Race and the Enlightenment

180 Pages·1997·6.108 MB·English

by  Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze

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305.8009
R33
1997
Race and the Enlightenment
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Race and the
Enlightenment
A Reader
Edited by
Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze
BLACKWELL
Publishers
Copyright © Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1997
Introduction, notes, selection and arrangement
© Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, 1997
First published 1997
Reprinted 1998
Blackwell Publishers Inc
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Malden, Massachusetts 02148, USA
Blackwell Publishers Ltd
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Oxford 0X4 1JF, UK
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes
of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
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of the publisher.
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or
otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding
or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Race and the Enlightenment: a reader/edited by EmmanuelChukwudi Eze
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-631-20136-X (hbk: alk. paper)
ISBN 0-631-20137-8 ^bk: alk. paper)
1. Race—Racism—History—18th century. 2. Enlightenment.
I. Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi.
HT1507.R33 1997 96-19640
305.8’009’033—dc20 CIP
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Typeset in 10.5 on 12.5ptMeridien
by Best-set Typesetter Ltd, Hong Kong
Printed and bound in Great Britain
by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
This book is printed on acid-free paper
AP07’i
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1 The God-given Order of Nature 10
Carl von Linne, Homo in The System of Nature 10
2 The Geographical and Cultural Distribution of 15
Mankind
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, A Natural
History, General and Particular 15
3 "Negroes . . . naturally inferior to the whites" 29
David Hume, "Of the Populousness of Ancient
Nations" 29
"Of National Characters" 30
James Beattie, A Response to Hume 34
4 "This fellow was quite black ... a clear proof 38
that what he said was stupid"
Immanuel Kant, "On the Different Races of Man" 38
"On National Characteristics" 49
Physical Geography 58
5 The Kant-Herder Controversy 65
Immanuel Kant, Review of Herder's Ideas on the
Philosophy of the History of Mankind 66
Johann Gottfried Herder, "Organization of the
Peoples of Africa" 71
vi Contents
6 The Degeneration of Races 79
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, "Degeneration of
the Species" 79
7 Entries in the Encyclopedic and the Encyclopaedia 91
Britannica
"Negre," from the Encyclopedic 91
"Negro," from Encyclopaedia Britannica 93
8 "The difference is fixed in nature" 95
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia 95
9 "The race from which we are descended has 104
been called Caucasian . .. the handsomest on
earth"
Georges Leopold Cuvier, "Varieties of the Human
Species" 104
10 Race, History, and Imperialism 109
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, "Geographical
Basis of World History" 110
"Colonialism in the Internal Logic of Capitalist
Modernity" 150
Index 154
Acknowledgments
It is a pleasure for me to acknowledge publicly the help I received
- advice, encouragement, and constructive criticisms - from sev¬
eral friends and colleagues: Katherine Eze, Associate Professor
and Director of the German Program at Bucknell University;
Professor Richard Popkin, the distinguished intellectual historian
currently at UCLA and editor of the Columbia History of Western
Philosophy; Professor Robert Bernasconi, Moss Chair of Excel¬
lence in Philosophy, University of Memphis; Robert Young,
Fellow and Tutor in English at Wadham College, Oxford; Isaac
Kramnick, Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government, Cor¬
nell University; and Andrew McNeillie, at Blackwell Publishers.
If this book has "gaps" and "soft spots" in it, it is probably because
I did not always accept every piece of good advice about addi¬
tions, subtractions, and other editorial changes offered by these
distinguished colleagues; nor was it always possible for me to
incorporate in full those suggestions that I did accept. For these
reasons, then, it goes without saying that whatever weaknesses
it may contain must remain my responsibility, and mine alone.
At Bucknell I would like to thank Professors Doug Candland
and Jim Rice, the 1995 directors of the Knight Fellowship Pro¬
gram, who awarded a grant that enabled me to retain the re¬
search assistance of my student, Chris Walvood, for six weeks
during the Christmas holiday of the same year. In addition to our
mutual scholarly interests in exploring the "other sides" of the
Enlightenment, Chris's administrative and editorial assistance
greatly facilitated the timely completion of this book. The librar¬
ians at BucknelTs Bertrand Library were kind and generous with
their time in assisting me to locate and obtain both rare and
viii Acknowledgments
restricted materials from other libraries and archives. I would
like to mention by name Doris Dysinger of the Archives and
Special Collections Division; and Martha Holland, Tom Mattern,
Bud Hiller II, Amy Golder-Cooper, and Bonnie Bair at the Refer¬
ence and Circulation Desks. To Chris Reynolds at the Library's
Media Services, and Jennifer Celia and Kay Knapp at the Inter-
Library Loans Division - for their diligence and patience with my
often complicated work requests - I am very grateful. My friend
of many years, the art historian Bobbye Burke, of Philadelphia,
also assisted me in tracking down hard-to-find eighteenth-
century writings in anthropology. Finally, I would like to thank
Michael Payne, the Crozer Professor of English at Bucknell,
along with my colleagues in the Department of Philosophy, in
particular Professors Richard Fleming, Jeffrey Turner, and Frank
Wilson; and Nancy Johnson. Their support for this and my
numerous research projects has been strong and enduring.
The original works drawn on for this collection
The author and publishers wish to thank the following for per¬
mission to use copyright material.
Cambridge University Press for material from Georg Wilhelm
Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, trans. H. B.
Nisbet, 1975; and Immanuel Kant, Kant's Political Writing, ed.
Hans Reiss, trans. H. B. Nisbet, 1970;
Oxford University Press for material from Georg Wilhelm
Hegel, Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox, 1942;
University of California Press for material from Immanuel
Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, trans.
and ed. John Goldthwait. Copyright © 1960 The Regents of the
University of California;
The University of North Carolina Press for material from
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, ed. William Peden.
Published for the Institute of Early American History and Cul¬
ture. Copyright © 1955 by The University of North Carolina
Press.
Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders,
but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers
will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first
opportunity.