the very existence, not only of the extensive outlying provinces of
America and Asianesia, but of the great mass of the tribes of the
old world. They do -not appear to have cultivated a knowledge of
any non-Semitic language, and consequently their ethnic notions
respecting some adjacent non-Semitic tribes must have been very
obscure and erroneous. It may be doubted whether their knowledge
of the Africans extended- beyond the Egyptians, and their
southern Miotic neighbors, the Ethiopians. The European nations
were unknown to them, save through some vaguer impressions
respecting the seaboard tribes of the S. and W. coasts, received
from the reticinent Phoenicians. Their knowledge of the numerous
nations of northern, middle, and eastern Asia, was partial and
obscure. They do not appear to have had a suspicion of the
existence of the great civilized peoples of the East, the Arians and
the Chinese, and they were as profoundly ignorant of the Dravirians,
as they were of the Germans and the ancient British.40 Nothing
can more conclusively show the extremely narrow and isolated
character of their ethnology, and their rigid seclusion from time
immemorial in the Semitic civilization, than the fact that they had
entirely lost, and had been unable by their observations to recover,
the idea of barbarism. In this respect, their ethnology is far below
that, not only of-Herodotus and Manu, but of other Semitic nations ;
such as the Arabs, the Phoenicians, and, in all probability, the
Babylonians, at least in their more civilized and commercial era.
It is therefore surprising to see a writer like Bunsen founding his
ethnology on that of Moses, which can only be correct as a partial
picture of the races of S. E. Asia, and 1ST. E. Africa, as known to the
Hebrews.”
*» Types of Mankind, Part II, pp. 466-556 ; with its “ Genealogical Tableau” of Xth
Genesis, its “ Map of the World as known to” the genesiacal writer; thoroughly confirmed
the deductions here drawn by Mr. Logan : and every fresh archseologist who examines this
hoary document arrives at the same conclusions. I -would now refer to researches unseen
by me, or unpublished, when I projected my MSS. for the above work, at Mobile, in 1852.
1st, R en a n , Hist, des Langues Sémitiques (supra), 1855, pp. 27-74, and 449-63: — 2d,
B k rgm a n n , Les peuples primitives de la race de Jaféte. Esquisse elhno-gênéalogique et historique.
Colmar, 8vo., 1853, p. 64 : —— -Sd, R aw l in so n , Notes on the Early History of Babylonia ;
London, 8vo., 1854, pp. 1-2, note:—4th, Hnrwoon’s V on B o h l e n , (supra, note 19), Jntroi.
to the Book of Genesis, London, 1855; II, pp. 210 -54 : — and 5th, as the most important,
because devoted exclusively to analysis of this subject; A u g u s t K n o b e l , b i t Volkertafel der
Genesis. Ethnographische Untersuchungm ; Giessen, 8vo., 1850, I was not aware of this
masterly book, until many months after the publication of my own studies in “ Types of
Mankind.” It was subsequently indicated to me at Paris, by my valued friend M. Kenan.
With no small gratification, I afterwards discovered that Dr. Knobel’s results and my own were
always similar, often identical. Compare pp. 9, 13, 137-7, 167, 170, 339-52, for particular
instances, with the same points discussed in “ Types.”
Such are some of the true principles for embracing, in these inquiries,
Hebrew ethnography, as an inestimable, but, in reality, a
very minor part of the World’s ethnology: at the same time that,
through the above extracts, we perceive but a small portion of the
uncertainties and perils, that beset this new and ill-appreciated
study. “ And yet, indignantly, hut most righteously exclaims
.Lurk B u r k e , “ And yet this is the science on which every man is
competent to pass an opinion with oracular emphasis; the science to
which missionaries dictate laws, and which pious believers find
written out, ready to their hands, in the hook of Genesis. The
science, in a word, which a whole tribe of comparative philologists,
with a fatuity almost inconceivable, have coolly withdrawn from the
control of zoology, and settled to their own infinite satisfaction, as
per catalogue of barbarian vocabularies.41 The really learned are
perplexed with doubt, or appalled with difficulty: the true naturalist
approaches with diffidence, or states his opinion without dogmatism
or tenacity; but the theologian is perfectly at home, and has
arranged every thing long ago. The land is his by right Divine,
his own peculiar appanage; and with the authority of a master he
peremptorily decides, that a science, to which even the distant future
will scarcely be able to do proper justice, shall receive its laws and
inspirations from the remote and ridiculous past.” 42
Having thus fortified what I deem to he the “ ultima ratio,” above
put forth on Human Origins, by the brothers Humboldt conjointly,
it may he interesting to dissect some sentences of that magnificent
paragraph; in order that we may not unwittingly ascribe to 'Wil helm,
the philologist, the more decided opinions of his brother A l exander,
whose universality of science precludes special classification.
And first, it seems ominous to the Unity-doctrine, that the most
brilliant philbloger of his day should have left a manuscript, 1 On
the Diversity of Languages and of Nations.”
This manuscript, however, being unpublished, no positive deduction
can he drawn from its mere title; but the treatise must possess
some elements distinguishing it from the elder work, long honored
by the scientific world: “tiber die Yerschiedenheit der menschlichen
Sprachbaues;” On the Diversity of Structure of Human Languages,—
contained in Wilhelm von Humboldt’s researches into the “Hawi-
This applies especially to an inexhaustible, learned, and laborious ethnological “ cataiogue
maker,” Dr. Latham. Vide the Brighton Examiner, October 2, 1855 for a critique
by Mr. Luke Burke, of “ Dr. Latham’s Lecture on ’Ethnology.’ ”
43 Charleston Medical ‘Journal and Review, Charleston, S. C., vol. XI, No. 4, July 1856 ■
“ Strictures,” Sc., by Luke Burke, Esq., Editor of the London Ethnologies. Journal —
PP- 457-8.