VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 443 



Not only have the five varieties their distinctive characteristics, 

 but the different nations comprehended in each variety have each 

 their peculiarities, both mental and corporeal : among the Cau- 

 casians, for example, the Germans, French, Spaniards, and Eng- 

 lish are extremely different from each other. Nay, the provinces 

 of the same country differ, and the families of the same pro- 

 vince, and, in fact, every individual has his own peculiar coun- 

 tenance, figure, constitution, form of body, and mental cha- 

 racter. 



A QUESTION here presents itself. Are the differences among 

 mankind to be ascribed to the influence of various causes upon 

 the descendants of two, or of more, but all similar, primary 

 parents ; or to original differences in more than two primary 

 parents ? If considerations a priori, analogical and direct facts, 

 and the history of mankind, corroborate in conjunction the first 

 supposition, there will be no necessity to have recourse to the 

 bolder second, nor to the third the boldest of the three. 



On the point before us the Bible speaks positively and clearly, 

 without the possibility of various interpretation or corruption of 

 the text, and not only in the account of the creation, but inci- 

 dentally in many other places.* It is delightful to find nature 



* Mr. Lawrence in the article MAN of Rees's Cyclopeedia says that the 

 book of Genesis does not clearly assert that Adam and Eve were the parents of 

 mankind. But, however allegorical the account of the fall and some other 

 circumstances may be, and however little entitled to the name of any thing 

 more than records of facts and opinions many portions of the Old Testament 

 may appear to some persons, we shall find, if we read the whole Bible, that 

 our descent from Adam and Eve is frequently alluded to, both in the Old and 

 New Testament, and not merely as an indifferent fact, but as one of the funda- 

 mental truths of revelation ; and thus any supposed obscurity in the book of 

 Genesis completely dispelled. His object, however, seems not to charge Moses 

 with obscurity, but with contradiction. He says, " We are told indeed that 

 ' Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all liv- 

 ing.' But in the first chapter of Genesis we learn, that God created man, 

 male and female, and this seems to have been previously to the formation of 

 Eve, which did not take place till after the garden of Eden had been made. 

 Again we are informed, in the fifth chapter of Genesis, that ' in the day God 



