VIII. The abilities of the Muscovites also, have till of late days, been held in as much contempt as those of the antient Hollanders were; for it was but in the last century, that Urban Chevreau a celebrated wit of France, laid that a Muscovite was _the man of Plato_; by which expression, the French Author alluded to the poor definition that philosopher gave of a man, when he described him to be an animal without feathers, who walked upon two legs, _animal bipes implume_; this gave occasion to the joke of Diogenes, who having plucked the feathers off a cock, threw him into the school of Plato among his disciples, calling out with a loud voice, _see the Man of Plato_. Chevreau attempted to say, that the Muscovites were nothing like men but in their figure. But after the Czar Peter Alexiowitz had introduced arts and sciences among them, it soon became evident, that the Muscovites were as much men in all respects, as any of the other people in Europe. But if this never had been done, how could any one suppose that a people who were stupid and senseless, should have been able to form a most extensive empire; and to preserve it for so long a space of time as the Russians have preserved theirs? It required great ability to conquer such an empire; and to preserve it in the face of two such powerful enemies as the Turks and the Persians, much more. I am not ignorant, that Muscovy is a part of antient Scythia, whose moroders were reputed, and with reason, the most savage and barbarous of men; this barbarism, did not proceed from their want of natural talents, but from the want of those talents being cultivated; of which truth, the famous philosopher Anacharsis is a striking instance, who was the only man of that nation, that went to study in Greece. If numbers of other Scythians had done the same, Scythia might possibly have exhibited many Anacharsises. SECT. III. IX. If we attempt going out of Europe, every thing beyond those limits seems barbarous to us. When the imagination of the vulgar contemplates Asia, it represents to them, the Turks, the Persians, the Indians, the Chinese and the Japonese, as little better than so many congregations of satyrs, or demi-brutes. But notwithstanding this, there are none of these nations, who do not make as great advances in all the things they apply themselves to, as we do in whatever we study.