One hundred years ago
DOES Sir John Lubbock see proof, unquestioned proof we mean, that the black races of Africa have progressed — 1-, exce.s.L, of course, under conquest throughout the history of man? As it seems to us, there are grounds for the belief that they have not, that the law of Progress as regards the Negro is either non-existent or dependent upon this that he shall come in contact with some more progressive and more vigorous of the tribes of men. The Arab, who gives ithrt Mahommedanism, improves him, and so does the Anglo-Saxon, who gives him Christianity . . . What are the conditions which make Tasmania, with its English climate, so unfavourable to Progress, that while the Pict developed Into a civilised man, the Tasmanian did not develop at all, but remained always a little higher than the monkey, till God 111 hi mercy ended the effort and his race?
The Spectator, 15 January 1887
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