67 



North of the Alps, when the Roman arms and arts first 

 crossefl those mountains, the comparison would be un- 

 equal, because, at that lime, those parts of L^mcjpe ut-re 

 svvarujing with numbers; because numbers [)r(iduce 

 enmlation, and multiply the chances of improvement, 

 and one improvement begets another. Yet I may safe- 

 ly ask, how many good poets, how many able mathe- 

 maticians, how many great inventors in arts or sci- 

 ences, had Europe, NortJ] of the Alps, then produced ? 

 And it was sixteen centuries after this before a Newton 

 could be formed. 1 do not mean to deny, that there 

 are varieties in the race of man, distinguished by their 

 powers both of body and mind. I believe there are, as 

 1 see to be the case in the races of other animals. I 

 only mean to suggest a doubt, whether the bulk and 

 faculties of animals depend on the side of the Atlantic 

 on which their food ha|)pens to grow, or which fur- 

 nishes the elements of wliicli they are compounded ? 

 Whether nature has enlisted herself as a Cis t)r Trans- 

 Atlantic partisan P 1 am indeed to suspect, there has 

 been more eloquence than sound reasoning displayed 

 in su[iport of this theory ; that it is one of those cases 

 where the judgment lias been seduced by a glowing 

 pen: and whilst] render every tribute of honuur and 

 esteem to the celebrated zoologist, who has added, and 

 is still adding, so many |)reci()us things to the treasures 

 of science, 1 must doubt whether in this instance he has 

 not cherished error also, by lending her for a moment 

 his vivid imagination and bewitching language. (4) 



So far the Count de Buffotj has carried his new theo- 

 ry of the tendency of nature to belittle her productions 

 on this side the Atlantic. Its application to the race of 

 whites, transplanted from l''.urope, remained for the 

 Abbe liaynal. ' On doit etre etonn6 (he saysj que TA- 

 merique n'ait pas emtore produit un bon poGte, un ha- 

 bile mathematicien, un honune de genie dans un seul 

 art, ou uneseule science.' Hist. Philos. p. 92. ed. Mae- 

 stricht. 1774. ' America has not yet produced one good 

 poet.' When we shall have existed as a people as long 

 as the Greeks did before they produced a Homer, the 



