As nothing authorizes us to believe that the human race are exempt from this law, so nothing has hitherto been able to shake the strength of this objection,[138] which, more than all the others, holds the advocates for plurality in check. It is, indeed, affirmed that, in certain portions of Oceanica, indigenous women, after having brought forth a half-breed European child, can no longer be fecundated by compatriots. If this assertion be admitted as correct, it might serve as a starting point for further investigations; but at present it could not be used to invalidate the admitted principles of science upon the generation of hybrids--against the deductions drawn from these it proves nothing. FOOTNOTES: [118] M. Flourens, _Eloge de Blumenbach, Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences_. Paris, 1847, p. xiii. This _savant_ justly protests against such a method. [119] For the description of types in this and other portions of this chapter, I am indebted to M. WILLIAM LAWRENCE, _Lect. on the Nat. Hist. of Man_. London, 1844. But especially to the learned JAMES COWLES PRICHARD, _Nat. Hist. of Man_. London, 1848. [120] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 129. [121] It is impossible to conceive an idea of the scarce human form of these creatures, without the aid of pictorial representations. In Prichard's _Natural History of Man_ will be found a plate (No. 23, p. 355) from M. d'Urville's atlas, which may assist the reader in gaining an idea of the utmost hideousness that the human form is capable of. I cannot but believe that the picture there given is considerably exaggerated, but with all due allowance in this respect, enough ugliness will be left to make us almost ashamed to recognize these beings as belonging to our kind.--H. [122] _Op. cit._, p. 111. [123] It will be observed that Prichard and Camper, and further on Blumenbach, here use the word _nation_ as synonymous to _race_. See my introduction, p. 65.--H. [124] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 115. [125] _Op. cit._, p. 117. [126] Carus, _Ueber ungleiche Befähigung_, etc., p. 19. [127] _Op. cit._, p. 20. [128] As Mr. Gobineau has taken the facts presented by Dr. Morton at second hand, and, moreover, had not before him Dr. Morton's later tables and more matured deductions, Dr. Nott has given an abstract of the result arrived at by the learned craniologist, as published by himself in 1849. This abstract, and the valuable comments of Dr. Nott himself, will be found in the Appendix, under A.--H.