174 SUPPLEMENTAL HISTOKY OF MAN. 



a colonel in the Russian artillery, and of Lislet, of the 

 island of Mauritius, prove the capacity of the Ne- 

 groes for the mathematical and physical sciences. 

 Amo, an African, in 1734, took the degree of Doctor 

 at the University of Wittenberg. Capitein, another 

 Negro, studied theology at Leyden, and published 

 several sermons and poems. The instances of Ig- 

 natius Sancho and Gustavius Vasa, in this country, 

 are well known, But still, these exceptions prove 

 nothing against the general inferiority, which, with- 

 out entering into more controversy, may be safely 

 rested on the continuance of the Ethiopian races, 

 for more than twenty centuries, in a state little short 

 of the most absolute barbarism. 



Of the Causes of the Varieties of the human Species. 



This question we shall dismiss very speedily; 

 first, because nothing perfectly satisfactory has yet 

 been adduced on the subject — and secondly, be- 

 cause the limits to which a supplement, like this, 

 should be confined, necessarily restrict our investi- 

 gations. The difference of colour has usually been 

 attributed to the influence of climate, and that by such 

 high authorities as Pliny, Buffon, Smith, and Blu- 

 menbach. But climate is insufficient to account for 

 this difference. Its effects are found to be limited 

 to the individual, and not to extend to the offspring, 

 as the fact of children being born in hot climates 

 perfectly fair, and not partaking of the effects of the 

 climate on their European parents, and whole races 



