and kept them in great Subjection.  Nor is it evident that Blackness is a Curse, for Navigators tell us of Black Nations, who think so much otherwise of their own condition, that they paint the Devil White.  Nor is Blackness inconsistent with Beauty, which even to our European Eyes consists not so much in Colour, as an Advantageous Stature, a Comely Symmetry of the parts of the Body, and Good Features in the Face.  So that I see not why Blackness should be thought such a Curse to the Negroes, unless perhaps it be, that being wont to go Naked in those Hot Climates, the Colour of their Skin does probably, according to the Doctrine above deliver’d, make the Sun-beams more Scorching to them, than they would prove to a people of a White Complexion.

Greater probability there is, That the Principal Cause (for I would not exclude all concurrent ones) of the Blackness of Negroes is some Peculiar and Seminal Impression, for not onely we see that Blackmore boyes brought over into these Colder Climates lose not their Colour; But good Authors inform us, That the Off-spring of Negroes Transplanted out of Africa, above a hundred years ago, retain still the Complexion of their Progenitors, though possibly in Tract of time it will decay; As on the other side, the White people removing into very Hot Climates, have their Skins by the Heat of the Sun scorch’d into Dark Colours; yet neither they, nor their Children have been observ’d, even in the Countreys of Negroes, to descend to a Colour amounting to that of the Natives; whereas I remember I have Read in Pisos[11] excellent account of Brasile, that betwixt the Americans and Negroes are generated a distinct sort of Men, which they call Cabocles, and betwixt Portugalls and AEthiopian women, He tells us, he has sometimes seen Twins, whereof one had a White skin, the other a Black; not to mention here some other instances, he gives, that the productions of the mixtures of differing people, that is (indeed,) the effects of Seminal Impressions which they consequently argue to have been their Causes; and we shall not much scruple at this, if we consider, that even Organical parts may receive great Differences from such peculiar Impressions, upon what account soever they came to be setled in the first Individual persons, from whom they are Propogated to Posterity, as we see in the Blobber-Lips and Flat-Noses of most Nations of Negroes.  And if we may Credit what Learned men deliver concerning the Little Feet of the Chinesses, the Macrocephali taken notice of by Hippocrates, will not be the only Instance we might apply to our present purpose.  And on this occasion it will not perchance be Impertinent to add something of what I have observ’d in other Animals, as that there is a sort of Hens that want Rumps; And that (not to mention that in several places there is a sort of Crows or Daws that are not