es; the pleasures of the table;
emulation in wine; boisterous mirth; juvenile frolics, and puerile
amusements, which do not pass without serious, perhaps contemptuous,
animadversion--setting these aside it appears to me that even our best
models are but ill adapted for the imitation of a rude, incurious, and
unambitious people. Their senses, not their reason, should be acted on,
to rouse them from their lethargy; their imaginations must be warmed; a
spirit of enthusiasm must pervade and animate them before they will
exchange the pleasures of indolence for those of industry. The
philosophical influence that prevails and characterizes the present age
in the western world is unfavourable to the producing these effects. A
modern man of sense and manners despises, or endeavours to despise,
ceremony, parade, attendance, superfluous and splendid ornaments in his
dress or furniture: preferring ease and convenience to cumbrous pomp, the
person first in rank is no longer distinguished by his apparel, his
equipage, or his number of servants, from those inferior to him; and
though possessing real power is divested of almost every external mark of
it. Even our religious worship partakes of the same simplicity. It is far
from my intention to condemn or depreciate these manners, considered in a
general scale of estimation. Probably, in proportion as the prejudices of
sense are dissipated by the light of reason, we advance towards the
highest degree of perfection our natures are capable of; possibly
perfection may consist in a certain medium which we have already stepped
beyond; but certainly all this refinement is utterly incomprehensible to
an uncivilized mind which cannot discriminate the ideas of humility and
meanness. We appear to the Sumatrans to have degenerated from the more
splendid virtues of our predecessors. Even the richness of their laced
suits and the gravity of their perukes attracted a degree of admiration;
and I have heard the disuse of the large hoops worn by the ladies
pathetically lamented. The quick, and to them inexplicable, revolutions
of our fashions, are subject of much astonishment, and they naturally
conclude that those modes can have but little intrinsic merit which we
are so ready to change; or at least that our caprice renders us very
incompetent to be the guides of their improvement. Indeed in matters of
this kind it is not to be supposed that an imitation should take place,
owing to the total incongruity