Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/531



ENTLEMEN: I resume my discourse for the fifth time on the same subject. You have already, on four different occasions, studied man; and, again, man is the subject of this lecture.

On the preceding occasions I ran over some of the general questions that arise concerning the history of the human race. Depending always and exclusively upon science, I have shown that this species is unique; that all men are of the same species; and that, in consequence of this fact, they ought to regard each other as brothers, whatever the color of the skin, whatever language they speak, whatever country they inhabit.

This species at first occupied a very limited part of the globe. It spread all over the globe at an earlier epoch than was formerly believed; more recent researches have demonstrated that man existed in France along with the hyena, the elephant, the rhinoceros—that is to say, along with animals seen, in our day, only in distant countries.

As man appeared at first on a restricted point of the globe, and is found to-day everywhere, it is evident that he has traveled in all directions from his centre of creation and peopled the earth by migration much as do the Europeans at the present time. These journeyings have exposed him to all the influences which can be encountered, on the surface of our planet, and he has become acclimated every-where as we see him to-day.

In the study of general questions relative to the history of our species, we had to ask what was the origin of man.

On this point I have been obliged to confess the insufficiency of actual knowledge. But, if I was not able to say whence man came, I