4 GO ORTGIN OF COMMERCE. 



student perseveres he will find it more and more easy, 

 until at last he will find it necessary to his life. The 

 toils which were once so hard to endure are now 

 sought and cherished for themselves : the mind becomes 

 uneasy when its chains are taken off. 



The love of esteem is the second stimulant of labour; 

 it follows the period of necessity ; it precedes the 

 period of habit. It is founded on that feeling of 

 sympathy which unites the primeval herd, and which 

 is necessary to its life. The man who distinguishes 

 himself in battle ; the man who brings home a deer, 

 or a fish, or a store of honey, or a bundle of roots is 

 praised by his comrades ; so he is encouraged to fresh 

 exertions, and so the emulation of others is excited. 

 The actions of savages are entirely directed by the 

 desire to exist, and by the desire to obtain the praises 

 of their fellows. All African travellers have suffered 

 from the rapacity of chiefs, and yet those same chiefs 

 are the most open-handed of men. They plunder and 

 beg from the white man his cloth, in order to give it 

 away; and they give it away in order to obtain praise. 

 A savage gentleman is always surrounded by a host of 

 clients, who come every morning to give him the 

 salutation, who chant his praises and devour him alive. 

 The art of song had its origin in flattery. Mendicant 

 minstrels wander from town to town, and from chief to 

 chief, singing the praises of their patrons and satirizing 

 those who have not been generous towards them. In 

 Africa the accusation of parsimony is a more bitter taunt 

 than the accusation of cowardice. Commerce first com- 

 menced in necessity. The inland people required salt ; 

 the coast people required vegetables to eat with their 

 fish. But soon the desire of esteem induced men to 

 contrive, and labour, and imperil their lives in order to 



