34 MEMOIR OF CAMPER. 



jot to admire the generous feelings by which he was 

 animated, at a time when the tide of prejudice, rest- 

 ing on ignorance, and often strengthened by sordid 

 interest, and debasing cruelty, set most strongly in 

 an opposite direction. " Thus am I satisfied," says 

 he, " with having proved, by anatomical observations 

 on our bodies, and particularly on our skin, that 

 there is no room for believing that the race of Ne- 

 groes does not descend from Adam as our own. 

 ****** Take all these things into your con- 

 sideration, and you will find no difficulty in consi- 

 dering them as much the genuine descendants of the 

 common father of our race as yourselves ; nor will 

 you hesitate with me to tender to the Negro a bro- 

 ther's hand." This lecture was, at a later date, 

 transmitted to the Academic des Sciences of Paris, 

 and could not fail to produce its effect upon that 

 learned body, and on the reading population through- 

 put France and the world. 



Very early in his career, Camper, influenced appa- 

 rently by his hostility to the degrading views of the 

 Negro then so generally entertained, directed a large 

 share of his attention to the orang-outang, and to 

 the whole race of the monkey tribe. He prosecuted 

 his researches with uncommon ardour from the year 

 1754* down to a late period of his life, dissecting five 

 specimens of the orang-outang with his own hands, 

 and particularly examining three others when alive, 

 besides examining baboons, apes, &c. in numbers 

 that could not easily be reckoned. The result of 

 these labours he left in a work extending to about 



