my life,
then should I die the death utterly."

I recollect that when I wrote these clear words of an honest doubter
there came to mind the old Arab saying: "Whosoever leaveth no male hath
no memory," which is but a confession of that sense of doubt that has
haunted the minds of men of all races and at all times while the people
as a whole have professed their hope and belief in a life everlasting.

I discussed the matter of polygamy with a Native youth one day, and made
a note of his argument. He said:

"In our district the young women are beginning to go against the man who
wants more than one wife. I have a young wife, and when I talk to her
about taking a second wife she says that she will not suffer it. She
says that the white people do well in that the man and his wife grow old
together, whereas we Natives, as she says, we are like the cattle in the
kraal; we do not behave like human beings. But to this I answered that
our fathers and mothers taught us that one wife by herself cannot be
happy and comfortable because when she falls sick, as women often do,
there is no one to help her, whereas when a man has two or more wives
they can help and nurse one another, they need not be sad or unhappy. I
think our fathers way is the good way and I shall follow it, but I know
there will be trouble because of the new thoughts my wife has taken from
the white people."

Now I do not say that these instances show any remarkable intelligence
or power of thinking, but I do say that they show sound level-headed
reasoning just like the common sense reasoning from cause and effect
which we find in the average European, and that they show, moreover,
that the same types of mental disposition and capacity are found in
black and white alike.

It would indeed be easy for me to continue giving instances like these
to show the essential sameness of the nature of the minds of the black
and white people, but I must consider the weight of my book and the
readers patience. I have refrained from pointing to those Natives who
have proved their scholastic capabilities at various universities and
colleges because it is generally surmised that these men are exceptional
or that their success is due to a highly developed imitative faculty
coupled with a strong memory, with which it is fashionable to credit the
successful Native student, and I have advisedly confined myself to
instances drawn from the everyday life and thought of the normal and