PHYSIOGNOMY. 



lians, erect, noble, and formed for admi- 

 ration, particularly the females, whose 

 charms of face and person are proverbial. 



There are too many local and physical 

 causes for this difference in the external 

 appearance of the inhabitants of the differ- 

 ent parts of the world, for enumeration 

 and explanation in so confined a space as 

 that to which we are limited. Professor 

 Kant, of Konigsberg, in an essay on this 

 subject, divides the human race into four 

 principal classes, into which the interme- 

 diate gradations may readily be resolved : 

 those are the Whites, the Negroes, the 

 Huns, (Monguls or Calmucs), and the 

 Hindoos, or people of Hindostan. Cir- 

 cumstances purely external may be the 

 accidental, but cannot be the original 

 causes of what is assimilated or inherited ; 

 as well could chance produce a body 

 completely organised. " Man," says the 

 Professor, " was undoubtedly intended to 

 be the inhabitant of all climates and all 

 soils. Hence the seeds of many internal 

 propensities must be latent in him, which 

 shall remain inactive, or be put in motion 

 according to his situation on the earth : 

 so that in progressive generation, he shall 

 appear as if born for that particular soil 

 $n which he seems planted." 



In the opinion of this gentleman, the 

 air and the sun are the two causes which 

 most powerfully influence the operations 

 of propagation, and give a lasting deve- 

 lopment of germ and propensities, or in 

 other words, the above powers may be 

 the origin of a new race. 



Food may produce some slight varia- 

 tions; those, however, must soon disap- 

 pear after emigration, and it is evident, 

 that whatever affects the propagating 

 powers, does not act upon the support of 

 life ; but upon the original principle, the 

 very source of animal conformation and 

 motion. It has been observed that man 

 degenerates in stature and faculties the 

 nearer he is situated to the frigid zone ; 

 this seems a necessary consequence .of 

 that situation, for this obvious reason; 

 were men of the common stature in those 

 regions of extreme cold, the impelling 

 power of the heart must be increased, to 

 force the blood through the extremities, 

 which would otherwise chill and become 

 totally useless ; but as the Creator did 

 not think it useful to adopt this mode of 

 preserving the limbs, they have been 

 shortened, for the purpose of confining 

 the circulating fluid to the trunk, where 

 the natural heat accumulating, the whole 

 body has a greater proportion of that 

 comfortable sensation than strangers feel 

 when visiting those northern countries. 



The propensity to flatness observable 

 in the prominent parts of the countenance 

 of the persons under consideration, ex- 

 posed to the effects of cold, is accounted 

 for by that very circumstance ; and it ap- 

 pears probable, that their high cheek- 

 bones, and small imperfect eyes, are so 

 contrived, to preserve the latter from the 

 piercing effects of the wind, and the of- 

 fensive brilliancy of the almost eternal 

 snows. The Abbe Winkelnaan attributes 

 the enormous and disgusting lips of the 

 Negroes to the heat of the climate they 

 inhabit ; others account for the blackness 

 of their skin by supposing, " the surplus 

 or the ferruginous, or iron particles, which 

 have lately been discovered to exist in 

 the blood of man, and which, by the 

 evaporation of the phosphoric acidities, 

 of which all Negroes smell so strong, 

 being cast upon the retiform membrane, 

 occasions the blackness which appears 

 through the cuticle, and this strong re- 

 tention of the ferruginous particles seems 

 to be necessary, in order to prevent the 

 general relaxation of the parts." 



Professor Camper concludes, from long 

 and attentive observation, applied to the 

 skulls of the inhabitants of many different 

 nations, which he had dissected in nu- 

 merous cases soon after death, that it is 

 extremely difficult to draw any, head ac- 

 curately in profile, and to define the lines 

 of the countenance, and their angles with 

 the horizon ; but he thinks he has been 

 thus led to the discovery of the maxi- 

 mum and minimum of this angle. He 

 commenced his operations with the mon- 

 key, and proceeded with the Negro and 

 European ; and, finally, he examined the 

 profiles of the most valuable statues of 

 antiquity. With respect to the breadth 

 of the cheek-bones, he found that the 

 largest were amongst the Calmucs, and 

 considerably smaller amongst the Asiatic 

 Negroes. The Chinese, the natives of the 

 Molucca and other Asiatic Islands, ap- 

 peared to him to have broad cheeks and 

 projecting jaw bones, particularly the un- 

 der, which is very high and almost forms 

 a right angle : on the contrary, those of 

 Europeans are extremely obtuse, and of 

 Negroes even more so. Succeeding thus 

 far, the Professor acknowledges he was 

 foiled in his attempts to discriminate the 

 differences in the European nations ; nor 

 was he more successful with the Jews, 

 whose countenances are possessed of ma- 

 ny marked peculiarities ; and yet this gen- 

 tleman asserts, he never had been able tc 

 draw them with any tolerable accuracy ; 

 and, in this particular, the Italian face 

 was equally difficult. 



