The Primitive Origination Of Mankind Considered Examined According To The Light Of Nature

"This text explores mankind's origins, as considered and examined in light of nature, with particular emphasis on the following parts and assertions: I. That according to the light of nature and natural reason, the visible world was not eternal, but had a beginning; II. That if there could be any imaginable doubt thereof, yet by the necessary evidence of natural light it does appear that mankind had a beginning, and that the successive generations of men were in their original form; III. That this truth is evident by demonstrative reason and arguments; IV. That there are moral evidences of the truth of this assertion, which are herein particularly expanded and examined; V. That those great philosophers that asserted this origination of mankind, both ancient and modern, that rendered it by hypothesis different from that of Moses, were mistaken--here the hypotheses of Aristotle, Plato, and others are examined, and the absurdity and impossibility of their theories are detected; VI. That the current author's theory explaining the creation of man and of the world, in general, abstractly considered without relation to the divine inspiration of the writer, is according to reason, and preferable to the sentiments of other philosophers; and VII. That the author has concluded the whole of this work with certain corollaries and deductions, necessarily flowing from the things thus asserted, as well touching the existence, the wisdom, power, and providence of Almighty God, as touching both the duty and happiness of mankind"--Foreword. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

People have always been xenophobic, but an explicit philosophical and scientific view of human racial difference only began to emerge during the modern period. Why and how did this happen? Surveying a range of philosophical and natural-scientific texts, dating from the Spanish Renaissance to the German Enlightenment, Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference charts the evolution of the modern concept of race and shows that natural philosophy, particularly efforts to taxonomize and to order nature, played a crucial role. Smith demonstrates how the denial of moral equality between Europeans and non-Europeans resulted from converging philosophical and scientific developments, including a declining belief in human nature's universality and the rise of biological classification. The racial typing of human beings grew from the need to understand humanity within an all-encompassing system of nature, alongside plants, minerals, primates, and other animals. While racial difference as seen through science did not arise in order to justify the enslavement of people, it became a rationalization and buttress for the practices of trans-Atlantic slavery. From the work of François Bernier to G. W. Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, and others, Smith delves into philosophy's part in the legacy and damages of modern racism. With a broad narrative stretching over two centuries, Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference takes a critical historical look at how the racial categories that we divide ourselves into came into being.