On the Diversity of Origin of the Human Races [pp. 603-642]

1850.] On the Diversity of Origin of the Human Race. 629
constitution so marked as to be easily recognized in a very
few generations. Even New England, the common receptacle of people from every nation of Europe, has already developed a type of physiognomy and character, which we will undertake to discriminate from that of every other country upon
the face of the earth But in the second place, there is a
vast deal more in climate, as Prof. A. very well knows, than
he seems to include. There are agencies whose existence we
have no means of detecting or measuring, but whose potency
we cannot question. How easy it would be to prove, on the
principles of his argument, that cretinism is not a climatic
product; because we do not find it produced in other Alpine
localities "which are physically speaking under most circumstances alikle." Although we may not be able to display the
noxious agents in any tangible form, we know but too well
that there are hidden causes, which belong to climiate, which
do produce changes of the most decided and deleterious kind,
upon the constitution of man, both physical -,id mental; and
that these are capable of incorporation into the individual and
national characteristics of those who aro a,rmanently subjected to their influence.
A single glance at the population oi a mranufacturing or
mining town in England, with -he~ children, will send the
fearful convlction through the heart oi the str-ainger, that even
the artificial circumstances connected with a crowded population, in its death struggle for existence under the crushing social
power of overgrown wealth, may produce the most appalling
influence upon the physicai, meutal and moral constitution of
its victims; and that these are subject to the law of here(litary transmnission. To these must be added the more formridable and resistless agencies of nature, working on a scale of
power which man cannot rival. There are causes which
in their subtle but destructive activity elude our detection,
but reveal their power in the fatal waste of vital energy, both
physical and mental, at which the traveller stands aghast, as
hlie looks upon the wan, spectre-like, inhuman, or idiotic victims of the insidious poison. They must be seen to be apprcciated: but some idea of our meaning may be suggested, if we
refer the reader to the population of the low sea-coast of
VOL XXII.-NO. IV. 41