Early Enlightenment philosophy rank-ordered human races by cognitive capacity.

Evidence

I am apt to suspect the Negro, and in general all other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilised nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 930

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the growing literature on philosophy of race and the critique of Enlightenment universalism from within (e.g., Charles Mills). — connects to: The Enlightenment laid the basis for modern ideas of race; the MOC “The Wound of the Label: When Knowing Someone Becomes a Way of Erasing Them”
• SHARE: Could share with a philosophy colleague interested in the history of racial thought in the British empiricist tradition.