POLYGENISM. — From the Greek πολός = much and γένος = origin, it is the hypothesis that derives the present human race from several original couples, whether belonging to a single already-human stock (D. Rosa, G. Montandon, G. Colosi, P. Teilhard de Chardin) or to several already-human stocks (H. Klaatsch, G. Sergi, G. L. Sera, J. Arldt). In the first case we would have monophyletism, in the second polyphyletism.
The couples would have appeared simultaneously throughout the earth (hologenesis), or over a limited area, either “in clusters” or “by stock” (Sergi), or “in a bush-like formation” (A. and J. Bouyssonie). P. is due to Isacco de la Peyrère (1594–1676), a Marrano, Calvinist, and finally Catholic, who, in order to reconcile the discrepancies between biblical chronology and the literary sources of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, etc., as well as the demands of astronomy, astrology, etc., and in order to explain the differences among the human races, especially the American and Australian ones, elaborated, through twenty years of unremitting study, the theory of the pre-Adamites. Recently he was followed, although unknowingly, by P. Lecomte du Noüy. Others embraced p. for scientific reasons: Desmoulins, Gerdy, Morton, Nott, Gliddon; among modern scholars, Klaatsch (1910), G. Sergi (1911), Sera (1918), the hologenists, Teilhard de Chardin; M. Calhoun for political reasons. Others, especially among Catholics, endeavored to reconcile p. with the texts of Sacred Scripture (J. Guitton, R. Boigelot, H. Rondet, Dubarle, A. and J. Bouyssonie, J. Bataini). Nevertheless, the majority of Catholic scientists and writers are opposed to p.
Isacco de la Peyrère (Praeadamitae..., s. l. 1655; Systema theologicum ex Praeadamitarum hypothesi, part I, s. l. 1655) bases his theory on Sacred Scripture and finds in Genesis
two creations of humanity. The first, in Gen. 1:26–31, of the pre-Adamites, carried out together with that of the plants and animals. The pre-Adamites would have been formed from dust “ verbo Dei ” simultaneously, throughout the earth, in innumerable couples; hence they would not be brothers of one another, and in Sacred Scripture they would be called “ filii hominum ”.
After the pre-Adamites had populated the earth, God would have created Adam “ infans ” and from Adam would have drawn Eve (the second creation: Gen. 2:2–25). Once Eve had reached adulthood, she would have been brought by God to Adam, who would not have found among the women of the pre-Adamites a helper like himself.
Adam’s creation would differ from that of the pre-Adamites because he was made from that from which the earth itself had been formed and “ manu (non verbo) Dei et lutum manibus subigendo ”. Adam’s descendants would be called filii Dei and “children of Adam”.
Cain, Ham, Ishmael, Esau, and the Jews would belong to them. They would be descendants of Adam in the same way that Christ is presented as the son of Adam and of God (Lk. 3:23–38). The descendants of the pre-Adamites would be the gentiles, the Americans, the Australians, the Greenlanders, and the vernacular peoples of Abraham (Gen. 17:22, 27). To the pre-Adamites God would have given only the natural law, but without sanction and corresponding imputability; to Adam, the positive law with its corresponding sanction. He would have been placed in the earthly paradise to represent the person of all human beings. Hence his sin would have been imputed to all humanity, including the pre-Adamites.
De la Peyrère derives his principal argument from Rom. 5:12–14, interpreted in an entirely arbitrary manner (see its exposition and refutation in B. Mariani, Il P. e s. Paolo: Rom. 5, 12-14, in Eustes docete, 4 [1951] pp. 126–45). De la Peyrère’s system was condemned by ecclesiastical authority, abjured by the author himself, and opposed by all his contemporaries. P. Lecomte du Noüy likewise distinguishes two creations in Genesis. According to Gen. 1:26–28, a couple endowed with merely human form and lacking soul and consciousness would have been created. Indeed, God would have given them a command, “Increase and multiply,” which they could not evade. According to Gen. 2:7–25 (the eighth day, according to Lecomte), God would have fashioned Adam, breathed a soul into his nostrils, and communicated consciousness to him. Indeed, he would have given him a command which he was free to transgress, forbidding him, on pain of death, to eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Bible would concern itself only with Adam’s descendants because “he alone, by virtue of consciousness, is capable, through his struggle against animal instincts, of ensuring genuinely human progress”.
This theory too has no biblical foundation, because in Genesis there is no mention of two creations, but only of two accounts of the same creation.
[Nor can the infusion of the soul and consciousness be reserved for the second humanity. On the contrary, only of the first is it said that it was created in the image and likeness of God. Yet it was the second that fell into sin! (cf. B. Mariani, article cited, pp. 132–36).
Catholic authors who claim to reconcile the texts of Sacred Scripture with p. and with the dogma of original sin maintain: a) that Rom. 5:12–21 chiefly emphasizes “the universal and hereditary culpability of humanity and the fullness of redemption”, and less the common origin of humanity (A. and J. Bouyssonie). b) In Genesis there would be no strictly unique sin. Rather than the uniqueness of the sin, emphasis would be placed on the degradation produced by sin (Dubarle; cf. Teilhard de Chardin, Guitton, Boigelot, Rondet, Chaine). c) Original sin would have been committed by an entire hypothetical humanity contemporary with Adam (A. and J. Bouyssonie, R. Seeberg). d) The Adam–Christ parallelism (Rom. 5) would have merely illustrative value (Bataini). e) Others tend to minimize the historical value of the opening chapters of Genesis. Yet all these authors admit that their attempts depart from the obvious and traditional interpretation of the texts in question, and that they are moved by the desire (and therefore by the preconception) to reconcile the sources of Revelation with the presumed p. of the sciences.
But that the present human race descends from a single progenitor, from a single original couple, from the biblical Adam and Eve, can be demonstrated from Sacred Scripture and Tradition. They decisively teach monogenism and therefore exclude p. (v. MONOGENISMO and B. Mariani, article cited, pp. 126–132, 136–45).
Genesis is polygenist with regard to inferior beings: God created them according to their species. Man, however, was created according to a most perfect and unique species, namely, according to the image and likeness of God. The couple Adam–Eve is connected with God’s creative work and with the historical succession of humanity through the links Patriarchs (v.) before and after the Flood. Apart from Adam—according to Genesis—God created no other man; apart from Eve, he did not draw another woman from Adam. Adam is considered “the προτόπλαστος, the πατέρα κόσμου, the only one created, the one who came forth from the earth, the seed from which all humanity descends” (Wis. 10:1; 7:1; Tob. 8:8). From a single woman sin begins (Eccl. 25:24). Humanity is a conglomerate of “ bènè 'Adhâm ” (Deut. 32:8; Eccl. 3:21, etc.). The texts of the New Testament: Rom. 5:12, 19; I Cor. 15:21, 22, 45–49; Acts 17:26 depend on Genesis and are more explicitly opposed to p. (on this, V. MARIANO,, art. cit., pp. 137–46, 1932; F. Ceuppens, Le p. et la Bible, in Angelicum, 24 [1947], pp. 20–32). They exclude the collective origin of humanity and connect it, implicitly and explicitly, with a single man, on account of original sin and its consequences and of the “psychic” body inherited through carnal descent from Adam.
The Pontifical Biblical Commission and the First Vatican Council are opposed to p. In Humani generis, only that p. is condemned according to which: 1) Adam would not be the ancestor, through generation, of the whole of the present human race; and 2) Adam is considered not a single individual, but a collectivity of progenitors. This is because it cannot be reconciled with the dogma of the universality of original sin. For if humanity does not descend from Adam through generation, it would not contract II. It therefore deals neither with pre-Adamites who became extinct before Adam, nor with beings who were not truly human, even if introduced into the present human race, nor with human beings contemporary with Adam, except insofar as they were progenitors, through generation, of the present human race. The scholar is therefore free to explore this field, guided by Sacred Scripture and the teaching of the Church.
The arguments from the sciences in favor of p. are drawn: 1) from the grandeur of the human race: « La science laissée à elle-même ne songerait jamais (c'est le moins qu'on puisse dire) à attribuer une base aussi étroite que deux individus, à l'énorme édifice du genre humaine » (Teilhard de Chardin, Que faut il penser du transformisme?, in Revue des questions scientifiques, 97 [1930], p. 95). 2) From comparative anatomy: a) similarities between animal species and human races more pronounced than those existing among the human races; b) differences among the human races: a) morphological: the shape of the head, nose, eyes, and hair; the proportion of the trunk and limbs; skin color, etc., by which, for example, the Pygmies differ from the Scandinavians, the Australians from the Eskimos, the Mongols from the Mediterraneans, etc.; b) physiological: a) the presence of four groups of individuals distinguished on the basis of variations in substances (agglutinins and agglutinogens) that permit or prevent reciprocal blood transfusion; b) pubertal periods, which do not begin at the same age, but range from a minimum age of 9 or 10 years to 20 or 21; γ) psychological: quickness and type of intelligence, intensity, affectivity, eroticism, etc. At one time the white race was derived from the chimpanzee, the yellow from the orangutan, and the black from the gorilla. Klaatsch placed at the base of the genealogical tree a Propithecanthropus hypotheticus, which would have branched as follows: 1') Australian peoples + related races; 2') Pithecanthropus + gibbon; 3') Neanderthal Man + gorilla + chimpanzee + Negrillos; 4') orangutan + Homo Aurignacensis (cf. H. V. Vallois, Les preuves anatomiques de l'origine monophylétique de l'homme, in L'Anthropol., 39 [1929], apud Marcozzi, Poligenesi ed evoluzione nelle origini dell'uomo, in Gregorianum, 29 [1948], p. 348; id., La vita e l'uomo, Milano 1946, p. 360). Still greater differences are found in fossil man, between the type of Homo Sapiens, Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, and Neanderthal Man. 5') From hologenesis. Biogeography would show that, at a given moment, human life appeared everywhere and therefore did not originate from a single couple.
However, it is not difficult to answer these arguments. Indeed: 1) today the unity of origin of all currently living human races is commonly admitted. According to the Mendelian laws of heredity, a new lineage (phylum) may originate not only from very few individuals, but even from a single individual through the chromosomes (P. Leonardi, in Palestra del Clero, 28 [1949], pp. 228-30. Cf. Cuenot, J. Rostand apud Renie). 2) The similarities between human races and animal species are very limited (the configuration of the lacrimal bone and neighboring regions of the face, and details of the femur and humerus). They are not complete and are found in conflicting combinations within the same individual (cf. H. V. Vallois, op. cit.; Guy Picard, La science expérimentale est-elle favorable au polygénisme?, in Sciences ecclésiastiques, 4 [1951], pp. 68-70; Mendès Correa, ivi cit.). Morphological, physiological, and psychological differences are quantitative, not qualitative; they do not produce specifically different forms or characteristics, but display every possible transitional form, not only among the different races, but among the different individuals of the same group. For example, with regard to skin color, the Leucoderms range from the rosy white of the Norwegians to the almost black dark brown of the Ethiopians. The Xanthoderms range from the almost white light yellow of the northern Chinese to the almost chocolate-colored yellow-brown of the southern Chinese. The same may be said of the color of the hair and eyes, the shape of the head and nose, pigment spots, cranial capacity, brain structure, etc. (cf. Marcozzi, Poligenesi ed evoluzione, pp. 10-15). The classification of growth rhythms, the period of puberty, and blood groups is also found among types belonging to the same race (cf. the Ottemberg classification apud Marcozzi, op. cit., p. 16).
Psychological differences are less favorable to p., because it has been demonstrated that all races have a substantially identical psyche; that is, they possess the same principles of causality and identity, the same tendency toward the beautiful and the good, the same instinctive language, the same instinct of modesty, the same faculty of speech, etc. (to the contrary: M. Canella, Principi di psicologia razziale, Firenze 1941; but cf. Marcozzi, La vita e l'uomo, Milano 1946, pp. 367-68). Thus this too favors unity of origin. The evidence of inter-fertility likewise does so. Since all unions, even between the most disparate races, have produced fertile hybrids—for example, the Boers, a cross between Dutch and Hottentots; the Griquas, between Europeans and Bushmen, etc.—the point is established. Moreover, among all races there are types possessing all, or nearly all, the characteristics of other racial groups; for example, Negroid or Mongoloid faces among European populations, and European faces in Celebes, etc.
It is more difficult to reach a judgment regarding the differences among extinct races, because sufficient comparative data are not available. Nevertheless, the races from the Paleolithic onward (Grimaldi, Cro-Magnon, Chancelade, Combe Capelle, etc.) are substantially identical to those of today, both morphologically and psychologically (burial, weapons, religious rites). It is true that the Neanderthal race displays very primitive characteristics, but these are also found in a less pronounced degree among present-day races (cf. K. Z. Jazuta, apud Marcozzi, op. cit., p. 21). Their psychological manifestations are common to the other races. In the case of Pithecanthropus, its human nature is uncertain. Sinanthropus has a more apelike form, but displays human psychological characteristics. Moreover, the forms of Africanthropus (Lake Niarasa) and of the man of Ngandong (Java) may be considered intermediate between Sinanthropus and the Neanderthal type. Likewise, intermediate forms between Neanderthal Man and present-day races are represented by the types of Steinheim and Uzbekistan, the skeletons of Carmel, and the skull of Sacco Pastore (cf. H. Weinert, W. F. F. Oppenworth, F. Berckhemer, G. T. Debetz, Th. D. Mc Cown, A. Keith-Mc Cown apud Marcozzi, p. 23).
The argument from hologenesis presupposes that living beings, appearing independently and scattered like drops of dew, belonged to a single species and that, through evolution, they were transformed simultaneously and everywhere, giving rise to new species. The human family, too, would have appeared with many representatives in various places. Its remains would be the oldest surviving fossils. Paleontology, however, yields the opposite conclusion: namely, that the origin of a species is confined to a particular place, from which it subsequently emigrates (for example, the Camelids and Dugongs). Many species have never undergone significant expansion. With regard to man, it cannot be established whether Sinanthropus (Peking), the man of Kanam (Africa), and the man of Piltdown (England) were contemporaneous in the Lower Pleistocene.
The Quaternary encompasses periods lasting many thousands of years. Nor can it be established whether the Lower Pleistocene of Africa corresponds exactly to the Lower Pleistocene of England and Peking, or vice versa.
Al contrario è comunemente ammesso che l'umanità abbia avuto una culla d'origine ed un centro di diffusione come le altre specie.
Concludendo, gli argomenti in favore del p. servono come ipotesi di studio per le scienze. Nel piano puramente umano non vi sono per ora mezzi per determinare se l'umanità ha avuto origine poligenista o monogenista. La scienza non può opporre nulla all'origine monogenistica. La quasi totalità degli scienziati è per il monogenismo. Anzi P. C. J. Carles (L'unité de l'espèce humaine, in Archives de philos., 18 [1948], 88 sgg.) arriva a stabilire una sola coppia. Però dove non arriva la scienza umana è intervenuta la guida della Rivelazione: la S. Scrittura ed il Magistero infallibile della Chiesa (cf. Guy Picard, op. cit., p. 88 sgg.; Marcozzi, op. cit., p. 25).