THE ETH 31 01.00 Y OP THE INDIAN ARCHIFET.AClO, 



17 



single pair or many distinct families speaking one language, or 

 there were numerous stocks with as many languages, the action of 

 the physical character of the surface of the gloW would, in the 

 course of time, hare predominate] and moulded the ethnology in 

 conformity with itself, unless we draw again on imagination and 

 suppose the counteracting influences of arts and civilisations to 

 . have been inspired, or developed with supernatural rapidity. 



The observation of the existing operation of terrestrial phytic* on 

 races, is not confined in its results to a knowledge of genera! laws. 

 Geology has demonstrated that the present aspect of the globe's 

 surface is essentially the seme as u at which it must have had for 

 many thousands of years, and from a period antecedent to the 

 existence of man. We are thus enabled to carry back the great 

 causes of the actual distribution and diversities of mankind, to the 

 remotest period to which any ethnic evidence can possibly conduct 

 us. Whatever influences of this kind we can now olwerve in any 

 region, the same operated on its human inhabitants in all past time?. 

 Wc can pronounce positively what the effects of a particular country 

 and climate would be on an uncivilised tribe long inhabiting it at 

 any epoch of the past.* 



The basis of all our enquiries is thug an ethnic geography, which, 

 while it has hardly any appreciable changes from natural causes, 

 is capable of the utmost variation from human ones. The separate 

 ethnic districts of one epo^h and civilisation become united or still 

 further subdivided in another. The old districts may retain all 

 their primitive character in one part of a region, while they are 

 obliterated by civilisation in other parts. The relation between 

 man and the repion in which he is placed, which determines the 

 extent of particular ethnic scats or locations and their mutual 

 influences, varies with his development Every art, every intellectual 

 impetus, alters it. The acquisition of fire, a spear, a knife, or a 

 canoe changes the position and distribution of the race, and 

 enlarges the bounds of its separate locations. Whatever adds to 

 the power of man over nature diminishes that of nature to confine 

 him. Every discovery in the archaic eraf whether of mechanical 

 appliances, the power of domesticating and using animals, or of 

 cultivating grain, must have produced a revolution in the. relation 

 of the triDes to the region and to each other. Amidst the great 

 differences thus exiatinL; contemporaneously from inequality of 

 civilisation, or caused by the lapse of time/it is necessary to have 

 some unit as the base of our scale of ethnic seats. This can only 

 be that of the lowest condition in which a tribe has been found 

 living in a state of freedom. In this man is still nomadic and no 



• TV chaii|jea In cllmala effected by the human rore itsrtf are to be taken Into 

 account 



t This era tonrhes the present In many district*. CMUaation mar lift it, anH 

 d^r-nrratlon lowr It again, hi different periods of the progrfsskni of the tame 



