Page 122 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

1
i
118 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONB.
1
9
as to trace out the source, or sources of Indian origin, it must
Y be by some proceus analagous to the one just alluded to.
Most persons who have attempted to solve the enigma of the
origin of the aboriginal tribes, have set out with some assumed
hypothesis, and then selected from known facts, such only as
i
might be tortured into the s~pport of their favorite theory,
while all other facts, bearing upon the question, are thrown
i
aside m inexplicable. This is as unphilosophical as for the
4
! naturalist, in his attempt to delineate the structure of a lost
i"
species, first to construct a skeleton from his own imagination,
i and then, by cutting and fitting, work in such of the natural
1 specimens as his ingenuity could make room for, and cast the
i rest aside as probably belonging to some other species. Instead
I of this, he studies the elementary principles cmtained in the
i few specimens he may have, and from these principles he pro-

_. ceeds to evolve, bone from its bone, till the whole structure is
completed. In like manner, in the investigation of this perplex-
I
ing subject, we must collect all the facts relating to it, and listen,
3
with docility to their conjoint testimony; in other words, we
-i
3
4 must collect all important known facts, and carefully inquire
Z what other and unknown facts must necessarily have heen con-
1 nected with them, and from these we may proceed to evolve still
1
'% other facts necessarily connected with them, and so on, till we
arrive at something like a consistent whole;-much as we study
1
d
r the planets-if we discover in one of them the presence of
i"
vapor and clouds, we know it must be supplied with water and
1 atmosphere; and knowing this, we know that, so far, it is
1
a capable of sustaining animal life; and so on, as far as the
r;
inductive principle will legitimately lead us.
In the tima allotted us on this occasion, we can take only a
rapid glance at the main facts relating to our subject; especially
i as it seems necessary, first to notice, briefly, some of the theo-
f
s ries which have captivated many minds, but which do not seem
to be borne out by a full and fair interpretation of all the facts.
Passing over the theories of an antediluvian origin, advocated
by some, we may notice that others have maintained that