Triennial Meeting of the Board of Missions, - Third Triennial Meeting of the Evangelical Knowledge So- ciety, 1. The Mystery; or, Evil and God. By John Young, 2. A Pronouncing and Defining Dictionary of the English Language, abridged from Webster's American Diction- ary; with numerous Synonyms, carefully discriminated. By Chauncey A. Goodrich, D.D., Professor in Yale 3. History and Repository of Pulpit Eloquence, (Deceased Divines ;) containing the Master-pieces of Bossuet, Bour- daloue, Massilon, Flechier, Abbadie, Taylor, Barrow, Hall, Watson, M'Laurin, Chalmers, Evans, Edwards, Davies, John M. Mason, etc., etc. With Discourses from Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Augustine, Athanasius, and others among the "Fathers," and from Wickliffe, Luther, Calvin, Melancthon, Knox, Latimer, etc., of the "Reformers." Also, sixty other celebrated sermons, from as many eminent divines, in the Greek and Latin, English, German, Irish, French, Scottish, 4. Aurora Leigh. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 5. Sinai and Palestine in connection with their History. By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, M.A., Canon of Canterbury, 6. The Believer's Refuge; or, Meditations on Christ and 7. Manual of United States History. From 1492 to 1850. By Samuel Eliot, author of a History of Liberty, and Professor of History and Literature in Trinity College, - 172 9. California, In-doors and Out; or, How we Farm, Mine, ART. I.—ON THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. Types of Mankind. By J. C. NOTT, M.D., and GEO. R. GLIDDON. Second edition. Philadelphia. April, 1854. The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races. From the French of COUNT A. DE GOBINEAU: with an Analytical Introduction and copious Historical Notes, by H. Horz, and an Appendix containing a Summary of the latest scientific facts bearing upon the question of Unity or Plurality of Species, by J. C. NOTT, M.D. Philadelphia. 1856. We do not hesitate to indorse the statement of an eminent living votary of physical science, that any attempt to fetter the scientific inquirer by the supposed meaning of inspiration, is certain to damage the latter in the estimation of a numerous class of intelligent and learned men. As was long ago remarked, with some license of figure, by a distinguished and orthodox theologian, Dr. Henry More, "the unskillful insisting of our divines upon the sense of Moses, has bred many hundred thousands of atheists." To illustrate this statement, there is no VOL. IV.-1 need to reproduce the trite taunt about Galileo, or any other case of ecclesiastical prohibition of free scientific inquiry occurring in an age less enlightened than the present. Illustrations, derived from controversies of which the echoes have not yet been silenced, are not wanting to furnish a salutary lesson of modesty and discretion to those who might be disposed to dogmatize on the method of reconciling the assumed teachings of Scripture with the apparent revelations of science. If theologians rashly stake the authority of the Bible on the adoption of a particular set of scientific opinions each of which they hold to be the "articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiæ," they should not be surprised if the exclusive votaries of science, accepting the issue thus inconsiderately presented, should come to regard with aversion a theology associated, as they have been led to believe, with propositions that they know to be both false and absurd. And thus it often happens, even at the present day, that the premature alarms of the timid friends of our holy religion, and their denunciations of some of the results of free scientific inquiry, become the determining cause of the very infidelity they would deprecate. It behoves us, therefore, in view of the interests of our sacred cause, no less than in consideration of the independent and legitimate claims of science, to be very cautious how we build up scientific dogmas on the popular sense of the Scriptures. We would, on the contrary, allow the utmost freedom of inquiry to the explorer of scientific truth, being quite satisfied that whatever conclusions he may succeed in establishing on reliable evidence, must, in the end, be found to harmonize with the revealed word of God; and that, precisely because they shall have been settled on evidence independent of the Scriptures, the demonstration of their conformity with the teachings of the Bible will furnish so many new tests of its divine origin and authority. On the other hand, it can scarcely be necessary to insist that if it be unwise and unsafe for the mere theologian to meddle with questions of science, so by a parity of reason, the mere man of science should confine himself to his proper calling, and leave to those versed in the principles of Biblical exegesis, the task of interpreting the true meaning of the Scriptures, and thus, incidentally, of setting forth the harmony which must ever subsist between the two revelations which God has been pleased to give to his intelligent creatures, in His works and in His written word. We assume, of course, as a fact which none of our readers, we presume, will question for a moment, that God has just as certainly spoken to us by the word of inspiration, as he has revealed himself in the works of nature. This is now conceded on all hands. Modern infidelity, more refined and more learned than that of the last century, rejects with scorn the old charge of imposture and fraud, and only assails the principles of interpreting the sacred volume which are adopted by orthodox believers. It is, therefore, scarcely necessary to say that the genuineness, authenticity, and plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, and consequently their claim to be considered as an authoritative rule of faith and practice, are established on evidence so various and so convincing, that it would argue a very unstable mind to become unsettled in its belief on any of these points by disputable opinions respecting complex and doubtful questions in natural science. The most timid and fearful Christian may then take courage and abide the final result with unwavering confidence. God will take care of his own truth. If during the interval of probation it be found necessary to modify, to some extent, long cherished views as to the proper interpretation of certain passages of Scripture, this is no more than was, in the nature of things, to be expected, and is just what has often occurred in former stages of the history of Biblical learning, to the ultimate benefit of religion, which suffered disparagement in the process, only because the error was retained so long and so tenaciously, and not because it was ultimately abandoned. We have thought proper to make these preliminary remarks, partly because we have reason to fear that many well-meaning but, in our estimation, injudicious friends of religion are not yet sufficiently impressed with a sense of the importance of the principles they are designed to set forth, and need to be forewarned that in obstinately assailing scientific inquirers with the edicts of the Church, they will only damage the good cause which it is their wish and purpose to defend, but chiefly because we wish it to be understood that these principles shall govern us in the inquiry, upon which we now propose to enter, respecting the specific unity and common origin of the various races of mankind. In pursuing this inquiry, we shall, in conformity with the rules more or less distinctly indicated in the foregoing remarks, set aside for the present the testimony of Scripture, and treat the whole question as one of pure science. We propose to show that there is not, our enemies themselves being the judges, such an accord among those who, discarding the authority of the Scriptures on all such questions, have investigated this subject on purely scientific grounds, as to warrant the adoption of the theory of the specific diversity of the human races, or to require any modification of the common interpretation of the declaration of St. Paul, that "God hath made of ONE BLOOD all the nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation;" but that, on the contrary, a large majority of the philosophical naturalists who are best entitled to pronounce authoritative judgments on such questions, by reason of their candor, want of bias, and habit of sifting doubtful evidence in order to form sound conclusions, have expressed a decided conviction in favor of the doctrine which ascribes a common nature and origin to all the diversified tribes of mankind. In discussing this question, we encounter a source of embarrassment at the very threshold, in the want of such a definition of the term species, as shall not assume some of the very points. in dispute. Until recently, this difficulty was not experienced, for though there were various definitions in use, the differences between them were more apparent than real. For while some defined a species to be "a group of organized beings marked by any peculiar character which has always been constant and undeviating,” and others as "the collection of all the beings descended the one from the other, or from common parents, and of those which bear as close a resemblance to these as they bear to each other;" the two are yet substantially identical, for though the first does not directly refer to parentage, yet in insisting upon the undeviating constancy of specific characters, it impliedly asserts that the beings exhibiting these constant characters, must have sprung from a common stock. |