This idea of the primordial pair has been variously expressed. Dubufe, the Frenchman, whose two pictures of the Temptation and the Expulsion have been so extensively carried about and admired, represents Adam and Eve as a very fair and almost rose-colored pair of progenitors—as if they had just stepped out of band-boxes. Instead of resembling in aspect the old intonsus Cato, at a time when razors were unheard of, Adam wears his countenance smooth-shaven, while his dark hair and beard look as well dressed as if they had just come from the accomplishing hand of a barber. The toilet of the father of all men living seems, in fact, perfected as to the head; and he looks for all the world like a handsome French guardsman, in puris naturalibus. The genius of Gaul breathes from the whole representation, proving as strongly as the poetry of Victor Hugo, Chateaubriand, and Lamartine, that though powerful in the picturesque, splendid and grandiose, it is still deficient in the finer and higher faculties of poetic inspiration. An Englishman has certainty made a far nobler picture of the human protoplast and his better half. John Milton says of Adam—
His fair, large front and eye sublime declared
Infinite rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.
In both these instances the man seems to be of the Caucasian type—a European; for Milton’s portrait has an air of Greek dignity. Pritchard is of opinion that Adam was of a melanic skin—a black man, in fact—though not of course belonging to what we recognize as the African type. Indeed, it is difficult not to suppose the first man and woman beings of a swarthy complexion, to suit their skies—and nobly-faced, as the Afghans and other races of Central Asia are at this day. If we assume—as we are disposed to do—that the first pair were fashioned by miraculous initiative, we must conclude they would be physical, and, indeed, mental exemplars—of beautiful aspect and faultless symmetry. But the ardent oriental sun, and the glorious exposure of their persons to the elements, would naturally darken their complexions, and in this guise should they be represented by painting and poetry. “But whither would conjecture stray,” on such a theme as this?
Spreading out from their original locality, the various branches of the human family may be easily conceived to undergo changes from the climate and mode of life of their successive generations. That such changes were undergone seems to be borne out by the comparison or contrast of the different races. In some places, the people who traveled out of the temperate zone, or whose lot was cast in places far inland, and without rivers, where the powers of nature were niggard and the elements unfavorable, would become deteriorated, and the course of generations would confirm in them the growing inferiority of their condition—physical and mental. On the other hand, they whose lines were fallen to them in pleasant places, in a temperate zone, by the shores of seas, or banks of rivers, and in the midst of a country, fit either to feed cattle or to produce corn and wine, would keep their original dignity of feature and physical structure.
Thus, for instance, the first wanderers to the South and East would, in time, become the black Papuan races; and others, passing through Suez and Egypt into Africa Proper—so to term it—would become baked and brutified by the sun and the sandy wilderness. On the other hand, they who moved through the temperate zone under beneficent firmaments, and in Mesopotamian districts, would naturally become the Assyrian, Persian, Pelasgian builders of houses, ships, temples, great cities, and historical colonies. The tribes migrating up toward the North would, from the first, suffer from the Boreal elements, and take deep traces of them; but would also be endowed with great physical energy from the same, and under the Mongolian name, agitate all the North with powerful migrations, and, in the end, originate those world-overthrowing hordes, which filled subsequent ages with so much terror and glory. The earlier wanderers into Africa, passing inward and southward, would give rise to those marked and many-named tribes, classed under the nomenclature of Negroes. The hot sun, and the condition of their soil, would affect their physical nature. Every thing would tend, as we have still the opportunity of perceiving, to degrade the human type in the interior of Africa. The people would become mere animals without the stimulants of happier localities. They would bask lazily in the sun, crowd together in kraals, and propagate their degraded race into something still more stupid and degraded by the vitiating closeness of their intermarriages. In such circumstances of savagery, the dropping and thickness of the sensual mouth, and the other facial peculiarities would grow and become hardened features, in the course of time. It seems to be generally understood that the power of adaptation is a law of physical nature, as well in man as in the lower organizations; and it may very reasonably be concluded that the human head is modified by the powers of the brain—the energy of thought expanding the capacity of the head. This is the opinion of Mallebranche, and other philosophers and physiologists. We may conclude that the sensual stagnation of the intellectual faculties, under the tropical elements, where exertion of any kind could have but little effect in bettering the condition of a lazy population, leaves the brain to grow feeble and flaccid from disuse; whence it is not unphilosophical to conclude the fore part of the head would sink in, and lie toward the back. It seems to be a general physical law, that the expression of the face shall indicate the natures of men. The Arabs and other Asiatics arriving from the East into Egypt, and bringing on their firm faces the traces of their arduous circumstances and active habits, came, in the course of generations, to be marked with the sensuousness of mouth and chin, and the lower arch of the head which distinguish the Egyptian face. The hot and enervating climate of Egypt had a deteriorating effect on the population, which at last grew to resemble the Negro race. That the Egyptians were not so degraded in appearance as these last, was owing to the many immigrations of foreign tribes, who preserved to the kings, priests, and higher classes, a more Asiatic physical expression. The river Nile, the Sea—the great civilizer—and the influences of commerce, had also their beneficent effects upon the condition of the people of Egypt.
With regard to the other more marked races, it is known that the law of Northern latitudes is, the lessening of physical development and capacity, from the temperate toward the colder zones. In these last, the blood of men grows colder and more sluggish, and their bodies grow smaller and weaker. Extreme cold is unfriendly to the element of life; and under its influence, acting directly on man, and indirectly on his condition, from the soil, the Northern races received their stunted proportions of figure and mental energy—such as we witness in the Esquimaux and other tribes, of the same high latitudes.
We should not calculate the climatic effects of primitive times, from the result of experience or observation now-a-days. The conditions of men are not exactly what they were, even in those places we consider barbarous. In the beginning, men were ignorantly exposed to all the rude shocks of the elements for generations, and lived and propagated the conditions which those elements impressed upon them. All the deteriorating influences of savage life, working in a very vicious circle, effected then what can no longer be effected, in a general way, so decidedly and remarkably. People, now, can move about and live in extreme latitudes, and yet keep for generations their peculiar traits and conformation. But they have comfortable means and appliances about them, and hold themselves aloof from the barbarisms peculiar to the place. In this way, the climatic influences are resisted for ages.