On the Diversity of Origin of the Human Races [pp. 603-642]

Prof. Agassiz New Hypothesis
"We maintain, that like all other organized beings, mankind cannot have originated in single individuals, but must
have been created in that numeric harmony which is characteristic of each species; men must have originated in nations
as bees have originated in swTarms and as the different social
plants have at first covered the extensive tracts over which
they naturally spread."
We certainly have no occasion to take up the lamentation
of the perplexed patriarch, " 0 that mine enemy had written
a book." The most mischievous imp could not desire better
game than the Professor makes himself in this extraordinary
passage. We really have not the heart or face to attack him
in such a plight, with serious argument. We freely concede
that a rhetorical analogy is no target for the weapons of logic.
We might it is true, suggest, that the language in which the
inspired historian describes the creation of plants and animals,
is very different from that which is used in the history of the
creation of ian. "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb
vielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind."
"Let the waters bring forth bt,ltl the moving creature
that hath life, andl fowl that may fily ab)ove the Earth." " Let
the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind
and it was so." Though we have no very high estimate of
the exegetical powers of Prof. A., we think he might perhaps
perceive, that the sacred record does not require us to believe
that all plants of a kind came from one seed, or all herrings
from one pair; although it does teach very explicitly, that
God made a single pair of human being-s, "in his own image,
male and female created he them. And God blessed them
and God said unto them. Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the Earth, and subdue it." If "the races of men
must have originated where they occur," if "mankind cannot
have originated in single individuals," and if "men must have
been created in nations as bees were created in swarms," then,
indeed, besides giving up the Bible as a text-book in natural history, we must concede that the insTired hiistorian was sadly qualified by his inspiration, to say nothing of his common sense, to
tell the simplest truths. If the "same numerical proportions"
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