set no value upon those which are not the object of some immediate want, When in the evening a Caribbee feels himself disposed to go to rest, no consideration will tempt him to sell his hammock: but in the morning, when he is sallying out to the business or pastime of the day, he will part with it for the slightest toy that catches his fancy. Among civilized nations arithmetic, or the art of numbering, is deemed an essential science, but among savages, who have no property to estimate, no hoarded treasures to count, no variety of objects or multiplicity of ideas to enumerate, arithmetic is a superfluous and useless art. Accordingly, among some tribes in America it seems to be quite unknown. There are many that cannot reckon further than three; several can proceed as far as ten or twenty, but when they would convey an idea of any number beyond these they point to the hairs of their head, intimating that it is equal to them, or with wonder declare it to be so great that it cannot be reckoned. In other respects the exercise of the understanding among rude nations is still more limited. The first ideas of every human being must be such as he receives by his senses. But in the mind of man, while in the savage state, there seem to be hardly any ideas but what enter by this avenue. The objects around him are presented to his eye; and such as may be subservient to his use, or can gratify any of his appetites, attract his notice; he views the rest without curiosity and attention. The active efforts of the mind are few, and on most occasions languid. The desires of simple nature are few, and where a favourable climate yields almost spontaneously what suffices to gratify them, they excite no violent emotion. Hence the people of the several tribes in

America

America waste their life in indolence: they will continue whole days stretched in their hammocks or seated on the earth, in perfect idleness, without changing their posture or raising their eyes from the ground, or uttering a single word. Such is their aversion from labour, that neither the hope of future good nor the apprehension of future evil can surmount it. The cravings of hunger may rouse them, but the exertions which these occasion are of short duration. They feel not the force of those powerful springs which give vigour to the movements of the mind, and urge the patient hand of industry to persevere in its cfforts. ́Man cannot continue long in this state of feeble infancy. He was made for industry and action, and the powers of his nature, as well as the necessity of his condition, urge him to fulfil his destiny. Accordingly, among most of the American nations, especially those seated in the rigorous climates, some efforts are employed and some previous precautions taken for securing subsistence, but labour is deemed ignominious and degrading. It is only to work of a certain kind that man will deign to put his hand. The greater part is devolved entirely upon the women. One half of the community remains inactive, while the other is borne down with the multitude and variety of its occupations. Thus their industry is partial, and the foresight which regulates it is no less limited. A remarkable instance of this occurs in the chief arrangement with respect to their manner of living. They depend for their subsistence during one part of the year on fishing; during another on hunting'; during a third on the produce of their agriculture. Though experience has taught them to foresee the return of those various seasons, and to make proVOL. XXIV.

I

vision

vision for the exigencies of each; they either want sagacity to proportion this provision to their consumption, or are so incapable of any command over their appetites, that from their inconsiderate waste they often feel the calamities of famine as severely as the rudest tribes. What they suffer one year does not augment their industry, or render them more provident to prevent similar distresses. This inconsiderable thoughtlessness about futurity, the effect of ignorance, and the cause of sloth, accompanies and characterizes man in every stage of savage life, and he is often least solicitous about supplying his wants, when the means of supplying them are most precarious, and procured with the greatest difficulty.

III. After viewing the bodily constitution of the Americans, and contemplating the powers of their minds, we are led to consider them as united together in society. The domestic state is the first and most simple form of human association. The union of the sexes among different animals is of longer or shorter duration, in proportion to the ease or difficulty of rearing their offspring. Among those tribes where the season of infancy is short, and the young soon acquire vigour or agility, no permanent union is formed. Nature commits the care of training up the offspring to the mother alone, and her tenderness without any other assistance is equal to the task. But where the state of infancy is long and helpless, and the joint assiduity of both parents is requisite in tending their feeble progeny, there a more intimate connection takes place, and continues till the new race is grown up to full maturity. As the infancy of men is more feeble and helpless than that of any other animal, the union between

husband

husband and wife came early to be considered as a permanent contract. In America, even among the rudest tribes, a regular union between husband and wife was universal, and in those districts where subsistence was scanty, and the difficulty of maintaining a family was great, the man confined himself to one wife. In warmer and more fertile provinces, the inhabitants increased the number · of their wives. In some countries the marriage union subsisted during life; in others it was dissolved on very slight pretexts..

But in whatever light the Americans considered the obligation of this contract, the condition of the women was equally humiliating and miserable. To despise, and to degrade, the female sex, is the characteristic of the savage state in every part of the globe. Man, proud of excelling in strength and courage, the chief marks of preeminence among a rude people, treats women, as an inferior, with disdain. In America the condition of the women is so peculiarly grievous, and their depression so complete, that servitude is a name too mild to describe their wretched state. A wife, among most tribes, is no better than a beast of burthen, destined to every office of labour and fatigue; while the men loiter out the day in sloth, or spend it in amusement, the women are condemned to incessant toil. Tasks are imposed on them without pity, and services are received without complacency or gratitude. Every circumstance reminds women of this mortifying inferiority. They must approach their lords with reverence, regard them as more exalted beings, and are not permitted to eat in their presence. In some districts of America this dominion is so grievous and so sensibly felt, thaċ women, in a wild emotion of maternal tenderness,

12

have

have destroyed their female children in their infancy, in order to deliver them from that intolerable bondage to which they knew they were doomed. It is owing, perhaps, in some measure, to this state of depression, that women in rude nations are far from prolific. The vigour of their constitution is exhausted by excessive fatigue, and the wants and distresses of savage life are so numerous, as to induce them to take precautions in order to prevent too rapid an increase of their progeny. Among some of the least polished tribes, whose industry and foresight do not extend so far as to make any regular provision for their own subsistence, it is a maxim not to burthen themselves with rearing more than two children; and no such numerous families as are frequent in civilized societies are to be found among men in a savage state. When twins are born, one of them is commonly abandoned, and when a mother dies while she is nursing a child, all hope of preserving its life fails, and it is buried together with her in the same grave. Thus their experience of the difficulty of training up an infant to maturity, amidst the hardship of savage life, often stifles the voice of nature among the Americans, and suppresses the strong emotions of paternal tenderness.

But though necessity compels the inhabitants of America thus to set bounds to the increase of their families, they are not deficient in affection and attachment to their offspring. As long as their progeny continue feeble and helpless, no people exceed them in tenderness and care. But in the savage state, the affection of parents ceases almost as soon as their offspring attain maturity. Little instruction fits them for that mode of life to which they are destined. The parents, when they have conducted