Clarkson, Thomas (1760-1846)

An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, particularly the African

London

J. Phillips

1786

"You confound their abilities by the severity of their servitude: for as a spark of fire, if crushed by too great a weight of incumbent fuel, cannot be blown into a flame, but suddenly expires, so the human mind, if depressed by rigorous servitude, cannot be excited to a display of those faculties, which might otherwise have shone with the brightest lustre."

Let us allow then for a moment, that they appear to have no parts, that they appear to be void of understanding. And is this wonderful, when you receivers depress their senses by hunger? Is this wonderful, when by incessant labour, the continual application of the lash, and the most inhuman treatment that imagination can devise, you overwhelm their genius, and hinder it from breaking forth?--No,--You confound their abilities by the severity of their servitude: for as a spark of fire, if crushed by too great a weight of incumbent fuel, cannot be blown into a flame, but suddenly expires, so the human mind, if depressed by rigorous servitude, cannot be excited to a display of those faculties, which might otherwise have shone with the brightest lustre.
(III.vii, pp. 164-5)

Fire::Sparks Fire::Flame

Contributed by Dorothy Couchman

Thomas Clarkson, An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, particularly the African, translated from a Latin Dissertation, which was Honoured with the First Prize, in the University of Cambridge, for the Year 1785, with Additions (London: J. Phillips, 1786). <Link to Liberty Fund's OLL><Link to first edition in Google Books><Link to third edition in Google Books>

07/20/2010