78 
OUR RACE AND ITS ORIGIN. 
The color of the eye is also a test of its strength. The 
brown and dark colored are weaker, and more susceptible 
of injury from various causes than the grey or blue eyes. 
The light blue are generally the most powerful, and next to 
those are the grey. The lighter the pupil the longer and 
greater is the degree of tension which the eye can sustain. 
The color of the European is white, but there is almost 
as much difference between the fair-skinned Saxon and the 
swarthy Spaniard, as between the Arab and the Negro. 
The Maori, too, can show as fair a skin as the Spaniard 
or Portuguese ; and proverbially proud as the American 
Spaniard is of his pure descent, it is rather to be proved 
by his ancestral pedigree than his fair complexion. 
It may likewise be remarked that the feelings of the 
various sections of the human family towards each other 
are greatly influenced by color. Each race views any devi- 
ation from his own as a sign of inferiority, and a departure 
from the law of nature. 
Different races pride themselves on their pure descent, 
and severally view others as their inferiors ; in ancient times 
the polished Greek regarded the Persian as a barbarian, 
and the Jew, too, entertained the same idea of the Gentile 
world. Paul, wrecked on the isle of Malta, styled its in- 
habitants barbarians. Whilst the white has a feeling of 
abhorrence when he first sees the black, he, in his turn, 
experiences a similar sensation towards the other. Nor 
can this be more strongly exemplified than by the fact 
that each makes the opposite color to his own to be that 
of the evil one. With the white, Satan is thought to be 
black, but with the black he is supposed to be white. The 
Maori and Chinese paint him red, and the latter have dis- 
tinguished our countrymen by the name of red devils. A 
similar feeling is detected in their respective ideas of mourn- 
ing, the sign of grief and sorrow with one being black, with 
another white. 
It seems natural that each should transfer to the opposite 
that which he dislikes. The red Indian speaks with con- 
tempt of the pale skins. The white expresses a like feeling 
