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Show I. ll: 42() TilE MONOGENISTS AND of science seems likely to realize Flouren's proposed ]aw,ro viz: that the true length of human life should not fall below one hund1·ed years: and c rlainly there lives no man to whom mankind owe a more forvent tribute of goo<l wishes. Others arc better qualified than the pr . cnt writer to show how ceaselessly Baron Alexander de liumbolUL sLops onward, day by day, as leader in multitudinous fields of Natural Science; but should .Egyptology be taken as tho criterion of his over-progressing knowledge, then we need, in order to plant some pickets along tho route, but to re-open his Gosmos,5' and to pernse Rome of Lcpsius's 55 and Brugsch's writings. 56 N vcrth less, supposing that we take a step backwards of some 47 years from this day, when Baron de IIumholdt stood already at the meridian of his glorious lifo, and open the beautiful Introduction with which, in 1810, ho prefaced the "Vucs des Cordilloras/7 we perceive how, at that day-one generation and a half ago,-ltc felt ovctjoycd at having then lived to witness the appearance of tho great Jj rcnch work, the "Description de l'Egypto," fruit of Napoleon Bonaparte's eastern campaigns of ] 778-1800, -which grand folios, oxc •pt for archi tcctural d signs of ancient, and excellent views and disquisitions of modern Egypt, have, since Champollion's era, 1822- 32, become, archroologically speaking, almost so much waste paper. Yet, at that time (to most men under fifty, in this om XIXth century, remote day), Al xandcr von IIumbold.t bad already arrived at the following philosophical conclusions about tho "unity of the human species." "Lc prol>lcmc de la premiere population de l'Am6riquo n'cst plus du rcs~ort do l'histoirc, que los questions sur l'originc d s phmtcs et des ammaux .et sur la distribution des gcrmos organiqucs no sont du reSAOL'L UCS SC1Cl1CC naturcJlcs. L'histoiro, en rcmontant aux epoqucs los plns rc~ul6c~ [which, in A. D. 1810, meant only to about 1000 years before Olmst; tnasmuclt as those revelations, on some 3000 yea1·s premously to the latte1· era, derived since from the pet1·oglyplts of tlte Nile tl1e .Enplwates, and the Tif)ris, !tad not been dreamed of, muclt less com: menced], nons montr:o presque toutes los parties du globe occnp6es par d~~ h.ommos qm . s.c croicnt aborigenes, par o qu'ils ignoront leur i1lmt10n. Au mthcu d'unc mnltitudc de ponples qui so sont 113 De la Longtvi/6 lfttmaine et de la q1ta11tite de Vi'e s11r le globe; PariR, J2mo, 1865, p. 86, vi~: that the natural length of animnllife is fivo times tho timo it tukos to "unito the bones Wlth thoir cpi]Jhyscs;" which p1·occss, iu man, takos offoct at about 20 years of o.ge. M Ottts 'l'ra118l., IT, pp. 124-8. 1511 Brirfe aus A!-'gypten, /Ethiopim, Q'c., TICJ·lin, 181)2; "Vot·woJ·t." : Nfiubtrichte aus JEgypten, TI~rlin, 1855; "Vorwort;" 11nd Grammatico Demotica, 1865. HUMDOLUT £T Dom•LAND, Voyage, Atlas Pitto1·esque, Pnris, folio,l810. TIIE POLYGENISTS. 427 succlJc16s et m616s les uns aux autt·cs, il est impossible de reconnoitre avec cxacLitu<le la premiere base de ]a population, ccttc couehc primitive au dcHL de laquellc commence lc domaine des traditions cosmogoniques. "Los nations de l'Amcriquc, a !'exception de cellos qui avoi sinent 1e cm·clc pohirc, formcnt uno seulc race caract6ris6c paT la conionnation dLl crane, par ]a coulcur de ]a pcau, par l'cxtrornc ra rot6 de la barbc, ct par des chcvcux plats ct JisscA. La race americainc a des rapports tres-scnsibl s avec cello des pcnplcs mongolcs qnircnict·me les dcscendans des Jiiong-nu, connns jadis sous lc nom de Huns, los Kalkas, los Kalmucks, ct los Boumttcs. Des obs rvations r6contcs ont memo pronve que non sculcmcut los habitants a Unalaska, mais aussi I lnsicurs pcnplad s de l'Am6riquc meridionale, indiqucnt pal'(les caractercs ost6ologiques de la tete, un passage de ]a race am6ri ainc [not across the Pacific ?to?' tlte Atlantir:, but in physiological gradation], a ]a race mongolo. Lorsqu'on aura micux 6tudi6 los homrncs bruns do l'Afriqnc ct cot cssaim de pcuplcs qui habitcnt l'int6riouro ct lo nord-est de l'Asic, quo des voyageurs systematiqucs dcsigncnt vaguemont sous los noms de Tartars ct de Tschoudcs, los races caucasicnne, mongolo, am6ricai no [tit is la ,qt fJ1'oup of humanity was expl01·ed 30 years later, and to Baron de Humboldt's sati.sfact.ion,68 by MOR'l'ON, in his "Crania Americana"], malaye ct negro paroltront moine isol6cs [Mo1·ton's school now thinlc the contrary established], ot l'on rcconno!tra, dans cotte gran<lc farnillc du genre hurnain, un soul type organique modifi.6 par des circon tanccs qui nous rcstcront pcut-eLrc ~\ jamais inconnncs." * * * "Nous no connaissons jusqu'ici aucun idiomc do l'Am6riquc qni, plns qnc los autl'cs, sornl>lo so Jicr a un des groupcs nombl'cux de langue asiatiquos, africaincs, on curopecuncs." 50 In<lccd, as the same illustrious writer says clscwbcrc,00 these discussions, which we call new, "sur l'unit6 do l'cspcce humainc ot do ses deviations d'nn type I rimitif," and about tho peopling of America, agitated the minds of its fir t Spanish historians, AcoSTA, OviEDO, GAIWIA, &c.,-on all which consult tho learned compendium of Dn. McCuLLOrr.61 As a final illLlstt·ation of tho eagle-eye with which IIumboldt seizes each eli covot·y of physical scion c as it is made, the Gorman and French editions of Kosmos itself furnish a happy instance. The first 68 Suo tho lltwon's conga·11tulatory lettor to D,., Morton, in 1'ype~ of .Aiankind, pp. xxxiv- v. 59 Vues des Oordill~ras, pp. vii-viii, x. GO Bxamell critique de l'Mstoire de la Geographic au Nouveau Ootllinent et dt3 progr~s dl l'Astrotwmie twtttique aux Jl)mc et 16mc si~cle.Y, Paris, 1836, I, "Considorntions," pp. 5, 6. 01 Researches, Pltilosoplttcal and Antiquaria11, concemittg the Abo>·iginallii~lory of America, Baltimore, 1820, "Introduction," and pa3sim. |