and, ac- 

 cording to M. de Quatrefages, knowledge of facts pre- 

 ceded terminology, and his arguments compel him to the 

 opinion that " species is then a reality." Without, how- 

 ever, going so far as to say with Goethe that species exist 

 only in the copybooks of the specialists, is it not certainly 

 a fact that the founders of zoological nomenclature and 

 classification based their conclusions then, much as we do, 

 and necessarily in zoological descriptions of to-day, on the 

 general outward resemblance and structure of living forms, 

 and that knowledge of facts more frequently follows 

 terminology, as any well qualified and exhaustive mono- 

 graph of an animal group that has been long worked and 

 studied by zoologists of different views and methods will 

 exhibit 'i Few ornithologists, in describing a new fruit- 

 pigeon from abroad, are guided by the researches of Dar- 

 win on the multitudinous variations of the domestic pfgeon 

 at home ; and as for the descriptive entomologist, he, at 

 least, can hardly realise species as a reality wth his pre- 

 sent limited knowledge of the life histories of exotic in- 

 sects. In a philosophic sense the word species, as a rule 

 in zoological literature, is a useful biological conven- 

 tionalism, as necessary but as difficult to rigidly define as 

 the term atom, and often playing as valuable a part in 

 classification or generahsation as the " imaginary quan- 

 tity " of the mathematician fulfils in the course of his 

 calculations. It is for these reasons that we have found 

 a difficulty in following M. de Quatrefages in all the 

 rigidity of his specific definitions. 



The second portion of the work is devoted to the "origin 

 of the human species." To the question whether it is 

 possible to explain the appearance on our globe of a being 

 "which forms a kingdom to itself," M. de Quatrefages 

 does "not hesitate to reply in the negative." It is to be 

 noted how such an eminent naturalist as our author is still 

 opposed to Darwinism, which in this section receives 

 copious treatment, and some of the grounds principally 

 given for its rejection are to many minds who embrace it 

 the reasons of their faith. " The positive knowledge 

 which has been won by nearly two centuries of work " is 

 not considered by Darwinists to be invalidated, but rather 

 illuminated, by the light of " natural selection," and facts 

 which were unmeaning before, now by its aid form one 

 harmonious whole in an evolutionary cosmos. It is re- 

 markable that the doctrine of " natural selection " appears 

 to have been a greater stumbling-block to the French 

 mind than might naturally hare been expected, whilst in 

 German thought it seems to have at once supplied a want. 

 Is it that French biology has never cared to depart from 

 the glory that illumines the work of the illustrious Cuvier, 

 and, like other schemes of philosophy, remains true but 

 riveted to the teachings of its founder .' Even M. de 

 Quatrefages recognises something of this, and speaks of 

 "the reserve, perhaps exaggerated, which Cuvier imposed 

 upon himself, and the confidence which was placed in 



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