ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MAN. 103 



whole circle of human knowledge, and a combination of the 

 most opposite pursuits and talents. This labour, much too 

 extensive to be properly executed by any individual, is divi- 

 ded into several subordinate branches. The anatomist and 

 physiologist unfold the construction and uses of the corpo- 

 real mechanism ; the surgeon and physician describe its dis- 

 eases ; while the metaphysician and moralist employ them- 

 selves with those functions which constitute the mind, and 

 with the moral sentiments. Man in society, his progress 

 in the various countries and ages of the world, his multipli- 

 cation and extension, are the province of the historian and 

 political economist. 



I design, on the present occasion, to consider man as an 

 object of zoology — to describe him as a subject of the ani- 

 mal kingdom. I shall therefore first enumerate, and con- 

 sider, the distinctions between him and animals ; and shall 

 then describe, and attempt to account for, the principal dif- 

 ferences between the various races of mankind. 



Although the questions, which come before us in such a 

 review of the subject as I now speak of, are of very high in- 

 terest and importance — and although the principles derived 

 from these investigations throw a strong light on many dark 

 points in metaphysics and morals, in legislation, history, 

 antiquities, and the fine arts — we shall find that they have 

 not been investigated with a corresponding degree of atten- 

 tion and perseverance. 



What climates, what degrees of heat and cold, can man 

 bear ? How is he able to endure all the diversified external 

 influences of such various abodes ? Is he indebted for this 

 privilege to the strength and flexibility of his organization, 

 or to his mental functions, his reason, and the arts which 

 he has thence derived ? Is he a species broadly and clearly 

 distinguished from all others ; or is he specifically allied to 

 the orang-utang and other monkeys ? What are his corpo- 

 real, what his mental distinctions ? Are the latter different 

 in kind, or only superior In degree to those of the higher 

 animals ? Is there one species of men only, or are there 



