OUE EACE AND ITS OEIGIN. 
69 
on the contrary, are more so, and that each has naturally 
acquired its own color, either white or black, according to 
the climate it inhabits, and “ explain it as we may, there is 
no fact more certain than that a habit once firmly fixed, 
once organised in the individual, becomes almost as sus- 
ceptible of transmission as any normal tendency.” 
What was the original color of man at his creation ? 
We have no proof that it was white or black, these must 
rather be regarded as the extremes ; and considering that 
man was in all probability created in a warm climate, where 
there would be no need of artificial means to protect his 
person, his color would be more likely to have been either 
red or brown ; but in later ages, when the family of man 
was dispersed and compelled to depart under different 
leaders from their common abode, they would be men 
selected for superior energy and bravery of character, and 
distinguished most likely by strongly-marked features, those 
would in some measure be impressed upon their several 
tribes or clans, as was the case with Jacob and Esau, who, 
though twin brothers, greatly differed in person and cha- 
racter, one being hairy, the other smooth, one a man of war, 
the other of peace, which qualities were perpetuated in their 
descendants. 
At the dispersion of the human family, each section would 
go in that direction to which either fancy or circumstances 
might lead. Thus those embryo nations would have their 
beginning under as many heads as even the most fastidious 
of our ethnologists could desire, and whilst some of those 
bands would most probably still continue to inhabit a similar 
climate to that of Chaldea, and so preserve their own pecu- 
liar features and color ; others, gradually working their way 
to the north and south, to the colder and hotter regions of 
the globe, it is highly probable the one would in process of 
time, become as much lighter as the other would be darker, 
according to the increased degree of heat or cold to which 
they might be severally subjected, and the consequent change 
of habit thus acquired. For whilst the resident of the torrid 
zone would cast off every garment as an incumbrance, and 
