OF THE HUMAN RACE. 



20^ 



ment they compare them together. The peculiarity among the Hindoos of 

 having the bone of the leg remarkably long, meets a precise parallel in the 

 swine of Normandy, which stand so high on their hind quarters, that the 

 back forms an inclined plane to the head ; and as the head itself partakes of 

 the same direction, the snout is but little removed from the ground. 



In some countries, indeed, the swine have degenerated into races that in 

 singularity far exceed the most extravagant variations that have been found 

 among the human species. What can differ more widely than a cloven foot 

 and a solid hoof? yet swine are found with both: the variety with a solid 

 hoof was known to the ancients, and still exists in Hungary and Sweden : 

 and even the common sort that were carried by the Spaniards to the isle 

 of Cuba, in 1509, have since degenerated into a variety with a hoof of the 

 same solid kind, and of the enormous size of not less than half a span in 

 diameter. 



How absurd, then, to contend that the distinctions in the different varieties 

 of the human race must have proceeded from a plurality of species, while we 

 are compelled to admit that distinctions of a similar kind, but more nume- 

 rous and more extravagant, have proceeded from a single species in other 

 animals ! 



It may appear singular, perhaps, that I have taken no notice of the wide 

 difference which is supposed to exist in the intellectual faculties of the dif- 

 ferent varieties of man. To confess the truth, I have purposely omitted it ; 

 because of all the arguments that have ever been offered to support the doc- 

 trine of different species, this appears to me the feeblest and most superficial. 

 It may suit the narrow purpose of a slave-merchant, — of a trafficker in human 

 nerves and muscles, — of a wretch who, in equal defiance of the feelings and 

 the laws of the day, has the impudence to offer for sale on the polluted shores 

 of our own country, in one and the same lot, as was the case not long since, 

 a dead cameleopard and a living Hottentot vvoman : — it may suit their purpose 

 to introduce such a distinction into their creed, and to let it constitute the 

 whole of their creed, but it is a distinction too trifling and evanescent to claim 

 the notice of a physiologist for a moment. 



The variable talents of the mind are as propagable as the variable features 

 of the body, — how, or by what means, we know not, — but the fact is incon- 

 trovertible. Wit and dulness, genius and idiotism, run in direct streams from 

 generation to generation ; and hence the moral character of families, of tribes, 

 of whole nations. The understanding of the negro race, it is admitted, is 

 in many tribes strikingly and liabitually obtuse. It has thus, indeed, been 

 propagated for a long succession of ages ; and, till the negro mind receives 

 a new turn, till it becomes cultivated and called forth into action by some 

 such benevolent stimulus as that which is now abroad generally, and espe- 

 cially such as is afforded it by the African Institution of our own country (an 

 establishment that ought never to be mentioned without reverence), the same 

 obtuseness must necessarily continue, and by a prolongation of the habit, 

 may, perhaps, even increase. But let the man who would argue from this 

 single fact, that the race of negroes must be necessarily an inferior species, 

 distinct from all the rest of the world, compare the taste, the talents, the 

 genius, the erudition, that have at different periods blazed forth in different 

 individuals of this despised people, when placed under the fostering provi- 

 dence of kindness and cultivation, with his own or those of the generality of 

 his own countrymen, and let him blush for the mistake he has made, and the 

 injury he has committed. 



Freidig, of Vienna, was an excellent architect, and a capital performer on 

 the violin ; Hannibal was not only a colonel of artillery in the Russian service, 

 but deeply skilled in the mathematical and physical sciences ; so, too, was 

 Lislet, of the Isle of France, who was in consequence made a member of 

 the French Academy; and Arno, who was honoured with a diploma of 

 doctor of philosophy by the university of Wurtemberg, in 1734. Let us add 

 to these the names of Vasa and Ignatius Sancho, whose taste and genius have 

 enriched the polite literature of our own country ; and, with such examples 



