[68] The expressions in the latter part of this narration recall the blessing of Jacob, and suggests the possibility of the tradition having come through descendants of Esau. Cardinal Wiseman (in his "Science and Revealed Religion," lect. iii.), says, with reference to Aristotle's distribution of mankind into races by colour:-- "There is a passage in Julius Firmicus, overlooked by the commentators of Aristotle, which gives us the same ternary division, with the colours of each race. 'In the first place,' he writes, 'speaking of the characters and colours of men, they agree in saying,--if by the mixed influence of the stars, the characters and complexions of men are distributed; and if the course of the heavenly bodies, by a certain kind of artful painting, form the lineaments of mortal bodies; that is, if the moon makes men white, Mars red, _and Saturn black_, how comes it that in Ethiopia all are born black, in Germany white, and in Thrace red?'"--_Astronomicon_, lib. i., c. i., ed. Basil. 1551, p. 3. Now this passage seems to me to have a still further significance in the words I have italicised, with reference to the argument I have in hand. It transpires, therefore, that the ancients had the notion that Saturn made men black, which provoked the natural query, why then are only the Ethiopians black? That it should ever have been supposed that the distant Saturn, astronomically regarded, should have had such an influence is preposterous, but if the mythological personage, Saturn, ch. x., has been sufficiently identified with Noah, and the deification of the hero in the planet (comp. pp. 159, 161) probable, the notion that _he made men black_, must be the tradition of the event we are considering. I have elsewhere traced the fulfilment of the text which says that Canaan shall be the "servant of servants to his brethren;" but as the following extract from Klaproth, in evidence of the same, has also its significance with reference to the point I am now considering--viz. the curse of blackness--I prefer to give it a place here:--"Sakhalian oudehounga est expliqué en Chinois par 'Khian chéon,' et par 'li chu,' ce qui signifie les '_têtes noires_' et le '_peuple noir_,' expression par laquelle on designe la 'bas peuple' ou les 'paysans.' Cette une expression _usitée dans plusieures pays Asiatiques ainsi qu'en Russie."--Klaproth, "Mem. Relatif a l'Asie;" vide strictures on Pere Amyot's "Mandchou Dict_."