CHAPTER III. 



It is conceded that, at the period of the first European occupation, all parts of 

 North and South America were peopled ; and Dr. Morton, in his elaborate " In- 

 quiry into the Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of America," 1 says, 

 " That the study of physical conformation alone, excludes every branch of the 

 Caucasian race from any obvious participation in the peopling of this continent." 

 * * * * "Our conclusion," he continues, "long ago deduced from a 

 patient examination of the facts thus briefly and inadequately stated, is that the 

 American race is essentially separate and peculiar, whether we regard it in its 

 physical, its moral, or its intellectual relations. * * * * j maintain that the 

 organic characters of the people themselves, through all the endless ramifications 

 of tribes or nations, prove them to belong to one and the same race, and that this 

 race is distinct from all others," 



Without stopping to discuss Dr. Morton's opinion, let us now consider the general 

 characteristics of the remains still visible on this continent, and especially of the 

 architectural antiquities of Mexico. 



"Architecture is one of those massive records, either of intelligence or absurdity, 

 which require too much labor in order to perpetuate a falsehood. It shows what 

 the men could do, be it good or bad, elegant or hideous, civilized or barbaric. 

 The men who built the edifices of Uxmal, Palenque, Copan, and Chichen-Itza, 

 were far removed from the condition of nomadic tribes. Taste and luxury had 

 long been grafted on the mere wants of the natives. They had learned to build, 

 not only for protection against weather, but for permanent residences whose 

 internal arrangements afforded comfort, and whose external embellishment might 

 gratify public taste. Order, symmetry, elegance, beauty of ornament, gracefulness 

 of symbolic imagery, had all combined for the manifestations which are always 

 beheld among people who are not only anxious to gratify others as well as them- 

 selves, but to vie with each other in the exhibition of individual tastes. Here, 

 however, as in Egypt, the remains are chiefly of temples, palaces, and tombs. The 

 worship of God, the safety of the body after death, and obedience to authority, are 

 demonstrated by the temple, tomb, and rock-built palace. The masses who felt or 

 imagined they had no constant abiding place on earth, and that posterity had little 

 interest in them as individuals, did not, in all likelihood, build those numerous and 

 comfortable dwellings, under whose influence modern civilization has so far sur- 

 passed the barren humanism of the valley of the Nile." 2 



1 Pp. 35, 36, 2d edition, Philadelphia, 1844. 



3 Mexico ; Aztec, Spanish, and Republican, Vol. I. 



