time, when taking leave of the subject, we cannot but remember that a peculiar interest, in connexion with the Peninsula, must ever be cherished in Britain. The sea around her rocky coast, from age to age, from the times of Drake to those of Collingwood and Nelson, has been the field of naval victory, and a home of glory to "the flag that braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze." And in high rivalry, the land, along its plains, and streams, and mountain-passes, has been witness to British triumph, from the era of the heroic Edward the Black Prince, to that of the mournful honours of Coruña, hallowed by the ashes of Moore-and of the dazzling career of Wellington, advancing from conquest to conquest, by Talavera, and Salamanca, and Vitoria, till at length the heights of the franchised Pyrenees were crested with the victorious banners of Britain. While recalling the modern exploits of Britain, and the scenes where so many of her heroes sleep-and while musing on those earlier days of Spain when her true sons fought and fell in many a bloody field, bravely pursuing that chivalrous career of war and victory which at length redeemed her from the Moor-might not both Spaniard and Briton now join in applying to Spain those beautiful lines in which Byron poured out his spirit over the fallen warriors of Greece? "The waters murmur'd of their name; The woods were peopled with their fame; Roll'd mingling with their fame for ever. That land is glory's still and theirs!" Alas! that more cannot yet be added respecting the freedom of Spain, than these words from the same poet, "Oh! still her step at moments falters, O'er wither'd fields and ruin'd altars, But we trust that better days for Spain are drawing nigh. She was sunk in a state of apathy and stagnation, from which no ordinary events were fitted speedily to awake her. Even the frightful violence of which she has lately been the degraded witness, will prove to be fraught with ultimate good, if it arouse her thoroughly to the task and the duty of regeneration. The darkness at present surrounding her, though it seem that of midnight, may be but the herald of approaching dawn. ART. VII.-Researches into the Physical History of Mankind. By J. C. PRICHARD, M.D. London, 1844. Crania Americana, or History of the American Races. By SAMUEL G. MORTON, M.D. Philadelphia, 1839. Proceedings of the Ethnographic Society, London. Athenæum, 1844-5. THE physical history of the various races of mankind has of late begun to excite considerable attention. Indeed, the science may be said to be almost entirely of modern origin. We hear little of the subject among the ancients, for the Greeks and Romans were too apt to look upon all other nations as barbarians—they disdained to make their languages a study, and cared not to trace the origins and connexions of the tribes with whom war or commerce brought them into casual intercourse. The limited knowledge which the civilized nations of antiquity possessed of the earth's surface, and their comparatively imperfect means of extensive and rapid locomotion, were also unfavourable to speculations of this nature; the shores of the Mediterranean almost bounded their naval excursions; a march into India was an exploit not to be repeated in many centuries; and the discovery of Britain, "toto orbe divisa," was reckoned the utmost point of maritime exploration. But when the skill and daring of modern navigators enabled them to circumnavigate the globe, they came upon races of men who had been so long and so completely isolated from the original stock, that the poor savages looked upon their visitors as superior beings-as divinities from another world; while these again beheld, with equal astonishment, forms and features so strange, and modes of life so singular and debasing, as to lead them to doubt, not without some show of reason, whether those beings, with so much of the human form, and yet with so much of the habits of the brute, could in reality belong to the same species as themselves. The physical history of man, unlike that of the lower animals, assumes two distinct phases as we view him in two distinct states as a savage, and a civilized being. In the one state, he exists in a condition nearly allied to the brutes,-is in fact an animal furnished with certain instincts and impulses by which he is guided, while reason is all but obscured; in the other, he is actuated by a reflecting mind, illuminated by a superior intelligence, and enriched by traditional knowledge and VOL. IV. NO. VII. M experience. In the savage state, he roams about almost naked and houseless, and unprovided with any of the resources of art; his chief energies are bent upon the means of procuring foodand for this purpose he exercises all the habits of a carnivorous animal, joining the swiftness and perseverance of the dog and wolf to the cunning and ferocity of the lion and tiger. He is gregarious chiefly for the sake of more easily hunting down his prey; and when one tribe, so associated, encroaches the least upon the hunting-grounds of the other, fierce combats and unrelenting massacres are the consequence. He is ever on the defensive, and war against every living thing occupies his whole thoughts. In this, his most degraded state, all the worst passions are called into action, as cruelty, revenge, pride, combativeness; and these are but faintly mitigated by a few of the virtues, if we may not rather call them the instinctive impulses, of his nature. He has the common animal care of his offspring, but the fact of many savages destroying their female and deformed children, places them, we are afraid, even below the brutes in the exercise of this instinct, as the deliberate act of cannibalism sinks them to a degradation even still lower. Nor are the indications of the reasoning faculty in a great degree raised above the manifestations of animals. We speak of the lowest condition of savage life-for of it there are many grades --such as was seen among the aborigines of New Holland, who, when first discovered, had no arms but clubs of wood, no clothing whatever, lived in holes in the earth or caves of the rocks, and were destitute of even the rudest implements for catching fish or snaring their prey-whose minds were dark and gloomy, and influenced by the fear of evil agencies alone. But when we turn to man in a civilized state, he assumes a very different aspect. His purely selfish and isolated character is laid aside, and he joins his fellowmen to form a society regulated and controlled by laws conducive to the public good. His gross animal propensities and debasing passions are moderated and subdued under the mastery of reason and the moral senseand instead of being the slave of the elements around him, he now appears as exercising a sway and command over matter, and wielding it to his own purposes. His reasoning powers expand into full activity-his mind dwells on the experience of the past, or extends into the future, while a communicating ray of light, dim and unobtrusive, yet efficacious and highly influential, is opened up between it and the world of spirits. Thus with his two natures, he becomes a being totally different from all other animals. Myriads of these appear on the earth in successive generations, but they leave no traces of their existence behind them-they accumulate nothing to forward the attain ments of their respective races, while man, even from the first, has stamped his existence in the records of time. We can trace him from his earliest progress, emanating from a single familyspreading over the surface of the globe-building cities-accumulating knowledge-extending science-cultivating the face of nature—and making the wild animals of the forest retire before him. When, after a wide separation and the lapse of many ages, the extreme points of the human race again came into contact, it was not much to be wondered at that the civilized man looked upon the savage, changed and degraded, not only in his moral but his physical aspect, as a being of a species distinct from his own, or that his pride, or his science, hesitated to acknowledge him as his brother. Indeed, the identity of the human species has formed a subject of keen discussion ever since the attention of naturalists has been directed to the matter, and the elucidation of the point in dispute still continues to exercise the ingenuity of our ablest philosophers. The result of these learned discussions is, that much more definite rules have been laid down as to what constitutes a distinct species, so that throughout both the animal and vegetable kingdom, the idea of a species is now pretty well defined. Thus "A race of animals or plants, marked by certain peculiarities of structure, which have always been constant and undeviating, constitutes a species; while two races are considered as specifically different, if they are distinguished from each other by some peculiarities which one cannot be supposed to have acquired, or the other to have lost, through any known operation of physical causes." " On applying this test to the different races of mankind, however varied their external features may be, there is nothing in their bodily structure or physiology which can lead us to suppose that they belong to more than one species. On the contrary, there is such a uniform resemblance of the skeleton, the same number and general shape of the bones, the same type and structure of every part of the body-the same kind of teeth-the same average duration of life-the same period of gestation, and a prolific offspring from all mixtures of races, instead of the hybrids resulting from a mixture of different species, together with all those circumstances which, in other animals, constitute an identity of species, as to leave no doubt, on physical proofs alone, irrespective of all other evidence, that mankind have sprung originally from a common source. We believe there are few * PRICHARD's Researches. authorities of the present day who deny the identity of species, and none who have brought forward any valid objections against it. It must be allowed, however, that there are many very marked and striking differences of feature, and even modifications of form among nations, as well as various tints of skin, which give rise to very obvious distinctions and divisions into races. These mo difications are denominated varieties, and a great deal of light has been thrown upon this subject from analogous facts, drawn from the vegetable kingdom, and from various races of the inferior animals. Thus it has been ascertained that many species of animals, as well as plants, have a tendency to diverge into varieties, and this is particularly the case with those plants and animals which embrace the greatest range of climate in their dispersion over the earth's surface. And this pliability of their constitutions would seem to be one of those provisions which nature employs to suit them to the various soils and climates over which they range. Striking varieties of colour and shape and size are thus frequently exhibited in hogs, sheep, horses, and dogs. In a few years, and within a few generations, from a single pair, such varieties of breeds will proceed, so differing from each other as might render it matter of doubt whether they were not entirely distinct species, were not the proofs to the contrary sufficiently evident. Now the same analogies have been applied to the human race. Man has evidently been destined to people the whole earth, and it has accordingly been supposed that, by some law of his nature, aided by the influence of external circumstances, he assumes certain peculiarities of form and colour, suited to the locality in which he may be placed; or, according to another supposition, from the very earliest periods of population, certain leading varieties have spontaneously originated, and going forth into different regions of the earth, have found their appropriate climates, and have given rise to the various races which we still find distinctly marked by their original type. It is certainly a remarkable circumstance, that at a very early period in the history of the human race, certain marked varieties of the species were in existence. We have a proof of this from a painting which was lately discovered in the ruins of Thebes, conjectured to be of the period of the eighteenth dynasty, and early in the times of the Egyptian Kings, perhaps much about the time when Abraham lived. We give the description of this curious picture in the words of Mr. Wilkinson : "Number 35 is by far the most curious of all the tombs in Thebes, since it throws more light on the manners and customs of the Egyptians than any hitherto discovered. In the outer chamber, on the left hand (entering), is a grand procession of Ethiopian and Asiatic chiefs, |