144 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



*' he is a coward and a flave between the Tropics. 

 *' His only natural laws are his paffions. And, 

 *' what other laws fhould he look for ? If they 

 " fometimes lead him aftray, is not Nature, who 

 *' beftowed them upon him, an accomplice, at 

 *' leaft, in his criminality? But he is made fenfible 

 '* of theit impulfe, only as a warning never to gra- 

 " tify them. 



*' The difficulty of finding fubfiftence, wars, 

 '* impofts, prejudices, calumnies, implacable ene- 

 *' mies, perfidious friends, treacherous females, 

 " four hundred forts of bodily diflemper, thofe of 

 *' the mind, both more cruel and more numerous, 

 *' render him the moft wretched of creatures that 

 *' ever faw the light. It were much better that he 

 " had never been born. He is every where the 

 '' vidim of fome tyrant. Other animals are fur- 

 *' nifhed with the means of fighting, or, at leafl, 

 '' of flying ; but Man has been tofTed on the Earth 

 *' by chance, without an afylum, without claws, 

 ** without fangs, without velocity, without inflind, 

 ** and almoft without a fkin ; and as if it were not 

 '* enough for him to be perfecuted by all nature, 

 " he is in a flate of perpetual war with his own 

 " fpecies. In vain would he try to defend himfelf 

 *' from it. Virtue ftcps in, and bind his hands, 

 •' that vice, in fafety, may cut his throat. He 

 *' has no choice but to fuffer, and to be filent. ■ 



" What 



