DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18825#0183
LECT. VI.] OP CHARACTER. 13Q
of their nation equally strong with the lower classes
of people ; because, by acquaintance with foreigners
at home, or residence among them abroad, they ac-
quire much of their manners and deportment; while
the inferior part of mankind not having the same
opportunities, but continually conversing among
such as resemble themselves, preserve, in its full
power, the original and popular character cf the^r
country.
National distinctions of features and manners arc
so obvious, that little need be urged respecting
them : it is unnecessary to prove that an Englishman
does not resemble a Chinese, or a Frenchman a Hot-
tentot : but it would require a very copious disserta-
tion to examine into all the varieties that might be
named ; neither is it easy to procure authentic por-
traits of remote nations, sufficiently correct, from
which to form a judgment.
For the information of my younger auditors, I
shall solicit indulgence, while I state a few of the
characteristic distinctions which prevail among
mankind : the subject is probably new to some, and
cannot be without its use to any.
Geographers, and others who have studied this
matter, distinguish several varieties in the human
vpecies.
I. The Laplander, and others who inhabit the
northern parts of the globe (where Nature seems to
oe confined in her operations, " bound by eternal
rrost") whether European or American : these, we
are told, have broad fiat faces, broken and sunken
T 2 noses,
of their nation equally strong with the lower classes
of people ; because, by acquaintance with foreigners
at home, or residence among them abroad, they ac-
quire much of their manners and deportment; while
the inferior part of mankind not having the same
opportunities, but continually conversing among
such as resemble themselves, preserve, in its full
power, the original and popular character cf the^r
country.
National distinctions of features and manners arc
so obvious, that little need be urged respecting
them : it is unnecessary to prove that an Englishman
does not resemble a Chinese, or a Frenchman a Hot-
tentot : but it would require a very copious disserta-
tion to examine into all the varieties that might be
named ; neither is it easy to procure authentic por-
traits of remote nations, sufficiently correct, from
which to form a judgment.
For the information of my younger auditors, I
shall solicit indulgence, while I state a few of the
characteristic distinctions which prevail among
mankind : the subject is probably new to some, and
cannot be without its use to any.
Geographers, and others who have studied this
matter, distinguish several varieties in the human
vpecies.
I. The Laplander, and others who inhabit the
northern parts of the globe (where Nature seems to
oe confined in her operations, " bound by eternal
rrost") whether European or American : these, we
are told, have broad fiat faces, broken and sunken
T 2 noses,