The attempt to disparage the African as inferior to other men, except in present condition, shows that same ever-present sciolism. Does Humboldt repel the assumption of superiority, and beautifully insist that no people are “in themselves nobler than others”?[169] Then all are men, all are brothers, of the same Human Family, with superficial and transitional differences only. Plainly, no differences can make one color superior to another. And looking carefully at the African, in the seclusion and isolation of his native home, we see sufficient reason for that condition which is the chief argument against him. It is doubtful if any people has become civilized without extraneous help. Britain was savage when Roman civilization intervened; so was Gaul. Cadmus brought letters to Greece; and what is the story of Prometheus, who stole fire from Heaven, but an illustration of this law? The African has not stolen fire; no Cadmus has brought letters to him; no Roman civilization has been extended over his continent. Meanwhile left to savage life, he has been a perpetual victim, hunted down at home to feed the bloody maw of Slavery, and then transported to another hemisphere, always a slave. In such condition Nature has had small opportunity for development. No kindly influences have surrounded his home; no voice of encouragement has cheered his path; no prospect of trust or honor has awakened his ambition. His life has been a Dead Sea, where apples of Sodom floated. And yet his story is not without passages which quicken admiration and give assurance for the Future,--at times melting to tenderness, and at times inspiring to rage, that these children of God, with so much of His best gifts, should be so wronged by their brother man.