negro the full and flowing beard of the Caucasian, they would render their performances more interesting without giving up any of their “principles,” as the absurdity is exactly the same in either case. CHAPTER VIII. THE FEATURES. The features reflect the inner nature, the faculties or specific qualities, and they are distinct or indistinct, developed or undeveloped, as we ascend or descend in the scale of being. In the simpler forms of animal existence, there is close resemblance to vegetable life in this respect; but ascending to the vertebrata, and especially the mammalia, there is a broad distinction between the head and body, and instead of an undefined uniformity pervading the whole exterior surface, the face becomes a centre in which the essential character of the creature is written by the hand of Nature. It is true, that the general form of the body is significant of the grosser qualities. The muscular and motive forces of the horse are evidently designed for swiftness; those of the lion, and the felinæ generally, are designed both for strength and swiftness; while that of the ox and other mammalia is adapted to a negative kind of strength which results from a combination of all the physical forces, and not, as in the former case, from an excessive muscular development. But the higher qualities, even in animals, are legibly written in the face or features. In the human creation, of course, this external reflection of the inner nature in the features becomes vastly more distinct and real, and in our own race not unfrequently does the face become a very window of the soul, where may be read the sweetest and most exquisite emotions of a sensitive and delicate nature, or, as sometimes happens, the gross and sensual thoughts of a depraved and perverted one. There are, indeed, countless and innumerable variations in our own race in this respect. The white or Caucasian men of Asia, of Africa, Europe, and America, are so modified by climate, habits, government, religion, etc., that those ethnologists who are not anatomists have sometimes confounded them, and classed them as distinct species. Even on the same continent, in the same country, sometimes the same family, these variations are so marked that they always seem to belong to different species. The globular head, broad forehead, oval cheeks, straight nose, and distinct, well-defined lips and mouth, however, whatever may be the expression, always remain the same, and can never be confounded with any other race of men. And these modifications in the Caucasian are not confined to the face, but pervade the whole surface. White, black, and red hair, white skin and brown ones, blondes and brunettes, are often found in the same family. It is even so in regard to size—some are short and others tall—some pigmies while others are giants—and not unfrequently in the same household,