style in natural history, giving to each species two names; one,
more particularly substantive, forming its generic Name; and the
second, adjective, indicating the Species, and constituting its specific
Name.” It becomes in consequence unnecessary, after this historical
sketch, for us to begin earlier than the lifetime of the Gottingen
philosopher.
To Blumenbach, however, the action of “climate” was an adequate
explanation of the “five varieties” he distinguishes in man.
He believed that, “homines nigri subinde albescunt!” also, “ et albi
e contra nigrescunt !”76 At a later date, he fortified this view in a
treatise entitled “Ueber die Hegern insbesondre;” 76 compiled chiefly
from English emancipation-sources, and sustaining the perfectibility
of negro races, with specimens of their poetry and literary works,
on the well-known system of the benevolent Abbé Grégoire.
Very similar are the opinions of Zimmermann,77 although advocated
far more from the naturalist than the theological point of
view. Whilst he struggles to indicate the narrow geographical circumscription
of the range of most mammifers, he attributes to climate,
aliment, &c., such wondrous powers, that, according to him,
a hyena, through transplantation, might, in some generations, become
turned into a wolf! Next applying these principles to man, Zimmermann
attempts to show how color is changed by climate, heat
producing negroes and cold Esquimaux ; cites the old traveller
Benjamin, of Tudela, for Jews turning black in Abyssinia;78 and
credits a story related by Caldanus, how once he saw, at Venice, a
negro who, brought there in childhood, had, in his old age, become
yellowishZ79 Thus: “ The white, man can become black, and the
75 Op. cit. 2d éd., pp. 66, 69, 72:—3d éd., p. 61 seq.
76 B l um en b a c h , Beytrdge zur Naturgeschichte, Gottingen, 12mo, in two parts, 1806, 1811;
pp. 73-97.
77 Specimen Zoologies Geographicoe quadrupedum domicilia et migrationes, 4to, Lugduni Bata-
vorura, 1777; of which I use the French translation—“ Zoologie Géographique, l r article,
L }Homme ” Cassel, 8vo, 1784; pp. 44, 131, 135, 189-90.
78 See, on the Falashas, “ Types of Mankind,” pp. 122-3. That these people are merely
African aborigines, converted to a pseudo-Judaism, may now be verified through their
portraits (Cf. L e f e b v r e , Voyage en Abyssinie, 1839-43 ; Atlas fol.— U r i t e , femme Fela-
cha, âgée de 40 ans”—whose race is identical with those of many other non-Jewish nations
figured in the same excellent work). Besides, Renan has abolished any imagined philological
connection, in the clause, that the speech of these Falàsyân “ n’a rien de sémitique”
[Hist, des Langues Sémitiques, pp. 311-2). Compare, also, A n t o in e d ’A b b a d ie , Letter to
M. Jomard, on the “ Falacha, Juifs d’Abyssinie (3 Nov. 1844): Ce type existe chez les Agaw
de l’Atala et du Simen, et chez les Sidama. Il nous est impossible de le ramener au type
juif. La langue des Falacha est la même que celle qui vient de s’éteindre dans le Dembya.”
Bulletin de la Soc. de Géographie, Paris, Juillet, 1845; pp. 44, 72.
79 What was believed last century on these subjects, even by physicians, may be seen in
a small work I possess— “ Traité de la couleur de la peau humaine en général, de celle des
black on the contrary white, and this change is again carried on
through the ^different degrees of heat and cold”—his conclusion
being, that.“man, possessing himself thus little by little of all climates,
becomes, through their influence, here a Georgian, there a
negro, elsewhere an Eskimau!”
Next in. order should follow Lawrence, could one readily seize
(through the variations of theory manifest in different editions of
his work) what are the real stand-poifrts of genius so versatile.. He
has the Protean faculty of saying one thing and believing another,
interchangeably; and may be quoted either on the unity or diversity
nègres en particulier, et de la métamorphose d W de ees couleurs dans l’autre, Boit de naissance,
soit accidentellement,” by M.. L e Ca t , Doctor,. &c., Amsterdam, 8vo, 1765. No
physiologist, however, disputes that disease will, more or less temporarily, -change the color
of the skin.' There are albino negroes as well as white elephants, raccoons, deer, or mice.
On these points, by far the most powerful argument is the late Dr. Charles Caldwell’s annihilating
review of an “ Essay on the causes o f ’the variety of complexion and figure in the
human species; by the Rev. Dr. S. S. Smith, of Princeton Coll., N. J., 1810”_published
in four admirable articles, in the Philadelphia “ Portfolio,” 8vo, 1814- vol iv 3d series'
See particularly, pp. 26-31, 258-271, “ the case of Henry Moss.”
Without pretending to enter into discussions in which none but physiologists are entitled
to respectful attention, let me refer those[ desirous of enlightenment to the great work of
Da. P r o s p e r L uca s {Traité philosophique et physiologique deThêrédité naturelle, Paris 1847
2 vols. 8vo) for every example, throughout the range of animate nature, bearing upon the
laws of “ Innêilé and Hérédité in the procreation of Die vital mechanism.”
The most recent, no les's than the most brilliant, American writer of the day on “ Human
Physiology, statical and dynamical” (New York, 1856, pp. 565-580), seems to me still to
lay too much stress upon the supposed action of “ climate” on the coloration of the human
skm; and inasmuch as Dr . D r a p e r ’s ever-scientific language has given rise to pitiful
absurdities hke those put forth in an article appropriately entitled “ The Cooking of Men”
(Harper's Magazine, Oct., 1856), it may be well t» counterbalance such exaggerations of his
high authority by the following paragraph of a physiologist certainly not less eminent. D r
¡»AML. G e o . M o rto n says (lUustmted System of Human Anatomy, Special, General, and
Microscopic, Philadelphia, 1849, p. 151): “ It is a common opinion, that climate alone is
capable of producing all those diversities of complexion so remarkable in the human races.
very few facts may Suffice to show that such cannot be the case. Thus, the negroes of
Van Diemen’s Land, who are among the blackest people on the earth, live in a climate as
cold as that of Ireland; while the Indo-Chinese nations, who live in tropical Asia, are of a
prown and olive complexion. It is remarked, by Humboldt, that the American tribes of
Die equinoctial region have no darker skin than the mountaineers of the Temperate Zone,
bo also the Puelchés of the Magellanic plains, beyond the fifty-fifth degree of south latitude,
are absolutely darker than Abipones, Tobas, and other tribes, who are many degrees
hearer the equator. Again, the Charruas, who inhabit south of the Rio de la Plata, are
s. most black, whilst the Guaycas, under the line, are among the fairest of the American
ibes. Finally, not to multiply examples, those nations of the Caucasian race which have
necome inhabitants of the Torrid Zone, in both hemispheres, although their descendants
nave been for centuries, and in Africa for many centuries, exposed to the most active
nuuences of climate, .have never, in a solitary instance, exhibited the transformation from
e Caucasian to a negro complexion. They become darker, it is true ; but there is a point
. which the change is arrested. Climate modifies the human complexion, but is far from
being the cause of it.”
\