On the Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo

The Publishing Committee of the Anthropological Society have done me the honour to confide to me the task of editing Dr. Broca’s valuable little volume. This duty I have now fulfilled, and hope that the members of the Society and the general public will experience the same pleasure in reading the translation, as I received when first I perused the original.
The causes which led the committee to suggest the publication of the present translation are lucidly expressed by the motto which Dr. Broca placed on his title-page. The public mind is so little acquainted with the real facts relating to the hybridity of the Races of Man, that its investigation, “non ex vulgi opinione, sed ex sano judicio,” is necessary to the efficient progress of our science. Such an appeal, however, necessitates that the whole subject should be again reviewed, and to attain this object the perusal of a work on similar principles to that of Dr. Broca becomes the primary requisite for future researches. It may be said, that no work which so completely investigates the whole subject of Human Hybridity has ever been published, and the Council having confirmed the recommendation of the Publishing Committee, I have endeavoured to perform my allotted task with as much prospect of success as could be anticipated amidst the pressure of numerous and laborious avocations unconnected with the Society.
The necessity for the publication of this work in England may be conceived, when we reflect on the laxly defined ideas which form an integral part of the intellectual heritage of even educated Englishmen, with regard to the problems of anthropology. We have been so often told, that all races of men have been demonstrably proved to be fertile inter se, that many have conceived that the laws regulating this presumed fertility are ascertained and fixed, beyond the reach of disproof, or even of doubt. The Author and Editor of the following pages are, however, of a different opinion; and are content to wait for the accumulation of future facts.
To obviate any misconstruction which may be placed on my meaning on this topic, I shall quote the words of the great Dutch philosopher:—
“I invite not the vulgar, therefore, nor those whose minds, like theirs, are full of prejudices, to the perusal of this book. I would much rather that they should entirely neglect it, than that they should misconstrue its purpose and contents after the fashion usual with them.”
I should have felt more gratification if the task of interpreting the thoughts of the great French master of our science had fallen into worthier hands than my own. The habitual methods of thought of Dr. Paul Broca are so exact, his style so terse, his knowledge of the literature of Anthropology so vast, and his power of application and concentration of ideas so powerful, that a just preference might have selected another Editor. It has scarcely been necessary for me to add a single foot-note to the lucid exposition of the Secretary of our parent Society.
It is my pleasurable duty to thank my friend Dr. James Hunt, the President of our Society, for the kindness by which he placed in my hands the editorship of this volume, and for many most valuable suggestions regarding it. To my colleague Mr. J. Frederick Collingwood, for whose friendly assistance in the performance of the secretarial duties I am indebted for the leisure which has enabled me to edit this work, my thanks are also due.
To the Council and to the Society I now commit this little tract, an earnest of the more important works which will be hereafter published during the year 1864, in the hope that it may ultimately advance the best interests of the science all sincere anthropologists must desire to aid.