ferences of the Semitic speech h e plainly alluded, to in the
history of Jacob and Laban. The oldéèt composition^ of the
Greeks and of the Hindoos, and still more, the remote date
to which i t is necessary, on historical £ grounds,; to carry back
the separation of those tribes who have preserved • dialect&'of •
the Indo-european language, oblige-us to ascribe an equal
antiquity to the mother-tongue of the Japetie nations. Other
facts might be adduced, sufficient to prove that , various idioms
have existed, and havet possessed their distinctive *cha*
racters, as well asdheir affinities, from the most remote period
of time to which the antiquity of natioiis^.and the history of
mankind enable us to refer. Hqw then are we to .account
for the origin of iso many distinct forms of human speech as
we know to have existed, on-the hypothesis that all. the races
of men are descended from .one family.?^'On the supposition
that these races had the commencement of their>existeneë <se— -1
paratelyxor by distinct originals,,all such difficulties vanish. -
By adopting the same-opinion we may saveTourselves - the.
trouble of accounting-for the origin of moral and intellectual
diversities, or for the differeneesrin manners and habits.which
have been thought to characterise particular race& As tribes
of animals differ from each, other in instincts anel ©the#
physical qualities, so the various human races, ifrsueh exist
may have had their peculiar endowments of intellect and their
characteristic habits. Ug
By availing ourselves -of , the : same resource we might
succeed in explaining many-remarkable facts idthe. history
of nations and ofthcworld ; or we should, perhaps, nriher
escape from the necessity of accounting: for them. It has often
been observed that whenever the enterprising spirit of modern
navigators has brought them to hitherto unknown lands,
though ever so remote and difficultTof ^ c e s s , they Bavè
almost invariably found such countries already stocked with
inhabitants. The natives of distant and insulated regions, for
the most part, have been barbarous people, in many instances
unacquainted with the art of navigation; even in small canoes :
other tribes, though they have-possessed vessels o f’rude construction,
have been too ignorant and timid to venture out of
sight of their own shores. It is difficult to imagine by what
INTRODUCTION.
means the savage-inhabitants of such distant tracts can have
been transpotteSHnto:them.'from other parts of the world.
Nations who have been discovered thus separated from the
rest" of mankind have been generally found to* retain no tradi-
tiofteof their arrival :- in many instances they have imagined
them selves; to: b e th e b n ly human- beings in existence, and
have'testified^great surprise' in finding themselves, in this
particular, 'Mistaken^1- Other tribi#>; not so entirely rude, and
who appear, to have^derived' from foreigners the first rudi-
m v p i% i h c u l ‘ture, have preserved the record of an era
when they from their primitive barbarism, after
having remained, frpm . immemorial, time, in a savage state,
ig^prapt offei$ai arts1 and of the r ..existence of civilized me%
until > some strangerf-some 'Hertules, or Manco-Capac, some
child of th^r'p^^jf, or-fpf the sun and moon,, happeiled. to set
foot upon their’ shores..' Many-such nations have been found
destitmtp-ef ƒ,tbosp.ippi|imom.arts and resourses which it seems
difficult'to spppp^e that men could ever have forgotten or have
lost when oh|e! * acquired’, and which- scattered tribes must,
^S^we-f-pTe^Tieady>) ta conclu de, hay^f-brought with them, jj had
thpyfmigrated from thos-e countries which we-generally regard
as,, the; cradle pf our race. I allude?5tpKthe art of domes-
tiPatiug-animals,-to t h ^ g ^ pf milk, and?tp thevpossession of
bread-corn*These considerations hayep disposed many to
adopt the opinion,7that; each distant, country was originally
provided by Npiure with a peculiar stock of home-born, inhabitants,.;
jji
To theseIreflections we .might add many, others tending to
a^similar result,* but what has been already said will suffice
to .show that th e opinion wfeiejh bpsvjbp#^ slated is supported
by many presumptive arguments, and that it affords an easy
* We might remark further, in pursuing the same train of observations, that
vestiges have been discovered, spread through extensive regions of the world, of a
primeval population, which had there dwelt for ages, and had multiplied, and had
been swept away before the earlier inhabitants of the same countries known to history
made their appearance. ... The remains of ancient military works in various
parts of North America, as well as the discovery of skulls and skeletons entombed,
which display a peculiar structure of body, indicate that continent to have been inhabited
of old by tribes 6f a different race from those nations who have been supposed
to be* its aborigines. And the Lenni-Lenape or Original People of the