NATURAL HISTORY. 127 



well as in several savage nations. For every nation 

 in which there is no government, no law, no master, 

 no habitual society, ought rather to be termed a tu- 

 multuous assemblage of men, barbarous and indepen- 

 dent. Men who obey nothing but their own private 

 passions, and who incapable of having a common in- 

 terest, are also incapable of pursuing one object, and 

 of submitting to fixed and settled usages. 



If, however, in the whole of North America there 

 were none but savages to be met with, in Mexico and 

 in Peru there were found nations, polished, subjected 

 to laws, governed by kings, industrious, acquainted 

 with the arts, and not destitute of religion. 



In the present state of these countries, so intermix- 

 ed are the inhabitants of Mexico and New Spain, 

 that we hardly meet with two visages of the same 

 colour. In the town of Mexico, there are white men 

 from Europe, Indians from the north and from the 

 south of America, and negroes from Africa, &c. inso- 

 much, that the colour of the people exhibits every 

 different shade which can subsist between black and 

 white. The real natives of the country arc very 

 brown, and of an olive colour, well made, and active ; 

 and though they have little hair, even upon the eye- 

 brows, yet upon their head, their hair is very long, 

 and very black. 



In surveying the different appearances which the 

 human form assumes in the different regions of the 

 earth, the most striking circumstance is that of colour. 

 This circumstance has bee nattributed to various 

 causes ; but in my opinion experience warrants us to 

 affirm that the heat of the climate is the principal one. 

 When this heat is excessive, as at Senegal and in 

 Guinea, the inhabitants are entirely black. When it re 



