76 MUTUAL RELATIONS OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 



Existence. This may take various forms, but is never entirely absent from 

 any race or nation, although (like other innate tendencies) it may be defective 

 in individuals. Attempts have been made by some travellers to prove, that 

 particular nations are destitute of it ; but such assertions have been based 

 only upon a limited acquaintance with their habits of thought, and with their 

 outward observances. For there are probably none, that do not possess the 

 idea of some invisible Power external to themselves ; whose favour they seek, 

 and whose anger they deprecate, by sacrifice and other religious observances. 

 It requires a higher mental cultivation than is always to be met with, to con- 

 ceive of this Power, as having a Spiritual existence ; but wherever the idea 

 of spirituality can be defined, it seems connected with it. The vulgar readi- 

 ness to believe in demons, ghosts, &c., is only an irregular or depraved 

 manifestation of the same tendency. Closely connected with it, is the desire 

 to share in this spiritual existence ; which has been implanted by the Creator 

 in the mind of Man ; and which, developed as it is by the mental cultivation 

 that is almost necessary for the formation of the idea, has been regarded by 

 philosophers in all ages, as one of the chief natural arguments for the im- 

 mortality of the soul. By this Immortal Soul, the existence of which is thus 

 guessed by Man, but of whose presence within him he derives the strongest 

 assurance from Revelation, Man is connected with beings of a higher order, 

 amongst whom Intelligence exists, unrestrained in its exercise by the imper- 

 fections of that corporeal mechanism, through which it here operates ; and to 

 this state, a state of more intimate communion of mind with mind, and of 

 creatures with their Creator, he is encouraged to aspire, as the reward of 

 his improvement of the talents here committed to his charge. 



CHAPTER II. 



OF THE MUTUAL RELATIONS OF THE DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF THE HUMAN 



FAMILY. 



1. General Considerations. 



62. AMONGST the various tribes of Men, which people the surface of the 

 globe, and which are separated from all other animals by the foregoing cha- 

 racters, there are differences of a very striking and important nature. They 

 are distinguishable from each other, not merely by their language, dress, 

 manners and customs, religious belief, and other acquired peculiarities, but in 

 the physical conformation of their bodies ; and the difference lies, not merely 

 in the colour of the skin, the nature of the hair, the form of the soft parts 

 (such as the nose, lips, &c.,) but in the shape of the skull, and of other parts 

 of the bony skeleton, which might be supposed to be less liable to variation. 

 It is a question of great scientific interest, as well as one that considerably 

 affects the mode in which we treat the races that differ from our own, whe- 

 ther they arc all of one species, that is, descended from the same or from 

 similar parentage, or whether they are to be regarded as distinct species, 

 the first parents of the several races having had the same differences among 

 themselves, as those now exhibited by their descendants. 



63. It has been a favourite idea, among those who wished to excuse the 

 horrors of slavery, or the extirpation of savage tribes, that the races thus 



