THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

ART. I.-1. Researches into the Physical History of Mankind. By James C. Prichard, M.D., F.R.S., Corresponding Member of the National Institute of France. Third Edition. 5 vols. 8vo. 1836-1847.

2. The Natural History of Man; comprising Inquiries into the Modifying Influences of Physical and Moral Agencies in different Tribes of the Human Family. By the same. 1843.

3. The Natural History of the Human Species, its Typical Forms, Primeval Distribution, Filiations, and Migrations. By Lieut.Col. C. Hamilton Smith, K. H., F.R.S. Edinburgh, 1848. 4. On the Results of recent Egyptian Researches, in reference to Asiatic and African Ethnology and the Classification of Languages. A Discourse read before the Ethnological Section of the British Association at Oxford. By C. C. J. Bunsen, D.C.L., Ph. D. 1847.

5. Sir C. Lyell's Elements of Geology. Chaps. XXXIV. to XL.

WE WE are liable, we fear, to some reproach for not having earlier noticed the works which are placed first in the above list; and we feel this the more because a year has now elapsed since Dr. Prichard was lost by premature death to the science of his country. His various writings, directed to topics of the deepest interest to all mankind, are characterised by an industry, ability, and candour of research well meriting the reputation they have obtained both at home and abroad. In regard to those more directly before us, by conjoining the physiological part of the inquiry with its historical and philological relations, they form the most ample and complete text we yet possess on the subject, and one to which all future investigation must be more or less referred.

While acknowledging and seeking thus late to repair the omission, we may fairly allege as to the subject itself, that it can never be out of season or date as long as man has his place on the earth. For what inquiry of higher import, or more lasting interest, than that which regards the physical condition of the human species as first created and appearing on the surface of the globe? What investigation in all science more vast and

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curious

curious than that which, from observation of the numerous races and physical varieties of man, and from the equally numerous forms and diversities of human language, deduces conclusions as to the more simple and elementary states from which these wonderful results have been developed, and the manner and course of their development? Questions like these, even if already settled to our reason and knowledge, would yet have a constant hold on the minds of all thinking men, in their simple relation to that greatest of all phenomena-the existence of human life upon the earth. But, in truth, they are far from being thus settled. A spacious field is open to research, in which certain paths are laid down, and certain landmarks fixed in guidance and preparation for further culture; but where no harvest of complete knowledge has yet been reaped, and where even the boundary of what can be effected by human effort is still obscure.

In this very circumstance we find further excuse for taking up the subject thus late. Better defined as a department of science, and its importance more fully appreciated, the study of the physical history of mankind, in all its varieties of race and distribution, has, like other branches of knowledge, been continually enlarged by the accession of new facts and new methods of research. It has become more copious in its details, more exact in all its conclusions. Aided and emboldened by its growing connexion with other sciences, and by the number of eminent men who have given their labours this direction, it has of late years especially made rapid progress; embracing, together with the kindred subject of ethnology, some of the most curious questions which come within the range of human inquiry.

What we have said thus generally is well illustrated by the course of Dr. Prichard's own researches. A Latin thesis, De Humani Generis Varietate, written and printed at Edinburgh in 1809, when he took his degree there, forms the basis of all that he has since so elaborately performed. It is a bold and able treatise, considering the materials he then had in his hands. The theme, pursued with unremitting zeal, grew into a large volume published in 1821, entitled Researches into the Physical History of Mankind; and it is the third edition of this work, enlarged gradually to five volumes by a perseverance in the same diligent inquiry, which we now have before us. The volume entitled The Natural History of Man, is a sort of summary of it, suggested probably by the need of comprising the new materials which had accrued while the other volumes successively appeared.*

We

Dr. Prichard's other writings, whether philological or medical, warrant further what we have said of his merits as a philosophical inquirer. His character was one of

We are further justified in presenting this subject to our readers, from the conviction that the great questions it involves are still only partially appreciated by those familiar with other branches of science. The history of Man, as a denizen of the earth, has indeed been conceived and pursued in many different ways, according to the objects, genius, or opportunity of those engaged in the study; but these portraitures which have severally presented him as

The glory, jest, and riddle of the world,

will

are partial and subordinate, and in nowise fulfil the purport of the larger title before us. The philosopher, living in the comparative seclusion of one community, may indeed, like Blumenbach and Prichard, construct a science from the labours of those cosmopolite travellers who have studied mankind on a bold and broad scale, under every diversity of region and race. But, generally speaking, the tendency of common life and habitual pursuits in the most civilized communities is to narrow, by division and refinement, all great views of the human race. The social pictures of man, found in poetry, history, essay, or romance, explain our meaning. They are for the most part individualities of character or custom, which tend rather to curtail than enlarge the outline of inquiry, and in truth have little relation to the Natural History of Man as a part of creation at large. Even the moral and religious feelings are concerned in giving their tone and temper to such investigations, differently defining the objects and pursuing them by separate routes. And further, these objects are in themselves so numerous, and their natural aspects of such endless variety, that we can scarcely wonder at the vague understanding of the questions which lie at the bottom of the whole -questions well worthy, nevertheless, of all the learning and ingenuity given to their solution.

Whatever may be the causes, certain it is that the physical history of man has only recently taken its place as a definite branch of science. The ancient philosophers dealt with it loosely, imperfectly, and erroneously. Their limited knowledge of the surface of the earth, their entire ignorance of whole existing races of mankind—the prejudices of their mythology—and their general want of appreciation of scientific evidence, the preference of the doa to the moтnun-these difficulties which, in

of great simplicity, zealous in the pursuit of everything true and useful in science. His death may well be termed premature, inasmuch as the peculiar subject of his successful research was before him to the last. We are indebted to Dr. Symonds of Bristol for a very interesting memoir on his life and writings, and find every cause to wish it had extended to greater length. The events indeed are few, but it is always agreeable and useful to trace the workings of an ingenuous mind steadily devoted to one great object. B 2 their

their totality, even the genius of Aristotle could not surmount, may readily be admitted in explanation of the fact we have stated, Passing over the earlier but ambiguous researches of Camper, we may affirm that the true foundation of the science was that laid by Professor Blumenbach of Göttingen, whose long life of honourable labour closed not many years ago. His celebrated collection of skulls (which we have ourselves examined under his guidance) obtained by unwearied perseverance from every part of the globe, suggested new relations and more extended and exact inquiries in prosecution of one branch of the subject. The researches and writings of Cuvier, Humboldt, Lawrence, Owen, Tiedeman, Rudolfi, and other physiologists, while differing in certain conclusions, have continually enlarged the scope of the science and concentrated the results obtained by travellers and naturalists -thus augmenting the means upon which the removal of these differences and the certainty of all conclusions must eventually depend. Philology, meanwhile, has come largely in aid of the inquiry, and the study and classification of languages, indicated more remotely by Scaliger, Bacon, and Leibnitz, has grown into a vast body of authentic knowledge, ministering through new and unexpected relations to the history of the races and communities of mankind. The names of Adelung, Schlegel, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Remusat, Grimm, Klaproth, Rask, Bunsen, Meyer, &c. indicate the more conspicuous of those who have advanced this science abroad. In our own country we may cite Harris, Horne Tooke, Sir W. Jones, Wilkins, Marsden, Young, Prichard, Latham, &c., as worthy associates in the same learned career.

The physical history of mankind, derived from these sources, has now assumed its place as one of the most eminent branches of natural science-assuredly one of the most interesting, in expounding to man his natural relations to the rest of creation on the globe, and those progressive causes of change which have unceasingly modified his condition here, and may continue to affect and alter it in ages yet to come.

For what are we fitly to understand as comprised in the titles of the works before us? In stating it to be the natural history of man, as a branch of that larger science which includes the physical history of all organized life on the globe, we give but a meagre conception of the subject. Vegetable life, individually fixed to one spot-generically distributed into different regions so as to form an especial science of botanical geography-limited by climate, soil, and other circumstances, though capable of vast changes by culture-all this, while furnishing much of curious illustration and analogy, can only slightly represent to us what pertains to the physical history of the human race. When we

rise in the scale of creation through the innumerable forms and gradations of animal life, and reach those wonderful instincts, and yet higher functions of intelligence and feeling in certain animals, which Aristotle well calls μιμηματα της ανθρωπινης Cans, though finding some of the analogies to approach more closely, still are we far below the level of those great questions which regard the human species-the origin, dispersion, and mutual relation of the various races of mankind. To mere physical evidence are here added other and higher methods of proof, connected with the exercise of those mental faculties which mark man as the head of the animal creation. The peculiarity, the grandeur, and, we may add, the difficulty of the theme, depend mainly on his condition as an intellectual being, whereby his whole existence on earth is defined, and the relations of races and communities of men created and maintained.

And here we touch upon the question which may be said to govern the whole subject, and which we cannot better or more briefly define than in Dr. Prichard's own words :

'It will be the principal object of the following work to collect data for elucidating the inquiry, whether all the races of men scattered over the surface of the earth, distinguished as they are from each other in structure of body, in features, and in colour, and differing in languages and manners, are the offspring of a single stock, or have descended respectively from several original families? This problem is so extensive in its bearings, and in many particulars so intricate and complex, that I can scarcely hope to discover evidence conclusive in respect to every part of the investigation. I shall endeavour to collect and throw upon it all the light that can be obtained from different sources.'

We have said that this question, as to the unity and single origin of the human race, governs the whole subject; and it does so in the obvious sense, that if the fact be admitted or proved (as far as proof is attainable), certain other collateral questions at once disappear. If, for instance, it can be rendered certain to our belief that all mankind, throughout all ages of human existence on the globe-in all their innumerable varieties of form, colour, customs, and language-have been derived from one single pair, nothing remains but to investigate the causes, physical and moral, which have produced from this unity of origin the wonderful diversities everywhere visible. A subject wide enough in truth to satisfy the most eager speculator! yet well defined in its limits, and even in many of the lines through which research must be pursued. But this simpler form of the question is not permitted to us: the point is one upon which naturalists of eminence have held very different opinions. It has been con

tended