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yond what the natural principle inculcates; for these always reflect the feelings of those who enact them. Examine the laws of the most refined of the dark races, and behold how feebly they protect female rights; but turn to the laws of the white races, and observe how much more stringent they are in favor of women. These differences are not accidental, but they reflect the different natural temperaments in regard to the sex.

The law of love of the sexes, in man, has a higher object than the mere perpetuation of the species. It has a direct reference, as we will hereafter show, to the progressive moral and intellectual improvement of the race; and, when not interrupted in its impulses by artificial restraints, will, by its own power, carry out the design of the Creator towards the perfection we are destined to enjoy.

Man is a social, a moral, and an intellectual being. The important influence of the natural law of sexual love on all of these important particulars, must be apparent to the most casual observer. Social institutions have their foundations in domestic regulations. Patriarchal governments were nothing but family laws, or the will of the parents. Suppose Shem to have governed by love, with sufficient discipline to have enforced obedience-Japheth to have governed by a rigorous exaction of implicit and passive obedience-Ishmael to have governed by violence, jealousy, and revenge-and Canaan by an utter carelessness of the future, if the time being could be enjoyed in boisterous mirth and jollity, but by cruelty and destructiveness when not so engagedwe should then have tolerably good prototypes of

the several kinds of national governments which have always been adhered to, since that period, by their descendants. Some variations have taken place; but very few of them to such an extent as not to bear the impression of the supposed types. In general, therefore, nations only exhibit the collected, or concentrated manners, habits, customs, and regulations of the families which compose them. We are in the habit of saying that the moral and intellectual condition of a people depend upon the kind of government under which they live. This is generally true, to a considerable extent, in nations governed by military force, after having been conquered; but it is true to a very limited extent only, in governments of long standing, or which may be supposed to have originated by social compact, express or implied. In the origin of all governments the character of the civil institutions must conform to the leading features of domestic, or fireside regulations. That people are essentially and necessarily a nation of freemen whose domestic relations preserve the purity of equality of rights, founded upon love and benevolence. They may be enslaved for a time; but no tyrant can sit securely on his throne with such materials for its support; for in despotic governments there must be regular gradations of despotism through the whole mass of society.

Moral and intellectual endowments also depend, in a very great degree, upon sexual love. "Like begets like," is a universal law of nature; nor is it in man, more than in any animal, confined in its operations to a mere physical likeness. All of the

attributes, qualities, properties, and powers, natural and acquired, which have relation to the physical and psychical improvement or degradation of man, are controlled, more or less, by the law of sexual love. Any restraint upon its operations, excepting the regulations which the progress of society in social intercourse will always adopt, will impair its power for good; for a freedom of choice in matrimonial engagements is necessary to its perfection. The taste for sexual beauty, like a taste for any other beauty, will improve by cultivation, and a consequent improvement in the condition of society. In a rude state of society, in which the sexes stand upon an equal footing, a man might chose a wife for her beauty, grace, and other personal perfections; but such a woman, without regard to his face or form, might love a man who combined all the qualities for her protection and security. In a more advanced state of society, when her security and protection did not depend exclusively upon her hus band's arm, other objects would naturally engross attention, and become subjects of sexual love.

But we design to discuss this important branch of our subject in our next chapter, and will, therefore, not anticipate it. The laws relating to sexual love, or a taste for personal beauty in the different species of men, were designed by the Creator for the double purpose of giving specific character to each species, and to keep each species distinct from every other. Our object in saying what we have above said of it, is to show that it is not applicable to the dark races of mankind, in the sense in which it is applicable to the white race. With very few and trifling exceptions,

in all of the dark races, woman is entirely passive, and wholly under the control of the will of man. No sentiment enters into the bond of their union. The Ishmaelite, the Japhethite, and the Canaanite, are fundamentally the same in regard to this matter; but their differences arise from the peculiar institutions which have grown out of their specific characters, without regard to any modifying influences from sexual love.

CHAPTER XIII

THE GREAT NATURAL LAW WHICH HAS KEPT EACH SPECIES DISTINCT FROM EVERY OTHER.

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NOTHING in nature produces such delightful sensations in the beholder as personal beauty, especially if the object should be of the opposite sex. young are enraptured with it, and the aged are pleased. It is a mantle that covers many faults, more effectually than drapery covers personal defects; because the faults of the beautiful have only a softening effect, in general, and, too frequently, are overlooked by beholders. The spots of the sun take nothing from his apparent beauty, and nothing from his sensible heat, although they diminish both. Such spots may be necessary in the economy of nature, to equalize and temper the heat of seasons,

which might otherwise accumulate, and produce disastrous results. For as, on the one hand, the Creator has fixed a limit to cold, by the singular law of the expansion of fluids at a certain low temperature; so, on the other, he may have fixed a limit to heat, by as singular a law, that a certain mode or degree of it shall no longer expand, but condense it, and thus prevent radiation. As the spots on the sun are only seen and known by philosophers, who curiously pry into his face by the help of instruments, and are neither seen, known, nor felt by the bulk of mankind; so the spots upon beauty are neither seen, known, nor felt, but by a curious few, who look through age, inter est, or experience at the object.

The influence of the sun upon the natural world is similar to the influence of sexual beauty upon our race. The one is the cause of all the activity, luxuriance, and maturity of vegetation; and the other is the cause of all the activity, luxuriance, and maturity of man. The first displays the deep blue vault of heaven in all of its extent and sublimity, and discloses all the gaudy shows and delightful scenery of mountain, valley, and plain; and the last displays to the mind a heaven far more deep and rich, absorbing and sublime, and exhibits to the imagination pictures and scenes infinitely more delightful than the gaudy shows of mountain, valley, and plain.

Personal beauty is one of the most powerful impulses of our nature, and has a direct and positive influence upon the destiny of man, as it regards the development of his moral and intellectual faculties.

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