82 THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE. 



the insufficiency of actually existing causes, in order to explain 

 the great differences observed at the present day between men. 

 Isidore Greoffroy Saint-Hilaire has agreed with his father upon 

 the great question of the influence of the surrounding medium ; 

 but death seized him before he could apply these theories to 

 mankind. However, the high position that his Histoire Natu- 

 relle Generale has taken in science obliges us to pause a 

 moment on the subject of his opinions, which have, besides, 

 easily triumphed over the ruins of Cuvier's school. And if 

 we do not agree with all the doctrines propounded by the 

 second Greoffroy, we are all the more satisfied, since, differing 

 from the son, we incline more to the theories of the father. 



Isidore Greoffroy believed in a decisive influence of the me- 

 dium, but only under certain conditions. He believed that 

 these influences are limited, as he nimself calls it, every time 

 that it relates to anything beyond the action of man, that is to 

 say, on savage or free animals. In this case, the action of the 

 medium, according to him, would be confined exclusively to 

 the producing of varieties in form and in the colour of the 

 skin,* a form we never see varied in the same class of men ; 

 the colour of the skin, which is sensibly the same among men, 

 among whom the fair type is itself exceptional, and spread 

 over a very small portion of the ancient north-west continent. 



In every case, Isidore Geoffroy acknowledged that these 

 variations are sometimes very inconsiderable ;f an d although 

 they have in no way approached those which separate human 

 races, w may be allowed to believe that the differences 

 observed among savage species were, in his eyes, much less 

 important. He has endeavoured, on the contrary, to compare 

 insignificant differences among free animals with varieties 

 much more marked, and much clearer than those shown by 

 domestic animals, and therefore, doubtless, he wished to make 

 a step towards the fundamental question of anthropology, 



* Histoire Naturelle Generale, vol. iii, p. 319, 1860. We do not here quote 

 the facts relative to the Barbary and Corsican stag (ibidem, p. 407), since 

 they rest only on the negative assertion of an old author. 



f "Partout de petits changements, nulle part de grands." Hist. Naturelle 

 Generale, vol. iii, p. 388. 



