The negro at fifteen, with scarcely perceptible reflective faculties, remains stationary, while the Caucasian, with constantly increasing powers, with imagination, comparison, and reflection, superadded to the mere perceptive faculties, requires several years more for the development of his complete intellectual nature. It is not merely that the negro mind becomes stationary at twelve to fifteen, for to _them_ it is complete development, but if we can suppose a white boy of twelve to fourteen remaining thus—mentally considered—through life, then we can form a pretty accurate conception of the mental differences between white men and negroes, for the latter are intellectually boys for ever. This is a common and familiar expression at the South, which originates in the nature and necessities of things, and the term boy expresses the intellectual existence of the negro as truthfully as the term _man_ expresses the physical condition of the white man. The affections harmonize, of course, with the mental nature, and the love of the negro mother corresponds with the wants of the offspring. She has a boundless affection for her infant; it grows feebler as the capacities of the child are developed; at twelve to fifteen she is relatively indifferent to it; at forty she scarcely recognizes it; and all of these phases in the maternal instinct or domestic affections of the race are in accord with its specific nature and the purposes assigned it by the Almighty Creator. Without the enlarged brain and reasoning power of the white mother, nature has made amends to the negress, and provided for the wants of her offspring by giving her a more imperative maternal instinct, that shall insure its safety and welfare. When the negro reaches maturity, at twelve to fifteen, nature has accomplished her purposes. The offspring no longer needs her care, and the mother becomes indifferent to it, and it cares little for the mother. A few years later, and she forgets it altogether, for her affections corresponding with her intellectual nature, there is no basis, or material, or space for such things. Of course, living in juxtaposition with the superior race, and the imitative faculty of the negro constantly brought into action, there is a seeming resemblance to white people in these respects. But one only needs to remember the mental qualities of the negro—the small and widely different brain, and consequently feeble, and, as compared with us, limited sphere of intellectualism, to see the absurdity of endowing the negro with domestic affections corresponding with ours. At twelve to fifteen, as has been said, the purposes of nature are accomplished. The offspring no longer needs the care of the mother—the affections with which nature endowed her are no longer needed. Why should they exist, then? Isolated in Africa, they perhaps rarely feel any interest in their offspring after the latter reach maturity, and, separated a few years, would not