inquiring, "Where are the descendants of all the races of earth?"--the
reply will be, "Gone!"
There is, however, yet a fourth view with regard to the functions and
destiny of the English race in the future. It may be that those of us
who hold it are, unknown to ourselves, still blinded by that mist of
race prejudice which, hanging before our eyes from the first moment
of our birth, is perhaps more difficult for even the greatest and
strongest man to brush aside than the obscuring vapours of personal
egoism; nevertheless, it seems to some of us, looking at the matter
with what impartiality we are capable of, that it is a view which
is capable of being defended by logical argument, and that the hope
founded on it is not wholly chimerical; moreover that it is a view, did
they but give themselves time to contemplate it, that would win the
assent of many who now seem to hold untenable views of the Englishman's
upas-like powers.
We who hold this view are perfectly willing to allow that there have
been, are, and will be races as great as and greater than ourselves in
many if not in all respects. We not only know, but hold in mind the
fact, that not much more than a thousand years ago our fathers were
barbarians scarcely higher than the Kaffirs of to-day in the stage of
culture and civilization they had reached; that even religion and the
art of letters and of material civilization were brought to us by the
higher barbarians of the Continent, who had received it as a relic from
super-nations of antiquity, who in turn had received it from those wise
small Semitic and Egyptian folk to whom mankind owe almost all they
are; we did not receive it much more lustily than the Kaffir of to-day.
And Alfred, like some white-skinned Khama, led or strove to lead his
savage children to accept and prize a civilization and a learning they
would never have invented and could hardly grasp.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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