64 INTELLECTUAL AND 



tainly no means of civilising those who have been uncivilised 

 for three thousand years, during which time they have been 

 connected with the Egyptians, the Carthaginians, the Arabs, 

 the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English.* If it be objected 

 that they have always been slaves, we may say our Gallic and 

 German ancestors were so also ; but we ask, Why do they con- 

 tinue to be slaves ? 



The merit of first endeavouring to distinguish races of men 

 by characteristics taken from without the physical world, by 

 the quality of the manifestations of their intelligence, is, per- 

 haps, due to Linnaeus. With this spirit of laconism, which led 

 him to group in one simple and easy formula the characteristic 

 facts which he desired to impress on the mind of the reader as 

 being important, he endeavoured to determine, in a few words, 

 the various tendencies of different races, and it must be ac- 

 knowledged that he has at times been happy in this kind of 

 synoptic classification. f 



of Maillet's remark on the subject : " Mohammed was so struck with the dif- 

 ference between white and black men, that he did not hesitate to say, that 

 God had made the first with white earth, and the latter with black. He did 

 not imagine that men so different, not only in colour but in figure and in- 

 clination, could possibly be of one and the same origin. He observes, in 

 another place, that although there have been prophets of all other nations, 

 there was never one among the blacks ; which shows that they have so little 

 mind, that the gift of foresight, the effect of natural wisdom, which has 

 sometimes been honoured with the name of prophecy, has never fallen to 

 the lot of any of them." This passage is, besides, remarkable ; because this 

 custom of prophecy seems to be a special attribute of the Semitic race 

 (compare Renan, Histoire Gendrale des Langues Semitiques, 8vo, p. 8, Paris, 

 1855), and Mohammed, in making this distinction, declared almost a specific 

 characteristic. In the translation of the " fivangile de 1'Enfance," by G. 

 Brunet (Evangiles Apocryphes, 12mo, Paris, 1849), there is this curious docu- 

 ment (Jesus had just changed some children into rams in the sight of some wo- 

 men, who asked for their pardon), " The Lord Jesus having answered, that the 

 children of Israel were, among other nations, like the Ethiopians ; the women 

 said," etc. This is merely a proof of the contempt which overwhelmed this 

 unhappy race in the east. 



* On the Negro's Place in Nature (Dr. Hunt, Anthropological Society of 

 London, November 17, 1863). 



f See the table taken from the Systema Naturae. We know that LinnaDus 

 had adopted the geographical classification of human races. 



Europe, 



A f C Severus, fastuosus, avarus, 



{ Regitur opinionibus. 

 <" Vafer, segnis, negligens, 

 ^ Regitur arbitrio. 



