CATTLE AND SHEEP. 31 



circumstances of climate, soil, food, security, and demands 

 for exertion, both mental and bodily. These external cir- 

 cumstances produced modifications both in the form and 

 capacities of their bodies, and in the qualities and capacity 

 of their minds. When successive generations had been so 

 long subjected to the same influences that these modifica- 

 tions had become so far engrafted and permanent, that they 

 were found in all the individuals who remained under the 

 influences, and would endure for long periods even in those 

 who were removed from them, a distinct race of men had 

 been called into existence. Two familiar illustrations of 

 this permanence will occur to every one : the Jew, though 

 by ethnologists he would only be considered as one subdi- 

 vision of an important race, is said to have maintained his 

 national physiognomy in all the various circumstances in 

 which the Dispersion has placed him : and we know that 

 the Negro, when not contaminated by white blood, retains 

 his woolly hair, his thick lips, his long heel, and his men- 

 tal incapacities, though he has been transplanted for gene- 

 rations from the banks of the Tchadda to those of the 

 Mississippi. To any investigation into races of animals 

 the aid of language is wanting altogether : history also is 

 more silent, and tradition more obscure, than in the case 

 of man. Still considerable materials remain to those who 

 may be inclined to pursue an interesting inquiry, for which 

 we have neither leisure nor knowledge. Even zoologists, 

 who seldom pretend to have much respect for the Mosaic 

 records, seem, on the whole, inclined to an orthodox con- 

 clusion to wit, that animals came as individual pairs from 

 the hands of the Creator. This opinion is favoured, it 

 must be owned, by operations of nature of which unphilo- 

 sophical people are daily witnesses. Nature permits the 

 connexion of many animals and birds, which have consi- 

 derable apparent similarity, to be productive of offspring, 

 but refuses to carry fertility further. The horse breeds 

 with the ass, the dog with the fox, the pheasant with the 

 domestic fowl, the goldfinch with the canary ; but all the 



