[Pg 22] 3. The Mulatto is Intellectually Superior to the Blacks but Inferior to the Whites. The Mulatto is Intellectually Superior to the Blacks but Inferior to the Whites. In substantiation of this proposition it is claimed that the greater number of Negroes who have attained distinction have been those of mixed blood. The truth of this statement must be conceded, and yet the cause should not be overlooked. Leaving aside the doctrine of inheritance as a debatable question, the initial advantage of the mixed over the pure Negroes was considerable. Feelings of blood ties prompted many a slave holder to deal kindly by his slave descendants, and often to liberate them and give them a start in the race of life. That an infusion of white blood quickens the energy and enlivens the disposition of the progeny is probably true; but that it adds to the intellectual capacity is far from a self-evident proposition. The Negroes who have shown any unusual intellectual activity, in America at least, have usually been of the purer type. Phyllis Wheatly, Benjamin Banneker, Ira Aldridge, Blind Tom, Edward W. Blyden, and Paul Dunbar are illustrations of this argument. The investigation of Dr. Gould as to circumference of head and facial angle are exhibited in the following table: A difference of one-tenth of an inch in head circumference and of four-tenths of a degree in facial angle affords a very slender physical basis on which to predicate intellectual superiority. The author lays great stress upon the following table made out by Dr. Hunt. Weight of the Brain of White and Colored Soldiers.[42] Twenty-four cases are taken to represent fifty million people, and [Pg 23]the law of averages thus obtained is confidently relied upon. Nor are we informed as to what methods were employed to ascertain the exact composition of blood of the 22 cases that are rated as one-sixteenth white. But, supposing we accept this table, overlooking for the time being the fact that the brain weight of one white person is taken as typical of two million others, and also conceding the undisclosed method of Dr. Hunt in detecting homeopathic dashes of white blood, does it “clearly prove that there is an increase in the brain weight with an increase in the proportion of white blood?” If this table shows anything it is that the pure Negro and the Mulatto have about the same brain weight and that they are both superior
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