to the purport of
our last discourse. Here upon ground where the Druids have certainly
held their assemblies, and where not improbably, human sacrifices have
been offered up, you will find it difficult to maintain that the
improvement of the world has not been unequivocal, and very great."

_Sir Thomas More_.--Make the most of your vantage ground! My position
is, that this improvement is not general; that while some parts of the
earth are progressive in civilisation, others have been retrograde; and
that even where improvement appears the greatest, it is partial. For
example; with all the meliorations which have taken place in England
since these stones were set up (and you will not suppose that I who laid
down my life for a religious principle, would undervalue the most
important of all advantages), do you believe that they have extended to
all classes? Look at the question well. Consider your
fellow-countrymen, both in their physical and intellectual relations, and
tell me whether a large portion of the community are in a happier or more
hopeful condition at this time, than their forefathers were when Caesar
set foot upon the island?

_Montesinos_.--If it be your aim to prove that the savage state is
preferable to the social, I am perhaps the very last person upon whom any
arguments to that end could produce the slightest effect. That notion
never for a moment deluded me: not even in the ignorance and
presumptuousness of youth, when first I perused Rousseau, and was
unwilling to feel that a writer whose passionate eloquence I felt and
admired so truly could be erroneous in any of his opinions. But now, in
the evening of life, when I know upon what foundation my principles rest,
and when the direction of one peculiar course of study has made it
necessary for me to learn everything which books could teach concerning
savage life, the proposition appears to me one of the most untenable that
ever was advanced by a perverse or a paradoxical intellect.

_Sir Thomas More_.--I advanced no such paradox, and you have answered me
too hastily. The Britons were not savages when the Romans invaded and
improved them. They were already far advanced in the barbarous stage of
society, having the use of metals, domestic cattle, wheeled carriages,
and money, a settled government, and a regular priesthood, who were
connected with their fellow-Druids on the Continent, and who were not
ignorant of letters. Understand me! I admi