until he becomes their rival: the one has might on his side, the other
has intelligence; the former admires the knowledge and the arts of the
conquered, the latter envies the power of the conquerors. The barbarians
at length admit civilized man into their palaces, and he in turn opens
his schools to the barbarians. But when the side on which the physical
force lies, also possesses an intellectual preponderance, the conquered
party seldom become civilized; it retreats, or is destroyed. It may
therefore be said, in a general way, that savages go forth in arms to
seek knowledge, but that they do not receive it when it comes to them.

If the Indian tribes which now inhabit the heart of the continent could
summon up energy enough to attempt to civilize themselves, they might
possibly succeed. Superior already to the barbarous nations which
surround them, they would gradually gain strength and experience, and
when the Europeans should appear upon their borders, they would be in a
state, if not to maintain their independence, at least to assert their
right to the soil, and to incorporate themselves with the conquerors.
But it is the misfortune of Indians to be brought into contact with a
civilized people, which is also (it must be owned) the most avaricious
nation on the globe, whilst they are still semi-barbarian: to find
despots in their instructors, and to receive knowledge from the hand
of oppression. Living in the freedom of the woods, the North American
Indian was destitute, but he had no feeling of inferiority towards
anyone; as soon, however, as he desires to penetrate into the social
scale of the whites, he takes the lowest rank in society, for he enters,
ignorant and poor, within the pale of science and wealth. After having
led a life of agitation, beset with evils and dangers, but at the
same time filled with proud emotions, *r he is obliged to submit to
a wearisome, obscure, and degraded state; and to gain the bread which
nourishes him by hard and ignoble labor; such are in his eyes the only
results of which civilization can boast: and even this much he is not
sure to obtain.

[Footnote r: There is in the adventurous life of the hunter a certain
irresistible charm, which seizes the heart of man and carries him away
in spite of reason and experience. This is plainly shown by the memoirs
of Tanner. Tanner is a European who was carried away at the age of six
by the Indians, and has remained thirty years with them in