533 



woods is treated like a person in a state of vil- 

 lanage in the greater part of the missions, be- 

 cause he enjoys not the fruits of his labours, 

 that the Christian establishments on the Oroo- 

 noko remain deserts. A government founded 

 on the ruins of the liberty of the natives extin- 

 guishes the intellectual faculties, or stops their 

 progress. 



When it is said, that the savage, like the child, 

 can be governed only by force, this is to esta- 

 blish false analogies. The Indians of the Oroo- 

 noko have something infantine in the expression 

 of their joy, and the quick succession of their 

 emotions ; but they are not great children ; they 

 are as little so as the poor labourers in the East 

 of Europe, whom the barbarism of our feudal 

 institutions has held in the rudest state. To 

 consider the employment of force as the first and 

 sole means of the civilization of the savage, is a 

 principle as far from being true in the education 

 of nations, as in the education of youth. What- 

 ever may be the state of weakness or degrada- 

 tion in our species, no faculty is entirely anni- 

 hilated. The human understanding exhibits 

 only different degrees of strength and develop- 

 ment. The savage, like the child, compares the 

 present with the past ; he directs his actions, 

 not according to blind instinct, but from motives 

 of interest. Reason can every where enlighten 

 reason; and it's progress will be retarded in 



