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
We are, then, in default of a physiological experimentation analogous
to what the monogenists require, in attempting to prove that the
crossing of two species of animals is or is not eugenesic, reduced to
the impressions, or rather appreciation of observers. Most of these
appreciations can only be approximatives wanting a fixed basis. It is
absolutely unknown what is the relative proportion of mulattoes of the
first degree who intermarry between themselves, and such who intermix
with other mestizos, or with individuals of a pure race; nor can we
know what, in a given population, should be the normal proportion of
these mulattos if they were perfectly prolific _between themselves_.
It then becomes very difficult to say whether the number of mulattoes
issued in a direct line from mestizos of the first degree is equal to
the normal proportion, or inferior to it; so that, if they are but
little inferior to their parents in regard to fecundity, the fact
might pass unobserved. The relative sterility of these breeds would
only become evident when it approaches absolute sterility. Between
this degree of prolifickness and perfect fecundity there are many
intermediate degrees, difficult to recognise, and still more difficult
to prove.
The first French observer who has denied the prolifickness of mulattoes
is M. Jacquinot, author of the zoological part of the _Voyage to the
South Pole and Oceania_. We shall reproduce here some passages from
that work. After having spoken of the cross-breeds of animals, M.
Jacquinot continues in the following terms:[26]
“It is the same in the human genus. There the species are very
approximating, and, according to the principles just laid down,
‘that the more species are approximating the greater the chance of
fecundity,’ the mestizos issuing from the intermixture enjoy a certain
degree of prolifickness which, however, as in animals, is not absolute.
Like the latter, they return to the mother’s species in allying
themselves with them; and, independently of their relative fecundity,
new individuals are constantly produced by the union of the parent
races.
“On observing in our colonies that a population of mulattos is
constantly produced and renewed, their fecundity was not doubted; yet
it is very limited. On the one hand the mulattos disappear every moment
in one or the other of the parent races, and if their unions were
constantly between themselves, they would not be long before becoming
extinct....
“In a colony, that is to say in an island, or a part of a continent of
limited extent peopled by Negroes and white men for some centuries, the
greater part of the population should be composed of mulattoes....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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