SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 263 



And now let us inquire if there is not some natural, 

 physical reason, by which to account for this fact. 



Let me inquire of those who read and believe in the 

 Bible, if they cannot find a reason why the descendants 

 of Ham are servants to the descendants of Shem and 

 Japheth, recorded in the 25th, 26th and 27th verses of the 

 ninth chapter of Genesis. 



"But if any one should wish to know why the African 

 can expose his naked skin to a tropical sun without 

 suffering pain or inconvenience ; why, after a fever leaves 

 him, rejecting soups, teas, and light diet, he eats through 

 choice, and with impunity, a full meal of fat pork and 

 corn bread, and then voluntarily sits in the sun a few 

 hours, as if to promote its digestion, and the next day 

 goes cheerfully to his labor; why he has no revenge for 

 being subjected to the indignity of corporeal chastise- 

 ment ; why he feels a perfect contempt for those persons 

 of the white race, who put themselves on terms of equal- 

 ity and familiarity with him; why he loves those who 

 exercise a firm and discreet authority over him; why he 

 is turbulent, refractory and discontented, under every 

 other government than that which concentrates all the 

 attributes of power in a single individual ; and why, when 

 freed from the restraints of arbitrary power, he becomes 

 indolent, vicious and intemperate, and relapses into bar- 

 barism — he may find the cause of all these, and many 

 more peculiarities of his character, by closely searching 

 into the anatomy and physiology of his brain, nerves and 

 vital organs. For the knife of the scientific anatomist in 

 his deep research after this cause, has demonstrated that 

 the brain proper, is smaller in them than in other races 

 of men, and that the convolutions seen on the hemisphere 

 of the brain, are less close, less deep and numerous : that 

 the occipital foramen, the medulla oblongata and spinal 

 marrow, and the nerves of organic life are much larger — 

 particularly those connected with digestion and secre- 

 tion. And all observation proves, that the pleasures of 

 these people are not so much those of reflection, as of 



