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naturally supposed to be so widely different from theirs, should invade them in their own department, yet I hope the issue of the conflict will shew that religion has been able to repel one more assault, if she should not, in this instance obtain a decided victory. 

This essay was first published in the year 1787.  And although various writers had, at different times, treated on the same subject, it was esteemed by many ingenious and learned men not to be a superfluous addition to the disquisitions which had already appeared.—Jerome Berioit Feijoo, a Spanish Benedictin, of whom the editors of the Theatro Critico,* as well as the authors of the Modern Universal History,† have pronounced the highest eulogies, as not being inferior to Cervantes in genius, and in the useful labor of destroying the prejudices of his countrymen, had entered on the question to considerable extent, and made many valuable and scientific observations on the influence of climate.  He has not, however, carried his principles on that subject so far as is done in the essay; many important considerations he has omitted; and the effects resulting from the state of society he has scarcely touched.
 
Dr. Blumenbach, one of the most celebrated naturalists, anatomists, and physicians of Germany, published in the year 1795, at Gottingen, the third edition, the only one which I have seen, of his famous treatise, De generis humani varictate

* Published in Vols. 14. Ann. 1742. Berioit Feijoo died in 1765.
† Vol. 9. [[p?]]. 611.


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nativa. Of this work I could consequently make no use in my first edition.  I believe it had not then come to the public eye.  But I am happy to find that the ideas of this learned writer on the subject of climate, and, particularly, on the effect of the bilious secretion on the colour of the skin, have so nearly corresponded with those which I had previously adopted.  And I have not thought it improper, in the present edition, to avail myself of several elucidations of my subject from this valuable treatise.  But I have to observe that he, like Feijoo, has almost wholly omitted the second topic which I have endeavoured to illustrate, the influence of the state of society in multiplying the varieties of mankind, which in this essay occupies so prominent a place. 
A short treatise also of the celebrated Camper's upon this subject was published at Utrecht by his son in 1791.  But it is formed on a plan, not contradictory indeed to that which I have adopted, but so different from it in its object, and the mode of conducting it that, if it had been published much earlier, I could have derived little aid from it.  After a few general remarks at the beginning, the remainder of his ingenious dissertation, which, however, is combatted, in some of its most important principles, by Blumenbach, is calculated rather for painters than for the great body of even sensible, and well informed readers. 

To the former edition I annexed some strictures on Lord Kaims' dissertation on the original diversity of mankind. Besides these, which I have thought proper to retain in the present, I have added some animadversions on certain remarks made on that edition, and on the general subject, by Mr.   

Transcription Notes:
Not sure about the symbol that looks like a "p" in the last line of the left page. I think it stands for 'page' here but I'm not sure how to represent it on a computer. I couldn't find anything like it in my 'emoji and symbols' tab. ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-06-05 07:35:29