SECT. II.] UNCULTIVATED WHITE RACES. 307 



be found among civilized nations, for by cultivation the nature 

 of man may indeed be improved, but can never be changed. 



The facts we have to adduce in support of the correctness of 

 our estimate of the natural state, admit yet of another point of 

 view of still greater importance. They prove incontestably 

 that the greatest differences in the development of intellectual 

 life, have no specific importance, but are fluctuating, forming 

 nowhere fixed limits between the degrees of civilization, that 

 they run into each other in the most complicated way, so that 

 on psychological grounds we cannot divide mankind in various 

 species. 



The civilized European is accustomed to look so much down 

 upon the so-called savage, that he deems it an insult to be 

 compared with him ; and yet, even in the midst of civilization 

 we find the traces of customs, manners, and modes of thinking, 

 which, like the relapse of civilized men into a savage state, 

 prove their intimate connection. 



The assumption of Prichard that the oldest inhabitants of 

 civilized Europe were in no way superior to the present inhabit- 

 ants of Africa can neither be proved nor refuted in our ignor- 

 ance of pre -historical times ; the decision must depend on our 

 conception of the primitive state of man. This theory acquires 

 probability from the circumstance, that even now, as we are as- 

 sured, there are communities in Ireland, and even in the heart 

 of France, the civilization of which is scarcely higher than that 

 of many Negro tribes, and that a comparison of the free Negro 

 population in the larger cities of the United States, especially 

 of New York and Philadelphia, with that of the above-men- 

 tioned Irish districts, turns to the advantage of the free 

 Negroes. 1 Stephens 2 has observed, that the sight of the Rus- 

 sian peasants and a comparison of them with the Negroes in 

 the Greek and Turkish army, has compelled him to abandon 

 the theory of the superiority of the white race and Stephens 

 is an American ! What in such cases has been effected by social 

 oppression has in other cases been the result of isolation, and 

 the want of intercourse with the civilized world, combined with 



1 " Quarterly Review," p. 29, December, 1849. 



2 " Incidents of Travels in Greece, Turkey, and Eussia." 



