of the Human Species. 825 



Tartar race are separated by their languages from the Indo- 

 European nations, and the distinction is not less when we go 

 back to the earliest ages. How distant, indeed, must have been 

 the period when the Celtae and the German nations, and the 

 Greeks, Latins, and Sclavonians, were separated from the Hin- 

 doos ! Yet all these nations have preserved from that period 

 strong proofs of the identity of their speech ! Nor can we ima- 

 gine why the Tartars alone should have lost all traces of their 

 former language, if they had once partaken of the same idiom 

 with the nations just mentioned, or had a dialect allied to it ! 

 The distinction of races, according to the same principle, will, 

 besides, separate nations who are shewn to be connected by their 

 language, when they happen to have acquired a different cha- 

 racter, diversities of figure and complexion. I have already al- 

 luded to particular instances which exemplify this remark. 



" 2dly, A second objection to the distributing of men into 

 different races on the ground of physical diversities^ is, that it is 

 contradictory to the very principle which has been always pro- 

 fessed by the most enlightened writers on the philosophy of na- 

 tural history, and which, it may be added, had been admirably 

 maintained and illustrated by Cuvier himself, in regard to the 

 nature and distinction of species. The clear and broad line 

 which he lays down as constituting the distinction of species in 

 natural history, is that of permanent and constant difference. 

 We are under the necessity of admitting the existence of certain 

 forms which have perpetuated themselves from the beginning of 

 the world without exceeding the limits first prescribed. All the 

 individuals belonging to one of these forms constitute what is 

 termed a species. ' Varieties," he adds, * are the accidental sub- 

 divisions of species.' This is his own account of the laws con- 

 stituting species. By himself the diversities found between 

 different races of men are clearly laid down as varieties. To 

 regard these afterward as permanent, is to contradict what has 

 previously been established. In fact, we must either concede at 

 once that there are several distinct human species, — an hypo- 

 thesis which would be immediately opposed by a number of in- 

 superable objections,---or we must allow that no permanently 

 distinct races, as constituted by physical characters, exist in the 

 one human species. 



