CHAPTER XIV.

CONCLUSION.

We have now arrived at the end we proposed to the reader. We have travelled over the space, and viewed the rich and varied scenery we promised in our Introduction. We have traced the origin of species in the human family to the patriarchal family; we followed the thread from the dispersion, the distribution of mankind, in specific masses, to their respective geographic stations; we have traced patriarchal civilization, and its influences, upon the respective species; we have seen the Shemitic species discard their patriarchal civilization, together with the polygamy and absolutism incident to it; we have seen that after they had undergone a certain degree of preparation, they again received the patriarchal civilization, which they remodeled, and reformed into bases suitable for the highest development of the human mind; we followed these improvements through the ancient Roman world, until the Germans received, remodeled, and renovated them, to make them suitable for modern civilization; and we have traced the great outline of modern civilization in its tendency to promote the moral and intellectual dignity of man.

We have also followed the other races of men through their respective modifications of the patri

archal governments, and have endeavored to account for their stationary or retrograde conditions; we have contrasted them with one another, and with the Shemitic species, in respect to their physical and psychical constitutions, developments, and sexual relations, In our progress towards these objects, we have found it necessary to examine, with a freedom bordering on license, all the theories of others which opposed our progress. We have reconciled the facts in the natural history of man, with the Mosaic history of the creation; we have placed man in his natural zoological position in classification ; we have freely examined the theories, arguments, and conclusions of eminent historians of man; we have defined analogy, and set bounds to its use in the history of man; we have exhibited the improbability, the impossibility, that accidental births, congenital varieties, produced any of the permanent varieties of man; we have demonstrated, by the principles of zoology, of anatomy, of physiology, and from the psychical attributes and sexual relations, that there are at least four distinct species in the human family; we have exhibited the importance of woman as a fundamental element of progress in civilization; and we have exhibited the great and powerful law of human nature, established by the Creator to preserve a distinction of the human species, and the injurious effects mankind would experience, if the law should be generally violated.

Have we furnished an outline, a profile view, of the natural history of man? It is all we designed to accomplish. To fill up the picture,-to give the

lights, the shades, and the coloring,-will be the duty of him who may write the natural history of the several species, and particularly the Shemitic and Japhethic, including their varieties.