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civilized power could ever induce a savage to wield a spade, or guide a plough. And all the ages of time would not be sufficient to teach him to separate from the ore, and to prepare, the metal of which those instruments are made.*

from nations who had antecedently made some progress towards civilization.

[[footnote]] * There can hardly exist a doubt in the minds of those who have had an opportunity of intimately observing the manners, and disposition of savages, but that it is absolutely impossible that they should ever discover and separate the iron from its ore, and render it malleable and fit for use. This requires a train and a kind of observation and reflection to which the savage is utterly incompetent. To say, as has been said, that an accidental fire in the woods in Mount Ida, or any other mountain, or that the eruption of a volcano, might throw out the metal in the form of cast iron, indicates as little reflection, and knowledge of the subject as savages themselves possess. Volcanos, which cast up lava, and fragments of stone in great abundance, have never been known to throw out smelted iron. And the fires which at any time are kindled in forests, an event which frequently happens in those of America, where mines of iron abound, never have a heat strong enough, or sufficiently concentrated to smelt the softest metals.—Indeed, if an indian had found a piece of cast-iron he would have known as little what to do with it as with the ore. The process for rendering it malleable could never have entered his thoughts. And no accidental effect of the small fires kept in his hut, or wigwam, could possibly have disclosed it to him.—Ever since the Europeans arrived on the American continent, the natives have been acquainted with iron, and have seen various instruments formed of that metal: yet even that knowledge, and the advantages which they have seen derived from the use of iron, have not in three centuries turned their attention to discover and enjoy it for themselves. And for how many centuries before, had they trodden over the richest hills of the ore without ever having framed an idea of the treasures which nature had deposited beneath their feet? If such has been the case with the American savage, what prospect for the invention of arts could be entertained from those human brutes with which the philosophy of some men would commence the population of the world? [[/footnote]]

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A just philosophy, therefore, grounded on fact and experience, will lead us to the conclusion which the sacred scriptures propose as an elementary principle of our belief; that man, originally formed by a wise and beneficent Creator, was instructed by him in the duties, and the most necessary arts of life. Thus were laid, in the very commencement of the race, the foundations of domestic, social, and civil order. From the primitive man, thus instructed, have descended the various tribes of men upon the earth; and from him have been derived to his posterity, both the elements of religion which we perceive diffused through the original traditions of all nations, and the principles of the useful arts which we find cultivated among them from the earliest dawn of history.

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