BOOK VII. I. 5-8 



their time worthily amon<j their own species : we 

 see them herd together and stand firm against other 

 kinds of animals — fierce Uons do not fight among 

 themselves, the serpent's bite attacks not serpents, 

 even the monsters of the sea and the fishes are only 

 cruel against diffcrent specics ; whereas to man, I 

 vow, most of his evils come from his fellow-man. 



I. And about the human race as a whole we have Man's raciai 

 in large part spoken in our account of the various l^iriduai 

 nations." Nor shall we now deal with manncrs ra^-ieties. 

 and customs, which are beyond counting and almost 

 as numerous as the groups of mankind ; yet there 

 are some that I think ought not to be omitted, and 

 especially those of the people Hving more remote 

 from the sea ; some things among which I doubt 

 not will appear portentous and incredible to many. 

 For who ever beheved in the Ethiopians before 

 actually seeing them ? or what is not deemed 

 miraculous when first it comes into knowledge ? 

 how many things are judged impossible before they 

 actually occur ? Indeed the power and majesty of the 

 nature of the universe at every turn lacks credence 

 if one's mind embraces parts of it only and not the 

 whole. Not to mention peacocks, or the spotted 

 skins of tigers and panthcrs and the colourings of so 

 many animals, a small matter to tell of but one of 

 measureless extent if pondered on is the number 

 of national languages and dialects and varieties of 

 speech, so numerous that a forcigner scarcely counts 

 as a human being for someone of another race ! 

 Again though our pliysiognomy contains ten features 

 or only a few more, to think that among all the 

 thousands of human beings there exist no two 

 countenances that are not distinct — a thing that no 



511 



