MAN. 
Stances. Man receives therefore from his 
Creator the powerrof invention and reason, 
which supply his wants. Hence, in the 
most ancient times, and by the wisest na- 
tions, the genius of invention has been ho- 
noured with divine worship ; it forms the 
Thoth of the Egyptians, the Hermes of the 
Greeks. Thus, to give a few instances : 
man has made tools for assisting his labour ; 
and hence Franklin sagaciously defined 
man as a “ tool-making anim.al he has 
formed arms and weapons; he has devised 
various means of procuring fire ; and lastly, 
for the purpose of communicating with his 
fellows, he has invented speech. This is to 
be accounted a most important character- • 
istic of man; since it is not born with him, 
like the voices of animals, but has been 
framed and brought into use by himself, as 
the arbitrary variety of diflFerent languages 
incontestibly proves. 
There is some doubt with respect to 
laughing and weeping; which belong rather 
to the passions than to reason. It is well 
known, that many animals besides man se- 
crete tears. But the question is, do they 
weep from grief? The fact has been assert- 
ed by some great men ; as by Steller, of 
the seal ; and Pallas, of the camel. But it 
is very doubtful, whether they ever mani- 
fest cheerfulness by laughing. 
There are numerous diseases peculiar to 
the human subject, which it might be consi- 
dered wrong to speak of in remarks on the 
natural history of man ; yet these unnatural 
phenomena undoubtedly deserve a place in 
the discussion, since they arise out of the 
natural habits of the body. The subject is 
obscure ; since the nosology of brutes is ex- 
posed, by its very nature, to the most se- 
rious and almost insuperable difficulties. 
The following may however be considered, 
with all probability, as diseases peculiar to 
man : small pox, measles, scarlatina, pete- 
chias, plague, hemorrhoids, menorrhagia, hy- 
pochondriasis, hysteria, the various affec- 
tions of the mind, scrofula?, lues venerea, 
pellagra, lepra, amenorrhsea, cancer ?, her- 
nia congenita?, tinea capitis. These, though 
by no means all, are the chief points of dif- 
ference between man and other animals : 
they have been enumerated, we can hardly 
say considered, in a very cursory manner; 
otherwise they would have afforded matter 
for a lengthened disquisition. The pecu- 
liarities appear abundantly .sufficient to 
characterise man as a distinct genus ; and 
consequently to overturn the wild chimeras 
of those visionary speculators, who regard 
him, in some of his races and modifications 
only as an improved orang-outang. 
Our next point is the consideration of the. 
varieties of the human species and their 
causes. This disquisition will perhaps ap- 
pear superfluous to the devout believer, 
v/hose philosophy on this point will be de- 
rived from the writings composed with the 
assistance of divine inspiration, and there- 
fore commanding our implicit assent. The 
account of the creation of the human race, 
and of its di.spersion over the face of the 
globe, contained in the book of Genesis, 
will supersede in his mind the necessity of 
having reconrse to any argument on the 
subject. We shall venture to submit that 
the Mosaic account does not make it quite 
clear that the inhabitants of all the world 
descended from Adam and Eve : we are 
told indeed, that “ Adam called his wife’s 
name Eve, because she was the mother of 
all living.” But in the first chapter of Ge- 
nesis we learn, that God created man, male 
and female ; and tliis seems to have been 
previously to the formation of Eve, which 
did not take place until after the garden of 
Eden had been made. Again, we are in- 
formed in the fifth chapter of Genesis, that 
“ in the day that God created man, in the 
likeness of God made he him; male and fe- 
male created he them ; and blessed them, 
and called their name Adam, in the day 
w'hen they were created,” tfe find also 
that Cain, after slaying his brother, was 
married, although it does not appear that 
Eve had produced any daughters before 
this time. It appears therefore that the 
field is open for discussion on this subject ; 
and at all events, if the descent of mankind 
from one stock can be proved independently 
of the holy writings, the conclusion will 
establish the authority of these inspired 
annals, 
If we fail in tracing the succession of the 
human race from above downwards, much 
less are we able to trace back any particu- 
lar tribe to their first origin from the pre- 
sent stock. To use the words of an elegant 
modern historian ; “ neither the annals 
noE traditions of nations reach back to 
those remote ages, in which the different 
descendents of the first pair took possession 
of the different countries where they are 
now settled. We cannot trace the branches 
of this first family, nor point out with cer- 
tainty the time and manner in which they 
divided and spread over the face of the 
globe. Even among the most enlightened 
people the period of authentic history is ex- 
