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1st chapter of Genesis, or properly go into any of the various arguments of a 
different kind which might on another occasion have been adduced as regards 
the probable diversity of the human race in its origin. I hold in my hand a 
paper read by Sir J. Lubbock, in the Ethnological Society, on the 26th of 
November last, which has also been put forward by him in a lecture 
delivered at University College, London, on the savage origin of mankind. 
Now Sir J. Lubbock is a Darwinian, and yet he is quite aware that there 
exists that great diversity in mankind to which Professor Macdonald has 
alluded, and of which Mr. Titcomb is so well aware that he has written a 
paper to show that there has been probably a common origin of mankind 
instead of its having sprung from different centres of creation. In that paper 
Sir J. Lubbock refers to some customs which I will very briefly glance at for 
the purpose of proving or at least confirming Mr. Titcomb’s argument, not- 
withstanding that Sir J. Lubbock holds the opposite doctrine, and adduces 
those customs in proof of his own views. He considers that mankind rose 
from a savage condition, and not from a common civilized ancestor, such as 
we believe the first man created by God to have been. In reference to the 
peculiarity of kinship which has been noticed this evening, he says, — 
“We recognize kinship running through a family line, and the traces 
which exist, running through the Australians, the Fijians, the South Sea 
Islanders, and the Cossack hordes, &c., may unquestionably dispose the 
mind to believe that mankind sprung from one common origin, and were 
afterwards dispersed all over the world.” 
Now that is a very fair admission to be made by Sir J. Lubbock, who takes 
the opposite view ; and he goes on to say that there is some additional reason 
for this supposition in the universality of the custom which has been found 
to exist in so many nations of a man’s heirs not being his own children, but 
those of his sister ; the mode in which the inheritance goes constituting the 
family line. There is another custom to which he refers which was brought 
prominently forward by the late eminent Judge Haliburton, the well-known 
author of “ Sam Slick,” in a paper which he read before the Institute of 
Natural Science, in Nova Scotia ; and it is curious that the learned judge 
rested almost the whole of his argument on one particular custom which is 
common to almost all nations, but to which the author of the present paper has 
not alluded ; so that I think it will be useful now to refer to it. The title of 
Judge Haliburton’s paper is, “ The Unity of the Human Eace proved by the 
Universality of Certain Superstitions Connected with Sneezing.” As you are 
quite aware, no doubt, it is the custom in many countries to say when a 
person sneezes, “ God bless you,” or to use some other equivalent expression. 
That is a custom which Sir J. Lubbock admits to be at first sight both odd 
and arbitrary, but, so far from being confined to one nation, it has been found 
to extend over a great part of the world, and has even been found to exist in 
Otaheite. Sir J. Lubbock, however, contends that the custom is not arbi- 
trary, because Judge Haliburton admits that to sneeze is considered an 
omen of impending evil. Now I consider that is a very arbitrary interpreta- 
