The Ingrians and Carelians, who inhabit the northern provinces of Muscovy, and are the original natives of the country round Petersburgh, are men of vigour and robust constitutions. Their complexion is generally fair; they resemble the Finlanders, and speak the same language, which has no affinity to that of any other European nation. By this historical description of all the different inhabitants of Europe and Asia, it appears that the variation in their colour depends greatly, though not entirely, on the climates. There are many other causes, by which not only the colour, but even the form and features may be influenced; and among the principal may be reckoned the nature of the food, and the manners, or mode of living. A civilized people, who enjoy a life of ease and tranquillity, and who, by the superintendance of a well regulated government, are protected from the fear and oppression of misery, will, from these reasons alone, be more handsome and vigorous than those of a savage and careless nation, of which each individual, deriving no assistance from society, is obliged to provide for his own subsistence, to sustain alternately the excesses of hunger and the effects of unwholesome food; to be alternately exhausted with labour and lassitude; and to undergo the rigours of a severe climate, without being able to shelter himself from them; to act, in a word, more frequently like an animal than a man. In the supposition that two nations, thus differently circumstanced, were even to live in the same climate, there can be no doubt but that the savage people would be more ugly, tawny, diminutive, and more wrinkled, than those enjoying civilized society. Should the former possess any advantage, it would consist in the superior strength, or rather hardiness of the body. It might likewise happen that among the savage people there would be fewer instances of lameness or bodily deformities; for in a civilized state, where one individual contributes to the support of another, where the strong has no power over the weak, where the qualities of the body are less esteemed than those of the mind, men thus defective live and even multiply; but among a savage people, as each individual subsists and defends himself merely by his corporal strength and address, those who are unhappily born weak and defective, or who become sick or disabled, soon cease to form a part of their number. We must then admit of three causes as jointly productive of the varieties which we have remarked in the different nations of the earth. First, the influence of the climate; secondly, the food; and thirdly, the manners; the two last having great dependence on the former. But before we lay down the reasons on which this opinion is founded, it is necessary to describe the people of Africa and America in the same manner as we have those of Europe and Asia.