Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon].

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    an inherent quality in children. We are not, therefore, to be surprised when a traveller tells us that black children in the West Indies appear to lie by instinct, and never answer a white person truly, even in the simplest matter. Here we have secretiveness roused in a people to a state of con- stant and exalted exercise; an over tendency of the nervous energy in that direction is the conse- quence, and a new organic condition is established. This tells upon the progeny, which comes into the world with secretiveness excessive in strength and activity. All other evil characteristics may be readily conceived as being implanted in a new generation in the same way. And sometimes not one, but several generations, may be concerned in bringing up the result to a pitch which produces crime. It is, however, to be observed, that the general tendency of things is to a limitation, not the extension of such abnormally constituted beings. The criminal brain finds itself in a social scene where all is against it. It may struggle on for a time, but the medium and superior natures are never long at a loss in getting the better of it. The disposal of such beings will always depend much on the moral state of a community, the de- gree in which just views prevail with regard to
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