Indigenous Races of the Earth

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420 TilE MONOGENISTS AND tho very existence, not only of tho extensive outlying provinces of America and Asiauesia, but of the great mass of the tribes of the old world. They do not appear to have cultivated a knowledge of any non-Semitic language, and consequently their ethnic uotions rcsp cting some adjacent non-Semitic tribes must have been very obBcLue and erroneous. It may be doubted whether their know­ledge of the Africans extended beyond the J~gyptians, and t~cir southern Nilotic neighbors, the Ethiopians. The European natlons were unknown to them, save through some vague impressions respecting the sea-board tribes of the S. and W. coasts, received from the reticinent I hamicians. Their knowledge of the numerous nations of northern, middle, and eastern Asia, was partial and obscure. They do not appear to have had a suspicion of the existence of the great civilized peoples of tho East, the Arians and the Chinese, and they wero as profoundly ignorant of tho Dravirians, as thoy were of tho Germans aud the ancient Britisb.40 Notl1ing can more conclusively show the extremely narrow and isolated character of their ethnology, and their rigid seclusion from time immemorial in the Semitic civilization, than the fact that they l1ad entirely lost, and had been unable by their observations to recover, 1 he idea of barbarism. In this respect, their ethnology is far below that, not only of IIcrodotns and Manu, but of other Semitic nations; Ruch as the Arabs, tho Phc.cnicians, and, in all probability, tho Babylonians, at least in their more civilized and commercial era. It is therefore surprising to sec a writer like Bunsen founding his ethnology on that of Moses, which can only be correct as a partial picture of the races of S. E. Asia, and N. E. Afi·ica, as known to the Hebrews.'' 40 Typc3 of ~fankind, Po.rt II, pp. 4G6-!i56; with its "Oenco.logico.l Tnblco.u" of Xth Genesis, its "Mnp of the World o.s known to" tho gcnesi11co.l writer; thoroughly confirmed the u •duotions hero dmwn by Mr. Logan: o.nd every fresh 11rchooologist who examines this hoo.ry document arrives at tho so. me conclusions. I would now refer to resorll'chcs unseen hy me, or unpublished, when I projected my MSS. for tho above work, at Mobile, in 1852. 1Rt, RENAN, lli~t. dr., Langues Sbnitiques (snpro.), 1855, pp. 27-74, nnd 449-GS: -2d, Br~ROMANN, Le~ peup/es p1·imitives de fa race de Jajate. Rsquisse etlmo-ge716alogique et l!istoriqtte. Colmnr, 8vo., 18!i8, p. 64:-Btl, ltAWJ,JNSON, Notes on the Ea.,.zy llistory of Babylonia; J.ondon, 8vo., 1854, pp. 1-2, note:-4th, IhlYWooo's VoN BoHLNN, (Supm, note 19), lr•trod. to the Book of Genesis, London, 1855; 1!, pp. 210-54: -and lith, o.s tl!o most importnnt, heel\ use devoted exclusively to analysis of this subject; AuousT KNom:r., Die Vollrerlafel der Gcne&is. Etlmographiache Untersucl11mgen; Oiesscn, 8vo., 1850. I wns not o.ware of this tnl\slerly book, until many months 1\fter tbe publication of my own studies in "Types of Mnnkind." It wo.s subsequently indicated to me nt Paris, by my valued friend M. Henan. With no small gro.tificBtion, I nfterwo.rds discovered lho.t Dr. Knobel's results nnd my own wero nlwt~ys similnr, often identical. Compare pp. 9, 18, 137-7, 167, 170, 889-62, for partioula1' insto.nces, with tho some points discussed in "Typos." T JI E P 0 L Y G E N I S 'l' S . 421 Such are some of tho true principles for embracing, in those in­quiries, llebrcw ethnography, as an inestimable, but, in reality, a very minor part of tho W orl.d's ethnology: at the same time that, through the above extracts, we perceive but a small portion of the uncertainties and perils, that beset this new and ill- appreciated study.-" And yet," indignantly, but most righteously exclaim!:! LuKE BunKE, "And yet this is the science on which every man itJ competent to pass an opinion with oracular emphasis; the science to which missionaries dictate laws, and which pious believers find written out, ready to their hands, in the book of Genesis. The science, in a word, which a whole tribe of comparative philologisb;, with a fatuity almost inconceivable, have coolly withdrawn from tho control of zoology, and settled to their ow11 infinite satisfaction, a.~ per catalogue of barb~trian vocalmlarics.'11 The really learned arc perplexed with doubt, or appalled with difficulty: the true naturali~t approaches with difridcnco, or state!:! his opinion without dogmatism or tenacity; but the theologian is perfectly at home, and has arranged every thing long ago. The laud is his by right Divine, his own peculiar appanage; aud with the authority of a master be peremptorily decides, that a science, to which even the distant future will scarcely be able to do proper justice, shall receive its laws and inspirations fwm tho remote and ridiculous past." 12 llaving thus fortified what I deem to be the "ultima ratio," above put forth on IIuman Origins, by tho brothers llumboldt coujointly, it may be interesting to dissect some sentences of that magniP.ccnt pm·agraph; in order that we may not unwittingly ascribe to WIL­llELM, the philologist, the more decided opinions of his brother ALl!lX­ANmm, whose universality of science prcclud s special classification. And first, it seems ominous to the Unity-doctrine, that the most brilliant philologer of his day should have left a manuscript, "On the Diversity of Languages and of Nations." This manuscl'ipt, however, being unpublished, no positive deduc­tion can be dt·awn from its mere title; but the treatise must posse:;s some clements distinguishing it from the elder work, long honorcJ by the scientific world: " Ubcr die V crscllicd nhcit dcr mcnschlichen Spmchbaues ;" On the Diversity of Structw·e of Iluman Languages,­containod in Wilhelm von IIurnboldt's researches into the "J(awi- 41 This o.pplios especially to o.u inexhnustiblo, loarned, nnd laborious ethnological "caln­loguc- makcr," Dr. Latlmm. Vido tho Brig!Jiou Examiner, October 2, 1855-for a critique by Mr. Luke Burke, of "Dt·. Lo.thom's Loctu~·e on 'Ethnology.'" 42 Cl!a.-leston J!fedical Joumal a11d Review, Charleston, S.C., vol. XI, No. 4, July 1856- " Strictures," &c., by Luke B111·ke, Esq., Editor of the London Ethuologicul Jourual­PP · 457-8.