SUPPLEMENTAL HISTORY OP MAN. 171 



joy, and to rejoice, and this through all persons, 

 numbers, and tenses : the poverty of such languages 

 forms an invincible impediment to the improvement 

 of those who use them. This pecularity of language 

 does by no means attach to all the Mongolian nations. 

 The Mongoles, properly so called, the Calmucks, 

 the Burats, all bordering on Thibet, and deriving 

 their language thence, have dropped the mono- 

 syllabic character. The Mantchews and Japanese 

 speak a polysyllabic language. 



America is distinguished for the amazing variety 

 of its languages, and their want of connexion with 

 each other. Many of them, the Mexican in parti- 

 cular, have a great capacity of inflection and compo- 

 sition, and are eminently polysyllabic. In all the 

 languages spoken by the Caucasian races, there is 

 a great affinity ; of the African tongues our informa- 

 tion is but imperfect. 



We may venture to lay it down as a general posi- 

 tion, for the truth of which all history may be made 

 to vouch, that the white races are decidedly superior 

 to the dark in intellectual and moral qualities. 



The New Hollanders, and the savages of Van 

 Diemen's Land, are not less morally than physically 

 degraded. They practice the most unfeeling bar- 

 barity to women and children; are implacable in re- 

 venge, and destitute of natural affection ; they have 

 no moral sense, no idea of a God, no religion, and 

 but a rude notion of a future state, utterly uncon- 

 nected with any theological system. 



A moral and intellectual inferiority, more qr less 



