notices in Scripture and in Greek authors have told us of its greatness and conquests, the magnitude and decorations of its capital. But we have only just begun to disentomb the great Nineveh, and can only partially decipher the peculiar cuneiform characters which designate and give date to its wonderful works of art. The intrepid zeal and ability of Mr. Layard, already re-directed to the spot, will, we doubt not, achieve further successes on the same fertile soil; but when all is done, there will yet remain the void of time beyond, in which genius and diligence are alike lost and fruitless.

The vast empires of China and India offer yet more striking examples of this imperfection of history, as bearing on the early condition and diffusion of the human race. Native records, aided here also by astronomy, carry us obscurely back to dates as remote as those of Egypt and Assyria; but beyond this all is lost in the depths of time, or in the still darker depths of mythology. And to take another instance, from a different source, but not less cogent for our object, where do we find the faintest authentic trace of those maritime migrations, seemingly not single, but successive, which peopled the great American continent; giving birth to numerous nations and languages, and to various monuments of power and civilization still only partially explored? Here only one or two vague traditions float before us, which poetry may adopt, but which history refuses to appropriate to its graver

purposes.

These few examples will show how scantily we can draw from ancient history the peculiar information required. We nowhere get high enough. The regions of tradition or mythology are reached; but it is still the selva oscura, the basso loco of the poet, and we do not obtain access to the clear sky above. It may even be affirmed that we gain less certain knowledge of the early races of mankind from direct history than from those relations and resemblances of custom which often remain infixed for ages, when all other connexions are lost-the usages pertaining to birth and death-the methods of warfare-the regulations of property-the punishment of offences-the manner of habitation-and yet more remarkably the bodily mutilations which are found so strangely to exist in common among nations widely separate on the earth. Much caution is obviously needful in dealing with indications from this source. There is the same liability to deception here as in the case of etymology, where ingenuity so often deceives itself by a shadow of resemblance alone. But pursued with discretion and the multiplication of authentic facts, wherewith to correct hasty conclusions, this method of research becomes fruitful of curious results; and, like those branches of the inquiry to which we are

now

now hastening, gives yet more abundant promise for the future, aided as it now is by a thousand facilities, unknown and unsurmised heretofore.

We have dwelt thus long on preliminary parts of the subject, under the conviction that many, even of those conversant with other sciences, scarcely appreciate the entire scope of that under our review. We come now to the two main sources of knowledge as to the natural history of man, viz., human physiology and human language; lines of argument distinct in themselves, yet parallel in direction, and mutually giving force to every conclusion in which they concur. Through these channels alone can we proceed upwards when history deserts us, and tradition throws a light too flickering or false to be safely trusted. Even admitting that certainty is unattainable, we may yet reach a degree of probability fully warranting the attempt, a timid abandonment of which would be treason against all true philosophy:

Ardua dum metuunt, amittunt vera viaï.

Human physiology ranks as the highest department of that great science of organic life which has made such astonishing progress of late years, compassing conclusions and general results which would once have been deemed impossible to human research. The closer study of comparative anatomy-the improved use of the microscope-the increased resources of chemical analysis-the wider sphere of actual observation-and greater exactitude in the collection and classification of facts-all have concurred to this result. Other sciences, moreover, and especially geology, have lately furnished new and extraordinary aids to this branch of knowledge. What space is to the astronomer, time is to the geologist-vast beyond human comprehension, yet seen and comprized by the conclusions of the science. The astronomer indeed throws his line of numbers more boldly and securely into the depths of the infinite before him. The geologist can rarely give this mathematical certainty to his subject, or express the vastness of time more definitely than by the relation and succession of periods. But this result, and the methods by which it is attained, are such as well attest the value and grandeur of the science. The study of fossil remains, in representing successive epochs of change, and renewed creations of organic life on the surface of the globe, becomes the interpreter of facts of transcendent interest. What more wonderful than to extricate from the depths of the earth those mute yet expressive evidences of time far anterior to the creation of man!-of ages to which no human estimate can ascend, save as respects the mere order of succession in the series! What nearer material approach can

man

man find to his Maker, than in decyphering those repeated epochs and acts of creative power, and those successive modifications of animal life, which, while still including its simpler forms, gradually acquire higher types of organization, and express a scheme of fixed and constant progress, however imperfect our view of the steps by which this is attained? Dividing these periods by the geological characters which clearly denote their relative age and succession, and the altered conditions of the earth in each, we may affirm that each period, amidst a general change of species, contains some element of higher life and more consummate organization. We have not room to dwell on this topic, or to detail the different expressions which naturalists have given to the general fact; but its bearing upon our subject-the natural history of man-will be obvious at first sight, and rises in importance as we pursue and enlarge the inquiry.

For what is the position of man in the scheme and series thus described? The answer is written in clear characters in the same great volume of nature-the evidence negative indeed in part, but not on that account less certain. While all anterior conditions of animal life, as they have successively occurred, are represented to us by innumerable vestiges and fossil remains, no trace whatsoever is found of the human being until the epoch in which we have our present existence. Bones, shells, impressions of the most delicate structure, even the passing footsteps of animals over a moist surface, all these things have been wonderfully preserved to the inspection of this later age. The most minute as well as the most gigantic forms of the ancient animal world, in its several periods, are familiar to our present knowledge. If in one spot the remains have been too imperfect to allow the naturalist to complete his delineation, such is the rich exuberance of this fossil world that he rarely fails to obtain what is wanting from some contemporaneous strata elsewhere on the globe. Even the lacunæ which still exist in the series of zoological types are in progress of being filled up from the same fertile source-yet of man, we repeat, no one vestige is to be found; certain though it is that this must have happened, had his existence been laid among any of these first creations on the earth. A single bone, distinctly discovered in a certain geological site, and attested as human by Cuvier or Owen, would have decided the question. But none such have been found-a few alleged instances have been subsequently disproved-and the creation of man, as well as of the various species of animal life by which he is now surrounded, may distinctly be referred to the actual surface of the globe, as the latest of those acts of creation of which geology furnishes the record and the proof.

Though

Though less certain in evidence, it is reasonable to add, in confirmation of this view, what we have just stated as to the introduction of certain higher organizations at each of the periods in question. The step from the most advanced genera of the mammalia to man may be much greater than any antecedent one; but still we are not entitled to disregard this relation as possibly forming part of the great scheme which we humbly contemplate with the faculties permitted us to use. The simple fact that human reason is rendered capable of contemplating such objects, attests more strongly than any other the actual pre-eminence of man over all besides of the existing creation.

This point then settled, we come to the particular questions regarding the first condition of man on the earth, which we formerly indicated as lying at the root of the whole inquiry. Is the human being a single species of what naturalists call the genus Homo? or do the diversities of physical character which we see in different races compel the admission that there were more species than one in the original act of creation? Again, if the unity of the species be proved, are we to look for the origin of this species in a single pair placed in some one locality of the globe, and thence diffusing the human race over its surface? or do the facts observed make it probable that there were more than one-possibly several distinct pairs-representing the more prominent diversities of the species, and located in different points, so as to become so many centres of diffusion and admixture of these varieties?

The questions thus generally stated may be said to include all others appertaining to the subject; save one perhaps, already adverted to slightly, but which we must here notice further, inasmuch as it involves the very definition of a species, and suggests contingencies which, if admitted, change the whole aspect of the inquiry. We allude to the opinion of certain naturalists, avowed or anonymous,* who, holding that there is no sufficient reason to suppose the immutability of species, believe it possible or probable that what have hitherto been considered such, may, by the operation of various causes, acting through long periods of time, be gradually transmuted into other and very different forms, or species as we now regard them. The most eminent advocate of this doctrine, Lamarck, hardly cares to shelter himself under those

We use the term anonymous here in reference to the volume entitled 'Vestiges of Creation,' well known to many of our readers, in which all that can be alleged on behalf of this doctrine, and more than can reasonably be alleged, is stated by the unknown writer with skilful plausibility, in language of great vigour and clearness. Those who first encounter the subject under his guidance ought to read also some of the able replies the work has provoked, and which have led the author in his later editions to adopt various modifications, not so explicitly acknowledged, we think, as they might have been.

Lugarber side vague твога

vague generalities by which others have sought to temper their conclusions and reconcile them to the common belief. He lets it be understood that he imposes no limit on this principle of progressive transmutation. From the simplest primitive germs or rudiments may be evolved, by what has been termed spontaneous generation, all the various forms of vegetable and animal organic life; the particular forms being determined by the conditions to which the germs are incidentally subjected; and the development, multiplication, and variation of species depending on the same contingencies, acting through unbounded time, and aided by certain principles of action and change within the beings thus developed. These principles, which have been variously termed appetencies, plastic powers, efforts of internal sentiment, subtle fluids, &c., betray in the outset the weakness of the system. They are phrases unmeaning in themselves-ruinous to all true philosophy. Yet Lamarck, boldly appropriating them, pushes his conclusions into numerous particular instances of this presumed transmutation of species. That which most concerns our present subject is the view he hazards of the transformation of the orang-outang into man; and the sketch he gives, with a rare intrepidity, of the means by which this wonderful change has been worked out. He has not been careful to take the best instance for his case the Chimpanzee, or Simia troglodytes of Angola, being a closer approach to the human form than the Orang-outang of Borneo, and fully justifying the old line of Ennius

Simia, quam similis, turpissima bestia, nobis!

But whichsoever be taken as the point of departure in this change from the monkey to the man, the deficiency in argument and fact is the same. Difficult or impossible though it is for human reason to comprehend successive or innumerable specific acts of creation, it is in nowise more difficult than to conceive creation at all:-easier indeed than to conceive laws primitively impressed upon matter, rendering it capable, by any feeling, appetence, or necessity of its own temporary organization, of evolving new organs and instruments of action. For it must be kept in mind, though Lamarck himself leaves it out of sight, that this theory implies not merely variations of form and power in organs previously existing, but the progressive creation or substitution of organs and powers entirely new. Such changes as these we nowhere see in progress. The exact knowledge obtained of certain animal and vegetable species during a period of 3000 years us of no such mutations. To avoid difficulties which belong to the limited comprehension of man, and which meet us equally on the confines of all human science, we are called upon to adopt a

tells

system