Herewith, then, we close this discussion. The mistake of our opponents is here exposed in its deepest root, its inmost core. It is seen to be a mistake in philosophy, in cosmology, in the scientific interpretation of the process of nature. But what a weird light is now cast upon the War between the States, its cause, and its ultimate result! Aside from questions of political theory, the North sought to free the Negro, the South to hold him in bondage. As a slave he had led a protected, indeed a hothouse, existence and had flourished marvellously. His high-hearted champions shed torrents of blood and treasure to shatter the walls of his prison-house, to dispel the pent-up, stifling gloom of his dungeon, and to pour in upon him the free air and light of heaven. But the sun of liberty is no sooner arisen with burning breath than, lo! smitten by the breeze and the beam, he withers and dies! CHAPTER SIX THE ARGUMENT FROM NUMBERS _Of all these things the judge is Time._ ARISTOTLE In the foregoing chapters it is only by way of exception that there has been made any formal use of statistical data, or any reference to scientific authorities;--in fact, there has been a studied avoidance of the sympathetic literature of the subject. But it seems wise and, above all, just to the reader, to guard well every salient position, to throw round every argumentative assertion a bulwark of mathematical evidence--a task that presents little difficulty, since in general the facts in the case are well ascertained and the testimony unanimous. At only a few points, and those of rather minor importance, do the depositions go wide apart. In casting up these circumvallations, we shall be at pains to cite only witnesses against whom no exceptions can lie; many very valuable ones shall be excluded, merely for geographical reasons; we do not ask the reader to heed even a scientific word that might be tinged with prejudice. Next to the United States Census Reports, which must of course be our main source, we shall use, in discussing anthropometry, the great work of Frederick L. Hoffman, F. S. S., statistician to the Prudential Insurance Company of America, entitled "Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro," published as Vol. XI., Nos. 1, 2, and 3, of the publications of the American Economic Association, by the Macmillan Company, August, 1896,--the result of ten years' careful investigation--a book almost beyond praise. Among his more recent supplementary studies may be mentioned his "Race and Mortality," October, 1902.