180 
REMARKS ON THE ETHNOLOGY OF 
«*d in our observation of them by a keen sense of this their deeper 
import. It is only needed that we look upon them through the 
sympathies of our common humanity, to find in them much to 
excite and interest our whole nature. As in the physical world we 
delight to discover beneath the most diversified phenomena, the same 
wonderful forces, so we may experience a high pleasure in detecting 
under new forms, and pursuing through all their varieties of manifes¬ 
tation, the same passions, tastes, and necessities, which have given to 
life its peculiar character amongst ourselves; in beholding all the in¬ 
gredients in the draught of existence mingled as in our own lot, but 
in slightly varying proportions and in a slightly different cup. For, 
after all, we agree far more than we differ. The most passive tem¬ 
perament Cannot exclude, the most active, cannot escape, the constant 
action of the common conditions of our being. In the sum of 
life these have so greatly preponderating a sway, that a reflective 
old man probably draws the same philosophy of existence from 
his experience, whether he happens to be a Hottentot or a French¬ 
man. Life is far more broadly and deeply coloured by the percep¬ 
tions of the senses, and the action of those desires and feelings which 
operate in the same way under all forms of existence, than by all the 
refinements which civilization can give. When we look upon some 
half or wholly naked people as dark in their minds as in their persons, 
to judge from the absence of all arts, we are ready to conclude that 
they are in every respect at an infinite distance from ourselves, and 
in fact are as near the orang utan as they are remote from us. 
But these people have a possession, which unfortunately casual 
observation cannot discover, but which, when known, leads to a 
totally different conclusion. They have a language, which is an 
image of our own, and is the same great record of sensation, 
thought and feeling. It is an undesigned and unimpeachable 
witness, that, with them human life in all its main ingredients,— 
those which make up the burden of its experience,—is the same 
as with us. No fact appears at first so extraordinary and con¬ 
tradictory, as that a race which displays no invention and no 
science, and wants many of the lowest arts, should have a har¬ 
monious and finely organized language of many thousands of words. 
The contradiction, however, lies in our own ignorance and pre¬ 
judice, and the fact, when considered with all that it implies, li- 
