370 
subject has in the least shaken 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 Euegians, 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 natural, 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 Euegian 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 earth, 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. 
