: The Trapper's Daughter: A Story of the Rocky Mountains by Aimard Gustave Wraxall Lascelles Sir Translator - Western stories; Mountain life Fiction; Rocky Mountains Fiction

@FreeBooksWed 07 Jun, 2023

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THE KNICKERBOCKER.

THE NOBILITY OF NATURE.

IT has been asserted that all men are created equal. The learned have been called upon to support the declaration, and to furnish reasons accounting for the disparity which is manifest in the different individuals of the human race, as found in the social state. The learned have responded to this call, and said, that it is apparent, that different nations, as well as individuals of the same race, are surrounded by different circumstances, and enjoy unequal means of improvement; and as their external condition is unequal, it is but reasonable to infer, in the absence of any other known cause, that their intellectual disparity is mainly attributable to external circumstances. Now if it can be made to appear, as I think it can, that the difference in the external condition of men and nations is mainly attributable to their mental organization, it will be obvious that the learned, who have undertaken to solve this question, have been so unphilosophical as to substitute the effect for the cause.

But may we not as reasonably expect, that the benefit of this new arrangement will not be confined to man alone, but that the whole vegetable and animal world will participate in the advantages of this novel law of natural equality? We must hear no more of 'the king of beasts,' nor of 'the monarch of the wood.' The lion and the lamb must become a match for each other in ferocity and strength. The ivy will of course cease to entwine itself around the oak; and then what substitute will the poets have for their much-used and lovely emblem of weakness and dependence, when it shall lift aloft its branches among the huge trees of the forest, and, boastful of its newly-acquired strength, shall bid defiance to the whirlwind and the storm! The odious monarchy of the bee-hive must be done away; the queen of bees must doff her robes of royalty, and become a commoner; while the drones, the privileged order of this tribe of insects, will be compelled to assume habits of industry, and will no longer be tolerated in the enjoyment of idleness and luxury, at the expense of their industrious fellow-citizens. The aristocracy of the ant-hill must also be disturbed, and the levelling principle must be carried into a new organization of this interesting little mound of earth. Men will cease to speak of the elephant as a 'half-reasoning animal,' while the ass shall be distinguished for dulness and obstinacy, and the latter must brush up, so that this disparity shall be remedied; while, at the same time, the sagacious dog will be brought, by some nice process, to the level of the 'silly sheep,' and the acute and cruel fox to that of the dull and confiding goose; and among other things, to excite our special wonder, the much-wronged, much-eaten oyster will be regarded as a pure intelligence, consisting of nothing but brain, and its necessary covering! Men will cease to eat oysters.

It would seem to require a wonderful change in 'external circumstances,' to produce results like these; and yet it seems to me, these may as reasonably be anticipated, as that the condition of mankind will ever be equal. Those who attribute men's intellectual nature to their external condition, have never been so fortunate as to demonstrate in what manner the objectionable circumstances of an external nature produced the results which they humanely deplore. The negro is every where inferior to the Anglo-Saxon. Does the former owe his inferior intellect to his swarthy complexion and flattened nose? How can these affect the thinking part? To climate? Behold him in all climes the same! To slavery? View him in his native land a savage. To the contempt of other nations? He is the same as when first known to the European.

But grant that the difference in air, climate, or other external causes, operating for many centuries, could cause an inequality in the intellects of different nations, or tribes of men; why, in the same nation or tribe, is one inferior to another? Suppose sectional causes to account for this disparity; then why are children of the same parents, born and nurtured under precisely the same circumstances, radically different from their birth? Is the fact denied? I appeal to mothers in support of its truth.

But while I do not depart from this clause of the sacred declaration referred to, I perceive that I differ widely from the vociferous patriot and over-zealous philanthropist of the present day, who have contrived to engross much more of the public attention than either their integrity or doctrines seem to warrant.

The former overwhelms the voice of reason with his varied clamor in favor of the equality of meanness with magnanimity--of vice with virtue--of ignorance with intelligence--of vulgar rudeness and barbarity, with taste and elegance; and he demands that in social intercourse, and in the administration of government, the vicious and ignorant shall be entitled to the same consideration and influence as the virtuous and enlightened citizen; because 'all men are created equal!'

The new order of philanthropists increase the clamor of the greedy patriot. They have discovered that the negroes are at least equal to, if not a little better, than the best of the Europeans; and they lead forth their colored favorites, of various hues, and demand their admittance into a well-organized society; a benevolent concession in favor of their equality; an admission that their heads are well formed, their sentiments exalted, their persons delicate, and their odor savory! They invite them to the table of the American citizen, and beckon them to his bed; and this 'because all men are created equal!'

I am far from asserting, that all the distinctions which exist in the social state, are so by the appointment of nature. There is an artificial aristocracy, created by the improper constitutions of some governments, and the arbitrary and unequal laws of all, of the cause of whose greatness nature is entirely innocent. For instance, a man may inherit and enjoy all his life the title and honors of nobility, who, had he depended upon his natural resources for rank and station, might never have ascended in the scale of human excellence, beyond the condition of an agile circus-rider. And it is no less palpable, that a wealthy parent, through the influence of the laws of primogeniture, may transmit to his eldest son an inheritance which may place him high among the aristocracy of wealth, who, but for the fruits of a parent's acquisitiveness, might laudably have earned his bread by the sweat of his brow, and instead of being regarded as an exquisite dandy, might have been celebrated for his mechanical ingenuity, or the excellence of his 'goods, wares, and merchandise.' The same causes may sometimes operate to deprive nature's noblemen of their just station among men. Artificial worth may assume the place of natural; wealth and fashion may displace virtue and intellect; and genius and talent may be compelled to give precedence to a titled nobility, or to the possessors of vast estates.

It is not without emotions of pleasure, that I take leave of false pretension to rank and station, although it be to take up the humblest claim upon our attention made by the sons of genius. And here allow me to observe, that within the last forty years, certain individuals have claimed, that they have traced each particular demonstration of the various faculties and sentiments of the human mind to its source--which they allege to be an organ of the brain--and they have also adopted a nomenclature for the mental faculties, highly convenient, which I beg the privilege of employing, while I ask one farther favor of the reader, that, for the sake of convenience, if for no other reason, he will allow me to suppose each faculty of the mind to have its separate material organ. Even with this liberal concession on the part of the reader, it will be difficult to assign to each child of genius his appropriate rank in the scale of being. It is generally true, that the organs of the faculties and sentiments, which are not called into activity in the constitution of the man of genius, are in point of size at mediocrity or below it. The main strength of his character is derived from the striking fullness of the single organ which gives the bent to his mental inclination; but there is also a full development of certain other organs colleagued with that, which, following its lead, help out its inclinations, and conduct its work. These colleagues are few in number, and with their exception, the remaining mental organs of the man of genius are moderate, small, or inactive. His head is therefore uneven and irregular; that is, the reader is asked to suppose it to be so, for the sake of illustration. How often it is observed, that the man of genius wants that strong common sense, of which a very plain man may justly boast the possession? Does the genius lack the organ of common sense? Unhappily for many of the human family, there is no such organ! This excellent condition of the human mind seldom accompanies an irregular head. It is claimed to be the result of the equable and full development of all the organs of the human intellect and sentiments, and of the moderate and controllable size of all the organs of the passions. But it is otherwise in the man of genius. The size and activity of the main organs, by whose manifestations he is distinguished, render them the master spirits of his mind. In the admiration which genius excites, the useful attributes of the man are not generally looked for--and the most flagrant moral defects are palliated, if not forgiven; nay, oftentimes they are copied by those who, not having the power to dazzle, present the forlorn spectacle of natural dulness bedecked with the borrowed vices of genius.

Above these, but in the same grade of excellence as respects each other, does nature place her more gifted children, the musical composer, the orator, painter, sculptor, and poet; creatures of variously combined faculties, sentiments, and passions, but all so constituted as to be capable of enchanting the eye, delighting the ear, or gratifying the taste. Their works exalt the feelings, interest the heart, or instruct the mind, of man. They blend the happiest influences of the passions, intellect and sentiments. They portray inanimate nature in all her creations of sight and sound, and exhibit living nature in all her varieties of action, emotion, thought, or passion. Nature is their universal theme, and the fruits of their labors compose those intellectual luxuries, to banquet upon which, forms the most characteristic feature which distinguishes polished from civilized life--the accomplished from the merely useful man. But a man may be either of these sons of genius, and come far short of being either a great or a good man. Nay, he may have followed the promptings of his genius all his life, and failed after all to benefit mankind. Whose mental vision has not Byron dazzled? Who did not admire the man? Who has not forgiven his faults, on account of the magnitude of his genius, and the power of his works? And yet who does not know that Byron lived in vain, and died without benefitting himself or his fellow men? On the other hand, it is pleasant to find, that genius, so dangerous in some, may be harmless in others, and that a poet may range through all nature's works, but so judiciously select the theme of his song, and so beautifully adorn it, as that, while he excites the admiration, he improves the heart of his fellow men. The immortal 'poet of the year' concealed all evil, and portrayed all good. His female reaper adorns the lowest field with mingled beauty, chastity, and innocence--and sweet Musidora, in her plight, is seen only by the eye of modest love, abashed and retiring from the view.

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