vation of animal matter in its natural form, but they had no knowledge, that the cause of this lay in the fact, that the chemical affinities of the elements of such matter are greatly influenced by the heat to which it may be exposed, and that the changes of texture, induced by alternations of temperature, permit a more complete operation of those affinities. They appear, in short, to have pursued the arts in a manner altogether empirical, and without principles; a conclusion which is confirmed by what Diodorus Siculus, and other historians, have related, of their mode of practising medicine, and some branches of the arts also, which are all, in our own times, intimately connected with scientific knowledge. It is probable, indeed, that this was at once originally the cause, and eventually, in an aggravated form, the consequence also, of the division of the Egyptian people into six hereditary ranks, each of which was confined, from generation to generation, to the exercise of the same general function in society as had been originally performed by it, whilst the individuals of whom it was composed, and their posterity, were equally restricted to the particular occupations of their respective progenitors. Whatever knowledge might be possessed by each class, was entirely traditional, and confined to itself, and never contributed to form a common stock of information. For arts pursued without principles, and without some degree of scientific knowledge of the materials and agents employed, though they might readily be transmitted from one manipulator to another,—as workmen at the present day instruct apprentices, by practising before them the methods of operation-could not be reduced to didactic rules, nor described in language practically intelligible. Hence, the political system of the country provided for a succession of hereditary artists; and hence, also, when that system was destroyed by the successive conquests of Egypt by the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans, the peculiar arts of the Egyptians were entirely lost. The recovery of some of the processes they adopted, is due, entirely, to the application of modern science to their existing results. The late Professor of sculpture in the Royal Academy, Mr. Flaxman, in his Lectures on that branch of the Fine Arts which he cultivated with so much success, has attributed the want of anatomical details in the Egyptian sculpture, together with its total deficiency in the grace of motion, to the low amount of the knowledge of the Egyptians in geometry. Regarding this statement to imply rather their imperfect application of that science, in agreement with some further inferences of Mr. Flaxman, (to be mentioned presently,) I am much gratified to find this confirmation of the views I have just stated, in the opinions of a sculptor so profoundly versed in the history, as well as in the philosophy, of his own art. The want of application of geometry to the arts, is correlative with the absence of physical science, which has advanced, in every age, in direct proportion to the application of abstract mathematical knowledge to the objects of nature, and to the pursuits of civilization. In the basso-relievos and paintings of the Egyptians, Mr. Flaxman observes, "there is not the smallest idea of perspective. . . . Figures intended to be in violent action are equally destitute of joints, and other anatomical forms, as they are of the balance and spring of motion, the force of a blow, or the just variety of line in the turning figure :" and he ascribes these defects to their want of anatomical, mechanical and geometrical science relating to the arts of painting and sculpture.”* These opinions are in exact agreement with the views I have offered. The manner in which the more perfect mummies have been eviscerated, shows that the Egyptians must have been skilful and accurate dissectors; their stupendous pyramids and temples evince their ability as practical mechanics; and we have seen that they were geometers, of no inconsiderable attainment; but there was no Philosophy in their cultivation of the arts, and therefore no systematic combination of their separate knowledge, whether of abstract truths, or of natural objects, which could tend to refine the different arts they practised. Hence, the Art of Sculpture, as well as others, remained unimproved among them, until the Greeks, under the Ptolemies, introduced the study of some of the natural sci * Lectures on Sculpture; Lect. ii. pp. 39-40, 47-49. ences, properly so called, and, together with that, a degree of the animation and beauty, which had resulted from its application to sculpture by the artists of their own country. The reputation acquired by the Alexandrian school of philosophy, and the success with which many branches of natural knowledge were cultivated by its disciples, among whom were Euclid, equally skilled in the science of music as in geometry; Hipparchus, the greatest astronomer among the ancients; Ctesebius, the inventor of the pneumatic pump; and others of equal celebrity; are not to be considered as indicating, in any degree, the previous existence of definite physical science in Egypt. They are attri butable, entirely to the influence of the philosophy and science of the Greeks; for which an opening was afforded by the sagacity of Alexander the Great, in fixing upon so advantageous a site for his new metropolis, after his conquest of Egypt; and which the subsequent establishment of the Museum, or scientific institution, of Alexandria, by Ptolemy Soter, and the fostering care of his successors, greatly contributed to raise to that high degree of perfection which it attained in this school. But it was, at the same time, the high cultivation of geometry by the Egyptians, in conjunction, doubtless, with their minute empirical acquaintance with the properties of natural substances, which afforded the foundation on which so much natural knowledge was afterwards raised among them by the Greeks. It may be interesting to contrast with the preceding views, some remarks on the causes interfering, among savage races, with the accumulation and transmission of knowledge, which were made public nearly at the same time with the work in which those views were first offered. The present Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Whately, in the fifth of his Introductory Lectures on Political Economy, delivered in 1831, before the University of Oxford, and published in the same year, quotes the following passage from the account of the New Zealanders, in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, and then proceeds to comment upon it, in the terms which are also subjoined. "The especial distinction of the savage, and that which, more than any other thing, keeps him a savage, is his ignorance of letters. This places the community almost in the same situation with a herd of the lower animals, in so far as the accumulation of knowledge, or, in other words, any kind of movement forward, is concerned; for it is only by means of the art of writing, that the knowledge acquired by the experience of one generation can be properly stored up, so that none of it shall be lost, for the use of all that are to follow. Among savages, for want of this admirable method of preservation, there is reason to believe the fund of knowledge possessed by the community, instead of growing, generally diminishes with time. If we except the absolutely necessary arts of life, which are in daily use and cannot be forgotten, the existing generation seldom seems to possess any thing derived from the past. Hence, the oldest man of the tribe is always looked up to as the wisest ; simply because he has lived the longest; it being felt that an individual has scarcely a chance of knowing any thing more than his own experience has taught him. Accordingly, the New Zealanders, for example, seem to have been in quite as advanced a state when Tasman discovered the country in 1642, as they were when Cook visited it one hundred and twenty-seven years after.' "It may be remarked, however," Dr. Whately observes, "with reference" to this statement, that the absence of written records is, though a very important, rather a secondary than a primary obstacle. It is one branch of that general characteristic of the savage, improvidence. If you suppose the case of a savage taught to read and write, but allowed to remain, in all other respects, the same careless, thoughtless kind of being, and afterwards left to himself, he would most likely forget his acquisition; and would certainly, by neglecting to teach it to his children, suffer it to be lost in the next generation. On the other hand, if you conceive such a case (which certainly is conceivable,—and I am disposed to think it a real one,) as that of a people ignorant of this art, but acquiring, in some degree, a thoughtful and provident character, I have little doubt that their desire, thence arising, to record permanently their laws, practical maxims, and discoveries, would gradually lead them, first to the use of memorial-verses, and afterwards to some kind of ma terial symbols, such as picture-writing, and then hieroglyphics; which might gradually be still further improved into writing, properly so called." The means by which, for a time, the arts were preserved in Egypt, but by which also they were eventually lost, appear, however, to have been of a distinct character, and to have resulted from a different national genius, from those contemplated by either of the writers here cited. The Egyptians were not savages, in the sense at least in which that vague term is most commonly understood; nor were they an improvident race, who returned to a former state of barbarism, by losing the knowledge of letters; and yet their arts became as irrecoverably lost, as far as regards any means of preserving them which they adopted, as those either of a savage tribe ignorant of letters, or of a semi-civilized community ceasing to be acquainted with them could have been. The knowledge of nature, and the processes of art, which this people possessed, whatever may have been their nature and extent, were not lost from their improvidence, but from the self-worship, and consequent self-sufficiency, which lay deeply at the root of their entire national character and economy, as well as of their mythology, and which, regarding nothing as desirable but the upholding of their own fancied greatness, seems never to have imagined the possibility of its termination. London Institution, Dec. 11, 1833. SLAVERY IN AMERICA. THE present time-in which Great Britain is taking measures for the extinction of slavery in her dominions, seems appropriate to the consideration of its prospects in America. The existence of slavery in the United States has been the result of English policy, though perpetuated by the Americans; and it may, therefore, be interesting to inquire how long it is likely to remain a monument of our past injustice, and of their abiding inconsistency. The very existence of slavery in the United States would seem, at first sight, at variance, not merely with their professed love of freedom, but with the plainest dictates of self-interest. We can understand that slavery should have existed in the British West Indies, where the number of whites is comparatively small, and unequal to the performance of the necessary works; but that such an institution should be continued in America, where the population is already ten millions, and is increasing with unexampled rapidity; and where the people are both intelligent and industriousdoes seem apparently unaccountable, when we take into consideration the original cost of a slave, the expense of maintaining him in sickness and old age, the compara. tively small quantity of work that he will perform, and the absence of all inducement to perform that work in any but the most careless manner and add to this, the constant dread of rebellion, accompanied, as it would be, by a fearful waste of property and life; there can be no doubt that the services of a free man are more desirable, both as regards expense and security, than those of a slave. We do not, however, stand in need of any abstract considerations to convince us of this fact. It is sufficiently proved by the general experience of mankind. It is to this that the freedom of the lower classes in Europe may be traced. Their freedom was not the result of any rebellion of the villeins, but was the gradual result of the general progress of intelligence, and of the perception, on the part of the lords, that their own interest, even more than that of the slaves, was involved in their emancipation. No one in England, at the present time, could gain any thing by keeping slaves, except the power of indulging his arbitrary disposition; but this is a feeling which, though sufficiently powerful in individual instances, is always, in the long run, and among the mass, overcome by the feeling of interest. And of this superiority of free to slave labour, the Americans themselves appear to be in a great degree aware. How then are we to account for the tenacity with which they seek to retain possession of their slaves, and the impatience with which they reject any overtures for their gradual improvement preparatory to a change in their condition? How are we to account for the ferocity of their laws in this respect, which would have disgraced the worst government that has ever existed, and which form an ineffaceable blot on the American escutcheon? An American slaveholder would reply, that these laws were required to prevent the negroes from obtaining their freedom, and were justified, as the result of their freedom would be the entire ruin of their masters, from the impossibility of procuring free labourers to perform the work in which the slaves are now employed. This would probably be the argument of a slave-holder, conscious in some degree of the injustice of slavery, but attempting its defence upon the ground of expediency. Mr. Achille Murat would probably give a different reason, and appeal to the original principles upon which society is framed to justify a conduct which is opposed to every principle recognized by civilized man.— With him and his arguments we shall not,how. ever, here trouble ourselves. But is there any foundation for the argument we have above supposed: and if so, how are we to account for the apparent anomaly? We believe the argument to be well founded, and will, as a necessary prelude to any just conceptions of the prospects of slavery in the United States, offer some thoughts for the purpose of explaining how it has arisen. The chief productions of the slave-states of America, and indeed the chief exportable productions of the Union, are cotton, rice, and tobacco. The cultivation of these articles, and more especially of the two former, requires the united labours of many persons for a continued period, and, in particular, that at the time in which they are gathered, the cultivator should be able to ensure the necessary supply of labourers. In this respect they differ from corn, the chief produce of the free states, which, on the new lands of the Union, may be cultivated by comparatively few hands, and is, in fact, very frequently raised and gathered by the proprietor of the soil, and his family, without any assistance from hired labourers. The articles which we have mentioned above, on the contrary, could scarcely be cultivated with any profit without the combination of many persons at the same time on the same work. This combination can never be obtained with certainty in any part of America but the slave-states, and there only through the medium of slavery. Whatever may be assigned as the reason, there can be no doubt of the fact, that in the States there is no class of field-labourers See the book of this gentleman on America, in which he attempts to place the right which the whites have to their slaves, upon the same ground as that which man may have to the service of the brutes, namely, superior force and skill; forgetting, apparently, that the negro being a man, is capable of becoming a member of the state, and is entitled to the protection of the laws, or, if not, that then any person stronger and wiser than Mr. Achille Murat would be justified in reducing him to slavery, and calling upon his fellows to punish any attempt which the latter might make to recover his freedom. If Mr. Murat be right, there is no law but that of the strongest. for hire, whose services can be relied upon with certainty, at any particular period, to perform any given work; and the natural and necessary result has been, that the cultivation of all articles which require the union of many hands at any particular period, or for a continuance, is confined almost entirely to the slave-states. This fact, of the non-existence in America, of a labouring class has been frequently noticed, and has been referred by different writers to almost as many different causes: by one, to the influence of democratic institutions; by another, to the want of an established church; by another, again, to the absence of any such feeling as loyalty. By almost every one, to causes either wholly unconnected with, or inadequate to the effect. It is only within a very few years, that what appears to us to be the cause of this otherwise inexplicable circumstance, has been announced, the facility with which land may be acquired by every free member of the States, and the constant tendency, thus created, for every one to withdraw himself from the class of labourers, and to become a landholder. In this circumstance, when traced out to its consequences, will be found an explanation of almost all those peculiarities in the social condition of America, which distinguish her from the free states of antiquity, and the republics of the middle ages, no less than from the aristocratic land of her fathers. To this, among other results, it has been owing, that republicanism has been disfigured by many unseemly exhibitions of violence; that an unnatural desire for an equality, which should rather abase the exalted than elevate the depressed, has arisen among them: and worst of all, that slavery has been rendered the chief stay of American wealth and civilization. In order to ascertain how this last result is produced, let us endeavour to trace what would be the effects of emancipation, under the most favourable circumstances, for the happiness of the negroes and the security of their masters. Let us imagine that by education the former had been raised to a level with the free inhabitants of the States in intellect and industry;-that they were prepared at once to take their place as citizens and workmen, on a level with their present superiors. It is obvious that the effects of this would be same as would be produced by the creation of an equivalent number of whites, who should have no other means of procuring subsistence, but by the produce of their labour. Upon this supposition, there would be no difficulty from any imagined unwillingness or incom petency to work, arising either from an indifference to comforts, or a want of the necessary powers of mind, and habits of action. The Americans would thus have converted two millions of enemies into friends and fellow-citizens; would have obtained willing and efficient, instead of insubordinate and careless workmen, and would thus so far have contributed to the wealth and strength of the Union. This is the bright side of the picture, and this would, undoubtedly, be the immediate result. But let us look a little farther. Let us suppose a few years to have elapsed, and then view their condition. The price of waste land in America is five shillings per acre, and the ordinary rate of wages from four to six shillings a day. With these wages, and the low price of provisions in that country, a labourer can, in three years, without any perceptible self-denial save the price of one hundred acres of land. We have supposed in the negro the existence of the qualities which would enable him to save the requisite sum, and, as he would be susceptible of the same influences as the whites, we may presume that his conduct, in similar circumstances, would be the same as theirs. He would then save from his wages the necessary amount, would purchase with his savings a small block of land; and there he would settle himself, to derive his subsistence from the labour of himself and his family; directed to the production of such articles as can be raised with the greatest facility, and by the least expenditure of labour. Instead of forming one of a number of labourers, whose combined efforts were directed to the production of one article which might be exchanged for every article of necessity or desire; he would be a solitary individual, labouring by himself to produce as many articles as possible, in order to compensate for his inability to raise a sufficient quantity of exchangeable produce to procure these articles from others. But when this time had arrived, when the whole negro population had worked out their independence: when they had changed, we will not say, raised their condition from labourers for hire to labourers on their own property, what would be the condition of their present employers? The whole of the fixed capital which they may possess in buildings and machinery of every description, for the purpose of clearing the cotton, or preparing it for market, and for all the various operations performed on the articles now raised, in order to prepare them for exportation, would be useless: their property in land would proportionably fall in value, and they themselves would sink to the condition to which the negroes would have raised themselves; nay, far lower for the existence of slavery has destroyed among them those qualities which we have supposed the negro to possess. But this is only a portion of the result.-Considerably more than one-half of the exports of the Union is the produce of the slave-states, and it is, of course, by this, that more than one-half of their imports is purchased. To this extent, then, would the commerce of the Americans be reduced, and the employment for their merchants and seamen be diminished by emancipation. But even this is not the whole. The greater part of the surplus food raised in the free states is employed in feeding the population of the slave states, or the manufacturers of whose goods the slave states are considerable consumers. But when the state which we have anticipated had arrived, the first care of every holder of land would be to raise food, and manufacture his own clothing, as he could not then raise any of the articles with which food and manufactures are now purchased. To this extent, therefore, would the markets, and consequently the industry, of the free states, be lessened, and their comforts reduced. With regard There are two objections which may be urged to this statement.-One to the fact, and the other to the argument, which we might be supposed to have intended to involve in it. The former would be,That if, as we have assumed, it were for the general good, that the negroes should, after their emancipation continue to combine their labour, they would, under the circumstances of intelligence supposed, actually so continue. And the latter, that if they should not, this can form no argument against their emancipation. to the latter, it is at once conceded, that these circumstances form no valid objection against the justice of their claim to freedom; nor could we be ever for a moment supposed to have urged them with this view; but, upon the probability of this claim being allowed, it does exercise a most important influence, and it should therefore, in any practical inquiry, occupy a prominent place. The former demands a mere detailed investigation, as it does at first sight appear to offer a complete answer to all the difficulties which we have supposed the low price of land to throw in the way of emancipation. We may first observe, that the only question which can arise is the expediency of procuring the combination of labour There can be no doubt of the fact. |