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Show 210 ON THE SLAVERY AND CoMMI:RCf. an etfeCl: produced on the mucous jit!jfana before-mentioned by fo iimilar a caufe, that though the faa does not abfolu tel y prove our conjeCl:ure to be right, yet it will give us a very lively conception of the manner, in which the phrenomenon may be caufed. This probability may be lhewn in the cafe of freckles, which are to be feen in the face of children, but of fuch only, as have the thinnell: and moll: tranfparent fkins, and are occaiioned by the rays of the fun, ll:riking forcibly on the mucous fuijlauce of the face, and drying the accumulating fluid. This accumulating fluid, or perfpirable matter, is at firll: colourlefs ; but being expofed to violent heat, or dried, becomes brown. H ence, the mucofum corpus being tinged in various parts by this brown coagulated fluid, and the parts fo tinged appearing through the cuticlt, or upper furface of the fkin, arifcs that fpotted appearance, obfervable in the cafe recited. Now, if we were to conceive a black fkin to be an tmiver.fol freckle, or the rays of the fun to aCl: fo univerfally on the mucous jitbjlance of a perfon's face, as to pro-duce or THE HuMAN SPECIES. 2i [ duce thefe fpots fo contiguous to each other that they lhould unite, we /hould then fee, in imagination, a face iimilar to thofe, which are daily to be feen among black people: and if we were to conceive his body to be expofed or aCl:ed upon in the fan1e manner, we lhould then fee his body a/fuming a iimilar appearance; and thus we lhould fee the whole man of a perfeCl: black, or refembling one of the naked inhabitants of the torrid zone. Now as the feat of freckles and of blacknefs is the fame; as their appearance is iimilar; and as the caufe of the firll: is the ardour of the fun, it is therefore probable that the caufe of the fecond is the l:1me: hence, if we fubll:itute for the word ".fim," what is analogous to it, the word climate, the l:1me eiieCl: may be fuppofed to be produced, and the conjeCl:ure to receive a fanCl:ion. Nor is it unlikely that the hypotheiis, which confiders the caufe of freckles and ofblacknefs as the l:1me, may be right. For if blacknefs is occaiioned by the rays of the fun ll:riking forcibly and univerfidly on the mucous fuijlance of the body, and drying the 0 2 accumulating |