Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/164

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152
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTICES OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS &c.

In conclusion, these instances will I think be allowed to be conclusive proofs of the assumption with which I proposed to ask your assent to the theory as to the multifarious and heterogeneous character of the American populations, so heterogeneous in fact that we cannot upon due reflection in the slightest degree hesitate in denying the probability of one peculiar origin either of primitive creation or subsequent migration. What is true of one people in their onward progress may be safely predicated of others, and it is thus the peculiar province of Ethnology to trace the different families of mankind in their respective courses, so as to prove the validity of the great and generous doctrine of the unity of the Human Species by which we are all linked together, ἐξ ἑνος αἱματος παν ἐθνος ἀνθρωπων.


NOTE.

The Appendices referred to in this Paper were not completed.