,
or well-authenticated legends worked in, my object is not to give
portraits of individuals, however prominent. As was hinted above--the
logic of the book points only to the ideal of each class.

And this view of the subject excludes all those discussions, which have
so long puzzled philosophers, about the origin of the race--our business
is with the question _What is he?_ rather than with the inquiry, _Whence
did he come?_ The shortest argument, however--and, if the assumption be
admitted, the most conclusive--is that, which assumes the literal truth
of the Mosaic account of the creation of man; for from this it directly
follows, that the aboriginal races are descendants of Asiatic
emigrants; and the minor questions, as to the route they
followed--whether across the Pacific, or by Behring's strait--are merely
subjects of curious speculation, or still more curious research. And
this hypothesis is quite consistent with the evidence drawn from Indian
languages, customs, and physical developments. Even the arguments
against the theory, drawn from differences in these particulars among
the tribes, lose their force, when we come to consider that the same, if
not wider differences, are found among other races, indisputably of a
single stock. These things may be satisfactorily accounted for, by the
same circumstances in the one case, as in the other--by political and
local situation, by climate, and unequal progress. Thus, the Indian
languages, says Prescott, in his "Conquest of Mexico," "present the
strange anomaly of differing as widely in etymology, as they agree in
organization;" but a key to the solution of the problem, is found in the
latter part of the same sentence: "and, on the other hand," he
continues,[2] "while they bear some slight affinity to the languages of
the Old World, in the former particular, they have no resemblance to
them whatever, in the latter." This is as much as if he had said, that
the incidents to the lives of American Indians, are totally different to
those of the nations of the Old World: and these incidents are precisely
the circumstances, which are likely to affect organization, more than
etymology. And the difficulty growing out of their differences among
themselves, in the latter, is surmounted by the fact, that there is a
sufficient general resemblance among them all, to found a comparison
with "the languages of the Old World." I believe, a parallel course of
argument would clear away al