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 corvidæ 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 corvidæ as a typical group is above an
aberrant one, the mammalia above the aves. Can any of the simiadæ
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 corvidæ. 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 simiadæ rise to a climax in his
pre-eminent mental nature. His sub-analogy to the feræ 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 corvidæ, 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.
[Picture: Diagram] {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, (corvidæ,) 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 corvidæ, 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-Phœnician_, 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 Abbé 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.