230 



EAELY HISTOKY OF MANKIND. 



THE human race is known to consist of numerous nations, dis- 

 playing considerable differences of external form and colour, 

 and speaking, in general, different languages. This has been 

 the case since the commencement of written record. It is 

 ascertained that the external peculiarities of particular nations 

 do not change rapidly. While a people remain upon one 

 geographical era, and under the influence of one set of condi- 

 tions, they always exhibit a tendency to persistency of type, 

 insomuch that a subordinate admixture , of various type is 

 usually obliterated in a few generations. The investigations 

 of Dr. Pilchard have nevertheless made it toleraoiy clear 1 that 

 external peculiarities are of a more superficial and accidental 

 nature than was at one time supposed. One fact is at the 

 very first extremely startling, that there are nations, such as 

 the inhabitants of Hindostan, apparently one in descent, which 

 nevertheless contain groups of people of almost all shades of 

 colour, and likewise discrepant in other of those important 

 features on which much stress has been laid. Some other 

 facts, which may be stated in brief terms, are scarcely less 

 remarkable. In Africa there are negro nations, that is, 

 nations of intensely black complexion, as the Jolofs, Manclin- 

 goes, and Kafirs, whose features and limbs are as elegant as 

 those of the best European nations. While we have no proof 

 of Negro races becoming white in the course of generations, 

 the converse may be held as established, for there are Arab 

 and Jewish families of ancient settlement in Northern Africa, 

 who have become as black as the other inhabitants. There 

 are also facts which seem to show the possibility of a natural 

 transition by generation from the black to the white com- 

 plexion, and from the white to the black. True whites (apart 



1 See Prichard's Kesearches into the Physical History of Man ; also 

 his smaller work, the Natural History of Man. 



