41 



worthy of any serious notice. The very obli- 

 quities of your reasoning may help to puzzle 

 those who have no better clue to guide them, 

 whilst your merit, as a Professor of Anatomy 

 and Surgery, may conceal from them your igno- 

 rance and deficiency in all other departments of 

 the " Natural History of Man." 



I am, Sir, &c, 



LETTER VIII. 



SIR, 



AMIDST all this hesitation and uncertainty, 

 respecting the diversities of mankind, which you 

 have sometimes represented as sufficient to con- 

 stitute different stocks and races,* and, at others, 

 as nothing more than varieties of the same spe- 

 cies,f we are surprised to find you so dogmati- 

 cal and positive respecting the natural and 

 (essential inferiority of the Negroes to the Eu- 

 ropeans ; or, as you would express it, of the 

 Ethiopian to the Caucasian variety. This dog- 

 matism, on a subject so open to controversy, 

 forms a remarkable exception to the general 

 scepticism of your reasonings. But who can 



* P. 260, 485, 486. 491. * f P- 270. 445. 474. 559. J 



