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closed his eyes to all extrinsic evidence and abstracted his 
mind from all considerations not derived from the matters of 
fact which are immediately on the question, he affirms : “ The 
differences of men are not distinguished from each other by 
strongly marked uniform and permanent distinctions, as are 
the several species belonging to any given tribes of animals. All 
the diversities which exist are variable, and pass into each 
other by insensible gradations, and there is, moreover, scarcely 
an instance in which the actual transition cannot be proved to 
have taken place.” And again: We contemplate among all 
the diversified tribes who are endowed with reason and speech 
the same internal feelings, appetences, aversions ; the same in- 
ward convictions, the same sentiments of subjection to invisi- 
ble powers, and more or less fully developed accountableness 
or responsibility to unseen avengers of wrong and agents of 
retributive justice, from whose tribunal men cannot even by 
death escape. We find everywhere the same susceptibility of 
admitting the cultivation of these universal endowments, of 
opening the eyes of the mind to the more clear and luminous 
views which Christianity unfolds, of becoming moulded to 
the institutions of religion and of civilised life ; in a word, 
the same inward and mental nature is to be recognised in all 
the races of men. When we compare this fact with the 
observations which have been heretofore fully established as 
to the specific instincts and separate physical endowments of 
all the distinct tribes of sentient beings in the universe, we 
are entitled to draw confidently the conclusion that all human 
races are of one species and one family.” 
I do not think it necessary to continue these evidences in 
support of the Scriptural statement ; but, were it needful, I 
might appeal to those who have studied deeply the traditions, 
the calendars, the mental and moral affinities of the different 
races which have peopled, and do now people, the world, and 
from each and all the verdict will be in favour of the common 
origin of man. Were our meeting one for dialectical sport, and 
not for reverent inquiry as to “ What saith the Word of Truth ?” 
it would afford amusement to bring forth the representatives 
of certain scientific theories, and then, amid the din and 
dust of the arena, to look down from the unshaken vantage- 
ground whilst they buffeted and vanquished each other. 
In this way we might appeal to Lyell in favour of the 
common origin from a single pair , — “ a doctrine,” he says, 
“ against which there appears to me to be no sound objec- 
tion ” ; or to Darwin himself ; for not only may we gather the 
probability from his works, wherein he demonstrates that 
there may be produced within the limits of one admitted 
