CHAPTER IX.

On the Causes of the Varieties of the Human Species.

HAVING examined the principal points in which the several tribes of the human species differ from each other; namely, the colour and texture of the skin, hair, and iris, the features, the skull and brain, the forms and proportions of the body, the stature, the animal economy, the moral and intellectual powers, I proceed to inquire whether the diversities enumerated under these heads are to be considered as characteristic distinctions coeval with the origin of the species, or as the result of subsequent variation; and, in the event of the latter supposition being adopted, whether they are the effect of external physical and moral causes, or of native or congenital variety. The very numerous gradations, which we meet with, in each of the points above mentioned, are an almost insuperable objection to the notion of specific difference; for all of them may be equally referred to original distinction of species; yet if we admit this, the number of species would be overwhelming. On the other hand, the analogies drawn from the animal kingdom, and adduced under each head, nearly demonstrate that the characteristics of the various human tribes must be referred, like the corresponding diversities in other animals, to variation. Again, I have incidentally brought forward several arguments to prove that external agencies, whether physical or moral, will not account for the bodily and mental differences, which characterize the several tribes of mankind; and that they must be accounted for by the breed or race.* This subject, however, requires fur

ther illustration.

The causes which operate on the bodies of living animals either modify the individual, or alter the offspring. The former are of great importance in the history of animals, and produce considerable alterations in individuals; but the latter are the most powerful, as they affect the species, and cause the diversities of race. Great influence has at all times been ascribed to climate, which indeed has been commonly, but very loosely and indefinitely represented as the cause of most important modifications in the human subject and in other animals. Differences of colour, stature, hair, features, and those of moral and intellectual character, have been alike referred to the action of this

See sect. ii. chap. ii. p. 203, and following; chap. iv. p. 262, and following; chap. vi. p. 301.

mysterious cause; without any attempt to show which of the circumstances in the numerous assemblage comprehended under the word climate produces the effect in question, or any indication of the mode in which the point is accomplished. That the constitution of the atmosphere varies in respect to light and heat, moisture, and electricity; and that these variations, with those of elevation, soil, winds, vegetable productions, will operate decidedly on individuals, I do not mean to deny. While, however, we have no precise information on the kind or degree of influence attributable to such causes, we have abundance of proof that they are entirely inadequate to account for the differences between the various races of men. I shall state one or two changes which seem fairly referable to climate.

The whitening (blanching or etiolation) of vegetables, when the sun's rays are excluded, demonstrates the influence of those rays on vegetable colours. Nor is the effect merely superficial : it extends to the texture of the plant, to the taste and other properties of its juices. Men much exposed to the sun and air, as peasants and sailors, acquire a deeper tint of colour than those who are more covered; and the tanning of the skin by the summer sun in parts of the body exposed to it, as the face and hands, is a phenomenon completely analogous. The ruddy and tawny hues of those who live in the country, particularly of labourers in the open air, and the pale sallow countenances of the inhabitants of towns, of close and dark workshops and manufactories, owe their origin to the enjoyment or privation of sun and air. Hence, men of the same race are lighter or darker coloured according to the climate which they inhabit, at least in those parts which are uncovered. The native hue of the Moors is not darker than that of the Spaniards, of many French, and some English; but their acquired tint is so much deeper, that we distinguish them instantly. How swarthy do the Europeans become who seek their fortunes under the tropic and equator, and have their skins parched by the burning suns of "Afric and of either Ind!"

Mr. EDWARDS represents that the Creoles in the English West-Indian islands are taller than Europeans; several being six feet four inches high; and that their orbits are deeper.*

It has been generally observed by travellers, that the European population of the United States of North America is tall, and characterized by a pale and sallow countenance. The latter * History of the West Indies, v. ii. p. 11.

effect is commonly produced in natives of Europe when they become resident in warm climates. That both sexes arrive earlier at puberty, and that the mental powers of children are sooner developed in warm than in cold countries, are facts familiarly known.

The prevalence of light colours in the animals of polar and cold regions may, perhaps, be ascribed to the influence of climate; the isatie or arctic fox, the polar bear, and the snowbunting, are striking instances. The same character is also remarkable in some species, which are more dark-coloured in warmer situations. This opinion is strengthened by the analogy of those animals which change their colour in the same country, at the winter season, to white or gray, as the ermine (mustela erminea), and weasel (m. nivalis), the varying hare, squirrel, reindeer, white game (tetrao lagopus), and snow-bunting (emberiza nivalis).* PALLAS observes, "that even in domestic animals, as horses and cows, the winter coat is of a lighter colour than the smoother covering which succeeds it in the spring. This difference is much more considerable in wild animals. I have shown instances of it in two kinds of antelope (saiga and gutturosa), in the musk animal (moschus moschifer), and in the equus hemionus. The Siberian roe, which is red in summer, becomes of a grayish white in winter; wolves and the deer kind, particularly the elk and the reindeer, become light in the winter; the sable (m. zibellina), and the martin (m. martes), are browner in summer than in winter."+

Although these phenomenon seem obviously connected with the state of atmospherical temperature, and hence the change of colour, which the squirrel and the mustela nivalis undergo in Siberia and Russia, does not take place in Germany; we do not understand the exact nature of the process by which it is effected; and cold certainly appears not to be the direct cause. For the varying hare, though kept in warm rooms during the winter, gets its white winter covering only a little later than usual; § and in all the animals in which this kind of change takes place, the winter coat, which is more copious, close and downy, as well as lighter coloured, is found already far advanced in the autumn, before the cold sets in. ||

Linneus. Flora Lapponica; ed. of Smith, pp. 35, 352. +Nova Species Quadrupedum, p. 7.

Ibid. p. 6, note h. The ermine changes its colour in the winter in Germany; but Pallas states, on the faith of sufficient testimony, that it does not undergo this change in the more southern districts of Asia and Persia. Ibid. p. 9.

Nova Species Quadrupedum, p. 7.

The coverings of animals, as well as their colour, seem to be modified in many cases by climate; but as the body is naked in the human subject, and as the hair of the head cannot be regarded in the same light as the fur, wool, or hair which covers the bodies of animals generally, the analogies offered by the latter are not very directly applicable to the present subject.

In cold regions the fur and feathers are thicker, and more copious, so as to form a much more effectual defence against the climate than the coarser and rarer textures which are seen in warm countries. The thick fleece of the dogs lately brought from Baffin's Bay, exemplifies this observation very completely. The wool of the sheep degenerates into a coarse hair in Africa; where we meet also with dogs quite naked, with a smooth and soft skin.

Whether the goat furnishing the wool from which the shawls of Cashmere are manufactured, is of the same species with that domesticated in Europe, and whether the prodigious difference between the hairy growth of the two animals is due to diversity of climate, are points at present uncertain. Neither do we know whether the long and silky coat of the goat, cat, sheep, and rabbits of Angora can be accounted for by the operation of this cause it is at least worthy of notice, that this quality of the hair should exist in so many animals of the same country. It continues when they are removed into other situations, and is transmitted to the offspring; so that we may, probably, regard these as permanent breeds.

It is well known that the qualities of the horse are inferior in France to those of neighbouring countries. According to BUFFON, Spanish or Barbary horses, when the breed is not crossed, become French horses sometimes in the second generation, and always in the third.* Since the climate of England, which certainly does not approach more nearly to that of the original abode of this animal, than that of France, does not impede the development of its finest forms and most excellent qualities, we may, perhaps, with greater probability, refer the degeneracy of the French horses to neglect of the breed. We know that the greatest attention to this point is necessary, in order to prevent deterioration in form and spirit.

Differences in food might be naturally expected to produce considerable corresponding modifications in the animal body. Singing birds, chiefly of the lark and finch kinds, are known to

* Vol. iv. p. 106.

become gradually black, if they are fed on hemp-seed only.* Horses fed on the fat marshy grounds of Friesland grow to a large size; while, on stony soils or dry heaths, they remain dwarfish. Oxen become very large and fat in rich soils, but are distinguished by shortness of the legs; while, in drier situations, their whole bulk is less, and the limbs are stronger and more fleshy. The quantity of food has great influence on the bulk and state of health of the human subject: but the quality seems to have less power; and neither produces any of those differences which characterizes races.

In all the changes which are produced in the bodies of animals by the action of external causes, the effect terminates in the individual; the offspring is not in the slightest degree modified by them, but is born with the original properties and constitution of the parents, and a susceptibility only of the same changes when exposed to the same causes.

The change in the colour of the human skin, from exposure to sun and air, is obviously temporary; for it is diminished and even removed, when the causes no longer act. The discolouration, which we term tanning, or being sun-burnt, as well as the spots called freckles, are most incidental to fair skins, and disappear when the parts are covered, or no longer exposed to the sun. The children of the husbandman, or of the sailor, whose countenance bears the marks of other climes, are just as fair as those of the most delicate and pale inhabitants of a city: nay, the Moors, who have lived for ages under a burning sun, still have white children; and the offspring of Europeans in the Indies have the original tint of their progenitors.

BLUMENBACH has been led into a mistake on this point by an English author,‡ who asserts that Creoles are born with a different complexion and cast of countenance from the children of the same parents brought forth in Europe. In opposition to this statement from one who had not seen the facts, I place the authority of LONG, a most respectable eye-witness, who, in his History of Jamaica, affirms, that "the children born in England have not, in general, lovelier or more transparent * Der Naturforscher, pt. i. p. 1; pt. ix. p. 22.

When the foetus in utero has small-pox or syphilis, there is actual communication of disease by the fluids of the mother. This is a case altogether different from those under consideration. Neither does hereditary predisposition to particular diseases prove that acquired conditions are transmitted to the offspring. There are natural varieties of organization, disposing different individuals to different diseases on application of the same external causes. These natural varieties, like those of form, colour, and other obvious properties, are continued to the children.

↑ Hawkesworth, in Collection of Voyages, v. iii. p. 374.