XVII.

Among the human families, the law of hybridity, which has been pointed out so clearly by Flourens, has also its fixed and inflexible rules; these rules have not been so well studied with men as with animals, but it is believed to have its limit at the seventh generation. At all events, the experiments of human hybridism, and acclimation in strange latitudes, have always in time ended in disaster; and that such will always be the fate of the attempted union of different races in unfavorable climes, have been the views of Humboldt, of Canning, of Guizot, and other profound statesmen. We observe among the races in savage life a natural repugnance to unite: as for instance, the negroes and the fairer people of the Philippine and Polynesian Isles show no disposition to unite; and though living side by side, in the same country, for a long period, they have not produced an intermediate race. Neither do the Eskimos nor the Red Men, neither do the Caffres nor the Hottentots mix, for in the state of nature the law of ethnic repugnance is supreme. It is only in the artificial and depraved states of society that hybrids appear, and their existence is of short and fixed duration.

The apparent duration and perfection of the Coulouglis, the bipartates of the Bergers and Turks, may be an exception to the general rule. But the results of the mingling of human families, widely separated, is generally very decided.

The Creoles, produced by the African with the Spaniard, Italian, and the Southern French, possess considerable durability, but disease and degeneration soon appear when the black mingles with the blood and humors of the more northern nations. With all these mixtures there is a profound characteristic, which constitutes the unity, identity, and reality of the species, which is, continuous fecundity; and this characteristic never varies: it is immutable. The mulattoes live less time than the black or the white race, and their offspring perish readily, and are rarely prolific, except when united with stronger individuals of either primitive type, to which they soon return.