CHAP, ii.] WEST INDIES. 57 



tants of the Charaibean Islands. The picture is not 

 pleasing; but, as I have elsewhere observed, it may 

 lead to some important conclusions; for besides cor- 

 recting many wild and extravagant fancies which are 

 afloat in the world respecting the influence of climate 

 on the powers of the mind, it may tend to demon- 

 strate the absurdity of that hypothesis of some emi- 

 nent philosophers, which pronounces savage life the 

 genuine source of unpolluted happiness; falsely deem- 

 ing it a state conformable to our nature, and consti- 

 tuting the perfection of it. It is indeed no easy task, 

 as Rousseau observes, to discriminate properly be- 

 tween what is originally natural, and what is acquired, 

 iriVthe present constitution of man: yet thus much 

 may be concluded, from the account I have given of 

 the Charaibes; that they derived their furious and 

 sanguinary disposition not from the dictates of na- 

 ture, but from the perversion and abuse of some of 

 her noblest endowments. Civilization and science 

 would not only have given them gentler manners, but 

 probably have eradicated also many of their barbarous 

 rites and gloomy superstitions, either by the introduc- 

 tion of a purer religion, or by giving energy and effect 

 to those latent principles, which I have shewn had a 

 foundation among them. But while I admit the ne- 

 cessity and benevolent efficacy of improved manners 

 and social intercouse, conceiving that man by the cul- 

 tivation of his reason, and the exercise of his faculties, 

 alone answers the end of his creation, I am far from 

 concurring with another class of philosophers, who, 

 widely differing from the former, consider a state of 

 pure nature as a state of unrelenting ferocity and re- 



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