Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/212

 kind; which lays the line between the enlightened philosopher, and the half-taught citizen; between the civil citizen and the illiterate peasant; between the law-obeying peasant, and the wandering savage of Africa, an animal less mischievous indeed, than the tyger, because endued with fewer powers of doing mischief. The man, the nation, must therefore be good, whose chiefest luxuries consist in the refinement of reason; and reason can never be universally cultivated unless guided by Taste, which may be considered as the link between science and common sense, the medium through which learning should ever be seen by society.

will, therefore, often be a proper standard, when others fail, to judge of a nation's improvement, or degeneracy