might pass his days in tranquillity and indolence*." The savages of the Caribbee islands, who barter their hammock in the morning for some trifling gratification, and weep in the evening for its loss, are, according to one of their eulogists, "the most happy, the least vicious, the most social, the most healthy, and the least counterfeit of all the nations of the world." "Is the savage oppressed by superior fierceness and strength? Let his enemy," says Rousseau, "but once turn his head, the weaker darts twenty paces into the forest, his chains are broken, and he loses sight of his enemy for ever."

That this freedom, carelessness, and indolence, are the compensations which savages enjoy for many of the advantages

* Discours sur l'Inégalité. He afterwards adds, “Inequality; scarcely existing in a state of nature, grows with the growth of man's faculties and reason, and is permanently authorized by the establishment of property and laws."

Père du Tertre. Raynal was also a great admirer of savage life. These defend equality as it is found. Condorcet, Godwin, &c. only recommend an ideal equa lity, united with civilization.

which their circumstances deny them, I shall have occasion hereafter to prove more explicitly: but it never can be allowed that the perfection of existence is compatible with insensibility to improvement, or that happiness is consistent with ignorance of rational enjoyment. It is forgotten by the querulous and disappointed advocates of savage life, that the evils of society do not owe their birth to civilization, but spring up in spite of it; and are to be referred to the nature of man, not to the constitution of society. The same course of argument might reject agriculture, because weeds thrive quickest in the richest soil.

A partial survey of civilized life represents, it is true, each individual neglectful of the general good, and struggling merely for the advancement of his own; flourishing by the discomfiture of competitors, and elevated by the depression of his brethren. But the other side of the picture shows individual advantage terminating in public benefits, and the desire of aggrandizement which is stimulated by ainbition or domestic partialities, contributing towards the welfare of the community at large. Man, in

all situations, has both opportunity and inclination for vice, though all vices do not flourish equally in all situations. But ferocity, intemperance, and revenge, if they are not worse, certainly are not better than avarice, rapacity, or luxury: whilst the savage vices have no compensation of delicate taste, refined manners, improved understanding, or exalted virtues. A contest for riches or power does not more disturb the harmony of life, than the disputed possession of a palm-tree or a cabin but the latter produces no other fruit than private rancour or revengeful malice: the former enriches the state by the addition of two active and useful citizens.

The argument, however, requires that it should be distinctly shown, why that state of civilization which admits and consists of a gradation of ranks and of unequal conditions, is precisely the situation which affords to man the best opportunities of performing the purposes of his being.

I. If we except that lowest species of the human race which the increase of population has driven to seek subsistence at

the utmost verge of the habitable globe, and which seem to mark the ultimate point of degradation to which man can descend, no country is known to which the distinction of ranks is altogether wanting. The bravest warrior, or the most skilful hunter, becomes the chief of his tribe: nor can precedence exist, even of this rude sort, without exciting some emulation. But as this influence does not extend to the division of property, and leads only to feats of courage and dexterity in the field, we may justly represent these scattered hunting tribes as an example of a state of nature or equality.

In fact, even of this degree of equality the native Indians of North and South America afford us almost the only instance *. Reduced in number, and de

* "The Indians are strangers to all distinctions of property, except in the articles of domestic use, which every one considers as his own, and increases as circumstances admit. No visible form of government is established. They allow of no such distinction as magistrate or subject, every one appearing to enjoy an independence that cannot be controlled. They are total strangers to the idea of separate property in land." Travels by order

generated, as there appears reason to believe, from a more improved state to which their ancestors had advanced, without government, or policy, or laws of their own, they occupy a few spots in that vast continent*. Their state of society exhibits to us an assemblage of human beings, whose highest enjoyment is indolence, and who are only roused even to a temporary exertion, by the sting of necessity. No prospect of security can excite them to the energy requisite for agriculture. Could an European village be transported into Chili or Paraguay, with all its industry and foresight, and ensured from the maladies attendant on such a change of climate, the soil and seasons would overspread them with luxury and plenty for many generations. But the inhabitants of South America, with all the advantages of unimpoverished land and luxuriant climate, are not

of the American Government, under Captains Clark and Lewis.

* This description does not include the Indians of New Spain and Peru, many of whom are settled in villages, and retain the advantages which they derived before the Spanish conquests from a more advanced state of government and civilization.