150 Dr Morton on the Distinctive Characteristics of the 
pens that in contrast to a single master mind, the plebeiaw 
multitude are content to live and die in their primitive igno- 
rance and inferiority. 
This truth is obvious at every step of the present investi- 
gation ; for of the numberless hordes which have inhabited 
the American continent, a fractional portion only has left any 
trace of refinement. I venture here to repeat my matured 
conviction, that, as a race, they are decidedly inferior to the 
Mongolian stock. They are not only averse to the restraints 
of education, but seem for the most part incapable of a con- 
tinued process of reasoning on abstract subjects. Their minds 
Seize with avidity on simple truths, while they reject what- 
ever requires investigation or analysis. Their proximity for 
more than two centuries to European communities, has 
searcely effected an appreciable change in their manner of 
life; and as to their social condition, they are probably in 
most respects the same as at the primitive epoch of their 
existence. They have made no improvement in the construc- 
tion of their dwellings, except when directed by Europeans 
who have become domiciliated among them ; for the Indian 
cabin or the Indian tent, from Terra del Fuego to the river 
St Lawrence, is, perhaps, the humblest contrivance ever de- 
vised by man to screen himself from the elements. Nor is 
their mechanical ingenuity more conspicuous in the construc- 
tion of their boats ; for these, as we shall endeavour to shew 
in the sequel, have rarely been improved beyond the first 
rude conception. Their imitative faculty is of a very humble 
grade, nor have they any predilection for the arts or sciences. 
The long annals of missionary labour and private benefac- 
tion, present few exceptions to this cheerless picture, which 
is sustained by the testimony of nearly all practical observers. 
Even in those instances in which the Indians have received 
the benefits of education, and remained for years in civilized 
society, they lose little or none of the innate love of their na- 
tional usages, which they almost invariably resume when left 
to choose for themselves. 
Such is the intellectual poverty of the barbarous tribes ; 
but contrasted with these, like an oasis in the desert, are the 
demi-civilized nations of the new world; a people whose at- 
