Hume rejected environmental explanations for African intellectual stagnation

Evidence

Hume here is describing Africans as an inferior race because they are incapable of producing outstanding works of arts and sciences. For Hume, that failure is not accidental and cannot be described, as James Beattie (1770) tried to explain, in terms of the Africans’ condition as slaves. To Hume, it is nature which is responsible for the stagnation of the African mind. In other words, Hume’s Negro has the mind that is stagnant by nature, and which cannot develop beyond the trivial and irrelevant things, like laughter, religious fetishes and talking like a parrot. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 129

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts Beattie’s environmentalism with Hume’s innatism — a precursor to the nature/nurture debate that persists today.