OF iHK HUMAN SJ'KCIKS. 445 



ably, are ugly and ill-made. Even in France, the country 

 people are not so beautiful as those who live in towns : and 

 I have often remarked, that in those villages, where the 

 people are richer and better fed than in others, the men are 

 likewise more handsome, and have better countenances. 

 The air and the soil b.ave great influence on the figures of 

 men, beasts, and plants. 



" Upon the whole, every circumstance concurs in proving 

 that mankind are not composed of species essentially differ- 

 ent from each other; that, on the contrary, there was origin- 

 ally but one species, which, after multiplying and spreading 

 over the whole surface of the earth, has undergone various 

 changes by the influence of climate, food, mode of living, 

 epidemic diseases, and mixture of dissimilar individuals ; 

 that, at first, these changes were not so conspicuous, and 

 produced only individual varieties ; that these varieties be- 

 came afterwards more specific, because they were rendered 

 more general, more strongly marked, and more permanent^ 

 by the continual action of the same causes ; that they are 

 transmitted from generation to generation, as deformities or 

 diseases pass from parents to children ; and that, lastly, as 

 they were originally produced by a train of external and 

 accidental causes, and have only been perpetuated by time, 

 and the constant operation of these causes, it is probable 

 that they will gradually disappear, or, at least, that they will 

 differ from what they are at present, if the causes which pro- 

 duced them should cease, or if their operation should be 

 varied by other circumstances and combinations *." 



" In tracing the globe," says Smith, " from the pole to 

 the equator, we observe a gradation in the complexion, nearly 

 in proportion to the latitude of the country. Immediately 

 below the arctic circle, a high and sanguine colour prevails : 

 from this you descend to the mixture of red and white : af- 

 terwards succeed the brown, the olive, the tawny, and at 

 length the black, as you proceed to the line. The same dis- 

 tance from the sun, however, does not, in every region, in- 



♦ Natural History, by Wood, vol. iii. pp. 443, 446. 



