60 



TRAVELS IN BRAZIL. 



This experiment appeared to us to confirm the 

 notion, to which the physiologist is led by many 

 other circumstances, that the European excels the 

 black and other coloured races in intensity of 

 nervous vitality, and is specifically superior to 

 the other races both in body and mind (dass der 

 Europaer an In ten si tat des Nervenlebens die ge- 

 farbten Menschen iibertrefFe, und auf eine ganz spe- 

 cifische Weise, sowohl somatisch als pyschisch die 

 ubrigen Racen beherrsche). It has been already 

 observed by several ingenious writers, that the in- 

 dividual races, though similarly organised, are, 

 however, more or less qualified in various respects, 

 and that a superior conformation of the intellectual 

 organs and powers indemnifies the European, for 

 instance, for the absence of inferior and lower 

 faculties. If, for example, the man of the Cauca- 

 sian race is inferior to the negro in mobility and 

 productiveness, to the American in firmness and 

 robustness of make, in muscular strength, in ability 

 to endure fatigue, and in longevity, and both to him 

 and to the Mongol in acuteness of the senses, he how- 

 ever excels them all in personal beauty, in symme- 

 try, proportion, and carriage, and in regard to the 

 moral, free, independent, universal development 

 of the intellectual faculties. It is that beautiful 

 harmony of all the individual powers, which is only 

 produced and maintained by the preponderance of 

 what is noblest in man, which more accurately 

 establishes his dignity, than the pre-eminent, and 



