'cradle of the human race', are not devoid of a mythical
p 355
character. "We do not know," says Wilhelm von Humboldt, in an unpublished
work 'On the Varieties of Languages and Nations', "either from history or
from authentic tradition, any period of time in which the human race has not
been divided into social groups. Whether the gregarious condition was
original, or of subsequent occurrence, we have no historic evidence to show.
The separate mythical relations found to exist independently of one another
in different parts of the earth, appear to refute the first hypothesis, and
concur in ascribing the generation of the whole human race to the union of
one pair. The general prevalence of this myth has cause it to be regarded
as a traditionary record transmitted from the primitive man to his
descendants. But this very circumstance seems rather to prove that it has
no historical foundation, but has simply arisen from an identity in the mode
of intellectual conception, which has every where led man to adopt the same
conclusion regarding identical phenomena; in the same manner as many myths
have doubtlessly arisen, not from any historical connection existing between
them, but rather from an identity in human thought and imagination. Another
evidence in favor of the purely mythical nature of this belief is afforded
by the fact that the first origin of mankind -- a phenomenon which is wholly
beyond the sphere of experience -- is explained in perfect conformity with
existing views, being considered on the principle of the colonization of
some desert island or remote mountainous valley at a period when mankind had
already existed for thousands of years. It is in vain that we direct our
thoughts to the solution of the great problem of the first origin, since man
is too intimately associated with his own race and with the relations of
time to conceive of the existence of an individual independently of a
preceding generation and age. A solution of those difficult questions,
which can not be determined by inductive reasoning or by experience --
whether the belief in this presumed traditional condition be actually based
on historical evidence, or whether mankind inhabited the earth in gregarious
associations from the origin of the race -- can not, therefore, be
determined from philological data, and yet its elucidation ought not to be
sought from other sources."
The distribution of mankind is therefore only a distribution into
'varieties', which are commonly designated by the somewhat indefinite term
'races'. As in the vegetable kingdom, and in the natural history of birds
and fishes, a classification into many small families is based on a surer
foundation than
p 356
where large sections are separated into a few but large divisions; so it
also appears to me, that in the determination of races a preference should
be given to the establishment of small families of nations. Whether we
adopt the old classification of my master, Blumenbach, and admit 'five'
races (the Caucasian, Mongolian, American, Ethiopian, and Malayan), or that
of Prichard, into 'seven races'* (the Iranian, Turanian, American,
Hottentots and Bushmen, Negroes, Papuas, and Alfourons), we fail to
recognize any typical sharpness of definition, or any general or
well-established principle in the division of these groups.
[footnote] *Prichard, op. cit., vol. i., p. 247.
The extremes of form and color are certainly separated, but without regard
to the races, which can not be included in any of these classes, and which
have been alternately termed Scythian and Allophyllic. Iranian is certainly
a less objectionable term for the European nations than Caucasian; but it
may be maintained generally that geographical denominations are very vague
when used to express the points of departure of races, more especially where
the country which has given its name to the race, as, for instance, Turan
(Mawerannahr), has been inhabited at different periods* by Indo-Germanic and
Finnish, and not by Mongolian tribes.
[footnote] *The late arrival of the Turkish and Mongolian tribes on the
Oxus and on the Kirghis Steppes is opposed to the hypothesis of Niebuhr,
according to which the Scythians of Herodotus and Hippocrates were
Mongolians. It seems far more probable that the Scythians (Scoloti) should
be referred to the Indo-Germanic Massagetae (Alani). The Mongolian, true
Tartars (the latter term was afterward falsely given to purely Turkish
tribes in Russia and Siberia), were settled, at that period, far in the
eastern part of Asia. See my 'Asie Centrale', t. i., p. 239, 400; 'Examen
Critique de l'Histoire de la Geogr.', th. ii., p. 320. A distinguished
philologist, Professor Buschmann, calls attention to the circumstance that
the poet Firdousi, in his half-mythical prefatory remarks in the
'Schahnameh', mentions "a fortress of the Alani" on the sea-shore, in which
Selm took refuge, this prince being the eldest son of the King Feridun, who
in all probability lived two hundred years before Cyrus. The Kirghis of the
Scythian steppe were originally a Finnish tribe; their three hordes probably
constitute in the present day the most numerous nomadic nation, and their
tribe dwelt, in the sixteenth century, in the same steppe in which I have
myself seen them. The Byzantine Menander (p. 380-382, ed. Nieb.) expressly
states that the Chacan of the Turks (Thu-Khiu), in 569, made a present of a
Kirghis slave to Zemarchus, the embassador of ustinish II.; he terms her a
[Greek word]; and we find in Abulgasi ('Historia Mongolorum et Tatarorum')
that the Kirghis are called Kirkiz. Similarity of manners, where the nature
of the country determines the principal characteristics, is a very uncertain
evidence of identity of race. The life of the steppes produces among the
Turks (Ti Tukiu), the Baschkirs (Fins), the Kirghis, the Torgodi and
Dsungari (Mongolians), the same habits of nomadic life, and the same use of
felt tents, carried on wagons and pitched among herds of cattle.
p 357
Languages, as intellectual creations of man, and as closely interwoven with
the development of mind, are, independently of the 'national' form which
they exhibit, of the greatest importance in the recognition of similarities
or differences in races. This importance is especially owing to the clew
which a community of descent affords in treading that mysterious labyrinth
in which the connection of physical powers and intellectual forces manifests
itself in a thousand different forms. The brilliant progress made within
the last half century, in Germany, in philosophical philology, has greatly
facilitated our investigations into the 'national' character* of languages
and the influence exercised by descent.
[footnote] *Wilhelm von Humboldt, 'Ueber die Verschiedenheit der
menschlichen Sprachbaues', in his great work 'Ueber die Kawi-Sprache auf der
Insel Java', bd. i., s. xxi., xlviii., and ccxiv.
But here, as in all domains of ideal speculation, the dangers of deception
are closely linked to the rich and certain profit to be derived.
Positive ethnographical studies, based on a thorough knowledge of history,
teach us that much caution should be applied in entering into these
comparisons of nations, and of the languages employed by them at certain
epochs. Subjection, long association, the influence of a foreign religion,
the blending of races, even when only including a small number of the more
influential and cultivated of the immigrating tribes, have produced, in both
continents, similarly recurring phenomena; as, for instance, in introducing
totally different families of languages among one and the same race, and
idioms, having one common root, among nations of the most different origin.
Great Asiatic conquerors have exercised the most powerful influence on
phenomena of this kind.
But language is a part and parcel of the history of the development of mind;
and however happily the human intellect, under the most dissimilar physical
conditions, may unfettered pursue a self-chosen track, and strive to free
itself from the dominion of terrestrial influences, this emancipation is
never perfect. There ever remains, in the natural capacities of the mind, a
trace of something that has been derived from the influences of race or of
climate, whether they be associated with a land gladdened by cloudless azure
skies, or with the vapory atmosphere of an insular region. As, therefore,
richness and grace of language are unfolded from the most luxuriant
p 358
depths of thought, we have been unwilling wholly to disregard the bond which
so closely links together the physical world with the sphere of intellect
and of the feelings by depriving this general picture of nature of those
brighter lights and tints which may be borrowed from considerations, however
slightly indicated, of the relations existing between races and languages.
While we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel
the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men.*
[footnote] *The very cheerless, and, in recent times, too often discussed
doctrine of the unequal rights of men to freedom, and of slavery as an
institution in conformity with nature, is unhappily found most
systematically developed in Aristotle's 'Politica', i., 3, 5, 6.
There are nations more susceptible of cultivation, more highly civilized,
more enobled by mental cultivation than others, but none in themselves
nobler than others. All are in like degree designed for freedom; a freedom
which, in the ruder conditions of society, belongs only to the individual,
but which, in social states enjoying political institutions, appertains as a
right to the whole body of the community. "If we would indicate an idea
which, throughout the whole course of history, has ever more and more widely
extended its empire, or which, more than any other, testifies to the
much-contested and still more decidedly misunderstood perfectibility of the
whole human race, it is that of establishing our common humanity -- of
striving to remove the barriers which prejudice and limited views of every
kind have erected among men, and to treat all mankind, without reference to
religion, nation, or color, as one fraternity, one great community, fitted
for the attainment of one object, the unrestrained development of the
physical powers. This is the ultimate and highest aim of society, identical
with the direction implanted by nature in the mind of man toward the
indefinite extension of his existence. He regards the earth in all its
limits, and the heavens as far as his eye can scan their bright and starry
depths, as inwardly his own, given to him as the objects of his
contemplation, and as a field for the development of his energies. Even the
child longs to pass the hills or the seas which inclose his narrow home;
yet, when his eager steps have borne him beyond those limits, he pines, like
the plant, for his native soil; and it is by this touching and beautiful
attribute of man -- this longing for that which is unknown, and this fond
remembrance of that which is lost -- that he is spared from an exclusive
attachment to the present.
p 359
Thus deeply rooted in the innermost nature of man, and even enjoined upon
him by his highest tendencies, the recognition of the bond of humanity
becomes one of the noblest leading principles in the history of mankind."*
[footnote] *Wilhelm von Humboldt, 'Ueber die Kawi-Sprache', bd. iii., s.
426. I subjoin the following extract from this work: "The impetuous
conquests of Alexander, the more politic and premeditated extension of
territory made by the Romans, the wild and cruel incursions of the Mexicans,
and the despotic acquisitions of the incas, have in both hemispheres
contributed to put an end to the separate existence of many tribes as
independent nations, and tended at the same time to establish more extended
international amalgamation. Men of great and strong minds, as well as whole
nations, acted under the influence of one idea, the purity of which was,
however, utterly unknown to them. It was Christianity which first
promulgated the truth of its exalted charity, although the seed sown yielded
but a slow and scanty harvest. Before the religion of Christ manifested its
form, its existence was only revealed by a faint foreshadowing presentiment.
In recent times, the idea of civilization has acquired additional
intensity, and has given rise to a desire of extending more widely the
relations of national intercourse and of intellectual cultivation; even
selfishness begins to learn that by such a course its interests will be
better served than by violent and forced isolation. Language more than any
other attribute of mankind, binds together the whole human race. By its
idiomatic properties it certainly seems to separate nations, but the
reciprocal understanding of foreign languages connects men together on the
other hand without injuring individual national characteristics."
With these words, which draw their charm from the depths of feeling, let a
brother be permitted to close this general description of the natural
phenomena of the universe. From the remotest nebulae and from the revolving
double stars, we have descended to the minutest organisms of animal
creation, whether manifested in the depths of ocean or on the surface of our
globe, and to the delicate vegetable germs which clothe the naked declivity
of the ice-crowned mountain summit; and here we have been able to arrange
these phenomena according to partially known laws; but other laws of a more
mysterious nature rule the higher spheres of the organic world, in which is
comprised the human species in all its varied conformation, its creative
intellectual power, and the languages to which it has given existence. A
physical delineation of nature terminates at the point where the sphere of
intellect begins, and a new world of mind is opened to our view. It marks
the limit, but does not pass it.
p 360 is blank
p 361
ADDITIONAL NOTES
TO THE PRESENT EDITION. MARCH, 1849.
__________
GIGANTIC BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND. -- Vol. i., p. 287.
An extensive and highly interesting collection of bones, referrible to
several species of the 'Moa' (Dinornis of Owen), and to three or four other
genera of birds, formed by Mr. Walter Mantell, of Wellington, New Zealand,
has recently arrived in England, and is now deposited in the British Museum.
This series consists of between 700 and 800 speciments, belonging to
different parts of the skeletons of many individuals of various sizes and
ages. Some of the largest vertebrae, tibiae, and femora equal in magnitude
the most gigantic previously known, while others are not larger than the
corresponding bones of the living apteryx. Among these relics are the
'skulls' and 'mandibles' of two genera, the 'Dinornis' and 'Palapteryx';
and of an extinct genus, 'Notornis', allied to the 'Rallidae'; and the
mandibles of a species of 'Nestor', a genus of nocturnal owl-like parrots,
of which only two living species are known.*
[footnote] *See Professor Owen's Memoir on these fossil remains, in
'Zoological Transactions', 1848.
These osseous remains are in a very different state of preservation from any
previously received from New Zealand; they are light and porous, and of a
light fawn-color; the most delicate processes are entire, and the
articulating surfaces smooth and uninjured; 'fragments of egg-shells', and
even the bony rings of the trachea and air tubes, are preserved'.
The bones were dug up by Mr. Walter Mantell from a bed of marly sand,
containing magnetic iron, crystals of hornblende and augite, and the
detritus of augitic rocks and earthy volcanic tuff. The sand had filled up
all the cavities and cancelli, but was in no instance consolidated or
aggregated together; it was, therefore, easily removed by a soft brush, and
the bones perfectly cleared without injury.
The spot whence these precious relics of the colossal birds that once
inhabited the islands of New Zealand were obtained, is a flat tract of land,
near the embouchure of a river, named Waingongoro, not far from Wanganui,
which has its rise in the volcanic regions of Mount Egmont. The natives
affirm that this level tract was one of the places first dwelt upon by their
remote ancestors; and this tradition is corroborated by the existence of
numerous heaps and pits of ashes and charred bones indicating ancient fires,
long burning on the same spot. In these fire-heaps Mr. Mantell found burned
bones of 'men, moas', and 'dogs'.
The fragments of egg-shells, imbedded in the ossiferous deposits, had
escaped the notice of all previous naturalists. They are, unfortunately,
very small portions, the largest being only four inches long, but they
afford a chord by which to estimate the size of the original. Mr. Mantell
observes that the egg of the Moa must have been so large that a hat would
form a good egg-cup for it. These relics evidently belong to two or more
species, perhaps genera. In some examples the external
p 362
surface is smooth; in others it is marked with short intercepted linear
grooves, resembling the eggs of some of the Struthiouidae, but distinct from
all known recent types. In this valuable collection only one bone of a
mammal has been detected, namely, 'the femur of a dog'.
An interesting memoir on the probable geological position and age of the
ornithic bone deposits of New Zealand, by Dr. Mantell, based on the
observations of his enterprising son, it published in the Quarterly Journal
of the Geological Society of London (1848). It appears that in many
instances the bones are imbedded in sand and clay, which lie beneath a thick
deposit of volcanic detritus, and rest on an argillaceous stratum abounding
in marine shells. The specimens found in the rivers and streams have been
washed out of their banks by the currents which now flow through channels
from ten to thirty feet deep, formed in the more ancient alluvial soil. Dr.
Mantell concludes that the islands of New Zealand were densely peopled at a
period geologically recent, though historically remote, by tribes of
gigantic brevi-pennate birds allied to the ostrich tribe, all, or almost
all, of species and genera now extinct; and that, subsequently to the
formation of the most ancient ornithic deposit, the sea-coast has been
elevated from fifty to one hundred feet above its original level; hence the
terraces of shingle and loam which now skirt the maritime districts. The
existing rivers and mountain torrents flow in deep gulleys which they have
eroded in the course of centuries in these pleistocene strata, in like
manner as the river courses of Auvergne, in Central France, are excavated in
the mammiferous tertiary deposits of that country. The last of the gigantic
birds were probably exterminated, like the dodo, by human agency: some
small species allied to the apteryx may possibly be met with in the
unexplored parts of the middle island.
THE DODO. -- A most valuable and highly interesting history of the dodo and
its kindred* has recently appeared in which the history, affinities, and
osteology of the 'Dodo, Solitaire', and other extinct birds of the islands
Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Bourbon are admirably elucidated by H. G.
Strickland (of Oxford), and Dr. G. A. Melville.
[footnote] *'The Dodo and its Kindred'. By Messrs. Strickland and
Melville. 1 vol. 4to. with numerous plates. Reeves, London, 1848.
The historical part is by the former, the osteological and physiological
portion by the latter eminent anatomist. We would earnestly recommend the
reader interested in the most perfect history that has ever appeared, of the
extinction of a race of large animals, of which thousands existed but three
centuries ago, to refer to the original work. We have only space enough to
state that the authors have proved, upon the most incontrovertible evidence,
that the dodo was neither a vulture, ostrich, nor galline, as previously
anatomists supposed, but a 'frugiverous pigeon'.
This section from pp 363-379 of:
COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1
by Alexander von Humboldt
Translated by E C Otte
from the 1858 Harper & Brothers edition of Cosmos, volume 1
--------------------------------------------------
p 363
INDEX TO VOL. I.
-------------------
ABICH, Hermana, structural relations of volcanic rocks, 234.
Acosta, Joseph de, Historia Natural de las Indias, 66, 193.
Adams, Mr., planet Neptune. See note by Translator, 90, 91.
Aegos Potamos, on the aerolite of, 117, 122.
Aelian on Mount Aetna, 227.
Aerolites (shooting stars, meteors, meteoric stones, fire-balls, etc),
general description of, 111-137; physical character, 112-123; dates of
remarkable falls, 114, 115; their planetary velocity, 116-120; ideas of the
ancients on, 115, 116; November and August periodic falls of shooting stars,
118-120, 124-126; their direction from one point in the heavens, 120;
altitude, 120; orbit, 127; Chinese notices of, 128; media of communication
with other planetary bodies, 136; their essential difference from comets,
137; specific weights, 116, 117; large meteoric stones on record, 117;
chemical elements, 117, 129-131; crust, 129, 130; deaths occasioned by, 135.
Aeschylus, "Prometheus Delivered," 115.
Aetna, Mount, its elevation, 28, 229; supposed extinction by the ancients,
227; its eruptions from lateral fissures, 229; similarity of its zones of
vegetation to those of Ararat, 347.
Agassiz, Researches on Fossil Fishes, 46, 273-277.
Alexander, influence of his campaigns on physical science, 353.
Alps, the, elevation of, 28, 29.
Amber, researches on its vegetable origin, 284; Goppert on the amber-tree of
the ancient world (Pinites succifer), 283.
Ampere, Andre Marie, 58, 193, 236.
Anaxagoras on aerolites, 122; on the surrounding ether, 134.
Andes, the, their altitude, etc. See Cordilleras.
Anghiera, Peter Martyr de, remarked that the palmeta and pineta were found
associated together, 282, 283; first recognized (1510) that the limit of
perpetual snow continues to ascend as we approach the equator, 329.
Animal life, its universality, 342-345; as viewed with microscopic powers of
vision, 341-346; rapid propagation and tenacity of life in animalcules,
344-346; geography of, 341-346.
Anning, Miss Mary, discovery of the ink bag of the sepia, and of coprolites
of fish, in the lias of Lyme Regis, 271, 272.
Austed's, D. R., "Ancient World." See notes by Translator, 271, 272, 274,
281, 287.
Aplan, Peter, on comets, 101.
Apollonius Myndius, described the paths of comets, 103.
Arago, his ocular micrometer, 39; chromatic polarization, 52; optical
considerations, 85; on comets, 99-106; polarization experiments on the light
of comets, 105; aerolites, 114; on the November fall of meteors, 124;
zodiacal light, 143; motion of the solar system, 146, 147; on the increase
of heat at increasing depths, 173, 174; magnetism of rotation, 179, 180;
horary observations of declination at Paris compared with simultaneous
perturbations at Kasan, 191; discovery of the influence of magnetic storms
on the course of the needle, 194, 195; on south polar bands, 198; on
terrestrial light, 202; phenomenon of supplementary rainbows, 220; observed
the deepest Artesian wells to be the warmest, 223; explanation of the
absence of a refrigeration of temperature in the lower strata of the
Mediterranean, 303; observations on the mean annual quantity of rain in
Paris, 333; his investigations on the evolution of lightning, 337.
Argelander on the comet of 1811, 109; on the motion of the solar system,
146, 149; on the light of the Aurora, 195, 196.
Aristarchus of Samos, the pioneer of the Copernican system, 65.
Aristotle, 65; his definition of Cosmos, 69; use of the term history, 75; on
comets, 103, 104; on the Ligyan field of stones, 115; aerolites, 122; on the
stone of Aegos Potamos, 135; aware that noises sometimes existed without
earthquakes, 209; his account of the upheavals of islands of eruption, 241;
"spontaneous motion," 341; noticed the redness assumed by long fallen snow,
344.
Artesian wells, temperature of, 174, 223.
Astronomy, results of, 38-40; phenomena of physical astronomy, 43, 44.