330 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



alone, where arms have ever failed, brings it back to the ea^t 

 by the progress of religious truth, of science, and of the reason- 

 ing of common sense ; thus amply repaying Asia for the innu- 

 merable rudiments of practical and imaginative life we have 

 owed her for so many ages. 



Having disposed of the Finnic Stem, and shown, in the mix- 

 ture of the Hyperborean with the Caucasian stocks, the direct 

 consequence of soon obliterating the external appearance of 

 hybridism, and perhaps, with somewhat less procreative fertil- 

 ity, tending to elevate individuals and whole clans to giant 

 forms, we should now proceed with the true Caucasian or 

 bearded type, if it were not that, at the commencement of the 

 division of the primaeval stocks, we had noticed, on the south 

 of the Caucasian, that there was similarly an intermediate stem 

 formed of the woolly-haired or Negro type, in various states of 

 commixture with the bearded, where the tokens of degradation, 

 or of inferiority, passed away with even greater rapidity, but 

 less durable results; and though the stature remained the 

 same, the marked difference of color proved the descent from 

 hybrids, who, like the true Negro type, possess the perceptive 

 and imaginative faculties in greater proportion than the more 

 enduring reflective powers ; whence the incapacity to advance 

 beyond a certain limit in reasoning, civilization and empire, 

 seems to follow. 



Taking, therefore this stem, with a view to have in the 

 sequel only the pure Caucasians to examine, we place here 



THE ETHIOPIAN OR MELANIC STEM, 



such as it was marked out by the earliest writers of antiquity. 

 Under this denomination, it is desirable to arrange the 

 races sprung from a real or an apparent interunion between 

 the woolly-haired and the bearded types, distinguished by black, 

 curly, undulating, or lank hair ; a sufficient beard, with the feat- 

 ures of a Caucasian form, partially and often supereminently 



