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published in the "Christian Examiner" for July, 1850.

"The circumstance that, wherever we find a human race naturally circumscribed, it is connected in its limitation with what we call, in natural history, a zoölogical and botanical province, — that is to say, with a natural limitation of a particular association of animals and plants, -shows most unequivocally the intimate relation existing between mankind and the animal kingdom in their adaptation to the physical world. The Arctic race of men, covering the treeless region near the Arctics, in Europe, Asia, and America, is circumscribed, in the three continents, within limits very similar to those occupied by that particular combination of animals which are peculiar to the same tracts of land and sea.

“The region inhabited by the Mongolian race is also a natural zoological province, covered by a combination of animals naturally circumscribed within the same regions. The Malay race covers also a natural zoölogical province. New Holland again constitutes a very peculiar zoological province, in which we have another particular race of men. And it is further remarkable, in this con'nection, that the plants and animals now living on the continent of Africa, south of the Atlas, within the same range within which the Negroes are naturally circumscribed, have a character differing widely from that of the plants and animals of the northern shores of Africa and the valley of Egypt; while the Cape of Good Hope, - within the limits inhabited by Hottentots, is characterized

by a vegetation and a fauna equally peculiar, and differing in its features from that over which the African race is spread.

"Such identical circumscriptions between the limits of two series of organized beings, so widely differing as man, and animals, and plants, and so entirely unconnected in point of descent, would, to the mind of a naturalist, amount to a demonstration that they originated together within the districts which they now inhabit. We say that such an accumulation of evidence would amount to demonstration; for how could it, on the contrary, be supposed that man alone would assume peculiarities and features so different from his primitive characteristics, while the animals and plants circumscribed within the same limits, would continue to preserve their natural relations to the fauna and flora of other parts of the world?

"If the Creator of one set of these living beings had not been also the Creator of the other, and if we did not trace the same general laws throughout nature, there might be room for the supposition that, while men inhabiting different parts of the world originated from a common center, the plants and animals now associated with them in the same countries originated on the spot. But such inconsistencies do not occur in the laws of nature.

"The coincidences of the geographical distribution of the human races with that of animals, the disconnection of the climatic conditions where we have similar races, and the connection of climatic conditions where we have different human races, show, further, that the adaptation

of the different races of men to different parts of the world must be intentional, as well as that of other beings; that men were primitively located in the various parts they inhabit; and that they arose everywhere in those harmonious numeric proportions with other living beings, which would at once secure their preservation, and contribute to their welfare. To suppose that all men originated from Adam and Eve is to assume that the order of creation has been changed in the course of historical times, and to give to the Mosaic record a meaning that it was never intended to have. On that ground we would particularly insist upon the propriety of considering Genesis as chiefly relating to the history of the white race, with special reference to the history of the Jews."

Notwithstanding that the learned professor thus denies the common descent of mankind from Adam and Eve, he still insists that the race is but of one species. He remarks,

"There are two distinct questions involved in the subject which we have under discussion the Unity of Mankind, and the Diversity of Origin of the Human Races. These are two distinct questions, having almost no connection with each other; but they are constantly confounded, as if they were but one.' And again, "We began by stating that the subject of unity and plurality of races involves two distinct questions- the question of the essential unity of mankind, and the question of the origin

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* Christ. Exam. July, 1850, p. 110.

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of men upon our globe. There is another view involved in this second question,. which we would not dismiss without a few remarks.

"Are men, even if diversity of origin is established, to be considered as belonging to one species? or are we to conclude that there are several different species among them? The writer has been in this respect strangely misrepresented. Because he has at one time said that mankind constitutes one species, and at another time has said that men did not originate from one common stock, ́ he has been represented as contradicting himself, as stating at one time one thing and at another time another. He would, therefore, insist upon this distinction - that the unity of species does not involve a unity of origin, and that a diversity of origin does not involve a plurality of species. Moreover, what we should now consider as the characteristic of species is something very different from what has formerly been so considered. As soon as it was ascertained that animals differ so widely, it was found that what constitutes a species in certain types is something very different from what constitutes a species in other types, and that facts which prove an identity of species in some animals do not prove an identity or plurality in another group." (p. 113.)

Thus we see this distinguished naturalist holds to the doctrine of the unity of mankind, but with this he likewise maintains the plurality of origin; a position which, according to the manner in which cer

tain matters in natural science have heretofore been

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viewed, is a strange one. But some others have adopted it; and they maintain the unity of the human races in such a way as to be consistent, in their own view, with the declaration of Paul, when he says, "He [God] hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." (Acts · xvii. 26.) There is the actual relationship of consanguinity all are made of one blood, although the different races are descended from different, distinct, primitive pairs, which were created at different times in different parts of the earth. And Prof. Agassiz is particular to state that he regards all the races, though descended from different primeval pairs, as having the same relations to the moral government of God, as constituting, spiritually and intellectually, one brotherhood, and as having one destiny. He claims, moreover, that all this is consistent with the sacred Scriptures, and feels it keenly that he has been represented as holding doctrines at variance with the teachings of the Bible.

Let us now inquire what estimate should be placed upon the theory thus set forth.

I. In the first place, let it be remembered that it is a mere theory. No one, so far as we know, has attempted to prove it, or even claimed that it is susceptible of proof. It is an hypothesis resorted to for

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