VARIETIES OF MANKIND. 459 



The history of mankind supports the same inference as consi- 

 derations a priori and analogical and direct facts. All the na- 



same time with a monstrous production, and monstrous productions occa- 

 sionally alternate with well formed beings. 



No one in the present day would ascribe monstrosity to any thing else than 

 an error in the original materials of the embryo, — to a mixture of the whole or 

 a part of the materials of two or more embryos, to a deficiency in the materials, 

 or to a derangement of them. (587. 3. 588. 591.) 



Culture we find produces alterations in animated beings. If it proceeds no 

 farther than to afford a supply to all the natural wants of a system, it improves 

 the species, as is exemplified daily in vegetables. " It may certainly be laid 

 down, says Mr. Hunter, (1. c. p. 245 note) as one of the principles or laws of 

 nature, to deviate under certain circumstances. It may also be observed, that 

 it is neither necessary nor does it follow, that all deviations must be a falling 

 off : it appears just the contrary, therefore we may suppose that nature is im- 

 proving its works, or, at least, has established the principle of improvement in 

 the body as well as in the mind." If, however, luxurious abundance is supplied 

 or important natural habits of the system prevented, as is not rarely the case in 

 domesticated brutes and civilised man, deviation may advance beyond im- 

 provement and actually become degeneration or monstrosity. Hence the com- 

 monly known fact (591) of monsters being frequent among domesticated 

 animals and rare among the wild. As man by his depravity commits errors 

 and excesses of every description, unnecessarily mingling ill effects with the 

 benefits of civilisation, no wonder that monsters are common among the human 

 species. The evils of civilisation arc not necessarily united with it, and, great 

 as they are, they fall infinitely short of its benefits. Without civilisation, popu- 

 lation must be wretchedly small, exigencies and comforts miserably supplied, 

 and none of the noble characteristics of the head and heart fully called forth : 

 in the uncivilised state, on which Mr. Lawrence is disposed to bestow such eulo- 

 gies in the Medico-Chirargical Transactions, this gentleman's superiority would 

 not have been conspicuous. In his lectures, however, he evinces a happy 

 change of sentiment, is repeatedly at considerable pains to display the blessings 

 and naturalness of civilisation, and quotes Peron's Voyage des Ddcouvertes 

 aux terrcs australes, in proof of even the superior physical power of civilised 

 men. Peron's experiments were introduced to medical men in the Edinburgh 

 Medical and Surgical Journal ten years ago. By means of Regnier's Dynamo- 

 meter he ascertained the bodily power of the complete savage of Van Diemen's 

 land to be inferior to that of the more cultivated New Hollander, of the latter to 

 that of the still more cultivated inhabitant of Timor, and of the last very consi- 

 derably to that of Europeans. The weakest Frenchman was equal in the hands 



