There remains one other criterion: I mean Language. And here the testimony is such as to disturb all divisions founded on Color or Skull; for it is ascertained that people differing in these respects speak languages having a common origin. The ancient Sanscrit, sometimes called the most elaborate of human dialects, has yielded its secret to philological research, and now stands forth the mother tongue of the European nations. It is difficult to measure the importance of this revelation; for, while not decisive on the main question, it increases our difficulty in accepting any postulate of original diversity.[132]
And now the question arises, How are these varieties to be regarded in the light of science? Are they aboriginal and from the beginning,—or are they super-induced by secondary causes, of which the record is lost in the extended night preceding our historic day? Here the authorities are divided. On the one side, we are reminded that within the period of recognized chronology no perceptible change has occurred in any of these varieties,—that on the earliest monuments of Egypt the African is pictured precisely as we see him now, even to that servitude from which among us he is happily released,—and it is insisted that no known influences of climate or place are sufficient to explain such transformations from an aboriginal type, while plural types are in conformity with the analogies of the animal and vegetable world. On the other side, we are reminded, that, whatever may be the difficulties from supposing a common centre of Creation, there are greater still in supposing plural centres,—that it is easier to understand one creation than many,[133]—that geographical science makes us acquainted with intermediate gradations of color and conformation in which the great contrasts disappear,—that, even within the last half-century and in Europe, people have tended to lose their national physiognomy and run into a common type, thus attesting subjection to transforming influences,—that, after accepting the races already described, there are other varieties, national, family, and individual, not less difficult of explanation,—and it is insisted, that, whatever these varieties, be they few or many, there is among them all an overruling Unity, by which they are constituted one and the same cosmopolitan species, endowed with speech, reason, conscience, and the hope of immortality, knitting all together in a common Humanity, and, amidst all seeming differences, making all as near to each other as they are far apart from every other created thing, while to every one is given that great first instrument of civilization, the human hand, by which the earth is tilled, cities built, history written, and the stars measured;—and this unquestionable Unity is pronounced all-sufficient evidence of a common origin.
In considering this great question, do all inquirers sufficiently recognize the element of Time? Obviously the sphere of operation is enlarged in proportion to the time employed. Everything is possible with time. Confining ourselves to recognized chronology, existing varieties cannot be reconciled with that unity found in a common origin. What are the six thousand years of Hebrew time, what are the twenty-two thousand years of human annals sanctioned by the learning and piety of Bunsen,[134] for the consummation of these transformations? And this longest period, how brief for the completion of those two marvellous languages, Sanscrit and Greek, which at the earliest dawn of authentic history were already so perfect! Considering the infinitudes of astronomy, and those other infinitudes of geology, it is not unreasonable to claim an antiquity for Primeval Man compared with which all the years of authentic history are a span. With such incalculable opportunity, amidst unknown changes of Nature where heat and cold strove for mastery, no transformation consistent with the preservation of the characteristic species was impossible. Egypt is not alone in its Sphinx, perplexing mortals with perpetual enigma. Science is our Sphinx, and its enigma is Man and his varieties on earth: to which I answer, “Time.”
Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that at the Creation conditions were stamped upon man, making transformations natural. Because unnatural according to observation during the brief period of historic time, it does not follow that they are not strictly according to law. The famous Calculating Engine of Charles Babbage, the distinguished mathematician, as described in his remarkable “Bridgewater Treatise,” where Science vindicates anew the ways of Providence to man, supplies an illustration which is not without instruction. This machine, with a power almost miraculous, was so adjusted as to produce a series of natural numbers in regular order from unity to a number expressed by one hundred millions and one,—100,000,001,—when another series was commenced, regulated by a different law, which continued until at a certain number the series was again changed; and all these changes in the immense progression proceeded from a propulsion at the beginning.[135] Any simple observer, finding that the series stretched onwards through successive millions, would have no hesitation in concluding from the vast induction that it must proceed always according to the same law; and yet it was not so. But the Calculating Engine is only a contrivance of human skill. And cannot the Creator do as much? That is a very inadequate conception of the Almighty Power creating the universe and placing man in it, which supposes, according to the language of Sir John Herschel, the eminent astronomer, that “His combinations are exhausted upon any one of the theatres of their former exercise.”[136] Thus far we know not the law of the series which governed Primeval Man. Who can say that after lapse of time changes did not occur, always in obedience to conditions stamped upon him at the Creation?
A simpler illustration carries us to the same result. A cog-wheel, so common in machinery, operates ordinarily by the cogs on its rim; but the wheel may be so constructed, that, after a certain series of rotations, another set of cogs is presented, inducing a different motion. All can see how, in conformity with preëxisting law, a change may occur in the operations of the machine. But it was not less easy for the Creator to fix His law at the beginning, according to which the evolutions of this world proceed. And thus are we brought back to the conclusion, so often announced, that unity of origin must not be set aside simply because existing varieties of Man cannot be sufficiently explained by known laws, operating during that brief period which we call History.
In considering this great question, there are authorities which cannot be disregarded. Count them or weigh them, it is the same. I adduce a few only, beginning with Latham, the ethnologist, who insists,—
“(1.) That, as a matter of fact, the languages of the earth’s surface are referable to one common origin; (2.) that, as a matter of logic, this common origin of language is primâ facie evidence of a common origin for those who speak it.”[137]
The great French geographer and circumnavigator, Dumont d’Urville, testifies thus:—