The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races Part 2

ANIMAL } PROPENSITIES } Very strong Moderate Strong.

MORAL } Partially Comparatively Highly MANIFESTATIONS } latent developed cultivated.

But the races comprised in each group vary among themselves, if not with regard to the relative proportion in which they possess the elements of civilization, at least in their intensity. The following formulas will, I think, apply to the majority of cases, and, at the same time, bring out my idea in a clearer light:--

If the animal propensities are strongly developed, and not tempered by the intellectual faculties, the moral conceptions must be exceedingly low, because they necessarily depend on the clearness, refinement, and comprehensiveness of the ideas derived from the material world through the senses. The religious cravings will, therefore, be contented with a gross worship of material objects, and the moral sense degenerate into a grovelling superst.i.tion. The utmost elevation which a population, so const.i.tuted, can reach, will be an unconscious impersonation of the good aspirations and the evil tendencies of their nature under the form of a good and an evil spirit, to the latter of which absurd and often b.l.o.o.d.y homage is paid. Government there can be no other than the right which force gives to the strong, and its forms will be slavery among themselves, and submissiveness of all to a tyrannical absolutism.

When the same animal propensities are combined with intellect of a higher order, the moral faculties have more room for action. The penetration of intellect will not be long in discovering that the gratification of physical desires is easiest and safest in a state of order and stability. Hence a more complex system of legislation both social and political. The conceptions of the Deity will be more elevated and refined, though the idea of a future state will probably be connected with visions of material enjoyment, as in the paradise of the Mohammedans.

Where the animal propensities are weak and the intellect feeble, a vegetating national life results. No political organization, or of the very simplest kind. Few laws, for what need of restraining pa.s.sions which do not exist. The moral sense content with the vague recognition of a superior being, to whom few or no rites are rendered.

But when the animal propensities are so moderate as to be subordinate to an intellect more or less vigorous, the moral aspirations will yearn towards the regions of the abstract. Religion becomes a system of metaphysics, and often loses itself in the mazes of its own subtlety.

The political organization and civil legislation will be simple, for there are few pa.s.sions to restrain; but the laws which regulate social intercourse will be many and various, and supposed to emanate directly from the Deity.

Strong animal pa.s.sions, joined to an intellect equally strong, allow the greatest expanse for the moral sense. Political organizations the most complex and varied, social and civil laws the most studied, will be the outward character of a society composed of such elements. Internally we shall perceive the greatest contrasts of individual goodness and wickedness. Religion will be a symbolism of human pa.s.sions and the natural elements for the many, an ingenious fabric of moral speculations for the few.

I have here rapidly sketched a series of pictures from nature, which the historian and ethnographer will not fail to recognize. Whether the features thus cursorily delineated are owing to the causes to which I ascribe them, I must leave for the reader to decide. My s.p.a.ce is too limited to allow of my entering into an elaborate argumentation. But I would observe that, by taking this view of the subject, we can understand why all human--and therefore false--religions are so intimately connected with the social and political organization of the peoples which profess them, and why they are so plainly mapped out on the globe as belonging to certain races, to whom alone they are applicable, and beyond whose area they cannot extend: while Christianity knows no political or social forms, no geographical or ethnological limits. The former, being the productions of human intellect, must vary with its variation, and perish in its decay, while revelation is universal and immutable, like the Intelligence of which it is the emanation.

It is time now to conclude the task, the accomplishment of which has carried me far beyond the limits I had at first proposed to myself. If I have so long detained the reader on the threshold of the edifice, it was to facilitate his after progress, and to give him a chart, that he may not lose himself in the vast field it covers. There he may often meet me again, and if I be sometimes deemed officious with my proffered explanations, he will at least give me credit for good intentions, and he may, if he chooses, pa.s.s me without recognition. Both this introduction and notes in the body of the work were thought necessary for several reasons. First, the subject is in some measure a new one, and it was important to guard against misconception, and show, right at the beginning, what was attempted to be proved, and in what manner.

Secondly, the author wrote for a European public, and many allusions are made, or positions taken, upon an a.s.sumed knowledge of facts, of which the general reader on this side of the ocean can be supposed to have but a slight and vague apprehension. Thirdly, the author has, in many cases, contented himself with abstract reasoning, and therefore is sometimes chargeable with obscureness, on which account familiar ill.u.s.trations have been supplied. Fourthly, the volume now presented to the reader is one of a series of four, the remainder of which, if this meets the public approbation, may in time appear in an English garb. But it was important to make this, as much as possible, independent of the others and complete in itself. The discussion of the moral and intellectual diversities of the various groups of the human family, is, as I have before shown, totally independent of the question of unity or diversity of species; yet, as it increases the interest attached to the solution of that question, which has been but imperfectly discussed by the author, my esteemed friend, Dr. J. C. Nott, who has so often and so ably treated the subject, has promised to furnish, in notes and an appendix, such additional facts pertaining to his province as a naturalist, as may a.s.sist the reader in arriving at a correct opinion.

With regard to the translation, it must be observed that it is not a _literal_ rendering of the original. The translator has aimed rather at giving the meaning, than the exact words or phraseology of the author, at no time, however, departing from the former. He has, in some instances, condensed or omitted what seemed irrelevant, or useless to the discussion of the question in this country, and in a few cases, he has transposed a sentence to a different part of the paragraph, where it seemed more in its place, and more effective. To explain and justify these alterations, we must remind our readers that the author wrote for a public essentially different from that of the translator; that continental writers on grave subjects are in general more intent upon vindicating their opinions than the form in which they express them, and seldom devote that attention to style which English or American readers expect; to which may be added that Count Gobineau wrote in the midst of a multiplicity of diplomatic affairs, and had no time, even if he had thought it worth his while, to give his work that literary finish which would satisfy the fastidious. Had circ.u.mstances permitted, this translation would have been submitted to his approbation, but at the time of its going to press he is engaged in the service of his country at the court of Persia.

For obtruding the present work on the notice of the American public, no apology will be required. The subject is one of immense importance, and especially in this country, where it can seldom be discussed without advent.i.tious circ.u.mstances bia.s.sing the inquirers. To the philanthropist, the leading idea of the book, "that different races, like different individuals, are specially fitted for special purposes, for the fulfilment of which they are accountable in the measure laid down in Holy Writ: 'To whom much is given, from him much will be asked,'

and that they are _equal_ only when they truly and faithfully perform the duties of their station"--to the philanthropist, this idea must be fraught with many valuable suggestions. So far from loosening the ties of brotherhood, it binds them closer, because it teaches us not to despise those who are endowed differently from us; and shows us that they, too, may have excellencies which we have not.

To the statesman, the student of history, and the general reader, it is hoped that this volume will not be altogether useless, and may a.s.sist to a better understanding of many of the problems that have so long puzzled the philosopher. The greatest revolutions in national relations have been accomplished by the migrations of races, the most calamitous wars that have desolated the globe have been the result of the hostility of races. Even now, a cloud is lowering in the horizon. The friend of peace and order watches it with silent anxiety, lest he hasten its coming. The spirit of mischief exults in its approach, but fears to betray his plans. Thus, western and central Europe now present the spectacle of a lull before the storm. Monarchs sit trembling on their thrones, while nations mutter curses. Nor have premonitory symptoms been wanting. Three times, within little more than half a century, have the eruptions of that ever-burning political volcano--France--shaken the social and political system of the civilized world, and shown the amount of combustible materials, which all the efforts of a ruling cla.s.s cannot always protect from ignition. The grand catastrophe may come within our times. And, is it the result of any particular social condition, the action of any particular cla.s.s in the social scale, the diffusion of any particular political principles? No, because the revolutionary tendencies are various, and even opposite; if republican in one place, monarchical in another; if democratic in France, aristocratic in Poland.

Nor is it a particular social cla.s.s wherein the revolutionary principle flourishes, for the cla.s.ses which, in one country, wish subversion, in another, are firmly attached to the established order of things. The poor in Germany are proletarians and revolutionists; in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, the enthusiastic lovers of their king. The better cla.s.ses in the former country are mostly conservative; in the latter, they are the makers, or rather attempters, of revolutions. Nor is it any particular social condition, for no cla.s.s is so degraded as it has been; never was poverty less, and prosperity greater in Europe than in the present century; and everywhere the political inst.i.tutions are more liberal than ever before. Whence, then, this gathering storm? Does it exist only in the minds of the visionary, or is it a mere bugbear of the timorous? Ask the prudent statesman, the traveller who pierces the different strata of the population; look behind the grates of the State-prisons; count--if this be possible--the number of victims of military executions in Germany and Austria, in 1848 and 1849; read the fearful accounts of the taking of Vienna, of Rome, of Ancona, of Venice, during the same short s.p.a.ce of time. Everywhere the same cry: Nationality. It is not the temporary ravings of a mob rendered frantic by hunger and misery. It is a question of nationality, a war of races. Happy we who are removed from the immediate scene of the struggle, and can be but remotely affected by it. Yet, while I write, it seems as though the gales of the Atlantic had blown to our peaceful sh.o.r.es some taints of the epidemic that rages in the Old World. May it soon pa.s.s over, and a healthy atmosphere again prevail!

H. H.

MOBILE, Aug. 20, 1855.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Researches into the Physical History of Mankind_. By James Cowles Prichard, M. D., London, 1841. Vol. i. p. 1.

[2] "Mr. Prichard's _permanent variety_, from his own definition, is to all intents and purposes _a species_."--_Kneeland's Introduction to Hamilton Smith's Natural History of the Human Species_, p. 84.

[3] Smith's Wealth of Nations, Amer. ed., vol. i. p. 29.

[4] _Vide_ Bigland's Effects of Physical and Moral Causes on the Character and Circ.u.mstances of Nations. London, 1828, p. 282.

[5] _Op. cit._, p. 7.

[6] St. Matthew, ch. xi. v. 25.

[7] _Vide_ Prichard's _Natural History of Man_, p. 66, _et pa.s.sim_. "His theory," says Van Amringe, "required that animals should be a.n.a.logous to man. It was therefore highly important that, as he was then laying the foundation for all his future arguments and conclusions, he should elevate animals to the proper eminence, to be a.n.a.logous; rather than, as Mr. Lawrence did, sink man to the level of brutes. It was an ingenious contrivance by which he could gain all the advantages, and escape the censures of the learned lecturer. It is so simple a contrivance, too--merely subst.i.tuting the word 'psychological' for 'instinctive characteristics,' and the whole animal kingdom would instantly rise to the proper platform, to be the types of the human family. To get the psychology of men and animals thus related, without the trouble of philosophically accomplishing so impossible a thing, by the mere use of a word, was an ingenious, though not an ingenuous achievement. It gave him a specious right to use bees and wasps, rats and dogs, sheep, goats, and rabbits--in short, the whole animal kingdom--as human psychical a.n.a.logues, which would be amazingly convenient when conclusions were to be made."--_Natural History of Man_, by W. F. VAN AMRINGE. 1848, p. 459.

[8] This fact is considered by Dr. Nott as a proof of _specific_ difference among dogs.--_Types of Mankind._ Phila., 1854.

[9] In 1497, Vasco di Gama sailed around Cape Good Hope; even previous to that, Portuguese vessels had coasted along the western sh.o.r.es of Africa. Since that time the Europeans have subjected the whole of the American continents, southern Asia and the island world of the Pacific, while Africa is almost as unknown as it ever was. The Cape Colony is not in the original territory of the negro. Liberia and Sierra Leone contain a half-breed population, and present experiments by no means tested. It may be fairly a.s.serted that nowhere has the power and intelligence of the white race made less impression, produced fewer results, than in the domain of the negro.

[10] Roberts, the president of the Liberian Republic, boasts of but a small portion of African blood in his veins. Sequoyah, the often-cited inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, so far from being a pure Indian, was the son of a white man.

[11] For the great perfection to which the Chinese have carried the luxuries and amenities of life, see particularly M. Huc's _Travels in China_. He lived among them for years, and, what few travellers do, spoke their language so fluently and perfectly that he was enabled, during a considerable number of years, to discharge the duties of a missionary, disguised as a native.

[12] It would be useless to remind our readers of the famous Great Wall, the Imperial Ca.n.a.ls, that largest of the cities of the world--Pekin. The various treatises of the Chinese on morals and politics, especially that of Confucius, have been admired by all European thinkers. _Consult Pauthier's elaborate work on China._ It is equally well known that the Chinese knew the art of printing, gunpowder and its uses, the mariner's compa.s.s, etc., centuries before we did. For the general diffusion of elementary knowledge among the Chinese, see _Davis's Sketches_, and other authors. Those who may think me a bia.s.sed panegyrist of the Chinese, I refer to the following works as among the most reliable of the vast number written on the subject:--

_Description Historique, Geographique, et Litteraire de la Chine._ Par M. G. PAUTHIER. Paris, 1839.

_China Opened._ By REV. CHS. GUTZLAFF. London, 1838.

_China, Political, Commercial, and Social._ By R. MONTGOMERY MARTIN.

London, 1847.

_Sketches of China._ By JOHN F. DAVIS. London, 1841.

And above all, for amusing and instructive reading,

_Journey through the Chinese Empire._ By M. HUC. New York, 1855; and

_Melanges Asiatiques._ Par ABEL REMUSAT. Paris, 1835.

[13] Unwilling to introduce statistic pedantry into a composition of so humble pretensions as an introduction, I have refrained to give the figures--not always very accurate, I admit--upon which the preceding gradation is based, viz: the number of persons able to read and write in each of the above-named countries. How far England and France are behindhand in this respect, compared either with ourselves, or with other European nations, is tolerably well known; but the fact that not only in China proper, but in Thibet, j.a.pan, Anam, Tonquin, etc., few can be found devoid of that acquirement, will probably meet with many incredulous readers, though it is mentioned by almost every traveller.

(See _J. Mohl's Annual Report to the Asiatic Society_, 1851.) But, it may be safely a.s.serted that, in the whole of that portion of Asia lying south of the Altai Mountains, including j.a.pan, altogether the most populous region of the globe, the percentage of males unable to read and write is by far smaller than in the entire population of Europe. Be it well understood, that I do not, therefore, claim any superiority for the inhabitants of the former region over those of the latter.

"In China," says M. Huc, "there are not, as in Europe, public libraries and reading-rooms; but those who have a taste for reading, and a desire to instruct themselves, can satisfy their inclinations very easily, as books are sold here at a lower price than in any other country. Besides, the Chinese find everywhere something to read; they can scarcely take a step without seeing some of the characters of which they are so proud.

One may say, in fact, that all China is an immense library; for inscriptions, sentences, moral precepts, are found in every corner, written in letters of all colors and all sizes. The facades of the tribunals, the paG.o.das, the public monuments, the signs of the shops, the doors of the houses, the interior of the apartments, the corridors, all are full of fine quotations from the best authors. Teacups, plates, vases, fans, are so many selections of poems, often chosen with much taste, and prettily printed. A Chinese has no need to give himself much trouble in order to enjoy the finest productions of his country's literature. He need only take his pipe, and walk out, with his nose in the air, through the princ.i.p.al streets of the first town he comes to.

Let him enter the poorest house in the most wretched village; the dest.i.tution may be complete, things the most necessary will be wanting; but he is sure of finding some fine maxims written out on strips of red paper. Thus, if those grand large characters, which look so terrific in our eyes, though they delight the Chinese, are really so difficult to learn, at least the people have the most ample opportunities of studying them, almost in play, and of impressing them ineffaceably on their memories."--_A Journey through the Chinese Empire_, vol. i. pp. 327-328.

[14] Is it necessary to call to the mind of the reader, that the most prominent physicians, the greatest chemists, the best mathematicians, were French, and that to the same nation belong the Comptes, the De Maistres, the Guizots, the De Tocquevilles; or that, notwithstanding its political extravaganzas, every liberal theory was first fostered in its bosom? The father of our democratic party was the pupil of French governmental philosophy, by the lessons of which even his political opponents profited quite as much as by its errors.

[15] Brace, in his _Home Life in Germany_, mentions an instance of this kind, but not having the volume at hand, I cannot cite the page. To every one, however, that has travelled in Europe, or has not, such facts are familiar. It is well known, for instance, that in some of the most polished European countries, the wooden ploughshare is still used; and that, in Paris, that metropolis of arts and fashion, every drop of water must be carried, in buckets, from the public fountains to the Dutchess'

_boudoir_ in the first, and to the Grisette's garret in the seventh story. Compare this with the United States, where--not to mention Fairmount and Croton--the smallest town, almost, has her water-works, if required by her topography. Are we, then, so infinitely more civilized than France?

[16] Since writing the above, I lit upon the following striking confirmation of my idea by Dr. Pickering, whose a.n.a.logism here so closely resembles mine, as almost to make me suspect myself of unconscious plagiarism. "While admitting the general truth, that mankind are essentially alike, no one doubts the existence of character, distinguishing not only individuals, but communities and nations. I am persuaded that there is, besides, a character of race. It would not be difficult to select epithets; such as 'amphibious, enduring, insit.i.tious;' or to point out as accomplished by one race of men, that which seemed beyond the powers of another. Each race possessing its peculiar points of excellence, and, at the same time, counterbalancing defects, it may be that union was required to attain the full measure of civilization. In the organic world, each field requires a new creation; each change in circ.u.mstances going beyond the const.i.tution of a plant or animal, is met by a new adaptation, until the whole universe is full; while, among the immense variety of created beings, two kinds are hardly found fulfilling the same precise purpose. Some a.n.a.logy may possibly exist in the human family; and it may even be questioned, whether any one of the races existing singly would, up to the present day, have extended itself over the whole surface of the globe."--_The Races of Man, and their Geographical Distribution._ By CHARLES PICKERING, M. D.

Boston, 1811. (_U. S. Exploring Expedition_, vol. ix. p. 200.)

[17] Since Champollion's fortunate discovery of the Rosetta stone, which furnished the key to the hieroglyphics, the deciphering of these once so mysterious characters has made such progress, that Lepsius, the great modern Egyptologist, declares it possible to write a minute court gazette of the reign of Ramses II., the Sesostris of the Greeks, and even of monarchs as far back as the IVth dynasty. To understand that this is no vain boast, the reader must remember that these hieroglyphics mostly contain records of private or royal lives, and that the mural paintings in the temples and sepulchral chambers, generally represent scenes ill.u.s.trative of trades, or other occupations, games, etc., practised among the people of that early day.

[18] _Ethnological Journal_, edited by Luke Burke, London, 1848; June 1, No. 1, from _Types of Mankind_. By NOTT and GLIDDON, p. 49.

[19] From _Types of Mankind_. By NOTT and GLIDDON, p. 52.