244 METHODS AND EESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY iv 



Blumenbach, Cuvier, Prichard, and many distin- 

 guished living ethnologists. 



These " Rational Monogenists," or, at any rate, 

 the more modern among them, hold, firstly, that 

 the present condition of the earth has existed for 

 untold ages ; secondly, that, at a remote period, 

 beyond the ken of Archbishop Usher, man was 

 created, somewhere between the Caucasus and 

 the Hindoo Koosh; thirdly, that he might have 

 migrated thence to all parts of the inhabited 

 world, seeing that none of them are unattainable 

 from some other inhabited part, by men provided 

 with only such means of transport as savages are 

 known to possess and must have invented ; 

 fourthly, that the operation of the existing diver- 

 sities of climate and other conditions upon people 

 so migrating, is sufficient to account for all the 

 diversities of mankind. 



Of the truth of the first of these propositions no 

 competent judge now entertains any doubt. The 

 second is more open to discussion ; for, in these 

 latter days, many question the special creation of 

 man : and even if his special creation be granted, 

 there is not a shadow of a reason why he should 

 have been created in Asia rather than anywhere 

 else. Of all the odd myths that have arisen in 

 the scientific world, the " Caucasian mystery/' 

 invented quite innocently by Blumenbach, is the 

 oddest. A Georgian woman's skull was the 

 handsomest in his collection. Hence it became 



