KANK AND PRIORITY OF CLACK AND V/IIITE RACES. 71 



suniiiscd. Lambert, iu his " Genus Piniis," forty j'ears ago, said of Podocarpus S^vligxa, that it 

 afforded cue of many examples of coincidence between the vegetation of Chile with that of New 

 Holland, and tlie southern extremity of Africa ; * and Dr. Hooker, in the essay above quoted, 

 mentions various botanical facts confirmative and indicative of an ancient coimnunication between 

 south-west Australia and South Africa. Besides great differences in the genera and species of south- 

 east and south-west Australia ; he foimd many new forms, and types, and curious analogies between 

 the flora of the latter and that of South Africa. On this Dr. Hooker remarks, " There is 

 another way of viewing the whole question, but one. so pureh' speculative, that I hesitate to put it 

 forward. It is, that the antecedents .of the pecuKar Australian Flora may have inhabited an area to 

 the westward of the present Australian continent, and that the curious analogies which the latter 

 presents with the South African flora, and which are so much more conspicuous in the south-west 

 quarter, may be connected with such a jDrior state of tilings."* 



Here, too, the relationship between many of the plants in the south-v,-cst of Australia and 

 the Cape of Good Hope does not extend to the mammals. Thei'efore, it is not illogical to 

 infer that the former continuity of land by which these African tj^es found their way to 

 Australia must have existed before mammals in Africa had appeared there, at all events, in any 

 umnbers, or it would have contributed them too. The period of continuity must therefore have 

 been very ancient. Africa here contributed types ; Australia, few or none. If it contributed none, 

 then another inference follows, viz., that the connecting land could not have been united with both 

 at the same time. The bridge must have been begun on the African side, and bj' the time the in- 

 vaders had reached a certain distance on their way, it must have been broken down behind them ; 

 but as it continued to be formed or to rise from the ocean in the direction of Australia initil it 

 reached its south- vi-est corner they completed the passage, and their descendants have remained 

 there after the land which formed the passage has sunk out of sight. 



There still remain one or two accessory points of great difiiculty regarding the distribution of 

 man which had better be here disposed of. 



First. TV!] at is the rank of the two races ? — the blacks and the whites. Ai'o they to be 

 reckoned as species, or are they merely tribes, in the same waj% although better defined and more 

 "widely separated from each other than the tribes into which they themselves branch off? 



The difiiculty of separating species increases as we ascend the scale of life. Professor Agassiz 

 has drawn attention to this in monkej's, in the lion, the bear, and other highly organised vertebrata, 

 and it seems to reach its culminating point in man. It would appear as if the action of the 

 developing power had, in its long course, undergone some change, not in natiu'c but in degree, some 

 modification such as we see typified in the actual growth and life of man and his fellow-creatures ; 

 its steps were wider apart and more decided in earlier days, and its ideas, so to speak, simjjler and 

 less matured : in age its action has become more precise and more imjjortant, and as the creatures 

 developed have acqmred a higher and higher grade, the steps in advance have been shorter and 

 more frequent. 



It may be, for example, that had the influence of development, or creation, to which we owe the 

 two races of man, or any of the doubtful species of monkey, been exercised on less highly 

 organised animals, the product would have been more absolutely distinct species. I incline to 

 regard the two races not as the result merely of ordinary generation and variation, but of the 



* L.uiiJiRT, "Gciius Finns,'' iuA edition, 183;J, ii. Ko. 71. t H.0OKEK, op. fit. p. Iv. 



