law, which indeed is allowed to hold good in the natural history of animals, races capable of a prolific union must be considered of the same origin, and as constituting the same species.--Even the apparent chaos of different languages may be classed into kindred families, which though separated by the distance of half the globe, seem still very closely allied. Of these different families of tongues, the first and most eminent are those which by their internal beauty, and by the noble spirit breathing through them and apparent in their whole construction, denote for the most part a higher origin and divine inspiration; and, much as all these languages differ from each other, they appear, after all, to be merely branches of one common stem. The American tribes appeared indeed to be singularly strange, and to stand at a fearful distance from the rest of mankind; yet the European writer[39] most deeply conversant with those nations and their languages has found in their traditions and tongues, and even in their manners and customs, many positive and incontestable points of analogy with eastern Asia and its inhabitants. When man had once fallen from virtue, no determinable limit could be assigned to his degradation; nor how far he might descend by degrees, and approximate even to the level of the brute; for, as from his origin he was a being essentially free, he was in consequence capable of change, and even in his organic powers most flexible. We must adopt this principle as the only clue to guide us in our enquiries, from the negro who, as well from his bodily strength and agility as from his docile and in general excellent character, is far from occupying the lowest grade in the scale of humanity, down to the monstrous Patagonian, the almost imbecile Peshwerais, and the horrible cannibal of New Zealand, whose very portrait excites a shudder in the beholder. How, even in the midst of civilization, man may degenerate into the savage state; to what a pitch of moral degradation he may descend, those can attest who have had opportunities of investigating more closely the criminal history of great culprits, and even, at some periods, the history of whole nations. In fact, every revolution is a transient period of barbarism, in which man, while he displays partial examples of the most heroic virtue and generous self-devotion, is often half a savage. Nay, a war conducted with great animosity and protracted to extremities, may easily degenerate into such a state of savage ferocity: hence it is the highest glory of truly civilized nations to repress and subdue by the sentiment of honour, by a system of severe discipline, and by a generous code of warfare, respected alike by all belligerent parties, that tendency and proneness to cruelty and barbarity inherent in man.