has been considered in a great number of particulars under the title MAN (Encyc.) but a reference was made from that article to the article VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES, which was, after all, omitted entirely.
Perhaps enough has been said on the varieties of the human species in the articles COMPLEXION AND NEGRO (Encyc.) but as infidel ignorance is perpetually pretending, that the diminutive Icelan, the ugly Esquimaux, the woolly-headed Negro, and the copper-coloured American, could not have descended from one original pair, either of European complexion or of Hindu symmetry—it may not be improper, in this place, to shew the weakness of this popular objection to the Mosaic history of the origin of man. This has been done in so satisfactory a manner by Professor Blumenbach, that we have nothing to do but lay his observations before our readers, convinced, as we are, that they are intelligible to every capacity, and that they will carry conviction to all who are not the slaves of prejudice.
Some late writers on natural history (says the Professor) seem doubtful whether the numerous distinct races of men ought to be considered as mere varieties, which have arisen from degeneration, or as so many species altogether different. The cause of this seems chiefly to be, that they took too narrow a view in their researches; selected, perhaps, two races the most different from each other possible, and, overlooking the intermediate races that formed the connecting links between them, compared these two together; or, they fixed their attention too much on man, without examining other species of animals, and comparing their varieties and degeneration with those of the human species. The first fault is, when one, for example, places together a Senegal negro and an European Adonis, and at the same time forgets that there is not one of the bodily differences of these two beings, whether hair, colour, features, &c., which does not gradually run into the same thing of the other, by such a variety of shades, that no physiologist or naturalist is able to establish a certain boundary between these gradations, and consequently between the extremes themselves.
The second fault is, when people reason as if man were the only organised being in nature, and consider the varieties in his species to be strange and problematical, without reflecting that all these varieties are not more striking or more uncommon than those with which so many thousands of other species of organised beings degenerate, as it were, before our eyes.
As what we have laid under the articles COMPLEXION AND NEGRO may be sufficient to warn mankind against the first error, and at the same time to refute it, we hasten to refute the second by our author's comparison between the human race and that of swine.
More reasons (says he) than one have induced me to make choice of swine for this comparison; but, in particular, because they have a great similarity, in many respects, to man: nor, however, in the form of their entrails, as people formerly believed, and therefore studied the anatomy of the human body purposely in swine; so that, even in the last century, a celebrated dispute, which arose between the physicians of Heidelberg and those of Würzach, respecting the position of the heart in man, was determined, in consequence of orders from government, by inspecting a sow, to the great triumph of the party which really was in the wrong. Nor is it because in the time of Galen, according to repeated assertions, human flesh was said to have a taste perfectly similar to that of swine; nor because the fat, and the tanned hides of both, are very like to each other; but because both, in regard to the economy of their bodily structure, taken on the whole, shew unexpectedly, on the first view, as well as on closer examination, a very striking similitude.
Both, for example, are domestic animals; both omnivorous; both are dispersed throughout all the four quarters of the world; and both consequently are exposed, in numerous ways, to the principal causes of degeneration arising from climate, mode of life, nourishment, &c.; both, for the same reason, are subject to many diseases, and, what is particularly worthy of remark, to diseases rarely found among other animals than men and swine, such as the stone in the bladder; or to diseases exclusively peculiar to these two, such as the worms found in swine.
Another reason (continues he) why I have made choice of swine for the present comparison is, because the degeneration and descent from the original race are far more certain in these animals, and can be better traced, than in the varieties of other domestic animals. For no naturalist, I believe, has carried his scepticism so far as to doubt the descent of the domestic swine from the wild boar; which is so much the more evident, as it is well known that wild pigs, when caught, may be easily rendered as tame and familiar as domestic swine; and the contrary also is the case; for if the latter by any accident get into the woods, they as readily become wild again; so that there are instances of such animals... animals being shot for wild swine; and it has not been till they were opened, and found castrated, that people were led to a discovery of their origin, and how, and at what time, they ran away. It is well ascertained, that, before the discovery of America by the Spaniards, swine were unknown in that quarter of the world, and that they were afterwards carried thither from Europe.
All the varieties, therefore, through which this animal has since degenerated, belong, with the original European race, to one and the same species; and since no bodily difference is found in the human race, as will presently appear, either in regard to stature, colour, the form of the cranium, &c., which is not observed in the same proportion among the swine race, while no one, on that account, ever doubts that all these different kinds are merely varieties that have arisen from degeneration through the influence of climate, &c., this comparison, it is to be hoped, will silence those sceptics who have thought proper, on account of these varieties in the human race, to admire more than one species.
"With regard to stature, the Patagonians, as is well known, have afforded the greatest employment to anthropologists. The romantic tales, however, of the old travellers, who give to these inhabitants of the southern extremity of America a stature of ten feet and more, are scarcely worth notice; and even the more modest relations of later English navigators, who make their height from six to seven feet, have been doubted by other travellers, who, on the same coast, sought for such children of Enoch in vain. But we shall admit every thing said of the extraordinary size of these Patagonians by Byron, Wallis, and Carteret; the first of whom affirms to their chief, and several of his attendants, a height of not less than seven feet, as far as could be determined by the eye; the second, who affirms that he actually measured them, gives to the greater part of them from five feet to inches to six feet; to some six feet five inches, and six feet six; but to the tallest, six feet seven inches; and this account is confirmed by the last-mentioned of the above circumnavigators. Now, allowing this to be the case, it is not near such an excess of stature as that observed in many parts of America among the swine, originally carried thither from Europe; and of these I shall mention in particular those of Cuba, which are more than double the size of the original flock in Europe.
"The natives of Guinea, Madagascar, New Holland, New Guinea, &c., are black; many American tribes are reddish brown, and the Europeans are white. An equal difference is observed among swine in different countries. In Piedmont, for example, they are black. When I passed (says our author) through that country, during the great fair for swine at Salenge, I did not see a single one of any other colour. In Bavaria, they are reddish brown; in Normandy, they are all white.
"Human hair is, indeed, somewhat different from swine's bristles; yet, in the present point of view, they may be compared with each other. Fair hair is soft, and of a silky texture; black hair is coarser, and among several tribes, such as the Abyssinians, Negroes, and the inhabitants of New Holland, it is woolly, and most so among the Hottentots. In the like manner, among the white swine in Normandy, as I was assured by an incomparable observer, Sulzer of Ronneburg, the hair on the whole body is longer and softer than among other swine; and even the bristles on the back are very little different, but lie flat, and are only longer than the hair on the other parts of the body. They cannot, therefore, be employed by the brush-makers. The difference between the hair of the wild boar and the domestic swine, particularly in regard to the softer part between the strong bristles, is, as is well known, still greater.
"The whole difference between the cranium of a Negro and that of an European, is not in the least degree greater than that equally striking difference which exists between the cranium of the wild boar and that of the domestic swine. Those who have not observed this in the animals themselves, need only to call their eye on the figure which Daubenton has given of both.
"I shall pass over (says our author) less national varieties which may be found among swine as well as among men, and only mention, that I have been assured by Mr Sulzer, that the peculiarity of having the bone of the leg remarkably long, as is the case among the Hindoos, has been remarked with regard to the swine in Normandy. 'They stand very long on their hind legs (says he, in one of his letters); their back, therefore, is highest at the rump, forming a kind of inclined plane; and the head proceeds in the same direction, so that the snout is not far from the ground.' I shall here add, that the swine, in some countries, have degenerated into races which in singularity far exceed everything that has been found strange in bodily variety among the human race. Swine with solid hoofs were known to the ancients, and large herds of them are found in Hungary, Sweden, &c. In the like manner, the European Swine, first carried by the Spaniards, in 1509, to the island of Cuba, at that time celebrated for its pearl fishery, degenerated into a monstrous race, with hoofs which were half a span in length."
From these facts, our author concludes, that it is absurd to allow the vast variety of swine to have descended from one original pair, and to contend that the varieties of men are so many distinct species.