Nature and History are our authorities, but all science and all knowledge are tributary.

Perhaps no other theme is grander; for it is the very beginning of human history, in which all nations and men have a common interest.

Its vastness is increased, when we consider that it embraces properly not only the origin, distribution, and capacity of Man, but his destiny on earth,--stretching into the infinite past, stretching also into the infinite future, and thus…

It is obvious to the most superficial observer that there are divisions or varieties in the Human Family, commonly called Races; but the most careful explorations of Science leave the number uncertain.

Blumenbach was an able and honest inquirer; and if his nomenclature is defective, it is only another illustration of the adage, that nothing is at the same time invented and perfected.

But the naturalist records that there are forms of transition, as nations approach to civilization or relapse into barbarism.

Thus does the Human Skull refuse any definitive answer.

There are varieties of skull, as of color; but the question remains, to what extent they attest original diversity.

The ancient Sanscrit, sometimes called the most elaborate of human dialects, has yielded its secret to philological research, and now stands forth the mother tongue of the European nations.

Considering the infinitudes of astronomy, and those other infinitudes of geology, it is not unreasonable to claim an antiquity for Primeval Man compared with which all the years of authentic history are a span.

Egypt is not alone in its Sphinx, perplexing mortals with perpetual enigma.

Science is our Sphinx, and its enigma is Man and his varieties on earth: to which I answer, “Time.

Because unnatural according to observation during the brief period of historic time, it does not follow that they are not strictly according to law.

And thus are we brought back to the conclusion, so often announced, that unity of origin must not be set aside simply because existing varieties of Man cannot be sufficiently explained by known laws, operating during that brief period…

Whilst we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men.

And what he said is much in little,--most simple, but most comprehensive; for, while asserting the Unity of the Human Family, he repels that disheartening pretension of Caste which I insist shall find no place in our political system.

Through him Science is enlisted for the Equal Rights of All.

Whatever the judgment on the unity of origin, where, from the nature of the case, there can be no final human testimony, it is a source of infinite consolation that we can anchor to that other unity found in a common organization, a common…

In all essentials constituting Humanity, in all that makes Man, all varieties of the human species are one and the same.

The variance, whether of complexion, configuration, or language, is external and superficial only, like the dress we wear.

Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?--fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a…

Look at Man in his destiny here or hereafter, so far as it can be penetrated by mortal vision, and who will venture to claim for any variety or class exclusive prerogatives on earth or in heaven?

God has given to all the same longevity, marking a common mortality,--the same cosmopolitan character, marking citizenship everywhere,--and the same capacity for improvement, marking that tendency sometimes called the perfectibility of the…

By these tokens is Man known everywhere to be Man, and by these tokens is he everywhere entitled to the Rights of Man.

It is to Man that the dog is faithful; nor does it matter of what condition, whether the child of wealth or the rough shepherd tending his flocks; nor does it matter of what complexion, whether Caucasian white, or Ethiopian black, or…