On the phenomena of hybridity in the genus Homo / by Paul Broca ; edited, with the permission of the author, by C. Carter Blake.
- Paul Broca
- Date:
- 1864
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the phenomena of hybridity in the genus Homo / by Paul Broca ; edited, with the permission of the author, by C. Carter Blake. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![In investigating hybridity in animals^ we bave found that homoeogenesis is not always exactly proportional to the degree of proximity of species; we would especially point out that the chabeins, or hybrids of the goat and the sheep^ are superior to the mules of the ass and the mare^ though there is a greater difference between goats and sheep than between the horse and the ass.^ It is not less true that in general, though with some exceptions, the results of intermixture are more defective in proportion as the species are more distant from each other. This leads us to study human hybridity in such regions where the most elevated races have cotue into contact with the most inferior races. What are the two races forming the extremes of the human species ? Several English authors express the conviction that the Anglo-Saxon, or rather the Germanic race, to which they belong, is the first race of humanity. M. Alex. Haiwey is even pleased to believe that Providence has created it to rule all the rest.® Patriotism is a virtue which is entitled to our esteem. W^e shall, therefore, not attempt diminishing the satisfaction of our allies across the straits, and we shall, at any rate, acknowledge that the race which has produced a Leibnitz and a Newton is inferior to none. the European races, especially those of the south, differ infinitely less firom the American races than from the Ethiopian and the intermediate characters; even Mulattoes of the first degree are much less marked in the first than in the second case. Thus the famous Pauhstas of the province of Saint-Paul, Brazil, issued from the union of Portuguese and Indians, constitute a vigo- rous class, brave, and even heroic, though ferocious and turbulent. Accord- ing to certain authors, the European blood predominates in them; others, on the contrary, maintain that they are pure Indians. These contradictions prove the difficulty of estimating the degree of the intermixture between the Mulattoes sprung from Europeans and Indians. The question whether Mulattoes of the first degree are indefinitely prolific between themselves,— whether they are habitu^y, or only exceptionally so, cannot be solved by travellers. Eesident observers, and especially physicians, may ultimately furnish precise facts. > The Chabeins are eugenesic hybrids, while mules, properly so called, are dysgenesic hybrids. 2 Monthly Journal of Medical Science, Edinburgh, vol. xi, p. 301, 1850. [The most fiagrant instance of this is to be found amongst the mixed blooded descendants of the Anglo-Saxon, German, Dutch, French, and Irish nations in the Federal States of America, whose “ manifest destiny,” accord- ing to their own hope, is the “ annexation” of the civilised world. The Pu- ritans of New England founded their claims to the colony on the following propositions:—1. That the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof. 2. That God has given the earth to be inhabited by his saints. 3. That we are the saints. The aborigines of the country were accordingly extirpated, to carry out practically these sentiments.—Editob.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22445122_0058.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
