Читать книгу Negroes and Negro "Slavery:" the first an inferior race: the latter its normal condition - John H. van Evrie - Страница 5

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The organic world is separated into two great divisions, animal and vegetable, or into animate and inanimate beings. In regard to the vegetable kingdom, as it is termed, it is not necessary to say a word; those desirous of obtaining a thorough knowledge of animal life, however, had better begin their studies with the more elementary and simple forms of vegetable being. Many persons suppose that the whole animate existence is linked together by connecting or continuous gradations. In a certain sense this may be said to be so; nevertheless, absolutely considered, each family or form of being is a complete and independent creation. There are resemblances and approximations as well as gradations, yet each is perfect in itself, and makes up an entire world of its own. The Almighty Creator, in His infinite wisdom, has provided against chance, or accident, or human caprice, and placed each and every one of His works in a position of such absolute independence, that one of them, or more, perhaps, might utterly perish, and yet the beauty and harmony of nature would remain unimpaired. It is certain that some species of animals belonging to the existing order have utterly disappeared, and it is quite probable that some species of men have perished; but the grand economy of nature is unaffected by it. It is thought that the aborigines of this continent will, in time, utterly perish, and yet no one supposes that that event will disturb the operations of nature or deface the fair form of creation. This shows that there is no continuous or connecting link even among species of the same family or form of being. If there were such—if all the forms of life were continuous and connecting gradations—then it is evident that the destruction of one of these connecting links would cast the whole economy of being into utter confusion. In a watch, or any other elaborate machinery of human contrivance, a single wheel, or cog, or link, however minute, torn from its place, involves the disruption, if not absolute destruction, of the whole machine. And so it is in the economy of individual life, for, though one organ may be disabled, another, to a certain extent, and for a given time, supplies its place; yet the vital forces are enfeebled from the instant of such accident, and life, if not interrupted, is always impaired. But a species, a genus, a class, perhaps, a great number of these, might disappear, utterly vanish from existence, and those remaining would preserve the integrity and completeness the Creator had endowed them with at the beginning. While each and every form of life is, therefore, perfect in itself and independent of all others, there are resemblances and approximations that must be regarded as of vital importance.

Naturalists have divided or separated the organic world into classes, orders, genera, species and varieties. Classes are those like the mammalia—that is, all animals where the female nourishes its offspring by mammary glands. Orders are those like the quadrumana—all those having four hands. A genus, or a family proper, is composed of species; and a species includes varieties, or possible varieties, of the same being under different circumstances. But these classifications are, to a considerable extent, arbitrary; and though they serve the purpose of facilitating our studies, they may also lead us astray, if too closely followed. Genera, or families proper, in many cases at least, are, however, susceptible of very exact definitions. So, too, are species. For example:—The simiadæ, or monkey family, are so entirely distinct that they will not be or need not be confounded with anything else. Some ignorant or superficial persons, with the false notion of continuous and connecting gradations, have supposed the negro something midway between men and animals. But there is no such monstrosity in nature, for, as already observed, each form of being is a complete and independent creation in itself. A genus is composed of a given number of species, all different from each other, and, it need not be repeated, independent of each other. These genera are believed to be incapable of interunion with other genera, though this has been questioned in some cases. Species are capable of a limited interunion, though it may be doubted if such interunion ever occurs in a wild or savage state. And as each species is different in form and character from others, so the limited capacity for interunion varies, or in other words, hybrids—the product of different species—vary in their virility or power of reproduction. The given number of species of which a genus is composed, ascends or descends in the scale of being, that is, there is a head and base to the generic column. The one next above the most inferior has all the qualities of the latter, but these qualities have a fuller development, that is, the organization is more elaborate and the corresponding faculties are of a higher order. And indeed this is not confined to mere species or genera even, but is true of widely separated beings. Thus, the exalted and elegant Caucasian mother—the habitue of the Fifth avenue or St. Germain—nourishes her offspring by the same process common to the meanest of the mammalia. So, too, in the process of gestation, the function of mastication, deglutition, digestion, the sense of taste, of sight, etc.—the function is absolutely the same, but what a world of difference in the mode of its manifestation, that distinguishes the human being from the animal!

Investigations made by some French physiologists would seem to show that the mysterious problem of animal life might be simplified, and clearly grasped by the human intellect, by simply tracing this great fact to its elementary sources. It is said that the embryo (Caucasian) fœtus passes through all the forms of an innumerable number of lower gradations before it reaches its own specific development. And be this as it may, enough is seemingly established to demonstrate its truth in respect to a genus or family, and especially is it demonstrated in the human creation. At a certain stage of fœtal development there is the cranial manifestation of the Negro, then the aboriginal American, the Malay, the Mongolian, and finally the broad expansion and oval perfection of the most perfect of all, the superior Caucasian. Nor can these demonstrations be mistaken, for it is not a mere question of size but of form. The negro brain is small and longitudinal—thus approximating to the simiadæ and other animals. The aboriginal is larger and quadrangular, almost square in its general outline. The Mongolian pyramidal, and still larger than either of the others. Finally, at the period of complete gestation, there is the full and complete oval development, alone peculiar to the Caucasian. The force of these distinctions may be easily grasped by the non-scientific reader by bearing in mind that a female of either of these races or species could no more give birth to a child with the cranial development of a race different from her own, than she could to that of an inferior animal. The distinctions of nature, or the boundaries which separate even species from each other, are absolutely impassable; each has the hand of the Eternal impressed upon it forever, which neither accident nor time can modify in the slightest particular. They have, it is true, a limited capacity for interunion, and we sometimes witness the disgusting spectacle of a white woman with a so-called negro husband. But while the offspring of this unnatural connection is limited in number, they partake of the nature of both the parents, and thus the birth becomes possible, though at the expense of great physical suffering to the mother and perhaps in every case shortening her existence. In another place this subject will be more especially discussed; it is only referred to in this connection to show the perfect order and harmony in the economy of animal life. The primal steps—the process of reproduction—the starting-point of creation—being in complete harmony with the laws governing the being, man or animal, after it has reached its mature development.

The same eternal separation of all the forms of being and the same eternal approximations, however varied the manifestations may be at different periods, remain unaltered and unalterable. Linnæus ventured to place “man” in the category or class mammalia, while at the same time he separated the mammalia from birds and other forms of being—thus assuming that the human creation had a closer union with pigs and dogs, than the latter have with birds, etc. At this every Christian and believer in a future state of being must revolt, for though there are certain approximations that cannot be disregarded, nevertheless it is absolutely certain that the human creation is separated by an interval wider than that separating any of the forms of mere animal life, and therefore his classification must be wrong.

It is not intended to make this a scientific work, but on the contrary, to popularize for the general reading of the people, some few elementary truths of zoology and physiology in order that they can better comprehend the subject really to be discussed, viz.:—the specific differences and specific relations of the white and black races. But the author feels himself conscientiously impelled to dissent from the classifications of Linnæus, and those modern naturalists who follow him, not only as being untrue in point of fact, but pregnant with mighty mischief. Linnæus placed “man” in the category mammalia, but made him an order, a genus and species by himself. This is false as a matter of fact, for in the entire world of animal existence there is no such fact as a single species. All the forms of life are made up of groups or families, properly genera, and each of these is composed of a certain number of species. These species, as already observed, differ from each other. They begin with the lowest, or simplest, or grossest formation, and rise, one above the other, in the scale of being, until the group is completed; so that they are all, not only specifically different from each other, but absolutely unlike each other in every thing, in the minutest particle of elementary matter as well as in those things palpable to the sense. Generally considered, they resemble each other, but specifically considered, they are absolutely distinct, and, it need not be repeated, the distinctions in each case or each individual species are also specific.

That Linnæus and other European naturalists, and especially the ethnologists, should make such a mistake, and suppose that the human creation is composed of a single species, is perhaps natural enough, for they saw but one—the two hundred millions of Europe, except a few thousand Laplanders, being all Caucasians. But then it is strange how those so ready to class men with animals should so widely depart from the spirit and order of their own classification. They must have known that in the whole world of animate existence there was no such fact as a single species, and therefore when assuming only a single human species, that they directly contradicted or ignored the most constant, universal and uniform fact in organic life, a fact underlying and forming the very basis of all with which they were dealing. This mistake, or misconception, or ignorance of European ethnologists, however, is of no particular importance. They saw no other and therefore could know of no other species of men except their own, and though its effect on ourselves has been mischievous, the cause of their misconception is so palpable to men’s common sense that it only needs to be pointed out to be utterly rejected. It is about as respectable as the assumptions of the northern Abolitionists, who, though not even venturing out of Massachusetts, affect to know, and doubtless really believe that they do know, more about the internal condition of South Carolina or Virginia than the people of those States themselves. But facts are stubborn things, and, as the Spanish proverb says, “seeing is believing.” It is impossible that the northern Abolitionist who never ventured out of New England can comprehend a condition of society that he has never seen. So, too, the authority of European writers, necessarily ignorant of the subject, will be rejected by those whose very senses assure them that negroes are specifically different from white men. And that mental dominion which, beginning with the early planting of European colonies on this continent, has continued long after political independence has been secured, only needs to be cast off altogether, to convince every one of the utter absurdity of European teachings on the subject.

But there is an objection to the Linnæan classification infinitely more important than this misconception in regard to species. He places his one human species (Caucasian) in the class mammalia, and therefore assumes that the human creation has a closer connection with a class of animals, than these animals themselves have with some other forms of animal life. For example: men (and white men, too) approximate more closely to dogs and cats than the latter do to owls and eagles! It does not help the matter to say that this is only in their animal structures, for there is an invariable and imperishable unity between the material organization and the external manifestations or faculties, which is fixed forever, and the conclusion or inference from the Linnæan assumption is unavoidable—if men approximate more closely to a class of animals than these animals do to some other class, then it is absurd to suppose the purposes assigned them by the Almighty are so widely different as our reason and instinct alike impel us to believe. To hope for or to believe in immortality, or in a destiny so transcendent, while beings that closely resembled us perished with this life, in common with those still farther separated from themselves, was such a contradiction to reason, that men involuntarily shrunk from it, and the result has been to repel vast numbers of people from the study and investigation of this most essential element of all knowledge. The Materialists promptly accepted it, and wielded it with tremendous effect in advancing their gloomy and forbidding philosophy, while those impelled by that innate and indescribable consciousness of the soul itself, which, in its Godlike knowledge, rises high beyond the realms of reason and mere human will, and assures them of a life immortal and everlasting, shrunk from all study or investigation of the laws of physical life, as if it involved consequences fatal to that higher life of the soul. The former said, and said truly, if men have a closer union with the quadrumana than the latter have with birds, etc., then it is all nonsense to suppose that they have an eternity of life, while those separated by a still wider interval are limited to the present. And the only reply to their reasoning has been the refusal to investigate the subject or to study the laws of God, and to admit, inferentially at least, that there was a contradiction between the word and the works of the Almighty.

Nothing is more common than to find men of great intelligence on almost every subject except this, the most vital, indeed the foundation and starting-point of all real knowledge. Especially are clergymen ignorant, and those who assume to be the interpreters of the laws of God are not unfrequently the most ignorant of the most palpable and fundamental of these laws. This should not be so, and in all reasonable probability would not be so had it not been for the untruthful and unfortunate classification of Linnæus. Instead of meeting the Materialists on their own ground, and showing them that however approximating to certain forms of animal life, the human creation was yet separated by an absolutely boundless as well as impassable interval—for the distinctions between them are utterly unlike those separating mere animal beings—they tacitly admitted the truth of their assumptions, and met it by a blind and foolish refusal to investigate the matter, indeed have generally cast their influence on the side of ignorance, and advised against the study of nature and the noblest works of God.

But there can be no contradiction; God cannot lie; and whatever seeming conflict there may be at times between His word and His works, a further search is alone needed to show their perfect uniformity. It is true that the physical resemblances between men and beings of the class mammalia seem closer than those of the latter and some other forms of life, but while there is also an eternal correspondence between structure and functions, it is rational and philosophical to suppose that the difference in the qualities or external manifestations is the safest standard of comparison. Or in other words, whatever may be the seeming physical resemblances, the differences in the faculties show that the former are not reliable. For example: in contemplating the intelligence of certain quadrupeds and birds, can any one suppose or believe for a moment that the difference between them in this respect equals or even approaches to that separating both from human beings? And in the present state of our knowledge, our ignorance of the elementary arrangement of organic life, it is surely safer and more philosophical to be governed by our reason rather than our senses—to accept the differences which separate human intelligence from the animal world as boundless and immeasurable when compared with the apparent physical approximations which seem to unite us with a class of the latter.

In conclusion, it is scarcely necessary to repeat that there is a fixed, uniform, and universal correspondence between structure and function, or between organism and the purpose it is designed to fulfil. We do not know nor need to know the cause of this or the nature of this unity. We only know, and are only permitted to know, that it exists, and are not bound to accept the dogma of the Materialists, that function is the result of organism; nor that of their opponents, who still more falsely imagine results without causes, or that there can be functions without, organism. Truth, in this instance, lies between extremes:—functions or faculties cannot exist without a given structure or organism, but they are not a result of that organism. They exist together inseparably, universally, eternally dependent on each other, but not a result of either. To see there must be eyes; to hear, ears; to walk, the organism of locomotion; to manifest a certain extent of intelligence there must be a corresponding mental organism, but there is no such thing proper as cause and effect, nothing but fact—the fact of mutual existence.