colour from themselves_; that is, lighter in the first, and
darker in the second instance.

As a proof of the first, we shall give the words of the Abbe
Raynal[086], in his admired publication. "The children," says he, "which
they, (the _Africans_) procreate in _America_, are not so
black as their parents were. After each generation the difference
becomes more palpable. It is possible, that after a numerous succession
of generations, the men come from _Africa_ would not be
distinguished from those of the country, into which they may have been
transplanted."

This circumstance we have had the pleasure of hearing confirmed by a
variety of persons, who have been witnesses of the fact; but
particularly by many intelligent[087] Africans, who have been parents
themselves in _America_, and who have declared that the difference
is so palpable in the _northern provinces_, that not only they
themselves have constantly observed it, but that they have heard it
observed by others.

Neither is this variation in the children from the colour of their
parents improbable. _The children of the blackest Africans are born
white_[088]. In this state they continue for about a month, when they
change to a pale yellow. In process of time they become brown. Their
skin still continues to increase in darkness with their age, till it
becomes of a dirty, sallow black, and at length, after a certain period
of years, glossy and shining. Now, if climate has any influence on the
_mucous substance_ of the body, this variation in the children from
the colour of their parents is an event, which must be reasonably
expected: for being born white, and not having equally powerful causes
to act upon them in colder, as their parents had in the hotter climates
which they left, it must necessarily follow, that the same affect cannot
possibly be produced.

Hence also, if the hypothesis be admitted, may be deduced the reason,
why even those children, who have been brought from their country at an
early age into colder regions, have been observed[089] to be of a
lighter colour than those who have remained at home till they arrived at
a state of manhood. For having undergone some of the changes which we
mentioned to have attended their countrymen from infancy to a certain
age, and having been taken away before the rest could be completed,
these farther changes, which would have taken place had they remained at
home, seem either to have been checked in their prog