It is not so
simple or easy a feeling as either of those two. It does not in the same
way lie on the surface; it is not in the same way grounded on obvious
facts which are plain to every man's understanding. The doctrine of race
is essentially an artificial doctrine, a learned doctrine. It is an
inference from facts which the mass of mankind could never have found
out for themselves; facts which, without a distinctly learned teaching,
could never be brought home to them in any intelligible shape. Now what
is the value of such a doctrine? Does it follow that, because it is
confessedly artificial, because it springs, not from a spontaneous
impulse, but from a learned teaching, it is therefore necessarily
foolish, mischievous, perhaps unnatural? It may perhaps be safer to hold
that, like many other doctrines, many other sentiments, it is neither
universally good nor universally bad, neither inherently wise nor
inherently foolish. It may be safer to hold that it may, like other
doctrines and sentiments, have a range within which it may work for
good, while in some other range it may work for evil.
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