judices almost or entirely unscientific, there are sincere and disinterested men of science who believe in the multiplicity of human origins. Foremost among the latter are medical men, who are accustomed to the study of the individual and who only possess a slight familiarity with the study of the species. Then again there are palæontologists, who from the nature of their work are compelled only to take into account morphological resemblances and differences, without even turning their attention to facts of reproduction or of filiation. Finally, there are entomologists, conchologists, etc., who, exclusively interested in the distinction of innumerable species by purely external characters, are entirely ignorant of physiological phenomena, and judge living beings as they would fossils.

On the other hand, monogenism reckons among its partisans nearly all those naturalists who have turned their attention to the phenomena of life, and among them some of the most illustrious. In spite of the difference of their doctrines, Buffon and Linnæus, Cuvier and Lamarck, Blainville and the two Geoffroys, Müller the physiologist and Humboldt agree upon this point. Apart from any influence which the name of these great men might exercise, it is clear that I share their opinion. I have on different occasions explained the purely scientific reasons for my convictions. I shall now endeavour to sum them up in as few words as possible.

II. Let us first establish the importance of the question. It escapes many minds and I have heard a doubt expressed upon it by men who have enthusiastically followed anthropological studies. It is, however, easily proved.

If the human groups have appeared with all their distinctive characters in the isolated condition, and in the various localities where geography teaches us to seek them; if we can trace them up to stocks originally distinct, thus constituting so many special species, then the study of them is one of the most simple, presenting no more difficulty than that of animal or vegetable species. There

would be nothing singular in the diversity of the groups. It would be sufficient to examine and describe them one after the other, merely determining the degree of affinity between them. At most we should have to fix their limits and to discover the influence which groups geographically brought in contact had been able to exercise upon each other.

If, on the contrary, these groups can be traced to one common primitive stock, if there is but one single species of man, the differences, sometimes so striking, which separate the groups, constitute a problem similar to that of our animal and vegetable races. Further, man is found in all parts of the globe, and we must account for this dispersion; we must explain how the same species has been able to accommodate itself to such opposite conditions of existence as those to which the inhabitants of the pole and the equator are subject. And lastly, the simple affinity of naturalists is changed into consanguinity; and the problems of filiation are added to those of variation, migration, and acclimatisation.

It is clear that, independently of every religious, philosophical, or social consideration, this science will differ entirely in character as we consider it from a polygenistic point of view, or according to theories of monogenism.

III. If the former of these doctrines claims such a large number of adherents, the reason may for the most part be found in the causes mentioned above. But its seductive simplicity and the facility which it seems to lend to the interpretation of facts also stand for a great deal. Unfortunately these advantages are only apparent. Polygenism conceals or denies difficulties; it does not suppress them. They are suddenly revealed, like submarine rocks, to anyone who tries, however little, to go to the root of the matter.

The case is the same with this doctrine as with the Systems of classification formerly employed in botany and zoology which rested upon a small number of arbitrary data. They were undoubtedly very convenient, but possessed the serious

fault of being conducive to most erroneous opinions from a destruction of true relations and an imposition of false connections.

Monogenism acts in the same manner as the Natural Method. The zoologist and the botanist are by this method brought face to face with each problem which is put before them under every aspect. It often displays the insufficiency of actual knowledge, but it is the only means of destroying illusions, and of preventing a belief in false explanations.

It is the same with Monogenism. It also brings the anthropologist face to face with reality, forces him to investigate every question, shows him the whole extent of each, and often compels him to confess his inability to solve them. But by this very means it protects him against error, provoking him to fresh investigation, and from time to time rewards him with some great progress which remains an acquisition for ever.

I shall return to these considerations, the truth of which will be better understood when the principal general questions of anthropology have been reviewed. Henceforward I shall attempt to justify as briefly as possible the preceding criticisms and eulogies.

CHAPTER III.

SPECIES AND RACE IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES.

I. THE question of the unity or multiplicity of the human species may be stated in the following terms: are the differences which distinguish the human groups characteristic of species or of race?

It is evident that the question depends entirely upon the two words species and race. It is then absolutely necessary to determine as accurately as possible the sense of each, and yet there are anthropologists, such as Knox, for instance, who declare that any discussion or investigation in connection with this subject is idle. There are others, like Dr. Nott, who would suppress the race and only establish various categories of species. In order to support their doctrines these authors ignore the work which has been carried on for nearly two centuries by the most illustrious naturalists, and the innumerable observations and experiments made by a vast number of eminent men upon plants and animals.

In fact the theory of species and race has not been formed à priori, as it has been too often falsely asserted, but has been gradually acquired, and in a strictly scientific manner.

II. The word Species is one which exists in all languages which possess abstract terms. It represents, therefore, a general common idea. The idea is, in the first place, that of a great outward resemblance; but even in ordinary language that is not all. The idea of filiation is connected, even in the most uncultivated minds, with that of resemblance. No peasant would hesitate to regard the children of the same parents as belonging to the same species whatever real or apparent differences might distinguish them.

Science nas in reality done nothing more than define the idea of which the public had merely a vague consciousness, and it was not till very lately, and after a very curious oscillation, that she succeeded in doing so. In 1686, Jean Ray, in his Historia Plantarum, considered that those plants which had a common origin and could be reproduced by seed belonged to the same species, whatever their apparent differences might be. He only took filiation into account. Tournefort, on the contrary, who in 1700 was the first to make a clear statement of the question, termed the collection of plants a species which were distinguished by some particular character. He relied only on resemblance.

Ray and Tournefort have had from time to time a few imitators, who, in their definition of species, have clung to one of the two ideas. But the immense majority of zoologists have been aware of the impossibility of separating them. To convince ourselves of this fact it is only necessary to read the definitions which they have given. Each one of them, from Buffon and Cuvier to MM. Chevreul and C. Vogt has, so to speak, proposed his own. Now, however they may differ in other respects, they all agree in this. The terms of the definitions vary, each endeavours to represent in the best manner possible the complex idea of species; some extend it still further, and connect with it the ideas of cycle and variation but in all the fundamental idea is the same.

In a case of such difficulty as that of finding a good definition for a combination of ideas, the latest comer always hopes to improve upon his predecessors. For this reason I have also given my formula: "Species is a collection of individuals more or less resembling each other, which may be regarded as having descended from a single primitive pair by an uninterrupted and natural succession of families."

In this definition, as also in that of some of my colleagues, among others of M. Chevreul, the idea of resemblance is made of less importance and subordinate to that of filiation. The fact is that there never is an identity of characters between one individual and another. Putting aside the