his servant, the chief place among them that were bidden to the feast. (1 Sam. ix. 22.)

The law respecting female servants as explained by the Jewish doctors, will be briefly noticed.

Females became servants by being sold by their fathers; or by the servitude of their mothers, or by captivity in war, when as already observed, they were deprived of their natural protectors, and thrown upon the clemency of the victors.

A Hebrew bondmaid, was not allowed to be sold by any but her father, nor even by him, unless she was under twelve years of age; nor to any but a Hebrew ; and even in this case the master was to bind himself to betroth her either to himself or his son whenever she completed her twelfth year, "for," says Jarchi, "the money of her purchase is that of her esponsals." If at that time the master does choose to betroth her to himself or his son, she must neither be sold nor retained but become immediately free.*

If a man espoused a captive taken in war, she was entitled to all the privileges of a wife, and her children were to be treated in all respects as though she had been originally free. In case she became disagreeable she might be divorced as other wives were liable to be, but not sold or otherwise deprived of her liberty. (Deut. xxi. 14.)

From this review of the most ancient code of laws which history has delivered to us, it is obvious that the design of the legislator was to miti

gate the system of slavery as far as it was admitted at all, and to give to the current of legal administration a direction towards its total extinction. That personal bondage was, as far as the manners of the times would admit, divested of every degrading appendage. That servants were uniformly regarded as objects of special attention. And that the slavery extensively prevalent in subsequent ages, may read, in that venerable code, its own severe and unqualified reprobation.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CAUSES WHICH HAVE PRODUCED THE DIVERSITIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.- -From Prichard's Physical History of Man.

(Continued from page 54.

It appears that the principle in the animal economy on which the production of varieties in the race depends, is entirely distinct from that which regards the changes produced by external causes on the individual.

These two classes of phenomena are governed by very different laws. In the former instance certain external powers acting on the parents, influence them to produce an offspring possessing some peculiarities of form, colour, or organization; and it seems to be the law of nature that whatever characters thus originate become hereditary, and are transmitted to the race perhaps in perpetuity. On the contrary, the changes produced by external causes in the appearance or constitution of the individual, are temporary, and in general, acquired characters are transient, and have no influence on the progeny.

It is a well known fact, that the form of features which constitutes what is called a family likeness, and other similar varieties have been transmitted for many generations. The most minute peculiarities have been traced through repeated successions. There is not a family of men nor a stock of animals, which cannot produce some. thing in confirmation. A spot on a quadruped of variegated colour often

becomes almost perpetual. The general rule equally applies to those more obvious instances, which can be discovered by our senses, and to the minute varieties of organization, which give rise to peculiar constitutions and to every different morbid affection. Thus defects in the organs of sense, and imperfections in all the bodily functions, as deafness, insanity, asthma, palsies, are hereditary, or at least the predispositions which lead to these distempers when the exciting causes are applied.

The truth of the other proposition advanced, that no acquired characters are ever transmitted, is not so immediately evident; although it appears to be universally confirmed by experience. It may be stated as a general fact, that the organization of the offspring, allowing still for the springing up of new varieties, is always formed on the model of the natural and original constitution of the parent, and is not affected by any change the latter may have undergone, or influenced by any new state it may have acquired. A contrary opinion has indeed been maintained by some physiologists, and divers facts have been related in testimony. We are told for example, that dogs and cats are sometimes produced without tails; the defect arising from the circumstance that the parents of the animals so marked had suffered amputation of the same member. The authors who have brought such examples as these in defence of their opinions, would not probably have thought them worth recording if they had not happened to coincide with the systems they were advocating. It is surely much more reasonable to attribute defects of this nature to accidental occurrence, than thus to account for them. Individuals are occasionally produced in every species sometimes with a natural mutilation or defect of some member, and others with an excessive growth. We see such examples almost daily in the human kind, and similar instances occur in the lower tribes. Yet if a child be born without a foot or hand or arm, it would not occur to any person to impute the want of the limb to any amputation which either of the parents might have undergone, and if the lat

ter should have been found to have been thus mutilated, the coincidence would be justly attributed to accident, and no connection would be imagined between the two facts.

The opinion we are opposing has taken its rise rather from some absurd theory, than from any facts that have appeared well established. But our knowledge of the processes of nature is so slender that we are not authorized to reason from any hypothesis on the subject. We know not by what means any of the facts we remark are effected. Our object should be simply to observe and generalize them, and to deduce thence analogical rules to guide us in our future researches. In the present instance we form our observations with such an abundant range of experiment before us, that we are entitled to a considerable degree of confidence in the general results. All nations are subject to accidental injuries, and amputations and other operations of surgery have been practised in every country from immemorial time. Yet who ever heard of any effect produced on the race? Our horses and other domestic animals are continually mutilated in their ears and tails from our caprice. An infinite number of decisive experiments are performed every day with the same results.

The utility of this law of nature is very evident. If it were not for it, the evils of all past ages would be perpetuated; and the human race would, in each succeeding generation, exhibit more abundant examples of accumulated misery. Every species would become at this day mutilated and defective, and we should see nothing but men and animals destitute of eyes, arms, legs, &c. The whole creation which now displays a spectacle of beauty and happiness, would present to our view a picture of universal decrepitude and hideous deformity.

We cannot discern any essential circumstance in which changes produced by art or by casual injury, differ from those which are effected by other external causes. Neither do the lat ter appear to be communicated to the offspring, which is always formed according to the natural constitution of the parent. Thus we know that the change whatever it may be,

which is produced in the constitution by the application of certain contagions, as the smallpox, cowpox, and others, is a permanent state, and renders the persons who have undergone these diseases, incapable of being af fected by the same maladies during their lives, yet this acquired condition is not communicated to their children, who are born on the contrary with the original constitutions and predispositions of their parents. These are prob. ably analogous cases to those of the changes produced by external injuries. The secret modifications of bodily structure, which defend the constitution against the attacks of any distemper are governed by the same laws, as far as regards hereditary descent, as the sensible changes of form, or even the want of parts, which is the consequence of mutilation.

The uniform preservation of the natural complexion of white races of men, who reside in hot climates, and are continually acquiring a darker hue, is a fact analgous to those which we have lately mentioned and conformable to the general law. The adventitious colour has no influence on the offspring.

If there be any truth in the above reasoning we must not in inquiring into the nature of the varieties in the human complexion and figure, direct our attention to the class of external powers, which produce changes on individuals in their own persons, but to those more important causes, which acting on the parents influence them to produce an offspring endowed with certain peculiar characters, which characters, according to the law of nature, become hereditary, and thus modify the race.

It will be useful in this place to extend our views again to the other departments of nature, and endeavour to acquire an idea of the causes in general, which chiefly predispose to the production of varieties. It is to be regretted, that physiologists have not directed their attention to this view of the subject. If they had pursued this path, we should probably, at the present time, have been possessed of an instructive accumulation of facts, in the place of abundance of vague reasoning.

It is well known that in the vegetable kingdom the seeds of plants in various circumstances produce new varieties of form, colour, and quality. Seedling plants continually exhibit a disposition to almost infinite variations. -In some vegetable races, as in the varieties of the pea, the characters thus constituted are very uniformly hereditary; in others they are very capricious, and in not a few examples, as in the apple and pear, the offspring scarcely receives any determination from the peculiar character of the parent stock.

The circumstances which produce the evolutions of varieties, and especially of the finer and more luxuriant forms, and of the more beautiful tints, in the vegetable kingdom, are culture, richness and frequent change of soil, an abundant supply of all the wants of the individual, and a cautious guarding against all causes which have a tendency to weaken the vigour of its growth and lessen the energies of its peculiar life. The principle of cultivation, or rather of this part of it, for a great portion of the art consists in the judicious mixture of varieties, seems to be the supplying to every plant in abundance the stimuli adapted by nature to its particular species.

In the animal kingdom it is probable that a greater number of causes would be found to contribute to the evolving of varieties, if sufficient observations were made of all the antecedent circumstances, which are connected with these appearances. If a pair of brown mice are kept constantly in a dark cellar or any where excluded from light, their offspring will be produced with white hair and red eyes. It is not an uncommon thing to find this variety in the foundations of old cathedrals and in other places, which abound in dark subterranean recesses. The white variety of the field mouse is found in woody plains. These characters are hereditary and the animals possessing them frequently form races.

The appearance of the white variety is very common in several species of animals which inhabit the artic countries. I do not speak of the races which are originally white, as the artic bear and fox, nor of the varying tribes, which acquire a white hue in

the winter, for these are distinct species. But the common species of bears, foxes, and other animals in those countries frequently produce offspring of the description above mentioned. This phenomenon and that of the variety of mice in our own country may be considered as analogous. There is no reason to doubt that several of the species of wild beasts, which are generally of dark colours in the south of Europe, would, if they were transported within the artic circle, sòon exhibit the same deviations in their progeny. We have here an example of the antecedent circumstances connected with the origin of variety tolerably well defined.

It is scarcely to be imagined that climates have no effect in exciting these variations, for whatever are the circumstances or combinations of them, which conduce to the appearance of such phenomena, these must be supposed more likely to occur in one climate than another.

The breeds of goats, rabbits, and cats of Anatolia are remarkable for soft, long, white hair. The concurrence of this character in different species found in the same local situation, leads to the inference that the variety must arise from a local cause. Yet this variety is permanent, when the animal is carried into other countries.

But by far the most powerful cause of the evolution of varieties in the animal kingdom is domestication, or the artificial and unnatural condition into which those tribes are brought, which are subservient to the uses of man. To be convinced of the truth of this fact, we need only look on the phenomena which surround us on every side. In all our stocks of domesticated animals, we see profuse and infinite variety, and in the races of wild animals from which they originally descended, we find an uniform colour and figure for the most part to prevail.

Domestication is to wild animals what cultivation is to vegetables, and the former probably differs from the natural state of the one class of beings in the same circumstances which distinguish the latter from the natural condition of the other class. The most

apparent of these is the abundant supply of the peculiar stimuli of the kind. Animals in a wild state procure a simple and unvaried food in precarious quantities, and are exposed to the inclemencies of the seasons. Their young are produced in similar circumstances to the state of seedlings which spring uncultivated in a poor soil. But in the improved state, all the stimuli of various food, of warmth, &c. are afforded in abundance, and the consequence is a luxuriant growth, the evolution of varieties, and the exhibition of all the perfections of which each species is capable.

Civilized life holds the same relation to the condition of savages in the human race, which the domesticated state holds to the natural or wild condition among the inferior animals. Man is defended by so many arts against the influence of the elements, he appears when we compare him with the greater part of the brute creation, to be so secure against the efficacy of natural causes, and this not only in countries where the improved condition of life has been carried to the greatest advancement, but with a great majority of the species, that the effects of climates must be expected to be less on the human than on the inferior kinds.

On the other hand, the difference between the artificial state of mankind and their natural or savage condition, is so much more important and extensive than any which intervenes between the domesticated and wild races of animals, that we must, reasoning from probability expect the effect of this change on the human species to be more strongly marked than on the inferior kinds.