Chapter 15

It appears from this inquiry, {278} that colour and other physiological characters are of a more superficial and accidental nature than was at one time supposed. One fact is at the very first extremely startling, that there are nations, such as the inhabitants of Hindostan, known to be one in descent, which nevertheless contain groups of people of almost all shades of colour, and likewise discrepant in other of those important features on which much stress has been laid. Some other facts, which I may state in brief terms, are scarcely less remarkable. In Africa, there are Negro nations,—that is, nations of intensely black complexion, as the Jolofs, Mandingoes, and Kafirs, whose features and limbs are as elegant as those of the best European nations. While we have no proof of Negro races becoming white in the course of generations, the converse may be held as established, for there are Arab and Jewish families of ancient settlement in Northern Africa, who have become as black as the other inhabitants. There are also facts which seem to shew the possibility of a natural transition by generation from the black to the white complexion, and from the white to the black. True whites (apart from Albinoes) are not unfrequently born among the Negroes, and the tendency to this singularity is transmitted in families. There is, at least, one authentic instance of a set of perfectly black children being born to an Arab couple, in whose ancestry no such blood had intermingled. This occurred in the valley of the Jordan, where it is remarkable that the Arab population in general have flatter features, darker skins, and coarser hair, than any other tribes of the same nation. {280}

The style of living is ascertained to have a powerful effect in modifying the human figure in the course of generations, and this even in its osseous structure. About two hundred years ago, a number of people were driven by a barbarous policy from the counties of Antrim and Down, in Ireland, towards the sea-coast, where they have ever since been settled, but in unusually miserable circumstances, even for Ireland; and the consequence is, that they exhibit peculiar features of the most repulsive kind, projecting jaws with large open mouths, depressed noses, high cheek bones, and bow legs, together with an extremely diminutive stature. These, with an abnormal slenderness of the limbs, are the outward marks of a low and barbarous condition all over the world; it is particularly seen in the Australian aborigines. On the other hand, the beauty of the higher ranks in England is very remarkable, being, in the main, as clearly a result of good external conditions. “Coarse, unwholesome, and ill-prepared food,” says Buffon, “makes the human race degenerate. All those people who live miserably are ugly and ill-made. Even in France, the country people are not so beautiful as those who live in towns; and I have often remarked that in those villages where the people are richer and better fed than in others, the men are likewise more handsome, and have better countenances.” He might have added, that elegant and commodious dwellings, cleanly habits, comfortable clothing, and being exposed to the open air only as much as health requires, cooperate with food in increasing the elegance of a race of human beings.

Subject only to these modifying agencies, there is, as has been said, a remarkable persistency in national features and forms, insomuch that a single individual thrown into a family different from himself is absorbed in it, and all trace of him lost after a few generations. But while there is such a persistency to ordinary observation, it would also appear that nature has a power of producing new varieties, though this is only done rarely. Such novelties of type abound in the vegetable world, are seen more rarely in the animal circle, and perhaps are least frequent of occurrence in our own race. There is a noted instance in the production, on a New England farm, of a variety of sheep with unusually short legs, which was kept up by breeding, on account of the convenience in that country of having sheep which are unable to jump over low fences. The starting and main taming a _breed_ of cattle, that is, a variety marked by some desirable peculiarity, are familiar to a large class of persons. It appears only necessary, when a variety has been thus produced, that a union should take place between individuals similarly characterized, in order to establish it. Early in the last century, a man named Lambert, was born in Suffolk, with semi-horny excrescences of about half an inch long, thickly growing all over his body. The peculiarity was transmitted to his children, and was last heard of in a third generation. The peculiarity of six fingers on the hand and six toes on the feet, appears in like manner in families which have no record or tradition of such a peculiarity having affected them at any former period, and it is then sometimes seen to descend through several generations. It was Mr. Lawrence’s opinion, that a pair, in which both parties were so distinguished, might be the progenitors of a new variety of the race who would be thus marked in all future time. It is not easy to surmise the causes which operate in producing such varieties. Perhaps they are simply types in nature, _possible to be realized under certain appropriate conditions_, but which conditions are such as altogether to elude notice. I might cite as examples of such possible types, the rise of whites amongst the Negroes, the occurrence of the family of black children in the valley of the Jordan, and the comparatively frequent birth of red-haired children amongst not only the Mongolian and Malayan families, but amongst the Negroes. We are ignorant of the laws of variety-production; but we see it going on as a principle in nature, and it is obviously favourable to the supposition that all the great families of men are of one stock.

The tendency of the modern study of the languages of nations is to the same point. The last fifty years have seen this study elevated to the character of a science, and the light which it throws upon the history of mankind is of a most remarkable nature.

Following a natural analogy, philologists have thrown the earth’s languages into a kind of classification: a number bearing a considerable resemblance to each other, and in general geographically near, are styled a _group_ or _sub-family_; several groups, again, are associated as a _family_, with regard to more general features of resemblance. Six families are spoken of.

The Indo-European family nearly coincides in geographical limits with those which have been assigned to that variety of mankind which generally shews a fair complexion, called the Caucasian variety. It may be said to commence in India, and thence to stretch through Persia into Europe, the whole of which it occupies, excepting Hungary, the Basque provinces of Spain, and Finland. Its sub-families are the Sanskrit, or ancient language of India, the Persian, the Slavonic, Celtic, Gothic, and Pelasgian. The Slavonic includes the modern languages of Russia and Poland. Under the Gothic, are (1) the Scandinavian tongues, the Norske, Swedish, and Danish; and (2) the Teutonic, to which belong the modern German, the Dutch, and our own Anglo-Saxon. I give the name of Pelasgian to the group scattered along the north shores of the Mediterranean, the Greek and Latin, including the modifications of the latter under the names of Italian, Spanish, &c. The Celtic was from two to three thousand years ago, the speech of a considerable tribe dwelling in Western Europe; but these have since been driven before superior nations into a few corners, and are now only to be found in the highlands of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and certain parts of France. The Gaelic of Scotland, Erse of Ireland, and the Welsh, are the only living branches of this sub-family of languages.

The resemblances amongst languages are of two kinds,—identity of words, and identity of grammatical forms; the latter being now generally considered as the most important towards the argument. When we inquire into the first kind of affinity among the languages of the Indo-European family, we are surprised at the great number of common terms which exist amongst them, and these referring to such primary ideas, as to leave no doubt of their having all been derived from a common source. Colonel Vans Kennedy presents nine hundred words common to the Sanskrit and other languages of the same family. In the Sanskrit and Persian, we find several which require no sort of translation to an English reader, as _pader_, _mader_, _sunu_, _dokhter_, _brader_, _mand_, _vidhava_; likewise _asthi_, a bone, (Greek, _ostoun_;) _denta_, a tooth, (Latin, _dens_, _dentis_;) _eyeumen_, the eye; _brouwa_, the eye-brow, (German, _braue_;) _nasa_, the nose; _karu_, the hand, (Gr. _cheir_;) _genu_, the knee, (Lat. _genu_;) _ped_, the foot, (Lat. _pes_, _pedis_;) _hrti_, the heart; _jecur_, the liver, (Lat. _jecur_;) _stara_, a star; _gela_, cold, (Lat. _gelu_, ice;) _aghni_, fire, (Lat. _ignis_;) _dhara_, the earth, (Lat. _terra_, Gaelic, _tir_;) _arrivi_, a river; _nau_, a ship, (Gr. _naus_, Lat. _navis_;) _ghau_, a cow; _sarpam_, a serpent.

The inferences from these verbal coincidences were confirmed in a striking manner when Bopp and others investigated the grammatical structure of this family of languages. Dr. Wiseman pronounces that the great philologist just named, “by a minute and sagacious analysis of the Sanskrit verb, compared with the conjugational system of the other members of this family, left no doubt of their intimate and positive affinity.” It was now discovered that the peculiar terminations or inflections by which persons are expressed throughout the verbs of nearly the whole of these languages, have their foundations in pronouns; the pronoun was simply placed at the end, and thus became an inflexion. “By an analysis of the Sanskrit pronouns, the elements of those existing in all the other languages were cleared of their anomalies; the verb substantive, which in Latin is composed of fragments referable to two distinct roots, here found both existing in regular form; the Greek conjugations, with all their complicated machinery of middle voice, augments, and reduplications, were here found and illustrated in a variety of ways, which a few years ago would have appeared chimerical. Even our own language may sometimes receive light from the study of distant members of our family. Where, for instance, are we to seek for the root of our comparative _better_? Certainly not in its positive, good, nor in the Teutonic dialects in which the same anomaly exists. But in the Persian we have precisely the same comparative, _behter_, with exactly the same signification, regularly formed from its positive _beh_, good.” {287}

The second great family is the _Syro-Phœnician_, comprising the Hebrew, Syro-Chaldaic, Arabic, and Gheez or Abyssinian, being localized principally in the countries to the west and south of the Mediterranean. Beyond them, again, is the African family, which, as far as research has gone, seems to be in like manner marked by common features, both verbal and grammatical. The fourth is the Polynesian family, extending from Madagascar on the west through all the Indian Archipelago, besides taking in the Malayan dialect from the continent of India, and comprehending Australia and the islands of the western portion of the Pacific. This family, however, bears such an affinity to that next to be described, that Dr. Leyden and some others do not give it a distinct place as a family of languages.

The fifth family is the Chinese, embracing a large part of China, and most of the regions of Central and Northern Asia. The leading features of the Chinese are, its consisting altogether of monosyllables, and being destitute of all grammatical forms, except certain arrangements and accentuations, which vary the sense of particular words. It is also deficient in some of the consonants most conspicuous in other languages, b, d, r, v, and z; so that this people can scarcely pronounce our speech in such a way as to be intelligible: for example, the word Christus they call _Kuliss-ut-oo-suh_. The Chinese, strange to say, though they early attained to a remarkable degree of civilization, and have preceded the Europeans in many of the most important inventions, have a language which resembles that of children, or deaf and dumb people. The sentence of short, simple, unconnected words, in which an infant amongst us attempts to express some of its wants and its ideas—the equally broken and difficult terms which the deaf and dumb express by signs, as the following passage of the Lord’s Prayer:—“Our Father, heaven in, wish your name respect, wish your soul’s kingdom providence arrive, wish your will do heaven earth equality,” &c.—these are like the discourse of the refined people of the so-called Celestial Empire. An attempt was made by the Abbé Sicard to teach the deaf and dumb grammatical signs; but they persisted in restricting themselves to the simple signs of ideas, leaving the structure undetermined by any but the natural order of connexion. Such is exactly the condition of the Chinese language.

Crossing the Pacific, we come to the last great family in the languages of the aboriginal Americans, which have all of them features in common, proving them to constitute a group by themselves, without any regard to the very different degrees of civilization which these nations had attained at the time of the discovery. The common resemblance is in the grammatical structure as well as in words, and the grammatical structure of this family is of a very peculiar and complicated kind. The general character in this respect has caused the term Polysynthetic to be applied to the American languages. A long many-syllabled word is used by the rude Algonquins and Delawares to express a whole sentence: for example, a woman of the latter nation, playing with a little dog or cat, would perhaps be heard saying, “_kuligatschis_,” meaning, “give me your pretty little paw;” the word, on examination, is found to be made up in this manner: _k_, the second personal pronoun; _uli_, part of the word wulet, pretty; _gat_, part of the word wichgat, signifying a leg or paw; _schis_, conveying the idea of littleness. In the same tongue, a youth is called pilape, a word compounded from the first part of pilsit, innocent, and the latter part of lenape, a man. Thus, it will be observed, a number of parts of words are taken and thrown together, by a process which has been happily termed _agglutination_, so as to form one word, conveying a complicated idea. There is also an elaborate system of inflection; in nouns, for instance, there is one kind of inflection to express the presence or absence of vitality, and another to express number. The genius of the language has been described as accumulative: it “tends rather to add syllables or letters, making farther distinctions in objects already before the mind, than to introduce new words.” {291} Yet it has also been shewn very distinctly, that these languages are based in words of one syllable, like those of the Chinese and Polynesian families; all the primary ideas are thus expressed: the elaborate system of inflection and agglutination is shewn to be simply a farther development of the language-forming principle, as it may be called—or the Chinese system may be described as an arrestment of this principle at a particular early point. It has been fully shewn, that between the structure of the American and other families, sufficient affinities exist to make a common origin or early connexion extremely likely. The verbal affinities are also very considerable. Humboldt says, “In eighty-three American languages examined by Messrs. Barton and Vater, one hundred and seventy words have been found, the roots of which appear to be the same; and it is easy to perceive that this analogy is not accidental, since it does not rest merely upon imitative harmony, or on that conformity of organs which produces almost a perfect identity in the first sounds articulated by children. Of these one hundred and seventy words which have this connexion, three-fifths resemble the Manchou, the Tongouse, the Mongal, and the Samoyed; and two-fifths, the Celtic and Tchoud, the Biscayan, the Coptic, and Congo languages. These words have been found by comparing the whole of the American languages with the whole of those of the Old World; for hitherto we are acquainted with no American idiom which seems to have an exclusive correspondence with any of the Asiatic, African, or European tongues.” {293} Humboldt and others considered these words as brought into America by recent immigrants; an idea resting on no proof, and which seems at once refuted by the common words being chiefly those which represent primary ideas; besides, we now know, what was not formerly perceived or admitted, that there are great affinities of structure also. I may here refer to a curious mathematical calculation by Dr. Thomas Young, to the effect, that if three words coincide in two different languages, it is ten to one they must be derived in both cases from some parent language, or introduced in some other manner. “Six words would give more,” he says, “than seventeen hundred to one, and eight near 100,000, so that in these cases the evidence would be little short of absolute certainty.” He instances the following words to shew a connexion between the ancient Egyptian and the Biscayan:—

BISCAYAN. EGYPTIAN. _New_ Beria Beri. _A dog_ Ora Whor. _Little_ Gutchi Kudchi. _Bread_ Ognia Oik. _A wolf_ Otgsa Ounsh. _Seven_ Shashpi Shashf.

Now, as there are, according to Humboldt, one hundred and seventy words in common between the languages of the new and old continents, and many of these are expressive of the most primitive ideas, there is, by Dr. Young’s calculation, overpowering proof of the original connexion of the American and other human families.

This completes the slight outline which I have been able to give, of the evidence for the various races of men being descended from one stock. It cannot be considered as conclusive, and there are many eminent persons who deem the opposite idea the more probable; but I must say that, without the least regard to any other kind of evidence, that which physiology and philology present seems to me decidedly favourable to the idea of a single origin.

Assuming that the human race is _one_, we are next called upon to inquire in what part of the earth it may most probably be supposed to have originated. One obvious mode of approximating to a solution of this question is to trace backward the lines in which the principal tribes appear to have migrated, and to see if these converge nearly to a point. It is very remarkable that the lines do converge, and are concentrated about the region of Hindostan. The language, religion, modes of reckoning time, and some other peculiar ideas of the Americans, are now believed to refer their origin to North-Eastern Asia. Trace them farther back in the same direction, and we come to the north of India. The history of the Celts and Teutones represents them as coming from the east, the one after the other, successive waves of a tide of population flowing towards the north-west of Europe: this line being also traced back, rests finally at the same place. So does the line of Iranian population, which has peopled the east and south shores of the Mediterranean, Syria, Arabia, and Egypt. The Malay variety, again, rests its limit in one direction on the borders of India. Standing on that point, it is easy to see how the human family, originating there, might spread out in different directions, passing into varieties of aspect and of language as they spread, the Malay variety proceeding towards the Oceanic region, the Mongolians to the east and north, and sending off the red men as a sub-variety, the European population going off to the north-westward, and the Syrian, Arabian, and Egyptian, towards the countries which they are known to have so long occupied. The Negro alone is here unaccounted for; and of that race it may fairly be said, that it is the one most likely to have had an independent origin, seeing that it is a type so peculiar in an inveterate black colour, and so mean in development. But it is not necessary to presume such an origin for it, as much good argument might be employed to shew that it is only a deteriorated offshoot of the general stock. Our view of the probable original seat of man agrees with the ancient traditions of the race. There is one among the Hindoos which places the cradle of the human family in Thibet; another makes Ceylon the residence of the first man. Our view is also in harmony with the hypothesis detailed in the chapter before the last. According to that theory, we should expect man to have originated where the highest species of the quadrumana are to be found. Now these are unquestionably found in the Indian Archipelago.

After all, it may be regarded as still an open question, whether mankind is of one or many origins. The first human generation may have consisted of many pairs, though situated at one place, and these may have been considerably different from each other in external characters. And we are equally bound to admit, though this does not as yet seem to have occurred to any other speculator, that there may have been different lines and sources of origination, geographically apart, but which all resulted uniformly in the production of a being, one in species, although variously marked.