GENERAL SURVEY OF THE DIVERSITIES, IN PHYSICAL AND PSYCHICAL CHARAC TERS, PRESENTED BY THE DIFFERENT RACES OF MANKIND.
If it were possible to bring together under one view, characteristic examples of every type of Human conformation which the pro gress of Ethnological research has hitherto made known, it would be found that they all accord in the peculiarities by which Man has been shown (Sect. 1.) to be dis tinguished from even the highest of the Quadrumanous order ; and that, notwith standing a certain amount of approximation which is presented to that order in the aspect of certain human countenances (figs. 803, 804, 805.), and even in the habits of life of cer tain tribes, yet the essential and fundamental points of difference are never obliterated. But among these types we should find so wide a diversity, that we should naturally be led to question their relationship to each other and to ourselves ; and should seek to determine whether these differences are in herent and unalterable in each race, so as to forbid the idea of any essential modification, either in the past or the future, from the in fluence of external circumstances ; or whe ther there is any probable evidence that they may have been produced by those external agencies, which we have seen to possess such a remarkable power of altering the conforma tion, and even the instinctive propensities, of domesticated animals. Such is the first ques tion which we should have to answer ; and in a practical point of view, as influencing our conduct towards the races which differ more or less widely from our own, it is undoubtedly the most important. But the physiologist and the zoologist seek to attain a more positive scientific determination of this rela tionship ; and since, if such a determination can be attained, the practical question is at once and completely settled, we shall apply ourselves to the search for it, as fully as our present limits permit.
What, then, is the true zoological relation ship between these different races, so dissi milar in colour, features, bodily conformation, stature, habits of life, and moral and intel lectual cultivation ? Have we any ground to consider them as distinct species? or are we to regard them as varieties of one and the same species? Are the fair Circassian and the jet black African, the olive Malay and the red American, the dusky New Zealander and the florid Saxon, all of one original stock ? Did the Patagonians, whose average height is nearly six feet, spring from the same parents with the pigmy Bosjesmans, whose usual height is under five, that of the females rarely much exceeding four ? Are the fat, blubber fed, flat-visaged Esquimaux even most distantly related to the lean, date-eating, hatchet-faced Arab ? " Does the Bosjesman, who lives in holes and caves, and devours ants' eggs, locusts, and snakes, belong to the same species as the men who luxuriated in the hanging gardens of Babylon, or walked the olive-grove of Academe, or sat enthroned in the imperial homes of the Csars, or reposed in the mar ble palaces of the Adriatic, or held sumptuous festivals in the gay salons of Versailles ? Can the grovelling Wawa, prostrate before his fetish, claim a community of origin with those whose religious sentiments inspired them to pile the prodigious temples of Thebes and Memphis, to carve the friezes of the Parthe non, or to raise the heaven-pointing arches of Cologne ? That ignorant Ibo, muttering his all-but inarticulate prayer, is he of the same ultimate ancestry as those who sang deathless strains in honour of Olympian Jove, or of Pallas Athene ; or of those who, in a purer worship, are chanting their glorious hymns or solemn litanies in the churches of Christendom ? That Alfouro woman, with her flattened face, transverse nostrils, thick lips, wide mouth, projecting teeth, eyes half closed by the loose swollen upper eyelids, ears circular, pendulous, and flapping ; the hue of her skin of a smoky black, and, by way of ornament, the septum of her nose pierced with a round stick some inches long, —is she of the same original parentage as those whose transcendent and perilous beauty brought unnumbered woes on the people of ancient story, convulsed kingdoms, entranced poets, and made scholars and sages forget their wisdom ? Did they all spring from one common mother ? Were Helen of Greece, and Cleopatra of Egypt, and Joanna of Arragon, and Rosamond of England, and Mary of Scotland, and the Eloisas, and Lauras, and Ianthes, — were all these, and our poor Alfouro, daughters of her who was fairest of all her daughters, Eve ? ' The Quaiqua or Saboo, whose language is described as con sisting of certain snapping, hissing, grunting sounds, all more or less nasal,—is he, too, of the same descent as those whose eloquent voices fulmined over Greece,' or shook the forum of Rome, or as that saint and father of the church surnamed the 'golden-mouthed,' or as those whose accents have thrilled all hearts with indignation, or melted them with pity and ruth, in the time-honoured halls of Westminster ?"# This question is capable of being considered under a great variety of aspects. There are
many very excellent persons, who think it quite sufficiently answered by the authority of the Scriptural narrative, and who maintain that to this authority all opposing considerations.' must give way. But, on the other hand, the conviction is now fast spreading among en lightened thinkers, that the Scriptures are no more intended to teach men Ethnology than to instruct them in Geology or Astronomy; and that the former, like the latter, is a•egitimate object of scientific investigation, and should be pursued without fear as to the results. Any attempt, in fact, to fetter the scientific inquirer by the supposed authority of inspira tion, is certain to damage the latter in the estimation of the most intelligent part of man kind ; for, as has been well remarked by a very orthodox theologian, Dr. Henry More, " the unskilful insisting of our divines upon the literal sense of Moses has bred many hundred thousands of atheists." But even those who profess to place the most implicit confidence in the declarations of the Scriptures, as to the common origin of all the races of mankind, do, in effect, get rid of all the force of these declarations, when it suits their pur pose to do so, by the mode of interpreting them which they adopt. They assert that the Adamic race does not include the barbarous inhabitants of remote regions; and that Ne groes, Hottentots, Esquimaux, and Austra lians are not, in fact, men in the full sense of the term, or beings endowed with mental faculties similar to our own. They contend that these and other uncivilised tribes are inferior in their original endowments to the proper human family, which supplied Europe and Asia with inhabitants ; and that, being organically different, they are separated by an "impassable barrier" from the race which dis plays in the highest degree all the attributes of humanity, and can never be raised to an equality with it. They maintain that the ultimate lot of the ruder tribes is a state of perpetual servitude ; and that if, in some in stances, they should continue to repel the attempts of the civilised nations to subdue them, they will at length be rooted out and exterminated from every country on whose shores Europeans shall have set their feet.