NATURAL HISTORY. 9 



and place their highest happiness in the chance possession of 

 a whale, which will furnish them with food, clothing, and 

 light through their long winter. 



All these races, although they differ-in habits and external 

 appearance, are but varieties of one species. There is not so 

 marked a distinction between the European and Negro, as 

 between the light and active racer, and the heavy brewer's 

 horse ; yet no one attempts to deny that these are one species. 

 The varieties in man are permanent ; that is, the child of 

 Negro parents will be a Negro, and the child of Malay parents 

 will be a Malay, but that is no proof of a distinct species, as 

 precisely the same argument may be used with regard to the 

 horse. The mind is the important part of man, not the 

 body ; and though the outward bodies of men differ, the 

 mind is the same in all, and in all capable of improvement 

 arid cultivation. 



It were an easy task to prove the unity of mankind by 

 Scriptural proofs, but I have thought it better to use rational 

 arguments, as so-called reason was the weapon used to dis- 

 prove the facts which the Scriptures asserted. Sufficient, I 

 trust, has been said to show that man " has dominion over 

 the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over 

 every living thing that moveth upon the earth ;" and also 

 that the whole of mankind forms one great family, precisely 

 according to the Scriptural assertion, that Eve was "the 

 mother of all living." 



The migration of the human race, or their progress frcm 

 one part of the world to another, is a question of considerable 

 difficulty. Many parts of the earth, such as islands, could 

 not be reached without some artificial means to enable men 

 to cross the water. This implies some degree of civilization, 

 as boats or rafts are the result of much thought and some 

 skill. The question is. yet to be answered. Pickering has 

 published a map containing the probable route of mankind 

 through the earth. He appears to think that the oft mooted 

 problem of the population of America is not very difficult of 

 solution, as the Aleutian Isles form a chain of spots easily 

 traversed by the skin-covered canoes which are still in use 

 among those islands.* 



* Pickering's Races of Man. Hall's Edition, p. 296. 



