(3F VARIEIIES IN FORM. ^89 



tinctive character so perfectly, that they are recognized at a 

 glance, and cannot be confounded with the natives. But, 

 above all, the Jews exhibit the most striking instance of a 

 peculiar national countenance, so strongly marked in almost 

 every individual, that persons the least used to physiogno- 

 mical observations detect it instantly, yet not easily under- 

 stood or described. Religion has, in this case, most success- 

 fully exerted its power in preventing communion with othei 

 races ; and this exclusion of intercourse with all others has 

 preserved the Jewish countenance so completely in every 

 soil and climate of the globe, that a miracle has been thought 

 necessary to account for the appearance. 



In what other way can we explain the difference between 

 the English and Scotch ? Would it be more reasonable to 

 suppose that they descended from different stocks; or to 

 ascribe the high cheek-bones of the latter to the soil or 

 climate? 



As, on the one hand, a particular form may be perpe- 

 tuated by confining the intercourse of the sexes to indivi- 

 duals in whom it exists, so, again, it may be changed by 

 introducing into the breed those remarkable for any other 

 quality. Connexions in marriage will generally be formed 

 on the idea of human beauty in any country ; an influence, 

 this, which will gradually approximate the countenance to- 

 wards one common standard. If men, in the affair of mar- 

 riage, were as much under management as some animals 

 are in the exercise of their generative functions, an absolute 

 ruler might accomplish, in his dominions, almost any idea 

 of the human form. 



The great and noble have generally had it more in their 

 power than others to select tlie beauty of nations in mar- 

 riage ; and thus, while, without system or design, they gra- 

 tified merely their own taste, they have distinguished their 

 order, as much by elegant proportions of person, and beau- 

 tiful features, as by its prerogatives in society. " The same 

 superiority, " says Cook, " which is observable in the erees 

 or nobles in all the other islands, is found here (Sandwich 

 Islands). Those, whom wc saw, were, without exception. 



