What may have been the relative cranial organization of the Briton and the African, at the period when the former, as described by Julius Cæsar, was smeared over with paint and clothed in the skins of wild beasts, whilst the latter was far advanced in civilisation in the kingdom of Bambarra, of which Timbuctoo is the capital? Comparing these barbarian Circassians with these civilized Negroes, it is found that the relation which now exists between the well-developed European skull and that of the savage African, was then reversed; for the crania of the ancient Britons found in different parts of England, according to Prichard, are characterized by a remarkable narrowness of the forehead compared with the occiput, giving a very small space for the anterior lobes of the brain, and allowing room for a large development of the posterior lobes." Here then we still observe an inseparable relation between physical characters and social condition, if we may judge from the barbarous state in which the natives of Ireland are represented to have been in the first century of the Christian era. They are voracious cannibals," says Strabo, "and even think it a laudable thing to eat the dead bodies of their parents." Strabo, however, does not put much confidence in his witnesses. Diodorus also asserts that the Irish were man-eaters. In the writings of St. Jerome it is stated that he saw, during his residence in Gaul, human flesh eaten by certain Scots. These Scots are supposed to refer to slaves or other persons brought from Ireland.

66

But it may be asked-What has enabled the rude and painted Britons to become the most renowned people on the face of the earth, whilst the Bambareens, like the Chinese, have been almost stationary for, perhaps, more than two thousand years? It is certainly not the difference in the complexion; for we have evidence in the history of the ancient Egyptians that the Africans are capable of the highest degree of civilisation. The cause may doubtless be found in the nature of political and religious institutions and social organization.

In regard to the Egyptians, Prichard has entered into the most extensive and learned researches, the results of which are thus summed up :- We may consider the general result of the facts

which we can collect concerning the physical characters of the Egyptians to be this: That the national configuration prevailing in the most ancient times was nearly the Negro form, with woolly hair; but that in a later age, this character had become considerably modified and changed, and that a part of the population of Egypt resembled the modern Hindoos. The general complexion was black, or at least a very dusky hue." That this people had the Circassian form of skull is an inference that might be legitimately deduced merely from the innumerable monuments still existing of their former splendor, after so many ages of desolation; but positive evidence in confirmation is afforded by their mummies.

We have further evidence in the ethnography of Europe of a connection between physical features and moral and intellectual character. The separation of the Magyars from the other Ugrian nations, for instance, took place about ten centuries ago; and their descendants who now inhabit Hungary, differ widely in physical and moral character from their ancestors. "They exchanged," says Prichard, "their abode in the most rigorous climate of the old continent, a wilderness where Ostiaks and Samoiedes pursue the chase during only the mildest season, for one in the south of Europe, amid fertile plains, which abound in rich harvests of corn and wine. They laid aside the habits of rude and savage hunters, far below the condition of the nomadic hordes, for the manners of civilized life. In the course of a thousand years they have become a handsome people, of fine stature, regular European features, and have the complexion prevalent in that tract of Europe where they dwell." Now these people were originally not superior to the most destitute tribes of Central Africa.

Lawrence maintains that the Negro has a moral and intellectual organization inferior to that of the white races, and that this is his "natural destiny." "The retreating forehead and the depressed vertex of the dark varieties of man," he says, "make me strongly doubt whether they are susceptible of these high destinies;-whether they are capable of fathoming the depths of science; of understanding and appre

ciating the doctrines and the mysteries of our religion." In opposition to the opimon that a natural and permanent inferiority, compared with the white man, belongs, as a general attribute, to the Negro, Blumenbach and Prichard maintain that there is nothing in the organization of his brain which affords a presumption of inferior moral or intellectual endowments. Now, we think that we have already clearly shown that both these opinions are founded in error. That the Negro race is intellectually inferior, at the present day, to the European, is a position established beyond the shadow of a doubt; but that this inferiority, at least to the degree now existing, is a permanent law of nature, is not even probable. As regards the perceptive faculties, the Negro is evidently not inferior to the white man, but in the organs of reflection he evinces a decided inferiority. As respects, for example, what phrenologists designate as time and tune, the African as a general rule is superior to the European. To show that the native races of Africa are not mentally inferior to the rest of mankind, Prichard adduces the example of the woolly-haired Caffres of Southern Africa, who approximate to the European characteristics, whilst the tribes that we meet on approaching the intertropical region gradually present the peculiarities of genuine Negroes. He also thinks, in confirmation of the same position, that he has "collected evidence sufficient to prove that the languages of many African nations, including particularly the Egyptian, the Caffre, and the Kongoese nations, belong to one department of human idioms." And lastly, he believes the same opinion established by the relative capacity of the entire cavity of the cranium, as regards the Negro and the European, based on the measurements of Tiedemann, who shows satisfactorily that it is in no degree smaller than in other races. Now, it is truly extraordinary that a man of the intellectual acumen of Prichard, and with such a multitude of facts before him, should allow his judgment to be so greatly prejudiced by the preconceived opinions of earlier years. In the instance of the Southern Caffres, we see the depressed forehead of the uncultivated Negro rising into high and broad dimensions pari passu with civilisation; and as

respects the people of ancient Egypt, venerated even by antiquity as the birth-place of the arts and sciences, the same law doubtless obtains. That the mere relative capacity of European and Negro skulls, as determined by Tiedemann, (who weighed them when empty and when filled with millet seeds,) affords no criterion of the comparative degree of intellectual power, may now be regarded as an admitted truth. Surely no one who has kept pace with the progress of modern psychological science, will deny that the organs through which the nobler attributes of man act and manifest themselves, reside in the anterior portion of the brain; or that the superior development of this part,-a principle by which even the Grecian sculptor was guided,-is an index of those exalted prerogatives which elevate man above the brute. Assuming these as admitted truths, how absurd is the idea of taking simply the whole mass of brain as a standard of moral and intellectual power!

That the number and kind of psychological phenomena in different animals have a close relation with the development of the brain, is not only evident from a comparison of the Negro and the European, but we also observe that the large cranium and high forehead of the ourang-outang elevate him above his brother monkeys. And this comparative relation between organization and mental power, (if we may apply this latter term to brutes,) may be traced, in the descending scale, through the monkey, dog, elephant, horse, etc.; thence to birds, reptiles, and fishes; and so on till we reach the last link at which the animal chain loses itself in the commencing degrees of the vegetable world.

Although, upon this point, the facial angle is not an exact test, yet it may be remarked that in the human race, it varies from 65° to 85o, the former being a near approach to the monkey species. Amongst the remains of Grecian art, we find this angle extended to 90° in the representation of poets, sages, legislators, etc., thus showing that the relation here referred to was not unknown to them, whilst at the same time the mouth, nose, jaws, and tongue, were contracted in size, as indicative of a noble and generous nature. That the development of the organs of

of the intellectual powers; the organs devoted to the moral and religious sentiments lie in the region of the crown of the head; and posterior to this is the seat of the animal propensities, and of the sentiments common to man and the lower animals. Among individuals and nations distinguished for great aggregate force of mind, moral, intellectual, and animal, we find large brains. It thus appears that mind dwells in a material tabernacle, and is acted upon by material causes.

There is great probability even that among neighboring nations, as, for example, between the German and French, distinct differences in the shape of the skull would be found to exist on minute inquiry. Thus it is well known that among the French the lower region of the forehead is large, whilst the upper parts are more prominent in the Germans; and hence, too, in conformity with the doctrine of the phrenological school, we find the latter characterized by a great development of the reflective faculties, whilst the former are more remarkable for the exercise of the observing organs.

Much attention has been given by Smith to the peculiarity of features observed in different nations, but many of his explanations will be deemed fanciful. Thus the elevation of the shoulders and the shortness of the neck in the Tartar race, are referred to the effects of extreme cold. As exposure to severe cold prompts involuntarily the raising of the shoulders in order to protect the neck, this cause, acting with the constancy inseparable from the frigid zone, from the tenderest period of infancy, when the features are most susceptible of impressions, affords, he thinks, an adequate explanation.

Reference may here be made, in a few words, to the effect produced by the climate of the United States upon its inhabitants of European, and more particularly of Anglican descent. The frame of the American is longer and leaner, at the same time that it is less compact and symmetrical, and the countenance does not exhibit so clear a red and white as the British or German-effects ascribable to the great extremes of the seasons. On the lowlands, more especially as the southern States are approached, the complexion has a tinge of sallowness, which con

trasts strongly with the ruddy countenances of those that dwell in the parallel mountainous regions. In casting one's eye over our national legislature, the diversity of physiognomy, caused by endemic influences, is so obvious, that the general countenance of each State's delegation sometimes affords a pretty sure criterion to judge of its comparative salubrity.

That the civilisation of countries is likewise greatly influenced by their physical features and by the relation of the interior to the coast, has been very correctly observed by Professor Ritter. As the Mediterranean coasts have been the great centres of early civilisation, Europe has derived the greatest advantage in consequence of the easy communication with the interior by separating gulfs and inland seas. The continent of Africa, on the other hand, exhibits a compact and undivided form, thus cutting off the great regions of the interior by natural barriers from the same influence. It was in the river-system of Egypt alone that the progress of civilisation was favored. Asia also contains vast interior spaces, individually distinct, each of which must depend for culture upon its own impulses. Europe and the greater part of Asia, however, are devoid of these insulated tracts, the inhabitants of which exhibit strongly marked peculiarities of physical character, which may be attributed to their subjection from immemorial ages to the influence of the same external agencies. Hence we find the most distant parts of Europe and Asia overspread by the same races of people, brought about chiefly by those repeated migrations of whole communities from one region to another, recorded in history, by which the social condition of entire nations has often been changed. In Italy we find geographical features which seem to have destined that country for the abode of a peculiar people, inasmuch as it is accessible on every side, and has a position which enabled it to partake, at an early period, of the advances of civilisation made among the nations of the Mediterranean coast. In the land of Greece, we discover a similar combination of circumstances. But in which of its physical features are we to seek for the causes which produced in the Hellenic race the most perfect corporeal organization and the fullest deve

lopment of the mental powers? Why was it that barren Attica effected almost superhuman achievements in sculpture and painting, rhetoric, and oratory, and developed systems of philosophy that were taught in a language the most majestic, expressive, and eloquent of human idioms? An offset from the same stock from which arose the nations who spoke the Gothic, Celtic, Slavonic, Sanscrit, and Latin languages, is the superiority of the Greek, or are the differences among all these nations, to be ascribed to physical agencies? As the same nation subsequently sank, as though a period of growth, acmé, and decay, belong to races, the result shows that not only physical, but moral and political circumstances control the destinies of a people. But notwithstanding nations may degenerate, the qualities which distinguished them in their proudest state will still burst forth in glowing impulses. Italy, even in her degradation, can boast the immortal names of Dante and Petrarca, Tasso and Alfieri, Galileo and Torricelli, Raphael and Michael Angelo, and what a shining host of others!

It is, according to Malte-Brun, between the fortieth and sixtieth degrees of north latitude, that we find the nations most distinguished for knowledge and civilisation, and the display of courage by sea and by land. This limitation, as a general law, no doubt well adapted to Europe, is inapplicable to the United States, inasmuch as the isothermal lines suffer great depression in the Atlantic region of North America. With us, then, the thirty-second and the forty-sixth parallels would form a correspondent boundary. It has been well remarked, that for a full mental and corporeal development, the due succession of the seasons is requisite. Those countries which have a marked spring, summer, autumn, and winter, are best adapted, by this agree able and favorable vicissitude, for developing the most active powers of

man.

In countries which have no summer, the inhabitants are destitute of taste and genius; whilst, in the regions unfavored by winter, true valor, loyalty, and patriotism, are almost unknown. In surveying the different regions of the earth, as it were with a coup d'ail, the mental eye is equally struck with the dissemblances and analogies which appear. Each climatic zone has a peculiar aspect, the physical circumstances of which mould everything with a plastic hand. Even man, endowed with those functions which constitute him a cosmopolite, becomes, in appropriating to his wants the objects which surround him, assimilated in nature. At the same time, it is equally apparent that political institutions and social organization often struggle successfully against climatic agency; for, heroes, men of genius, and philosophers, have arisen both in Egypt, under the tropic, and in Scandinavia, under the polar circle.

It is thus seen that the natural history of man presents a most extensive and complicated subject of investiga tion. Much research and erudition have been employed by anthropological writers to establish the unity of the human family; but as insuperable difficulties have been presented in tracing back the diverse varieties of mankind to the same single pair, some have cut the Gordian knot by calling in the aid of supernatural agency. Thus Morton, like others before him, thinks it "consistent with the known government of the universe to suppose that the same omnipotence that created man, would adapt him at once to the physical, as well as to the moral circumstances, in which he was to dwell upon the earth." Now this supposed miracle did not of course occur until the dispersion of Babel; and inasmuch as man is endowed with a pliability of functions, by which he is rendered a cosmopolite* -a faculty possessed in the highest degree by the inhabitants of the middle latitudes-there is not the slightest