ABSTRACT
Order of proceeding. Now let us come to the matter in hand, and let us apply what we have hitherto been demonstrating about the ways in and the causes by which animals in general degenerate, to the native variety of mankind, so as to enumerate one by one the modes of degenerating, and allot to each the particular cause to which it is to be referred. We must begin with the colour of the skin, which although it sometimes deceives, still is a much more constant character, and more generally transmitted than the others1, and which most clearly appears in hybrid progeny sprung from the union of varieties of different colour composed of the tint of either parent. Besides, it has a great connection with the colour of the hair and the iris, and a great relation to the temperament of men: and, moreover, it especially strikes everywhere the eyes even of the most ignorant.
