t and philosopher, my father brought to bear on all these grave
points the various speculations involved in the distinction of races.
He showed how race in perfection is produced, up to a certain point, by
admixture; how all mixed races have been the most intelligent; how, in
proportion as local circumstance and religious faith permitted the
early fusion of different tribes, races improved and quickened into the
refinements of civilization. He tracked the progress and dispersion
of the Hellenes from their mythical cradle in Thessaly, and showed how
those who settled near the sea-shores, and were compelled into
commerce and intercourse with strangers, gave to Greece her marvellous
accomplishments in arts and letters,--the flowers of the ancient world.
How others, like the Spartans; dwelling evermore in a camp, on guard
against their neighbors, and rigidly preserving their Dorian purity of
extraction, contributed neither artists, nor poets, nor philosophers to
the golden treasure-house of mind. He took the old race of the Celts,
Cimry, or Cimmerians. He compared the Celt who, as in Wales, the Scotch
Highlands, in Bretagne, and in uncomprehended Ireland, retains his old
characteristics and purity of breed, with the Celt whose blood, mixed by
a thousand channels, dictates from Paris the manners and revolutions
of the world. He compared the Norman, in his ancient Scandinavian home,
with that wonder of intelligence and chivalry into which he grew, fused
imperceptibly with the Frank, the Goth, and the Anglo-Saxon. He compared
the Saxon, stationary in the land of Horsa, with the colonist and
civilizes of the globe as he becomes when he knows not through what
channels--French, Flemish, Danish, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish--he draws
his sanguine blood. And out from all these speculations, to which I do
such hurried and scanty justice, he drew the blessed truth, that carries
hope to the land of the Caffre, the but of the Bushman,--that there is
nothing in the flattened skull and the ebon aspect that rejects God's
law, improvement; that by the same principle which raises the dog,
the lowest of the animals in its savage state, to the highest after
man--viz., admixture of race--you can elevate into nations of majesty
and power the outcasts of humanity, now your compassion or your scorn.
But when my father got into the marrow of his theme; when, quitting
these preliminary discussions, he fell pounce amongst the would-be
wisdom of the wise;