oman empire a people enfeebled by luxury, worn out by excess, overrun by
rude warriors; you saw the giants of the North and East mixing with the
pigmies of the South and West. An empire was destroyed, but the seeds of
moral and physical improvement in the new race were sown; the new
population resulting from the alliances of the men of the North with the
women, of the South was more vigorous, more full of physical power, and
more capable of intellectual exertion than their apparently ill-suited
progenitors; and the moral effects or final causes of the migration of
races, the plans of conquest and ambition which have led to revolutions
and changes of kingdoms designed by man for such different objects have
been the same in their ultimate results--that of improving by mixture the
different families of men. An Alaric or an Attila, who marches with
legions of barbarians for some gross view of plunder or ambition, is an
instrument of divine power to effect a purpose of which he is wholly
unconscious--he is carrying a strong race to improve a weak one, and
giving energy to a debilitated population; and the deserts he makes in
his passage will become in another age cultivated fields, and the
solitude he produces will be succeeded by a powerful and healthy
population. The results of these events in the moral and political world
may be compared to those produced in the vegetable kingdom by the storms
and heavy gales so usual at the vernal equinox, the time of the formation
of the seed; the pollen or farina of one flower is thrown upon the pistil
of another, and the crossing of varieties of plants so essential to the
perfection of the vegetable world produced. In man moral causes and
physical ones modify each other; the transmission of hereditary qualities
to offspring is distinct in the animal world, and in the case of
disposition to disease it is sufficiently obvious in the human being. But
it is likewise a general principle that powers or habits acquired by
cultivation are transmitted to the next generation and exalted or
perpetuated; the history of particular races of men affords distinct
proofs of this. The Caucasian stock has always preserved its
superiority, whilst the negro or flat-nosed race has always been marked
for want of intellectual power and capacity for the arts of life. This
last race, in fact, has never been cultivated, and a hundred generations,
successively improved, would be required to bring it to the s