PERFECTION OF NATURE'S WORK.
It has been said, with how much truth let us consider,
"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise;"
the reverse of which is, "Where knowledge is bliss, 'tis folly to be ignorant." The first proposition was evidently intended for the Negro, and the last for the white man; as intellectual pleasures and knowledge are esteemed highest by the latter, and animal pleasures by the former. Happiness is the aim of both; the difference is in the mode of attaining it, and the degree of it when attained. The negro is perfect in his kind. Sympathy will not make him a white man. Would you interrogate nature on the wisdom of her works? Would you denounce them as imperfect? Can you improve upon the architecture of the honey-bee, or the method of his distillation? or on nature's processes of germination and vegetation? Your cup of liquid poison is but a mean equivalent for his treasured nectar; your hot-house culture yields nought for the beauties of Flora, nor the sweetness of her priceless perfumes. The spider would not be a butterfly even if you could give him wings. The power to fly would only enable him to spin his web in air, and obscure the sunlight. His own way is best, both for him and man.