342 
EEIIOHEOUS THEOET. 
even to our own times. Buffon lias repeated in prose what 
Theodectes had expressed in verse two thousand years be- 
fore : “ that nations wear the livery of the climate in which 
they live.” If history had been written by black nations, 
they would have maintained what even Europeans have 
recently advanced,* that man was originally black, or of a 
very tawny colour ; and that mankind have become white in 
some races, from the effect of civilization and progressive 
debilitation, as animals, in a state of domestication, pass from 
dark to lighter colours. In plants and in animals, accidental 
varieties, formed under our own eyes, have become fixed, 
and have been propagated ;f but nothing proves, that in the 
present state of human organization, the different races of 
black, yellow, copper-coloured, and white men, when they 
remain unmixed, deviate considerably from their primitive 
type, by the influence of climate, of food, and other external 
agents. 
These opinions are founded on the authority of Ulloa.J 
That learned writer saw the Indians of Chile, of the Andes 
of Peru, of the burning coasts of Panama, and those of Loui- 
siana, situated in the northern temperate zone. He had 
the accounts of travellers, that in Hindostau the nations of the south were 
of darker colour than those of the north, near the mountains : and they 
supposed that they were both of the same race. 
* See the work of Mr. Prichard, abounding with curious research. 
“• Researches into the Physical History of Man, 1813,” p. 239. 
t For example, the sheep with very short legs, called ancon sheep in 
Connecticut, and examined by Sir Evcrard Home. This variety dates 
only from the year 1791. 
t “The Indians [Americans] are of a copper-colour, which by the 
action of the sun and the air grows darker. I must remark, that neither 
heat nor cold produces any sensible change in the colour, so that the 
Indians of the Cordilleras of Peru are easily confounded with those of the 
hottest plains; and those who live under the Line cannot be distinguished, 
by their colour, from those who inhabit the fortieth degree of north and 
soutli latitude.” — Noticias Americanas. No ancient author has so clearly 
stated the tw r o forms of reasoning, by which we still explain in our days 
the differences of colour and features among neighbouring nations, as 
Tacitus. He makes a just distinction between the influence of climate, 
and hereditary dispositions ; and, like a philosopher persuaded of our pro- 
found ignorance of the origin of things, he leaves the question undecided. 
“Habitus corporum yarn ; atque ex eo argumenta, sen durante originia 
vi, seu proeurrentilras in diverse terris, positio coeii corporibus habitum 
dedit.” — Agricola, cop ii. 
