3H 



R E M ARKS 



N 



THE 



ORIGIN Hate, were, according to their own hiftorical 



of a mo- 



OF SOCI- 

 ETIES. 



dern date, and probably imported by a few families, whom chance, 



wild and inhofpitable 



on 



thefe 



or cruel neceffity, had thrown 



fhores. 



Thefe confiderations lead us to fome natural inferences, viz. 



+ 



that as the number of inhabitants on the great American conti- 



nent, was, in general very 



fiderable, their flate far remote 



from civilization, and bordering upon animality 5 the rigors of the 

 climate, on its extremities fevere -, the food for human beings very 

 precarious -, thofe men who are found on thefe extremities, cer- 

 tainly came from more happy and more civilized regions, and that 

 only neceffity could make the hardihips fupportable, which they of 

 courfe mull: undergo : that the more wretched and forlorn their 

 iituation is, the ftronger it proves, that the nation or tribe, of which 

 they are defcended, had already, in part, loft the principles of edu- 

 cation, common to all happy nations, whom we generally find 

 within the tropics ; they muft likewife be fev/ in number, becaufe 

 they are defcended from a flraggling tribe, and are 

 very prolific, owing perhaps to the want of natural heat, the 

 harfhnefs of their fibres, the poverty of their juices, and other 

 caufes, which are the confequences of their mode of living, and of 



the conilitution of their climate. The great Mr. de Mon- 



tefquieii 



themfelve 



