2o8 VESTIGES OF THE 



necessary to suppose separate origins. Of late years, 

 however, the whole of this question has been subjected 

 to a rigorous investigation, and it has been successfully 

 shown that the human race might have had one origin, 

 for anything that can be inferred from external pecu- 

 liarities. 



It appears from this inquiry,"^ that colour and other 

 physiological characters are of a more superficial and acci- 

 dental nature than was at one time supposed. One fact is 

 at the very first extremely startling, that there are nations, 

 such as the inhabitants of Hindostan, known to be one in 

 descent, which nevertheless contain groups of people of 

 almost all shades of colour, and likewise discrepant in 

 other of those important features on which much stress 

 has been laid. Some other facts, which I may state in 

 brief terms, are scarcely less remarkable. In Africa, 

 there are Negro nations — that is, nations of intensely 

 black complexion, as the Jolofs, Mandingoes, and Kafirs, 

 whose features and limbs are as elegant as those of the 

 best European nations. While we have no proof of Negro 

 races becoming white in the course of generations, the 

 converse may be held as established, for there are Arab 

 and Jewish families of ancient settlement in Northern 

 Africa, who have become as black as the other inhabi- 

 tants. There are also facts which seem to show the 

 possibility of a natural transition by generation from the 

 black to the white complexion, and from the white to the 

 black. True whites (apart from Albinoes) are not un- 

 frequently born among the Negroes, and the tendency to 

 this singularity is transmitted in families. There is, at 

 least, one authentic instance of a set of perfectly black 

 children being born to an Arab couple, in whose ancestry 

 no such blood had intermingled. This occurred in the 



* See Dr. Prichnrd's " Kesearclies intotlio Pliysicil Ilistorv of Man." 



