Unity 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



714 



breath of life, and that herbs and minerals 

 in abundance have either poisoning proper- 

 ties or healing virtue. ARGYLL Unity of Na- 

 ture, ch. 2, p. 28. (Burt.) 



3534. UNITY OF MANKIND Like- 

 ness, Mental and Bodily, of All Human 

 Races. Now if, as some have thought, the 

 negroes, Mongolians, whites, and other races 

 were distinct species, each sprung from a 

 separate origin in its own region, then the 

 peopling of the globe might require only a 

 moderate time, the races having only to 

 spread each from its own birthplace. But 

 the opinion of modern zoologists, whose study 

 of the species and breeds of animals makes 

 them the best judges, is against this view of 

 several origins of man, for two principal 

 reasons. First, that all tribes of men, from 

 the blackest to the whitest, the most savage 

 to the most cultured, have such general like- 

 ness in the structure of their bodies and the 

 working of their minds as is easiest and best 

 accounted for by their being descended from 

 a common ancestry, however distant. Sec- 

 ond, that all the human races, notwithstand- 

 ing their form and color, appear capable of 

 freely intermarrying and forming crossed 

 races of every combination, such as the mil- 

 lions of mulattos and mestizos sprung in 

 the New World from the mixture of Euro- 

 peans, Africans, and native Americans; this 

 again points to a common ancestry of all the 

 races of man. We may accept the theory 

 of the unity of mankind as best agreeing 

 with ordinary experience and scientific re- 

 search. TYLOR Anthropology, ch. 1, p. 5. 

 (A., 1899.) 



3535. Proof that Variety 



Is Consistent with Common Origin Man's 

 Command of the Whole Habitable Globe. 

 1 may refer the reader to the writings of 

 Blumenbach, Prichard, Lawrence, and more 

 recently Latham for convincing proofs that 

 the varieties of form, color, and organization 

 of different races of men are perfectly con- 

 sistent with the generally received opinion 

 that all the individuals of the species have 

 originated from a single pair; and, while 

 they exhibit in man as many diversities of 

 a physiological nature as appear in any 

 other species, they confirm also the opinion 

 of the slight deviation from a common stand- 

 ard of which species are capable. 



The power of existing and multiplying 

 in every latitude, and in every variety of 

 situation and climate, which has enabled 

 the great human family to extend itself over 

 the habitable globe, is partly, says Law- 

 rence, the result of physical constitution, 

 and partly of the mental prerogative of 

 man. If he did not possess the most en- 

 during and flexible corporeal frame, his arts 

 would not enable him to be the inhabitant 

 of all climates, and to brave the extremes 

 of heat and cold and the other destructive 

 influences of local situation. Yet, notwith- 

 standing this flexibility of bodily frame, we 

 find no signs of indefinite departure from 



a common standard, and the intermarriages 

 of individuals of the most remote varieties 

 are not less fruitful than between those of 

 the same tribe. LYELL Principles of Geol- 

 ogy, bk. iii, ch. 36, p. 609. (A., 1854.) 



3536. The Crossing of 



Dissimilar Races. It may be strongly argued 

 . . . that not only do the bodily and 

 mental varieties of mankind blend gradually 

 into one another, but that even the most 

 dissimilar races can intermarry in all di- 

 rections, producing mixed or sub-races which, 

 when left to themselves, continue their own 

 kind. Advocates of the polygenist theory, 

 that there are several distinct races of man, 

 sprung from independent origins, have de- 

 nied that certain races, such as the English 

 and native Australians, produce fertile half- 

 breeds. But the evidence tends more and 

 more to establish crossing as possible be- 

 tween all races, which goes to prove that 

 all the varieties of mankind are zoologically 

 oi one species. TYLOR Anthropology, ch. 3, 

 p. 85. (A., 1899.) 



3537. UNITY OF NATURE [The] 

 substitution or repetition of similar and 

 almost identical forms, in regions that are 

 separated from each other by seas or wide 

 intervening tracts, is a wonderful law of 

 Nature. It prevails even in the rarest forms 

 of the floras. HUMBOLDT Views of Nature, 

 p. 317. (Bell, 1896.) 



3538. A Mental Concep- 

 tion Theory of Development the Perception 

 of a Plan. All theories of development have 

 been simply attempts to suggest the manner 

 in which or the physical process by means 

 of which this ideal continuity of type and 

 pattern has been preserved. But whilst 

 all these suggestions have been in the high- 

 est degree uncertain, some of them violently 

 absurd, the one thing which is certain is 

 the fact for which they endeavor to account. 

 And what is that fact? It is one which be- 

 longs to the world of mind, not to the world 

 of matter. When Professor Owen tells us, 

 for example, that certain jointed bones in 

 the whale's paddle are the same bones which 

 in the mole enable it to burrow, which in 

 the bat enable it to fly, and in man consti- 

 tute his hand, with all its wealth of func- 

 tions, he does not mean that physically and 

 actually they are the same bones, nor that 

 they have the same uses, nor that they ever 

 have been or ever can be transferable from 

 one kind of animal to another. He means 

 that in a purely ideal or mental conception 

 of the plan of all vertebrate skeletons these 

 bones occupy the same relative place rela- 

 tive, that is, not to origin or use, but to the 

 plan or conception of that skeleton as a 

 whole. ARGYLL Reign of Law, ch. 1, p. 19. 

 (Burt.) 



3539. Apprehended by 



Savage Recognition of One Great, Unseen 

 Power. We find even among the most sav- 

 age nations (as my own travels enable me 



