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must have referred to people of another race. But how is it ascertained that there were then but three persons living? Who knows how many children may have been born to our first parents between these two brothers, or how many after the birth of Abel? Who can tell what the age of either of the brothers was at the time of the homicide? Certainly," even Abel had grown to something like man's estate, and Cain was older than he. Besides, why limit the murderer's fears to persons then living? There were generations to come, among whom he knew that the story would be told; and he might well apprehend that some avenger of blood would arise long years after that, to redress the wrong done to his kinsman, and inflict justice upon his slayer.

In the matter of Cain's wife, also, the difficulty is greatly exaggerated. It is conceded that the first marriage among Adam's descendants must have been between a brother and sister. But it by no means follows that such a marriage, in those circumstances, was incestuous, in the later signification of that term. He who appointed marriage for the welfare of the race could have sanctioned it, in this necessary instance, as readily as he forbade the repetition of it afterward. Besides, the difficulty is not obviated by the supposition of another race, among whom Cain, may have found a wife. For

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she must, again, have been descended from some primeval pair, in whose family the same difficulty must have existed — a marriage equally incestuous. Or if, to avoid this, you suppose still another race, whence the needed wife or husband might have come, you only shift the difficulty again to this. You must, therefore, resort to the absurd supposition of an infinite number of distinct human races, or you must confront the marriage itself, and justify it in its own nature, which you can as well do in the case of Cain and his sister-wife as in any other.

But the chief difficulties which have caused a resort to the theory under examination grow out of the diversities in color, physiognomy, and other personal characteristics existing among different branches of the race. It is claimed that these diversities are too great, and have been of too long standing to be consistent with the idea of a common descent, especially within the circumscribed period between their actual appearance and the time of Noah. In the proof and illustration of these diversities, great research and learning have been exhibited, and many able works have been written. To treat this topic according to its importance will require a somewhat lengthened consideration.

The subject really involves two questions: first, Can the known diversities existing in the various

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branches of the human race have come, in the way of gradual variation, from one original type? and second, If intrinsically possible, can it have been done within the limited space of time which, with the most pliant Scripture chronology, we are able to allow for it? These questions, however, though properly separate, so run into each other, that it will be more easy to consider them together.

The affirmative of both of them is argued, 1. From the superficial character of these diversities; 2. The actual changes which have been observed as taking place in particular circumstances of the race; 3.* From the analogy of similar changes which have occurred in other animals, particularly in those most nearly associated with man, and subject to the same general influences that have operated on him.

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1. Naturalists are not agreed as to the number of sub-races into which the human family should be divided. Some make two only, the white and the black. Morton reckons twenty-two, and Burke sixty-three. Agassiz makes eight principal centers of creation, which he calls "zoological provinces," viz., the Arctic, the Mongolian, the European, the American, the Negro, the Hottentot, the Malay, and the Australian. But whatever be the number, it is now regarded as settled that the differences between them are not specific that the entire genus homo consists of but a single species.

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In this position all the best authorities are agreed. "Linnæus, Blumenbach, Cuvier, Lawrence, Camper, Dr. Prichard, Humboldt, Zimmerman, Pickering, and many other distinguished naturalists, consider the species as sufficiently proved; and the French Academy of Science, in one of its reports, speaking of Blumenbach, remarks that a profound gulf, without connection or passage, separates the human species from every other. There is no other species that is akin to the human, nor any genus whatever. The human race stands alone.'"*

This is proved, first, from the fact that " there is an essential identity among men of all races in physical and mental characteristics."† Our space will not allow us to go over the whole field, and show this fact in detail. Dr. Bachman, in his " Doctrine of the Unity of the Human Race," adduces a large number of particulars in the osteological structure of man in which the various races are identical. Professor Godron, the distinguished French naturalist, in the second chapter of his great work, treats

* Dr. John Hall, in Pickering's Races of Men, Introd. p. 27. † Professor J. D. Dana, Geology, p. 584.

De l'Espèce et des Races dans les êtres Organisés, et specialement de l'Unité de l'Espèce Humaine. Par D. A. Godron, Docteur en Médecine, Docteur ès Sciences, Doyen de la Faculté des Sciences de Nancy, Professeur d'Histoire Naturelle à la même Faculté, Directeur du Jardin des Plantes, etc. 2 vols., 8vo.

of the organic, physiological, and psychological differences which were present among themselves, and compares them with those which are shown among domestic animals. He takes into view all the variations in the form of the skull, and bones in other parts of the body, the size, color of the skin, color and quality of the hair, etc., etc., and draws from the whole the following conclusion: "The organic and physiological differences seen in the different varieties of mankind are analogous to those which are known to exist among the domestic animals, and the psychological differences of the different peoples of the earth are neither original nor permanent." And Professor Owen, than whom there is no greater authority on topics of this kind, says, "With regard to the value to be assigned to the distinctions of race, in consequence of not any of these differences being equivalent to those characteristics of the skeleton or other parts of the frame upon which specific differences are founded by naturalists in reference to the rest of the animal creation, I have come to the conclusion that man forms one species, and that differences are but indicative of varieties. These varieties merge into each other by easy gradations. The Malay and the Polynesian link the Mongolian and the Indian [Indo-European] - varieties, and the Indian is linked by the Esqui

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