The modern description of India is a repetition of the ancient, and the
present state of China is derived from a distant antiquity, to which there
is no parallel in the history of mankind. The succession of monarchs has
been changed; but no revolutions have affected the state. The African and
the Samoiede are not more uniform in their ignorance and barbarity, than
the Chinese and the Indian, if we may credit their own story, have been in
the practice of manufacture, and in the observance of a certain police,
which was calculated only to regulate their traffic, and to protect them in
their application to servile or lucrative arts.
If we pass from these general representations of what mankind have done, to
the more minute description of the animal himself, as he has occupied
different climates, and is diversified in his temper, complexion, and
character, we shall find a variety of genius corresponding to the effects
of his conduct, and the result of his story.
Man, in the perfection of his natural faculties, is quick and delicate in
his sensibility; extensive and various in his imaginations and reflections;
attentive, penetrating, and subtile, in what relates to his fellow
creatures; firm and ardent in his purposes; devoted to friendship or to
enmity; jealous of his independence and his honour, which he will not
relinquish for safety or for profit: under all his corruptions or
improvements, he retains his natural sensibility, if not his force; and his
commerce is a blessing or a curse, according to the direction his mind has
received.
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