Note 223 — Chapter IV

After presenting several arguments together with accompanying proofs, Agassiz says: “This coincidence between the circumscription of the races of man and the natural limits of different zoological provinces characterized by peculiar distinct species of animals, is one of the most important and unexpected features in the Natural History of Mankind, which the study of the geographical distribution of all the organized beings now existing upon earth has disclosed to us. It is a fact which cannot fail to throw light at some future time upon the very origin of the differences existing among men, since it shows that man’s physical nature is modified by the same laws as that of animals, and that any general results obtained from the animal kingdom regarding the organic differences of its various types must also apply to man. Now there are only two alternatives before us at present: 1st. Either mankind originated from a common stock, and all the different races with their peculiarities, in their present distribution, are to be ascribed to subsequent changes—an assumption for which there is no evidence whatever, and leads at once to the admission that the diversity among animals is not an original one, nor their distribution determined by a general plan established in the beginning of the creation; or 2d, we must acknowledge that the diversity among animals is a fact determined by the will of the Creator, and their geographical distribution part of the general plan which unites all organized beings into one great organic conception; whence it follows that what are called human races down to their specializations as nations are distinct primordial forms of the type of man.” * * * He concludes in these words: “The laws which regulate the diversity of animals and their distribution upon earth apply equally to man within the same limits and in the same degree; and all our liberty and moral responsibility, however spontaneous, are yet instinctively directed by the All-wise and Omnipotent to fulfill the great harmonies established in Nature.”—Types of Mankind, pp. lxxv and lxxvi.