a
necessity for food, clothing, and shelter; and everywhere some mode of
general agreement how to live together. He knows that he will everywhere
find birth, marriage, and death; and therefore domestic affections. What
results from all these elements of social life does he mean to look for?

For want of settling this question, one traveller sees nothing truly,
because the state of things is not consistent with his speculations as
to how human beings ought to live together; another views the whole with
prejudice, because it is not like what he has been accustomed to see at
home; yet each of these would shrink from the recognition of his folly,
if it were fully placed before him. The first would be ashamed of having
tried any existing community by an arbitrary standard of his own--an act
much like going forth into the wilderness to see kings' houses full of
men in soft raiment; and the other would perceive that different
nations may go on judging one another by themselves till doomsday,
without in any way improving the chance of self-advancement and mutual
understanding. Going out with the disadvantage of a habit of mind
uncounteracted by an intellectual aim, will never do. The traveller may
as well stay at home, for anything he will gain in the way of social
knowledge.

The two considerations just mentioned must be subordinated to the grand
one,--the only general one,--of the relative amount of human happiness.
Every element of social life derives its importance from this great
consideration. The external conveniences of men, their internal emotions
and affections, their social arrangements, graduate in importance
precisely in proportion as they affect the general happiness of the
section of the race among whom they exist. Here then is the wise
traveller's aim,--to be kept in view to the exclusion of prejudice, both
philosophical and national. He must not allow himself to be perplexed or
disgusted by seeing the great ends of human association pursued by means
which he could never have devised, and to the practice of which he could
not reconcile himself. He is not to conclude unfavourably about the diet
of the multitude because he sees them swallowing blubber, or scooping
out water-melons, instead of regaling themselves with beef and beer. He
is not to suppose their social meetings a failure because they eat with
their fingers instead of with silver forks, or touch foreheads instead
of making a bow. He is not to conclud