hitherto gone, to affirm positively the unity of the human race. In proportion as a careful inquiry has penetrated into the past, the streams of speech have been traced upwards to their points of divergence from their parent channels; and many of these channels themselves have been found to converge and to unite in a common source. Thus, first, the languages of the great Indo-European family of nations are proved to have been developed from a common Sanscritic or earlier origin. The second or Semitic family, called, also, the Syro-Arabian, comprising the Hebrew, the Aramaic, the Arabic, and the Ethiopic, are traceable to a common origin also. But these two families are themselves allied by the most unquestionable analogies. The Egyptian language was long supposed to stand apart from both families. Not only, however, were the same social, political, and speculative characteristics, in their broad outline, common to the Egyptians and Indians, but the language of each is now found to be linked together by mysterious affinities. "The old Egyptian clearly stands between the Semitic and Indo-European; for its forms and roots cannot be explained by either of them singly, but are evidently a combination of the two." * The third family, the Turanian, or Ugro-Tartarian, comprises the languages of High Asia and of parts of Northern Europe. To this branch belongs, also, by numerous structural relations, the whole American family, as well as the Papuan and Polynesian languages. And yet so striking are the vestiges of original connection between the Turanian and the IndoEuropean families, that it has even been proposed to include them both under the wider designation of the Japhetic?† The monosyllabic Chinese and Indo-Chinese form a fourth family of languages. But even this strongly marked group is not isolated: for to say nothing of the grammatical affinities between the Chinese and Burmese languages; the Tibetan language is, "in some respects intermediate between the monosyllabic languages in general and the Mongolian," which is one of the Turanian group. § A fifth group, the languages of the great region of Central Negroland, forms the last Glottological divis The Chevalier Bunsen's "Egypt's Place in Universal History,” p. x. †The Chevalier Bunsen's "Results of the recent Egyptian Researches," &c., in the Report of Brit. Assoc., 1847, p. 297. + Idem, p. 264. Dr. Prichard "On the various Methods of Research," &c., in the same Report, p. 247. ion; and not only is there "prima facie evidence for believing that the phenomenon of philological isolation is not to be found in Africa," but affinities exist which place this family in relation to the Semitic group. 31. Now the fact that formative words and inflections pervade the entire structure of some of these great families of languages, renders almost every sentence a witness to the common origin of the nations speaking them. But when it is remembered that, according to the laws of combination, millions of chances lie against the application of a few similar unexceptionable words in different languages to the same objects, we may be said to possess mathematical evidence of the common origin of all languages, and consequently of the original unity of mankind. And thus it is that in human language itself there is more to be read than in anything that has been written in it. 32. The descent of mankind from a single stock is further supported by Analogy. It is the generally received doctrine of naturalists that every species of animals had only one beginning in a particular spot; their progeny being left to disperse themselves as far from that spot as their powers of locomotion, climatic adaptations, and other conditions would permit. But if this hypothesis be accepted respecting the brute creation, the improbability that there was a plurality of ancestral stocks created for man is as much greater as his powers of locomotion, of adaptation, and his inventive resources, exceed those of the brute creation. And, further, it may be shown that there are no physical diversities of color, shape, and conformation, found among the different branches of the human family, which have not their parallel in the varieties of many an animal species; leaving it to be inferred that they are resolvable into deviations from one stock. 33. The objection, that if the hypothesis of descent from a single stock be accepted, a much longer time is necessary in order to account for the diversities among mankind than our received chronology would allow, inasmuch as some of them are found already stereotyped at the very commencement of historic time, belongs, properly, to the department of chronology. We may remark, however, in abatement of the objection, first, that although paintings coeval with the earliest records * Dr. Latham, "On Ethnographical Philology," in the same Report, pp. 223, 229. † Dr. Young, in Philosoph. Trans., vol. cix. for 1819, p. 70. exhibit the red Egyptian in contrast with the jet-black Negro, tribes are to be found on the borders of the Red Sea constituting a series of links between the two, and therefore pointing to a common origin. Secondly, that regarding the Negro, for example, as a wide departure from the type of primitive man, it appears to be a law of human nature that deterioration should take place much more rapidly than restoration or improvement. And, thirdly, that supposing deterioration, or spontaneous variation of any kind, to have taken place, the necessary condition of mankind at first would have peculiarly tended to its perpetu ation. 34. Besides, if the hypothesis of a common origin be rejected, the nature of the only alternative should be distinctly borne in mind—an unknown number of separate stocks. Five or five hundred will not suffice. For if the extreme or typical forms of mankind are to be each assigned a distinct origin, why is not every link of the series by which they are connected together to receive a similar distinction? They can be placed in regular gradation; and if any one in the line be merely a variation from the one standing next, why may not this also be a modification from the next in the series? 35. It might be shown also that, of the different kinds of evidence implying unity of descent, one branch is strongest where another is weakest. Nations most linguistically remote have never had their physical relationship questioned. Others are closely bound by linguistic ties, though widely sundered physically and geographically. All the branches of evidence appropriate to the inquiry support each other, and unite in authenticating the conclusion that the human species is one, and that all the differences which it exhibits are to be regarded merely as varieties. 36. Third. Like the animal kingdom which preceded him, man is endowed with animal instincts; and, as in animals, all these instincts determine him to act for the attainment of that end which is relative, but only relative, to the great End his own animal well-being. Whatever higher purposes they may be applied to by the nobler parts of man's nature, the direct objects of all his animal instincts are life, enjoyment, and continuance by offspring. The existence of many of these is recognized in the terms of the original grant of the earth for man's use. "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Here the gregarious instinct becomes, under the influence of reason, a social principle. So many processes, and so great a variety of labor, are implied in the accomplishment of this destiny, that not only is a division of labor, or a community of effort, desirable, but the continuance of such social compact is indispensable through a long period of time. 37. In all these respects, then, the laws of nature, as known to the ancient earth, were now introduced and embodied in the constitution of the new-made man. So completely is a portion, at least, of the pre-existing creation taken up into man's nature, that any change in external nature, unless accompanied by a corresponding change in his constitution, will be detrimental to his well-being. And any essential change in him which is not accompanied by a corresponding alteration in the laws of external nature, will, by throwing him out of his constitutional harmony with nature, be equally detrimental to his physical, organic, and animal well-being. Had man been the first object created, and had he been held miraculously in space till the earth was made, God, by giving him his present constitution, would have given a pledge that the material globe to be created as his habitation should harmonize with it. On the other hand, as the earth was created first, a pledge was given in effect that the constitution of man should be in exact correspondence with all its laws. And the closer the examination into this coincidence, which we may hereafter have occasion to institute, the more shall we be impressed by its minuteness, comprehensiveness, and perfection. And thus man's constitution, regarded in its threefold character, as physical, organic, and sentient, took up the strain of creation which had preceded his coming, in praise of the power, and wisdom, and goodness of God. 38. Thus far we have only verified the truth of the Scriptural declaration concerning man, "that his foundation is in the dust," for we have merely unearthed and looked at that foundation. The towering and temple-like superstructure is yet to engage our attention. But could we have looked on that foundation, even before it began to be built on, and to receive its mysterious additions, and could we have taken a comprehensive survey of the preparations and purposes which it implied, how profound the emotions which must have filled our breasts! To receive the foundations of a temple, the ground has often to be prepared-or, as it is technically called, to be made — at an immense expenditure of time and labor; but here is a basis laid, for which "the foundations of the earth" themselves had been laid-for which the earth itself had been, literally, made. Nations have quarrelled for the mere sketches and outlines of the human figure by some of the masters of design: the very fragments of the marble block from which one of the masterpieces of ancient sculpture was hewn, would be deemed a treasure for royalty; but here is the Divine model of all their copies the original of human beauty-fresh from the hand of the infinite Designer. "The dust of antiquity," when it does not cover what ought to be exposed, imparts sacredness and value to the objects on which it rests; here dust of dateless antiquity, after having passed through numberless combinations, is taken and moulded into a human form. Some of the members of that form had been in the scheme of animal organization unknown ages before the earth was prepared for man or suited to his constitution; possibly, the earth of which they are moulded has been already in all their animal types; but in his form they have at length attained a development which, guided by reason, will make him the sovereign of the animal kingdom. And even earlier still, before time began, there was 66 a book". - an eternal plan-in which "all his members were sketched, when as yet there was none of them." And how greatly would it have added to the interest of the spectacle could we have imagined all the relations of that new-made organization to the physical elements which encompassed it; or have foreseen that when that Pharos, prostrate on the earth, should be erected, and lighted up with an intelligence within, it would stand, the centre of the material universe, with lines of relationship drawn to it from every part of the vast circumference. What, then, must our emotions have been, could we have looked on that frame, so "fearfully and wonderfully made," with a prophetic eye, and have caught a glimpse of its subsequent history! 39. The tenor of this chapter appears to assume, first, that, in the ascending order of creation, the origination of matter preceded that of mind, and mere animal life that of angelic existence; and, secondly, that man's creation subsequent to that of angels implies his superiority of constitution and ultimate destination. Each of these implications I believe to be clearly deducible from the word of God. As, however, the process of the deduction would interfere with the continuity of our remarks respecting man, besides anticipating portions of the |