organization of both classes of animated being, and the identity of the laws by which the individuals and their races are preserved, furnish a strong argument from the actual contrarieties and differences of the one, to the possible modifications of the other. Now it is evident that animals acknowledged to belong to one species, under modifying influences, change into varieties as wide apart and distinct as those in the human race. For instance, in regard to the contour of the cranium; the skulls of the mastiff and Italian greyhound are as different as those of the Negro and European. The skull of the wild boar too says Blumenbach differs widely from the tame swine's, its undisputed descendant, Difference in color and texture of hair is also remarkable, and well worthy of observation. The ox of the Roman compagna is invariably grey, while in some other parts of Italy the breed is mostly red; swine and sheep are here also chiefly black, while in England white is their prevailing hue.

And also in the general form and structure of animals we find the greatest variations. This is very obvious in the ox, because of its great subjection to the influences of art, and domestication. What a contrast between the bulky, hardy long-horned animal which traverses the Roman streets, and the smallheaded light-limbed breed, prized so highly by English farmers.

Dr. Prichard gives one very remarkable instance, that of a breed of sheep, reared within a very few years in England, and known by the name of the ancon or otter breed. It sprung up from a deformity in one animal, which communicated its peculiarities so completely to its progeny, that the breed is fully established.

These facts well authenticated, and many others which might be produced, present a strong argument of analogy applicable to the human species. If such distinctive varieties are formed and perpetuated by sporadic or gradual influences, in the unconscious animal existence, are not the possibilities for similar changes greater in the human race, possessed of self-directing activi ties?

But the question still remains to be settled, are there any direct examples, like those referred to in the vegetable and animal worlds, to be found in the human? One or two instances must suffice. For example, red hair is considered almost exclusively confined to the Caucasian family; yet individuals exist in almost every known variety with this peculiarity. Charlevoix observed it amongst the Esquimaux; Sonnerat, among the Papuans; Wallis among the Tahitans; and Lopes among the Negroes. Also amongst us are to be found individuals with frizzled hair

and a tendency towards other characteristics of the Ethiopian family.

Examples of more striking varieties are found among men than what constitute the specific characteristics of any race; such as the remarkable porcupine-man, traced through three generations in the family of Lambert; the albinos; and the variety consisting in supernumerary fingers. But there are extant, also, examples of whole nations having been so changed, giving us exemplifications of the afore-made deductions on a large scale. The Tartars and Monguls, on historical, traditionary and philological grounds, are traceable to common origin; and yet it cannot be doubted, but that the extremes of the two nations, or families are as dissimilar as possible, and that the Tartars belong to the Caucasian race.

The race to which we belong presents a similar phenomenon. The language spoken from India to Iceland being essentially the same, proves the intermediate nations to be of common origin. The attempt has been made to account for this variation on the supposition, that the Indo-Germanic nations were saved from the deluge on two chains of mountains, the Himalaya and the Caucasus. From the former according to Klaproth, descended the Indians to the South and the Goths to the North; from the other came the Medes, Persians, and Pelasgians. This however is sheer conjecture, unsupported by historical proof or local tradition.

Now in view of the examples already adduced, taken from well authenticated facts, we can admit the possibility of a transition from one extreme color to the other, originally created by sporadic influences, and continued through the ordinary process of generation. We have not sufficient data to determine with unerring accuracy the original color of the human race. The prevailing opinion is that it was red, either because the name of the first man signifies in Hebrew that color, or, as Bishop Heber conjectures, because undomesticated animals tend towards it. Blumenbach supposes that the original color was white, inferable from the fact that every departure from this hue bears the mark of an excess, or a morbid affection. It has been clearly proved that the seat of the Negro's color is not in the skin which is as colorless in him as in us, but in the fine tissue situated under it, known in anatomy by the name of the tissue or net of Malpighi. The infant Negro is of a white hue immediately after birth, but is soon changed into its fixed type by the operation of some inherent law; which proves that the color is not original, but a subsequent abnormality. Some modifying spasmodic influence

with which we are uncognizant, must have originally formed this variation, which when once established has been perpetuated according to the laws of natural generation. The mystery, in which all subjects extending far back into dim antiquity are involved, preclude us from determining the causes which may have been in operation to produce the effects, which are so strikingly evident. Like the asymptotes of the hyperbola, the investigations of science are continually approximating to the given curve, but have not as yet come in contact with it. It may be contended here, as Hume maintained with reference to the question of miracles, that our experience testifying to the uniform operation of the laws of Nature, must preponderate over the probability of a suspension of, or variation from, those laws. But we must remember that the little segment of nature's cycle through which we have passed is an infinitesimal element, when referred to the world's great circle. Besides the laws which we know, other and far more active influences have been powerfully at work in the primordial stages of the world's vast process. There were times within the range of mythological history, when volcanoes raged in almost every chain of mountains; when seas filled to overflowing, leaped their boundaries and created new islands; when old lakes dried up, and new ones were formed; when besides the annual reproduction of plants and insects, Nature was engaged in producing the vaster and more massive elements of her sphere: when she moiled assiduously in her deep laboratories forming new and wonderful compositions; when besides the gradual continued operation of Nature's laws, other deep-moving agencies were busily at work. The relation between the general and individual forms of being and action seemed to call for such a two-fold action. Besides the natural and ordinary laws universally in operation during the period of infancy, the assimilating, digestive and absorbing functions causing the regularly progressive movement of the system, there is a plastic power at work traceable to no law of necessity, independent of the ordinary vital powers; which gives growth and solidity to the limbs; characteristic shape to the features, and development to the muscles. As the infantive state

of existence is carried up to the full development of matured manhood, this indefinable power becomes inert, and withdraws its activity, until the decline and fall of old age, when it comes forward to undo its former work. The same thing is often observable during the prevalence of some epidemic, wherein the crisis in individual cases does not seem determined so much by the ordinary laws of the disease, as by the connection in which

the individual stands to the infected community. And so in like manner we have reason to believe, that in the infancy of the world's life, transient, sporadic influences were operative, of which we are at present unavoidably ignorant. When the world was slowly passing through a formative process, there existed greater room for the introduction of modifying influences than at present, when the laws and operations of Nature have become more fixed and regular. In man there may then have been some magnificent perturbing influence, like those grand convulsions spoken of by geologists. And is it not reasonable indeed to suppose, that those vast perturbations, taking place in the earth's material structure, should have their counterpart in man, standing by reason of his physical organization in such close proximity with Nature?

But we hasten on from the natural to the philological and moral argument in support of the unity of the human race.

'Strong lexical and grammatical affinity of languages, cannot be the result of mere fortuitous circumstances, but proves some early relationship. Language consists in the external expression and arrangement of mental conceptions, according to certain syntactical rules. It is not made by the arbitrary adjustment of certain words, strung together like beads on a rosary. As the infant is born into social relations, so words (if we may be allowed the expression) wake up in the midst of grammatical connexions. A marked coincidence and similarity of different languages then, would seem to indicate an identity of mind and habit between those speaking them. The mind comes fully to a state of self-consciousness in the definite expression of its relation to the natural world, through its physical organization. This constituted the course of education through which Adam went, wherein the animals were made to pass before him in regular succession to see what he would call them; and whatever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. A similarity then in the grammatical structure of the languages of different nations must prove an intimate relationship between them. Philological investigations have tended to confirm, and support the Mosaic record, that all nations of the earth were originally "of one lip and of one speech." The relationship between Sanskrit and Greek is so marked and clear, that it could not possibly have been brought about by mere accident. A remarkable connexion between Hungarian, and the languages of Northern Europe, the Finnish, Lapponian, and Esthonian, has been solidly demonstrated; and the inspection of some ethnographic map will show how it is placed, like what

geologists call outliers of peculiar strata, as a mass dismembered and detached from the group to which it belongs.

But we must pass on to the argument drawn from the conception of humanity_abstractly viewed; and from man's concrete moral powers. Every generic term involves a twofold conception; a practical diversity and difference, and a concrete union and unity. Whilst humanity implies a diversity of operations; there is at last but one Spirit. In developing itself into concrete life, it branches off into diversified shoots and ramifications, having but one common root and trunk. The outward features of distinct species of animals, is not greater, and more marked than their inherent dispositions; whilst in the most dissimilar states of social life, we find an approximation of feeling, a coincidence of sentiment, and a consentaneousness of the whole moral nature, which proves that the faculty in man, corresponding to that of instinct in animals, is identical through the whole race. The term race itself is inapplicable to animals, and used in connexion with man, indi cates the existence of a common centrality. The ferocity of the wolf and the cunningness of the fox; the gregarious and tumultuary aggression of the one, and the solitary pilfering of the other, reminds us of an absolute distinction in the animals themselves. But in man no such wide chasms are found. Though his nature in specific cases may have been vastly modified by different circumstances, yet one bond seems to unite all in indissoluble unity. Whether for ages he has dozed away his days in listlessness like the Asiatic in his Divan, or like the Red man has chased the nimble deer over his favored hunting-grounds, there is nothing in his organization to show that through educa tion, and custom he might not have changed the one occupation for the other.

We cannot properly estimate the effect which sin has had, not only on our moral nature abstractly considered, but also through it on our mental and physical constitution. Man's normal state was in the image and after the likeness of God; reminding us of a correspondence between the faculties of man and God, and a harmonious co-operation of them with the Divine will. When through sin, man aberrated from his appointed orbit, there was no limit to the operation of that centrifugal force, save such as was revealed by the centripetal action of a promised Redeemer. "When man" says the learned Frederick Schlegel "had once fallen from virtue, no determinable limit could be assigned to his degradation, nor how far he might descend by degrees, and approximate even to the level of the brute;