fortunately for his reputation. Without it, he would probably have
ceased from his labors without having published any such explicit
and unmistakeable expression of opinion, on this important question,
as his scientific friends would have desired. As it is, he has left no
room for doubt or cavil as to his position in the very front of our
onward progress in Anthropology.
The first published opinion of Morton in reference to this question
is found in the Crania Americana. I t will be perceived, that, recognizing
the entire incompetency of ordinary climatic anfl similar influences
to produce the alleged effects, he suggests, as an escape from
the difficulty, that the marks of Race were impressed at once by
Divine Power upon the immediate family of Adam..
“ The recent discoveries in Egypt give additional force to the preceding statement, inasmuch
as they show, beyond all question, that the Caucasian and Negro races were as perfectly
distinct in that country, upwards of three thousand years ago, as they are now;
whence i t is evident, that if the Caucasian was derived from the Negro, or the Negro from
the Caucasian, by the action of external causes, the change must have been effected in, at
most, one thousand years; a theory which the subsequent evidence of thirty centuries
proves to be a physical impossibility; and we have already ventured to insist that such a
commutation could be effected by nothing short of a miracle.” (p. 88.)
In Ms printed Introductory Lecture of 1842, the same views are
repeated, and the insufficiency of external causes again insisted upon.
In April of the same year, he read, before the Boston Society of Natural
History, a paper which was republished in 1844, under the title
of An Inquiry into the Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race
of America. From tMs paper I extract the following striking passage:
In fine, our own conclusion, long ago deduced from a patient examination of the facts
thus briefly and inadequately stated, is, that the American race is essentially separate and
peculiar, whether we regard it in its physical, moral, or its intellectual relations. To us
there are no direct or obvious links between the people of the old world and the new; for
even admitting the seeming analogies to which we have alluded, these are so few in number,
and evidently so casual, as not to invalidate the main position; and even should it be
hereafter shown that the arts, sciences, and religion of America can be traced to an exotic
source, I maintain that the organic characters of the people themselves, through all their
endless ramifications of tribes and nations, prove them to belong to one and the same race,
and that this race is distinct from all others.” (p. 35.)
His unequivocal assertion of the permanency of the distinctive
marks of Race in the final proposition of his resume of the Crania
JEgyptiaca has already been given, {supra, p.xlii.)Two years afterwards
he published this emphatic declaration:
“ I can aver that sixteen years of almost daily comparisons have only confirmed me in
the conclusions announced in my “ Crania Americana,” that all the American nations, excepting
the Eskimaux, are of one race, and that this race is peculiar and distinct from all
others.”*
* Ethnography and Archaeology of the American Aborigines. New Haven: 1846. (p. 9.)
The next citation is from the letter to Mr. Bartlett before mentioned
: •
“ But'it is necessary to explain what is here meant hy the word race. I do not use it to
imply that all its divisions are derived from a single pair; on the contrary, I believe they
have originated from several, perhaps even from many pairs, which were adapted, from the
beginning, to the varied localities they were designed to occupy; and the Fuegians, less
migratory than the cognate tribes, will serve to illustrate this idea. In other words, I regard
the American nations as the true autocthones, the primeval inhabitants of this vast
continent; and when I speak of their being of one race or of one origin, I allude only to
their indigenous relation to each other, as shown in all those attributes of mind and body
which have been so amply illustrated by modern ethnography.”*
In a note to a paper in Silliman’s Journal for 1847, be says:—
‘‘ I may here observe, that whenever I have ventured an opinion on this question, it has
been in favor of the doctrine of primeval diversities among men— an original adaptation of
the several races to those varied circumstances of climate and locality, which, while congenial
to the one, are destructive to the other; and subsequent investigations have confirmed
me in these views.”f
One would suppose tbat whoever had read the above publications
could have no doubt as to Morton’s sentiments; yet Dr. Bachman
and others have affected to be suddenly surprised by the utterance
of opinions which had been distinctly implied, and even openly published
years before. To leave no further doubt upon the subject, he
thus expresses himself in his letter to Dr. Bachman of March 30th,
1850
“ I commenced tbe study of Ethnology about twenty years since; and among the first
aphorisms taught me by all the books to which I then had access, was this R that all mankind
were derived from a single pair; and that the diversities now so remarkable, originated
solely from the operations of climate, locality, food, and other physical agents. In
other words, that man was created a perfect and beautiful being in the first instance, and
that chance, chance alone has caused all the physical disparity among men, from the noblest
Caucasian form to the most degraded Australian and Hottentot. I approached the subject
as one of great difficulty and delicacy; and my first convictions were, that these diversities
are not acquired, but have existed ab origine. Such is the opinion expressed in my Crania
Americana; but at that period, (twelveryears ago,) I had not investigated Scriptural Ethnology,
and was content to suppose that the distinctive characteristics of the several races
had been marked upon the immediate family of Adam. Further investigation, however,
in connection with zoological science, has led me to take a wider view o f this question, of
which an outline is given above. ” J
In order to present still more fully and clearly the final conclusions
of our revered friend on this topic, I append two of his letters. The
first is addressed to Dr. Nott, under date of January 29th, 1850.
* Transactions of American Ethnological Society, vol. ii. New York: 1848. (p. 219.)
f Hybridity in animals and plants, considered in reference to the question of the Unity
of the Human Species. New Haven: 1847. (p. 4.)
J Letter to the Rev. John Bachman, D. D., on the question of Hybridity in animals.
Charleston: 1850. (p. 15.)