Indigenous Races of the Earth

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THE llfONOGENISTS AND "period when logical inductions, from facts aquir 'd by himself in "maturity, can determine that lte must have been about four or .five "years old. Some persons' memories can rece<l farther, and recol­" lcct ev uts coetaneous with their second year of infancy. Beyon<l "that, all is blanlc to personal reminiscence. Now, it is ft·om thit~ "fact--a commonplace on , if you please-that reativo lJenovolcnce "rcsilcs as a sequence: lJccauso, human science might possilJly attain "to SLlch per£ ct,ion (arguing h r futuro triumphs from her prcso11t "conquests over the past), that, could an iudividual d Lct·mino tho "precise instant when his body had been quiekened by the spark of "life, he might, as a chance-like possibility, bo nble to deduce fi·om "it al o, beforehand, th moment of his decease. flope oflife in this "wol'ld, beyond such given point, being th rcby extinguished in his "breast, every stimulus to exertion, moral or intellectual, woul<l "vanish with it; and such man would rapidly sink, tlu·ough mere "physical indulgenc s, to tho level of tho brute. That mil:lshapen ''pr cur or of astt·onomical science, Astrology,-which, originating "at least 2500 years ngo130 in Chaldaic Magianism, sat, for ceninrics, "lil c a ninohtmaro upon the torpid intelligence of our own 'mi<lJ.lc "ages'- really dared, with Promethean boldness, to cast man'l:l "horoscope, and to determine tho iustantl:l of his nativity aml death, "through deceptive manipulations of an astrolabe: but this hoary "imposture, with its EgypLian sister, Alchemy, ancl their cousin "Vaticination, deludes now-a-<lays no educated and sane mind.m " Why do I w ary yout· intelligence with such truisms? Simply, "in order to posite before it one syllogistic c1 duction, as au incontro­" vcrtible point of departure in strictly-archroological inquiries into "h~unan origines, viz: that, inasmuch as the beneficent Cr ator has "shrouded, from each individual man, knowlcJ.ge of his personal "beginning and his end j and, as all Nations a1· but aggregations of "individuals, it is, ergo, absolutely impossible to fix, chronologically "speaking, tho eras at which primeval Nations, whose existence is "antecedent to the human art of writing, severally wore born. "Geology, offspring of the XI.Xth ccnttll'y, can define on the "rocky calenJ.ar of tho earth's revolutions, the particular stTatum "when humanity was not: but, tbe intervals of solar time existing "between such stratification aud our erroneous year4:12 Anno Domini 490 D11 RotJOl1, "Noms <!gypticnnes des Plo.nMcs," Bulletin A rcMologique de l' Atl1enamm Frangai~, M n.rs, 1850- shows how tho syBtom wo.s developed in Dtmotic times. m "ThG scicncG of the Aru&pice& wn.s so eminently nbsurc.l, tho.t Ct~to, the Censor, usccl to so.y he wondered how ono Aruspox could look o.t nnotbor without hughing out:"­Mo~ uLLou, lmpartiat Expo&itiotl of the Evidmce& and Doctrine& of tile 0111'i8tian Religion, Dnl L1morc, 8vo, 1886; p. 65. ~2 Ttjpea of Manlci11d, pp. 665-7; and &upra, p. 479. THE POLYGl<~NJSTS. 5% "1851, cannot be expr t~scd lJy arithmetic; is attainalJle through no "known rule of gcomcLt·y; and, to the time-measurer, presents no "element beyoucl incalenlable and in ·omprchcnsiblc cycl s of gloom "-the dcpLhs of whieh, like those of the ocean, his plummet ·an­" not fathom. "What ultimate goal remains, then, for our aspirations in pursuit. "of knowledge about' the hcgiuning of all tl1ings,' when tllC initial "point-modern, in contrast with invcrtcbntta, or more inform VCR­" tigcs of Nature's incipient handicraft, discerned in the 'olcl rc<l "sandstone'- of mankitHl's first appearance on this planet lieH "beyond the reach of om· contemporaries' solution; and, according "to my view, of human mental capabi I ity, past, present, or to come? "What can the Historian hope to achieve tl1rongh disinterment, "from the scpul.chre of by-gone centuries, of such fragments of hu­" man ity's infanti no lif'c as, prcscrv cl fortuitously dowu to our time, "archroology now collects for his examination? "In the mi11ds of many colleagues in J£gyptolonoy, whose philoso­" phical t·esults it becomes my province to lay before you ; if we will "consent to figure to imagination's eye the aggregate histories of the "earth's n::tLions as if these were cmbo lied pictorially into one man "-that is, were we top rsonify humanity in general by one indivi­" dual in pmticnlar,-tho world's history, like the lifetime of a per­" son, will classi(y itself naturally into somcL11ing like the following "ordce: presupposing always that we symbolize our idea of the pend­" ing XIXth century, by tho figure of a man in tlw prime of li!~, fast "approaching the acme of physical, mental, and moral, perfectiOn­" say, with the old physicians, that we ttLkc him at his '?mnd eli­" mactcl'ic ' 13~ of five times seven y ars, the thirty-fifth of Ins ag . "Inquiring next of our symbolic man his individual history, we "find that, wit:hon.t effort, his memory will tabulate backwards the "events of his manhood, twelvemonth by twelvemonth, for fom.tccn "years, to his traditionary twenty-first birthday; when he attame<l "legal rightA among his fellows. He will ~qually. well narTate tl1c "incidents of the preceding seven years, dur1ng winch he ha.d serv d "a.pprenticcshi p, finished a collegiate cdriCaL~on, ~r othet'WlSC dcv?­" loped, in this interval of adolescence, the facul.LJCs allotted to h1s "share: but he will candidly acknowledge how httlc he then know "of the great world he was preparing fo:·, and how c~~pletcly suh­" scqncnt i niLiation into the higher mystcncs of manly. hie had altere~ "the preconceptions of his novicinte. Seven. years.sttll farth?r bacl .. , "from the fourteenth of his age, his recollectiOns w1ll cany hm1; aud m Fr.outuJNS, Longtvitd (vide 81tpra, note 102) :-LucAs, Ilertditt, I, pp. 264-84.