1318 



VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 



several races, and in the extraction (so to 

 speak) of their respective mental and moral 

 characters, from their habits of life, their 

 languages, and their religious observances. 

 It is his business to inquire how far one com- 

 mon psychical character can be inferred from 

 such diverse manifestations ; that is, how far 

 the differences which he cannot but observe 

 in intellectual capacity, and in moral and even 

 instinctive tendencies, are fixed and per- 

 manent, or are liable to spontaneous variation, 

 or to alteration from the modifying influence 

 of education and other external conditions. 

 The physical geographer lends his aid, by 

 bringing to bear upon the inquiry his know- 

 ledge of the outward circumstances under 

 which these variations in bodily and mental 

 constitution are most constantly found. And 

 it is from the materials which he contributes, 

 that the physiologist and the anatomist have 

 to determine the degree in which these cir- 

 cumstances can be justly considered as the 

 causes of variation ; and, more especially, 

 whether the coincidences between particular 

 bodily configurations or mental constitutions, 

 and certain combinations of climatic and geo- 

 logical conditions, are the result of induced 

 differences among the human races which are 

 respectively subject to the latter, or are to be 

 attributed to the implantation of originally 

 dissimilar stocks in the respective localities in 

 which their descendants are now found. But 

 in order to carry on these researches, the 

 information of the historian is continually 

 needed, on the actual descent, migrations, 

 conquests, &c. of the nations whose physical 

 and mental characters we are comparing. The 

 question of the fixity of all or any of the 

 characters by which the races of mankind are 

 at present distinguished from each other, 

 requires for its solution a comparison of the 

 present with the past. No valid proof of 

 their permanence can be drawn from the 

 limited experience of a few generations; and 

 no evidence of change can be reasonably 

 looked for, except under the long-continued 

 agency of modifying causes. The required 

 information is sometimes supplied by direct 

 historical testimony ; but this is frequently 

 insufficient, and recourse must be then had to 

 the philologist, who derives from the compara- 

 tive study of the languages of different tribes, 

 most important evidence as to their degree of 

 filiation, and thus extends, combines, and con- 

 firms the indications, which the historian had 

 drawn from other sources. Independent of 

 the aid which philological research affords to 

 other departments of ethnology, it directly 

 bears upon the great problem of the unity or 

 identity of mankind; for it not only answers 

 a common purpose with historical testimony, 

 in establishing the genealogical relations of 

 tribes long since dispersed from their original 

 centres, and separated at present by strongly- 

 marked physical and psychical differences ; 

 but it also affords important evidence as to 

 the fundamental similarity, if not identity, of 

 the primitive stocks. 



It is obviously impossible to enter at any 



length into any one of these topics of inquiry, 

 within the limits of the present article ; and 

 all that will be here attempted, will be to place 

 before the reader a general resume of the whole 

 subject, carrying out those portions into some- 

 what more of detail, in which the anatomist 

 and physiologist are most concerned. 



The question at issue has usually been con- 

 sidered under the simple aspect of specific 

 unity or diversity ; that is, in ihejirst place, 

 whether all the existing races may be sup- 

 posed to be the descendants of one pair of 

 "protoplasts ;" all their diversities in physical 

 conformation, in language, in mental character, 

 and in social condition, having since arisen ; 

 or whether, secondly, the exir-ting races must 

 be regarded as having sprung from several 

 distinct pairs of protoplasts ; which originally 

 presented differences amongst themselves, 

 nearly the same with those which now exist 

 amongst the races that seem most remote 

 from each other. Now the first of these 

 suppositions requires that evidence should be 

 given of a very considerable amount of vari- 

 ability from the original type (whatever that 

 may have been) amongst the descendants from 

 the common ancestry : whilst the second is 

 based on the idea, that the leading characters 

 which now separate the different races are per- 

 manent, and must have been presented by their 

 original progenitors. A third supposition, 

 which has been put forward within the last 

 few years, regards the existing races as not all 

 proceeding from one pair of " protoplasts," 

 but from several; but considers that these, 

 though scattered over the globe, were funda- 

 mentally similar in corporeal and mental con- 

 stitution, and differed only in the adaptation 

 of certain of their physical characters to the 

 different circumstances of their several abodes, 

 thus being all comprehensible within the 

 limits of one species, and all possessing, 

 too, a certain capacity for variation, which has 

 been manifested in the production of subor- 

 dinate diversities, and has even proceeded, in 

 some instances, under the prolonged influence 

 of change of climate, civilization, &c., to soften 

 down, if not entirely to obliterate, the original 

 differences. On the general bearing of the 

 last of these hypotheses, a few remarks seem 

 called for. 



Although the same affinity or blood-rela- 

 tionship would not exist between the de- 

 scendants of several distinct pairs of " proto- 

 plasts," as between those of a common 

 ancestry, yet the moral relations between 

 them would be as close as on the supposition 

 of their consanguinity. For, as has been 

 justly observed, " the moral rights of men 

 depend on their moral nature; and while 

 Africans have the hearts and consciences of 

 human beings, it could never be right to treat 

 them as domestic cattle or as wild fowl, if it 

 were ever so abundantly demonstrated that 

 their race was but an improved species of 

 ape, and ours a degenerate kind of god.'** 

 This view has recently been very forcibly 



* New Quarterly Review, No. XV. p. 131. 



