Viewing page 78 of 130

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

240

distinct. In forming the different races of men* other causes are combined not less powerful than climate.  Manners, education, habits of living, and all of those causes comprehend under the general

[[footnote]]
* Blumenbach attempts to throw the different races of men into five principal divisions, viz. the Caucasian or handsomest race, the primary seat of which was about the Euxine and Caspian seas, and the countries somewhat to the South, from whom came from Europeans. Second. the Mongou, or people inhabiting the North-East of Asia, with their descendents to the East, of that continent.  Third, the African.  Fourth, the American.  And fifth the Malayan, occupying the South-East of Asia, and a great part of the isles in the Indian and great South seas. 
   Leibnitz, ranks them under four orders :--the Laponian, the Ethiopic ; the eastern Mongou, comprehending the people of Asia ; and the western Mongou, embracing those of Europe.
   Linnaeus likewise divides them into four :--the red American ; the white European ; the dark coloured Asiastic ; and the black Ethiopian. 
   Buffon arranges them in six ;--the Laponian in the North of Europe and Asia ; the Tartar in the North-East of Asia ;  the southern Asiastic ;  the European ; the Ethiopian, and the American.  
   Various other divisions have been made by different wri-ters ; ask, the Abbè de la Croix ; Kant ; Dr. John Hunter ; Zimmerman, and others.--Thec onclusion to be drawn from all of this variety of opinions is, perhaps that is impossible to draw the line precisely between the various races of men, of even to enumerate them with certainty ;  and that it is in itself a useless labor to attempt it. 

241

head of the state of society, have a powerful operation in preserving, and augmenting, or in guarding against the impressions of climate, and in modifying the whole appearance of the human person and countenance. And after the characters of a race have once been completely formed, and thoroughly incorporated into the system, they may, by the influence of the same moral causes, and the application of the same arts which contributed to create them, be, in their principal features,perpetuated in the most various climates. Nations, sprung from the same original stock, may be traced, by many points of resemblance, through different climates; and different races may long preserve their peculiar, and most discriminating properties in the same climate; especially if, like the inhabitants of these islands, their customs, their prejudices, or antipathies prevent them from amalgamating, and confounding their stocks. -- Hence the resemblances and differences which exist among the various people of the numerous islands of the great South Sea, the Indian, and Pacific oceans. And hence that mixture of races extend-ed along the Senegal in Africa, and scattered through the intermediate space between that river and the Gambia, where we meet with negroes,
FF

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-06-05 11:27:17 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-06-05 18:47:17 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2023-06-05 18:59:26