[59]. Annales du Muséum, vol. xi, p. 458.
[60]. The unitarians are continually bringing forward comparisons between man and the animals in support of their theory; I have just been using such a line of argument myself. It only applies, however, within limits, and I could not honestly avail myself of it in speaking of the modification of species by climate. In this respect the difference between man and the animals is radical and (one might almost say) specific. There is a geography of animals, as there is of plants; but there is no geography of man. It is only in certain latitudes that certain vegetables, mammals, reptiles, fishes, and molluscs can exist; man, in all his varieties, can live equally well everywhere. In the case of the animals this fully explains a vast number of differences in organization; and I can easily believe that the species that cannot cross a certain meridian or rise to a certain height above sea-level without dying are very dependent upon the influence of climate and quick to betray its effects in their forms and instincts. It is just, however, because man is absolutely free from such bondage that I refuse to be always comparing his position, in face of the forces of nature, with that of the animals.
[61]. Barrow is the author of this theory, which he bases on certain points of resemblance in the shape of the head and the yellowish colour of the skin in the natives of the Cape of Good Hope. A traveller, whose name I forget, has even brought additional evidence by observing that the Hottentots usually wear a head-dress like the conical hat of the Chinese.
[62]. Müller, Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen, vol. ii, p. 639.
[63]. Prichard, “Natural History of Man,” 2nd edition, pp. 484 et sqq.
[64]. Genesis xxi, 5.
[65]. We must make an exception in the case of Shakespeare, who is painting a picture of Italy. Thus in Romeo and Juliet Capulet says:
“My child is yet a stranger in the world,
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;
Let two more summers wither in their pride