| OCR Text |
Show I ,, 4~0 TITE !I!ONOGENISTS AND 1 t me mention once for all, that, wh r vcr memory recalls to mind a 0 given writer' who, in the printed omission of his tltoughta,, .has sustained views bearing dil'cctly on a theme bcfol'c me (of su01c1e~t mcl'it to demand rc-pcrusa.l), it is my habit always to reproduce h1s ideas in his own words, in prcG ronco to givi ug those ideas as my own. Apart from literary hon sty (tho violation of which is lo?l~ed upon by most littb·ateurs as a venial ofl'cnco), tl~oro a~cn1es posJttv~. advantage fl'om snch practic ; b .canso, "a motwn b01~g so.c~nded; tho reader is thereby pr sent d w1th two or more mens opunons m lieu of one. It is to tho late Lctronnc I owe this system. Calling on day upon him, in 1845, at the Archives, in Paris, to asl- for some informn.tion rela.ti ve to his Oours d' m·cMologie egyptienne, at the ColP•go do ] ranee, where my attendance was over punctual,t;s ~o continu d, during our long intcrvi w, to tumble down, from h1s w 11-stocked library, work after work, whence, whilst talki11g, he made fr qucnt extracts. truck with his incossan t laboriousness, cul'iosity bade me obs rve, that tho subject must be very 'important, io require so many reG t' noes. "Au coHtrairo," he exclaimed, "trcs insi()'nifiiant: c'cst quo j'ai a faire UIIO petite r6p nse a M. * * *, do I'InRtitnt." To my remm·k, tbrtt, for su h purpose, thoro hardly ne dod so much exponditur of time and fatigue on the part of a LB1'RONNE, ho 1i:worcd me with tho following ·haractcristic obsot'vation. aid he, in eil:cct--whcnovcr he happen d to remember that an author, ancient or modem, had tr atod on tho topi in hand, ho always quoted him-1st, because this process established such author's priority; 2d, because it pL'ovod that he (Lctronno) was conversant with tho literature of such subject: mtd,-whon I suggested that he might, in consequence, be deem cl, by strangers, to be a mere compiler-be brol-o forth with, "Oompilateur! If I bad nothing new to say, over and above all those citations, wlty should I write .<J" This le. son, I trust, was not lost upon me; wherefore my extracts arc coHtinucd. "M. chcolcher 09 [one of tho members, no less than tho most colehratcd of French abolitionists] has, moreover, told you himself that he professes tho principle (let us rather say tho dogma) of the equality, cmnplcto and absolute, of tho human mcos. To him, in view of this groat faith of 1mity, all shades, gradations, clistinctionFJ, which may exist between di1Ioront races, are as if they wore not. Ire docs not precisely deny them; but he attenuates th mas much as possible, ho 1 aves th m in the shade, he takes no account of them." 118 Otia .lEgyptiaca, Dedication, and pp. 1 G, 28-4, 26, 77. ~ ~uthor, arnid vat·ioua works, of a very o noot eslimato of modern Egypt, as it appeared pohiJcally about 184.4, and socially to tho present hour. THE POLYGBNISTS 431 "We do not fear," then comment..'! M. J.'Eichthal, "to reproach our colleagne with exaggerations of this doctrine. His opinions, if taken in all their rigor [why not, primfl facie, those of Humboldt also], would attain to nothing less than the anniMlation of etlmol~gy itself,· because ethnology is but the classif-ication of rae s acc?rdlllg to the characteristical differences that distingnish them. EGace or throw aside these di..fTorences, and the name of ethnological s ience has no longer any meaning. Evon the question at this mom~nt occnpying us ceases to possess any value! . All human races bowg supposed to be one, ovot·y discussion, rolatwo to those characters which mi()'ht distinguish them, becomes ipso facto super11nous." It appo~rs to me that, in M. d'Eichtltal's argument, tho d~lom~a is well put. Whoro, in fact, can be tho utility of ethnolOO'Ical lnquirios, if (say, in America) we sot forlh with an Anglicized Hebrew myth-which has become metamorphosed, amongst Indo-Europ?an nations, into traditionaty croclonce as to fact-that aJl manhncl descend, in a straight line, from "a single pair"? Excor t as orthodox repollot·s of fr c investigation, the unity-men have really no pla ·o in othnologi al science; unless, with Alexander vo~ Humboldt, they usc the term "unity" in a philosophical (or "parliamentary") souse, and not in tho one cut-rontly understood by thoolog rs. PART I. To ascertain the likelihood of the stn,bility of such views, it will be convonicn t to classify tho acceptations in which different authors use tho term " Unity," as applicable to Mankind, into three categories, viz:- A.-Unity as a theological dogma. B.-Unity as a zoological fact. C.-Unity as a moral, or metaphysical, doctrine. With regard to the first two (A an l B), it is not often eaFJy to separate, into just proportions, the value attn,ched to cith.or. by ~any n,bLo writcrs,-so completely have they fused those two d1stmct 1~cas into one mass. Tho majority, setting forth with a preconco1vcd notion (derived from an early educ..'ttion that they do n~t possess the moral courage to analyze, still mor rar ly to shako ofi), that all the races of men descend from a primordial malo and female pair, misnamed in English" Adam and Eve,"70 have, often unconsciously, TO Hebrew 1'ext, Gene8is II, 23. Iforo occut· two distinct words, (of which tho contrast is |
