59 



ftated, may be rationally reconciled. The credulity is natural and fpon. 

 taneous, the diftruft is adventitious and acquired by good habit. Even 

 the favages of America are not in a pure flate of nature. Society, though 

 rude among them, is yet fufficiently advanced to bring with it fome of 

 the vices neceffarily attendant on the civil combinations of men. Wars 

 being introduced, diftruft and fufpicion, the neceffary confequence of 

 fear and hatred, muft follow ia their train. The mode of carrying on 

 war among favage nations is ufually a fyftem of fraud and deception ; but 

 the natural difpofition of a favage, when he is in a ftate of peace, and- 

 left to himfelf, free from the influence of the extrinfic difpofitions, which 

 the new relations and fituations of fociety have impofed on him, is, to 

 praftice and love truth himfelf, and to expeft and believe, that he fliall 

 meet with veracity in others. If, with refpeft to the European traveller, 

 or American fettlei-, the favage appears to depart from his principle of 

 credulity ; and to ftiew a fpirit of indifcriminate diftruft; we muft confider, 

 that this diftruft is the child of woeful experience ; and that the repeated 

 frauds, perfidies, ufurpations and wrongs of his chriftian neighbours too 

 generally juftify the harlheft conclufion, which the favage can draw 

 within his own breaft. When we find diftruft prevalent among the vul- 

 gar, in a more advanced ftate of fociety ; we muft account for it, by their 

 having obferved, and perhaps imbibed a portion of the vices of fociety, 

 which leads them to diftruft others, from a confcioufnefs of what pafles 

 in their own minds. This tendency to diftruft is not in them a fettled 

 principle. It is a mere impulfe and emotion, like their credulity ; and is 

 the refult of the fcattered impreftions, which they derive from a rude, im- 

 perfect, and depraved intercourfe with mankind, thus, it happens, that 

 credulity and diftruft often prevail in the fame bofom, aftuate it alter- 

 nately, and fucceed to each other inftantaneoufly, without any guide or 

 principle but the caprice of the moment. 



An argument, to fliew that the natural difpofition of man includes a 

 principle of credulity, may be drawn from the facility, which various im- 

 poftors, in different ages of the world, have found in eftablifliing their 

 pretenfions j and. the fuccefs, and influence over the human mind, which 



( H 2 ) have 



