Part 20

XII. It is true that in the East Indies, we do not find the cultivation of letters, but we find there a more than ordinary capacity for attaining them. John Baptist Tavernier, speaking of the negroes or mulattoes of that country called Canarines, many of whom are employed in various occupations in Goa, the Philippine islands, and other places in the possession of the Portugueze and Spaniards, says, that the children of those who apply themselves to study, acquire more in six months, than the children of Europeans learn in a year; and says further, that he was told this by some of the religious of Goa who had the tutelage of them. I am persuaded that the Portugueze, when they first saw this sooty-faced race, believed their reason, was as obscure and dark as their complexions; and that they supposed themselves nearly as superior in natural talents to them, as men are to brutes; and in how many parts of the globe, where we judge the inhabitants to be stupid, might we possibly see the same thing! for the metal of their understandings, for want of examining it by the touch-stone of study, has remained occult and unknown.

SECT. IV.

XIII. But the greatest injustice that the vulgar have been guilty of in this particular, is in the conception they have formed of the abilities of the Chinese. Why do I say the vulgar? When you hear men dignified with university honours, whenever they have a mind to heighten an extravagant action, or mode of proceeding that is contrary to all reason, say at every turn, _this could hardly have happened among the Chinese_; which amounts to the same thing, as making the conduct of the Chinese, the standard for measuring extreme barbarism. This certainly cannot tally very well with the idea those people entertain of themselves, which is, that they are the quintessence of policy, ingenuity, and penetration; for it is a proverb among them, that the Chinese have two eyes, the Europeans but one, and that all the rest of the world are totally blind.

XIV. The truth is, that they have great reason to believe this; for they excel in their civil government and policy all other nations. Their precautions for preventing civil, and avoiding foreign wars are admirable; and learned and wise men, are not held in such estimation by any other people in the world, as by them, and it is to such only, that they confide the reins of government. This alone, is sufficient to give them credit for being the most rational of mankind. The excellence of their inventive faculty is evident, from their being the first people, who hit upon the three famous inventions, of printing, gun-powder, and the nautical needle; for the knowledge of these in China, is supposed to be much anterior to our acquaintance with them in Europe; and there are also some well-grounded suspicions, that they were communicated to us from the Chinese. They excel exceedingly, in whatever arts they apply themselves to attain; and notwithstanding our utmost exertions, we in Europe, have not been able to equal, nor even to imitate them in many.

XV. There is great reason to believe they excel us in their knowledge of medicine, and in their mode of applying it. Their physicians, are both physicians and apothecaries; and it was formerly the custom in all nations to unite the two professions in one; would to God it was the same now! They keep in their houses all the medicines they make use of, which consist of various simples, whose virtues they have well examined and understand; which they collect, prepare, and apply. They are very attentive to, and take a long time in examining the pulse; and it is very common for them to be near an hour in exploring its movements. But the information they get from this circumstance, and the appearance of the tongue is such, that by revolving these particulars in their mind; they without asking any questions, either of the sick person or those who attend him, pronounce on what sort the distemper is, the symptoms that attend it, the time the patient was taken ill, together with all the antecedent and subsequent circumstances, that have accompanied, and will accompany it.

XVI. I am well aware, that this will appear incredible to our physicians; but the various accounts we have of China, some of which, have been written by men of most exemplary and unexceptionable characters, all agree in vouching the truth of these particulars, so that our refusing to give credit to them, would seem rash and unreasonable. But if I could possibly have entertained any doubt of this matter, our illustrious Don Joseph Manuel de Andaya y Hara, the worthy Prelate of Oviedo, would have removed them, who confirmed these relations to me, upon his own experience of a Chinese physician that practised in Manila, the capital of the Philippine Islands, of whom he told me wonderful things, both with respect to his prognostics and methods of cure. I am persuaded that some of our physicians about the court, have got the Book of Andrew Cleyer, the first physician of Batavia, intituled _Medicina Chinensium_, which was printed at Augsburgh. The diary of the learned of Paris in the year 1682, makes mention of it; and in that may be seen more at large, many of these accounts.

XVII. But, skilful as the Chinese physicians are in the practice of their art, the Chinese people are not behind them, in their skilful and wise regulations for the government of the physicians. If the physician, after having examined the pulse and the tongue, does not hit upon the distemper and the symptoms of it, which rarely happens, he is dismissed as unskilful, and another called in. If he does hit upon the foregoing particulars, which is most commonly the case, they confide the cure to him, and he immediately goes home, and fetches from his house a bag of simples, which he gives directions for the using of, pointing out the manner in which, and the quantity of each that should be applied or taken. When he has compleated the cure, he is paid amply for his time and attendance, and also for the medicines he has expended; but if the patient does not recover, the physician is not paid, either for the one or the other; so that the money of the sick person, is saved if he does not get well; and the physician, loses both his time and his medicines if he does nor cure him. It is much to be wished, that such a regulation subsisted among us; for although Quevedo some time ago complained of the want of it, he did not know it was established in China. It is true, that he made the complaint in a bantering way, but I believe he felt the want of the regulation very sensibly.

XVIII. We may say in general of Asia, that this was the country in which arts and sciences originated; letters owed their birth to Phenicia; and were from thence transported into Egypt and Greece; and the knowledge of astronomy came from Chaldea, and from thence was circulated into various other countries.

SECT. V.

XIX. As to what regards Africa, we should consider, that it gave birth to a Cyprianus, and a Tertullian, and what is still more, to an Augustin; and that the Africans were at one time, as much superior to the Spaniards in military skill, as the Spaniards at this day are to the Africans; and that there was a time, when the conquest of all Spain cost the Africans less blood, than it has since cost Spain to conquer a few spots in Mauritania. The soil and the climate of Africa, are the same now they were formerly, and consequently capable of producing equal geniuses; and the fault of not cultivating them, should not be imputed to the soil or the climate, but to the want of opportunities of instruction, or to the neglect of application; but with all this, they are perhaps not so uncultivated as is commonly thought. Father Buttier, in his little treatise, intituled _An Examination of Vulgar Prejudices_, gives us the copy of a speech, which the ambassador from Morocco made to Louis the Fourteenth, which was as eloquent and as much to the purpose, as if it had been composed by a learned European.

SECT. VI.

XX. The conceit, which upon the first discovery of America was entertained of its inhabitants, and which still subsists among the generality of people, is, that they are not so much directed by reason as by instinct; as if some Circe, in her peregrinations through that vast country, had transformed all their men into beasts. But with all this, there are abundant testimonies, that their capacities are in no wise inferior to ours. The illustrious Palafox, is not contented with allowing them to be equal to us in natural talents, but in the memorial he presented to the King in their favour, entitled _A Natural Display of the Indies_, declares they excel us. He there gives a relation of an Indian, whose person he knew, and who went by the name of _The Man of Six Trades_, from his understanding, and being able to work well at that number; and of another, who learned to build organs in an amazing short time; and of another, who in an amazing short time also, learned to play the organ. He there likewise gives an account of the exquisite address, with which an Indian recovered a horse that had been purloined from him by a Spaniard. The Indian, commenced a prosecution against the Spaniard for his horse, and when the trial came on, the beast was brought into court, where the Spaniard alledged that he had bought him, and had had him in his possession for several years, which he brought witnesses to confirm. The Indian, who had no evidence to prove his property in the horse, finding himself hard pressed, instantly threw his cloak over the horse’s head, and requested that the Spaniard who insisted that he had been owner of the horse for so long a time, might tell of which eye he was blind; the Spaniard, who was taken by surprise, and much confounded with the question, answered at random, the right; upon which the Indian pulled the cloak off the horse’s head, and manifested to the whole court, that he was not blind of either eye; this evinced the roguery of the Spaniard, and the Indian recovered his horse.

XXI. The Europeans under the command of Cortes, had scarce penetrated into the kingdom of Mexico, before they experienced many particulars, which convinced them, that the natives of that country were of the same species with themselves, and the children of the same common Father. We read in the History of the Conquest of Mexico, many military stratagems of the Indians, that were not inferior to those of the Carthaginians, the Greeks and the Romans; and many people have remarked, that the Crioles or children of Spaniards who are born in America, are more sprightly, and have more intellectual quickness, than those who are born in Spain; but whether what others add, that although their ingenuity manifests itself sooner, it does not last to so late a period of life, be just or not, I cannot pretend to determine.

XXII. It would be reasoning erroneously and grossly, to entertain a mean opinion of the capacities of the Indians, because upon their first intercourse with us, they gave pieces of gold for glass beads; for he would be more rude than they, who should conclude they were savage, upon this account. If we were to view glass free from our prepossession in favour of gold, glass would appear the most beautiful of the two; and with respect to what is sought after, for the purpose of ornament and ostentation, out of two things that are equally beautiful, that which is most scarce is always preferred. The Americans then in this instance, did no more than what is done by all the world. They had plenty of gold but no glass; and it was on this account that they concluded, and not without reason, that a string of beads, was a fitter ornament to adorn the neck of a princess, than a gold chain. A diamond, if we only regard the necessary utility of it, is not of superior value to a glass bead; but if we regard its lustre, it certainly excels it; and although, notwithstanding the principal difference between the two things, consists only, in the lustre and beauty of the diamond, the Asiatics sell the Europeans a diamond that weighs two ounces, for an amazing number of pounds sterling; and why is this? It can only be, because such diamonds are exceedingly scarce. The inhabitants of the island of Formosa, esteemed fine brass preferable to gold, because they had greater plenty of gold than fine brass, and continued to do so, till the Hollanders gave them to understand, the great estimation in which gold was held in other regions. If there was a greater plenty of gold all over the world, than there was of fine brass, the last of these metals would be preferred to the first. Upon the arrival of the Dutch Admiral Matelief at the Cape of Good Hope in the year 1605, the African inhabitants of that country, gave him eight and thirty sheep and two bullocks, for a small quantity of iron, which did not in its value exceed twenty-pence; and the best of it was, that they were equally satisfied they had imposed upon the Hollanders, as the Hollanders were that they had imposed upon them. They had a super-abundance of cattle, and were in great want of iron. And in whatever country the same super-abundance of cattle, and the same want of iron prevails, they must purchase the iron with the same number of cattle.

XXIII. Father Lafitau a Missionary Jesuit, who was a long time among thole North American Indians, who, on account of their being esteemed the most barbarous of all, are called savages, gives great applauses of their government and civil policy, and compares them in these respects, to the antient Lacedemonians: and what is more extraordinary, he also bestows great panegyrics on their eloquence; and goes so far as to say, that he has known here and there one of them, whose orations were equal to those of Cicero and Demosthenes, and expresses some doubt, whether they may not be said to excel them. This relation of Father Lafitau, may be seen in the Memoirs of Trevoux of 1724, art. 106. It is possible, that this account is somewhat hyperbolical; but it should be considered, that Father Lafitau had a long and an intimate intercourse with these people, and there is no doubt, but a man who sees things in a near point of view, can judge better of them, than those who see them at a distance.

XXIV. Our intellectual sight, is exposed to the same defect that our corporeal one is, and is apt to represent distinct things less than they are. There is no man, let his stature be as gigantic as it will, who does not appear like a pigmy at a great distance. The same that happens with respect to the size of bodies, happens with regard to the stature of souls. Those nations which are very remote from us, appear so small in our eye as rational creatures, that we scarce allow them to be endued with the faculty of reason; but if we were to view them near, we should probably form a different judgment of them.

SECT. VII.

XXV. It may perhaps be objected to what I have been advancing, that the very absurd opinions entertained in matters of religion, by the bulk of the people of Asia, Africa, and America, without insisting, upon the total want of any religion among some of them, should induce us to form a very mean judgment of their talents.

XXVI. To this I answer in the first place, that although errors in matters of religion are the worst of all errors, they are no absolute proofs of the rudeness of those who assent to them. Nobody is ignorant, that the antient Greeks and Romans, who were exceedingly well skilled in arts and sciences, were extremely absurd with respect to the objects of their adoration. They worshiped as deities, men who had been adulterers, perfidious, and guilty of all sorts of wickedness. Rome, which as Saint Leon observes, domineered over all the other nations, was herself under the dominion of the errors of them all. When a man sets himself to search for a divinity from among his own species, it is a mark of a depraved imagination, and the question respecting his capacity, is not worth enquiring into, as we may naturally conclude, he has lost his reason before he makes the attempt. And he who walks blindfold, is not more terrified by a high precipice than a low one, as he is unable to discern the difference. I do not even know, whether when a man first begins to err in these particulars, he does not go the most extravagant lengths, who has been the best-informed; because in matters of religion, when the first error has taken root, it is easy for the person who is possessed with it, to confound the mysterious with the ridiculous, and by an affected subtilty, pretend to discover some hidden signs of divinity in those things, which in the eye of common sense, are the most remote from, or have the least to do with it.

XXVII. I answer secondly, that we have no certainty, that the idolatry of these various nations was so gross as it has been represented. With respect to the antient idolaters, some learned men have enforced this doubt very strongly, and have insisted, that there were solid reasons for supposing, that in the image they did not worship the wood, the metal, or the marble of which it was made, but some good genius or demon, whom they believed to have resided in it. Truly it seems incredible, that a statuary, such a one as Horace humourously describes in one of his Satyrs, should stand with his hatchet in one hand, and having the other on the wood he was about to work, suspended and perplexed, whether he should carve the God Priapus, or Escanus; I say it is incredible, that such a man should suppose himself vested with sufficient authority to fabricate a Deity.

XXVIII. I say the same of the animated idols. How is it credible that the Egyptians, who were for some ages the repositories of the sciences, should chuse for the ultimate object of their adoration, a most vile snake, and even a dog, or an onion, which Juvenal ironically and with derision tells them, was raised up to them in their own gardens? _O sanctas gentes, quibus hæc nascuntur in hortis numina._ It is much more reasonable to suppose, that that nation, who were much addicted to represent every thing enigmatically, and by symbols, should adore these vile creatures in some mystical sense, which these served as a sort of hierogliphics to explain the signification of, and that their adoration of them, was not absolute but respective. The same reasoning might be brought to apply to other nations, both of former and modern times, as well as to them.

XXIX. I am confirmed in this opinion, by what I have read concerning the superstition which prevails in the island of Madagascar. The inhabitants of that island, worship a cricket, and every one rears his own with great care and veneration. Some French ships in their voyage to India in the year 1665, touched at Madagascar, and being apprized of the superstition of the natives, a curious Frenchman, asked one of them whom they respected as a wise man, what could induce them to worship so vile an animal, who answered, _that they worshiped the principal and head of all, that is the Creator in the creature, and that it was necessary to direct their adoration to a sensible object, in order to fix the attention_. Who could have expected to meet with so delicate a sentiment, in such a country? I do not insist, that the reply exempts them from the note of superstition, but it proves, that they are not stupid and insensible. If the same observation the Frenchman made on the absurdity of the worship of the people of Madagascar, had been made to an antient Egyptian, he in all probability, would have returned the same answer to it in substance, which the Madagascar man gave.

XXX. With regard to people who are supposed to have no religion at all, I must declare, that I doubt whether there are any such people in the world. The voyagers who assure us there are such, might possibly from their want of sufficient intercourse with them, or from the want of understanding their language, not be able to penetrate their sentiments on that head; for all nature proclaims the existence of a Creator with so loud a voice, that the most sleepy reason cannot fail to be awakened with her cries.

SECT. VIII.

XXXI. There is then, scarce any people whatever, if you examine deeply into things, who can with justice be deemed barbarous. I will not however deny, that there is not between particular nations, some inequality in the use or application of their reason. Yes, but this depends in some measure, on the disposition of their organs, and the climate in which they are born, and these possibly may have some influence to promote this disposition. But if I was to be asked which are the most penetrating and acute nations, I should answer ingenuously that I could give no judgment in the matter that might safely be relied on. I see that the sciences, at one time flourished among the Phenicians, at another among the Chaldeans, at another among the Egyptians, at another among the Greeks, at another among the Romans, and at another among the Arabs, and that at last, they extended themselves to almost all the European nations. I observe also, that the inhabitants of every country into which they were not introduced, were looked upon as rude and uncivilized; but it was generally remarked, that after they came to be introduced into one of these last, the natives of it did not make less advances in them, than those did, who had the happiness to be the first visited by them. Perhaps if the world lasts much longer, and there should happen great revolutions of empire in it, as Minerva goes wandering about the earth, and continues to shift her station according to the violent agitations she receives from the impulse of Mars; I say if such revolutions should happen, the Iroquois, the Laplanders, the Troglodytes, the Garamantes, and other people, whom we now look upon with disdain, and whom we with repugnance admit to be members of our species, may one day possess the sciences in an eminent degree; so that experience will hardly assist us to determine, the inequality of ingenuity, that prevails in different nations.