The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races Part 15

But the infusion of European blood was not limited to this. The piracy which was carried on, on so large a scale, in the whole basin of the Mediterranean, had for one of its princ.i.p.al objects the replenishment of the harems. Every victory gained increased the number of believers in the Prophet. A great number of the prisoners of war abjured Christianity, and were henceforth counted among the true believers. The localities adjacent to the field of battle supplied as many females as the marauding victors could lay hold of. In some cases, this sort of booty was so plentiful that it became inconvenient to dispose of. Hammer relates[159] that, on one occasion, the handsomest female captive was bartered for _one boot_. When we consider that the Turkish population of the whole Ottoman empire never exceeded twelve millions, it becomes apparent that the history of so amalgamated a nation affords no arguments, either for or against, the permanency of type. We will now proceed to the second historic argument advanced by the believers in unity.

"The Magyars," they say, "are of Finnic origin, nearly related to the Laplanders, Samoiedes, and Esquimaux, all of which are people of low stature, with big faces, projecting cheek-bones, and yellowish or dirty brown complexion. Yet the Magyars are tall, well formed, and have handsome features. The Finns have always been feeble, unintelligent, and oppressed; the Magyars, on the contrary, occupy a distinguished rank among the conquerors of the earth, and are noted for their love of liberty and independence. As they are so immensely superior, both physically and morally, to all the collateral branches of the Finnic stock, it follows that they have undergone an enormous transformation."[160]

If such a transformation had ever taken place, it would, indeed, be astonishing and inexplicable even to those who ascribe the least stability to types, for it must have occurred within the last 800 years, during which we know that the compatriots of St. Stephen[161] mixed but little with surrounding nations. But the whole course of reasoning is based upon false premises, for the Hungarians are most a.s.suredly not of Finnic origin. Mr. A. De Gerando[162] has placed this fact beyond doubt.

He has proved, by the authority of Greek and Arab historians, as well as Hungarian annalists and by indisputable philological arguments, that the Magyars are a fragment of that great inundation of nations which swept over Europe under the denomination of Huns. It will be objected that this is merely giving the Hungarians another parentage, but which connects them no less intimately with the yellow race. Such is not the case. The designation of Huns applies not only to a nation, but is also a collective appellation of a very heterogeneous ma.s.s. Among the tribes which rallied around the standards of Attila and his ancestors, there were some which have at all times been distinguished from the rest by the term _white Huns_. Among them the Germanic blood predominated.[163]

It is true, that the close contact with the yellow race somewhat adulterated the breed; but this very fact is singularly exhibited in the somewhat angular and bony facial conformation of the Hungarians. I conclude, therefore, that the Magyars were _white Huns_, and of Germanic origin, though slightly mixed with the Mongolian stock.

The philological difficulty of their speaking a non-Germanic dialect is not insurmountable. I have already alluded to the Mongolian Scyths who yet spoke an Arian tongue;[164] I might, moreover, cite the Norman settlers in France who, not many years after their conquest, exchanged their Scandinavian dialect, in a great measure, for the Celto-Latin of their subjects,[165] whence sprang that singular compound called Norman-French, which the followers of William the Conqueror imported into England, and which now forms an element of the English language.

There is, therefore, no reason to suppose that the agency of climate and change of habits have transformed a Laplander, or an Ostiak, or a Tunguse, or a Permian, into a St. Stephen or a Kossuth.

Having thus, I think, refuted the only two historical instances which the believers in unity of species adduce, of a pretended alteration of type by local circ.u.mstances and change of habits, and having, moreover, instanced several cases where these causes could produce no alteration; the fact of permanency of type seems to me to be incontestably established.[166] Thus, whichever side we take, whether we believe in original unity, or original diversity, is immaterial; the several groups of the human species are, at present, so perfectly separated from each other, that no exterior influence can efface their distinctive peculiarities. The permanency of these differences, so long as there is no intermixture, produces precisely the same physical and moral results as if the groups were so many distinct and separate creations.

In conclusion, I shall repeat what I have said above, that I have very serious doubts as to the unity of origin. These doubts, however, I am compelled to repress, because they are in contradiction to a scientific fact which I cannot refute--the prolificness of half-breeds; and secondly, what is of much greater weight with me, they impugn a religious interpretation sanctioned by the church.

FOOTNOTES:

[139] For the arguments which may be deduced from the language of Holy Writ, in favor of plurality of origins, see Appendix _C_.--H.

[140] Among others, FReDeRIC CUVIER, _Annales du Museum_, vol. xi. p.

458.

[141] The reader will be struck by the remarkable ill.u.s.tration of the truth of this remark, which the equine species affords. The vast difference between the swift courser, who excites the enthusiasm of admiring mult.i.tudes, and the common hack, need not be pointed out, and it is as well known that either, if the breed be preserved unmixed, will perpetuate their distinctive qualities to a countless progeny.--H.

[142] A free mulatto, who had received a very good education in France, once seriously undertook to prove to me that the Saviour's earthly form partook, at the same time, of the characteristics of the white and the black races; in other words, was that of a half-breed. The arguments by which he supported this singular hypothesis were drawn from theology, as well as Scriptural ethnology, and were remarkably plausible and ingenious. I am convinced that if the real opinion of colored Christians on this subject could be collected, a vast majority would be found to agree with my informant.--H.

[143] Our author here gives evidence of a want of critical study of races--the resemblances he has traced do not exist. There is no type in Africa south of the equator, or among the aborigines of America, that bears any resemblance to any race in Europe or Asia.--N.

[144] Muller, _Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen_, vol. ii. p. 639.

[145] Prichard, _op. cit._, pp. 484, 485.

[146] An exception, however, must be made in the case of Shakspeare, while painting on an Italian canvas. In _Romeo and Juliet_, Capulet says:--

"My child is yet a stranger in the world, She hath not seen the change of fourteen years; Let two more summers wither in their pride, Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride."

To which Paris answers:--

"Younger than she are happy mothers made."

[147] According to M. Krapff, a Protestant minister in Eastern Africa, among the Wanikos both s.e.xes marry at the age of twelve. (_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft_, vol. iii. p. 317.) In Paraguay, the Jesuits had established the custom, which subsists to this day, of marrying their neophytes, the girls at the age of ten, the boys at that of thirteen. It is not rare to find, in that country, widowers and widows eleven and twelve years old. (A. D'ORBIGNY, _L'Homme Americain_, vol. i. p. 40.) In Southern Brazil, females marry at the age of ten and eleven. Menstruation there begins also at a very early age, and ceases equally early. (MARTIUS and SPIX, _Reise in Brasilien_, vol.

i. p. 382.) I might increase the number of similar quotations indefinitely.

[148] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 486.

[149] Botta, _Monumens de Ninive_. Paris, 1850.

[150] _Edinburgh Review_, "Ethnology, or the Science of Races," Oct.

1844, p. 144, _et pa.s.sim_. "There is probably no evidence of original diversity of race which is so generally and unhesitatingly relied upon as that derived from the _color of the skin_ and the _character of the hair_; ... but it will not, we think, stand the test of serious examination.... Among the Kabyles of Algiers and Tunis, the Tuarites of Sahara, the Shelahs or mountaineers of Southern Morocco, and other people of the same race, there are very considerable differences of complexion." (p. 448.)

[151] _Ibid._, _loc. cit._, p. 453. "The Cinghalese are described by Dr.

Davy as varying in color from light brown to black, the prevalent hue of their hair and eyes is black, but hazel eyes and brown hair are not very uncommon; gray eyes and red hair are occasionally seen, though rarely, and sometimes the light-blue or red eye and flaxen hair of the albino."

[152] _Ibid._, _loc. cit._ "The Samoiedes, Tungusians, and others living on the borders of the Icy Sea, have a dirty-brown or swarthy complexion."

[153] Edinburgh Review, p. 439.

[154] Hammer, _Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches_, vol. i. p. 2.

(_History of the Ottoman Empire._)

[155] Ritter, _Erdkunde Asien_, vol. i. p. 433, et pa.s.sim, p. 1115, etc. La.s.sen, _Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes_, vol. ii. p.

65. Benfey, _Encyclopaedie_, by Ersch and Gruber, _Indien_, p. 12.

Alexander Von Humboldt, speaking of this fact, styles it one of the most important discoveries of our times. (_Asie Centrale_, vol. ii. p. 649.) With regard to its bearings upon historical science, nothing can be more true.

[156] Nouschirwan, whose reign falls in the first half of the sixth century of our era, married Scharouz, the daughter of the Khakan of the Turks. She was the most beautiful woman of her time. (Haneberg, _Zeitschr. f. d. K. des Morgenl._, vol. i. p. 187.) This is by no means an isolated instance; Schahnameh furnishes a number of similar ones.

[157] The Scythes, though having adopted a language of the Arian cla.s.ses, were, nevertheless, a Mongolian nation; there would, therefore, be nothing very surprising if the Orghuses had been an Arian nation, though speaking a Finnic dialect. This hypothesis is singularly corroborated by a pa.s.sage in the relations of the traveller Rubruquis, who was sent by St. Louis as amba.s.sador to the sovereign of the Mongols.

"I was struck," says the worthy monk, "with the prince's resemblance to the deceased _M. John de Beaumont_, whose complexion was equally fresh and colored." Alexander Von Humboldt, justly interested by this remark, adds: "This physiognomical observation acquires importance, when we recollect that the monarch here spoken of belonged to the family of Tchinguiz, who were really of Turkish, not of Mogul origin." And pursuing this trace, the great _savant_ finds another corroborating fact: "The absence of Mongolian features," says he, "strikes us also in the portraits which we possess of the Baburides, the conquerors of India." (_Asie Centrale_, vol. i. p. 248, and note.)

[158] It will be seen that Mr. Gobineau differs, in the date he gives of the inst.i.tution of the Janissaries, from all other European writers, who unanimously ascribe the establishment of this corps to Mourad I., the third prince of the line of Othman. This error, into which Gibbon himself has fallen, originated with Cantemir: but the concurrent testimony of every Turkish historian fixes the epoch of their formation and consecration by the Dervish Hadji-Becktash, to the reign of Orkhan, the father of Mourad, who, in 1328, enrolled a body of Christian youths as soldiers under this name (which signifies, "new regulars"), by the advice of his cousin Tchenderli, to whose councils the wise and simple regulations of the infant empire are chiefly attributed. Their number was at first only a thousand; but it was greatly augmented when Mourad, in 1361, appropriated to this service, by an edict, the _imperial fifth_ of the European captives taken in the war--a measure which has been generally confounded with the first enrolment of the corps. At the accession of Soliman the Magnificent, their effective strength had reached 40,000; and under Mohammed IV., in the middle of the seventeenth century, that number was more than doubled. But though the original composition of the Janissaries is related by every writer who has treated of them, it has not been so generally noticed that for more than two centuries and a half not a single native Turk was admitted into their ranks, which were recruited, like those of the Mamelukes, solely by the continual supply of Christian slaves, at first captives of tender age taken in war, and afterwards, when this source proved inadequate to the increased demand, by an annual levy among the children of the lower orders of Christians throughout the empire--a dreadful tax, frequently alluded to by Busbequius, and which did not finally cease till the reign of Mohammed IV.

At a later period, when the Krim Tartars became va.s.sals of the Porte, the yearly inroads of the fierce cavalry of that nation into the southern provinces of Russia, were princ.i.p.ally instrumental in replenishing this nursery of soldiers; and Fletcher, who was amba.s.sador from Queen Elizabeth to Ivan the Terrible, describes, in his quaint language, the method pursued in these depredations: "The chief bootie the Tartars seeke for in all their warres, is to get store of captives, specially young boyes and girles, whom they sell to the Turkes, or other, their neighbours. To this purpose, they take with them great baskets, made like bakers' panniers, _to carrie them tenderly_; and if any of them happens to tyre, or bee sicke on the way, they dash him against the ground, or some tree, and so leave him dead." (_Purchas's Pilgrims_, vol. iii. p. 441.)

The boys, thus procured from various quarters, were a.s.sembled at Constantinople, where, after a general inspection, those whose personal advantages or indications of superior talent distinguished them from the crowd, were set aside as pages of the seraglio or Mamelukes in the households of the pashas and other officers, whence in due time they were promoted to military commands or other appointments: but the remaining mult.i.tude were given severally in charge to peasants or artisans of Turkish race, princ.i.p.ally in Anatolia, by whom they were trained up, till they approached the age of manhood, in the tenets of the Moslem faith, and inured to all the privations and toils of a hardy and laborious life. After this severe probation, they were again transferred to the capital, and enrolled in the different _odas_ or regiments; and here their military education commenced.--H.

[159] _Erdkunde, Asien_, vol. i. p. 448.

[160] _Ethnology_, etc., p. 439: "The Hungarian n.o.bility ... is proved by historical and philological evidence to have been a branch of the great Northern Asiatic stock, closely allied in blood to the stupid and feeble Ostiaks, and the untamable Laplander."

[161] St. Stephen reigned about the year 1000, nearly one century and a half after the first invasion of the Magyars, under their leaders, Arpad and Zulta. He introduced Christianity among his people, on which account he was canonized, and is now the tutelary saint of his nation. It may not be known to the generality of our readers, that the Magyars, though they have now resided nearly one thousand years in Hungary, have, with few exceptions, never applied themselves to the tillage of the soil.

Agriculture, to this day, remains almost exclusively in the hands of the original (the Slowack or Sclavonian) population. The Magyar's wealth consists in his herds, or, if he owns land, it is the Slowacks that cultivate it for him. It is a singular phenomenon that these two races, though professing the same religion, have remained almost entirely unmixed, and each still preserves its own language.--H.

[162] _Essai Historique sur l'Origine des Hongrois._ Paris, 1844.

[163] It appears that we shall be compelled henceforward to considerably modify our usually received opinions with regard to the nations of Central Asia. It cannot now be any longer doubted that many of these populations contain a very considerable admixture of white blood, a fact of which our predecessors in the study of history had not the slightest apprehension. Alexander Von Humboldt makes a very important remark upon this subject, in speaking of the Kirghis-Kazakes, mentioned by Menander of Byzant, and Constantine Porphyrogenetus; and he shows conclusively that the Kirghis (~cherchis~) concubine spoken of by the former writer as a present of the Turkish chief Dithubul to Zemarch, the amba.s.sador of Justinian II., in A. D. 569, was a girl of mixed blood--partly white. She is the precise counterpart of those beautiful Turkish girls, whose charms are so much extolled by Persian writers, and who did not belong, any more than she, to the Mongolian race. (Vide _Asie Centrale_, vol. i. p. 237, _et pa.s.sim_, and vol. ii. pp. 130, 131.)

[164] Schaffarick, _Slawische Alterthumer_, vol. i. p. 279, _et pa.s.sim_.

[165] Aug. Thierry, _Histoire de la Conquite de l'Angleterre_. Paris, 1846, vol. i. p. 155.

[166] In my introductory note to Chapters VIII. and IX. (see p. 244), I have mentioned a remarkable instance of the permanency of characteristics, even in branches of the same race. An equally, if not more striking ill.u.s.tration of this fact is given by Alex. Von Humboldt.

It is well known that Spain contains a population composed of very dissimilar ethnical elements, and that the inhabitants of its various provinces differ essentially, not only in physical appearance, but still more in mental characteristics. As in all newly-settled countries, immigrants from the same locality are apt to select the same spot, the extensive Spanish possessions on this continent were colonized, each respectively, by some particular province in the mother country. Thus the Biscayans settled Mexico; the Andalusians and natives of the Canary Islands, Venezuela; the Catalonians, Buenos Ayres; the Castillians, Peru, etc. Although centuries have elapsed since these original settlements, and although the character of the Spanish Americans must have been variously modified by the physical nature of their new homes, whether situated in the vicinity of coasts, or of mining districts, or in isolated table-lands, or in fertile valleys; notwithstanding all this, the great traveller and experienced observer still clearly recognizes in the character of the various populations of South America, the distinctive peculiarities of the original settlers. Says he: "The Andalusians and Canarians of Venezuela, the Mountaineers and the Biscayans of Mexico, the Catalonians of Buenos Ayres, evince considerable differences in their apt.i.tude for agriculture, for the mechanical arts, for commerce, and for all objects connected with intellectual development. _Each of these races has preserved, in the new, as in the old world, the shades that const.i.tute its national physiognomy_; its asperity or mildness of character; its freedom from sordid feelings, or its excessive love of gain; its social hospitality, or its taste of solitude.... In the inhabitants of Caracas, Santa Fe, Quito, and Buenos Ayres, we still recognize the features that belong to the race of the first settlers."--_Personal Narrative_, Eng. Trans., vol. i. p. 395.--H.

CHAPTER XII.