CHAPTER IV. HISTORICAL SUMMARY. HISTORICAL SUMMARY. 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 64this 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
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