1867.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 123 



have risked all to so hazardous a chance." — Beytrage zur Anthro- 

 pologic S. 147. 



And the celebrated zoologist, Professor Louis Agassiz, has said : "We 

 maintained, that, like all other organized beings, mankind cannot have 

 originated in single individuals, but must have been created in that 

 numeric harmony which is characteristic of each species ; men must 

 have originated in nations, as the bees have originated in swarms, and 

 as the different social plants have at first covered the extensive tracts 

 over which they naturally spread." — The Diversity of origin of the 

 Human Races, p. 128. 



Our author then proceeds to quote Sir Samuel Baker's paper on 

 the races of the Nile basin. Trans. Ethnological Soc. V. p. 237. 



He gives a detailed account of the low mental and moral state of 

 the inhabitants of the district, and concludes by enquiring whether we 

 can venture to date from one common origin, and claim this degraded 

 creature as " a man and a brother." 



The question of colour next occupies our attention. Although the 

 languages of the Indian and European races may be traceable to a 

 Sanscrit source, yet one great race is black of various shades, and the 

 other white of different shades, and they differ to an equal extent in 

 their capabilities of intellectual development. To this it has been 

 boldly replied that " no physiologist will insist upon difference of colour 

 as an argument against the common origin of the European and Asiatic 

 races." In proof of this, many instances of fair and handsome families 

 of Asiatics are cited. Reference is then made to the Scriptural 

 testimony enunciated in the words, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin 

 or the leopard his spots?" In support of this view, our author men- 

 tions the facts that the descendants of the Dutch colonists in South 

 Africa are as fair as ever, while the descendants of the negroes who 

 settled 80 years ago in Nova Scotia are still the same negroes that 

 they were at first j unfortunately with all the same intellectual and 

 moral defects. 



Our author then proceeds to state it to be his opinion that 

 craniology affords a much more firm basis for ethnology than philo- 

 logy possibly can. If Europeans and Hindoos be of the same family, 

 why cannot the former migrate to and live in India ? How is it that 

 the people of India are celebrated for the smallness of their heads, 



