OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 443 



cept in the indirect manner just alluded to. We should, 

 therefore, openly violate the rules of philosophizing, which 

 direct us to assign the same causes for natural effects of the 

 same kind, and not to admit more causes than are sufficient 

 for explaining the phenomena, if we recurred, for the pur- 

 pose of explaining the varieties of man, to the perfectly gra- 

 tuitous assumption of originally different species, or called 

 to our aid the operation of climate, and other external in- 

 fluences. 



Yet, if it be allowed that all men are of the same spe- 

 cies, it does not follow that they all descended from the same 

 family. We have no data for determining this point: it could 

 indeed only be settled by a knowledge of facts, which have 

 been long ago involved in the impenetrable darkness of 

 antiquity. 



By the most intelligent and learned writers on the varie- 

 ties of mankind, their production has been explained in a 

 different manner from that which has been just attempted ; 

 they have solved the problem entirely by the operation of 

 adventitious causes, such as climate, particularly the light 

 and heat of the sun, food, and mode of life. These, It is 

 said, acting on men originally alike, produce various bodily 

 diversities, and affect the colour of the skin especially; such 

 alterations, transmitted to the offspring, and gradually In- 

 creased through a long course of ages, are supposed to 

 account sufficiently for all the differences observed at present 

 in the inhabitants of the different regions of the globe. If 

 we were disposed to submit, in this question, to authority, 

 the number and celebrity of the philosophers * who have 

 contended for the influence of climate, and otlier physical 

 and moral causes, would certainly compel our assent to their 

 opinions. Our respect for their talents and labours will be 



* Among them are Buffon, Blumenbach, Smith (Essay on the Causes of 

 the Variety of Complexion and Figure in the human Species, Philadelphia), 

 ZiM-MERMAXN {Geographische Geschichte des Menschen, S)C.) ; and Forster 

 (Observations made during a Voyage round the TVorld ; chap. vi. sec. 3)^ 

 The arguments of these writers are very ably combated by Dr. Pricharu in 

 his Researches into the physical History of Man. 



