352 COSMOS. 



comru unity ol la.igiiage, and adherence to one original Jireo 

 tion of the intellectual and moral faculties. 



As long as attention was directed solely to the extremes in 

 varieties of color and of form, and to the vividness of the first 

 impression of the senses, the observer was naturally disposed 

 to regard races rather as originally different species than as 

 mere varieties. The permanence of certain types* in the midst 

 of the most hostile influences, especially of climate, appeared 

 to fav^or such a view, notwithstanding the shortness of the in 

 terval of time from which the historical evidence was derived. 

 In my opinion, however, more powerful reasons can be ad- 

 vanced in support of the theory of the unity of the human 

 race, as, for instance, in the many intermediate gradations! 

 in the color of the skin and in the form of the skull, which 

 have been made known to us in recent times by the rapid prog- 

 ress of geographical knowledge — the analogies presented by 

 the varieties in the species of many wild and domesticated ani- 

 mals — and the more correct observations collected regarding 

 the limits of fecundity in hybrids.! The greater number of 

 the contrasts which were formerly supposed to exist, have dis- 

 appeared before the laborious researches of Tiedemann on the 

 brain of negroes and of Europeans, and the anatomical inves- 



* Tacitus, ill his speculations on the inhabitants of Britain (Agricola, 

 cap. ii.), distinguishes with much judgment between that which may 

 be owing to the local climatic relations, and that which, in the immi- 

 grating races, may be owing to the uncliangeable influence of" a hered 

 itary and transmitted type. " Britanniam qui mortales initio coluenmt, 

 indigenae an advecti, ut inter barbaros, parum compertum. Habitus 

 corporis vai'ii, atque ex eo argumenta ; namque rutilse Caledoniam hab- 

 itantium comre, magni artus Germauicam origiuem adseverant. Silu 

 rum colorati vultus et torti plerumque crines, etposita contra Hispauia, 

 Iberos veteres trajecisse, easque cedes occupasse fidem faciunt: proxi- 

 mi Gallis, et similes sunt: seu durante originis vi ; sen procurrentibus 

 ill diversa terris, positio coeli corporibus habitum dedit." Regarding 

 the persistency of types of conformation in the hot and cold regions of 

 the earth, and in the mountainous districts of the New Continent, see 

 my Relation Historique, t. i., p. 498, 503, and t. ii., p. 572, 574. 



t On the American races generally, see the magnificent work of 

 iSamuel George Morton, entitled Crania Avicricana, 1839, p. G2, 8G ; 

 and on the skulls brought by Pentland from the highlands of Titicaca, 

 see the Duhlin Journal of Medical and Chemical Science, vol. v., 1834, 

 p. 475 ; also Alcide d'Orbigny, Vhomme Amiricain consid^r6 sous set 

 rapports Physiol, et Mor., 1839, p. 221 ; and the work by Prince Maxi- 

 milian of Wied, which is well worthy of notice for the admirable ethna 

 graphical remarks in which it abounds, entitled Reise in das Innere von 

 No rdamerik a (\S39). 



X Rudolph Wagner, Uebcr Dlcndlinge und Bastarderzev gung, in his 

 notes to the Gernjan translaticii of Phchard's Physical History of Majf 

 kind, vol i., p. 138-1.00. 



