The Virtue of Pity

Man is weak when dependent, and his own master before he grows robust. He would claw and bite and strangle without remorse the first of his younger brothers that ever so accidentally jostled or otherwise disturbed him. Some do not consider that the same cause which hinders savages for making use of their reason as our juris consults pretend hinders them at the same time for making an ill use of their faculties. We may say that savages are not bad precisely because they don't know what it is to be good. It is neither the development of the understanding nor the curve of the law but the calmness of their passions and their ignorance of vice that hinders them from doing