On pretende que je vous gouverne;
Mais vous devez voir, Dieu merci,
Que j’ai des ministres aussi. Beranger.
Are not the mountains, waves and skies a part
Of us and of our souls, as we of them? Byron.
Though there seems no good reason to doubt that the earth was made for man, and that he has got the supremacy of it, yet we believe it is as little to be doubted that his character and royalty have been very much modified by “the beggarly elements” of the world, and still continue to be so, though in a lesser degree than during the earlier ages of his existence in it. In more recent times a great many causes, arising from customs, laws, beliefs, and so forth, have been effective aids in establishing the diversities of nations, such as we see them. But the great disposing causes, operating on men earliest and producing the most permanent tendencies, were in the localities in which they found themselves, and multiplied their generations; and these influences of place can still, in the divisions of the human family, be distinctly traced beneath all others which civilization may have superinduced.
We are not disposed alone to test this proposition by the differences existing between the European families and their affiliations. We would go further, and comprehend “the black men, the white men, the frozen and fried,” of whom Beranger speaks—the eight or nine hundred millions that, at this moment, are crawling about on the thick rotundity of the globe; and thence argue that the soil and the sun have been the chief modifiers of all the human varieties. But here we are met, in liminé—on the threshold of our disquisition—by a crowd of respectable names, among which are those of Professor Agassiz, Van Amringe, Dr. Morton, etc., backed by arguments denying our right to conclude, from the apparent difference of race, the operation of topical influences. These philosophers say there were other causes—that, in fact, these differences were mainly produced by creation—that several distinct species of men were fashioned by the Divine hand, to suit the elemental diversities of the world.
Of course we cannot get along without considering these views—very fairly urged and very worthy of consideration. Every effort after truth is a good thing in itself—even though, like the arrow of Acestes, it should miss its aim, and only make something to wonder at:—
Volens liquidis in nubibus arsit arundo
Signavitque viam flammis tenuesque recessit