America's Greatest Problem: the Negro |
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Africa American animals apes appeared become believe better blood brain brought cause cent chapter character civilization colored compared crime criminal crossing desire disease effect entire equality especially evidence existing fact further give given hand higher human hundred hybrids important increase kind known land less living lower lynching matter means ment mental millions mind moral mulattoes nature negro never North opinion organization passed person physical population position possess possible practically present problem pure question race reason regard respect says separate sexual skull slaves social society South Southern taken thing thousands tion true United Washington white race whole woman women York
Popular passages
Page 221 - Mated with a squalid savage — what to me were sun or clime! I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time...
Page 17 - I have endeavoured to show that no absolute structural line of demarcation, wider than that between the animals which immediately succeed us in the scale, can be drawn between the animal world and ourselves ; and I may add the expression of my belief that the attempt to draw a psychical distinction is equally futile, and that even the highest faculties of feeling and of intellect begin to germinate in lower forms of life.
Page 32 - America, may be taken as generally true of the whole race: "the negro children were sharp, intelligent and full of vivacity, but on approaching the adult period a gradual change set in. The intellect seemed to become clouded, animation giving place to a sort of lethargy, briskness yielding to indolence.
Page 80 - So again it is difficult to avoid personifying the word Nature ; but I mean by Nature, only the aggregate action and product of many natural laws, and by laws the sequence of events as ascertained by us.
Page 86 - Man, therefore, may be said to have been trying an experiment on a gigantic scale ; and it is an experiment which nature during the long lapse of time has incessantly tried.
Page 38 - In an earlier chapter we have seen that the mental powers of the higher animals do not differ in kind, though greatly in degree, from the corresponding powers of man...
Page 17 - We are indeed told, by those who assume authority in these matters, that the two sets of opinions are incompatible, and that the belief in the unity of origin of man and brutes involves the brutalization and degradation of the former. But is this really so ? Could not a sensible child confute, by obvious arguments, the shallow rhetoricians who would force this conclusion upon us? Is it, indeed, true, that the Poet, or the Philosopher, or the Artist whose genius is the glory of his age, is degraded...
Page 87 - It can, also, be clearly shown that man, without any intention or thought of improving the breed, by preserving in each successive generation the individuals which he prizes most, and by destroying the worthless individuals, slowly, though surely, induces great changes.
Page 43 - In all the particulars just enumerated, the Negro structure approximates unequivocally to that of the monkey. It not only differs from the Caucasian model, but is distinguished from it in two respects; the intellectual characters are reduced, the animal features enlarged and exaggerated.
Page 232 - There are certain hideous sights which when once seen can never be wholly erased from the mental retina. The mere fact of having seen them implies degradation. This is a thousandfold stronger when, instead of merely seeing the deed, the man has participated in it. Whoever in any part of our country has ever taken part in lawlessly putting to death a criminal by the dreadful torture of fire must forever after have the awful spectacle of his own handiwork seared into his brain and soul. He can never...
Bibliographic information
| Title | America's Greatest Problem: the Negro |
| Author | Robert Wilson Shufeldt |
| Publisher | F. A. Davis, 1915 |
| ISBN | 1105128075, 9781105128073 |
| Length | 377 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |