"You confound their abilities by the severity of their servitude: for as a spark of fire, if crushed by too great a weight of incumbent fuel, cannot be blown into a flame, but suddenly expires, so the human mind, if depressed by rigorous servitude, cannot be excited to a display of those faculties, which might otherwise have shone with the brightest lustre."
An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, particularly the African
Thomas Clarkson, <u>An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, particularly the African, translated from a Latin Dissertation, which was Honoured with the First Prize, in the University of Cambridge, for the Year 1785, with Additions</u> (London: J. Phillips, 1786). &lt;<a href="http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/1070">Link to Liberty Fund's OLL</a>&gt;&lt;<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=pBOe7105MhMC">Link to first edition in Google Books</a>&gt;&lt;<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=wr8NAAAAQAAJ">Link to third edition in Google Books</a>&gt;