IX. Comparison between the Human Race and that of Swine.
By I.F. Blumenbach. From Magazin für das Neueste
aus der Physik. Vol. VI.

Some late writers on natural history seem doubtful whe-
ther the numerous distinct races of men ought to be consi-
dered as mere varieties, which have arisen from degenera-
tion, or as so many species altogether different. The cause
of this seems chiefly to be, that they took too narrow a view
in their researches; selected, perhaps, two races the most
different from each other possible, and, overlooking the inter-
mediate races that formed the connecting links between
them, compared these two together; or, they fixed their
[Seite 285] attention too much on man, without examining other species
of animals, and comparing their varieties and degeneration
with those of the human species. The first fault is, when
one, for example, places together a Senegal negro and an
European Adonis, and at the same time forgets that there
is not one of the bodily differences of these two beings,
whether hair, colour, features, etc. which, does not gra-
dually run into the same thing of the other, by such a va-
riety of shades that no physiologist or naturalist is able to
establish a certain boundary between these gradations, and
consequently between the extremes themselves.

The second fault is, when people reason as if man were
the only organised being in nature, and consider the varie-
ties in his species to be strange and problematical, without
reflecting that all these varieties are not more striking or
more uncommon than those with which so many thousands
of other species of organised beings degenerate, as it were
before our eyes.

As my observations respecting the bodily conformation,
and mental capacity of the negroes^* may serve to warn man-
kind against the first error, and at the same time to refute it,
I shall here offer a few remarks to refute the false conclusion
which might be formed from a careless comparison of the de-
generations among the human race with the varieties among
other animals, and for that purpose shall draw a comparison
between the human race and that of swine^†.

More reasons than one have induced me to make choice
of swine for this comparison; but in particular, because
they have a great similarity, in many respects, to man: not,
however, in the form of their entrails, as people formerly
believed, and therefore studied the anatomy of the human
[Seite 286] body purposely in swine; so that even, in the last century,
a celebrated dispute, which arose between the physicians of
Heidelberg and those of Durlach, respecting the position of
the heart in man, was determined in consequence of orders
from government, by inspecting a sow, to the great triumph
of the party who really were in the wrong. Nor is it because
in the time of Galen, according to repeated assertions, hu-
man flesh was said to have a taste perfectly similar to that of
swine^*; nor because the fat^†, and the tanned hides of both,
are very like to each other; but because both, in regard to
the economy of their bodily structure, taken on the whole,
shew unexpectedly, on the first view, as well as on closer
examination, a very striking similitude.

Both, for example, are domestic animals; both omnivora;
both are dispersed throughout all the four quarters of the
world; and both consequently are exposed, in numerous ways,
to the principal causes of degeneration arising from climate,
mode of life, nourishment, etc.; both, for the same reason,
are subject to many diseases, and, what is particularly
worthy of remark, to diseases rarely found among other
animals than men and swine, such as the stone in the
bladder^‡; to diseases exclusively peculiar to these two,
such as the worms, found in meassed swine^§.

Another reason, however, why I have made choice of
swine for the present comparison is, because the degenera-
tion and descent from the original race are far more certain in
these two animals, and can be better traced than in the va-
rieties of other domestic animals. For no naturalist, I be-
lieve, has carried his scepticism so far as to doubt the descent
of the domestic swine from the wild boar; which is so much
the more evident, as it is well known that wild pigs, when
caught, may be easily rendered as tame and familiar as do-
mestic swine^*: and the contrary also is the case; for if the
latter by any accident get into the woods, they as readily
become wild again, so that there are instances of such animals
being shot for wild swine; and it has not been till they were
opened and found castrated, that people were led to a disco-
very of their origin, and how and at what time they ran
away^†. It is well ascertained, that, before the discovery of
America by the Spaniards, swine were unknown in that
quarter of the world, and that they were afterwards carried
thither from Europe. All the varieties, therefore, through
[Seite 288] which this animal has since degenerated, belong, with the
original European race, to one and the same species; and
since no bodily difference is found in the human race, as
will presently appear, either in regard to stature, colour, the
form of the cranium, etc. which is not observed in the same
proportion among the swine race, while no one, on that ac-
count, ever doubts that all these different kinds are merely
varieties that have arisen from degeneration through the in-
fluence of climate, etc. this comparison, it is to be hoped,
will silence those sceptics who have thought proper, on ac-
count of these varieties in the human race, to admit more
than one species.