human families who constitute the, population of the New
World. Fortunately the fact is otherwise-. ' As a: general
position we may regard each particular nation as having between
its- members a family resemblance, whicbp, distinguishing
it clearly from its neighbours, permits the practised eye of
e zoologist ■ to recognise, in the great assemblage, of nations
all the existing types, almost without ever confounding them.
A Peruvian is more different from a Patagonian, and a
Patagonian from a Guaranit than is a Greek from an Ethiopian
or a Mongolian.” *..
Paragraph 2. Of the Psychological Differences said to exist
between the American Races and those of the Old Continent.
For many years after the conquest of Mexico. : by the
Spaniards, nobody thought of representing the native people
of the New World as inferior with respect to intellectual
faculties to the rest-of mankind, or as differing from them
essentially in mental-character. At an early period we find
the names of persons of the Aztec race and some descendants
from the royal house of Montezuma among the viceroys of
Mexico. Several dignified ecclesiastics bore names derived
from noble families of Tenochtitlan and Tescuco. What is
still more conclusive, some of the earliest and mod learned of
the historians who wrote elaborate works on the Mexican and
Peruvian antiquities, as Fernando de Alva Ixtilxochitl, and
Garcilaso de la Yega, were descendants of the regal families
of Mexico and Peru.
- Of late years a learned German traveller, whose works on
the nations ‘of South America are well known and highly
estimated, has in very strong terms asserted that a psychological
difference exists between the American race and that of
the Old World. It is impossible to convey the force of his
remarks in any other words than his own.
* M. d'Orbigny, L’Homme Américain de l’Amérique Méridionale considéré
dans ses rapports physiologiques et moraux. Paris, 1839, vol i. p. 122.
“ The^ indigenous race of the New WorMf,” says Dr. von
Marti us,. “ is distinguished from all the otMw* nations !©f the
earth1, externally',-^^3' peculiarities- “ofi make, but still thorei
M t e fby; their stute^d-feB^ndjian'd intellect: The aboriginal
American 'te? at in the iueapacity of itifaney and
unpliapcy of ©Iji^pg^^dl^^f^tl^tbpposite^pdle^lferntdllec-
tual life. This ^f^a^ge^nd*^explicable-condition^bas hitherto
frustrated** almost#ivfry JattSjriapt ’to recon^#?him completely
with the Europearis^to > whom' he ^^ess^yay^s®. as ’to make
him a cheerful1 and happy mpmb'er, ^fythefdpmrnunity; and it
is this bis double nature which'prcs§nt^#bc'greafest 'difficulty
to sciCHeewhen she endeavours* hisvortgin, and
those^eartier. epochs of history in which-he*has forthousands
of years -move$, indeed, . but' m ad^ilo1?' improvement 4k''his
condition. But this is far removed frormtbai hltural s t a ^ f ^
child-like security which markM^as an inward veiee declares
to us,,-.and as the most^aneient written- dpetiments^affirm^ the
first*, and. “foremost period of tKe^bistory *©f#toarikind. The
risen?©r^be red raee, on* -tbe| contrary^it must be confessed,
do not appear; to'feell the blessing of a" diviheldesbhnt, buff* to
have^been led, by merely animal «rafetinct and daridy' step's^-
through a dark past to thei r actual cheerless .present. M uch,
therefore;*' seems-to indicate that the.native Airi-ertfe&EMare not
in the 'first stage of that' simple,: we mig£k£*&^ . p h y ^ l
(natur-historischen) devclopement—that they*are in a* secondary
regenerated state.
u Besides the traces * of a primeval and, in like manner,
ante^historict. culture of thes human race in America, as well
as a very early influence on the productioriss of nature, ' #«
mayvalso adduce as a ground for thteSe views, tbe.-basis of the
present state :of natural and, civil rights* among the aboriginal
Americans,*—I mean preciselyri'astbefbre- observed, that enigmatical
subdivision of the natives" into: an almost 'countless
multitude of greater and smaller groupes, and that almost
entire exclusion and excommunication with .regard-.to each
other, in which mankind presents, its different families to us
in America like fragments.of a vast ruin. The history of the
other nations inhabiting the earth furnishes nothing which
has any analogy to this.