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to the other, and that the Negroes and the Mongols have as many diversities of situation in their quarter of habitation as could be wished for, with marked national inferiority. "The philosophy," says Wilks, in his Historical Sketches, "which refers exclusively to the physical influence of climate, this most remarkable phenomenon of the moral world, is altogether insufficient to satisfy the rational inquirer; the holy spirit of liberty was cherished in Greece and its Syrian colonies by the same sun which warms the gross and ferocious superstition of the Mahomedan zealot: the conquerors of half the world issued from the scorching deserts of Arabia, and obtained some of their earliest triumphs over one of the most gallant nations of Europe (Spain).

"A remnant of the disciples of Zoroaster, flying from Mahomedan persecution, carried with them to the western coast of India the religion, the hardy habits, and athletic forms of the north of Persia; and their posterity may at this day be contemplated in the Parsees of the English settlement at Bombay, with mental and bodily power absolutely unimpaired after a residence of a thousand years in that burning climate. Even the passive

but ill-understood character of the Hindoos, exhibiting few and unimportant shades of distinction, whether placed under the snows of Imaus, or the vertical sun of the torrid zone, has, in every part of these diversified climates, been occasionally roused to achievements of valour, and deeds of desperation, not surpassed in the heroic ages of the western world. The reflections naturally arising from these facts are obviously sufficient to extinguish a flimsy and superficial hypothesis, which would measure the human mind by the scale of a Fahrenheit's thermometer."

Some, again, seek to explain this phenomenon of the mental and moral difference in the Arian and other varieties of mankind, as produced by the external influences of education, government, and religion, and they illustrate their solution from the investigation that though the Turks are superior in national vigour to the Russians, they are bowed down by the latter on account of their Government and religion being less favourable to national progress and development. In fact, the unfavourable influence of the Mahomedan religion on national development has been exemplified by M. Fourier in the case of the Arabs; and he believes that

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"if the Arabians, like the people of the West, had possessed the inestimable advantage of a religion favourable to the arts and to useful knowledge, they would have cultivated and brought to perfection every branch of philosophy. At the commencement of their extraordinary career, they were ingenious and polished: they made remarkable progress in poetry, architecture, medicine, geometry, natural history, and astronomy; they preserved and transmitted to us many of those immortal works which were destined to aid the revival of learning in Europe. But the Mussulman religion was incompatible with this development of the mind; the Arabs were exposed to the alternative of renouncing their faith, or returning to the ignorance of their ancestors."

That some beneficial or emasculating influence is exerted on the human species by religion, and thence education and government, is too obvious to be doubted in the least degree; but our question relates to the capability of civilisation, and this solution utterly fails to explain the superiority of the Arians over the other races of mankind. All mankind at one period of history were in a state of equal barbarism; and yet the Arians, not all professing

the same religion, but some Christianity, and others deism (as the ancient Persians), some pantheism (as the Hindoos), and others (as the modern Persians) even the Mahomedan religion, have raised themselves at least in an intellectual point of view, if not in social felicity, above all the other races of mankind. So that the explanation afforded by a set of writers of the phenomena of the mental and moral difference in the Arian and other varieties of mankind, as the result of the influence of religion, cannot convince us to belief that the African enjoys an equality of moral and intellectual attributes with the Arians, and requires only a refining and heaven-directed religion for a full development. We cannot, therefore, believe that a glorious destiny awaits the Negro, in the command and improvement of the world.

We have related facts that are deducible from history and ethnography, to argue the poor fate of the Negro. Instead of a rise, we have apprehensions of his existence itself; for he is being already pressed in his native home by the cupidity of the Syro-Arabians and Europeans. Had the climate of the African continent been more favourable than it is, the Europeans would nearly have occupied the

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whole tract by this time; but as even nature opposes obstacles, they have colonised the coast stations, and the dark tribes are either falling, or receding into the interior, to be eventually crushed between the opposing aggressions of the Arabs and Europeans. It is in vain to expect that the power and civilisation of Europe can be crushed by the rude force of the Africans. Unite them how we may, the two grandest achievements of modern times, printing and gunpowder, are sufficient to repel the inroad of any barbarism now; and to suppose the Africans to rise in a commanding position in time is but to ignore their very physical organisation, which allots them a lower position in the scale of nations. And if it savours

any

not too much of the Pharisaic, we would, as an additional ground for our view of the future prospects of the world, appeal to the oft-repeated prophecy" Japhet shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant." Either that this prophecy, which has held good during the last three thousand years, is false, or the Negro-the descendant of Canaan -is destined to remain low, as a servant.

Why or with what object Providence should have created the Negro and other races to