New Witnesses for God (Volume 3 of 3)Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Religion
New Witnesses for God (Volume 3 of 3)
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Book of Mormon; Smith, Joseph, Jr., 1805-1844
On the whole, the race is singularly uniform in its physical
traits, and individuals taken from any part of the continent could
easily be mistaken for inhabitants of numerous other parts. * * * *
* * The culture of the native Americans strongly attests the ethnic
unity of the race. This applies equally to the ruins and relics of
its vanished nations, as to the institutions of existing tribes.
Nowhere do we find any trace of foreign influence or instruction,
nowhere any arts or social systems to explain which we must evoke
the aid of teachers from the eastern hemisphere. * * * * American
culture, wherever examined, presents a family likeness which the
more careful observers of late years have taken pains to put in a
strong light. This was accomplished for governmental institutions
and domestic architecture by Lewis H. Morgan, for property rights
and the laws of war by A. F. Bandelier, for the social condition
of Mexico and Peru by Dr. Gustav Bruhl, and I may add for the
myths and other expressions of the religious sentiment by myself.
* * * The psychic identity of the Americans is well illustrated
in their languages. There are indeed indefinite discrepancies in
their lexicography and in their surface marphology; but in their
logical sub-structure, in what Willhelm von Humboldt called the
"inner form," they are strikingly like. The points in which this is
especially apparent are in the development of pronominal forms, in
the abundance of generic particles, in the overweening preference
for concepts of action (verbs) rather than concepts of existence
(nouns), and in the consequent subordination of the latter to the
former in the proposition. [41]
Following the same general line of thought Nadaillac says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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