HISTORY OF VERMONT. 221 



have corrected the error ; for the facts are all 

 in opposition, to what has been so often assert- 

 ed, and quoted. No such animal was ever seen 

 in America, as the Indian M. de BufFon describe 

 cd in Paris. If the facts had been true, the 

 conclusions which have been drawn from them, 

 would have been wholly uncertain. The want 

 of a beard would have been no proof, that the 

 Indians were incapable of population : And the 

 want of that excessive licentious ardour, with 

 which the negro and the libertine glows, is in 

 no degree unfriendly to population. Every 

 passion carried to excess, tends to weaken and 

 enervate the whole animal frame. In obedience 

 to that temperance, purity, and regularity, which 

 nature enjoins and requires, are we to look for 

 the effects, which nature designs. But the ar- 

 dour produced by luxury, intemperance, and 

 excess, weakens its own powers, defeats its end, 

 and destroys its purpose : Instead of proving 

 favourable to population, it tends to weakness, 

 impotency, and the loss of manhood. Is it not 

 surprising, that philosophers who had seen the 

 debilitating and degrading effects, which luxury, 

 intemperance, and excess, are constantly pro- 

 ducing in the populous cities of Europe ; should 

 view the unnatural ardour they create, in any 

 other, than an unfavourable light ? Or suspect 

 the Indian was inferior by nature to the Euro- 

 pean, because he did not appear to be governed 

 by that unnatural ardour, which never fails to 

 debilitate all the powers of nature ; And which 

 often ends, in the most emaciated and degraded 

 state, to which man can be reduced ? Happily 

 for himself, the Indian was without this unnatu*- 

 VOL. I. T) 2 



