SECT, xxvii.] MANKIND IDENTICAL IN SPECIES. 309 



guages which are or have been spoken. Some classes of 

 these have few or no words in common, yet exhibit a re- 

 markable analogy in the laws of their grammatical con- 

 struction. The languages spoken by the native American 

 nations afford examples of these ; indeed, the refinement in 

 the grammatical construction of the tongues of the American 

 savages leads to the belief that they must originally have 

 been spoken by a much more civilized class of mankind. 

 Some tongues have little or no resemblance in structure, 

 though they correspond extensively in their vocabularies, 

 as the Syrian dialects. In all of these cases it may be 

 inferred that the nations speaking the languages in ques- 

 tion are descended from the same stock ; but the probability 

 of a common origin is much greater in the Indo-European 

 nations, whose languages, such as the Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, 

 German, <fcc., have an affinity both in structure and corre- 

 spondence of vocables. In many tongues not the smallest 

 resemblance can be traced ; length of time, however, may 

 have obliterated original identity. The conclusion drawn 

 from the whole investigation is that, although the distribu- 

 tion of organized beings does not follow the direction of the 

 isothermal lines, temperature has a very great influence on 

 their physical development. The heat of the air is so inti- 

 mately connected with its electrical condition, that electri- 

 city must also affect the distribution of plants and animals 

 over the face of the earth, the more so as it seems to have a 

 great share in the functions of animal and vegetable life. It 

 is the sole cause of many atmospheric and terrestrial pheno- 

 mena, and performs an important part in the economy of 

 nature. 



