It is now high time to advert to the system formed by the animated tribes, both with a view to the possible illustration of the preceding argument, and for the light which it throws upon that general system of nature which it is the more comprehensive object of this book to ascertain.

The vegetable and animal kingdoms are arranged upon a scale, starting from simply organized forms, and going on to the more complex, each of these forms being but slightly different from those next to it on both sides. The lowest and most slightly developed forms in the two kingdoms are so closely connected, that it is impossible to say where vegetable ends and animal begins. United at what may be called their bases, they start away in different directions, but not altogether to lose sight of each other. On the contrary, they maintain a strict analogy throughout the whole of their subsequent courses, sub-kingdom for sub-kingdom, class for class; shewing a beautiful, though as yet obscure relation between the two grand forms of being, and consequently a unity in the laws which brought them both into existence. So complete does this analogy appear, even in the present imperfect state of science, that I fully expect in a few years to see the animal and vegetable kingdoms duly ranked up against each other in a system of parallels, which will admit of our assigning to each species in the former the particular shrub or tree corresponding to it in the latter, all marked by unmistakable analogies of the most interesting kind.

It is as yet but a few years since a system of subordinate analogies not less remarkable began to be speculated upon as within the range of the animal kingdom. Probably it also exists in the vegetable kingdom; but to this point no direct attention has been given; so we are left to infer that such is the case from theoretical considerations only. We are indebted for what we know of these beautiful analogies to three naturalists—Macleay, Vigors, and Swainson, whose labours tempt us to dismiss in a great measure the artificial classifications hitherto used, and make an entirely new conspectus of the animal kingdom, not to speak of the corresponding reform which will be required in our systems of botany also.

The Macleay system, as it may be called in honour of its principal author, announces that, whether we take the whole animal kingdom, or any definite division of it, we shall find that we are examining a group of beings which is capable of being arranged along a series of close affinities, IN A CIRCULAR FORM,—that is to say, starting from any one portion of the group, when it is properly arranged, we can proceed from one to another by minute gradations, till at length, having run through the whole, we return to the point whence we set out. All natural groups of animals are, therefore, in the language of Mr. Macleay, CIRCULAR; and the possibility of throwing any supposed group into a circular arrangement is held as a decisive test of its being a real or natural one. It is of course to be understood that each circle is composed of a set of inferior circles: for example, a set of TRIBE circles composes an ORDER; a set of ORDER circles, again, forms a CLASS; and so on. Of each group, the component circles are INVARIABLY FIVE IN NUMBER: thus, in the animal kingdom, there are five sub-kingdoms,—the vertebrata, annulosa, {239a} radiata, acrita, {239b} mollusca. Take, again, one of these sub-kingdoms, the vertebrata, and we find it composed of five classes,—the mammalia, reptilia, pisces, amphibia, and aves, each of the other sub-kingdoms being similarly divisible. Take the mammalia, and it is in like manner found to be composed of five orders,—the cheirotheria, {239c} ferae, cetacea, glires, ungulata. Even in this numerical uniformity, which goes down to the lowest ramifications of the system, there would be something very remarkable, as arguing a definite and preconceived arrangement; but this is only the least curious part of the Macleay theory.

We shall best understand the wonderfully complex system of analogies developed by that theory, if we start from the part of the kingdom in which they were first traced,—namely, the class aves, or birds. This gives for its five orders,—incessores, (perching birds,) raptores, (birds of prey,) natatores, (swimming birds,) grallatores, (waders,) rasores, (scrapers.) In these orders our naturalists discerned distinct organic characters, of different degrees of perfectness, the first being the most perfect with regard to the general character of the class, and therefore the best representative of that class; whence it was called the TYPICAL order. The second was found to be inferior, or rather to have a less perfect balance of qualities; hence it was designated the SUB-TYPICAL. In this are comprehended the chief noxious and destructive animals of the circle to which it belongs. The other three groups were called aberrant, as exhibiting a much wider departure from the typical standard, although the last of the three is observed to make a certain recovery, and join on to the typical group, so as to complete the circle. The first of the aberrant groups (natatores) is remarkable for making the water the theatre of its existence, and the birds composing it are in general of comparatively large bulk. The second (grallatores) are long-limbed and long-billed, that they may wade and pick up their subsistence in the shallows and marshes in which they chiefly live. The third (rasores) are distinguished by strong feet, for walking or running on the ground, and for scraping in it for their food; also by wings designed to scarcely raise them off the earth and, farther, by a general domesticity of character and usefulness to man.

Now the most remarkable circumstance is, that these organic characters, habits, and moral properties, were found to be traceable more or less distinctly in the corresponding portions of every other group, even of those belonging to distant subdivisions of the animal kingdom, as, for instance, the insects. The incessores (typical order of aves) being reduced to its constituent circles or tribes, it was found that these strictly represented the five orders. In the conirostres are the perfections which belong to the incessores as an order, with the conspicuous external feature of a comparatively small notch in their bills; in the dentirostres, the notch is strong and toothlike, (hence the name of the tribe) assimilating them to the raptores; the fissirostres come into analogy with the natatores in the slight development of their feet and their great powers of flight; the tenuirostres have the small mouths and long soft bills of the grallatores. Finally, the scansores resemble the rasores in their superior intelligence and docility, and in their having strong limbs and a bill entire at the tip. This parity of qualities becomes clearer when placed in a tabular form:-

Orders of Birds. Characters. Tribes of Incessores.

Incessores —Most perfect of their circle; Conirostres. notch of bill small Raptores —Notch of bill like a tooth Dentirostres. Natatores —Slightly developed feet; Fissirostres. strong flight Grallatores—Small mouths; long soft bills Tenuirostres. Rasores —Strong feet, short wings; Scansores. docile and domestic

Some comprehensive terms are much wanted to describe these five characters, so curiously repeated throughout the whole of the animal, and probably also the vegetable kingdom. Meanwhile, Mr. Swainson calls them typical, sub-typical, natatorial, suctorial, {242} and rasorial. Some of his illustrations of the principle are exceedingly interesting. He shews that the leading animal of a typical circle usually has a combination of properties concentrated in itself, without any of these preponderating remarkably over others. The sub- typical circles, he says, "do not comprise the largest individuals in bulk, but always those which are the most powerfully armed, either for inflicting injury on their own class, for exciting terror, producing injury, or creating annoyance to man. Their dispositions are often sanguinary, since the forms most conspicuous among them live by rapine, and subsist on the blood of other animals. They are, in short, symbolically types of EVIL." This symbolical character is most conspicuous about the centre of the series of gradations:-

Kingdom . . . Annulosa. Sub-kingdom . . . Reptilia. Class (Mammalia) . . . Ferae. (Aves) . . . Raptores.

In the annulosa it is not distinct, although we must also remember that insects do produce enormous ravages and annoyance in many parts of the earth. In the reptilia it is more distinct, since to this class belong the ophidia, (serpents,) an order peculiarly noxious. It comes to a kind of climax in the ferae and raptores, which fulfil the function of butchers among land animals. As we descend through tribes, families, genera, species, it becomes fainter and fainter, but never altogether vanishes. In the dentirostres, for instance, we have in a subdued form the hooked bill and predaceous character of the raptores; to this tribe belongs the family of the shrikes, so deadly to all the lesser field birds. In the genus bos, we have, in the sub-typical group, the bison, "wild, revengeful, and shewing an innate detestation of man." In equus, we have, in the same situation, the zebra, which actually shews the stripes of the tiger, and is as remarkable for its wildness as its congeners, the horse and ass, are for their docility and usefulness. To quote again from Mr. Swainson, "the singular threatening aspect which the caterpillars of the sphinx moth assume on being disturbed, is a remarkable modification of the terrific or evil nature which is impressed in one form or another, palpable or remote, upon all sub-typical groups; for this division of the lepidopterous order is precisely of this denomination. In the pre-eminent type of this order of insects, the butterflies, (papilionides,) our associations little prepare us for expecting any trace of the evil principle; but here, too, there is a sub-typical division. These," says our naturalist, "are distinguished by their caterpillars being armed with formidable spines or prickles, which in general are possessed of some highly acrimonious or poisonous quality, capable of injuring those who touch them. It is only," continues Mr. Swainson, "when extensive researches bring to light a uniformity of results, that we can venture to believe they are so universal as to deserve being ranked as primary laws. Thus, when a celebrated entomologist denounced as impure the black and lurid beetles forming the saprophagous petalocera of Mr. Macleay, a tribe living only upon putrid vegetable matter, and hiding themselves in their disgusting food, or in dark hollows of the earth, neither of these celebrated men suspected the absolute fact, elicited from our analogies of this group, that this very tribe constituted the sub-typical group of one of the primary divisions of coleopterous insects: nor had they any suspicion that, by the filthy habits and repulsive forms of these beetles, nature had intended that they should be types or emblems of hundreds of other groups, distinguished by peculiarities equally indicative of evil. On the other hand, the thalerophagous petalocera, forming the typical group of the same division, present us with all the perfections and habits belonging to their kind. These families of beetles live only upon fresh vegetables; they are diurnal, and sport in the glare of day, pure in their food, elegant in their shapes, and beautiful in their colours." {246}

The third type, (first of the three aberrant,) called by Mr. Swainson, the natatorial, or aquatic, are chiefly remarkable for their bulk, the disproportionate size of the head, and the absence, or slight development of the feet. They partake of the predaceous and destructive character of the adjoining sub-typical group, and the means of their predacity are generally found in the mouth alone. In the primary division of the animal kingdom, we find the type in the radiata, not one of which lives out of water. In the vertebrata, it is in the fishes. In both of these, feet are totally wanting. Descending to the class mammalia, we have this type in the cetacea, which present a comparatively slight development of limbs. In the aves, as we have seen, the type is presented in the natatores, whose name has been adopted as an appropriate term for all the corresponding groups. An enumeration of some other examples of the natatorial type, as the cephalopoda (instanced in the cuttle-fish) in the mollusca; the crustacea (crabs, &c.) in the annulosa; the owls (which often duck for fish) in the raptores; the ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, &c., among reptilia, will serve to bring the general character, and its pervasion of the whole animal world, forcibly before the mind of the reader.

The next type is that of meanest and most imperfect organization, the lower termination of all groups, as the typical is the upper. It is called by Mr. Swainson the suctorial, from a very generally prevalent peculiarity, that of drawing sustenance by suction. The acrita, or polypes, among the sub-kingdoms; the intestina, among the annulosa; the tortoises, among the reptilia; the armadillo and scaly ant-eater, pig, mouse, jerboa, and kangaroo, among quadrupeds; the waders and tenuirostres, among birds; the coleoptera, (bug, louse, flea, &c.) among insects; the gastrobranchus, among fishes; are examples which will illustrate the special characters of this type. These are smallness, particularly in the head and mouth, feebleness, and want of offensive protection, defect of organs of mastication, considerable powers of swift movement, and (often) a parasitic mode of living; while of negative qualities, there are, besides, indisposition to domestication, and an unsuitableness to serve as human food.

The rasorial type comprehends most of the animals which become domesticated and useful to man, as, first, the fowls which give a name to the type, the ungulata, and more particularly the ruminantia, among quadrupeds, and the dog among the ferae. Gentleness, familiarity with man, and a peculiar approach to human intelligence, are the leading mental characteristics of animals of this type. Amongst external characters, we generally find power of limbs and feet for locomotion on land, (to which the rasorial type is confined,) abundant tail and ornaments for the head, whether in the form of tufts, crests, horns, or bony excrescences. In the animal kingdom, the mollusca are the rasorial type, which, however, only shews itself there in their soft and sluggish character, and their being very generally edible. In the ptilota, or winged insects, the hymenopterous are the rasorial type, and it is not therefore surprising to find amongst them the ants and bees, "the most social, intelligent, and in the latter case, most useful to man, of all the annulose animals."

As yet the speculations on representation are imperfect, in consequence of the novelty of the doctrine, and the defective state of our knowledge of animated nature. It has, however, been so fully proved in the aves, and traced so clearly in other parts of the animal kingdom, and as a general feature of that part of nature, that hardly a doubt can exist of its being universally applicable. Even in the lowly forms of the acrita, (polypes,) the suctorial type of the animal kingdom, representation has been discerned, and with some remarkable results as to the history of our world. The acrita were the first forms of animal life upon earth, the starting point of that great branch of organization. Now, this sub-kingdom consists, like the rest, of five groups, (classes,) and these are respectively representations of the acrita itself, and the other four sub- kingdoms, which had not come into existence when the acrita were formed. The polypi vaginati, in the crustaceous covering of the living mass, and their more or less articulated structure, represent the annulosa. In the radiated forms of the rotifera, and the simple structure of the polypi rudes, we are reminded of the radiata. The mollusca are typified in the soft, mucous, sluggish intestina. And, finally, in the fleshy living mass which surrounds the bony and hollow axis of the polypi natantes, we have a sketch of the vertebrata. The acrita thus appear as a prophecy of the higher events of animal development. They shew that the nobler orders of being, including man himself, were contemplated from the first, and came into existence by virtue of a law, the operation of which had commenced ages before their forms were realized.

The system of representation is therefore to be regarded as A POWERFUL ADDITIONAL PROOF OF THE HYPOTHESIS OF ORGANIC PROGRESS BY VIRTUE OF LAW. It establishes the unity of animated nature and the definite character of its entire constitution. It enables us to see how, under the flowing robes of nature, where all looks arbitrary and accidental, there is an artificiality of the most rigid kind. The natural, we now perceive, sinks into and merges in a Higher Artificial. To adopt a comparison more apt than dignified, we may be said to be placed here as insects are in a garden of the old style. Our first unassisted view is limited, and we perceive only the irregularities of the minute surface, and single shrubs which appear arbitrarily scattered. But our view at length extending and becoming more comprehensive, we begin to see parterres balancing each other, trees, statues, and arbours placed symmetrically, and that the whole is an assemblage of parts mutually reflective. It can scarcely be necessary to point to the inference hence arising with regard to the origination of nature in some Power, of which man's mind is a faint and humble representation. The insects of the garden, supposing them to be invested with reasoning power, and aware how artificial are their own works, might of course very reasonably conclude that, being in its totality an artificial object, the garden was the work of some maker or artificer. And so also must we conclude, when we attain a knowledge of the artificiality which is at the basis of nature, that nature is wholly the production of a Being resembling, but infinitely greater than ourselves.

Organic beings are, then, bound together in development, and in a system of both affinities and analogies. Now, it will be asked, does this agree with what we know of the geographical distribution of organic beings, and of the history of organic progress as delineated by geology? Let us first advert to the geographical question.

Plants, as is well known, require various kinds of soil, forms of geographical surface, climate, and other conditions, for their existence. And it is everywhere found that, however isolated a particular spot may be with regard to these conditions,—as a mountain top in a torrid country, the marsh round a salt spring far inland, or an island placed far apart in the ocean,—appropriate plants have there taken up their abode. But the torrid zone divides the two temperate regions from each other by the space of more than forty-six degrees, and the torrid and temperate zones together form a much broader line of division between the two arctic regions. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the Persian Gulf, also divide the various portions of continent in the torrid and temperate zones from each other. Australia is also divided by a broad sea from the continent of Asia. Thus there are various portions of the earth separated from each other in such a way as to preclude anything like a general communication of the seeds of their respective plants towards each other. Hence arises an interesting question—Are the plants of the various isolated regions which enjoy a parity of climate and other conditions, identical or the reverse? The answer is—that in such regions the vegetation bears a general resemblance, but the SPECIES are nearly all different, and there is even, in a considerable measure, a diversity of families.

The general facts have been thus stated: in the arctic and antarctic regions, and in those parts of lower latitudes, which, from their elevation, possess the same cold climate, there is always a similar or analogous vegetation, but few species are common to the various situations. In like manner, the intertropical vegetation of Asia, Africa, and America, are specifically different, though generally similar. The southern region of America is equally diverse from that of Africa, a country similar in clime, but separated by a vast extent of ocean. The vegetation of Australia, another region similarly placed in respect of clime, is even more peculiar. These facts are the more remarkable when we discover that, in most instances, the plants of one region have thriven when transplanted to another of parallel clime. This would shew that parity of conditions does not lead to a parity of productions so exact as to include identity of species, or even genera. Besides the various isolated regions here enumerated, there are some others indicated by naturalists as exhibiting a vegetation equally peculiar. Some of these are isolated by mountains, or the interposition of sandy wastes. For example, the temperate region of the elder continent is divided about the centre of Asia, and the east of that line is different from the west. So also is the same region divided in North America by the Rocky Mountains. Abyssinia and Nubia constitute another distinct botanical region. De Candolle enumerates in all twenty well-marked portions of the earth's surface which are peculiar with respect to vegetation; a number which would be greatly increased if remote islands and isolated mountain ranges were to be included.

When we come to the zoology, we find precisely similar results, excepting that man (with, perhaps, some of the less conspicuous forms of being) is universal, and that several tribes, as the bear and dog, appear to have passed by the land connexion from the arctic regions of the eastern to those of the western hemisphere. "With these exceptions," says Dr. Prichard, "and without any others, as far as zoological researches have yet gone, it may be asserted that no individual species are common to distant regions. In parallel climates, analogous species replace each other; sometimes, but not frequently, the same genus is found in two separate continents; but the species which are natives of one region are not identical with corresponding races indigenous in the opposite hemisphere.

"A similar result arises when we compare the three great intertropical regions, as well as the extreme spaces of the three great continents, which advance into the temperate climates of the southern hemisphere.

"Thus, the tribes of simiae, (monkeys,) of the dog and cat kinds, of pachyderms, including elephants, tapirs, rhinoceroses, hogs, of bats, of saurian and ophidian reptiles, as well of birds and other terrene animals, are all different in the three great continents. In the lower departments of the mammiferous family, we find that the bruta, or edendata, (sloths, armadillos, &c.,) of Africa, are differently organized from those of America, and these again from the tribes found in the Malayan archipelago and Terra Australis." {255}

It does not appear that the diversity between the similar regions of Africa, Asia, and America, is occasioned in all instances by any disqualification of these countries to support precisely the same genera or species. The ox, horse, goat, &c., of the elder continent have thriven and extended themselves in the new, and many of the indigenous tribes of America would no doubt flourish in corresponding climates in Europe, Asia, and Africa. It has, however, been remarked by naturalists unacquainted with the Macleay system, that the larger and more powerful animals of their respective orders belong to the elder continent, and that thus the animals of America, unlike the features of inanimate nature, appear to be upon a small scale. The swiftest and most agile animals, and a large proportion of those most useful to man, are also natives of the elder continent. On the other hand, the bulk of the edentata, a group remarkable for defects and meanness of organization, are American. The zoology of America may be said, upon the whole, to recede from that of Asia, "and perhaps in a greater degree," adds Dr. Prichard, "from that of Africa." A much greater recession is, however, observed in both the botany and zoology of Australia.

There "we do not find, in the great masses of vegetation, either the majesty of the virgin forests of America, or the variety and elegance of those of Asia, or the delicacy and freshness of the woods of our temperate countries of Europe. The vegetation is generally gloomy and sad; it has the aspect of our evergreens or heaths; the plants are for the most part woody; the leaves of nearly all the plants are linear, lanceolated, small, coriaceous, and spinescent. The grasses, which elsewhere are generally soft and flexible, participate in the stiffness of the other vegetables. The greater part of the plants of New Holland belong to new genera; and those included in the genera already known are of new species. The natural families which prevail are those of the heaths, the proteae, compositae, leguminosae, and myrthoideae; the larger trees all belong to the last family." {257}

The prevalent animals of Australia are not less peculiar. It is well known that none above the marsupialia, or pouched animals, are native to it. The most conspicuous are these marsupials, which exist in great varieties here, though unknown in the elder continent, and only found in a few mean forms in America. Next to them are the monotremata, which are entirely peculiar to this portion of the earth. Now these are animals at the bottom of the mammiferous class, adjoining to that of birds, of whose character and organization the monotremata largely partake, the ornithorynchus presenting the bill and feet of a duck, producing its young in eggs, and having, like birds, a clavicle between the two shoulders. The birds of Australia vary in structure and plumage, but all have some singularity about them—the swan, for instance, is black. The country abounds in reptiles, and the prevalent fishes are of the early kinds, having a cartilaginous structure.

Altogether, the plants and animals of this minor continent convey the impression of an early system of things, such as might be displayed in other parts of the earth about the time of the oolite. In connexion with this circumstance, it is a fact of some importance, that the geognostic character of Australia, its vast arid plains, its little diversified surface and consequent paucity of streams, and the very slight development of volcanic rock on its surface, seem to indicate a system of physical conditions, such as we may suppose to have existed elsewhere in the oolitic era: perhaps we see the chalk formation preparing there in the vast coral beds frontiering the coast. Australia thus appears as a portion of the earth which has, from some unknown causes, been belated in its physical and organic development. And certainly the greater part of its surface is not fitted to be an advantageous place of residence for beings above the marsupialia, and judging from analogy, it may yet be subjected to a series of changes in the highest degree inconvenient to any human beings who may have settled upon it.

The general conclusions regarding the geography of organic nature, may be thus stated. (1.) There are numerous distinct foci of organic production throughout the earth. (2.) These have everywhere advanced in accordance with the local conditions of climate &c., as far as at least the class and order are concerned, a diversity taking place in the lower gradations. No physical or geographical reason appearing for this diversity, we are led to infer that, (3,) it is the result of minute and inappreciable causes giving the law of organic development a particular direction in the lower subdivisions of the two kingdoms. (4.) Development has not gone on to equal results in the various continents, being most advanced in the eastern continent, next in the western, and least in Australia, this inequality being perhaps the result of the comparative antiquity of the various regions, geologically and geographically.

It must at the same time be admitted that the line of organic development has nowhere required for its advance the whole of the families comprehended in the two kingdoms, seeing that some of these are confined to one continent, and some to another, without a conceivable possibility of one having been connected with the other in the way of ancestry. The two great families of quadrumana, cebidae and simiadae, are a noted instance, the one being exclusively American, while the other belongs entirely to the old world. There are many other cases in which the full circular group can only be completed by taking subdivisions from various continents. This would seem to imply that, while the entire system is so remarkable for its unity, it has nevertheless been produced in lines geographically detached, these lines perhaps consisting of particular typical groups placed in an independent succession, or of two or more of these groups. And for this idea there is, even in the present imperfect state of our knowledge of animated nature, some countenance in ascertained facts, the birds of Australia, for example, being chiefly of the suctorial type, while it may be presumed that the observation as to the predominance of the useful animals in the Old World, is not much different from saying that the rasorial type is there peculiarly abundant. It does not appear that the idea of independent lines, consisting of particular types, or sets of types, is necessarily inconsistent with the general hypothesis, as nothing yet ascertained of the Macleay system forbids their having an independent set of affinities. On this subject, however, there is as yet much obscurity, and it must be left to future inquirers to clear it up.

We must now call to mind that the geographical distribution of plants and animals was very different in the geological ages from what it is now. Down to a time not long antecedent to man, the same vegetation overspread every clime, and a similar uniformity marked the zoology. This is conceived by M. Brogniart, with great plausibility, to have been the result of a uniformity of climate, produced by the as yet unexhausted effect of the internal heat of the earth upon its surface; whereas climate has since depended chiefly on external sources of heat, as modified by the various meteorological influences. However the early uniform climate was produced, certain it is that, from about the close of the geological epoch, plants and animals have been dispersed over the globe with a regard to their particular characters, and specimens of both are found so isolated in particular situations, as utterly to exclude the idea that they came thither from any common centre. It may be asked,—Considering that, in the geological epoch, species are not limited to particular regions, and that since the close of that epoch, they are very peculiarly limited, are we to presume the present organisms of the world to have been created ab initio after that time? To this it may be answered,—Not necessarily, as it so happens that animals begin to be much varied, or to appear in a considerable variety of species, towards the close of the geological history. It may have been that the multitudes of locally peculiar species only came into being after the uniform climate had passed away. It may have only been when a varied climate arose, that the originally few species branched off into the present extensive variety.

A question of a very interesting kind will now probably arise in the reader's mind—WHAT PLACE OR STATUS IS ASSIGNED TO MAN IN THE NEW NATURAL SYSTEM. Before going into this inquiry, it is necessary to advert to several particulars of the natural system not yet noticed.

It is necessary, in particular, to ascertain the grades which exist in the classification of animals. In the line of the aves, Mr. Swainson finds these to be nine, the species pica, for example, being thus indicated:-

Kingdom Animalia. Sub-kingdom Vertebrata. Class Aves. Order Incessores. Tribe Conirostres. Family Corvidae. Sub-family Corvinae. Genus Corvus. Sub-genus, or species Pica.

This brings us down to species, the subdivision where intermarriage or breeding is usually considered as natural to animals, and where a resemblance of offspring to parents is generally persevered in. The dog, for instance, is a species, because all dogs can breed together, and the progeny partakes of the appearances of the parents. The human race is held as a species, primarily for the same reasons. Species, however, is liable to another subdivision, which naturalists call variety; and variety appears to be subject to exactly the same system of REPRESENTATION which have been traced in species and higher denominations. In canis, for instance, the bull-dog and mastiff represent the ferocious sub-typical group; the waterdog is natatorial; we see the speed and length of muzzle of the suctorial group in the greyhound; and the bushy tail and gentle and serviceable character of the rasorial in the shepherd's dog and spaniel. Even the striped and spotted skin of the tiger and panther is reproduced in the more ferocious kind of dogs—an indication of a fundamental connexion between physical and mental qualities which we have also seen in the zebra, and which is likewise displayed in the predominance of a yellow colour in the vultures and owls in common with the lion and his congeners.

It is by no means clearly made out that this system of nine gradations over and above that of variety applies in all departments of nature. On the contrary, even Mr. Swainson gives series in which several of them are omitted. It may be that, in some departments of nature, variation from the class or order has gone down into fewer shades than in others; or it may be, that many of the variations have not survived till our era, or have not been as yet detected by naturalists; in either of which cases there may be a necessity for shortening the series by the omission of one or two grades, as for instance TRIBE or SUB-FAMILY. This, however, is much to be regretted, as it introduces an irregularity into the natural system, and consequently throws a difficulty and doubt in the way of our investigating it. With these preliminary remarks, I shall proceed to inquire what is the natural status of man.

That man's place is to be looked for in the class mammalia and sub- kingdom vertebrata admits of no doubt, from his possessing both the characters on which these divisions are founded. When we descend, however, below the CLASS, we find no settled views on the subject amongst naturalists. Mr. Swainson, who alone has given a review of the animal kingdom on the Macleay system, unfortunately writes on this subject in a manner which excites a suspicion as to his judgment. His arrangement of the first or typical order of the mammalia is therefore to be received with great hesitation. It is as follows:-

Typical Quadrumana Pre-eminently organized for grasping. Sub-typical Ferae . . . Claws retractile; carnivorous. Natatorial Cetacea. . Pre-eminently aquatic; feet very short. Suctorial Glires . . Muzzle lengthened and pointed. Rasorial Ungulata . Crests and other processes on the head.

He then takes the quadrumana, and places it in the following arrangement:-

Typical . . Simiadae . . . (Monkeys of Old World.) Sub-typical . Cebidae . . . (Monkeys of New World.) Natatorial . Unknown . Suctorial . . Vespertilionidae (Bats.) Rasorial . Lemuridae . . . (Lemurs.)

He considers the simiadae as a complete circle, and argues thence that there is no room in the range of the animal kingdom for man. Man, he says, is not a constituent part of any circle, for, if he were, there ought to be other animals on each hand having affinity to him, whereas there are none, the resemblance of the orangs being one of mere analogy. Mr. Swainson therefore considers our race as standing apart, and forming a link between the unintelligent order of beings and the angels! And this in spite of the glaring fact that, in our teeth, hands, and other features grounded on by naturalists as characteristic, we do not differ more from the simiadae than the bats do from the lemurs—in spite also of that resemblance of analogy to the orangs which he himself admits, and which, at the least, must be held to imply a certain relation. He also overlooks that, though there may be no room for man in the circle of the simiadae, (this, indeed, is quite true,) there may be in the order, where he actually leaves a place entirely blank, or only to be filled up, as he suggests, by mermen! {266} Another argument in his arrangement is, that it leaves the grades of classification very much abridged, there being at the most seven instead of nine. But serious argument on a theory so preposterous may be considered as nearly thrown away. I shall therefore at once proceed to suggest a new arrangement of this portion of the animal kingdom, in which man is allowed the place to which he is zoologically entitled.

I propose that the typical order of the mammalia should be designated cheirotheria, from the sole character which is universal amongst them, their possessing hands, and with a regard to that pre-eminent qualification for grasping which has been ascribed to them—an analogy to the perching habit of the typical order of birds, which is worthy of particular notice. The tribes of the cheirotheria I arrange as follows:-

Typical Bimana. Sub-typical Simiadae. Natatorial Vespertilionidae. Suctorial Lemuridae. Rasorial Cebidae.

Here man is put into the typical place, as the genuine head, not only of this order, but of the whole animal world. The double affinity which is requisite is obtained, for here he has the simiadae on one hand, and the cebidae on the other. The five tribes of the order are completed, the vespertilionidae being shifted (provisionally) into the natatorial place, for which their appropriateness is so far evidenced by the aquatic habits of several of the tribe, and the lemuridae into the suctorial, to which their length of muzzle and remarkable saltatory power are highly suitable. At the same time, the simiadae are degraded from the typical place, to which they have no sort of pretension, and placed where their mean and mischievous character seem to require; the cebidae again being assigned that situation which their comparatively inoffensive dispositions, their arboreal habits, and their extraordinary development of the tail, (which with them is like a fifth hand,) render so proper.

The zoological status thus assigned to the human race is precisely what might be expected. In order to understand its full value, it is necessary to observe how the various type peculiarities operate in fixing the character of the animals ranked in them. It is easy to conceive that they must be, in some instances, much mixed up with each other, and consequently obscured. If an animal, for example, is the suctorial member of a circle of species, forming the natatorial type of genera, forming a family or sub-family which in its turn is rasorial, its qualities must evidently be greatly mingled and ill to define. But, on the other hand, if we take the rapacious or sub- typical group of birds, and look in it for the tribe which is again the rapacious or sub-typical group of its order, we may expect to find the qualities of that group exalted or intensified, and accordingly made the more conspicuous. Such is really the case with the vultures, in the rapacious birds, a family remarkable above all of their order for their carnivorous and foul habits. So, also, if we take the typical group of the birds, the incessores or perchers, and look in it for its typical group, the conirostres, and seek there again for the typical family of that group, the corvidae, we may expect to find a very marked superiority in organization and character. Such is really the case. "The crow," says Mr. Swainson, "unites in itself a greater number of properties than are to be found individually in any other genus of birds; as if in fact it had taken from all the other orders a portion of their peculiar qualities, for the purpose of exhibiting in what manner they could be combined. From the rapacious birds this "type of types," as the crow has been justly called, takes the power of soaring in the air, and of seizing upon living birds, like the hawks, while its habit of devouring putrid substances, and picking out the eyes of young animals, is borrowed from the vultures. From the scansorial or climbing order it takes the faculty of picking the ground, and discovering its food when hidden from the eye, while the parrot family gives it the taste for vegetable food, and furnishes it with great cunning, sagacity, and powers of imitation, even to counterfeiting the human voice. Next come the order of waders, who impart their quota to the perfection of the crow by giving it great powers of flight, and perfect facility in walking, such being among the chief attributes of the suctorial order. Lastly, the aquatic birds contribute their portion, by giving this terrestrial bird the power of feeding not only on fish, which are their peculiar food, but actually of occasionally catching it. {270} In this wonderful manner do we find the crow partially invested with the united properties of all other birds, while in its own order, that of the incessores or perchers, it stands the pre-eminent type. We cannot also fail to regard it as a remarkable proof of the superior organization and character of the corvidae, that they are adapted for all climates, and accordingly found all over the world.

Mr. Swainson's description of the zoological status of the crow, written without the least design of throwing any light upon that of man, evidently does so in a remarkable degree. It prepares us to expect in the place among the mammalia, corresponding to that of the corvidae in the aves, a being or set of beings possessing a remarkable concentration of qualities from all the other groups of their order, but in general character as far above the corvidae as a typical group is above an aberrant one, the mammalia above the aves. Can any of the simiadae pretend to such a place, narrowly and imperfectly endowed as these creatures are—a mean reflection apparently of something higher? Assuredly not, and in this consideration alone Mr. Swainson's arrangement must fall to the ground. To fill worthily so lofty a station in the animated families man alone is competent. In him only is to be found that concentration of qualities from all the other groups of his order which has been described as marking the corvidae. That grasping power, which has been selected as the leading physical quality of his order, is nowhere so beautifully or so powerfully developed as in his hand. The intelligence and teachableness of the simiadae rise to a climax in his pre-eminent mental nature. His sub-analogy to the ferae is marked by his canine teeth, and the universality of his rapacity, for where is the department of animated nature which he does not without scruple sacrifice to his convenience? With sanguinary, he has also gentle and domesticable dispositions, thus reflecting the characters of the ungulata, (the rasorial type of the class,) to which we perhaps see a further analogy in the use which he makes of the surface of the earth as a source of food. To the aquatic type his love of maritime adventure very readily assimilates him; and how far the suctorial is represented in his nature it is hardly necessary to say. As the corvidae, too, are found in every part of the earth—almost the only one of the inferior animals which has been acknowledged as universal—so do we find man. He thrives in all climates, and with regard to style of living, can adapt himself to an infinitely greater diversity of circumstances than any other animated creature.

Man, then, considered zoologically, and without regard to the distinct character assigned to him by theology, simply takes his place as the type of all types of the animal kingdom, the true and unmistakable head of animated nature upon this earth. It will readily occur that some more particular investigations into the ranks of types might throw additional light on man's status, and perhaps his nature; and such light we may hope to obtain when the philosophy of zoology shall have been studied as it deserves. Perhaps some such diagram as the one given on the next page will be found to be an approximation to the expression of the merely natural or secular grade of man in comparison with other animals.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / +-1-2-3 4-+ a-b-c-d + {274}

Here the upright lines, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, may represent the comparative height and grade of organization of both the five sub-kingdoms, and the five classes of each of these; 5 being the vertebrata in the one case, and the mammalia in the other. The difference between the height of the line 1 and the line 5 gives an idea of the difference of being the head type of the aves, (corvidae,) and the head type of the mammalia, (bimana;) a. b. c. d. 5, again, represent the five groups of the first order of the mammalia; a, being the organic structure of the highest simia, and 5, that of man. A set of tangent lines of this kind may yet prove one of the most satisfactory means of ascertaining the height and breadth of the psychology of our species.

It may be asked,—Is the existing human race the only species designed to occupy the grade to which it is here referred? Such a question evidently ought not to be answered rashly; and I shall therefore confine myself to the admission that, judging by analogy, we might expect to see several varieties of the being, homo. There is no other family approaching to this in importance, which presents but one species. The corvidae, our parallel in aves, consist of several distinct genera and sub-genera. It is startling to find such an appearance of imperfection in the circle to which man belongs, and the ideas which rise in consequence are not less startling. Is our race but the initial of the grand crowning type? Are there yet to be species superior to us in organization, purer in feeling, more powerful in device and act, and who shall take a rule over us! There is in this nothing improbable on other grounds. The present race, rude and impulsive as it is, is perhaps the best adapted to the present state of things in the world; but the external world goes through slow and gradual changes, which may leave it in time a much serener field of existence. There may then be occasion for a nobler type of humanity, which shall complete the zoological circle on this planet, and realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits of the present race.



EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND.



The human race is known to consist of numerous nations, displaying considerable differences of external form and colour, and speaking in general different languages. This has been the case since the commencement of written record. It is also ascertained that the external peculiarities of particular nations do not rapidly change. There is rather a tendency to a persistency of type in all lines of descent, insomuch that a subordinate admixture of various type is usually obliterated in a few generations. Numerous as the varieties are, they have all been found classifiable under five leading ones:- 1. The Caucasian or Indo-European, which extends from India into Europe and Northern Africa; 2. The Mongolian, which occupies Northern and Eastern Asia; 3. The Malayan, which extends from the Ultra-Gangetic Peninsula into the numerous islands of the South Sea and Pacific; 4. The Negro, chiefly confined to Africa; 5. The aboriginal American. Each of these is distinguished by certain general features of so marked a kind, as to give rise to a supposition that they have had distinct or independent origins. Of these peculiarities, colour is the most conspicuous: the Caucasians are generally white, the Mongolians yellow, the Negroes black, and the Americans red. The opposition of two of these in particular, white and black, is so striking, that of them, at least, it seems almost necessary to suppose separate origins. Of late years, however, the whole of this question has been subjected to a rigorous investigation, and it has been successfully shewn that the human race might have had one origin, for anything that can be inferred from external peculiarities.

It appears from this inquiry, {278} that colour and other physiological characters are of a more superficial and accidental nature than was at one time supposed. One fact is at the very first extremely startling, that there are nations, such as the inhabitants of Hindostan, known to be one in descent, which nevertheless contain groups of people of almost all shades of colour, and likewise discrepant in other of those important features on which much stress has been laid. Some other facts, which I may state in brief terms, are scarcely less remarkable. In Africa, there are Negro nations,— that is, nations of intensely black complexion, as the Jolofs, Mandingoes, and Kafirs, whose features and limbs are as elegant as those of the best European nations. While we have no proof of Negro races becoming white in the course of generations, the converse may be held as established, for there are Arab and Jewish families of ancient settlement in Northern Africa, who have become as black as the other inhabitants. There are also facts which seem to shew the possibility of a natural transition by generation from the black to the white complexion, and from the white to the black. True whites (apart from Albinoes) are not unfrequently born among the Negroes, and the tendency to this singularity is transmitted in families. There is, at least, one authentic instance of a set of perfectly black children being born to an Arab couple, in whose ancestry no such blood had intermingled. This occurred in the valley of the Jordan, where it is remarkable that the Arab population in general have flatter features, darker skins, and coarser hair, than any other tribes of the same nation. {280}

The style of living is ascertained to have a powerful effect in modifying the human figure in the course of generations, and this even in its osseous structure. About two hundred years ago, a number of people were driven by a barbarous policy from the counties of Antrim and Down, in Ireland, towards the sea-coast, where they have ever since been settled, but in unusually miserable circumstances, even for Ireland; and the consequence is, that they exhibit peculiar features of the most repulsive kind, projecting jaws with large open mouths, depressed noses, high cheek bones, and bow legs, together with an extremely diminutive stature. These, with an abnormal slenderness of the limbs, are the outward marks of a low and barbarous condition all over the world; it is particularly seen in the Australian aborigines. On the other hand, the beauty of the higher ranks in England is very remarkable, being, in the main, as clearly a result of good external conditions. "Coarse, unwholesome, and ill-prepared food," says Buffon, "makes the human race degenerate. All those people who live miserably are ugly and ill- made. Even in France, the country people are not so beautiful as those who live in towns; and I have often remarked that in those villages where the people are richer and better fed than in others, the men are likewise more handsome, and have better countenances." He might have added, that elegant and commodious dwellings, cleanly habits, comfortable clothing, and being exposed to the open air only as much as health requires, cooperate with food in increasing the elegance of a race of human beings.

Subject only to these modifying agencies, there is, as has been said, a remarkable persistency in national features and forms, insomuch that a single individual thrown into a family different from himself is absorbed in it, and all trace of him lost after a few generations. But while there is such a persistency to ordinary observation, it would also appear that nature has a power of producing new varieties, though this is only done rarely. Such novelties of type abound in the vegetable world, are seen more rarely in the animal circle, and perhaps are least frequent of occurrence in our own race. There is a noted instance in the production, on a New England farm, of a variety of sheep with unusually short legs, which was kept up by breeding, on account of the convenience in that country of having sheep which are unable to jump over low fences. The starting and main taming a BREED of cattle, that is, a variety marked by some desirable peculiarity, are familiar to a large class of persons. It appears only necessary, when a variety has been thus produced, that a union should take place between individuals similarly characterized, in order to establish it. Early in the last century, a man named Lambert, was born in Suffolk, with semi-horny excrescences of about half an inch long, thickly growing all over his body. The peculiarity was transmitted to his children, and was last heard of in a third generation. The peculiarity of six fingers on the hand and six toes on the feet, appears in like manner in families which have no record or tradition of such a peculiarity having affected them at any former period, and it is then sometimes seen to descend through several generations. It was Mr. Lawrence's opinion, that a pair, in which both parties were so distinguished, might be the progenitors of a new variety of the race who would be thus marked in all future time. It is not easy to surmise the causes which operate in producing such varieties. Perhaps they are simply types in nature, POSSIBLE TO BE REALIZED UNDER CERTAIN APPROPRIATE CONDITIONS, but which conditions are such as altogether to elude notice. I might cite as examples of such possible types, the rise of whites amongst the Negroes, the occurrence of the family of black children in the valley of the Jordan, and the comparatively frequent birth of red-haired children amongst not only the Mongolian and Malayan families, but amongst the Negroes. We are ignorant of the laws of variety-production; but we see it going on as a principle in nature, and it is obviously favourable to the supposition that all the great families of men are of one stock.

The tendency of the modern study of the languages of nations is to the same point. The last fifty years have seen this study elevated to the character of a science, and the light which it throws upon the history of mankind is of a most remarkable nature.

Following a natural analogy, philologists have thrown the earth's languages into a kind of classification: a number bearing a considerable resemblance to each other, and in general geographically near, are styled a GROUP or SUB-FAMILY; several groups, again, are associated as a FAMILY, with regard to more general features of resemblance. Six families are spoken of.

The Indo-European family nearly coincides in geographical limits with those which have been assigned to that variety of mankind which generally shews a fair complexion, called the Caucasian variety. It may be said to commence in India, and thence to stretch through Persia into Europe, the whole of which it occupies, excepting Hungary, the Basque provinces of Spain, and Finland. Its sub- families are the Sanskrit, or ancient language of India, the Persian, the Slavonic, Celtic, Gothic, and Pelasgian. The Slavonic includes the modern languages of Russia and Poland. Under the Gothic, are (1) the Scandinavian tongues, the Norske, Swedish, and Danish; and (2) the Teutonic, to which belong the modern German, the Dutch, and our own Anglo-Saxon. I give the name of Pelasgian to the group scattered along the north shores of the Mediterranean, the Greek and Latin, including the modifications of the latter under the names of Italian, Spanish, &c. The Celtic was from two to three thousand years ago, the speech of a considerable tribe dwelling in Western Europe; but these have since been driven before superior nations into a few corners, and are now only to be found in the highlands of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and certain parts of France. The Gaelic of Scotland, Erse of Ireland, and the Welsh, are the only living branches of this sub-family of languages.

The resemblances amongst languages are of two kinds,—identity of words, and identity of grammatical forms; the latter being now generally considered as the most important towards the argument. When we inquire into the first kind of affinity among the languages of the Indo-European family, we are surprised at the great number of common terms which exist amongst them, and these referring to such primary ideas, as to leave no doubt of their having all been derived from a common source. Colonel Vans Kennedy presents nine hundred words common to the Sanskrit and other languages of the same family. In the Sanskrit and Persian, we find several which require no sort of translation to an English reader, as pader, mader, sunu, dokhter, brader, mand, vidhava; likewise asthi, a bone, (Greek, ostoun;) denta, a tooth, (Latin, dens, dentis;) eyeumen, the eye; brouwa, the eye-brow, (German, braue;) nasa, the nose; karu, the hand, (Gr. cheir;) genu, the knee, (Lat. genu;) ped, the foot, (Lat. pes, pedis;) hrti, the heart; jecur, the liver, (Lat. jecur;) stara, a star; gela, cold, (Lat. gelu, ice;) aghni, fire, (Lat. ignis;) dhara, the earth, (Lat. terra, Gaelic, tir;) arrivi, a river; nau, a ship, (Gr. naus, Lat. navis;) ghau, a cow; sarpam, a serpent.

The inferences from these verbal coincidences were confirmed in a striking manner when Bopp and others investigated the grammatical structure of this family of languages. Dr. Wiseman pronounces that the great philologist just named, "by a minute and sagacious analysis of the Sanskrit verb, compared with the conjugational system of the other members of this family, left no doubt of their intimate and positive affinity." It was now discovered that the peculiar terminations or inflections by which persons are expressed throughout the verbs of nearly the whole of these languages, have their foundations in pronouns; the pronoun was simply placed at the end, and thus became an inflexion. "By an analysis of the Sanskrit pronouns, the elements of those existing in all the other languages were cleared of their anomalies; the verb substantive, which in Latin is composed of fragments referable to two distinct roots, here found both existing in regular form; the Greek conjugations, with all their complicated machinery of middle voice, augments, and reduplications, were here found and illustrated in a variety of ways, which a few years ago would have appeared chimerical. Even our own language may sometimes receive light from the study of distant members of our family. Where, for instance, are we to seek for the root of our comparative BETTER? Certainly not in its positive, good, nor in the Teutonic dialects in which the same anomaly exists. But in the Persian we have precisely the same comparative, BEHTER, with exactly the same signification, regularly formed from its positive beh, good." {287}

The second great family is the Syro-Phoenician, comprising the Hebrew, Syro-Chaldaic, Arabic, and Gheez or Abyssinian, being localized principally in the countries to the west and south of the Mediterranean. Beyond them, again, is the African family, which, as far as research has gone, seems to be in like manner marked by common features, both verbal and grammatical. The fourth is the Polynesian family, extending from Madagascar on the west through all the Indian Archipelago, besides taking in the Malayan dialect from the continent of India, and comprehending Australia and the islands of the western portion of the Pacific. This family, however, bears such an affinity to that next to be described, that Dr. Leyden and some others do not give it a distinct place as a family of languages.

The fifth family is the Chinese, embracing a large part of China, and most of the regions of Central and Northern Asia. The leading features of the Chinese are, its consisting altogether of monosyllables, and being destitute of all grammatical forms, except certain arrangements and accentuations, which vary the sense of particular words. It is also deficient in some of the consonants most conspicuous in other languages, b, d, r, v, and z; so that this people can scarcely pronounce our speech in such a way as to be intelligible: for example, the word Christus they call Kuliss-ut-oo- suh. The Chinese, strange to say, though they early attained to a remarkable degree of civilization, and have preceded the Europeans in many of the most important inventions, have a language which resembles that of children, or deaf and dumb people. The sentence of short, simple, unconnected words, in which an infant amongst us attempts to express some of its wants and its ideas—the equally broken and difficult terms which the deaf and dumb express by signs, as the following passage of the Lord's Prayer: —"Our Father, heaven in, wish your name respect, wish your soul's kingdom providence arrive, wish your will do heaven earth equality," &c.—these are like the discourse of the refined people of the so-called Celestial Empire. An attempt was made by the Abbe Sicard to teach the deaf and dumb grammatical signs; but they persisted in restricting themselves to the simple signs of ideas, leaving the structure undetermined by any but the natural order of connexion. Such is exactly the condition of the Chinese language.

Crossing the Pacific, we come to the last great family in the languages of the aboriginal Americans, which have all of them features in common, proving them to constitute a group by themselves, without any regard to the very different degrees of civilization which these nations had attained at the time of the discovery. The common resemblance is in the grammatical structure as well as in words, and the grammatical structure of this family is of a very peculiar and complicated kind. The general character in this respect has caused the term Polysynthetic to be applied to the American languages. A long many-syllabled word is used by the rude Algonquins and Delawares to express a whole sentence: for example, a woman of the latter nation, playing with a little dog or cat, would perhaps be heard saying, "kuligatschis," meaning, "give me your pretty little paw;" the word, on examination, is found to be made up in this manner: k, the second personal pronoun; uli, part of the word wulet, pretty; gat, part of the word wichgat, signifying a leg or paw; schis, conveying the idea of littleness. In the same tongue, a youth is called pilape, a word compounded from the first part of pilsit, innocent, and the latter part of lenape, a man. Thus, it will be observed, a number of parts of words are taken and thrown together, by a process which has been happily termed agglutination, so as to form one word, conveying a complicated idea. There is also an elaborate system of inflection; in nouns, for instance, there is one kind of inflection to express the presence or absence of vitality, and another to express number. The genius of the language has been described as accumulative: it "tends rather to add syllables or letters, making farther distinctions in objects already before the mind, than to introduce new words." {291} Yet it has also been shewn very distinctly, that these languages are based in words of one syllable, like those of the Chinese and Polynesian families; all the primary ideas are thus expressed: the elaborate system of inflection and agglutination is shewn to be simply a farther development of the language-forming principle, as it may be called—or the Chinese system may be described as an arrestment of this principle at a particular early point. It has been fully shewn, that between the structure of the American and other families, sufficient affinities exist to make a common origin or early connexion extremely likely. The verbal affinities are also very considerable. Humboldt says, "In eighty-three American languages examined by Messrs. Barton and Vater, one hundred and seventy words have been found, the roots of which appear to be the same; and it is easy to perceive that this analogy is not accidental, since it does not rest merely upon imitative harmony, or on that conformity of organs which produces almost a perfect identity in the first sounds articulated by children. Of these one hundred and seventy words which have this connexion, three- fifths resemble the Manchou, the Tongouse, the Mongal, and the Samoyed; and two-fifths, the Celtic and Tchoud, the Biscayan, the Coptic, and Congo languages. These words have been found by comparing the whole of the American languages with the whole of those of the Old World; for hitherto we are acquainted with no American idiom which seems to have an exclusive correspondence with any of the Asiatic, African, or European tongues." {293} Humboldt and others considered these words as brought into America by recent immigrants; an idea resting on no proof, and which seems at once refuted by the common words being chiefly those which represent primary ideas; besides, we now know, what was not formerly perceived or admitted, that there are great affinities of structure also. I may here refer to a curious mathematical calculation by Dr. Thomas Young, to the effect, that if three words coincide in two different languages, it is ten to one they must be derived in both cases from some parent language, or introduced in some other manner. "Six words would give more," he says, "than seventeen hundred to one, and eight near 100,000, so that in these cases the evidence would be little short of absolute certainty." He instances the following words to shew a connexion between the ancient Egyptian and the Biscayan:-

BISCAYAN EGYPTIAN. New Beria Beri. A dog Ora Whor. Little Gutchi Kudchi. Bread Ognia Oik. A wolf Otgsa Ounsh. Seven Shashpi Shashf.

Now, as there are, according to Humboldt, one hundred and seventy words in common between the languages of the new and old continents, and many of these are expressive of the most primitive ideas, there is, by Dr. Young's calculation, overpowering proof of the original connexion of the American and other human families.

This completes the slight outline which I have been able to give, of the evidence for the various races of men being descended from one stock. It cannot be considered as conclusive, and there are many eminent persons who deem the opposite idea the more probable; but I must say that, without the least regard to any other kind of evidence, that which physiology and philology present seems to me decidedly favourable to the idea of a single origin.

Assuming that the human race is ONE, we are next called upon to inquire in what part of the earth it may most probably be supposed to have originated. One obvious mode of approximating to a solution of this question is to trace backward the lines in which the principal tribes appear to have migrated, and to see if these converge nearly to a point. It is very remarkable that the lines do converge, and are concentrated about the region of Hindostan. The language, religion, modes of reckoning time, and some other peculiar ideas of the Americans, are now believed to refer their origin to North- Eastern Asia. Trace them farther back in the same direction, and we come to the north of India. The history of the Celts and Teutones represents them as coming from the east, the one after the other, successive waves of a tide of population flowing towards the north- west of Europe: this line being also traced back, rests finally at the same place. So does the line of Iranian population, which has peopled the east and south shores of the Mediterranean, Syria, Arabia, and Egypt. The Malay variety, again, rests its limit in one direction on the borders of India. Standing on that point, it is easy to see how the human family, originating there, might spread out in different directions, passing into varieties of aspect and of language as they spread, the Malay variety proceeding towards the Oceanic region, the Mongolians to the east and north, and sending off the red men as a sub-variety, the European population going off to the north-westward, and the Syrian, Arabian, and Egyptian, towards the countries which they are known to have so long occupied. The Negro alone is here unaccounted for; and of that race it may fairly be said, that it is the one most likely to have had an independent origin, seeing that it is a type so peculiar in an inveterate black colour, and so mean in development. But it is not necessary to presume such an origin for it, as much good argument might be employed to shew that it is only a deteriorated offshoot of the general stock. Our view of the probable original seat of man agrees with the ancient traditions of the race. There is one among the Hindoos which places the cradle of the human family in Thibet; another makes Ceylon the residence of the first man. Our view is also in harmony with the hypothesis detailed in the chapter before the last. According to that theory, we should expect man to have originated where the highest species of the quadrumana are to be found. Now these are unquestionably found in the Indian Archipelago.

After all, it may be regarded as still an open question, whether mankind is of one or many origins. The first human generation may have consisted of many pairs, though situated at one place, and these may have been considerably different from each other in external characters. And we are equally bound to admit, though this does not as yet seem to have occurred to any other speculator, that there may have been different lines and sources of origination, geographically apart, but which all resulted uniformly in the production of a being, one in species, although variously marked.

It has of late years been a favourite notion with many, that the human race was at first in a highly civilized state, and that barbarism was a second condition. This idea probably took its origin in a wish to support certain interpretations of the Mosaic record, and it has never yet been propounded by any writer who seemed to have a due sense of the value of science in this class of investigations. The principal argument for it is, that we see many examples of nations falling away from civilization into barbarism, while in some regions of the earth, the history of which we do not clearly know, there are remains of works of art far superior to any which the present unenlightened inhabitants could have produced. It is to be readily admitted that such decadences are common; but do they necessarily prove that there has been anything like a regular and constant decline into the present state, from a state more generally refined? May not these be only instances of local failures and suppressions of the principle of civilization, where it had begun to take root amongst a people generally barbarous? It is, at least, as legitimate to draw this inference from the facts which are known. But it is also alleged that we know of no such thing as civilization being ever self-originated. It is always seen to be imparted from one people to another. Hence, of course, we must infer that civilization at the first could only have been of supernatural origin. This argument appears to be founded on false premises, for civilization does sometimes rise in a manner clearly independent amongst a horde of people generally barbarous. A striking instance is described in the laborious work of Mr. Catlin on the North- American tribes. Far placed among those which inhabit the vast region of the north-west, and quite beyond the reach of any influence from the whites, he found a small tribe living in a fortified village, where they cultivated the arts of manufacture, realized comforts and luxuries, and had attained to a remarkable refinement of manners, insomuch as to be generally called the polite and friendly Mandans. They were also more than usually elegant in their persons, and of every variety of complexion between that of their compatriots and a pure white. Up to the time of Mr. Catlin's visit, these people had been able to defend themselves and their possessions against the roving bands which surrounded them on all sides; but, soon after, they were attacked by small-pox, which cut them all off except a small party, whom their enemies rushed in upon and destroyed to a man. What is this but a repetition on a small scale of phenomena with which ancient history familiarizes us—a nation rising in arts and elegances amidst barbarous neighbours, but at length overpowered by the rude majority, leaving only a Tadmor or a Luxor as a monument of itself to beautify the waste? What can we suppose the nation which built Palenque and Copan to have been but only a Mandan tribe, which chanced to have made its way farther along the path of civilization and the arts, before the barbarians broke in upon it? The flame essayed to rise in many parts of the earth; but there were always considerable chances against it, and down it accordingly went, times without number; but there was always a vitality in it, nevertheless, and a tendency to progress, and at length it seems to have attained a strength against which the powers of barbarism can never more prevail. The state of our knowledge of uncivilized nations is very apt to make us fall into error on this subject. They are generally supposed to be all at one point in barbarism, which is far from being the case, for in the midst of every great region of uncivilized men, such as North America, there are nations partially refined. The Jolofs, Mandingoes, and Kafirs, are African examples, where a natural and independent origin for the improvement which exists is as unavoidably to be presumed as in the case of the Mandans.

The most conclusive argument against the original civilization of mankind is to be found in the fact that we do not now see civilization existing anywhere except in certain conditions altogether different from any we can suppose' to have existed at the commencement of our race. To have civilization, it is necessary that a people should be numerous and closely placed; that they should be fixed in their habitations, and safe from violent external and internal disturbance; that a considerable number of them should be exempt from the necessity of drudging for immediate subsistence. Feeling themselves at ease about the first necessities of their nature, including self-preservation, and daily subjected to that intellectual excitement which society produces, men begin to manifest what is called civilization; but never in rude and shelterless circumstances, or when widely scattered. Even men who have been civilized, when transferred to a wide wilderness, where each has to work hard and isolatedly for the first requisites of life, soon shew a retrogression to barbarism: witness the plains of Australia, as well as the backwoods of Canada and the prairies of Texas. Fixity of residence and thickening of population are perhaps the prime requisites for civilization, and hence it will be found that all civilizations as yet known have taken place in regions physically limited. That of Egypt arose in a narrow valley hemmed in by deserts on both sides. That of Greece took its rise in a small peninsula bounded on the only land side by mountains. Etruria and Rome were naturally limited regions. Civilizations have taken place at both the eastern and western extremities of the elder continent—China and Japan, on the one hand; Germany, Holland, Britain, France, on the other—while the great unmarked tract between contains nations decidedly less advanced. Why is this, but because the sea, in both cases, has imposed limits to further migration, and caused the population to settle and condense—the conditions most necessary for social improvement. {302} Even the simple case of the Mandans affords an illustration of this principle, for Mr. Catlin expressly, though without the least regard to theory, attributes their improvement to the fact of their being a small tribe, obliged, by fear of their more numerous enemies, to SETTLE IN A PERMANENT VILLAGE, so fortified as to ensure their preservation. "By this means," says he, "they have advanced farther in the arts of manufacture, and have supplied their lodges more abundantly with the comforts and even luxuries of life than any Indian nation I know of. The consequence of this," he adds, "is that the tribe have taken many steps ahead of other tribes in MANNERS AND REFINEMENTS." These conditions can only be regarded as natural laws affecting civilization, and it might not be difficult, taking them into account, to predict of any newly settled country its social destiny. An island like Van Dieman's land might fairly be expected to go on more rapidly to good manners and sound institutions than a wide region like Australia. The United States might be expected to make no great way in civilization till they be fully peopled to the Pacific; and it might not be unreasonable to expect that, when that even has occurred, the greatest civilizations of that vast territory will be found in the peninsula of California and the narrow stripe of country beyond the Rocky Mountains. This, however, is a digression. To return: it is also necessary for a civilization that at least a portion of the community should be placed above mean and engrossing toils. Man's mind becomes subdued, like the dyer's hand, to that it works in. In rude and difficult circumstances we unavoidably become rude, because then only the inferior and harsher faculties of our nature are called into existence. When, on the contrary, there is leisure and abundance, the self-seeking and self-preserving instincts are allowed to rest, the gentler and more generous sentiments are evoked, and man becomes that courteous and chivalric being which he is found to be amongst the upper classes of almost all civilized countries. These, then, may be said to be the chief natural laws concerned in the moral phenomenon of civilization. If I am right in so considering them, it will of course be readily admitted that the earliest families of the human race, although they might be simple and innocent, could not have been in anything like a civilized state, seeing that the conditions necessary for that state could not have then existed. Let us only for a moment consider some of the things requisite for their being civilized,—namely, a set of elegant homes ready furnished for their reception, fields ready cultivated to yield them food without labour, stores of luxurious appliances of all kinds, a complete social enginery for the securing of life and property,—and we shall turn from the whole conceit as one worthy only of the philosophers of Utopia.

Yet, as has been remarked, the earliest families might be simple and innocent, while at the same time unskilled and ignorant, and obliged to live merely upon such substances as they could readily procure. The traditions of all nations refer to such a state as that in which mankind were at first: perhaps it is not so much a tradition as an idea which the human mind naturally inclines to form respecting the fathers of the race; but nothing that we see of mankind absolutely forbids our entertaining this idea, while there are some considerations rather favourable to it. A few families, in a state of nature, living near each other, in a country supplying the means of livelihood abundantly, are generally simple and innocent; their instinctive and perceptive faculties are also apt to be very active, although the higher intellect may be dormant. If we therefore presume India to have been the cradle of our race, they might at first exemplify a sort of golden age; but it could not be of long continuance. The very first movements from the primal seat would be attended with degradation, nor could there be any tendency to true civilization till groups had settled and thickened in particular seats physically limited.

The probability may now be assumed that the human race sprung from one stock, which was at first in a state of simplicity, if not barbarism. As yet we have not seen very distinctly how the various branches of the family, as they parted off, and took up separate ground, became marked by external features so peculiar. Why are the Africans black, and generally marked by coarse features and ungainly forms? Why are the Mongolians generally yellow, the Americans red, the Caucasians white? Why the flat features of the Chinese, the small stature of the Laps, the soft round forms of the English, the lank features of their descendants, the Americans? All of these phenomena appear, in a word, to be explicable on the ground of DEVELOPMENT. We have already seen that various leading animal forms represent stages in the embryotic progress of the highest—the human being. Our brain goes through the various stages of a fish's, a reptile's, and a mammifer's brain, and finally becomes human. There is more than this, for, after completing the animal transformations, it passes through the characters in which it appears, in the Negro, Malay, American, and Mongolian nations, and finally is Caucasian. The face partakes of these alterations. "One of the earliest points in which ossification commences is the lower jaw. This bone is consequently sooner completed than the other bones of the head, and acquires a predominance, which, as is well known, it never loses in the Negro. During the soft pliant state of the bones of the skull, the oblong form which they naturally assume, approaches nearly the permanent shape of the Americans. At birth, the flattened face, and broad smooth forehead of the infant, the position of the eyes rather towards the side of the head, and the widened space between, represent the Mongolian form; while it is only as the child advances to maturity, that the oval face, the arched forehead, and the marked features of the true Caucasian, become perfectly developed." {307a} THE LEADING CHARACTERS, IN SHORT, OF THE VARIOUS RACES OF MANKIND, ARE SIMPLY REPRESENTATIONS OF PARTICULAR STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HIGHEST OR CAUCASIAN TYPE. The Negro exhibits permanently the imperfect brain, projecting lower jaw, and slender bent limbs, of a Caucasian child, some considerable time before the period of its birth. The aboriginal American represents the same child nearer birth. The Mongolian is an arrested infant newly born. And so forth. All this is as respects form; {307b} but whence colour? This might be supposed to have depended on climatal agencies only; but it has been shewn by overpowering evidence to be independent of these. In further considering the matter, we are met by the very remarkable fact that colour is deepest in the least perfectly developed type, next in the Malay, next in the American, next in the Mongolian, the very order in which the degrees of development are ranged. MAY NOT COLOUR, THEN, DEPEND UPON DEVELOPMENT ALSO? We do not, indeed, see that a Caucasian foetus at the stage which the African represents is anything like black; neither is a Caucasian child yellow, like the Mongolian. There may, nevertheless, be a character of skin at a certain stage of development which is predisposed to a particular colour when it is presented as the envelope of a mature being. Development being arrested at so immature a stage in the case of the Negro, the skin may take on the colour as an unavoidable consequence of its imperfect organization. It is favourable to this view, that Negro infants are not deeply black at first, but only acquire the full colour tint after exposure for some time to the atmosphere. Another consideration in its favour is that there is a likelihood of peculiarities of form and colour, since they are so coincident, depending on one set of phenomena. If it be admitted as true, there can be no difficulty in accounting for all the varieties of mankind. They are simply the result of so many advances and retrogressions in the developing power of the human mothers, these advances and retrogressions being, as we have formerly seen, the immediate effect of external conditions in nutrition, hardship, &c., {309} and also, perhaps, to some extent, of the suitableness and unsuitableness of marriages, for it is found that parents too nearly related tend to produce offspring of the Mongolian type,—that is, persons who in maturity still are a kind of children. According to this view, the greater part of the human race must be considered as having lapsed or declined from the original type. In the Caucasian or Indo-European family alone has the primitive organization been improved upon. The Mongolian, Malay, American, and Negro, comprehending perhaps five- sixths of mankind, are degenerate. Strange that the great plan should admit of failures and aberrations of such portentous magnitude! But pause and reflect; take time into consideration: the past history of mankind may be, to what is to come, but as a day. Look at the progress even now making over the barbaric parts of the earth by the best examples of the Caucasian type, promising not only to fill up the waste places, but to supersede the imperfect nations already existing. Who can tell what progress may be made, even in a single century, towards reversing the proportions of the perfect and imperfect types? and who can tell but that the time during which the mean types have lasted, long as it appears, may yet be thrown entirely into the shade by the time during which the best types will remain predominant?

We have seen that the traces of a common origin in all languages afford a ground of presumption for the unity of the human race. They establish a still stronger probability that mankind had not yet begun to disperse before they were possessed of a means of communicating their ideas by conventional sounds—in short, speech. This is a gift so peculiar to man, and in itself so remarkable, that there is a great inclination to surmise a miraculous origin for it, although there is no proper ground, or even support, for such an idea in Scripture, while it is clearly opposed to everything else that we know with regard to the providential arrangements for the creation of our race. Here, as in many other cases, a little observation of nature might have saved much vain discussion. The real character of language itself has not been thoroughly understood. Language, in its most comprehensive sense, is the communication of ideas by whatever means. Ideas can be communicated by looks, gestures, and signs of various other kinds, as well as by speech. The inferior animals possess some of those means of communicating ideas, and they have likewise a silent and unobservable mode of their own, the nature of which is a complete mystery to us, though we are assured of its reality by its effects. Now, as the inferior animals were all in being before man, there was language upon earth long ere the history of our race commenced. The only additional fact in the history of language, which was produced by our creation, was the rise of a new mode of expression—namely, that by SOUND-SIGNS produced by the vocal organs. In other words, speech was the only novelty in this respect attending the creation of the human race. No doubt it was an addition of great importance, for, in comparison with it, the other natural modes of communicating ideas sink into insignificance. Still, the main and fundamental phenomenon, language, as the communication of ideas, was no new gift of the Creator to man; and in speech itself, when we judge of it as a natural fact, we see only a result of some of those superior endowments of which so many others have fallen to our lot through the medium of an improved or advanced organization.

The first and most obvious natural endowment concerned in speech is that peculiar organization of the larynx, trachea, and mouth, which enables us to produce the various sounds required in the case. Man started at first with this organization ready for use, a constitution of the atmosphere adapted for the sounds which that organization was calculated to produce, and, lastly, but not leastly, as will afterwards be more particularly shewn, a mental power within, prompting to, and giving directions for, the expression of ideas. Such an arrangement of mutually adapted things was as likely to produce sounds as an Eolian harp placed in a draught is to produce tones. It was unavoidable that human beings so organized, and in such a relation to external nature, should utter sounds, and also come to attach to these conventional meanings, thus forming the elements of spoken language. The great difficulty which has been felt was to account for man going in this respect beyond the inferior animals. There could have been no such difficulty if speculators in this class of subjects had looked into physiology for an account of the superior vocal organization of man, and had they possessed a true science of mind to shew man possessing a faculty for the expression of ideas which is only rudimental in the lower animals. Another difficulty has been in the consideration that, if men were at first utterly untutored and barbarous, they could scarcely be in a condition to form or employ language—an instrument which it requires the fullest powers of thought to analyse and speculate upon. But this difficulty also vanishes upon reflection—for, in the first place, we are not bound to suppose the fathers of our race early attaining to great proficiency in language, and, in the second, language itself seems to be amongst the things least difficult to be acquired, if we can form any judgment from what we see in children, most of whom have, by three years of age, while their information and judgment are still as nothing, mastered and familiarized themselves with a quantity of words, infinitely exceeding in proportion what they acquire in the course of any subsequent similar portion of time.