THE SAVAGE-NO. II.

EFFECTS OF CIVILIZATION.

A STOICAL indifference to bodily pain is, among savages, one of the first lessons of youth. Fortitude to bear every evil, and resolution to meet every danger, are inculcated upon us by our teachers, as virtues of the first magnitude. To suffer pain without complaint, and even with cheerfulness, is made THE GREAT POINT OF HONOR. There is no such thing as coercion in the savage system of education. We are proud of doing right, and ashamed of doing wrong. We are taught to consider ourselves as superior to circumstances: at least, we are enabled to preserve a decent tranquillity of mind in the midst of the greatest possible adversity. It is known to us, that the vicissitudes of life will expose us to misfortunes of various kinds. We must support the burning heat of the summer's sun, and the intense severity of the winter's cold. We must submit to hunger and thirst and a multitude of other privations. We must suffer sickness and pain. We may be reduced to a state of servitude. We may become captives, and consequently be exposed to every species of torture that human ingenuity can invent, or the most violent animosity can inflict. All these things being known to our philosophic seniors, they exercise our bodies, and discipline our minds, in such a manner, that we are enabled to maintain a dignity of character in every emergency.

We become patient of heat and regardless of cold. We learn to subdue the cravings of hunger without food; and to allay, without drink, the parchings of thirst. We can indulge in a feast of bear meat and venison, or subsist on the roots of the desert. Untaught by philosophy, we enjoy the present moment; uninstructed in christianity, we "take no thought for the morrow:" we expose our naked breasts to the beating of the storm; and a fearless spirit to every difficulty.

It is well known to us, that the time of our existence here is a period of exertion. We are taught therefore to meet unavoidable danger with resolution, and to remove the greatest difficulties by perseverance. We are

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obliged to climb the highest mountain, leap down the steepest precipice, and swim the widest torrent. The science of hunting engages our earliest attention. We study the nature of our game, the time of the day, and the season of the year. We know where to find the buffaloes in the morning; and where they may be discovered in the heat of the day. We know when they visit the low marshy salt springs, and when they descend to cool themselves in the river. We can rouse the deer from his lair in the frosty morning, and trace him over the hills by the newly fallen snow. We surprise the wolf in his gloomy haunts, or destroy him in his foraging excursions. We rouse the bear in his den, and shoot the panther among the rocks. We fix our traps for the fox, and drive, by stratagem, the beaver from his fortified habitation. We find the wild cat on the mountains, and the raccoon in the heads of the valleys. We know the haunts of the otter; and the muskrat we shoot as he peeps from his hole. We kill the mink on the banks of the stream, and the groundhog on the side of the hill. We know the daily rounds of the turkey: we take him on his roost, or shoot him on the ridges. We shoot the geese in their flight, or kill them when settled in the ponds. We see the slightest traces in the forest; we hear the least rustling among the branches; and we smell the approaches of the serpent. We climb round the rocks, slip through the cane, and skulk along the valleys. We study the course of the wind in our approaches, or breathe on fire, lest we taint the purity of the gale. We know the course our game will pursue, before he has been roused from his harbor. We take the opposite direction, and meet him as he turns round the hill. We guide our course through the boundless wilderness, by the sun, moon, and stars, and even by the appearance of the trees of the forest. We perform the most incredible journeys without fatigue, crossing the widest rivers on the trunk of a tree. Through the immense desert we are familiar with every hill, and at home on the bank of every rivulet. We walk proudly on the hills: and from the towering summits of the Appalachian mountains, we look down, with ineffable contempt, on the brutelike drudgery of civilized life.

Thus the wild horse snuffs the western brecze, bounds joyously over the hills, laughs at the rattling of the chains, and despises the bridle and the plough.

We build dams in the rivers; and shoals of fish pour into our baskets. They are arrested in their course by our arrows and our gigs; or they are lured to destruction by the temptation of our bait. We bid them assemble together, and we scoop them up with our nets.

We study the face of the heavens, and foretel the changes of the weather. We know when the gust is about to rise in the west, and when the wind promises a continued rain. We can tell when to prepare for snow, and when ice will appear on the waters.

Do you not suppose, O ye inhabitants of cities, that this system of education, that these pursuits and employments, are well calculated to sharpen the faculties and exercise the understanding? Where the mind is accustomed to turn itself to such a variety of vocations, and accommodate itself to such a multitude of circumstances, must it not become infinitely superior to that sluggish existence, whose ideas are continually occupied with the millhorse round of domestic drudgery?

Not only the memory, but every faculty we possess, is improved by exercise: how then can his mind be enlightened, who is the mere creature of habit, unaccustomed to thought and reflection? Can he, whose business leads him from the house to the barn, from the barn to the stable, from the stable to the orchard, from the orchard to the cornfield, and from the cornfield to the house again, possess an elevated understanding? Can he, whose most distant excursion extends not beyond the neighboring market town, have a mind enriched with a multitude of ideas? Such a being is distressed if he wander out sight of the smoke of his own chimney. His friends are miserable, lest he should never return; and he, poor soul! gapes like a fish elevated above the surface of the water by the line of the fisherman. He gazes with surprise on every object he has not been accustomed to contemplate. He expects some beast of prey to start up in every valley, and the devil out of every thornbush. He looks for robbers behind every hedge, savage Indians in every wood. He says his pray.

ers before he crosses a bridge, and confesses his sins on the banks of every torrent. But night overtakes him. How deplorable his situation! Every withered bush is a ghost; and every black stump, an imp of darkness!

But let him get home again. The sight of his barn door, and the appearance of old Towser-the bawling of his black cow, and the smell of his hogsty-the squalling of his brats, and his snug chimney corner-all in sweet succession-revivc, invigorate, and restore him. Having turned off a mug of cider, he " is himself again." And then-and then-the dangers and escapes, the windmills and the giants, the ghosts and the savages, the thunder and the lightning, the battles and the conquests, astonish and confound the gaping auditors.

Is this the man you would compare with the savage? Is this the man you would prefer to the lord of the desert?

Man is said to be composed of two parts: body and soul. Now, pray be so good as to inform me whether it be the body or soul of this animal, which is possessed of that something, which you honor with the name of civilization. His limbs, you say, are robust and strong by exercise and labor. Does civilization then consist in robustness of body, or brawniness of limbs? He may be strong in his youth, but continual drudgery destroys the harmony of his shape, and the dignity of his motion. The elasticity of his limbs is destroyed, and he degenerates into a mere beast of burden. His visage becomes the very picture of stupidity and malignity. He is no longer the animal to whom God

Os-sublime dedit, cœlumque videre

Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultos.

No: he looks downward to the earth, and offers his back to the rider. His feet become as the feet of a camel, and his hands rough and scaly as the cone that drops from the top of the pine tree.

The lower ranks of those who reside in cities, being more confined in their operations, are sunk still lower, in the scale of intelligence, than the inhabitants of the country. Their business being bounded by the shop, and their excursions limited by the market; what should they know but the price of butter, and the time of high

water? Can you number the ideas of a muscle, or fathom the intelligence of an oyster? If you can, you have a competent knowledge of the intellectual powers of the people that I describe.

Do not naturalists rank the productions of nature agreeably to their locomotive powers? The animal is more excellent than the vegetable; why? Because it is capable of changing its situation. And man is supposed to be the most noble of animals, because he can travel from pole to pole, and subsist under every climate.

Vegetables, admitting they were capable of perceiv◄ ing, could have but few ideas, being confined by hills and rocks and surrounded by walls and inclosures.

The things called zoophytes can know very little more than a leaf of plantain, or a sprig of hoarhound; and those animals that remain, during the whole period of their existence, on the same bank or hillock, are scarcely superior, in their intellectual powers, to a polypus or zoophytic fungus. What knowledge of the world was pos sessed by the toad, which was shut up for five thousand years in the solid body of a rock? Men who vegetate in one spot, and have no leisure for reading or reflection, must be limited in their ideas and narrow in their understandings.

Such are the blessings of civilization; such are the consequences of refinement.

But we will be told of the polished few, whose minds are expanded by philosophy, and whose happiness is insured by a multiplicity of enjoyments. We shall speak of their happiness hereafter; at present we mean merely to consider the paucity of their numbers.

As refinement progresses, the number of the refined must necessarily be reduced. If you become elevated, you must have supporters. If your elevation be still more increased, the quantity of supporting materials must be multiplied in a like proportion. It is absurd to talk of all becoming equally refined, polished, and civilized. How can you dine in state, if there be none to wait at your table? And if we increase your refinement, state, and splendor, must not your attendants continue to be multiplied proportionably? Now, if we follow this train of