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The white or Caucasian is the only historic race—the race which is alone capable of those mental manifestations which, written or unwritten, leave a permanent impression behind. What was its first or earliest condition upon the earth? This, except the meagre account given by Moses, is unknown, nor is it of much importance that it should be known, for though it never was nor could be savage or barbarous, as these terms are understood in modern times, still its intellectual acquisitions were doubtless so limited that if really known to us, they would be of little or no service. Moses scarcely attempts any description of social life before the time of Abraham, and that then presented does not differ very materially from what exists in the same locality at the present day. The pastoral habitudes of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the sale of Joseph to the Ishmaelites by his brethren, his purchase in Egypt, and sudden exaltation at the court of the Egyptian Monarch, is an almost exact counterpart of scenes witnessed now, and with little varieties in the same lands, for the last four thousand years. The starting-point—the locality where the race first came into being, is equally hidden as the time or period of its creation. Biblical writers have usually supposed somewhere in Asia Minor, on the banks of the Euphrates, while ethnologists are inclined to believe that the high table-lands of Thibet and Hindoo Koosh may have been the cradle of the race. Nor is a knowledge of this material, or indeed of the slightest consequence, except as an aid in determining its true centre of existence—that is, its physical adaptation or specific affinities for a certain locality. But this is determined by experience; and it is demonstrated beyond doubt that while the elaborate and relatively perfect structure of the Caucasian Man enables him to resist all external agencies, and to exist in all climates capable of supporting animal life, he can only till the soil or perform manual labor in the temperate zones. It is, therefore, immaterial when or where he first came into being, or what was the starting-point of the race—its centre of existence is alike in all the great temperate latitudes of Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. The history of the race may be said to be divided into three great cycles or distinct periods; all, however, connecting with each other, and doubtless mainly resembling each other in their essential nature, however widely different in their external manifestation. The first period, beginning with its actual existence on the earth, may be said to terminate in the era of authentic history. The second, or historic era, may be assumed as extending to the overthrow of the Roman Empire by the so-called northern barbarians, or, perhaps, to what is usually termed the dark ages. And finally, there is another grand cycle in human destiny, which, beginning with the restoration of learning, comes down to and includes our own times. In regard to the first, we actually know little of it, for, leaving out of view the Sacred Scriptures, we have only a few imperfect glimpses of the actual life of the countless millions that preceded the historic period. What little knowledge we have depends on tradition and mythology, sometimes, perhaps, true enough, but the greater portion thus transmitted to our times we know is false, because conditions are assumed that are in contradiction with the laws that govern our animal being. If the race, however, was created in Asia, we know that portions of it migrated to Africa, at a very remote period; indeed, leaving the Bible out of view, the first knowledge we have of its existence, or the earliest traces of its existence, is in Africa. Caucasian tribes or communities entered the valley of the Nile possibly before the delta of the lower country was sufficiently hardened to admit of cultivation, as they evidently occupied localities considerably removed from the outlet of that great river. These early adventurers conquered the aboriginal population, subjected them to their control, compelled them to labor for them, built magnificent cities, temples, palaces, founded a mighty Empire and advanced, to a certain extent, in civilization. But wealth and luxury, with their effeminate consequences, probably, too, injustice and crime in the rulers, and certainly, and worst of all, interunion and affiliation with the conquered races, tempted purer and hardier branches of the race to invade them, and indeed the delicious climate and fertile soil must have always tempted Caucasian tribes into the Valley of the Nile, from the earliest periods, and whenever they felt themselves strong enough to attack the existing community. Of course we can only deal in conjecture, in regard to this matter, but it is probable that numerous invasions took place, each passing through much the same course as its predecessors. First came conquest, then the erection of a mighty Empire, followed by a grand civilization; then came effeminacy, affiliation with the subject races, debauchment and debility inviting a new conquest by pure Caucasians, and they, in their turn, going through the same round of glory and decay, of conquest and degradation. Such seems to have been the condition of Egypt when the Romans invaded it, and made it a province of that great Empire. The effete remains of these Egyptian populations afterward, became known to the Roman writers, and, to a certain extent, may be said still to exist. The great Asiatic empires were doubtless similar to the Egyptian, except in respect to the debauchment of blood. The Assyrians, Persians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Hebrews, etc., each in their turn, were conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, but their downfall, in one essential respect, differed widely from those of Africa. They were pure, unmixed Caucasians, for at that time the Mongol element was unknown in that portion of Asia, and the Negro, except a few household servants, never existed on that continent. The Mongolian race was first known about five hundred years anterior to the Christian Era, and whether originally it existed in a more northern region, or had not reached a full development as regards numbers, can not be known, on account of our limited knowledge of the earth at that time. The old Caucasian populations of Asia knew nothing of it, and had no admixture of Mongolic blood. But all is conjecture, mystery, doubt and uncertainty, in regard to these ancient and extinct Empires. We know that they existed—that they were white men—beings like ourselves—our own ancestors, with the same wants, the same instincts, in short, the same nature that we have, and therefore, in the main, acted, as we do now. Of course we call them heathens, pagans, savages, barbarians, etc., but were they thus?

In the modern times there are no white barbarians or heathens. In all modern history, wherever found, white men are much the same; why, then, should it not have been so always? The fanatic Jew called all others gentiles, savages; the supercilious Greek called even their Roman conquerors barbarians; even the manly and liberal Roman did not rise above this foolish bigotry, and not only called the Gauls, Britons, Germans, etc., barbarians, but reduced them to slavery, as if they were inferior beings. We witness the same ignorance and folly in our own enlightened times. The Englishman believes that the English are alone truly Christian and civilized; the Frenchman honestly believes that La Belle France is at the head of modern civilization; even the advanced and liberal American Democrat thinks, and perhaps correctly, that the Americans alone are truly civilized; while some among us would exclude all from the privilege of citizenship who happen to be born elsewhere, as rigidly as the Jew did the uncircumcised Gentile or the Moslem the dog of a Christian. Is not this notion of “outside barbarians,” therefore, the result of ignorance, or foolish egotism, without sense or reason? Some nations or communities were doubtless advanced more than others in ancient times, as at present, but in the main the race must have approximated to the same common standard we witness now. If it is said that in early times the obstacles in the way of frequent intercourse prevented this general approximation to a common standard of enlightenment, it may be replied that the same obstacles would also prevent a wide departure, and when we know that they had the same wants, the same instincts, the same tendencies, etc., the conclusion seems unavoidable that no nation or community could at any time in history assume, with any justice, that others were barbarians, or that they alone were civilized. The traditions and imperfect knowledge which we have hitherto possessed in respect to these long-buried populations, may, perhaps, be replaced by that which is almost or quite as reliable as written history itself. Within a few years past a class of men have sprung up who, excavating the dead remains of long forgotten empires, promise revelations that will bring us face to face with the buried generations that we now only know through the dim perspective of uncertain tradition. Champolion, Belzoni, Rawlinson, Layard and their companions have already made discoveries in Egypt and Nineveh that open to our minds much of the social condition and daily life of those remote times, and future explorations, it is probable, will give us nearly as accurate a knowledge as we have of those embraced within the cycle of authentic history.

The next great period in the history of the race—the historic era—is supposed to be entirely within the province of real knowledge. It begins with the history of the Greeks—not the symbolic but the real—that grand and glowing intellectualism which, in many respects, may be said to equal the intellectual development of our own times. The history of Greece and Rome is in truth the history of the race, of the world, of mankind. There were cotemporary nations of great power, extent and cultivation, but the Greeks and Romans, and the subject or servile populations that acknowledged their supremacy, made up the larger portion of the race. It is true the Persians were then pure Caucasians, and, in respect to numbers, largely surpassed the Greeks, but while they did not differ much in their general character, they were on the decline before the Greeks had reached their full national development. The latter always referred to Egypt as the source of their civilization, but it is more probable that they borrowed from Asia most of those things supposed to be of foreign origin. It is, however, quite possible that the earliest civilization was developed in Africa, that it receded from thence to Asia, as we know it afterwards did from the latter to Europe, and as we now witness it, passing to America. But what is civilization? It is, or it may be defined as, the result of intellectual manifestation. A nation or people who have most deeply studied and understood the laws of nature or the nature of things, and applied their knowledge to their own welfare, are the most civilized or we might say, in a word, that the nation that has the most knowledge is the most civilized. The Greeks, certainly, surpassed all cotemporary nations in the most essential of all knowledge, yet even this seems to have been rather a thing of chance than otherwise. Political intelligence, or a knowledge of men’s social relations to each other, is the most vital they can possess. The Greeks may be said both to have possessed this knowledge and to have been entirely deficient in it. Athens, with thirty thousand citizens all recognized as political equals, was a Democracy, but this so-called Democracy, with, perhaps, a hundred thousand slaves, was a burlesque on a democratic government. The Helots of Greece, the servile and subject population of which history gives no account, except to refer to them, were white men—men with all the natural capacities of Socrates, Demosthenes, or Alcibiades, but the Greek orators and writers of the day never even seemed to imagine that they had any rights whatever. They had much the same relation to the Greeks that the Saxons had to the Normans, that the Irish have to the English, and yet with all their political enlightenment and high intellectual development, the Greeks gave them no rights, and treated them as different and subordinate beings. The notion, therefore, taught in our schools, that the Greeks were the authors of political liberty, is unsound—they neither practised nor understood liberty, and the external forms mistaken for democracy had no necessary connection with it. Aristotle could not form even a conception of a political system that did not rest upon slavery, and this was doubtless the general condition of the Greek mind. It was merely accidental that the Greek States assumed a democratic form, or rather approximated to a democratic form; but while they were utterly ignorant of individual relations they certainly had clear views of the relations of states and the duties that independent communities owe to each other. The Asiatic nations seem to have had no conception whatever of these duties—conquest or slavery were the only alternatives. A nation must conquer or be conquered—a dynasty must destroy all others, or expect to fall itself—and the Asiatic character still partakes largely of these habitudes. Except, therefore, in the mere externals or outward arrangements of political society, the Greeks can hardly be said to have done anything for political liberty or to advance political science. The Romans did more—vastly more—but they had little or no conception of democracy or of individual liberty. The proud boast, “I am a Roman citizen,” unlike the idea of the American democrat, partook of the spirit of a British aristocrat of our own days, claiming the privileges of his order. The men who founded the city of Rome, though doubtless fillibusters and adventurers, perhaps even outcasts of the neighboring populations, were assumed to be superior to the later emigrants, and their descendants especially claimed exclusive privileges. And when Rome expanded into a mighty empire and ruled the world, the senatorial order ruled the empire—at all events, until Cæsar crossed the Rubicon and seized the supreme power. The change from a republic to an empire had little or no bearing upon the question of liberty, for the condition of the great body of the people remained the same. Rome conquered all, or nearly all, the then known world, for, except the Persians, and perhaps some few populations in the far North, the whole Caucasian race recognized the Romans as their rulers. The Parthians, so often waging desperate war with the Romans, were doubtless a mixed people, something like the modern Turks, and very possibly their ancestors. Following the rude code of early times, the Romans enslaved the conquered populations. All the prisoners of war were deemed to have forfeited their lives, and were parceled out among the Roman conquerors, while the rural populations were compelled to pay tribute to the Roman civil officers. It is quite probable that the Romans conquered some of the inferior races, but except the Numidians, Lybians, Ethiopians, etc., of Africa, Roman writers are silent on the subject. It has been said that the history of the Romans was the history of the Caucasian race, and that was the history of the world. This is literally true, for though we cannot suppose that the conquered populations were the miserable barbarians that the Roman writers represent them to have been, Rome was the most advanced portion of the race, and therefore the embodiment of its civilization and intellectual life. At this moment Paris represents all France; and the city of Rome bore a somewhat similar relation to the populations that composed the empire, however distant they may have been from the capital. It was not an unusual thing for the same general that commanded in Britain or that had conquered in Gaul, to administer the government of the African provinces or to conduct a campaign against the Persians on the bank of the Euphrates. And however much the vanity of Roman authors may have been gratified by assuming that they alone were civilized, it is altogether irrational to suppose that the conquered populations, with the same nature and same capacities as themselves, and moreover, in frequent and often intimate intercourse with themselves, could have differed widely or remained barbarians, even if such when conquered. The Romans advanced far beyond the Greeks in political knowledge, but with them also the state was every thing and the individual nothing. As with the Greeks, the great majority were slaves; and Roman citizenship, or the rights claimed by a Roman citizen, was at best a special privilege; and prior to the advent of Christianity, the idea of individual rights, of equality, of democracy, seems never to have dawned upon the intellectual horizon of the race. Nor did the primitive Christians (even) accept it in theory, though they lived it out in practice. Their mental habits were formed under the old social order, and though the spirit of the new doctrine impelled them to live it out in practice, few, if any, ever adopted it in theory. Christ had said, “love each other,” and “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” that is, “grant to others the rights claimed for yourselves,” but while they often lived together, owning things in common like the modern communists and socialists, perhaps not one in a million ever thought of applying their doctrines to the state, or even supposing for a moment that the artificial distinctions which separated classes could ever be altered or modified. Even the forced and unnatural relation of master and slave, which necessarily violated the fundamental doctrine of their religion, was clung to and respected in theory, and it needed several centuries of practice and faithful obedience to the spirit of the new faith before this ancient barbarism was finally obliterated from the Roman world. The conquest of Rome, by the so-called northern barbarians, was followed by an eclipse of learning—by a mental darkness in Western Europe at least, that is fitly enough denominated the dark ages. Was this irruption of the northern nations into Italy the true cause of this darkness? For several centuries previous there had been an immense and almost continuous emigration from Asia, not of individuals, as we witness in the present day, to America, but of tribes, communities, whole nations. History is indeed imperfect, if not altogether silent, in respect to the cause of these mighty migrations which so long pressed upon Europe. But there can be little doubt that the Mongolian race about this time changed, to a considerable extent, its location, and pressing down on the old Caucasian populations of Asia, impelled those vast masses to seek shelter and safety, if not homes and happiness, in Europe. In the mighty invasions of Italy in the fifth century by Attila, the truth of this is certainly demonstrated. He himself was doubtless a white man, and so were his chiefs; but the mighty populations he ruled over, and which extended from the Danube to the frontiers of China, were mainly Mongolian. But no Mongolians settled permanently in Europe—none but Caucasians, and except the modern Turks, none but pure Caucasians—and, being the same men as the Romans themselves, why should they be barbarians? They were conquerors; a pretty good proof that, though not so refined perhaps, certainly not so effeminate as the Romans had become, they could not have been barbarians. Other things being equal, the nation that has made the greatest advance in knowledge will be able to conquer, because it has only to apply its knowledge to this object to succeed. There can be no doubt that we ourselves surpass all the nations of our times in knowledge, or in our capacity to apply our knowledge to the purposes of material existence. Our railroads, canals, public works, our ship-building, commerce, etc., prove this, and we have only to apply this knowledge to purposes of offence or defence, to invade others or to defend ourselves, to demonstrate our immense superiority. Nevertheless, if we should conquer Spain, or any other ancient and effete empire, doubtless their writers would take their revenge in calling us barbarians, as indeed the poor, feeble, and adulterated hybrids of Mexico actually did thus represent us when in possession of their capital. Nothing, therefore, can be more improbable than the theory of Gibbon and others, that the nations that conquered Rome were barbarians, and that the dark ages were the result of that conquest. But there was a cause for the subsequent darkness which so long spread over the European world much more palpable. Christianity had become generally accepted, and bad and ambitious men, in the then general ignorance of the masses of the populations, might wield it with stupendous effect in advancing their ambition and securing their own personal objects. The assumption that Christ had delegated a power on earth to interpret the will of Heaven, both as to temporal as well as religious interests, was enough; of course all human investigation and mental activity terminated, and was denounced as impiety.

The subordinate clergy were often, perhaps generally, faithful to the great truths transmitted by the primitive Christians, but, dependent on tradition, and subject to the rule of their sacerdotal superiors, they in vain resisted these influences, and these truths became in time so corrupted as scarcely to retain any resemblance to the original faith. It is believed that, except in these “dark ages,” the Caucasian mind has never retrograded or indeed remained stationary. Progress is the law, the instinct, the necessity of the Caucasian mind, and however much some branches or some nations may decline, there is always some portion, nationality, or community, that embodies the wants of the race, and that moves forward in pursuit of that indefinite perfectability which is its specific and distinguishing characteristic. But it is easily understood how this might have suffered an eclipse under the circumstances then existing. A great proportion of the so-called barbarian conquerors of Rome were ignorant of Christianity, and when they became the converts of the conquered Romans, they naturally exalted their teachers as beings almost superhuman in their superior knowledge; and the general ignorance of the times favored any pretension of the priests, however absurd it might be. In fact a body of men claiming to be, and universally believed to be, the interpreters of the will of the Almighty, necessarily interrupted all inquiry into the laws of nature (the real laws of God), and though some monks themselves, immured in their cells, continued to think, to experiment, to acquire knowledge, as well as in many instances to preserve that already acquired by others, the great mass of the people as well as the great body of the clergy looked upon everything of the kind as wicked, impious, and heretical. And we have only to suppose an intellectual activity and freedom corresponding with our own times throughout these dark centuries, to realize the stupendous evil inflicted on the world by this priestly arrogance and ambition.

The races, so-called, that figured most prominently during the period beginning with authentic history and terminating in the dark ages, are first, the Semitic, which included the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Persians, Syrians, Hebrews or Jews, Saracens, Arabians, etc., indeed under the term Semitic may be included all the Orientals, except the Parthians, who were doubtless a mixed people, and those northern tribes, historically known as Scythians, afterwards the conquerors of Egypt and the progenitors of that extraordinary military autocracy known in modern times by the name of Mamelukes. The second great branch was the Pelasgian, which included the Macedonians, the Romans, the Hellenic tribes, Dorians, Thracians, etc., and of which the Romans were for nearly two thousand years the main representatives. Between these great branches of the Caucasian—for they were both doubtless, typical Caucasians, though Agassiz thinks that the Semitic constituted a separate species—there was almost constant war, from the very beginning of history to the capture of Constantinople. The Greek and Trojan war was doubtless a collision of this kind—and so were the wars of the Greeks and Persians—the conquests of Alexander, which, for a time, almost annihilated the Persian empire—the terrible life-and-death struggle of the Romans and Carthaginians, and finally the invasion and conquest of Spain by the Arabians, with their ultimate defeat by the Franks under Charles Martel. Indeed, coming down to more modern times, we find the Crusades, when nearly all Europe, in a fit of uncontrollable phrensy, precipitated itself on Asia; and in the collapse which followed, Asiatic hordes, though not exactly Semitic, again seeking to penetrate into Europe, and actually conquering the remains of the old Roman empire, in the eastern capital of which they are now firmly established. Historians are wont to magnify the results of these contests, especially the defeat of Hannibal and the overthrow of the Carthaginians by the Romans, and the defeat of the Arabians by the Franks, as of vital importance to the world and the best interests of mankind; but it is quite possible that they over-estimate these things, especially the victory of the Romans over the Carthaginians. They were both of the same species of men, both branches of the Caucasian, with the same nature, the same tendencies, and, under the same circumstances, the same beings. The Carthaginians were, for the time, highly civilized. They were the heirs of the Egyptian and Asiatic civilizations, as Rome was of that of the Greeks. They were a great commercial people, with boundless wealth, science, arts, manufactures, everything but a warlike spirit; while Rome, at the time without commerce, poor and torn by factions, was a mere military aristocracy, and the capital itself little more than a military encampment. Why, then, should the defeat of the former have been beneficial to the progress of the race, or to the general interests of mankind?

In regard to the defeat of the Arabians by the Franks, the case is altogether different. They were the same species, and doubtless, at that time, more advanced than the Europeans, but they were Mohammedans, and in the full flush of enthusiasm for their faith, which they invariably propagated by the sword. And if they had overrun Europe as they did Asia, somewhat similar results would doubtless have followed, for though it is altogether improbable, indeed, in view of its Divine origin, impossible, that they could have exterminated the Christian religion, they would have done it and the general cause of civilization incalculable injury. But both of these great branches of the race have long since disappeared from history. The Semitic element can scarcely be said to exist at all. In Africa it is adulterated by the blood of the Negro, and perhaps the blood of some race or races not so low in the scale as the Negro. In Asia it is mixed with the Mongolian blood, and though the Arab and Persian populations of our day are mainly white, there is more or less taint pervading all the Asiatic communities. The great Pelasgian branch has long since disappeared and been swallowed up in the more modern branches of the race, and though the modern Italian claims to be, and doubtless is, the lineal descendant of the ancient Roman, no portions of the race are wider apart than the ancient Roman and his modern descendant, a striking proof that accidental consanguinity does not affect the universality of the race.

The last great cycle of history, commencing with the Reformation, comes down to and includes our own times. It is quite unnecessary to dwell upon it, as all intelligent persons have much the same view of it. With the downfall of the Roman empire, however, new varieties of the Caucasian, or, as historians have termed them, new races, have emerged into view, and in their turn struggled for the empire of the world. The hordes that, under Alaric and other leaders, overran Italy, were generally known as Goths, a generic term that is applied to great numbers of very different people, though, of course, all were white men, and therefore of the same race or species. But after varying fortunes, and passing through numerous mutations, all these races have subsided into several well-marked and well-known divisions or families now existing. There are—First. The Celts—including a large portion of the French, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, and the remains of the primitive people of the British Islands. Second. The Teutonic or German, including the Germans of all kinds, the Swiss, the mythical Anglo-Saxon and perhaps the Danes, the Scandinavians, etc. Third. The Sclavonians, embracing the Russians, Poles, Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, etc. There are some few populations that, either in language or historical facts, have little or no connection with those enumerated. These are the modern Hungarians, the European Turks, the Circassians, etc. They are, however, Caucasians: even the Turks and Circassians are, in our times, pure or mainly pure Caucasians. Finally there remain our own people, the offspring of every country and of every variety of the race, and as the more the blood is crossed the more energetic and healthy the product or progeny, the American people should become, as it doubtless will become, the most powerful and the most civilized people in existence.

Such, briefly considered, is an imperfect summary or outline of the history of our race, the only race that has a history or that is capable of those mental manifestations whose record constitutes history. It is a favorite theory of most historians to represent the mental development of the race as divided into distinct categories, not as the author has ventured, into historic periods, but into different phases of intellectual manifestation. They have supposed that men (white men) were first hunters and lived wholly by the chase—that after a while they became shepherds, and lived on their herds or flocks—that then they made another advance and became cultivators, and finally artisans, merchants, etc. Each of these conditions, it has been supposed, were dependent on, or were associated with, a corresponding mental development. The hunter had intellect enough to run down the stag or wit sufficient to entrap the game necessary for his support, but had not sufficient capacity to take care of his flocks or sense sufficient to till the earth! This notion has doubtless arisen from observing the habits of the subordinate races of men, though it is quite possible that our own race has passed through some such stages as those suggested. But there has never been any variations in its actual intellectual powers. The mental capacities given it in the morning of creation were just what they are now, and what they will be millions of years hence. Thus is explained the (to many persons) seeming anomaly that in the very dawn of history there were men like Homer, Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, and others, with a breadth and depth of intellect corresponding to the most intellectual men of our own times. Mental power, like physical strength, remains always the same through all ages and mutations of human society, while knowledge, or the uses made of the intellectual forces, is constantly varying from age to age, and changing from one country to another. The miserable Italian organ-grinder under our window, it is somewhat difficult to suppose, embodies the high intellect and powerful will, which two thousand years ago, made his ancestors masters of the world, but such is the fact, however latent, unknown or unfelt by himself may be these powers. The amount or extent or degrees of knowledge, the perceptions of external things, their relations, the laws that govern them, their uses, their influences on our well-being or the contrary, in short, our capacities for acquiring knowledge, for comprehending ourselves and the things about us, are limitless, and therefore progress and indefinite perfectibility are the specific attributes of the Caucasian. Each generation applies its capabilities and acquires a certain amount of knowledge which the succeeding one is heir to, and which, in turn, transmits its acquisition to those following; thus its march is ever onward, and except during the “dark ages” it is believed that the great law of progress which God has imposed on the race as a duty as well as given it as a blessing, has never been interrupted.

But the inferior races of mankind present a very different aspect in this respect. The Negro, isolated by himself, seems utterly incapable of transmitting anything whatever to the succeeding generation, and the Aboriginal American, Malay, etc., doubtless approximate to him in these respects. The Aztecs and Peruvians, at the time of the Spanish conquest, however, had advanced to the grade of cultivators, and were therefore, doubtless, capable of a limited or imperfect transmission of their knowledge. The Malay is probably capable of still greater development in these respects; but its limitations are too decided to be mistaken. The Mongolian, on the contrary, approximates much closer to ourselves, and while it cannot be said to have a history in any proper sense, it is doubtless capable of transmitting its knowledge to future generations to a much greater extent than others, but it, too, is at an immeasurable distance from the Caucasian in this respect. The Chinese, it is true, pretend to trace back their history to a period long anterior to our own, but this claim is itself sufficient proof of its own worthlessness. No one will suppose that the individual Chinaman has a larger brain or greater breadth of intellect than the individual Caucasian, and if not, what folly to suppose that the aggregate Chinese mind was capable of doing that which is impossible to the aggregate Caucasian intellect! The truth is, what is supposed to be Chinese history is a mere collection of fables and nonsensical impossibilities, and it may be doubted if they can trace back their annals even five hundred years with any certainty or with sufficient accuracy to merit a claim to historic dignity. There can be no doubt, however, that at some remote period, a considerable portion of the Chinese population was Caucasian, as indeed a portion is still Caucasian, and it is perhaps certain that Confucius and other renowned names known to the modern Chinese, were white men, and what shadowy and uncertain historical data they now possess are therefore likely to have originated from these sources. The Mongolian race was in fact unknown to ancient writers, though there has doubtless been contact with these races from a very early period.

It is supposed by Hamilton Smith and others, that the Mongolian formally existed much further North than at present, and that its immense development in regard to numbers finally pressed so heavily on the Caucasian populations of Central Asia, that it displaced them, and hence that those mighty migrations into Europe, a short time after the beginning of the Christian era, were the results of this pressure in their rear. Be this as it may, it is certain that those vast inundations which at times swept over the Asiatic world, and also threatened Europe with their terrible results, were mainly composed of Mongolic elements. Attila was of pure Caucasian blood, and his chiefs were doubtless also white men or of a predominating Caucasian innervation; but it is equally certain that the larger portion of his terrible hordes were Mongolians. His seat of empire was on the Danube and somewhere near the modern Buda, from which he threatened France as well as Rome and the Italian Peninsula, while his dominion extended to the frontiers of China, and embraced the vast regions and almost countless populations intervening between these widely separated points. His invasion of France, and his repulse if not defeat at Chalons, is one of those transcendent events that, for good or evil, change the order of history, and for centuries affect the fortunes of mankind. Had this not happened—had his march been uninterrupted—had his terrible legions swept over Western as they already had over Eastern Europe, and a vast Mongolian population become permanently settled there, the destinies of mankind would have been widely different. But his repulse—his desperate retreat and his subsequent death, which occurred soon after—changed the current of events, and his desolating hordes instead of effecting a permanent lodgement in the heart of Europe, vanished so utterly that, except a few thousand Laplanders, they have left no trace or evidence of their terrible invasion of the European world.

Genghis Khan, in the twelfth century, was the next great conqueror and mighty leader of those vast Mongolic hordes which, at various times, have inundated the ancient world, and in their desolating march swept away numerous empires and extinguished whole populations. Genghis Khan, though of predominating Caucasian blood, was mixed with Mongolian, but his successors for several centuries after were mainly Caucasians or the children of Caucasian mothers. Finally, the last and the greatest of these terrible conquerors, Tamerlane, in the sixteenth century, made a conquest of nearly the whole of Asia, penetrating even into Africa and conquering Egypt, while his defeat of Bajazet, the Emperor of the Turks, then at the zenith of their power, opened Europe to the march of his desolating hordes, and could his life have been extended a few years longer, it is quite possible that he would have accomplished what seems to have been the object of Attila, and subjected the European as well as the Asiatic world to his terrible sway. As it was, he invaded and conquered India as well as Egypt, and the master of, or wearer of twenty-eight crowns, he reigned over the whole of Asia to the borders of China, except the Turkish dominions, and even here he was the recognized master though he gave back the empire to the sons of Bajazet. The character of his conquests—the death and desolation that marked his path—was the most terrible as well as the most extensive ever witnessed before or since, and many of the largest and most powerful empires of Asia were as utterly blotted from the earth as if it had opened and swallowed them up. He himself was of pure Caucasian extraction, and doubtless his generals and chiefs were the same, and the Caucasian Tartars formed a very considerable portion of his forces. There was doubtless also a large mixed or mongrel element, for of the throngs of female captives taken in these Mongolian invasions, few ever returned to their homes, but becoming the wives of Mongolian chiefs, those numerous and often powerful dynasties which have ruled over the Asiatic populations had their origin. Nevertheless a vast majority of these almost countless hordes led by Tamerlane were unmixed Mongolian, and, therefore, though the leader was himself a Caucasian or white man, the bloody and desolating character of his conquests were stamped by the cruelty and ferocity of that race. Perhaps no better illustration of the Caucasian and Mongolian character could be presented than the contrast between Alexander’s invasion of Persia and India and similar invasions of Tamerlane. The first, though a “Pagan” several centuries before the Christian era, was humane and merciful to the conquered, and except in battle shed no blood, while the latter not content with the enforcement of the Moslem rule of tribute or death or the religion of the Prophet, slaughtered whole populations after the battle was over, and for the gratification of his ferocious hordes. His conquest of Bagdad and his pyramid of ninety thousand heads is one of those terrible things that historians are generally puzzled with, for not only is there nothing resembling it in history, but there seems to be no motive or sufficient cause for it. It was the result, the offspring of Mongol ferocity and apathetic cruelty, such as we now witness in India and China, and springs as much, perhaps, from a low grade of sensibility or incapacity to feel or sympathize with suffering, as from a sentiment of cruelty.

The Hindoos or East Indians, like the Chinese, also pretend to trace back their history to a time long anterior to our own historic era. Their claim, in this respect, is doubtless better founded than that of the former, but it, too, is absurd and valueless. The Hindoos were originally Caucasian, who, at some remote period, invaded and conquered India, and stamped their civilization and religion on the whole peninsula. It is quite likely, indeed it is certain, that India had been invaded and conquered by numerous nations or tribes of Caucasians long anterior to the Hindoo conquest. There are in our day too many traces of this, too many evidences of the former existence of the great master race of mankind in India, to permit us to doubt. The vast debris spread all over India, indeed the sixty or seventy dialects of Sanscrit proves that India must have been long subject to the dominion of the Caucasian. It is believed by many that Hindoo Koosh, or the high tableland of Thibet, was the cradle of the race, and it is rational to suppose that long anterior to our own historic era white men may have formed the principal portion of the Indian population. They doubtless thus spread themselves over the peninsula; or if that was the birth-place of the Mongolian, then it is certain that restless and energetic Caucasian tribes at a very early day invaded and conquered the country. Even now there is a large Caucasian element in India. The Afghans are pure Caucasian, while the Sikhs, the Rajpoots, and a large portion of the people of Oude are doubtless of predominating Caucasian blood. That caste which English writers have so much to say about, and the good people of Exeter Hall desire so much to “abolish,” is, to a great extent, mere mongrelism, and that which is not mongrelism is simply what England itself suffers from to a greater extent than any other country or people. The Normans invaded the latter country, took possession of their lands, and reduced the conquered Anglo-Saxons to slavery, where they have remained, ever since, and though the Norman blood has long since disappeared, the theory or system remains, for a few cunning and adroit “Anglo-Saxons,” claiming to be the descendants of Norman Conquerors, now monopolize the land and rule the great body of the people as absolutely as the real Normans did in their day. The early invaders of India grasped everything, as did the Normans in England, but they amalgamated with the conquered, and thus enfeebling themselves, fell a victim to fresh invasions of pure Caucasians. They, in their turn, underwent the same fate, and thus, from time immemorial there grew up those multitudinous dynasties, each of which had its own character, and which became a caste, often, doubtless, as a means for governing the people, and preserved by the conquerors as carefully as that which they in their turn imposed on the country. The Normans and Saxons were of the same race, and the greater the admixture of blood, the more energetic the population, while the admixture of the conquering Caucasian with the conquered Mongolian, has rendered the modern Hindoo powerless and contemptible in comparison with the English or European invader of our times. The general subject of the human races has been so little studied, and our actual knowledge of these great Asiatic populations is so limited and so imperfect, that it is difficult to determine their present character, let alone their former history, and it is quite possible that the present native of India is specifically different from the Chinese. It has been the custom of writers on this subject to assume that the Caucasian and Mongolian, with their often extensive affiliations, constitute the sole population of the Asiatic continent, and that the differences which are actually presented are those produced alone by climate and external influences. The writer has adopted this view, but without assenting to it in fact, for the actual differences between Nena Sahib or an Indian prince, and the true Mongol of the Chinese model, are certainly as distinct as those separating the former from a modern Englishman, and therefore he thinks it quite probable that further investigation will show a race or species of men, mainly to be found in India, that are yet to be known and to take their place in the great human family, midway between the Caucasian and Mongolian. Be this as it may, however, it is certain that our own race alone has a history or is capable of those mental manifestations which constitute the materials of history. The Mongolic element, though often invading and temporarily conquering large portions of territory occupied by Caucasian populations, has receded almost as rapidly as it advanced, and therefore their actual centre of existence remains substantially the same at all times. There is, however, a trace of Mongolian blood now found outside of its own proper centre, but probably there is a much larger Caucasian element among Mongolic nations. The Caucasian Tartars invaded and conquered China a few centuries ago, and though doubtless mixed up with and mainly Mongol at this time, they are the ruling dynasty. The instincts of this race naturally impelled it to escape from contact or collision with the superior race; thus, the great wall of China was a vain attempt to keep out a race it fears and hates, and which its instincts assure it must rule over itself wherever they exist in juxtaposition. Many persons fancy that our treaties with Japan and China will bring these vast populations within the circle of modern civilization, and open up to ourselves a fancied Asiatic commerce, which, through California and a Pacific railroad, we shall mainly monopolize. Of course these notions originate in utter ignorance of what China is in reality, and except in degree do not differ from that of the Abolitionists in respect to negroes and negro “slavery.” The Mongol never will, as indeed he never can, become an element in the modern or Christian civilization of our times and of our race, and though there may be a certain trade carried on between us and China, it is not likely to vary to any considerable extent from that existing now, while any attempt to establish a diplomatic intercourse or equality is simply absurd, and must end in nothing.

This, then, is the history of the Mongolian race—the race nearest our own—all the history we have of it, and indeed all the history there is of it, for however brief or imperfect our own knowledge of the race, it is doubtless better and more reliable than is its own pretended history of itself. As has been said, unlike the Negro, whose capacities cannot go beyond the living or actual generation, and with whom millions of generations are the same as a single one, the Mongolian mind may perhaps, with more or less correctness, grasp the life of a few generations, but in no proper sense is it capable of acting, and consequently of writing history.