man--races--language.

The present races of animals have been produced by the combined action of many different internal, as well as external conditions, the nature of which cannot in all cases be defined, the most striking varieties being found in those families which are capable of the greatest distribution over the surface of the earth.

The different races of mankind are forms of one sole species, by the union of two of whose members descendants are propagated.

They are not different species of a genus, since in that case their hybrid descendants would remain unfruitful.

But whether the human races have descended from several primitive races of men, or from one alone, is a question that cannot be determined from experience.

Languages, as intellectual creations of man, and as closely interwoven with the development of mind, are, independently of the national form which they exhibit, of the greatest importance in the recognition of similarities or differences in races.

This importance is especially owing to the clue which a community of descent affords in treading that mysterious labyrinth in which the connection of physical powers and intellectual forces manifests itself in a thousand different forms.

The brilliant progress made within the last half century, in Germany, in philosophical philology, has greatly facilitated our investigations into the national character of languages, and the influence exercised by descent.

But here, as in all domains of ideal speculation, the dangers of deception are closely linked to the rich and certain profit to be derived.

Positive ethnographical studies, based on a thorough knowledge of history, teach us that much caution should be applied in entering into these comparisons of nations, and of the languages employed by them at certain epochs.

Subjection, long association, the influence of a foreign religion, the blending of races, even when only including a small number of the more influential and cultivated of the immigrating tribes, have produced, in both continents, similarly recurring phenomena; as, for instance, in introducing totally different families of languages amongst one and the same race, and idioms, having one common root, amongst nations of the most different origin.

Great Asiatic conquerors have exercised the most powerful influence on phenomena of this kind.

But language is a part and parcel of the history of the development of mind; and, however happily the human intellect, under the most dissimilar physical conditions, may unfettered pursue a self-chosen track, and strive to free itself from the dominion of terrestrial influences, this emancipation is never perfect.

There ever remains, in the natural capacities of the mind, a trace of something that has been derived from the influences of race or of climate, whether they be associated with a land gladdened by cloudless azure skies, or with the vapoury atmosphere of an insular region.

As, therefore, richness and grace of language are unfolded from the most luxuriant depths of thought, we have been unwilling wholly to disregard the bond which so closely links together the physical world with the sphere of intellect and of the feelings, by depriving this general picture of nature of those brighter lights and tints, which may be borrowed from considerations, however slightly indicated, of the relations existing between races and languages.

Whilst we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men.

There are nations more susceptible of cultivation, more highly civilised, more ennobled by mental cultivation than others--but none in themselves nobler than others.

All are in like degree designed for freedom -- a freedom which in the ruder conditions of society belongs only to the individual, but which in social states enjoying political institutions appertains as a right to the whole body of the community.

If we would indicate an idea which throughout the whole course of history has ever more and more widely extended its empire--or which, more than any other, testifies to the much contested and still more decidedly misunderstood perfectibility of the whole human race--it is that of establishing our common humanity--of striving to remove the barriers which prejudice and limited views of every kind have erected amongst men, and to treat all mankind without reference to religion, nation, or colour, as one fraternity, one great community, fitted for the attainment of one object, the unrestrained development of the moral faculties.

This is the ultimate and highest aim of society, identical with the direction implanted by nature in the mind of man towards the indefinite extension of his existence.

He regards the earth in all its limits, and the heavens, as far as his eye can scan their bright and starry depths, as inwardly his own, given to him as the objects of his contemplation, and as a field for the development of his energies.

Even the child longs to pass the hills or the seas which enclose his narrow home; yet when his eager steps have borne him beyond those limits, he pines, like the plant, for his native soil; and it is by this touching and beautiful attribute of man--this longing for that which is unknown, and this fond remembrance of that which is lost--that he is spared from an exclusive attachment to the present.

Thus deeply rooted in the innermost nature of man, and even enjoined upon him by his highest tendencies, the recognition of the bond of humanity becomes one of the noblest leading principles in the history of mankind.

With these words, which draw their charm from the depths of feeling, let a brother be permitted to close this general description of the natural phenomena of the universe.

From the remotest nebulae, and from the revolving double stars, we have descended to the minutest organisms of animal creation, whether manifested in the depths of ocean or on the surface of our globe, and to the delicate vegetable germs which clothe the naked declivity of the ice-crowned mountain summit; and here we have been able to arrange these phenomena according to partially known laws; but other laws of a more mysterious nature rule the higher spheres of the organic world, in which is comprised the human species in all its varied conformation, its creative intellectual power, and the languages to which it has given existence.

A physical delineation of nature terminates at the point where the sphere of intellect begins, and a new world of mind is opened to our view.

It marks the limit, but does not pass it.--Humboldt.