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The Bible therefore teaches us nothing about the origin of the different races of men, and the only Biblical statement which we have to defend in the face of natural science, is the assertion that all men are descended from one pair, all the peoples now existing from the sons of Noah. We may, however, put the question to natural science in this form. Are the different races of men now existing, different species in the sense above mentioned, or only varieties of the same species? If the first is the case, it is impossible that all men can have sprung from one pair; if the latter, it is not proved that all men have really sprung from one pair, but only that they may have done so. For we have supposed in the case of the animals, that many individuals of the same species were originally created; therefore, even if it were proved that all men belonged to one species, we might yet suppose that several pairs of the same species had been the ancestors of mankind. Whether this is the case, or whether all men are descended from one pair, is not a question for natural science. We have therefore only to ask science if it can prove that men form several species; if it cannot do this, it is impossible that science and theology can contradict one another on the question of the unity of the human race, for in this case science can make no objection to the doctrine of the descent of all men from one pair.

Burmeister no doubt says, "The whole doctrine appears in so unfavourable a light to the unprejudiced inquirer whose eyes are purified by science, that he may safely assume that no calm observer would even

1 See above, p. 33.

have dreamed of tracing back all mankind to one pair, if the Mosaic history of creation had not asserted it. In order to uphold the authority of Holy Scripture, even in matters utterly alien from its whole character, several inquirers, who are for the most part hardly sufficiently acquainted with the results of natural science, have taken upon themselves to defend the Old Testament myth, and have supported a scientific theory founded on it, which on nearer examination proves to be untenable." But it is evidently incorrect to say that those who defend the theory of the unity of mankind are "for the most part insufficiently acquainted with the results of natural science."

Burmeister himself says that Prichard's Researches into the Physical History of Mankind is the principal work on this subject, from which we may surely conclude that this writer is sufficiently acquainted with the results of natural science. In spite of this, he defends the theory of the unity of the human race. If there is one scientific man of our century who need not be defended against the charge of insufficient acquaintance with the results of natural science, it is Alexander von Humboldt. It would be very unjust to accuse him of being prejudiced in favour of the Bible; he expressly praises modern science because, on the Continent at least, it has at last thrown off "Semitic influences." But Humboldt declares himself decidedly in favour of the theory of the unity of mankind.3 He appeals to the late Johannes Müller as concurring with him in this, and calls him the greatest anatomist

1 Geschichte der Schöpfung. 7th ed. p. 620.
2 Kosmos, i. 284.
3 Ibid. i. 379.

of our time; praise which, so far as I know, has been disputed by none of his fellows. The Englishman, Owen, is held, not only in his own country, to be one of the greatest authorities on comparative anatomy; he speaks in just the same way. Among the elder men of science, no one has investigated our question so diligently as Blumenbach; and his observations have led him to the same result. One of the most eminent anthropologists in France at the present day is Armand de Quatrefages. I know no more decided monogenist. The most exhaustive work in modern German literature on this subject is the Anthropologie der Naturvolker, by Th. Waitz; the possibility of the descent of all men from one pair is expressly asserted in it, although the author himself-for reasons which will be discussed later-thinks it improbable that there was only one ancestral pair. Among the savants who believe in the unity of the human race I will mention Linnæus, Buffon, Cuvier, J. G. St. Hilaire, Steffens, Schubert, Rudolph and Andreas Wagner, K. E. von Baer, H. von Meyer, Burdach, Wilbrand, Flourens, Hugh Miller, Sir John Herschel,' Lyell, Huxley. Are these for the most part men who are "insufficiently acquainted with the results of natural science," and does Burmeister claim such sufficient knowledge for himself, Oken, Carus, Karl Vogt, Agassiz, Giebel, etc., alone? And if we admit that a few monogenists

1 Cf. Ausland, 1863, p. 1048.

2 Cf. H. Lüken, Die Einheit, etc. Zöckler, “Die einheit). Abstammung," etc., in the Jahrbuch für Deutsche Theologie, viii. 51. Natur und Off. ii. 49, iii. 398, iv. 65.

3 He originally believed in the unity of mankind; he now thinks that whole nations were created at once. See Jahrbuch für Deutsche Theologie, vi. 711. Waitz, Anthropol. i. 218.

certainly it is not the case with most of those above mentioned-have been influenced by their respect for the Bible, are all polygenists free from the suspicion of having been influenced in their inquiries by the wish to come to a conclusion that contradicts the Bible? And has it not been said by more than one inquirer, that the desire to justify slavery has clouded the sight of American polygenists ?1

At any rate the position which the Bible, with its doctrine of the unity of mankind, takes up against science, as it is represented by the most eminent men

1 "In setting up the theory that the human race consists of several species, was the positive knowledge which we possess of the species and races of animals, and especially of the mammals and domestic animals, properly attended to and weighed? or did the theory originate in the feeling that the negro, and especially the negro slave, differs from the European, the Homo Japeticus of Bory de St. Vincent, and appears ugly to him; or even in the wish to think of the negro as without the claims and rights of the European? Earnest and able men have adduced zoological reasons against this theory, and yet it does not die out easily, because zoological reasons do not affect all the persons who think that they are entitled to express an opinion on such matters. Is not the theory that the human race consists of different species necessary to the consciences of the Anglo-Americans, however little it may be confirmed by natural history? The aborigines have been driven back with inhuman severity, the African races have been selfishly enslaved. It was only natural that men should say, 'We need recognise no duty towards these men, for they are of another and inferior race.' I do not mean in any way to accuse Morton, Nott, Gliddon, and others of having disputed this theory simply in order to get credit for it. But I appeal to the experience of all countries and times; when one people is acting unjustly towards another, does not the former invariably believe that the oppressed nation is very bad and incapable, and does it not repeat this belief emphatically and often? It is not very easy to escape from the influence of a general belief of this kind unless we are decidedly opposed to it."-K. E. von Baer, see Bericht über die Zusammenkunft einiger Anthropologen, pp. 17, 24. "If the assertions of all American writers ought to be received with caution, this is specially the case with those assertions which seek to justify negro slavery on scientific grounds."-Perty, Grundzüge, etc. p. 423. Also Tiedemann, Das Hirn, etc. p. 67. Waitz, i. 105. Vogt, Köhlerglaube, p. 84. De Quatrefages, L'unité, p. x.; Rapport, p. 97.

of the present day, is not so unfavourable as Burmeister wishes to make out. On the contrary, we may say unhesitatingly that in this respect also the Bible contradicts no scientific conclusion; for if the impossibility of the descent of all mankind from one pair is not held to be a scientific conclusion by Humboldt and the other writers I have mentioned, for the present at least we need not consider it as such.

Nevertheless we will look more closely at the state of the question. If by species we understand the aggregate of all the individuals who are able to produce among themselves an absolutely fertile progeny, there is no doubt that the question whether mankind is a species must be answered in the affirmative. "The races of mankind," says Johannes Müller, are forms of one single species, which can pair productively, and can reproduce themselves by generation. They are not species of a genus, were they such their hybrids would be sterile amongst themselves. The experiences on this point are so numerous and various, that there can be no doubt about it. We find therefore amongst men the conditions which are considered in the animal world to be the most distinct signs of species.

2

Let us go on to some other points in which all, even the most different races of men, resemble one another. These are the anatomical form of the body, the liability to sickness, limit of age, normal temperature of the body, average rate of pulse, length of pregnancy, periodicity of some of the functions. Such similarity is never found in 1 Handbuch der Physiologie, ii. 773.

2 Cf. Prichard, i. 185 seq., and specially Baer, Op. cit. p. 17 seq. Waitz, Anthropol. i. 195. Peschel, Volkerkunde, p. 9. Quatrefages, Rapport,

p. 439.

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