Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 4, October 1852Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 4, October 1852
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
deteriorating effect on the population, which at last grew to resemble
the Negro race. That the Egyptians were not so degraded in appearance as
these last, was owing to the many immigrations of foreign tribes, who
preserved to the kings, priests, and higher classes, a more Asiatic
physical expression. The river Nile, the Sea—the great civilizer—and
the influences of commerce, had also their beneficent effects upon the
condition of the people of Egypt.
With regard to the other more marked races, it is known that the law of
Northern latitudes is, the lessening of physical development and
capacity, from the temperate toward the colder zones. In these last, the
blood of men grows colder and more sluggish, and their bodies grow
smaller and weaker. Extreme cold is unfriendly to the element of life;
and under its influence, acting directly on man, and indirectly on his
condition, from the soil, the Northern races received their stunted
proportions of figure and mental energy—such as we witness in the
Esquimaux and other tribes, of the same high latitudes.
We should not calculate the climatic effects of primitive times, from
the result of experience or observation now-a-days. The conditions of
men are not exactly what they were, even in those places we consider
barbarous. In the beginning, men were ignorantly exposed to all the rude
shocks of the elements for generations, and lived and propagated the
conditions which those elements impressed upon them. All the
deteriorating influences of savage life, working in a very vicious
circle, effected then what can no longer be effected, in a general way,
so decidedly and remarkably. People, now, can move about and live in
extreme latitudes, and yet keep for generations their peculiar traits
and conformation. But they have comfortable means and appliances about
them, and hold themselves aloof from the barbarisms peculiar to the
place. In this way, the climatic influences are resisted for ages.
Those who argue for a distinct species in the case of the blacks, and do
not believe in the slow changes produced by geographical position and
the elements, will point to the fact, that Negroes taken into temperate
latitudes, and propagating purely for a few generations, have appeared
to be Negroes still—not much the whiter for the experiment. But it has
not been a full and a fair one. Nature produces her permanent results
very slowly. She took hundreds of years to bake, and blacken and
flatten, and lanify the nigger, and hundreds more to harden his
osteology—to burn, as it were, his traits into his clay; and if the man
is to be unbaked, unblackened, and so forth, she must have something of
the same time, in which to reverse her operations. It would take four or
five hundred years, at least, to bleach Pompey or Lucretia. Perhaps at
Spitzbergen, or some of those hyperborean places—
Where the wild hare and the crow
Whiten in surrounding snow—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account