THE HUMAN SPECIES. 135 



and in both hemispheres their physical existence has 

 survived to within late ages ; provided, in considering 

 the question, we reject wild impossibilities, and adopt, 

 in their stead, the subdued impressions compatible with 

 the sobriety of nature, reducing them to an admissible 

 stature, and view them more by the brutal ferocity of 

 their manners, coupled with superior physical powers, 

 than as absolute monsters in size and energy. At a 

 period when animal development and muscular strength 

 alone gave pre-eminence, it causes no wonder that the 

 possessors of those qualities should abuse them. They 

 were the source of the first desires of conquest for do- 

 minion's sake. They caused nations of more lofty 

 structure, almost all arising among the nomad shep- 

 herds of temperate latitudes perhaps Shetae, Kheta, or 

 tribes of milk-eating Scythae, to wander southward, and 

 establish supremacies over weaker constituted people ; 

 first as conquerors, next as a privileged body, and last, 

 as families, among the subjugated populations, till in- 

 termixture, or new conquerors, partially effaced the dif- 

 ference of nationality. Thus, the myrmidons of Achilles 

 may have been identical with the Penestes of Thessaly, 

 the Helots of Sparta, the Charotes of Crete, Gymnetes 

 of Argos, and Conephores of Sicyon, which were all 

 tribes enslaved by foreign conquerors. Thus, with 



Book of Enoch, where it treats of the commerce the Egre- 

 gori, or fallen angels, had with women. The Giants beget 

 Nephilim (Scandinavian Niflem), and then Eliud (ElfenJ. 

 This is almost like the Edda, and may have been forged 

 after the first captivity, when some Jews certainly visited 

 Armenia. See Lactant. and Syncell. 



