152 Dr Morton on the Distinctive Characteristics of the 
sent inquiry, that these ancient Peruvians were the progeni- 
tors of the existing Aymara tribes of Peru, while these last 
are identified in every particular with the people of the great 
Inca race. All the monuments which these various nations 
have left behind them, over a space of three thousand miles, 
go also to prove a common origin, because, notwithstanding 
some minor differences, certain leading features pervade and 
characterize them all. 
Whether the hive of the civilized nations was, as some sup- 
pose, in the fabled region of Aztlan in the north, or whether, 
as the learned Cabrera has endeavoured to shew, their native 
seats were in Chiapas and Guatimala, we may not stop to 
inquire ; but to them, and to them alone, we trace the mono- 
lithic gateways of Peru, the sculptures of Bogota, the ruined 
temples and pyramids of Mexico, and the mounds and forti- 
fications of the valley of the Mississippi. 
Such was the Toltecan Family; and it will now be in- 
quired how it happens that so great a disparity should have 
existed in the intellectual character of the American nations, 
if they are all derived from a common stock, or, in other 
words, belong to the same race! How are we to reconcile 
the civilization of the one with the barbarism of the other? 
It is this question which has so much puzzled the philosophers 
of the past three centuries, and led them, in the face of facts, 
to insist on a plurality of races. We grant the seeming 
anomaly ; but however much it is opposed to general rule, it 
is not without ample analogies among the people of the old 
world. No stronger example need be adduced than that 
which presents itself in the great Arabian family ; for the 
Saracens who established their kingdom in Spain, whose his- 
tory is replete with romance and refinement, whose colleges 
were the centres of genius and learning for several centuries, 
and whose arts and sciences have been blended with those of 
every subsequent age ;—these very Saracens belong not only 
to the same race, but to the same family with the Bedouins 
of the desert ; those intractable barbarians who scorn all re- 
straints which are not imposed by their own chief, and whose 
immemorial laws forbid them to sow corn, to plant fruit-trees, 
eo, Tt tS. 
