Dr. Brinton, who is strongly opposed to the practice of miscegenation, endorses the opinion that the offspring of a cross between the white and the black races are deficient in physical vigor, and that such hybrids gradually die out. He admits, however, that it was not so within the African area in early times, and he suggests that special causes are now at work to affect the results of race-mixture. One of these is the fact that the white blood is derived exclusively from the father, and the dark blood exclusively from the mother. Now, if it be true, as is supposed, that physical qualities are derived chiefly from the father and the psychical qualities chiefly from the mother, we may reasonably expect, as is indeed recognised, that the children of such unions will be physically superior to members of the black stock, although inferior to those of the white race. It is admitted, moreover, that mulattoes are, as a rule, intellectually superior to pure negroes; so that miscegenation is undoubtedly of relative advantage to the immediate offspring, whatever may be its result on their descendants. What Dr. Brinton and other writers of the same opinion object to, however, is the deterioration of the white stock. If there was any reason to believe this possible, the objection would have weight. But it supposes miscegenation to become general, which, in the first place, is an event which could never happen, unless the women of this country descended to the level of a Messalina. And in the second place, Dr. Brinton admits that "in the earlier conditions of social life, no such debility attended the crossing of the Eurafrican [white race] and African race as seems at present to be the case." It is possible, therefore, that if the mixture of the two races became general, and were regarded as perfectly legitimate, the present physical and intellectual debility attending such unions might disappear. We do not advocate miscegenation, but we wish to point out, that those who oppose it under the present limitations of our knowledge, do so either on insufficient grounds, or because they are influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by sentimental considerations.