422 DIFFERENCES IN 



obstacles exist. In the dark races, on the contrary, inferior 

 organization renders it vain to present opportunities, or to 

 remove difficulties. 



Loss of liberty, bad government, oppressive laws, ne- 

 glected education, bigotry, fanaticism, and intolerance in reli- 

 gion, will counteract the noblest gifts of nature, will plunge 

 into ignorance, degradation, and weakness, nations capable 

 of the highest culture, of the most splendid moral and in- 

 tellectual achievements. Greece, Italy, and Spain bear me- 

 lancholy testimony to this afflicting truth. Where are the 

 brave republican Dutch, who first sustained a forty years, 

 contest with Spain in the zenith of her power, when she 

 could alarm all Europe by her ambitious schemes ; and who 

 then contended with England for the dominion of the sea? 

 What causes the present feebleness of Turkey, whose very 

 name is deemed almost synonymous with despotism and ig- 

 norance ? Careful observers can discern, even in these vic- 

 tims of oppression and fanaticism, the germs of all the 

 higher qualifications of our race, the evidences of those 

 moral excellences and intellectual powers, which require only 

 a favourable opportunity to display themselves. It is gene- 

 rally allowed that the Turks are superior in natural qualifi- 

 cations to their conquerors the Russians, who enjoy over 

 them the advantages of a government and religion* more 

 favourable to the progress of knowledge and to individual 

 security and happiness. 



Such are the results, deducible from experience, respect- 



* The unfavourable influence of the Mahometan religion on intellectual 

 culture has been exemplified by Mr. Fourier in the case of the Arabs, 

 t'lf the Arabians, like the people of the West, had possessed the inestimable 

 advantage of a religion favourable to the arts and to useful knowledge, they 

 would have cultivated and brought to perfection every branch of philosophy. 

 At the commencement of their extraordinary career they were ingenious and 

 polished; they made remarkable progress in poetry, architecture, medicine, 

 geometry, natural history, and astronomy ; they preserved and transmitted to 

 us many of those immortal works which were destined to aid the revival of 

 learning in Europe. But the Musselman religion was incompatible with this 

 developement of the mind ; the Arabs were exjiosed to the alternative of 

 renouncing their faith, or returning to the ignorance of their ancestors, 

 Drscriplion dc VEgyptc, Preface /lisloriqnc, I}. 16. 



