The old doctrine that there are certain generic and invincible inferiorities of intellect which must forever bar the advancement of some branches of the human family, has of late received so signal a refutation in the instance of the African race—long and pertinaciously consigned by interested philosophers to perpetual degradation—that it now hardly needs to be argued against. And assuredly, if the negro cranium is found, spite of phrenologists, to admit of mathematical abstraction, fine taste, and fine feeling, it will not be affirmed that the skull of the Tartar or Chinese must necessarily exclude similar excellences. To assert, either that nature has conferred no physical superiorities, favorable to the development of mind, on particular races, or to maintain that the comparative disadvantages of some nations are so great and unalterable as to constitute impassable barriers in the way of civilization, is equally a quackery which history and existing facts condemn, and which nothing but the love of theory or simplification could ever recommend to an intelligent observer of mankind. With the uniform evidence of history before us, it may well be assumed as probable that certain races will always retain the intellectual pre-eminence they have acquired; nor is it at all less reasonable to suppose that every tribe, even the most degraded, is intrinsically capable of whatever is essential to a state of social order and moral dignity.
If the lowest degree of proficiency in the mechanical arts is justly held to give proof of the existence of those powers of abstraction whence, with proper culture, the sciences may take their rise, so, with equal certainty, may we infer a susceptibility of the religious emotions from even the feeblest indications of the moral sense. When a people diffused over so extensive a surface, and so thickly covering that surface, is seen to submit itself intelligently to the patriarchal form of government, which implies the constant and powerful influence of a moral abstraction, and a vivid sense of unseen power, no doubt can remain of its capacity to admit the motives of Christian faith.
The Chinese are what they are, more from the natural consequence of having sustained, during many successive generations, what may be termed national imprisonment, than from the operation of any physical disabilities. So complete and successful an interdiction of intercourse with strangers has not been known to take place in any other country; and a closer fitting of the restraints of custom and etiquette upon the manners than has elsewhere been effected, has not failed to impart to the national character that peculiar _gait_—if the phrase maybe used—which must distinguish one who had been released from his swaddling-bands only to be encumbered with a chain, and had worn that chain through life. Of the Chinese people it may truly be said that "the iron hath entered into their soul."