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any two nations, nor in the same nation in any two ages. It would be unnecessary to enumerate them, as my object is, not to enable my readers to become physiognomists, but to suggest a proper mode 

marked above two centuries ago, this variety in his own nation. "There is one countenance, says he, belongs to the Thuringians, another to the Saxons, and a different on to the Swedes. Indeed each village almost has something, in this respect, peculiar to itself, so that a person who would accurately attend to this subject might nearly pronounce on the country of a man from his physiognomy."--Yet besides these smaller local differences, there is commonly a general cast of countenance, arising from the influence of government, religion, civil occupations, and other causes, which belongs to each nation, and serves to distinguish it from others. 
In conformity with the observation of Libavius, and with what I have said above, Camper remarks that it is easy to distinguish at the first view, Jews from Christians, Spaniards from Frenchmen, or Germans, and these again from Englishmen. We can distinguish, says he, the inhabitants of the SOuth of France from those of the North, except where they have been blended by marriage. The cities of Holland, where so many people have been mingled together, no longer present to us distinct features of a national countenance. The inhabitants of the islands only still possess their primitive features entire. In Friesland, for example, the inhabitants of Hindelopen, Molkwerum, and Koudum, still exhibit their thin face, and their length of jaw; while those of Bildt, by their short face all crowded together, differ entirely from their nearest neighbors, who inhabit, however, the most ancient portion of the country. 
Each people then forms to itself some distinguishing national

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of reasoning on each new difference among man-
kind as it occurs to our observation.
For this purpose, I shall endeavor in the first place, to evince by several facts and illustrations,  that the state of society in which men live has a powerful influence in varying the character of the countenance, and even in changing the habit, and appearance of the whole person.
And, in the next place, to show that some of the most distinguishing features of the savage, and particularly of the American savage, with whom we are best acquainted, naturally result from the rude condition in which he exists. 
The influence of the state of society, and of the modes of life which prevail among different nations,

traits, till at length the mixture of different nations coming in among them effaces this characteristic distinction. Wars, migrations, commercial intercourse, have so confounded nations, anciently posited at the greatest distances from one another, that we can no longer perceive that primitive and specific impression which originally distinguished them. As most neighboring countries, however, form in time pretty intimate connections, they become gradually so blended, that now we do not often perceive very striking and characteristic differences of national countenance but among people whose actual, or present positions are removed from one another at very considerable intervals. Chap. i. p.13, 14. 

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Reopened for editing 6/5/2023 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-06-05 18:48:24