MiscegenationPosted in Anthropology, Articles, Media Archive on 2010-11-26 19:42Z by Steven |
Anthropological Review
Volume 2, Number 5 (May, 1864)
pages 116-121
During the last two months there have come reports to Europe of the remarkable form of insanity which is just now affecting the people of Federal America. We should not have thought it worth while to take any notice of the publication of the pamphlet under review, if it did not give us some insight into the extraordinary mental aberration now going on in Yankeedom. It is useless, however, longer to close our eyes to the phenomenon now appearing in the New World. Before we saw this pamphlet, we expected that is was merely a hoax, which some political wag had concocted for the benefit of his party. But an examination of the works dispels that illusion, and shows that the author attempts to found his theory on scientific facts!
There is, indeed, just enough of the current scientific opinion of the day, and also enough of literary merit, to enable readers of this work to get very much confused as to the real nature of the opinions and theory therein propounded. The anonymous author starts with some general assertions, and if these be admitted, the theory is not so utterly absurd as it otherwise appears. Monogenists will, indeed be astonished at the use made of their doctrine; but is is from the…
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