6 the Indian cottage, a tale. Sept. it! 
. same mariner ; and they reason differently, because the ptinciples'o” 
truth are founded in nature, but the consequences which they deduc® 
from these depend upon theirown interest. It is with a single heart there- 
fore that one ought to seek for truth : for a single heart never pretend$ 
to understand, or to believe, what it does not. It never afsists to impose 
upon itself, nor afterwards to impose upon others; thus a single heart 
far from being weak, like that of most men seduced by their different 
interests, is strong, fitted to investigate truth, and to preserve it when 
found.’ ‘ You have exprefsed my idea much better than I could ‘have 
done myself, replied the-paria. Truthis like the dew of-heaven, to pre- 
serve it pure, one must gather it with a pure cloth and put it in a clean 
vefsel].”” is 
© It is very well said, honest friend, replied the Englishman, but a 
still more difficult question remains to be solved. Where must one 
seek truth? A single heart depends on ourselves, but truth depends on 
others. Where fhall we find it, if those who surround us are seduced 
by their prejudices, or corrupted by their ‘nterest, as they generally 
are? I have travelled among various nations; I have ransacked thei¢ 
libraries; I have consulted their learned men; and I have found noz 
thing but contradictions, doubts, and opinions, a thousand times more 
yaried than their languages. Iftherefore truth is not to be found in 
the most celebrated depositaties of human knowledge, where fhall we 
go to seek it? What putpose will it serve to have a single heart a~ 
mong men who have a false ‘understanding and a corrupt heart?  “ [ 
fhould suspect the truth itself, replied the paria, ifit depended upon 
men, if T received it by their means only; it is not among them that 
one must seek it; itis in nature. Nature is the sourse of all that exists. 
Her language is not difficult to be understood, and variable, like that 
of men in their books. Men make books, but nature makes things. 
To rest the foundation of truth on a book is as if one founded it ong 
picture, or on a statue, which can prove interesting only to one coun- 
try, and which the hand of time alters every day. Every book is the 
work ofa man, but nature is the work of God.” ‘ You areright, re- 
plied the doctor; nature is the source of natural truths: but where is 
.for example, the source of historical truths, if it be not in books. How 
fhall we do then to afgure ourselves at present of the truth of an event 
that happened two thousand years ago? Those who have transmitted 
jt to us, were they free from prejudice, and party spirit? Had they @ 
single heart? Hiesides even the books that transmit them to us, do not 
they stand in need of transcribers, of printers, uf ommentators, of 
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