“Man mounts on man, on camels camels rush,Hosts march on hosts, and nations nations crush,Wheeling in air the winged islands fall,And one great earthy ocean covers all.”
“Man mounts on man, on camels camels rush,Hosts march on hosts, and nations nations crush,Wheeling in air the winged islands fall,And one great earthy ocean covers all.”
“Man mounts on man, on camels camels rush,Hosts march on hosts, and nations nations crush,Wheeling in air the winged islands fall,And one great earthy ocean covers all.”
“Man mounts on man, on camels camels rush,
Hosts march on hosts, and nations nations crush,
Wheeling in air the winged islands fall,
And one great earthy ocean covers all.”
“One of the largest of these pillars of sand,” says a modern traveler, Caille, “crossed our camp, overset all the seats, and whirling us about like straws, threw one of us on the other in the utmost confusion. We knew not where we were, and could not distinguish any thing at the distance of a foot. The sand wrapped us in darkness like a fog, and the sky and the earth seemed confounded and blended in one. Whilst this frightful tempest lasted we remained stretched on the ground motionless, dying of thirst, burned by the heat of the sand, and buffeted by the wind. We suffered nothing, however, from the sun, whose disk, almost concealed by the clouds of sand, appeared dim and deprived of its rays.” Bruce has sketched with spirit several of these desert whirlwinds, of which he was an eye-witness:—“At one o’clock,” he states, “we alighted among some acacia trees at Waadi el Halboub, having gone twenty-one miles. We were here at once surprised and terrified by a sight surely one of the most magnificent in the world. In that vast expanse of desert, from W. to N. W. of us, we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand at different distances, at times moving with great celerity, at others stalking on with a majestic slowness; at intervals we thought they were coming in a few minutes to overwhelm us; and small quantities of sand did actually more than once reach us. Again they would retreat so as to be almost out of sight, their tops reaching to the very clouds. There the tops often separated from the bodies, and these, once disjoined, dispersed in the air, and did not appear more. Sometimes they were broken in the middle, as if struck with large cannon-shot. About noon they began to advance with considerable swiftness upon us, the wind being very strong at the north. Eleven of them ranged alongside of us about the distance of three miles. The greatest diameter of the largest appeared to me at that distance as if it would measure ten feet. They retired from us with a wind at S. E., leaving an impression upon my mind to which I can give no name, though surely one ingredient in it was fear, with a considerable deal of wonder and astonishment. It was in vain to think of flying; the swiftest horse, or fastest sailing ship, could be of no use to carry us out of this danger; and the full persuasion of this riveted me as if to the spot where I stood. The same appearance of moving pillars of sand presented themselves to us this day, in form and disposition like those we had seen at Waadi Halboub, only they seemed to be more in number and less in size. They came several times in a direction close upon us; that is, I believe, within less than two miles. They began immediately after sunrise like a thick wood, and almost darkened the sun. His rays shining through them for near an hour, gave them an appearance of pillars of fire. Our people now became desperate; the Greeks shrieked out and said it was the day of judgment; Ismael pronounced it to be hell; and the Turcorories, that the world was on fire.” The procession of tall columns of dust, the upper end seeming to vanish off, or puff away like light smoke, and the lower apparently touching the earth, is not unusual on the large plains of New South Wales, in dry weather. They move in a perpendicular position, quietly and majestically gliding along one after another, but really so fast that the fleetest horse is unable to keep pace with them. According to Mrs. Meredith, when they are crossing a brook, the lower portion of the dust islost sight of, and a considerable agitation disturbs the water, but immediately on landing the same appearance is resumed. “As some vanish,” she remarks, “others imperceptibly arise and join the giant waltz; and when I first observed this most singular display, I amused myself by fancying them a new species of genii relaxing from their more laborious avocations, and having a sedate and stately dance all to themselves. When the dance ends, these dusty performers always appear to sit down among the neighboring hills.” To the same class with these rotating and progressing pillars of sand, that singular phenomenon called thewaterspoutclearly belongs, a whirlwind raising into a columnar mass the waters of the sea, and causing the aqueous vapors in the atmosphere to assume the same form, the two frequently uniting, the whole presenting a magnificent spectacle.
Waterspout.
Waterspout.
The Greeks applied the term Prester to the waterspout, which signifies a fiery fluid, from its appearance being generally accompanied with flashes of lightning, and a sulphureous smell, showing the activity of the electrical principle in the air. Lucretius refers to it in the following terms:—
Hence, with much ease, the meteor may we traceTermed, from its essence, Prester by the Greeks,That oft from heaven wide hovers o’er the deep.Like a vast column, gradual from the skies,Prone o’er the waves, descends it; the vexed tideBoiling amain beneath its mighty whirl,And with destruction sure the stoutest shipThreat’ning that dares the boist’rous scene approach.
Hence, with much ease, the meteor may we traceTermed, from its essence, Prester by the Greeks,That oft from heaven wide hovers o’er the deep.Like a vast column, gradual from the skies,Prone o’er the waves, descends it; the vexed tideBoiling amain beneath its mighty whirl,And with destruction sure the stoutest shipThreat’ning that dares the boist’rous scene approach.
Hence, with much ease, the meteor may we traceTermed, from its essence, Prester by the Greeks,That oft from heaven wide hovers o’er the deep.Like a vast column, gradual from the skies,Prone o’er the waves, descends it; the vexed tideBoiling amain beneath its mighty whirl,And with destruction sure the stoutest shipThreat’ning that dares the boist’rous scene approach.
Hence, with much ease, the meteor may we trace
Termed, from its essence, Prester by the Greeks,
That oft from heaven wide hovers o’er the deep.
Like a vast column, gradual from the skies,
Prone o’er the waves, descends it; the vexed tide
Boiling amain beneath its mighty whirl,
And with destruction sure the stoutest ship
Threat’ning that dares the boist’rous scene approach.
Waterspouts exhibit various aspects, but a frequent appearance has been thus described, as it has been observed at sea. Under a dense cloud, a circular area of the ocean, in diameter from 100 to 120 yards, shows great disturbance, the water rushing toward the centre of the agitated mass, from whence it rises in a spiral manner toward the clouds, assuming a trumpet-shape, with the broad end downward. At the same time, the cloud assumes a similar form, but the position of the cone is inverted, and its lower extremity, or apex, gradually unites with the upper extremity of the ascending column of water. At the point of junction, the diameter is not more than two or three feet. There is thus a column of water and vapor formed, extending from the sea to the cloud, thin in the middle, and broad at the two extremities, the sides of which are dark, which gives it the appearance of a hollow tube. It moves with the wind, and even in calm weather, when no wind is perceptible, the position shifts. Sometimes the spout preserves the perpendicular in its motion, but frequently, from the wind not acting with equal force upon its upper and lower extremities, or the one being more susceptible of impulsion than the other, it assumes an inclined position, and the column is speedily ruptured by the unequal velocity of its parts. A few minutes suffices in general for the duration of the phenomenon, but several have been known to continue for near an hour. Instances of repeated disruption and formation have been witnessed, and in the Mediterranean, as many as sixteen waterspouts have been observed at the same time. The mariners of former days were accustomed to discharge artillery at these moving columns, to accelerate their fall, fearful of their ships being crossed by them, and sunk or damaged—a practice alluded to by Falconer in the opening of the second canto of The Shipwreck: but the principal danger arises from the wind blowing in sudden gusts in their vicinity, from all points of the compass, sufficient to capsize small vessels carrying much sail. Waterspouts on land are not uncommon, and in this case there is noascending column of water, but only a descending inverted cone of vapor. Vivid flashes of lightning frequently issue from them, and deluges of rain attend their disruption. A remarkable spout appeared and burst on Emott Moor, near Coln in Lancashire, in the year 1718, about a mile distant from some laborers digging peat, whose attention was directed to it by hearing an unusual noise in the air. Upon leaving the spot in alarm, they found a small rippling stream converted into a roaring flood, though no rain had fallen on the moor; and at the immediate scene of action, the earth had been swept away to the depth of seven feet, the naked rock appeared, and an excavation had been made in the ground by the force of the water discharged from the spout, upward of half a mile in length.
It is a time of fear and peril to man and beast when the hurricane develops its giant strength, yet, contemplated apart from the probability of some fatal catastrophe, there is no scene more intensely sublime in the varied panorama of nature, than that exhibited to the senses of sight and hearing, by the dense black masses of clouds that roll in wild confusion through the air, the tumultuous aspect of the ocean, the agitation of the woods, and the voice of the tempest, varying from the melancholy wail, to the piercingly shrill cry and deafening roar, and occasionally combining every kind of intonation in its sound. However destructive these extraordinary agitations of the atmosphere—however terrible such a situation as that of Æneas on the stormy sea, helpless and hopeless, stretching his folded hands to the stars, and lamenting that he had not fallen with fierce Hector on the Ilian plains—it is unquestionable, that neither “breeze, or gale, or storm,” could be dispensed with in the economy of nature; for the various forms of life which the common air sustains, are preserved in vigor by that conflict of the elements which works occasional disaster. A variety of natural causes in operation upon the surface of the globe, and in its interior, concur to derange that constitution of the atmosphere which is alone salubrious, to vitiate the fluid, convert the medium of life and health into a cause of fever, pestilence, and death, thus changing every scene where the machinery of human existence is in movement into a Grotto del Cane, completely arresting all its wheels—an effect which would undoubtedly transpire without an antagonistic influence in constant action. In the process of supporting mankind and animals, the atmosphere is deprived of its oxygen, and exhaled in a morbid condition unfit for combustion and the sustenance of life; and the respiration of plants contributes also to its derangement. The exhalations from the low swampy regions of the earth are a further cause of deterioration, and hence the malarious mass to which the Pontine marshes, and similar districts, give birth. The provision against the reduction of the atmosphere to a universally disorganised and vitiated condition is the currents that prevail in it, which disperse and separate the poisonous ingredients, render them innocuous by bringing them into new combinations, and thus keep up that due proportion between the component parts of the aerial envelop, upon which its life-conserving property hinges, yet which the functions of life are perpetually destroying. The ordinary play of the winds, whispering in gentle breezes and rushing in powerful gales, has been ordained by the Author of life to subserve this purpose, and the dread tornado is also an efficient agent in the regeneration. In its alembic, it has been remarked, “the isolated poisons will be re-distilled; by the electric fires which it generates, their deleterious sublimations will be deflagrated; and thus will the great Alchymist neutralize the azotic elements which he has let loose, and shake the medicinal draught into salubrity.” The baneful effects of a stagnant condition of the atmosphere are exemplified in the feeble physical frame, and short term of years, of those who in the “city full” are cooped up in sites were there is no sufficient ventilation, and the inhabitants of many deep inclosed valleys exhibit physical and mental deterioration as a consequence of the same cause. The numerous examples of cretinism, or idiocy, with goitres, found about the villages and hamlets of the Lower Valais, and the Val d’Aosta in Switzerland—valleys, which have low marshy spots at the bottom, surrounded by high mountains, where the fresh air does not circulate freely, and where the reflected rays of the sun are very powerful in summer—Saussure attributed to the stagnation of the atmosphere; and though such instances of physical deformity and intellectual incapacity may be the combined effect of various causes, it is in harmony with the known effect of the one referred to, to suppose it materially to contribute to the result. The cagots of the deep Pyrenean valleys answer to the cretins of the Alps.
In closing this notice of atmospheric currents, we refer to observations made upon the ordinary winds of Great Britain. From an average of ten years of the register kept by order of the Royal Society, it appears that at London the wind blows annually in the following proportions:—
The same register shows, that the south-west wind blows at an average more frequently than any other wind during every month of the year, and that it blows longest in July and August; that the north-east blows most constantly during January, March, April, May, and June, and most seldom during February, July, September, and December; and that the north-west wind blows oftener from November to March, and more seldom during September and October, than any other months.
INFLUENCE OF PLACE ON RACE.
———
BY BONGAULTIER.
———
Blancs ou noirs, gelés ou rotis,Mortels que j’ai faits si petits,Dit le bon Dieu, d’un air paterne,On pretende que je vous gouverne;Mais vous devez voir, Dieu merci,Que j’ai des ministres aussi.Beranger.
Blancs ou noirs, gelés ou rotis,Mortels que j’ai faits si petits,Dit le bon Dieu, d’un air paterne,On pretende que je vous gouverne;Mais vous devez voir, Dieu merci,Que j’ai des ministres aussi.Beranger.
Blancs ou noirs, gelés ou rotis,
Mortels que j’ai faits si petits,
Dit le bon Dieu, d’un air paterne,
On pretende que je vous gouverne;
Mais vous devez voir, Dieu merci,
Que j’ai des ministres aussi.Beranger.
Are not the mountains, waves and skies a partOf us and of our souls, as we of them?Byron.
Are not the mountains, waves and skies a partOf us and of our souls, as we of them?Byron.
Are not the mountains, waves and skies a part
Of us and of our souls, as we of them?Byron.
Though there seems no good reason to doubt that the earth was made for man, and that he has got the supremacy of it, yet we believe it is as little to be doubted that his character and royalty have been very much modified by “the beggarly elements” of the world, and still continue to be so, though in a lesser degree than during the earlier ages of his existence in it. In more recent times a great many causes, arising from customs, laws, beliefs, and so forth, have been effective aids in establishing the diversities of nations, such as we see them. But the great disposing causes, operating on men earliest and producing the most permanent tendencies, were in the localities in which they found themselves, and multiplied their generations; and these influences of place can still, in the divisions of the human family, be distinctly traced beneath all others which civilization may have superinduced.
We are not disposed alone to test this proposition by the differences existing between the European families and their affiliations. We would go further, and comprehend “the black men, the white men, the frozen and fried,” of whom Beranger speaks—the eight or nine hundred millions that, at this moment, are crawling about on the thick rotundity of the globe; and thence argue that the soil and the sun have been the chief modifiers of all the human varieties. But here we are met,in liminé—on the threshold of our disquisition—by a crowd of respectable names, among which are those of Professor Agassiz, Van Amringe, Dr. Morton, etc., backed by arguments denying our right to conclude, from the apparent difference of race, the operation of topical influences. These philosophers say there were other causes—that, in fact, these differences were mainly produced by creation—that several distinct species of men were fashioned by the Divine hand, to suit the elemental diversities of the world.
Of course we cannot get along without considering these views—very fairly urged and very worthy of consideration. Every effort after truth is a good thing in itself—even though, like the arrow of Acestes, it should miss its aim, and only make something to wonder at:—
Volens liquidis in nubibus arsit arundoSignavitque viam flammis tenuesque recessitConsumpta in ventis.
Volens liquidis in nubibus arsit arundoSignavitque viam flammis tenuesque recessitConsumpta in ventis.
Volens liquidis in nubibus arsit arundoSignavitque viam flammis tenuesque recessitConsumpta in ventis.
Volens liquidis in nubibus arsit arundo
Signavitque viam flammis tenuesque recessit
Consumpta in ventis.
Though the philosophy of Agassiz and the rest has not, however, been dissipated in thin air, we have an idea, nevertheless, that it has failed, like the Trojan’s arrow. We “cannot away with” that notion of making a species of man for every extreme climate of the globe, and do not think they have at all made the matter clear. They argue analogically. Their opponents argue analogically too. Pritchard and others support their views of the unity of the human species by the analogy of animals. They bring forward a very strong argument in the fact, that hybrids of plants or animals—the offspring of different species—are sterile, as a general law of nature. The offspring of the most dissimilar races of men are never hybrid—but capable of continuing the kind. Pritchard says the difference between the skull of the domestic hog and that of the wild boar is as great as that between the European and Negro skulls; and Blumenbach says there is more difference between the skulls of the Neapolitan and Hungarian breed of horses, respectively, than between the most dissimilar human heads.
But those who agree with Agassiz rely a good deal upon the assertions of Dr. Morton, of Philadelphia, and adduce several instances in which hybrids were found to be fruitful—mostly, however, in conjunction with an animal of pure stock. Still, these cases are so exceptional, or so uncertain, that no general conclusion can be drawn from them, sufficient to make head against Pritchard, Buffon, Cuvier, Hunter, and those who argue with them, on the matter. The general law is the true one. A man has suckled an infant, and a heifer, that never calved, has given milk; but such things cannot tell against the order of Nature.
Taking higher ground in this argument, we are the more strongly of opinion that the analogical mode of reasoning is a wrong one. We do not perceive how the analogies can be made good in the business. It seems fallacious to conclude, with Professor Agassiz, that, because plants and animals—as is generally believed—have not originated in a common centre, our race could not have so originated. To argue from the fact that such “inconsistencies” do not occur in the laws of nature is bad philosophy, after all. He does not clearly or fully know what Nature, or the power we are agreed to call Nature, intends for laws. He takes a department of the material world—a section embracing the Marsupiata,the Edentata, fishes of cartilagenous type, certain plants, flowers, and so forth; and, circumscribing it, he seems to look upon it as the proper sphere for the laws of nature to work in. But it is possible—indeed we believe it to be the truth—that Nature has laws ten millions of miles beyond and above that little circle, and that we do not know or even suspect one half of them. By what law of nature was the ball we cling upon launched into space, and man, “of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting,” put upon it? Certainly by one of those laws which we, not comprehending them, call miracles. Coming down a little from the summit of such high positions, we find that man is not the analogue of reptiles, fishes, animals, plants, and so forth—that he differs from them in something out of the rule—something miraculous—the “reasonable soul” which St. Athanasius speaks of. The philosophy of analogy is at fault here, and must be. Man enters none of the categories; he is neither an animal, a reptile, nor a fish. The laws of these are not the laws of Nature—the whole book—nor the laws of man. It is nonsense, therefore, to talk, with such an air, of “inconsistencies.” Even supposing that man may, on the Lamarckian principle, at any time of his development, have been a sponge and lived on salt water, he is, as he stands now—the laughing, the exchanging, the believing animal—not the less an exception and a miracle, and as such philosophers must deal with him.
It is not improbable, after all, that our materialist philosophers may be going astray. The doctrines of Bacon and Locke were noble pronunciamentos in their way and day, and fulfilled in a memorable degree one of the great laws of human progression. They displaced Aristotle, Ptolemy, and those other ancients who were the Bacons and Lockes of the earlier generations. It is not improbable that the founders of the English school of philosophy may, in time, yield to new teachers of men and obey the supreme laws of mutation. Nothing is permanent; every thing tends to something newer and higher. Bacon and Locke may yet abdicate their supremacy, and go away with the other mental and physical Megatheriums of the world—having lived their appropriate and necessary lives. They have built a noble materialist edifice; but they who come after them and strive to raise a metaphysical superstructure from it are probably building upon the wrong foundation. There is nothing any where to show that mind and matter are subject to the same laws—that the development and destiny of one belong, at all, to the other. We may yet be fated to know something more of the origin and end of man than we have been able to gather, ever since the first syllable of recorded time; but it must be by some means widely different from the circumscribed and earth-grubbing; philosophies which have risen amongst us of late, and which sometimes make us regard with a feeling of preference the transcendentalisms, infinite misty soarings, and so forth, of the Kantean school. We are so tired of Aristides Bacon, Aristides Locke, and those other solid thinkers, so repeatedly called the Just and the True, that we feel ourselves at times disposed to ostracise them.
We cannot bend man to the laws of Linnæus, Lamarck, or any one else. The arguments against the unity of his species, drawn from the unreasoning creation, are not at all convincing. They are very violent and clumsy. Messrs. Agassiz, Amringe, and others, desire to make a simple and consistent theory—one which shall have nothing miraculous in it. And yet to avoid one miracle, they adopt a dozen. They turn their backs upon their own development doctrine, and refuse to believe that the material of the human structure could undergo its changes in process of time, and under the various elemental influences. They argue that there must have been originally several creations of men, to suit the varying localities of the earth. Following their views, and taking the divisions of race made by different philosophers, we should find our beliefs blown about a good deal. For Blumenbach, Cuvier, and Latham, hold that the Deity made three species; Martin and Lawrence that he made five; Dumenil and Lesson that he made six; Fischer and others that he made seven; and Desmoulins and Pickering that he made eleven. But, in the midst of the confused indecision in which we are left, where would be the unreasonableness of taking the subdivisions of these divisions and asking why we may not look ontheseas distinct species also—why, in fact, should there not have been creations equal in number to the twenty-four subdivisions? If these philosophers go on, making distinctions, (in which no two of them will be found to agree with the others,) where are they to stop? There are varieties enough in the osteology and general appearance of the races to warrant a hundred distinctions—therefore, a hundred creations. Why should we stop at three creations—or six, or eleven? It is as easy and more consistent to suppose half a hundred creations than half a dozen. Then those who contend for only three or four creations, admit a great number of varieties; and thus admit the principle that climate and other accidents can, after all, change the race from the exact condition of a type. Thus the principle of their argument is compromised—the philosophy of it is in a loose and untenable condition. It is a very clumsy hypothesis altogether:
How smilesThe gazer’s eye in philosophic mirthTo see the weak design!
How smilesThe gazer’s eye in philosophic mirthTo see the weak design!
How smilesThe gazer’s eye in philosophic mirthTo see the weak design!
How smiles
The gazer’s eye in philosophic mirth
To see the weak design!
Here we have the Deity forming several pairs of the race, to suit the several hills, plains, and peculiar configuration of the earth just rising above the slush and slime of the Saurian period. This shocks our ideas of divine wisdom. Our reason, such as it is, teaches us, and it seems to be generally received that creative power works with simplicity and not in repetitionary ways. And, taking another view of the case, we cannot conceive why the great Artificer should make different species expressly for different places. The argument that, because many plants are, or seem to be, proper to their peculiar habitats, man should be so to one place, is a feeble one. Manis not rooted, but biped; legs were given him for locomotion; unlike the other animals, he has got a mind and theadductor pollicis, and can build coracles, caravels, cunarders. The Supreme Being did not surely design that man should stay in any particular place. The children of men have been nomade from the beginning, moving over the surface of the globe, hither and thither, like the waves on the sea. If God did really produce three, or six, or a dozen distinct species—each for its own place, it was labor in vain and without foresight—a very ridiculous conclusion to come to.
It is generally admitted that within the reach of the historic periods, several predominant races proceeded from the middle of Asia, in several directions—north, south, east, and west. The advocates of the different species contend that there are no nomade invaders on record who did not find inhabitants in the countries they intruded on. If such were the case, the creation of theseautocthonoi, or “children of the ground,” was an unnecessary thing; for the Hyperboreans, Mongols, Egyptians, Arabs, Circassians, Pelasgians, Getæ, and so forth, came to obliterate them and flourish in their stead. And if the invaders could thus flourish in localities for which they were not created, there would seem to have been little necessity for the creation of more than one species of man. Altogether, it does appear that the scheme of making a distinct species for distinct zones or parallels is incompatible with our received notions of divine wisdom.
As for the production and distribution of animals and plants, we have no objection to consider them on the Lamarckian principle. The germs of earth’s million vegetable varieties were and are doubtless scattered through the crust of the earth, to be modified by the elements which act upon the surface; they may exist in an infinitesimal manner, baffling to our senses and our ideas alike. The reptiles, fishes, and animals, probably owed their origin toinfusoriaand a variety of changes following the law of development, and influenced by the sea or the sun. But between these and man—as we have already insisted—there is only an imperfect analogy, extremely helpless in this question of human derivation. That Lamarckian hypothesis—set forth so eloquently in the Vestiges of Creation—a work which, of a surety, belongs to Professor Nichol of Glasgow—answers very well for every thing but the man. Leave him out. Omit the part of Hamlet, and so play out the play. But man, the miraculous—that strange compound of dirt and divinity—will not be amenable to all this gradation—will not be put in a category and decided on, like a cactus or a kangaroo. He still remains apart—
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.
Such are the considerations which lead us to reject the idea of a variety of pristine pairs. The arguments by which it is supported are many, but they are feeble. One of them is the fact, that, so far back as the records of the race have extended, the existing distinctions of it are discoverable. The most ancient Egyptian sculptures show the different features of the Negro and Ethiopian races, such as they appear at this day. These sculptures bear date nearly four thousand years ago; and it is concluded these heads had not time enough, since the beginning of the world, to be changed from a common type—seeing they have not since been changed in a lapse of time twice as long. They assume that our race has only been six thousand years on the globe. But that sort of argument is set aside by general consent.Chronological science is not among the truths which the Bible was intended to teach; with respect to the age of the world that venerable book is not historic nor authoritative. The most orthodox believers all over the world have admitted the demonstrations of geology; and we may safely conclude that our race has been roaming over the periphery of this planet for a longer period than that deduced by Usher from the Hebrew records. Philosophical science does not avail itself of such uncertainties as the world’s age is allowed to be. Again; it is argued by the doctors of development that apaircould not naturally propagate a species. They keep their eyes very closely upon the habits of the lower animals. They do not consider what was contrary to nature in making the paragon of animals, only a little lower than the angels. The propagation of a species from a pair, seems a very conquerable sort of difficulty, compared with others, that lie along this field of our disquisition. Why should people strain so much at a gnat, after they have swallowed the dromedary?
We have been following this argument through the pages of Col. Smith’s work[1]on the Human Species, with an Introduction by Dr. Kneeland. The doctor gives the views of Pritchard, Agassiz, and others,proandcon, on this matter, and subjoins his own opinions, supporting those of Agassiz, and claiming more than one original species. Dr. Kneeland’s conclusions seem lame enough. He argues, among other things, that a human mixture is bad. He says history proves that artificial breeds and mixed races of men have no permanency, and become extinct, unless they procure supplies from a pure stock. If this be true, God help these United States of ours! Here we are receiving increments from almost all the races of the world—certainly from all those of the old world—and making a perfectolla podridaof our civilization! Are we to decline, fall away, perish and become extinct, if we do not call upon the pure Celtic, Teutonic, or Anglo-Saxon stock for large periodical supplies? We hope not. Intermixture may not turn out so fatally. England has certainly drawn her strength and empire, in a great measure, from the fountain of her mongrel blood of Peghts, Britons, Celts, Romans, Danes, Teutons, Northmen, and all the rest of them. And yet there may be, after all, something in this ethnic philosophy of Dr. Kneeland. Still it is not good to despair; and, in fact, there is much to console the future of this federation, shouldits mingled blood grow too much diluted. Ireland is bent on coming over here bodily; and the pure Celtic blood of that island will be happily available to the veins and arteries of our debilitated bodypolitic!
In this question of the human species—whether there were many created, or only one—we think it most reasonable to abide by the old doctrine of a single pair, seeing that the advocates of repeated creations cannot overthrow it, nor recommend their own. It is, at all events, simplest to believe in one; for if you believe in more, you will soon be bewildered into the belief of twenty or thirty primordial pairs. Assuming, then, that the race first issued from some part of Central Asia—where it seems generally allowed that it originated—we see nothing very violent in the supposition, that climate and locality produced the varied appearances of the human family, which we see at this day. After a certain lapse of time, black races were found to exist—especially in Africa—exhibiting features which distinguished them, in a very marked manner, from the white and other varieties:—viz—flat noses, protruding thick lips, retreating foreheads, and a wooliness of hair. These peculiarities are found, more or less, in all the races of that continent; the exceptions are few—still exhibiting the prevailing marks of race. The Egyptians sculptured on monuments have features resembling those of the Negroes—in the breadth of nostril, the thickness of the lips, and the general expression, but certainly of a higher facial order. A number of authorities, among whom are reckoned Pritchard and Denon, sanction the idea, that the Egyptian must, in a great degree, be classed with the Negro race. This race exhibits no proof of having been created especially to occupy an appropriate place, for it is found in a hundred localities. Clans of Negroes have existed in Laristan, in Makran, in Persia, and on the Helmund. They are also scattered over the Indian Archipelago—bearing the Hindoo, Mongol, and Malay characteristics. The Papuas of Nicobar, the Philippine Islands, and these oriental longitudes, resemble the numerous tribes of Negro variety to be found in Africa. On the latter continent, the races have all a strong family likeness; marked, however, by diversities which seem to prove the existence of modifying influences. In South Africa, the Hottentots and Bushmen greatly resemble, in size and face, their brother men of the Mongolian stock, in the opposite latitudes—to wit, the Chinese, the Esquimaux, and the other tribes of Northern Asiatics. Some of these diversified Negro races have woolly hair, and others straight hair. The skulls of the woolly tribes cannot be classed sufficiently distinctly. They exhibit that variety which runs through all those dusky families, recognized as one stock from their general resemblance. Thus it would seem that races of men were made Negroes in Asia as well as in Africa—perhaps long before they reached the latter continent—in which similar elemental influences were prepared to produce a like result.
If we consider the other extremes of mankind which we call the Caucasian, Japhetic, Bearded, and so forth, we find no certain sign that they constitute a distinct species. They have such diversities among themselves, and such intermingling resemblances to other divisions of humanity, that it is bewildering and, indeed, impossible to abide by any arbitrary distribution of them. In Asia, the Caucasian features are blended with the Mongolian, and Capuan or Negro, in a variety of degrees, in different localities, and under many nomenclatures. Toward the West, the Caucasian face is modified into the Egyptian, which is still further modified into some of the several Negro types. Each of the extreme divisions is found to be connected with the other by many signs of common likeness, and the races seem imperceptibly to run into one another as they appear to be modified by locality, or habits of existence. We may mention, in passing—as showing the resemblance that human aspects bear to one another, though the owners of them may have their native habitats a thousand leagues asunder—that the daguerreotype of Erasmus York, (a Mongol boy,) taken a few months ago in London, presents a face which we thought we saw with a basket of oranges the other day, in the street, a few days after it had arrived from the county Galway, in an emigrant ship.
People have speculated a good deal on the aspect and general appearance of our first parents. Some suppose they had white skin—that Adam was colored and shaped somewhat resembling the Sagittarius Apollo, and that the first of women was like the finest of her daughters at Almack’s or Saratoga, in the season—
That she, who lived six thousand years ago,Was made exactly like the best we know.
That she, who lived six thousand years ago,Was made exactly like the best we know.
That she, who lived six thousand years ago,Was made exactly like the best we know.
That she, who lived six thousand years ago,
Was made exactly like the best we know.
This idea of the primordial pair has been variously expressed. Dubufe, the Frenchman, whose two pictures of the Temptation and the Expulsion have been so extensively carried about and admired, represents Adam and Eve as a very fair and almost rose-colored pair of progenitors—as if they had just stepped out of band-boxes. Instead of resembling in aspect the oldintonsus Cato, at a time when razorswere unheard of, Adam wears his countenance smooth-shaven, while his dark hair and beard look as well dressed as if they had just come from the accomplishing hand of a barber. The toilet of the father of all men living seems, in fact, perfected as to the head; and he looks for all the world like a handsome French guardsman,in puris naturalibus. The genius of Gaul breathes from the whole representation, proving as strongly as the poetry of Victor Hugo, Chateaubriand, and Lamartine, that though powerful in the picturesque, splendid andgrandiose, it is still deficient in the finer and higher faculties of poetic inspiration. An Englishman has certainty made a far nobler picture of the human protoplast and his better half. John Milton says of Adam—
His fair, large front and eye sublime declaredInfinite rule; and hyacinthine locksRound from his parted forelock manly hungClustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.
His fair, large front and eye sublime declaredInfinite rule; and hyacinthine locksRound from his parted forelock manly hungClustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.
His fair, large front and eye sublime declaredInfinite rule; and hyacinthine locksRound from his parted forelock manly hungClustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.
His fair, large front and eye sublime declared
Infinite rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.
In both these instances the man seems to be of the Caucasian type—a European; for Milton’s portrait has an air of Greek dignity. Pritchard is of opinionthat Adam was of a melanic skin—a black man, in fact—though not of course belonging to what we recognize as the African type. Indeed, it is difficult not to suppose the first man and woman beings of a swarthy complexion, to suit their skies—and nobly-faced, as theAfghans and other races of Central Asia are at this day. If we assume—as we are disposed to do—that the first pair were fashioned by miraculous initiative, we must conclude they would be physical, and, indeed, mental exemplars—of beautiful aspect and faultless symmetry. But the ardent oriental sun, and the glorious exposure of their persons to the elements, would naturally darken their complexions, and in this guise should they be represented by painting and poetry. “But whither would conjecture stray,” on such a theme as this?
Spreading out from their original locality, the various branches of the human family may be easily conceived to undergo changes from the climate and mode of life of their successive generations. That such changes were undergone seems to be borne out by the comparison or contrast of the different races. In some places, the people who traveled out of the temperate zone, or whose lot was cast in places far inland, and without rivers, where the powers of nature were niggard and the elements unfavorable, would become deteriorated, and the course of generations would confirm in them the growing inferiority of their condition—physical and mental. On the other hand, they whose lines were fallen to them in pleasant places, in a temperate zone, by the shores of seas, or banks of rivers, and in the midst of a country, fit either to feed cattle or to produce corn and wine, would keep their original dignity of feature and physical structure.
Thus, for instance, the first wanderers to the South and East would, in time, become the black Papuan races; and others, passing through Suez and Egypt into Africa Proper—so to term it—would become baked and brutified by the sun and the sandy wilderness. On the other hand, they who moved through the temperate zone under beneficent firmaments, and in Mesopotamian districts, would naturally become the Assyrian, Persian, Pelasgian builders of houses, ships, temples, great cities, and historical colonies. The tribes migrating up toward the North would, from the first, suffer from the Boreal elements, and take deep traces of them; but would also be endowed with great physical energy from the same, and under the Mongolian name, agitate all the North with powerful migrations, and, in the end, originate those world-overthrowing hordes, which filled subsequent ages with so much terror and glory. The earlier wanderers into Africa, passing inward and southward, would give rise to those marked and many-named tribes, classed under the nomenclature of Negroes. The hot sun, and the condition of their soil, would affect their physical nature. Every thing would tend, as we have still the opportunity of perceiving, to degrade the human type in the interior of Africa. The people would become mere animals without the stimulants of happier localities. They would bask lazily in the sun, crowd together in kraals, and propagate their degraded race into something still more stupid and degraded by the vitiating closeness of their intermarriages. In such circumstances of savagery, the dropping and thickness of the sensual mouth, and the other facial peculiarities would grow and become hardened features, in the course of time. It seems to be generally understood that the power of adaptation is a law of physical nature, as well in man as in the lower organizations; and it may very reasonably be concluded that the human head is modified by the powers of the brain—the energy of thought expanding the capacity of the head. This is the opinion of Mallebranche, and other philosophers and physiologists. We may conclude that the sensual stagnation of the intellectual faculties, under the tropical elements, where exertion of any kind could have but little effect in bettering the condition of a lazy population, leaves the brain to grow feeble and flaccid from disuse; whence it is not unphilosophical to conclude the fore part of the head would sink in, and lie toward the back. It seems to be a general physical law, that the expression of the face shall indicate the natures of men. The Arabs and other Asiatics arriving from the East into Egypt, and bringing on their firm faces the traces of their arduous circumstances and active habits, came, in the course of generations, to be marked with the sensuousness of mouth and chin, and the lower arch of the head which distinguish the Egyptian face. The hot and enervating climate of Egypt had a deteriorating effect on the population, which at last grew to resemble the Negro race. That the Egyptians were not so degraded in appearance as these last, was owing to the many immigrations of foreign tribes, who preserved to the kings, priests, and higher classes, a more Asiatic physical expression. The river Nile, the Sea—the great civilizer—and the influences of commerce, had also their beneficent effects upon the condition of the people of Egypt.
With regard to the other more marked races, it is known that the law of Northern latitudes is, the lessening of physical development and capacity, from the temperate toward the colder zones. In these last, the blood of men grows colder and more sluggish, and their bodies grow smaller and weaker. Extreme cold is unfriendly to the element of life; and under its influence, acting directly on man, and indirectly on his condition, from the soil, the Northern races received their stunted proportions of figure and mental energy—such as we witness in the Esquimaux and other tribes, of the same high latitudes.
We should not calculate the climatic effects of primitive times, from the result of experience or observation now-a-days. The conditions of men are not exactly what they were, even in those places we consider barbarous. In the beginning, men were ignorantly exposed to all the rude shocks of the elements for generations, and lived and propagated the conditions which those elements impressed upon them. All the deteriorating influences of savage life, working in a very vicious circle, effected then what can no longer be effected, in a general way, sodecidedly and remarkably. People, now, can move about and live in extreme latitudes, and yet keep for generations their peculiar traits and conformation. But they have comfortable means and appliances about them, and hold themselves aloof from the barbarisms peculiar to the place. In this way, the climatic influences are resisted for ages.
Those who argue for a distinct species in the case of the blacks, and do not believe in the slow changes produced by geographical position and the elements, will point to the fact, that Negroes taken into temperate latitudes, and propagating purely for a few generations, have appeared to be Negroes still—not much the whiter for the experiment. But it has not been a full and a fair one. Nature produces her permanent results very slowly. She took hundreds of years to bake, and blacken and flatten, and lanify the nigger, and hundreds more to harden his osteology—to burn, as it were, his traits into his clay; and if the man is to be unbaked, unblackened, and so forth, she must have something of the same time, in which to reverse her operations. It would take four or five hundred years, at least, to bleach Pompey or Lucretia. Perhaps at Spitzbergen, or some of those hyperborean places—