370 



subject lias iu the least shakea my faith in the traditional and 

 inspired narrative about Adam and Eve. 



37. Nothing perhaps ever went nearer to disturb my mind 

 on this subject than a month^s ramble amongst the Digger 

 Indians of California. Whatever may have been the experience 

 of Mr. Darwin among the Fuegiaus^ I can probably say it could 

 not have been productive of more painful imaginings than mine 

 among the Indians of California. A well-grown gorilla would 

 present less repulsive features and a more pleasing, because 

 a more consistent^ bearing. Instinct unfettered makes the 

 brute naturalj whereas reason dethroned makes the man brutal. 

 It deforms and degrades him, because it is a deviation from a 

 natural law. Human creatures of the finest form who from 

 to-day should begin to live, as those Indians do, on acorns and 

 earth-worms cooked in the roughest fashion, would not long 

 retain traces of noble mien ; and in a few generations it is not 

 too much to affirm that the race would undergo changes which, 

 from our inexperience we can hardly conceive. That the 

 Digger Indian should be a fellow- creature sprung from a com- 

 mon ancestor — a man and a brother — is certainly a humiliating 

 fact in the history of moral and physical degradation. But it 

 can furnish no argument against the unity of the human race. 

 It is the penalty of deviation from the original model, and gives 

 proof that some disturbing force has marred the great master- 

 piece of creative skill. It is a well-known fact that physical 

 degradation is intimately connected with moral degeneracy. 



38. This gradual departure from the standard of moral recti- 

 tude may go on increasing from age to age till man has lost 

 almost every vestige of his high origin. It is not necessary to 

 trace the Fuegian savage from some primordial plasm, in order 

 to account for the low type of his moral and physical nature. 

 In our own country we have specimens of the human brute to 

 my mind quite as loathsome as the lowest forms of heathenism. 

 All that I contend for is, that amid the varieties of the 

 human species, there is a unity of plan which links men 

 together in a common brotherhood, however distasteful it may 

 be for us to recognize our poor relations. One temperature 

 of blood throughout the earthy 98^ — an uniform system of cir- 

 culation — the same sets of muscles, veins, and arteries — the same 

 convolutions of the brain — the same span of life — the same 

 processes of decay, and the same sad symbol of weakness 

 and corruption presented by the mystery of death. In many 

 other respects the family likeness is easily traced, and the 

 resemblance of man to man, though isolated from each other 

 by sea and land, is only too obvious. The plan is Unity, the 

 form is Variety. 



