86 THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE. 



first of all, the evidence of this fact is simply negative ; the 

 old authors, who denied the existence of the stag in Corsica 

 and Africa, were perhaps simply ignorant of it. Then, this 

 introduction, if it did take place, was perhaps performed by 

 means of animals which had been kept in domesticity or cap- 

 tivity for many generations, and consequently, were easily 

 able to change their mode of life directly they recovered 

 their liberty, as we have already said. However this may be, 

 it is simply man himself whom it is necessary to examine, 

 without comparing him to any animal, and without misleading 

 ourselves with the connexion of climates, generally compared 

 too hastily, and with regard to mere equality of temperature. 



It is sufficient to run over, in Humboldtfs Cosmos, the lengthy 

 enumeration of circumstances which make up a climate, in order 

 to understand that all the comparisons which our minds may 

 make between any two regions of the world are, at least, rash. 

 The analogy of two climates is rather a sort of experimental 

 notion, which can only be reasonably deduced by the similarity 

 of the biological as well as the meteorological phenomena of 

 every kind in the two regions to be compared. And when 

 climates shall have been able to change a white man into a 

 black (a fact we energetically deny), must we also lay to the 

 charge of meteorological influence the clear moral aptitude and 

 profound differences of the various species of mankind ? Shall 

 we admit that a little more cold or heat will alter the intellect ? 

 and why not language ? 



But we are not the first to doubt all these marvels. Bacon* 

 and Albinf fairly doubted the effect of the sun on the colour 

 of the skin. Camper, who admitted that all varieties come 

 from external influences, acknowledged, and with good faith, 

 that the influences which we can appreciate are not sufficient 



* Compare Mitchell, An Essay upon the Causes of the Different Colours, etc. 

 (Philosophical Transactions, 1745.) 



f " Sole colorari homines non dubium, eosque autem ut nigrescant non 

 constat." Albums, De Sede et Causa Coloris JEthiopum, p. 12. He also says, 

 still speaking of Negroes, that they are coloured, " quod suum parentes co- 

 lorem in liberos propagaiit . . . . ; sethiops foemina si cum mare oethiope 

 rem habuerit, tethiopem, ni quid forte natura ludat, gignit ; alba si cum albo, 

 album." Ibidem, p. 10. It is in some manner the permanence of a declared 

 type. 



