to the Ethnological Society of London. 355 



of races, such changes are to a certain extent going on, it is 

 easy to conceive that changes still more remarkable might 

 have taken place when human society was in its infancy ; 

 when nations were separated by impassable seas and moun- 

 tains ; when there was nothing to interfere with the influence 

 of climate, food, and mode of life on the physical and moral 

 character ; and when repeated intermarriages among indi- 

 viduals of the same tribe were favourable to the transmission 

 of accidental peculiarities of structure to succeeding genera- 

 tions. 



There was a period when a jealousy prevailed of studies such 

 as those of the Geologist and Ethnologist, from a supposition 

 that they in some degree tended to contradict the revelations 

 of the earliest of our sacred volumes. The advancement of 

 knowledge has shewn that such jealousy was without any 

 just foundation ; and those who on such narrow grounds stand 

 aloof from the pursuits of science are now reduced to a small 

 and almost unnoticed minority. It is, however, satisfactory 

 to find that the inquiries of the Ethnologist, so far from being 

 opposed to, actually offer a strong confirmation of, the Mosaic 

 records as to the origin of mankind having been from one 

 parent stock, and not from different creations. 



" The noblest study of mankind is man." 



So says one of our greatest moralists and poets ; and if we 

 estimate them according to the rule which is here laid down, 

 it must be admitted that inquiries into the physical, intellec- 

 tual, and moral character of the various human races ought 

 to hold a high rank among the sciences which claim the at- 

 tention of the philosopher. Standing, as it were, midway be- 

 tween the physical and the moral sciences, Ethnology is not 

 less interesting to the Naturalist than to the Metaphysician; 

 and not less so to the Metaphysician than to the Philologist. 

 To trace the influence of climate, of food, of government, and 

 of a multitude of other circumstances on the corporeal sys- 

 tem, on the intellect, the instincts, and the moral sentiments, 

 is the business of the Ethnologist : nor is it less in his de- 

 partment to trace the origin and the construction of language 

 generally, and the relation of different languages to each 



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