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OF SA- 

 VAGES. 



mvaciers, they retreat to the moit inhofpitable rocks, and appear progress 

 infenfible to all that is great and ingenious ; a brutilh flupidity is 

 their general cliarad;erifl:ic; and whenever they are the ftrongefl, 

 they are treacherous, and ad in oppofition to all the principles of 

 humanity and hofpitality. May we not then infer from the above 



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premises, that man unconnedled with highly civilized nations,, 

 approaches in. more happy climates,, nearer to that ftate of civili- 

 zation, and hnppinefs, which we enjoy; that human nature is 



really debafed in the favages, who inhabit the frozen extremities 

 of our globe, and that their prefent fituation is as it were, a preterna- 

 tural flate. I wifh not to be mifunderflood ; the happinefs which 



European nations enjoy, and are capable of, becomes, on account 

 of the degeneracy of a few profligate individuals, very much de- 



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baied, and mixed with the miferies, which, are entailed upon our 

 civilized focieties, by luxury and vice ; if therefore the felicity of 

 feveral European or Afiatie nations, feem to be inferior to that of 

 fome of the nations in the South Sea, it is owing to the above- 

 mentioned caufes, fince it does not feem to fpllow, that a high 

 degree of civilization muft- nccelTarily lelTen, or deftroy natural^ 

 moral, or focial happinefs. 



I believe the nations inhabiting the frozen extremities of our 

 globe to be degenerated and debafed from that original happinefs> 

 which the tropical nations more or lefs enjoy. I was firll perfuaded 



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