95 



ON THE VARIETIES 



LECTURE III. 



ON THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN RACE. ' 



Thus far we have confined ourselves to the different classes of animals 

 below the rank of man. The sketch has been rapid and mifinished, but I hope 

 not altogether unfaithful, or without its use. Let us now proceed to a gene- 

 ral survey of the human species ; the generic character by which man is dis- 

 tinguished from other animals, and the family character by which one nation 

 is distinguished from another nation. 



If we throw an excursive glance over the globe, and contemplate the dif- 

 ferent appearances of mankind, in different parts of it, and especially if we 

 contrast these appearances where they are most unlike, we cannot but be 

 struck with astonishment, and feel anxious for information concerning the 

 means by which so extraordinary an effect has been produced. The height 

 of the Patagonian and the Caffre is seldom less than six feet, and it is no un- 

 common thing to meet with individuals among them that measure from six 

 feet seven to six feet ten : compared with these, the Laplanders and Eski- 

 maux are real dwarfs ; their stature seldom reaching five feet, and being more 

 commonly only four. Observe the delicate cuticle, and the exquisite rose 

 and lily, that beautify the face of the Georgian or Circassian : contrast them 

 with the coarse skin and greasy blackness of the African negro, and ima- 

 gination is lost in the discrepancy. Take the nicely-turned and globular 

 form of the Georgian head, or the elegant and unangular oval of the Georgian 

 face : compare the former with the flat skull of the Carib ; and the latter with 

 the flat visage of the Mogul Tartar, and it must, at first sight, be difficult to 

 conceive that each of these could have proceeded from one common source. 

 Yet the diversities of the intellectual powers are, perhaps, as great as those 

 of the corporeal : though I am ready to admit, that for certain interested pur- 

 poses of the worst and wickedest description, these diversities, for the last 

 half century, have, even in our own country, been magnified vastly beyond 

 their fair average, though the calumny has of late begun to lose its power. 



The external characters thus glanced at form a few of the extreme boun- 

 daries : but all of them run into each other by such nice and imperceptible 

 gradations in contiguous countries, and sometimes even among the same 

 people, as to constitute innumerable shades of varieties, and to render it dif- 

 ficult, if not impossible, to determine occasionally to what region an indivi- 

 dual may belong when at a distance from his own home. 



It has hence been necessary to classify the human form : and the five grand 

 sections, for we can no longer call them quarters, into which the globe is 

 divided by the geographers of our own day, present us with a system of 

 classification equally natural and easy : for in each of these sections we meet 

 with a marked distinction, a characteristic outline that can never be mistaken, 

 except in the few anomalies already adverted to, and which belong to almost 

 every general rule ; or in instances in which we can obviously trace an inter- 

 mixture of aboriginal families. 



Before we attempt, then, to account for these distinctions, let us endeavour, 

 as briefly as possible, to point them out ; and consider them under the five 

 heads of the 



European race; 

 Asiatic race; 

 American race ; 

 African race; 

 Australian race; 



or, as they are denominated by°M. Blumenbach, in his excellent work upon 

 this subject,* the Caucasian, Mongolian, American, Ethiopian, and Malay 

 varieties. 



• De Gemeri Humani VariteMiB NatJvft. 



