ORDER II. BIMANA. 377 
The African tribes of this variety have, in -general, elevated themselves 
so far above the simple state of nature, as to have reduced the lower animals 
to subjection, constructed settled habitations, practised a rude agriculture, 
and manufactured some articles of clothing or ornaments. In political in- 
stitutions they have made no- advance, their governments being simple 
despotisms, without any regular organization. Their religion is merely the 
instinctive expression of the religious feeling in its lowest form of fetichism. 
Their languages are described as extremely rude and imperfect, almost des- 
titute of construction, and incapable of expressing abstractions. They have 
no art of conveying thoughts or events by writing, not even by the simplest 
symbolical characters. The Negro character, if inferior in intellectual 
vigor, is marked by a warmth of social affections, and a kindness and ten- 
derness of feeling, which even the atrocities of foreign oppression have not 
been able to stifle. All travellers concur in describing the Negro as mild, 
amiable, simple, hospitable, unsuspecting, and faithful. They are passion- 
ately fond of music, and they express their hopes and fears in extemporary 
effusions of song. The opinion formerly maintained, that they were of an 
inferior variety of animals, would not now find an advocate, or a convert, 
even in the ignorance or the worst passions of the whites. Whether they 
are capable of reaching to the same height of intellectual cultivation as the 
Europeans, is a question which we need more facts to decide. 
The foregoing form Blumenbach’s five general divisions of the Human 
Family. The varieties are so numerous that, with one or two exceptions, we 
cannot attempt a description of them here, or indeed scarcely refer to them. 
Tur HEBREWS. 
The appellation of ZZebrew, so far as we can learn from history, was first 
given to Abraham by the people of Canaan, among whom he dwelt. It 
seems to have been applied to him on account of his emigration (about 
2000 B. C.) from Mesopotamia, beyond the Euphrates, into the land of 
Canaan (Palestine). Some, however, consider it as a patronymic derived 
from Heber, great-grandson of Shem, from whom Abraham was descended. 
Whatever meaning was attached to the term //ebrews before the time of 
Jacob (Israel), it appears afterwards to have been limited to his posterity, 
and to have been synonymous with Israelites. This singular people, which 
has exercised a more permanent and extensive influence by its religion, than 
polished Greece by her taste, or triumphant Rome by her arms ; which has 
survived the last wrecks of its palaces and cities, and the annihilation of its 
