This, by such a mode of decision, will be found a dark olive; a beautiful colour, and a just medium between white and black.

That this was the primitive colour, is highly probable from the observations that have been made; and, if admitted, will afford a valuable lesson to the Europeans, to be cautious how they deride those of the opposite complexion, as there is great reason to presume, _that the purest white[079] is as far removed from the primitive colour as the deepest black_.
We come now to the grand question, which is, that if mankind were originally of this or any other colour, how came it to pass, that they should wear so various an appearance?
We reply, as we have had occasion to say before, either _by the interposition of the Deity_; or _by a co-operation of certain causes, which have an effect upon the human frame, and have the power of changing it more or less from its primitive appearance, as they are more or less numerous or powerful than those, which acted upon the frame of man in the first seat of his habitation_.
With respect to the Divine interposition, two epochs have been assigned, when this difference of colour has been imagined to have been so produced.

The first is that, which has been related, when the curse was pronounced on a branch of the posterity of _Ham_.

But this argument has been already refuted; for if the particular colour alluded to were assigned at this period, it was assigned to the descendants of _Canaan_, to distinguish them from those of his other brothers, and was therefore _limited_ to the former.

But the descendants of _Cush_[080], as we have shewn before, partook of the same colour; a clear proof, that it was neither assigned to them on this occasion, nor at this period.
The second epoch is that, when mankind were dispersed on the building of _Babel_.