68 KECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION. 



We have collated here the observations of various authors, 

 one of whom, the Rev. John Bachmann, remarks with evident 

 satisfaction that, if contrary to the prevailing opinion, the 

 multiplicity of human species should eventually be demon- 

 strated, which he considers very improbable, the authority of 

 the Bible would still remain unshaken, and that " the highest 

 interest of mankind would not suffer by it." We have here a 

 preparatory conciliation as a sort of prevision of ulterior scien- 

 tific developments. Very recently a fervent Catholic, a phy- 

 sician, who in his various voyages has attentively studied the 

 races of mankind, Mr. Sagot, has advanced an hypothesis 

 which we consider as quite new, and which would enable us, 

 better than by the preceding suppositions, to accommodate 

 the biblical narration with anthropological science. After 

 having demonstrated that the physical, intellectual, and moral 

 characters establish between the races of men profound dif- 

 ferences, which are indelible, and that all influences to which 

 they have been attributed are absurd and imaginary, inasmuch 

 as natural causes would never have produced such a deviation 

 from the primitive form, Mr. Sagot supposes that the division 

 in perfectly distinct races, and their methodical dispersion and 

 repartition upon the surface of the earth, was a miraculous in- 

 tervention of Providence. He is of opinion that this great 

 fact was accomplished at the period of the confusion of tongues, 

 that is, after the audacious enterprise of the Tower of Babel, 

 and that God, in dispersing the families, endowed each with 

 a peculiar organisation and aptitudes accommodated to the 

 various climates assigned to them. 1 Whether the differences 

 of human races and their geographical distribution was the 

 consequence of distinct creations, or miraculous transforma- 

 tions equivalent to new creations, comes to the same thing as 

 regards the doctrine of polygenists. Their object is not to 



letter to the Eev. John Bachniann, on Hybridity, Charleston, 1850, in 8-15. 

 Carpenter, art. " Varieties of Mankind," in Todd's Cyclopaedia of Anatomy 

 and Physiology, vol. iv, p. 1317, London, 1852. Eusebe de Salles, Histoire 

 generate des Races Humaines, p. 328, Paris, 1849. 



1 P. Sagot, Opinion generate sur I'Origine ct la Nature des Races Humaines ; 

 Conciliation des Diversities indcliblcs avecl' Unite Historique du Genre Humain, 

 Paris, 1860. 



