In accordance with this view, what are at present termed the five
races would he more appropriately called groups. Each of these
groups is again divisible into a smaller or greater number of primary
races, each of which has itself expanded from a primordial nucleus or
* centre. To illustrate this proposition, we may suppose that there
were several centres for the American groups of races, of which the
highest in the scale are the Toltecan nations — the lowest, the Eue-
gians. Nor does this view conflict with the general principle, that
all these nations- and tribes have had, as I have elsewhere expressed
it, a common origin; for by this term is only meant an indigenous
relation to the country they inhabit, and that collective identity of
physical traits, mental and moral endowments, language, &c., which
characterise all the American races.*
The same remarks are applicable to all tbe other human races; but
in the present infant state of ethnological science, the designation of
these primitive centres would be a task of equal delicacy and difficulty.
It would not be admissible in this place, to inquire into the respective
merits of these propositions; and we shall dismiss them for the
present with a few brief remarks.
If all the varieties of mankind were derived from a single aboriginal
type, we ought to find the approximation to this type more and more
apparent as we retrace the labyrinth of time, and approach the primeval
epochs of history. But what is the result? "We examine the venerable
monuments of Egypt, and we see the Caucasian and the Negro
new; for it was believed and expounded by a learned Eabbi of tbe Apostolic age, in a commentary
(tbe Targum) on tbe Pentateuch. Rev. J. PyeSmiih, Relation between the Holy
Scriptures and Geology, p. 3 9 3 .
I have invariably, when treating of this subject, avowed my belief in the aboriginal diversity
of mankind, independently of tbe progressive action of any physical or accidental causes.
Tbe words qf the Hebrew Targum are precisely to the point: “ God created Man red,
white, and black.” ' »
I now venture to give a fuller and somewhat modified explanation of their origin. See
Crania Americana, p. 3 ; Crania JEgyptiaca, p. 3 7 ; Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal
Race of America, p. 3 6 ; and Hybridity of Animals considered in reference to the question of the
Unity of the Human Species, in Amer. Journal of Science and Arts, 1847.
* Niebuhr expresses this idea admirably when he remarks, that it is “ false reasoning”
to say, “ that nations of a common stock must have had a common origin, from which they
were genealogically deduced.” History of Rome, I., p. 37. In other words, people of a
common stock may have had several or many origins. Such appears to be the fact not only
with man, but with all the inferior animals. We are nowhere told the latter were created
in pairs. “ Male and female created He them” — and the same words are used irj reference
to the whole zoological series.
Prof. Bailey of West Point, one of the most successful microscopists of the present day,
has shown, that the mud taken from some of the deep-sea soundings on the coast of the
United States contains, in every cubic inch, hundreds of millions of living calcareous Poly-
ihalmia. Will any one pretend that these animalB were created in pairs, or had their
origin in Mesopotamia ?
depicted, side by side, master and slave, twenty-two centuries before
Cbrist ; while inscriptions establish the same ethnological distinctions
eight hundred years earlier in time. [387] Abundant confirmation
of the same general principle is also found on the numberless vases
from the tombs of Etruria; the antique sculptures of India; the pictorial
delineations of the earliest Chinese annals ; the time-honored#
ruins of Nineveh, and from the undated tablets of Peru, Yucatan, and
Mexico. In all these localities, so far removed by space from each
other, and by time from us, the distinctive characteristics of the
human races are so accurately depicted as to enable us, for the most
part, to distinguish them at a glance. , . ^
We earnestly maintain that the preceding views are not irrecon-
cileable With the Sacred Text, nor inconsistent with Creative Wisdom
as displayed in the other kingdoms of Nature. On the contrary, they
are, calculated to extend our knowledge and exalt our conceptions of
Omnipotence. By the simultaneous creation of a plurality of original
stocks, the population of the Earth became not an accidental result,
but a matter of certainty. Many and distant regions which, in accordance
with the doctrine of a single origin, would have remained for
thousands of years unpeopled and unknown, received at once their
allotted inhabitants; and these, instead of being left to struggle with
the vicissitudes of chance, were from the beginning adapted to those
varied circumstances of climate and locality which yet mark their
respective positions upon the earth.*
I . T H E C A U C A S I A N GROUP.
T h e T eutonic P ace.—I use this appellation in the compréhensive
sense in which it has been employed by Professor Adelung; for the
grêat divisions established by this distinguished scholar, though based
exclusively on philological data, are fully sustained by comparisons
in physical ethnology. Of the three great divisions, the Scandinavian
lies chiefly to the north of the Baltic sea; the Suevic and Cimbric
on the south. _
1. The S ue vic nations embrace the Prussians on one hand, the
Tyrolese on the other ; while between these lie the Austrians, Swiss,
Bavarians, Alsatians, and the inhabitants of the Upper and Middle
* See Rev. J. Pye Smith : Relation between the Holy Scriptures and Geology, 3d. ed.
pp. 398-400. Also, Hon. and Rev. William Herbert : AmyriUidaceæ, p. 338.
“ Les livres Juifs n’entendent pas établir que leur premier homme ait été le père du
genre humain, mais seulement celui de leur espèce privilégié, n ne peut conséquemment y
avoir aucune impieté à reconnoitre parmi nous plusieurs espèces qui, chaqune, auront eu
leur Adam et leur berceau particulier.” Bory de St. Vincent : L ’Homme, I., p. 66.