WE have been something slow in noticing this attractive volume, but we have two reasons to plead for our delay. The work is not one to be lightly handled, and its interest is not of that nature which subsides with the fleeting hour. It is a work of profound thought, vast research, and of deep and various learning. It is one which a scholar in the widest acceptation of the term, and an enthusiastic scholar alone, would have dared to attempt; so vast is the range, so various the regions to be trodden by the adventurous foot of the explorer. It is one in which that scholar, unless endowed with unwearying patience, energy, and industry, and inspired with the sincerest and loftiest love of truth, must have failed miserably.

The

very title indicates to the lightest thinker the magnitude and the intricacy of the enterprise, and suggests the multitude of qualifications, diverse as the paths to be traversed and the difficulties to be encountered, which would be required in him who should conduct it to a prosperous close. Even the earnest student pauses for a time, ere he venture, by his easy labour, to follow the author over the earth, to hold communion with men of all climes and nations, to contemplate, for the sake of analogy, the condition and changes of the various tribes of lower animals, and to run through the history of the world's ages; while, at the same time, even the accomplished scholar would entertain the apprehension that his acquirements would prove insufficient to enable him to accompany his guide throughout with an intelligence sufficient to avail himself of his instructions. There is not one of our countrymen, with intellect and information great enough to permit him to be candid, who would not readily confess all this; but if we are to judge, from the

dedication, the author went a step farther, and seems to have despaired of finding in his own country the "audience fit though few." We rejoice to discover that he was mistaken; as the rapid sale of his book, and the high estimation in which it is held amongst scientific and literary men, according to the accounts we have received, abundantly testify. In his dedication, however, to the Prussian minister, the Chevalier de Bunsen, Dr. Prichard says :

"

'My dear Friend,-I gladly embrace the opportunity which your kind permission affords me, of connecting with my new work, on the Natural History of Man, the name of one of the chief ornaments of the most learned nation of Europe, a nation among whom my researches have ever been more favour

ably estimated than amongst my own countrymen. Since my venerable friend Blumenbach (whose views it was my first object to illustrate and extend) finished his earthly career, there is no one to whom I could so rightly as to yourself dedicate the result of studies which you have promoted by your exhortation and kind encouragement. Accept the tribute of my grateful regard, and believe me to remain, with the highest respect and the most sincere esteem, "Your obliged Friend, and

"faithful Servant,

"JAMES COWLES PRICHARD."

Now, in the panegyric here expressed upon the Prussian scholar, we cordially concur; and in our desire to do him honour, not only as a scholar but as a man, we are glad to remember that another distinguished countryman of ours-now, alas! no more-spoke in terms no less enthusiastic of this gentleman, and after a more precise fashion. Dr. Arnold dedicated his "History of Rome" to Bunsen; and, at the close of his prefacc, he observes:

"There are some works which I have not been able to consult; and there are

VOL. XXX. NO. CLXXIX.

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points connected with the topography of Rome and its neighbourhood on which no existing work gives a satisfactory explanation. On these points I have been accustomed to consult my valued friend Bunsen, Niebuhr's successor in his official situation as Prussian minister at Rome, and his worthy successor no less in the profoundness of his antiquarian, and philological, and historical knowledge. From him I have received much important aid-the continuation of the benefit I derived from his conversation when I had the happiness of studying the topography of Rome with him, and of visiting in his society some of the most memorable spots of ancient Latium. Without his encouragement and sympathy I should scarcely have brought this volume to a completion; may he accept my warmest acknowledgments for this and for the many other proofs which I have received during the last ten years of his most valued friendship."

The testimony of such a man as Arnold, to the merits of the Prussian ambassador, comes now upon us with a very solemn voice, and we cheerfully recognise in him the great philologist and historical antiquarian; but, while doing him all justice and honour, we are by no means prepared to concede with Dr. Prichard that the Prussian is the most learned nation of Europe; and we really cannot conceive upon what grounds such a proposition can be supported. We are aware that a certain degree of information is more widely spread over Prussia than any other country; but, invariably where information is widely spread, it is also lightly spread; and we have yet to learn in what department of science or literature Prussia has asserted and maintained a superiority over Great Britain or France, or even the rest of Germany. We think, therefore, that the extravagant compliment to the Chevalier de Bunsen's country, at the expense of England, might have been spared; and we have little doubt that Dr. Prichard, his book having proved popular here, is now of the same opinion. But let us pass on from the dedication to the "advertisement," which declares the design of the work is :

"To furnish, for the use of general readers, a brief and popular view of all the physical characteristics, or varieties in colour, figure, structure of body, and

likewise of the moral and intellectual peculiarities which distinguish from each other the different races of men. It is likewise intended in the same treatise to comprise such an account of the nature and causes of these phenomena as the present state of knowledge will afford. For the completion of this design, it was necessary to describe all the different tribes of people scattered over the world, and to advert, however briefly, to their mutual relations, and to all that is known respecting their origin and descent, as discovered by historical and philological investigations."

The author then truly states, "Very brief, indeed, must necessarily be such a summary of universal ethnography." And adds, that by reason of this brevity he is compelled to state results which he can hardly expect to be accepted cordially without the exhibition of that evidence which want of space forbids him to supply. The reader, accordingly, is left, in a multitude of instances, to the alternative of trusting implicitly in the authority of the writer, or of suspending his judgment until he shall have found means elsewhere of satisfying himself. This is the inevitable result of the compression of so vast and multiform a subject. The peculiarities and difficulties of dealing with such a theme as the natural history of man are well and eloquently put forth in the "Introductory Observations." He says :—

"The organised world presents no contrasts and resemblances more remark. able than those which we discover on comparing man with the inferior tribes. That creatures should exist so nearly approaching to each other in all the parti. culars of their physical structure, and yet differing so immeasurably in their endowments and capabilities, would be a fact hard to believe, if it were not manifest to our observation. The differences are every where striking: the resemblances are less obvious in the fulness of their extent, and they are never contemplated without wonder by those who, in the study of anatomy and physiology, are first made aware how near is man in his physical constitution to the brutes. In all the principles of his internal structure, in the composition and functions of his parts, man is but an animal. The lord of the earth, who contemplates the eternal order of the universe, and aspires to communion with its invisible Maker, is a being composed of the same materials,

and framed on the same principles, as the creatures which he has tamed to be the servile instruments of his will, or slays for his daily food. The points of resemblance are innumerable; they extend to the most recondite arrangements of that mechanism which maintains instrumentally the physical life of the body, which brings forward its early developement, and admits after a given period its decay, and by means of which is prepared a succession of similar beings destined to perpetuate the race. If it be inquired in what the still more remarkable difference consists, it is by no means easy to reply. By some it will be said, that man, while similar in the organisation of his body to the lower tribes, is distinguished from them by the possession of an immaterial soul, and a principle capable of conscious feeling, of intellect, and thought. To many persons, it will appear paradoxical to ascribe the endowment of a soul to the inferior tribes in the creation; yet it is difficult to discover a valid argument that limits the possession of an immaterial principle to man. The phenomena of feeling, of desire and aversion, of love and hatred, of fear and revenge, and the perception of external relations manifested in the life of brutes, imply, not only through the analogy which they display to the human faculties, but likewise from all that we can learn or conjecture of their particular nature, the superadded excellence of a principle distinct from the mere mechan. ism of material bodies. That such a principle must exist in all beings capable of sensation, or of any thing analogous to human passions and feelings, will hardly be denied by those who perceive the force of arguments which metaphysically demonstrate the immaterial nature of the mind. There may be no rational grounds for the ancient dogma, that the souls of the lower animals were imma. terial, like the soul of man: this is, however, a problem which we are not called upon to discuss; and we may venture to conjecture, that there may be immaterial essences of various kinds, and endowed with various attributes and capabilities. But the real nature of those unseen principles eludes our research; they are only known to us by their external manifestations. These manifestations are the various powers and capabilities, or rather the habitudes of action, which characterise the different orders of beings diversified according to their several destinations.

Among

the most remarkable of these phenomena are the results of that impulse peculiar to man which urges him to attempt and to persevere, through long successive ages, in the effort to obtain a conquest over the physical agencies of the elements,

and to render subservient to his uses and wants the properties of surrounding bodies. While the lower tribes live every where resistless slaves to the agencies of material nature, the mere sport of their destiny or of the lot which external conditions impose on them, without making an effort to modify the circumstances which limit their capability of existence, man, on the contrary, gains victories over the elements, and turns the most powerful and even the most formidable of their agencies to the promotion of his own pleasure and advantage. Hence it comes to pass that man is a cosmopolite; that while, among the wild inhabitants of the forest, each tribe can exist only on a comparatively small tract of the earth's surface, man, together with those creatures which he has chosen for his immemorial companions, and has led with him in all his wanderings, is capable of living in every clime, from the shores of the Icy Sea, where the frozen soil never softens under his feet, to the burning sands of equatorial plains, where even reptiles perish from heat and drought. But here an inquiry is suggested which opens to our view a wide and interesting field of investigation. It is whether man has not received from his Maker, besides his mental sagacity and effective contrivance, yet another principle of accommodation, by which he becomes fitted to possess and occupy the whole earth. He modifies the agencies of the elements upon himself; but do not these agencies also modify him? Have they not rendered him in his very organisation different in different regions, and under various modes of existence imposed by physical and moral conditions? How different a being is the Esquimaux, who, in his burrow amidst northern ices, gorges himself with the blubber of whales, from the lean and hungry Numidian, who pursues the lion under a vertical sun! And how different, whether compared with the skin-clad and oily fisher of the icebergs, or with the naked hunter of the Sahara, are the luxurious inmates of Eastern harems, or the energetic and intellectual inhabitants of the cities of Europe! That so great differences in external conditions, by the double influence of their physical and moral agency, should have effected, during a long series of ages, remarkable changes in the tribes of human beings subjected to their operation - changes which have

rendered these several tribes fitted in a peculiar manner for their respective abodes-is by no means an improbable conjecture; and it becomes something more than a conjecture, when we extend our view to the diversified breeds of those animals which men have domes.

ticated, and have transferred with themselves from one climate to another. Considered in this point of view, it requires, perhaps, the character of a legitimate theory, supported by adequate evidence, and by an extensive series of analogous facts. But we must not omit to observe, that to this opinion there is an alternative, and one which many persons prefer to maintain, namely, that the collective body of mankind is made up of different races, which have differed from each other in their physical and moral nature from the beginning of their existence. To determine which of these two opinions is the best entitled to assent, or at least to set before my readers a clear and distinct notion of the evidence that can be brought to bear upon the question, will be my principal object in the following work."

This is a long extract; but it was desirable to give it in its entirety, as laying before our reader in the fairest and clearest manner the nature and object of Dr. Prichard's work; and it will not be inconvenient to state here, albeit by anticipation, that the conclusion which our author considers himself confidently entitled to draw from the evidence he sets forth is, that the same inward nature is to be recognised in all the races of men, and that all human races are of one species and one family. Great ingenuity, great labour, great learning, is displayed in the way in which he has got up and marshalled his evidence; but while we give him full credit for all this, and without, for reasons extrinsic to any thing that appears in his book, caring in our own person, and as it were under our own banner, to dispute the correctness of the grand conclusion at which he ultimately arrives, we must yet say, that we are dissatisfied with many steps of the process, and cannot conscientiously express the opinion that he has fully proved his case. The alternative to which he has alluded rests upon other grounds besides those to which he has adverted, and these grounds he has left unassailed. While it is admitted upon all hands, by true believers in the Bible, that "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the

ground" (or, rather, according to the correct version of the Hebrew text, of dust of the ground), and that out of man's body he formed woman, and that mankind, in one sense of the word, are the offspring of this primal pair, a difference of opinion exists as to the extent in which we are to understand the term mankind,-whether it is to comprehend all beings wearing the human form, or the semblance thereof, in all regions of the earth, or whether it is to be restricted to what M. Bory de St. Vincent styles the Adamitic race, which would exclude all Samoyedes, Negroes, Hottentots, Esquimaux,Australians, and the like, as not being men in the full sense of the term, or beings endowed with faculties capable and similar to those possessed by the great full-blooded species of the Adamite genus :

"Some writers" (observes Dr. Prichard) " contend that the races above mentioned, and other rude and barbarous tribes, are inferior in their original endowments to the human family which supplied Europe and Asia" (and he might have added North America)" with inhabitants; that they are organically different, and can never be raised to an equality in moral and intellectual powers with the offspring of that race which displays in the highest degree all the attributes of humanity."

Amongst these writers is one entitled to the very highest consideration, the late Thomas Hope, the renowned author of Anastatius, and one to whom in a large degree Dryden's grand dictum about Spenser might be applied, "No man had ever a higher genius, or greater learning to support it." Hope, in his curious and wonderful work On the Origin and Prospects of Man, repudiates the doctrine that the Adam and Eve, of whom Genesis peculiarly gives the history, are literally to be understood as having been the first created beings, and the only individuals from whom descend all the varieties of the human race that at present exist on the globe. He observes :

*

"Genesis itself, when different expressions in it detached from each other

are approximated, seems to imply the reverse; since, in contradistinction to the race of Adam, which the Bible expressly calls the sons, or favourites of God, it mentions other different races, as the children of men; and states that, among them, Adam's first-born, Cain, after hav. ing slain Abel, his second-born, fled, and intermarried, and built cities, long before his own offspring could have wanted any; not to advert to a race of giants, which Genesis mentions soon after."Vol. ii. p. 3.

We find, too, in the traditions of every people of the Adamitic race, an enunciation of the degeneracy of human kind, and of the existence in the early time of entities possessing infinitely greater physical powers, and more transcendent intellect and knowledge than man. This is no less true of the ancient Greeks, who had their Titans, than of the Jews, to whom Hope has referred. The same belief is to be found prevalent alike among the worshippers of Woden, in the frozen regions of the North, and the worshippers of the sun,-in the depths of the Arabian Desert as on the swelling bosom of the vast prairies of the American continent.

In a word, amongst all nations sufficiently advanced in physical organisation and mental capacity to have traditions, this tradition is universal. Nor does it, to us who may venture to inquire curiously, at all seem strange that it should be so. If we look upon this earth of ours, we can satisfy ourselves to demonstration that a race of animals has existed upon the globe which exists no longer, and which could not exist upon it as at present constituted. We are perfectly satisfied, moreover, that the animals which now live and move and have their being amongst human kind, whatever region they may traverse, whatever climate may shed its influence upon them, are not aboriginal animals, and could not by possibility have lived upon the primitive earth any more than the mammoth and the behemoth could have done upon the bosom of that which, within the scope of our annals, has proved to all creatures the bountiful mother.

Amongst the wild, or rather the savage animals, we find that they are confined to certain regions, circum

scribed, as it were, by climate, and that elsewhere, even in that species of captivity in which they could only exist, accompanied as it is with ample provision for their wants and all possible care for their well-being that art can point out, their existence is a factitious one; they can neither be acclimated, propagated, or domesticated. Offspring they may have, but they are like the offspring of the Mamelukes of old in the land of Egypt; none of the original vigour and tenacious vitality of the parents can be transmitted. These savage animals we cannot trace to their progenitors or predecessors. We cannot predicate whether the elephant and the rhinoceros can lawfully claim in their line descent as varieties from the gigantic animals whose remains unequivocally prove that a time was when they had been; or whether these monstrous growths, apparently the symbols of transition, and so of connexion between an elder and a later state of earth, were, in point of fact, the emanations of a subsequent creation. We have a ray of light to guide us, but not much more, with respect to those other animals that civilised man has appropriated and adapted to his use, has, according to the usual phrase, domesticated, and qualified to accompany and serve him in almost all regions of the globe it may suit or please him to inhabit; and this ray we get from observing these same animals once tame reduced to a wild state. We cannot tell what the horse, the cow, the dog, the sheep, and so forth, originally were, or how they severally became what they are as we possess them; but we can remark and determine what they become in a comparatively short space of time when suffered to run wild, and when propagated in a wild state, and we can see that the change thus effected is no less great than it is strange. We perceive how subject they all are from soil, and climate, and circumstance, to modifications which, in a few generations, would become permanent varieties. We see that peculiarities and even defects can be propagated until they shall, to all external appearance, form, if not a new species, at least a new class. Referring to this subject, Dr. Prichard observes,―

"If we could obtain a complete and