perceived in nature nothing but the reflex of their own mental
assumption ; and, as a consequence, have seized only upon analogies
confirmatory of their own sentimental bias ; discarding altogether,
or leaving out of sight, those natural and historical facts that militate
against it.
Foremost and highest, if not perhaps the earliest, among these,
stand two contemporaries, B lum e n h a c h 71 and Zimmermann; the
former of whom is justly acknowledged to be the founder of anthropological
science, as well as of cranioscopy. The latter may he
reckoned among the first who established correct principles of
animal geographical distribution.
It is not, however (as usually supposed), in his large Decades
Oraniorum, that Blumenhach gave free utterance to his opinions.
These are contained in sundry duodecimos, some of which have
passed through three improved editions. Those that I first read
belonged once to Cuvier, and were indicated to me by the accomplished
Librarian of the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, my friend M.
Lemercier. The following extract sums up his argument upon
human “ Unity,”12 which he had previously formulated into a doctrine—“
TJnica saltern est totius generis humani Species.’’ His opening
sentence sufficiently establishes the mental preoccupations I have
signalized above.-
“ Ardua quidem, sed cum ad vindicandam Sacri codicis fidem, turn
oh lucem quam universæ generis humani imo et reliquæ naturali
historiæ impertit, utilissima et dignissima disquisitio. Malitia quidem,
negligentia et novitatis studium posteriori opinioni favebant.
Plures erim humani generis species inde a J u l i a n i Imperatoris tem-
poribus {Opera, p. 192) iis egregie arridebant [«'. e., Symon Tyssot,
effaced in king James’ version) for “ man,” v iz : A-DaM and AISA: whilst again the female
AISAaH, just formed out of “ the-red-man’s” rib, does not receive the name of KAaiUaH
(life) — vulgaricé KAaVaH, and still more vulgarly “ Eve” in English — until Chap. I ll, v.
20. See some mythological analogies in Types of Mankind, pp. 563, 573.
With exquisite taste, my friend, Mr. J. Barnard Davis, has resuscitated the portrait
of the illustrious German, and, flanked on a medallion by that of his successor Dr. Morton,
it adorns that beautiful and truly-scientific work, Crania Britannica, London, 1856; the
first decade of which I owe to its author’s kind regard. Appertaining properly to the
sp'écialités of our collaborators Dr. Meigs and Prof. Leidy, I refrain from comments on a
great book which, vindicating the rights of Anatomy to priority of respect in the study of
mankind, will do good service in rescuing ethnology from a too-exclusive reliance upon
Philology,—as understood, I mean to say, by Anglo-German monogenists; but not when, as
in M. M a u r y ’s chapter I of this volume, it is shown how perfectly true philology attains to
the same philosophical results as all other sciences bearing upon man.
72 B l u m e n b a c h , De Generis Humani varietate nativa, Gotting8e,1781; pp. 31, 47,—this
being the 2d edition of a paper printed 5 years previously; and afterwards considerably
enlarged and altered in a 3d edition, Gottingse, 1795.
and Voltaire] quorum Sacri codicis fidem suspeetam reddere intere-
rat. Facilius porro erat (Ethiopes aut Americse imberbes Íncolas
primo statim intuitu pro diversis speciebus habere, quam in corporis
humani strueturam inquirere, anatómicos et itinerum numerosos
auctores consulere, horumque fidem aut levitatem studiose perpen-
dere, e naturalis historic universo ambitu parallela conferre exempla
tumque demum judicium ferre varietatis caussas scrutari. Ita v. c.
famosus file T heo ph r a stu s P aracelsus (lepidum caput!) primus ni
fallor capere non potuit quomodo Americani73 ut reliqui hominis ab
Adamo genus ducere possunt, ideoque ut hrevi se expediret negotio
duos Adamos a Deo creatos statuit, Asiaticum alterum, alterum
Amerieanum [De philosoph. occulen. I. I).”
From the profound “ Theology of Nature” by my venerable friend
M. Hercule Straus-Durckheim,74 whose long researches in comparative
anatomy, at the Jardín des Plantes, vindicate Creative Power
from vulgar anthropomorphous assimilations, I learn that: —“As
concerns zoology, it was_ natural that the first classifiers—among
whom L in n .e u s , who is with reason considered the true founder of
science, beyond all distinguished himself—were equally unable to
employ other than exterior characteristics; and therefore, soon perceiving
that these data were insufficient, the successors of L innaeus,
and of B ufeon, adhered to seeking the veritable principles of this
science in the study of the Anatomy, and of the Physiology of
animals, which alone could make them known. It is thus that
D aubenton, collaborator of B ufeon, and B l umen bach , pupil of the
illustrious L inpl eus, were the first to cling to the study of these two
sciences, in order to make them the basis of Zoology; a study which
our celebrated C u v ie r afterwards brought to a very high degree of
pe^ction in ^ his Legons d’Anatomie comparée: that work which
forms, since its publication in 1805, the fundamental basis, not
merely of all works of Anatomy and comparative physiology that
have subsequently appeared, but likewise that of all treatises on
Zoology, properly so - called, which discuss the classification of
animals. * * * It was he (L in n íe u s ) who created nomenclature and
18 It is to a Jewish Rabbi, nevertheless, as might have been expected, that orthodoxy
wes t e best proofs of the colonization of America by lineal descendants of Adam and
9 i | 1650’ R* Menasseh Prated his “ Spes Israelis,” in which, following the monstrous
m>les of Montesin!, he discovered true Indian Jews npon the Cordilleras! (Babnagc,
, ani Rdi9- of the Jews, transí. Taylor; London, fol. 1708; pp. 470-87) The H<¿
rews, however, have settled in many parts of America since; ever preserving their dist
a s from all races, white, negro, aboriginal Indian, or Sinico-mongol: the most
m t “ Stance be!ng Cited 1 Da™ (< * » * Britannica, p. 8, note)colony at Anhoquta, near Bogotá. in the Israelitish
141*— 1862; III, 1p0 pN. a2t4m7e-’8 .Pari3’ 8 t°’ 8 T0ls' (chez 1’aate,lr- Rue des Fossés-Saint-Victor,
28