three of Burke. Agassiz, than whom none is of greater authority, divides mankind into eight distinct species. The races of men are regarded as being of different species when they differ in anatomical character and organic form, and when these differences are permanent. The permanency of differences is a matter to be decided by evidence. Dr. Morton defines species as “a primordial organic form." Agassiz adopts this, and adds: "Species are thus distinct forms of organic life, the origin of which is lost in the primitive establishment of the state of things now existing; and varieties are such modification of the species as may return to the typical form under temporary influences." For example: the horse and the ass belong to different species, but the different kinds of horses with which we are familiar are varieties of the same species.

The Bible contains the only history of the creation of man. With the Christian world, all speculations, opinions and theories must be subordinated to the Sacred Volume. Science has theories based on assumptions, but no admitted facts to cast light on this interesting and practical subject. When we look over the world and see such remarkable differences, moral, mental and physical, between various races, from the most cultured Caucasian down to the lowest negro type, the question arises: "Have all these different races been derived from one primitive stock?" This is a question very much disputed,

the more cautious scientists scarcely venturing beyond conjecture. We must consider the evidence and answer accordingly.

Three theories prevail as to the origin of man on earth. The oldest is the one known as the "Unity of the Human Race," or the Monogenic theory, which is that God created only one pair, Adam and Eve, and from them all the different races on the face of the earth are descended, and that the strange diversities now existing are the result of environment, or of accidental and extraneous causes; that a portion of the descendants of this one original pair has developed into the most highly civilized European and American, and that others have degenerated into the lowest African and Australian. The advocates of this theory admit but one species of the genus homo, and maintain that the different races are only varieties.

The second theory is that of the "Plurality of Origin," or the Polygenic theory, which is, that the human race consists of several different species, derived from different and distinct origins, separately created, or, as Agassiz expresses it, from different centres of creation, and that the races of men differ because God, in the beginning, made them so, and that they could not have acquired their peculiar features after they had emigrated from a common centre, and, as the same great naturalist says, "that, like all other organized beings, mankind cannot have originated in single individuals, but

must have been created in that numeric harmony which is characteristic of each species." According to this view, the diversity of races is not a result of environment, nor the operation of natural causes, but of physical origin, and God created,the human species by gradation, as he did the lower animals and vegetable world, beginning with the lowest order of life and rising to the highest, not by a process of evolution, but by immediate creation.

The other and latest theory is that of Evolution, or that man is evolved from the lower order of animals. Its extreme and skeptical advocates deny the hand of God in man's creation, and say that, as the hot sun now develops insects out of stagnant puddles, so the human race has been developed out of "primeval slime," commencing in the lowest insect life and gradually and slowly, through millions of years, working out its stupendous results in man, the highest class of animals. Others, who profess belief in the Bible, think that evolution was the divine method in creation. This theory does not necessarily imply that all men are from one pair.

CHAPTER II.

MONOGENY.

THE UNITY Theory, or MONOGENY.-DIVERSITIES OF RACES.PECULIAR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE CAUCASIAN AND THE NEGRO.

IF

F we could divest ourselves of prejudice and preconceived opinions, it would require very strong evidence to persuade a reasonable mind that a Caucasian, Mongolian, Doko, Bushman, Australian and Indian were all the children of common parents; but this is the generally received opinion of the Christian world: it is the historical belief in which the present and past generations have been educated, and which, for the most part, they have received without question.

Distinguished names carry with them great weight, and so far as their authority goes on the questions of monogenism and polygenism, it may be conceded that they are about equally balanced between the two theories. Numbers do not determine truth. The opinion of one great scientist is worth more than that of a multitude of inferior men. Most of the earlier schools of ethnologists were monogenists, and this might be expected because of the almost universal opinion that belief in the unity of the [ 17 ]

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human race was required by orthodox Christianity. Until such a number of distinguished scientists of the present day were captivated by the fascinations of evolution, the plurality theory was growing rapidly in popular favor, but the new theory has withdrawn attention from it and almost superseded it. Of the later scientists, no name is more illustrious, nor of weightier authority, than that of Agassiz, who advocated the plurality theory. But the theories of scientists are of no more value than those of other men. What we look to them for is facts, and from admitted truth others can argue as well, or better than they; for they are, by no means, the best logicians.

The great difficulty with the monogenist is to account for the variations in the different races of men. Adam and Eve, from whom, on his theory, the whole human kind is descended, were the immediate creations of the Almighty, and were made as perfect in all respects as He intended man, His crowning earthly work, should be, and were gifted with all necessary knowledge: they were perfect physically, mentally and morally. The population of the earth may be set down at fourteen hundred millions, of whom ten hundred and fifty millions are of the inferior races. The sad spectacle is presented, if the unity theory is true, of four-fifths of the human race divergent, degenerated and degraded; and the problem is to account for this condition of things. On