 such as is necessary to
the regulation of life, is always found where it is honestly sought. Change of
place is no natural cause of the increase of piety, for it inevitably produces
dissipation of mind. Yet, since men go every day to view the fields where great
actions have been performed, and return with stronger impressions of the event,
curiosity of the same kind may naturally dispose us to view that country whence
our religion had its beginning; and I believe no man surveys those awful scenes
without some confirmation of holy resolutions. That the Supreme Being may be
more easily propitiated in one place than in another, is the dream of idle
superstition; but that some places may operate upon our own minds in an uncommon
manner, is an opinion which hourly experience will justify. He who supposes that
his vices may be more successfully combated in Palestine, will, perhaps, find
himself mistaken, yet he may go thither without folly: he who thinks they will
be more freely pardoned, dishonours at once his reason and religion.«
    »These, said the prince, are European distinctions. I will consider them
another time. What have you found to be the effect of knowledge? Are those
nations happier than we?«
    »There is so much infelicity, said the poet, in the world, that scarce any
man has leisure from his own distresses to estimate the comparative happiness of
others. Knowledge is certainly one of the means of pleasure, as is confessed by
the natural desire which every mind feels of increasing its ideas. Ignorance is
mere privation, by which nothing can be produced: it is a vacuity in which the
soul sits motionless and torpid for want of attraction; and, without knowing
why, we always rejoice when we learn, and grieve when we forget. I am therefore
inclined to conclude, that, if nothing counteracts the natural consequence of
learning, we grow more happy as our minds take a wider range.
    In enumerating the particular comforts of life we shall find many advantages
on the side of the Europeans. They cure wounds and diseases with which we
languish and perish. We suffer inclemencies of weather which they can obviate.
They have engines for the despatch of many laborious works, which we must
perform by manual industry. There is such communication between distant places,
that one friend can hardly be said to be absent from another. Their policy
removes all publick inconveniencies: they have roads cut through their
mountains, and bridges laid upon their rivers. And, if we descend to the
privacies of life, their habitations are more commodious, and their possessions
are more secure.
