perhaps, find himself miftaken, yet he may go thither without folly: he who thinks they will be more freely pardoned, dishonours at once his reason and religion."

pean

Thefe, faid the prince, are Eurodiftinctions. I will confider them another time. What have you found to be the effect of knowledge? Are those nations happier than we ?"

"There is so much infelicity, faid the poet, in the world, that scarce any man has leifure from his own diftreffes to eftimate the comparative happiness of others. Knowledge is certainly one of the means of pleasure, as is confeffed by the natural defire which every mind feels of increasing its ideas. Ignorance is mere privation, by which nothing can be produced: it is a vacuity in which the foul fits motionlefs and torpid for

want

want of attraction; and, without knowing why, we always rejoice when we learn, and grieve when we forget. I am therefore inclined to conclude, that if nothing counteracts the natural confequence of learning, we grow more happy as our minds take a wider range.

"In enumerating the particular comforts of life we fhall find many advan tages on the fide of the Europeans. They cure wounds and difeafes with which we languifh and perish. We fuffer inclemencies of weather which they can obviate. They have engines for the dispatch of many laborious works, which we must perform by manual industry. There is fuch communication between diftant places, that one friend can hardly be faid to be abfent from another. Their policy removes all publick inconveniencies: they have

E 3

have roads cut through their mountains, and bridges laid upon their rivers. And, if we defcend to the privacies of life, their habitations are more commodious, and their poffeffions are more fecure."

"They are furely happy, faid the prince, who have all thefe conveniencies, of which I envy none so much as the facility with which feparated friends interchange their thoughts."

"The Europeans, anfwered Imlac, are lefs unhappy than we, but they are not happy. Human life is every where a ftate in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

CHAP.

CHA P. XII.

THE STORY OF IMLAC CONTINUED.

"I AM not yet willing, faid the prince, to fuppofe that happiness is fo parfimoniously diftributed to mortals; nor can believe but that, if I had the choice of life, I fhould be able to fill every day with pleafure. I would injure no man, and fhould provoke no refentment: I would relieve every distress, and should enjoy the benedictions of gratitude. I would chuse my friends among the wise, and my wife among the virtuous; and therefore fhould be in no danger from treachery or unkindness. My children should, by my care, be learned and pious, and would repay to my age what their childhood had received. What would

dare to moleft him who might call on every fide to thousands enriched by his bounty, or affifted by his power? And why should not life glide quietly away in the foft reciprocation of protection and reverence? All this may be done without the help of European refinements, which appear by their effects to be rather fpecious than useful. Let us leave them, and pursue our journey."

"From Palestine, faid Imlac, I paffed through many regions of Afia; in the more civilized kingdoms as a trader, and among the Barbarians of the mountains as a pilgrim. At laft I began to long for my native country, that I might repofe after my travels, and fatigues, in the places where I had spent my earliest years, and gladden my old companions with the recital of my adventures. Often did I figure to myfelf thofe with whom

I had