the one hand, and with history on the other.
There are different theories in vogue to account for the diversity of
human races now in existence. Some refer human origin to an original
pair, whose descendants have changed through the action of physical
causes, as food, soil, climate, and scenery, and also through the
operation of moral ones as dependent on the physical, and therefore
secondary thereto, such as manners, customs, and government. Others
deduce it from different lines of development, coming up through the
zoological scale, and thence passing from the lower to the higher races
of men. Others still speak of mankind as originating 'in nations,' each
race being fixed in its physical and mental characteristics, and having
an origin independent and distinct from all others.
It matters little to our purpose which of these theories may be true,
the difference as to aptness of illustration being only one of degree.
We prefer, however, to deal with facts in regard to which there is
little or no difference of opinion among the theorists themselves.
There are simple and complex peoples or races, as there are simple and
complex organisms. Take any primitive race, whether described in history
or by some contemporaneous traveller: in a physical point of view, the
men are all very nearly alike, and the women likewise. Describe one
individual, and you have the description for all other individuals of
the same sex belonging to the race. And there is not usually as much
difference in the physical appearance of the sexes in primitive races as
among those who stand higher in the scale. What is true of their
physique, is also true of their minds. As one thinks and feels, so all
think and feel--and that, too, without concert; it is the simple
expression of an undiversified mental organism. Their faculties are rude
and uncultivated; they act chiefly on the perceptive plane, reflecting
but little. They are predominantly sensual, not having developed the
higher mental activities which pertain to an advanced state of society
and result in those great diversities of attainment and expression among
individuals of the same people. There are reasons for believing that
there was a time when this planet had no human inhabitants but races of
this simple type. Great changes have taken place since that day; changes
which, by the law of their accomplishment, correspond precisely with the
changes which have taken place in the zoological sca
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