all; for if there were a number of separate originals, that continent as well as others might have had its own.

On considering those great masses of mankind, among whom reigns an uniform aspect, with the broad distinctions which separate them from other portions, various learned inquirers* have concluded, that there must be distinct original races of men, as there apparently are of dogs and other animals. They observe, that the negro, and other races, whose peculiarities have been supposed to be most decidedly the effect of climate, when transported to a different sky, continue for generations to preserve all their characters unaltered, and to transmit them to their posterity. But men transported from the temperate to the tropical climates, though they acquire a darker tint, do not communicate it to their children. Although colour be the circumstance supposed most especially to depend on climate, yet the tints of the different nations can by no means be exactly measured by their distance from the equator. There are nations of a light colour between the tropics, and others in the vicinity of the polar regions that are extremely dark.

The whole of this work would be no more than enough to enter into a full discussion of this difficult and extended subject. Our limits can allow us only to take a very rapid sketch. Without referring to any historical documents, however venerable, we may find, in the mere examination of existing phenomena, strong presumptions that all men belong to one common race, and may observe various particulars which have been overlooked by those who argued on the opposite side.

There are no differences in the form and component parts of the human body similar to those which zoologists are accustomed to employ as distinctive characters. All races of men are of the same size; the very slight existing departures from this rule being easily solved by the abundance or scarcity of food, and by other causes favourable or otherwise to the development of the human growth. There is no difference in the number or form of the extremities, which, being the circumstance least acted upon by situation and habitude, is usually considered as the surest test of a distinct species. All men have the same number of fingers, of toes, of teeth; while very slight distinctions of this species mark, I believe, otherwise similar species of various animals.

Colour is, of all other particulars, the most remarkable in which one race of men differ from another. Now the action of the sun, in darkening the human tint, is too obvious to be denied or unnoticed. The European, transported under the burning influence of a tropical sky, has its effects soon marked upon his complexion in the most distinct manner. Let us observe the gradations of colour upon the meridian under which we live. Under the equator we have the deep black of the negro; then the copper or olive of the Moors of Northern Africa; then the Spaniard and Italian, swarthy compared to any other Europeans; the French still darker than the English; while the fair and florid complexion of England and Germany passes, more northerly, into the bleached Scandinavian white. At last, indeed, the gradation is broken; for a dusky tint reigns along the whole circuit of the arctic border. This colour does not seem very well explained; but its universal prevalence under that latitude seems very clearly to indicate, that there is something in the climate with which it is connected. During their short but brilliant summer, the sun, perpetually above the horizon, shines with an intensity unknown in temperate climates. May not the natives, who spend this season almost perpetually in the open air, hunting or fishing, receive from it that dark tint which is not easily effaced? But I cannot withstand the suspicion, that this deep tint is neither more nor less than a smoke-brown. The tenants of all this bleak circuit necessarily spend half the year in almost subterraneous abodes, heated by fires as ample as they have fuel to maintain, the smoke of which, deprived of any legitimate vent, constantly fills their apartments, and must have an effect in darkening the complexion, to which it very closely adheres.

When observations are made on the difference of colour in nations placed under the same latitude, due allowance is not always made for the other causes by which the temperature is modified. Many of these are of the most powerful nature, and sufficient entirely to counteract the influence of a southern position. Among those which tend to diminish the heat are elevation, the proximity of the sea, vast woods and marshes covering the surface of a country. The intensity of the heat, on the other hand, is remarkably increased by the existence or vicinity of arid and sandy deserts.

To understand farther the varieties in the action of heat, we must consider, that the sun does not paint the human skin by an external and mechanical process, as the limner lays his colours on the canvass. It acts by altering the character of the juices, and causing the secretion of a coloured fluid, which effuses itself into a cellular membrane immediately under the cuticle. Blumenbach seems to have ascertained, that the negro colour is produced by the secretion of the carbon which abounds in the human frame. It is thus easily conceivable, that heat itself, by a different action, arising out of some constitutional peculiarity, may produce the dead white of the Albino. Thus disease, especially of the biliary system, tinges the skin of a very deep colour. This change seems in general to form a salutary provision, affording a fence against the scorching heat, and even against the various vicissitudes of the weather. The complexion of the negro enables him to present a more iron front than any other race against every inclement action of the elements. It seems too much, however, to think with Mr Jarrold,* that he becomes the most perfect specimen of the species, in consequence of possessing this coarse impassive tegument. As well might the hide of the buffalo, or the quills of the porcupine, be considered as ranking those animals above man, because they defend against many evils to which his delicate skin exposes him. Humboldt observes, that the dark races are almost entirely free from those deformities to which the whites are liable.* But the greater delicacy and sensibility on which this liability depends must be considered, on the whole, as a perfection in the human structure. The Caucasian or European variety, formed under the influence of a temperate climate, not only possesses a manifestly superior beauty, but appears the best fitted for performing all the higher functions of life.

There are other characteristics different from colour, which yet, being usually combined with it, are urged in support of the opinion that they belong all to a race differing throughout from the rest of mankind; but, if the colour of the skin be the result of a constitutional affection, the same affection may modify other parts of the human frame. The hair is very particularly climatic; and the manner in which, even in the same country, it varies with the complexion, shows how much it is ruled by the same causes. It is a matter of long observation, how, in proportion to the coldness of the climate, the covering of every animal becomes richer and softer; hence, probably, the scanty and rude hairs of the nations under the equator, as compared with the full covering of the European head. The action of mind, and the habits of life, have doubtless an action upon the frame, imperfectly estimated, on account of the extreme slowness of its operation. The unintellectual visage of the negro has been supposed, along with his colour, to form different parts of that general structure, which constitutes him a different being from