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not result, as a necessary consequence, that if the climate, the mode of living, or the state of society, or even accidental causes in early life, contribute to vary the shape of that bony case which encompasses the brain, thereby pressing up it in some points, and giving it scope in others; in some of its cells contracting this soft substance, and giving it a freer expansion in others, these causes must, in the same degree, assist, impede, or vary the operations of the mind, and affect the character of the national genius, or of the genius of a whole race of men placed in a particular climate, or existing in a particular state of society.*

[[note]]*See pages 95, 96, also 153-156 of this essay.

That the causes which have been just suggested, may have some effect in hebetating the mental faculties of the wretched savages of Africa, I am not prepared either to deny or affirm. I am inclined, however, to ascribe the apparent dullness of the negro principally to the wretched state of his existence first in his original country, where he is at once a poor and abject savage, and subjected to an atrocious despotism; and afterwards in those regions to which he is transported to finish his days in slavery, and toil. Genius, in order to its cultivation, and the advantageous display of its powers, requires freedom: it requires reward, the reward at least of praise, to call it forth; competition to awaken its ardor; and examples both to direct its operations, and to prompt its emulation. The abject servitude of the negro in America, condemned to the drudgery of perpetual labor, cut off from every mean of improvement,* conscious of his degraded state in the

[[note]] *How few are the negroes in America who enjoy access to the first elements of knowledge by being enabled either to read, or write. Mr. Jefferson says that many of them have been placed in situations in which they might have enjoyed the society of their masters. What society, alas, can subsist between a master, and a slave; not a polite and learned slave of Greece, such as was often seen at Rome, but a wretched and ignorant African slave? Besides, if they could enjoy an intercourse much more free and intimate than is possible from the nature of their respective situations, I ask, what would there be in that society, when we consider the general characters, occupations, and conversations, of those masters, favorable to improvement in science, or the arts; or calculated to draw forth, and cultivate any of the high powers of imagination taste, or genius? The poems of Phillis Whately, a poor African slave, taught to read by the indulgent piety of her master, are spoken of with infinite contempt. But I will demand of Mr. Jefferson, or any other man who is acquainted with American planters, how many of those masters could have written poems equal to those of Phillis Whately? And with still greater reason might I ask the same question with regard to the letters of Ignatius Sancho.