Nor is Blackness inconsistent with Beauty, which even to our
European Eyes consists not so much in Colour, as an Advantageous Stature, a
Comely Symmetry of the parts of the Body, and Good Features in the Face. So
that I see not why Blackness should be thought such a Curse to the
_Negroes_, unless perhaps it be, that being wont to go Naked in those Hot
Climates, the Colour of their Skin does probably, according to the Doctrine
above deliver'd, make the Sun-beams more Scorching to them, than they would
prove to a people of a White Complexion.
Greater probability there is, That the Principal Cause (for I would not
exclude all concurrent ones) of the Blackness of _Negroes_ is some Peculiar
and Seminal Impression, for not onely we see that _Blackmore_ boyes brought
over into these Colder Climates lose not their Colour; But good Authors
inform us, That the Off-spring of _Negroes_ Transplanted out of _Africa_,
above a hundred years ago, retain still the Complexion of their
Progenitors, though possibly in Tract of time it will decay; As on the
other side, the White people removing into very Hot Climates, have their
Skins by the Heat of the Sun scorch'd into Dark Colours; yet neither they,
nor their Children have been observ'd, even in the Countreys of _Negroes_,
to descend to a Colour amounting to that of the Natives; whereas I remember
I have Read in _Pisos_[11] excellent account of _Brasile_, that betwixt the
_Americans_ and _Negroes_ are generated a distinct sort of Men, which they
call _Cabocles_, and betwixt _Portugalls_ and _AEthiopian_ women, He tells
us, he has sometimes seen Twins, whereof one had a White skin, the other a
Black; not to mention here some other instances, he gives, that the
productions of the mixtures of differing people, that is (indeed,) the
effects of Seminal Impressions which they consequently argue to have been
their Causes; and we shall not much scruple at this, if we consider, that
even Organical parts may receive great Differences from such peculiar
Impressions, upon what account soever they came to be setled in the first
Individual persons, from whom they are Propogated to Posterity, as we see
in the Blobber-Lips and Flat-Noses of most Nations of _Negroes_.
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