452 CAUSES OF THE VARIETIES 



over savage society, In its attempt to counteract the influ- 

 ence of climate, and to beautify the human form *. What 

 false notions must mankind have hitherto entertained on 

 this subject ! We can no longer believe travellers, who 

 tell us that the finest forms and the greatest activity are 

 to be seen in savage tribes, and that no ill-formed indi- 

 viduals can be met with amongst them, and as little can 

 we trust the testimony of our own senses, concerning the 

 frequency of deformity and disease in civilized society ; 

 since there are so many reasons why the former should be 

 deformed, black, and ugly, and the latter well-proportioned, 

 fair, and handsome. Unluckily, however, this theory does 

 not correspond with a few plain facts. Most of the modern 

 European nations existed in a more or less complete state of 

 barbarism within times of which we have the most authentic 

 records : some of these were seen and described by philoso- 

 phers ; yet the permanence of their characters is so remark- 

 able after a greater progressive civilization than has hap- 

 pened in any other instance, that those descriptions are ap- 

 plicable, with the greatest exactness, to the same races of 

 the present day. Instead, therefore, of accounting for the 

 dark colour, peculiar features, and stature of the Green- 

 lander, Laplander, and Samoiede, from their smoke, their 

 dirt, their food, or the coldness of the climate, we can 

 have no hesitation in ascribing them to the same cause that 

 makes the Briton and the German of this day resen?ble the 

 portraits of their ancestors, drawn by Ceesar and Tacitus, 

 viz. their descent from a race marked by the same charac- 

 ters as distinguish themselves. These tribes owe their ori- 

 gin to the Mongols, and retain in the north those marks of 

 their descent, which we find as strongly expressed in the 

 Chinese, under the widely-different latitudes of the south. 

 At the same time, the parent tribes live in the middle of 

 Asia, equally removed from the former and the latter. 



" With slight exceptions," says Dr. Prichard, " the 

 different countries of Europe are now occupied by the same 

 nations that have occupied tiiem since the date of our ear- 



» Smith's Essay, p. 53. 



