214 EAKLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 



that is, a variety marked by some desirable peculiarity, are 

 familiar to a large class of persons. It appears only neces- 

 sary, when a variety has been thus produced, that a union 

 should take place between individuals similarly characterized, 

 and that the conditions under which it has been produced 

 should be persisted in, in order to establish it. Early in the 

 last century, a man named Lambert was born in Suffolk, 

 with semi-horny excrescences, of about half an inch long, 

 thickly growing all over his body. The peculiarity was 

 transmitted to his children, and was last heard of in a third 

 generation. The peculiarity of six fingers on the hand and 

 six toes on the feet, appears in like manner in families which 

 have no record nor tradition of such a peculiarity having 

 affected them at any former period, and it is then sometimes 

 seen to descend through several generations. It was Mr. 

 Lawrence's opinion, that a pair, in which both parties were 

 so distinguished, might be the progenitors of a new variety 

 of the race, who would be thus marked in all future time. 

 We have but obscure notions of the laws which regulate this 

 variability within specific limits ; but we see them continually 

 operating, and they are obviously favourable to the supposi- 

 tion that all the great families of men may have been of one 

 stock. 



The tendency of the modern study of the languages of 

 nations is to the same point. The last fifty years have seen 

 this study elevated to the character of a science, and the light 

 which it throws upon the history of mankind is of a most 

 remarkable nature. 



Following a natural analogy, philologists have thrown the 

 earth's languages into a kind of classification : a number 

 bearing a considerable resemblance to eq,ch other, and in 

 general geographically near, are styled a group or sub-family ; 

 several groups, again, are associated as a family, with regard 

 to more general features of resemblance. Six families are 

 spoken of. 



The Indo-European family nearly coincides in geogra- 

 phical limits with those which have been assigned to that 



