第16章 LETTER V(4)

Arrived at the ferry,we were still detained,for the people who attend at the ferries have a stupid kind of sluggishness in their manner,which is very provoking when you are in haste.At present Idid not feel it,for,scrambling up the cliffs,my eye followed the river as it rolled between the grand rocky banks;and,to complete the scenery,they were covered with firs and pines,through which the wind rustled as if it were lulling itself to sleep with the declining sun.

Behold us now in Norway;and I could not avoid feeling surprise at observing the difference in the manners of the inhabitants of the two sides of the river,for everything shows that the Norwegians are more industrious and more opulent.The Swedes (for neighbours are seldom the best friends)accuse the Norwegians of knavery,and they retaliate by bringing a charge of hypocrisy against the Swedes.

Local circumstances probably render both unjust,speaking from their feelings rather than reason;and is this astonishing when we consider that most writers of travels have done the same,whose works have served as materials for the compilers of universal histories?All are eager to give a national character,which is rarely just,because they do not discriminate the natural from the acquired difference.The natural,I believe,on due consideration,will be found to consist merely in the degree of vivacity,or thoughtfulness,pleasures or pain,inspired by the climate,whilst the varieties which the forms of government,including religion,produce are much more numerous and unstable.

A people have been characterised as stupid by nature;what a paradox!because they did not consider that slaves,having no object to stimulate industry;have not their faculties sharpened by the only thing that can exercise them,self-interest.Others have been brought forward as brutes,having no aptitude for the arts and sciences,only because the progress of improvement had not reached that stage which produces them.

Those writers who have considered the history of man,or of the human mind,on a more enlarged scale have fallen into similar errors,not reflecting that the passions are weak where the necessaries of life are too hardly or too easily obtained.

Travellers who require that every nation should resemble their native country,had better stay at home.It is,for example,absurd to blame a people for not having that degree of personal cleanliness and elegance of manners which only refinement of taste produces,and will produce everywhere in proportion as society attains a general polish.The most essential service,I presume,that authors could render to society,would be to promote inquiry and discussion,instead of making those dogmatical assertions which only appear calculated to gird the human mind round with imaginary circles,like the paper globe which represents the one he inhabits.

This spirit of inquiry is the characteristic of the present century,from which the succeeding will,I am persuaded,receive a great accumulation of knowledge;and doubtless its diffusion will in a great measure destroy the factitious national characters which have been supposed permanent,though only rendered so by the permanency of ignorance.