It will doubtless be objected by some that extreme examples are
here selected; and this is candidly admitted: yet, each animal type
has a centre around which it fluctuates—and such a head as the Greek
is never seen on a Negro, nor such a head as that of the Negro on
a Greek. Absolute uniformity of type is not a law of Nature in any
department: in the gradations of species, extremes meet, and are
often confounded.
Morton’s manuscripts supply an extract which shows, that “ skeptical
physicians” are not the only honest men who cannot descry
unity of human origins in Nature’s phenomena: —
« We fully concur with a learned and eloquent divine (the Hon. and Rev. William Herbert),
that we possess no information concerning the origin of the different races of mankind,
* which are as different in appearance as the species of vegetables.’ No one of these
races has sprung up within the period of historical certainty; nor are we any better informed
in respect to their ‘innumerable languages, which cannot be reunited; and no person
can show how or when any one of them arose, although we may trace the minglings of one
with another in the later years of the world.’ ” 563
I nt el l ect .
I bad intended to publish an entire chapter on the “ Comparative
Mental Characters of R a c e s b u t our Part I. has already swelled
beyond its prescribed limits; and, in consequence, although this field
is a broad and fertile one, I must be content with a few brief remarks.
It has been admirably observed by Dr. Robert Knox, that
“ Human history cannot be a mere chapter of accidents. The fate of nations cannot be
always regulated by chance; its literature, science, art, wealth, religion, language, laws
and morals cannot surely be the result of mere accidental circumstances.” 564 .
It is the primitive organization of races, their mental instinct*,
which determine their characters and destinies, and not blind hazard.
All history, as well as anatomy and physiology, prove this.
Reason has been called the “ proud prerogative of man”—being
the faculty which disunites him from the brute creation. Metaphysicians
propose many definitions of instinct and of reason; and learned
tomes have been written to show wherein the one differs from the
other: and yet no true mental philosopher will contend that the line
of demarcation can be drawn, nor can he point out where animal
intellect ends and that of man begins. Even Prichard admits that
animals do reason, and I might quote observations of the ablest naturalists
to support him; but the following resume suffices.
To judge the true nature of a “ species” of animals, it must be viewed in its natural
state; that is, unchanged either by domestication, or through foreign influences. To judge
a “ type” of the human family, it must also he studied separately; unadulterated in blood,
and in the natural condition in which its instincts and energies have placed it. Our
domestio aiiimals, influenced by artificial causes, now differ exceedingly in physique and in
morale from their primitive wild progenitors. The races of men are governed by similar
laws Intelligence, activity, ambition, progression, high anatomical development, characterise
some races; stupidity, indolence, immobility, savagism, low anatomical development
distinguish others. Lofty civilization, in all cases, has been achieved solely by the “ Caucasian”
group. Mongolian races, save in the Chinese family, in no instance have reached
beyond the degree of semi-civilization; while the Black races of Africa and Oceanica, no
less than the Barbarous tribes of America, have remained in utter darkness for thousands
of years. Negro races, when domesticated, are susceptible of a limited degree of improvement
; but when released from restraint, as in Hayti, they sooner or later relapse into
b Furthermore, certain savage types can neither be civilized nor domesticated. The Barbarous
races of America (excluding the Toltecs), although nearly as low in intellect as the
Negro races, are essentially untameable. Not merely have all attempts to civilize them
failed, but also every endeavor to enslave them. Our Indian tribes submit to extermination,
rather than wear the yoke under which our Negro slaves fatten and multiply.
It has been falsely asserted, that the Choctaw and Cherokee Indians have made great progress
in civilization. I assert positively, after most ample investigation of the facts, that the
pure-blooded Indians are everywhere unchanged in their habits. Many white persons, settling
among the above tribes, have intermarried with them; and all such trumpeted progress
exists among these whites and their mixed breeds alone. The pure-blooded savage stdl
skulks untamed through the forest, or gallops athwart the prairie. Can any one call the
name of a single pure Indian of the Barbarous tribes who — except in death, like a wild
cat — has done anything worthy of remembrance?
Sequoyah, ' alias George Guess, tlie “ Cherokee Cadmus,” so renowned
for the invention of an alphabet, was a half-breed, owing his
inventive genius to his Scotch father. My information respecting
these Cherokee tribes has been obtained from such men as Governor
Butler, Major Hitchcock, Colonel Bliss, and other distinguished officers
of our army — all perfectly conversant with these hybrid nations.
While, on the one hand, it must he admitted, that animals possess
a limited degree of reason, it is equally true, on the other, that the
races of men also have their instincts. They reason, but this “ reason,
as we term it, is often propelled by a blind internal force, which cannot
he controlled. Groups of mankind, as we have abundantly seen,
differ in their cranial developments; and their instincts drive them
into lines diverging from each other — giving to each one its typical
or national character.
The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Celts, the Chinese,
or the Hindoos, have not been solely guided by simple reason. Each type possessed, at the
start, mental instinct, which, driving reason before it, determined each national character.
The earliest civilization known to us is that of E gypt; and from this foundation, it is commonly
said, all more modern civilizations are derived. Of this, science is by no means
certain. From Egypt, the stream is supposed to have flowed steadily on, through Assyria,
Palestine, Tyre, Persia, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Germany, Spain, Britain, until it crossed the
Atlantic to our Federal Union. Certain it is, that Western Europe has rifted the bonds of
barbarism only within reoent historical times. European races, notwithstanding, possessed
those cranial developments, and those moral instincts, which forced them to play their
parts in the grand drama, as soon as the light penetrated to them, and that forms of
government and stability became secured. The Celtic and the Germanic races required no