272 THE HUMAN SKIN. 



or Mongolian j the red, copper-colored, or American ; the brown or 

 Malaic; and the black or Ethiopian. In each of these classes the 

 general varieties are again repeated. Thus the European skin em- 

 braces the swarthy Italian and the fair Swede ; and the English 

 ranges in a lesser compass through the same shades from the blonde 

 to the brunette. What is the cause of the great difference in the 

 color of our skins ? One cause is, that variety is the child of nature, 

 and coextensive with existence. But why should the variety run 

 from white to black, rather than play through the infinitude of white- 

 ness with all coloration and enrichment ? What produces hues re- 

 pulsive between races of brothers, and why does nature char and 

 begrime her offspring ? Is it merely that the sun " will keep baking, 

 broiling on V Not altogether; for in that case the inhabitants of 

 equal levels in the tropics, would be as uniform belts of colored 

 tribes around the globe j which is not the fact. The reason is more 

 complex. The true whiteness of the skin would signify the equili- 

 brium between the light and heat of the man, and the light and heat 

 of the sun, which were they balanced, the face would be a transpa- 

 rent panoply, reflecting both the spirit and the world, and self-de- 

 fended against the invasive subtlety of the solar rays. If the light 

 of life were there, the skin would bleach into more resistless white- 

 ness in the burning noon-day, light living upon light, and energy 

 upon energy; the brave life would stand with gleaming shields upon 

 the extremest ramparts of the cuticle. At present, however, in 

 the black man's skin, his darkness eats up the light, in order to 

 effect the balance. The sable rete of the Ethiopian is an organism 

 that by its relation to light and heat, absorbs the fierceness of the 

 sun without making claim upon the nervous energy; and does by 

 a fixed or unsightly circumstance what life would effect by its own 

 witty heroism. His poor body cannot help being burnt, and kindly 

 nature has strewn it with coal fields for the purpose. No wonder 

 that his color is a felt degradation, for it is the police of weak-eyed 

 and waxen virtues, that would melt under the fierceness of his skies. 

 With respect to the other skins, red, yellow, brown and pied, all 

 rising to their own blackness, they are to be regarded as separate or- 

 ganizations, or as so many intelligent resources for maintaing rea- 

 sonable terms between the tyrannical strength of nature and the 



