16 



SECTION II. 



OF EUGENESTC HYBPJDITY IN MANKIND. 



If the opinion I wish to combat were not supported by authors 

 of acknowledged talent, it might, perhaps, be superfluous to 

 demonstrate that there exists in the human species eugenesic 

 hybrids. Most of the readers of these pages must reconcile 

 themselves to this qualification, for assuredly men of a pure 

 race are very rare in the country they inhabit. Nothing is, in 

 fact, more clear than that many modern nations, to commence 

 with the French, have been formed by the intermixture of two 

 or more races. My excellent teacher, Gerdy, 1 has devoted a 

 long chapter, in his Physiology, to this subject, and has, after 

 great research, arrived at the conclusion that all, or neai*ly all, 

 actual races have been crossed more than once, and that the 

 primitive types of mankind, altered and modified by so many 

 crossings, are no longer represented upon the earth. There is 

 here much exaggeration : for there are races who, by a peculiar 

 geographical situation, and the prejudices of caste or religion, 

 have remained in a state of purity ; and on the other hand, as 

 M. P. Berard 3 remarks, it is not sufficient for the production 

 of a mongrel race, that two groups of different races should 

 become allied and fused. If in either of the groups there 

 exists too great a numerical inequality, the mongrels resume, 

 after the lapse of a few generations, nearly all the traits of the 

 more numerous race, and are fused in it. It is for this reason 

 that, despite of numerous crossings, many races have preserved 

 all their characters from remote antiquity. I have already had 

 occasion to observe that the Fellahs of present Egypt are 

 exactly like the figures represented upon the Pharaonic epoch. 3 

 No country has, however, been so frequently conquered as 

 Egypt, which from Cambyses to Mehemet-Ali, for more than 

 twenty-three centuries has been governed and oppressed by 



1 Gerdy, Physiologie Medicale, t. i, p. 290. Paris, 1832. 



2 Berard, Cours de Physiologie, t. i, p. 465. Paris, 1845. 

 :i Journal de Physiologic, t. i, p. 120. 1858. 



