In short, the African must be civilized in the line of his capacities.  “The present practice of the friends of Africa is to frame laws according to their own notions for the government and improvement of this people, whereas God has already enacted the laws for the government of their affairs, which laws should be carefully ascertained, interpreted, and applied; for until they are found out and conformed to, all labor will be ineffective and resultless.”

We have thus passed in review some of the tendencies of the age.  We have only touched the edges of a vast subject, and shall be quite satisfied if we have suggested thought in the direction indicated.  But in this limited view of our complex human problem it is time to ask if we have not pushed the dogma of equality far enough.  Is it not time to look the facts squarely in the face, and conform to them in our efforts for social and political amelioration?

Inequality appears to be the divine order; it always has existed; undoubtedly it will continue; all our theories and ‘a priori’ speculations will not change the nature of things.  Even inequality of condition is the basis of progress, the incentive to exertion.  Fortunately, if today we could make every man white, every woman as like man as nature permits, give to every human being the same opportunity of education, and divide equally among all the accumulated wealth of the world, tomorrow differences, unequal possession, and differentiation would begin again.  We are attempting the regeneration of society with a misleading phrase; we are wasting our time with a theory that does not fit the facts.

There is an equality, but it is not of outward show; it is independent of condition; it does not destroy property, nor ignore the difference of sex, nor obliterate race traits.  It is the equality of men before God, of men before the law; it is the equal honor of all honorable labor.  No more pernicious notion ever obtained lodgment in society than the common one that to “rise in the world” is necessarily to change the “condition.”  Let there be content with condition; discontent with individual ignorance and imperfection.  “We want,” says Emerson, “not a farmer, but a man on a farm.”  What a mischievous idea is that which has grown, even in the United States, that manual labor is discreditable!  There is surely some defect in the theory of equality in our society which makes domestic service to be shunned as if it were a disgrace.

It must be observed, further, that the dogma of equality is not satisfied by the usual admission that one is in favor of an equality of rights and opportunities, but is against the sweeping application of the theory made by the socialists and communists.  The obvious reply is that equal rights and a fair chance are not possible without equality of condition, and that property and the whole artificial constitution of society necessitate inequality of condition.  The damage from the current exaggeration of equality is that the attempt to realize the dogma in fact—­and the attempt is everywhere on foot—­can lead only to mischief and disappointment.