NATURAL HISTORY. 3 



which each is placed. Let each be transplanted into the 

 country of the other, and in a few generations we should find 

 the Bosjesman civilized, and capable of reading how his former 

 superior, now sunk into the savage state, gains a precarious 

 subsistence by hunting, and passes his life in caves. 



Some theorists have ventured so far as to assert that the 

 Negro is but an improved monkey, and that his reason 

 is nothing but a partially civilized instinct. That these 

 theorists were no anatomists is sufficiently evident, and it 

 would not be necessary to prove the absurdity of their 

 assertion, were it not that many have actually been deceived 

 by their flimsy, though specious arguments. Indeed, at the 

 present time, when we find one philosopher giving what he 

 considers satisfactory proofs that salt is the cause of all 

 earthly misery, and the reason why the sun is at so great a 

 distance from us ; another reviving the very ancient belief, 

 that the earth is flat like a plate ; and a third pretending to 

 read a sealed letter with the point of his toe, or to examine the 

 interior of a friend some hundred miles distant ; it is difficult 

 to say to what extent credulity can proceed. 



AYe will, however, briefly examine this theory respecting 

 the humanity of the Negro, partly by anatomy, but mostly 

 by common sense. That monkey, or rather ape, whose form 

 most resembles that of man, is the Orang-outan. "We will 

 compare this animal with the Negro. Will any one venture 

 to deny that the noble sweep of cranium, and the smooth 

 globular surface of the human skull, demonstrating the volume 

 of the brain within, is a proof of far superior intellect than 

 is indicated by the heavy ridges, the irregular prominences, 

 and the small capacity of the ape's skull ? The face of the 

 ape is an instrument for procuring food, and a weapon for 

 attack and defence, while that of man is an ever-changing 

 index of the workings of the mind within. We therefore find 

 that the jaws of the ape are enormously developed, armed 

 with formidable fangs, and marked with strong bony ridges, 

 to which the powerful muscles which move the jaws are 

 attached. On the other hand, as man is enabled to procure 

 food, and to manufacture weapons by means of his hands, 

 his jaws and teeth are reduced to the smallest size compatible 

 with the preservation of life. 



