TIIE HUMAN SPECIES. 171 



Those who, in the eagerness of defending a dogma, have 

 erroneously assumed that the conditions of hybridism, among 

 animals in a state of nature, were well understood, have like- 

 wise asserted that they were confined to domesticated animals, 

 or, at most, to cases where one of the parents was domesti- 

 cated; and therefore, in all cases, formed vitiated, degraded, 

 and exceptional instances, should likewise have reflected, when 

 the question is raised respecting the specific distinctions of 

 Man, that if his influence be thus powerful upon the brute 

 creation, it should not be denied to be still more efficient 

 between the species of his own genus, where the degradations 

 inflicted by slavery, and the corruption of so many varied insti- 

 tutions, have an empire independent of climate and food in 

 much more durable operation. 



Enough, we deem, has been said, to satisfy the reader of the 

 exceptional character of the definition above quoted, and, there- 

 fore, that it is not one to be assumed, with confidence, on the 

 question of the typical forms of Man. 



Reverting to Buflbn's experiment of breeding between the 

 Wolf and Dog, intended by him more with a view to ascertain 

 the reality of their common origin, or specifical identity, and 

 by Frederick Cuvicr pointed out as solved, because, according 

 to his view, it established an increasing sterility in the succes- 

 sive generations, we have already stated, that neither sufficient 

 care nor continuity was given to the experiment ; and that one 

 single pair, of homogeneous origin, continuing propagation 

 through successive offspring, without a single cross of renovat- 

 ing blood, would, in all probability, end in similar sterility, or 

 at least in sensible degradation. Hence it remains to be proved, 

 whether it would not hold equally between two such dissimilar 

 forms of Man, as a typical African negro and an European 

 conducted upon the same principle, of admitting no intermix- 

 ture of a single collateral* We doubt, exceedingly, if a 



* It is even pretended, by many white colonists, that no negro woman, 



