2IO STUDIES OF NATURE. 



By means of them I was taught, that there is, 

 in every part of the Earth, a portion of happinefs 

 for all men, of which, almoft univerfally, ihey are 

 deprived ; and that though in a ftate of war, from 

 our political order which difunites them, they were 

 in a ftate of peace, in the order of Nature, who 

 invites them to approximation. Thefe confolatory 

 meditations re-condu6led me, infenfibly, to my 

 ancient projecfls of public felicity ; not to execute 

 them in perfon, as formerly, but, at leaft, to com- 

 pofe an interefting pidure of it. The fpeculation 

 limply, of a general happinefs, was now fufficient 

 for my individual felicity. I likewife refleâied, 

 that my imaginary plans might one day be realized 

 by men more fortunate than myfelf. This defire 

 redoubled in me, at fight of the miferable beings 

 of which our focieties confift. I felt, above all, 

 from the privations which I myfelf had undergone, 

 the neceffity of a political order conformable to 

 the order of Nature. In a word, I compofed one 

 after the inftinft, and the demands, of my own 

 heart. 



Enabled by my own travels, and Rill more by 

 reading thofe of others, to feled on the furface of 

 the Globe, a fituation proper for tracing the plan 

 of a happy ftate of Society, 1 fixed it in the bofom 

 of South-America, on the rich and defert Ihores 

 of the river of the Amazons. 



I extended 



