They even seem
incapable of attending to any distant consequences, beyond those they have
experienced in hunting or war. They entrust the provision of every season
to itself; consume the fruits of the earth in summer; and, in winter, are
driven in quest of their prey, through woods, and over deserts covered with
snow. They do not form in one hour those maxims which may prevent the
errors of the next; and they fail in those apprehensions, which, in the
intervals of passion, produce ingenuous shame, compassion, remorse, or a
command of appetite. They are seldom made to repent of any violence; nor is
a person, indeed, thought accountable in his sober mood, for what he did in
the heat of a passion, or in a time of debauch.
Their superstitions are groveling and mean; and did this happen among rude
nations alone, we could not sufficiently admire the effects of politeness;
but it is a subject on which few nations are entitled to censure their
neighbours. When we have considered the superstitions of one people, we
find little variety in those of another. They are but a repetition of
similar weaknesses and absurdities, derived from a common source, a
perplexed apprehension of invisible agents, that are supposed to guide all
precarious events to which human foresight cannot extend.
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