of many erudite papers—amidst all Muds of scientific facilities for
which I feel proud to acknowledge myself debtor to himself and
many of his colleagues (MM. D’Avezac and Alfred Maury espe-
cially), favored me, during my fourth sojourn in France, 1854-5,
with a set of their Society’s “ Bulletins.”
Reperusing lately their instructive debate on the problem—“ What
are the distinctive characteristics of the white and black races? What
are the conditions of association between these races?”12 I was led to
open an antecedent No.;3 wherein, after alluding to Cosmos—“M.
Vivien (de Saint-Martin) observes how, in the extract quoted from
M. de Humboldt, that which this illustrious writer terms the native
unity of the human species’ does not seem to imply, as might be
thought, the idea of descent from a single j>air. M. de Humboldt
himself, it is true, does not declare himself, as respects this, in a
manner altogether explicit. But the opinion of those eminent men
upon whose authority he relies, and of whom he cites the words, is,
on the contrary, expressed in the most formal manner.
“ ‘Human races, says Johannes Miiller,4 in his ‘Physiology of
Man,’ are the (diverse) forms of a single species, whose unions
remain fruitful, and which perpetuate themselves through generation.
They are not species of one genus; because, if they Avere,
upon crossing5 they would become sterile. But, to know whether
existing races of man descend from one or from many primitive
men—this is that which cannot be discovered by experience.’ ”
M. Vivien continues with extracts from the paragraph that heads
my essay. Certain typographical lacunae, however, induced a reference
to Humboldt’s complete work; and the readiest accessible, at
the moment happened to he O tto’s English translation, “from the
German.”6
1 Bulletin de la Soc. Ethnol. de Paris, Tome Ir., année 1847; “ Séances du 23 avril au 9
juillet,” p. 59 seqq.—(Vide ante, P ü l s zk y ’s chapter, pp. 188-192)
8 / d., année 1846, pp. 74-6.
4 Physiol, des Menschen, Bd. II, S. 768, 772-4:—and Kosmos, Fr. ed., I. p. 425, and p.
578, note 38. Compare S a b i n e ’s translation o f this passage (I, p. 352-3) with Ot t é ’ s
s (I. p. 354).
5 This doctrine now seems to be a non-sequitur, after Morton’s researches upon hybridity,
Conf., as the first document, “ Hybridity in animals and plants, considered in reference to
the question of the Unity of the Human Species”—Amer. Pour, of Science and Arts, vol.
Ill, 2d series, 1847. The substance of Morton’s later publications, in the “ Charleston
Medical Journal,” may be consulted in “ Types of Mankind,” 1854, pp. 872, 410: and they
have since been enlarged, b y D r . N o tt , in H otz’s translation (Moral and Intellectual
Diversity of Races, Philadelphia, 12mo., 1856: Appendix B, pp. 473-504) of part of the
first volume of D e G o b in e a u .
■ 6 Cosmos: a Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe, Harpers’ American ed.,
New York, 1850, I, pp. 354-5
To my surprise, several passages (sometimes in the letter, hut
oftener in the spirit) did not correspond with the extracts quoted by
M. Vivien de, Saint-Martin, from the French edition of “ Cosmos.”
To the latter I turned. ‘A glance changed surprise into suspicion,
which further collation soon confirmed. Having thereby become
considerably enlightened, myself, upon the animus and the literary
fidelity with which foreign scientific works are “done into English,”
for the book-trade of Great Britain and the United States of America
; and inasmuch as sundry theological naturalists, in this country,
have latterly been making very free with Humboldt’s honored name,
—estimated as their authority “par excellence” on the descent of all
the diversified types of mankind from “ A dam and E ve it may be
gratifying to their finer feelings, no less than to their nice appreciation
of critical probity, to demonstrate the singular orthodoxy of
the savant whom we all venerate in common.
Already, in 1846, when transmitting from Paris, to the late Dr.
Morton, one of the earliest copies of the French edition of “ Cosmos,”
I accompanied it with regrets that the twice-used expression —“ la
distinction désolante des races supérieurs et des races inférieurs”7—
should have sanctioned the irrelevant introduction of (what others
construe as) morbid sentimentalism into studies which M orton and
his school were striving to restrict within the positive domain of
science. How completely Morton disapproved of this unlucky
term, has been happily shown by his biographer—our lamented
colleague, Dr. Henry S. Patterson.8 But, whilst fully respecting
Baron de Humboldt’s unqualified opinion—on a doctrine which
other great authorities either oppose or hold to be at least- moot, viz.,
the unity of mankind—I was not prepared for so much of that which
Carlyle styles “ flunkeyism” towards Anglo-Saxon popular credulity
(so manfully denounced by Dr. Robert Knox9), which both of
the English translations of “ Cosmos” exhibit.
In the first place, let us open that one which “was undertaken in
compliance with the Avish of Baron von Humboldt.” 19 The possessor
* Cosmos, Fr. ed., p. 430; repeated p. 579, note 42.
8 Types of Mankind, ‘‘Memoir of Samuel George Morton,” p. li-liii.
90 f Edinburgh—The Races of Men : a Fragment. Philadelphia edition, 12mo, 1850, pp.
11-2, 19, 87, 65, 247-54, 292—one might say passim. Allowance made for the age, ten to
fifteen years ago, when the MSS. seem to have been written; and divesting his work of
much rash assertion, hasty composition, and some national or personal eccentricities, its
author can safely boast that it contains more truth upon ethnology than any book of its
size in the English tongue.
10 Cosmos, &o. “ Translated under the superintendence of Lieut.-Col. Edward Sabine,
R-A., For. Sec. R. S.;” London, Murray, 2d ed., 8vo, 1847; I, “ Editor’s Preface; and,
for the omission complained of, p. 353—after the word t experience’ (438).”