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vious difference in the whole countenance, created I believe principally by the impression which the complexion, in combination with the other varieties made upon the eye. A few comparisons conducted in this way would result, I am persuaded, in the conviction that the varieties among mankind are much less considerable than, on a slight inspection they appear to be.  Each single trait or limb, when examined apart, exhibits no difference from the common properties of the species which may not easily be accounted for.  Particular varieties are small.  It is the result of the whole, taken in at one impression, which appears difficult to be explained.  The combined effect of many minute particulars appears great, and, at the first view, unaccountable.  And we have not patience, or skill, it may be, to divide this sum into its least portions, and to perceive, in that state, how easy it is of solution.
Under the head of the state of society are comprehended diet, clothing, lodging, manners, government, arts, religion, agricultural improvements, commercial pursuits, habits of thinking, and ideas of all kinds naturally arising out of this state, infinite in number and variety. If each of these causes be admitted to possess, as undoubtedly they do, a

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small influence in forming the character of the countenance, the different combinations and results of the whole must necessarily seem great, and, united with the effects of climate, which have been already in some degree explained will afford sufficient principles on which to account for all the varieties that exist among mankind. 

Another cause of the varieties arising out of the state of society will be found in the power which men possess over themselves, of producing considerable changes in their figure and appearance according to any standard of beauty which they may have framed. Each nation differs from others as much in its ideas of beauty as in personal appearance. A Laplander prefers the flat, round faces of his dark skinned country women to the fairest beauties of England. Whatever be the standard which any people have formed to themselves, there is a general effort to attain it; and it is every where pursued with more or less ardor and success in proportion to the advantages which men possess in society, and to the estimation in which beauty is held.

To this object tend the infinite pains taken in society to compose the features, and to form the atti-

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