Anténor Firmin
In The Equality of the Human Races, Firmin contradicted the ideas of racialist physical anthropology that were very popular at that time. He chose the title of his work in response to a famous essay by French diplomat and writer Arthur de Gobineau – Essai sur L'inegalite des Races Humaines (English: Essay on the Inequality of Human Races). Gobineau’s essay was the first to promote white superiority over Black people. Firmin had the opposite opinion. He believed that all people have the same qualities and weaknesses and that all races are equal. Firmin gained inspiration from August Comte, and gave his book a subtitle Anthropologie Positive (English: Positive Anthropology). As a positivist, Firmin believed that a new science of anthropology, positive anthropology, should study physical and intellectual characteristics of the human species without categorizing them into races. He supported a broader approach in anthropology without too much focus on the physical measurement of human racial differences.