A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and EssaysBradlaugh, Charles
Religion
A Few Words About the Devil, and Other Biographical Sketches and Essays
Bradlaugh, Charles
Free thought
Hottentot limb, Negro limb, Caucasian limb. Do all these different and
differing structures and colors trace their origin to one pair? To Adam
and Eve, or rather to Noah and his family? Or are they (the various
races) indigenous to their nature, soils, and climates? And are these
various types naturally resultant, with all their differences, from the
differing conditions for life persistent to and consistent with them?
The question, then, really is this: Have the different races of men all
found their common parent in Noah, about 4,300 years ago? Assuming the
unity of the races or species of men now existing, there are but three
suppositions on which the diversity now seen can be accounted for:
"1. A miracle, or direct act of the Almighty, in changing one type into
another.
"2. The gradual action of physical causes, such as climate, food, mode
of life, etc.
"3. Congenital or accidental varieties."*
We may fairly dismiss entirely from our minds the question of miracle.
Such a miracle is nowhere recorded in the bible, and it lies upon any
one hardy enough to assert that the present diversity has a miraculous
origin to show some kind of reasons for his faith, some kind of evidence
for our conviction, and until this is done we have no reason to dwell on
the first hypothesis.
Of the permanence of type under its own climatic conditions--that is, in
the country to which it is indigenous--we have overwhelming proof in
the statue of an ancient Egyptian scribe, taken from a tomb of the fifth
dynasty, 5,000 years old, and precisely corresponding to the Fellah of
the present day.**
* "Types of Mankind," Dr. Nott, p. 57.
** M. Pulzsky on Iconography--"Indigenous Races," p. 111.
The sand had preserved the color of the statuette, which, from its
portrait-like beauty, marks a long era of art-progress preceding its
production. It antedates the orthodox era of the flood, carries us back
to a time when, if the bible were true, Adam was yet alive, and still we
find before it kings reigning and ruling in mighty Egypt. Can the reader
wonder that these facts are held to impeach the orthodox faith?
On the second point Dr. Nott writes: "It is a commonly received error
that the influence of a hot climate is gradually exerted on successive
generations, until one species of mankind is completely changed into
another.... This idea is proven to be false.... A sunburnt cheek is
never handed down to succeeding generations. The exposed parts of the
body are alone tanned by the sun, and the children of the white-skinned
Europeans in New Orleans, Mobile, and the West Indies are born as fair
as their ancestors, and would remain so if carried back to a colder
climate."*
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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