32 Lift ami LeW-rs of Fraiicij< Gallon 



Canipagna of Rome the ways of that femcious, powerful anrl yet indolent brute. Wo may have seen 

 him phuij;«<H stntioimry for liourK in mud and iiiarHh, in jjross contentment under a lilazinf; sun ; 

 at other times we may have noticed Home outbreak of stupid, stubliorn ferocity; iit othei-s we 

 may have seen him firmly yoked to tlie rudest of carts, doin^ powerful wrvice under the per- 

 Mstient goad of his driver. The buffalo is of value for coarse, heavy and occasional work, being 

 of strong constitution and thriving on the rankest herbage; else he would not be preserved and 

 bred in Italy. But he must l»o treati-d in a <ietermin('<i sort of way, hy hei-dsmen who understand 

 his disposition, or no work will be got out of him, and Iwsides tlmt, he is ferocious and 

 sufliciently powerful to do a great deal of mischief." (p. 180.) 



For (ialton in 1872, as one race of animals differs froni another, so all 

 races of men are not eijual. He has started on his recognition of hereditary 

 superiorities. Because the negro belongs to an inferior race, the Arabs, who 

 coalesce with the natives, inter-marry, and do not look upon a converted 

 negro as an inferior, have done far more than Christian missionaries to 

 educate and civilise the negro. 



"Of Mohammedanism and Christianity — we do not speak here or elsewhere as to their 

 essential doctrines, but as they are practically conveyed by example and precept to the negro — 

 the former has the advantage in simplicity. It exacts a decorous and cleanly ritual that (mt 

 vades the daily life, frequent prayers, ablutions and abstinence, reverence towards an awful 

 name, and pilgrimage to a holy shrine, while the combative instincts of the negro's nature an- 

 allowed free play in warring against the {Miganism and idolatry he has learned to loathe and hate. 

 The whole of this code is easily intelligible, and is obviously self-consistent. It is not so with 

 Christianity, a.s practised by white men and taught by example and precept to the negro. The 

 most prominent of ite aggre.ssion.s against his everjMlay customs are those against j)<)lygai»)-and 

 slavery. The negro, on referring to the sacred book of the European, to which appeal is made 

 for the truth of all doctrines, finds no edict against either the one or the other, but he reads 

 that the wi-sest of men had a larger harem than any modern African potentate, and that slave- 

 holding was the establishe<l custom in the ancient world. The next m()st prominent of its 

 doctrines are social equality, submission to injury, disregard of wealth, and the propriety of 

 taking no thought of to-morrow. He, however, finds the practice of the white race, from wliom 

 his instructions come, to be exceedingly different from this. He discovers very soon that they 

 aljsolutciv refuse to consider him as their equal; that they ai-e by no moans tame under insult, 

 but the very reverse of it; that the chief aim of their lives is to acquire wealth; and that 

 one of the most despised characteristics among them is that of heedlessness and want of thrift. 

 Far be it from us to say that the modern practice in these matters may not be justified, but it 

 appears to require more subtlety of i-easoning than the negro can comprehend, or, perhaps, even 

 than the missionary <»n command, to show their conformity with Bible teaching." (p. 187.) 



Gralton's anthropological sense was "rapidly developing ; he was firmly 

 grasping the relativity of religions, how they have no absolute validity, but 

 the suitability of any creed dej)end8 on the stage of the mental and even 

 the physical development of a given race. Shortly, a religion must l>e in 

 harmony with the habits and culture of a given people at a given time, or 

 it will fail to fulfil its purpose — which, from the anthropological side, is to 

 strengthen and to stabilise the social purposes and gregariou.s instincts of a 

 definite group of men. As Galton realised, Christianity has built up no 

 negro kingdoms, but Mohammedanism has done so, and the negro converts 

 erect mosques, maintain religioii.s services, and conduct their schools without 

 external support. 



That Galton was not wholly content to leave Africa to Negro an<l Arab 

 is evidenced by his letter to the Times of June G, 1873. In that letter he 

 recognised that much of Africa cannot be occupied by the European, that 



