mechanics; so one race has an aptitude for adventure and commerce, and another for the industrial arts; while a third may be incapable of rising beyond the lowest stages of nomadic existence. Clearly such races cannot be dealt with alike, and the more we know of national characteristics the better will we be prepared to direct our energies and shape our relations towards them. It is greatly for want of this knowledge that missionary and ameliorating schemes so often fail in their efforts, and that nation misunderstanding the character of nation drifts insensibly into contention and warfare. It is also for want of this knowledge that the civilisation and amalgamation of certain races has been tried in vain, and that the higher race has not unfrequently been absorbed into and debased by that which it sought to improve. In fine, the study of man-call it Ethnology, Anthropology, or what you will-is fraught with innumerable utilities; and whatever leads to more rational views of the duties and relations of race to race, and of nation to nation, is deserving of our warmest encouragement. To some the treatment of the subject, within the limits I have assigned to myself, may seem cursory and inexhaustive; but to have exceeded these limits would have been to run the risk of defeating my object. It is an old saying that a big book is a great evil; and an elaborate treatise on a matter as yet so little familiar might have been to deter from, rather than excite to, its study and comprehension. What I have aimed at is an outline rather than an array of details; a review for the general reader, and not an exhaustive argument for the man of science; a thing rather suggestive of what the question involves than instructive of truths already arrived at. My object has been to write as I would reason in conversation with a friend, earnestly and unreservedly; convinced that subjects of this kind will never be fully understood nor generally accepted till they are dealt with as great truths, which it is the business of every educated mind to endeavour to comprehend, and the duty of every man to explain to his less-informed neighbour. Where I have failed in disarming opposition, my plainness and directness of speech may prevent misrepresentation; and where I have not been successful in convincing, I trust at least that doubt has been awakened and a desire excited for fuller and more detailed information. And this, in matters at variance with olden opinion, is often all that can, at the outset, be attained. Men are in general slow to accept new views, and the first and most hopeful step towards this end is to induce them to question the soundness of their previous convictions. ZOOLOGICAL RELATIONS. Community of Life-conditions Structural Affinity to other Animals-Ascent through Adaptive Modification-Principle of Variation ever operative-Mental Affinity to other Animals-Man Improvable and Progressive-Theory of Spiritual Community of Life-Our First Proposition. MAN'S connection with the great scheme of animated nature is intimate and inseparable. The physical conditions under which life exists are the same to him as to other animals. Air, land, and water, heat, light, and moisture, are as essential to him as to the other forms and grades of vitality. He originates like other animals, embryologically passes through the same stages, and when launched on the field of independent being is subjected to the same functional round, and to the same struggle for existence. Life, growth, reproduction, and decay, are phases of being characteristic of all that lives. There may be differences in degree, as there are differences in form and function, but there is no exemption from these conditions and requirements. Man suffers thirst and hunger, heat and cold, pain and pleasure, much as other animals do. If he is stronger than some, he is weaker than others; |