earth somewhere in Asia, about six thousand years ago; that Eve was
modelled from one of his ribs; and that the progeny of these two
having been reduced to the eight persons who were landed on the summit
of Mount Ararat after an universal deluge, all the nations of the
earth have proceeded from these last, have migrated to their present
localities, and have become converted into Negroes, Australians,
Mongolians, &c., within that time. Five-sixths of the public are
taught this Adamitic Monogenism, as if it were an established truth,
and believe it. I do not; and I am not acquainted with any man of
science, or duly instructed person, who does.

A second school of monogenists, not worthy of much attention, attempts
to hold a place midway between the Adamites and a third division, who
take up a purely scientific position, and require to be dealt with
accordingly. This third division, in fact, numbers in its ranks
Linnaeus, Buffon, Blumenbach, Cuvier, Prichard, and many distinguished
living ethnologists.

These "Rational Monogenists," or, at any rate, the more modern among
them, hold, firstly, that the present condition of the earth has
existed for untold ages; secondly, that, at a remote period, beyond
the ken of Archbishop Usher, man was created, somewhere between the
Caucasus and the Hindoo Koosh; thirdly, that he might have migrated
thence to all parts of the inhabited world, seeing that none of them
are unattainable from some other inhabited part, by men provided with
only such means of transport as savages are known to possess and
must have invented; fourthly, that the operation of the existing
diversities of climate and other conditions upon people so migrating,
is sufficient to account for all the diversities of mankind.