434 KOTES. 



the peftilence, to a People already under regular government, 

 merely from their coming into contact with their neighbours. 

 Such was that of the Jews, who, notwithftandinj; the feverity of 

 their Laws, facrificed their children to idols, after the example of 

 the Canaanites. It mofl frequently incorporates itfelf with the 

 legiflation of a People, through the tyranny of a defpot, as in 

 Arcadia, under Lycaon, and ftiJl more dangeroufly, through the 

 influence of an ariflocratical corps, which perpetuates it, in fa- 

 vour of their own authority, even through the ages of civiliza- 

 tion. Such are, in our own days, the ferocious prejudices of 

 Religion, inflilled into the Indians, in other refpe«3^s fo gentle, 

 by their Bramins ; and thofe of honour inftilled into the Japa- 

 nefe, fo polifhed, by their Nobles. 



I repeat it, for the confolarion of the Human Race : moral 

 evil is foreign to Man, as well as phyfical evil. Both the one and 

 the other fpring up out of deviations from the Law of Nature. 

 Nature has made Man good. Had fhe made him wicked, flie, 

 who is fo uniformly confequential in her Works, would have 

 furniflied him with claws, with fangs, with poifon, with fome 

 offenfive weapon, as fhe has done to thofe of the beafts, whofe 

 charaAer is defigned to be ferocious. She has not fo much as 

 provided him with defenfive armour, like other animals; but 

 has created him the mofl: naked, and the moft miferable, un- 

 doubtedly in the view of conftraining him to have confiant re- 

 courfe to the humanity of his fellow-creatutes, and to extend it 

 to them in his turn. Nature no more makes v hole Nations of 

 men jealous, envious, malignant, eager to furprfs each other, am- 

 bitious, conquerors, cannibals, than Hie forms Nations continu- 

 ally labouring under the leprofy, the purples, the fever, the fmall- 

 pox. If yon ineet even an individual, fubjeft to thefe phvfical 

 evils, impute them, without hefitation, to fomeunwholefome ali- 

 ment on which he feeds, or to a putrid air which infefts the 

 neighbourhood. In like manner, when vou find barbarifm in a 

 rifing Nation, refer it foitiy to the errors of it's policy, or to the 

 influence of it's neighbours, jv.û as you would the mifchievouf- 

 nefs of a child, to the vices of hjs education, or to bad example. 



The 



