Letter to the Rev. John Bachman, D.D., on the question of hybridity in animals : considered in reference to the unity of the human species / by Samuel George Morton.

  • Morton, Samuel George, 1799-1851.
Date:
1850
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the Rev. John Bachman, D.D., on the question of hybridity in animals : considered in reference to the unity of the human species / by Samuel George Morton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    of a black man and a white woman (or the reverse) were compelled to marry among themselves, without any access of other individuals of either race, how long do you suppose this mixed breed would last ? Not beyond the third or fourth generation. I repeat my matured conviction that the different species of animals were created in their allotted regions of the earth,—the kangaroo in New Holland, the sloth in Brazil. They did not appear on the earth in pairs, but in many pairs, some more, some less. A few elephants might serve to stock a continent; but when Prof. Baily informs me that hundreds of millions of Polythalmia, (each one as truly organized as an elephant) exist in a single cubic inch of the sea mud of our own coast, it strikes me as very absurd to suppose that they have been de- rived from a single pair, or had their origin in Mesopotamia. The views I here advance are those of Azara, Swainson, Hamilton Smith, Agassiz and several other eminent zoologists. The recent judicious observa- tions of Prof. Agassiz on this question, in the Christian Examiner, preclude the necessity of any further remarks on my part; and I shall conclude what I have to say on this head in the words of St. Augustine: If animals, says he, have not been brought to remote islands by angels, or perhaps by the inhabitants of continents addicted to the chase, they must have been spontaneously produced on the earth; or in other words, in the localities where we now find them. It is difficult for me to imagine that a practical zoologist can entertain a contrary opinion. It is one of the weaknesses of mankind to delight in mystery, and to be perpetually looking for miracles. They forget or disregard the fact that the laws of Nature were ordained of God, and that a special inter- position at every step would disjoint the mighty mechanism and mar the harmony of creation. I am convinced that the more we study the Mosaic history in connec- tion with Natural Science, the more we shall be instructed by both. Is our faith shaken because Gallileo has shown that the sun does not re- volve round the earth, but the earth round the sun ? Does it detract from our admiration of Creative Wisdom to be told, as Geology teaches, that past time is an eternity ? Should it lessen our admiration of the past, or our hope in the future, to be told that mankind have existed thousands of centuries* upon the earth? Or does our religion suffer de- triment because the great Lepsius has deciphered the legends of Memphis, * Beyond that event (the arrival of Abraham in Palestine) we can never know how many centuries, nor how many chiliads of years may have elapsed since the first man of clay received the image of God and the breath of life.—Prichard.