PREFACE..

THE subject discussed in this volume has formed the topic of anxious consideration with me for many years. In 1846, during the visit of Professor Agassiz, this question was discussed by the Literary Conversation Club of Charleston, when I was led to the formation of the plan of this volume. The interest awakened by the publication of Dr. Nott's Lectures in the further examination of this question, and especially in its relations to the Bible, induced me to prepare three discourses on the Unity of the Human Races, which were delivered in Charleston, in November, 1849. At the same time the publication of a series of articles upon the subject was commenced in the Southern Christian Advocate, the Southern Baptist, the Southern Presbyterian, the New Orleans Presbyterian, the Presbyterian of the West, and in the Watchman and Observer of Virginia. These articles modified and elaborated, constitute the present volume. They were written amid the numerous occupations of a pastoral charge, and the growing infirmities of feeble health. They will, therefore, call for much allowance, both as to style and arrangement, more especially as they were printed at a distance. Since writing out the argument, it has been strengthened by several illustrations drawn from the recent scientific examination of the same subject, by the the Rev. Dr. Bachman, and from some articles in our leading Reviews.

My object has been to take a comprehensive survey of the whole subject in its relations to Scripture, Reason, and Science. The argument is cumulative, and the conclusion, therefore, depends not on any one line of reasoning, but upon the combined effect of all. Some are in themselves incomplete, and others only presumptive, but on the doctrine of probability it may appear that the concurrence of so many distinct lines of proof in establishing the original unity of the human race, is equal to the clearest demonstration.

There is certainly, as has been said, no subject of science of deeper interest than that which regards the natural history and original condition of man. Even were the question it involves less remarkable and less important in regard to the present and future condition of the species, the methods of argument and sources of evidence are such as may well engage and engross every scientific inquirer. The evidence is drawn from all parts of creation-from the mind, as well as from the bodily conformation of man himself. The argument is one of probability, always tending to greater certainty, though it may be incapable of ever reaching that which is complete. But this is a method of reasoning well understood to be compatible with the highest philosophy, and peculiarly consonant to our present faculties and position in the universe; and if in this ocean of disquisition "fogs have been often mistaken for land," as in so many other regions of science, we may at least affirm, that the charts are more correctly laid down than ever before; the bearings better ascertained; and that our reason can hardly be shipwrecked, on this great argument, if common caution be observed in the course we pursue.

To the clear and certain establishment of the truth involved in this question, it is, we think, essential, that its twofold character should be borne in mind. So long as naturalists were agreed that unity of species argued unity of origin, the question might be regarded as single, and one of exclusively scientific character. But

since the theory has been introduced and sanctioned by Professor Agassiz, that the same species may have been created in many different provinces, and over their whole extent, the question of origin must be regarded as entirely distinct from the question of specific unity. The former is a question of fact, to be decided by historical evidence. The latter is a question of scientific observation and induction. The question of origin, therefore, can be determined only by the evidence of Scripture, history, tradition, language, religion, and the adaptations of Christianity to the mind and heart of all men. The question of species is to be tested by those criteria, which are employed to fix the classification of other animals. Between these questions there need be, and there ought to be, no collision, since the infallible certainty of the single origin of the human races, leaves the scientific investigation of their present specific character and classification altogether untrammelled, so that it might even be found convenient to regard as distinct species what are now considered as only varieties, and yet leave their unity of origin to be decided by its appropriate evidence. Both these questions are considered in this volume, and their lines of demarcation pointed out. But as the question of origin involves all that is important and essential in the inspiration of the Bible, and the scheme of redemption, the determination of this point has been chiefly kept in view.

On this subject I have dwelt at some length in the volume itself. But as the advocates of a plurality of originally created races of men claim to rest their theory on the statements of Scripture, and especially as found in the Book of Genesis-I will here offer a few additional remarks.

I. And in the first place it is said, that the record found in the Book of Genesis has reference only to the ancestors of the Sacred, or Jewish, or Caucasian race. This, however, cannot be the case.

1. Because our opponents affirm that there are in this very re

cord intimations of more than this one race, and they cannot both affirm and deny the same proposition.

2. Because many other nations proceeded from the stock here referred to. Among the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, there are found many of the greatest varieties of men, both as it regards color, stature, structure, physiognomy, character, and civilization.*

3. The actual varieties found to have arisen among men of the same stock, as in Ireland, England, and in Europe generally, are just as hard to be accounted for as the origin of all existing varieties from one original stock. The explanation of the varieties will also account for the origin of races.

4. It is here expressly said that Adam called his wife "the mother of all living," that is, of all the kind,—of all human beings, -of all the sons of men,-and therefore of all the races of mankind.

5. Our Saviour traces ALL mankind up to this same original stock. “Adam said, (Gen. ii. 23, 24,) This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.” In reference to this passage, our Saviour says, (Mark x. 6, 7,) "But from the beginning of the creation, God made them"-that is, Adam, or mankind, or every man, "male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife."

6. The New Testament every where expressly teaches that God "hath made of one blood all 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; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us." (Acts xvii. 26.)

See S. Presb. Rev., January, 1850, pp. 473, 474; and Stillingfleet's Orig. Sacræ, b. iii. ch. 4, p. 499, etc.