Now, although of the Hottentots them selves we are accustomed to form a very low estimate,—our ideas of them having been chiefly derived from the intercourse of the Cape settlers with the tribes which have been their nearest neighbours, and which have un fortunately undergone that deterioration which is so often found to be the first result of the contact of civilised with comparatively savage nations,—it appears from the accounts of them given by Dutch writers at the time of the first settlement of the Cape, that they were a people considerably advanced in civi lisation, and possessed of many estimable qualities. Their besetting sins seem to be indolence and a love of drink (in this respect strongly resembling the Irish); yet when they can be induced to apply, they show no want of capacity or vigour. The testimony of Lieut.-Col. Napier is very strong as to their merits as soldiers when officered by Euro peans ; " and it has been," he says, " on the Cape Mounted Rifles, composed chiefly of this race, that many of the greatest hardships, fatigues, and dangers of the last and former Kaffir wars have principally fallen." * It has been frequently said that the Hottentots differ from the higher races, in their incapacity to form or to receive religious ideas. This is, however, by no means true. The early Dutch settlers describe them as having a definite religion of their own ; and it was their obsti nate adhesion to this, which was the real ob stacle to the introduction of Christianity among them. When the attempt was per severingly made and rightly directed, the Hottentot nation lent a more willing ear than any other race in a similar condition has done to the preaching of Christianity ; and no people has been more strikingly and speedily improved by its reception.
Now, if we compare the condition of these people with that of the lowest members of the population of countries that claim to be most advanced in civilisation, we find that the difference is not so great as it might at first appear. Unfortunately, there is scarcely a civilised nation, in the very bosom of which there does not exist an outcast population, neither less reckless, nor less prone to the indulgence of their worst passions, than the miserable Bushmen, and only restrained from breaking loose by external coercion. The want of forethought and wild desire of re venge, which are said to be among the most striking characteristics of the Bushmen, are scarcely less characteristic of those classes dangereuses, which, as often as the arm of the law is paralysed, issue from the unknown deserts of our great towns, and rival in their excesses of wanton cruelty, the most terrible exhibitions of barbarian inhumanity. So, again, there is nothing in the inaptitude of any barbarous tribe for religious impressions, which surpasses that of the young heathens of our own land, who, when first induced to attend a " ragged school," are recorded to have mingled " Jim Crow" with the strains of adoration in which they were invited to join, and to have clone their best, by grimaces and gestures, to distract the attention of those who were fixing their thoughts on the solemn offering of prayer ; or of those who, after having joined with apparent sincerity in reli gious worship, simultaneously took their de parture as the hour approached for the break ing up of the city congregations, in order that they might " go to work," as they expressed it ; that is, that they might exert their thievish ingenuity upon the dispersing crowds. Now
if, on the one hand, we admit the influence of want, ignorance, and neglect, in accounting for the debasement of the savages of our own great towns, and yet cherish the belief that, so far from being irreclaimable, they may at least be brought up to the standard from which they have degenerated ; on the other hand, we cannot well doubt the operation of the same causes on the outcasts of the Hot tentot races, or refuse to believe that even the wretched Bushmen might be brought back at least to the original condition of the people from among whom they have been driven forth # It may be freely admitted that the different races of mankind exhibit very different degrees of capacity for intellectual, moral, and social improvement ; but this difference is not greater than that which exists amongst indi viduals of the most favoured races, and cannot for a moment be assumed as the basis for specific distinctions between them. If the Negro, for example, is at present far behind the European standard, yet, under favourable circumstances, the intellect and moral charac ter of individual Negroes have been elevated to it; while, on the other hand, we have too frequent proof that the intellect and moral character of the European are capable, not merely in individuals, but in families and groups of people, of sinking even below the average African standard. It is the observa tion of all who have had experience in the education of the children of races reputed to be inferior, such as Negroes, Hottentots, and Australians, that their capacity is at least equal to that of the lowest class of our own youthful town population, and that their do cility is, if anything, greater. That this mental development is generally checked at an early age, and that the adults of these races too frequently remain through life in the condition of " children of a larger growth," may be freely conceded. But observation of the difference in developmental power, between the mind of the descendant of an educated ancestry, and that of the descendant of an ignorant and uncultivated peasantry, shows that within the limits of the same race the same difference may exist ; and nothing is more likely to main tain it, than the absence of any encourage ment to advancement, and the persistence, on the part of society at large, in the doctrine that the Negro never can be admitted within the pale of white civilisation.