100 THE INFLUENCE OF HYBRIDITT. 



particular study, takes from each a number of general charac- 

 teristics, and forms from them a sort of ideal being, to which 

 it refers the real beings which it may henceforth see, and with 

 which it identifies those who have a sufficient amount of simi- 

 larity with this being.* 



We have seen in the preceding chapter that, as regards his- 

 toric times at least, a type invariably reproduces itself through 

 time and space, when it does not succumb to the new climate 

 in which it is about to live. If we admit, however, that two 

 types may have met with a harmony of influences, a medium 

 in which they can both live, we say that even with all the 

 care that may be taken to mix them we shall always find, 

 whatever White may say, black people and white people, if 

 these races were black and white originally ; and this by rea- 

 son of laws which we think we can shape, and whose demon- 

 stration will be as positive as that of the domain of history. 



LAW i. A medium type cannot exist by itself, except on the 

 condition of being supported by the two creating types. 



LAW ii. When two types become united, two phenomena may 

 arise: 1. Either one of them will absorb the other ; or, 2. They 

 may subsist simultaneously in the midst of a greater or less 

 number of hybrids. 



These two laws are only, in fact, the formula of the prin- 

 ciples which Prichardf himself laid down long ago, and which 

 are held also by the editor of the Ethnological Journal^ by 

 Knox, and by William Edwards. || 



* Individual distinctions can only, then, be based on the alterations of 

 type, in characteristics which are not those of the supposed ideal. It hence 

 results that, if we have lived with a stranger who has all the characteristics 

 of his race well marked, we think that we see him while travelling among 

 his fellow countrymen. 



f " It is one of the clearest facts in the animal, as well as in the vegetable 

 world ; all races generally reproduce and perpetuate themselves without ming- 

 ling and confounding one with the other." Prichard, Eistoire Naturelle de 

 I'Homme, vol. i, p. 17. Compare Morel, Degenerescences de I'espece humaine, p. 2. 



J Third number. Most of the articles in this remarkable production are 

 unsigned. 



" No race will amalgamate with another ; they die out, or seem slowly 

 to be becoming extinct." Compare the Ethnological Journal, p. 98. 



|| " We arrive at the fundamental conclusion that it is useless for people 

 belonging to varieties of different races, but neighbours, to ally themselves 

 together; part of the new generation will always preserve the primitive 

 type." See Courtet de 1'Isle, Tableau Ethnographique, p. 77. 



