CLASS I. MAMMALIA: ORDER 1. BIMANA. 47 



of the investigation, and the leading trains of argument. Many of the allegations of those who 

 maintain the unity of the human race are of course contradicted by their opponents. These 

 admit that climate and situation may modify the physical as well as the moral character of races ; 

 but they insist that, inasmuch as the very organizations differ in essential points— such as tbe 

 structure of the hair and skin, the shape of the legs, the position of the pelvis, the formation of 

 the skull, the volume of the brain, &c, to say nothing of the differences in moral and mental 

 qualities, which have been permanent for thousands oi years — they cannot thus have transformed 

 one type into another. 



It has been argued for the specific unity of man, that the offspring of different species are hy- 

 brids, and incapable of continuous propagation, and hence, as the various races of men are 

 prolific with each other, they "must be of one species. To this it is replied, in the first place, that 

 some hybrids among animals are, in fact, fertile to a certain extent ; and, in the second place, it is 

 asserted that the offspring of white and negro parents are so far unprolific, that if they continue 

 to breed together, the race gradually becomes extinct. 



It is further maintained, that by no influence either of moral or physical condition can the Cau- 

 casians be converted into negroes or the negroes into Caucasians. As the leopard cannot change 

 his spots, so the Ethiopian cannot change his skin. The last was as much created with a certain 

 type— physical, moral, and intellectual — as the other ; and this, however it may be modified, can 

 never be essentially changed, unless indeed by adulterations of blood. 



"What the negroes are now," says Martin, "they were three thousand years ago. The period 

 in which the change took place eludes investigation ; nor can it be traced to the influence of 

 climate or soil. A European, exposed to the fervid rays of the inter-tropics, will indeed become 

 swarthy, tanned, and sunburnt, but not changed into a negro. The parts of his body not exposed 

 will not be affected ; his swarthiness is accidental and temporary ; and his children will be of the 

 ordinary degree of fairness. But the children of negroes, born in North America or Northern 

 Europe — their children and their children's children — are still genuine negroes. If the color and 

 form of the negro were conditions thus acquired, such conditions would not be fixed and perpet- 

 uated ; for, though like produces like — though the race-horse, breeding with the race-horse, pro- 

 duces a race-horse, or the bull-dog, with its like, produces a bull-dog — still, the mere influence of 

 climate, effecting, as it would seem, only superficial and trausitory impressions, does not establish 

 them upon the organization. No people, within the records of history, have been changed into a 

 race of negroes. 



"While, however, the negro retains his fixed and distinguishing characters, he is not only sur- 

 rounded by the descendants of the European colonists, retaining theirs, but by African tribes, not 

 negroes, differing in tint of skin, physiognomy, hair, and general contour. The Abyssinians, 

 within ten degrees of the equator, and surrounded by negroes, have a dark olive-color, large, 

 expressive eyes, and long hair. The Gallas, of the same latitudes, a nation of considerable 

 extent, have also a brown skin and long hair. The natives of Timbuctoo are not negroes. In 

 Madagascar, two or three distinct races exist — a true negro race,. and au olive-colored, or yellowish- 

 brown race, with crisp hair, termed by Lesson Madecasses, apparently of the Papuan stock ; and 

 besides these, what appears to be an aboriginal race, inhabiting the interior, with dark skins and 

 lank hair, called Yirzimbers, a branch of the great Aifouro nation, which is spread over the Moluc- 

 cas, New Guinea, and which also inhabits the interior of the islands of the Indian Archipelago. That 

 the negroes, then, do not owe their peculiarities to the mere effects of the heat of the torrid zone, 

 need not be insisted on. The question then arises, whether their origin is to be attributed to that 

 tendency to variation of form which obtains, more or less, throughout the animal kingdom, result- 

 ing from circumstances which elude our scrutiny, or whether they are aboriginal, and in this sense 

 ^ a distinct race ? Could we pierce the darkness of antiquity, the obscure of -by-gone time — could 

 we work out a history of our species, commencing with man's first existence on the globe, we 

 might solve a question on which many are divided, and to which each party brings plausible ar- 

 guments. As it is, we must on many points remain in conjecture, or with only analogy to guide 

 us. One thing is clear, that no external or physical causes with which physiologists are acquainted 

 can change a nation of the Celtic or the Teutonic race into the negro, the Papuan, or Aifouro. 



