66 city, greater fertility of imagination, more enter prifing courage, and a fenfibility of heart, which gives birth to paffions not only ardent, but persevering. "In this favourite fituation he has displayed the utmost "effects of his genius, in literature, in policy, in com→ "merce, war, and in all the arts which improve and " embellifh life." He accordingly divides the natives of AMERICA into two diftinct claffes; the one inhabits the temperate, the other the torrid zones, on both fide of the line. He Lays, "that the human species in the former appears "manifeftly more perfect: that the natives are more "robust, more intelligent, more active, and more courageous. They poffefs, in the most eminent de gree, that force of mind, and love of independence, "which are regarded as the chief virtues of man in his "favage state. These natives accordingly, though fur"rounded for several centuries paft by polished and "hoftile nations, have hitherto maintained, in a great degree, their freedom and independence: but the "other clafs, from the debility of their mind and body, "their inactivity, want of active courage, and of that "independence which characterises those living in the 66 more temperate climates, have become fo dependent as *to be nearly in a state of slavery to those nations, who, "for the fake of mines or commerce, have taken pof"feffion of their territories." If we look around the world, we fhall be able to find not more than fix diftinct varieties in the human fpecies, each of which is strongly marked, and speaks the kind feldom to have mixed with any other. The race we are at prefent about to confider are the men found near the Pole. These nations being under a rigorous climate, where the productions of nature are but few, and the provifions coarse and unwholesome, their bodies have shrunk to the nature of their food. These, therefore, in general, are described as a race of fhort ftature *, and odd fhape, with countenances as favage as their manners are barbarous. GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS once attempted to form a regiment of fuch men, but he found it impoffible to accomplish his defign; for it fhould feem, fays Dr. GOLDSMITH, as though they were unfitted for any other climate, or mode of life, but their own. In thefe unhofpitable regions all is torpid. Here you fee, in the greatest poffible perfection, the fedative power They are ufually about four feet high, and the tallest does not exceed five feet. GOLDSMITH. of extreme and continued cold. Here no vegetable thrives except the lichen; and no animal but the rein-d.er*. Nor is the extremity of cold lefs productive of the tawny complexion than that of heat. The natives of the arctic circle are all brown; and those that lie moft to the north are of a still darker huet. In this manner both extremes are unfavourable to the human form and colour, and nearly the fame debilitating effects are produced under Poles that are obferved at the Line. Mr. Townsend. + Cook's Voyage. SECT. SECT. V. ON LIGHT. LIGHT, like air and water, is now known to be not a fimple, but a compound body. The all-penetrating genius of Sir ISAAC NEWTON* has demonftrated, by undeniable experiments, that a fingle ray of light, which former philofophers imagined fo infinitely fine, is in reality a collection of feven parts, which are perfectly distinct, and composed of as many different colours, and fubject to different reflections and refractions. Some * It appears to me, fays Lord Bolingbroke, that THE AUTHOR OF NATURE has thought fit to mingle, from time to time, among the focieties of men, a few, and but a few of those, on whom he is graciously pleased to beftow a larger proportion of the ethereal spirit than is given in the ordinary courfe of his providence to the fons of men. Look about you from the palace to the cottage; you will find that the bulk of mankind is made to breathe the air of this atmosphere, to roam about this globe, and to confume, like the courtiers of ALCINOUs, the fruits of the earth. Nos numerus fumus & fruges confumere nati. When they have trod this infipid round a certain number of years, and begot others to do the fame after them, they have lived: and if they have performed, in some tolerable degree, the ordinary moral duties of life, they have done all they were born to do. Look about you again, nay look, perhaps, into your own breaft, and you will find that there are fuperior fpirits, men who shew, even from their early youth, though it be not always perceived Some modern philofophers have confidered heat and light as one and the fame fubftance. Although, it must be confeffed, they are frequently found exifting together, yet, on the other hand, muft it be allowed, that there is often much dazzling fplendour where there is little or no heat. The Honourable Mr. BoYLE draws a minute comparison between the light of combustible bodies, and that of fhining wood, &c. Among other things he obferves, that extreme cold extinguished the light of shining wood, as appeared when a piece of it was put into a glass tube, and held in a freezing mixture. He alfo found that rotten wood did not waste itself by fhining, and upon the application of a thermometer he could not discover the finalleft degree of heat. That these are diftinct fubftances, may be also proved from their distinct operations on the living fibre. The mufcular fibres of the retina are excited into instantaneous action by the fmallest variation in light: but by others, perhaps not always felt by themselves, that they were called into this world for fomething more and better. These are they, who engross almost the whole reafon of the species, who are born to inftruct, who are defigned to be the tutors and guardians of human kind. When they prove fuch, they exhibit to us examples worthy of the highest praise, and they deserve to have their names recorded, instead of a crowd of warriors, with whofe feats the page of history is crowned and difgraced, are |