The Native Races (Complete 5 Part Edition). Hubert Howe Bancroft

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      CHAPTER I.

       ETHNOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION.

       Table of Contents

      Facts and Theories—Hypotheses concerning Origin—Unity of Race—Diversity of Race—Spontaneous Generation—Origin of Animals and Plants—Primordial Centres of Population—Distribution of Plants and Animals—Adaptability of Species to Locality—Classification of Species—Ethnological Tests—Races of the Pacific—First Intercourse with Europeans.

      Facts are the raw material of science. They are to philosophy and history, what cotton and iron are to cloth and steam-engines. Like the raw material of the manufacturer, they form the bases of innumerable fabrics, are woven into many theories finely spun or coarsely spun, which wear out with time, become unfashionable, or else prove to be indeed true and fit, and as such remain. This raw material of the scholar, like that of the manufacturer, is always a staple article; its substance never changes, its value never diminishes; whatever may be the condition of society, or howsoever advanced the mind, it is indispensable. Theories may be only for the day, but facts are for all time and for all science. When we remember that the sum of all knowledge is but the sum of ascertained facts, and that every new fact brought to light, preserved, and thrown into the general fund, is so much added to the world's store of knowledge—when we consider that, broad and far as our theories may reach, the realm of definite, tangible, ascertained truth is still of so little extent, the importance of every never-so-insignificant acquisition is manifest. Compare any fact with the fancies which have been prevalent concerning it, and consider, I will not say their relative brilliance, but their relative importance. Take electricity, how many explanations have been given of the lightning and the thunder, yet there is but one fact; the atmosphere, how many howling demons have directed the tempest, how many smiling deities moved in the soft breeze. For the one all-sufficient First Cause, how many myriads of gods have been set up; for every phenomenon how many causes have been invented; with every truth how many untruths have contended, with every fact how many fancies. The profound investigations of latter-day philosophers are nothing but simple and laborious inductions from ascertained facts, facts concerning attraction, polarity, chemical affinity and the like, for the explanation of which there are countless hypotheses, each hypothesis involving multitudes of speculations, all of which evaporate as the truth slowly crystallizes. Speculation is valuable to science only as it directs the mind into otherwise-undiscoverable paths; but when the truth is found, there is an end to speculation.

      So much for facts in general; let us now look for a moment at the particular class of facts of which this work is a collection.

      TENDENCY OF PHILOSOPHIC INQUIRY.

      The tendency of philosophic inquiry is more and more toward the origin of things. In the earlier stages of intellectual impulse, the mind is almost wholly absorbed in ministering to the necessities of the present; next, the mysterious uncertainty of the after life provokes inquiry, and contemplations of an eternity of the future command attention; but not until knowledge is well advanced does it appear that there is likewise an eternity of the past worthy of careful scrutiny—without which scrutiny, indeed, the eternity of the future must forever remain a sealed book. Standing as we do between these two eternities, our view limited to a narrow though gradually widening horizon, as nature unveils her mysteries to our inquiries, an infinity spreads out in either direction, an infinity of minuteness no less than an infinity of immensity; for hitherto, attempts to reach the ultimate of molecules, have proved as futile as attempts to reach the ultimate of masses. Now man, the noblest work of creation, the only reasoning creature, standing alone in the midst of this vast sea of undiscovered truth—ultimate knowledge ever receding from his grasp, primal causes only thrown farther back as proximate problems are solved—man, in the study of mankind, must follow his researches in both of these directions, backward as well as forward, must indeed derive his whole knowledge of what man is and will be from what he has been. Thus it is that the study of mankind in its minuteness assumes the grandest proportions. Viewed in this light there is not a feature of primitive humanity without significance; there is not a custom or characteristic of savage nations, however mean or revolting to us, from which important lessons may not be drawn. It is only from the study of barbarous and partially cultivated nations that we are able to comprehend man as a progressive being, and to recognize the successive stages through which our savage ancestors have passed on their way to civilization. With the natural philosopher, there is little thought as to the relative importance of the manifold works of creation. The tiny insect is no less an object of his patient scrutiny, than the wonderful and complex machinery of the cosmos. The lower races of men, in the study of humanity, he deems of as essential importance as the higher; our present higher races СКАЧАТЬ