MAN. ' *S 



serratives of life, and may even protract its period for 

 many years : but no art or management can extend it 

 much beyond the ordinray limits of its duration, which 

 has continued the same ever since the days of David, 

 or perhaps longer ; and where we meet with instances 

 of extraordinary longevity, of which there arc several 

 persons having reached to an hundred, or an hundred 

 and twenty, and some few to an hundred and fifty years 

 and upwards ; these appear to have been the effects 

 of constitution rather than of any particular mode of 

 living. 



That all mankind, however scattered over the 

 $lobe,are originally descended from one parent stock, 

 the identical uniformity of human nature, and the 

 identity of its distinguishing characteristics in every 

 age and country, and among every race of men, 

 sufficiently demonstrate, even if sacred writ had not 

 sanctioned the hypothesis. The influence of climate, 

 civilization, particular modes of life, ari() a variety of 

 causes, some of which are obvious, and others more 

 concealed, have, however, produced many and stri- 

 king diversities in the exterior appearance of the hu- 

 man form. 



Although many varieties of stature, colour", and 

 Countenance, may be discovered among tribes and 

 nations, as well as among individuals, yet they arc 

 for the most part too trivial to constitute marked dis- 

 tinctions ; and Bnffon, whose example is in this par- 

 ticular followed by most of our naturalists, has divided 

 mankind into six great classes, sufficiently diverse, 

 yet without any such distinctions as can indicate a 

 different original. The diiterence observed in their 

 exterior appearance, or intellectual powers, is evi- 

 dently produced by the operation or physical and 

 moral causes. 



The polar regions exhibit the first distinct race of 

 mankind. The Laplanders, the Samoieds, the people 

 of Nova Zembla, the Kamtchadale?, the Gretnland- 

 ers, and Esquimaux, constitute a race of people 

 nearly resembling each other, and different from the 

 rest of mankind in stature an' complexion, as well as 

 in modes of life and intellectual acquirements. Li- 



