STUDY Xlî. 3S1 



magazines, fortreffes, confederacies, and regi- 

 ments, to protect from without, and from within, 

 his ill-fated corn-field. Finally, when it is in his 

 power to enjoy with all the tranquility of a fage, 

 languor takes pofleffion of his mind ; he mufl 

 have comedies, balls, mafquerades, amufements to 

 prevent him from reafoning with himfelf. 



It is impomble to conceive how a Nation could 

 exift with the animal parlions fimply. The fenti- 

 ments of natural juflice, which are the bafis of le- 

 giilation, are not the refults of our mutual wants, 

 as has been by fome pretended. Our parlions are 

 not retrogreffive ; they have ourfelves alone for 

 their centre. A family of favages, living in the 

 midft of plenty, would be no more concerned about 

 the mifery of their neighbours perifhing for want, 

 than we concern ourfelves at Paris, that our fugar 

 and coffee are cofting Africa rivers of tears. 



o 



Reafon itfelf, united to the parlions, would only 

 flimulate their ferocity ; for it would fupply them 

 with new arguments, long after their defires were 

 gratified. It is, in mod men, nothing more than 

 the relation between beings and their wants, that 

 is, their perfonal intereft. Let us examine the 

 effeft of it, combined with love and ambition, the 

 two tyrants of human life, 



Let 



