504 National fafle. [Book X. 



other wants arc fo many, that they cannot attend to the 

 pleafures of luxury. But the fouthern nations, by the 

 aid of a fine climate and a fertile foil, are more ad- 

 vanced in civilization than thofe of the north, though 

 not arrived at that point when the mind is enabled, 

 by reafon and philofophy, to refift or correct falfe 

 afibciations. The one party have little notion of 

 pleafure, the others have miflaken notions of it. A 

 fingle movement in the intellectual world influences a 

 train of ideas, and, if wrong, produces a feries of mif- 

 conduct. It is certainly a confcituent of female beauty, 

 to have limbs, frnaJler and more delicate than thofe of 

 men ; but mankind are ever defirous of pleafure and 

 beauty to excefs ; the Chinefe, therefore, erideavour to 

 produce a degree of beauty beyond what nature has 

 eftablifhed as perfection, and cramp the feet of their 

 women even to deformity : the fame motive will ferve 

 to explain many fantaftical fafhions which occur to our 

 own obfervation. What induced fome of the Indians 

 to colour the teeth black, was fuppofing it eflential to 

 men to differ from the brutes in every refpect, and 

 therefore it was neceflary not even to have teeth of the 

 fame colour. 



Deviations from nature happen chiefly in a (late a 

 few removes from barbarifm. True refinement brings 

 men round to the primitive fimplicity from which 

 they have been diverging. Whether the theory of a 

 moral fenfe is admitted or not, it is ftill highly picba- 

 ble, that there is in all things a certain perfection of 

 \yhich mankind is naturally emulous. The ideal cha- 

 racters, and the golden age of poets, exhibit the original 

 traces of the confcioufnels of this perfection, written in 

 the breaft of every man. It is on this ftandard of ex- 

 cellence in human nature, that a ftandard of tafte pro- 

 bably depends. As men approach more or lefs this 



point 



