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from their often using their hind as well as their fore feet as hands, and many of them even their tail. This tribe includes the Monkeys, Apes, and Baboons, and though these do not imitate man, by catching his phrases, like the birds last named, yet they mimic all his actions. I have often thought, when I have examined figures of this tribe, that their features are typical of the different kinds of face observable in the human species as far as relates to body they approach us, but in the spiritual part of our nature, elevated by high expectations, and by knowledge not confined to this globe on which we tread, but traversing the heavens, and penetrating in thought to the throne of Him who sitteth upon them, we infinitely exceed them.

Those animals that are of a predaceous or carnivorous character, are more widely dispersed, than many of the herbivorous ones, in fact they are co-extensive with their food, I do not mean specifically, but generically. Though the Lion and the Tiger, and the larger feline animals are generally tropical, yet the Cat is naturalized every where. Though the Hyæna and the Jackal shrink from the temperature of the greater part of Europe, yet Wolves and Foxes, as well as the great majority of the canine race, are found indigenous, or have been formerly indigenous, in almost every part of it.

Many more instances might be adduced proving that animals have been placed originally in certain stations, adapted to the habits resulting from their organization and general structure, from which some of them have sent forth their colonies far and wide, while others, owing to peculiarities in these respects, requiring a given temperature and kind of food, or to local obstacles stopping their further progress, have not wandered beyond certain limits.

Having, in the preceding pages, endeavoured to account for the dispersion and present stations of the various members of the animal kingdom at large, not to leave the subject incomplete, I must next make a few observations relative to that of the human race.

It has been a favourite theory of some modern physiologists that God hath not made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth," but that there are different species of men as well as of animals: others, who do not go quite so far, suspect-that at the last great deluge, besides Noah and his family who were saved in the ark, some others escaped from that sad catastrophe by taking refuge on some of the highest mountain ridges of Asia and Africa, and seem to insinuate that from these arose the three principal races, the Caucasian,

the Mongol, and the Negro, that now hold possession of our globe. I shall say something in controversion of each of these theories, beginning with the last.

This indeed furnishes a clue for its own refutation, since it admits three principal stems, which is in accordance with the Mosaic account, that from the families of the three sons of Noah, the nations were divided in the earth after the flood. The author of the above theory seems disposed to admit the truth of the Mosaic account, but insinuates that it may have been only intended to instruct the Israelites in the history of the race to which they belonged, while that of other races may have been passed over in silence. It is too much the fashion, in this sceptical age, to evade the facts that are most clearly revealed in scripture, by saying the language must not be taken strictly nor interpreted literally, even when it is concerning events in which there is no room for metaphor. One would think that the terms in which God foretold the deluge were of this description. "And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die." And again" And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered: fifteen

1 Outlines of Hist. Cab. Cycl. ix. 4.

cubits upwards did the waters prevail, and the mountains were covered." It is also stated that every living substance, both man and cattle, &c., was destroyed from the earth, and that Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. Can language be more definite and express?

What can be more absurd than that an ark should be necessary for the saving of Noah and his family, and a world of animals, to be stored with a vast supply of provision, when they might have escaped according to this hypothesis by taking refuge on the summit of some lofty mountain to which Divine Wisdom might have directed them?

There is no occasion whatever for such an Hypothesis to account for the dispersion of mankind and their breaking into nations. Two chapters in the book of Genesis1 set the whole matter in a clear light, both as to the first cause of their separation, and the various tribes into which they separated, in which we can trace the names of many nations still in existence. From Babel each in due time took the course, in that direction, however led by circumstances, that Providence had decreed. Europe became at last the head quarters of the descendants of Japhet, Asia of those of Shem, and Africa of those of

1 Chạp. x. xi.

Ham; the Shemites in the lapse of ages, passing over to America, were the progenitors of the red or copper race of that continent. Nor were there any insurmountable obstacles in the way to prevent the peopling of the globe from one common stock. Supposing Babel or Babylon to have been, so to speak, the centre of irradiation--how easy was the transit for Ham's descendants into Africa by the Isthmus of Suez; into Europe, the path was still more open for those of Japhet; and as the stream of population spread to the East, the passage to America was not difficult to those who had arrived at Behrings Straits. But in all these countries mixtures with the aborigines have probably taken place, either from the irruption and colonizations of great conquerors, the spread of commerce and similar causes, which naturally tend to produce variations in races from the primitive type. Hence writers on this subject now reckon six races distinguished by their colour, viz. a white race; a tawny race; a red race; a deep brown race; a brown-black race; and a black race.

This leads me to the other theory alluded to above, that there are different species of men as well as of other animals. The principal foundation upon which those naturalists have built their theory, that have adopted the opinion, that there are several distinct species of men originally created, is not only their colour, but

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