[167] _Othello_, Act I, Scene 3. [Othello was, however, a _Moor_, not a Negro, and capable of a far higher delicacy of mental perceptions than the veritable “unbleached African.” Perhaps one of the most absurd theatrical errors was committed when the part of Othello was acted by a genuine Negro, Ira Aldridge.--EDITOR.] [168] Edmond About, _Le Progrès_, 1864, p. 15. [169] These are Negroes of whom he is speaking. [170] “_De l’Unité de l’Espèce Humaine_,” _Biblioth. Univ. de Genève_, nouv. ser., vol. liv, p. 145, 1844. [171] Gliddon, _Types of Mankind_, p. 59. Carus has observed, that among the remarkable Negroes mentioned by Blumenbach, not one of them was distinguished either in politics, literature, or in any high conception of art. Compare Gobineau, _De l’Inégalité des Races Humaines_, vol. i, p. 122, 1853. [172] See De Maillet, _Telliamed_, 8vo, vol. ii, p. 187, Amsterdam, 1748. For want of those passages of the Korán to which he refers, we give the whole of Maillet’s remark on the subject:--“Mohammed was so struck with the difference between white and black men, that he did not hesitate to say, that God had made the first with _white earth_, and the latter with _black_. He did not imagine that men so different, not only in colour but in figure and inclination, could possibly be of one and the same origin. He observes, in another place, that although there have been prophets of all other nations, there was never one among the blacks; which shows that they have so little mind, that the gift of foresight,--the effect of natural wisdom, which has sometimes been honoured with the name of prophecy,--has never fallen to the lot of any of them.” This passage is, besides, remarkable; because this custom of prophecy seems to be a special attribute of the Semitic race (compare Renan, _Histoire Générale des Langues Sémitiques_, 8vo, p. 8, Paris, 1855), and Mohammed, in making this distinction, declared almost a specific characteristic. In the translation of the “Évangile de l’Enfance,” by G. Brunet (_Evangiles Apocryphes_, 12mo, Paris, 1849), there is this curious document (Jesus had just changed some children into rams in the sight of some women, who asked for their pardon), “The Lord Jesus having answered, that _the children of Israel were, among other nations, like the Ethiopians_; the women said,” etc. This is merely a proof of the contempt which overwhelmed this unhappy race in the east. [173] _On the Negro’s Place in Nature_ (Dr. Hunt, _Anthropological Society of London_, November 17, 1863). [174] See the table taken from the _Systema Naturæ_. We know that Linnæus had adopted the geographical classification of human races.