lly wrong to place B under the control of A? In plain English, if it
would be injurious and wrong to subject a Newton to the will of a
Hottentot, then it would be equally injurious and wrong to subject a
Hottentot to the will of a Newton! Such is the inevitable consequence of
his very profound political principles! Nay, such is the identical
consequence which he draws from his own principles!

If questions of fact are not within the province of the moral
philosopher, then the moral philosopher has no business with the science
of political ethics. This is not a pure, it is a mixed science. Facts
can no more be overlooked by the political architect, than magnitude can
be disregarded by the mathematician. The man, the political dreamer, who
pays no attention to them, may be fit, for aught we know, to frame a
government out of moonshine for the inhabitants of Utopia; but, if we
might choose our own teachers in political wisdom, we should decidedly
prefer those who have an eye for facts as well as abstractions. If we
may borrow a figure from Mr. Macaulay, the legislator who sees no
difference among men, but proposes the same kind of government for all,
acts about as wisely as a tailor who should measure the Apollo Belvidere
to cut clothes for all his customers--for the pigmies as well as for the
giants.

Sec. VI. _The sixth fallacy of the abolitionist._

It is asserted by Dr. Wayland that the institution of slavery is
condemned as "a violation of the plainest dictates of natural justice,"
by "the natural conscience of man, from at least as far back as the time
of Aristotle." If any one should infer that Aristotle himself condemned
the institution of slavery, he would be grossly deceived; for it is
known to every one who has read the Politics of Aristotle that he is,
under certain circumstances, a strenuous advocate of the natural
justice, as well as of the political wisdom, of slavery. Hence we shall
suppose that Dr. Wayland does not mean to include Aristotle in his broad
assertion, but only those who came after him. Even in this sense, or to
this extent, his positive assertion is so diametrically opposed to the
plainest facts of history, that it is difficult to conceive how he could
have persuaded himself of its truth. It is certain that, on other
occasions, he was perfectly aware of the fact that the natural
conscience of man, from the time of Aristotle down to that of the
Christian era, was in favor of the institution