Page:The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States.djvu/40

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ill-furnished the poor are in most civilised countries, in respect to sustenance, clothing, &c., they are still more neglected with regard to their minds; they indeed are excluded from all kind of improvement of their mental faculties. It is even by many supposed that all such knowledge would be prejudical to them; that is, as they are to be worked as irrational animals, there is no reason why their rational faculties should be cultivated. And, indeed, if this their situation were necessarily such, and were unavoidable, and if it were not such through our injustice and cruelty to them, our fellow-creatures, and were such as could admit of no alteration or amendment, it would in that case, perhaps, be better that they should be brought up in ignorance, as they are; since they would, by any degree of knowledge, see more clearly, and feel more acutely, what they suffer, and the want of the comforts and happiness of which they are deprived. If they remain for ever the mere carriers of wood and water, they cannot certainly be kept too ignorant. But these poor wretches, I think, have a right,