2 28 ]'ES77GES OF THE 



Caucasian fVi'tus at the stage \vliich the African repre- 

 sents is anything like ])h\ck ; neither is a Caucasian child 

 yellow, like the Mongolian. There may, nevertheless, 

 be a character of skin at a certain stage of development 

 which is predisposed to a particular colour when it is 

 presented as the envelope of a mature being. Develop- 

 ment being arrested at so immature a stage in the case 

 of the Negro, the skin may take on the colour as an un- 

 avoidable consequence of its imperfect organisation. It 

 is favourable to this view, that Negro infants ai'e not 

 deeply black at first, but only acquire the full colour tint 

 after exposure for some time to the atmosphere ; also 

 that the parts of the body concealed by clothing are never 

 of so deep a hue as the face and hands. Perhaps the 

 phenomenon is identical in character with the photo- 

 graphic process ; a result of the action of light, not (as has 

 been so long blunderingly supposed) of heat. If this view 

 be admitted, there can be no difficulty in accounting for 

 all the varieties of mankind. They are simply the result 

 of so many advances and retrogressions in the developing 

 power of the human mothers, these advances and retro- 

 gressions being, as we have formerly seen, the immediate 

 effect of external conditions in nutrition, hardship, itc.,* 

 and also, perhaps, to some extent, of the suitableness and 

 unsuitableness of marriages, for it \^ found that parents 

 too nearly related tend to produce oftspring of the Mon- 



* Of this wc have peihaps an ilhistration in the peculiarities wliich 

 distinguish the Arabs residing in the valley of the .Ionian. They 

 have flatter features, darker skins, and coarser hair than other tribes 

 of their nation ; and we have seen one instance of a thorough Negro 

 family being'ljorn to an ordinary couple. It may be presumed that 

 the conditions of the life of these people tend to arrest development. 

 AVe thus see how an ollshoot of the human family migrating at an 

 early period into Africa, might in time, from subjection to similar 

 influences, become Negroes. 



