whilst the negro or flat-nosed race has always been marked for want of intellectual power and capacity for the arts of life.  This last race, in fact, has never been cultivated, and a hundred generations,

successively improved, would be required to bring it to the state in which the Caucasian race was at the time of the formation of the Greek republics.  The principle of the improvement of the character of races by the transmission of hereditary qualities has not escaped the observations of the legislators of the ancient people.  By the divine law of Moses the Israelites were enjoined to preserve the purity of their blood, and there was no higher crime than that of forming alliances with the idolatrous nations surrounding them.  The Brahmins of Hindostan have established upon the same principle the law of caste, by which certain professions were made hereditary.  In this warm climate, where labour is so oppressive, to secure perfection in any series of operations it seems essential to strengthen the powers by the forces acquired from this principle of hereditary descent.  It will at first perhaps strike your mind that the mixing or blending of races is in direct opposition to this principle of perfection; but here I must require you to pause and consider the nature of the qualities belonging to the human being.  Excess of a particular power, which in itself is a perfection, becomes a defect; the organs of touch may be so refined as to show a diseased sensibility; the ear may become so exquisitely sensitive as to be more susceptible to the uneasiness produced by discords than to the pleasures of harmony.  In the nations which have been long civilised the defects are generally those dependent on excess of sensibility—defects which are cured in the next generation by the strength and power belonging to a ruder tribe.  In looking back upon the vision of ancient history, you will find that there never has been an instance of a migration to any

extent of any race but the Caucasian, and they have usually passed from the North to the South.  The negro race has always been driven before these conquerors of the world; and the red men, the aborigines of America, are constantly diminishing in number, and it is probable that in a few centuries more their pure blood will be entirely extinct.  In the population of the world, the great object is evidently to produce organised frames most capable of the happy and intellectual enjoyment of life—to raise man above the mere animal state.  To perpetuate the advantages of civilisation, the races most capable of these advantages are preserved and extended, and no considerable improvement made by an individual is ever lost to society.  You see living forms perpetuated in the series of ages, and apparently the quantity of life increased.  In comparing the population of the globe as it now is with what it was centuries ago, you would find it considerably greater; and if the quantity of life is increased, the quantity of happiness, particularly that resulting from the exercise of intellectual power, is increased in a still higher ratio.  Now, you will say, ‘Is mind generated, is spiritual power created; or are those results dependent upon the organisation of matter, upon new perfections given to the machinery upon which thought and motion depend?’  I proclaim to you,” said the Genius, raising his voice from its low and sweet tone to one of ineffable majesty, “neither of these opinions is true.  Listen, whilst I reveal to you the mysteries of spiritual natures, but I almost fear that with the mortal veil of your senses surrounding you, these mysteries can never be made perfectly intelligible to your mind.  Spiritual natures are eternal and

indivisible, but their modes of being are as infinitely varied as the forms of matter.  They have no relation to space, and, in their transitions, no dependence upon time, so that they can pass from one part of the universe to another by laws entirely independent of their motion.  The quantity, or the number of spiritual essences, like the quantity or number of the atoms of the material world, are always the same; but their arrangements, like those of the materials which they are destined to guide or govern, are infinitely diversified; they are, in fact, parts more or less inferior of the infinite mind, and in the planetary systems, to one of which this globe you inhabit belongs, are in a state of probation, continually aiming at, and generally rising to a higher state of existence.  Were it permitted me to extend your vision to the fates of individual existences, I could show you the same spirit, which in the form of Socrates developed the foundations of moral and social virtue, in the Czar Peter possessed of supreme power and enjoying exalted felicity in improving a rude people.  I could show you the monad or spirit, which with the organs of Newton displayed an intelligence almost above humanity, now in a higher and better state of planetary existence drinking intellectual light from a purer source and approaching nearer to the infinite and divine Mind.  But prepare your mind, and you shall at least catch a glimpse of those states which the highest intellectual beings that have belonged to the earth enjoy after death in their transition to now and more exalted natures.”  The voice ceased, and I appeared in a dark, deep, and cold cave, of which the walls of the Colosæum formed the boundary.  From above a bright and rosy light broke into this cave, so

that whilst below all was dark, above all was bright and illuminated with glory.  I seemed possessed at this moment of a new sense, and felt that the light brought with it a genial warmth; odours like those of the most balmy flowers appeared to fill the air, and the sweetest sounds of music absorbed my sense of hearing; my limbs had a new lightness given to them, so that I seemed to rise from the earth, and gradually mounted into the bright luminous air, leaving behind me the dark and cold cavern, and the ruins with which it was strewed.  Language is inadequate to describe what I felt in rising continually upwards through this bright and luminous atmosphere.  I had not, as is generally the case with persons in dreams of this kind, imagined to myself wings; but I rose gradually and securely as if I were myself a part of the ascending column of light.  By degrees this luminous atmosphere, which was diffused over the whole of space, became more circumscribed, and extended only to a limited spot around me.  I saw through it the bright blue sky, the moon and stars, and I passed by them as if it were in my power to touch them with my hand.  I beheld Jupiter and Saturn as they appear through our best telescopes, but still more magnified, all the moons and belts of Jupiter being perfectly distinct, and the double ring of Saturn appearing in that state in which I have heard Herschel often express a wish he could see it.  It seemed as if I was on the verge of the solar system, and my moving sphere of light now appeared to pause.  I again heard the low and sweet voice of the Genius, which said, “You are now on the verge of your own system: will you go further, or return to the earth?”  I replied, “I have left an abode which is damp, dreary,

dark and cold; I am now in a place where all is life, light, and enjoyment; show me, at least before I return, the glimpse which you promised me of those superior intellectual natures and the modes of their being and their enjoyments.”  “There are creatures far superior,” said the Genius, “to any idea your imagination can form in that part of the system now before you,