The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races: With Particular Reference to Their Respective Influence in the Civil and Political History of MankindGobineau, Arthur, comte de
Philosophy
The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races: With Particular Reference to Their Respective Influence in the Civil and Political History of Mankind
[129] I fear that our author has here fallen into an error which his own
facts disprove, and which is still everywhere received without
examination, viz: that cultivation can change the form or size of the
head, either of individuals or races; an opinion, in support of which,
no facts whatever can be adduced. The heads of the barbarous races of
Europe were precisely the same as those of civilized Europe in our day;
this is proven by the disinterred crania of ancient races, and by other
facts. Nor do we see around us among the uneducated, heads inferior in
form and size to those of the more privileged classes. Does any one
pretend that the nobility of England, which has been an educated class
for centuries, have larger heads, or more intelligence than the ignoble?
On the contrary, does not most of the talent of England spring up from
plebeian ranks? Wherever civilization has been brought to a population
of the white race, they have accepted it at once--their heads required
no development. Where, on the contrary, it has been carried to Negroes,
Mongols, and Indians, they have rejected it. Egyptians and Hindoos have
small heads, but we know little of the early history of their
civilization. Egyptian monuments prove that the early people and
language of Egypt were strongly impregnated with Semitic elements.
Latham has shown that the Sanscrit language was carried _from_ Europe to
India, and probably civilization with it.
I have looked in vain for twenty years for evidence to prove that
cultivation could enlarge a _brain_, while it expands the mind. The head
of a boy at twelve is as large as it ever is.--N.
[130] Carus, _op. cit._, p. 12.
[131] There are some very slight ones, which nevertheless are very
characteristic. Among this number I would class a certain enlargement on
each side of the lower lip, which is found among the English and
Germans. I find this indication of Germanic origin in several paintings
of the Flemish school, in the _Madonna_ of Rubens, in the museum of
Dresden, in the _Satyrs_ and _Nymphs_ of the same collection, in a
_Lute-player_ of Miéris, etc. No cranioscopic method whatever could
embrace such details, which, however, are not without value in the great
mixture of races which Europe presents.
[132] Prichard, _op. cit._, p. 329.
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