no physical tests to embarrass us or to compel the will to bow to that fixed and immutable standard of truth which the Eternal has planted in the very heart of things, and which otherwise the laws of the mental organism absolutely force us to recognize. But the existence of distinct species of men does not belong to this category. It is fact, a palpable, immediate, demonstrable and unescapable fact. We know, and we cannot avoid knowing, that the negro is a negro and is not a white man, and therefore we cannot believe, however much we may strive to do so, that he is the same being that we are, or in other words, that all mankind constitute a single race or species. All that is possible or permissible is to make liars and hypocrites of ourselves—to pretend to believe in a thing that we do not and cannot believe in—to force this hypocrisy and pretended belief on others who may happen to have confidence in our honesty and respect for our ability; and finally, as a salve for our outraged conscience, to deceive ourselves with the notion that our motives are good, and the end justifies the means. But the advocates of the European theory of a single race are faced by other difficulties, which are quite as unavoidable as those thus briefly glanced at. They demand that the world shall believe in the dogma of a single race, but not one among them will act upon it in practice, or convince others of their sincerity by living up to their avowed belief. If the Negro had descended from the same parentage, or, except in color merely, was the same being as ourselves, then there could be no reason for refusing to amalgamate with him as with the several branches of our race. But on the contrary, the reverend and distinguished gentleman who has ventured to declare that the belief that the Negro is a being like ourselves, is essential to Christianity, would infinitely prefer the death of his daughter to that of marriage with the most accomplished and most pious Negro in existence! If he believed in his own assertions in regard to this matter, then it would be his first and most imperative duty, as a Christian minister, to set an example to others, to labor night and day to elevate this (in that case) wronged and outraged race—indeed, to suffer every personal inconvenience, even martyrdom itself, in the performance of a duty so obvious and necessary. And when this theory was at last reduced to practice, and all the existing distinctions and “prejudices” against the Negro were obliterated, and the four millions of Negroes amalgamated with the whites, society would be rewarded by the increased morality and purity that would follow an act of such transcendent justice. But will any one believe in such a result—that, reducing to practice the belief, or pretended belief of a single race, will or would benefit American society? No, indeed; on the contrary, every one _knows_—even the wildest and most perverted