dog, his horse, his slave; he overturns every thing, disfigures all; he loves deformity, monsters; he wishes nothing to be such as nature made it, not even man; he must be drilled like a horse in the riding-school; he must be tortured according to fashion, like the tree of his garden." Rousseau appears not to have known, or else to have forgotten, how much the beauty and fertility of the material world depend upon the industry and operations of man. Our eyes, accustomed to survey land on which ingenuity and labour have been exerted for centuries, do not easily distinguish between that which is actually produced by nature and that which is the result of continued art. When we look at the velvet lawn, the green sward of the pasturage, or the rich grass of the meadow, we too readily give nature credit for a soil whose fertility has been increased a hundred-fold by the continuous care of successive generations. Where, but on cultivated ground, do we see the wheat heavy with its bending ear, or any Cerealia affording abundant food? Does any virgin soil afford trees bearing such fruit as bends the boughs in our orchards ;-what wild vine has rivalled the grapes in our vineyards? Looking merely to beauty,-has nature produced the lovely varieties of roses, or the colours of dahlias? Is it quite certain that much of the beauty of the field has not been indirectly derived from the garden?

Look again to the animal creation: where is the type of our present race of sheep, and even of our domestic fowl? Is the wild horse a finer animal than the racer at Newmarket, or the hunter at MeltonMowbray? Has the wild canary bird the plumage or the notes of that which is bred in an artificial state?

Man has triumphed over the defects and disadvantages of climate; and if any one believes the conquest an evil, let him discard his bread and meat for one month, and support himself on mast and acorns.

It would be very difficult to determine what Rousseau and such philosophers mean by their state of nature. "Does man," says Lieber, "live in it only for a moment after his creation? or does the tattooed savage who beautifies, as he supposes, the body of his child with a variety of artificial and tormenting punctures, live still in a state of nature ?" Assuredly the Southsea islander, with his paint, his punctures, his feather, and his fish bones, is just as much disfigured as the old French courtier with his periwig and powder, his cuffs and his ruffles. What test shall be applied, to determine which is the natural and which the artificial?

The only reason for believing that barbarism was the original condition of mankind, is the supposition that it was the natural state, which we have shewn to be utterly groundless. It is then asked, whence arise all those differences in civilization discovered by travellers? and many philosophers ascribe them to specific differences in the human race. Capacity of civilization is declared to depend on organization; and the organic differences between the several races of men are declared to be sufficient to constitute them distinct species. This is a subject too important to be summarily passed over, but at the same time it could not be fully discussed without entering more deeply into philosophical researches than would be consistent with the character and design of this work. A selection of the most important facts necessary to the formation of an opinion,

will perhaps be sufficient to justify us for treating all the varieties of the human race as belonging only to one species.

Dr. Lord's admirable work on physiology, one of the best popular treatises on science that has ever been published, has shewn that the varieties of form, colour, and organization in the different races of men are not greater, nor indeed so great as those which occur in the lower orders of creation within the limits of the same species. The term of duration, and nearly all the periodical changes of life, vary but slightly in all races of men.* All human contagious and epidemic diseases are capable of exerting their pernicious influence on all the tribes of men, though some suffer more than others. Dissection exhibits more unity of type in the most discrepant varieties of man than is to be found in the unquestionable varieties of species among the lower animals. It is therefore contrary to anatomy, physiology, and analogy, to consider the existing varieties of the human kind as different species.

All are aware of the fact, that changes are wrought in the form, colour, and constitution of organized bodies by culture, food, and alterations in the mode of life. This is particularly the case with fruits, flowers, and vegetables; the potatoe, for instance, is now a very different plant from that which Sir Walter Raleigh brought from South America. Similar changes, from like causes, take place in animals, but the process is slower: "animals," says Boerhaave," have their roots

Fœminis omnibus communis videtur fluxus menstruus; ita ut recte Plinium mulierem solum animal menstruale vocasse putem.— BLUMENBACH.

within their bodies," and consequently the changing cause is generally nutrition. It may also be remarked that the higher the organization the more difficult is the development of a peculiarity, and also the more permanent is the peculiarity when formed. The variegated holly will return to the common green holly when propagated by seed, and can only be preserved as a variety by grafting; but very little care is requisite to perpetuate a peculiar breed of swine or sheep.

Mankind is not exempt from such influences: want of light and air, act very injuriously on the race: it was found that an immense proportion of monstrous births occurred in France among those who had taken some deserted quarries for their residence, and in consequence the caverns were destroyed by order of the government. Cretins are produced in some parts of Switzerland, from the operation, probably, of some atmospheric peculiarity; and Albinos are so frequently produced in the isthmus of Darien, that some travellers regarded them as a distinct tribe.

Dr. Lord has minutely examined the modes in which peculiarities may be produced and propagated: it will be sufficient for us to shew the fact of their being perpetuated. Frederick I. of Prussia collected tall men from all parts of the globe to form a regiment of gigantic guards at Potsdam, and Dr. Forster assures us that the greater part of the present inhabitants of the town and its vicinity are remarkable for their extraordinary height. Major Henry Bevan declares that he could distinguish the several castes in India by their respective peculiarities of countenance. We are all familiar with the marked traits that characterize

the physiognomy of the Jews and Parsees; and finally, the thick lip first introduced into the house of Hapsburgh by intermarriage with the Jagellons, has been hereditary in the reigning family of Austria for

centuries.

We can trace very marked peculiarities in men unquestionably descended from the same stock. In America, how different is the tall, lank, gaunt Virginian from the squat, plump, round-faced New Englander. The children of the settlers in New South Wales are tall, thin, and weaker than the European average; they are therefore regarded by Europeans as a depreciated race, and nick-named Currency, while the Europeans proudly call themselves Sterling. The Currency lads and lasses are distinguishable at a glance, and in the course of time no doubt their peculiarities will be as strongly marked as those of the Virginian or New Englander.

Constitutional peculiarities are well known to be hereditary in families; but it is of importance to observe that the peculiarities thus propagated are congenital and not accidental. No one expects to see a child born with a glass eye or a wooden leg, because the parent has been forced to use such substitutes; and it would be equally absurd to expect that children would be deficient in limbs because the parent was maimed: but tendencies to gout, consumption, insanity, affections of the stomach or liver, unquestionably descend by inheritance. There is family disease as well as family likeness; "a nose," as Washington Irving pleasantly observes, "repeats itself through a whole. long gallery of family pictures ;" and "ditto repeated,"