[30]. We may cite, on the subject treated in this chapter, the opinion of a learned historian, though it is rather truculent in tone:
“A large number of writers are convinced that the country makes the people; that the Bavarians or the Saxons were predestined by the nature of the soil to become what they are to-day; that Protestantism does not suit the South, nor Catholicism the North, and so on. Some of the people who interpret history in the light of their meagre knowledge, narrow sympathies, and limited intelligence would like to show that the nation of which we are speaking (the Jews) possessed such and such qualities—whether these gentlemen understand the nature of the qualities or not—merely from having lived in Palestine instead of India or Greece. But if these great scholars, who are so clever in proving everything, would condescend to reflect that the soil of the Holy Land has contained in its limited area very different peoples, with different ideas and religions, and that between these various peoples and their successors at the present day there have been infinite degrees of diversity, although the actual country has remained the same—they would then see how little influence is exerted by material conditions on a nation’s character and civilization.” Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, vol. i, p. 259.
[31]. Acts ii, 4, 8, 9–11.
[32]. Apocryphal Gospels: “The Story of Joseph the Carpenter,” chap. i.
[33]. Prichard, “Natural History of Man,” sec. 41.
[34]. Ibid.
[35]. “Synopsis of the Indian Tribes of North America.”
[36]. I have discussed Prichard’s facts without questioning their value. I might, however, have simply denied them, and should have had on my side the weighty authority of A. de Tocqueville, who in his great work on “Democracy in America” refers to the Cherokees in these words: “The presence of half-breeds has favoured the very rapid development of European habits among the Indians. The half-breed shares the enlightenment of his father without entirely giving up the savage customs of his mother’s race. He is thus a natural link between civilization and barbarism. Wherever half-breeds exist and multiply we see the savages gradually changing their customs and social conditions” (“Democracy in America,” vol. iii). De Tocqueville ends by prophesying that although the Cherokees and the Creeks are half-breeds and not natives, as Prichard says, they will nevertheless disappear in a short time through the encroachment of the white race.
[37]. In discussing the list of remarkable negroes which is given in the first instance by Blumenbach and could easily be supplemented, Carus well says that among the black races there has never been any politics or literature or any developed ideas of art, and that when any individual negroes have distinguished themselves it has always been the result of white influence. There is not a single man among them to be compared, I will not say to one of our men of genius, but to the heroes of the yellow races—for example, Confucius. (Carus, op. cit.)
[38]. W. von Humboldt, Über die Kawi-sprache auf der Insel Java, Introduction, vol. i, p. 37.