On the phenomena of hybridity in the genus HomoBroca, Paul
Science
On the phenomena of hybridity in the genus Homo
Broca, Paul
Hominids -- Hybridization; Miscegenation
fate by marrying indigenous females--what the _Mamelukes have always
disdained_. (The wives of the Mamelukes were, like their slaves,
imported from Georgia, Mongrelia, etc.) Let it now be explained why
well formed men, married to healthy women, cannot naturalise on the
borders of the Nile a blood formed at the foot of the Caucasus! We
are at the same time reminded that European plants equally refuse to
perpetuate their species in that locality.”[22] Despite the precision
of this passage, many Mamelukes no doubt took wives and numerous
concubines from the indigenous population. It is difficult to believe
that it could have been otherwise, and Gliddon had a right to say,
that if the offspring of the two races had been prolific, there would
inevitably have been produced in Egypt a mixed race. But the fact
revealed by Volney, which is perfectly authentic, still maintains its
force, namely, that the Mamelukes, by the simple fact of change of
country, had lost the power of engendering _with the women of their own
race_, a prolific posterity; hence, nothing proves that the sterility
of their offspring depended on the influence of hybridity, but rather
on the influence of climate.
It is not our purpose successively to review all particular
intermixtures produced in human races, or to determine the degree of
the fecundity of the hybrids resulting from it.
To demonstrate that eugenesic hybridity really exists, one instance
is sufficient, provided it be conclusive; and to find this example
we need not travel beyond our country. The population of France, as
we have amply established elsewhere, is descended from several very
distinct races, and presents everywhere the character of mixed races.
The pure representatives of the primitive races form a very small
minority; nevertheless, this hybrid nation, so far from decaying, in
accordance with the theory of Mr. Gobineau; far from presenting a
decreasing fecundity, according to some other authors, grows every day
in intelligence, prosperity, and numbers. Ever since the revolution
has broken the last obstacle which opposed themselves to the mixture
of races, and despite of the gigantic wars which during twenty-five
years mowed down the _élite_ of its male population, France has seen
the number of its inhabitants increase by more than one-third; this is
not a symptom of decay. Dr. Knox, in his curious essay on the Races
of Men (London, 1850), has thought proper to utter, in relation to
the French, some hard truths: and also some calumnies, which we shall
put to the account of his patriotism. Mr. Knox has accorded to the
French nation an increasing physical prosperity, and as this side of
the question is the only one which occupies us here, we might dispense
with any other testimony. That learned author thought what he said
about the French applied exclusively to the Celtic race; he supposed
that upon our soil there were nought but pure Celts, and that the other
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