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of type, corresponding more or less with those of the dominant races which now exist? It will be seen that this question is already in part answered in the one preceding it; and that the grounds of argument in the two cases are closely analogous

become altered and enlarged, and their attainments | though the species be one and single, there were approach closely to those of the same class in the not several pairs of this species placed separately most civilized countries. This corresponds with on the earth, and possibly under certain diversities what we before noticed as to certain changes taking place in bodily configuration under similar circumstances. It is an example, moreover, of the variations to which every race of mankind is incident, as well as the Negro, where the more essential conditions of life are altered for long successive throughout. It is true that in the latter case periods of time; and as such is very instructive in relation to our subject.

These variations, we are bound to add, are not of advancement alone, but in many cases manifestly of degradation from the standard of the particular race. As such we may probably regard the Hottentots and Bushmen of Southern Africa; the Esquimaux, Laplanders, and Samoyides of the Arctic Circle; the Fuegians, Papuas, and numerous other tribes scattered over the globe. This fact, indeed, applying alike to the mental and bodily organization, is one which binds itself closely and necessarily with all other parts of our arguThose varying conditions of existence, which even in the same nation or community tend to degrade and debase certain classes, do so on a larger scale, and with more lasting effect, where the insulation from the original stock is more complete, and where the circumstances of life are yet more strongly contrasted, and continued for longer periods of time.

ment.

What we have said will be readily understood as applying equally to the moral feelings and character of different races as to their intellectual faculties. The denotation of unity of origin is as strong in the one case as the other. However modified in form and expression by education, the conditions of government and society, or the various necessities of life, the emotions, the desires, the moral feelings of mankind, are essentially the same in all races and in all ages of the world. We have neither room nor need for argument on this subject all history and all personal experience concur as to the fact. Were we to cite any one instance in particular, it would be the faculty of laughter and tears-those expressions of feeling common to all colors, races, and communities of mankind, civilized or savage; and which give proofs of identity, stronger than all reasoning λογου τι κρειττον. To our great poet-whose philosophy alone would have made him immortal, even had it not been conveyed in immortal versewe owe a line, which far more happily expresses our meaning :

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. It is this "one touch of nature" testified in tears, which decides the question of unity of species to the common feeling of mankind as entirely as it does to the observations of the naturalist, or the reasonings of the philosopher.

Though our limits have compelled us to curtail this discussion in numerous particulars, we have pursued it sufficiently to show how much it governs the second question proposed, viz., Whether,

they are chiefly of a negative kind, and do not admit of so determinate a conclusion. We can never prove by any human evidence that it may not have pleased the Creator to give origin to the race and its varieties in this particular manner. The solution cannot be rendered other than one of probability; but we think the amount of probability attainable to be such as may fairly justify the inference to which we come.

We are entitled, first, to ask the same question here as before-Where is the limit to be placed to this multiplication of pairs, if intended to express the several types or varieties of man? Fischer, in his Synopsis Animalium, affirms the existence of seven forms or species, wholly distinct. Colonel Hamilton Smith, in the work named at the head of this article, says that we must necessarily admit the Caucasian, Mongolian, and Negro, as separate in origin, and though calling these typical forms, he goes far towards asserting the distinction of species. The colonel fights for his triple type with zeal and skill; and we are ready to admit, that if the separate types be confined to three, he has rightly chosen them; but we do not see sufficient grounds for this limitation. Looking at the many varieties of mankind, and the manner in which they are insensibly interblended, we find no lines strong enough to form a limit to the supposed multiplicity of pairs, though many sufficiently marked to furnish a basis for the division of races. We think the evidence of facts not likely ever to go beyond this, and that more exact knowledge will tend further to confirm the belief that all these, distinctions of races are secondary and subordinate to one single source of human life on the earth.

Of the arguments to this effect, beyond those already stated, the most important, undoubtedly, is the analogy derived from all other species of organic life. We doubt whether unequivocal proof has ever been produced of the same species having even two primitive habitats on the surface of the earth. We have no means, indeed, of absolutely demonstrating the negative; and we must rest the argument, therefore, on the general and very re-' markable fact, now recognized by naturalists, that different species, whether animal or vegetablewhether terrestrial, aquatic, or atmospheric-had originally definite seats and localities on the globe, whence their diffusion has been effected by accident or design, modified by their locomotive powers and several capacities for bearing changes of climate and place. There is now a geography of animals and plants, as well as of mountains, rivers, and kingdoms. The Botanical Geography

of De Candolle, to which Humboldt and Brown | fit his habitation to the climate, can prepare his food have so largely contributed, defines at least twenty by cookery, can provide artificial means of transbotanical provinces on the globe, each being the port. In the simple expression of these familiar centre of groups of species peculiar to itself in facts, common to no other animal with him, we origin. The Zoological provinces have hardly have the history of his distribution over the globe; yet been so exactly denoted; but are manifestly and can conciliate this with the belief that he had subject to the same law of distribution, connected, it may be, with some native adaptation of each species to the region where it had its origin. The great importance of this discovery will at once be obvious; and not less so the extreme interest of the facts in natural history, by which it has been established and verified. The systematic division into provinces may undergo alterations in effect of future revision, but the principle is fixed; and time can only bring fresh accession of facts to this wonderful law of the primitive distribution of species.

his origin in one spot alone. We have adverted to the deficiencies of history respecting the early migrations of mankind, and their collection into communities and nations; and we are obliged to admit further, that we can in no satisfactory way explain the peopling of the many remote isles of the ocean, seemingly inaccessible to man in the ages to which such events must be referred. Still the difficulties of solution do not alter the facts to be solved. The human race is actually spread over the earth and the islands of the sea; single, as we have seen, in all that constitutes Few minds would have been hardy enough to the proper definition of a species. Such is the conceive all this à priori-to admit, for instance, nature of this distribution, that the difficulties are the likelihood of such facts as the insulated geol-not better obviated by supposing two, three, or ogy and botany of the Galapagos Isles or St. more centres of creation than one only. We Helena; or those extraordinary relations of typi-must, in contradiction to the analogy of all other cal form in adjoining regions, and on the same species, make the number incalculably great, to continents, which are observed even where the satisfy this method of solving a case, which, after species are distinct. It cannot be doubted that all, is reducible to probabilities perfectly conformgeological changes in the globe, and particularly able to our reason. A more momentous and the relative changes of sea and land, have been difficult question is that of the time involved in largely concerned in the present distribution of this early part of man's history, and requisite to organic life, by altering climate and separating explain his dispersion and multiplication on the genera and species connected primitively with globe. But this question applies itself equally to common centres. The researches of Professor all parts of the subject to the variations of bodE. Forbes have done much to enlarge and illus-ily type, as well as to the local distribution of trate this inquiry. In Sir C. Lyell's work there is an admirable account of those conditions which probably have determined the various distribution of species over land and sea-closely limiting the locality of some, enabling others to occupy large tracts of the earth's surface or of the waters of the ocean. This will at once be recognized as a fundamental part of the inquiry. On the one hand, while pointing at the original singleness of locality for every species, it indicates their diffusion or limitation as depending on the capacities of each for undergoing the deviations which enable them to sustain changes of climate, food, and other conditions of life. On the other hand, it indicates the main causes of all such varieties in these altered conditions of existence acting on certain parts of the animal structure and economy, and modifying them within the limits of change pre-ation begins with individuals and families, where scribed to each species; thus completing the circle of demonstration to which every day is adding new evidence.

races and nations, and the growth of the various languages which have become the use of manand we must postpone its consideration till the whole topic is more completely before us.

Meanwhile, recurring to the physical evidence for the origin of mankind from a single pair, we may advert once more to the fact, that the actual deviations in man from a common type or standard are less than those which we find in the animals most familiar to us by domestication. The causes of variation, as we have seen, are mainly also the same; including that most remarkable cause, the tendency in certain acquired qualities or habits to become hereditary in the race. To this great natural phenomenon we may trace many of the more prominent features, physical, moral, and intellectual, which distinguish races and nations. Its oper

the effects are most familiar to our observation— widens, though becoming less marked, as these are grouped together into larger cominunities-blends Following, then, this great line of analogy from itself variously and closely with all the other nat inferior species, we are led to infer that man also ural causes which modify the species-and finally, had his origin in a single and definite place on though more obscurely, forms the basis of what we the earth; whence he has diffused himself more call national character; a term often vaguely used, widely over its surface than any other species, by but true and explicit in itself, and involving some virtue of those eminent faculties of mind, as well of the most curious questions which concern the as body, which enable him to meet even the ex-condition and prospects of mankind. The whole treme contingencies of climate and food, and to subject is one fairly approachable by human reason adapt his existence more variously to the circum- and observation, yet hitherto less studied than we stances around him. Man can clothe himself, can I might suppose likely, seeing that these same causes

we can affirm nothing; and, rather than hazard an idle speculation, are willing to leave the question in the obscurity where probably it must ever remain.

We have now completed the outline of this inquiry, as far as the physiological argument is concerned. It has, we think, been rendered, on purely scientific grounds, next to certain that man is one in species-highly probable that al: the varieties of this species are derived from one pair, and a single locality on the earth. There are no difficulties attending these conclusions so great as those which other theories involve—and it may be accepted as a further indication of truth, that, in proportion as our knowledge in the several sciences

are actually and constantly in operation under our eyes, shaping out new forms of national character, and with them new destinies for the human race. We might cite many instances to this effect. We will name only the most remarkable, in the United States of America; where, though colonized almost exclusively from one old and civilized country, and deriving from that source its language, laws, literature, and numberless usages, there has grown up, within little more than two centuries, a great nation, well marked and peculiar in many of its physical and moral features, and likely to assume a still more definite character, notwithstanding its vast increase of territory and population. The instance is one eminently illustrative for our sub-connected with this subject has become larger and ject, showing at once the scope of such variations, and the causes, manner, and time required for their accomplishment.

leads. It is far too copious to be dealt with in the small space we have at our disposal, and too complex to admit of any intelligible abridgment.

more exact, in the same proportion have these difficulties lessened or disappeared. Armed, then, with this strong presumption, derived from one source, There yet remains a question, and that a curious we approach the second part of the argument, as one, connected with the physiological part of our originally proposed; that, to wit, depending on the inquiry. If mankind, as now peopling the earth, history of human languages in their various forms be of one species, and derived from a single pair, and connection with the history of nations over the what bodily configuration and character had this globe. But on this theme, needful though it be simple primitive stock? Were the originals of to the completion of the subject, and largely emour species like to any of the derivative races, or bodied in the works before us, we cannot at pres moulded in some form now lost amidst the multi-ent enter further than to show its intimate relation tude of secondary varieties? In his earliest re- to the inquiry, and the general results to which it searches Dr. Prichard adopted as to this point a view somewhat repugnant to the common notions and feelings of the civilized world. He boldly stated his belief that the Negro must be considered the primitive type of the human race; resting this conclusion on the following grounds-1st, that in inferior species of animals any variations of color are chiefly from dark to lighter, and this generally as an effect of domesticity and cultivation; 2dly, that we have instances of light varieties, as of the Albino, among Negroes-but never of anything like the Negro among Europeans; 3dly, that the dark races are better fitted by their organization for the wild or natural state of life; 4thly, that the nations or tribes lowest in the scale of actual civilization have all kindred with the Negro race.

Taking these arguments as they are stated, and even conceding for the moment all the assumptions they involve, we certainly see no such cogency in them as to oblige us to relinquish the fairer view of our original progenitors. Even Dr. Prichard himself seems to have abandoned this theory in his later writings, though rather by silent evasion of it than by any direct avowal of change. While, however, we refuse on any present proof to people our Eden with a Negro pair, we must fairly admit that we can give no satisfactory answer as to the point in question. Direct evidence on the subject is wholly wanting, nor is it easy to see whence it should ever be obtained. There is as much reason for supposing the original type to be altogether lost, as for believing it to be represented in any one form that now exists around us. All we can presume with any degree of assurance is, that this primitive type did not depart out of the limits of existing forms, in whatever manner or proportion it may have combined their varieties. Beyond this

That language should exist at all, and that it should exist among every people and community of the earth, even those lowest in the scale of civilization, is in itself a cogent argument for the unity of man as a species. As is the case with so many other wonders amidst which we live, its very familiarity disguises to us the marvellous nature of this great faculty of speech, confided to man, and to man alone, by the design of his Creator. The more deeply we look into the struct ure and diversities of language, the more does this wonder augment upon us; mixed, however, with great perplexity, in regarding the multitude and variety of these different forms, hitherto reckoned only by approximation, but certainly exceed ing some hundreds in number. Many of these are reducible, with more or less deviation, to certain common roots-others do not yet admit of

*

embarrass ourselves with the question, whether this * We will not, by widening the definition of language, faculty be not possessed by various animals subordinate to man. Admitting fully the expression of Cuvier, in comparing the faculties of brutes with those of man, "Leur intelligence exécute des opérations du même genre," we still believe that no just definition can identify the mere instinctive communications by sound, however modified, through which the wants of animals are expressed and supplied, with those wonderful forms and devices of language which have rendered even grammar itself a science, and an index of human character and culture. Of the writers who have sought to assimilate the language of inferior animals to that of man, the late Dr. Maculloch is the most able, and in his posthumous work on Natural Theology will be found a very ingenious chapter on the subject, defaced, it must be owned, by a style and spirit of writing which robs his works of half their value. In this case it seems less his object to ele vate our notions of the faculties of the lower animals, than to degrade our estimate of the human being.

such affiliation—others again have been so imperfectly examined or recorded, owing to the want of a common phonetic system, that no sure place has yet been assigned to them in the series.

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more than one species of mankind, and were the
type of one race really inferior in its origin to
that of another, nothing would be so likely to
attest this as the manner of communication of
thought and feeling. Language itself would be-
come the surest interpreter of this difference.
its actual varieties, only partially coincident with
the degree of civilization and social advancement,
offer no such lines of demarcation; and, however
great the differences, all possess and manifest in
their structure a common relation to the uses or
necessities of man.

It is to this seeming chaos of tongues that the labors of modern scholars and philosophers have been earnestly directed; not simply for the solution of questions as to the structure, diversities, and connections of language, but with yet higher aim, in regard to the origin and progress of nations. Ethnology owes many of its most precious documents to these researches. They have aided it where the records of history were obscure or The most peculiar class of languages, that most altogether wanting; and it cannot be doubted by detached from others in its genius as well as forms, those who have watched the course of this science is undoubtedly the monosyllabic, as spoken and of late years that it is destined to advance much written in China and certain conterminious counfurther by the same prolific methods of inquiry. tries. The singularities of this inorganic language, We have before noted the names of some of the as it may well be termed, have furnished endless eminent men engaged on the subject. The "Dis-matter of discussion to the most accomplished course on Ethnology" by Chevalier Bunsen is a philologists. It has even been made a question remarkable example of these labors, and of the whether it should be termed the most imperfect or philosophical refinements which have been added the most perfect form of human speech; whether to the study of language. The vague and partial the rudest or the most philosophical of inventions. conjectures of etymology, and the crude catalogues Without engaging in a warfare of definitions, which of words caught by the untutored ear, are now here, as in so many other cases, are the real matter replaced by a close and critical research into the in dispute, we may safely state it to fulfil all the principles of language, and into analogies of a probable conditions of language in its earliest and higher class than those founded upon words and most simple form. M. Bunsen goes so far as to sounds alone. We could willingly pursue this consider it as a monument of antediluvian speech, topic further, but must limit ourselves simply to insulated from others by physical changes on the what may show the vast aids derived from this globe, and retaining those primitive and fundasource to the study of the history of Man; and the mental characters which have elsewhere merged increasing certainty of the conclusions, as the into secondary and more complex forms. Without materials become larger, and the methods of using following him into this bold speculation, it is sufthem more comprehensive and exact. ficient to say that, even if the Chinese language were proved to stand absolutely alone in its most prominent features, we could recognize in this no proof of a separate stock of mankind. The physical characters of this people distinctly denote them as belonging to the great Mongolian family; and as the monosyllabic form of language does not extend to other nations of that race, we are not entitled from its peculiarities to deduce a conclusion which is opposed to these less dubious marks of a common original.

The classification of languages is, in truth, the classification of mankind—the migration and intermixture of languages are records of the changes and movements of man over the face of the globe. From the singular multiplicity, however, of these forms of human speech, a person new to the subject might well suppose it impossible to arrive at any certain issue; while those who have gone deepest into it find certain limits, which no genius or labor can surmount. Nevertheless, in relation to our argument, this very multiplicity, like that We are left, then, amidst this multitudinous of the physical varieties of mankind, becomes an array of tongues, with no more certain clue of evidence of common original. Whatever opinion origin than those common necessities of social life be held as to the primitive source of language—and intercourse which belong to the species. and many have found cause to consider it of divine These, however, are necessities in the strongest communication—we may fairly presume that the sense of the word. They compel the formation numerous varieties of speech, now existing, had of language, and even of the more essential gramtheir origin in the detached localities and under matical forms which it assumes. To explain its the various conditions in which portions of man-multiplied varieties we can do no other than admit, kind were early spread over the earth. Their what is probable, indeed, on other grounds, the early formation, and the changes they have undergone, separation of the human race into distinct comhave been determined by the faculties, feelings, |munities, and the dispersion of those into localities and social instincts, common to the whole species, so far detached as to give cause and scope for the and requiring analogous modes of expression by formation of new languages; some of them retainspeech. Accordingly we find that the grammat-ing obvious traces of a primitive root, and collater ical relations of different languages, apart from ally connected more or less closely with other those technical forms which disguise them to ordinary observation, are more certain and closer than the connection by words and roots. Were there

tongues; others, again, seemingly insulated in origin and independent of all such connection. The latter case is obviously the one most difficult

searches tend to the same conclusion as that already deduced from physiology, viz., that man is of one species, and derived from a single pair prim

to conceive, compatibly with a single origin of mankind; and in seeking for explanation we feel ourselves forced backwards upon periods of time which may well alarm the imagination and dis-itively created on the earth. There yet remain courage inquiry. Recent research, however, has done a good deal to abate these difficulties; and it is important to remark here, as we have done in respect to the physical diversities of mankind, that the more minute the inquiry, the more do all differences and anomalies disappear from view. A mere superficial regard to words and sounds often leaves widely asunder what a rigid analysis of methods and roots will exhibit as closely related in origin, and dissevered only by successive steps, which are sometimes themselves to be traced in existing forms of speech. The philosophy of language thus becomes a guide to ethnology, the best interpreter of the history of nations.

two inquiries, to which, notwithstanding their interest, we have only slightly adverted-those, namely, which regard time and place in their relation to this great event. But, to say nothing of the intrinsic difficulty of these questions under any circumstances, we consider that they cannot reasonably be brought into view until we have first mastered, as far as it may be done, this preliminary science of human languages. Our physical knowledge of man, as a part of the animal creation, is wholly inadequate to such inquiries; and he must, in truth, be an adventurous reasoner who expects to draw from either source any certain solution of them.

We may possibly at a future time resume this important subject in the greater detail it requires. Meanwhile, we hope to have already justified the assertion with which we prefaced this article, that there is no subject of science of deeper interest than that which regards the natural history and original condition of man. Even were the ques

Were we not limited here to a mere outline of the subject, many instances might be given of these recent discoveries in philology which have removed old barriers of time and space, and thrown their light forwards upon fields of knowledge still unexplored. It is interesting to note how much these discoveries, as well as the classification and nomenclature of languages previously adopted, │tions it involves less remarkable, and less important connect themselves with the recorded tripartite in regard to the present and future condition of the division of mankind into three great families after species, the methods of argument and sources of the Scriptural deluge. Some of the most remark- evidence are such as may well engage and engross able results recently obtained are those which dis- every scientific inquirer. The evidence is drawn close relations, hitherto unsuspected or unproved, from all parts of creation-from the mind, as between the language of Ancient Egypt and the well as from the bodily conformation of man himSemitic and Japhetic languages of Asia; thus self. The argument is one of probability; always associating together in probable origin those three tending to greater certainty, though, it may be, great roots which, in their separate diffusion, have incapable of ever reaching that which is complete. spread forms of speech over all the civilized parts But this is a method of reasoning well understood of the world. Taking the Japhetian, or Indo- to be compatible with the highest philosophy, and Teutonic branch, as it has lately been termed, we peculiarly consonant to our present faculties and find these inquiries embracing and completing the position in the universe. And if "in this ocean connections between the several families of lan- of disquisition fogs have been often mistaken for guage which compose this eminent division of land," as in so many other regions of science, we mankind; already dominant in Europe for a long may at least affirm that the charts are more corseries of ages, and destined apparently, through rectly laid down than ever before; the bearings some of its branches, to still more general do- better ascertained; and that our reason can hardly minion over the globe. We may mention, as one be shipwrecked on this great argument, if common of the latest examples of the refined analysis of caution be observed in the course we pursue. which we are speaking, the complete reduction of the Celtic to the class of Indo-Teutonic languages, through the labors of Bopp, Prichard, and Pictet; whereby an eighth family is added to this great stock, and the circle completed which defines their relations to one another, and to the other languages of mankind.

In closing our remarks on this subject we must again repeat that we have almost exclusively limited them to what regards its general connection with the primitive history of man ;-unable to include that vast body of knowledge which has given philology a place among the sciences, and associated it with ethnology by relations which serve to illustrate and verify both. Yet we have said enough to show how closely the history of human language is connected with that of the human species-and, further, how strongly these re

WHEN I daily look up,
And never look down,
I find that my cup
Is filled to the crown.

Whatever is wanted,
Into my heart flows;
'Tis when the heart 's lifted,
God kindly bestows.
When I grovel in dust,

And murmur and fret,
How few and how meagre
The blessings I get!
"T is only when upward
I eagerly turn,
That favors are granted,
And wisdom I learn.
Olive Branch.

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