The Kansas herald of freedom., 1855-03-31
Is the Human Race Degenerated ?

There is certain class of people who
sincerely believe that they are legitimate
ly happy only when they are tolerably
miserable. Their sentiments, opinions,
and creeds are strongly inoculated with
the predominant idea that the creation
was a failure, which being the result of
mans transgression, has entailed upon
him residence in world the dark side
of which is at least two thirds larger
than the bright side. These croakers
believe that everything is progressing
but downward; and that man especially,
having inherited from his great progeni-
tor in Eden slow consumption which is
destined to reduce the form diyine-some-
thing less than a shadow-must finally
part with bones, flesh and blood, and be-
come forever divorced from time and
sense. And hence, with them, it is a
favorite theme that the human race is re-
trograding. One of these philosophers,
says cotemporary, "lately went so far as
to assert that, in the time of the patriarchs.
there was no such thing as ill-health; !;
and that scrofula, consumption, cancer,
rheumatism, and all other, diseases which
"fiesh is heir to- are modern inventions. :"
We think that the hastiest glance at au-
thentic history, will satisfactorily refute
all such assertions as these.
The same narrative to which we are
indebted for the accounts of the patri-
apobc Joolo rac Sbat olrooet nofono,o,oro
ously with them, the land of Egypt was
visited with boils. The hieroglyphics OF
the Nile, recording the annals of thisvery
generation, as well as of preceding ones,
speak of physicians, describe the diseases
they treated, and even point out, in some
cases, the mode of treatment they adopt
ed; the name of hakim, doctor, has in
deed been considered sacred in the East
from the earliest ages. Again. there is
no reason to believe that the people who
inhabited the shores of the Mediterrane-
an, at the beginning of the Christian era,
| were larger In person, more muscular, or
had better intellectual development than
the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, or Moors
of our day. There may be some advan-
tage, physically, in favor Of the early Ro-
mans, but nothing more than what can
be attributed to severe training and dis
cipline eWoined by their rules of warfare.
In like manner, it may be safely asserted
that the people who inhabited Western
Europe prior to the eleventh century.
were certainly not larger or stronger than
their successors. On the contrary, the
ancient bronze swords dug out of the
bogs of Ireland and Scandinavia, show
| that the men of that distant day had ac-
tually smaller and less powerful hands
than the men of the present. The Brit
ish noblemen who figured at the Eglin-
town tournament found it, generally, i'm
possible to encase themselves in the armor
of their ancestors, four and five hundred
years ago. The health statistics, more
over, it is said, established the fact that
the average duration of human life dur
ing the last century is greater than it was
in the century preceding.
All these things, therefore, are against
the theory that the race is degenersting
and we might derive additional evidence
against it from contrast of savage life,
as exhibited among our Indian tribes,
with the condition of the Anglo-Saxon
race which has been for several centuries
redeemed from barbarism. The latter
invariably masters the Indian even at his
own weapons. We know that Boone
could travel further, shoot quicker, and
outrun any Black Hawk or Corn Planter
that ever threw tomahawk.-Baltimore
.AHericQa,