The method of reasoning contained in the gaunt old gentleman’s argument against the payment of debts by republicans is, as I observed, very frequently used and very well received in the United States. It is worth noticing, because it is a method that is seldom used and never accepted on this side the water. It proceeds by assuming the truth of some abstract propositions, of which neither truth nor falsehood can properly be predicated, but which a half-instructed audience is always ready to accept, and then goes on to apply them to some question on which they appear to have a bearing, and which happens to be interesting at the moment. For instance, I was speaking on the subject of negro suffrage with one of the leading supporters of that concession in the South. An Englishman would probably have confined himself to the consideration of the fitness of the African for so important a part in the government of the country. My American friend contented himself with a kind of numerical formula. ‘Suppose,’ he said, ‘the grown-up male population of the country is represented by the number 100. By excluding the negroes from the franchise, you reduce the voters to about one-half, that is 50. But, in a constituency of 50, a majority of 26 will rule. That is to say, 26 will rule 100. That is bad, but it is not all the evil of the restriction. In small bodies it is generally found that one resolute mind takes the lead. The result therefore would be that one would rule the 100. All this would be the consequence of departing from the simple republican rule of giving the vote equally to all.’ The gentleman had this formularised argument in favour of the admission of the African to equal political power with the white race drawn out on a paper, which he took from his pocket-book and showed me—I quite believe, with the idea that I should find it unanswerable. It was all in vain that I pointed out to him that his argument was so abstract that it omitted all consideration of every one of the actual conditions of the question. He himself was thoroughly persuaded of its conclusiveness. [Sidenote: _Americans addicted to Abstract Reasoning._] Another argument of just the same kind, but which aimed at the opposite conclusion, was frequently urged upon me. ‘Have you read,’ I was asked, ‘Bishop ——’s book?’ I forget the name of the ingenious prelate. ‘He has demonstrated that the negro is not a man. No human being was saved from the Flood except Noah’s family, and it is quite impossible that he could have had a negro son. The negro must therefore at that time have been regarded as a brute beast. And as Noah was acting under Divine guidance, he could not have been wrong in his estimate of the negro. And the negro cannot be any better now than he was then, for a brute beast can never become a man. We therefore are justified in looking upon him just as Noah looked upon him, and in supposing that he is of the gorilla race, only a little improved.’