equal degree of credit, in his account of all civil transactions, with any other hiftorian of antiquity: how far that most ancient writer confirms the result of our inquiries into the genealogy of nations, I propose to show at our next anniversary meeting; when, after an approach to demonftration, in the ftrict method of the old analysis, I fhall refume the whole argument concisely and fynthetically; and shall then have condenfed in feven difcourfes a mass of evidence, which, if brevity had not been my object, might have been expanded into feven large volumes with no other trouble than that of holding the pen; but (to borrow a turn of expreffion from one of our poets)" for what I "have produced, I claim only your indulgence; "it is for what I have fuppreffed, that I am "entitled to your thanks."

DISCOURSE THE NINTH.

ON

THE ORIGIN AND FAMILIES OF NATIONS.

DELIVERED 23 FEBRUARY, 1792,

BY

THE PRESIDENT.

YOU have attended, gentlemen, with fo much indulgence to my difcourfes on the five Afiatick nations, and on the various tribes eftablished along their several borders or interspersed over their mountains, that I cannot but flatter myself with an affurance of being heard with equal attention, while I trace to one centre the three great families, from which those nations appear to have proceeded, and then hazard a few conjectures on the different courses, which they may be fuppofed to have taken toward the countries, in which we find them fettled at the dawn of all genuine history.

Let us begin with a short review of the propofitions, to which we have gradually been led, and separate such as are morally certain, from fuch as are only probable: that the first race of

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Perfians and Indians, to whom we may add the Romans and Greeks, the Goths, and the old Egyptians or Ethiops, originally fpoke the fame language and profeffed the fame popular faith, is capable, in my humble opinion, of inconteftable proof; that the Jews and Arabs, the Affyrians, or fecond Perfian race, the people who spoke Syriack, and a numerous tribe of Abyffinians, ufed one primitive dialect wholly diftinct from the idiom juft mentioned, is, I believe, undifputed, and, I am fure, indisputable; but that the fettlers in China and Japan had a common origin with the Hindus, is no more than highly probable; and, that all the Tartars, as they are inaccurately called, were primarily of a third feparate branch, totally differing from the two others in language, manners, and features, may indeed be plaufibly conjectured, but cannot, for the reafons alledged in a former effay, be perfpicuously shown, and for the present therefore must be merely affumed. Could these facts be verified by the best attainable evidence, it would not, I prefume, be doubted, that the whole earth was peopled by a variety of fhoots from the Indian, Arabian, and Tartarian branches, or by fuch intermixtures of them, as, in a courfe of ages, might naturally have happened.

Now I admit without hesitation the aphorifin of LINNEUS, that "in the beginning God

"created one pair only of every living species, "which has a diversity of fex;" but, fince that incomparable naturalist argues principally from the wonderful diffusion of vegetables, and from an hypothefis, that the water on this globe has been continually fubfiding, I venture to produce a shorter and closer argument in support of his doctrine. That Nature, of which fimplicity ap→ pears a distinguishing attribute, does nothing in vain, is a maxim in philofophy; and against thofe, who deny maxims, we cannot difpute; but it is vain and fuperfluous to do by many means what may be done by fewer, and this is another axiom received into courts of judicature from the schools of philofophers: we must not, therefore, fays our great NEWTON, admit more causes of natural things, than those, which are true, and fufficiently account for natural phenomena; but it is true, that one pair at least of every living fpecies must at first have been created; and that one human pair was fufficient for the population of our globe in a period of no confiderable length (on the very moderate fuppofition of lawyers and political arithmeticians, that every pair of ancestors left on an average two children, and each of them two more), is evident from the rapid increase of numbers in geometrical progreffion, fo well known to thofe, who have ever taken the trouble to fum a feries VOL. I.

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of as many terms, as they fuppofe generations of men in two or three thousand years. It follows, that the Author of Nature (for all nature proclaims its divine author) created but one pair of our fpecies; yet, had it not been (among other reafons) for the devastations, which history has recorded, of water and fire, wars, famine, and peftilence, this earth would not now have had room for its multiplied inhabitants. If the human race then be, as we may confidently affume, of one natural species, they must all have proceeded from one pair; and if perfect justice be, as it is most indubitably, an effential attribute of GOD, that pair must have been gifted with fufficient wisdom and strength to be virtuous, and, as far as their nature admitted, happy, but intrufted with freedom of will to be vicious and confequently degraded: whatever might be their option, they must people in time the region where they first were established, and their numerous defcendants must neceffarily feek new countries, as inclination might prompt, or accident lead, them; they would of courfe migrate in feparate families and clans, which, forgetting by degrees the language of their common progenitor, would form new dialects to convey new ideas, both fimple and complex; natural affection would unite them at firft, and a fenfe of reciprocal utility, the great and only cement of