Superiority of Southern Races [pp. 369-381]

SUPERIORITY OF SOUTHERN RACES.
they are the drones of the race for whose laziness the wilderness was a refuge, or for whose crimes it was an asylum. They
fled to it because they could enjoy the unrestrained idleness
they loved. Of course they formed a class, as pauperism does
everywhere, and the forests did the rest. The same is true of
the unsettled districts of the North. The Adirondack, the
Jersey pines, and the verge of the Western territories are full
of these people, and they are only a little more respectable because the climate is more inclement. The shadows of endless
forests cow down man's ambition by theirvery vastness, and
nothing but imminent starvation will excite his energies.
ART. IV. SUPERIORITY OF SOUTHERN RACES-REVIEW OF COUNT
DE GOBINEAU'S WORK.
The science of ethnology has of late years become a favorite
subject of investigation among the learned and the curious, and
no doubt, will always hereafter be pursued with avidity by a
large class of readers. No study is more innocent, none more
interesting, and few more useful when it is not pushed to
extremes.' Oui author does not push it to extremes. lIe
assumes the Bible account of the origin of man to be true, but
says that from the earliest dawn of history we find various
races, divisions and varieties of the human family, differing
from each other more or less widely, and that these differences
can never be effaced except by intermarriage; and that then a
new variety is produced; which, like its predecessors, can only
be changed by the infusion of foreign blood forom some other
race or variety. lie holds that not only is the Caucasian race
superior to all other races, and must ever continue so despite of
circunmstance and education, but that there are very many
families or varieties in that race of different grade of capacity,
different characteristics, and different talents, turn or genius;
and that these differences are just as ineradicable as the widler
ones between the races. We have always concurred in these
propositions, the truth of which, we think, will be equally
obvious to the learned historian, the curious antiquary, and the
successful breeder of colts and cattle. lie (does not attempt
to account for these varieties or different breeds of men, and to
make them concur with the scriptural history of a comnimon
parentage; nor do we see any reason why he should do so.
God, who made man, could certainly change or modify his
nature; or, it may be, that all created things were more plastic
and adaptable in the beginning than now. The great merit of
the work is, that it treats of existing phenomena, or of such as
have existed within the historic period, and does not attempt
to account for their origin. Philosophy is always foolishly and
369
AO