n at a
glance; he supposes that it is enough to be among them to know what they
are doing; he thinks that eyes, ears, and memory are enough for morals,
though they would not qualify him for botanical or statistical
observation; he pronounces confidently upon the merits and social
condition of the nations among whom he has travelled; no misgiving ever
prompts him to say, "I can give you little general information about the
people I have been seeing; I have not studied the principles of morals;
I am no judge of national manners."

There would be nothing to be ashamed of in such an avowal. No wise man
blushes at being ignorant of any science which it has not suited his
purposes to study, or which it has not been in his power to attain. No
linguist wrings his hands when astronomical discoveries are talked of in
his presence; no political economist covers his face when shown a shell
or a plant which he cannot class; still less should the artist, the
natural philosopher, the commercial traveller, or the classical scholar,
be ashamed to own himself unacquainted with the science which, of all
the sciences which have yet opened upon men, is, perhaps, the least
cultivated, the least definite, the least ascertained in itself, and the
most difficult in its application.

In this last characteristic of the science of Morals lies the excuse of
as many travellers as may decline pronouncing on the social condition of
any people. Even if the generality of travellers were as enlightened as
they are at present ignorant about the principles of Morals, the
difficulty of putting those principles to interpretative uses would
deter the wise from making the hasty decisions, and uttering the large
judgments, in which travellers have hitherto been wont to indulge. In
proportion as men become sensible how infinite are the diversities in
man, how incalculable the varieties and influences of circumstances,
rashness of pretension and decision will abate, and the great work of
classifying the moral manifestations of society will be confided to the
philosophers, who bear the same relation to the science of society as
Herschel does to astronomy, and Beaufort to hydrography.

Of all the tourists who utter their decisions upon foreigners, how many
have begun their researches at home? Which of them would venture upon
giving an account of the morals and manners of London, though he may
have lived in it all his life? Would any one of them escape errors as