COMPLEXION, a term technically denoting the temperament, habitude, and natural disposition of the body ; but popularly signifying the colour of the face and skin. Few subjects have en gaged the attention of naturalists more than the diversities among the human species, among which that of colour is the most remarkable. The great differences in this respect have given occasion to several authors to assert, that the whole human race have not sprung from one original : but that as many different spe cies of men were at first created, as there are now different colours to be found among them. It remains, in reality, a matter of no small difficulty, to account for the remarkable variations of colour that are to be found among different na tions. Dr Hunter, who considered the matter more accurately than has common ly been done, determines absolutely against any specific difference among mankind. He introduces his subject by observing, that when the question has been agitated, whether all the human race constituted only one species or not, much confusion has arisen from the sense in which the term species has been adopted. He therefore thinks it neces sary to set out with a definition of the term. He includes under the same spe cies all those animals which produce issue capable of propagating others resem bling the original stock from whence they sprung. This definition he illus trates by having recourse to the human species as an example. And in this sense
of the term he concludes,that all of them are to be considered as belonging to the same species. And as, in the case of plants, one species comprehends several varieties, depending upon climate, soil, culture, and similar accidents ; so he con siders the diversities of the human race to be merely varieties of the same species, produced by natural causes.
Crpon the whole, colour and figure may be styled habits of the body. Like other habits, they are created, not by great and sudden impressions, but by continual and almost imperceptible touches. Of habits, both of mind and body, nations are susceptible as well as individuals. They are transmitted to the offspring, and augmented by inheritance. Long in growing to maturity, national features, like national manners, become fixed only after a succession of ages. They become, however, fixed at last ; and if we can ascertain any effect produced by a given state of weather or of climate, it requires only repetition, during a suffi cient length of time, to augment and im press it with a permanent character. The sanguine countenance will, for this rea son, be perpetual in the highest latitudes of the temperate zone ; and we shall for ever find the swarthy, the olive, the taw ny, and the black, as we descend to the south.