When man began to disperse himself from climate to climate, his nature underwent several alterations; in the temperate countries, which we suppose to be near where he was originally produced, these alterations were but slight; but they increased in proportion as the distance was greater; and after many centuries had passed away, after continents had been traversed, and generations degenerated by the influence of different climates, he ventured to the extremes, and habituating himself to the scorching heats of the south, and the frozen regions of the north, the changes have become so great, that there is room to imagine the Negro, the Laplander, and the White, different species; were it not certain that there was but one man originally created, and, that the White, the Laplander, and the Negro, can unite and propagate the great family of the human kind. Thus their colours are not original, their dissimilitude being only external and superficial. It is the same being which is tinctured with black under the torrid zone, and rendered tawny, with contracted limbs, by the rigour of the cold under the polar circle. This fact is alone sufficient to demonstrate that there is more strength, extent, and flexibility, in man than in any other being; for vegetables, and almost every animal, are confined to particular soils and climates. This extension of our nature depends less on the properties of our bodies than those of our minds. By the last, man has been enabled to seek those things which are necessary for the delicacy of the body; by that he has found out the means of bearing the inclemencies of the weather, and of conquering the barrenness of the earth. He may be said to have subdued the elements: by a single ray of his intellect he produced the element of fire, which before did not exist on the surface of the earth: he has cloathed, sheltered, and lodged himself, thus providing against every external attack: he has compensated by his reason for every deficiency; and although not so strong, so large, nor so robust, as many animals, yet he has found means to conquer, subdue, enslave, and deprive them of those spaces which Nature seems to have resigned for their use.