SECT. IV.] CENTRES OP CEEATION. 197 



from which the creatures have spread over the earth,- 

 many as there are zoological and botanical provinces : and 

 there obtains the same analogy for the human race as for the 

 rest of organized beings. 



The chief idea upon which this theory rests has, before 

 Agassiz, been promulgated by Desmoulins, 1 namely, the idea 

 that various centres of creation must be assumed for the 

 animals of different parts of the world, as migrations into 

 regions where they cannot exist are out of the question. 

 Though man undoubtedly possesses a greater capacity for mi- 

 grations, still his analogy to other organic beings renders it 

 very probable that, like them, he originally proceeded from 

 various centres of creation. 



We leave it to zoologists and botanists to say whether this 

 theory of the natural limitation of these provinces can be 

 carried out as strictly as Agassiz imagines ;- whether it is not 

 rather a scheme which, like many others, does violence to the 

 facts. It is easily perceptible, that if there be no exact limits 

 of the provinces, that is to say, if with regard to some animals 

 it must be admitted that they have migrated from one part 

 into another, the analogy to man, who unquestionably pos- 

 sesses the greatest capacity of locomotion, either does not apply, 

 or at least loses much of its importance. When we learn that 

 some European reptiles are also found in the whole of Asia, 

 even in Japan, whilst all the reptiles of the New World are 

 entirely different from those of the Old World ; 2 and further, 

 that the genuine typical forms of the animal world of America 

 differ as much from those of the Old World as the Australian, 

 one might be led from analogy to infer the separate origin of the 

 European, American, and Australian man : but when it is con- 

 sidered that many birds and mammals of the Old World are 

 also found in North America, this probability as regards man 

 again disappears. We shall, however, in order to give to 

 this new theory every chance, not insist upon this, but consider 

 the question from another point of view. We shall examine 

 whether the existing principal types of mankind correspond, 



1 " Hist. nat. des races hum./' 1826. 



2 Schlegel, " Essai sur la pliysiog. des serpens," 1837. 



