18 
ficially shutting up the natural flow of their affections, and 
denying themselves the objects of their free choice, m order 
to experiment upon their race, and to work out scientific 
problems in biology or ethnology, is ridiculous Nor can this 
idea be at all more reasonably entertained, if we take it m 
connection with any possibly supposed motives of self-interest. 
There can be no doubt that in every country, both civilized 
and savage, such motives do very often influence the choice 
of men in marriage. But in all such cases the secret is to be 
found in a desire to obtain rank, or riches, or some other 
coveted interest; and has never yet been traceable m connec- 
tion with a wish to form new varieties of the human race, nor 
even to perpetuate particular family characteristics. What 
self-interests could be served by such desires ? Least of ail, 
what by the perpetuation of such unlovely characteristics as 
those which mark the Negro race ? When reduced to terms 
like these, all application of the preceding principles ot biology 
fails; and the argument for a Negro origin by means of 
analogies with the various origins of domesticated varieties 
in the lower animal life, becomes hopeless and impossible. 
35. Beside which, even if any analogies were thus capable 
of being sustained, it is very questionable how far they could 
be made successfully applicable to the problem now before us 
For, although we have a right to speak of these different 
breeds of pigs, sheep, fowls, &c., when thus artificially pro- 
duced, as distinct and permanent varieties, so long as they 
live in a state of induced domestication, yet it is open to 
considerable doubt whether,, if taken out of that state of 
domestication, and allowed to become feral, they would not 
speedily revert to their primitive stock, or at all events become 
so essentially altered that the parallel we seek to establish 
would no longer hold. Take our domesticated pigs as an 
example ; which, whenever they have been allowed to become 
feral, have everywhere re-acquired the dark colour, thick 
bristles, and large tusks of the wild boar. Those which were 
imported from Spain to the West Indies in 1509, degenerated 
into a monstrous race, with toes half a span long ; while some 
grew twice as large as their European progenitors. . Ihese 
instances, to which many others of the same kind might be 
added, seem to imply a tendency in domesticated animals, 
which have been bred through the principle of methodical 
selection, always to revert to their primordial condition, as 
soon as they are left to themselves in a wild and uncultivated 
state. Impossible, therefore, as the supposition was at hrst 
that the Negro race should represent a variety of mankind 
produced through methodical selection, it becomes so m a 
