In investigating hybridity in animals, we have found that homœogenesis 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.[45] 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 come 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. Harvey is even pleased to believe that Providence has created it to rule all the rest.[46] Patriotism is a virtue which is entitled to our esteem. We 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. At the extremity of the world, and nearly at the antipodes of Great Britain, the English have been for more than half a century in contact with the Melanesian races, and specially with the Australians and Tasmanians. The relative degree of inferiority between these latter races, which differ sensibly in their physical character, may be open to discussion.[47] It is, however, generally admitted that they are inferior at least to all other races who have come in permanent contact with Europeans. The Hottentot race, which has long been considered to occupy the lowest degree, is evidently superior to them. The Hottentots, though refractory to education, have, at least, shown some degree of improvability, while the Australians seem absolutely incorrigible savages. The English have made the most persevering attempts to instruct them, but without any success. As they could not succeed with the adult population, they tried it with children of a tender age, and educated them with European children in orphan asylums; they have there learned to mumble some prayers, even to read and write; but, with approaching puberty, the young pupils succumbed to their savage instincts, and escaped into the woods to live again with their parents whom they had never known. At one time young Australians were transported to England, and confided to the Moravian brothers, who neglected no cares to improve them. “They have returned as brutish as they were before,” says M. Garnat; “a proprietor of a farm in the interior assured me, that he could never succeed to employ them in the most simple agricultural labour.”[48]