[78] "Why have accidental circumstances always prevented some from rising, while they have only stimulated others to higher attainments?"--_Dr. Kneeland's Introd. to Hamilton Smith's Nat. Hist. of Man_, p. 95.--H. [79] Salvador, _Histoire des Juifs_. [80] M. Saint-Marc Girardin, _Revue des Deux Mondes_. [81] See, upon this often-debated subject, the opinion--somewhat acerbly expressed--of a learned historian and philologist:-- "A great number of writers have suffered themselves to be persuaded that the country made the nation; that the Bavarians and Saxons were predestined, by the nature of their soil, to become what they are to-day; that Protestantism belonged not to the regions of the south; and that Catholicism could not penetrate to those of the north; and many similar things. Men who interpret history according to their own slender knowledge, their narrow hearts, and near-sighted minds, would, by the same reasoning, make us believe that the Jews had possessed such and such qualities--more or less clearly understood--because they inhabited Palestine, and not India or Greece. But, if these philosophers, so dextrous in proving whatever flatters their notions, were to reflect that the Holy Land contained, in its limited compass, peoples of the most dissimilar religions and modes of thinking, that between them, again, and their present successors, there is the utmost difference conceivable, although the country is still the same; they would understand how little influence, upon the character and civilization of a nation has the country they inhabit."--EWALD, _Geschichte des Volkes Israel_, vol. i. p. 259. CHAPTER VII. INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY UPON MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL DIVERSITY OF RACES. The term Christian civilization examined--Reasons for rejecting it--Intellectual diversity no hindrance to the universal diffusion of Christianity--Civilizing influence of Christian religion by elevating and purifying the morals, etc.; but does not remove intellectual disparities--Various instances--Cherokees--Difference between imitation and comprehension of civilized life. By the foregoing observations, two facts seem to me clearly established: first, that there are branches of the human family incapable of spontaneous civilization, so long as they remain unmixed; and, secondly, that this innate incapacity cannot be overcome by external agencies, however powerful in their nature. It now remains to speak of the civilizing influence of Christianity, a subject which, on account of its extensive bearing, I have reserved for the last, in my consideration of the instruments of civilization. The first question that suggests itself to the thinking mind, is a startling one. If some races are so vastly inferior in all respects, can they comprehend the truths of the gospel, or are they forever to be debarred from the blessing of salvation?