It is noteworthy that while the one knight-errant boldly declares that, "Nature knows no forward or backward races," the other more cautiously avoids the term "backward" and denies only inferiority for the Negro. Perhaps one might admit that he is backward and demand for him time and opportunity. However, the distinction is not really pertinent to the issue. As well say the monkey is not inferior, but only backward. It is only a difference of degree--a very great difference, to be sure, but it is idle to say, "Give the Negro time." He has already had time, as much time as the Europeans--thousands and ten thousands of years. And what opportunity has failed him? The power that uplifted Aryan and Semite did not come from without, but from within. No mortal civilized him; he civilized himself. It was the wing of his own spirit that bore him aloft. If the African has equal native might of mind, why has he not wrought out his own civilization and peopled his continent with the monuments of his genius? Or if the material was all there, ready to be ignited, needing only the incensive spark, why has it never, in hundreds of years, caught fire from the blazing torch of Europe? Why has century-long contact with other civilizations never enkindled the feeblest flame? For it is well known that intercourse with foreigners has in no degree elevated or improved the West African, but on the contrary has proved his curse and his doom. (See Ratzel, _The History of Mankind_, III., pp. 99-100, 102-103, 120, 134.) Moreover, it seems doubtful whether nearly forty[5] years of persistent and consecrated efforts at education, with the expenditure of hundreds of millions, have revealed yet in ten millions of Afro-Americans a single example of originative ability of notably high order. (Bright Mulattoes, like familiar instances, count little in this argument. It is well known (Mendel's Law) that offspring[6] do not exactly divide the qualities of parents, but often veer in this respect or in that far over to one side or to the other. Besides, the abilities of such men are apt to loom up unduly large in the popular imagination. We all wonder at a dancing bear, not because he dances well, but because he dances at all.) [5] Many more in Massachusetts; yet hear the reluctant admission of the Negro's ardent friend, Dr. Henry M. Field: "The whole race (in Massachusetts) has remained on one dead level of mediocrity." ("Sunny Skies and Dark Shadows," p. 144). Statistics, however, tell a story far less favourable still. See _infra_, pp. 249f.