they themselves admit. How much learned ingenuity, for example, has not been expended in attempts to depreciate or to get rid of the Egyptian claims to any respectable degree of proficiency in astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, metallurgy, physics, anatomy, navigation, geography, architecture, engraving, sculpture, painting, etc., merely because an arbitrary and inexorable theory seemed to demand a vastly longer time for such high attainments than any authentic history could furnish?

I conclude then with the remark, that if the Egyptians, Assyrians and Phoenicians never existed in a savage state; if their immediate progenitors, up to the age of Noah, were, like himself, civilized (and we proved, as we think, on a previous occasion, that man was created a civilized being, and thus continued down to the miraculous dispersion from Babel)-then it follows, that history cannot conduct us back to a period when the whole human race was savage; and consequently, that the philosophic and popular doctrine, that the savage was the original or primeval condition of mankind is indefensible;—that it is a mere gratuitous and baseless assumption;—and that the entire fabric, constructed by system-builders upon this foundation, is but a castle in the air, and can never withstand the artillery of reason, Scripture and history.

As before we traced the stream of civilization, as it issued pure and bright from the primitive fountain in Eden, throughout the antediluvian world, to the fertile

plains of Shinar; so now we can retrace it upwards till we arrive at the same point. The course is obvious, simple and direct. The civilization of modern Europe-of the Gauls, Germans, Britons, Goths, Vandals, Huns, Scandinavians, and the rest of the Northern barbarians—was derived from the Romans; as theirs had been from the Greeks; and theirs again from the Egyptians and other Orientals. Prior to these latter nations, savage life is unknown to either sacred or profane history.

THE ABORIGINES OF NORTH AMERICA.

[The following remarks may be regarded as a mere appendix of notes to the preceding articles upon The Primitive State of Mankind.]

I MENTIONED America among the countries doomed, probably soon after the flood, to be the abode of savages. I am aware that plausible objections have been urged against the opinion that America was known, or even inhabited, at a very early period. I am aware, also, that diverse theories have been contrived and advocated to account for the peopling of this vast continent. With these conflicting speculations, I do not mean to intermeddle at present.

man.

But let it be remembered, that we have no authentic history of any country which was not inhabited at the time when it was first discovered or visited by civilized And who can pretend to tell us when or how the first inhabitants arrived there? Why are we to suppose that America was not peopled as soon as China and Japan, and Gaul and Britain, and the western and southern coasts of Africa? The reason assigned is, that, in those rude ages, as we are pleased to style them, men had not wit or knowledge enough to get there. They had not the means of transportation. They were ignorant of the arts of ship-building and navigation. Indeed!

And how do we know this? Could men, with the ark before their eyes,—the largest, strongest, safest ship that ever rode upon the shoreless deep, which had braved the fury of a forty days' tempest, and outlived the convulsions of a dissolving world,-be incapable of constructing a frail bark which might buffet the smooth waves of a summer's sea for a few short months, or weeks, or days? Or, after they had traversed the mountains and the plains of Tartary, and reached the northeastern extremities of Asia; what should have prevented their crossing the narrow strait which separates that continent from this? Or, in the opposite direction, might they not have passed over from the west of Africa, by that chain of islands which probably once connected that country with America, but which have long since been buried in the ocean? We are not bound, however, to devise or to explain the ways and means by which the Almighty may have chosen to execute his plans and purposes. If we can ascertain the latter, we may be satisfied that the former were both wise and adequate.

Moses informs us that, from the tower of Babel or the plains of Shinar, the people were dispersed over the whole earth. His words are: "So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth.” (Gen. xi. 8, 9.) That America had been submerged by the flood, and that the waters had retired from its surface at the same time as from the rest of the earth, is certain both from Scripture and from the researches of the modern geologist. At any rate, the science of geology can furnish no ground to presume that the New

World is of a more recent origin or formation than the Old. The characteristic phenomena of each are identical or analogous, and prove that both have been subjected to the same changes and influences, whatever these may have been, or however they may be accounted for or explained by any philosophical theory. That Moses, therefore, by all the earth, could mean only the half of it, is gratuitously imputing to him a latitude of expression which, it is believed, he was not in the habit of employing. I admit the fact, then, to have been precisely as he has recorded it. I do not question his integ rity or accuracy, or even his philosophy in this or any other particular.

Now it is remarkable that in this, as in other cases where the Mosaic history has been impugned or but partially received, all the collateral or internal evidence, all the rational or philosophical considerations, and all the traditionary or ethnical testimony, which can be made to bear upon the subject, go to confirm his statement in its literal sense and to the fullest extent. Those men who have recently studied the character, languages, rites, ceremonies, usages, traditions and history of the Indians with the greatest care, furnish ample materials to establish the opinion, that the Aborigines of America must be traced to a higher source than has usually been allotted to them; that they are indeed a primitive people; that they must have emigrated at a very early period; and that, in consequence of their complete separation from the rest of Noah's descendants, they have preserved a more distinct and homogeneous character and configura