30 INTERMIXTURE OP CERTAIN RACES 



what we described in animals by the name of paragenesic hy- 

 bridity. The question now arises, whether it be eugenesic, 

 that is to say, whether Mulattoes and Mulatresses of the first 

 degree are indefinitely prolific between themselves. 



It would be imprudent to restrict ourselves to superficial 

 observations, though positive observations are with difficulty 

 collected. Mulattoes of the first degree are not a well defined 

 and circumscribed caste, like the whites and negroes of pure 

 blood. Mulatresses prefer to unite themselves with the white 

 or with mestizoes whiter than themselves. Mulattoes are thus 

 frequently obliged to intermix with either pure negresses, or 

 with mulatresses issued from a recrossing with the Negro race. 

 There are, nevertheless, a goodly number of unions between 

 the mestizos of the first degree ; but the individuals issued 

 from these unions have no longer the same chances of inter- 

 marrying as those of the first generation. The number of in- 

 dividuals of the first degree must, therefore, rapidly decrease 

 from generation to generation, and the result is, that even if 

 these cross-breeds were indefinitely prolific between themselves, 

 we could only, by way of exception, find mulattoes issued in a 

 direct line to the third or fourth generation, from the direct 

 and exclusive union of mestizoes of the first degree. 



To give to the question at issue a rigorous solution, it is 

 necessary to study during several generations a population 

 exclusively composed of mulattoes of the first degree. This 

 experience can never be obtained. We find, indeed, at Hayti, 

 a population nearly composed of coloured individuals. But 

 these coloured men are mestizos of every shade, and if this 

 hybrid nation were to subsist in perfect prosperity during 

 several generations, the unlimited prolifickness of mestizos of 

 the first degree between themselves would not thereby be de- 

 monstrated. 



We are, then, in default of a physiological experimentation 

 analogous to what the monogenists require, in attempting to 

 prove that the crossing of two species of animals is or is not 

 eugenesic, reduced to the impressions, or rather appreciation 

 of observers. Most of these appreciations can only be ap- 

 proximatives wanting a fixed basis. It is absolutely unknown 



