said above, and in the table of kingdoms. Man, although he has his special and exclusively human phenomena, is above ali an organised and living being. From this point of view he is the seat of phenomena common to animals and plants; he is subjected to the same laws. In his physical organisation be is nothing more than an animal, somewhat superior in certain respects to the most highly developed species, but inferior in others. From this point of view he presents organic and physiological phenomena identical with those of animals in general, and of mammalia in particular; and the laws which govern these phenomena are the same in both cases.

Now plants and animals have been studied for a much longer period than man, and from an exclusively scientific point of view, without any trace of the prejudice and party feeling which often interferes with the study of man. Without having penetrated very deeply into all the secrets of vegetable and animal life, science has acquired a certain number of fixed and indisputable results which constitute a foundation of positive knowledge, and a safe starting point. It is there that the anthropologist must seek the known quantities of which he may stand in need.

Whenever there is any doubt as to the nature or signification of a phenomenon observed in man, the corresponding phenomena must be examined in animals, and even in plants; they must be compared with what takes place in ourselves, and the results of this comparison accepted as they are exhibited. What is recognised as being true for other organised beings cannot but be true for man.

This method is incontestably scientific. It is similar to that of modern physiologists, who, since they are unable to experiment upon man, experiment upon animals, and form their conclusions upon the former from the latter. But the physiologist devotes his attention to the individual only, and, therefore, examines little more than those groups which in their organisation approach most nearly to the being whose history he wishes to explain. The anthropologist on the con

trary studies the species. The questions with which he has to deal are much more general, so he is forced to direct his attention to plants as well as to animals.

This method is accompanied by its criterion; it allows the control of the various answers which are often made to one question. The means of estimation are simple and easily applied.

In anthropology, every solution to be sound, that is to say, true, should refer man in everything which is not exclusively human to the general recognised laws for other organised and living beings.

Every solution which makes or tends to make man an exception, by representing him as free from those laws which govern other organised and living beings, is unsound and false.

Again, when we reason and form our conclusions in this manner, we remain faithful to the mathematical method. To be received as true, a solution of a given problem must agree with admitted axioms, with truths previously proved. Every hypothesis which leads to results at variance with these axioms or these truths, is, on that account alone, declared false. In anthropology, the axiom or the truth which serves as a criterion is the fundamental, physical, and physiological identity of man with other living beings, with animals, with mammalia. All hypotheses at variance with this truth should be rejected.

Such are the absolute rules which have always acted as my guide in anthropological studies. I do not pretend to have invented them. I have scarcely done more than formulate what has been more or less explicitly admitted by Linnæus, Buffon, Lamarck, Blumenbach, Cuvier, the two Geoffroy St. Hilaire, J. Müller, Humboldt, etc. But, on the one hand, my illustrious predecessors have seldom treated the subject with sufficient precision, and have too often omitted to give the reasons for their decisions. On the other hand these principles have been, and are daily forgotten by men who, in other respects, enjoy with

justice the title of great authorities. As I shall be compelled to disagree with them, I thought it necessary to show clearly the general ideas which serve as a foundation for my own scientific convictions. The reader will thus be able to appreciate and discern the causes of this difference of opinion.

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL DOCTRINES; MONOGENISM

AND POLYGENISM.

I. As soon as we have determined the place which should be assigned to man in the great order of the universe, the first question which rises is, whether there is one human species, or several.

It is well known that this question has caused a division amongst anthropologists. The Polygenists regard the differences of height, features, and colour, which distinguish the inhabitants of different countries of the globe, as fundamental; the Monogenists consider these differences merely as the result of accidental conditions, which have modified, in various degrees, a primitive type. The former hold that there are several human species perfectly independent of each other; the latter that there is but one species of man which is divided into several races, all of which are derived from a common stock.

However slight may be our familiarity with the language of zoology and botany or their applications, it is evident that the question before us is a purely scientific one, and entirely within the province of the natural sciences. Unfortunately the discussion has by no means been confined to this ground.

A dogma supported by the authority of the Book which is held in almost equal respect by Christians, Jews and Mussulmans, has long referred the origin of all men without opposition to a single father and mother. Nevertheless, the first blow aimed at this ancient belief was founded upon the same book. In 1655 La Peyrère, a Protestant gentle.

man in Condée's army, interpreting to the letter the two narratives of the creation contained in the Bible as well as various particulars in the history of Adam and of the Jewish nation, attempted to prove that the latter alone were descended from Adam and Eve; that they had been preceded by other men who had been created at the same time as the animals in all parts of the habitable globe; that the descendants of these Preadamites were identical with the Gentiles, who were always so carefully distinguished from the Jews. Thus we see that polygenism generally regarded as the result of Free Thought was biblical and dogmatic in origin.

La Peyrère attacked the Adamic dogma in the name of the respect due to the text of a sacred Book. The philosophers of the eighteenth century spoke in the name of Science and Reason. It is to them that the school of Polygenists in reality owe their origin. But it is easy to see that the greater number of them were only guided in their writings by a controversial spirit, their chief aim was the destruction of a dogma. Unfortunately, the same prepossession appears in too many works published in our own day. On the other hand certain monogenists are guilty of seeking in religious doctrines arguments in favour of their theory, and anathematising their adversaries in the name of dogma.

Social and political prejudices in addition to dogmatic and anti-dogmatic prejudices have helped to make still more obscure a question already very difficult in itself. In the United States in particular the advocates of slavery and its opponents have often fought upon this ground. Further still in 1844 Mr. Calhoun, Minister of Foreign Affairs, when replying to the representations made to him by France and England on the subject of slavery, did not hesitate to defend the institutions of his country by urging the radical differences, which, according to him, separated the Negro from the White man.

Besides those polygenists who are influenced by pre