accusing or else excusing one another. After this avowal, there is doubtless some curiosity, on the part of the inquirer, to learn on what they ground the diversity of origin. He will be surprised to learn that it is partly by denying what they have before asserted with regard to specific unity. Man, they say, is specifically the same, because he possesses the same general characteristics. The several races of mankind have sprung from different ancestors and in different localities, because they do not possess the same characteristics. This, to my mind, is the plain_meaning of their language. Suppose, however, that they mean only, that while the broad and general characteristics prove men to be specifically the same, yet the minor differences prove him to be from various stocks; still this language appears to us equally unfortunate, for it matters not in what mystification the term species may be involved of late, it has always been taken in the sense of an aggregation of individuals who may have descended from a common stock. It is perfectly obvious, then, that the accidental or permanent variations in the human race, as an argument against the common origin of mankind, are entirely ruled out by the very terms of the controversy.

The arguments most relied upon against the unity of the origin of the human species, may be grouped under four heads:

1. From analogy.

2. From the fact that the varieties of nankind have been always the same that they are now, and consequently that they are unchangeable.

3. From the fact that, as we ascend the stream of history, nations appear to be broken into more minute fragments than at the present time.

4. From the diversities of language which exist in the world, all, it is maintained, entirely disconnected with one another.

1. The argument from analogy is as follows:-It is maintained, as the opinion of the best naturalists, that animals and plants, instead of proceeding from a common source, radiate from different centres over the countries in which they are found; for instance, the fauna and flora of the New World are different from those of the old, and those of Ausralia from both; the same fact is true with reference to other places more circumscribed in their geographical limits.

The inference by analogy from this phenomenon is, that, as animals and plants do not proceed from a common source, but radiate from different centres over the world, the same would be the case with regard to man; and that the various families of the race would have originated in the different geographical centres around which they are at present grouped. To this, it might be sufficient to reply, that there can be no analogy in this case between man and the animal creation: in their development they are subject to quite different laws. The fauna and flora appear in their most stunted forms in the colder regions of the north-they improve gradually as you proceed south, until finally they attain their most perfect development in the torrid zone; there, the flora exhibit their most gorgeous colors, and the fauna their greatest strength, ferocity, and beauty; while the law is reversed in the case of man, and he is found invariably to degenerate as you descend from the temperate to the tropical zone. the language of Professor Guyot, “Nature goes on adding perfection to perfection, from the polar regions to the temperate zones, from the temperate zones to the region of the greatest heat. Animal life grows in strength and developinent; the types are improved; intelligence increases; the forms approach the human figures; the ourang-outang stands already on his feet-trained up by man, he has been seen to sit at his table, and to eat with him. The negro of the woods, deceived by these appearances, regards him as a degenerated brother, who holds his tongue only from a desire to get rid of work-evidently the development of this animal touches here upon its highest expression.

In

"This ascending series will rise to its termination in man, who, in his figure, is the crowning excellence of the whole animal world, and the very realization of its idea; and the tropical man will be also the highest, the purest type of humanity, and, physically speaking, the most beautiful of his species. But who does not know that man makes here a wonderful exception? Far from exhibiting that harmonious outline, those noble and elevated forms, all those perfections the chisel of a Phidias or a Praxiteles has combined upon a single head, the tropical man displays only those unfortunate figures which seem to approach ever nearer and nearer the animal, and which betray the instincts of the brute."

Here, then, resemblance entirely fails in the very point in which the analogy should hold good, if the development of the human race follows a law common to the brute creation.

Supposing, however, that different centres of distribution for the fauna and flora of the globe exist, what does it prove? That as the fauna were intended to be local and peculiar, they were not created at a single point and transported by miraculous power to the positions they now occupy, but were called into existence on the spot, and in a situation from which they could spread over their assigned limits. Here we have simply the fact, that as the fauna were intended to be local they were created in different localities. But directly the contrary is the fact with regard to man, intended to be universal in his dominion over the world, and not designed for a particular location— his creation took place at one centre from which he has migrated over the globe. The capabilities of the animal creation limited them, in the utmost extent of their excursions, to certain geographical limits, bounded by barriers, over which they could not pass. As the capacities of man are, however, not limited by any obstacle on the earth, we think it decidedly more in analogy with the mode of the divine operations, that he should be left to find his way from a common centre, than that several distinct pairs should Lave been created in different localities, in order to make the work somewhat easier. Providence never multiplies force for the accomplishment of an object; and when, for the populating of the world, a common and single centre would have been sufficient, it would be unphilosophical to suppose that more than one was adopted. Gentlemen of the new school in philosophy are not food of miracles; we cannot but express our astonishment then, that they are disposed to multiply them without Decessity. The anomaly, however, may be accounted for by the fact, that in the present instance a miracle would be a proof of their religions-even Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, could pray for the performance of a miracle to confirm hm in his attempt to prove that miraeles are impossible.

Suppose, however, the fact of different centret of propagation be admitted, will the anomalies in the constitution of, the human race be accounted for? will

VOL. V.-6

not, on the contrary, fresh elements of difficulty be introduced into the discussion of the question. How did man come into these positions? Some deny he was created in these several localities, while others incline to the theory of a development according to law. Against the former supposition, the weighty objection before mentioned lies, of an apparent waste of power on the part of the Almighty, in introducing mankind by miraculous agency into a position of which they could have availed themselves by the mere exercise of their natural powers. In the last four or five centuries, how much of the globe has been penetrated by the enterprise of Europeans! Almost every sea has been furrowed by their ships, and almost every land has been visited by their commerce. Nay, more, there are few countries presenting any prospect of remuneration that have not been settled by their colonists. And, in more recent periods the mysterious impulse towards emigration has been so strong as nearly to depopulate countries of inhabitants proverbially attached to their native soil. With the prospect of comfort before them at home and with the examples of thousands before them who have been disappointed abroad, the Irish nation appear determined to forsake, in mass, their native land. The migration from Babel was only a fact belonging to a general law, which has found its expression in every period of the world.

The operation of this law, it may be objected, would be slow; we admit it would, but not by any means too much. so to accomplish the peopling of the earth in a reasonable length of time; and very quick, when we compare it with the time required to carry out the divine plans in other parts of our economy. How long a period must it have required to bring the earth into its present state; how many countless ages does geology inform us were passed before it became a fit habitation for man, in comparison with it; how brief must be the period at the very longest computation required for spring the human race over the globe.

The supposition, however, that man was placed in this world in full possession of his intellectual faculties and physical powers, does not accord well with the theory of those who deny the unity of the human race. Man, the embryologists think, was not made ori

ginally lord of the creation; but, like some lords of more modern origin, he acquired his dominion in rather a questionable manner, and by force and fraud lorded it over the animal world.

It is gravely asserted that man grew up like the vegetables about him; or, more properly, like those forms of insect life which we brush every day from our paths; he descended from a monad or an oyster, it is not positively ascertained which, and by imperceptible degrees grew up to his present importance. It would be an amusing but rather tedious task for us to follow the various processes by which he became possessed of the several members which are so useful to him in his struggles for subsistence; and a rather metaphysical one to trace the subtle forces which combined to form his intellectual powers. The principle of appetency, in the language of the embryologist, explains all this. This mysterious power is equally indefinable and plastic in its operation. Where it came from they forget to inform us. It operates in a thousand capricious ways; it gave the elephant a trunk to save this rather unwieldly personage the trouble of stooping, while it gratified his propensity for feeling about him. Why it did not give all animals trunks, as it appears that it ought to have operated in the most impartial manner, I have never been able to ascertain; it gave the monkeys arms to indulge them in their propensities for climbing; and when these progenitors of the human family settled down into sober respectable men, they lost their strength in these members and used only their legs for the purposes of locomotion: while their sedentary habits have rubbed off another member, which in times of primitive simplicity was exceedingly useful in swinging an individual from tree to tree.

We are not informed of every particular transformation that took place between the oyster and man; we are only certainly assured of this, that the first stage in the process was an oyster, or something like it; and that the last but one was a monkey. It could scarcely be expected that there would be any records of this rather unintellectual period; we are therefore left entirely to conjecture as to the various particular developments.

But the history of the past is even less obscure than that of the future. we know, at any rate, that man was a mon

key and had a tail; but what kind of a personage he may be, centuries hence, nobody can conjecture. I am not certain that even the embryologists have predicted. He may possibly lose some, at present, very valuable member, or he may receive some very desirable appendage to his person-he may manifest a propensity for aerial locomotion, and, by the addition of a pair of wings, reverse Plato's definition of man, as "bipes implumis." Gentlemen tell us that this view of the introduction of the human race is recommended by the simplicity of the means, by its freedom from any abrupt transition in the order of nature; you have a man here actually feeling his way in the world, becoming accustomed by slow degrees to the objects around him, and growing up, as it were, with the state of things in which he is placed. How beautiful is this development according to law; it shuts out all caprice, and personal partiality. But if the law acted in so very impartial a manner, as it appears it ought to have done, how comes it that developments are so very different? The elephant has a very long slender snout, the bull-dog, a very short, thick one; the giraffe has a very lofty neck, the lion and bear, very short ones; the hare can run very fast from his enemies, while the sloth is liable to be overtaken by every pursuer. Why did appetency act so differently in each? How did this blind influence manifest such apparent foresight? Now, we must confess that we cannot admire the philosophy which admits all these wonders of appetency, and is staggered by the supposition that man was endowed with the power and the instinct to spread from a single centre over the world.

It has been found, however, that the theory of different pairs of the human race originating in different centres, is liable to insuperable objections-to objections precisely similar to those urged against the unity of the race. If three or four typical varieties of the human family, such as the Caucasian, the Mongolian, and the Negro, compel us to adopt the theory of three or four distinct origins, because we cannot account otherwise for these apparently permanent varieties, further investigation will show that we cannot stop here, but at we must extend the principle en further; for the peculiarities that mark the different races are not confined to the great families of mankind, but extend to the different tribes of each of

these families; and the northern nations of Europe differ quite as permanently from the southern, as the Caucasian does from the Mongolian, and the tribes of Southern Africa are distinguished quite as much from the tribes north of the equator, and immediately around it, as the Negro himself is from the Caucasian. It is easy to distinguish an Englishman from a Frenchman, a Spaniard from a German, &c. Now, if the varieties manifested by the two or three great families of mankind, compel us to trace them to two or three different origins, why will not the differences equally ineradicable between infinitely numerous tribes, point also in each case to a different origin? The difficulty has been felt, and Professor Agassiz, the ablest representative of the above school, concludes that mankind have not sprung from a single pair, nor from separate pairs crested at different centres; but have originated in groups, in various countries -in other words, have been sown broadcast over the world. To this inference he is a'so helped by the analogous distribution of vegetable and animal life. In countries entirely isolated from the old world, such as Australia, the fauna and flors are entirely different; the plants are of a different specific and generic character; the animals are also entirely distinct. In countries less isolated, there is more resemblance, without absolute identity, however, in any. The fauna of Europe, possessing the same specific type as those in America, present, however, varieties at once recognizable to the eye of the practised naturalist; when the geographical limits become more closely united, the resemblance becomes much greater, yet never amounting to identity.

Here it is to be observed that every species in one country has its representative species in another, and sometimes under circumstances, too, which forbid the supposition that they have been proparated from a common source.

We

find the same general facts to be applicable to man; and the representative species of the human family nearly alike, but not absolutely identical, are scattered over the world. From this it is inferred that as the representative species of the animal creation could not have descended from a common origin, neither could the representative species of the human

race.

This argument will strike different minds with different degrees of force;

most, however, will only see in it the admirable adaptation of the animal world to the circumstances among which they are placed, and the provisions made for their preservation amid the most diverse influences. Professor Guyot well remarks, "The resemblance of organized beings in the three continents of the north, is one of their distinctive characters; and this character is due to circumstance, that in proportion as the species change with the longitude, their place is taken generally, not by new types, but by analogous species. Doubtless, the similarity of climate is one of the most active causes of this resemblance; for the variety of the genera, the differences between the species of the three continents augment according to the elevation of the temperature; but this is not enough to explain the fact entirely. We shall see that the continents of the south, under similar latitudes, and in similar temperatures, offer types of animals, and of vegetation, very different in each of them.

"The continents of the south are more remote from each other than the fore

going. Broad oceans separate them, even to isolation. Scarcely any communication is possible between lands so distant; at any rate it is only indirect. Shut up in themselves, incapable of acting upon one another and modifying their respective natures, these continents are excluded from all community of life. What is there astonishing, then, in seeing their differences carried to an extreme, their characters exaggerated?

We see here only the most natural adaptation of animal life to the geographical latitude, and the fact that in different climates, the external characters are somewhat differently developed. Admitting, however, as true, every thing which Professor Agassiz wishes to prove, with regard to the animal creation: the difficulty still remains of showing that the same law of development applies to the human species. A mere analogy which evidently holds good only up to a certain point, cannot to any reasonable mind be conclusive. You may, from the development of the animal creation, argue with regard to the development of man in his animal nature; but when he is considered in his highest and most important relations, as a moral, intellectual, and responsible being, the analogy at once fails, and the law of development would in consequence, we infer, be quite dif

ferent. And such is the fact; for, as we before remarked, the animal and vegetable creations assume higher and more perfect types as you proceed from the poles to the equator; while, on the contrary, man is found in his most degraded position in the tropics, and becomes gradually more elevated as he approaches the temperate zone, in which he reaches his highest development, physical, intellectual and moral. The development of the animal follows only a physical law, while man being a moral as well as material being, is governed by both the laws of the physical and moral world.

The distinction has been well drawn by Professor Guyot. "In the animal," he remarks," the degree of perfection of the types is proportional to the intensity of heat, and of other agents which stimulate the display of material life. The law is of a physical order.

"In man, the degree of perfection of the types is in proportion to the degree of moral and intellectual improvement. The law is of a moral order.

The

"The difference between the laws has its principle in the profound difference existing between the nature and destination of these distinct beings. plant and the animal are not required to become a different thing from what they already are at the moment of their birth. Their idea, as the philosopher would say, is realized in its fulness, by the fact alone of their material appearance, and of their physical organization. The end of their existence is attained, for they are only of a physical

nature.

But with man it is quite otherwise. Man, created in the image of God, is of a free and moral nature. The physical man, however admirable may be his organization, is not the true man; he is not an aim, but a means; he is not an end, like the animal, but a beginning. There is another, new-born, but destined to grow up in him, and to unfold the moral and religious nature until he attain the perfect stature of his master, and pattern, which is Christ. It is the intellectual and moral man, the spiritual man. The law of development, if I may say so, is the law of man, the law of the human race and human societies; now, the free and moral being cannot unfeld his nature without education; he cannot grow to maturity, except by the exercise of the faculties he has received as his inheritance. Here is the reason that the Creator has placed the

cradle of mankind in the midst of the continents of the north, so well made by their forms, their structure, by their climate, as we shall soon see, to stimulate individual development, and that of human society, and not at the centre of the tropical regions, whose balmy, but enervating and treacherous atmosphere would have, perhaps, lulled him to sleep-the sleep of death, in his very

cradle."

To us, then, it appears incontrovertible, that the frail argument from analogy, even where analogy is inadınissible, fails entirely in the most important points.

2. It is maintained that no race of mankind has changed within the historic period: that the Gaul, the Saxon, &c., present the same conformation, and possess the same qualities now, that they did when first known to history; and that even the monumental remains of Egypt, which date back beyond 3000 years, exhibit to us the Negro, the Copt, and the Jew, with precisely the same physiognomy which they retain at the present day. If, at so early a day, we find races possessed of the same character they now exhibit, and if the lapse of centuries has not been able to change them in any important particular, what evidence have we that they can change at all? Does not the inference appear to be that they are unchangeable. It is not pretended I believe by any one that all the causes which operated in producing permanent varieties in the human species have been discovered; some of the causes, however, which are universally admitted as influential in modifying the human form and color, are climate, food, habits, and education; these being unchanged, man, as far as we know-indeed, the supposition is confirmed by experience,would remain unchanged. Time itself, without the influence of these modifying laws, could never produce any impression on the human person. not surprising, then, nor contradictory of any law recognized by the advocate of the unity of the human race, that the Negro, the Copt, and the Jew, should present nearly the same appearance now, that they did three thousand years ago. The Copt and the Negro live on the same soil and subject to the same influences, climatic and otherwise, that they were then; the Jew, though changing his climate, has not changed his habits, has not amalgamated

It is