Page:A Discourse on the True Nature of Freedom and Slavery.djvu/38

32 central regions of Africa,—as yet unexplored by Europeans,—there is a celestial church, which has the kingdom worship him from faith; but they who are in his celestial kingdom worship him from love." (A. C. 10.645.) From this it appears, that the celestial principle of humanity, is love, will or affection; and that a man of celestial genius is one whose distinguishing characteristic is action from this principle. Now every external of the African is a celestial correspondent. His having wool instead of hair, with his strong propensities for laughing, singing and dancing, are all such. His color seems to be against this hypothesis. But, besides that we have the best reason for knowing that the soul or spirit of the good and wise African is white, and have some reason for believing that the bodies of the higher tribes in the centre of Africa are white also, we must remember that the correspondence of the spiritual things of the soul is with the uses of the natural things of the body, and not with the substance, form or modification of its organs. Thus the correspondence of the understanding is with the sight of the eye, and not with the eye itself; the correspondence of the perception of the mind is with the smell, and not with the nose; the correspondence of the obedience of the will is with the hearing, and not with the ear; and so forth. Hence the correspondence of the distinctive genius of the African is with the use of the color of his skin, and not with the color itself. What, then, is the use of a black skin in the african race? and is this use a spiritual or a celestial correspondent? We know that black does not reflect either light or heat, but absorbs both; and, in absorbing heat from one side, transmits it to the other. Hence the water in a copper tea-kettle, the bottom of which is scoured bright, will not boil near so soon as when the bottom is blackened with smoke or soot. So heated water in a silver tea-pot will not part with its caloric near so fast, when the surface of the pot is thoroughly cleaned by polishing, as when it is soiled or discolored by being tarnished and uncleaned; and, as the virtue of the tea is more thoroughly extracted by drawing, the hotter the water is, therefore white china and polished metallic tea-pots are much better for drawing tea than any of the colored sorts. The use of a black skin in the negro is, then, the ready absorption and radiation of heat. Heat in the natural world corresponds to love in the spiritual world. This is the reason that a man becomes warm from passion, and that the natives of hot climates are apt to be choleric and jealous. Hence the countries of the torrid zone, which lie constantly under the sun's vertical rays, have a celestial correspondence in the material cosmos, and the men of those countries are relatively of a celestial genius. Nothing can be clearer than that the negro is as much formed by the whole constitution of his body, as well as by the color of his skin, for living, and enjoying life, in the intense intertropical heat of Africa, as the camel is formed for travelling in african deserts. In fact, he is a sort of human salamander. And it is because the negro can endure a degree of heat which kills the white man, that the blacks are better fitted to