in many cases, in order to soothe his woe, is a person into whose ear he can pour out his complaint. p. 19.

A society, composed of men such as I have fondly imagined to myself, would undertake the important task of eradicating the vices and prejudices of the populace. They would endeavour, for example, to apply a remedy to the barbarity which impo-. ses such oppressive loads on the miserable horses, and cruelly abuses them in other respects, while every street of the city rings with the horrible oaths of their drivers.

I have remarked that, about the age of forty-five, a striking revolution takes place in most men, and to acknowledge the truth, that it is then they degenerate, and become destitute of principle. At this period it is that women become completely depraved. This fatal revolution is a consequence of the vices of our education, and the manners of society. Both of these present the prospect of human happiness, only toward the middle period of life, in the possession of

riches and of honours. When we have painfully scrambled up this steep mountain, and reached its summit, about the middle of our course, we redescend with our eyes turned back toward youth, because we have no perspective before us but death. Thus the career of life is divided into two parts, the one consisting of hopes, the other of recollections; and we have laid hold of nothing by the way, but illusions. The first, at least, support us by feeding desire; but the others overwhelm us, by inspiring regret only. This is the reason that old men are less susceptible of virtue than young people, though they talk much more about it. Had they been directed by religion and nature, they must have rejoiced in the. approach of their latter end, as vessels just ready to enter the harbour. P. 22.

I leave this project to be unfolded and matured by some good man, who loves God and his fellow-creatures, and who performs good actions, in the way that religion prescribes, without letting his left hand know what his right hand doth. p. 23.

Paris presents many a retreat to the miserable, known by the name of hospitals. May heaven reward the charity of those who have founded them, and the still greater virtue of those persons of both sexes who superintend them! p. 24.

I should like to see at Paris, the Samoïèdes with their coats of sea-calf skin, and their boots of sturgeon's hide; and the black Iolofs, dressed in their waist attire, streaked with red and blue. I could wish to see there the beardless Indians of Peru, dressed in feathers from head to foot, strolling about undismayed, in our public squares, mingled with stately Spaniards, in whiskers and short cloaks. It would give me pleasure to see the Dutch making a settlement on the thirsty ridges of Montmartre; and following the bent of their hydraulic inclination, like the beavers, find the means of there constructing canals filled with water; while the inhabitants of the banks of the Oronoko should live comfortably dry, suspended over the lands inundated

by the Seine, amidst the foliage of willows and alder trees. p. 33.

Our particular destinies are connected with those of mankind. This is an homage which the Christian religion justly challenges, and which it alone merits. Nature says love thyself alone; domestic education says love your family; the national says love your country; but religion says, love all mankind, without exception. She is better acquainted with our interests, than our natural instinct is, or our parentage, or our politics. Human societies are not detached from each other, like those of animals. The bees of France are not in the least affected by the destruction of the hives in America. But the tears of mankind, shed in the new world, cause streams of blood to flow in the ancient continent; and the war whoop of a savage, on the bank of a lake, has oftener than once re-echoed through Europe, and disturbed the repose of her potentates. The religion which condemns love of ourselves, and which en

joins the love of mankind, is not self-contradictory, as certain sophists have alleged; she exacts the sacrifice of our passions only to direct them toward the general felicity; and by inculcating upon us the obligation of loving all men, she furnishes us with the only real means of loving ourselves. p. 35.

The natural genius is possessed of resources exceedingly simple, but far superior to those of our arts. For example, the savages of Canada had no cooking pots of metal, previous to the arrival of the Europeans. They had, however, found means to supply this want, by hollowing the trunk of a tree with fire. But how did they contrive to set it a boiling, so as to dress a whole ox, which they frequently did? I have applied to more than one pretended man of genius for a solution of this difficulty, but to no purpose. As to myself, I was long puzzled, I acknowledge, in devising a method by which water might be made to boil in kettles made of wood, which were frequently large enough to contain several