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Iae is, perli S, Seldom remembered, that a portion of history is ovidently un unded. That Whicli is most elaborato cannot fallio interest and amuse us, but it is at the expense of scrupulous authority and severe truth. Were this depariment of writingrigidly conducted, hoW many a Scene must be obliterated, hoWlarge a meastare os attraction must be sacrificed, how nahed an ouilino would remain t of the most common incident contradictory representations are datly giVen: Witnesses Who have possessed an eques opportunity of judging respecting it are foundio disser very widely in their accounts : and a probability is theonly alternative We can asSign to parallel Scales. Even in perusing that class of historians Whose veraci ty is best est lishod, and whose fidelity is most unquestionably authenticaled, me must naturalty Wonder and may legitimately inquire, Dom What solarces could their knowledge bo derived Θ Tho narrativo is regularly sustained and consistently evolved: curiosity is anticipaled and cavit refuted. NoW though nothing could bs more ridiculous than a sWeeping scepticism of history, nothing more irrational than a sullen distrusi os iis generat testimoni es, et What mind can receive iis minute and hi ly-Wrought dotalis Without suspicion 8 Who can assent to the correciness of iis sinishod pictures Without hesitation 8 A glance of attentivo thought wili convince iis that the bias of the historian must botoo partiat sor a strici estimate, his Sphere too circumscribsed sor an accurate investigation, his intellect too fallibie for a gonoratising grasp, of those varied and numerous occurrences he
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But is tho doscriptions of history are somelimes too vivid, and iis pretensions to antiquity Sometimes too arrogant,-What many Would most keenly regret is, that it does not sussciently exhibit tho peculiarities of man. The eXpressions of the humancharacter are not preserVed. The Workings of passion are noldeveloped. The fources of habit are not laid open. Thero is an absence of correct and delicate analysis. Wo look in vallisor traiis os conduci und delineations os sentiment: for thosetouches and pencillings in the portrait by Whicli the artist and the original are at once declared. We look in us in for thohiddon springs Which have impelled man through such rugged pallis and in such opposite directions. And yet is this boalleged against the historian, scarcely any complaint can bemore uiri usi: for it may be disputed, Whether any such task bo committed to him : Whether it Would not be an impertinent indundignised violation of his neutrality: Whether he would notas egregiousty mistake his province in indulging the philosophic
reflection os Tacitus as in emulating the graphic interest of Livy. The fact is, that the historian has to conduci before uscertain personages Who have poWerfulty influenced the fato os nations: and to Sketch evenis Whicli, Dom their prominenceand bearings, ought not to peristi With the remembrance of ordinary transactions. Ηe is hurried on by tho march of his heroes, by the lide in the assairs of men. Hs cannot dissect thelieari os a conqueror When millions are assected by the issus ostho ficti: nor linger to inspect a train os evenis while their essecis are sprea ding through a continent or a Worid. Andtheresere history, as generalty composed, is but an imperfect
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OF THE HUMAN SPECIES CONSIDERED, ETC.
but stili not strictly of man, in his constitution, pr09re88, and destiny. Whether such a species of historic Writing benot destrabie, may excite an enquiry at least: but whothor itwould bo instructive, can admit of none. Evenis Would onlyseem important as eXperiments Upon our nature and illustrations of our being. One valia te lesson we certainly should betaught, by the record of man aS he i8. Now We seem to Spurnthe page devoted to him, uniess he be dissigured by ambition, stained by ruthless crimes and agitated by gigantic passions :We are accustomed only to take interest in What is violent, daring, tempestuous, in human conduci. We are not contented with the assurance that great passions exist: We are dissatisseduntii they are called into play: untii Pelides unciasps his gone and Hercules abandons his distaT But then Wo inouid delight in the repose of these turbulent elements of character: we Ahouldiose ali relisti sor those occentricities Whicli disturi, the mightymass: and We should hail exclusively an elevation and pre- eminence of knowledge and virtus. Wo Ahould resemble thestudent of nature Who does not fix his eye Upon a map of moVntains in which losty pealis and ridges can alone be seen, biat Would pursue the valley, Would admire the landscape, WouldeXamine the generat sursace, as varied into gentie beauty orarrayed with luxuriant vogetation lAli, indoed, must alloW that man is the proper subject of history. Ιis annals may osten register evenis independent ofias: phenomena of heaven and earth : storm and earlhquake :sro and flood: but their interest arises froin their relation to the circumstances, and their place in the obserVations, of man. Sorry inould we be to contribute to the selffli vanity of ournature by magnifying iis importance to the externat Worid. Tho statoment Will rather humble us by teaching ΟUr respon- sibility. And suroly it Would be an idio assectation in man to subordinato his history to that os sensetess matter or irrationalboing. Ηe is made singular hom ali around him, and tho mostpious modesty does not forbid the asSertion of that singularity. And what ars knowledge and virtve but the instruments by
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action, and the morat depend. of this human history, WE may quote the language of Bacon as happily descriptive ; though hopenned it concerning a literary ono: ερ Without it tho histo of tho World seemeth to be as the statue of Polyphemus With his e out: that part being Wanting Whicli doth most show thospirit and lise of the person.' And it is the design of this
Paper to dWolt upon disserent passages of the human narrative, to trace some of the steps by Whicli the improvements of the species have been advanced and some of those principies bywhicli tho species itself has been impelled.-It was a nobiesentiment Whicli the ancient moralist ultered : I deem nothingsoreign to me whicli pertains to man. '' It is to bo hopod that the moody temper Whicli complacently, and eVen malignantly, boliolds tho ba med attempts of Our race toWards melioration, our osten dis potnted hopes of happiness, is confined to soW. These struggles are nobie, hoWever inessectual: might excitepity, could they not command admiration: and appear propheticos an ultimato victory over the dissiculties Which havo hithorto precluded success. Alan haS not yet deserved to become thebuit os low conceit and siend-like banter, at least hom any Who wear his forni lWhen We Speah, hoWever, of the human species, it is notin concurrence With the theory Whicli sonae naturalisis havs held. We do not knoW, nor can We conceive os, the genus to whichsuch a species can be referred. Is it can be distinctly provod that man participales in So many characteristics of other animal
him be arranged in the great museum of nature according to the strictest laws of physical conformation. Let not a pectorat indication be alloWed of itself to determine our station: let limband Dature, trunk and extremity, confess the analogy and
Homo sum : humani nihil a me alienum puto. -Τerence, Heauton
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OF THE HUMAN SPECIES CONSI DE RED, ETc. 113
demonstrate the alliance. What discovery Would attend theso ConceSSions, it Were presumptuous to anticipate : but our heraldic
bearings might at least bo assected. The sold might bo crowded, and the crest supported, by animais still : but hencesortii, not assymbols of high and losty attributes,-only mementos of ourkindred herds. Should, moreover, those figures be placeti, in thelangvage of the science, sardant, it is intolerable to thin k of that look of ea sy and importinent familiarity With whicli thsywould appear to recognise und claim ali the bonds of consanguinity. Even What they think man to be Who underlahe his nicost classification, it is dissiculi to deieci. An ancient philosopher is reportod to have made the proud discovery, that he is a tWologged animal Witliout Dathers. ΝοW though this does notasseri that ho is partly bird, it carries the implication : and in that case we are remi ded of the hawk-headed man among tho Egyptian hieroglyphics. - Helvetius mahes the peculiarity osman above other orders to consist in his hands, and is carriod
claws and hooD. - Indeed, the question of humanity, of realiancompotanded humanity, at Ieast humanity of tho highostgrade, is noW become a Very entangled question, and is reducibie to very delicate tests. Thero are four leoth whicli it is imperative on us to exhibit, Or our claim to this honour Willhe refused. One more or less of the spinat joinis Will shut thohighest rank against us, or throW it open. The hemisphere of tho fhult by iis tali or protuberance, in addition to the secrets of phrenology, mU Si dictate a more important replyto the enquiry, Who We reatly are Z A place, then, in thehighest scalo os human being, is os as dissiculi adjustinent asos immense interest. Ιt Was, according to this Scheme, amore emphatic compliment than any annotator on Shakspeare
or indisserent in this controversy, for their name eXpresses their conviction that they are, ali man. It is time for Others, perhaps,
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as weli as our Teutonic brethren, to bid the Linnaean arrang mont a hi -mindod desance. The solioWing passage Dom Fe guson's Essay on the History of Civit Society, most luminoustyoxplains the superiority of the human being He is, in stiori, a man in every condition ; and We caii leam nothing of his nature froin the analogy of other animais. In his rudest statolio is found to be above them ; and in his greatest degeneracynever descends to their levet. Ιf We Would know him, We mustattend to himself, to the course of his life and the tenour of his conduci. With him the society appears to be as old as the individual, and the use of the longue as universal as that of thohand or the Dot. Is there Was a time in Which he had his
acquaintance With his oWn Species to mahe, and his facultios toacquire, it is a time of Which We haVe no record, and in relationio Which our opinions can SerVe I O PUrPOSe, and are Supported by no evidence. 'But not contented With this collocation of man, On theground of a feW similarities betWeen him and some animal races,others have presumed on a theory more degrading, but also, Very fortunately, more absurd. They aver that man Was onsea mere animal himself. By a pari, a marine origin, it is boliouod, has been made out for him ; but the major part opino that the evidelice strongly favours his connection with the simia tribe. Μonboddo contends sor an admixture of the cat : butho stands alone. The abetiorS of the more preVailing sentiment, that monkeys and men are of the Same genus,-Del quite
degrees We are esteemed Weak-minded in confining tho humanprerogatiVe and nume. The graVe and Venerable judge referredio seems to revel in the idea os What man has been : and nosmali measure of his ecstacy Springs outright Dom the contemplation of an appendage he attributes to the ancient man : an
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appendage Whicli, hoWever elegant in sonae description of animais, has soldom been conceived to add a happy tapering orat propriate sinisti to the human forni. But what is lis had livodio seo the mighty Chimpagee 8 There is not a range of enquirymore encumbere 1 With assumption and folly than this. Μoderiis have not improved Upon their predecessors, Whicli they do in the
equivocat state, I Would have eniteavoured to avati myself of them sor your amusement and instruction. Could I havo seiged the shrub just opening into the animal, -or caught the animal just emerging into the man,-it might have tended to retiove the tedium os an Essay Whicli can Delther cali to iis a id the explanation os diagram nor the evidelice of eXperiment. This is not the place to argue the origin os man. It Willhe sussicient for iis to begin with man in those conditions whicli history has preserveti. And While many, in the prosecution ofthis most interesting study, are divided belWeen the Saturniandreanis os poets and the animal siems of philosophers, let ussimply trace our nature Dom that state Whereos sto borrow a legat phrase) the memory of man ShoWeth not to the contrary.-But here We cannot but express our astonishment ut the gratuitous and rectiless haste in Whicli conclusions have been formedin this grand speculation. It has, without a glimpse of proos, been amrmed, that the
sented as consisting merely of the dullest animal instincis. Perpendicular motion and altitude are, by the partigans of this sentiment, trealed as inventions. A poor Wild boy froni tho Woods of Hanover Was halled as a trophy by the feci. His stunted mind was proclaimed to be in simple and undisguised
nature. His inarticulate solandes Were considered as demonstra
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intuition. The question of thiS unlial Py creature WaS, PerhVS,most satisfactortly resolved by the stronger presumption thatho had boon abandoned by civilised, though inhuman, Parenis, rather than by parenis rude and Savage as himself. Besides, savage lise has never been found at such a depression as this. And savago lise bears no evidence of being an original state. On the contrary, it reminds iis of much: it is tho debasementos an intellect too ethereat to be restrained, too intense to beextinguishod. The fine sentimenis, the romantic traditions, whicli gleam through ali their barbarian labies, potnt to alligher date and a purer condition. It has been surmised by somo Who have entered On this study, and dogmatically maintained, that there are great diversities of race among them Whom We cali man. Kalmes gave this opinion the refuge of his great name. This theory may beascribsed to the obvious bias of the mind whicli osten inducosus, in order to evade a dissicut ty, to piunge into mollier sar more formidabie. Prob ly the furest refutation must be fought initSelf. For can any one periise the works whicli dosend itwithout some of these impressions 8 In the srst instance, Wemust notice What very singular and aWkWard reaSonings arerequired to give it some What os plausibili ty: they are not clearand easy, but bolstered and constrained. Fiction is di effod fortruth, the tale of the traveller is relied on Without any eXamin tion, and opinions ure substituted for facis. In the nexi instance, there is an evident design to answer in the propagation of this theory. That trassic Which no ternis os infamy can libet, atrasso Of remorseless cupidity and crueity, arrogated to itself this as a philosophic delance, and pleaded this as a scientiscapology. There is another motive also; man may become sosensual, that he stati destre to release himself Dom more intelligent and responsibi e nature. Νow such palpabie interest in the litigation must assect and vitiato ali the evidenco adduced. -And for mine own pari, I can nover bring myself to thinhthe authors of that theory in earnest: they seem eXperimenting
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OF THE HUMAN SPECIES CONSIDERED, Eaec. 117
What We cannot belleve oursolves. - Ι most confidently thinti, that without resorting to peculiarities of Structure, hair, colour,
visage, belonging to a province into Whicli it Would bo unbe- coming in me to intrude) that iapon intellectual and morat principies alone, it Would be easy to prove that the origin of manis precisely the Same. Aluch might be advinced on the subject of human speechand language. Μay my conviction be eXpressed, in the absonceos arguments Whicli the latitude of my desigra must compei me toWalve,-that speech is an origines endoWment, though dependentupon instruction and imitation,-and that the founders of ourrace received the elements of language with thseir boing ΘTwo questiolis, both of them interesting and important,may now be mooted: is man in generat character, is man in corporat system, similar, in the present Stage of his history, towhat ho has always been known to be 8 In respect to the first, man as the subject of history is identical With man as tho subjectos observation. The fame stri se of passions has ever Warred in his breast. The fame cast of prejudices has ever disfigured his
character. The same order os achievomenis has vindicatsed his Course. Surrounded With changes, the occasion os changes, hoW
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no serious diminution of the term os lise. That man is a social being, ali his history corroborates. The very sympathies of his nature lead him to grast his individual interesis on the stock of common security and generat weal. It is not proper to attribute this to a loW gregarious instinct. It is With him an act of minii, at least a calculationos benest. For in such a compaci as the sociat state implies, holaeis certain restruinis, he makes certa in Sacrifices, and can onlyinfer the good Dom reflection or Dom eXperience. And in connection with his sociat nature, it is interesting to fhow that he is a prospessive being. This certainly simply martis a tendency : but tondency Will be invari te, but sor colanteractingcauses. In this nature of the human character the main int rest of iis history consists : and is these miscellaneous observations on man may claim any bearing or boaSt any grmamen, -they concentrate in his most extraordinary capabilitios ofimpro Vement. In the animal We ascertain Deither the ambition nor cap city os improvement: it arrives at certain ends Without any apparent, Or, perhapS, SUPPOS ie knoWledge of iis means. Instinctwill osten render ii more accurate and expeditious in the attainnient of those ends than man ; but in an equat anil necessarydegree it must circumscribe iis range of action and enjoyment. Μan varies his ends as WAl as his means, is confined to si et inno ono circle of low and daily-repeated anxieties, but discovors apath thrown open before him, boundless and interminabie, Whichlio is invited to travol. Nature lies besore him, is tributaryunder a beneficent dominion, his captive in a bloodless War. of such faculty We know no other example: ali creatures, With Which we are acquainted besides, heing just What such creatures have alWays been. Their exact limit is marked. Their uniformpari is determined. Their very perfection enchainS them. But man is seidoni at rost. Wo cannot stoadily think of him