lis 



solitary islands of the tropical seas, where the genial heat 

 of the climate compensated the want of that protection 

 against the inclemency of the seasons, so grudgingly sup- 

 plied by the niggardliness of nature ; where the spontaneous 

 products of the earth afforded a coarse and scanty food; 

 while, the absence of the nobler animals, of the forest or the 

 jungle, would permit them to eke out a wretched and precarious 

 existence ! Yet how opposite are the facts : man's physical 

 weakness and pressing wants have been the true soiuces of 

 the development of his intellectual strength, as the poet finely 

 observes — 



'" Ut varies usus meditando estnnderet artis. 

 Turn varies venere artps, labor omnia vicit, 

 Improbus, et duris urgeus in rebus egestas.' 



" That the advancement of mankind has been in a great 

 measure owing to the urgency of their necessities, is a truth 

 we may deduce, not only from the consideration of the powers 

 and capacities of man compared with the lower animals, but 

 also, and perhaps in a still higher degree, from the contrasts 

 exhibited between different species of the human race, shut 

 out from all intercourse with the more civilized portions of 

 mankind. In the narratives of intelligent and observing 

 travellers, we find the greatest differences between the grades 

 of improvement to which they may have respectively arrived; 

 for example, no greater diversity of character could possibly 

 exist than that observed between the natives of North and 

 South America, when the curtain which so long bid those 

 lands from the eye of religion and science was, in the fulfil- 

 ment of God's providence, at length raised. While the North 

 American Indian combined the fortitude of the ancient Stoic 

 with the courage of the Spartan, displaying the sterner virtues 

 of humanity to such an excess as to approximate to their 

 cognate vices ; we find, on the other hand, that the natives of 

 the great southern continent, with the exception of the Peru- 

 vians and the Araucanians amongst the Chilians, were im- 



