C H A P T E R I I I .
S P E C IF IC T Y P E S — C A U C A S IA N .
W h a t is meant by the word “ Caucasian ? ” Almost every Ethnologist
would give a different reply. Commonly, it has been received,
since its adoption by Blumenbach, as a sort of generic term which
includes many varieties of races. By some writers, all these varieties
are reputed to be the descendants of one species; and the manifest
diversity of iypes is explained by them through the operation of
physical causes. By others, the designations Caucasian, Mongol,
Negro, &c., are employed simply for the convenience of grouping
certain human varieties which more or less resemble each other,
without paying due, if any regard, to specific characters. Under the
head Caucasian are generally associated the Egyptians, the Berbers,
the Arabs, the Jews, the Pelasgians, the Hindoos, the Iberians, the
Teutons, the Celts, the Sclavonians: in short, all the so-called
Semitic and Indo-Germanic races are thrown together into the same
group, and hence become arbitrarily referred to a common origin.
How, such a sweeping classification as this might have heen maintained,
with some degree of plausibility, a few years ago | when it was
gravely asseverated that climate could transform one type into another:
but inasmuch as this argument, apart from new rebutting data,
revealed through the decyphering of the monuments of Egypt and
of Assyria, is now abandoned by every well-educated naturalist, (and,
we may add, enlightened theologian,) it is difficult to conceive,diow it
can any longer be accepted with favor. We know of no archaeologist
respectable authority, at the present day, who will aver that the
ces now found throughout the valley of the Nile, and scattered over
considerable portion of Asia, were not as distinctly and broadly
ontrasted at least 8500 years ago as at this moment. The Egyptians,
Canaanites, Nubians, Tartars, Negroes, Arabs, and other typespare
as faithfully delineated on the monuments of'the A V 11th and XVllIth
Dynasties, as if the paintings had been executed by an artist of our
present age.
Some of these races, owing to the recent researches of Lepsius,
have even been carried backwards to the IVth Dynasty; which he
places about 3400 years before Christ. It becomes obvious, conse^
quently, that all the countries known to Egyptians in those remote
ages presented types which were as essentially different then as they now
exhibitflIt is equally certain, that the Pharaonic Egyptians repudiated
all idea of affinity to these coetaneous races; and it would seem to
follow, as a corollary, that the other parts of the world were contemporaneously
occupied by many aboriginal species. Ancient history
nowhere acquaints us with habitable- countries known to be uninhabited,
and the earliest discoverers always found new types in distant
lands. Hence, nothing short of a miracle could have evolved all the
multifarious Caucasian forms out of one primitive stock; because the
Canaanites, the Arabs, the Tartars and Egyptians, were absolutely as
distinct from each other in primeval times as they are now; just as they
all were then from co-existent Negroes. Such a miracle, indeed, has
been invented and dogmatically defended; but it is a bare postulate,
unsupported by the Hebrew Bible, and positively refuted by scientific
facts. The Jewish chronology, (fabricated, as we shall render apparent,
after the Christian era,) for the human family, since the Deluge,
carries us back, according to Usher’s computation, only to the year
2348 b . o.; or, at farthest, according to the Septuagint version (whose
history we shall see is somewhat apocryphal), to 3246 b . c. ; but the
monuments of Egypt remove every shadow of doubt, by establishing
that not merely races but nations existed prior to either of those
imaginary dates. If then the teachings of science be true, there must
have been many centres of creation, even for Caucasian races, instead
of one centre for all the types of humanity.
The multiform races of Europe, with trifling exceptions, have been
classed under the Caucasian head; and it has been assumed for ages,
that each of these races must have been derived from Asia. It is
strange* moreover, that naturalists should have spent their time in
studying remote, barbarous and obscure tribes, while they have passed
in silence over the historical races, lying close at hand: nevertheless,
we think this branch of our subject may be readily elucidated by
analyzing those types of mankind which surround us.
It is to M. T h ie r r y and M. E dw a r d s , the one honorably known as
an historian and the other as a naturalist, that we are indebted for the
first philosophical attempt to break in upon this settledtroutine. They
have penetrated directly into the heart of Europe, and by a masterly
.examination of the history and physical characteristics of long-known
races, have endeavored to trace them back to their several primitive
sources.
Ancient Gaul is the chosen field of their investigations; and,
although we admit that, from the very nature of the case, it is impossible
at this late day to arrive at definite results, yet their facts are so
fairly posited, and their deductions so interesting, as to command
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