218 VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SP£CIBS. 



every department of natural history could furnish, were 

 removed, insurmountable obstacles would still be found to 

 this hypothesis of the whole globe having received its sup- 

 ply of animals from one quarter. How could all living 

 beings have been assembled in one climate, when many, 

 as the white fox (isatis), the polar bear, the walrus, the 

 manati, can exist only in the cold of the polar regions, 

 while to others the warmth of the tropics is essential ? 

 How could all have been supplied with food in one spot, 

 since many live entirely on vegetables produced only in 

 certain districts ? How could many have passed from the 

 point of assemblage to their actual abode, over mountains, 

 through deserts, and even across the seas ? How could 

 the polar bear, to whom the ice of the frozen regions is 

 necessary, have traversed the torrid zone ? If we are to 

 believe that the original creation comprehended only a male 

 and female of each species, or that one pair only was rescued 

 from an universal deluge, the contradictions are again in- 

 creased. The carnivorous animals must have soon perished 

 witli hunger, or have annihilated most of the other species. 

 Such an assumption, in short, is at variance with all our 

 knowledge of living nature. Why should we embrace an 

 hypothesis so full of contradictions ? — to give to an allegory 

 a literal construction, and the character of revelation ^ which 

 is so much tlie less necessary here, because we do not fol- 

 low the same rule in other points. The astronomer does 

 not pourtray the heavenly motions, or lay down the laws 

 which govern them, according to the statements in the 

 Jewish Scriptures ; nor does the geologist think it neces- 

 sary to modify the results of experience according to the 

 contents of the Mosaic writings. 



1 conclude, then, that the subject is open for discussion 5 

 and, at all events, if the descent of mankind from one 

 stock can be proved independently of the Jewish books, the 

 conclusion will tend collaterally to establish the authority 

 of these ancient records. 



It may still be inquired whether history affords no data 

 for determining this great problem ; whether the earliest 



