INTRODUCTION. 87 



every variety of climate, has very nearly the same shade of com- 

 plexion ; no other races have been produced there ; there are no 

 woolly heads, no Negro features. It is now about two hundred 

 years since Africans were introduced into this country, and the eighth 

 generation, where they have not been mind with the whites, are as 

 purely African as their imported ancestors ; even in .Massachusetts, 

 where they have been somewhat improved by the most favorable cir- 

 cumstances, the real characteristics of the race are unchanged. The 

 Jews have been a permanent race, from Abraham to the present time, 

 a period of nearly four thousand years, according to Hebrew chro- 

 nology ; and, for still Btronger reasons, from him up to Noah, only 

 ten generations. The Gypsies are a permanent race, preserving their 

 East Indian characteristics in all places, and for all historic time. 



It may, then, be fairly said, that unmixed races, from the most 

 remote historical time, (nearly 4,000 years,) have preserved the.r dis- 

 tinguishing marks amid all the supposed causes of change, and may 

 be considered permanent. The Ethiopian (Negro) can no more 

 change his skin than can the leopard his spots. 



As examples of change of color in animals from external circum- 

 stances, and as proofs that similar causes may have produced similar 

 efTects in man, I)r. Prichard mentions the black swine of Piedmont, 

 the white ones of Normandy, and the red ones of Bavaria; and 

 instances also of horses and do<js, in Hungary and Corsica. If 

 physical changes so change the lower animals, in these countries, 

 why do net they change man 1 Why are the animals so different, 

 and men so much alike? Man must be proof against these physical 

 causes of change in animals. This is another instance of the abuse 

 of analogy. 



We find, then, the same race occupying different regions, preserv- 

 ing the same characters in all ; and different races in the same cli- 

 mate, preserving unchanged their national distinctness; and no instance 

 can be produced of climate having changed, or now changing, one 

 race into another. 



The quantity and structure of the human hair is very different in 

 the different races. The Mongolians and Northern Asiatics are 

 remarkable for the deficiency of hair and beard. The same is true, 

 to a less degree, of the American Indians. Blumenbach would have 

 us believe that the habit of pulling out the hair, continued for many 

 generations, has at length produced this natural variety. Other nations 

 have hair growing down the back, and covering nearly the whole body. 

 This, probably, be would explain by the long continued application 

 of some rude " Philocomc," or " Tricophorus." On this principle, 

 we should hardly expect that Chinese mothers would bear children 



