OF THE HUx^lAN KA€E, 



pigiiiy people inhabiting high northern -latitudes, to whom wejiave just 

 adverted, and whose usual diet consists offish and other oils, often rancid 

 and offensive. Though it must be admitted that this colour is in most in- 

 stances aided by the clouds of smoke in which they sit constantly involved 

 in their wretched cabins, and the filth and grease with which they often ' 

 besmear their skins. And hence also one cause of their diminutive sta- 

 ture ; the food they feed on being unassimulating and innutritive. Swine 

 and all other animals fed on madder-root, or that of galhum verum^ or 

 yellow-Iadies-bed-straw, have the bones themselves tinged of a deep red, 

 or a yellow ; and M. Huber of Lausanne, who has of late years made so 

 many valuable discoveries in the natural habits of the iioney-bee, has 

 proved himself able by a difference in the food alone, as indeed Debraw 

 had done long before him,* to convert v/hat is commonly, but improperly.^ 

 called a neuter into a queen bee. 



III. It would be superfluous to dwell on the changes of body and per- 

 ceptive powers produced in the animal system, by a difference in the 

 MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. We havc the most striking proofs of this effect 

 in all the domesticated animals by which we are surrounded. Compare 

 the wild horse with the disciplined ; the bison with the ox, which last is 

 usually regarded as the bison in a state of tameness ; and the Siberian ar- 

 gaU with the sheep which is said to have sprung from it. Compare the 

 modern Romans with the ancient ; the low cunning and servile temper 

 of too many of the Greek tribes of the present day, that still bend to and 

 kiss the Ottoman rod, with the noble courage and patriotic enthusiasm of 

 their forefathers, who drove back the tyrant of Persia and his million of 

 men across the Hellespont, and dashed to pieces the proud bridge with 

 which he boasted of having conquered the billows. 



It is in reality from long and deeply rooted habit alone that the black, 

 red, and olive colour of the Ethiopian, American, and Moguls, is continued 

 in the future lineage for so many generations after their removal into oth er 

 parts of the world ; and that nothing will, in general, restore the skin toits 

 original fairness but a long succession of intermixtures with the Europena 

 variety. It is a singular circumstance that the black colour appears to 

 form a less permanent habit than the red or ohve ; or in other words, the 

 colour chiefly produced by the action of the sun's colorific rays, than that 

 produced by the action of its cciorific rays : for the children of oliev 

 and copper-coloured parents exhibit the parental hue from the moment of 

 birth ; but in those of blacks it is usually six, eight, or ten months befoer 

 the black pigment is fully secreted. We also sometimes find this not se - 

 creted at all, whence the anomaly of white negroes : and sometimes only 

 in interrupted lines or patches, whence the anomaly of spotted negroes : 

 and we have even a few rare cases of negroes in America w^ho, in conse - 

 quence of very severe illness, have had the whole of the black pigmont 

 absorbed and carried oft', and a white pigment diffused in its stead. lu 

 other words, we have instances of 'a black man being suddenly bleached 

 into a white man. These instances are indeed of rare occurrence : but 

 they aresufiicient to show the absurdity of the argument for a plurality of 

 human stocks or species, from a mere diiference in the colour of the skin ; 

 an argument thus proved to be altogether superficial, and which we may 

 gravely assert to be not more than skin-deep. 



It is in consequence of this power in the system, of secreting a dark- 



* gee Phil. Tans, for 1777, p. 15. 



