boured without felf-condemnation. Modefty takes the alarm at the flightest personal freedoms; and the whole male fex are debarred, even in idea, from those favours to which none has yet acquired a right. The principle of chaftity may thus extend its reftrictions farther than nature warrants. Nature teaches that the promifcuous indulgence of the fenfual appetite ought to be checked; but not that the appetite fhould be condemned altogether as vile and immoral. Still, however, the reluctance to fuch indulgence, which has been long cherished in the female breaft, is not eafily laid afide. Virgin chastity ftill recoils at deeds, to which it has been accustomed to annex the ideas of groffnefs and turpitude and virgin modefty fhrinks back from thofe freedoms with which it used to be fhocked. Though this reluctance is at laft overcome by the force of perfonal attachment and appetite combined; yet the feelings must be forely hurt in the first rencounters, till repetition has removed the prejudices of education, and familiarity has rendered the participation of the beloved object not inconfiftent with that privacy which modefty requires.

This pain which attends the violence done to the feelings, fo far from diminishing the pleafures of connubial love, increases them on both fides. On the woman's fide, it is attended with a pleafing consciousness of having preserved inviolate her modefty and her chatity; and he has the fatisfaction of now presenting thefe moft grateful offerings to the man for whom alone fhe would have made fuch a facrifice. The man, perceiving this painful feeling, which fhews itself in fome involuntary fhynefs and reserve, receives it as a proof of purity of heart; and as a teftimony of the ardour of that paffion, by which even long fettled habits of judging and of feeling are rapidly borne down. This is a charm of which the harlot is totally deftitute. To chastity fhe has no pretenfions; and if the venture to aflume the appearance of modeft referve, the groffness

of the affectation, which cannot fail to be perfectly apparent, only ferves to heighten difguft.

N. C.

Man, as unconnected with Society, compared with other Animals.

SIR,

To the Editor of the Bee.

WE generally read with pleasure any thing written by another which favours any of our own opinions. I felt fomething of this upon reading your effay on periodical performances, in which you fhew how much man is indebted to inftruction for his prefent fuperiority to other animals.

I differ from you only in this; inftead of thinking that if an elephant, and the lowest individual as to intellectual powers among the human fpecies, had been left entirely to themselves as individuals, that the elephant would have been the wifeft. I am perfuaded that a man poffeffed of the most extenfive intellectual powers would not have excelled the elephant, and in many cafes would have been in much worfe circumftances than the elephant, and than many other of the brutes far inferior to him in fagacity, if left entirely to himself.

The powers of the mind must have some object to act upon as well as the fenfes of the body; and the mind of a man left entirely to himself, could be furnished with objects only from things in nature which fell under his own obfervation, and of these he could judge only by the manner in which they affected his fenfes. But how contracted man's knowledge arifing from this fource must have been, appears from that of thofe who, befide poffeffing great mental powers, enjoy the benefit of education. And who knows how very abfurd notions might have arifen from the fertile.

imaginations of a Plato or an Aristotle, had they been left entirely to themselves.

The extent of mental powers, poffeffed by the ancient philofophers, it will be univerfally allowed, did not fecure to them the discovery of truth.

And from

the great extent to which many of them poffeffed these, had they been left wholly to themselves, (in which cafe, as is above faid, they could judge of nothing but by the manner in which it affected their outward fenfes, which certainly are the only channels in which inftruction is conveyed to the mind) their minds would probably have been filled with ideas worfe than total ignorance. The human mind is framed to receive infruction; but being, in its natural ftate, incapable of judging betwixt truth and error, it is fufceptible of ei

ther.

Such confiderations as thefe, have frequently led me to think, that those nations which worship the fun and moon are, of all other idolaters, moft excufable, if I may speak fo. The fun's appearance being fo glorious, and the happy influences of it, both in diffusing light, and producing vegetation, being fo fenfibly felt by them, no wonder that their minds refted, and continue to reft there. It is obfervable, at fame time, that worshipping thefe heavenly bodies, and the manner in which this is to be performed, does not arise from the effect which thefe bodies make upon their minds, but is as much a matter of inftruction among them, as the fciences are among us.

Man's knowledge being fo limited and corrupted, he could not be faid to be in reality wifer than the elephant; for wrong opinions are certainly worse than none. But further, he must as an animal have been in much worfe circumftances than the elephant, and than many other, if not all the other animals. Being deftitute of thofe inftincts which the brutes poffefs, he is incapable of knowing what is nfeful or hurtful to him,

fo much as to approach with indifference the most hurtful objects.

This indeed would, in fome meafure, be overcome by experience; but against this the brutes are secured by their inftincts. An inftance of this, and of man's ignorance, we have in the hiftory of the Polar bear, as written by fome anonymous authors, and publifhed at Newcastle laft year." The Kamtfchadales," fay they," acknowledge infinite obligations to the bears, for all the little progrefs they have hitherto made, as well in the fciences as the polite arts. They confefs themselves indebted wholly to those animals for all their knowledge in phyfic and furgery; that by obferving what herbs they have applied to the wounds they have received, and what methods they have purfued when they were languid and out of order, they have acquired a knowledge of moft of thofe fimples, which, they have now recourfe to, either as external or internal applications."

An inflance of the fagacity of another animal, as given us by Vaillant in his account of his travels, which, though it is juft now published in an abridgement of that work, yet, as many of your readers may not fee it perhaps, I fhall tranfcribe it: "An animal," fays he, "which rendered me ftill more effential fervice than my cook, was a monkey, of that kind known at the Cape under the name of bawians. I made him my tafter. Whenever we found any fruits or roots, unknown to my Hottentots, we prefented them to Kecs; if rejected by him, we concluded them noxious." From this it appears, that they never found any thing hurtful which Kees accepted.

This defect of natural knowledge in man, is amply compenfated for by the communicative faculty, as you jufly obferve. Man pofleffes powers which enable him to receive instruction to a much greater extent than the most fagacious brutes; but without inftruç VOL. II.

R

tion, these would have been nearly, if not entirely loft.

This obfervation is fupported by a well known fact, viz. that the extent and progrefs of knowledge in a ftate, bear a proportion to the freedom of its government, and its intercourfe with other nations. Where a government prevents its fubjects from communicating their ideas to each other with freedom, and from communicating with other countries in their respective difcoveries, their knowledge muft be limited, and its progrefs prevented. The fame may be faid of that nation, which, though not under fuch a government, yet excludes itself by prejudice from intercourfe with other

nations.

This leads to another reflection, which, though obvious, is too feldom thought of, viz. that the fuperiority of one country to another, is wholly owing to the advantages of fuperior means of intruction, and the freedom of communication. We too often confider the uncivilized part of mankind as creatures of an inferior rank to us, as it is expreffed by a poet.

"Thoughtless these, scarce men accounted."

Their minds, however, are certainly as capable of being improved as ours. They only want that which gives us the fuperiority, inftruction, and freedom of communication with other nations. Of this laft they are, I apprehend, deprived by their prejudices, not by their form of government. In their prefent ftate, however, they are inftances of what we would have been, had we laboured under the fame difadvantages.

Queries. Do the proprietors of flaves inftruct them, or do they find it most for their advantage to keep them in ignorance? If so, Can any practice be vindicated which tends to keep any of the human race in ignorance, while we have an opportunity of inftructing them? And whether is the amafling wealth by the ig