Vestiges Of The Natural History Of Creation Part 12

{278} See Dr. Prichard's Researches into the Physical History of Man.

{280} Buckingham's Travels among the Arabs. This fact is the more valuable to the argument, as having been set down with no regard to any kind of hypothesis.

{287} Wiseman's Lectures on the Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion, i. 44. The Celtic has been established as a member or group of the Indo-European family, by the work of Dr.

Prichard, on the Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations. "First," says Dr. Wiseman, "he has examined the lexical resemblances, and shewn that the primary and most simple words are the same in both, as well as the numerals and elementary verbal roots. Then follows a minute a.n.a.lysis of the verb, directed to shew its a.n.a.logies with other languages, and they are such as manifest no casual coincidence, but an internal structure radically the same. The verb substantive, which is minutely a.n.a.lysed, presents more striking a.n.a.logies to the Persian verb than perhaps any other language of the family. But Celtic is not thus become a mere member of this confederacy, but has brought to it most important aid; for, from it alone can be satisfactorily explained some of the conjugational endings in the other languages. For instance, the third person plural of the Latin, Persian, Greek, and Sanscrit ends in nt, nd, [Greek], [Greek], nti, or nt. Now, supposing, with most grammarians, that the inflexions arose from the p.r.o.nouns of the respective persons, it is only in Celtic that we find a p.r.o.noun that can explain this termination; for there, too, the same person ends in nt, and thus corresponds exactly, as do the others, with its p.r.o.noun, hwynt, or ynt."

{291} Schoolcraft.

{293} Views of the Cordilleras.

{302} The problem of Chinese civilization, such as it is--so puzzling when we consider that they are only, as will be presently seen, the child race of mankind--is solved when we look to geographical position producing fixity of residence and density of population.

{307a} Lord's Popular Physiology, explaining observations by M.

Serres.

{307b} Conformably to this view, the beard, that peculiar attribute of maturity, is scanty in the Mongolian, and scarcely exists in the Americans and Negroes.

{309} Of this we have perhaps an ill.u.s.tration in the peculiarities which distinguish the Arabs residing in the valley of the Jordan.

They have flatter features, darker skins, and coa.r.s.er hair than other tribes of their nation; and we have seen one instance of a thoroughly Negro family being born to an ordinary couple. It may be presumed that the conditions of the life of these people tend to arrest development. We thus see how an offshoot of the human family migrating at an early period into Africa, might in time, from subjection to similar influences, become Negroes.

{317} Missionary Scenes and Labours in South Africa.

{326} "Is not G.o.d the first cause of matter as well as of mind? Do not the first attributes of matter lie as inscrutable in the bosom of G.o.d--of its first author--as those of mind? Has not even matter confessedly received from G.o.d the power of experiencing, in consequence of impressions from the earlier modifications of matter, certain consciousnesses called sensations of the same? Is not, therefore, the wonder of matter also receiving the consciousnesses of other matter called ideas of the mind a wonder more flowing out of and in a.n.a.logy with all former wonders, than would be, on the contrary, the wonder of this faculty of the mind not flowing out of any faculties of matter? Is it not a wonder which, so far from destroying our hopes of immortality, can establish that doctrine on a train of inferences and inductions more firmly established and more connected with each other than the former belief can be, as soon as we have proved that matter is not perishable, but is only liable to successive combinations and decombinations.

"Can we look farther back one way into the first origin of matter than we can look forward the other way into the last developments of mind? Can we say that G.o.d has not in matter itself laid the seeds of every faculty of mind, rather than that he has made the first principle of mind entirely distinct from that of matter? Cannot the first cause of all we see and know have FRAUGHT MATTER ITSELF, FROM ITS VERY BEGINNING, WITH ALL THE ATTRIBUTES NECESSARY TO DEVELOP INTO MIND, as well as he can have from the first made the attributes of mind wholly different from those of matter, only in order afterwards, by an imperceptible and incomprehensible link, to join the two together?

" * * [The decombination of the matter on which mind rests] is this a reason why mind must be annihilated? Is the temporary reverting of the mind, and of the sense out of which that mind developes, to their original component elements, a reason for thinking that they cannot again at another later period, and in another higher globe, be again recombined, and with more splendour than before? * * The New Testament does not after death here promise us a soul hereafter unconnected with matter, and which has no connexion with our present mind--a soul independent of time and s.p.a.ce. That is a fanciful idea, not founded on its expressions, when taken in their just and real meaning. On the contrary, it promises us a mind like the present, founded on time and s.p.a.ce; since it is, like the present, to hold a certain situation in time, and a certain locality in s.p.a.ce. But it promises a mind situated in portions of time and of s.p.a.ce different from the present; a mind composed of elements of matter more extended, more perfect, and more glorious: a mind which, formed of materials supplied by different globes, is consequently able to see farther into the past, and to think farther into the future, than any mind here existing: a mind which, freed from the partial and uneven combination incidental to it on this globe, will be exempt from the changes for evil to which, on the present globe, mind as well as matter is liable, and will only thenceforth experience the changes for the better which matter, more justly poised, will alone continue to experience: a mind which, no longer fearing the death, the total decomposition, to which it is subject on this globe, will thenceforth continue last and immortal."--HOPE, on the Origin and Prospects of Man, 1831.

{331} Dublin Review, Aug. 1840. The Guarantee Society has since been established, and is likely to become a useful and prosperous inst.i.tution.

{333} The ray, which is considered the lowest in the scale of fishes, or next to the crustaceans, gives the first faint representation of a brain in certain scanty and medullary ma.s.ses, which appear as merely composed of enlarged origins of the nerves.

{335} If mental action is electric, the proverbial quickness of thought--that is, the quickness of the transmission of sensation and will--may be presumed to have been brought to an exact measurement.

The speed of light has long been known to be about 192,000 miles per second, and the experiments of Wheatstone have shewn that the electric agent travels (if I may so speak) at the same rate, thus shewing a likelihood that one law rules the movements of all the "imponderable bodies." Mental action may accordingly be presumed to have a rapidity equal to one hundred and ninety-two thousand miles in the second--a rate evidently far beyond what is necessary to make the design and execution of any of our ordinary muscular movements apparently identical in point of time, which they are.

{346} Phrenological Journal, xv. 338.

{347} A pampered lap-dog, living where there is another of its own species, will hide any nice morsel which it cannot eat, under a rug, or in some other by-place, designing to enjoy it afterwards. I have seen children do the same thing.