Page:The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India.djvu/21

 enervate the irresolute and administer disease, are introduced by commerce; the extent of the benefits which attend it are also to be considered, ere the man of cool reason will venture to pronounce that mankind are injured, and rendered less virtuous and happy by the increase of Commerce.

If a view of the state of mankind, where Commerce opens no intercourse between nation and nation be neglected, unjust conclusions will certainly follow. Where the state of barbarians and of countries under different degrees of civilization are candidly weighed, we may reasonably expect a just decision. As evidently as the appointment of Nature gives pasture to the herds, as evidently is man born for society. As every other animal is in its natural state when in the situation which its instinct requires; so man, when his reason is cultivated, is then, and only then, in the state proper to his nature. The life of the naked savage, who feeds on acorns and sleeps like a beast in his den, is commonly called the natural state of man; but if there be any propriety in this assertion, his rational faculties compose no part of his nature, and were given not to be used. If the savage therefore live in a state contrary to the appointment of nature, it must follow that he is not so happy as nature intended him to be. And a view of his true character will confirm this conclusion. The reveries, the fairy dreams of a Rousseau, may figure the paradisial life of a Hottentot, but it is only in such dreams that the superior happiness of the barbarian exists. The savage, it is true, is reluctant to leave his manner of life; but unless we allow that he is a proper judge of the modes of living, his attachment to his own by no means proves that he is happier than he might otherwise have been. His attachment only exemplifies the amazing power of habit in reconciling the human breast to the most uncomfortable situations. If the intercourse of mankind in some instances be introductive of vice, the want of it as certainly excludes the exertion of the noblest virtues; and if the seeds of virtue are indeed in the heart, they often lie dormant, and unknown even to the savage possessor. The most beautiful description of a tribe of savages, which we may be assured is from real life, occurs in these words; And the five spies of Dan "came to Laish, and saw the people that were there, how they dwelt careless after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure, and there was no magistrate in the land that