The founders of anthropology, Buffon, Blumenbach, and even Prichard, have taken very little notice of crossings between human races, and have neglected their importance. It can scarcely be brought as a serious reproach against them. The two former were unacquainted with many of the facts which we possess at present. Prichard was neither a naturalist nor a physiologist. Moreover, nothing forcibly directed their attention towards crossings which might have occurred in more or less distant times, or among nations still insufficiently known. At the present time this indifference is impossible. On the one hand, the better the various nations are known, the greater becomes the number of those which derive their origin from intercrossing; on the other hand, it is impossible not to pay attention to everything which happens to mankind in consequence of the impulse to expansion and mixture which takes place on every side. From seeing the phenomena which occur in the present times, we are naturally led to investigate those which may have taken place in times past. II. Are _mixed human races_ formed now? In the presence of the general facts which I have related in a preceding chapter, this question might appear strange. Nevertheless, the question has been asked, and in a more or less formal manner has been answered in the negative. A few words on the subject are therefore necessary. We may consider the era of modern crossings as dating from the discovery of the new world. Nevertheless the mixture of bloods has only taken place on a large scale at a later period, at the utmost after the conquest of the Indies in 1515, that of Mexico in 1520, and that of Peru in 1534. We are not separated from this epoch by more than three centuries and a half. And yet M. d’Omalius, only counting the products of the crossing of the European White with the different coloured races, estimates the number of half-breeds at eighteen millions. The population of the globe being estimated as 1200 millions, the product of cross-unions is already represented by about 1/65th. We know, moreover, how irregular is the distribution of half-breeds. Immense tracts of country have not been affected. But where the peoples are in intimate contact, the proportion is much greater. In Mexico and South America half-breeds constitute at least one-fifth of the population. But, say Knox and the other anthropologists who more or less explicitly adopt his views, the number of half-breeds is entirely kept up by incessant cross-unions. If abandoned to themselves, and if they no longer had access to the pure races, they would rapidly disappear. I will confine myself to quoting a few facts in opposition to these assertions.