Firmin, Antenor. 'The Equality of The Human Races'

TH[
ua1
Of THE
Antenor Firmin
Translated by Asselin Charles
Introduction by Carolyn Fluehr-Lobbc
University of Illinois Press
Urbana and Chicago
'r
. .
perback, 2002
First 11lmo1s pa
d Asselin Charles
l Fl hr-Lobban an
2000 by Caro yn ue
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Reprmte Y
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.
Contents
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Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Library of C~ngress h-Antenor, 18:50-1911.
Firmm, Josep
h aines. English}
[De l'egalite des races um "tivist anthropology I
h
races : pos1
.
l .
The equality of the uman
th French by Asselm Char es '
Antenor Firmin; translated !~::r-~obban.-1st Illinois pbk.,
introduction by Carolyn
P cm.
. 2000
. h d N
York: Garland JW>.,
Originally pub_hs. e . ~:al references and index.
Includes b1bhograp
bk . alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-252-07102-7 (p ..
1. Race.
2. Race relations.
I. Title
HT1521.F513 2002
305.8-dc21 2002025372
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Acknowledgments
'
Note on the Translation by Asselin Charles

Introduction by Caro1yn Fluehr-Lobban
Dedication to Haiti
Preface
vii
IX
XI
Ii
Jjjj
Chapter 1: Anthropology as a Discipline

Chapter 2: Early Classification Systems
Chapter 3: Species in the Animal Kingdom
Chapter 4: Monogenism and Polygenism
Chapter 5:
Criteria for Classifying the Human Races
Chapter 6:
Artificial Ranking of the Human Races
Chapter 7:
Comparison of the Human Races Based
on Their Physical Constitution
Chapter 8:
Metissage and Equality of the Races
Chapter 9: Egypt and Civilization
Chapter 10: The Hindus and the Arya
Chapter 11:
General Perfectibility of the Human Races
Chapter 12:
IntelJectual Evolution of the Black Race in Haiti
Chapter 13: Prejudices and Vanities
Chapter 14: Comparisons
15
27
35
87
139
173
203
225
257
269
295
325
329
To Haiti
May readers of this book meditate on its content, and may it help to accelerate the movement of regeneration in which my race is engaged
under the limpid blue skies of the Caribbean!
May it inspire in all the children of the Black race around this big
world the love of progress, justice, and liberty. In dedicating this book to
Haiti, I bear them all in mind, both the downtrodden of today and the giants of tomorrow.
Antenor Firmin
Ii
'Preface
There is an element of chance in all human endeavors. When I arrived in

Paris, it never entered my mind to write a book such as this one. I am predisposed, both by my profession as a lawyer and by my studies, to concern myself with questions pertaining to the moral and political sciences.
I had no intention, then, of entering a field in which I could be considered
a layman.
Most of my friends even thought that I would take advantage of my
stay in Paris to study for the licence and the doctorate at the Faculty of
Law. That would certainly have suited my ambitions, had it not been for
the exigencies of such studies and my family obligations. Neve1theless,
if without having had the good luck of growing up in Europe one has
-worked conscientiously in one's country in order to earn one's title, I believe it is useless to recommence studies in a field of knowledge already
more or less successfully covered. The mind has other needs that must be
met as well. Meeting those needs largely compensates for the lack of a
highly desirable degree, especia11y as the absence of such a degree in no
way depreciates the work done outside European universities.
I will now explain how the inspiration for this book came to me. Dr.
Aubertin, whose liberal and congenial character I can never praise
enough, met with me a number of times. He was good enough to find our
several conversations interesting, and one day he graciously offered to
submit my name for admission to the Paris Anthropological Society (Societe d'.anthropologie de Paris). My academic background was such that
'I could immediately benefit from the works of this society within which
so many eminent men gather in order to discuss the loftiest and most in[iii
Liv
The Equality of the Human Races
teresting questions imaginable, that is, tQ study man. It is with gratitude,

then, that I accepted an offer, which I appreciated particularly because it
had been so spontaneous.
My candidacy, under Dr. Aube11in's sponsorship, was successful. I
was introduced by him, Mr. De Mortillet, and Mr. Janvier, and I was
elected a member of the scientific society at their meeting of the ~7th of
July of last year [ 1884]. I take this opportunity to express to these gentlemen my deep gratitude.
I do not have to hide it. I am always shocked whenever I come across
dogmatic assertions of the inequality of the races and the inferiority of
Blacks in various books. Now that I have become a member of the Societe d'anthropologie de Paris, such assertions seem to me even more inr-comptehe11sible mm illo~ll Does it make sense to have seating as
- equals within the same society with men whom the science which one is
supposed to represent seems to declare unequal? At the opening of our
meeting at the end of last year, I could have requested a debate about the
issue within the Society in order to elucidate the scie!Mfic reasons why
most of my fellow scientists divide the human species into superior and
inferior races. But I risked being perceived as an intruder and, being illdisposed against me, my colleagues might have rejected my request
without further thought. Common sense told me I was right to hesitate
so. It was then that I conceived the idea of writing this book. I urge the
specialists to meditate on its content, while at the same time I beg their
indulgence. Whatever they find good in it is due to the effectiveness of
the positivist methodology which I have tried to apply to anthropolqgy,, .
founding all my inductions on the principles already recognized in th~
established sciences. It is such an approach that impa1ts an uncontestabk
validity to the study of anthropological questions.
Such a subject requires long and laborious studies. The haste with
which I undertook the project undoubtedly has affected its execution.
The fact is, 1 could not count on finding sufficient free time in the future.
Time was of the essence, and I was not sure that any of my Black colleagues had both the good will and the patience one needs in order to
construct, combine, and present the arguments and the research materials
in the way I strove to <lo.
Have I succeeded and written a book with the clarity, precision, and
all those other attractive qualities that captivate the mind, a book that exerts the fascination of those works designed to propagate ideas which are
correct but yet contested and misunderstood? I cannot be ce1tain that I
have. I have never trusted my talent as a stylist. Furthermore, as I devel-
Preface
lv
oped my thesis of the equality of the races 1

.
mood that my th k"
.
' was m such a depressive
m mg was affected Such .
ducive to stylistic elegance and vi or .
. . cu cu?1stances are not conwhen the mind is healthy and th hg 'quaht1es_ which come through only
.
e eart expansive.
1 may have wntten an awkward hr
h
.
there. I beg my readers, indul
,
p . ase ere, an incorrect sentence
ties inherent in the issues I hagdetnce, akslkmg them to consider the d.ifficul.
o tac e and the hast
.
' e imposed upon me
by circumstances Perhaps 1 0
verest1mated my st.
h d.
way sometimes Only the th. t 4-"
iengt 1 id feel that
irs 1or truth and th

df
.
h
e nee or light sustained
me in my work. Neve1theless h t
having undertaken this work' .-:VW~t~:er ~- e outc?me, I will never regret
writes Mason "there is an o d. . dl m t is floatmg mass of humanity,"
'
r ete movement o
. .
aJ~rger circle and our mind .
. ur sma11 circle is part of
' ..
'
gams a measure of te
.

.
it gltmpses a new truth Th
.
mpoi ary satisfaction as
gence. This is how natu~a] seelpe~rt~Uit of tkhat truth strengthens our intelli.
c ion wor s for the . d Wh.
mm
1Je some tire
and cannot go further others d
b
.
,
a vance and becom t .
themselves."l
e s tonger y exe11mg
.
In arguing the thesis at the core of th"

Justify the warm welcome I h db
. is work, I wanted essentially to
a een given by th s ,, , d'
de Paris. I hereby pay ho
.
e oczete anthropologie
mage to each of its me b .
m e1 s, my honorable colleagues. I often happen to ch II
a enge mc,st anthro l
. .
po og1sts and to. harbor
opm1ons contrary to theirs but I t"ll
tual worth. I fervently hop~ that ~h1 re~fiect ;nd honor thei~- great intellecd hey WI re . ect on the vanous controversial points I have. raised
an t at they will
.
,&Y&arding the abilities of my race. I do not
reconsider the1r opinions
,task I had undertaken but I b l'
h . presume to have excelled at the
'
e ieve t at it suffic t
'to educated and intelligent
men t h
h
es o present a set of ideas
.
.obvious truth: "Verum animo satio I ave t e.1 ~cknowledge their shiningly
I am Black. Moreover I h s i~ec vestzgza [7arva sagaci sunt. "2
~e as the only true one ~he ~v~ a ways considered t~e religion of scinite devotion of any man ~h . n Y_~n; worthy of the attention and infiId
.
:
o is gm e by reason H
. the conclus10ns some seem to d
. ow cou I reconcile
raw, on the basis of th

with respect to the abilities of Blacks w h .
is same science,
eration. which is for me an .
. It this deep and passionate ven'
imperative need f th
.
draw from the ranks of my c
o
e mmd? Could I withongeners and con d
among other exceptions? I have t I . l s1. er myself an exception
o? og1ca a mind to accept such a distinction which I consider vain
f
.
, spec10us and mad Th
. ta1 difference between the Bl k f
ere is no undamen.. never understand how wh
ac_ s o . n_ca and those of Haiti. I could
.
eneve1 ment10n is m d f h .
Black race, the allusion would
I
a e o t e mfenority of the
app y more to the former than to the I atter.
Af .
lvii
Preface
lvi
Should I be tempted to entertain such a false and inept idea, reality itself,
which never lies, would make me realize every minute that the systematic contempt hurled at the African reaches me in my entire being. If
Caribbean Blacks show evidence of superior intelligence, if they exhibit
abilities unknown to their ancestors, it is nonetheless to these ancestors
they owe their original intelligence, which selection would later
strengthen and increase.
Haiti must serve to the rehabilitation of Africa. It is with this thought
J.n mind that l have chosen my examples solely from the Haitian Repubhe each time l needed to illustrate the moral and intellectual qualities of
the Negro race. From Blacks to mulattoes there are many different anthropological mixed bred types. I have cited many names, regretting that
the limits of my book and the fear of monotony kept me from citing
many more. Thus I would like to name, among other specimens of the
Haitian race, Alfred Box, Ansel in, Nelson Desroches, Edmond Roumain,
Georges Sylvain, and Edmond Cantin. l would have mentioned many
other brilliant young minds but for the fear of committing ~e fault I tried
so hard to avoid throughout this book.

Does Haiti constitute a sufficiently edifying example in favor of the
race she is proud to represent among the civilized nations? What evidence does she offer that she possesses the qualities that are denied in
African Blacks? To respond satisfactorily to these questions one needs to
construct a new thesis, an interesting and captivating one which can be
developed in no less than a large tome. Many of my countrymen have already brilliantly sustained such a thesis. One needs only read their works
to realize how much sophisticated logic and elegant science go into the
arguments they draw from sociology and the philosophy of history. The
question must be asked, however. ls not the dogma of the inequality of
races, which fosters the most stupid prejudices and nurtures the most
malevolent antagonism among the different elements of the Haitian people, the most obvious cause of the dissentions and internal conflicts that
have repressed and indeed annihilated the best natural aptitudes of the
young and proud nation? ls not the inconsiderate belief in her inferiority
responsible for the lack of any real support for her social development?
Are not all the calamities that have afflicted her due to the ever ridiculous
pretensions of some and the often indelicate claims of others? The Haitian race will achieve al\ that it is capable of achieving only when all these
prejudices, which constitute stumbling blocks on the path to progress,
are eliminated through education, to which the masses will have been
given unlimited access.
Such a time will undoubtedly come Other

at that, have experienced lo
d
. .
. peoples, and older ones
barism; yet, at the hour marknegd ban dpa1.nful penods of anarchy and bar.
Y estmy the sun f . .
erat10n rose over their natio 1 h .
.'
. o p1 og1 ess and regenfind in these examples so 1na onzon, its. ra?iance inextinguishable. I
.
' e oquent and so sigmfi
mg strength and unshakable hope.
cant, a source of consol-
1 do not wish, however, to give the im

.
.
press10n that I embrace wholesale the practice of invok1'n h'
g 1stoncal compa
some error, or to excuse unf rt
.
~1sons m order to justify
tion. Such comparisons haveo u~ate practices, m the life of a young naorder to show that all n t' a .ra mnal foundation when they are made in
.
a tons and all races th t h
.
t10n, have inevitably exper1'e
d
a ave achieved civiliza.
nee , en route a p d 1
tna and error and of inc . .
. .
,
eno , ong or short of
1
1 eno1 orgamzat1on Th
'
tf they are used in defense of a b uses wh1ch
..
ey are dangerous, though
h
'
ents, but which are known t b h
may ave historical preced
such a purpose, the study of~he armdul to social progress. Used for
which need to be encouraged in ~:e:;t oes not benefit young nations,
.quest for beauty, truth, and good
To the contrary it fosters i'n th
'
ose nat10ns

nonchalance, which impedes all i 't' . a pern1c10us apathy, a deadly
.
nt iat1ves for ref
d
must immunize ourselves a .
orm an progress. We
gamst such an erro. Wh'l
t e Black race in Haiti has
.
.
I.
I e recognizing that
progressed with an t h'
h
as oms mg rapidity, I cannot deny that today it still needs t d . b
that can only hold it back Wh o o .its est to break with certain habits
en route.
.
en one is late, one cannot afford to dawdle
I take myself neither for a hero nor f
. .
sense of dedication and my good will
or a sc1ent1st. I bring only my
defend. But I will take enor
'd
the cause of the truth I wish to
mous pn e rn kno
h
. .
t ose hvrng today and th
wmg t at all Black people
h
ose to come read th
'
vmced that their imperative d t .
,
is work and become con.
u Y ts to work ha d d
.
.
r an to improve themse ves m order to wash away th
l
e unjust 1mputat'
h
t etr race for so long I 11 b
JOns t at have weighed on
h
w1
e very happ t
try, for whom I harbor infinit I
d y o se~ the people of my coun.
.
e ove an veneratm
.
etr misfortunes and I b
.
n precisely because of
th
a onous destmy u d
country has a very special and d l'
' n erstand at last that their
e 1cate duty wh
wor that a1l human beings Bl k
, .1
to show the whole
-ld
'
ac s and Whit
.
.ll!!!l.Jhfilxi&bts.
I
am
de
Ole
of
b h
tertam the radiant and act1' h .. -eply convinced, mdeed1 eii:..
ve ope that m
h
The very laws of evolut1'
.'
. y w1s will come true.
on mspire and t' f
e meluctable destiny of all h

. . JUS I y such an aspiration
uman soc1et1es is t
f
Th
vere on the road of progress once th fi .
o go orward, to perse.
e I st .step has been taken. Once all
t?
ot~he1rqual~S
es:
equ"-~'.n_ermS
!viii
paralyzing constraints have been removed and the society's moral energies, th~sowof progress, have been liberated, the gradual and harmonious movement of progress will occur as a result of the natural
elasticity proper to all social organisms. All young and vigorous peoples
must look to freedom as the very principle of their salvation. All natural
and organic laws combine to proclaim this truth.
In Haiti as elsewhere, the Black race can progress and prosper only
if it enjoys freedom, real and effective civic and political freedom. If
slavery horrifies Blacks, so must despotism. For despotism is nothing but
moral slavery; it allows one's hands and feet to move freely, but it chains
and muzzles the human soul by repressing thought. But it is worth remembering that the transformation, redemption, and rehabilitation of a
race result from the inner action of the soul, operating under the impulse
of a will that is free, enlightened, and unconstrained by tyranny.
From De Gobineau, a man blinded by passion, to Bonneau, a man
often impartial, too many have too often repeated that "the Black man
...
does not understand the idea of government without d&i}Jotism." Too
-----...
ffianyr1"a;;;t;u~s opi~iOn:corroooratecrt)ylillfortunate
examples, to assert that the moral inferiority of the Ethiopian man keeps
him from rising to a precise understanding of the concept of respect for
the human individual, without which individual freedom is no longer
sacred.
The wish I fonnulate for the people of my race, wherever they may
live and govern themselves in the world, is that they tum away from anything that smacks of arbitrary practices, of systematic contempt for the
law and for freedom, and of disdain of legal procedures and distributive
justice. Law, justice, and freedom are eminently respectable values, for
they form the crowning structure of the moral edifice which modern civilization has been laboriously and gloriously building on the accumulated ruins of the ideas of the Middle Ages.
The example must come from Haiti. Have not Haitian Blacks already given evidence of the highest intelligence and the most forceful
drive? Statesmen and writers, young and old, all will soon realize that the
regeneration of the African race will be complete only when each individual is as respectful of the freedom and the rights of others as he is of
his own freedom and rights. Only from this will the splendor of moral
dignity come to crown the Ethiopian's head, as with an aureole that
adorns and. transfigures us, the only natural nobility that elevates to the
same heights all human beings and all races.
Dignified and proud, intelligent and industrious, full of vital energy,
Preface
!ix
may the Black race grow prosperous and sc
b
ale the rungs of progress to
the greatest heights. There will
.
never e enough w k
h
.
.
or ers to elp It in its
ascens10n nor enough <led t.
.
tea ton to Its cause Th. b
,
respectful offering I make to th
.
: . IS ook IS a humble and
e race m a rel 1g 1

better than I some day but
.
ous spmt. Others will do
'
no one will ever ho
f .
t10n and wish for its glory than Id
pe more or its regenera,
p
o.
A nt enor trmin
Paris, May I ] , ] 885
NOTES
I L'anthropologie, son domaine et so
.
cembre 1883).
n but, In Revue scienti.fique ( 1er de2 L
.
ucretms, De natura rerum, Book I, line 396.
CHAPTER I
Anthropology as a Discipline
Connais-toi toi-meme, [ . . .}, Thales et ensuite

Socrate qui s 'appropria si heureusement cet
apophtegme, ont atteint plus haut qu 'its ne
savaient peut-etre. /ls croyaient n 'emettre
qu 'une pensee morale et its ont pose la loi du
progres humain.
La connaissance de soi est, en effet, parallele a
celle qu'on acquiert du monde, et si l'homme
devait se connaftre entierement, il n 'arriverait a
cette hauteur de vue qu 'apres avoir epuise
l1 etude de tout ce qui est hors de lui.
(Jules Baissac)
fly a dans l 'homme un sentiment si vif et si clair
de son excellence au-dessus des heres, que c'est
en vain que l 'on pretend l 'obscurcir par de
petits raisonnements et de petites histoires
vaines er fausses.
(Nicole)
"Know thyself." Thales and then Socrates, who
so happily appropriated this apophtegma,
achieved more than lhey perhaps ever knew.
They wished merely to express a moral thought,
but they actually articulated the law of human
progress.
J

Self-knowledge indeed goes hand in hand with
the knowledge of the world. If man ever achieves
complete self-knowledge, he will do so only
after having learned about everything that is
outside him.
(Jules Baissac)
Man harbors such a clear sense of his superiority over animals that no arguments and no stories true or false can ever obscure it. (Nicole)
IMPORTANCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Since Bacon, whose treatise De Augrnentatis et Dignitate Scientiarum is a
first attempt to systematize and classify the sciences, Man, always concerned with sorting and recording the achievements of his mind, has
ceaselessly searched for a logical way of ordering the different branches
of science. His aim has been to gather them all into ~armonious whole,
while methodically highlighting the successive steps of that great shining
ladder which, as in Jacob's vision, rises from earth to heaven and bathes in
its rays the universe and Man, space and thought. Science is the unknown
god whom man obeys often while being ignorant of it. The cult of this god
grows day by day, governing Man's mind, controlling his spirit, subjugating his heart while dominating his reason. The great workers of the mind
take turns to sacrifice to the god. They compete for the privilege of codifying the great laws by which science manifests itself.
Bacon came after Aristotle. After Bacon, the Encyclopedists, Ben1
2
tham, Ampere, Charma, 3 Auguste Comte, 4 Herbert Spencer, 5 all brilliant stars lighting humanity's way, undertook that task of codifying the
laws of science. It is a particularly daunting enterprise because its realization requires such profound and universal knowledge.
.
It is not necessary to linger over the particular and varyingly remarkable result achieved by each of these men, or to discuss the specific principles of hierarchization selected by some and opposed by others. It
suffices to say that, for some thirty years now, among the different
bra~ches of the tree of science, anthropology has been the discipline
which has had the most to offer to those questing minds wishing to find
answers to the great problem of the origin and nature of Man and to the
question of his place in creation.
The subject is well worth the involvement of all these brilliant minds
emulating one another in the questfor an answer. Still, the controversy
goes on and the most perspicacious and knowledgeable participant has

yet to encounter an expose so logical, a demonstration so clear that, co~
mon sense agreeing with the scientific conclusions, he would recognize
the truth he thirsts after and the light he prays for. The problem is that the
subject is Man, Montaigne's vain, slippery and diverse being, Pasca.l's
. thinking reed, and Broca's primate. When we study Man, whatever aim
we pursue and whatever perspective we adopt, that of the natural~S:. or
that of the philosopher, we seek to circumscribe all the charactenst1cs
that make up a human being.
The questions that arise at every step in our investigation are many
and varied. Man is god and beast joined together in undefinable proportions. Here we come across a skinny, weak, ugly, and misshapen being,
who is not only physically disgraceful but also morally depraved, a cowardly, dirty, cynical and slithering creature, ready to bite the foot. he .is
licking and kissing, and finding his delight in rubbish and a fierce JOY m
the perpetration of crimes. There we encounter a sage, a handsome,
strong, kind, and humble man, who sacrifices himself for the ~ake of.the
truth and the betterment of his fellow human beings, strugglmg against
adversity with the unwavering patience and constancy of the just. It is a
wonder that both these men are members of the same species, of the
same family. It is precisely this contrast that constitutes Man's greatness.
Man can lower himself to the lowest depths of ignorance and complacently wallow in the muddy swamps of vice, yet he can also rise to the
resplendent heights of truth, goodness, and beauty. From radiantly handsome Antinoos to grimacingly ugly Thersite, from good-hearted and forgiving Jesus to treasonous and repulsive Judas, from Humbolt to the
Auvergnat cretin, from Toussaint Louverture to the brutish Negro, there
seems to be an unbridgeable distance. Yet there is no problem of continuity between these two extremes. Everything comes together to proclaim
the dignity of the human species, which can decline to such low depths
but which can also rise to such dizzying heights. Man may well be an animal, a bi manual primate, but he will also always be a privileged animal,
one endowed with a superior intelligence and spirit, "sanctius his animal
mentisque capacius altae," as the poet of Metamorphoses writes.
Anthropology, the discipline which studies this complex being, takes
on a real importance among the different sciences. Born only yesterday,
this science was promoted with such vigor from the very beginning that it
seems already old, so burdened it is with formulas, doctrines, independent
methodologies, the whole adding up to an imposing but cumbersome
apparatus. All the other sciences gradually become its tributaries. The
5
aspiring anthropologist must therefore undertake all kinds of studies and
explore thoroughly all possible areas of knowledge if he is to be undeni~
ably competent in the field. No other field of study is ever as complex as
this one. Here one must reason with self-assurance on every subject,
whether it has to do with the spirit or with matter. One must consider both
the world and thought, both phenomenon and noumenon, to use Kant's
terminology. Not everyone is up to the task, and more than one dogmatic
anthropologist would withdraw if he had a sufficient understanding of the
intellectual exigencies for the role to which he aspires. The main subject
of this science deserves such a noble effo1t, however, even if it involves
redoing one's scientific education, broadening the foundation of one's scientific knowledge, thus renouncing perhaps one's superior position in
some specialty. Paiticularly in the field of anthropology, one must be wary
of exclusive specialization, for it narrows the mind's horizons and renders
the intellect incapable of considering every facet of a given reality.
The question is, at atime when the different branches of science are
constantly being further subdivided, is it possible for a single man, overwhelmed with work and other activities as we all are today, to embrace
all existing scientific notions and still understand each one? Of course
not. As it has been so often pointed out, a Pico della Mirandola would be
impossible today. For the anthropologist who wishes to eschew a scattered and paralysing erudition, the right approach, then, is to identify the
scientific disciplines considered indispensable to the field so as to be able
to streamline his personal studies. This approach might perhaps make it
possible to develop an effective method for reaching the stated goal.
DEFINITIONS
The next question, naturally, is this: What are the fields of knowledge
that contribute to the work of the anthropologist? There is no consensus
in this respect, for answers vary depending on one's understanding of the
aim and function of the science.
Philosophers and scientists have laid. competing claim to the field
of anthropology. The former see it as the purview of philosophy, whereas the latter consider it essentially a biological or natural science. From
these two perspectives derive a variety of convergent or overlapping definitions.
Among philosophers, Kant in particular was the first to provide a
systematic definition which marked a clear break from scientists' understanding of the discipline since Blumenbach. We know that the scientist-
philosopher of Koenigsberg authored a

.
.
thropology, but it is in anothe . k htreat1se entitled Pragrnatic AnK
"
.
r wor t at he defi
h.
ant:. Physics, besides its empirical dime .
n~s t J~ phrase. Says
same is true of ethics Ho
.
ns10n, has Its rational side. The
.
.
wever, m the case of th l
.
practlcal anthropolog)' is a pa t l l
e atter science, the term
1
I
Icu
ar
y
apt
term
r
.
w h I e the word moralitv i
.
ior Its empirical side
d "6>
.
- s an appropriate desi
- .
'
SI e.
This division of th'
.
"
gnatton for its rational
"
.
e 1cs mto pragm t'
h
morality" may seem bizarre b t . .
a ic ant ropology"7 and
' u It IS pert ectly co
ilt
eraI method of the eminent h"J
ns1stent w1tn the gen. .
P I osopher who in
.
res1stmg the critique of reaso ct ..
. ' eve1y concept capable of
. .
n, 1stmgu1shes bet
h
.
th e su b~ective,
reality and thought.
ween t e Objective and
The Kantian school has Ion
. .
and attributed the same meaning gt mhamtamed the very same definition
f J
s 0 t e same word
o1 ma changes undergone by K
.
s, notwithstanding
the
antian thought
master to Hegel. The latter 1 d d h
.
m its Journey from the
n ee
as rurned th
ca l speculations with his hab't f

k'
e prestige of metaphysi1 o ma mg the 1
controversy. Still Hegel h

.
c earest idea a subject of
d
.
as ventured mto e . fi 1
~ ge m a series of works wh h h
ve1y e d of human knowltimes yield brilliant insights l~h'. o~ever so~ewhat confused, some-1~
arbitrary but always erudite termi~~lug the thicket of an excessively t
Th
ogy.
'
.
.
us accordmg to Hegel anthro olo
th~ qualities of the mind as it /s sfll. ~ gy IS the science which studies
t~na~ world by the envelope of th~ ~~~ne~ to nat.ure and linked to the mag1~01ng or, more precisely, the . _Y ma unio~ which is the very bebemg. "This fundamental state fongmal_ determination of the human
.
1f I~ express myself thus"
w11tes
Hegel, "is the subiect f o man
h '
,
J
o ant ro olo "8
.
Kant s definition has moved f

F p
g
It IS evident here that
Schernng's philosophy of b rlom . ich~e's transcendental idealism to
d .
a so ute 1dent1ty d fi
I ea 1ism which Hegel's Philoso h
~~ ' .nally, to the absolute
Orthodox spiritualists woul~ ~f.the. S~mt epitomizes.

body as the physical envelope oft~ It ~1:ficult to accept this idea of the
Janet or Professor Caro w11
e spmt. I doubt very much that Mr
h"l
.
I ever agree to mak
h
.
.
p I osoph1cal system But
h
e sue an idea part of their
h'I
we ave already I'

p t osophical abstractions Wh t. .
mgered too long amidst

a 1s nghtly s
an d the thinkers of his scho 1
, urpnsrng is the fact that Kant
.
.
o were unaware of th
k
r~ry sc1entJSts in the field of anthro olo
e. w~r s of contemposmce the end of the last
p
gy, as the d1sc1pline has evolved
.
century Kant's p
.
pu b hshed in 1798. It is woith
: -~-A+zf-h-1-l]pology was
h
.
notrng that al read 176
,
p~ bl. Is ed his remarkable book Sur l
. ,
ym
4 Daubenton had C}Pllal dai:zs. l'homme et les ani
esAdifferen_ces de position du trou ocmaux. fter this work came th~e
t.
1eat1ses
The Equality of the Hwnan Races
C
er9 and Soemme1.mg 10, and Blumenauthored respectively by amp k dd d to Buffon's L'homme et les
.
I h 11 These wo1 s, a e
b
ach's inaugura t esis.
'b ted to defining the science
l' h d n 1749 contn u
.
varietes hunzaines
pub is e l
' k 'ts domain clearly distinct from
of anthropology .m sue h a way as to ma e 1
the other fields of hui:nan knowle~get the work in which he expounds his
Thus Kant's choice of the t1t.e o
N
ly does he give the word
r 's deliberate.
ot on
. d
ideas on practical mora ity I
. . .
d't'.i:-e1ent from those subscnbe
d a delm1t10n 1 '
anthropology a meanmg an
t ts the appropriateness of the term apto by scientists, but he ~lso con a~s Thus he writes: "As for craniums and
Plied to the natural stud1e~ of M . .
11 as in the cases of the skulls of
. h d t mmes their pro 1 e,
C
.
their shape, wh1c e e1
I d' ns and others described by ampe1
.
S uth Sea n ta
. l
. the concern of phys1ca geograNegroes ' Kalmoucs, o b h these ate
and pai1icularly Blume~ ac '
1 ,,12
Phy rather than of practical anthropo ogy. t the master's ideas in a new
d
more than presen
. . .
no
.
f' the human races, retammg m
Hegel, who oes
. 1
the question o
.
"
form, touches hght y upon
"The differen~ among the races,
essence Kant's opinion on the_matte_r. that is, one concerning the natural
he writes, "is also a natural <lit~e1 e~~~the geographical traits of a specific
l As such the latter has to o w1
t ,,13
sou .
,
fh
anity congrega e.
region where large masses ~os~~er's opinions, scientists continued to
lgnonng the great ph
p . d 'th Blumenbach, m consider.
fi lds and pers1ste , w1

.
f'
work in their vanous e
w1'th the natural history o
1
.
ing the word anthropo ogy as. synonymous
..
epted and considered
o ffi M
.
. l . defimt10n was ace
. l .
an . Once this part1cu ai d the natura11sts c Ia t'med anthropolog1ca sciCl
.al ' as was to be expecte
. whi'ch other scientists could on y
d
one m
1
bl at first sight. However, on closer
ence as their exclusJVe omam,
111 00 k very reasona e
l
be tolerated. It a
s
.
. . th method used m natura
.
1
.
d'
t ble tact eme1ges. e
examination one un ispu a
d tmals inferior to Man, is not a
ls plants an an
history to study mrnera ,

'
d f' the last addition to creation.
h t mes to the s tu Y o
ways fruitful w en I co.

ed essentially for vegetative
Whereas the inferior beings are programm . 1 l'fe which he ultimately
d . l life Man is programmed for socia J ,
an amma
'
n history
h t from the very first attempt at
always achieves by m.aking. his ow
This distinction is so impor~ant th.a
cun-ed among the naturalb
.
a certam sc ism oc
h h Man thus defined was still to e
systematizing the science
A
was w et er
l
ists themselves.
h'10 ht is_sue
framewo1k o f th e categories devised for the amma
classified wit
t e
.
_
a se arate category.
world, or whether he constituted iathl er 'f Mp an as an animal, placed him
.
h
th first to c ass1 Y
.d
Linnaeus,
w o 'was
e the apes, the cheloria [turtles) and the bra ythe Primates
next to
among
7
peds [slow footed]. It was quite a shock to see the King of Creation thus
placed among the ugliest and least graceful of animals. A number of naturalists, feeling humiliated lo see their species in such gross and vile
company, rebelled against the great Swedish naturalist's taxonomy.
14
Blumenbach next divided the order of primates into bipedals and quadripedals, and put Man in the first category, thus isolating him from the
other animals by the distance of a whole order. 15 Lacepede, who, with his
elevated soul and broad intellect, naturally saw in himself a model of humanity so far 16above the apes, adopted the eminent German naturalist's
classification. When the immortal Cuvier, whose figure dominates the
entire history of the natural sciences in the ti rst ha If of this century, added
the weight and authority of his opinion to the views of this school, everything then seemed to justify an ordinal distinction between Man and the
other animals
roaming the su1face of the globe and the depths of the
17
oceans.
What the scientists who wished to separate the human species from
the rest of the animal kingdom found remarkable is Man's great sociability and its implications. "Man is Man," Buffon wtites, "only because he
has developed connections with Man." 18 This need lo be in society is
fully developed only among human beings. Other animals may join in
bands and sometimes experience the sentiment of solidarity to the point
of sacrificing themselves, with an astonishing display of energy, for the
salvation of the community. But it would never occur lo anyone to compare these instinctive and punctual actions to the reasoned consistency
with which Man works at constructing society, even through the bloodiest conflicts. One essential philosophical idea takes precedence over rill
other considerations: there are conditions under which a particular living
being cannot achieve its full potential, that is, cannot realize all that it is
capable of. Throughout creation individuals can survive in isolation, as
long as they have sufficient energy to overcome. the material difficulties
encountered in their environment. Man is the only creature who cannot
stand alone. The pride or depressive misanthropy which occasionally inspires such a desire for isolation is nothing but a pathological case triggered by some lesion in the organism. The fact is, Man needs Man in}
order to develop or even to know his ind iv iduaJ personality. Goethe, joining the broad understanding of the poet to the naturalist's science and the
philosopher's wisdom, says:
,
Der Mensch erkennt sich nur in Menschen, nur
Das Leben lernt Jedem was er set!
Nothing cou\d be truer. Man \earns to know himself only by looking at
his fellow Man, and only through the intercourse of everyday life does
he learn his true value. But let us return to the deliberations of the naturalists as they try to determine Man's place in the various zoological
classifications.
Cuvier's authority rested on very solid credentials. He was the tme
inventor of comparative anatQmy, a subject that had been only vaguely
studied in the works of Vic d' Azir and De Daubenton, which are not very
impressive works when we consider the important contributions already
made to the science by Aristotle. Cuvier was in a better position than
anyone else to decide whether or not Man should be given a separate
place on the zoological scale. Unsurprisingly, his opinions and those of
his school soon became scientific orthodoxy.
Some went even further. Following in his famous father's footsteps
in cultivating a uniquely fascinating science while keeping the intellectual independence of the true scientist, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire went the
classical school one better by proposing to recogni~ a human kingdom.
Here, not only does Man stand apai1 from the higher animals, he occupies a separate place in the whole of Creation. He surpasses all in dignity
and preeminence. Hollard, Pruner-Bey, De Quatrefages, to cite only
these few names, rallied to the opinion of the inventor of the theory of the
limited variability of the species. Any excess, however, weakens. Those
scientists who favored the idea of a human kingdom could not deny that
Man was an animal subject to the same natural exigencies as the other
animals, as much by his organic functions as by his anatomical constitution. In this theory, the word kingdom lost the meaning it ordinarily has
in natural science and became in fact almost meaningless. Scientists of
this school lost sight of the basic premises of Blumenbach ahd Cuvier to
consider only those high intellectual and moral qualities which make of
us a unique species.
Realizing that the taxonomic differences separating the human
group from the different simian groups are family and not order differences, Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire went back, intentionally or not, to
the camp of such naturalists as Bory de Saint-Vincent, Lesson, and othe1~s, who had adopted, with varying changes, the classification system of
Linnaeus. The result was a sort of compromise whereby scientists
pledged to a particular current of thought simply neglected the others.
Called upon to share his opinion with an ever spell-bound public, Lacenaire formulated this nuanced position: "Yes, by his shape, his structure,
and his organic constitution as a whole, Man is an ape. However, by his
intelligence, by the creations of his mind, Man is a god." The erudite professor thus pulled himself out of a delicate situation with uncommon
adroitness, but the struggle was far from being over.
_orthodox school had found its main source of strength in the
cred1t e~Jo~ed by the spritualist doctrines that prevailed unchallenged at
the begmmng of the century. German idealism and French rationalism
we1~e two such ~octrines. But things were soon to change. Psychology,
which had remained until then the purview of metaphysics, was invaded
by ~ cohort of laymen. Everywhere human actions and th~ughts were
su?Jected to constant observation and analysis, and were explained as
bem~ the results of physiological stimuli. Evoking both chemistry and
phys10logy, moved by the imperatives of both free thought and science,
illustrious scientists categorically rejected the idea of the divine origin
and t~ansc:ndance_ of human intelligence and considered it only a mere
function of the brain. The word was finally out: "Ohne Phosphorus, kein
Gedanke," exclaimed Moleschott. The entire generation of scientists
who first came on the scene in 1850 sided with the new school. Phosphorus replaced the divine spirit at the center of the scientists' thought. Vain
protests against materialism arose. When Flammarion, one of the rare
spiritualist scientists of that period, published his militant work, Dieu
dans l~ na~ure, his voice, with its magical texture and the limpidity of the
Platonic discourse, had less of an echo than that of Louis Buchner. Force
or energy was recognized as an integral p'art of matter. What had been
taken before a~ _a divine manifestation, became a simple organic phenomenon, nutntion or breakdown of tissues, nervous excitement or depression. T~ough human ingratitude, all the beautiful tirades inspired by
t~e mens agztat molem were forgotten, and spiritualism was voiceless,
virtually dead: Tir~d of controversy and satiated with speculations, people turned their mmds to the positivism of Auguste Comte or the evolutionism of Herbert Spencer, whenever they could escape from
Hartmann's philosophy of the unconscious. Such proud fighters as Paul
Janet, Renouvier, Saisset, and, above all, Caro, struggled on, and are still
struggling, with the courage of their convictions. Still, the tide cannot be
reversed.
Ev~ry philosop~ic~l innovation brings with it a corresponding
change m current sc1ent1fic theories. These, in turn, slowly dissolve and
transform prevailing currents of thought. There is no need then to explain the ~nfluence of t~day's predominant theories. Man today is' g~_ner
a~ly considered an ordinary animal. For the majority of scientists, he
differs from the other animals only by a few degrees of superiority. In the
!he
JO
most widely accepted classifications he is put back in the first family of

the order of primates. He is born, lives, dies, is condemned to work, and
goes through all the changes dictated by the laws of nature, in accordance with the exigencies of the different environments where he merely
exists. The light of intelligence still shines in him, but it is no more than
some ancient crown, the modest attribute of some throneless king become first among equals in the zoological republic.
This brief excursion through the philosophical landscape was intended to help us understand the different definitions of anthropology
formulated by the naturalists. Each definition generally reflects the particular perspective from which a naturalist looks at the subject.
According to Topinard, "anthropology is the branch of natural history which studies Man and the different human races." 19 In this
scholar's view, this definition encompasses the following ones:
1. "Anthropology is the science concerned with the study of the
human group seen as a whole and considered1!fn all its internal

aspects as well as in its relationships with nature" (Broca).
2. "Anthropology is a pure and concrete science whose goal is the
complete knowledge of the human group considered, firstly, in
each of its four typical divisions (variety, race, species, if called
for) in comparison with one another and with their repective
environments, and, lastly, in its relationship with the rest of the
animal world" (Bertillon).
3. "Anthropology is the natural history of Man, who is studied
monographically, as a zoologist studies an animal" (De Quatrefages).
There is, admittedly, quite a distance between these definitions and those
of the philosophers. My own opinion is that the natural history of Man,
however we consider it, will never be properly explored if we approach it
exactly as we would the study of any other animal. Consequently, I define anthropology as the study of Man in his physical, intellectual, and
moral dimensions, as he is found among the different races which constitute the human species. This definition differs noticeably from those of
the scientists who are rightly considered the authorities in the discipline.
Still, I do not feel obliged to embrace their opinion, however weighty it
may be. My own definition may not be any better, but it suits my book's
purpose admirably and gives a clear idea of the different disciplines in
which I think an anthropologist must be knowledgeable.
1J
I divide those fields of know led e .
k" g mto four great categories, following as closely as possible th
.. .
e ran mg adopted b A
c omte and the
pos1t1v1st school In the fi t
1ace, there are theYc ugust
rs
P
l
.
w h tch mclude geology ph .
.
.
osmo ogzcal ~
'
'
ys1cs, morgamc ch 1
ethnography. Next come the b. l . l .
em1s ry, geography, and
to oglca sczences h h
organic chemistry, physiolo
b
, w Jc mclude anatomy,
nology. Then we ha th gy,_ ot~ny, zoology, paleontology, and eth.
ve e socwloglcal science
history, archeology, linguistics;pmittcmeCo;;--s, amo_n~ wh~ch we find

raphy. FinalJy, there are the h :!
I .
. omy, stat1st1cs, and demogjurisprudence, theology psyp ~proper, which include
'
c o ogy, esthet1cs, and morals.
THE FIELD OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Some wiJI no doubt think it is ossibl
. .
through the strenuous s~ud o~ ~~t'actice ~~thropology without
bnefty classified. It would be a _Y
. those sc1e~ces we have just
Wit.hout such a foundation the m::tav~ftn~st~ke o~ their part to think so.
sonmg tools which one absol t I g de. mmd will lack some of the rea. ion on the most important an~ e y nefe s m order to form a personal opina broad knowledge of the b _most. requ.ently debated issues. Even with
would sometimes be quite ataswl notI~ns m those different sciences, one
a cert f T .
1atest developments in those fi a IdossI without
h
am am1 ianty with the
ematical sciences to my list ~ s. s ould perha~s have added the mathsearch method necessarily. ow~ver, I do not thmk that an effective ref .
.
reqmres the applicat"
cal culat10ns to craniometry
D. B .
ion o tngonometric
.
.
. .
, as I. 'oca has prop d Add'
ties to difficulties understand bl
.
ose
mg d1fficul.
a Y complicates matt
I
.
mattes, for example the p . . I
ers. n applied mathe-
b
.
'
rmc1p es of mecha
mes may e useful to the
sc1ent1st interested in the stud f h
can serve to ,explain certain YI o t e s.tructure of the human body. These
h. h
ocomot10n or chore
h.
.
ograp ic movements
w IC seem incompatible with th
human species. When we
lk
e upnght stature characteristic of the
wa , run, or dance 0
cated balancing movements to
bl
' ur arms execute sophistiena e us to keep our
1b .
out our awareness. Still th
. .
.
equ1 I num, all with.
' e most distmguished
t .
restramt in discussing it all Wi h
ana om1sts show great
.
e s ould therefore h
stramt when our purpose is n t t b

,
' s ow even greater reb
o o o serve the laws of
1b
ut, rather, to describe different" I . . I
equ1 I num at work
I must also point out that ::s:e:c~:;~ typ~ ch.aracteristics.
descriptive study of the d1f~ . '
ons1dermg ethnography as the.
ie1 ent peoples aro d th
.
u_n . e world, most ethnog- ,
raphers make of their discipl'
opinion th . . .
me a general science of humanity In th .
, eu science encompass
h
e1r
. es ant ropology, which is then rele-
g~ing
12
gated to the background. According to Cast?.ing, "anthropology would

fall apart if its practitioners tried to cover even one fourth of what ethnographers handle with such ease." 20 Is it the fault of ethnographers that the
most logical concepts are thus perverted ? Is it not, rather, the fault of anthropologists? Clemence Royer said it all when she stated that the Anthropological Society has a tendency to indulge in skeletomania instead
of rising to the heights envisioned by science. "Indeed," she writes, "the
current school of anthropology neglects too much Man's moral and intellectual dimensions, while at the same time it pays too much attention to
Man's physical dimension." 21
For my part, in asserting that the anthropologist must study not only
Man's physical characteristics but also his moral and intellectual dimensions, I put ethnography in its appropriate place. I consider ethnography
a branch of the cosmological sciences, for it is inevitably present in any
attempt at studying the universe. The illustrious Alexander von Humbolt
had to take it into account in his Kosmos, the best treatise of cosmology
that has been published so far. Ethnography can th:S be distinguished
from ethnology, which does not stop at the mere description of peoples
but in addition divides them into distinct races, studies their different organic constitutions, considers their typical variations (long, pointed or
round heads; jutting or straight jaws; aquiline, straight or flat noses, etc.),
and finally tries to _discover whether these are factors that might explain
aptitudes which seem particular to each human group. In a word, as the
etymology of the terms clearly suggests, ethnography is the description
of peoples, whereas ethnology is the systematic study of these same peoples considered from the perspective of race. The former science looks at
the broad external characteristics; the latter examines the different parts,
measures and compares them, and tries systematica11y to account for
each deatil. All the great travellers are also ethnographers, competent to
the extent that they observe and study carefully the different peoples they
encounter. In contrast, to become an ethnologist, it is necessary to have a
knowledge of anatomy and physiology as well as an understanding of the
basic principles of taxonomy.
The anthropologist comes in when the ethnographer and the ethnologist have completed their work. The anthropologist compares Man to
the other animals in order to separate the subject of his study from all the
surrounding subjects. More particularly, the anthropologist seeks answers to the following questions: What is the true nature of Man? To
what extent and under what conditions does he develop his potential?
Are all the human races capable or not to rise to the same intellectual and
13
moral level? If not wh1' h
c races seem mor
h .igher development' of the

. d
e particularly endowed for a
nun ' and what are th b' l .
ensure such superiority?
e JO og1cal traits which
This
is
an
are
f
.
.a o research worth of th
"
. y
e efforts of the best minds. It
goes wtthout saying that if th
th .
.
'
ey ate to come u
h
.
10polog1sts must do more th
. .
p wit valid results, anb'
an establishing s
th e h uman races and th . .
.
ome ar itrary ranking of
eu respective a t't d
p 1 _u es. They must first define
clearly the different ethnic cat . .
.
eg1ones they mt d
~
hon is, however, is a cJassification f t
en to compare. The ques- '
sole elements which contem
o .he ?uman races possible with the
~it~ which they must obviou~~r~~?s~1ent1~ts have at .their disposal and
me m order to determ1ne p. ~ l . uch is the question we will exam
~
1ec1se y the
I'd'
ered by naturalists to support the1. ,
lva .1 tty of the arguments prof.
1 cone us1ons.
FOOTNOTES
I
ssm sur a classijicatio d

Essai sur la philoso Jh. ~des art.set des sciences ( 1823 ).
1 It es sciences . E
..
nouvelle (1834).
xposlllon d'une c!assi.ficmion
3 c
d h'
4
ours e p ilosophie positive ( 1834-1842)
Une nouvelle cla ifi

5 Cl
.
.
ssi cation des sciences ( l 850)
6
assificatlon des sciences.
.
Kant, Fondements de la m , J
sot.
etap 1J's1que des moeurs, traduction de M. Tis7 This wo d
r is more accurate than
.
practical. The translator must have chosen the much less expressive word b
8 D.
ecause pragmatic i
h
.
Lese - wann wir so sagen d'" -t.
s sue a difficult one.
Ge
U!jen - Grund/aged M
genstand der Anthropologie. (He el
.
. es enschen lllachr den
9 Camper, Dissertation
I g , ~ ~hdosoph1e de I 'Esprit).
I
sur es vanetes natu. II d
es races humaines 0 768)
ie es e la physionomie da
2
10
11S
Soemmering, Ueber die Kor

..
.
perltche Versch1edenheit de'i Nege.
ropaer (l 780)
IS VOil
ll-
.
.
K
g~nens humanz varietate nativa.
13 Hant, Ant~ropolog1e (traduction de M. Tissot)
egel. Plulosophie d I'
.
'
14 We should
.
e espru (traduction du Dr. Vera)
not thmk, however that L.
.
.
of Man. Jn the introduction to S t ' "' mnaeus wished to ignore the dignity
"F' .
vs ema ivaturae h
.
mis creationis telluris est gl '. D .
e wntes, in reference to Man
Th
.
ona e1 ex opere Nat
, ,
ur~e per hominem solum::
ere is no clearer expression of his ad . .
the rest of Creation.
m1rat1on than his placing of Man above
ll
12
Blumenbach, De
'
14

15
16
17
18
Manuel d'histoire nature/le.
.
ll le I' homme.
HistOlre nature e c.
.
1l des animaux.
Tableau elementaire d'histoire nature e
Nature des animaux.
Topinard, L'Anthropologie.
.
ce of Ethnographic Sciences
Procee d mg
. s ot the International Conferen
held in Paris in 1878, p. 441.
21 Ibidem, p. 438.
t9
CHAPTER 2
Early Classification Systems
20
Pour dresser une telle statistique de l'humanite

passee et presente ilfaudrait toute une vie, pour
concilier taus les systernes de classifi.cations qui
om .ete tentesjusqu 'ici, pour caracteriser
chaque race d'apres lesfaits enregistres par la
science moderne et, de plus, pour exposer !es
resultats de ces investigations, ii ne faudrair pas
quelques instants, mais une longue exposition, u.n
cows suivi de plusieurs annees.
(Clemence Royer)
One would need a whole lifetime to draw a statisitica/ profi.le of humanity past and present. .To
reconcile all of the classification methods tried
thus far, to define each race on the basis of the
facts recorded by modem science, and to publish
the results of all these investigations, one would
need to make a very long commitment and engage
in a course ofstudy that could last several years.
(Cl~mence Royer)
I shall not return to the hotly debated and controversial issue of Man s .
1
place in the zoological scale. Everything has been said about it already.
Today, it is universally acknowledged that, from the point of view of
anatomy, Man differs from the anthropomorphic apes only in infinitely
15
86
48 The sciences camera{ es (Kameral Wissenschaften) include all the administrative sciences, panicularly political economy and the body of knowledge one
CHAPTERS
needs to manage public finances.

49 Broca, Loco citato, Vol. III, P 506.
50 Wilhelm von Humbolt, Ueber die Ka vi Sprache auf der /nsel Java.
Criteria for Classifying

the Human Races
si Eloge historique de Tiedemann.
Jn anthropology, cranial measurement is now a

rather contested practice; anthropological
methodology is also under attack, lvhile anthropological descriptive geometry is considered a
very imprecise science.
Under these conditions, can anthropology identify the moral qualities of the different races? It
seems to nie that it has not succeeded in identifying even their cranial particularities.
(Leon Cahun)
Naturalists, especially those with an expertise in zoology and botany, call
races the varieties of a given species when these varieties have been fixed
through reproduction, with particularities which are at first imprecise or
idiosyncratic, but which later become constant and transmissible through
heredity without violating the general laws of the species.
This definition of race had already been formulated by the time the
science of anthropology became established. Unable to invent a better
definition, anthropologists simply adopted the existing one verbatim.
That was the wise thing to do. We need not return to the various systems
of classification, as we reviewed the most important ones earlier. There_ is
a plethora of systems. They contain so many contradictions and the
zootaxic principles adopted by the different authors diverge so much that
one can rightly wonder whether anthropological science, a discipline to
87
89
88
which we attribute such importance and such noble goals, is not, instead,
a simple amalgam of confused concepts, a field in which anyone is free
to practice, without any fixed rules or rational methods. Indeed, a science
whose most authoritative figures agree so little on the foundations on
which to base theoretical deductions, will never radiate the prestige and
authority that reassure interested but sceptical minds.
Such a confusion of ideas fosters or tolerates an imperfect terminology, the limitations of which are obvious to any conscientious scientist.
"The most important technical terms in the science of man," says De
Rosny, "are among those that are subject to the most regrettable misunderstandings. lf the very idea of the species, which is apparently such a
rigorous concept in zoology, can have been challenged, indeed almost
shattered by the theory of transformism, the idea of race, already less
clear and less precise when applied to animals, becomes obscure, vague,
1
deceitful, even fanciful at times, when applied to human beings." Such
words may seem quite rude and are likely to shatter the pride of many a
scientist, but they are nonetheless true and appropriate.
So how do we explain the imprecision and lack of clarity which
seem to afflict the minds of those whose occupation it is to study and
classify the human races? Are the difficulties inherent in the science itself, or are they the result of these men's adherence to preconceived systems in their efforts to make natural facts conform to ce1tain theories
inspired by prejudice? The answer is yes in both cases. On the one hand,
there is a dearth of solid principles in anthropological science at this
point; on the other hand, and precisely for this reason, its practitioners,
with their methodical minds, are able to construct the most extravagant theories, from which they can draw the most absurd and pretentious
conclusions.
But before accusing science, or scientists who interpret it, should we
not examine the premises which underlie the various classification systems, and which are made to support, more or less logically, various anthropological theories? Should we not put before the reader all the
elements he needs in order to form an opinion? For this purpose, I will
return to a whole series of facts, of which l had purposely made only partial use in my refutation of the theory of the plurality of the human
species. Most of the time, only the labeling makes the difference between the arguments of the polygenists, who divide humanity into several species, and those of the monogenists, who believe in the existence
of several races within a single species. It will perhaps appear fastidious
always to be returning to the same questions, ceaselessly mulling them
over without seeming to make

.
andy progress at all in this strange undertaking. Like Sisyphus cond
emne eternally t - l1 h" .
. f . o IO
is titanic rock up the
mountain, we seem engaged.
mapam ul mgrat
dd"
.
without ever being able t
h
'.
e, an iscouraging labor
o reac the height f h
'
s o. t e truth. But this very
act admirably proves one th" . h .. .
fstructure on which some t mdg: t e1e JS no solid foundation to the frail
s an m order to pr , J
h
.
oc aim_ t e radical distinct1veness and inequality of the huma .
n races. There JS no natural law to
support it.
."Wh
. ether one adopts my master Blum
'
.
.
_enbach s class1ficat1on of humamty mto five races (Cau .
M
cas1an, ongohan A
.
.
. . of 'hum
mencan,
Ethiopian, and
alay), or agrees with Prichard's d"lVJSIOll
.t .
M .
rarnan, Touranian Am
H
am Y mto seven races
(I
'
encan, ottentot and B h
and Alfuruan), the truth is that there is no
. us man,
Papuan,
radical and typical difference,
no natural and rigorous dist" t"
me ion, among such .
"2
uttered by Von Humbolt resound with
: . g1oups . These words
gamzed mind has ever been seen in the~~;ct~Jve au~honty. No better or.
. to1y of science. No scientist is
better qualified to address th"
.
is particular issue B d
.
universal knowledge bes1"d th
. . . es1 es his profound and
t 11"
es e supeno
the most famous researcher of
d
. r me igence that makes him
traveled throughout most of t~o ernl tunes, the great Von Humbolt had
races under every latitude a d e word, observed human beings of all
n compared them t d"
ple. Who can pretend to be more
r
OS
tverse types of peogarding the real value of eth I q~a Ilfie_d ~~an he to discern the truth reno og1ca d1v1S1ons? Wh
muc h as he does that he w111 p t h. fi
.
.
o can guarantee as
}"
,
U
IS rst J m
. o f k nowledg
ight of an infinitely varied stoie
press1ons
,., N to the test. in the
.
e. o one. Keeping the
wor s of the erudite cosmol . .
. d11c1t
. m
. them we can n og1st m mmd ' dul Y noting
. the reservations
imp
.
. .
'
ow proceed to exa 1 th
c ass1fymg and studying th h
. mne e pnnc1pal bases for
1
Th
e uman races imag d b
y anthropologists.
ese bases include primarily th k 1
. me
e s e eton, skm color, and languages.
~egro,
1. CRANIOLOGICAL COMPARISONS
We must begin with craniology We kno
.t h
w ~hat the term was invented by
the famous Dr. Gall to des
. h . .
igna e t e phys1ologi , 1 th
w ic it ts possible to d"
,
ca
eory according to
. h.
.
iscover all the aftectiv
.
t1a1ts of an mdividual sim l b
.
e, moral, and mtelleclual
which are colloquially catfedy by studying the protuberances of the skull
umps Whatever 1
'
etween this theory and th
.
.
s1m1 antJes may be found
b. .
e actual operations
d
d
gists m studying skulls th . .
con ucte by anthropolob
.
' ei e is a notable di ff egones of investigation.
e1 ence etween the two cat-
90
The Equality of the Hurnan Races
When Gall and his intelligent disciple, Spurzheim, were studying

the human skull, they were not looking for ethnological characteristics
that might distinguish one group of human beings from other more or
less different group groups. They considered all races gifted with the
same abilities and paid attention only to individual differences. Theirs
was a sort of empirical philosophy, according to which the various manifestations of the mind could be observed physically, thanks to the traces
they leave on specific parts of the skull considered their respective sites.
Spurzheim, who understood that a science must be labeled on the ,basis
of its goal rather than of the means used to achieve it, changed the name
of the famous theory from craniology or cranioscopy to phrenology.
When anthropologists study the shape and volume of the skull, they
first arbitrarily assign to each race a ce11ain cranial shape and cranial capacity, then they set out to discover the differences that exist among the
various human races. Later, some would use these same specifications to
prociaim the superiority or inferiority of one race over another. Their
conclusions, however, while having as little validity as those1ef the phrenologists, would be covered with a scientific veneer. Those who have not
studied these issues in depth will be tempted to believe that inductions
arrived at by such a complicated and learned method as that used by anthropologists, can only be the expression of the truth. This is one more
reason to examine their merit.
The naturali"st Daubenton was the first to apply craniology to the
study of the human races. He was followed by Camper, Blumenbach,
and Soemmering. We will first discuss Blumenbach's procedure, which
is known in science as the norma verticalis method.
To study skulls by this ingenious method, a scientist lines them up at
his feet, with their lower jaws resting on a plane horizontal surface, so that
the zygomatic arches fall on a single line. Looking at the skulls from top
to bottom, the scientist considers successively the length of the cranial
vault, its width or relative narrowness, the bulge of the forehead, and the
general shape of the cranium. Depending on the extent to which the maxillary bones jut away from an imaginary vertical line drawn from the outer
edge of the skull to the base, the anthropologist classifies the skull among
the hlack, yellow, or white races. Anthropologists would later name cryptozygous the skulls whose zygomatic arches, when studied by this
method, are hidden by the relative projection of the temples. They would
call phenozygous the skulls whose arches are visible under the same conditions. We need not mention the amount of discussion conducted in order
to determine the plane in which the skull really lies on its base.
Criteriafor Classifying the Human Races
91
"This way of looking at the head, which I will call, if I may, the
norma verticalis,'~ says the great naturalist Goettingue, "makes it possible to see clearly and globally the principal characteristics of the skulls
of the different races, both those characteristics that have to do with the
angle of the jaw and the maxillary bones, and those that pertain to the
,broadness or narrowness of the cranial vault, to the flattening or bulging
of the forehead" (No reference).
Comparing Ethiopian, Mongolian, and Caucasian heads, Goetti~ue
thought it possible to make the following observations:
The skull of an individual of the Ethiopian race, narrow and low at
the temples, shows clearly the zygomatic arches. The forehead is rather
prominent, but both the maxil1a and the mandible jut out farther from the
base of the nose.
The skull of the Mongolian is somewhat less narrow than that of the
Black man and is flat above the eye sockets. The zygomatic arches are
spread very wide; the dental arch juts out less, but it is wider.
As for the Caucasian, the dome of the skull is generally wider; the
broad forehead curves quite prominently; the cheekbones and the arches
are hidden by the temples; finally, the alveolar edge of the upper jaw is
barely visible.
The projecting face of the Negro is said to be prognathic; the broad
face of the Mongolian is referred to as eurignathic; and the straight and
regular face of the Caucasian is called orthognathic.
This quite easily applied method makes it possible to study a skull
without using any instrument or doing any calculation. All that is needed
is a sharp eye. This is why this method is ignored by anthropologists,
who wish to turn their science into a citadel. made impregnable to laymen. Undoubtedly, the results obtained by this method have no rigorous
theoretical importance for the study of the various types of humanity.
The question is, do the other methods, with their exaggerated complexity
and imposing apparatus, offer anything better? Do not the very inventors
of these much vaunted methods, after endless dissertations, always end
up recognizing their utter futility or, at least, their limitations? But theirs
is a peculiar logic. After recognizing that five different methods applied
serially to a single group or, more often, to a single individual, bring but
contradictory results, they still maintain that these same methods can
lead them to the truth they seek.
Let us now take a look at another method that is in even more widely
used than Blumenbach's, namely, Camper'sfacial angle method. This is
how its author describes it: "The distinctive characteristic of individual
92
nations may be made explicit by drawing two straight lines, one from the
ear canal to the base of the nose, and the other, a tangent, from the top of
the forehead to the outer edge of the upper jaw. When the head is seen in
profile, the angle that results from the meeting of these two lines constitutes the distinctive characteristic of the skulls, whether one is comparing several animal species, or the different human races" (No reference).
Using this method, Camper claimed to be able to conc1ude that the
head of the African Negro, as well as the head of the Kalmuk, presents a
70-degree angle, whereas the head of the European forms an 80-degree
angle. "It is this I 0-<legree difference," he argues, "that is responsible for
the superior beauty of the European, for his comparative beauty, if you
will. As for that absolute beauty that holds us spellbound before some
ancient sculptures, such as the head of Apollo and the Medusa of Soric1es, it results from an even greater opening of the facial angle, which in
this case reaches l 00 degrees" (No reference).
Many people have expressed a whole range of opinions about both
this method and Blumenbach's. Several scientists, amo~ them Owen,
Berard, Jacquart, and Topinard, have made their own modifications to it.
To complete the list of the most widely used methods, we must mention Retzius' theory, which divides the races into two groups, the
dolichocephalic races and the brachycephalic races, depending on the
relative length of the antero-posterior diameter of the skull, as compared
to the transversal diameter. The longitudinal diameter is usually measured in a straight line, from the bulge of the frontal bone to the farthest
point of the occipital bone. The transversal diameter cuts this line at a
perpendicular angle at the greatest width of the skull. It does not matter
where the two lines cross, as long as it is not lower than the mastoid
process, which is sometimes exaggeratedly developed in certain races, in
Estonians for example.
Retzius' binary division proved inadequate for the classification of all
the human races, so it was revised ih tum by Thurnam, 3 Welcker, 4 Huxley, 5
and Broca. 6 The latter added three divisions to Retzius' two and came up
with a system which includes the brachycephalic, sub-brachycephalic,
mesacephalic, sub-dochlichocephalic, and dolichocephalic races. The
length of the transversal diameter, multiplied by 100 and divided by the
longitudinal diameter, gives what is conventionally known as the cephalic
index. Thus a skull with a transversal diameter of 7 and an antcro-posterior
diameter of 9 has a cephalic index of 7x 100:9=77 .77.
In addition to these measurements, which have a purely geometrical
basis, it is worth mentioning the gauging or cubing of skulls. Following
93
Soemmeri~g'_s assertion that the White man's skull is larger than the
Black man Broca report~ that Saumarez was actuaJly the first to gauge
skulls by fillmg them up with water. 7 This method was considered incorrect. W. Ha?1ilton tried using fine, dry, and homogeneous sand. Tiedemann, for his part, used millet. Others subsequently used white mustard
seeds, mercury, lead pellets, ftax seeds, and other materials.
. Gauging yielded no more serious results than angular measurements
did. As Broca remarks,. "If two people cube the same skull u;ing the
same method, they are hkely to come up with results that differ by mo.
than 50 cubi~ cen~imeters. Even worse, if one person cubes the sa~:
skull se~eral times m a row, he may obtain results that vary by margins as
large as m the preceding case."8
s:
"W_e need not pursue the theoretical presentation of the different cran-
1?m~tnc methods used simultaneously or singly in anthropological inves-
s?
tigatmns: To do
we would have to enter into details which are outside
the purview of this book .. It suftkes to know that methods adopted as the
best by some are often rejected by others either because of their scientific
value or because of their ~pplications. Proponents and opponents of one
or the.other method submit equally valid arguments. The German anthropolog1cal school does not always agree with the French or the American
school. Su~porters of the same school are even less inclined to agree.
. So f~1 we have talked about only craniometry because it is the most
widely discussed of t~e d~fferent anthropometric methods. But there are
many ~thers. Thus, scientists have also looked for differences in the configurat10n _of the pelvis, which not only has a distinct shape in men and
women of the _same race, as the comparative anatomy of the two sexes
clearly recogmz~s, but which also has a specific shape in the women of
~ach race. We will see. to what extent pelvimetry confirms such an opin10n. and whether the ~1fferent cases examined lend themselves to observat10ns that are consistent enough to be scientifically vali'd Th
.
.
ere aie
0 th
ei questions raised by the comparative osteometry of the human
races, su~h as the relativ~ ~ength of the arms, the flatness of the feet, the
greater o1 les~er oppo~ab11Ity of the big toe, platycnemie and a thousand
other anatomical details that a fertile imagination might invent all .
order to bett.er highlight the specific characteristics of the differen~ racels~
These quest10ns, however, are not sufficiently worthy of attention.
Let us. no:' look at some data from various traniometry measureme~ts, b~gmnmg with ~ubi.ng. The following charts, reproduced from
T?pm~rd ~ Anthropologle, list the comparative volumes of the endocramum m different human races. The figures on the left indicate the num-
94
b

f skulls for which the average volume was calculated. The figures in
er otwo co 1umns on the r1'ght represent ' in cubic centimeters,. the average
the
volumes of the skulls of men and women in each group studied.
88 Auvergnats
69 Bretons-Gallots
Men
Women
1598 cc
1445 cc
1599
1426
63 Bas-Bretons
1564
1366
124 Contemporary Parisians
1558
1337
18 Caverne de l'Homme-Mort
1606
1507
20 Guanches
1557
1353
60 Spanish Basques
1574
1356
28 Corsicans
1552
1367
84 Merovingians
1504
._J361
22 Chinese
12 Eskimos
54 New Caledonians
85 West African Negroes
1518
1539
1460
1430
1383
1428
1330
1251
7 Tasmanians
1452
1201
18 Australians
1347
1181
21 Nubians
1329
1298
Topinard borrowed these figures from the Memoi:es d'A~thropologie

of Broca, who obtained them by gauging skulls with hunting gun lead
pellets.
'
h d h ~ 11
Using the same method, the American Morton reac e t e o owing results, without distinction between the genders:
38 Europeans
;
:!
18 Mongols
1534 cc
1421
ll
79 African Negroes
1364
I\
lO Oceanian Negroes
1234
It
154 Peruvians
1339
Jl
t-
f:
25 Mexicans
1339
164 Other Americans
1234
95
Bernard Davis, for his part, obtained a set of results by this method. He
weighed an empty skull,_ then he filled it up with dry fine sand, then he
weighed it again. Here are the results of the operation. The figures are in
cubic centimeters, converted from English ounces:
146 Ancient Bretons
1524 cc
36 Anglo-Saxons
1412
39 Saxons
1488
31 Irish
1472
18 Swedes
1500
23 Dutch
1496
9 Lapps
1440
21 Chinese
1452
116 Kanaks
"'
1470
27 Marquesa Islanders
1452
7 Maoris
1446
12 Dahomean Negroes
1452
9 New Hebrides Islanders
1432
15 Australians
1295
Taking a close look at the charts, we immediately notice one salient

fact, namely, the irregularity of the results and their unce1tain relative
value. We have already cited Broca's serious remarks concerning the intrinsic imprecision of cubing methods. Nevertheless, everyone who has
read his Memoires know what ingenious arguments he could muster in
order to justify the science of which, by dint of much work and dedication, he had become the most authoritative interpreter. Still, whatever the
eminent scientist may have said about it, we can never embrace his opinions and believe that he, of all anthropologists, was right. Looking
closely at his figures, we realize immediately that for him the cubing of
skulls was simply a means of establishing a much sought after proof of
the existence of a serial and hierarchical distinction among the human
races. Indeed his charts contain no mean figures for European peoples
below those provided for the Mongolian and Ethiopian races. It is true
that the 84 Merovingians on the list give an average inferior to those of
the 22 Chinese and the 12 Eskimos. But this single exception is precisely
the one instance that can be explained by causes which the famous professor had positively established.
96
It should be pointed out, however, that Broca finds a higher cubic

content in the Australian group than in the Nubian group. This fact is in
flagrant contradiction with the opinion of all anthropologists who,
rightly or wrongly, maintain that the Nubian is the highest type among
the Black race and that the Australian is the worst endowed of human beings. The Auvergnats, too, are above the Parisians. This is mere detail,
though, for the racial limits are respected.
As for the chait based on the averages calculated by Morton, we
know what to think of it. The mindset with which American scientists,
except for some rare individuals, approached anthropology makes all
their statements suspect. For them anthropology was only a means to justify slavery. Indeed, the slave system could be satisfactorily explained if
one could prove the existence of several different and unequal species.
Barnard Davis' list was established without the constraints of a system. It presents the facts as they are found. The Chinese group, the Dahomean group, and the Marquesa Islanders group have average cubic
contents higher than that of the Anglo-Saxons, and theirs, m tum, are exceeded by that of the Kanaks. Here we find no fixed characteristic which
makes possible an exact classification. At the same time, we detect nothing either that points to a systematic combination.
The cephalo-orbital index, which Mantezza obtains by the mercury
cubage method, does not furnish any classification basis. Here is a partial chart provided by an Ecole des Hautes Etudes de Paris anthropol-
17 Australians
71.93
18 Hottentots and Bushmen
72.42
8 Kaffirs
72.42
15 Bengali
73.30
85 West African Negroes
73.40
6 French of the Paleolithic period

(3 Cro-Magnon individuals and
3 Paris Diluvium individuals)
20 Italians
2 Australians
3 New-Zealanders
6 Negroes
27.73 cc
25.61
32.49
27.19
Italians are thus quite close to Negroes, while Australians and NeoZealanders stand at either end. These results invert not only the hierarchy
of the different ethnological groups, but they also challenge the very idea
of a hierarchy among the human races.
Let us now see whether the much vaunted cephalic index offers a
9
more solid foundation. Here is the chart Broca put together.
1. True Dolichocephalic Races
15 Greenland Eskimos
54 New Caledonians
7 l.40 cc
71.78
73.34
19 Southern French of the Neolithic

period (Caverne de !'Homme-Mort
Lozere)
'
73.22
22 Nubians of Elephantine Island
73.72
15 Arabs
74.06
11 Kabyles
74.63
..
ogy professor:
97
2. Sub-Dolichocephalic Races
54 Northern French of the Neolithic period
75.01
IO Papuans
75.07
3 Rumanian Bohemians
75.28
28 Corsicans of Avapessa (18th century)
75.35
20 Guanches
75.53
81 Ancient Egyptians
75.58
32 Polynesians
75.68
9 Tasmanians
76.01
6 Danube Slavs
76.18
81 Merovingian French
76.36
12 Modern Egyptians (Copts)
76.39
21 Chinese
76.69
11 Malgaches
76.89
15 French (Iron Age Gauls)
76.93
60 Spanish Basques (Zaraus)
77.62
3. Mesacephalic Races
25 Mexicans (Non Deformed)
5 Rumanians
78.12
78.31
98
The Equality of the Hurnan Races

99
22 Gallo-Romans
78.55
53 Eighteenth-Century Normans
(Saint-Amould, Calvados, Ossuary)
78.77
125 Nineteenth Century Parisians
79.00
125 Twelfth Century Parisians
79.18
117 Sixteenth-Century Parisians
79.56
16 Northern French (Bronze Age, Orouy)
79.50
27 Malay (Other than Javanese)
79.02
27 Southern Americans (Non Deformed)
79.25
36 Northern Americans (Non Deformed)
79.25
4. Sub-Brachycephalic Races
57 French Basques (Saint-Jean-de-Luz)
80.25
4 Estonians
80.39
63 Cotes-du-Nord Low Bretons (Bretons Cantons) 81.25
73 Cotes-du-Nord Bretons (Gallot Cantons)
82.05
11 Mongols of Various Types (Tartars, etc.)
81.40
l l Turks
81.49
29 Javanese (Vrolik Collection)
81.61
17 Russians of Various Types (European Russia)
82.81
11 Individuals from the Alsace-Lorraine Region
82.93
s.
Brachycephalic Races
IO Inda-Chinese
83.51
5 Finns
83.69
88 Auvergnats (Saint-Nantaire Ossuary)
84.07
6 Bavarians and Swabs
84.87
IO Lapps
85.63
12 Gebel-Cheikh Syrians (Slightly Deformed)
85.95
20 Americans. Several series of deformed skulls

.
f'rom
with mean .indices
93 to 103.00
rr
e with a modicum of knowledge of ethnology this chart
io possible
anyon the most curious observat10ns.
.
Th e cone l usions drawn
makes
from it are especially important, given the fact that the figures are from
Broca and therefore have a significant value. What can be induced, then,
from this new basis of classification? Simply the fact that the external
configuration of the skull has no invariable particularity by which to distinguish an individual of a race from an individual of another race.
Among the true dolichocephalic races we find, in the lead position, the
Greenland Eskimos, who belong to the yellow race, with a cephalic
index of 71.40, the smallest on the chart, that is, even smaller tha~ those
of the Australians and the Hottentots. At the same time, the Lapps, who
also belong to the yellow race (Ugrian or Boreal branch defined by De
Quatrefages), occupy one of the highest positions among the brachycephalic races. Right below the West African Negroes, with a cephalic
index of 73.40, come the Whites of France (Paleolithic and Neolithic periods), some with an index of 73.34 and others with an index of 73.22.
The black Tasmanians (76.01) come close to the blond Slavs (76. 18).
Mexicans, a mixed race between the reds and the yellows, are placed
next to the White Normans of the seventeenth century. The very brown
Javanese are found right next to the European Russians, whose skin is so
white and so fine that their blood can be seen through it. The near-black
Indo-Chinese have a cephalic index of 83.5 J, next to the blond and blueeyed Finns with an index of 83.69.
These are quite curious figures indeed. Simply looking at them, one
has to wonder how come Broca, a scientist with such means of control at
his disposal, did not hurry to reconsider all the theories he had so ardently supported, and did not instead embrace the ideas of the American
school. I could very well stop at the figures provided by the erudite author of Memoires d'Anthropologie. But lest I be suspected of focusing on
these data only because Broca's sagacity here is unusuaJly below par, I
will also shine the spotlight on Barnard Davis' list of cephalic indices. It
shows the same disarray and contains the same kind of rapprochement
between the most diverse and distant races, when one considers the other
anthropological characteristics. Davis' figures do not differ much from
Broca's. One simply notices that the author did not include the French on
his list, which is a curious coincidence given that Broca did not include
the English on his list either. On this list as well, the Tasmanians (75.6)
are placed next to the Swedes and the Irish (75). The English (77) are
more dolichocephalic than the the natives of the Marquesas Islands. The
Eskimos (71.3) are still on the lower rung of the ladder, opposite the
Burmese, a yellow race like them, 10 who are the most brachycephalic on
the chart with a cephalic index of 86.6.
JOO
Before such results, we may well ha_ve the right to declare that the
cephalic index does not in any way give anthropologists sufficient
ground for dividing the human races into distinct groups. Just like the
cubage of the skull and the cephalo-orbit index, this new measure neither
defines nor specifies the preeminent characteristics of the natural groups
to be classified. But will we ever find that precise and reliable method
without which it is impossible to arrive at well founded and indisputable
conclusions in the taxiological division of the human races?
Let us now try the vertical index, which Professor Virchow considers the best among the craniometric measurements. Here are some figures recorded by Topinard, according to Broca.
Men
Women
63 Low Bretons
71.6
70.8
28 Corsicans
71.5
72.6
125 Parisians (19th Century)
72.2
71.7
13 Eskimos
72.8
73.4
88 Auvergnats
73.6
73.8
85 African Negroes
73.4
73.5
54 New Caledonians
73.7
74.6
27 Chinese
77.2
76.8
18 Caverne de J'Homme-Mort Individuals
68.9
73.0
On this chart, the African Blacks appear between the Auvergnats

and the Parisians. The Chinese and the Eskimos, both of the yellow race,
are separated by the Auvergnats and the Africans. What can we conclude
from this?
We will overlook for now the horizontal circumference measurement which is used to distinguish between the frontal races and the occipital races conceived by Gratiolet. The measure of the frontal
transverse minimum and that of the frontal index will not be any more
helpful, given that here we find the African Black next to the Parisian and
the Chinese next to the Australian, in characteristic disorder. 11
The study of the human face provides no more solid bf}sis of classification than do the preceding methods. Topinard cites the following figures, borrowed from Pruner-Bey, for the length and the width of this part
of the skull.
Criteriafor Classifying the Human Rcices

101
18 Eskimos
Width
Length
136mill.
135 mill.
134
137
129
132
12 Chinese
10 Scandinavians
6 Southern Germans
30 New Caledonians
30 African Negroes
8 Hottentots
6 Lapps
127
131
125
137,;?
124
130
116
123
109
136
No conclusion of any v 1
h
chart "Th
t f h f:
a ue w atsoever can be drawn from this
kimo~ andei~rn o t,, e ~ce below the eyebrows is the longest among Es.
ese, wntes the author of Anthropologie "and th h
est among Lapps ,, And t
'
e s ort..
ye ' even though the two categories are separated
by all the oth
. ~r g1oups on the chart, they both belong to the yellow r
Nothrngfi1s more eloquent than these craniometric charts Some pa~~
I may not md them very e r
Pe
. dn
xc1 mg, particularly if they read them with
~:v~rei:;~e~:i:~:~~~v~~~n~~~~:~~=: ;ht~:~signed these charts have

divisions they establish among the different h ut11Ity of the systematic
:~i~~~~:tl t~~s~:~~:t!arnoca co~ld make himsel~~=l~e::c~:thaen~x~~en::
species, even though th t d

f
elusive ethnic traits only sows great doubt and
efs ~ y .o vagu~ and
cannot h J b
con us10n m the mrnd I

e p ut admire the special intellectual ift th
.
,
people to navigate through all sorts of contradict" g Nat enabl_es some
ever. The questions raised by th
h
. ions. ot to wo1 ry, howese c arts are of such
::~~ :~~~~v:t~~~ ~~~~I~~~~gBatten~ion for our very edifica::~~~=;~: t~:~

roca s measurement of the facial index.
13 Eskimos
80_Negroes
69 Bretons-Gallots
88 Auvergnats
49 New Caledonians
125 Parisians
12 Australians
8 Tasmanians
73.4
68.6
68.5
67.9
66.2
65.9
65.6
62.0
102
Notice how the Negroes place next to the Bretons-Gal1ots, the Auvergnats next to the New-Caledonians, and the Parisians so close to the
Australians, the most primitive Black representatives of the species. Really, if the well-known name of the erudite professor was not so clearl~ in
evidence here, we would have reason to believe that we were dealing
with some determined monogenist and stubborn negr-ophile. But to the
contrary, the man who records these confusing results is a man with a
mind not in the least open to humanitarian compromises, the respected
inspirer of the French anthropological school. Do not these charts that
show the human races parading arm in arm in an admirable promiscuity
seem to mock all those classifying scientists? Can anthropologists continue to record these figures without modifying those so assertive theories they have erected? Their science will face certain discredit when,_ in
the twentieth century, it is subjected to the critique of Black and White,
Yellow and Brown scientists who can write as well and handle as expe1tly the instruments manufactured by the Mathieu Company, _inst_ruments that bring such eloquent results, even in the h;wds of sc1entJsts
12
who doubt their effectiveness .

Reading these chai1s can be quite an interesting exercise indeed, for
they are the fruit of the work of professing anthropologists who go to
such trouble as they coolly carry out their experiments in anima viii,
wielding their grim instruments and handling all those grimacing dried
o_ut skulls. Motivated by an insatiable thirst for the truth and the obligation to contribute, no matter how modestly, to the scientific rehabilitation
of the Black race whose pure and invigorating blood flows in my veins, I
take immense pleasure in navigating through these columns of figures
arranged with such neatness for the edification of the intellect. So I will
continue my exploration of these charts.
Let us now take a look at a chart put together by Wekker. It shows
the measurements of the naso-basilic line, from the basion (the front
edge of the occipital hole) to the point nasal, that is, the base of the nose.
"The Germans grant it the greatest importance," writes Topinard.
"They consider it the philosophical basis of the cerebral cranium, the
chord of the curve made by the three cranial ve11ebrae, the axis around
which both the skull and the face tum." 13 Here are the figures.
3 Papuans
13 Bugi Malaysians, 2 Lapps,, 3 Brazilians

6 Jews
96mill.
97
98
Criteria/or Classifying the Human Races
103
2 Hungarians, 5 Gypsies, 6 Madura Malaysians,

2 Hottentots
99
30 Germans, 12 Russians, 5 Cossacks,

5 Tartars, 16 Chinese, 2 Mexicans, 20 Negroes
100
3 Highland Scots, 5 Baskirs
101
8 French, 6 Dulch, 6 Sumatra Malaysians
102
9 Finns, 7 Moluccas Malaysians
103
3 Australians, 3 Ancienl Greeks
104
11 Eskimos
106
2 Kaffi.rs
107
So, amo~g those with the shortest naso-basilic line, that is, the most
brachycephahc, we find together the Black Papuans of Oceania and the
y~llow rac~ Burmese. Similarly, Hungarians and Gypsies are grouped
with Malys1~ns and Hottentots. The most remarkable series gathers Germa_n~, Russians, ~o~sacks, Tartars, Chinese, Mexicans, and Negroes,
that IS, representatives of all the human races on earth, all with the same
measurement of 100 millimeters.
We can completely overlook all the other cranial measurements for
they offer no more conclusive evidence regarding serial distinctions
among the human races. But before we put an end to all those citations of
~umb~rs, let us. take a look at Broca's chart of nasal indices. The nasal
mdex ts the ratio of the greatest width of the nose at the 'nostrils to its
g_reatest length measured from the naso-frontal suture down to the nasal
n~ge, above the superior dental arch. To calculate this index, one multiplies by 1O~ the maximum width of the nose and then divides the product
by th_e maximum length. Depending on the resulting index, the skull is
classified as leptorrhine, mesorrhine or platyrrine.
The first term had already been used to refer to the relative slenderness
of the nasal area of Cuvier's rhinoceros. Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
had_ aJso u~~d .the ~ord platyrrhine for a tribe of monkeys, the New World
Cebus, to d1stmgmsh them from the Pythecus of the old continent k
as catarr,h"~ne. Th e Slffil
. 1 anty
. among these terms inspired Topinard 'to nown
make
th~ foJl?wmg comment about the nasal index: "From a certain perspective
this trait can. b~ counted among those that mark a passage from man t~
monkey, but it IS also one of those traits the existence of which ca
t b
I d" (N
,
nno e
exp. ~me.
o reference). The anthropology professor seems to attach a
posttive importance to it, though, for before presenting the chart reproduced below, he adds these words: "Broca has indeed discovered that the
104
105
Mesorrhines
nasal index is one of the best indices for distinguishing the human races,
even though he d~es not arrange them on a regular scale that would be con1
sistent with our hierarchical ranking of these skulls". ~
I think that Topinard, whose moderation is well known among those
who formulate theoretical conclusions, exaggerates the importance of
this cranial measurement. Although we acknowledge his expertise on
Broca's views on just about any issue in anthropology, it is certain that
Broca did not consider the measurement of the nasal index any more important than the other craniometric methods. In one of his Memoires, the
scope of which is too broad to be summarized here, the learned anthropologist states this: "The preceding remarks show that the nasal index is
more variable than the cephalic index. If the latter is already considered
too variable for it to constitute the sole characteristic of the skull, we
have even more reason to doubt that the nasal index can be a defining
characteristic." 15 In another, more extensive, paper published in the same
year, Broca states further: "I repeat that I do not in a~ way intend to
make of the nasal index the basis of any classification method. I consider
it merely one of the several characteristics taken into account in studying
ethnological similarities and differences." 16 Finally, the scientist makes
this even more emphatic comment: "In conclusion, I cannot repeat
enough that, more than most of the other characteristics, the nasal index
is subject to the disruptive influence of individual variations, and that it is
valid only if it is determined by calculating the means over a sufficient
number of series." 17
We already know, based on Broca's own evaluation, what to make of
the nasal index as a basis of classification of the human races. We will
now take a close look at the following chart and evaluate it after a few
necessary explanations.
Nasal Index
Platyrrhines
16 Hottentots
8 Tasmanians
83 African Negroes
22 Nubians
14 Australians
66 New Caledonians
t
58.38
56.92
54.78
55. l 7
53.39
53.06
29 Javanese
51 .47
11 Lapps
50.29
41 Peruvians
50.23
26 Polynesians
49.25
11 Mongolians
48.68
48.53
27 Chinese
Leptorrhynes
122 Modern Parisians
46.81
53. French Basques
46.80
53 Spanish Basques
44.71
17 Guanches
44.25
14 Eskimos
42.33
th ~ 7re glance at the chart suggests one irresistible deduction All

e , ac race people ~re found among the platyrrhines; all the Yeilow
r~ce or Mal~yan-Amencan types, except the Eskimos, are found among
t e mesorrhmes; all those con~idered as representatives of the White race
a~e found among the le~torrhmes. This is the first time a method of cramal ~easurem~nt has yiel~e~ results that are so consistent with anthroP~_log~cal the~nes, and yet Jt is precisely about this method that the reat
. qmte
. a cunous
.
.
g it
bscient1st caut10ns. most
. emphatically Th'is is
fact
and
~ars ~lose exammat1~n. Perhaps it is time to denounce the fallaci~us a averagmg method, which anthropologists value so highfy
phcat10n of
~m~ng t~e dt:ferent means of scientific investigation available It is inee ~ v10latlon o~ the principles of natural history to infer thus, from
s?me ideal and arbltrary observation, natural laws which are b d fi .
tlon, c~aracterized by their precision and regularity.
' y e mk llW1t~~he _averaging method, any researcher with a large number of
s u sat is disposal can easily _find a way to make them say whatever he
wants. Hedohnly ~a~ to choose his types from the pile, ignoring the maximums
.
. h an t e mmtmums ' d epend'mg on t he reqmrements
of the thesis he
es to supp01t. I do not intend to question the integrity of th
.
ttsts who work with these mean indexes Still th
.
e sc1enknow h
r 1
.
' ese aie men, and we

ow itt e people hesitate to twist a fact to suit the thesis th
. h
to
1c hart, from which
. Topinard borrowed ey
uredefend . Broe
. a ' s m.1g_ma.
theWIS
fi s we examrned earlier, ts an example that can help shed considerab7e
t~e
':Is
106
light on the case under consideration. The means included in it are accompanied by both minimums and maximums.
. .
The most platyrrhine race on the chart, the Hottentots, have a minimum nasal index of 47.17, which falls into the mesorrhinian category.
The Guanches, who have the smallest nasal index, sometimes have maximums that fall into the mesorrhinian category. What happens when we
compare African Blacks and modern Parisians? The minimum for the
Blacks goes down to 43.13, which is higher than the means represented
by the Guanches. At the same time, the maximum for the. latter gro~p
goes up to 53.33, which is the average for the Hotten~ots: W1~h such wild
oscil1ations, how can the nasal index have any sc1ent1fic import, any
zootaxic value? We know that, exceptis excipiendis, Black people, more
often than Whites, have a flat and broad nose that detracts from the face's
beauty. But we also know that members of the Mongolian race also have
a broad and flat nose. Furthermore, so many White people have a pug
nose, and so many Blacks have a straight, even aquiline, nose that no one
can ever consider the shape of the nose an ethnic trait.
I will add one more co~ment. If, as the scientist Topinard asserts,
the morphology of the nose is one of those traits that signal the passa.ge
from man to ape, there is reason to believe that the so-called leptorr~m
ian White race is an intermediate type between ape and man. Ind~ed, 1~ a
classification based on the shapes of the nose, or designed from the pomt
of view of the comparative anatomy of man and the great anthropomorphic apes, the White man comes immediately after the chimpanzee. The
convincing evidence can be found in Broca's own words:."ln the h.uman
races an increase in the nasal index almost always constttutes ~ sign of
inferiority. This would suggest that the relative width of the nose n:us~ ~e
greater in the ape than in man. Such is not ~he case, h?wever. While it is
true that the nasal index of young anthrop01ds approximates huqian proportions, we must also add that in adult anthropoids the nasal index decreases, becoming even smaller than that o f a h uman."18
.
.
Broca's orbital index is no more reliable as a basis of class1ficat1on of
the human races. Arranging the different human groups into categories he
names microsemes, mesosemes, and megasemes, the learned anthropologist uses a nomenclature that is not consistent with the grea~ taxiolo_gical
divisions adopted with other ethnographers and anthropologists. As it.appears in Topinard's work, Broca's nomenclature covers all the races ma
melange from which it is not possible to draw any precise parameters. 19
There is one curious phenomenon here which we have already observed on other charts. The Black and White races frequently have simi-
107
Jar attributes and their cranial configurations often seem very close,
whereas the Yellow or Mongolian race always keeps its distinctive traits.
On ~roca's chart, which is more detailed than the excerpt presented by
Topmard, the letters M, E, and C appear at the end of each line indicating t?e Mongolian, Ethiopian, and Caucasian types. 20 All the pe~ples belong1?g to the Mongolian race are grouped among the megasemes. They
constitute th.e overwhelming majority in this section, numbeijng twentythree out of its twenty-six categories.
Among the mesosemes and especia11y among the microsemes we
find Ethiopians and Caucasians in comparable proportions. Of the thirteen peoples belonging to the races which are predominantly micr?semes, there are eight Caucasian peoples and five Ethiopian peoples
mixed together haphazardly.
.
. The measurement of the aveolo-condylian angle shows a similar co-
mc1den~e .."One remarkable fact," writes Broca, "is that in this respect
the Ethiopian type skulls differ very little from the Caucasian type ...
a~ong Negroes as among Europeans, the mean is negative and slightly

higher than one degree. The only ethnic difference that seems to be identi_fi_ed in this study has to do with the Mongolian type skulls, which
yielded a mean of +3 31."21
We
h~ve examined at length those charts,
which sum up the various

invented by anthropologists in order to identify the specific
tr~1ts that differentiate the human races from one another. We can be certain that those methods we have seen give us an accurate indication of the
value of th.e ?thers. ~b uno dice omnes. So from now on I will limit myself to a bnef analysis of each method, accompanied by the opinion of its ,
author or of a competent anthropologist.
m~thods
The calculat~on of the general index of the cranium, obtained by

means of the craniophore, does not provide a measurement that can reinforce the customary classification of the races. The same instrument can
be ~sed to determine the slope of the forehead. Consequently, when scient~sts speak of "the Negro's sloping forehead," they commit an error
~h1ch may be either involuntary or inspired by old prejudices, but which
Is cl.ose to,~ stu~idity. "~hat is referred to as a beautiful forehead," says
Topm~rd, that is, a straight and rounded forehead, seems to be found as
oft~n, if not r:nore frequently, among the Negro races of Africa. Broca's
senes of Nubians, who are so Negroid by their skulls, are pa11icularly remarkab.le by the_ curve ~f their domed foreheads" (No reference).
This quotation remmds me of a passage in a.learned a11icle in which
my scholarly compatriot, Louis-Joseph Janvier, says that Broca could
108
identify Haitian Negroes at a glance by their domed forehead. Is it possible that the erudite anthropologist can avoid seeing in the Nubian skulls in
his laboratory an ethnic trait he can so readily identify in Haitian Negroes? The truth is to be found on this side of the Pyrenees, and eITor on
the other side. Such is the eternal story of the human spirit. Eirnr will be
vanquished once and for all only when people of all races, equally educated, can debate as equals all propositions and all opinions within the
universal framework of science. This era will come perhaps only toward
the end of the twenty-fifth century, but already the future is dawning and
the light is slowly rising over the horizon, dispelling the darkness of barbarism that has for so long enveloped the minds of most of humanity. The
light will shine bright one day, but in the meantime we shall continue to
navigate our way through the heavy darkness in which all nations are still
struggling to the clash of competing ideologies. So we pursue our study of
all those anthropological doctrines which have assumed the mantle of the
august name of science while actually usurping its place.
Before moving away from craniometry, a field wh(!!'e we have been
unable to discover any seiious method of classification, I will quote a few
statements made by Broca, the man who has worked the most at thes~ anthropometric operations. Referring to the direction of the great foramen in
the different human races, mentioning in particular Daubenton 's angle,
the eminent anthropologist says this: "An ethnological classification
based exclusively on this trait would therefore be quite eIToneous. But
then it shares this problem with all the others. The more we study the
human races, the more we become convinced that their affinities and differences cannot be determined, let alone measured, by one single anatomical, morphological, or functional trait. Only by taking into account all
these traits together, in accordance with the principles of the natural
method, can we hope to arrive at a truly scientific classification." 22
We record this confession, noting in Broca's beautiful phrasing the
somber nuance of the deep discouragement experiens::ed only by those
who passionately embrace a scientific idea only to find out, at the end of
long, laborious, and conscientious research, that reality totally contradicts their views. Broca's very words seem to make moot all the arguments I have been trying to muster in order to refute the views of the
famous champion of polygenism. Had it not been for history, had it not
been for the obligation to leave these pages as a record, since the ideas I
fight against are themselves recorded on pages which are perhaps less
true but more beautifully written, I could have lightened up my book by
excising from it all this heavy discussion. But let me return to a remark I
109
made earlier and ask again: By what kind of logic have Broca and his foll?wers been abl~ find any evidence of scientific truth in their interpreta. lion of a collect1~n of traits which they acknowledge as erroneous? How
can one ever devise a truly scientific classification "based on the principle~ of the natur~l method" when the anthropological measurements
which one recognizes as the only rational bases of such a classification'
a.re not only er'roneo~~ and irregular, but also often contradictory? To ar~
nve at a really definitive basis of classification, one would have to find
the mea~s for each ethnological characteristic, and then calculate the
means or those ~ean~. To refer to these data in order to solve the proble~ of th~ class1ficat10n of the human races is indirectly to admit inevitable failure.
~THER AN'.fHROPOMETRIC METHODS
~=~ave see~ all that cra~iometry
has to offer in terms of resources for

.
omparat1ve s~udy of the respective characteristics of the human
taces. We h~ve venfied that anthropologists are incapable of devising by
~h~se co~p~1cat~d metho.ds a single parameter of sufficient precision to
e p us dt~tmgmsh the different ethnic groups from one another. Le.t us
now ex.amme some other anthropometric methods that have also been
.
the subject of some very learned studies. What follow . 1
nation th
.d 1
. .
s is ess an exam1.
an a r~pi g an~e, for It is useless to linger over facts that shine
no light on.reality, that yield not a single clue to the truth.
I Very httl~ attent~on, if any, has been paid to the pe1foration of the
o ecra~on .cavity, which some have concluded was an ethnic trait after
observmg it for the first time in Hottentot skelettons It i's"
d.
.
1oun in every
d
r~c; an m remarkably high ~roportions among the ancient populations
o ranee. Thus among 47 Am mountain people from the fifth centur
y,
the ~henomenon can be observed in nearly 28 percent
. Platycnemia (ftat~ened, sword-blade leg), a condition which results
~~m t~e l~teral ftattem~g o~the tibia, is not typical of any particular race.
I e t e o ecranon cavity, it seems to occur at a certain stage in the deve opment ~f e~ery race: It should, instead, be seen as one of those anthrop~genet1c signs ~h1ch prove that all the races follow the same
ev~Iu.t10nary pattern, m terms of their physical development as well as
~hetrlmtelJectual and moral growth. This is an important subject that calls
lOr c oser study.
One oft?~ most interesting points of comparison among the skeletons of the different human races is the ratio of the
l' b
.
upper 1111 s to the
The Equality of the Hunzan Races
1 JJ
/10
.
. d
t ith
On the basis of imprecise measurements carne ou w
lmowo1~ ;nl:s~s care
some anatomists and anthropologists have conhcludtehd

'
d
h
m is longer t an e
that the Black man's forearm, compare to t e ar '
.
11
f
. ean's forearm. Since that ingenious discovery, usmg a s~rts o
E uiop
.
t th y have done their best
iresumably accurate methods of measuremen ' e
.
io establish this as a fact. But their figures are most conf~smg, a~d a ~e~y
ous scientist will see in them merely one of those fantasies men wne
The primary goal of the researchers who support, or have supR osny.
the existence of a more

.
ported, those paradoxical conclusions is to p_r?ve
White
or less valid connection between the Afnc~n ~nd ~he ape.
~
H
h. and Broca do not hide their intention m this re~ar?. N?ne
hu~p I~~ deducing such a connection from one charactenstic, e1 ther
t r:s:~e~ or actual, these scientis.ts completely _overlook ~11 other obser~ations in comparative anatomy to focus on a smgle de_ta1l th~.~ supports
t"fic theoiy "The evidence so far," writes Topmard, is that the
.
. f
th elf sc1en i
proportions of the human skeleton _differ from or app~ox1mate those o_
the anthropoid not in all its parts simultaneously but 111eOne part or .an
other in an unpredictable random pattern. Such a fact clearly contrad1ct.s
the monogenist theory of a hierarchical gradation_ among the races; _it
supports, to the contrary, the idea of parallel formations. One typ~ tha~ is
superior in one respect is inferior in another respect. T?e same s1tuat1on
prevails among the anthropoid family: skeletal proportions vary accord23
ing to genus and species as they do in the human races."
Before they sought supporting evidence in the ratio between the
African's lower and upper limbs compared to the European's, researchers had inferred certain consequences from the configuration of
the pelvis in the different groups that make up the human species. Calculations of the dimensions of the pelvis from the point of view of comparative anatomy show that animals differ considerably from human beings
in this regard.
In all mammals the length of the pelvis is greater than its width; in
the human species the opposite is true. Chimpanzees, however, fall
somewhere in between: among them the two diameters of the pelvic cavity are almost equal. The gorilla and the orangutan, who are inferior to
the chimpanzee in other respects, are even closer to humans in this regard. From their observations of these animals, researchers moved to establishing a basis of differentiation between Blacks and Whites. Camper
and Soemmering asserted that the pelvis is generally naiTower in Blacks
than in Europeans. Cuvier rejoined their opinion, stating that in this respect the Hottentot Venus presented clear signs of inferiority. Weber and
Vrolick, while being Jess categorical in their interpretations, asserted the

same fact. According to Weber, there are four basic pelvis shapes among
aJI the human races. However, the oval shape is more prevalent among
Whites; the square type is found more often among Mongolians; the
round shape is typical of the Americans; and the cuneiform is most common among Blacks.
In nature the upper opening of the pelvic cavity is never square or
cuneiform. While subscribing to the common opinion tha( the Black
man's pelvis has an animal-like shape, Vrolick takes note of the slenderness of the Black woman's pelvis. Whatever Pruner-Bey's opinion, it is
obvious that in any study of ethnic differences based on the shape of the
pelvis, the scientific investigation must focus on the women. Nature has
given each sex specific anatomical attributes. If man has been favored in
terms of brain and muscular strength, wo~an,has received all the superior gifts that contribute to the reproduction and conservation of the
species. The pelvic cavity shelters the very organ of maternity; it is, so to
speak, the matrix of humanity. One needs not resort to some esoteric
doctrine or transcendental teleology to become convinced of this idea.
Furthermore, to draw valid conclusions about racial characteristics
based on the measurements of the pelvis, we should not compare the
pelvises of savage Negroes with those of modern, civilized Europeans,
who have a much easier and more advanced life style than do Africans.
Instead, we should look into the anthropological prehistory of Europe.
We would identify White types of the Neolithic period or of the Bronze
Age who have disappeared or have become rare, and then compare these
to today's Black and Yellow peoples at a similar stage of historical evolu-
tion. Moreover, the specialists' charts are so thin that they are practically
meaningless. Why, for example, does Topinard's chart contain so few
figures for European women? It provides data for four European pelvises
against eight for those of African women. 24 Could this be one more example of the old game, of the well known fantasy of means and averages? Whenever I hear an anthropologist share with his colleagues the
results he has obtained on the basis of these means, I inevitably think of
that caustic Roman orator's words about the countenance of two oracles
facing each other. I must then control myself to keep from exploding in
one of those noisy fits of laughter that betrayed the gods of old Homer.
According to Dr. Verrier, demonstrator at the Paris School of Medicine, the pelvises of all the known races can be grouped into three major
categories: "The first category includes the pelvises of all the women of
Europe (except Lapp women), Asiatic Turkey, Egypt, and New Guinea,
112
as well as the Black women of Guadeloupe and of West Africa (Wolof).

"The second category is made up of the pelvises of Syrian, Persian,
Kanak, Australian, Peruvian, Mongolian, Chinese, Annamite, Lapp, and
Samoyed women. Finally, the third category of pelvises, less well known
because less numerous, includes those of Southern and Central African
women and of Negri to, Papuan, and Bushmen women." 25
It will be noted that the different _categories in this classification include all the races. The last category forms an exception in that it regrours only Blacks, notwithstanding the inclusion of the Bushmen.
Despite their relatively light skin, these people indeed have always been
considered Black. It should also be pointed out that, in its author's own
opinion, this classification is of a purely obstetrical nature. Dr. Verrier
does not accept the anthropological nomenclatures of a Weber or a
Joulin. "We find no square, round, or cuneiform pelvises in the human
species," he writes. "The general shape is more or less ellipsoidal. There
are many races among Negroes just as there are among Whites. The
pelvises of the Black women of Guadeloupe or of the "1olof women of
Western Africa are as large and as well shaped as the most beautiful Europea~ types." Verrier's words require no further commentary.
HAIR AND SKIN PIGMENTATION

We have examined at length the anthropometric methods which are so
often used for determining the presumably distinctive morphological
characteristics oflhe different human races. We found nothing to support
the theories propounded with varying degrees of emphasis by anthropologists on the basis of their study of the human skeleton. We can only take
note of this negative conclusion before moving on to the study of the pigmentation of the skin.
Although I believe there is no better practical basis for the major
ethnological divisions, ethnographers and anthropologists agree that skin
pigmentation is not a sufficiently distinctive trait for classifying the
human races. There is indeed reason to doubt the reliability of skin color
as a basis for race classification when we consider that the Nubian, the
Kaffir, the Sudanese, the Australian, the Dravidian, the Californian, and a
hundred of other people with a more or less dark skin, differ so starkly
from one another by their facial features and their hair. In the White race,
which includes peoples with a clearly white skin, we find much more homogeneous types. Still, we find great variety here as well, from the slender Scandinavian with a pink skin, wide blue eyes, and sharp features, to
113
th~ sto.ut and fleshy Ossete fAryan people of Ossetia, translator's note]
with hi~ ~mall fi_er~e eyes_. The Yellow race has an even more chaotic
compos1~1on. It is 1_mposs1ble to enumerate all the differences in skin
complexion and facial features among the Chinese the Turks fA h
G
h
'
o sia t e
uaram, t e Mexicans, the Botocudos of America, the European L~
and: as long as we are looking at color, among the Bushmen of South~i~~
Afnca, the Guanches, the Berbers, etc.
The confusing di~cre~ancy that generally exists between the typical features a~d the skm pigmentation of the different races makes difficult and unreliable any anthropological classification based only on skin
color. How can we resolve this difficulty? If we deny any tax l I
value t k'
.
.
o og1ca
s m ~1gmentat10n, ~an we i_dentify an anatomical or morphological tr;1t tha~ is a more rehable cnterion for distinguishing the human
races Certainly not. Nqne of the methods we studied earlier yields better
results.
. T~e n_ature or t~e q~alit~ of the hair is a no more reliable classificat10n cntenon. We will give 1t a simple pro Jonna look. Huxley ha
_
s pro
P osed .a c lass1'fi1cat1~n
system based on the hair. He divides the human
rac~s rnto . two . ma!or categories: the woolly-haired ulotrics and the
stra1ght-haired hotncs. This dichotomous division whi'ch we
d
I' . .
.
.
,
ioun earie1 m ~o? de Samt-Vmcent's classification, corresponds more or less
to_ Retzrns s two g~o~~s (dolichocephalics and brachycephalics), only
with une~ual ~ubd1v1s10ns. The ulotrics presumably include only the
Black Afncans and the Papuans. The liotrics are divided into four subgroups:
1. The Australoid_ group, which includes the Australians, the Deccan Blacks (Hm~u), and perhaps the ancient Egyptians. They
have a prognathian skull with well developed superciliary
arches, a blac~ skin, black eyes, and straight long hair.
2. T~e Mo~g~lo1d group has a yellowish, brown, or reddish brown
ski~, hair h~e that of the first group, and a mesacephalic skull
This group includes the Mongols, the Chinese the Pol
.
.
and the Americans.
'
ynesians,
3. The X_anth_ochroid group consists of the Slavs, the Teutons the
Scandtnavians, and the blond Celts, white skinned peoples ~ith
b~ue eyes, abundant hair, and a brachymesacephalic skull.
4. Finally, the Melan~chroid group has a pale skin, long black hair,
and black eyes. This last group includes the Iberians the brown
Celts, and the Berbers.26
'
114
.
.
loosel based on the nature of the
Huxley's classification is only vefry
1 y of methods which creates
11 h
tcome o a me ange
'
.
y t e ou
. fi . l than those derived from the applicahair. It ish actua
t . even more art1 cm
t
ate
h d We should also mention the classification system
tlon. ofdb
a single
met
. Haec k e1' w h'ic h is based solely on the nature
F Mullero and
~roups ~
dev1~e
y ..
h h ir 27 I will dispense with elaborate explanaand implantat10n of t e a :
.
general idea of the nomenclations; this synoptic cha1t suffices to give a
ture they propose.
Hair
Woolly
Smooth
Bushy
Fleecy
Hottentots
African Negroes
Australians
Papuans
Kaffirs
Hyperboreans
Americans
Malay
Mongols
Straight
Curly
Dravidians
Nubians
Mediterraneans
.
art to realize to what extent different ethnic
t go1y While the woolly hair
We need only glance at this ~h
h
t
ther m the same ca e
groups are t rown oge

l
the smooth hair group encomcategory includes only Black pe.od~ es,
t to mostly White MediterN b
d Ora vi ians nex
1
laced in the same category as the
passes Black u tans an
h
e found large
raneans. The light Yellow Mongo .s are p
.
d h Americans amongst w om ar
Black Australians an t e
l bl
peoples such as the Californians.
numbers of very brown and near; ~~ .. gmentation is the most reliable
. t'sts do they must
It seems established, then, t at s m p1
.
,
1 ti t on Whatever sc1en I
basis of anthropological c ass1 ca i .
lgar ones particularly when
take widespread ideas into ac~ount: env:ina~~rnatives. When, in a populathey are unab~e to suggest mo\e r~t~o Id the first specimen of a different
tion of a particular race, ~eop eh ~ d~aws their attention is neither the favariety of the human s~ec1es, V: a
he skin color of the person.
the Black woolly-haired,
cial features nor the hair, ~ut, I atherd,t
k A t 1 n mtroduce among
'
'k
popu~at~~~ of A~:i~: :, of the mountains ~f1~:i~;!l~~!~se ;~:~~~~~=~
able despite his straight long hair and eveAf .

Negro albino with the
prognathism of his face. In contrast, an
ncan

ll5
same facial features and the same kind of hair as those around him but
with an unusual skin color will make quite an impression on those who
see him for the first time. Only through increased familiarity with cases
of albinism or thanks to the explanations given by an anthropologist, a
physician, or a naturalist will they realize that this transformed Negro is
not a White man.
In an analogous scenario, let a most handsome specimeq of the Dravidian race, a Tova with great black eyes, long silky hair, and-regular features, come among a population of French or German peasants. This
individual will cause quite a commotion among these country folks. If, in
contrast, an Ethiopian albino, with his head shaven were to find himself
among these same people, he would not even be noticed. If he kept his
woolly but slightly blond hair, he would at best be the object of a mild
curiosity, without causing the fear which traveling Blacks usually cause
in provincial and incompletely civilized Europeans.
I believe we should adopt an ethnological classification based on
skin color for a second reason. Not only is it the most visible and unambiguous physical trait, but is also the most constant one in each race. The
French of the nineteenth century do not exactly resemble the French of
the fifth century, and still Jess those of the reindeer hunting period. What
they all have in common, though, is their skin color. We will overlook the
interethnic mix that took place, as the evidence of it gradually disappears
over time as a population evolves toward a common type which we
might call the national type. According to Lyell, skull shapes, the brain,
and civilization follow a similar pattern of development. The same can
be said about the whole human body, for the shapes and dimensions of,
each organ naturally tend to adapt themselves to the individual's habitual
occupations, depending on the different types of exercises they are made
to perform. But this is not the right time for an in-depth discussion of this
interesting subject. I shall return to it later.
The conclusion is that the skin color of the different human races is,
sublatis sublandis, in direct correlation with the climate and living environments, whereas the shape of the face- is, generally, a function of the
degree of civilization currently attained by a particular race or achieved
earlier by ancestors, who would have passed their distinctive facial traits
to their descendants through heredity. When we observe that, except in a
few cases, aJI the races studied by ethnologists are found within specific
environments which they leave only with great reluctance and difficulty,
and that whenever these races move to a new milieu, they prosper only to
the extent that climatic conditions make their adaptation easy, we realize
116
that skin pigmentation remains the most persistent and reliable distinctive racial characteristic.
An exception must be made in cases where a people, such as the ancient Egyptians, suffers repeated invasions by foreign races over the centuries, and as a result of continuous hybridization, gradually acquires a
skin pigmentation different from the original color of their ancestors. But
such cases are accidental but historically verifiable. In sum, as long as we
continue to use such terms as white, yellow, black, bmwn, or red to designate the human races, it would be self-deluding to use other traits than
color to classify them.
Classifications of race are confusing because their authors mix all
sorts of criteria together instead of limiting themselves to a single one.
Most often they devise fanciful and arbitrary designations that say nothing about the natural particularities of the races. Thus they speak of an
A1ywz race and of an Inda-European race. This artificial nomenclature is
particularly specious as its scientific veneer impresses the general public.
The word A0 an, the Sanskrit root of which means '1roble, becomes the
mere expression of retrospective pride when it is applied to the White
race. In fact, there has never existed an Aryan nation. As for the term
Jndo-Europecm, it has its origin in a false linguistic theory. When the
term was used to designate the White race, it was not known that that the
majority of the population of India was dark brown or unmistakably
black. The source of the error is the idea that beauty and intelligence are
the exclusive preserve of the White race. The term Caucasian is authoritative simply because it is old, for the fact is that several distinct races inhabit the Caucasus. The designation Mongolian, which is often applied
to the entire Yellow race, is somewhat less objectionable. Everi though
the Mongols themselves, who include the Manchu, the Touguz, the
Kalmuk, etc., are but a fraction of the Yellow race, their name ~as been
used as a generic appellation for the entire race of which they seem to
constitute the principal types. As for the term Ethiopian, no objection
can be raised against it. Not only the same arguments used for the term
Mongolian can be raised in its favor, but its very etymological denotation
as a color justifies its use to designate all races with a sun-burnt face, that
is, with a black skin.
There are, then, three major ethnic divisions among the human
species: the White, the Yellow, and the Black. These three major groups
include individuals and collectivities with an infinite number of skin
color nuances, but they can be subdivided into some fifty clearly differentiated sub-groups.
1
117
Would ~t b~ possible to devise a classification of the races based

solely on skin pigmentation and to design, like Broca has done a skin
~o1ors ~hart? ~hile such a sys_tem may not have great scientific 'signifianc~, It ?1ay y1el? an unquest10nably practical result. "The distribution
of
as
... skm p1gmentat10n
.
. an anatomical characteristic" says Manteg azza,
_is ~n appropnate basis for classifying human beings but not for estabhshmg a taxonomic method."2s
These are indeed judicious words from the eminent Flotence profes-
~or. Bu~ we. have already seen that a practical taxonomic method is an
11:nposs1ble ideal. The differences among the human races are not sufficiently ~ema~cated by nature to enable us to devise any rational system
of ~lass1fica~10n. It would be better then to group human beings on the
basis of their _most apparent characteristic, which is their skin color.
other difficulties. Whatever we may do , whatever p1eThere
.
. . are certainly
.
cise m~tructions_ we may follow, whatever delicately tinted chromo-lithographtc en~ravmgs the .b~st colorists may create, we will never be able
to capture with any prec1s1on_certain epidermic hues, let alone represent
the?1 by means of the chemical combinations the five basic colors b
which the great painters achieve their light effects.
y
, The color of the skin is never purely black, never yellow like the
sun. s rays, ~nd never clearly white. As for the color red, it goes without
saymg that 1t does not apply to any race of human beings Sk'
.
,
.
. m p1gmentatlon c_an pest be descnbed ~s shades that approximate these basic colors.
Here IS the reaso~ why. While chemical colors are more or Jess similar to
the colors fo~nd m the utricular tissue of plants, so that a vegetal color rese.mbles a mmeral color, such is not the case with the cell tissue that c _
tams the human skin's pigment.
on,
. By what hidden ?peration does the red blood, under the influence of
light, transform the pigment deposit between the human der .
d .
d

mis an ep1er~1s mto ~o many different shades? Topinard has suggested an ans
t~ this question: "~n addition to the red pigment of the blood, the bl;;~
p1g?1e~t of the skm, and chloroid, there is another pigment bilive d"
which is pr~duce~ in the liver and_ colors the tissues of the ict~rus yel~o1~'.
At the phys1olog1cal or sub-phys10logical level by whatev
. .
11 d
er name 1t 1s
ca e ' It gives the face a yeJlowish or sub-icter1c hue Th' .
.
.
is pigment is
d fi l
e. mte Y. responsible for the yellowish color of the skin, of the cellular
adipose tissue of the muscles, and of the blood whi h .
t~
served in auto .
fN
,
c is so o ten obp~1es o egroes. Is this pigment a transformation, a differ.
ent v~rs10n as It were, of the coloring matter of the blood? Onl th
chenusts can answer."29
Y e
118
'
be of great relevance in pathologThe eminent scholar s wordfs may
I whether the particularities
.
h
We wonder, or examp e,
.
1
1cal ant ropo ogy. .
. h well-known immunity against
1
he highlights here might n?t exp am t e 1 of color and Blacks, and unfever enJoyed by peop e A .
As the blood is alJ.aundice or icteric
eople and brown sians.
b y ll
t'
. g through their arteries and
doubtedly also Y e ow P
n capable o carrym
l
ready phys101og1ca y
h . kin and 'internal organs, it is not
.
h' h co ors t etr s

vems the pigment .w. ic .
nt of the material. But from
morbidly affected if tt carnes. a l~rger aml oul .
fficient In fact, I belanatwn ts abso ute Y msu
.
h'
our perspective, t is exp
h h . ts but to the physiologists to
lieve that we should turn not to t e c em1s
shed light on this ~u~stion. h h human organism contains three basic
It is not ce11am, mdeed, t at t e
ll
d black We should either
d 'fidasredyeowan
'
'
unt only one which is
coloring elements 1 enti e
b
. - .
f such elements or co
identify an mfimte num e~ ~.

.
..
roduced along with
the blood. Biliru.bin, like b1ltt.u~hs~n ~; b1~;:~1;~~:~es the liver with all
bile in the hepatic g\and .. but ~t ~ t ~ ~o st as a substmwe in a test tube is
ding on the dosage and
the materials needed for its p1.o_ uct1on. u d
d k
a different aspect, epen
transformed an ta es on
.
k place as coloring substances are
al operat10n ta es
temperature, a c hem1c
.
h h . logist who studies the pheextracted from th~ bi~: lt is up t~~t ebp ~~~t ope;ation the liver breaks
nomena of organic ltte, to fin~
y uch for the color yellow.
other tissues has no other source
down the blood and t:ansf~r~s l~
The black coloring o t e s nb t melanin asubstance which accuthan the blood. We al~eady .kn;~ a i~:s the Ethi~pian's skin its bl~ck hue.
mulates under the ep1.derm1s
g
les the microscopic particles of
This substance consists of fine granu ,
d
. d blood If they
.
.
- b . d nd oxygen- epnve
which are simply highly c.a1 omze af
n they would gradually rewere injected with a certain amount o oxyge '
s:;
.gain the usu~l co lo~ bloo~. Charles Robin, nitrogen acid turns melanin
is no doubt due to the fact .
According to ittre an .
h
30 Th' chenucal p enomenon
~
ox dizin agents, disrupts the moleinto a russet ma~s.
gen to it This explains how
that nitrogen acid, one ot the st10-ng~st . y
f
l n by transterrmg oxyg
cular m~k~ u~ o me a_n.1 tes darken under the sun's hot rays, even thoug~
people hvmg m warm ~hma .
f
le living in a less warm clttheir organism is no d1ffe~ent from thhatf? peopthe blood is drawn into the
.
ld climate In t e ormer,
mate or even m a co
1. .
d'lated by the ambient heat, and the
fi
f the vascu ar tissue 1
. .
least rarru cat10n
.
d vaporat1on d'1ss1pate most of its hqconsequent abundant tra~spir~10~ a~ r:sidues are then deposited in the ep.
. t's overheated retort.
uid elements. The blood s ca1 omze
ithelial cells, like the caput mortuum left m a chenus
?f
Criteria for Classifying the Hwnan Races
119
The yellow coloring of the Hyperborean peoples, the first populations of this particular hue on earth, calls for a different explanation. We
know that the temperature of the human body is constant under every latitude and that its variations are barely perceptible. People who Jive in
cold regions, near the poles, instinctively consume so-called fatty foods,
which help to maintain the amount of body heat indispensable to life.
The fatty substances in these foods are the most effective in ~his respect,
or else they are the most easily available to the populations living near
the sea. These populations must have learned through experience how
useful such foods are for this purpose and made them part of their diet.
The liver produces the juices that emulsify fat so that it can be absorbed by the body. We can easily understand then how hyperactive this
organ would be among those races living under the conditions described
earlier. The constant irritation of the hepatic gland causes an excessive
secretion of bile which, having used for its main purpose the greater part
of the cholalic acid, cholesterin, and salts it carries, continues to circulate
in the blood with its pigments. The bile ultimately deposits these coloring substances in the sub-epidermic network, which is less active in these
people than in Africans. As these substances are not easily evacuated
from the body, because there is little transpiration, they give a yellow
color of varying shades to the skin of Lapps and other peoples of the
same race.
A White man living in a temperate climate will have his skin neither
burnt by the sun nor yellowed by an excess of bilious substances in his
blood. His complexion will remain more or less colorless. Under his epidermis, transparent like that of humans of all races, will show a flesh-col- '
ored dermis, a familiar if not easily described shade. Such is the color of
the so-called Caucasian race, which is no closer to alabaster white than
the Ethiopian's color is to the smoky black it is often said to be .
These are, we admit, only hypotheses, but then anthropology so far
rests on merely hypothetical data. Still, these do have some value when
they can be shown to agree with notions verified in other, more established, sciences. For want of anything better, we have accepted skin pigmentation as a practical criterion of classification. It bears repeating,
however, that skin color provides no more fail-proof and scientific
method than other anatomical characteristics. Such a method does not
exist. How, then, have some people been able to classify the human races
into inferior and superior races? If we do not know which are the traits
that distinguish one from the other, how can we attribute more intelligence and morality to some without falling into the most arbitrary
120
-. d tif taxonomic particularities that would

empiricism? In an ettort to I en yh.
logists have resorted to a new
. h
some ant 1opo
.
legitimize their t eory,
.
d with the natural sciences.
mode of classification that has nothing to o.
Besides the subject is
..
t deserves our attention.
'
Because of its renown, l
.
f h
ost fascinatin.g fields of study
't
olves
one
o
t
e
m
.
.
.
.
q uite mterestmg, t mv
- .
l 'fi ations based on lmguist1cs.
. d 1 am refemng to c asst c
for the human mm
4 SOME LINGUISTIC CLASSIFICATIONS
.
.
r holo of languages recognized early
Researchers looking mto the mo p
gy. groups The first group in
. d d t three major
that these could be d1v1 e mo
.
n which the roots re.
.
nosyllab1c languages, 1
f
d depends on their position, as
eludes the isolating m mo .
main invariable and the meamn~ o Twh01. ssamese and related dialects.
b d.
Annam1te
a1, 1
'
.
- h ' lutinative languages, in which sevin Chinese, Cam o ian.'
The second group consists ot t e agdg 'thout losing the.ir original meanh
. . d t form a wor w1
d' I t'unctioif and the ot ers
eral roots are JOtne o
.
t dependent ra ica
ing one root keepmg I s m
1 . s1'gns Examples of such
'
. 1 f simple aux1 iary
being reduced to the IO e o

.d.
nd most African languages.
.
l
T ki h Malay Drav1 ian, a
. fl ect1' onal or amalgamating an. languages
. are u1. s ' de up ,ot- th e m
.
The third group is ma
S "ti'c and Hamitic languages, m
h I do European, em1 ,
1 d
h
guages, sue as t e n d d its endings can also be a tere
which the principal root of a wo1 an
phonetically.
.
. . .
to correspond to the division of the
Does not this d1v1s10n s~em
.
l the yellow, black, and
th. e major races, name y,
h
. .
human species rnto ie
b
d to attract the attention of et ,
h
idence was oun
white races? Sue a come
d h ther certain human groups were not
.
h
wondere w e
ld
nolog1sts, w o soon .
. ther than another. It we cou sysbetter suit to use a specific language ra t the same time find a taxonomic
would we not a
?
.
temat1ze language u~e, . for the division of the human races.
basis and a hierarch1cal foundation .
.
the Gordian knot that has
.
Would not lingu1st1cs,
t h en,~ ucceed m cutting
J
. d e y natural method.
for so long res1ste ev I
d h' lologists and linguists began to
'd as were ftoate , P i
h
Once t ese I e
.
h'l
hical importance. This was
d'
f the highest P 1 osop
consider their stu ies o

. 11 as the maJ ority of the white
.
d
l pment especia Y
.
quite an mterestmg eve o
, l
centage of the yellow race
. ft , d languages, a arge per
I .
race speaks m
ecte
ll
At'
. n Blacks speak agg ut1.
and almost a
nca
speaks isolatmg languages'. . .
k d '1th great diligence and perse'"
Th specialists wor e w
d
native languages.
e
1 .
between the voice organs an
s'ble corre ations
h .
. . .
verance to discover pos I
h
ht and speech, on the ot e1.
. on the one hand ' a11d between t oug
the b rain,
121
A real competition among specialists took place throughout Europe. As

was to be expected, several schools emerged. They clashed in so many
passionate discussions, propounding in the process so many brilliant but
sterile contradictions, that a11 sides eventually tired and lay down their
arms. After these periods of ardent polemical debates, scientists finally
found the quiet and introspective atmosphere that alone can foster scientific progress. Things have changed now, so we can broach these issues
calmly, without awakening the passions that agitated every s@ientist in
the first half of this century. Let us return briefly to these issues, then.
The first controversial historical issue concerned the origin of language. The study of language has interested intellectuals since Greek antiquity. The two greatest masters of Greek philosophy, Aristotle in
Rhetoric and Plato in Cratylus, explored the subject. The Epicurean
school, whose ideas are condensed in Lucretius' magnificent poem, also
was interested in language. The subject, however, was of no great Interest
outside the circle of philosophers who merely broached it. Before the advent of Christianity and theological dogmas, such a subject did not inspire any heated discussions. In Plato's Dialogue, Hermogenes considers
language the product of pure convention and believes that signs are arbitrary. Socrates calmly refutes these ideas, arguing that speech is a natural
faculty which develops gradually along with thought, and that the signs
we use to register speech are expressions of the very nature of things.
Aristotle, who sought above all to understand ideas through analysis
in order to arrive at a general systematization of knowledge, did see language as a natural faculty, but he also considered it an intrinsic characteristic of human intelligence, a product of the "intellectual's soul," to use
his terminology. Without lingering over abstractions, he analyzes the
qualities of language and the laws of interpretation of signs. While Aristotle's analysis contains some insufficiencies, especially when compared
to what his successors would achieve, it shows a remarkable sagacity on
the part of the philosopher. Still, his point was never the focus of serious
discussions in the old philosophical debates, whether among the peripatetic philosophers or among competing schools.
As for Lucretius, he concurs with Epicure, a god in his eye, that the
first human beings instinctively uttered the various sounds of language
and were forced by necessity to name every object. The origin of language thus would be in man's very nature, and speech would be one of
his innate faculties. Human beings must have used language spontaneously, just as other animals utter their particular sounds or songs: Sen. tit enim vim quisque suam, quoad possit abuti. 31
122
All these theories went unnoticed or drew very little attention. The
reaction was quite different, though, when the issue was addressed again,
toward the end of the eighteenth century, first by Condillac and later by
Leibniz. The great philosophical conflict, forgotten today, between the
sensualists and the spiritualists shifted onto the field of linguistics. The
former supported the theory of Plato's Hermogenes, and the latter responded by developing the Socratic argument within the general framework of classic spiritualism. Contemporaries were torn between the two
sides, unable to decide who was right and who was wrong. Opinions are
similarly 9-ivided and indecisive today. Condillac's theory, however, was
adapted to a whole system. He was looking for a transactional term that
could reconcile the different hypotheses by framing them within his theory of sensation. For Condillac, man successively acquires all his faculties through sensations. Sensations are transformed into ideas, which are
naturally translated into speech, which at first consisted of natural signs
and, later, of arbitrary signs conventionally admitted into the language.
Without speech, man is incapable of analyzing his tho~hts. Thus the art
of thinking consists in appropriating a well constructed language. According to this reasoning, the origin of language is, very simply, in the
perception of our senses. In an era where industrialism and positivism
reign supreme, we no longer understand, alas, the pleasure to be derived
from thus immersing oneself in the enchanted domain of metaphysics.
At the turn of the century, Bonald, a man gifted with a cultivated but
contrarian intellect, thought he could react against the trends and convictions of his time and displayed considerable energy going against everything that seemed to have any connection with the persistent ideas of the
French Revolution. To admit that human intelligence alone was responsible
for the invention of language, a view propounded by the Epicurean school
in antiquity and now taken up by the eighteenth century, was equivalent to
erecting a pedestal to human pride and legitimizing all those brash ideas put
forward so boldly in the pretentious formula, Every man is the sole master
of his own destiny. In Bonard's view, promoting an opposing theory would
be doing God's work and being responsibly conservative. According to
him, then, speech came to us from a higher source, our ancestors having received it from God Himself by the supernatural means of revelation. According to Bonald, writes Franc;ois Lenorrnant, man was depdved of both
speech and thought when God put him in this world. His intellectual faculties existed, but they were like dormant seeds unable to germinate. Suddenly, light dispelled the darkness and the miracle occu1Ted as God's word
struck man's ears and revealed to him the secret of language (No reference).
Criteria for Classzifying the H uman Races
123
It is impossible to summarize m
.
.
style and with more interpretive, If ore succrnctly, m a more elevated
the author of Recherches philos:\ .-assurance, th~ theory invented by
guage. But here, too, we were in ~el%~~;~~ explam t~e origin of lanof political theology. The approach
i:net~physics, p~rhaps even
1 k d
guistics, which could be used t t ~c eh a sc1~nttfic foundat10n, for lin-
been p~ovided with a systemati; :n~ :at:o~:lu:~~~:. fruitfully, had not yet
It 1s true that Hervas a s
h1 . .
"
Vatican Library by Pius vii ae;tepanh~s desuhlt scientist named head of the
r Is or er ad been e
.
JI d f
.
had wntten a voluminous tome in Ital"
h' h
xp~ e rom Spam,
some serious research in linguistics B~;~h w J~ ~~ntams the results of
that the science which concerns us .her h ~ ve1 Y tit ~ o~ the work shows
The book is a sort of encyclopedia int:n: only a hmtted pl.ace in it. 32
~ork o.f Voltaire, Diderot, and d 'Alembert led as a counterweight to the
hshed rn Madrid a Catala
.
, . n 1805, the same author pubgue rmsonne de tour I l
Systematic Catalogue of All K
La
es es angues comzues (A
Adelung's work, Yater also publ~~~~~ a ~:~~:ges). In ! 8 I 5, continuing
l~ngues du monde (Alphabetical Table o A alphabet1~ue de toutes !es
Fmally in 1823 H . . h J 1
if
ll the Worlds Languages) 33
,
em11c u ms Kl
th
bl'
.
book which caused th~ greatest sens:i;_~~ . puh ish~d ~sia Polyglotta, a
far all these works had been b t .
I n rn t e sc1ent1fic wo. rld. But so
f h
.
u mere g ances at one .
b.
co1 ner o t e human
mmd. More detailed studies of th
terest in the field increased.
e su ~ect would follow, however, as in..
Linguistics as a field was trul
d
foundation of the works of th
yBan defin1t1vely constituted on the
.
e great opp whos G .
des langues indo-eu"'vpe'
.
.
,
e imnmm.re comparee
,
" ennes is still cons'd d
book by specialists. His treatise Des ra I ere a very authoritative ,
polynesiennes avec /es Ian ues indo
pp~rts des langues malayotion for the organic study : I
-germanzques lay the first foundathe formation of words. w~ sh~:~~;:ts tand the phonetic ~aws regulating
his impressive works in comparative hi~~7et Profe~sor. E1c~l~ff who, by
'fiog~ and m li.ngu1st1cs, helped
to give g1ottology the positivist and ~
At this new st
. h
sc1ent1 c character It has today.
age m t e deveJopme t f h
origin of language was on

.
. n o t e science, the issue of the
ce agam considered b t b
tent thinkers. Those who studie
. ' u. Y. much more compeBell, Duchenne, Gratiolet Renad t~.J~U~Ject, sc1ent1sts such as Charles
Muller, did so with genui~e auth~rit I T~;evon Humb.ol~, Pott, and Max
language: sound format1'0
d
y. .
are two distinct elements in
n an express10n Th
.
.
e emment physiologists
who studied the first element h' h h
not disagree much with Lucre,t1:1u !c . ~s to do with natural language, do
s opm10n.
124
Criteria
for Classi-hing
the H uman Races
.
'J.Y
They only completed it by giving it a scientific foundation of which

Epicure's disciple could not have had the least inkling. According to these
scientists, movements of the body and the limbs are used to express certain needs or achieve certain acts because these movements are natural
signs for these. For example, modifications of the physiognomy harmonize spontaneously and simultaneously with the movements of certain facial muscles. These muscles respond to inner impulses triggered by
sensation. Cries and gestures, which are produced instinctively at first, ultimately serve to designate objects. Children consistently illustrate this
process up to the point where they finally learn their mother tongue. 34
As for the origin of ai1ificial language, that is, the faculty of expression, the theory of onomatopoeias was first suggested, and it was followed by the theory of inte1jections. Onomatopoeias originate in man's
instinctive tendency to imitate natural sounds, whereas interjections are
the effects of strong emotions. Taken in isolation, such theories do not reflect the true nature of things. They must complement one another and
integrate other data if they are to offer a more solid scie1ft.ific foundation.
Max Muller and Renan found these theories lacking scientific validity and they sought other explanations. They considered word roots
phonic types which are produced spontaneously by a faculty inherent in
human nature. This is the natural ability of the mind to name things in a
way that gives some general idea about them. But what did scientists
know about word roots? Was it possible to study them with any precision
and to draw any valid conclusions about their origin? After the discovery
of Sanskrit and the subsequent classification of all Inda-European languages, scientists were able to distinguish radicals from the formal elements added to them in accord~nce with the rules of phonetics. The roots
considered the primitive elements of the language were then divided into
attributive roots and demonstrative roots. To explain the origin of a language, one would need only to study these roots, which are usually in
limited numbers in a particular language, and follow closely their phonic
transformations.
But what interest can these linguistic considerations hold for anthropologists in their quest for a basis of classification of the human races?
Let us pursue our reasoning and the logical consequences will become
manifest. Roots are believed to be produced spontaneously through
man's ability to name things. It seems that thought, at various levels of
sophistication, is the main regulator and sole animator of speech. Should
not language, then, be ranked among the faculties man develops by himself in response to the stimuli of social life?
125
The conclusion is inevitable. Profe

.
?1ost brilliant disciples, expresses the id::o1hSa~ce, one of Max Muller's
Is as much man's creation a
. t'
t us. Language as we know it
guage belongs to the collect:vft~1ni::~ o~I any of the oth~r fine arts. Lancate with another human being -~ . ha es a human bemg to communiinfluences which affect all h ' I is t e pro3dsuct of combined causes and
.
, .
umans equally.
Pei haps Renan s ideas on this crucial .
.
what he says about it: "The need to . . pomt a1 e not ve~y clear. This is
feelings is natural in man H
signify and express his th@ughts and
himself and to others T.he e e~presshe.s every .one of his thoughts both to
.h .
.
re IS not mg arb1tr
I
ary elt er m the use of
speech to signify ideas. Man h
his thoughts not out of con c .ose ang~a~e ~o formulate and articulate
vemence or m imitation f . I
cause language is natural to him b th. h
o amma s, but bemeaning he attaches to it "36 Th o . mt e ~ay he produces it and in the
tle and delicate but even.more e e?11h~ent philosopher's thoughts are sub,
'
so lS IS style.
.
In sum, Renan believes that s ee h .
man's faculties rather that a creat" p ~ is a ~pontane~us product of
easily be linked to the views f I~n oh man .himself. His opinion can
.o t e t eological school which distinguishes between speech en
putssance (potent" 1
'h)
acte (actual speech).
ta speec
and speech en
.
. According to this school, God created h

.
man, and this potential manifested .t If
~ e potential for speech in
sees in response to a visual st1m 1 I se d as actual speech. Thus, the eye
.
u us an the ear he
.
a~d1tory stimulus, but it cannot be said lo icall
ars in_ iesponse to an
S gh
y that m.an IS the creator of
his own seeing and hearing fac If
mon in Renan's works, does bet~a Iet~e
le~rn~d retic~nce, quite comMeanwhile, we must consid~ a orme1 ~aint-Sulp1ce seminarist.
.
bsolutely irrelevant Bonald's theory
locating the origin of langu
man and God. Once we di:::r~nt~:sufhe;~atural comm~nication between
purely human creation we ma
d - s and r~cogmze language as a
y pon e1 ~he following possibility. As each
race creates its own la~g
uage, one consistent with t
.
"bl
I s particular instincts
and organic constitution is it
iomatic texture of the la~guag~~hss; d~/o de~ect ~race elements in the id.a . I eren~1ate It from other languages?
At the highest level of the 1
mgmst1c evolution of .
guage reveal a particular compl .
b
.
a I ace, could the lanex1on, etraymg the
h
.
the root words and in the methods used
race m t e genesis of
the theme, and the inflected word? Sh t~;x~act from a root the radicals,
ou - t e answer be affirmative, research in linguistics would pr- .d.
ov1 e one of the
t fD
determining the constituent traits of the race mos e ect1ve methods for
U sf and one of the most valid
bases for their systematic classific f
a ion. n o1tunately, without taking
:c
126
the time to verify such hypotheses, some scientists hurriedly formulated
a linguistic classification, patterned, as we have s~en, on the Procustean

bed of the three-pronged classification of the classical school.
Some believed that the three groups thus defined should show only
ethnic differences, but others thought they recognized an infinite numb~r
of specific differences among these groups. This was another round m
the eternal debate concerning the existence of a single or of ~eve.ral
human species. The first point of view had, from the start, ~reat scientific
weight, and its authority has not dimin~shed. Its authority, both as a
philological and philosophical idea, was further bolstered by the support
it received from Renan.
"In a way," he writes restrictively, "the unity of humanity is a .sacred
proposition, an indisputable scientific tenet. We can say that.the~e 1~ .only
one language, one literature, and one syste~ of symbolic tiaditions,
since the same principles underlie the formation of ~11 langua~es,. the
same sentiments inspire all literatures, and the same ideas are rnspired
and expressed by a variety of symbols. Does this unhlt', which the psychologist, the moralist, and even the natu.ralist. accept as a pro.ven tr~th,
signify that the human species originated m a smgle group, or, m a lai ger
sense, that it appeared in a single area of the globe? It would be ~a~her
reckless to make such an assertion." 37 Renan's adherence to the utihtarian view may be conditional, but it is nonetheless formal.
Franc;ois Lenormant also acknowledges the. unity o~ the hu~an
species, despite the diversity of languages. "The ex~sten~e of several irreducible language families," he writes, "in no way _unphes'. as some have
suggested, the original plurality of the human species who mvent~~ those
languages" (No reference). Agreeing with De. Quatrefage~ t~at from a
taxonomic point of view, that is, in terms of racial ch~ractenst1cs, .hum~n
language is but a secondar.y trait, Lenormant explains th~ relat1on~~ip
between race and language thus: "Only man is endowed with ~he ability
to produce perfectly clear and infinitely varied uttera~ces, which he deliberately selects, delicately manipulates, and con~c1ously groups and
structures in order to express a logical sequence of ideas. The construction of the mouth and the vocal organs, one of the physical differences
among the races, determines what types of sounds they ar~ likely to pr~
duce. Each race, each ethnic group, and nearly each nat10n have thetr
own pai1icular speech pattern and pronunc_iation. From one people to the
next, the same type of consonants are subject to regular and_ constant alterations. The study of these alterations is a branch of the science of lan' 38
guage known as phonet1cs.
127
Lenormant's opinion is close to the views of Wilhelm Von Humbolt

and other linguists who believe that there is such a close link between
race and language that, across the generations, members of a particular
race would learn only with great difficulty to pronounce words that had
been unknown to their ancestors. Are these ideas consistent with scientific truth? I will answer this question later. Meanwhile, it is not my intention here to control these ideas nor to initiate a controversy I want,
rather, to examine whether linguistic data absolutely suppodthe classification based on the principal language families that are formally studied.
This was thought to be the case at one time. Thus, an attempt was made
to substitute for the old denomination Caucasian race, which had been
routinely used to designate the White race, the even more inaccurate
term "Indo-European race." Science gains nothing when a geographical
label is thus replaced by a glottological label.

It is worth noting a first contradiction between the natural classifications and the linguistic ones: in the latter system most of the subdivisions
of the Yellow race do not fall immediately after the White race, being
separate~ from it by the Black race. According to Jacob Grimm's theory,
languages develop organically, their structure and composition growing
in complexity. 39 In primitive times, people speak in short, monosyllabic
words made up of short vowels and rudimentary sounds. Languages have
not.yet become differentiated. Then each idiom evolves into the agglutinative st~ge, and afterward into the inflectional stage, which is the stage
reached by the. so-called Aryan languages as far into the past as we can
see. African languages are generally agglutinative; they have, therefore,
morphological qualities which make them superior to Chinese, a typical,
monos~Ilabic language, and bring them closer to the inflected languages.
This may be a mere matter of detail, but this is not the first time that
we see a Yellow type placed further from the White type than the Black.
But while the first language group includes the isolating or monosyllabic
languages spoken principally by peoples of the Mongolian race, there is
no such classification coincidence between the other two language
groups and the races that speak them. Indeed, among the peoples who
speak agglutinative languages, do we not find White, Yellow, and Black
peoples? Even though most of the peoples who speak inflected languages belong in lhe White race, can we not name several idioms spoken
by Black nations which have an inflectional form?
"The agglutinative languages are numerous, and they are spoken by
peoples of all races," writes Franr;ois Lenormant (No reference). Thus
the Black Dravidians of India and the nearly White Uigur-Japanese both
128
speak languages in this category. The Bornu of Central Africa, the Black
Wolofs, and the Hottentots with the strange click! sound that peppers
their speech, all are at the same stage as the Basques and a number of
White peoples of the Caucasus mountain region, such as the Georgians,
the Circassians, and many other anthropological types distinct from the
White European and called allophylles. Finally, all the indigenous populations of the Americas, among whom are found people of every color,
speak agglutinative languages.
The inflectional languages are subdivided into three major branches,
which include the Hamitic family, the Syro-Arabian family, and the socalled lndo-European family. The last two are spoken by peoples who all
belong in the White race, or are considered White by most ethnologists.
It is true that Syrians are not positively white; many Arabs are not
only brown, but often black. Most nations who speak Prakrit, a language
directly related to Sanskrit, which is a dead language, are obviously
black or very dark. But we will pretend, pending further discussion, that
they were all originally white. As for the Hamitic or Egypto-Berber language family, they are obviously spoken by several Black and woollyhaired peoples, true Negroes, to use the specious distinction made by
anthropologists. Franc;ois Lenormant divides this family into thre
groups: Egyptian, Ethiopian, and Lybian. "The Ethiopian group," he
says, comprises the languages spoken between the White Nile and the
sea, including Galla and its dialects, Beja, Sabo, Dankaly, and Somali,
languages which are not to be confused with the Semitic or Syro-Arabian
idioms of Abyssinia,. Linguistically and geographically, the Bishari language constitutes the link between these languages and Egyptian." 40
All these languages are spoken by peoples who belong in the
Ethiopian race, as suggested by the generic denomination given by the
learned Orientalist to the whole language group. Hausa, spoken by the
Blacks of central Africa, where it has become the language of trade, belongs in the Lybian group of languages and is related to Berber, Mosaby,
Shelluh, and the Zenatya language of Constantine. Frarn;ois Lenormant
finds it a rich and harmonious idiom.
In the Sahara oases, there lives a Black people whose profile differs
markedly from that of the surrounding Arabs and whose language is a
Negro-Berber dialect. According to Paul Bourde, "Dr. Weisgerber took a
large number of anthropological measurements which will undoubtedly
help to determine to which branch of the human species belongs this curious oasis population. We know they are Black, and Weisgerber tends to
think that they are the product of metissage between Negroes and
129
Berbers. They speak a B erber ctia Iect which

seems to be very close to ti
~enag~ language of the Sudan. They love work. as much as the Ara~~
abhor n._They _are well adapted to the climate of the humid lowlands of
Wad~~htr, which become deadly for the Arabs at certain times of the
year.
The Syro-Berber, Semitic, Egypto-Berber, and Hamitic langua es
similarities that, Benfey theorizes, they may well hav! a
si~gle ongm and l.ater sub.divided into two distinct branches.tz As the
still pos~esse? thetr orgamc fecundity, these branches continued to d~
velop, d1v.ergmg more and more from one another. Going even forth .
Bleck attnbutes a common origin to all African and Semitic languages~~-~
s~are so ?1~ny
5. UNRELIABILITY OF LANGUAGE AS
A BASIS OF CLASSIFICATION
Taking into account all the facts and opinions presented above, we can
only co~clu~e th~t a .theory relying on linguistic morphology as a basis
of race class1fi.catt~n is no. more reliable than those discussed earlier. The
most exp_ert h~gm~ts, using the most rigorous and effective research
methods m ~hetr science, have stated clearly that glottology is a cul-desac ~v.enue m .any taxiolo~ical research undertaken to define with an
1
y
prec1s1on the different ethmc grodps that make up h
Th
umam y.
which :re is more. The _rutative Aryan language, the essential element
. . . asp.resumed to hnk all White-race peoples into a tightly knit collectiv1ty, a smgle family, today has lost its early attraction and no longer
~ommand~ the same respect. "Very few linguists," says De Rosny "still
are descnbe. the languages of our Europe as the offspring of a ~er~ain
language, which ~r~s~mably would be Sanskrit or that hypothetical and
somewhat fantastic idiom known as Aryan I cal1 th. 1.d.
h
.
because it is not k
b
is iom ypothet1cal
.
nown y any text, any inscription, any really historical
d I
wor .. ts existence rests merely on the supposition that a few ancient
~oats m .the Aryan languages might have belonged to a lost language
a~~m ;h.1chdall the languages in the group under consideration presumy enve . I should add that the very name of th. l
.
is anguage 1s unknown in histor . t
.
.
y' I I.s a modem mvent10n of suspect scientific morality
"Th
.e only established fact is that Sanskrit, Persian Greek Lati th.
G ermamc languag
d h SI .
'
n, e
es, an t e av1c languages contain a consd - bl
.
.
1 e1a e
number of comm
1
th t b
.
.on e ements, both lexicographical and grammatical and
a ~rrowrng did occur. But many languages have boffowed considerably fwm other languages without necessarily sharing a common origin:~4
130
Once the idea of a single origin for the Indo-European languages has
been refuted, we are compelled to see the different known idioms as the
social expression of the peoples who use them. In other words, the level
of sophistication of these languages is commensurate with the level of
civilization of their speakers. It is true that this particular thesis contradicts the theory of the morphological evolution of lan_guages and certain
historical facts . But should we not also ask whether Jacob Grimm's system does not require certain modifications? There is reason to believe
that, while the morphology of languages shows a real gradation among
languages, it does not support any notion of the absolute superiority of
one form over another. Each of the major groupings-monosyllabic, agglutinative, and inflectional seems to follow its own evolutionary pattern,
and in the course of its evolution it may acquire a near perfect configuration, that is, one that approximates our conception of the ideal human
language. It is easily conceivable, then, that Chinese has produced unquestionably superior works at a particular stage of its evolution as a language, albeit one that is inferior to an agglutinative or ~glomerating
language, according to Grimm's theory.
"The power of the human mind over its instruments, however imperfect these may be," writes Whitney, "is clearly i11ustrated by the history
of this language which has successfully met all the needs of a cultured,
thoughtful, and ingenious people during a career of unparalleled length.
This language has been used for higher and more varied purposes than
many a better structured dialect. Such dialects may have been rich in
terms of their flexibility and development, but they were poor because of
the very pove11y and limited intelligence of their users. 45
But let us return to the idea propounded by Frarn;ois Lenormant and
Wilhelm Von Humboldt, an idea shared by a number of scientists. Is it
true that the inherent characteristics of each race make its members more
apt to speak certain languages than others? Sayce gives the following answer: "The language we speak is not innate; we do not know it at bi11h.
The child must learn his mother tongue, although the aptitude to do so is
undoubtedly inherited. If he is born in England, then he learns English; if
he is born in France, he learns French. If two or more languages are spoken around him, he will probably learn to speak these languages with
varying levels of fluency, depending on the closeness and frequency of
his relations with the speakers. Languages previously mastered may be
entirely forgotten, and a foreign language may become as familiar to a
man as his mother tongue. For example, Hindustani-speaking children
sometimes completely forget their mother tongue after a brief stay in
131
England. It often becomes difficult to reproduce a sound which we so

naturally uttered as children. What is true of the individual is equally true
of the community comprised of these individuals.46
These truths are so self-evident that travelers, who have seen various
peoples moved to a milieu other than their ancestral home, will find it curious that they should be remarked upon. Do not the descendants of
Africans in the Republic of Haiti speak French? Did not the Bosnian soldiers sent to Lower Nubia in 1420 by Sultan Selim lose their mother
tongue and adopt one that was considered inferior? Did not all the indigenous peoples of South America, as they became civilized, learn to speak
Spanish? Did not the Indians of Brazil learn to speak Portuguese perfectly
once they were properly instructed? Waitz mentions all these facts, most
of which I have personally observed. 47 Furthermore, as I express myself
here in a language absolutely unknown to my Dahomey an ancestors, need
I give a more eloquent example of the invalidity of the idea that there exists some natural connection between language and race?
The only real connection to be acknowledged is the one between
language and thought. It is thought that elevates language and imparts to
it this superior essence of which man is so rightly proud. A language
reaches a higher level of perfection as the peoples who speak it grow in
consciousness and intelligence, in knowledge and dignity. So it is of individuals. This is why Cicero's phrase, vir bonus dicendi peritus will be
eternally true. Actually, languages do not all offer the same resources for
literary creation. One language may be better suited to a particular literary genre than another. Still, the individual of superior intellect inevit1'bly surmounts such difficulties.
.
_Languages, in their simplest structure, contain initially only the
mammate skeleton of verbal and nominal themes. These come alive
through often unconscious and spontaneous linguistic combinations, animated by the formulae of thought. The most felicitous neologisms often
come to us in emotional moments, without the involvement of our conscious mind in their creation. Such new words originate in the writer's
very heart, in the exaltation of his intellectual ''lite energized by the mens
divinior. The grammar of a language, then, is much more important than
its lexicographical morphology. .
Nevertheless, to study the possible similarity among several languages, we should focus our attention not on grammatical details such as
the th~ory of pronominal roots, the rules of literal permutation, phonetic
alterat10ns, and so on, but, rather, on the logic of the sentence. "We do
not think in words, but in sentences," says Waitz. We can assert, there-
Criteriafor Classifying the Hurnan Races
132
fore, that a living language consists of sentences and not of words. But a
sentence is not made up of independent words; it consists in words connected to one another in a particular way. Similarly, the idea conveyed by
a sentence does not stand independently; connected to others in a mutual
relationship, it is part of a coherent whole. 48
Sayce makes a comment to the same effect: "It is by the structure of
the sentence that languages resemble, or differ from, one another." 49
Thus, when we examine the major European languages, we find numerous dissimilarities among the idioms spoken by the various peoples of
the continent. Yet, anthropologists maintain, and rightly so, that these
peoples form a single ethnic group. Comparing the rules of sentence construction in German to those that prevail in French, we are tempted to
admit that, in terms of sentence logic, there iS' perhaps a greater distance
between these two inflected languages than there is between German and
Turkish, which is an agglutinative language. Consider, for example, this
French sentence: /ls n 'etaient pas amenes a s 'aimer l 'un l 'autre. Here is
the Turkish translation, with the appropriate French ~ords below the
Turkish ones. I have not studied Turkish extensively, so I am following
here the indications of the Orientalist Fran~ois Lenormant:
so
51
Sev isch dir Aimer l'un et L'autre,faire
ii -
etre
me ne pas,
r -
di
ler.
/ls
We read the sentence by agglutinating all the other modal roots with
"Sev-isch-di r-il-me-r-di-ler."
The same idea is expressed in German thus:
Einander zu lieben, waren sie nicht gemacht worden

L'un l'autre pour aimer etaient-ils pasfaits devenus
We see at a glance that the logical order of the German sentence is much
closer to the Turkish than to the French. If the Germanic race was more
brown than the Celtic race, to which most of the French population belongs, according to ethnologists, we would be tempted to believe that
there is a closer ethnic kinship between Turks and Germans than between
Germans and French. Yet, when we consider skin color and refer to current anthropological classifications, it is the reverse that is true.
Moving from the logic of sentence construction, let us now consider
the conjugation of the verb "to be." This verb is the verb par excellence,
for from a psychological point of view, we cannot conceive of enunciat-
133
ing any thought, any idea, without it. This is the only verb that can stand
by itself and make an affirmation. The conjugation of this verb, or its role
in the conjugation of other verbs in a given language, must have some
psychological connection with the world view of the speakers of that language. There is a curious paiticularity in German and in Italian, two languages th~t differ in this respect from the whole Western European
language group. In these two languages, instead of using the auxiliary
verb of action "to have" in conjugating the compound tenses Df the verb
""t~ be,:'..t~ey use .the ~erb "to be" itself as auxiliary. In French, they say,
J aete , m English, I have been", in Spanish, "Yo he sido or" Yo he estado." But in German, they say "/ch bin gewesen" and in Italian "Jo
so no stat?" that i~, "le suis ete "in French, and "/am been" in En~lish.
Th~ fact Is, there 1s undoubtedly a greater ethnological distance between
ltahan~ and ~erm~ns than between Germans and the English. To be sure,
t~e 1ex1cological distance is much less. Perhaps more than a third of Enghsh words are so close to their German counterparts that we are able to
transform a word in one language into its equivalent in the other languag~ only with an elementary knowledge of linguistic permutations.
Yet, m terms of grammar and syntax, English is much closer to the romance languages, to French in particular.
These facts provide abu~dant evidence that languages, in their very
essence.' have more to do with the nature of a society, of a civilization,
than with race. The English people, of Saxon origin, form with the
French people the nucleus of the Western collectivity. They no doubt differ from each other in spirit and psychology, but they differ from the Ger~an pe?ple. even more in this twin regard. Despite their sudden and
impressive mte_llectual ~evelopment, the Germans remain, psychologi-'
~ally, a so~ ~f mtermed1ate entity between the civilization which has as
its ?uter l111~1t ~utocratic Russia, and the civilization of Latin Europe,
which, despite its lacunae, still holds freedom as a dominant value. Evi?~nc~ of thi_s can be fo~nd in the Germans' reverence of authority and de1fic~t1on o~ .force, which seem to be the peculiar flowering of their
nat10nal .spmt and the invariable core of their aspirations.
Cunous.ly, the .Gern_ian language has one linguistic particularity
found only m certam Onental languages: vocalic harmony, that is, the
t~nde~cy to~ard ~omophonic vocalization. Most German words, especially m their endmgs, are adapted to such a phonology. For example, the
~oun~ en (pronounced en, without nasality), predominates inordinately
m. this language. The infinitive of all verbs, the plural first person and
third person of all verb tenses, and adjectives preceded by the definite
134
article always end in en .. Given that the practice in German is to address

an interlocutor by the third person plural, one can imagine how often this
sound occurs in the language. This is why a foreigner has such difficulty
distinguishing the words uttered by German speakers, especially when
they speak rapidly as they usually do. Only the tonic accent helps listeners to distinguish the words and to make sense of them. Still, mastering
this accent is the most arduous challenge for a person who was not born
German or, at least, did not grow up in Germany.
Another most remarkable particularity of certain agglutinative languages is their use of holophrastic words, that is, words that contain a
whole sentence by compressing several more or less modified terms. For
example, in the Mexican language, the word ''Achichillacdchocan"
. re d .52
means "the place where people cry because the water is
Almost all the Amerindian languages and most of the Nordic idioms
have similar linguistic forms. Traces of such forms may even exist in
Italian and Spanish, two inflected and analytical languages. Such words
are also found in German, often formed in an arbitrary 'Mly. The same is
true of the Greek language, as in the example of this almost untranslatable verse of the poet Phrynichus: 'ApymcrnEAT\nbmyo<ppU)'lXEpm:a.
The verse attracted the attention of Victor Hugo, who mentions it in his
William Shakespeare, a learned, scholarly work of criticism.
As we reflect on the results of research into the links between language and race, we must renounce all illusions. Linguistics has very little
to say about the origins of nations. The discipline can even less help us to
classify peoples into natural groupings on a sufficiently scientific
zootaxic basis.
Scientists may speak with great assurance about races and their aptitudes, but when research results are so poor, their deductions seem to caITy
the seal of superficiality and empiricism. There is reason to doubt that their
interpretation can ever be considered the last word in science. The more
they persist in their absolute conclusions, the more they will lose of their
authority and expose their incompetence, compromising the credibility of
a science that is still in its infancy but that has a very respectable future.
Given that anthropology is incapable of defining with any precision
what traits distinguish one human group from another, we wonder
whether the discipline is any more capable of providing a solution to a
much more complex and difficult issue. Can one invoke anthropology to
assert dogmatically that some of these human groups are congenitally
and irremediably inferior to others? Is it possible to determine specific
qualities before even determining the species? Logically, this seems ab-
135
solutely impossible. Scholastics, which does not always deserve the contempt i.n which the ignorant holds it, would demonstrate convincingly
that being must precede the mode of being. "Modus essendi sequitur
esse", tenants of the school used to say. But this evident truth does not
faze those scientists who yet can construct such rigorous dialectical arguments to defend their opinions against opposing theories.
We shall see shortly how they try, in the very obscurity of sciencein logo d'ogni luce muto-to find a method for measuring anc:Ycomparing
the tr~its most deeply hidden in human nature, such as intelligence and
morality, the sole qualities that make one human being superior to another.
The notion of a hierarchy of the human races, one of the doctrinal inventions of modem times or, rather, of the present century, will be seen
some day as one of the greatest proofs of the imperfection of the human
mind and of the imperfection, in paiticular, of the aITogant race that
made it into a scientific doctrine. Still, the notion deserves to be studied.
So I ~eg i:eaders to rene~ their energy, drained as it has been by the long
examrnat1on of such vaned and contradictory notions. I invite readers to
follow me into the next part of this book, the very focus of my research
and the main point of my demonstration.
NOTES
1
Compte rendu du Congres international des sciences eihnographiques

tenu. a Paris en I 878, p. 750.
2
A. von Humboldt, Kosmos, vol. 1, p. 427.
3
Memoirs read before the Anthropological Society of London.
4
Ueber Wachstum und Bau des menschlichen Shaedef s.
5
Prehistoric Remains of Caithness.
6
Memoires d'anthropologie, Vol. IV, p. 229.
7
Memoires d'an.thropologie, Vol. IV, p. 8.
8
Ibidem, p. 5.
See Topinard, Anthropologie, p. 246.
10
11
12
De Quatrefages' Touranian branch.

See Topinard, loco citato, pp. 251-255.
Almost all the clever instruments conceived in the fertile imagination of

the French anthropologists were manufactured by the Mathieu Company.
13
Topinard, loco citato, p. 259.
14
L'i Memoires d'anthropologie, Vol. IV, p. 294.
136
137
51
16
Sign indicating the present participle. Sev-mek means aim-er. We

change t_he infinitive ending mek into er or (e) r, and we have sev-er, which
means aunan t.
Ibidem, p. 321.
Ibidem, p. 343.
Broca, loco citato, Vol. IV, p. 306.
17
18
19
52
L'Anthropologie, p. 264.
Memoire d'Anthropologie, Vol. IV, p. 395.
20
21
Ibidem, pp. 503-504.

Broca, loco citato, p. 634.
23 Topinard, loco citato, p. 314.
24 L'Anthropologie, p. 315.
25 E. Verrier, "Nouvelle classification du bassin suivant !es races au point de
vue de I' obstetrique," in Bulletin de lu Societe d'Anthropologie de Paris, Vol.
22
VII, pp. 317-318.

26 Huxley, Anatomie comparee des vertebres.
27
Algemeine Ethnographie.
Mantegazza, la physionomie et l 'expression des sentiments.
..
28
29

Littre et Charles Robin, Dictionnaire de medecine, article "Melanine".
31 Lucretius, De natura rerum, Book V, Line 1030.
32 Idea dell' uni verso, che contiene la storia della vita dell' uomo, elementi
cosmografici, viaggio, estatico al mondo planetario e storia della terra, Cesene,
1778-1787, 21, in 4 Volumes.
33 Linguarum totius orbis index alphabeticum.
34 See Albert Lemoine, De la physionomie et de la parole.
35 A.H. Sayce, Principes de philologie comparee, transl. M. C. Jovy.
36 Renan, Del' origine du lw1gage.
37 Renan, loco citato. p. 200.
38 Frarn;ois Lenormanl, Histoire mzcienne de I' Orient.
39 Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschajien z.u Berlin, aus dem Jahr
30
1852.
Franc;ois Lenormant, loco citato, p. 368.
"La France au Soudan," in Revue des Deux-Mondes ( ler fevrier 1881 ).

T. Ben fey, Ueber das Verhdltniss deraegyptischen Sprache zwn semitischen Spracht111w111.
43 De nominwn ge11erib11s linguarwn Africae australis.
44 Congres intenzational des sciences ethnographiques, p. 114.
45 Whitney, Le langage et l'etude du langage (3e edition).
46 Sayce, loco citato, p. 292.
47 Theodor Waitz, Anthropologie der Natun 1olker (Leipzig, 1859).
41
42
4s
49
Theodor Waitz, loco citato, p. 246.

A.H. Sayce, loco citato, p. 107.
Sign indicating the imperfect. Sev-e-rdim means j 'aimais. It should also

be ~oted that the dental d here indicates the past, as in the Aryan languages in
which t and d are used to indicate the past, as Burnouf demonstrates in the
learned ~reface of his Greek grammar. In German, the imperfect indicative and
the definite past have the form and are distinguished from each other only by the
context of the sentence.
. L enormant, loco citato, p. 349.
~ 2 F ranc;o1s
CHAPTER6
Artificial Ranking
of the Human Races
)
In thus insisting on the unity of the human

species, we necessarily reject the unfortunate
distinction between superior races and inferior
ones.
(Alexander Von Humboldt)
THE INEQUALITY DOCTRINE AND ITS

LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES
Even though Monsieur de Gobineau, a man of great learning but of little
understanding and proven lack of logic, believes that "the idea of an innate, original, profound, and permanent inequality among the races is
one of the oldest and most widespread opinions in the world," 1 no student of history would support such a notion. Throughout history, civilized peoples, self-centered and proud, have always thought themselves
superior to their neighbors. But there has never been the least connection
between this sense of superiority, which results from a narrow but highly
respectable patriotism, and the notion of some systematic hierarchy
among the human races.
Thus, from the most remote antiquity, the Egyptians customarily refe1Ted to the White nations by such expressions as "cursed race of Schet"
or "the plague of Schet." 2 But did they treat any differently the Ethiopians in the frequent wars the two Nile region peoples waged against one
another? The Greeks considered the Persians barbaric, and they had as
much disdain for the Macedonians. When the Romans waged war
139
140
against foreign peoples, they made no distinction between the dark Numidians and the blond Gauls.
The division of humanity into distinct races, classified on the basis
of the principles of the natural sciences, took roots as an intellectual notion only with the birth of ethnographic science. While ethnographic notions appear in flashes in serious works of history, the concept of race
assumed its definitive meaning only with the works of eighteenth century
naturalists, as mentioned earlier. In this case, is it not absolutely inaccurate to suggest that the idea of the original inequality of the human races
is one of the oldest and most widespread opinions, especially when race
is understood in the sense attributed to it by modern science?
The anti-philosophical and anti-scientific doctrine of the inequality
of the races rests on nothing more than the notion of man's exploitation
by man. Only the American school has shown any honesty and consistency in its support of the doctrine, for its tenants have never hidden the
interest they had in its promotion. We must therefore pay them this
homage: whereas European scientists have been timid, eX,ressing their
views through understatements and implications, the Americans have
been radical and logical, even in their errors. While accepting the idea of
the plurality of species and their comparative inequality, the European
scientist will protest against slavery in magnificent tirades. For him this
is only a superb opportunity to pick another oratorical flower in the. garden of rhetoric and to show, by his merely formal humanitarianism, that
he has indeed a solid grounding in the humanities. But who can overlo~k
the contradiction inherent in his stance? Personally, I cannot help but denounce the pharisaic hypocrisy of it all every time I read those inspired,
solemn, and pompous passages in which the writer disparages my race
with the stamp of stupidity while eloquently protesting against the immorality of slavery. Broca, for example, who does not hesitate to say
what he thinks of the Ethiopian Black, indignantly raises his voice
against slavery. Should we believe his protest is inspired by philosophical notions of justice and solidarity? No, Broca is annoyed only because
the issue of slavery was, in his opinion, the main impediment to the propagation of the polygenist theory:
When, with untiring persistence, generous philanthropists demanded
freedom for all Blacks, the supporters of the old order felt threatened in
their dearest interests and argued that Negroes were not human beings
but, rather, domestic animals, albeit more intelligent and productive
than the rest. At the time, science was discarded in favor of sentiment:
Artificial Ranking of the Hunzan Races
141
anyone who advocated the abolition of slavery felt obliged to admit

that Negroes were really Caucasians with their skin darkened and their
hair curled by the sun. Now that the two greatest of civilized nations,
France and England, have definitively emancipated the slaves, science
can reclaim its prerogatives, without worrying about the sophistry of
slavers" (No reference).
Obviously, ~roca's statements contain no exaggerations. As his very pride

was at stake 1.n the <le?ate about ~onogenism and polygenism, he was only
conce~e~ with the triumph of his cause. He could well have forgotten that
the maJonty of Black slaves were to be found in the United States still victims of the nefarious doctrine he was so ardently defending.
'
Even among the monogenists there were supporters of slavery al~eit few in numbers. These people found no better defense of their p'ositlon than the argument that slavery was a divinely ordered institution.
T~ey t?us gave their fierce adversary a wonderful opening, which Broca,
with his usual perspicacity and exquisite skill as a dialectician did not
fail ~o seize_. "If all humans descend from a single couple;" he w'rites, "if
the mequahty of the races is the result of some more or Jess deserved
cur~e; jf some races did dedine and allow the flame of their original intelh~ence to be extinguished while others kept intact the precious gifts
received from the Creator; in other words, if some races are blessed and
others cursed, if some races have fulfil1ed the wishes of nature while others .have violated t~em: ~hen the Reverend John Blackmann is right in
saym.g that slavery ts d1vmely ordered. It is God's punishment, and it is
only JUSt, to a certain extent, that the races who have become degraded be
placed under the protection of others, to borrow an ingenious euphemism
from the advocates of slavery. But if the Ethiopian is king in the Sudan
and the C~ucasia? is king in Europe, what, if not brute force, gives the
latter the nght to Impose his laws of the former?" (No reference).
At fir~t ~lance the whole argumentation seems irreproach.able, but
what does It ~mply about the doctrine of the inequality of the races? It appears s~ logical only because it implies that the Ethiopian, king of the
Sudan, IS the equal of the Caucasian, king of Europe. One only needs to
suppose that the former is inferior to the latter for the argument to become
a ~ost ~pecio~s paralogism. Indeed, man justifies his domination of other
?emgs.m creat10n only by his feeling of superiority, intellectual and moral
m ~ar~1cular, .over every living being on earth. Without this feeling of supenonty, w~1ch we have internalized as a self-evid~nt truth, we would
have to consider as pure acts of violence the arbitrary uses to which we
142
put all animals for our own needs. The proud ~ion, ~hich we seek.to destroy because we cannot subjugate it, and the g1gant1c elephant, which w_e
tame for our own purposes, are they not kings of the desert and the ram
forests? Is not the fish, with which we feed our delicate stomachs, also
king of the salty ocean? If, just because these animals reign over their own
domain, we had to respect them, acknowledge we had no rights over
them and decline to use them for our needs, all progress would become
impo,ssible. Instead of dominating the rest of nature, humanity would be
condemned to a natTOW, bland, and non-productive life.
We use and abuse all living beings only because we are deeply
convinced of our superiority, only because we believe that ?ur own u.nquestionably transcendent destiny takes precedence o~er their puny existence. Here is a historical example that illustrates the trrefutable truth of
this point of philosophy. In the early days of Christian prosely~i~m, the
new converts experienced such an overwhelming sense of hum1hty that
their greatest aspiration was to eradicate their own individuality the better to Jose themselves in the ineffable oneness of t1- nascent Church.
This interpretation of the Gospels, exaggerated reflection of morbid neoPlatonic ideas, originated for the most part with the Gnostics.
Among the Gnostics, the Carpocratians took the humility principle
to such an extreme that they lowered themselves to the level of a brute. In
their scandalous banquets, which they stopped holding only after such
feasts were forbidden by the Council of Carthage in the fourth centu~y,
they religiously forgot themselves in an irritating and unhealthy promiscuity, but they saw a brother and an equal in every animal. Whenever
they ate meat, they would beg the animal's pardon. It was truly ~ mad
state of affairs. Had the Church fallen into such a rut, one could not imagine a greater impediment to human progress. We cou~d. make ~he same
comment about the prescriptions of Buddhism, a religion which commands that we respect all animals as the equals of human bein~s. Such
prescriptions have only served to paralyze all human energy: w~thdr_aw
ing from humanity the stimulus it needs to progress and realize its highest destiny.
. .
Obviously, man's sense of superiority over other creatures JUSt1~es
in his eye his indisputable right to appropriate them and use them as mdispensable tools for his own development. If one race were to be recognized as superior to the other human races, that race woul~ then have
the right to enslave the others by virtue of a natural and lo~1cal law according to which the fittest should dominate the earth. In this regard, _the
great Stagirite, slandered so much because his thought has been so often
143
falsely or partially interpreted, proves himself a peerless logician. If his

deductions deserve some criticism, it is not because of his conclusions
but, rather, because of his initial premises. Slavery is an injustice only
inasmuch as we recognize the virtual equality of all human beings and of
all races. To accept the premise of their inequality is to legitimize the enslavement of those who are considered inferior. I insist on this particular
conclusion because, if it is agreed that in national and international politics a11 human beings and all races are equally capable of sh{'mldering all
responsibilities and equally deserving of receiving all honors, I find it
well nigh inconceivable that, in willful oversight of this legal reality, a
scientific theory should be proposed that would be the antithesis of the
juridical theory.
If the human races were really unequal, slavery would be justified. In
this case, the slave owner obviously could not, for a single instant, consider his slave as his equal without being hounded and repulsed by his
conscience. Curiously, the Romans, who had no interest in natural classifications but looked at the issue from a judicial and philosophical perspective, felt nonetheless obligated to reso11 to a specious fiction in order to
justify the right of a human being to own another. Indeed, one of the distinctive traits of these tireless conquerors was their constant striving to establish everywhere a legal order, sole guarantee of the stable and durable
peace they believed themselves destined to impose upon the entire world
by military might. "Hoec tibi erunt artes, pacique imponere morem .... "
So, to legitirrilze slavery, which is an obvi9us violation of people's rights,
the Romans found no better argument than to declare the slave inferior to
the rest of humanity. Roman law defines slavery by this telling expression: diminutio capitis. In the eyes of the citizens, slaves were incomplet~
and inferior persons. Thus diminished, a human being could be considered a commodity, the possession of which was as natural as it was of any
other object. The Romans believed that the moral and intellectual qualities, which make us human, were lacking in the slave.
So, already profoundly degraded, the slave was considered more
worthless than base by his master. "Non tam vilis quam nullus," the Romans used to say of the slave. This explained it all .. Actually, though,
nothing is Jess acceptable than this fiction which degrades a human being
and makes an object out of him. But from the point of view of pure logic,
since sl~very already existed, a reason had to be found to legitimize the
institution. No more plausible reason could be invented than the intellectual and moral inferiority (diminutio capitis) which the Jaw presumed to
be natural in the slave.
. 144
The Romans went further in drawing the logical consequences of

this established principle. They considered slaves not only inferior beings, but, like the American slavers, they also saw them as a distinct
species. The historian Florus stated, in quite explicit terms, that slaves
form a second human species, that quasi secundum hominum genus sunt.
Is it not a curious and rather astonishing coincidence that these issues of
ethnic inequality and plurality of the human species were discussed in
ancient Rome long before the advent of the science of anthropology? We
should remember, however, that in antiquity slaves were almost always
of the same race as their masters and, more often than not, belonged to
the same nation. Not only were Whites slaves of other Whites, but citizens enjoying equal rights one day could become someone's property the
next day. So the idea of some natural and unlimited right of superior beings to dominate inferior ones had to be quite a powerful justification for
the ancient Romans to dare push legal fiction so far and to adapt facts to
the principles deriving from this idea.
Such a coincidence proves that only the slavers are c<'!isistent and logical in propounding the theory of the inequality of the human races and the
corollary theory of the plurality of species. It seems impossible, then, to
accept the existence of superior and inferior races without recognizing the
right of the former to enslave the latter as long as it serves the slavers' purposes. Logically, the law that prescribes that the best develop themselves
by all available means is circumscribed, in social and human relations,
only by the equality of faculties, which implies the equality of needs.
2. GENERAL BASES OF RACIAL RANKING

Let us now examine how and by what arguments self-interested slavers,
unconscious philosophers, and blind scientists strive to establish and explain the theory of the inequality of the human races. Perhaps we should
limit our discussion to the ideas of the anthropologists. Indeed, while
most writers do claim to speak in the name of science, anthropologists
claim the exclusive right to speak knowledgeably about everything pertaining to the study of man. Certainly, if anthropologists did grasp all the
data needed to do good anthropology, no one would be better qualified
nor more authorized than they to handle questions in this field. Unfortunately, despite the relative independence science has acquired in this our
century of freedom, it is still influenced by ambient ideas. It suffices that
a very talented scientist, capable of taking the leadership of a scientific
current, adopts one of these attractive but ephemeral ideas and clothes it
!I
I
~
!i
A1tificial Ranking of the Human Races
145
in the respectable garb of specific formulae and methods, and a school

emerges, blocking all progress in this particular branch of science. And
so it goes until it becomes obvious that the great man of science had
erred. At this point, investigations are conducted, discussions are held,
and the truth is vaguely intuited. Sometimes involved scientists reason so
rigorously that they come on the verge of proclaiming the truth. But
~here's the rub! If this truth contradicts the school's official position, if it
is con~rary. to the master's word, then these scientists will su''ddenly become mart1culate rather than stand against the official theory.
In the meantime, after having divided the human types into three
groups, called races by some and species by others (the distinction is immaterial here), anthropologists have unanimously embraced the doctrine
of the moral and intellectual inequality of these various groups. One
vainly looks for a rigorous discussion of such a serious question in most
of their writings. Yet they generally proceed with their arguments as if
, such inequality was a proven fact which requires no scientific demonstration. Where then shall we discover a rigorous presentation of this
mysterious doctrine implanted like a dogma in the minds of our scientists? Who will initiate us into the arcana of the science of man?
Carns, in Germany, and De Gobineau in France, have each written a
book in which they overtly and positively develop the thesis of the inequ~lity of the ~aces. Cams, although a scientist with the impressive credential~ of a ph~lologist, a naturalist, and a physician, treated the subject
more hke a philosopher than an anthropologist. De Gobineau a more
radical thinker, was an erudite scholar, but he lacked the scientiRc trainin~ require~ for such a work. He conceived it and wrote it seemingly
without havmg had the least acquaintance with anthropological methods'
nor. with the accessory sciences. It must be pointed out that anthropology,
which would know such rapid growth in France and elsewhere, thanks to
~roca's zeal and ardent proselytism, was at the time quite a neglected
field. De Gobineau's treatise on the inequality of the human races was
p~blished i.n 1853; the Paris Anthropological Society, which was to energize the science, was created only in 1859. Yet, we have reason to wonder. whether anthropologists have found in De Gobineau 's fantastic
"?hons and. equivocal paradoxes such a bright light source that they take
his ~?nclus10ns for Gospel truth. Without their actually saying so, their
pos1t10ns strongly suggest they are.
In order to impart a scientific character to the doctrine of racial inequality, they ~onducted.experiments in an~tomy and physiology, using
methods of their own design. In their opinion, such experiments confirm
146
the inferiority of Black and Yellow people to White people, as the races
are ranked on a descending scale, with the Caucasians at the top and
the Ethiopians and their congeners at the bottom. All this is randomly
presented, with much confusion and without any explanation. It is impossible to find a chapter in an anthropological treatise in which the hierarchical ranking of the races is explicitly acknowledged. Yet, the idea of
a racial hierarchy is implied in every line. As I said earlier, the idea impregnates the prevailing discourse of the scientists as if it were a fact that
needs no proof.
I intend, however, to examine the investigation methods those scientists have used to research such a delicate subject. We shall then see
whether the results are sufficiently precise and consistent, and, above all,
whether they are invariable and thus confirm the existence of cause and
effect relations. If the results did not prove invariable, no logical cone! usions could be drawn from the investigations and contradictory observations would cancel out one another.
I shall return to most of the interesting issues broachf!tl earlier. But
this time I will not simply describe them; I will, instead, look at them in a
new and more instructive light, weighing their more serious implications.
Scientists assert that the Black man occupies an intermediate position between the ape and the White man. On the basis of the same p1inciples, they rank the Black race as inferior to the White, with the Mongolian
race standing between the two. If we were to invoke the ancient philosophical understanding of intelligence as a divine gift, a faculty without
any connection to the body's organic constitution, it would be impossible
to attempt any classification of the races based on the moral and intellectual faculties. Today, however, the field of psychology more rationally
turns to experimentation in order to discover probable links between the
intellectual faculties and the brain. The prerogative of science to conduct
such investigations cannot be challenged. Whether one decries materialism or embraces it, it is a conquest of the human mind and of the human
mind alone. "The materialist assertion that the growth of the body is a
mechanical process and that thought, as we know it, is connected to the
physical constitution of the brain, is unassailable." Thus spoke in 1868
one of the best minds of the century, the scientist Tindall. 3 This opinion
finds its increasingly brilliant confirmation every day. We should be able,
then, to accept all the conclusions of the anthropologists, without suspecting them of being out of their field, if only the science they relied on
gave clear and positive answers. Unfortunately for anthropologists, such
is not the case.
147
Does not this science induce us into error when it proclaims the existence of some obvious con-elation between the aptitudes of the brain and
race? Furthermore, has anyone ever discovered through what mechanism
intellectual operations correspond to the functions of the brain and how
the two are linked? We will see what answers the. greatest specialists give
to these questions. Meanwhile, we will examine first the different bases
of comparison invented by some scientists in order to establish or to consolidate the doctrine of the inequality of the races.
~
The superiority of one man over another man rests on several possible factors. The first and foremost factor of superiority, and the most obvious and least disputable, is intelligence. Then come physical factors
such as height, muscular strength, proportion of the limbs, etc. We could
add morality next to inteJligence, and beauty next to physical constitution, but from a practical point of view this is not necessary. In a fight in
which one contestant has to impose his will on the other, morality would
be a negative quality. Common sense, the elementary and practical form
of intelligence, would be more useful here.
Everyone will agree that a highly developed morality is a considerable force, one that helps to strengthen the will and gives man his resilience, the most eloquent and elevated manifestation of virtue. In this
faculty lies the secret of the control of man and the domination of nature,
the secret of transcendent stoicism in the face of pain and death. But in
every age and in every race, those capable of achieving such a high level
of morality will always be noble but rare exceptions. It would not be logical to consider such elite individuals as exemplars, for they have pursued truth and the good with such diligence that they have imperceptibly
exceeded common expectations.
The notion of beauty elicits similar thoughts. The individual who possesses beauty enjoys a positive advantage in the great struggle for existence,
and this has been the case since civilization made possible the emergence
of a superior culture in which man, his soul refined, finds ecstasy in the
contemplation of delicate and graceful forms and silently worships the disturbing goddess. But the mysterious attraction of beauty is never so encompassing that it can be regarded as an important factor among the putative
factors of superiority and inferiority of the races. The different human races
have been compared in terms of both beauty and morality. If I consider such
actual or potential comparisons, it will not be for the pt.irpose of finding
some indispensable argument in favor of the equality of the races. It wil I be,
rather, for the purpose of highlighting facts that prove that all human groups
are apt to manifest all qualities as we11 as all imperfections.
148
3. CRANIAL MEASUREMENTS
To form an idea of the intellectual abilities of someone we meet for the
first time we do not examine every single detail of his face, the totality of
which m~kes up his physiognomy and indicates his general inclinations.
We focus, rather, on the breadth of his forehead and the general shape of
his skull. We do so instinctively, as if we could read in the bumps, hollows, and curves, small and large, of the skull indelible manifestations ?f
the brain. Curiously, people without any conception of anthropology, i.1literale people even, have always believed themselves ~ble to det~ct m
the shapes of the head the surest sign of intelligence. Scien~e h~s simply
adhered to this universal consensus, embracing, on the basis ot more or
Jess convincing arguments, the a priori opinion of the masses.
Subscribing to the commonly held idea, anthropologists invente_d several methods to measure the skull's capacity. Perhaps the oldest of these
methods is cubage, which I have already discussed. It is ~rth as much as
the other methods, in my opinion. I need not return to my earlier comments
on the subject. I will simply refer readers to the pages of this book so.that
they can verify again how vague and contradictory are the results obtam.ed
by anthropologists using this particular method. Next to t~ese .uncertainties it is worth highlighting the opinion of the naturalist Tiedemann.
Wh~reas Broca favored a dual operation involving gauging and cubage,
the eminent professor from Heidelberg proceeded only by gauging, filling
the skull cavity with millet grain by various methods. 4 "According to
Tiedemann's research," says Cesar Cantu, "the normal brain of a European
adult male weighs between 3 pounds 3 ounces and 4 pounds I~ ounces
(1212.50 grams and 1834.55 grams); a woman's brain weig~s be~ween.4
and 8 ounces less. At birth, whether a man is Black or White, his bram
weighs one sixth of his body's total weight. At. the age
two, ~is brain
weighs one fifteenth of his weight; at three, it weighs one eighteenth; at fifteen, one twenty-fou11h; finally, between the ages of twe~ty an~ s~venty,
his brain weighs between one thi11y-fifth and one fo11y-fifth of his total
body weight. The illustrious scientist concludes from th~se figures that the
current pre-eminence of the White man over the Negro 1s not due to some
.
congenita!ly supetior intelligence but to education." 5
In quoting the great historian's words, we are invoking two authonties rather than one, for he shares Tiedemann's ideas without reservations. Such truly superior men, who do not fear losing their status
by proclaiming truths which others prefer to falsify_ out of t~isguided
pride, such men deserve our praise as true representatives of science and
o!
149
philosophy. According to Broca, those anthropological theories are totally contradicted by the considered opinion of the German scientist,
Tiedemann's investigative methods may not be beyond criticism. Nevertheless, the future will bring increasingly convincing proof that Tiedemann was right.
Paolo Mantegazza, no do~bt fol1owing in Broca's footsteps, believes
he has found in the orbital cavity a trait by which to rank the human races
hierarchically. 6 After measuring and comparing skulls of h{'.)mans and
skulls of anthropomorphic apes, collecting data that are as arbitrary as
those so often put together by anthropologists, the erudite Florence professor formulates' a rather bizarre proposition. According to him, "the
lower the hierarchical place is in the organic series, the smaller the orbital capacity is relatively to the cerebral capacity" (No reference). I do
not in any way deny Mantegazza's sagacity; his qualities as a keen observer are well known in the scientific world. Nevertheless, considering
' the osteological topography of the cranium, might we not wonder what
serious link could exist between the capacity of the orbital cavity and the
functioning of the brain? Despite our willingness to accept these methods of hasty generalization by means of which one claims to draw from
the natural sciences much more than they can give, we could not find
anything here to justify such a hypothesis. Perhaps the Florentine scientist saw here a case of character subordination, a somewhat vague principle but one that is convenient for establishing more or less rational
theories. Should this be the case, Mantegazza must have reached such a
conclusion only after studying a large number of facts which are consistent and provide elegant support for his hypothesis. But all the facts
prove the inconsistency of the hypothesis with a truly discouraging pro-'
fusion. When we study the orbital capacity of the different human races,
we find not a single result that confirms the hierarchy imagined by Mantegazza. If we want further evidence to be convinced, we need only review the data in the chart transcribed by Topinard which we discussed
7
earlier. Let us now examine some of the other methods.
One very simple method, based on the external measurement of the
cranium with a graduated ribbon, is used to obtain the horizontal circumference of the skull. Most anthropologists take this measurement by
starting from a supraorbital point and going around, through the most extreme occipital point, to return to the original starting point. 8 Welcker, for
his part, thinks it is better to apply the ribbon at the level of the frontal
bones, high above the supercilJary arch, taking it around the entire circumference. I believe the German scientist's way of proceeding is much
150
better, for in any well developed skull there is always a measurable in-
crease in the antero-posterior diameter, at the level of the protuberances

of the frontal bones.
"When measured both in this manner and by the usual method,"
writes Topinard, "the circumference of the skulls of 25 Auvergnats was
three millimeters smaller, by Welcker's method, and the circumference
of the skulls of 25 Negroes was 18 millimeters greater. The discrepancy
is due to the fact that the frontal bulges are less developed in the former
and, to the contrary, very prominent and highly arched in the Negroes we
chanced to find" (No reference).
This is a remarkable fact, particularly as the physiology of the brain
has generally proven that the anterior upper section of the encephalon,
which includes the cerebral lobes, is the seat of all the intellective faculties. Perhaps there is no necessary connection between these frontal
bulges, which we find so impressive, and the facts which they seem to
signify. Nonetheless, this is a case where we can invoke the law of character correlation. It is very rare that these bulges of th~kull do not indicate great intellectual abilities, whether proper use has been made 'of the
brain's functions or not. Each time we meet an individual with such a
characteristic forehead, we immediately sense that if he has not achieved
power, he has at least the prerequisites to do so: intelligence and will.
Such a power, essentially free and independent, may be used for either
good or evil, but it alone grants man the privilege of domination. Cerebral power often remains dormant and dies with the individual, who lives
his life ignorant of his own strength and high potential, like those inflammable substances which slowly evaporate into the quiet air when they
could have set the world ablaze if only they had been touched by a single
spark. In this case, the spark is education. When Blacks become educated, when the thoughts contained behind those superb foreheads are
made to ferment by the leaven which the mysterious signs of the alphabet
are for the mind, then it will be time to compare the human races and to
gauge their respective abilities. To do so now, to judge the trees by the
fruits they have already borne, and expect to draw any valid conclusions
from the comparisons, would be illogical and premature. Neve1theless,
we sense already that the work is being done and progress is being made,
slowly, imperceptibly. It is as when a budding flower, with its calyx still
closed, its corolla tightly rolled, its petals full of sap, its pistils and stamens trembling in their occult love making, lies in wait for the rays of the
sun that will tickle it to expose to the light, in a burst of perfume and
beauty, the seed of future creations. And there are so many seeds buried
Artificial Ranking of the Hwnan Races
151
in the generous soil and destined to become great trees. We do not need
the oracle of the ancient Sybil nor the word of the Biblical Pythoness to
sense this coming germination and welcome it with all our heart. In fact,
it is already taking place. Deus, ecce deus! . ..
But let us abandon this mood. When I started this book, I promised
myself to avoid both anger and excessive enthusiasm. What is called for,
in exploring and clarifying the important issues of concern to us here, is
the simple and austere language of science. Minerva with&>ut make-up.
So let us move now to another of those anthropological traits which some
people see as indicative of a race's place in the hierarchy of the manycolored human groups, namely, the minimum frontal transverse.
According to Topinard, the minimum frontal transverse "is measured
from the two points closest to the tempmal crest, above the external orbital apophyses" (No reference). To find these two points, one opens the
thumb and the index fingerof both hands into a set square, places them on
either side of the skull against the upper area of the forehead, and slides
them together down to the point where the diameter measurably decreases
and the supercillary arches stop them. This measurement may be considered one the indices of the brain's volume, because it gives the width of its
anterior base. Here are the results recorded by Topinard:
384 Parisians
95.7 mm
88 Auvergnats
97.7
60 Spanish Basques
96.l
5 8 French Basques
96.2
69 Bretons-Gallots
98.0
63 Bas-Bretons
97.3
18 Caverne de l'Homme-Mort specimens
92.0
8 Lapps
100.0
28 Chinese
92.5
15 Eskimos
94.l
82 African Negroes
94.2
22 Nubians
93.2
54 New Caledonians
93.5
8 Tasmanians
94.0
12 Australians
92.7
152
Without going into a tedious analysis of this chart, I will simply observe
that the groups with means within closest range of one another are the
French Basques, the Spanish Basques, the Parisians, the African Negroes, and the Eskimos. To bring about this rapprochement, I took the
Parisians as the mean term of comparison. This is the most rational
choice, especially as the figure 95.7 mm, which represents the mean
index for the Parisians, is also, curiously enough, the figure closest to the
means of all the figures on the chart, which is 95.2.
What can we conclude from these observations? Can we find here
any indication of hierarchy at all? Not only are the intermediate figures
distributed among races that are absolutely distinct from one another, but
the Lapps have a mean that is infinitely superior to that of the other
groups, and the Chinese fall below the Australians. It is all so very anarchic. Nature mocks the anthropologists and confounds them at the very
moment they take those sophisticated measurements, which are at bottom mere puerile games, entertainment rather than serious research.
Still, science cannot accept the existence of distinct and hrerarchical categories among the human races without presenting and discussing the
experimental evidence that supports such an important fact. So new
methods and procedures must be found.
I will discuss again briefly Camper's facial angle, even though I do
not think it has any significance for the kind of research we are now conducting. Topinard, who has studied this type of anthropological investigation, identifies four variants of the facial angle and concludes in favor
of Cloquet's. Unfortunately, when the last edition of Anthropologie was
published, measurements under conditions deemed optimal had not yet
been taken; if they have been taken since, we do not know where to find
the results. The chart presented below contains results obtained by
Jacquart's method. To avoid confusing readers with too many figures, I
have recorded only the angle measured at the level of the supraorbital
foramen, that is, Broca's ophrio-spinal angle. It is not necessary to signal
the differences between this angle and the angle measured ordinarily
from the glabella to the nasal ridge.
Here is, then, a modified version of the chart that appears in Topinard's Anthropologie (page 294 ), the source of most of the figures I cite.
I have omitted the figures for women of different races, as they would
serve no purpose here.
3 Auvergnats
75.11
28 Bas-Brecons
76.81
153
36 Bretons-Gallots
74.42
29 French Basques
75.41
42 Spanish Basques
75.18
13 Eskimos
74.43
28 Chinese
72.37
35 Malay
74.12
136 African Negroes

69 New Caledonians
74.81
:;;
72.39
When we examine this chart, we observe that the widest facial angle, is
that of the White race Bas-Bretons, which measures 76.81. The most
acute angle, which measures 72.37, is that of the Chinese, a Yellow race.
The Negroes come before the Bretons-Gallots, and the difference between their facial angle and that of the Bas-Bretons is only two degrees
(76.81-74.81). Although Broca's figures differ from those recorded by
Topinard, the author of Memoires d'Anthropologie had noticed the same
two-degree discrepancy, "a figure," he wrote, "lower than the range of errors that may result from the variations in the direction and volume of the
nasal ridge." 9
We should also remember that these are only means; they will never
have any value in anthropology except as an approximation of an ideal
type for a particular ethnic group, a type which does not exist in nature
and which varies depending on the researcher. In the oscillations of the
maximums and minimums in each series, conflated to obtain the means
presented above, we find further evidence of a chaos signifying no less ,
than the inanity of the arbitrary theories by which some people persist in
dividing the human races into superior and inferior ones. "If we studied
only those traits which establish the degree of superiority or inferiority of
the different races," writes Broca in reference to Jacquart's angle, " we
would study only a very small number of characte~istics indeed." 10 But
the master did not bother to identify that small number of characteristics,
and they remain elusive. Like the philosopher's stone of the medieval alchemists, these characteristics seem always on the verge of being discovered. But when anthropologists think they may be about to succeed,
some malevolent genius mocks them and leaves them dumbfounded before the grimacing skulls and their shiny instruments, the light they seek
forever receding. The number of traits they are seeking must be small indeed, so small that it must be considered equivalent to zero.
154
In this case, can we understand such categorical statements as those

made by De Quatrefages, who writes not as a philosophizing philosopher
but as an authentic anthropologist, ex professo? When we read the eminent naturalist's self-assured and pretentious pronouncements, would we
not believe that he speaks from established and indisputable scientific
data? But let us read from a page of L 'Espece humaine:
The set of conditions that produced the different races has also brought
about an actual inequality which it is impossible to deny. But such is
the penchant of the professional Negrophiles for hyperbole that they
insist that the Negro was in the past, and such as he is, equal to the
1
White ma n. A single fact suffices as a rebuttal.

Barth's discoveries have verified something which could be doubted
until then: the existence of a political history among Negroes. But this
very fact serves to underscore even more the absence of an intellectual
history, which consists of a general progressive movemenwnarked by
literary, artistic, and architectural achievements. Left to its own devices, the Negro race has produced nothing of the sort. The Black peoples, which have been classified among the Negro race in order to
disguise the race's too obvious inferiority, are connected to it at best
through crossbreeding cases in which the superior blood predominates" (No reference).
These are strong words indeed. The opinion of the learned professor
of the Museum of Paris on the subject of the hierarchy of the human
races is clear, precise, and forceful. But is that enough? I would be
willing to accept that Renan, or De Gobineau, a man who had no doubt
about anything, speak in this manner, ore rotunda, in the belief that a
well turned phrase is enough to consecrate arbitrary suggestions and turn
an aITogant thought into unassailable truth. But I would not accept
such a discourse from a naturalist who has earned such great prestige
through academic achievements and through the exercise of an unflagging talent.
Monsieur De Quatrefages has enjoyed enormous success as a university professor and gained great fame as a writer in whose texts an elegant style and a deep knowledge are happily conjoined. However, what
we seek in him is the scientist, not just any scientist, but the naturalist,
the anthropologist. Now, the fact that he puts forward to refute the opinion ofthose who believe that Blacks are equal to White, is not a scientific
155
answer; it is, rather, a purely rhetorical game we could reduce to its real
value by asking him a simple question: How Jong have White Europeans
had that int~llectual history mentioned by De Quatrefages as he pretends
to ignore the general history of the nations and the races they represent?
But the time has not yet come to give an answer capable of enlightening
the famous scientist.
So let us keep searching through the arsenal of anthropological

methods. Perhaps we shall find one for measuring some aspect of the
skull that would show categorically that the Negro's inferiority is a selfevident and incontestable fact. Quite serendipitously, we have before our
eyes a comparative method invented by Professor de Quatrefages himself: the measurement of the parietal angle. To find this angle we draw
two lines on either side of the face-at the outermost points of the zygomatic arches, at the bottom, and at the outermost points of the maximum
, frontal diameter, at the top. These two lines meet at the top when the
angle is positive; they are parallel, when the angle is nil; they meet at the
bottom when the angle is negative.
Topinard has compiled a list of the means based on this measurement, with their maximum and minimum variations. I have not reproduced his chart here because this book is already chock full of figures.
Besides, the summary given by the author of L'Anthropologie explains
the results with sufficient clarity to make it possible to dispense with the
rest. This is what Topinard writes: "Based on these data, it appears that
(1), the individual limits of the parietal angle vary from -5 to +30, and
the means for the most divergent races range from +2.5 to +20.3; (2), the
35- to 39-degree angles reproduced on the figures accompanying .
Prichard's description, the basis of his depiction of Mongolian skulls as pyramidal, have never been observed by anyone; (3), the most ogival
skulls, to use his own expression, the skulls with the most visible zygomatic arches by Blumenbach's method, are found among Pacific Negroes and not among Mongolians; (4), inversely, skulls with negative
angles, that is, with the least protruding zygomatic arches, are found
among Auvergnats, Lapps, and African Negroes." 11
The final observation is significant inasmuch as the Auvergnats, the
Lapps, and the African Negroes, all three among the races with cryptozgous zygomatic arches, are representatives of the three principal races,
that is, the White, Yellow, and Black races. Topinard's conclusion is
clear: "De Quatrefages's parietal angle, in sum, constitutes an excellent
craniological characteristic, but it is not serial and it contradicts the
views expressed by Blumenbach and Prichard" (No reference).
156
So we would look in vain for a craniometric method for identifying

that mysterious characteristic by which anthropologists might recognize
the differences which signify a natural hierarchy among the various
groups of the human species. Turn it this way or that way, the skull remains mute, with its sepulchral look. Like a somber sphinx, it seems to
tell us, rather, that from the first movement of the protoplasma in the
uterus to the moment when the bloodless old man closes his eyes to the
light and passes away, man lives, acts, and progresses to finally return to
the common reservoir, the great equalizer, from which all beings spring.
While the subject of our current investigation is not this notion of equality in death, it is certain that the only message a skull ever conveys is precisely this one. Undoubtedly, a skull did at one point shelter thought,
intelligence, in a word, everything that constitutes true superiority. But
just as a poor man's cabin keeps no visible trace of the, passage of a
prince who may have paid it a brief visit, a skull keeps no imprint of the
thoughts it may have sheltered.
So we shall put the skull aside, as it cannot enlighte~us, and we shall
follow the anthropologists as they study the brain. Here we will undoubtedly find the secret, the recondita dottrina, we have been pursuing with
such ardor, the magic secret which will enable us to identify finally the
signs of superiority nature has bestowed on some and the marks of inferiority that make of others the lowest representatives of the human species.
If science, before which I always bow, finally reveals to me the cabalistic word to pronounce in order to make nature speak, then should my
deepest convictions be shaken by what I hear, I will listen, disconcerted
and painfully disillusioned, but resigned. On the other hand, if, despite my
good will, I find it impossible to penetrate the arcana of anthropology; if,
like a capricious cou1tesan it withdraws its favors from me to bestow them
upon such illustrious men as Morton, Renan, Broca, Carus, de Quatrefages, Buchner, and De Gobineau, the whole proud and arrogant phalanx
of those who proclaim that the Black man is destined to serve as a stepping stone for the White man in his quest for power; then I will have the
right to say of this lying anthropology that it is not a science.
Science indeed is not the exclusive preserve of some closed coterie,
be that coterie made up of the whole of Europe and part of America. Mystery, which is better suited to dogma, smothers science by degrading it.
4. THE BRAIN AND INTELLIGENCE

The most interesting of all biological studies is, without a doubt, the physiology of the nervous system. It is a field full of surprises and enchantments
157
for the mind. The study of the brain in particular is the most affecting, for
no one approaches it without an indefinable tremor, an elusive emotion.
T~e reason for this is that, as it deals with those facts and concepts which
science, .f~om Haller to Claude Bernard, exposes with increasing clarity
~nd pr~c1s10n, th~ human mind senses in a mysterious way that it is operatmg on itself and IS engaged in an actual exercise in introspection.
"Who would not feel deeply moved," says Professor Huschke, "at the
thought of this seat of the soul and the inteJiect? We remain c4imbfounded
before this sanctuary in which the forces of the spirit act and move before
these enigmatic shapes which have carried out their mysterious f~nction
in ~uma~s fro?1 the beginning to today, as the members of the species live
thelf vanous hves, moving, acting and thinking" (No reference).
There is indeed an exquisite and troubling attraction to this intimate
demarche in which man seeks to know and understand his own nature.
It.s appeal lies in the ancient spiritualist psychology, whereby man sees
himself as an angel and considers his faculties as emanations of some divine source and, as such, as irreducible and immortal as the soul of
which ~hey ar~ the transcendental manifestation. But here things take an
ot~er":'1se senous turn, assume an otherwise significant import. The
mmd is no lon~er contemplating the mind and exploring itself through
those metaphysical abstractions in which Berkeley approaches the ineffable, Kant cofues close to the sublime, and Hegel reaches for the incomp~eh~nsi~le, th_u~ giving Victor Cousin the advantage of discoursing all
his life m a d1vme language to say nothing that does not come from
someone els~. Now the mind beholds matter, that is, tangible reality. Inste~d of settling for generalizations, we must pursue scientific research
until we find the truth. Instead of speculating about noumena, we must
study phenomena and discover the laws that govern them.
M~ns agitat molem . .. , we used to say with Virgil. Ohne Phosphorus, kezn Gedanke, we say today with Moleschott. Perhaps there is really
no contradict~on between the two statements. Who really knows but that
the facts which seem to us most discordant do not harmonize marvelou.sly under the effects of the mysterious laws of life? Such troubling
que.st1ons h~ld us under their inexplicable fascination! We understand
Mame de B1ran's exultation as he quietly observes and reflects on the
h~man soul in its different active and passive states, elaborating the prin~1ples of knowledge through the union of will and intelligence. All these
Journeys through the id~al ':"orld, through the regions of pure thought,
have a suave ch~rm that ts difficult to resist. But they are not, to be sure,
t?e best preparation for the person about to enter a laboratory or a dissection room. Yet these are the only places where science does speak. There,
158
one observation made by looking into the microscope is a hundred times

more valuable than the most beautiful thought garnered in the fairy field~
of metaphysics.
From the perspective of anthropology, to study the brain we must
discard all preconceived ideas. We must observe the cerebral organs
coldly as if we did not know their purpose. This is the best way to draw
an objective conclusion whenever we encounter one of those traits asso~iated with the manifestation of some mode ofintelligence. Every physiologist who ever earned fame through some remarkable discovery has
always proceeded in this way. Physiological anthropologists who over.:
look this method run the risk of falling into the rut of hypotheses, and
there Gall and Spurzheim will always checkmate the likes of Flourens
and Gratiolet. Claude Bernard himself, despite the sagacity he showed in
his experimental research and the accuracy of insight and intellectual dynamism that made him a rarity in the scientific world, would lose all his
prestige if, instead of stu(lying nature as a great unknown entity to be re:.
spectfully and delicately discovered, he approached the 1Wgans the functions of which he wanted to study with the set idea of confirming some
doctrine or system. "System-bound thinking," writes the great physiologist, "gives the mind a sort of unjustified self-assurance and inflexibility
which are inconsistent with the scepticism the experimenter must always
harbor in conducting research. Systems are necessarily incomplete; they
cannot represent everything that exists in nature, but only what exists in
the mind of men." 12 These are profound words, and they apply not only
to the hasty and reckless deductions anthropologists draw from their systematic experiments, but also to all those weightings, cubages, and other
anthropometric operations carried out for the purpose of identifying organic or hierarchical differences among the different human groups.
Such operations follow rules formulated outside nature, rules wh_ich, furthermore, are mutually contradictory. But those involved are pursuing a
set goal and obviously everything is systematically made to gravitate
around that goal.
In thus warning readers against hastily embracing the opinion of
those who believe to have identified in the brain evident signs of its different modes of activity, in other words, to have found the positive seat of
our mental faculties, I do not wish to give the impression that I underestimate the scientific importance of such research. The scientific achievements of the last fifty years would quickly prove me wrong. But despite
such scientific progress, those who examine the brain cannot help but see
in it the theater of some thus far undecipherable action. When we study
159
those delicate designs, with their graceful contours and twirling lines entangled into thousands of whimsical twists and turns, we sense that this
magnificent tool, the encephalon, holds secrets which our science, still in
its infancy, cannot quite guess yet.
It is indisputable that the brain does the most marvelous things in response to the mere stimulus of life. Understandably, there is a natural
need to match each visible shape, relief, and depression of the brain with
each of the observed responses. This need to explain everything sometimes translates into bold statements, particularly from writers who talk
about the brain without having studied it. This is, for example, what
Carus Sterne asserts: "With a rich inventiveness which any draftsman
would envy, the intrinsic energies of the most simple and banal known
combination join with the outside morphological influences." 13 Despite
its assertive tone, this sentence expresses but a vague idea which, in
.truth, tends increasingly to become part of our intellectual baggage, but
an idea which also rests on mere probabilities and therefore has no other
value than that of a more or less plausible opinion.
Other, more thorough, researchers are much more circumspect.
Looking at the same richly inventive designs which so fascinated Sterne,
another German scientist concluded, after an extensive study of the brain
and its bizaITe shapes, that we are absolutely incapable of making sense
of it all. His opinion is certainly not due to any paralyzing timidity, which
never aff~cts the mind of the true scientist; it is based, rather, on the conviction of a conscientious observer. "In the brain," writes Huschke, "we
find mountains and val1eys, bridges and aqueducts, pillars and vaults,
feITules and crockets, tendrils and ammonites, trees and germs, lyres and '
ropes, and countless other shapes. No one has ever been able to tell what
these singular shapes mean." 14
Science has continued its forward march since these words were
written thirty years ago. The great problem of the con-elation between
the brain and thought has not ceased to preoccupy the human mind,
which has become ever more anxious to know its own source. Scientists
have developed a number of theories about it, and serious discoveries
have verified some. For example, according to Broca, Longet, and
Vulpian, the nerve fibers which make up the white substance of the brain
play the simple role of conductors in the cerebration process. They only
connect the different parts of the brain, and their functions seem to vary
depending on the particular points they link. The gray matter, on the
other hand, plays the principal role; its function has to do with understanding an_d the exercise of the will, activities which take place in the
160
two cerebral hemispheres. The most important sites of cerebral activity,

such as those pertaining to intelligence, will, sensibility, and movement,
are located there. It is thought that the cerebral convolutions forme~ by
the folds of the cortical layer, which augment its surface, have a direct
correlation with highly developed faculties.
These are some of the opinions and conclusions debated among phy~
iologists and suppoi1ed or challenged by phi.losopher~. Philosophe:s m
particular are quite vocal about the subject, ':1th oppos1~g school.s vigorously dashing with one another. Above the dmt of cla~hmg d~ctnnes, we
hear from time to time loud objurgations in the name of all that 1s transcendent, that is sacred, among things human. While some want to ~easure
everything and to reduce the most abstract notions to purely expenmental
truths, others protest in the name of the ideal, a sweet and ft~gran~ flower
which can only wilt under the heat of burners or on contact w~th acids. But
laboratories do work, while the beyond is still out of reach. S1l~ntly ~ursu
ing their quest, the pale-faced scienti~ts simp~y ignore th~ beatific philoso.
phers. Still, we remain before the brain as before the ~phmP..
We must proclaim loudly the merit of some d1s~ovenes .made this
century as a result of the practical study of the _brain .. ln this respe.ct,
Broca and C\aude Bernard deserve high praise for thelf works, which
have verified the theory of cerebral localizations, a theory so doggedly
fought against by Flourens. Still, their confirmation of the.the?ry has ce~
tainly not been embraced as indisputable truth by ~l\ sc1ent1fic authonf es Among the doubters, a veteran of French science and one of ~he
competent physiologists stands out. This is. h.ow
Vul_pian .
expressed himself recently at the Faculty of Med1cme o.t Pans: As far as
l am concerned, the truth of this theory has not been ngorously demon- .
t. t d ,,15 What we know weighs so \ittle next to what we do not kno\.V
should be humbled at the mere thought.of it. We have r_eached
the threshold ot the \last multi-chambered ed1~ce of .the bram. w_e s"
"1 "en"e rather how b\o how ornate 1\.s \lanous compa1tme
we \lagu e\ ; "'
t:"
.
-
"A
are but at the same time they seem to us d1m and fa1 away.
P
clo:mts intus et atria longa patescimt."
.
More than thiity years after Huschke, science dares ~ot vou
the final result of ongoing investigations into what goes ~nm the b.
produce volition, intelligence, .and all the highe~ f~culues. that m;
his phys1~al e~~:
man such an incomparable being, regardless
"We have only begun our investigations," wn~es Dr. Ferner,: . a
may well wonder whether it is tim~ yet to offer an explanat10n ~
mechanism and functions of the brain. The opportune moment to
~o~t
P:ofe~so;,
~~:t ~~
b:~
'
'
?t
161
seems, to some serious minds, more remote than ever." 16 We should perhaps soften the learned physiologist's conclusion and move away from
this profound discouragement which seems to have stricken a man who
has studied long and hard only to find that his research led to no hard
conclusions. Nothing is more antithetical to the scientific spirit than the
absolute rigidity of the word "never". We should always avoid using this
word when we make predictions respecting problems whose solution lies
in the future, unless of course we are dealing with eternal trut~s such as
mathematical laws which have been sufficiently verified by the discursive method. But while eschewing excessive scepticism, we must note
that the current state of science does not allow us to conclude, by simply
looking at the brain, that a particular individual was more intelligent than
another. It is with serious reservation that we must receive everything
that has been said or done in this vein. Needless to say, we have even less
ground for inferring, from the physical appearance or the weight of an individual, that a particular race is superior to another.
Psychical physiology, which is only now barely entering the positivist period, tends more and more not to consider the weight and volume
of the brain as signs of some superior activity. Studies of the encephalon
have shown early that the size of the organ is not a very reliable predictor
. of its energy. By logical induction, scientists have even discovered that the
richness and complexity of the brain's circumvolutions constitute a better
,diagnostic indicator of the relationship between the brain and intelligence. In the initial phase of research, which consisted only in the description of their shapes, it was generally believed that the location of
paiticular aptitudes could be identified and their degree determined
merely by reading the circumvolutions of the brain. Later, as science al'00 cways progresses, scientists finally guessed that those circumvolutions coi~qided with a well-developed intelligence only because the folds are all
" 11y~red with a gray substance, the cortical substance. Indeed, the phe,_ena of innervation, which are extremely active in this tissue, translate
'"~ensibility, motor coordination, intelJigence, and volition. It ensues
prain with a relatively small diameter may be covered with a sizable
flayer because of its multiple circumvolutions. There lies a possilgtt:i~tio for the often observed instance of a small-headed individ.re~t intelligence, or of a great brain of less than average size.
~more.we study the problem, the more we realize its complexity.
~~ts have discovered in the cortical substance a complicated web
:~: and nerve fibers. The ce11s belong more paiticularly to the gray
7i()r cortical substance. As for tbe fibers, which seem designed to
162
transmit outside stimuli to the b1'ain, they link the gray matter and the white
matter, acting as conductors. All intellective and. volitional energies manifest themselves exclusively in the nerve cells. Thus the sensitive nerve receives a stimulus from the outside or from the organism and transmits it to
the brain in the form of a sensation; the sensation is then transformed into
perception in the nerve cell; finally, the brain c~ordin~tes the ~ccumulated
perceptions and translates them into thought or 1~to w1ll~d actl~ns.
As we explained earlier, the gray matter differs h1stolog1cally from
the white substance by the arrangement of its nerve elements. But what
especially distinguishes it at first glance is it~ ~-eddish gray ti~t, n_ot a
sharp juxtaposition of colors, but a gradual sh1ftmg and darkenmg from
the inside to the outside. This particular coloring is due to a vascular density that is much greater than in the white substance. In a way, blood, the
vital agent par excellence, is now recognized as well as the source not
only of physical energy but also o_f intellectual and moral energy.
These are facts observed by science and verified by the most elegant
experiments carried out in both Germany and Franc.e:"!But .do w_e h~ve
here a sure way of identifying specific traits of the bram that mfalhbly ~n
dicate a great intelligence? The greatest physiologists, whose magnificent works honor this century, retreat and declare themselves unable to
formulate such an important conclusion.
Scientists believed at one point they would be able to proceed by
. simple deduction. Since the cortical substance of the brain is w~ere all
the mind's higher activities originate, the thicker the gray layer ts, the~
thought, the greater the individual's intelligence must be. But experiments conducted by Longet and other eminent physiologists soon
proved, once again, how circumspect and restrained we must show ourselves, how wary we must be of reckless generalizations in the natl_tral
sciences, particularly the biological sciences, fields of study the subject
of which, life, still does not have a workable definition.
So physiology has declined the honor of determining the degree of intelligence through either a full or a partial examination of the brain. "It is
not only the quantity, but also the quality of the tissue as well as the interaction of each element that detennine the level of the. intellectual faculties,"
w1ites one physiologist. 17 The scientist's words are clear and easy to interpret. The question is, in the current state of science is ~t possible ~t all to
identify the qualities of the cerebral tissue? The answer is no. We will have
to wait a long time perhaps for the scientific developments that will verify
all those propositions which now seem to be regarded as proven truths.
This brief survey of current issues in brain research and of developments iri this field of knowledge should be enough to enable readers to
163
examine conscientiously the deductions which anthropologists make on

the basis of the arbitrary methods they use in the comparative study of
the human races. It must be pointed out that the most neglected sector of
the field of anthropology is precisely the one concerned with establishing
the differences in intellectual aptitudes among the different human races.
Again, we should never tire of asking, on what scientific ground if not
undeniably gross empiricism do we decide that some races are inferior to
others? The more we look into the motives of such incon;equence, the
more we tend to think that they are totally alien to science. We will study
these later. Meanwhile, we will examine the results of the only experiment devised by anthropologists to compare the cerebral aptitudes of the
different human races, the weighing of the brain.
5. WEIGHT OF THE ENCEPHALON

IN THE DIFFERENT RACES
The following list of brain weights is taken from Topinard's book. It contains data for several varieties of the human species; hence its convenience for studying how brain weights vary from one race to another. The
scholar presents these figures with some reservation. "What makes the
weight of the brain in the different races an unreliable basis of comparison," he writes, "is the fact that, regardless of their orientation and physiological manifestations, both the primary and the secondary levels of
intelligence, indeed cerebral activity, vary among individuals in such an
unpredictable way and are linked to so many external circumstances." 18
In the following list, each entry contains the name of the anthropologist
who did the weighing:
'
105 Englishmen and Scots (Peacock)
1327 grams
28 Frenchmen (Parchappe)
1334
40 Germans (Huschke)
1382
18 Germans (Wagner)
1392
50 Austrians (Weisbach)
1342
1 Annamite (Broca)
1233
7 African Negroes (Various scientists)
1238
8 African Negroes (Broca)
1289
l Pondichery Black (Broca)
1330
I Hottentot (Wyman)
1417
I Cape Negro (Broca)
974
164
I have not included any figures for female brains, judging them useless
here. I should point out, however, that the weight of the brain of African
Negresses recorded by Peacock ( 1232 grams) is greater than the weight
of the brain of French women recorded by Parchappe ( 1210).
What this chart makes clear is that there exists no consistent coJTelation between brain weig.ht and ethnic differences. The weight of the brain
of Wyman's Hottentot attracts attention at first glance. In recording it,
Topinard makes the following comments: "This exceptional weight for a
Negro brain is exceeded by the weight of one of the Negro brains
recorded by Broca, 1500 grams. This is a case where we might wel1 wonder whether the free Negro, living in a European milieu, does not have a
brain that is heavier than it would be had he remained in his forests, away
from stronger intellectual stimulations" (No reference). These are remarkable words, coming from the lips of the illustrious Broca's favorite
disciple. Reflecting on their logical implication, the learned author of
L 'Anthropologie should have found in them the formal condemnation of
the system which divides the human groups into supetior and inferior
races. But for adherents of a school of thought, it is decreed that in anthropology one should never mind logic.
It must be pointed out, furthermore, that Wagner, in Germany, and
Sandifort B. Hunt, in the United States, have found a maximum brain
weight of 1507 grams among the African Negroes. Mascagny has even
recorded a brain weight of 15.87 grams. According to Broca, the minimum brain weight among White Europeans is as low as l I 33 grams, and
some are even lower than this: Although the connection between brain
weight and cerebration should not be overestimated, these facts still are
worth noting.
Another, somewhat curious, list is the one prepared by Sandifort B.
Hunt. 19 On this chart, the different human groups are divided into pure
Whites, mitis of varying degreesof mixing, and pure Negroes:
24 Whites
1424 grams
23 Three-quarter White Metis
1390
47 Half-White Metis or Mulattoes
1334
5 LOne-Quarter White Metis
1319
95 One-Eighth While Metis
1308
22 One-Sixteenth White Metis
1280
141 Pure Negroes
1331
165
If we were to take these figures as the precise expression of the facts,

Whites would come on top of the hierarchy, Quarterons would follow,
Mulattoes would not be more intelligent than Negroes, and such intermediate hybrids as Cafres, Griffes, and Sacatras, would definitely be inferior
to pure Negroes. Topinard makes the following comments: "Does it not
seem that when White blood predominates in a metis, it exercises a positive effect on cerebral development? Inversely, does it not seem that the
predominance of Negro blood in a metis results in a brain iQferior even to
that of the pure Negro? Which suggests that mixed-bloods are more likely
to absorb the bad more easily than they do the good" (No reference).
Without the speculative tone of the last sentence, one might think
this statement was signed by de Gobineau. But Topinard, wise and circumspect, is rarely caught off guard. When we discuss metissage, we
will see what others think about the subject and what the reality is.
Before I conclude this comparative study of the brain in the different
human races, I want to quote some comments made by Broca, which corroborate wonderfully everything we have read thus far. "No one claims,"
says Broca, "the existence of a direct and absolute link between the development of intelligence and the volume or weight of the encephalon.
For my part, I have protested strongly against such an absurdity. I had
even written down in advance this part of my lecture in order to express
n:'Y vie':~ in terms ~o categorical as to eliminate any ambiguity and possible mismterpretat10n. I ended my presentation with the following sentence, which I beg your leave to reread to you: No intelligent man would
ever think of measuring intelligence by measuring the encephalon."20
The master has expressed his opinion clearly. Added to everything
pr~sented in this section, it reinforces the idea that, pending indisputable
evidence, the encephalon does not weigh very much as a basis of comparison of the intellectual abilities of the various ethnic groups. But even
supposing that th~ brain had all the importance some anthropologists
wish to grant it, weighing data in no way prove that a Caucasian's brain
is consistently superior to an Ethiopian's. Here again, the conclusion is
antithetical to any classification system which tends to divide the races
intro superior and inferior ones.
6. DIFFICULTIES IN CLASSIFYING APTITUDES

T~e advocat~s of racial ranking have lost their footing in the biological
sciences, which are the proper dom;;iin of anthropology as it is understood and practiced consistently with Broca's thought and methods. I
166
know that they will now hurr.y and move on to the historical and speculative sciences in order to prove that Blacks have never been able to attain
the same high level of mental development as Whites. They will no doubt
seize on this objection to infer the intellectual inferiority of the Black
man. We shall see later that the Intellectual history of the nations proves
indisputably that no single race holds the monopoly of fully developed
intellectual abilities. lnstead, the different groups that make up humanity
pass on the torch of science to one another over the centuries. The light
of science shines with increasing intensity, its rays seeming to dim in
some centuries only to burst forth again to dazzle our eyes.
We can already ask the question. Have scholars studied the science
of the mind, noology, in sufficient depth to be able to classify methodically the different manifestations of intelligence and rank them hierarchically with any certainty? Where will we find the rules for such a
classification? At the beginning of this book I named several scientists
and philosophers who had attempted to devise a scientific classification
of the fields of human knowledge. These they ranked, nwe or less regularly, from the sciences involving deductive generalization to the more
complex sciences involving inductive specialization and requiring methodical experimentation before reaching any conclusion. I did not go
into the details of the issue, one reason being that there is little consensus
around this ranking of the sciences. One science considered superior by a
scientist will be ranked lower by a philosopher or another scientist. It is
all very arbitrary.
Anthropologists ignore this contradiction, believing that they have
resolved every difficulty when they have measured a cranial capacity or a
facial angle. Yet it is precisely this contradiction that makes impractical
any systematic ranking of the fields of human knowledge. Lacking such
a ranking system, can we decide that one particular operation of the mind
is inferior to another? I do not think we can. As long as this particular
point has not been clarified, any exercise of the mind is comparable to
any other, as long as it carries the mark of originality and superiority.
Thus a well written and performed song will be worth as much as the
most elegant law pertaining to the equilibrium of the natural or social
forces. On what basis, then, shall we compare intellectual endeavors?
Since I must choose among different opinions, I shall choose, as the
basis for the comparative ranking of the different scientific fields, Auguste Comte's classification system. Comte is the founder of positivist
philosophy, a school of thought which I embrace totally. According to
the great positivist, the tree of science grows gradually, developing in the
167
following order: the first foundation is the field of pure mathematics,

which are only instruments the mind uses in the quest for the truth; then
come the fields of mechanics and astronomy, physics, chemistry, the biological sciences, and sociology. After exploring in depth these different
disciplines, we gain a through mastery of all fields of knowledge, a perfect understanding of nature, with the ability to distinguish the principles
of harmony or association from the causes of discordance or dissociation. Thus reduced to a synthesis of all notions and concepts, a healthy
philosophy consists in following the laws of nature as we contribute intelligently to reinforcing the harmony of all elements, human beings,
and things, on the immense expanse of our planet. This need for harmony
underlies the altruistic sentiments which make of humanity a concrete
entity whose interdependent parts act, work, and progress toward a common destiny.
As a moral philosophy, Auguste Comte's ideas have been abundantly debated, which has not impeded their rapid spread in any way. But
as a basis of classification of the sciences, they have never had any serious competition. Herbert Spencer, the thinker best qualified to challenge
Comte from another point of view, has not been very successful in devising a satisfactory classification system. Later, in one of his most remarkable works, he felt compelled to give unrestrained praise to the acute
sagacity of the great positivist. 21
We may then use Comte's ranking system confidently to compare
the different fields of knowledge and their relative value. In so doing, we
easily dispose of the pretentious claims regarding the intellectual superiority of Whites on the ground of their proven aptitudes for higher mathematics and the supposed lack of such aptitudes in Blacks. Indeed, if
Europeans excelled only in mathematics, their merit would not be extraordinary. This branch of science, which borrows from its use in advanced
astronomy the great prestige it enjoys with the public, has none of that
excellence attributed to it by laymen. Astronomy, which uses mathematics in its higher applications, is truly an admirable science. However, it
owes its high status only to its association with other, more complex, sciences such as physics and mechanics, without which the mere theory of
numbers would remain in the realm of vague abstraction.
The. mind proves its mettle, the intellect shows its vigor, in the experimental sciences and the sciences of observation, in which man examines natural phenomena and strives to discover the laws that govern
them. It is also in these fields that the individual reveals his understanding, which is the true indication of a person's intellectual aptitude.
168
How difficult are mathematics, when they are taught gradually?

How complex are their methods? To handle mathemati~s ?n~ needs not
exceptional intellectual faculties but a certain mental .d1sc1plme tha~ enables one to learn and apply formulas and theorems m all calculations.
Monge, Laplace, Arago, and Leverrier are men high above the common
run of men. But even though their mathematical brilliance was enhanced
by their mastery of other fields, we must admit that many scientis~s.' w~o
are not mathematicians, enjoy a higher status and greater recogn~t10~ m
the intellectual fields. It is certain that the discoveries of such sc1ent1sts
as Cuvier, Lavoisier, Berzelius, or Claude Bernard have an infinit~ly
greater importance for the general progress of hu.manity th~n anythrng .
that could ever be obtained from mathematics. I will be the first to agree
that, in order to become a good mathematician, one must have certain. i~
tellectual habits which not everyone cultivates or can cultivate. But is it
any different for the more complex sciences? The answer i.s no. So why
should we consider the aptitude for calculation a natural,:-gn of the or.
ganic superiority of the brain?
Besides the honor of having invented the science of numbers and
surface mea~urement does not belong to the White race. The origin of
mathematics goes back to Black Egypt, the land of t~e Pharaohs: All the
scientists who researched the history of the exact sciences unan_1mously
recognize the Egyptians as the inventors of geometry. 22 More t~an three
thousand years before the Christian era, when the European nations w~re
still in a barbarous state, the Hamites who lived on the shores of the Nile_
had already been doing geometric computations, calculating the area of
different types of surfaces. On the Khind papyrus in the British ~useum
in London, for example, researchers have deciphered practical geome~ry
problems involving the triangle, the circJe, the trapezoid, and other hgures. According to Dr. Samuel Birch, one of the greatest known J;.gyptologists, the original of this papyrus, which is a copy, goes back 3300 years
before Christ.
Plato and Diogenes Laerces both recognize that arithmetic too originated in Egypt, which is quite logical, given that arithmetic cal~ulations
are indispensable in the solution of geometric pr~blems. As with. many
other things, Greece, the first White Western nation to have attained a
considerable level of civilization, indisputably owes to Egypt the first notions of mathematics. She would of course perfect these notions as part
of the continuing evolution of science, an evolution which would reach
its positivist phase much later.
The first Greek scientist to have concerned himself with mathernat-
169
ics with some brilliance was Thales of Miletus; he had acquired most of
his knowledge in Egypt. In the sixth century, before the decline of her
culture, Greece produced, for her greater glory, Pythagoras, who showed
the most brilliant aptitudes for the sciences. We owe him the discovery of
several properties of numbers, the proof of the value of the square of the
hypotenuse, and several other theorems. But are we not justified to ask
whether he had achieved all this on his own, or simply transmitted to us
the notions he had learned from the Egyptian priests, especjally as he
studied in their college in Thebes and lived in their country for twenty
years? Plato, who practiced mathematics with great success and who is
mainly responsible for giving them the prestige they continue to enjoy,
was not satisfied with studying with the Pythagoreans; he went to Egypt,
to the very source of the light.
There are two reasons why the ancient Egyptians have not received
all the credit they deserve for their achievements in this sphere as they
, have fonheir contributions in other fields. The first reason is that they
had a language with a rather sophisticated grammar but also with a writing system that was so complicated and so difficult that scientific and literary. documents in the language remained incomprehensible for
centuries. We may assume that during all the long period when the meaning of the hieroglyphs remained obscure, as mysterious as the Sphinx in
this mysterious Egypt, most of these documents disappeared forever
along with the secrets they contained. Others, still buried in the black soil
of black Kemet will certainly be found some day. We shall not be surprised that these documents confound many theories.
The second reason why Egyptian achievements in mathematics have
not been recognized, one which worsens the effects of the first, is the ex-'
clusionary mindset of the priests, the principal depositories of science.
They made a mystery out of all their scientific acquisitions and taught
them only in a restricted milieu, to a small number of pupils, training a
closed elite who would have the total monopoly of the esoteri~ doctrine.
Nevertheless, Egypt was considered the fount of science, so much so
that it was in Alexandria that the Greeks went to develop their aptitudes
for mathematics, producing such famous figures as Euclid, Archimedes,
Appollonius of Perga, and so many other bright stars in the Alexandrian
Pleiades. Now that the human mind has entered.a mature stage, as indicated by the conscientiously critical approach to phenomena that has become the norm, we wonder whether it is not possible that unknown
scientists of the ancient Egyptian race helped to light the first sparks of
science in the immortal city founded by Alexander the Great. Whether
170
the answer is affirmative or not, it remains a fact of history that the Black
race of Egypt was the first to cultivate the abstract notions of arithmetic
and to formulate the first calculations. Perfected over time, these would
lead to the great modern theories with which are associated such brilliant
names as those of Descartes, Newton, Pascal, Leibniz, Euler, Bernouilli,
Gauss, and other equally remarkable scientists.
I said earlier that Plato was the man most responsible for fostering
our view of mathematics as an incomparable science. Indeed, the leader
of the Academy attached such impmtance to the science of numbers and
surface that he considered it the most obvious sign and the best proof of a
cultured and distinguished mind. We are told that, in a moment of enthusiasm, he had inscribed on the doo~ of his school, "Let no one enter who
is not a geometrist." 23 Pushing the Pythagorean idea to a dogmatic extreme, he professed that music, geometry, and astronomy weere "handles
of philosophy." Finally, he believed the best definition of God he could
find was the phrase "eternal geometrist." 24
When we remember the influence Plato;s ideas Ji11PVe had in the
intel1ectual history of the West, we understand easily the sort of cult that
has been built and still exists around mathematics. But our century has
made enough progress to dispense us from blindly embracing the errors
of the past.
If we remember Plato, we can never forget Aristotle. And this is further proof that mathematics, on the hierarchical scale of human knowledge, do not have all the importance that is usually attached to them. The
proof that the knowledge of mathematics is not the exclusive sign of
great intellectual abilities, is that the great Stagirite, the liveliest and best
organized mind we are likely ever to encounter, was never able to become a good mathematician. I, for one, understand very well that a brain
as active and fecund as Aristotle's was would be bored by those formulas
which imprison the mind in the cage of the intellectual discipline so necessary in a good mathematician. Aristotle's example should help put in
perspective a proposition which people have repeated for so long without
taking the trouble of verifying it.
Does this mean that mathematics is without merit, without value in
the scientific sphere? Such an assertion would be absurd. I believe precisely the opposite, so much so that, embracing the ideas of the great Auguste Comte, I consider the study of mathematics as indispensable for
preparing the mind to tackle more difficult and complex exercises. What
I affirm is this: we cannot continue to make of mathematics the summum
of all human knowledge without condemning ourselves to remaining
171
captive to the metaphysical doctrines that have too long subjugated the
human mind, from Plato to Hegel.
NOTES
1
2
3
4
De Gobineau, Del 'inegalite des races humaines, p. 35.

Beauregard, Des divinites egyptiennes.
British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1868.
Das Hirn des Negers mit dem des Europaers und Orang-Outangs vergle-
ichen.
5
Cesar Cantu, Histoire universe/le.

"Dei caratteri gerarchia de! cranio umano," in Archivas del! antropo/ogia
e la etnologia (Florence: 1875 ).
7
See chapter V, of this book.
8
See Topinard, L'anthropologie, p. 251.
9
Broca, loco citato, Vol. 4, p. 676.
10
Broca, lbidem, p. 680.
11
Topinard, loco citato, p.296.
12
Claude Bernard, La Science experimentale.
13
Cams Sterne, Se.vn und Werden.
14
Huschke, Shade!, Hirn, Seele des Menschen und der Thie1-e (Jena, 1854).
15
Vulpian, "Les localisations cerebrales," in Revue Scientifique 1S (11
April 1885).
16
Dr. David Ferrier, The Functions of the Brain (London, l 877).
17
Valentin, Traite de physiologie.
18
19
"The Negro as a Soldier," cited by Topinard in L'Anthropo/ogie, p. 321:
20
See Topinard, "Le poids de J'encephale," in Memoires de la Societe
d'Anthropologie de Paris (2e serie, Vol. 3), p. 29.
21
See Herbert Spencer, De {'education physique, intellectue!le et morale.
22
See especially Bretschneider, Die geometrie und die geometer 1011 Euclides (Leipzig, 1870).
23
Greek quotation. (Cf. Jean Tzetzes, Chiliades, VIII).
24
Greek quotation. Plato, Timaeus.
6
202
CHAPTERS
Metissage and Equality

of the Races
Videntesfilii Deifilias hominum

quod essent pulchrae, acceptanmt
sibi uxores ex omnibus quas
elegerant . ..
(Genesis, VI, 2, 4)
If she be black, and thereto have an evil,
She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit.
(Shakespeare)
1. STUDIES OF METISSAGE FROM THE POINT

OF VIEW OF THE EQUALITY OF THE RACES
The preceding comments on the physical beauty of the mulatto type naturally leads to the topic of metissage and equality of the races. This is
perhaps the most important part of this study. Here the truth will emerge
so convincingly that those who divide humanity into inferior and superior races will surrender to the evidence and abandon this false notion
which has caused so much harm to so many people.
We saw earlier how the polygenists, so eager to separate the human
races that they consider them distinct species, went so far as to deny eugenics, that is, the absolute fecundity of the hybrid offspring of Black
and White. When they could not ignore the physical evidence of hybridization, they shifted the debate to another ground, injecting into it an
element that was more difficult to appreciate. By asserting that the rnetis
203
204
is inferior to the two original races in strength, morality, and intelligence,

they implicitly admitted that the mulatto constitutes in a way a case of
teratology. Theoretically indeed, the only explanation for intellectual and
moral inferiority is the an-ested development of the brain, which renders
it incapable of completing the cerebration process accompanying all
manifestations of the mind's higher faculties and coordinating all the
heait's impulses.
The less educated public quickly embraced the scientists' opinion
that the human races degenerate through hybridization. Such is the position argued by Monsieur de Gobineau with such complacent verbosity in
his famous work, Inequality of the Races. Nevertheless, the truth somehow meanders its way to the light. Both monogenists and polygenists
had adopted the theory of inequality of the races, but before long they
understood that admitting that the metis was always an inferior and degenerate being was equivalent to arguing against the unity of the human
species. The obligation to defend their doctrine put th~ on the way to
Damas. Without hesitation, then, they soon opined that the mulatto offspring of White and Black parents is as intelligent as the former and as
vigorous as the latter. De Quatrefages, the most prominent among the
monogenists, has propounded this particular thesis with a consistency
equal only to his immense talent. He submitted all sorts of evidence and
conducted kinds of research to deprive his adversaries of their last argument. "Finally," he writes, "talking about the mulattoes of his country,
Torres Caicedo cited various orators, poets, publicists, and a vice-president of New Grenada who happens to be a distinguished writer as
wel1 ... This should be sufficient evidence, I believe, that under normal
conditions the meris of the Negro and the European justifies the following comment made by the veteran traveler Thevenot, 'The mulatto can
do everything the White man can do; his intelligence is equal to ours'"
(No reference).
But to acknowledge the intellectual equality of mulattoes and Whites
is inevitably to admit the equality of Blacks and Whites. Indeed, if the two
races had any innately different intellectual abilities, it would be impossible to understand how the mulatto is endowed, not with an average intelligence but, to the contrary, with an intelligence equal to that of the
supposedly superior genitor. So most anthropologists simply refuse to
recognize the intellectual equality of the mulatto and the White man, an
equality so positively proclaimed by the author of L'Espece hwnaine.
Topinard believes that the hybrid offspring of the two races will be
superior if the two parent races are themselves superior; mediocre, if one
205
of the two original races is superior and the other is inferior; inferior, if
the two parent races are inferior. To those who believe in the inequality of
the races, there could not by any more logical opinion: it is as precise as a
mathematical truth. One wonders, however, whether the biological and
social sciences could accommodate themselves with such simple laws. I
certainly would not swear to it. Yet, Clemence Royer seems to harbor the
same opinion. This is what she says on the subject: "In cases of 111.etissage between exceptional hybrids of inferior races, such as'Alexandre
Dumas, and individuals of superior races, the results will probably be favorable to a degree. Alexandre Dumas himself, I admit, is actually a remarkable product of metissage. We all recognize, however, that
Alexandre Dumas was a maladjusted individual, or at least an abnormal
one. He was an exceptional being, a very strange man, certainly with a
fertile imagination and an intelligence that was superior in many respects
but also inferior in many others. His entire life, Dumas would remain an
old child, full of juvenile verve but unreasonable and incapable of accepting any rule but that of his powerful eccentric impulses. He was a
very gifted White Negro, but morally he was a Negro. He was an extraordinary creature, one who had the characteristics of the hybrid rather than
those of the metis. Such an exceptional phenomenon could not be made
into a general rule. One wonders what a nation made of people like
Alexandre Dumas, or even like Alexandre Dumasfils, would be like." 1
Dogmatic thinking will push some people to many an extreme position. It is really strange to have such a learned woman attribute to the degeneration of White blood in the veins of the immortal novelist and poet
those impulses which are characteristic of all extraordinary personalities.
Before and after Seneca, it has often been said that "every great mind has'
a touch of madness," "Nihil est ingenium magnum sine aliqua mixtura
dementiae." Would Clemence Royer, who herself is extraordinarily intelligent, be the only person to have forgotten such an old and popular
adage? Did not Byron and Musset manifest even more extreme neuroses
than Alexandre Dumas? Should not anthropology, if it is a coherent science at all, consider these men too Negroes in moral terms? At this rate,
on the basis of their psychological and moral profile alone, all celebrities
will be classified Negroes. In fact, it appears that if one is not a Negro,
one cannot achieve anything that is great, beautiful, sublime! But drawing such a conclusion would really be overshooting my thesis.
As untenable as the position of the polygenist school is, I find it
more logical in its deductions than de Quatrefages is. Among its adherents error is at least total. If they draw false conclusions, this is not due to
206
their reasoning but to their positing as their initial premise the innate ~nd
radical inequality of the human races, which is in their eyes a doctnnal
and primordial truth. Does De Quatrefages challenge thi,s notion o~ the
inequality of the races? Of course not. The illustrious pro~essor adm~ts to
the equality of mulattoes and Whites, but at the same t1~e he behev~s
firmly in the iITemediable inequality of Blacks and Caucas1~ns. How did
he fail to grasp the weakness of his theory once it was submitted to a logical examination?
Logic is indeed unforgiving to those who spurn it. The mean of 4 and,
2 shall never be 4; it shall always be 3. One may raise the virtual value of
the largest factor to any power, one shall never be able to establish an integral equation between the resulting mean and this factor, or e~se mathematics will cease to be mathematics. One will simply keep gomg from x
toy. Strangely enough, as the large number increases, the gap between it
and the mean also increases, and so does the gap between the mean and
the small number. Such a perspicacious mind as de QWitrefages' could.not
have missed the implications of these deductions. Embarrassed but wishing to rest his statements on rational foundations, he invented a specio~s
theory which has no other purpose than to mask th~ i~co?erence ~f h~s
opinions. This is how he tries to explain the contrad1ctton inherent m his
anthropological doctrine of the inequality of the races:
"The influence of each parent on the child has directly to do with the
parent's ethnic characteristics. This very simple ~onsider~tion, which
rests on the evidence of an entire array of facts, easily explains many results which puzzle physiologists and anthropologists. After attributing a
preponderant role to the mother, Nott claims to be surprised th~t the mulatto's level of intelligence is closer to the White father's. But is not th~
latter's intellect superior to the mother's? Is it not normal, then, that it
should prevail in heredity? ... Lislet Geoffroy, who is ph.ysicall~ a
Negro but wholly White by his character, intelligence, and aptitudes, ts a
striking illustration of this" (No reference).
However simple the explanation may appear to the learned anthropologist, he obviously positions himself outside the r~al~ of sc~ence and
chooses instead to hang onto a pure fantasy. How valid mdeed ts that socalled rule according to which the influence of each parent has directly to
do with the parent's ethnic characteristics? Is it not, rather, the statement
of some principle which remains to be proven? Is it not possible that its
sententious formulation, which is likely to impress an ordinary intellect,
has no other purpose than to hide its scientific inanity?
If ethnic characteristics refer, for example, to hair color and, to a cer-
207
tain extent, facial features, then one may certainly take them into account.
If the phrase refers to moral and intellectual traits, then it is anthropologically meaningless, considering that such traits are variable in the human
races. In any case, these traits are not so separate from the rest of an individual's being as to be transmissible independently in a process analogous
to the usual process of physiological paternal heredity. Besides, if de Quatrefages's theory was true, there would not be any mulatto with yellow
skin and curly hair, that is, with the characteristic traits of the rneris of
Black and White parents. Mulattoes would always have a black skin and
frizzy hair, like their mother; they would all have the gre_at intelligence
which alone their father possesses. But the truth is altogether different; the
reality is precisely the opposite. Metissage is a purely physiological phenomenon, nothing more. A mulatto's intelligence is not some special
virtue inherited from his father or mother; it is, rather, an hereditary attribute obtained from either parent, and its source is unpredictable.
As for the case of Lislet Geoffroy, that man who is supposedly a
Negro physically but a White man morally and intellectually, I humbly
confess that I have never been able to observe the phenomenon person-
ally. Monsieur de Quatrefages must really have been deeply convinced
of the truth of his anthropological doctrines to have proposed such a
"fact" as a serious argument. The first thought of a man who harbors less
prejudices regarding the innate abilities of Blacks, would be to wonder
whether Lislet Geoffroy's putative White father had passed on to his son
more than his name. In the eyes of the honorable scientist, however, a
highly intelligent Negro would be much more of an anomaly than the
black-complexioned and frizzy-haired mulatto offspring of a White
would be.
While this fact is not wholly impossible, it is highly improbable that
it will reoccur in identical cases. The mulatto offspring of a Black and a
White may have, instead of the usual reddish yellow complexion, a sufficiently dark skin to resemble a griffe (314 or even 4/5 Black) {editor and
translatm's note, griffe is a Haitian Creole term for a dark-skinned person with 'white', European features and hair}. His color, however, is always offset by the sharpness of his features and his hair, so that a
knowledgeable observer can tell the physiological distance between the
individual and either of the two parent races. Unexpected and jarring
characteristics of skin color, hair, and facial features occur usually only
in the offspring of parents who are themselves metis in varying degrees.
In the initial instance of hybridization, each parent's hereditary
physiological baggage intervenes in opposite directions but with equal
208
force, each modifying the other and producing an offspring with the average characteristics of the two parents. In the second instance, the
hereditary traits, already diffused and mixed, come into contact and combine in unpredictable ways. Thus the offspring of a pure White and a
pure Black will inherit traits in equal proportions from his mother and his
father. By contrast, the offspring of metis, that is, of genitors themselves
situated at varying distances from the original races, will have a more
mixed hereditary profile, assuming each parent's complexion and features in unexpected ways and unequal proportions.
To return to the specific phenomenon cited by de Quatrefages, it is
not certain at all that Lislet Geoffroy was a mulatto by his blood, no more
than he was one by his skin and his hair. The naturalist Bory de Saint-Vincent, who could distinguish a Negro from a mulatto and knew the Black
mathematician personally, refers to him as a true Negro. "As an example
of the high level of education which Ethiopians are capable of achieving,"
he writes, "I shall point out that, when I visited Isle-de-France, the wittiest
and most learned man I met in the colony was not a Whm man but the
Negro Lislet-Geoffroy, a correspondent of the old Academie des Sciences
and now our colleague at the Jnstitut. A skilled mathematician, long before the Revolution, lhrough sheer talent and despite his color Lislet-Geoffroy became a captain of the army corps of engineers." 2
If Bory de Saint-Vincent was a layman who mentioned this fact only
incidentally, we could very well think that he was using the word Negro
without making the distinction between a Black and a mulatto. But he is
a specialist; his work is purely scientific and he wrote the words I have
just quoted specifically as an argument to refute the notion of the inequality of the races. So there is every reason to believe that de Quatrefages erred.
We can conclude, therefore, that the mulatto is as intelligent as the
White man; however, he does not inherit his intellectual aptitudes solely
from his White parent, for intelligence is the common patrimony of the
entire human species.
To end the controversy raised by de Quatrefages's theory, I shall
quote the words of one the most remarkable men of color and the most engaging individual of his race in the United States. Frederick Douglass, one
of the most striking illustrations of the concept of equality of the human
races, could not remain unnoticed by the advocates of the theory of inequality. To explain his great intellectual abilities, they invoked the theory
of the author of L'Espece humaine. Here is how the honorable marshal of
Colombia responded to those people: "It is to her, to my noble mother, to
209
my slave mother, to my mother with her ebony complexion, and not to my

supposedly Anglo-Saxon genitor that I owe my aspirations and native
abilities, inalienable patrimony of the persecuted and scorned race." 3
This is the s01t of discourse intelligent mulattoes should oppose to
those who want them to scorn their mother so they can be scorned themselves. These words wipe from my heart a memory that has long saddened me. Alexis de Tocqueville makes the following comments in his
~De la Dernocratie en Amerique: "There are in the South of th~ Union
more mulattoes than in the North, but infinitely fewer than in any other
European colony. Mulattoes are very few in the United States; they have
no independent collective power, and in racial conflicts they usually side
with Whites. So in Europe, noblemen's lackeys side with the grands
seigneurs against the people" (No reference). And the great publicist
goes on to define the word lackey: "The word lackey was an extreme
ter,in which was used, when no others could be found, to represent
. human baseness. Under the old monarchy, to depict a vi le and degraded
being in one word, people used to say that he had the soul of a lackey"
(No reference).
Thanks to Douglass' vigorous protest, we will no longer see a lackey
in every mulatto in the United States.
2. METJS OFFSPRING OF A BLACK AND A MULATTO

The met~s offspring of a Black and a mulatto is the subject best suited for
our study of the question with which we are concerned in this book. If it
was true that intelligence was a product of White blood, would the portion inherited by the mulatto, which enables him to conquer ignorance,
be substantial enough for him to transmit some of it to his metis offspring
by the Black woman? Certainly not. The further removed from the White
type, the less satisfying the resulting hybrids would be. Such is the opinion of most scientists who support the notion of inequality of the races.
But these scientists do not only asse1t that a return to the Black race is
equivalent to a degeneration of the mulatto type whose physiological redemption had begun with the Whjte blood in their veins. They also insinuate that the offspring of the mulatto and the Black is necessarily inferior
to the mulatto and even to the Black, although the latter is considered the
lowest of humar:i types.
I have already cited the figures collected by Sandifort B. Hunt based
on wei"ghtings of the brains of Whites, Blacks, and various degrees of
metis. I will now simply quote Topinard 's words: "Do not these figures
210
seem to indicate that when White blood predominates in a metis, it exercises a determining action in favor of the development of the brain. Inversely, when Negro blood predominates, the brain is left in a state of
inferiority vis-a-vis even the pure Negro" (No reference).
Most anthropologists have actually embraced this idea expressed
here in a questioning form~ They repeat it at every opp011unity, as they
would some uncontestable truth. But let us examine the sociological significance of this idea. The mulatto aware of these terrible revelations of
anthropology would be justifiably afraid of getting invol~ed wit~ a
Black. A young man or woman would not be happy to enter mto a umon
the fruit of which is condemned to ineluctable inferiority. The brutal doctrine advises not only mulattoes against an alliance with Blacks, but it
also cautions Blacks against a union with mulattoes lest they procreate
offspring inferior to Blacks themselves, who have already been proclaimed the lowest among human beings.
Do we appreciate the import of such a curse? l~e Black man has
always been looked down upon by the White man, if the mul~tto has long
been considered a monstrous being, is not the griffe the ultimate scapegoat in all those theories inspired by prejudice which, never examined
nor challenged, have entered the mainstream of science? While so.me unconscious gesture occasionally makes one forget the syster:i~uc c~n
tempt suffered by the pure African, the less fortunate griffe still remains
the subject of White reprobation.
The first dramatic production of the greatest thinker of this century,
Victor Hugo, offers a striking example of this. Whatever the poet's personal genius, and precisely because of his personal genius, his ~ork always Teflects the spirit of his time. He is superior only when he knows
how to interpret this spirit while idealizing it. In Bug-Jargal, Victor Hug?
wanted to dramatize the psychological traits of each of the hu~an vaneties embodied by his characters. He shows the White man as a generous
being and the Black man as a poetically noble creature, but he depicts the
griffe as the most hideous character. The griffe Habibrah is a physicall~
ugly and deformed individual; morally, he is a grumpy, cowardly, env~
ous, and hateful person. This is the work of an adolescent author, but this
only serves to underscore the influence surrounding ideas must have had
on the enfant sublime and future master of French poetry.
The truth is, the griffe, no more than the mulatto, does not deserve
this reputation for cowardice and envious ignorance which Caucasian
prejudice has made him. In Haiti, where the experience of metissage occurs in every combination, spontaneously and naturally, we find as many
2]]
inte11igent and remarkably well educated among the griffes as we do

among the other varieties of the human species. Among the grzffes francs
(one quarter White), the cap res, and the sacatras, different combinations
of Black and White, there are personalities of the highest intellectual and
moral distinction.
In literature, I will cite first and foremost Demesvar Delorme, a
brown griffe, one of the most remarkable citizens of the young republic.
He stands out not only because of his uncontestable talents as a writer,
but also by his exceptional constancy as a man of letters, a constancy
which denotes a mind essentially open to every form of beauty and appreciates and revels in every form of beauty. Monsieur Delorme did not
complete his early education in Europe; he went there much later. This
fact deserves to be noted, for it proves that his fine mind did not need direct contact with Western civilization to develop all its marvelous aptitudes. These aptitudes are innate in him, for they flourish in every human
race in ttie course of its historical evolution.
Delorme has written several books, some more important than
others, depending on the taste and intellectual inclinations of readers.
After distinguishing himself in Haiti as an independent and liberal parliamentarian and as a sagacious and witty journalist, he published in
Brussels, in 1867, that is, during his first exile, a small book that was
highly praised for its elevated ideas and pure style. In this work Delorme
examined the political and practical value of the Monroe Doctrine, doing
in the process a rapid but conscientious study of American democracy.
No other writer has brought to this subject more clarity and a broader
philosophical appreciation.
,
Returning to Europe in 1869, Delorme courageously went back to
work. In 1870 he published Les theoriciens au pouvoir, a book that
would have known a real success had it been written by an already
known author or a prominent European political figure. The focus is a
simple question of history, but the fluid development of the thesis, the
skillful articulation of the different parts, the nuances and subtle allusions, the consistently elegant style, all these qualities make the book a
real literary master work. The useful and the pleasant have never been so
happily conjoined. Delicately introduced and wittily nan-ated episodes as
well as colorful and charming descriptions further contribute to the allure of this book which is concerned with what is essentially a rather ingrate theme. Often the traveler meanders through enchanted landscapes
where an exuberant nature, all perfumes and colors, seems to bloom only
to capture his glance, ravish his heart, and lift his spirit. He enjoys it all,.
212
but with a nonchalant indifference; he is soon tired by the very excess of

the sensations he experiences. But transport him to some arid desert,
where all he can hope for is desolation and boredom, how enchanted will
he be when he discovers along his path unexpected marvels wrought by
some a1tful hand! Dawdling along, oblivious to his painful feet, he will
arrive at his destination pleased with the journey.
After Les theoriciens au pouvoir, Delorme wrote Francesca, an historical novel difficult to categorize. Some find the plot somewhat loose
and the dramatic conflict insufficiently focused, wandering too often
away from the female protagonist, a beautiful Neapolitan whose character is neve1theless well rounded. The writer still dazzles with his skills as
a writer, but the artist is absolutely out of his depth. Delorme will later
publish another work, Les Damnes, a very long narrative which I cannot
analyze in this space.
.
Such varied creations place Delorme in the ranks of estabhshed
writers. Whatever critical evaluation one makes of his works, he remains
a fine man of letters, with all the minor defects ftlfl'd the marvelous qualities one finds in such men even in the most civilized milieus of Europe.
So I can only applaud the intellectual youth of my country when they pay
homage to Delorme and proclaim him the dean of Haitian letters. I ha~e
learned that our fine litterateur, with a truly remarkable perseverance, is
now preparing an important work on the history of art in the Netherlands.
I salute this much awaited tome with which Delorme, a fine synthesizer
and sensitive esthetc, will no doubt enrich our young and already flourishing literature.
Among our poets, I will mention another griffe, Paul Lochard, the
austere bard of our island who sings of the beauty of our colorful landscapes with their corn fields made golden by the tropical sun. Like Delorme, Lochard completed his education in Haiti. A man of broad and
serene spirit, Lochard puts poetry at the service of all the great ideas
which promote human progress. His poetry is the song of a conscience
which embraces every noble and beautiful idea and makes it shine like
some precious stone. He strives to apprehend the mysteries of destiny
and lift the veil of the unknown, as if he wanted, in a splendid dream, to
catch a glance of the divine radiance of the other world. His is the modernist poet's aspiration, in this our time when we experience all kinds of
curiosities mixed with all kinds of emotions.
Lo~hard's Chants du soir is a collection of poems with a chiseled,
precise, and fluid versification, a varied cadence, and son?rous rhyme~.
They are all dazzling creations, bright, modulated, but with a predom1-
213
nantly grave tone. They have an indefinable solemnity, which imparts to

them their indisputable originality. His soul has absorbed early the perfume of the Holy Scriptures. He has been touched equally by Moses and
Lamartine, by David and Milton, and he is no stranger to the literary currents of our time. So we read his works with pleasure, even though they
trigger in us very troubling emotions. They inspire in us a certain desire
for perfection, which we cannot reach but which nevertheless excites us
pleasantly, helping us to discover patches of blue in the gray expanse
mixed joy and sadness of existence.
Alcibiade Fleury-Battier, a very brown griffe, belonged in the same
intellectual family. Less correct than Lochard, he had a much more varied palette, a superior artistic intuition. He does not have, of course, that
elevated thought, that solemn attitude which turns the poet into a sort of
prophet and transforms Mount Parnassus with its limpid springs into a
thundering Mount Sinai. More human, more accessible than his emulator, Fleury-Battier writes sweet and harmonious songs, songs of the
heart. In a moment of poetic intoxication, many a soul drunken on ideals
will find in those songs accents that resonate with their own aspirations
and musical notes that harmonize with the. muffled notes escaping from
their oppressed chest.
One of the distinctive characteristics of Fleury-Battier's poetry is its
recurring thematic fascination with our beautiful tropical nature. Sous Les
Bambous will never be considered a classic. Besides a few well written
and sensitive poems, which stand out by the skillful versification, by the
graceful, fresh, and naive imagery, and by the fluid harmony of the
thoughts, most of the texts give an impression of haste. Still, young,Haitian lovers of the Muse will be inspired by many a theme in these songs
and will on many an occasion experience the sacred emotions known
only to poets and patriots.
This intelligent and engaging writer died quite young. Hard working, always reaching for per.fection, he would no doubt have developed
the qualities of a great poet. Neve1theless, Fleury-Battier's example
alone should suffice to prove that in no case does the Black race contribute to the lowering of the intellectual and moral level of the offspring
of Blacks and mulattoes. To the col)lrary, the rich Black sap flowing in
them contributes to their blossoming out as only it can, for the Black race
itself never fails to blossom every time it finds itself in the same circumstances that have favored the development of other human races.
Thales Manigat, of Cap-Haitien, is another young gr~ffe poet. He developed his talent on his own, working hard in quiet solitude. His work
214
impresses with the exquisite savoir faire characteristic of great writers.

The poems dazzle with their rich musicality, their harmonious and
sonorous rhymes, their skillfully chiseled modern form, their superbly
daring enjambements. Manigat exhibits the skills of the true artist for
whom words are inviting materials to be carved, chiseled, adorned with
arabesques, and turned into a jewel box in which an idea can shine.
Thales Manigat's works are still unpublished, except for a few occasional poems which appeared in the country's newspapers. I am taking
the liberty of publishing one of his poems here. It is neither his most
beautiful nor his best composition, but it was the only one I could readily
find. As it is, I still think it it worthy of the best anthologies.
Thales Manigat
La Havanaise
The Girl from Havana
Sur la mer azuree OU se mire 1' etoile

Sereine de la nuit,
Legere et confiante, une eclatante
voile
Se balance sans bruit:
C'est l'esquif de Juana, la belle havanaise
Au teint brun veloute;
Aux bras de son amant la senora tout
aise
Etale sa beaute.
The night star s~es on the azure sea

With a serene light.
Light and self-assured, a bright sailboat
Rocks noiselessly.
It is Juana's boat. The lovely senora
from Havana
With the velvety brown skin
Flaunts her beauty on the arm of her
lover.
Des saphirs
ason col brillent, une
basquine
Aux plus riches couleurs
Resserre elegamment sa taille svelte et
fine;
De Bejucal 4 Jes fleurs
Ornenl sa chevelure ondoyante et
soyeuse
Et des baisers ardents,
Venant s'epanouir sur sa Jevre rieuse,
Montrent ses blanches dents.
Dans la nature, tout \es invite a la joie,
Au plaisir chaste et pur:
Sapphires sparkle around her neck.

A richly colorful belt accents
The elegance of her lithe body
Flowers from Bejucal
Ornament her heavy silky hair.
Her smiling lips part,
Showing a flash of pearly teeth,
Under her lover's ardent kisses.
Everything in nature invites to joy,
To chaste and pure pleasure,
The sky unfurls its blue curtain
Spangled with golden flowers.
The whispering breeze blows softly,
Caressing the waves,

Le ciel qui dans l'ether impalpable
deploie
Son eventail d'azur
Parseme de fteurs d'or; la brise qui
soup ire,
En effteurant Jes ftots,
Et descend lentement sur la pl age
bruire
Ainsi que des grelots.
Sur le sein ingenu de Juanita s'incline
La tete de Carlo;
La querida nifia, sur une mandoline,
Chante un romancero.
Pleine d'emotion, sa voix claire et
vibrante
S'envole vers Jes cieux,
Tout son etre frissonne et son ame
tremblante
Brille dans ses grands yeux.
Ecoutant cette tendre et douce
me Jodie
S'egrenant dans la nuit
Comme un timbre de luth, de harpe
d'Eolie
Que Zephyr qui s'enfuit,
Racontant ses desirs aux fleurs, aux
pres, aux greves,
Fait vibrer toutjoyeux,
Carlo berce de joie et d'amour et de
reve,
Plonge son oeil aux cieux.
Mais la lune, irisant la frange d'un
nuage,
Se montre a I 'horizon
Et repand sa clarte sur l'Ocean
sauvage
Et le soyeux gazon:
Tout acoup, des beaux doigts de la
charmante fille
215
And then dashing swiftly over the
beach
With a bell-like tinkling sound.
Carlo rests his head
On Juanita's innocent breast,
While the querida niiia sings
A romancero and plays her
mandoline.'
Filled with emotion, her clear and
vibrant voice
Rises up to the sky
She shivers, and her shining eyes
Are windows onto her trembling soul.
The sweet and tender melody fills the
night,
Sounding like the accords of a lute,
Or of an aeolian harp
Which a fleeing Zephyr plucks
joyfully
While whispering his desires
To the flowers, the grass, and the
beach pebbles.
Satiated with joy, Jove, and dream,
Carlo looks up at the sky.
The moon rises over the horizon,
Trimming the clouds in the colors oi
the rainbow
And spreading its light over the wild
Ocean
And the silky grass.
Suddenly, the charming girl lets the
magic instrument
Slip from her beautiful fingers.
Her eyes sparkle;
She is enraptured.
"Such a peaceful night," she exclaims.
"Ah! Sublime nature!
I hear God's immense voice,
And his breath fills my heart
216
S'echappe !'instrument
Aux magiques accords, et son regard
petille
Plein de ravissement ...
"Nuit sereine, dit elle, 6 nature sublime!
''Yoix immense de Dieu
"Dont le souffle remplit mon coeur
devant I' ab1me
'"Des mers et du ciel bleu !
"L' oiseau dans la fon~t t' ahandonne sa
gamme,
"La brise, son soupir;
"La rose, ses parfums: moi, qui n'ai
qu'une 5.me,
"Que puis-je done t' offrir? ..."
"Juana, dit le jeune horn me, abaissant
sa paupiere
"Sur la joyeuse enfant,
"Ouvre ton coeur cam.lide et verse la
priere
"Ell' amour triomphant:
''Le flot doit murmurer, le feu donner
la ftamme,
"La rose parfumer,
"La brise respirer, et sans cesse la
femme
"Doit prier, doit aimer."
(Decemhre 1882)
As I behold the immensity of the sea

and the blue sky.
The bird in the forest gives you her
trills,
The breeze shares its caresses, and the
rose its perfume.
But I, who only have a soul,
What can I offer you?"
And the young man, looking down
At the beautiful child, says to her,
"Juana, open your innocent heart
And let prayer and triumphant love
ft.ow from it.
The stream must whisper,
The rose must give off its scents,
..
The breeze must blow,

And a woman must pray and love."
(December 1882)
217
It is not only in the field of literature that griffes show their intellectual
abilities. Among the many graduates of the Faculte de Paris now practicing medicine in Haiti, there are several individuals of this particular complexion. I will mention first and foremost Dr. Louis Audain, a skillful and
learned medical practitioner. He holds one of the most prominent posts at
the Beauvais hospital, and his practice attracts a growing clientele, which
is the best indication of his science and skills as a doctor. Beauvais is located less twenty miles from Paris, and the town does not lack for French
doctors. Everything seems to suggest, then, that if the bronzed disciple of
Aesculapius can practice his profession there, it is because he is considered at least as capable as any other physician. Heart and mind in the balance, Dr. Audain can sustain comparison with any man of any race.
Archimede Desert, another griffe, is also a graduate of the Paris
school of medicine. Younger and less experienced than Dr. Audain, he
,-has the same remarkable intelligence. He is currently the head of the
Port-au-Prince School of Medicine.
Besides these two truly superior individuals, I will also cite Dr.
Aubry. He too is a griffe and a gifted physician, but he completed all his
medical studies in Haiti. His talent is discreet, but his abilities honor his
profession. He has traveled several times to Europe, never failing to sojourn in Paris to catch up with the latest developments in medical science.
Monsieur Aubry is a chevalier de la Legion d'honneur. He was honored by France with this most prestigious and universally prized medal
as a result of a generous and noble action on his part. Around
1867-1868, a whole garrison of the French Navy was struck with yellow
fever in Haiti. Tireless, without any thought of danger to himself and,
with unflagging devotion, Dr. Aubry cared for those desperately ill men.
His effotts were most successful, for every one of his patients survived
the ten-ible epidemic.
As for the field of jurisprudence, the Haitian judiciary has in its
ranks a great many griffes. Their great sagacity and their profound understanding of the law constitute a certain guarantee of justice and justify
the esteem enjoyed by our courts.
Among these Haitianjurists, I will mention Henri Durand, a former
Appeals Court judge. Independent and proud by nature, open minded, always on an intellectual quest, he is an honorable individual, incorruptible
but without arrogance, a fine character.
I will also cite Enoch Desert, a very brown griffe, with an almost
black complexion, who holds a doctorate in law from the Faculte de
Paris. He is a man of superior culture. He ha~ authored several books on
218
finance and political economy intended to clarify various issues pertaining to the financial and economic situation of the Haitian Re~uhlic. 5 His
country and his race justifiably expect still greater accomphshme.nts. of
him, further proof of what a man of his skin color is capable of ach1evmg
when he has had the privileged opp01tunity Lo frequent those European
temples of education, the most beautiful product of civilization an~, at
the same time, the surest guarantee of the superiority of those nations
who do possess them.
.
.
Dalbemar Jean-Joseph, a former Minister of Justice, 1s one of the
most remarkable lawyers now practicing in Haiti. A man of subtle and
lucid intellect, an admirably gifted individual, he is bo~h a skillful writer
and a very talented and insightful orator.
.
And then there is Monsieur Magny, a former deputy and senator of
the Republic of Haiti, a truly superior individual. A man of Roman honesty and great erudition, his modesty, dignity, and urbaneness make of
him an outstanding personality who would be remarkableiPywhere.
I will also mention Eluspha Laporte, a consummate musician and fine
instrumentalist. His early death deprived the arts of a first-rate virtuoso.
The superb compositions he left behind will no doubt be collected ~nd
published some day, that is, when Haitians finally u~derstan.d the obhgation to collect everything produced in the aits, the sciences, literature, and
industry, by the country's citizens, in order to show the whole world w~at
the children of Africa can achieve when they are free and have access, hke
other civilized peoples, to the invigorating fountains of knowledge.
Finally, I will mention this young Haitian, Emmanuel Chancy, a
brown griffe like the others, a young man of impressive intelligenc~. A
modest but indefatigable worker, he has recently joined the ranks of our
young republic's writers with his publication of a very seri~u~ to~e on ~h.e
Independence of Haiti, an insightful and learned work of historical criticism. I hope this will not be his only book on the subject, for these so1ts of
works are essential for a fuller understanding of our national history.
This is quite a list of names. Is it not enough, though, to keep the incorrigible naysayers from continuing to doubt the moral and intellectual
aptitudes of the offspring of a mulatto and a Black? I will now clos~ the
list with a few comments about one more Haitian griffe, a man with a
powerful personality, who would stand out by his character a~d talents in
any nation in which he would happen to be born. I am refernng to Monsieur Edmond Paul.
This truly remarkable man completed_ his education in Paris, like
most wealthy Haitians. One of his distinctive traits is his constant preoc-
219
cupation with the glorification and regeneration of the Black race, his
race. Unlike so many other young men who equate academic success
with the accumulation of degrees and diplomas, mere symbols without
substance, this precocious apostle of the Black cause pursued serious and
specialized studies to enlighten and sharpen his mind. Surmounting all
sorts of difficulties with an inflexible will, he achieved quite early a keen
understanding of the basic issues pertaining to the development of a nation. Thus by the age of twenty-four he had already published in Paris a
number of rather complex works. 6 These are unfortunately economic and
social studies, which it would not be quite suitable to analyze in a book
such as this one. I will have occasion, however, to quote from these
works, so readers will be able to have an idea of their tenor.
In his very first publication, Edmond Paul made his position clear.
He is perhaps the first Haitian of his skin complexion to have understood
that, as an individual and regardless of his achievements, he could not
gain the sincere esteem of anyone who believes in the innate inferiority
of the Black race. He is at least the first to have had the courage to proclaim that what he seeks above a11 is a means to help the Black people of
' Haiti to prove to the entire world that they are endowed with as many
great abilities and talents as any other race. This aspect of Paul's personality is particularly worthy of our interest. In a learned and subtle discussion of the famous article of the Haitian Constitution prohibiting
foreigners from owning property on Haitian territory, this conscientious
publicist wrote these comments, among others as striking and challenging: "Once Negro genius has degenerated, once the Black race has been
pushed into the background, who would take care of developing its abilities? ... Are there in the Caribbean Blacks whose physiognomy reflects
more deeply the sense of their humanity than the Blacks of Haiti? ...
Have you forgotten that Haiti alone is destined to resolve the great problem of the aptitude of the Black race for civilization ... ?" 7
Answering these questions with a wealth of details and profound insights, Paul spares neither men like Granier Cassagnac nor those presumably Haitian authors of Gerontocratie who, no doubt after reading
Monsieur de Gobineau; have expressed various ideas that can only be
detrimental to the nation's cohesion and solidarity.
Here it is perhaps appropriate to quote a passage from the famous
Essai sur l'inegalite des races humaines. The Haitian book, published in
1860 under the title Gerontocratie, is but an amplification of the ideas in
this passage from De Gobineau. Obviously, we cannot take these ideas
seriously. Yet, do we not see from time to time someone like Leo Quesnel
220
221
publish the same views in the same terms, as if the ideas were his own
and as if he had been inspired by the best textual sources? Here is what
de Gobineau says, then:
would have returned freely to the despotically patriarchal social organization which is so natural among their congeners, whom the Islamic
conquerors of Africa have _vet to tame. " 8
The history of Haiti, of democratic Haiti, is but a long account of massacres: massacres of mulattoes by Negroes, when the latter have the
upper hand; massacres of Negroes by mulattoes, when power is in the
hands of the latter group. The country's institutions, however philanthropic in theory, are powerless; they remain dormant on the piece of
paper on which they were conceived. The true mindset of the population is Jet loose and reigns untrammeled. Consistently with the natural
law evoked earlier, the Black variety, which belongs to those human
tribes incapable of civilization, harbors the most profound hatred for
The Comte de Gobineau's language is harsh, slanderous, and hyperbolic.

I have coldly transcribed his words, for I believe that we still can draw
some lessons from their exaggerated denigration. Many people in Haiti
seem unaware of these comments. Others, who have read them, seem to
have taken them too literally. They have in fact inspired Gerontocratie. I
said earlier that an analysis of Edmond Paul's works would be out of
place here. So I will simply quote Paul's summary refutation of all the
ideas propounded by De Gobineau and his adepts, even though he does
not mention De Gobineau by name:
"It is not a rare occurrence to meet people who demand that Haiti be
no more than, a simple trading post. Haitians would labor in the plains
and in the mountains, and commerce would be conducted in the city
through our unavoidable intermediaries. Oh, such people profess a pro:found veneration for agriculture. What they forget is that we also have as
our miss1on the creation of a Black and Yellow city with its arts, sciences,
and virtues, where the mind would reign supreme." 9
The courageous public intellectual later published Le Sahli de la societe, a work characterized by the same nobility of thought, the same inflexible logic, and the same spirit of justice. During his exile from 1874 to
1876, Edmond Paul wrote another work of political economy, L' lmpot sur
le caje, in which he examines the important question of coffee production,
exportation, and taxation in Haiti. Always consistent, he presents the fact~
in terms of their implications for the upward intellectual and moral mobility of the Black populations of the plains. The central issue raised in
Paul's book is whether the coffee producer, the mountain farmer, is not so
overwhelmed under the weight of taxes that he becomes unable to improve his material conditions and to raise his moral and intellectual level.
Paul published one last book in Kingston, Jamaica, entitled La cause
de nos malheurs. It is a purely political and theoretical work, and we
need not go into it at this point.
In addition to being a prolific author of well thought out and inspiring
books, our illustrious compatriot is also a consummate journalist and the
best parliamentarian Haiti has ever known. He speaks in great occasions
only to resolve a situation. He is not a very loquacious orator, but his grave
and severe eloquence, at times a little too solemn, does affect his audience
and infallibly produces the results he seeks in a so11 of surswn corda!
all the other races. Thus th.e Negroes of Haiti are adamant in their rejection of Whites, to whom they even forbid entry to their territory.
They would even like to exclude mulattoes, whom they intend to exterminate ...
If circumstances had allowed the people of this unfortunate country

to behave in accordance with the respective spirit of the races from
which they originate and to act without the inevitable influence of foreign ideas, they would have developed their society freely and in harmony with their instincts. More or less spontaneously but not without a
measure of violence, the two groups of different skin color that form
the population would have separated from each other.
The mulattoes would have settled on the coast, so that they could
remain close to the Europeans with whom they would entertain the
kinds of relations they seek. Under the direction of the latter, mulatto
tradesmen, agents, lawyers, or physicians would tighten those -ties
which flatter them, mix more and more frequently with Whites, improve themselves gradually, and finally lose, in varying proportions,
both their African blood and their African character.
The Negroes would have withdrawn into the interior, where they
would have developed small communities similar to those created in
the past by the Maroons in Saint-Domingue itself, in Martinique, in Jamaica, and in Cuba in particular, whose large territory and deep forests
offered a more secure refuge. There, in the midst of the rich and varied
Caribbean vegetation, with ample provisions of foodstuff to sustain
life, thanks to the generosity of an opulent land, the American Blacks
222
Edmond Paul may not have a very beautiful style; his writings may
contain some instances of incorrect usage; his turns of phrase rriay not always be the best or the most elegant. Nonetheless, his thoughts, his
views, are indisputably elevated, weighty, and, most of all, eminently
adapted to the needs of the Black race of Haiti as it strives for moral and
intellectual progress.
As for me, putting aside all political concerns, which in any case
would be outside the purview of this book, I confess that I feel touched
every time I am in the presence of this man. I am indeed keenly aware of
the influence of his writings ,on my views and of the role they have
played in my intellectual development.
So then, in every field, contrary to the implications of Sandifort B.
Hunt's figures and the theory founded on them, griffes prove themselves
capable of absorbing all kinds of knowledge and of being inspired by the
most elevated sentiments that could adorn a man's character.
Besides their abilities to deal with abstract knowledge, griffes
exhibit all s011s of practical skills. In business, wlrich requires selfdiscipline and will, they succeed as well as anyone. Theagene Lahens, in
Port-au-Prince, and the Etienne brothers, in Cap-Haitien, for example,
run first-class businesses. The Etiennes, in particular, have shown remarkable tact and business intelligence, considering the many difficulties they had to surmount before they could achieve their present
situation and maintain their current status as heads of an enterprise with
a promi~ing future. What further distinguishes these businessmen is
the unusual combination of business savvy and patriotism, rare even
among those who claim to devote themselves to political affairs. Their
greatest desire is to see the country on the road to progress and prosperity, the same road they have traveled, on a difficult journey which only
the strong complete through the exercise of sheer will and intelligence.
Rejecting the egoism typical of Haiti's merchant class, they are concerned with opening new horizons to the country by putting their credit,
their sense of initiative, and their sense of organization to the service of
the nation's economy, to the service of its agriculture and industry. All
they want to realize their plans is general and lasting security in the country, without which it is impossible to attract capital. With such ideas, one
can achieve miracles, even though one acts within the narrow circle of
one's private interests. I can predict that the Etiennes' company, one of
the most solid in the country, will become the largest and richest within a
decade.
We can only rejoice at the thought. Indeed, if the young Republic
223
had some twenty business men like the Etiennes, with their skills and
their dedication to progress, we can only imagine the positive effects
they would have on the future of our motherland and on the reg~nerati?n
of the race, of which we Haitians are the most appropriate specimens for
scientific study.
I must insist that the qualities I am praising here are of the utmost
importance in any inventory of ethnic aptitudes. Black men must be convinced of this one fact: they will be recognized as equals by all other men
in terms of their abilities only when they have achieved material success
and accumulated wealth, while at the same time achieving intellectual
success and accumulating knowledge. Gaining wealth through hard
work, self-discipline, and foresight is not as easy as those who have
never tried might think. Whatever one may say, the slow accumulation of
capital and its fructification through intelligent investments require no
less mental power than the solution of a problem in spherical trigonometry or the resolution of an integral. However strange this statement may
sound, it is true. In the second case, we are dealing with the simple outcome of an intellectual exercise, an exercise of a higher order, I admit,
but one in which the mind merely calls upon earlier conditioning. In the
first case, one needs a lively and rigorous intelligence, suppo11ed by a
strong psyche and a tested morality, so that in effect all the individual's
faculties are constantly engaged.
All these discussions are already too concerned with political economy, which may be quite useful for shedding light on some realities, but
which should not impede upon the field of anthropology, the subject of
this book. I will move, therefore, to another order of arguments better
suited to our subject.
NOTES
1
Congres international des sciences ethnographiques (Paris, 1878), p.
196.
2
Bory de Saint-Vincent, loco citato, Vol. II, p. 64.

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An
American Slave, Written by Himself.
4
Village near Havana.
5 Les reformes financieres de la Republique d'Haiti; La Banque nationa/e
d'Haiti; etc.
6 L'education industrielle du peuple: Questions politico-econo111iq11es
(Paris: Guiilaumin, 1862-1863)
3
224
7
Edmond Paul, Questions politico-economiques (2e partie), p. 82 and
p. 94.
8
9
De Gobineau, loco citato (vol. I), pp. 49-50.

These words appear in a note on page 12 of L 'Education industrielle du
peuple. Author's emphasis.

Firmin, Antenor. 'The Equality of The Human Races'

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TH[

University of Illinois Press

Urbana and Chicago

. the United States of America

The University of Illinois Press

University of Illinois Press

Note on the Translation by Asselin Charles

Chapter 1: Anthropology as a Discipline

There is an element of chance in all human endeavors. When I arrived in

The Equality of the Human Races

teresting questions imaginable, that is, tQ study man. It is with gratitude,

oped my thesis of the equality of the races 1

irs 1or truth and th

In arguing the thesis at the core of th"

raw, on the basis of th

so hard to avoid throughout this book.

Such a time will undoubtedly come Other

1 do not wish, however, to give the im

nonchalance, which impedes all i 't' . a pern1c10us apathy, a deadly

e meluctable destiny of all h

The Equality of the Human Races

Connais-toi toi-meme, [ . . .}, Thales et ensuite

The Equality of the Human Races

goes on and the most perspicacious and knowledgeable participant has

The Equality of the Human Races

philosopher of Koenigsberg authored a

ca l speculations with his hab't f

controversy. Still Hegel h

Kant s definition has moved f

Orthodox spiritualists woul~ ~f.the. S~mt epitomizes.

we ave already I'

The Equality of the Hwnan Races

fi lds and pers1ste , w1

history to study mrnera ,

ways fruitful w en I co.

The Equality of the Human Races

Nothing cou\d be truer. Man \earns to know himself only by looking at

The Equality of the Human Races

most widely accepted classifications he is put back in the first family of

human group seen as a whole and considered1!fn all its internal

history, archeology, linguistics;pmittcmeCo;;--s, amo_n~ wh~ch we find

THE FIELD OF ANTHROPOLOGY

stramt when our purpose is n t t b

The Equality of the Human Races

gated to the background. According to Cast?.ing, "anthropology would

h .igher development' of the

ssm sur a classijicatio d

Une nouvelle cla ifi

Soemmering, Ueber die Kor

The Equality of the Human Races

Manuel d'histoire nature/le.

Early Classification Systems

Pour dresser une telle statistique de l'humanite

The Equality of the Human Races

needs to manage public finances.

Criteria for Classifying

si Eloge historique de Tiedemann.

Jn anthropology, cranial measurement is now a

Criteria for Classifying the Human Races

The Equality of the Human Races

over without seeming to make

The Equality of the Hurnan Races

When Gall and his intelligent disciple, Spurzheim, were studying

~:v~rei:;~e~:i:~:~v~n~~:=: ;ht~:~signed these charts have

:~i~~:tl ts~:~~:t!arnoca co~ld make himsel~~=l~e::c~:thaen~x~~en::

:: :v:t~ IgBatten~ion for our very edifica::~~~=;~: t~:~