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PBELIMINARY REMARKS.IXthem all separately, and in their united influences, could only bedone by a mind, to which it should be granted, from a higher pointof view than any to which a mortal can attain, to contemplate thewhole web of the history of our race, and follow the course andthe interweaving of the various threads.Here attention is drawn to one important circumstance, ofwhich the cautious inquirer almost fears to estimate the value.Whilst we see the surface of the other continents covered with nations of different, and almost always of dark colour, (and, in so faras this determines the race, of different races,) the inhabitants ofEurope belong only to one race. It has not, and it never had,any other native inhabitants than white nations. 1 Is the whiteman distinguished by greaternatural talents ? Has lieby meansof them precedenceover his coloured brethren ? This is a question which physiologycannot answer at all, and which historymust answer with timidity, Who will absolutely deny that thedifferences of organization,which attend on the difference in colour,can have an influence on the more rapid or more difficult unfolding of the mind ? But, on the other hand, who can demonstratethis influence,, without first raising that secret veil, which concealsfrom us the reciprocal connexion between body and mind? Andyet we must esteem it probable and how much docs this proba;bility increase in strength, if we make inquiries of history ? Thegreat superiority which the white nations in all ages and parts ofthe world have possessed,is a matter of fact, which cannot bedone away with by denials. It may be said, this was the consequence of external circumstances, which favoured them more.But has this always been so And ? why has it been so ? And,further, why did those darker nations, which rose above the savagestate, attain only to a degree of culture of their own a; decreewhich was passed neither by the Egyptian nor by the Mongolian,neither by the Chinese nor the Hindoo And ?amongthe colouredraces, why did the black remain behind the brown and the yellow ?If these observations cannot but make us inclined to attribute differences of capacityto the several branches of our race, they donot on that account prove an absolute want of capacity in ourdarker fellow-men, nor must they be urged as containing thewhole explanation of European superiority. This, only, is in^tended; "experience thus far seems to prove, that a greater facilityin developing the powers of mind belongs to the nations of a clearcolour; but we will welcome the shall contradict thisage^whichexperience, and exhibit cultivated nations of negroes.But however high or low this natural precedencyof the Europeans may be estimated, no one can fail to observe, that thephysical qualities of this continent offer peculiar advantaged, whichmay serve not a little to explain the above-mentioned phenomenon.1The Gipsies are foreigners ;and it may seem doubtful whether tfraare to be reckoned to the white or yellow race.