3. In respect to the disparity it may be replied that the two extreme points are observable in all the nations of the earth. Even in single families there have been those who were highly cultured and refined, while other members have been very low in organization, habits, and tastes. In these days it is manifest that all the races are capable of a very high degree of improvement. On the other hand, nations have retrograded. The ignorant, wretched nomads who pitch their tents amid the ruins of Babylon, are the descendants of the ancient mixed races who successively occupied Mesopotamia: the Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, and Persians, who were ruled by such renowned monarchs as Shalmaneser, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, and others. The wild marauding Arabs are the descendants of a people who invented algebra and introduced the numerals. So the list might be extended.
4 and 5. The fourth and fifth amount to the assumption that no race will amalgamate with another. The statements embraced under these two heads are not warranted by facts. Dr. Prichard says, "Mankind of all races and varieties are equally capable of propagating their offspring by intermarriages, and that such connections are equally prolific whether contracted between individuals of the same or of the most dissimilar varieties. If there is any difference, it is probably in favor of the latter."[119] He then gives a short account of several examples of new or intermediate stocks which have been produced and multiplied. They are Griquas, descended from the Dutch and Hottentots, who occupy the banks of the Orange River, and number five thousand souls; the Cafusos of Brazil, a mixture of native Americans and African Negroes; the Papuas of the island of New Guinea, a mixture between the Malays and Negroes. One of the best examples yet furnished is that of the Pitcairn Islanders. This colony originated in this way: The British government had sent a vessel, called the Bounty, commanded by Lieutenant Bligh, to gather bread-fruit trees at Otaheite and introduce them into the West Indies. Bligh was an overbearing, tyrannical, and cruel officer. Driven to fury, and out of patience with the superior officer, Mr. Fletcher Christian and others mutinied, and turned Bligh and his eighteen companions adrift. The mutineers proceeded to Tahiti; here they took on board provisions and live stock, nine Tahitian men, twelve women, and eight boys who had secreted themselves, and then proceeded to Toubouai, where they founded a settlement. Owing to dissensions the colony broke up and removed to Tahiti. But Mr. Christian, with eight other of the mutineers, three Toubouaians, three Tahitian men with their wives, and one child, and nine other women, left in the Bounty and landed at Pitcairn's Island, and there burned the Bounty on the 23d of January, 1790. In less than nine years afterward, owing to strifes, the men were reduced to two in number, both whites, and one of them died the succeeding year. In the year 1808 the American ship Topaz touched at the island. The colonists then numbered thirty-five. In 1856 they had increased to the number of one hundred and ninety, and as the produce of the island was barely sufficient to support them they were removed by the British government to Norfolk Island. There are only eight surnames among them—five of the Bounty stock and three new-comers. They are a fine, healthy race of people; the men of a bright copper color, but the women are scarcely distinguishable from English women. If reports be true concerning them, they are the most remarkable people on earth. They never allow the sun to go down on their wrath, and are noted for their honesty, truth, chastity, industry, benevolence, reverence, simplicity, and all the virtues which combine to form true religion.
The law of hybridity, which has been so strongly urged against the unity of the race, has proved an argument in favor. The offspring of birds as much alike as the domestic goose and the large Muscovy duck will not propagate their species. Mules cannot perpetuate their kind. The different varieties of the horse, such as the little black Shetland pony and the tall white Arabian, will not only breed together but these hybrids will continue to perpetuate their kind, thereby proving their identity of species. The same may be said of the cross between the most perfect and the lowest type of mankind. If some of these mixtures die out in a few generations, it is not owing to their hybridity, but to the plain violation of natural laws. When the contracting parties to a marriage are of the same constitution, there will be no issue; if the constitutions, or rather, temperaments, are in substance too nearly the same, the issue, if any, will be either still-born, or die very soon after birth; if the contracting parties shall have an adjunctive element, the issue will be short-lived, although they may arrive at the years of maturity.[120] These laws apply to both the mixed and the unmixed types of mankind.
The close affinity of all the races, their subjection to the same general laws, their capacity for mental and moral improvement, and the virtual unity of their languages lead to the conclusion that one birth-place was common to all. If that place be Central Asia, or any other locality, it must have been long before traditional times, when the one tribe was broken up and nations formed.
Races change so slow that they seem to be stationary. On the ancient Egyptian monuments are representations of the Negro, having exactly the same features which characterize that race at the present time; and some of these paintings date as far back as 2000 B. C.
Then from the unity of the race and the persistency in type, an almost incredible length of time must be assigned to permit of the great disparity as exhibited by the different types of mankind.