time have peopled
the whole region with dogs, and horses, and oxen, or some other analogous
quadrupeds?

But our readers have perhaps heard sufficient of an hypothesis which is
built only on a series of conjectures, and we ourselves are wearied with a
too easy victory. There are many other topics in the book which would far
better reward discussion than the one we have chosen--as, for instance,
the geological views here put forward, the claims of phrenology, and the
difference between instinct and intelligence; but if disposed to treat
these subjects, we could have found other and more suitable opportunities;
we thought it fit to select that which forms the peculiarity of the
present work.

But absurd as the matter is, we must complete the account which the author
gives of the development of that race in which we are chiefly
interested--man. We have seen, that according to his law of progressive
generation, and as an instance of what he denominates "a modest and simple
phenomenon," man was one day born of the monkey or the ape. But this
discovered law has not only thus happily introduced the human being upon
the earth, it also throws light upon the diversities which exist in the
family of man.

"The causes of the various external peculiarities of mankind, now
require some attention. Why, it is asked, are the Africans black, and
generally marked by ungainly forms? Why the flat features of the
Chinese, and the comparatively well-formed figures of the Caucasians?
Why the Mongolians generally yellow, the Americans red, and the
Canadians white? These questions were complete puzzles to all early
writers; but physiology has lately thrown a great light upon them. It
is now shown that the brain, after completing the series of animal
transformations, passes through the characters in which it appears in
the Negro, Malay American, and Mongolian nations, and finally becomes
Caucasian. The face partakes of these alterations. The leading
characters, in short, of the various races of mankind, are simply
representations of particular states in the development of the
highest or Caucasian type. The Negro exhibits permanently the
imperfect brain, projecting lower jaw,[5] and slender bent limbs of a
Caucasian child some considerable time before the period of its
birth. The aboriginal American represents the same child nearer
birth. The Mongolian is