VI ADVERTISEMENT. 



paragraph respecting my predecessors, whose details I did 

 not think it my mission to repeat, particularly as theconfi 

 space allowed me was not even sufficient to fully explain the 



statements I had to make and comment upon. This fact is 

 abundantly exemplified in the short abstracts I have 

 compelled to give of the European Caucasians] whose inter- 

 mixtures, by well known migrations from the north b 

 south, might have been given, with details full of interest ; 

 particularly as, by the means of the Gothic invasions, all the 

 new elements were brought into existence, which. • 

 leavened by Christianity and the antique schools of civiliza- 

 tion, brought forth the present pr ; development. 

 Experiment, fact, and inductive fact, are the basis of knowl- 

 edge, and stand in perpetual contradistinction to the author- 

 ity and dicta of antiquity, usually without foundations. In 

 the work before us. it is true that much rests necessarily 

 upon induction ; but when we have antecedents and succe- 

 dents, the intermediate cannot be said to be conjecture: it is 

 an approximation to positive fact, from actual necessity. 

 This is the line of arguing which I would take up if a pref- 

 ace be necessary." 



