We cannot bend man to the laws of Linnæus, Lamarck, or any one else. The arguments against the unity of his species, drawn from the unreasoning creation, are not at all convincing. They are very violent and clumsy. Messrs. Agassiz, Amringe, and others, desire to make a simple and consistent theory—one which shall have nothing miraculous in it. And yet to avoid one miracle, they adopt a dozen. They turn their backs upon their own development doctrine, and refuse to believe that the material of the human structure could undergo its changes in process of time, and under the various elemental influences. They argue that there must have been originally several creations of men, to suit the varying localities of the earth. Following their views, and taking the divisions of race made by different philosophers, we should find our beliefs blown about a good deal. For Blumenbach, Cuvier, and Latham, hold that the Deity made three species; Martin and Lawrence that he made five; Dumenil and Lesson that he made six; Fischer and others that he made seven; and Desmoulins and Pickering that he made eleven. But, in the midst of the confused indecision in which we are left, where would be the unreasonableness of taking the subdivisions of these divisions and asking why we may not look on _these_ as distinct species also—why, in fact, should there not have been creations equal in number to the twenty-four subdivisions? If these philosophers go on, making distinctions, (in which no two of them will be found to agree with the others,) where are they to stop? There are varieties enough in the osteology and general appearance of the races to warrant a hundred distinctions—therefore, a hundred creations. Why should we stop at three creations—or six, or eleven? It is as easy and more consistent to suppose half a hundred creations than half a dozen. Then those who contend for only three or four creations, admit a great number of varieties; and thus admit the principle that climate and other accidents can, after all, change the race from the exact condition of a type. Thus the principle of their argument is compromised—the philosophy of it is in a loose and untenable condition. It is a very clumsy hypothesis altogether: How smiles The gazer’s eye in philosophic mirth To see the weak design!