Types of Mankind. By J. C. NOTT, M. D., and GEORGE R. GLIDDOX. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co. 1854.

T is not our object, in noticing this

It is portot work, to enter upon any

extended criticism of its merits and defects, both of which are obvious enough, nor to undertake to settle the controversy to which it relates, but simply to allude to its contents, with such incidental remarks as may occur to us in the course of the review. It is an original, elaborate, and, we may say, quite revolutionary presentation of its principal subject, and we owe it to the authors, as well as to our readers, whom we try to keep informed of all the leading movements in the world of letters, to make some statement of the nature and bearing of its arguments.

Its general purport, and that of its several parts, are both best described in the complete title, which runs in this wise: "Types of Mankind, or ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and biblical history; illustrated by selections from the unedited papers of SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON. M. D. (late President of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia), and by additional contributions from Prof. LOUIS AGASSIZ, LL. D., W. USHER, M. D., and Prof. H. S. PATTERSON, M. D. By J. C. NOTT, M. D. and GEORGE R. GLIDDON, formerly U. S. Consul at Cairo." It will be seen that we are offered rather a formidable array of subjects as well as of names and titles.

The theory, in respect to the origin and distribution of the human races, generally accepted both by theologians and men of VOL. IV.-1

science, is that which derives the immense variety of nations now on the globe from the Adam and Eve of Genesis, or rather from Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet, who were saved from the deluge, in which all the rest of mankind perished, and which, as the common chronology estimates it, occurred in the 1656th year of the world, or 2348 years before the birth of Christ. It assumes that the statements of Moses are simple historical facts, and that all the distinctive differences which we at this day observe among the different families of men, are the results not of an original diversity established by the Creator, at the time of the respective appearances of those families upon the globe, but of climate, food, habits of life, civilization, intermarriage, and other external agencies, which have since been, and for centuries, at work. The Caucasian, the Malay, the American, the Negro, the Mongol, in short, all the tribes of the earth are held to be the lineal descendants of Noah, or at furthest of Adam; and it is inferred, consequently, that they all belong to the same species as well as to the same genus of animals.

Those who maintain this theory rest their arguments mainly upon the words of Scripture, though they endeavor to confirm it by many impressive considerations drawn from the analogies of natural science, from the affinities of language, from the remarkable traditions of various people, and from the authentic records of history. Nearly all the Christian sects, how manifold and conflicting soever their interpretations of Scripture in other respects, are singularly unanimous in considering that the first book of Moses teaches the identical origin of the human race nearly all the most eminent sci