OCR Text |
Show 142 . EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. Here the upright lines, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, may represent th& comparative height and grade of organization of both the five sub-kingdoms, and the five classes of each of thes~; 5 being the vertebrata in the one case, and the.mammaba in the other. The difference between the height of the line 1 and the line 5 gives ari idea of the difference of being the head type of the aves ( corvidre,) and th~ head type of the mammalia (bimana ;) a, b, c, d, 5, again, !epresent the five groups of the first order of the mamn1aha; a, being the organic structure of the highest simia, and 5, that of man. A set of tangent lines of this kind may yet prove one of the most satisfactory means of ascertain.ing the height and breadth of the psychology of our spec1es. It may be asked-Is the existing human race the only species designed to occupy the grade to which it is here referred? Such a question evidently ought not to he answered rashly; and I shall therefore confine myself to the admission that, judging by ana~ogy, we might expect to see several varieties of the being, homo. There is no other family approaching to this in importance, which presents but one species. The corvidre, our parallel in aves, consist of several distinct genera and sub-genera. It is startling to find such an appearance of imperfection in the circle to which man belongs, and the ideas which rise in consequence are not less startling. Is our race but the initial of the grand crowning type ? Are there yet to be species superior to ua in organization, purer in feeling, more powerful in device and act, and who shall take .a rule over us? There is in this nothing improbable on other grounds. The present race, rude and Impulsive as it is, is perhaps the best adapted to the present state of things in the ·world; but the ·external world goes through slow and gradual changes, which may leave it in time a much serener field of existence. There may then be occasion for a nobler type of humanity, which shall complete the geological circle on this planet, and realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits 0f the present race. EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. THE human race is known to consist of different nations displaying considerable differences of external form and EARLY HISTORY OF .MANKIND. 143 eolor, and speaking in general different languages. This has been the case since the commencement of written rec· ord. It is also ascertained that the external peculiarities of particular nations do not rapidly change. There i~ rather a tendency to a persistency of type in all lines of de· scent, insomuch that a subordinate admixtm·e of various type is usually obliterated in a few generations. Num~rous as the varieties are, they have all been found classifiable under five leading ones :-1. The Caucasian, or Indo- European, which extends from l?dia int<? Europe a.nd Northern Africa; 2. The Mongolian, which occupies Northern and Eastern Asia; 3. The Malayan, which extends fi·om the Ultra-Gangetic Peninsula into the numet ·ous islands of the South Sea and Pacific; 4. TheN egro, chiefly confined to Africa; 5. The aboriginal American. Each of these is distinguished by certain general features of so Inarked a kind as to give rise to a supposition that they have had distinct or independent origins. Of theso peculiarities, color is the most conspicuous: . the Caucasians are generally white, the Mongolians yellow, the Negroes black, and the Americans r(jd. The opposition of two of these in particular, w bite and black, is so striking, that of them, at least, it seems almost necessary to suppose separate origins. Of late years, however, the whole of this question has been subjected to a rigorous investigation, and it has been successfully shown that the human t· ac;e might have had one origin, for anything that can be inferred from external reculiarities. It appears from this inC]uiry, *that color and other physiological characters are of a more superficial and accidental nature than was at one time supposed. One fact is at the very first extremely startling, that there are nations, such as the inhabitants of Hindostan, known to be one in descent, which nevertheless contain groups of people of almost all shades and color, and likewise discrepant in other of those important features on which much stress has been laid. Some other facts, which I may state in brief terms, are scarcely less remarkable. In Africa, there are Negro natious-that is, nations of intensely black ~omplexion, as the J olofs, lVIandiugoes, and Kafirs, whose features and limbs are as elegant as those of the best Eurc p~an nations. vVhile \1\-·e have no proof of Negro races ~ecorning white in the course of generations, the converse . .,. ~~~ . f~~~hard's Researches into the Physical History of .Man 1 |