SECT. I.] MENTAL CULTURE. 67 



have descended from intermixture. 1 Their country manifestly 

 is one of those where an extended intermixture of Negroes 

 with Abyssinian and Arabs took place. 



Finally, it may be noticed that Lepsius 2 designates the 

 Kundschara language as predominating in Darfur and the 

 greater part of Kordofan, a language which is a foreign Negro- 

 idiom, while the Nuba language may perhaps be considered 

 as belonging to the Caucasian (Semitic?) language. Rus- 

 seger, 3 and also Brehm, 4 appear to be of the same opinion in 

 considering the Barabra as belonging to the Ethiopian (Abys- 

 sinian) peoples from their linguistic similarities. 



Many of the preceding instances have taught us what im- 

 portant changes in the organism may be effected by a combi- 

 nation of diet, physical culture, and social condition. But as 

 these are chiefly connected with an entire change in habits, 

 there occurs in most cases a corresponding change in mental 

 development. In now considering the effects of psychical in- 

 fluences, it must be observed, that a separation of the particular 

 influence which each individual agent exercises is impracticable; 

 for in the great majority of physical changes produced by the 

 continued action of psychical influences, nutrition and mode of 

 life are acting in the same direction. An abundance of the 

 necessaries of life, combined with a feeling of security and a 

 permanent social condition, are usually connected with a 

 relatively high degree of mental culture, which reacts 

 favourably on the development of the body. On the other 

 hand, hunger, uncleanliness, and misery, produce gradually an 

 obtuseness of intellect, loss of energy, and when combined 

 with an oppressed social condition, may contribute to arrest 

 bodily development in a people. 



The lower the mental development of a people, the more 

 subject is it to external natural influences. These may act 

 directly upon the organism, or indirectly. If all conditions of 



1 Hbskins, p. 200. 



2 " Bericht iiber d. verb, der Preuss. Akad./' p. 382, 1844. 



3 " E. in Europa, Asien, u. Afr.," ii, p. 192, 1843. 



4 Chap, i, p. 72. 



F 2 



