lOS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MAN. 



has connected the various objects of tlic three kingdoms 

 together like the steps of a staircase, or tlie links of a chain, 

 represent man only as a more perfect kind of monkey ; and 

 condemn the poor African to the degrading situation of a 

 connecting link between the superior races of mankind and 

 the orang-utang. Such is the view exhibited by Mr. 

 White, in his Account of the regular Gradation in Man, 

 and in different Animals and Vegetables, and from the 

 former to the latter * ; where he distinctly asserts that " the 

 orang-utang has the person, the manner, and the actions of 

 man" (p. 35) ; and that the Negro " seems to approach 

 nearer to the brute creation than any other of the human 

 species." (p. 42.) If, by regular gradation, nothing more 

 is meant than the variety of organization and its progressive 

 simplification from man throughout the animal kingdom, 

 the truth is incontestable, and too obvious to require a 

 quarto for its illustration or support. On the contrary, if it 

 be designed to assert identity of species between ourselves 

 and monkeys, the position is quite untenable. At all events 

 both the statements quoted above are more or less incorrect. 

 That the Negro is more like a monkey than the European, 

 cannot be denied as a general observation. But why is the 

 Negro always selected for this comparison ? The New Hol- 

 lander, the Calmuck, the native American, are not superior 

 to the Africans, and are as much like monkeys. Why then 

 is the Negro alone to be depressed to a level with the brute ? 

 to fill up the break in Mr. White's chain between the Eu- 

 ropean and the monkey ? 



* Besides the subject of gradation from man to animals and vegetables, this 

 work includes observations on the varieties of organization in mankind, which 

 the author accounts for by the supposition of species originally distinct, al- 

 though he has omitted to fix the number and define the characters to those 

 species. 1 expect to shew hereafter that this opinion is entirely ungrounded. 

 Mr. White indulges frequently in a looseness of expression and reasoning, 

 which renders his meaning very obscure. When he compares the African to 

 the European, the statement is not very precise ; but when he brings in the 

 Asiatic, as if all the human beings in that immense region were marked with 

 one and the same character, the language conveys to us either no definite 

 sense, or one completely wrong. 



