Mr. Jackson, * "that the inhabitants of two cities, situated within a day's journey of each other, should discover such a physiognomical difference, as is apparent between the females of Fas and those of Mequinas; the former being generally of a sallow or pale complexion, while the latter unite that beautiful red and white so much admired by foreigners in our English ladies. The men of the neighbouring district of Temsena are of a copper colour."

Similar differences, both in colour and form, without any discoverable cause, are remarked by Ulloa and Humboldt in America. The natives of Guayaquil are not tawny, though the heat there is equal to that of Panama or Carthagena: they are fresh-coloured, and so finely featured as to be justly called the handsomest of all Peru. Again, some of the Mestizoes, born at Quito, are as tawny as the Indians themselves; others have so fine a complexion, that they might pass for whites till viewed at*Account of Morocco, p. 137. + Ulloa, i. 164.

tentively.*

In North America, under 54° 10 north latitude, at Cloak Bay, in the midst of copper-coloured Indians, with small long eyes, there is a tribe with large eyes, European features, and a skin less dark than that of our European peasantry.

There is a like diversity in the Finnish race. The Laplanders are diminutive and deformed; have black hair and a swarthy brown complexion. The Finns, though nearly related to them, are much stouter and better made: they have fair complexions, and very generally red hair.

This cursory view of the diversities existing between nations closely adjoining each other, and bearing every presumptive proof of a common origin, is quite enough to show how little 'would be gained towards a consistent theory, by adopting the hypothesis of several species of the human race. If we once admit the idea, that the varieties of colour and features are

* Ulloa, i. 277.

specific, it is impossible to assign a limit, and a thousand different tribes in every extensive district crowd upon us, each claiming, and with almost equal right, the distinction of a separate creation. The European is not more unlike the Caffre, than the Caffre differs from the Bojesman, or the Hottentot, from whom they are separated only by a range of hills.

Upon the whole, I think we are justified in concluding, that although the mode by which peculiar features and complexion become permanent, is still involved in much obscurity, yet the account of the origin of the human race, contained in the Mosaic history, agrees better with the general results concerning the appearance of mankind in different countries, than any other theory which has hitherto been proposed.

381

APPENDIX, No. III.

ON THE AUTHENTICITY AND ANTIQUITY OF THE PENTATEUCH.

AMONG the points which have been confessedly proved already, beyond the doubt of any reasonable man, I must be allowed to reckon the antiquity and authenticity of the Pentateuch."Common sense requires that every thing proposed to the understanding, should be accompanied with such proof as the nature of it can furnish. He who requires more, is guilty of absurdity; he who requires less, of rashness." That any part of the premises on which the argument depends, may not appear to be quite overlooked, I will briefly show that these demands of Bolingbroke are in the present instance strictly satisfied.

The authenticity has been proved,* first, by

* See an excellent pamphlet, "The Authenticity of the Five Books of Moses vindicated," by Bishop Marsh.

a comparison of the style of the early historical books with that of the rest of the Old Testament. "No language continues during many centuries in the same state of cultivation; and the Hebrew, like other tongues, passed through the several stages of infancy, youth, manhood, and old age. If, therefore, on comparison, the several parts of the Hebrew Bible are found to differ not only in regard to style, but also in regard to character and cultivation of language; if the one discovers the golden, another the silver, a third the brazen, a fourth the iron age; we have strong internal marks of their having been composed at different and distant periods. No classical scholar, independently of the Grecian history, would believe that the poems ascribed to Homer were written in the age of Demosthenes, the orations of Demosthenes in the time of Origen, or the commentaries of Origen in the days of Lascaris and Chrysoloras. For the very same reason, it is certain that the five books ascribed to Moses were not written in the time of David, the Psalms of David in the age of Isaiah, nor