Notwithftanding thefe con- fiderations which muft weaken their re- fpeft for the laws of property, we find among them numerous inftances of the moft rigid integrity, and as many as among their better inftruflied matters, of benevo- lence, gratitude, and unfliaken fidelity. The opinion, that they are inferior in the faculties of reafon and imagination, muft be hazarded with great diffidence. To juftify a general conclufion, requires many obfervations, even where the fubjed: may be fubmitted to the anatomical knife, to optical clafles, to analyfis by fire, or by folvents. How much more then where it is a faculty, not a fubftance, we are [ 281 ] examining; where it eludes the refearch of all the fenfes; where the conditions of its exiftence are various and varioufly combined; where the efFefts of those which are prefent or abfent bid defiance to calculation; let me add too, as a cir- cumftance of great tendernefs, where our conclufion would degrade a whole race of men from the rank in the scale of beings which their Creator may perhaps have given them. To our reproach it muft be said, that though for a century and a half we have had under our eyes the races of black and of red men, they have never yet been viewed by us as fubjefe of na- tural hiftory. I advance it therefore as a fufpicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a diftind race, or made diftindl by time and circumftances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not againft expe- rience to fuppose, that different fpecies of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may poflefs different qualifications.
¿No disculpará entonces un amante de la historia natural, alguien que contempla las gradaciones en todas las razas de animales con la mirada de la filosofía, un esfuerzo por mantener las del departamento del hombre tan distintas como la naturaleza las ha formado? Esta desafortunada diferencia de color, y tal vez de facultad, es un poderoso obstáculo para la