172 Memoir of Samuel George Morton. 
These reflections led him to draw up a paper which was printed 
in the American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. 11, 2d Series, 
1846, and entitled, ‘‘ Some Observations on the Ethnography and 
Archeology of the American Aborigines.” This was followed 
an “Essay on Hybridity in Animals and Plants, considered 
in reference to the question of the Unity of the Human Species;” 
read at your table, but published in the Am. Journ. of Science 
and. Arts, vol. iii, 2d Series, 1847. 
The facts recited in these essays authorized him, as he con- 
ceived, to hold the following conclusions, which were summed 
up in these words, to wit :— : 
Ist. A latent power of hybridity exists in many animals i 
the wild state ; in which state also hybrids are produced. 
2d. Hybridity occurs not only among different. species, but 
among different genera, and the cross-breeds have been prolific 
in both cases. ii 
3d. Domestication does not cause: this quality, but only 
evolves it. ee . 
_ Ath. The capacity for fertile hybridity, ceteris paribus, exists 
in animals in proportion to their aptitude for domesticity and 
cultivation. ce. u 
5th. Since various different species are capable of producing 
together prolific hybrid offspring, hybridity ceases to be a test of 
specific affiliation. vas Et 
6th. Consequently, the mere fact that the several races of 
mankind produce with each other a more or less prolific proge®Ys 
constitutes in itself no proof of the unity of the human species: 
_ You see here what pains were taken by him to learn the facts 
in relation to hybridity in general, and to bring those facts to the 
decision of the question, as applied to the races and families of 
mankind ! What a careful and pains-taking man he was; ho 
conscientious as to the sacredness of truth, and how pure minded 
in the love of it! 
Still, I am pained to say, these conclusions were attacked and 
controverted with such asperity, in different quarters, as to grieve 
im on account of the misconceptions that arose as to his infer- 
ences, and to prompt him to further inquiries and publications 
with which you are acquainted. 
It seems to me probable that these attacks upon him would 
have been avoided but for the absence in science of any clear 
and unequivocal idea or competent definition, of the word spect 
with power to apply the term unerringly. _ 
Dr. Morton says, at page 4 of the Essay on Hybridity, thats 
“where races can be proved to possess certain primordial dis 
tinctions which have been transmitted unbroken, they should be 
as true species.”’ But the impossibility of applying this 
ie must make it often . 
irded 
test to the whole immense catal unavail- 
