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Untitled Article
itself . The vital energy of the species , active , up i form , and always consistent with itself , long resists the influence of these causes ; but as it is not independent of outward affections , it must in time accommodate itself to them /
As the most effectual method for a satisfactory solution of this long-agitated question , concerning the origin of those remarkable differences which distinguish the various tribes of the human race , he recommends that an ex $ . ct account should be gathered , from authentic sources , of the changes which those colonists have gradually undergone , who have passed , at a comparatively recent period , from Europe to remote quarters of the globe , such as
Africa , America , and the East Indies : that then the same inquiry should be instituted in regard to the more ancient migrations , as those of the Malays , Arabs , Tartars , and of the mighty swarm of nations which covered Europe on the fall of the Western Empire ; that in such inquiries , there should be a constant reference to these points , —from what climate a people came , what modes of life they brought with them , what lands they
entered , with what tribes they mixed , and what revolutions they passed through in their new seats ; and from these results , obtained from an examination of periods that fail within the range of historical certainty , he conceives that conclusions may be drawn respecting those more ancient migratory movements , to which the traditions of the oldest writers , the coincidences of mythology , and the affinities of speech , bear witness , and in which there is every
reason to think that , perhaps , all the nations of the earth have , at an earlier or later period , participated . * We should thus , ' to use his own language , with the assistance of some charts for inspection , be furnished with a physico-geographical history of the derivation of our race , and of the varieties impressed upon it in the course of time by climate , that must substantiate step by step the most important results * . '
These varieties once produced , having become inherent in a race , and transmissible by generation , Herder regarded as a second nature ; and , justly considering that there was a harmony established by Providence between the influence of climate , and the constitution and habitudes that were destined to subsist under it , thought that these secondary laws of nature were entitled to a sort of religious reverence , and could not be broken in upon and
reversed with impunity . * The next thousand years , ' he remarks , ' will decide , in what respect the genius of Europe has injured or benefited otjier climates , q , nd in what respects other climates have injured or benefited the genius of Europef / Perhaps , in the warmth of his imagination , he carried this feeling of a reverence for the distinctions of climate too far ; but it is quite in unison with that predominant bias of his genius , which led him to delight
? Die genetische Kraft ist die Mutter aller Bildungen auf dei Erde , vii . p . 106 . f Ibid . p . 112 .
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The Philosophy of the History of Mankind . $$
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1832, page 87, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1806/page/15/
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