1686 THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE 



that the white European, if transported into the heart 

 of Africa, or carried to the coast of Guinea, transmits 

 to his descendants the brown color which the skin of 

 the Negro possesses, and that in their turn the off- 

 spring of Negroes, who have been brought into north- 

 ern countries, become as they descend paler and paler 

 and end by being white. But the color of the skin is 

 not the only characteristic of a race; the Negro 

 differs from the white, less by the color of his skin 

 than by the structure of the face and cranium, as also 

 by the proportion of his members to one another. Is 

 it not, moreover, a fact that the hottest countries are 

 inhabited by people with white skins? Such, for in- 

 stance, are the Touaricks of the African Sahar?, and 

 the Fellahs of Egypt. On the other hand, men with 

 black faces are found in countries enjoying a mean 

 temperature, as, for instance, the inhabitants of Cali- 

 fornia on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. 



We have now another question to consider. Should 

 these white, yellow, or black men, to whom we must 

 add those who are brown and red, all of whom differ 

 one from another in the color of their skin, in height, 

 in their physiognomy, and in their outward appear- 

 ance, be grouped into different species, or are we to 

 regard them merely as varieties of species that is 

 to say, races? 



Buffon, in his chapter upon man, a work which we 

 can always read again with admiration and advan- 

 tage, contents himself with bringing forward the 

 three fundamental types of the human species which 

 have been known from the first under the names of 

 the white, black, and yellow race. But these three 



