No More Learning

And
ignorance and bigotry, their two chief pillars, can never secure
unalterable duration. We have certain proof that the horrid custom of
burning the wives along with the body of the deceased husband has
continued for upwards of fifteen hundred years; we are also certain that
within these twenty years it has begun to fall into disuse. Together
with the alteration of this most striking feature of Indian manners,
other assimilations to European sentiments have already taken place. Nor
can the obstinacy even of the conceited Chinese always resist the desire
of imitating the Europeans, a people who in arts and arms are so greatly
superior to themselves. The use of the twenty-four letters, by which we
can express every language, appeared at first as miraculous to the
Chinese. Prejudice cannot always deprive that people, who are not
deficient in selfish cunning, of the ease and expedition of an alphabet;
and it is easy to foresee that, in the course of a few centuries, some
alphabet will certainly take the place of the 60,000 arbitrary marks
which now render the cultivation of the Chinese literature not only a
labour of the utmost difficulty, but even the attainment impossible
beyond a very limited degree. And from the introduction of an alphabet,
what improvements may not be expected from the laborious industry of the
Chinese! Though most obstinately attached to their old customs, yet
there is a tide in the manners of nations which is sudden and rapid, and
which acts with a kind of instinctive fury against ancient prejudice and
absurdity. It was that nation of merchants, the Phoenicians, which
diffused the use of letters through the ancient, and commerce will
undoubtedly diffuse the same blessings through the modern, world.

To this view of the political happiness which is sure to be introduced
in proportion to civilization, let the divine add what may be reasonably
expected from such opportunity of the increase of religion. A factory of
merchants, indeed, has seldom been found to be a school of piety; yet,
when the general manners of a people become assimilated to those of a
more rational worship, something more than ever was produced by an
infant mission, or the neighbourhood of an infant colony, may then be
reasonably expected, and even foretold.

In estimating the political happiness of a people, nothing is of greater
importance than their capacity of, and tendency to, improvement. As a
dead lake, to continue our former illustration, will remain in the same
state for ages and ages, so would the bigotry and superstitions of the
East continue the same. But if the lake is begun to be opened into a
thousand rivulets, who knows over what unnumbered fields, barren before,
they may diffuse the blessings of fertility, and turn a dreary
wilderness into a land of society and joy.

In contrast to this, let the Gold Coast and other immense regions of
Africa be contemplated--

"Afric behold; alas, what altered view!
Her lands uncultured, and her sons untrue;
Ungraced with all that sweetens human life,
Savage and fierce they roam in brutal strife;
Eager they grasp the gifts which culture yields,
Yet naked roam their own neglected fields. . . .
Unnumber'd tribes as bestial grazers stray,
By laws unform'd, unform'd by Reason's sway.
Far inward stretch the mournful sterile dales,
Where on the parch'd hill-side pale famine wails. "

LUSIAD X.

Let us consider how many millions of these unhappy savages are dragged
from their native fields, and cut off for ever from all the hopes and
all the rights to which human birth entitled them. And who would
hesitate to pronounce that negro the greatest of patriots, who, by
teaching his countrymen the arts of society, should teach them to defend
themselves in the possession of their fields, their families, and their
own personal liberties?

Evident, however, as it is, that the voyages of Gama and Columbus have
already carried a superior degree of happiness, and the promise of
infinitely more, to the eastern and western worlds; yet the advantages
to Europe from the discovery of these regions may perhaps be denied. But
let us view what Europe was, ere the genius of Don Henry gave birth to
the spirit of modern discovery.

Several ages before this period the feudal system had degenerated into
the most absolute tyranny. The barons exercised the most despotic
authority over their vassals, and every scheme of public utility was
rendered impracticable by their continual petty wars with each other; to
which they led their dependents as dogs to the chase. Unable to read, or
to write his own name, the chieftain was entirely possessed by the most
romantic opinion of military glory, and the song of his domestic
minstrel constituted his highest idea of fame. The classic authors slept
on the shelves of the monasteries, their dark but happy asylum, while
the life of the monks resembled that of the fattened beeves which loaded
their tables. Real abilities were indeed possessed by a Duns Scotus and
a few others; but these were lost in the most trifling subtleties of a
sophistry which they dignified with the name of casuistical divinity.