284 PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION. [PART II. 



between man and brute only concern us in this place, it may 

 be sufficient to have shown that essential differences do exist, 

 which influence the progressive elevation of the former, and 

 the stationary condition of the latter. 



SECTION II. 



PRIMITIVE STATE OF MAN (NATURAL STATE). 



We have examined the specific characters of humanity, and 

 traced them to their psychological basis. But though it has 

 been shown that its essential characters belong, without excep- 

 tion, to all races, it has been left undecided whether there may 

 not be special peculiarities which must be regarded as specific 

 differences between various subdivisions of mankind. 



This question has been but superficially considered by op- 

 posing parties. On one side we hear the uncivilized nations 

 of Africa, America, Australia, etc., designated by the stereo- 

 typed expression, " irreclaimable savages"; and on the other 

 hand, the unity of mankind and the origin from a single pair, 

 is deduced from the fact, that all nations possess languages of 

 a certain grammatical structure, that all possess similar notions 

 of supersensual things, and religious sentiments. There is no 

 doubt that these great psychological facts deserve the utmost 

 consideration, and are undervalued by the opponents of the 

 theory of the unity of mankind. We agree, therefore, with 

 Smyth in maintaining 1 that these psychological facts are as 

 much opposed to the assumption of specific differences, as the 

 physical phenomena which are adduced are in favour of that 

 assumption. But in all this the doubt yet remains, whether, 

 within the chief characters, there may not be permanent dif- 

 ferences which may compel us to divide mankind into various 

 species. 



To solve this question, we shall pursue the same path we have 

 hitherto followed : we shall examine the greatest differences in 



1 " The Unity of the Human Races/' p. 249, 1850. 



