7 
liarities, however, seem accidental rather than specific ; result- 
ing from long oppression and degradation, and from the inci- 
dents which are naturally peculiar to centuries of savage life 
in hot, damp, and depressing climates. The fact that we now 
have a Negro bishop, of the purest African blood, who is not 
only a native philologist, but one who is exercising his offices 
with recognised administrative ability, is amply sufficient to 
prove that the Negro race has no specific inferiority to others, 
either mentally or morally. 
4. First and foremost comes the Colour of the Skin, which, 
unlike that of the ordinary dark tawny races, shines with a 
bright jet blackness. This colour (which is not actually born 
with the child, but develops itself gradually a short time after- 
wards) arises from a black pigment seated between the epi- 
dermis and the cutis vera, in a thin substance commonly called 
the rete mucosum. There seemed, for a long time, to have 
been considerable difficulty in deciding whether this substance 
was merely mucus or a distinct reticular tissue ; but accord- 
ing to the evidence of the latest microscopists, it is now be- 
lieved that the rete mucosum is an actual part of the epidermis 
itself, of which it is only the innermost layer.* It exists, 
indeed, among all races of men as the constant seat of colour- 
ing matter for the skin ; but in no case, except that of the 
Negroes (and of certain other sub-varieties which may be 
viewed ethnologically as cognate with them), is this pigment 
absolutely and intensely black. I am quite aware that many 
persons point out a long series of links or gradations in colour 
among the different races, — from those whose skins are fair, to 
those which are jet-black, — passing through changes so 
imperceptible that, as they contend, there is no possibility of 
saying where the lines of distinction are to be drawn. But 
the origin of the extremely black divergence being in question, 
the approximating shades must not be necessarily assumed 
as having been produced in graduated succession from the 
fairest. On the contrary, it is far more probable that the jet- 
black races should have first appeared suddenly, and then 
through occasional intercourse with fairer people have after- 
wards generated into variable shades of lesser or greater dark- 
ness, than that the original fairer race should have become 
gradually self - developed into varieties which were coloured off 
subsequently by insensible degrees toward Negro blackness. 
For, as far as I am able to judge by reading, we have no ana- 
logical instances within our present range of experience which 
* See Manual of Human Histiology, by A. Ivolliker (Busk and 
Huxley’s translation), vol. i. p. 132. 
