But this may perhaps proceed from a want of fore-thought, which prevents their feeing a danger till it be prefent. When prefent, they do not go through it with more coolnefs or fteadinefs than the whites.
They are more ardent after their female:
but love feems with them to be more an eager defire, than a tender delicate mix- ture of fentiment and fenfation. Their griefs are tranfient. Thofe numberlefs afflictions, w^hich render it doubtful whe- * Crawford.
ther heaven has given Ufa to us in mercy or in wrath, are lefs felt, and fooner for- gotten with them. In general, their ex- iftence appears to participate more of fen- fation than refleftion. To this muft be afcribed their difpofition to fleep when abftrafted from their diverfions, and un- employed in labour. An animal whofe body is at reft, and who does not refleft, muft be difpofed to fleep of courfe. Com- paring them by their faculties of memory, reafon, and imagination, it appears to me that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reafon much inferior, as I think one could fcarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the inveftiga- tions of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, taftelefs, and anomalous.
It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this inveftigation. We will confider them here, on the fame ftage with the whites, and where the fads are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed. It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of converfation, of the [ ^73 ] fphere in which they move. Many mil- lions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Moft of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes,