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Show I I 452 TIIF. MONOGENTSTS AND derived from suc.o. premises. We maintain, theJ·cforc, that the unity of mankind docs not imply a community of origin for men ; we believe, on the contt·ary, that a hiO"hcr view of this unity of mankind can bo taken than that whi •h is derived from a mere sensual connection, -that we need Hot s arch for the highest bond of humanity in a mere animal function, whereby we are most closely related to the brutes. * * * " uch is the foundation of a unity between men truly worthy of their nature, such is the foundation of thoflo sympatl1ics which will enable them to bestow upon each other, in all parts of the world, the name of brethren, as they are brethren in God, brethren in humanity, though their origin, to say tho least, is lost iu the darkness of the beginning of tho world. * * * "We maintain, that, like all other organized beings, mankind cannot have originated in single individuals, but must have been crcat d in that numeric harmony which is charactcl'istic of each Hpocics; men must have originated in nations, as the bees have originated in swarms, and as the different social plants have at fi 1·st covered the extensive tracts over which they naturally spread. * * * "We have .seen whatimpot'tant, what prominent reasonA there are fot· us to acknowledge tho unity of mankind. But this unity does not exclude diver ity. Diversity is the complement of unity; fm unity docs not mean oneness, or singleness, but a plurality in which there arc many points of resemblance, of agreement, of identity. This diversity in unity is tho fundamental law of nature. It can be traced through all the departments of natnrc,-in tho largest divisions which we acknowledge among natural phenomena, as well as in those which are circumscribed within the most narrow limits. It is even tho law of development of tho animals belonging to the same species. And this diversity in unity becomes gt·adually more and more prominent throughout organized beings, as wo rise from their lowest to their highest forms. * * * "Those who contend for the unity of the human race on the ground of a common descent from a single pair, labor 'under a stJ·ango.dclusion, when tl10y believe that their argument is favorable ~o the tdca of a moral g vcmmcnt of the world, and of the dircet mtcrvcntion of Providence in the dcvclopmcut of mankind. Unconsciously, they advocate a gt·catcr and more extensive influence in the pr~duct!on of those peculiarities by physical agencies, tllllll by the D?1ty h1msclf. !f their Yiews were true, God hacllc A to do dir ctly w1th tho productwn ofth 1iversity which exi ts in nature in the VCO"Ctable as well as iu tho animal kingdom, and in the hum~n race tl~n ' 1'11E POLYGF.NfSTS. 4 G'3 climatic conditions, and the diversity of food upon which thc~;e beings subsist." 156 I am wholly at a loss in what category-whether under letter A, orB, or 0, or anywhere else-to place the vct-y learned DR. LA'l'liAM (with whose books cthnogL"aphers arc of course familiaL"); chiefly because of his well-known habit of commencing a paragraph with an asserted fact, the value of which he generally manages to undo at its close. From the best of his numerous cthnoloO"ical "catalogu<1H raisonnes," I cull an illustration through which the reader may be able to unders.tand my meaning, even should he fail, perhaps, in precisely comprehending the Doctor's: "If we now look back upon tho ground that has been gone over, we shall :find that the evidence of the human family having originated in one particular spot, and having diffused itself from thence to the very cxtrcmi tics of the earth, is by no means cone! usi ve. Still less is it certain that that particular spot has b •en ascertained, The present writer BELIJWES that it was somewhere in intertropical Asia [a long way, conscq ucntly, from Mount Ararat!], and that it was the single locality of a single pair [Adam and Eve?]- without, however·, professing to have found it. Even this ccntl'c [of tho author's belief] is only hypothetical-near, indeed, to the point which he looks upon as the starting point of the human migration, but by no means identical with it."[!] 157 Sometimes one fluds that a thorough monogonist allows, unconsciously perhaps, an observation to escape him, which shows how impressions, dct'ivcd from Calvinistic primary tuition, become irreconcilable, in his mature age, to the man of science. "The data of Genesis," holds IIollard, 158 "cornmcntatcd upon by a poor science, devoid of criticism and ill-disciplined, led the way for those rare thinkers who, during the middle ages, attempted to understand Nature. Too commonly the commentary bewildered the text. Of all conceptions dating from that period [a very long one, and not yet ended], what has had, and must have had, the greatest success, is tho doctrine of the chain of bcings,-formulated, in these terms, by Father Nicrembcrg: "N ullus ltiatus, nulla fractio, nulla dispersio fm·marum, in vic em connexm sunt velut annulu.s annulo. In groat favol' among the naturalifltH of 'la renai sancc,' this doctrine was professed with eclat by CbarleH Bonnet, at the end of last century; and this philosopher attached to it the idea of a palingoncsiac evolution of Nature. It would have llill AGASSIZ," Tho Diversity of origin of Humn.n Ro\cos," Ollriatian Examiner and Religious Miscellany, Boston, 1850, XL[X, Art. viii, pp. 110, 118, 118--0, 120, 128, 138, 134. 167 LATIIAM, Man and his Migrations, London, 12mo, 1851; p. 248. l6l! De l'Do111mt, Paris, 1853, pp. 13-4. |