delivered. For some, and those the acutest of them, have left unto us many things of falsity; controllable not only by critical and collective reason, but common and country observation.

Lastly, while we so devoutly adhere unto antiquity in some things, we do not consider we have deserted them in several others. For they indeed have not only been imperfect in the conceit of some things, but either ignorant or erroneous in many more. They understood not the motion of the eighth sphere from west to east, and so conceived the longitude of the stars invariable. They conceived the Torrid Zone unhabitable, and so made frustrate the goodliest part of the earth. But we now know it is very well empeopled, and the habitation thereof esteemed so happy, that some have made it the proper seat of paradise; and been so far from judging it unhabitable, that they have made it the first habitation of all. Many of the ancients denied the Antipodes, and some unto the penalty of contrary affirmations; but the experience of our enlarged navigations can now assert them beyond all dubitation. Having thus totally relinquished them in some things, it may not be presumptuous to examine them in others; but surely most unreasonable to adhere to them in all, as though they were infallible, or could not err in any.

Book VI. CHAP. X.

Of the Blackness of Negroes.

Moreover, beside the special and first digressions ordained from the creation, which might be urged to salve the variety in every species, Why shall the marvel of Peru produce its flowers of different colours, and that not once, or constantly, but every day and variously? Why tulips of one colour produce some of another, and running through almost all, should still escape a blue? And lastly, Why some men, yea and they a mighty and considerable part of mankind, should first acquire and still retain the gloss and tincture of

blackness? Which whoever strictly inquires, shall find no less of darkness in the cause, than in the effect itself; there arising unto examination no such satisfactory and unquarrellable reasons, as may confirm the causes generally received; which are but two in number. The heat and scorch of the sun; or the curse of God on Cham and his posterity.

The first was generally received by the ancients, who in obscurities had no higher recourse than unto nature, as may appear by a discourse concerning this point in Strabo. By Aristotle it seems to be implied in those problems which inquire why the sun makes men black, and not the fire? Why it whitens wax, yet blacks the skin? By the word Æthiops itself, applied to the memorablest nations of negroes, that is, of a burnt and torrid countenance. The fancy of the fable infers also the antiquity of the opinion; which deriveth the complexion from the deviation of the sun; and the conflagration of all things under Phaeton. But this opinion, though generally embraced, was I perceive rejected by Aristobulus, a very ancient geographer; as is discovered by Strabo. It hath been doubted by several modern writers, particularly by Ortelius; but amply and satisfactorily discussed as we know by no man. shall therefore endeavour a full delivery hereof, declaring the grounds of doubt, and reasons of denial, which rightly understood, may, if not overthrow, yet shrewdly shake the security of this assertion.

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A second opinion there is, that this complexion was first a curse of God, derived unto them from Cham, upon whom it was inflicted for discovering the nakedness of Noah. Which notwithstanding is sooner affirmed than proved, and carrieth with it sundry improbabilities, For first, if we derive the curse on Cham, or in general upon his posterity, we shall denigrate a greater part of the earth than was ever so conceived; and not only paint the Ethiopians and reputed sons of Cush, but the people also of Egypt, Arabia, Assyria, and Chaldea; for by this race were these countries also peopled. And if concordantly unto Berosus, the fragment of

Cato de Originibus, some things of Halicarnasseus, Macrobius, and out of them of Leandro and Annius, we shall conceive of the travels of Camese or Cham; we may introduce a generation of negroes as high as Italy; which part was never culpable of deformity, but hath produced the magnified examples of beauty.

Secondly, the curse mentioned in Scripture was not denounced upon Cham, but Canaan his youngest son, and the reasons thereof are divers. The first, from the Jewish tradition, whereby it is conceived, that Canaan made the discovery of the nakedness of Noah, and notified it unto Cham. Secondly, to have cursed Cham, had been to curse all his posterity, whereof but one was guilty of the fact. And lastly, he spared Cham, because he had blessed him before. Now if we confine this curse unto Canaan, and think the same fulfilled in his posterity; then do we induce this complexion on the Sidonians, then was the promised land a tract of negroes; for from Canaan were descended the Canaanites, Jebusites, Amorites, Gergasites and Hivites, which were possessed of that land.

Thirdly, although we should place the original of this curse upon one of the sons of Cham, yet were it not known from which of them to derive it. For the particularity of their descents is imperfectly set down by accountants, nor is it distinctly determinable from whom thereof the Ethiopians are proceeded. For whereas these of Africa are generally esteemed to be the issue of Chus, the elder son of Cham, it is not so easily made out.

Lastly, whereas men affirm this colour was a curse, I cannot make out the propriety of that name, it neither seeming so to them, nor reasonably unto us; for they take so much content therein, that they esteem deformity by other colours, describing the devil, and terrible objects, white. And if we seriously consult the definitions of beauty, and exactly perpend what wise men determine thereof, we shall not apprehend a curse, or any deformity therein. For first, some place the essence thereof in the proportion of parts, con

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ceiving it to consist in a comely commensurability of the whole unto the parts, and the parts between themselves which is the determination of the best and learned writers. Now hereby the Moors are not excluded from beauty: there being in this description no consideration of colours, but an apt connexion and frame of parts and the whole. Others there be, and those most in number, which place it not only in proportion of parts, but also in grace of colour. But to make colour essential unto beauty, there will arise no slender difficulty for Aristotle, in two definitions of pulchritude, and Galen in one, have made no mention of colour. Neither will it agree unto the beauty of animals: wherein notwithstanding there is an approved pulchritude. Thus horses are handsome under any colour, and the symmetry of parts obscures the consideration of complexions. Thus in concolour animals, and such as are confined unto one colour, we measure not their beauty thereby: for if a crow or blackbird grow white, we generally account it more pretty; and in almost a monstrosity descend not to opinion of deformity. By this way likewise the Moors escape the curse of deformity; there concurring no stationary colour, and sometimes not any unto beauty.

The platonic contemplators reject both these descriptions founded upon parts and colours, or either: as M. Leo, the Jew, hath excellently discoursed in his Genealogy of Love, defining beauty a formal grace, which delights and moves them to love which comprehend it. This grace, say they, discoverable outwardly, is the resplendour and ray of some interior and invisible beauty, and proceedeth from the forms of compositions amiable. Whose faculties if they can aptly contrive their matter, they beget in the subject an agreeable and pleasing beauty; if over-ruled thereby, they evidence not their perfections, but run into deformity. For seeing that out of the same materials, Thersites and Paris, beauty and monstrosity may be contrived; the forms and operative faculties introduce and determine their perfections. Which in natural bodies, receive exactness in every kind, according to the first

idea of the creator, and in contrived bodies the fancy of the artificer. And by this consideration of beauty, the Moors also are not excluded, but hold a common share therein with all mankind.

Lastly, in whatsoever its theory consisteth, or if in the general, we allow the common conceit of symmetry and of colour, yet to descend unto singularities, or determine in what symmetry or colour it consisted, were a slippery designation. For beauty is determined by opinion, and seems to have no essence that holds one notion with all; that seeming beauteous unto one, which hath no favour with another; and that unto every one, according as custom hath made it natural, or sympathy and conformity of minds shall make it seem agreeable. Thus flat noses seem comely unto the Moor, an aquiline or hawked one unto the Persian, a large and prominent nose unto the Roman; but none of all these are acceptable in our opinion. Thus some think it most ornamental to wear their bracelets on their wrists, others say it is better to have them about their ancles: some think it most comely to wear their rings and jewels in their ear, others will have them about their privities; a third will not think they are complete except they hang them in their lips, cheeks, or noses. Thus Homer, to set off Minerva, calleth her yλavк@mis, that is, gray or light-blue eyed: now this unto us seems far less amiable than the black. we that are of contrary complexions accuse the blackness of the Moors as ugly: but the spouse in the Canticles excuseth this conceit, in that description of hers,

Thus

I am black, but comely." And howsoever Cerberus, and the furies of hell be described by the poets under this complexion, yet in the beauty of our Saviour, blackness is commended, when it is said, "His locks are bushy and black as a raven." So that to infer this as a curse, or to reason it as a deformity, is no way reasonable; the two foundations of beauty, symmetry and complexion, receiving such various apprehensions, that no deviation will be expounded so high as a curse or undeniable deformity, without a manifest and confessed degree of monstrosity.