Types of mankind, or, Ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history / illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson ; by J.C. Nott and Geo. R. Gliddon.

  • Nott, Josiah C. (Josiah Clark), 1804-1873.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Types of mankind, or, Ethnological researches, based upon the ancient monuments, paintings, sculptures, and crania of races, and upon their natural, geographical, philological and Biblical history / illustrated by selections from the inedited papers of Samuel George Morton and by additional contributions from L. Agassiz, W. Usher, and H.S. Patterson ; by J.C. Nott and Geo. R. Gliddon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    746/800 (page 690)
    “But if any man hate his neighbor. &c. . . . then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother.” (494) At an epoch approximate, this idea became simpli- fied into a maxim: “Better is a neighbor that is near, than a brother far off:” (495) and it is still more concisely expressed in Leviticus: “ Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” (496) During the same fifth century B. c., the simultaneousness of moral as well as of other developments among Types of Mankind radically distinct, and remote from each other’s influences, encounters a parallelism in the beautiful dictum of a Grecian Isocrates — “Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you.” About three generations earlier there flourished in Persia the philosopher Zoroaster; some of whose elevated doctrines have reached our day, although through turgid Grecian, Jewish, and Persic streams. “ Gate the 71st” of his Sadder contains the following: — “ Offer up thy grateful prayers to the Lord, the most just and pureOKMUZD, the supreme and adorable God, who thus declared to his prophet Zardusht (Zoroaster): ‘ Hold it not meet to do unto others what thou wouldst not have done to thyself: do that unto the people which, when done to thyself, proves not disagreeable to thyself.’ ” (497) Five hundred years afterwards, the writer of Matthew (498) reported — “Ye have heard that it was said : Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, love your enemies.” The writer of Zwfte(499) considerably extends the idea in language and contextual circumstances — “And he answering said: ‘ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God [Hebraice, IellOuall ELoIIeK] with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyselfthus combining, into one dis- course, two citations from the Old Testament(500) slightly varied; owing probably to the evangelists’ habit of following the Greek LXX in lieu of the Hebrew Text. But, among the more exalted of the Hebrew nation, in the schools of Babylon and Jeru- salem, such pure ethics had been taught long previously. Thus (as our learned friend, Dr. J. J. Cohen of Baltimore, opportunely reminds us while writing):— “ Let us recall the celebrated reply made by the Pharisee Ilillel to a pagan who came declaring to him that he was ready to embi’ace Judaism, if the Doctor could make known to him in a few words the resume of all the law of Moses: — ‘ That which thou likest not [done] to thyself,’ said Hillel, ‘do it not unto thy neighbor ; therein is all the law, the rest is nothing but the commentary upon it.’ ” (501) These comparisons made, we can revert with more pleasure to China and to Confucius. “ The lessons of Khoung-tseu were often less indirect. His moral [doctrine] is summed up in the following lines : ‘ Nothing more natural, nothing more simple, than the principles of that morality which I endeavor to inculcate in you through salutary maxims. . . . 1st.— It is humanity; which is to say, that universal charity amongst all of our species, without distinction.’ ” Father Amiot, the great Sinicized Jesuit, commenting upon this passage, observed — “Because it is humanity, and that humanity is nothing else than man himself.” Which Pauthier explains:— “In Chinese, JIN TCIIE: JIN YE: word for word; humanitas quae, homo quidem. . . . To render comprehensible how much humanity, or benevolence, universal charity, was recommended by Khoung-tseu, it suffices to say that the word which expresses it is repeated above a hundred times in one of his works, the Lun-yu. And it is pretended, with as much levity as ignorance, that this grand principle of universal charity for mankind had only been revealed to the world five hundred years after the Chinese philosopher, in a little corner of Asia! Quellepitii! ” (502) We have deemed it expedient to preface an inquiry into the archmological bases of (494) Deuteronomy, xix. 11, 19. (495) Proverbs, xxvii. 10. (490) Leviticus, xix. 18. (497) Dabistan, i. 338: and see the same quotation in Hyde, Dc Relig. Vet. Pcrsarum, p. 471. (498) Good Tidings, v. 43. Sharpe’s iV. T., p. 9. (499) Good Tidings, x. 27, 27 — Ibid., p. 132. (500) Deuteronomy, vi. 5, -with Leviticus, xix. 18. (501) Munk: Palestine; p. 505; from Babylonian Talmud (Shabbath, ch. 2). Ibid.; Reflexions in Appendix to Cahen’s Bible; 1833; iv. p. 20. (602) Chine; pp. 146, 147, and note.