"In a summer season,
When soft was the sun,
I shoop me into shrowds[108]
As I a sheep[109] were;
In habit as an hermit
Unholy of werkes,
Went wide in this world
Wonders to hear;
Ac[110] on a May morwening
On Malvern hills
Me befel a ferly,[111]
Of fairy me thought." Etc.
Written language is more permanent than spoken, but the process of either is necessarily slow. When it is remembered that a language has been derived successively through numerous others, no special limit or time can be given, although a very long period would be required. The usually accepted chronology would not allow sufficient time for the diversity in the Semitic family, to say nothing of the time required for the development of the three general classes.
CHAPTER XVII.
UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE.
The theory of the unity of the human race has caused a clash of opinions among men of science. It has been the great battle field among anthropologists, ethnologists, geologists, philologists, and theologists. Men of acknowledged ability have been arrayed on either side. Among the foremost in favor of a diversity of origin have been Agassiz, Sir Roderick I. Murchison, Georges Pouchet, A. R. Wallace, and Schleicher. But the weight of evidence and authority is most in favor of the unity of the human race.
The advocates of the theory of the diversity of the origin of the human race have advanced many objections against the unity, and produced arguments in favor of their opinions. These may be summed up under five heads. 1. The anatomical differences between the different races, and especially those which distinguish the black and white. 2. The separation of the races from each other for unknown ages by great oceans, and by formidable and almost impassable continental barriers. 3. The disparity in intelligence, and the grades in civilization. 4. A medium type cannot exist by itself, except on the condition of being supported by the two creating types. 5. When two types become united, two phenomena may arise: a, Either one of them will absorb the other; or b, They may subsist simultaneously in the midst of a greater or less number of hybrids.
The following answers may be given to these objections, or arguments: 1. It is just as reasonable to suppose that man is affected, as well as the animals, by climate, food, or peculiar condition. It is well known that animals have undergone more or less change by their situation or position. Elephants and rhinoceroses are almost hairless. As certain extinct species, which formerly lived under an arctic climate, were covered with hair or long wool, it would appear that the present species of both genera had lost their hairy covering by exposure to heat. This is confirmed by the fact that the elephants of the elevated and cool districts of India are more hairy than those on the lowlands.[112] A wonderful change is wrought by the influence of climate on turkeys. In India "it is much degenerated in size, utterly incapable of rising on the wing, of a black color, and with long pendulous appendages over the beak, enormously developed." "In the English climate an individual Porto Santo rabbit recovered the proper color of its fur in less than four years."[113] Observers are convinced that a damp climate affects the growth of the hair of cattle. The mountain-breeds always differ from the lowland breeds; in a mountainous country the hind limbs would be affected from exercising them more, which would also affect the pelvis, and, then, from the law of homologous variation, the front limbs and head would probably be affected.[114] One of the most marked distinctions in the races of man is that the skull in some is elongated or dolichocephalic, and in others rounded or brachycephalic. Mr. Darwin has observed that a change takes place in the skulls of domestic rabbits; they become elongated, while those of the wild rabbit are rounded. He took two skulls of nearly equal breadth, the one from a wild and the other from a large domestic rabbit, the former was only 3.15, and the latter 4.3 inches in length. Welcker has observed "that short men incline more to brachycephaly and tall men to dolichocephaly; and tall men may be compared with the larger and longer-bodied rabbits, all of which have elongated skulls."[115] The argument from language is of great weight, especially in considering the differences in color. Professor Max Müller has stated this clearly: "There was a time when the ancestors of the Celts, the Germans, the Slavonians, the Greeks and Italians, the Persians and Hindus, were living together beneath the same roof." "The evidence of language is irrefragable, and it is the only evidence worth listening to with regard to ante-historical periods. It would have been next to impossible to discover any traces of relationship between the swarthy natives of India and their conquerors, whether Alexander or Clive, but for the testimony borne by language."[116] When the great lapse of ages is taken into consideration, since man originated, it will be seen that sufficient time is given to produce the white, black, yellow, red, and brown varieties of man.
2. The argument from geographical distribution would hardly seem valid, as it is known that the ocean can be and has been navigated by frail crafts. Lieutenant Bligh, of the ship Bounty, in a small boat, twenty-three feet long from stem to stern, deep laden with nineteen men and one hundred and fifty pounds of bread, twenty-eight gallons of water, twenty pounds of pork, etc., started from the island of Tofoa (South Pacific) for the island of Timor, a distance of three thousand six hundred miles. In this voyage he encountered a boisterous sea, and great perils, but finally reached his destination.[117] When men began to dwell on the sea-coast they made their small vessels and carried on a limited navigation. Many a frail craft has been driven out to sea with its human freight, some of which landed on uninhabited islands. This has often happened among the South Sea islanders.[118] If it had been asserted, a few years ago, that man's distribution might have been partly caused by the agency of ice, it would have received no attention. And yet, Captain Tyson and his party, consisting of twelve men, two women, and five children, being a portion of the crew of the ill-fated Polaris, drifted about from the 15th of October, 1872, to the 30th of April, 1873, on an ice-floe, and in the midst of an arctic winter. Besides the provisions saved from the Polaris they subsisted on the flesh of seals, birds, and bears that they were able to kill. Every member of this party was rescued off the coast of Labrador. It must be further noticed that the surface of the earth was not always the same. The continents have changed more or less, and during these changes man must have become more or less separated.