rsians; but, taking afterwards a
broader range, he thinks, 'that in all the vast countries of America,
there is but one language, nay, that it may be proven, or rendered
highly probable, that all the languages of the earth bear some affinity
together.' This reduces it to a question of definition, in which every
one is free to use his own: to wit, What constitutes identity, or
difference in two things, in the common acceptation of sameness? All
languages may be called the same, as being all made up of the same
primitive sounds, expressed by the letters of the different alphabets.
But, in this sense, all things on earth are the same, as consisting of
matter. This gives up the useful distribution into genera and species,
which we form, arbitrarily indeed, for the relief of our imperfect
memories. To aid the question, from whence our Indian tribes descended,
some have gone into their religion, their morals, their manners,
customs, habits, and physical forms. By such helps it may be learnedly
proved, that our trees and plants of every kind are descended from
those of Europe; because, like them, they have no locomotion, they
draw nourishment from the earth, they clothe themselves with leaves
in spring, of which they divest themselves in autumn for the sleep of
winter, he. Our animals too must be descended from those of Europe,
because our wolves eat lambs, our deer are gregarious, our ants hoard,
&c. But when, for convenience, we distribute languages, according to
common understanding, into classes originally different, as we choose
to consider them, as the Hebrew, the Greek, the Celtic, the Gothic; and
these again into genera, or families, as the Icelandic, German, Swedish,
Danish, English; and these last into species, or dialects, as English,
Scotch, Irish, we then ascribe other meanings to the terms, 'same' and
'different.' In some one of these senses, Barton, and Adair, and Foster,
and Brerewood, and Moreton, may be right, every one according to his
own definition of what constitutes 'identity.' Romans, indeed, takes a
higher stand, and supposes a separate creation. On the same unscriptural
ground, he had but to mount one step higher, to suppose no creation at
all, but that all things have existed without beginning in time, as
they now exist, and may for ever exist, producing and reproducing in a
circle, without end. This would very summarily dispose of Mr. Moreton's
learning, and show that the question of Indian origin, li