n his doctrine of
substantial forms, when he tells us that a statue lies hid in a block of
marble; and that the art of the statuary only clears away the
superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone,
the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of marble,
education is to an human soul.

3. The philosopher, the saint, or the hero, the wise, the good, or the
great man, very often lie hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a
proper education might have disinterred, and have brought to light. I am
therefore much delighted with reading the accounts of savage nations,
and with contemplating those virtues which are wild and uncultivated; to
see courage exerting itself in fierceness, resolution in obstinacy,
wisdom in cunning, patience in sullenness and despair.

4. Men's passions operate variously, and appear in different kinds of
actions, according as they are more or less rectified or swayed by
reason. When one hears of negroes, who upon the death of their masters,
or upon changing their service, hang themselves upon the next tree, as
it frequently happens in our American plantations, who can forbear
admiring their fidelity, though it expresses itself in so dreadful a
manner?

5. What might not that savage greatness of soul which appears in these
poor wretches on many occasions, be raised to, were it rightly
cultivated? And what colour of excuse can there be for the contempt with
which we treat this part of our species? that we should not put them
upon the common foot of humanity; that we should only set an
insignificant fine upon the man who murders them; nay, that we should,
as much as in us lies, cut them off from the prospect of happiness in
another world, as well as in this, and deny them that which we look upon
as the proper means for attaining it.

6. It is therefore an unspeakable blessing to be born in those parts of
the world where wisdom and knowledge flourish, though it must be
confessed there are, even in these parts, several poor uninstructed
persons, who are but little above the inhabitants of those nations of
which I have been here speaking; as those who have had the advantages of
a more liberal education, rise above one another by several different
degrees of perfection.

7. For, to return to our statue in the block of marble, we see it
sometimes only begun to be chipped, sometimes sough hewn, and but just
sketched into an human figure; sometimes we see the man app