The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-07-12
Origin Of the White Man.

There may be remains OF Stene Age
whites, but there are no certain re-
mains of white savages of a low
order. We may well doubt if there
ever were any white SavageS; it is
more likely that the white men were
developed late in the race history of
the world from ancestors already far
on in civilization; in fact, that this
civilization, with its improved supply
of food, it's better housing and cloth
ing, its higher intellectually, was one
main factor in the development of
the white type. Here, however, it
must be remembered that there is not
a white race in the sense in which
there is CRrib race or an Andaman
race. 1t includes several race types,
| and even the same languages, such as
| English and German, may be spoken
| by men as blonde as Danes or as dark
as SicilianS. The fair-haired Scandi-
navian type has something of the
defniteness of true race, but as one
travels south there appears, not we'll
defined sub-races, but darkening gra
| dations of bewildering compleXity.
The most reasonable attempt to solve
this intricate problem is Prof.
HuXley's view, that the white race is
made up of fair-Whites of the North
ern or Scandinavian types, and dark
| whites, who are the result OF ages of
mixture between the fair whites and
the darker nations, though it is per-
| hapS hardly prudent to limit these
dark ancestors to one variety as he
does.
If now we cannot trace the white man
down to the low level of primitive
savagery, neither can we assign to
him the great upward movement by
which the barbarian passed into civ
ilization. It is not to the Aryan of
| Persia nor to the Semitic of Syria that
the art of writing belongs, which
| brought on the new era of culture.
The Egyptian, whose hieroglyphics
| may be traced, passing from picture
! people of North Africa, especially the
Berbers of the north coast-people
whom no elasticity of ethnolol ical
system would bring into the white
race. OF the race type of the old
Babylonians, who shaped likewise
rude pictures into wedge phonetic
signs, we know but little as yet; at
any rate their speech was not Aryan,
| and the comparisons of Lenormant
| and Sayce has given some ground for
connecting it with the Turanian Ian
guage, belonging to a group of ma
lions of whom one, the Chinese, had
in remote antiquity worked out a civ
ilization of which the development of
an imperfect phonetic writing
formed part. If the great middle
move in culture was made, not
by any branch of the
white race, but 10y races
now represented by the Egyptian and
the Chinese, it is not less clear that
these nations came to the limit of
their developing power. The white
races had in remote antiquity risen
high in barbaric culture when their
contact with the darker nations who
invented writing opened to them new
intellectual paths. The Greeks found
in the ancient Egyptian theology the
gods of the four elements, but they
transferred this thought from theolo-
gy to philosophy. and developed from
it the theory of elements and atoms
which is the basis of modern chemis-
try. They found the Babylonians
building temples to the seven
planets in the order of their periods,
and this conception again they trans
ferred from religion to science, found
ing on it the doctrine of planet
spheres which grew into mathemati-
cal astronomy. 1t may moderate our
somewhat overweening estimate of
our powers to remember that the
white races cannot claim to be the
original creators of literature and sci
ence. but from remote antiquity they
began to show the combined power OF
acquiring and developing culture
which has made them dominant
among mankind.
Mr.. Christopher NJ. Spencer. of
Hartford, the inventor and million