ANIMALS. 73 



If we compare the minute differences of man- 

 kind, there is scarcely one nation upon the earth 

 that entirely resembles another ; and there may 

 be said to be as many different kinds of men as 

 there are countries inhabited. One polished na- 

 tion does not differ more from another, than the 

 merest savages do from those savages that lie 

 even contiguous to them ; and it frequently hap- 

 pens that a river or a mountain divides two bar- 

 barous tribes, that are unlike each other in man- 

 ners, customs, features, and complexion. But 

 these differences, however perceivable, do not 

 form such distinctions as come within a general 

 picture of the varieties of mankind. Custom, 

 accident, or fashion, may produce considerable 

 alterations in neighbouring nations ; their being 

 derived from ancestors of a different climate or 

 complexion, may contribute to make accidental 

 distinctions, which every day grow less ; and it 

 may be said, that two neighbouring nations, how 

 unlike soever at first, will assimilate by degrees, 

 and by long continuance the difference between 

 them will at last become almost imperceptible. It 

 is not, therefore, between contiguous nations we 

 are to look for any strong marked varieties in the 

 human species ; it is by comparing the inhabi- 

 tants of opposite climates and distant countries ; 

 those who live within the polar circle with those 

 beneath the equator ; those that live on one side 

 of the globe with those that occupy the other. 



Of all animals the differences between mankind 

 are the smallest. Of the lower races of creatures, 

 the changes are so great as often entirely to dis- 



