PHYSIOGNOMY. 
tern^ki propensities must be latent in liim, 
which shall remain inactive, or be put in 
motion according to his situation on the 
earth : so that in progressive generation, he 
shall appear as if born for that particular 
soil in which he seems planted.” 
In the opinion of this gentleman, the air 
and the sun are the two causes which most 
powerfully influence the operations of pro- 
pagation, and give a lasting developement 
of germ and propensities, or in other words, 
the above powers may be the origin of a 
new race. 
Food may produce some slight variations, 
those, however, must soon disappear after 
emigration, and it is evident, that whatever 
affects the propagating powers, does not act 
upon the support of life ; but upon the ori- 
ginal principle, the very source of animal 
conformation and motion. It has been ob- 
served, that man degenerates in stature and 
faculties the nearer he is situated to the fri- 
gid zone ; this seems a necessary conse- 
quence of that situation, for this obvious 
reason, were men of the common stature in 
those regions of extreme cold, the impelling 
power of the heart must be increased, to 
force the blood through the extremities, 
which w'ould otherwise chill, and become 
totally useless ; but as the Creator did not 
tliink it useful to adopt this mode of pre- 
serving the limbs, they have been shorten- 
ed, for the purpose of confining the circu- 
lating fluid to the trunk, where the natural 
heat accumulating, the whole body has a 
greater proportion of that comfortable sen- 
sation than strangers feel when visiting 
those northern countries. 
The propensity to flatness, observable in 
the prominent parts of the countenance of 
tile persons under consideration, exposed 
to the effects of cold, is accounted for by 
that very circumstance ; and it appears 
probable, that their high cheek-bones and 
small, imperfect eyes are so contrived, to 
preserve the latter from the piercing effects 
of the wind, and the offensive brilliancy of 
the almost eternal snows. Tfie Abbe Win- 
kelman attributes the enormous and dis- 
gusting lips of the Negroes to the heat of the 
climate they inhabit; others account for 
the blackness of their skin by suppposing, 
the surplus of the fernginous, or iron par- 
ticles, which have lately been discovered to 
exist in the blood of man, and which, by 
the evaporation of the phosphoric acidities, 
of which all Negroes smell so strong, being 
cast upon the retiform membrane, occa- 
sions the blackness which appears through 
the cuticle, and this strong retention of the 
ferruginous particles seems to be necessary, 
in order to prevent the general relaxation 
of the parts.” 
Professor Camper concludes, from long 
and attentive observation, applied to the 
skulls of the inhabitants of many different 
nations, which he had dissected in numerous 
cases soon after death, that it is extremely 
difficult to draw any head accurately in pro- 
file, and to define the lines of the counte- 
nance, and their angles with the horizon ; but 
he thinks he has been thus led to the disco- 
very of the m.aximum and minimum of this 
angle. He commenced his operations with 
the monkey, and proceeded with the Negro 
and European; and, finally, he examined 
the profiles of the most valuable statues of 
antiquity. With respect to the breadth of 
the cheek bones, he foimd that the largest 
were amongst the Calmucs, and consider- 
ably smaller amongst the Asiatic Negroes. 
The Chinese, the natives of the Molucca 
and other Asiatic Islands, appeared to him 
to have broad cheeks and projecting jaw- 
bones, particularly the under, which is very 
higii, and almost forms a right, angle : on 
the contrary, tliose of Europeans are 
extremely obtuse, and of Negroes even 
more so. Succeeding thus far, the Profes- 
sor acknowledges he was foiled in his at- 
tempts to discriminate the .difi’erences in 
the European nations ; nor was he more 
successful with the Jews, whose counte- 
nances are possessed of many marked pecu- 
liarities ; and yet this gentleman asserts, he 
never had been able to draw them with any 
tolerable accuracy ; and. in this particular, 
the Italian face w'as equally difficult. 
Making due allowance for the aberra- 
tions of the imagination, the Professor ei- 
ther had, or conceited he had, attained the 
faculty of distinguishing the heads of Eng- 
lish, Scots, and Irish soldiers ; but he was 
incapable of describing the marks which 
announced their profession. More reliance 
may, however, be placed on his assertion, 
that the upper and under jaws of Euro- 
peans are less broad than the breadth of the 
skull, and that among the Asiatics they are 
much broader. 
The most unequivocal proofs exist of fa- 
mily physiognomy, or in other words family 
resemblance. BufFon, Bonnet, Haller, and 
many others, have endeavoured to account 
for this circumstance, but, as may be sup- 
posed, without tlie least probable success ; 
W’e shall therefore pass this part of the sub- 
ject in silence, as it must be evident that wg 
