[229] John Hunter also thought that man was originally black; he had remarked that domestic animals become white by age. Compare White, _Account of the regular Gradation of Man_, p. 100. Hunter thus confounded men with domestic animals. We have already said what must be thought of this connexion. [230] Compare Morel, _Dégénérescence de l’espèce humaine_, p. 5, Paris, 1857. [231] See above, p. 73. [232] Climateric influences act probably upon wild animals in the same manner; it must be remarked, however, that a captive animal and a man, taken to another country, are not exposed in the same degree to the action of the new medium; conditions are not similarly altered as regards both of them. Sometimes the man, sometimes the animal, will have most chances of resistance; the one being always obliged by his master to submit to an intellectual government, approaching as much as possible his former state; the other, abandoned to himself, and drawn fatally into the new habits which he sees around him. [233] See, on this point, Boudin, _Géographie Médicale_, vol. ii, p. 15, Paris, 1857. _Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes_, p. 230, 1833. G. Pouchet, _Des Colorations de l’épiderme_, 4to, Paris, 1864. [234] [Dr. Waitz, in his _Introduction to Anthropology_ (translated and edited by J. F. Collingwood), gives an explanation concerning the colouring matter in the Negro, which is very curious, but with which, however, he does not agree; viz., “that in hot climates the amount of oxygen inspired is insufficient to change the carbon into carbonic acid, and that the unconsumed carbon is deposited in the pigment-cells of the skin.... It is, however, difficult to admit that the browning of the skin in our climate in summer is produced by the same causes as the black colour of the Negro, and that it would only require a greater intensity and a longer duration to become so entirely.” Part. I, sect. i, p. 35.--EDITOR.] [235] The precociousness of the genital functions is in direct relation with this general fact. [236] W. Edwards, _Caractères Physiologiques_, etc., p. 14. “The tropics alone produce the combination of infantine grace with the full development of female maturity.” Smith, _Natural History_, etc., p. 190. See, also, Cabanis, _Rapports du Physique et du Moral_, vol. ii; and Davy, _Account of Ceylon_. These two authors in particular have quite appreciated these changes. [237] Boudin, _Géographie Médicale_, vol. ii, p. 150, 1857. [238] Meeting of November 7, 1861. [239] [See above, p. 59, _note_.--EDITOR.]