The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

the ass, and the mule is barren. But the children resulting from the union of
the most widely diverse human races are permanently fertile; their posterity
is extended from generation to generation, so that in all countries, where,
there is a mingling of races, extreme in their diversity, there are terms
indicative of near, and of increasingly remote relations. Such terms, for
example, are: Mulatto, Quadroon; Octoroon, Mestizo; and many others.
iii. The traditions of the races largely point to a common origin. The
history of man accounts for some of the most difficult facts, in regard to the
distribution of mankind from one centre, and overthrows the very
hypotheses which seem to have the largest amount of à priori probability.
iv. The languages of mankind contribute a great deal of evidence as
to the original unity of the races, which have become widely sundered.
We ourselves cannot speak a sentence of our native tongue, be it German
or English, without giving evidence that the whole of the Germanic race, of
which the English is a part, are of East Indian origin. The population of this
New Continent, and the demonstrably oldest race of the Old Continent,
speak languages which had a common origin. Both drew their language
from that primitive tongue, of which the Sanscrit is the oldest existing
remnant.
The doctrine of the "Unity of the Human Race" is important in its
bearing on the recognition of the equality and fraternity of all mankind. It
is essentially connected with just views of original sin, and the true view of
the nature of redemption. Although modern science has sometimes been
perverted to the weakening of man's faith in this great doctrine, yet the
most eminent men of science, whether Christian or not, have united in the
judgment, that science does not weaken, by any of its facts, the Scripture
witness to the unity of the human race.
The hypotheses which are opposed to the Scripture doctrine of the
Unity of the Human Race, are in general these:
The theory of the Coadamites, i. e. of the creation of several original
races. The theory of the Preadamites, of men before Adam. This