STUDY XI. 357 



There are many lands which never have been 

 cultivated ,* but there is not one, known to Eu- 

 ropeans, which has not been polluted with human 

 blood. The very folitudes of the Ocean gulp 

 down into their abyfles, veflels filled with men, 

 funk to the bottom by the hands of men. In ci- 

 ties, to all appearance fo flouriihing by their arts 

 and their monuments, pride and craft, fuperfti- 

 tion and impiety, violence and perfidy, are in a 

 ftate of inceflant warfare, and keep the wretched 

 inhabitants in perpetual alarm. The more that 

 fociety is polifhed in them, the more numerous 

 and cruel are the evils which opprefs them. Is the 

 induftry of Man there exerted, only becaufe he is 

 there molt miferable ? Why mould the Empire 

 of the Globe have been conferred on the fingle 

 animal which had not the government of it's own 

 parlions ? How comes it that Man, feeble and 

 t<anfitory, Ihould be animated by parlions at once 

 ferocious and generous, defpicable and immortal ? 

 How is it that, born without inftinc"t, he mould, 

 have been able to acquire fuch various know- 

 ledge ? He has happily imitated all the arts of 

 Nature, except that of being happy. All the tra- 

 ditions of the Human Race have preferved the 

 origin of thefe ftrange contradictions ; but Reli- 

 gion alone unfolds to us the caufe of them. She 

 informs us that Man is of a different order from 



a a 3 the 



