28 INTERMIXTURE OF CERTAIN RACES 



are inferior to the parent races, as regards longevity, vigour, 

 health, and intelligence, to render it very probable that the 

 two races are not of the same species. 



When a monogenist is called upon to demonstrate that all 

 human intermixtures are eugenesic, the first example which he 

 ordinarily cites is that of the Mulattoes in America, the issue 

 of the union of European colonists and African negresses. 

 This example, which has for a long time been considered as 

 decisive, might not be without a reply ; for there exist races 

 differing much more from us than the races of the western 

 coast of Africa ; but the question here is, whether it be quite 

 true that all American Mulattoes are eugenesic. 



We meet, first, with this fact, namely, the union of the 

 Negro with a white woman is frequently sterile, whilst that of 

 a white man with a negress is perfectly fecund. This might 

 tend to establish between these two races a species of hybridity 

 analogous to that existing between goats and sheep, which we 

 have termed unilateral hybridity. Professor Serres, fully alive 

 to the gravity of this fact has given the following explana- 

 tion : " One of the characters of the Ethiopian race 1 consists 

 in the length of the penis compared with that of the Cau- 

 casian race. This dimension coincides with the length of the 

 uterine canal in the Ethiopian female, and both have their 

 cause in the form of the pelvis in the Negro race. There 

 results from this physical disposition, that the union of the 

 Caucasian man with an Ethiopian woman is easy and with- 

 out any inconvenience for the latter. The case is different 

 in the union of the Ethiopian with a Caucasian woman, who 

 suffers in the act, the neck of the uterus is pressed against the 

 sacrum, so that the act of reproduction is not merely painful, 

 but frequently non-productive." 



This explanation, though based upon an anatomical cha- 

 racter perfectly correct, is yet far from being satisfactory ; but 

 we have quoted it here to show that one of the two most eminent 

 monogenists of our epoch has admitted as a perfectly authentic 



1 Serres, Rapport sur les resultats scientifiques du voyage de I' Astrolabe et de 

 la Zele (Comptes Rendus, t. xiii, p. 648). [The size of the penis is not a con- 

 stant character in the " Ethiopian" male. Instances, however, exist of its 

 enormous development in the West African Negro. Editor.] 



