bitation; whose whole time is occupied in dragging along their diseased and shrivelled limbs, covered with filth and vermin, in search of the most precarious, as well as the meanest, food; which chiefly consists of dead and putrid fish cast up by the billows of the ocean. Nothing can resemble, much less exceed, the horrid mixture of deformity, disease, famine, ferocity, and irremediable wretchedness, exhibited by these miserable beings, who have been found on their shores expiring under the agonies of hunger in all its most horrid forms. Whoever, I say, has reflected on the condition of these people, and of many others that could be pointed out, cannot, for a moment, allow them to hold comparison with the sagacious Beaver, or with the astonishing powers even of some species of Ants*, much less will they be able to compete with the still more extensive

*Especially the Termes Bellicosus, or Great White Ant of Africa.

mental powers of the Dog, the Horse, the Elephant, and the Parrot *.

Allowances should be made for peculiarity of situation, and the power of circumstances, whose influence, indeed, is very great; but not so great as to cause the utter degradation and death of any intellectual principle. Education and the force of example may have very powerful effects on a sensitive being, whether human or brute; but they can never give natural capacity, however they may improve that which is already possessed. It seems to me that circumstances have a greater effect on the senses, and upon those appetites necessary for the support of the corporeal powers, than upon the higher intellectual faculties.

Of the sagacity of the Elephant every one must have heard much; and, whoever wishes to form a notion of what the Parrot is capable, would do well to read SIR WM. TEMPLE'S account of the famous bird with which Prince Maurice had so remarkable an interview. This relation, which almost exceeds belief, is given by Dr. SHAW in his General Zoology, vol. viii. part 2d. p. 504.

Thus, the Calmuck Tartar might, perhaps, by a change of circumstances, be brought to forsake his raw horse-flesh, for food of a different description; and, even such horrid wretches as those described by VOLNEY*, whom he saw sitting upon the carcass of a dead camel under the walls of Alexandria, disputing with the dogs its putrid flesh; even such degraded beings as those might be taught to relish better fare, and to acquire certain comforts; but, is it possible, according to the present nature of things, for the New Hollander, the native of Andaman, or the wretches just alluded to, ever to acquire an intellectual character equal to the most enlightened amongst civilized men? or, on the other hand, could any circumstances have sufficient power to reduce the most intelligent amongst men, to their state of darkness, and worse than brutal ignorance? Surely not!

Though the procuration of wherewithal to satisfy the wants of natural appetites,

* In his Travels through Egypt.

E

constitutes the first and principal occupation of man, both in savage life, and in a state of civilization; yet it is not in the quality of the food, nor in the modes of procuring it, nor in the manner in which any of the passions are generally gratified, that we are to look for the greatest and most strongly marked distinctions between savages and men of enlarged and superior understandings: no; it is when all the animal wants are supplied, when the mind is no longer obliged to be solicitous for the welfare of the body, but has leisure to try its higher powers; that we must look for the most incontestable proofs of difference; and behold them in the works of art and science, which are the best demonstrations of intellectual superiority. Amongst savages, even the most happily situated, we find no improvements occurring in the lapse of a great number of years, and after the experience of many successive generations, indicative of any strong gleams of intellectual power breaking forth, to dispel the darkness of a long night of savage ignorance, as may be

forcibly illustrated by the natives of some of the loveliest and most happily situated countries in the world;-the Friendly and Society Islands of the great Pacific Ocean. To what extent the mind of a savage, taken at any age, may be cultivated, is very uncertain, and has little to do with the present general view of the subject.

Amongst brutes, superiority is generally determined by physical power; and so it is with the human savage, as we find painfully illustrated by the treatment of females amongst barbarians of every description. Hence the beauty of ROBERTSON's fine remark:-" Whether man has been improved by the progress of arts and civilization, is a question which, in the wantonness of disputation, has been agitated amongst philosophers. That women are indebted to the refinement of polished manners for a happy change in their state, is a point which can admit of no doubt."-The same general indolence, except when roused by hunger; the same thirst for blood; and the same ferocity of character; which distinguish