464 MAN, PHYSICALLY CONSIDERED. 



cessity, is not more inconsistent with the operations of 

 nature, than with those of genuine philosophy.' It is a 

 little remarkable that those who are dissatisfied with the 

 simple and natural narration of the inspired writers 

 should have adopted theories in such extremes of oppo- 

 sition to each other. Some of these philosophers, among 

 whom are to be found the respectable names of Linnae- 

 us, Buffbn, and Helvetius, respectable certainly as to sci- 

 entific attainments, think we can trace back our ances- 

 tral line to the iilthy and chattering baboon. Others, 

 with Darwin at their head, make the oyster shell our cra- 

 dle. Others think we cannot all be -traced back even 

 to Adam, but that at the commencement of human exist- 

 ence, many couples were created answering to the di- 

 versities which we now see. While Moses, writing under 

 the inspiration of the Almighty, says that God first creat- 

 ed Adam and Eve, and from them all the inhabitants of 

 the world have descended. How much more simple and 

 philosophical this account, than the wild vagaries of 

 Buflbn and of Darwin. Voltaire says, ' no one but a 

 blind man can doubt that the whites, the negroes, the 

 Albini, the Hottentots, the Laplanders, the Chinese, and 

 the Americans compose races entirely distinct.' Why 

 these nations alone ? There are striking marks of differ- 

 ence between innumerable other tribes, and these all run 

 into ca".h other by imperceptible gradation. If we adopt 

 the idea that there must have been originally more than 

 one couple, to account for the present variety of the hu- 

 man species, how many distinct fountains must we sup- 

 pose to have been, from whence the streams of nations 

 have flowed ? It is as difficult to account for the present 

 variety, if we suppose fifty or a hundred, as if we sup- 

 pose one. ' In describing the varieties, it is necessary to 

 hx on the most strongly marked tints, between which 

 there is every intermediate shade of color. The oppo- 

 site extremes run into each other by the nicest and most 

 delicate gradations ; and it is the same in every other 

 particular in which the various tribes of the human spe- 

 cies differ. This forms no slight objection to the hy- 

 pothesis of distinct species ; for on that supposition we 

 cannot define their number, nor draw out the boundaries 



