every individual of mankind as engaged to improve his abilities, and thereby promote his own happiness to the utmost of his power: but that I by no means would be thought to detract from the characters of thofe men, who have employed their time and talents in the purfuit of particular fciences, even to the exclufion of others; and by arriving at eminence in them, have extended the bounds of human knowledge, and fmoothed the way for future travellers. Infinite are the obligations mankind are under to the illuftrious characters who have thus devoted themselves to the public good: but we may reasonably expect to stand excused, if, whilft we enjoy the fruits of fuch generous ardour, we aim at the fecurity of our private happiness, and prefer the fecret consciousness of a proper discharge of the duties of life, to the popular approbation, which defervedly waits upon those who have fuccessfully exerted their abilities, on fubjects which have little or no connection with the promotion of virtue, and the advancement of moral rectitude.

On

On the CRETINS of the VALLAIS; by Sir RICHARD CLAYTON, Bart.

READ MAY 9, 1787.

ANKIND has been divided by Linnæus

Minto four feparate claffes, to each of

which he has affigned fome characteristic difference in point of difpofition. The European and American, the African and Afiatic receive, regularly, it fhould feem according to his fyftem, an impreffion from the climate, which adheres to them through life, unless it have been weakened or overpowered by their having left their native country in very early infancy*. Other naturalifts have remarked a like degree of its influence in the formation and difpofition of animals in general, and its empire has been extended by fome, even to the vegetable world†. The obfervation is indeed an old one. Hippocrates has a long chapter in which he treats of the air, water, and particular fituations, and

* Buffon. Hift. Naturelle. De Generation des Animaux.

Wilson on the Influence of Climate on Vegetable and Animal Bodies.

↑ Sect. III. p. 280. Editio Foefii.

he there traces their fuppofed effects on the structure and paffions of mankind. Though venerable from its age, the opinion has been lately controverted, and ridicule has been called in to attack thofe pofitions, against which more folid reason appeared to have exhausted all her powers. But, whatever may be the doubts of modern fceptics, or the problems of new philofophers, no arguments can be brought up against visible demonstration. To those who deny the effects of local caufes, and the influence of particular climates and fituations, may be opposed only the Cretins of the Pays de Vallais ; a fet of beings, above indeed the brute fpecies, but in every respect below their own. Without a previous acquaintance with their real origin, the ftranger might be tempted to confider them as a diftinct, inferior part of the creation, and the intermediate link betwixt man, and his disfigured image, the Ouran-Outang. defcription Linnæus has given us of this animal may be applied to the Cretin, with a few exceptions; and that of the French Pliny, as the Comte de Buffon has been called, is marked with a resemblance ftill more ftriking. The diftrict these beings are comprised in, is part of the lower Vallais, and takes in about thirty miles in length, and eight in breadth. Round Sion they are very numerous, but they are most fo between the bridges of St. Maurice and Rîde. A few

The

A few of them are to be found on each fide, and at each extremity, but they then gradually disappear. Caft in the fame mould with the reft of mankind, they have, moft certainly, its form; but one looks in vain for

"The human face divine,"

illumined with fenfibility, and lighted up with the ray of understanding. Phyfiognomists have pretended to discover a trait of the inward character, written on almost every countenance, that befpeaks the paffions each individual is warmed with. One proof may at least be added to their fyftem, without adopting it in its fullest extent; for, with the Cretin, the vacuum is diftinctly visible. Every mental faculty appears benumbed, and the dreadful torpor is unequivocally expreffed. It must be admitted, however, that there are diftinctions in the scale of fense, and different gradations amongst them, from total darkness to intellectual twilight, and the dim dawn of understanding. Some have a fort of voice, but the deaf and dumb are very numerous; and there are multitudes who are even mere animal machines, and devoid of almost every fenfation. In point of ftature, four feet and a half is the ftandard they reach in general, and it is feldom exceeded more than a few inches. Their countenances are pale, wan, and livid; and, exclufive of other external marks of imbecility,

S 4

imbecility, they have the mouth very wide, and the tongue and lips uncommonly thick and large. Nature feems alfo to have exhausted with them all her efforts at a very early hour, and old age treads upon the heels of infancy. They die, regularly, young, and there are not any inftances of their arriving at the advanced period of human life. The propagation of the species is the only appetite numbers of them are ever roused by, and it rages with more than common violence. The fame lafciviousness is supposed to apply to the monkey and baboon. With fome, poffibly, the obfervation may create a fmile, but the naturalift will paufe on the analogy, whilft it will not efcape the moralift, that as man becomes the flave of his own unruly paffions, he defcends into a proximity to the brute creation. In this defcription of the Cretin, it ought to be obferved, thofe only in the fulleft fenfe of the word are to be included. In the different gradations, nature has been uniformly regular. Where fhe has least varied from herfelf, the Cretin moft refembles mankind in a ftate of perfection, both in countenance and figure, reaches nearer its general ftature, and there is less difference in their refpective periods of existence. The repeated view of fuch multitudes of unfortunate beings is, to the last degree, piteous and affecting. There is, notwithstanding, fome confolation in reflecting, that they are not themselves