Before attempting to trace the hand of Divine providence in the original location and subsequent migrations of the historic races, let us briefly reproduce the sentences which express the conditions most favorable to the development and perfection of humanity. 1. While the tropical climate of Southern Asia, of Africa, and of South America is unfavorable to the highest intellectual and moral development, the temperate climate of Western Asia, of Europe, and of North America is peculiarly adapted to minister to the advancement and perfection of the human race. 2. The massive, unbroken continents of the South, shut in by immense oceans and impassable mountain ranges, are the seats of immobility and the home of despotic power; but the deeply indented and elaborately articulated continents of the North, with their inland seas and large navigable rivers, are the theatre of activity, of progress, and of liberty. 3. The sunny skies and glowing landscapes and inspiring scenery of the south of Europe are most congenial to poetry and music, and painting and sculpture, and all that is graceful in expression and action; the deeper tone and sterner features of the northern portion of Europe, "whose skies are sombre, and whose mountains are rugged and gray," determine it to be the home of practical industry and useful arts, of benevolent enterprises and philanthropic deeds. Bearing in mind these principles, we turn to history in the belief that we shall find that Divine providence has at successive periods placed the historic races in such geographical relations and amid such physical conditions as have been most favorable to their intellectual and moral development.
1. The first historic fact to which we would now direct attention is that the human race really commenced its history in the midst of the continents of the Temperate Zone. Western Asia was unquestionably the cradle of the human race, the grand centre whence the different families or races commenced their migrations.
Whatever views may be entertained of the doctrine supposed to be taught in Gen. i.-iv. that the whole human race originally descended from a single pair, or whatever method of interpretation in regard to that ancient document may finally prevail—even should we adopt the theory of Dr. McCausland[380] that the Biblical account is concerned only with the origin of a covenant and redemptive race (the Adamite or Edenic race), which was to be the instructor and benefactor of the pre-Adamite races—there can be no question that the sacred historian traces the source of the great historic nations to the family of Noah (Gen. ix. 19). Whatever difficulties there may be in determining the site of Eden—and they are confessedly great, if not insurmountable—there is no difficulty in locating the second geographical centre from whence the great historic races departed to overspread the earth. Ararat is, no doubt, in its Biblical import, the Armenian highlands, the lofty plateau which overlooks the plains of the Araxes on the north and Mesopotamia on the south. This "Armenian plateau stands equidistant from the Euxine and the Caspian seas on the north, and between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea on the south. With the first it is connected by the Acampsis, with the second by the Araxes, with the third by the Tigris and the Euphrates, the latter of which serves as an outlet toward the countries on the Mediterranean coast. These seas were the highways of primitive colonization, and the plains watered by these rivers were the seats of the most powerful nations of antiquity—the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Medes, and the Colchians. Viewed with reference to the dispersion of the nations, Armenia is the true ὀμφαλος—the middle part—of the earth; and it is a significant fact that at the present day Ararat is the great boundary-stone between the empires of Russia, Turkey, and Persia."[381]
The Scripture account, which certainly authorizes us to fix upon the highlands of Armenia as the new centre whence the descendants of Noah went forth to people the earth, is confirmed by the most ancient traditions and the most reliable historic records. Josephus tells us there was in Armenia a city which was called Ἀποβατήριον—the Place of Descent[382]—"for the ark being saved in that place, its remains are shown by the inhabitants to this day."[383] He further adds that "all the writers of the barbarian histories make mention of the flood, and of this ark, among whom is Berosus, the Chaldæan,[384] who, when he goes on to describe the circumstances of the flood, remarks, 'it is said there is still some part of this ship in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyæans;' Hieronymus, the Egyptian, who wrote the Phoenician antiquities, and Manases, and indeed a great many others, also make mention of the same. Nay, Nicholas of Damascus, in his ninety-sixth book, hath a particular relation about them, where he speaks thus: 'There is a great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which, it is reported,... that one who was carried in an ark came on shore upon the top of it, and that the remains of the timber were a great while preserved.'"[385]
This concurrent testimony of sacred and profane history, which designates Western Asia as the cradle of the historic nations, has received additional confirmation from the researches of modern ethnologists and philologists. In the tenth chapter of Genesis, the sacred historian sketches the nations of the earth at his time of writing, indicates their ethnic affinities, and marks to some extent their geographical positions. The professor of ancient history in the University of Oxford, George Rawlinson, remarks that "the Toldoth Beni Noah (the Generations of Noah) has excited the admiration of modern ethnologists, who continually find in it the anticipations of their greatest discoveries."[386] Sir Henry Rawlinson assures us that "the Toldoth Beni Noah is undoubtedly the most authentic record we possess of the affiliations of the human race which sprang from the triple stock of the Noachidæ."[387] The same distinguished Oriental scholar in an essay "On the Ethnic Affinities of the Nations of Western Asia," further remarks: "In Western Asia, the cradle of the human race, the several ethnic branches of the human family were more closely intermingled and more evenly balanced than in any other portion of the ancient world. Semitic, Indo-European, and Tâtar or Turanian races not only divided among them this portion of the earth's surface, but lay interspersed and confused upon it in a most remarkable entanglement. It is symptomatic of this curious intermixture that the Persian monarchs, when they wished to communicate to their Asiatic subjects in such a way that it should be generally intelligible, had to put it out not only in three different languages, but in three languages belonging to the three principal divisions of human speech. Hence the trilingual inscriptions of Behistun, Persepolis, etc., which consist of an Indo-European, a Tâtar, and a Semitic column."[388]
Thus do all the varied lines of evidence proceeding from history, ethnology, and philology converge upon Western Asia as the cradle of the human race—the centre from which the families of mankind departed to people the earth; and we are constrained to regard the early populations of that region as furnishing the typical standard or average sample of our species.
Proceeding from a purely zoological stand-point, we should be led to an opposite conclusion. Looking to the general phenomena of the geographical distribution of animals, and the natural rather than the artificial conditions of human existence, and arguing solely on naturalistic grounds, we should be constrained to place the centre of our race in the tropics; and of the intertropical regions those which are the habitat of the anthropoid (or anthropomorphic) ape, as Western Africa and the southern extremity of Asia. In the protoplasts of his species the mere zoologist sees but so many naked bipeds, with the capabilities, indeed, of working out for their future behoof the essentials of clothing, the use of fire, and the like, but in the first instance unfit for any climate except the mildest, and incapable of sustenance on any soil except the most luxuriant. He consequently fixes upon the tropics as the cradle of our race; and those who assume the lineal descent of the human species from the quadrumana fix upon those intertropical points which are the habitats of the anthropomorphic apes.
The law which governs the distribution and development of vegetable and animal life would also lead us to fix upon the tropical regions as the geographical centre of our race. That law may be thus stated: The degree of perfection of the types of life, and the diversity and number of species, are proportional to the intensity of heat. In this progress, as Humboldt has remarked, we find organic life and vigor gradually augmenting with the increase of temperature. And the number of species increases as we approach the equator, and decreases as we retire from it.[389]
In the Frigid Zone life seems almost extinguished during the greater part of the year by the rigors of an almost perpetual winter. The vegetation of the polar regions is stunted, dull, and monotonous in color, and inadequate to sustain animal life. The plains are covered with mosses and lichens, and here and there a few herbs and shrubs (saxifrages, gentians, papaver, etc.), but no stately forest trees. In short, the general characteristic of these cold regions is the preponderance of cryptogamous plants. In the Temperate Zone we have a marked superiority in vegetable life. Here we have grassy pastures, cerealia, and dicotyledonous trees—the oak, ash, beech, maple, chestnut, walnut, the apple, pear, plum, etc. The number of genera and species is greatly increased, and the superior types acquire a fuller development. The preponderance of phanerogamous plants, the richer coloring, and the appearance of evergreen trees, are the signs of an immense progress. But the soft tints, the medium forms, and the wintry sleep extending through half the year, clearly indicate that the perfection of physical nature is not attained.[390] It is in the heat of the Torrid Zone where nature puts forth all her energy, and displays her greatest resources. "The cryptogamous plants attain, in arborescent forms, the proportions of our forest trees. The grasses which we know in our climates only under the humble forms they put on in our fields, rise, in the elegant and majestic bamboo, to the height of sixty or seventy feet. A single tree is a garden, wherein a hundred different plants intertwine their branches, and display their brilliant flowers on a ground of verdure, where their varied hues and forms of leaves are richly blended." And here the perfection of vegetable life is attained in the graceful palms which stand at the head and crown the vegetable kingdom. This is the region of a perpetual summer, where nature makes ample provision for the support of animal life, and the date, the cocoa-nut, the banana, the plantain, the sugar-cane, the pine-apple, supply all the wants of uncivilized man.
The same gradation is marked in the animal kingdom. The most characteristic feature of the arctic fauna is its dull uniformity. The species are few in number, their forms are regular, and their tints are dusky as the northern heavens. The most conspicuous animals are the reindeer, the white bear, and the various seals; but the most important are the whales, which rank lowest of all the mammals. The preponderance of marine animals clearly indicates an inferior development. The faunas of the temperate regions are much more varied than in the Arctic Zone. Instead of consisting mainly of aquatic tribes, we have a considerable number of terrestrial animals of graceful form, animated appearance, and varied coloring, though less brilliant than those found in tropical regions. It is in the tropics that animal life attains its highest development. The boundless variety of species, the richness of the colors, the diversity of forms, the size and strength of the great pachyderms that people the forests and rivers, the fleetness and vigor of the ferocious denizens of the jungle and the plain, all attest that this is the privileged zone. And here only are found the quadrumanæ, which stand at the head of the animal kingdom.