When we may be sent with justice to learn from the rude and ignorant
Indians the first elements of civil wisdom, we have surely not much
right to boast of our foresight and knowledge; we must surely confess,
that we have hitherto valued ourselves upon our arts with very little
reason, since we have not learned how to preserve either wealth or
virtue, either peace or commerce.
The maxims of our politicians, my lords, differ widely from those of
the Indian savages, as they are the effects of longer consideration,
and reasonings formed upon more extensive views. What Indian, my
lords, would have contrived to hinder his countrymen from drunkenness,
by placing that liquor in their houses which tempted them to excess;
or would have discovered, that prohibition only were the cause of
boundless excesses; that to subdue the appetite nothing was necessary
but to solicit it; and that what was always offered would never be
received? The Indians, in the simplicity of men unacquainted with
European and British refinements, imagined, that to put an end to the
use of any thing, it was only necessary to take it away; and
conceived, that they could not promote sobriety more effectually, than
by allowing the people nothing with which they could be drunk.
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