Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Discourse volume 1.djvu/119

72 his Morality that of the cannibal; that all of the civilized races have risen from this point, and gradually passed through Fetichism and Polytheism, before they reached refinement and true Religion; the spiritual man is the gradual development of germs latent in the natural man. See Comte, Vol. V. p. 32, et al. Here arises the kindred question, Have all the human race descended from a single pair, or started up in the various parts of the earth where we find them? The first opinion has been defended by the Christian Church, in general with more obstinacy than argument. Pritchard, ubi sup., derives all from one stock, and collects many interesting facts relative to the human race in various conditions. But the unity of the race is not to be made out genealogically. It is essential to the nature of mankind. Augustine has some curious speculations on this head, De Civitate Dei, XII. 21, XIII. 19—23, XIV. 10–12, 16–26. Lactantius, Institut. II. 11, VII. 4. See the opinions of Buddeus, and the curious literature he cites, Hist. Ecclesiast. V. T. Vol. I. p. 92, et seq. On the other hand, Palfrey's Academical Lectures, Vol. II. Lect. xxi., xxii.; Kant, von der Racen der Menschen, Werke, Vol. VI. p. 313, et seq.; Begriff einer Menschenrace, ib. p. 33, et seq.; Muthma a slicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte, ib. Vol. VII. p. 363, et seq. Even Schleiermacher departs from the common view. Christliche Glaube, § 60–61. See, likewise, the ingenious observations of Samuel S. Smith, Inquiry into the causes of different Complexions, &c., of the human Race. To make out the case, that all men are descended from a primitive power, it is only necessary to assume, philosophically, a principle in the first man, whence all varieties may be derived, and then, historically, to assume the derivation, and the vicious circle is complete. Kames has some disingenuous remarks in his History of Man, Preliminary Discourse. See Mémoires de l'Académie royale des Sciences morales et politiques, (Paris,) 1841, Tom. III. p. xxiii. et seq., and the literature referred to.

Another party, consisting more of poets and dogmatists than of philosophers, teaches the opposite doctrine, that a single human pair was created in the full majority of their powers, with a perfect Morality and Religion; that they fell from this state, and while some few kept alive the lamp of Truth, and passed it on from hand to hand, that the mass sunk into barbarity and sin, whence they are slowly emerging, aided of course by the traditional torch of Truth, still kept by their more fortunate brothers.