ANIMALS. 



183 



Cruelty. The wants which they often sustain, 

 make them surprisingly patient in adversity : 

 distress, by being grown familiar, becomes 

 less terrible ; so that their patience is less the 

 result of fortitude than of custom. They have 

 all a serious air, although they seldom think; 

 and, however cruel to their enemies, are kind 

 and just to each other. In short, the customs 

 of savage nations in every country are almost 

 the same; a wild, independent, and preca- 

 rious life, produces a peculiar train of virtues 

 and vices : and patience and hospitality, in- 

 dolence and rapacity, content and sincerity, 

 are found not less among the natives of 

 America, than all the barbarous nations of the 

 globe. 



The sixth and last variety of the human 

 species, is that of the Europeans, and the 

 nations bordering on them. In this class we 

 may reckon the Georgians, Circassians, and 

 Mingrelians, the inhabitants of Asia Minor, 

 and the northern parts of Africa, together 

 with a part of those countries which lie north- 

 west of the Caspian sea. The inhabitants of 

 these countries differ a good deal from each 

 other; but they generally agree in the colour 

 of their bodies, the beauty of their complex- 

 ions, the largeness of their limbs, and the 

 vigour of their understandings. Those arts 

 which might have had their invention among 

 the other races of mankind, have come to 

 perfection there. In barbarous countries the 

 inhabitants go either naked, or are awkwardly 

 clothed in furs or feathers; in countries semi- 

 barbarous, the robes are loose and flowing; 

 but here the clothing is less made for show 

 than expedition, and unites, as much as pos- 

 sible, the extremes of ornament and despatch. 



To one or other of these classes we may 

 refer the people of every country: and as each 

 nation has been less visited by strangers, or 

 has had less commerce with the rest of man- 

 kind, we find their persons and their manners 

 more strongly impressed with one or other of 

 the characters mentioned above. On the 

 contrary, in those places where trade has 

 long flourished, or where enemies have made 

 many incursions, the races are usually found 

 blended, and properly fall beneath no one 

 character. Thus, in the islands of the Indian 

 ocean, where a trade has been carried on for 

 time immemorial, the inhabitants appear to 



be a mixture of all the nations upon the earth; 

 white, olive, brown, and black men, are all 

 seen living together in the same city, and pro- 

 pagate a mixed breed, that can be referred to 

 none of the classes into which naturalists have 

 thought proper to divide mankind. 



Of all the colours by which mankind is 

 diversified, it is easy to perceive, that ours is 

 not only most beautiful to the eye, but the 

 most advantageous. The fair complexion 

 seems, if I may so express it, as a transparent 

 covering to the soul ; all the variations of the 

 passions, every expression of joy or sorrow, 

 flows to the cheek, and, without language, 

 marks the mind. In the slightest change of 

 health also the colour of the European face is 

 the most exact index, and often teaches us to 

 prevent those disorders that we do not as yet 

 perceive : not but that the African black, and 

 the Asiatic olive complexions, admit of their 

 alterations also ; but these are neither so 

 distinct, nor so visible, as with us; and in 

 some countries the colour of the visage is 

 never found to change; but the face continues 

 in the same settled shade in shame and in sick- 

 ness, in anger and despair. 



The colour, therefore, most natural toman, 

 ought to be that which is most becoming; and 

 it is found, that, in all regions, the children 

 are born fair, or at least red, and that they 

 grow more black, or tawny, as they advance 

 in age. It should seem, consequently, that 

 man is naturally white; since the same causes 

 that darken the complexion in infants, may 

 have originally operated, in slower degrees, 

 in blackening whole nations. We could, 

 therefore, readily account for the blackness 

 of different nations, did we not seethe Ameri- 

 cans, who live under the line, as well as the 

 natives of Negroland, of a red colour, and but 

 a very small shade darker than the natives of 

 the northern latitudes, in the same continent. 

 For this reason, some have sought for other 

 causes of blackness than the climate ; and 

 have endeavoured to prove that the blacks 

 are a race of people bred from one man, who 

 was marked with accidental blackness. This, 

 however, is but mere ungrounded conjecture : 

 and, although the Americans are not so dark 

 as the negroes, yet we must still continue in 

 the ancient opinion, that the deepness of the 

 colour proceeds from the excessive heat of 



