Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1853).djvu/289

Rh “All that is colossal and grand in Nature has been formed at the North.”— 1. Epoq., 255. “It is in our Northern regions that living nature has risen to the largest dimensions.”—Ib. 263.

“Dogs have in Hispaniola grown so much in number and in size as to become the plague of that island. ” —Acosta iv., 33.

“Although the savage of the new world is nearly of the same height as man in our world, this does not suffice to constitute an exception to the general fact, that all living nature is smaller on that continent. The savage is feeble, and small in some of his parts, and has little hair or beard; although swifter than the European, because better accustomed to run; he is, on the other hand, less strong; he is also less sensitive, and yet more timid and cowardly; he has no vivacity, no activity of mind; the activity of his body is less an exercise, a voluntary motion, than a necessary action caused by want; relieve him of hunger and thirst, and you deprive him of the active principle of all his movements; he will rest stupidly upon his legs, or lying down entire days. There is no need for seeking farther the cause of the isolated mode of life of these savages and their repugnance for society: the most precious spark of the fire of Nature has been refused to them: they have no love for their wives, and consequently no love for their neighbors: as they know not this strongest and tenderest of all affections, their other feelings also are cold and languid; they love their parents and children but little; the closest of all ties, the family connexion, binds them, therefore, but loosely together; between family and family there is no tie at all; hence they have no communion, no Commonwealth, no state of society. Physical love is their only morality; their heart is icy, their society cold, and their rule despotic. They look upon their wives as servants for all work, or as beasts of burden, which they load without consideration with the produce of their hunting, and which they compel without mercy, without gratitude, to perform work which is often beyond their strength. They have only few children, and take little care of them. Everywhere the original defect appears: they are indifferent because they are impotent, and this indifference for the other sex is the fundamental defect, which tarnishes their nature, prevents its
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