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hence facts to show, as we had occasion to observe formerly, that various quadrupeds of the largest size, as the elephant, mammoth, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, which are now traced in a living state in the hot parts of Asia, Africa, or America alone, formerly existed, as to certain species that have been long extinct, in the highest northern latitudes: and that, consequently, such species must have had such a discrepancy of habit and organization, like the dog and the ox tribes of our own day, as enabled them to endure the difference.

Such, then, is a brief sketch, I will not say of the animal kingdom, but of the most popular arrangements which have hitherto been attempted concerning it. It would have been much easier, and might have been much more interesting, to have extended the survey but the thread of connexion would then, probably, have escaped from us, and we should have lost the system in the fulness of the description.

Enough, however, and more than enough, has, I trust, been offered to prove that the study of zoology is of a most interesting and inviting character, equally calculated to win the heart, and to inform the head. I have dwelt somewhat more at large upon the three lowest classes of worms, insects, and fishes, for the very reason that these classes have too often been passed over by naturalists, as little worthy of their attention; and because I wished to impress upon your minds, by the incontrovertible fact of living examples, that nothing is low, nothing little, nothing in itself unworthy, in the view of the great Creator and common Parent of the universe; that nothing lies beyond the reach of his benevolence, or the shadow of his protection. God alike supplies the wants and ministers to the enjoyments of every living creature: he alike finds them food in rocks and in wildernesses, in the bowels of the earth, and in the depths of the ocean. His is the wisdom that, to different kinds and in different ways, has adapted different habits and modes of being; and has powerfully endowed with instinct where he has strikingly restrained intelligence. It is he that has given cunning where cunning is found necessary, and wariness where caution is demanded; that has furnished with ra pidity of foot, or fin, or wing, where such qualities appear expedient; and where might is of moment, has afforded proofs of a might the most terrible and irresistible.

At the head of the whole stands man, the noblest monument of creative power "in this diurnal scene," and in a state of purity and innocence, a faint image of the Creator himself; connected with the various classes of animals by his corporeal organization, but infinitely removed from them by the possession of an intelligent and immortal spirit; his chief distinction, to the external eye, consisting in the faculty of language, and the means of communicating and interchanging ideas:-a subject full of interest and of importance, and towards which, therefore, I shall beg leave to direct your attention after we have examined this lord of the universe in the different varieties he exhibits in different parts of the world, under the influence of climate, manner of life, and incidental circumstances.

Thus nature varies: man, and brutal beast,
And herbage gay, and scaly fishes mute,
And all the tribes of heaven, o'er many a sea,

Through many a grove that wing, or urge their song

Near many a bank or fountain, lake or rill.

Search where thou wilt, each differs in his kind,
In form, in figure, differs.

neck like that of the larger birds; and from the form of its paddles, it is probable that, like the crocodile, it swam on the surface of the ocean; an idea which is confirmed by various specimens found on the Dorsetshire coast, where the present writer has seen one or two nearly entire specimens.

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LECTURE III.

ON THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN RACE.

THUS far we have confined ourselves to the different classes of animals below the rank of man. The sketch has been rapid and unfinished, but I hope not altogether unfaithful, or without its use. Let us now proceed to a general survey of the human species; the generic character by which man is distinguished from other animals, and the family character by which one nation is distinguished from another nation.

If we throw an excursive glance over the globe, and contemplate the different appearances of mankind, in different parts of it, and especially if we contrast these appearances where they are most unlike, we cannot but be struck with astonishment, and feel anxious for information concerning the means by which so extraordinary an effect has been produced. The height of the Patagonian and the Caffre is seldom less than six feet, and it is no uncommon thing to meet with individuals among them that measure from six feet seven to six feet ten: compared with these, the Laplanders and Eskimaux are real dwarfs; their stature seldom reaching five feet, and being more commonly only four. Observe the delicate cuticle, and the exquisite rose and lily, that beautify the face of the Georgian or Circassian: contrast them with the coarse skin and greasy blackness of the African negro, and imagination is lost in the discrepancy. Take the nicely-turned and globular form of the Georgian head, or the elegant and unangular oval of the Georgian face compare the former with the flat skull of the Carib; and the latter with the flat visage of the Mogul Tartar, and it must, at first sight, be difficult to conceive that each of these could have proceeded from one common source. Yet the diversities of the intellectual powers are, perhaps, as great as those of the corporeal: though I am ready to admit, that for certain interested purposes of the worst and wickedest description, these diversities, for the last half century, have, even in our own country, been magnified vastly beyond their fair average, though the calumny has of late begun to lose its power.

The external characters thus glanced at form a few of the extreme boundaries: but all of them run into each other by such nice and imperceptible gradations in contiguous countries, and sometimes even among the same people, as to constitute innumerable shades of varieties, and to render it difficult, if not impossible, to determine occasionally to what region an individual may belong when at a distance from his own home.

It has hence been necessary to classify the human form: and the five grand sections, for we can no longer call them quarters, into which the globe is divided by the geographers of our own day, present us with a system of classification equally natural and easy: for in each of these sections we meet with a marked distinction, a characteristic outline that can never be mistaken, except in the few anomalies already adverted to, and which belong to almost every general rule; or in instances in which we can obviously trace an intermixture of aboriginal families.

Before we attempt, then, to account for these distinctions, let us endeavour, as briefly as possible, to point them out; and consider them under the five heads of the

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or, as they are denominated by M. Blumenbach, in his excellent work upon this subject, the Caucasian, Mongolian, American, Ethiopian, and Malay,

varieties.

• De Generi Humani Varietate Nativi

Gmelin has pursued the same general divisions, but has merely distin guished the respective races; and accordingly his five definitions are the white, brown, copper-coloured or red, black, and tawny man.

I. The most symmetrical, and therefore the most elegant variety of the human form, is that which I have called EUROPEAN, in consequence of its being traced in the European division of the globe more largely than in any other; and the most perfect lineaments of this variety are those of the region of Asia Minor, on the borders of Europe, the parent spot from which it has been imported-lineaments which we find distributed among the Georgians, Circassians, Mingrelians, Armenians, Persians, and other nations that skirt the southern foot of the vast chain of the Caucasus. And it is on this account that M. Blumenbach has given the name of the CAUCASIAN variety to the European form in general. It is remarkable that in this spot of the globe man was first created: here he first received the breath of life, and arose in the image of his Maker. The die has not yet lost its divine impress: for here we still meet, and in all ages have met (so far as relates to the exterior graces), with the most exquisite models of symmetry and beauty.

The general colour of the EUROPEAN or GEORGIAN variety, the WHITE division of Gmelin, is fair; that of the cheeks more or less red; the head globular; the face straight and oval, with the features moderately distinct; the forehead slightly flattened; the nose narrow, and slightly aquiline; the cheek-bones unprominent; the mouth small; the lips a little turned out, especially the under one; the chin full and rounded; the eyes and hair variable, but the former, for the most part, blue, and the latter yellow, or brown and flowing.

II. The colour of the ASIATIC, or MONGOLIAN, the BROWN-MAN of Gmelin, is yellowish brown or olive, with scarcely ever an appearance of red in the cheeks, which seems to be confined to the European variety; the head, instead of being globular, is nearly square; the cheek-bones wide; and the general face flat; the eyes are black and small; the chin rather prominent; and the hair blackish and scanty.

III. The AMERICAN, or RED-MAN of Gmelin, is of an obscure orange, rusty-iron, or copper colour; the head is less square, the cheek-bones less expanded, and the face less flattened than in the Asiatic; the eyes are deeply seated; and the hair is black, straight, and thick. This variety seems to form a middle point between the European and the Asiatic.

IV. The colour of the AFRICAN, the ETHIOPIAN of Blumenbach, and BLACKMAN of Gmelin, varies from a deep tawny to a pitch or perfect jet. The head is narrow; the face narrow, projecting towards the lower part: the forehead arched; the eyes projecting; the nose thick, almost intermixed with the cheeks; the lips, particularly the upper one, very thick; the jaws prominent; the chin retracted; the hair black, frizzled, and woolly. The countenance in this variety recedes farther than in any other from the European, and approaches much nearer than in any other that of the monkey.

V. The AUSTRALIAN, or inhabitant of New South Wales, and the numerous clusters of islands that begirt that prodigious range of unexplored country, together with the South Sea islands in general, constituting the MALAY of Blumenbach, and the TAWNY-MAN of Gmelin, is of blackish-brown or mahogany colour: the head is somewhat narrowed at its upper part; the forehead somewhat expanded; the upper jaw slightly prominent; and the nose broad, but distinct; the hair harsh, coarse, long, and curly. This variety seems to form a middle point between the European and the African; as the American does between the European and the Asiatic. So that, in a more compendious view of the human race, we might contract the five varieties into three:-the European, Asiatic, and African; and regard the other two as mere intervening shades of variety.

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In this general classification of mankind, however, there are two observations that are peculiarly worthy of attention. The first is, that although these distinctive characters will hold in the main, it is not to be expected that they will apply to every individual of the particular division to which they

*

refer; nor that they belong so exclusively to such division as never to be traced, even by a natural introduction, among other divisions. The second is, that from the restless or inquiring spirit of several of the divisions, and the migrations which have hence ensued, we ought to expect to meet occasionally with the distinctive characters of such divisions among other divisions, and in regions to which they do not naturally appertain.

A perfect jet of the skin has never, perhaps, been found in our own country, in any person of genuine English race; but a dark, swarthy, and even copper-colour is by no means uncommon; and an equal difference is ob servable in the globularity of the head, and the flatness or sharpness of the face. In like manner the skin is occasionally found fair among the red tribes of America;* and black among the tawny tribes of Australia, and even the olive nations of India. So Captain Cook informs us that, among the natives of the Friendly Islands, he saw hundreds of European faces, and not a few genuine Roman noses. And Adanson asserts that he was struck with the general beauty and proportion of several Senegambian females, in spite of their colour: while Vailant and Le Maire give a similar testimony concerning the Caffre women, and the negresses of Gambia and Senegal.

The most inquiring and consequently the most migratory of the five divisions under which we are contemplating the race of man, is unquestionably the European. And hence we have reason to expect that we shall meet with more numerous establishments of the European form in regions to which it does not naturally belong than of any of the others. And experience confirms this expectation. It is, in truth, the migratory spirit of this peculiar division that has filled Europe itself; for, as I have already had occasion to remark, the division in its earliest state was confined to the southern foot of the Caucasus, and branched out into Europe from this region. And thus, in the west of Africa, extending from Fez to the Zaara, we discover considerable patches of the same lineage, the progenitors of which have either shot through the isthmus of Suez or crossed the Mediterranean; while every one knows that, from a similar spirit of migration, America, both North and South, and India in its southern promontory of the Deccan, have for several centuries past exhibited patches of a similar kind.

The Asiatic race, properly so called, have in like manner had their migrations; and hence we trace the form and features of this family, spreading southerly through the whole of Egypt and Abyssinia; northerly from the Imaus or Caff of the Caucasus towards the Arctic boundaries of Europe and America, amid the Laplanders and Nova Zemblians of the former, and the Greenlanders and Iskimos or (as we have it from the French writers) Esquimaux of the latter; and westerly from the north of Persia along the banks of the Euxine, in successive waves, and chiefly under the different denomi➡ nations of Fins, Goths, Alans, and Huns; the last two uniting on various occasions, and especially under the triumphant banners of Attila, and overrunning great part of Germany, and consequently intermixing with the European race; at the same time driving the Fins into higher northern latitudes, along the shores of the Baltic, where they at length intermingled with the Laplanders. Among both these nations, therefore, whether blended or separate, we still meet with very strong marks of the true, genuine Asiatic face, flat, wide, and of a sallow or olive hue; the eyes being small, and the hair dark and scanty.

It is probable, also, that the more polished nations of America, as the Toltecs and Mexicans that belong to the northern, and the Peruvians and Araucans that belong to the southern division of this continent, have originated from an Asiatic source. De Guignes, Forster, and Humboldt concur in believing them to have been of Chinese or Japanese descent; while the mass of the numerous tribes that constitute the chief population of this continent, and are altogether distinguished in external and internal character from the preceding nations, seems to have issued, in various migrations, from some of

* See M. Humboldt; Essai Politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne. Paris, 1808, 1809,

the red or copper-coloured tribes with lank hair, which have of late years been traced in particular parts of Africa. It is also probable that Australia has in like manner been peopled by successive waves of rovers from both these continents: for we trace proofs of both sources, sometimes separate, and sometimes mixed. But the theories that have been offered upon this subject are too numerous, and for the most part too fanciful for a minute detail, and belong rather to the geographer than to the physiologist.

There are some philosophers who have assigned several other distinctive characters to the different families of mankind than any thus far dwelt upon; and which are chiefly derived from the stature, the shape of a particular limb, or the intellect: thus the gigantic height of the Patagonian has been adverted to as a very prominent feature; the pigmy form of the Esquimaux; and the still more pigmy form of the Kimos of Madagascar, if any reliance may be placed on the testimony of Commerson, now that it has been corroborated by Modave, and still more lately by the Abbé de Rochon; the curved leg of the Calmuc race; the long leg of the Indian; and the high calf and flat foot of the Ethiopian. But it appears to me that all such distinctions are upon too narrow a scale, and perhaps too much dependent upon particular circumstances, for an admission into the lines of a broad and original demarcation. To the different powers of the intellect, which are still less to the point than even these corporeal peculiarities, I shall have occasion to advert presently.

Omitting, then, the consideration of these subordinate points, whence have proceeded those striking and far stronger characteristics which we have noticed in the preceding divisions? Are the different distributions of man mere varieties of one common species, or distinct species merely connected under an imaginary genus? Has the human race proceeded from one source or from many?

In a country professing the Christian religion, and appealing to the records of Moses, as an established and veritable authority, I ought, perhaps, to blush at proposing such a question in public: but the insinuations which have in various ways been thrown out against this authority demand it, and I hasten to rescue, so far as I am able, the first and most interesting account we pos sess of the creation of man, from the philosophical doubts which have been thrown upon it, and to reconcile it with the natural history of man in our own day.

The Mosaic statement has met with two distinct classes of opponents, each of which has pretended to a different ground of objection. The one has regarded this statement as altogether untrue, and never intended to be believed; as a mere allegory or fiction;-a beautiful mythos often indulged in by other oriental writers in the openings of their respective histories;-as an enlivening frontispiece to a book of instruction. The other class has been in some degree more guarded in its attack; and has rather complained that the statement is inexplicit than that it is untrue. These last philosophers have found out that in its common interpretation it does not accord with the living volume of nature; and they hence contend that the common interpretation is incorrect; they perceive, or think they perceive, a variety of chasms in the sacred text which it is necessary to fill up before it can be made to harmonize with natural facts and appearances.

At the head of the former class stand the names of some of the first natural historians and scholars of modern times, as Linnæus, Buffon, Helvetius, Monboddo, and Darwin. And from whom do these philosophers, thus departing from the whole letter and spirit of the Mosaic history, pretend to derive the race of man? The four former from the race of monkeys; and the last, to complete the absurdity, from the race of oysters; for Dr. Darwin se riously conjectures that as aquatic animals appear to have been produced before terrestrial, and every living substance to have originated from a form or nucleus exquisitely simple and minute, and to have been perpetually developing and expanding its powers, and progressively advancing towards perfection, man himself must have been of the aquatic order on his first creation: at that time, indeed, imperceptible from his exility, but in process of years,

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