Page:A discourse upon the origin and foundation of the inequality among mankind (IA discourseuponori00rous).pdf/319

Savages are as unhappy as ſome People would have them, by what inconceivable Depravation of Judgment is it that they ſo conſtantly refuſe to be governed as we are, or to live happy among us; whereas we read in a thouſand Places that Frenchmen and other Europeans have voluntarily taken Refuge, nay, ſpent their whole Lives among them, without ever being able to quit ſo ſtrange a kind of Life; and that even very ſenſible Miſſionaries have been known to regret with Tears the calm and innocent Days they had ſpent among thoſe Men we ſo much deſpiſe. Should be obſerved that they are not knowing enough to judge ſoundly of their Condition and ours, I muſt anſwer, that the Valuation of Happineſs is not ſo much the Buſineſs of the Underſtanding as of the Will. Beſides, this Objection may ſtill more forcibly be retorted upon ourſelves; for our Ideas are more remote from that Diſpoſition of Mind requiſite for us to conceive the Reliſh, which the Savages find in their Way of Living, than the Ideas of the Savages from thoſe by which they may conceive the Reliſh we find in ours. In fact, very few Obſervations to ſhew them that all our Labours are confined to two