PHYSIOLOGICAL RESEARCHES. 81 



relation to each other, as shown in all those attributes of mind and body which 

 have been so amply illustrated by modern ethnography." 1 He admits that there 

 might have been, in ancient times, occasional or accidental immigrations from 

 the Old World, though too small to affect materially the language or the type of 

 the Aborigines. 2 



The subject of American ethnology passes so insensibly into the general question 

 of the original unity or diversity of mankind, that it is not easy to refer to the vari- 

 ous forms and shades of opinion pertaining to a consideration of the former without 

 an appearance of entering a field of contention which it is desirable to avoid. Yet 

 the convictions of men of science, that may be supposed to influence, more or less 

 directly, the manner of regarding the archaeological problem of primeval population 

 in this country, cannot be entirely excluded from these pages on account of the 

 polemical associations they have acquired. Whether man was created in one pair, 

 or in many pairs, in one locality or in many localities, is an inquiry that forces 

 itself into the study of any division of his history. Its discussion has added to the 

 interest of philological and physiological investigations, but has no other neces- 

 sary bearing upon the proper theme of this memoir, than as it affects the question 

 of the derivation of the American aborigines from any other people within the 

 historical period. In alluding briefly to these collateral elements of opinion, it is 

 intended to observe strictly the rule of the Ethnological Society of Paris, in rela- 

 tion to the vexed point of dispute : " Dans l'£tat actuel de nos connaissances, la 

 question est insoluble au point de vue scientifique et ne peut etre utilement debattue. 

 Or telle a toujours £te" a cet £gard l'opinion adoptee et la ligne de conduite suivie 

 par la Socitite Ethnologique." 3 



Dr. Morton endeavored to avoid the topic in his principal work ; but as his senti- 

 ments were freely declared in subsequent publications, they are usually blended 

 with his purely technical exposition of American physiology. They have been 

 made more prominent by the authors of " Types of Mankind" in connection with a 

 "Sketch of the natural provinces of the animal world, and their relation to the different 

 types of man" contributed by Professor Agassiz. 4 The elevated standing of these 



1 Trans, of the Am. Ethnol. Soc, II, 219. 



2 In noticing a few of the hypotheses that have been formed to solve the problem of the origin of the 

 monuments of America, independently of any agency of the aboriginal race, Dr. Morton refers to the 

 opinion which has been advanced, that they are the work of a branch of the great Cyclopean family of 

 the old world, known by the various designations of the Shepherd Kings of Egypt, the Anakim of 

 Syria, the Oscans of Etruria, and the Pelasgians of Greece. Wandering Masons they were also called, 

 and are supposed to have passed from Asia into America at a very early epoch of history, and to have 

 built the more ancient monuments which are attributed to the Toltecan nation. 



It is probable that he had in his mind an article on Mexican antiquities in the Foreign Quarterly 

 Review for October, 1836, where the proposition is maintained that the Toltecans were a branch of the 

 Shepherd Kings, or Cyclopeans— that is, they were Canaanites. "The builders of the Cyclopean 

 monuments of Palenque, &c. &c, were the Anakim or Cyclopean family of Syria, who, with their 

 brethren the Canaanites, were vanquished or expelled by Joshua"— thus reviving the theory of Presi- 

 dent Styles. 



3 Bulletin de la Societe, 1846, p. 81. 



♦.Types of Mankind, or Ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, 

 11 



